#really not looking for explanations on this one im just.

[mymoshangthoughts]

the amount i wanna explore the immortal alliance is just So Much

okay there are LAYERS to how i feel about these events

because look guys, so far as we understand, airplane is a pretty normal dude. a bit of an internet troll (ok a lot of an internet troll), a horny writer, and an immature punkass who's completely shameless, but like... he's not a mass murderer ya'll.

it KILLS ME that we never got an airplane extra about the immortal alliance because dude HOW HE FELT ABOUT THAT IS A LOT

yeah, he's grown up in this world and yeah he might have had no choice either via the system or via mobei jun or a mix of both, but its absolutely bonkers to be able to just walk off "yeah, a bunch of CHILDREN died in really brutal ways directly because of my influence". like shen yuan was wracked with guilt for years and he only 'killed' one kid and he knew that kid would walk it off.

and i dont buy the explanation that airplane wasn't treating pidw like a real world because frankly... i just dont think that makes any fucking sense if he was born there. yeah, it's gotta feel a bit wonky and unreal with the system in his head, but dude he was BORN here. suspension of disbelief that this world wasn't 'real' wouldnt last a few years, much less several decades. the sheer number of people he would have met, interacted with, and knew were REAL wouldnt make it possible. i do think that he made a huge effort not to get attached to anyone, knowing that bing-ge was gonna kill the fuck out of basically all of them, but theres a big difference between "ahh yeah that guy is gonna die so imma try not to get attached" and "lol ive lived in this world for thirty years but i dont actually think any of this is real"

so look, theres two possibilities for airplane's reaction:

he really does have a seriously fucked up side of him thats 100% okay with murdering children

he was VERY not okay with what happened but he had no choice and he's just Coping the best he can

there's also some answers in-between, but fuck i need to know this answer so badly because knowing the answer to how airplane reacted to the immortal alliance is SO character defining and it drives me insane. characterizing a person who can justify children dying because "not my problem, idc" versus someone who's horrified and traumatized over the part they played in child murder IS KINDA A BIG DIFFERENCE

personally, im coming to a headcanon somewhere in the middle. because tbh none of the airplane extras really spend any time addressing him feeling any sort of guilt over the situation. which does make it seem that he really does have a seriously dark side to him. and he did walk off his fellow disciples getting murdered by mobei jun very easily. but also, i headcanon that he is just the Master of compartmentalizing shit that fucks with him. cant deal with the events of the immortal alliance? thats fine, imma just put those feelings in a box and Never Think About Them.

i actually like to think that airplane's issue with the immortal alliance is the exact reason that mobei jun showed up in person. airplane is doing the immortal alliance thing because the system isnt giving him a choice and he's trying Very Hard not to think about "oh wow, theres gonna be a lot of junior disciples dead by the end of this haha, wow, they look so young ahhahaha, did teenagers always look like toddlers??? bc this is fucking me up REALLY FUCKING BAD" and mobei jun notices that something is Really Wrong with airplane and he cant decide if he's worried or suspicious of airplane's behavior

so he decides to show up in person, just to make sure shang qinghua isnt gonna pull anything but also that the idiot doesnt die while he's acting So Weird

but i think that airplane is like hyper pragmatic

so he's horrified in the planning stages and maybe even in the execution stages, but once it's over he's very much "they're already dead, theres no changing that, theres no point agonizing over it" and its not that he's OKAY with what happened but he literally cannot justify tearing himself apart over people who are dead because that isnt going to help anything. they're not alive to see him upset over it and even if their ghosts could see him, they're not gonna really feel better over dying bc "the guy who killed me feels really bad about it"

i also think that the years airplane spent growing up as shang qinghua play into it A LOT. he's had decades to come to terms with the immortal alliance happening. he knows its a major plot point, it's basically one of two major plot points that shang qinghua has a part in, and the system is unlikely to let him get out of it. so he's spent a longgg time numbing himself to the reality of "im going to murder dozens of children"

this is all my speculations tho and i just wanna rip my hair out that we dont have an immortal alliance extra!!!!!! i just want to KNOW instead of guessing where his head is at. literally, if he doesnt feel any guilt over murdering children, that's kinda a Big Deal characterization-wise. and if he does feel guilt but he doesnt express it thats ALSO a Big Deal characterization-wise!!!

