#oh and secrets from one of a kind

[binniesoob]

tell me your favs in the tags 👀

[hellisntreal]

a power of peace and healing//your bones run strong

I spent a very long time trying to work out a Stone design and I'm still not settled! I'm sure like my other humanizations of Fallen London entities, I'll come up with a few <3

[thatlittledandere]

Alright, you definitely should have listened to the village elders this time. Wandering too deep into the forest was a bad idea. They could have been more specific about what “too deep” meant though.

All you wanted to do was see if there were any valuable herbs in the area. You had heard rumors that if you went slightly beyond the usual reach of the villagers, a little to the west, you would find ingredients for most potential of healing potions. You didn’t think heeding the advice would cost you much; it was supposed to be only a little further, right? But which way was west again…

Before you knew it, you had gotten lost. Of course, forests always looked somewhat the same, but after 20 years of living in the same village, you came to recognize the areas you had always played, worked, and relaxed in. A tree that bent a little to the left; that boulder that looked like a fist without a thumb; the lightning-struck tree trunk, too heavy to be moved, blocking what used to be a path. You knew when you were near your home by the atmosphere alone.

And now you recognized nothing you saw.

It wasn’t dark yet - wouldn’t be for a long time - but you were still getting the shivers of being outside at night. This part of the forest was creepy. You didn’t know how else to describe it - threatening? It felt like something was out to get you. Or for that matter, anyone foolish enough to disturb the peace of whatever dwelled inside.

You stopped. Turned to look back — had you seen wrong? You must have — and turned back ahead. There was... It was like there was a line drawn on the ground. A border.

You looked to your right, then left. No, it really was… as strange as it seemed, it was clearly a huge circle. You were standing just outside it.

And everything inside was dead.

The grass was sickly, pale yellow, almost white, like after a scorching hot summer with too little rain. Trees gray and bare, bark flaking, crispy leaves lying sadly on the ground. Thousands of insect carcasses everywhere, a couple of dead birds and — oh no — a lone rabbit. All completely lifeless. How could this be?

You took a step back. Was this maybe… The work of magic? A fiendish warlock wielding dark sorcery?

You didn’t know much about magic; there weren’t many capable of using it in your tiny village, and the mages you knew were neither malicious nor the tiniest bit adventurous with it. But it was the only explanation you could come up with. Nature couldn’t do this on its own.

You felt a rush of excitement at the thought. Magic had always fascinated you. With nobody around to teach the craft, you had abandoned the idea of pursuing it years ago, but… It was exhilarating seeing its impact. Foul as this magic was, it drew you in - and if nothing inside was alive, it couldn’t do you any harm either. You had come so far; why not investigate a little?

You had barely taken two steps on the lifeless grass when you heard a soft voice plead: “Don’t come closer.”

You froze. Had there been a person around? Was it a bandit? Or, wait, maybe they could help you find your way home-

“Please get away from me,” asked the stranger again, even more desperate this time. Their voice was getting raspier, breaking towards the end of the sentence. Whoever it was must have been either sick or grievously injured. Perhaps you would have to help them more than they could help you.

You squinted your eyes, and finally caught a glimpse of a figure behind two trees.

He looked around your age. But not in such good health, as you had suspected. He was holding onto the tree, hunching, and the distance between you wasn't enough to hide the tremble of his hands or the hollowness in his eyes.

"Please, " he repeated, each word weaker yet more fearful than the last. "I can only bring misery. You must leave while you still can!"

His fear was contagious. You couldn't fight the shiver running along your spine nor the cold sweat erching your brow. It was like even the Sun knew better than to approach this self-proclaimed harbinger.

But you had always been too curious for your own good, much to your mother's chagrin. Weren't you an apprentice in the art of medicine? Wasn't this stranger in clear need of help? You couldn't just leave him alone to rot in his miserable circle of decay.

