#i made this a little over a month ago and it’s still relevant actually

[loveheartzz]

[jonathanrook]

can i bitch for a second

[kaurwreck]

My actual presumption re: Akutagawa's knightliness and amnesia is that Bram and Akutagawa are sharing a skinsuit, consequently weaving their consciousnesses into the most gothic twink the modern mind is capable of conceiving. (You might assume adding Poe or Percy Shelley would make for a more gothic twink, but the addition of either would destabilize the whole twink, and it would either become immediately beset with late stage rabies or it would drown itself within moments of its wretched birth).

Akutagawa is not entirely Akutagawa. The armor looks decidedly more draconic in the teaser we received at the end of S5, wherein Akutagawa seems to have wholly returned to Atsushi's side— fulfilling Shibusawa's climactic fight comment in Dead Apple that the dragon and tiger deserve each other— in time for the overarching climax.

(That's why I think Fyodor set Shibusawa on Atsushi— he mistook Shibusawa for the dragon that would engage with the tiger, creating a singularity that is the "book" insofar as the book exists. Really, it's a white hole that connects realities, either metaphorically or literally. Or, so I think.)

So, Akutagawa has not yet actualized into the dragon that his rivalry with Atsushi has allowed him to cultivate into over the course of the story, but he's very close. He's also too much of a knight right now, which is Bram's role— Akutagawa was always a rook. Even where Akutagawa is protective, he is not chivalrous or knightly, and his protectiveness does not arise from ordainment or ritual oaths of public service but from the individual promises he's made to others and his city. He also doesn't remember Atsushi. Bram, meanwhile, is nobility with vassals to protect, empowered by the princess to whom he swore fealty with the weight of his ordained station. He also has never met Atsushi.

However, this knightly Akutagawa is not all Bram either. His precise, clipped, and cutting speaking pattern slips between Bram's romantic, archaic denouncements. Akutagawa recalls his own words from his first appearance. He appeared where he was needed most, and he's remaining true to his promises. Rashomon responds to him. Akutagawa is very much there, but insofar as he's backseat driving, Bram has the firmer grip on the wheel.

Notably, knight!Akutagawa seemingly quotes the Kolbrin Bible, after which the chapter is named, which is something of a conspiracy theorist's secular bible that mashes together Celtic and Druid mysticism, Judaism and Egyptology. Allegedly, it's a manuscript written 3,600 years ago that was translated between WW1 and WW2. There is no evidence that any of this is true— it was most likely produced in the 90s, based on its very anachronistic language.

I fucking hate contemporary occultism, I tried to dismiss the Kolbrin Bible as the relevant reference, but I haven't yet found anything more likely (although the day is young). There's some foundation for referencing an esoteric occult publication: the somewhat notorious founder of theosophy, Helena Pavlovna Blavatsky, published a theosophical interpretation of Dostoevsky months after his death; spiritualism absolutely influenced fiction and sci-fi; WB Yeats and George William Russell (luminaries of modern Irish literature) were involved with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and their works were shaped by their interests in mysticism and the occult. More saliently, Bram Stoker corresponded with prominent occultists and harbored a tempered "writer's interest" in the occult. I am not getting into Houdini's former friend's interest in spiritualism because I hate him, and thinking about him makes me spit bile, but he's another prominent example.

So, there's cause for the reference, and, maybe this sort of text feels right for bsd, which is also an anachronistic alternative history that's mashing together a whole lot of eastern and western influences with little regard for propriety. I'm still not pleased with it, and I hope my shallow look into the imagery from this most recent chapter led me into the enshittified part of the surface web. But, there are some apparent threads worth exploring.

Prior to Akutagawa name dropping the Harbor of Sorrow, Fyodor seemingly also references the Kolbrin Bible (which is, to mirror Fyodor's language below, an imitation religious text):

"The Harbour of Sorrow we leave behind and with four ships sail towards the sunsetting."

At first, I thought the setting sun imagery in Fyodor's exposition was an uncharacteristically blunt reference to Dazai Osamu's novel, but the setting sun in the Kolbrin Bible seems more likely, since in the latter there is an intentional journey towards the setting sun, while the setting sun in Dazai Osamu's novel reflects an aristocratic family's necrotizing decline.

The Harbour of Sorrow in the Kolbrin Bible is described thusly:

They came to the Harbour of Sorrow, which lies by the Hazy Sea, away from the Land of Mists. There great trees grew and smaller trees upon them, and moss hung from them like door curtains. It lay near the great shallow waters South of the Isle of Hawhige and North of the Sea Pass. Green pearls are found there. Many died in the Harbour of Sorrow, for it was a place with a curse upon it, which caused an evil sickness. The Sons of Fire came with Hoskiah and saved them, and they came to this place and built a city.

(I can't help but acknowledge that the character for "Asagiri" in Kafka Asagiri refers to morning mist.)

In modern Western mysticism, "sons of fire" could mean a few different things, but in this context, I'm inclined towards the epithet for Western spiritualists' bastardization of sage kings— "divine" teachers. It may also reference Aaron's sons in the Bible, who were killed by Moses after they committed a profane act before God. As a reminder, shortly before stabilizing Yokohama in collaboration with Mori, Taneda, and Natsume, Fukuzawa either participated in or permitted acts that appear to have been assassinations to facilitate Japan's withdrawal from the Great War, which engendered in him self loathing and shame and shattered his relationship with four others.

(As an aside, I don't actually think Fukuzawa assassinated anyone, or was an assassin by trade— the five swords of Japan are a specific reference to five swords and their mythologies, and I think he must have been the ceremonial purification sword that was never meant to be sharp. It was meant to cut only evil. I think he allowed something to happen that violated oaths he made, so he exiled himself like a ronin who killed his master. The only reason we think he killed anyone, despite Ranpo acknowledging Fukuzawa wasn't an assassin in Untold Origins, is because the Decay of Angel fed "evidence" to the government officials who Nikolai later killed to incite them into pursuing the Agency— there is nothing suggesting that evidence has any merit, and much suggesting it's falsified. This is why I always say not to rely on the bsd wiki— it tends to take these things at face value and doesn't qualify unreliable information.)

Anyway! There are other threads to connect the text above to bsd, including the foreigners present in Yokohama and the Kolbrin Bible's British Isles settings and US + UK modern mysticism. But, to move on to other passages connected to the Harbor of Sorrow.

“When some of us came from the Harbour of Sorrow, we were full of praise at our deliverance from death, but amid the forests of fruitfulness, much of our gratitude and will was lost. Why must men always be better men in the face of disaster and in the midst of privation, than in the green fields of peace and plenty? Does this not answer the questions of many who ask why there is sorrow and suffering on Earth? Why is it the lot of men to struggle and suffer, if not to make better men?

...

"Many who are with us in the light will join us, and then we shall be stronger in arms and strengthened in belief. (Annotation: How few came!) Yet our destiny lies among the barbarians. They are fine, upright men endowed with courage, do not belittle their ways, but bring them into the light.

"Our city was not founded as a marketplace, a place for exchanging only the things of Earth. Neither did we come here as conquerors, but as men seeking refuge.

“My trusted ones, remember that the road of life is not smooth, neither is the way of survival a path of grass. The most needful thing for any people who wish to survive is self-discipline. Think less of gold and more of the iron which protects the gold. Remember, too, these words from the Book of Mithram, The keenest sword is useless unless it be held in the hand of a resolute man. Also, the man who has gold keeps it in peace if he tends his bowstring."

I have not read the Kolbrin Bible, I have immense distaste for modern occultism/spiritualism/mysticism outside of limited and carefully curated, contextualized slices of the same. I also don't make a habit of overly familiarizing myself with the British Isles. I don't have much frame of reference for interpreting the above.

But on a surface reading, the passages in the Kolbrin Bible that refer to the Harbor of Sorrow touch on similar-to-bsd themes of intentional community and finding purpose in protecting and cultivating the light in both the wake and the eve of immense darkness, and finding companionship in those who share your purpose and resolve no matter how differently they may approach the same.

Further, they both embrace that it's not about being golden, but protecting what is gold, which is Kyouka's core arc in Dead Apple as she transitions from trying to protect Atsushi as someone she considers untouched by the darkness within her, to realizing that Atsushi, too, has killed, and that her desire to use Demon Snow to protect those she loves isn't shameful or a betrayal of her mother's memory. This is something that I think the fandom often misunderstands about bsd— the light and dark do not exist in opposition, but in duality. The characters immersed in the dark do not need to be saved; the characters in the twilight have their reasons for finding purpose elsewhere, but that doesn't strip the love they had while in the dark. If anything, it makes it easier for them to realize that love was and still is there.

That interplay of light and dark (which is also the title of a Natsume Soseki novel) is where Akutagawa and Bram begin to melt most into one another. They have both been dehumanized, hated, and killed; rejected and stripped of dignity, robbed of those they loved by petty violence. Neither seeks to save anyone other than those to whom they've sworn to try, and they've both been reckless with who they've killed. Nevertheless, they love fiercely, and where their fear is defensive, their anger is avenging (Akutagawa's furious pursuit of the reckless murderers in 55 Minutes, the implication that Bram was fighting to protect his vassals when he was subdued as a calamity previously).

But they aren't evil. Evilness isn't a person, it's cowardice and weakness and fear. They've both grappled with the desire to succumb to their grief and their anger and their terror. But they struggle against those urges in themselves with fierce resolve.

It's the sort of resolve that Fyodor lacks. Fyodor, codependent on his dehumanization, claims that there's death in salvation only because he can't bear to keep living under the weight of humanity's rejection but is too weak and afraid of being alone to die without taking everyone else with him. Fyodor's disgusted by Atsushi's humanity and love because he sees in it what he's convinced himself he can never be afforded. But Bram and Akutagawa both have always had the certainty of love in their families, and then in Aya and in Higuchi.

There is no salvation in death or goodness; there is no sure path towards resolution or closure. There isn't any inherent meaning to our pain, and even those of us who live in relative peace are walking on a knife's edge over uncertainty and chaos. But, we can choose to accept love, and we can choose to love others. Isn't that a little bit wonderful?

