#i end up not liking or reblogging a lot of content that i might otherwise agree with because of the presence of those terminologies

[greatrunner]

I feel like if folks had thought - like, really thought - about how a-term-which-I-shall-not-utter-here, that is currently being used to scapegoat Black users and critical analysis writers that don’t sign-off on everything with a “it doesn’t effect reality” attitude, it wouldn’t have become a legitimized term on such a widespread scale.

But folks didn’t, and now we have juvenile dog-whistle (a term I’m not using incorrectly or lightly), coined by individuals who fancy themselves progressives (despite doing the most vile and racist shit, and couching behind the language of social justice and abolition), being used by actual anti-racist media consumers and academics writing about patterns in fandom.

And there’s no real thought to how they wound up where they are.

...Mostly because they think the terms innocuous and personally have no issue with using it to describe any subset of persons or communities “on both divides”.

Folk chose to argue using those terms, and now they’re stuck in a frame-of-reference that there is no reshaping, and damages nuanced discussion.

[gatheredfates]

WELCOME to Sea's Catch Up (For) Starlight Challenge! Also know as 'A FFIX Prompt?' (I just woke up), 'Is it Cosy or Cozy in Australia?' (Cosy) and bEANS (bEANS!).

Suffice it to say, there have been a lot of challenges this year—Gpose challenges, FFXIV Write, Down to Dawntrail and Seafloor Saints Wake (just to name ours)! I know from personal experience that I haven't had the time to get to every single prompt... but I've wanted to. I also know it can be really disheartening to miss out on prompts and feel like you're being weird for engaging with it later on in the year.

To that end, I wanted to open a challenge that encourages people to either tackle an existing prompt from any gpose/writing/art challenge that was hosted during the year (under the excuse of it being for this challenge) OR pick from one of the prompts above to make a Starlight-themed creative piece!

All of these words were chosen by various people within the SEAFLOOR Discord, and i have tried not to tie them too closely to Christmas so people who don't celebrate the holiday don't feel left out. If you want to change a word that is more applicable to your culture, but still embodies the same spirit of the holiday through family, humanity, spending time with your loved ones, etc. I highly encourage you to do so!

This challenge will run the entirety of the month of December and can be tackled in any way you see fit. If you want to do a prompt a day and mix in the words in amongst working on your old project(s), go for it! If you want to select some words and not others, cool! If you want to only work on your old stuff and leave this list in the dust, a okay! It's all about giving you a low-stakes way to engage with your creativity and an excuse to go back to stuff you might have missed, or take some time to celebrate the season and people who mean a lot to you (and your ocs)!

Please use the tag #catch up (for) starlight if you participate and consider joining our community! A more comprehensive FAQ is contained in the read more below. ☃️

But also:

Is the use of mods/shades/tools okay? Yes, of course! Whatever works for you to make your creative dreams come true.

What about NSFW (gore, sexual or otherwise)? Use common sense and appropriate tags as necessary, especially for common fears and phobias. I obviously cannot control what Tumblr sees as being too much, but the general rules for SEAFLOOR apply where possible. If your conservative boss wouldn't like to see it, consider tagging and content warning were necessary.

Where do I post works? Hopefully your Tumblr blog, silly, but you can also reblog them to the SEAFLOOR Tumblr Community or join us on Discord! If someone posts their work in either of those spaces, consider reacting with a wintery-themed emoji! It just lets people know you enjoyed it. ❄️ I am going to do my best to reblog prompts when I see them, but I am going away during the Christmas period so I may not be contactable in that time.

Is there a prize? There might be this time around, though I haven't given it much thought. Seafloor members will get a fancy cosmetic title.

[kanasmusings]

[Eng Subs DL] Musical Yuukoku no Moriarty (Moriarty the Patriot) Op. 4 - "The Two Criminals"

Hello, and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate~! Otherwise, Happy Holidays! I am here to share the English subtitles for more MoriMyu~!

Oh gosh, I apologize for such a long wait...! Life just punched me around a bit with studying for board exams (which I passed, thankfully!), a bit of technical problems with the BD version, and a lot of real life things I needed to take care of before the year ends (￣▽￣*)ゞ

Op. 4 covers chapters 33-47 of the original comic, with a few scenes/moments omitted. It is essentially the build-up to the climax of the story that was covered in Op. 5! We were also blessed with the addition of Miss Mary Morstan and Adam Whiteley for this musical, and I hope everyone falls in love with them, too~!

Anyway, here are the subs~! A huge, huge thank you to @mouldering for helping me with proof-reading and quality checking! I wouldn't have been able to finish this before Christmas without your help~! ♡ ～('▽^人) I will be updating the folders with the bonus content subtitles when I am able to as well, but for now, please enjoy the main show's subs~!

Links, notes, and disclaimers under the cut, enjoy~!

BD PURCHASE LINK (International cards and shipping accepted!): CDJapan - BD ver. | DVD ver. Official Sites: Twitter | Website (MoriMyu General) | Website (Op. 4) MoriMyu Op. 1 Subtitles | MoriMyu Op. 2 Subtitles | MoriMyu Op. 3 Subtitles

NOTES:

※ THE FILE IS SUBTITLES ONLY, VIDEO IS NOT INCLUDED! ※ The folder contains subs for a DVD version as well as a Blu-ray version! (I tested the DVD version on the BD a lot of times, and there was always a slight delay with the syncing, so I re-timed and re-styled it for the BD. You could technically load the DVD subs onto the BD, but you'd have to manually adjust the timing on your media player.)

All songs and lyrics were translated by me. A bit of creative liberty was exercised to fit context and some cultural references. As usual, the lyrics actually help move the plot, so I didn’t include the romaji for any of them. But, if you’d like to have the complete lyrics, I do have them saved up in PDF form, so feel free to DM me for them if you want ^^

Again, I’m not a native British English speaker, so some terms might be off. I consulted with a friend to help me check them, just in case, but please forgive any mistakes.

As usual, some scenes in the musical differ from the anime/manga for time and fluidity’s sake, so please don’t hit me for things that I can’t control ^^;

There aren’t particularly any triggering scenes here, but please do watch with caution since some subjects and terms used might be sensitive and/or triggering for other viewers.

@kumoriyami-xiuzhen​ requested me to do the bonus content subs, so I will be reblogging and updating the main post when they are up as well! ^^

RULES:

[MOST IMPORTANT] Please DO NOT re-post the subs and the link outside of Tumblr! If you want to share outside, please, please DM me about it and link my blog to your post. That’s all I ask.

Please DO NOT remove my credits.

Please DO NOT re-translate without permission.

SUBS DL LINK: GOOGLE DRIVE 

※ Please only DM me if there is a problem with the subtitles. I cannot help you if it’s related to the videos. ※ If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a coffee here, if you can. It’ll really help me out a lot.(o^▽^o) Thank you!!

[marclef]

new About Me post time!!!

hello there! i'm Marclef/Marcus/Marc/whatever you wanna call me, i'm 24 yrs. old, he/him pronouns, and welcome to my blog! here i mainly post fanart as well as dumb things i like, here's a little bit about me!

my biggest interest right now is Pizza Tower, which is probably what most stuff i draw is gonna be, but i may end up doing more in the future! the main tag you can find all of my art here is #my art !

i also do a lot of OC art! the OC i post most about is Eyhm the Cat, who i've been mainly using for Pizza Tower art lately! here's some information/references for her though if you need them!

feel free to draw her (and any other OCs i might post) if you want, i absolutely love seeing other people's art!!

BUT, importantly, here's some important Rules and information you'll need to know while you're here!

i'm proudly and openly Transmasc! 💙💗🤍💗💙 this means you'll probably see me reblogging a lot of silly posts and art i can relate to. if you have a problem with that, i strongly suggest you leave. ANY hate or otherwise offensive speech i see on here will result in an automatic block!

as an adult, i may also sometimes reblog/draw some raunchier content, so if you're younger, please be aware of that! i WILL allow those 17 and younger to follow me, as long as you behave and don't get upset just for the "weirder" things i might post! once again, any misbehaving here will result in a block!

on a similar note.... i will admit that i'm kinda a big Weirdo sometimes. but, if i ever draw/post something that's especially weird, i will make sure to properly warn you about it, so if you still look at it and get weirded out, that's on you!!! please do not leave any rude/weird comments on anything i post or reblog though. likewise, any disrespectful comments on any art here (mine or otherwise) will likely result in a block, so PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL!

i'm still a little shy around new people, but i do like getting messages and talking about my art! feel free to send me asks/messages about stuff, i'll do my best to respond! if i don't, either i don't want to answer, or i'm too nervous to respond right away, but i do see everything that gets sent to me! i might be a bit slow to respond to asks as well, please be patient, but i will try to answer as many of them as i can!

i'm open to art trades, but be aware that i usually only accept if you ask for characters i know! generally this means OCs or characters from stuff mentioned above, i'm more likely to respond if you're somebody i know as well. sorry, i'm still a bit socially anxious, so please don't get upset if i don't respond to you about them!

any other questions you might have though, feel free to ask!

oh, and here's some important links to look at as well!! ⬇⬇⬇

My KO-FI (please feel free to support my art if you like it!!!)

My Artfight

DUMB STUFF I'VE DONE!!! :

Pizza Towerria (Pizza Tower texture pack for Terraria)

Fake Peppino for Don't Starve Together

Monster (short story about Fake Peppino, Peppino, and Eyhm)

other than that, as long as you follow my rules and respect everything, we should be good here! have fun checking out my blog, and feel free to message me with art requests if you'd like! but... HAVE FUN!!! ✨✨✨

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

Updates - I'm Burning Out w BLs

I thought I should make an actual post about this so here it is.

I don't usually hyperfixate on just one thing so long as I have with BLs. Previously I would have my hyperfixation and be able to keep up with bls at the same time.

Recently with all the bls coming out that was impossible. And eventually my capacity for handling hyperfixating on bls left me. Except that I had to keep watching, otherwise I would feel like I would be missing out on many other bls.

But except for the occasional bl I have not truly been enjoying myself.

Then I found something to hyperfixate over (specifically Stray Kids music, content on youtube and compilation etc..)

I am going to continue to watch some BLs live, but some will have to go in the binge at the end pile and I will DNF shows more liberally, previously I would finish something and try to find things to enjoy in anyway and push through but I can't do that anymore I don't have the mental capacity.

Making this post as a general update just to say you might see me reblog less BL stuff, watch less stuff live and I will probably go back to just talking in the tags and not make that many original posts.

Sorry if you followed me because of BLs.

If you want to avoid the Stray Kids stuff I will start reblogging more off as I find more tumblr (I went into the tags once and I didn't like it, no hate just a lot of Y/N style fics that are not my preference. I will use the tags #stray kids and #skz.

[cielles-random-vault]

new year's hangover☆

lil drabble where you befriend ghost at the tf141 new year's party... what can possibly go wrong?

content: drunkness, socially anxious-ish reader, ghost being ghost, passing out and hickeys.

author's note: UHHH HAI IM BACK?!?!? icl im kinda hating myself because im posting a drabble instead of a full work.... am sorry.. mi bad mi bad... also im waiting for friday for new invincible content because the brainrot is REALLL

also pls pretend i posted this on new year's eve... HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YALL BTWWWWW

shotout to @unabashedcroissanttreefan bc i want to make her bitter /hj, and to @michelleart8 ! <3

anyway enjoy and pls reblog

wc: 1836

"will you be coming at the new year's party tonight?" price asked as he noticed you filling some paperwork in the common room.

"i dont think so" you sigh, "im not that much of a social person, and i still have a lot of paperwork to fill in,let alone medical files."

"are you sure?" price asked, worried you might overwork yourself, but then an idea suddenly came to his mind. "i heard the lieutenant will be there as well, rumors have it you have a crush on him, so it'd be a good opportunity to actually talk to him, instead of just- avoiding him like you do."

the thought of captain price having noticed you had a crush on ghost sent a bright blush to your cheeks, but you waved those thoughts away.

