#kinda hinges on them giving up parts of themselves?

[jorrated]

umm bingo for knuxouge? curiouse 🤔

[sunnybyler]

i’ve been sitting on my thoughts for so long but i just have to get this off my chest. i don’t like to yuck ppls yum so if you like e/riel pls scroll away nd keep having your fun it’s not my problem. however some of y’all can get mean as HELL and as an elucien i have to get this off my chest. (also warning for gwynriels i’m with y’all i defend y’all here however i do go in a bit on az in this so fair warning). i truly have no idea why e/riels cling so hard to the azriel bonus chapter in acosf because that chapter, more than literally anything else in the series, proved to me that e/riel is absolutely NOT going to be endgame. let me explain:

1. it is explicitly stated that azriel did not think of his relationship with elain outside of a sexual nature. i think some ppl get kinda annoyingly puritanical when trying to make this point when it’s like 100% certain lucien had sexual thoughts of elain too. the point isn’t the thoughts themselves. the difference here is the explicit mention that he didn’t consider anything with her outside of that.

2. the point above ^ is further exacerbated by the fact that az did not give a flying fuck if he killed elain’s MATE. even if elain hasn’t accepted the bond, it would still be extremely painful for her based on what we’ve seen with rhys, feyre, and even rhys’s parents (who weren’t good for each other, yet we saw how rhys’s dad lost it when she died). now of course us lucien lovers know damn well he would never in a million years call a blood duel to try to claim elain (and fuck u rhys for saying that, i usually have your back but come ON you are not the only male who can respect their mate’s autonomy). but az doesn’t know that!? in fact seems to agree with rhys that he could. ppl argue on who would win that fight — my opinion hinges 100% on if powers are fully unleashed but that’s not the point at all. no matter WHO wins, elain is going to feel responsible for someone’s death. of course it wouldn’t be her fault if men decided to be fucking stupid, but with the little we know about elain shows that she would feel so guilty if that happened. but azriel doesn’t seem to give af that anyone fighting to the death over her is the last thing she would ever want. not only did az not think of elain outside his fantasies and therefore not fully care for her, but he doesn’t seem to even KNOW elain in this chapter. now, i could go in on this in acosf as a whole. but i’m keeping it to this chapter alone.

3. and further on THAT point, az doesn’t really give any reasoning on his interest in elain outside of this insane “three brothers/three sisters” thing he fully pulled out of his ass. tbh i almost thing this is sjm’s way of addressing the fan theories on that. now i get it to some extent from az’s pov — seeing his brothers happy with these sisters must fuck with your head after you’d all been bachelors together for 500 years. especially considering how he’s felt unworthy of love his whole life and this seems to support that insecurity of his. i get that it makes him feel ostracized from them, and that he’s now an outlier not being with an archeron. i get that. i do. i sympathize with him here. however that does not change the fact that he isn’t speaking of elain like she’s her own individual here — hell he fully calls her “the other”. i think part of this conversation was him being frazzled, i give him a bit more grace than some do (tho he pissed me off BAD in this scene), but we were fully in this man’s head. did he give us a full reason why he liked elain besides his brother’s mates and his sexual thoughts?? they would’ve at least crossed his mind when rhys was grilling them if sjm was trying to set up her next romance here. as it is, we have literally nothing to imply azriel actually likes elain herself and not the idea of being closer with his brothers.

4. az has kinda a habit of ignoring the reality of the women he’s attracted to in some way. he has his own version of them in his head that he puts on a pedestal. now i could do a whole psych eval on this man and how he thinks he’s unworthy of love and therefore only allows himself to have feelings for women he knows/thinks he can’t have. but to focus on this chapter alone, my points above ^ about how he doesn’t really think of elain outside his fantasies/bringing him closer to his brothers and not really understanding her pretty much wraps it up there. i mean he even talks about how he thinks his scarred hands don’t belong on her because she’s so perfect in his eyes. that’s not love, that’s obsession and it’s unhealthy. he clearly thinks himself below elain and ignores that she has her own flaws too.

5. aaaand i saved the biggest for (almost) last….. GWYN. this is a genuine GENUINE question. why in the fucking hell. would sjm make half the chapter focusing on az & gwyn if she was teasing e/riel. like that makes no sense. not to be annoying and mention chekhov's gun but that idea applies to relationships too. i’m sorry but she couldn’t be more explicit about her future romances. you could argue “oh well it’s because there’s gonna be a love triangle”. y’all. elain has. elain has a mate. there already IS a love triangle. there was absolutely no reason for her to bring gwyn into this chapter other than her preparing us for a future relationship, literally none. especially with all the romantic subtext (hell not even subtext, just TEXT). gwyn getting him to talk about himself so easily when he’s so quiet usually, him taking the idea of making her happy and he “buried the image down deep, where it GLOWED QUIETLY” (which SCREAMS mating bond to me but even if it’s not it’s clearly something he cherishes deeply), the SHADOWSINGERS SHADOWS SANG FOR HER!?

6. the fucking necklace regifting. oh it’s bad. OHHH ITS BAD. when the girls realize it’s gonna be SO messy but im hoping sjm doesn’t go the stupid cat fight route bc neither of them did anything wrong. az did. i’m sorry i’m dunking on him so much in this post i rlly don’t hate him i just think he needs like decades of therapy (which tbf don’t we all) which i unfortunately don’t think sjm is going to give him before giving him his romance. but even the biggest azriel lovers have to admit that this was insanity. a few points on it here. first, if it’s so easily regiftable then it couldn’t have been that well thought out in regards to elain. say what you will about lucien’s gifts, even argue that he gave her jewelry too. but elain was actually shown wearing pearls. az’s gift seemed shallow to me — it was something pretty, and elain’s pretty, and it had a flower, and elain gardens. it’s clear lucien put SO much more thought into his gifts, whether he succeeded or not (which i need to remind y’all — we still don’t know. maybe she liked the gifts maybe she didn’t, but regardless she acted the way she did bc of her feelings about the bond, not the gift). and azriel has spent so much more time with elain than lucien has. if that necklace really felt like elain to him, he could’ve kept it or returned it. but nope. buddy gave it to a whole other girl bc he could easily associate it with someone else. he clearly felt some special pull towards gwyn too, going out of his way to give it to her. he had ONE meaningful conversation with her. i already discussed the quote earlier that makes me think mating bond personally. but no matter what, him giving her the same gift he gave someone he was pursuing romantically is a clear sign of what’s to come (and probably a setup for some sort of drama that i don’t think im mentally ready for).

so there we have it! why i think that the bonus chapter thoroughly proves that e/riel is not going to be endgame. i honestly think it’s possible they might be a thing for a minute (tho i could also see this being the closing of that chapter), but i don’t think it’s going to last. sjm just gave us too many blatant hints that elain and az would NOT work together long term, and that azriel in particular is more suited for someone else. i might’ve missed some points bc there is SO much that goes down in this tiny chapter so lmk if there’s other stuff you picked up on!

[radioinactivity]

Been thinking about Fallout 4 again and I've always wondered what is the minimum number of changes you could make to the plot so it would at least be cohesive and I think I've got it:

The Institute are isolationists pursuing immortality.

Add a little backstory that they tried to share their technology with the rest of the Commonwealth like 75 years after the bombs dropped and the Wastelanders tried to kill them to take all of it. So they decided to lock themselves in CIT to keep doing mad science, intent on outliving the "savages" on the outside.

The current generation of Synths are replacing people in order to keep the Commonwealth politically unstable so they can't unify and potentially raid CIT again. Importantly: the Institute cannot be influenced to stop this strategy. You can convince some members of the Board but not the guy in charge of defense, he will always insist that their survival hinges on the Commonwealth staying uniquely chaotic.

