#like it was very in character for him. he’s a whole complicated mess of identity and strength

[lavenderjewels]

feel so validated it was confirmed gojo killed the higher ups because I loved the page turner shock in chapter 223 of seeing the higher ups slaughtered after Gojo lightly talking to Gakuganji

[asbestos-11]

on the note of prev, i'm not too keen on tmasc aven hcs cuz they kinda rub me the wrong way?? idk what it is about it but i just inherently don't like them.

now as for amab nb aventurine, i'll gobble that shit up no problem. like something about being beyond gender itself with a body that's masculine and feminine at the same time. mmmm delicious (idk amab nb aven fills me with a lot of gender euphoria)

that being said i think certain characters make so much more sense when looked through the lense of "oh yeah they're trans".

like to me blade and firefly are both trans, wherein both have a complicated relationship with their real self and the body they inhabit/ the monstrosity they seem to hold themselves as. blade shedding his previous life and identity by literally dying is so not cis of him and the ensuing dilemma of hating the body given to him and the immortality that came with it, is just so &#&*$!&!&

firefly when i untangle the mess in my brain over how you're so gender, oh how i will get to you (gotta re read the scene where she speaks to tb at dreams edge). but firefly being a tiny cute girl in a big huge mech is something that is incredibly gender and her whole thing where iirc she's wasting away in the real world, idk man not very cis. god hyv release her from the basement already i need to explode.

on that note i think ratio being trans adds to his chracter. man made genius, man made man or something. thinking about him building himself up from nothing into the person he is today (big muscly trans men give me that gender euphoria and yk what good for big muscly trans men for beating gender itself at it's own game).

also march transfemme real and you can't convince me otherwise, i mean she's literally colored like the trans flag, what's more obvious than that???

[inbarfink]

Okay, the thing is that I’ve seen some people speculate about the Winter King’s backstory and past assuming, like, that he’s always kinda been Like That. Like, that this version of Simon Petrikov has always been an evil heartless bastard or at least just a little less caring and loving than Mainworld Simon and that’s what led him down the path of the Winter King. 

But speaking personally… I think this is a less compelling story as it relates to Simon’s character arc. I think it’s a lot more interesting if the Winter King was indeed ‘once just like’ Mainverse Simon.

That he used to be that selfless, dedicated and loving man - and he still managed to stoop this low. I mean, well, Simon seems to have come to the conclusion that this version of him was just ‘messed up’

and that was mostly part of a trend of him in these last two episodes just kinda going

You know, like, I don’t think that the lesson he should’ve learned from his adventures in Winterworld is just “wow, that one specific alternative version of me sure does suck!”. Farmworld, via its version of Finn, was a reminder for Simon of just how much of a traumatic experience the Curse of the Magic Crown is. Winterworld should’ve reminded him of the torment and indignity he was trapped in and how often he was a danger to himself and others 

And of the truly fucked-up and terrible things he was capable of doing due to that torment and desperation of the Curse.

The Winter King is like a Whole New Exciting Way for Simon to lose his identity due to the Magic Crown, preserving his mind and memory by destroying the love and dedication and care that the Magic Crown never quite managed to fully burn away - his actual ‘immutable essence’. And this doesn’t work if the Winter King was always just Intrinsically a significantly different and worse person than Mainworld Simon, y’know?

And remember, we know the Winter King was in full on Ice King mode when he ‘conquered the crown’ (AKA cast that terrible spell to condemn Princess Bubblegum to the same terrible fate he’s been suffering). 

And Mainverse Ice King was absolutely capable of trying to perform some fucked-up mind-altering spells of his own. 

The only thing is that he was never quite that successful.

The main thing I am still unsure of with my favored reading/interpretation of how Winterworld Simon became the Winter King is…. There’s like, two different mutually-exclusive readings of what happened after the Curse was cast on Peebles and Simon regained his lucidity that are both very appealing to me from a thematic perspective. And I’m really not sure which one I like best.

Because the real issue was never ‘would Ice King be willing to cast such a horrible immoral spell?’, especially as one could easily imagine that whatever lucidity would allow Ice King to understand how his Crown is harming him and devise such a complicated spell would not necessarily extend to enough lucidity to fully understand the consequences of his actions. The issue is Winterworld Simon Petrikov, having regained his clarity of mind, choosing to maintain this spell for a hundred years. There's a reason why that's the thing Mainverse Simon fixated on when he figured out what's going on.

My first thought (and that’s something I went into more detail in a previous post) was this: Ice King’s madness was never wholly separated from Simon’s personality. Like, yeah, it was the Crown’s Magic that drove him so Mad and Sad - but it was also the trauma of losing Betty and surviving through the Mushroom War and feeling forced to abandon his beloved Marceline. 

And that Madness was based on Simon’s psyche. Ice King’s loneliness and romantic obsession and Princess-nappings are all based on how much he loves and misses Betty

And now, Princess Bubblegum has been forced into a mirrored recreation of them. 

The Candy Queen isn’t suffering from just the Magic Crown’s madness in general - but specifically from how it was shaped by Simon’s heart. And since you can’t actually separate this manifestation of Ice King’s Madness from Simon’s love for Betty - the Winter King ridding himself of one also rid himself of the other. 

And since so much of Ice King’s Madness was interwoven into Simon’s psyche and especially his love and his kindness - throwing away all of this Madness into someone else also decimated these aspects of his personality. Princess Bubblegum already paid the ultimate price for Winterworld Simon’s sanity - but in a way he also paid a grave cost as well; becoming an unrecognizably different person he would previously find morally disgusting - even morso than Ice King.

Because the lines between Simon Petrikov and Ice King are always going to be a bit blurry and messy, and because Simon can’t probably live a life totally free of his Madness and Sadness but he’s gonna have to accept it for an actual mostly happy and sane life as someone who is recognizably Simon Petrikov. 

Buuuut… that still basically means that casting of that Curse just kinda irrevocably transformed him into a Heartless Bastard. And that’s maybe not as compelling as if this change from kind and dorky Simon Petrikov into Evil Brian David Gilbert was done of his own free will

Hundreds of years of the Magic Crown eating away at his sanity and memories couldn’t truly destroy Simon Petrikov’s ‘immutable essence’. He still missed Betty more than anything even as this longing was twisted into something horrible, and still loved Marceline like a daughter even if he didn’t understand it. The one thing that could truly destroy this love that is so core to Simon’s being is him choosing to become selfish and cruel and uncaring. 

And since he was in Full Ice King Mode when he cast the spell… I dunno if I can actually call it a fully-conscious act of cruelty. Deeply fucked up? Yes. But it’s hard to say how much Winterworld Ice King actually understood what he was doing. And while I think it’s much more emotionally compelling if the Winter King started from the same place as our beloved Mainworld Simon. The only difference can’t just be the pure luck that Mainworld Ice King was just never lucid or focused enough to successfully cast a spell that would transform him into an equally terrible person. 

For this angle to work, this decision to continue doing the bad thing has to come from a lucid Simon who is still kinda recognizably Simon and still chose to continue perpetuating the Curse Ice King cast on Princess Bubblegum.

This might seem unthinkable, especially considering how obviously disgusted Mainworld Simon was at the Winter King’s actions. But you have to consider just how much Winterworld Simon would be desperate to not be Ice King again, Mainworld Simon was once willing to die then live the rest of eternity as IK. The fact that he’s so willing to throw away his sanity again now is so worrying because it shows just how badly he’s being doing - because at first, Simon was fighting so badly to avoid diving back into this pit of madness. And that Spell must've seen like the only chance he was gonna get.

And, yes, Simon Petrikov is a character full of kindness and love and selflessness - but that never meant he was the sort of Cinnamon Roll incapable of ever hurting anymore and especially not when he’s desperate or lashing out. That’s kinda the fallacy Simon himself fell into when he had that total identity crisis in the second episode. He just couldn’t find a way to join his previous identity as the patient and fatherly man who took care of Marceline 

With the fact he made a little girl cry. 

But yes, both we the audience and Simon himself have to face the fact that despite possessing such strong fatherly instinct and a desire to help children - Simon can also lash out in his trauma in a very cruel manner that goes against all of his own values.

And by the end of the fourth episode, he was tempted to let himself die - even though that will also utterly destroy a whole universe of sapient beings living in his head. It was brief thanks to Fionna knocking some sense into him and obviously the Literal Suicidal Depression involved was also seriously clouding his judgement. But that is still Simon nearly dooming a whole realm of other people  because he was feeling absolutely desperate.

Not to mention him kidnapping someone and forcing him into a terrible experiment for the sake of trying to summon GOLBetty.

A desperate attempt to reconnect with his lost love (and in a way, a missing part of his identity as Betty Grof’s other half). Which I mean, yeah, ‘it’s just Choose Goose’, but also last time GOLB was summoned it nearly fucked up all of Ooo and the only thing GOLBetty could do about that is get herself as far away from Simon as she can. And now Simon is gonna try and summon his Eldritch GF again in the middle of a major population center.  

And of course, Winterworld Simon and Mainworld Simon are never going to be fully exactly the same person because ‘Simon Petrikov’ is not some immutable unchanging concept and we know that they’ve had different experiences. It was really so sweet to see Mainverse Simon pay forwards the kindness he’s gotten from his loved ones when he was stuck as the Ice King towards the Candy Queen

But it also reminded me that the Winter King himself never got that sort of kindness and grace in the first place. The Curse was cast one hundred years ago. Back then, Marceline was still avoiding him because she couldn’t stand to see what he had become, Finn and Jake were not his friends on account of neither of them being born yet and… they also directly or indirectly helped him get his entire rest circle of friends.

