#idk why but this one took me absolutely ages to figure out how to do =7=;;;

[yayforocs]

Episode 23 - Castle Larders

[mooooonnnzz]

I saw your earlier post on Platonic fics and Im a sucker for them so here u go : father figure stanford headcannons maybe takes place after he comes back from the portal, reader is an adventurous spirit that works at the shack and maybe secretly helped stan get his brother back? Idk im just throwing things here lol

You Know I Love You Still

Stanford x daughter!reader

💗 stanford dad hc!!

💗 i literally saw the request it and started writing and got a lil carried away 😭 its like half story half hc? if that makes sense

💗 requests r so open rn! i def dont have any fav requests… (anything platonic or familial will be the first ones i write i LOVE those types of requests)

💗 the age of the reader is young like 16/17? ik that lowkey contradicts with the time line but wtv STANFORD DAD HC!!

💗 it’s a little bit of everything? like it’s not only just reader and stanford, the twins r also included in some scenarios and also stan

💗 a big happy family 😭

💗 fem reader gulp i completely didnt realize until i was done that i used she/her when referring to the reader

💗 next fic will use gender neutral pronouns I SWUEAR!!

💗2k words

💗 i apologize for rhe misspell and mistakes i didnt catch in advance

Working together with your Uncle Stan to build the portal to bring your dad back to the right dimension was tiresome. Nights were sleepless and many of them were spent in the underground lab, where you and Stan did everything possible to assemble the portal. Trying to keep such a secret away from the twins and Soos was unexpectedly hard. The knowledge of hiding someone so vital to you and to your Uncle Stan was weighing down on you and him. Then came the day where his awaited arrival was promised. You could barely sleep that night. You thought of so many different possibilities and scenarios of how you would greet him. Would he remember you? Did he ever miss you? Does he even love you?!

The next day came in like a tornado and before you knew it, you were protectively standing in front of the button; trying your absolute hardest to prevent the twins from pressing the button.

“Why do you guys want to stop the portal so badly!” You yelled over the loud swirling wind that emitted from the portal. “Because it’s dangerous!” Dipper retorted, using his arm to shield him from the debris whizzing past him. “G-Grunkle Stan isn’t who he says he is!” Dipper said, stepping closer to you.

“Whatever you guys saw or heard isn’t what you think it is! Please, you need to believe me.” You begged, your eyes brimming with tears. You’ve worked so hard to get this portal up and running and you weren’t going to let Dipper or anyone stop you from being able to see your dad.

Soos came up from behind and wrapped his arms around you. “I’m sorry, dude.” He picked you up and took you away from the button. “Soos, no!” You thrashed around his hold. You pound your fists against his arms, hoping it’ll loosen his grip on you but nothing you did worked. No matter how much you begged and fought against him, he didn’t budge. He just held you closer to him, muttering ‘I’m Sorry’ under his breath.

“This all stops now!” Dipper raised his hand, palm flattened out, ready to push the button when Stan appeared at the doorway. “Don’t touch that button!”

He’s hunched forward, hand leaning on the frame of the doorway as he pants. Relief washes over you upon seeing Stan. Silence fills the room for a minute and all you can hear is your heart hammer against your ribcage. Stan walks towards Dipper, beckoning him to not press the button.

“If you just let me explain—“ He’s cut off by his watch repeatedly beeping. Suddenly the ground begins to shake.

The portal powers up and the circle enlarges. The electricity spazzes and travels throughout the room, creating streaks of electrical power. Your feet lift off the ground and soon everyone’s floating up in the air. The wind is fierce and it’s whipping through every direction, pushing you towards the wall.

Dipper yells at Mable to turn off the portal before it causes anymore damage. She tugs herself closer to the button using a stray cable and while she wraps herself around the neck holding up the button, Stan is begging her to listen to him and to not press the button. He’s soon tackled by Soos who pushes him away from Mable. They all fight with each other and you’re watching with a bated breath.

The portal pulses with power, sending you back first into the wall. Stan and Dipper bicker back and forth and Mable is torn with the decision of either believing her brother or her Grunkle. She lowers her hand, eyes closed and you're almost convinced she’s going to press the button when she lets go of the button. She floats up with her arms raised. “Grunkle Stan, I believe you.” She says.

“Mable, are you crazy?! We’re all gonna—!”

The world flashes white and you're immediately knocked out. You awaken to yourself plummeting face first down to the floor. You groan, pushing yourself up with one hand and the other wiping off the dust on your face. Looking around you can see your family scattered around the room, each of them slowly waking up from whatever happened and stumbling back to their feet.

Your head quickly whips towards the portal and your heart lurches into your throat upon seeing a figure step out of it. He stands still, staring straight ahead as he takes off his hood and goggles. And what hid behind them was your father.

After the initial shock of meeting the one behind the three books and the reveal of him being related to Stan was pushed aside, you presented yourself with the help of Stan. “H-Hi, Dad.” You awkwardly greet yourself.

His eyes stop on you and he freezes, eyes blown wide and mouth slightly ajar. He takes a minute to process the absurdity of the situation before he’s snapping back to consciousness. He blinks once, his mouth stuttering as he finds the right words to say. He then blinks again, stepping a cautious step towards you. Your name softly spills out of his mouth and your heart soars hearing your Dad finally utter your name again.

You take a step forward and then another and another until you’re face to face with him. Being closer to him allowed you to see how much he has aged since the last time you saw him. “Dad…” You whisper, throwing yourself into him.

A light wheeze escapes his mouth from the sudden impact of your body crashing on him. Once he recovers, his arms are quickly wrapped around you, hugging you with so much warmth and love you almost sobbed right then and there.

He snuggled his face against your hair, breathing in your familiar scent he missed so dearly while he was away. “We have so much to catch up on.” You say so quietly that he almost lost your words if it wasn’t for you being directly near his ear. He hums in affirmation, cherishing the long awaited reunion with his daughter.

“I feel like this is another part where one of us faints again.” Mable says in utter disbelief at the scene that unfolded in front of her. “Ohoh!” Soos laughed out. “I’m so on it, dudes.” As if on command his eyes roll to the back of his head and he faints flat on his back.

HEADCANON TIME!!

• You weren’t really expecting to talk to him much due to Stan wanting to talk to his brother, but after their fight, he came looking for you. When he found you, you were sitting on the couch that was outside on the porch. You were reading a book you recently purchased from the bookstore. Nose deep in your book, you failed to realize Ford standing beside you. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his trench coat. Quietly he asked, “Is there room for one more?”

• The night was spent with the two of you getting to know each other. From your favorite color to your favorite show, what food you like to eat and so on. Ford wanted to fully understand and know you as a person. He wanted to make up all the years he lost with you.

• The next day, you awoke to the smell of your favorite breakfast food being cooked. With haste you pushed your blanket off of you and slipped on your slippers and sped off into the kitchen where Ford was buttering the pan. He looked over to you and flashed you a smile. “I made you your favorite.” He said, motioning over to the table where he laid out your breakfast. “You didn’t have to do this.” You scratched your cheek, a small laugh of surprise leaving you. “I’m just doing what I always dreamed of doing.” He shoveled out his breakfast onto his plate using a spatula. “How’s the food, kiddo?” He asks, placing the pan and spatula on the dirty side of the sink. “Actually pretty good for someone who hasn't been in this dimension for over a decade!” You jest, taking another delicious bite from your breakfast. Ford jokingly rolled his eyes, ruffling your hair as he walked past you and sat down on his chair. “Already poking fun at me.” He said, shaking his head.

• Stanford knew he had to focus on his projects, he had so many things he left unfinished that he'd been dying to get his hands on the minute he stepped foot into his dimension. But he couldn’t seem to pull himself away from you. He loved seeing you interact with the twins, he loved watching how pieces of his personality shone through you. Like the way you’re so meticulous with where you put things, or how you were forever curious about the things around you, and even the abundance of questions you’d mutter to yourself as you discovered something new. That’s all of him right there, in front of him and he couldn’t grasp such a thought that you were his!

• He finds himself gazing upon baby photos Stan took of you when you were younger. Even if he’s angry at his twin currently, he’s forever grateful that he documented such beautiful memories in a scrapbook. “Y’know, I used to tell stories about you to her.” A shriek leaves Ford. He jumps forward, the scrapbook tumbling down his lap and onto the floor. “You idiot! Be careful.” Stan sneered, kneeling down to the floor to pick up the scrapbook. “Stanley!” Ford leans his head back, trying to regain his composure. “You scared me!” He says. “Yeah, yeah. I know.” Stan waves him off, grabbing the scrapbook and tucking it in between his arms. They stand in awkward silence, eyes darting around the place uneasily. “Did…” Ford starts, shattering the silence. “Did she like the stories you told of me?” Stan smiles fondly, nodding his head. “She loved them. She thought you were some stupid amazing superhero, no matter what I told her.” Ford furrowed his brows. “Wait, what do you mean by no matter what you told her?” Stan nervously laughed. “Hey, why don’t you keep looking at these photos! Wait here, look at this one. Haha! She’s trying to eat her toes, isn’t that adorable?” “Stanley.”

• Outings between the two of you were very common. He loved being tugged around the town of Gravity Falls by you as you pointed at various different shops and locations. You told him the reasons why you hated them or loved them, and some were tied to stories that happened within the summer. He seriously questioned how you and the twins survived so many times where you were just so close to death. The mall was a place where you and him resided the most. With the money he took from Stan, he paid for almost everything you wanted. Entering the shack with so many bags was a shock to everyone. “Woah! Did you buy the whole mall?” Mable jokes, grabbing one of the bags to help you with the load. “Basically,” you laughed, instructing Mable to rally Soos and Dipper to have a little haul of what you bought. Stan watched with a raised brow as you stumbled into the living room with Mable following closely behind. “Where did you get all the money to buy her all of that?” Stan asks. “Just stole some money from some hobo.” Ford said, walking into the living room to join in on the haul. Stan didn’t understand what he said and opened the cash register. When he saw all the money he had stored the day before gone, it all clicked.

• Adventures out in the woods is a must. Gathering the twins and your dad, all four of you venture out into the woods in hopes to find something new. “Why couldn’t Grunkle Stan tag along with us?” Mable asked as she kneeled down to pluck a flower from the dirt. “Because he’s being a wet towel.” Dipper muttered, scribbling down a rough drawing of the flower Mable was picking in a book you bought him. “So what kind of anomalies you three stumbled upon?” Ford questioned. You and the twins began to dump everything onto him, from when you started seeing them to when Dipper and Mable came. Ford couldn’t truly focus on what they were saying, mostly because it was a jumbled excited mess of words, but partially because he was astonished with the trio in front of him. They went through so much and yet they’re still so headstrong. He could definitely see a little bit of him in Dipper and Mable.

• Stan would find you and Ford fallen asleep on the couch or in his lab, all huddled up together and completely knocked out. Snores filled the room and he found it amusing that you and him both snores the same. Videos and photos were definitely taken by Mable.

• Ford would tell stories of his adventures in another dimension to you. Stemming from how he started from the ground up to him getting banned from many other dimensions for stealing parts. “You’re not so different from Uncle Stan,” You laughed, shaking your head. “What! It was only a few…hundred dimensions.”

