#like back when I did them a lot as a teenager on DA I would just recycle the same ideas:

[kalza]

*me every nine months or so*

I should do art trades again....

[dokidokitsuna]

Dream Alliance: Jambastion Rebirth

So yesterday I was archiving the text from all my DeviantArt posts about the DreamAll AU, and it was really fun to read through all that lore and story again. ^^ It’s unfortunate that I was working on it during my transition from DA to here; I feel like a LOT of info got lost in the confusion. But at least now I have it all in my own files to reference (or retell) later…especially if I ever get around to reviving/expanding on the AU like I’ve always wanted. There are a lot of unused scripts and ideas waiting for that day…

And since I was feeling inspired today, here’s one of ‘em. ^^ Since this was such a dark idea that I don’t really consider “canon” to the AU, I never really wrote it down or anything…but it made for such a good story that I held onto it in my heart~. Warning: LOOOOOOONG post ahead. ^^

So at the end of DreamAll’s story, Magolor and Division Six risk their lives and defeat Void Termina, yadda yadda…but once the world is finally safe from that threat, its next big question is: how can we make sure we’re safe from the teenage mad scientist with the god-killing mecha and bioengineered alien attack dogs…?

Basically, Magolor inadvertently made himself so powerful that the rest of the Dream Alliance and the world is kinda scared of him now. ^^; And as I showed in the final comic, Susie Haltmann takes it upon herself to investigate him and find out what his deal is…and in doing so, learns that he’s actually a Jambastion mage, and Hyness’ estranged son. And thus, the scheming begins~.

Mind you, Susie doesn’t really have anything against Magolor. It’s just that the pressure of essentially becoming president of the world, coupled with the revelation that Magolor is not only an eccentric genius, but also a dimension-bending dark mage that she doesn’t know how to control…it leads her to fall back on old (villainous…) habits and start to treat him like an obstacle, to be overcome by any means necessary.

And her first play would be to use the threat of Hyness’ execution to get Magolor to spill his guts: to tell the truth about his magic powers, explain in detail everything he did to create the Void Destroyer system, and get it all on the record so that he can’t lie about it anymore. Which I think Mago would agree to immediately-- he doesn’t want to see his father die (despite his literal crimes against humanity), and tbh he’d probably be kinda glad to have the weight of that deception off his shoulders. Unfortunately, he’s not worldly enough to understand that divulging all this information is the beginning of the end…

Next play: regulations. Now that the crisis is over, the Dream Alliance’s superweapons will naturally have to be decommissioned…including Magolor’s ‘angels’. Seeing as they’re technically not living things (as per Mago’s explanation) Susie would demand that he toe the line and put them down, or at least demonstrate that he’s willing and able to cut them off from his power on command.

And naturally, Magolor would think of this as going a bridge too far. Marx, Galacta, and Morpho might not have their own life force, but they’re still sentient beings who love and trust him as their creator. And if it’s a choice between betraying that trust and leaving the Dream Alliance entirely, he’s inclined to choose the latter.

And ^that is the decision Susie would be waiting for: proof that, when pushed, Magolor cannot be trusted to act in the ‘public interest’. And considering what he’s capable of, it’s now in the public interest for the Dream Alliance to find a way to contain him.

Of course, she doesn’t go after him right away-- she simply waits for him to come to her, thinking he can convince her that his angels are more than just weapons. When that fails, he resigns on the spot…unfortunately, he never actually gets the chance to leave.

Based on everything Magolor’s explained about the way his magic works…she decides her best bet is to cut off his hands, severing his connection to his vambraces and sending him into shock from blood loss all at once. Both serve to severely weaken all of his subconscious magic use, and his angels by extension-- Galacta collapses, and Morpho straight-up disintegrates. Marx is the only one able to remain conscious without his master’s direct influence, and immediately realizes that something is seriously wrong. His first instinct is to rush to find Magolor and slaughter anyone in his way…unfortunately, he discovers that he doesn’t have his flight powers anymore. Without his usual magic strength, he can hardly even move his prosthetic arms, and is easily captured when Magolor’s lab is raided.

Fortunately, Meta Knight is one of the arresting officers, and decides to take pity on Marx and “lose track of him”, letting him leave in the dead of night for parts unknown. He disappears for a couple years, skulking in the shadows, stealing food when no one’s looking, being miserable and missing all his friends.

But during all that time, he’s also preparing…he spends most of his days retraining his body to adjust to the much smaller amount of magic that he has access to, and trying to find information on the dissolution of Division Six and Magolor’s whereabouts…which proves to be pretty difficult. So eventually, when he finally gets a decent amount of fighting strength back, he decides to start his revenge plot by finding an ally: Magolor’s father, who’s still imprisoned where he’s always been.

Hyness has never met Marx before, but he remembers Magolor’s mentions of him. And besides, they both share a deep concern for Magolor and the willingness to do anything to save him. So Marx explains the situation and breaks him out, setting his plan in motion.

He realizes that Susie will have seen him through the security cameras, and will predict that he’s coming for Magolor. So he decides that his true next target will be Galacta Knight, and asks Hyness to use his powers to find and awaken him first.

After being forced to use his magic just to keep himself alive during his long imprisonment (which by this point, ended up approaching the decade mark) and having his hands removed as well, Hyness is also a lot weaker than he used to be. But he has experience on his side, and quickly adjusts by using the magic stored in his cape (basically, what I was foreshadowing back when I drew this). Together he and Marx make a fairly powerful team, forcing their way into the facility where GK is being stored, and setting him free to unleash his wrath.

^This is a decision Magolor would probably take issue with, if he were present to give his opinion on it-- he’d be against triggering GK into a psychotic break just to create a diversion, knowing all that death and destruction would weigh heavily on his conscience afterwards. But Marx, being in a desperate and angry place, doesn’t care, and figures potentially scarring his little brother is a small price to pay to get their family back together.

And while Galacta Knight is out acting as a weapon of mass destruction, Marx and Hyness manage to find and release Morpho Knight as well. Morpho has very nearly reverted back to the unresponsive energy blob that he was when Magolor first found him…but he’s at least conscious enough to follow his brothers around and help protect them occasionally. Marx leaves him with GK and follows Hyness to Magolor’s location, deep within Dream Alliance HQ.

How things go from there is a little more nebulous…I think it would probably start out as a stealth mission, which would take an unfortunately bloody turn before Magolor is finally found and revived. I think Morpho and Galacta would eventually catch up with them there and make things even bloodier. ^^; I think Susie would get into a big ‘tech vs. magic’ fight with Division Six that’s honestly been a long time coming. And I think Magolor, despite having just been awakened from a years-long medically-induced coma, would be forced to take point as the most powerful mage left in the group, and do something drastic just to put an end to the conflict and get everyone out of there. 

The aftermath would be bittersweet, and a bit ironic-- essentially, Magolor would be forced to go back to living in a secret society cut off from the rest of the world. He’d be reunited with everyone he cares about, including the father he once thought he might never see again, but he’d still have to live with the fact that the world he risked his life to save ultimately rejected him…and after all the atrocities his family committed just to get him back, the world is probably now convinced that its fears were justified. The damage is done, and irreversible…after all the effort he put in to become a hero, his short-lived dream is already dead and gone. I honestly don’t know what he would want to do with his life after that…

…Anyway, if you made it all the way here, thanks for reading~

[sure-i-exist]

Where did the kids live in Fairy Tail?

So back when everyone in Fairy Tail was a kid, they all definitely needed to live somewhere, right? And logically no one's gonna be giving a kid an appartment so does anyone wanna hear my headcanons for their housing situations when they were younger? No? Too bad, here it is!

First of all, before anyone points out Fairy Hills exists: 1. those dorms only exist for the girls, 2. I imagine Fairy Hills was actually fairly recent, it's been around for a few years but wasn't there when, for example, Cana joined the guild. I'm also ignoring most of the Fairy Hills OVA except for the fact those dorms exist at all.

Talking generally here, my headcanon is that for those who had their own appartments at like age 12 (or more specifically, those under 16-or-so, who couldn't own/rent anywhere because of their age), Makarov actually technically owned them, contractually he was the tenant for each and every home the youngest fairy tail members lived in, but those members would give money they earned from jobs directly to Makarov to pay for their rent. However, it was this situation which led to Makarov investing in the creation of a dormitory that members of Fairy Tail could live in, regardless of age, meaning there was a safe place for young members to stay and for the older members there was a place they could turn to if they were struggling to find a home elsewhere in Magnolia.

And thus, Fairy Hills was born. Originally it was going to be unisex but there were some issues trying to set that up so instead Makarov took a vote and found it was mostly women and girls of the guild who'd want the option of this dormitory, so he was just thankful he didn't need to set up another dorm too for men of the guild, because it is very expensive to upkeep Fairy Hills (and it was an expense that got cut during the 7 years, because of the dwindling funds and members). Those who were still teenagers when Fairy Hills was set up and either couldn't or didn't choose to live there (the strauss siblings, gray, possibly Jet/Droy depending on when they joined, etc.) just continued with the previous set-up of Makarov technically owning their place and they paid rent via him til they were old enough to replace his name on the contract with their's.

[From here onwards, I'm just taking the opportunity to talk one-by-one about each of the different kids growing up (there's a lot of Cana, but everyone else gets their section too), and their specific house situations.]

Now, all this is well and good, but what about Cana? She joined Fairy Tail when she was 6 years old. Makarov's not gonna put his name down to give her an appartment all on her own, she's too young (and quite a few of that generation of Fairy Tail joined young, but they were at least around 10 at the time).

Cana had the most varied housing situation since she joined so young. The Penalty Game OVA did say Cana stayed at the church before she joined the guild, and I really like that but I also feel like saying "oh she just stayed at the church for years and years before she was old enough" is kinda too easy and a bit boring. Personally my idea is that things slightly changed once she officially joined the guild (which did take surprisingly long, she just kept showing up for months before anyone asked if she actually wanted to join, after a few weeks Makarov had thought she'd already joined and he'd just forgotten when exactly that was). She did continue to stay at the church some nights, but she also began to start sleeping at the guild instead (which isn't exactly good, and is in fact much worse than sleeping at the church, but she felt like after joining she had to be at the guild all the time, in case Gildarts showed up and she missed him).

Eventually, Makarov noticed she was semi-regularly sleeping in the guild and was concerned when he realised she didn't truly have anywhere to properly stay, and while it wasn't much he decided she'd stay with him at least a few days a week, to make sure there was someone specifically looking after her and keeping an eye on her, for her to be safe. Several of Makarov's neighbours thought Cana and Laxus were siblings because of this, despite not looking much alike.

It wasn't just Makarov who took her in, as both Macao and Wakaba would occasionally have her stay the night with either of them (Wakaba was very occasional cause he was not the most responsible fella and half the time he didn't get home at all, while the other half he'd end up going home with someone else. Macao was similar, but to a lesser degree, and particularly in the months before Romeo was born he'd invite Cana to spend a few nights kinda as practise for when he had his son). A couple other guildmembers did the same every so often too, having her stay round for a night or two, resulting in Cana being on good terms with almost every member of the guild before any other kids even joined. She didn't always stay with Makarov, or Macao, or whoever else in the guild, though; she still continued staying at the church once a week or so, and of course would still sleep at the guild from time to time (because everyone does that, especially when there's a party going on). She never had an even slightly stable home, which sucked, and definitely affected her growing up, but there was a lot of love, and that much was good.

Gray also joined the guild a little earlier than others, he was 8 at the time, so he also had a little bit of the Cana experience, though he was never with other guildmembers, instead he only stayed with Makarov or at the guild (and once at the church). This lasted for a few weeks/months before he managed to convince Makarov to help him get some kinda home for himself, which Makarov agreed so long as Cana and Gray lived together for it (the logic being two 8 year olds is safer than one). Cana was fine with this, finally getting some sort of a stable home though she'd still sometimes be offered to stay the night with an older member of the guild (most likely to be Macao) who was kinda looking out for her. Once Gray got the appartment however he was determined to keep it, making sure he and Cana always made enough each month for rent (Makarov would chip in whenever they didn't quite get enough, though they didn't always know he was doing this).