[chaifootsteps]

The entirety of this following ramble is me bringing to attention a very specific moment in the history of Viv's interactions with her fan base and how that interaction itself reflected on her as an early but easily ignored warning sign of her tendencies and lack of self-restraint online to come. I have only ever seen one anon vaguely reference this incident in passing on your page some months ago, so I think that providing a more detailed account of the incident may actually be a really important look at Viv’s personality in the past that not enough people are aware of. Almost everyone and their dog knows about the "My name is Caine, I am your Bitch" incident from last year because the internet quickly saw, in mass, the way Viv composes herself online regarding opinionated content about her and her creative works. This reveal was important because thousands of people learned through more than a few twitter posts that Viv is not good at, ironically enough, "taking a joke". However, over a year prior to the MNIC drama was the drama around the delay announcement in June 2022 for episode 8 of season 1 of Helluva Boss: Within a day of the announcement, a relatively small youtuber made a live stream talking about their disappointment with the delay announcement, explaining that this delay announcement revealed that they had been waiting for months on an episode that wasn’t even directly relevant to the plot developments from the previous episode 7, and that Spindlehorse had not been providing a reasonable amount of previous communication with the fandom about the state of episode 8 when considering how Helluva Boss was a nearly entirely fan funded web series. 

And then Viv herself showed up in the youtuber's live stream chat.

I don't know if some fans informed Viv of the stream or if she found out about it herself, but what matters is that she started basically arguing with the youtuber via the chat about why the Spindlehorse team couldn't disclose the reason for the delay and that the youtuber wasn't giving the creative team enough credit for their attempts to prevent having to delay the episode’s release, along with stating how the creative team were themselves upset by the complications of the delay. When the youtuber stood firm on their disappointment with the lack of communication and how the fans can't be expected to know the details surrounding a situation they aren't told about, Viv basically admitted defeat and left the stream chat, her last comment being "Sorry for saying anything".

The next day, the youtuber made a follow up video summarizing the delay update, their feelings on it, Viv's comments from the stream, and a final remark towards the Spindlehorse creative team about the communication the youtuber felt Spindlehorse owed their audience. Within a few weeks, the youtuber had to delete the summary video due to the extreme amount of backlash and dogpiling they got by Helluverse fans for their opinions and how they stood firm towards Viv's comments. I know my description of the event has been fairly vague, but part of that is specifically because there is very little information available that this all even transpired because of how quickly the degree of harassment led to videos being deleted. I won't say the name of the youtuber for the sake of their anonymity, but they were decently known in the earlier days of the fandom because of the lore and theory videos they specifically made about the show, a show they had great admiration for. However, I still think it's important you know more specifically that this happened and why it matters since many people come to you asking about the complex timeline of Viv's behavior. Well, in June 2022, one incident in that timeline that barely any Helluverse fan knows about was that one time when Viv went onto the live stream of a small-scale but dedicated fan of her show, argued with the fan on their stream where everyone in the stream audience watching would be witness, criticized the fan for their behavior and how they spoke out on a literal lack of information in front of that entire stream audience, and then played the pity card as she signed off. If I had to explain what the point of all of this was, it's that I just wish this fandom (antis and stans included) knew more about that incident several months before the MNIC incident when Viv, who had significant influence over her fanbase of millions at that time, caused so much distress towards a small scale fan of her own shows for committing the apparent sin of stating their own opinion. Viv has refused to "not get involved" in online conversations both big and small for YEARS proceeding the MNIC shenanigans, and in this case in June 2022, that included her self-serving, ego-protecting involvement causing significant distress for what had previously been an extremely loyal fan of Viv's own work who was simply stating an opinion to whatever other fans wanted to hear it.

For anyone who's curious, there are actually screenshots of this happening.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for pretending to be friends with someone?

This happened a few months ago, but I'm starting to wonder if I was an asshole for it. I (14nb at the time) was very close to two people at my school. We'll call them Willow (14f) and Sasha (14nb, any pronouns). We had all become close friends individually the year before and over the summer, and we formed into a 3-person friend group that fall. About a month into this, Willow and Sasha started dating. I was a little bit jealous, both because I felt like a third wheel and because I had a small crush on Willow, but it wasn't strong enough to be significant, and I remained close friends with both of them.

However, over the next few months, Willow started doing things that I didn't like, including:

She paid much more attention to her other friend group than to me, and would only really talk to me if either they weren't around or Sasha was.

She frequently bragged about cutting people off for "her mental health", even when they hadn't done anything other than have their own problems and occasionally mention them in front of her.

She was petty and hated people for very small reasons (ex. they didn't say hi to her in the hallways once, so she convinced herself that they hated her guts), some of which were my close friends.

The final straw came when Willow told me not to talk to her about my problems at all, which could have been understandable except that A) my problems were things like "feeling sad about a breakup", while she would frequently message me and Sasha to tell us that she was suicidal or having an eating disorder relapse, and B) she had told me several times before that I could tell her anything.

I was offended by this, and over the course of the month, decided that I no longer liked her and didn't care about her as a person. I kept this information under wraps, only talking about it to 2 trusted friends, one of which we'll call Noah (14m). Noah agreed with me that Willow was selfish and ranted with me about how much she sucked.

Here's where I might be TA. I didn't tell Willow about any of these feelings and stayed friends with her for the rest of that school year, because I was still close with Sasha and didn't want to make them choose between us. We also sat together in a few classes, and I thought it would be awkward if she knew I didn't like her. I had no plans on maintaining that friendship after she and Sasha broke up, but I wanted to remain civil until then.

However, later that year Noah and I had a falling-out for unrelated reasons, and he became friends with Willow at the beginning of the next school year. While I don't know for sure that it was him who told her, I know that Willow was talking to me and being nice to me up until she started hanging out with him, when she became completely cold and stopped acknowledging my existence. She was still dating Sasha at this point, so I wasn't ready to formally cut her off and explain why yet, but Noah got there before I was ready. I will stress that I didn't tell anyone at our school except Noah and another close friend, and I only did that because they hated Willow too and in fact encouraged me to cut her off long before I actually decided to.

I don't regret no longer being friends with Willow, but I do feel like I might have been TA for keeping up the act for so long and for never telling her why I didn't like her anymore.

(One final piece of information that didn't fit in anywhere but that might be relevant: other mutual friends of mine and Sasha's also didn't like Willow and were more open about it, and Sasha complained a lot about how that made things harder for them, so I had reason to believe that it might be better for Sasha if I played nice with Willow)

What are these acronyms?

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

We do this not because it is easy...

...but because we thought it would be easy.

It's been a while, and I need to put out a blog post or I'm going to go insane. This post was meant to be "Species Highlight - Sepia", which is still sitting in my drafts half finished. Instead, this is going to be a post about burnout and some not-quite-finished things I've been cycling between for Prima Materia. If there's one thing you take away from this post, let it be that you need to take care of yourself and take breaks. You need to rest or your body and mind will force you to rest and it won't be fun.

Last time I made a blog post, I promised that you would get the Sepia, and barring that I was sure that I would be able to get my "next experiment" up and running by the time the week was out. It turns out, I was very wrong. The experiment in question was an attempt to try and write mechanics relevant to the kind of adventures I wanted to see in Prima Materia. This entails actually writing a module, then seeing what mechanics it would require and writing those mechanics. I figured I'd churn out three modules that were intended to run for 3 sessions each, and start playtesting. To probably no one's surprise who's ever done the insane amount of work it takes to write a module that can be run by another human being, this hasn't worked.

The first module is currently unfinished, and I am still excited about it and want to finish it; however I ran into burnout while writing it over the course of a few weeks because I agonized about it not getting done and agonized when I was writing it because I was tired of writing the same thing. I then ran into several life snags that haven't allowed me to work on it. I won't go into details of my personal life here but suffice to say stress has been high and time has been relatively short. Add burnout into this and you have a recipe for not even thinking about Prima Materia for a month and some change.

So, in order to get back into the groove of trying to write, I decided to be a little self serving and write a part of the setting that I wanted to write right then because I finally got hit with the inspiration beam again. This bit of writing will have no relevance to anything for probably years down the line in this project, but it's fun and interesting to me so it served as a wonderful tool for diving back in. I will share with you the little blurb that I wrote about a planet that exists in the setting, though it is hardly even a first draft so much as a note. Names are placeholders and everything here is subject to change.

Ternaki Log(?) World: Carcosa; cold eyeball planet orbiting a red dwarf Carcosa is a planet engineered by the "Architects," a group of aliens that were active between three and four billion years ago. They left a beacon in orbit of the planet that tells us this planet is called "Carcosa" and was the work of an individual named "Hastur." Dating methods used on the beacon and ice core samples taken from the cold side of the planet reveal that this was likely one of Hastur's later works. The planet's crust is comprised of mostly water ice and water, which experiences varying degrees of tectonic activity. A circular portion on the day side is hot enough for this water ice to melt, resulting in the usually hidden subsurface ocean to be visible. In this melted portion there are a few rocky continents and a number of hot spots resulting in island chains and active volcanism. The continental portions are home to several forms of native life, mostly plant-like in nature. Native life on Carcosa has signature markers placed by Architect gene weavers, and share genetic similarities with several nearby planetary biospheres which are unrelated to each other. The native plants can be divided into two categories that use either red or blue pigment in photosynthesis. Animals on Carcosa are wildly varied, but due to the high gravity of the planet most are either very small or very robust. There is one native sapient species on the planet that boasts several civilizations; many of which use bronze tools. In modern times, Carcosa has been designated as a resort planet / nature preserve with several island chains being co-opted for resort use, and is listed as one of the 7 ancient wonders of the galaxy in several major periodicals. The planet is managed by a satellite station in orbit of the planet, which has been in place for several centuries.

The joke here is I saw the meme about the flat earth ice wall planet actually existing (specifically this planet spied by JWST) and decided to make something like it in Prima Materia.

So what's the current project?

When approaching everything again, I came face to face with more design decisions I made in the past that didn't mesh well with what I want Prima Materia to be. Namely, I don't want there to be a class system in the game for several reasons, but there are two main reasons. Firstly, because I want player characters to be able to learn whatever the character would be able to conceivably learn (within the bounds of the system, this isn't a simulation game). Secondly, while I want both vertical and horizontal progression, I want the progression to be more horizontal than it is vertical. I find that classes lend themselves more to vertical power systems and particularly power fantasies (at least when I write them). The profession system I have is just a class system I've been pretending isn't a class system because I cleverly called it something else. So, I've dissected the profession system because it was still in the early stages and divided up the parts to other systems, which made way for at least one new system (quirks of the soul) as well as trees of features that are specifically related to things like combat, medicine, or specific kinds of alchemy.

That was a lot of the word "system." In short, Prima Materia in my brain currently looks like a disassembled car, but I have a checklist to put it back together better than it was before. In fact, here's the checklist:

The checklist isn't finished (and some stuff may be removed or changed) but it has enough to keep me busy for a while, and enough where if I start getting burnt out on one part of the project I can switch gears and start writing other parts. Currently, I'm working on quirks of the soul (working title) and integrating that into the character creation system.

That module I talked about earlier will definitely be finished at some point, though that will happen after more of this checklist is done. I'd love to tell you more but.. Spoilers. All-in-all I'm considering the experiment with side by side module / mechanics development to be.. a teachable moment.

