#i am still So Normal™️ about them /s

[your-turn-to-role]

so okay. we're playing 5e reskinned to gw2 bc that's an mmo we all play, for the most part it's not that relevant bc we're still using 5e mechanics, but a couple of things:

game waypoints are present as they exist in the lore of the game, but so people can't just teleport whenever, you have to be at one to jump to another

everything extra-planar in this world exists in one weird dimension that no one can fully explain, the afterlife, the god realms, it's all mixed up in there, including gw2's most interesting dungeon system, the fractals of the mists, which are echoes of various real world events scattered throughout that dimension. there exists a group of space pirates in lore that frequently travel to the fractals to scavenge things. at one point we were working for them while undercover but this has been the furthest from anyone's mind lately

party members:

ukki - my asura (small bat-like gnome people) artificer. she is a botanist, she is elderly, she wants nothing to do with all this bullshit, but someone's gotta keep these fuckers alive

hiraeth - sylvari (plant person) sorcerer. sylvari are born as adult bodies with brains developed enough to walk and talk, but you know, immaturity still can show in other ways. hiraeth is one year old, extremely bizarre, just sort of wanders into places and does fucked up magic and somehow everyone wants to adopt him

versira - charr (big cat person) rogue. professional scout. not a spy, no matter how much people mistake her for one. adrenaline junkie. Extremely Fast™️

the situation we are in! an already extremely powerful dragon has gained some control over time. the person he has chosen as his herald, and the one helping him take over the whole world, is an existing game villain, who normally you kill at one point in the story. however, in this version of canon, whenever she dies, he just resets everything back to the moment she became his herald (about 7 years ago)

we have known this for quite a few sessions now, but we've been in a very careful balance of trying to stop her from furthering his plans without killing her (or, you know, i am. the other two have pre-existing grudges making this harder), or doing anything else that would make the dragon reset time, because a) the time loops are slowly degrading reality, and b) if we fail, we gotta start over with no knowledge this is happening

asura are a very technologically advanced species, so i had a plan in place in case we fail: make a digital copy of all my notes on the situation so far, including reasons for a past version of me to trust that i wrote this. if i suspected we were about to lose this loop, i would send it to a different set of extra-planar sailors we'd encountered before, so they could send it back to me

spoiler alert: outside of my lab way out in the middle of the jungle, i fail to keep these two from doing a murder.

our dm gives us a couple of rounds of bullet time, describing the time loop resetting as waves of time erasing radiating out from the body

i send off my email and hope that i can keep that line of information open

hiraeth. counterspells.

we are level 12, the highest he has is a 6th level slot, and our dm rules this as a 9th level spell

he rolls exactly the 19 he needed! obviously not enough to break the effect entirely, it's too powerful for that, but our dm lets it create a barrier around him, so when the loop resets he and he alone will stay put, and end up in this spot 7 years ago exactly as he is now (which is helpful bc he's still 6 years from being born and none of us were sure how to keep his player able to keep playing if he hadn't managed to do that)

but versira.

takes the description of the time waves as a "if i move quick enough, that can't touch me"

and with her various existing attributes, the mobile feat, i think she's got something else bringing her up to 60ft, her existence as a rogue, and the haste i cast on her a few rounds before time reset, just runs.

we are in the middle of nowhere bc ukki is a hermit, we are not close to a waypoint, but she has 480ft a round and nothing can stop her!

even with the round of daze from the haste wearing off, makes it to the nearest waypoint. buys herself some time in waypointing as close as she can to the space pirate base. she's a scout, she's never gone anywhere without surveying the whole thing, so she knows exactly the quickest way through to where she wants to get. she also has spider climb boots, so fuck it, if there's people in your way, run on the ceiling!

makes it to one of their ships. people try to stop her. she pulls a gun on them and goes "if you value your lives, and most of all, your paycheck, come with me right now"

rolls a 22 on the intimidation check.

and flies the ship out of this dimension

(her player: now, normally, when people say don't split the party, they mean spatially

me: we're splitting the party temporally?

her player: we are splitting the party temporally!)

waits it out for a day, then flies back to reality, in the new reset timeline

i am somehow the only person who didn't just show up again

there are now two versiras

nothing could possibly go wrong

(also pay no attention to the now temporally displaced pirate crew they'll be fiiiiine)

you know since i used to do pathfinder campaign updates on here and i haven't talked about any of our dnd campaigns in a while, have i mentioned that last session our rogue out-ran a time loop????

[kotosnoozy]

yuri getting a little kissy is the highest form of self-care 😌✨

[tired-biscuit]

Hey, so I read your posts about Kiba being unreasonably hated by the fandom, and I wanted to let you know, that while true, Kiba is still massively popular, in the popularity polls. He's like, always in the top 15/to top 20 most popular characters overall, so at least he does get lots of love, to balance out the minority who hate him for no reason. A character who gets real hate for no reason at all, despite being massively cool and underrated, and doesn’t get near enough love to compensate for all the hate he gets is Kankuro. I literally wish for Kankuro to be half as loved as Kiba is in the fandom, but what we gonna do.

idk i've always seen kiba being hated more than loved. might have just been my personal experience, but ppl drag him all the time and they drag his fans too. he's also really popular to portray the "villain" in fanfiction, as in the toxic ex bf, or the cheating s/o or whatever..... authors tend to make him sleazy and gross, even if it necessarily doesn't contribute to the story at all, and it's done just because they don't like him. not that that's wrong, it's completely their choice cos it's their story, but eh.....

like for example, i read this one naruto and sasuke x reader fic a while back. reader went out on a date with kiba cos those two were being morons, and instead of having him be normal and in character, he was just plain creepy so that nart and sasuke could have ended up looking good in the end. and i've seen plenty of fics make him the bad guy constantly so the love interest can make you go wowwww........ i usually stop reading them as soon as the pattern starts lol

also the constant comments that he's useless are rly ehhhhh (i mean by that standard, besides naruto and a few others in shippuden, aren't they all useless, let's be honest? most of 'em were pretty much forgotten lol)

and yeah, i think both kiba and kankuro could be considered niche. while kiba's fandom might be a bit bigger cos he's from konoha and one of the OG 12, i was baffled when i could barely find any fics about him when i joined the fandom 2 yrs ago. ppl who simp for that guy™️ that barely has any screentime have it rough, ik.