"even if he was here, that doesn't mean i stand a chance with him" you reply, losing focus on your paperwork, now that the lieutenant was mentioned. "we barely talk anyway, and he seems to hate me so..."

"he seems to hate everyone" price chuckled, "dont take it personally. did the fact that he will be there change your mind?"

"i dont know" you sigh, but your little smile was betraying you. "it will depend on whether i have finished filling those files. at what time will it start?"

"around 7!" price replied with a subtle smile, feeling like he convinced you to come. "oh,and, you can come in a casual outfit, no need to pull up the formal uniform", he winked and left.

the few hours that separated you from the awaited party came, and all of a sudden a sudden peak of anxiety invaded you.

what if everyone made fun of your awful social skills? what if you didnt dress well enough?

your overthinking stopped as you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket; surprisingly enough, it was a text from price.

are you coming? ghost is here 👀

you chuckled as you put on a comfy sweater, and headed to the common room.

"you came!!" price greeted you, smiling brightly at you. "make yourself at ease, go get yourself something to drink, and who knows? maybe alcohol can help you make a move on our lovely lieutenant" he chuckled, before handing you a cup of alcohol.

"do you... want to get me drunk so i could get rid of my social anxiety?" you asked price, raising an eyebrow.

"maybe" he chuckled, already sounding drunk, "is it working?"

"not reall- ouch"

you blushed brightly as you noticed ghost was the one who stumbled into you.

"oi," he said, sounding slightly drunk as well, "im sorry. must've lost my balance, probably drank too much already. you're y/n, right?"

"y-yes," you nod, still not over the interaction, praying he didn't notice the bright blush on your cheeks, "why?"

"because..." he tries to articulate, and nearly fell on the floor, "ive been meaning to tell you... you're doing a great ass good job... dont let my mean words convince you otherwise, k?"

"oh-" you said, taken aback by this sudden demonstration of kindness, your heart melting. "thank you lieutenant..?"

the evening went on, until the cheerful "happy new year!!!" resonated in the walls of the tf141's buildings, everyone happy to finally greet the new year.

the party then came to an end, and so you decided to stay a little longer to help clean the room. once you got done, and got ready to head back to your quarters, you noticed an odd figure.

was ghost... asleep? he sure seemed to. he probably passed out due to all the alcohol he had drank, and you couldn't blame him.

that's how he somehow ended in your quarters - and if you were to be honest, carrying a man as massive as him was NOT an easy thing, but you somehow managed to. you tried your best to put him in a comfortable position on your couch, but bringing him here was already kind enough, wasn't it? so you just left him laying down on the floor, covering his massive frame with a blanket, and put a pillow under his head.

"this sure was a strange new year's day" you thought out loud, "happy new year lieutenant"

just in case something happened to ghost, you decided pull an all nighter (?), and you were right to, well at least, soft of.

in the middle of the night, ghost woke up, seemingly not over his hangover.

"i'll tell you what, y/n, ive always been in love with you." he mumbled, barely able to stand.

your heart dropped at this confession, but you had to stay lucid: he couldn't possibly mean it, it had to be the alcohol, right? that would make no sense if he was in love with you.

but you couldn't help to secretely wish what he was saying was true, after all you know the saying: drunk words are sober thoughts, and now you really hoped the saying was true there.

"lieutenant,you're drunk, you should go back to sle-"

he interrupted you by kissing you, first on the lips, and then moved on to your neck, leaving a little trail of hickeys here and there.

you gave in the kiss, you knew it was wrong, but it felt so good, but quickly waved those thoughts off: it was wrong in any way. he was your superior, and drunk, you couldn't abuse his drunken state like that.

but the feel of his lips on yours sure felt like heaven...

as if nothing happened, he smirked softly as he pulled out of the kiss, and resumed his peaceful slumber on your floor.

however, the next morning was nothing like that.

"looks like someone had fun last night" ghost grumbled as he noticed your many hickeys. "what the fuck am i doing here? and where even is here, and did you poison me? why is my head pounding?" he asked, back to his usual stern self, and you would actually be surprised if he didnt.

"youre in my quarters" you reply as you handed him a cup of anti hangover tea. "i brought you here because we were the only two remaining at the party, and you passed out. and hum... about the hickeys, how much do you remember from last night?" you ask as you look away, embarassed at the thought of last night's passionate kiss.

"i dont remember shit, why?" he asked, sounding more annoyed than mean.

"okay i..." (you sigh) "promise not to get mad at me if i tell you?" (he shakes his head, annoyed) "okay, so... you confessed yesterday." you blurt out, "but that is not all." (you gulp.) "we also kissed and... you gave me those hickeys."

"oh." he said blankly, and you could feel the blush in his voice, despite his mask.

"yeah.." you chuckled awkwardly, not daring to look at him, "but i have one question though. were you honest when you said you... 'always have been in love with me?"

your heartbeat quickened as you waited for his answer, but you had to know.

"would it be weird if i said yes..?" he asked, unable to look at your eyes, and your heart nearly missed a beat. "i mean, youre always doing what youre told to despite the fact that i treat you like shit and... i don't know, i guess that made me develop a kind of soft spot for you... do you happen to feel the same way..?" he asked, and you could feel the vulnerability in his voice.

"i- i think i do..?" you replied, both confused and relieved. "i mean, i always thought you hated me but.. this feels a bit rushed. can we do it again?"

"okay" he nodded, "how does 'hello, my name is simon riley, known as ghost, lieutenant from the task force 141, and i am in love with the wonderful y/n' sounds?" ghost chuckled with a soft smile, loving at you with loving eyes.

"much better" you reply with a soft smile, butterflies fluttering in your stomach, way better.

later on that day, when you and ghost headed to the briefing room hand in hand, price couldn't help but let out a small laugh.

"see? seems like alcohol can do wonders" he whispered, and it made you let out a small chuckle as well.

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR DECEMBER:

//Hey all.

//As we all know, it's coming to the end of the year, and we're approaching December time, which is usually the time of year where I start dishing out a bunch of special stuff for the followers.

//Regrettably, I still cannot give a guarantee when I'll be able to return to making the story, but I am trying my hardest to get my affairs in order so that we can come to that.

//One way or another, the story isn't over, regardless of how long it takes for us to get back to it. And the good news is that for December, I have a few really cool goodies for you. Both related to the blog, and otherwise, as well as a few announcements:

//Okay so for my first announcement, I kind of want to get the "bad news" out of the way first. And I use quotations, because hopefully, no one will mind too much.

//As some of you might have noticed, I kind of stopped uploading the birthday card posts for the characters, and in case it hasn't been clear, I've decided that I'm not going to be posting the birthday cards anymore.

//There are actually more than one reason for this. The primary one is it takes a lot out of me, more than you know, to keep track of everyone's birthdays, especially since we have 100+ characters, and I'm prone to uploading/reblogging the posts late, way after the birthday celebrations have happened. It's much easier for me to just stop posting the cards altogether, and getting stressed out about it.

//But another one is that up until now, I've always found a way to balance the dates out with the story, mainly through a lot of mcguffin bullshit that, not only would I much prefer not to do any more...I physically can't.

//Phase 3 has three arcs that happen at the exact same time as eachother, told from three different perspectives of three characters who will each take the limelight. I will not say who, but suffice to say it would not make a lot of sense for the birthdays to be spaced like months apart, when in-universe, these events are happening over the course of the same days.

//Let's say the arcs take me like...5 months to finish. During the time that I'm writing that arc, it would be Kyoko's birthday (October 6th), but by the time I'm finished, it's Hiyoko's birthday (March 9th). In universe, no time has passed at all, because these events are taking place within the same week.

//Yeah, not happening.

//And the last reason is because ultimately, I started doing the birthday cards to celebrate the characters and how far the series has come, but honestly? I think we can all agree that they add basically nothing to the story, and are just there to make the blog's page look prettier.

//With that being said, I hope all of you guys can wish my sister a happy birthday, because she turned 17 yesterday.

//Okay, with that out of the way, I want to reveal four big projects that I'm going to be working on around Christmas/New Years time that, hopefully, will tickle your fancy:

1 - NAEGIRI WEEK 2024

//A couple of you may remember that two years ago, I participated in Naegiri Week, which, like a lot of these ship weeks, is an event dedicated to a specific Danganronpa couple (Makoto and Kyoko in this case) where people will create art media for spaced over a week.

//In the past, I've participated in three of these events before, which were Naegiri Week, Momoharu Week, and Kazukoi Week (which was hosted by Mod Freezethunder) and those sprites are all available on @creepercraftsprites.

//I've always wanted to take part in Saimatsu Week, but I keep missing my chance to, and I didn't participate in Naegiri Week of last year, because I had a lot going on at the time, but I'm happy to say that I will be making a grand return to the event, and participating in 2024's Naegiri Week, which begins on December 23rd.

//And some of my stories even take place within the universes of my fanfics and content, including Survivor and Phantom Thieves of Hope. So stay tuned for when that drops, and you'll get to see me and a bunch of my fellow artists showing off what we've got to people for the sake of this adorable lucky student and his gorgeous detective wife.

//Speaking of which:

2 - PHANTOM THIEVES OF HOPE: CHRISTMAS CAPER

//Yeah, Phantom Thieves of Hope is getting a Christmas Special.

//Why?

//I felt like it. Fuck off and let me do my thing, lol.

//In all seriousness, my thought process behind this was that for a long time, I had considered maybe making spinoff chapters/fics for Phantom Thieves of Hope. But unlike Survivor where I usually have an excuse to do that, PToH's story is mostly consistently paced, and I don't really want to break that normally.

//But I've been thinking about what ideas I could explore in a potential crossover fic like PToH, and the kinds of interactions the characters could have.

//Phantom Thieves of Hope has always tried to prioritize the human aspects of the Danganronpa characters beyond the wacky cartoonish setting that they're placed in. Despite the horrors around them, many of them rarely get a chance to show a real down-to-earth moment as a person instead of a crazy character, and that's a lot of what PToH is about, beyond the kickass Phantom Thief fighting.

//So to sum it up, Christmas Caper is a three-part bonus story for my crossover fic, revolving around the Phantom Thieves having some Christmas fun together, and I will be posting those during the buildup to Christmas; so from December 21st to December 23rd, the same day Naegiri Week starts.

//I know that PToH and Survivor are different series, but I have realized I have an overlapping audience with both fanbases, so I figured if I'm going to announce it, I'm going to announce it here.

//I will also be announcing it this Friday for my AO3 audience when I release the next chapter.

//Now we actually get into the juicy stuff.

3 - DANGAN-CEMBER

//This is something that I'm hoping to do for the foreseeable future, and it's probably the biggest announcement that I have for this holiday season.

//To keep things brief, this is directly inspired by Team Four Star's DBCember series. For those who don't know what that is, from 2014 until 2021, KaiserNeko, Lanipator, and Takahata101 performed a yearly series called DBcember each December. In this segment, they discuss the DragonBall series in Advent Calendar mode for the first twenty-four days of December.

//With me loving my rankings, I wanted to try doing something similar this year related to the blog, to give me more of a reason to. And honestly, I have some ideas that aren't even related to Danganronpa, just to me in general.

//Earlier this year, I posted my ranking of all the Danganronpa titles featured on the blog, which would have had enough to go on, but I only came up with the idea after that, which kind of wasted it.

//So for this event, Dangan-cember will take place between the 1st of December to the 24th where I will upload one post every day as part of a top 24 ranking of some kind, going in depth on its placement, why I like/dislike it, or whatever the hell else the list entails. Christmas Day will reveal my Number 1.

//I debated it for a while, and eventually, I decided that for this year, my ranking would be...

TOP 24 DANGANRONPA CLASS TRIALS.

