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n7punk · 9 months

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“By the Sea (Drown Me Already)” Fic Notes

By the Sea is done! It took a longer than I was expecting with everything that happened in my life, but it’s also longer than I was originally intending so that's to be expected lol.

Playlist:

This AU was purely vibes for a while, and thus the playlist was mostly vibe-based at first, but a few of these are very good fits.

GOOD GIRL ERA (SIDE A) — UPSAHL. FBL (SIDE B) — UPSAHL. WEEKEND — Betty Who. Silk Chiffon — MUNA (feat. Phoebe Bridgers) Bed — Niko Rubio. Love Seasons — Nina Nesbitt. Yellow — XANA. bad idea right? — Olivia Rodrigo. Casual — Chappell Roan. HOT TO GO! — Chappell Roan. Shy — K.Flay. Naked In Manhatten — Chappell Roan. Borderline — Sigrid. Minute — Kim Petras.

Epilogue Life:

I did more of a traditional epilogue than I usually do, so there’s not too much to say here, but they date working through their issues for six months before Catra officially moves in with Adora and not long after Scorpia, Entrapta, and Perfuma move in together. Catra does stay at the marina for a lot longer than she ever thought she would before eventually getting too fed up with the waves and getting an opportunity to work for one of the resorts instead.

Chapter 1:

⦁ This AU is heavily based on an area I used to visit as a kid, which sucked so much you can bet there was not a single resort there, but it was the basis of my beach experiences, so it inspired certain parts of this set up. I wanted to do a resort-type AU, but there are also some moral issues when it comes to resorts so I focused on the general vacation town angle.

⦁ I made a lot of jokes about not knowing jackshit about what I was writing, which is partially true, but I actually have Some experience related to the water parts of this fic, it’s just rather removed, and I don’t know the first thing about diving. I haven’t even been to a beach in seven years, but I dated a girl with a boat once and I leaned heavily on that experience lmao.

⦁ “Hot surfer chicks coming to the marina might make it a bit more bearable.” Catra, honey, you have Got to stop jinxing yourself.

⦁ Entrapta was right about Perfuma being anxious. She has so much experience trying to decipher emotions that are easily evident to others and picked up on the body language.

⦁ My POV for fics is always somewhat reactionary. If I do a fic that is primarily from one perspective (Adora POV in Roses & Thorns) it’s almost inevitable that the next fic (Catra POV in By The Sea) will swing the other way to balance it out. That’s not planned at all, it just happens a lot. My brain misses whatever girl it got to spend less time with lol.

Chapter 2:

⦁ Mermista’s dad owned the marina for several decades before he sold it to Netossa when he retired because Mermista wasn’t interested in running it and also in middle school. They get a free boat spot for life.

⦁ I mentioned this in a comment but couldn’t expand on it at the time: Adora and Catra’s relationship is very inspired by the setting. It’s a surprise reunion in an unexpected place, which works well with the vacation town vibes, but they’re both also worried about losing it, which matches with the transience of such a place.

Chapter 3:

⦁ Adora’s small talk was actually really important stuff for diving, that just didn’t have any relevance to the rest of the office, nor did Frosta care, and to Catra it just sounded like weather small talk.

Chapter 4:

⦁ Catra kept up most of their photos from high school. There’s one or two she had said something too glowing about Adora in the caption and thus deleted in a fit of spitefulness, but for the most part she couldn’t stand to lose them. Except that one. That one hurt so much every time she read it because it just seemed like lies, and when she was feeling generous enough to not view it was that, it was the ramblings of a best friend who only felt friendly. It was either lies, a goodbye, or a consolation prize to being “friendzoned.” She wiped it from her account and then quickly regretted it.

⦁ On Adora’s part, you can guess, but she wiped her social media in a low fit after her shoulder. The last thing she had posted was a photo taken by the training pool, gushing about how excited she was for the scouting. It hurt too much. Every photo from college did, and every photo from high school had for a while, but those were at least good memories. Now everything from college was tinged with regret and failure. She saved a lot of the old photos — mostly from high school — and even screenshotted some captions or comments — Catra-related, or even left by Catra herself — and then stuck all of that on her harddrive and pretended none of it existed. After she found a life again, she found herself occasionally going back to look at those high school photos, but she rarely revisited the few she saved from college. It took her months to feel like she could post again. It wasn’t until the next summer, when she hoped enough of her college friends had moved on or forgotten either her or what happened, that she felt comfortable doing it, and when she did she went public on her account, trying to open back up her life. Being public also felt like it gave her a layer of separation from those old high school/college followers even if all it really did was add more strangers to the pool.

⦁ I went back and forth on how to describe the age of the account and the timing of the incident, because they’re kind of halfway. Adora’s shoulder got injured at the end of sophomore year, and her social media existence started many months later, after healing time, so her account got remade roughly two-two and a half years ago and she got injured around three.

⦁ The post of Adora getting fancy dinner after the surfboard post was because her friends saw her anxiety and her overworking herself to get the money to get it fixed and knew she would never let them just pay for the repairs, so they took her to dinner instead and didn’t let her pay for the check. She needed a good time with her friends, and the free meal couldn’t hurt.

⦁ The line about crutches in Adora’s caption is actually something I said to my friend once when they were feeling ashamed of their aid. When you need them, you need them, and something being a “crutch” doesn’t mean it’s bad or unnecessary.

⦁ Adora’s injury was her “breaking the sword” moment in this universe.

⦁ It got cut because it was awkwardly shoehorned in the dinner conversation, but Adora’s Serenia bio says she has four years of experience because she actually tried diving while at college, but it was basically just some fun lessons she did that she never expected to go beyond that. It’s part of why Mara took her under her wing so hard, though. She recognized Adora’s trauma with water, but also how it was so tied to her identity and left her feeling like a shell after “failing” at swimming, so she found new ways for Adora to use those talents and find fun in them. And honestly she needed another hand with the town’s growth.

⦁ I’ll be honest: my knowledge of torn ligaments comes not from sports, but from my dog tearing her knee. I remember the vet told us some wild statistic like half of all dogs will have torn their other leg within a year of the first injury but we made all the lifestyle changes recommended while healing from surgery to mitigate risk factors and she never had any more problems! That was like six years ago now and she’s still super peppy. You’d have no idea she’s a senior dog with a knee surgery under her belt. Oh anyway that’s why I mention the injury lingering because yeah it can affect dogs at least so bad they fuck up their other leg the same way from compensation within months.

⦁ Adora talking about being happy in Bright Moon making her realize how much she missed Catra actually was a pretty big revelation for her. College was just hard the whole way through and Adora was distracting herself from her pain (emotional and physical when she overworked herself) by… overworking herself more. Taking a full load, spending too much energy at practice, working a part-time job after school, she had absolutely no room to breathe and honestly the only surprising thing is that it took her that long to get injured. She never had room to look up and see what was missing because she was explicitly avoiding doing that and pretty much everything was a pain point. Once she was healed and happy, the loss of Catra reared its head again and refused to be pushed aside, even if she was more prepared to process it. It was a lot less painful, but still present.

Chapter 5:

⦁ I think Bow 100% is the kind of guy who would enjoy being made into a sand castle but sand is so unpleasant in a lot of places and to get it out of your binder you’d have to take it off and then put it back on, which is kind of difficult on the go.

Chapter 6:

⦁ Okay so the “armor” from the title is Catra’s bravado combined with the emotional armor of making her wants and Adora’s lingering eyes all about desire instead of acknowledging the enormity of her feelings. Adora is doing a similar thing in her head, but she’s also trying to deny her desire too, so her head is a full on shitshow.

⦁ Originally the grocery store scene was going to be later in the fic when they were “Maybes” because I love the casual intimacy of grocery shopping together (romantically or platonically! It’s just fun), but I needed an Adora scene in this chapter to give a little more of a read on where she was at (denial) and the chapter was really short without it, so I decided to write it now.

⦁ I have actually seen a guy “rescue” a grocery store lobster and keep it as a pet for years on youtube. The transformation she went through under his care is insane.

⦁ Apparently cats and dogs aren’t really suppose to have nuts because it’s a big risk to them, but for the most part it has nothing to do with toxins and is just because they’re a choking hazard or at risk of being a blockage since cats and dogs don’t usually chew things up a lot. Anyway there are a few that are actual problems and that’s specifically raw cashews.

Chapter 7:

⦁ I actually wrote the scene with Mara talking about Adora surfing before chapter five, but it was too early in the fic for that and they needed to build more before something that important. The entire point of putting it early was Catra being surprised by how quickly Mara was willing to accept her and thus wondering what Adora had said about her in the past, but 1) it’s honestly still like that even being pushed back, and it’s more reasonable in that regard, 2) it was both too assuring and too insecure for the vibes I wanted.

⦁ Everything from chapter 8 was originally in chapter 7, but then all the swimming/hook up stuff got so long I had to separate them out, so CH7 ended up being mostly transition. I tell myself transitions are important when I just want to write angsty trash make outs lol.

Chapter 8:

⦁ The make out against the pool deck is like The Scene Lite™️ for this fic. It’s one of like two points I was building to early.

⦁ The original idea for the fic was that Adora would live in a house on Mara’s big property out of town, but when I went to write this scene Adora just said some stuff about living twenty-five minutes away and that got abandoned.

Chapter 9:

⦁ Honestly you can take your pick on whether Bow couldn’t arm wrestle Sea Hawk because it would make his arm too sore to drive or the losing penalty was taking shots. Both were ideas.

⦁ The closet scene is The Scene™️ for this fic. I think I wrote it before the first hookup scene in the first outline when things were more antagonistic (more on that later).

⦁ It’s so not relevant to the fic so I’m sticking it here, but Adora’s old swim coach was almost as bad as Weaver, but that actually worked out for her when it came to scouting. The swim coach wanted Adora to go pro for the glory to her team, and she knew Weaver wanted her to go to a local college, so when scouting started, the coach worked with Adora behind Weaver’s back to help her get seen and apply. This made it even easier to hide, and without it she probably would have needed Catra’s help to pull that off, thus assuring Catra actually knew about it and wasn’t totally blindsided. Adora’s coach actually helped her out and drove her to the airport for her flight out since Adora had a total blow-up with Weaver when she found out. It was something Adora needed, but it was still self-serving.

Chapter 10:

⦁ Their whole conversation here was supposed to be a quick joke and then it became the entire chapter somehow and that’s just the story of all my fics tbh. I really wanted it to be quick since I didn’t want people to think I was making light of IRL racial fetishes but I truly do think all of that would function very differently in any world with multiple species, especially the more diverse the species get and thus the less alike. It starts becoming increasingly harder for a human to be wired to find them attractive, and obviously the species in SPOP aren’t that different, but it’s a topic that always intrigued me in Mass Effect/sci-fi fic that there really is nothing like in our reality, so I was interested in at least brushing up against it and that’s how the joke happened. I’ve made some jokes about it before but they were always the quick jokes I meant for this one to be and obviously that didn’t end up happening here.

