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scarletinkthelibrarian · 2 years ago

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I love mutual pining.

I know it can get frustrating when dragged along for far longer than it should be - and with ridiculous reasons for WHY these two or more idiots still haven't kissed (wow, it's a miracle that Miraculous Ladybug didn't destroy this trope for me) - but my point is that I like that kind of hopeful, tentative waiting: the stolen glances, the "I want to tell them but what if...?", the hugs that last a bit longer than they should, maybe the surrounding friends and family that are secretly shipping and hoping these two idiots will finally cut the chase...

No wonder then than my own favorite Canon x OC ship ended up going in that direction.

(Yes, this is going to be just me babbling about my own OC, Ginny Truscott, that I ship with my favorite ninja turtle, Leonardo.)

((Yes, I still used the same Picrew image I did for the first post ever where I talked about her, I'm still not an artist and this one is pretty close to how I actually imagine her to look like.))

To start off, I think Leo is particularly well-suited for the pining trope, at least in most incarnations of his character (Rise!Leo, sternly and quietly hiding away his affection, can anyone imagine that? And let's not talk about 2012!Leo, please): he's duty-oriented, the leader of his team - pretty sure future head of the family - and also a mutant turtle that will probably never be able to live like a normal person.

Throw in the possibility for a romantic relationship and the boy would surely go all "I love you but there's too much I can't give you so I will keep it to myself and be your friend and also your guardian angel should you need me". At least if, like me, you pair him up with a regular human person who isn't part of a ninja clan or secretly superpowered or an alien/other mutant.

(There's also the issue of the love interest being possibly put in danger due to their relationship, but that could very well happen also to April or Casey or any other person not just Leo but any of his brothers could bond with even just platonically instead of romantically, so that particular point won't be discussed here.)

Point is, Leonardo is primed for falling in love with someone and deciding to hide his feelings if that someone is just a normal person.

Which is EXACTLY what Ginny is when they first meet.

Phase 1: "We definitely have feelings for each other, but we're stuck in limbo because of very serious reasons"

I never really wrote down the story of these characters, it has always been just in my head with some little ideas written down here and there, but it starts with this: Leonardo saves Ginny from some thugs, accidentally revealing himself to her, and Ginny is starstruck rather than horrified by her savior, which elicits his interest (and also boosts his ego a bit, considering the admiration comes from a pretty girl close to his age).

From here on, everything goes on pretty much like usual for this kind of stories: they become friends, Ginny (and Harper, her cousin, as well) joins the turtles' friend group and there's obviously something going on between her and Leo.

They utterly enjoy each other's presence: Leo loves Coconut - Ginny's dog -, Ginny likes to watch him spare and talks with him about ethics and philosophy, Leo as much as he can likes to meditate while Ginny plays the piano, they have a charged-up basketball match from time to time (which Leo may have tried to subtly lose on purpose). Lots of things pile up and pretty much everyone is aware that these two have the hots for each other, but nothing concrete ever happens, because Leonardo won't make a move (for the reasons above) and Ginny won't either (because she still naively thinks it's up to the guy to make the first move).

((Something she will kick herself for in the future.))

So they're stuck in a limbo and think they have all the time in the world to either get over or work on this blooming thing between them. Point is...

Phase 2: "This is the 2007's movieverse"

Leo has to leave on a pilgrimage, the Five-Fold Path. He has every intention of using this journey to focus solely on becoming a better leader for his brothers.

Knowing she won't get to see him for a very long time, Ginny confesses her feelings to him the night before he leaves and kisses him.

And Leonardo proceeds to pretending all of that never happened: he has to travel, he has to train, he has to get his head in the game... He has to let her go, because he will still be a mutant turtle when he'll get back to New York and she deserves someone who will have a normal life with her. So he writes back, but refuses to acknowledge Ginny's confession, hoping that she will move on.

Ginny, on her side, seeing how Leonardo seems to avoid replying or even just talking about that night, starts having doubts: maybe indeed it wasn't the right time to tell him how she feels, probably she just added another weight to his mind during this journey, she should have thought better, she'll apologize when he gets back.

Except the day when he should have come back arrives and he doesn't. Okay, maybe he couldn't manage. But days pass and he keeps not coming back.

And his letters are filled with apologies, saying that he still isn't ready and his training not finished, and those letters become fewer and fewer...

And Ginny finds herself pissed.

He never replied to her. He isn't coming back.

She's also scared to almost the point of tears at times because what if he's in trouble or what if one day the letters completely stop coming because he's dead?

And then she gets pissed again because Leonardo is making them worry that he may be dead and still this isn't enough for him to come back.

During this time, she surprisingly - maybe not that much - bonds with Raphael as a fellow member of the "we miss that idiot and are dealing with the feeling of abandonment by getting angry" club.

She decides to move on.

Phase 3: "Mamma mia, here I go again!"

Leonardo comes back.

(Pointing it out, both Ginny and Harper are absent during the events of the movie: the first one is away on spring break, the second is in Australia giving the definitive middle finger to her father.)

Ginny gives him the cold shoulder - but due to Raphael (who still feels guilty for the furious fight that caused his older brother to get caught by Winters' stone generals) intervening, she will take time before actually airing all her grievances to Leo.

The rose-tinted glasses they had of each other got shattered: Leonardo stopped being Ginny's perfect knight in a half-shell and suddenly Leo finds that Ginny outgrew the demure and shy angel image in his head.

It takes time for them to recover their bond (as realistically it will take for also everyone else, I really don't think defeating stone immortals was all it took to work on two years of distance) but as they do the find out...

That these changes are not unwelcome at all: Ginny can now see the struggles Leo has to go through and appreciates him all the more for it because she fully realizes how much effort he actually puts in everything; and Ginny has now fully grown in a confident, outspoken and fiercely protective young woman that Leo feels proud of.

Point is: now that they don't idealize each other anymore, they're even more attracted to each other than ever before.

And the idea of possibly starting a romantic relationship pops out again, also because...

Intermission: "While you two were busy being idiots, we were cuddling"

At this point, Donatello and Harper have been a couple for some months already, even prior to Leo coming back from Central America.

Everyone knows these two are together and they're an overtly affectionate couple of brilliant mind who like to work together and are incredibly supportive of each other (in my head I often jokingly call Harper "Donnie's cheerleader", but she actually gets the same level of encouragement back from him, just more quietly). And most of all, they found ways to work around their specie and lifestyle's differences and are happy with each other.

So, if they could do it, why can't Leo and Ginny do the same?

Phase 4: "If we tell anyone, it becomes real"

So, at some point, they slip up.

Meaning, they kiss again and this time the one who doesn't want to acknowledge it is Ginny: last time it happened, Leo left and broke her heart. What if it happens again? Not in the same way, obviously Leo isn't going anywhere anymore for a very long time, but what if one day he just decides again that she's better without him and just leaves her? He may do it with good intentions (as he already did) but that doesn't erase the fact that he would again be choosing for her instead of respecting her decision. And she doesn't know if she trusts him on that regard.

So, the kiss goes unspoken about for a while, because our blue turtle boy actually decides to respect her wishes (also thinking that maybe it was just a fluke, that it happened just because of some leftover tension between them)... But it keeps happening.

The relationship starts up as a secret: Ginny has her trust issues and Leo is still bothered by the same thoughts that stopped him from pursuing her before, but they still start seeing each other behind everyone's backs (and shells).

Point is, they're both "family-oriented" in this: if they reveal whatever they have going on to their families and friends, then it becomes a real relationship and they're still too weighed by doubts and insecurities to take that step. They're basically like Barney and Robin from "How I Met Your Mother" (minus the sex because to know how to make it work properly between them they should ask Donnie and Harper and that would mean basically spilling the beans and end up in a very embarassing conversation).

((They're actually not that good at hiding anything, since pretty much everyone actually has some suspicions.))

(((Raph does confront Leo about it, having grown to love Ginny like a sister, but aside from warning his older brother against breaking her heart again he still decides to let them handle this between themselves.)))

Phase 5: "Finally they get together FOR REAL!"

With the Foot Clan active in New York again and shady activities going on in the city (following events loosely based on the cancelled sequels to the 2007 movie), one night the turtles find themselves facing against their old enemy again and Leo does as all Leo do and ends up seriously injuried.

(Little note here: Rosalyn, Harper's mother and Ginny's aunt and legal guardian, knows about the turtles and, being a surgeon, helps them whenever she can, like in this case.)

Cue in Ginny basically deciding to glue herself to his side until he wakes up (I know, cliché, but hey, I'm a sucker for this scenario), coming to realize, in the days that Leonardo takes to recover, that she almost lost him and that she doesn't want to keep being stuck in a limbo where this could happen again and they never gave their relationship a proper chance.

Leonardo has a similar moment of realization after waking up, especially due to Donatello saying to him (while Ginny finally takes a break) that "no one regrets anything that made them really happy".

(Same words Rosalyn told him when he and Harper first got together to give them her blessing.)

So, once Leo fully recovers, he and Ginny get officially together, with everyone else giving out a collective "FINALLY!".

Wheeeeew, I'm done!!!

I admit it, I wrote this down while having a surge of "I absolutely want to speak about this oc x canon ship of mine", all in one go, and I'm posting immediately before losing nerve, GO!!!

#tmnt #tmnt 2007 #tmnt leonardo #tmnt oc #oc x canon #ship timeline of sort

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aloudplace · 7 months ago

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Dirty thoughts 3

I didn't say a word to him for most of the drive back to the compound. Usually, I'm not quick to anger–-or likely to hold a grudge–-but in this case, I was furious.

At first I didn't understand exactly why, but as I drove I kept getting angrier and angrier, and finally, I had to admit it to myself.

I liked Loki. I mean, really liked him. I'd sublimated it because of work, and the fact that he was an actual extraterrestrial, and a God , and because he was blatant about his disdain for human beings and...half a dozen other perfectly valid things, but... shit. I really liked him. And the way he'd treated me fucking hurt –-because I understood now, it had been a game to him. A game and nothing more. He had no respect for me because I was human.

He'd taken advantage of me at the very first goddamned opportunity, because he'd been cooped up at the Avengers compound for months on end, and I was an easy target–-his only available target–-and I had let him take advantage, proving myself the idiot, inferior human plaything he so clearly believed I was.

Had I secretly wanted him to–-even naively believed he could -–see me as different from the rest of humanity? Yes. Dammit, yes. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had thought we were friends.

Fucking idiot me.

And I'd let him kiss me. Let myself believe for just a moment that he might have actual feelings for me. That I was special to him, at least in some small way.

Dumb, dumb, dumb!

Truth was, I was more mad at myself than I was at Loki. I'd made a complete fool of myself.

I was definitely still mad at him, though.

"You are disturbingly quiet," he said, after about ten minutes of icy silence in the car.

I couldn't conjure a response that wasn't petty or otherwise inflammatory, so I said nothing.

"Is this the proverbial silent treatment?" he added a moment later, voice dripping amusement.

"I know you don't actually think this is funny," I replied bluntly. "You just alienated your one real ally on this stupid, inferior planet, and you're smart enough to regret it."

He chuckled. "You may want to consider the possibility that you're overreacting to a simple episode of playful dalliance."

My temper flared dangerously and I literally bit my tongue to stop myself from tearing into him.

My silence seemed to cause him some discomfort, which I shamelessly relished.

"I intended no insult," he said finally, but he said it as though my having taken insult was both idiotic and boring to him.

"Well insult me you did," I snapped. "Along with the rest of my race. But don't worry about it, because you won't get another opportunity like that."

Silence. And then, as we pulled onto the road that led to the back entrance of Stark Tower, he said, "You mean the kissing."

"You're damned right I mean the kissing. I may be human, Loki, but I'm not an idiot." We pulled up to the gate and I flashed my badge at the guard, who nodded us through as the gate rolled open. "Or maybe I am."

"Can you clarify that statement?" he asked, with obvious irritation.

I drove the car into the employee parking lot, pulled into my space, threw the car into park and twisted in my seat to give the God of Mischief my full attention.

The words came spilling out like a barrage.

"You want clarification? Fine. I'm pissed because you sexually manipulated me for your own entertainment. Where I come from, that's considered really fucked up. But more than that, I'm pissed that I fell for it because I'm smarter than that. But unfortunately, I also honestly fucking like you, and I stupidly allowed that to cloud my judgement, and now here we are, and it isn't fun anymore because I feel totally fucking stupid and humiliated, and I can't trust you, which I knew from the start anyway, so why did I even give you a chance? And why am I even telling you this, because you don't give a shit about me, I'm just a lowly fucking human, who–-I might remind you–-is in direct control of your future on this pathetic little planet, and I might be a good liar but I'm an honest person who suffers from an excess of human compassion, so as much as I want you to be happy, if you ever fuck with me like that again I will throw you under the bus so fast you won't even know what hit you."

The look on his face was equal parts shock and consternation. His mouth opened, closed again, brow furrowing.

