#if the character you like isn't actually AT ALL like the real one then let me tell you. that isn't your fav. that isn't your blorbo

[vidavalor]

<<I would also not accept Crowley hate. I just never see it.>>

Same. Yeah, it doesn't exist. A lot of people's internalized issues at work, if you ask me, as to why there's only hate for Aziraphale when there shouldn't be hate for either of them.

<<I think for that to work, you have to take Crowley as the protagonist of the story and Aziraphale as an -- um, adjunct? romantic interest? Rather than seeing them as 2 equal players in the story.>>

If you want to get really technical about it? From a writing standpoint, Aziraphale is the main character because it's his story arc we're following the most throughout the story. He is the character who will under go the most change from chronological start-to-finish in the story. He and Crowley are two halves of a whole, though, so it's a little tricky and they're closer to being co-main-characters than you might get in other stories. Inside the story, though, the characters are definitely equal partners, and I agree that it's irritating to not always see that reflected in attitudes towards the characters.

The funny thing is, though, that people who think Crowley is the sole main character are showing that they don't really know what one is and are just focused on Crowley. For reasons. I wouldn't presume to know why, exactly, but I suspect that they are likely of 'want to fuck him even though he's fictional and subconsciously hate the main character who gets to' variety. Also shows how little they know the character as Crowley would not. care. for it. if he were to learn that they were disparaging his angel.

<<the Edinburgh minisode, that make it look like Aziraphale is still toeing the Heaven line and he is the only one who still (in 1827!) has learned nothing>>

Yeah, that attitude in people is showing that they're not really putting together the minisode, imho. Aziraphale struggling with conflicts of what he's supposed to be according to Heaven versus who he really is are not the same thing as Aziraphale being on the side of Heaven. He's never been on the side of Heaven. He gave away his sword in Eden. He lied and miracled to save Job's kids. He's been badass since the start.

I think it's also a feature of some people not seeing that Aziraphale is kind of dryly bitching about his job to Crowley in 1827 more than he is actually disagreeing with Crowley and Elspeth. He lives on Earth. He knows how lunacy Heaven's ideas about things are. He's complaining to Crowley about what he's up against and getting some reassurance in Crowley's wtf that's crazy! response that he's not alone in thinking so. The moment that he learns that Dalrymple isn't just a ghoul but someone who wants the bodies for greater good reasons, Aziraphale is happy to throw over whatever Heaven nonsense he's supposed to at least pretend to believe to help. He'll always do what he can to help. It's just all very tiresome that people think Crowley is perfect. He's not always right. There also isn't always a "right" at all.

<<such as the way the f15 was shown (many people do not sense any real threat from the Metatron, don't get the "able to see/hear what's happening in the shop", don't see anything weird about Crowley letting Aziraphale go off with the Metatron, etc.>>

Yeah, this... 😂 My favorite wtf interaction that I've had here on the Tumblr Dot Com is the person who told me that Aziraphale and Crowley weren't worried about being spied on in The Final 15 and when I pointed out things like... Aziraphale, looking out the window at Our Villain, doing the downward hands of "not right now" at Crowley, and trying to get him to stop talking? I was told-- kid you not-- that he just turned his head.

The closet is a theme of the season and there's an entire foreshadowing plot with the Nazi Zombie Flesheaters about Crowley and Aziraphale being spied on through the window and people who cannot make simple connections enough to understand what's happening, so... how's that for irony? There's a whole plot about people being unable to make connections... about which this person couldn't make a connection.

I agree to some extent that it's designed to appear a certain way, with particular emphasis on Crowley acting out of character, but it's not so cloak-and-dagger that we can't see that something is amiss. The number of people who don't seem to see Crowley as acting out of character by letting Aziraphale go alone with The Being Claiming To Be The Metatron amazes me. It should be the primary question to come out of that scene. This is what we were saying above, though-- they are too focused on precious demon got his feelings hurt to notice that there is something really, really wrong with precious demon. He just sat there and let Aziraphale go alone with someone who had tried to kill him and he'd never do that of his own free will and that's somehow not the biggest point of discussion?

But this is also the same problem as most people just believing without question that it's The Metatron at the door. Sure, it might be, but they definitely gave us a laundry list of clues that suggest we should at least be questioning it. Five angels cannot recognize him and he has to get a demon to identify him but that's not Satan? Really? After a whole season of "who are you" in every other scene? And all the minisodes being about Hell? Even if it's not, the point is that it's all very weird and many people are just taking what's happening as if nothing is weird, which I find to be... well, weird.

So many people think that The Metatron was legitimately offering Aziraphale a job and everything was on the up-and-up and... why would he ever do that? He'd never offer Crowley to be restored as an angel, either. That'd collapse Heaven and Hell in a day as every demon then would demand their own status as demons reviewed. They think this is The Metatron and they still believe him, even though he just tried to murder Gabriel? I was so surprised to see the number of people who don't think Aziraphale is in any danger here and think he just got promoted when the whole season seems like it's building towards something quite different but we'll see what happens in The Finale.

The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.

Eric, Terry Prachett

[theoncomingchaos]

Easy steps that could have improved the Lucanis Romance

Pacing:

Make the cake scene the first romance scene. He cooks little treats for everyone anyway. It would be a good friendly scene that gives a chance to build the relationship. We could see that Lucanis cares and is paying attention to what Rook likes, give Rook another chance to flirt, and let us see that small uncertain smile to make it clear Lucanis is interested but hesitant. Maybe a companion makes a comment about how much more effort he put into Rook's dessert than theirs. Lucanis quickly escapes the room with Spite telling him to turn around and offer to hand feed Rook. Spite is a menace.

Make the wall scene the commitment scene, but don't break Lucanis's character. He isn't good at romance, he has no experience with it, he wants it so badly and has read romance novels, but he shouldn't be confident and suave about seduction. Not after what happened with Viago. Instead, have a talk about why Lucanis has been distant and hesitant, allow Rook to reassure him, then let Lucanis so, so happily give in.

In the cafe scene, let us really talk about Spite's place in the relationship and learn more about how they are actually doing. Particularly, how they affect one another.

Let us kiss and chat to our L1 whenever we are at the lighthouse. Let us ask about their lives, factions, etc. Maybe Lucanis can invite us to the book club!

Additional Scenes I wanted:

Romantic gondola scene! After we escape the Crow party let us have a moonlit gondola scene!

Cooking together for the team. Flirty flour fight included. If Rook ends up on the counter all the better.

Varric warning us to be careful with him and comparing him to Anders. Yes, I know the truth, yes I am in denial. Real or not I want it. Continue the tradition!

More of Viago's reaction about a Rook de Riva and Lucanis being a thing. We could see him find out about it and then maybe in a banter Lucanis could mention having been threatened. Maybe Lucanis could even talk about the irony of the fact that his first crush was a de Riva and now his first love is a different de Riva. Rook actually chimes in: "I would have appreciated the dagger." "I'll get you an even better one next time we are in Treviso."

Caterina finding out- especially for a de Riva Rook. Caterina demanding they have dinner together.

[if-you-soul]

Mischaracterization in the CCCC fandom: a yapsesh (alternative title: Erm... What the Gore is Going On?)

Hi. Woaw. I'm actually making that post I talked about.

So. One thing I've noticed in the CCCC fandom is this weird fixation on gore, torture, violence, etc. Usually a level of graphic content that makes your average horror flick look... pretty tame!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy horror! I even think a horror story based around psychological conflict similar to CCCC could work well!

But is it just me, or has this fandom COMPLETELY lost track of what the characters are like in the source material?

Like. Let's be real. Nowhere in the album does Soul do gruesome surgeries on Mind, nowhere does Mind go ripping people to shreds like Doomguy, et cetera. The closest thing we have to an implication of violence is what most of us call the "Juno incident"- as even "tines stabbed through eyes" is clearly a metaphor with the next line: "that the sides have condemned."

Im gonna talk ab the characters themselves under the cut

I feel the biggest victim of this mischaracterization is Soul. In the album he's... kind of a victim, really. He toughs out being dismissed and fought over and pushed aside and outright dehumanized for so, so long. Are we seriously just... going to characterize him based solely on his lowest point in TSE? Spring and a Storm and Mucka Blucka are also songs where he's present- along with his presence in Just Apathy that the fandom seems to outright deny to keep their characterization of him as some violent, abusive monster. (Which, again, is quite literally never alluded to! He's honestly kind of a victim, if anything!)

Ohhkay. Next topic. Mind. Oh boy I have thoughts on how people characterize Mind.

He's not emotionless. If you believe this, you've fallen for his stoic facade. All of his songs are just. So full of so much rage. Maybe even a little bit of grief and sadness and fear, masked by said rage. He isn't some emotionless robot- (Heart calls him an automaton as an insult, but that's another rant.) and honestly it feels like such a disservice to such an interesting character with so much unexplored depth to portray him as such.

Heart. Oh boy. Where do I start. Heart what did they do to you.

