#it's theoretically non canon

[femmefitz]

The bonus chapter/writing exercise where Jinshi sleeps at The Verdigris Palace and Maomao watches him is so funny. They are kind of really truly freak4freak.

[canisalbus]

Young Machete, a sickly little Fiat Balilla, prone to engine knocking, surprisingly grew into a fast and powerful Alfa Romeo 6C 2300.

.

[goldensunset]

i understand the sentiment behind ‘i use well-known ship names just to tag character relationships of any nature in general for the sake of organization on here, it doesn’t mean i ship it romantically’ but i for one cannot bear to scroll through a tag that is populated half by art of them casually talking and half by art of them sucking face. i cannot take that risk. there are two very different types of people there using the same tag and it’s messy

[casuallyhollering]

anybody else’s work kinda reading as a crisis of faith in academic inquiry as it currently stands?

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny was born as a Halfa

So! Jack and Maddie are a little More insane in this.

When studying Ghosts, they become convinced that the only way to defeat the Ghostly Threat is to make a Ghost of their own. One who will fight on their Side. And they do believe that a "Good Ghost" is Possible, but only if fused with a Human to balance out the "Inherent Evil".

So, when Maddie gets pregnant they take the opportunity to try and make one of these theoretical "Halfas" by testing on the Baby in the Womb.

Jazz if Born, and she is not a Halfa. She is merely an extremely Liminal Toddler, so Jack and Maddie consider the experiment a Failure. They raise Jazz as per usual, and then 2 years later Jack and Maddie try again.

They have Danny, and this time he is a True Halfa! They did it! Now all they have to do is turn the Baby into the perfect Weapon against Ghosts!

Danny is raised less like a Baby and more like a Weapon. His Parents still treat him well, and give him some amount of love, but there is never any doubt in his mind that his only purpose in Life is to be the perfect weapon against Ghosts.

The only person who really treats him like something more than a Weapon is Jazz, who likes to sneak into his Room and play with him when they parents are out of the House.

(Later addition: They also have Ellie as a Kid a few years later, but because they messed up the process she is not as Stable as Danny is. She is 4 years younger than he is)

Then, they day he had been preparing for his whole life comes. When he is 10, a Ghost manages to sneak through a Natural Portal into Amity Park, and the Fentons send him to go deal with it as his First Test Run.

But when he gets there, he doesn't find an Evil Ghost bent on killing everyone in town. He finds a Teenage Girl, with blue flaming Hair, crying to herself.

(Idk how long ago Ember died, so lets just assume she died around 6 years before Canon)

He doesn't attack immediately, and when the girl sees him she invites him to sit with her. Against his better judgement, he agrees and sits with her.

She talks to him for a bit, and eventually explained why she was crying. Apparently she only died a few weeks ago and had finally found her way back to the Living World, back home. But when she got there she found that nobody really cared about her Death.

She had died in a House Fire, and because she had spent her entire night waiting for her Boyfriend to show up for a Date, she was too tired to wake up in time to escape.

Her Parents had obviously mourned, but her supposed friends and her boyfriend had hardly cared. In fact, it turned out that her Boyfriend had stood her up because he was cheating on her. So she had run off into the Park and sat down to Cry about it, where Danny had found her.

And Danny is confused.

His entire life, he has heard that Ghosts are Non-Sentient Killing Machines. That they don't feel any emotion aside from Malice. That they aren't People.

But this Girl is as Human as anybody else he has ever known. Perhaps even More Human.

He decides to ignore The Fentons Orders, and lets her go back through the Portal she had come through.

When he gets Home, the Fentons are less than pleased. They are Livid in fact.

Their Perfect Weapon was a Failure after all! It's too much like a Ghost to ever side with the Humans! It's just another Spook!

And they know what to do with Spooks.

They lock him up in the Lab, and decide to cut him open Later to figure out what went wrong.

They'll be successful next time.

Thankfully, their jeers to Danny are heard by Jazz in the other Room, and she doesn't like this one bit. So that night, she takes Danny and Ellie with her and Runs away. They need to get out of Amity Park, out Illinois even. They run and run, sneaking onto Buses, hitchhiking, even jumping on Trains.

Eventually they end up in a place called Gotham City.

...

Ages at the end.

Jazz: 12

Danny: 10

Ellie: 6

[other-peoples-coats]

struck by the idea where, For Reasons, plan saddest desert hermit doesn't get off the ground and team proto-rebellion have to pivot and pivot fast.

chucking the conspiracy equivalent of a uey at 100mph on the highway, and everyone involved is sleep deprived, stressed as fuck, and experiencing y'know, several levels of Devastating Grief.

the person with the brain cell is bail organa, a man who in canon spends like 20 fucking years playing ding dong ditch with a genocidal psychic space wizard and his boss, an even more genocidal space wizard. This man is not lacking in gumption, one can say. he is possessed of life threatening amounts of chutzpah, one might also say, except that he spends twenty years winning the ding dong ditch match with, again, a genocidal fascist dictatorship which includes two genocidal psychic space wizards who literally know he was in tight with the genocided group of space wizards plus the [mumble] number of other murderous genocidal space wizards, plus the rest of the non-space wizard space fascist cohort.

So. What does a man with a spine of steel, a heart as big as a planet, and more gumption than anyone should possess do, when plan 'split up the kids and hide the most famous man in the galaxy on the saddest hell planet' is a no go?

lie. lie like a fucking rug.

What's palpatine going to do? day one of the empire, his super awesome chosen one space wizard makeover project is still in progress and not yet wheezing his way into the galaxy's nightmares, and bail fucking organa strolls into the imperial senate with:

one (1) baby (female)

one (1) baby (male)

several (~20+) aides and various hangers on, including;

one (1) brown haired blue eyed man who could, if you squinted a bit, probably get third place in a general kenobi lookalike competition, were those now not super duper illegal

Sidious, of course, could be like A JEDI KILL HIM TRAITOR ETC, but, crucially, his wheezing attack dog is still on the lab table getting seven inches added to his height and cup holders installed, or whatever the fuck skeevy sheev added in as extras. Palpatine is an old guy who is still trading on being A Beloved Grandfather who was Reluctant To Take The Throne, and is still easing the galaxy into the whole, y'know, we're a fascist empire now, kneel or perish.

Palpatine, on day one of the empire, can't point at bail fucking organa and be like HABOURING A TRAITOR unless he is really, really sure, like 110% sure, because it's bail fucking organa and every goddamn senator will baulk like a horse at a plastic bag if he accuses, again, the senator of alderaan of high treason on day one of the empire.

A secret rebellion is fine, if not ideal; you can theoretically stamp it out, and, also, it's small, percentage wise.

The entire fucking galaxy thinking that, hey, if the guy in charge is going to go after fucking alderaan, what's to stop him going after us? bigger problem. huge problem. original trilogy kinda touched on that one. Day one of the empire, everyone is still basically on war footing, and fuck man, if alderaan is copping it....maybe this empire isn't great after all. maybe we can make our OWN empire, with a different emperor.

Would palps win? eh maybe. would it destroy all credibility forever and ever amen? yeah. the difference between a 'legally installed emperor' and 'a dictator we must overthrow' is how willing the galaxy is to lick boot, and there's not yet the fear of The Empire black bagging you to keep those tongues going.

so. palpatine can't say shit. palpatine can imply shit, palpatine can get his lackies to say shit. but, crucially, palpatine himself can't say fuck all about the goddamn kenobi lookalike that is now following after organa and wiping his kid's little butts and playing gofer and whatever else.

and what's more believable? bail fucking organa is hiding a traitor, or bail organa and his wife have a situationship with a guy who looks sort of a bit like a former general? the same kind of situationship that like, half the senate has had at one point or another with a guy (or guys) who looked sort of a bit like said ex-general. go to any high level business and/or political building, you'll find half a dozen guys who look vaguely like said hot ex-general, and many of them will have a more or less (often less) accurate coruscanti-ish accent. or will develop one.