You forced a smile - sort of - and took a step closer. The stranger grabbed his face, screamed, and collapsed on his knees. You saw white and felt a strong gust of wind knock you off your feet.

And then there was nothing.

[zosonils]

🫵PHOTON TRIVIA

o7 YOU GOT IT BOSS!!

as much as i love making robots who Think Like Robots there's none of that here! photon is the ghost of someone real shoved into a metal body and just as unpredictable and irrational as any meat brain is. too obviously mechanical to be a person, too painfully human [mobian. whatever] to be a robot. [and don't you worry, i've definitely thought about how this in-between existence would collide with other robots in the series. give me a minute to stop crying every time i think about mecha sonic mkii and then i'm sending his ass to scrapnik island]

he derisively calls sonic 'meat sonic'. at first it was in response to being called 'metal sonic,' but now that he has his own name it's just this bizarre orphaned punchline kept alive by some mix of complacency and spite. for what it's worth meat sonic thinks it's funny as fuck that photon calls him that

photon can't cry, at least not at first. just doesn't have the physical functionality built into him. he tells himself that it's no loss, he/sonic hated crying anyway, but it's definitely not good for him that such a deeply psychologically necessary function is gone!

of course my autistic ass has thought about the jules and photon dynamic. it's weird, and awkward, and steeped in a thousand layers of feelings that neither of them know how to articulate, but i reckon they do like each other and they are good for each other. jury's still out on whether they can claim to be family, but it's hard not to at least be SOMETHING with the probable only other person on the entire planet who understands at least a little bit of what you're going through, y'know

out of all the things he can't do anymore, photon REALLY misses eating. leftovers from his organic-by-design brain keep telling him that it's been way too long since he ate and he'd feel better if he slammed back a chili dog. he can usually laugh off being asked a fundamentally robot-proof question like when he last slept or if he needs a shower and genuinely not be hurt [much] by it, but he gets real quiet if someone accidentally asks him if he wants anything to eat

because he struggles to conceptualise his body as His Body, he's really bad at treating the possibility of hurting himself with the appropriate gravity. as a result, he's prone to letting himself get injured if it means he gets more done in a fight, or ignoring minor damage until it compounds enough that he's falling apart, or pushing himself until his systems short out. thanks to this reckless approach to personal safety, he's been fully ship of theseus'd at least once since his original neo metal sonic body, which i'm sure is great for that aforementioned difficulty connecting himself with the body he's in

most of photon's interaction with sonic canon post-heroes is vague and messy and not something i've come up with an answer i like to, but i'm pretty confident in how he fits into the idw chunk of the timeline! he never 'officially' joins the restoration, and he's still just as prone to fucking off halfway across the planet as meat sonic, but he starts to be a pretty common sight around their hq. fighting eggman isn't really fun for photon anymore the way it is for sonic, having your entire identity irreversibly ripped away from you by someone makes any future victory against them feel hollow, but he's still got that burning drive to help others - the restoration gives him ways to fight indirectly enough that he can actually feel good about it again. he's one of the few who can meaningfully defend the metal virus survivors, and you BET he's so pissed at sonic for letting it happen he can hardly think straight. lanolin and tangle probably try to get him in the neo diamond cutters, but i don't think he'd take them up on the offer, given that he doesn't respond well to being told what to do. like i mentioned, i want to send his ass to scrapnik island and see how he plays off of another robot sonic turned terrifyingly real and separate person. then of course there's the dynamic between him and belle, which honestly could be a whole post by itself. after a couple years with only a tiny handful of non-grief-inducing friends and some unsustainably destructive coping mechanisms to his name, the point that idw picks up from is where photon finally goes from just enduring the horrors to genuinely feeling happier again :]