So Mainworld Simon emerged from an Ice King who was not absolutely free from misery and loneliness… but has also experienced happiness and friends both from people who just loved him for who he was at the moment 

And grace and kindness from those concerned for his condition and honestly doing their best to make sure he’s doing his best in his current state and trying to bring out whatever of Simon was left in him. 

While Winterworld Simon emerged from Ice King at his worst and his most miserable. 

And while the Winter King’s callousness about Betty would kinda always be a worrying testament to how much Simonness he has lost - it is extra disturbing for the viewers and Mainworld Simon because they have seen Betty sacrifice her entire being for his sake. That would just reinforce his own love and dedication to her in his mind… not always in the healthiest of ways.

But the Winter King has experienced nothing of that sort. He was not freed in a self-sacrifice fueled by love that literally defied time itself. Wintdrworld Simon only regained his lucidity because of a deeply fucked up and selfish action he has taken as the Ice King. And as far as he knew, that was his only choice except death or the eternal despair of being the Ice King.

And so maybe Winterworld Simon managed to convince himself that he can stay like this for just one day. Just one day of enjoying both lucidity and Magic and then he’s going to undo it because obviously he knows that it’s terrible what the Ice King did! I mean, yeah, Princess Bubblegum and the rest of the Candy Kingdom are suffering but they’re also going to suffer when the Ice King comes back so it’s really a lateral move for them. For just one day!

And then by the next day, Winterworld Simon finds one more excuse why he can wait until tomorrow to bring everything back to normal. And day by day it becomes just a little bit easier to justify perpetuating something so terrible. Day by day he gives up a little bit more of his morals and his selflessness and his love. Until he finally finds out that he just doesn’t care anymore about being a selfish heartless bastard.

The same way the Magic Crown took his sanity and identity gradually - he’s now so desperate to cling to them that he chose to tear away at what was once the core most parts of himself

Until he became just as unrecognizable.

Both of these ideas are really compelling to me but they’re also kinda opposite. Maybe there’s a way to balance them both in a way that preserves what makes them so interesting for Simon’s character in the first place??

[ffverr]

forgive me if youve posted abt this before but do you have any headcanons about how Monet and Beto would interact in your X-Corp AU....

Cracking my fingers because, GREAT QUESTION!!

ok so, the first glaring point is that Monet is fully Roberto's type and I fear he's immediately down bad.

First board meeting they've had was organised by Warren and none of the members knew who else would be involved (for drama).

The minute Beto saw Monet he was: 1. Shocked they've never really met before!?!?? 2. Damning himself on how he's been missing out all his life on the living incarnation of his type, beautiful, smart, could wreak a wall and a little mean. He had immediate visions of the power couple they could be how could he not...

Roberto probably:

Now Monet, immediately knew that this man was extremely extremely silly and was about to be a huge headache.

She probably misjudged him at first, hugely underestimating him (like most do) and dismissing him as a vapid nuisance. But she is someone that's calculating and honest so she gave his character a fighting chance to prove itself.

But then ofc, she realises he's extremely good at his job, very tactical and smart and that's her demise.

I think on a deeper level she's also disturbed by how genuine he truly is. Roberto is someone who is loyal to a fault and has a lot of faith and appreciation for his friends and allies. He does get insidious for hero related reasons but deep down he's a very morally upright guy that never compromised his core ideals. (He's been extremely intense about that since his first issue, I love it😭)

She might try to block him out by thinking he doesn't truly see her for who she is (the complicated identity and all) and he just sees a pretty facade and she probably does plays into that. But she'll realise soon enough that he's actually extremely serious and appreciative and that he does see the whole picture. She starts finding him useful and somewhat endearing but they probably got much closer when he was very supportive of her through tough spots and that counts a lot.

Now also, he's a first class yapper, probably gets on her nerves so bad sometimes 😭 their departments don't always cross paths but he insists on them meeting often. (He TOTALLY doesn't take the excuse of Warren sending him with her on trips to just hang out and try to get to know her....that's totally not a lie he makes up ...)

Meme courtesy of @lilliputiancat

As they get to know each other, they absolutely love irritating each other (monet more than him) and that sparks their competitive spirit.

I think they both get in the silliest year long competition trying to always one up each other it's a MESS but they're sooo invested in it.

(they're judging everyone)

[sunderingstars]

Ooh can you explain ur thoughts on sampo and the songs breezeblocks, cha cha, and genius?

ʚ 💌 ɞ sure thing! beyond just liking the way they sound (i tend to associate upbeat, brain itchy, and overall “quirky” songs with sampo), here are some reasons i like these in particular:

breezeblocks by alt-j

⟢ the main reason i chose this song is the repeating lines near the end: “please don’t go, please don’t go / i love you so, i love you so / please break my heart.” the phrase of “i’ll eat you whole” being repeated throughout also a nice touch.

⟢ i found this part of the lyrics pretty indicative of how i imagine sampo handling interpersonal relationships mentally (regardless of how he expresses it on the outside). with all the hate / love / betrayal motifs present throughout his character, it made sense to me that he would latch on tightly to those he feels he can truly trust, albeit in a slightly traumatized and conflicted way.

⟢ whatever past he may have gone through, it causes him to expect heartbreak, which is why he might associate pain and/or betrayal with love. additionally, a sampo with an unstable identity or experience (i.e. doll, emanator, aeon, etc.) would likely have a side of him that he’s afraid will hurt those he cares about. however, i don’t see that as stopping him from sticking around, but rather something that causes a complicated internal mess (like the push and pull of “please don’t go” and “i’ll eat you whole”).

⟢ i also think the other lyrics like “she may contain the urge to run away / but hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks” and “the fear has gripped me but here i go / my heart sinks as i jump up / your hand grips hand as my eyes shut” could convey sampo’s relationship with elation vs. belobog as well. he may feel trapped and in need of escape, yet is held down by certain aspects of his identity or path. belobog could be a sort of “trust fall” in this scenario, with his friends acting as a lifeline that, despite the fear he may feel, encourage him to take their hands and find better for himself.

⟢ (since doll!sampo has invaded my mind for months and refused to leave, i think “she bruises, coughs, she sputters pistol shots” is a nice touch too since it can link back to a sampo whose only purpose is to be hurt by others.)

cha cha by freddie dredd

⟢ i’ll be honest, this was a completely self-indulgent addition. i really like the way it sounds and thought the chorus especially hit that “brain buzz” i tend to associate with sampo.

⟢ however, i do like how the lyrics start out in a different language, flowing smoother and slower, before turning into the choppy, punchy beat of the chorus in english. similarly to in the dark and let me go, i feel this does a good job of conveying how i see sampo’s internal versus external world. externally, he can be quite chaotic and unpredictable, but internally, i believe he feels things deeply, especially fondness and protection for others.

⟢ the lyrics aid this, as the non-english lines speak of moonlight and stars and dancing, while the english lyrics establish emotional distance by acting flippant. again, i tend to think sampo feels love very deeply, which is mirrored by the soft, emotional beginning. however, his outward persona tends to be perceived by others as the more chaotic english sections of the song!

genius (feat. sia, diplo, and labrinth) by lsd

⟢ this one definitely leans into the more egotistical side of sampo, especially when considering “curio hacker” and how he may be paying a price to gain something later on. “i’m a genius” very much reads like sampo being confident in whatever his master plan is and indulging in feeling good about himself a little (as he should!).

⟢ i also think “do you think i’m stupid? / do you think i’m batshit crazy, having you on my mind? / do you think i’m helpless? / my algebra gon’ equal you every time” is a link to his feelings towards the elation / aha / the masked fools, especially any resentment implied by his themes of “hate” and “betrayal”.

⟢ sia’s part in the song actually pivots away from what i’ve been talking about though, and i tend to see her part as a more earnest depiction of how sampo might flirt with or feel about others he’s romantically interested in. when put in context with the rest of the song, i also read the whole piece as one long “flirt,” since i think sampo’s way of doing it would be very much as confident and forward as the song’s lyrics. (plus, he would probably spin dating as a “genius business decision” or something like that!)

🪐 .𖥔 ݁ ˖ asks are still open for anyone who wants to request songs :))

[frownyalfred]

Apologies for the extremely long ask.

Omegaverse as a concept is so complicated and interesting as to me as a trans person.

On the one hand, the writer in me is intrigued by the world building implications and the opportunity to explore gender roles/dynamics. The concept of having a secondary dynamic alongside your actual gender is also fascinating to me and it's something I typically would have expected to be in something like sci-fi before I actually got into fanfiction.

I especially love deep diving into pack dynamics. Admittedly, that's where most of my interest and attention is focused on when reading and writing Omegaverse. I just find the concept so fascinating and any opportunity to write characters with heightened instincts, alien or otherwise, is just so much fun.

But on the other hand, I'm also very aware of how Omegaverse came about because some Supernatural fans wanted to play around with the idea of pack roles/relationships based on a messy study of wolf hierarchies. I'm also aware that intentional or not, a lot of early Omegaverse fics and tropes leaned really heavy into more homophobic and transphobic stereotypes, especially between M/M pairings.

