#it's not like. DEEP stuff. like this is just basic coding logic

[chxckens]

my mom (pitying me) watched the first season of infinity train with me and now i have to type up a word document to infodump to her about it because she doesn't want me to talk so much after jaw surgery but i have THINGS i need to TELL her about it

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 2, Wave 3, Poll 2

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Chu Sangwoo-Semantic Error

Qualifications/Propaganda:

hey this is just a little more info on Chu Sangwoo (obvs you don't have to include him if you don't want to but I'd figure I'd send some more stuff in) (I also don't think I submitted him? but I know who he is) So there's a manhwa (Korean webcomic) and a tv series (I'm personally more familiar with the tv series). Basically, he's very strongly coded as autistic, though it's never explicitly stated (though in the manhwa I believe they mention that he has some unspecified disorder).So here's a list of some of the things he does in the series that are why people say he's autistic-coded:

meticulously organized and adheres to a strict schedule he set for himself

struggles when things happen that he didn't predict beforehand/throws a wrench into his plans

is very blunt, gets labeled as antisocial/being like a machine, and struggles with understanding other's social cues

practices saying things so that he won't come off as insincere

creates his own systems to accomplish tasks and struggles to work in unfamiliar environments/environments with lots of distractions

views life very logically and doesn't like it when things happen that break his rules of logic

wishes he could format his brain so he wouldn't have to deal with confusing and unnecessary feelings

There's others but that's a few of the main ones.Anyways here's a little clip from the series that hopefully helps add more context? https://youtu.be/Mai2WvTpIv8 And anyways if you still decide to not include him, that's fine, but I'd figure that I'd send y'all some more info just in case! Excited for th bracket regardless!!!

Chu Sangwoo is canonically gay, the series is a gay romance & he falls for Jaeyoung, who's the complete opposite of him personality wise. Hence the title- semantic 'error' since attraction wasn't expected. It's a really good series and Chu Sangwoo is realistic and well-written (speaking as a fellow queer autistic).

Elim Garak-Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Qualifications:

He has PTSD due to child abuse, as well as a painkiller addiction due to a brain implant. He is also extremely gay. Like literally everybody who watches DS9 immediately understands this about him. He was explicitly played by his actor, Andy Robinson, as attracted to Julian Bashir, and his only heterosexual romance is truly painful to witness. Andrew Robinson has also said that he has had a one-night stand with Dukat, one of the main villains of DS9 and noted lizard nazi. Do with that what you will. His closest relationship onscreen by far is with Julian.

Propaganda:

This man. There is a reason so many people are obsessed with him. Former spy, current tailor, forever an incurable bitch. Guilty of many war crimes, including onscreen attempted genocide. Once intentionally blew up his own tailor shop (with him in it) because he didn't want to ask for help with something. In his very first scene on the show, he wears an shirt that strongly resembles a watermelon, propositions Julian Bashir, and leaves while canonically high on painkillers. He has PTSD due to child abuse at the hands of the head of the space lizard KGB, who is also his dad, and a painkiller addiction due to a brain implant he has to help him withstand torture. He tortures a main character in one episode, and then a few episodes later they start having regular breakfasts together. Once got high on Space Weed and started systematically murdering people while making ominous announcements about chess over the PA system. The Most Character Ever.

Anything Else?:

He once told Julian to eat his rod. It was about a futuristic USB stick (datarod) but he still very much said it.

Submitted by @convenient-plot-device

[frances-kafka]

Medium talk is worse than small talk and probably what we're all most afraid of

We all know Small Talk:

hi, how are you, nice weather, how about them (insert sports team here).

Small talk follows algorithms and a kind of ritual pattern. It's the kind of appropriate conversation level for interacting with retail workers in public, and total strangers.

We also all know Big Talk. (I'm only calling it that as the logical inverse implied by Small Talk.) Which is basically where a high degree of familiarity is assumed. A common ND fuckup is conversing in conversational modes that, to many of the general population, are reserved for high familiarity. Either in terms of talking at length about a topic (which I feel is something that was actually more socially acceptable in the past, but has become broadly unacceptable over time; this was NOT really part of a diagnostic category in the 70s) or in terms of overfamiliarity/not being at the right level of social distance from the person for the thing you're talking about.

Most people rely on lots of context cues that inform how they will hear what the other person is saying, and those context cues may not be there for a near-stranger. All they're left with is the most uncharitable possible assumption about your intentions.

So with this in mind, this leaves me with the WORST conversation category, that nobody acknowledges, because we're stuck on Small Talk and Big Talk:

Medium Talk.

You actually need something in common with the other person or something you relate to, to really successfully do Medium Talk. Small talk can be done with total strangers you're never going to see again, and Big Talk can cut past a lot of stuff; I don't need every social belongingness or ideological thing or hobby in common with my family members, or other people in a high-trust relationship with me, to have a meaningful conversation with them.

Medium Talk is actually where a lot of the tripwires and landmines are.

People are making decisions to escalate or de-escalate here, and listening for loyalty indicators. You run the risk of keeping things superficial while missing an actual connectedness bid, or of being overly familiar - or getting too comfortable and offending/scaring the other person before they have any context for processing what you're saying to them.

Medium Talk is when you're moving from the Social Niceties, along the continuum toward Big Talk. You're dipping your toe in the water, moving toward the deep end.

Average to high social skills people will often throw out feelers about escalating the conversation. In the 90s, LGBT people would sometimes drop hints about some or other thing that only other LGBT people would know about, based upon some kind of context cue. There is ultimately some of this same dynamic going on with some forms of nerdy gatekeeping ("name one star war") albeit in a clumsy way.

But people do it all the time.

I think there is a tendency for some people to assume talk is 100% verbal while habitually ignoring the visual and relational context cues that are processed as communication. It's especially hard for people who *can't* process that information, but I think that there are lots of reasons some people end up just not learning to do it.

People often escalate small talk based upon presence of some kind of marker such as a nerdy enamel pin, or a sports jersey. This is what wearing tons of geek swag is actually all about. 70s-80s social skills guides and advice for single people, often advised having/carrying/wearing some kind of "conversation starter."

Once I learned about 70s/80s/90s gay hanky code, I realized that there was a lot of this going on in all kinds of ways and that people scan other people visually for various kinds of context cues for the escalation of small talk.

A big problem is getting too "real" too fast, and people in the Medium Talk Zone will commonly use celebrities, low-stakes fandom stuff, and the like as socially acceptable proxies for discussing their viewpoints while saving face. If you are still in a low trust space, then the problem with just blurting stuff out to another person is that they don't know you well enough to have any context for what you are saying.

Most people are processing a ton of context cues while you are speaking, besides the words you are saying. When still in a low trust zone, you are likely to be taken in bad faith. You saying the same thing that their friend said, is not being heard by their brains as actually the same thing.

Nor is your presentation of the project being heard by the boss as being the same presentation that is being given by the shinier co-worker who steals it from you.

Most people don't just process the information, they process *who is saying it* as a *necessary part* of that information.

And this is where Medium Talk is so dicey.

Small Talk? No problem. Most of us can do it on a good day and most of us do it without realizing how much we do it.

[cherish--these--times]

I’ve been talking to my sister about TedBecca. She doesn’t watch the show. Described the Red Thread of Fate to her (btw she said it’s obvious they’ll get together based on that alone). And you know what? She’s right.

Wait. Don’t throw stones at me just yet. I stand by the fact that it remains unlikely because they are really clever about it and avoid going there by basically making sure they never spend time together. Which is hilarious when you think about it. And by hilarious I mean infuriating because they are the ones who have established they’re essentially in each other’s bones and have been since birth. They keep reminding us of that, and of the fact that they keep missing each other (Rebecca searching for him when he has a panic attack, or her losing her phone just when he decides he’d like to hang out in a pointedly not professional setting). They are hell bent on keeping them apart. By all accounts, possibly forever. Not even for the sake of preserving a fabulous friendship because it’s objectively not there. They’re not in each other’s pocket in that way. They are not each other’s go to person in crisis.

Yet… When you lay out all the evidence, you would be hard pressed to argue with my sister’s logic. It’s utterly obvious that they belong together. Yes, romantically.

The man she is really into is effectively Ted coded. She meets him just when Ted was trying to reach her. That’s ridiculous. That’s on the nose, guys. It just is.

She eats his biscuits every single morning and she’s almost feral about it. They’ve yet to address that and we can’t just move past it.

They are going on the same journey, just not together. Recovering from their ex partners. Craving love and a stable, loving family. Both of them. That’s their wish fulfilment. That’s their happy end. Funny, that.

Ted is a mess and so is she. They’re both really kind and a bit mad and they instinctively know when the other is down and what to say or do to pull them back up. Instinctively. It speaks of something deep and visceral. Gut and heart. But also they never hang out. Or when they tried there was something in the way. Funny, that.

Granted they’re not in love with each other.

Instead, the writers have established the following:

What Rebecca seeks in a partner is someone who makes her feel special and cared for. Makes her laugh. Likes to sing and is unashamedly corny. Bonus points if they cook delicious food for her. Funny, that.

What Ted needs is a person who loves his sense of humour and is not just humouring him (lol). Someone who cares about and understands his profound relationship with his son. Who senses when he is struggling (handy because bottling stuff up is his coping mechanism of choice) and would know what to do when his anxiety gets the better of him. Funny, that.

Period.

[nachosforfree]

not sure if you wanna hear more about my Fnaf, But It Follows IRL Logic/Rules timeline, but. if you Would, here's some various fun facts!

William's wife (well...Ex-Wife) was named Claire. she's Mike and Cassidy (CC)'s mother.

now...Elizabeth. long story short, she Is William's daughter...but not Claire's. (if you can guess who Elizabeth's other biological parent is you get a gold star or something)

Charlie is Great Pyrenees-coded and i am Not elaborating.

Charlie's also transmasc (specifically transmasc bigender, because it's close-ish to my own gender), but he didn't exactly get to figure all of that out until after he died :/

Cassidy...initially survived The Bite. but he Did, unfortunately, die a few months afterwards. it Also may, or may not, have been William's fault. we're not getting too deep into that, though.

Mike's got dissociative amnesia. went to therapy for it (and various other issues. like Severe depression).

so...William. i've seen both the "William's a horrible dad who abused his kids" take and the "he was a great dad, just a horrible person in other ways" one, but. the way i write him is Somewhere In-Between. he loves his kids, wouldn't hit or yell at them, but he Is emotionally abusive and manipulative. the best way i can describe it is like. Think "Really Toxic Helicopter Parent" and you've basically got it down. this is at least Partially why Claire divorced him, btw.

Claire's very well aware that Elizabeth is the result of an "affair," technically, but she kinda Doesn't Give A Shit (< aromantic, that's all you need to know). but Elizabeth being the result of an "affair" is pretty much the other half of her reasons for wanting to divorce William. not because of the "affair" Itself, mind you, but because William was deciding to play Russian Roulette with his (and other people's) reputation and Claire didn't want her Or the kids to get caught in the crossfire when this all (inevitably) blew up in Will's face.

OHHHHOUGHHGHHH VERY COOL STUFF !!

TRANSMASC CHARLIE SO REAL!!!!! i also like to headcanon her as such

also my only guess as to liz's other parent is henry (cause a lot of people make him a redhead or blonde like liz) or henry's wife 👀 very interesting either way

im a big fan of all ur thoughts !!

