#i have some threads going and I want to make a timeline of them eventually but I'd rather do that in a separate post

[lucabyte]

obligatory ramble about postcanon loop ask

also your art is amazing

Hiiiiiiiii :D thank you :)!!

and thank you for the excuse to post the. just absolute wall of text that i truncated down to form the tags of that post. (i did,,, hit the tag limit. i forgot tumblr had one of those...) so let me just paste that and tidy it up a bit...

I am putting this under a readmore because it's a bit long. but:

This is like. The General Context for all* of my postcanon doodles? (Except AUs obviously) Like this is the base idea I've been drawing them all in. So, feel free to backread with this in mind. I've basically had this 'postcanon' timeline set in my brain since finishing the game...

My general thoughts are that I like the idea of Loop (even if through dubiously ethical means) being able to slowly reintegrate with the party as a whole new person, because they are, in fact, their own person.

It's a muddle of thematic threads im pulling on and "wouldn't it be fucked up if", but. (at its core, it's powered by the fact that like, while narratively isat's theme of 'the only person who can truly take the first step to help you is yourself'. (wrt: loop helping the party help siffrin in act 5) which i LOVE AND IS GREAT NARRATIVELY…. would be super fucked up irl to learn that your friend 'learned as a lesson' while you stood by kinda uselessly. I know i'd be upset about it. but thats mostly background here. doesn't really come up. at least not until loop has to explain who they are and the party realises they had to fall back on literally themselves again for help, but i digress,)

The real core concept is: Occam's razor. It is like, inherently, a buckwild thing to accuse a person of being somehow a clone or copy of your friend. Even if they start vaguely alluding to a backstory it's far more likely they were some other person before all that. (I still think Odile has that theory in the back pocket but she's rational enough to know it's a really long shot without a solid explanation. and i think Loop deep down knows this, and would, if cornered into confessing, turn the situation around to go J'ACCUSE and make HER explain it instead. Ever longer dodging being direct with their emotions...)

And the party are nice! And if someone has changed and wants to keep stuff secret it's kind of not their business? (Though it's hard not to speculate… see: the main joke of the doodles) And they seem important to Siffrin so they just try to accept them abrasive quirks and all. And eventually the question of their prior identity just fades away since, well, they're Loop. Their friend Loop.

but yeah. personal headcanon is that a few months/weeks after picking up and getting aquainted with Nille** (since that was presumably the IMMEDIATE TASK postgame), Loop reappears (either after a literal period of nonexistance, or just spending a few months wandering the french countryside alone being attacked by wild dogs). Since Siffrin has had a while to be therapised by the party they're doing mostly okay, but Loop showing up and still being agitated/aggressive pulls them both into a bit of a backslide behaviourally and puts the party on the back foot again.

Hooowever, I do think that due to no longer being literally stewing in the worst pressure cooker of all time together, the two do mostly actually sort themselves out with productive conversation. (Via a cycle of: genuinely distressing argument -> weeeird lovebombing -> ok we're good -> repeat, that gets less intense over time)

Thus, allowing the party to just. Integrate loop as a new person. They and Siffrin shuffle into different ecological niches (Loop taking over stuff Siffrin is now too squeamish for, etc (see: hunting, mostly)), and while it's not exactly what Loop wanted they generally get that beggars can't be choosers and it's a pretty good deal. And the rest of the party does straight up just like them as a friend, especially when Loop quits trying to actively antagonise them after a few weeks of being around them, since they just can't keep up being mean to people they like forever.

As for how I think the truth eventually drags itself out. This is where I invoke The Isabeau Torment Nexus™. So its gonna get shippy here for a bit hold on.

Which is, I think giving them time before Loop reappears long enough that Siffrin and Iseabeau actually manage to become established, Isabeau has to be the one to nudge the pair of them and go. "Hey. You know we're in Vaugarde right. I'm okay with polyamory if we all communicate." Before Loop and Siffrin actually even acknowledge that whatever the fuck they have going on kinda looks a lot like a relationship of some kind. (or have already been agonising about that via fighting and arguing, depending) (Obviously this comes after Isa "Emotionally intelligent enough to keep a lid on the jealousy" Beau has managed to use that big brain of his to Not just go Scream somewhere on the daily because oh godddd they keep talking like theyre suicide-baiting each other jesus chriiist. is it overstepping his boundaries to bring that up?? god)

This, taking a bunch of the tension out of Loop and Isabeau's relationship (Since I imagine Loop is a. being weird for the obvious reasons and b. feeling kinda guilty about 'getting in the way of' Siffrin and Iseabeau), allows them to actually get close in a normal friend way. (I think an interesting turning point could be Isabeau actually taking Loop's side in an argument vs Siffrin, which would absolutely break Loop's brain. Especially if it's an argument that matters. Like what do you mean he isn't just going to play favourites. What?)

Then Isabeau, just actually open minded and charmed by Loop (and maybe even somewhat at Siffrin's suggestion?) tries to close the final open side on the polyamory triangle here and that's the final straw for Loop on "This lie by omission is too unethical to keep up, this is just actually sick and wrong. I can't do this while he doesn't know who I am." Though. Obviously it probably goes. Very poorly with emotions high like that. And the added element of several months of deceit. Getting dark here for a second but that dagger is going MISSING and so are THEY for a hot minute.

Then yaaay everything works out in the end 👍 yippieee!! all it took was maybe a lot of harrowed recontextualisation of all the weird shit your new friend said and did when it turns out they're your old friend. It's fine.

But yeah. this is basically the context all of my postcanon doodles have existed within? And those exist to give other people something to chew on. So this does too.

I suppose TL;DR: Imagine if sloopis almost fucking happens before isabeau knows who loop is. can you fucking imagine. can you imagine having to navigate that. nightmare.

*Yes this includes the implied cannibalism comic. Uhh. Comes part and parcel with headcanoning that Loop went way off the deep end similar to A5 Sif But Maybe Worse before giving in. Add weepy half-asleep confessions to murder wherever you see fit in your mind palace. 👍👍👍

**Re: Nille footnote. I don't have anywhere to put this besides here! I have some thoughts on Loop and Nille having an odd dynamic. I don't imagine Nille to be super gung-ho on trusting a bunch of adults (even if they are majority around her age) given their implied backstory. It's probably a big shock to the system, especially since Bambouche is a good couple hundred Kilometers up north from Dormont and these guys don't seem to have trains. She would've been unfrozen and without Bonnie for some time....

Which is to say: I think she's suspicious of them. I think she may be looking for excuses to distance herself, keep Bonnie safe. SO.... A new guy showing up? And antagonising the party? What do they know that I don't...? I should find out.

And since... Loop didn't ever know Nille, they have no ammunition or real reason to be cruel. Plus, if they're trying to stay on Bonnie's good side (SINCE... if Bonnie thought Loop was cringe they may as well kill themselves. In their mind.) they SUPER have no reason to antagonise Nille.

Mostly, they might be able to open up to each other easier than they can the rest of the party?

I feel like this resolves with Loop feeling compelled to apologise for what they and Siffrin let happen to Bonnie, though... Hmm... Depends on how you interpret Nille that they'd be glad nobody else had been told about that yet, or furious it had been secret this long. I lean toward the former.

[jonahmarshall77]

rules!!!

basic stuff,,

· no nsfw! flirting is okay. (please do keep in mind i AM a minor,,)

· please use common sense.

· don't be a dick?? ↑

· this is just a silly thing! some stuff will obv be ooc

small notes?

ionno,

· hcs WILL be applied lmao

· as mentioned prior, i am a minor running this account ... don't be weird?

· i may or may not vanish out of the blue if i get too busy ,,

· i MIGHT make sprites !! idk,, seems easier to run one of these with them...if i get the time I'll make them

‼️ AU/Timeline notes ‼️

— Jonah DID die for a few minutes in this timeline, except he got resuscitated after a minute or two (so he still got the experience of death, dying, etc)

— Jonah didn't go back to check on Adam, and believes him to be dead

— Most of his responses to trauma over everything is generally just “it is what it is” until shit gets important or serious

— Any asks/rp threads are set AFTER the crash, no specific time after, but just sometime after

— Jonah hasn't heard from his parents (or anyone in general) for a while, believing that "if they wanted to stay in contact, they'd contact me first"

— Jonah definitely ignores most issues, problems, etc, that might've been aroused from the crash/incident, figuring that if he ignores them for long enough, they'll go away

— honestly he just left the van broken in a ditch and doesn't have any plans to go back nd get it

Tags!!!

Tags: #Jonah's interactions/ints , #Jonah's asks , #That's not Jonah ... more will be added eventually (excluding all the TMC tags added)

#Jonah's interactions ; interacting w/ any other tmc blog that might be out there !