• There’s times where you’d wake up in a cold sweat, afraid that your Dad finally coming back was just a painful dream your brain played on you. But when you would get ready to find him, you’d step on his stomach or back. “Ough!” Ford groaned out in pain. Being suddenly woken up from his sleep, he sat up, looking around confused. “What are you doing sleeping on the floor?” You sat back down on your bed, pulling the blankets over you. “Is there a problem with me sleeping on the floor?” Ford asks, looking at you with squinted eyes. “No, no.” You laid back down on your bed. “Go back to sleep. I’m better now,” You say, somewhat amused with Ford sleeping on the floor beside your bed. “Goodnight, I love you.” You brush your fingers playfully across his face to annoy him. He shoves your fingers away from his face, huffing out. “Goodnight,” He shuffles to his side, looking up to you with a small smile. “I love you more, kiddo.”

[writingbyshiloh]

Night Shift

AN: I want superstrength so I’m being indulgent. I actually have a part 2 in mind but it took AGES so I figured I’d drop pt 1 

CW: NO BETA (I’ll check it over later), robbery, reader has unspecific powers, but some super strength etc. Rude customer hitting on reader if I use the term FIFO it means first in first out etc very big in food service (IDK which one of y’all sufferers in food service with me but there we go), suggestive thoughts from Reader

Word Count: 1.2K

Tag List: @tokoyamisstuff, @imonlyherebecauseofthisbandilike, @oiiilyyyy

Was being an assistant manager of a Burger Mart your life dream? Absolutely not. It was something to pay the bills while you put your energy into what you cared about. 

Did you enjoy the evening shift? Absolutely fucking not. It’s hell on earth. The store somehow makes enough to justify staying open until 11 pm but only with a skeleton crew. You, another cashier and a fry cook, no doubt stoned out of her mind.

You pull out another small wear from the soapy water, not bothering to see what it is as you rise off the soap before plunking it onto a tray. It's while you’re switching the loads in the sanitizer over someone crackles on the headset.

“Can you come to the front? Ger-Bear is here.” 

You grab your tray aggressively, scoops and spoons rattling around. “Call me Ger-Bear” (On his Burger Mart rewards account you can see his name is Gerry), is your least favourite person in the world. He has two moods and you’re not sure which you hate more. His “this is too many onions, learn how to do your job.” and “Thanks darling, your hands are so soft.” you wonder which one you’ll get today, you hate both equally. 

You plunk your tray on the counter, hopefully, your coworkers will pick up that slack. Turning to the counter, you see Ger-Bear, holding out his membership card. One of his “learn your job.” moods. 

“The usual?” you ask, putting on your best customer service voice while wanting to bash your head into the wall. He doesn’t reply just shaking his card in your face. You scan it and direct him to the counter. You unfortunately have his order memorized so you can just put it in instantly. Even if you make it right you’re sure he’ll send it back. 

“Hi. What can I get for ya?” your voice sounded fake and tired to your ears, as you greet the next customer, eyes focused on the screen. It's his voice that makes you snap your head up. His height makes you tilt your head back even further. And of course, he's fucking blue. Why would you ever have just a normal shift? 

“Hi. Can I get a box of burgers? On the house.” The smooth baritone of his voice almost causes you to miss the thinly veiled threat. As if you’re going to fight this guy over a fucking box of burger patties. You sigh while weighing your options. 

He watches you internally debate what to do, while the crew behind you isn’t paying attention. Your hands are still above the desk so he knows you can’t hit a panic button. He hopes you would hurry up though, it’s not a great look to be freshly out of jail and immediately caught again in Burger Mart. 

“Hey! This is not what I ordered.” Ger Bear shouts from the end of the bar. You’re used to his usual song and dance. Gerry is so engrossed in the onions on his burger that he’s not paying attention as he walks back to the counter to berate you for messing up something you should have known. 

He never makes it back to the counter. Instead, he bumps into a solid blue mass of flesh. You can’t help but enjoy how terrified Gerry looks as he takes a step back, argument dying on his lips. 

“Apologize. Now.” The singular twin says arms crossed to make his muscles look even better. 

You have to press your lips together to avoid grinning at Gerry as he stumbles through an apology to you and your staff, saying his burger is perfect and that he's going to give everyone 10s on the BM survey. 

“You can have whatever you want.” you tell Mauler as you both watch Gerry slink back to his seat. “Follow me.”

He raises an eyebrow but does as you ask. You give yourself a second to admire his shoulders and arms before leading him into the back room.

“Don’t you have a twin?” you ask, back resting against the deep freeze door to keep it open for him. You’re grateful for the human-sized BM jacket the store has, meaning you don’t have to share the warmth. Plus a jacket would cover up his muscles, while you watch them flex and shift looking for what they want. “Wait, are you getting this shit to use for the clone-twin thing? Is it a food source?” 

The one-mauler twin turns around from where he hunched over, sorting through the deep freeze for a box of something. Remember that Burger Mart does not pay for “hostage time”:  you decide to help him. Plus you can probably use this robbery to get your shithead manager fired. 

“Look at you, not just a pretty face.” He says, passing through the door with a box to put by the others he selected. You feel your face heat up but hopefully the cold air from the freezer will counteract it. 

“Do you have more of the deluxe patties?” he asks. He puts one arm on the outer door frame and leans against it to look down at you. If you die now, what a way to go you think. 

You duck under the doorway and his arm to bring him to the other deep freezer mostly used for storage. He's much better company than you thought he would be, but Burger Mart doesn’t pay after when your schedule says your shift ended.

You drag a breakroom chair to prop the door open. Being in the second deep freeze is tidier. Anyone working can haul things from the first deep fridge, but the second one is only for stock and few are allowed to access it, mostly you and your manager,

Cardboard boxes are arranged neatly on shelves, so you know exactly what he's looking for and where it is. Sliding your hand under the metal shelf above you lift it, allowing space for someone to grab the fresh fifoed box of patties.

It’s too heavy for a normal human to lift, the shelves full of products but you can manage it. 

“The fresh ones are at the back…” you prompt him out of his staring. “If you want to… y’know, fucking grab them.” 

You pish the shelves slightly higher to make room for his arm so he can grab what he needs. While you have some superhuman strength they’re still fucking heavy. You catch him staring as he stacks the boxes with the others.  

“You said it yourself, I’m not just a pretty face.” 

“That was scary.” Fry Cook Anna says from the passenger seat of your car. You and your staff stayed later to fill out incident reports to hopefully get time off for trauma. “But you could take him, right?” 

With your mind focused on the shit directions Anna gave you, you’re only half listening.

“With some prep, I think so. Maybe both if I have a lot of time.” you mumble. 

“What? Like warming up?” It’s Anna's questions that make you realize you mistook her words, she meant a physical fight. 

“Yeah, like that.” You lie, hoping she's too high to remember any of it.

[im14andivebeen14foramonth]

absolutely no pressure to answer this within the next ten years or ever but!! the descendants au!!!

who do you picture as who? are their parents the same characters as in the movies or are they different? and is there any particular thing in the plot that changes from the movie? :0

i’d love to hear literally any other thoughts you have abt this too!! those movies were my life

heyyy! sorry this took so long to get to I meant to answer ages ago lol

So ngl I STRUGGLED trying to figure out who some of them were going to be lmao but I essentially narrowed it down to this:

The villain kids (VKs) are the greasers

The kids from Auradon are the socs

Everyone has the villain parents from the movie rather than their own parents. So instead of Darry, Soda, and Pony being the Curtis parent's kids, they're Maleficent's kids

Speaking of the Curtis bros they're just kind of...all Maleficent's kids lol. So instead of just Mal there's three of them. BUT Pony takes on Mal's role from the movie pretty much (trust this is going to cause some discourse between the brothers later on >:))

Moving on to the rest of the gang and this part was DIFFICULT

Two-bit - Carlos (bc he's a goof)

Jay - Steve (bc he's competitive and sporty AND a goof as well)

Dally and Johnny are where I struggled the most bc there was only Evie's spot left so I decided fuck it, let Johnny be Evie (bc Evie and Mal are besties and Pony is Mal in this au) (also Johnny deserves his sassy girl moment)

Then I decided that Dally being Mother Gothel's kid just felt fitting for some reason so that's where he fits in

Moving on to the socs!!

Ben - Cherry (but Pony and Cherry's relationship is going to be platonic in this instead of romantic like in the movie)

Audrey - Bob

Chad - Randy

Jane - Marcia

And I sooo wanted to fit Paul in here somewhere bc him and Darry need to have their little friendship that ends in betrayal but I just don't know whose kid Paul would be. I tried to go for someone blonde who wasn't already taken and all google was giving me was Kristoff or John Smith so idk maybe one of them

And just to make things interesting we're going to toss in the Shepards

Uma's pirate crew - The Shepards

Uma - Tim

Curly - Harry (but they're brothers instead of whatever weird love thing they had in the movie)

Gil - Angela (sorry girl I know he's dumb and all but I have to put you somewhere)

When they were younger Tim and Darry used to be best friends but then something happened between them which is why they end up fighting later on like how they did in the second movie

Okay SO that's what I have for characters as of right now, and I think I'll do a follow up post pretty soon with more ideas that I have cooking up!

Also here are some screenshots of me fighting for my life trying to figure out some of these characters lmao

[i-willstealyourtoes]

HIIII!! I wanted to request something for Ninjago since I saw you're requests were open!!

So basically PLATONIC hcs where the ninja have a younger sibling who is the reader(gn!) and the reader has tiny anger issues and during a mission their anger gets out if control and they accidentally hurt someone. So its up to the ninja to calm down their younger sibling so they don't do more harm. They can be related or just a big sibling figure for the reader!

OKAY THATS KINDA IT I TRIED MAKING IT AS SPECIFIC AS POSSIBLE REMEMBER TO GET SOME REST AND YOU ARE LOVED❤️❤️❤️🦙

This is my first Ninjago request pls wish me luck fr-

Idk if you wanted Nya too but I didn't include her bc I feel like I've already taken too long on this 😔

Ninjas with a sibling with anger issues

Kai

- Totally gets the whole anger thing

- I mean, have you seen this man

- Especially if it's early on in the show he definitely relates to just giving into the feeling

- So he'd probably keep a hand on your shoulder and hold you back

- "Hey, kid? Maybe, just, take a breather, okay?"

- If you push past him and hurt someone, he'd definitely be more stern about it and pull you back before you do anything else

- "Hey! That's not how we do things (Y/n)!"

- He usually calls you by any sort of teasing nickname, but he needs to be serious about this if you're harming someone who doesn't deserve it

- He knows you don't mean it, but it doesn't change the fact that you still did it

- As your all going home, he'd probably give you a talk

- "Listen, I- I get it okay? I totally do."

- After talking to you, he'd probably be the one to hold your wrist (gently) and keep you from doing anything rash

Zane

- Takes notes on what triggers your anger and makes sure to try avoid it or hold you back

- Also takes notes on what calming techniques work and what doesn't

- The first time it happens and you hurt someone he'd try verbally communicate with you

- "(Y/n), this isn't right. Why don't you step back and talk to me?"