(hey, it's a niche. gotta pay the bills somehow, and if you get the job because you dyed your hair and grew a beard, well, you're still using your political science degree, right?)

of course, that only holds for so long, but by that point it's been, y'know, a while. and that looks worse in a different way -- what, kenobi was fucking walking around in front of the whole imperial senate, and none of them noticed? absolutely not, all credibility is gone forever.

which means. that palpatine and the organas are stuck in a full on staring match about this guy who is 100% for sure not kenobi, because -- well. he can't be kenobi. becuase that would look bad. but also. it's kenobi. but also. it can't be kenobi.

(vader takes one look at this guy who looks like his master kenobi and then rolls his eyes, because he has already met aproximately 90,000 people who look vaugely like his master and he got very good at picking out how the newest one was not kenobi his master by the time he was a senior padawan.)

[ealvara7]

Something that has always interested me a lot about Musicaljuice specifically is trying to figure out who or what exactly he is.

Let me try to explain...

In the movie, the rules of the Netherworld imply that everyone who has passed away was once a human at some point in time, Beetlejuice included.

While we still don't know much about Moviejuice's past, we at least have an idea that he is a several-hundred-year-old ghost with demonic powers.

While I would consider Moviejuice to be more of a demon in terms of power, I would definitely consider Toonjuice to be more of a demon overall (as in both power and physicality).

The Neitherworld was designed in a way where while the associations of death are occasionally there, it acts more like an alternate realm of otherworldly creatures rather than a full on realm of the dead. Most likely done to make the show more appropriate for its target audience. This makes Toonjuice feel more like a creature as a result.

And then... there's Musicaljuice - a consolidation of both ideas merged in a way that gets... kind of confusing?

We at least know that in the musical, Beetlejuice has never lived in the past, thanks to The Whole "Being Dead" Thing. That would mean that Musicaljuice is a bit more adjacent to Toonjuice, in this case.

This now just begs the question - What exactly makes a demon in the musical?

From this point onward, I will be getting into more non-canon/theoretical territory-

In the earlier stages of the musical, Juno was originally going to be called "Mrs. Shoggoth". A shoggoth is a fictional monster in the Cthulhu Mythos.

If you follow the idea that Juno and Beetlejuice's last name is always intended to be Shoggoth, and that it implies that they're Loveraftian-like creatures in some way, then this adds a whole new layer of interesting...

Lovecraft's monsters were described as creatures unlike anything a human being has ever seen. Creatures beyond our comprehension. If this is the case, then what does that make the Shoggoths...? Where did they even come from?

I don't think we'll ever know for sure what exactly Beetlejuice is intended to be in the musical, unless... y'know, they decide to expand upon it via some form of post-musical media? Like a cartoon?

Right now, the idea that Beetlejuice and Juno are these strange, unknown beings genuinely intrigues me.

From everything I have found so far, it wouldn't be far fetched to believe that Beetlejuice, the way that we know him, is only a masquerade of his true form.

A strange, unknown creature hiding under a human-like skin.

At least... that is my headcanon.

[talks-with-the-void]

Fluid kintypes - identity doesn't need to be static

I used to be a wolf, once. Not in a past-life sense, but in a therian sense - I was a wolf therian and then I wasn't. Sounds weird to you? I'm not surprised!

Something that I have repeatedly been told by other therians and otherkin is "you are what you are and if you find out you are something else - well, then you never were the first thing at all." Especially when I joined the community several years ago, I saw this statement everywhere. But let me tell you: it's not true. I had several different kintypes over the years (side note: we are plural and for the sake of this post I am simplifying some internal structure things. if you want the complicated details, feel free to ask! /gen), started as a wolf therian, then I was a cryptid, a dinosaur, a dragon and some kind of monster. Now I am Khhanivore (from Love, Death and Robots) and Mewtu (from Pokemon, Mewtu is the German spelling) - and a raptor kintype is coming back. (I am also a werewolf, but that's not a kintype, that's just Purely Me And My Whole Essence)

"Okay Istasha, but isn't that just questioning or maybe flickertypes?", you might ask. Fair point, but no.

I honestly never really questioned my kintypes - if I truly question something, it turns out to either be a hearttype or Nothing at All. As for kintypes, I just know - all of us just know what we are, it's like chilling and one day, suddenly, one of us is like "oh, I am a horse. alright, carry on" and that's it. Our kintypes stay with us for several months at least, theoretically they could stay forever but tend to change along the way - which brings me to the next point. They aren't flickertypes either. We only really get fictionflickers and sometimes animalflickers and those are extremely short and always tied to media we are currently consuming - they feel, technically, like kintypes to me. For example, if I watch a lot of Supernatural, I sometimes get an intense feeling of belonging there, of being a non-canon character, of being part of the story, etc. I am this non-canon character in that moment, I might even get pseudo-memories or shifts, but as soon as I don't engage with that show too much again, it instantly fades.

Our kintypes don't work like that. Take my re-emerging dinosaur kintype as an example. I was walking somewhere a few days ago and suddenly had a pahntom sensation in my legs and feet and in the same moment I knew "ah shit, new kintype". I gave it a day because maaayyybe it's nothing? But deep down I already knew what was going on, so I have an Utahraptor kintype now. I am this. I identify as this through and through and it feels like I've always been this way. But it wasn't - a week ago I wasn't a dinosaur and now I am. I did not choose it, I did not engage with any dinosaur media at all, it just happened.

My kintypes have always been changing and trust me when I say I had a complete identity crisis when my wolf kintype first went away. But over the years Ive learned to accepot it - my identy is not static, it never was and it never will be and that's okay!

It doesn't make my kintypes less important or less real and it also doesn't mean I never was a wolf. I was. And then I wasn't.

I honestly think it is so, so damaging to still have this "kintypes are static"-sentient floating around in the community, because that's simply not true for all of us. For me, it honestly even makes more sense this way. Our brain has always been unstable, I lacked a true identity for so long. We grew up with untreated BPD andf although the symptoms are 95% under my control now (read: it's in remission), our brain still has a ton of habits from that time, like clinging onto different things to try and form an identity, to try and fill the void where a person should be. And the fact that the void is filled now, that I finally am enough of a person to fill it, this habit never changed. Our brain still randomly grabs things and makes them one of us, leading to fluid kintypes.

Let me end this with saying: being wrong about a kintype is fine. Figuring out you are X instaed of Y and never were Y is fine. But it is also fine to be X today and Y tomorrow.

I think I've said this before but I'll say it again: we, as a community, need to take our identities less and more serious at the same time. Let's stop the gatekeeping and policing others, let's stop overanalyzing ourselves so much. Let's stop looking for rules and asking "is it possible to be this?" over and over again - because the answer is yes. There are literally no rules as to how, why and what you can be. In order to be otherkin you need to do exactly one thing: identify as The Thing in question. Nothing else. On the other hand, we need to kindly educate those who confuse identify as and identify with, we need to kindly educate young therians who "choose their theriotypes", we need to make sure we are not watered down to being "a fun thing you can do".

I sometimes feel like the focus and effort of this community is in good faith but in the wrong place - static kintypes is one of them.

There are no limits. Be who you are today and if you are something else tomorrow, be that then. <3

[yinyuedijun]

KITCHEN | excerpt

1.7k word snippet of a sakura/fem!reader/suo fic, which is a prequel to sincerity! I'm only posting this excerpt because it's context for the deranged suo fic I'm about to post on sunday. if u choose to read I hope u enjoy <3

tags for this scene: hurt/comfort, non-explicit references to physical abuse experienced by reader and child neglect experienced by sakura. set post-canon – everyone is 18-19 years old. thank you to @/cafekitsune for the divider!

Sakura had always found your relationship with Suo strange. It's unsettling for him to witness, and sometimes he feels like he'd rather not see it at all.

It isn't as if Sakura dislikes either of you (even though Suo routinely lies to him for no reason), and it isn't as if he finds you individually uncomfortable to be around. It's just that whenever you're together—and you're almost always together on their days off—Sakura finds the two of you embarrassing.

You're just so damn touchy around each other.

Sakura swears that every other couple he's seen is less openly intimate than the two of you, though theoretically you're only friends. Theoretically. In reality, anyone with eyes would doubt that. Every time Sakura glances at the two of you, you're holding onto Suo by the arm as you lean in to tell him to some private joke, or you're swatting Suo’s hand away from your face as he teases you relentlessly, or Suo’s got a hand on your lower back as he guides you around the latest poor fucker who was stupid enough to harass you—usually knocked out cold, on the ground, courtesy of said martial artist.