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 197 Rundown

The Witch from Mercury: It’s the finale and ho boy is it a humdinger. In the aftermath of Starkiller Base firing at the Death Star the Aerial’s nearly destroyed and Suletta basically passes out in the cockpit of her suit from Gundam Soul-Sucking Sickness. Miorine’s group is captured by Prospera’s forces even though they literally have their boss at gunpoint and told to give them back Aerial so they can re-activate the plant (I mean it was at full power when the sun laser hit it and Eri barely survived so idk what you think another try is gonna do) Miorine just says “Oh don’t worry, Suletta’s a shonen-style protagonist, she’ll come to protect her family damn the costs any minute now” which is kind of a marvelous bit of character knowledge on her part. Prospera wants Suletta to plug Eri back up and Suletta actually disobeys her mother for the first time, not wanting two superweapons to duke it out and end up losing her whole family, even if Prospera admits she’ll lose control of her legs soon and was planning to die here anyway. Miorine makes one last big speech since that’s kind of her thing and announces that she’s dissolving the group and going with Shaddiq’s idea to give everything to Earth and let the individual companies basically run themselves, meaning Quiet Zero no longer has a shadowy pseudo-government behind it and Shaddiq takes the wrap for all the terrorism. Too bad the dickwad with the punchable face on Starkiller Base is like “cool story, gonna blow it up anyway”. Suletta then connects HERSELF to Quiet Zero and with the help of Ghost!Fake!Ceres #1 manages to dive deep enough into Gundam code to find the NewType Wave ghost control sphere which not only lets her shoot Quiet Zero’s control powers out to Starkiller Base, she also manages to bring everyone that’s died around so all the mournful characters can look wistfully at them and come to some form of acceptance. I’m not sure how this makes any logical sense since Ghost!Ceres says he’s only there as a remnant of being made there like Eri and everybody else just kinda shows up but given 1. The intention of Quiet Zero was to make a physical space for someone that’s half dead already and 2. It’s really just kinda cool and thematically resonant, I’ll allow it. Prospera gets to make up with Eri and apologize to Suletta and Suletta gets to struggle with the fact that she peaked in high school and was a deity for five minutes so what the fuck can she do now. Still we get an epilogue where everyone’s doing good, Eri’s in Miorine’s Siri device, Guel’s running his company while his brother and Petra have generic ending farm land with her testing medical prosthetics for her injuries, Secilia somehow got even MORE hot as a sexy businesswoman, Nika went to fucking jail but it’s okay since she’s back in school and got a good job. Chuchu became a space dockworker, Shaddiq’s still in fucking jail and Miorine is doing her best to mediate the still fresh tensions with Earth while Suletta follows her dream of both being married to Miorine and building a school, so basically the best ending, literally no one fucking died, like all the death flags in the world for some of these characters and this time just this once everybody lives.

Ranma ½: Ranma’s currently having existential crisis about a guy having a crush on him, meanwhile Kuno’s determined to pull a full Inuyasha and string along two girls at once, buying pics of both of them from Nabiki. No one just comes out and tells him the girl is Ranma and they keep stringing him along with metaphors and stuff so he keeps getting the wrong idea or just has a mental block where he refuses to accept it. Ranma ends up literally walking all over Kuno and beating him though getting some injuries in the process, and even more damage when Akane finds him with the pics and claims he’s hotter than her anyway (I mean to be fair the pics of Akane are just cute candid shots and Ranma’s are legit her with her tits out so yeah). They take him to Dr. Tofu (still can’t fucking believe that’s his name) and I like how he can seemingly tell which wounds Akane inflicts like an artist admiring a work of art except the art is someone’s broken body. He also apparently ships Ranma and Akane and orchestrates her carrying him home on their way back which is kinda nice since a lot of the gags in this show kinda work on Rule of Funny and end up being random for the sake of it but this one was a planned romantic moment. The next day the boys all claim they won’t fight Akane anymore since Kuno got his has beat so what chance do they have, but like Akane beat all their asses EVERY DAY and that meant nothing, guess she never beat Kuno until now so it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Shenanigans ensue and Akane ends up hurting Ranma again and she reveals that she doesn’t want anyone to know about her crush on the doctor because he has a crush on her sister Kasumi and has a gag of acting extra stupid whenever he’s around her, I mean he’s also like twice Akane’s age so that’s probably for the best but that always stings all the same. Still with Akane frustrated, Ranma does his best to cheer her up and it works to an extent but given their dynamic it doesn’t last long. Bro literally tells the doctor he doesn’t go out of his way to pick fights with her and then every word he says to her is just a random unprompted insult, like you can’t really be too mad about half the jokes being about him getting beat up when he just comes out the gate with constant insults about her appearance for literally no reason.

Castlevania: It’s not quite the finale yet but this episode does mirror the original attack on Dracula in Season 2 and that’s pretty neat. Trevor and Sypha join Alucard in defending the castle and they don’t have time to explain how they got there so they’re just kinda like ‘hey bro, sup?’ and proceed to fight all the mooks in the world and I think Alucard killed Kratos? Anyway Varney reveals that he’s Death and forces Saint Germain to continue the ritual anyway, basically changing nothing. Still I had this spoiled for me about 2-3 weeks ago by an Overly Sarcastic Productions video and yet it is kinda obvious when you think about it, Death is one of the biggest characters in the franchise, they mentioned him a bunch early on and otherwise it’s just Trevor, Alucard and Sypha in a room doing the Jojo kicking meme on a cockney vampire and that’s not much of a series finale, if anything knowing it was coming made it slightly MORE effective since it didn’t feel like it was coming out of nowhere, one of the few times spoilers didn’t hurt. Anyway the group fights the Priests of Death and it’s a really cool fight mirroring the Court of Dracula fight in season 2 and showing how they cover for each other’s weaknesses and shit. They do the ritual and Alucard has to watch both of his parents’ screaming souls be wedged into a naked intersex meat puppet because he didn’t quite need enough therapy yet. They beat said meat puppet when Saint Germain does… something… that weakens the spell (like he didn’t bring the barrier down or anything he just kinda moved the portal to catch their souls again?) and Trevor throws the wet shuriken of death into the human transmutation before it can become the eighth deadly sin. Death is pissed and Trevor knows it’s the end of the series so he faces off against him on his own for some reason (like both Sypha and Alucard can fly, like granted Alucard’s going through some shit right now but the fight lasts long enough they should definitely be able to get over there) but he has a cool speech about how things that can only kill have no place left in this world and does some cool Attack on Titan shit to ram the Dagger Ex Machina into Death with a huge explosion. Like I’m sure there’s more lore for that dagger and shit in broader Castlevania context but for me it just looks like the “this is the only weapon that can kill him’ shit, still the fight’s so cool I can hardly complain.  

Dandadan: It’s time for the introduction of resident GILF Seiko, because every major series needs a big titty badass to throw shit around. She has an intro that kinda reminds me of the beginning of Beetlejuice 2 where she has a low-budget psychic show that’s not highly regarded despite her predictions all being real. She comes home and traps Granny!Okarun in an anti-Sea Bear circle to beat the shit out of the evil spirit within, ready to kill the kid thinking he’s just another tough-looking scumbag Momo’s dating. But for whatever reason she decides not to and just seals him into the shrine, still taking the opportunity to fuck with Momo about it a little bit. She then enforces a training arc on the two of them to get strong enough to chase Granny out of town and banish her on their own which conveniently she can’t help with because she too can’t function out of town (I mean I don’t get why she can’t help along the way but okay) still the timetable is moved up when an ill-fated bathroom visit has Granny reveal she can transfer death curses to whoever she looks at through Okarun’s eyes (also side tangent but how does Okarun pee without his dick? Like they establish the bathroom visit is so he can poop but I imagine peeing may be an issue, does his small intestine just stop absorbing the moisture and he has constant diarehhea or is it magic and his pee just goes to his dick spiritually and he pees without peeing? I’m probably thinking about this too much but it is a central conceit of the show to be fair) but yeah now they don’t have time to get past their base powerset and have to do the confrontation right now at the place where she’s her strongest back at the tunnel where she fused with the tunnel spirit that was already there. Seiko gives Momo an emotional goodbye and some spiritual armor to help them which Momo quickly discards, still they get on the train and I get Momo’s logic of saving stamina by not walking and Okarun’s armor does block his eyes but it seems like a bad idea to have him walk into a crowded place when we’ve established Granny can curse people by looking at them with his eyes, idk maybe I’m worried over nothing but they seem to be going into this half-cocked and without half of their safeguards.

Gleipnir: With their baptismal conflict done, the duo decide to get some practice in with what has to be the darkest version of Ratatouille, turns out Shuichi can still move while Claire’s piloting him but Claire kinda has a movement override like that scene of Maria inside Al in FMA. They go to look for Claire’s sister since it’s their only lead and try to bloodhound track her down with her old uniform and despite Claire’s hopes the scent reveals she’s killed a LOT of people. This isn’t a particularly subtle show but I do kinda like the way they show Claire’s opinion of her sister changing her whole personality, like calling her sister a slut for no reason and showing that before her family was murdered she dressed more conservatively and had her hair braided shows Claire’s probably projecting a weird amount of purity bullshit and processing her damaged self-image and shattered view of her sister with outward promiscuity-signaling while taking pride in being a virgin, it’s a lot of fucked up shit and I don’t love the implications of some of it but it’s an interesting character dynamic for a show that’s 90% panty shots. The two hang out and have a date dynamic going with looking for Claire’s sister and eventually stumble right across her only to find out she has FMA Pride powers and can turn into shadow ash and shit but because she’s yandere for Shuichi she doesn’t even think twice about them shooting her (also a gun goes off in the middle of fucking Japan who the hell’s not noticing these gunshots in one of the most gun-regulated first world countries?). But yeah Claire’s main character syndrome kicks in and she thinks her sister can sense her inside Shuichi but really she’s just apologizing to Shuichi for turning him into a furry and fucking rips his mascot head off once she finds out another girl has been pegging him with her whole body. He’ll probably be fine since this is basically FNAF and he’s a springlock suit but it is a dramatic way to end an episode.   

Revolutionary Girl Utena: Utena’s kind of in a comatose state after losing to Touga and having Anthy move out. She takes Touga’s advice of ‘be a normal girl’ to the extreme and starts wearing the girl uniform and basically moping around like Smooth Normal Spongebob. Wakaba is a good friend and does everything she can to snap her out of it, even picking a fight with Touga and accidentally splashing Anhty. Meanwhile Touga’s gloating to the rest of the student council about having reached the endgame and the other two are sore losers for him getting there because of a Naraku-style plot so they’re just kinda grumpy. Even Anthy despite reverting to her blank slate personality still has lingering yearning for her time with Utena. After a lot of pushing, Wakaba finally tells Utena that normal isn’t normal for her and being weird is what makes Utena normal and if she’s not weird then she’s not normal and then gets through to Utena about how much of her true self she’s lost in her despair. She immediately goes to challenge Touga not just for Anthy but to reclaim the lost courage and boldness she gave up for the sake of normalcy and compliance, Juri even gives her a new sword to fight with so that’s pretty cool. Touga reveals he’s read the sacred texts and has Anthy do suggestive things to his waist-height sword to make the sword basically a lightsaber so he cuts right through Utena’s new sword and is about to win when Anthy’s lingering concern and wishes for Utena’s safety causes the power to leave him and the final clash results in Utena’s victory even with like one eighth of a blade left, how do these guys keep letting her get that close in a fencing match. Anyway Anthy’s back with Utena and Utena tells her to cut out the ceremonial crap and let them just go and hang out.

[hanzajesthanza]

really cool asks i received from @electricbluenb literal months ago, but never got around to publishing :P! but i still want to post this because this is quite interesting:

electricbluenb asked:

Hi! I'm here to report on a lecture I've listened to about Witcher!!!!

Exposition: the lecturer (she) is a philologist, specifically a researcher of fantasy as a transmedia phenomenon; the lecture is titled: 'Witcher Universe. Books, games, series', and from the short description in the announcements I imagined I wouldn't hear much new, or positive takes about TWN (derogatory), and I was interested to listen to it. It was only 90 minutes, so obviously it wasn't super deep in material.

The lecturer did show up in a t-shirt with a print of TW3 Geralt holding a kitten on it, and a games-style Wolf School medallion. For context this is a free library event in Moscow, held in Russian. I am writing this on the same night, so please excuse possible mistakes and I'll try to elaborate if needed.

Overall, I have to say that I haven't heard much that I can't find on your blog. That is only to say that the woman knows her stuff, and that she'd probably be delighted to hear about yours.

Summary of points:

Transmedia (media in different mediums which seeks to build upon each other, unlike adaptation, which only reframes source in a different medium, by her definition) often begins, like fanfiction, in places where source material is incomplete (like how many lotr fanfics focus on Silmarillion). It is crucial for both adaptations and transmedia to be made with love for source material, which TWN showrunners clearly lack.

Historical context and its empirical feel ("liquidity" of reality in the presence of great political and social change, end-of-the-world forefeeling) of the time when Sapkowski created earlier novellas is crucial to interpreting and adapting them. That feel of the setting, and also self-irony and subvertiveness of the text are what both The Hexer and TWN do not translate to the viewer.

Regarding games, she mostly calls them transmedia (not adaptation). She argues that writers of the games recreated that "liquid", end-of-the-world timespace better (not necessarily accurate to lore) than The Hexer or TWN, and more importantly excelled at culture-coding the setting as polish, making it attractive to other slav people as well.

She said with her whole chest that TWN production, and Lauren Hissrich specifically, is just not putting any fucking effort into looking at source material, slapping diversity on what they don't understand to already have themes of otherness and conflict (The Greater Evil is the only example I have in my written notes for books, but she also pointed at games' presenting Geralt as non-human and how it is involved in quests).