- Outside of battles, he's probably trying to help you overcome your anger

- If you're willing, he'd be more than happy to just take some time trying to figure out ways for you to work through your anger issues

- He's very happy to see any progress!! Even just a little bit :)

- "It took approximately 4 seconds longer than usual for you to get mad. That's progress..! :]"

Cole

- Definitely gets shocked the first time you get mad

- "WOAH, HEY! (Y/N), STOP-!"

- He'd hold you by the shoulder gently and try calm you down

- As you're going home, he'd try get you to explain what got you mad

- "Listen, if we understand what made you mad, maybe next time we could try avoid it?"

- He kind of understands where you're coming from too?

- I mean he gets mad too so

- Would join Zane in trying to train you to handle it better

- Next time, he's definitely keeping an eye on you during battle to see if you've made any progress + to make sure you don't hurt someone again

- "Hey, nice work kid, you didn't get mad this time!"

Lloyd

- I mean he was quite an angry kid when he was young, so he understands the frustration

- If you're the same age he was in the first season he can totally empathise

- "Hey, hey, it's okay (Y/n), I get it.. I mean, when I was a kid I was just like you...!"

- Obviously it wasn't okay for you to hurt someone but in the heat of the moment it can change your thought process

- And he understands that fully

- If you ever feel overly guilty he's always there to give you a pat on the shoulder and tell you it's okay

- He will absolutely give high-fives if you make any progress at all

- "Hey! That's great kid, you're doing better than I did when I was your age."

- (Why is he speaking like he's 70 💀)

Jay

- Probably gets really worried when you hurt someone and kind of doesn't know how to react initially?

- He'd probably let the others be the first responders, and then he'd help after

- If you were feeling panicked or guilty after the mission, you don't now :)

- He'd just bring out a video game to play or do something with you and try to support you

- "Hey, so... I just wanted to let you know that it's not your fault; I mean, we all get like that sometimes, you know?"

- If anything bad happens while on mission, he's there to reassure you

- "Hey, don't worry, you'll get it next time (Y/n)..!"

- He's confident that you can handle it next time :)

[practically-an-x-man]

IDK who to ask you this about... Um... free choice??

5, 6, 7, 13

also 16, 18, 20, and

21... is there anything you'd like to share about your characters, their experiences, Pride, etc?

Thank you!! I think I'm going to answer this for Jimmy, since you're familiar with him and I haven't answered any of these for him yet :D

Pride Themed OC Ask Game

5. How did you figure out your oc's identity?

It was a combination of two things: one, I got some queer vibes from Lars when I watched the movie; and two, making a character a ghost means there's all sorts of historical culture and perspective you can play with, and I figured that would be interesting.

6. How does your oc feel about labels? Theirs, or in general?

In general, he's getting better about it. There are a lot of labels that are new to him, even ones that wouldn't necessarily be foreign to a modern queer person, so he's still trying to learn what they all mean.

For himself, his labels are possibly a little old-fashioned (it took him a while just to switch to "gay" when the common term in his time was... not that) but again, he means well and is trying to get caught up to speed.

7. Is there something that could cause your oc to question their identity? What?

Not really. He's been reminded of his identity his whole life, and most of his afterlife, for better or worse. He's questioned if it would be easier to suppress that part of his identity for societal reasons, just to marry a woman and ignore those feelings, but he didn't question his identity itself.

13. Would your oc be open to a poly relationship? Why or why not?

He'd have to work through some socially-ingrained standards of monogamy, since he comes from a time that was very strict about marriage and family values, but I think individually he'd be open to it once he worked through it. He's a loving, affectionate guy just by nature, I could definitely see him in a poly relationship if it presented itself.

____

16. Did you ever change an oc's identity when they were already established? Why?

I answered this one before, but the short answer is: yes in drafting/brainstorming, not once I've started publishing/posting their stories.

18. Do you prefer to give your ocs specific labels, or keep it unspecified? Why? If applicable, do you change their labels depending on circumstance?

It depends on what the OCs' perspective on it would be, based on their particular social and historical experiences.

People like Jasper and Katherine are more likely to understand or use microlabels, since they're younger, in the modern age, and have access to the internet and queer communities.

Kestrel and Eris would understand the different labels but wouldn't use them, since they view their gender identities as innate or outside modern labels. Kestrel's identity is tied to them being a changeling, and Eris' perspective is influenced from centuries of witnessing human views on queerness.

Jimmy, or my less-spoken about OC Vivienne, wouldn't give themselves specific labels because those labels didn't necessarily exist in their time periods. Vivienne would technically be nonbinary, and her being a siren is a metaphor for that, but in her time period that term didn't exist the same way it does today.

Rae, Robin, Madison, and Nikoletta might understand some labels but not all of them, due to their time periods or social circumstances (ex. Rae and Robin being from the 80s, Madison from the 60s, Nikoletta having spent most of her life in prison/isolated)

Anyway. Very long answer just to say that it depends on the OC.

20. Have your ocs helped you in self discovery? How?

Oh, absolutely. I process a lot of things through my OCs, and I've definitely worked through my thoughts on my identity using some of my OCs. Writing as a whole is a good way for me to process things, my identity included.

21… is there anything you'd like to share about your characters, their experiences, Pride, etc?

I think one of the biggest themes in my writing is this idea of "I love you enough that I want to learn", where one character is introduced to a particular community through their S/O and may not understand it immediately, but cares so much about their partner that they make a genuine effort to learn and understand. Sometimes this is candidly queer, like Jasper and Kyle's relationship; other times it's through superpowers or other fantasy elements, like with Nikoletta and Abner (their powers also represent chronic illness) or Warren and Kestrel.

Usually it's a mix of multiple things too, like Billy adapting to both Quinn's being transgender and her disabilities. It's just a repeat theme for me, but in a good way.

I think it's because I tend to write what I want, and as someone who is both queer and has physical difficulties/disabilities, I really just want a partner who will be open to learning about my experiences even if they don't understand it from the beginning. I don't expect someone to "get it" right away, I just want someone to be willing to put in the effort.

[cosmolis]

interview with the vampire author!

tagged by the bestest @aevallare xoxoxo even though it took me ages.......

When did you start writing?

Before I could even write, I was already making up stories with my friends in the schoolyard and drawing horrible comics lmao everything was a storytelling opportunity for me

Probably a very common thing for writers/artists in general!!

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

i had a romcom binge reading phase this year and while i'm writing one right now I can safely say that it will never be my genre lol

also probably never a full-on epic fantasy, it would require too much plotting and world building and fact checking that i can hold myself to (also i cannot picture things in my head and i feel like this is a severe handicap for this genre??)

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I wish I could write descriptions & shitty characters as well as Donna Tartt, Magic/Horror As A Metaphor as well as Maggie Stiefvater and Weird Crazy Amazing Narration as well as Tamsyn Muir

(🕯️🕯️ Manifesting that for spooky season 2024 🕯️🕯️)

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

the messiest desk that ever was, with an average amount of 3 dirty cups, 4 notebooks, 1 nail file to hopefully stop myself from biting my nails and -1 pen because they keep disappearing somewhere? but idk where?

and so

much

cat hair

even though i feel like i´m spending my time vacuuming my desk

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I reread/rewatch the book/media that inspired the project and/or reread the whole draft from the beginning and/or I reread comments left by my betareaders

most of the time it's all 3

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

— not knowing who you are/who you want to be and being angry about it — complicated relationships with parents and/or oneself — the absolute need to bolt and leave everything behind without being able to say why — recently, grief & the vacuum left by failed dreams

no & i don't think they would surprise anyone who has known me for more than a week lol

What is your reason for writing?

Processing Stuff is the official reason but the real one is: making my close friends/beta readers want to throw stuff at me while also trying to figure stuff out that I should have figured out already

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

i love when what i'm trying to do finally clicks with people, the comments where they realise where i'm going but i'm not there yet in the story and they're so excited about it!!!!!!! YES YOU SAW THE WRITING ON THE WALL!!!!!!!!!!

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

hopefully as someone who finishes projects instead of moving on at the 50k mark lmao

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

The fact that I manage to not get crippled by my own insecurities is an achievement in itself ngl

How do you feel about your own writing?

cannot live without it and yet cannot for the life of me be consistent about it, truly the worst part of myself

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

I always start for myself, but I need external input to keep going. I've always had writing partners / beta readers who were also close friends, so I don't think I could write without it being "social" in some shape -- i need to know that someone is FEELING THINGS

@ijja @whendawncomes ♥ ♥

[oh-bonerline]

hi!!! im super late sending this cos i had a super busy weekend and start of the week and it took me AGES to read ur new chapter and to get my thoughts in order but omgggggg it was absolutely stunning

the way u flashback inside the flashback bits is so clever like wow... it took me a while to figure out what was going on at first but when i finally got it (not an issue with ur writing im just fuckin slow lol) it like blew my entire mind fr especially the looping around to waughy asking “what happens next” like girllll ur a genius

also i just rly love these two together like can we please please pleeeeease admit that theyre perfect together or are we gonna keep pretending... ross and matty have history yeah but theres a reason why ross is going back to waughy now and yeah okay its bad that hes cheating on matty but it also feels good idk like it feels right u know?? been a raughy shipper since the iliwys days and im so glad someone is finally writing about them and doing it well ur such a blessing to us i swear

and one last thing before i go i wanted to mention how much i love that waughy is the top in this relationship like... yeah looking at him and then looking at ross and seeing them together you wouldnt assume he would be the one topping but omg thats something else that just makes sense to me??? cant explain why it just does and as much as i love ross being dommy for matty i think i love him being subby for waughy 1000 times more like please thats so hot and i need more

ok i swear im done now i just wanted to let u know ur incredible and this story is so great and raughy is endgame in my heart xxx

Hi!! Thank you so much for sending this in! No worries about the delay, I get it!

I had a lot of fun going back and filling in the Ross gaps from the previous chapter and then looping it all back around again. Extremely satisfying as a writer tbh. It did give me a headache sometimes and I did worry it would be a bit confusing but I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it! At one point I even had a mini flashback within a flashback within the main flashback. I stopped myself with that though lol

John and Ross really are perfect together. I'm quite attached to them at this point. Not only are they a joy to write but there is so much canonical shippy stuff with them. Like how many romantic and wistful photos of Ross are on John's instagram? A LOT is the answer. Anyway, happy to have you on board with Raughy because there is a lot more to come for them in the next part of this chapter 👀

And I will again defend Ross on the cheating allegations. Matty is categorically and adamantly not his boyfriend at this point so????

I love that you bring up the different dynamics between Matty and Ross and John and Ross. One of my absolute favorite things honestly. Like not only do I love dommy John, which does somehow just make sense??, but I also love how Ross gets to be a lot more versatile in this relationship. John is mostly in control but they can also switch it around sometimes, you know? Depending on their mood/vibe. They're just like incredibly compatible in that way.

Raughy might not be endgame in this story but they are absolutely endgame in my true heart. In the meantime, I'll do my best to bring you around to Matty and Ross by the end of this one. I hope.