All this touching is already bad enough, but coupled with Suo’s habit of flirting with you for fun—an activity that he seems to treat as a bloodsport—Sakura’s about ready to run every time he has to suffer being in the same room with the two of you.

(He once did try to sneak out the backdoor of Pothos after seeing Suo wipe a crumb away from the corner of your mouth, his thumb gliding fully, sensually, and unnecessarily along your bottom lip. Tragically, Sakura was spotted by Tsugeura, who dragged him back to the table and proceeded to broadcast his embarrassment to the entire cafe. Ah—so it's one of Sakura's virtues to be private about displays of affection! he’d proclaimed.

Suo then turned to you and said, with a smile so sly that it made Sakura want to crawl underneath the table, I guess I'm not a very virtuous man around you, to which you breezily shot back, Are you virtuous around anyone? But from your expression, Sakura could tell you wanted to hide under the table too.)

He can’t wrap his mind around it, actually—how often the two of you touch each other. The affection that each movement holds. He can't imagine someone putting their hands on him the way that you put your hands on Suo. For Sakura, being touched usually entails getting punched in the jaw or kicked in the face, or having his back slapped in laughter by Umemiya, or carrying Granny on his back when she doesn't feel like walking. But all of that feels different from the ways in which you touch Suo, and the ways in which Suo touches you. Or at least Sakura guesses it feels different—he wouldn't actually know himself.

But he can think of one memory where he knows for sure it was.

It happened several months back, maybe even a year ago now. It was, for sure, before you turned eighteen. It was a quiet night, and he and Nirei were on patrol, and it was so fucking humid that if it weren't for his duties, he'd have left his uniform at home. But the symbol of the Furin jacket was too important to give up, so he suffered with it on.

The two of them ran into you while they were passing through his neighbourhood—what a funny coincidence! you said. Nirei greeted you with a smile, but stopped abruptly when he noticed you were limping. Sakura paused as well. You’re generally not clumsy to injure yourself so severely, and Suo instinctively protects you from all other threats of physical harm. It's hardwired into him in the way that it is for a human being to breathe air. But there you were, with a noticeable limp and nasty discolouration on your cheek.

“Whoa,” Sakura blurted out, “what happened to your face?”

Nirei winced. “Sakura,” he scolded, “try to be a little more tactful, won't you?” And this would normally be the kind of interaction between them that would make you laugh, but you only looked down at your ankle. Sakura wondered if it was broken or sprained. He couldn't easily tell because it was covered, and he noticed then that for some reason, you were wearing jeans—a crazy decision, given the heat.

“No, it's fine,” you eventually replied. “I was sparring with Suo, and I lost pretty badly.” You smiled at them, and it was surprisingly convincing. “I'm super out of practice, you know. Our master would be so disappointed in me.”

Sakura turned to Suo, mouth agape. He couldn't imagine a world in which Suo lacked enough control in a fight to seriously hurt his opponent without intending it—and he’d never intend to hurt you. “For real?”

Suo looked at him for a moment, neither smiling nor nodding, then looked away.

“Sakura,” he said, “do you have a compress and bandages at home? The convenience store is closed, and so’s the pharmacy. I've got some at home, but it's pretty far, and she's in a lot of pain.”

Sakura's place was at the time barren and lacking in most of the essentials for human life, but he did have an endless supply of ice, compresses, and bandages. So the four of you went up to his apartment—Nirei and Suo supporting you as you hobbled up the stairs—where they then dealt with your injuries. Nirei searched furiously for potential diagnoses for your ankle (probably a sprain) and looked up the symptoms of a concussion (you likely didn't have one), while Sakura pushed a bottle of water and numerous painkillers into your hands. He squinted at your injuries, trying to imagine which movements Suo must have used to hurt you like that.

Suo, himself, gave attention to nothing but you. He didn't respond to Nirei who kept on fretting that you should go to a hospital, nor to Sakura who said multiple times that you should change into shorts—because if you sprained your ankle, then you should probably check the rest of your leg for injuries too. He didn't even react when Sakura said your story sounded like bullshit, or when Nirei quietly asked if this was something that Bofurin could help with.

It was like the two of them weren't even there. Like the entire world was irrelevant to Suo other than you.

Sakura studied him closely, trying to suss out hints for whatever happened. He watched as Suo held an ice pack to the bruise on your face, as his fingers ghosted over your other cheek. You didn't swat his hand away, for once. Then he asked you quietly where else you were hurt, and you whispered something into his ear, as if you were telling him one of your inside jokes. But Suo grimaced instead of laughing, and Sakura thought to himself that he'd never seen Suo look so bleak before. Nor so angry.

And when Suo knelt down to wrap a compress around your ankle, telling you that things would be okay as you wiped tears from your eyes, the thought struck Sakura that Suo never acted like this when he patched up his injuries. Nor Nirei’s. Nor Kiryu’s, or Sugishita's, or Tsugeura’s.

Suo handled you in a way that he had never handled anyone else, and also in a way that Sakura would probably not have known how to do for you. Sakura had only sprained his ankle once in his life, back when he was a kid and lost constantly in fights. No one asked him where it hurt, and no one applied a compress to his injury, and he didn't cry at the time because he knew that no one would hold his face and tell him it was okay. So until that moment, Sakura had had no fucking clue you were supposed to do any of those things for an injured person. Even with the guys in Bofurin, all he ever did was throw them a compress and an ice pack before grousing at them: If you're gonna pick a fight you can't win, at least call us first.

Not exactly words to offer to someone who was crying like you were.

So Sakura did nothing, knowing that he couldn't help. You were so fragile, and Sakura was shit at handling fragile things. But Suo was good at it, so Sakura let him take care of you, and Nirei did too, relenting in his questions. He only offered to call a cab—not to take you to the hospital, but over to Suo’s.

Suo gratefully accepted.

Nirei hung back afterwards, and the two of them talked about useless crap for a little bit before Nirei finally bit the bullet.

“Did they say where they had come from, before Suo brought her here?” he asked.

“No,” Sakura replied. “Why?”

Sakura wasn't stupid. He knew very well the kind of injuries that Suo left in a sparring match, and he knew even better all the signs of an actual beating. He knew there weren't many things that Bofurin couldn't help with, in a town like Makochi. Still, he asked, and he let Nirei answer—because he didn’t want to be the one to voice it, and because he wanted to be wrong. But if Nirei said it, then it must be true, and they would have no choice but to face it.

“I'm just trying to figure out,” he said quietly, “if it was her boyfriend or her parents who’ve been hitting her.”

“Her parents,” Sakura stated, because he also knew very well the signs of a shit home life.

He’s never heard from you or Suo exactly what happened, but he's pretty sure he guessed right. You never went home after that. You started living with Suo and his master, which you constantly reminded Suo would be a temporary arrangement, and which Suo constantly reminded you could easily be made permanent. You ignored him and dropped out of school anyway. Found a job in the red light district. Started eyeing the empty apartment next to Sakura’s, asked him numerous times about rent and utilities. Sakura didn't like answering you—said over and over that it would be better for you to stay with Suo—but he told you everything anyway. He understood why you had to find your own place. He understood it because he had to do it too.

After you turned eighteen, you started making money as a hostess and moved in next door.

I hope this wasn't too weird to read out of context rip. anyway. yakuza au sequel coming up on sunday hopefully LOL

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Do you think Azul and the Tweels have a longer/shorter lifespan than others since they’re seafolk?

While it's not totally clear how aging works for a half human-half fae like Sebek, I'm pretty certain that all full-blooded non-fae have the same general lifespan as a human. I think the expectation that merpeople in particular (but not beastmen or humans) have extended lifespans comes more from lore outside of Twisted Wonderland rather than pointing to any actual in-universe logic that would imply it. It's an idea I often see in fan works of the angst variety--but I in no way think it's canon. Remember, just because it's the fact in one interpretation of mythos doesn't mean it's true of another interpretation of mythos!