Chapter 11:

⦁ A lot of people clocked it but the musical song was Dead Girl Walking (not the reprise) from the Heathers musical (which is infinitely better than the movie, god, don’t watch that thing).

⦁ I went back and forth on if Catra would like the Ferris wheel, because on one hand, they have their secret place really high up and she doesn’t seem to be afraid of falling off the railing, but on the other hand, cats getting stuck in trees. Lol no but it is very different when you’re in something that feels as precarious as a dangling basket versus a solid building seemingly made from steel.

⦁ Okay so Bow’s whole thing here was actually written before I had the idea for Adora to ask Catra if she’s aromantic and I ended up turning this scene into that Seed Of Doubt instead of the single mention. It was another thing I meant to be a quick joke (well, Catra to be the joke where she managed to act unbothered so well — to Adora at least — that she screwed herself) but it ended up expanding into a full plot point. Also I should probably mention here I’m greyaro for the people who don’t follow me on Tumblr usually.

Chapter 12:

⦁ Let’s just say that Catra’s work day here is incredibly realistic.

⦁ I know I’ve mentioned this fic spiraling a few times, but the title “Surfboard at Midnight (I Just Might Swim)” was originally on… chapter 5. Okay, okay, it wasn’t that bad because I came up with the name before the chapter contents, but yeah, I was constantly kicking it back. The title belonged to chapter 5, and then 6, and then 8, and then like 10, and then 11, and 12, just constantly kicking it down the road as things leading up to the skinny dipping moment spiraled.

Chapter 13:

⦁ I originally said the POV for this fic was whoever because I wanted to leave the door open for having a scene from Scorfumtrapta’s perspective, but that was back when the fic didn’t have plot, and as the lesbians got increasingly dramatic, the focus on their relationship fell into the background. The main scene I was thinking of was what ended up being turned into the dinner scene. At the time, I just thought it was funny for Scorpia to realize months late that she was in a three-way relationship, but in the fic it turned into this thing about Catra feeling adrift and alone even with her friends, which wouldn’t have come through if I had used Scorpia’s perspective or something.

⦁ This chapter has a Secret Theme. So sometimes — quite often — I’ll write scenes in my head for a fic that I know have no place in it. Maybe it conflicts with the overall tone (in the fic, or just that portion of it) that I’m going for, sometimes it doesn’t super make sense, etc. Some of these things end up repurposed or I do find a way to integrate them, and that’s what this entire chapter is. When I was outlining Catra turning up at Adora’s in the middle of night for sleep cuddles, I wasn’t actually planning to put it in the fic, but then it was really sweet and I realized fit with the transition of their relationship, so it became an unofficial part of the outline before being promoted to part of the story.

⦁ I did say this entire chapter was from scenes that weren’t supposed to be used, though, so what about the boat scenes? Well, the boat scenes were originally outlined… for Roses & Thorns. Yes, okay, I know. Let me explain. That fic wasn’t supposed to be nearly as horny as this one, but when I was writing the very end of it I had this vision of a scene with the two of them messing around backstage (being vague to avoid spoilers if you haven’t read it). It included some of the dialogue that ended up in the make out scene on the boat, but I knew it wouldn’t fit with the rest of the fic to suddenly have them getting hot and heavy on screen, so I just kind of saved the dialogue with the plan to implement it somewhere else down the line. As I was outlining this fic I had the idea for them to hook up in the storage room at the docks at one point, but I ended up moving it to the boat because that would have necessitated luring Netossa away first if they wanted to get away with it, which was less likely after the summer rush faded.

⦁ So I don’t know how all phones work but on iPhone you can set certain people to break through Do Not Disturb and Adora put Catra on that list because sometimes they would text past when hers activated for the night.

Chapter 14:

⦁ Kinds of chocolate according to Catra: White Dark Super Dark Baking Semi-sweet Sweet Milk Orange (wildcard)

⦁ The “there’s other ways to get these endorphins” thing really goes to show how little Adora understands what Catra is doing. Those kisses are “I love you”s and bids for assurance that Adora just isn’t getting and thus isn’t giving back because she’s so focused on not taking advantage of Catra and the such.

⦁ I’ll be honest I tried to get them together here and it didn’t work. Catra reacted too strongly, too fast. When I first outlined this scene I was thinking about another possible get together (that didn’t end up happening) and wondered how I would even get out of this scene without them getting together and then when it came time and the plan had changed I couldn’t MAKE them talk.

Chapter 15:

⦁ Samantha is dressed like a butch prince and I think that’s great. Also I pulled the name Samantha out of my ass because I didn’t feel like coming up with a reference like a week ago- psyche nevermind the song it's from literally just came on shuffle as I was posting this so it's actually from a Leah Kate song and I just forgot why I picked it.

⦁ This chapter easily could/should be split into two, but I like the flow of it all being together.

Original Outline:

So, this AU didn’t have an outline. It was pure vibes when I started it, with plot just taking vague shape in the back of my mind as I wrote. Pretty quickly I had a few big scenes — the make out at the pool, the closet scene — but I was building the rails as I drove at first. As such, I kept having ideas that pushed the few ideas I started with further out in a spiral.

When this AU was extremely nebulous, there were some different ideas for the concept where maybe Catra worked for the resort so she and Adora were closer to being coworkers, and then others where they all worked totally unrelated jobs on the pier but were hooking up in the “offices” when others weren’t looking, which is closer to what the final thing became, but these were all fleeting ideas before I really started writing. Originally the AU featured more antagonism between them at first too, with Catra denying even being her friend at first, but again, things just happened as I wrote and that didn’t materialize at all.

There was a draft with a very different final chapter/get together, but I honestly might use it in another AU where it fits a lot better (there’s a reason it was kicked) so I don’t want to say what it was lmao. Aside from that, this AU was something I wrote as the ideas came to me, which is fun to do sometimes.

Upcoming:

I’ve got a couple of one shots in the works and then we’ll see what AU takes me, but for now I’m playing around in canon universe (mostly).

#btsdma #ficmeta #fic notes #new share link will go up later

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bokettochild · 11 months

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*sigh*

listen

u seem like the perfect person to ask

but I need to know if you've got any Scottish or Irish headcanons about the boys

you out of all people seem like the one to have em, just based on vibes

please-

-✨

I hear bagpipes playing for some reason.....

Yes! As a proud descendant of the Stewart line and an partially Irish family, I very much have some Scottish headcannons for the boys! Granted, I didn't get a lot of cultural education from my parents because ✨american military family✨ but yeah.

Warriors in my fics is actually the Hylian equivalent of Scottish! It's not super apparent because he tends to hide his heritage and mask his accent (on account of maintaining the respect of his men who, like many hylians, are pretty racist), but he and his sisters are all very Scottish. Heavy accent, lots of pride, absolutely overflowing with the stories and fairy-tales and heroes that they adore, but they rarely speak of any of it in front of those outside of their culture. I tend to headcannon they lived in the North of Hyrule before, but moved to the capital in hopes of finding better work and maybe improving their standard of living, which happened when Warriors joined the army. They miss the Hebra countryside though.

Do you want to know how many times I've almost drawn our captain in a kilt? The answer is probably the same as how often guys think of the roman empire. The only reason I haven't done it before is because I hate drawing legs (I might do it anyways though, for reasons) and my experience in kilt drawing reminds me that, oh yeah, TARTAN is tricky to draw too. (So many variations and patterns, and what tartan would I even put him in? My dad's? My mother's? My mom's might be appropriate because the Black Watch sort of suits a knight, but also I don't think his family would have that one?)

Yes though, Warriors is just straight up Scottish!

As for the others, I like to think that the fairies and those of the Kolkiri forest tended to also have something of an Irish accent, and are sort of like the fae of Celtic legend in some ways. So, whenever I write Time speaking the fae tongue it's literally just Irish-Gaelic from one translation service or another (I suck at learning languages so yeah...) So yeah, Hyrule and Time have some influence from the culture. They don't have it as fully as Warriors though, so it's kinda annoying because he speaks their mother tongue better than them and despite not being fae or fae adjacent, he is incredibly informed about it all?!?!?!?!

Proxi adores this. Mask kinda hated it, but it also made him feel more at home because Warriors was the first person since Saria to speak to him in his own language.

I've been tempted to throw out a fic where the boys actually meet Warriors' family (sisters and mother) but accents are not my strong suit in writing and the idea of writing eight people with heavy accents is...daunting. I need to get my hands on some George MacDonald again if I want to do that, so I can tune myself in properly (if you enjoy stories set in Old Scotland please read his work, I love him! The Fisherman's Lady and The Highlander's Last Song are two of my favorites!)

#asks and answers #linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu warriors #lu time #lu hyrule #george macdonald

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the-daily-dreamer · 2 years

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Can I just say that I completely adore your blog!! Its nice to see someone defending alicent 🥰

I honestly feel disappointed that the show decided to potray rhaenyra as the mary sue character... I don't know if the show runners would eventually turn her story to one that is similar to daenerys or worse alternating what will happen in the end (maybe rhaenyra bones at the crypt is not really hers ?)

The reason why I supported alicent i guess cuz she has more substance and she understand the power play. Not like rhaenyra who depended on her daddy to save her and expecting people to follow just cuz she is the proclaimed heir. If she really want to become a queen, she should stop crapping out bastards and work on alliances that is benefited to her instead she just lounges around for her dad to die and expect people to be blind and follow her lead...

Thank you so much! I’m so glad you like my content, and yes, I adore Alicent and will defend her with my life.

The show has definitely taken away a lot of Rhaenyra’s substance and agency as a character.

It’s worth mentioning that Rhaenyra very much is politically incompetent. And that’s not totally her fault. The first half of her life she was unattached to any responsibility because she wasn’t the heir and her father had no expectations of her. And by the time she was named heir, Viserys had no idea how to raise her as a competent ruler. This is partially because Viserys is a terrible ruler and you can’t teach what you don’t know, and partially because he doesn’t know how to raise Rhaenyra any differently. They’ve had 15 years of a lax relationship, it’s hard to change and suddenly be strict and hold someone accountable when you’ve never cared before.

However, the show wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want to portray Rhaenyra as a girlboss but don’t want to have her be accountable for the bad things she does. There’s this tonal difference because she’s incompetent, doesn’t do anything to help herself, relies on her father or uncle/husband to solve her problems, and does bad things, but the show is always showing her to be a good and strong woman. Which she isn’t.

The show is so determined to have a girlboss character and feminist icon who’s standing up against the patriarchy of her world. But they don’t actually want to have her do anything to earn that place. She is never held accountable for her mistakes and they’re played off as “not a big deal”. She runs to her daddy (even when he’s sick and dying) to cover her ass and protect her from consequences. She has zero regard for her title as heir and her responsibilities. As an heir to the throne it is her responsibility to have indisputable, legitimate heirs to ensure the bloodline and succession is safe. This is a requirement for kings and queens. And she has so interest in ruling instead opting to fly off to dragonstone and have sex with her uncle. She doesn’t do anything. And it’s a shame because she could be so much more interesting if the show let her make mistakes and be a bad person.