I do feel like this has changed a bit over the years, though. From what I recall, a lot of early Omegaverse fics just really over relied on the stereotypical "which guy is really the girl?" trope that you saw a lot in the early to mid 2000s when discussions of queer (but mostly gay) relationships were brought up. I feel like the discussion has become a lot more nuanced since then and I know there are other trans fic writers like me who enjoy writing Omegaverse simply because it provides an opportunity to explore concepts of gender, sexuality and identity in a relatively fun way.

Not all Omegaverse fics/tropes are created equal, though. And every trans person has a different reaction/feeling towards this AU. I definitely feel like the odd one out, though, sometimes since I mostly come to Omegaverse for pack dynamics, less so for the smut (although I have written some in the past for fun or for friends). But I also believe there's validity in writing smut just for the purpose of enjoying smut.

Overall, I think this AU has a lot of potential, but I also see why it could make people very comfortable. I do wanna say that your fics haven't made uncomfortable and I do enjoy your takes on this trope. And I especially appreciate your willingness to listen to other trans people and their thoughts on Omegaverse. It goes a long way.

Side tangent: I will always be amused by how this whole trope came about btw, but also because the original author of that study followed it up by saying his first paper was absolute bullshit actually and shouldn't be viewed as a factual study of wolf pack hierarchy. Man messed up his original study, but he's a dedicated scientist and I love him for debunking his own work. But also the fact that he had an unintended impact on fandom is such fucking gold to me. I love this man so much.

Thank you for putting my thoughts to words, anon! There's definitely a long history there, and I agree with you that the genre itself has changed a lot in recent years, I think for the better.

I don't begrudge anyone for not liking or wanting to read a/b/o fics at all. I think it's intriguing but has the potential to be deeply uncomfortable or even like you said, transphobic for some people. I try to tag everything very well here that mentions it, etc.

I think what I like most about recent changes is that the genre has shifted to be less about "how can we get these two characters to breed?" and more to discussing pack dynamics, the implications of designations and gender roles, and building interesting biological rules and intricacies in an author-unique universe.

[carriehobbs]

I saw you tagged Ellery Wiseman on that poem and am dropping into your inbox to ask for anything you'd like to share about your Button!! (Do you have more than one? Who do they romance? How is their relationship with Nick?) -wayhavenots

omg pd tysm for asking!! 💕💕 there is absolutely nothing in the world i love more than having an excuse to talk about my ocs

i (with some rare exceptions) am the kind of if player that makes a new oc for every romance route i play, so i actually have 5 buttons 🫣 (technically 6, rip elliot wiseman who was from my very first mind blind playthrough, when i just wanted to see if i liked the game. you were very depressed and never became a fully-realized button, but your sacrifice is remembered and your name is retired out of respect). i have a page with very, very brief details on my buttons (and also my detectives for wayhaven) and links to their tags here, but if you use tumblr mobile you've probably never had the opportunity to see it.

this got so very, very long, so the rest is under the cut

my 5 buttons are: ella, ellie, elle, ellis, and ellery (can you guess what naming convention i lifted from the game's default names? lol). what's universally true for all 5 of them (though with some nuance, they all have slightly different feelings about their relationships) is that they're as close as they can be with their parents (because i like john and hope as characters and i find "i really love these people but our relationship became incredibly complicated and we now have to find ways to reconcile our disappointment/anger/etc. with our love for them" to be really compelling. i love mess) and with nick (because i'm a middle child and i accidentally projected my feelings about my siblings (and especially my older sister) onto the button&nick relationship. i physically can't be mean to nick because i cried for about 45 minutes the first time i read the end of chapter 3/chapter 4 and for the first time really considered my sister's mortality, and that changes you).

for a (not really that brief, whoops) rundown of my buttons' whole deals:

ella: equally humorous and confident, very high insightful stat, romancing ambrose. she's independent, intelligent, ambitious, loyal, great at compartmentalizing, and, quite frankly, arrogant. she can be really abrasive sometimes (while she can be a kind and compassionate person, most people don't get to see that side of her and so she can come off as really rather unpleasant - think that know-it-all kid in your class that everyone kind of hates). ella naturally is rather funny/confident/intelligent/etc., but i think, after the incident with hope, she ended up amplifying these inherent traits of hers and making them into a sort of armour that keeps her safe, but also isolates her. i think she's afraid of showing weakness and i think she feels this subconscious need to prove to everyone (including herself) that she's capable. her relationship with nick is the worst out of all of my buttons (but is still incredibly high, think 160/170-ish approval), mainly because she and nick clash the most. she's very independent and knows what she wants and will pursue it (even if it's a boyfriend her brother doesn't like or a career her parents don't want for her) no matter what anyone else thinks, and nick can be a little hover-y (though this improves over the events of the game). she does really love nick (and does actually care about his approval, even if it won't stop her from doing things she knows he won't like), even if she finds him kind of annoying sometimes. she views the incident with hope as a horrible accident that wasn't anyone's fault, and i think she sees better than my other buttons how everyone in the family was affected by the fallout. fun fact: several years post-game, she and ambrose have identical twin girls (ella jokes that she wanted two kids so she and ambrose had twins because "we're efficient". they have girls because ambrose is a girl dad. i am not accepting notes) that share a birthday with nick (because i need ambrose to be forced to participate in a large yearly party that at least partially involves celebrating nick. do you know how many years nick rented a bouncy castle and then proceeded to bounce on the bouncy castle with the girls? it's every year until they decided they're too cool for it. nick's heart broke that day)

eleanor/ellie: more humorous than confident (with confident stat increasing through the game), but has a decent morbid stat too, very high insightful stat, romancing grayson. ellie fulfills my need in every if game/rpg i play to have at least one character who is so, so nice to everyone (my detective alina fulfills this need in wayhaven). she's kind, considerate, forgiving, has a strong sense of morals (except at work, where she's very expedient), and tends to blame herself when things go wrong. she really feels just unbearably guilty about most things: the incident with hope (if she'd acted differently, if she'd been different, etc., maybe it wouldn't have happened), nick's accident in chapter 3, nick having to take care of her through high school... she really struggled after the incident with hope because she needed nick and depended on him so much, but then hated herself for how much she needed him and feeling like she ruined his life (she did project this onto gray when he started hanging around, which is why she didn't like him at first, but over time she realized it wasn't his fault and moved on. and then she got goopy feelings for him). she's not blind to nick's faults, but she adores him (200 approval easily). i think a lot of her growth over the course of the game comes from learning to trust herself and to believe in herself. fun fact: she once made a joke to gray after they started dating (in front of nick and sally too 😬) without thinking about how there'd be "no kids or dog until we have a house". it was way too early in the relationship to be making a joke about having kids or a house. they didn't even live together yet. she's still a little mortified that she said that

elle: confident, very high insightful stat, romancing kent. i love elle because she's kind of relentlessly forward-thinking. she doesn't really dwell on the past except to figure out how to improve the future. she believes strongly that it's what someone does that matters. she's my button who's the most interested in trying to get herself into the npo program. like ella, i think she views the incident with hope as a horrible accident that isn't really anyone's fault, and i think she really makes an effort not to dwell on it or assign blame for what happened. she also has terminal foot-in-mouth disease (talking about bondage with kent in front of your brother, best friend, and instructor after revealing that you'll probably get tortured together, anyone?), which is the bane of her existence. while i think all my buttons struggled with some agoraphobia post-the incident with hope, i think elle really struggled with it: she loves dogs and used to volunteer at an animal shelter, but had to stop because she couldn't handle being outside of her home without sally or nick (she could go to school if she spent the entire day with sally, and then would go straight home) and it took several months for her to feel like she could go places without one or both of them again. once she was able to leave her home independently, she started volunteering at the animal shelter again, and is still there. fun fact: post-game and further into their relationship, she ends up accidentally moving in with kent. it starts by just spending a lot of time at his place because it's so close to nick's (i think a lot of her and kent's dates just involve hanging out together), then more and more of her stuff migrates over, until one day she realizes she's been there for two weeks and all of her clothes are in kent's laundry. she formally moves in after that. she's also my button who's most likely to elope!

ellis: humorous-morbid (slightly more morbid than humorous), tentatively more innovative than insightful (i keep swapping the stats), romancing sally. he's "just some guy" (affectionate) to me, if "just some guy" had gallows' humour. he's been kind of desperately in love with sally since he was 13 and figured out what love was. ellis is the kind of person who looks fine on the surface but really isn't. whereas elle doesn't dwell on the incident with hope because she wants to move forward with her life and not have this one event define her, ellis doesn't dwell on it because doing so will wreck him. he was the closest with hope growing up, since they shared a sense of humour and he felt that she really understood him, and it profoundly hurt when she started to pull away as he got older. he trusted her more than anyone growing up and it hurts a lot now to think about how the people he relies on most now are nick and sally instead. he's not as forward about the guilt he feels and how it affects him as ellie or ellery are, but it's still there. he's also very close with nick and really admires him: nick is ellis's model for what it means to "be a man" (more so than john, but i don't think ellis is really aware of this). ellis also views gray as a sort of quasi-older brother figure and is actually more likely to ask gray for relationship or life advice than nick (mainly because he'd feel a little awkward talking to nick about stuff like relationship advice - also look at nick's relationship track record, gray's probably the safer bet). fun fact: ellis is either the same height as nick or one inch shorter than nick (i can never remember), so if they're out together and the topic of height comes up, he tells people that he's at least two inches shorter than he actually is. this is because nick will lie about his height to make himself taller if given the chance, so ellis gets there first and forces nick to be 5ft9 for an evening (nick hates this).

