#can be mistaken for a whole host of other things

[satrs]

WICKED GAMES. @Gojo.satoru

SYNOPSIS; Satoru Gojo is your nemesis - vise versa. Or so you thought.

FEATURING; Virgin!Gojo Satoru x fem!reader

WK; 4k.

TAGS; NSFW CONTENT! MDNI! college au. richhhh Gojo. enemies to lovers. insulting. gojo hurts readers feelings with insults, vise versa. clothed grinding. unprotected sex. virginity loss. prn with plot.

"And who exactly invited you here?"

It's loud, thick air from the crowded space not too far away from where you're trying to escape the loud music blasting in your ear drums, head throbbing in pain, only to increase due to the annoying and unexpected - obstacle on your way to the restroom.

Your brows crinkle in irritation at the young man's question, flashing him a look of disgust. "That's none of your business." Your eyes drill holes into his skull, clicking your tongue at his attitude. "Can you move out the fucking way?", you ask rather rhetorical, irritated, you try to stomp past him, only to be hindered by his large frame hovering above you, his intimidating aura drowning out the loud chatting and music in the background, heart thumping in your chest as you struggle to hold eye contact, eyes flickering from his to the wall right beside you, gritting your teeth in annoyance.

He looks you up and down, tongue pocking the inside of his cheek. "It's my business since you're in my house."

You scoff, a sly smirk creeping its way up your lips. "Your house? If I'm not mistaken, Suguru lives here. Rings a bell? Geto Suguru, the host of this party? Also, the one who invited me here?"

"Suguru, Satoru, same shit. What's his is mine. So, again, what in Christ's name are you doing in my house?"

Your anger only grows, rumbling up a storm inside your stomach. Who the hell does he think he is? 'What's his is mine'? Fucking bullshit. "Look, I know that you two are friends-"

"Best friends", he interrupts, a vein on his forehead almost popping out of rage. Your patience is hanging onto a thing fucking threat at this point, playing out multiple ways to beat this bastard's ass up in your mind.

"The best of friends", you mock him, eyes closing for a second to regain your composer. "Whatever, I don't give a shit. Suguru and I also happened to be friends, and he invited me here. Out of kindness, I came." You pause, scanning his posture for any slight sign of comfort to make your escape, the idea soon turning into a cloud of smoke at his focused expression, his whole attention focused solely on you. "I've tried to avoid you all night. But you're stuck to my ass like a tick."

You make sure to spit out the last word, making sure he heard it loud and clear.

"I didn't ask who invited you, I asked why, the fuck, you are here."

"Now, I swear to God, Gojo. You better know what's best for you and get. Out. Of my way."

Satoru Gojo.

You hate the taste his name left in your mouth, and you hate the sight of him. That's why you refused to attend to this shitty frat party so many times. But your friend, who also happens to be Gojo's childhood buddy, begged and pleaded, until you eventually caved in.

You know how much this party means to him. Tying new connections to various people around the area, show of status, maybe even get a taste of some hot thing. All of that high top stuff.

You're not into that kind of lifestyle, showing off money and throwing it around as if it grew on trees, especially as a college student. Most students who attend this shit-show treat their academic success was careless and straight up foolish - running around to be a part of the 'high society' on the campus, while their tuition fees light up into red numbers.

One of the many reasons you hate Satoru Gojo is exactly that. His reputation. He is, how other students would say, part of the 'high society' - got his tuition fees covered by the wealth of his parents, grades never good, but after some sweet-talk with his professor, he surprisingly passes all of his classes with flying colors. One way or the other, he gets what he wants. He always does.

He is the definition of 'money can buy anything'.

But it's not the money alone, it's his attitude of his that just has you ball your hands into a fist.

Not one day goes past without him rubbing his wealth under everyone's noses. It didn't matter who it was, he was going to show them that he was better than them, richer, stronger.

He is the strongest.

Even though he never offended you directly, his distant glares and arrogant looks were enough for you to develop the hatred you have towards him. He always looked down on everyone he talked to, if they manage to even get him to pay attention to them, that is.

You really didn't want to even see him at this party, not attempting to ruin your mood with someone like him. So, you had to avoid him at all cost. In the end you figured, it wouldn't hurt to attend a party again, enjoying the company of others more than usual in your full-scheduled student life, escaping the never ending cycle for even just a little bit of fun. Also, the chance of running into him in such a massive house was slim. Until now.

You wish you could just kill him right here, that's how deep your hatred is seated. His feelings are mutual.

It's not like he ever paid attention to your presence, hell, he didn't even know you existed until you were all up in his business, always having a remark ready when he said anything to anyone. Yeah, he can be a bit mean at times, but it's nothing harsh, just jokes. They all know, for sure.

At first, he thought you're cute, and you still are, being honest. Gorgeous even. Maybe even the prettiest girl he's ever seen. But only if you keep that damned mouth of yours shut.

He can't stand your constant sense of justice, bugging him with issues someone like him could never even bother himself with. Babbling nonsense of 'fairness' and 'inequality' when he just supports the economy. Some, with some he means, you, see his actions as cruel but, if you were in his position, wouldn't you do the same?

Why can't you just mind your business and stop bothering him with your bullshit? It's not like your endless talking would change anything.

You're a nobody.

"Hello? Is your ass that stuffed of money that you can't follow simple instructions anymore? Get out of my way!"

Who does he think he is?

You scream into his face, blood rushing up your face as your anger pours out of you, all you see is red. If he doesn't move out the way at this instant, you're going to-

Who do you think you are?

He exhales a deep breath, scanning the area around you two before he swiftly takes a hold of your arm. You spit out curses at him, roughly trying to free yourself from his grasp, only to be dragged along until he rushes you into an empty room down the hall.

"Let go-!" And he does, pushing you into the empty guest room, closing the door right behind him. You swallow at the tension, the music only faint to notice, turning the room almost dead silent.

You stand, your ground, furrowed eyebrows indicating your mood. "You-!"

Before you can even think of an insult, he interrupts you in an instant, causing your body to tense up at his unusual dark tone. It's almost scary how his expression changes into something unreadable. "Shut the fuck up", he breathed out, head falling back as his hands brushes across his face, a long sigh leaving his lips while looking at the ceiling.

"Can you? Just be quiet for one second." And you did, exhaustion washing over your body as you look around the room, turning on your heels to look at anything but him.

"It's always people like you", he begins, eyes trailing after your movements, "always those nobodies who got their nose all up in my business. You're the one who's a tick on my ass." He begins to follow your footsteps to the bathroom, halting at the door to lean against the door frame, looking down at your body seated on the closed toilette, head in hands. "You're jealous."

Jealous? Not only jealous - you're green of envy.

He was born with everything and anything you could ask for. He already got his future set, like food on a platter. You on the other hand have to work hard, to pay for college, rent, and other necessities. And he? He gets money shoved up his butt every other week, not lifting a finger. And worst of all, he's not even grateful for his privileged life. Perhaps, that's also a big reason you hate him.

"I'm obsessed? Now tell me who exactly dragged me into this room!", You snap your head up, teeth gritting together, tears threatening to trickle down your face.

"You cryin'?" You try to wipe the tear off your face unnoticed, but it's already too late. He nears you, leaning down and looking at you with that look again.

As if you're nobody.

"Don't change the topic", you sniffle between tears, turning your face away from him so you don't have to see him looking down at you. But you still feel his eyes on you, an unreadable expression on his face as he inspects your form, an odd feeling bubbling up in his stomach.

Guilt?

He feels bad for you, he feels bad for making you feel this way. An apology tickles the tip of his tongue, but he closed his mouth before he dared to shatter his own ego.

"Fuck." He lets it slip out in a whisper, trying to think of possibilities to clear the confusion. Truth was, he looked for you around the whole house with the intention of making things right with you. Because he actually doesn't hate you how you think he would.

Suguru, his childhood best friend, knows how bad Satoru is with words, and how little to no remorse he has while talking to people, especially to girls. He also knows something else about Satoru, something that nobody, maybe not even himself, is aware of. That's the whole reason why he even invited you here. For the both of you to talk things out.

He planned it all out, pleading and begging you to come, and also loosing his pride in the process, up to the empty room, knowing that only Satoru would know what part of the house would be abandoned during a party, up to talking him into finally talk to you - without any bickering or insulting. An honest talk, just the two of you, nothing else.

"Look", he feels his heart sink into his stomach as he notices your attention is on him. "I-" He stops at the sight of your teary face, every part of his body telling him to just apologize properly, and just leave it be, or kiss it better.

What is he thinking?

"I just want this shit to end. Stop bothering me. Stop pocking around my business. Then we'll be good." Fucking dumbass. He facepalms himself mentally, eyes widening in shock at the sound of your soft giggle.

"Didn't anyone teach you how to apologize?" Looking up at your face again, he can see a faint but visible smile on your face and, thank God, what a relief.

"You know I won't say that."

"Why?"

"Because there is no reason to."

His posture stiffens at the sound of you getting up from the toilet. "Alright then. There's nothing to 'be good' then," You walk past him, back into the room, "I'll leave."

"Wait."

You can hear him entering the room. You smirk to yourself before turning around, ready to see his ego shattering down, and-

"I don't hate you, Y/N."

What?

The smirk quickly washed off your face, confusion replacing it. Was this some sort of joke?

"I'll explain it to you, just-" he sighs, swallowing his pride before continuing, "stay. Please." You're taken aback by his sudden change, the soft and pleading look on his face. He never looked anywhere near unappealing to you, it was just his attitude. But now?

You don't know what's gotten into you, but you feel like staying, like something will happen. Suddenly you're not angry anymore, you're calm, collected, but most of all, curious.

He sighs in relief as you halt your movements, slowly expecting him to continue. His feet drag to the bed, awkwardly sitting at the edge of it as his hand motions you to sit beside him, eyes looking up at you expectantly.

You hesitate at first, you want to turn back and get out, but something just keeps your feet moving, your eyes never leaving his face.

And when you sit beside him, you come to realize how handsome he is up close, observing his bright ocean blue eyes, searching for something you can't explain in them.

You snap back to reality, eyes now looking down at your fingers tapping at your thigh awkwardly. "So?", you whisper into the thin air, for no reason at all. Slowly you look up at him face again, and instead of an answer, you found what you were looking for.

His lips smash onto yours as your eyes widen before you sigh into the kiss in relief, leaning your head into the hand he held up at your cheek. You push right into him, softly crawling onto his lap while your hands tangle into his hair as you feel him shiver underneath you at the feeling of your clothed heat covering his groin.

Breaking the kiss to catch your both's breaths, you look at each other in pure bliss. You lose yourself in his angelic eyes as his flicker from your eyes to your lips expectantly, hoping - no, begging for you to catch on.

"I like you," he curses under his breath once your cunt sits right on his half-hard length, breathing turning ragged, "I really like you."

You catch onto his intention and breath out s light laugh, placing a quick kiss to his lips, causing him to chase after your lips right after, and you bite back a laugh right after. "I figured." Your lips are back on his as you begin to grind your hips against his in a needy manner, a soft moan being swallowed by his lips as his hands firmly hold onto your rear, setting a steady rhythm.

With every move of your hips, the tent in his pants only grows, his hands turn rougher with each friction of your clother cunt against his hard length.

Fuck, he might burst into his pants right now. You look so angelic above him, breaking from the kiss to carefully tearing the shirt from him so you could admire his fine build before softly pushing him onto the sheets, his white hair spread across the silk as his chest heaves with every further inch your delicate fingers took towards his groin with the intention of freeing his aching cock from his painfully tight boxers.

And you do just that, eyes sparkling in anticipation at the sight of his gorgeous cock, pre leaking from the tip as he hisses at the hit of cold air he feels against his head.