Thank you again for sending this and for reading and enjoying my story! I appreciate you greatly! ❤️

[waywardsalt]

Can you please tell more about your redeemed Bellum that hangs around with the main cast in post-canon? Or, like, your hum!Bellum ideas in general?

Ooooh, I have a lot I could say about Bellum. I'll go a bit off this ask and just talk about him in the context of post-ph and some other aus, since he's fun and because most of them share the common thread of him being in human form often. This will probably be messy, but I'll divide it into sections to force myself to stick to one topic at once to keep this from devolving into what might as well be a transcript of a discord dms infodump.

(there should be a keep reading just under here- there are a few thousand words under the cut- if it's lower than it should be then idk, even while drafting this i had issues with it moving further down than i put it)

Human Bellum Basics (mostly design stuff)

It's less of a human Bellum au sort of thing, and more like a design for what if Bellum had a human form that he could change into. Kind of like Oshus having his human form while actually being a whale, it's the idea that Bellum can switch between his human form and his demon form at will, and I have spent... way, way too long trying to figure out this design.

I can't quite remember why I decided to give Bellum a human form (could've been anything from doing it for the hell of it to for shipping purposes) and it took AGES to decide on his final design.

Describing it would take a few paragraphs, so there's art! Commission pieces by @roskii specifically, he's great, he did great, check him out. (i dont know how to make these smaller :)))))) enjoy)

Half of it is directly taken from his demon design, he keeps the tentacles (not always present, he manifests them at will and tend to have much less reach when he's human), his eye, his teeth, his hair color (kind of), and half of it is more... brought in by ideas related to Bellum in general, with some vague references to that demon design; specifically him being scarred all over is a mixture of the idea of him as a violent and almost warlike creature, while also vaguely referencing the markings on his demon body (in the earliest drawing I ever did of a human Bellum design, he did just straight-up have those markings. That picture no longer exists, I'm sure).

As a basic reference, I suppose, in the second image, the character to the right of Bellum (Damien Fletcher) is an oc of mine, and therefore a character I designed (totally worth mentioning tho that with both Damien and Bellum while I did technically design them and gave roskii my notes for how they look, he also took some small liberties with their designs and... ugh theyre great im keeping them), so those two could provide some insight to my character design sensibilities, even if they're just a small fraction of the (mental) character designs I have.

Bellum is made up of pieces of his canonical design, pieces that I think make sense considering what we know about him, and just pieces of other character designs. He has more or less the same haircut as Joker/the protagonist from Persona 5. His hair has been like that for a while, but seeing Joker's hair helped me figure out specifically what I wanted.

It's been... hard, trying to give him a humanoid design, I've seen a bunch of other human Bellum designs, looked at other Zelda characters with both human and inhuman forms, took inspiration for what I could do and how and what parts could be carried over. His hair is easy to explain, it literally is meant to look like he does as a demon. Easy. It is absolutely directly inspired by that bitch from Tokyo Ghoul. I'm not looking up the character name I don't care about Tokyo Ghoul.

I keep him having sharp teeth, I've transposed those markings on his bodies as being scars (which I'll elaborate a little more on later), kept his eye and that he only has one main eye (there is nothing under the eyepatch. It's just smooth. If you've seen The Goonies, it's like what's going on with One-Eyed Willy. That's probably where I got it from tbh), the yellow and black color scheme is further kept with a yellow tank top-esque shirt and black pants and boots, and while they're not constantly present he still has access to his tentacles.

He's not human, just pretending to be.

Leading me to some other little details, such as his lack of ears. And nails. And. Other things not visible that he didn't bother with. He pretends to be human, but doesn't care enough to look truly human- though he can pass as human. When he does bother to actually look human, he does have nails and ears, and changes his eye to a human one, with a color of choice. He goes by 'Warren' when actually pretending to be human. It doesn't mean anything in particular it's just a play on how 'bellum' is latin for 'war'. But, most of the time, he's not really trying. A sense of lack of real care is something I try to communicate with his humanoid design, hence him having generally baggy and plain clothes.

The 'war' thing about his character I think is decently expressed in game with him having an army of sorts with the phantoms and him just coming off as sort of violent but strategic. He also seems very scrappy, mostly attacks with direct contact including just straight up running into Link, and seems to put a lot of stock into sheer force and just fucking killing you at any cost after a certain point, but seems genuinely wary and cornered once someone is shown to be capable of actually posing an actual threat. I like the idea of human Bellum being a bit of a brawler in a sense, fighting with his bare hands and just being incredibly violent when he fights like a human, really only breaking out his more supernatural abilities when he just wants to get shit over with.

Part of the fun with Bellum is that there isn't much to him, so I'm taking a lot of liberties with him. His loose clothes are something that won't really get in the way of him fighting and do the bare minimum, and the boots he wears have metal toes for just a bit of extra ways to hurt people. He's built but still soft in places, not intended to be a muscular as Damien, he's intentionally designed his own human form to be a bit unassuming, so I've kept that he's made of a lot of circular shapes, his face is meant to be a bit of a round shape, his hair gives a round shape, and though he's fairly tall (he and Damien are 6 feet tall btw Linebeck throws off every post-ph cast height comparison) I think of him being a bit... small? If that makes sense? His clothes help with that, they're slightly oversized, and his posture isn't great; He's a bit like a delinquent, starting fights intentionally for the sake of violence and putting little effort into his appearance.

His scars are technically cosmetic. They aren't results of injuries; technically nothing but the Phantom Sword and things like it can hurt him. His scars are references to the markings on his demon body, and just further reflection of him being a creature all about violence and conflict. They aren't totally consistent between the times he uses his human form, but some of the bigger ones are, most notably the scar across his face.

I'll be honest. My earliest human Bellum designs were some Tumblr sexyman shit and I've been trying to ditch that SO BAD ever since. I think I've done well. The scar across his face is a big one. An added imperfection, a massive facial blemish that isn't really conventionally great to look at. His nose specifically has been though some development stages, at first I kept switching between different full nose shapes, then brought in the facial scar and decided that he'd be missing a chunk of that nose, then, decided, fuck it! I can't decide on a nose shape, so he gets no nose at all. I think it works pretty well and I like it.

I really tried to get in a lot of his personality to the design, and I don't want to go into all of it in this section, so just keep in mind that a lot of his design has been influenced by the way I've decided to write him, and some stuff I've already mentioned might be made a little clearer when I get into that. As a quick aside, he's pale partially because I've intentionally made him look halfway similar to Link, and partially because I figure he does not get a lot of sun; you literally meet him in what is effectively a basement, and from the way he operates, probably hasn't made himself seen in a while by the time the events of the game happen. He can't get sunburns, but, as he cannot change a lot of extremely major things about his human form, he can't manually change his skin tone in a major way, and it's likely that when he was considerably younger and newer and spent time in the sun, his skin tone would be closer to Oshus's, so a bit more tan.

In the Context of Phantom Hourglass and Post-PH

Moving swiftly on, as there is pretty much no real info about Bellum's background, I have taken matters into my own hands and decided a lot of it for myself in headcanon; Bellum is technically Oshus's son. Not in the traditional sense, but he was created by Oshus and can very much be considered his child, and to an extent, Ciela, Leaf, and Neri are all also Oshus's kids due to them being created by him (yea even considering Ciela calling him 'grandpa', in her and my defense she lost her memories and he is old as a human), therefore making (in some terms) Bellum to be Oshus's son and the brother of the three spirits. I think it's an interesting dynamic, to have Oshus be the one responsible for Bellum's existence, and for the three spirits you travel with and help you defeat Bellum to be closely related to him.

Oshus himself (when you get the hourglass in ph) says that the sand of hours is made of force gems of the ocean king (whatever... that wording means)- which then suggests that at the end of the day, all sands of hours are derived from the power of the ocean king, and Bellum dissolves into that sand at the end of the game, and I am standing in front of a wild-looking conspiracy cork board trying to piece this all together. I find it interesting if Oshus was the one who created Bellum before he created the three spirits.

(This is a topic for another post/fic but Leaf and Neri were neglected so bad in ph and it would be interesting to see more of how they feel abt Ciela before she gets her memories back and how they feel abt... anything else ig. I think they're neat, too, and I like tying the spirits together with Bellum in this way)

In Phantom Hourglass, it's strongly suggested (mostly through dialogue) that it's been a decent amount of time since Bellum defeated Oshus and took over the Temple of the Ocean King and created the Ghost Ship (though I suppose it could be possible that the Ghost Ship's existence precedes Bellum taking over that temple and defeating Oshus), but things across that sea are relatively calm, despite the new influx of monsters and the Ghost Ship making most people too afraid to sail. No one knows it's Bellum, though, and people do know about the Ocean King, so I wonder if Bellum is known about at all by the general public, or is a being that's more or less completely unknown? My personal theory is that he's vaguely known in some sense, as an obscure deity, and that he was behind the collapse of the Cobble Kingdom, since they were aligned with the Ocean King and Bellum appears to be his direct enemy and would likely then target the allies of his enemy.

Bellum seems to do a lot of behind the scenes stuff, never been seen until the end of the game and not even being mentioned until halfway through. As I think I've said before, he's practically won by the time he comes across Link and Tetra, the Ghost Ship going out and collecting people for him while he sits at the bottom of the temple and drains anyone who might be heading directly for him. He doesn't even seem to concerned about hunting Oshus down for good, and I suspect he likely doesn't even know about Ciela being split apart, so (asides from my idea that gods/spirits/stuff like that only being able to be sealed away, only properly killed under certain circumstances) I bet there's a level of confidence that he's got things under tight enough wraps that he's good to do whatever he wants.

Aaaand then he panics when he realizes how much of a wrench in his plans Link is, throwing two sea monsters at him and causing earthquakes, he's a procrastinator, I think. That, or he underestimated this kid. Both are very possible. Either way, it's interesting to look at what he's done and caused, hiding away the spirits and beating back the Ocean King, taking over his temple, creating the Ghost Ship to roam indefinitely, screwing with the Yook and wiping out pretty much all of the Isle of Ember, and likely being the reason behind the increased number of monsters. If you really look into it, while most characters don't really seem to realize, things are kind of fucked at the start of Phantom Hourglass, and it's interesting how Oshus himself seems powerless and even dissuades Link from giving it a shot, even if he secretly wants him to go and handle things.

With my idea of Bellum being a sort of technical relative to Oshus and the spirits, it opens up a handful of new avenues for motivation beyond just being after securing control and a steady stream of prey, I enjoy the idea of it being a matter of him becoming more and more ambitious, far beyond the station he was created for; going off of his name and ability to create phantoms, I imagine Oshus created him specifically to be warlike, perhaps initially with the intention of having him as a more violent protector of the realm, maybe to keep monsters in check or maybe just as a secondary deity for the world of the ocean king; I'll admit, I'm still a little foggy on what Bellum would've been initially created for, the spirits are easy to figure out, but I do figure it was something not as passive as just representing something, I imagine it as a deliberate opposite to Oshus himself to account for his weaknesses. Either way, I figure a part of Bellum's motivation involves him wanting more than he was given access to by Oshus, and deciding to fully wage war against him in a sense. The short and silly version is that Bellum is Oshus' shitty disowned son. Oshus isn't entirely innocent in whatever I decide caused Bellum to turn on him and the spirits, but Bellum does suck: that is important. The Cobble Kingdom looks like it's been destroyed for a while, I figure that was Bellum's first major target when he started outwardly going after Oshus and hunting the humans of the realm.