"Just get out of the car and go inside," I snapped, turning back around in my seat. I made eye contact with the guards posted just outside the rear entrance and signaled them over. "Your escort is on its way."

"Listen, I think there may have been some sort of misunderstanding-–" Loki began.

"Don't," I held up a hand. "Don't patronize me anymore today. I'm at my limit."

"Bella, it wasn't my intention to-–"

I gave him a look that made his teeth click together. I cannot tell you how satisfying that was.

On the other hand, now that I'd vented my spleen, the anger was dissolving into plain old hurt, and I was pretty sure he'd seen it on my face and that was what had silenced him, which... wasn't a terribly satisfying thought at all.

The guards were almost at the car.

"You're not reading my mind," Loki said unexpectedly.

"No, I am not. I've had enough of you for one day." Shit. I was close to tears all of a sudden.

"You should," he insisted angrily.

One of the guards tapped on Loki's window. Loki waved him off with perfect aristocratic authority.

"Read my mind," he demanded.

I hit the unlock button and the guard pulled Loki's door open. "Out of the car, sir."

Loki ignored him. "Bella."

"Get out, Loki," I grated.

His face went hard, green eyes glittering with disdain. Finally, he turned and went, baring his teeth at the guards as he passed. One of them turned to follow him and the first leaned down into the open door.

"Is everything alright, Miss Bella? Shall I call Mr. Stark?"

"No, it's alright. I'll call him myself," I lied.

He nodded and straightened, shutting the door and jogging to catch up with the other two.

I sat in the car until the three of them had disappeared inside, Loki's long, angry strides forcing the guards to scurry comically just to keep up with him.

Then I sat in the car a while longer and cried.

...........................

As soon as I came in the next morning, I got called into the boss' office.

I'd taken the rest of the day off after returning Loki to the compound, but the guard-–despite what I'd said–-had called Mr. Stark.

"So he didn't try to hurt you or anything?"

"No, Mr. Stark."

"It's Tony, sweetheart. Or Iron Man, if you prefer." He flashed a grin, flirtatious as always.

I smiled, though I didn't feel much like doing so. "I'll stick with Tony."

"So what did he do? Bayley said you looked pretty upset."

Bayley was the guard. Damn him. I'd really hoped to avoid this conversation.

"I can see you don't want to tell me, but I don't think I need to remind you that it's your job to do so. If he's a danger to-–"

"He's not a danger," I said quickly. "He just pissed me off."

Tony frowned. "Bayley said you were crying in your car."

Fucking Bayley. Fucking me .

I considered lying, but I really did hate doing it, and I liked Tony a lot. He was a good boss, and this was the best job I'd ever had. The first place I'd ever worked where I didn't feel like a freak. Where I felt like I was doing something meaningful. I really didn't want to lose it.

"Come on, Bella," Tony said softly. "What happened?"

"I love this job, Mr–-Tony. I really do."

"Okay..." he said slowly, and I didn't need to read his mind to know that he perceived the guilt behind the words. "Well, you're an invaluable asset to the team, Bella. You're the best telepath we interviewed out of nearly a hundred. Head and shoulders above the rest, in fact. You'd have to do something pretty damned despicable to get the boot, here, sweetheart, so just tell me what happened. We'll work it out."

"He kissed me," I blurted.

Tony's eyes widened. "I'm-–I'm sorry, what? Are we talking about the same guy?"

I nodded.

"Thor's brother. Rock of Ages? He kissed you?"

Again, I nodded.

He looked at me like I'd said the guy sprouted wings and flew away.

Actually, that would have been more believable.

"Okay," he said like he was trying to get ahold of himself. "Okay. So, Rock of Ages kissed you. That means we–-we treat this as sexual harassment."

"I let him," I blurted, face burning.

His lips parted, face blank with shock. "You let him."

"Yeah," I breathed, choked by sheer humiliation. "I'm sorry."

"Why would you-–no, okay, that's none of my business." He held up a hand as though in apology. "So you have a thing for the God of Mischief. Who am I to judge? What's really important here is..." his expression twisted with confusion and discomfort. "What is important here?"

I gave him a helpless look.

"Why were you crying?"

I swallowed hard. "Because I felt stupid."

"Is that all?"

"No. I mean, sort of. He was just messing with me and I fell for it. I felt..." totally humiliated "...really stupid."

Tony nodded slowly, brow furrowed. He was having trouble processing the implications of what I'd said. He might have been a billionaire genius, but he was still a man. A woman would have understood immediately that I had real feelings for the God of Mischief–-hence the tears. I prayed like crazy that Tony wouldn't ask Romanoff, or Ms. Potts, or any other woman to interpret this incident for him.

"Okay," he said finally. "Thank you for your honesty, Bella." He sat back in his chair. "I'm not sure where we go from here. This is–-a somewhat unprecedented situation."

"I understand, sir."

He smiled a little. "You're not fired, sweetheart."

I am not too proud to say that I literally sagged with relief.

Tony's smile widened. "I'm glad you like it here. We like having you."

"Thank you, sir."

"Tony."

"Tony," I repeated dutifully.

"But maybe it's best we take you off Loki detail. What do you think?"

"I–-" I hesitated. Part of me was relieved at the thought of not having to see Loki again. The rest of me was deeply, shamefully dismayed. "Will Loki go to prison?"

"For kissing you?" He laughed. "No, sweetheart. We'll find him another babysitter. Although..." he shot me a look like he'd caught himself before saying something inappropriate. "Nevermind that. We could use you in PR, surveillance, investigation, internal affairs-–"

"I do some of that stuff already."

"I know, but-–"

"I can still do Loki detail, if that's where you need me," I said, "I've learned my lesson."

His lips compressed. "You sure interrupt a lot."

Flushing, I muttered, "I'm sorry."

He wasn't angry though. "They tell me it's a telepath thing. You already know what I'm going to say, right?" One of his brows arched.

"I don't do it on purpose," I mumbled.

"So how did Reindeer Games manage to get the best of you, hm?"

Dammit. "He can shield his thoughts. I put it in his three-month review."

He nodded graciously. "You also put that you can tell when he's doing it and that he can't hide his emotions, am I correct?"

Warily, I nodded.

"So, was he shielding his thoughts when he...made his move?"

"I..." Dammit, dammit, dammit! "I mean, he was right before. But not...during."

"So it was during the...er...incident that you realized he was manipulating you."

"Ah...no. After." What was he getting at? I tried to read him and got nothing but mathematical chatter. Seemed Loki wasn't the only one who could shield his thoughts.

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Hm."

"Is that significant?"

"I don't know. I was just thinking..." he looked at me hard for a second, "You really want to keep the babysitting position?"

I swallowed. "I'm okay with it if you are."

"Because if he's as trustworthy as Thor says he is, he could be really useful to us."

"I know."

"And you might be the only person who can actually confirm his viability as a member of the team."

"I know."

He smiled. "That's why you want to keep going. You're a good kid, Bella."

"Thanks."

"You also care about Loki."

That took me by surprise.

His smile turned into a grin. "You don't always know what I'm going to say, huh?"

"You're projecting equations at me," I pointed out politely.

"I am. Thank you for confirming that it works. You believe we can trust Loki, don't you?"

Boy, he was really keeping me on my toes. "I...yeah, I do."

"Can you tell me honestly that your opinion of him isn't biased due to your...attraction?"

I thought about it. "No, I can't."

My honesty seemed to impress him. "Are you going to let him kiss you again?"

"No."

"That sounded very decisive."

"I have a healthy level of self-respect."

"Glad to hear it. You're still on Loki duty, but I'm going to send you some backup so you don't have to be alone with him. One or two of the guards should do it. You good with that?"

I nodded, relieved. I really didn't like the idea of being alone with Loki again. Although, if I was being honest, my heart did flutter with anticipation at the same time. I was stupidly happy that I would still get to be with him every day.

I wondered if Loki would feel as good about it as I did.

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babylooneytoonz · 4 years ago

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the Other Lane.

pairing : Clark Kent x Reader

requested by: @dashingcavill [Hope you like this! 💛]

warnings: Angst with a happy ending, and a lot of fluff in the end.

A/N: Ah, I'm really sorry I couldn't help but put some major angst in here, but I swear the ending is happy and I added the right amount of feels and fluff to make it hurt less. 💛

[The Masterlist]

You often wondered if you were born to your parents only to become a commodity that could be compared to your sister, Lois , at all times. Yes, the two of you were different, she had glamourous blonde hair and sparkling blue irises that made her strike out, while you had sombre [Y/H/C] hair and dull [Y/E/C] eyes that peeked out from the tint of your glasses. If the glasses weren't enough to fit you perfectly into the category that was termed as 'nerds', the fact that you loved to bury yourself into mounds and mounds of books, and literature was sure to fit you into that bill. All that comparison, but that didn't lessen the bond that you shared with Lois though.

However, things slowly started changing, the dynamics messing up when Clark Kent came into your life, as a friend and as a colleague.

Lois worked as a reporter for Daily Planet, and you, well you were mostly working in the background, struggling to make a run with your tiny little column on relationship advises. It wasn't like you were any less intelligent, but maybe you just were okay with how everything was going.

It didn't mean that there weren't times at all when Lois made you secretly jealous. To be fair, it didn't bother you when you heard stories of how Lois got herself into trouble yet again, with none other than the Superman came to her rescue. You could still take that, considering the fact that Superman took his duty towards the civilians as his topmost priority, but when you began noticing obvious changes in your sister's behaviour when she talked to Clark, his alter ego; your colleague at work, you couldn't help but start feeling the little pangs of jealousy.

It all began subtly— starting from lingering glances at the workplace, to hands brushing with each other's, almost innocently, yet the two of them had a sparkle in their eyes when it did. At first, you decided to ignore them at work, trying your best to not run into Clark Kent while you were in your office building. The reason for this was still inexplicably strange for you. You didn't even know the man that well, yet you could do nothing in your control to keep your budding feelings for him under check. It was like, the more you avoided Clark Kent, the more you began aching to get a glimpse of him.

As the days passed, you realized that your crush on Clark was slowly getting more prominent, and you started feeling scared, dreading if there ever came a day that your secret crush on him with finally be out. To top it up a notch, you wondered how Lois will react, knowing well aware that there was something blooming between the two of them, although she had never admitted this to you herself. Also, you kept hoping that whatever this was, between Clark and Lois, it was maybe all in your head and that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't even true, and you hoped it wasn't.

Soon, days grew into weeks and weeks flew by as long months, and you realized that what you felt for Clark wasn't just a silly crush, but you were actually falling in love with the man. It was the littlest things that he did that made your heart melt. You would, sometimes, run into him in the cafeteria, where he would be filling up his mug of coffee. He was a gentleman, he would smile and greet you warmly, your eyes meeting his sparkling bright ones as he would move out of the way and insist that you went ahead first. You would often end up taking elevator rides with him, and he would make sweet small talks with you, talking to you about everything, ranging from the weather to a possible alien invasion.

The plan that you had cooked up to avoid Clark Kent went down the drain from those days onwards. Instead, you almost began running into Clark almost everyday. The gossips about Clark and Lois had, by then, died down and you couldn't help but feel relieved, relieved that maybe you had just been dreaming, and there was nothing between Lois and Clark.

"Hey [Y/N], can I borrow your turtleneck? I can't seem to find mine?"

You looked up from the book that you had been binge reading on, flustered and embarassed, as you immediately tossed the book unceremoniously into your blanket. Of course, you couldn't let your sister in on the fact that you were secretly reading the fifty shades series. She would tease the living hell out of you. And then there was the fact that you felt ashamed of the fact that you could practically imagine Clark Kent in your mind as Christian Grey, and it was making you all heated up and bothered.

Lois raised an eyebrow when she saw you red you had turned, "Are you okay? You look like a massive human sized tomato."

"Gee, Lois, thanks?" You mumbled, still reeling from the way she had suddenly barged into your bedroom, as you pushed your glasses over the bridge of your nose, "couldn't bother to knock?"

"Since when do we do these formalities?" She wiggled her eyebrows dramatically, and dashed towards your closet, throwing it open as her fingers began working through the hangers, looking for what she was looking for. She was practically messing up your closet, so you sighed and decided to give her a helping hand. Abruptly, you slid out of the covers, forgetting about the novel that you had hidden underneath and the novel suddenly slipped off the side of the bed and fell to the floor, it's covering full on display.

You facepalmed, burying your face into your hands as Lois walked up to the book and picked it up, smirking obviously as she read out the title out loud just to tease you.

"Looks like my baby sister is finally growing her wings."

"Stop it, Lois. Don't embarass me," you grumbled, looking away. Instead, you dashed up to your closet and pushed her to the side, roughly pulling out your turtleneck as you handed it to her.

"Come on, [Y/N]" she laughed, shaking her head, messing up her perfectly styled blonde waves as she ran a hand through them, "We all have done this. You're not the only one. Nothing to be embarassed about. It's not like you're watching porn."