ellery: humorous, higher insightful stat than interpersonal stat, romancing (m!)glitch. she's such a smartass. she's all jokes and has a quip ready for any situation, but, like ella, i think these are inherent characteristics of hers that get amplified as a defense mechanism. i think it's in chapter 1 of the demo that there's the line that says it's better to have people laughing with you than at you, and that really fits ellery. ellery blames herself for really everything to do with hope and nick, but if she brushes it off with a joke she can pretend to be fine (she's incredibly not - her guilt defines a lot of her relationships with other people and how she views herself). she's also incredibly devoted to her family (to the point where she can't listen to someone criticize them professionally because like. that's her dad. this sometimes causes issues in her and glitch's relationship, because glitch is unafraid to criticize unity when appropriate, but they figure out how to manage it over time). speaking of glitch: she is such a loverrrrrrr 💕💕💕 they really are intolerable together because they're that couple that's just all over each other. everyone around them hopes they'll tone it down after the honeymoon stage ends but they do not 💕 i imagine them moving in together incredibly quickly too. i don't know the exact timeline of the game so far, but even this early on, ellery knows that he's it for her. ellery makes me think the most about what it would actually be like to not only grow up with people who are able to hear your every thought but to never live with someone who can't read your mind. i always imagine ellery as being very comfortable communicating telepathically when she chooses to (she almost got held back from preschool because she didn't speak until she was 3/4 - not because she had speech or language delays, but because why would she speak out loud when she could communicate telepathically? eventually telepathic communication had to be (temporarily) banned in the house to get ellery to speak verbally, and once she did the ban was lifted). telepathic communication also means an entirely different way of communicating between people: visual jokes, jokes where the comedy isn't in the punchline but in the way the joke is constructed before it's been told, being able to rely on the person you're talking to picking up subtleties from your thoughts if you're having trouble expressing yourself in words, etc. and glitch is the first person she's ever lived with who can't read her mind (sometimes she'll be in another room half way through a conversation with glitch in her head and she'll ask him for his opinion on something she thought, only for him to have to remind her that he cannot hear her. luckily glitch finds this funny when it happens and lightly ribs her about it). she gets incredibly frustrated with herself sometimes because she doesn't know how to explain to him how much he means to her or how much she loves him. she tries, but she never feels like it really encompasses the depth of the feeling (it's the one time she wishes he was a ment, so he could hear it). fun fact: about a year into their relationship, ellery wrote glitch a really bad love poem to try and express her feelings for glitch in a way that's meaningful to him. glitch loved it and insisted that it was beautiful, but she thinks it's amateur and is kind of embarrassed about it because he quotes actual love poetry to her all the time. this poem does actually exist because i wrote it to try and get in her head space and figure out what she'd say, and it's mid at best (i am not a poet)

[unrealization]

⭐ !! / give me all the combos, no matter how out there they may be :D

@truethes MULTIMUSE MEME | Accepting!

[WELL there are a ton of possibilities with our muse lists! Obviously ANY DR muse will work with mine, but I'll list out a few specific ones I'd be very down to do! This... Is gonna be a long one I'm afraid. You did say ALL the combos, so I'm going to oblige!]

Normal picks:

Mukuro and Junko

This is the most obvious one, I think. Mukuro's dynamic with Junko is easily the most important one to her character. Ironically it makes it REALLY REALLY HARD TO GET INTERACTIONS WITH THEM GOING because of how far into headcanons their actual past tends to be. Definitely one I'd love to discuss or just mess around with at some point. I do absolutely guarantee it will HURT though.

Mukuro and Makoto

I jokingly said that I was considering offering a salary for someone who would do this one with me. Danganronpa If introduced a really interesting dynamic between them and I have ALWAYS wanted to explore it more. I don't even mean, like, as a romantic ship or anything. I have SO MANY plot ideas for this one that I've been rotating in my mind for ages.

Izuru and Hajime

Ok, hear me out. I know they're the same guy and all, but there are some interesting possibilities here. Hajime faces the thing he became. I even have a rough idea for a way to make them both technically exist after the ending of SDR2 as an addendum to my horrible postgame verse.

Tsumugi and Kaede

There are a lot of angles here, actually. A more direct confrontation between them in the early game? An AU where Kaede is around for the later parts of the killing game? A lot of interesting things we could do.

Tsumugi and Rantaro

Same as above. I am quite partial to the theory that they knew each other from a previous iteration of Danganronpa, but I'm not married to it if you're not fond of that angle.

Out there pick:

Sayori?

You asked for out there, so here you go. I have a Danganronpa verse for Sayori I've never really gotten to use. I've never even written it out on tumblr before so I'm technically debuting it here! I can't think of a specific combo for her at the moment, but if you wanted to do something very out of left field, I'd be very happy to.

The self-indulgent section where I talk about OCs:

Akira

So, quick note: I will literally write my OC Akira with any character. I'm kind of obsessed with this character and I very rarely get the opportunity to use her. A few ideas for interesting match ups:

Akira and Imposter

I think they would be interesting, especially pre-tragedy. Imposter's talent is actually pretty similar to hers, and more importantly I honestly think she might be unable to mimic him since he's able to change his whole identity so easily. One of the rare individuals she could probably have a face-to-face conversation with without her talent causing problems. Post-Tragedy I don't know how well that would go for either them.

Akira and Junko

Pre-Tragedy, Akira would probably pick up a bit of Junko's more sinister nature due to her talent working the way it does. Post-tragedy... Yeah, Akira has more or less stolen Junko's identity and is pretending to be her in order to run an Ultimate Despair splinter cell/cult. Junko being around and still alive would complicate her narrative quite a bit.

Etsuko

I'd feel bad if I didn't mention her. I'm kind of in the process of reworking Etsuko a bit, but the core ideas are still there. Anxiety-riddled Reserve Course student who's mind was shattered in a failed attempt to create Izuru Kamakura shortly before Hajime did it. Really dangerous post-tragedy as she's driven by an insatiable desire to feel and inflict the only emotion she's still capable of feeling. Namely, fear. Really dark character that will most likely inflict extreme violence upon anyone she meets post-tragedy or just avoid a social interaction pre-tragedy. If this basic description interests you I can talk about her a bit more, but I feel like it might be better to hold off until I'm happier with where she's at as a character first.

[cuephrase]

I cannot keep two words straight in my head smh. I meant the first wip and the third wip. No abandonment meant (though I would not be opposed to hearing about that one too 😅)

asjdfhjsd no worries haha!!

first wip/jigsaw: so although i personally enjoy jason being an anti-hero/being on (sort of?) better terms with the batfam i really like am so frustrated bummed that we don't really get to see how jason got there. however, i also think his current dynamic with the fam is very interesting bc idk, to me, it feels very delicate/fragile and like there's not a whole lot of trust? idk how to summarize all the nuance without giving you an essay you did not ask for, but basically, his current relationship with them is Complicated, yeah?

and i don't have a lot of interest in writing a fix-it/exploring a 'what if things had gone differently' scenario/trying to fill in that missing gap bc...idk. i just don't lmao. BUT!! a reconciliation fic still sounds like so much fun, bc like i like the idea of jason being part of the batfam right but like i don't want to erase all the drama from canon so BASICALLY-

tl;dr: i think jason's current relationship with the batfam is like a bone that broke but wasn't set properly so it needs to be re-broken to heal properly. so i want to start in a place where he's "comfortable" with them, then have him blow everything up. just stomp on all the eggshells. it would very much so be a Things Get Worse Before They Get Better type of reconciliation fic haha. i want it be messy and painful and full of missteps and misunderstandings- it would not be an 'X apologizes and magically everything is better' fic. (which is not shade to anyone who writes/enjoys those!!) i may also challenge myself to stick strictly in jason's pov to really lean into the Unreliable Narrator of it all.

this probably sounds like such a mess, omg *buries face in hands*

pretty bird: this one is a super dick-centric, kinda character study type fic somewhat focused on his sexual trauma, so mirage/catalina/liu, but also just kind of like exploring dick's relationship with himself and like...how he perceives himself? bc he is such a Performer, yk, and he is incredible at it. and he has all these close, meaningful relationships, but sometimes he can still feel so isolated to me in a way bc of how much he keeps to himself and idk i just really want to like get into his head.

also can't really articulate this one without an essay you didn't ask for haha, but it will be a very fun tonal challenge for myself bc i have a very specific vibe i want to achieve that'll require a very careful balancing act.

and then just for funsies, and bc it's also about dick haha,

abandonment: au (inspired by dan mora's black and white oneshot from batman: the brave and the bold) where bruce puts dick into foster care instead of keeping him, but they cross paths later when batman runs into dick and jason who are looking for their missing brother. at least a smidge of identity porn bc dick is willing to trust batman but won't trust bruce wayne. like i have this scene in my mind where batman offers to set the boys up with his friend bruce wayne and dick is like 'absolutely not' and batman is like ?? and then he realizes omg this is the kid i gave up omg.

just imagine dick trying to independently (with jason) try to hunt tim down with batman being like !!!! trying to assist but also not wanting to overstep and also trying not to get too attached (and failing) hehehe. complicated dick and bruce is just so fun, yk?

tysm for the ask, lily, (and for tagging me in this game to begin with!!), i hope you're having/had a beautiful day!!