Erza, the 3rd kid to join Fairy Tail, also followed the routine of staying at the guild, then staying with Makarov, and then she actually stayed with Gray and Cana for a few weeks before finally getting her own place. She stayed with Makarov much longer than Gray did, and actually only stayed with him rather than Cana's experience with other members too. Erza stayed at Makarov's home for a little less than a year before she moved out. (This time the neighbours caught on that this was some kid Makarov was sort-of-adopting, not another grandchild. They still didn't realise Laxus was the only real grandchild though, and that Cana was as unrelated to the Dreyars as Erza was.)

Natsu stayed with Makarov for about two days before he left. Natsu didn't often spend much time in Magnolia anyway, at any moment he could he'd be off looking for Igneel, and this was largely true until he became friends with Lisanna, who didn't take long jobs away from the guild and could usually be found at Fairy Tail. He'd still be out looking for Igneel most of the time, but his desperation faded as time went on and he actually built a proper home for himself (or rather, he found an abandoned house in the woods and made it up for himself and Happy). In the time between when he joined the guild and when he found the house, he almost entirely slept in the guild hall or in the woods, he'd not exactly had a conventional house with Igneel so didn't see the point for himself.

By the time the Strauss siblings came to the guild, Makarov was already putting in the plans for a Fairy dormitory. They stayed with him for a few weeks (by this point Laxus was either living alone after Ivan's removal from the guild, or was on a job for a month or so since otherwise he'd be living with Makarov then). Shortly after joining, Makarov helped the siblings find a place to live, they paid rent via him, and that was that until Mirajane turned 16-or-so and could claim tenancy herself.

Levy must've been the next to join, since she wasn't seen when Happy was born but she was there for Lisanna's birthday. When she joined Fairy Hills would've been set up I reckon, Erza and Cana would have moved to live there (as well as various women in Fairy Tail), and Levy would've likely skipped the previous step of living with Makarov as she could immediately find a home in Fairy Hills.

Laxus is the final person I'm gonna discuss, since he's unique in that obviously he's always been part of Fairy Tail. I think it's pretty safe to say that he lived with Ivan when he was a kid, but frequently followed after his grandfather and spent time at the guild. I don't know if it's stated exactly what age Laxus was when Ivan got kicked out, but I assume he was around 16, and from that I like to think he was technically still living with Ivan at the time but both Laxus and Ivan would go on long jobs that lead them far away from Fairy Tail (though Ivan wasn't officially going on jobs every time he left for weeks or months at a time, that's just what Laxus thought he was doing). Because of this lack of closeness, Laxus didn't really see how his dad was so bad that he needed to be removed from the guild (he knew he was far from the best guy around, but he didn't know the worst stuff). Anyway, when Ivan left Fairy Tail that left Laxus living with Makarov for about a week or two before he found a place for himself. It was an uncomfortable week.

[lurkingshan]

8 and 17

May/December

I had a long chat with @bengiyo and @twig-tea about this trope last night and what actually counts for it. It's age gap, but not just any age gap. M/D requires that the pair be in different seasons of life (thus the name). There is no strict age cutoff or specific amount of years that needs to be between them; what matters more is the story has to be rooted in their different stages of life and how they work across that to find a way to connect. And I do have a favorite in this category...

HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count

Yes, the show many dare not speak of. It has always made me sad that the A story of this drama was so upsetting to people, because it meant the B story, and these two right here, got overlooked and under-discussed. When they meet at the gym, Bo Xiang is 16 and he acts like it--he's a sweet kid but he's very immature and impulsive and mercurial. Zhi Gang is in his late 20s, running his own small business, and recovering from a whole lot of heartbreak due to both former lovers and his homophobic family who has rejected him. He is broken and afraid to trust, and Bo Xiang is instantly smitten with him and pledges his undying devotion.

What I like about this age gap romance is the show takes it seriously. Zhi Gang is concerned about a teenager crushing on him and puts up boundaries, while at the same time he is drawn to Bo Xiang's warmth and unwavering support. Bo Xiang has all the passion and fervor of a kid who's never been burned and doesn't know to be afraid, and he sees so much good in Zhi Gang, which is a balm to Zhi Gang's wounds. They are very attracted to each other and once they give in to that attraction, the story turns to figuring out how a relationship between them could possibly work. Zhi Gang agrees to see Bo Xiang but only under certain conditions, demanding that he focus on his studies and his work and not get wrapped up in their relationship. And we see that against all odds, they actually make a great pair, with Zhi Gang inspiring Bo Xiang to mature and take his life more seriously, and Bo Xiang giving Zhi Gang the comfort and stability he needs to heal. The series brings them back years later in HIStory 4 to show us they are still going steady and now getting married, and it was completely believable to me that they would be. These two work.

Ugly Duckling

Let's talk about this trope too, because I've chatted with a few friends who were not entirely sure what it meant. UD is a trope centered on a character who feels unlovable, often in part but not wholly because of some perceived deficit in their physical appearance, who finds love and through that love a path toward self-acceptance and confidence in themselves. That second part is crucial--it doesn't necessarily require a physical makeover, but the internal journey is deeply important to the trope. It's not just about characters who are "ugly" (there really aren't any ugly people in dramas, fam) but rather that journey to loving themselves that matters. I want to shout out one of my favorites in this category...

Blueming

Si Won grew up as a fat kid, and though he is thin now and quite clearly conventionally attractive, he doesn't feel that way on the inside. He carries a lot of trauma about the way he was made to feel ugly as a child by both his mother and the society he lived in. He is threatened by Da Un because he seems so effortless in the way he carries himself and in his easy confidence, and Si Won has never felt easy in his life. He resents him, and Da Un is at first puzzled by this, and then moved when he realizes the source of Si Won's insecurities. Their romance is healing for Si Won, in that it allows him to build some much needed confidence in himself (which is why the final act conflict between them was so smart IMO, because Da Un ended up undercutting that newfound confidence in a way he did not intend). By the end of this story Si Won has come to respect himself enough to demand what he needs from a partner, and to believe that he has something to offer in return. It's such a lovely story.

Send me a number and I’ll post the best and/or my fave show that uses that trope

[phantom-of-the-ruckus]

So....

ok, after seeing some old posts. Legit embarrassment came over me for my cringe teenage years in DA. I personally feel conflicted mostly about the reactions, but let me make some things clear once that i was finally more in a more stable set of mind.

I am not upset or anything, I am just well nervous mostly and utterly embarrassed hahaha

TW: mentions of abuse, TW: trauma, and TW: mention of past S/A

ummm pls don't be mad. Legit bringing this makes me anxious and i deeply apologize for my harsh behavior (if there was), i was a traumatized teen and def not prepared to fandoms like i am now. I am an adult now, and far more matured than now. I understand the conflicted feelings. Furthermore, I am not the same person

Ok, first things first. If there was some cringe infamous EOA Saga in DA, that was my cringe teenager self. Yes, it was made by a teenager, which explains a lot. I don't think i ever fully disclosed (when my DA was active. I deactivated due to the new policies and i kinda just abandoned it) that during the EOA era I was a full on minor.

Furthermore, I was pretty immature and stuff, but also the fics and Shuriki were my way of coping from a former toxic-parent, bullying, and past SA (not exactly the R word, but it was a bit of abuse) which left me emotionally disturbed. Besides, I mostly wrote for myself and my friends. I wasn't fully emotionally matured as I am now today, and legit the fanfics were just a way to cope and just escape.

I know that throughout the characters, i chose freaking Shuriki to be the one to be attached to and cope, but I guess it was the fact that we knew so little about her, that it helped me self-project, but also become an odd comfort (which she still is my comfort character who i adore to explore her most vile and human side. Furthermore, I don't self project any more haha) and well she did help me cope and heal in my own way (which explains why i see her differently)

My reactions were immature as I was a young in a slowly developing internet, and i was more emotional than i am now.

Let alone, I was heavily depressed and constantly dealing with solitude and so much stress, specially in the early years after a direct S/A (mostly harassment) and hypersexuality due to the S/A (which it can really be reflected on those fics if you were able to read them)

I didn't know how to fully express myself, due to sadly being mostly conditioned to hie my emotions and during that time I was in denial of the S/A that happened. I of course didn't act the best, but i am glad i can have second chances and better opportunities.

This is not an excuse, but just rather explaining my behavior. I wasn't emotional ready back then, and ngl being in the fandom heavily intimidated me as I am very socially awkward and shy.

Regarding how I feel about her ship and Esteriki in general. I'll be honest. I don't know how to feel truly. Its both a mix of awkward, funny, not so good memories, but nonetheless it was part of my teenage development which I didn't expect that it would be known and accidentally make a ship that haunted this fandom for years (sorry for the jumpscare, the internet was young, and so I was) but I am thankful that I got to meet long time friends, and grow as a writer and a person.

Do I still ship it? I dunno, my opinions changed, and so my views of their dynamic in cannon and fannon. Would I still do it? I dunno tbh as my fixations had changed.

I am thankful people simply ignored me, and hopefully assumed correctly, back then I was a teenager. I am well aware I'll prop won't be unblocked b, butt's fine. Legit, I think i am far better and finally mature enough to give a full on explanation.

[crazycatfaery]

H҉e҉l҉l҉o҉,҉ ҉t҉h҉i҉s҉ ҉i҉s҉ ҉n҉o҉t҉ ҉h҉i҉l҉l҉i҉e҉! Your HEX anon, back yet again to haunt your inbox! 🧚 I am in love with your answers, because I get to listen to new and inspiring things but also because I laughed so hard I cried at those instrument choices. 🤣 While it isn’t at all related to HEX, there is a song I will need to share with you… but later, when the cats are all out of their bags! 🐈🐈🐈 First things first: more questions! (What do any of these have to do with your gift? An excellent question! But I only ask, I do not answer… 😈 or do I?) 1 - Any thoughts on what Sam, Terra, and Sky refer to the adults as? Ben is obviously Dad to his kids and Saul is absolutely not Dad to Sky, but do you have any preferences, hard dislikes, whatever? Anything that changes from when they’re kids to teenagers in and after canon? 2 - Rose gets a chance to send one message through time to any character. ✉️ Who is it and what is the message? 3 - Please rank the five adult idiots we’re looking at by how emotional they are… and by how emotive they are in case that’s different. Because we agree that they’re all idiots, right? Of course right. 4 - If you had to pick one color to represent the holidays to you, what would it be? (Okay, okay… maybe two. 😜) Until next time! ✨💚

Helloooo Anon (you still haven't run out of those fonts? wild)! Heheh, I’m glad I made you laugh with the instruments. I definitely snickered a lot when I was thinking about who would be which. 😁 Very curious about that song!

These questions are once again great, and I have once again A LOT of thoughts about them, so grab a nice drink and get comfortable, because I haven't held back (do I ever?).

1 - What the kids refer to the adults as: Yes, Ben is “Dad” to Sam and Terra, Sky calls him “professor Harvey” and has a hard time shaking that habit outside of Alfea, though he has full permission to call him “Ben”.

Farah is “Miss Dowling” to everyone ever since the kids considered themselves to be all grown up. As little kids she was “Farah” to the boys, and “Auntie Farah” to Terra, but hearing the other adults and kids strictly refer to her as “Miss Dowling” inside Alfea made them think they should as well(Farah herself agrees with this, what with her wishing to present herself as a stable figurehead, but sometimes she wishes she could hear them call her Auntie again, if only once), and got wary of calling her anything else.

To Terra and Sam, Saul is “Mr Silva” or “Headmaster Silva”, and simply “Silva” outside of school settings. Sky calls him “Silva” during school, and “Saul” outside of school, though he has a hard time to not keep calling him “Silva” all the time, similar with Ben. Sky did call Saul “Da” when he was little, but Saul kept reminding him he wasn’t his dad, so Sky outgrew that eventually.

Rose was always just “Rose” to Sky, and obviously “Mum” to Terra and Sam.

Luna just gets called what’s proper for her rank as queen, and I can imagine that, if we’re talking about a Luna/Ben ship situation, the kids (especially Terra and Sam) would find it incredibly hard to call her “Luna”, even if she would ask them to. I think that Terra would get to that point earlier than Sam, though it depends on how they are written, and how much Luna has redeemed herself in their eyes.