Heart is the emotional side, yes, but that isn't just some... smol innocent uwu baby who cries all the time. Emotions aren't small and cute and timid. They're INTENSE and PASSIONATE and EXHAUSTING. Strong emotions leave you so, so drained, good OR bad. This is so much more interesting than portraying him as some "uwu hai dere!!" type of character. Which is nowhere in the album.

Whole is hardly even a character. Soul worshipping and praying to whole is fanon.

This fandom's weird obsession with creating shock gore and one-upping each other in a violence competition has spiraled pretty far out of control, and it's honestly crazy. How do you go from an album about internal conflict to violence that would make even the cast of Resident Evil cringe? Brah.

Final notes uhhh. Soul is a victim who got pushed to his limit, not an evil heartless abuser. Mind is angry and unstable and hurt, not some emotionless robot. Heart is the entire emotional spectrum, not some innocent baby. Ok i . I think that's all. Have a good one

[adventures-in-mangaland]

Dead Boy Detectives Fic Recs Part 7

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

So I hear there's been some fandom drama? Guess it's time for another fic rec list! This fandom is so lovely, so let's focus on the positive and give all the love to our writers and artists. You guys are so talented. ♥️

Work It Harder, Make it Better by dear_monday, two_ravens

Olympics AU! And kind of Sk8er Boi? Charles is an Olympic skateboarder at the end of his competitive career and Edwin is a rising star in the world of dressage. They fall in love at Paris 2024. Amazing writing, as always, and I also enjoyed Niko and Crystal as members of the skateboarding and equestrian teams having their own Olympics Romance and Jenny as Charles' world-weary coach.

Twin Flame by Leandra

Another "He was a punk, he did ballet" romance! This time, everyone is alive and the boys meet when Charles watches Edwin perform at his little sister's ballet recital. The romance and Charles as a big brother are very sweet, which is great as this fic also covers some heavy themes. It's set in the 90s so there's discussion of homophobia, the AIDs crisis and Charles' canon child abuse. Suffice to say, his bisexual awakening is quite fraught. Recommended!

Love for Hire by lucrow

Edwin hires Charles to freak out his parents with his obnoxious fake boyfriend. What could possible haaappeeen? And yes, it's a ballet/punk romance too. 😅 Anyway, it's giving fantastic banter, lots of emotions and great use of trope! I also enjoyed Edwin's relationship with his mum in this fic, excellent parental feels.

so I try to talk refined by shadowquill17

Charles finds out about the Cat King taking on his appearance and (somehow) arrives at the conclusion that Edwin isn't attracted to him. Charles having body image as well as chronic self-esteem issues was interesting but kind of heartbreaking. Read it for Edwin's agonised attempts to verbalise his sexual attraction to Charles without exploding. That's love right there.

A Royal Pain(e) (series) by handwrittenhello

Royalty AU! I love a bodyguard romance from time to time and this one is lovely. Lots of yearning.

Turnabout's Fair Play by Like MmmCookies

Edwin enlists Niko and Crystal to teach him how to flirt with Charles. It starts off cute and awkward and ends up Master Of All He Surveys, which is very Edwin.

I will love you (I really love you) by ghostinthelibrary

Charles has a feelings realization and tries to confess to Edwin. Repeatedly. From a cock-blocking enchanted statue to a Hellhound, it's farcical and fun. This fic has been living in my head rent free for months.

seasons of mists by laiqualaurelote

Edwin hires Charles to be the barista in his book shop's cafe. Two cosy AUs in one! And it even comes (appropriately) with its own reading list and fanart! Very cute, excellent autumnal vibes and a superb imaginary book shop. I'm genuinely so devastated it's not a real place. 😭

Ariadne's Thread by hobbitsdoitbetter

In which Edwin is demisexual and trying to make it work with Charles. Love to see some ace spectrum representation!

you know the problem with history (it keeps coming back like weeds) by aletterinthenameofsanity

Amnesia AU! And kind of Secret Relationship? Edwin has Not So Temporary Amnesia that made him forget a whole romantic relationship with Charles early in their partnership. And Charles never told him... Surely this will have no impact on the events of canon?? 😬 I loved this twist on the trope!

scraped to the marrow by Anonymous

Edwin learned black magic in Hell and kind of went to the Dark Side. I love the trope of "Everyone thinks Character avoids violence because they're scared/weak/nice/bad at it, but actually they're a bit too good at it" and this fic does it well. I love regular Edwin, but Lord Bone was also pretty cool.

To Walk Back Into Hell by Asidian

Charles goes to Hell in Edwin's place, so naturally Edwin needs to find a way to rescue him! Interesting Hell lore and I loved all the Charles love in this.

It does not stop by williamvapespeare

Now he's safe from Hell, Edwin finally works through his PTSD. Emotional, but peak Emotional Support Charles for the win!

signed, sealed, delivered by sulfuric

Outsider PoV of the boys and the agency through the years from the perspective of the Ghost Postman. He's kind of underrated as a side character, but there are so many Implications about the Dead Letter Office, so I enjoyed the worldbuilding. And the supernatural community of London gossiping about/shipping the boys (they're just like us, for real). Love that trope.

not so secret by lola_prongs

Social Media/Celebrity AU! In which they're both actors and Charles relentlessly thirsts after Edwin on Twitter. Great use of social media/epistolary storytelling.

Like a record, baby by singtome

Another celebrity/social media AU, but this time Charles and Crystal are budding rock stars and Edwin is their manager. Also Edwin goes viral as the mysterious #HotGuyatUnity after his picture's taken at an event and Charles *tries* to set the record straight. This one's funny, generous with the yearning and UST and is part of a series that also touches on the darker side of the music industry/celebrity, which I appreciated. And it also has this excellent visual representation of the online drama.

@ghostinthelibrarywrites @tumblerislovetumblerislife @shadowquill17 @neurodivergent-fangirling @whatthehorsedoicallthisblog @shazziez @many-gay-magpies @extremely-eager-reader @atariakana @guardianspirits13 @colourmornings @herebehunters @avoiceofnerat @littlepocketuniverse @overlord-of-chaos @fairandfatalasfair @handwrittenhello @every-moment-a-different-sound @williamvapespeare @laiqualaurelote @dear-monday @dear-lucrow @aletterinthenameofsanity @likemmmcookies @bibliomancer7 @c-rowland @nobledragonflying @hobbitsdoitbetter

I've tagged some people again. Let me know if you'd like to be added to the tag list!

[animezinglife]

I understand it, too.

I genuinely do find Solas attractive, albeit in a different way. I would love to romance him with a different character someday---I just wish we got Solas for who he truly was from the start of that romance or that the truth had come out earlier. I'm good at avoiding spoilers, and I hadn't known he would betray the Inquisitor, nor had I even known you couldn't romance him as a human. I had actually gone in fully expecting Mira to flirt with him a little (I knew nothing about Cullen's romance at the time and had always heard Solas was the way to go), but that's simply not how their dynamic played out anyway.

I have no doubt his and Lavellan's is an enthralling story in DA:I, and I would at some point like to experience it. I fully understand the appeal. I would fully be there myself with the right character and mindset.

Solas is captivating. He's someone you could talk with for hours on end about the most abstract concepts, but there's always that small sense of him keeping his distance (even before the topic ever comes up). Even I knew there was more he wasn't saying by the way he dodged questions and some of the dialogue between him and other companions. Though for someone who didn't know better, that could've simply meant he was far more powerful than he let on, knew more than he let on, likely older than he seemed, and wanted to protect himself. The whole, "elven god of lies" thing was a bit more of a twist than I'd anticipated. A secret, ancient elf hiding some things I can do, especially if those layers get peeled back over time. I'm less sure about elven Loki.

I think it truly would've been interesting had it gone a bit more in the direction of Children of Fallen Gods/Mother of Death and Dawn (which, some have noticed, draws some considerable parallels to Solavellan in ways that can't be considered coincidence). Without bringing too many spoilers to the forefront of the conversation, there is some...mutual awareness and corruption that occurs between Totally-Not-Solas and Totally-Not-Lavellan. The power dynamic's more balanced and decision making more...comparable to some degree.

(I am not, by the way, blaming Solas or pointing any fingers at anyone regarding their power dynamics in DA:I).

Solas is the guy whose beauty (if you lean that way at all) isn't quite as noticeable until you get into a really deep discussion with him and realize your heart's beating a little too quickly and you're definitely sitting closer to him now than you were before. He draws you in. He piques your curiosity a bit too much.

I truly do not factor in looks at all (within reason---I'm blatantly partial to humans, elves, fae, vampires, etc.) when I play games with romance options. Solas (in theory; I played as a human, which negates the option) would've been every bit as high up on my to-romance list as Cullen. In truth, he was higher just because he was the one I knew so many were obsessed with. Just because Cullen caught my eye faster didn't mean he and my Inquisitor would've been a good match.