#Jonah's asks ; answering asks (if that wasn't clear enough,,)

#That's not Jonah (or any post labelled ooc) ; ooc crap lmao,, will either be labeled with that or #ooc post or some shit

Claimed Anons

🪦 , 🌻 , E , 🐦/🌹 , 🌩️ , 👾 , 📼 , 🥩 , 🐕 , 🫁 , "Fox" , 🐝 , 🍎 , 📞 , 🧷 , 🧸 , 🐶

hi thats a lot of people

updated: 11/26/24

ran by @battery-enthusiast ... go check out my blog !! its very epic i swear

all accounts i run (including this one): @jonahmarshall77 @battery-enthusiast @mrkheathcliff @certified-dentist @marks-rambling ;; go follow them 'nd send in asks! im active on all of em ^_^

[specific-dreamer]

📽️🎞️ it’s a new dawn, a new day, a new life for me 📽️🎞️

first things first: credit to @sodapopper for their hollywood au ! i’m in love with the idea, but i’m notoriously bad at multi chaptered fics so, socmed au !!

second: this takes place by about three months post their parents death (specifically the month is april) so darry is still able to joke and bully his brothers like any sibling and he’s starting to find his footing as a new guardian. soda is also still in school trying to convince darry to let him drop out. timeline wise this takes place in 1967 but i’m using modern movies bc i refuse to watch boring old ass western movies that don’t actually have a plot

Side notes: this is likely to be posted on twitter/bluesky just because i prefer the formatting and the ability to organize it as a thread. but ! i will do my best to keep updating it here as well. what else.

minor note: there’s no real plot really. im just adding stuff as i go, pls pls pls feel free to request something ! also the title is just a filler, i dont rly like it but i can’t think of anything better

that’s all ! greaser character profiles and about them under the cut <3

darry

20 years old, he/him

eventually soda’s manager purely because he doesn’t trust anyone else

made his twt account when he was like 14 and went by dj and it had the most embarrassing shit, so he deleted everything and privated

ponyboy

13 years old, he/him (trans female pony my beloved but she doesn’t realize it yet)

soda’s number one supporter

not really related but he bleaches his hair just for the hell of it so his hair is always blonde

sodapop

man of the hour

16, he/him and poly (steviepop will be making a feature at some point)

never once considered acting but he knows he’s handsome so why not give it a shot. if anything it’ll impress the fillies when they come back home

steve

17, he/him and also poly

ace’s twin

active on stantwt

when soda gets famous he posts things like “sodapop curtis will post an update at 3:13 am abt his new movie” but no one believes him until soda does post at 3:13 am and suddenly steve’s considered a stalker

johnny

16, he/him

also on stantwt but he’s a favorite bc he just posts pictures of soda taken from afar as if he was a regular person “omg guys is that who i think it is”

dally

16, he/them (idk it feels right i don’t have to explain myself to you /silly)

considered sodas acting coach but really he’s just bullying the script writers to make better/ more accurate westerns and gang movies

ace

17, she/her

steves twin

adores hollywood. she was first on board with soda becoming an actor and helps soda learn his lines

spoiler alert she also gets scouted

two-bit

18, he/him

originally he hangs back in tulsa with his family

darry’s confidant because the two of them are on the same page; they’re both worried about soda and want the best for him but they can’t help but imagine the worst

[deathbydarkelves]

hi! i just read through your AU document and im really curious about the version where your ocs are big players. how do they alter the course of events?

Thank you so much for your ask! <3 I hope you knew to expect a wall of text when you sent it.

I call that version/timeline the “Black Rain timeline.” Also the name of a future fic, also Cathala and Tarinne’s ship name, because I like to make things confusing they’re my lens into it.

The answer to this will get longer and more detailed as I continue writing and spin more threads, and they don't really come into the limelight until after my current WIP, The Smoke Still Lingers, but they leave their little butterfly effect ripples before that too. I'll go over the big ones, post-Smoke, because you can line that up best with the prose part I wrote in my doc. Those are also the ones I've thought out the most.

First chronologically and the most relevant to my latest art post, is that they both become members of a fellowship(/hunting party) consisting of other various individuals who, each for their own reasons, want Sylvanas dead. Horde, Alliance, and neutral parties alike. From the Horde perspective, since that may not be as immediately obvious: She may not have intentionally burned Teldrassil but she still grossly overextended to get there, indirectly caused the deaths of many Horde soldiers by virtue of calling them into service, directly caused the deaths of others who’d been on Teldrassil when it happened, and generally (in the eyes of many) misused the Horde’s resources. Not to mention the entirety of the Fourth War. But granted, either she made the first move or the Alliance would.

Plenty of Horde citizens are content to just be thankful she’s gone, but there are some like Kolga (the orc in the middle ⬇️) for whom it’s more personal. Her daughter died in the War of Thorns and there wasn’t anything left to bury. For various reasons she sees Sylvanas as the one responsible, and wants to do something about it.

Anyway… this fellowship will slowly grow as its members happen upon each other on their own little vengeance quests, converging one by one on the same trails. They’ll eventually sail to Northrend and cross paths with Tyrande and Maiev, because realistically how could they not? And with that much more manpower, the whole squad will overcome challenges and learn things Tyrande and Maiev in the other timeline do not. I… don’t know what most of those things are yet lol, but there’s a big one I know for sure:

Tarinne has a condition called thor’drinn, or “wolf’s fury”. I linked my explanation post but in short(er): a very small percentage of kaldorei retain the ability to berserk from their troll ancestors, but due to limited understanding of this concept and general taboo around the whole thing, it’s believed to be a divine curse from Goldrinn. Might be a bit of both, honestly. Those with it, called “wolf-touched”, are exiles or Wardens’ prisoners at best, or outright killed at worst — if the physical and mental stress of their first berserking episode doesn’t kill them first. Trolls regenerate and can keep up with the damage they cause to their own body. Kaldorei don’t.

Tarinne got lucky. She survived her first (and her second, and her third, and her fourth), but that just means she has to live life always hiding this, hoping the next one happens somewhere out of sight, lest she slip up and it all comes to an abrupt end. Even Cathala doesn’t know this about her; that’s how deeply ingrained the shame and taboo are.

So of course it's

really fucking bad

when a battle in Northrend goes horribly awry and she loses it in front of not just Cathala but Maiev.

It is only because Tyrande’s also there that Maiev lets her live. What Tyrande said then is what actually leaves the ripples (paraphrasing because I haven’t written this scene yet lol): “She’s been an unwavering ally until now. Kaldorei through and through. The Goddess saw nothing to warn me about. It may be worth reconsidering some of our old ideas around her… around thor’drinn.”

Maiev’s not happy whatsoever but Tyrande outranks her, so that’s that. And after Tarinne fights in the final battle against Sylvanas and returns with (most) of the fellowship to Kalimdor as a hero (to most), well… her secret’s out. “Just” among those in the fellowship, but that’s still a wolf-touched kaldorei’s worst fear.

Society and especially elven society changes slowly, but a woman with thor’drinn being not just known but pardoned by the High Priestess herself (anonymously) was simply unimaginable before this whole debacle. It’s gonna change things. In a couple… centuries maybe there’ll be real changes which actually try to help those with it instead of just telling them to “repress it or die”. Better than nothing…?

Lastly, and completely unrelated, is Cathala and her weird backstory. Fewest words possible: un/lucky shipwreck survivor who got stuck on Pandaria for fifty years. After Mists, she’s stayed under the radar mostly, content with just being “kinda weird” and something of a mild curiosity to most of those around her. But after secession, and after a lot of real convenient trade routes were cut… suddenly this almost-nobody with an even more convenient tie to the difficult-to-infiltrate pandaren looks real enticing if you’re up at the top of the organized crime pecking order like Ylrith is. There’s a lot to be smuggled into and out of Pandaria, a lot of underworld connections to be made, all locked behind post-war isolationism and a language all but impermeable to even magical translation, if Lady Luck would just give her an in. And oh, would you look at that…

Not really sure what that will lead to yet, but it’ll certainly have some kind of effect on the overall relationship between Kal’thalas and Pandaria. And this is also me saying to my older followers who thought I did: no, I have not forgotten about Ylrith. She’s just gonna stay in the background for a while until the time is right, like she always does :3c

[spider-gem]

if you feel like hearing some silly goofy mobius-mr tesseract thoughts, I have a hc that post-finale mobius might- after a long long time of looking for a way to reach loki- go a bit bonkers with grief (particularly the denial/anger/bargaining stages of grief), he gets a bit morally dubious. over time he steals as many tesseracts as possible, hiding them away in a secret tva office. eventually, surrounded by thousands of stolen tesseracts and out of ideas of how to use them, he has a “WWLD/what would loki do? probably suggest we take a coffee break” moment and puts a bunch tesseracts into the office coffee grinder, making a piping hot cuppa jOH NO. except there’d be a little anticlimactic fake-out after he drinks it (maybe pairs it with some pie) where nothing immediately happens because infinity stones aren’t active inside the tva. but the moment he exits the tva…….

On a more realistic thread, I can imagine mobius somehow absorbing/becoming the space stone à la Princess Kida in Atlantis, and the stone ‘asking’ “where do you want to go?” and mobius ‘telling’ it “outside of space and time, I know a guy” or something. And prying open a tear in time and space to reach Loki.

The idea of missing a friend so deeply and wanting more than anything for them to be ok because you believe they deserve to be with you, helping them to be ok because it’s NOT FAIR -to the point of obsession and corruption, maybe even loss of self… ouch… but if he succeeded, “Time and Space” are always paired together after all (lmao “mobius, king of space”)

Anon, I love your mind! Mobius initially using the Tesseract’s power to find his (boy)friend, but slowly being corrupted by its power… Loki being the King of Time and Mobius being the King of Space… Oh, the possibilities…

The first idea is hilarious (Mobius, sipping the triple shot Tesseract espresso: hmm I probably should’ve done this outside of the TVA…) but I love the second concept! Mobius merging and becoming one with the Tesseract raises many questions of how it would affect him. Does the Tesseract have a mind of its own? Does it influence Mobius’ thoughts? My best guess would be: yes, absolutely.

This raises another question: if/when Mobius reaches Loki, how will Loki react to his friend’s new power? Loki has been lured by the Tesseract before, he’s been where Mobius is now. Will he be shocked seeing what it has done to his friend? Or has he been suffering this whole time, watching the timelines helplessly as the Tesseract has been corrupting his friend’s mind? And ultimately, can Mobius gain control of this new power, or will it control him?

I have to get this idea to Marvel…

In the meantime, I would love to know if there are any fics with this concept! If not, I’ll have to get writing, I suppose…

[dystopicjumpsuit]

I'm popping in for some backstory/info about Stars Beyond Number :)

Were there any plot lines you wanted to include in drafting stage (if you do a drafting stage lol) but eventually decided to scrap? Or was the finalized version of each chapter the intended plot?