In that same vein, she said there's just no romantic relationship between Geralt and Yennefer in TWN, which in books is relying on Eros and Thanatos, and weirdly that drive, finding no exit, is instead can be seen when comparing Renfri fight and stryga fight (she put up screenshots side by side), Geralt only loving the monstrous, and intimacy being deadly (in stryga fight the 'disenchanting kiss' bite). In the games she pointed at the cinematic trailer for Blood and Wine (fight with Orianna / Lullaby of Woe), and went over how it's basically also Eros/Thanatos imagery.

Continuing on Yennefer, she said that it is just laughable to call the character TWN portrays 'Yennefer', because 'inner logic of the character says otherwise', because there's no Yen & Ciri mother-daughter relationship, and the character seems to be 'more like Ciri's either older or younger sister who is afraid of her'.

She touched upon game / series / books interconnectivity (two swords on Geralt's back in Season of Storms versus one in pentalogy, TWN changing Nilfgaardian armour for s3, CDPR adding TWN's Nilfgaardian armor as an option on iirc ps5 edition) and just that it's interesting to her as a researcher that there exist points of clear medium interactions that are expressions of interest and love for the creation, even if the creation is flawed.

She argued that an english translation (the one that she read, obviously there might be different ones) has less visible irony across both text and subtext, in part, possibly, due to censure. I kinda doubt her expertise on english lit as she does seem more focused on Russian lit and translations to Russian, but basically she argues it might be another ground where TWN is just out of depth.

In the Q&A portion I mentioned Redanian Intelligence's article about 'western audiences' and she completely agreed it is just an excuse for what is a skill issue on showrunner's part.

That's all for my report. Hope it leaves you feeling affirmed, knowing that somewhere there are scholars who agree, almost to the letter, completely. :)

electricbluenb asked:

Oops, missed some notes.

As a true researcher, she held a poll on books vs. TWN.

Of about ~25 people in the audience:

22 read the books, 22 liked the books

24 watched S1, 0 loved S1 (aside feelings for actors), 2 people were meh on S1

20 watched S2, again 0 for loving S2

7 watched S3, another 7 considered watching S3, and again 0 for loving S3.

She was prepared to talk more about Ciri, Falka, and Regis, but time was very short.

---

i was really elated to hear about this, the term transmedia is fascinating and i feel like this applies to the witcher phenomenon really well. the term "adaptation" doesn't suit the games, which take the books as a starting point. the topic of interconnectivity between the various mediums is also great, certainly true as every witcher media begins to reflect one another as they're created. one topic i'm interested here is where did geralt's facial scar originally come from, as there is some art of it which predates the creation of the games.

"the setting, and also self-irony and subvertiveness of the text" is definitely what i find missing in netflix as well. i believe the continent, at least in the pentalogy, is way more fleshed out than people think, and the setting really really begins to define the story during the saga, so much so that it becomes as important as the characters themselves. the irony and subversion the text uses are truly hallmarks of the witcher, as well as intertextuality with other fantasy works.

to this list, i would also add comedy :D though twn tries to be funny sometimes it seems to be in an entirely different context and different angle. i was thinking yesterday about how some of the comic characters present in the short stories: dandelion, torque, tellico, freixenet, really had their comedic presence entirely changed or removed from netflix's version. and i thought about the barbegazi and knocker from tower of the swallow, these guys are so funny and endearing, if strange and odd. i think something that netflix does which really, really clashes with the books, is that they treat every monster like a serious threat or at the very least dull them down. in the books, i'd wager that at least half of the 'monsters' present are actually used for comedic effect as well as dramatic effect. now, it's not separate, plenty of characters are both. but netflix seems to only focus on monsters as dangerous, whereas in the books they can actually be quite funny. i think this use of comedy presents a world that is "comfortable" being a fantasy world, that has really incorporated its fantasy elements in a realistic way, so that it's not just there for drama, but has integrated itself into every part of life.

i adore the comparison of geralt and yennefer's relationship with that of the fight with adda, vereena, or renfri. this is something i've been thinking about for a while. exactly, yennefer in the last wish is the antagonist of the story - a powerful, magical woman, literally, a witch. in this sense, yennefer is not unlike the other dangerous opponents geralt faces. in many myths and stories, the hero faces, challenges, defeats an evil witch, sorceress, female user of magic who aims to seduce, deceive the hero. this is the trope we're working with.

the kicker is that yennefer's character gets developed past this, as she begins to be intimately explored - even beyond geralt's lens - and within their context, we see their relationship transform from antagonistic to romantic to fates intertwined. but their chemistry and energy begins with that inherent match in energy, their yin and yang, light and dark, witch and witcher. that (literally) electric sense, that yennefer is never going to be 'defeated' by geralt, that she remains independent even while by his (and ciri's) side.

overall i really enjoyed this report, and respect this lecturer a lot! again, sorry i took so long to publish this as it's been a strange past few months, but better late than never :')

[easyas123abc]

while some factors of misinformation could perhaps be eliminated from llm's with better information, i do want to note that (and this id imo a negative thing about llms) creators absolutely do not have full control over how it operates and anyone trying to sell you that they can is lying to you. 'hallucinations, 'lying', neither describes why an llm is often wrong in the information they give correctly because *both* presume that llm's are diverging or going away from a known truth basis occasionally, and if we just feed it correct data then it will be more accurate to eventually be absolutely correct; but thats not how llm's work, or neural network/deep learning.

Basically, llm's dont have any concept of what truth is; they cant, and we cant teach any llm that because we dont know how llm's reason. No, really, llms are for the most part black boxes (in some ways all neural networks are); as the layers and connections get more complex, the ability to trace or parse the logic that a llm used to generate content disappears; i dont mean its unlikely to difficult, i mean it is impossible for us to know *why* it spit those words out in that order; we just know that feeding more data in can increase accuracy (but it also risks increasing overfitting, which is when a model adheres too closely to its training data and cant extrapolate for new situations or adapt) edit, and we can tweak the parameters to eliminate noise or increase performance; but we never know exactly how changes correlate to changes behind the mask; and for some functions, we don't need to

Traditional computer programming is deterministic, we can go through the source code if something goes wrong and debug, we can dig through step by step and, if worst comes to worst, reset the system to fix bugs. There is no debugging capability with machine learning because we functionally have made a machine equivalent of instinct; it uses complicated math and layers and nodes in a black box to crunch statistically likely answers, and the problem is that how we evaluate it doing well is by how much it triggers our pattern recognition; this isnt so much an issue with stuff like "recognize tumors on ct scans" or "categorize birds by species" because those are questions we can answer and train the model towards specifically, and dont rely on us thinking its realistic. However, llms are functionally instinct word salad; its really good at triggering the patterns that make us think its confident and it sounds human, and thats what it was developed towards; what ISNT okay is that tech bros and cultists are scamming people by claiming it can be generalized for any field, which is why were getting these issues; the technology is not trained towards telling the truth, but now companies think it can be an everymachine

So no, companies do NOT have full control over llm's, because this isnt the same as a computer program. Machine learning is a fascinating field and there's lots of useful applications for the different techniques and models coming out, but the problems is that fools and capitalists are misusing a technology to do what it wasnt meant to do, simply because they think they can fake it until they make it, or worse, because they can run with the money by the time anyone realizes. And that's why these implementations are irresponsible, not just because they're putting in functions that are misleading, but because they likely KNOW that they can't make it generalize to the extent they promised it would and are charging ahead in hopes of making us accept an inferior and dangerous product all to make an extra buck and avoid paying people.

(sidenote, thats why professors shouldnt trust any company's claims of being able to spot chat gpt generated essays or hw without going through it themselves for obvious signs; there isnt a reliable way to detect that kind of cheating because chat gpt does not operate on consistent logic, asking chat gpt if it wrote an essay is equivalent to shouting into a canyon a question and waiting for the echo and deciding what you heard from there)

And this is why you switch to DuckDuckGo. :/

[rosebloodcat]

Submas Gem AU: Ingo Deets

This was inspired by a reblog from @sningo-prompts time to go more in-depth about How Arceus did the Thing and what Ingo can do now!!

(By the way, you can totally just go full submas on your blog if you want to! Just add to your Bio or Header that you’re mostly sningo stuff, but the rest of submas is still on the table to chatter about.)

First off: Arceus making Gems (specifically turning Ingo into one)

Just to clarify, Ingo is a Gem Hybrid and not a “Pure” Gem. He’s still part human, with all the important physical stuff that goes with that. (Like eating, sleeping, breathing, etc. Not totally dependent on light for health/strength)

BUT, with the way Arceus did it, Ingo also has a lot of abilities that “pure” gems would have as well. Like poofing! (Yes, he can poof btw. I can explain it in a sec.)

The only thing I can think of to compare how Arceus did that is computer programing, so that’s how I’m going to line it out.

Funnily enough, there are numerous Pokémon that (individually) have abilities like gems, so Arceus already has the coding to make them.

A Pokémon who’s “heart” is an object- Magearna (not made by Acreus himself, but still counts in my mind)

Pokémon who have Object Dormant forms- Reshiram and Zekrom (the Light Stone and Dark Stones in the games)

A (human) spirit/being tied to an object that wasn’t originally part of them- Spiritomb

Getting energy/power boosts from sunlight- Espeon, any Pokémon with the chlorophyl ability

Injuries/Unconsciousness triggering a defensive ability to heal/protect themselves- The whole Pokémon shrinking down thing that kicks in when they’re defeated/captured

Physical Yet Malleable body that allowed for limited shape-shifting- Ditto, Mew (in the movies/shows), Zorua/Zoroark illusions

(probably toned down compared to Ditto and Mew, but much more solid than the illusions)

All he had to do was tweak the gem to act as the “safe” spot and then plug all those codes all into Ingo!

BOOM! GEM HYBRID!

New Gems and/or More Gems

At this time in my au ideas, Ingo is the only Gem. Not because I think Arceus wouldn’t have made more, but because I’m not sure who else he would have turned/made into them.

As for new gems/Emmet being one, I’d say that (just for Ingo) Arceus plugged the ability to make a (limited number) new gems himself!

My main thought for How was that it was done through fusion (which was the one new code that had to be made in pokeverse).

Basically, if Ingo is close enough to potentially fuse with someone then if they do, there’s a possibility that when they separate the other person will have become a gem too. The exact criteria needed for that are something I’m still debating, but I know that it will happen to Emmet. Not after the first fusion, but it is basically built in to happen eventually.

Currently, there is no change back plan. Although, I guess it could be done if Arceus was hunted down and brought into the issue.

At the moment, once the code is changed, there isn’t anyway to take it out. Not without help.

Gem Injuries: How do they heal?

This one I’ve actually been thinking about a bit, mostly because I realized that was something I didn’t have an answer for when I talked about Mirror Gem Ingo having a crack. So, I had to think.

My first thought is that there’s some kind of solution out there for mending/healing living rock.

There are plenty of rock types and Pokémon with gem/crystal-like growths on their bodies. And those Pokémon are bound to have gotten hurt/injured at some point and needed to heal/recover. Logically, that means there has to be some kind of medicine out there to heal that kind of damage.

So, I would say Ingo/Emmet would first try to use that to heal and injuries to Ingo’s gem. Normally, this stuff probably wouldn't work on a gemstone, but Ingo’s gem counts as a Living Stone so it would be effective.

It’s probably a multi-part process with a very liquidy starting medicine to get the fine cracks deep in the stone; then with thicker, less fluid layers put on top to help with the outer damage. (Then a couple layers of bandages and stuff stuff on top to hold all those in as they worked their magic.)

That covers some of the major points, but I’ll stop here for now. (Time to work on the asks I have next!)

[isomorphismes]

There are no theorems in category theory.

Emily Riehl, Category Theory In Context

Mathematicians often tell her this; hence the book.

If I had to summarise her views in one sentence, it would be:

Everything is an adjunction.

I also like the division these mathematicians are making to her: essentially, a theorem is anything that solves Feynman’s challenge: by a series of clear, unsurprising steps, one arrives at an unexpected conclusion.