But wow, were they.

I easily lean more towards the "Solas-is-attractive" camp in general. Honestly, I love the fact that the romance options in DA:I were so different and unique from each other. Any players who chose to pursue a romance could find one that suited their characters perfectly. I like that there are a range of personalities, dynamics, and looks, and that there's good variety.

For me personally, nothing in that particular game will ever top Cullen's just because it's so incredibly hyper-specific to every little thing I love and value most even in real life. It's perfect for Mira's story; she is, admittedly, a lot like me. I couldn't believe a romance like that even existed in a game (and you already know why/the many layers I'm referring to).

Yet I also know there are plenty who wouldn't like his romance at all and vastly prefer Solas (or someone else in general).

That's the beauty of it, though.

But, yeah..."ugly?" That's not even a word I'd consider for Solas at all.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard | ▶ dev. Bioware

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

Forever and Ever... Even in the 1920s-1960s

Started going down a long digression in the 2+4 essay. Gonna follow this breadcrumb trail over here instead...

One of my arguments is that Gordon actually behaves well and graciously way more often than he is usually given credit for (and starts doing this way earlier than often credited, too).

Along the way, I realized that his spots of bad behavior are not random. When he starts acting all Ass, it's almost always in the period of some sort of major change in his life:

The Three Railway Engines - *waves hand vaguely* all of it -> he's just transferred from the GNR to Sodor

Troublesome Engines - *waves hand again* y'know, all of it -> Thomas moved away :(

Henry the Green Engine - harrumphing about how Henry has let the side down in like three different ways directly after Henry's major reconstructive surgery -> the horrible wreck where Henry, his best friend, could have died, and instead was in hospital the rest of the damn winter

Gordon the Big Engine - "Mind you keep on the rails today!" and then, when he gets pushback, retreating to old friend "boasting" -> is he mother-henning Henry?? he's explicitly referencing the Kipper accident! I would not be too shocked to learn that Gordon gets twinges of unease that he never examines every so often whenever he sees Henry with a train

Percy the Small Engine - "Quack quack quack!" and trying to bully Duck (lol. lmao, even) -> Percy is gonna move away :(

Main Line Engines - getting on his high horse about "Branch Line Diesels" and then getting into a huge spat with Edward that results a brand-new beat-down of a dead horse named "Edward is Weak and Useless" -> We learn in "Wrong Road" that his fireman is new. Presumably his old fireman advanced to fill the role, leaving the vacancy... which means that Gordon recently lost his old driver to retirement.

You might be thinking "well yeah, stressors are stressful, most people's outbreaks of bad behavior have to do with some sort of Big Life Thing" - I certainly thought so, for a mo'. But this isn't true of the other major characters? James's worst behavior in the Wilbert books comes when he is slightly delayed sometimes during his work day and when Toby just, erm… exists. Thomas's worst behavior is because he… doesn't like his snowplough, and has a careless cleaner.

No, only Gordon's poor behavior can so consistently be linked to big changes. Indeed, not many RWS characters have been seen with quite as much of an interior life as we learn Gordon has in "Tenders for Henry." By that point, Gordon has matured enough that he doesn't express his feelings in this emotionally-stupid make-it-everyone's-problem sort of way. But we can see clearly that the end of steam seems to affect him more deeply than anyone else at Tidmouth.

So yeah, I think there's something real and insightful in the above pattern. Once again, my friends - Galloping Sausage with Feelings.

[tossawary]

While I do think that Wangxian would still be obsessed with each other in a Human/Cybertronian pairing, whichever one of them is the robot, I keep leaning towards Wen Ning being the robot in a "Transformers" AU for MDZS. I think it really fits the "I rebuilt you into an abomination" angle for the Ningxian situationship.

Also, I keep making myself laugh by thinking about bitchy-faced Lan Wangji sitting awkwardly in Wen Ning's passenger seat, because Wen Ning passive-aggressively won't let LWJ sit in the driver's seat even if Wei Wuxian isn't in the car. 

Which led me to thinking about the worldbuilding and plotting of a MDZS TF AU in which only the Wens are Cybertronians. (For the Sunshot-Era characters, at least.) Young WWX and LWJ are roughly the equivalent of human characters like G1's Spike, Carly, and/or Chip. (Though it would also be fun to do a different AU where WWX and/or LWJ are transforming giant robots, of course.)

In my mind, this story would take place in a modern-ish sci-fi setting. Start close to a Bayverse-like setting (live-action TF movies), but quickly morph into a "Pacific Rim"-style mecha setting (humans building mechs to fight monsters, not necessarily with a "Drift" co-piloting setup) as the equivalent of the Sunshot Campaign war starts and continues, before ultimately the setting becomes more of a retro-futuristic space opera like the original 1986 TF movie and the third season of G1 (the original TF cartoon). 

So, Wei Wuxian is a teenage genius at some prestigious robotics university/college, which does important research on a handful of alien artifacts. Lan Wangji also goes to this school and teenage Wangxian have the usual interpersonal conflict between them. 

Alien robots have been visiting Earth with increasing frequency over the past few decades, usually flying in and out without doing much, sometimes causing some destruction, so they're somewhat known, but a lot of people still think it's an elaborate hoax of some kind. The recovered pieces of these alien robots have provided a technological boost to humanity, which has caused some serious problems all over the world, but mundane life goes on for many people even if mech programs are apparently a real thing now. 

(Wei Wuxian's parents (who were humans) had dealings with Cybertronians. He does not initially know this.) 

The Cloud Recesses school possesses some very important alien artifact that serves as our story's MacGuffin. I'm thinking that it's either the Allspark or the Matrix of Leadership. Whatever it is, it's been dormant and useless for a very long time... basically a rock... until Wei Wuxian manages to build technology that actually manages to interface with the MacGuffin. No one else has ever managed this before. He can make it do stuff. 

Unfortunately, in achieving this, he accidentally sends out the equivalent of a signal to all Cybertronians pretty much everywhere saying: "YO! Earth has got your stuff! The MacGuffin you've been searching for for a million years is over here! Come and get it!" 

So, the school gets attacked by a group of Cybertronians, probably led by Cybertronian Wen Chao. The school possesses enough technology for some of the more daring and reckless students (Wei Wuxian) to fight back a little, using a combination of smarts and highly volatile projects, until some mech pilots arrive to chase them off. Wei Wuxian manages to knock one of the transformers down, but he doesn't take the killing shot, because the transformer looks scared, and Wei Wuxian also saw this transformer trying to step carefully around the humans. The transformer retreats with the other Cybertronians. 

Insert some plot and character stuff here. Then, in the next action-y sequence when Wei Wuxian gets attacked by Cybertronians again, he's saved when a car pulls up in front of him (it looks like either LWJ or Jiang Cheng's fancy car) and flings open a door for him to jump inside. It's only as they're driving away that Wei Wuxian realizes that no one else is in the car. 

Wei Wuxian: "...You're a Cybertronian, right? Was this a bad idea? Did I fuck up?" 

Cybertronian Wen Ning (the transformer whom Wei Wuxian didn't kill earlier): "Yeah, kind of. I'm surprised that you just went along with that? I'm kidnapping you. Sorry." 

In this universe, the Wens are essentially the Decepticons, but if the Decepticons had basically already won the war. There are some remaining Autobots out there, Wen Ning actually has a few Autobot ties, but the Autobots are largely scattered. Wen Ning and Wen Qing are both Decepticons here to get the MacGuffin (Allspark or Matrix), so that Decepticon victory will be complete, and Earth will probably be destroyed or conquered in the process. 

Well, they were here to do that. Wen Ning isn't really feeling that plan so much. He feels bad for the humans. And he thinks Wei Wuxian is really cool! He's never seen anyone that small and squishy humiliate Wen Chao that badly! Wow. 

Wen Ning doesn't like Lan Wangji so much, however, which is mutual. Currently, I'm thinking about this with polyamory vibes. Wei Wuxian would love to have car sex with Lan Wangji in Wen Ning's back seat, but he's not looking directly at that thought because he's pretty sure that LWJ hates him, and he refuses to reflect at all on why he wants this fantasy to be happening inside Wen Ning specifically. WWX is too busy dealing with a robot war to face being gay, much less being gay(?) for a giant robot as well, he doesn't have the time to learn what polyamory is yet! 

Insert series of events here that ultimately lead to a Humans versus Decepticons war, where the humans have mechs and a growing force of New Autobot allies, but the struggle against these lethal transforming robot soldiers is still grueling. 

The great sects in this AU are all giant tech and/or weapons companies of various types. Which is, you know, morally not great, probably, but this is what these kids have grown up with. They're feeling additional pressure to "do their duty" to protect Earth. The Nie family are heavily involved in some mech program that's been running for a few generations now and has some disastrous health effects, but is not going to stop Nie Mingjue from piloting Baxia until it kills him. Jiang Yanli is already married to Jin Zixuan, son of the CEO of the Jin Corporation, which will play its usual role of "shadowy, greedy company" this time with cyberpunk-esque aesthetics. 