Also, I was thinking about Rex in this story and his lover (? not sure what to call them), and will there ever be a reveal of what was going on with him and his person?

I had to go all the way back to June 2023 in the version history of the outline for Stars Beyond Number to check on this, because I knew that there had been a scrapped plot line, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was.

I had planned to have the Batch link up with Rex's group to search for Omega (which I was expecting to happen in S3; joke's on me). Cerra was going to clash with Hunter to the point that she left the rebellion and spiraled in to self-destructive behaviors. Wolffe was supposed to have to leave the Empire after the events that actually made it into the story blew his cover. And he was supposed to reveal that Tech was still alive and being held at Tantiss. I ended up doing cutting all of that because I didn't want to get ahead of canon and then have to contend with an AU. Clearly, it was the right decision; I think the story would have sprawled out of control and ended up with a lot of plot holes. Plus, Cerra needed to catch a damn break.

Incidentally, the final outline after I'd cut the scrapped bits was 28 pages long, and SBN 2 is shaping up to be even longer because I'm having to do character arc outlines for everyone to make sure I don't end up with any dangling plot threads. There's A LOT going on in this story, and the first half will have 20-year flashback scenes at the beginning of each chapter, so not only do I have parallel timelines, but I have about... seven (?) major plot lines and numerous subplots, plus the story is intertwining with @freesia-writes Howzer fic, so there's a lot to keep track of.

As far as Rex's mysterious lover, YES! I will be answering that in SBN 2! We will find out what happened with them, and why Cerra hates Hart so much. I mentioned this to Free, but Cerra privately refers to him as Captain Shart.

Thank you so much for the ask; I've recently started writing SBN 2 (by which I mean plotting out all the arcs and jotting down a few scenes), and talking about it is making me even more excited to keep going!

[youcouldmakealife]

LBTE: Jared (161-163)

Christmas, New Year's, and media.

If you'd like to read along, the series page is here.

161. Strategic Retreat

Final arc, baby!

Big ol’ summary to cover some ground because I DO need to end the story eventually, despite what Bryce thinks. So zoom, here comes Christmas.

Bryce being on LTIR means he doesn’t have to deal with media unless he explicitly seeks them out, and if the Canucks refuse to make Jared available for reporters, there’s not much they can do about it except like, shout questions in the parking lot.

Which does actually happen, incredibly; the security guards were apparently the right idea, but also, ironically, aren’t actually present the one time they’re needed. But Jared has Gabe and Dmitry with him, and Dmitry makes for a very friendly but also completely immovable barrier between said reporter and the getaway vehicle.

Except for the one scene before Christmas, in which Dmitry gets to play bodyguard and Gabe gets to play getaway driver, and they both have a blast.

“Who the fuck even was that?” Jared asks, twisting around to look through the back windshield as Gabe pulls out of his spot. “I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

“Should I take detours?” Gabe asks.

Jared thinks that’s unnecessary, but he also thinks Gabe looks hopeful, like maybe he’s always secretly dreamed of being a getaway driver.

“Can’t hurt,” Jared says.

Thank you for humouring Gabe’s ambitions, Jared.

Bryce looks down at the open suitcase, which is frankly more cords than clothes at this point. Bryce didn’t pack any cords whatsoever, which was a problem considering they have different phone models, and then there’s Jared’s laptop, and Bryce’s iPad, and backup cords for their phones, because they have a tendency to disappear, and Jared prefers his electric toothbrush, so he packed the cord for that, and —

Got to be prepared for everything in the great wilds of suburban Calgary.

But wait. Jared has parents. Parents who can retrieve things for them. Also they can get same-day delivery for just about anything. Maybe not on Christmas, but: parents. Dad would grumble, but he’d make the Christmas morning drive to Shopper’s Drug Mart. He’d probably even insist on it, rather than let either of them do it. Definitely before he let either of them drive his car.

Shoppers Drug Mart: your best friend when you realise on Christmas morning that you forgot to get someone a present.

“I don’t know,” Jared says. “I’m being ridiculous in my head, that’s all.”

“If you tell me, I promise I won’t judge,” Bryce says. “I’m ridiculous in my head all the time.”

<3 Bryce

The one tiny sliver of a silver lining to Bryce’s injury is that he isn’t going to be game ready until after their next game in Calgary. May miss playing in the Saddledome entirely this season, and selfishly, Jared hopes he does, not just so Bryce doesn’t have to deal with what they yell at him, but also so Jared doesn’t have to hear it, doesn’t have to know just how ugly it is. He wants to be able to come back there.

Something uniquely special about getting booed by your hometown team. Not in a good way.

Dad picks them up at the airport, and Jared doesn’t know if that’s because he’s worried some Uber driver will recognise them, or to continue the weird charade that Mathesons are a nice, welcoming family they all do whenever Elaine’s around. At some point they’re going to get tired, right?

Elaine continuing to bring out the best in everyone.

Dad and Elaine catch up in the front — well, Elaine catches dad up, dad just tells her all the food he’ll be making — as Jared takes the opportunity to nap on Bryce’s shoulder in the backseat, waking up for flickers of exit signs and snatches of appetizers and Elaine’s laugh, Bryce’s fingers threading through his as dad takes their exit, squeezing when they pull onto Jared’s street, a gentle wakeup call.

This is all very soft.

…insisting on taking Elaine and Bryce’s bags — ‘don’t want you to screw up the recovery timeline’ he told Bryce gruffly, but Jared has two hands and thirty less years on the planet, so he can probably handle it.

More baby steps!

“Can’t come, watching pots!” his mom yells as soon as they open the door, with the exasperated tone of someone who does not appreciate the duty they’ve been assigned, and dad beelines straight for the kitchen, presumably to make sure she didn’t fuck up pot watching.

‘Watch my pots’ is said way too frequently by Don considering nobody watching them knows what to look out for.

Erin shoves one into her mouth and puts a protective arm around the rest before she pulls her phone out, aiming it in their direction with intent while she chews bread in the most obnoxious manner possible.

Erin’s got the right priorities.

“Not awful, I’m going to post it,” Erin declares, but she shows the picture to him and Julius first — Jared guesses they’re all a little gun shy where social media is involved right now. She’s right though, it’s not awful, and Jared doubts anyone who doesn’t know him personally could see all the spite in that smile. Julius scoffs at it, so Jared definitely didn’t fool him, but strangers? They’ll buy it.

Jared smiles rarely enough that you’d have to know him quite well to be able to differentiate his smiles. Julius is one of the few who can.

“Guard my rolls from these thieves, Elaine,” Erin says, then somehow bullies Jared and Julius onto one half of the couch while taking the other half for herself.

All the right priorities.

Jared would argue, but he peers over Erin’s shoulder to see a picture of them wearing the same fake smile on their faces while Julius looks faintly terrified between them. Exact same. It’s horrible. And Jared can’t even make a face at Erin right now, in case she makes the same face back.

She would make an identical face and Jared knows it.

They get a better one later, one where Jared and Erin look related but not too related, and Julius doesn’t look traumatised, and dad has an objectively ridiculous expression on his face, which will hopefully quiet some of the ‘Don Matheson is a silver fox’ narrative — Jared doesn’t know if that’s still a thing, and he’s afraid to ask in case it is — and Elaine looks like she just popped in from a complete different, much fancier event. Bryce is just a sweater sleeve and a ringed hand on Jared’s knee, because he was reaching for the wine when Jared’s mom took the picture, but that still would have made this a picture that would have needed to be deleted, or at least cropped, Bryce carefully excised from the frame.

But instead, when Erin asks if she can post it, Jared shrugs and looks at Bryce, who shrugs right back, and they collectively ignore his dad’s protests that it’s an awful picture of him as Erin fiddles with approximately seventeen different filters before posting it for all to see.

Bryce just a sleeve and a hand, but he’s there! And of course everybody knows exactly whose hand it is. A small thing compared to the media they’re going to be doing, but after years of carefully censoring what photos make it to social media (or are taken at all), this is a small thing that means a lot.

162. Ritual

When the clock strikes midnight on Christmas, Jared’s drowsy, contentedly full of dinner — ‘don’t expect this tomorrow’ his dad warned, but Jared is fully expecting a repeat, judging by the overloaded fridge and his mom’s longsuffering expression — and also pie, because his dad made a fucking pie. From scratch. He’s officially out of control and Jared will happily reap the benefits.

Don’s cooked throughout Jared’s life, albeit mostly in a ‘let’s get food on this table before your game’ sort of meals, rather than his new passion for it, but pie? PIE? The closest thing to baking his dad did before was pancakes, and Jared’s pretty sure that doesn’t count.

Elaine’s gone back to the hotel room she got rather than kick Bryce and Jared out of his room, his parents to bed. Bryce is asleep, Jared’s pretty sure — he put his head in Jared’s lap after the third jaw cracking yawn, and hasn’t moved a muscle since. Julius doesn’t look like he’s far behind, slow blinking like a toddler fighting sleep, though if Jared says as much he’s going to get something thrown at him, and while he’s almost certain he could dodge it given Julius’ current condition, he doesn’t want to disturb Bryce when he looks so comfortable.

This whole scene is very soft.

“Hey,” Erin says, and when Jared looks over, she takes a picture.

“Delete that,” Jared says immediately.

And then Erin happens.

“Not that one,” Jared says. He doesn’t even need to look at it to know it isn’t one he wants people to see. “It’s too — not that one.”

For all Bryce said 'what’s the point of coming out just to pretend to be different people', Jared needs that distance between him and his relationship and what people see of him and said relationship.

“Who turns ‘hey you’ into a pet name?” Jared asks. “What’s next, ‘sup dude’?”

“Okay babe,” Erin says.

“We barely even use babe, so whatever,” Jared says.