I’m not much into the teens calling the adults “Uncle” or “Auntie”, except maybe in highly emotional and rare circumstances, and only directly towards said adults. Most of all I don’t really like it when they talk with others about “Uncle” or “Auntie”, I think it’s too sappy and makes it seem like they had normal childhoods, which I doubt very much. There’s a sort of distance and strain between the kids and the adults in the show which would make it very out of character, in my opinion.

2 - Rose’s message: Omg Anon, my heart 😩💔. Do you want me to cry? (but also yesss the aaangst, the painnnnn) This was actually incredibly hard. Should it be Ben, her love and life-partner? Or should it be one of her kids, and which one?

Terra obviously has plenty of troubles for which she could use some encouragement from her mother, but I like to think she’s emotionally strong and maybe even more mature than Sam.

Sam has left with Ben after Musa messed with his emotions, and he might feel a bit lost because of that, and could do with a message from Rose?

But then Ben is probably feeling quadruple levels of guilt over leaving Terra, as well as his friends, behind at Alfea (especially after he learns that Farah is really dead). I can imagine he would want some guidance from his wife as to what he should do next. She wasn’t just Sam and Terra’s mother and Ben’s wife, but (in my headcanon at least) Saul and especially Farah’s friend as well. So she may be able to reassure Ben about his choices, and tell him what to do about Saul, Farah, and if he should return to Alfea.

So all in all I think Ben would be best, but they sure could all use that message (although now I’m thinking…what if Farah would get the message? Maybe while she’s in some kind of in-between, and Rose is the one who tells her she has too much unfinished business? Or after she’s resurrected? Don’t mind me, spiraling here).

3 - Emotional adults: Oh boy, another hard one. But also very interesting, I haven’t really thought that deeply before about how emotive the adults are.

Emotional:

Luna. Queen of Solaria and pettiness. 

Rose. Doesn’t make it a secret when she’s angry, but also shares her joyful emotions with everyone. Does get less intense as she grows older and has to learn patience as a mother. 

Farah. Secretly is. Half convinced she isn’t. 

Ben. Can be emotional, but is surprisingly good at keeping his cool in stressful situations, as long as it doesn’t contain anything personal (like his son bleeding out on his table. oop.). Not perfect either, but more in tune with his emotions than any of these idiots.

Saul. Emotion? What is that? Just kidding, Saul experiences loads of emotions, but he’s very good at punching them all down, as we all know. Pitiful man 🤡(affectionately).

Emotive:

Rose. Open book, sometimes to a fault.

Ben. Mostly in body language. Tries to hide behind calming expressions, like for example worry being masked by a smile.

Luna. So much for keeping up appearances. Not as good at hiding it as she likes to think.

Farah. Hides it really well, until confronted with her biggest regrets and guilt. Is slowly starting to learn to be less rigid and more emotive, as seen with Bloom.

Saul. Just reserved for close friends and family, except for bad emotions. Made the rest of the students think he got bewitched by Rosalind or something, with how cool he reacted to Farah’s death.

Someone get these adults a therapist.

4 - Holiday colours: Oh dear. I think… Red and Gold? Or maybe White and Gold? Or Dark Green and Gold? Maybe I should go with just Gold, because I associate it with Christmas as well as New Years. But I love colours! (also, highly underrated: Brown and Gold)

Thank you for making my brain work, again! I really enjoy answering these. Hope to see you back here again soon! 😄

[flamingspud]

New chapter of my Six of Crows Divergent au is out now!

chapters 2 + 3 below the cut

Chapter 2: Jesper - The Fights

Jesper found himself in a room with a little over twenty other teenagers, along with their two trainers. 

They had practically hit the ground running, it was the second day and they were already set into pairs to fight each other. He watched as the stiff pinned a Candour boy to the ground easily. "I've defeated him," he said, looking up at Tamar, who was watching them carefully.

"Not until he can't get back up again," she said without much more than a slightly stern expression.

The stiff blinked, as if he didn't understand what she was saying, while the Candour's kid's eyes went wide. As realisation dawned on the stiff, Jesper watched as his face hardened into a scowl, before pulling his fist back.

Jesper looked away, wincing at the sound of his fist coming into contact with the other's face. Over and over again. He only dared to look back when the sounds had stopped, and immediately wished he hadn't.

The stiff was standing now, his face unemotional, while the Candour boy.... he was bruised and bloody, the only indication that he wasn't dead were his quiet coughs and tiny twitches.

Jesper knew that Dauntless would be brutal, but yikes, this is far worse than he could've ever imagined.

So how had he ended up here?

Well, it all began when he had taken the aptitude test, only to come to to see the examiner sitting there with a furrowed brow. 

"What're my results, doc?" He had asked with a grin.

The Abnegation man had given him a serious look. "It seems that you have an aptitude for both Dauntless and Amity," he said bluntly.

Jesper heard a record scratch in his head (metaphorically, of course.) "Huh?"

The man went into some sort of spiel about Jesper choosing the cheese, but also running after the dog, a lot of it he can't fully remember. Meanwhile, Jesper's brain felt like it went into overdrive. He hadn't realised that this was a thing that could happen.

"I am going to input your results as Amity," the man explained. "It is important, that you don't let anyone know the truth."

Jesper nodded fervently, taking the warning to heart. "It's a big secret, got it."

"I'm serious," the examiner reiterated, "having multiple aptitudes, being divergent, is dangerous."

Jesper nodded again, standing up. "Right, well it seems I have a decision to make," he said it with a smile, but he felt nerves creeping in. Being divergent was dangerous? Why?

He strutted back out to the waiting room and took a seat. As he waited for everyone's tests to get done, he found himself tugging on his shirt sleeve. What kind of danger was he in? Was he going to die young, like some kind of disease? Or would people want to kidnap him and run experiments on him? But surely, only the Erudite would have the equipment for that? Right?

These anxieties only got worse throughout the day, and once he finally made it home all he wanted to was go straight to his room. However, his Da stopped him.

"Jesper," he said, "how did today go?"

Jesper avoided his eyes as he replied, "good, it went good." He nodded to drive home the point.

"Jesper," his father repeated, grabbing his arm. "Look at me, son."

Jesper complied.

His Da's eyes, grey like his, studied him, and Jesper felt as if he was looking into his soul. "What's wrong, Jes? What aptitude did you get?"

Jesper blinked, surprised. "We're not supposed to talk about that, Da," he reminded him.

His dad shook his head. "That doesn't matter, something's up with you." As if to drive the point home, he pulled Jespers hands apart, where he was trying to pick at one of his nails. "You won't get in trouble, I promise."

Jesper took a breath. Of course, his Da was his Da, he could tell him, right? It's not like the guards would run in at the mention of his results. "I- they say I have an aptitude for both Amity and Dauntless," Jesper admitted hastily.

Instead of comforting him, telling him it'd be ok, or even saying "wow Jesper, that's cool!" the worried creases of his fathers face only deepened. "Divergent," he breathed, his voice full of fear. Jesper hadn't realised he knew the term for it.

 His Da gripped Jesper's shoulders tightly. "Jesper, listen to me closely," he said, completely serious. "You can never speak of this again, tomorrow you will pick Amity and we will go on like nothing is off. It will be ok."

Jesper wasn't sure if he was trying to convince Jesper or himself. Either way, the weight of his tone scared Jesper. Was it really this serious? "Why- how do you know all this?"

"Your mother," was his Da's surprising response, "she- she also was... divergent."

Jesper's eyes went wide.

"The world isn't kind to people like you and her," his dad said. "Promise me you'll do this."

Jesper's brain was struggling to keep up, but also felt way too far ahead. "Da-"

"Promise!-" His father demanded, his voice harsher than Jesper had ever heard it, and trust him, he had been given out to plenty over his childhood.

Jesper nodded. "I promise."

His father seemed to visibly relax. "Good-" he looked around- "I will get started on dinner then."

Jesper watched as his dad wandered off to the kitchen, his words replaying in his mind.

***

Jesper was nervous during the choosing ceremony. He had barely gotten any sleep the night before, as he tossed and turned thinking about what his Da said. 

He was divergent. He was different. He was in danger. The best way to stay safe was to stay in Amity, with his Da.

It made sense and he loved his Da, but... 

Hearing a faction other than Amity had been exciting, a chance at something new, something flashy, something better. Something more than just being a farmer forever.

So when he heard his name finally being called out, he took careful steps up to the front, keeping his eyes trained ahead of him. His Da was gonna kill him.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he cut himself with the knife, and quickly shot his hand out over the burning coals of Dauntless. He heard cheers as his blood sizzled, but he couldn't focus on them.

He turned straight towards his new faction, and walked over to join them, not letting himself look out at the crowd, at who would be watching him.

No looking back now.

***

"Alright, Jesper and Wylan, you're up next!"

Jesper stood up. They had brought the Candour boy out of the room, but spots of his blood remained. Jesper swallowed, trying to keep down his nerves. 

Across from him the Erudite boy from yesterday stood, his eyes darting around like a nervous animal. Jesper tried to smile, but he was pretty sure it came out more like a grimace.

Wylan's expression seemed to mirror his own, something that surprised Jesper, as he was the first jumper. He supposed not even the most impressive initiates were fearless.

"Fight," Tamar instructed.

Wylan moved quickly, Jesper could admit that as he went for his legs, trying to knock him down. However, Jesper's years spent working on the farms at Amity came in handy as he was far stronger than the boy in front of him.  

Jesper managed to shove him backwards, before lunging towards him. Wylan ducked out of the way, before jumping onto Jesper's back and wrapping his hands around his neck. Jesper easily shook him off, and spun around. He pushed Wylan to the ground, who pulled him down with him.

As he lay on top of him, Jesper couldn't help but notice how pretty Wylan was, like the princes in the fairytales he grew up reading. 

Wylan tried head-butting him, but to Jesper it looked like he hurt himself more than he did Jesper. He glanced up at Tamar, who was watching expectantly. 

He turned back to Wylan with a grimace. "Sorry," he muttered quietly, before punching him in the head. He only needed to hit him twice to get him to stop moving, thank the saints.

Jesper stood up and tried to shake the pain from his hand as he walked back to where he had been sitting. Wylan's eyes fluttered open without much prompting when Tamar went to check on him. 

His eyes slid in Jesper's direction, but Jesper's quickly darted away, not wanting to meet eyes.

"Good job," Kaz said, his eyes still trained straight ahead.

"Huh?" Jesper turned to look at him.

"You won."

Jesper sighed. "Beating up someone smaller than you doesn't feel like winning."

Kaz rolled his eyes. "We're not in Amity anymore, if you want to get by you need to throw your grievances away."

"You don't think this is wrong?" Jesper asked.

Kaz was silent, and turned away, making the decision to ignore Jesper. 

"Great..."

Once the fights had ended, it was time to go to lunch. 

Jesper sat in a chair in the cafeteria with a sigh. "Glad that's over with," he admitted over his food.

"You do realise we have to do it again tomorrow," Kaz reminded him, not looking up from his own plate.

"Hopefully I'll be fighting someone my own size tomorrow," Jesper said, trying to stay positive. His lips quirked up. "Maybe I'll fight you."

Kaz scoffed. "You don't want that."

"Oh yeah? Believe it or not behind these dazzling good looks I do know how to throw a punch or two."

Kaz shook his head. "You'd punch like a noodle."

"Excuse me-" Jesper exclaimed in offense, which got an amused smile from Kaz. 

However, Jesper got distracted, as he saw Wylan looking at him over Kaz's shoulder. The Erudite- or, ex-Erudite Jesper corrected quickly looked away when Jesper noticed him. A wave of guilt washed over Jesper. 

He stood up. "I should say sorry," he announced to the table (which only contained Kaz) before making his way over to Wylan's table.

"Jesper! Don't apologise!-" Kaz whisper-yelled after him, but Jesper's mind was made up.

"Hey, Wylan was it?" Jesper asked, approaching the table. Wylan was sitting with two girls.

"Uh- yes?" He said, somewhat awkwardly.

"I just wanted to come over and apologise for earlier-" Jesper was suddenly aware of many eyes on him.

"Oh," was Wylan's response.

"So yeah, have a good lunch-"

Wylan's taller friend had gotten up from her seat, and quickly ushered Jesper out of the room. "I know I'm handsome, but at least take me to dinner first-"

"What do you think you're doing?" She demanded. 

"It was just a joke-"

"I mean apologising to Wylan! Are you trying to put a target on his back?!" She demanded.