I'm not sure what the Jiangs do, but I'm learning towards something to do with space. Jiang Cheng could be in business school, or doing some form of military service, or participating in some astronaut program (still not good enough for his mother), in preparation to take over the family company someday. His life plan gets completely wrecked by giant robots. Specifically, when the giant robots destroy most of the company's buildings and factories, early on in the war, and then his parents also get killed. The insurance alone is a fucking nightmare to deal with. 

In this AU, the only person whom young man Jiang Cheng has ever experienced any kind of attraction towards is a 20ft+ robot "woman" (Wen Qing) who is allegedly a doctor and can turn her arms into buzzsaws (see Knockout from TFP). No, he doesn't want to talk about these feelings. You could physically force JC's ass into therapy and he'd still never talk. 

Anyway, everyone is having a really bad time in this war! Wei Wuxian grows out of his teenage years desperately pulling useful information out of the MacGuffin (Allspark or Matrix) and developing new technology to fight back. Work sucks. War sucks. The state of his family is a tragedy. His relationship status with now coworker Lan Wangji is a solid: "???" Every day, New Autobots like Wen Ning seem to get a little broken and Wei Wuxian can't fix it all. 

Eventually, Wei Wuxian develops something really dangerous that helps to kill off the leader of the Decepticons and win the war. I was thinking some kind of spacebridge technology, perhaps? Because I was thinking that a spacebridge accident should be what "kills" Wei Wuxian for 10+ years, before popping him back into his usual reality, back into a world that has seemingly moved on without him. 

After the Decepticons are first defeated, the situation is tense. Wei Wuxian is sitting on a goldmine of dangerous and powerful technology, capable of developing more. He somehow managed to bring Wen Ning back from the dead this one time and even the Cybertronians seemed weirded out by that. After the war, a lot of people aren't kindly inclined towards the New Autobots, and some people want to take them apart to see what makes them tick. 

Including Wen Yuan, a brand new Decepticon who was created during the war and then rescued by the New Autobots at the very end of it, taken under their wings before he could be forced to do anything to hurt anyone. Wei Wuxian is not this kid's dad. Wen Yuan isn't really a "kid". But he's still relatively small (only like 10ft-tall) because they don't have the parts to get him good upgrades yet and so inexperienced. I need you to picture a six-month-old robot very, VERY carefully picking up a human Wei Wuxian who is about half his size, who drank himself to sleep in the lab again, so that Wen Yuan can put him to bed. It is sad. 

The character who is probably the closest equivalent to an Optimus Prime figure here is Granny Wen. Optimus Prime if Optimus Prime sounded like someone's grandma. I think it would be fun to make her the leader of the New Autobots. Not sure yet whether or not she has or at one point had the Matrix. If she ever did, maybe it was ripped out of her chest at some point. 

I'm disinclined to kill off all the Wen remnants again in an AU, so I'm leaning towards Wei Wuxian helping them escape Earth through a spacebridge in the face of some "unofficial" mercenary attack. Wen Ning gets "killed" again (captured by the Jin Corporation, who are not identified at the time). Pretty much everyone else manages to get away. Except for Wei Wuxian, who gets caught in a spacebridge accident, and banished to the Shadowzone, assumed dead. 

Many years later, young scientist Mo Xuanyu uses Wei Wuxian's spacebridge research to bring him back from the Shadowzone. Wei Wuxian does not have a good sense of how much time has passed. He was wearing an exosuit, which kept him from dying outright, but being in stasis in between realities takes more than a minute for recovery. Damn. That was weird.

The situation more than a decade later is actually apparently less dire than he might have feared. The New Autobots managed to negotiate a treaty and a safe return to Earth, and have built a new base here, working cooperatively with allies such as Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng, who have put much of Wei Wuxian's work to good, productive use helping Earth rebuild. How do Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng work with the New Autobots when they can't stand speaking to each other and hate agreeing with each other ever? Well, that's what personal assistants are for. 

Lan Wangji apparently only got hotter as he got older and Wei Wuxian is having a hard time dealing with that! It seems unfair! (Wei Wuxian is going to cry when they find and rescue Wen Ning again. And someone will finally force him to talk about his desire to make out with Lan Wangji across the hood of his car who is also his friend who is also a giant robot.) 

I don't know what has happened to Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan here. They could be alive? Maybe not? In the AU, however, Jin Ling is the equivalent to Daniel Witwicky, who is son of Spike and Carly. Jin Ling in this AU is a cute human tweenager / teenager with the roundest, rosiest cheeks you've ever seen. 

And all the other "Juniors" are giant robots. 

Lan Wangji took Wen Yuan under his wing. Lan Sizhui has gotten his first few rounds of upgrades, so he's at least twice his previous size, in good repair now, and pretty much unrecognizable. I need you to imagine giant robot Lan Sizhui very carefully picking up "Dr. Lan" to demonstrate to the other junior New Autobots how such a thing is done with humans. Lan Sizhui is very roughly equivalent to the TF character of Springer at this point. 

Ouyang Zizhen is roughly equivalent to Arcee. Lan Jingyi is roughly equivalent to Hot Rod. They were brought to Earth because Cybertron is still partially under Decepticon control and the Earth base is safer for young Cybertronians. They are also roughly the same age as Lan Sizhui and Jin Ling.

As far as little human Jin Ling is concerned, he has just as much right to "leadership" of this friendship group as any of the others! They're alll the same age!!! 

And yes, one could also move Lan Sizhui into the "Hot Rod" position here, but Lan Sizhui has vibes that are closer to Ultra Magnus than Hot Rod in my opinion, and I like Hot Rod. And it is just funny to think about Lan Jingyi becoming a Rodimus Prime equivalent and having to deal with being the new bearer of the Matrix of Leadership. No one considered him a potential candidate, least of all himself. He did Not Ask. He does Not Want. 

There's a potential plot here regarding the Jin Corporation and Mech Pilot Nie Mingjue's murder and potentially some Unicron equivalent threat to the planet, but it's too heavily dependent on whatever has happened previously in this plot to create solid thoughts. And it's late! I would much rather amuse myself thinking about Lan Jingyi as Rodimus Prime. He would like to Get Off This Ride.

[pinkandpurple360]

I wouldn't blame anyone for finding Look My Way too Stolas-sympathetic and weepy but honestly I think on the whole it's way better than most of the songs he gets in the show

and that's because it actually has a narrative arc to it. Stolas reflects on his life, realizes he is the problem between him and Blitzo, actually shows some empathy for the armor Blitzo has developed as a result of being impoverished, then decides on an action: making amends for making Blitzo a means to an end. and it retains his original classist character by having the impish plaything line that the show whitewashed over

it still has the same problem anything Stolas related does in that it's hard to care about his repeated pleas for Blitzo to look his way, but it's a far more concise view of him as a character and crucially he actually shows some ability to self reflect in it and then take action based on his conclusions

ParanoidDJ released the original after ep6 but honestly it would fit perfectly in the show after ep7, where Stolas comes back in from the party. instead of getting drunk, maybe he stops and makes himself think about where things went wrong

instead the songs he has in the show are

Stolas Sings - immediately implies Blitzo lied to him, so no self reflection or introspection. It's set up he'll go to get a crystal but that isn't referenced in the lyrics, it's just a split second freeze frame when he chucks his book into view of the camera which is bad storytelling. It's all self focused self pity - he's the victim and that's that. no sign of care for what he's done to Blitzo or Via unlike Look My Way.

All 2 U - a breakup reflection where he does no self reflection or introspection. blames Blitzo for stuff he did (let him get too close/go on too long/fell too far). all self focused self pity - he's the victim and that's that

duet number - does say he maybe did something wrong, but it only counts if Blitzo didn't actually want him (then when Blitzo confirms that, he proceeds to...show no self reflection or introspection - just he's the victim and that's that, you get the idea)

the show numbers not only fail to move the plot forward, they don't move Stolas' character forward at all. Look My Way really sticks out as one of his numbers because it's basically the only one where he does explicitly say 'I'm in the wrong and need to fix things' where in the show it's always 'maybe I did something wrong, maybe, but you hurt me so you're more wrong and I'm putting off doing any self reflection on what my issues are until Tuesday - when I'll put it off again'.

he's far more proactive in LMW too - he doesn't sound like he'll just give up on making amends at the first failure. meanwhile Show Stolas has done only two proactive things when it comes to Blitzo onscreen: making the deal and breaking the deal. both things were done for his own benefit and he's now back to being passive and expecting Blitzo to be the one to come crawling back to court him even though Blitzo has every reason to think he moved on with the succubus dude to spite him in particular

This moment here

It wasn’t him feeling some guilt/remorse for how obnoxious and forceful he behaved, or sympathy for Blitzs unhappiness. He is thinking “Aww….he doesn’t love me, that makes me so sad. Poor me. I deserve love. I just want a lover.”

