#ships not important they're just referenced a bit

[cringecompanionapologist]

Had a Random Burst of Inspiration

I'm not sure if anything will actually come of this, but I wrote a bit of Turlough being a big brother to Adric and thinking about how they both have nightmares. This isn't anything like a complete story, even a short one, but I've been having writer's block for nearly a month now and I'm just excited that I created something.

CW: Turlough remembers being branded with the Misos Triangle, and the same thing happening to a literal infant. Nothing graphic, but it's mentioned, so now you know. There's also some talk about what happened to Adric in Castrovalva, so the word "torture" is used.

Adric was afraid of the Master. Of course, they all were, to some extent. Turlough found him more irritating than anything else. He usually just let the Doctor handle him and stayed out of the way. But, the other companions had a different perspective. To Tegan, this was the man who randomly murdered her aunt. To Nyssa, this was an evil being walking around inside her father’s corpse. And to Adric, this was a monster who kidnapped and tortured him to make him a weapon to use against the Doctor.

Nyssa and Tegan didn’t talk to him about their problems. They had each other and Turlough wasn’t about to stand in the middle of whatever they had. But when Adric had nightmares, he woke him up. They only shared a room because there were only so many bedrooms close to the console room and the Doctor didn’t want them getting lost. Honestly, they only shared the room around half the time anyway, with Turlough spending more and more time in the Doctor’s bed. But, on the nights they were sharing a room, sometimes Adric would wake up thrashing and muttering refusals. He wouldn’t obey the Master. He wouldn’t betray the Doctor. Turlough would crawl out of his own bed to wake him up, rescuing him from his own mind. He’d try to soothe him, though he had no idea how to do that. It was exhausting. He often fell asleep in Adric’s bed next to him, as if his physical presence could keep the bad dreams away.

Turlough knew what it was like to have nightmares, and to be tormented by some evil thing that wanted the Doctor dead. He never bothered Adric about them. There was nothing the kid could do. Anyway, Adric could sleep through basically anything. He never had to know. Even though he knew things about him that no one else in the TARDIS did. He knew that he’d had a family once. A mother, a father, brothers, sisters. He had no idea what happened to most of them. He knew his mother was dead. He’d been there when it happened. His older brothers and sisters ran away after that and he never saw them again. They were probably dead too. As for his father and younger brother…

Those were the worst nightmares. Worse than the Black Guardian, worse than the bullies at Brendon, worse than the battles, even worse than that day at the academy where he is mother died in from of him. It was those screams. Some nobody who called himself a judge reading out sentences of death and exile with no emotion in his voice. The smirks of the Custodians as the prisoners were paraded in front of them and strapped down. It was bad enough when they branded him. It was bad enough when they branded his father, who put on such a brave face for his children. But Malkon…he wasn’t even a year old. He had no idea what was happening. He was just suddenly yanked from his father’s arms and burned with a hot iron. Those screams…

Based on Trion maturation rates, Malkon would look around Adric’s age now. Maybe that’s why Turlough felt like he had to watch over him. He also knew that Adric had had a brother once, one that would be around Turlough’s age. They grew up without parents, so this brother, Varsh, was all he had. 

Adric saw Varsh die in front of him like Turlough watched his mother be gunned down. They both understood what it meant to watch the person who’d kept them safe become a pale corpse in front of their eyes. Turlough was fortunate enough that when his mother died, he could run to his father, even if he didn’t do much to comfort him. Adric ran to the Doctor. He’d only just met him, and he wasn’t any better than Turlough’s father when it came to comfort. Turlough suspected that the incarnation of the Doctor he knew was even worse than the one before him in that regard. Though, he’d gotten better. At least, Turlough didn’t feel as bad about his nightmares when he woke up next to him.

[leandra-kinard]

On Oliver's social media behavior regarding Bucktommy vs. Buddie

Kind of in line with many of the good points raised by @bbbuckaroo in this ask response, but I wanted to make my own post about it.

I, too, have seen posts that prompted this ask - from more well-meaning people remarking that Oliver could/should maybe say something against the toxic Buddie shippers and promote Bucktommy more, to more critical voices saying he's essentially ship-baiting with Buddie because he keeps posting about them.

As the referenced post says, Oliver "knows how important and pivotal the Buddie FRIENDSHIP is".

So let's look at that from Oliver's (and in connection also Ryan's) point of view for a moment here.

You're an actor who's been playing one half of what is one of the most integral relationships on a very successful show. That relationship has textually always been a friendship, but with elements that make it richer and deeper than most regular friendships; it's a sort of family dynamic.

It could be read as having a potential for romance, and you're open to that, should the writers ever decide that's the direction they want to take it. You have said so multiple times, not just to appease a large group of fans, but because you genuinely mean it. You're open to it, but you don't know if it's ever going to happen, nor do you have any power over it.

You do love the way fans are celebrating this relationship though - whether they highlight the canonical platonic aspects or take it a step further. You "love the love" (as Ryan has put it). It's great, it's heartwarming, it's moving because the potential of that romance and your character figuring out he's bisexual means so much to queer fans who are looking for good queer representation (which your show already has, but there could always be a bit more, right?). You see and want to acknowledge all the creativity people pour into it.

But you're careful after a while, because, so far, that relationship has only textually been platonic, and some fans are accusing both the writers and you of queerbaiting.

So you take a step back, do less social media for a while. You don't want them to think you're confirming anything just because you see value in certain fictional interpretations of the text.

But then you are told that your character is supposed to come out as bisexual; he'll have a romance with a background character they're bringing back for a couple of episodes. While that's not exactly the relationship many of the fans hoped to get, it's still amazing. It's the right representation of bisexual characters that is very rarely done right, and it'll confirm that they always read your character correctly as bisexual. It'll be so validating to the fans to know they didn't misinterpret that, and you're very happy about that.

But you still love the family-like, platonic relationship you've built with the other character for 5 whole seasons before this. And you love the relationship your character has with his son, too. (In a way, Buck is to Christopher what Bobby is to Buck - a father figure).

You want to keep celebrating that because your new romantic relationship doesn't replace the year-long friendship with Eddie. You want to show fans that 'hey, even though this isn't exactly what you hoped for, it's still great; it's important. Eddie and Chris are still and always will be a huge part of Buck's life. Don't worry. Buck will not abandon them. I still see you and acknowledge you, but let's focus on the textual friendship and platonic love here. Which is also very, very important, and very dear to me personally."