"It is technically still porn if I'm reading it," you whispered, watching her as she examined the turtleneck and smiled, as though she had pictured just the best trousers to go with it in the back of her mind as she absentmindedly replied back, "Again, sis, we all have done it."

You noticed the way she kept glancing at her phone, with a smile threatening to spill across her features. You raised your eyebrows and smacked your lips together, blinking curiously. She finally looked up and saw that you were staring at her so she grinned, "Guess who has a date tonight?"

"A date?" You asked, absentmindedly.

"Clark asked me out, [Y/N]. He is taking me to this really good Thai place that opened up in the suburbs and I just couldn't decide on what to wear!! This will just go perfectly with my jeans."

It happened so suddenly, but it still did. You felt like someone had just ripped your gut out with bare hands. You suddenly felt empty, was an understatement. You suddenly felt strange and cut off, and everything around you suddenly felt cold and distant and gloomy. You looked up at her, your earlier warmth having dissipated into a cold, dark look and you gave her a smile, biting your lip, "That's great, Lois. Have fun."

Lois noticed the way your face fell, but she couldn't understand or take the hint. She kept watching as you moved away, turning your back towards her and didn't utter another word. She parted her lips, wanting to ask her what had gone wrong suddenly, but decided not to, or rather, keep the discussion for another time. She didn't want Clark to reach before she had even gotten ready. You didn't step out of your bedroom, that night when Lois returned from her date with Clark, and Lois frowned when she saw that the lights to your bedroom were already switched off. You were a late sleeper.

Two months later,

Lois looked up from the article that she had been reading to find you enter the dining room with a breakfast plate in your hand.

"Mornin'," you mumbled, your voice barely audible as you sat down on a chair in front of her, next to your father, Sam Lane. Your father looked up from the newspaper that he was reading, and glanced at Lois who shrugged her shoulders in response and he cleared the throat.

"Honey, don't you think you've been locking yourself up in your room for long now? When was the last time you actually did something that didn't involve either the bed, or your office desk?" The cutting crispness in his voice was enough to slice through your heart, but weirdly, you felt nothing, ecen when you heard Lois gasp and mumble something to her father in protest.

"What do you want me to do, dad?" You asked, sipping your juice, your eyes fixed to your plate.

Ignoring you, Sam turned towards his elder daughter as he narrowed his eyes at her, his loud, booming voice echoing through your house, "Lois, what the hell happened at work? She just quit? And didn't even give a damn valid reason as to what on earth happened?"

"I don't know, dad. She hardly talks to me anymore," Lois replied.

You chuckled dryly to yourself, wondering when you had become so invisible to the world. You were right there with them and yet they regarded you like you weren't even there.

"It was difficult to get you job at the Daily Planet and look at you, throwing it away for whatever the hell the reason was." Your dad barked.

Your fingers clenched into a fist and Lois visibly tensed. Hurriedly, she stood up and announced that she was leaving. You stood up too, but not for work, but rather to go back to the place that you had locked yourself in for the past two months. When you reached the door, you turned around and regarded your father, mumbling, "Why would you care anyway? You never really did before."

You kicked open your room door and slammed it back shut again as you ran straight for your bed. You were trembling like a leaf trying to detach itself from the tree when you buried your face into the pillow and screamed as loudly as you could into it. You were a mess, a walking , talking, living, breathing mess.

You cried, for almost thirty minutes, until you were out of tears. You then sat up and rubbed your eye sockets, finally taking a deep breath. You were letting Clark and Lois affect you so much, you had forgotten what it was like to live normally. How were you supposed to go on like this? If you wouldn't take a command of your own life again, then how would learn to get back up on your feet? When would you learn to accept that you would never get Clark? He wasn't the one for you.

Feelings are so transient, it's like you can feel them slicing through your insides one minute, and then the other minute, you feel unrealistically numb.

With those sorts of destructive thoughts in your mind, you sneaked a bottle of whiskey that night from your father's liquor cabinet at two am at night. You rolled the window pane and snuck out onto the fire escape until you were climbing up towards the roof the building of your apartment, the bottle in tow.

You fixed yourself on the ledge, using your teeth to twist the bottle cap as you took a swig of it, feeling the warm liquid burn your relentless thirst for relief. Sip after sip, you kept staring at the starless sky, mediating your gaze from the sky down to the glittery buildings.

"Will I ever forget you, Clark Kent?" You whispered, into the thin air, laughing bitterly at yourself as you took the last sip from the bottle before it rolled away. The way the lights glimmered in front of you, and one of two cars drove past your building, looking like tiny little blinking lights from the height you were at, you realized one thing. No matter how bad your heart is broken, the world doesn’t stop for your grief.

You were lost in a turbulence of your own thoughts, so entangled into them, you didn't hear the soft thud somewhere behind you, neither the sound of the faintest footsteps that got closer to you, with every passing second. You took a sharp breath, and slowly stepped over the ledge, feeling shudders all over your frame as the winds hit you all over you. You footing, however, slipped, a sharp scream erupting from your lips as you fell backwards against gravity, your heart almost stopping.

Someone suddenly reached out towards you, gripping your wrist, leaving you hanging from the ledge, your body flailing in the air.

He pulled you with a jerk towards you, and your body hit his front, your hair falling all over your face partially covering it. You felt intoxicated, so much, that you had almost died by falling off the building but you didn't feel the scare, the only thing you felt was a sudden surge of adrenaline.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Superman growled, through gritted teeth, his eyes sparkling as you jerked you by your shoulders.

"Clark? Is -- that you?!" You slurred, holding on to his cape tight to hold you in place. You were in a weird state of mind, you could see that it was him, but you couldn't figure out if it really was him, or if it was your mind that was playing an illusion on you.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" Clark fumed, still holding on to you by the low of your back. He suddenly jumped off the ledge, with you in tow, away from the edge, so the two of you were in the middle of the roof now.

"K-Kill myself? No, I.. I.." You stammered, struggling for the right words but your brain felt frozen.

"Two months, and you don't show yourself. And when I finally see you, you're trying to jump off a fucking building?!" His eyes just then fell on the empty whiskey bottle. He growled, clenching his fists tight as he let go off you and walked up to the where the bottle lay, his cape flying behind him. He bent, lifting it up as he examined it, noticing how the neck of the bottle had your lipstick imprints on it. "And you're drunk. To top it up a notch."

Your nostrils flared in an anger you hadn't experienced ever before, your secret feelings finally crushing you completely, mixed with the alcohol that was rushing through your blood. You growled, like a cornered animal, that was wounded yet didn't want to back down. You pushed him, once, twice, throwing out all your pent up anger and frustration into his steely body like he felt no hurt. You screamed, you lashed, you scratched and you cried, finally coming undone, like beads of a rosary coming apart and scattering all over the floor.

Clark's heart broke at the sight of you. He had always seen you as a strong, happy woman, always smiling for him whenever he saw you at work. And this woman, that stood in front of his eyes right now, was far from it.

"I am not weak! I wouldn't kill myself! You give yourself too much importance, to think that someone would give their life for you!" You lashed out.

You were tired of hitting him like a punching bag. He grabbed you by your wrists, holding them together in front of you, pressed against his chest. He slowly moved, so he was towering over you, his back shielding you from unwanted, prying eyes as he gazed into your eyes, trying to find the answer to where all of this was coming from.

"You don't know what you're talking about. Come on, Lois is worried about you."

You couldn't stop yourself when your hand jerked itself free from his hold, and your palm struck his cheek. There was a crackling noise, of skin against skin, and tears formed in your eyes when the realisation hit you, all the intoxication washing off of you. You had just slapped Superman, a man that could snap your neck by grabbing your throat. Yet, he just stood there, too shocked to even register that you had slapped him right across his face and what was worse, he couldn't understand the reason you had done that. Anger was surfing through his veins, but worse than the anger that he was feeling, he was feeling like someone had pulled his heart out, ripping it to shreds right in front of his eyes.

"Why?" He let go off your other hand, his own palm coming to rest against his cheek as you gave you a look full of hurt.

"Why did you even save me, Clark? You should have let me fall. Atleast, it would have spared me the pain of listening to her name flow out of your lips again."

"Why do you hate her so much? She is your sister, [Y/N] and she cares for you. She worries that you're killing yourself and she doesn't know the reason why--" Clark was losing his temper, slowly but surely. He didn't understand you and that was eating him up.

"The reason why? WHY??! Oh Clark can you stop? And listen to yourself. I love Lois, but she needs to stop trying to govern my life. I'm allowed to feel sad, I'm allowed to feel a fucking heartbreak--" You didn't realise, but your lips were trembling now, your eyes leaking salty tears. You shivered when you felt Clark hold you by your shoulders but you didn't push his arms away.

"Who broke your heart?" He whispered, his voice cracking.

"You're fucking daft for a man who saves the world--" Hissing bitterly , you pushed yourself away from Clark's grip and turned towards the ledge but this time, you didn't try anything that would risk your life. You simply revelled in the cold feeling of the wind striking your tear stained face as you took a punctured breath, feeling Clark's breath on the side of your neck.

"Who broke your heart?" He asked again, but this time it was much softer, and it made you bite down on your lip to hold yourself from breaking into a hysterical crying.

"You did, Clark. You broke my heart." You finally whispered, staring into the abyss in front of you, your eyes cloudy and your throat parched as you continued, your lips trembling, "I loved you. Always did, but you never looked at me. It was always Lois. And it killed me, watching you love her, knowing that you will never love me the way you love her--" Clark let you speak, he wanted to listen to you, for you to let it all out, all those bitter things that you had locked up inside your mind, that was slowly eating you up and killing you from the inside. "I am tired of everyone, for you, for my father and for the world to see me as the Other Lane, as Lois Lane's little sister. My name is [Y/N]. I like to draw although I am shit at it, I can sing in the showers and I hate partying. That is me. I want a normal relationship too, but it seems that the world is against me. I fell in love with one man, and turns out, he isn't even human, he is a freaking superhero from Krypton?"

Clark let out a gruff sounding snort, as he looked down at you. Reluctantly, he reached for a strand of hair that was sticking to your tear coated cheek, removing it and gently tucking it behind your ear. He felt a shudder run down your spine, with just a gentle touch of his hand and he smiled, biting his lip. How was he supposed to tell you what the truth was?

"You remember how we met at the cafeteria every morning ? And I let you take the coffee?"

You nodded, listening to him, trying to control the crying that had now turned to sniffles, as Clark kept speaking.

"And the countless times I ran into that elevator with you and me stuck inside for just two floors?"

"You must have been thinking how weird I was. How unlike Lois--" You began, but you were cut off by Clark's voice.

"I used to wonder if there was anything I could do to make the elevators stop working, so I'd get to spend more time with you. Wretched elevators, not once did anything go according to what I wanted." He mumbled, but he had a small smile playing on his lips, while you just looked on, staring at him in disbelief, wondering if your mind was playing jokes with you once again.

"I thought I would take Lois' help, to you know, figure out if you felt the same way, but you never said anything to her."

"What about the date? Lois and you went on?" You asked.

"Well, I --" he shrug, looking down at his feet, sheepishly, " Lois thought you would confess how you felt for me if we pretended to--"

You were too numb to react; so you just blinked in retaliation. Your blood ran cold, and you suddenly felt light headed. All this while, while you had secretly been pining for Clark Kent to love you back, was it actually the other way round? Was Clark going through the same thing wondering if you felt the same for him?

"That was cowardly." You hissed, through pursed lips, "Trying to pretend to be in love with my sister."

"I was in love with the other Lane," he bit his lip, his face slightly inclined towards you, so he was looking down at you, and you up at him, "I think you are amazing. You are intelligent, and smart. And you're unique. There are these little things I adore about you. The way you greeted everyone whenever I was around-- ranging from the security guard, to the building keepers at the Daily Planet.. the way you forgot to wipe your lips after drinking coffee, and you had this froth all over your upper lip giving you a faint moustache?" He chuckled because you literally let out a gasp, suddenly embarassed.

"Then there were those days you had a bad day and you locked yourself up in your cabin, working all day. I wondered if I should just knock, but I was scared you will tell me off--" he continued, his blues peeking into yours. Your stomach fluttering, you couldn't help but laugh, as though a weight had been lifted off your chest suddenly and held him steady with your hand on his arm. Finally mustering enough courage, you pushed yourself on your toes, and reached up, letting your palm graze delicately over his cheek, caressing his cheekbone with your thumb, "I would have never told you off, Clark. Though that's not what is bothering me right now."

"What is ?" He asked, innocently, relaxing under the touch of your thumb.

"You said you're in love with the other Lane, Clark."

His lips creased, slowly tugging upwards into a smile that was enough to make you feel giddy. Superman wrapped a sturdy arm around you and felt yourself being lifted off, until he was practically holding you in his arms, "Mhm, yep? You got a problem, Miss Lane? Or do Kryptonians don't fit the bill ?"