[ilynpilled]

this is an incoherent and unedited stream of consciousness but what i also take away from the whole process of mythmaking in the series is that it is in dialogue with the meta in such an interesting way.

ofc the series itself is a ‘song’. it is about stories and their power. it is about seeking meaning in fantasy. thrones alluded to this with the ending but it fumbled pretty hilariously at it. but i think there is an interrogation of truth inside of this whole dialogue. like a false ideal presented in fiction vs ‘truth’ in fiction. propaganda vs meaningful humanistic existential depth etc. jaime is a very existential character. he wants to make himself into a story. he wants to make his life have meaning because he dreads his existence and himself as a human being. he has one of the most severe existential crises in the series. “why would the stars want to look down on such as me?” is that. the stump is about an empty space that he needs to fill. it is about severing a previous identity, it is a metaphor for so many things in his life. but he in particular has such a layered relationship with stories and how they function and what his role in them is. he hates lies. he hates songs and stories for lying to him. he hates the story that he became, it destroyed his identity. and yet after hope is rekindled he once again desperately grasps for an unachievable false ideal to redefine his existence so he can stop hating himself. i reiterate, a figure like “arthur dayne” is as much of a lie as “kingslayer.” like these are all lies or incomplete truths. there is no goldenhand the just either, just the ugliness of a stump, as he subconsciously concludes in the dream in affc. human beings are more complicated than myths. so i cannot help but think that the whole idea of legacy in jaime’s story is more about the eyes of the reader and himself and certain characters rather than the eyes of the world that he is in. that feels like such a rich metatextual mess that works so well thematically. deconstructing and reconstructing the knight from the stories. what i find interesting is that the songs and myths within asoiaf are also often about ‘dehumanizing’ the subjects, but the series itself at its foundation is about thoroughly humanizing its characters. the songs are about interpretation, and they are not meant to be defining or all encompassing. they can often present a false reality that upholds a status quo rather than depicting truth. but they can also hold some universal truth in their depths that humanity can thrive for. that feels like a very intentional conversation the text is having with itself and its genre.

anyways yeah he is deeply concerned with ‘legacy’ and what mark he will leave. what the whole point of his existence was. he wants to redefine his existence, and he is desperate to make that definition something redeemable. i generally view the whole process of redemption and reformation as something unanswered and continuous. being better is not something you just “become” to me. it is not about being a bad or good person deep down, i do not think that is at all how george views human beings, it is about choices you make and keep making. with a character like jaime it should not be something that clearly and straightforwardly concludes with a simple answer. being better is a choice that has to be made every day. i have said that i am not that fond of the redemptive heroic death thing because again that is not something he is afraid of in the text, it feels very straightforward, and it is something he craves because in some ways he thinks meaning lies in that, not even a heroic death but just death where he dies with a sword in his hand. and yeah it is easier for him because it is simpler than confrontation and the grueling untangling of knots. fighting things physically is easier. being defeated physically is less scary. but i do not necessarily mind it if he dies eventually after key confrontations and some form of meaningful atonement and a form of existential victory. i do certainly get the feeling from the text that his life is on a timer right now and he has to make do and atone with the time that he has left. he is an older generation character that is attempting to actually redefine his existence, not just make something out of it like many of the other protagonists dealing with identity. but i cannot help but really dig the idea that george could be subverting that aspect of his character and he might conclude with the open and difficult reality that redefinition and reformation and redemption is not as straightforward as just ending your story on a better note and leaving a decent legacy. it could be about having to live with your flawed humanity and what you are as a whole and continuing on an unending inconclusive path of change anyway. that is more difficult and real, and accepting that reality requires existential courage.

songs are songs. jaime hates being a dehumanized figure. the kingslayer is like a figure from a song. much of the core of his character is that he is a human being that was in many ways ruined by being turned into a larger than life figure and myth. he is the villain and monster in the songs and stories. and that is the role he fulfills in the series up until this point too. during asos he realizes he wants to be the hero again like he used to dream as a young boy (the dream was always lingering, that romantic soul never really goes away, much of the JC dynamic for him is rooted in that fantasy, this idea of creating a false ideal: a song, something that gives his existence meaning). he thinks these things have meaning again in a deeper and more conscious way. but the series is not simple like the songs in it, it goes inside of the heads of these figures and it contextualizes them. how you are remembered by history is ultimately out of your control. again, those songs are not really ‘truth’. jaime deals with this so much. he is trying to write a story right now: a story that he chooses. that is what the white book is about. but he explicitly says he would rather slash it into pieces than fill it with lies. he keeps repeating he is sick of lies, which is a loaded statement concerning so many things in his arc. and the white book page is meant to represent his existence. i would like it if the whole idea of how jaime is remembered is more about the meta rather than an in universe thing. i would not mind jaime leaving a “bad legacy”. i do not think it matters how the songs remember him. what matters is where he actually ends up as a human being and what paths he had taken. i like it more as a conversation between him and the reader primarily. maybe the “heroes will always be remembered: the best and the worst and a few who were a bit of both - one of us is like to live in song etc.” is more about the impression of the reader, and the song is the series itself. that whole passage is very unsubtly meta anyway, we are supposed to point at him as we are reading the page, just as he points at the kingmaker. i am sure he is gonna be a figure that lives in song within the text too, i just do not think that is really about truth or what is ultimately defining for his story. like i would find it poignant if his legacy is a mixed bag or even a not particularly good one in history, and if he is never contextualized or redefined in the eyes of his world, but that will not change the reality of his actual story that we get to witness through his eyes and the eyes of other key characters. it makes it more meaningful to me bc then it becomes about an internal existential battle rather than an external one. and we know it is deeper than that for him already: “he did not think the maesters were like to confuse him with Prince Aemon the Dragonknight when they wrote their histories. Still, he felt curiously content.” i think his existential victory should be internally driven rather than defined by an uncontrollable external lens that often falsifies reality anyways, and never understood the people that thought him regaining his “honor” in the lens of westeros is what his arc’s interrogation of redemption is about. affc deconstructs that for him. like that is what his story arc played with a lot already. and his atonement is more about specific relationships with specific characters, not the eyes of history. what history hates him for is one of the most heroic acts in the series, that is not what has to be addressed and reformed.

what is also apparent to me at this point is that asoiaf doesn’t really have concrete conclusions and all encompassing rigid answers concerning the concepts that it interrogates. like obviously the characters have a different view of things. there are distinct philosophies that can all be reasonable and can contradict each other. there is a certain amount of relativism that is inherent to the structure of the story. george is giving the reader a bunch of perspectives, and allows them to decide for themselves. he is not gonna hold your hand and give you a straightforward answer on most things. take for example the whole:

"Are you saying you are monsters?"

"I am saying we are human. You are not the only one with wounds, Lady Brienne. Some of my brothers were good men when this began. Some were ... less good, shall we say? Though there are those who say it does not matter how a man begins, but only how he ends.” (this one especially is very tied to Jaime considering who it is said to and where and when etc)

vs

“A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.”

and many many other statements made by different characters at different stages and said to different protagonists dealing with the same question.

what i am trying to say with all of this is that i do not really have a preferred concrete endgame in that sense nor do i expect george to give a clear answer to certain questions proposed in his arc, but i do have certain conceptual preferences. i do not want him to end up “rewarded” or absolved, i think a lot of people project that onto people arguing that his arc is about redemption and an interrogation of redemption. idk if i would really like his story ending with him dying and then history remembering him as an “honorable” man because a passage written in the white book by a person he saved like in the show. i guess it is not that bad because it was obviously not his intention or goal by the end, but still. the only thing i really want for him is a well written existential victory, which is not really about absolution to me. he has been in a state of existential defeat and cowardice for like 20 years, locking himself into moral nihilism and false fantasies as a result of the incoherent moral structures of his world and his trauma and dissociative tendencies and rage over how he is understood. i just do not want his story to end with that again. that is what i would view as cynical and “pointless” and cyclical in an empty way. like i am not sure i want key decisions that may lead to tragedy to be self sabotage either. i want it to be a choice with meaning to him. i think it would be along the lines of accepting and confronting truth and reality and not letting hope be defeated by it, and continuing to believe that choices hold meaning despite it all.

[bloodyentrails]

Also you didn't list Titans, but I wanna see your answers for Titans 🙏

i frequently forget titans exists and then you come and remind me!!! 😆😆😆 anyway, shows i have complicated relationships with for 100:

Favorite character

JASON!!! jaaaaason! jason my beloved. i watched the show for him, so, i mean.... what else is new. but he's really one of the best-characterised teens i have ever seen? i think because so much of that show is not ... my thing, it still confuses me so much that he exists on this whole other plane of character and he feels so real and human and curran walters is so good, and i wish i could tell him personally.

Second favorite character

that's a tough one. i'm going to go with gar i think? he feels so underwritten and they never seem to figure out what to do with him but he's so unendingly kind amongst so many characters who are so self-absorbed and often plain nasty and i want a show with just him and jason hanging out and maybe kon gets to be there too as a treat. gar teaching kon how to human was so fun! the show is so often lacking in fun!

Least favorite character

dick grayson??!! so much of what i dislike about characters in the show is sort of crystallised into a whole mess with him, the aforementioned self-absorption, the way he is so blind to his own hypocrisy. the lack of empathy or leadership, of heart? and i get to spend so much screen time with his ongoing identity crisis and i don't want to. get your shit together, dick!

The character I’m most like

probably also jason. very sensitive to bs, very sensitive about power dynamics, very sensitive to rejection. i have, however, you may be glad to know, not been involved in criminal activity on a larger scale. or i'd probably be gar the mom friend. i would make food for everyone, they eat so rarely. or sleep regularly. that's me.