"Hah- I-", his head pushes back into the sheets, eyes closing while he lets out a soft whine once your hand contracts around his dick, thumb teasing his slit.

"You what? Cat caught your tongue?", you tease, your other hand occupied with lazily pushing your panties to the side, lifting your hips up, ready to aline his head to your entrance, damp folds eager to feel him inside of you.

He lifts his head up, looking at your exposed cunny right before him, his hand flying up to your hips, squeezing them to get you to halt your actions. "I never did this", he breathes out, cheeks turning into a faint tint of red at your dumbfounded expression. Your hips come back down to rest on his lap, biting your lip, aroused of the idea that you're his first. "Are you serious?" And with his nod, you feel your cunt pulsating in excitement, neck craning down to capture his lips again.

You lift your hips to rest on his exposed cock, wet cunt slowly gliding along his length. Your swollen clit catches onto his end, the both of you moaning into the kiss.

His hips speedily buck up into yours, urging you to slide his plumb tip into your entrance. The firm grip his hands have on your waist guaranteed a leaving impression on your skin - but you don't care.

Not right now, not like this- when you have him of all people imaginable underneath you, his hot breath tickling your nose while his eyes lusted over you, curious of your next move.

You smirk down at him, a breathy laugh escaping you as your hand sneaks down to take hold of his pulsating length, aligning it to your entrance.

And with your gummy walls enveloping his tip in a tight grip, every past lingering grudge flows out of the window. He swallows, hard, head tipping back in pleasure while you inch your hips down further and further, biting your lip to contain your moans.

If there's heaven, this is it. Yes, he had his fair share of make out sessions, girls soaking his fingers and he was no stranger to blowjobs. But this? This feeling, your soft walls hugging his cock so perfectly, as if your pussy was made for him, waiting for him.

"Ohhhhh, f-fuck!-" A strangled whine escapes his lips once you bottom out, sweat forming at his forehead. It feels like you're suffocating him, his breath gets caught in his lungs, his eyes threatening to move to the very back of his skull.

With his face scrunching up in pleasure, one hand leaves the bruising grip on your waist as he tries his best to get up on his elbow, mouth hanging wide open.

"Are you alright?", you breathe out, breathing turning rapid. You can feel each vein of his dick pulsating inside your soaking cunt, your hand brushing across his defined abdomen.

"More than alright", he scoffed, his eyebrows furrowing, now fully propped up against the headboard. His absent hand finds its way to your ass, squeezing it, a desperate gaze inspecting every inch of your body. "Please, move."

And you comply, bracing yourself on his shoulders as you begin a steady pace, breasts bouncing up his face with each movement of your hips.

"Fuckkkkkk, yesyesyes!", his mouth captured your neglected nipple, his wet muscle swiping across the bud whilst his occupied hand harshly squeezes your rear, fat spilling between the gaps of his slender fingers as he roughly moves your hips against his, the newfound rhythm causing him to let out a sob.

Each rut of your hips only makes his love for you grow even stronger, now that you took the most precious thing he claimed to be his as your own, he's sure that this is right. If he had any doubts before this, then it's certain that they now disappeared into the thin air. There's nothing but desperation and desire for you clouding his mind - he needs you, he needs to feel the comfort of your velvet walls, your moans against his lips, your skin against his - you, you you.

Your clit continuously brushes against his pelvic bone. "Mhmmm, right there", you whine, hands desperately clawing at his shoulders with your eyes squeezed shut.

It's almost embarrassing how fast you're threatening to near your release, considering that he was the virgin. On top of that, the he in question being Gojo Satoru. You hated-

Your eyes shoot open, back coming in contact with the silk sheets before you feel his mouth on yours again, his tongue prodding at your lip. "You feel so fucking good, baby", he mumbled against your lips, his hips speed up while his hands roam your body in such a longing manner. "Don't want anything but this", he lifts your leg up his shoulder, straightening his back as he felt a tightness in his stomach. "Nothing 's better but this perfect cunt. Love it so much, fuck- love you, I love you baby."

Wait, why did you hate him again?

You moan at his words, the confusing mist clearing up with each mesmerizing thrust of his hips, your eyes full of admiration when you view him leaving open mouth kisses against your ankle, his eyes never daring to leave yours.

"'m gonna cum, toru- fuckfuckfuck, yes! Don't stop pleaseee-" And with that, you fall into the tantalizing sea of pleasure, sucking your stomach in while reaching your hand to his hip in an attempt to stop him, the pleasure too much for you to bear.

A low groan leaves him at the sound of the nickname you gave him, hips unintentionally speeding up, sweat rolling down his chest. He feels like he's gonna bust any second now, his tip nudging your gummy spot with each stroke, taking the shaky hand on his stomach in his to reach it up to his lips and plant a quick kiss on it.

"A-atta, girl. Fuck, you're so goddamn pretty. Can't last much longer, baby." His glistening eyes look between your bodies, the movement of his hips flattering as he nears his release.

"Shiiiiit, never felt so good in my entire life. Wanna stay inside of you forever. T-think I'm gonna cum."

The sight of your spasming cunt spurting against his lower abdomen was enough for him to burst right inside your welcoming hole, one last drive of his hips following to dwell a little longer in the pleasure before pulling out of your hole.

His body slumps onto of yours, nuzzling his head into your neck. You let out a breathy giggle, still out of breath, as your hand reaches up to stroke his hair affectionately.

Soon, the both of your breathings calm down, silence drowning the room, no one daring to continue where you left off.

"You sure this was your first time?", you joke, earning a laugh from the young man. He lifts his head, eyes locking with yours. "I'm a natural, you know."

You hide your laugh while turning to the side. His eyes roam your face with pure affection, love struck from your wholehearted laugh and suddenly, he regrets every past resentment he had against you.

" You're so damn pretty", he whispers, causing you to turn and look at him, his eyes wandering aver your features. "I'm serious", he continues, in answer to your skeptical stare.

It was weird, seeing his usual distasteful expression being replaced by such an adoring gaze, tempting you to look into his ocean kissed eyes for all eternity.

Every past resentment you had against him long forgotten, the future the only thing occupying your mind now. If he's really serious, could you both-

"Let me make it up to you."

You snap out of your thoughts, perplexed by his words. Before you can say anything, he continues.

" Take you out on a date. A proper date. Apologize for real." He takes a deep breath before opening his mouth again, nervous about what was about to come.

"I was serious about earlier, you know. I really do like you. I'm just-" he breathes out, trying to find the right words.

"An asshole?", you answer for him, earning a quick laugh in return. "Yeah. A big one at that." he raises from his position, looking down at you, almost pleading for your approval. "Please, y/n. I'll do anything for you to make it up. Give this - us a chance."

You look up at him, a small smile on your face. "Please," he whispered again once you sit up, carefully taking your hand in his, eyes pleading for a response.

Once your hand reaches up for his cheek, stroking it lovingly while you place a fond kiss against his lips, he got the answer he always wanted.

"Okay, let's try."

©︎𝙎𝘼𝙏𝙍𝙎 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐝.

Do NOT plagiarize, copy, modify, republish, or translate my work in any way!

[another-lost-mc]

The Wild Side was so adorable and my heart wouldn’t be able to take it if you wrote something for the other characters (and Azra!) Maybe their animals from the Magical Eggs event would work, but I’d love to see your take, too.

a/n: I’m using the dateables’ onesies for their animal inspiration. I wouldn’t put it past solomon to jinx them somehow during a sleepover.

the wild side: slumber party edition | the dateables + azra

1k words | sfw | more silly fluff + humor

cw: relationships can be romantic or platonic in nature (your choice) except for luke, he is our baby brother and must be protected at all costs.

Lucifer arrives at the Demon Lord's Castle with little fanfare. You were supposed to be having a slumber party with Diavolo and the residents of Purgatory Hall, and he incorrectly assumed there was no possible way things could go wrong. He started receiving a series of alarming messages from staff at the castle that something strange was going on. He hears a disturbance as soon as he lets himself inside the main entrance hall. A loud ruckus coming from the ballroom, typically used to host the young prince's lavish parties, draws his attention. He opens the door and is completely stunned, shocked into silence by the chaos he finds within...

The Dragon (Diavolo)

It's a minor miracle that he's not a full-sized dragon. He's a bit smaller than Cerberus is and the ballroom is spacious—he has plenty of room to stretch his wings.

Judging by the scorch marks across the ballroom's marble flooring, he hasn't figured out how to control his flames yet.

(As soon as Lucifer walked into view, Diavolo snorted happily through his nose. He shot flames across the room and another set of curtains is currently on fire.)

Diavolo's still aware of his size and potential danger. He does his best to keep away from you and Luke who are at the greatest risk of being stepped on.

His scales are very warm to the touch. Barbatos can't land on him without injuring himself, so he squawks angrily at his young master from a safe distance.

He was excited to host this little sleepover for everyone to watch some new movies together, but he thinks this is even better!

The Owl (Barbatos)

He's very anxious, but you can tell he looks at you differently vs. the way he looks at Diavolo Solomon everyone else...

He doesn't believe in regicide, but Diavolo is going to be punished severely after this. And Solomon, too—this is his fault!

(Being a dragon is no excuse for his master to engage in such reckless destruction. He's going to burn down the whole castle at this rate!)

The Little Ds are enjoying this far too much and slacking off on their duties while they watch the madness unfold. The least they could do is help put out these wretched fires...

Barbatos doesn't seem to be nearly as intimidating in this smaller form. Diavolo rolls his eyes when he hoots at him, and the Little Ds keep tugging on his tail feathers teasingly and dashing away.

(If they think he's going to forget this, they're sorely mistaken.)

He gives up on trying to reign in the mayhem and tries to stick close to you instead. You're so small and fragile in your little sheep form, he worries the others might hurt you by accident. He pecks at them to remind them to be gentle.

When everything gets too overwhelming, he flies up and rests on one of the sconces on the wall or the chandelier.

(He nearly falls to the floor when the magic spell finally fades away mid-flight, and that makes him even angrier.)

The Panther (Simeon)

His main concern is keeping an eye on you and Luke. It's amusing to watch the others though; he's content to stick to the edges of the room and observe the chaos.

This is actually great inspiration for a new novel! Or maybe he should try writing a children's book. You would make a cute main character!

He carries Luke somewhere safe when he inevitably falls asleep from all the excitement.

(Solomon and Azra get so distracted picking fights with each other that Simeon picks you up by your collar and carries you to where Luke is sleeping. He curls around your little sleep pile protectively until the spell wears off.)

The Red Panda (Luke)

He's too small to get into too much trouble, but he has a surprising amount of fun—probably the most fun out of everyone, except for Diavolo.

He's not used to having a tail and he trips on it a few times by accident when he runs too fast. He swears that Simeon chuckles in a weird, cat-like way when he falls on his face with a growl.

He follows you around the ballroom, but the other animals are so much scarier bigger than he's too nervous to get close to them.

There are still trays of desserts on the table from dinnertime, and he helps himself to some sweets.

(The spell and abundance of sugar knocks him out cold in less than an hour.)

The Wolf (Solomon)

He didn't mean for this to happen, but he's going to enjoy it while it lasts.

He saunters around, swishing his fluffy white tail and showing off his stunning wolf form for you to admire. For some reason, you don't seem that impressed.

You squirm and glare at him when he tries to kiss lick your face, too.

He lays down and rolls over, hoping that you'll curl up with him because his fur is so warm and perfect to snuggle in.

Maybe you're just shy? The hellhound won't leave you alone but Solomon's not sure he can take him on in a fight...

(Really, can't he enjoy your company for once without one of the demons butting their nose where it doesn't belong?)

The Hellhound (Azra)

You said this was supposed to be a fun little sleepover. He even put on that stupid onesie you bought him because you're cute when you pout you said it would be more fun this way. This was supposed to be a chance for him to get to know your friends—and now he's stuck as a dog!