There's two big pieces of evidence that merpeople in TWST age the same as humans. For one, all the flashbacks we get pertaining to the Octatrio's childhood (which theoretically should have been "a long time ago", not a handful of years ago) doesn't imply that a large period of time has passed. There are no major attitude or cultural shifts in the world around them. They also all seemingly matured at roughly the same rate, which is not the case for fae. Malleus, for example, is still considered "a baby", but we've never heard the merfolk characters be referred to or treated in this sense of "still being babies" since they're all 17. The Octatrio also does not act in ways which would show us they’re “out of touch” with time, unlike Malleus (who struggles with technology and being punctual), or Lilia (who expresses surprise at how much countries have changed and has worldly wisdom from his long life).

The other piece of evidence is book 6, part 82. Following the events at Styx HQ, the students all have a tearful reunion at NRC. Malleus also restores an aged Vil (his life force had been drained by Tartarus) to his previous youth. After this, Malleus expresses confusion at how "humans" like Vil can wither and fade in less than a century. 100 years seems like the blink of an eye to a long-lived creature like him. Lilia then informs his prince, "It's true. Human lives are as ethereal as silk thread on a spinning wheel—and just as easily cut short. But their fragility can be a boon. Interweaving and layering those threads creates the strong, resilient tapestry of their history. Such is the creature called man—neighbor to we creatures of the night." What's important here are the characters that fade in and out on the screen as Lilia speaks these lines:

That's right, even though Lilia's dialogue uses terms like "humans" and "creature called man" while referring to them having short lives, beastmen, whatever the heck Grim is, AND merpeople characters are included in the visuals of the scene. To me, this means that all nonfae have roughly the same life expectancy and that fae are the only major exception to this. There's other circumstantial evidence that supports this as well; Sebek calls all nonfae "humans", Malleus refers to groups of nonfae as "children of man", etc. I think it would also just feel weirdly dissonant if like half the races we know of (merfolk, fae) have long lifespans and not just the one (fae). It works better narratively to single out the fae as being abnormal. Not only would that make sense historically (because it partly explains why others feared fae specifically and why fae get othered), but it would also heighten the drama for book 7, which features Malleus wanting to stop the flow of time. What is added here if merpeople also have extended life spans? Nothing is; I'd actually say it might distract from fae having the spotlight this book.

[ryuichirou]

Why is Ortho included in ship art? He died as a child, and although he was rebuilt, his emotional intelligence and maturity level stayed the same as that of a child. Although I fully disagree, I do want to understand your reasoning. Especially since Ortho and Idia are related and I saw your art of them kissing. I am genuinely confused.

I’ll be honest, Anon: the amount of people who message us pretending to be genuinely confused while having ill intentions are more than I care to admit, and this is very tiring; this is why I might sound a little dry in my reply. But I don’t mind explaining it if you genuinely want to understand it. That being said, let this be the last time I am ranting about this topic because there is nothing new I can say.

Here is the short answer: Ortho is included in ship art because we ship him with other characters. Ortho having a maturity level, mentality and/or intelligence of a child is a myth that contradicts canon and only exists to antagonise people who view Ortho as anything other than Idia’s baby mascot with zero agency. The fact that Idia and Ortho are related is not a reason not to ship them: shipping is fictional and doesn’t reflect one’s views on irl matters. Exploring taboo and problematic dynamics and tropes in fiction is a part of natural human experience. What I care most about in shipping is characters’ dynamic that I find fun for shipping. Their relation to each other comes second, but I won’t pretend it doesn’t exist if it does exist.

Now I’ll give you a long answer. Starting with “Ortho is a child/8-year-old/5-year-old/toddler” argument.

We actually saw real 8 yo Ortho before his death in Idia’s flashback and, wow, we can see that AI!Ortho and flashback!Ortho aren’t the same Ortho. "My largest amount of birthday data comes from eleven years ago, when I was five” is the line that Ortho says in one of his Birthday vignettes, which indicates that even though he does have memories of dead!Ortho, he is not stuck in the age of 8 – he thinks and feels that his fifth birthday happened eleven years ago.

But also just in general, if you listen to him talk and compare it to how he talked in Idia’s flashback (both the voice and the manner of speech), it becomes pretty clear that he is older. He is younger-looking and has a high-pitched voice but it’s due to the fact that Idia designed him to look that way, and there are a lot of potential reasons why he could’ve done it (all non-canon and theoretical, so we won’t dive into them today), but he is definitely not 8 years old. Ortho’s AI constantly learns new information, learns more about being a human – he is clearly maturing as the story goes, thus showing that he is in fact capable of aging mentally, and he’s been doing it from the moment Idia first created him. He is naive and inexperienced, but that doesn’t make him an infant.

Plus, post ch.6 he is always being grouped with other freshmen who are also sixteen years old. This is his age group. This is how old Ortho would’ve been if he was still alive, and this is how old AI!Ortho feels. He’s a proper first year student just like Ace, Deuce and the rest of the boys, and the story keeps highlighting it in all the events that happened post ch.6.

Speaking of post ch.6. At the end of the story AI!Ortho and real/blot!Ortho actually merged a little, as far as you can remember. Blot!Ortho, wow, is also 16. He’s been stuck in the Underworld since he was 8 and he existed all those years and grew up as well despite his terrible situation and more than unusual company, so we can safely assume his age. His merging with AI!Ortho also influenced him (AI!Ortho) in a way, making him more human as a result as well.

Not to sound mean, but I think the majority of people who still insist that Ortho is mentally 8 either don’t pay attention to his character, his story and how he interacts with others at all, or straight-up choose to believe that lie because it makes it easier to attack shippers or anyone who likes Ortho in general.

But also guess what, none of that matters actually because ultimately he is a fictional boy, and fictional characters’ ages are irrelevant. Just like fictional characters’ family relations are irrelevant. Even if you don’t think it’s right, that doesn’t change the fact that it is irrelevant, and the only thing that could be done about it is that you can block people and/or tags that make you upset. There is no shame about it: I avoid a lot of ships and tropes that make me upset.

I would prefer people to stop accusing me, a real person, of actual vile crimes (or having dark thoughts about them? What the fuck is wrong with you?) because of fictional, made-up things. If I want to, I can unrelate Ortho and Idia, and my fanart would stop being incestuous with a snap of my fingers. I can make them enemies, I can make them kill each other over and over again, I can kill Idia instead of Ortho. I say this to show how little it matters, and no, ~the implications~ don’t count. People make them up and choose to believe that instead of listening to the person in question. About a real person, let me repeat myself. You (plural/neutral you, not you, Anon) cannot make shit up about another person’s thoughts, ideas, and views just because you find it convenient.

As for why I personally ship Ortho with Idia despite them being siblings, you’re in luck because in addition to this already long post I have an even longer post for you to read if you’re interested! It’s been more than a year since I’ve written that post my reasoning is still pretty much the same, so I think it’s a pretty good one to read if you genuinely want to understand us better.

But if you don’t want to read another long post but are still interested, here is a TL;DR:

I love their deep love for each other and don’t want to just explore the platonic aspect of it – there are a lot of other scenarios that I want to play with;

there are a lot of tropes related to this ship that we love (us two against the world; AI in love; causing an apocalypse for the sake of your loved one; unhealthy and codependent relationship; obsession, etc);

their story has a lot of motifs that could be read as romantic (i.e. Orpheus and Eurydice analogy) that we really enjoy;

personal reasons; relatability (not elaborating on that; not related to incest though lol);

they’re sexy lol I love robot parts, size difference and a lot of other aspects that I won’t mention here.

I hope that explained some stuff. Just to be clear: I don’t want to force anyone ship Shroudcest, in fact I don’t care if we are the only people in the world shipping them (that will never be the case though lol). I just love Ortho very much, and I think he is a very fun character that has a lot to offer, and I really don’t like that people want to create this aura of “he’s just baby don’t touch him” that stops people for getting to know his character better. He is cunning, he is smart, he is caring, he is psychopathic, he is a lot of things, and all of those things make me want to see him bossing Idia around, acting cute around Vil, bonding with Malleus over their differences and similarities, all of those things.

