#ch: question

[knockknockitsnickels]

"Sacrifice the Yourself" (title pending), the hip new slay the princess swap AU, in which you and the girlies must decide if you're gonna let a giant bird stab you (and maybe.... find love?!)

[doomedyuri]

DOCTOR CASPER DARLING IN CONTROL (2019)

[austajunk]

Local small wet blanket considering crying to get out of inconvenient situation, more at 11.

[everybatchee]

There he is!

[sapphicomics]

the question: all along the watchtower #5

[eatsbooks]

so what do you think the autumn court’s political system actually looks like?

feudalism !! i think that system fits well for a few different reasons:

canonically, we already know that beron parcels out the land for his sons to rule over in his stead. a feudalistic system would explain why he decided to have so many children to begin with — more sons = more vassals to swear fealty to him, ones that he can better ensure the loyalty of than those of other bloodlines. this further helps to cement vanserra reign. with seven! sons!! he can effectively bump all the other non-vanserra nobles who oversaw parcels of land down the hierarchy, ensuring all are beneath not only him as high lord but also beneath another vanserra lord to boot. it also explains why the younger vanserra boys are so antagonistic towards one another, even knowing the unlikelihood that they will actually become heir — with their brothers out of the picture or just out of their father's favor, they have the opportunity to accrue more power by expanding their provinces or even taking over one another's.

we also know the common folk are suffering while the aristocracy is flourishing. if none of the land they tend actually belongs to them and all of their profits eventually find their way to beron, whether it's coin for rent or the crops they harvest that will ultimately be sold, in exchange for protections that are rarely actually received, this lends more credence to a discomfited autumn court population that is too disenfranchised to do anything about it.

plus there's more fun political drama amongst the vassals and nobles this way! everything has to move up and through this chain of command, which means the corruption can be systemic and spread beyond beron's rule. makes it even harder for eris to enact widespread reform. yummy.

autumn land is always fertile. i guess that's a personal hc more than anything canon, but i feel like that makes sense. anything can be grown, no matter the season, and the soil is always rich, even after a harvest. feudalism is the easiest way to ensure all of the land is being utilized to its fullest, most profitable extent without beron having to overextend himself as a ruler.

while this makes it more difficult for widespread reform, feudalism would give eris more room to maneuver in his own province. in the same way that there's more opportunity for corruption, there is also more opportunity for him to enact positive change — as long as he is coming up with enough coin / crops / what have you to meet quota, he can largely rule as he sees fit without beron's scrutiny. plus, with the land parceled and an isolated sect of nobility beneath him, it's easier to keep any differences in the way he rules compared to his father or his brothers contained. it even fits in with the respect and loyalty he has for his own guard / soldiers versus those of his father — they come from his province, they are his people.

a feudalistic system also gives beron an even better reason beyond just being power-hungry to want to expand his territory in acosf by allying with briallyn. he needs more land to make more profit! and spring might not function exactly like autumn, but it is no doubt the closest when it comes to fertile and bountiful land.

[anna-scribbles]

particularly inspired moment from ch 2 of mine and @sha-nwa‘s new enemies au fic call it even 🫶

[kindahoping4forever]

CalumHood: Fragments://memories_the making of OCO captured on [digital devices] powered by the reluctance to cut my hair

[matcha-milkies]

Married Life Worldbuilding Lore Drop ♡

❝ Bill has changed the cultural landscape of romance in some pretty sad ways. ❞

I’ve been rambling in my Discord server and wanted to do a lore dump about the post-Bill culture of Dimension 13’\ (the official designation of the Married Life AU). I want everyone to be on the same page, since some server members have expressed wanting to create fan content surrounding this lore!

It's no Chapter 10, but I hope it's fun to read all the same. Big walls of text under the cut:

♡ Despite outward appearances, Bill is terribly insecure about his relationship with Ford (part of the reason he keeps him locked up so tightly).

♡ You can imagine Bill would hate seeing anyone in a relationship happier or healthier than his. He may not even be consciously aware of why looking at happy couples fills him with so much visceral, inexplicable envy anger, but it does.

♡ At first, this might manifest in him favoring the torture of happy couples he comes across in his domain. Singles are more likely to get off scot-free. This is why Bill flesh-sculpted Jonathan and Lucy and then made Ford eat them. They were truly in love and committed to each other, and Bill couldn’t stand the sight of them.

♡ This insecurity in Bill escalates. He needs more control, but he also needs to be Mr. Nice Emperor. He appoints himself the arbiter of romance/marriage. Because he knows best on the subject of course! And he just doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, getting into a relationship they shouldn’t. All non-Bill-sanctioned relationships of a romantic nature are illegal and punishable by neverending torture (which Bill might subject you to anyway, for funsies, but unsanctioned romance is a surefire way to rocket you to the top of the list of candidates, and Bill has an ever-growing number of enforcers and loyalists). But don’t worry, it’s still for your own good! Very 1984 I know. If you’re actually in love, good luck getting that approved.