"What?! No! I was just-"

"Implying that he's not strong enough to be here? What do you think the others will do to him if they see you think it was a one sided beat down rather than an equal fight?"

"That's not what this is!-"

"Well that's how it'll look to everyone else," the girl spat venomously, gripping his collar.

"This isn't what I wanted!" Jesper insisted.

She looked him up and down, before taking a deep breath and letting him go. "Do you want to fix this?"

"Yes!" Jesper was sure of that. He didn't want to get Wylan in trouble because of him.

"Then hold still-"

"-What why?-"

Wylan's friend suddenly punched Jesper in the jaw, and pain shot up through Jesper's face. "What the hell?!"

"If anyone asks, you were apologising to me for hitting on me, got it?"

Jesper barely managed to nod before the girl turned back around and stormed into the cafeteria. After a beat passed he followed her.

"And stay gone, creep!" The girl shouted at him as he did the walk of shame back to his table.

"Told you it was a bad idea," was the first thing Kaz said.

"Shut up," Jesper responded grumpily, trying not to look at all the eyes on him. Jesper was starting to realise that things were a lot different here than in Amity, and if he wanted to survive he'd have to get that into his head. It had only been day one and he'd already made a fool out of himself.

Ok, he figured, bring it.

Chapter 3: Inej - Capture the Flag

It was day three of the fights. Inej had been fairly lucky so far, having been put against low-level opponents. Today, fortune wasn't quite on her side, as the name written next to hers on the board was Kaz's.

In spite of his bad leg, he hadn't lost a fight yet, and Inej didn't think she was going to be the one to break that streak.

She glanced at Wylan, whose face was pretty banged up. He had been Kaz's latest opponent, and hadn't stood a chance.

He tried to give her an encouraging smile. "Nina suggested we get tattoos together, if you're interested?"

Inej smiled back at him. "Sure."

"Kaz and Inej, you're up."

Wylan raised his eyebrows. "Good luck."

Inej pushed herself up to her feet, and faced Kaz in the ring. Already he was looking her up and down, so she did the same. Bar the obvious, he didn't have any apparent weaknesses.

When the fight began, the two didn't immediately go for the first move, waiting to see what the other would try.

After almost a minute of inaction, Inej decided to make the first move. She lunged for Kaz's leg, and at the last second changed tactic and went for his upper body. This sudden change in movement caught Kaz off guard, and she managed to knock him off balance.

Kaz took a swing at her, and she barely managed to dodge out of the way. She yanked on his arm in an attempt to pull him to the ground. She didn't even notice his sleeve riding up his arm as she did so, and the boy flinched back.

She took the opportunity to use his momentum to push him over. She pinned his arms down with her knees and wrapped her hands around his neck. She wasn't a hard hitter like some of the others, so this was the best way to knock him out.

She had expected him to fight back, throw her off of him and hit her head against the ground mats. Instead, while he did thrash, he seemed less calculated like he was in earlier fights, trying to wrench his neck free from her grasp.

It didn't take long for him to pass out, and Inej stood up. Tamar announced her victory, and she went back to sit next to Wylan.

"Good job," he congratulated.

"Yeah..."

She watched as Kaz was resuscitated, and he went to go sit next to Jesper.

"You ok?" Wylan asked, noticing Inej's far-off stare.

She nodded, but she had an uncomfortable feeling. She knew she was a capable opponent thanks to her years of performing, but she'd seen Kaz win far harder fights with sturdier opponents. Despite this, she hadn't found incapacitating him... particularly hard?

Before she could stew on it for any longer, Tamar told them it was time to get to lunch, pulling her out of her own head. Whatever, she was probably overthinking it.

***

They were woken up in the middle of the night, and Inej found herself putting her clothes on at their mentors' request.

It wasn't long until they were out under the clear night sky and chasing the train that sped along without consideration for its soon to be passengers. The group was a mixture of both the Dauntless-born initiates and the transfers.

After Inej dragged herself up into the carriage, everyone gathered around the twin mentors to listen as they explained why they were brought out here.

"A city-wide game of capture the flag," Tamar told them, kicking a box of paintball guns towards the initiates.

"The teams will be chosen by Tolya and myself, and we'll get off the train at separate points. If you get shot even once, you'll be out."

The twins then took turns picking their initiates.

Inej found herself on Tolya's team, while her friends were on Tamar's. She silently took note of how Wylan was the last to be picked, but she couldn't afford to dwell on his problems, she had her own to worry about.

Her team got off the train first, and Tolya didn't wait to make sure they all got off after him. Inej's eyes flitted over to the marsh that was on the edge of the city, spanning almost as far as the eye could see. Stories whispered of it once being a glittering blue lake, something Inej liked to think about.

As the group searched for a place to protect their flag, they discussed a strategy to try and get the other team's flag with as little casualties as possible.

Once they set up base, Inej set off into presumably the other team's direction, though she was less than pleased when the group had sent Kaz with her.

She was completely fine to walk in silence when Kaz spoke up. "The allocation of jobs was terrible."

Inej glanced over to him. "Oh yeah?"

Kaz nodded. "You may be stealthy, but pairing me up with you limits what you can do-" Kaz motioned to his bad leg- "but I suppose the Dauntless-born initiates wouldn't care much about that." He said that last part with a grin, though what he said wasn't funny.

"I don't need your praise you know," Inej informed him.

"I'll make sure to steer away from compliments then."

"I'm serious-" Inej stopped in front of him- "is it some kind of Amity thing that you all try to give help where it isn't needed? Because out of the two of us only one scored Dauntless and it wasn't you."

Kaz raised his eyebrows. "Do I seem like the generous type to you?"

Inej looked him up and down. "You won every other fight."

"They couldn't find my weaknesses."

Inej paused at this. "Weaknesses? Like what?"

Kaz smiled. "One of us didn't get Dauntless, remember? I'm smart enough to keep my cards close."

Inej studied Kaz, the way he held himself, the way he spoke- he was right, he definitely wasn't the generous type. She continued walking.

"So how come you chose to come here rather than Erudite?"

Kaz let out a sigh, his eyes drifting off to the horizon. "I'm looking for someone."

"A friend?" Inej asked.

"Not exactly."

Inej wondered what he meant by that. She didn't say anything, leaving space for him to elaborate on his own.

He didn't, and instead just kept walking.

"...are we even walking in the right direction?" Inej asked.

"No idea."

Inej stopped. "Hold on a second."

She didn't wait to see if he had actually stopped before scaling the nearest tree. It felt good to be high up, it reminded her of home. Once she reached the top, she scanned the area for any sign of the other team.

She spotted a clearing among the trees, a perfect spot to keep a flag. Covered by the forest but also easier to spot intruders from than the rest of the forest.

She dropped back down to where Kaz was waiting. "This way," she told him, walking in the direction of the clearing.

Kaz didn't argue. "Where'd you learn to climb like that?"

Inej shrugged. "I'd put on shows with my parents."

"Is that common in Candour?"

"Not particularly, though we did have a few performer friends."

The pair soon reached the clearing. There were three initiates standing around the flag, paintball guns in hand.

"So how to get it..." Kaz pondered.

"I don't suppose we could run like hell for it?" Inej asked.

Kaz shook his head. "Believe it or not beneath Jesper's foolishness is a man that doesn't miss."

Right...

"Hey, remember when you said that you weren't one for stealth?" Inej asked.

"Where are you going with this...?"

Inej smiled devilishly. "I could use a distraction."

Kaz's mouth formed a thin line. "I'd be offended if I had a better plan in mind."

Inej climbed up into a nearby tree, hopping from branch to branch as silently as she could as Kaz made his way to the other side of the clearing.

The leaves rustled, and the three initiates raised their guns in Kaz's direction.

Inej carefully positioned her gun, pointing it at Jesper. She hit him square in the back, the black shirt turning blue from the paint.

The other two spun around, shooting in her general direction. Inej jumped out of the way, shuffling along the tree branches as quickly as she could without falling.

Luckily for her, the shots stopped as Kaz hit them both in the back of the heads.

She grinned and jumped down from the tree, then ran into the clearing and grabbed the flag. She waved it victoriously.

Kaz's smile mirrored her own as he joined her in the clearing.

"No need to look so smug," Jesper commented, and Kaz just smirked.

"You should've won then."

Jesper shook his head, though Inej could tell he was biting back a smile.

As the game was over, the group made their way back to the train tracks, where they found the rest of the initiates.

Once she had gotten on the train that would bring them back to the Dauntless compound, Nina and Wylan congratulated her.

"Thanks guys."

"So uh, who's tall dark and handsome over there?" Wylan asked, nodding in Kaz's direction. The pair of them had made their way to the train tracks together.

"Before you say anything, you can do far better than a man whose hair is cut like that," Nina interjected.

"Guys!" Inej scolded, "get your minds out of the gutter, it's nothing like that."

Nina smirked. "For the record I only believe you because you’re from Candour and are probably incapable of lying,” she said.

“I’m not incapable of lying,” Inej insisted.

“Don’t worry, we’ll teach you how to lie,” Nina assured her, giving her a pat on the shoulder, “we’re going to make you so evil.”

“Pfft-”

As her friends spoke, Inej’s eyes drifted towards the other side of the car and met Kaz’s, who was listening to Jesper.

Maybe it was the Candour in her striving for the truth, but he intrigued her. She wondered who could possibly make him choose a different faction, especially since he didn’t consider them ‘friends.’

Kaz went back to looking at Jesper.

She figured if she wanted to know she’d have to talk to him more. There was much more to Kaz than meets the eyes, that she was certain of.

And Inej was going to get to the bottom of it.

[pyromaniac-cyndaquil]

For the PMD ask thing, 2, 4, and 5?

These got embarrassingly long haha

Questions from here

2. Favourite game?

Explorers of sky! Mostly because it has the most all-round strength. The story and music are beautiful and the gameplay is fantastic, with skytemple patches being able to get it as close to perfection as it can get I think. (Also the postgame. Goddddddd. It's basically just a second whole story after the credits).

In terms of story and music though, gates to infinity is a very close second and there's elements to it that I love even more than eos. Gates is tragically hard to replay because of the jank gameplay and slow start, but some of my absolute favourite tracks in the series are from gates and its main leitmotif gets me every time. The story is super nice and it was the only one I bawled by eyes out at when I got to the ending 😭 and the way the hero's return at the end is handled is by far my favourite.

I mostly just ended up ranting about gti here despite saying eos is my favourite, but it never gets enough love without people also piling on the hate in ways that make me sad 😤

4. What do you name your hero and partner and why?

I've done so many pmd runs where I just name my hero and partner after Whatever Ship I Have At The Time if the dynamic can feel close enough, but when they're actually meant to be my own characters, I always used to call the hero Catstar as a teenager (originally named after my world of warcraft character but I just got... Attached to the name lol)

I called my Eevee hero in rescue team Catstar, as well as my riolu hero in explorers. The riolu version I still consider my sona to this day but Catstar feels like kind of a silly name, so I've taken to calling her Ivy nowadays. Picked up the name Ivy for her when playing explorers of the spirit and really liked it!

Sounds silly but quite often I... Didn't name my hero OR partner in a lot of my early runs? Started thinking about names more though once I got into writing fanfic back on deviantart in the day. My rescue team hero's partner is typically a Pikachu called Volt, and my explorers partner is a Shinx called Enzo (think an old dA friend suggested the name to me based on some sci-fi show or something he liked, and I thought it sounded nice so I went with it lol)

Me and my friend did a randomised and modded run of eos together last year and I had a Rowlet called Bacon, mostly because it was funny. He had a Zorua called Snickers, also because it was funny.

I also started an expanded sky run recently with a quaxly called mallory and scorbunny called skips, just felt right for them :3

5. What Pokémon would you like to play as/with?

*Gestures to pmd expanded sky* gonna be honest this is extremely self-indulgent!!!! Having all the starters (both from main series and from other pmd games) is really important to me, and other ones like Zorua and rockruff just feel... Right to include. There's more I can really easily visualise playing as in pmd like charcadet, pawmi or applin, and I really hope I can include them in the future!

[inkabelledesigns]

Hey so have I ever told you guys about the most ridiculous thing to happen to me online as a teenager? Yeah I got trolled and harassed by the same guy for so many years that I lost count. And it was all because I told him you shouldn't steal people's Sonic fan character sprite sheets. Here's the story.