Examples for me include:

17 possible tessellations

6 ways to foliate a surface

27 lines on a cubic

1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 28, 2, 8, 6, 992, 1, 3, 2, 16256, 2, 16, 16, 523264, 24, 8, 4 ways to link any-dimensional spheres.

the existence of sporadic groups

surprising rep-theory consequences of Young diagrams, Ferrers sequences, and so on (you could say the strangeness of integer partitions is really to blame here…)

59 icosahedra

8 geometric layouts

Books which are bristling with mathematical ideas of this kind include Montesinos on tessellations, Geometry and the Imagination (the original one), and Coxeter’s book on polyhedra (start with Baez on A-D-E if you want to follow my path). Moonshine and anything by Thurston or his students, I’ve found similarly flush with shockng content—quite different to what I thought mathematics would be like. (I had pictured something more like a formal logic book: row by row of symbols. But instead, the deeper I got into mathematics, the fewer the symbols and the more the surnames thanking the person who came up with some good idea.)

Note that a theorem is different here to some geometry — as in The Geometry of Schemes. The word geometry used in that sense, I feel, is to have a comprehensive enough vision of a subject to say how it “looks” — but the word theorem means the result is surprising or unintuitive.

This definition of a theorem, to me, presents a useful challenge to annoying pop-psychology that today lurks under the headings of Bayesianism, cognitive _______, behavioural econ/finance, and so on.

Following Buliga and Thurston to understand the nature of mathematical progress, within mathematics at least (where it’s clearer than elsewhere whether you understand something or not—compare to economic theory for example), there is a clear delination of what’s obvious and what’s not.

What is definitely not the case in mathematics, is that every logical or computable consequence of a set of definitions is computed and known immediately when the definitions are stated! You can look at a (particularly a good) mathematical exposition as walking you through the steps of which shifts in perspective you need to take to understand a conclusion. For example start with some group, then consider it as a topological object with a cohomology to get the centraliser. Or in Fourier analysis: re-present line-elements on a series of widening circles. Use hyperbolic geometry to learn about integers. Use stable commutator length (geometry) to learn about groups. Or read about Teichmüller stuff and mapping class groups because it’s the confluence of three rivers.

Sometimes mathematical explanations require fortitude (Gromov’s "energy") and sometimes a shift in perspective (Gromov’s (neg)"entropy").

This view of theorems should be contrasted to the disease of generalisation in mathematical culture. Citing two real-life grad students and a tenured professor in logic (one philosophical, one mathematical, the professor in computer science):

I like your distinction between hemi-toposes, demi-toposes, and semi-toposes

I care about hyper-reals, sur-reals, para-consistency, and so on

Abstract thought — like mathematicians do — is the best kind of thought.

(twitter.com/replicakill, the author of twitter.com/logicians, ragged on David Lewis by saying “What do mathematicians like?” “What do mathematicians think?” —— And Corey Mohler has done a wonderful job of mocking Platonism, which is how I guess the thirst for over-generalisation reaches non-mathematicians.)

Paul Halmos knew that cool examples beat generalisations for generalisation’s sake, as did V. I. Arnol’d. And it seems that the people a Harvard mathematician spends her time with make reasonable demands of a mathematical idea as well. It shouldn’t just contain previous theories; it should surprise. In Buliga’s Blake/Reynolds dispute, Blake wins hands down.

[calyssmarviss]

You know i’ll always side-eye people who talk about characters deserving anything. first off, they are devices, not people. (and, well, i don’t even think i agree that much with the idea of living people deserving things.. aside from you know, things like equal rights and basic respect, but only for the virtue of being alive and having to deal with life, not because they’re particularly good) they’re just as bad or as good as the author wants or needs them to be and with star wars, which now has had dozens upon dozens of people involved in the writing, that could mean fucking anything.

the Jedi were always meant to fail and fall, which means that, when writing anything that happened before that point, they had to think of reasons things were allowed to get so bad. but that doesn’t change their original purpose, which is to be the good guys. now that may mean that in individual stories they may be serving as the antagonists or shown to stray away from the right path, but ultimately the goal is to show that even good people are not above being duped, influenced and corrupted and made to look like the ones at fault by, ya know, the characters and forces (internal or external) that are actually evil. like, it’s the whole point. besides selling toys and subscriptions, that’s the point of having all that pre-RoTs material.

look, i can bend myself into shapes for hours sorting out my personal feelings and opinions over any bit of jedi or sith philosophy and actual practices and have thoughts experiments and write fics and draw fanarts where everyone is terrible actually, only some are just having more fun and looking cooler while doing it, it won’t ever change the roles they were assigned by the narrative and the fact that they were designed to be an illustration of what good meaning people can be brought to by ill intentioned agents that know how to cultivate and take advantage of a flawed society.

Now Imma assume the video this anon refers to is about the Acolyte, and the last episode (good shit, btw). and that Jessie probably had a knee jerk reaction of “woman only community gets violated by space cops”. don’t quote me on that, again, just assumptions, i haven’t seen the vid (tho i have seen a few others from that channel and was kinda split on them, tbh, on one hand, some very good stuff, on the other, i have face palmed a few times for sure, because the point was, imo, completely missed). which, yeah, that one scene when the ascension is interrupted was… pretty uncomfortable to watch. but, again, it’s the point, isn’t it? the Jedi are, relatively speaking, a very very small part of the galaxy and they have this huge ass responsibility and powers. they have to work within the system or the system will start to see them as a threat and either crush them or force them into hiding, which will seriously impede their mission of peace and balance keeping. and they have to root out potential corruption because if left to fester it will upset the balance and the peace which will force them to take even more drastic action (like using an army of millions of identical enslaved men) which will make the system see them as a threat.

Sure those women seemed to just be having a baller time and are not seen hurting anyone but each other but they’re still getting high on that dark hole power which we all now is code for “physical embodiment of bad”. and as i’m writing this, yeah. i think the logical conclusion you’ll find at the bottom of that hole is that radfems suck. like, isolationism and complete rejection of men and being obsessed with your own feminity and persecution and thinking other women are just a reflection of yourself until they start to want and think different things are bad actually and i think that’s what the hole represents??? but you absolutely don’t need to go that deep (into the hole, ha), because in star wars, bad hole of darkness is bad. and enjoying slaughtering your enemies will give you bloodshot yellow eyes and force ghosts are blue. like, as much as the whole concept of the force being able to judge you and mark you based on moral principles bugs me, it’s how that universe works.

this actually disturbed me less than playing as Cal Kestis and mowing through Zabraks who were just chilling on their own planet. which i actually try and avoided to do by the end of it when it’s really not my playstyle (just ones and zeroes, ya know). I just didn’t fit with what i thought a jedi should do. And yet, I have yet to organically come across someone who also had an issue with that (maybe it’s something that came up with Survivor tho, idk, i’ve been staying away from spoilers). I had to actually look for them. And Cal is pretty up there on the greater fandom good jedi list, isn’t he? people get that dathomiri zabraks are, well, pretty fucking corrupted by the planet itself and generations upon generations of nightsister fuckery and sith influence and they will attack you on sight, so. I mean, they have glowing green eyes. Plus Cal is figuring it all out, isn’t he, like Luke was when he blew up the Death Star - not like the mean old jedi order with all its money and power and influence and warships and clones and rigidity and emotional negligence and baby stealing and war crimes, right?

I just need a hug. A YouTuber I respected, Jessie Gender, tweeted that the Jedi deserved to end (though at least she had the decency to say it shouldn't have been in genocide). Ugh, it's hard to exist in fandom when everyone seems ready to judge the Jedi as cops and not a culture that palpatine eradicated.

Virtual hugs, anon. It's really hard to lose respect for a creator you once admired--and going to check out their tweet, oh, I see we're calling the Buddhist Christians again--and I try to be understanding, not a lot of people really know enough about non-Western dominant religions to realize the often xenophobic/imperialistic undertones to describing Buddhism as such (or my other favorite, calling the Buddhist-inspired religion a "cult"), as if Christianity is the default. At least they acknowledged that what happened was a genocide and didn't say it was their own fault/something they did. But here's my real advice, the only way I've found to make myself feel better after something like this: Go on a Jedi-positive spree. Don't vagueblog, that won't make you feel better in the long run, but address some of the things that frustrate you. Like, I would tweet out a, "Hey, you wanna see a list of all the times the Jedi said really nice things about Anakin?" or "Hey you wanna see a list of all the times the Jedi died to protect someone?" or "Hey you wanna see all the times the Jedi express emotion and said feelings were normal?" or "Hey you remember that time TCW explicitly showed us how the Jedi actually had no real power within the framework of the government? And we can see that they were were only there to better facilitate saving lives, because that's how you effect change on a galactic level, instead of idk charging people money to fly around the galaxy in ships and eat food?" Tweet out a series of George Lucas quotes about how the Jedi were right about stuff or how they were limited in Shitty Choice A or Shitty Choice B. This builds something positive, it makes it more fun to be around you and draw more people to you, and you will feel better. It sucks to lose respect for someone you liked, but just remember. No amount of fan opinions can touch what the movies and TCW and George Lucas' interviews, and ultimately it's still just Star Wars. We cannot live and die by a made up fictional story, I've tried and it sucks so much more than just shrugging my shoulders, saying to myself that someone has Bad Star Wars Takes, and sailing on off. Lots of hugs, anon, and I hope you can find comfort that there are still lots of us having fun over here in our Actually The Jedi Were Pretty Right About Everything corner. ^_~

[oswald-privileges]

ALL RIGHT BUT YOU ASKED FOR IT

Power of Three as a series is just. full of weaknesses, most of which come down to poor continuity and structure. I'm not gonna try and fix ALL of those, bc that'd be laborious as hell, but I will pick out things that I feel are the most egregious as case studies.

What Po3 does have, tho, is an absolutely shining strength in the concept of its three main characters. After twelve books of Blandly Heroic Protagonist Syndrome, Jayfeather is an absolute godsend. He's angry! He's rude! He's unhappy! He's not nice. I Love Him And He's My Son. Lionblaze has his invincible pride (hah) and emergent bloodlust, and Hollyleaf has her moral absolutism and certainty. These are good starting points for characters. Sadly, the lack of continuity undermines what could have been three really good character arcs.

So! I present to you:

HOW TO MAKE "WARRIORS: THE POWER OF THREE" NOT COMPLETELY SUCK ACCORDING TO MY PERSONAL TASTE; A NON-EXHAUSTIVE, NON-CONSECUTIVE LIST BY ME

ONE

- Have there be a persistant, overarching series threat. Sol is a character with amazing villain potential who does literally nothing except hang around, and do exactly 2 Bad Things completely off-screen. This Is Not Good.

- Instead, have him be present from the second book onwards- initially introduced as a friendly but enigmatic outsider who is slowly revealed across the series to be a complete black hole of a personality, a social parasite quietly rearranging whatever community he's a part of to just-so-happen to benefit him as much as humanly possible. His "preach individualism not starclan" methods are not so much values as one strategy out of many. (to those who know me- yes i have a type. no i will not apologise.)

- Maybe his ultimate goal is to dissolve and centralise the clans or something so that he can live out his life as a political puppetmaster in all the cat-luxury he likes. idk it's hard to imagine overall stakes for this rewrite BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL DOESN'T HAVE ANY

TWO

- For gods sake you don't have a series based on the premise of "the main characters develop super powers" and then only have the second power confirmed by the end of the fourth book. I understand the first book mostly focusing on Jayfeather- his powers are obvious from the start, he's got the strongest personality of the three, he gets access to most of the prophecy plot stuff because of them. But you NEED to have the other two show an interest in something concrete happening to them beyond that, and you need to at least hint towards the other two having something unique to them even if nobody clocks it yet.

- Have Jayfeather tell his siblings about the prophecy by the end of book two at the latest. The amount of time he spends noodling around not sharing it with them is inexcusable. It's not that it's out of character for him to hang onto a secret for a bit, it's just that there's no point and it slows everything down. It would be equally in character for him to go to his siblings and be like "look, i'm SPECIAL. well you as well but ALSO ME". Boy starts off as desperate for recognition, what can I say

THREE

- Have Jayfeather discover that StarClan don't withhold signs or information on purpose for the sake of "building courage and faith" or whatever nonsense. Seeing and communicating the future is metaphysically very difficult, so interpreting signs and messages is a genuine skill, or even an art. The cats of StarClan, however, really are just ghosts, much more similar to living cats than the currently living believe. This is the impotus for Jayfeather's discarding of his reverence for StarClan, which remains consistent throughout the series.

- Have Hollyleaf and Jayfeather both still change their cat careers in the first book, but put place more attention on the fact that they basically switched jobs. Have a scene where they end up yelling at each other, because can't the other see how lucky they have it? The tension breaks when they realise they've both lost something important to them- Jayfeather his chance to prove he's as capable as a sighted cat, and Hollyleaf her path to helping her clan in the way she thinks is best. They commiserate together, and reluctantly promise to do the best they can with their lots, so they don't waste the path the other wishes they'd taken. This closeness is eroded over the series as they disagree more and more on the subject of StarClan and its role in their moral choices and obligations.