Favorite pairing

jaytim. i know they aren't canon but fuck it, the chemistry is off the charts! second favourite pairing is sebkon because, christ the bdsm coffee date energy of it all!!! i think the canon pairings are mostly bland.

Least favorite pairing

hank and dove aka dank. i would like to wipe my memory of their existence.

Favorite moment

i love jason connecting with leslie in their session so much. it's been 2 1/2 seasons of people endlessly telling him how wrong he is, it's so good to have him connect with someone and be ok for a bit.

my other favourite moment, if i'm permitted 2, is seeing him again in season 4 feeling more relaxed and just so fucking playful! he' been playful all this time but had nobody to play with!!?? and here's tim and the ship that launched so many headcanons for me!

Rating out of 10

7/10? i think that is quite generous but i have watched it twice now and when it hits, it really does but also so often it doesn't? i'd watch it again mostly so i could get worked up about all the things that bother me but also there'd be things in it that i also hold very dear??!! what the show could have been. just imagine.

[hypexion]

Love Square Slander

Miraculous Ladybug manages to square the triangle and put its protagonists into a relationship shape that generates theoretically infinite amount of engagement. Everyone has a favourite side and in this post I will explain why each side is wrong. Prepare for some Very Serious Analysis.

Adrienette: We begin with what is clearly the most boring configuration because it has zero superheroes. After four and half seasons this one won by default while the other three sides were temporarily eliminated from reality. Also, Andre Icecream approves of this side, and he clearly has something wrong with him.

Ladynoir: The fun and flirty side. Except beneath the fun and flirty surface lies a pile of unresolved issues that still seems to be growing. Ladybug likes withholding vital information from Chat Noir for dubious reasons, while Chat once got seduced by a Sentibug. Only one of these problems would be fixed by them kissing.

Marichat: The side for people who believe in "true selves" theory, a reading of the text that gets shakier everytime a new Adrien transformation is introduced. And despite the individual characters being intelligent, when Marinette and Chat Noir are together, they have not a single brain cell between them.

Ladrien: Doesn't exist, in the sense that if you put all the canon Ladrien content together, you might not even be able to scrape together a full episode. Probably because this is the Easy Mode of the Love Square. The lack of canon content of course means its supporters are the most hardcore shippers and you shouldn't mess with them.

You would think that four relationships between the same two people would be the end of it, but no. Marinette has an additional superhero form and Adrien has two plus a villain form (fast forward boy doesn't count). This makes things much more complicated due to combinatorics.

Aspbug: The terrible hybrid of Ladynoir and Ladrien, constructed entirely from bad decisions. Around 25913 bad decisions, to be precise, which isn't funny because it's very worrying. Aspbug failed miserably and its success would have been even more miserable.

Ladywalker: It's like Ladynoir, but with everything that isn't emotional dysfunction removed! Adrien sands off what he thinks are the undesirable parts of his personality, a process heavily informed by what his father thinks, and it almost works. This collapsed instantly in canon because the status quo is only allowed to change in two-parters but it is theoretically stable, at the cost of the participant's long-term emotional health.

Multichat: This is just Marichat but more. More what is left to the reader, but it certainly isn't good decisions!

Snekmouse: Finally we reach a ship with a good name. Hypothetically, this situation contains a complex layering of secret identities due to each knowing, but not knowing the other knows, and they can't reveal they know because that would blow their main identity. In practice they'd just blurt out each other's real names in like ten seconds then put no thought into how they could know that information.

Aspnette: In this case Marinette is both aware enough of Aspik's identity and how very bad it would be for her to reveal that knowledge. There's like an 80% chance Marinette reveals her feelings during the panic and later Adrien is like "alas, if only she felt that way about me as me 😢".

Adrimouse: Not quite the previous reversed. Adrien is going to be much better at the whole "hello mouse hero I have never met before" deal, while Marinette not knowing Adrien knows supplies a shot of confidence. Thus, the whole thing ends up being more boring than Adrienette, somehow.

Mariwalker: Less a ship and more a torpedo pointed at the SS Ladywalker. One awkward balcony encounter will inevitably lead to Catwalker revealing to Marinette that he is either a) Chat Noir xor b) Adrien. This will rapidly accelerate the issues present in Ladywalker to new and emotionally destructive heights.

Mariblanc: Observational evidence suggests that most of the time, Mariblanc is just edgy Marichat, with Chat Blanc just being around in an otherwise normal Miraculous setting. This is deeply uninteresting. The rest of the time it's played for as much horror and emotional anguish the author can squeeze out of the situation. This version is surprisingly harrowing.

Ladyblanc: This one was technically canon for like five seconds before Paris and then the moon were destroyed. Tangentally, is there actually any evidence that Chat Blanc killed everyone on the planet? From the angle it doesn't look like the initial death orb gets outside of France, then most of the energy seems to be directed upwards for the Eclipse Cannon tribute act.

Multiblanc: Is this even a thing?

Adrigaminette: hey this isn't a side of the Lovesquare! It's a surface on the dreaded Love Octahedron. If we iterated all the possibilities Kagami adds to this mess, we would never finish! (don't even mention Lu-)

Toxigriffe: Thus we must accept that the best version of Lovesquare is the True Reverse Lovesquare. Sure they probably spent most of their time together before turning good trying to kill each other, but with all the identity shenanigans out of the way it's clean sailing for the heroes formally know as Shadybug and Claw Noir.

Well that's everything including the Mirror Universe so it's time to hit post and what do you mean "what about the selfships"? Fine but only the vanilla configurations.

Maribug: Look Ladybug might theoretically have the self-confidence for this but Marinette? I think not.

Adrichat: This one probably exists in-universe and whenever someone brings it up both Adrien and Gabriel grimace identically but for highly divergent reasons.

Now, that's everything. Do not join me next time for Constructing the Love Hypergraph because I literally just looked up if a hypergraph is a real thing and it is. Now interestingly a hypergraph could actually be used to encode a ship space with polyamorous ships, as it allows an edge to join an arbitary number of vertices, rather than just a pair. As graph theory is fairly easy to grasp, hypergraph theory is sure to take shipping by storm sooner or later. This is the most important conclusion we can gather from whatever non-maths stuff the rest of this post is about.

[hyperfixation-or-death]

Romane Berthauds aesthetics + demialterous flag colors

Fandom: Parallels (Disney, 2022) | Rating: G | Warnings: Implied character death, and a very brief romance mention | Prompt: N/A

@arospecfanworksweek

Demialterous flag colors: White, black, blue, gray.

(The aesthetics turned out way more angsty than I meant them to, just because it was kind of tricky to find images that fit both the character and the color scheme.)

A kind-of fic with major spoilers ahead - my headcanon is that Romane has a whole identity crisis after season one.

_____________________________

She isn't sure how she feels about Sam or Bilal anymore. It's technically been years since she'd thought about a relationship with anyone. She had liked Sam when she was younger, before everything went wrong, hadn't she?

(Now that she thought about it, had it really been that different from how she felt about Bilal? She loved Sam, and Bilal, and Victor. But with Victor, it was closer to how she felt about Camille. With Sam and Bilal, it was more confusing, but a similar type of confusing. She wouldn't have been opposed to dating either of them. But was that the same as wanting to date them?)

Then he and Bilal had been gone, and then they were back. And then came the revelation of a future she had never considered. Then Sam's telling her the things he never had a chance to. But any relationship between them is in her past now, and she's still trying to process her alternate future, and for a brief moment, she can almost forget the present in all the mental chaos.

The moment is brief. Romane is a realist, and the only real thing now is the present, and in the present, Victor is the one who needs her help.

Then everything goes right for once, and she's fourteen years old again. And she kisses Sam, and it's nice. Bilal and Victor are there, because it was always supposed to be the four of them, regardless of if any of them were dating.

(Was she dating Sam now? Nobody had said that, but that was what usually happened after you kissed one of your best friends, right?)

Then they get their memories back, and Romane has never been so confused. She's seventeen. She's fourteen. Sam and Bilal are dead. They're sitting across from her. It's been years. It's been days. It's been three-and-a-half seconds, and all she has to do is open her eyes. Did she ever like Sam like that? Did she ever like Bilal like that? Did she ever like anyone like that?

(She didn't date anyone in the four years they had been gone for. That was because she had been grieving, wasn't it? She hadn't had any crushes on anyone, either. She also hadn't had any friends at all besides Victor, who she only saw on school breaks, anyways. Was any of this even relevant?)

Nothing made sense. Except for Victor. Victor always made sense, he was like the one constant in the mess of inter-dimensional complications that was her life. He was still her best friend, still like a sibling to her, and- he knew that, right? After everything?

She should make sure he knew that.

So they talk, and it eases some of the anxiety over everything. And she could probably chalk up most of the confusion to the disorientation from the time travel. So life goes on as normal. She dates Sam for about two weeks. They decide to stop after determining that she's really not in the right state of mind for a relationship right now. And it's fine. They're still best friends, all of them.

(Honestly, there isn't really much of a difference between dating Sam and not-dating Sam. Was there supposed to be a difference? They still loved each other. People her age - whatever her age was, after all that - weren't usually in love, right?)

Maybe she's supposed to date Bilal, eventually? A version of her married him, after all.

(The thought of marriage is...weird. She doesn't really want to think about it.)