So as a teenager, I was really into those SSS Sprite Show videos. It was a genre of Sonic content on YouTube that consisted of Sonic and Shadow with Sonic Advance style sprites, and Silver with a Genesis styled sprite, over realistic photo backgrounds, using Speakonia voices to talk. The humor was often pretty terribly written. The three would often live together, Shadow would beat the crap out of Silver, Sonic was obsessed with the Sex and the City Franchise, Amy was constantly written to be a horrible, obsessive antagonist which sucked, and so many people would recolor Sonic Advance sprites to be their fan characters, which would slowly take over the show and lead to more wacky adventures, becoming more about them than the canon cast. Some were pretty basic recolors, others put a lot of effort in. And as I said, this was a genre, as in, multiple people made sprite series with this setup, all using the same voices and formula, and they all lived in the mansion with the SSS. They were baaaaaaad, but y'know, the kids were having fun, and I used to know a lot of people in this community. I even tried my hand at spriting and got actively told to quit by one of my former boyfriends so I couldn't be better at it than him. Yeah he was a peach. This is sarcasm, he was a dick and incredibly sexist towards me. Hell the amount of sexism I faced from guys in this community was kind of ridiculous. The stuff I went through just for being a girl on the internet in the 2010s was something else. If this part of the sprite community somehow still exists, I hope people have gotten better about that.

Anyway, it was incredibly common for fan character sprite sheets to cross over into each other's series, but not everyone consented to people using your sheets. So often, you'd email people your sheet, and only people who had permission would use it. That is, until some assholes leaked them. One of my friends had their sheet leaked and given to someone else who abused the use of it so much, and then there was all this stuff with emailing where some confident lil shit decided to flaunt that he had all these sheets he wasn't supposed to have. We never found definitive evidence as to who leaked them, but I feel confident that I know who it was. But the person flaunting it, I and this other person called him out. He was not only flaunting the sheets under a false name and using them in hisain account videos (often turning my friend's character into a bitch to make them look bad), but he was also making fake accounts to troll himself to generate sympathy and get people's attention off of it. And when we called him on this, he proceeded to harass us for the better part of a decade. Impersonating me on YouTube to say things I would never say in grammar I would never use, hell, he did that to a lot of people that would go on to call him out. He'd make entire videos on his main account telling us we were awful and to stop harassing him when we weren't, he was the one actively harassing us. The drama was real, and this continued to happen for YEARS after all of us stopped interacting with him, on YouTube, DeviantArt, it was bad, and it bugged me. I would be on vacation with my family, completely unplugged, and then come back to hundreds of messages gumming up my DA inbox from him under fake accounts.

But like, at a certain point you learn to block it out. Like as a teenager, I was worried people would think his impersonation was actually me, and some people did! But anyone who like, actually knew me wasn't fooled, and if you're willing to believe that sort of thing on sight without questioning it in the slightest, maybe you're not someone I need in my life or should care about the opinions of. It was a valuable lesson that not everyone is someone you need to hold in high regard. Be respectful, but also know that not everyone respects you, and their opinions don't need to hold as much weight for you emotionally as someone who does.

The last time I logged into my old DeviantArt, I had like ten messages from deactivated accounts telling me to go fuck myself, from this guy, still impersonating someone else, the same way he had for all that time. It'd gotten a little less frequent while I was still active, but my account has been dead for years. I couldn't believe it, I haven't used my DA since I was what, finishing college? And the messages were recent, it was kind of pathetic.

Like, we just wanted him to stop stealing shit, and there he was, having learned nothing. Consent matters, if you have not been given permission to use someone's character in your creative work, you ask first, and if they say no, you respect that no. You don't get someone to send you their materials, abuse those materials, and then harass people for telling you to knock it off. Yeah, I probably could have been nicer in the way I handled things, I regret that, but knowing what I know now? Regardless of how I behaved, this guy had some unacceptable behavior. And I hope wherever he is now, he's grown up a little. Like, if I really lived rent free in your head for that long, all because I told you not to be a butt to my friend, to respect their boundaries, maybe I'm not the villain in this scenario. Trying to control my actions and obsessing over the fact that I thought you were doing something ugly, when I was an absolute nobody that no one took seriously anyway, isn't nearly as productive as working on bettering yourself. Like genuinely, I hope he's doing better. I felt no sympathy in the moment these things happened, but I do feel a little bad for him now. I've been there, in a place where I cared too much about people's views of me, and it left me wrecked and trying to people please far more than was reasonable. I changed all of who I was in an effort to be liked, and it didn't do me any favors, just made me miserable. It took me so long to learn that hey, you're likable and loveable just by being you, you're not a bad person or failing at being human, you just hadn't found the right people yet. And now you've found people who are in fact great people, and you're gonna be okay. (Yes I went through a character arc and changed as a person for the better, I am far from exactly the same person that I was as a teenager, I've grown. But I'd like to think that some of why people want me around and value me as a friend is because of things I've had inside me all along, things that are core parts of my character. As I often say, maybe being Kat isn't such a bad thing to be after all. Self love and self improvement is a process folks.)

Anyway another community's struggles came up on my feed today, and it reminded me of this story, that's why I'm telling it. To anyone out there that's had to deal with a troll, well, I can't say all experiences are equal, and the internet has changed quite a bit since this happened to me. There are some troll experiences that you can't ignore that will turn into something serious and bad, but there are others that you can brush off, because those trolls don't matter. And there are some that are a complex mix of it all. It's often not worth it to interact with someone that attacks you in bad faith. What I can say is that if someone makes it their life mission to take you down, without really knowing you? Think long and hard about how much time you really want to dedicate to that. Not everyone is going to like you, some people are going to hate you with no real basis or reason for it sometimes. Some people are going to believe things about you that aren't true. The best thing you can do is put your best foot forward, be kind, be courteous, be a thoughtful person, and surround yourself with people who are also kind and thoughtful. Of course, have some self reflection. If someone says your behavior is hurtful, really think about it and analyze yourself, work on yourself, we can always improve. But know that you're not gonna please everyone, and that in and of itself is not a moral failing. It's what you choose to do about it that matters.

The bottom line is this: You can't control how anyone feels about you or behaves, all you can do is control your own actions and make smart choices.

[just-barrow]

day 31 of @almost-a-class-act's War Is Helloween prompts!

SAS: Rogue Heroes - Johnny Cooper/Reg Seekings

Character A really wanted to get the most out of this supposedly haunted hotel by booking the most haunted room on Halloween night (bonus points if this is also the Doll Room).

"Wasn't an entire family murdered here in the thirties?"

"Yeah, they say their spirits still haunt the hallways."

"Great."

Johnny and Reg are making their way to the haunted hotel they are going to spend their Halloween night in. Reg had been a little hesitant beforehand—he still is—but let himself be dragged into it by his friend’s enthusiasm. No one else had wanted to come, and Reg wasn’t about to let people think he was a wuss. 

Johnny may have neglected to mention that he has booked them the most haunted room of the hotel.

The hotel lobby is old-fashioned and richly decorated to make it look even more spooky. The receptionist who checks them in is in full zombie make-up, and Johnny grins excitedly at Reg as he takes the keys from her. 

“Why did she call us brave?” Reg asks, eyes narrowing with suspicion as they make their way upstairs.

“No reason.” 

“Johnny.”

He doesn’t have to answer; next to their door is a little plaque that says ‘Welcome to our most haunted room! Enter at your own risk…’

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

With a sweep of his arm and a ‘ta-da!’ Johnny throws open the door. 

Reg takes a hesitant step inside and looks around at the, he has to admit, very normal hotel room. There are two beds, a bathroom, and a desk with a TV on it. It’s old-fashioned, just like the rest of the hotel, but he had expected a lot more from it. 

He turns around and yelps.

“What is it?” 

“Fucking doll.” It’s sitting next to the TV. Reg quickly turns it around to face the wall. 

Johnny can’t help but chuckle and makes a mental note to turn it back when Reg isn’t looking.

They get settled in as evening falls. Reg casually suggests taking a tour of the rest of the–slightly less haunted–hotel, but Johnny is determined to stay in their room and experience the alleged hauntings himself. Reg concedes and tries to get comfortable, but his shoulders are hunched up around his ears. A cold wind blows past him every few minutes. He tells himself it’s just because it’s a drafty old building.

Meanwhile, Johnny is reading from the little pamphlet that came with the room, animatedly telling Reg all about how a father gruesomely hacked his whole family to death on this very floor; the cause of all the unexplainable occurrences at the hotel. He’s on his stomach on his bed, kicking his feet like a teenage girl reading a magazine. 

Reg huffs a sigh, shooting the occasional glance at the doll. “Glad someone’s having fun.”

Suddenly, the TV turns on. The screen shows static. 

Johnny perks up. “Did you do that?”

Reg’s eyes have gone wide. “Stop pissing about, that was you.”

“I swear it wasn’t!” 

They both look at the doll. The remote control is lying next to her.

“Oh, fuck yes, here we go.” Johnny jumps from his bed and walks closer, the light of the screen illuminating his face.

Reg automatically follows suit, even though every fiber of his being is telling him to duck under the covers. The longer he is here, the more unnerved he feels. Something about this room is very off. He stands a little closer to Johnny than he usually would.

Johnny quickly glances at him and smiles, turning the TV off with the remote. “Don’t think the TV is going to do us any harm.”

“It’s not the TV I’m worried about,” Reg mutters uneasily, eyes locked on the creepy doll.

Then something giggles behind him.

Despite his ever growing fear, Reg whips around and stands protectively in front of Johnny, shielding him from whatever is in the room with them. 

There is nothing there.

“I don’t know what it is you want but you can fuck right off,” he growls into the semi-darkness.

Johnny isn't scared at all, his stomach instead fluttering with a mixture of adrenaline and butterflies. He presses close to Reg's firm back. After a brief hesitation, he reaches down and takes his hand. 

When Reg tenses up for a moment Johnny thinks he has made a huge mistake, but then their fingers tangle together and Reg gives his hand a light squeeze.

Biting his lower lip to keep from bursting into a relieved grin, Johnny noses behind Reg’s ear, his warm breath tickling his neck. Clearly shivering at the sensation, Reg turns around to face Johnny, hauntings now entirely forgotten. When Johnny tugs him closer and presses their foreheads together, a broken little sound escapes Reg’s throat. His free hand finds Johnny’s hip. He seems a little breathless and his eyes are pleading—it makes Johnny’s chest feel tight. 

Deep inside he has known for a while that he isn't the only one who has been yearning for this. 

It feels good to be right. 

And as Reg finally gives in and softly kisses Johnny on the lips, Johnny smiles into it and congratulates himself on a plan well executed.

He silently thanks the hotel spirits.

A light on one of the nightstands starts to flicker as they tumble into bed together.

[marivelasc]

[female & she/her] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [MARIANA VELASCO]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [EMERAUDE TOUBIA]. You must be the [THIRTY-TWO] year old [REALITY TV STAR]. Word is you’re [PASSIONATE] but can also be a bit [RUTHLESS] and your favorite song is [HELADITO BY KALI UCHIS]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [FISHERS COVE]. I’m sure you’ll love it! [kim, 28, MST, she/her, triggers (NA)]

STATS (underco) | PLAYLIST | PINTEREST | CONNECTIONS

tw: arranged marriage (i am not sure if there is something else i need to tag but lmk)

How long they've lived in Aurora Bay: 23 years (4 college years spent in SF)

Current residence: Fisher's Cove / @aurorabayaesthetic

You may recognize Mariana if you’re a fan of reality dating shows. She was only 25 when her casting video for a reality dating show similar to Are You the One was chosen out of the thousands the network received. She never admitted it while she was on tv, but it was more of an escape for her than anything else. It was the only escape out of the situation she was in that she could think of.

Mari was only 7 years old when she moved to Aurora Bay, California with her mom from Mexico. Her mother had told her that her dad would follow behind – only to be told that he was caught at the border and sent back home before he could reach them. This broke her heart as the two were close and it broke every day that passed once communication had ceased between the two. It was hard on her because she found it difficult adapting to new town and language. Not only did she have to teach herself English, but she had to teach her mother too. She did not start speaking full English until she was 10 years old.