so i decided to make my own stories, and am still writing them. i wrote so many one-shots, drabbles, idk what. wrote a 130k book about him. i commission art. i support ppl who write about him/draw him. i make content, encourage others to make it and pay for it too, because i wanna see my comfort character in bigger amounts that canon failed to give me.

i guess my advice is that you can do that as well if you wanna see more of your favourite boy. produce the content you wanna see, self-indulgent stuff is fun and good for the heart <3

[literaphobe]

imma push back a little against the “testers shouldn’t be in mcc even if it was years ago” thing. wolfeei (ex-tester) made a post a year ago about them being given the chance to dip, since the “testers can’t compete” rule only changed to being perma after MCCR (old rules). getting mad at FBM just for being an ex-tester feels like fishing for stuff to be mad about. him being added in general is fair

atp imo it’s not that different than a player who hasn’t participated since s1. in the last 10+ events since MCCR, meltdown and loads of new maps have been added (ace race, battle box, pkt, half the grid runners rooms they played, half the tgttos maps) plus all of the stuff like coins changes & the SoT tunnel difficulty increase/sand being made more scarce. obviously the testing exp is a type of advantage, but as cyan made clear, what translates the most is just gaming skill in general.

HOWEVER, adding fbm ~now~ def went against the spirit of an mcc underdogs but eh it’s done & dusted, now we have the proof that it was a dumb concept. i didn’t hate the idea of the event; clearly noxcrew wanted to do something encouraging for the more chill players who are stuck as continual losers, but what they came up with was stupid. oh the happy clappy boomer vibes of wanting to get rid of give out participation trophies canon coins... the balance mcc strives for between a competitive + for fun event is kinda funky & subjective but, i think it makes for good vibes in the end! being able to be lighthearted & not 100% srs about everything always eliminates a lot of toxicity too. (I am approaching mcc27 as it not mattering. it is noncanon to me. the “half canon” explanation was ass. at least it gave us something to bitch about lol)

1 thing I can respect FBM for is coming in and winning an mcc & placing 1st indiv already. it will make the reddit bros a little easier to bear because i guess technically he has hit the tier standard™️ in a “half canon” way, aka it doesn't count at all lmaoo. if I see ppl start calling him s tier already before he’s ~consistently~ placing top 5 i will start punching

sorry 4 the essay. unrelated! purple mentioned dnf at some point after tgttos (dnf i.e. did not finish) but it gave me a heartattack still.

i mean there’s not much for u to be pushing back against bc i think we reached a consensus here already that he could’ve debuted in a normal mcc on a balanced team or a non-canon mcc for strong players and ex testers but putting him in this event tipped the scales in a way that went against the spirit of what ‘mcc underdogs’ was supposed to be. idt anyone’s really mad at firebreathman himself but more so what he represents. another purpled situation where we’re mostly just sick of the reddit

[mazegays]

I posted 445 times in 2022

That's 42 more posts than 2021!

21 posts created (5%)

424 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@its-tea-time-darling

@thominho-incorrectquotes

@highgaydrama

@un-ah

@thomallyweek

I tagged 422 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#remember that i love queue - 135 posts

#thominho - 78 posts

#thomas - 49 posts

#tea - 37 posts

#minho - 36 posts

#thomally - 29 posts

#thomallyweek2022 - 18 posts

#nalby - 18 posts

#newt - 17 posts

#gifs - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#while it's evolved over the years the basis of the theory still comes from 14yo me there is definitely room for improvement discussion etc

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

BTW if anyone has questions about my wips (the whumpy slowburn Thominally fic and the empath Thomas fic... that's what's actually typed up. for now) or questions about like. most other things too feel free to send them! I love getting asks and talking about fics lol

9 notes - Posted May 11, 2022

#4

@its-tea-time-darling

List five things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box of the last ten people who reblogged something from you. Spread the positivity ✨💛🌻

okay like I have way more than five things so I'm going fandom-specific here lol

--writing collective headcanons/bouncing around ideas with my moots

--adding onto @thominho-incorrectquotes posts either in the tags or on the post itself

--literally anything that portrays Thomas as the 'gifted kid' he is: smart as all get-out with no social skills (also. adhd Thomas. bc I am adhd and so are all my fav characters. minho? gally? sonya? harriet? you bet!)

--the people on ao3 who pop up every once in a while as having kudos all of my tmr fics (even if they don't leave comments it's appreciated)

--when people come yell at me about my fics, whether here or ao3 idc just!! yell ur appreciation at me it is appreciated

10 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#3

@its-tea-time-darling

because this 40k fic isn't getting any shorter and it's looking less and less like slowburn with each section

wtf you have a thominally wip what the fuckwhatthefuckwhathesjxbhshdsjxbdbbsdbbd

yep! it started as a way to hit as many thomally week prompts as I could in one fic, and has expanded greatly since, leading into thominally. no idea when it'll be anywhere near done, because it's not now!

11 notes - Posted May 17, 2022

#2

@its-tea-time-darling

i may or may not have started on thominho week writing

yes!!! this is great news!!! i have not started on this year's yet but i literally just finished 2020's like 10 minutes ago so that counts for something right?

13 notes - Posted May 17, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

@monkey-d-momo

I wanted to know what you liked so much about my empath Thomas headcanon and if you're gonna publish your fic soon (no pressure or course, but like you, I really like this headcanon and I need more of it haha) Love you!

-thominho-incorrectquotes

okay, so you know when you read a prompt or smth and immediately have Ideas™️? That's what happened. I read your headcanons and was like: I need 500 fics about this immediately, and I have Ideas for one so I will write it myself.

Also, it's a different take on Thomas’s character, especially because we all see him as oblivious to, well, everything. Empath Thomas can be oblivious, but it has to be done differently, because he knows what people are feeling--he feels it himself. So maybe he doesn't trust his own emotions now, because while sometimes it's easy to tell that it's not his, he can’t always do that. Especially when they're very similar to what he's feeling. Hence Thomas sticking with logic and objectivity when he can, when he has time to think things through. He ignores everything he feels because he doesn't know what's his.

(This is not a good idea, Thomas.) He also doesn't talk to anyone about this in true Thomas fashion of questioning everything that's not personal, so as far as he knows, it's normal.

