#i just think the parallels are interesting

[theatre-gay-they]

Ok off topic but I just did a reading on the definition of "technology" for school and it was pretty cool

I thought it was pretty compatible with like historical materialism. And I wrote a few hundred words on the relationship between technology and creativity:

Reading 2: Nye-Define Technology includes the quote “Such a definition includes such actions as making pottery, building a bridge, and carving a statue. Just as important, Aristotle related the crafts to the sciences, notably through mathematics” (pg. 7). This definition of technology (or rather, “techne”) is obviously very old, but it shows connection between theory (mathematics, “applied sciences”) and practice (art, creation, “technology”). There certainly is theory (I’d imagine, even then) of how to create a statue, materials and angles and the like, but a statue can only be created, well, creatively, and is largely learnt through imitation, similar to how lab work is best understood by imitating TAs (or videos of TAs). Personally, I find myself best at something when it feels creative, although most of my interests and skills are not generally considered so. In fact, different from what Aristotle presents here, I’ve often found math (and especially logic) to be a creative problem-solving exercise. I also understand the value of creation, and I chose my current degree (computer engineering) over software engineering because, although I was (and am) good at programming and enjoy it, there was a joy in seeing that program produce something in the real world (in first year, the robot moving). Even though I understand the effects of computers (and that they are very much part of the “real world”), it was incredible to see my work having visible effects in the real wold, and I hope those effects will become more impactful during my career. I think this also emphasizes a later part of the text about the gendering of technology. “Technology” is a very gendered term, not including many of the crafts seen as feminine, although “techne” did (assuming at least some “useful arts” were considered feminine in Ancient Greece)(pg. 14).

Off topic 2: I think there is still (useful) work to be done in terms of speed ups, but I can only speak to fields I've worked in, and I'm rather shit at performance testing (I tended to just write functional tests), but if the papers I was reading and implementing are to be believed there's a lot of potential speed ups to be found in higher precision parallel algorithms (usually through splitting the inputs into lower presion types)

[appleflavoredkitkats]

finally, after a gruelling one month, sonic 3 released in the philippines. i have Finally watched it, and even if it’s been only a day, i have a Lot to say about stobotnik— not necessarily from the movie, i feel like we discussed that enough, but moreso what i hope to see for stobotnik in future movies.

for the past weeks before i watched sonic 3, i read up on people desperately wanting villain!stone for sonic 4. this seems to win the popular vote on what should happen with stone next movie, and as someone who wanted stone to go batshit as well, i definitely liked reading all the different ideas for it. BUT, and this is a big but, i do think there needs to be more considerations when it comes to stone if we do want to see him as such.

for starters, a popular take is that stone should cope with grief Badly, which makes him vindictive of the main team. while i think this is funny and has a lot of merit for fanwork, i do think this risks repeating the themes of sonic 3. particularly, the entire movie IS about grief and how to cope with such, about shying away from revenge as a foolproof way of responding to grief. not to say that stone wouldn’t cope well, but i do think, narratively and thematically, it would be smarter to move away from a movie plot that literally has been done.

i genuinely wouldn’t want the movie to end with another “i shouldn’t do things out of revenge!” since we literally Saw that. moreover, i think we need to give more merit to stone and robotnik’s relationship that stone would understand the nuance and meaning to robotnik’s final sacrifice. of course that is a tall order, especially considering the sudden grief, but i think we forget also how dedicated stone is to robotnik. he WOULD respect and do what he thinks robotnik was trying to impart in the last scenes. not to mention as well, stone has no reason to target the main team in particular when he explicitly mentions in the movie that this plan was dangerous because of gerald, NOT sonic.

but. i DO think there could be a way we can have villain!stone in the next movie, because i do think he could play a narratively antagonistic role. i’ve been arguing that the next movie’s central theme could potentially be related to identity, especially since we got metal sonic and amy being introduced. if stone assumes a villainous role (and possibly created or activated metal sonic), i think he should be doing it not because of grief, but rather he wants to assume the legacy the doctor left behind. because, well, who is he if not robotnik’s henchman?

if he gets “revenge” or attacks sonic again, i don’t think it should be out of revenge. there should be something logical to it, possibly some conflict i can’t foresee, but it should have something to do with stone going, “well i think the doctor would do this, so i’m gonna try my best emulating such”. i know it sounds very similar to the “think about maria” plotline, but my take is that stone, again, isn’t doing this for vengeance, but moreso objectively tries picking up what robotnik left behind. (which, he would. of course he knows what the doctor would want.)

this especially can distinguish itself from sonic 3 IF the end of his arc would tie into identity, about stone figuring out what he himself would want independent of robotnik. this also ties in well with metal sonic and amy’s presence in sonic 4, because on one hand, we have metal sonic, which is self-explanatorily a “better” version of sonic. not only does sonic have to examine his own identity, but imagine if metal was made in service of either stone or GUN, and gains sentience and wants to be their own person. isn't that just a neat parallel to stone? then, on the other, we have amy, who is written originally to be whatever the opposite to a bechdel test is. of course, amy’s developed to be so much more, but i think it would be interesting for them to tackle it explicitly in the movies, whether it is through amy undergoing her own conflict or amy being the person who helps the others realize what it means to be their own person.

all to say, villain!stone shouldn’t be a grief allegory but an identity one. the line is very thin, but i think it’s okay as long as the underlying question is “who am i without robotnik?” and not “what should i do to avenge his death?”.

(also, had the idea that if stone build or helped build metal sonic, imagine if he also tried making a robot!robotnik haha as if haha)

another consideration i had is that, if stone only plays an antagonistic role, meaning he isn’t an active villain but merely an opposing force against the team next movie, i think it should come from some sort of misunderstanding. this definitely has to include GUN in some way, because i feel like rockwell was underutilized, and the weapon in the sky thing was definitely not addressed. perhaps stone’s evil plan ISN’T to hurt the main team but rather abolish GUN, but GUN employs and tricks the main team to think stone is doing something villainous against them.

if this is the case, i do think another central theme to consider is the entire megamind nature vs nurture debacle, what does it mean to be a good or bad person? one way i can see them going about this is the team questioning why stone is so down bad for robotnik, only to reveal that robotnik’s more nuanced that he is, which only stone understands because he identifies himself in robotnik (thanks lee majdoub). this also ties in well with metal sonic defying his original purpose, but i am not quite sure how amy ties into it but it’s not impossible to connect her to this plotline anyway. shadow could potentially have a role in this too, of what it means to do good after all he did wrong.

also hoping this movie ends with an anti-military moral. like everything is nuanced except the military <3 the military is what caused both gerald and robotnik to go batshit so.

and oh god stobotnik, okay i’ve gone so far talking about stone without talking about stobotnik, but i have two suggestions, especially considering jim carrey’s possible return: he is dead (with emotional considerations), or he is alive (with domestic considerations). hold on let me explain.

i will. absolutely hate it if robotnik turns out to be alive if and only if it’s shown at the beginning of sonic 4, and he assumes the role of main villain again. we've had ENOUGH, we already got to finish the entire 360 for his arc and what a shame it would be if he returns with the importance of his sacrifice to be taken away. yes, i hate that robotnik died as a person who loved him, but also his death is is really good story and writing-wise.

i think. i think if he comes back to life, it needs to be done 1.) at the end of sonic 4, and 2.) to conclude the stobotnik storyline once and for all. considering the suggestions i previously made, if robotnik were alive, i think it would be a more powerful punch if stone meets robotnik AFTER his own character arcs, and they come back as two wholes. after, i don’t think we shouldn’t see stobotnik again for future installations, but considering there would be 6-10 sonic movies i think it’s important to at least lay off making stobotnik the main villains or at least side antagonists for a while. i think they could have little cameos at least, possibly helping the characters or trying their best to acclimate to domestic life. you choose!

but if robotnik were permanently dead, i do think his appearance in a future film would be a flashback or memory, of stone remembering a time where he and robotnik were doing something that made stone realize how much robotnik loved him. something more intimate, something with the expected goofiness but with underlying tenderness. perhaps he left a final video message, perhaps there’s a scene which is very steven universe rose’s scabbard-esque (if you know you know).

also, this isn’t even considering the possibility of a into the sonicverse or time travel type scenario where there is a possibility of bringing robotnik back from other dimensions, because that in on itself is such a big plot possibility with a lot of implications for other characters that i won’t entertain it for now in this post. but it is definitely possible!

i’ve also considered the possibility that… maybe stone and robotnik wouldn’t appear in the next movie too! which. i’m not against if they bring it up in the fifth movie instead, because i delusionally believe silver and blaze will get introduced and that opens a whole can of worms for what other stobotnik possibilities could exist. 

but anyways those are my main thoughts, feel free to add on if you’d like to. i just needed to rebut all the “stone should be a senseless villain against sonic and team next movie” ideas. but you’re free to explore that anyway in fanwork lol, i think it’s fun.