[physalian]

Fanfiction is valid form of literature and deserves respect because:

Corporate meddling often takes long-running series and runs them into the ground to squeegee out as much money as possible, ruining characters, relationships, lore, and magic systems that fix-it fics repair

Just because it is provided for free and by unpaid writers who slave away tens of hours of their lives trying to entertain people, doesn’t make the content that can come from it any less powerful

Fanfic is the place to go for under-represented themes, tropes, and characters in the outdated or unwilling canon

Fanfic is the place to go for fixing problematic plot decisions and characterizations that did not age well

Fanfic is the place to go when the real author becomes a TERF feminazi and the poster child of “death of the author”

Many fics are longer than published works and can do that because they’re entirely digital, bound to no printing limitations, and update per-chapter, as opposed to per-novel, often written without and endpoint in mind

Fanfic is a safe space to explore identities that the canon pretends doesn’t exist, like queer characters and non-monogamous relationships, as well as (theoretically) a safe space to share and explore kinks and have your very own Gay Awakening

Fanfic is bound to no rules of the publishing industry and explores new ways of written works like chat/text fics and drabbles and unconventional forms of narrative layout

Fanfic is also not written by committe or dictated by editors and publishing houses telling you what you can and can't include in your story

Fanfic is a springboard for many original authors

It’s a celebration of canonical works and should be welcomed by all creators of those works, not panned and litigated against when, again, it’s free and earns its writers no money

Fanfic, by its repetitive and familiar nature of throwing known characters and elements into a new situation is less intimidating than an entire bookstore of uncertainty, and still encourages people to read when they otherwise might not

Fanfic’s approachability is helpful to people with neurodivergence, as comforting to fic readers as bargain bin bad movies are to everyone else, or watching reruns of the same 90s sitcom that might not be any better written

Fanfic fosters a community of like-minded people that you might not otherwise find due to geographical location, social status, economic status, or for people who are unable to enter physical public spaces due to disability or anxieties

Big books are expensive and heavy and demand investment when a bad or boring fic does not, and there’s plenty else to fill the fanfic void where a bad book just makes you feel duped for buying it

It’s no more toxic a community than any other hyper-insulated realm of fandom like professional sports, toy/comic book/action figure collecting, LARPing/D&D, or videogaming, and has this reputation because it’s predominantly enjoyed by women and young girls (the terrible scourge that we are)

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

Do Timelord’s have their own curse words?

Do Time Lords have their own curse words?

Gallifreyan society has a lot of slang and common phrases, and we'll focus on the ruder ones here - y'know, the ones you probably don't want to use in front of your Gallifreyan grandma.

There aren't so many 'direct' translations of swear words, but rather phrases and slang more attached to their culture.

The conlang can offer more, and also provide translations for these (mostly English) phrases, but we'll just look at these canonical ones for now.

🤬 List of Swears

D'Arvit: Unspecified curse word, might be something like "dammit!"

Fall off!: Possibly equivalent to "get lost" or "f--k off".

For Rassilon's sake!: Similar to "for God's/f--k's sake".

Gjara'vont: "of darkest thought". Possibly used as an insult to call someone sick-minded.

Little sheetsnacker: Likely directed at someone considered annoying or insignificant.

Old Pythia: An insult for females, like "old hag." Due to its context, it's probably used as a derogatory term against powerful women.

Omega’s Orifice: Self-explanatory.

Otherf--ker: Self-explanatory.

Rassilon’s Blood/Rassilon's Death: A couple of particularly strong phrases for obvious reasons - don't wanna be insulting Rassilon.

Rassilon's Rod: Cruder one.

Scares the staazula out of me: "Scares the s--t out of me".

Shobogan: Gets used occasionally as an insult for people who are perceived as particularly stupid or uncultured.

Rot in a black star: "Go to hell".

Shell snacker: Referring to someone who consumes hallucinogenic substances, particularly cerub nuts.

Sweet mother of Chaos!: "Sweet mother of God!"

We’re scrubbed: "we're screwed/we're f--ked"

What the Omega!?: "what the hell/f--k!?"

Yssgaroth curse you: Pretty gnarly threat, where the speaker wants you to turn into an abomination.

I should note that during the Time War any use of the names Rassilon or Omega was considered blasphemous.

🔞 The Untranslatable Curse

There exists a Gallifreyan curse that has no English translation and is considered so rude that it's been deleted from the Matrix:

🏫 So ...

While there's not so much in the way of direct translations, Gallifreyans attach plenty of cultural nuance to their profanities. So if they insult you, they're doing it in an irritatingly clever way.

Related:

Can humans/non-Gallifreyans learn to speak Gallifreyan?: How possible it would be to see a human speaking Gallifreyan.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired😴

[localcuttlefish]

A Theoretical Lore Bible of Caesar’s Legion as a Nation

Hello good citizens of Tumblr! I’ve been on a Fallout: New Vegas kick lately, and I recently graduated college with a bachelors degree (major illustration, minor history of art and western civilization). So now that I’m certified to draw dick AND talk about Ancient Rome, I have things to yap about.

Have you ever looked at Caesar’s Legion and wondered how the more intricate aspects of their society model after the Roman Empire? Because I have! And because of those very musings, I have come up with a little dumb idiot theoretical lore Bible on how The Legion might function as a more developed nation, using my back knowledge of western civ and Roman art and culture. Nomenclature, societal structure, industries, imports and exports, the whole nine yards!

DISCLAIMERS: I have not looked through the writers’/directors’ social media accounts thoroughly enough yet to confirm if any of the information I’m bringing to the table is already solidly canonical or solidly non-canonical in the lore of Fallout: New Vegas. There is a nonzero chance I may say something that someone in charge has already said, or something that’s already been disproven or denied. If you catch something I don’t, let me know! I like worldbuilding for fun like this, and I want to keep everything as lore-cohesive as possible to challenge myself. I’ll come back to edit this every now and then if I come up with more cohesive lore pieces, or if you guys have any suggestions that would tie in the lore better. In addition, Caesar’s Legion is an inherently totalitarian nation that supports itself on some pretty sexist and bigoted social structures. There is no universe in which I support, condone, or otherwise encourage any of the ideologies of Caesar’s Legion in real life. Don’t become a tyrant dictator of a military slave nation, kids!

CONTENT WARNINGS: Discussion of slavery, sexism, physical and verbal violence, unsafe medical practices, brainwashing/psychological abuse, and death.

Without further ado, the absolute wall of text that is the theoretical lore Bible of Caesar’s Legion. Enjoyyyyy!!

CHAPTERS:

I: Citizenship

- How To Become a Citizen

- Social Castes

- Names

II: Everyday Life

- Common Social Customs

- Household Structure

- Settlement/Town Structure

- Clothing, Hair, and Accessories

- Languages

III: Industry

- Jobs

- Imports and Exports

IV: Politics, Education, and Religion

- What Senate?

- In The Unlikely Event of a Transfer of Power

- Common Political Beliefs

- Male vs Female Education Standards

Walk and talk with me about the ways The Legion mirrors, juxtaposes, and takes inspiration from Ancient Roman society in a post-apocalyptic setting.

The first time I encountered Caesar’s Legion in game, my initial thought was “What about the American West makes these people think this is the perfect spot to reinvent Italy?” it’s a barren, land-locked desert with only one or two significant water access points. Italy is a peninsula in a temperate climate with high mountain ranges and verdant forests. Most of this was a jokey thought, but then it struck me that a phalanx would actually be an insanely powerful force in a flat landscape. It all started coming together from there in a most dreadful shape

I: Citizenship

- How to Become a Citizen

Caesar’s Legion is a colonialist nation. They gain land through conquest, typically, and have a tendency to try and homogenize the culture to their liking. Generally speaking, after a town has been conquered, people who willingly surrender or submit to The Legion are given an opportunity for citizenship. Any survivors of conquest that aren’t willing to surrender are either executed or sold into slavery. Slaves are not considered citizens, because the rights and freedoms of a slave do not reflect the rights and freedoms that The Legion offers to those who can be put to better use or are complacent with the mission of The Legion.