And there isn't that much to share about a romantic relationship that's just begun yet anyway, especially with the season being so short and packed with multiple story arcs around the main characters. It's all still at the start, and while it's great, exciting and has the potential to become something lasting, nothing's set in stone yet. You probably also don't want to have people get their hopes up that Bucktommy is 'confirmed' as endgame; and you don't want to put a main character who has his own, very complex story arc going on this season on the backburner.

You've obviously 'done it wrong'. But no matter how else you could have done it, it would have been wrong as well. You probably know this by now, because no matter what you did in the past, there were always people who interpreted your actions and words in bad faith to confirm their own agenda.

So what the hell are you supposed to do other than what feels good to you while applying a little bit of caution?

---

Oliver CANNOT get it right. It's simply impossible. If he didn't post at all, some fans would be mad that he doesn't say anything. If he only or primarily promoted Bucktommy, they'd be mad that he ignores Eddie and Chris entirely. If he only promoted Buddie (platonic) and Chris, they'd be mad that he's ship baiting. And if he goes for the balance of putting his character's 6-year history with Eddie+Chris and the newly developing romance with Tommy in perspective, i.e. what he's doing right now, they're still mad.

In any potential scenario, the loud and obnoxiously entitled portion of the fandom would find a reason to criticize. It really does not matter what he does.

So, where does that leave us? Personally, I'd say leave the man alone. Let him post and say what he feels is best, and don't try to look at it under any 'bad faith' lens. He's probably given it sufficient thought and does what he thinks is best and feels right.

[aida-sparks]

Buddie fans are relentless (and it's a good thing)

Geez, I was not prepared for the rollercoaster of woe that comes from shipping a pair that is not canon (yet!).

I am not a new fan to the show, 9-1-1. I've loyally watched every week for years, cherished the members of the 118, cherished Buck and Eddie's special relationship. I just hadn't been involved in the fandom of it all up until recently. I was just a tv viewer. But being newer to interacting with the fandom, I admit that consuming social media about 911 and Buddie has thrown me for a bit of a loop. I keep seeing the same recycled tactics to argue why people who ship buddie are delusional and why buddie will "never happen". These arguments are off-putting and frankly quite poor. (I don't like to focus on the negative so this will be my only post dedicated to this.)

Argument One: "There's already a gay couple on the show." No kidding. The statement is problematic in and of itself; people don't go around limiting the number of straight couples on a show, do they? It's fantastic that we have a strong, integral gay couple in Hen and Karen, two beautiful and fabulous lesbians, that are vital to this show, but why can't there be more? One representation alone doesn't cover the spectrum of LGBTQ+ portrayals of different romantic dynamics.

Argument Two: "Why can't we have two guys be close without putting a romantic label on it? It's refreshing to see male friendship." Bro... Platonic male friendship is important (all friendship is). It's not all that uncommon, though. Male friendship is focused on a lot already in many shows. But two adult male friends discovering new aspects of their identify that shift their relationship with each other toward something romantic? That's the more refreshing take here; it's one that we don't get to see in media right now but should. Flip the script, 9-1-1.

Argument Three: "They weren't introduced as gay or bi-sexual. It would be too out of left field to go there now." Not true. The show has the creative freedom to explore this narrative and can do it plausibly. There is obviously a very large part of the 9-1-1 fandom that has already interpreted Buck and Eddie's story as having the potential to become romantic. The pair has many parallels to the other canon couples on the show. There are plenty of moments and scenes from prior seasons (post-tsunami with Christopher, the shooting, the Will, all of Eddie Diaz's fond gazes aimed at Buck, etc.) that can be referenced in future episodes via well-crafted montage/edit that will help shed light on any developing feelings from either or both Buck and Eddie. Besides, not allowing a relationship to evolve into something different just because it didn't start out that way? What kind of stunted outlook is that? We want a story about how individuals can question and explore their sexuality at any age. Heck, during the graveyard scene near the end of season 6, Buck and Eddie talked about how experiences have changed them. They're clearly still growing and changing as individuals. It is not a stretch for them to discover whatever they've been searching for this whole time is actually found in each other. ---- That's it from me on this. I'm going to try doing a better job of ignoring the negative talk out there. I hope all buddie fans stay positive too, and when they call us relentless, we take that as a good thing. I hope we all recognize and resect the other characters and ships of this wonderful, wonderful show of ours too! Most of all, I hope we respect each other.

[evelhak]

Part 1

When @vespersposts put together an event [𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝐵𝑢𝑚𝑝𝑠 ✘] with the theme "How I met you", I really wanted to participate but couldn't think of anything at first... I write canonverse longfic, so my ships can't actually have a second first meeting... except, a couple of them did! I remembered my convoluted fairytale fic, which is a fantasy AU within my canonverse longfic, because it's just a dream. So, I decided to draw KagaKuro's first meeting from that fairytale fic, as a comic.

I'm not completely happy with how I drew this. My drawing is still (always) so inconsistent, and I had too long breaks between drawing, so I made mistakes like forgetting where exactly my angle on the characters had been and for some reason being too stupid to check... but oh well, it's readable. And I do like the atmosphere.

I'll try to introduce this briefly and make some sense of it.

I drew this because it almost works out of context. You can read it as a standalone, I think, you just won't see the full extent of everything, where things came from and where they're going. I think what you need to know is that the idea of this story is reinterpreting/reliving your past, but it's not just "I dropped these characters back into a metaphorical dream version of the past", because it's also important that it isn't really the past. It's the present under the mask of some past events. The years aren't undone just because the characters momentarily don't remember who they are. That's why the past events are not a direct translation into a fantasy AU, it's slightly more complicated. The sense of "this is actually just a character meditating in the present(=third year of high school)" is kind of crucial to the story, even though no one in the dream knows it's a dream. It's about trying to make sense of what you missed. Things that you thought you knew, mistakes you thought had already been understood to their fullest extent, but weren't. In other words, everything that has happened after the events that are referenced in this comic, still affect the characters' decisions and what they say.

So, when the characters seem a bit off, or you can't see where they are coming from, it's probably because you missed about 800 000 words of character development. (Unless you've read my TOTverse of course.)

Okay, I definitely don't deserve praise for putting that simply and concisely.

I guess the elephant in the room is that in this dream fic there's a genderbent version of Kuroko, but it would be way too complicated to get into the narrative and meta reasons why that is relevant in this dream, without explaining the whole story, so, you're just going to have to take it at face value.

I hope you enjoy reading. ♥︎

(Read from left to right.)

(To be continued.)