Well anon, the simple explanation LMW stolas is so different…..is, Vivienne/Sam Haft didn’t write that. They both do think stolas is the more innocent and more victimised party. That’s why before Full Moons confrontation, stolas has sung not one, not two but three sad ballads about his soft boy romantic feelings. And it’s why stolas’ personality was changed drastically between his nasty truth seekers self to his Ozzies bleeding heart self. To make you forget his 1-6 self ever happened and pity him.

While blitz was only allowed to smirk and make sex jokes in a verse of stolas’ third sad song. With the intent of making him look like the “real” pervert with a cold black heart. His verse in when I see him was intended by Sam to set up “that your first instinct is that it’s always (gasp) about sex (closes eyes solemnly)” line. Stolas is allowed to have an inner monologue, desires, worries, regrets and hopes. Blitz is only allowed say “fuck” “penis” and “im traumatised”** with an asterisk saying that makes him an asshole and not “baby” stolas’ fault. Spoken to you in apology tour dialogue delivered by the lovely: Vivienne Mayday aka Verosika Medrano.

Viv didn’t write look my way, and disagrees with the narrative.

She hates Octavia for not being more grateful to her father and thinks stolas deserves to be free from being her parent. So took his line about her out of the song. Twitter emboldened her to go through with this belief. So she took her line out of LMW.

She hates blitz for disliking upper classes, implies he’s “just like a supremacist” against princes for it. I think this also came from Twitter. You are NOT allowed to point out the racism of stolas or you’ll be branded a striker sympathiser.

She agrees with stolas fans that the real reason blitz doesn’t trust stolas’ gifts with no catch is nothing to do with stolas’ previous exploitative transactional actions….it is��.because of his own mean imp father? Because Cash taught him love is transaction. A very convenient excuse Viv absorbed again, from Twitter and YouTube.

Cuz….it was cash. Not the sexual extorter who held his job over his head. That’s his soulmate cause owls only mate once via eye contact and die of broken hearts if they can’t have their mate forever. His 25 year long lust for someone he only knew as a child isn’t weird at all wdym. In fact all the bad stuff is Blitzs fault.

She absorbed all of this nonsense from Twitter takes, specifically the stolas stans, because she thinks putting fandom talking points into canon is a safe bet. The actual story is out the window, there isn’t one.

See how letting the stolas fandom twitter write your story for you makes for a biased fucked up victim blaming story that coddles a sexual abuser with “involuntarily celibate” arguments?

When she makes stolas reflect and take accountability, the reaction she wants you to have is “Poor baby stolas blames himself which shows what a good little boy he is! Even though nothing is ever his fault!” She just wanted to make money off of someone else’s work.

[noperopesaredope]

I've Finally Figured Out Why Curly's Skin-Thing Frustrates Me

I was talking to someone earlier about how people sometimes refer to Curly as "corpse-like" and why that might be offensive to burn victims, and I was trying to explain why some people might think that way. I think after that conversation, I was finally able to articulate what frustrated me about Curly's burn situation. He doesn't look like he actually has burn scars.

Here are some real life 3rd degree burn scars (sorry if some of them have a before and after photo, they were the best I could get):

Here's also a diagram of burn severity just as extra stuff:

They appear very different from Curly's scars. They are more...wrinkly doesn't seem like the right word? They do not seem to have straight lines that flow in a specific pattern, and are more vein-like than anything. A lot of them also have a more regular skin tone. Whether pink or not, they are not the shade of deep crimson red that Curly's are. They overall look completely different in many ways. One might argue that different types of burns and different degrees cause different scarring, and I agree with that. In fact, having looked into burn scarring a bit more, I believe that Curly's scars may be 4th degree or higher, as it went past the skin.

Let's look at a few:

I have found an example of a real world burn survivor with some similarities to Curly:

(Honestly really liked this video, especially since it taught me a bit more about burn survivors when I first watched it a few years ago)

He, like Curly, had a disfigured mouth and eyes and whatnot. It shows that some of Curly's injuries are realistic, such as his mouth and probably his eyelid. However, his burns still look very different. All of them look much more similar to each other than they do to Curly.

In general, I have not yet found an example of burn scarring that looks similar to IRL scarring. I believe that's one aspect of this, but there is a second, bigger part. The big issue here isn't just that Curly doesn't look like he has burn scars, but that he does look similar to one of those medical textbook muscle diagrams.

His burns are a lot more fleshy and have a certain pattern to them that regular burns (even the most severe ones) don't. They follow lines across the body and take on a certain shape, whereas usually burn scars aren't quite like that. In face, the look a lot like the actual muscle structure:

(The bandages looking a bit like bones certainly doesn't help with that)

On top of it all (and this has always drove me insane), he is specifically described as having no skin. Even the most severe burn survivors have something. They have skin, or at least some sort of layer between the muscles and the outside.

According to all my research (and trust me, I tried), it is physically impossible to live without skin. You will die.

To me, Curly doesn't appear to have actual burn scars or even look like he was burned. Hell, before I knew anything about the game, I never would have guessed he had been burned. Instead, he looks more like his skin was peeled off, not burnt off.

A metaphor I used while talking to the other person is that Curly is like seeing a character who supposedly broke their spine, but then you learn that their entire spine actually disintegrated into nothing and they have literally no spinal cord. And you're like "wtf how is this bitch still alive" because you can live with a damaged spine but you cannot live with zero spine at all.

People don't think of him as a burn victim because there are no burn scars. In fact, I often forget he's a burn victim because he doesn't appear to have any actual burn wounds. Like, all his wounds don't look like burns of any kind. They look more like those medical textbooks. Thus, people see him as "corpse-like" because no living person with burn scars looks like him (at least, not that I can find). Because he literally looks more like a diagram of muscle structure than he does a burn victim. His design is unrealistic in a way that make people horrified.

He literally, in every possible way has no skin.

And that is why so many people are freaked out by him.

[bloodlinesceo]

Abandoned II 🩸

Gif credit: @annoyedkayah2395 (this one's perfection 🔥)

Credit to Resident Evil Village game for the visuals & characters.

Link to I (if you haven't read it):

A/N: Apologies for the bit of delay in updating. School's been a pain in the ass so I'll try to do the best I can. I've also posted a YouTube video of House Beneviento so y'all can see what it looks like. Credit to the owner who made this (TW:// Be careful of potential jump scares) The rooms are luxurious instead for now & there's a bathroom upstairs.

‼️Again, this is Horror based. If scary situations make you feel uneasy or uncomfortable, this isn't for you then, keep scrolling. Unnecessary comments or reblogs will get blocked. Just saying, I don't tolerate BS. I have Trigger Warnings up for a reason. Minors DNI‼️

Also, I apologize that I haven't updated 'In The Shadows' for a while too on Wattpad. Currently dealing with writer's block too. If any of the girlies love Tonga Loa on here that fic is all about him if you're interested 🫶🏽

Pairing: Tama Tonga x Fem! Reader

Characters: Tama Tonga, Solo Sikoa, Jacob Fatu, Tonga Loa, mentions of The Usos & Donna & Angie Beneviento. (WWE x Resident Evil Village crossover).

Warnings ⚠️: 18+, swearing, dirty talk, heated, mentions of sex. Tama being clingy. (I've gotten requests to make it sm*tty but I really haven't been comfortable with writing that & I don't want to write something I'm bad at & let y'all down. But there is implied shower sm*t). Hickeys, touching, paranormal shit. Solo being sassy & in character. Mature themes. Character disappearance & abduction. NOT PROOFREAD! MINORS DNI!

Written for fictional purposes only & does not depict who they are in real life!

Word Count: 4.3k

Hope y'all enjoy! 💫

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾

The 5 of you walked down the path, you tightly held onto Tama still doubting this, but you all didn't have a choice.

"What if nobody's home?" whispered Loa. "Don't be silly, the lights are on" said Solo. You all climbed up the stairs carefully. Solo took a deep breath, knocked on the door and gave them time, no answer. He tried again "hello? Is anyone home? We need help, our car got stuck on the side of the road" he said. "We bring no harm!"

"Yeah sure, that will get them to answer the door quicker" said Tama sarcastically. You playfully slapped his chest, again he starts making his signature noises at you. "Yo! Stop with the gremlin noises, they're gonna think we're crackheads" whispered Jacob, making him stop. "Weirdo" you said, "but I'm your weirdo." Tama smirked. "Get a room" sighed Loa. "We will if we get in" smiled Tama. "Well it better be far away from where I'll sleep. I don't need to hear a recap of the night before" said Loa.

Still nobody answered the door. Jacob went towards the window on the side & peeked in. "Dude, don't be creepy why are you being a peeping Tom?" asked Loa. "I'm trying to see if someone's inside, maybe I can try to communicate with them through here. I don't see anyone, but the place looks sick!" admired Jacob.