"Oh, hush, Clark. You're such a dork. But will you be.. my dork?" You bit your lip, holding on to him as though your life depended on it.

"I thought... you'd never ask?" He began, unsure of how to properly weave the complexity of his feelings , churn them into words, something only Clark Kent was good at , and not his alter ego, but found himself halted by the soft press of your index finger against his lips and the sweet whisper of your voice against his ears as he held you close.

“I know, neither did I.” You whispered as he clasped your face in his massive hands and gently touched his lips to yours.

Three years later,

This had probably been the longest that Clark Kent had been away from you, his lover, his best friend, his wife-- four months to be exact. Needless to say, he was excited to be able to see you again, to hold you again.

The familiar silhouette of the cottage on top of the hill came into his view, flowers hanging into tiny earthen pots hanging out on the front porch. The freshly painted white picket fence looked beautiful, and inviting as Lois stood with Martha by the gate, both the ladies sipping tea from their respective cups and saucers. They couldn't contain their smiles when they saw Clark, even though he was covered in what looked like grime and blown up alien intestines?

"I don't even want to know what happened," Lois chuckled, while Martha hugged her son and he kissed the side of her cheek before she scrunched up her nose in disgust at how awful he smelled.

"Well, I guess I'll draw you a bath, you two can talk out here until the baths ready." Both Clark and Lois watched as Martha Kent disappeared into the home and he smiled, when Lois spoke again.

"FYI, she is at the orchard, harvesting the apples for an apple pie," Lois gave him a smug look, fluttering her lashes, "Oh don't pretend you don't want to see her. I can see your eyes darting around, trying to find her. I'll be inside, both of you, just come back in for supper."

He nodded, watching Lois leave and slowly, his fists clenched on either of his sides, he found his way into the tiny orchard that his lovely wife loved to spend most of her time at. He fixed himself by the wooden gate, his eyes admiring you from afar, as you stood on your tiptoes and picked out apples, tossing them into the basket that you held in your arm.

"Need help, Mrs. Kent?"

The basket dropped from your hand as you turned towards the source of the voice, your lips parted in shock. Clark's eyes travelled from you down to your beautiful swollen bump that your loose maternity dress was doing nothing to hide. He chuckled at your response as he walked towards you with longer, faster steps while you simply waddled towards him.

"Jesus, Clark-- I thought you'd miss the birth," you cupped your husband's cheeks in between your swollen fingers as he nuzzled his nose against yours, before kissing you.

"How is my monkey?" He brought his palm to rest against your nine month old baby bump, stroking over the fabric as he whispered against your lips.

"Moving around, not letting me get an ounce of sleep," you smiled, letting your fingers rest over his hand that rested against your stomach, "but I cant really complain now, can I? After all the little nugget's got Kryptonian blood running through their veins."

Clark chuckled, his blue eyes crinkling slightly as he knelt down in front of you, his face in line with the base of your bump as he planted a kiss on the curve of it.

"Come on, Kal Jr, will you stop bothering your mom? She needs all the sleep she can before you push your way into the world and steal our goodnight sleeps for a while," you smiled warmly, as you peered down at him, running your fingers through his hair and he looked up at you, planting another kiss against your bump.

You suddenly frowned and looked at the brown mess on your fingers that stank.

"God, Clark? What the hell? Did you seriously take a dive in a shit pool?"

He chuckled as he pulled himself up again and his hand once again found the base of your stomach to lay his hand protectively upon.

"Alien blood. You should have seen the intestines that covered me. It looked like noddles dipped in black bean sauce and meatballs--" You smacked him hard against the chest to shut him up, but instead he began laughing, his laughter rumbling out of his stomach as you began dragging him inside with his stained cape.

#clark kent x you #clark kent x y/n #clark kent #clark kent x reader #superman #superman x reader #superman x you #kal el x reader #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x y/n #henry cavill

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toothlesshat · 2 years ago

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Ooh I had an idea for an alt version of how Himiko reunited with Yoshi. Okay so in the span of like 2 years there's has been 2 major events that resulted in an outpouring of mystical energy of the Hamato variety in New York. One in the Hidden City that was mainly hidden by all the other magic energies there hut resulted in two very important souls being added to the Hamato Family ninpo, Lady Karai and the fearsome Oroki, and neither of them are opening up to their living relatives about what happened (wanting to let the turtles they adore have their peace). Then once more in Metro Tower two years later and then Staten Island when the turtles regained their mystic powers and Mikey opened that portal respectively, possibly even soem leftover energy from when CJ got sent back! As acting head of the clan, Himiko is curious about why this energy is pouring out there and, since it wasn't in the Hidden City this time, she can actually trace it to New York, the place Yoshi had disappeared from 25 years ago.

No Hamato has set foot in that place since Yoshi's disappearance, so for 4 Hamato energies to appear there os Strang, especially when considered the alien invasion that was underway at the time. So she goes to investigate. Ahe doesn't know it's Yoshi, doesn't know about the turtles, all she knows is there's at least 4 Hamatos in New York that were involved in that alien invasion, 4 Hamatos nobody had ever seen or heard about before, and she wants to find them. Secretly she's hoping Yoshi is among them.

She meets Raph and Mikey first. The two were out getting pizza while Leo and Donnie are still in recovery and as the two (relatively) healthiest they were the ones picking up when the mutant silverfish started causing problems. Unlike the more humanoid mutants, the animal based ones that lacked human intelligence did not stop causing problems in the wake of the invasion and poor Himoko got caught in the crossfire

HONESTLY I like this idea a lot more than the bigger extended family one! Mostly because it’s more condensed and focuses on a smaller number of characters without the element of exposing them to New York, which is a much bigger can of worms than I want to think too deeply about. And I think it gives a lot of great ideas for the Hamato family lore!

I think it’d be fun for a while if they don’t realize they’re related at first. She’s seeking out the Hamato energy, but Raph and Mikey are doing some downtime right now (Mikey is strictly banned until he’s completely healed. On top of that, they’re not wearing their full gear so any symbol of their family isn’t on them either) so, really, they’re just getting caught by a human in their minds. She doesn’t explain she’s looking for her family because they’re strangers, and they don’t tell her much about themselves for the same reason. She does start asking questions about the invasion though, and they’re fascinated to meet a human that’s well versed in mystic abilities. When they go their separate ways, the boys start to get nervous that there’s a human out there who knows they exist that they don’t entirely trust yet, so they decide to go back out later and find her again.

This starts a short period of them making friends before finding out they’re family, but a lot of things tip each other off. For one thing, their styles are very similar, like eerily similar, but the boys have never met other ninjas before so they pay it no mind, and she never forgets it. She looks an awful lot like Karai, and Splinter’s mother, who Raph still remembers. If she ever met Leo, she’d find resemblance of Splinter in him (I’m among the people who thinks Leo looks the most like him) but brushes it off because he’s a turtle. Just a lot of hints here and there but it’ll take Splinter himself to reveal the truth.

#emmie speaks #anon #rottmnt #NEW AU NAME bc I don’t wanna lump this in with the other #Hamato Himiko au #I know I said I’m not good with ocs but… her…

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quitealotofsodapop · 3 years ago

Text

MvA assorted headcanons

General:

So many years together has made the core monsters inseperable. If something affects one member, it affects the group.

All. The. Monsters. Are. Family.

It takes Susan a while to understand inside jokes and past incidents because of being the most recent addition.

There are Other anomalous creatures kept in Area 5X, but they are either non-sentient and/or are too dangerous to be kept around the more human-friendly monster group.

Area 5X is so gotdang big because they were expecting a lot more kaijus like Insecto to crop up. Sadly not many have surfaced to justify the space.

There’s a hangar in Area 5X full of wrecked UFOs. Some are spacecraft wreckage while others are stuff like weird meteors (Susan’s is in there), and at least one alien creature that got crystallised upon entering Earth’s atmosphere.

There’s significant difference in staff employed at different points throughout the past 50 years. There are far more women on the Area 5X worksheet than back in the 50s, and the guards are generally more sympathetic towards the monsters. Many modern staff members have been reprimanded or let go for failing to uphold secrecy, or for unnecessary cruelty towards the monsters.

Budget cuts were a legitmate concern up until the Battle of Golden Gate Bridge. The facility was far more barebones and sterile before the government had to formally recognise Area 5X’s importance. There have been a lot of redecorating at the facilty since the fat checks started coming in.

Putting individual characters under read due to length.

Susan:

Enjoys many hobbies considered stereotypically feminine; baking, sewing, cosmetics, etc...

Grandparents and extended family are farmers or are atleast connected to the business. Modesto is the agricultural centre of California after all. Her parents were the first of their generation to go against the mold and seek out white-collar careers.

Studied cosmetology in school and was working at a beauty salon to save up for her and Derek’s wedding.

Is very athletic and grew up doing a number of physical extracurriculars like cheerleading, dodgeball, and roller-derby.

Grew up being teased for being the shortest kid in her class/family. They still tease her for it.

Greatly fears causing collateral damage and/or harm to others through her size.

Has issues with anxiety, worsened only by her new job as “savior of earth”. She wishes for a confidant to tell her worries to.

Married life with Derek was doomed to fail. Susan had a plan in place for what came after the marriage, and focusing 100% on Derek’s career was not it. There’s also the line from Derek’s mother about Susan being “the weatherman’s wife”, implying that she was to be the homemaker and not have a career of her own. It’s possible that Susan was planning to settle down and have kids with Derek, but the lack of control she had in moving to Fresno implied that more was going on.

Is currently “taking a break” from love and dating, despite gaining many new admirers.

Tries her best to return to Modesto to visit her family and friends whenever possible, though work often keeps her away for weeks at a time.

If she retains her height-shifting abilities as in the series; Susan goes through really bad “growing” pains.

Link:

Was frozen in his relative late-teens during a cold snap. Got shifted around until he ended up somewhere in Greenland before being discovered by modern humans. Post-thaw he went a bit wild, swimming frantically back south to try and find his old enviroment.

Was one of many scrappy youngsters in his troop, with a number of adoptive parents. The strongest ruled the troop, and Link was fairly weak in comparision to the leaders. He had gotten into a fight the day of his freezing (over something silly in hindsight) and swam away to sulk. When he didn’t return after the cold snap - the troop accepted that he had likely died out on his own.

Likes to freak out humans by making up weird biology facts about his species and ones he’s fought against - like joking about laying eggs or having his tail dettach and regrow like a lizard. However there’s some things he has to ask about, because he doesn’t have medical knowledge or words to describe something.

A lot of his macho behavior came from imitating the guards who kept watch on him. 1950s violent military alpha males aren't a very good role model for someone who doesnt know what societal norms are yet. Link was a lot more insufferable back in the day but chilled out as he began interacting with other walks of life.

Has a high paternal instinct and immediately becomes softer around kids and smaller animals.

Has body language similar to a cat/alligator. Slaps his tail when angry or in deep thought. And yes; Link purrs/rumbles when happy.

Loves monster movies - especially the ones where the monsters “win”. He cried when he saw “Beauty and the Beast” and then immediately booed loudly when the Beast turned human.

Does Not Trust doctors or scientists due to bad past experiences. Will only go to Dr Cockroach and Monger if he ever gets hurt/ill. Gets stressed fast if he has to be in a waiting room or doctors office.

Link had no idea what gender indentities or orientations were until recently - he did come from a pre-human civilization that really didnt mind/care about the schemantics. It took him some time to wrap his head around it. He identifies himself as bisexual after much thought and many hours alone on the computer.

Don't press him about his body. He's built different from humans and cis people. He will punch anyone who doesnt respect his or anyone elses identity.

Has been in love before. It didn’t end well.

Will occasionally wear clothes, but finds it a challenge to find anything that fits him. Will give any shoes he finds to Dr Cockroach and BOB to eat.

The best driver/pilot out of all the monsters.

Dr Cockroach:

True name is Jaques-Yves Herbert. Prefers to just go by "Dr Cockroach" because he dislikes the association with his birth family.

Picks up human languages very easily, although not as quickly as he can understand animals.

Parents were a mixed scientist couple. His father was an aggressive “Strong British Man” that would beat him son down for not following orders or for not meeting his standards for a man. Dr C turned down both chances to attend his parents funerals.

This man isn’t straight. He probably uses old-fashioned slang when asked about romance such as; “I am Uranian” or “I wear a green carnation”. It took Susan a few times to realise what he meant, as she is used to a more open minded enviroment.

Got the idea of transforming into a cockroach from reading Franz Kafkas “The Metamorphosis” as a child. He sympathized with Gregor’s abusive situation, and began considering the possibilties of how one could survive better as a creature like a cockroach.

Studied in biology and entomology in the Uk before moving to the states to follow engineering. Obtained his degree in Dance as a “side gig” in University.

Has been barred from free access to the coffee maker/machine due to overnighters. Once stayed awake so long that he forgot the letter “R”.

Owned a terrarium of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches throughout college. He mourned each of them when his roommate’s iguana got into the tank.