[outrunningthedark]

I'm wondering how they're going to get rid of Natalia on the first episode, Marisol makes sense show up again but Natalia simply disappearing will be very weird as there won't be a huge time gap, a maximum of two weeks if the cruisy is the same as Bathena cruise. We have to wait and see but I don't think Natalia will disappear for now, maybe in the 3rd episode and Marisol in the 5th or 6th episode

Btw happy new year my darling

Apologies for being a bit late with this, love. I hope the first week of the new year is treating you well. <3

IF (yes, everyone, I realize I could have read this wrong) my instinct regarding Natalia not returning - not even to be broken up with on screen - is correct, I think Tim is going to take the easy route and repeat what the show did with Ali since she was the prior LI whose future was unclear between seasons and then never went back. The timeline you’re referencing supports my theory, too, so thanks for that. 😜

Say it’s only supposed to have been a few weeks or MAYBE a month since we last saw the characters. (Is this cruise in real time or is Bathena recovering from what happened, reliving the events? No clue.)

Odds are Buck won’t have announced the breakup to the 118 just yet. There he was a few weeks back singing Natalia’s praises and they’re already over? Not his finest moment, right? So maybe there’s a casual conversation happening - just like how it did at Buck’s welcome back party in 3x01 - where someone asks how Natalia’s doing or if they’ve got plans and he has to admit she’s not in the picture. Things get awkward for a sec, Buck says it’s for the best. Everyone moves on.

As for what reasoning Tim may have come up with, I have two specific thoughts on this part:

— Buck first felt drawn to Natalia when he was hyperfocused on his experience with dying, yes? He felt like she “saw him” because of what he was feeling in those days/weeks after the coma?

Well, if season seven is bringing us a Buck that is TRULY trying to move on from everything, TRULY trying to focus on the fact that he’s still alive rather than the fact that he could die at any time…he and Natalia won’t have as much in common anymore, will they? Is Buck going to want to be with someone whose life revolves around death and dying when he’s worked hard to get himself out of that headspace?

Obviously if Natalia were to stick around the show would make changes to the character just like it did for TayKay, but if she’s not meant to reappear? Buck’s new outlook on life is the perfect excuse to keep Natalia as is and say they’re going in two different directions now.

— There’s a post on my blog (from not too long ago) where I talk about the IG live in the final days of filming season six in which we could hear the cast getting ready for a scene describing a “boring” date Buck was to have had with Natalia. (Natalia was confirmed by Kenny)

Why is that important? Because it means there was an alternate ending on the table, one that would have led to Buck NOT getting serious with her.

Just like Tim doing the cruise ship disaster that Kristen wouldn’t touch, I wouldn’t be surprised if he uses whatever the original script said to get the point across. It’s much faster than coming up with his own brand new dialogue for a character we’re not supposed to care about anymore. A character that he didn’t have a direct hand in creating, either.

(As usual, this is TL;DR, but the one thing I’m always gonna do is cover all my bases!)

[fast-moon]

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Thoughts

Pretty much the entire reason I started watching Picard in the first place was because I'd heard: 1) Season 3 was actually really good, 2) Season 3 followed up on the end of DS9, 3) Season 3 got Kevin Feige interested in tapping Terry Matalas to head the Vision Quest D+ series. So, did it deliver on those expectations?

Compared to the first two seasons, hell yes.

So, first and foremost coming straight out the gate, the intro has been simplified, returned to more classic Trek stylization, and most importantly, back to playing the original Trek theme.

It's not like there was anything particularly bad about the music in seasons 1 and 2. But for something to feel like Star Trek, it needs more than a couple people in rubber foreheads spouting some technobabble keywords. There's a specific visual and audio style that people associate with it, too.

And friggin' hot damn, season 3 knew what that musical style was. Including call-backs to things like the Klingon theme from the TOS movies, the Voyager theme when Voyager or its crew were referenced, and the liberal usage of TNG's original theme. I am an absolute nerd for leitmotif and the association between a character or event and a particular piece of music, and I give mad props to writing staff who understand how to use that effectively.

Although, it almost feels like they went, "You know what, scrap seasons 1 and 2, we're starting over." Pretty much all of the new characters from the first two seasons are gone. Rios's absence can be explained by him staying back in 2024 to help fight against the upcoming ethnic cleansing of Latinos. Jurati went all Borg and then went to sit in front of the Anomaly of Great Future Plot Importance (No Really Trust Us). But Soji and Elnor just kind of disappeared off the face of the universe with no explanation. And pretty much the entire point of Season 2 was to let Picard come to terms with his feelings and open up to Laris. But in this season it's like, "lol, bye, going back with my baby momma." Raffi is the only new character still around.

Also, how did she get the La Sirena back (also, is "the" La Sirena redundant)? Last we saw at the end of Season 2, it was commandeered by the Borg queen in 2024 and then flown off never to be seen again. Or are we assuming that was the Mirror Universe version of the ship and the Prime Universe version was still floating around somewhere?

But they're facing a new threat this time around and it's... the Changelings! Yeah, turns out when Odo returned to the Great Link to deliver the cure to the Section 31 virus and teach them to play nice with solids, a portion of them were like "Hell no" and broke away to keep on Guerilla Dominion Warring.

I get why Odo wasn't a guest appearance in the series proper due to Rene Auberjonois passing away before the series was even produced, but it's weird that they didn't even mention him by name the several times he and his actions were directly referenced. Doubly weird that there were no DS9 cameos at all despite this season being about the DS9 overarching villains (I don't count Worf since he's not a character who was first introduced in DS9). No calls to Bashir in reference to Changeling physiology or his work on the cure for the Section 31 virus? No reaching out to non-Starfleet like Kira or Garak while they were on the run and hiding in the Chin'toka system? Or use the opportunity to canonically confirm that Sisko came back? At least Worf receiving intel from Odo confirms that Odo at some point re-established contact with the Alpha Quadrant.

Though, I was a bit disappointed that the Changelings were mostly a red herring and by the end it was just "but wait, more Borg". Although, the revelation that the Borg had been performing stealth assimilation via patching in rogue genetic code through the transporters was pretty clever. And in true TNG fashion, the ending is "the transporters can fix all that ails you".

But not content with the mere cameos in the previous seasons, this time we're bringing the entire original TNG crew back together for one last hurrah. Including like the eleventeenth incarnation of Data, because there's always a spare Data lying around when you're missing one.