//Back in the day while I was still on Reddit, I did this ranking then, but my not only have my opinions changed a bit, but for this ranking, I will be including the Class trials from the Another series as well (DRA1 and SDRA2).

//And while I have already done the ranking itself in advance, this turned out to not be as easy as it feels, and I feel like talking about it might be harder.

//Unlike the rest of my rankings, I will be dedicating one post each to all of these placements, which should hopefully give me a chance to talk about them in as much detail as possible. I don't intend to do this for all my rankings; just my end of year ones like this.

//So hopefully that'll be exciting. Funny how I'm more than happy to write written essays about Danganronpa unlike anything else I need to write essays for.

//But with that all said, we have one more:

4 - DECK THE HALLS FOR A BIRTHDAY PARTY ARC

//And of course, the last thing to announce for the end of the year is our traditional "Christmas Arc."

//If you've been around the blog for a while now, you'll know that once a year, for the 12 Days of Christmas ranging from December 24th to January 5th, we have special bonus arcs for the story, mainly revolving around the characters interacting and having moments of emotional bonding and depth, centered around the end of the year and Christmas time.

//Or, alternatively, just some community events we do for fun.

//The arcs in question for these last few years have been:

The 12 Days of Christmas

The 12 Nights of Christmas

Canzanilla Cafe

Warriors of Other Worlds (Danganronpa Survivor X Death Battle)

//And yes, before anyone says it, I know that that WoOW didn't actually happen during Christmas, but that was largely because of delays on my part, and had I stuck to a consistent schedule, it would have done. The point is we do these fun little event arcs every year, if we can help it.

//And for this year, we actually have something a little different. The arc will retain its typical character interactions and enjoyment that the previous Christmas arcs had, but unlike them, this arc, titled "Deck the Halls for a Birthday Party," will have a consistent storyline throughout it.

//Canzanilla Cafe kind of had a story with Kuripa helping Maya set up shop, but it was still very much them interacting with a random strew of characters and being good baristas and bartenders. But for this one, there's a certain group of characters it revolves around, and a plot that takes shape throughout the sequence.

//What is that plot? Well, I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you.

//This arc is the first Christmas that the Future Foundation have been able to gather for following the Factory incident, and the defeat of Organization Zetsubou. But more importantly for Class 78, this is the perfect chance to celebrate the triumphant return of Mukuro Ikusaba, who they thought was lost to them.

//Reinforced when they remember that December 24th, Christmas Day, is also her birthday.

//To reaffirm their friendship, show appreciation for what she has done for them, and to officially welcome her back to the family, the class, led primarily by Makoto and Sayaka, work with their peers and classmates to throw Mukuro a huge Birthday/Christmas surprise party, while doing whatever they can to prevent Mukuro from catching wind of it.

//Hilarity ensues.

//In summary, it is just one of those everything-has-to-be-perfect party stories where the DR1 class get to show off their bond and how much they all mean to each other. Something that, ironically, they don't do as much as the DR2 and V3 cast do. Not just in Survivor, but in the main series and in general. They have strong chemistry, but it's never really explored.

//This arc is also mainly about Mukuro, now having completed her character arcs from Phase 1 and 2, where she now realizes that she has a place in the world free from Junko's influence, and a lot of this story is about her exploring it and trying to find her place within it.

//Featuring a lot of fun little cameo appearances to boot.

//That should be about everything, so in conclusion, here is my December timeline:

December 1st - December 24th: Dangancember December 21st - December 23rd: PToH: Christmas Caper December 23rd - December 30th: Naegiri Week 2024 December 24th - January 5th: Deck the Halls for a Birthday Party Arc

//And that's all folks.

-Mod

[dragonmarquise]

Speaking of trauma and stuff, name all the characters you think have trauma in bomb rush cyberfunk, any crew, any reason. Feel free to use HCs and stories and fanfics to explain!!! Bc RN I am drowning in your content/pos

First and foremost, thank you for the interest in my ideas and stuff!! Even though art and fan fic writing has been on the backburner for me while I try to get the BRC wiki to a point where I can call it “finished” at least for now. So like, doing posts like this is the only way right now that I can share my stuff at the moment. ;u;

Second, OH BOY, this is gonna be a hell of a topic. Uhh, content warnings for mentions of abuse and injuries and trauma in general. I mean, given the topic, it’s definitely going to get dark. The big ones are probably going to be my 4 Devil Theory OCs, but I have some ideas for a few other characters…

Also this is gonna be VERY long just fair warning! No seriously, I think I basically wrote the equivalent of a short fan fic here. That ended up being the reason this took so long to answer. :u

Let’s start off with Felix! Since you brought up an interesting point about why he might be distancing himself from others. For other people’s reference, this is the reblog I’m referring to.

Actually let’s break this up into sections so it’s a bit easier to read, not to mention easier to get to certain characters.

Felix

So again, from your post! Felix distances himself even from friends a lot of the time, because it’s a subconscious thing where he doesn’t want to end up too attached to someone. And then hurting badly if he loses them.

Related to Old Amsterdam, maybe Felix somehow survived whatever happened that led to it being destroyed/buried and then having New Amsterdam built on top of it. The current fandom theory is that it was a giant flooding disaster. It’s mentioned in a couple of dialogs with the Oldheads that at least those three (i.e. Boombap, Oldschool, and Classic) still remember the original Amsterdam, and the way they talk, they definitely lived there for at least a short amount of time before the city got wiped out. Presumably they and other people managed to flee whatever disaster before it happened, while other people weren’t so lucky maybe?

Heck, I know there’s one particular dialog, I think from Boombap specifically, where he mentions how Felix was just a kid while Boombap himself was in his prime as a writer. Presumably back during Old Amsterdam, but maybe even during the early start of New Amsterdam?

So maybe Felix as a small child remembers the disaster, either having to stay with his parents and losing them while managing to survive himself. Or otherwise they all fled but something happened along the way where Felix had to leave by himself. There’s also fan theories about the coffin in the Old Amsterdam under Versum Hill, that maybe it was used to save him, but also kinda preserve him? Then again maybe the coffin is unrelated in that regard, and Felix has some other connection to it (maybe a very distant descendant of whoever actually made it).

We don’t know the exact time frame between Old Amsterdam being destroyed and New Amsterdam being built, other than the Oldheads being around for both based on the game dialog. Again, they mention having memories of Old Amsterdam and how it compares to New Amsterdam and all. But still, it could have been a decently long amount of time in the past, since we don’t quite know how old the Oldheads themselves are… I always imagined them in the 60s to 80s range tbh, and then most of the case being in the range of 25 to 35.

Well, okay, the Old Amsterdam stuff and the Oldheads’ ties into the game’s lore is an interesting topic, but I’m getting a bit too off-topic for this post, sorry!!

Anyways, Felix as a very young child was in Amsterdam at the time of the disaster, manages to survive, but loses his parents at minimum. That kind of loss, especially in such a presumably horrifying way, isn’t something that can be easily overcome.

But also! Here’s my additional idea for this: Felix doesn’t want to remember what happened back then. In fact, I like to think he’s repressed that particular part of his life so hard he genuinely can’t remember now. At least not willingly. Good thing DJ Cyber was helping Felix remember only the part about how to stop Faux, otherwise he might’ve seen some REALLY depressing stuff. I like to think the first bits of each dream Felix has at the end of each chapter (besides the 4th one, which just gets right into the actual dream stage) are subconscious symbolisms of those locked away memories.

The first dream has a black and white image of “Old Amsterdam”, with someone wearing his mask in a boat. The second dream has a bunch of people standing before a pyramid of stairs, and if you knock off the person at the top, the rest at the bottom start cheering. The third dream has a long line of people, waiting for something or waiting to go somewhere maybe. The fifth dream has a line of crows you have to chase away, leading up to the group of big crows that reveal Felix.

… granted I only have my own ideas of what those could symbolize, but I feel like there’s definitely something interesting there.

Anyways, as far as Felix knows, he grew up in New Amsterdam as an orphan. There was nothing else before that. Nope. But even if he never remembers the truth of what happened to him as a kid, that trauma is still affecting him as an adult.

Like what you pointed out in your reblog, I like to think Felix eventually realizing that pushing away people who care about him just to “protect” them isn’t a healthy way of handling his feelings. Even if he never remembers the root cause of why he felt the need to do that in the first place, I’d think he learns to handle it better from now on, especially with the events of BRC teaching him friendship and stuff (not quite but like, you get the idea lol).

Cueball

So now, Cueball! Oh boy, poor Cueball. He has two sources of trauma: the stuff that led to him going full-cyber, and Eight Ball being killed.

With the first, reiterating what I said in my big DOT EXE post: as a teen living in the US (or whatever is the equivalent in the universe of BRC), Cueball got COVID, and the resulting Long COVID left him in damn terrible health. Overall physically weaker, damaged immune system, some nerve damage, sense of taste and smell being messed up (“Can you imagine biting into a chocolate bar, and tasting nothing but a like, raw meat kinda taste? I still remember that. Wouldn’t wish that even on my worst enemies.”).

And his own friends being worried they might “catch” it from him too (even though it’s at the point where it’s just the Long COVID) so then this poor guy is socially isolated while he’s still getting through high school on top of all of this. Doesn’t help that both of his parents are convinced it isn’t that bad and it's just him being lazy or finding "excuses". It isn’t until years later when they finally take him to see some doctors to try and get him some kind of help, and even then, they only take him to see quack doctors that recommend snake oils over anything that could actually help him.

Even with Eight Ball eventually stepping in and helping Cueball moving away from his awful parents, seeing better doctors in New Amsterdam… and then it turns out Cueball’s condition is so severe that there isn’t much that can be done by that point. So then the full-cyber conversion happens, because from Cueball’s point of view, his only other options are to either continue to suffer, or just straight up die.

I mean, you can imagine that would leave some pretty significant trauma on anyone. But Cueball is repressing most of it. Especially since, he’s had other people pity him and feel sorry for what he went through, and he hates that. The only person he ends up telling about any of this in particular is Bō (my Devil Theory OC that I ship with him), and even then only after they’ve been dating for a while.

By this point, he’s mostly mad at his parents for letting it get as bad as it did, especially with how stubborn they were about taking it seriously at all. Not to mention, like I said in the DOT EXE post, Cueball originally had plans to becoming a chef or baker. But he couldn’t exactly do that with his sense of smell and taste getting messed up, nevermind everything else he had to deal with. There’s a bit of resentment there towards his parents, the people who were supposed to, y’know, keep him safe.

Oh also, he is dead to them. Quite literally. I imagine in some countries in the BRC universe, a person going full-cyber or even just getting a cyberhead makes the person be considered legally dead. Y’know, Ship of Thesesus, “How much do you replace of a person before they stop being the same person?” kind of thing. And if not legally, I can imagine some people just have that kind of thought towards cybernetics like that.

His parents even made a grave for him and held a funeral for him. To clarify, by that point he was already living in New Amsterdam with his brother and the other DOT EXE guys, going through the procedures to go full-cyber. He told them what was going to happen to him, and they basically cut contact and acted like he completely died.

But if he had a chance at the time, Cueball would have flown back home, dig open his own “grave”, then push his parents in and bury them alive. Otherwise, he just likes to think that if he’s dead to them, then they’re dead to him too. Hell, they probably are dead by the point of the game, but Cueball refuses to even think about them either way.

The main trauma response (not sure if that’s the right word for this?) from all this is that Cueball gets really worried for his non-cyber friends whenever they get sick. Also getting mad if they try to keep going around as if they’re not sick, “Dude!! Go rest!! You’re either gonna make it worse or get someone else sick!!”

He is also still very distrustful of doctors in general, even if they’re genuine. He goes along with Bō for his doctor visits like a bodyguard. He’s worried for his boyfriend, but it takes him a while to admit he might be overreacting.