I JUST WANNA BE ABLE TO ACCURATELY PORTRAY HIS PERSONALITY FFFFUUUCCCKKKK I HATE THIS

anyway, im obsessed with the idea that mobei jun is the one who notices when airplane is Not Okay even when he's compartmentalizing like crazy. like airplane is so far down his hole of "its nbd and idc" that he actually believes it. he has to believe it to be able to live with himself. but the way he's fucked up shows up in other ways, maybe he's more forgetful than normal or scattered or clumsier or some mixture and mobei jun just Knows something is wrong, even when he doesnt know exactly what that wrong thing is

and like it becomes this thing where sometimes mobei jun knows airplane better than the little shit knows himself. airplane is so busy lying to himself to cope with his new reality and mobei jun sees through the lies that airplane believes.

but heres where mobei jun hits a problem lol. like, he knows theres something wrong, he knows how to read shang qinghua suupperr well, but does he know what to DO about any of that? absolutely not lmfao

"hm. qinghua is not okay. i should beat him four times today" LIKE THIS MAN DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO HELP EVEN WHEN HE UNDERSTANDS THE PROBLEM AND THAT'S HILARIOUS TO ME

like mobei jun shows up to the immortal alliance like "qinghua has been in pain over this. i'll show up unplanned and beat the shit out of him in front of everyone. that'll help."

i just think these two are an absolute disaster area and i love it

btw i am desperate for mobei jun's pov during the immortal alliance okay because LOOK

I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT ALOT

AND IM CONVINCED THAT MOBEI JUN /DID/ HAVE FEELINGS FOR AIRPLANE DURING THAT INCIDENT

BUT ALSO

ITS COMPLICATED

like i dont think mobei jun is simping like binghe, i think he's got some weird mixture of denial and affection and frustration and pining and hatred and suspicion thats all mixed up in all the best ways that during that time he is super in love with airplane but he's also got a lot of other Complicated feelings toward him AND I JUST WANNA SEE HIS POV TO PROVE MY HYPOTHESIS SO FUCKING BADLY WHY THE FUCK DO WE NEVER GET HIS POV IMMA SCREAM

mobei jun's fb status "its complicated"

airplane's fb status "single"

mobei jun: ...........im going to murder him. im going to murder him in his sleep. omfg i hate him so fucking much. WTF DO YOU MEAN SINGLE, YOU ASSHOLE

[bagelo0]

smth smth about me wanting to connect crows and hamilton smth smth, i’m delusional, also no shading here bc it looked rly bad with it 💥

messy explanation under the cut

also, yes, i did switch it from the og post, from ravens with ham to the crows with ham instead

okay to the folks curious about the connection sorry to dissapoint its just me being a little delusional like the violin and piano thing with ham and burr, anyways, i wanted to connect ham and burr to some extra pizazz if i ever make animatics, so here i am trying to bs my way for raven and crows, and disclaimer i dunno crap about birds, i just google so sorry for anything wrong

ravens and crows are easily mistaken for each other and i think that fits with ham and burr being quite simillar, they are both young prodigies that were orphaned at a young age, their paths parallel each other and i think choosing two simillar looking birds can somewhat show that simillarity between them, and as an extra these two birds are rly common in the US so it wouldn’t be that jarring when i draw them

now to the symbolisms, ravens and crows also share characteristics here, vision and prediction, while also both being intuitive and clever, I associated burr with ravens because of it symbolizing death and misfortune, which i mean, i think that describes his childhood pretty well (also bc in my head the wait for it motif is just burr being haunted by ghosts), but apparently ravens can also be a symbol for rebirth and starting anew, which i think actually burr and hamilton can be associated with both of those things but shhh

with hamilton’s crows, the one i wanna focus on is the apollo symbolism (yes kinda funky but im trying my hardest to bs this), crows and apollo are associated with prophecy, but specifically black crows being associated with being doomed, and if i can use one word to describe hamilton’s life, it would be doomed 😀(works rly with timeloop au just sayin, he is always doomed to die)

anyways also found that crows are socially monogomous but sometimes cheat on their partner, i think that is just a tidbit of foreshadowing, while ravens mate for life, only finding another mate when their first one dies, and crows are the ones associated with mischieve and are also known to be social, while ravens are more solitude, i think that fits ham and burr

and lastly and most importantly /s—i just wanna draw birds and i think these two birds would have a really nice aesthetic, this is all for fun💥

alright thanks for reading this ik its quite long, i apologize, have a nice day :]

[screamingviridianforest]

Continuation of this

Read more bc its long

Days passed without you spotting a hair of Ghost. You knew he was on base, no missions had been assigned. He was just avoiding you, that was the only explanation.