If you read this far, thank you very much for your interest! I need to spruce up the "Species Highlight - Sepia" post before getting it out but I hope to put it up before or on the 16th, @donutboxers art has languished in my drafts long enough it needs to be seen.

Tl;dr: I'm not dead and neither is Prima Materia.

[thefirstknife]

Sorry to dump this rant in your inbox but the community’s attitude this entire season has legit got me tilted to the point I ignore pretty much the entire community outside of tumblr and a few irl friends. A lot of it has been frustrations I’ve had since Lightfall dropped wrt acting like the story was dogshit bc it didn’t give all the answers.

I legit got so fed up with Byf’s whole “oh all this season of the deep lore should have been in Lightfall” stuff bc like. My guy. You were one of the biggest complainers about the seasons having zero lore or story relevance. Fucking pick one or the other. Either seasons are all filled bullshit or you’re gonna get cliffhangered and expected to have some damn patience for storylines to get picked back up over time in the seasons after the main campaign of an expansion is done.

Especially bc like. IMO anyone expecting anything not a cliffhanger from the end of Lightfall when we KNEW The Final Shape was coming after it was just setting themselves up for disappointment, you need big tension and shit like that before the final act and this way getting dripfed answers in the lead up feels less like we’re dicking around doing nothing useful for the entire year as we wait for TFS to drop. It legit felt like being a KH fan back when KH3 dropped who had payed attention and played all the games and knew wasn’t the end of the series, just the conclusion of an arc and anyone mad about the stuff left unfinished was being unreasonable when it was made pretty explicitly clear it would either be answered in the future bc this wasn’t the ending or had been answered ages ago and people just hadn’t bothered to pay attention to it. Lightfall was never going to have all the answers bc it wasn’t the ending, and Bungie has proven they’ll circle back around and answer questions and pick up story beats if you’d just have a little patience! I’ll agree it wasn’t done perfectly and could do with more focus on the Veil and less on Strand but come ON my guy!

Combine that with the general toxicity of non-story focused Destiny YouTubers, especially PvP only typesc about Destiny and the way their fans have behaved and I’m full on not watching Destiny content creators anymore. Genuinely never seen content creators who need to touch grass and maybe just. Take a break. I’m not saying Lightfall was perfect or that Bungie hasn’t fucked up but I’m honestly just. Extremely fucking tired of how the community outside of tumblr has reacted to everything. And I’m especially sick of crybaby crucibros being obnoxious. Much as I don’t actually think it’d be at all good for the game there’s a part of me that thinks the idea of them splitting PvP stuff and PvE stuff into separate Destiny games in the future might have some merit to it purely so those of us who just want to explore and enjoy the story in peace can never bother with them again

Go off, honestly. So true. I've felt the same and I've pretty much not watched any Destiny youtube content in months. I started a few of them, but then stopped because of how utterly annoying and just plain wrong they were. The Lightfall situation is such a shitshow, not because of Bungie or the expansion itself, but because I genuinely believe that Destiny is above the reading level of most gamers.

Obviously, I still have some issues with how some stuff was handled, just as you do. Literally nobody is saying that everything in Lightfall was perfect. And I extend that to all expansions btw. Every expansion had faults. None of them are perfect. I think Lightfall's mysterious storytelling could've been a little bit clearer. And make no mistake, Lightfall WAS clear that nobody knows about the Veil, it just wasn't as clear as it could've been. Nothing would've really changed about the mystery if this was made more obvious earlier on in the campaign.

But dear lord, the bullshit around it is so tiring. I get it. I was confused at first too. I even posted here that I found certain things not as good and that they made me a little annoyed! And like that's fine! Your first impressions are your first impressions. But please move on. Are you seriously deciding everything based on first impressions? Do you never look into things and see if maybe there were things you missed or were wrong about? Like, it's okay to be confused at first and then realise later that you missed things. That's how learning works.

And yeah, the whole "everything should've been in Lightfall's campaign right away" is not only annoying because of the stuff you said, it's also annoying because it ignores that there's too much content to fit inside of a single campaign and also that this content has a theme. The campaign is a self-contained story with a theme and a plot (and the plot is NOT "learn what the Veil is." The plot of Lightfall is "stop Calus and the Witness from destroying Neomuna" which has concluded perfectly well in the campaign). Post-campaign stuff, the Witness cutscene and the Veil Logs are all things that don't fit thematically with the high action 80s movie story about protecting a city from destruction. These things were deliberately spread out through the year to give us multiple stories to follow while we wait for TFS. It's a live service game. You're here for the whole year. And it's fine if that's not the storytelling type you like. It's fine! That doesn't mean the story is objectively bad.

But yeah, agreed with what you said. It helps to vent! There's definitely people out there who are in the same situation and who just want to enjoy the game as usual and not having to deal with crybabies who make the whole experience absolutely miserable and make it impossible to engage with anything. Luckily, there's also always people who are still engaging with the game normally. We like the game and we like engaging with the game. And when I stop liking it, I'll just stop engaging with it. I wish other people could do the same.

[jadetheblueartist]

hey :) how did you know and/or find out you were autistic?

Thanks for the question, anon!

Now, some of this stuff may not be relevant, but I’ll just take you through it anyway (in case we are the exact same person or something hahaha).

The very first time I ever really heard of autism was several years ago when I was talking to my mom about something that happened in my brain. I was like, “Yeah, so when I think of the number seven, I see green.” And she was like “Oh, really?” and then went on little thing about how she was pretty sure this was a symptom of something that geniuses had (I now know she was literally referencing synesthesia [“when your brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to experience more than one sense simultaneously” -Cleveland Clinic] and Sheldon Cooper hahaha). While I believe there is a correlation with synesthesia and autism, synesthesia is not part of the diagnostic material and would not be used as “evidence.”

The next thing was about a year ago. I was on Pinterest taking random quizzes, as you do, and I stumbled upon an autism quiz. So I, not really knowing what autism was, was like ooh yay another quiz. So I took it and it said I had moderate autistic traits. So I was like oh interesting and told my therapist this. Therapist was like, “ummmm okay maybe… but that is a single random quiz from Pinterest. It’s probably just social anxiety.” So I was like oh yeah okay and then moved on.

A few months after that, I was on Pinterest again and scrolling through some My Hero Academia stuff when I saw this list of reasons why they headcanonned Midoriya as autistic. So I was like, “Um. That’s what autism is? That just kinda sounds like me…” so I saved it because it was cool and scrolled down to related pins. Then I found a list as to why that person headcannoned Aoyama as autistic. So again, I read through and was like “… guys this is just me.” That is what sprung the deep dive. For the next several days I did literally nothing but watch all of the videos I could find of autistic people explaining their experiences, traits of autism, autistic masking, video essays of why rottmnt donnie is great autism representation, etc. I simultaneously wrote down every single thing I related to on a massive list. Then I got to my next therapy session. I spent the whole hour presenting as much of the information I could, and by the end, Therapist was like “hmmm, well I don’t really do diagnoses so I’m not super familiar with this. But we can go over the DSM-5 breakdown next week if you want.” So I was like, yes of course, and began prepping more.

In that week, I did some reflecting on my childhood and asking my family about my childhood (since I don’t have too many memories). Then I made a list of all of the childhood things that could be autistic traits (example: I spent all of my weekends researching ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen, lining up all of my brothers action figures for hours, I couldn’t stand the feeling of a super soft blanket on my hands or feet, etc). (Also at this time, I told my best friend about it and she was like “hahaha what do you mean? You’re too smart for that” so you can be autistic and have good grades? You can also be autistic and have bad grades bc they are not mutually exclusive :D anyway back to the main chunk) Icame back to therapy prepared and ready to go and we went through the criteria. At the end, therapist was like, “I can’t diagnose you, however, you do fit all of the diagnostic criteria” and I was like “ahhhh sick I knew it.”

So then I was like “Hey, Mom and Dad, I’m almost 100% percent sure I am autistic but I would like to get an official diagnosis. What do you think about that?” I wanted a diagnosis mainly to combat the gosh darn imposter syndrome (it kind of helps but the imposter syndrome is still there!! Ahhhhhh /lh) And since neither of them had any actual clue about autism, they were confused and not sure about it. I got them to agree by appealing to their practical side and said an official diagnosis could help me get job accommodations if I needed it. Plus it’s a lot easier to do it before you become an adult, so I should figure it out soon. Eventually they agreed and we got the ball rolling.

I was super excited bc everything said that the whole diagnosis process generally takes up to two years, but our doctor got us an appointment in a few weeks. Come to find out, he was just making sure we had any sort of valid reason so he could refer us somewhere to get the diagnosis. That was a bit of a bummer but it was still chill. We eventually got an appointment with this one place that actually diagnosed and again I was excited.

We went in for the initial appointment to figure out scheduling bc I had to do a few different appointments in total. The lady that would be administering the testing was about to leave that practice in a few months though (this was in November and she was leaving at the end of December). But she said she wanted to get it done herself so she just got us in quickly. We also somehow managed to finish what should’ve been a few hours long testing in an hour so I guess I’m just really good at autism hahaha (it’s probably bc we did the paperwork tests outside of the appointment).

Then in early January (she had already left by then but gave the report to someone else) we got the results, and I got my official autism diagnosis. It was a good day ^^

So yeah that’s basically my whole story. If you wanted me to go more into detail with anything like a DSM-5 criteria breakdown or something I would be more than happy to :))))) autism is a special interest of mine, after all.

This was really fun, Anon! Thanks so much for the ask and feel free to ask anything else you are curious about ^^

[anons-has-hlvrai-aus]

The Metamorphosis of Gordon Freeman [Chapter 5]

Things Left Unsaid

Chapter 1 | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Summary: Benrey and Forzen catch up on some things.

Word Count: 4,575

Ao3 Version Link

Notes: I posted the Ao3 version of this chapter on my Birthday! In other news, this isn’t a very long chapter, but it was absolutely a tough one to write as it’s the first chapter entirely from Benrey’s perspective. I wanted to get a heavier stream of consciousness with Benrey when compared to Gordon, so hopefully it shows.

Benrey hadn’t had to carry multiple people in a long time. And by a long time, what he really meant was…ever. The only two people he had ever taken as a passenger for no-clipping was Tommy and Forzen, and even then it had never been both at the same time. He knew his limits though, and he knew for a fact that he could carry the whole Science Team multiple times over if he wanted to with a little pro gamer strat called “growing extra arms.”

So really, carrying two bootboys from Gordon’s home to a location on the other side of town was pretty easy; he could pick up Forzen’s smell pretty well after years of familiarity, all he had to do was follow it and confirm that it was the right location.