So then besides that! Cueball also has the trauma from Eight Ball dying. Maybe he even saw it himself, I don’t think the game specifies if the other DOT EXE members were around when it happened, or if the police/Faux managed to catch Eight Ball alone and take him out then. Personally it feels more that it’s the former, like they were all talking together nearby after losing the crew battle, then Eight Ball got shot and the others ran for it before they were next.

From a different previous post of mine, basically what I’m thinking is that Cueball was not coping with Eight Ball’s death very well. At all. To the point of even making fun of Eight Ball for just dying “so easily”. Which of course pisses off the rest of DOT EXE and gets him kicked out, leading to him joining BRC to continue to try and ignore Eight Ball’s death. Even considers just deleting his memories of Eight Ball completely, even though doing so would leave gaps in his memories that are too noticeable to ignore.

Fortunately! I think he’d eventually get a better handle on his feelings and what happened, and reconcile with the rest of DOT EXE later. He still sticks with BRC though, but at least he lives with the rest of DOT EXE again.

Vela

This one is for the spring palette Eclipse member. This is gonna be a bit shorter, but mostly because, I don’t want to get into too much detail on what happened to her, since the character herself probably wouldn’t do so either, at least to most people. So, to the point: She is studying at the local university, and at one point ended up abused by a professor she thought she could trust. That guy very nearly got away with it, if it weren’t for the rest of Eclipse stepping in to make sure he didn’t.

Though even with the scumbag punished, for a very long time afterwards Vela ends up very distrustful of men in general. She does go to therapy to help cope with things at least, especially since she wants to avoid coping in a way that ends up hurting her more. The leader of Eclipse in particular, Cassiopeia, encouraged Vela to make sure to go to therapy, and of course all of them helped support her during this time too.

It definitely does help, with her becoming less distrustful over time. She even gets a boyfriend later on! After a lot of patience from him, which Vela really appreciates and loves him for. Unfortunately, the rest of Eclipse finding out about this is the reason (in my little headcanon/AU story thing at least) for them kicking her out of their crew. So then similar to Cueball, leading to her joining up with BRC.

To clarify, they didn’t kick her out because she’s dating a man, they kicked her out because she hid something fairly important from the rest of them. With what she went through, combined with the crew overall having a, well, dislike towards men in general, she was worried about what they would think of her if she told them. So kinda poor communication on both sides?

I like to think they do eventually sort things out, but also like with Cueball, Vela probably sticks with BRC for writer stuff. However, she’s still very happy to have her friends back by thatpoint!

(Also I ended up deciding that Vela’s boyfriend is someone I’ve talked about before already. Remember the guy who I said his friends joke about his “theoretical” girlfriend, because he insists he’s dating someone but they’ve still never met her? But yeah that’s probably for another post. :P )

Rise

For Rise, I think some people might debate if it really “counts” as trauma, but I think it still does. A lot of this is copy-pasted from a document that I don’t think I’ve shared publicly yet, or at least not outside of this one BRC server I’m on.

In essence, Rise was emotionally neglected by her parents. Rise's parents are the high/upper class kind of people. Rich! Snooty! Looking down on the poor! etc. They saw their daughter as more of a reflection of their own reputation and stuff instead of her own person. So plenty of criticizing her for her appearance, what she ate, who she hung out with, what she studied in school, etc.

I have a headcanon where Rise has a huuuuge interest in marine biology and ocean stuff. It’s partly why she ends up hanging out on Pyramid Island, at least in my mind! She knows a lot, possibly even more than most people who go to school for the same topic!

But then whenever she'd ramble to her parents about it, she was basically met with a lot of dismissive "Yes yes, that's nice dear" and stuff like that. And after a certain point they were like, "When are you going to be interested in something more practical? Like medical science or business?" and that basically made her never want to talk about anything to her parents ever again, let alone her hobbies and interests.

At one point they wanted Rise to get into ice skating, but only because they wanted to have the prestige of having an "Olympic gold-medalist~" as a daughter. But also making sure she didn't get into any sports that were too "masculine" in their eyes, oh no, what a scandal that would have been for these poor rich assholes!! She got into skating alright... inline skating, specifically just to spite them. From that, Rise made more genuine friends, then became a writer through that as well. Her first time getting caught by police, her parents were horrified and actually paid to get her out and scrub her records (like with what was happening with Faux).

But then Rise keep doing writer stuff, again out of spite towards her parents, and kept getting caught, etc. Eventually they just forced her to move out of London (or maybe, Neo London? Who knows how bad the floods were in the rest of the world) where they were living, and she ends up in New Amsterdam from there. They would have disowned her on top of that, but then that would be even more of a scandal in their socialite circles, oh no!! So they just quietly sent her off and even try to pretend she's just overseas studying at some prestigious university or something.

The only "contact" Rise has with her parents these days is them actually sending her money every now and then. In their mind, if she isn't something like a doctor or CEO, it means she's probably living off of dirt without their help. She always donates the money they send her to a local charity, she sure as hell wouldn't want to keep it even if she did need it.

Rise doesn’t mind if people assume she’s just some rich kid that got into writer stuff for the sake of clout/because it was trendy. She doesn’t care for other people’s opinions too much, and besides she thinks her beef with her parents is between just her and them, and nobody else's business unless she chooses to share it.

Though, even after that, Rise tends to have trouble opening up to people, at least outside of being a writer and all. Especially when it comes to talking about her oceanic interests. So like, for my headcanons she ends up becoming besties with Rave and Shine in particular once they’re all with BRC! But even then, she’s afraid to bring up her interests, and for the longest time they mostly like to talk about writer stuff or gossip and the like. She gets there eventually, it just takes her a while.

---

Now for my Devil Theory OCs! I’ve already written a lot in this post, and these four might be a bit shorter than the rest all together. Also like with Rise, this is mostly copy-pasted and cleaned up/added to from a document I haven’t shared outside of a Discord server.

Sai

He is the spring palette Devil Theory guy, and the one in my headcanons/stories who ends up joining BRC. His parents started off verbally abusive with him as a small kid, until it escalated into physical abuse by the time he was in middle school. His dad was the source of the worst of it, but his mom definitely wasn’t a saint either in all of this, being abusive as well. It’s effectively a sense of “If my son wasn’t around, he’d just go after me” cowardice, just “agreeing” with her husband for her own safety. Sai at least had Daishō (and eventually Bō and Nunchaku) to help him through it, in particular Daishō letting him stay over at Daishō's house for days at a time just to avoid his parents.

Unfortunately, the abuse still continued whenever Sai came home. Despite what was happened, back then he still had hopes that his parents might change eventually. They hammered into him the mentality of “family is everything no matter what”, and was hoping that would actually win out in the end. But then because of that, he never really fought back, thinking it would just make things worse, even once he grew older and was physically capable of fighting back.

It also didn’t help that for most of his life living in New Amsterdam, Sai felt pretty isolated. Him and his parents moved from Puerto Rico (fun fact, with a lot of maps that show what the Earth would look like if all the ice caps melted, Puerto Rico is still around since most of it is actually pretty mountainous! So not as badly affected by any potential world flooding disasters, at least compared to Old Amsterdam and other places). He gets picked on a lot as a kid for being Latino and just generally an outsider. Even a lot of teachers and adults end up not trusting him due to his “attitude”.

Daishō is pretty much his only friend for a very long time, and before joining BRC he only ever considered him, Bō, and Nunchaku as his friends. Basically, he doesn’t feel like he has a lot of other people to turn to for help. And at any rate, he wouldn’t want to risk his own friends getting hurt because of his parents. Especially since, his dad in particular is a cop, and has been using those connections to cover up what’s been going on.

This eventually accumulated into his breaking point sometime in high school. His father managed to give him a nasty cut on his lower leg, and his mother just sloppily stitched it up, seeing no need to go to the hospital (because otherwise the people at the hospital would probably find out about what was going on). Sai eventually snapped sometime after that, and beat the fuck out of his dad.

He would have done the same to his mom (who, again, was also very much physically abusive, even if not to the same extent as his dad), if she hadn't managed to barricade herself in a bathroom. Afterwards, both his parents decided to skip town out of “embarrassment” instead of trying to involve the police against Sai (i.e. realizing that what they were doing to Sai would have to be investigated as well, in a way that couldn’t be covered up with cop connections anymore). He hasn’t seen them since and plans to keep it that way.

Is it any wonder the poor guy ends up with anger issues? He at least gets a better hold of them later in life at least, especially once he joins BRC.

Bō

Bō, the blond one (winter palette for Devil Theory), mostly dealt with his mother being horribly controlling and abusive to him (largely emotionally, but also sometimes physically). Meanwhile his father was a doormat who effectively enabled her, even helping her cover up what was going on.

At one point she attempted to homeschool him to protect him from being "corrupted”. She and the father followed, from what Bō could remember, a “very strange niche of Christianity”, with confusing ideology, seemingly just her picking and choosing what she wanted to believe from the Bible (which, unfortunately applies to a lot of Christians out there, but I digress…). They never actually went to church, but she would insist they were are True Christians. Her attempts at homeschooling him were equally confusing, at least for him.

But then that resulted in Bō needing to be held back a bit once the proper authorities found out she wasn't doing a good job, and thus forced her to let him attend regular school. They tried to catch him up as best as possible, but eventually just let the schools "handle" him from there. Between that and continued abuse at home, he was all around miserable during this time. Also really not helping that he ended up with poor social skills due to how his mother was isolating him so much.

Fun fact, he met Sai and Daishō sometime towards the end of primary school for all of them (roughly middle school, from what I can tell from research?). They had planned to bully him into helping them with homework, thinking an older kid would know more about what they were studying. But then they found out about him needing to catch up on a lot of things, and actually helped him out instead! Also for a frame of reference on ages, Bō is 31 in the present, while Sai and Daishō are both about 28, and Nunchaku is about 27.

Anyways, back to the note about his mother isolating him. She would also manipulate Bō’s relationships, either scaring off other kids he tried to make friends with, making him paranoid that they secretly hated him, or otherwise making it so that he could rarely (if ever) see them too often.

Daishō and Sai were the only ones she couldn’t successfully scare off nor turn Bō against. They also helped him stand up to her and defend himself. This eventually led to Bō being disowned and kicked out of his home for being so “disobedient”, but he considers this the best possible outcome. As far as he knows, his mother and father both moved out in the country to get away from the “corrupting” influence of the city, so at least he doesn’t have to worry about ever meeting them again.

Unfortunately, he was still left with a lot of issues. One is with food. She would often say she was going to cook one thing and then make something completely different, intentionally adding ingredients or buy snack foods that he didn’t like, or add certain spices that would alter the taste in ways he didn’t expect. She did this mostly as a way to make sure he wouldn’t be a picky eater, forcing him to eat or go hungry. Even if it meant eating something that he found repulsive.

As an adult, this resulted in Bō being very, very picky about his food. He wants it a certain way, and if it isn’t the way he wants or is expecting, he refuses to eat it. Especially if it’s something he hasn’t tried before, he needs to be told what it’s like, be able to at least sample it first, and if it’s homemade food he has to trust the person who’s cooking it anyways. For ordering at restaurants, if they get his order wrong, he’d rather just throw it out and go hungry than ask for them to correct it. His friends (and eventually Cueball) have to be the ones to step in and get it fixed, even when Bō insists they don’t have to, “I’m fine, really, I’m not that hungry anyways I swear!”

Another thing is that he’s afraid of the dark. This one was a result of his mom often locking him in their basement as a punishment whenever he acted up (i.e. just acting like a kid would). He’s embarrassed that he has to sleep with a night light, or really any sort of light, but his friends and Cueball are very accommodating of that.

Nunchaku

Appearance-wise she’s the one based off of Devil Theory’s summer palette. She was born and raised in the United States, specifically in California. Her parents placed a lot of pressure on her to be successful no matter the topic (school, sports, exercising, even just hobbies), but she could never meet their standards, nor did she really want to in the first place. This led to a lot of mental and emotional abuse related to that, most of it in the form of guilt-tripping her about not being able to do “better”.