You started putting on healthy weight again under the gaze of the 141 and medical. Every meal of your's was enriched and you got extra snacks, which wasn't anything to complain about. You didn't mind the attention - not really - but it felt empty.

It all comes to a head when you get assigned to a mission with the very man avoiding you. It was tense, despite just being an intel retrieval. The place was crawling with hostiles so you couldn't let your guard down.

"Door on your right corporal, get in there," Ghost's voice is tinny in the comms. You don't like it. It sounds nothing like him. "Wait for the hostiles to pass."

You breathe out an affirmative and slip into the room, taking the moment to recenter yourself. You could hear the footsteps as they stomped by, the talking in a language you didn't know.

What you didn't expect was them to suddenly walk into the room where you were hiding.

"Oi!"

Your eyes go wide, but your body moves, knives drawn in the blink of an eye. The first two hit the targets, deep in the enemy's throat. The last one just barely misses, which gives the enemy just enough time to land a lucky shot.

Pain flares through your abdomen, and you force through it, grabbing another knife to bury in the man's head. Your vision blurs for a moment.

"Corporal, are you okay?" Ghost's voice sound worried, which is odd.

"Fine, Lieutenant. Got caught in the abdomen, graze," you reported dutifully, even though it wasn't a graze. The bullet was deep in your abdomen, which helped to slow the bleeding.

You just had to last long enough to grab the intel. You needed to show him that you were strong enough to do this.

Ghost's guidance helps get you through the rest of the building, and you secure the intel. Your vision was starting to swim and it was difficult to focus on anything.

"Heading to evac now, Lieutenant," you state, already going.

~

Ghost's first thought when he sees you is that you look like shit. His second thought is concern. You had said that the gunshot was a graze, it was not a graze. Blood was caked into your uniform.

He rushes forward, catching you when you stumble. Doubt creeps into his mind, he couldn't even protect you when you were under his watch.

The want to scold you builds but Ghost holds it back, more focused on addressing the wound itself. He packs it full of guaze, flinching at every sound of pain you create. The want to soothe you, to try and help through more than just action is there but he has no words.

When you finally get into the evac vehicle, you nod on and off. You wanted to question Ghost, make him explain why he was so hard, and then suddenly backed off, but you didn't have the energy. Ghost was just silently staring at you.

"I wanted to protect you," is what he finally says. It isn't a comfort, but it helps to explain. "To help you grow stronger so you could also protect yourself."

It's hard to focus on his words. Your head swimming from the pain and blood loss. Ghost knew you would eventually nod off and most likely attribute this to a dream. Maybe after he could explain it better than he was again.

"But you hurt me, pushing me like that," you finally murmur, voice slurring. "I thought I wasn't good enough, that you didn't like me."

Ghost sighs, "I regret how I pushed you."

It's no apology, but it's an admission of guilt. It's enough for you to take comfort in to nod off again.

~

Waking up in a hospital is a scene that you're getting far too used to. Pain im your gut radiates out but its sting is dulled by morphine.

Ghost is sat off to the side, only his plain balaclava on his face. He wasn't Ghost, he was Simon.

"I don't forgive you."

Your throat is scratchy from dryness, it hurts to force the words out.

"I know. I don't expect you to."

Several moments of silence pass, only interrupted by the beat of medical machines.

"You remind me of an old friend," Ghost finally pushes the words out. "I couldn't protect him. I want to protect you."

"I didn't want this fucked-up notion of protection," you push it out. "It hurt, believing I could never be good enough, then for you to just ignore me the one time I failed? That leaves a mark, Ghost."

"I didn't-"

"But you did."

Ghost searches for the words. The ones to convince you. He wants to show you how much you mean to him, but he doesn't know how.

"Let me start this over, please, luv?" Ghost all but pleads, "let me show you proper how much you mean to me- to Simon, not Ghost."

You pause.

"You get one chance, Simon. Hurt me again and I leave for good."

The smile that makes his eyes crinkle would probably be prettier than the softest may flower.