When she turned 16, her mother introduced her to Augosto Valverde, a boy that was a year older than her. Mari didn’t think much of it as her mom had been a friend to his family through the years that they lived in Aurora Bay. The two got along extremely well and somewhere along the way they started to date. All during this, her mother convinced her that he would be the one she’d marry when they were both done with college.

By the time Mari had graduated college at 23 – she had fallen in love and it was not with Augosto. It didn’t help that he went to London for college, and she went up to San Francisco. She felt it become less serious for them both as there wasn’t constant communication. This man she fell in love with worshipped her and vice versa. The two were inseparable from the moment they met as sophomores in college up until they graduated. It was safe to say that Mari was not thinking about marrying Augosto.

She had gotten back to Aurora Bay when her mom sprung the news that Augosto would be back in town too and had already asked for approval to marry her. She was shocked. Again, she hadn’t thought about that conversation she had with her mom when she was a teenager. Augosto made it back and he caught Mari with the man she was in love with. She tried to explain that she didn’t know that they were going to get married and that the two hadn’t been serious in so long, why would she even think marriage was still on the books? Augosto was mad, revengeful even, so he revealed to Mari that their engagement had been arranged since they were kids. Her mother had made a deal, ‘sold’ her to say, to Augosto’s family in exchange for money.

When Mari confronted her mom – she confirmed everything. She did indeed “sell” her daughter to the Valverdes because they needed to pay off her moms debts. They were the reason they moved to Aurora Bay. It was the reason why she never saw her father again. Since the engagement was no more, the Valverdes turned their backs on them. Her mom was furious. So much so, that her mom tried to find another rich family to get her married into even if she had to force her daughter down the aisle. Mari was terrified. She felt that she had grown up with a stranger. She couldn’t believe that her mom wanted money so much that she could give her own daughter away.

Her mom did not stop. It was two years that she had to deal with mom showing up to her house or calling her phone about a new potential match. It had become all too overwhelming. Mari had distanced herself from the man she loved and the two broke up a few months before she turned 25. It was amicable and she wished him nothing but the best. After the breakup, she could feel herself falling into a depression, and she needed to avoid that. Most of all, she needed to get away from her mom.

So, she did what she thought was best, and didn’t think it would happen in a million years… She applied to be on are you the one and was accepted. She went on and she flourished. She was known to be the one who spoke her mind and stood up for herself. She was called every name in the book by castmates and viewers yet somehow came out being loved by a lot of people. She did leave the show with a partner in hand – however it didn’t last long because of the distance.

Once she settled back in Aurora Bay, she got a call from her father who had learned that she was on reality TV, tracked her down and found her. He let her know that all contact was cut off and that her mother never told him that they were leaving. They were just gone one day. The two reunited in Aurora Bay and he was able to stop her mom from trying to get her to marry some random man. This left Mariana happy and free as she finally had the courage to cut her mom off.

It wasn’t long until Mariana found herself on another reality dating show. This time, she was on a show similar to Love Island at 27, and she enjoyed herself, but she got screwed over and sent home by the 6th week. This appearance made her even more popular and she was able to get into modeling, and would be asked to help at events through interviewing others such as music festivals, the MTV movie awards, and things like that. She’s had a couple of public flings and not so public flings, but has not had the urge to be tied down yet.

She loves her life and what she does. She feels closer to herself, but now she’s facing the trauma that her mother had given her. It hasn’t been easy, but she’s trying. It was something she was able to avoid by going on reality tv instead of dealing with head on. She's living her life day by day, mommy issues at a high, while learning to be okay with who she has become and what she's been through.

HEADCANNONS:

Her only dating profiles are Tinder and RAYA. Any profile you see on any other platform is not her.

She was one of those on are you the one contestants that did NOT try to be with the one the computer matched her with.

She is still bitter about being sent home early from her last stint.

She graduated with her bachelors a year later than her peers because she took a year break.

She used to live in Seabrook Quarter when she was 23-27

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

a best friend that has been there for her for years since before her first reality show and even one from after pls <3

friends she's met because of her fame

tinder/RAYA matches

ex flings/ex situationships, give her some hurt tbh. i honestly want an ex situationship/fling that she kept hidden from the public which could be plotted as to why she did it or why it ended

friend(s) she has fallen out with maybe due to her fame or other stuff, etc.

ex-boyfriend who she did love but ended amicably - it's giving "cool" by gwen stefani

a fellow reality tv star (could be from same show or different show, might send in a wanted connection)

neighbors from fishers cove

old neighbors from seabrook quarter

literally anything!! im open to all types of plotting and connections

CURRENT CONNECTIONS:

Used to be best friends with @connievanderbilt before she slipped and had sex with her brother

Was hooking up with @sebitorres but not currently as the two haven’t contacted each other in awhile

has known @tylerxhale since kids and has been attracted to him since but the timing for the two had always been off

loves @lonelyhcart because she's like a little sister she never had

[apoptoses]

Followed @desertfangs' advice and dropped everything I was doing so I could read chapter 2. As usual I thought I was ready and it turned out that I wasn't, not even a little bit. THIS!!! "Daniel didn’t meet his eyes. He was trying to bite back his smile, his teeth trapping his lower lip and holding it still. Armand’s last remaining resolve shattered", queen of characterization I swear. Your words evoke such clear images and capture the essence of the characters so effortlessly. This is one of those moments for both of them I think, specially re: how they play off each other. Daniel making every single victory count and Armand being unable to say no to him. Not when it truly counts at least. And then there was Daniel not knowing how to drive a modern car, Armand WANTING to be petty about it (he would lmao) but not succumbing to his impulses and actually guiding Daniel along. The role reversal to end all role reversals. Daniel's hand on his neck in the car, just perfection. “I certainly hope you’re watching the road" I mean SAME but I also want Daniel to keep petting him like a cat pls 🥹 Every single touch feels so immense, almost hurts to read. These are two people who know each other inside out, quite literally, they're experts on each other's bodies, to quote Anne herself, of course every intimate gesture would feel monumental after years of not touching each other.

And you were NOT kidding when you said they would be taking no prisoners and would get to have every single conversation they needed to have. "And how many of those times did I sit at home wondering if it would be the last, if you were done with me for good? The running, the begging for me to bring you home- do you not understand what it did to me?" LIKE THIS FOR INSTANCE. Yes, Daniel is rightfully angry about many things, but the fact that he pulled that move on heavily traumatized 500 y/o teenager with major abandonement issues time and time again for YEARS and didn't stop to think about the repercutions is worth talking about. Worth bringing up at a Waffle House in the middle of nowhere, USA, in fact lmao. Actually one of my biggest vc fandom pet peeves is how some people claim Armand left/"abandoned" Daniel shortly after turning him like... are we remembering things differently here? Did they read the same books? Are they just parroting stuff they've read on twitter? tf? Armand was nowhere near a perfect partner don't get me wrong but like, that part of the story is pretty clear cut in regards of who left who yk... like pls y'all be serious and stick to the facts. Goddamn. ANYHOW, I digress. They're in pain, I'm in pain, but god they need to talk about this before they can properly heal and get back together and try again. It's very much of a case of "if I loved you any less, I would be able to talk about it more" between them, isn't it? xoxo DA I love this sfm and can't wait for more 🥹 

DA 🥹 It took a hot minute to respond because your message struck a chord in me, and I ended up seriously redoing a conversation between Armand and Daniel in chapter four. But we'll get to that!!

I am so so so happy to hear that all of their little touches and expressions and gestures add up to create who they are!! I worry a lot about like...am I describing what Daniel is doing with his hands too much or is this building up the scene? Because I am aware I have a hand fetish and might be gratuitous but I feel like the micro-expressions and gestures are what make the scene come alive!

But YES to your point about role reversals and them knowing each other inside and out! I get so emotional about that, in the next chapter Armand will go on about all the secret things he knows about Daniel and how he changed his body and just. It's so much. It's a lot!!

And even BIGGER YES to the point about nobody getting off easy here, Daniel included.

We're gonna go in pretty hard on some of Armand's mistakes because he's so closed off and Daniel needs to open those wounds and find out what was going on underneath. But Daniel's running isn't getting ignored. I've really tried hard to have them both keep mentioning that they BOTH fucked up, that it's BOTH their faults the relationship failed, and they BOTH have to change. Nobody is a victim. Nobody is perfect.

And I wish Daniel's running got talked about more, though I understand why it doesn't. We never get a single word about their time together from Armand's POV until TVA and he goes into so little detail. You have to piece together the hurt yourself and these books have so much going on I think his wider abandonment issues (aside from Marius not rescuing him) end up falling through the cracks for all but the biggest Armand fans.

You held Daniel accountable here and now you've got me combing my draft to make sure all these loose ends are properly tied up ♥

Thursday we'll get a sweet moment between them so get ready for a break in the clouds. I hope you'll like it just as much!

[the-cryptographer]

Notes on Lurk’s DA OCs

- (Sereda?) Aeducan. Diplomatically evil. Critical of human prejudice against elves and mages, but completely unwilling to look at Dwarven class prejudice (yes, she kept the anvil). Convinced Leliana to murder Marjo (who, yes, objectively needed to die) because she wanted to see if Leli would kill someone she loved on her command. Turned down the position of Warden Commander and fucked off back to Orzammar at the end of Origins. Took Gorim, Leli, and her personal assassin (Zev) with her. Currently embroiled in trying to snatch the throne after Harrowmont dies.

- Unnamed Kader. The Orlesian Warden Commander who took over after Aeducan fucked off. I wrote a fic where she and Sigrun kissed.

- Dominic Amell. Of Chasind descent, but got passed off as Amell when actual Amell drowned due to Templar negligence while they were both being escorted to the Circle Tower. He does not remember this and has completely embraced his noble Amell lineage. Mage supremacist and Uldred fanboy, but unfortunately(?) wasn’t cool enough to ever get invited to the militant liberationist hangouts. Also Karl def caught Dominic trying to spy on an orgy he and Anders were hosting and kicked him to the curb. Bonds with Morrigan over them both being edgy misanthropic teenagers, but loses steam on it a lot quicker than her when the outside world doesn’t really conform to his worldview. Breaks up with her to explore his bisexuality with Zev, but there are still feelings for Morrigan when the Dark Ritual happens.

- Halliserre ‘Halli’ Surana. Not the Warden. Racially marginalised honor student, teacher’s pet, and wannabe Knight Enchanter. Dominic’s rival for Jowan’s attention until they both get overlooked for Lily. Left Dominic behind when she grabbed Lily and Jowan and escaped the tower in the Origin. Bc fuck that guy.

- Dolores ‘Lola’ Tabris. If Aeducan is diplomatically evil, Tabris is rudely and unpleasantly heroic. Angry and bitey and volatile and violent and a total pill. Would have liked to be happily married, but has beef with her father trying to silence her anger about her mother’s death. Tried to make her worthy of the ‘Like dogs, Shianni’ line. Religious syncretist. My one straight OC, and her taste is suave mercenary pump-&-dump fuckboys. Is surprised when Zev actually sticks around.

- Marian Hawke. Mage. Diplomatically evil (are we noticing a theme?). A bit of a user. Extremely into political power grabs. Had a fling with Isabela, but sweet on Merrill. Considered Anders a bit beneath her and not really worth the negative press of associating with him, but enjoys his sense of humour and the slight sadism of him putting others down. Doesn’t take it well when he assassinates the Grand Cleric and ruins her plans to become Viscount and sends him away. Currently hanging out in Ostwick, getting drunk and partying and reminiscing about how she almost became Viscount, while her wife, Merrill, and Velanna (whose contact deets Merr got from Anders) plan militant elf uprisings. Would absolutely never be caught dead publicly taking responsibility for anything that happened regarding Corypheus, and did not appear in DAI (Varric hired an actor). Towards the end of the game, Fenris clearly wasn’t very happy with her in Kirkwall, so she sent him to Ostwick where he was promptly mistaken for a mage and interned in Ostwick’s Circle Tower. But that’s a story for another day.