Was a "beatnik" back in the day and still kinda is. Embraces and encourages modern counterculture as he himself was not given such acceptance in his youth. He has however shamefully eaten his old Lenny Bruce album.

Hasn’t actually aged physically since his transformation. He attributes this to the fact that certain athropods can’t age physically beyond maturity. Link is very jealous.

Has obtained more degrees while in captivity, as Monger allowed him access to research and learning materials. He has however had his allowances revoked for previous escape attempts/doomsday devices.

Does still enjoy human food, but the cockroach instinct of "eat detritus" tends to overrule his eating choices. Can’t cook either.

Ironically a terrible driver. The damages from previous drives has made Monger restrict him from operating even a razor scooter.

BOB:

Pretty much considers himself human. Was created by them, raised by one (Monger), and talks like one. Gets sad when he's reminded that no other humans are blue blobs like him.

Absorbed some dna from the scientists present at his "birth", leading to his eye, speech, and omnivorous diet.

Doesnt actually need to breathe (as he can just absorb oxygen through his mass) but the fact that humans Do means that BOB thinks he has to as well.

Shares some physical characteristics with tomatoes/nightshade plants, as he is technically half tomato. He refuses to eat tomatos for this very reason, considering it cannibalism.

Attracts garden pests looking for a tomato plant. This unwittingly makes BOB a pretty good bug zapper.

Still retains his "mental broadcast" ability from "BOB's Big Break" although at a more subtle level. He tends to parrot the things he accidentally "eavesdropped" on.

Is empathetic, and can tell when others aren't doing ok emotionally. Will flop down on someone who’s really sad to comfort them. No brain, only heart.

Best cook out of the monsters. If he doesn’t forget what he’s making at least.

"Whats a gender? Can I eat it?"

Insectosaurus:

Core body is that of a Japanese Silkmoth, although she ended up being spliced with other animals present on the island during her initial mutation; namely ants and ground squirrels.

Eats over a literal ton of mulberry leaves per day. Also enjoys oranges.

Secretly wishes to be more humanoid.

Was only able to pupate and transform due to physical trauma. It seems that her transformation was like a “power-up” that required her to be in geniune distress for it to activate.

First language is Japanese. She learned it from the intial recovery team, and later developed an understanding of English from years in Area 5X.

Goes into torpor in cold weather. Pretty much impossible to wake her up for missions during Winter, as she needs to “rev up” before becoming mobile.

Still very much Link’s best friend. Still enjoys sports, chicks, and beer.

Monger:

Full name is; Warren Rex Monger.

Is very protective of the monsters and will defend them to the death.

Pretty much raised BOB (as seen when BOB was a baby blob in “Night of the Living Carrots”), and considers him his “freaky gelatinous son”.

Has a reputation of being a “control-freak” due to his aggressive overseeing of the monsters’ containment. This toughness is partly because of incidents that occured without his knowledge. Lets just say some scientists have been wedgied/fired for running experiments on the monsters without Monger’s approval.

Has a very “Ron Swanson” emotional response and view of the world. Crying is acceptable only at funerals and at the Grand Canyon (if he hadn’t lost his tear ducts in the war).

Has been married multiple times. Will not confirm or deny if he is currently seeing anyone.

Invisible Man/TiM:

Legit got out but no one at Area 5X is sure how. He suffered a geniune medical emergency and disappeared after surgery. The other monsters were informed that he died from complications to deter them from getting escape ideas.

Is able to be detected in Infrared light. Dr Cockroach managed to rig up goggles to view TiM in case of injury and to foil pranks.

Was a scientist working on an invisibility potion for the military and used himself as a guinea pig. Hasn’t actually been able to replicate his results since - thinks the effect may have been caused by a genetic abnormality.

Dr Cockroach and him are massive rivals. Both actually met eachother pre-transformation through a CalTech expedition. This makes the pair one of few people that have seen the others human face.

Is 100% naked. Was forced to wear clothing once this was discovered.

A massive prankster and a cynic. Him and Link were a force to be reckoned with.

Has revisted the facility multiple times and has started a number of ghost stories.

Any additions are welcome! I proably have alot more to dump about. Might make one of the alien characters from the series

#monsters vs aliens #mva #susan murphy #ginormica #the missing link #dr cockroach #bob mva #general monger #the invisible man mva #insectosaurus #headcanons

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gthreepio · 4 years ago

Text

i’ve been thinking about the future of the mcu and realized there’s a LOT that i didn’t know/didn’t remember in terms of where things are going so i figured i’d sum it up incase anyone else was in the same boat!!

quick recap of (unresolved) mid-credit scenes:

doctor strange: mordo (a sorcerer that is one of strange’s mentors, who by the end of the movie becomes disillusioned with magic/the ancient one and quits) confronts pangborn (the paraplegic who healed himself with the mystic arts, who tells strange about mystic arts in the first place) and steals his magic because according to mordo, there are “too many sorcerers." of note, this guy is typically a villain in the comics but hasn’t been thus far...

gotg2: ayesha (leader of the sovereign, a golden skinned alien race obsessed with genetic purity), after spending most of the movie chasing the guardians for stealing some stuff, is revealed to have created an artificial being named “adam” which is presumably, adam warlock. (other stuff that is less relevant: kraglin appears to take up yondu’s mantle; the ravagers regroup and several old and obscure comic book characters are introduced [charlie-27, aleta, martinex, mainframe]; the watchers are watching things.)

far from home: j jonah jameson basically tells the whole world spider-man’s secret identity, and frames him for what happened with mysterio....making him public enemy #1. ALSO, turns out nick fury and maria hill in the movie were ACTUALLY the two skrulls from captain marvel (talos and soren) attempting to do their job, while the real fury (and presumably hill) is ... up in space on some spaceship!!!

wandavision: monica (who we can assume is photon) is called by “an old friend of [her] mother’s,” up in space, which presumably means fury, talos, or carol. ALSO, wanda sits in the middle of nowhere reading the darkhold and hears the voices of her children who.. by all accounts, should not exist.

aaaaand what we know about future movies (i’m not even going into the tv series.....):

black widow:

takes place after civil war

nat confronts a “dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past,” likely has to do with taskmaster who has apparently taken over the red room where nat was trained as an assassin

prominent new characters: yelena belova, who will take over the mantle of black widow after this; alexei shostakov aka red guardian, an ollllld marvel hero analogous to captain america except for the soviet union.

tony stark will make an appearance... SOBS

shang-chi and the legend of the ten rings:

shang-chi has never been seen in the mcu before, but he is, essentially, a superhero that is a master martial artist, and in some adaptations can also create duplicate (fake) versions of himself to confuse opponents

main villain will be the the mandarin who we have *sort of* seen before... he is the leader of a terrorist organization called “ten rings” whose main goal is to destroy world peace. brief history -- in iron man 1: one ten rings cell kidnaps tony stark and tries to force him to make weapons (he of course, makes his suit instead). stark and ten rings become enemies and fight a bunch. nat and nick fury fight them too. in iron man 3, the villain aldrich killian hires a dude to pretend to be the mandarin and claim responsibility for a bunch of stuff, but its not the ten rings or the mandarin at all. this makes the mandarin v mad and he has a dude kidnap the faker to punish him. they also briefly show up in ant-man, when a ten rings agent tries to buy the yellowjacket suit that darren cross is selling. BUT IN SHANG-CHI....... looks like we are FINALLY going to see the real mandarin after over a decade!!

the villain razor fist will also show up, he is lesser known... he has no superhuman powers but he has surgically replaced his hands (1 or 2, depending on the version) with a steel blade, and is highly skilled at hand to hand combat.

besides the presence of these characters, the only bit of plot we know is “shang-chi is drawn into the ten rings organization and forced to confront his past.” so... yeah. we don’t know much at all.

eternals:

quick explanation: the eternals are an immortal alien race who have been secretly living on earth for thousands of years. they were created by the celestials, who are most prominently in gotg2.

more entirely new characters!!! their names are: thena, who can form any weapon out of cosmic energy; gilgamesh, who can make a super strong exoskeleton out of cosmic energy; ikaris, who has superhuman strength, flies, and can project cosmic energy out his eyes; kingo, who can shoot cosmic energy projectiles from his hands; makkari, who creates sonic booms, has super speed, and is deaf; phastos, who has enhanced intelligence, and is also gay (and married with a kid!); ajak, who has healing powers; sprite, who can project illusions; sersi, who can manipulate matter; druig, who can mind control; and dane whitman (black knight), a human with a mystical sword.

regarding the plot... it seems the eternals have kind of dispersed, but have to come together again to fight the deviants, who are their “evil counterparts” (also created by the celestials, though i’m unclear on why). thena and gilgamesh have apparently been in exile, unclear why; sersi, who is posing as a museum curator, has apparently been in love with ikaris for centuries and it seems as if their love story may be central to the film; and kingo is a bollywood film star in his spare time. aaaaand that’s pretty much all we know.

directed by chloé zhao of nomadland fame!

spider-man no way home:

based on the post-credits scene in far from home, peter parker will now be known as spider-man to everyone. unclear if he’s going to be seen as a bad guy due to mysterio framing him, but i guess we’ll see!

jamie foxx is electro, and alfred molina is doctor octopus; which is VERY interesting considering they played these roles in other spider-man franchises, once again stirring up excitement for possible multiverse.

there have been *multiple* reports that andrew garfield, kirsten dunst, tobey maguire, and emma stone will be in the movie but tom holland has repeatedly denied this... so... who knows.

there are also rumors that matt murdock / daredevil (from netflix) will be in several scenes! not confirmed though.

MJ is still his girlfriend and i hope it stays that way!!

doctor strange will be featured in the movie, taking on the mentor role now that tony stark is gone :( this will be interesting as i.. haven’t really seen them interact much before. because of this inclusion some people speculate that the film may draw inspo from some comic storylines where peter’s secret identity is restored with magic.

doctor strange in the multiverse of madness:

scarlet witch is essentially co-starring!!! it’s going to be really interesting to see if they bring vision or the twins into this at all, though i’m not counting on it.

seems like mordo will be the main villain -- recall the ds1 post credits scene where he is apparently running around trying to steal people’s magic.

america chavez will make her debut!!!!!! i have no idea how this plays into anything but i am so excited!!

regarding the plot, all we really know is that strange has been researching the time stone, mordo messes with him, and this results in him accidentally unleashing “unspeakable evil.” presumably there will also be heavy involvement of the multiverse, and who knows what kind of craziness that will bring!!

initially was going to be directed by scott derrickson who did ds1; however he stepped down to being just EP due to “creative differences.” i am presuming this is because derrickson really wanted to make this more gothic and horror than disney was comfortable with. i REALLY hope they keep some of those elements though and don’t erase the idea entirely! anyway, it will be directed by sam raimi now (of evil dead and spiderman 2002 fame).

the film also reportedly ties in with the loki series (will loki show up!?) and spiderman 3 (which is obvious enough, given that strange is in that movie and those curious electro and doctor octopus castings...)

thor: love and thunder

directed by taika waititi again, hell yeah!!! and he has stated, the film will be “so over the top now in the very best way" and would make ragnarok look like a "run of the mill, very safe film" .... so.... oh god

so many great returning players!!! including.... valkyrie (now the king of new asgard), jane foster, lady sif, korg, star-lord, mantis, drax, nebula, and kraglin (takes up yondu’s mantle after he dies in gotg2)

in this movie, thor isn’t thor anymore.... it’s JANE!!! she gets cancer :( and is undergoing treatment while simultaneously being thor. i’m a little nervous how this will be handled, but i’m excited. (it’s based off an amazing comic series by jason aaron)

the big bad: gorr the god butcher, played by christian bale! the gist of it is, this dude HATES gods because nobody helped when his family was dying and in need. his weapon is “all-black the necrosword,” forged from the head of a celestial, and allows the user to create wings and fly at extreme speeds. honestly, he sounds cool as fuck.

valkyrie is going to be made canonically bisexual!!!

it will explore more of korg’s backstory, and also include... space sharks!?!?! an alien race from the comics.

taika has called the script “very romantic” so take that as you will

black panther 2

will again be directed by ryan coogler

not much is known at this point, does not have an official name

t’challa will NOT be recast (which i’m happy about) so..... honestly no idea what to expect for this one. i think we can probably expect shuri to have an expanded role. all we know so far is they will be “exploring the world of wakanda.” not clear to me how this is different from the upcoming wakanda D+ series.

tenoch huerta has reportedly been cast as a villain, but no one has any idea who. there’s also rumors that donald glover is in “informal talks” to play a role. note all of this is unconfirmed.

captain marvel 2

will be directed by nia da costa (candyman!) and written by megan mcdonnell, who is one of wandavision’s best writers!