Synths themselves are the result of their pursuing immortality via test bodies but they're imperfect (ie failures)- rad resistant, disease resistant, age slowly but they're sterile (kinda like a fun parallel to super mutants in FO1 wow imagine that). So the Institute uses them as a slave class and as infiltrators so they don't go to waste.

The Railroad are all synths using old world spy shit they've learned and stumbled on (ie the DIA facility under the Slocum's Joe) to try and liberate the other Synths in the Institute. This is why they're kind of bad at the Spy Shit until the Sole Survivor shows up. That's it. That's the only change.

Tbh the Brotherhood is Fine. Maybe bring back the cut ending where you can ice Maxson and put Danse in charge. The Minutemen are also Fine but I think taking back Quincy and making it a settlement should have been part of the plot. Preston deserved that closure it's weird he didn't get it.

And finally: The Sole Survivor is another synth let loose on the Wasteland who just THINKS they're a prewar parent looking for their baby. This is the ideal justification for the player to either faithfully pursue their lost kid OR fuck around and build shacks OR be a force of Chaos upon the Commonwealth. Either the programming worked really well or it didn't.

None of this fundamentally changes the structure of Fallout 4, and really you can't do much about some of the stupider shit, but at least this gives the Evil Faction some tangible ideology that make sense. And I think if the Institute has understandable motivations, everything else clicks into place a little more neatly. Sidenote: this whole silly thought experiment is based off the notion of like. Only using what Fallout 4 already gives us. Think of it as the design document for a Main Story mod where the goal is to make as few changes to the base game as possible to make everything cohere.

Anyways Fallout 4's missed potential was created in a lab to drive me specifically insane

[dontcryminecraft]

dream /neg

i saw this posted and got so mad i ranted but didn't want to reblog someone's post like that so i decided to just make my own-

HEAVY DREAM /NEG!!!! DON'T LIKE IT? BLOCK ME AND MOVE ON

quackity made qsmp because of his experiences as a bilingual creator and his want to bring his two worlds together. He wanted to help break down language and culture barriers, which he LITERALLY DID ON THE FIRST DAY THROUGH THE WALL. I can't imagine a reason dream has for this other than...attention? idk. Everything about this screams that he just wants to do what quackity is doing but "bigger and better" and that misses the point of qsmp and, even if I'm wrong about his intentions, makes dream look kinda like a dick.

Oh, first-ever bilingual server? well here's the first MULTI-LINGUAL SERVER, which hinges on the technicality that 'multi' here means 3+, not 2+, even though multiple just means 'more than one'. But that technicality is bullshit!!! So, no, actually, QSMP is the first Multilingual server. Fuck off!!!!!

The addition of 'live translation' is iffy to me, I checked out his video on the mod just to make sure I know what I'm talking about and... yeah it's iffy at best. It's technologically cool, and I will give him credit for making a mod for this. However, that's not that much praise all things considered. Practically, you'll have to constantly be looking at other people's character's ALL THE TIME in order to have a conversation with them, which isn't feasible in a natural way. I'm honestly not going to say much about the translations themselves because I'm only fluent in English. However, I still highly doubt that his mod will pick up on any nuances and slang in a different language

Basically, it would have been better to not do this to not bother with a mod, and to encourage others to learn different languages LIKE QUACKITY DID.

Large servers with 60+ people and 6 leaders...so like they all get grouped together? What is this a shitty model un? And with the leaderboard, I want to laugh at the idea that this is a very very bad take on Minecraft Olympics. What will they score, achievements? How many kills someone can get in a tournament-style bracket? How many blocks mined? What on earth is 'language ranking'???? This is a server that already had multiple languages set on the premises of uniting there isn't a need for another gimmick? TBH im so baffled on this that I'm curious enough to not seriously talk shit on that part but that doesn't count for the next thing I'll rant about-

"with equal say in decision making"- First of all FUCK OFF /SRS. The biggest issue people had with the dsmp was that smaller streamers weren't listened to. They constantly tried to stream with others to get their storylines going, and yet nothing. It was also heavily implied that the main person ignoring everyone and not communicating well behind the scenes was FUCKING DREAM. First of all, as the main server admin, owner, and Guy In Charge, that's horrible management. Yet he's never spoken about it as far as I'm aware. He's never given a reason he's so unreachable. So, if I'm correct, that makes THIS COMMENT the first time he's mentioned the dsmp's shit communication issues and it's done in such a backhanded way I want to scream like YOU WERE THE ISSUE DREAM. It's just tacky, imo.

[labyrinthofsphinx]

Is we ever going to see Vox break down in front of Alastor/Alastor realize Vox isn't as put together as he seems? Like in a future plot point or anything?

Okaay, definitely can't touch this topic without going into spoiler territory. :

So....there's a lot of rocky bumps in the road that are going to be addressed as far as Al and Vox are concerned. They have a lot of stuff in their relationship/partnership figured out...but not everything. There's a lot of stuff they've got to figure out, for themselves and with each other.

Vox absolutely refusing to show vulnerability is on the list of things that is going to be addressed.

The issue is mainly that Alastor's personal ability to be vulnerable hinges on this idea that Vox can't break down. As we see, when it's just the two of them, Al feels comfortable just...feeling things, which wouldn't happen with anyone else. Only Vox. He's almost become a 'safe zone' for Alastor, where he can be himself and just know that Vox will be there, understand, and never buckle.

As kinda shown with the flashback with Aunt Edith, Vox has grown up with this idea of personal emotional vulnerability, one that he kinda extends to his business practice. In his world, the minute someone smells weakness, or blood in the water, they're dead meat. So, he's gotten stupidly good at hiding it, not helped by the fact that he's a great actor. He has a lot of bravado, and it takes a lot to weather him down. Coupled altogether, it almost makes him seem bombproof. It's certainly the side that most people see. Hell, even closer companions like Vel are used to Vox being the biggest man in the room, always having the answers, a plan, or something up his sleeve. That's the image he wants to give off.

When Al started opening up, it quickly became apparent to him that his own stability gave Alastor a rock among the waves, as you might say. Alastor wasn't necessarily in the best place emotionally when they first met. He's gotten so, so much better just having at least one person he can trust unequivocally. And part of that trust is in Vox being, as you say, 'put together'. To Al, Vox has everything figured out, he doesn't second guess himself or question things because he already knows.

This is a long way to say, as of right now, if Vox broke, Alastor would follow very quickly behind.

And Vox knows that. So he refuses to break down. And if he does, it's not going to be in front of Alastor. Not if he can help it.

Will Alastor eventually see Vox break? The short of it, yes. He will. And it's going to scatter just about everything he thought he knew.

But that is all much further along. We won't be getting to the meat of that anytime soon.

Thanks for the ask!

[kerorowhump]

isn't it extremely fucked up how even though he says this was a joke right after this truly is the real words he would say to them if he was about to sacrifice himself to protect earth and humans to which we can infer also that 1 he's grateful for the knowingly limited amount of time he had with them and that he was able to be their friend (specifically fuyuki) so he is aware at the Very Least on a joking level that this is a chance which time will inevitably run out 2 he feels on some level guilt for his being a "freeloader" and living under their roof and obviously more in general getting them involved in the invasion stuff he can't walk out of, so in the back of his mind somehow he's trying to make up for and remedy this fact 3 most importantly, despite KNOWING that his position is fickle and he would've been required to choose sided eventually and lose all he has as he feared, he's not sacrificing himself by being platoon leader, because he also got to achieve happiness under this plan and within this platoon.

see, I say that because not too long ago I even discussed with friends that keroro was sacrificing some of his own happiness doing something he very extremely doesn't wanna do anymore (invasion) not only because he has to but also because it allows everyone around him to thrive in these conditions even if HE doesn't. they're all happy to be on earth, keroro is super lax with the way he treats them, barely scolds them for real or perceived mistakes

["you went a bit overboard" he says as he's literally dying buried in snow. great boss!]