Skateboarding was one hobby she kept secret from them, in particular because she knew they would try and force her to become the next Tony Hawk or something, when she wanted to keep it as a fun hobby for stress relief. Especially given everything else they were putting her through. Another hobby was fixing machines, including cars, which she mostly did in secret away from her parents lest they try and force her to study mechanical engineering or something.

After a certain point this escalated into physical abuse in the form of pushing Nunchaku past her limits for any physical training/exercising she did for sports in particular, as well as attempts to control her health and diet. In regards to school sports, they basically forced her to join just about every sport team the school had to offer, even if she hated the sport in question. There were times she thought she would die from a heart attack or just exhaustion in general. Other times she was either actually sick or just pretending to be sick in order to get out of practice and sneak off to finally relax.

She also wasn’t having a fun time at school anyways. She was pretty open about being a butch lesbian since maybe around middle school. Her parents at first tried to discourage it, but then eventually tried to use it to their advantage. In short, her dad was a local politician, a conservative one at that, and used his daughter as a sort of “See, I’m not a bigot, my daughter is a lesbian!” thing. Outside of that they didn’t really do much to be supportive, other than not mistreating her specifically because she’s a lesbian (which is, y’know, bare minimum).

Also, they didn’t bother helping her with the bullying she was dealing with at school over her identity and her being a part of every team (most of the other kids thought she was stuck up for doing that, not knowing/accepting that her parents were the ones to force her to do that). Most of Nunchaku’s real friends were either kids from outside of her school or online.

The latter is how she ended up friends with Sai, Daishō, and Bō! It was mostly a shared love of anime between the four of them, I think I mentioned that in the big DT post a while back? But yeah, eventually they became closer friends once they realized they were all deal with shitty parents, so then deciding to stick together and help support one another.

Truthfully, her eventual move to New Amsterdam was less “just moving”, and more her friends helping her successfully run away from home once she turned 18. As far as she knows, her parents have long since written her off as a “failure” and have stopped looking for her. She’s glad that they aren’t trying to drag her back, but deep down she’s also still hurt that they just gave up on her like that, after all the pressure they put on her.

Despite the whole “be good at ALL of the sports” obsession her parents had, Nunchaku still enjoys some sports and plays games with others. She’s just, y’know, not doing it to be the best, she just wants to have fun! Though there are times where she get competitive, like with writer stuff, but at least it’s on her own terms.

Daishō

Daishō, the leader of Devil Theory (also for appearance he’s the autumn palette), has been through some awful stuff himself. Though, a big part of his problems is that he’s convinced what he went through wasn’t nearly as bad as what his friends went through. Even though, trauma is not a competition. Still, I’ll get into that a bit more later.

Anyways, starting off with the root of his problems, his rich parents had a messy divorce around the time he was in early primary school (i.e. roughly early elementary school). The parents' animosity against one another was so bad to the point where they lived in separate houses, with Daishō actually living in a house of his own. His parents wanted to see each other as little as possible, so Daishō's "own" house would be where he was dropped off when he wasn’t meant to be with one of his parents. But because of how much both of them worked (and sometimes them going on vacations by themselves), he spent most of his time at that third house anyways.

He was basically cared for/raised by a nanny and a few housecleaners at this point, and those people were certainly a lot more like parents to him than his actual parents. He still sends his old nanny gift cards and stuff for the holidays, sometimes having lunch to catch up, etc. So just to emphasize, he has no love for either of his parents in the present day.

Anyways, both of his parents tried to manipulate him, in order to get him on their “side” against the other parent. Said manipulation changed often, but ranged from bribery, threats, and outright abuse. Never physical abuse, since they were at least careful not to leave “evidence” (with them thinking poor mental health resulting from shitty parents doesn’t count as evidence of anything bad).

Daishō himself was kind of desperate to either get his parents back together and maybe somehow fix the whole mess the three of them were in, or otherwise just get them to calm the hell down and leave him out of it. Him wanting to fix things was moreso when he was a kid, and then the latter was more as a teen when he started getting sick of their bullshit. Though sometimes his feelings would yo-yo between the two.

Eventually, all of this drama and manipulation led to an instance of attempted murder by his mother on him and his father. During which his father also left him for dead. Daishō got his foot almost hacked off by his own mom, but at least managed to get away despite what happened. The only other major downside to this is that she somehow got away with it in court. That whole thing basically killed what little hope he had left for either parent.

So from there, he just decided to beat them at their own game. Manipulating them, especially getting a ton of cash out of each of them in exchange for his "loyalty", telling lies about one parent to the other as “dirt” they could use later, stuff like that. After a certain point, he had effectively scammed enough money out of both of them that he felt safe enough to cut them both out of his life. The scamming was also enough to leave them both poor as hell, especially since they continued to use their respective money to try and get back at each other during all of this.

As far as he knows, his mom went back to her home country "in shame", while his dad just outright vanished. Good riddance either way, in his opinion.

So now going back to how he thinks what he went through wasn’t as “bad” as what the others went through. Other than the murder, he thinks it wasn't as bad because they weren't "directly" abusive towards him, at least not all of the time like what the other three went through.

Because of that he feels like he has to be the one to make sure everyone else is alright and happy. He has to be the one in charge, he has to be the one to fix things, he has to be the one to organize things, because his friends deserve to have that kind of happiness before he does.

Of course, with what happened in the game, he and his friends almost getting killed by Faux has put a lot of guilt on Daishō. Especially since he was mainly the one pushing for their deal with Faux, being convinced that Faux would have their backs and they could enjoy being All City and keep having fun together. With how badly things turned out, the guilt is still eating him up to this day...

One Last Section for Devil Theory

Just going over how each of them lost at least part of their legs, which led to all of them ending up with the cybernetic legs they have in the game:

With Sai, the cut on his lower leg got badly infected, made worse from him trying to hide it from both his friends and just people in general, not to mention being worried that going to the hospital might lead to him getting arrested if they found out what he did to his dad. Eventually it got bad enough that there was no saving it and he had to get that part of his leg amputated.

Bō lost part of his legs not from anything his mother did, but while he was an adult, long after being disowned by her. It was due to an accident (i.e. a failed secret test with a walking tank, where other people got injured as well), which got covered up by the police. Bō actually isn’t even sure what exactly happened that day, no one else who got injured know either, especially not that it was because of the police in the first place.

For Nunchaku, she lost most of her lower legs due to a factory accident as an adult. With her being new to New Amsterdam once she moved, she was in desperate need of a job, and ending up working for a shady factory that had a ton of questionable dealings and safety regulations. Her getting hurt lead to many other employees quitting, because it was the last straw and a bunch of other employees also got badly injured in the same accident. It was in fact the most severe accident at that factory up to that point, which led to it being finally shut down. She now works as a mechanic at a shop run by another former factory employee who was her mentor.

Lastly, for Daishō, when his mother tried to kill him, his foot ended up so mangled that he was better off just amputating it. It didn’t help that he also had to crawl and even walk with it for a while before he managed to get it looked at. Mostly because he went into hiding for a bit because, y’know, attempted murder.

With all of them getting injuries that resulted in cutting off a foot or lower leg (I'm imagining a bit after Bō's accident, that was the last one chronologically), Daishō ends up declaring, "Clearly we're all fucking cursed, let's just get this over with already." And paid for all of them to just get what's left of their lower legs replaced with fancy cybernetics, as seen in the game. This eventually leads them to becoming writers ("With these legs we could probably manage it pretty good, right?"), and then forming Devil Theory.

Not to mention the abuse all four of them faced, from their parents, and even other people like employers as adults, led to them adopting an "If the world wants to treat you like trash, then you should be allowed to trash it right back" kind of attitude. Hence how they act as Devil Theory.

Suffice to say, a lot of the problems they caused as Devil Theory would have been avoided if they all got some dang therapy!! Bō at least went for a bit as an older teen after being disowned, but stopped after a while, convincing himself he’s “fine” now. The rest refuse outright though also insist they're fine. They're not fine. They’ll get better eventually, but it will require someone convincing them that they’re not really fine, and them accepting that in turn.

So… I think that’s it. I know this is, a lot. So much. Maybe too much, lol. But if you read this all the way through, then thank you!!

[fereldanwench]

I know folks are super jaded when it comes to hearing all the "Site ABC is dying! Join site XYZ instead!" suggestions, but I am gonna give Pillowfort a little love under the circumstances. If it's not for you, it's not for you, but I've been enjoying it since I started using it more over the past several months.

A few relevant highlights:

No AI bullshit! Not only are they not partnering with any goddamn AI companies to scrap our work, but they even have a policy prohibiting images created with generative AI! (You can read more on their staff blog.)

No inconsistently enforced and often arbitrary rules about NSFW content! It's all allowed, baby! (Again, I recommend reading this staff post for the deets.)

Has a lot of the actually good features Tumblr has... You can save drafts! You can queue posts! You can schedule posts! You can filter content!

... And good features Tumblr lacks! A robust commenting system! An improved reblogging system that prevents outdated versions of a post from circulating! Communities!

It also has an Xkit-esque extension to improve native features! I highly recommend checking out Tassel!

So what's the catch, right? It's definitely not perfect, and some things might be a deal-breaker for some folks:

It does not (currently) support audio or video posts. You can embed YouTube videos and the like, but you can't upload them directly to Pillowfort.

For free users, the image size limit is 2 MB, which might be a deterrent to GIF makers. (For $2.49/month, you can upgrade that to 6 MB.)

The design is pretty bare-bones and can be a little clunky in some areas. There's also no app, although my understanding is the website is pretty responsive on mobile devices. (Can't personally confirm or deny this as I don't use it on my phone.)

It does have more maintenance and downtime than Tumblr, although I haven't found it too disruptive.

It's also generally a slower experience, so if you're looking for a super fast-paced dash you can never reach the end of, you might find it lacking.

And I don't consider this a deal breaker, but it is worth mentioning that because there are no advertisers on Pillowfort, that means it's user-funded. It will likely never have the flashier features of Tumblr because of this, but if you chip in a few bucks a month, you can get some fun perks, like the increased image size and extra avatars (which I personally love.)

My fort is very NSFW (porn gifs my beloved) but is otherwise very similar to what I post here. I also have a whopping FIFTY (50) registration invites I can send out, if anyone is interested in getting on there ASAP.

And lastly, for my CP77 mutuals, especially my Goro babies, I did set up a little Goro community to share any and all Goro fanworks, ships, brainrot, etc. Most of the posts there right now are from me, and I'd love to see some more variety. :3 (Intro post with rules is here!)