Minho eventually figures out that Thomas never seems to respond emotionally to anything, and they're a bunch of teenage boys stuck in a Maze. Like, emotional outbursts aren't super common but he’s never met someone who just... doesn't respond to anything. Ben's attack? Yeah, Thomas was scared, but then Ben was probably scared too (Thomas knows the anger didn't come from him.) So he hides his reactions as best he can and pretends they don't exist.

Minho figures out that Thomas can feel everything, and has no defense against it, when something happens to Thomas and Thomas, mostly out of it, tells Minho to stop worrying because it hurts.

(Thomas does not remember this, but part of the reason he sticks to the Deadheads to sleep here is because some of the Gladers have nightmares, which equals strong emotion, which overwhelms him and causes him physical pain.)

And so Minho starts trying to figure out how Thomas can block or mute others' emotions and help him trust his own again, but it’s a slow process, and then the Scorch happens and Denver happens and they don’t have time, and it turns out that Thomas has just been shoving everything behind mental shields and it's too much one day and well... that's definitely not a good thing.

This got a little long! I kind of focused on the whumpier side here but there is fluff that goes with it (and a definite happy ending).

As for the fic, the above is kind of where I'm planning on taking the longer version. The shorter verison, which will only be Fever Code Era, involves Minho figuring it out on his own and working to help Thomas. Then he gets sent to the Maze, and of course later Thomas does as well, which means all progress is reset re: managing empathic abilities. That will hopefully be done sometime next week, but my work schedule is still up in the air so no promises.

Thanks so much for the ask, Momo! 💜 Really hope I do this justice.

19 notes - Posted May 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[writtenbyevie]

✨slumber party tag game✨

I want to have a sleepover with my mutuals and this is my compromise. no obligation to participate if tagged!!

what pajamas are you wearing: either a big ass t-shirt with shorts and fuzzy socks or my onesie with my name embroidered on it (my family all has matching christmas onesies because we’re That White Family™️)

socks or no socks: fuzzy socks everywhere except to sleep

favorite midnight snack(s) : cheddar ruffles or anything chocolate

blanket fort or floor pile: blanket fort with high top chairs as support so we can still see the TV

what movie(s) are you bringing: the adam project, about time, and daniel sloss’s comedy specials

card games, board games, or video games: board games (love Clue especially)

hot cocoa or wine (or other beverage) : hot cocoa!! I also drink like two cups decaf coffee every night so that too

how far are you making it in the pillow fight: i will organize the troops and lead them into battle, but would definitely get my shit rocked, top 4

two truths and a lie: I helped catch a murderer when I was 5, I nearly got murdered on a film set when I was 19, my almost godfather was arrested murderer three days before I was born (accidental homicide theme)

hair braiding, face masks, or makeovers: face masks, specifically the sheet ones with weird designs. like the animal ones

confess one thing about your crush (or partner, squish, or blorbo): he’s got this super soft laugh that takes up his whole face and it’s so contrasting to how he normally looks (super fit and all broody) and it’s adorable

late night daydream song(s) : inevitable by anberlin or cristofori’s dream by david lanz

do you believe in ghosts: kind of, like the scientific version w/ time and space folding in on themselves not like vengeful spirits or possession

what about aliens: oh yeah, with as big as space is, it’d be more unlikely for aliens NOT to exist

have you ever slept talked/walked: I slept walked the night I turned 13. got all my friends and family up and said something bad was gonna happen and freaked them all out. I randomly woke up in my living room and remember none of it rip

what would be your superpower: telekinesis!

what mythical creature are you: I’ve been told I look and act rather fae/nymph like

what position do like to sleep in (plus pillows and blankets preference!) : comforter, two blankets, a gravity blanket and literally nine pillows bcuz I am touch starved. I start on my side w/ a pillow between my legs and always end up on my stomach holding one under my head

three things you like about yourself (no skipping!! this slumber party is about self-love!!) : my intelligence/creativity, my face, and my determination

how late do you stay up (current time): midnight!

I would like to invite to the sleepover (no pressure tagging):

@mrs-nubenueve @homosubtext @i-am-suffer @perpetual-trashcan @kirakirabluemoon @haikyuu-brain-rot

luv to you all ✨

[moss-on-a-tree15]

I’m making an intro post specifically because i am. Very bored <33 so enjoy I guess!!

Names: Willow / Moss / Moose / Aspen

Pronouns (in order of preference): star/starself, they/them, fae/faer, she/her (except actually dont use she/her thanks (it’s a whole thing))

just now realizing I forgot to add my age-

Age: minor! 16!

Oh important thing probably!!! I don’t use tags much just because I have a terrible memory so brain just. Forgets they exist. So just wanted to say be careful y’all cuz I don’t wanna accidentally (or on purpose- ksjdks) trigger anyone! (/g) 💕 (Note: i Do try to tag more common triggers? but there’s no guarantee just cuz memory no work good)

Feel free to send me asks/tag me in stuff/etc! It gives me serotonin to interact with people! :)

Theres a good chance I’ll be super awkward cuz I just. Cannot be a normal human being at first for some reason lol but! Yeah! (I’m writing this while very tired, words no work good havdjhsjxhs)

Random Facts About Me??:

• I have ADHD

• Social Anxiety??? GAD???? Idk man my therapist and psychiatrist are both Highly confusing

• I practice witchcraft! Very on and off since like,,, April of 2020?

• Mmmm I’m like. pretty sure im not religious- jshdksh still kinda figuring that one out ksjxksj

• omniromantic

• demihomosexual

• demigirlflux

• ☀️ Aries | 🌙 Leo | ⬆️ Libra

• INFJ? ISFJ???

• eye yam (I am) White™️

Hyperfixation(s): Dream SMP, witchcraft, minecraft (in general), Lovejoy, mcyt (in general)

My personally fav DSMP animations master list!!

will add to this later!

for @cavern-of-shenanigans <33 KDBCKBD

[outlander-babes]

Drums of Autumn thoughts*

*y’all know the drill

Jamie being there for his friends hanging is heartbreaking yall

Claire being absolutely terrified of Rollo is what I call consistent writing

Have I mentioned how much I love Duncan Innes?