Then, a few months after she and Sam stop dating, Victor says he has something to tell them. Sam has clearly already been told, because his expression is fond instead of curious like hers and Bilal's. Victor is grinning wider than he has in weeks as he explains. Aromantic. Someone who doesn't feel romantic attraction. Victor is aromantic, and his excitement is contagious.

Victor is kind of rambling, but they're all happy for him, so they listen. Romane was familiar with the concept of people not being straight, but she hadn't really given much thought to specific identities.

Victor's expertise on the matter comes from one night of internet rabbit-trails, so it's not exactly flawless, but it's still a decent amount of information. And a lot of words. Grayromantic. Frayromantic. Demiromantic.

(The last one was interesting. But just because she hadn't had a crush on anyone who wasn't a close friend didn't mean she never would, right? Besides, she didn't really talk a lot with anyone who wasn't either family or one of her three close friends.)

Eventually, though, she starts wondering. She was...those had been crushes, right? She knew what she had felt. She just wasn't sure if that was what it was supposed to feel like. She loved Sam, and she wanted to spend time with him. The same went for Bilal. But it wasn't like she wanted to be around them more than she wanted to be around Victor. And when it came to the whole idea of dating, she mostly felt...neutral? She was fine with it, she was fine without it.

She briefly wondered if that was normal. Then she decided nothing about her life was normal. Then she decided to stop worrying about it.

This worked for about three weeks. Then she texted Victor, partially because he was the one who had googled this kind of thing, and partially because he was the only friend she had that she was absolutely certain she had no romantic feelings for.

Two people doing research was faster than one. Alterous attraction. That phrase seemed to fit, but it wasn't exactly an identity. They typed it into the search bar.

Apparently, people could be bialterous. She didn't think she was bi, though. Then again, she didn't really have any friends who were girls, so there hadn't really been any chance for her to develop feelings. She mentioned that to Victor. He looked thoughtful, and asked if she'd ever had a crush on an actress or anything.

She told him that the only time she had ever thought she had a crush was with Sam and Bilal, and apparently those hadn't even been fully romantic feelings.

They did more google searches, and clicked on more links. Demiromantic came up again, but that didn't fit now that she was pretty sure she didn't feel romantic attraction.

(Alterous attraction kept sounding better the more she thought about it.)

It took a while to find a word that fit.

Demialterous. Like demiromantic, but for alterous attraction. It made sense.

(She still wasn't sure if she was bi, though. But that wasn't too important right now; she had a word, and she had the people she cared about, and she had time.)

Romane smiled.

[thedarklordsnicklefritz]

Okay I finally started actually playing bg3 instead of just messing around with the character creator. Here's my thoughts on the game so far until I had to stop from headache:

- The character creator is really cool, and probably revolutionary. There's like 350 skin color options. I appreciate that your gender identity is separate from the body type you choose, and that you can select any of the genital options with any of the the body types.

But I was kind of underwhelmed with the face options (although good on them for the diversity range of the face options they had) and that they were locked to the body types. And the body types basically boiled down to small feminine, small masculine, big feminine and big masculine. And the feminine bodies came with boobs, nonoptional.

I do get that there's a lot of limitations like with the facial mapping and clothes and hardware etc, the whole game file is like 10x as big as the largest game I have on the switch. So I don't think it's unreasonable that they didn't work more on that. But still. It would be nice to not have to have tiddies without also having to have ManFace™️ and more mixing and matching of features in general.

-I spent an embarrassingly long time deciding what I wanted to play. (I took a nap rather than make a choice. Twice.) Hopefully I don't regret going with the custom background instead of dark urge.

-I haven't played a lot of current video games. Or even in general. So it's a really weird mix of familiar since everything is based on 5e, but also in a very unfamiliar way.

It doesn't help that I'm using a switch controller so the buttons are labeled different

- I was so caught up in the euphoria of effectively playing d&d without having to schedule it with other people, that for a moment I forgot I had to play in the Forgotten Realms

- I'm really tired of "fantasy racism". It's not interesting or compelling. It takes a complicated and layered real world issue and boils it down to a charicature that absolves people of any self-reflection. (This isn't necessarily unique to the Forgotten Realms, but they're definitely a big contributor to the whole "Elves hate dwarves!" being so popular in the genre.)

- I'm very proud of myself for freeing shadowheart in the tutorial level. It's great having a cleric in the party. But *gestures above*

- I decided on playing a bard (that seemed like the most conducive for vampire pegging, plus I like having skills! And it seemed like for a wizard playthrough it's better to play as gale since you'd get more wizard specific content) and I'm just running around in my silly little outfit. No strength or constitution to speak of, but rolling great so far

-except when some kid pickpocketed me.

And then I tried to gently intimidate him and Wyll is like WOW are you proud of yourself for (unsuccessfully) scaring a child asshole?

I wasn't actually going to feed him to a bear! I was just messing with him and trying to rile him up a bit. I don't see you getting our stuff back!

-Wyll is very cool.

Or at the very least he's a nice break from the girls constantly fighting.

-I've only died once so far which is some kind of miracle

-But also this is like the first map and I'm already lost and I have no idea what I'm doing

-The headaches are probably going to be a recurring thing I may have to figure out some different settings or something

[gallifreyborn]

[ quick & dirty guide to romana's canon (to this blog) connections to other dw characters.

the doctor — i've got a whole thing in more detail here. but the tldr is that they were besties until they weren't. lots of complicated feelings going on there.

k9 — the bestest boy. after travelling with the doctor, k9 mark ii chose to stay with the doctor. romana loves her special little dog-shaped computer. she's also been close to k9 mark i, due to him belonging to leela.

leela — romana's girlfriend bodyguard. another former companion of the doctor. despite a rough start, romana and leela become very close. leela is probably the person that romana cares about the most, and there is very little that she wouldn't do for her.

irving braxiatel — the doctor's brother, who also has a... complicated relationship with romana. it's a mess and not easily summarised. she cares about him a lot, but doesn't necessarily trust him (although, he was once the only person on gallifrey who she did trust).

ace mcshane — ace studied at the time lord academy after romana opened it to aliens, before becoming a member of the cia under romana. romana had a good (albeit professional) relationship with ace. romana comes to believe that ace has died in the time war, while in reality ace simply had her memories of gallifrey erased and was returned to her life on earth.

the master — romana enlisted the master's help during the time war, which is a mistake that she lived to regret. the master turned on gallifrey at the first chance, and threw leela into the time vortex, so that no one would know if she was alive or dead, to cause maximum pain. while romana eventually reunited with leela, she holds a grudge and hates this fucker so much.

river song — they've never canonically met, though river has stolen romana's identity at least a couple of times lol

general companions — romana keeps track of the doctor and his companions, prior to the time war. she likes to make sure that he's doing okay, and to make sure that none of her people are causing trouble for him and his friends. she's generally up to date with her knowledge of his companions (relative to her timeline), though there will be realistic gaps in her knowledge. like, she knows who sarah jane is, but not what her favourite tea is, you know?

[monstermaster13]

Corey and Oats in…

Deviantart Verse Anniversary Adventure

It was a very special day for Corey and Oats, because it was the 14th anniversary of Mel’s very first debut on Deviantart and that morning Mel got up in the morning and smiled as she got everything ready, they got out of bread and had breakfast, and were very excited.

“You look very excited.”

“Yeah, today must be a special day for all of us.”

“Yes, it is the 14th anniversary of my Deviantart adventures and I want to do something special.”

“Can I help?”

“Sure, Piff.”

After breakfast Piff floated over to the bedbox along with Mel, Corey, and Oats and used some magic to conjure up a special anniversary adventure for them - which involved the world of Mel’s stories coming to life through the computer, every story Mel had ever created had come to life.

“This is amazing.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

The magic conjured up a museum dedicated to all the eras of Mel’s Deviantart experience, and they all entered the museum. The first era they visited was the original era of 2009-2011, the era that Nathan who was Mel’s friend now hated because of how he got made fun for doing characters that were supposed to be parodic. ‘Who is this big guy in the portrait here, mommy?’ Oats asked. ‘That’s Chumsley, he was a werejohncandy character that Nathan pretended to be for a while, there is a whole complicated troll related storyarc for this but it is not canon.’

‘You mean he never posed as a woman and joined one of those A-Logging obsessed cultist organizations?’ ‘That was canon only in their universe and not hours.’ ‘What about Natalie?’ ‘She was real, she was an actress who was forced to be in countless not-even-worth-a-letter-grade-at-all movies and shows that these groups made.’

‘Yes, I remember the chimera that we defeated as one of our very first major enemies.’ ‘And those evil people that trapped Lil Andria and that Natalie chick in a bad fanfic.’ ‘Yes, those were our first villain encounters.’

Mel explained that before she had met Corey, the original group consisted of her, Eucalyptus, Soo, Nathan and Matthias/Werebelushi In The Shades and that she had met Oats after he ran away from his old home to find a new place to live. She also explained before Nathan discovered an identity he liked he used to have a weregrinch online universe persona named Growler. ‘What happened to him?’ ‘He got his own spin-off, but he is still here.’ ‘What about that Jay Leno lookalike with the cape and long hair?’ ‘He was part of the cast for a while but eventually he left after he got involved in that cultist drama as well.’ ‘Those cultists must have been really messed up.’

‘Oh yes, diaper fetishists, machine fetishists, people who do horrible things with dolls. Whole cults dedicated to picking out who their next victim is, constant death-threats, hacking attempts and even having serial killers as members.’ ‘How they were allowed online to begin with?’ ‘Beats me, there’s at least one for every online universe. All I know is that the ones we encountered were from a joke universe.’