The smart thing for Rhaenyra to do is to immediately begin branching out and forming alliances. Making deals to houses to make them part of the small council. She should’ve been learning politics, battle strategies, and learning her own positions so she has a clear goal for her reign. She also should have stayed in the KL and/or visited very frequently to shadow her father to get hands on experience. And most of all, Rhaenyra should’ve immediately gotten her father’s permission to rule in his stead while he is sick. This would mean that she would already be controlling the seven kingdoms and be based in KL. This foothold would’ve meant that by the time Viserys dies, she is firmly set as queen and has already been looked to as a ruler for years. But she doesn’t do that. She stays in Dragonstone and lets Alicent rule for her father.

People can try to paint Rhaenyra as someone who was overlooked because of sexism. But the reality is that she was overlooked because she offered absolutely nothing to her people and allies. It is 100% her incompetence, lack of accountability, and care that caused this.

And I agree. That’s why I like Alicent. Because she learned the game. She gained allies. She ruled in her husband’s stead. Alicent actually has agency and motives and does things. She is a real person you can understand and not just a character you have to root for because “feminism” or whatever.

#house of the dragon #game of thrones #anti targaryen #anti rhaenyra #anti rhaenyra targaryen #anti team black #alicent hightower #pro alicent hightower #team alicent #team green

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frecklenog · 9 months

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after spending an evening listening to jessie gender tell me about starfield, capitalism, gender, selfhood, and ursula k leguin, i had. some Thoughts about another science fiction series; one you're probably at least somewhat familiar with if you follow this blog or watch ms gender's videos.

to start off; hey. this is partially based on my own experiences, my understanding of them, and how that lens can be applied to star trek. it's also very much inspired by the work of jessie earl, whose channel i can't recommend enough. she's funny, intelligent, kind, and an incredibly gifted writer, and she's a gift to both the star trek, trans, and "video essay youtuber" communities. show her some love!

that said, i want to start by looking at star trek. we all know the vulcans, don't we? pointy ears, green blood — spock's dad's side of the family. gifted with telepathic abilities, vulcans are practitioners of the mind meld, also called things like a mind link, probe, touch, or fusion, which is exactly what it sounds like. it allows two (or more, on occasion) sentient life forms to exchange thoughts as though they were one being.

of course, this kind of thing is common in media. steven universe has gem fusions, which should be examined from a plural viewpoint in their own right. x-man charles xavier almost routinely delves into the minds of others. but rarely does it have any lasting impact on the characters. even star trek itself falls into this, with doctor leonard mccoy not getting nearly enough screentime in the voyage home to show off what must have been the intensely strange experience of carrying spock's katra within him. (maybe that's addressed in a novelization or comic that i'm just unaware of, but regardless, i haven't seen it, and i think that's a travesty. (and if you know of a book where that gets touched on oh my god give me the fucking link now-))

there are instances of star trek mind melds having lasting effects, as discovery shows part of sarek's katra being permanently linked to michael burnham, though that could be considered an extenuating circumstance, what with her being on death's doorstep at the time of the meld. which most trek fans probably already know, and is honestly more fantastical than i care to bother reading with a plural lens. however, star trek is a fandom with nearly sixty years of history, including hundreds of books and comics from various authors and publishers. these stories are plentiful, bizzare, and sometimes outright terribly written. i don't blame anyone for not having read them all — to do so seems like a terrifying task.

but the one i want to look at right now is a particular run of the star trek: the next generation comic, published in 2000 by wildstorm comics.

the run is called perchance to dream — a lovely, flourishing name for a comic where half of the plot could be it's very own jessie gender video for how much sexual weirdness goes on (but i'll leave that to the professionals). the part we're going to focus on is that the b-plot of the run surrounds captain jean luc picard, captain of the uss enterprise-d. the comic is set after the events of the star trek: the next generation season 3 premiere, best of both worlds: part 2. in that episode, the captain had been disconnected from the borg hivemind (after being assimilated in part 1), and he returned to duty as usual at the end of the episode (though he does choose to go on leave in the following episode). it's also set after another episode from later on in season 3, — episode 23, sarek, wherein picard preformed a mind meld with sarek in order to allow the aging ambassador better emotional control, as it was being ravaged by his bendii syndrome — essentially, vulcan dementia.

the a-plot of the run isn't really important to us, i'm afraid — although it reveals to us in the second issue that worf accidentally killed a kid on another soccer team as a child. suffice to say, one of the abilities of the aliens the crew has to play diplomacy with is that they can prod into people's traumas through their nightmares. they have a lot going on. it's a comic book from 2000, what did you expect?

and, speaking of things that are easily dated, the third issue of the run brings us to the second part of today's topic.

image id: a comic book page. beginning at the top, a narration box reads: "chief medical officer's log, stardate 48503.8. lieutenant commander data, doctor selar, and i have gone through the damiano [alien] records regarding the chova. while no direct way to combat the weapon was ever developed we have discovered that certain people were immune to the chova's effects and could destroy the weapon." doctor beverly crusher is beside the narration box, depicted from the shoulders up, facing slightly to the right and saying "there has to be another way." a vulcan -- doctor selar -- is viewed from the waist up, holding a padd in her right hand and facing to the right of the page. she is saying "we have been over the records six times a piece, doctor. if there is anything to find, it is likely that we would have found it by now." data, an android designed to appear as a human with pale yellow plastic skin, is holding a book slightly behind doctor selar. his mouth is slightly open as he speaks. "i believe doctor selar is correct. this is the only course of action open to us under the circumstances." to the right of this panel is another shot of beverly from the shoulders up, this time facing to the left. her expression is stern as she says "i know, i know, it's just-- it could kill him." in the next panel. beverly is shown from the back, and captain jean-luc picard enters, saying "you sent for me, doctor?" beverly responds, "yes, jean-luc. please sit down." below this, the left panel takes most of the remaining page. this time we see captain picard from the back, while beverly faces the reader head-on, speaking first. "we've gone through the records chief du're [irrelevant one-off character from the a-plot] provided. it turns out that there was one group of people who were immune to the chova when it was first used. mpd's." jean-luc repeats "mpd's?" curiously. to the right, data is shown from the shoulders up, saying; "mpd stands for multiple personality disorder. mpd can come about through psycholo--" but beverly interrupts him; "not now, data." end id.

ah, multiple personality disorder. a term that hasn't been clinically used since 1994. these days, we call this dissociative identity disorder (did), but it's one dissociative disorder of many, which is what beverly is talking about. for whatever reason, people with this sort of dissociative plurality seem to be immune to the specific trauma nightmares induced by these aliens. (finally, some good news.)

okay, neat! so, dissociative disorders and plurality have been canonically addressed in star trek. let's see how it goes!

image id also available unbroken in alt text. image id pt 1: beginning in the top left corner, beverly is shown from the shoulders up, facing the right side of the page as she speaks. "the point is the people who are afflicted with more than one personality would destroy the chova before it could affect them. the chova was only built for one personality. mpds would literally overwhelm it." in the next panel, to the right, picard is shown from the chest up, partially obstructed by speech bubbles. facing right, he asks; "how does this help us?" beverly is also in this right panel, although from behind, and nearly completely obfuscated by speech bubbles. she answers; "well, mpd was never a common occurance, and it's almost unheard of these days.there've only been two cases reported in the federation in the last two hundred years -- and damiano [the alien planet] hasn't seen a case in the last fifty."beverly continues. "however, we do have someone on the enterprise who has the makings of a classic mpd. i'd like your permission to ask this person to volunteer to undergo a mind-meld with doctor selar in order to bring the submerged personalities to the fore."

this particular line, i take umbrage with, as dissociative disorders are a lot more common than people might think, and star trek has shown us a future as tumultuous as our own present for decades. there would absolutely be people experiencing some level of multiplicity in everyday life both within the federation and without. but, again, this was written in the 90s, i think? i don't know how long it takes a team of professionals to make a comic book. but, i digress.

image id pt 2: picard responds; "permission granted, as long as it remains on a volunteer basis. who is the officer in question?" below, the leftmost panel is larger than the right. beverly crusher is shown in profile, facing right, with doctor selar and data behind her from the chest and shoulders up. picard is on the right of the page, slightly smaller, but also in profile, facing right to contrast beverly as he listens to her speak. "it's someone who's been exposed to an especially intense vulcan mind-meld, who lived another life for thirty-five subjective years— and who had a second personality grafted onto his own for a brief period by the borg. the next panel takes the entire width of the page, and much of the height. picard is shown in the middle, standing in a purple void. around him are three other male characters shown in bust. from left to right, they are; kamin, a humanoid man bearing great resemblance to an older imagining of jean-luc picard, wearing a plain blue shirt. sarek, a vulcan with grey hair, a turquoise shirt, and a green stone amulet on a large gold chain around his neck. he is cast in shadow and his eyes are not visible. locutus, an ashen version of jean-luc picard, with about a third of his face obscured by black metal exoplating and implants that surround his right eye. tubes come off of his face and neck, trailing behind him, and a red light made to shine at his point of focus shines from the side of his head. there are several yellow narration boxes, which read as follows. "sarek of vulcan. picard mind-melded with the legendary ambassador in order to lend him strength for an important negotiation — an act that almost cost picard his sanity." "kamin of kataan. a probe sent out by kataan before their sun went nova allowed picard to live most of kamin's adult life as a way to remember his people."

oh, yeah. did... did i not mention that that happened?

basically, he was targeted by a device that beamed him into the world's most immersive vr game — kind of like the one from rick and morty? if you watched that? if you didn't, sorry for bringing it up, and if you did, ditto. but it forced picard to live out an entire life as though he'd been abducted by aliens and placed in a sims game. though, ultimately, the plot intricacies of the inner light are beside my point.

image id pt 3: "locutus of borg. quite simply, the greatest nightmare of picard's entire life. the subversion of his intellect, his will, his very self to the collective of the borg." "all three are part of him, but they do not dominate. if picard does as doctor crusher suggests, he will subsume himself in order to let the others come to the fore. for sarek, for kamin, he would be willing." "but locutus--?" the next panel takes a little more than half of the remainder of the page. a narration box in the upper left reads; "then he thinks of his first officer, counselor, chief of security, chief engineer, and all the others who have fallen victim to this vicious weapon." the rest of the panel shows two sleeping figures, both humanoid, in what is presumably sickbay. the last panel takes the remainder. a narration box in the upper left reads; "and jean-luc picard makes the only decision he is capable of making." captain picard is shown from the shoulders up, facing slightly to the left and saying; "what do i need to do?" below his speech bubble is another yellow text box, which reads "to be concluded..."