Gayle is hysterical oh my god

Roger screaming “Tulach Ard” is everything I didn’t know I needed

Omg he told her what the Frasers would say so she could be a part of it if she wanted I’m going to cry

Joe threatening to beat the shit outta Roger is so funny

WHY ARE YALL MAKING SEXY PASSES AT EACH OTHER IN JOES LIVING ROOM STOP IT GET SOME HELP

Young Ian: I don’t know Greek

Jamie: oh my god he doesn’t even know Greek

Steven Bonnet sucks ass but then we could have guessed that

Stan Jocasta Cameron

Ah yes the age old American sport of antagonizing people and then lynching them when they fight back

Philip Wylie get kicked in the balls challenge

Am I a little bit in love with Mr John Quincy Mayers? Yes.

I’ll bet y’all $80 right now that that soldier guy murdered that poor girl

Pollyanne seems very nice I like her

Hey now Claire and Jamie are 2 for 2 they both killed a deadly wild animal!

Jamie making friends with natives and immediately trying to learn a bit of their language is very cute

Henceforth I propose as a nickname we call Jamie “strawberry”

If you think Roger MacKenzie is bad because he was upset Brianna rejected his marriage proposal you need to leave my blog

Also Brianna sweetie please go to therapy

Duncan Innes is my sweet boy and you can pry him from my cold dead hands

I love that we’re getting more into the magic/fantasy aspects of the story

Claire finally figure out you aren’t just a time traveler challenge

Every time she describes what happens when she heals someone I’m like “babes that shit isn’t normal that’s some Master Raymond type shit”

Roger I love and cherish you but sometimes you don’t make good decisions

CLAIRE WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT MAGIC WHAT DID I SAY THATS A FUCKING GHOST

Duncan Innes that’s it that’s the thought

I think Brianna should go to therapy

Rollo is goodest boy and Ian being so proud of him is so cute

Haha Jamie’s an old man (who can somehow still get some even with a busted back and a minor case of hypothermia)

God I’m in love with Young Ian

WILLIE THE BOY IS BACK

Nayawenne deserved better at that’s just facts

Young Ian and Willie are the duo I never knew I needed

Can Lord John PLEASE move on. It’s been over 10 years he doesn’t love you in fact the very thought of you being attracted to him makes him violently uncomfortable and thus makes me uncomfortable MOVE THE FUCK ON JESUS CHRIST

I love John and think he’s great but literally this is unhealthy and he’s starting to annoy the fuck outta me

Anyway

Jamie telling Willie that he loves his son but being unable to tell him that HE is the son is SO SAD

I hope the natives reach their new home safe

BRIANNA GO TO THERAPY

Geillis is ✨awful✨

JOE KNOOOOOOOWS

Fiona? Do you mean...baby?

Ian Murray is in fact one of the loves of my life

Roger accidentally screwing up because he wanted to meet his dad is both sad and amusing

Fiona dousing him in coffee when he shows up on fire? Queen shit.

Brianna punch Laoghaire in the face challenge

Lizzie’s so cute omg I’m in love with her

Hell yeah Roger save your great grandfather!

Steven Bonnet is the Worst™️

Oh Lizzie my sweet summer child

Was Roger in the wrong? Yes. Did he have valid reasons? Also yes.

No Roger hate in this household

Bree and Jamie are so cute

I find if fascinating that Lizzie remembered Roger was going by MacKenzie but Brianna who was also there is like ✨Roger Wakefield✨

Lizzie is baby and I understand where she was coming from but DAMNIT LIZZIE

Jamie my love you make some fucking stupid decisions sometimes

Kinda overshadowed by my worry for Roger is that the prose about Brianna attempting to overcome her trauma is BEAUTIFUL

Let Claire bitchslap her husband when he lets his 1700’s misogyny get the better of him

Listen I love Jamie but there are times where I genuinely wanna rock his shit

Brianna and Roger pining and trying to get back to each other is so sweet 🥺

Poor Roger he’s going through it

Why did Ulysses’ story make me cry??

Pére Alexandere deserves better!

Brianna and John are the power couple of the century

Roger is not doing good

Why does Jamie hate Roger so much ugh

OK YALL IS THE FUCKING “LOOKING OUT FOR NUMBER ONE” RANT IVE HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT ONLY IN THE SHOW BECAUSE I HAVE NOT SEEN HIDE NOR HAIR OF MY SWEET BOYS SUPPOSED MISOGYNY

He named the baby Alexandra excuse me while I cry

John and Brianna’s friendship is SO CUTE I LOVE THEM

Why do the show runners do this??? Why did they make my poor boy a misogynist??

If you don’t like Roger you’re wrong

Jamie being a grandpa that’s it that’s the thought

ROGER AND BRIANNA HAVE MY WHOLE HEAR OH MY GOD

They’re calling the baby Gizmo and I...

DUNCAN INNES MY MAIN MAN!!!

Ugh I love Roger learning about his family

Someone for the love of god PLEASE coldcock Frank

“Go tell them the Mackenzies are here” YALL WATCH ME SOB

[sirasanders]

Sanders Sides BNHA AU (Part 1/??)

EDIT: Added some stuff to Logan and Remy (mostly Logan tbh) because i did not give them as much attention and I regret that so here I am trying to make up for it. And bear with me y'all, I'm gonna explain the whole "who's the mom" situation soon

okay lmao so i got bored doing nothing, but then i thought of this au (which is actually partially inspired by @ironwoman359's marvel au) and i was like "why not" so i wasted my time doing this instead of doing my homework whshdb

i hope yall enjoy the read because it is kinda long

in this world, Thomas Sanders is the 97th hero, Actor

his quirk is called "The World's a Stage"

he's a shapeshifter, but he can only shapeshift into fictional characters

but he can get part of the power of that fictional character

(i.e. Superman - only gets the power of flight, Spiderman - only gets the spidey sense)

he can't shapeshift into a hybrid of fictional characters bc then he'd be too op

and the shapeshifting takes a lot of his stamina, so he can only shapeshift into two (2) people a day

his sons admire him a lot

speaking of sons, Thomas has quad sons and one adopted son

from youngest to oldest: Remy, Virgil, Roman, Logan, and Patton

(bear with me i dont know what to call their quirks cause i am Uncreative™️)