(and when he does "scold", it's more average bickering what they do, and he doesn't come out on top a lot or anyways lacks that aura of respect you'd have to give any other military superior which allows for a more relaxed environment where they can thrive as themselves. you ever seen ofmd? think stede). and consistently ive seen so far that keroro is willing to put his life on the line for the mission and also step up when it comes to protecting his teammates specifically, but I think he's like, aware of what being a leader entails. and I know he does because he had this fuckin SPEECH ready to drop, joke or not!! like he pondered this stuff, he knows how he feels about the situation and... he concluded that he's happy the way things are. and that may be why it's so hard for him to commit to something and he's kinda stuck between sides, because it's not like keron bad earth good to him

he likes keron and he likes earth and while he's allowed to live in a way that allows him to betray neither, he's happy. that is his goal, so that makes sense. he's not without guilt and shame for his choices, but he's grateful they led him to where he is. a still moment in time where he can pretend he's on the right side on both parts.

I mean... IS that why he wants to be included with them as family so bad?

is that why it hurts when his teammates lose faith in his leader abilities?

could that be why he has semi-frequent (I would say...) breakdowns about the state of the mission despite not being motivated to do it, because this fickle balance he's created still hinges on it, let alone his reputation? HQ loves to remind him so. to tell him to hurry up.

it's all about enjoying the time you have with the people you love, and also give them a chance to find their own happiness in a way they couldn't have under normal keron rules. taking the brunt of everything that might go wrong for this.

but he's happy because they are, because he was able to achieve this, because he loves them, because he could at times believe they love him back, like he always wanted, I think, despite the circumstances that he's the reason for. it's a burdened happiness, hence why he also needs to apologize in the same breath, "for all the trouble he caused".

maybe in an ideal world there is no invasion, and he really could've gotten to be just that pleasant and cheerful freeloader alien, no guilt attached

but if that's the price to pay for having met the hinatas and having been able to give everyone in his platoon a second chance at a peaceful life, I believe that makes him happy. a peaceful life with the people he cares about, even if just for a while, and he's well aware of how fragile it is.

he really is often like "is the invasion all you can think about?" but then it's always weighing on his mind as well. it stings when that costs him the respect of his peers. it stings when that causes the hinatas to doubt him even when he's innocent.

but what choice does he have?

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

Hello, I read and love your Chained Series but only now noticed the Major Character Death tag on the second one, since I moved from part 1 to part 2 without checking the tags/summary. I normally really really really do not touch Major Character Death, it just... well it just makes me really sad in a way i don't enjoy, to keep it brief, even when it's plot or story wise fulfilling a purpose.

This is in no way me asking you not to do it, it's your story, and that's how it should be!

But I was hoping if you'd be willing to give me some information around the MCD, who for example (or if this'll straight up be a bad ending overall), so I can emotionally brace myself because I really don't want to stop reading the fic, because it's really good, but going further into it blind feels daunting, in a way. I will of course not relay anything regarding the fic to others, that you might tell me (since idk how familiar you are with tumblr: there is a way to respond to asks privately in the ask-post settings, if you prefer).

If you're not happy doing this I completely understand, it's your story, but i figured it's worth asking.

I hope you have a nice day, and that the writing will be easy 👌

I would be quite happy to explain what I've got planed with that! I deliberately read spoilers for similar reasons all the time; I totally understand wanting to be forewarned and forearmed. Also I'm just happy to ramble about my fic lol :3 If ya gotta drop it, no worries, glad you enjoyed the first sections and I don't mind anyone takin care of themselves

You're probably not the only one who'd want to know so I'll just put all the spoilers in a read more:

First of all, I don't consider this to be a particularly dark story (though granted I don't consider Death Note to be a particularly dark story so uh your mileage may vary) nor do I see it ending in tragedy.

The planned deaths:

The Joker - So, he's not really a main character in this fic, in fact, he might not even get speaking lines, I'm unsure right now, but he's major in the comics so I'm counting it. It's not going to happen for a VERY long time but it is so pivotal to the functioning of a main emotional plotline that I don't know how I'd write around changing my mind about this one.

Captain Boomerang - Like the Joker, I'm not really even sure he'll get speaking lines, but he's important enough to Tim's other canon stories he makes the cut. Unlike the Joker, I don't actually know if he's going to die yet! At the end of Red Robin Tim tries to kill him but fails. I don't know if my older Tim will do it, but I am certain he'll go at least halfway through a second similar plan. Much will hinge on what I read of his interactions with Huntress.

Other assorted villains, such as Darkseid and the Batman Who Laughs - This will depend a lot on, again, my reading of how Tim interacts with the kind of violence Huntress brings to the table. It also depends a lot on how a few in-fic decisions shake out. Tim has to make the decision as to whether or not they kill more people than just the ones on his small list from the first fic and I've got a more solid idea for if he does than if he doesn't.

Roy Harper (and a few other Heroes) - He's not gonna stay dead though, none of them are. So, due to hesitance and fear of fucking shit up Jason and Tim aren't going to make some key decisions in time to prevent the whole "Heroes in Crisis" plotline from happening. Once they learn of this they are immediately going to start doing mad science to figure out how to resurrect people safely. And, of course, they have the power to time travel.

Jason Todd... Kinda. - An increasingly large and loud elephant in the room is gonna be the fact that Jason doesn't have to have died. Ever. In any timeline.

Tim could save him.

But of course that would mean rewriting the Jason he knows out of existence. There really isn't a clear cut moral equivalent to doing this? But I feel emotionally it would count as this/our Jason dying.

On the other hand if Tim refuses, he is deeply morally responsible for Jason's actual already happened death... but will have saved our Jason's existence.

Tim's decision of whether or not to save Jason's child self is THE emotional climax of the story. One of the main purposes of Chapter 12 was foreshadowing how each character will react to this very situation.

I can't put another read more, so if knowing the two options is good enough for you turn back now! And if you wanna know what Tim's decision is (I sure would!) scroll passed the two big pictures!

Tim refuses to save Jason's childhood self. He loves this Jason too much to emotionally withstand losing him. I have had this story beat and the resulting fallout planned for absolute ages and I'm 100% certain on this one. Frankly, timeline erasing the Jason we know and love would make ME cry too much to keep writing it lmao, so this one I can guarantee.

[animentality]

I haven’t read your books yet, you know how it is, money~, but I bet they’re pretty good and I am planning to buy and read them, they’re on The List, and I hold you in high regards as a person I kinda vaguely barely know. I say this first to preface, because, from the kindest most adoring place of my heart okay, this reminded me of you, no offense: https://www.tumblr.com/pjackk/721300009283420160/whats-up-tunblr-basically-i-just-wrote-this-book

Ouch.

Glad you preceded this with a compliment...

But brutal.

For what it's worth, I also hate having to reduce my books to tropes...and I try not to, with any of my promotional posts...

But uh...good to know this is how I come across :S

But in my defense...and in defense of other authors... it's super easy for people to make fun of how we have to promote our books, but in this terrible digital economy...I mean.

It's hard to keep people's attention, and it's hard to sell books.

It's not like selling art, doing commissions, making animations, or well-edited videos. Books are inherently harder to sell and market and build an audience for, because they're an investment of time and focus.

They aren't as easy to dive into and enjoy. A webcomic chapter you could read in twenty minutes. A pretty picture you can reblog, and you can commission the artist if you love the style. A Youtube video can be ten minutes of investment. Maybe an hour, tops.

But a book?

Books will always struggle more than shows or animations, because it takes a certain kind of person to read books, and in this day and age, attention spans are shorter than ever.

You spend fucking years writing your books, and you edit, and you revise, and write some more, and edit some more, and revise some more, and then you have to promote.

All the time, in every way you can imagine. Using whatever tools you have... all the time, every way.