[eelclaw]

teaser for something i might never finish because there are like 20 panels. i've always thought of bramblepaw rejecting tigerstar as the moment his arc should've ended, but then i had an idea for this scene that sets up his lifelong struggle with insecurity and avoiding responsibility for his actions.

here we have bramblepaw rejecting his father, not primarily because he's appalled by his father's actions- in fact, he's more than a little tempted to join a clan where he would feel trusted and respected- but because he can feel firestar at his shoulder and thunderclan at his back, all watching him, judging him, waiting for his choice.

this would nicely contrast brambleclaw's dilemma with the fox trap, where there are no eyes on him, no public opinion to base his decision on. what does he want to do? who is he without the affirmation of others?

(i still think mistyfoot should've been caught in the fox trap, not firestar. for one thing, i think it makes hawkfrost a better manipulator. brambleclaw doesn't entirely like mistyfoot, and also he's much more likely to murder his brother's political rival than his own clan leader. brambleclaw does pause to consider killing mistyfoot but ultimately saves her, killing hawkfrost instead. mistyfoot is wary of brambleclaw- she saw him hesitate- but she doesn't have proof, and so whatever cover story they bring back to their clans can not implicate brambleclaw enough for his deputyship to be stripped away. (it is so stupid that brambleclaw is rewarded with remaining deputy after pausing to consider killing firestar.) then mistystar and bramblestar would have an interesting dynamic in avos and tbc. but also i just really like the parallel to bluestar and tigerclaw.)

[radioactive-killjoy]

Ekko is, of course, underappreciated

I just finished watching Arcane at the behest of my father, but for the last few weeks I've been getting spoilers on Instagram and Twitter.

Despite this, I've seen little to no conversation about Ekko outside of his relationship to Powder. He's presented to us as an extremely intelligent and resourceful character from the very beginning, and at multiple turns he is doing things that no other character can do. Despite his connection to Benzo, I feel like he fills Vander's space more than Vi does (something I think the show fucked up in s2). With the Firelights, he's attempting to create a space of peace and normalcy.

But also the parallel between Ekko and Jayce; not a single soul that I've ended up seeing has mentioned it. Heimerdinger directly tells us that he sees a connection between the two - his students. But it is Ekko that opens Heimerdinger's eyes, Ekko that pushes him in the research. Ekko, Powder and Heimerdinger create something together that even Viktor at the end of s2 felt was impossible, and in a shorter amount of time. (This show was bad at not giving us detailed time skips, but we know for sure it wasn't years.)

Jayce would have failed at the end if not for Ekko! Everyone loves the relationship between Jayce and Viktor but it likely would have meant nothing if Ekko hadn't cracked the shell. So, I'm frustrated that he's being reduced to losing the potential love of Powder/Jinx.

That being said - I just finished it so I haven't spent much time in the fandom and if these discussions have been had, please point me in that direction, because this was the most interesting part of the whole show!

[genericpuff]

Who is your favorite LO character? Who is your favorite LR character?

i feeeeel like my answers change every time i get asked this question JFDSKLAFJSDALK but that's okay because it just means i'm constantly finding new ways to analyze and explore these characters >:3

LO faves: Minthe and Hephaestus.

Minthe because she obviously gets such shit treatment in the comic and subsequently from the fanbase, but she's a lot more relatable than 99% of the characters in the plot, she feels like she has actual depth and a real character arc, even if that arc ended with an unceremonious whisper. It goes to show how great of a character she was that Rachel practically had to nerf her out of the plot, because it was often only ever at its best when she was present. Funny how as soon as she was written out, there was nothing interesting going on with Hades or Persephone anymore - the plot was literally so boring without her that Rachel literally tried to create a Minthe 2.0 through Leuce, and we all know how well that went /s

As for Hephaestus, nothing super specific, I just like his vibes. Maybe it's just my absent older brother issues, but I would love to just like, hang out with him, game in the same room as him, just autistic parallel play stuff, I think he would be into that. Only complaint is the design flaw of giving him running blades as the default prosthetic, that can't be comfortable for his hips and joints. But that's not his fault u.u and that's basically my only complaint about him which makes him a winner in my book, esp compared to the rest of the cast. He might not be in the comic all that much, but that was clearly to his benefit because it seems the more attention Rachel pays to a character, the worse they wind up being in the long run due to poor writing. Hephaestus is in the comic just enough, not too little, not too often.

So yeah, Minthe and Hephaestus are both 10/10 characters written by a 0/10 writer. They did the best they could... not Rachel of course, she did literally the bare minimum of "representation" which often came across as ignorant white knighting at best and blatant stereotyping / stigmatizing at worst, I mean that Hephaestus and Minthe did the best they could as genuinely interesting characters with unique circumstances and disabilities who were being written by an amateur Wattpad-level writer with a privileged white guilt complex lmao

LR faves (within the cast that's currently been introduced): Persephone and Dionysus.

I know, very different from my LO choices, esp considering Persephone herself within LO is literally one of the most insufferable characters by the end, but I'm frankly having a great time rewriting her in my own way, especially in regards to her specific role as the "wrathful side" of Kore. I know I've gotten questions regarding the interpretation of Kore as a DID system, and while that interpretation is totally valid, the angle I always approached it from was that repressed trauma and emotional bottlenecking. Obviously those two things are, in and of themselves, contributing factors to DID, so far be it from me to tell people they can't identify with Kore / Persephone as DID representation. It just motivates me even more to give her the character arc she deserves and never got. It's gonna be messy. It's even gonna be downright ugly at times.

But I hope, in the end, that anyone who identifies with her struggles will find closure and comfort in the resolution of her story. It's certainly a challenging tightrope to walk, between honoring the themes of her original myth, retelling a version of her that almost existed in LO (a version that I was hoping for and never got), and dissecting the implications of my own version of her throughout LR's narrative, but it's a challenge that I've been having a great time undertaking and all I can hope for is that I can meet and possibly exceed my own expectations - as well as the readers - in the end. This is Kore's story - it's also Persephone's.

As for Dionysus... he's just a very, very fun character to write, and someone who I had the advantage of introducing before he was depicted in LO. It wasn't intentional but it sure as shit paid off because even though I'm sure some will assume that this is my own re-interpretation of Rachel's version of the character, myself and anyone else who was there at the time can vouch that Dionysus was aaaalllll me, baby LMAO

All that said, we're obviously going at it from a VERY different angle than how he was tackled in LO, but I'm hoping people enjoy his presence in the story, especially as he becomes more involved (which is very, very soon wink wink) The roles have definitely reversed here with Dionysus taking on more of a "parental" role to Kore rather than the other way around. I feel like his characterization has only grown stronger in hindsight compared to what we got in LO, especially where he's one of the only characters who beat LO to the punch and wound up being in a sort of arms race with Rachel's depiction ─=≡Σ((( つ•̀ω•́)つ

[twopoppies]

You don’t have to post this I understand if you don’t.

So Harry is in Rome? Harry was in Germany for a week too? Harry is everywhere but with Louis.

This is MIA time yes couples do things on their own but also this is precious MIA time and maybe it’s actually time to think they do an awful lot on their own, there’s not being able to because you’re deeply closeted then there is doing things on your own because you’re on your own. I get people have their own friends but partners do hang with friends together, Louis is never in Italy and it really is bothersome. why? because it’s so tied to Harry? yet Harry is seen in London and it’s tied to Louis.

I want to remain positive and it’s not out of sight out of mind it’s yes they’re closeted but still do way too many things on their own it’s as if they’re living parallel lives not one together any more and we both know they used to do a lot together outside of the public eye.

We all want them to be happy but this isn’t a movie, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton loved each other intensely but just couldn’t live together, happy endings aren’t guaranteed, years and fighting obstacles don’t mean staying together, we have all seen married couples who have divorced after decades and couples overcome adversity to find out they really don’t match as well as they thought.

Of course there is another explanation:

I hope it’s not Louis is somewhere Harry doesn’t want to be (meaning Cali or had to go to the stunt either one that’s beginning or wait isn’t a birthday coming up?) but one good thing we would know they’re still together

I don’t understand your logic. We have no idea where Louis is. Why are you assuming Harry is traveling all over the place without him?

I just think this sort of thought process is so counterproductive and, honestly, silly. If you need constant reassurance that they’re together, I really think you’re going to be very unhappy in this fandom. They’re closeted, they spend most of their MIA time really being MIA (especially Louis), and they’re not in the least bit interested in assuaging fans’ worries that they’ve broken up.

[scoobydoodean]

Hi, scoobydoodean! Are you of the opinion that Cas' confession parallels John's private speech to Dean before he went to take Azazel's deal which killed him. Like, they're both deals to save Dean. And they only decided to say things left unsaid about how much they loved Dean and were proud of who he was, right before they knew they were going to die. I don't know if that's a stretch, and if it's not, what does it say about Cas and Dean if it does parallel John? I don't know.