[desperate-daemon-days]

Excellent choice, the slash dash build is generally considered the more 'meta' one for lvlcap but also I dont care personally and like katanas and laser swords Read more bc this is gonna be long AND unstructured. Like, really fucking long

So excalibur-ESPECIALLY his exalted blade builds-struggle a lot wherein you have to sacrifice either a large chunk of damage or a large chunk of survivability and i swear all the loud dubstep intro youtubers kinda forget about that. You'll quickly find yourself getting frustrated you cant just barely eke out one or the other, but WHATEVER (Also apologies for shitty formatting)

This is my general purpose build for umbra himself specifically leaning into his exalted blade, though it should be noted you can definitely swap things out depending on what you want from him. In this case, i like red crits, so wrathful advance-it makes chromatic blade crit, and combined with 747% status chance from the augment thats a lotta damage. That being said, i am aware not everyone skill issues like me into the sun, so i'll be providing alternatives depending on your tastes and how you wanna flavour your sword frame. Treat this more as a pick and choose, rather than a bible for what to do always. My mods are selected based on my playstyle and skill lvl, and it works into high SP lvls, but everyone is different. Theres some things that i could update looking at this-but admittedly, i havent touched it in a little while. This particular build is on the squishier side, and has some quirks born from problems i ran into with general day to day play.

Disclaimer; i am not a uber stronk gamar who never gets hit by anything. For such builds there are ten billion youtube videos. Don't care for the explanation? Easy summary of my build only; 2 Umbrals + brief/rolling + reaper + healing return = dual health/shield tanking. Combo with Guardian for shield refresh. Arcane fury for raw damage. Archon flow with cold emissive chromatic blade for energy gen, + corrosive on blade for armour strip. Lean into crit chance/damage/raw damage/faction if not lazy. Status chance covered by Chromatic blade.

Companion is dethcube with tenacious bond + vulklok to hit crit threshold. Energy generator + guardian for orbs and shield. other mods to taste, synth deconstruct good for healing + shard equilibrium. Madurai for ability strength or Naramon for combo decay reduction. Even vazarin for survivability isnt bad. Up to taste/needs, Subsume wrathful over 2 for crit chance.

Shards are

-2 amber tauforged (Energy orb efficiency-can replace one with casting speed, could get rid of other one for more melee crit damage but wouldn't recommend it) -2 Violet tauforged (one equilibrium style, other melee crit damage) -1 Azure tauforged (for raw health, but can replace with more melee crit damage easily. im just scared a lot) Keep reading if you want reasonings/alternatives!

Base frame mods/Arcanes

In terms of his survival, you can either lean heavily into health tanking if you wanna do gloom (in which case, replace brief respite with growing power, or even corrosive projection if you dont run smth else for armour strip like corrosive. Adaptation is still not worth it though over rolling, bc he has zero innate DR and no status cleanse), or do your conventional pure shield tanking with your 1/2/3 being your shield refresh button with brief respite/rolling guard/, and replace reaper with smth like aegis, or even a damage/ability arcane like molt augmented. Or you can mix it up, like I do, since i supplement my shields with my drone (i'll get to that in a minute) and use a single tauforged blue for base health.

Either way, he has nothing for survival, and you CANNOT do invis based survival bc exalted blade breaks shade/huras, you'll be running around too much for quiver to be consistent (unless you like doing that silly arrow trick in the sentinel) and....well, you're welcome to try and consistently headshot with a sword. Invuln based survival is a slash dash only, im afraid. If you do slash dash, invis through companion is your go-to, with rolling in the event your little dude dies. (I like not clenching my ass even during basic missions, and I like scaling beyond basic lvl 400 stuff so) Raw stat-wise, you obviously want to run duration + strength. Efficiency is the drop stat here bc going negative range reaaaally sucks for furious javelin, and also affects your 1, which in this build is basically rolling guard...2! As mentioned, you become fully invulnerable, so if your rolling guard is down you can ride out a status effect with it, or if you find yourself low health etc. The 'duration' is dependent on how many enemies you chain to-which is affected by range. Hence, low efficiency, higher duration to compensate. It wont do as much damage bc you'll be using your 4 as its stat determiner, but it should still be decent. High strength is self explanatory. (It should be noted that even if you slash dash into nothing, you'll still get a brief window of invulnerability. No shame in hurtling yourself down a corridor with it)