And not only the entire original crew, but the original Enterprise-D, too, including a rebuild of the original TV bridge set. And the main thing that struck me about that is how bright it was. I seriously don't understand the modern production habit of having very dimly-lit sets where everything in it is some shade of grey, and all the characters are wearing black. But the Enterprise-D set is like... colors! And wood! And light! Like Picard said, "I missed the carpet".

Yeah, maybe my approval of this season is being clouded by the rampant nostalgia bait, but I also feel it was more tightly-written than the previous seasons. It still suffered from quite a bit of "this conflict is only happening because people refuse to talk to each other" and "I made a terrible decision because aaaaaangst", but it didn't feel quite as overbearing as the other two seasons. That and it completely re-used the "character hallucinates about a colored door that teases you for 90% of the season" from season 2.

So it certainly ended on a high note with a heartwarming send-off to the original crew (who thankfully don't get stupidly killed off for drama). It did make its attempts at light-hearted banter once the whole crew was back together for the final two episodes, but I still felt like the series as a whole still had a pall of cynicism hanging over it, where I preferred Trek when it was more bright and campy. DS9 showed that you can still tackle tough topics without sacrificing the energy that makes you care about the people whom those topics are happening to in the first place. And I do wish more modern productions that are stuck in their "edgelord" phase could learn from that.

[dipplinduo]

Blog Interaction Guidelines

So in the early stages of making this blog, I was once asked about "rules" for interacting, and pretty much responded with something to the effect of "I really don't have much to say outside of please be respectful and know that there's no place for hate/discrimination here". I have never ran a public blog before this and I felt a little weird telling people how they "should" conduct themselves. In fact, I still kinda do feel this way and prefer to deal with potential problems quietly. However, I've decided to revisit this idea now that this blog is nearing 800 followers. These guidelines are more specifically about things that have been happening repeatedly that I honestly just want to set some boundaries about:

- This is a dipplinshipping account, so the content posted/reblogged here has and will continue to be about dipplinshipping and pokemon. No hate to other fandoms or even other ships - I'm just not necessarily going to interact with unrelated content because it's outside of the scope of this blog. (Referencing other medias in asks about dipplinshipping/pokemon is totally fine, though!)

- I do not take headcanon/writing requests for OCs. Again, no hate, this is just not a self ship blog. I do take headcanon submissions related to dipplinshipping (and react/add onto them). I don't mind headcanon requests about the ship either because it's related.

- Please do not spam my inbox with repetitive messages. And by this I quite literally mean verbatim, word-for-word messages. (They're often unrelated to anything, too). I consider this harassment at a point.

- Please do not submit underaged/graphic/horror content, and/or ship content about minors and adults. Yes I've gotten these, yes they're highly inappropriate.

- Everything in this post (TLDR - please don't send "demanding" asks about my writing, e.g., repetitive, insistent questioning regarding updates, not-so-politely worded “requests” to either abandon certain storylines or add something into a storyline, or expressions of high dissatisfaction/disapproval for when I’m choosing to write for something other than Sweet & Sour Dipplins, which is my most popular work.)

- If you don't like a character I like, that's fine. You do not need to interact with me about it. I do not interact with you about what you should like or dislike.

- If you don't like a fic I write, or the direction of my writing, that's fine. You do not need to interact with me about it. I do not interact with you about what you should write or not write.

- Don't call me an excessive amount of pet names on anon (it seems to occur here almost exclusively). I appreciate kind messages, but this kind of behavior comes off a bit creepy in excess considering I don't know who you are.

- The same honestly applies off anon too, and includes comments that are borderline offensive toward me or others when being "playful". I want to interact with you and have fun! But please remember that if you don't know me personally, we are still very much strangers/good acquaintance mutuals, not close friends who are bantering. (You're more than welcome to call me out if I ever cross your boundaries with stuff like that, too; your comfort is equally important to me.)

- In general, I want to keep the anon feature on if possible because I know it helps some people express themselves with more ease. I've had to turn it off at times because people seemed to a little too comfortable with the feature. Right now it's on again; please don't ruin it for others. I don't want to have to do this since I consider it a very last resort, but I might just start blocking users who are being inappropriate on anon if necessary, as I can't identify who you are and have a conversation with you.

- Don't bash other people's ideas or say x is better than what they're saying, or whatever. Creative spaces are not a competition, but an opportunity to share and collaborate? And frankly, I'm very thankful to anyone who sends me ideas or reactions or whatever. I do not want anyone to feel discouraged from sharing. I will delete your comments or asks if you don't have nice things to say about others and their ideas. Be respectful.

- People seem to have the impression that I own servers on discord. I do not own any servers nor am I looking to continuously advertise servers that are not mine. Please go to the appropriate people if you are interested in joining a server.

- I try my best to keep this blog more on the PG side since this audience is more generalized/might have more variety in age. Many of you may follow me because I'm the author of Sweet & Sour Dipplins, where there's a time skip that ages the characters and has a suggested audience of mid to late teens and up (and in general is meant to be more in this YA genre). It's more than okay to send me stuff that references some of the themes depicted in there and in other works I may write for audiences that go beyond a general audience. I often get really funny and iconic asks in this direction, actually. But! Know that because I'm aware of the general audience on here, I might not be able to post and interact with you publicly about it (especially as people who don't read the fic don't have the context). I can interact with you more directly on spaces like AO3 comments! Otherwise, I'll try to message you to let you know you're hilarious. :)

- Regarding fics that are not by me & playlist recommendations: I actually would love to promote them provided it's related to dipplinshipping and they're appropriate! I just might need a little time to be able to sit down and screen through it myself because I want to be conscious of what I'm promoting, is all. So keep sending 'em!

I think this about covers it. If reallllyyyy necessary I might comment on this again? But I'm hoping not to, because at the end of the day I'm really just here to vibe and have a good time and I hope you are too. Please rest assured that if you aren't sure if you've done some of the things I listed here, that means you're probably fine. If you have, it's no biggie so long as the behavior stops (with the exception of the underaged/graphic/horror stuff; those I've just straight up handled so it doesn't apply to anyone as of now).

Thanks for reading, and feel free to let me know if something I listed here is unclear so we can have a better understanding of each other. And as always, thanks for your support and engagement! 💕

Lots of love,

dipplinduo

[deathsbestgirl]

Oooh, saw your tags and now I'm curious! What are the differences between my thoughts on Never Again and yours? Always open to hearing other opinions-- helps me clarify my own or add to them. :DDDDD

okay like i told you this is just going to be funny now. first because where i diverge really seems kind of insignificant to me, because it doesn't change any of your points or the ~outcome of how i think about never again as a whole. or really, t's about the evolution of scully's position, so it isn't different? second, because i literally need to shout about one specific part. it's so real. so anyway, onward.

the referenced post. most important part quoted below, but read the whole post bc it's good!! (and i really don't know much about the bts or writers but it's cool to learn about!!)

so specifically this is what you say in the context of never again. you lay it out simply and perfectly.