You know—I could have sworn I've mentioned that very thing before, but probably just in passing, because I can't find it in my archive. Cas and John have some interesting parallels, and I don't doubt Dean notices (and occasionally chafes) at their similarities (because their similarities tend to dig into some of Dean's biggest issues with his dad). It isn't just that Cas and John both sacrifice themselves for Dean, giving him a deathbed speech about what a good person he is (one that is touching and heartfelt but still comes with painful consequences for Dean that they don't foresee).

John and Cas have also both been known to do the following:

Ignore phone calls for weeks at a time.

Disappear without anyone knowing where they are for long periods, leaving their loved ones worrying.

Try to handle The Mission alone and ice others out of it to "protect" them.

Die leaving Dean to care for, protect, and then (if necessary) kill their sons—sons who are being pursued by powerful forces who want to manipulate and use them—sons who are not actually children.

Trade out a car for a truck, funnily enough.

John and Cas are also both soldiers, and Cas understands the soldier's mentality: The Mission comes before everything (this is what Sam and Dean ultimately clash with John over at the end of season 1). Cas has admired John's handwriting (8.08), and I think is probably a little interested in John as a model of the failed protector, though he knows Dean considers John a deadbeat (5.17). Cas has his own issues with his own father to contend with, and I think because Chuck is the absent father but not the protector father (except very specifically with Cas in a few early moments—bringing him back to life 2-3 times)... Maybe one could argue that Cas wishes god was more like John—that his absences weren't always for lack of love but were somehow mission-oriented. Chuck bringing Cas back a few times gives Cas hope that maybe his father is out there watching and caring about him and ready to help him despite his absence and silence. Even as late as season 14, Cas goes off alone to find a way to reach out to his father for help with Jack. Perhaps we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Cas going off alone in search of help from an absent father instead of communicating with his family is part of what leads into Dean and Cas's "divorce arc". Perhaps we should consider more carefully if something underlying Dean and Cas's conflicts is how they perceive their fathers.

Maybe to an extent, quite unconsciously, Cas wants to prove that he can be absent from his family and still love and protect them from a distance... because if Cas can do that successfully, it means maybe god loves him from a distance too? Maybe he thinks it can make sense of Chuck's behavior—bringing Cas back several times but still so silent. It isn't until AU Michael tells Cas that Chuck is a writer looking at failed drafts that Cas starts to catch on—and he doesn't want to catch on, is the thing. He wants to reject Michael's narrative. Having Michael in particular (in Dean's body) tell Cas this also pits Cas and Dean's perspectives on fathers against one another—Cas's hopeful belief vs. Dean's nihilism. When Dean pleads with god on behalf of his family, he does it faithlessly because he already knows you can never count on your father to help you no matter how hard you plead and cry (1.09, 5.14, 13.01).

As for what this means for Dean and Cas? Well—I've said it before and I'll say it again—fandom could stand to calm down about the "implications" of John parallels. It's often treated like some sort of condemnation to be "paralleled" with John, but... it isn't? Sam, Dean, and Cas all have parallels with John at various points, and it doesn't make any of them bad people. It makes them messy and interesting and (for lack of a better word) human. I think Cas and Dean could have some fascinating fights along this subject and I want to see more of them. Sorry but I love it when they fight it entertains me greatly.

[canmom]

assorted TTRPG things

nugget from the tab bonfire: at some point I was reading about RPGs. some things that are old, some are new(ish). here are some links, since I think they are interesting, and some additional comments.

first-up: my own RPG posts are now archived here. that section of my site is looking a whole lot more fleshed out now.

1. ritual

in 2021, Meguey Baker wrote this one about 'ritual in game design', fitting TTRPGs into her frame of faciliating rituals for essentially therapeutic purposes, aimed at parents. since I like talking in a vaguely (vaguely) anthropological way about the analogies between TTRPGs and other activities (improv comedy, kink, wrestling), this is very relevant.

by Meguey's definition, a ritual is defined through this series of words: intentional contained conscious creative action. of course, she gives these words fairly specialised definitions. she's mostly interested in addressing TTRPGs that go into tough, bleedy places, described in books like Alice Is Missing, BFF, and Bluebeard’s Bride - of these I'm only familiar with the third but I'm kind of aware of the genre of game she's talking about. she suggests that these principles don't really apply if you're just playing to hang out and have a good time, but to my mind, just because you're less formal about it doesn't mean that's not an aspect of ritual, and the analysis is similarly applicable there, just lower-stakes.

in fact I think a whole lot of human activities are rituals (classic bryn move to grab a conceptual hammer and start seeing nails everywhere). the analogy goes the other way too, rituals are kind of like games.

I'm not entirely convinced the breakdown into jargon words really does a lot for me, but the crucial thing here is the sort of entering and exiting into a constrained social space which has its special set of rules. meguey writes these cool little coloured lists which depict the various stages of getting you into a game/ritual headspace and exiting it afterwards...

...and specialises it to the case of roleplaying games as you see. it's pretty BDSM-like isn't it? sure, that's something I'm currently interested in, I recently read The New [Topping/Bottoming] Books, but it certainly does suggest that analogy strongly for me; I think a general recognition that RPGs should have aftercare would do a lot more for the scene than a lot of the other 'safety tools' like X-cards and so on. (a weaker analogy is the principles of animation: anticipation, action, follow-through.)

this idea of ritual also strongly parallels the definition of 'play' of roger callilois:

1. it is free, or not obligatory 2. it is separate from the routine of life, occupying its own time and space 3. it is uncertain, so that the results of play cannot be pre-determined and the player's initiative is involved 4. it is unproductive in that it creates no wealth, and ends as it begins economically speaking 5. it is governed by rules that suspend ordinary laws and behaviours and that must be followed by players 6. it involves make-believe that may be set against 'real life'.[6]: 100–101 

as a set of traits which describe a somewhat fuzzy sphere of activity. meguey's account of 'ritual' focuses more on the set of steps you follow to enter and leave the ritual space, but it is describing, I think, a heavily overlapping 'thing'.

why so explicitly break down a process that most people seem to come by naturally? well, probably for the same reason that kink people do it: the more you play with [emotional] fire, the more care you must exercise to keep it contained. but it is also pretty important, I think, to pursue some degree of ritual for the middle part to actually work. you need to switch mental gears first to get yourself operating in 'game space'. same goes for a number of other 'spaces' for that matter. in RPGs we already have plenty of rituals: getting set up around the table (for offline games), general chitchat beforehand to get us feeling social with the other players, the brief summary of the previous session to mark the transition into RPG mode...

one non-obvious extension that Meguey makes, in the third excerpt above is to the actual text of RPG books, in terms of how they are presented to the reader. I think this is genuinely quite an insight - when you read a book you get into RPG space a bit and imagine playing the game, building up the fantasy of what playing it will entail (c.f. what's the book for, part 3).

though, that said - it is tricky to pursue a strict ritual structure in presentation, I think, because I think RPG books tend to be read very non-linearly. only quite short games tend to get read cover-to-cover in one sitting. otherwise you tend to skip to the part that you need. still: the manner of presentation is very important to an RPG book serving its purposes. and this is a fascinating frame for it.

I'm not sure this essay necessarily gives a new direction (as a designer or a player), but it does give an interesting angle to understand things I was already doing previously, and do them a little more deliberately.

for example, when I make a point of mentioning moments that I enjoyed in the time after an RPG session before we all part ways, that is the 'return/celebration' part of the ritual, and crucially it reassures everyone that even if they were playing an unpleasant character or there was inter-character conflict in the session, it was something I was looking for and appreciated. I do this because there have been times when I've felt a bad kind of bleed, fearing that my character was 'too much' and was detracting from the session, or that a conflict in-character reflected an OOC conflict. having an explicit affirmation helps drive away those fears.