...which is how issue 3 leaves us.

fortunately, we can pick up in issue 4 with ease, since these comics are over twenty years old. i'm going to do my best to limit my use of comic pages, juuuuust in case, but once we reach the sixth page, with the credits...

image id: a two-page spread. beginning in the uppermost left corner, narration boxes read; "welcome to the mind of jean-luc picard." "'locutus' was a personality superimposed upon picard when he was taken by the borg, meant to serve as the spokesperson for that cybernetic race's ruthless assimilation of what they described as the 'authority-driven culture' of the federation." "ambassador sarek of vulcan suffered from bendii syndrome. in order to keep the effects of this devastating illness from endangering his final mission, sarek entered into a deep mind-meld with picard in order to give the ambassador emotional control and stability." "kamin was a prominent member of the community of ressik on the long-dead world of kataan. a probe sent by the kataan people allowed picard to live kamin's life for several subjective decades, although less than half an hour passed in reality." "all of these personalities have made up a part of jean-luc picard, but he remained dominant." "until now." "this is the mind of jean-luc picard." the left page is mostly taken up by a large illustration of locutus, drawn in far more detail than before. trailing off to the right are two tubes or wires, as well as a speech bubble that reads "resistance is futile." also on this page are the details of the comic title, run, issue number, writers/artists, and copyright. taking up most of the right half of the right page is sarek of vulcan, drawn in less detail than locutus, but easily recognizable. his hair is a lighter grey, he is wearing white and cream robes and an amber amulet on a thick gold ring around his neck, and he is holding up his right hand in a vulcan salute/ta'al. depicted below sarek is kamin, drawn from the shoulders up, wearing a plain white shirt with a collar. below kamin is captain picard, also shown from the shoulders up, in his starfleet uniform, and surrounded by four lights, with two on either side of him. (there is also further copyright information beside him in fine print.)

...i'm pretty sure that this analysis falls under the "commentary" part of fair use. right?

but, regardless, this is kind of a huge thing to drop in a comic that virtually no one has bothered to read. i mean, especially when, amidst the clashing of picard's plurality with the a-plot, we get this panel;

image id: a single comic panel. kamin is shown from behind, speaking to locutus and sarek within a noneuclidean space with four circular white lights shining in the distance. "what is going on?" kamin asks. "we have been subdued for too long. but now we shall dominate, as we were meant to." locutus replies. sarek interrupts. "your logic is flawed, locutus. we are all merely aspects of jean-luc picard's mind." "you may be sarek of vulcan, but we are of the borg."

sarek is able to acknowledge himself, kamin, and locutus as "aspects" of captain picard, despite picard rarely if ever sensing them or their influence. picard is being, not just implied, but explicitly stated to have a latent form of plurality, and perchance to dream depicts it in a way that strikes true to members of my own system, at times, with certain alters first making themselves known in the front already well aware of who they are, and having existed without the my knowledge due to dissociative barriers that only came down later in life.

unfortunately, because this is a star trek media, locutus ends up assimilating kamin in the headspace and forcing himself into the front. however, as he does it, he says something that does, to an extent, resonate with the experience of being one among many, for better or worse.

image id: a single comic panel. locutus is shown facing the viewer, and his chin and the top of his head are cut off by the borders of the panel. his light breaks the plane of the panel to simulate the effect that it is shining into the "camera." locutus's mouth is open as he speaks; "for too long you have suppressed us, picard. but you are of the borg."

plurality is a defense mechanism by the brain to protect against trauma. it is, from what i have seen, more common among those who are already neurodivergent, which already presents in a myriad of ways. mixing the ugly truth of trauma with the raw reality of mental illness caused by it can result in certain alters feeling as though they are being suppressed by not being allowed to front and live their own life, depending on how the system functions. admittedly it is more common in fictional depictions of dissociative disorders for these alters to simply live their own lives in secret anyway, as is the case in the marvel tv series moon knight with marc spector, steven grant, and jake lockley (along with the other possible members of their system who may or may not be present depending on the canon, but those are the main three). but, in reality — or at least my experience — this more often translates to alters making themselves social media accounts, or using services like tupperbox or pluralkit on discord, or finding other ways to more discretely express themselves, such as icon changes or status updates.

but, getting back to star trek, this is ultimately a one-off comic. so captain picard saves the day with his secret alters, ends the mind meld with doctor selar, and goes back to living his life as a singlet, ready for the people of the future to be able to easily comprehend without having to read a very specific comic run from 2000.

...right?

image id: part of a comic page. each panel takes up roughly one quarter of the page each. in the first panel, counselor deanna troi is seen standing, having just entered captain picard's ready room. picard is shown from the back, sitting at his desk. "counselor! good to see you up and about." he greets her. "it's good to be up and about." she responds. "playing some old tunes?" [picard had been playing the ressikan flute prior to her entry.] picard responds. "mmm. i wanted to make sure that i still remembered how." in the next panel, we look over counselor troi's shoulder and across the desk at captain picard. "were you worried that you wouldn't?" she wonders. "actually, yes," picard answers. "after what happened..." the third panel shows picard facing the viewer head-on from the shoulders up. he continues, "i suppose i knew intellectually how close to the surface locutus, sarek, and kamin were. but i never really thought about it. they were — memories, experiences. no different from any other. but they're much more than that." the fourth panel shows counselor troi, facing slightly to the right as she speaks. "not much more. all three of them are part of you. but the important word is you. the fragmentation was artificially induced." picard asks; "was it?"

ultimately, yes, this is a one-off comic run that isn't very well known, and i only read because i took a personal interest in the subject matter. i knew going in that it wasn't going to fundamentally change the entire fandom's understanding of captain picard, or make the star trek fandom an instant haven for systems everywhere. but, still, captain picard has his doubts, and that truly touched me when i first read it as someone who was actively reckoning with the fact that past traumas that had impacted me more than i realized.

the comic goes on for a while longer, but the last thing it has to say on the subject of plurality is this.

image id: a single comic panel. counselor troi is seated in one of the chairs in captain picard's ready room, facing him from across his desk. she is on the left, facing partially right, and he is on the right, in profile facing left. the dialogue reads as follows. picard wonders, "was it [the dissociative fragmentation of his identity] truly a creation of the mind-meld, or was it simply breaking a dam that was already cracked?" riker interrupts over the comm. "riker to picard." "go ahead, number one," picard tells him. "it's time to beam down to damiano for the ceremony, sir." "thank you, commander."

and that's it. picard asks a question, then gets called away and never tells us his answer.

i think, at least subconsciously, that might be part of why i held star trek: picard to such a high standard.

to be clear, i hadn't read this comic when the first season of picard was coming out. but i was starting to grapple with my plurality, and i used fictional media as a means to do that (as is still evidenced by things like my system simon tag). the first season of the show was centered around both picard's relationship with both his legacy and his history with the borg collective. as mentioned in perchance to dream, captain picard had previously been assimilated by the borg collective — a cybernetic hivemind from the delta quadrant that absorbed cultures and species into itself, effectively wiping out the cultural histories of entire planets, at times, in their quest to become the "perfect" life form through a combination of genetic engineering and mechanical augmentation. and, as this happened, i came to know a young man named hugh who took form within my mind. a fictional introject, or fictive, of the character of the same name from season 5, episode 23, i, borg. with his help, i grew to further understand my own plurality, and saw the potential for our stories to be told in the wake of reclamations from the borg collective. the reclamation project became a hyperfixation, and—

and then came the jurati collective.

my own system bears no connection to the jurati collective, but it is a wonder, and can be examined through a plural lens as an allegory for our own experiences as dissociatives. many consciousnesses, all working together as one towards a common goal, and willingly. after all, what is a system if not a hive within one body?

and then came picard's third season, completely ignoring her, along with all the unique perspectives that stories surrounding her might have offered in favor of what felt like a final next generation movie.

ignoring me, it felt like.

is that silly? probably. but, try as i might, i am human, and so i have a propensity for illogic — no matter how much my autistic brain craves structure and definitive explanations in order to understand the world.

i'll be honest, i'm not sure how to end this. but, sometimes i remember the time in season 6, episode 20, the chase, when picard became incredibly excited about an ancient alien society that believed people were, indeed, collectives within themselves.

"...the kurlan civilisation believed that an individual was a community of individuals. inside us are many voices, each with its own desires, its own style, its own view of the world." -captain jean-luc picard

and i realize that, with the core tenant of this series lying in the infinite diversity of both the known and the unknowable — the building blocks are already in place. star trek is a media that has grown over the decades, and hopefully will continue to do so, because there are still so many ways for new and interesting and meaningful stories to be told within this franchise.

but, if you can't summon your representation from a nostalgiabait sequel/reboot within a preexisting intellectual property... there's nothing to stop you from crafting your own story and letting loose as many systems as you like.

#shut up emrys #star trek #star trek tng #star trek the next generation #the next generation #jean luc picard #captain picard #multiplicity #plurality #actually multiple #actually plural #first time using those tags. whoogh #uhhh. unsure of other tags..#i think that’ll do tbh

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karizard-ao3 · 14 days

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Did you base your writing kids on your own experience as a mom? Mason and Adri feel very natural as do their conversations with Eren and Mikasa

It's partially based on my experiences as a parent and on my time working with kids! I was a nanny for a while and also worked at a preschool for several years, besides being the oldest of four siblings. I don't work with kids anymore but my life has been pretty saturated with them. Mason is loosely based on my son, though! That hand holding thing is a real trick he used to try to pull on me and his dad. And Adri's speech impediment is because my son, his dad, and my younger siblings all had speech impediments as kids, so I wanted to represent that. I fear it might come off like baby talk, but I wasn't willing to change it, so 🤷. I think it helps that her speech errors are pretty consistent. Hopefully? I tried to give them rules so it would feel more accurate. Idk.

#ask me things #my asks #answered asks #single parents au #writing kids #bless this mess and other knickknack slogans that mean you're home #bless this mess

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wlwanakin · 2 years

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Give me your favourite Grelle hcs that align best with how you personally interpret her!