Roman's quirk is kinda like Yaoyorozu's quirk

but all the stuff he makes are actually half-illusions

basically he can make illusions, but only a number of people can actually touch them

if anyone else touches them, the illusion disappears

shh Roman's still working on that

Patton's quirk is that he can manipulate the emotions of people around him

but he can only manipulate them into what hes generally feeling atm

(i.e., if he's feeling sad, he can make someone else sad too, but more intense)

he doesn't like using his quirk unless its to help others feel better

he mostly uses it on Virgil and on his dad when Thomas has a bad work day

Logan has been thought to be quirkless kid, albeit an incredibly smart one, for almost three years, until Roman pointed out that Logan might have an intelligence quirk

for the longest time, Logan has been advancing not only academically, but also in language and music and art and literally anything he tries his hand at

Thomas thought it was just because Logan loved to learn, but Roman's remark made him think a bit deeper

Thomas immediately had Logan tested, and found out a few days later that Logan had an IQ way higher than a normal seven year old's IQ

but that didn't really say anything to Logan, to be honest

anyone can get a high score in an IQ test, what was the big deal?

so he just ignored the IQ results and just kept doing him

one day, their school had a field trip to a professional laboratory and met "real life scientists, Virgil, do you see that table what they're doing there is-"

"Yeah, that's nice Logan, now can we please catch up to the rest of the class becau- oh god they're leaving us behind let's gO-"

and at the end of the day they got to talk to one of the scientists that work there

the scientist showed the class his research paper about chemicals but no one really understood it

except Logan lol

and while Logan was reading about the results of the scientist's experiment, he noticed something funny

he then raised his hand and proceeded to tell the scientist about his concern

to humor Logan, the scientist took back his research paper and off Logan went about the Mistake In The Research Paper

"in the first chapter, you mentioned having *blah blah* and so in the results, *blah blah* should have happened instead of *blah blah* doing this, and-"

the scientist took what Logan said into consideration and after a few days, a letter from the scientist that Logan corrected was sent to the Sanders residence, which basically contained, "'kay so I did the experiment again and well heck what do you know I AM wrong"

the Sanders household was Shook™️ because Logan corrected a professional scientist's research within seconds of reading it

it was several months later that it was confirmed Logan had an intelligence quirk

Virgil's quirk is,, kinda like a boggart's ability

(yknow those dark floaty things from Harry Potter)

he can shapeshift into what the person is fearing at the moment

i.e., if a person is scared of their parents, Virgil can appear as their parents, but look completely normal to other people

many people say that he has a "villain's quirk" and that he doesnt deserve to be ""Actor's son"

Virgil doesnt think he deserves to be called Thomas's son either

(im so sorry again this is really uncreative im running out of ideas)

Remy is an adopted boi, but still very much loved by his famILY

Remy's quirk is like a kinda like the ability of a siren

basically his voice can make people fall asleep

so far, he can use his quirk on a maximum of two people, with the effects lasting up to 30 minutes

Remy had his quirk for only a year, but he's been having so much fun with it

he plays a lot of pranks on Roman and Patton

nothing too dangerous, just small things like making them fall asleep in the middle of a movie and cackling as they frantically lower the volume and rewind the movie to avoid being spoiled

like Patton, he uses his quirk on Thomas, Virgil, and occasionally Logan, when they're stressed or having a bad day

btw, the quad squad are all 7 years old at the moment, and Remy is 5 years old

their family is really really happy and they have the privilege to walk around with their dad and not get assaulted by fans

because their dad is almost always changing appearances, so barely anyone knows what Thomas really looks like lol

and thats it for now lmao hope yall liked my word vomit

[devandahlcourte-work-in-progress]

Section 1. five chapters, ending with chapter 5

I am reposting these first eighty-two chapters (in 22 sections) plus the prologue and the preface.

These posts will be the updated versions from my DeviantArt account, and since Tumblr may not display all the text correctly (it destroys anything I had in italics or underlined) I would still recommend reading everything there, on DeviantArt. They will also include internal links that navigate between the chapters on DeviantArt and will take the reader off Tumblr if clicked.

This came about because I noticed search engines were finding random sections of my book and displaying them along with some other people’s blog posts.

Okay, so that’s why I installed those internal links in each one… so that if anyone gets to a random section by way of a search engine and would like to read the story from the beginning, they can.

Only then did I realize that it wasn’t getting it’s search results from DeviantArt, but from old Tumblr.

There’s another problem at work here besides unrefined searches…

There is a new species of virus on the internet that likes to eat ancient Tumblr posts and barf them back up infested with adware - spyware - malware etc. The virus goes by names like TumGIR, TumBIG, TumPIK, or Tum(anything else but ‘blr’). The caps were added by me for emphasis so that maybe you can double check in case you’re not looking at an actual Tumblr post right now but one of these so-called “mirror” sites.

If you’re looking at this text through one of the counterfeit Tumblrs that I mentioned, then no link you click (assuming it even copies it with my links intact) will take you out; it will redirect you and show you all of the spam ads it wants to. So read carefully what url is showing on your browser right now.

If it is one of the untrustworthy ones I would suggest closing your browser window and doing whatever else you normally would in order to reset settings.

As far as my science fiction novel entitled “If And Only If,” the safest way to find it is by going to my Instagram:

@michelle.de.vandahlcourte

From there you can click on the link in my bio. It will take you to the beginning of the story on DeviantArt… the safe one! No malware.

P.S. None of this is Tumblr’s fault! It’s the malware/adware/spyware developers who are stealing people’s tumblr posts.

The actual content of this page appears below here👇

Section 1. five chapters, ending with chapter 5

↩️return to previous section (the prologue)

(Use the above link to refer back to the previous section. Also use this link if you arrived here from a search engine and you would like to read this story from the beginning.)

Prajina

DiaryWorld™️ entry for August 9, 2137

Why are there retro trends?

Maybe it’s all in the way the stories are told. Most people don’t really go around thinking very much about past eras and what it would have been like to live in them. And if they really thought it through, they would likely find multiple reasons why that particular time would have sucked for those experiencing it. But if you can romanticize it right – in literature, stage, screen, 3V, and Sensoarim™️? Even if it was way before their time, someone will pine for it.

This was a little beyond simply pining for it; Alex had actually chosen to go back in time to live with the people of that era! And how had that even been possible? Wasn’t it supposed to create paradoxes by changing history in the past and all?? Never mind, it’s hurting my brain.