2. rule zero in D&D

this history of 'rule zero' in D&D editions dates all the way back to 2012 (although it seems to have been updated since), but it's still very relevant to my current efforts to understand RPGs, books, and all the weird practices around them, the role of 'rulings' in OSR, etc etc.

right off the bat, I appreciate the nuances that this early paragraph expresses:

The attitude towards rulings vs. rules in the game shows up  - directly and explicitly in the rules text - implicitly in the text and detectable via textual analysis  - in the surrounding publications considered semi-canonical (Dragon magazine, nowadays forums and designer blogs), and  - the culture of gamers surrounding it.

while the rest of the post is still focused on what books say rather than what people did with those books, it's a relief when people note that there is a difference.

so, the essay traces a general evolution of ideas about what role the rules in the book are supposed to follow as D&D moved away from wargaming and passed through the hands of different publishers. how much interpolation and discretion the DM is supposed to apply to the text, how authoritative they're supposed to be at their own table compared to the non-DM players...

it's fascinating to observe how the culture of the game evolved. it's also tricky to distil the different currents down into a brief summary - I tried and realised I was just recapping the article in less detail. luckily the author wrote a summary so I can just quote that:

0e – the referee is an aribiter and fills in the gaps 1e – the DM is large and in charge, the rules are pretty good, your players are at both’s behest B/X and 2e – the DM and players are both important, the rules are super mutable 3e/early 3.5e – the rules and players and DM are leveled out in importance, meaning rulings are minimized and a negotiation with players BECMI/late 3.5e/4e – the rules are pretty fixed and players and DM are equal and subject to the rules as law; RAW is an option OSR and Pathfinder – splitting off in their own directions in reaction to 4e, OSR back to a mix of 0e and B/X flavored attitudes and Pathfinder to a hybrid of 1e/2e/3e attitudes 5e – The DM is clearly in charge and can ignore/change rules and rolls as they deem wise, with the goal of everyone having fun (as opposed to the sometimes-stated 1e goal of “keeping the players in their place”.) It reincorporated a lot of the 1e and 2e thinking into the game to an even greater degree than Pathfinder. PF2e – Effectively back to 3e positioning fairly exactly. It stepped back away from where PF1e and 5e were going and got a little less enthusiastic about GM authority, carefully scoping it to interpretation and, sometimes, changes to make things fun. Maybe a *little* more towards 5e than 3e was, but only by a hair.

anyway, there are a couple of interesting points I want to pull out of the discussion. first is this insightful comment on the broader implications of rules that grant abilities - something to discuss further in a later post...

The problem with [D&D 3.5e's claim that you can try anything and the rules only govern chances of success] from a textual interpretation standpoint is that it’s hard to not interpret the raft of “possibility” options in the 3e branch of D&D as being restriction of options. I can try to throw my opponent in a grapple – until a feat comes out that says “In a grapple, you can now throw your opponent.” Thus despite mitigating statements by the designers, their design itself passively promulgates an approach to the rules as written.

there's also an interesting line about how 'old school' the OSR actually is, answer being that it's complicated.

Some, however, consider this to be a bit of a retcon of how old school gaming actually worked. As you can see from this research, it is and it isn’t – the “rulings vs. rules” concept was very strong especially in B/X and 2e, somewhat less so in 0e/1e, and actively militated against in BECMI. Hackmaster and the Knights of the Dinner Table comic prominently parody the not uncommon rules-adherence mode of play in AD&D. As all nostalgia does, the Quick Primer picks certain elements out of the past to bring back and leaves aside some other elements.

finally, we have this comment about the (then very new) 5th edition approach to framing its rules:

It also appears to take a hint from the OSR’s formulation of “rulings, not rules” as well as the prominent fiction-first modern indie games like Apocalypse World when it describes the basic pattern of play – 1. The DM describes the environment 2. The players describe what they want to do (and the DM decides how to resolve those actions – importantly, the PCs don’t decide what rules they use) 3. The DM narrates the results

...which is somewhat true to my experience of 5e, although I think there is still a fairly significant component of 'I use this ability on my character sheet' in the game (I use this weapon, I cast this spell, I use this special ability). So the players do often decide what rules they want to invoke. Although, that is also true of Apocalypse World - something to go into another day.

mostly I think it's really helpful to have a proper sense of the space of practices represented by D&D, since popular discourse (including the game's rulebooks) way too often seems to assume there is only one way that D&D is played. this is a good stab at exploring some of the dimensions, and will definitely inform whatever is the next investigation I make into the structure of RPGs.

for another angle on D&D history, I came across this old (2016) ENWorld post tracing how Gygax got increasingly proprietary and litigious with D&D, and hostile to people putting their own spins on it.

it seems like for more on this topic of early RPG history I should be taking a look at The Elusive Shift by John Peterson, so posssibly more to come on this subject when I get round to reading that one.

3. blorb

I came across Sandra Snan's website, idiomdrottning.org, which is another one of those classic static-site treasure troves of someone's thoughts on everything for like the last decade.

like me, she came back to playing trad games like D&D after spending a while exploring the storygames milieu. She landed on a set of practices relating to the concreteness of the setting, in explicit opposition to 'no myth'-style games where anything not stated out loud is fair game to be modified for the sake of narrative.

she calls this 'blorb', and as these things tend to, it gets something like a manifesto. many other articles on this site talk about various facets of roleplaying games are written about on the site in relation to this.

'blorb' focuses on the relationship between preparation and improvisation: making a big show of referring to things on paper, and making decisions in the open, to reinforce the sort of metanarrative that there is an underlying reality even if it hasn't fully been discovered yet. it emphasises more granular simulation over abstraction.

since it's a little hard to navigate Sandra's archives, I've gathered the posts that are relevant to the subject here:

the chasm width problem (motivating, raising the issue that few games explicitly address the how of DMing)

blorb principles

realism and blorb (which discusses the other name 'klokkverk' used elsewhere in the milieu, and compares it to 'no myth') + the fictioneers talk about blorb again

radically transparent DM-ing

say the DC

antiblorb

GM-less roleplaying games

a blorb thought

the quest queue

there's probably others but these are the main ones I read

for contrast, no myth, a somewhat overlapping and somewhat very different paradigm of games that broadly sums up the norms of the Forge/'story games' tradition.

to sandra, 'blorb' is a statement of the type of roleplaying she finds vastly more satisfying to operate, and the crucial elements to make that happen.

what I find interesting about blorb is that, since its main interlocutor is the Forge/story-games tradition, it puts a fair bit of discussion into how this affects the fiction in practice. e.g. what you should prepare and what you can still improvise, and how the existence of the 'gloracle' (the combination of prepped materials and dice/rules, and rigour in consulting them) shapes our notion of 'the fiction'.

via this post, vincent baker back in 2012 defined RPGs thus:

To me, the crucial feature that makes a game an RPG is that it works by the (so-called) lumpley primple: in order to play, we have to create fictional stuff and agree that, for gameplay purposes, it's true. This is a pretty technical and inclusive definition. It includes Once Upon a Time and that game where you sit in a circle and pretend that some of you are werewolves, for instance.

something I find very interesting RPGs is the process of 'synchronisation' of the shared fiction. the idea of 'shared fiction' is something of an elaborate illusion. every player has a different version of it, with different emphases, different things that are fresh in memory, different interpretations of the images...

consider verbal descriptions of locations. my sense of what is in a scene will constantly be adjusted based on the stream of description I'm receiving from other players - the 'shared fiction' is at best something we approach asymptotically.

in an extreme example, a DM could lead with an elaborate description of the architecture, decorations, and layout of the room, before wrapping up with 'and curled around the central pillar is a mighty red dragon'. dun dun dun! suddenly, I have to recontextualise everything in the scene I was building in my head to accomodate the presence of the dragon.

the unreliability of this communications channel was a source for a vein of classic D&D humour, such as the Dread Gazebo of yore, where the communication channel breaks down leading to an inconsistency in the 'shared' fiction.

'no myth' and similar ideas come from the recognition that, until something is said out loud and enters part of the shared fiction, it can be changed freely between any possibility consistent with the 'established' facts. sort of like the wave function collapse algorithm. they take the attitude that you should do this deliberately to maximise drama and add complications, taking on more of a writer/director role. this character enters a bar, what should they encounter there? it would be fucked up if they encountered their ex, right? ergo their ex is there.

there is a degree of this in every RPG, not just your high-improv post-Forge story games. in order for some sort of consensus to be reached, parts of it must be black-boxed and unpredictable. for example, if I am inhabiting a character, I have my idea of how they will act and what they're feeling and thinking about, and that's authoritative. but that means for everyone else's characters, I have my impressions and predictions, but they're subject to being updated as soon as that player speaks.

for Sandra, this recognition that everything is getting moved around for drama undermines the substance of the world - an inescapable awareness even if the players take pains to make the established, spoken-out-loud fiction consistent.

so, additional 'authority' is central to the 'blorb' playstyle. that is, in addition to each player's authority to make up stuff within their domain (e.g. what their character does), you make a big point of deferring to some additional authorities such as pre-prepped material and dice (which Sandra calls the 'gloracle'), and making it explicit to the players that you're doing so. for example, you might talk about the random encounter tables you're using and what would change their contents, or declare the DC before every roll.

it's kind of a defensive style of DMing, in that it's entirely designed to forestall any suspicion of 'fudging' behind the scenes. the tradeoff is: more explicit discussion of game mechanics which might detract from the sort of 'atmosphere', but equally a stronger sense of inhabiting an external world where things are 'really' happening 'offscreen'.

to me, the idea of 'fudging' doesn't bother me nearly as much as it seems to bother Sandra, but I think there is some truth to the thought that if everything is subject to random tables or pure off-the-dome improv, the game can start to feel a very homogeneous. as Sandra puts it in one of her articles:

I don’t want to expand randomly as we go either, because if everything is randomly rolled as you go along, where’s the agency? South becomes the same as north becomes the same as west because wherever you go, the dice are furnishing for you, so the choice about where to go matters less.

it's probably got something to do with information theory, right? once you become familiar with the table, and you know when the table will be invoked, you've broadly found out what there is to know about that thing. there are only so many bits of information.