Easy squeezed Lemony Snickets.

Wait, no, easy squeezy lemon and peas?

Whatever, he would remember later.

It was very big lame for his brain to trip up so often in the memory department, even more so while also having a non-linear perception of time. His consciousness and the memories he would soon have a month from now could pop up into Benrey-From-Four-Years-Ago’s head and learn information that would be relevant to that Benrey but not retained for him. Likewise, Benrey-From-Six-Years-Ago could shove his consciousness into Benrey-From-Last-Week’s head and get to experience a tasty pigeon that the latter Benrey had been looking forward to and come back with that information. And sometimes, his consciousness would just silently “coexist” with himself from the other point in time as a viewer of whatever was happening.

This was one of those times where the third option was happening, and it wasn’t doing any favors for the Benrey that was still in Black Mesa.

There was little fun to be had with carrying around two friendly bootboys in two separate pairs of arms while simultaneously being shot down by bootboys in a bunch of dirty hallways and being in the middle of a big party that was taking place a few weeks from Right Now inside the bootboy house he hadn’t actually seen yet.

Well, if he was honest the party seemed to be very fun, but Party Time Benrey was about to have a drink or two so Right Now Benrey wasn’t gonna know how the rest of the party went until he became Party Time Benrey. Inebriation, tiredness and hunger were the “Big Three” when it came to status effects that kept Benrey stuck in the Right Now, or otherwise prevented Right Now Benrey from being able to experience that point in time.

There was also this thing with blue light that the scientists used to keep him at bay when they wanted to keep him somewhat immobile, but that counted as part of the tiredness category because…that’s what the blue light did, it made him tired, but like, in the sleepy kind of way. It didn’t last forever, eventually Benrey’s eyes would adjust to the funky wavelengths and he’d be back to his normal train of thought.

The first time he found out the effects wore off, he phased through about half the facility before being tranquilized so much he looked like a porcupine. He couldn’t even say it was unwarranted, they would need that much to contain Benrey Last-Name-Pending.

…

Damn, he should probably get a real last name soon.

He was pretty sure the passport offices in Black Mesa weren’t operational anymore, so he’d need to go through the application process for a new one, which required having a real last name and an address and a bunch of other stuff that Benrey definitely didn’t have. Most of that stuff could wait for later, for now he should just focus on the last name.

Although, Gordon did say that the Vonneguts were cool now, so maybe there was a way to get an alien passport? Benrey was definitely an alien, even if he didn’t look like it.

…

Wait, where was he going with this again?

Something about lemons and peas?

He was following Forzen’s scent, right? Where did lemons come into play?

And why did his arms hurt?

“Right there.” A voice said.

Startled, Benrey looked down. He was carrying not one but two guys right now from very high up, and had morphed an extra pair of arms to do so. One of them was a slightly muscular man with brown hair and a pretty slick handlebar mustache, the same kind Gordon had in Black Mesa (before he shaved everything except the goatee), and the other man kinda looked like a greasier version of his security guard coworkers.

“Huh?” He asked.

The greasy-haired, not-security-guy pointed at a small apartment complex that honestly looked a bit shit. There weren’t even any cars to indicate somebody was living there aside from a really long jeep in the main lot and a minivan parked on the opposite side of the building.

“Over there. That’s our party pad.”

Party? Party…houses…bootboys?

Right! He was dropping the bootboys off.

Benrey had gone and thonked so hard into the Tangent Zone that he’d lost track of the plot again.

‘Silly Benrey, such a silly guy.’ His brain teased.

“Party when?” He quietly asked aloud while carefully descending.

“Oh, we don’t actually party much.” The other, less greasy man said. “Adam just calls it that for funsies. But if you, my gorgeous friend, ARE interested in a party, perhaps we can convince the Shepards.”

“Aw hell yeah!” Benrey shouted, “And the Science Team can come too?”

“Of course they are! They’re cool! Don’t you worry your gorgeous face for even a moment!”

Adam looked at the other guy with an odd expression, although it probably just looked odd because Benrey was seeing it from above and at an angle. It was a smirk, but his eyes were squinted in a weird way. “Jackson, is there something you wanna share with-?”

“No.”

Benrey laughed. It felt like an appropriate time to laugh, even if he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to laugh about. It was a harsh, mischievous laugh, very similar to one he had uttered when he and Gordon first met.

It must have been the right call because the bootboys, thanks to their prompting he remembered they were Jackson and Adam, were also laughing now. Benrey could tell that he had clearly reached a friendship milestone with these guys. That was good, it had been a while since he’d met a bootboy he didn’t hate.

God, they were the worst, but only when they were, like, NPCs. Benrey hated the vast majority of the NPCs he had met in Black Mesa, so he was pretty thankful that they were mostly Coomer Clones or less hostile Bubby Prototypes…or particularly shitty security replicants. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some of those guys were his friends and he genuinely missed those ones, but a lot of the security guards he worked with were kinda lame and were mean to him for no reason. Besides Josh and J-Jefferemm, most of the replicants were just as bad if not worse than the scientists when it came to their meanness.

So what if Benrey found a random replicant in Xen and used his face, how was that different from all those guys being built to resemble the exact same dude? Why was it “stealing somebody’s face” when he did it?

At least Barney 35 was cool about it; he’d gone through some similar shit as Black Mesa’s first successful replicant but Benrey didn’t know the specifics. If it was anything like what he had gone through though, he certainly hoped that Barney got his chance to shoot some of his detractors.

Shit, was Barney even alive? Or Jeff?

He knew Josh was dead as hell, and it was only now occurring to him that he was, like, DEAD dead. NPCs didn’t respawn, at least from his personal experience, which was why he had to be extra careful with the ones he liked. Honestly, he wasn’t sure what the difference between an NPC and an AI was besides maybe their levels of complexity and importance.

And yet Josh and Jeff came to mind. They were just guys fabricated for Benrey’s backstory, but they felt real enough to him that he genuinely felt grief for Josh’s death. And that meant a lot, because Benrey didn’t express his emotions the same way humans did unless they were especially strong, stronger than even his Sweet Voice instincts.

Maybe the difference was whether or not you came back after death. That would be a pretty strong contender for how that worked.

If that was the case…Benrey needed to be very careful with Jackson and Adam now that they were getting super close to the ground! Hell yeah! Back on topic!

10/10 Memory Moment for Benrey!

He slowed his descent until the ground was just a body length away and hovered in place, swaying his passengers around.

“The airplane is now landing.” He mumbled, “Vertical airplane.”

Both men replied in thanks for the ride, their voice lines overlapping. Jackson called him ‘gorgeous’ again, it made him wonder again if Barney 35 was alright and still single. He wasn’t one to play matchmaker, that had historically been something more in Josh’s alley, but Josh wasn’t here anymore and those two seemed like they would be nice for each other…

He loosened his grip so the two bootboys landed safely on the ground, Adam and Jackson thanking him again before they ran excitedly to the interior of their building, just barely veering around another bootboy that Benrey knew quite well.

“Welcome back!” Forzen loudly announced, making a weirdly large smile.

Jackson and Adam greeted him with enthusiastic tones and colors with their Sweet Voice. It was a comforting sight for Benrey, it almost made him feel at home.

Maybe this world will feel more like home when Gordon got all his training done. He took to the Sweet Voice lessons pretty well, perhaps he’d take the rest in a similar stride.

Speaking of Gordon, Benrey had managed to fat-finger a decently funny message to him as soon as the duo had vanished, then pocketed his phone to let his mind wander.

It didn’t last long.

Benrey could feel himself being stared at.

He looked over at Forzen, the younger man squinting intently at him before whispering.

“We need to talk.”

“Okay.” He lowered himself fully to the ground, hunching over to prove he wasn’t in any rush. “What’s up, man? Been a while. I like your new name. It, uh, rolls really ni-”

“When were you gonna tell me?”

“Whuh?”

“You know what I’m talking about.” Forzen didn’t bother elaborating, instead choosing to cross his arms and wait.

Benrey looked at him for a moment, different images coming to mind while he attempted to read the other’s expression, and immediately wincing when a very particular one projected itself into his memory.

Right, that.

“I uh, wasn’t gonna say anything.” He confessed.

“You could’ve told me.”

He certainly could have. But…well… “I didn’t think it would matter…”

“It DID matter! It mattered a LOT!”

Benrey winced away and grabbed at the hem of his borrowed shirt to fidget with. It was the only thing he could do to keep himself from just running away like a baby. He would have preferred something to chew on for his nervous fidgets, but the toughest thing he’d ever found to survive his biting was his own arm, and that shit hurt like hell.

“You SHOULD have told me. I don’t care that everything before the game isn’t real or whatever, time isn’t a linear thing for you, and also you can time travel so you had plenty of time to tell me when I showed up!”

He gave what Benrey believed to be a scrutinizing look and received a dejected one in response.

“We promised not to hide anything, YOU promised. You said we were friends, and you said friends don’t break promises.”

“I know. I know…I’m…bad friend…” Benrey looked at the ground. “I didn’t think you would believe me so I just didn’t say anything. I SHOULD have said something…”

Both of them were quiet. Coyotes yipped from many miles away. It made Benrey feel oddly hungry.

“You could do it right now.”

Benrey frowned to convey uncertainty, “I haven’t really been…MAX Mana Power since I got back. I don’t know if I can do the time travel thing anymore but I still get visions. I haven’t tried doing anything on command for a while, though.”

“But you CAN try?” Forzen asked.

He let out a long groan, nodding his head side to side like a scale. He’d seen Tommy do that when he was making tough decisions, so it seemed the most appropriate way to convey that.

“Try for Forzen?”

Well, now he had to. Asking for something in the 3rd Person was basically the same thing as saying please as far as Benrey was concerned, pretty much tantamount to being ‘real’ about your emotions. No goofs.

“Past You isn’t gonna believe me…but yeah, okay. I can do a try. Gonna be weird hearing your old name…”

“I don’t hate my old name, you don’t need to be weird about it. I just like using my new one better. Okay?”

“Okay…I’ll do a good.” Benrey smiled, “Do it for my bestieeeee!”

“Thank you.”

He nodded and closed his eyes. He failed to sense any sort of pull from that would allow for physical time travel…so he’d have to go with the other thing;he tried to focus on some version of himself from during the game. Anything from before didn’t work, so he had to use what was available from there, which even then wasn’t much given how many of the fluorescent lights in Black Mesa had been modified to give off extra blue light. Shades of gray and yellow and blue flickered, all with varying degrees of red splattered against them. A room of steel came clearly into his vision and he focused on that until he could feel the familiar weight of a security vest and helmet on his person. He didn’t need much more than a glance to recognize the Frozen Goods Department, it was hard to miss the slabs of meat being hung from the ceiling.