Cyrano de Bergerac, who wrote some of the earliest identifiable science fiction, had lived in the 1640’s plus or minus twenty years. But Edmond Rostand wrote about him in his eponymous story in 1897, 0.25 millennia later – after the initial action of the play.

In the play he includes a cameo by d'Artagnan, who lived at the same time but achieved musketeer fame in the popular imagination due to Alexandre Dumas in the 1840’s. So, about 200 years after the middle of his life.

All through the renaissance, European scholars yearned for this, that, or the other golden age; the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome... you can see it in their poetry, theater, opera, literature.

In the USA in the early 1970’s people became enamored with the 50’s for awhile. Then twenty years later there were 70s and 80s retro trends at parties & clubs and on university campuses. The things always seemed to fizzle out after a couple of seasons. In Alex’s chosen time, that ‘70s show was a notable exception. And on that note, the time at which the aliens want me to contact Alex? The late teens of the early 21st century? I wonder if any people reminisce about Friends, Seinfeld, and haphazardly organized websites like geocities... Movies and “TV shows” back then helped the momentum of a retro trend...

So it’s probably not surprising that in the year 2136 famed avant-garde director Capaccio Valpolicella’s virtual film “Ravenhorn!” later spun off on Sensoarim™️ and as a 3V show, spawned a new 1990’s retro trend – about 140 years after the original time – complete with some of the same designer drugs of the era.

A few truly new drugs had debuted in the last century; one of them did things a 90’s rave DJ never imagined.

Amongst the class of ‘37, no graduating senior / inbound college freshperson would touch them-

picture the dork a hundred years earlier who still smoked tobacco cigarettes after President Black finally got weed to be one hundred percent legal everywhere – I still can’t believe my great grandma voted for him, twice. In his second term they say he wrecked the economy pretty bad... but nothing we couldn’t recover from later under the Smith administration. Still… It would be priceless to go back (or ahead?) in time and see the part where he moons congress! But I digress...

So the newer drugs were unhip. Uncool. That was the shit your parents did back when they were protesting the war, marching on Wall Street, Martha’s Vineyard, etc. Suddenly it was trendy to do hits of nitrous oxide from balloons again, or maybe just from a mask straight off the tank… ecstasy, 4-methylaminorex, and Oh Yes.… The Spirit Molecule – DMT – the one from ayahuasca … whatever.. the one that’s supposed to make you see Angels/Faeries… shit your great great grandparents did was hip once again.

The whole idea of an outdoor rave, with generators, in a rural field in Kentucky was delightful to young people everywhere in the late 2130s. No one exchanged an egg… You didn’t want it to be so secret that nobody showed up, but there was some tomfoolery in place to kinda make sure that a lot of the coolest people would know about it.

They came from pretty far off. IU students brought the best drugs… but there were some from as far away as Ann Arbor, the principal DJ from Greenbelt, and our little group from Missouri.

(I must elaborate: i have access to Alex’s DiaryWorld™️ page, but it’s legit – he gave me the password / login credentials when he was suicidal once so I could read everything he was going through. He got better; never went through with it, obviously.)

Alex

As recalled through Prajina’s DiaryWorld

Alex was pleased that Prajina had invited him / filled him in on the rave’s exact time and everything... basically letting him know it was going on. He did not need her to tell him the location though. That was his suggestion – a place he knew about from his youth. It was at an odd crux of positions. Abandoned or poorly maintained properties all around; some of it used for illegal dumping of just about everything; much of it owned by his family.

Alexei Sohibnazarov, of the Lexington Sohibnazarovs, knew it would make him sound way nerdy if he told people at the rave that this was “his spot,” and that he had brought it to the attention of the rave organizers. It was just awesome that he knew exactly how to find a place that only the coolest kids online could learn about…

He’d made the mistake, mid-senior year, of pointing out the anachronistic errors in the dialogue of Valpolicella’s “Ravenhorn!” The terms “awesome,” and “cool,” or “bitchin,” were all from earlier than the 1990’s, but still late 20th centu........

Whatever, spaz! He realized too late that kids just wanted to imitate the speech of Dagmara & Javier from that 3V show.

Yeah, just the fact that he was showing up would mark him as a cool dude. Because how else would he know about this rave, right? As long as he could refrain from speaking, he might fit in… Rather like that scene in the old 20th century movie The Night Before, where the other girl tells his date: the whole point of this bet was that the loser had to be seen with a geek. It’s not fair, you can’t take him to some part of town where they don’t know what a geek he is!

That’s what this was for Alex: a part of “town” where they didn’t know what a geek he was.

He had given up on Prajina, pretty much. When she had said Padmanabhan was doing the lighting and light show… Alex asked, innocently he thought, “post doc Padmanabhan, or young Padmanabhan?” Her response of “young Padmanabhan” had been more emotional than she realized at the time. In truth, she had just been in a happy mood when she gave him an answer to his question… Not “all starry-eyed” as his private DiaryWorld entry had suggested. If only there were some way to track him down in 2017 and talk to him about it. She truly did not feel that way about Padmanabhan. Not only that, she was pretty sure young P was gay. Alex was a bit weird, and she didn’t know if she felt that way about him either... but more likely him than Padmanabhan. But now? He’d be 25 or more years older, since the aliens had sent him back to around 1992 and her to 2017. What the hell?

Fast forward

Alex (for real)

Later that night- the song was: Solar Power by N-Trance or maybe it was called N-Trance by Solar Power

Alex couldn’t be sure…

He had seen the fairy folk at last; it wasn’t just DMT – it had to be administered with other ingredients. That’s why the tea was the best way. Other ravistas just wanted the pill form; big mistake, thought Alex, the high won’t last as long and you won’t see the Fae. Alex, a true Chronopolitan, insisted on historical accuracy and wanted to do it as Jennifer Aniston had in that hippie commune movie with Paul Rudd. So he had done his spirit molly with the chatsubo crowd... And of course a vomit bowl nearby! (A small detail they’d omitted from the early 21st century film. A vomiting scene with her would have been a bit distracting.)