TYSM FOR THIS QUESTION i laurv talking abt the version of grell that exists in my brain i’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time fleshing out her character. i got a similar ask like immediately after this one so i basically just used that one for Fun Headcanons and now i’m just gonna talk abt stuff that’s like relevant to how i characterize her

her appearance didn’t actually change much when she died cuz she already had shit vision and green eyes as a human. it’s like a Metaphor for how the human world was never fit for her or whatever i think it’s very fitting personally

she has bpd. i am blatantly projecting and hpd is the one that’s more fitting based on like her canon characteristics but i write her as having both bc i can!!

she’s also autistic in this essay i will

double whammy mommy and daddy issues but in different fonts. neglectful mom abusive dad she was having a Bad Time as a child

she also suffers from Daughter Who Is Too Much Like Her Father Syndrome it makes her wanna die Again

i’m a “her whole personality is kind of an act” truther but i like taking that further by saying that she does not actually know anything abt herself bc every time she self reflects she does not like what she finds and wants to rip off her own skin so she just leans into being a horrible person cuz it’s easier

likes chasing after men who r deeply disinterested partially out of fear of commitment and affection and partially bc she has a brain worm that screams I Must Perform Heteronormative Femininity in her ear periodically. also cuz like genuine attraction and infatuation but that’s only like half of it

genuinely doesn’t believe human life has value out of a combo of bitterness abt her own experiences and having enough confirmation of an afterlife that she views killing people as Not A Big Deal

has a very weird combination of having a massive soft spot for children and absolutely hating the company of children

her butlersona is literally just how she was with an added layer of comical incompetence bc she does not like herself

has the most complicated and convoluted relationship with sex in the world and i WILL elaborate one day but it’s like a whole thing. for the sake of keeping it sfw i will end that there

tldr she has 97 mental illnesses and is banned from most public places

#grell sutcliff #black butler #kuroshitsuji #grelle sutcliff #headcanons #asks

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gemsofthegalaxy · 1 year

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Hello hi 👋 if you are willing to indulge me I would love to hear any and all of your Canadian Greg thoughts!!

I am also a Canadian Greg truther but I live in America so I can’t imagine the full extent of what it means for him to be a Canadian boy™

Ooooohhhh hell yeah I love to share the Good Word about Canadian Greg at least from my thoughts

while I tend to tweak his background based on the specific fic I am writing here in there, I really truly believe Greg has moved around a lot in his life. I like to think in fact he's got American citizenship/was probably born there but after his dad (presumably) left after he (presumably) cheated on Greg's mother, they moved back to Canada so Marianne could be closer to Ewan (for better or for worse considering Ewan is....... kinda a dick imo) and now he's a dual-citizen, always an interloper, never quite Canadian enough but not quite settled into American culture.

Partially due to my own experience I think he grew up mostly in Ontario, he doesn't come across as, like, Quebecois to me tho neither do Ewan or Logan despite canonically being raised there so uh you know, and I only ever spent 5 weeks in Quebec myself. but, French Canadian peoples tend to be connected to their Francophone identities in my experience with Acadians and other Francophones in other areas of Ontario, so yeah i mean idk. It's not impossible but he feels more Ontarian, I could see some Western hcs but I've never been further West so like........... i stick him in Ontario bc it's what I know better.

On that, I think he speaks passable but not excellent French with an Okay accent, he likes and knows hockey, has a variety of Canadian slang he doesn't pull out around his US folks. He likes colour-coded Canadian money because it's easier, dammit.

I also like to imagine him spending a bit of time in small town Atlantic Canada, that is the epitome of self-indulgence for Me because that's where my own actual experience mostly lies. He has some random factoids about fishing. I like to imagine he did Little Rocks which is a curling program for kids, he was almost definitely a Scout (he might have moved to Canada young enough to be a Beaver Scout🥺) and he knows, how to safely start a fire and camping basics (i think he prefers to stay in a cabin to a tent tho lmfao), and I believe he genuinely likes some outdoorsy activities, such as hiking, but also wants to be able to retreat to a comfortable area and not be left out in the rain or anything like that.

I think he was raised Catholic which could be anywhere lmao and knows how to hunt but doesn't love it (which I think it was said he did in the scripts in Hunting, as well as Tom, but I can't recall?). I think he made friends that always felt temporary, he was often the new kid and always the weird gawky guy, but he got along with some people even if he was sometimes the butt of the joke too. He did stupid shit like putting hairspray on his hands and letting other guys light it on fire, partially to fit in and partially because "What's the worst that could happen". Not necessarily exclusive to Canada but I knew these guys irl. So.

One of the things I've noticed that is a big difference between Canadians and US Americans is we don't mythologize or adore our founders the way they do. Unsure impact that has on Greg, but part of me likes to do a little excusing for him, that he rationalizes meddling with American politics and the landscape of the News using the idea that it's not his "Real home", even though he knows damn well the US impacts Canada in a huge way. It's another one of his many excuses, like, "it's not my fault, i'll get in trouble if I don't, i need a job to survive and this one is as good as any" etc.

Finally. Another one of my Greg headcanons despite having 0 evidence canonically and in fact evidence against it to an extent- he likes a good graphic tee. Most of them are stored at his mother's. Most importantly, he owns this:

which i photographed in a real Canadian walmart.

#Greg hirsch #thank you for allowing me to rant #if you have any other questions or specific things to wonder about let me know #succession #i love greg. he my blorbo.

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middlechildnonsense · 2 years

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Okay hear me out, I love that theory that either Donnie or Raph is the future Casey's dad. Specifically Donnie, because I keep seeing that one set of pictures that labels him as the tech expert of the resistance, and thus spends almost all his time at their base.

Plus, Donnie did say that his type is cute but mean and that does fit Cassandra (at least at face value; she's more aggressively passionate than actually mean), so in my heart of hearts I keep picturing Donnie with his little science experiment with the help of Cassandra Jones (her DNA to make them human, his own DNA to make them unstoppable genius).

Somehow, their aggressive personalities cancel each other out with Casey Jr. (CJ) and he's the chillest kid ever. Every other child around Donnie on base is terrified of the mutant, partially because he looks scary with his heterochromatic, yellow-scleraed eyes, but mostly because he threatens to eat them if they mess with any of his things, meanwhile there's CJ, calmly sitting on Donnie's shoulders, chin propped on top of Donnie's head, snoozing or just observing his surroundings, privy to any and all conversations that include Hamato Donatello. By age three, Donnie has him helping in the lab (he jabbers ideas to S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. while handing Donnie tools), and by age eight he's the best mechanic outside of Donnie himself. He loves his dad fiercely and is loved fiercely in return.

The mission that takes Donnie away from their family devastates all of them, but Casey is inconsolable for weeks. He spends all of his time in Donnie's room, swaddled in his dad's hoodie and listening to the recordings of experiments Donnie did with him. He loses weight, more than he has to spare, and the light in his eyes is gone; it takes weeks of pleading for Leo to get through to him, and Casey latches on. He's only fourteen when Donnie dies; two years of training and missions has him battle-hardened in a way that would hurt his parents if they were alive to see it. But Uncle Leo and Uncle Mikey- Masters Leonardo and Michaelangelo- keep him grounded, give him something to fight for.

The final battle was tough- Leo tried so hard to keep Casey safe, but they were separated and he was cornered by one of the Kraang's monsters. Auntie- Commander O'Neil had been killed in front of his very eyes, her usual battle cry abruptly silenced, and it was only Master Michaelangelo's mystic powers and Master Leonardo's sacrifice that kept Casey from dying in battle.

#rottmnt #rottmnt headcanons #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt casey jr #i was just sorta imagining donnie and junior and then i made myself sad #sorry

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mx-ryder · 7 months

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More thoughts on Hazbin Hotel pt 2 of ??

A follow up to this post here:

just gonna jump right in here, right where I left off.

Usual disclaimer about my religious upbringing coloring my thoughts/opinions on this show, etc. etc.

blahblahblah, let's go.

He’s the “Radio Demon.” This means he has a microphone-shaped* staff and talks like an over-the-top old-timey radio host at all times, complete with a radio filter effect over his voice. The voice is already grating enough for me to dislike him based on that alone. His eyes also sometimes transform into radio dials. Again, it’s not entirely clear why a small handful of the demons like Alastor embody different concepts like they’re Chainsaw Man devils when most of the others don’t, or why a human soul would even become the embodiment of a concept after death in the Christian Hell.

Again, I'm really not sure an explanation for the powers/themes is necessary. But we do get one for Alastor, at least partially. He's the radio demon because he live broadcasted his murders of various overlords over the radio. He's from the 20s, I'm pretty sure, averse to change and technology, etc. He earned himself that moniker, and tbh I'm not sure what concept you think he's supposed to be embodying?

If you mean the Seven Sins, then . . . idk how to tell you about why there's embodiments of the catholic Seven Deadly Sins in hell. It's pretty self explanatory.

When the microphone part of the staff is facing away from the camera, as in the screenshot above, it just looks like a butt plug.

That . . . kinda seems like a you problem.

Y'wanna know the best part about him? According to christian beliefs, if he'd accepted jesus christ as his lord and savior before death? He would've ended up in heaven. Serial killings and cannibalism and all. :)

He’s a sadistic cannibal with razor sharp teeth.

In his life as a human, he was a serial killer.

He is literally always smiling menacingly and is insufferably smug.

He makes shady “deal with the Devil” type soul contracts with characters as part of his vague schemes, seemingly wanting to play all sides at all times. Lucifer, the literal Devil, does not do this in this show, but Alastor does.

Not gonna bother with the "Lucifer is not the literal devil" bit.

But like . . . you do realize the other Overlords do this, too? Angel is in this sort of contract. It's a very real and sinister way of gaining complete and total ownership over someone. Can you not see why a character like Lucifer, a fallen angel who was banished for more or less just sort of asking some questions, wouldn't do this? He doesn't even want the responsibility of ruling his portion of hell, why would he want to own another person that way??

Despite being a sinner who previously lived a normal life as a human, he somehow seems to be the most powerful entity in Hell by a wide margin, even rivaling Lucifer. Both the pilot and the full series recount how he just showed up one day and started wiping out Overlords of Hell and claiming their territory. Alastor immediately stomps just about any threat to the hotel — that is, until the finale, where he needs to randomly lose against Adam and slink away into the shadows for a bit so that the actual protagonist of the show and her dad can beat the villain.

Not EVERY LITTLE THING about a character and his backstory is explained? BAD WRITING!!!!

I rankle at media criticism that calls characters “Mary Sues” or “Gary Stus,” so I won’t take that route here,

How magnanimous of you *eyeroll*

Despite seemingly contributing so little, though, Alastor is constantly derailing the main story so that we can follow him around and meet characters he knows. Of the eight 22-minute episodes comprising this season of television, four feature lengthy tangents about new characters spurred on by Alastor. This is what elevates him above being simply an amalgamation of a bunch of tropes I find annoying and turns him into a true menace to this show’s writing. When I say that the scripts feel like a first draft, that they don’t properly know how to spend their time, and that they place emotional beats in the wrong order, so much of that comes down to these Alastor-related subplots.

Weird, this character who's been in hell for so long, is an incredibly influential person there, and who actively goes out of his way to make social/business connections knows a lot of people? And is used in the narrative to introduce those people?? LIke, okay, sure, it could be kind of lazy writing. Or. And here me out here. Or. He could be a character who is NOT the main character, but who has significant enough connections and enough of an agenda to warrant his connections/those characters being introduced via their connection to him??

This, in turn, means we have to spend a bunch of time with Vox, and meet characters he interacts with, as if I give even a single shit about this old vs. new, radio vs. TV thing they have going on, or Vox as a villain.

Waaaah, this is too many characters! I can't form an emotional connection to a main cast of seven and several side characters, boohoo!!