Arcane wise, as expected on a melee build, fury is basically compulsory for that big damage spike. You could run avenger, but it won't be the most consistent since ideally you're either shield gate invulnerable or slowing shit down with gloom to prevent getting hit mostly entirely. Arcane strike is another alternative, if you want to not need to slot any attack speed mods at all. As for the other slot-basically, either run reaper if you want hp regen, or aegis if you reaaaally want to commit to shields. Or, if you're confident in your rolling skills, slot on more ability strength/duration/melee boosting arcanes. Hell, energize is a good option, but i hate recommending it bc i still dont have it maxed :,D I am not that confident in my shield tanking (ESPECIALLY since i used to mostly do endurance runs against infested pre toxin/disruptor nerf), so hence my choice. No matter what you do, your biggest enemy will remain nullifiers and toxin eximus. Under absolutely NO CIRCUMSTANCES can you allow yourself to be caught with no energy/unable to cast, so treat him like a squishy caster frame, not a tanky melee frame.

NOTE: You can use normal primed flow. You want base energy for violet shard threshold (and energy ofc), but specifically archon flow is there because exalted weapons count as ability kills, which we'll be touching on in a sec.

Augments

We love chroma jank Furious javelin is one of those mods which reaally should be base functionality, because Radial javelin does so little damage its nonexistent. It's a lot better than it seems, because the damage multiplier basically acts like a melee only pre-change eclipse without the lighting fuckery. Sticking it in a large group, with decent ability strength you can easily reach several hundred %. That being said, there are some build variations without this, with javelin being subsumed for something else and purely leaning on the raw weapon damage instead. (Usually status DOT based blade builds are the ones that do this, which...i don't like status that much. I am biased bc status builds fall apart real fast when it comes to single target damage against stuff like acolytes/necramechs etc. Violence is terrifying and your goal is not to explode to them.) There is a sort of line-of-sight mech, but its a bit wonky-but generally, range = more enemies hit. Roll your way into a crowd and hit it. Chromatic blade is basically compulsory for any exalted blade build. It means we dont need to build any status chance on the weapon itself, and can commit to other multipliers. As for the status on the blade...well, it depends, AGAIN, on taste. I am forever afraid of no energy, so I run cold; this allows me to use archon flow for free orbs, with corrosive modded onto the weapon. You could also do electricity for corrosive, or heat for viral/heat (or heat/corrosive, your taste). Archon continuity also works, if you wanna only rock pure toxin. The world is your oyster! Just keep in mind the element does combine, but it'll prioritize what's on the blade itself.

Exalted Blade

Copy pasting the picture so you dont need to scroll lol

If i had made this build post galvanised mods, I would use them over sac steel. This is because Wrathful advance already covers my crit needs, so more raw crit damage would be better. Likewise, replacing gladiator might with galvanised elementalist or a faction mod may be better, and I would swap berserker fury with magnetic rush.

The reason why I am using 'may' and 'might' here is because it really, really isnt needed.

lvl 205 steel path corrupted gunners with basically 0 combo explode violently all the same. If you have those new mods, put them on! Or don't. Just treat it as you would any other crit based melee. Just keep in mind chromatic gets rid of the slash damage that comes with exalted's stats. Your damage modding does matter more if you decide to go for a more tanky build with gloom or eclipse, though.

What tennokai you use also is really up to taste, but its important you have it, so you can get free wrathful procs if you're using wrathful advance, or well...free heavies in general.

Companion

Because exalted is a channel, regen based energy sources do not work at all. So, you'll need orbs. Archon flow in my experience is not enough, even with all the shards i have slotted, so here comes dethcube to save the day.

Keep in mind the only really 'compulsory' mods are tenacious bond (for crit damage), Energy generator and Guardian. Everything else is to taste; but duplex bond is even more energy, momentous bond helps with damage + uptime, and everything else is general utility or survivability. Any vulklok build with a crit mod on it should push you over the 50% required.

Focus school

Really, this one is just whatever is comfy for you. Zenurik is always nice for the starting energy + ability strength from hardened wellspring, Madurai is...madurai, and Naramon is always nice for anything involving melees. Vazarin is solid for keeping you alive as usual, and Unairu helps with armour strip. I use zenurik bc again, im always shrieking about energy, but Madurai is best.