I was saying the other day, games are interesting because they are something to explore through interacting with them to discover all their weird nuances. players are pretty good at sniffing out how complex and varied the underlying system is. a wide set of interesting, spicy locations - and logical relations between them - has more nuances to discover than a random table with, say, 10 entries.

the problem is of course that such a prep-focused playstyle can lead to huge amounts of 'wasted' effort fleshing out elements of the gloracle which may never be activated, especially if players don't spend their time rubbing against your creation in various ways to discover its nuances. Sandra's approach is to work out what's easy to improvise on the fly (the 'wallpaper') and what is crucial to pin down in advance, and largely prepare the latter - the difference, I guess, coming down to experience. we can think of it in programming terms: a small authoritative state and things that can be derived from that.

in my experience, at least some players have become a lot more considerate of the workload of GMing. far from trying to resist 'railroading', they will often generally deliberately try to steer themselves towards whatever location a DM has prepared as a courtesy; meanwhile the GM will be able to get a sense of where the players are planning to go so they can prep between sessions. however, that is contrary to the more 'sandboxy' approach where the core appeal is 'you can do pretty much anything', which is what Sandra is trying to generate I think.

I'm too much of an improv-focused GM to really become a partisan of 'blorb' - for me, discovering improv-oriented story games after D&D was as revelatory as discovering D&D after storygames was for Sandra lol. I trust somewhat in my ability to come up with weird interesting stuff on the fly and flesh it out later, and I tend to find the moment of being in the hotseat of an RPG gets the creative juices flowing like nothing else, so it's actually quite difficult to come up with anything good during prep.

however, I think there is a lot to be said for the value of making at least certain things concrete, and communicating that to the players, and Sandra makes a good case for showing your hand. it's a way to make the shared fantasy take on certain qualities it won't have if it remains purely arbitrary improv, even if the only real functional difference is when you make something up. both because it's hard to keep track of everything in your head without some kind of aid, and because the first idea you come up with will rarely be the richest, most interesting.

so next time i run a game, I'm not going to take such a zero-prep, all-improv approach, but try and work a bit harder on 'overall consistency'.

definitely a provocative blog to encounter...

[saranitysstuff]

kinda sad haruka isn't as popular as any of the other characters, i think she's probably the least popular and least well known as any other character in the cast. but she's so interesting to me and her personality as the mature idol with perfectionist tendencies and a dark past is so intriguing. SHE LITERALLY COULD NOT SMILE AS A KID??? WHY DOES NOBODY TALK ABOUT THAT like that's so interesting she's like a parallel of mafuyu. i know shizuku and mafuyu are popular together because shizuku is able to see that mafuyu's mask isn't real but i feel like haruka would be able to relate a lot to mafuyu as well. like sega PLEASE put haruka and mafuyu in the same room and just let them talk

[greenerteacups]

I think "the problem of house elves" is really interesting in that it reveals an issue with what I suppose can be broadly categorised as "urban fantasy"?, that is to say fantasy in a modern real world setting, which nonetheless uses magical creature lore. Inevitably, as an author, you're going to purposely or inadvertently draw parallels to real world "stuff" that's ladened with baggage... and it can be really hard to make it work because readers will be raring to pick apart these kinds of analogies.

House elves are a great example of this, in that, there really are creatures called house elves (or brownies) in English folklore and they really do, in the stories, seem to enjoy doing housework and chores in exchange for things like food and shelter (and shouldn't be given clothes or they'll never come back).

However, by initially drawing a parallel to slavery with House Elf labour (a real-world very dark baggage laden issue) and then not having the time to really delve into the history and complexity of her wizard / house elf relations you end up with the narrative seeming a bit confused as to how we should feel about people having house elves as servants / slaves. On one hand, we only see "bad" families having elves, on the other, we're told Molly Weasley would like one, then we're shown that Hogwarts uses them and that they, mostly, want to work for wizards without pay or holiday. People that grew up in the wizarding world seem to view Hermione's concerns with the kind of bemusement I encountered as a vegetarian kid explaining why I didn't want to eat animals to most of the people around me. This says a lot about the way House Elves are viewed there.

House elves are not viewed as being akin to human and therefore do not fit neatly into human parallels. Dobby is presented as an anomaly because, unlike most houseelves, he does not dream of labour and being bound to a particular wizarding family. I think JKR tries to represent this through Hermione's ineffective activism, but it's clumsily done because Dobby's our first and most poignant introduction to House elves and he was being seriously abused without any protections in place. There's also the Black family situation which.... yeah.

I think a couple of paragraphs of explanation from, maybe, Dumbledore outlining, perhaps, the symbiotic magical relationship of wizards and elves, and how the Malfoys / Blacks were somehow unusual in their cruelty and disrespect to this relationship, would've done a lot to smooth at least some of this over.

The issue, I think the books very quietly imply, is actually more aligned, although not perfectly of course, in a real world sense, with animal abuse / humane treatment of animals than with human slavery, as house elves ( as folkloric creatures) crucially do want to do house work in their nature and their treatment by wizards is therefore what needs to be monitored through the introduction of protections (older Hermione will surely be championing these kinds of reforms). Not perfect of course as House Elves are sentient, talking creatures... but they're also not human beings and it does make some kind of sense that they wouldn't have the same values... it's just, slavery being OK sometimes, is really not the sort of message you want to imply through an inadvertent and imprecise parallel.

Just chiming into the house elf convo as I find this issue in fantasy writing endlessly fascinating and as an aspiring fantasy writer myself, quite frightening!

This is so well-put, I almost can't bring myself to add anything to it — really excellent and considered treatment of the ways that the elf relationship was probably intended to read differently than it did in the text. More attention to the elf/brownie legend would have gone a long way for me in fixing my unhappiness with S.P.E.W., because it would have given a canonical basis for thinking Hermione's actually just wrong about this relationship, and that she's somehow missing an important historical context. That's a great point.

Staging elves as an intermediary between humans and animals whose treatment mirrors animal rights conversations is a really smart way of talking about it, too, as it captures the moral dimension of Hermione's quest without making everyone else look abjectly terrible for not supporting it. Staging her as, say, the PETA of the Wizarding World, where everyone thinks she's campaigning to Give Copyright to Monkeys, etc., makes Ron especially seem much more reasonable. I'm going to think about your interpretation a lot in how I write house-elves in the future.

[trikruismybitch]

Clexa Fanfics

Hey guys these are all the Clexa fanfics that i love and wanted to share!

None of these are mine and all of the fics i added are completed works unless stated otherwise

Clexa

A Different Landing by RhinoMouse ****

The drop ship was always going to have problems coming down. Unfortunately for the 100 they ended up in Ice Nation territory where the locals were far less forgiving. With all the wristbands gone and the survivors unable to contact the ark, the ark never came down. Now four years later the surviving members of the 100 have been assimilated into Nia's army. When Lexa calls for the armies of the coalition to march on the mountain Clarke finds herself leading the Ice Nation forces.

[probably one of my favorite Clexa fanfics. The writing, world building, just everything is so well written and interesting. Highly recommend]

Runners From Azgeda by ellaaa25

Clarke and Raven are sisters only one month apart in age. The day before Clarkes 9th birthday, Jaha drops a block of the ship filled with 40 people to save oxygen with no warning. Clarke and Raven are in a pod and land in Azgeda and are taken to Nia. They are beaten, tortured and broken before being trained in the fighting pits of Azgeda to win their freedom as a pair. At age 16, the sisters are still searching for freedom

The Shadow by Clexa1205

Clarke leaves Camp Jaha and ends up getting captured by Azgeda where she comes face to face with Queen Nia and an unexpected enemy. Two years later, after being blackmailed, tortured, and trained, Clarke is forged into the ultimate weapon: an assassin known as the Shadow.

The Ursa & The Heda by SweeTarts151

Spirits are a large part of grounder culture, when Clarke switches places with Finn to spare him his life and get the alliance, something happens that changes her. Changes the way the grounders and her own people look at her. (Warning torture in first chapter)

When a Fallen Star Finds a Home on the ground by LMS (LMS180)

Torn between the hate Clarke felt for this betrayer and old feelings she wished could be forgotten, Clarke made a choice. And before she could live with the consequences of her actions, life pulled her down an unforeseen path. Today the Skai princess’s story is nothing but a distant memory. One long replaced by curious whispers surrounding Azgeda’s mysterious new Heir, Klark. With a new enemy threatening the Coalition’s Western borders, the Commander had no choice but to summon the 13 clans together. As the clans begin to assemble for the upcoming war, many eagerly await the arrival of Azgeda's mysterious Winter Wolf

(my) Destruction Within Your Mouth by KL_Morgan

Clarke loses: her head, her voice, her heart.