Even still, Carmine launches into a big emotional ballad about the hard choices she’s had to make to protect her family and about how her actions have now put her family in danger, as if these aren’t all characters we just met.

You're literally complaining about a new character giving us some insight into who she is, her motivations, etc. Like . . . would you rather she confess to the killing and then whine about how it's too painful to talk about, or mysteriously claim she "had her reasons"? Should we just never learn anything about the characters, because "We like, JUST met them."

This could have been such a good source of drama for the main cast, but instead it’s handed off to some other random character in Alastor’s orbit.

The whole, ENTIRE point of the show and Charlie's story, is that she IS NOT INVOLVED WITH THE CONFLICT BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL. She is actively trying to STOP the cullings, the yearly slaughter of who knows how many of her people (who are literal human souls, remember). The only reason she even decides to fight is because Adam gives her no choice. And the only reason Adam is SO damn ADAMANT (lol) about moving the timeline up is because someone killed an angel, and he wants revenge, and for that knowledge to never get out. Because HE knows they're not invincible. The fact that no one else knows is the only reason his little hobby works!

Like, I'm struggling to figure out what you think would have been accomplished, storywise, if the angel's death had been due to one of Charlie's group. It would have given them an actual, concrete reason for being in shit with Adam and heaven, therefore completely nullifying their moral superiority in the conflict. The entire reason the fight is frustrating is because Charlie did absolutely nothing to deserve it, and there's nothing she can do to stop it.

At this point, even though it feels like no time has passed and no progress has been made, it’s apparently already been four months, with only two months remaining until the next

I'm not going to argue that the small amount of episodes makes pacing a mess. But you keep acting like that's the show's fault, or that it's just bad writing.

Charlie generally hates using her position of power as the Princess of Hell to support the hotel, even though you’d think she’d pull out all the stops to try and end the genocide, but here she finally caves and decides to get help from her dad.

*heavy sobbing about how you've somehow missed the entire point of Charlie's character, her struggle with her power, authority, and privilege, and how deeply she fears the responsibility that comes with that power, and why she never dares use it before it's absolutely necessary*

Despite being set up as a mysteriously absent figure by the first episode’s opening lore, Lucifer has just been… depressed over the fact that he signed off on the exterminations, and hiding in his house to ignore his problems.

I feel like you've just literally never been in a shitty situation with zero solutions, and only horrifying options that give you the chance to protect the one person you care about, while sacrificing others in the process. Which is weird, considering the capitalistic hellscape we live in, but whatever. Considering you're always bitching about the length of the season/how the story suffers for it, where would you have liked them to examine Lucifer's participation and feelings about that, exactly?

I got zero indication that Alastor is supposed to be like a father to Charlie.

That's because it wasn't. there. There's theories about this, about how Alastor was worried Lucifer was butting in on his hotel gig, and once he realized that wasn't the case, he backed off a bit. He's literally trying to piss him off, and claiming to have a more father/daughter dynamic than Lucifer has with his own daughter was the easiest way to do that.

Husk made a bet with Alastor and lost, meaning that Alastor now owns Husk’s soul.

Fundamentally untrue. Which you'd know, if you'd been paying attention.

Did you know that the slave owner who chains up the only Black-coded character on the main cast and threatens to torture and kill him is also supposed to be the token aromantic asexual representation on the main cast?

We don't want your virtue signaling here. Villains are allowed to be queer. We are not supposed to see this and think that Alastor is some uwu cutie innocent aroace idol to look up to. Also I'm probably just a dumbass but I didn't realize Husk was black-coded, so. That's on me, I guess?

“oh yeah btw Alastor owns Husk as a slave and threatens to tear him apart if he acts up” and then expecting you to still care about whether or not he’ll help Charlie teach Sir Pentious how to say thank you or what the fuck ever. That is the problem.

Now I'm just wondering if you've just never been around this kind of person. The others don't know about this? He is incredibly good at hiding his more insidious actions and behaviors, while simultaneously letting just enough of them show to keep the rest of the cast on edge about him. I understand the discomfort around people making excuses for him, but that isn't the show's fault? And also, like, idk if you've ever encountered an abuser, but they are CONSTANTLY surrounded by people defending them because all they've ever seen is the nice side, or because they're too cowardly or naïve to believe the worst of them. Alastor is not unique in this way, and how fandom reacts to characters isn't the fault of the media.

Despite damn near every new episode introducing new characters, none of them stay at the hotel.

Literally no one else in hell believes in what Charlie's trying to do, or believes it's even possible. Angel openly admits he's there at first because it's a rent free place to stay (when he was, apparently, previously living with Val, and oh my gods I will NOT be getting into how fucking impactful it is to have a safe place to live and sleep when you're in such a dangerous relationship/situation).

And Pen ends up there pretty much completely by accident, because he's never had friends before, and quite literally has no where else to go. The Vees are more or less done with him, and would probably kill him on a whim if he showed his face around them again.

(Also, I have a hard time believing they could’ve pulled off a longer season at all, given it took them like three or four years just to make eight episodes.

Have we heard any news about GRRM's next book, lately? Some people work slowly. Chill.

To me, the big problem with the pilot was that, when you really get down to it, the emotional core of Hazbin Hotel is about a rich girl from the upper echelons of society — a princess, even! — picking a crack-snorting gay sex worker up off the street and trying to turn him into a “proper” member of society.

Alright, this is where I came in and went "now, hold up."

See my previous Thoughts post to see why I think this is a really fucking stupid black/white view of the premise.

And like, obviously I’m not saying every romantic relationship needs to be sexual — ace people exist.

Get my identity out of your fucking mouth.

But when you’re telling a story about a slutty gay guy who’s ruining his life by having too much sex, and how he’s being “saved” by a wholesome woman who never has impure thoughts, that… kinda sucks?

Do we even know how or why Angel came to be in the hotel? Did Charlie seek him out? Did he happen to find her place and go "oh finally, a safe place to sleep, away from my horrible abuser," and jump at the opportunity, weird ideals be damned? He's never portrayed as "ruining his life by having too much sex" and I don't know where you got that idea. He's showed, multiple times, to be a deeply hurt and traumatized individual who's self-destructing because he got into an abusive relationship that he literally cannot leave, probably tempted in by the money, the lifestyle, and/or because it was his chosen industry in the first place.

I'm pretty sure Charlie also literally claims that she's just trying to give people some love and care, some understanding. She's also working under what she thinks heaven's ideals are. She has a vague idea of what heaven considers holy/virtuous, and is idealistic enough to believe she can achieve that in her guests, somehow.

Once she realizes not even heaven knows how to get there, she drops her ideals pretty damn quickly. She stops pretending that there's some difference between Adam being a sexist, abusive asshole and being good enough for heaven, and Angel being a porn star/sex worker and not being good enough for heaven. There are no rules, and her idealistic, naive mindset isn't serving her, or her friends.

and it’s implied there’s a history of sexual abuse as well.

A history of sexual abuse? Inflicted on Angel by the man who vindictively forces him to film sex acts he's not comfortable with, or that might hurt him physically/mentally, because he owns Angel's literal soul and enjoys hurting him this way/reminding him of his place?? *gasps and faints* No! No way. There's no way this was implied.

Cuz it was fucking explicitly shown to us. Just because Val isn't the one literally assaulting Angel on screen (sexually, physically, or emotionally), doesn't mean that their relationship as it is shown on screen isn't sexually abusive. It absolutely is. Angel is a literal sex slave.

Other episodes also can’t help but give Angel dark jokes about his abuse, such as an offhand line about how Val’s been waterboarding him lately. “I don’t know, it’s a kink,” he shrugs.)

Trauma survivors . . . and abuse victims . . . make . . . dark jokes? About their situations?? *clutches pearls*

I won’t say this song handles these heavy topics delicately— the controversial visuals depicting Angel at work are extremely sexually charged, and people absolutely have every right to find it uncomfortable

Have you experienced sexual abuse in the past? If not, shut the fuck up about how someone portrays it "not delicately" in a show like this. That scene hit me like a fucking train, in its realistic and shattering depiction of how these kinds of abusive relationships work, how horrifying it is to be broken like that, over and over again, to the point that you've gotten so fucking good at dissociating that you don't even notice yourself doing it. How desperately trapped and broken you feel, knowing you have absolutely zero say in who touches you, or when, or how, or for how long. And Angel knowing that so many of his assaults are being packaged and sold as sexual entertainment to other people?? Horrifying. Heartbreaking. And if you have never been in Angel's place, you do not get to comment on how "delicately" the show portrayed his situation.

Horrendous porn industry abuse is maybe a little much for this “life sucks, but what can you do?” mentality.

*watches the point fly so far over your head that it nearly collides with a commercial flight*

Husk is not trying to tell Angel that his suffering isn't valid, or that he needs to just get over it because hey, life sucks, etc. He's trying to show Angel that he's suffering (partially, a very, very small amount) needlessly. Because Angel has let himself believe, for who knows how long, that he's ALONE. That no one could ever possibly understand what he's going through. That even if he did tell someone, they'd tell him exactly what Val does. That he deserves it. That it's his own damn fault. He has been struggling and suffering all on his own, believing he isn't worth being listened to or helped or empathized with, for too long.

Husk is just trying to remind him that he doesn't have to suffer alone. There are people out there who will believe him. People who will understand and empathize with him. He just has to open up a tiny little bit and let them see the person he is underneath the very reasonable self-defensive persona he wears.

Yes, this show riffing on the Christian afterlife and sins and redemption does not actually have a list of what it considers a sin. They don’t even use the Ten Commandments. For that matter, God isn’t a factor at all, even though you think he’d be the guy deciding all this stuff.

Oh no! The writers forgot to figure out the criteria for getting into heaven! They didn't write out an exhaustive list of what they, personally, as story writers, consider a bad enough sin to condemn someone to hell! It couldn't possibly be that that's THE ENTIRE. FUCKING. POINT.

How many more times am I going to have to point out the point you've missed??

Also, like. Nah. If you knew anything about what most christians actually believe, they have a single guaranteed ticket to heaven (most of them, some of them believe in the good works, etc.) and that is "accepting jesus christ as your lord and savior." And that pretty much boils down to "believing that jesus died on the cross for your sins, and that you're inherently a bad, evil person who is only going to go to heaven by the infinite grace of god who . . . was going to condemn you to hell . . . by default . . . if you didn't say a little prayer about inviting jesus into your heart. . ."

This means that, quite literally, someone like Alastor could feasibly have ended up in heaven according to this doctrine, if he'd recited a prayer before dying. Serial killings and other various bad deeds aside, as long as he believes in jesus as his personal savior, he's good to go. Once you've said those words, there's literally nothing that can take that ticket to heaven away from you.

Which actually makes me a little uncomfortable and also I find it a little funny? That according to a lot of christians, I'm still guaranteed a place in their heaven based on the fact I accepted their deity into my life as a child, and that there's nothing you can do that can change that, after the fact. (I think the one exception is, like, denying god? Maybe? In which case maybe I'm good.)