He later mixed up batches of chocolate drink though, and accidentally switched yoo hoo bottles with some girl in a pot-leaf prom dress. A Talamantez knockoff that was a few decades late for a 90s rave, but still rave wear, so okay. Had it been an authentic Talamantez, it could have gone for at least a couple of million at an auction house. All right… Remember Alex, no talking to show off your trivial pursuit knowledge. You think you’re conveying some kind of super important information… What you’re really saying is “I’m Cliff Clavin from Cheers. Don’t talk to me. And be sure to warn your friends about me as well.”

The molecules in her bottle? Put bluntly, it was a modern mimic of some old-fashioned shit: PCP. It made his brain “pulse,” as he would later describe it in his DiaryWorld entry. The pulsations, combined with his idiot-savantish propensity for math, was causing him to “see” algebraic topology in a way he had never visualized it before. This gave Alex a pattern of brain waves that was uniquely different from all other humans in the world on that particular night.

If an extraterrestrial intelligence had happened to be cruising by Earth and decided to scan brain waves of humans, it would find them fairly similar – just minor variations. But even the variations were predictable. Except for Alex. On that night. When it got to him it would’ve noticed a pattern of brain waves that resembled those of aliens from a moon of a gas giant orbiting the star Alpha Aquilae. An alien vacationing on Earth perhaps? Or here on some business? As fate would have it, or the never-created Greek god Statisticles, there actually was an extraterrestrial intelligence nearby that could scan brain waves remotely. Alex, however, was not what woke it from the sinkhole… It was the music that woke it. N-Trance, a bit over a minute and twenty seconds into this DJ’s version of it.

The Alien Sphere

OK, as Alex would insist on describing it:

Object that oscillates between prolate spheroid and oblate spheroid form.

As the sound waves resonated around the woods they created an interesting beat frequency. Interesting to DJs and sound technicians perhaps, and definitely to the alien spheroid. The spheroid had access to the alien ship’s mechanical logs and knew one of the contraterrene generators had been grounded near the Rosette Nebula. The plan was to temporarily repair the mounts with a borosilicate-aluminosilicate appliqué done by nano robots. It was nothing but boring internal chatter amongst the ship’s computers. One of the AI‘s that resided in the SIMC database had chosen to do a calculation – just for the ࿔¡ᢈᰊᡜ of it – to simulate what vibrations (and of course sounds, for those passengers still using atmosphere-breathing bodies) the field-repaired generator would make. No part of the ship was supposed to produce any mechanical vibrations at all. Or sounds.

It would be an undetectable sound to anyone but a Makcir; and there were no Makcirs on the ship, this time out, who might complain of a noise. But Ambraluxia, what that particular AI chose to call itself, had been right to do the calculations, just for thoroughness. Copies were made available of all the data for all the other computers, including the less-than-full AIs like the one on the spheroid. The spheroid had been detached and lost from the ship before the repairs were completed, so it’s computer never got to hear the actual sounds in order to tell if Ambraluxia’s calculations & simulation had been correct. “She,” as the AI preferred to be referenced, had a good reputation for this kind of math, and was thought to have a greater than 99% accuracy in simulation.

So when N-Trance started reverberating in the woods the spheroid was greater than 99% sure that it’s mothership had returned. Several centuries early, in fact.

If the spheroid’s rudimentary AI could have, it would have “felt loved” at the thoughtful gesture; not that it’s owners had bothered to track it’s time travel activities. That was predictable. But that they had elected to expend the energy to come back in time for it, would have seemed quite touching.

As it awoke, it begin scanning for other components of the ship. None detected. False alarm? Or they just changed the codes… more likely, because who knows how many centuries or millennia they had waited before coming back in time to retrieve it.

So the next set of scans was for lifeforms. Many humans – unusual for this remote place and odd that they would choose to risk appearing in front of so many of the Earth creatures – but the “alien” masters know what they’re doing, no doubt. And after exhaustive scanning of the crowd (which presented an added challenge because they seemed unwilling to remain still whilst the music was playing) it found one “alien,” as in a citizen from a known, member-world. Finally!

Although, it seemed to be a child. Confusing. Alex’s new pulsating alien-esque brain waves registered as an older toddler; definitely under 500 Earth years old. Now the spheroid was concerned that the child had been left alone. What had gone wrong? It was hungry, the spheroid could tell.

Alex

Alex had the munchies big time. Everyone who had brought food whom he’d met earlier was currently out of sight. He was really enjoying young Padmanabhan‘s light show; a bunch of colored spherical holograms hovering over rural backwoods Kentucky to the tune of that breakbeat from “this is techno” volume something-or-other. One of the fringe ones caught his attention. It varied colors just like the others; about the same size and shape… But something was out of place about it.

It occurred to Alex that all the spheres but that one had been arranging and rearranging themselves to fit into a point group like D6h, C8v, etc. This one broke the symmetry. Now it’s a C1, overall. Deliberate? Or more likely a glitch in Padmanabhan’s program. It also seem to be centered above “hell-hole.”

The sinkhole that swallowed up a small neighborhood in 2048 and killed dozens of people, that he had been warned about all through his childhood, never really interested him as much as others. Always a source of dares and adventures for the local kids, sure. But not him, really. Until he read “The Lovely Bones“ and had seen the movie. Then he wondered if maybe it contained a chained-up refrigerator with a body in it. That’s spooked him a bit, but also drew him to it as a teenager.

It was prolifically used as an illegal dumping ground throughout Alex’s parents’ lives; then that had stopped about the time the government parked a geostationary camera over it. Which was also about the time Alex was born. He read the news article and thought it was odd that the feds got involved in a state enforcement matter. The sphere over hell-hole suddenly seemed more realistic than the rest of the holos. Almost corporeal; alive? And then it was not his imagination, he saw it blink out of sequence with the others.

And it distorted between prolate and oblate; cycling according to some kind of relation that Alex later called an “elliptical harmonic” in the tech section of his DiaryWorld. It was a pattern which he’d never seen before. It couldn’t be young Padmanabhan! The harmonic function began to entrance him somehow.

This dude was way in to pharmaceutical chemistry and molecular biology – not sure exactly what his major was – but definitely not part of that math crowd. Illogical as it was, he felt like this spheroid was beckoning to him somehow. He started staggering over in its direction, thinking: “maybe it’s a flying saucer or something and it could drop me off at Taqueria Ritmo!” Right – and get them to open up? Everything in all the nearest hick suburbs was closed at 4 AM. Still, he hobbled over to it, fascinated by the oscillations.