Once one is offered a chance for citizenship, the highest ranking general in whatever battalion just took over that person’s land will evaluate if the person can be put to work, put on the battlefield, or is generally useless. Remember, an offer isn’t a guarantee. There is a chance someone who is offered citizenship may be evaluated as useless and sold into slavery regardless of their complacency. Protesting the verdict typically increases the chance of spontaneously being executed, or, if one doesn’t like their proposed role of worker or soldier, being demoted from potential citizen to slave.

If the general regards one as fit to work or fit for the battlefield, these “half-citizens” (media populi for plural, and media persona for singular) will be assigned a new legal name after a record of all new media populi is sent from the general to the regional Vilicus (overseer ;) we’ll elaborate more on this in chapter II), and given the task of minimum 400 hours of what we would understand as “community service” before the Vilicus confirms their citizenship. This “community service” is called pentimento, or repentance. It’s a form of brainwashing in which The Legion is in a position to repeatedly reaffirm that the media persona has more value here helping The Legion than they ever did as a free settler in New Vegas before, and instills dynamics that empower and encourage violence against people of “lower status” (slaves and women, usually). Kinda like a Stanford Prison Experiment that’s purposely designed to cause power dynamics instead of accidentally stumbling to the conclusion. Pentimento may include anything from helping re-pave and clear trade routes in Legion territory, to catching runaway slaves. Each media persona is given a number of tasks to complete per month, and each failed task results in more hours being added onto the total pentimento before citizenship is granted. The number of initial hours of pentimento a media persona needs to do may vary depending on the whims of the Vilicus, how much they resisted Legion control in the past, how many tasks of pentimento they leave incomplete per month, and whether they are masculine or feminine presenting, but is never less than 400 to start. Most media populi end up with starting numbers in the 600s or 700s.

Once the pentimento hours are complete and approved by the Vilicus, the media persona becomes a citizen and is expected to continue the service to the growing empire through either the trade they work in, or through service in the army. However, there is a several-month-long window of time in which spies occasionally visit the new citizens’ homes to monitor them for suspicious activity. In this window of time, spies may be looking for signs that indicate the new citizen is an agent from a rival faction sent to infiltrate The Legion. Only high-ranking officials know about this window. One can lose their citizenship and be returned back to status of media persona if they show suspicious behavior during this time, or worse, be demoted from citizen to slave. In cases where there is undeniable evidence that a new citizen is an agent for a rival faction, the citizen is immediately put to death, and their citizenship is revoked (though revoking the citizenship of someone being put to death is a little redundant).

A baby born into a family of two Legion citizens is automatically also a citizen, and must be given a name in line with Legion naming conventions (which will be discussed next segment). A baby born into a family in which the mother is not a citizen and the father is a citizen will also be considered a citizen. A baby born into a family in which the mother is a citizen and the father is not a citizen will not be considered a citizen at birth. A baby born to a family of two media populi or two slaves will not be considered a citizen at birth.

A person who willingly enters Legion territory and requests citizenship will follow the same steps as how a person from a conquered land would be evaluated for citizenship.

- Social Castes

Social Castes in Caesar’s Legion are determined by how useful one is to the empire, and whether one is male or female. The more sexist aspects of the caste system stem from the fact that women in The Legion can’t serve in the military, and the military is a notably higher status than most other castes since Caesar’s Legion is a military state.

Of course, Caesar is the highest on the social pyramid, followed by his chosen officials (take Lanius for example), then chosen guards (praetorian guard). The military comes next, with the social hierarchy of the military following that which was established in the Roman Empire in the early establishment of Caligula’s reign. After that, religious officials (which act as pseudo-indoctrinators into The Legion, and therefore are pretty essential to brainwashing the next generation of Legionnaires). Then, the Vilici, the overseers of each region/settlement. Next, the average male citizen and then, the average female citizen. Media populi come next, and following that social caste is performers (which serve very little purpose in the eyes of Caesar and the goal of conquest), with male performers having marginally more respect among the populous than female performers. Second to last is slaves, once again with males being just a little more respected than females, but what does that matter when both are going to be abused by the upper castes anyways. At the very bottom of the social ladder is outsiders and criminals, which need to be broken before earning even a sliver of humanity in the eyes of The Legion.

Caesar > Chosen Officials > Chosen Guard > Military (with sub-hierarchy of Ancient Roman military) > Religious Officials > Vilici > Average Citizen > Media Populi > Performers > Slaves > Outsiders and Criminals

- Names

The average citizen in Legion territory wouldn’t need to immediately use their new assigned name (since there’s not enough force immediately available to actually push that, the nation is still growing), but The Legion will give them a “legal” name that they’ll be addressed by formally, and in the best case scenario, the original name will be effectively waned out because it simply doesn’t matter in comparison to the new one.

A praenomen acts effectively as a first name one uses around close friends and family, while a nomen (while acting as a last name) becomes what one is more commonly known by in public. The average citizen will usually have a nomen at least, and a male citizen will have a praenomen and nomen.

- MASCULINE: A classical Latin praenomen will be assigned equivalent to the meaning or phonetics of the new citizen’s first name. The nomen will be determined based on either phonetic/meaning equivalent of the last name, or based on the new citizen’s occupation.

- FEMININE: No praenomen will be assigned. The citizen’s title will be a feminized variation of their father’s nomen, differentiated in generation by number nomenclature (Major, Minor, Tertia, etc). If they have no father, they will assume the feminized nomen of a living male partner that is already a Legion citizen. If they have no living Legion family, they will be assigned the name “Romana” and likely be either sold into slavery or auctioned to a bachelor to gain a proper nomen.

For example: Marcus Gaius has two daughters. The eldest daughter is Gaia Major. The youngest daughter is Gaia Minor. Gaia Minor meets Decimus Junius, and they get married. Now Gaia Minor is named Junia. Gaia Major remains unchanged.

Legion soldiers have more dignity in society, and therefore have all the previous conventions, plus a cognomen. Since all Legion soldiers are masculine, differentiation between masc and fem naming conventions is irrelevant from this point forward. The nomen of a soldier may be akin to the structure of how an average citizen’s would be given, or if the soldier shows exceptional prestige and has no remaining male family, a nomen referencing warfare or combat will be assigned to them (Marcus, Augustus, Drusus, etc.).

A Legion cognomen acts effectively as a Roman military callsign. Cognomens follow classical Roman conventions. The cognomen will be used most frequently in a military setting.

II: Everyday Life

- Common Social Customs

Many Roman social customs are adopted into Legion life. For example, the entertainment at the colosseum is mimicked in the tourneys in the various arenas scattered throughout Legion territory. However, because of the key difference in that The Legion isn’t even pretending not to be a totalitarian dictatorship, there are a number of drastic differences between Roman social customs and Legion social customs.

Because of how respected the military is in Legion society, it is commonplace to show soldiers with utmost reverence. It’s customary to allow soldiers to stay in a citizen’s place of residence if the soldier requests it, and it’s customary to refer to the soldier by their military rank, not their nomen or cognomen (especially if the soldier in question is on duty). It’s considered rude or inappropriate to question the motives of a soldier, or prevent a soldier from accessing areas of a citizen’s property. Such transgressions can potentially be met with violence.

One may frequently see slaves struggling to keep up with workloads. It’s taboo, but not punishable to help them, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the productivity of one’s own work. After all, The Legion gains nothing from incomplete work. If helping a slave means increasing efficiency, then it’s appropriate, but a citizen may get strange looks from others for doing so.

Utilitarianism is the ideal philosophy under which everyone should function in an ideal Legion society, but this is clearly not the case nor the environment to foster it. Social norms are based strongly on class, and in most cases, selfishness prevails because selflessness can be seen as weak (or worse, suspicious) by trigger-happy soldiers and spies.

But hey, at least sex isn’t considered a super taboo topic or activity in Legion society. Got that much going for them. Granted, it’s seen more like a conquest, but at least it’s not seen as a sin. Woohoo? Lets go? Kinda? One step forward two steps back.

- Household Structure

A household in Legion territory for a citizen of average means will likely be similar to any other household in New Vegas (with the addition of slaves in wealthier households). Where things start to get confusing is the aforementioned situation of soldiers being allowed to invade households at will. Psychologically, these soldiers are deprived of a lot of comforts the average citizen may have. There is a decidedly nonzero chance that soldiers can show up like stray cats and keep coming back in the event that a citizen is interesting enough to them. Soldiers sometimes “claim” houses or small patches of territory they frequent as a substitute for the emotional interaction they lack. Humans are social creatures. The soldiers might not know why they want to keep coming back, but they do keep coming back. Parasocial.