Gordon was talking about Arby’s and clearly distracted enough for him to wander off without notice, and the room smelled suspiciously of seafood; both of these things once again made Benrey hungry, perhaps more so here since this version of Benrey had decided to forgo getting any sort of meal today with the anticipation that he and Jeff and Josh would be picking up pizza after work. Well, Josh would’ve been picking up the pizza.

Benrey wasn’t even allowed outside of Black Mesa unless he was being accompanied by certain personnel, and even then he was allowed limited options. Not everything was open at the hours of night that Benrey had off, and having time off when the sun was still out just mentally drained him enough to make socialization with his friends difficult. He and Jeff had organized to get out at their usual time while Josh, being the master of Digiorno’s, would’ve taken a half day to get some kick-ass frozen pizza, use the employee discount from his part-time job at GameStop to acquire Heavenly Sword, and then finally meet up with the rest of them for a super cool night of video games and grub and good times.

Good times, fun times, good fun times.

Well, so much for those, he supposed.

No use dwelling on that. Given where J-Jefferemm had been when he found him, he could have probably postponed his death at best were it not for him being at the bottom of a massive pit. The monster down there had probably killed him as soon as it spawned in. Or maybe Jeff was dead the moment the game started up, either way it didn’t matter. Again, no use dwelling on it.

Benrey let out a long exhale so he could watch the ‘smoke’ from his chilly environment escape from his lips like how Jackson’s Sweet Voice did. This version of him had only now shrugged off the lingering sensations of drowsiness from the overexposure of blue light, a convenient time frame to be able to access. He needed to use his unnoticed absence wisely since most of the bootboys had likely been given their orders by now. He took longer to respawn if he died too soon after exchanging his consciousness from one time period to another, but it took even longer if he time traveled instead…so maybe it was a good thing he didn’t try that. Over-exerting himself like that was how he ended up needing a whole year to respawn…and even then he had been so exhausted...He couldn’t be risking stupid uses of his powers right now, too many bootboys with itchy trigger fingers.

He climbed up a nearby ladder and clipped into the vents, then stuck his head through a thin sheet of metal to better look at the map. The guy that made the Post Game had gone through the trouble to make all of Black Mesa into a single, massive map, and for that Benrey was thankful; no need to wander around and let smaller maps load.

He swapped out one of his move slots…shapeshifting was useless to him, so he exchanged that for some wicked enemy-sensing abilities. Well, it didn’t exclusively sense enemies, but that’s technically what he was using it for since he couldn’t smell Past Forzen out very well while clipping through solid objects, plus he’d have an easier time finding him by seeking out where all the bootboys were being grouped together…

Or he could just…use that power to ‘find friends’ instead.

That was probably easier.

That should’ve been his first thought, but it was whatever.

Ah, there he is! He’s close to landing right now!

Benrey followed his senses to where the helicopter was going, resurfacing once the landing point was most certain.

He waited around, listening to bootboys talking about their orders and whatever, and he sank into walls to peek through, as you do, until Past Forzen was pushed forward by a couple of his soldier buddies to ‘scout ahead.’

Good, good, he was alone now.

Time to get this out of the way.

“Yo!”

The man tensed up and aimed his funny fast-shooting gun at Benrey.

“Hey man.”

He stayed frozen for a second, then lowered his gun, “…Benrey, I could’ve shot you…”

“But you didn’t!” Benrey laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, what’s going on? You know we have orders to kill everybody here, right?”

He nodded.

“So why are you here? You’re too smart to just be looking for me if you know already…”

“Come ooooon, man.” Benrey sighed, “Can’t Benny Boy come hang out? Just like we always do? We’re a duo, man!”

“Yeah, yeah, Benny and Jet, ultimate duo…”

He winced a bit hearing Forzen so casually using his old name. He knew that Forzen told him not to feel weird about it, but it still felt weird. He didn’t know why he changed it, and he didn’t need to pester the guy with knowing why, he just knew that hearing the old name felt weird now.

“Didn’t answer my question.”

“Whuh?”

“Why’re you HERE maaaan? I like having you around but I can’t stay. Gotta make it quick.”

“Oh…uh…so…” Benrey fumbled, but he did eventually manage to explain that thing he needed to bring up…Forzen did not believe him. Like, at all.

“You can’t prank me like that.” He huffed, “I think I would know if-”

“It’s not a prank! I’m not prankin’. I’m being. So fucking real, man. I literally came here cause you asked me to.”

A radio buzzed. The young man sighed and turned his back to Benrey. “Whatever, man. Stay outta my way. Next time I see you, and my squad is nearby, it’s on sight. Nothing personal, I know you can just come back, but…I can’t risk my scholarship right now…I’ll see you when this all blows over.”

Benrey grumbled a low “I KNEW this was gonna happen” to himself before turning tail himself. He looked for a good spot to catch up with the Science Team and sat there, letting himself be pulled back to the present.

He woke up on the sidewalk next to the apartment complex, splayed out onto his back. Forzen was sitting on the curb, waiting for him and rubbing his temples from what was most likely his brain reacting to the change in history Benrey had made.

“Told you, man.” He said with a sigh.

Forzen grumbled in response, still nursing whatever temporal headache he was dealing with. “I should’ve figured as much. Sorry for making you go back there for nothing…”

“It’s fine.” Benrey lied. “It wasn’t that bad.” It was painful. “I’d go back again if you asked.” He didn’t want to, but he totally would.

Both of them looked at the stars in stubborn refusal to say much more for the next half hour or so, a feeling of nostalgia washing over them for days that never happened, but were fresh in their minds regardless. Benrey sang something he remembered from a video game using his Sweet Voice, and Forzen whistled along in solidarity, then Benrey would think of something else and Forzen would try to match it, too. A pointless bonding activity, but one the younger of the two men had obviously longed for if the smile Benrey was able to catch in his peripherals was anything to go by.

Even further confirmation came in the form of a gentle headbutt into Benrey’s arm that led into Forzen pressing his head into his side. He kindly responded by knocking over that stupid beret and petting his friend’s head.

It felt nice to just be alone with his bestie. Nobody was watching, or pointing, or asking if the two of them were a couple or whatever, he hated when people asked that stupid question. Little smoochies and hand holding and hugs and headbutts into arms was just how Benrey showed affection, and it was something that quickly infected people close to him. Forzen just happened to be one of those people, and he caught on super quickly despite how rarely they saw each other. If Benrey wanted to show he was interested in somebody, he would make it obvious by voguing and making comments about that person’s feet.

Why should hugs and kisses only be reserved for romantic love? Humans made no sense.

Damn, now Benrey was thinking about how pretty Gordon’s face looked. He had a full handlebar mustache and beard and (at least before drinking Darnold’s potion) a pathetic looking excuse for a ponytail before, but he honestly looked nice with his face mostly shaved besides the goatee, and the much more luscious hair as well made that ponytail gorgeous. It was hard to think about how pretty Gordon was while knowing full well that he needed to prioritize becoming a good friend first, but that’s kinda why he’d spent some of his time in the woods trying to use the internet on his PS4 to figure out the right way to go about his feelings. Gordon had just been so pretty from the moment they met, but if his research was anything to go by, he shouldn’t have been trying to rush things.

He needed to work on being a good friend before even thinking about trying to…be more than a good friend with him. There was also the matter that Gordon didn’t like Benrey like that when they first met, and there was no telling if he ever would, so really Benrey just needed to do what Benrey did best and go with the flow of things.

Forzen yawned, snapping him out of his thoughts. “I should go…bed…”

Benrey nodded, “Yeah. Bedtime. Bedtime for little guy.”

“I’m taller than you, asshole.” Forzen smirked, “Good night.”

“Good night!”

Without further thought, he noclipped his way back to Gordon’s house, only careful to mitigate noise until he had returned to the attic. He would leave Gordon alone for tonight, instead of keeping watch over him, to show he was being a good friend and respecting his boundaries, just like what he had read on the internet!

That reminded Benrey that he would need to study more on faces if he was going to be staying with Gordon. It wasn’t just so Gordon would understand Benrey’s emotions better, at least until the man was able to seamlessly read the Sweet Voice on his own, but also to continue his appearance of a normal human. He wanted to be Gordon’s friend, after all, and the one thing he had noted was that Gordon liked things that were normal!

Logically, it only made sense that Gordon and Benrey would become best friends in no time if Benrey could prove to Gordon that he had the capacity to act like a normal person. He was willing to give up whatever was necessary for Gordon, if only for a sliver of his friendship. He missed being able to hunt and play with others, at least to the capacity that was capable with his own kind. Nobody else Benrey knew could really match himself in terms of (mostly) unlimited abilities, and the idea of Gordon being able to play like that with him was so exciting!

But! He couldn’t do any sort of hunting or playing with Gordon until he had a full grasp of his powers, and they couldn’t do anything else together until they were friends!

Admittedly, helping Gordon was at least partially altruistic. He would’ve helped Gordon with his new powers anyways, but the fact that this would help them become friends was merely a bonus. And that made Benrey so happy that he couldn’t help but sing it out loud. Not too loud though! Gordon was sleeping, after all.

Benrey should have considered sleeping as well. But…Benrey wasn’t tired. He knew that would change in the morning, the sun’s natural rays would beam down a spell of exhaustion unto Benrey’s squishy form, and he would gain nothing to fight that desire to rest for several hours.

He could afford to play some video games, he decided. He didn’t like playing video games alone, but he wouldn’t technically be alone because Gordon was sleeping in one of the rooms beneath him right now.

Although, it seemed like he wouldn’t need to play alone anyways! Mister Coolatta had renewed the PS Plus a couple hours ago. That was nice.

Benrey reconnected the jumble of wires that created the internet for him and started up Heavenly Sword in the meantime. The moment he connected to a multiplayer game, his ears were pleasantly assaulted by the voices of other people.

He may have stayed up until the early hours of the morning before finally shutting the game off. Or maybe he didn’t. His internal clock only worked so well.

Still, the moon was out and bright as can be when Benrey tucked himself in. In a few more hours, Gordon would be waking up to his first full day of being Not Human, and Benrey was gonna be well-rested so he could help navigate the wonders of a new existence.

[spandexinspace]

Hello if you have the time simply put who are brainiacs family members.. and like how are they related? I never knew he had relations of any kind but im picking up the house of brainiac event but twitter has pushed me down a rabbit hole and now im trying to piece together brainiacs family tree. I am in no way an expert in comics or well read in anything im searching things up but idk what different universes/ dimensions/ timelines mean and who/what is canon. thx 💜

So I made this family tree a few years, which is still largely accurate but I still kinda want to remake at some point. Still, a decent visualiser for now.