[im-a-mint]

wheel!

okay so it's! an interesting one!/pos

though I'd usually write fanfic, I'm genuinely not that confident in my skills to write fanfic on any of the rvb characters like at all. I have no clue how they work. to me the series is genuinely just a bunch of dolls who came to life and a camera was present so.ya

but! I can kind of think a couple things on them and I think it might actually be a pretty good pair if you ask me

north always felt very blue to me. I've talked to some of my friends about a hypothetical where the freelancers end up having to choose between red or blue, no exceptions, and north always struck me as a blue or someone who would work pretty well with them since he always struck me as someone who's a very good mix of easygoing while also caring a lot for those around him and being kind of protective over them. not in an explicit way but in the way he was insistent on south to turn on her trackers during the stealth mission; he wants to keep her safe like that, even if it can come off as pushy

tucker, as other people have pointed out (I think it was actually @leonardalphachurch ? but I'm not too sure if it was a reblog or what) isn't a trusting person, but somebody who wants somebody to trust. he kind of attaches himself to certain people that way; the way he had his trust on Felix is an example of the way he kind of works like that. tucker also being generally more Out There (?) if it can be put that way is also relevant to his dynamics as a whole

putting north and tucker together I feel could be the best for the both of them in a way. north is somebody who spent a lot of his time with south and her temper, with York and his humor, and with wash and his incompetence when he was younger, so I feel he would actually like tucker and his humor and the general way he behaves and not have much of anything against it in any ways. in the same vein, I feel he'd be able to be like that kind of nice where it's like they're your friend but also telling you to tone some things down in a way that doesn't make you feel unappreciated

tucker would also have basically the perfect someone to put his trust and money towards in the form of north. I fully see tucker trusting north a lot in the way he trusted Felix before just that this time it's actually true and not set-up for a betrayal which!! yay!!! good things for tucker he deserves them 🩷

overall I think they'd work pretty well together, romantically or otherwise. the biggest points of contention would probably be North's protectiveness over those he cares for and Tucker's whole deal with being the hero and, thus, putting himself out there and in danger since they're things that outright reject each other, but even with this issue I feel they'd be able to work it out in a way they both still get to feel the way they do but also not hurt the other. tucker could probably develop into not seeing himself as disposable or the only one capable of dangerous heaps and the hero and to Actually ask for help and open up while north could learn to back down when it comes to how he protects and cares for others and to trust them when they say they've got it

but yeah these are my thoughts on em 👍 again I don't feel confident in my understanding of the murder Skittles to really feel like I'm doing an accurate analysis on either of them but I did my best during a bumpy car ride

thanks for the ask!!

[use-your-telescope]

When Everything's Made to be Broken - Chapter 3: I'm Still Not Sure What I Stand For

Summary: Theo makes a decision. The Avengers meet a prospective new member.

Author's Notes: Hey look, it's the chapter that has the first snippet I posted back in like, February! This song is split between two chapters, otherwise it would be a 10k chapter... next chapter (again, already written!) will likely come on Saturday, 10/28.

If you enjoy, please reblog!! I'm a lil' blog (less than 100 followers, haha) and reblogs really help me out <3

Content Warnings: None!

Word Count: 3,957

Read on AO3 | When Everything's Made to be Broken Masterlist

Song: Some Nights - fun.

Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck Some nights, I call it a draw Some nights, I wish that my lips could build a castle Some nights, I wish they'd just fall off But I still wake up, I still see your ghost Oh, Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for, oh What do I stand for? What do I stand for? Most nights, I don't know anymore

If there was anything Theo could count on, it was that her cousin Max would inevitably disapprove of almost all of Theo’s life choices.

“Are you insane ?” The tenor of her cousin’s voice blared through the speaker, furious about the news she shared. “Seriously Leenie, you know you’re insane, right?”

“Sometimes, that’s all I have to give me comfort.” Theo drawled, cradling her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she packed her apartment up. “Max, don’t you get it? They’re alive - this is our chance!”

“No, no, no –” he retorted, “things are perfectly fine right now! There is no reason for us to go digging up the skeletons we buried -”

“Why are you so upset about this?” She said, rolling her eyes. “You literally have nothing to lose - if this works, we get our lives back. If this doesn’t work, we will stay here and nothing changes!”

“I have nothing–” A strangled groan came from the other side of the phone. “You are impossible, Leenie! What are the others going to think? What’s Mémère going to think? You’re putting all of us at risk–”

“Mémère has been pestering me to help with the shadow creature problem anyways,” Theo interrupted, “and might I remind you that between the two of us, I’m the one who has the authority to make this sort of decision.”

“I can’t – I can’t believe you,” Max sputtered; Theo could picture him walking around his house, flailing his arms in exasperation as she refused to back down on her plan. “After everything we sacrificed to get here, you’re going to risk ruining it for them?” 

“They’re my family, you asshole,” Theo snapped, “and until two nights ago, I thought they were dead. I thought I would never see them again, and I would never see my home again, but now there’s a possibility I can have my life back! So yes, I am willing to risk everything!” Staring at the half-filled boxes around her, Theo sighed; a pang of nostalgia surged through her chest at the thought of seeing the constellations that filled her childhood in something other than her dreams. “Max, they can put an end to all of this - don’t you want to go home?”

For years, Theo had dreams where she experienced the world through her sister’s perspective, but until she found out her sister was alive Theo assumed that was all they were: dreams. Her mind playing tricks on her, making her feel connected to people who hadn’t walked the earth in a long time. It wasn’t hard to rationalize - lots of people dreamt about loved ones after they passed. 

However, if it was true - if they were really alive… Maybe they weren’t just dreams. Maybe she was still connected with them and seeing what they saw. Maybe her sister was staring at the skies like they used to, remembering the tales she told Theo when they’d sneak out late at night to escape the times when it all felt like too much.

Even if Theo had seen the world through Rae’s eyes, she wondered what Rae looked like after all the time that had passed. Was she still as lean as Theo remembered, with sharp cheeks and piercing amethyst eyes that saw through everything? Was her nose still hooked ever-so-slightly? 

A shaky exhale came through the other end of the phone.

“This is our home now, Leens -” Max softened his tone, “I know you miss them, but even if it’s true that they are alive, how do you know they aren’t choosing to stay there? How do you know they would even want to help? Or that it would work?”

“Max, there’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t try to find me again - they’re my family ,” Theo protested, pinching the bridge of her nose with irritation at Max’s very blatant disapproval of her decision. “Look, I get it - after all this time it’s scary to think about the possibility that we gave up hope when they were still alive and we resigned ourselves to being refugees. But wouldn’t you rather know for sure than sit here wondering what if ?”

Theo continued haphazardly tossing items into boxes - she had to have everything ready for moving into the tower. Movers would be coming in a week, and she would have to say farewell to the brownstone she’d called home for so long.

The thought of leaving her little borough was tough to swallow - what would she do when she couldn’t stop into the bodega on her way home from work and tease Carlos about the girl who kept coming in to buy stuff just to talk to him? There was no way the Avengers ever went to bodegas when they needed something, much less talked to normal people. It seemed like they were locked up in their tower whenever they weren’t making appearances or going on flashy missions. They probably had cleaning staff and a chef that they interacted with, but beyond the staff it was difficult to imagine the Avengers living normal lives and running their own errands.

God, if Tony Stark was as obnoxious and boisterous as he seemed, being locked in a tower with him would absolutely result in Theo committing murder… 

Maybe she shouldn’t have agreed to this. 

But if it meant she could be reunited with her family, if they could finally go home and rebuild… Maybe she could hold off on murdering the Avengers’ sugar daddy.

“I can’t stop you from doing this, can I?” 

Max’s voice snapped Theo back to the present.

“No, you can’t.” Theo shook her head, adjusting how she cradled the phone so she could tape a box closed. “I gave SHIELD my terms today and they accepted. Whether you like it or not, I’m going. You’re second in command while I’m gone - you know that, right?” 

“Fucking insane,” Max muttered, “This is fucking insane.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first thirty times.” Theo replied, rolling her eyes yet again.

“Fine, fine! I will try to keep Mémère in line and make sure shit doesn’t implode,” Max relented, “You have to tell the council though - I do not condone this whatsoever.”

Fuck, Theo forgot about the council.

“Chill out - I’m sure Mémère already told them.” 

Well, she was assuming, but they’d find out one way or another. After all, there was going to be a press conference to announce her new role upon completion of SHIELD’s onboarding process, so it wasn’t like it was going to be a secret.

Max’s frustration meant the conversation didn’t last much longer; then again, it wasn’t like there was much else for the two to discuss. If anything, she was a bit relieved to be done talking to him, even if he was family.

The moment Max was no longer on the phone, Theo let out an exhausted sigh.

Maybe Max was right - maybe she was getting caught up in this for nothing. Maybe she wouldn’t get to them in time. Maybe it was actually a lie after all. Maybe this would re-open old wounds. Maybe she would be killed before finding anything. Maybe…

Wings flapping brought Theo’s attention to her open window. A pair of black, beady eyes stared at her, iridescent feathers shimmering in the light from Theo’s apartment.

Not a crow - too big to be a crow. The beak wasn’t like a crow’s, and the feathers around it were far more pronounced. 

Definitely a raven.

Ravens weren’t common in urban areas, and seeing one on its own? 

Well, if that wasn’t a sign, she didn’t know what was. 

This is it, boys, this is warWhat are we waiting for?Why don't we break the rules already?I was never one to believe the hypeSave that for the black and whiteTry twice as hard, and I'm half as likedBut here they come again to jack my style

“Dr. Theolene Amaris,” Nick Fury’s voice rang out in the meeting room as a picture of a lithe woman appeared on screen. “ - also known as the Silver Shadow, the Celestial Phantom, and the Cursed Moon.”

It was only a few hours earlier that everyone was notified of the mandatory briefing, which was described as “urgent.” 

Moments before, Loki found himself pondering the nature of the briefing while everyone packed into a bright conference room. In front of each Avenger, a manila file folder sat prepared for them with information related to the subject in question.The faces of his team members shifted as they developed their first impressions on the subject of their briefing, her likeness blown up on the screen at the front of the room. 

Despite exceeding the capacity of the space, Loki managed to secure his usual seat in the back, conveniently located near the door for an easy escape. It was a habit that lingered from his earlier days in the tower, but having an easy escape from what were normally tedious meetings was still a benefit that Loki took advantage of more often than not. Even better, there was an empty seat next to him, lessening the otherwise inevitable sense of claustrophobia that would have eventually reared its ugly head.

She really didn’t look like much. The only noteworthy feature in her appearance was the thick mane of silver hair that tumbled down her back, stopping just above her waist. Otherwise, she appeared to be like any other Midgardian: clad in all-black, a beanie atop her head with black sunglasses obscuring her features as she walked down the street. If Loki passed her in real life, there was no way he’d offer her a second glance, or even a first.

With that in mind, it was safe to assume that in this first image, she was practicing urban camouflage – blending in with her surroundings by altering her appearance and attire to mimic those around her. The less attention she drew to herself, the easier it would be to slip in and out unnoticed; it also created an additional challenge if anyone sought to locate her. As someone who’d had plenty of experience with stealth, Loki already had an idea of what her skill sets may include.

Stark studied the first image of her, brow furrowed as he spoke up. “Hell of a name, but she doesn’t look like much. What’s her doctorate in? Bad poetry? Sad music? Scaring parents?”

“Emergency Medicine.” Fury glared at Stark while Agent Hill changed the display to a second photograph. “Assuming she isn’t a serious threat is both the first and last mistake you’ll make about her.”

The second image must have been captured in combat. She crouched down as though she just landed from a maneuver, the obsidian hood of a frayed cloak masking the top half of her face as she held a black longsword composed entirely of what appeared to be magic in one hand. Her other hand radiated with darkness as it touched the ground, ready to launch some kind of spell. Blood smeared across her jawline, a scowl across her lips as a pair of corpses lay in the background. Unlike the first photo, now he could see a scar that ran down past the bottom of her lip, almost giving her the appearance of a permanently split lip. A second scar cut through the outside edge of her eyebrow, angling out towards her temple.

One detail piqued his interest: of all the realms that Loki had visited, he did not recognize where she was. He had to give it to Fury – this picture certainly made her appear far more intimidating.

“She specializes in shadow magic—“

The room erupted as all the Avengers fired off questions at the director.

“Shadow magic? Wait, is she the one behind those shadow beast-things we’ve been fighting lately?”

“What does she want?”

“Is she working for Dr. Doom?”

“Did HYDRA give her those powers?”

“What kind of villain studies emergency medicine?”

“Maybe this will help explain things.” Agent Hill tapped a screen as the image before them went to a video.

Loki had seen this video before - it was nearly impossible to miss, having been plastered all across the news for weeks. A Midgardian woman single-handedly eliminated an entire swarm of the shadowy monsters that had plagued New York City recently, all while in a subway car. Somehow, no one knew who she was or the methods used to exterminate the pests. It was obvious from the video that it was magic of some kind, though it was different from any magic Loki had ever encountered in his life and it did not resemble anything he had ever studied. Though he hadn’t admitted it to anyone, he was curious to meet this Midgardian and learn her abilities for himself.