You weren't immune to the mysterious magic either, and you and the young angel are the tiniest animals here. He's extra-vigilant about trying to keep the others away from you; he's scared they're going to hurt you by accident.

(He's never seen this side of Diavolo before, and he hates to admit how much fun it is watching the young prince set half the ballroom on fire while he shoots fireballs at random objects for target practice.)

He's very agitated when Solomon tries to approach you. That damn wolf keeps stalking you around the room with a hungry glint in his eye.

You don't seem happy with either of them when they start growling and snapping at each other and he's already thinking about how to make this up to you later.

(Maybe when this is over, he can convince you to go back home with him.)

read more: the demon brothers version | obey me masterlist

[sorenphelps]

I just found out there’s a Sirius birthday week event hosted by @lilacella! I’m super late to the party but here are some of my HCs!

He loves puns and is annoyingly good at making them.

Despite being a dog himself, he is actually more of a cat person.

He became colorblind in Azkaban, and his colour vision has never fully recovered afterwards.

He got his growth spurt at 14, and had facial hair from the age of 16. Fleamont Potter taught him how to shave.

He is able to resist the Imperius curse.

He lost his virginity to Madam Rosmerta. He has a thing for older women. (Unresolved mommy issues mostly…)

His favourite subject was Ancient Runes. Everyone assumed that he is top tier at Astronomy, and while he was decent at it, he actually couldn’t care less about the subject.

He took a total of 9 N.E.W.T.s (DADA, Transfiguration, Charms, Alchemy, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Poitions, Care for magical creatures and Herbology), and got “Outstanding” on all except Herbology, which he passed with “Exceeding expectations”. He got an “Outstanding” in Poitions due to Slughorn’s blatant favoritism over his prestigious family, which annoys him a lot (one part because Snape is right about this accusation, and one part because he’d have preferred to be graded fairly).

He was never interested in Quidditch, but was up-to-date with it because of James.

His future profession of choice was curse breaker.

He used to bite his nails when stressed, he started to paint his nails to help him lose this bad habit. (He started to smoke instead.) Then kept both for aesthetic reasons.

He knew how to breath out smoke circles since he was a kid, and taught it to Remus in exchange of Remus teaching him how to whistle when they were 13.

He is tall, with broad shoulders and long legs. He is hairy. His eye colour is gray, but the shade can change a bit according to his mood. At first glance, his eyes can be mistaken for blue until compared side by side to Peter’s (who has cerulean).

He has a mole on his left cheek (every member of the Black family has a mole somewhere on their face). He also has one on his penis.

He has a resting bitch face, he either looks bored or annoyed, but his whole face and vibe changes drastically when he smiles. He is overall quite intimidating.

He has slightly East Asian features, with wide cheekbones, almond shaped eyes, a sharp jawline and thick jet black hair.

He can rock any haircut, and doesn’t care much about his hair by default.

His ears are pierced, and he wears a dog collar nonstop that he got from James when they made a blood pact with each other as teens. (It could be taken off him when he was sent to Azkaban, because the magical binding seemingly ceased to exist when the Potters died. Sirius later found the collar in Grimmauld Place, which gave him the idea to use the old blood pact with James to make Harry his own heir.)

He only wears black and shades of gray, as a teen because of aesthetic, as an adult because he can’t see colours. Beside black and gray, his “reference” colour is dark purple. (I have a palette for every character I draw.)

Prongs’ antlers scarred his left eyebrow during one of their first transformations. It could have been healed up perfectly, but Sirius decided to keep it as it is as a memento of their Big Achievement (and also aesthetic).

Also have a quick sketch of him to make up for the missed “prompts” of the event!

[teardropsonmyheartstrings]

OK, I've been debating over this for ages...

Who of you guys is familiar with Stationhead?

I've been listening almost religiously for months now, and I've got questions.

For those who have never seen this name:

Stationhead is an app that can be linked to your Apple Music or Spotify account and allows streaming playlists, so you can share them with others in real time. It includes a chat function and some other little bits and bobs. Artists--including Taylor--occasionally use it for listening parties, where they stream a specific playlist, and fans go nuts in the chat. All good fun. Taylor Nation has an account they use for those listening parties, and they are usually announced beforehand via instagram, etc.

Whenever there is no active listening party, there's still a Swifties channel. There's a whole syndicate that shares the responsibility of keeping the music playing there. They can stream music simultaneously, but only one gets featured "on air" on the channel at any one time. I can't really determine whether those individual hosts are fans, or what, or how they got into the syndicate. But I did notice two things: 1) Just before a listening party, a certain host called "swiftiesss13" tends to take over the channel. Basically while everyone is gathering and waiting for the main event to start. 2) There also seems to be a default host that plays whenever no one else from the syndicate is active. That would be taylorswifties13 (LOVE the 1989 icon 😉).

Please note, that these are all just my observations. I know nothing about the behind the scenes that are going on. If anyone here knows more or thinks I'm spewing utter nonsense, PLEASE fill me in!

Now.

The thing I feel kinda weird about sharing, but which I really would appreciate thoughts on... So, on that default station, the host taylorswifties13 has been playing the same playlist for several months now. I BELIEVE the most recent changes to the playlist occurred around mid November. Specifically, Nov. 15th, IF I'm not mistaken. I'm going by text messages I sent to my friend back then, and my fuzzy memory/awareness of what came before then, because up until then, I'd been listening for months, but hadn't known what to look for. First of all, let me share the playlist that has been in place ever since then:

Note, that since I have no way of knowing for sure, my staring point of Begin Again is perfectly arbitrary. As for the colour coding, red indicates songs from the The Eras Tour setlist. That's 21 tracks out of 47, so close to half. In addition to that, we have tolerate it, which used to be on the setlist, and Florida!!!, which was part of the TTPD set for four shows (London and Miami). I wasn't sure whether to count the latter as a setlist song, or a surprise song, but I'll mostly count it as a surprise song. The tracks in green, are songs she played on her final leg in USA/Canada. Any tracks with an asterisk (*) were surprise songs during the European leg of the tour. Please don't be too confused by all of my annotating and colour coding; it’s all a bit silly on my part, but maybe it's helpful to someone else..? Dunno.

And here's the "juiciest" bit about it all

...assuming I haven't lost you by now.

If you would please direct your attention to tracks 35 and 36:

Gorgeous (track 34) ends, This Love starts playing, but STOPS just a few seconds into the actual verse. If you look at the progress bar, this is exactly how long the song is meant to play. I once tried following it up by adding this song to my Spotify favourites (which you can do via the Stationhead app), but it only gave me the proper version. Very odd. Anyway, I was so puzzled over this almost straight away, but it took me several more months (last week) to think of checking the runtime. Here it gets a bit so-so.... because it's 38 seconds. But not sharp. It's NOT 39 seconds, but it's also not exactly 38. Still. Very strange, kinda tantalising, not quite precise enough for my liking and YET so UNCANNY. On a stopwatch that doesn't show the milliseconds, it certainly WOULD be 38 seconds... 🤷‍♀️ If you are wondering about my reaction time: I also isolated the exact snippet of the track in video editor, and it was under 39 seconds. The whole thing is compounded by the fact that the original Fearless plays right after. The original. EVERYONE in the chat keeps complaining about the "stolen" version. Ok. I get it. But also, why does no one else find it weird?! They are raging, but no one is questioning. In a playlist with ONLY TVs, except the two reputation songs which have no TVs yet. In fact, there's ONLY two rep songs and NO Debut songs. The host is otherwise very mindful of their curation.

For me, the odd skip, followed by this odd OG version immediately brought ONE thing to mind:

This was from Karlie's snapchat stories. It entered the lore officially, when Taylor referenced it in her The Man music video, on the graffiti wall.

Why I think it's relevant and it all fits together?

* This Love (a 1989 song, contains lyrics like "this love came back to me" etc) plays for only a short time, which should raise eyebrows on it's own, but arguably, it also runs for 38 seconds. * OG Fearless (rather than TV) is another way to make you stop and think, but it ALSO is the version that actually was out when the mirror thing happened. There were no TVs yet.

ANOTHER ALSO. The "We Are Fearless" mirror thing happened November 16, 2016. Remember when I THINK the playlist changed to THIS?! Mid November 2024 (15th). At first I thought it was 16th, but I live in Australia, so my 16th isn't America's 16th yet early in the morning, which was when I discovered it. (Dang! 🤣) Anyway, close enough? I want to say "take this with the hugest grain of salt" because I didn't quite have my shit together back then. But in favour of this being odd: I knew about the mirror, I didn't know when exactly it happened. When I searched my text history to find the dates for when I became aware of all this, I STILL didn't know when the mirror thing happened. I found that date on my phone first, before googling the video of the mirror writing, which then conveniently came with an actual date. I was shocked. It just fit too well.

Ok, so far so good.

But I'm still at a loss. As I mentioned before, everyone regularly complains about stolen Fearless. NO ONE ever asks why This Love is cut off. I question on the daily whether I'm just going nuts. Isn't it happening to ANYONE ELSE?! But it has to, as the playlist is streamed. It would mess up the entire timing from thereon, if it didn't happen to everyone at the same time. I'd think you don't have to be a Gaylor to find it strange?!

Oh, and a wee bit more Kaylor...

This really is a minor thing, but did you notice track 22? It just so happens to be the Kendrick Lamar version, as in NOT the exact version from the Eras Tour, but the one from that lovely music video, which features our girls boxing their hearts out 🥵 Not very demure, but feels VERY mindful, no?

I have one last thing to add:

I can't exactly send in evidence for this, as the playlist is super long, but y'all are free to waste some time and fact check me if you don't believe it... the entire playlist runs for 3h03 min (and once again a couple of extra seconds, so not perfectly on the dot, but for a whole playlist that's to be expected). What's that in MINUTES, you may immediately wonder? 183. Thank you very much 🙈

BUT WELL...

Let's think critically here for a moment... I'm either delusional, or this playlist does have "KAYLOR" written all over it. Cool. Fun. BUT HOW DO WE KNOW, that this playlist isn't just made up by one of us? Unfortunately, we don't. Or at least I don't. If any of you could elucidate, I'd be totally thrilled! Things that make me have a wee bit of faith:

It appears to be the default playlist on the Swifties channel

The tracks are very mindful of the TV situation, just like playlists that are coming from a more officially official source: NO Debut, as little reputation as possible, but then the odd one out Fearless OG

This is where the surprise songs come into play: the ratio of non-setlist tracks that were actually played during the America leg of the tour as surprise songs is a bit higher than what I'd expect to be chance alone. I've since tried to come up with random lists of songs and compared them to the actual surprise songs to kinda test this. I fell very short with some, came rather close with others, never quite reached the exact same number, let alone higher. I could be totally wrong, but this list of songs, that was first aired just a few shows into the American leg, contains a suspicious number of surprise songs. Almost like the curator knew that some of them would be played. Dunno. I'm aware that this isn't good evidence, but still something I noticed.

To sum it all up.

This has been driving me insane. I don't know if I see patterns where there are none, or if I see them alright, but the source is just another Kaylor having fun with it. Any thoughts, comments, insights would be MORE THAN WELCOME. What do you think? Is this something random, or is Miss Taylor having a jolly good time messing with us?

[thenightfolknetwork]

Hi, we are several hundred rats. More accurately, I am a rat, writing on behalf of my several hundred friends, who are also rats.

It's pretty good, being rats, certainly compared to all the nonsense sapios and other bipeds have to deal with. Like knees, and dentist appointments. Recently, though, we've run into a problem. It's very common for sapios to mistake us for a multi-coporeal entity or a collective intelligence or something of that nature. You know, quote-unquote hive minds. Ignoring the fact that most hives don't actually work like that and the way that the common vernacular exposes the inherent sapionormative biases of the modern social system, it usually isn't a problem. One of us corrects them, the human reacts however they react, no big deal. Their reactions are on them, not our problem.