You shameless liar.

“Bryce? Bed?”

“S’that, babe?” Bryce mumbles, and Erin gives Jared a mocking look. Jared doesn’t know how she understands Bryce from across the room when Jared can’t understand Julius after literally living with the guy, but it’s probably helpful that it’s just sleepy, rather than sleepy and/or Finnish.

You deserve that look. Also do not start competing with your sister on ‘who can understand mumbles better’ Jared, I swear.

“I told him that, but he got all ‘what do you know, you’ve just known Jared since the day of your birth’,” Erin says. “‘I am the only one who truly knows him, due to our sacred former liney bond’.”

I will have you know she says this in a gruff monotone with a faintly sardonic expression on her face.

“You know half of what he says is just looks,” Erin says. “The withering look definitely said ‘Erin, you must know the sacred liney bond is much deeper than something as simple as blood’.”

This time she curls her lip.

Jared swears he knows exactly what look she’s talking about, but for him it was ‘Jared, you cannot possibly understand the nuances of the music I listen to with your weak North American ears, now apologise to the Finnish death metal bands you confused’.

This is the softest, fondest Matheson mockery.

“Can’t believe you stole my liney,” Jared says.

“You abandoned him in Edmonton,” Erin says.

The door to Erin’s room opens, and Julius scowls out at them. “Stop talking about me,” he says.

“Why would we even talk about you?” Jared says, over Erin’s, “Big head, much?”

I love them.

Julius gives them a withering look, then shuts the door.

“I’d say that one was ‘pathetic, who taught you how to lie?’” Jared says.

“With a dash of ‘I am on the other side of the door and have ears, Mathesons’,” Erin agrees.

They both adore him.

“He shouldn’t do that,” Jared says, skating over to Gabe.

Gabe gives him a questioning look, and Jared reminds himself that Gabe isn’t actually psychic.

It’s easy to forget considering he always seems to read Jared’s mind. Or, more accurately, the expressions Jared doesn’t hide as well as he thinks he does.

And nothing — not being dirty, not being selfish, not being cocky, not being a convicted fucking criminal — is as bad in this league as being a whiner. Maybe diving comes close, if you do it incessantly. Maybe.

Sad truth.

The last thing Jared needs to be is the gay guy who is also a whiner.

Jared absolutely has a legitimate concern here because he knows people are looking for things to dislike about him that aren’t who he’s married to.

“Hey, Jared?” Gabe says. “You’re not the only player on the ice that sign was directed at, whether they know it or not. Not everything is about you.”

But yeah, this.

“It’s okay,” Gabe says. “Just keep that in mind. And also keep in mind a lot of kids are paying extremely close attention to how people are treating you and Bryce right now, and that’s not the kind of shit I want them to be seeing.”

Also this.

“They’re going to say you’re stealing Bryce’s man,” Jared says, and gets Gabe’s glove in his face in response. He spends too much time with Dmitry. They all spend too much time with Dmitry, Jared very much included.

“Leaving me out!” Dmitry says, crashing into both of them, and nearly sending Jared into the boards.

Did someone call for more Dmitry?

Jared’s first kiss of the new year is a smacking one on the cheek from Dmitry fucking Kurmazov. He doesn’t know what that signifies, but he doubts it’s anything good.

It indicates another year of Dmitry, lucky you.

“Mom’s drunk,” Bryce says.

“I’m not drunk!” Elaine says loudly. “I am celebrating a new year with my beautiful baby boy, who I am so proud of. You too, Jared. I’m so proud of you too. You boys have been so brave, and I am so proud of both of you.”

“Mom’s drunk,” Bryce repeats.

Elaine is a very happy drunk, to the surprise of no one, I’m sure.

Jared would take a drunk Elaine over Dmitry any day.

“Aw mom,” Bryce says. “Why are you crying, don’t cry.”

Also an emotional one.

“You’re hiding somewhere,” Bryce says. “Vending machine room?”

Jared scoffs. He’s not an amateur, and that’s the worst possible hiding place, considering people tend to actually use it.

“There’s this nook kind of thing,” Jared says. “It has a couch for some reason. I have no idea who the hell designed this place.”

Look at this trust on display. Not even a moment of suspicion before he tells Bryce his exact location.

“How did you even find me?”

“Bullet,” Dmitry says, and Jared, mentally rewinding his conversation with Bryce, realises he’s been betrayed by the person he loves most in the world.

Jared is the most dramatic person in the entire world.

“Math,” Gabe says, after handing Jared another hard seltzer and listening to Jared’s complaints. “Buddy.”

“You’re going to tell Stephen about this, I know,” Jared says.

Gabe waves a hand. “He’s bored of these stories by now.”

This is the meanest thing Gabe has ever said to Jared.

Jared takes his hard seltzer and his remaining shreds of dignity and relocates himself to the video game playing room, where people won’t kiss him or tattle on him or refuse to tattle on him.

Poor Jared, so hard done by.

163. Take Five

The problem with Bryce and Jared putting off any and all interviews until the new year is that, inevitably, the new year arrives.

Every procrastinator’s nightmare: when later becomes now.

Not that their agents aren’t involved or anything, but Jared’s imagining Greg trying to field all the interest, and it’s not a pretty picture. Summers is a different story, but Summers also recently found out that Bryce has Jared’s name tattooed on his chest, and as a result Summers is currently not particularly happy with them.

Dave is so tired. So tired.

“We have interest from hockey journalists, obviously,” Grace says. “But also some 2LGBTQ+ media, and some local lifestyle pieces, which we think are probably a good idea considering Bryce was born and raised here. Makes you Vancouver’s, you know? Not just Vancouver Canucks. And then there’s some mainstream national interest. We’ll let Bell and Rogers fight over who gets dibs. Presumably Rogers will take it, considering they have our broadcast rights, but I wouldn’t count Bell out. There are a lot more eyes on CTV than City.”

Blah blah blah, Canadian telecom stuff (Rogers (Sportsnet) has NHL rights, Bell (TSN) gets the leftovers, also they co-own the Leafs? Canada is just several monopolies in a trenchcoat). Also 2LGTBQ+ is Approved Government Order of the acronym in Canada — putting two-spirit first.

“Telecom cockfight,” Jared says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Wait, like roosters, or like—“ Bryce says, then gestures at his lap.

Grace returns to Jared in tears of laughter and Bryce indignantly saying, “You’re never going to let go of the truffle thing!”, which means, of course, that Jared has to tell her about the truffle thing, but only after he catches his breath again and manages to force himself to stop picturing a literal cockfight.

Bryce’s grandchildren will hear about the truffle thing. Not the cockfight, though.

“You know,” Grace says. “You two just keep being like this and everything is going to go perfectly.”

Grace why.

“What is wrong with you!” Grace says, throwing her hands up. “Why are you being like this right now, I know you have personalities! They’re good personalities!”

Jared shrugs, while Bryce commences a brand new sulk.

You brought this upon yourself, Grace.

“You’re in front of cameras all the time,” Grace says. “You’re used to interviews.”

“Talking about hockey, not, you know, us,” Jared says. “It’s not hard to rattle something off about having a good group of guys and getting pucks deep. It’s pretty much scripted for you.”

Plus people’s expectations for how articulate you are are pretty low when you’re panting and wiping your sweaty face. ‘uh, we had, uh, a pretty good twenty minutes, and um, I like our effort and we just gotta keep it up and stay in their zone and uh, we’ll be good’. ‘thanks for your time’ ‘yup.’

“Okay, fair enough,” Grace says. “Then — just say nice things about Jared. You love saying nice things about Jared.”

She found it. She found the button.

“Plus, Jared has to listen to you saying them,” Grace says. “And he can’t cut you off in the middle without looking like a jerk on TV.”

“Hey!” Jared says, as Bryce looks increasingly thoughtful.

Nailing that button, you got this Grace.

“Try to convince the viewers to love Jared as much as you do,” Grace says. “Shouldn’t be too hard, right?”

“I don’t like you very much right now,” Jared says through his teeth, as Bryce cracks his first smile of the day.

And Bryce Marcus has officially changed his stance on media. Get him in front of a camera, he has a husband to embarrass with his gushing.

Bryce and the interviewer have a nice little laugh together, and Jared adds ‘smart’, to join so great at cooking, so fun and so funny, and so supportive, which certainly is Bryce changing his tune from after shoulder surgery. Also ‘just look at him’, which Jared doesn’t quite classify as a compliment, but knows Bryce means as one.

And just look at Jared: face on fire, because he is in hell.

Sucks to be you, Jared, you smart, fun, funny, supportive, hot as fuck cook.

(Jared would argue he is maybe half of those things.)

"You don’t have to say nice things about me, babe,” Bryce says. “I don’t mind.”

Jared’s three defiant compliments into his interview before he realises Bryce knows him a little too well.

How does it feel to be handled, Jared?

He goes to slump into Bryce, realises they’re in public, then realises that doesn’t matter.

Bryce wraps an arm around his shoulders, kisses the side of his head.

In public! Not in front of their friends, or family, or team, but a bunch of total strangers (albeit total strangers who had to listen to compliments about Jared ad nauseum)

“I don’t actually give you a look like ‘how did you even graduate high school’, do I?” Jared asks.

“Sometimes,” Bryce says.

“Fuck,” Jared says. “I’m sorry.”

“In your defence, the last time you did was because I thought Alaska was an island,” Bryce says.

BC and Alaska are ATTACHED. (Bryce says in his defence they always show it as little floating land in the north in maps of America. Jared says ‘IT BORDERS YOUR PROVINCE’)

It actually got interesting with a few American towns bordering BC when the US-Canada border was closed to non-essential traffic — some Alaskan kids went to school in BC, and Point Roberts, Washington is basically surrounded by Canada (look at it on a map if you want to laugh), so they had some significant issues.