- Aedros Hawke. Runesmith, researcher, dwarven tech and history fan, and all around lover of the scientific method. They’re a blood mage, but not in a combat oriented way as much as a ‘let’s bleed a rune onto this rock’ kind of way. Transed their gender after Malcolm’s death. Their beard is v curly. Mama’s boy, but resembles Malcolm (who was of Rivani descent) more. Their biggest dream is to publish their own scientific journal about theirs and their research team’s (Merrill, Anders, Fenris) research. With that goal in mind, they are working in coordination with Xenon in Act II instead of Viscount Dumar. Also they mucked around with Darktown enough to reinstate the old tevinter plumbing system, so they are, in fact, a sexy plumber. Also they’re bad with money and drive Carver up a wall.

- Unnamed Adaar. idk, my canon Adaar. She’s levelheaded and centrist to a fault, as DAI protags tend to be. She romanced Thom, let him go after he kept pushing her away and went for Josie, then she and Josie together start something back up with him after he becomes a Warden. I like the idea of Josie doing diplomacy work at Weisshaupt.

- ‘Lady’ Lavellan. She has a Dalish name, but goes by ‘Lady’ in her line of work. She had half a falling out with her Clan after the Keeper’s son made a pass at her, and has since been doing work as a liaison for Clan Lavellan in their dealings with human cities. She is a chronic liar, very good at telling people what they want to hear, and not letting anti-elf aggressions get to her. This becomes important when she romances Sera. Has Elgar’nan Vallaslin so everybody knows she’s baby butch.

- Felice ‘White Tears’ Trevelyan. Ex-Circle Mage. Neurotic and extremely baby. Cries at the drop of the hat. Therefore it catches people unprepared when she schemes or shows any kind of backbone or reveals herself to be a competent fighter. Is a responsible Antiquarian, and was completely unprepared for the Mage Rebellion or being the Inquisitor, but pretty relieved she doesn’t have to seduce any scary noble dudes (all dudes are scary) to buy her way out of the Circle. She is perpetually scared of a good half of the DAI party (Dorian, Bull, Blackwall, Cassandra). Hero worships Vivienne like- whoa! Vivienne is mostly pissed off that babying this extremely neurotic blonde little magelet is now necessary to properly rub elbows with the Inquisition. But, yanno, it’s hard not to become the mask and start sympathising with someone who adores you so.

[prince--thomas]

In the Palm of My Hand ~~ [Self para]

One shot 2500 words. Tom on Levi’s wedding day

cw: brief, minor mentions of homophobia

“Knock, knock.”

“Da, you don’t have to say that if the door is open.” Levi turned on his heel towards Tom when he entered the room.

“Er, sorry. Right. Force of habit.” Tom chuckled dryly. It was something he’d always said before entering Levi’s room as a kid. At first, just because it was funny and made Levi laugh. Then, because he wanted to give his son some privacy. A heads up when his dad was about to enter his room.

There was a long pause.

Levi fiddled with his cufflinks. Tom fiddled with his. Neither of them spoke. That was probably Tom’s fault. He had never been someone who said a lot of things. Even when Levi was little. And, unfortunately, Levi took after Tom in this way. It wasn’t such a bad thing, Tom thought, except for in moments like this, when both of them were at a loss. The emotion in the room far too big for either of them to really…be able to acknowledge.

Tom shifted a little. From one foot to another.

Levi looked up at him expectantly.

“I was just—coming to see how you were doing,” Tom said, finally. He cleared his throat, ran a hand through his graying hair. The single streak had spread through the rest, leaving most of it the color of ash. His wife said it looked distinguished. Tom tried not to care.  

Levi’s lips twitched in a small smile. “Yeah, I figured.”

He didn’t say how he was. Tom wasn’t sure if he should ask. Maybe that would make things worse. Maybe it meant that he was fine and, therefore, had nothing to say.

Instead, Tom glanced around the room. It was a small chapel room, off the side of the Cathedral. It was small and a bit drafty. Cold and damp. Not exactly the place for festivities, in Tom’s opinion. Maybe it was good, though, to take a moment in a cold, drafty space before meeting the person who made you warm on the other side of the ceremony.

There was no one else there. Levi’s groomsmen had flocked off somewhere. Perhaps to join the bridesmaids before the walk up the aisle. Though, then again, they were doing some modern thing where everyone walked in on their own. Tom didn’t understand that, but there were also boys with the bridesmaids and girls with the groomsmen, not to mention everyone just sitting wherever they wanted in the crowd, so, at some point, he’d just stopped paying attention to what was going on. It was all too strange for him.

He didn’t mind, really. His son was his son. He was going to do what he wanted. That was something that Tom had given him. At least, it was something that he had tried to give him. The ability to speak his mind. And he’d certainly done so. On many colorful occasions as a teenager, specifically. But, ach, Tom could never be that mad at him, considering he wanted him to be the kind of person who stood up for what he believed in. Even if that meant saying no to Tom or Annie.

“Mama came by earlier.”

Tom’s gaze moved back to his son’s face. “Oh?”

“Yeah. She was blubbering. Talking about how when I was just a baby and stuff.” Levi twisted his ear. It was a nervous habit he’d picked up from Tom. Whenever he did it, Tom had a moment of remembering that his son was part of him. It sounded silly, but after all this time, it still felt like a little miracle to him.

“You want me to do that?”

Levi released his ear and straightened up some. He snorted. “No. Not really. Unless you have something about that to say?”

Tom thought about it. It was a good question. Was there anything from when Levi had been a baby that would prepare him for this moment? Or something that Tom had thought about…that would give Levi some comfort?

“I think it’s pretty fekkin weird,” Tom gruffed out eventually.

Levi laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine.”

“You used to be so small,” Tom said, before he could stop himself. He didn’t usually talk about things like this. Even saying it felt odd to him now, made his throat tight. It was such a simple, true statement. Once, Levi had been so small.

Once, he had fit along Tom’s forearm, his head in his hand. Once, he’d been small enough to fall asleep on Tom’s chest. Had been small enough to sit on his shoulders. Tom had, over the years, tried to remember the last time he had done these things, but it was impossible to know. Moments in your life, he had learned a long time ago, slipped away before you were ready all the time. Half the time, you didn’t even know they were slipping away because they were so normal. You thought they’d never be over. And they always ended. People grew up. Or they died. Or they turned to hating you. Or they simply moved away, lost contact, became a ghost in practice.

Growing up, you learned these things. Tom didn’t want for Levi too. It was a kind of ache that everyone felt, though, he supposed. Part of living. Maybe, one day, Levi would stand in this position with his son. And he’d remember when he stood there with his father. Tom was glad to give him this memory. He didn’t have one from his own wedding. Another thing that Tom thought, and felt grateful for, that he was here on his son’s wedding day. The way his own father wasn’t for his.

“Can’t believe this is my first wedding and I’m the groom,” Levi said, shaking his shoulders as if a shiver had just run up his spine.

Tom’s brow furrowed. “Eh? That can’t be true.”

“It is. I wasn’t in Harlynne’s wedding. And none of my friends have gotten married.”

“You were in my wedding,” Tom protested.

“Da. I was a baby. I don’t remember that.”

“You were there,” Tom insisted. “You were the ring bearer.”

“Yeah, I know. I saw the pictures. Mummy likes to pull them out whenever she can.”

Tom chuckled. That was true enough. “I am just sayin’, you’ve done some version of this before. Though—" Tom paused; his brow furrowed. “This looks not a damn thing like my wedding.”

Levi laughed at that. “Yeah. Uh, vibes are very different.”

“Yeah. The vibes.” Tom raised his eyebrows slightly.

There was another pause. Levi looked away shyly, fiddling again with his cufflinks. Tom wondered if he had put them on right. If he wanted help, but wasn’t going to ask for it. Levi wasn’t very good at that. He was constantly making Tom guess what he wanted. Though, his mum said that Tom was like that too. Sometimes, he didn’t even realize something was bothering him until she pointed it out.

Tom had to do that with Levi…except he wasn’t as perceptive as his wife. He never knew what the bloody hell was going on in his son’s head. You would think raising someone would give you a pretty good idea, but they changed so much. From day to day, from week to week, from hour to hour, sometimes, it seemed. They were different people. And, because they were behind you, and you were growing too, those pieces never quite seemed to click together. At least, not for Tom and Levi.

It wasn’t like they didn’t try.

They were just different.

Tom still loved his boy. His first boy. His eldest, but his baby all the same. The person who had made Tom a father. The greatest thing that had ever happened to him.

“Aye.”

Levi looked up on command. It was instinct, probably. Knowing his dad had something to say with just a word. Sometimes, Tom wondered if Levi knew him better than he knew his son.

“You know I’m just taking the mickey, eh?”

“I know.” Levi’s gaze darted towards the window. It was gray outside. Rain was splashing lightly against the windowpane. “Mummy said it’s good luck for it to rain on a wedding.”

“Well, I don’t know about any of that, but if she said it, it’s probably true.”

“You think?”

“Rain ain’t great out on the water. Bad omen. Sailors are notoriously superstitious, you know. But on a wedding? Sure. I don’t see why not.”

Levi nodded. He still wasn’t looking at Tom. “You’re okay with this right?”

Tom blinked. “Okay with what?”

“This. Me. Getting married.”

“What? ‘Course I am. Did someone say I’m not?”

Levi shook his head. He still wasn’t look at his father, but now he was looking at the tops of his shiny black shoes. He fiddled with his cufflinks again.

“Ach. Give me your damn hand.”

“What?” Levi’s shoulders jumped and his head snapped up, giving his father a startled look.

“Gimme your hand, boy.”

Levi held out one of his hands. Tom flipped it over, not exactly gently. He’d learned a lot about gentleness over the last twenty-four years, but there were something things that were in your bones.

“You put ‘em on backwards.”

“Oh.”

Tom unclipped the cufflink, fiddling with the small object.

“I’ve never put them on before.”

“You could’ve asked.” Tom glanced at his son again, searching his face. His freckles were bright against his pale skin. Tom couldn’t tell if it was just because he was so close, or because he was nervous.

Levi didn’t say anything, properly reprimanded.

They were quiet as Tom fixed his cufflink and then gestured for his other hand. Tom fixed that one too. He turned the little stars around thoughtfully with a thumb, sliding it over the thin skin of Levi’s wrist before dropping his hand.

“I just meant,” Levi continued from earlier with a little sigh, “I know this is all…really different for you. And I know how you feel about different.”

“I don’t feel any way about different,” Tom grunted, his own cheeks heating slightly.

Levi actually looked at him to give him a doubtful glance.

“I don’t feel any way about you being different,” Tom said. “Hell, the way the world is going—everyone’s bound to be different these days.”

“Da, you can’t say that. It’s homophobic.”

“What? I’m not sayin’ there is anything wrong with that.” He snorted in amusement and shook his head. “Is this why you wanted to see me? I told you when you got engaged, I didn’t give a fuck. Actually, I told you when you started dating.”

That was true enough. Tom had grown a lot in the last years. Had learned a lot and seen a lot. He wasn’t perfect. He didn’t always say the right thing. But he’d always meant what he said. He meant that he loved his son, no matter what. He’d love him through magic and mistakes and this too. The idea that he wouldn’t was frankly too bizarre to him to put into words.

What kind of father just stopped loving his son?

Not the kind of father that Tom could ever be. He loved Levi too much. Loved him since he’d been big enough to fit his head in the palm of his hand. The only thing that could change that is if Levi hated him first. And even then, Tom would love him. He’d always wondered about his mother.

If she had still loved him. Even at her funeral a year ago, he’d wondered. She’d been sick. He’d tried to go see her in the hospital, but she wouldn’t see him. His name hadn’t been on the list.

Tom couldn’t ever imagine taking Levi off the list.

“Listen,” Tom said, reaching out to grab his son’s shoulder. Then, he dragged his hand up to clap him on the other shoulder.

“Since you were a wee bairn, before I ever even held you in my arms all I ever wanted was for you to be safe and happy. I have spent the last twenty-four years making sure you were safe. I dunno how well I did with the happy part.”

Levi frowned a little and his lips parted, just the slightest, as if he was going to say something, but Tom shook his head.

“If that bloke out there makes you happy, then God bless. That’s all that matters to me. I promise. And—I’m sorry if you felt any other way about it. If you thought I felt any other way about it. I am proud of you. I love you.” Tom didn’t say those words much. Not to Levi. Not to his kids. He said it to his wife more on instinct than anything, because she said it to him first.