will take place in the present day

will feature kamala khan / ms. marvel, monica rambeau / photon!!! this will be so interesting.... kamala is a huge fan of carol’s in the comics, she is her mentor/idol. the ms. marvel series will also resportedly lead into cm2. and monica, well, monica knew her when she was a little kid. wandavision implies that there’s some bad blood between carol and monica though, not sure why. maybe because carol left and never came back? (until endgame)

post-credits scene of wandavision appears to tie into this, having monica go up into space at the reqeust of her “mom’s old friend.” again, not clear who that is. this could also be a tie in to secret invasion though, so we’ll see. or both.

zawe ashton has been cast as an unknown villain... a lot of people are actually speculating that she may play rogue? which would be fascinating, as there’s a comic arc where rogue steals her powers and memories. BUT there’s still no confirmation that X-men exist in the MCU so for now i remain skeptical.

they are looking to cast a ‘john boyega’ or ‘michael b jordan’ type which makes me wonder if they are going to create a new character, a “younger” war machine to be her love interest? (note: carol and rhodey are a huge thing in comics!) carol obviously does not look her age but her and don cheadle.... that just doesn’t work. which is why i wonder.

ant-man and the wasp: quantumania

in addition to scott and hope, pretty much all the major players are returning including: luis, hank pym, janet van dyne

cassie lang has been recast with an actress 5 years older, which is really making me wonder if they are going to make her stinger in this movie! (aka one of the main young avengers)

the villain: kang the conqueror! this dude time travels. original name nate richards. in the comics, kang travels back in time to rescue his younger self (nate) from an attack that would help shape him towards a life of villainy. kang also gives him some fancy armor. his younger self actually is like, what the fuck dude? and renounces his destiny, becoming a hero. and he makes his armor look like iron man, calling himself iron lad. who is a young avenger. which also makes me wonder about cassie lang.

otherwise not much is known!

guardians of the galaxy vol. 3

james gunn is returning, i’m mixed about this...he really does *get* the guardians though.

based on the gotg2 post credits scene, i think we can assume adam warlock will be a HUGE part of this. there are multiple versions of him, some villainous and some heroic, but no idea how this is gonna turn out.

no word yet on whether thor will be involved, or if those ravagers they introduced will be involved.

fantastic four

will be directed by the spiderman guy, john watts.

otherwise we know literally nothing.

aaaaand that’s the roundup!

#mcu #marvel #black widow #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings #eternals #smnwh #spiderman: no way home #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #dsitmom #thor: love and thunder #tlat #black panther 2 #captain marvel 2 #ant man and the wasp: quantumania #amatwq #guardians of the galaxy vol. 3 #gotg3 #fantastic four #mcu thoughts

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darkobssessions · 4 years ago

Text

Coping Tips for Autistic Women

I am compiling a list of resources for aspie women along with tips to manage symptoms and navigate the world. Regretably, most of my personal experience comes from living undiagnosed and unaware about this for the last 27 years. There was a giant elephant in the room with everything, and I have only recently worked it out. This means that most of my habits prior to this point were ones attempting to cope with a giant unknown, the limits of which were unclear. But they more or less worked, because, as I am realising, there’s always been something they are attempting to address.

With other diagnoses and ways I attempted to explain and understand my difficulties, there were finite causes and treatments. I should have been improving if I tried x, y, or z. And I did improve my symptoms in many ways, but there was something missing from the picture. That is that autism is my personality, my state of being, how I process and view the world. And no tool, medication, process or treatment was ever going to change who I really was. Being misdiagnosed (or being missed and failing to receive the autism diagnosis) means that I have been trying to correct something that you cant ‘correct’, and shaming myself for something fundamentally me.

Some of the tips I learned over time, from how I am as a person, without the framework of reference of neurodivergence or autism:

Sensory:

My sensitivity has always been a big waving flag. I felt and saw things others didn’t. I felt more deeply. I sensed the microeffects and changes in everything. I responded harder and faster to any chemical, environmental shift, any positive or negative event, As we all do on the spectrum, we attempt to navigate our sensory environment. And we come up with coping mechanisms, good or bad, before or after we realise we are on the spectrum. For me this was a strong aversion to the things that upset me, that disturbed my senses. It was an orienting of myself in a way to avoid the disturbances, going inwards, withdrawing and even shutting down. I learned that I could not and did not want to handle crowds, loud places, supermarkets. I lived in a giant simulation attempting to minimise and avoid as much as possible the things that hurt. I learned that I was extremely sensitive, no one else seemed to be, and I just had to manage it. Since discovering autism in the last weeks, I am able to embrace the fact that sensory overload is a thing, and I really do feel pain in my body when things are too much and too loud, and just wearing earplugs has mitigated so much of this. I was gas lighting myself before about feeling a certain way because there was no explanation, that I was aware of anyway.

Physical:

I have had so many problems over the years, since I was a young girl. I used to get food poisoning symptoms really easily. I had hidden allergies. I remember a lot of my childhood spent doubled up with stomach pains, or having a fever. My family didn’t know any better and fed me and treated me as they did every other member. I was not the same, I did not feel the same, but I took it all in. By the time I was in my early teen years, I had cemented my aversion to certain foods, taken the only control I had at the time against an encroaching and controlling mother and turned it into anorexia. I avoided things I didn’t like, again, and set up a system of control that made more sense than the gaping wounds and confusion within me. Starvation triggered bulimia. And a viscous cycle of malnourishment and dysregulation unfolded. I didn’t learn until many, many years later that my system was so sensitive and damaged that if I tried to go back to how I used to eat as a child, I would get terrible symptoms. So my coping tips as I have healed from the eating disorders and become more aware is to figure out what the triggers are, what hurts, and to avoid it. This along with adding in nutrient dense foods and working on the deficiencies has done wonders for me. I’ve done tremendous work on my autoimmune conditions, gut problems, sensitivities and inflammation levels and the difference is like night and day. That I can induce psychotic symptoms by deviating or introducing foods I am intolerant to is no joke. The tip I can share is elimination diets truly do work, the keto diet is recommended, and eating the carnivorous way saved my life. My eating disorders for almost 15 years INCLUDING the 7.5 years I was a vegan, mostly high raw and fruitarian depleted my nutrients so badly that every symptom was enhanced 100% and I was eating pretty much ONLY food I was actually intolerant to. Ahem, plants, I’m talking to you. The peace I feel, the nourishment and rest on a nervous system level having eliminated them is unreal.

Social:

I have always known I was different, in a deep, visceral way. How the adults in my life answered questions was inadequate. I saw through people and things. I was far too intense and serious. I learned to watch and observe humans and pick up cues so as to attempt to fit in. I spent the majority of my life masking, something I am only now finding out about and unraveling. I kept notes on the human experience, and saved colours, sounds, feelings, because I felt like I couldn’t communicate the truth of myself otherwise. Over the course of my life there have been inexplicable (until now) events. Lost friendships and relationships, strings of broken promises, people not acting on what they say, confusions and miscommunications, and many dangerous situations and predatory bonds. I made what sense I could of it from whatever lens I could find. It was the trauma, it was my soul contract, it was what I deserved, it was being targeted- all close, but not quite within the realm of being so naive, open and fundamentally different as you are on the spectrum. I just always assumed everybody was like me. I had to learn the very extremely hard way that not everyone felt and thought in the same way, nor had good intentions. I still struggle with the fact that humans don’t tell the truth. It is of no relevance whether they secretly know it. Most people are more comfortable with illusions. I always knew this, but the diagnosis gives me a lot more peace around it. It’s allowing me to accept the fact that if I look around the majority of the people I see are not walking around processing and over-analysing everything, feeling sounds, decoding patterns and obsessed with hacking the code of reality. Less pressure that way, and more in the way of what can be viewed as natural interaction on my part. I will solve the mystery of the universe out loud otherwise, and get the blank looks and the discomfort. I have found my people, a tribe of likeminded individuals, I have gathered friends over the years that didn’t run from my weirdness. But I am mostly content to be on my own, knowing that I can only use what is around me to try to convey how I feel and who I really am. And that will probably be a book, a movie or a work of art, much better than a 2pm rendezvous when I can’t stop talking about the hidden signs.

Emotional:

With the intensity of my emotions I have developed borderline personality disorder as a means to cope with being autistic and not knowing. I have been diagnosed with both that and bipolar because I have intense stints of emotions. They come and go in waves, lasting hours, lasting days and weeks. I consider it to be an energy management system to cope with the demands and stressors of modern day living. Creatives always withdraw and hibernate, and come out with new insights and art to share. The way that I feel and view the world is special. It’s at the basis of my writing, what I choose to engage with and how. My emotions make me who I am. I feel intensely, I share passionately about how I feel. I snap, I break, I shutdown, I come out again and I am a bright, shooting star. There is an excited little animal that lives within me and it is the strongest most passionate thing known to man. I thought that my negative experiences or trauma killed it, but this is before I knew it IS me and cannot die. So I have stopped trying to cram these emotions in or explain them. Stopped trying to attribute them to whatever script people were following when they dealt with me. Throwing me into the depressive, anxious, panic stricken, eating disordered basket case category. The missing piece now makes so much sense. The ways I responded to being autistic were coping mechanisms, such as developing a personality disorder, to deal with the pressure. My psyche splintered under the weight. My tip here is in embracing your inner life and world, embracing that you are different, so that all of the mental and emotional acrobatics needed to attempt to explain the issues or fit in can be put to rest.

Spiritual:

Being different and feeling differently means I naturally saw and expressed things in quite a strange way. I was convinced of a secret world to reality, behind reality, living on behind a paper shell, so to speak, that would rip if only I could reach out and tear it aside. That conviction was rewarded as year after year my awareness grew, my gifts multiplied, and the experiences I had revealed to me the hidden hand of god. There was very much design to the universe, a pattern, weaving through all things. And i was a part of it, not some discarded afterthought or simple byproduct that had no place. In the early years, I kept my convictions to myself, nursed them with experience. I died a thousand deaths in dark nights of the soul, crashing against the turf of my ignorance. I broke open, and everything I had been so sure of as a child was revealed to me again and again. I was convinced I had a purpose, I could feel the deep tides of human emotion and motion, could feel into the genetic sequence that had birthed me. I felt like an alien, but that slowly over time the map of my operation was being revealed to me. This is what it feels like so many years later to stand here and find out about being autistic and realise that how I felt in my soul all these years was real, and that I can begin to truly fulfill this mission now, to share my experience in words I know others will understand because they feel the same way too. It was the challenges that I never understood, while the gifts were the reason to stay alive. My message to myself and others now is that there is a point, a reason to persevere and understand yourself more. The suffering reveals so much of the true state of things, so that we can protect our tender hearts and build new things that honour who we really are, our souls.

Resources, movies, literature to follow. I just wanted to share something of a summary now of my realisations since coming home to myself.

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kaibutsushidousha · 3 years ago

Note

Your opinion on Pepe? Also do you have any speculation about his character arc in future LBs?

I’m really sorry I answered that ask a few months saying I had already run out of things to say about Hakuno because I was lying.

Yuga Kshetra’s biggest narrative weakness and main reason why it’s my favorite FGO chapter is its overreliance on CCC references and parallels. Pepe reflects that not only by mentioning Gatou once, but mainly by having way too much in common with Hakuno. This is easy to notice on the surface level of them being people nice to everyone around them while firmly rejecting the idea that they are good people because they killed a lot out of self-preservation, but honestly, they remain extremely similar both in their complexities and in the circumstances that lead them to be like that.

Pepe was born with the awareness that he’s on his last reincarnation, but he considers himself too flawed to reach enlightenment on the one lifetime he still has left, so he sorta gave up on everything before he started. That’s his one key character that defines pretty much the whole rest of his character. On one hand, he cares more about helping the other Crypters than about anything pertaining to himself, because he believes there's a future for them and not for him. But, paradoxically enough, he’s also unwilling to do anything for self-preservation, up to willingly choose the death of all non-Crypter humans over his own, also out of consciousness that he’s the one guy who gets no next time. And his fascination for myths with reincarnation cycles is a case of longing for what you can’t have.

Similarly, Hakuno is something of a digital ghost who can’t exist outside of the Moon Cell. They fight for their survival in the Grail War, but touching the Grail would kill them instantly. Both Hakuno and Pepe are people with no past and no future choosing to make connections to derive value from the present, because that’s the only thing they have.

If I had to say they have one key difference, that’d be Pepe’s ability to cut people off. Hakuno’s lack of a past is just as much of a part of their circumstances as their lack of a future, but Pepe’s lack of a past was entirely his own choice. He actively chose to kill his entire family including all vassals. Even his later life, where he lived years as a mercenary, came into contact with many different people, but never found he felt he belonged to until he became a part of Chaldea’s Team A, there’s an element of agency in Pepe not forming bonds with anyone. This is reflected best in how, after spending the whole Lostbelt as our companion, Pepe jumps back to his Crypter job with no remorse, bluntly saying “I don’t think we ever had any deep conversations”. Hakuno is someone who can give up on people, as Eliza’s case shows, but they would never deny any connection they made.