What really bothers me is when Angel stands up for himself against Valentino at the bar, saying he can do what he wants outside of the studio, which Charlie treats as the example of Angel “sticking it to the man” that Adam wanted. And I just… yes, this moment is a win for Angel Dust against his abuser, but it’s gross to me to treat it as a moral win, y’know? To act like standing up against his abuser is what makes Angel Dust a good person deserving of a spot in Heaven? Come on.

*quietly sobbing into a pillow*

Again, we’re supposed to want Angel Dust to clean up his act so he can go up and live with people like this in heaven? Really??

Literally NO. Literally. No one has been rooting for that from the beginning! Anyone who is at ALL familiar with the inner workings of "the church" knew where this was going. The only reason Charlie didn't is because she's NEVER ENCOUNTERED HEAVEN OR ITS PEOPLE BEFORE MEETING ADAM. And she's just idealistic enough to hope that he's not the standard she should expect from them.

So I guess redemption and becoming an angel is still supposed to be desirable? After all that???

*more quiet sobbing*

We still don't know why he ended up there. We don't even know there isn't some greater being (a god or what have you) working behind the scenes, who knows that Pen is just the person they need in heaven to finally breach the fucking barrier between the two worlds and like, idk, be a literal bridge between the two worlds and cultures? I really don't think this show is going to end with everyone happily in the heavenly afterlife. Really.

the series has been unable to actually say anything critical of conservative Christian values and the idea of sin.

Absolutely disagree, but I'm willing to bet you've never deconstructed before. So I forgive you.

At best, season one gives us a message about double standards and forgiving people for past sins, saying that if people can change their ways later in life then they should be able to get into Heaven after all, regardless of their past mistakes. Which, uh. Is already a thing most Christians believe? Like, hello??

It worries me that you can't see the ways Charlie is misguidedly trying to work within a system that is rigged against her, believing the other side is acting in good faith. Like . . . I'm afraid you can't see how this parallels real life social issues, and that's very, very concerning to me.

So, uh. I didn’t like this show very much.

This entire article leaves me with one very important question:

Who gives a shit??

No, seriously. Who fucking cares? So you didn't like a show that you already knew you weren't going to like?? Fucking. Move on with your life. Let people enjoy things! Let people simp for their problematic fave! Let people design "cringey, overdesigned" characters! Let people tell stories that are messy! Let people enjoy stories that are messy!

Let

People

Enjoy

Things

And stop shitting on media that you knew you weren't going to like in the first place! Stop commenting on things you don't understand! Stop trying to "advocate" for identities who don't need your condescending mentions that you use just for ally points! Just. Stop it.

Go watch something you enjoy, and leave us the fuck alone.

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luckylolabug · 1 year

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What made you decide to have Seb's family be Mormon???? Just curious lol

Oooh, boy, time for me to stand on my Newsies box and shout from the rooftops. My time has come.

Longer explanation under the cut, but TL;DR it's a lot of context clues based on the very minimal we see in the show, compared to my own personal experience growing up in Utah where a HUGE chunk of my school and also my best friends were from LDS families. Take it with a grain of salt of course, everyone's allowed to headcanon their own thing!

Long answer:

Partially, because he comes from a homesteading farming family, and my personal ideal is that puts him out near Farmington which as far as religions go, is 78% LDS by population. That's a HUGE chunk, and there's too many kids in drama club for at least ONE of them to not come from a predominantly mormon upbringing, honestly likely more than one. But if I'm picking someone out of their group that is most likely to lean into it, it's Seb. Sorry not sorry.

Mormons have traditionally large families, I say this with love. We don't know his family PERSONALLY but we know they bought out three entire rows of bleachers to come see his performance. I had moments before then in Season 1 (which I'll touch on in a second) where I started slowly leaning towards my personal thought process that he might come from an LDS upbringing, but it was the moment he pointed his giant family out that really sealed the deal for me. Also, sorry, but it's a giant family of blondes with blue eyes in Utah? The theory writes itself.

A lot of the happy-go-lucky and almost naive at times energy he has is SO surrounded in that culture to me that it's really hard for me unsee it. I went to school with at least six guys that looked and spoke exactly like Seb did as far as his wording goes, and every single one of those was either a deacon or had some leadership role in their church in high school.

This one's a bit more personal, because I went through my own similar experience (though my family is Jewish and not LDS) as well as physically watching one of my best friends in high school go through the exact same plotline. But the smidge we get in season 4 about not being out to his dad yet and being nervous about it really hit my religious trauma like a TRUCK, and my friend who went through it when we were in HS (her dad was a bishop, so it was REALLY hard for her to admit her sexuality for a long time) has said the same thing. Coming out experiences in general can be extremely scary before they're freeing, and when you're growing up as a queer person in Utah, you're not only worried about your family, but also the fact that a seriously good chunk of the state population is religious and conservative. I never personally came to terms with my own sexuality until I moved out of the state after I graduated, but my entire upbringing there was pretttttty pressurized and I felt like I had to follow a lot of social standards that didn't apply to me at all. Hiding a big part of yourself from the people you love sucks!

Another projection, but it tracks, is finding who you really are as a theater kid. (Think the brief "Im home" scene when he's in Sharpay's costume for the first time) I had *multiple* LDS friends (plus me as the group's Jewish gal) who fell into theater and discovered how to be themselves because of it, and it was almost like a second person entirely. A place and group of people that you could finally be who you were supposed to be around. That's sort of the vibe I'm going with as far as Seb's character development in my re-write series, because it's incredibly important to me.

Anyways. Thank you for asking because clearly I have SO many thoughts on this subject.

#bugs rambles #bugs rewrites hsmtmts #hsmtmts #seb matthew smith #these are all just personal thoughts though!!!#interpretations are open to however you want to see them

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onbeinganangel · 2 years

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Hello Marion, I just finished your wonderful new christmas fic <3 <3 <3 and came to your tumblr to learn more about grief. Specifically how and why one feels set apart and not belonging to the world anymore (yes, I can relate to that!). Are there any ressources you could share? Love and thanks <3

hello anon 🤍 i’m sorry it took me a little while to get to this message! this time of the year is always a bit intense and i wanted to have the time to actually sit down and have a think about this! i am glad you enjoyed Aere Perennius but also sorry it resonated with you!

(this will get long. i am a chatty bastard, i apologise in advance!)

i have always been very comfy around death! i think it’s partially the catholicism, partially the folklore of where i grew up and partially this very specific way to look at death as something natural and normal that we have in my culture!

but loss is disorientating! i think heartbreak and sadness are always the feelings we think of, but the hardest thing about loss, for me is how confusing it is sometimes.

like how do you continue going on when something that large has happened? and why isn’t the world as upset about it as you are? it is awful, it is harrowing, it is life changing and it’s hard to accept that can exist at the same time that the sun keeps rising and setting and the earth keeps turning.

i feel like i have to mention that i am not a specialist in the human psychology whatsoever, so take whatever i say as my personal opinion based on my own experiences! i did have a fair amount of therapy specifically to deal with an unexpected and traumatic loss that i often refer to as The Big Grief (i believe i use this wording in Aere Perennius at one point actually!), and i think the hardest part of grief that causes that feeling of alienation is the loss of normalcy. everything feels tainted, almost

your life had someone or something in it and now it doesn’t! maybe you’ve always had that someone or that something, or maybe you never really got to know that someone or that something the way you wanted to. you feel robbed of Moments and Experiences and Time with Them. to me, that’s the biggest thing!

(spoilers for Aere Perennius under the cut, because it’s easier to use fiction for examples:)

grief and loss are major plot points in AP, and i think that, at first, you think it’s about Draco and Narcissa specifically but the consequences of loss go well beyond that, which you learn as the story moves along.

it was important to me that we got a little bit of dealing with loss from Everyone. Draco’s is bright and fresh and stark and it’s still a constant sore spot. in contrast, Harry is settled in his grief — he knows it well, his grief is an old friend. Luna’s mirrors Harry’s in a way, with the caveat that she has her dad still, and that her grief isn’t public (she isn’t famous and her mother’s death isn’t essentially a public holiday for a large group of people, and i really wanted to explore what that was like for Harry)

but you have quieter grief, too.

Pansy is stoic as all hell about her grief. i say this with love and i hope people will know what i mean by it, but i think Pansy is very british about her trauma. but she did find herself a support group and she is fiercely protective of Draco and Blaise

Ron and Hermione are even more settled in their grief than Harry. it isn’t obviously there! but it is there! it’s more recent but the loss Hermione’s parents and Ron’s brother were direct consequences of war. i imagine they have leaned on each other and on the Weasleys to heal from that.

and you have my dear boy Blaise, too. he was the hardest to write, in the end. Blaise is the opposite of Pansy. he won’t talk about it, i’d go as far as saying he doesn’t want to let himself even think about it. and despite his own discomfort, despite how much he finds it easier to hide, we know he would do anything for Draco and Pansy.

in a way, the Golden Trio and the Silver trio kind of work in parallel. the Gryffindors were (at least partially) willingly part of a war that cost them a lot, and had immediate consequences. the Slytherins came out of a war surprisingly intact all things considered only to lose everything after and in unexpected ways!

AP is a multipack of grief and loss! you kind of get every flavour, really 😂

as i feared, this turned into a wee bit of an essay now and i don’t even know if any of this makes particular sense or is pertinent to your question. grief and loss are very common subjects in my fics and i clearly have a lot to say lol

loss can be moving away from a city you loved and made a life in, loss can be a mutual decision to end a friendship that is no longer serving either of you, it can be a loved one’s death, it can be witnessing someone you love become ill, it can be dealing with illness yourself, and it can be growing out of your own skin and becoming a new person. either way, it’s never easy. we are creatures of habit and adjusting is always an adventure.

in terms of resources, i’m afraid i don’t have much. therapy helped me a lot and i honestly miss my therapist every day! a good support system is wonderful — not even in a therapy way, not even in a ‘i need to talk’ way! get friends who make you laugh, who see things and send them to you because they’ll know you’ll enjoy it, etc. also, at the risk of sounding cliche, putting my feelings into my writing and my art and my crafts has helped a lot, too. like harry says, grief is forever. but it doesn’t mean you can’t have joy at the same time, too. let them meet each other. grief and joy are not opposites, they are both cause and consequence. you just gotta get real cosy with the knowledge that they exist in a circle/cycle. and hey, we’ll be alright! that’s what i always tell myself!

sending you lots of love, anon x

#cw grief #cw loss #qs and as #aere perennius

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ratjay-art · 2 years

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Fun lil piece of my lil fan blaseball team that I created based partially on a dumb idea & partially bc me & a friend made our own league following Season 24 ending. Some of them (F. Blackburn, Peekaboo & Catmint) are partially based on the blaseball players but largely it was me taking them & running without any real ties to the existing lore because we were in some weird feelings about how it all ended. Undercut is short lore blurbs about them.