In Post-PH, he's the group's pet evil squid on a very very very short leash until he starts behaving himself and having a character arc.

Effectively, Bellum doesn't die at the end of Phantom Hourglass, instead being broken down into the sand of hours he's made of and being sealed inside the Phantom Sword- after all, after the final boss, the sand Bellum turns into goes into the Phantom Sword. I imagine that the Phantom Sword, after breaking and restoring Oshus, turns into the hourglass for Link to keep, while Oshus and the spirits keep the remaining sands, therefore keeping a hold of Bellum. (A bit like Oshus just being left alone after Bellum defeating him, they can't really kill Bellum so they just keep an eye on him while he's in a weakened state) They kind of just keep him prisoner at the bottom of the Temple for a bit, and Oshus finally decides to send him to Link's world as a punishment, since he's at his weakest and Oshus wants to get him to learn some lesson, it's a work in progress. Bellum is grounded in Post-PH.

It's basically that 'the villain when you unlock him as a playable character' bit, where he's quite a bit weaker than he is in Phantom Hourglass, though mostly for the sake of keeping things balanced, so Bellum can't break everything for everyone. He's still powerful, he still accesses his demon form, can't be conventionally killed or injured, and move through walls and turn people to stone, the whole deal, it's just that his demon form's size is impacted (i hc that the size of his demon form can be manipulated at will, but the largest size is dependent of how much power/stored life force he has. he's small at the start of post-ph, but his human form isnt impacted at all. i imagine that for beings like oshus and bellum, their human form is a like a 'low power mode' kinda thing) So Bellum is the Post-PH crew's fourth member, the swabbie on the ship and pet sea monster when they need it and when he has the energy for it.

Bellum is kept mostly in line by a vague fear of Link and his general fear, respect, and curiosity about Linebeck. Linebeck is usually the one holding onto Bellum's leash. Bellum is decently civil with the group from the start, since he's weak and unable to return home until Oshus permits it or he gathers enough power to make that trip, and works mostly as a fighter- when he wants to. The earliest limitation I came up for him, since he's the member with the highest chance of breaking things, is that he will just straight-up choose not to help. He decides he's busy, decides it's not his problem, or other limitations, such as his involvement likely to cause more problems that they solve, since he's rather destructive when fighting.

He's the least sociable most of the time, for obvious reasons, but can pretend, and has the least... casual skills to offer to the group, hence why he gets stuck as swabbie (also general disrespect/as a punishment for the ph thing) and it takes a while for him to properly warm up to the rest of the group. He and Linebeck start off on decent terms and get closer through them just initially trusting each other, he and Link take the longest to get used to each other for... obvious reasons, it takes a lot of fighting together and seeing that they can rely on each other and they learn to be decent with each other just by existing in the same space, and things with Damien start off half decent, Damien was not present during Phantom Hourglass (obviously) and doesn't have the full context of how much he sucks, but it starts decent, gets worse when he learns what happened, and then gets good again because Damien's kind of amiable in general and sees that Linebeck thinks he's fine.

SO! To actually address your question about him being 'redeemed'- he does have a bit of an arc that I'm still mentally workshopping. He isn't entirely redeemed, as the group's general morality is a big off-kilter when Link isn't looking or is willing to get a little gray with things, and there's not really a whooooole lot of atonement Bellum can do in terms of the volume of bullshit he pulled in the past. It's less him atoning or w/e for the bullshit he's done, that's not entirely feasible, it's more him just. being forced to Be Decent and learn some actual kindness and think about more than just his own survival, he's essentially forced to actually appreciate life and the world, it's more him actually... experiencing the world for a reason other than consumption and war and conflict and doing what he's been told, he's effectively just on this long voyage with Linebeck, Link, and Damien, going with them from island to island and seeing what's up. I'm going to try and keep empathy out of it, so he's not really relating on a visceral level, more just choosing to be kind and take gentler paths to solving problems and interacting with others. He's also the group gremlin.

The way I write Bellum is definitionally inspired by other characters, Power from Chainsaw Man comes to mind in how he has a kind of shitty brat attitude at times, he'd fling vegetables across the room because he's a piece of shit who likes live meat. He's got his shitty messy delinquent loser side, where he causes problems and acts like some asshole teenager, and he's got his more serious, calm, almost professional seeming side that reminds the group that he's a few centuries old at the least and practically a god in his own right; generally outside of Post-PH I would pick one of these two sides to focus on for aus, but in Post-PH I need to figure out how the two of them work with how Bellum generally operates.

He's interested in Linebeck and initially decides to go along because he wants to figure him out, but grows to enjoy the rest of the group and that curiosity expands to involve the world as a whole; he experiences things like art and music, where he can't just brute-force his way into a satisfactory outcome and has to learn and find his own style, he reads books and listens to stories and sees the different ways humans live on the seas and I want his arc to, in some part, be about him just finding meaning in the world beyond what he does to secure survival, and the other members of the group introduce him to those other facets of life that he has access to, has had access to. The other part is the group getting Bellum to see most living things as more than just prey for him to hunt and consume, but that generally goes hand in hand with the prior point, as he actually enjoys life and figures out what he likes beyond the basic things he was created for.

He can't fall back on just smashing through everything or creating phantoms, since he's far too weak to do either effectively at the start, and I intend to just force Bellum into basically just being a human character with some unusually powerful magic at his fingertips, first just wanting to build himself back up to what he was in Phantom Hourglass, then just getting to see things in a new light. I'm not sure how to explain it or even what I'll want to do when I get to it, but that's the general gist of his arc, I think.

Other than that, he's just the fourth members of the crew with a serious knowledge of... a lot of things as a centuries-old demon and the hardest hitter in the group who can't and won't cook for shit and kind of just learns to actually live without constantly gunning for those bare necessities long after he's gotten them. I don't want it to be 'he learns to be human' because he... isn't human, but just him appreciating life and seeing some value in it, especially as something with as much power as Bellum, it's a bit messy and I'm still figuring it out, but I've got the general direction figured out.

Bellum is effectively the ship's best defender, and ends up fitting into the group as a friend and with his own specific role with the other individual members of the group. Linebeck kind of kickstarts his arc for him and connects with him the most and Bellum generally stays the closest with him, but Damien and Link help him see other little corners of life, as well as other characters he has to interact with, and I think I want Bellum's side of the story to have the most outstanding mundane-ity to it- there's absolutely meant to be a slice-of-life aspect to Post-PH, but I want the biggest points of Bellum's arc to be comparably the most mundane. It's the little things with him. The others have little things, too, but... I'm not sure how to express the difference, but I promise there is a difference.

Outside of Post-PH, though, when Bellum is present in a big way, his arc either tackles a similar idea in a different way, is just about something entirely different, or he doesn't have an arc at all, either due to not being a big enough part of the story or just straight up not being present.

In the Context of AUs

Bellum is only present in a handful of aus, either fully present as a character, halfway present, or just being referenced. When he is present in an au, he's usually some kind of major character, and he's notable in the crimson king au, the space au, the murder mystery au, and the horror au and one of my 'ruined hyrule' aus. (the horror and ruined hyrule au will be put together for this bc bellum's role in both are very similar) (for reference, here's my au explanation post)

In the horror au and ruined hyrule au, Bellum serves juuuust about the same role, just with different capabilities, contexts, all of that, but it's more or less the same thing. He's frequently present, but usually not acknowledged, and is very close to Linebeck in both, and the two of them pretty much rely on each other to live due to circumstances out of their control; they didn't really go into this whole thing liking each other, but have been more or less forced to become each other's friends due to proximity and just. Needing the others' presence in order to survive. In both, Bellum usually is a character who knows more than the others, but doesn't bother sharing that information since it's either not totally relevant or he just doesn't want to, and he tends to be protective of Linebeck, half because he needs him in order to live, half just because he's ended up liking him. (there is. more to say. but since i may actually write one of these aus [likely ruined hyrule bc the horror one has to be visual and it is VERY plotless rn] i'm not gonna go into much more depth since it would require spoilers lol)

Can't say a whole lot about the space au, either, since the story of that one is still a work in progress, and Bellum isn't particularly a major character, though he is important to some B-plot stuff. Without digging up too much world building and background and general story stuff and important plot bits, he's got a fairly close relationship to Linebeck in this au, as a general beneficiary and friend, and he actually tends to mind his own business and just wants to hold his own position; he's not really antagonistic or anything, but definitionally morally dubious even if he doesn't really directly do a whole lot.

In the Crimson King au, though, Bellum is one of the main characters, and a bit different than in ph-related stuff. He spends a lot of time in his human form, only switching to his little demon form a handful of times, and usually just for fun. He plays the role of Linebeck's closest friend and beneficiary, practically being the reason why Linebeck is able to do any of the things he does in the story, helping him from behind the scenes at times and balancing that business with Linebeck with his more outward appearance as a mostly normal guy working for the person who runs his section of the city... who also happens to be him. The vague politics in this au would take a bit to explain in full, but Bellum in this au spends a lot of time keeping his actual identity under wraps, the basic premise being that he's decided to integrate himself into current mortal society like a normal person to see what trouble he can cause, how he could sustain himself while keeping things stable, and to see just how far he can go- essentially, the only danger he faces is if others figure out what he is, but even then, he knows he could very easily cut his losses and go back to what he's done best.

He's not very active in the main plot, mostly giving Linebeck assignments and pulling strings behind the scenes in order to help and keep him safe, but Bellum does occasionally meddle directly in Linebeck's situation whenever it relates to him, when he needs something extra done, or, later in the story, when he gets a bit worried about Linebeck. His general arc is essentially him owning up to the fact that he does, in fact, care about Linebeck's well-being. Crimson King Bellum is fun, because he can't really just be 'violent demon', and I just like the supporting role I've got him in. He's Linebeck's rich friend who hires him to kill people for him. It's fun.

How I Like to Write Him With Linebeck

Of course, Bellum is going to have stuff with Linebeck, both in aus and in post-ph. Bellum has interactions and relationships with other characters, but the dynamic(s) with Linebeck tend to be the most diverse and important.

With aus: There’s usually a general sense that Bellum is above Linebeck, both in the power sense and in the sense that he’s typically his boss or in charge of him, but in a handful they are on equal footing (specifically, the modern school one, where they’re just classmates.)- the most common dynamic is usually along the lines of Bellum hiring Linebeck to kill people for him. Bellum is typically someone that provides Linebeck with things like payment or equipment or safety- in the Crimson King au, he gives Linebeck a fair amount of money, and supplies his equipment and gives him a place to live when he does jobs for him.