FOUR

- Speaking of Hollyleaf! I nearly threw my phone across the room when the first Omen of the Stars book claimed that Hollyleaf "worked so hard to discover her power to help her clan". Where, Ms Erins??? I would have LOVED to have seen that!! Hollyleaf expresses absolutely no concern over the details of what power she has/will develop, and only has a couple of scenes even touching on her ambitions to help her clan. She has some vague ideas about becoming leader and like one scene where she gets to do some leadery things, but that never gets followed up on. What does happen is that the whole "warrior code" thing becomes more and more a part of her personality (for no clear reason) until she snaps.

- Hollyleaf going off the deep end is something I wanted so badly to get into and be moved by, because I could see where it comes from! Her moral certainty is fascinating, especially since it's based in something as abstract as the warrior code- which, when you think about it, isn't really... anything. There's no concrete set of rules that make it up, no traditional wording or cat philosophers, not even any fables. It's a handful of agreed-upon, common sense rules- don't cross boundaries, don't take prey that isn't yours, respect your ancestors, and don't murder. That's it!

- So, combining the above points, I think Hollyleaf not being one of the Three should stay, but both the audience and the characters are given good reason to believe she is. By around the third volume, make it so that Hollyleaf has found that her power is to get cats to "Do The Right Thing"- i.e. what she wants them to do. She sneaks off often to see Sol, who teachs her how to use this power. Her siblings are concerned about this new power, having already gotten a glimpse at what Sol can do, but she's confident that she can only use this power for good. Volume-specific plot happens, Sol manipulates her into causing him to win, she is shocked and horrified, and vows to stick ridgedly to what she knows is right i.e. The Warrior Code

- However, the more fervently she tries to stick to this abstract idea, the less it gives her results, the more her power seems to be failing. Believing that StarClan is taking her power away from her, she becomes caught up in a faith-guilt spiral that puts her in the position to snap at the end of the series. By that point it's clear to her siblings that Hollyleaf has no power- she was just very, very good at persuading people to do what she wanted.

FIVE

- Lionblaze is a girl now because I Said So. This Cat Is Trans And There's Nothing You Can Do About It.

- Her relationship with Heathertail stays the same- childhood sweethearts who are torn apart as they begin to understand the nature of the societal divides that exist between them.

- This can be used to contextualise the whole "half clan/outsider blood" thing as a cultural contradiction. In reality, inter- and outer- clan relationships aren't at all rare. They can't be, otherwise the whole society would be inbred out of existence in like five generations. But if at least one society of humans can spend a good 200 years pretending Sex Is Bad And Sinful Actually then cats can have persistant cat-racism in the face of all logic. Heathertail clocks this contradiction, Lionblaze doesn't.

- Her relationship-to-power arc doesn't need changing all that much either, other than starting much sooner and being more consistent. At first, she's completely overjoyed by her power, since unlike her siblings, it lines up so well with her ambition- become the finest warrior any of the clans have to offer. As the berserker rage aspect becomes more prevelent, she becomes more and more disturbed by the fact that she isn't disturbed by what she can do, and that she doesn't want the escalation of her power to stop.

- Tigerstar still does his thing, but Brambleclaw knows about it. He recognises the signs from when his father used to visit him, and tries to train Lionblaze in his own way. She ends up caught between wanting to be a good warrior, and testing the limits of her power.

SIX

- Jayfeather can stay basically the same because he's my perfect little angy boy and nothing needs to change. His arcs can be strengthened by having a more robust relationship with Yellowfang where they try to out-bitch each other, and coming to terms with his internalised ablism. Maybe he has a chat with Mothwing about faith a couple of times. Him furiously lashing out at being offered help transitions into an acceptence and understanding of his abilities more naturally. He never stops being A Grumpy Old Man.

- All fucking past-lives unexplained time travel goes in the BIN. Doesn't fucking happen. You can have that lore dump sprinkled across the books, or come from going deep into the tunnels and having a surreal meeting. Make it properly eldritch-level scary, shake Jayfeather's confidence in the idea of them being just a bunch of ghosts.

SEVEN

- Have the way Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight present very clearly as parents to the Three be explicitly, textually unusual. One of the things I liked so much about the first series was an almost total lack of emphasis on who was mated with who, and who was related or not. It felt very real to how feral cat colonies form, where raising kittens is a communal job. This gets completely dropped the moment series 2 starts and now the cats have monogamy.

- This emphasis on the family unit and fostering close relationships between parents and kittens is deliberate on the part of both Leafpool and Squirrelflight. Their aim is to cover for Leafpool so she doesn't lose her role as medicine cat- something she already gave up Crowfeather for before she was pregnant.

- In that little bit of backstory, have a robust reason for both Leafpool and Squirrelflight to leave the camp while Leafpool is pregnant and giving birth, possibly one that ties into the present day story in some minor way. I don't know how, it would just make that element of the story a lot more ground than "we left, the kits were born, then we came back and everyone was cool with it"

- When it comes to the "I am Not your mother" reveal, Jayfeather and Lionblaze are confused and hurt that they were lied to, but come to the reasonable conclusion that well, since they were raised mostly by Squirrelflight, saw Leafpool often, and are loved by both, they don't hate her. Lionblaze has something of a crisis over being half-clan, possibly initiating an attempted reunion with Heathertail. Jayfeather is more concerned with how other cats will think it makes him lesser, something he's still sensitive too.

- Hollyleaf, meanwhile, completely fucking snaps at the way her mother Violated Part Of The Code. It's a completely irrational reaction, but expected because she's been growing more and more reliant on The Code for the whole series, and less and less stable in her attempts to aid her clan and train to be its new leader.

- Squirrelflight is the one to murder Ashfur. This is easy to work out while reading- she's literally the only one of the four with a motive who isn't a perspective character. The mystery is less around finding out who did it, and more about why she did it (it's very ambiguous as to whether it was an accident or not). The main tension comes from who finds out when.

- Lionblaze is shocked, awed by how far she'd go to protect the three of them, and reassures her she did the right thing (as a way to salve her own uncertainty over her own longing for violence). Jayfeather makes it all about himself because he's Jayfeather- upset that he didn't know immediately, instead of, you know, figuring it out in a few hours because he can basically read minds. They try their best to hide it from Hollyleaf, who is already rattling around the final volume as a full-on antagonist, but are unsuccessful. This almost costs them something incredibly important- possibly Squirrelflight's life.

EIGHT

- the whole plot with the Tribe Of Rushing Water is a MASSIVE can of worms that could be removed from the series without issue. As it is:

- Characterize the Tribe as uncertain of how to fight other cats, because yes, they haven't had to do this before. DON'T characterise them as pathetic, doing whatever their leader says without thinking, and with ancestors who have Given Up

- Have some of the Tribe be really good at the violence. Worryingly good. Have others be sickened by what they're being asked to do.

- Have some of the clan cats reflect on what they've done. Hollyleaf would be all for introducing this society to jesus The Code, but even she might be horrified at being thanked by a tribe cat who can't wait to get out there and win themselves glory, only to be killed a few hours later

- The Tribe begin a new tradition of marking the walls in the mud they use as camoflage in order to commemorate their battles, and memorialise the fallen. One of the characters reflects on the fact that in a generation or two, the Tribe will feel like it's always been this way. How many of their own traditions- those that feel almost like natural law- started out the same way?

- Have Sol as the leader of the invaders, or maybe having insinuated himself into the tribe as a "mediator" and doing his charismatic cult leader thing.

NINE

- Cinderheart isn't a reincarnation of Cinderpelt. She's just named after her bc Cinderpelt saved her mother from a badger. this is because I think the reincanation thing is stupid and I can't think of a way to make it good.

TEN

- No more using tails as hand gestures like covering people's mouths. Never. None of it. It's expunged from existence.

Disclaimer: I haven't read Omen of the Stars yet, so I can't account for anything that might happen in that series that's grounded in Po3. I'm like... two thirds of the way through the first volume. I'm Not Impressed.

[wiypt-writes]

Stark Spangled Banner

One Shot: Phobias 

Summary: Katie encounters an enemy FAR WORSE than anything she’s seen before. Can Steve saver her before it’s too late?

Pairings: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Warnings: Language, Spiders, and a little bit of fluff

A/N: So this is a little one shot/drabble that came to me after my husband saved my life from a monster in the bathroom...

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Chapter 7

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

“SSSSTEEEEEEEEEVE!” 

The scream made the glass of water in Steve’s hand slip to the point he almost dropped it. Placing it down with a slam on the coffee table he stood up and bolted down the hall towards his bathroom only to be met by Katie, who was in her bra and denim shorts hurtling towards him.

“What is it?” He frowned, instantly placing himself between her and the bathroom, looking at the door.

“In there.” She muttered, and as her hands gripped at his hips he could feel her shaking behind him.

“Someone’s in there?” He looked over his shoulder and down at her.

She shook her head, stuttering a little in fear.  “I… just… I can’t…”

Steve was really puzzled now. Not a lot phased Katie Stark. She had fought alongside him in the battle of New York, facing off against God Knows how many Aliens. The year before she had tackled the Mandarin with her brother, then there was Loki in the Desert, countless missions with SHIELD, so what on Earth had got her so petrified, in his bathroom no less,  that she was trembling behind him?

“Stay here.” He instructed, gently before he crept forward and stepped to the bathroom. The door was wide open and he could see or hear nothing. Frowning he looked behind the door, in the tall cupboard that housed his toiletries, towels, bedsheets etc… all clear. He was just about to ask her what the fuck was going on when a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He glanced into the shower cubicle and there was the culprit.

“Jesus Christ sweetheart.” He groaned, with a somewhat exasperated sigh as he looked at the spider. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought someone had broken in and was about to kill you.”

“Something did break in!” She squeaked back, still from her spot in the hall “It’s gonna eat me!” Steve rolled his eyes to himself. It was nothing more than a house spider. A fairly big one, he had to admit, but utterly harmless. Nevertheless, he knew Katie was petrified of the damned things. She had admitted to him post an incident with one on a Quinjet that she had woken up when she was three with one on her face and had been scared witless of them ever since.

“Katie, it’s not gonna hurt you.” he reasoned.

“I don’t care!” her voice was high pitched “Incy Wincy fucking Gorilla needs to leave” That did make him laugh. “Okay, Okay.” His chuckles died down. “I’ll sort it. Don’t panic.” Luckily for her, spiders fascinated Steve. He had always found their webs a thing of beauty, and in the army had often wandered the woods early in the morning to see them speckled with dew in the growing light of the sunrise or frost in the winter, sketching the particularly intricate ones he found. He bent down, scooped the arachnid in to his hands careful to keep it enclosed and headed back into the hall. “Where is..is it IN YOUR HANDS?” She shrieked, eyes wide as she backed away from him. “Why didn’t you kill it?” “I’m not gonna kill it!” he said, shaking his head “It isn’t his fault you’re scared of him.” “But…”

“Honey, it’s fine, I’m gonna let it go outside!” He tried hard not to laugh at the sheer look of disgust and horror on her face. “Just open the door for me ok?”

“Outside outside or like the hall way outside?” She said, looking at him. He paused for a moment, he had been thinking just the hall- it was a house spider after all. But he could hear her reaction already- I’ll just come back under the door…

“Outside outside.” he confirmed, and her shoulders visibly sagged as she exhaled and headed to the doorway. She opened it, then backed away from him to let him out. Giving her a smile he headed outside, spider safely contained in his cupped hands as he headed down the stairs to the main door of his apartment block. Using his foot to keep the door jarred open, he stooped down and gently let the spider go. It scurried off and he wiped his hands on his jeans before he took the three flights back up to his floor two steps at a time. Katie was in the kitchen, still in her bra and shorts, a glass of water in her hand. He leaned in the doorway looking at her for a moment, smile playing on his lips. Even when she was being absurd he loved her.

“You can stop looking at me like that.” she said to him. 

“Like what?”

“Like you think I’m utterly ridiculous.

”Steve cut her off with a chuckle “You are utterly ridiculous.” he said, striding towards her to give her a hug. She let out a noise that was half chuckle, half groan as she pressed her face into his t-shirt. “But I love you, arachnophobia induced drama included.

”She stayed still, her cheek pressed into his chest as his hands gently held her close, palms warm on her bare back.

“Gonna go for my shower now.” She mumbled.

“Ok” he pressed a kiss to her head “You coming back out or going straight to bed?”