I'm being asked to add that it's a little sad that the humans don't have the close social bonds that could be mistaken for that kind of thing. So now I have. And now they're discussing whether it's sad or just the nature of the human condition. I'm going to keep writing while they're not trying to co-author this letter.

Well, about three years ago, a colony of cerebrachnids moved in next door with their host body. We don't need to tell you, of course, that brain spiders are actually a collective intelligence. Almost all of us have been of great terms with them since day one. It's nice having someone around who can sympathize with how sapios view us. Rats and spiders, right?

Turns out that they've thought we were some sort of multi-coporeal entity this whole time. It came up last week when some of us were visiting for tea. They've thought for years that we were some manner of genus similar to them, and have just been too polite to ask what we are. I, the rat doing the typing, wasn't there, but the ones who were there all agree that our neighbor got a little weird about it, and they're a lot less overtly friendly since then.

We can't agree if they're feeling awkward, or if they're maybe reevaluating the whole friendship in the light of how we have less in common with them than they thought.

Any advice? Do we just pretend it didn't happen and go on like normal?

Thank you for getting touch, reader – or should I say, readers? I'm extremely heartened to hear how healthy your collective attitudes are to the misconceptions people have about multi-corporeal entities and collective intelligences. I'm also pleased that you recognise your own boundaries in managing other people's expectations and reactions to your lived reality.

That said, I don't think there's any risk of your overstepping those boundaries by reaching out to this neighbour and clearing the air about their misconception. I understand you don't want to take on more than your share of the emotional work. But frankly, simply being aware of that as a potential issue is generally enough to stop it from happening.

There might be any number of reasons for your neighbours' sudden standoffishness. They might be embarrassed by their mistake, or feeling foolish for misunderstanding your nature. Or they might be disappointed at the loss of what they assumed was a friendship built on commonality of experience. The fact is, you won't know until you talk to them.

Invite them over for tea and let them know how much you've missed them. Emphasise how much you all value your relationship with them, and that you're keen that this misunderstanding should be set aside.

I would also take the time to stress how much you do have in common, despite these differences. You may not share the same kind of consciousness as them, but there has been enough shared between you to sustain years of friendship – not only shared interests and talking points, but also deeper commonalities around how sapios treat your genuses.

I don't think anything will be gained by making them feel shamed or punished, especially if they were acting out of nothing more malicious than embarrassment. Give them a little grace, and take the time to clear the air between you properly. Then, with any luck, you'll all be able to shrug this moment off as nothing but an awkward bump in the otherwise smooth road of friendship.

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[destiny-in-the-universe]

Cars 2 Rewrite

Gooood timezone, my lovelies!

This is your host, Cecil, speaking! Now- some of you have been asking about my Cars universe, especially when it comes to the second movie so I will explain! Though keep in mind - not everything's getting covered here due to a mix of spoilers, and well, I want to make this a long-term thing; gauge who might stick around pfft. I like receiving attention on my posts, so I know I'm not talking to a wall hahah but anyway; this is going to start off with the plot!

The characters are human, not cars.

Rewritten Plot

Following Lightning's wins in the Piston Cup series, things have greatly settled. Lightning McQueen is returning to his home in Radiator Springs - after having finished a race back in the LA Motor Speedway - and he's looking for a little TLC. Though it seems fate has other plans as his best friend and potential crush - I mean, companion, of course - somehow ropes him into accepting the World Grand Prix races across Europe. In an unexpected turn of events, Lightning and Mater found themself caught within a tangled game of lies. Now, they're playing spy... but things are about to get a whole lot harder. In ways they didn't see coming.

While this rewrite doesn't currently seem like much, this was a project created by me and my partner, so!

Read below the cut for further information!

Important Characters (Note: This will only include four characters and some are purposely being redacted in order to maintain the suspense)

Lightning McQueen

Lightning's role plays out a little differently within this piece, to say the least. The World Grand Prix seems like a dream come true, and he gets to spend it all with his team and his totally just a best friend, Mater. Now having a proper family, he feels as if he'll be able to do anything and win against Francesco Bernoulli, but this trip is going to be like no other. Following an incident witnessed by himself and Mater, Lightning is being thrown into the world of spies.

Benjamin "Tow" Mater

Mater is Lightning's best friend and confidante. Getting invited by Lightning to the World Grand Prix will certainly be an exciting adventure, and if sparks happen to fly between them - well, that's their own business, thank you very much! His eagerness is sure to make this a fun time, and he'll never leave his crush's - buddy - side no matter what! ... even if it means accidentally being thought to be a spy.

Finn McMissile

Finn McMissile... the best agent CHROME has ever seen. Being brought into a case about a dangerous camera which is not all it appears to be, but of course he and his trusted agent Shiftwell; not to mention the American spy's decision to help them in all of this. Though an unexpected case of mistaken identity leads to them bringing the wrong people into this... and really, what's the worst that could happen?

Holley Shiftwell

Holley's only supposed to be a techie. She's not a field agent by any means, but when she's paired with Finn McMissile during a mission - and now they've got the American with them but things aren't entirely as they seem. The weapon remains out there, and it might cost people their lives...

Changes within the Rewrite

Doc Hudson is alive during this! I couldn't bring myself to kill him and I thought his appearance in the World Grand Prix would make the storyline a lot more interesting

Lightning does willingly invite Mater to the competition. It felt so odd in the canon when he didn't and that just wasn't going to fly in this version

Lightning/Sally will not be part of the fic. I am deeply sorry if you enjoy this, but I took things a different route when the idea was first created

Spoilers? Lightning witnesses the death of the true American spy; of course, Mater is also a part of this

Lightning is more of an active participant because my partner and I said so. I can't explain more than this... but you will find out! Don't worry about a thing

Headcanons

Lightning has ADHD! He just does. I can see him getting the bout of zoomies at random hours and he's always forgetting something before leaving for a race

He's also trans. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk

Mater is autistic. He's so neurodivergent. It makes me stim to be honest

Doc fired Harv after the first movie. They would've clashed so hard if they'd been forced to work together

Lightning used to love spy movies when he was young and it's part of the reason he decides to get involved

Mater has experience with fighting. He's going to knock someone lights out, and that's all you're getting for now

Doc and Finn have something going on. Unofficially, lmao

Sally is a lesbian. There's another unrelated idea I made where she gets together with Holley

Doc definitely has (metaphorical) adoption papers for Lightning

Lightning has driven the Hornet, but always under Doc's supervison

Doc used to own livestock guardian dogs and now he doesn't have any pets, but I think he'll get another one soon because why not

More is going to come later! I have so much to share about this universe, but right now this is what you're getting pfft I hope you enjoy though!

[vellichorom]

Hello! I’m new to the Stanley Parable fandom (as in 3 days ago oop) and I’ve heard about the Narratorverse? I’m confused as to what that is. (Also, if you have any advice of people to follow in this fandom, I’m all ears!)

WELL WELL WELL! allow me to welcome you to the fandom & introduce you to it's most recent development ( as the technical hand in it's creation & persistence(?) )! may you enjoy it AND your stay here, there's PLENTY to consume & a little something for everyone, i think!

now, into the narratorverse;

TDLR; the Narratorverse is this idea that every Narrator / alternative TSP design exist in a multiverse & frequently mingle with each other in Tumblr & Discord events.

however, below is where I've compiled EVERY detail & piece of history to this monster in the fandom, so feel free to dive below & educate yourself thoroughly.

otherwise! i'm not really good at just Offering people to follow, as everybody brings something to the table & I hate to risk forgetting / neglecting one user over another, so I HAPPILY encourage other TSP artists to reblog this & promote themselves! ALSO! just dig through the tag long enough & you'll find TONS of amazing artists & creators to follow ( avoid rh/ad/ko like the plague ), I promise it's worth the treck!

Narratorverse Expansive Lore You Can Slap On a Wiki Below;

for the best experience, please read this to yourself in a generic " youtuber introduces & reviews niche topic " voice,

" the Narratorverse, " ALSO known as " the Paraverse " is an "AU" / fandom-wide concept in which every & all personal iteration of The Stanley Parable ( with a heavy focus on the designs of the Narrator ) from the fandom co-exist & mingle in a big, expansive multiverse.

if I'm not mistaken, this OFFICIALLY got started when the tumblr poll function started getting incorporated onto the site & @tsp-narrator-ask would grab up a handful of individual Narrator designs to feature in a " Sexiest Narrator " competition, where - of course, the fandom & any tumblr user alike could vote for their respective favorite design or whichever they found "sexiest" ( loosely ).

this whole competition inspired some participants of the competition ( including yours truly ) to make in-character commentary art, featuring their Narrator reacting to their BEING in the competition or otherwise campaigning for themselves not to lose / the aftermath of their losing; a lot of which would include their Narrator being thrown into some cruel & unusual punishment by the host of the competition. for le giggles. ( the latter linked post is the reason why MY narrator is referred to as Salad Boy, )

with the door open for it, this would spark some MORE drawn, in-character commentary, featuring contestants of the Sexyman Competition-- & even just anyone with a Narrator design who wanted to participate in the shenanigans, all gathered together like this competition & everything involved with it was this big party/event they were all called from their creators to get in on.

a lot of this commentary was featured in MASS REBLOGS, with everyone adding a little response to one's post; the main ones being THIS one, & the Unfathomably Popular Salad Thread, the latter of which, not to pat myself on the back for starting it, but I think REALLY popularized the concept of the " Narrator Multiverse, " & would lead things to escalate FAR beyond the initial Sexyman Competition.

NOW, there's an official Narratorverse / Paraverse roleplay / hangout server that features many ( if not everyone ) featured in these threads, there's other TSP servers that carry the lore & relationships from these events, & there's been a trend instilled of other, similar mass reblog threads that keep with the continuity of the last ones, but also branch out to expand on multiversal shenanigans with everyone allowed to participate.

-such as @blackkatdraws's Gluetrap Thread, the aftermath of THAT, this smaller " thread " featuring my arrator finding @tsp-narrator-ask's kid, & I think there might have even been a few started with the recently held Narratorverse Hunger Games that I just can't account for / didn't get to keep up with.

ALL OF THESE OBVIOUSLY tying into & ONLY adding onto the idea of this multiverse of Narrators & Stanley Parable alternatives alike & popularizing it into this own little delectable square of the fandom in which the community can really come together for some utmost silliness OR actual worldbuilding, given everyone in-character & out of character gets to reflect on every alternative interpretation of the game we're ALL here for.

& that's just about the full " history " of what this whole Narratorverse / Paraverse is! feel free to hop the bandwagon yourself!

who knows, your alternative interpretations could be what the fandom follow next!

[queenlua]

can I ask Micaiah/Sothe/Pelleas and some kind of breaking the spirit contract on Pelleas' soul, or some kind of post-op on poly set-up?

The way to unbind a spirit, in the end, is almost insultingly simple: cut the thing out.

Micaiah's been kneeling, poised over a prone, shirtless Pelleas, with a knife in her hand, for over half an hour.  Sothe's impatience is clear, from how he keeps fidgeting beside them, though he hasn't said anything about it.  Yet.

Huddled in this tent, the whole place lit by two lamps, it's like it's wartime again.  They're miles from Castle Nevassa, miles from anywhere else, camping in some little-traveled grove with snow heaped up in great piles all around them.  They agreed this would be neater, if anything were to happen.  If they needed to hide a body.  If this didn't work.

(But it has to work.  She can't lose him.)