I like to imagine there's a level of... recognition? Not empathy, trying to keep that to a minimum... He's almost gentle with Linebeck, and is uncharacteristically merciful towards him. In post-ph, Linebeck survives being possessed and this marks him as notable to Bellum, since most people he possess die very soon after being released, so he's initially motivated by curiosity and a desire to observe Linebeck when he acts less violently- that curiosity is the biggest reason why he's cordial with Linebeck across my aus as well.

With Phantom Hourglass-centric stuff (which is what I'll mostly just talk about here, since it's kind of the 'base' for all other Bellum and Linebeck stuff I do), Linebeck and Bellum start on halfway decent terms, I'm planning a Bellumbeck fic sometime in the future, which is a bit less focused on that actual fight and more on whatever's going on between Linebeck and Bellum. I'm still trying to pin down exactly what I want with Linebeck and Bellum's dynamic.

I’ve fallen back into shipping them, (Still iffy on ship name lmfao, Bellumbeck is taken by the game and ‘Linebellum’ is lame imo, so I’ve been sticking with just ‘bellum x linebeck’) but it’s not really typically romantic/sexual, though there are some aspects of both, it’s still kind of abstract and easier to define with example stuff rather than just trying to explain it in a concise paragraph.

They both go out of their way to effectively research each other before properly meeting, starting as just trying to find advantageous information, but eventually just doing research out of curiosity, especially on Linebeck’s end, hunting down any material that so much as alludes to Bellum while Oshus refuses to say anything extra on the topic. They have a mutual interest and curiosity about each other.

With Bellum, its a similar curiosity with how Linebeck survives being possessed, and a general interest in him as a person, as Bellum doesn't really care much about the world beyond how it can serve him, but felt the need to look into Linebeck. A lot of the time, Bellum starts with the intention of exploiting Linebeck in some way, then ends up actually caring about him, he usually goes through variations of the same arc regarding Linebeck. It works with Linebeck for me since I tend to read and write him as fairly morally gray, so he's more willing to reciprocate Bellum.

(There's also the whole bit with Linebeck being kind of a monsterfucker and having a thing for being tied up and just a handful of like. sexual stuff on Linebeck's end, but we're talking about Bellum's perspective here we can't be focusing on Linebeck)

Bellum primarily operates with survival on the mind, and at odds with anything that might get in his way, and secondarily treats mortal creatures as something to study. When his attempt to use Linebeck fails, he shifts to that studying, and therefore has some respect for him due to his survival. They both focus quite a lot on survival, and don't have the most interest in making connections, seeing most relationships as transactional. They understand each other; Bellum sees Linebeck's mind when possessing him, and therefore knows a great deal about him.

There are similarities between them; not-great relationships with their fathers, a strong desire for survival at any cost, generally low empathy and a habit of mostly viewing others for how they can be used, curiosity about anatomy, a higher tolerance for things like blood, gore, things that would likely make others squeamish, they both hate Ciela...

(As an aside to that last one, an idea I've decided to integrate into my ph stuff and may touch on in a future fic is that Linebeck calling Ciela 'sparkles' gives her a strong sense of deja-vu before she gets all of her memories back; it's something Bellum would call her, when he was more cordial with the other spirits)

Bellum hangs around on the ship, and he hangs around Linebeck the most, to the point of being annoying, but learns what boundaries are and ends up respecting them decently. I lean more into... things just working out, Bellum more or less being put in a situation where he chooses to change things up and be a bit kinder, starting with the guy he's decided was the catalyst for all of this.

He gets along well enough with Damien (damien ends up in that shipping, too, considering that he's already dating linebeck by the time bellum sorts his own feelings out, so in post-ph, bellum ends up being a sort of on-and-off polycule member), he is eventually friendly with Link, often because Linebeck likes him as well. It takes a very long time for he and Link to warm up to each other, so they'll likely end up in situations where they must rely on each other at the start of things.

Bellum is… very not used to social stuff or acting human, and isn’t even very used to his human form at the start, so he does spend that time with Linebeck while he figures things out, as well. Linebeck's not the best role model for decent social interaction, especially since he works on dismantling his own mask and figuring himself out for a bit at the start of post-ph, but he's the only person Bellum tolerates and respects at that start.

Bellum eventually gets roped into helping Linebeck cook, follows him around for ship maintenance, watches him patch up wounds, and just ends up as a crew member that can kind of fill any basic role, but he’s not making it much further than swabbie.

I haven’t actually written a ton of interaction between them yet, but what I have written always comes off as casual, almost humorous, they joke around with each other and Bellum is detached and unserious at times, but very capable of switching to dead seriousness. A lot of the time, Linebeck tends to take things more seriously at face value, but Bellum is more prone to joking around due to the fact that very few consequences mean anything to him.

He and Linebeck are typically close in one sense or another in most things where they're included, and I generally consider all dynamics between them to fall under the ship umbrella, because I don't consider it strictly romantic (though it usually ends up being vaguely like that), just more that there's some kind of intimacy between them at some point. It's a relationship whose dynamic I think is interesting given the... lack of actual interaction between them, but with just enough interesting conclusions that can be drawn.

I guess it's similar to the general stuff I have about Bellum, kind of just scraping ideas together from canon and then following whatever threads can be connected to them, while trying to make sure it still has roots in that canon. It's similar to my personal 'design philosophy' or whatever for my aus.

I've also considered making their relationship parasitic in someway, as a sort of homage/callback/reference to their canonical relationship, but it's not entirely a direction I really want to go in, and I feel like some aus get decently close.

Final Points

I think Bellum's really neat, so considering the general lack of information or depth to him, I've been playing with expanded ideas and building up my own ideas for him, specific within the context of Phantom Hourglass and a post-ph setting, while many of my other ideas with him tend to then derive from that.

His (human) design is one I've spent a very long time figuring out, trying to mix his demon design in with more human traits, trying to keep him distinctive without getting too complicated, and trying to have that design represent him decently with a fair bit of reasoning behind a lot of that design. It's something Bellum himself controls to a certain degree, so it's in a bit of a crossroads between portraying him based on his character, and being something he uses to come off as generally innocuous.

I've got a decent idea of what Bellum's whole deal is in Phantom Hourglass and afterwards, and I use him in a fair number of aus, often in tangent with Linebeck, whom I often give him some kind of intimate relationship, be it romantic or some other form of closeness, based off of ideas for ways they would interact and why.

Bellum's fun! He's fun as he is, and he's fun to build off of and develop further than what we see in the game. And giving him the ability to shift into a humanoid shape gives even more room to play around in. I don't know when I first came up with the idea, but I've had ideas for a human form Bellum for quite some time now, I've just only recently really started solidifying a lot of it. Even between the time when I got the ask and finished it, I came up with new ideas.

But for now, these are the broad strokes! Not just about post-ph humanoid Bellum, just about my ideas for him in general, though it all really relates back to that one in particular, honestly.

He's surprisingly fun to speculate about! I didn't really expect Bellum to end up as one of my favorite LoZ characters, but I guess any character can end up as your favorite if you spend enough time thinking about him. At the end of the day I think he's funky, and he's fun to use in a post-ph setting.

[rimouskis]

scuffing my feet against the rocks churlishly with my hands shoved deep in my pockets like a teenager dragged unwillingly on a family outing because corporate events make me feel both like a child and like an idiot

I like... I feel weirdly not cut out for it? not in a "job capabilities" way; the work is honestly easy, I'm pretty good at it, and I get shit done efficiently and way beyond my boss's standards.

it's these events that throw me off! it's situations where we go places to rub elbows and massage egos and do.... weird emotional-side business stuff that I am deeply not savvy or experienced enough to do.

I imagine in 20 years, were I to stay in this environment, I would get better at it because that's how people work, but I don't have a natural affinity towards it. hell, my bad memory means I'm DISADVANTAGED at it, frankly. I can barely remember who is who. often I don't.

and I really don't have the skill to read between the lines when people are being disingenuous with each other. a while ago we had dinner with a woman at another event and I was being stupid because I took everything this woman and my boss said to each other at face value only to hear afterwards that my boss found that woman to be an absolute snake and wholly untrustworthy.

and I was (internally) like :0 because what I thought had been a genuine discussion between two people who didn't necessarily see eye-to-eye on things but who were committed to some level of partnership was ACTUALLY two people facing off and talking out their asses to each other because no one trusts anyone else and genuine communication can't happen in that environment!!! like OH my god

I deeply don't have it in me to function long-term in that environment lol. luckily I'm VERY siloed and protected in my position where access to me is restricted by my manager, so I'm basically never interacting with people solo, but it's upsetting to me that THAT is an environment I sometimes find myself in! like jesus! I really don't have the organizational or industry knowledge to be aware of most of the dynamics at play, and I SUPER don't have the skills to be able to tell who's selling me a bag of shit and who's trying to figure out dirt on someone and who's planning someone else's downfall.

it's not like bad dynamics don't exist in my old field... like, hell, I love getting dinner with my old coworkers and hearing about how my replacement has HORRIBLE vibes. and it's not like we never got sold bags of shit there, either. like... it's nonprofit work, okay, the whole gig is selling a bag of shit to your workers to convince them to do really emotional, hard work for garbage money lol.

but the thing was there I knew the reasons why everyone had gotten into that line of work, and why they stayed, and sure, you couldn't trust many levels of management, and some were Scary People, but where I worked was again really protected from that sort of oversight and at WORST I had an incompetent coworker or two who let me down.

I never ONCE thought any of them were, like, getting dinner with me so they could try to find out secrets to tell someone higher up and to gain an institutional foothold over me, lol. idk maybe that's me being pie-in-the-sky about it, but there's a wholly different energy to the social and mental games being played in my new setting that I find to be incompatible with how I function in life.

I don't think it's a danger to my job. I'm so new that my role at these things is to stand there and not speak unless spoken to. I can do that. I feel a little stupid tailing my boss around, and I feel very stupid when I can't engage in many conversations because I simply don't have the industry knowledge necessary, and I feel like an INFANT when I can't participate in personal life conversations because 85% of the people present are closer to my parents' age than mine, but I only have to do this, like, once every two months, if even that, and I can do it! it's fine. I love grunt work lol I come here to do little tasks for my boss along the way and it's fine.

but idk, when I think about it it's just fucking unnatural for me to be in an environment where everyone is weighing EVERYTHING about you—your appearance, your company, your associates, your work—and engaging in seemingly-frivolous-but-ACTUALLY-very-sly conversation. I can smalltalk with the best of 'em, but that's not what this is, and I am not only untrained, I am ill-suited to it by nature.