Otherwise, you don't see any sales at all, and then it's like you wasted three years of your life fiddling around, while everyone you know is making bank on crypto or whatever the fuck.

If I was good at fucking BookTok? I wouldn't be fucking here promoting at all.

I could leave my blog as the little meme machine it's always been.

But I'm bad at fucking TikTok.

And I mildly resent being compared to a TikTok author, because if I was any good at that, I WOULD NOT BE HERE promoting my books at all.

Tumblr is the worst place to promote anything, ever.

That's part of why I like it...but at the same time, that's why it's such a torturous practice, trying to promote my novels here.

No one here gives a fuck. And I'm fine with that.

I'm ok with that.

But I can't throw away hard work without at least trying.

I don't really get the criticisms of authors in those comments anyway.

What have those people tried to put out into the world?

You think self published authors are just jokes, or that they aren't marketing themselves well?

Maybe both are true, but someone who makes something, no matter how shit, has still MADE something.

It's easy to tear others down. It's not easy to make something that you care about, and put out into the world for others to see and judge.

And for those people in the comments too, I have to ask.

Is a book only good, if it's published by a company?

Because books that are self published are actually a LOT LESS likely to be made up of tropes and cliches.

People who self publish tend to write weirder and more out of the box things. They RESORT to tropes because they feel you won't pay attention to their books without them.

they feel you won't give their concept a try, unless they dumb it down for everyone.

They pretend the book is something it's not, out of sheer desperation.

I market 7 Deadly Habits like it's a fucking adventure action romance comedy...?

It's actually pretty fucking dark and grim and sad.

the main character is fucked up, and so are all his exes. So is the entire world they live in.

It's really not a funny book. It has dark humor, but it's hinged on an unhinged concept, one that I find darkly interesting.

But I lie and say it's a funny adventurous romp of sex and violence.

Because that's how I have to market it.

I try other things, of course, but I have found most people would rather read a romance than an anti-romance, which is more of what it is.

People don't want to try new things. They want more of the shit they already have.

to make something new, or different, or non-conventional, is to accept that you will have to water it down when you're trying to offer it to people.

So yeah.

I get it. Authors who blaze their book promotions are desperate losers and weirdo freaks with very bizarre interests and isn't it funny, how hard they're trying?

But you know.

What else can we be?

Leigh Bardugo?

Trust me. I wish I was a good writer. I wish I wrote straight YA fantasy books that kids and adults and everyone can enjoy. I wish I had a literary agent and five star publishing houses giving me 20 million dollars for my next book.

I wish I was a multi millionaire white woman, in an industry of rich white women, who write sexy murder mysteries and cozy thrillers and steamy vampire eroticas.

But I am what I am, and that's a queer self published POC author, who has no one in my corner, but me. Whose only means of promotion is my own efforts.

So no, I don't really look at other self published authors with disdain or wry detachment.

I know how they feel.

I know how much it sucks.

[catchyhuh]

What would their reaction be after seeing some particular fan art / fics about themselves, if you know what I mean ;)

see i told you we were inevitably gonna reach stuff like this!!! you can never fully divorce lupin the third as a franchise from Sex !! 

not really nsfw but… pretty suggestive talk below the cut

lupin:

oh he loves it. he pulls out a bingo sheet to check off if certain things come up multiple times, keeps a tally of when people give him abs and when they don’t, all that shit. probably bought like four body pillows of himself just for the hell of it, and has given each of them dumbass names like “lupin the 3rd and a half” and “lupin the 3rd the 2nd.” just make your portrayal at least semi-flattering, and he’s all onboard for it

honestly the way people treat him IN franchise, especially in more recent parts, i wouldn’t be shocked if it existed even within the story, and i feel like his reaction would be the same as it is ANY time the public speculates and gives him attention: a strange, almost giddy delight, followed by joining in himself. he’s a weird little man. for god’s sake he’d probably pose if asked and everything. i cannot stress enough that he is the opposite of uncomfortable with this

i gotta say, if we’re being completely transparent with ourselves, if anybody outta these guys would ACTUALLY use stuff like this t-- no, no, maybe that’s a little excessive to say. funny, but excessive. you get the idea there

jigen:

confuses him more than anything. why would anyone wanna see. he kinda gestures vaguely at himself. all this? like, he gets WHY porn exists he’s not in any kind of denial about the appeal of all that. i mean he is not immune either lmao but. but honestly. him? people want to see him? it must be some sort of bit. not that jigen has any self esteem issues like that, he very much is fine with the person he is and how he presents himself, but… THE IDEA OF TOTAL STRANGERS BEING SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO HIM IS STILL INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO HIM

very critical. like writing columns of analysis critical. this is supposed to be him, and he imagines he knows himself better than anybody. so out comes the red sharpie, ready to make corrections. sit down, he’s gonna be here with you a while: he’s got more hair than that. he’s got less hair than that. he only leaves his hat on if it’s funny, not all the time, c’mon man. he’s not that loud. he’s not-- okay, well, he WOULD bottom in certain occasions, but not every damn time! you think just because he has a track record with huge guys means he can’t top? reassess your preconceived biases about sex and relationships, i mean honestly jesus christ people!

overall has more of this weird. not distaste but contempt? i guess? for art as opposed to writing. if it’s writing, the sins are less obviously apparent. usually. don't prove him wrong

fujiko:

relatively passive about the concept, but interested in the finer details. she’s had many different looks, y’know, and it’s interesting to see which specific hairstyles and colors really stuck with people enough for them to go out of their way to include them while drawing something like that. she kind of subconsciously doesn’t even see whatever is being depicted as herself, so she kinda sees it the same as… any other kind of sexual content? it’s just a novelty that the woman presented before her is SUPPOSED to be her, and it’s weirdly fascinating.

fujiko is very blase about sexual matters in general, so really, i don’t think the idea phases her much. she knows she’s hot shit. she’s planned multi-million dollar heists that hinge SOLELY on the fact she is hot shit. of course people would desperately crave the closest thing they could get to getting a piece of her i mean damn! who wouldn’t! however she would disagree on a factual basis in some instances, as after all, some fic writers don’t seem to understand that reproductive organs don’t work like that at all, but that’s her main beef with it. you want to impress fujiko mine, you have to a. do a little googling or b. get some bitches and take notes. not offended by inaccuracy to her, but inaccuracy to the process and (ironically enough given who we’re looking at here) anatomy

goemon:

buh? huh?? wait. what?? huh? him?? guh? his?? his p

the initial reaction (as for everything even slightly romantic or sexual with him) is baffled, stunned silence. again, he’s not alarmed by the idea of people creating/reading/viewing art like that, but. really? he has to assume people… enjoy seeing him that way, and that adds another layer of embarrassment, but also a weird sense of un-acted-upon duty: this person could be moderately attracted to him, and he’s never even properly spoken to them. he believes the word is “parasocial” (fujiko told him about it recently) and he doesn’t want people putting him on an unrealistic pedestal! or putting. specific parts of him on an unrealistic pedestal either for that matter!!

again, (you may be noticing a trend here) he will only Allow it if it feels realistic enough in his mind. he’s not all “NO! NOT PREMARITAL HANDHOLDING!! ANYTHING BUT THAT” but he DOES feel there should be a level of actual companionship present for it to “work.” if it’s him and some random who tried to kill him for a week two decades ago, he’s will make his lack of appreciation known. silently. because god he is not ever, EVER going to be discussing this with ANYONE, no matter HOW MANY TIMES THE OTHER THREE KEEP BRINGING IT UP

zenigata:

cuts you off before you can even fully explain it. nope. hm-mm. aht aht aht. not becoming aware of this. because if he starts becoming aware of it, toooo many things are gonna start popping up in his head, so NO, HE’S NOT AWARE OF THIS (except for the fact he very much is)

the only one to not have this weird mental notetaking relationship with it, because inaccurate or not, just the fact it’s here in front of him is enough to shut his brain down. the often ignored sensible part of him looks down at the computer and goes “what?? no, that’s not-- using actual police handcuffs would just be a bad idea all around. that’s why they make different ones specifically for this purpose so nobody gets hurt. and besides that, i just wouldn’t do that” but. the zenigata part of zenigata is red in the face all the way down to his neck, only focusing on the fact that that’s… not a bad idea, which he immediately backtracks on in horror at himself, and thus, the self imposed principle: I DON’T KNOW ABOUT THIS.