I think it's important to note that we don't really know what is and isn't canon right now. We will probably have a better idea of it come June-July, but at the moment everything is a little all over the place and it may also remain that way. Comics.

The ones we know are relevant to Williamson's story are Brainiac and, as per the most recent issue, the pre-Zero Hour version of Brainiac 5. I'm also reasonably certain we'll see Vril II and Brainiac 3.

But, the full-ish list:

Kaja Dox and her unnamed mother - Appeared in Humphries' Green Lanterns in a story set "10 billion years ago". We don't actually know if they're supposed to be related to the others, but we can probably assume as much.

Brainiac/Vril Dox (I) - Big man himself. You know him. Man of many faces and origins. Brainiac 12 and 13 are upgraded versions of him.

Vril Dox II - Brainiac's son. Initially adopted, later either a biological son or clone artificially aged into adulthood. In both versions granted as a boon to Brainiac by Colu's machine overlords.

Techne - Brainiac's clone daughter as introduced during Convergence. Maybe canon. Maybe not the child of the main universe's Brainiac.

Unnamed siblings - Techne had several mutated siblings who Brainiac appeared to have used for experiments. The same has been implied to be true for Vril. They're dead.

Project Alien Farm - A clone made out of Brainiac and Lex Luthor's DNA, probably meant to be a parallell to Superboy/Kon El. Had the misfortune of being born a few months before Flashpoint and hasn't been seen since.

Indigo/Brainiac 8 - An artificial being supposedly created by Brainiac 6 to go back in time to aid Brainiac in his mission. We've never seen Brainiac 6 in canon and she kind of just existed in her own corner with the Outsiders and Titans.

Pran Dox - Formerly the son of Vril Dox II. Only ever appeared in narration, we can assume he doesn't exist now.

Lyrl Dox/Brainiac 3 - The more canon son of Vril Dox II.

This is where things get a little spicy timeline-wise. There are essentially five different versions of the future of the DC universe. Each one is its own universe, but has been the canon future of the main universe before. Like this:

The first timeline is the pre-Zero Hour version, the second the post-Zero Hour/Earth-247, the third Earth-Prime, the fourth is an divergent version of the pre-Zero Hour, and the fourth is post-Rebirth. These characters exist within these timelines:

Kajz Dox (both versions of the pre-Zero Hour timeline) - The son of either Lyrl or Pran. Both have been canon.

Brainiac 4 (post-Zero Hour/Earth-247) - An unnamed female child of Lyrl.

Unnamed female Coluan (Earth-Prime) - A character who appeared for two pages in one comic. Probably Lyrl's daughter.

Post-Rebirth lacks a version of Brainiac 4. Among other things.

Querl Dox/Brainiac 5 - Exists in every timeline/universe. The great-great-grandson of Brainiac, by various means.

There are a couple of other characters who can sort of be considered members of the family, but they're not super relevant at this stage.

I don't know how understandable all that is, feel free to shoot me another ask if you want me to clarify anything.

[moonstruckme]

Oh babe I read your post about graduation and life after. I FEEL YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!! I’m graduating Friday and I pursued a film degree in a city with little to no opportunities for that industry. Don’t know why I did that. Sorry to my parents who sacrificed a lot to put me through school. Moving to a bigger city is not an option bc I can’t afford it. Might be moving back in with my parents might not be. Everyone is asking whats next for me. Girl idk. I’m stressed I’m anxious. I hate it here. The real world sucks and I just want to skip over all this character building stuff and get to the part of my life where I’m happy with a career and can actually afford groceries. Sometimes I wish my dreams weren’t as big.

Hi gorgeous! First of all, I'm so sorry you feel that way. I promise your degree has value whether you feel like you can get a job out of it right away or not, and I won't pretend to know how your parents feel but I doubt they would have sacrified anything if they didn't feel your education was worthwhile. Graduating from college is a big deal nonetheless ! We both know I'm struggling with this too but I have some pieces of advice that have been given to me and I've found helpful if you want them <3

Obviously, "almost no one works in something related to their degree" is a really disheartening thing to hear, and I bet you've been hearing it (like I have) a lot lately. But what I think the people who say that are trying to convey is that there is no shame in just doing a job that makes some money (and preferably also makes you happy), and sometimes that financial security can help you pursue your dreams with a bit more surety since you're no longer trying to find a way to eat at the same time.

A few months ago, I talked to my mom about how guilty I feel about potentially not being able to get a job relevant to my degree after she helped put me through college, and while I know not all parents feel the same way about this, I think she made some great points. She said that college is about learning how to think, and your education and the experiences you've had in college will always be valuable no matter what job you end up with. And did you have a good time? Did you like learning all those things you did about film? Did you meet some cool friends, or get to talk about your interests with people who get it? If so, none of it was wasted.

It's so, so easy to feel pressure from others when you're trying to figure out your life post-grad, but in my experience most of that pressure is really internal. People ask what's next for you because they're interested, not becuase they have any one specific path in mind, and the vast majority of the time if you seem happy, they're happy. If you're not happy, fuck it! Then your priority should probably be getting to a place where you are happy, and those conversations really don't matter when you've got bigger fish to fry.

Last thing, but as someone also struggling to re-orient herself in her life plan, I've been taking a lot of time to figure out my priorities. I kind of got stuck in this idea of what my life was going to be, and once that seemed less certain I started questioning what I wanted if I didn't have to do that. I'm making a pinterest board (always my first course of action haha), and it's helped me figure out that whatever I do, I want to be around nature and books, and to live in a mid-size city. Figuring out what I need to be happy has really put things into perspective for me, and I'm sorry I don't mean to assume we're in the exact same mental state but I just want to give you all the stuff that's been working for me in case any of it fits into your situation too.

You can still use your passion in film while working another job, or use that job to save to move to a larger city, or maybe even reflect and find that you're content keeping the film thing as a hobby and there's something else you enjoy doing for a career (I know how heartbreaking that can sound when you love something, but that's how writing has turned out for me so I just wanted to put it out there--feel free to reject it of course). For me, trying to open my mind to all the possibilities and re-evaluate what I want from the next few years has been super scary but also kind of exciting, and I hope that whatever happens for you you're able to find happiness in the big and little things. Wishing you all the best my love!

[danketsuround]

An overdue blog about my fic-writing process with The Immortal Son (and a little about Two Birds)

CW for brief mentions of suicide, bullying, sexual assault, childhood trauma, and emotional incest

Okay so here's some behind the scenes things about my writing process with The Immortal Son. If you read the first fic that I wrote for this AU series, Two Birds, you should know that I sat doing research for that fic for months, then I basically just blacked out and wrote it. I might eventually rewrite some of it, to be honest, so that it connects better with its prequel. But I haven't gotten there yet, and I'm too scared to get there right now.

My original thinking with Two Birds was that I wanted it to be Mitsuru-focused. I actually wanted to do it from his perspective originally, but then I realized he'd hardly know anything about his own situation, so I changed the narrator to Kuwana. This was more of a technical change than emotional. Kuwana is, and always will be for me, an unreliable narrator. But when writing from his perspective, I really wanted to show the reader how much Kuwana struggles with understanding Mitsuru - how he's in his own head too much, and how he doesn't realize exactly how unfit he is to take care of Mitsuru, and how none of that can matter, because no one else will do it. Despite his second chance - or perhaps because of it! - Kuwana is selfish and resented.

I did manage to unearth some of my notes while writing Two Birds. While a lot has changed, the general basis for Kuwana and Mitsuru has always been what I originally wrote as a note to myself, here:

I focused a lot on Mitsuru's physicality. It ended up being that most of my time for this fic was spent doing research about long comas. While that was all fine and good, a lot of what I researched ended up not even being used or mentioned. Both Two Birds and The Immortal Son are focused on emotion - more than realism or accuracy. In fact, a decent amount of the "lore" in either fic is completely made up, and whatever I make up is written somewhere to reference later. Then, I just write it whenever it feels relevant to the narrative, and hope I'm not writing myself into an incomprehensible hole - because, while a lot of it is based on inference, some of it isn't. I wanted to write as if what I had made up was obvious, so I had to try and get out of my own head while reading it over. That was hard.

Anyways, here's some Google Maps screenshots I had taken for Two Birds to reference in my fic. This was back when I wanted them to live in Matsuyama, Ehime - not Masaki - but the "visual" "idea" is the same. When I was drafting Two Birds, Reiko was in a fake prison on an island. I had this vision of them taking a boat to go and see her, but I scrapped it - mostly because I felt like Reiko would not go to a maximum security prison like that. I mean come on, she's not Saejima. She only killed one person, geez!

I liked the mix of rice fields and the view of the sea. I've never been to Masaki. I've never even been to the Kyushu area. If I had to do it all over again, I'd put them in Fukushima. The descriptive visuals about Masaki in Two Birds are actually inspired by where I live.

Of course, Two Birds ended up not really being Mitsuru-focused at all, and that's when I decided to write The Immortal Son. Even though Kuwana is still the narrator, he is sort of a backseat driver to a near-fatal car crash he caused by grabbing the driver's wheel... uh, so to speak. He just watches everything happen. It's not until Two Birds that he feels fit to play his role.

"Two Birds" was the working title for what ended up actually being Two Birds because I didn't have any other ideas. I had written the scene where Kuwana remembers when he first moved to Masaki, and so I just pulled "two birds" from that actual paragraph. I did this before once with a porno I mean sickfic I wrote - calling it "Toothpaste" when toothpaste was never actually involved at all. A while ago I had this habit of throwing darts at one-shots I wrote and titling it whatever word I landed on. For the same reason, when I had drafted the first interaction between Kuwana and Jiro; I titled it "Orange Chicken".

I can't help but love a surprise title drop.

But the title for The Immortal Son just flew into my head, and suddenly it felt really corny to title drop. I debated on calling it "The Immortal Sun" because it takes place in the summer and Kuwana can feeeeeel the heat on his back (metaphorically) but since it ended up being entirely about Mitsuru, the immortal son, I changed it.

The Immortal Son is written to play out pretty soon after the events of Lost Judgement. While Kusumoto Reiko is in her holding cell, she tells Kuwana to keep an eye on Mitsuru. From there, Kuwana meets Mitsuru's father (Jiro, also Reiko's ex-husband) and uncovers a few secrets about her past. For reasons (then) unknown to Kuwana, Reiko confesses to killing Kawai on her own - leading him to take care of Mitsuru and attempt to eliminate her hospital debt.

I gave Kuwana a fading flashback when he went to visit Reiko in prison for the first time. It later informs Kuwana's decision to point fingers at Reiko when her lawyer discovers a flaw in her confession. This isn't necessarily right or wrong of him, but Kuwana's own memory of her in prison forces him to believe she wants to be punished - that they are alike in the desire to atone.