Well, moving a bit away from the Hakuno topic, another really good angle to look at Pepe’s character is in how he reflects Kirschtaria’s ideals. At his most cynical, Kirsch believed that the human mindset was hardwired into taking away from its peers and that only those raised under very circumstances are capable of truly loving, acknowledging, and valuing others. Pepe sorta works as a proof of concept here, as someone who once murdered his entire household in one set of circumstances, and then became Friend Man the Friendliest on a different set.

But more importantly, their actions are an example of what Kirschtaria valued the most: humanity’s potential to inadvertently help each other by simply moving on with their goals. Kirsch revived his fellow Crypters and gave them Lostbelts mostly out of necessity for his plan, but in doing so, he allowed Pepe the second chance at life he always believed he would never get, and if everything went according to his plan, Pepe would be free from his worries about his definitive end. Meanwhile, Pepe naturally provided the exact kind of support Kirschtaria needed the most: a mind-reading companion who could understand him even while the alien god’s contract prevented him from talking to his dear one-sided friends about his dreams or the time they spent together.

Now we move on to the second question, where I think Pepe is going next. Well, starting with the obvious, Pepe left Olympus saying he’s after Beryl to avenge Kirschtaria, so we’re guaranteed to have him in Avalon le Fay. However, Yuga Kshetra builds up his relationship with Daybit, and Olympus also reiterates it with the “I refuse to die in a world without Daybit” line, so I believe he’s surviving and moving to the Amazon Lostbelt.

With that out of the way, let’s move on to the crazier theories. First off, one thing I’ve been wondering since somewhere mid-Yuga Kshetra was with if Pepe was secretly a tengu because tengus are generally abhijna practitioners who fell of the Buddhist ways and Pepe is an abhijna practitioner who already gave up on enlightenment. His deadname being Arou meaning “crow son” adds to the tengu imagery. The end bit of his Lostbelt convinced me he was not a tengu in disguise, but I always held on to the idea that he was one step away from becoming one. This January delivering an event that’s there almost solely to establish how tengus work in Type-Moon and confirm that they follow the “fallen abhijna people” version really reinforced my confidence that we’ll see Pepe becoming a tengu in Avalon le Fay.

Lastly, a much less likely alternative to tengu Pepe, my plan B theory for the very off-chance Pepe won’t become a tengu: Servant Pepe. In Rin’s first exposition on what is a Servant, she explains that the people marked in history are removed from the reincarnation cycle by Alaya’s Counter Force, becoming Heroic Spirits. So, it’s still possible that Pepe is on his last life not because he’s out of second chances, but because he’s becoming a Servant as Scandinavia Peperoncino. The Crypters’ story is a story about second chances, after all. That said, I really fell off of this theory when Little Big Tengu happened and revealed tengus are immortal, meaning Pepe wouldn’t need to become a Servant to escape the permanent end of his existence.

#type moon #fate grand order #scandinavia peperoncino #kishinami hakuno #kirschtaria wodime

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quazartranslates · 3 years ago

Text

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH33

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

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Chapter 33: Star Death Reality Show (XVI)

With He Yi's intermittent narration, Qi Leren finally connected all the dots.

The amphioctopuses, a cosmic alien that could destroy civilization, would hatch once they had spread to a civilized planet and sensed nearby creatures. Generally speaking, this kind of "hatching" was slow, and it took more than half a month to break free from the outer shell of the glowing stones and begin to parasitize. However, there were also ways to stimulate the amphioctopus to incubate quickly, that is, to make an organism's body fluid—usually blood—come into contact with the amphioctopus’s shell, and the amphioctopus will complete the incubation within a few minutes and enter the parasitic state.

That smear of blood on the glowing stone in the church: apparently Annie or Mark had consciously awakened the octopus inside and made it parasitize Mark.

Once parasitized, the host would quickly lose self-awareness and become the octopus’s puppet. The amphioctopus could develop into a mature body within 20 hours, enter the breeding period, lay eggs once a day, and parasitize the surrounding creatures in a relatively closed space, where the number of prey available for parasitization was less than the total number of amphioctopuses.

The amphioctopus was an intelligent creature. The smarter its host was, the smarter it was, because it perfectly inherited everything from the host after capturing its self-awareness. It would use its brain to "think" about how to reproduce more. Its ultimate goal was to reproduce and expand by hook or by crook.

In the late night of the first day, Mark, the first infected person, appeared, and in the late night of the next day, the second infected person also appeared—by various indications, it was Xue Jiahui. The "amnesia" after she woke up was not just her forgetting because she had been parasitized, but because the octopus in her body had borrowed her brain. After thinking, it had concluded that she had better pretend to have amnesia and hide what she knew about amphioctopuses.

On the night of the third day, two new infected people appeared again: one is most likely Annie, the other was uncertain at present, and the most likely one was Lara, who was responsible for taking care of Xue Jiahui. However, Qi Leren had doubts about this, because if Lara had been parasitized, she wouldn’t have mentioned the "contagious physiological conditions" key to Qi Leren when listening to the Best of the Day that morning.

Then there was tonight. There would be four new victims tonight, and the total number of amphioctopuses would exceed that of human beings. After these larvae reached the mature stage, the eight mature octopuses wouldn’t be able to get enough prey. They were about to start a massacre in order to get enough energy, and then enter a long dormant period like the original octopus until new prey appeared.

It was preliminarily estimated that this time would be on the night of the fifth day.

"If you want to save them, time is running out." He Yi’s tone was exhausted as he looked at Qi Leren. "Are you sure you want to try? There are probably eight amphioctopuses outside, at least four!"

"We still have time and methods. I can't think of a reason not to do it," Qi Leren said.

"Methods?" He Yi frowned.

"The instrument that can identify whether someone is infected." Qi Leren remembered that He Yi had used it to confirm that he wasn’t infected.

He Yi's face changed: "No! Don't bring them in! You can go out, but don't come back after you go out. I’ll wait here until the army arrives, but I will not let the infected people enter here!"

Qi Leren frowned and thought: "Well, this research institute is very big. You can find a safe room to go in and lock it. I’ll bring some people who may not be infected to come in for testing. If there is an accident... you can close the door along the way and hide in the power room. In case the situation isn’t good, you can immediately cut off the power supply so that all the doors are difficult to open. Even if there are infected people, they cannot enter your area."

He Yi still shook his head: "No, I won't let the monster in!"

"...Well, at least let me out." Qi Leren sighed, but he understood He Yi's concerns and his frightened mood at this time. If he wasn’t an outsider at this moment, but an innocent ordinary person who was involved in this dangerous situation, he wouldn’t have been able to behave righteously as he was now.

Deep down, Qi Leren still held a wait-and-see attitude towards He Yi, and there were still many doubts about this person, so to speak. But Qi Leren didn't even ask, because it was impossible to get any useful response by questioning He Yi face to face here, and it might even startle him.

"How do you want to leave? The entrance where I came in has been completely blown up, and I can't get out. The door to the outside needs a special ID card, and there is a life detection system and a gait recognition system inside the passage. The AI will automatically analyze your walking posture, which is much stricter than any fingerprint authentication. You can't cheat at all. Once the system determines that you’re not a person in the database, the laser defense system will start until the life detection system determines that there’s no living thing inside. Are you confident you can pass again?" He Yi asked.

Without confidence, Qi Leren silently thought about how the S/L Data’s cooling time was one hour, and that it hadn’t passed yet.

And the Prophet had said to minimize the use of the S/L... Qi Leren actually had no actual feelings, but he only vaguely felt that this skill was a bit evil, and dying too much would cause him to have frequent nightmares. But at the critical moments, he still instinctively relied on this skill.

I can't. There are too many gravestones on Undead Island.

"Where is the general control room for the laser corridor?" Qi Leren asked.

"It's useless, I’ve looked for it. I suspect that the door to the defense system’s general control room can't be opened without a password, and the monitoring can't be seen. Even if we find the password and go in, this system isn’t like the equipment that checks for the octopuses. It can't be operated at all without knowing the language here." He Yi shook his head.

Qi Leren pondered over it. To go out, you had to pass through the laser corridor. At the end of the corridor, next to the door that led outside, an ID card had to be used. However, Qi Leren had experienced the danger of the laser corridor once. Unfortunately, S/L solution was still needed to pass smoothly. Was there any other way...

"I have an idea!" Qi Leren shouted and scared He Yi, who looked at him suddenly. "He Yi, I need your cooperation!"

"...Go on."

"It’s like this: I will go to the laser corridor. You will go to the power room to turn off the power, so that the laser corridor won’t start, and the gait recognition system will be the same. I will go through the laser corridor to the front door and wait for you to turn on the power again, so that the ID reader on the door will start. I can open the door and go out once it starts ago!" Qi Leren said.

"Are you sure? What if the gait recognition system or life detection system starts first?" He Yi disagreed.

"It’s more likely for the door to start first once it’s powered on, rather than the laser corridor," Qi Leren said, "And isn't there you? It took me about one minute to pass through the laser corridor last time. Please calculate the time for turning the power on. Turn off the power again after about forty seconds. Forty seconds is enough for me to open the iron door and go out. If there’s an accident, I won't be able to open the door as I’ll be blocked by the lasers. As long as you turn off the power, the lasers will be turned off again with it."

He Yi thought for a while and nodded: "This method is good, double insurance."

For Qi Leren with S/L Data, this was three insurances. What he relied on was not luck, nor He Yi’s cooperation, but his own strength. Otherwise, he would rather study how to get out of the collapsed passage that He Yi had come in through, and would not consider such a dangerous laser corridor.

The two discussed the details again. Qi Leren also took off the watch he found when collecting materials and gave it to He Yi: "You can watch the time."

He Yi took the watch, nodded solemnly, and said, "Oh, I also found the arsenal here. Heavy weapons can't be used, but you should be able to get started with weapons like a handgun and hand grenade, you'd better take some with you."

No wonder this boy has a gun in his hand. Qi Leren glanced at He Yi: "Okay, thanks a lot."

The two men went to get the weapons, which were well preserved. Qi Leren picked a few easy-to-use ones and took them apart for maintenance. He could give them to Dr. Lu for use, while he took his usual ones and tested them on the spot. He Yi, who was on the side, said faintly because of his skillful technique: "You are indeed a military person. Or did you know there would be octopuses here? Did you secretly hide the octopus in that cave?"

Qi Leren said helplessly: "Oh, I’m really not, why do you think so?"

But he really had known there would be octopuses.

"Then who are you? Is it really possible that you’re an ordinary band lead singer?" He Yi was adamant.

Of course not. My singing is terrible, Qi Leren thought.

But... Should he pave the way for his skill card? So as not to expose the skills at the critical moment, be questioned by the audience, and lead to the failure of the task? With this in mind, Qi Leren decided to add some personal settings for himself.

"Actually, I do have a special identity," Qi Leren said with a dignified face. "I tell you, but don't tell anyone else."

He Yi waited for a while, looking at him carefully: "Then wait, should I turn off the tracking camera?"

Qi Leren couldn't help laughing, which exposed the fact that he was joking. Seeing He Yi looking at him with bitterness, Qi Leren corrected his expression and asked seriously, "Do you have a faith?"

He Yi was confused by his question and shook his head blankly: "I’m an atheist."

I used to be an atheist, until I got involved in the Nightmare Game, Qi Leren thought. In fact, he couldn't be regarded as religious even now. He just thought that there must be some great and incredible powers in the world beyond their knowledge. These were what were regarded as "gods".

—You can admire and question, but don't worship blindly and slander maliciously, otherwise you’ll be doomed to be unable to surpass yourself and enter a higher level. That's what Chen Baiqi had told Qi Leren, who thought what she said was very reasonable.

Seeing Qi Leren's delay in answering, He Yi asked again, "What about you? Are you a Christian? "

Qi Leren smiled: "I am an apostle of God."

“……”

"If I’m killed, I will be resurrected immediately."

“…………”

"When danger comes, God will give me strength to become an angel and fight against evil forces to the end."

“………………”

Qi Leren showed a sage's smile full of divinity and gently stared at He Yi, who was eager to speak.

Before the show begins, give the audience a little psychological preparation.

-----

Editor’s Notes: [Player Qi Leren has leveled up an ability: Bullshitting.]