[lavenoon]

Hi! :D Ok, so where to start? Man, it really hurts to see Robin so disillusioned with it all. Of course they show no interest in the new neighbors and now their job feels more like a drag rather than the thing that brought them a sense of fulfillment. Though I smiled at them being so critical of the security over in Eclipse's sector haha, even if they're not giving it their all, they still are very much a professional at what they do and it shows.

The fact that they also become quickly endeared to Eclipse is very cute, and very understandable because he's so earnest, even if it exasperates them that he basically easily revealed his identity, the one thing that when they found out about their other coworkers sent them into a worse spiral. But also that earnestness is what managed to break at that tough front that was harming them as they struggled to keep it up. And he relates so easily to them to, and Robin can't help it that he looks right through them! Because he can see so much of his own hurt in them now. It makes sense that he wants to help fix it, even if he himself hasn't found how to fix the communication problem the three brothers have.

In a way I wonder if he did something similar to Robin, in the sense that he latched himself to Robin's hurt to try and make it better, just how Robin latched onto Eclipse's situation to feel the anger they want to feel for themselves but feel like they don't deserve to (because by now they've convinced themselves they weren't that important to Sun and Moon, assuming they had mistaken it as the animatronics caring more than they did). Not to say that they didn't feel for the other genuinely of course! Just that it's easier trying to solve someone else's problems than facing your own sometimes. I do like how Eclipse is the first one who doesn't let Robin convince themself that they hate them. No need to try to worsen the hurt, even if the statement is turned back on him immediately.

It's funny that something did blow up, though it wasn't an experiment XD (sidenote: I hope Robin does get to blow up stuff with Eclipse eventually haha) "I would've left me, too!" though? Ouch. I know Sun didn't have time to process that, but I hope he and Moon can address that later. Clearly a glimpse into one of their worst insecurities that they guard so closely. (other sidenote: Eclipse was like, haha, brother gonna get told off, and then realized oh crap brother might get actually threatened her kjhkjhkñh)

But also Sun is clearly not too capable to paying attention to that right now, so affected he even raised his voice to the person he only knew as his dear friend and landlord.

Though Eclipse saves the day once again with the groupchat of friendship! They're all obviously exhausted by everything, so having the chat as a tentative window where they don't need to be that exposed and just say what they want to say at their own pace is smart. After all, you can't take back words you said, but you can rewrite a message until you are satisfied with it.

And also, the funniest hing to me in this chapter is the agency. They really were like: Robin you might get fired if you don't improve. >:(

Robin: Aight, peace.

The agency: N-no wait, I didn't mean it, come back please :'(

But overall the hopeful ending was really relieving! You always manage that feeling of being able to breathe again after a tough one! Great writing as always!

Robin: Fuck the agency I don't care anymore Also Robin: Smh the security here is lacking, how dare? They are just kinda going through the motions for a while there, only focused on how they lost their friends and any pride in the job they do in one go. Truly, two birds, one stone.

Robin: I've had Eclipse for an hour and a half and if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself Eclipse: Oh we're friends now! Okay okay I will. I will try to not make a meme out of every part of your comment fghdjs Ties into your next paragraph as well - they recognize the pain of the other, and the similar coping styles, with Eclipse a couple years into pretending he's fine. They get angry on his behalf, partly because it's an infuriating position to be in, and partly because they can't get angry on their own behalf. And vice versa in Eclipse - he sees this person in a very similar situation to him, and they're devastated and it's obvious (to him). And he realizes that oh, right, he does have a reason to be sad. He's allowed to feel abandoned and to admit it sucks. Because he faked being okay so long he felt like he'd lost the right to say it did actually bother him.

Please know that if this were the main timeline I'd add many more conversations that address these issues, same as Robin's "I would've left me too". It goes unaddressed, but not unnoticed. To address it there needs to be a baseline of trust again though, so they need to focus on establishing that (That, and that the threat was on his account. Because while he obviously and knowingly relates, he didn't think that Robin might relate too, and do something about it. It's rare enough that anyone would stand up for him.)

No one's having a good time - but they all want this to work, they all miss each other, and they're finally admitting that to each other. They can't get it all out then, but they want to, because they care. It gives them a line of contact - a "flyway" to each other <3 (*Using a very, very loose definition of course)

HQ sure got used to having them try so hard to impress them! But they seek their validation elsewhere these days. They prefer having a family, in the end.

And aaahhh thank you!! The good thing had to get a lil longer to make it feel natural, but it was tons of fun to write! <3

[xuanelle]

fandom misogyny is so rampant because you would expect the character who destroys an orphanage infront of said orphans (despite being an orphan themself and understanding how awful that upbringing can be) and said to them they'd rather see them all put down then leach of kiryu's generosity for daring to raise orphans i guess, and also literally slaps haruka, to be more universally disliked than the character who does tell haruka they'd stop funding the orphanage if she failed and does kinda gaslight kiryu into believing his kids are better off without him but does so genuinely believing that kiryu leaving would be better for the kids future and does it because they do want to see haruka's dream flourish.

like they're both characters who involve in some way threatening the orphanage (again. one is far worse like it's not even a comparison but again people like mine more) and both have a similar strike of being mean, like mirei with her gaslighting in her first scene and mine with his everything (which is far more of his screentime then mirei ftr like it's one SCENE FOR HER.) and one is the villain of the game and one is absolutely not the villain of the game.

but one is a woman so she's obviously worse even though the narrative both gives mine and mirei sympathy (but apparently that's an only an issue for mirei)

like kiryu reaches through to mine and gets him to realize what he become was wrong and that he can change. and also through learning mine was like this because he grew up unloved by the world around him and believing he had to make something of himself or else the world would never accept him and he does embrace the ideals of the world around him. he believes that orphans have to make something by themselves because that was how he has to grow up; if that wasn't the way the world worked, then how come mine never had anyone looking out for him after his father figure died until he met daigo? (still very wrong for what he did. like not an excuse making this clear)

and his story hinges on him realizing he was also wrong for believing the world was just cruel and for becoming cruel in return. the reason why he was so alone was because of who he was, how he treated people, how he treated the oprhanage for example. like the narrative calls him out for this while also having him learn he was wrong. that's where the sympathy comes from.

and for mirei it's through the fact that she does understand firsthand that your idol career cannot function if there is a yakuza member in your life because hers was destroyed the moment her marriage got out (not even getting into the fact that majima hurt her and he should've never been with her) so of course she believes kiryu cannot exist as haruka's father for her dream to function, and basically convinces him to leave by saying his kids are better off without him and that if he leaves, she'd fund the orphanage so no kid has to abandon their dreams of their future to help keep the orphanage affloat. because you know kiryu can't keep it affloat himself with his yakuza background.

this is wrong of course, like kiryu is their father and being forced out of his kids lives through blackmail is wrong, but her reasons are far more understandable than mine's are, see her own history with the idol industry and the fact she does care about the kids and specifically haruka as the narrative later evolves. and again she barely does anything compared to every villain in the series like her grand act of being so awful and the worst is getting kiryu to leave her kids by promising she'd fund the orphanage if he left. which. comparatively is nothing compared to mine (you can not like that choice sure, but objectively it's not nearly as bad like not in the slightest)

but no, mine is the universally beloved character for the most part and mirei is demonized to no end. when he's the villain of y3 and what he does is both far worse and his reasons for aren't excusable at all and he has to learn he's wrong, mirei doesn't.

like I've seen people say like she's the true villain of the game and how dare the game make you sympathise with her because you know a woman can't be mean or be flawed. even though what she does isn't nearly as bad, like objectively compared to the actual villains who've killed people, and mine specifically as the other character most wrapped up in the orphanage. like mirei barely does anything compared to literally every yakuza antang but she gets all the hate for being a woman who dares to be mean in her first appearance.