Survivals a Fools Errand by Ebozay

Clarke is spared the same fate as her father by being sent to Earth in a drop pod, a metaphorical canary in a coal mine. All in the name of saving what is left of the human race. To her surprise and short lived excitement she finds that the ground is survivable, that she won't burn as soon as the air touches her. But the scarred and brutal people she encounters? Maybe she's a fool to think she could survive life on the ground after all

Where Green Meets Blue by Clexaisbae

Clarke left Camp Jaha, leaving behind a very confused Bellamy. She stumbles through the forest, lost and unsure of what to do but a pair of green eyes pushed her on. At night, after a close encounter with a panther, Clarke was captured by the Ice Nation and now she has to fight her way out, with only a pair of green eyes to guide her out

The White Queen Running by KL_Morgan

Clarke wakes up wearing the tattoos of the Ice Nation.

(OR: Soulmates, parallel worlds, and Ice Queen Clarke; oh my. Canon divergent from 2x16.)

Clexa Alternative Universes

Blood (Must have Blood) by LexAlexAU

Hunger Games AU

(Just a) Little of Your Love by M_E_Scribbles

Clarke Griffins back in her hometown and working her dream job, as a detective and the leader of Polis Police Department's Search and Rescue. Then she's told to take the SAR to a local kindergarten class for a safety program.

That's where she meets an interesting young girl who takes to her immediately. When adorable handmade cards start appearing at her desk. She goes to the school to thank the girl and runs into a gorgeous woman who begins to invade her thoughts.

Of Sharp Talons and Sharper Eyes by AlexielMN

Daemon AU & Azgeda!Clarke

A Day In The Life of a Demigod by soshy (Sosh_022)

Demigod AU

[seellove]

Counterfeit Shrines // sukuna x female reader

Masterlist

Chapter 2 - Nineteen with Neck Tatz // (4.2k words) // Explicit - 18+

\|/ AO3 - Chapter 2

You're a late bloomer when it comes to cursed energy, entering Tokyo Jujutsu High partway through the 4th year on the support student track. Because of this, you get paired with the only combat track sorcerer without a partner for obvious reasons, Ryomen Sukuna. He's had a tragic upbringing as a human that is part curse with dark expectations for how to live his life. However, after meeting you, he slowly starts to see the possibility of a different path with someone he might love.

Content Tags/Warnings Throughout Work: Reader and Sukuna are Jujutsu Sorcerers in a JJK AU, explicit smut, violence/blood/injury, dubious consent, dubious morality, drug and alcohol use, falling in love, angst, comfort, fluff, happy ending

You know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it's hard not to when you see him striding towards you and your table confidently. He just exudes an aura of assertiveness mixed with something sinister. You aren’t an expert on cursed energy in the slightest, however, you can pick up on the darkness wafting through the air making it harder to breathe. 

You notice he’s eying Gojo, so you decide it's safe to watch him approach. It’s impossible to not be captivated by his presence, his hands are shoved in his pockets and sleeves rolled up just enough to expose tattoos on his wrists and muscular forearms. Oh and what you saw on his neck was black ink cutting across the contours of muscle like jagged bolts of lightning. His sharp jawline is accentuated by more ink running parallel from between his cheekbone and ear down to his chin. 

Face tattoos, that's definitely a choice. There’s something about it that fits with his demeanor though.  

“What’s up man,” his deep voice breaks you from your daze as he slaps Gojo on the back. 

“Sup Sukuna,” Gojo greets him. 

Sukuna. Interesting name.

Gojo stares straight ahead as Sukuna leans down to murmur something in his ear, Gojo nodding slightly as he takes a sip of his drink. Sukuna’s eyes flick briefly towards you, the eye contact only lasting for a second as you quickly divert your gaze to anything but him. The intensity of just that one moment was enough to send chills down your spine.

“Sukuna, have you met our new classmate yet?” Gojo speaks up, gesturing to you as he says your name.

“Nope,” he says in a disinterested voice, “seems weak judging by that cursed energy signature though.”

“Dude, I swear sometimes you decide to see how fast you can sound like an asshole in as few words as possible,” Shoko barks at him which results in a cocky smirk in return.

He presses his hands into the edge of the table, flexing his arms as he gets a better look at you. This time you meet his sharp gaze until he glances away, which feels like a tiny victory.

OK actually he is really fucking hot. Seems like an absolute fuck boy, but you couldn’t deny his attractiveness. When he glanced in your direction, you thought you saw a hint of red in his eyes. You feel your face flush as he walks away. Shoko notices this almost immediately.

“Ah another poor girl captivated by Ryomen Sukuna’s aura,” she giggled.

“Wh-what?? No I-“

“I’m just joking. He is an attractive guy, you aren’t the first and certainly won’t be the last to think that,” she smirked. 

“What's his deal?

“I mean he is really strong, there is no doubt about that. His dad is a special operations sorcerer so he definitely has it in him,” Shoko explains.

“Ever since we’ve known him, he's been moody and hard to get along with. Also he has big beef with Gojo over who is stronger,” Geto adds with a chuckle.

“Which by the way is absolutely me!” Gojo says animatedly.

You laugh in response as you take a sip of your drink. Honestly most of the guys you’ve seen so far have been pretty attractive, was there something about cursed energy that just made guys hotter? No matter what, you noticed your ex boyfriend was quickly slipping from the depths of your mind. 

All three of you finish eating and make your way back to the dorms. You go to change into your pajamas and reconvene with your friends in the lounge area. 

“So, what was life like for you before coming here?” Gojo asks as he falls into the couch next to you. His blue eyes are mesmerizing, how can someone be blessed with this good of looks? 

You start to describe your childhood and how your dad is a sorcerer. How you went to traditional private school, playing sports, your favorite subjects, the typical high school activities. 

“Do you have a boyfrieeeeend?” He asks in a low joking tone. 

“No, well, I did, but I broke up with him before coming here,” you say with just a hint of sadness.

“Wow such a heartbreaker,” Geto smirks, shaking his head. 

“Are there any couples here?” You ask curiously. You figured as a boarding school there would be no shortage of messy relationships. 

“Eh there are a few. The guy with black hair who was with Sukuna has a longtime girlfriend. Also you haven’t met them, but Choso and Yuki are dating. Other than that, mainly flings and friends with benefits situations,” Shoko chimes in. 

“So typical high school shit it sounds like, except everyone lives together.” You laugh. Your mind wanders, it's kind of exciting being able to do whatever you want. Living at home, it was hard to get alone time with your ex, but here it's fair game. 

“Well if you ever need a wing woman you know where to find me,” Shoko’s words interrupt your thoughts. 

“Thanks Shoko,” you smile back. She really has been a good friend over the years and you know she has your back. 

Three girls walk in the lounge as you all are hanging out and you can’t help but overhear their conversation which sounds stressed.

“He left abruptly and hasn’t talked to me since,” a girl with long black hair says, sounding upset.

“Kiko it’s probably nothing you did, I wouldn’t worry much about it, you know how he is,” a blond haired girl responds obviously trying to cheer her friend up. 

You wonder who they are talking about. You certainly remember similar conversations happening at your old school with girls getting caught up with guys who are only interested in one thing. You are amused to see that this school isn’t much different from traditional high schools when it comes to this stuff. 

The girls suddenly get quiet. You turn around and see the guys come in that you saw earlier. Sukuna and Toji, you remember their names. 

“Kiko, doll I was looking for you,” you hear a low drawl come from Sukuna. Damn even his voice sounds sexy, you think to yourself. He saunters over to the group of girls, his hands in his pockets again.

Kiko looks a little perturbed and you assume she is trying to play a little hard to get, but it doesn’t seem to last long. “Kuna I was wondering where you got off to,” she giggles while the other girls direct their attention to Sukuna. He obviously has them wrapped around his finger. Poor girls.

“Well I wanna get off with you, so you best quit standing around here,” he says so nonchalantly that you almost choke on your water bottle. How can someone be so brazen out in the open like this!? The girls all laugh and Kiko steps towards him, pressing her body against his as he leans back against the kitchen counter. You notice him wrap a large hand around her and grab her ass, pulling her close towards him. 

“I’ll talk to you all later,” you hear Kiko giggling to her friends as she follows him away, Sukuna not even bothering to wait for her. 

“Is Kiko his girlfriend?” You whisper to Shoko.