Generally, a woman’s domain is the household in Legion territory. While the society is by no means matriarchal, it’s customary for a woman to maintain control over most happenings within a household. This often means a woman will need to interact with stray soldiers more frequently. Among female citizens in Legion territory, these soldiers are called catuli (singular catulus) for their presence and tendencies, though this is always in secret due to the harsh punishment of misrepresenting a soldier’s status to his face. A household can sometimes have up to three catuli claim it before fights start to break out among them about perceived territory.

It is expected for a couple in a household to have children. Cultivating multiple generations of soldiers is part of how The Legion grows most efficiently, because children are impressionable enough to instill Legion values without struggle. If a household does not have a child after several years of partnership, it is considered suspicious and the male of the partnership is encouraged to be unfaithful or open the relationship. While there are no consequences for not having children, there is intense pressure to do so.

- Settlement/Town Structure

As mentioned before, the equivalent of a mayor in each region is called a Vilicus, or an overseer. The Vilicus is responsible for tallying the census, assigning names to media populi, approving the pentimento of media populi, keeping track of production rates of resources from citizens, keeping a lookout for disease outbreak so a region can be quarantined if needed, and monitoring the citizens in each region for minor suspicious activity to report to those higher in status. Each town is also occupied by a heavy military presence, to intimidate citizens into productivity and complacency.

Most of the time, Legion towns are made of the previously conquered settlements now added to Legion territories. Building more houses is an avoidable expenditure if they just repurpose the structures already there with a few modifications. Despite the multiple depictions in-game of Caesar’s Legion showing little to no care about what damage they cause, it would make sense that the depictions in the gameplay are actually the outliers in the situation, since it’s far more efficient to leave the settlements intact and just gut and reconfigure the purpose.

There are also multitudes of mobile scout settlements, mostly made of fabric, tarp, and hide tents that can be easily condensed and moved in the event that the camp is compromised. In many cases, these camps are set up as a base to return to in order to stage an invasion of new territories. If possible, The Legion sets them up close to large landmasses like plateaus or mountains for additional cover in the event of an ambush. If that’s not available, The Legion makes settlements like this close to preexisting towns in order to make the wordless threat of “push us back, and innocents die”. Generally, very few citizens are taken on these excursions, but if the plan is to stay out longer, citizens who are medics may be involuntarily drafted into going with the scout team.

- Clothing, Hair, and Accessories

The Legion isn’t a necessarily materialistic society that allows a lot of room for personal expression. Since the goal is to create a homogenous society and culture, self expression through visual cues is often muted at best and absent at normal. Makeup, perfumes, and hair styling products are prohibited if they have any synthetic qualities or materials. In many cases, beauty products are exclusively reserved for performers, and even still, only natural pigments and materials would be permitted. Think the same pigments Ancient Egyptians would make for their makeup.

Protective updo hairstyles are common for long hair, both for practical purposes and for purposes of keeping hair out of reach and harder to pull. Efficiency is key, so in the event of a raid or a threat, everyone is expected to be able to hold their own to some extent. Part of that standard is remaining on guard, so keeping hair up while out of the house is customary.

In the military, hair is expected to be cut short, again, for efficiency. Any soldiers with long hair are expected to keep it in tight braids or cornrows to maintain the same level of efficiency. As long as it stays out of the face.

Most clothing is dull, salvaged from the wastelands. The only exception is clothing reserved for high ranking officials and Caesar, which is quite literally dyed in blood of enemies. Because blood fades to a blackish-red hue over time, high ranking officials will often appear to be wearing darker colors, when in actuality they’re wearing clothes that were soaked in blood as a symbol of power and debt paid to the gods (namely Mars).

Widows are permitted to wear part of their fallen husband’s bloodsoaked clothes through the mourning process, if The Legion can recover and identity the body. With this in mind, as soon as the widow finds a new husband, the bloodsoaked garment piece is burned.

Slaves are deprived of all aspects of individuality, given rags or scraps to wear and marked with red paint. A citizen may give finer clothes to a slave voluntarily, but those clothes must also be marked with red paint.

Jewelry, while rare, is often made of scrap metal salvaged and re-forged from battlefields or old weapons without any further use. Which is why jewelry is so rare. There is seldom ever an instance in which metal can’t become a weapon, so making jewelry is a waste of time and energy.

- Languages

Basically any language can be spoken in Legion territory as it stands, because as The Legion is currently, it doesn’t have enough power or force to totally instill a whole new language system. With that in mind, the groundwork is being laid for an eventual push to make Latin the official language of Caesar’s Legion. Between the commonly used Latin terminology to address people and the Roman theming of The Legion, it’s primed to eventually enforce Latin as the primary language. Highly educated citizens may be fluent in Latin, and most soldiers know commands and codes in Latin.

III: Industry

- Jobs

There are two types of jobs in The Legion, excluding military and slavery. One can either be a worker or a performer. Medics and nurses are highly valued, both on the battlefield and off, since chemical substances are prohibited in The Legion. Carpenters, metalworkers and blacksmiths, engineers, and tanners are some of the more important standard worker jobs, since all of them play directly into expanding the empire more efficiently, making more weapons and armor, or repurposing old material to make new. Tailors, glassworkers, weavers, technicians, and chemists are less valuable to The Legion to some extent because they either involve industries less geared towards conquest, or involve industries beyond the scope of what The Legion finds socially acceptable. Despite the amount of emphasis Roman polytheism puts on naturalistic sculpture, The Legion actually doesn’t find the arts very useful in the immediate future of the empire. What’s most important is conquest, not expression.

On the topic of the arts, performers were seen in a very poor light in The Legion, often oversexualized into objectification or framed as clowns. Most performance art is often seen as a waste of time or an avoidable expense, but it does keep soldier morale up since it gives them something to target that isn’t their fellow man. Being a performer in The Legion is marginally better than slavery, because one can at least have a house as a performer, but the physical and verbal abuse is often daily and unrelenting.

- Imports and Exports

The Legion is definitely not known for being friendly to neighboring factions, so any concept of import and export is often very loosely based in barter (namely, The Legion demanding tithe to barter for leaving a region alone, similar to how some mafias demand payment in exchange for protection from themselves). The Legion has a semi-steady stream of imports from their commonwealths which they pressure into helping them in trade for leaving their towns unburned and their people free from enslavement. However, this is decidedly not a permanent arrangement. This is a way to bide time to grow the nation a bit more before making moves on settlements and regions with more useful resources.

They export nothing unless it’s a strategic play. They pressure neighboring regions into paying them, even though they honestly don’t need it as much as they want the general population of other factions to think they do. Middle school bully nation.

IV: Politics, Education, and Religion

- What Senate?

The big difference between Rome and The Legion is that The Legion doesn’t try to pretend it’s not a dictatorship. There is no senate, there is no board of people to vote, no forum. The only voice that matters is Caesar’s, and it shows in every aspect of how the society is structured, from the strict rules on self expression, to the patriarchal hierarchy of Legion society. Ultimately, this makes the nation weaker, because in the event of Caesar’s death, it creates a power vacuum. No, I don’t think there’s a secret senate. No, I don’t think there is a solid backup plan. I think the closest thing there was to a senate was the two-man power-team that was Edward Sallow and Joshua Graham. We all know how well that worked out. And I think Caesar’s been running on fumes ever since that point, taking this as a sign to expand the nation faster before anyone sees him bleed. Hubristic in nature.

The closest thing there is to a senate are higher officials (such as Lanius) that Caesar hand-picked from Legion ranks to be his personal cabinet that all agrees with him. There is a distinct instability of power when recreating Rome without a senate, and there is the distinct air of trying to hide that open wound.

- In the Unlikely Event of a Transfer of Power

Let’s say, hypothetically, Caesar, the praetorian guard, and all his higher officials suddenly died. The role of Caesar would be up for grabs. In the event that there is no clear successor to Caesar, there is no real backup plan aside from an arena battle between the generals that could potentially succeed Caesar. A simple solution that will clearly show who can spill the most blood for Mars without hesitation or question.