As much as Scully denies her actions aren't "about you" to Mulder, Never Again isn't solely about daddy issues or feeling trapped-- it's feeling trapped by being second best. Romance was explicitly written into the dna of this episode: she takes the rose from the grave-- someone's lasting legacy on their loved one's life-- extrapolates meaning from it behind Mulder's desk, and deflates when Mulder runs off to his vacation that even he rates as secondary to his quest (Mulder missed her entire point: needing his reassurance and reinforcement, needing his speech in the FTF hallway; and Scully missed that he missed it.) When she meets Jerse, she's flattered by his sole focus on her, takes his card, but still plans to leave; Mulder has been calling, but when he reconnects and hides the fact he missed her behind "how's the quest going?", it kicks Scully in the shins and she decides to change plans and meet up with Ed. "The tattoo you deserve" and one night stand with Ed drags down Scully's view of herself, in hindsight-- how did she not see that he was psychotic?-- and the final scene in the basement is tinted with second guesses of her own character: more specifically, what Scully thinks she has the right to ask from Mulder, doubting her own judgment (a theme she continually struggles with throughout the series.) If she sits and remains in the basement, Scully has to accept that Mulder won't move them forward; and she does, choosing to be Starbuck to this (in her perspective) doomed (relation)ship because at least Mulder needs her... which is why The End and Fight the Future hit her so hard, convincing her she has no use in his life, period.

obviously we agree that mulder doesn't get it from the start. you nail what hurts scully perfectly, what she needs from him. i truly think scully could wait forever as long as she knows they're on the same page. and here, she isn't.

but specifically, the part i want to shout about: the bit about scully's judgment, and what she can ask of mulder. like YES. i just don't think i've seen anyone say this and you're just right. you're so right. how often do we see scully struggle with her judgment? i think she does when diana shows up and it's part of the reason she needs mulder to trust her judgment in those circumstances. there are so few times that scully is SO sure about what's happening. she tries so hard to be rational, the voice of reason. but it's like her desire scares her, and i think that's a lot of what's happening in never again. because what can she ask of mulder? especially when it looks to her like he doesn't want her, doesn't need her, doesn't trust her with the x files. why is she there at all?

now, me being nitpicky? idk really. "it's feeling trapped by being second best." i think this is right. it's just that. at first, she was okay with this. because they were partners, the x files are his life. she thought she understood this and accepted it. at the beginning in season one, of course she did! they didn't have a personal relationship yet. everything was all about the work, and in never again, it's all about them with the work shrouding their relationship. scully definitely thinks they have something and she thinks they might be on the same page, but he seems to confirm the opposite. it's just work and there isn't really room for her, or a personal relationship. so she is absolutely reconciling if she can keep on this way. if the work and following mulder and being what he needs is enough...if she even has a choice. and she does, and reconciling her choice to stay with what she wants is the struggle.

so really?? i don't disagree. i just wanted to talk about how being second best became a concern the longer she was on the x files, the more her feelings grew (or maybe the more she recognized them), her feelings scaring her and what they mean for mulder & the x files & her life, etc etc.

SO all of that to say, i actually agree with you. i just love the slow evolution and consistency of their characters & relationship <3 now please share your thoughts on my nonsense!!

[scenetocause]

i would love more of this pregnant max if you ever feel so inclined

(nsfw, mpreg, ambiguously trans max)

"I think it's a hangover, buddy. Like, I don't think we can jump to conclusions going on a podcast with Clem has magic fertility powers when there's a pretty clear explanation." Max groans, wishing Lando would stop talking about this. Or at least, do it quieter.

"Mmm," Lando's chewing his nails. "It's just you've been sick a few times and - I don't know, I guess you'd know best but I feel like... it's just a feeling."

"Yeah, Bob. So let me go back to sleep." Max rolls over, grabbing for Lando and shoving him back down into the sheets. "Be nice to me, I'm a delicate man right now."

"I'm gonna be the nicest," Lando promises, hand running over Max's back. "You're, like, honestly. I know we don't really - y'know - but I, you're really important to me."

"Fucking hell," Max snuggles closer, lets Lando scritch his scalp and feels the way Lando's unnatural body heat eases the slight nausea. "I didn't realise you were so jealous of Marcus."

-

After five months he doesn't exactly start to show, unless you've got your hand in his boxers and there's really only one person that does that but he does realise jeans aren't particularly comfortable anymore, switches over to stealing Lando's joggers. It's odd, he can feel little movements now sometimes, isn't imagining them anymore but his body looks virtually the same, which is kind of a relief.

As is knowing he's more than halfway through it. His silhouette might be unchanged but the swollen ankles and nausea he can do without. And as much as he's constantly telling Lando he's not fucking delicate he is annoyed by how much faster he gets tired, how sensitive he is to sound and lights suddenly, like Lando's fucking baby is transmitting all his weird tics to Max.

But then, it's their baby. Which they're going to have to explain, at some point but for now Max is fine with no one really knowing, only some wry comments about them really being inseparable when Max packs up his stuff (or lets people Lando's paid to pack it) and ships it to the south of France.

Lando is predictably gross about it, sticking his cold fingers under Max's hoodie so he can feel up the not-bump between Max's hipbones. Max has the simultaneously horrible and exciting feeling this isn't going to be the only time Lando manages to do this to him, which is nice because Max wanted kids, plural but also Lando's so into it he feels like he has to be a little bit grumpy about it, get Lando to make it up to him.

He does, with bubble baths and back rubs and letting Max watch his favourite films without a question and then barely taking the piss while Max is crying on him at the end of Notting Hill. By letting Max ride him, the pad of Lando's thumb over his clit, until they both come.

-

By month seven he does actually have to buy some larger hoodies, to hide it but so long as he keeps his shirt on no one really seems to notice. It just looks like he's getting fat, he guesses, curled half-on-his-side in the McLaren hospitality, waiting for Lando to get out of debrief.

He'd thought it would bother him more, doing this and maybe if it was obvious it would but now it's into the definite phase, a recognisable little human on the scans, he kind of likes it. Knowing his body's made something, brewed up him and Lando into someone new and exciting to meet.

They're gonna be cute, he knows it. Everyone's gonna be disgusted by how cute they are and Lando's gonna get another million Instagram followers.