Of course, that was assuming she was Midgardian. There were many species who appeared to be Midgardian, though biologically they were different. Usually, it was easy for Loki to sense if someone was Aesir, Midgardian, or otherwise; however, no indication that she was anything extraterrestrial revealed itself to him.

No, this woman must have been Midgardian. 

“That’s her?” Romanoff inquired, arching a perfectly groomed brow at Hill. 

“Wait wait wait , I thought she was the bad guy, but she’s killing the shadowy monsters here…” Wilson said, gawking at the screen. “Unless she’s really crazy and likes killing her own, this doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m telling you, if she’s the big bad and studied Emergency Medicine, she’s definitely got a screw loose,” Barnes said, “and that’s coming from the guy with a vibranium arm.”

“This incident was weeks ago - how is it that we are just now learning of her identity?” Rhodes interjected.

“She is not our enemy,” Agent Hill finally explained, raising her voice over the incessant chatter. “She has agreed to help the Avengers find the root cause of the shadow creature problem and exterminate the beasts.”

Stunned silence permeated the room. The ticking of the clock above Fury’s perpetual scowl only emphasized the blaring lack of sound. 

Loki could count on one hand the number of times he had ever witnessed total silence from the group; to see the group go from so animated to so silent nearly gave him whiplash.

“She’s joining the Avengers?” Stark’s disbelief was painted all over his face. “Emo queen Rapunzel is joining the Avengers?”

“Not exactly,” Agent Carter said, “She is coming on board specifically to help with the shadow creatures.”

“If she’s so powerful, why isn’t she already a part of the Avengers?” Banner asked, leaning in as he met Fury’s glare.

“This is a temporary arrangement.” Fury crossed his arms. “We struck a deal with her.”

“So she comes in and helps with the shadow creatures, and then what - she just disappears?” Captain Rogers pressed, “Don’t you think someone with expertise in shadow magic should be kept under close watch?”

“You’d be a fool to think she hasn’t been on SHIELD’s radar for a long time.” Fury crossed his arms and glowered at the group. “She turned down past offers to join the Avengers. Your mission is to convince her to stay.”

“Convince her to stay?” Romanoff shot Fury a wary glance, while others regarded the director as though he grew another head. 

“Assuming all goes well, we want her to remain on the team after the shadow creatures are eliminated,” Agent Hill explained. “She is highly adept in both physical and magical combat, and she has expertise in stealth operations. She fills in some key areas of the team that have been lacking, while her versatility allows her to fit into a variety of smaller teams with ease. However, we need you to convince her to stay.”

“Dr. Amaris cut her teeth in a different realm,” Fury added. “She has trained with threats far more powerful than what we have encountered here on earth, and fought to survive in far worse scenarios. Her experiences and insight would be invaluable in our operations.”

“Okay, but if you had to strike a deal with her, that still raises some questions…” Banner hesitated, raising an eyebrow at Fury. “It makes it sound like she wasn’t exactly keen to help protect the world.”

“Her skills are far too valuable to not be utilized.” Fury glared at Banner. “What I was going to say before someone interrupted my briefing is that she is also an incredibly powerful healer.“

“How do we know we can trust her?” Wilson asked. “I’m no wizard, but shadow magic sounds like trouble at best.”

Barton agreed. “Besides, Nat has us covered in stealth.”

“You know how to make a woman feel appreciated.” Romanoff coyly winked at Barton. 

While Loki wasn��t one to regularly agree with Wilson, for once he made a good point: this was something Loki was unfamiliar with, and at the very least it sounded dubious. 

“Because if I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead.”

Every head in the room snapped towards the entrance, eyes wider than dinner plates as they gawked at the source of the voice.

Leaning against the closed conference room door was the subject of their briefing. In real life, Theolene Amaris was smaller than Loki expected - not short by any means, as she appeared to be slightly taller than Maximoff and Romanoff; she was probably the average height for a Midgardian woman. However, she was lanky, with elongated limbs and a slight figure. She carried her head high with relaxed posture, one leg crossed in front of the other as she leaned on the doorframe with hands loosely tucked in her pockets. She didn’t seem to be intimidated by the strong personalities in front of her, even as she crashed their briefing.

Dr. Amaris sauntered into the room, eyes scanning over each of the Avengers with a smirk on her face. When she reached Loki she paused, quirking her head to the side as the curl of her lips increased. “Looks like one of us might need to change.”

At first, Loki was perplexed by her remark. Upon a second glance, it became obvious. They both wore almost identical outfits: black button-up shirts with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, tucked into tailored black trousers that showed a bit of ankle, and black Oxford shoes. 

He couldn’t help the snort that escaped him, a smile creeping across his own features as he allowed his shoulders to relax. 

It was unusual for someone to make him laugh, especially on a first encounter. And to shock the Avengers in such a way? Well, he certainly was intrigued.

“It seems we have similar tastes in apparel,” Loki commented coolly, wondering about the nature of her remark. 

Just then, Theo pulled a hand out of her pocket and snapped her fingers, instantly changing her outfit into a pair of ripped black jeans, a faded gray shirt emblazoned with some sort of sigil and the word “Queen,” and a pair of black sneakers. 

Loki could feel the magic pouring off of her - while she was no god, it was apparent to him that Fury wasn’t kidding when he said she was much more powerful than she let on.

“There, that’s better.” She dropped into the seat beside Loki, leaning back and kicking her feet up onto the table before sticking out one hand. “You must be Loki?”

“Indeed, and you must be Dr. Amaris.” Loki offered a wry grin, shaking her hand with a firm grip. “A fellow sorcerer, I see.”

“You could say that,” She winked, returning the gesture with a firm grip. “Call me Theo. Dr. Amaris is what my residents call me.”

From the opposite side of Theo, Thor beamed at the sight of his brother being surprisingly friendly to the Avengers’ newest addition. 

It took every ounce of self-restraint for Loki to prevent himself from rolling his eyes at his older brother. “Pleasure to meet you, Theo.” 

“Don’t get any funny ideas with Rapunzel here, Reindeer Games.” Stark warned, apparently having already settled on a nickname for the newest team member. 

Loki’s attention diverted to Stark, sending invisible daggers at the man. Even though they had come a long way from the distrust present when Loki first joined the team, there were certainly still moments where Stark got on his nerves.

This time it was Theo’s turn to snort. 

“Rapunzel? That’s the best nickname you’ve got, Tin Man?” Theo cocked one eyebrow at the billionaire as she laughed, brushing a piece of hair over her shoulder. “I may have long hair, but good luck with trying to lock me up in this tower.” 

“Watch out, or I might invent something so I can–”

“-- Then again, you named your AI system FRIDAY, so I shouldn’t be surprised,” She continued, unfazed by Stark’s threat. “Seriously, what the hell kind of name is that?”

“Says the person named Theolene...” 

“First of all, I just told you - I go by Theo, not Theolene. Second, I can’t help it that my mother has terrible taste in names. Third, Loki’s helmet has horns, not reindeer antlers. For a genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist , you should know the difference.” Theo turned to the other Avengers. “And while I’m correcting people, I don’t specialize in shadow magic. I specialize in celestial magic, of which shadow magic is a subset. Dr. Doom is a joke, HYDRA wishes they gave me these powers, and my refusal to become an Avenger has nothing to do with a lack of desire to protect people, it’s because I don’t want to spend my time playing superhero when I can be more useful as a doctor. Although whichever one of you suggested I had a screw loose - Bucky, I believe? - was probably right. At least, my cousin would agree with you. He’s pissed that I agreed to this.”

For the second time in mere minutes, the entirety of the Avengers were stunned into silence. If there were two words that best described the collective response, “utter bewilderment” would be Loki’s choice. 

“Wait a minute—“ Wilson blurted out, “How long have you been listening to our briefing? Have you been here this whole time?”

“Long enough to know you are just as skeptical of me as I am of you. It’s nothing personal, I know - I would be skeptical of me too! still, this has been enlightening.” Theo rose to her feet, gliding back to the entrance. She spun around, bowing with a dramatic flourish while flashing a cheshire grin at the crowd. “See you next Monday for your press conference!”

With a flick of her wrist, a series of black runes appeared all over her arms, flowing down her limbs like a stream of water. When they reached her fingertips, they rose into the air and evolved, surrounding her until she was obscured from view; in a flash of white, she disappeared, leaving nothing but a faint shimmer. The entire process took at most a few seconds, but the effect lingered far longer. 

It was a finale to the encounter that was almost as dramatic as her introduction.

If Loki’s instincts were correct, she was just getting started.

And that's alright (That's alright) I found a martyr in my bed tonight She stops my bones from wondering Just who I, who, I, who I am Oh, who am I? Mmm, mmm...

[rabtownsend]

following up on that last reblog:

As someone who shoots nude photography, I don't actually get a lot of blowback for sharing it, but I still worry about some unforeseen consequences because somebody with power over my life was a prude. I just kind of have to live with that worry if I want to keep doing the things I love doing. Back when Tumblr let you mark your own blog as nsfw, I refused to do so (and look how it backfired on people), because I felt that artistic, non-sexual nudity was not "unsafe." There's nothing inherently dangerous about Titian's Venus de Urbain, or one of my photos of a 30 year old art model with pubic hair posing in a bunch of coloured lights in 2024. It's not meant to be consumed in a sexualized way, and by making it taboo and treating it as if it is sexual content, we impose that context on the viewer's experience, whether they would have had it initially or not. We teach them to think of it in that way. I'm not saying someone couldn't find my images arousing, but it's not my intent, but if they ended up in a context that presented them as sexual, I can see how someone might.

We don't always see the ways in which we are being manipulated as it's happening. Whether that's being manipulated to think all nudity must be sexual, or that body hair is unclean, or that a certain weight or dress size is fat. The sooner you notice, the more enraged you become by it, though. Everything in my life up to around the 2010s told me that certain bodies were "chubby" - and if I look back at them now, it's not so much that I see that they weren't, as that the concept of "chubby" has become something I can't really meaningfully apply to any body. What's fat? What's skinny? What's unhealthy? Anything. Everything, if you're taught to believe one way or another about it.

I've said this in some other post somewhere, but being on tumblr in the last 15+ years and being in the circles of tumblr that I've been, was a really big part of deprogramming me from some of the baked-in societal expectations about appearances and how people and their bodies ought to look. I have seen so many body types, and there is always beauty in each of them. I don't mean that in a platitudinous way - I mean it literally. And definitely, I'll admit, there hasn't been as much diversity as i would like from my own photography work, but there are a wide variety of body types in that world as well. And maybe, to some extent, surrounding myself with relatively attractive nude people all the time has undone some of the work that tumblr has done. But I am recognizing that when I'm feeling that.

The sheer diversity of bodies (and voices) out there is what's important to remember. We can unlearn weight policing. We can unlearn stigmas about gender presentation or lack thereof, people living with physical deformities or disabilities, racial prejudices. The fact that anybody could post a nude, in the context of their choosing, and I could stumble upon it was amazing to me when I first discovered the naked-on-the-internet community on tumblr. It was the best kind of exposure therapy. It didn't matter if it was my thing. It was just fine. Bodies as they should be, doing what they're supposed to do. A body being a body. A success at body. Perfection of doing body.

It goes beyond nudity and sexualization. Just exposing yourself to opinions you might never have been exposed to otherwise can change you for the better.

All this to say that diversity representation works. It's very important. But also, be conscious of the contexts you place things in. That context will influence how others interpret it. Know when you're upholding a societal expectation instead of forming your own.

[goofballproximitysurveyor]

I drew this, please stop reposting it without credit!

a sort of indulgent rant :P

[original post as proof]

Since the wider internet is talking about plagiarism I think it's a good time to start talking about art theft/uncredited reposting/etc. as well and I'm particularly going to talk about my experience with it.