“Bed.”

“Alright, I won’t be far behind you.”

She smiled up at him, before she headed out of the room and he watched her go, her hips swaying gently as she walked. 

The water was hot as Katie stepped underneath it. She hated being that petrified of something as stupid as a spider, she really did. Logically she knew it was daft, they were so small in comparison to her. Tony had constantly told her whenever he had to rescue her from the eight-legged-freaks, ‘they’re more scared of you than you are of them’, but that was utter bollocks. Frankly, she’d take fighting off ten men single handed against dealing with one of them. 

With a sigh she washed her hair, turned the water off and then set about cleaning her teeth before she headed out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. Steve was already in there and as she walked into the room he gently tossed a clean t-shirt onto the bed for her and she grinned. She loved sleeping in his shirts, for no reason other than they were his. And he loved the fact she loved to sleep in them for the same reason. He dropped a kiss to her cheek and told her he was going for a shower himself before he headed into the bathroom himself. She dried off, braided her hair before shrugging the T-shirt and settling down between the sheets of his bed. Steve returned a little under ten minutes later, chest speckled with drops of water he hadn’t dried off completely.

“Honey do you want a drink or anything?”

“No I’m good, Stevie, thanks.” She mumbled, eyes closed as she snuggled further into the bed. He dressed in a pair of sweats, leaving his chest bare- another thing he’d started doing since they’d been sharing a bed as Katie much preferred snuggling into him like that- and he began the usual routine of checking the doors and windows before he returned and slipped under the covers next to her. She let out a sigh and moved so that her head was lay on his chest, her hand gently tangling into the smattering of dark blonde hair that was there. He could tell she was wide awake, pondering something. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked gently.

“Do you think I’m a dumbass, you know, because of the whole…spider thing? I know it’s ridiculous, but...”

Steve took a deep breath and moved so that he was led on his side, facing her. She pouted at being jostled off his chest and he smiled at the look of indignation on her face as he tucked a stray hand of hair behind her ear.

“Clowns.” he said gently. 

“What? What has that got-“

“I hate them.” He gave a little shrug. “They freak me out. Big time. Can’t stand to look at them let alone be in the same room as them.” “So that’s why you don’t wanna watch IT.” She smiled softly “You’re scared of Clowns?” He nodded “Once when we were kids, there was a Carnival down at Coney. Bucky and I went in this like maze thing. Contained a load of mirrors and stuff…but the last room you went in was basically nothing but clowns, and you had no idea which one was the mirror and which one was the real thing.” He gave a shudder at the memory and he felt his girl’s hands warm on his chest. “Well, when the damned thing moved I had a complete melt down, asthma attack, you name it…”

“Why have you never told me this before?”

“Doesn’t do my Captain Badass image any good, does it?”

“And my spider phobia doesn’t do mine any good.” She chuckled a little. “Especially seeing as one of my best friend’s goes by the code name Black Widow.” He gave a little chuckle and wrapped his arms around her, as she turned over to get comfortable. He pulled her to him, her back pressing to his chest, and closed his eyes as he wrapped himself around her. She sighed, happy to bask in his warmth.

“Thank you for rescuing me” She mumbled and he gave a laugh that vibrated through his chest into her.

“Isn’t that what a man is supposed to do? Be his Dame’s Knight in shining armour?”

“Yeah but most Knights slay fire breathing dragons…” she said, before pausing slightly. “Oh God can u imagine? A fire breathing spider?”  she shivered.

 “Ok. Honey, now you’re being ridiculous again.” he said, eyes still closed. 

“Hey, for all we know it could exist, like in the deepest, depths of Peru somewhere, just hasn’t been discovered…”

“Well, lucky for us we aint in Peru.” he said with a sigh, as he dropped a soft kiss to the back of her neck. “Now go to sleep.” 

**** Chapter 8

[transsexualhamlet]

so about norman’s ethics

The thing that a lot of people don’t understand about Norman is that he doesn’t believe in the like, political sentiments that he acts on in the slightest. Yeah, this doesn’t make it ok that he did a bunch of shitty stuff, but it’s a misconception to say norman like, genuinely believes fucking eugenics are a good thing.

And yet, he decides to act on the idea to degenerate and genocide the demons and seems not to understand why Emma wouldn’t agree with him. People’s explanations of this seem to be pretty much one of two minds, either:

His morals are corrupt: Norman wants all the demons dead because what they did makes him think they’re all bad and don’t deserve the respect humans get, which is understandable but still wrong, or

His morals are intact but he ignores them: Norman feels bad that he’s doing a bad thing and does it anyway because he can’t find a better way out, which honestly makes what he did worse, though Tragic.

The second one is more accurate, but still doesn’t completely explain his ideas.The truth is that, in my opinion, he just barely understands the concept of morals in general, and what’s ‘messed up’ is simply his priorities. That sounds like I’m saying he’s a twisted cycle path but I swear I’m not, it’s just like him having low empathy. This is another, autism thing, and it’s another thing that I have, so I’ll try to explain it as best as I can?

Personally, I understand and try to follow sociatal expectations for moral things like, you know, do not kill people and what not. Because it’s bad or... whatever. And although I can cognitively understand the reasons why people think so, I don’t value it in the same way. Obviously I wouldn’t kill a person, there’s no need for me to in a world like this, and it would be inconvenient and probably make me feel bad despite not understanding why it is bad. But I’ve known from a very young age if I had the power and reason to kill someone, I absolutely would, no questions asked. Not even the necessity, just a logical reason. Most of the time this means nothing and isn’t applicable in the real world, because most of the people around me would be negatively affected by it. But it means nothing to me personally, and if prompted I could change at the slightest reason.

This is what I think we’re dealing with in Norman’s situation. 

Norman, in grace field, has no reason to violate any intagible laws of right and wrong, in most cases, until the escape arc happens. Yeah, I do believe Norman probably lied significantly more than the average child, because he didn’t see any reason not to, but I doubt it hurt anyone bad, they lived in, well, basically a neverland. He’s just a slightly off white little man. But when he is faced with a risky and dangerous situation, he might look Correct on the outside but the closer you look the more you realize his actions are directly impacted by the situation around him, completely independent of any internal moral compass. 

Ray wants to only escape with those three, because although he feels extreme guilt for being the way he is and completely understands it’s a selfish and terrible thing to do, he’s too cynical to accept any other options. Norman initially agrees with him, because Ray explains the risks. Emma then insinuates she wants to bring the other kids, giving ideas as to how. Norman then switches to Emma’s plan because he believes it can be achieved and he wants Emma to be happy, not because it would be wrong to do otherwise. At the same time, he later ships himself out, without much consideration to the others’ wishes against it, because now that it’s gotten impossible to have both, Emma’s and Ray’s safety is more important now than their happiness. Though he can understand that they’d not like that, it’s not that important to him in the long run. He will choose the path that offers them the greatest chance, if the one his friends want isn’t good enough.

When he was shipped out and taken to lambda, what happened is he was put in a situation where the stakes become much higher. There’s a different kind of situation, and the idea of simply running away from the demons is obviously not an option. When he escapes, and basically adopts the lambda kids- now he’s surrounded by people with the opposite morals and ideas as Emma. These kids want revenge, they would be happy to kill the demons, their ideal situation involves that and trying to reach any compromise would be unsatisfactory. The overwhelming majority of the kids agree with killing the demons, and that idea makes him seem stronger and gives him more certainty and control over the situation, even if it’s difficult and hurts him personally, making him a “Bad Person” to Emma. 

Norman harbors no personal hatred towards the demons, nor any specific desire to kill them. He just doesn’t see any viable reason not to, and killing them provides both him and the people he cares about with a more beneficial situation. Emma is now the minority, and even though she provides an idea that could work, Norman, after seeing so much pain and suffering, is no longer willing to take the risk for her, like he was in grace field. He is incapable of understanding why she values a sense of right and wrong more than the actual statistics of how well one or the other could work- yes, they had different experiences, but she lost other people because she decided to take risks, and she still believes in it? It simply doesn’t fucking compute.

An important aspect to consider is that it still does make him feel bad not to follow a more traditionally accepted route. He might have low empathy but he’s not an emotionless robot. Not understanding morals doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a concience, though it’s much more ambiguous and generally equates to any other thing, such as the actual convenience, details, or certainty of a plan. It’s not of any more importance, and he is in a situation now where it’s inconvenient to pay attention to, more so than in grace field. So not following a Nicer route does take a toll on his Feelings TM, same as it takes a toll on his literal body, but that’s a sacrifice he’s fine with, it’s a sacrifice that’s significantly smaller than the chance that someone he cares for could die.

Generally, most Lukewarm Takes on Norman can be disproven with this idea (pretty much anything that insinuates he would see the demons as less or like, he’s doing it because they did awful things to him, understandable but hey this isn’t tokyo ghoul and he’s not that kind of character), though everyone is obviously free to have their own takes and I doubt Shirai took his autistic coding into consideration, so it’s obviously my own idea.

Although Norman’s actions have correlation with Ray’s before, Norman isn’t disregarding his physical needs and trying to sacrifice himself out of any idea that it would make up for what he did, he’s doing it because it gives him more control over his own situation, he values his own well being less than his family’s, and he doesn’t understand why it would be Bad to do so. If we’re really digging deep, it’s likely he doesn’t want to have to experience any real consequences for his actions. He understands that they’re Bad, but this isn’t important to him, more than anything else. He doesn’t want to see Emma’s disappointment because it would complicate things.

After Emma and Ray, well, complicate things, ie face him and force him to see there are real consequences to his actions past Ambiguous Moral Obligations (ex. “you’re Taking Advantage the lambda kids” means nothing until he sees that it’s stopped them from being able to grow as people and forgive, “you’re neglecting yourself” means nothing until there’s an idea brought up that could fix him, “you’re trying to kill so many fucking people” means nothing until he sees that it’s hurting the human kids.) and that there’s a valid flaw in his personality past that- that it’s not a strong but a cowardly move, he can move forward and attempt to change things, possibly give himself a fucking break. 

In that situation, with other solutions that Emma and Ray have opened up actually seeming to work, he no longer finds it necessary to Be Terrible and hurt himself. This makes him feel better, because he doesn’t want to be Incorrect, it’s just a difficult thing for him to understand, when most other things come to him naturally. I think in the future he can be more cognizant of the fact that he’s more suceptible to doing generally, unacceptable things, and vows to lean more on Emma and Ray so he doesn’t end up going down the wrong path again, because to him they all look the same color.

Yes, this is my long ass way of telling Shirai why the fuck did you let Norman be a CEO. That’s a terrible fucking idea, he’ll become capitalism, guys?! Don’t let him do that. He needs to be in a job where like, he can use his skills without having to make Ethical Decisions like... an engineer or something. Computer scientist. IDK. Just not a fucking CEO, not in a management position for anything.

Honestly, it’s difficult for me to even use the alignment chart because I don’t understand morals enoughto put anyone in the Evil category because the idea of ‘evil’ doesn’t exist for me. So yeah, I’m projecting, but in conclusion I just have a bone to pick with anyone who wouldn’t call norman lawful neutral. 