He's vetoed any name in any way referencing the number four, that's a step too fucking far. As well as finding out the gender, the idea of it makes him squirm in a way he hadn't thought about for a long time. Fortunately Lando seems not to give a fuck about anything other than them both being healthy and also seems to get unstoppably horny every time he sees a scan, has mutated his general obsession with Max's body into a specific fascination with this.

-

Lando buries his head in Max's chest, pressed close along his side so that Lando's warm abs are against the bump and he must be able to feel them kicking. A DNF is never fun and Max is happy to hold him, hold them all together, feeling Lando's nose digging into his ribs.

Because Lando has stupidly huge hands it only really takes one of them, touch light and delicate, to span most of the bump still. Max figures (if he's honest, is hoping, never keen about pain at the best of times) maybe their baby will take after Lando and be miniature until they're eighteen or so. A long time after Max has had to extract them from his body, at least.

Like he's thinking the same thing, Lando shoves himself further up, rubs his dick, inevitably, against Max's hip and says. "I dunno how you're - do you still want to?"

Max shrugs. "It's supposed to help, apparently."

"Really?" Lando sounds deeply cynical. "I mean, how would that-"

"I don't know, mate. But yeah, not like it's easy for me to reach now and you've been away for like two weeks." He can feel his cheekbones burning but, honestly, it's felt like a long time and a man has needs.

"Oh," Lando wriggles round to be on his knees almost frighteningly fast. "Fuck, yeah, I can - one second."

Logistically it's not totally straightforward, Max having to cant his hips back on a pillow so Lando has more room but otherwise it's as good as ever. Maybe even better than normal, Max ultra-sensitive to where Lando's tongue's lapping at him sloppily.

"You taste," Lando mumbles, before diving back in again and not really finishing his sentence. "It's so good."

"You just love it," Max manages to hiss back, before he stops thinking at all and just enjoys Lando's fingers inside him, tongue on his clit. It's not a surprise, in retrospect, that Max's sloppy approach to birth control of just assuming it wasn't really going to happen got taken apart by Lando's enthusiasm for getting inside him.

They fuck with Max on his hands and knees, Lando's fingers spanning his chest to play with his nipples and Max doesn't know if he really believes jizz helps hurry up labour but he can imagine if anyone's did it'd probably be Lando's. Just his luck to fall in love with the bloke with magic balls or whatever.

-

He decides not to do it with any fanfare, just switches his PC on, baby in one arm and starts the stream. Waits until there's a thousand or so people on, titles it might be streaming less and takes a deep breath before he switches his camera on.

"Yeah, so." He suddenly can't think what to say, even though he'd gone through it in his head so many times. The whirl of his chat is distracting, trying to catch the words and then Kit wriggles a little bit, jogs him out of the trance.

"Yeah, I've - well, not just me, Bob was involved - had a baby." He glances down the responses. "How long ago? How old does Kit look? Babies are pretty little, though - not long."

"Yes, I'm gonna bring the baby to races. No, just me and him, no girlfriends. Yeah, we live in Monaco now, it's easier for us all. No, we're not married. Not yet. Yeah, the baby's name is Kit."

Right on cue, Kit makes a snuffly little noise and Max is distracted for a second. There's, it turns out, very little quiet as emotionally compelling as looking at the sleepy face of your three-week-old baby and it's honestly pretty embarrassing how much time he spends literally just doing that but it is what it is.

"But yeah, maybe not much streaming for a bit. Got a lot going on, some getting used to it and that. Yeah, Bob's helping - he's been really good, he's at the gym now. No, he's still annoying, just like. He helps."

Max can't stop himself yawning, Kit mirroring it with a soft, babyish noise that makes him melt inside. "Alright, nap time for both of us. Yeah, I'll post baby pictures. Bye chat, love you."

When he turns around, Lando's standing in the doorway. It's not where Max had expected him to be, genuinely thought he'd gone to the gym and he raises an eyebrow at realising Lando's been watching him, instead.

"I missed you." Lando doesn't even look apologetic about it, which is fine because it's Jon he needs to say sorry to, really.

"Alright, buddy." Max stands up, juggling Kit against himself. "You coming for a nap?"

"Yeah." Lando wraps his arms round them both, kisses Max's forehead and then the baby's. "Then I wanna make you dinner and eat you out."

Max rolls his eyes. Of course he fucking does but Lando can actually cook pretty well these days and he's not gonna argue with the other part.

Lando sleeps in his arms, cheek against Max's chest and snoring slightly. Their bodies still fit together perfectly, even after making a third one, snuffling in the crib at the side of the bed.

[silver-heller]

In your AU, will Rose be married and if so to whom?

I do think Rose had a child, but I think something happened to the husband, so Rose is unattached as of right now. I believe the child is a baby currently. I think I might go ahead and end up pairing Rose with Zulie because that ship just feels too perfect now that Tomodachi Life has pointed it out to me not to lol. It also fits a lot with the themes of the AU.

A lot of the sequel is about complicated family melding because the polycule has different members with their own families they're trying to bring together. Serafine just has Nico (though Wick is terrified of them both lol), but Mordecai has his sisters he's just reunited with he has to try to coax into accepting his very different life now, Silver is still adjusting to his mother figure, Mitzi, dating Wick who is trying to be a good father figure to Silver, and the fact Silver might have feelings for Mitzi's ex only complicates things, and Viktor starts dating Tawny which is a whole can of worms in and of itself. Then Freckle is now dating Ivy who is now also pulled into the fray (who knows, when Ivy's dad shows up in a short or whatever he might end up meeting the complicated family as well lol, but I'd like to know more about him before writing him).

So there will definitely be some one shots in the sequel about trying to make this complicated family unite work. But of course, a part of Mordecai introducing his sisters to said family is introducing them to the complicated inner circles they're a part of, and to add to the strange relationships, it just makes sense for Rose to end up falling in love with the one woman Mordecai has a very complicated relationship with for understandable reasons.

It's a test for Mordecai to question why he's so oppossed to his sister doing basically the same thing he did, and having to actively battle against his inner Atlas that wants to control the situation without putting Rose's happiness first out of fear. It'll also be interesting to see that, in extension of Zulie being great friends with Serafine, Rose and Serafine have the opportunity to be really great friends too, something that would have originally terrified Mordecai but he has to remind himself he trusts Serafine as a partner now and everything will be okay.