I thought a lot about Reiko in The Immortal Son. My first impression of her when playing Lost Judgement was actually a bit sad. That introduction scene where she is sitting in Mitsuru's dark, wide, and empty hospital room by herself - and knowing she had done the same thing every day for the past thirteen years - seemed really lonely, so I drew bits and pieces of her and Mitsuru's relationship from that.

There were two themes - "preservation" and "violence".

A long time ago, I made a connection between Kawai's frozen body and Mitsuru's "frozen" body - I still can't explain it well enough to make sense.

In Lost Judgement, Kuwana says they killed Kawai on the anniversary of Mitsuru's suicide attempt. Later, he describes Mitsuru as a vegetable that is "as good as dead." So, my best way to explain it is that time stopped for both of them. Kawai is literally frozen from the moment his heart stopped beating, and Mitsuru doesn't change at all in thirteen years. That's where "preservation" came to mind, and how it intertwined with the violence of the original story.

Because Mitsuru is preserved, his pain is preserved as well. The characters see this through the long-term effects of his trauma and suicide attempt on his body, and how Mitsuru eventually grows into himself. But his mind and body are childish, because that's where he stopped at. A dead child never grows into adulthood.

There is an instance when Kuwana and Jiro come into his hospital room, and I mention Mitsuru being "gelded" by both his mother and the natural process of time.

Can I sound crazy for a second? The reason why wrote that line was because I was kinda thinking of Mitsuru as a castrato, like, a choir boy who is castrated in order to preserve his voice, and grows sort of strangely or unnaturally as a result? That's what Mitsuru looks like to me. A small version of that - a thirty year old who still looks seventeen but not quite. Like a less jarring version of Ben Platt in Dear Evan Hanson, lol.

Anyways, I thought Mitsuru's preservation would be an act of violence, too, because Reiko (both in order to protect Mitsuru and her own feelings) wants to turn back time and keep Mitsuru as a helpless child. In Two Birds, she tells Kuwana that she used to pretend Mitsuru had turned invisible as a child, and that she wished he'd cry in her lap again. In The Immortal Son, even Jiro eventually relents to this as well, telling Kuwana that he wished Mitsuru could be the way he used to.

The violence of preservation, in this case, is Reiko's severe attachment to Mitsuru. In his childhood, it made him understand her in ways he should not have - as stated by Jiro. I thought that there had to be other factors in Mitsuru's suicide, and this is what I came up with. That Reiko was too pressing - Mitsuru, too darling - and that he was his father's emotional replacement.

Yeah, so what if I made up the thing about Reiko's enmeshment with Mitsuru? It was always lingering in the back of my mind anyways. Enmeshment is better known as "emotional incest" - I hate that word, even though that's about as accurate as wording gets. The sad and lonely image of a woman overly dedicated to her son; how could I not?

Mitsuru is not only surrouuuuuunded by violence, but he's also - tragically - a tool for it, right? Kawai is killed out of revenge, and seven other people die because of Kuwana's quest for vigilantism in his name - mentioning Mitsuru ahead of everyone else he sought vengeance for. Mitsuru is hardly able to protect himself; he can only watch what happens to him. I wanted to make a connection between this and what Jiro said Reiko did to him - that Mitsuru is singled out and violated by devotion.

When Kuwana takes him on a stroll away from his father, Mitsuru kills a cicada.

I used the word "beheaded" here - not crushed or squashed - to evoke a "feeling of execution". It's Kuwana who runs Mitsuru over that cicada, and it's Kuwana who used Mitsuru to justify violence. So, I wanted to point out that Mitsuru is welded passively in Kuwana's instigation of violence.

Mitsuru, too, has to witness the way everyone talks about his mother, and what she had done for his sake. In that, he searches for her kindness - not wanting to remember how sore her arms felt in her constricting motherhood.

But he is denied by reality. And that reality comes in the form of his father - albeit, definitely not the most objective person in all of this.

Jiro is a character I made for the sake of The Immortal Son, but he's mentioned very briefly as "Mr. Kusumoto" in Two Birds.

There are three original characters I wrote for The Immortal Son: Jiro Kusumoto (Reiko's ex-husband), Kondo Daichi (Reiko's celebrity lawyer) and Naganuma Mimori (Mitsuru's young nurse). I hadn't really mapped out their personalities, they sort of just came and went as I wrote. But I think it's safe to say Jiro was definitely Mitsuru's co-star in this.

Kondo Daichi (or Daiichi, 第一, a pun meaning "number one") was originally meant to be a timid lawyer appointed by the court, but then he sort of turned into an audience self-insert. I thought a lot about the logistics of Kuwana taking care of Mitsuru, and Reiko taking the sole blame for Kawai's murder, and I wondered what that meant Kuwana's response would be. The result was Kondo - a character meant to fully confront Kuwana with the reality of his situation, and his decision to take care of Mitsuru. I wanted to show that, when given the opportunity to confess and face the consequences, Kuwana would cowardly turn away.

Naganuma Mimori is a bit like Mitsuru. Because of that, Jiro also views her as something to compete with Kuwana. Kuwana is kind to her but he sees her as a child. More importantly, though, I used Naganuma as a mark for gender. Kuwana tells Jiro he doesn't have children, and Jiro asks if he'd prefer a girl. Later, when childish Naganuma cries on Kuwana's shoulder, Jiro jokes that he probably couldn't handle a little girl.

Compared with Naganuma, I thought that Kuwana might feel emasculated by his inadequacy to take care of Mitsuru properly. Even so, for my own reasons, I wanted Kuwana to seem girlish in The Immortal Son. I just feel like he's a bit feminine anyways. I wanted him to be treated and scolded the way an inadequate or indecent woman would be. All of that scolding comes from Jiro, who respects him otherwise.

I thought the easy way out would be to make Jiro abusive and mean-spirited and probably an alcoholic. Honestly, the first time I wrote him (which was even before I started thinking about The Immortal Son!) he was sort of... that. But then I realized that's a little boring. Sure, I wanted Jiro to be a little mean, but I mostly just wanted him to be frustrated and honest. I wanted him to be someone who thinks he's only ever done his best. In that way, I wanted him to be someone like Kuwana.

Jiro cannot see himself in Mitsuru, and he blames it on Reiko's influence and enmeshment towards him. At this point - while feeling vindicated - he is mostly just sad. Sad because he was never there for Mitsuru, and sad that he still can't be. He can't stand being around his own son, and that's why he's able to relinquish him to Kuwana's care. Ironically, Kuwana can see much of Jiro in Mitsuru, only because Jiro refuses to see weakness in himself.

I never wanted Two Birds to end on a sad note, though I guess The Immortal Son ended up seeming that way. Or, at least there is some recognition that Mitsuru will never be able to return to himself. Kuwana, of course, can see this because he's the same way. It's not such a bad thing, I think, which is why I sort of hesitate to call it sad - because in my head I know that The Immortal Son is more like "the foundation of trauma" and Two Birds is like "a layer of hope".

That's what my goal was, at least.

Basically, all of this meaty symbolism came from the type of story I wanted to write, which is ultimately about love and normal people in the real world with a hard past. I wanted to expand on Mitsuru and Reiko a lot simply because I liked them. So that's what I did.

Both Two Birds and The Immortal Son came from a long road of dissatisfaction with the original story. I mostly wanted more from the Kusumotos. I thought Kuwana's dedication to them was interesting, too, and I wondered what Kuwana would do with himself after his purpose in life was bested. "What if Kuwana suddenly became very lucky?" - I asked myself, and this came.

I don't think any of these characters should suffer, and I don't think it's necessary for Kuwana to suffer in order to understand the pain he's caused. In fact, it's through love that Kuwana can feel the value of his own miserable life. Mitsuru's situation is sad, Kuwana and Reiko's life is sad - but the story really isn't. Mitsuru is immortalized by pain, and violence, and suffering - but he can live happily through it. Even if he can't be free of it, he lives a kind and honest life. Surely, there are themes of terror and trauma interwoven in both Two Birds and The Immortal Son. I talked about "preservation" and "violence" earlier, but I also felt like it was necessary to touch on normal things, like family, disability and gender. There's no real "point" I wanted to hit with these fics, I just wanted to tell that kind of story.

I'll add in a later reblog some ideas I was floating around while writing both of these. There are tons of scrapped ideas and artifacts from the time between Two Birds and The Immortal Son, including one fic about Reiko's family, and another about Kawai's funeral. I'm going to go find those things now and report back. Later, eventually.

Thanks for reading!

[the-owl-house-takes]

https://www.tumblr.com/the-owl-house-takes/739902025110814720/httpswwwtumblrcomthe-owl-house-takes73915284?source=share

Okay man, I will let you in on a little secret, from one severely traumatized person to someone else. Luz is traumatized, this made her do bad things. On the scale of bad reactions to trauma Luz is taking it like a fucking CHAMP. She got used and manipulated and that's bound to make someone feel gross and slimy, especially KNOWING as much as Luz knows about how what she did helped someone so EVIL. Should she have been honest? Yes. But also you dense motherfucker, that was probably the LEAST BAD THING she could have DONE in reaction to this trauma.

For a few years, starting when I was 11, some of the most horrific shit you could imagine was happening to me. No details because. You know. Not the place, I don't get the option to throw this under a read more. When I was 13 I did the "right thing" and turned in the person hurting me. But where I lived didn't have good therapists, I already had bipolar (diagnosed in 1st grade, yes for real) and it was getting worse. I would become extremely hostile and easy to set off. I broke aluminum brooms on people's backs. I stabbed people with pencils in high school. I literally missed the start of class to find out where a kid who stole some food from me in the previous class was so I walked into his class and SCREAMED AT HIM. Someone stole my MP3 and I had a meltdown for the entire duration of choir screaming at everyone to give it back because it was extremely unlikely that someone came in the private choir hallway to take my puny outdated MP3. I was a huge fucking piece of shit and I work every day to better myself from who I was in high school. The other day I had someone who knew me in high school come up to me and APOLOGIZE. I was constantly being bullied. I told him I genuinely didn't even remember what he said because it was over 10 years ago now, but told him to pass on to a few of the people I stabbed that I'm sorry. He still bought me a drink because he felt so bad. But I also felt bad. Yeah the only people who can forgive me are the people I've hurt, so I actually don't want to fucking hear your opinion on it.

The other characters in the show are actually emotionally intelligent and understand that even if what Luz did was bad they know she has proven to them that she cares about them and was only afraid of losing them. Speaking as someone who has not a single childhood friend from being the weirdest kid in SPED every year and moving just as frequently, I can absolutely understand the fear of losing the only friends you have and becoming ALONE again.