I don't think it's a bad personality feature to be easygoing, generally trusting, and willing to take people at face value as a sign of respect/assuming they hold mutual respect for you. in fact, I like it about myself and it makes my life easier. but oh man being put in a snakepit makes me wish I knew how to snakecharm better. or at all lol

[stregoniconiconii]

about the siblingification of friendships, sorry im totally about to make myself a stand in for steve here, but im an only child, i have felt v lonely, and i have this one friend who calls her close girl friends sisters,, and i just do not feel it, i love her, and she is one of my best friends, but i just do Not see her as a sibling. and i think steve would be the same way tbh, also my most sibling adjacent feelings have been for ppl around 5 years younger than me (just like Steve & the kids/teens<3) but unlike steve, i haven't had any intense trauma to increase the chance for sibling bonding.

idk i just think that it would take More for steve to feel sibling feelings for ppl around his own age or older.

i also think that when u have been on ur own a lot it's like, sure u want ppl around, but also u need ur space bc u're used to it, idk maybe thats just me lol. i also have an intense need for personal space and like my things are my things and no one better fucking touch it, (i mean u can but if u pick stuff up I'll be annoyed, sorry) but also i Crave physical affection, and sorry i think this is just a "why i relate to steve/things i project onto steve" list, oops.

but like i guess what i probably wanted to say is, steve is, as far as we know, an only child, and while i think we all want him to have good family times, i don't think that equals sibling type relationships with everyone, and i think it would be interesting if ppl took into account how living as an only child would affect him, and not only in the "his house was always empty so now he is filling it w the sound of his friends 24/7" way. like maybe its just me, and im projecting or w/e but if I had friends over All the time, even my very best friends(except maybe my best best friend<3) i would go insane i think

sorry for talking so much about myself, it's just things that makes me think about steve, and this is the best i could manage to express it at the moment <3

this just made me think of something very funny which is that Steve and robin DO think each other as siblings but because they're both only children they just. genuinely have absolutely no idea how siblings are supposed to act around each other and so they do things together that would make ppl sing 'sweet home Alabama' or go 'wtf' if they were actual real life siblings. like it genuinely is all completely platonic but it's still a line that siblings wouldn't cross lol (idek what kind of things yall can figure it out)

HOWEVER two only children who are very used to doing their own thing suddenly being very clingy with each other?? oh I just know there were growing pains. like they want to be around each other but also being around someone means Being Around Someone. they definitely had to figure out a system to make sure they dont murder each other lol

but yeah I do see what you mean about Steve maybe either not needing or necessarily even wanting?? a sibling relationship with everyone he knows (that isn't somehow a parental figure either lmaoo) the type of person I could see filling that sort of role for Steve might be likeeee an almost queer older sibling? like someone he meets in his 20s who takes him under a gay wing. I know ppl like to imagine Eddie doing that for Steve but that's definitely not a sibling framework with them lol and also Eddie's dead </3 but I can see it happening when Steve and robin move out of hawkins and get involved with the gay scene. or maybe him getting into a line of work that ends up forming these close sibling like relationships. idk lol

idk mostly im fine with Steve being an older brother to dustin and max you know?

alsoooo it's totally fine to talk about urself <333 it helps inform ur head canons!! I mean im the absolute opposite of Steve I have siblings and I grew up so close with my cousins they’re practically also siblings, so hearing the only child side of living Does make a difference you know 

[common-blackbird]

2, 3, 11, 18 & 20

Alright, this has been sitting for so long, im so sorry.

Here are the answers.

2. top 5 books of all time?

I don't want to repeat myself with things you know i love (like lotr and asoiaf) so im gonna choose the books that i know made me go galaxy brain.

Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky) - best book ever, duh. People are always very emotional about the depth of the book and the big questionsTM, which i completely agree with, but my fave part of the book is the humour. The characters are intentionally lame and silly and over the top, and i just love how the unlikeable characters become likeable ;__;

The Powerbook (Jeanette Winterson) - I want to write as intimately and hit the core of things like Jeanette Winterson. Such a beautiful book. She doesn't waste any words, she gives such visual imagination, it hits you in the heart. Every sentence is poetry. Absolutely love it.

Debt: The first 5000 years (David Graeber) - We read this for our book club, and honestly, i think everyone should read at least one chapter of this book. It's about history of debt seen through anthropology. Or in other words: what do we owe, why do we owe, do we even owe? Each chapter deserves a special analysis and i am searching for a physical copy of the book bc i want to, need to buy it but it's impossible to find it ;___;

Croatian Tales of Long Ago (Ivana Brlić Mažuranić) - The underdog of fairy tales in the world. it saddens me that when you’re in school or see museums or other cultural institutions here praise Brlić Mažuranić, it’s usually in the spirit “she’s one of the first croatian female authors”, “She’s Hans Christian Andersen but CroatianTM” and so on. But i’ve never seen anyone seriously dissecting each fairy tale, analyzing, interpreting her style. Or i have been searching in the wrong places.

It took me some 20 years to figure out what is the point of the fairy tale “How Quest Sought the Truth” and, like, if you ever question your place in the world, that’s THE fairy tale for you. I read this book every year and it still surprises me with its richness in short stories, depth, imagination, all while being accessible from youngest to oldest age. Amazing writing.

Also now that i think about it, that’s the book i read the most times.

Returning to Reims (Didier Eribon) - We're reading this book for the book club right now and im half-way through, but already i have been crying my eyes out and been having so many revelations. It's a memoir about estranged gay many returning to his home after his father (whom he hated) dies, and ruminating on nature of social status and class that effects all of us. He voiced out lot of my thoughts and the way he's self aware of privilege and reality of the underprivileged without idolizing them is refreshing to see.

3. what is your favourite genre? 

I wish i knew! My go-to answer is fantasy, but honestly, with exception of Left hand of Darkness, it’s been a while since I properly enjoyed a fantasy book.

I’d say i love drama, but most books have drama, i more philosophical books, but sometimes i just love trashy stuff. idk. I love themes of figthting against “leviathan”, anarchism in general, ruminations about social classes, cultures, nature of humans, conflicting ideas...

11. what non-fiction books do you like if any?

Well this is where i come in again with the book club (all hail the book club!) where we read non-fiction books, from publicist to theoretical, and it is usually social and cultural themes, like “why do we read?”, “what is art?”, “what is pop culture?”, “what is economy? “let’s start a revolution?” and so on. So far, the best books were by Graeber and Eribon, Bregmann gets a pass, John Berger is great (you should check him out on yt!).

My other passion is history books, but it’s more that i like the idea of reading them and i’m hoarding them in my room, but can’t find or dedicate time for them :(

18. do you like historical books? which time period?

I have yet to read any good ones... Most historical books that i see through the bookstore windows are some romance in court stuff that i have 0.01% interest in. The only historical book that i’ve started reading is Der Spielmann by Oliver Pötzsch which is supposed to be a retelling of Faustus, but i was so annoyed by the prologue already, i gave up very early on... (especially frustrating bc everybody is praising this author as a great author of historical fiction...)

In general, i think it’s very hard to write a good historical book bc there’s always a trap of wanting to be historically accurate too much so you infodump history that has no relevance to the plot. Sometimes it’s better to sacrifice historical accuracy to gain immersion. But you still have to keep it in the spirit of that time and i don’t often see that being the case :/

As for time period, love late middle age/early modern age, especially 17th century lately!

If you have any recs, i’m all ears!

20. what are things you look for in a book?

Narrative, idea and style. If the book executes one of these three factors well, it’s a solid book and i’ll like it. I mostly enjoy the narrative, how do you get the reader to your idea, the way the story is structured, the parallels, the interference of various outside and inside factors, when you can connect the dots from two different poles... it’s always fun, it makes me go all galaxy brain.

That being said, if the narrative sucks, but the sheer idea is original or universal, it can hit harder than anything else and it stays with you forever. Sometimes, a book is really bad but one quote really hits you bc it’s an idea that resonates with you. Like, i didn’t like the book Pachinko at all, but the core idea “Life is like a pachinko” still pops up in my brain all the time.

And style. I think that is what creates immersions, and what makes us reread endlessly. Like, Karamazovs wouldn’t be half as great (to me) if it wasn’t for the slightly ironic, casual and knowing narrator that breaks “the 4th wall” every now and then. When i want something that hits me emotionally, i search for Winterson’s writing bc of the style more than the plot (which is with her always a mess... sighs). Persistent and endless descriptions of grey sky, rain and snow and black-and-white mountains is what makes me fall in love with Left hand of Darkness even more than the incredibly slow plot.

And if this question is about themes, those would be: fighting against the impossible, invisible enemy, “leviathan”, man against society, of human nature, what is love, what is purpose, what is happiness, deep moral conflicts... just happy stuff to think about x)

Anyways thanks for letting me rant!

Bookish asks game

[adhd-and-anarchy]

I've just realised why I hate when people freak out very childishly over a character online. Like, be obsessed with a character and all, that's fine. I'm way to attached to way too many characters so I can't judge. But do you ever read a post and it's just so exaggerated and childish and overboard that you actually cringe? Because why would any adult talk like that -- and it must be an adult to be tlking about a grown-ass character the way they are, right? Wrong.

The reason I just realised this is because I was reading the comments on a pinterst post about Loki and internally went "oh, yuck," reading one of them. Then took the time to ask myself why. Then realised it's the same thing I feel when I hear my twelve year old sister talk about grown-ass characters in a way a twelve year old shouldn't.

When I was a kid, I absolutely had crushes on characters way older than me. Whatever. All kids have fictional/celebrity crushes, right? It's about the difference in how I conveyed that. I would be like, "ohmygosh that person is super cute! :D" and move along with my day.

That's not how middle-schoolers now speak. They drool over fictional characters the way grown men drool over p0rn magazines and it makes me so incredibly uncomfortable because while I don't believe in sheltering children from reality, THERE ARE CERTAIN MATURE THINGS THAT AN IMMATURE MIND SHOULD NOT BE TRYING TO GRASP.

It's hard for me to figure out if this stuff is just what society has ingrained in my mind, because I also truly do not believe that an understanding of sexuality and comfort with the topic of sexuality should come with an age limit (because then that just as easily stems into "oh they're too young to know they're queer") but I also don't think that there is ANY appropriate age/setting to fetishize something, and it really is starting to feel like that's what these kids are doing.

The worst part is, I don't even know who to blame for this. Because they're not learning it from their parents -- I know for a fact that my mom would look at my sister sideways for some of the shit I hear her say -- but if they're learning it from peers, where are their twelve year old peers learning it from??

Idk I'm confused and annoyed and very uncomfortable and this is probably why I hate kids and especially kids who are chronically online (because yeah, im kind of chronically online now at 19, but i wasnt even allowed to have a phone until I was like 13 so I learned what sort of things are appropriate and inappropriate meanwhile the kids who grew up with their face in a screen talk like the world is their minecraft server) and I have no idea if this made any sense, but if you made it this far, thank you so much for listening to me rant ❤️❤️❤️

Stay safe out there yall

[seawitchkaraoke]

It's fascinating yeah and there's really two types of things here, there's certainty about yourself and certainty about the world.

And when it comes to yourself it's like... of course you know better than anyone else because you're the only one in your head. You're the one who knows how you feel and think, so you're the one who can take all that and say I am this or I am that - no one can really tell you they're wrong bc they're not in your head, what do they know? (though of course people still do insist they know sometimes)

But at the same time. No one can tell you you're wrong. It's both freeing and terrifying. If I'm wrong about some easily verifiable fact, anyone can look it up and correct me. If I'm wrong about an unverifiable fact like if there's a god or not, well there's no way to tell whether i'm actually wrong but at least you can discuss those questions with people on a basis where everyone operates with the same ground knowledge of hard facts (at least that's possible, of course people can also bring their own non verifiable experiences into that).