I've also kind of been thinking of a place to put Zulie in the sequel. She was always lingering in the background of the main series, with Serafine referencing Zulie's crush on Mordecai and Zulie helping in the big finale. It would feel wrong to keep her sidelined, especially with the relationship I headcanon she has with Serafine and her being an important figure in Serafine's life. I think it would make sense if Zulie gets more involved because she's dating Rose.

I want to see Zulie and Mordecai, I really do but I just can't. With my version of Mordecai, I can't feel that much chemistry between them, and Zulie is a bit too forward to really be the type of any of the others in the polycule except maybe Viktor and Silver. Plus, I like Zulie and Serafine as very close friends that always have each other's backs more than I like them as girlfriends. I feel like if Serafine had that interest in Zulie during the AU, she would have gone for Zulie after Mordecai rejected her.

I think I'd enjoy Zulie more as the chaotic girlfriend of Mordecai's sister that Mordecai has to learn to deal with, or he'll risk hurting Rose's feelings. It also makes sense, Rose is such a kind and open person, Zulie wouldn't scare her at all and, if anything, Rose would be delighted to get to know her more while the others, besides Serafine, seem to keep Zulie at a distance.

[emodialisse]

Raise A Glass To The Unfinished Works I Wrote On My Way Home

I'm gonna post here some ideas I'm working on since last year for possible fanfics I'll post, not that I expect people to read, I just like to expose my silly thoughts. I deleted a few works here because I wasn't really ready to share them yet, but now I'm saying fuck it, we ball.

Caution warnings for: unlikely friendships, heavy themes within mundane scenarios, Otto's (shameful) military history and how it affected his life, family issues, internal homophobia that's treated like a plot device, Peter's anxiety putting himself in armed conflict situations, too many headcanons to fit into your luggage, drama, and all the characters running on five cups of coffee and takeout in a daily basis.

There will be more posts about specific works and I'll cite which character they're focused on. Let's start off with this one, that I wanted to base my entire alternate universe within the game (not Diaverse, that's an AU based on Earth 616)

– An alternative meeting between Otto and Peter much earlier in the game. Focused on Otto's point of view.

Otto has been struggling with his finances ever since he stopped taking up every job offer because he's hopeful to invest on a start-up. There's a planned trip for Schenectady to visit a relative he hasn't spoken to since his father's passing, but to level out that he has the company of Anna Watson, one of his ex-wife's friends that stook out the most for her support and their common relation to one May Parker. Anna makes a visit to Otto and they start to discuss plannings for the Mother's Day celebration that's gonna take place in the Parker's residence. Anna is insisting that Otto don't bother to help because she knows his situation is tough, but he's quite offended by that and tells her he is capable of handling himself.

Yes, the idea was to introduce Peter and Otto at this party. But they don't hold up a very productive conversation. Actually, May's the one to provide information about Peter, since the boy's very shy in Otto's opinion (he doesn't know Peter idolizes him to the point of hero ship). And in talking with May, she likes to draws the similarities between them, and furthermore asking why Otto has been quite distant and hasn't talked to her like they used to do. Otto gives up and tells her he hasn't been the same since leaving Oscorp, and is impressed because he never mentioned that to anyone. Especially because he thinks back to how he felt when his father died, it was the same week he had that doctor's appointment and so many exams had been scheduled. How sour the nights tasted on his tongue, and he swears there was a day his hand twitched with the weight of a [gun]. May tells him there's too much on their heads lately, Otto agrees and says she is quite busy herself, referencing May's participation in protests. May then reveals she's mulling over an opportunity to do something for herself that doesn't evolve around Peter and Ben's world (It's F.E.A.S.T). She loves them, but Peter has grown up too fast and she smiles remembering about that one time they brought a very cheap microscope for him, he looked so happy but even more out of their reach, ready to seek his own ambitions. Otto connects it to his adulthood. They talk some more until Anna arrives, as well as a few more guests, namely Mary Jane Watson and Harry Osborn. Otto knows them, Harry a little bit more, and immediately jokingly offers him a drink since his “peacock of a father” isn't there to complain at the lack of white wine. Otto knows Harry tries to, but he isn't remotely like Norman at all. There's a bit more story between Otto and the Osborns, because he had known Emily in health and sickness, and she was the only reason he continued to assist in Norman's research.

The idea was to play around with a thought I had: “This teased friendship with May... and then Peter... Why not expand on Otto's history connecting him to important people on Peter's life as well? Maybe a foster sense of belonging overgrows him whenever he sees Peter working on a contraption, May playing around to make him laugh, Anna's visits... and then his trip to Schenectady is cancelled since he's no longer feeling homesick, and starts to see more to this life he has build where he is right now.”

Anyway, this probably will manifest into a mocking one shot, where I'm gonna include Otto receiving visits from a chosen group of people [grant committee] from a heath care organization specialized in assisting veterans from the army, to his laboratory. He's still figuring out the name. All the while having some talks with May, now well adjusted on her job in F.E.A.S.T and they touch on the terms of grief and how it changes the relationships around you. She felt helpless, and that made her understand Peter a bit more, even before what happened [arriving late, be it for school or other compromises]. Even Anna was also a lot more present on her life after that, May jokes about growing sick of how much she craves Anna's carrot cake and hibiscus tea every time she shows up at her doorstep, claiming she has never been a fan of neither of those things.

The idea was to motivate Otto to interact more with the boy when he showed up at their home in Queens, leading to him to offer the internship in the future. Despite the game having Peter say it was because of May's word alone, I wanted to expand more and have it make sense for the context of both Otto's and Peter's lives connecting paths in some way. First May comparing their behaviors, Otto's conversation in Peter's bedroom at the Mother's Day party where Peter told him they met once in Midtown High. At the time Otto was in a dark place and apologizes for not remembering Peter's face. And of course, graduation day. Everything to lead up to Peter visiting the laboratory for the first time, and he feels like it's a Christmas morning. When Peter reads the plate “Octavius Industries” he thinks too loudly that it escapes his mouth about the lack of creativity in the name, as it's too much similar to other famous enterprises. Otto is confused to why would that be a bad thing, and Peter tells him people are sick of seeing fancy names and not actual changes. Otto tells him there was none of that discussion when he was in grad school, and Peter responds stating that Otto had never "hit the pot" back then. There's a little bit of backstory, because I can't contain myself, about Otto smoking weed in the army and other little rebellions he did because he was away from home, but that's for another day.

I did plan romance between them in this work, but it'll be official only next in a series I wanted to start based on this. It would explore other characters as well, like Robbie and Betty from the Bugle, Mary Jane, Curt Connors and Martin Li. And of course, many are focused on Peter's point of view by then.