If this is how you react to any fucking "misbehavior" by someone so hurt then I would rather never hear another thing you have to say. Traumatized children are going through fucking enough.

When I was 10 I jumped off a swingset and landed funny on my arm. I told my mom's boyfriend and he said it was fine. I wore slings I made myself out of paper towels for a month because it hurt to let my arm hang down. Now sometimes when I lift heavy things or sleep on it wrong my arm hurts a bit. I had it x-ray'd a few years back and the bones were only very slightly deformed. Untreated breaks can end much MUCH worse. But when my arm hurts now I don't blame my fucking arm, I blame my mom's shitty boyfriend for not taking me to the fucking hospital (he never told my mom either).

So anyways Luz did a bad thing but she could have literally done a billion things so much worse and her friends forgiving her is not bad writing it's because they LOVE HER, and I don't know why there's so much fucking discourse on this specific topic, the people she hurt forgave her, your opinion is not relevant to this plot point because she didn't hurt you specifically. So sorry anon, that Luz Noceda lied to you specifically and hurt your feelings so bad. It's framed as a bad thing in the show even tf is wrong with you.

-

[cauldron-burn-and-fire-bubble]

I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT NINA!! anything you want to share about her, i want to collect

OOH OKAY ALRIGJT. (btw sorry this took a while i wrote up most of it days ago but The Tasks. you know how it is. here's a sketch for now)

so the thing about nina is that she is a really really old oc that i decided to revive over the summer to see what i could do with my current understanding of science and techmology so she doesn't really have an actual storyline. but here's some tidbits (under the cut because I have a lot to talk about). also warning for discussion of some unethical biomedical practices

- she's from kind of a cyberpunk dystopia where extreme human genetic alteration is possible (in embryos only ofc) but very very expensive because of not only the procedures needed to make an altered zygote but the resources required to incubate it for a full gestation period and because only some will end up viable the lab will have to create and incubate a carefully calculated number of embryos often with slight differences to ensure at least one will fully develop (this will be relevant i swear)

- so the technology is basically only available to the ultra rich

- nina was intended to have superficial birdlike features (think feathers instead of hair, high visual acuity, some minor skeletal alterations) but the lab done fucked up and she's much more bird than intended. im not an expert on emerging gene editing technology maybe the targeting sequences they used were a little off due to a glitch but you can see how she turned out

- the person who commissioned her didn't accept her and culling a fully developed altered human is well. murder. so she ended up in a care facility for rejected lab kids like herself

- she took way longer than a typical human child to start actually communicating when she talked but she was able to mimic words and phrases very very early. kind of creeped a lot of her caretakers out to greet her and hear their own slightly distorted voice repeat the greeting back from the mouth of a like two month old

- she eventually settled into her own voice but you could potentially identify the person who taught her some phrases if you knew them already. she's still a great mimic since she basically has a syrinx in there

- she struggles with verbal and written communication in general, a little better with body language at least for interpreting intentions/tone but different people can have very different body language ofc

- she also tends to be hyperactive (partly due to extremely high metabolism) and sort of impulsive

- incredible vision and spatial reasoning (those big bird eyes)

- technically with how large she is (about 4'3" if she could stand up straight without falling over and 70-80 lbs?) she shouldn't be able to fly but i ignore that

- remember how i said the duplicate embryos would be relevant well she has a secret not-quite twin another survivor from the same batch. idk how they got separated (remember i came up with the bones of this when i was like 10) but her twin had a messier life

- nina herself ended up as some kind of specialized government operative (cue booing) no she gets out of it in the end i swear

- the twin is a major figure in the conflict around rights for altered humans

- at some point the two of them meet and eventually join forces idk like i said there isn't a real story to this

- she has 2 fingers and the thumb free to move on each hand but they aren't very dextrous so she mainly uses her feet for fine motor tasks

- she also has difficulty emoting in a way that most humans can interpret due to the beak

- i have also made nina as a dnd character (her human parents gave her up to a monastery as an infant having frankly no idea what to do with her which she left as a teenager and became a highwayman as her appearance leads most potential benefactors to believe she's cursed) she has +5 dex and -1 con

and here's a little portrait for anyone who read this far. my beautiful daughter who i love so much <3

[akaiitori]

Verant - World Maps [OUTDATED]

Outdated info and map - kept up for archival purposes.

Something a little different :) I feel like I can't keep going forward rambling on Vagrant Skies unless I give some geographic and historical context.

Verant is very similar to Earth, having the same atmosphere, chemical composition, and rotation axis. It's orbited by two natural satellites, Alderhan and Tarohan. A year has 14 months, with each one lasting 24-25 days.

I won't be speaking about every single country since...evidently, I've only developed the areas that are actually relevant to the story :P

Some specific infodumping after the cut!

--------------------------------------------------------------

The Atesham Empire is a nation that disappeared around a hundred years before the story takes place. It was a paragon of scientific development, powered by their rich uranium mines. However, in the other countries desire to seize control over their resources, they opted to destroy the mines in an event that rendered their territory into a nuclear wasteland.

--

The Tarrukar Empire is a densely populated northern country. They've historically been a colonialist nation, powered by their domestication of the horse and the falcon. While their power and reach have diminished a lot, they still are one of the strongest nations in the world's geopolitics.

Tarrukar took on a strong interest in genetically modified soldiers after the fall of the Atesham Empire. The former nation had done a lot of progress in the field, but most of the involved scientists fled during the war. Tarrukar offered them asylum in exchange for their knowledge, and from this, they created transgenic humans, or transhumans; laboratory-grown animals with visual resemblance to humans.

Initially, transhumans were created by implanting new genes into a human fetus. In modern times, they are all synthetic in nature.

Tarrukar is fervently pro-transhuman, leading the research into new territories. While their expertise began in military design, currently they also create transhumans for domestic care and show. Socially, transhumans are meant to be subservient as a show of gratefulness for being created.

--

The Republic of Braukar is a very new country, created after the Tarrukar Civil War a couple of decades ago. This war happened due to the disapproval of civilians towards the creation of the Cyclones. These groups had suffered greatly during the war with Atesham, and instead of providing aid, the Empire had opted to splurge tax dollars on demonic bird creatures. In current times both nations aren't in direct war, but they aren't on good terms.

Braukar is harshly anti-transhuman, and they will deport or even execute any found in their territory.

--

The Kingdom of Menet is another northern country, linked to naval power and machinery. Historically, it has been in constant battle with Tarrukar to control the system of isles on the Storm Sea. After the fall of Atesham and the introduction of Cyclones, Menet decided to make their own variety of genetically modified soldiers. These are called Vastare, and while they look fully human, they have superior traits, ranging from healing to strength and speed.

While Menet accepts the concept of transhumans in theory, they have very strict limitations towards their creation. In particular, they are against introducing visually non-human traits, as this goes against the Menetian ideal of human holiness over beasts.

This doesn't stop the wealthy from commissioning Tarrukar-made transhumans, though.

--

The Tescano Alliance is an international organisation that spans sixteen countries, with its headquarters in Teotlanco. It has some level of sovereignty over its members, while still allowing independence between the nations. Ancient civilization hailed from this part of the world, and while most modern customs have been replaced by Tarrukar and Atesham's influence, many terms and ideals come from Tescano roots.

The Tescano nations have limited contact with foreign states. Other countries leave them alone too, as a war declaration with one means having to face the entire alliance.

Their views towards transhumans are neutral. The Tescano culture sees all living things (animals, plants, and beyond) as gifts that deserve respect, transhumans included. They will welcome any of them into their countries, getting treated with the same rights as any other foreigner. However, creating new transhumans is banned in the Alliance as it's seen as a transgression against nature's will.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for writing a story? ✨ (emoji so I can find this easily)

So around a year and a half ago, as part of a drama exam me and a group of four others had to devise a piece to act out for the exam.

Me and two others who were the actors (the other two did the set and music) ended up really liking the story and characters we were creating for the project and all wanted to expand on the story we'd created for the exam.

The three of us me (currently 16 NB) and the other two who I'll call Alex (currently 17 M) and Rowan (currently 16 NB) made a discord server for the three of us to talk about the characters we'd made together and share ideas for how we'd develop them if we turned the performance we were writing into a story/book series.

This was a lot of fun and at first I really enjoyed discussing ideas about the characters we'd created but after a while I started to find myself disliking some of the others' ideas more and more and wanting to write the series on my own.

I never acted on that though because the three of us were all passionate about our ideas and the characters so the idea of writing my own version felt wrong when the others wanted to write the story too as a group.

Now since then, Rowan has stopped talking to both me and Alex. I haven't heard from Rowan since May and honestly I don't really want to hear from them again because since we stopped talking I realized our friendship really wasn't very healthy for either of us. During this time they deleted discord but their account was still in the server.

Alex had disappeared offline since January but recently returned five months ago. We caught up and at first we talked about our ideas, the characters and how we wanted to turn it into a book series again, during this we kicked Rowan's account from the discord because neither of us spoke with them anymore. After a while we stopped talking much about the characters and our ideas and just started talking about random things. But last week Alex left the discord unannounced and I haven't heard from him at all since.

Now, I know Alex might return sometime like he left and returned before and I know this is pretty soon but while he's gone and since I'm no longer in contact with Rowan, I've found myself wanting to try writing the story myself with complete freedom to write the story I want to write and not have to use the others' ideas that I don't like.

It wouldn't feel so wrong anymore since they're not still there discussing their ideas or talking about how we should all write it together as a group but I do feel a little unsure if this would be an assholeish thing to do. I mean, I'd be writing about the characters we all created together, using the base story idea we all created for the project and I don't know if Alex will return or not yet.

So, would I be the asshole if I wrote the story by myself?

Additional info.

Idk if any of this is relevant but it might help with the judgement/I feel like people would ask for info about this stuff if I didn't add it.

The ideas I disliked were mainly to do with the development of a certain character, a ship that really would not make any sense and Alex wanting to add in a talking magical dinosaur to the plot of what was meant to be a story set in the modern day real world.

We never actually tried to write the story as a group before, we just talked about it.

None of us see each other IRL anymore.

I have got ADHD and autism.

There wouldn't be anything nsfw in the story.

None of the characters were based on any of us.

There are a lot of reasons why mine and Rowan's friendship wasn't healthy for either of us but to give a few reasons we didn't really care about each other's interests (like fandoms), would consistently cancel on hangouts with each other or would get into arguments over stupid stuff and not talk for weeks only to go back to being clingy with each other when we started talking again. Looking back, it was definitely an unhealthy friendship for both of us.

What are these acronyms?