But also Jared feels bad and he will try not to give Bryce that look going forward.

“You’re giving me the face again,” Bryce says.

“Okay, but seriously, B,” Jared says, and Bryce tips his head back and laughs.

BUT SERIOUSLY.

[regrettablemeasure]

I always love hearing about other people's D&D games and I was wondering if you had like a method for how you plan out your sessions? In a slump rn myself so looking for some inspo lol

ok so i need to get better at this again (depression made me a way more 'seat of my pants' DM) BUT i basically lay out a "timeline" of main story points the party will eventually hit, and place "questlines" there. Essentially like a tree of quests and their progression in a videogame. This is NOT always detailed by any means but it helps me get a linear view of what's going on. If you run pre-made modules, this is the book stuff. My current game started out this way before I went "I like doing this myself" and went completely off the rails.

Then I go into the main details of the questline. Stuff like where it is, if there's going to be new lore introduced, the actual contents of the quest itself and it's requirements, etc. My players and myself are big on RP, so I also try to always make sure the quest will have interest for Story or Character reasons. If it doesn't directly push the plot in a major way, will it still give the party interesting interactions with each other and npcs? Are there going to be any new threads for some of the game's mysteries?

Then I also ask what in the questline is going to play to the party's habits and strengths. I admit this is WAY looser, and again kind of wraps around into "what would be cool RP for them" - but for example; knowing an encounter with nobles will give our noble-born artificer some additional lore, since he understands the city's politics.

After that, I do sometimes "script" certain lines of NPC dialogue or location and item descriptions. Stuff I'll be narrating that I want to make sure has a certain weight to it, or to flow well. You might not need to do this if you speak succinctly, but I find my brain stutters when trying to describe scenery on the spot, so it usually helps to write it. After that I make the session from there!

For me that usually includes picking out "splash screens" for the conversation backgrounds in our game, drawing new npc portraits if I have the time (it started because some of my players have aphantasia/some former players were new, so I drew PC and NPC portraits to make RP easier to visualize - then it just became the Only Way I Want To Do It Now LOL), and making maps. I use Epic Isometric for my maps, highly recommend. I get most of my splash screens from Art Station, but I have to say obviously that's unwise if you're streaming a game. Same goes for using pre-existing art as character/NPC art -- I know myself and other artists don't care if someone uses our stuff for their home game that no one's ever gonna see. I plan to release some of my portraits in packs one day free of use though.

Here's the RP Backdrop kind of splashscreen I use in R20 (but you can make one in FVTT too, I've done it) and an Epic Iso map I threw together (the party tokens were drawn over Epic Iso assets. If you join their discord people make community edits constantly. I'm currently working on a project to color all the released decor assets)

[canarymemories]

hi finally compiling the thread i made the other day on twt abt the first chapter of recital so. welcome to me having far too much to say about my big bang fic skgh

chapter titling is similar to symphony (leo day fic) but instead of music terms, it's ballet terms. i'm nowhere near as used to ballet terms as i am w music terms so they won't have a deeper meaning (at least not on purpose lmao) like some of the symphony chapter titles do, but that's part of why there's nine chapters

a small aside: there is a specific structure i have in mind for the fic. there will be three arcs (if u want to call them that), the first three chapters is the first arc and then there will be an intermission chapter (up to this point is as far as i've confidently planned out so past this point, i can't guarantee anything but. nine chapters is the goal adkgsh). so then chapter 4 and 5 are arc two followed up by another intermission, then the final arc will be chapters 8 and 9. the plan is to stay mostly canon compliant until i don't agree w akira (or kinosei aslkhg), so i'll pretty much be sticking to the canon timeline

please listen to the playlist akdhg most of the songs do correspond to specific things/chapters so it's tied to the story itself plus i've listened to it too many times so. please tell me i'm so right about it 😔 the song i used in the summary of the first chapter is more of a chapter 2 song but i felt like it fit for the first chapter so adkgh (i have. So Many songs for checkmate so. can't wait for that one lmao) (chapter 1 songs are the first four in the playlist, the 5th one could go either way between ch 1 and 2) once more is posted, then i might actually sit here and go on abt why each of these songs is specifically here

writing choices 🎉 the one i want to talk about so so so so bad is the using nicknames in the narration bc if you've read literally anything else i've posted, you'd see that i don't do that, but bc recital is so close to izumi as the narrator, and this chapter is focused on his childhood, i thought it was fitting. there are a few instances of this changing throughout the chapter, such as makoto going from yuukun to makoto in the one flashback section and then staying as makoto when izumi is older, naru eventually changes to arashi.

and the one i really want to bring up,,, izumi's parents are always referred to as mama and papa but there is one singular instance where that's changed and that's during the argument at the end of the chapter.

and then she's referred to as mama again a few paragraphs later and this just goes into the point that i think izumi has a very complicated relationship with his parents. on one hand, they don't support him as an idol and have quite literally told him to his face that he's not successful enough to make it on his own as a model (next door), have treated him more like a doll than their child and they couldn't be bothered to actually ask him what he was interested in, but he still cares about them. he gets offended on their behalf more than once (in ! era at least), but it's just,, complicated. i feel like i can't really properly explain my thoughts here but i have Thoughts. but this is where the vaguely toxic parenting warning comes in from this chapter because the thing is, i don't think his parents were planning for him to feel the way he does about their parenting, they do love him and they do want to have him succeed just. maybe not for the right reasons, yk? ofc that doesn't justify their treatment of him or anything like that, there's just more to it than outright toxic parenting hence why it's subtle here.

what's a little less subtle is izumi's mom living vicariously through him, it's a bit more obvious with the modeling bit than the dance classes but idk it makes sense to me for her to have done them as a child too

baby modelgumi,,, they get their own point here bc i think those might've been my favorite bits to write and genuinely, the baby arashi bit is my favorite part of the whole chapter. they're just so alsdkgh oeugh cute i want to squeeze them in my hands 🥺🥺🥺. my note for this on my list of things to talk about is literally "baby modelgumi :pleading:" they hold a special place in my head and i hope in urs too

i was going to list stories reference but i might wait until i have more done and posted for that (plus i can't remember what story it is that arashi mentions izumi pushed her mouth into a smile as kids) but. portrait and canary hall mentions 🎉🎉

the argument. it's implied a few times in ! that izumi's parents don't really agree with him being an idol (leo says izumi was having isses at home around checkmate/war era). given that they put so much time and effort into having izumi model, i suppose that wouldn't be too surprising, but i think it's important to have some kind of breaking point like the argument scene bc in next door, izumi talks about how his parents treated him growing up and that just makes me think that he probably didn't have much say in his own life and there's just something about being an idol being his first big decision that idk hits a little different and there is more to an extent on this concept in the next chapter in comparing himself to leo and just kind of being like ,, huh...

last thing, so aside from the ending of the beginning section of the chapter, i feel so smart about the ending line of this chapter bc mama's pancakes come up in portrait and there's even a baby izumi homescreen line about it and it's meant to serve as an apology rather than her actually apologizing but i feel like u could take it a few ways but akhg felt so smart when i came up w the ending of the chapter. and i felt the same way when i thought of the first chapter ending and u guys will not like me for that one btu aksdgh <33

baby's first friendship next time 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[manyfanfiction]

The Child of the Great Detective

Claire Blanc is the 15 year old daughter of the great Benoit Blanc.

He was recently hired to solve the murder of Harlan Thrombey, a brilliant writer of murder mysteries. His family had learned of his death the morning after his birthday.

" Dad?" Claire asked her father.

" Yes my darling?" Benoit answered his daughter.

" What do you think happened?" Claire asked.

" I don't no my darlin," He answered.

They eventually got to the Thrombey house. It towered over the trees. The house, smaller than the Winchester Manor, had large rooms. There were two German Shepherds running outside, who came running to her.

" Hi guys," Claire said bending down to pet them.

Trooper Wagner and Detective Lieutenant Elliot were waiting outside for the funeral to end.

" You must be Benoit Blanc?" Trooper Wagner asked.

" I'm am," Benoit said.

The men shook hands and they saw Claire still petting the German Shepherds.

" Who's she?" Detective Lieutenant Elliot asked.

" My daughter Claire."

They both nodded. Meanwhile Claire was on the ground while the dogs were licking her face, she was giggling.

An hour later the family started to arrive.

Benoit had walked into the house with Claire behind him.

" Now darlin. I want to stay by my side, don't talk to anyone."

" Yes father."

The four of them where in the library. Detective Lieutenant Elliot and Trooper Wagner were interviewing the family members one by one.

______________________________________________________________

Two hours later Harlan Thrombey's nurse, Marta Cabrera arrived to the house.

Claire was in the hallway piecing the timeline together in her head.

" Hi, who are you?" Marta asked the young girl.

" Oh, Claire Blanc. You must be Marta Cabrera?" Claire asked.

" I am," She said.

" My father and the detectives are outside going over the timeline," Claire said.

Marta went over to the window and sat down, listening to what they had to say.

Her father peaked inside the window and saw Marta.

" Please come outside," Benoit said, opening the door for her.

She nodded and Claire followed behind her.

" Now Marta, we were discussing possible motives in the family. I suspect that Harlan has told you much unfiltered truth about each of them and a little bird has told me-how should I put this delicately, you have a regurgitan reaction to miss Troodon."

" Who told you that?"

" Is it true?"

" Yes. It's something I've had since I was a kid, it's a physical thing that I just the thought of lying, yeah, it makes me puke."

" Really? Is Richard having an affair?"

( Flashback )

" While your men instinctively full of loose threads on their parachutes?" Harlan Thrombey asked.

" What?" Marta asked.

Harlan showed her a picture of Richard with a woman, kissing each other.

( End of Flashback )

" Richard?" Marta asked.