‘They remind me of those villains we battled too. Like those gross clown freaks, the villain that you battled as a plus sized otaku supervillain, and that stupid Jingo-Hog.’ ‘Yes, those guys are very messed up too and nearly ruined a perfectly awesome online adventure.’

Oats turned away as he saw a sad scene playing on the screen, it showed Nathan’s body/form being hacked and destroyed by the cultists and nearly dying. ‘Mommy, I do not like this scene.’ ‘It’s okay, because he got better.’ ‘He did?’ ‘Why yes he did.’

The next scene showed Nathan regenerating and morphing into a new form and a new body, and going through several different avatar forms including an anthro Smeargle, Simon Cowell, Rowan Atkinson (more than a few different characters of his, plus him in general), John Belushi, Megamind, Sly Stallone, Glenn Shadix (both as the Mayor and Otho), and finally Christopher Walken, Danny Trejo, and David Bowie along with Dan Aykroyd.

They all cheered as they came into the 2012-2016 area where Nathan was back in full form and new characters popped up, Corey jeered at some of the villains that popped up like ‘The Rubber/Clown Fetishist’ and ‘The Two-Faced Self Insert Character’ and cheered for Mel and the heroes, and Mel explained she used to be afraid of Russell Brand because at the time Russell was a villain who was stalking her, but now the two of them were very good friends.

Mel even introduced everyone to Chris, the alpha Walken who had gotten his very own spin-off and his own vampire coven in recent years and talked about the ‘Hall of TFs’ which showed all the transformations Nathan and her had both done over those years - there was a special section for all the friends they both had at the time. Except one, and that was because that character wasn’t an actual cast member or member of their group and was just a character who showed up for a whole different saga all-together, Mel explained as best she could that this character was an alien posing as a younger human who acted as a guest supporting character to Nathan and that they quit after a couple of seasons and went all the way back to their homeworld.

After that they stopped for some snacks before heading to the 2017-present section, which had all of Nathan and Mel’s friends there greeting them including Justin, Liam, Andria, Brandon, Adam Hughes, Angelina, and several others and at this point the ‘hero and villain’ groups had started out with a handful of villains for Mel to fight - of course the original villain group for Mel consisted of Lem, Adalind (from Grimm), Kirk Langstrom, Jerry Dandrige, Sithius (the evil version of her boyfriend), Demona, Ben Willis, Skeksil, Donald Trump, Butch and Cassidy, Amilyn, Sammi Kurr, and several others.

Mel explained before Corey - her companion who would go with Oats was Ratty, who later did end up joining the hero team as a member and becoming a Nile Road resident. They had some lunch before they went through another exhibit in the museum.

In this exhibit it focused all about Mel and her relationship with Lithius along with her friends and her adventures as the destined heroine of the ‘Monster World’, now that some Monster World creator characters were no longer good to her she decided she could correct what they had done wrong and be a hero. A screen showed a scene with her and a redeemed Russell Brand hugging each-other.

This was followed by the arrival of the Trump ducks who came in as valuable supporting characters during the Trump presidency era - and Trumpy Cat who of course became close friends with Oats and Corey, Mel got all teary eyed as she showed them all a memorial room.

The memorial room was dedicated to her former ‘support’ cast members who had left or had passed away, including one who was a big inspiration to her - Heather, and one who bonded with her - named ‘Vera’. ‘Did you like working with these cast members, mommy?’ ‘Yes Oatsie. I did.’

A tragic scene played on the screen depicting the final appearance of Mel’s father ‘James’, and Corey began to understand why she was getting all emotional about it. After a scene showing what seemed like a while of Jill trying to find someone to help take care of Mel, it showed another world on the screen, the world depicted was of the home Mel once occupied before moving to Nile Road.

‘Did you like this home, mommy?’ ‘It was nice but it was not to my liking.’ ‘I can understand that. I felt sad when I was there too.’ At the end of the 2019 exhibit of the museum there was a new exhibit depicting the current life of Mel and her friends, starting with a movie which was about her moving to Nile Road with Oats. Mel showed them all the Nile Road exhibit and told them how she didn’t like joining at first or even like the idea of it, but she grew to like it and made many new friends.

Initially it was just staying for a couple of days or even a week but that all altered and changed. When they reached the present day era there was a whole section introducing Corey Covid (and the giant microbe gang) to the cast along with Oats’s unicorn family, which was later followed by the addition of several new pals - and Aiyido the beholder joined as a new cast-member. Initially Corey started as a companion to Ratty at Rosemary Avenue but the covid microbe found himself befriending Oats and going on many adventures.

Which was followed by the introduction to the Mushabellies as part of the cast even though they (along with the beanie babies) were the original groups of friends that resided with Mel, and the introduction of the palm pals - followed by the introduction of the Snackles.

Then came the many new supporting cast members in the form of the Nile Road ladies, quite a few of the ladies were added to the memorial area such as Anne Marie, Neive, Cathy, Jess, Becka, and Ysa. But there was a section dedicated to Belinda who had become Mel’s new permanent supporting cast member.

There was an exhibit themed around the Dan Aykroyd transformations and the Were-Aykroyd lore which explained the many different versions of the Aykroydverse including the Dum Dum Were-Aykroyd verse, as posters advertising feature length presentations of the ‘Were-Aykroyd’ adventures and the ‘Dum Dum Were-Aykroyd Saga’ were shown.

It showed Mel and Nathan joining a group of Aykroyd fans in the Discord universe who all loved their work, Mel said she wished she could have been kept on longer but she got removed from the cast roster of that universe when she was framed by Teppum Teh Putrid, a villain that Corey and Oats had battled and defeated.

This was followed by the addition of a new permanent supporting cast member in the form of Anglo the anglerfish as well as a lot of new squishmallow pals - including Anglo and his group which formed a squishmallow group called the ‘Under the Sea Squad’.

The screen showed Mel with one of her latest friends Serena, and there was an ‘in memoriam’ video of her friend Christine - who had a whole room in the memorial section dedicated to her. Mel smiled as she recalled how she and Serena first met, bonding over deceased celebrities they missed and felt bad for him, in particular Glenn Shadix.

There was a special section dedicated to a special supporting character of hers who helped her deal with the problems she had with some of her ‘in-show-only’ enemies. They all had lunch before entering a room introducing the newest members of their group of friends, which included the best room of all.

The best room of all was all about Piff being introduced as a cast member, Piff initially could only just say his own name like a Pokemon but he learned how to speak English and he developed his own personality, that of a silly and cheeky puffer who loved to make people laugh. And he was flirty, he considered himself a romantic.

Piff laughed as he saw a movie of himself in all of his disguises like his K-Pop boy band member attire, sumo wrestler outfit, his samurai outfit, his favorite kimono, a Godzilla costume, and even in drag as a geisha. ‘Piff, you are a very talented fish.’

“So what do you guys think of this museum?”

“Oh Mel, it certainly is really interesting.”

“It is interesting to learn all about adventures you have been one.”

‘Yeah, even before I came along.’ Corey exclaimed. ‘We have learned so much about you and what it was like for you.’ ‘Yeah, you have lots of interesting companions you have worked with.’ ‘And I never knew you were part of so many online universes.’ ‘You did Blues Brothers, Final Fantasy, Simpsons, Animal House, and South Park fan scripts too? Did those ever get to be made.’ ‘They did but I lost them.’

A movie showed Wailleo the beluga whale performing Nessun Dorma in concert, performing with the ghost of Luciano Pavorroti. ‘Now that is one gifted whale.’ ‘Whales are naturally gifted at singing.’

They all cheered as they saw all their recent adventures being portrayed on the screen, Corey and Oats both had afternoon tea as they celebrated all of Mel’s achievements. And in this area of the museum they saw that Mel’s hero and villain teams both had formed into the ones they knew today and they all had a good time.

After their museum tour was finished they bought some gifts at the gift-shop and hugged Mel, they left the museum and used some magic from the bedbox to teleport themselves back to Nile Road, and they all told their friends.

Piff told everyone about how fun the museum was and how much he learned about Mel’s history in the Deviantart universe and how she had come along since what was known as the ‘Drmusic2’ era. ‘No matter what the content, no matter what the adventure, she is always there for us.’ ‘And we are all glad.’

They all sat down and relaxed before having dinner and celebrating, and Oats smiled as he thanked Mel for the adventure. ‘And to celebrate, we should all have drinks.’ ‘Oh alright Piff you can do it.’ ‘Great! Champagne, champagne for everyone!’ Piff exclaimed.

Piff had some champagne and poured some for his friends as they all bonded over what they thought was a brilliant adventure - they emailed Jill afterwards and they all had a lovely time. They had a celebratory karaoke session with all of the family members joining in with the singing.

After their karaoke session was finished and they all went to the bedroom to get ready for bed, Oats put on a pink night-gown and Corey put on his bat pajamas as Piff put on his sleeping kimono.

They all brushed their teeth before jumping into bed and picking out friends to snuggle up with, they all thanked Mel for the adventure as Piff turned off the light and everyone said good night, once they drifted off to sleep they all had sweet dreams. In Piff’s dream he dreamed he was in the museum with Tangie the orange and green fish and he was eating sea-weed cakes with her and cuddling her and kissing her.

And so their adventure had come to an end but more are coming up, so stay tuned.