Before I say anything else I want to say please don't harass people who may not have a good grasp on internet etiquette! (and please assume that is the case unless someone has intentionally plagiarized/stolen people's work and credited it as their own) That is not what I'm asking you to do and for future reference if someone was excessively rude to you in calling out that you reposted my things I did not endorse that behavior. I do encourage calling out when you see people reposting art and linking back to the original work but I do not encourage harassment. On a similar note, this isn't meant to make anyone feel bad or guilty for not having a good grasp on this particular thing. This is just me explaining how it makes me feel and hopefully get people to understand why it's so hurtful so they don't do it in the future, and maybe they get to me explaining it nicely before other people explain it not-so-nicely LOL.

Some reasons why I personally don't like it when people repost my art even if this particular post is a shitpost and not something I put a whole lot of effort into:

(This list is definitely independent/fanartist-centric, I'm not really claiming this to be anything but that.)

Images get edited and distorted as the meme chain goes on, I have seen this end up with artists feeling like their art that they put a lot of effort into like all that work was a joke. Which, evidently is pretty disrespectful

In a personal anecdote, I have seen people say really rude things about me and the Blazblue community on Tumblr while reposting my things (art and otherwise) on twitter and other social media sites. It's really hurtful that people will disrespect me and my friends while using the bits and pieces they like.

Additionally, not everyone on the internet is familiar with common English-speaking internet terminology and etiquette. What may seem like a compliment or neutral statement for you may be rude to them. Generally speaking, a lot of Japanese artists take great offense to their work being reposted in any way whatsoever. ESPECIALLY if you didn't ask beforehand. People have privated or deleted works or entire accounts over this.

It takes away attention from the artist, and this isn't just people complaining about their art not getting enough likes/reblogs online. I have had my commissions open for months with next to no attention toward it and have periodically given up on promoting, with that in mind I grow more bitter about the fact that my only work that regularly gets attention isn't even representative of my current work but also isn't even attached to my name.

There are a lot more reasons, but it really is just a matter of respecting people who make the content you like and crediting people who make things you like.

If you see art that might be fanart and want to find the original source so you can either share it in a server, ask the artist permission to use it somewhere else, or sort of vigilante credit it for somewhere else, here's some places you can easily reverse search for images or find the artist who drew them (hint: if a work has been deleted it's good practice to still credit the artist)

SauceNAO - especially good for fanart since it's a curation of popular Japanese and western image sharing sites. Works best with full images. Found my art on pixiv and deviantART.

Google Image Search - Unreliable, may work with popular artwork but will probably struggle to find it otherwise, very rarely found my artwork. But probably your better bet for heavily cropped images at least to find the full image and then plug it in sauceNAO

But even then the best practice is if you don't know the source don't repost it until you've found it, and always reblog/retweet/what have you from the original artist before considering reposting it on your own account. Be strict and insistent on asking if people know the source of art they are reposting especially in discord servers and online spaces where it's commonly done.

[karticatyt]

Figured it’s time I make an official pinned post. I’ll edit this to make it prettier later.

🧡 Hello all! I’m Ren. Or Kart. Or whatever name you can come up with for me. I’m genderqueer and respond to any pronouns idrc. I’m a college student at the moment but for some reason I’m prioritizing this stuff over that. Not looking good for me.

I have YT at the end of all my usernames because YouTube was where I got my start on the internet and my old YouTube presence is very important to me, even if I don’t post there as frequently anymore.

Some stuff about me!

🚫 DNI: I actually don’t care for DNI lists at all. People have their own interests and opinions and idc as long as you aren’t a dick to me personally. Obviously I don’t care for dicks I don’t need to tell you that. If I don’t like you I just won’t interact with you myself. No need to tell you to avoid me because that’s redundant. I like most people enough, so you’re probably fine. That being said, my content is 14+ and sometimes 16+ because of more mature content/themes but also because I just don’t want to interact with kids. No offense if you’re 13 or under but I’m just not comfortable. If you get traumatized it isn’t my fault.

⁉️ BASIC SHIT: I tend to swear sometimes. Not super important but worth noting somewhere. I don’t usually use consistent capitalization/punctuation. I like to type without caps like sans undertale because it’s a vibe idk. I draw a lot, if that wasn’t already obvious. My favorite colors are orange, red & purple. My favorite animals are opossums, lions & crabs. I love psychology/philosophy and that bleeds into my love for horror games like SOMA & Fran Bow. I also love Sci-Fi stuff like Portal & Chappie (I love sentient AI in general). My comfort game is Night in the Woods. I love They Might be Giants. I’m short. I’m asexual grey-panromantic. My fursona is Smae the little cat demon guy, & my Ponysona is Lotus Medulla, the brown spotted earth pony with orange and grey-green hair. Amber Gleam used to be my ponysona for many years but now she’s just my AU protagonist/mascot.

🗯️ CONTENT/FANDOMS: I tend to fluctuate between my fandoms in cycles, so be aware that I may not always post stuff all about the same content all the time!! If you’ve already been following me for a while you’ve noticed I reblog a lot of different fandoms. The primary fandoms that I cycle between are My Little Pony, FNaF/DSaF, Sonic the Hedgehog & Undertale/Deltarune (sometimes). In the background I have some constants such as SOMA, They Might be Giants and furry stuff. Namely my original story Almost Normal which was originally made collaboratively with @crepecakez. That will get its own section here. Other basic forms of content I post here will be sorted by their own tags, like my art and asks. i don’t usually tag my reblogs that way they don’t clutter this organization.

🎨 MY CHARACTERS/ART: I have a lot of extra content for my characters and art on my Deviantart and Toyhouse accounts. Each character that has a dedicated toyhouse page will almost always have a direct link on their posts (aside from asks) to make their important information easy to find for those interested. All of my characters will have tags specific to them so that any content of them can be easily found. I allow shipping of my characters as long as it doesn’t directly contradict canon. By this, I mean characters can be shipped during times if/when they weren’t already in a canon relationship. I also allow some stretching of characters’ sexualities for storytelling/headcanon purposes (like Tallis having a bicurious phase when he was younger despite being straight etc.)

As for use of my art, I’d rather you not repost it anywhere without my knowledge but I am aware that the kinds of people who repost really don’t care about what I think so that’s why I have watermarks. You can trace my art for learning purposes only but I require credit for it. I also want you to tell me if you do trace or otherwise edit my art publicly because I want to see it. Same rules apply to my characters! Please credit and tell me if you draw them!

🦄 MLP STUFF: Most of you will probably be on my blog for this. If you’re interested in my mlp next gen AU, I recommend looking at the tags I use for it. (mlp au, mlp next gen, etc) Once I actually come up with a name for my AU I’ll add a tag for it to all related posts so dw about that. If you don’t care about my au specifically and just wanna see my general horsie art then check out JUST the mlp tag in particular. I do use other tags for it too BUT they can be inconsistent among my posts so the mlp tag is most reliable across the board.

☀️AN STUFF: Almost Normal, formerly known as Heart-Stabbed, takes place on an alien planet. Most of the cast originated as foursonas/algebraliens from when Crepe and I were in the bfb fandom. Nowadays I draw them as furries but they may be drawn in really any anthropomorphic designs without directly contradicting canon. If you wanted to, you could draw them as humans, or as aliens of some kind. (which they canonically are, since they do live on another planet) They really don’t need to be furries exclusively. Go ham. Tags are self explanatory for them, since I tag them all with the Almost Normal tag as well as the aforementioned character name tags.

🔞 NSFW: I can’t really stop NSFW art from being made if any of my characters go viral or whatever but I DO NOT APPRECIATE IT!! I did say that I allow shipping but I do not ever want to find straight up p*rn/smut of my characters. Only cute or silly art please. Suggestive themes are allowed just not explicit imagery.

Sorry that this was like extremely long :P

[jukeboxhound]

I have a lot of drafts I've saved over the years which I'll never publish that vary from angry to exasperated to sarcastic, and I think I know, now, how I want to approach this.

See, I'm one of those far-leftists that liberals on tumblr will often disparage. I'm deeply, profoundly an anarchist in that I believe that power imbalances which are not explicitly defined, limited, opt-in, and temporary will never turn out well. This includes government and even the concept of a 'nation' in the first place.

(Ironically, it's been my career in emergency social services, which has involved me participating in a courtroom every week for years, that led me to this conclusion.)

And one of the things that frustrates me is how often I'll see liberals blaming us for things in ways that show a fundamental misunderstanding of either a) the myriad factors of a given political 'thing' or b) what anarchism -- or, more generally, "far left" -- actually means in practice and offline.

(I'll stop here to reassure everyone that I'm not like those anarchists. I did vote, and I did vote blue. I'm frustrated that I feel obligated to clarify that so that the rest of what I'm saying might be taken more seriously.)

Instead of adding to the yelling and the blaming and contributing to further wedges among people who would otherwise be aligned in near-future goals, I'd like to just make a request to liberals: have an open mind.

Is there a summary of a far-left political point that makes you wonder how anyone could be stupid enough to believe it? Pause and, instead of agreeing with the judgment, ask yourself how you know it's accurate or a strawman. What logic lies underneath a seemingly counterintuitive belief that would be convincing to a bunch of disenfranchised adults who love ruthlessly debating the finer points of ideology with each other?

Those posts you're reblogging about solidarity and direct action written by people with actual lived experience? They're often anarchists. A lot of anarchists are doing the work regardless of which political party is in power and they get a lot more practice in figuring out what works and what doesn't.

Ursula K. Le Guin? An anarchist. There's a reason her writing resonates so powerfully, and it can't be separated from her anarchism.

Haven't heard the term "opsec"? It means operational security, and it's why I'm skeptical of any self-proclaimed anarchists who talk a lot about their activities online. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that these are people on which liberals base their opinions about anarchists.

The reason I'm speaking to liberals here is because I do believe that, generally speaking, most of us want at least some of the same things in the near future: for trans people to be safe, for the genocide in Palestine to end, for Jewish folks to be safe, for immigrants to live in peace, for children to grow up safe and be able to explore their authentic self.

Authoritarianism thrives on fear. It wants you to react from a place of anger and disgust because that's how it defines us from them.

So when you see content that make the far left look stupid or irrational, maybe pause to breathe through the initial moment of judgment and be curious instead, however skeptically. When you reblog a resource about practical activism, pause to appreciate whichever far-left activist put it together.

We may not agree on all the big-picture stuff, but to the right, we all look -- and die -- the same.

[yanankim]

🎉 Ray's 500 Follower Giveaway 🎉

Thank you to everyone that has stayed with me throughout this blog's journey! I've grown a lot as a uni and a content creator, and it's in no small part thanks to you guys. As a small thank you, I'm hosting a giveaway for my followers 💙

There will be 2 main winners who will get a Pentagon album of their choice! There will also be 5 runners-up who will get a small Pentagon-related goodiebag :)

Rules are under the cut!

RULES:

MUST BE FOLLOWING ME— this is a giveaway to thank my followers, after all!

If you reblog from a side blog, please put your main blog in the tags or have your main blog linked somewhere. I will be checking!

If you don't want to enter the giveaway and simply want to reblog to boost, please state so in the tags

This giveaway is open internationally and I'm going to pay for shipping myself! Keep in mind that I will be shipping from the US, so it might take some time to get to you

1 reblog = 1 entry, 1 like = 1 entry

Must be 18 or older or have your guardian’s permission to enter

You MUST have your DMs or asks open. If I am unable to reach you within 5 days, I am going to pick a new winner.

Giveaway ends May 8th at 11:59PM EST. Any entries after that date wont be counted!

This giveaway is not affiliated with tumblr. If you have problems or questions, please reach out to me directly! Otherwise, I might have to shut it down early :(