[landhoe-norris]

i kind of expect fans with parasocial relationships to be weird about wags/exes even if I do think it's weird

but it always gives me the ick when the media does it

like when you see a tabloid-esque article about their relationship or that time ted kravitz thought it was appropriate to "report" on a bunch of weird assumptions fans/haters had made about lando's private relationships on ted's notebook or that time the brazilian media reported on carlos like idk why does any of this need to be publicized to people who aren't involved and won't be affected by that relationship and most importantly, don't even know the dynamics of it or what happened or whatever (obviously like no ill-will to the people who do care about it, i have just seen both lando and carlos framed in awful lights due to these relationships that the people talking shit about them do not actually have insight into lol)

what really gets to me is the way ppl act about these men and their relationships. like they’re apart of it. it’s weird having a favourite wag (at least to me). it’s weird being so into two strangers that you’re upset when their relationship ends. do you know them? do you know why they broke up? do you know how their relationship dynamic worked, do you know if they were truly happy together? it’s sad (in a kinda pathetic way) to hinge your own happiness on an instagram version of someone’s personal life.

personally, i’m quite fulfilled just watching f1 and wondering about the part of their personal life they allow us to see which is why i never really post anything on here that either lando or carlos themselves don’t put online.

they have a right to their life with whoever they’re seen with each day and it’s of no consequence to me. i like them for their speediness, stupid humour and the fact that they’re racing friends 😌

p.s. i’m not saying I’m better than anyone that follows wags, i love lily and think she’s amazing even if i don’t follow what she’s doing or how she’s dressed. i just think my blood pressure is probably a bit nicer than those who actually get sad over f1 breakups cause they won’t stop happening

[seawitchkaraoke]

Hate hate HATE when people talk about redemption and forgiveness like they’re the same exact thing, they’re not, pls guys, if you defined what you mean by these terms before arguing about whether a character (or a real life person but let’s stick to fiction) deserves redemption we’d all be so much better off.

Forgiveness is something OTHER characters do. Some characters are very forgiving and will immediatly forgive their enemy, even when they’ve barely shown an inkling of changing or even being willing to change. Some characters will not forgive their enemy no matter how much they work at becoming a better person.

Redemption is the process through which a character becomes a better person. They realize they fucked up, they change their behaviour, they work at being better every day. Redemption isn’t ever really done, you can’t just be like “okay, great, i killed one person, now i saved one person, i am redeemed” that’s not how it works. It doesn’t matter whether everyone (or anyone) forgives the character. It matters that they are working hard to be better.

And so a lot of complains about a character getting redeemed too quickly are actually about them getting forgiven too quickly, but that should really be a complaint about the character doing the forgiving. But like. Some characters simply are really forgiving (like Adora in She-Ra, yeah she forgives Catra way too quickly, but to be fair, it tracks with who Adora is). Of course for the sweet spot, it helps to have several characters, some of which can be immediatly accepting and forgiving (example Aang in Avatar) and others can yell at the redemption arc character and only forgiving him later once he’s done more work to prove he means it (Katara).

But the redemption itself doesn’t hinge on the character being forgiven. You’re not done, once everyone has forgiven you, you gotta keep going, keep working. “But this character doesn’t deserve redemption” doesn’t really makes sense bc redemption, unlike forgiveness, isn’t something you’re given, it’s something you do. And it’s usually not something you’re ever fully done with. I mean, yes, in real life, you’re eventually kinda done with redeeming yourself from, say, yelling at your friend that one time, but you still need to not do it again. I don’t mean you gotta keep apologizing every single day, but redemption isn’t over, in the sense that there’s no set time after which you can do it again and not expect it to be fine or expect your friend to have forgotten that you’ve done this before too.  A huge part of redemption is simply Doing Better and you’re not ever done with that. And when we’re talking about fictional redemption arcs, it’s usually murder or smth anyway so yeah. You don’t just forget you did that

“Deserving” redemption only makes sense in the sense that, yes, these are fictional characters so in a way the writer IS “giving” them the redemption. Real people do redemption. Fictional characters are given redemption, bc someone’s gotta write them doing it. But I’m gonna say it, there is absolutely no action a character could do where you could not still write a very satisfying redemption arc. Because you write the character. No one is a villian in their own head, everyone has their reasons and you can always find some opportunity, some breaking point that makes them rethink, that makes them even just hesitate and the moment you have that you can write them changing and write them becoming better. Not necessarily forgiven by their victims, but redeeming themselves? Yeah.

But also. There’s nothing you can say you’d never symphatise with a character who’s done x or y, simply bc. That action could be in their backstory. Maybe you’ve already been drawn in for 3 seasons and now learn about the horrible thing they did and have been working hard to atone for ever since. If that’s well written, very few people will throw the dvd or the book across the room and decide they hate this character now. (Beautiful example here is Eliot Spencer from Leverage, bc, yeah we get hints from the start about what kind of man he is/was,  but the puzzle of just how bad builds slowly over time and by the time he’s standing in a park asking Parker not to ask her about the worst thing he’s ever done, you can Very Well put the pieces together and conclude some absolutely horrifying shit and yet and yet we’re all still here aren’t we? You wanna punch him in that scene? Or you wanna give him a hug? Yeah me too)

When you say a character doesn’t deserve a redemption arc, what you should say is you can’t and won’t forgive them and don’t think the characters should. And that’s fair! But there’s no action in real life or in fiction that doesn’t “deserve” redemption. Because redemption isn’t something you deserve, it is something you do

[cynthiaandsamus]

Just Saw Hocus Pocus 2

It was... fine, like if you’re a Hocus Pocus superfan just going into this looking for Sanderson sister lore and references to the original this movie has you covered and there were parts of it I really liked but the tone and pace just seems kind of off.

Like the first scene of the girls in Salem, the first movie played Old Salem completely straight, there’s VERY few jokes and it’s treated with the deadly seriousness it deserves considering it sets up Thackery’s backstory and the tragedy and danger the sisters embody before we get the fish out of water comedy to undercut them as a threat once they’re not dealing with superstitious villagers. But here the Old Salem flashback is already wacky and the villagers are as over the top as the sisters themselves are so right away we don’t have that tone shift. The child actresses they got for the young sisters are fantastic and do the mannerisms great but right away the tone is too jokey. We get their mentor witch coming in and laying out the theme of covens and togetherness which is cool and in general I like this character a lot but they also don’t do anything with her besides say ‘oh yeah she’s still alive’ at the end for a potential sequel hook.

Like I like the parallels between the sisters and Becca and her friend group but it feels like they rushed the reconciliation to basically be a miscommunication between them with nobody saying sorry except her idiot boyfriend who I did feel kinda bad for him because he’s legit just too stupid to know what he’s doing. The humor was about 50/50 between getting some sensible chuckles and some stuff that was just cringey, like they can’t really decide on how much the sisters know about the modern world since their gullibility about it is still their big weakness but they’ll also say things like ‘lay it down’ and ‘time hack’ and they also just kinda do a musical number when they’re summoned for no reason (which I’d be okay with if that was the only place they could fit it in and they had to jam it there but there’s ANOTHER musical number when they get into town in a much better setting and a much worse song so I feel like they could’ve swapped the first song out and put it in the second number’s spot and cut the second song entirely) and the product placement is a little cringe but some stuff like the roombas to have plot relevance so it goes back and forth.