"It'll be fine, Micaiah," Pelleas says, with that soft, soft smile, inclining his head slightly—but he's said that before.  He's said it when it wouldn't have been fine at all, actually, when she'd nearly let him get stabbed him through the heart for nothing, saved only by chance—

Micaiah blinks away the wetness in her eyes before it can become tears.  A bead of sweat drips from her brow and onto that naked chest.  It is midwinter; how is she sweating?  The cloth this tent has made of must be robust indeed, to trap the little heat of the three of them so well.  That, or she's caught fever.  She feels feverish, certainly.  She glances up at Sothe, to see if he looks the same.

"Let me," Sothe says, voice rough, "if you can't.  I'll do it."

It is so tempting.  Sothe's good with a knife, better than she is.  It would be so easy.

"It'll be fine," Pelleas repeats, with strength he doesn't have to spare.  She can nearly hear the bones in his jaw creak as he says it.  He's down to half the weight he was a year ago, all skin and bones.  Apparently, once a spirit's tired of its host, things can... progress... quickly.

Sothe reaches out a hand toward the knife in Micaiah's hand.  He moves slowly.  Wraps his pinky around the hilt, then the next finger, and—

"No," she says, jerking her hands backward, and the knife along with it.  He can't do it, she's sure of it now, she has to be the one to do it—though she can't remember why.

She blinks.  Shakes her head.  Her vision blurs a moment, but that's only a trick of the light.  She wishes these lanterns wouldn't flicker quite so much.  Her fingers twitch, but that's only the strain, from holding this position for so long.

"And we're sure about this," Micaiah says, her voice thinner than she'd like, her head foggier than she'd like.  Everything feels so far away.  "Where did we find this rite, anyway?" she asks, to the air.

"You did," Pelleas says, automatic.

Micaiah blinks.  She can't remember.

"In that old book," Sothe adds.  "The one you dug out of the archives."

That sounds like something she'd do.  She'd have searched every library on the continent, if she thought it'd save Pelleas.  So why can't she remember?

It's the spirit, she thinks, the sort of desperate explanation that would only occur to her now.  Using magic, of a sort.  Making her head and her skin and her fingers feel this way, from deep within Pelleas's chest.  Straining and striving to stay alive.

Or it isn't, and something else is desperately wrong here.  Why can't she remember that book—the shape of it, the reason she'd trusted it, if she had any reason to trust it at all? had they tested it, could they test it, was there no other way to do this—

She fixes Sothe in her sights, and goes cross-eyed a moment with the effort of it.  There's a grim set to his face, enhanced by the lanterns' orange glow.

And then she remembers, belatedly, why Sothe can't do it—the one who cuts out the spirit must love the spirit's host.  And she knows, much as she wishes otherwise, that what Sothe feels toward Pelleas is nothing like love.

Why did Sothe offer, then—?  Does he think the book was mistaken?

Or—does he simply not want Pelleas alive?

Something beneath Pelleas's skin hisses, or seems to hiss, satisfied.  Then it hisses, or seems to hiss, beneath her own skin, too.  The lamps are flickering.  The tent is thrumming.  It must be a hundred degrees in here, from how she's sweating, from how slick the knife feels in her fingers.

She can't trust either of them, she realizes at length.  She loves them but she can't trust them, not with this.  The one who'd gladly kill, the one who'd gladly die—and her in the middle, starting to feel faint.  She's seconds from losing her nerve or her consciousness both—maybe there's no spirit, maybe this a setup, some convoluted mess of a thing, why can't she remember—

She presses the tip of the dagger to the center of Pelleas's chest, just above his heart.  Pelleas screws up his face, but he doesn't make a sound.  She presses down a little, just enough to draw the littlest droplet of blood, a pinprick's worth.  She touches the drop with her finger, and that feels real enough.  She lifts that finger to her lips, to her tongue.  Tastes it.  Blinks her vision straight.

She sucks in a deep breath.  Tightens her grip around the knife.  Breathes out.

And the lanterns in the tent flicker out entirely for what happens next.

[saline-coelacanth]

Random lore headcanon type things because that's what my brain decided to do. So yeah here are some of the cool ideas that popped into my head that I wanna ramble about.

So I don't think we've been given a whole lot of information about the whole process of an elemental power moving on to a new person other than the basics. We know they can be passed on genetically, or given to someone manually, or they just sort of find a new host after a while. So I wanna give some ideas about how all this works,

Starting off with the most simple way, passing an element on through genetics. Assuming only one parent has an elemental power, it's pretty safe to assume their first child is gonna get the power unless it decides to skip a generation because Nya mentioned they can do that sometimes. Things only really get complicated when both parents have elemental powers because then it's random as to which power the kid is gonna get (at least in my version of things it's random)

So how exactly would the parents know for sure if their kid got their powers? Well I like to think the previous master would feel a gradual loss of their powers. Using Ray and Maya as examples here, I imagine after Kai was born, Ray could still control fire, but it started to get weaker and weaker over time until one day, he could no longer control fire at all. This was the main indicator that Kai had inherited his powers. And then when Nya was born, as similar thing happened to Maya with her powers.

Elemental powers also don't manifest fully until the kids are older, usually around their teens, but it can happen sooner like with Morro or Lloyd (but that could also be because they had started training when they were young). But I still like to think that even if they can't fully control their elemental powers, there will be little things that indicate what element they have. A master of ice would just naturally be cold all the time, and then the opposite for a master of fire. A master of earth would be much stronger than other kids their age. A master of lightning might gather more static electricity. Things like that.

Finally moving on from that, let's talk about the next method of manually transferring your powers to someone else. Unless I'm mistaken, I'm pretty sure the only example we know of this happening is with Zane, and we also didn't actually see any of this happen on screen. But I imagine transferring your powers to someone else would be relatively simple considering the previous Master of Ice was able to do it without anyone realizing. Just as long as the elemental master is willing to give up their powers, they can choose a new host and idk, probably do some little ritual that transfers the powers over. Again, we don't have much to work with in canon here.

The main downside to this method is that it would leave the original EM physically drained for a bit. See, with genetics they'd have the luxury of losing their powers gradually, but with this method you're giving up your powers all in one go. And as we've seen before, getting your powers taken away seems to be pretty taxing on someone.

And then the final method we have is when an elemental power just finds a new host which is what happened for Euphrasia. (Morro had been dead for a long time and I think the element of wind just finally decided it was time for a new host) So yeah, I imagine the most common way for this method to work is if an EM dies without passing their element on and then after a while, the element is able to find a new host. I think the reason why it took so long for wind to find a new host though was because Morro was just that stubborn and refused to give up his element. Another example that's slightly different is Nyad since she technically didn't die, but her powers did eventually find a new host because we've gotten multiple masters of water after her.

But another idea that I came up with is that an EM can actively choose to give up their powers and just like... send them into the world to find a new host I guess. I don't think we've seen anything like this happen in canon, but I like it as a concept so here it is. This would be similar to the method of giving a new host your powers, the only difference being that you don't have a specific host and you're just giving up your powers so they can find some new person to latch onto. It's just much risker than finding a new host yourself because then you don't know who's going to get the power.

And yeah that's my ramblings about elemental powers and how they get passed around. We don't get a whole lot of depth about this in canon so I think it's a really fun thing to explore and think about.

[hcneybone]

𝐝𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐧 "𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐞" 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞

B A S I C S –

Name: Dugan Beake Nicknames: Duckie (most commonly known as). Birthday: May 1, 1991. Pronouns: He/him. Gender/Sex: Cisgender/male. Sexuality: Bisexual. Occupation: Part-time farm worker at High Tide, Weekend Co-Host at 99.3 The Wild

P E R S O N A L I T Y —

+ Resourceful, well-read, faithful. - Passive, cowardly, boring. While Duckie comes alive on the radio or late at night in his friends' basements, he can, more often than not, be mistaken for an armchair or a fleck of dust with just how un-outstanding he is. He's quiet and keeps to himself and prefers to avoid attention where he can, though when it comes to his successes and achievements he'll always accept compliments with a genuine smile and gratitude. Since the Departure he's taken to a life of servitude toward nature, and seems to be sniffing out the Cult of Pan, though he'd never admit to such.

A R R I V A L — ( FEBRUARY 2023 )

Originally from Texas, Duckie moved about eight months before the Departure to live with his girlfriend at the time and open a local board game shop. He still lives in the big house he bought with her, despite her disappearance, though he does rent it out with two other people now. The board game shop suffered from the Departure in an unrecoverable way; the sign where it used to be still hangs on the boarded up shop window.

E X T R A B I T S —

– Has been dumped by every girl he's been with. He has a habit of getting very complacent in his relationships and pulling away emotionally but struggles to be the one to end things first; he'd rather become a lame, silent boyfriend and get dumped than be the one to admit that things are over himself. It's a miracle his last girlfriend didn't dump him, but if she hadn't been evaporated by the Departure, she probably would've eventually. – In general, very bad at sports, but he played volleyball through high school and still enjoys a good beach game if there's one going. He also played pickleball with his family. – Has a very large LEGO collection displayed neatly in his office space and around his room. He enjoys any sort of miniature building work, and has started buying the super intricate kits wherever he can, which gets harder and harder since shipping still isn't where it used to be. – He is very nature centered/focused, and post-Departure he's really leaned into that. He spends a large portion of his day outside, even when not at work, and one of his favorite activities is getting stoned and reading a National Geographic. – Started as an intern at the radio station and sort of hated it since he didn't get to do anything creatively. When the Departure took much of the station's staff, Duckie took it upon himself to secure a weekend spot, and he likes it a whole lot better now.

C O N N E C T I O N S —

seeking: - two roommates to split his rent with - his brother, goose - friends he started to make in the first few months he was in town - any patrons who might've visited his cafe, Well Played, before it was closed

B A C K G R O U N D —

tw: parental drug use, death of an estranged parent, foursome mention? lol - duckie's parents were never cut out to be parents no matter how deeply they loved their son. and they did love him, as much as they could, until their love of partying (and, namely: heroin) overtook their lives. margaret beake, knowing she'd never be the mother her son deserved, evevntually relinquished custody to her sister when dugan was only four years old. - jacob and aimee beake took in duckie like their own. aimee had just given birth to her own son, gregory, who they nicknamed goose because the whole family thinks they're soooo funny. - duckie and goose grew up like real brothers, not knowing they weren't until late in middle school when jacob and aimee, spurred by a school project about genealogy, eventually sat down with duckie and explained everything. he was understandably hurt, and the information had a heavy impact on the relationship between him and who he knew as parents. fortunately, their relationship recovered with time, and duckie came to peace with everything. - at the end of high school, margaret beake passed away, and the chance to know his birthright mother disappeared. it was a weird phase of grief - one that he still hasn't figured out how to process, though he's stopped trying to. his father is still out there somewhere, either unable or unwilling to reach out. - duckie and goose are best friends. obviously they've gone through their fair share of shit and arguments, but time has only strengthened their bond. although technically cousins, they'll always be as close as real brothers. - college was eye-opening in a lot of ways for duckie. he discovered his bisexuality in a big splash: a night of d&d ended in a raunchy foursome that left him desperate to explore even more - duckie's only goal since high school has been to open a place that would harbor safe hang-out spots for nerds and freaks and losers. for years after college he spent his time making miniatures to sell and had a small successful business with that, but he wanted a true storefront: a true safe space. so he began collecting, and scouting, and crafting up a plan. when his long-term girlfriend pitched moving from texas to california for her job, duckie sought out a spot in redford to open his own business, and then they traveled west to start their american dream. - unfortunately, shortly after moving to town, the Departure took everything. his girlfriend popped into nothingness and his shop got smacked in the initial riots and following closures. - duckie hasn't heard from goose since the event. he's sure that he wasn't raptured, as their mother swears he visited after the event, but he's fallen off the face of the earth otherwise. he's asked his mother to move to redford and be safe with him there, but she's stubborn as ever and refuses to leave her home in case her husband un-departures and pops back into existence.