♡ This leads to one of two major culture shifts:

Either A) 13 adopts a hypersexual culture (much like the Hand of God AU for those familiar, although for very different reasons in this case). Romantic love becomes a sort of nigh unobtainable virtue reserved for God and his beloved, and a select chosen few. People resort to sex to satisfy their need for intimate connection.

OR B) 13 becomes hyper asexual for fear that anything bordering on passion will anger Bill. This however does create a conundrum in the lack of reproduction, at least for species who procreate via sex. Could still work if people still have sex but it’s a very… businesslike transaction and possibly organized/ordered by group leaders. Literally “I only have sex in missionary position for the sole purpose of procreation.”

^ I have not yet fully committed to either of the above routes, though I’m leaning more towards B.

♡ The heart and other romantic symbology such as roses and swans become sacred and divine. (Designs of Married Life Ford from later in the story will feature a red heart tattoo under his left eye).

♡ This monopoly on romance is of course extremely authoritarian, but literally in every other aspect of life, Bill is like “Go nuts, do what you want.” It’s just this one thing in particular that he fixates on and becomes obsessed with controlling.

♡ This also forces people to vicariously enjoy Bill and Ford’s love story, as it becomes one of the only ways the average person can experience romance at all. It tends to create some very obsessive fans. Bill turns their life into a sitcom called “Married Life” and broadcasts it across the dimension as daytime television. Some tweaks and edits are made of course, to make for better TV and not at all to give Bill the most flattering angle possible. However, Bill doesn’t always understand what does or does not register as disturbing to humans, and something is still very obviously wrong with this relationship. Anyone who isn’t a delusional Ciphertologist knows full well what’s going on here, but you should really keep those thoughts about domestic abuse to yourself if you know what’s good for you.

This TV series even makes it beyond Dimension 13’\ as VHS tapes. There are a few lost episodes and a lot of behind-the-scenes trivia that you’d have to dig pretty deep to find.

The sitcom aspect of the lore could honestly be an entire post on its own, and I look forward to developing it further and incorporating it into future chapters as well. It just might be a while before it can come into the story in any significant way, and it is helpful to have this context when understanding the wider culture of 13’\, so I wanted to get the lore out there.

**clicks button that brings us to the final PowerPoint slide which says “Thank you! Any questions?”**

[gloomforrestrunes]

Chapter 2, Page 75

prev // next // first

hi. this scene is very short but its a lot. sorry ♥

[everyillumi]

[crovvrr]

I

I don’t know man

@the-real-sans-undertale anyways here, I saw people redrawing this soooooo here’s a scribble

Ref under the cut

[cautiously0ptimistic]

And we go beyond the farthest reaches, where the light bends and wraps beneath us. And I know, as you collapse into me, this is the start of something.

[yayakoishii]

THE BUTTERFLIES ARE INSANE MY INSIDES ARE FLUTTERING AND OMFG

HE'S SO FUCKING SEXY?#??? him accepting the mephisto-approved cutesy sign and then going "get out" PLEASE I WAS SHAKING IN HAPPINESS I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I'M SO HAPPY I LIKED HIM FROM THE START AND he really showed that he's worth those feelings 🥹

this is unnecessarily even more sexy, I love him so much uuuuuughhh

the power he has 😩 I'm down bad bad

[untitledrockstar-if]

So how did mc and R actually meet? Is this preset

yes, it's preset and will be discussed in game so I won't spoil it now.

[clonehub]

i was on twitter cackling (again, for eternity) about anakin inventing the word transgender, but also expressing my bafflement at transphobia even existing as a concept in star wars in general but the clones in particular

(sister says she was worried about not being accepted by her brothers and that they dont know what happens with "unusual" clones on Kamino)

There's like. a lot of presumptions in this that just expose authorial ignore more than actual worldbuilding about a specific system of oppression.

What exactly was Sister saying or doing that would be coded as feminine or at least not masculine or otherwise somehow queer? Expressions of queerness are incredibly culturally specific.

Why would Kaminoans have our conception of (frankly, white) cisheteropatriarchy?

Even if they did, why would they punish any clone for not following it? They don't even think the clones are people.

Again expressing queerness is so so so specific to ones culture and region and we don't have evidence of any like. counter-cultural expressions of anything among the clones outside being disobedient or bad at fighting.

It'd be one thing if the drill sergeants were going "THIS IS HOW TO BE A MAN!!! BE A MAN!!" but. we havent seen them do that lol

Why would the clones care? Not understanding is one thing, I can see confusion, but what views are they upholding or at risk of upholding if there's a chance of rejection and a concept of acceptance?

Random person pet peeve of mine but why couldn't sister choose her own name lol