Benoit nodded his head.

" An affair?"

" Yeah, a yes or no will do."

" No," Marta says.

Immediately Marta's stomach grumbles

" Oh no," Detective Lieutenant Elliot says as Marta throws up in a pot on the table.

" Whoa here girl I'm sorry I feel you was speaking figuratively."

Detective Lieutenant Elliot hands her a glass of water while Benoit hands her his breast pocket napkin. Marta took them both.

Benoit starts to talk to both of the men why Marta walks to the door.

" Now hang on Miss Cabrera," Benoit began to say.

" I'm just going to get some scope,' Marta say.

Benoit had asked hr another question and Marta gagged again.

" You don't have to answer that."

A couple of seconds later she went back inside and Claire stood next to her dad.

( P.S- I dont own Knives Out, I just own Claire Blanc.)

[yinwaryuri]

I don't remember which one of you said it last week, but I agreed with it and episode 11 only solidified that for me:

Jeng and Pat shouldn't be together. Not even eventually after the two year time skip.

I felt a gnawing in my stomach hearing that line coming from Put saying Jeng wasn't suited for Pat, because while I don't like Put, I also don't hate him and knew he was right. Pat wasn't there to see their little passive aggressive fights over him, he didn't see how both of them wanted control over the relationship so badly. Pat being dangled like a prize instead of a person between them colored the development of things darkly early on, but when the weather is overcast for so long it's hard to tell when the storm will actually hit.

I don't need to repeat what's been said about how ultimately Jeng put his needs above Pat's just like Put did and how that led to the breakup, but it is more disappointing. He was aware of Pat's relationship with Put and had seen how being around him affected Pat's mood when they first saw each other again. Jeng should have known better. What I think a lot of age and professionalism has done is make it easy for Jeng to pass as emotionally mature when he truly isn't. Not enough to handle the consequences of the relationship he wants so badly. Since that's the case, he's allowed Pat to shoulder most of that emotional burden, and in a romantic relationship that's just not going to be sustainable. Even worse, knowing how Pat handles his feelings.

The first half of this show really seemed to set up a sort of Mr. Darcy transformation for Jeng but it chose to take a more realistic route. The way Jeng reacted to Pat's emotional outbursts in the beginning was callous and apathetic at best. Sure, both he and Pat have developed in the aspects of Pat being stronger in his emotions and Jeng having greater sympathy, but I think for Pat it isn't from Jeng's encouragement and more from the everything else he's had to handle. Jeng's sympathy seems to really only extend from his liking Pat and wanting to be seen better by Pat. I'll exclude his feeding the homeless from that because we're not given a timeline or a reason for when and why he started doing it, and I won't speculate on them either. But a majority of his generosity, whether he's aware of it or not, is an extension of his crush.

Due to Jeng being older, rewriting over old habits or filling them in with new ones is harder for the very reason of them being more practiced. This can sabotage someone trying to handle certain things in a different way than they have in the past because they have to consciously stop something that's become reflexive or follows a certain pattern. So when someone isn't consciously stopping that pattern, isn't thinking they're going to follow that pattern this time, or thinks they have no pattern to worry about, they get struck with the consequences later when things play out and they realize "oh shit, I haven't changed." And that's what we get at the end of the episode.

That isn't to say that Jeng is incapable of growth, but he needs to choose that growth for himself. Is this corporate job and remaining in the closet for the interest of everyone but himself what he truly wants over a life with more play and a loving partner? Are the consequences of choosing not to take on that responsibility equal to those of never living a fully realized life? How long will it take him to choose?

I'm sad because all the way through episode 8 I was so excited to see their relationship and truly believed that it could be better than this. The messages about the BL industry, however more subtle they are later on, are really speaking here. If we get a happy ending with JengPat together it will take some really clever work for me to accept it. I honestly think it's time we got a BL that ends without the mains together because if we're going to follow a realistic thread, sometimes we have to follow it all the way. Breaking up a queer couple in queer media doesn't have to be homophobic. Sometimes these stories are made to demonstrate what could go wrong or for older queers to finally tell their story or to explore certain dynamics in ways that haven't been done before, etc. Whatever the intention, and as much as I hate the curse of episode 11, I'm glad they broke up.

[mayasdeluca]

I agree with this thread:

https://twitter.com/words_salad/status/1786276742631415972?t=puMheGZtmf7O5qUjjs8D3g&s=19

No we don't need a flashbacks episode when we don't have many episodes left to move the story over the finish line. We don't need a flashback episode that focuses on someone we don't even know or have cared about for 7 seasons (bring back Travis' exes grandmother or the old man with dementia that wandered into the station at least we know them) or use Ripley or Dean. No we don't need a flashback episode to clean up the writers mess because they don't know how to write back story when to begin with.

Also, the Vic/Barrett stan who was arguing with the OP but got it all wrong.

How could they say that the flashbacks were needed to understand Vic's character now. They just write that for her in the past couple of episodes. They wrote the flashbacks to make sense of this OOC story they were giving Vic.

Did they even watch the episode? They were quoting an article from Barrett talking about a character (Vic's friend) from her grandmother's nursing home and that's not who this guy was. He was just some random who happened into the station and latched on to the crew.

Also if a writer has to go on Twitter to explain when the flashbacks were in the timeline then you should realize it was a bad decision to begin with.

I see both sides of the argument and understand the mixed feelings on the episode. When the episode first began and it became clear that flashbacks were really going to be the main part of the episode I was confused (especially since I didn't really understand the timeline while watching and some things still contradict each other) and thought it was going to take away from Vic in the present but eventually it all clicked by the end and I thought overall it was pretty well done. But I can understand some people not liking the way they went about it. I do like how the patient was someone that they all ended up connected to but again, I can see how it may not have felt that way to some people.

What I don't like is how Blue literally got attacked for having a different opinion and her words got completely spun into something she didn't even say and suddenly she was getting accused of being racist and all this other nonsense because this fandom can't help but be toxic and nasty. Just because people have a different opinion than you doesn't mean that A) you're the one that's right or B) you have any right to be so nasty about it and start accusing people of such serious and sensitive topics.

And these people who feel the need to constantly put Marina down (whether they like the ship or not but the ones especially who like Marina and take on this savior role are almost even worse) and always go to attack Marina fans with the 'if it was centered around Marina you would be fine with it' as if that's ever been the case??? Do these people watch the show?? Are you aware we are about to lose one of the last wlw ships on cable tv??? Why are you faulting people for wanting that representation to be shown properly, correctly, and fairly? No one is ever saying they should be the center of the show, they want them to be treated as equal. These people are so dense on purpose just to try and prove a point or get someone in a 'gotcha' moment and it's disgusting. Today was pathetic.

[recurring-polynya]

How do you go about planning out your writing? Additionally, have you ever gone into something expecting one or two chapters and ending up with 10+?

There are two kinds of fanfic: some fanfics fit entirely in my head at once, and I can just write them out and do no planning whatsoever. This is the ideal state of writing, the dream. This is generally fics with <10k words, although Portions for Foxes (28k) was written in this manner, and my only excuse was that I was in the grips of hyperfixation.

This almost never happens to me anymore, so I gotta go down the other route, which is to plan everything out with my engineer brain. It goes like this:

I have an idea. Occasionally, the idea will be a very specific scene or a first chapter, and if it's very clear in my head, I may just let myself write it.

Otherwise, I spend a few hours to a few days free-thinking about the concept. What kind of story can I make out of it? What scenes does it include? Will it be fun to write? Do I get more excited the more I think about it, or does it feel like a pain? ->If it feels like a drag, I don't write it ->Sometimes there's just one scene or so that feels fun, so I just write that and throw it in my short story anthology

If it feels like it has legs, I start an outline. The outline must contain the story arc in broad strokes and it must contain a beginning, a conflict, a climax, and an ending before I start writing in earnest. Any time I have tried to start writing without these things, anguish has resulted.

I also often write down notes about character motivations and themes and other stuff I want to remember not to forgot, or that I can go back and look at when I feel like I've lost the thread. I keep all of this in a separate document from the main story, and over time, I also add stuff like links to useful websites, kanji for names of characters or places that I've picked out, useful facts, timelines, etc. Whenever I have a bit of writing I have to cut from the story, I save it and put it down at the bottom of the planning document under a section called DISCARD. Yeah, this is kind of a mess after a while.

Once I have this much, though, I start writing. As I am writing, I often get ideas for things to happen down the line, so I add them to outline. I try to start from the beginning of the fic and write continuously, until I get stuck or don't want to, and then I skip ahead to the next thing I feel like writing. When I run out of things I am excited to write, I refer to the outline, and fill out one of the bullets that I haven't done yet. This is sort of an iterative process of writing scenes and adding to the outline, and the fanfic goes from being a skeleton to getting gradually more fleshed out. Sometimes I write a scene and I'm not quite sure where it goes, so I guess.

(There are sometimes bad times, where I realize that my outline was a joke and my story is a mess and I roll around on the floor for a bit. After that, I do some combination of making new outlines and making new documents where I cut and paste the scenes from the old on in until they make sense. Usually this works eventually. Once, I had to do this, like, three times, and make a color-coded spreadsheet about it.)

Around this time, I will usually make an additional, chapter-centric outline. This lists every scene in the fic, in order, with some formatting to show the ones that still need work, or haven't been written at all. I will write out word counts for each chapter (sometimes for each scene). I can now see the places where I need a connecting scene, and also how big/how much stuff is in each chapter. The scene at the end of a chapter connects to the next chapter in a different way than scene-to-scene. I sometimes use two or three rotating narrators, and this also helps me make sure the POVs are balanced.

I write all the scenes I didn't want to write earlier, but now I have momentum because I can see the end.

I finish the fanfic. Joy returns to the land.