[cynicalone94]

Belittlement

Wes's Training Officer really doesn't like having a nepo baby riding in his passenger seat. He's determined to make Wes the laughing stock of the LAPD. Can Wes change that?

Find out on AO3 here or below the cut.

@whumpril

Wes loves having Sean Mitchell as his dad.

Because of his dad, his life had changed forever; giving him a family and a support system that he’d never thought he would have.

Changing his last name to Mitchell is a decision that he will never regret.

Except right now he kind of wishes he’d waited until after he’d survived his Rookie year to do it.

In every other aspect of his life he wants the whole world to know that he’s Sean Mitchell’s son.

But when you’re a Rookie cop, the whole department knowing that Lieutenant Mitchell is your dad isn’t exactly a good thing.

People cozying up to him hoping to bolster their own careers.

People expecting him to be just like his dad to the point where they forget that he’s only a few weeks out of the academy.

People thinking that he doesn’t belong here, that he’d only been accepted in the first place because his old man pulled strings.

That his success in the academy was because his dad, and his dad’s friends at the academy, had taken things easy on him and covered up his mistakes.

There’s literally not a single person who hasn’t been weird about it.

And no one has been weirder than his training officer.

Aaron Matthews has a serious chip on his shoulder and Wes can’t quite place it but he’s not a hundred percent the man belongs on the force at all let alone as a training officer.

He knows his stuff, sure, but his attitude leaves a lot to be desired.

He’s flippant with criminals, disrespectful to victims, witnesses and just civilians going about their day.

He’s subtle about it; the victims don’t feel safe when talking to him, witnesses don’t open up to him, but they generally don’t realize how bad he is.

Wes kind of hates him.

And the feeling is mutual.

But he’s not here to make waves. He’s here to learn and he can definitely see where there are a few things that he can learn from Matthews.

People skills just won’t be on that list.

Which will make this an interesting call.

Noise complaint. A loud party.

He’ll follow Matthews’ lead on positioning and approach but he’d bet this week’s salary he won’t learn anything about convincing the hosts and guests of a party that gotten a little wild to turn down the music.

Matthews steps back, nodding for him to knock on the door and quietly directing him to adjust off to the side before knocking.

The door opens, the confused look the woman gives him quickly melting away to excitement.

“The stripper is here!” she shouts over her shoulder.

The what?

She reaches out, grabbing the shoulder of his vest and dragging him into the house.

He pulls back but more hands are grabbing at him and he doesn’t know what to do.

It’s hard to justify any level of use of force against innocent civilians whose only crime is the mistaken impression that he’s a stripper dressed as a cop instead of an actual cop.

But he’s not just supposed to let himself be drug into a party and… the sleeve of his shirt rips off in someone’s hand.

Reaches back to his belt, fumbling for his OC spray.

He hates the stuff but he can’t think of a better way to get their attention without seriously hurting anyone.

Sprays a short burst of it straight into the air.

It takes a second but then he can feel hands releasing him, gasping in pained confusion.

“I need you all to listen to me, right now.” he booms. “I am not a stripper, I am an actual LAPD officer and if you don’t release me, immediately, you can and will be arrested for assaulting a police officer.”

More hands release and he steps back, ripping free from the few still holding onto him.

Aaron steps forward, grabbing him by the vest and dragging him back.

“Alright guys, playtime is over.”

There’s a series of groans.

“Come on, A-a-ron.” one of the girls whines. “We were just getting started.”

A tense silence settles.

“I told you not to use my name.” Aaron snaps.

The damage is done.

“You know them?” Wes demands, ripping away from his training officer and stepping back. “You brought me here on purpose.”

This wasn’t an unfortunate misunderstanding.

He’d been brought here as a toy for Aaron’s friends to play with for the express purpose of embarrassing him.

“I can’t believe you.” he says, shaking his head and turning to walk away.

“Oh come on, Mitchell.” Aaron calls after him. “It was a joke.”

He turns back, fire in his eyes.

“With all due respect, Sir.” he snarls, the word dripping with derision. “It wasn’t funny.”

He’s been the victim of cruel pranks before.

He just never thought it would happen in this job.

Aaron is quiet as he drives the shop back toward the precinct.

Wes needs to change out.

Nobody will respect him with a missing sleeve, his shirt untucked and several buttons missing.

The question is, whether he sticks with the story, endures the reputation of being the rookie who was mistaken for a stripper, or if he throws his training officer under the bus and becomes the rookie who snitched.

Worse so because he’s not sure his dad will be able to keep out of it.

He won’t just be a snitch, he’ll be the baby who ran to daddy at the first sign of trouble.

If he keeps his mouth shut, will he actually earn some respect from Matthews? Or will the man just think he’s a wimp?

He’s deeply lost in thought, but not so much as to miss the car in the next lane.

“Matthews.” he says, nodding toward it when his training officer looks over. “From roll call. Violent carjacking early this morning, two dead.”

“Shit.” Matthews mutters. “You up for this?”

“Yes sir.” Wes says, reaching for the radio. “Dispatch 2113, have eyes on vehicle from morning carjacking, westbound on Jefferson Boulevard, cross street Dalton Avenue.”

The call for additional units goes out.

“They have to have seen us.” Matthews mutters.

“We know they have weapons.” Wes says. “And that they aren’t afraid to use them. Shouldn’t we wait for backup?”

“You want them to get away?” Matthews challenges. “Kill another innocent mother and her child just looking to buy groceries? No way, we light ‘em up now. Backup can catch up or help clean up the mess.”

He flicks on the lights and sirens, dropping back and sliding into place behind the suspect vehicle.

They speed up.

Matthews matches the acceleration.

Wes activates the loudspeaker.

“This is the LAPD. Pull over immediately.”

There’s no response other than further acceleration.

“You ever seen a PIT maneuver?” Matthews asks.

“Not this close.” he replies.

“Watch closely.”

It’s textbook, as far as Wes’s limited experience goes, and it’s further proof of Wes’s suspicion that he has a lot to learn from this man.

If he can manage to identify the bad and avoid learning that too.

They should have waited for backup before kicking this off but he’d also picked a good spot for the PIT, sending the car crashing into a solid concrete wall instead of hitting bystander vehicles.

Matthews slams to a halt, killing the sirens but leaving the lights going.

Wes draws his weapon, grounding it against the dashboard as he clears his seatbelt and then pulls the door release.

Scrambles out of the shop and then retreats to the rear of the vehicle.

“LAPD.” Matthews shouts from the other side. “Driver, put your hands out the window.”

The crash seems to have mellowed the driver because he’s following instructions, responding with very little hesitation to each order that Matthews gives.

Something isn’t right.

He catches sight of movement off to his left and glances over to see a car stopped in the road behind them, the back door opening.

Sees the glint off the barrel of a gun.

“Matthews, look out.” he shouts, turning that direction and side stepping to cover his partner’s six. “LAPD, put the weapon down.”

The man behind that barrel steps into the open.

Wes doesn’t hesitate to fire.

But neither does the other man.

The bullet slams into him but Wes doesn’t slow down, he’s pretty sure it hit him where his vest covers, just moves forward with his gun on target.

The man doesn’t fire again but he’s still alive when Wes gets to him, kicking the weapon away.

Backup has arrived, he can hear the officers flooding the area and holsters his weapon, calling out that he’s going hands on before crouching to cuff the man.

He stands up, clearing out to allow the paramedics in and leaving other officers to cover the man while he’s being treated.

His chest hurts.

He presses his hand against it and freezes.

He can’t feel plate.

The kevlar in his vest must have been shifted when the partygoers were pulling on it.

Shit.

He drops to his knees, the pain catching up as the adrenaline fades.

“Mitchell!” “Shit, Mitchell is down.” “Need another ambo.”

He can’t breathe.

The darkness is closing in.

“Shit. Wes.”

This voice is a lot closer and paired with intense pressure over his side.

“Hang on, Wes.” Matthews begs. “Just hang on, kid. Help is coming, just don’t quit on me.”

Quit on him?

He just wishes the man actually cared.

“Lieutenant Mitchell is gonna kill me.”

That’s what he thought.

Aaron paces in the waiting room, both hands on his head.

He’s so dead.

He’s about eighty percent sure that Wes was leaning toward not saying anything about the party.

That he realized the long term consequences of reporting his training officer for a prank, however stupid and mean it had been, weren’t something he wanted to deal with.

There’s no way it doesn’t come out now.

The kevlar plates in his vest had been shifted during the tugging and pulling which is the only reason the bullet had penetrated.

The reason that Wes diving in to cover his ass had earned him a rushed trip to the nearest hospital and a hasty stabilization before being raced into surgery rather than a ride in the squad car to get a few x-rays.

Wes had saved his life tonight.

It’s his fault that he’d been hurt so badly in the process.

Officers are already filling the waiting room but so far there’s no sign of the brass.

They can’t be far out, one of them in particular.

“Sergeant Simmons.”

He turns in response to the call, swallowing hard at the sight of the man who’s just entered the room.

It’s not Lieutenant Mitchell just yet but it might be just as bad.

Grant Simmons isn’t just in charge of the city’s Violent Crimes squad, he’s Wes Mitchell’s godfather.

The man spots him instantly, striding directly toward him.

“Matthews.” he says with a voice that commands attention. “What the hell happened out there tonight?”

“The whole thing must have been a trap, Sergeant.” he says, swallowing hard. “I PIT’d the target vehicle and we were performing the felony stop but a second vehicle pulled in behind us. The guy was getting ready to take a pot shot at me when Wes spotted him and engaged. He took him down but he caught a round in the process.”

“His vest didn’t catch it?” the man demands, voice sharp. “And why the hell did you perform a felony stop without waiting for backup?”

“They’d spotted us.” he says. “I had no choice.”

Eyes are still sharp.

“That will be for the review boards to decide.” he says. “His vest?”

“One of the plates had shifted.” he says, bracing himself.

Sure enough, those eyes only sharpen.

“Shifted?” Simmons demands. “How in the hell did it shift?”

He swallows hard.

“It was my fault, Sergeant.”

“Your fault?” another voice demands and he glances up to see Lieutenant Mitchell looming over them. “What the hell did you do?”

What the hell did he do?

That’s a damn good question.

Always with the beeping.

He hadn’t been sure that he was going to wake up this time.

If he hadn’t, at least he wouldn’t have had to deal with the damn beeping.

“I tried to tell the doctors they should mute that.” a familiar voice says nearby. “But apparently it’s an essential function.”

“D’work jus’ fine ‘thout noise.” he mumbles.

“Tried to make that argument for you.” his dad says, rubbing his shoulder.

He struggles to force his eyes open.

“I didn’t bring Tito this time, sorry.” his dad tells him. “But you’ll be getting a lot of LAPD visitors and I know you’re already taking heat for being my kid.”

Wes has to admit, his colleagues and supervisors seeing him with a stuffed animal tucked against his side probably wouldn’t help matters any.

It does remind him of something though.

“Matthews?”

“Admitted everything.” his dad says darkly. “Told us about the party, that you wanted to wait on the stop but he pushed through.”

“Did you…?”

“I’m staying out of it.” his dad says. “Convinced Grant to do the same. A review board will do a full analysis of his decision to push forward with the stop without waiting for back up and disciplinary action for his little hazing adventure. It’s not going to end up clean for him but he might keep his job yet.”

Wes nods.

“Thanks, dad.”

“You just focus on getting better, kid.” his dad says. “And what you’re gonna say when you accept the commendation coming your way. Maybe this will help convince some people that you aren’t just a nepo baby, huh?”

Wes rolls his eyes.