With this in mind, there is one thing distinctly Roman about the potential of a transfer of power. There is always a nonzero chance that Caesar’s killer, be they foreigner or Legion, could become the next emperor. All that matters is who can devote themself to Mars in a way that would honor the fallen Caesar.

- Common Political Beliefs

Politics and religion go hand in hand for Caesar’s Legion because of the cultish way Caesar built the nation. The idea of Mars being the patron deity of The Legion instills a level of gratuitous and overzealous love of warfare among the people. Military expenditures are met with great support, and very little infrastructure on public service is supported as adamantly because of the instilled value of “we are all independent cogs working in a well oiled machine, we don’t need help”. Then again, it’s not like any other voice mattered anyways, since Caesar is the be all end all of political power.

There is a generally nationwide extremism when it comes to dealing with criminals, however. Criminal activity in The Legion is more often than not punished by torture and death, and nobody seems to really protest it to the degree that other factions do. As many of the travelers and traders in Fallout: New Vegas have said, the roads in Legion territories are incredibly safe. There is a level of patriotism in The Legion specifically regarding how safe their lands are, but in exchange, those lands also have an active military presence.

Conquest is also a pretty intrinsic pillar of Legion political beliefs, since the motivation to create a homogeneous society and usher in a new era of perceived piece may make some people accept the totalitarian power for what it is and hope it pans out right.

- Male vs Female Education Standards

Due to the intrinsic divide between male and female Legion citizens, the education of male and female Legion children is vastly different with the only exception being the uniform brainwashing. Male and female children are not only educated on different topics, they are also educated in different locations.

Similar to Spartan men, most male children (even including orphans from freshly raided towns) are give combat training just about as soon as they can hold a stick and swing it. The male children that show combat proficiency continue to become soldiers, and the male children who aren’t strong, but are intelligent are instead divided into training as either spies or medics, depending on the specifics of their skill sets. Male children who aren’t good at any of that end up becoming armigeri (singular armiger), the people who sharpen weapons and tend to the needs of more proficient soldiers. It’s a social tragedy to become what is essentially a pathetic sidekick to some far better soldier. Thankfully, since most of these children are trained from an incredibly young age to be strong, cunning, fast, and durable, very few people end up becoming armigeri. Generally speaking, no boy in The Legion goes without military training. The Legion can capture their blacksmiths and carpenters, there’s no need to train them in-house.

Female Legion children are not given formal education. They are expected to grow up to be housekeepers and produce the next generation of warlords. However, a family still has the liberty to educate a daughter at home with a tutor so long as it doesn’t interfere with the family’s productivity. Usually, female children are given medical teachings more oriented towards patching the injuries of their future husbands. However, girls aren’t left entirely defenseless. Girls are taught how to use ranged weapons and how to escape grapples in the event of an emergency. In addition, girls are given more of an education on finances and practical skills that tie into long-term survival, such as how to use every part of a killed animal for resources, how to patch clothes, and how to cultivate plants.

A Thank You And Some Concluding Comments

Hello hello to anyone who’s made it this far through my ludicrous ramblings! Thank you for reading! This is really just me throwing nonsense in the air and seeing what floats, and most of what I’ve written here will probably be subject to edits every now and then to keep building up what I’ve already put down.

Feel free to use this lore for any fan fictions, fan art, original characters, or whatever else! Please keep building on it!

I hope y’all enjoyed my insane chattering!

[whoishotteranimepolls]

Defend Your Blorbo Reponse: Sir Crocodile

I honestly think a lot of his perceived appeal comes from the crocomom/crocodad theory.

For context, they're responding to this post about crocodile

Okay, for those who don't know the Crocomom theory, it basically is a giant fan theory that hinges on the fact that a significant group of people think that Crocodile is actually trans and Luffy's mom, as in the biological mother who gave birth to him. Let me break it down for you because it could be possible. There's actually a lot of evidence for this, but I don't have time to explain everything. But someone in the comments or reblogs can do that

In One Piece, complete gender reassignment is canon because of Emporio Ivankov and their devil fruit, The Horu Horu no Mi, a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit that grants the user the ability to create a variety of special hormones that can alter the recipient's body in any way the user desires, making the user a Hormone Controlling Human.

So, if you couldn't already tell, their gender is fluid because they switch between the male and female forms at will, and they're inspired by the iconic Tim Curry character from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They're also a founding member of the Revolutionary Army because who better to take down the oppressive authoritarian regime.? Then, the person who is the literal ruler of an island of genderqueer people

I tried to find the gif of their powers in action where they changed someone's gender, but I couldn't find a high-quality one. I searched all of Tumblr and the internet, so someone wants to share that in a reblog

But because there is a person that can permanently change a person's gender at will in a matter of seconds, you will find a lot of headcanons or theories that a character is trans, like with the case of Crocodile. Who knows Emporio Ivankov from sometime in their past, and we don't know how or why, so speculation went wild. Because why does someone seek out Emporio Ivankov other than for them to perform their "miracle"? Which is what a lot of people refer to as their ability to change someone's gender in the universe

And I am not kidding. Just about any character you can think of, someone will argue they are trans somehow. So, in the past, they were assigned one gender at birth. Somehow found, Emporio Ivankov now has the One Piece equivalent to a complete gender reassignment and is now living their best life as their new gender. I have seen trans headcanons for Crocodile, Ace, Zoro, Mihawk, Buggy, Shanks, Silvers Rayleigh, Smoker, Perona, Rob Lucci, and Kuzan. That list doesn't even include the Canon trans, non-binary, or gender-fluid characters, and there are several.

So welcome to the One Piece Fandom, where gender reassignment is canon and available, so every character could theoretically be trans if you want to speculate hard enough.

So, next time you look at Crocodile, You might want to consider that he might be Luffy's mom. And a possible former empress of Amazon Lily and possibly Whitebeard's biological kid or maybe a celestial dragon. God, there's a lot of fan theories that all rely on him secretly being trans

[fantastic-nonsense]

Is it possible for Jason and Roy to actually be friends? I know RHATO is terrible and I've seen a lot of people say there's no real reason for Jason and Roy to have any sort of friendship and I was just wondering if that's the case?

Technically it's possible for anyone in comics to become friends (or at least be on friendly terms with each other) if the circumstances align the correct way. In the case of Roy and Jason, I think there's two things that people need to understand:

Jason and Roy were canonically on friendly terms prior to Jason's death. Jason had a short stint on the Teen Titans in the mid-80s and all of the Titans—including Roy—were pretty friendly with him. However, Jason and Roy's relationship during that arc is based around the fact that they only know about and interact with each other via their relationships with Dick Grayson. Roy is one of Dick's best friends, and Jason is Dick's younger brother. That directly impacts how they interact.

Roy and Jason are only friends in current canon due to a substantial number of retcons to Roy's life, personality, and friendships. These retcons have made it impossible to treat Roy and Jason's friendship as anything remotely reasonable for either character, because if you have to completely twist a character into something they're not for a friendship with another character to work…there's generally an insurmountable gap there that would be better filled by other people.

Given those two things, there's clearly a theoretical canon path forward for making Jason and Roy friends on their own terms rather than "being friendly to each other because they both love Dick Grayson." It wouldn't be super hard, though I personally struggle to see a lot of connection points for what would realistically make Jason and Roy become friends in the way that New 52 canon wanted to portray them.

The problem is that modern comics did not and still have not put in the work to make that friendship happen in a way that actually makes sense. Instead, they effectively just erased Dick from Roy's life and inserted Jason into it instead. And because the writers of that era (particularly Scott Lobdell, who wrote RHATO) did not actually care about any of the non-Bat characters they were randomly throwing together, that friendship and the circumstances under which it exists are pretty much the Ground Zero reason for why Roy Harper was fucked over so badly in the New 52 and Rebirth eras.

So the general fandom anger around Jason and Roy is less about there being "no reason" for their friendship to exist (though that's also true given how canon has portrayed it) and more about how the canon reasoning given for their friendship has done nothing but hurt Roy as a character. Hope that answers your question?