As for the question about have you ever gone into something expecting one or two chapters and ending up with 10+, the answer is no, because, as you can see, my process is specifically designed to gate off that possibility from the beginning. My fanfics regularly overrun their predicted length by 25-40%, but the decision to write a short or a long one is always one I make consciously and with care.

[musehiideaway]

RULES

  001.  Standard role play etiquette applies ( no godmodding, killing of characters without plotting, etc. ) and please note this is a private blog. 

002. My ask box will be available to everyone, regardless of whether or not I am following you! All I ask is that you do not turn the ask into a thread if I do not follow you back. In the off chance that I answer via ask instead of a new post and you wish to continue a response, please move your reply to a new post to keep things from getting messy. Additionally, my discord will be available for mutuals, so feel free to reach out for my information if I’m following you back! 

003.  Mun is 25+, and considering the titles the muses on this blog come from, there is a strong chance NSFW content will appear on this blog (including but not limited to violence, gore, death, trauma, and more). While not the focus, smut is also likely to appear on this blog, but this would only take place when all muses involved are of age {meaning no minor muses (should they appear) or preludes where muses are under the age of 18}. NSFW content aside, I will not interact with anyone under the age of 21 regardless of SFW status. Please do not lie about your age. If I find out you are doing so, your account will be blocked without warning or hesitation. 

004.  I am duplicate friendly! I do not want to limit the possibility of following other blogs just because we both enjoy writing the same character, and I think twin/timeline plots can be a lot of fun! However, I know not everyone is comfortable with interacting with duplicates/having duplicates follow them. As such, please do not hesitate to soft/hard block to cultivate a safe space for yourself.

005.  For the most part, I am not a stickler on formatting. You are more than welcomed to use whatever formatting you please. As for me, I use a mix of bold, italicized, and colored text (and may use icons if the idea is not too daunting). The only real formatting requirement I’m going to ask of you is that you are cutting your posts. And as previously mentioned, if I do answer via ask (instead of a separate post) and you wish to continue, please move the reply to a new post. 

006.  I personally do not have any triggers. I will, however, tag the basic issues that come to mind (blood, nsfw, etc). If there are any additional triggers I need to tag, please feel free to reach out to me and let me know! All triggers will be tagged as ‘trigger cw.‘ 

007.  Please do NOT spam me with reminders about replies. Nine times out of ten I have it drafted and waiting to be written. You are allowed to send me the occasional reminder, but please do not send me multiple messages in a week (much less a day) regarding your reply! I will occasionally make a post to ensure I am current on or at least monitoring all my active threads, so that would be a great time to check in with me! My goal is to (eventually) make a thread tracker (sooner rather than later).

008.  This is a multi-ship blog, though some exclusions may apply. It is also important to note that shipping on this blog will be chemistry based. I love shipping (romantic, familial, platonic, give me all the ships), and if you ship it there’s a 95% chance I already ship it too! But chemistry is still a necessity (and I tend to prefer shipping with muns I am comfortable with/talk to regularly)! In the off chance that I do not agree with the ship, please be accepting of that. Characters are allowed to pine after another/have unrequited love, but do not try to force me into a ship if I have already said I don’t see it. This type of action will result in a block. 

009.  I am all for crossovers! Some of my favorite role plays have involved crossovers! Shoot me a message and I would be more than happy to discuss something with you to see if we can make things work! My only hesitancies will be in regards to fandoms I am unfamiliar with (if you only write characters from fandoms I do not recognize, I will admittedly be hesitant to follow back). We can still discuss things and try to make it work, but I may be more inclined to turn down a crossover if I am unfamiliar with the fandom. 

010.  As of 10/7/24 (the creation date of this blog), I am fully caught up on FW, ACOTAR, and TOG, and I have made it a ways into the second time skip of FF XVI. I will mostly follow canon content, but I have sprinkled my own headcanons throughout my portrayals and am creating some AU verses where I feel they are necessary (for interaction sake or simply for fun). Portrayals/headcanons are subject to change with the release of additional books or as I progress through FF XVI.

Thank you for taking the time to read my rules! I have been role playing for 15+ years, and I’ve been role playing on tumblr for probably half that time. I am looking forward to new interactions and further developing these characters that I have come to adore!

Note: This is not a rule so much as it is general information for followers. All posts will be tagged as 'fandom: fandom name' (ex. 'fandom: fourth wing') and 'muse: muse name' (ex. 'muse: violet') for ease of filtering. This is to help followers filter out posts/content that they are not interested in.

MUSES

Book Muses

Fourth Wing - Violet Sorrengail

A Court of Thorns and Roses - Feyre Archeron

Throne of Glass - Aelin Ashryver (Whitethorn) Galathynius - Lysandra Ennar (Ashryver) - Manon Crochan-Blackbeak

Video Game Muses

Final Fantasy XVI - Jill Warrick - Benedikta Harman

[the-ravenclaw-werewolf]

Okay, um, so this happened:

I wasn't sure what to expect, but ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE! LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS!

Lupin the 3rd: Delicate Threads

Okay, in this Zenigata-centric story, it takes place in three timelines, which translates to three arcs:

Timeline 1: The Musician Arc

In the beginning, he doesn't want to become an officer in the first place.

That's because throughout his life for as long as he could remember hid father kept pushing him to "carry the family legacy".

Now it's not to say Zenigata completely hates everything and anyone police related, he does has respect to the few cops who truly uphold justice and he knows that the job is important. But when you've been forced trained by your father since you were a child to know how to fight, use weapons, and study every law and new law known to man, then the idea to become one leave a sour taste in the mouth.

But he gets his break once he starts college. After saving enough money and managing to get a scholarship, he heads off and is studying to get a degree in music. This because thanks to his mother, music became his escape and then became his passion. So he wants to make it big in the music industry.

Of course his father finds out and isn't too happy about the change. But Zenigata didn't care. He was on his own now and there was no way he going to be told who to be ever again. His ultimate goal; bring joy and light to those with his music, both spiritually and financially.

So he put all his effort into his schoolwork and he excels at both being a student and a musician, already having several songs out. But also because of his creative and inventor mind, (he's minoring in engineering), he has created some songs considered "beyond his time".

(Because he was born in 1938? and it would around the late 1950s when he's in college. )

During the four years he soon cultivates a fan base and Zenigata is both physically and mentally better. Then came Zenigata's last year of college, and he's at a karaoke bar preforming. That's where he meets Lupin who is in his second year.

(Apparently they both went to the same college manga-wise?)

Call it fate, love at first, whatever, but after Zenigata's initial performance, they end up meeting with each and hitting it off. Before they depart, they exchange numbers and wish each other luck for the paths they are going down.

Over time, Zenigata watches as Lupin goes down at the world's greatest thief, and even meets Jigen, Goemon, and Fujioka on different occasions. He doesn't get in involved in their heists, but he'll occasionally patch them up after some particular bad ones and only once did he help them steal something.

And of course he comes in encounter with the officer hot on their tail, Inspector Yatagarasu, or Yata as he like to call him, or "Rookie" as Lupin likes to call him. Since Zenigata never became a cop, there was no one stand place as the top inspector of the ICPO, or at least one that was consistent. Yata dedicated himself to fighting for justice and weeding out any corrupted officials, causing his to become the best cop the ICPO has seen, which eventually lead to him being one of the youngest Inspectors. He is also well known in the community for taking on the Lupin case and being the first, and continuing, officer to being close to apprehending the thief.

(And despite know that Zenigata, somehow, has connection to these four thieves, they get along great and will go out to drink together. Zenigata over the years comes to see Yata as like a son, helping him out, giving tips of anything crime and law related. and making sure Yata isn't pushing himself.)

(Yata is also a big fan of Zenigata's music, but shh.) 🤫

Speaking of which, Zenigata achieved his dream of becoming a famous singing, going on tours and just all around living his dream. Zenigata also achieves in making inventions that would help the world for the better. So thanks to his mind and influence, he actually able to thrust the world a little ahead in the future in terms of technnolgy and using his money, he's able to help those in need, making his a historical figure for the books.

And over time, he discovers he is polyamorous and has fallen for Lupin, Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko. Of course he has a freak out, but decides to take the chance, come out to the four, and ask them out. After some revelations, it turns out that all five of them have feelings for each other. So after some tears and hugs, all of them agree to start officially dating.

Skip ahead and one day, Lupin and the gang are on another heist and Zenigata is out buying groceries for dinner and buys something special for the four of them.

But when he gets home, he turns on the news to find the four of them died in a fire set on the museum of where the valuable they were trying to steal was. Zenigata is devastated and starts screaming and crying, clutching on to a small, but slender box that held the engagement rings he had recently bought.

Entering into a state of depression, Zenigata just goes through the motions of life, but can find the joy and love he once did before. Not when the ones he considered his soulmates were gone. He then gets a call from Yata to head down to the station. He at first thinks he's going to be interrogated, but seeing Yata's red eyes and tired bags, Zenigata figures there was something else

As it turns out, the fire was not cause by a gas leak, as the news keep reporting it. Yata has noticed something was off about the crime scene and dug a little deeper, finding evidence that this whole heist, the jewel, the location, was just a ploy to capture and kill the Lupin gang. Zenigata becomes enraged and promises to help Yata get to the bottom of them, even when the latter doesn't want him to get directly involved, but nevertheless, the two begin working together.

But of course even before this revelation, Zenigata had taken it upon himself to make sure the four at least get a funeral, since not many people would mourn thieves. So he get in contact with those who truly knew the Lupin gang and they hold a service, and even Yata came to pay his respect. Zenigata then retires from the music industry to focus fully on finding the culprit. But then one day, he finds more clues to who it is and tries to call Yata, but it goes straight to voice mail. This doesn't set right with him, so he automatically drives to the station.