"Yeah, that totally helps our situation" said Solo sarcastically. He knocked again. "Y'know what? F-ck it" he mumbled. He pushed the wooden doors attempting to open it & surprisingly the doors opened leaving everyone in shock. "Orrrr we could do that" said Jacob.

Solo slowly stepped inside, everyone following after. "Hello? Is anyone home?" he called out. "They would've opened the door if they were right?" asked Loa. Solo shot him a glare. "Sorry" apologized Loa. "It's okay, I'm just stressed with this whole thing" he said. Loa nodded in understanding.

"Okay, me, Loa & Jacob are going to look around the house & see if it's cool for us to stay here for the night & who sleeps where" said Solo. "And with who" whispered Tama smirking at you, knowing what he was indicating. "We're finally inside right?" you said, confusing Tama. You unzipped his coat from underneath & ran out "I'm free!" Tama groaned.

"Okay, let's not get too excited" said Solo. "We're gonna go check the place. Y/N, Tama, y'all check the ground floor. We'll head upstairs" said Solo. "You're gonna leave those two alone here? You better pray they behave & the owner of the house doesn't walk in on something" cringed Loa, causing Solo to facepalm himself. "Behave & stay on task, this ain't your house or the hotel room, ya nasties" said Solo pointing at you two. Both of you nodded. "I can behave" you said "your right hand man is the one who can't keep it in his pants. He's the real nasty" you smirked, making Tama cock his brow at you & chase after you "now I'll show you nasty!" he yelled.

"I can't believe he's the eldest out of all of us & gets to have fun while we suffer here alone" said Loa. "It's okay, tomorrow we'll all be free from this shit & go back home to our women & families" assured Solo, making the men smile. They all made their way upstairs to check the place you, & Tama stayed downstairs.

You walked around & observed the place, starting off with the kitchen & then making your way towards the living room. "Hmm nice & cozy place" you praised. You went down the hall & looked out the windows observing the nice view of the waterfall. You then went into the main area near the front door. After you & Tama fully checked the ground floor & tried to pry his hands off of you at times, you both found everything okay, and decided to go upstairs & check on the rest.

You were climbing the stairs when a huge portrait on the side of the wall caught your attention. You stopped by to observe it.

The girl was dressed in all black, had pale skin & had her hair tied back. She was beautiful but, you were wondering why she had this doll beside her who was adorably frightening. The doll looked like she could jump out of the frame at any moment. But this girl, you were wondering who she was. Was she the owner of the house?

Your thoughts were cut off when you felt two strong muscular arms wrap around your waist & a pair of lips on your neck. You knew who it was you tilted your neck to the side giving him more access, but not taking your eyes off the portrait. His kisses moved higher up your neck in search for your sweet spot. You were too invested into the photo.

"Tama?" you said. "Hmm?" his voice vibrated against your neck. "Look at this picture, does something seem odd about it?" you asked. His kisses stopped & he looked up, taking in the picture. "Yeah, call Chucky cause I think we found his bride" he joked. "Tama" you sighed. "What? That's one creepy ass looking doll!" he exclaimed. "I know, but this girl. I wonder why she has this doll next to her & who she is" you said out of curiosity.

"Donna Beneviento?" guessed Tama. You were surprised. "That's her name?" He nodded. "How did you-" he pointed to the bottom of the photo which illustrated their names Donna & Angie Beneviento. The doll's name must be Angie, and she must consider this doll close like a family member, you thought. "While Solo & Jacob were pulling open the gates, I saw the name House Beneviento written on the mailbox" said Tama. "She must be the owner of this house I'm guessing, but where is she? And why would she leave her place open like this?" you wondered. "Probably went on vacation to find Angie her lost husband when we could've brought Chucky straight to her" joked Tama. You rolled your eyes at him "that's not funny, Tama" you said making him pout. You continued to climb up the stairs leaving him there. "Y/NNNN, don't be like that" he whined following after you.

"Hey, y'all find anything interesting?" you said joining the 3 men in a room. "Yeah, there's only one bedroom here" said Solo. "Never thought upstairs would be less work for the 3 of us, maybe we should've sent you up here instead" said Loa. "Yeah, downstairs took almost forever for me & Tama" you said. "There's so much storage though like I see shit packed over there & shit packed downstairs too, are they moving out or renovating?" asked Jacob. You shrugged "I guess we'll have to ask Miss Beneviento that when we meet her" you said. "Beneviento?" asked Solo. "Yeah man, that's her name, Donna Beneviento. While y'all were playing tug of war with the gates, we saw her name written on the mailbox" said Tama. Solo looked surprised same with Loa & Jacob.

"Come on, I'll show you what she looks like" you said leading them towards the stairs. All 3 men looked at the picture & felt uneasy. "Uh uh, I don't like the looks of this" cringed Jacob "that's one creepy ass looking doll! I thought M3gan was bad!" "that's what I thought too!" said Tama. "They look friendly & welcoming" said Loa, sarcastically. "Creepy doll aside, I'd love to talk to this Donna chick, and ask how much mortgage does she pay to afford a house like this near the waterfall" wondered Solo. "Can y'all think of anyone but yourselves for a change?" you asked. "What? We need a place to get away! Especially from my brothers" said Solo "their hungry asses always show up at my place wanting to go to Waffle House, I'm sick and tired as hell of them" he sighed.

"Anyway, there's a double bed downstairs if y'all need a place to sleep. Just move the dolls around" you said. "Yeah, we saw dolls in the upstairs bedroom too. Why's this place packed with dolls? It screams cursed" cringed Loa. "Yeah, I kinda wanna leave now this place is scaring the f-ck out of me" said Jacob. "Will y'all grow up? It's just dolls, they ain't gonna do anything. Geez, we're pro wrestlers who come from a strong family so act like it" said Solo. "Anyway, Y/N, Tama,I guess y'all can take upstairs. Jacob & me will take the downstairs bed" confirmed Solo. "Hello? I'm here too!" Loa whined. "You can take the couch in the front area" said Solo. "Oh nice, another uncomfortable night for me. Just say you hate me & go" snapped Loa. "I don't hate you & it's just for tonight" assured Solo "then you can kiss it goodbye."

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾

You & Tama were upstairs. You came across a journal from Donna, you weren't sure if you wanted to read it, but you definitely wanted to know more about her. As you were reading you felt the bed dip & you see a shirtless Tama smirking & crawling to you. "Haven't you had enough?" you questioned mirroring his smirk.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾

"Alright, you feeling comfortable Uce?" asked Solo while fluffing his pillow. "Yeah" said Jacob, "this place still gives me the chills though." he says laying down & putting his arms behind his head. "We'll be outta here at dawn" smiled Solo. "Yo Loa! How you holding up there?" he called out to the next room. "Uh, alright!" he answered. "I'll go check on him, goodnight" said Solo "night" nodded Jacob.

Solo walked into the front area & saw Loa trying to adjust himself on the sofa. "You good?" he asked. "Yeah, I'll try to make it through. Did you check your phone signal?" asked Loa. "Damn, I didn't think of that. Thanks for the reminder" said Solo. He whipped out his phone to check, "what the f-ck? My phone's dead! I swear it was fully charged when we left & I didn't use it much!" he said shocked. "Here, use mine" said Loa whipping his phone out. "Mine's dead too, the f-ck?" he yelled. "How's that possible? We finally get shelter & both of our phones die? Anyway, I'll ask Jacob for his charger. I left mine's at the hotel. Sleep well!" said Solo walking away. "I'll try to, I bet the lovebirds are having a slumber party up there so it'll be hard to sleep" sighed Loa. "Just ignore them! Put your head under your pillow!" said Solo.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾

You both were in a heated make out session, before Tama started to move his head down to suck on your neck making you moan loud. "Shhhh" he whispered against your neck. "How can I?" you whispered, making him smirk evilly as he moved his hand up your dress. You stopped him "I'm going to take a shower" you said, making him look at you in shock. "What?! Didn't you shower at the arena?" he questioned. "How can I? Y'all were starving like bears. Jacob was craving Popeyes & wanted to get there before closing time" you rambled. "But I'm just getting started with you!" whined Tama. "I don't see how that's a perfect reason for me to stay here" you laughed "you're acting like a brat now. I need to set you straight" Tama started to get serious. "Well not right now, I'm gonna freshen up, we were stranded & we walked all the way here too through a swampy forest. Ergo, I need to shower!" you stated squirming away from beneath him & grabbing a towel. "Who the f-ck says ergo nowadays?" scoffed Tama.

You giggled walking down the hallway towards the bathroom, you spotted Loa downstairs trying to sleep. You couldn't help but find it adorable. "Sleeping well Snowloa White?" you teased from above. He looked up at you giving you a dirty look "y'all couldn't be any louder up there? Thank God we're in a deep forest or else the Hotel Manager would've been banging on the door by now" he said clearly agitated. "Your brother is the one who's horny on main" you defended. "But, I hear your voice the most" said Loa. "And your brother is the one who's causing it" you talked back. "Stop!" yelled Loa covering his ears. "What's going on?" called out Solo from the next room. "Nothing! Just Loa being a grump again." you said, Loa groaned. "Anyway, I'm going to have a shower, so you'll get your peace & quiet. Goodnight" you said. "Thank God, goodnight. I'm traveling on my own next time" he said. You rolled your eyes & went into the bathroom.