Subsumes I use wrathful because red crit = satisfying damage, and I love nuke or die builds. However! You can also run Roar or Xata's or Nourish if you wanna buff your damage in other ways (nourish in particular solves energy problems real well so it was very tempting). IRC Wrathful maths out to be the highest multiplier for raw damage, tho. Gloom or Eclipse are also very solid defensive options (as expected), but keep in mind you'll be losing a modifier for damage. There are prolly other funny options like tempest barrage for corrosive/viral if you wanna run the augment, or fuckin. Reave? Actually that would be a funny one now that i think about it but these are my solid picks. Gloom is safe. Gloom is comfy. Everyone puts gloom on everything for a reason. Same with eclipse. But personally, I think warframe is most enjoyed when walking on the edge of an explosion you yourself are generating.

As for what to subsume over, your 2 or 1 are my recommendations. Again, blind does nothing against eximus or overguarded enemies, so imo its the weakest of the kit if you're using javelin aug, whereas 1 can still be used as a consistent survival tool. If not using FJ, get rid of javelin obviously lol

Shards

Now, the 'optimal' sharding would probably be something like 4 violet tauforged for melee crit damage, 1 for casting. But in anything that has lower enemy density/has infested, you'll probably find yourself struggling a little. I like to make my builds as general purpose as possible; aka not only comfortably playable in survival sp missions. Hence, energy efficiency + equilibrium lite.

Energy effectiveness affects how much is recovered from the equilibrium as well, and we cant really fit the base mod on because Excal is already a 2 augment warframe with the only survivability coming from mods, so we're already strapped for space horrifically so. You could replace the equi shard with another crit damage one, though. I dont run casting bc i dont personally feel the need for it (the only thing with real casting delay is your 3, which isn't used too frequently) As for the azure shard, Reaper is hp% recovered, so it gives more wiggle room. Not needed at all, but again, i mod for comfort in a wide variety of missions, and this is what I personally find comfortable.

Realistically, if you arent a coward like me, smth like 1 casting, 1 energy orb effectiveness and 3 melee crit damage shards is more than enough. You could also experiment with the elemental shards; remember, exalted blade is considered an ability AND melee.

Anything else?

For weapons, bring at least one gun-or even melee!-that can gun down an acolyte by itself. I know that defeats the purpose somewhat, but violence is the menace of every casting frame everywhere, and even if your weapons can oneshot, nothing can account for shitty spawns. JUST IN CASE. JUST IN CASE!

Unfortunately, you cannot stat-stick exalted blade with gladiator mods. This is partially why desert wind is so much better than exalted. Any gladiator mods you wanna use? gotta be on it.

yes i did have to forma away umbral polarities. yes it does feel treasonous.

No, this build does not fare exceptionally well against rogue necramechs or archons or anything with that style of damage attenuation. Unfortunately, theres nothing in excal's kit that can bypass that. Not even slash dash. In fact slash dash builds are worse for that, as it cannot properly target them, and you'll burn through energy spamming it on one target.

If the sentience of umbra/disabling of buffs when going into operator pisses you off, dont forget the exilus augment is available. I personally dont really care, so i just slapped psf in there bc its a crutch at this point lmao

if you want the same experience as excalibur with half the stress and thrice the damage, just play baruuk. But where's the fun in that?

Well now that I’ve asked arthur out can someone please tell me how to make excalibur umbra good

[pickled-flowers]

Wow people are really getting mad about that ship poll uh....

[alastryona]

also i remembered I don't think I ever posted all my oc sprites here

So here they are! All the Sprites I've made of my ocs (+ my present day/postUX/post subject X skuld). I havent made everyone and i wanna redo some of these but i still love them a lot.

Runa is my actual UX keykid. Tryo and Emi are twins, Reli is their older brother, Hoder is their mom. Calli, Chirou, and the twins are childhood friends, Tai joined the group later when they were in middle/high school (and is dating Tryo).

Cait and Rav are actually skyrim characters. They're part of a larger group too but they're the only ones i've made like this.

[ilovedthestars]

fic writer ask game: 20 and 23?

Thanks for sending in an ask, bardic! (This one is for this ask game)

20. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written?

A lot of my titles are either super generic (i.e. "Deployment Center," my first fic on ao3, which is just a pre-canon missing scene which takes place in the deployment center) or they're a thematically relevant phrase or word from the fic itself that i thought summed it up well enough to be used as a title. The latter ones are more interesting, although I think often people don't notice (or at least don't comment on it) when the phrase comes up in the story.

Acceptable Mission Cost is probably other people's favorite of my titles! In fact i think i chose that as the title because when i shared the first chapter on discord, that was the phrase people picked out and had Emotions about. The title gets called out in comments pretty often, which i think is a sign that it's working well with the fic. I'm happy with that.