[unproduciblesmackdown]

on that note had also been thinking about the hilarious classic maneuver of taking things i go "smh always doing that weird/wrong" & instead putting it in the context of like oh i dunno my life experiences. like going "smh once again in one millisecond i noticed something was about to fall & just sort of Tensed instead of instantly going to catch it & in the next milliseconds hash out like 'oh but could i catch it. oh but now it's in progress am i too late' etc" but like well hang on. first of all the Tense Up / Brace For Impact approach can have its strengths too. second of all like why just kick myself when Of Course the vastly more frequent & relevant experiences of having to stifle reactions & tense up to Brace For Impact / Weather The Situation means that's the standard approach. sure tends to be the case that like "okay test your reflex time :)" type things when i Know It's Coming, i.e. preemptively Tense Up, i turn out quite slow. throwback to a true classic [my roommate that said my cat was performative while their cat did things out of true emotion] at my doctor's appointment at like age thirteen when the ol Knee Bonk Reflex Test would make me Tense/Seize That Knee Up and Then kick. and then afterwards my "big fan of unprompted criticisms / declarations about your internal experiences or true intentions" mom was like you were faking those reflexes. i'm like well i wasn't. she was like yes you were. consider the camera jimmed

secondly i was also thinking like, always been the case that when Talking, often even if in writing format, i can't really avoid mirroring the characteristics of the other person's Style / Patterns lol. was thinking about it in my Relative ease of adopting pronunciations for different language's phonemes when it's like, i guess i do have experience in Doing Voices not b/c i really often Did Voices (sometimes lol, as like, direct quotes or whatever. echoing....) but b/c like i'll just be picking up all kinds of mannerisms / tendencies / ways of speaking, including accents slightly (my default accent being disney channel) not b/c i'm messing with anyone or trying to do anything, in fact trying Not to do this is generally unsuccessfully & This Is What Happens Naturally & always has & it's like yknow what i think it might have to do with the fact that i don't think Talking in general is oh so "natural" for me / a matter of "just being myself" (things virtually never are lol) like. i think that time i had that friend in second grade where i'm like ummm i'm not sure we spoke the same language b/c i'm not sure we spoke hardly ever? but we had fun & played & amused ourselves etc til the teacher as usual went Biggest Time Sicko Mode on our "not paying attention" like nobody else's got & then didn't give a fuck abt "intervening" again when we didn't feel like we were Allowed(tm) to interact at all. & like i'm pretty sure i'd be "supposed" to feel like omg we don't talk (almost) at all?? that's SO weirrrd i remember that soooo welllll

and when i Do talk most "naturally" / "just being myself" it's all at once, wordy, and Theatrical, and even then. i did it some the other day and was Sweating, literally, less so figuratively but it does still feel demanding, and of course even when it doesn't Feel thusly, doing a Lot a lot of verbalizing can really still be draining to Taxing. and i've noticed better like yeah sometimes i'm markedly struggling to speak when i'm already extra wearied. and another thing i put into context better was like "when i'm being put tf through it why do i tend to cry through interactions. b/c i'm being a PUSSY????" like lol just on principle was like okay well who cares, i'm sure you, by which i mean i, have my reasons b/c so too would i think someone else does, like. and i remember like, i tend to Not "directly" cry of stress or sadness virtually ever. while i Do tend to be simply keeping that shit contained but Exactly When i have to try to speak? is when i happen to start crying. hmm. Hmmmm. talking Always this performance that i may often not be up for. similar to [personal visual style / Look / clothes] like my default is "basic outfit i'd want to wear every day" & my ideal is "i do not want to be perceived" & (this &) everything else is performance / drag to me, Would That that always be on my terms

another banger is my till oh so recently kicking myself like "aah [pathologization time] i'm sooo slow to be at ease / comfortable around people even when they're surely being nice, what a hassle for others" like well it can be viewed as a hassle for me but it's also like, wait, i end up having stayed uncomfortable around people who weren't being That nice by putting in That much [any effort from any Consideration] and often turn out like. ultimately not that Safe. and i look at "oh right yeah and also i sure Can be like instantly quite comfortable / at ease around people, including people i literally just met. so" &/or my not being at ease either is still way less of a deal than having to literally/figuratively sweat it while i'd feel so much more Okay avoiding detection much less interaction

[allyouneediskilly]

had a dream where i was only nominally in charge of the narrative. it was my dream but some characters would punish me for it. as the dream went on more and more people i knew in real life, people i didn’t “create” left the story as other characters bled into it. it was still a dream so it’s not like i had any real control to begin with. woah .the consequences.