It looked very nice & cozy, you gotta give Donna props, she kept her place nice. You stepped into the bathroom closing the door behind you, checked around to be safe & turned the shower on. You got undressed & stepped inside. You felt the warm water consume you & you let out a sigh in content feeling the warmth on your skin. Something you definitely needed after almost freezing to death. You heard the bathroom door open breaking you out of your peaceful slumber & heard a rustle of clothes dropping onto the floor. The shower curtain opened & you let out a scream.

"TAMA WHAT THE F-CK?! CAN'T YOU KNOCK?!" you yelled as he stepped into the shower with you. "We've been living together for a year now & never gave a shit about those rules. Now you wanna apply them?" he asked raising a brow at you. "Why are you here?!" you asked. "Showering in an unknown place by yourself? Aren't you scared, woman? Plus, I walked all the way here & need one too. I know Miss Beneviento wouldn't want her water bill to go up, so let's save it" he whispered walking towards you. "No!" you said lightly pushing him away from you "Just because I want a peaceful shower doesn't mean I want a pleasurable one too" you scoffed. "I was gonna help you shower, and soap up your back. You don't have your brush here & I know how much you hate not getting your back, so I thought I'd help you out." offered Tama. You sighed "fine, but no funny business. I'll get yours too" you said making him grin.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾

After you both washed up, you couldn't help but get lost into Tama after he helped you. Your hands lightly trailed up his abs feeling his skin, making him heavily breathe. You looked at him & got lost into his eyes as he got lost in yours. You thought you should just reward him at this point, and smashed your lips onto his, he immediately kissed back and pinned you against the wall pressing his wet body against yours.

You sighed in content feeling him. He lifted your legs up wrapping them around his waist as your arms wrapped around his neck, running your fingers through his curls, the kiss got deeper. He licked at your bottom lip & you let him in locking your tongue with his. "Mmm... see? I knew you'd give in. You're No Angel" he mumbled against your lips. "Shut up" you giggled into the kiss. Seconds later, he moved his lips down to your neck kissing & licking the skin there, you moved your head to the side giving him more access & feeling the hairs on his beard prickling your skin. He found your sweet spot making you moan, you felt him smile against your skin. He sucked and bit on that spot, giving you a hickey "Tamaaa" you moaned loudly. He pulled away grinning at his work & giving the bruise one last flick of his tongue. "I know, baby" he breathed. He then started going lower with his kisses. You bit your lip knowing what was coming.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾

You both quietly exited the bathroom with your towels on. "Funny, how you said you wanted to save her water bill by getting us to shower together, but I think it only skyrocketed. She's gonna be hella pissed!" you whispered in worry. "Relax, I'm a rich man & I'll pay her bill as a thank you for letting us stay here" chuckled Tama. "Yeah, without her knowledge!" you whispered tip toeing.

"Your poor brother is definitely pissed off at us for ruining his sleep again!" you said. "Well it's safe to say, I didn't instigate it this time" teased Tama. You lightly slapped his chest, looking over the railing to check down on Loa, only to notice that he wasn't on the couch anymore. "Hey, where's your brother?" you asked Tama. He looked over your shoulder to see that his brother wasn't there. "Probably went to the downstairs bathroom or moved to another spot to sleep, you know he can't stand us ma chérie" he said shaking his head. "Come on, let's go to bed" he said pulling you away.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚⋆.˚ ☾

Tama was asleep, next to you arm wrapped around your waist. For some reason, you couldn't sleep. You were hooked onto Donna's journal gaining more knowledge on her, she's a doll-maker which explains the dolls in her home. You learned about her struggles growing up, mentally & physically, her parents, tragedies she faced, Mother Miranda, her family, how she found Angie & her becoming a part of her life, and the dolls she made. You never realized how important Angie is to Donna, she was given to her by her father & she communicated through Angie. You felt bad for judging her earlier. Some parts really struck you, emotionally & because you are an empath too you felt for Donna.

You were deep into reading when all of a sudden you heard a loud crash coming from downstairs, making you jump. You quickly sat up and placed the book on the nightstand next to you. Tama woke up and quickly sat up beside you "what was that?" he asked. You shrugged. You both quickly rushed out of bed heading towards the stairs when you saw the lights were already on & Jacob & Solo were standing there.

"What happened?" you asked meeting them at the middle of the stairs. "Looks like the wind came in & knocked this portrait down" said Solo picking up the framed portrait of Donna & Angie up. You started to get chills. "But how?" asked Tama. "How did the wind even get in? This place is air tight shut." "Does it look like I live here to know?" sassed Solo. "Damn, you really are like your brothers" said Tama. Solo & Jacob both tried hanging the frame back up, meanwhile you noticed a missing member from the group.

"Hey guys, where's Loa?" you asked. The four of you looked at the couch where he was last seen. "I thought he went to the bathroom or moved towards you guys" assumed Tama. "He never came to us nor I heard anything aside from this frame falling" said Jacob. Jacob went to the living room where they slept to look for him. "Tonga?" he called out. "Loa!" you called out looking into the kitchen. Solo searched all around the front area where he slept "Tonga??? You here?" he called out. Tama looked down the hallway on the side "Toko???" he yelled out.

"Jacob?" you said. "What's up?" he responded, looking at you. "Remember how this place was packed with shitloads of dolls?" he nodded his head. "I don't see them anymore" you said shaking. He scrunched his eyebrows up & looked at the spots where he last remembered seeing them at, noticing "what the f-ck?" he said confused. "I swear, I saw two of those little brats here. There's no way in hell they could walk right?" he asked. You shook your head. "What in the Child's Play?!" he said shaking his head.

Solo & Tama joined you both in the living room. "Any luck?" you said, they both shook their heads. Tama started to get worried about his brother's absence. You went over to comfort him. Jacob whipped out his phone, still no signal but tried calling him hoping it reaches him. It didn't go through. "So you know how there were dolls packed everywhere? They're gone now" you informed Solo & Tama, making them raise their brows at you. Solo chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief, "what?" "I'm serious Solo, look they're gone!" you pointed to the spot they were previously at . Solo laughed "sure! They went all Baby Alive & started developing magic powers walking away" he chuckled.

"You think my girl's a joke to you?!" defended Tama stepping towards him, clearly upset himself. You held him back "it's not worth it" you whispered in his ear. "I'm not saying she's a joke" said Solo, "I just think it's surreal that a doll would start-" he was cut off by a familiar scream. The four of you turned around & looked towards the direction it was coming from. It was coming from down the hall where Tama previously was. "That's him!" exclaimed Tama recognizing his brother's voice. The 4 of you ran to the direction it was coming from.

To be continued...🩸

A/N: It kinda stung writing Loa being the first to go missing 🤧 But, you'll find out why.

Reference to Donna's story & if you wanna learn more about her.

[fragilefirstchance]

I actually have thoughts about this! I think Ford is a specific type of character.

First of all: Let's talk about fanon!

Something I think that a lot of us forget when we're doing fan analysis is just how caricaturized all blorbos are in canon. This is true of any work of media: the characters aren't real people, they're figments who only exist as we see them on-screen.

Fanon is kind of like those AI image sharpeners that take a blurred photo and make it look like a person's face: yeah, technically that is an accurate way you can interpret the blur, but there are hundreds of faces that would be just as accurate, and not only are they all very different from each other, they don't even agree on the most basic and obvious traits. The same blurry headshot could be a scowling white woman with a square jaw or a smiling black man with sharp features. In a similar way, when we see a character become stressed because they just saw a mouse in a cage, we could say they're scared of mice, or morally opposed to pets, or that they have cage-based trauma - any option that works is plausible.

I think that there are characters who are good characters, characters who are uniquely good subjects for fanon, and a ven diagram between the two. For example, a lot of kids' shows from the nineties are bad, but they managed to produce a really fun and rich fandom. Meanwhile, some really beautiful and culturally important stories don't leave a lot of room for fan works because they've already said what they need to say. I think the absolute best works for fandom are the ones that are objectively good stories, but have really simplified characters: Undertale might be the best example of this, because every single character suggests a rich and beautiful personality while only being on screen for a relatively short time.

So that leads me to part two: Ford!

I think Ford fills a particular fandom niche that was empty for a lot of us.

He's extremely traumatized, and the more we learn about him, the more traumatized he is. He's kind of pushing the limits of what's acceptable from a kids' show, to be honest.

He canonically has a lot of difficulty making friends; this is partly because he's quirky and seemingly neurodivergent, but partly because he has poor social skills. He's not a cartoony, Eeyore-style "has trouble making friends but we love him anyway" character, either; there are tangible, in-story examples of him failing to make friends.