When he gets there, he finds Yata car, but no one else at the building. Zenigata unconsciously starts using his detective skills and realize something is wrong. He is able to break into the building and sneak through it, but then he hears a gun shot. In a panic, he runs to where Yata's office is, only to find a masked killer who is holding a thick envelope of files, a gun, and is standing over Yata's dead corpse.

The killer spots Zenigata, but he was already running and tackles the killer, which cause them to drop his gun. The two get into a fight and many blows are exchanged. Zenigata is able hold himself up in the fight, but the killer has more brute strength along with skills. Almost beaten to a pulp, Zenigata doesn't watch as the killer aims their gun at him. He only looks at Yata's corpse and starts mentally apologizing to him and the Lupin gang that he couldn't save them, that he couldn't do more.

Before it goes dark, the last sound he hears is a gun shot.

Timeline 2: The Criminal Arc

But then he wakes up, on the day he received his scholarship and realized he some how traveled back in time. So now he wants to protect the Lupin gang but he knows he can't do that as a musician, so he sets up a plan and just a several months after, he fakes his own death. His "death" left him with a scar running over his left eye, but he was more focusing on become a well known thief, one to ensure that when he meets Lupin again, he can team up with him and will be able to protect him.

Zenigata becomes Moneta, a thief know for using high tech inventions to steal priceless objects and always slipping out of the cops grasp. Some call him "Robin Hood" because he mainly steals from the wealthiest, but the most shadiest, of people and exposes them in the process.

(A lot of people on the internet suspect that he's the reason why some place such orphanages and shelters are given such a large donation, but no one has been able to prove it yet.)

(And because Zenigata doesn't become a musician, which by turn nor an inventor, the world is "behind" on technological advances compared to the first timeline, making the world see him as mad genius.)

He course let's Lupin have his big break when he first entered into the criminal world, but using his knowledge of the past timeline, he sets up his plan.

He meets Lupin by "coincidence" on one of heist, take the piece that Lupin was going to steal, and after an exchange of words, he declares that they will see each other again and disappears into the night.

(Zenigata almost cried at seeing Lupin, living and breathing in his green jacket and wearing that monkey-like grin on his face.)

And this works. After several more times of running into each other, sometimes in competition, they begin to work together, bring the other three into the fold, and now they are well known in the criminal community, with Inspector Yata hot on their trail.

But during the course of all this, Zenigata has been secretly taking down other criminals who would, or were, going to to hurt the Lupin gang, but he still couldn't find the person who killed the Lupin gang, Yata, and himself the previous timeline.

But he figures that in said timeline, Yata must have gotten close or figured out who killed the Lupin gang. He starts searching into any ICPO officers who has any link to the case or to Yata. Zenigata of course finds there are a whole lot of corrupted officials, so now he tasked himself to bring them down as well.

Meanwhil, he comes out of the closet early, and the gang starts dating each other again. After several months, they finally get married. Zenigata was the one who was crying tears of joy the hardest, brimming with happiness of finally making part of his dream a reality.

When the day came when the fire happened, they actually don't go. Because just a week prior, Zenigata steals the artifact in secret, but making sure the rest of the gang has an alibi, and so now that nightmare of a day will soon pass, and Zenigata has alreary taken down more then 90% of the corrupted officials, so this should be it, right?

Zenigata had hoped and prayed that the nightmare was over, but as the five of them were running away with a different stolen piece on that same faithful night, they are suddenly shot at. They figure out right away that the cops who were shooting at them weren't not aiming to stop them, they were aiming to kill them. The five try head to the car, but it blows up, forcing them to run on foot. Unfortunately, Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko are killed and Lupin is barely hanging on. Zenigata begins to carry him, but then he get shot as well and in the end, the cops eventually surround them. It takes a second for him to realize that Lupin had already died in his arms.

Zenigata ends up alive, but paralyzed from the waist down. He is arrested and is taken to jail, after pleading guilty for everything. He is back in a depression state and once again just going through the motions of life since he is severing a life sentence. But then he gets a visit from Inspector Yata, who still holds a somewhat friend/father-son relationship with him, and he tells him that those "cops" were not the ones the ICPO sent. Apparently, they were hired goons but they are nowhere to be found and any connections to them lead to dead ends.

Zenigata is still enraged by knowing he failed to protect the gang again, but he begs for Yata to stop looking so he wouldn't get hurt in this mess. Yata refuses, saying that he already found buried clues that suggest that that person who hired them could be an officer. Zenigata tries pleading over and over, but Yata doesn't budge as he won't rest until all five of them are avenged and the criminals involved are brought down. In the last few minutes of the visit, he only tells the Inspector to be careful. Yata promises to be so and then leaves with bittersweet feeling in both of them.

It's not till later, when Zenigata receives word that Yata was found dead in his apartment, bullet wounds found on his person. Zenigata never felt more useless in his entire life.

Time passes and then one day, Zenigata looks up to see an prison guard, who was hiding their face, opening his cell door. That's when they attacks him by trying to choke Zenigata to death, but even when paralyzed, he is able to get them off and he manages to get a good look at his attacker.

Seeing their face, Zenigata becomes even more enraged and brutal starts punching them. But when they throw Zenigata across the cell and pulls out their gun, he knew that this was his final moment. As he apologizes to those dead for not figuring it out sooner, Zenigata is shot dead.

Timeline 3: The Inspector Arc

Just like before, he alive and is back on the same day. But seeing of who the killer really it, he decides to take a new route. He wouldn't be able to save him as a musician, and he wasn't able to save him a criminal. So, decided to follow in his father's footsteps and become a cop. He will become the gang's enemy in order to save them.

He goes to college for a degree of Science of Criminal, but avoids Lupin, unable to face him the third time around. All through college, the national exam, and police training, Zenigata becomes the best of the best. Others admire him while other jeer and some call him crazy, but he doesn't care. Save those he loves are the only thing on his mind and he'll do whatever it takes.

After many years of putting criminals and corrupted officials behind bars, he finally becomes inspector to the ICPO and gets assigned to the Lupin case. Even while he wanted to once again cry after seeing one of the people he loves alive again, Zenigata never wavers. Even when the other members join in, Zenigata keeps up his mask in front of them, all the while secretly protecting them from the dangers they had previously faced in the other timelines.

But then Yata, a bright-eyed, optimistic officer was assigned to be his partner. He said of how much he admired Zenigata and he promise to help him in his endeavors. This later caused the older man break down, the changes in this timeline finally getting to him.

But it does turn out the right choice in the end. The other criminals and corrupted officials are still captured and the person who killed them in both previous timelines is sentenced to death, but tragically, Zenigata cannot go back to any of his old lives and would just have to live out this one, never being able to follow his passion, nor being able to tell the Lupin gang his real feelings, and is drowning in the guilt of taking away Yata's chance to rise above and beyond.

I know this is a lot, but what do you think?

[whumpiary]

🥇 Pick one aspect of your story that you are particularly fond of. Anything at all. and

🧿 Whether you actually get there or not, what are your hopes for your OC's future? !! -wildfaewhump

Oh my these answers got long. Putting them under the cut!

🥇 Pick one aspect of your story that you are particularly fond of. Anything at all.

I am fond of the lore around supernatural abilities that I have! Even if its more... implicit and implied rather than ever explored outright lol. Maybe one day.

The first ideas spawned from two places: a) the concept of empathy being like... a positive evolutionary trait. And then following the thread of okay, so if empathy is a step forward in evolution, then what happens when that steps forward, or when other "gut feeling" things step forward, or mutate, or spin out of control. And, b) a slightly reactionary thing to when people go "neurodivergence is a superpower!" "survivor instincts are a superpower!". Because like... no, lol, but also if those things were like a superpower, would it actually help anyone? Could you actually do anything with a superpower if you're already disenfranchised, locked out from support, isolated from community?

Cass can feel what people want (see: fawn response on steroids) and even change what they want and control, but does that actually help him to find care and connection? Does that actually get him what he wants? Lou is hyper aware of the emotions of people around her (see: hyper empathy in ND people), and even trace and manipulate memories through those emotions, but does that help her understand people or does it just make her frustrated and cold because connecting with anyone is overwhelming? Harley can (kind of) predict the future, (and don't autism and trauma backgrounds both make us so so good at predicting patterns), but does that actually help them to lift themself out of the situation they're stuck in, or does it just leave them bracing for impact and frozen?

I think it's interesting conceptually, crunchy in pratice, and I fuckin' love chewing on it. Would hate to ever actually explore it in the text itself lmao, but I'm really proud of it as a take on supernatural abilities and how they might manifest and intersect with the way we know brains do things in our world.

-

🧿 Whether you actually get there or not, what are your hopes for your OC's future?

I've said a few things about this before but I have a relatively clear vision of (at least) Cass and Josiah's future! Cass ends up working in early childhood education (pre-school age). I kinda like the idea of him maybe getting into some volunteer advocacy work at some point, because he figures out its a constructive place for his anger and sense of injustice to go, but also maybe he just runs one of those like rage yoga classes for kids.

This happens before present timeline, but is also one of those headcanon-y things that just never comes up: Josiah used the pay-off he got from the Facility to buy a small block of apartments* and gets an income from being a landlord, he lives on that during times it's hard for him to keep a day job down. Cass and him eventually live in the top floor apartment of that little block.

For a while, Josiah continues to do trade work, mostly as something to do during the day because he's never not worked, and he kind of likes laboring.

I like the idea of Cass coaxing Jos into making baking a full time thing. He wouldn't want to run the front of the shop but I can see him opening up a little cafe where he gets to bake his goods, maybe cook a few meals, and has someone chirpy in the front to deal with customers. I reckon he'd like that.

*(he got upset when he found out that Lou and Mal were being kicked from the place they loved because the landlord was selling and realised he had enough in the bank to make an offer, so he did and didn't tell them until like six months later.)