He’s pretty sure he’ll be dealing with those accusations forever.

It’s worth it though.

[starflungwaddledee]

a comment left by @chickenpeep77 on my post about my "realistic penguin" dedede redesigns which i thought was so interesting and compelling i wanted to give a longer reply to! hope that's okay!!

this grew much longer than i even originally expected, so under the read more it goes. i'll also break it up into some kind of sections to make it easier

topics: the joy of the unfamiliar, bird features and the Snood, is dedede officially A Penguin?, and why i like to think he is. (also i have a small meltdown about galacta knight's fkn awful canon wings.)

hard sci-fi spec bio & the joy of the unfamiliar

i'm actually super into speculative biology, and have a lot of gripes with the way aliens in soooooo many fictions or fanons or whichever are always assumed to have a firm set of recognisably familiar traits. must they be made of meat; must they have skeletons; must they pick the most difficult and dangerous method of reproduction possible in the cosmos; just because it's familiar to us? must they be stand ins for humans and animals only? i think that the real fun of speculative hard sci-fi in particular is found in doing a jaunty little dance around the unfamiliar, around all the absolutely infinite and wonderful impossible possibilities out there. so all that to say that i absolutely agree with you about this in general.

the bird "beak skin" topic

i looovvve the idea of using the skin from a bird's mask to form an entirely functional and movable feature like a beak. that would presumably make it a caruncle (and it would share space with one of the best named thing in birds, the "snood"), some of which- like the snood- are indeed movable! many birds also already have caruncles that stretch over the beak, but to have the structure made entirely from it and stretched over teeth instead is very interesting and creative! it perhaps makes it more like skin and lips over a jaw, which is a fun and bizzare visual for a birdlike. i actually think that this kind of specbio could be a fun take for captain vul, who i also just did an earth-bird redesign for. vul has no species identified; for all we know he's a bird-like alien that just happens to look much like an anthromorphic eagle. i also headcanon magolor as a bird-like alien; though he shares few visual similarities with any earth birds.

is dedede a penguin officially or just in our hearts?

(please note that i'm informed on this only from english knowledge and various wikis. if anyone has other info here i'd gladly hear otherwise!) for king dedede in particular, while he's never been officially confirmed to be a penguin there's no shortage of canon references to penguins for him across franchises and he is mistaken for a penguin by snake in smash bros brawl. now i dunno what kind of penguins mr solid snake might have seen in his adventurous life, but while i could look at dedede and think "bird-like alien" i'm not sure i would think "damn that's a penguin for sure." so i personally think that dedede is not necessarily meant to be an unfamiliar alien, or even an alien that looks a bit like a generic bird or an alien that looks like a penguin. i think he is meant to be a penguin, or at least something that was a penguin at some point. and perhaps if there were not an abundance of actual genuine honest to god unidentified and delightfully weird aliens on Popstar and in Kirby games already, i would also be more interested in seeing dedede as a more bizzare bird-like creature than a penguin. you'll note in my designs i also drew him with some dense teeth (not found in earth penguins) and- this wasn't visible- my design also has dexterous talons extended from the wrists of his flippers. if he is a penguin, he doesn't seem to be a very water bound or piscivorous one. so maybe he's a bit distanced from penguins as we know them. several steps of evolution away. but i think because i can satisfy my specbio with the others (please know i have a whole host of unnecessarily complicated and fun waddle dee biology headcanons if anyone is ever interested... and don't get me started on celestials, hahah hahaha!-) for me the most interesting speculative question for king Dedede is not "what could he be if not a penguin like we know them" but actually "how the hell did a penguin get there??". and i think forgotten land gave us some extremely cool stuff to chew on wrt that! kind of like you mentioned with your wormhole theory!

why i personally like to bring Earth Birds into my kirby work

ALL of that said... i'm just doing designs for fun! i like birds, and i like earth birds in particular. they're sadly my only exposure thus far (alien birds though, if you're out there... 👋 ) so when i get the opportunity to utilise both my interest and my knowledge on birds and the way they function here in my fanwork, i take that chance! i had the skill to draw an earth-penguin-accurate dedede so i did, for fun! i also use my knowledge of wing structures for both birds and bats (and butterflies even) to tweak how i draw the various knight's wings to be "more realistic", as if that's a metric in space. but galacta's canon styled wings are.......................... i mean i have some capital t Thoughts about that One Long Feather. and i think most people understand this to be stylisation, but maybe it is just that he's an alien! maybe they're not even feathers, maybe it's just silly putty that looks like feathers! the world is your oyster tbh.

and the wrap up.

lastly, i can see you're into specbio too and that's super exciting, and i absolutely hope none of this sounds like... negative or remotely critical at all? i completely agree with you and love what you're doing with your stuff!! i'm just excited to engage with this topic you brought up and it made me thoughtful about the way i conceptualise dedede as less alien rather than more, when my preference is indeed usually more!

these are just my personal thoughts/preferences/headcanons and i guess like... why i think HCing dedede as a relatively normal penguin is actually perhaps the most interesting (and funniest) take for me and my own enjoyment! 😂 but everybody- including yourself- should always do what is the most fun and enjoyable for you; especially in a space like creativity and fandom!

anyway.. uhm.. hwahaha wow okay. well, anyone, if you read this far, thank you! sorry for accidentally opening this can of worms i'm sure it'll happen again

[phoebosacerales]

cool, do you have any book recommendation or any posts/website for learning more about the meaning of the terms?? I'd like to get more into it and start understanding how to interpret what it means to have the planets on x's planet's terms

If I'm not mistaken, the terms/bounds are so ancient that the reasoning for them is a little mysterious, maybe they were assigned some deeper cosmological meaning, but we can't know. They're just used as a type of essential dignity, but it's a minor dignity. For example, Saturn has even more dignity in Aquarius, i.e. more management over its own topics, when it's in the last 5 degrees of that sign in a day chart, because that's when Saturn is also in its own triplicity and terms/bounds, and there's almost no other planet's interests involved. If any other planet or point in the chart is in a Saturn dignity, that means Saturn has influence over how that planet or point behaves, but the influence is even stronger if Saturn itself is in its own dignity, because then Saturn won't have its own behavior modulated by other influences. In a practical way it mostly means there's less interference and you don't have to think harder on symbolic combinations. If Saturn is at 10° Scorpio, for example, to nail down the interpretation of the topics ruled by Saturn you have to think about how Saturn behaves in a Mars environment that has just a little bit of a venusian flair. But then, if Mars is in Capricorn they can exchange and have what we call a reception (in this case mutual), giving Saturn a little bit of dignity, being not as subjugated to its host's interests.

Basically it's another type of dignity you can use to make the interpretation more meaningful.

Like all dignities, the terms are used in calculations to determine things like the Almuten, Lord of the Nativity etc. And then also in a predictive technique we call Primary Direction with Distribution of the bounds. Firmicus Maternus also has a whole chapter dedicated to the bounds of the ascendant degree in the Liber Quintus of his Mathesis, saying that they're important to interpret a fate and character. But be careful about how you read Firmicus, his work is not to be read like an astrology app's report, it's a didactic book on astrological interpretation. He says shit like "if the ascendant is in the terms of Saturn the native is a mean person who will kill their siblings", which is a great symbol, a great analogy, but it's not supposed to be taken literally. If you're going to read Firmicus like it's a report think of what he says as a symbol, an image, like a tarot card maybe, Idk.

Now here are three more references on the terms:

Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century Alexandria): Tetrabiblos, book 1, chapter 23. The disposition of the terms. He's a little arrogant trying to put fault in the egyptians without knowing why they distributed the bounds the way they did, so I don't like it, but do read it, it's important.

Vettius Valens (2nd century): Anthologies, chapter 3. Valens gives interpretations for each of the 50 bounds around the zodiac, which I assume is to be read of the ascendant's terms. I'm not sure which divisions he's using, if it's egyptian or ptolmaic, so it's better to check that. It's a little bit silly in my opinion, especially when he gets specific, but interesting.

Guido Bonatti (13th century Italy): Liber Astronomiae Part II (Zoller's translation). He gives a method for interpreting dignities in length from chapter XI through XIX. I should also note that Chapter XIX "Concerning the fortitudes of any planets in each of his dignities" is an interesting one, because he explains an analogy for the dignities that gets used a lot by traditional astrologers today. I find that analogy less helpful and appealing now, but you could be interested in knowing it:

[the-indigo-symphony]

In your last post, you talked about how imaginary friends are in the grey area of plurality, and I was wondering if I could get elaboration because I have some imaginary friends that are both trauma related, and have been prominent, far past the age in which imaginary friends should stop appearing, and I'm very curious about that.

I didn't really have too much of a name for these guys, nor did I realize they at all counted on the spectrum of plurality, and I've been trying to figure them out, because like... The girl from the ring keeps popping up in my hallway, and there's a pair of torso less legs in my laundry room, and I don't know why or how they're there.

Hm... I think it mainly comes down to how the autonomy of imaginary friends is really a case-by-case thing. Some children have imaginary friends that are totally under their control, while others report having imaginary friends that have a lot more personal autonomy, and the like – a lot more like a headmate. Moreover, sometimes created headmates start out as imaginary friends, or headmates are mistaken as them. I've even talked with people who consider themselves to be pseudo-systems due to having IFs. Therefore, as a whole, I tend to consider IFs as being in a gray area of sorts, where they can go any which way depending on what exactly is going on with a particular host and their IF(s), and how they define their relationship and situation.

[autisticsupervillain]

It's Fictional Throwdown Friday!

This Week's Fighters...

Lapis Lazuli vs Sollux Captor!

Conditions:

No Restrictions.

Scenario:

At a diplomatic meeting between Era 3 Homeworld and Earth C, a comparison between troll blood castes and gem types escalates into a comparison between which is stronger, Lapis Lazulis or yellow blooded psionics. They elect to settle the debate with a sparing match between Lapis and Sollux.

Analysis: Lapis

For eons, long before the birth of humanity, the galaxy saw one and only one sentient race: the Gems of the Homeworld Empire, the loyal servants of the Great Diamond Authority.

Militaristic and imperialistic, the Gems conquered all that they saw for centuries, exterminating life uncontested for centuries until they found one planet: Earth. On this seemingly insignificant blue rock, they encountered two things they had never had to deal with before: sentient life forms and rebellious gems. Horrified by the revelation that they were destroying sentient life, Pink Diamond elected to stage a rebellion against herself under the persona of Rose Quartz, sparking a war that would cost countless lives.

One of the lives ruined in the wake of this catastrophe was that of one Lapis Lazuli, one of Homeworld's teraformers, who was attacked and "poofed" by the rebels in some unnamed skirmish. Captured by the empire and mistaken for a traitor, she was sealed inside a mirror and interrogated for information she didn't have until Homeworld was forced to retreat from Earth. She was then found by the Crystal Gems and, believed to be non sentient, kept and forgotten for decades. It wasn't until she was given to and released by the young Steven Universe that she would ever be freed from her prison.

She wasn't to happy with being held prisoner for centuries, first by her own Empire, then by the very rebels she was accused of being with in the first. Lapis wanted nothing more then to go back home, but as soon as she got the chance, Lapis was again taken prisoner. She had nowhere to go but Earth and Homeworld would keep trying to destroy that and her. It took... a long time before she could begin to think of the planet that took so much from her as a home.

While the road to recovery was long, Steven's forgiveness and compassion eventually allowed her to move past her trauma and integrate into human society, joining the Crystal Gems and becoming a protector of the Earth.