(ordered Alphabetically & not in line up. Line up wise is actually batters vs. pitchers, with batters on the left and pitchers right. Jot is the first pitcher. Any mentions of other teams are based on the friend league & not actual league)

Astrothesia (Astro) Ringmaster: Tired. just has broken handcuffs and people have asked if they want them off but. Probably has not said a single word in years and no one has any idea why. Middling batter.

Catmint Chen (Mint, Chen): Fighty, has purposely pegged someone with a ball more than once, definitely has bitten someone. Does not go Nya and has strong rivalry with Rust which the others don't know how to deal with.

Doc Latenight (Doc): Def belong on the burned but also is just a real ass doctor??? No one is sure why he doesn't just do something Not Here, nocturnal & he does NOT have red blood. Alright Batter who probably has pissed off the Medics at least once.

Enid: Weakest pitcher and the Baby of the team. Probably has made kissy faces at The Stars and The Heart batters which just has killed everyone else. Probably has some kind of magic

F.(itzgerld) Backburned (Blackburn, Fitz): Dad vibes and dad jokes. Oldest of them & definitely doesn't have a Thing with Jot. Still talks about the Plan but no one knows what The Plan is -- least of all him!

Haunt Dataleak (Data): No one knows what's up there. Has licked things they shouldn't have and it's upsetting to Everyone. The worst person to share food with and drank mercury at least once.

Jot Regicide (Jot): Tired dad vibes. The scariest pitcher on the team, and DOES pitch with the eyepatch on which somehow doesn't effect the pitching??? Only person who might know The Plan. does not comment on The Plan.

Lady Scandal (Lady): Best girl, second best batter. Probably does NOT flirt with other teams players but does just flex & get people to swoon. Blackburned does not know what to do with them.

Nucleus Youngblood (Nuke) & Peekaboo Nameperson (Peek): person behind Peekaboo, uses magic to hide themselves and bats through the puppet. Peek and Nuke have VERY different personalities and most of their teammates only talk to one or the other; Astro, Lady, Mint & Haunt only talk to Peek, everyone else prefers Nuke bc they ARE polite. Peek is not polite. Peek is very rude.

Rust Wanderlust (Rust): Mint's bitter rival and a stupid good outfielder. Has been pegged with a baseball and made Doc deal with her injury. Rust HAS caught a ball with her mouth and it was a wild experience for everyone involved (and then Rust was told never to do that again)

The Criminale (Crim): Blackburn & Jot are the only ones who know what the FUCK their name is/was and everyone is pretty sure using a gun to pitch IS illegal by some standards but??? they haven't been stopped??? No one has seen Crim sleep and that's scary!

#blaseball #original character #original character art #Character Design #character art #OC art #oc #The Burned #my art #Anyways I'd like to kindly request anyone who finds this not share this to the blaseball servers bc this is Not tied to anything going there #this is a fun lil project for thing me and my friends did that happens to use a few players whose names i thought were cool & nothing else.

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einsteinsugly · 2 years

Text

Eric Forman: A Character Analysis, During and Beyond the Show

Based on @maxgrayarchived's "Are Your Characters Developed Enough?" Originally intended for OCs, but since I further develop the T7S characters beyond the scope of the series in a meaningful way, I'm trying my hand at it.

PS: One question was redundant in Eric's case, so I omitted it. And another was more of a question for couples, so once again? Omitted it.

*****

What does it mean for him to be in love? To find that one person in the world that he can spend the rest of his life with.

What is he attracted to? Redheads, smarts, kindness, and willfulness (but not bossiness). For a long-term relationship, he typically has to establish a friendship beforehand. He longs for stability and security, with an occasional touch of adventure.

How’s his family life? More here (a whole other post!).

How’s his social life? He's really close to Jackie and Hyde, his adopted brother and sister-in-law, and is fairly close to Kelso and Brooke. And Fez, too. He's also friends with Buddy Morgan and Buddy's partner Vic, and Pastor Dan's brother Sam.

What’s his sexual and romantic history? 95% Donna (romantically), 100% Donna (sexually). They dated extensively and had a couple of notorious blips in the 70s (including two breakups and a failed engagement), but they've been back together ever since 1980. They're high school sweethearts, who went to college together, got married, and had two daughters together. Kate and Leah.

What is he skilled in? He's a good shot (partially innate, partially his Taxi Driver phase), he's good at Sudoku (Donna calls it Su-dork-o), and he's an above-average writer (nowhere near the caliber of Donna, though). He's also a natural tutor, and is particularly good at helping others.

How’s his school experience? He wasn't anything special in high school. He did well in history and math, and was an average English and science student. However, he tended to flounder when he was distracted (like in math in senior year) and tended to procrastinate.

But in college, he academically flourished (socially, though? eh), as he fixated on history, one of his strengths. If one can't learn from the past, how can they make a better future?

What are his hobbies? History, photography, videography, and cinematography. Star Wars and Spiderman, and some occasional gaming and comic book reading. And some hoarding collecting.

He's also a proud owner of a sailboat, which he drags his wife, kids, parents, and friends onto sometimes.

Is he an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert? Eric's an introvert, no doubt. Other than Red, he's the most introverted of all the main characters. He's socially awkward, and withdraws into his own cocoon when faced with troubles.

Is he right-brained, left-brained, or balanced? He leans right-brained, but is left-brained if need be.

What are his most prevalent strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths: A strong moral backbone, a big heart, lots of patience, and a good sense of humor.

Weaknesses: Laziness (he's a notorious procrastinator) and stubbornness. He still lets some people boss him around, sometimes, but it's nowhere as bad as it was when he was a teen.

What are his goals and dreams?

As a teen? To find himself, to get out of Point Place. To get beyond just his geeky hobbies, and to find somewhere to accommodate his big heart, his patience, and his strong moral backbone. With Donna and his friends by his side.

As an adult? To find modest success in this crazy, crazy world, to be true to himself, and to wholly defend himself and put all of his cards on the table if need be. With his wife, his kids, and his family and friends by his side.

What are his fears and insecurities?

1. Losing everything. His family, his friends, his line of work (teaching). His backbone.

2. Not being good enough, in his eyes and his dad's, primarily.

What does he believe in? Helping others, diplomacy and democracy over brutality, and finding peace in the world (even if it's hard). And, no matter how corny it may sound, liberty and justice for all.

What would he die for? His family, his friends, and to defend anyone who is in danger. Like a hero. And his belief in a free, open, and peaceful society, if absolutely necessary. He'll stand up, if he must.

#that 70s show #that 90s show #eric forman #eric and donna #donna pinciotti #steven hyde #jackie and hyde #jackie burkhart #michael kelso #kelso and brooke #fez #leah forman #kate forman #my essays

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hello-there-world · 2 months

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so, Rewrite fun fact for you, because i thought of it:

y'know that one post that says something along the lines of "i can't make/write a neurotypical character because i don't know how neurotypical people act"?

that's me with the Fnaf characters in the Rewrite. and the Fnaf characters in general, but that's besides the point.

like i could Try, but i feel like the autism would seep in eventually at some point. so the closest i can get is "Character Is Autistic, But Either Masking Really Hard Or Doesn't Know They Are Autistic And Are Trying To Act "Normal"."

anyway, some fun facts about these guys (specifically the Afton and Emily Families):

based Charlie a bit after myself in that she has a mix of autism and moral OCD (i'm not officially diagnosed in either, and don't really wanna be for Reasons. i'm fine just being sure due to research and just being Self-diagnosed). she's got a strong sense of justice (and is Incredibly stubborn about it) thanks to the autism, but her moral OCD is more about protecting others and trying to keep her morals consistent. if she feels that she failed to keep someone safe or out of trouble? that can be enough to send her into a breakdown and/or spiraling. and, because she's Stubborn As Hell, she generally doesn't want any help dealing with it unless someone is adamant in helping. this is also why she doesn't like dealing with moral dilemmas

Charlie also has that thing where you feel all of your emotions Very strongly, and it can become a problem. problems people would, normally, be mildly annoyed about, can make her Pissed. she seems very excitable at little things (this makes people confuse her for an extrovert). she gets saddened or panicked at mild inconveniences. you get the idea

Mike, as i have mentioned before, has the combination of autism and anxiety. i basically just took my own experiences and went "alright, add the Childhood Trauma this boy went through" and there you go.

Mike and Charlie have this sort of...protocol(? i guess) that they go through whenever Mike has a panic attack or meltdown. it goes one of three ways depending on what Mike's comfortable with: 1) No Touch (Charlie doesn't touch him at all, but stays near him and offers words of comfort until Mike's calm again), 2) Hand Hold (Charlie holds his hand and squeezes as a way of grounding him. she might also pat him on the shoulder or back as well to calm him), and 3) Squeeze (Charlie will squeeze-hug him and rub circles into his back until he calms down, also as a way of grounding him). if Mike doesn't give a clear answer, she defaults to 1. usually, 1 or 2 is used; 3 is usually for when Mike is just in the beginning stages and hasn't fully started panicking yet. Mike will usually indicate either by speaking the number or holding it up with his fingers which calming method he's fine with.

a lot of Charlie's methods for comforting someone with anxiety problems or having a meltdown is based on ways Henry used to comfort her and Sammy when they were little.

Henry is in a constant state of "Trying And Partially Failing To Mask", while William's just stopped caring.

William and Henry haven't considered that any of their kids are neurodivergent because "I mean, that's how I was as a kid, heck, I'm still like that now. Why would I view that as weird?"

William likes some of the worst textures, and his kids hate it. when he made the 1987 uniforms off of his own style, Mike and Alex had to wear shirts under their uniforms because otherwise they felt like clawing their skin off.

Sammy has Resting Bitch Face, is very blunt, and has mild anger issues. he's seen as pretty unapproachable due to this. he still has a lot of friends in his school's robotics club, though! plus Charlie and the Afton Kids.

Elizabeth is like her dad in that she just doesn't give a shit about masking. if people like her the way she is, then that's awesome! if anyone thinks she's annoying or weird, that's a them problem.

Cassidy likes what people would consider "weird" foods. he likes strawberry milk (projecting) and it's one of the few things he'll happily drink, noodles with tomato soup on it instead of regular spaghetti sauce (because regular sauce is too chunky (also kinda me projecting)), he will just. eat a sandwich with mayo and cheese on it (i would too bestie), you get the idea. long story short, with a few exceptions, Cass doesn't like things with too chunky textures.

Henry and the twins all have a special interest in robotics and mechanics, and Charlie has an added special interest in music boxes and how they work :] (hence why Marionn is soothed with a music box, specifically of Charlie's favorite song)

Oh, that's great! I totally get the "can't write non-autistic characters" thing, I can't either... Love all of this. Strawberry milk is pretty good, from what I remember, but I never got to have it much.

(Totally not me possibly mixing up strawberry milk & the strawberry yogurt on the pretzels I got today...)

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