But when it comes to your own mind? The only way to figure out whether you're wrong is by figuring it out yourself. No one can tell you. Sure you can describe your feelings and thoughts but that can never fully bring across what you're actually experiencing. And you can't really compare either. I can express that I feel a certain way and you can say you feel that too but we might be talking about very different experiences and not even know it.

I am fairly confident in myself, I wouldn't say I constantly doubt my own identity but I wouldn't say I'm constantly 100% sure? Especially when I have to put words to it. I know I am me but which words i'd use to describe me changes constantly. Good thing is just for a lot of it it doesn't actually matter - if nonbinary feels right i'm nonbinary and if that changes i can just tell ppl different pronouns again it's fine. I don't have to fret about getting it 100% right - took me a long time to learn that.

World things are different. World stuff is even more fascinating. Because we all live in the same world and yet so many of us are so entirely certain about entirely conflicting things.

I have friends who are 100% certain that there is a God. They don't ''believe'' that there is a god, they know it. They'd have answers for the whole ''then why is there evil in the world'' thing, some of them more satisfying to me personally than others (i think ''god started the world and is now mostly letting humans do their thing'' is a lot more satisfying than ''there is a secret plan and reason for everything'') but that's not the point. They're sure of this. Absolutely 100% sure.

my thing is i'm always been good at understanding both sides of an argument even when i strongly agree with one side. Gotten better at it since I stopped being certain about most things. Like... I used to be such an annoying knowitall,kid me always thought I was the smartest person in the room. I was good at understanding all sides but sometimes I got blindsided by there being another side at all, by there being people who could not see this obvious truth I was seeing. They must all be stupid!

And then I realized I was wrong on some of those and others really didn't have an obvious right answer and now i'm rarely certain about big world related things. I have beliefs, don't get me wrong and of course there's some morality related stuff like, idk, bigotry bad, but even that's not just an inherent feeling of what's true but also logic.... idk how to explain it

There's people you'll argue some point with and they will make a statement that they obviously regard as 100% true and I'll be like, no wait, that's your belief, that's your personal morality that doesn't hold true for everyone and they'll say but it should, everyone should think this way and it's so clear to them? And sometimes they can't even fathom how ppl could disagree with them? And even when it's smth I agree with, even when I also think everyone should think that way, I'm still fascinated by the fact that they can't articulate why it's true just that it is, they just have this inherent feeling of it being true and so it must be

Now generally I think if it's smth you wanna argue with people about you need to know why exactly you're so sure bc otherwise you'll lose that argument quickly, but that's not the point, the point is how are they so sure in the first place? Like... kid me was sure about things bc I'd only been presented one side and found it convincing and then got surprised by there being people who apparently hadn't found them convincing. But other people are certain of things without even being able to articulate a reason for it without some thinking? Like... it's not a matter of them not having heard the arguments, it's a matter of them just having some inherent sense of what is correct and what is not and I do not get it at all.

I get it when it's just about you. No one can know better anyway, so whatever level of certainty you can get is just gonna have to be good enough. But when it comes to the world? I believe things. I'm even pretty sure of some things. But not on that level. Never on that leve.

I am constantly kinda bewildered and kind of jealous of people who are certain about things.

Certain about what? Anything really. Certain that there's a god. Certain that there isn't a god. Certain that they're a woman or a man or any of the specific labels under the enby umbrella. Certain that there's aliens. Certain that they used to be a dragon in another life and/or still are one now. Certain that they can look into someone's eyes and tell whether they're human or actually a dryad. Certain that they're in love. Certain that they're not.

Just. How are you so sure? How are you sure of things that there's no proof for? How are you sure about the world and how are you so sure of who you are?

[phoenixyfriend]

Secret Clones AU

Short version: Secret Clones AU is the clones going into hiding in plain sight across the galaxy to force a fair wage and also to keep the babies safe from Kaminoans

The clones figure out the plan to take advantage of them, brain chips, etc. several years before the war hits. IDK how, maybe Jango decided to take a closer look with Mij and went Oh Shit. Doesn't matter. Point is, they caught on and decided that they needed to uhhhhh get Out.

There are millions of clones, yes, but there are tens of thousands of planets.

Once the chips are out and someone's jabbed them with anti-aging serum... they're not that different from standard humans.

And it's not exactly hard to tie up the Kaminoans long enough to get off planet.

So what happens is that a while, let's say a year and a half, before the war kicks off, you have a mass exodus from Kamino, and a wide dispersal of clones. They are generally staying together in groups of about half a dozen, claiming to be brothers, so that there's a 16-18-ish looking clone to take lead, with progressively younger cadets to look after. Each one has a commander they can 'report' to in case of emergency, and if something goes real bad, they can call in an Alpha (and Alphas can call in Jango in a worst case scenario).

It's still sort of a military structure, but... it's a phone tree.

And you have one of these groups of half a dozen clones in every major city. There are thousands of planets, and most of those planets have more than one city. Denon and Coruscant are nothing but city, so they can get counted as dozens of cities on their own. It's easy to disappear in places like that.

It's so easy for the clones, before anyone knows them, to just... disappear. Go into hiding in plain sight.

It's not like more than a handful of people know what to look for.

(It's not like they have a centralized record of who went where.)

(It's just the phone tree.)

They still get real excited-happy-eager when they run into a Jedi.

They want to work with Jedi. They're the good guys! And they're cool!

But your army did a mass desertion before the war started and finding/recruiting all of them is going to take a stupid amount of money. You cannot hire a bounty hunter for each and every clone.

And as @bytebun put it:

Somebody two years later: you look …familiar. Have we met? Clone: haha I get that a lot just one of those faces

AND THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT BECAUSE THE GALAXY IS HECKING MASSIVE

I think the Republic has to like… negotiate with Jango and the Alphas and set up paid contracts if they want these Ultra Skilled Warriors to fight for them.

The clones can fight. Some of them even want to fight. They are good at this and they recognize that many of the things that are occurring under Separatist invasion are Mega Bad.

But like. Pay them and treat them as citizens, first.

The Jedi are even more confused about this identical army that really loves them than they are in canon Where the heck did you guys come from Who trained you Why do you like us What the heck is going on

"Someone wanted us to be a trap for you but we took the trap out. Here we have a sample if you want. Anyway. We like you guys and want to fight with you because honestly civilian life is way understimulating. Let me punch a droid."

I think a few of the clones do 'scouting' where they voluntarily help a Jedi in the field to gather information on their validity as Friends. Cody keeps a number of spreadsheets that are just Various Jedi Encounters.

Rex does a scouting mission with Kenobi&Skywalker and just goes to Cody like "Listen. I know he's insane. But. I want that one."

Rex just "I call dibs" "Cody. Cody did you hear me. Dibs, I call dibs."

@catboydogma: stats for pong krell are all zeroes

Absolute shit tier Jedi They play rock paper scissors to decide who has to deal with him

A solid half of the clones don't get recruited because the lack of advanced aging (past a certain point) means they're physically still minors and My Dad (Alphas and CCs) Said No. They stay behind on their various planets to look after The Real Babies.

"Let me ask my dad" "Wait--" "He said no."

Just want these boys to have Civilian Lives they can return to or at least experience before war gets them all fucked up.

I think some of them try to Make Connections with influential people (whether politicians or like... Space Influencers) so they have people vouching for them once the war kicks off. And there can be at least some public pushback on functionally enslaving them.

"I can't believe you manipulated people into liking you! That's so mean!" "Well you see. I wanted to survive past the age of eleven. So."

[sunookkii]

Hi! Can I ask Enhypen's reaction when their child asks "how are babies made?"

a/n : LMAOO get ready for this one,, lolol hope you enjoy this 😭 also this isn’t proof read so I’m sorry before hand if there are mistakes!!

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.enhypen imagine ˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

How Enha would react to their child asking “how are babies made”

Genre : comedy? Fluff idk what you call it, crack?

Pairing : Enhypen x Fem. Reader

Warnings : mention of children

Requested : yes tyty <3

Master list : here / requests are currently open!!

Heeseung!

Would probably most likely freeze up because he wouldn’t know how to answer them in that type of situation 💀

Probably either one change the topic to something else, or two make up some random shit like “oh you buy them at the store when you become a certain age”

The child just responds with,, mmhh okay!

^Does NOT want to deal with this convo rn TT

Probably wants to die every time this convo comes up

Jay!

Probably gets flustered by the sudden question and asks why his child wants to know such thing TT

Either freezes up a lot and says “uh uh uh” or laughs it off like he usually does 💀

“Why do you wanna know so bad honey?”

“So i can make one when i get older!”

Probably responds with, “well first you need to love someone a lot first, like your mom and I. And then suddenly a baby appears”

“Ohhhh Ok!”

Would feel absolutely relieved if the child didnt ask any further questions-

Jake!

Would freeze up and not know what to say. Probably wants to die right then and there

his face would look something like this -> 😀

“Eheheh why do you want to know?”

“Idk i just want to know! Now hurry up and tell me!”

“Well……….. yougetthematthegrocerystore”

“Really?”

“Yeeah” 😄

“oh okay!”

like jay he felt so relieved that his child didn’t ask further more questions 😭

Sunghoon!

Thinks he heard wrong.

He’d be like “s-sorry w-what?”

Literally wants to run away right here right now.

“Uh uh go ask your mom”

He’d be the type to not even answer, and then hand you the problem instead-

Sunoo!

Sits the child down on his lap like a old grandpa

“Well you see…” pats child’s back aggressively

“That is for you to know when you are older” 😄

“But i wanna know now!”

Probably laughs internally and sighs a lot trying to figure out how to tell the kid. In the end he’d probably reply with “no no i can’t tell you yet you’re too young.”

So then the child is forced to let it go bc they got bored of asking-

Jungwon!

Once he heard that phrase his mind would completely shut down

Kind of like sunghoon he wants to pass down the problem to you but since you were no where to be found he was stuck 💀

Probably laughs a lot because of the child’s curiosity and keep asking them why they wanna know so bad

“Why why do you wanna so much”

“Because i want one when i get older!”

Probably the type to drift away from the convo and change the subject “well you know having a child is a lot of responsibility..”

^^has his ways to make the kid forget about what they asked in the first place

Niki!

Would want to curl up into a ball and disappear

^Tbh i feel like while the kid was asking him that question he probably took that time to run away and hide 💀

Would hide until the child forgot abt what they were curious about, but if they didn’t forget and get nagging niki to tell them it would go kinda like this.

“I FOUND YOU!”

“AhhhhHhhh (*niki whining) why do you wanna knowwwww, i dont wanna tell you.”

“Please please pleaseeee”

“No, goaskyourmom!!”

“But mommy’s not here!”

“Okay fine ill tell you..”

“YAYYY, okay hurry and tell me”

“They come from a baby vending machine, and you can only play it when you’re at a certain age. Then you wait 9 months and they ship the baby to your house”

“Oh. That’s it?”

“Yup”

“Why was that so hard to say 😒”

^Child walks away *niki wipes off forehead sweat

Please this was really funny to write I hope y’all enjoyed 😭