First and foremost, Lapis is a Gem and thus possesses a physiology entirely unique from that of a human. Firstly, her body isn't organic. It's made of hard light, and can thus be shapeshifted according to her desires, so long as she has enough energy for it. As a result, she does not age, doesn't need sleep, food, or drink, and will live forever. Similarly, if her body is every damaged or destroyed, she can simply recreate a new one. The only known way to kill her in combat is destroying her gemstone. But, it should be noted that gems can still be incapacitated by destroying their bodies, as repairing their physical form takes time and can take anywhere from a few minutes to several weeks depending on how long the gem takes to redesign their body. Furthermore, this process leaves the gem vulnerable to bubbling, a process where the gemstone is bubbled by another Gem, thus sealing away their consciousness.

Thankfully, Lapis has a whole host of abilities to prevent this from happening. Being designed for terraforming, Lapis has access to incredibly powerful hydrokinetic abilities. She can create wings to fly, can create chains to bind her opponents, even dragging them to the bottom the ocean, and can even create exact duplicates of her opponents made of water. She has also shown a limited degree of ice manipulation by freezing her water. Her whole job is to terraform entire planets to suit the conquering Gems's needs, by obliterating them with their own oceans. Her control is so great, that she was able to beat two other Lapis Lazuli's simultaneously and stole the entire planet's ocean overnight.

That much water moving that fast would generate kinetic energy equivalent to 35 petatons of TNT.

Source:

Even without using the entire ocean as a weapon, Lapis is remarkably powerful. She can easily send Jasper flying with one watery punch and can create duplicates equal to Garnet while not paying her any real attention. This means that she's easily a match for even the toughest of Gems even at a minimum level of effort. Garnet by herself was capable of effortlessly punching mountains in half, turning sand into glass while playing volleyball, and cracking an escape pod in half, which landed with a kinetic energy equivalent to 142 kilotons of TNT and was fine.

Source:

However, while Lapis is incredibly powerful... her body itself clearly isn't. She can endure the vacuum of space just fine, yes, but even common Rubies can do that. Given that Lapis was one-shot by Bismuth, it's quiet clear to me that she isn't as tough as her waterbending is.

Luckily, she should be fast enough to dodge any oncoming damage. She was able to fly from the edge of the Milky Way and back in the span of four months, requiring her to fly 93,414x faster than light.

Source:

This took place after the episode that explained that Gems physically cannot travel faster than light due to being made of it. Either light speed is much faster in the Universe-verse or writers cannot do math.

Overall, Lapis is clearly one of the most powerful of the Crystal Gems, bringing literally world shaking power to any match she enters, overwhelming all but the most powerful instantly.

Analysis: Sollux

Doom. The Aspect of dispair. Those bound by Doom are fates chosen sufferers, predestined for a life of pain and misery. And there is no better example of that in all of Paradox Space than Sollux Captor.

Born on the alien hell world of Alternia, Sollux was born as a Gold Blood. The third lowest caste in Troll society. Thanks to his status, he was not only relentlessly persecuted, but he was predestined to serve as a living battery for the Empire's warships, guaranteeing a short life of pain and misery once he left the planet. Even on the planet, his life wasn't much better. Largely because a nearby highblood and local 8itch mind controlled him into killing his own girlfriend.

So yeah, as you can see, if you're bound to the Aspect of Doom, then life is just going to shit over you right from minute one. While all your friends are bound to primordial concepts that grant them cool superpowers, you're bound to a concept that forces you to hear the voices of those who are soon to die. Well, okay, I say that, but it's not all bad for poor Sollux. For one thing, being a SBURB Player does give him a few handy perks, like a video game style hammerspace inventory called a Specibus, or a leveling up system called an Echeladder, which goes up continuously as you do random things, ensuring that you're always getting stronger.

Not like Sollux needs much help with that. He's easily the most powerful psionic on the planet, arguably the strongest in history. As a direct descendant (or clone. Kinda. It's complicated.) of the Psiioniic, Sollux has inherited all his absurd abilities and psionic powers. This includes telekinesis powerful enough to lift buildings and eye lasers big enough to vaporize skyscrapers.

Sollux's telekinesis is so powerful, it can overpower and redirect meteors summoned by the Reckoning, including those the size of Australia. That's a feat that requires at least 3 exatons of tnt. And that's on top of it's utterly ridiculous range, allowing Sollux to grab and throw meteors from the other side of the universe or blow up a laptop that was in a different timeline entirely.

Source:

But, as with all things Doom bound or SBURB related, it came at a price. Since Sollux was a SBURB Player, he was inevitably going to witness the end of his race, as it's the job of him and the rest of his friends to create the next universe while their old one dies. Furthermore, he didn't even get to live in our universe, because someone from the universe he and his friends just created traveled back in time to kill all of his friends. The pressure of having to hide from this god-like entity shattered his already fragile friend group, causing Sollux's rival, Eridan, to go on a killing spree. This resulted in Eridan vaporizing Sollux's eyes and killing his new girlfriend... right before Sollux gets dropped down a flight of stairs for unrelated reasons. And not long after that, Sollux half dies from the exertion of pushing his spaceship across the Outer Ring at faster than light speeds, moving at 1,041,320.39 the speed of light.

Ironically, the narration here describes him as supposedly moving at "near lightspeed" and there was a whole spiel from Jade about faster than light travel supposedly being impossible. Yet another case of "writers cannot do math".

Source:

Man, Sollux is just the Spider-Man of the Homestuck universe. He certainly has about as many dead girlfriends. That isn't even counting the time he got forcibly fused with the person who killed his girlfriend (not Vriska, the other one). Yeah, needless to say, when your life sucks as much as Sollux's does, you become something of a grumpy dick. He's relentlessly cynical and pessimistic asshole, which is certainly not helped by his bipolar mood swings and short temper.

Despite this though, Sollux's luck did eventually begin to turn around. He's far and away the most competent hacker in Paradox Space, capable of hacking into a video game that alters the fabric of reality. Eventually, his first girlfriend came back to life as an immortal time goddess and they hooked up again, a little while after Sollux discovered he is now half-ghost. This means, not only does he not age anymore, but he's only half blind now, with only his living half being bound to his pre-existing injuries. So, not only is Sollux Spider-Man, he's also Danny Phantom.

So, no matter how badly life kicks him, Sollux is always going to rain down hell on whoever and whatever crosses his path.

Throwdown Theme:

Throwdown Breakdown:

I feel like this match up is fairly decisive.

For as much raw power as both of them wield, Sollux takes the edge in the standard stat trifecta. His 3 exaton feat would translate to 3,000 petatons against Lapis's maximum output of 35 petatons, a whooping 85x strength gap in his favor. Meanwhile, in speed, Lapis can move thousands of times faster than light, while Sollux can move millions of times faster. (93,414c vs 1,041,320c, an 11x difference).

However, there is something of an argument to be made here. Both franchises do try to have a rule that faster than light speed is impossible, so wouldn't the gap be closer if we took that at its word?

Well, no. While Lapis would have scaling that borders in lightspeed even without her own feats, Sollux would explicitly be an exception to the light speed rule. His very own Ancestor, whom he inherits his powers from and is technically a genetic copy of, was described as being so powerful that he broke the lightspeed rule, being capable of crossing thousands of light years in mere hours. So it'd be even worse for Lapis if I didn't ignore the light speed rule. If anything, this gives Lapis something of an edge. While Sollux is decently faster, it's only while pushing himself to the brink that he sizably outpaces her.

Though, in Lapis's defense, she has several abilities that Sollux does not. Water chains to restrain him, water clones to wear him down, ice to freeze him solid. The problem with landing those win conditions is power. Lapis could drown Sollux or chuck him into space, as he needs air to breath while Lapis does not, but she'd struggle to do that when he can very easily blast the water away. Lapis has never made a water clone strong enough to match someone like Sollux, so she likely wouldn't be able to here, and if she did, she'd have to use up all her available water to maintain it, as the strength of her attacks relies on how much water she has access to.

I do believe it is hypothetically possible for Lapis to match Sollux if she had access to more water, as her strongest feat is something she did while highly injured, but that's highly circumstantial. If the entirety of Earth's oceans don't give her enough water to match Sollux head on, how likely is it that they'll fight on a planet that would?

Ultimately, that plays into Lapis's greatest issue here. Her powers are all external. She relies on a planet having a lot of water for her to weaponize, while Sollux's power is all his own. We know for a fact Sollux can survive his own power because he fires it out of his face and doesn't obliterate himself. We know for a fact that Lapis can't because Bismuth dropped her in one punch. When Sollux realizes that Lapis relies entirely on the ocean, he can just... throw the ocean into space. That's it. Fight's over.

Both of these characters lack a sizable amount of combat experience compared to their peers. While they're both capable of fighting people their own size, they do strongly rely on being absurdly more powerful than everything in most circumstances. It just so happens that Sollux is the much stronger one here.

This Throwdown's Winner is...

Sollux Captor!

[littlesistersti]

How often are Neurodivergent (mostly Autism/ADHD) people accused or mistook for being drunk/high?

CW: mention and jesting of alcohol, drinking, drunkeness, drugs, high, sober, intoxication, spiking drinks, how many more synonyms can I gather?

Word count: 586

Abstract: An observation on my own behaviour and a couple other people's behaviours that gets conflated with inebriation/intoxication.

A thought came to me post-event; one night my cousins decided for a get-together with drinks. I was not drinking because my period suddenly came and I took painkillers. Everybody in the room knew. However, I randomly asked, “Can you keep a chicken in an apartment?”

In my head, it made sense since we’re in an apartment right now and I have chickens so put these two things together… Everyone except my sister thought it was weird and joked I’m already drunk, someone spiked my water, I’m going to black out, bla bla bla, cliché.

I thought about this the next morning. I am not diagnosed with anything but my (current, as I write this but let’s not jinx anything) partner was diagnosed with ADD as a kid. He recognized the same signs he has with me and we both recognized I have something. I could get myself diagnosed, but my dad thinks I don’t have anything because he only knows the obvious stereotypes of ADHD/Autism/neurodivergence. (Although I think he doesn't know the difference between them and thinks ADHD is the same as autism.) Let’s digress.

I thought about that one time Eurovision Norway participant TIX had to select his position for the show (1st half or 2nd half), and there’s a live stream with chat but I can’t find the video. One of the hosts has her hand inside the bowl and TIX was supposed to say stop or something like that, I can’t remember. Throughout the whole time he was there, he showed the same behaviour I recognized in myself, Ethan Nestor from CrankGamePlays, and Mark Fischbach from Markiplier (those were my only references off the top of my head at the time). Unfortunately, what is a singer without haters, especially he won Melodi Grand Prix 🇳🇴 and defeated the fan favourite KEiiNO — the chat overflowed with “wow he’s such a weirdo” and “get him offstage, he’s drunk” and “is he high right now?” and such. This hurts when he stated multiple times in interviews about his Tourette’s and ADHD. He named himself TIX for a reason.

So I pulled up a Go0gle and searched “autism or adhd accused of being drunk?” I mostly found medical or psychology stuff on how someone with autism is prone to alcoholism and similar. I found one article on someone mistaken to be drunk and arrested for it. Link below.

I didn’t find much else on Youtube. Maybe it’s my weak key words and searching. I don’t know but can anybody else provide their own input? Has anybody done a study on this?

PS. Slightly off topic, but there was one year, one time, I said I was overstimulated and two other cousins in the room laughed and said something about what substances I took or not (everybody knew I didn't take anything). Don't remember the words but remembered them laughing and not taking any effort to change the setting. That was years ago, at least two. A few years later, Christmas season of 2023, those two cousins and a couple other cousins mentioned getting overstimulated. I don't know if they got better in the timespan or if the situation was dramatically different. The case here was, imagine your typical family gathering but it's immigrant parents so there's more than three aunts and uncles each, and everybody's default volume is 50 instead of 15. Smaller space without windows. The case then was less people, exactly or roundabout three aunts and uncles, bigger space with a glass door.

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