The Captain, or ℏ♄

The P.S.L. Fomalhaut had beamed Prajina aboard that night at just about exactly the same minute Alex was sent back in time, as if they’d been watching her ride into the parking lot. Despite her frantic pace, driven by the knowledge she’d extracted from between the lines of Alex’s blog which she was pretty sure had meant that he actually liked her in That Way... she missed him and some other bizarre sights that accompanied him by just a few beats of a great elephant’s heart. What she got instead was The Captain.

The Captain, acting as a representative of the Laniakea Supercluster Amphictiony of galaxies had initially chosen to appear with the head of an elephant. This decision was based on some positive images she took from the young human’s childhood memories. The Captain also arranged for a choir of humanoid looking holograms with extra, for human beings, arms and bluish skin to sing:

“Om Gan Ganapataye Namo Namah

Shree Siddhi Vinayak Namo Namah

Ashtavinayak Namo Namah

Ganapati Bappa Moraya”

It seemed to stress the human girl, even though it accurately reproduced an educational documentary on mythology, and certain altar scenes that she had enjoyed as a child. She double checked the words and pronunciations on the information network provided by the humans and it seemed to be correct; perhaps there were some kind of inflected tones or other speech nuances that her simulation was failing to reproduce. Never mind the speech intricacies she thought… perhaps she’d misread the young human woman’s mind?

So next, the captain tried appearing as a larger than life humanoid woman with a double digit number of arms, bluish black skin, a blood red tongue sticking out, a necklace made of skulls, etc. Not only did this not calm the young female, she now seemed to be starting a major freakout. Clearly, her first contact with a human wasn’t going well.

To be fair though, contact with this species was severely limited. 75,000 🜨Yrs ago, give or take, they had been an endangered species when an Indonesian supervolcano had erupted. An environmental group had intervened to transport some humans around and collect them into clusters so that the species could have a chance to be re-populated. One of the captain’s great-grand beings had been a part of that rescue group. Although a bit of a prankster, it had not been her intent to dig up stone tools and move a few other things in order to mess with the later automated government archeological surveys. She just genuinely liked collecting souvenirs from far away places to use in her art projects back home. She was from the alien equivalent of a hippie generation, and she had initially opposed ૯ಾ⟂ಌ‘s (captain’s given name unpronounceable with human vocal cords) intent to join the temporal constabulary – to be a “time cop” she said, was the worst kind of elerdprenda – roughly the equivalent of a hippie calling a cop “pig.”

Now, coincidentally ℏ♄, as (name unpronounceable) was affectionately called by her fellow officers at the academy, was leading a cleanup operation to correct one of the worst environmental disasters that this galaxy had seen in the last 2.2 million 🜨Years – a disaster that even had ramifications in other dimensions and many parallel universes and was really starting to piss off the powers that were to be. The disaster still wasn’t going to happen for another 120,000 earth years, and so was considered top priority. Since the events that triggered it were set into motion when the human “mathematical genius“ Alexei Sohibnazarov – a descendent of the very humans that Nana Weed had rescued from the aftermath of the caldera system – was accidentally sent back in time approximately 145 years by a piece of lost camping equipment, i.e. since time-tinkering was involved… The matter was firmly under ℏ♄’s jurisdiction.

Jurisdiction may be clear, but back to that matter of how to communicate with the human mind of Prajina in 2137? ℏ♄ was having no more luck understanding her thoughts than the piece of camping equipment had had with Alex. She remembered seeing axion feed billings for the thing they called “the spheroid” when she was a child. The playlets were the alien equivalent of a 70s Ronco commercial before Christmas. The thought conjured up happy memories of her home, but she had regarded the gadget as silly. “Why waste thaumasia on something like that,” she had thought aloud to the axionevision in her room, “when I could just make my own with stuff from ɚϗꏃð ?” ...the alien equivalent of a Radio Shack.

Then there was the problem of free will – the human math child, Alex, had wanted to remain in the 1990s, Gregorian calendar, Holocene epoch. So just prevent/event was not an acceptable strategy. Otherwise, this would’ve been as routine as a human cop in the 20th century writing a parking ticket. But Alex it seemed, was quite enamored of that time. It would be possible to let him stay as he wished, but he must not be allowed to prevent the human Jack Black from being reelected as president of the United States for his second term in the 2040s. That was where Prajina came in.

There was no other knowledge of the humans except for some automated gathering in 1908 in their current calendar. Some dipshit tourist from another dimension had accidentally materialized, and crash-landed near Vanavara, Siberia. It was at a place called Tunguska. The traveler reported it immediately and a drone was dispatched to clean up and leave evidence of natural phenomena. The locals over the next few decades concluded that it must’ve been a comet or meteoroid impact. The drone had equipment for an axion-synaptic scramble pulse, to erase memories if necessary. But the place was so remote that nobody saw anything. The geographically-distant nearest citizens who might have, were only interested in a biochemistry experiment that they were conducting. With themselves as test subjects, they seemed to be analyzing the effects of a beverage that they made with a starchy fermentable plant material. So no new data on the humans there; just that they were starting to get interested in science – such as chemistry. As well as thermodynamics, and electromagnetism – based on analysis of their other activities at the time. Although they were communicating with it by then, the primitive radio of the era also failed to help researchers glean anything useful about the humans.

Evidently the biochemistry project was a long-term study spanning centuries, ℏ♄ noted, as it was still being conducted on a large-scale in that part of the world. She briefly scanned a file that humans used to show other humans how to do it cheaply with potatoes. She was pleased to see the humans cooperating and taking such a dedicated attitude towards science. But socioculturally it didn’t tell her anything about how to communicate with one of them. She finally settled on human form, male, central Asian, speaking Hindi and Tamil as Prajina’s mother and father had in the home... but fluent in English, as they had been fourth and fifth generation Americans, respectively. It calmed her a little more than Jai Kali Maa had. Although the Earth woman politely passed when ℏ♄ offered her some of the potato-based biochemistry-experiment beverage that the ship’s automated chemical synthesis lab had whipped up for her upon command, she was at least willing to talk now.

Continue on to next section…

If And Only If

Copyright 2015

by Michelle Viviénne de Vandahlcourte

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

First Edition. © December 16, 2015.