Becca as a character is fine, she rolls with things a lot easier than Max did and falls right into bluffing the witches’ ignorance into getting them to do shit and her being a witch was kind of obvious but cool to see despite her power being a little too quickly able to stand up to the sisters based on her getting it like five minutes ago. Gilbert’s kinda fun since he’s a Sanderson fanboy and for some reason didn’t put together that they would have to murder children if he brought them back but also doesn’t want to do anything bad he just wants to meet his idols (though the Sanderson House he’s running seems a lot more ‘in town’ than it did in the original when there was more of a wilderness look around it like it was in the middle of nowhere but maybe Salem’s just been built up a lot in the past 30 years). Most of the movie is them running around doing crazy shenanigans like a writer just jotted down a million ‘what if they ran into *insert Zoomer thing here*!’ jokes which like I said some are funnier than others.

The ending though, I kinda called this before I even knew this movie was real but it does hinge on the sisters’ relationship, they don’t beat Winifried she just kinda gives up after the spell she does kills her sisters. Like I don’t hate this idea and I get this is kind of a more amicable ending for people who were more sympathetic to them in the original like to give them some peace and all that, I don’t mind that so much but the fucking pacing, like we legit have Winifried calling her sisters parasites and pawns and then begging the girls to take her powers away to revive them within the span of like two minutes without them even saying a word to her about it. Like there’s talk no jutsu and then there’s just turning on a dime, she basically talk no jutsus her fucking self without a second thought about justifying her sisters’ sacrifice by using the power well or anything. I get the whole ‘she loved them more than she realized’ deal but that is NOT portrayed very well within the scenes we’re given and for the climax to basically be ‘the bad guys won but decided they didn’t like it so they let the heroes win’ kinda sucks like there’s no direct conflict in the climax for Becca’s group to overcome them, WInifried just immediately softens and it’s kind of telling that the fucking Book got the best character arc in the whole damn movie. There’s a couple different sequel hooks for this if they want to do more but it does feel like this is the Swan Song for the Sanderson sisters story at least and if they make a Hocus Pocus 3 it’ll probably be some expanded lore stuff less focusing on them directly but more witches at large.

Still I didn’t hate it, it was about what I expected from the trailers, some good ideas, some fun jokes, a whole pile of cringe but overall inoffensive and if you really want a nostalgia trip and a bunch of Easter Eggs it’s probably worth it to check out.

[celestialmango]

Scared prey, gentle Pred, artificial monster Pred, honestly this stuff is very loosely based on a dream I had last night. Reader insert, (I don't know if what the pred feels is romantic or platonic. You decide) a dude gets the shit beat out of him off screen.

🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭

You're shaking and sobbing with your hands covering your mouth as you try to quiet yourself so you won't be found, you can't escape, they're in the hall that leads to the exit of the experiment containment part of the facility carved out inside of a cavern and you're locked inside one of the adjoining rooms. You flinch at the crushing and snapping of bone and smell copper in the air, tears well up in your eyes at the sounds, You remember how this situation started in the first place and choke on air at the smell you know is blood.

---------

"Is it ready?" Your teammate asked you close to the route the race will be on, the route made up of different obstacles starting with a forested area followed by rocky terrain and finishing off with a water based obstacle, you smile cheerily 'yeah, our driver here should be.' you pay the shoulder of the semi-robotic being of flesh and metal, "well I finish the vehicle it can-" you interrupt 'don't call them an it.' Your teammate sighs "(y/n) it's not even sentient." You gasp and clap your hands over the ears of the unresponsive four armed creature sitting on the crate in front of you 'how dare!'

Your teammate sighs and pinches the bridge of their nose"alright fine, they, so they can drive it. Better?" You let go of the beings ears, 'much, thank you. So the other teams are pretty much ready so we just need to get them in the vehicle and I'll monitor their vitals right?' you had been added to this team recently and the monster had already been made when you got there a few months back, you had been added on after a scuffle between the previous caretaker of the creature and the team leader left with them getting kick out of the team.

The creature continues to stare forward empty eyed and unmoving reminiscent of a doll sat on a shelf and left there, your job was to check it over and keep an eye on it's vital signs but honestly, you have kinda abused your position and would sometimes just go vent to it, even though you know it was no better than talking to a stuffed animal but you always felt better afterwards, you finish getting them ready and help move them into the multi-terain vehicle. 'so this is just the preliminary right? Why do you alchemists and mages make these guys in the first place? And why the race?' you finally decide to ask the team lead the big questions.

"Yes to the first, second to test our skills and about the race bit? That part's just for fun." They answer as you both get into place, 'you magic dudes are weird' "heh heh, well you took the job, what's that say about you?" you huff like you're offended but your smile gives you away. A shot goes off and the race starts. Thing go fine with the first two terrains, but something goes wrong with the third, 'Hey we need to pull back something's wrong, what is that?!' some sort of dark mass starts trying to drag all the vehicles under. "What the hell?!" Your team lead yells at the coordinator "I thought you said the path was cleared!" They dash over to where you are still monitoring the wildly fluctuating vital signs of the artificial being, "shit."

The team lead overrides the vehicle and manages to snap it free and have it return to start, the rest of the teams not so lucky the vehicles crush or dragged under, as their creation skids to a stop neither of you notice the tiny oily splotch of black slip into the cracks of the vehicle and sink into the creatures skin. Team lead opens the cockpit and drags the still doll like construction out and while they check the vehicle you check over the artificial monster concerned.

"Fuck it's shot, I'm going to have to replace so many parts, how's our driver?" You look up from where your crouched over the still form, 'alive, doesn't look hurt, you guys built them pretty sturdy' your team lead sighs. "Well somebody sabotaged the race, in anycase we'll take them back to the under lab facility to monitor them and make sure there's nothing wrong." You give them a concerned look but nod.

-------

Deep inside the lab you enter a hall filled with empty rooms to hold experiments that lock from the outside, you both set the creature in their room on their bench, your team leader leaves before you and turn to the creature cup on it's cheeks with your hand, inanimate they may be you still got attached,brush their cheek with your thumb as you speak softy 'i was worried about you but I'm sure it will be okay' you say mostly just to reassure yourself before you let your hand fall away and walk out of the room, before you shut the door you give the creature your final parting words 'night big guy.' Before you shut and lock the door.

the creatures finger twitches of its own volition.

-------

Hours later you're finished up paperwork when you feel a gun pressed to your head, you freeze up,"take me to my creation or I'll blow your brains out" it's the previous caretaker, you want to live so you do as asked, you take them into the experiment containment hall and lead them to the room the creature is stored in, they throw you into the room across the hall and lock you in before opening the other room to see the four armed being still sitting where you left them.

They stand in front of it, it's hair is covering it's face, "you're coming with me you abomination, what a wrenched thing." they reach out a hand to yank the creature to it's feet when one of their hands snaps up and grabs their wrist, the creature raises it's head and levels a terrifying glare at their ex-caretaker as a bone chilling raspy voice leaves their throat "don't call me that."

-----

That was when the sounds of screaming and the snapping of bone started to sound and you had huddled up in a corner in fear and started sobbing terrified, that's what led up to now.

Your panick breath and a stiffled sob cause them to snap their head to the room you're locked in as they drop their unconscious punching bag, as you hear their footsteps appoch your tears get heavier, a screech of metal as the rip the door of it's hinges, with the light behind them their form as well as cold and hostile face terrify you more as their eyes glow in the darkness, "you...." You flinch at their voice. "I remember you..." They start to approach you and your teary eye squeeze shut as you try to make yourself as small as possible.

You don't see their expression twist at this, they know they don't like this, they don't like you looking like this, but they feel so empty now and you-....they crouch in front of your frightened form and one set of hands grasps your own and the other set cups your face and rubs your cheeks with their thumbs wiping tears away, "shhhh, hey, shhhh, hey look at me." Their voice soft as they address you , your heart still pounding in your chest and still choking on sobs quietly you open your eyes and look at them.