“Hell no,” she bursts out laughing. “He basically has a harem following him around. Treats them like shit, but it seems to make them want him more. She’s his flavor of choice for the night I guess.” She rolls her eyes.

“I see,” you say awkwardly. You have always felt bad for girls in this situation. You had a friend in school that confessed to you that if she kept hooking up with a guy she liked, she thought he would eventually like her back. It hurt to watch her go through that, seeing her realize she would never be enough, always getting her hopes up to end up being let down again.

“I think I’m going to go to bed,” you stand up and stretch, suddenly exhausted from the day and eager for some alone time. 

“I’ll come by to grab you in the morning,” Shoko says as she jumps up to hug you. The boys also bid you good night as you leave the lounge area, entering the dim hallway. You make it back to your room, take a quick shower, and climb into bed. You pull a book out from your bookshelf and start to read, quickly falling asleep after reading just a few pages. 

***

Your first class is Math. Thank god because that’s your best subject anyways. Even though your technique didn’t develop until later, you still inherited a brain that could run insane numbers of calculations in your head. You’ve never had to worry about a math class before and you sure as hell weren’t going to now.

“Morning kiddo,” Gojo jokes with you as he takes a seat to your right. “First night in the new room everything you dreamed it would be?”

“Not going to lie it’s pretty nice to not have my parents banging down the door to wake up,” you laugh. Honestly you are enjoying this newfound freedom, you can really do what you want when you want.

The room slowly fills up as it gets closer to 8AM. The girls from last night, Kiko and her friends, roll in together, sitting across the room. Next a brunette girl with a scar on her nose walks in.

“Utahime!!” Gojo exclaims, “I saved you a seat!” She looks at him confused as there were no empty seats around him. 

“What are you talking about,” she rolls her eyes until she notices him patting his lap. “What the fuck is wrong with you???” She seethes with a blush on her face. 

“Wow how ungrateful,” Gojo feigns being offended and crosses his arms, looking away. She stomps off and sits two seats behind him. “She plays so hard to get, but I know she loves me,” Gojo whispers to you as Geto shakes his head, smirking. “Utahime you didn’t even introduce yourself to our new classmate!” Gojo turns around and yells, clearly enjoying tormenting her as her blush deepens.

You wave, smiling slightly with an apologetic grin. She cracks a smile back, compassion in her eyes. “Poor girl having to sit next to you on her first day,” she retorts at him, causing the class to laugh. 

“You are so mean,” Gojo places a hand on his chest with a look of pain on his face. This guy was so theatrical, you can’t help but join in the laughter. 

The door bangs open again and this time Sukuna storms in.You can’t possibly imagine what turned him into a tornado at 8 in the morning but you decide to ignore it. A few girls try to get his attention, obviously wanting him to sit with them, but he turns up your aisle and sulks to the back row. You lock eyes for a second as he bounds past you to sit next to Toji. 

“Sukuna, why don’t you sit with me?” Kiko gets up and walks over to his desk.

“Shut up, I'm sitting over here. You go back over there, you’ll know if I want you around,” he scoffs without even looking at her. You are taken aback at his audacity, cringing at his harsh words. 

Her eyes look hurt as she makes her way back over to her friends. The guy is such an asshole holy shit. As little as you can interact with him the better.

Your teacher comes in and settles everyone down. He passes out a quiz you didn’t know about since you started at school late, but he tells you to just do your best and you won’t be penalized. 

You look over the quiz, realizing that the problems aren’t that challenging. Thank god for your nerd brain, you chuckle internally. You finish with about 20 minutes to spare, waiting until your teacher calls for time. 

“Pass your quiz to the person 2 rows up to you, and we will go through and grade each other's work,” your teacher says. You notice Sukuna at your side, thrusting his papers into your face wordlessly. You take them without speaking, waiting for him to move so you can walk up to hand off your work. He’s looking down at you almost expectantly.

“What?” You give him a challenging look. 

“Nothing, was just looking at what answers your dumbass had on there.”

You snort in response, eliciting a sneer from him. “I’m not worried about it, I know I did well,” you retort, causing his glare to penetrate you even more. 

“Hmph,” he growls as he snatches your work and walks it up two rows for you. 

What the fuck is his problem? Unless he’s ultra competitive you have no idea what you did to elicit this response. Whatever, you get your red pen out as your teacher starts reading off the answers. 

Sukuna ends with a 95, missing just one. So he must be pretty smart behind that dickhead facade. You get up and walk back to where he’s sitting, handing him the quiz. “Good job,” you say with a straight face and proceed to walk back to your seat, not bothering to wait for a response. You sit back down and see your quiz face up on your desk with a 100 on it. Yes! You knew you would crush it, and scoring higher than him was weirdly satisfying. 

Your teacher collects everything, looking over the quizzes quickly. “Well looks like we have one perfect score, congrats!” he beams at you, the unwanted attention making you shrink away. Can we not on the first day?

You hear Sukuna scoff behind you. Serves him right.

“Ayye Sukuna, how does it feel to be second best,” Gojo teases from a few rows up. You look back at him and notice his jaw is tensing up, eyes shooting daggers back in the direction of Gojo. Aww poor thing must be used to being the best at everything you figure, not anymore.

“Shut the fuck up loser,” he barks back, “bet you couldn’t even muster more than a 70.” You giggle which causes Sukuna’s anger to now be directed at you. “Don’t know what you think you’re laughing at.”

You make a face at him as you meet his gaze, “imagine getting enraged over a math quiz, a glorified piece of paper,” you dig at him, noticing his fists clench on his desk. Then you turn around, not intent on letting this angsty man child get under your skin and not allowing him a chance to counter. Your friends laugh at your comment.

Everyone around you congratulates you on your perfect score. You notice Utahime leading the charge on roasting Gojo for his subpar performance. He responds that she could help him study anytime, to which she angrily throws a pencil at his head. Those two are hilarious. 

You come to find out the school schedule here is much more chill than your traditional school. You do two one hour classes in the morning, then a break from 10-1. Then you have combat class from 1-3. 

Shoko and Utahime lead you to the cafeteria for lunch, both chatting about combat class. “So what happens in combat class?” You ask.

“For us support students, you get paired up with a combat student for 2 hours every other day so that they can teach us simple combat. While we are just support, it’s good to know some skills just in case,” Shoko explains as she shovels rice into her mouth. “The pairings are already set, so I’m not sure what they will do with you. Maybe you can come with me and Toji. A few times a month, you go on missions with your partner. They are usually super simple though, so we can practice. Like grade 4 and lower curses.” 

You are pretty excited for this part. Even though you had no interest in extreme combat, learning a few moves would make you feel more confident. You three finish your food and make your way towards the training grounds for your afternoon session. 

The training grounds were a ways from the classroom buildings, you assume to prevent damage from rogue attacks. The grounds remind you of a sports field with a track around a grassy flat area. Everyone is gathered on the bleachers chatting, getting their tools and gear in place.

Principal Yaga looks to be supervising this. You approach him to see if he has any feedback for who you will be partnered with. “Come with me,” he says bluntly as he walks towards the bleachers. “Sukuna, get over here,” he barks up at him.

No. Please god no. Anyone but him. 

“I’ll be pairing you with Sukuna as he’s the only one without a partner. I trust that you will figure out a way to work together. Sukuna is a very strong sorcerer, I have no doubt about his knowledge and skill. However, beware of his attitude and let me know if he becomes too much.” 

Sukuna slowly saunters up to you both, a bored look in his eyes and his hands shoved into his pockets. “Sukuna, you will be partnered up with her,” Yaga states.

“Are you fucking serious!! I don’t want to have to deal with this underling of a support student. It’s not worth my time to train these losers,” he yells, having a full blown tantrum at this point.

Your stomach lurches as you hear this. You are mortified as people start to stare at the commotion. Sukunas eyes are brimming with rage as he glares at Yaga, his fists balled up as if he might attempt to pummel the man. 

“You watch your tone with me,” Yaga steps forward, his face inches from Sukuna’s. You feel the heaviness of the air emanating from them as they stare into each other's eyes. Sukuna backs down first, storming away. What an insufferable human. 

“Alright partner up,” Yaga yells to quiet the group’s murmurs. You see people start to pair off, most everyone being friendly with each other. You slowly walk toward Sukuna, almost terrified of what’s to come. He looks so angry.

“Um hey Sukuna,” you say as you cautiously approach him on the bleachers. He’s sitting down on the metal seat, his back and shoulders resting on the row above, legs spread with his feet on the ground. His eyes are closed but you aren’t sure what that actually means.

“What brat?” he snaps at you, crossing his arms, eyes now slits as he glares up at you.

“Um, so are we going to do some training orrrr…” you trail off, noticing he isn’t paying attention at all. 

Grade A asshole behavior right here. 