[luvdetroit]

Hey! I 've just read the first chapter of the dbh series you wanted to start, and I really like the plot 🥺 Do you plan on continuing it? 👉🏻👈🏻

hey, sorry for the late reply! i actually do have it planned out a bit differently than i originally wrote it in the first chapter. i think this planned version is better than the one i posted. there are many other ideas that i have in my drafts, i just haven’t released them yet.

thank you for reading it! i'm happy you enjoyed it and i'm sorry for saying this but i think i'll just scrap this idea and go with my new one (VOW). it will be somewhat similar, just more complex? and hopefully interesting!

not sure if you are even interested in hearing about them but i’ll drop them here! maybe if you or anyone is interested, i will follow through with posting them (have been feeling very bad about my writing recently).

for anyone who does read my ideas, please do not steal! i really worked hard on thinking about these and would be really hurt if anyone took them. they aren’t super original or anything, but i still created them 😩

these are really roughly written so please don’t judge 🚶🏼‍♀️🚶🏼‍♀️

please do comment or send me a message in my inbox about which idea you like more, if i should do a specific one or all of them even! 💞💞💞

1. TITLE: VOW

pairings: various! x fem!reader

genre: meta (?), angst, fluff, etc

plot: metafiction. mc surfs the web to buy d:bh and finds a seller who is willing to sell the game for cheap (suspiciously). mc contacts the user and a deal has been made.

we will flesh out the seller later, he ain’t all that important rn. so mc gets the game after maybe two days? and in the packaging the seller wrote a letter to her, it is pretty cryptic. we can get into detail on the letter and stuff later.

so mc starts the game up right away because she is excited to play it. on her first play though everything is pretty normal. there are a few differences/odd occurrences but mc doesn’t bat an eye because it’s her first time playing so she wouldn’t know.

gradually as she plays, the characters (connor and markus) are more aware of them being in a game. (sense they are in the same series and are prototypes it only makes sense for them to be able to sync themselves/go beyond their coding).

connor and markus have broken the fourth wall/have become aware with other players. they grow a deep hatred for the player. sense they can’t throw their anger at the creators of the game, they can do so with the player.

at first, connor and markus only did minor things that didn’t really stand out to the player. when connor/markus breaks the fourth wall and directly talks about the player, the player thinks it’s apart of the game.

but when connor/markus mentions the player’s name that is when they freak out a bit, but assumes the characters got their names from their playstation.

it’s only when connor/markus states some personal stuff about them do they feel fear. (connor/markus can sync with the smart tv that also contains all their info).

connor/markus have tried to sync with the game/tv enough to transport the player in the game so the player can experience first hand what it’s like to live in their world. but their connection weakens each time the player resets. their memories are also wiped out.

over time connor/markus are able to retain their memories a lot faster but forget the previous players of the game. even if they don’t remember the previous players they still think of one goal. transport the player into their world, let them suffer, seeing first hand how THEY feel.

connor/markus will be slightly oc. they will have somewhat of a dark side.

i didn’t explain this in the summary bcus i’m dumb but the game can’t be destroyed (it’s like a possessed object). even if you throw it out or something it will still go back to you bcus you own it. the only way to get rid of it is selling it.

ik some wack logic but sjakwkw

sam is the seller of the game. (his username is GAMER BOY 69). the game is sold for $10 with free shipping and no tax.

mc: does this really only cost $10? why is this so cheap?

sam: i’m just being generous

sam: are you willing to buy it?

mc: can you show proof that you actually have it and it isn’t broken?

sam: sure, hold on a second

[sam sends a video of him filming the game packaging and saying his username (in a bit of embarrassment) and mc’s. he reassured her that it isn’t broken and works perfectly fine. he tells her he didn’t like the game so that’s why he’s selling it.]

sam’s letter is in a white envelope, his writing is slightly messy, almost jittery (from nerves). he feared he was being watched by, ‘them’ so he wrote cryptically.

sam’s note: i’m sorry i did this to you. i really am. i just didn’t have any other choice. don’t play the game, please.

2. TITLE: PARESTHESIA

pairings: various! x fem! reader

genre: dark au, cult au, angst, fluff, etc

plot: in this au kamski doesn’t publicly make androids n stuff

so amanda stern is still kamski’s mentor in this au

she, ‘disappears’ at some point and is listed as a missing person

kamski knows she isn’t gone though bcus she told him her plan

basically amanda is very manipulative and warped kamski’s young mind into thinking humans being lesser beings and that kamski can really create something even more superior, androids.

kamski and amanda are humans but they are excused because of them being intelligent and having that sort of mindset- humans being filth on this planet

instead of kamski making cyberlife public

he instead also disappears after a few years later (once he’s done w college)

it’s a gap between amanda and his disappearance to not completely draw suspicion

cyberlife is created in secret, hidden from the public

belief: humans are disgusting and should be replaced by something far superior, androids.

rules: only those who have the same mindset as kamski and amanda can join the cause and contribute. (so human co workers of amanda and such help gather material and thirium (blue blood) to create more androids in secret).

practices: a member has to willingly be able to sacrifice any body part kamski chooses to replace for an android part or partake in any experiment kamski may have. if not, they aren’t fully in the cause and should be ridden of.

kamski wants to take a oblivious civilian in for a secret test of his

he wants to test out how human his androids can be and if it can blend in with humans in normal day to day life.

so he releases one of his androids, connor (rk800) out into the world. his mission is to find a human he can initiate a relationship with. once he finds that human, he slowly grows a relationship with them over time- kamski is studying all of this through connor’s eyes.

kamski is amazed by this new discovery- his androids do blend in with humans well.

the last secret test for mc is connor telling her his true nature. (telling her he isn’t human, he’s an android). connor breaks this to mc at his, ‘house’ which is connected to their secret compound/underground base.

kamski wants to know how mc will react to this news because her actions depends on whether she’s just another piece of human scum or not. this will validate whether she can join their, ‘organization’ or not.

mc will be confused by connor’s sudden news at first. she won’t believe him until he pulls back his skin to show his porcelain interior.

she’ll be surprised then and question whether their relationship was all real or not.

connor reassures her that he does share her feelings. he admits that at first this was a mission but he truly does feel for her. he asks her if she still has feelings for him even after knowing he isn’t human and mc (after a bit of thinking) says that she does.

this makes connor happy as well as kamski bcus mc got through the test. this is the first android-human relationship too.

a few days pass just to really make sure mc doesn’t act any different and really is telling the truth about having feelings for connor still- when connor informs mc that his creator wants to meet her in person one day.

connor and mc go to his place and he leads her downstairs to his normal looking basement- and there is this really intricate hidden puzzle/door that opens to their underground compound.

connor leads mc to a room and meets kamski. kamski comments on mc- on how he was surprised that mc quickly took a liking to connor and how she still has feelings for connor even after finding out the truth. he’s impressed and approves of the relationship.

he tells her he hopes she keeps her word about this organization being a secret because he wouldn’t want anything bad happening to her so soon.

after that connor and mc go about their relationship like normal. although, connor has been experiencing these odd feelings lately. he’s also been oddly wanting to act out violently towards the most smallest things. like mc talking to someone else, smiling at someone else, touching someone else, even if it was platonic.

it didn’t sit right with him. he never voiced these new feelings to kamski though. he was too afraid kamski might tell him he has something wrong with his software. he doesn’t want kamski to call him defective and replace him for another connor. he doesn’t want to be seen as not good enough for mc.

connor doesn’t act on any of his thoughts. he doesn’t let his emotions control him.

after about two weeks kamski calls connor and tells him he wants him to meet someone (rk900) and that he should bring mc.

so connor visits the compound and meets kamski in a lounge area with mc. they both enter the room with kamski casually laying on a lush couch. a small smile is brought on his face when he noticed connor and mc’s presence. he greets them both and tells them that he’s happy they could make it.

connor opens his mouth, about to ask who the person kamski wants him to meet when rk900 walks in with two cups of tea + thirium in his hands.

rk900 places a tea down in front of kamski, the other tea and thirium on the opposite side of kamski’s before returning his attention to connor and mc. his eyes scrutinizing connor and mc.

kamski’s smile widens at connor’s reaction and stands up, clasping rk900’s shoulder with one hand. he prompts rk900 to introduce himself.

rk900 introduces himself somewhat stiffly in a monotone voice.

rk900: my name is conan.

it was short and to the point. he offers an open hand for a handshake.

connor looks over conan, completely ignoring the hand offered to him, then at kamski with all sorts of emotions. the main ones being confusion and fear. at this point connor is wondering if conan is going to replace him for a reason connor does not know.

kamski breaks the awkward silence/tension in the room.

kamski: “well, connor? aren’t you going to greet your brother?”

connor takes a few moments to process this information and absentmindedly inquires, “brother?” in a small voice. his brows furrow slightly and his gaze draws towards his look alike. from up close, conan looks exactly like connor with a few differences. he was slightly taller than connor and had cool greyish blue eyes. why would kamski decide to make me a brother? i didn’t ask for one.

kamski: “yes, brother. i just thought it might be lonely to live alone in that big house of yours so i have gifted you with your own brother.”

at this point connor is having a mental breakdown. kamski doesn’t do things without a logical reason. he’s not telling me the full truth.

connor finally breaks out of his thoughts, his eyes darting back to kamski and he nods shortly, ignoring conan’s still outstretched hand and his presence altogether.

connor: [in a stony voice] okay, is that all?

conan drops his hand.

the corners of kamski’s lips twitch, threatening to split into a menacing smirk at connor’s cold reaction. kamski clicks his tongue mockingly and sits back down, grabbing his tea.

kamski: “that’s not how you should treat your brother. [sighs] that will be all, but you have to teach conan how things work around here. that’s what a big brother should do, after all.”

connor bites back a disgruntled sigh of his own and settles for a slight frown.

connor: “why wasn’t he informed before meeting me? didn’t he go through the same test runs as me?”

it took everything in connor to not let his irritation show through his tone.

kamski pins connor with an annoyed glare, a small bit of amusement shining through.

kamski: “why are you testing my patience connor? are you not happy with my gift?”

kamski’s words were light mockery, with a dark undertone to them. connor knew better than to irritate his creator further. he bows his head slightly to him.

connor: “i apologize for causing you further inconvenience. i..am just surprised by the new addition, that’s all.”

kamski simply nods lazily. waving a hand, he tells them they are dismissed.

connor turns away from his creator and him to the exit with you following right beside him silently. he places his hand on the small of your back and presses you close to him possessively. the slight tapping of a pair of shoes follow behind connor and you. connor ignores it.

connor walks through the maze of hallways without pause, part of him hoping his, ‘brother’ would get lost and never return.

he knew better though. without even looking, he knew conan wasn’t even a step behind and it irritated connor to no end.

once the three enter the, ‘main area’ which was basically the center of the compound, connor turns around to face conan.

connor: [monotonously] “give me your hand, i’ll transfer the data so this all can be over with.”

connor outstretches his hand. part of him wants to pull it back because he doesn’t want to touch him.

conan looks at connor’s outstretched hand to connor’s face.

conan: “no, i can’t do that. kamski specifically told me to get the information from you the, ‘human’ way. he wishes for us to talk to each other like brothers.”

connor looks even more bewildered at that bit of information..why would kamski do this without his consent? this..has to be some sort of test. maybe conan is just playing the role as his brother to spy on him and catch him doing something that may incriminate him? does kamski know about his odd..’glitches’? did he make rk900 just to dispose of him and replace him?

no, he couldn’t have known..the cameras in his opticals were shut off weeks ago. so why was rk900 here? what is kamski getting at?

connor also took notice of how..machine like conan is. conan walks stiffly and has a rigid stance. in that sentence he brings up what kamski wants rather than his. he follows kamski’s orders as if they were law without question.

connor still has his hand in front of him and ignores what conan says

he’s like, “it would be easier if we just did this.” (he’s irritated and is insistent)

and conan refuses, again repeating, “we have to follow kamski’s orders.”

and connor taunts conan

he’s like, “can you not think for yourself? i thought you were supposed to be alive.”

at that, mc finally speaks, telling connor off, “that’s enough, connor. i think you should just follow what kamski says. conan is just as alive as you and needs some of your guidance.”

connor’s eyes slightly widen as well as conan’s. connor’s frown deepens at your words. you’re defending him. why? you should be on his side, not him.

conan still has a blank face but his eyes are now trained on mc, curiosity being one of the emotions flickering in his eyes.

connor notices conan looking at mc and narrows his eyes in disgust.

connor: fine..we can discuss everything at my place.

connor turns and places his hand back on mc’s lower back, pressing her as close to him and far from conan as possible.

conan follows on without question.

3. TITLE: DARK EXTERIOR

pairings: various! x fem! reader

genre: dark au, angst, fluff, etc

plot: the main plot is androids taking over and humans as pets

so mc is obviously gonna be a human, she is like in one of those sort of adoption places but it’s more like a buy your pet thing

and mc is gonna be 18 y/o because yes

- mc and her parents live in a house that is located in a rather secluded area in the woods

- when word gets out about androids dominating humans and turning them into slaves- mc’s parents decide to live underground. mc is 3 y/o during this time. (the father is an artist/architect, this was originally just a project for himself). years pass with them being undetected. (it was 2038 when androids dominated humans)

- 15 years passed without them being detected and mc is 18 y/o (year is 2053)

- mc’s father scavenges for food and such once a month

- underground they still have a tv, tablet, and phones to keep up with how everything is going in detroit

- mc feels trapped after living underground for basically her entire life and learning second hand about androids, the revolution, etc

- mc starts doubting her parents and their reasons. she questions whether if there are bad androids out there who will snatch her up.

- mc asks her father if she can help him scavenge one day but he along with her mother are against that (this is on her birthday when she turns 18 y/o bcus she thinks she’s mature enough to)

- this causes a big argument between her parents and her and she voices her doubts to them- this ends with mc locking herself in her room. after awhile when it’s night time, her father visits her and apologizes for yelling but tells her she still can’t go up there because it’s too dangerous.