[riderheart]

i've said it before and i'll say it again: the descriptions of disability and the accommodations are amazing, but can we pls have more consequences of vi's badassery :)

[fluxedbuds]

o boy new life series cant wait to Stop Watching As Soon As Someone Permadies

[aromanticasterisms]

so no furina story quest 2 :((

[keeps-ache]

standing here in my star-patterned bathrobe holding a stylus while inscribing something onto my computer. it's wizard time baby

[shhh-secret-time]

2 & 5 for the oc list plzzzz!!

2) Who's your OCs best friend? How did they become best friends?:

Jean's best friend is Stan! She is well aware she will never be his best friend because that spot is for Kyle. (You can have more than one best friend dummy.)

But that's her boy! She will do absolutely everything in her power to make sure Stan succeeds in life! Jean has such faith in that boy!

As for how they became friends, Sharon ended up babysitting Jean a lot when she was little. After Jean's parents passed (spoilers), she was taken in by her God mother. Unfortunately, she's never home so she ends up paying Sharon to watch Jean. So she kind of ended up being raised by the woman. Sharon is the closest thing to a parental figure Jean has until she's sixteen.

Because of that, she was practically raised with Stan and he hated it! Hated having to bring her around, hated it because it was forced! Eventually, the two end up growing close, both finding love in sports and music. They play guitar together a lot and Stan is honestly the only person Jean feels like she can be vulnerable with.

Where she doesn't need to be happy, fun Jean. She can be sad and broken because he gets it.

5) Do you ship your OC with a Canon character? If so, who?

Not fucking Stan that's for sure! I've had a few of you guys ask me if they're supposed to get together. No. Absolutely not.

It's Kyle. I ship Jean with Kyle because he's got everything she admires in a person. He is strong-willed, has the drive to do the right thing, and gets things done. He is not afraid to express how he feels, and she was really close with him once.

But she'll never act on those feelings. Mostly because she doesn't think she's good enough for him and that she'll just end up dragging him down. He'll make something of himself, be successful. Jean doesn't believe she'll ever leave South Park, and she doesn't wanna hold him back. So, no matter how bad it hurts, she'll just smile and be happy with being his friend.

Also I guess she has a thing for gingers?

(Kyle really does attract these sad little losers doesn't he?)

[omarwolaeth]

Might be strange sounding, but the card reveals/banlists always come in 2 different perspectives for me, irrelevant of which banlist I'm playing under; because I write fics, I have to contend with the banlist at times (a majority of the time it's based on the sort of half-tcg, half-ocg Master Duel banlist with Anime Specific Additions.)

So when new cards come out I have to judge them not only by what I can figure out from their effects and traits (combined with what's currently meta, and if there's anything that wants to play the new cards, whilst being mindful of banlist differences), I also have the joy of internally discussing the value of a deck when its in a fictional setting.

I don't think anyone normally thinks about if a deck's theme is strong enough to tie a character to it, let alone if a deck's theme is too strong and tying a character to it is like Akihiko Sanada's obsession with protein in anything that isn't mainline persona (Like the Q games.)

Also makes engines less appealing.

[conjectureand-gloom]

slowly realising that i genuinely don’t have any super close friends any more

[shinychopshopwizar]

this is just a random thought ive had in the back of my mind when i first got into yellowjackets so be nice but like. something something jackie & shauna are quinn fabray variants (to ME) and quinn is somehow a combination of jackieshauna's worst individual traits

[supermarketcrush]

girls when they finish watching dead poets society

[siobhanromee]

had the most miserable experience today.