“Do you honestly think I want anything to do with training you? Your pathetic support role is not worth my time. Why would I train someone who won’t even contribute to jujutsu society in a meaningful way? You’ll probably just die.” His fingers are digging into the metal of the bleachers and his jaw is clenching as he grits his teeth in a scowl.

This guy. Unreal. You decide to try a different approach. “Why don’t we just fight then, no training, we just see what happens.” Probably not the best idea, but you are sick of his bad attitude and just want to get this over with.

Sukuna seems to perk up at that. No doubt it sounds appealing to beat up on you. You don’t know anything about fighting, but you would hope he wouldn’t just obliterate you on the spot, it’s just practice after all.

“I’m going to make you regret suggesting that,” he says in a gravelly voice as he jumps up, rolling his shoulders back a few times and cracking his neck. He tilts his head to the side towards an open area on the edge of the training grounds, letting you walk in front of him as he follows from behind. Being so close to him, you realize he is massive, both tall and muscular. You start to get nervous, he could really fuck you up. Around you, pairs of students are casually sparring, giving each other tips and moves to practice. 

You turn around and face him. He’s leaning back a bit with his hands in his pockets, a menacing smirk appearing on his face as he rolls up his sleeves, revealing tattoos on his wrists and up his arms. You swear his nails turn into claws and his hair gets extra spiked, eyes reddening a bit. He looks a little scary now.

“I’m waiting brat,” he breaks the silence. You swallow nervously, sizing him up. This is a mistake, but no backing down now you guess. You gather up the courage to launch yourself at him, closing the gap, not really sure what you are going to do. You wind up, planning to land a punch on him. He dodges easily, hands back in his pockets. You pivot on your right foot, swinging a left hook at him that he easily dodges again. 

“What a joke” he mutters. Suddenly he grabs your wrist with his claws, making you squeak in pain as he draws blood, pulling you close to him. He grabs your shirt collar by the other hand, hoisting you up so your gaze is even with his. 

“Truly pathetic,” he growls, his hot breath on your face. Blood is running down your arm, the pain stinging now. You aim your knee at his stomach and push with all your might. His stomach feels like concrete as your knee collides with him, probably hurting you more than him. 

Fuck. This is pitiful. Sukuna seems surprised that you would attempt such a move. An annoyed look creeps across his face, his eyes turning a deeper shade of red. He releases your wrist and delivers a crushing blow to your stomach as you swear you hear something crack. You practically vomit with how much spit leaves your mouth as he knocks the wind out of you, feeling yourself go airborne across the open area. Crashing to the ground, your arms are cut up by the stones and dirt. Fuck, you can barely move, it feels like your entire stomach has been turned inside out, the pain almost blinding.

He’s quickly back in front of you again. How did he even move that fast? He picks you up by the back of your shirt, a sadistic grin plastered on his face. “Tired already? You are truly weaker than I could have imagined.” You spit in his face in response, your eyes and face contorted in anger. Terrible idea, the look on his face looks more unhinged than you’ve ever seen someone. He grabs your neck with his claws, feeling them stab through your skin as he slams you on your back into the earth. Your entire body recoils with the impact, hardly able to breathe as your lungs are practically rendered unusable. 

Sukuna leans down so his face is inches from yours, “what a worthless girl, you’d be better off if I just kill you right now.” He shoves you further into the earth one more time, stands up, and starts walking away, hands back in his pockets. 

Even though your whole body could collapse, you are infuriated. How dare he? God you want to fuck him up so bad. You slowly pull yourself up, feeling cursed energy rampaging through your body. Almost on instinct and in the blink of an eye, you can sense the earth beneath you, energy finding the pores of the soil, then sensing his footsteps and the microscopic voids of his shoes. Your brain performs a calculation, the weight of him times acceleration due to gravity compared to the force pushing up from the earth. Suddenly you feel your energy harden and bond his feet to the earth. Your technique floods into the pores of his skin, locking his feet, then legs, and rest of his body from moving. Everything happens in seconds. You feel your energy pool in your legs as you launch yourself at him, punching him as hard as you can in the mouth. 

You hear and feel your knuckles crack as they collide with his mouth, his lip exploding in blood as you connect with his mouth. 

“Ouch!!” You cry out as you are sure you shattered the bones in your hand. Meanwhile he is shocked, but unable to move. His eyes widen in surprise, processing what happened in the mere seconds that have passed. You feel smug seeing the look on his face. Suddenly your stomach lurches and you throw up, falling to your knees at his feet. Why am I so light headed? You try to get your bearings as your vision goes blurry. You try to stand back up, but darkness overtakes you as Sukuna’s feet are the last thing you see.

Chapter 1

Masterlist

[foreststarflaime]

Helloooo I saw greek and decided to dive in to see if I could dig up any other juicy details hehehe <3

So setting aside the α- for a moment, because the λύσσα seems more relevant. Also I just want to examine what exactly we’re negating with that a-.

Lussa (alternative spelling of lyssa, υ can often be transliterated as u or y, I’m just using the u version because habit) does mean madness or rage, but since words never translate exactly across languages examining the context they’re used in can help you get a better idea of the specific nuances of how the word can be used. In homeric contexts (the Iliad), it’s used pretty much exclusively to mean a martial sort of rage or frenzy, still with that undertone of madness but used to describe warriors fighting aggressively. (Important sidenote: this is not the same word used to describe Achilles’ wrath in the opening of the poem, that’s menin μηνιν.)

This is…very Sephiroth. Yeahhh. I think it’s safe to say that if the Nibelheim Incident was a Greek epic, they would have used the word lussa to describe what he was doing.

Also, a few of the other possible translations the dictionary I was using suggests (in specific contexts, see below) include fanaticism and raging love. Seph obsessing over Jenova? Is that you?

But wait, there’s more! Because this is Greek, of course there’s a personified version of Lussa as a goddess (!! goddess feminine not masculine! fits the theming for sure)! And the story she’s mainly involved in is also…very Sephiroth. Enter Euripides’ Herakles (the greek way to spell it, Hercules is actually the romanized way, fun fact).

Starting off strong, Lussa introduces herself as the progeny of Night and the Sky, notably not of Gaia (the Earth). Not beating the Jenova allegations here. She is the one who (is sent unwillingly by Hera to) inspire this sort of martial madness into Heracles, causing him to suddenly slaughter a whole bunch of innocents (his entire family). Also, notably, while the chorus is describing Heracles’ maddened rage, they use a lot of snake imagery. Yknow. Like Seph’s snake eyes. Rip Nibelheim I mean Heracles’ family. Also interesting to note that Hera is so against Heracles because of his birthright (ie that he is a son of Zeus out of wedlock)—doomed because of your parentage king? Hm sounds familiar

Yeah insane Sephiroth is very Heracles coded and Lussa is very Jenova.

And then Alissa just tacks on the a- at the beginning and expects us not to notice anything is wrong. Yeahhh that’s not gonna cut it for me. PURPLE SUS. Greeeat disguise there, we totally didn’t allll see through it right away.

Even if she doesn’t turn out to be Jenova or a related eldritch horror, she’s definitely being set up to be a parallel as things look right now. And her name is…definitely backing that up.

LSJ dictionary entry if anyone is curious though it’s probably not that easy to understand with all the abbreviations

Who knows if they’re doing this on purpose or not. Either way I enjoy digging way too far into parallels

Hmmmm. Okay, about the name Alissa — I know we delved into the basic etymology but this is interesting, hear me out….

Alissa/Alyssa….if derived from the Alyssum flower…a flower that is famously often purple…

And it specifically is a sweet, alluring flower that symbolizes this “worth beyond beauty” and “without madness” effect….

“Lyssa” itself means rage or madness….but the full name is against those emotions…almost like a soothing spell….

Alissa. Alyssum. The flower that protects against madness and rage, huh.

[barlowstreet]

I just thought of something kind of awful.

Ellie is kidnapped by a group of people, locked up, and isolated while scared out of her mind. Then the leader of that group comes in and talks to her like she's an adult. They tell her they're the reason she wasn't killed by their group and she should be grateful for that. They bring up someone she cares about and make her feel guilty about them getting hurt. They tell her that she's special and that other people aren't like her, and they ask her to do something for them they think only she can do. They don't give her a choice in the matter, really.

Who am I talking about?

Marlene or David?

[curelore]

I started getting that animated perfume commercial on videos I watch again and it made me want to make a side-by-side of that next to Blossom's transformation sequence in Heartcatch (￣▽￣)

I feel like it might've been inspired by that or other Precure/magical girl media, there's no way it wasn't!

[lena-thinks-too-much]

can we talk about how Tim meets himself as gun batman who's entire philosophy is that sometimes you have to take extreme measures and the only way to stop crime is to kill. And then literally a few months later Jason shows up and the red hood operates on the exact same philosophy but in a more morally ambiguous way (re: not being a facist dictator tyrant)