He behaves badly sometimes. This is actually my favorite trait of his - anyone who reads my fanfiction knows how much I love giving people with real flaws a chance to find love and be treated with respect. Most characters have a flaw to overcome, but in his worst moments, Ford actually lashes out and hurts others in a tangible way and not just a child-friendly way. Showrunners don't always like to show that sort of thing.

It is very, very easy to read some severe mental health symptoms into his behavior. Bill is a literal character, but he's also a pretty good metaphor: you can use him to explain hallucinations, dissociative fugues, sudden mood swings, manic episodes, severe depression, paranoia - the list goes on and on.

(That last one is really important. There's a pretty damn big difference between a good metaphor for mental illness and a thoughtful portrayal of that mental illness in a story. It's kind of like how many of us were so starved for queer representation growing up that we read queer metaphors into everything. Well, there still isn't good mental illness representation in most media, so we'll take the metaphors we can get. Ford is a really good metaphor even as he's presented, and there are a lot of holes in his narrative where personality disorder symptoms, manic episodes, delusions, etc. can slot in easily.)

None of those traits make a good Disney character. They only really work because he spends so little time on-screen; the books were only possible because of Gravity Falls's massive commercial success. So, he's a very rare example of a character who's from a light-hearted, positive, optimistic show aimed at children, but who has all of the template features necessary for us to read him as deeply broken in some ways that aren't sanitized or socially acceptable.

So, there are dozens and dozens of Ford AUs in which we project very specific experiences, traumas, and symptom sets into this one man.

How many Ford AUs out there are reflections of our own insecurities, traumas, and just general unresolved issues? Is that, like, his whole purpose in the wider multiverse of alternate Gravity Falls characters? 'Cause I KNOW it isn't just me

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.

[lala-blahblah]

I will never make this because it would be for an audience of one (me) but ever since reading "If we Were Villains" (story about serious drama kids in college who perform shakespeare and deal with a murder) I have been entertaining the thought of a crack fic crossover with High School Musical The Musical The Series where the staff decides they will no longer put on shakespeare after the tragic accident that happened at Thanksgiving, because Shakespeare plays would only increase the tension and drama. So they hire Ms. Jen who decides their spring play will actually be High School Musical (which exists in the 90s in this universe) and it ruins the vibe so much that everyone gives up on being dark and mysterious because they're universally pissed at Ms Jen for making them learn choreoraphed basketball dancing.

[whatudottu]

What better way to practice new prosthetics then to piss of the bitch that got you to need them in the first place!

In other news, my pirate ocs Gali and Ido (with a third Meridi not present) who are the two sides of the fulmini cult escapees :P

A bit of backstory under the cut since they're the only fuckers I have WITH a backstory! Which btw does detail cult shit so :P big fat warning for that-

The inciting incident on Petropia that introduced it's modern underground population to the surface named the Surface Craze was in all due part because of fulmini interference at the behest of the High Override, who saw what was initially just a planet entirely made of quartz-like crystal the Override Fleet could use as a power source. Having instead found that the planet was not only populated but by a species of the living variant of that same quartz-like material - electrical properties and all - but that additionally they can regenerate their crystalline body so long as they have the energy to pull from.

Seeing this as a solution to the fulmini's energy crisis - a perpetual machine at it's finest - the High Override sought to heh... acquire some petrosapiens for themselves. To their collective benefit, a community of petrosapiens had found their faith and world shattered, previously having been extremely devoted to the Sugi religion (derived from the ancient texts of Thuugi back when their tongues were long enough to be bitten off). Instead of needing to drag away dissenters who fought tooth and nail against the invaders, this community had already shifted their faith onto the false prophet of the High Override, which already had them fall into the Coupled Override head over heels.

The cult has now expanded it's pool of prey, and like the unwilling fulmini who gives the High Override their tithe (their minds, their central colony), the petrosapien cultists pay with their arms.

50 years (or the closest equivalent) into this arrangement, 50 years Petropia spent experiencing the surface for the first time in generations, Ido was born into the cult far away from the planet she should have known as home. Any doctor worth their salt had enough brains and stubbornness to not fall into faith-based trust of the Coupled Override, so between the lack of those and the remainder pseudoscience physicians left to echo chamber themselves, when Ido began developing Excessive Compression Disorder (ECD, a nerve-equivalent disorder that causes tension fractures throughout a petrosapien's crystalline structure) despite the rather obvious visible signed she went undiagnosed and improperly treated. At the age of 200 - a petrosapien's coming of age, and 50 years after Petropia's destruction - it was Ido's time to pay her tithe and begin her offerings to the High Override.

Gali - her sacrifricant - was to sever her arms below the elbow, as was procedure. What wasn't was the near explosive response from external pressure, or the last compressive force needed to completely shatter what had already started to break.

Cutting people's arms off is technically already a violent act however, though the lower arms survived the procedure as expected, the elbow and even upper arm had scattered shards of glass-fragile crystal in a visceral radius and physically severed through the sacrificant's central colony; then Gali was abruptly severed from the High Override after they felt as if a limb began necrotising. Sacrificants nor executioners really need an active memory to do their jobs, so Gali didn't need to have memory for however long their colony was one with the High Override's. Forcefully amputated from the larger system like an infection without any of the memories of being apart of said system however, kind of rewinds a colony back to the people they remember being long before any interference.

While Ido was caught staring wide-eyed, fearful, and newly lacking the limbs she thought she could regenerate easily - her arms try and try but they shatter like glass, crumble like sand, and she violently shudders like gravel grinding into each other - Gali regained access of their long unused senses and found a sea of hostile enemy combatants staring back. With all the training of a military general with none of the present self-awareness to realise they were the cause of the currently very panicky rock's lack of arms, Gali almost like a flick of a switch reverted to the many rules of engagement regardless of the fact that they were sporting exposed central colony that may or may not have been another's with their own collection of memories.

Seeing to rescue someone who had all their rights to fear them, Gali and Ido fled to the stars.

With a few language barriers mixed with someones learning they haven't spoken much longer then anyone thought they did, discovering how planets that were meant to be each other's home have been destroyed and irrecoverable, and learning the before and after to the horror story that is the High Override and their cultist network of external nerves and collective colony, Gali and Ido may or may not have gotten arrested :P

And they probably would have been tried for crimes neither of them could particularly understand not having learnt any of the common universal languages, up until the point the prison ship was raided by a collective of pirates only working together for equal cuts of the profits (the Plumbers used a prison ship to transport the Annihilargh while they still thought it to be a threat, what's to say they wouldn't simultaneaously transport prisoners - aka, the fucking point - with some high sought-after McGuffin). The pair would meet Meridi, a galvan with a penchant for mechanics and especially the kind that deceives an observer like - for instance - an android suit.

Meridi isn't here but gist is, she pilots both her own ship and an android resembling a human, and spies a pretty prize of walking talking taydenite. Instead of scoring a deal, she takes into consideration (perhaps with a cold calculation rather than a warm sympathy) the condition of ECD affected crystals and how much effort it would take to actually refine it and deems turning Ido into pocket change isn't worth it. In fact, further taking note of the explosive volatile footwork of crystallokinesis with the additional muscle of a fulmini veteran, actively helping Ido (and Gali by proxy) would potentially turn out more of a profit.

Gali isn't in dire need for hiding, but Ido uses shadow and a human-mouth jaw mask as tools to conceal what price her skin costs, while Meridi attempts to make prosthetics for a species that doesn't have nerves that also takes into account the unstable electrical currents produced by the compression of crystalline motor functions.

A bit of a tangent in a very long not-even-bothering-to-summarize backstory, I want to talk about petrosapien prosthetics, at least ones that can have 'motors' like Ido's arms (not like Chio's leg). With no external muscles to help strap in and extend the remnant of tendons humans have running through limbs, petrosapien exoskeletons do not offer the same interconnectivity and do not have easy ways to extend what had been cut off. Myoelectric limbs again by human standards also do not fit petrosapien nervous systems either, especially since the only nerves they have are in their equivalent of the central nervous system which also interacts with internal organs, the peripheral nervous system of a petrosapien operates with the highly structured yet individually unique non-standardised crystalline formations and compression. What Meridi does however is take material from Ido's crystal to create the joints in a conductive copper rod prosthetic (insulated in rubber to prevent harm to others), where Ido's compression triggers electricity to run down to remotely compress the crystal joints, which compress under the pressures of electricity and send the signal to be compressed again until motility is achieved.

And that is a lot of context :P woops- I either make no backstory or I make this convoluted piece of moving puzzle pieces, the duality of man I suppose :P

[leafy-m]

So I hit my 700th edit for the WHA wiki today, because I am a totally normal person

[angeltism]

"spar.kle is fictional who cares" I have seen people praising her for her racist anti-romani comments what the fuck kind of world do you live in