Their expression toward you is different then when you first saw them after the ripped open the door, different from when you first came here, there's life in their eyes now, they're no longer glazed over and their expression looks a bit sad. "Shhhh, I remember you, you'll be okay" you whimper as they pull your face closer to them and the set of hands that were holding yours pin your arm to your sides "shhhh, shhhh, it's okay" they say as their jaw unhinges and their maw streaches open causing your eyes to widen and tears to start rolling down your face again.

They shove your head in and swallow, they groan, you're the best thing they've ever tasted, being a construct they never needed food, but they suppose you don't know that seeing as you kept feeding them, their hands that had previously grasped your face now pin your arms to your side and the others move down as you try to squirm away, they swallow again and you slip further inside their throat as a whine escape you, you feel their hand gently squeeze at you as they swallow again and you sink in further into the grasp on their tight muscles as the continue to speedily pull you inside. They stand and tilt themselves and your lower torso and now pinned leg into the air with a thick gulp you're dragged in to your thighs.

One set of their hands rubs their stomach as it fills uncomfortably and they wince, they've never swallowed this much before, you continue to sob softly as their other set of hands keeps you from flailing and grip firmly before shoving and gulping thickly, their gut feeling more painful the more of you they stuff inside, they continue to do this repeatedly until your shoes are all that's left outside their maw, they remove them and swallow, sealing your fate as you're crammed tightly inside their stomach, they feel sick but at the same time it feels really good, they place all four hands on their distended gut that groans and gurgles as if to protest what they've done and rub at it, drool running down their chin feeling you shake and hearing your sobs they start again "shhhh" the press a bit firmer as the rub putting more pressure on your tightly curled form cradled by gurgling flesh that just scares you more

"Uh-gah" they gasp in discomfort but continue "shhhh, it's okay, it'll be okay" they know they've scared you, but they just felt so empty, but you're in there now, now they feel full and warm "shhhh" that goo did something to them, gave them a sentience they didn't have before, but it could never give them what you have, they remember everything from before they were awakened, "uhmmm" they groan in pleasure as they feel you squirm inside them. As much as they'd love to just sit down and enjoy the feeling they know they have to get out of here now.

-------

They wonder deeper into the woods as they continue to rub at their wriggling gut before finding a place to hide themselves and sit down to enjoy the feeling as they continue from where they left off trying to soothe both their stomach and you, their belly now used to the feeling of being stretched and filled so much. "MMmmm, shhhh, not gonna hurt you" and they won't, "you'll be okay." Physically. "I love you" and they mean it, they got more attached to you than you did them.

[clockwise-works]

No because these tags, same! Like incredibly slim chance. Buuutttt I may be biased cause I have ONE specific scene in mind that kinda hinges on Link being a biological father. 😅

(I got carried away with this one, but blame Zora May! It's got that Miphlink bug dancing around in my mind double time.)

In their first few months after hatching, Zora hatchlings will either stay in community pools or private fish tank-esc pools if the parents wish for privacy. It's for the Hatchling's development, as they will begin to grow out a body and legs over that period, learning to swim, use their gills and mouth manually, use echo location for their surroundings as it takes a while for their eyes to open, the standard experience.

The two decide to go the private route, as they wish to monitor their child personally as opposed to the expected royalty aids offered to them. In this time, Link's a worried mess. In this lifetime there has NEVER been a half Zora half Hylian child, there's no prior data or experiences to pull from. Sure, Purah, Zelda, and the best of the best of Hyrulean Scientists have ensured the child's safety, but none of them are truly experts in genetics.

What if something goes wrong. What if the child, due to the Hylian part of their brain chemistry, attempts to switch to manual air breathing and can't switch back? What if the child can't process the food given to growing hatchlings? For all they know the child could have a Hylian digestive system. What if...

He worries. They both do, but Link' worry expresses itself differently. He's quiet, and when there's an issue, he wishes to handle it himself. So, most nights he finds himself restless with worry. Tossing and turning, running worse cause scenarios back to back. It reaches a point where he's watching the hatchling during night, whether they be swimming or sleeping. Link likes watching them, usually Mipha will join him once she determines he's gone.

They talk, she works through his worries and him through her's. She ensures him that the child is safe. That Purah, out of desire to monitor the first half Zora, has taken up residency at the Seabed inn for the time being if something happens. But they still worry, as any new parent would.

Any day now the child's eyes should open, and yet the child is a little behind their peers. They're ensured this is perfectly normal. Some Zora open their eyes later than others, Bazz being an example (Sidon is the other extreme, opening his eyes much sooner than expected). It could be a result of Link's hylian DNA, and the child will go through extra steps to reach the same level as their peers. The child DOES have two different instincts from different races, so for them even swimming or walking may take extra time to get down.

One night they find themselves at the child's tank once more, admiring the life before them. Between war, time travel, and political pressure its a miracle this is even a possibility. Just a few months ago they didn't even think this could be possible, no one did, and yet here they were.

The hatchling continues to swim back and forth, full of restless energy. Occasionally Link sticks his arm in gently, as instructed by other Zora fathers to ensure the child develops a bond with them and can distinguish their color and scent. But on this one particular night, something changes.

Their eyes open.

But this was not the average yellows of a Zora's standard eye color, nor was it the more golden amber color shared between Mipha and Sidon.

They were bright blue. A shimmering blue reflecting the hues of the Luminous Stones in the room. This was.... this was unexpected.

And at the sight of this, the two are in shock. Mouths agape, frozen in surprise. A million things coursing through their minds. But only for a moment. For it gives way to pure happiness.

Mipha wraps her arm around Link, with a smile unlike any most people have seen. Large and toothy, free of her more reserved nature. A smile only select few have seen within the last few years. Before her now, her child had inherited one of her favorite attributes of her life partner. That the few naysayers who have begun the rumor of their marriage being one of political strategy, that this child couldn't possibly be of Hylian nature as well, would now lose their foothold. Sure, it was only a small handful of people, and she knew she shouldn't listen to the minority of doubters, but one can only hear whispers of their marriage being one devoid of love for so long. This child was living proof of their love. The child was the incarnate of hope and love, of perseverance.

Link finds himself wiping away a tear of joy and love. He knew he'd always love any child of theirs, no matter what. Whether it was a child that did not resemble him in the slightest or was a child of surrogacy not biologically related to him, it did not matter to him. They would be his child. But this? To see a part of him, a part of his family now living on with this child, it's incredible. Perhaps he lost his family during The Calamity War. Maybe not, but regardless to see his own eyes staring back at him is a feeling he thought he'd never have. They almost lost. Mipha and the other Champions almost lost their lives in their Beasts. Link almost lost his life to the Blights at Fort Hateno. And yet, before them now was a new beginning.

I'm looking at the Zora May prompts and wanna write stuff, and now my brain's just giggling with ideas LOL like--

Imagine, after Age of Calamity, that Link and Mipha get together. That has its whole set of fun and drama - a Hylian/Zora marriage would mean a lot anyway, but particularly when it's the Zora princess and the Hero of Hyrule. Link and Mipha start to have a family, Zelda is settling into being queen, and they all have their own set of stressors and joys and the three are still besties and it would be just so funny to see y'all. Like... Link takes his oath as a knight seriously, so he still assists Hyrule often, and just this scenario in my head came and--

Zelda, sighing: I hardly slept last night. I was up late researching the latest Zonai discoveries and almost forgot I had a meeting with the Rito delegation this morning. I'm so tired.

Link, hair a mess, on his third cup of coffee after dealing with one of his kids having a meltdown while the other kept everyone up crying all night, dealing with Mipha also trying to do royal duties, having just teleported over here via Sheikah towers: .....That sounds rough.