But when Levi was a baby—when he was small enough that he fit along Tom’s forearm, his head in his hand—Tom had told him he loved him all the time. He’d made sure that he knew it. Sometimes, the love had been so big that there wasn’t anything else for Tom to do but say it, unless he had wanted to cry. And yeah, he’d done that too, sometimes. It had subsided over the years. That raw, painful ache in his chest whenever he thought about Levi—about any of his children—but in this moment, thinking about how Levi might not know the acute pain of that affection, his eyes watered. His hand moved from his son’s shoulder to grip the back of his head, bowing it forward so their foreheads touched.

He moved back, kissing Levi’s forehead. Tom couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that.

Maybe that was the problem. Over these years, that love had grown comfortable. The longer Levi was happy, was safe, the less Tom had to worry about him. He was a proper adult now. With a job. With a family. At his age, Tom had just been a few years off from becoming a father. Tom looked at Levi and he saw a job well done.

But maybe, there was still work to do.

Levi didn’t know how to button cufflinks. There were other things, too. Tom had come over the weekend before last to help him and his fiancé build a desk. They’d been absolutely useless. Tom had wound up doing most of the work. There were still things for them. There was, more than anything, still time.

“You ready?” Tom asked, clapping Levi’s shoulders again and squeezing.

“I think so.”

Yeah, Tom thought so too. For both of them.

“Good.” He dropped his hands from around Levi’s shoulders.

“Da?”

“Hm?”

“I love you, too.”

Tom smiled, just a little. He hoped it was true. He felt like it was. Despite their differences—and their similarities too—Levi was still one of Tom’s favourite people in the whole world. Ever since he had been a baby, small enough to fit along is forearm; his head in the palm of Tom’s hand.

[navree]

Oh,hi,it’s me again,THAT STAN of both Augustus and Qin Shi Huang ,huge apologize for making mistake on your name,please let me greet you again ,hi Amelie ,thanks a lot for replying~ I really love your opinion about Ying Zheng’s publicly closed off.Yes I do think this is the biggest difference between him and the Roman emperor ,Octavian’s actually felix,indeed,Marcus Balbus and Julia Minor gave him a peaceful Childhood,and with his childhood sweetheart,special Agrippa,Wow,let him know what the pure true love feels like,but Ying Zheng,uh,when he was born his great-grandfather was crazy for war,King Zhao Xiang loved the city Handan more than his children（comparing with Augustus crying for Agrippina’s son?),King Zhuang Xiang was a underestimated monarch,but a terrible father,the empress,just beautiful,and nothing.Ying Zheng can only,ok fine.Even Meng Tian and Meng Yi,the two brothers are loyal,but could not be closer to their King as Agrippa do,something remained in the King’s soul fovever,if they lived in the same time,I thought he would admire Augustus,but they could be friend, I believe,they would appreciate each other in a very happy way because they had same intelligence and point of views，and ambition,of course.What if write a fic about them?haha. Very excited to hear you wanna make history gif,I don’t think Octavian had enough or fair TV shows,same thing to Ying Zheng,however,we had had plenty of Ying Zheng’s image on media,but I hope you haven’t seen Da Qin Fu,that’s terrible uh,both the actor and the story.Well,actually it’s a series of TV show Da Qin Di Guo(The Qin Empire),in this series Ying Zheng‘s ancestors,you know ,King Zhao Xiang ,King Hui Wen,Xiao Gong (I don’t know)all of them are better,only our first emperor!It makes me a lot sad. But I may introduce you a Chinese actor whose name is Weng Fei Ran,almost all my friends consider him as the best teenager king of Qin ,as for the adult one we can’t decide,but,there’s a lot.maybe you could choose one to make gif ~ Oh,by the way,in Chinese Ying Zheng’s name could means POLITICS,and could means Spring Festival,too,so,you can call him “Spring”just for fun.

Don't worry about the name thing, unless you're French absolutely nobody has gotten it right on first try ever, I've only met two other people who even have that name (it made looking for those little keychains and license plates with your names on them the bane of my existence as a kid).

Octavian definitely had his issues in his childhood, he lost people early on with his father and his grandparents, and it appears his relationship with his mother and his stepfather was very complicated, not to mention the various illnesses he kept on getting that kept nearly killing him. He had his struggles, but other than health issues, there wasn't anything making him insecure about whether or not he'd be alive or not. His great trial that brought out the darkness within came later in life with Caesar's murder. It's why, for all the evil things that he did once he had power, he did start out his career in a pretty selfless way, by asking Caesar to spare Agrippa's brother out of nothing more than love for his friend. Politically, he knew he was safe, and thus had the space to, as I mentioned, cultivate friendships and open himself up to emotional attachments that allowed him to try and get them back even after he became closed off in other ways.

The key difference in Octavian and Yingzhen's personal stories and how it affected them is that Octavian's personal tragedies were much more spaced out. Other than the concentration of Caesar dying and then a year later his mother dying, which likely did affect him severely because he's, like, eighteen to nineteen when that's going down, most of the losses or betrayals or personal setbacks he suffered either emotionally or healthwise were pretty evenly spread out throughout his life. Yingzhen appears to have had things go to shit for him pretty quickly for a concentrated period of time before it all smoothed out and basically stayed smoothed out save for some isolated incidents. The issue is that the trials happened during a really formative period for him, in his childhood, and that was the baseline for how he reacted to everything that came after. Just as Octavian's caution and careful nature and consideration and "hasten slowly" attitude can likely be attributed to growing up sickly, Yingzhen's lack of close personal connections in the historical record can be attributed to growing up in adversity.

I think these two would get along, insofar as they could get along with anyone, because they do have similarities, as we've mentioned. And most crucially, they're very good administrators. Yeah Qin Shi Huang went a bit nuts at the end with all the mercury, but in general he and Augustus shared a gift for the politics of governance and the running of the state. It's why they've remained so influential in history and certainly in the history of their countries, it's why, in the list of Roman emperors, Augustus is consistently ranked as the best.

[commenter2]

Murder Drones Pilot review

I'm moving some of my DA stuff here on Tumblr, like my "review" series of Murder Drones.

One thing that I like about the series is how “out there” the humor is, as in there not scared to just say there doing that trope or theme, like how the first joke in the series is them playing with the whole “series about robots” theme by having that “Booting up EXPOSITON” display.

Here is a free funny video idea, replace the “In space” audio from the Power Rangers In Space theme song with Uzi’s version of her saying that XD.

Did those two workers just do the “Guess I’ll die” meme?

So does the series take place on one of Saturn’s moons or are they near a generic ring planet?

Now the Murder Drones were already scary, but that fact that they just look like the Worker Drones is even spookier in my opinion. Gives them a bit of a fallen angel vibe along with the fact there confirmed to be robot vampires but more on that later.

BEN 10 Rath: DID YOU JUST THROW THE BABY!!!

Oh Uzi is going to be a great protagonist :)

Along with showing how advance the AI of the drones are, having them wear clothing and hair is a good way to tell the bots apart.

Again, I’m liking the series humor so far like the signs that say “Don’t wash your hands U R A robot, idiot” and the “What Hurts” sign having existential dread as a pain option.

I originally questioned what the eye bandage and ice pack are for, but since they can leak oil and likely their screens can be hot, it makes some sense.

Jeez. Uzi’s father really doesn’t like her which makes me wonder if there’s a deeper reason for it.

Behold the first ship of the series, Uzi X Thad. They are kind of nice together.

Uzi just confirmed that young robots can feel “hormonal” but how does that work since there robots? BTW hormonal means more than sexual stuff.

Another “there robots” joke in the scene of Uzi’s alarm being a part of her.

The first time I watched this, when trying to get the key, I saw the pic of Uzi and her father with her mother being “ripped out” and have yellow markings on it, only to later find it out was likely burned out by nanite acid. Still won’t stop people from theorizing about Uzi’s mom but more on that later.

Did Uzi just do a magic card trick with the master key to make it “disappear”?

So Uzi’s father is an idiot AND has a door addiction. That explains a lot about Uzi’s character so far.

I’m surprise Khan doesn’t have cameras at the front door, cause what if one of the Murder Drones was out there waiting for them? Also if the drones have acid that can harm robots, how come they don’t use it on the door? One possibility is that even when combined, the 3 just don’t have enough acid to cut through a door like that.

Once again, anime has saved a character’s life.

I know this would end the series in one episode but if a robot teenager can make a weapon that powerful, how come no one else has made one before? With an army of those guns they wouldn’t have to live in fear. Hopefully they give one kind of reason for this later like the gun uses more hard-to-find materials.

So the Disassembly Drones can self-repair themselves. Good to know. I also like how the one red light indicates that N is still damaged and how it temporarily turns back to yellow when he starts talking about how sweet the worker drones oil is.

This section of the episode also introduces us to two more ships for the series, Uzi X N and V x N. I like Uzi X N more.

I can’t see what the screen of the broken spaceship is saying but I feel like something important is there if you slow down enough. All I could get was a #551

Even before the 2nd episode, Uzi did bring up a good point about the company getting rid of N and the others when they were done. I strangely feel like one of the true reasons the company is doing all of this is that they likely lied about what happened on the exoplanet to protect their stocks/profit and are trying to get rid of all robotic witnesses before they contact humanity.

I just want to point that after N’s screen said “YOU”RE DEAD [idiot], you can see something in the upper left corner that says “Absolute Solver” blocked by admission “CYN” but more on that in the next episode.

I’m surprised the writers didn’t have that smug robot say “worth it” before dying, but I think that would have ruined the moment so good for them.

This scene is pretty good as it shows us that even dumb Murder Drones like N can still be very deadly for the regular Drones.

Khan: Uzi, you let a Murder Drone in Here?

Peter Griffin: AH, he said it!

(Side note, I’m not a Family Guy fan but that joke is fitting for this scene)

Woah I was not expecting N to attack Uzi like that, I thought at worse he would just know her down. At least he feels bad for doing it.

At least Khan felt bad about ditching his own child, most of the parents on web series I’ve seen would have done that for even shittier reasons.

I like how V is talking about that vent that got a whole few second of dedication from earlier in the episode when Uzi was trying to get outside. Love the continuity.

Some would say it was TOO convenient that Uzi’s wrench could take off a dangerous bolt like that, but if you’ve played as much Ratchet & Clank as I have, you know that a wrench can solve a lot of problems.

Evacuation spot? Does that mean all the worker drones on the planet are living underground and are connected via tunnels? If not, then where were they going to escape to?

It is odd that a defense force doesn’t have weaponry to begin with, not even lame stuff that would show how important Uzi’s gun is.

THAD NO! Oh thank god, he survived.

How strong are those pens? Also was that inspired by a John Wick?

At first I wondered how so many weapons could fit into the Murder Drones besides “cartoon logic” but considering the fact that they have a liquid that can fix them if they get damaged, makes me think it can also be used to make whatever kind of weapons they want. When there done with said weapon, it turns back into a liquid.

BestMonologueEver.mp3 sounds like something Jim Carrey’s Eggman would name one of his soundstracks XD

You think with all the money the company put in to making robots that can self repair and likely generate all kinds of weapons, they would splurge for better feet so the female drones can handle all kinds of terrain XD

So yeah it makes sense that the material that repaired murder drones was in their torso area, hence why J doesn’t get rebuilt…kind of but more on that later.

“Sees Uzi malfunctions”

Me: That can’t be good

Again I like how Kahn feels bad about what he did and what his daughter thinks of him, as this did lead to some character development for him and Uzi later in the series.

So the ending is good for several reason. The main thing is that it again plays to the creator’s message about how the Murder Drones are “pretty much robot vampires” as we see that Uzi seems to be slowly transforming INTO one of them, likely as a result of N’s saliva fixing her up but also changing her code as a result. Later stuff confirms this but still.

We also not only get the main goal of the series by having Uzi want to go to Earth to kill humans (likely a result of her new Murder Drone tendencies awaking her inner desires) and we see that more Murder Drones are on the way, but we also get a hint at an upcoming plot line.

I personally liked the song that plays at the end of the video. For those wondering, it’s called Uzi the Drone Killer.

And that was my review of the Murder Drone pilot episode. Its good as pilots go, giving us details on how this world works and showing us what writing is going to be like, which is really good. I also like how it takes inspiration form Liam Vickers previous works like Internecion Cube and Cliffside, like how the Murder Drones do remind me of Cordie in a way.