- mc hides her anger and lies to her father about her understanding. when it’s about midnight mc decides to sneak out and go above ground.

- mc is wandering in the woods mindlessly basking in everything- she kind of becomes careless (she doesn’t act cautious when wandering around). she maybe follows a bird she sees (owl) out of curiosity and nears markus and his crew (simon, north, and josh). they were having a picnic or just stargazing.

- simon hears rustling and light footsteps coming towards them so he alerts the others, he’s like, ‘do you guys hear that?’

- the others listen and do hear the footsteps and rustling coming rather close and quickly. all of them are tense (because they have experienced a lot of..attacks in the past so obviously they got their bars raised)

- so mc bumps into markus and everyone is surprised by mc’s sudden appearance

- mc stops in her tracks and looks at markus, it takes her a minute to really look at him bcus it’s dark and her human eyes are very poor at catching details

- she recognizes markus and is frozen. she also faintly recognizes his friends because they are also a big part of the android revolution (or so she’s been told by her parents).

- after a beat of silence north says, ‘a human?’ in a rather disgusted tone.

- josh observes you and asks out loud, ‘how can a human be this far out of the city?’

- north: ‘maybe it escaped from it’s owner or something.’

- after observing you, markus reaches out to you (you are still frozen and too scared to move) and places his hand on the nape of your neck. he realizes you don’t have a chip installed there to tell him who your owner is. (let’s say every human at birth has a chip installed to their nape to identify them and their owner)

- markus informs the others that mc doesn’t have a chip which startles them.

- north: ‘wait..it’s a fucking wild?’

- josh: ‘how could it live this long on it’s own if it is a wild?’

- (markus had his eyes on you the whole time) he asks you if there are more of you in the forest and you slowly shake your head no. they all know you are lying though.

- north: ‘there are more like it in the forest..how come we didn’t know about this?’

- josh: ‘this is pretty bad..if there are more wilds out here hiding this could damage the trust we built with the others. everyone will be outraged if they find out we let wilds slip under our noses.’

- simon approaches you slowly and asks again if there are more people like you out there

- when you shake your head again markus holds your chin between his thumb and index finger, tilting your head up so that you can look at him in the eyes.

- with a dark look in his eyes markus says, ‘don’t lie to us again kitten because i’m not in the mood to play nice. now, tell us the truth. are there more of you out there?’

- you are scared now and regret ever leaving the hideout. knowing it would be futile to lie again, you nod. (you are unable to say anything because your throat feels constricted).

- north: ‘where are they?’

- you don’t say anything because you don’t want to give your parents away. you continue to berate yourself for your stupid decisions.

- north sighs (clearly irritated by you not answering their questions immediately), ‘well? aren’t you going to speak? or can you not speak?’

- josh tries to calm north down, ‘intimidating it isn’t going to make it talk’

- north: why are you defending it? have you gone soft now?

- josh: [sighs] are we really going to do this? i’m just trying to tell you that yelling at it won’t get us anywhere-

- north: babying it isn’t getting us anywhere and i don’t see /you/ doing anything.

- simon steps in before the argument could get even more heated and pushes the two away from each other, “that’s enough. can you both not argue for once? now is not the time.”

- a little bit of pressure on your chin directs your attention from the two arguing to markus.

- markus: show us and i promise we won’t hurt you.

- mc thinks about this, ‘deal’ and realizes at that moment she doesn’t know what the hideout even looks like from the outside bcus she was so caught up on other things.

- mc makes a half baked plan to pretend to know where her hide out is, lead them, then find an opening to escape

- mc responds after a bit of pondering, (in a feeble voice), “okay.”

- north: [annoyed and slightly surprised] that’s it? that’s all it took?

- markus lets go of mc’s chin and gives mc a slight nod, telling her to show them the way

- before mc could take any step north butts in

- north: shouldn’t we restrain it first? tie it’s hands so it doesn’t do anything stupid?

- mc really dislikes north and is pretty scared of north out of all of them.

- markus notices your discomfort and shakes his head at north, “no. we don’t need to."

- north: [irritated] but she is a fucking wild- she’s dangerous-

- markus: [interrupts north + raises one of his hands up] i said, we don’t need to.

- north huffs in annoyance but doesn’t say anything else. part of you is satisfied by seeing north being put in her place.

- markus returns his attention to you and silently tells you w his eyes to lead the way.

- you turn your back towards markus and observe the vast amount of trees before you and walk in the direction you remember vaguely running from.

[c-c-cherry]

HELL YEAH I HAVE SOME BRUNO :D

I fuckin love Bruno. Can’t really explain it, stoic/parental characters and found family tropes are just drawn to me and writing it just gives me immense joy! It’s time to dive right in this, babey >:)

Also I’m sorry for the recent inactivity. School’s been kicking my fucking ASS and I need to put in more time for that right now, so things might be slower until Holiday break. Hope y’all can bear with me a bit :)

//content warning for whump-related shit (sickness, major injury, drugs etc..)

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Pain Tolerance

-When it comes to physical injury, he can handle almost anything with grace

-With a job like his, it always helps to be quick on your feet and resourceful enough to save your life

-He’s not stupid, either. When he’s hurt in a way that he can’t fix himself, he doesn’t hesitate asking someone who actually can help

-He doesn’t particularly like it when people help him out because he’s supposed to be this omnipotent leader figure, but he won’t be stubborn when it comes down to it. He hates wasting time more than he hates showing weakness

-No one can tell him that Sticky Fingers ≠ instant stitches because that stand can get shit done

-Is it sanitary? Not really. Does it hurt a shit ton? Yeah. Does he care? Take a fucking guess y’all >:)

-This man is used to putting up with shit in order to survive and trained himself to take pain in waves. If he can just ride through it, he’ll eventually be able to function again

-Sometimes hesitating isn’t an option. Neither is acknowledging that the bullet wound in your side is bleeding out and logically you should be unconscious from how painful it is

-It takes a certain person to quite literally hold off on their own pain to help others (partly because they aren’t ready to acknowledge it) but Bruno is definitely that saviour-complex, martyr type

-He could have a fucking bullet still in his side but he’s too busy to worry about it because Narancia might have a concussion or Fugo’s arm is broken or they can’t find Giorno amid the stand battle the possibilities are endless

-The one thing he can’t seem to shake off? Getting drugged.

-He almost always has control over his surroundings with any other mishap but once his brain is messed with like that, he’s basically done for

-It doesn’t really help that he’s a lightweight with recreational things in general, but heavy stuff used for spiking or kidnapping absolutely fucks with him

-His stand completely shuts down, he loses control of all his surroundings,,,basically everything he relied on to get through stuff in the past is off the table

-It doesn’t happen very often, but when the gang has had to deal with him like that, its like watching someone’s entire self completely break down

-Suddenly any kind of feeling or pain is amplified and it’s unbearable. It’s awful seeing someone who’s usually so stoic act in such a manner, but it’s almost,,,,cathartic? It reminds all of them that he’s human and his stoicism shouldn’t be taken lightly

Injury

Rule #1 of Bruno’s moral code that doesn’t really make sense but you can’t really argue with him on it: DO NOT BRING HIM TO A FUCKING HOSPITAL.

-He’ll flat-out refuse to go

-Things are much easier now that Giorno is on their team, but things used to be borderline nightmarish during pre-canon missions that went awry

-He’ll have no problem recommending getting professional medical help to anyone else on the team, but there’s no way in hell you could make him go himself

-He hasn’t set foot in a hospital since his father was in one, and and plans to never go in one again

-To him, the medical system failed him (even though there was nothing they could virtually do)

-It’s an irrational way of thinking, but he refuses to talk about it either way

-Even when he is injured enough to require going to a doctor he can usually repress it, usually because he’s in shock, and his mind convinces him that he’s absolutely fine

-His refusal to acknowledge when he’s injured sometimes can get him in deep shit though

-Abbacchio is beyond counting on his fingers how many times a mission will be over and Bruno will be cooking dinner or reading a book and suddenly stop and get this look and Leone will be like “you good?”

-And Bruno just sets his book down and says:

“I fractured my arm and dislocated my elbow earlier today. I should probably look at it now, shouldn’t I?”

in the calmest fucking voice on the planet.

-Sometimes Bruno will just go on about his day and won’t have the chance to tell them calmly because suddenly blood is leaking out of the side of his head or they find him passed out oN THE FLOOR INSTEAD

-Needless to say it gives them all fucking heart attacks all the damn time

-Its actually so common post-canon that the gang has to do routine checks on each other to make sure no one is “withholding any injuries” (but they all know who the rule was really created for)

Sickness

-The. Most. STUBBORN MOTHERFUCKER

-Extremely irritable and hates not being able to do anything. Most people when they’re sick either get very clingy or very bitchy and we all know which one he’d be

-This is nothing like injury. He’ll KNOW he’ll be fine because it's just a fever, so to him that automatically means that no one is obligated to know and/or care regardless of how shit he’s feeling

-He either pretends it’s not happening at all, or he hides away in his room or some zipper dimension until he’s totally fine again

-Hates, and I mean HATES it when people try to take care of him

-Maybe he wants it. Maybe he doesn’t. Either way, he feels too selfless to “make someone do all that” for him

-Though Abbacchio and Fugo would refer to it more as self-destructive than selfless (but they aren’t exactly ones to talk)

-Seriously high fever? It’s just really hot in here, better turn the heat down.

-Can’t fucking breathe because he’s coughing so hard? No no, they still have another mission today to get through. Just have some tea and you’ll be fine

-So nauseous that he can barely stand up on his own? Probably just need to drink some more water today

-The KING of sick denial. The embodiment of the “parents don’t get sick because they don’t have time to” myth

-The times when they do catch him before he can disappear is when stuff is really bad. He’s gotta be too weak to move for them to pounce on him and force him to take care of himself, and even then he will only let Abbacchio do things for him because he doesn’t want to seem like a weak role model for the rest of them ;-;

-Bruno makes the best soup for when the rest of the gang catches something but Mista pulls out the good shit and makes the best fucking food for sick Bruno and it’s very wholesome and nice :)

Emotional Stress

-Bottles up everything, and I mean EVERYTHING until his limbs are fucking shaking and he’s unable to do anything else but sit there and cry

-He feels like he has to be stoic and emotionless most of the time, and although everyone knows that Bruno’s a bleeding heart, he’s also very reserved when it comes to what he really needs

-Things like nightmares or his father or things that happened to him in the past or things that you need to talk about to get off your chest are things that he keeps to himself

-Taking on too much and overworking himself is how he distracts himself from most things. He’d rather just pretend that things aren’t happening then confront it and end up breaking down

-It always comes out in the worst ways. He’ll start snapping at people when he normally would never, stops sleeping and eating, drinks too much even though he knows that it does nothing for him

-He hates the fact that he doesn’t tell people when he’s hurting, but he can’t bring himself to do it without thinking about how weak it would look on his part

-He zips himself away and cries in secret, but everyone can always tell when his nose is too red or the light is gone from his eyes later that day

-When things get bad, his hands will shake. It's almost an unconscious action that happens when he’s thinking too much about things or when he hasn’t gotten nearly as much sleep as he should, but it's extremely noticeable and he despises the fact that he can’t do anything to stop it

-His face and body will look completely put-together but the gang’s eyes will drift to the trembling paperwork that his hands are holding

-Fugo or Abbacchio will usually pull him aside and ask him if everything’s alright and the answer is always arguably a no

-It usually ends up with Leone dragging Bruno somewhere alone or kicking the rest of them out and just letting him let everything out

-Sometimes it’ll take hours and these giant “blow-ups” happen more often than they should, but Leone’s just glad that he’s communicating, even just a little bit

-Once things blow over, they actually talk. They find solutions as much as Bruno doesn’t want to, and things really don’t seem as bad once he starts actually talking about them

-The rest of the fam comes home and makes dinner/finishes up his paperwork for him and they all watch a warm-hearted movie together :3

-He loves giving people hugs because he’s all about that family love, but asking for one is a whole other story (good thing Narancia and his impeccable emotional intelligence always swoop in for a hug when Bruno looks like he’s on his last legs) :))))

-No one said opening up was going to be easy, but he’s got his supportive Passione fam to help him out when he needs it most :’)

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I actually had some fics in mind while writing this list! If you want some Bruno whump to inhale, here’s what I was thinking of while writing this: 

The Mighty Fall by @lady-wallace​

Only Bend When It Breaks  and Night go Slower by roktavor

and Yet here he was by Your’s Truly!!