-----

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thehuntyhunties · 4 years ago

Text

i still don’t know what anyone else is doing in the ghost hunter au but here’s some specifics I’ve written up about the gang in order to be more cohesive

Kurapika:

believes in ghosts

does not fear ghosts

believes most paranormal “evidence” is either fake, overstated, or the human mind playing tricks, which then undermines genuine cases, and that’s why he wants to see things for himself because he will NOT be tricked. rip to all those other investigators but he’s different.

chaos queer

does NOT believe in alien abductions (does believe aliens exist)

film editor who somehow (pre-webseries) became a production director and he has no idea how that happened but he’s running with it

(joke’s on you Kurapika it’s because you’re competent and efficient and hate to see a job done badly, you played yourself)

insomniac and generally terrible at being a healthy human being

pretty much lived on coffee and pop rocks and raw spite for about a month

likes Leorio because he’s fun to argue with (also hot and a good person)

doesn’t like how Leorio bullies him into sleeping and being a healthier human being (that’s a lie he secretly loves it like wow… to be cared about…)

he’s thoughtful and well-spoken so he seems almost dignified at first glance but after a handful of conversations you realize he’s 3 ounces of whoopass who would deck a demon in the face if given the opportunity

A lot of film projects he’s part of end up being absolute production hell for no reason, is he cursed?? Is it just a curse designed to make him lose it and slowly kill him???? What bogwitch did he piss off to make this happen

honestly assumes that no demon would want the trouble of possessing such an absolute menace like him

Leorio:

does NOT believe in ghosts

DOES get spooked in dark empty buildings, because he’s suspicious about people or animals (not ghosts) jumping out and attacking him

gets harassed by a racoon once so maybe there’s something to that

10/10 would fight a demon

fixes A/V equipment, cameras, other assorted film electronics, mainly works on middling small stuff but then he goes and turns out to be one of like three people in the whole region who knows how to repair a specific type of slow-mo camera

Kurapika got saddled with taking said camera to him when it broke even though it was Not His Job and he was pissed about it so he and Leorio just crankily argued the entire time and now somehow they’re boyfriends

surprisingly functional bi

believes in alien abductions real hard

Kurapika can describe the reported ghost sightings and physical effects of a haunting in a home and Leorio will reply with “have they considered carbon monoxide poisoning”

STREET SMARTS

the only one who keeps his original job instead of eventually doing the webseries full-time because dangit somebody in this operation has to have an external source of income just in case (also he loves helping people and fixing things)

gets bummed out doing Killua’s true crime segments but also genuinely likes weighing evidence and debating possibilities with Killua so it kinda balances out

maybe one day a ghost will punch him and then he’ll believe they exist

Killua:

only kinda sorta believes in ghosts but thinks it’s funnier if it looks like he doesn’t and he’s just along for the ride

more superstitious than he lets on

Doesn’t believe in aliens at all

DOES believe in cryptids

Cleverly disguised as a functional gay at first glance but actually a disaster gay hobgoblin

just an absolute gremlin

makes 99% of his decisions based on how hilarious the outcome will be

only got into A/V and film editing as an act of rebellion, so up until the webseries he’s not very passionate about it even though he’s good at it, he just casually freelances through when he needs money

met Kurapika when they were stuck on a production from hell together and they would sit next to each other in the workspace and be salty behind everyone’s backs

fascinated by unsolved crimes and murders but not in that bizarre way where he thinks serial killers did nothing wrong, he’s not THAT weird about it

thinks conspiracy theories are fun/hilarious but doesn’t believe in them

hides chocolate in weird places

I’m not saying he’s spent time trying to plan the perfect murder just for kicks but that’s 100% something he’s done

Gon:

probably straight-up haunted

not afraid of ghosts or demons

thinks there is life elsewhere in the universe but none of it has visited Earth

Nessie and Mothman skeptic

Never really figured out what he wanted to do but interested in lots of things so he has a multitude of skills and random knowledge that the others are always uncovering

encyclopedic animal knowledge

Kurapika didn’t know where to find a cameraman who would work for free on something incredibly stupid with weird hours so he made a post on Craigslist and Gon showed up

in the early episodes he and Killua would switch jobs a lot but then everyone started settling into a groove

likes that the webseries lets him do a lot of different things, from camera work to audio mixing to calling locations asking for permission to film because apparently no one can say no to him

chill queer, probably on the demi side of things? I’m getting a vibe

Killua has known Gon’s hot the whole time of course but Gon’s actually the one who gets a proper crush on Killua first

Forgets that everyone in his family being magnets for spirit shenanigans is weird to most people because for him it’s totally normal and unremarkable

likes scary movies

#ghost hunter au #the hunterfam #text #my post #hxh

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voidscattered · 4 years ago

Text

slides at @likestxrlight

The discovery of the sudden appearance of a building on the moon that definitely hadn't been there before was a shock to the entire world. Not only that, but it seemed incredibly well built and definitely from an advanced civilization. The biggest mystery was how they had missed it getting built in the first place. It wasn't a small building to be sure.

There was a lot of speculation once it had been discovered. Some conspiracy theorists claimed it to be something secretly built by one of the major countries. Others claimed it to be evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, and still others claimed it to be something from the magical monsters that had only just recently been discovered - or rediscovered, according to them? - some time ago in the United States.

All the speculation was set straight extremely soon afterwards, when someone from the civilization that had built it came directly up to the Administrator of NASA. Apparently, a small group of aliens had actually been here on Earth for a while, but were waiting to make first contact until humans reached Mars. But then the building on the moon had lost its cloaking, which made them decide to make first contact now instead. They were an inorganic species called Gems, with bodies made of hard light, which . . . honestly flipped the worldviews of biologists and physicists alike, as well as the public in general. No one had known anything like that could be possible. Then again, magical monsters were, so why not?

Regardless, it was incredible, and all that the news was filled with nowadays. Chekilli was filled with awe at it all, and he considered himself lucky to be friends with Dr. Nikki Priscell, who worked at NASA and had been in direct contact with the gem, named Pearl, who had been working with them. As such he was able to get an inside scoop about it all.

One time had particularly caught his attention.

"Hey," Nikki said, poking at their food when they had teleported back from work for their lunch break. "Didn't you say one of your monsters had been a skeleton named Wingdings?"

". . . Yes," he replied hesitantly, uncertain as to where this topic was going. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason in particular. It's just Pearl’s got a skeleton friend named Wingdings Gaster who came in with her to one of our meetings some time ago."

Chekilli froze. What? No. No, that couldn't be. It was incredibly rare for a skeleton monster to have a symbolic font, much less the same symbolic font as his own monster's, not to mention the same secondary font and way of combining the two. But it couldn't be Wing. It couldn't. He'd felt him die just as he had his other monsters. It couldn't be.

. . . But it had to be.

He'd heard sometime after the War, from other creators, that the death of a soul bonded monster felt a lot like when a soul bond broke. And he hadn't actually seen Wing turn to dust like he had Wisty and Shell.

. . . Could he dare to hope?

"What . . ." he said shakily. "Wh-what does her friend look like?"

"Uh. A skeleton.” They chuckled slightly. “Well, he’s got no nose hole for one thing, though he has some nasty-looking cracks on his face, one from each eye, and both hands have holes in them. Sound familiar at all?”

Chekilli covered his mouth, leaning into his hand quite a bit. “The lack-of-nose-hole does . . .” If . . . if this was Wing then what . . . what had happened to him, to have cracks in his skull and holes in his hands? Of course, he knew what happened: he’d gotten captured by the Monster Hunters. But . . .

“Where . . . Do you know where he lives?” he asked.

Nikki shook their head. “Sorry.” They paused, then smirked. “Buuuut you could come with me tomorrow and ask Pearl yourself. And who knows, maybe he’ll come with her this time, too.”

Chekilli immediately straightened. "Are- Are you serious? Absolutely!" He could ask her directly about this Wingdings, perhaps even meet him then and there, and geez did he hope that this really was his Wingdings.

Also, this came with the added bonus of actually meeting the alien who had made first contact, which was incredible in and of itself.

“Why on Earth did you not tell me this earlier, Nikki?”

“Well . . . to be honest I only just now remembered you had a monster like that,” they replied with an embarrassed laugh. The name had been familiar, but they hadn’t been able to place it until now.

Chekilli groaned slightly, but left it as it was.

He could barely sleep that night, and the next morning left him extremely jittery. He followed Nikki to work, and it wasn't long before they encountered Pearl, though unfortunately it didn’t seem like this Wingdings was with her this time. Gosh, it was one thing to see her on the news; it was quite another to see her in person. Hard light, they'd said? It looked just as physical as anything organic. He wondered how similar it was to the solid magic that monsters were made of.

He didn't have much time to wonder before Nikki guided him over, waving towards Pearl to catch her attention.

"Pearl! I have someone I'd like you to meet. This is Dr. Chelokeeilitchee.”

"Ah, just Chekilli is fine, though. It's nice to meet you, Pearl." He offered a hand to shake. Ah, he was nervous, though. He really really hoped the monster she knew was his . . .

"He's actually interested in Dr. Gaster," Nikki added cheerfully, ignoring the nervous look Chekilli shot them.

#chekilliverse #(and I suppose also #postvoidalverse #)#likestxrlight #likestxrlight: pearl #(I'd say in which nikki forgets to mention that chekilli is interested for personal reasons and not professional #but const has already told pearl what his creator's name is #so that'd probably be pretty obvious)#(gonna say this is sometime after const's first therapy appointment post-soul bond #so it's not that long from then but also has given const time to adjust and not be super anxious whenever he thinks about it #now he's just a little anxious whenever he thinks about it)#(I have not any icons for chekilli)

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script-a-world · 4 years ago

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How much futuristic tech can I put being invented in the past (in secret by a single person or a civilian group) and not break the world or sound too implausible. Could there be space travel in Ancient Egypt? Or maybe there might be an internal timeline issue and how it aligns with other future tech? Or not since the people inventing them generally are not sharing? My story is not meant to be fantasy otherwise space travel in Ancient Egypt is absolute no problem.

Constablewrites: Short answer: for this premise to work as stated, you’d have to accept and embrace the fact that your story isn’t going to reside in the same post code as historical plausibility. Never heard of her, don’t think she even goes to this school. And that can work if you lean into it: make it explicitly an alternate timeline, or acknowledge in the story that it doesn’t make sense but we’re gonna go with it, or be just generally zany enough that something like this doesn’t stand out.

It’s not that you couldn’t make the general premise (some early civilization creating tech that is more advanced than what we have today) hold up. But specifically space travel, and specifically ancient Egypt, each stretch that premise beyond the breaking point.

First off, the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with pretty much two things: figuring out what lies beyond our world, and writing down absolutely everything in a form that won’t get destroyed by the desert. If they’d figured out some way to get off the planet, you’d better believe they would have recorded it in great detail and spread it around to all their trading partners as more evidence of their awesomeness as an empire. We know so much about ancient Egypt, so there aren’t a lot of holes in that historical record to squeeze in fabrications, let alone something with that many implications, while trying to keep the rest of it intact.

Then there’s the technology side. The thing about technological advances is that they build off each other. So you’re not gonna have an engine that can get you off the ground if everyone else is still relying on draft animals and carts. Getting to those engines was a collaborative effort that took decades of scientists building off the improvements of others. You can argue that it’s a closely-guarded secret, but the incentives to share that information are pretty strong (maybe you feel it would make people’s lives better, and/or you feel you’d make a lot more money with a broader customer base), to say nothing of the possibility of someone else independently developing something similar.

And that’s just one aspect of it. Getting people into space requires significant advancements in biology, propulsion chemistry, textiles, fuel and battery capacity, food storage and preparation, communications, astronomy… It’s a very long list of stuff that all has to come together, and it requires a level of resources and coordination that necessitates a strong and stable government (or a private organization that can function at the same level).

So, the answer to “Could there be space travel in ancient Egypt?” is pretty unequivocally “no.” That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to tweak the concept to make it work, though. Some suggestions:

A different civilization Egypt is one of the most extensively researched and documented histories on the planet. Go hipster and choose a civilization that’s pretty obscure, you probably haven’t heard of it--something with those gaps in our knowledge where you might be able to fit something like this. (A caveat: if the descendents of that civilization are presently marginalized and that’s not a history you share, that’s pretty solidly not your lane and you should proceed with extreme caution if at all.)

A different technology Maybe it’s the engines or the communications or the metallurgy individually that was secretly very advanced. Some other technological advancement far beyond its time is fairly plausible, especially considering that we’ve found devices that employed technologies that wouldn’t otherwise be in use for hundreds or thousands of years. There’s still some interdisciplinarity required for a lot of those, but not nearly to the extent of space travel, which is pretty much the final comprehensive exam for all human knowledge.

Embrace the fantasy This is an inherently sci-fi concept, so leaning into that is probably going to provide the most logical consistency. Maybe it was aliens (insert meme dude) or maybe it was just something like vibranium which has the specific chemical property of “whatever the writers need it to do at a given point in time.” Just something from outside our world that can counter the difficulties explained above.

Embrace the nonsense Yeah, it’s not remotely historically plausible, but we don’t mind because it’s That Kind of Story. Maintaining plausibility can help maintain a reader’s interest in the story because you’re avoiding those little niggling doubts that can pull them out of it. But the internal logic of a story is far more important than ensuring it adheres rigidly to real-world logic. And people will generally allow quite a bit of leeway for a story that is enjoyable and fun. Basically, if you know you aren’t going to get audience buy-in based on their believing this story could have actually happened, seek that buy-in through other means.

#pylons #alternate reality #future tech #alternate history #Anonymous

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