I think my secret favorite, underdog answer for this is what happens to rogue secunits. It's a really short snip that i archived from a discord conversation, and i didn't have a title so i just pulled a line from the fic, but i think I picked a good one. I think it's clever the impression the title gives you vs. the impact when that phrase actually appears in the fic. No one has ever commented on this, so i don't know if it's actually clever, but i like it XD

23. How do you choose where to end a chapter (if you have multi-chapter works)?

I really like dramatic chapter endings! Cliffhangers, twists, or just a cool sounding line of dialogue right at the end. (This is probably apparent for anyone who's read the most recent few chapters of Old Unit, Young Unit, where i just kept doing dramatic twist ending after dramatic twist ending lol.) I've mentioned before that I'm not great at dramatic beginnings, and most of my first lines are pretty boring, but I like to stick the landing, so to speak.

Idk, I think i just have a chapter length that generally feels good to me (somewhere in the ballpark of 1-5k words, often around 2-3k). When I hit that wordcount I'm usually ready for either a natural end to a scene (when i'll try to end it on some kind of engaging emotion or tense moment of reflection from the narrator or something) or a dramatic moment that makes for a good cliffhanger. (My chapters do tend to get longer and longer as multi-chap works go on, lol. I haven't figured out a way to keep them more consistent.)

[ofcowardiceandkings]

the sinus headaches are already not great but Extra Shit has been added to the pile and im just sat on that right now trying to figure out what the fuck to do

[arsenicflame]

i need a website that tells me the perfect laptop to buy to meet my every need. no other options. just "here, this is the one you want :)"

[delightfuldevin]

The older adult form of Princess Shokora is referred to as her “true” form, while the young princess form is the one most commonly used to depict her. Her adult form is notably more butch, with short hair, pants, and a cape, while her young princess form is a more traditional princess look.

I’ve decided to interpret this as perhaps a form of lgbtq+ censorship probably by the ones who discovered her kingdom. Since she and her kingdom have been gone for a long time, there is probably not much known about her. Perhaps she was sapphic and butch, but that was hidden by the historians who discovered her kingdom by only depicting her when she was younger and fit into a more stereotypically feminine role. Perhaps very few people even know that she survived into adulthood at all…

[floralovebot]

i've kind of been thinking about the unwhitewashing edits i do on the winx source,, over the years, multiple people have outright said that they sometimes skip over posts where i fix their skin tone because they see the art style (s8, wow, etc) and immediately assume it's whitewashed then realize it's not after seeing it's the source blog or the caption and it's making me think,,, that's probably a big reason why so many people in the fandom constantly reblog/support whitewashed fanart. it's like they're not even seeing the skin tone, they're just seeing the art style and the character?

[yuridovewing]

Feel like one of the best ways you can convince someone that no, villains with compelling motives that have sad backstories are not terrible writing compared to straight up born evil villains who just want to kill everyone and be done with it, is to tell them that Warrior Cats writes born evil villains constantly while literally preaching “That’s how evil works, you can’t CHANGE, you’re either touched by demons at birth or you aren’t!” and it blows chunks

[ensign-smith]

high thoughts from the other night in bed

how the hell does the universal translator work? what is it? does everybody have implants in their brains which runs all audio output through a translation buffer before relaying it to the auditory cortex? is it a physical device that plays the translated sentence out loud? WHAT IS THIS MYSTERY THING

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[semiotomatics]

i keep having dreams that start with me waking up somewhere and it does NOT help with the whole "telling dreams from reality" thing

[hershelwidget]

every once in a while I remember that Die (and by extension Dime) is technically a TNBC OC and every single time I lose it

like. LOOK at him

When you take into account the fact he IS a pumpkin-man it does make sense but everything else about him?? his ass does NOT fit in with Halloween Town!! he's almost never in dark raggedy clothes or even particularly scary. yeah he's enthusiastic about Halloween and loves the atmosphere but he and his brother Dime look more like they're meant to exist in Christmas Town. and now I think about it that would be an EXCELLENT plot point if I ever wrote stories for the Rebirths and Dime + Die's story could be about them struggling with that thought that even though Jack literally adopted them and did his absolute best to integrate them into the society, they don't quite feel like they're meant to be there.

... ThIS tOok A TuRn-

but I am absolutely gonna make stories for the Rebirths now,, the ask blog will be perfect for that,,, uheuehue