Here's a preview of the three main stories (much like the game has three chapters in the DLC, ha) all to build the timeline filled with the how's and the why's of their relationship. To name a few: How did Peter know he was in love, wasn't it just a hero crush? Otto had definitely fallen first, that's for sure, and has been pining over something he thinks he don't deserve. Why does he feel that way about Peter specifically? Is it the age thing? The work thing? Is it his hot dog stinky breath thing? The thingiest thing that things? Well, that and other questions I have from the many conversations with my mirror that needed answers, so I wrote it all down in my WhatsApp group in the exact exasperated way, with additional exclamation points and emojis.

– Betty is Peter's oldest and by far his most successful workplace friendship, he scaped many of Triple J's trash talking because of her, and she was the one who put most faith in his passion for photography beyond his work with Spider-Man. He's surprised one afternoon where she announces her marriage to Ned Leeds on spring and handles him an invitation. Peter has some controversial opinions about Ned but is nonetheless attending because whatever makes Betty happy must have some positive side to it. It's a short story centered around Peter venting about his insecurities regarding romantic relationships, so the stage Otto and him are is pretty low.

– Otto is planning to take Maria Alice's hand the next weekend, but some circumstances at Oscorp are making harder and harder for him to concentrate on the perfect scenario to ask her, and Norman seems to be holding secrets from him. Luckily, Curt Connors, the intern that had been working with them for six months now is not so dull headed and actually helps him behind the curtains with a special case that arrived this morning. This will be a multiple chapter work to explain why Otto was so much in a dark places at the time he left Oscorp, discovering things not only about one of his closest friend but also realizing some things about himself. Let's just say Otto's affinity for Peter and their future relationship isn't entirely unknown waters. That leads me to think Otto is pretty much more confident about this thing between them because, despite what believe, Otto is more experienced than Peter, in matters of the deep form of love that is.

– Robbie Robertson and Mary Jane Watson have to work alongside Spider-Man thanks to the causality of the trouble they're putting themselves into for someone they believe is NYPD's bait to dismantle Fisk's art auctions networks linked to the criminal underground, only because like them, the guy was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but heavy allegations are working against them, and it's up to Peter Parker to believe that the police might be wrong, but Robbie and MJ aren't going to sit down and watch the circus burn. This is also going to be a multiple chapters work, focusing more on establishing Robbie as the owner of the Daily Bugle and how he could restore its reputation after the rash exit of Jonah Jameson, as well MJ's journey to debut herself in her new job as an investigative reporter. It's kind of a sequel to that one story with Betty, because it features lots of scenes with Otto and their developing relationship, a little more mature from the conversations they had and all the miscommunication. I think an action packed mystery works perfectly to conclude a romance.

When this is finished, I'll probably do anthology works, which I'll discuss later in other posts. Just a little reminder for myself to not loose track of the stuff I have divided in many google Docs that are driving me insane. That and I want to talk about Diaverse Octospider too, because why not?

[wifegideonnav]

Do they insist to be just friends though? They just don't say they're a couple and they say they're friends which is true, but they don't say they're JUST friends, not anymore at least

ok yeah this is true, my wording could've been clearer. i was more trying to joke about the fact that they're in this weird era of very overtly trying to have their cake and eat it too. because yeah, everyone who actually knows anything about them knows, and they know we know, and we know they know we know. its. ridiculously obvious.

but on the other hand, apart from dan's coming out video, they've never actually said anything you can point to. and even in the coming out video, in the section where he talks about his relationship with phil, what dan actually says is "and obviously, we were more than friends, but it was more than just romantic" and "we are real best friends, companions through life, like, actual soulmates." on paper, he's still not admitting anything there because everything is couched in the past tense and the vaguest terms possible, and he has full deniability that he meant platonic soulmates. and meanwhile, they're having SO much fun teasing their audience, with obvious clickbait titles, blatantly referencing fan theories, etc. (and personally i think they're so valid for that lmfao like they 100% deserve to have fun with it at this point)

they've created this limbo, like i said, where they're being so overt, and yet insisting that they want their privacy, and i think to understand that one has to understand that they've always been like that. they wrote fanfiction about themselves in 2015, despite being living examples of how rpf can severely impact people's lives. in their fics, their relationship was platonic. they put their writing in their book which they then sold to tens of thousands of people, and they recorded dramatic readings of the stories for their channels and raked in the ad money. in no way do i think the fact that they've been capitalizing on the shipping for a decade makes it okay, but i do think it's important to consider. as someone very cool and well-spoken described it to me, "their whole bit is the elephant in the room." so i think it's a very strategic decision to keep their relationship status private, even though they are going to have absolutely no problem getting views for like. couples content etc lmfao.

(and im not going to go too deep into this bc its speculation and i respect their privacy so much more than i used to at 15, but i think it's also worth mentioning how much emotion must be tied into the concept of outing their relationship. there's the reckoning with the fandom that's going to have to happen, there's the really annoying and embarrassing part of having to admit that everyone was right all along, there's the massive amounts of scrutiny - and probably mainstream attention as well - that are going to be laser focused at their relationship, and also like... in the section of his coming out vid where he talks about phil, the only time dan refers to him in the 3rd person (as opposed to "we"), he says "them" and not "him."** this was years ago, but it speaks volumes to me about how uncomfortable and scared he still is about speaking openly about his attraction to men in more than in general terms or at a remove (talking about celebs or characters), which is also shown by the weird lil dance he does when saying "actual soulmates." there's such a difference between being open about how you think dudes are hot, and admitting to everyone that you are emotionally vulnerable about a same-sex partner. again, this is speculation based on my own feelings, but i do think it's at least part of the bigger picture. there's a difference between being gay as an individual and being gay in relation to someone else in terms of how society views and treats you, and i think they're hyperaware of that, because how could they not be.)

overall, they've genuinely been through the kind of hell regarding their relationship that very few people have ever experienced. in some ways, their situation is unique. mostly, that post i made was commenting on the semi-annoying, sometimes almost insulting, but fully understandable way that they're acting about their relationship. the entire situation is so deeply fucked that i do genuinely believe they've earned the right to have a little fun at their audiences expense (while the audience is even also in on the joke). because tbh its VERY funny that they haven't gone public yet.

**if you're curious the quote is: "this is someone that genuinely liked me. i trusted them. and for the first time since i was a tiny child i actually felt safe."

[gorgonarcher]

Game 4 - Fate Core

All right, some recent discussion about RPGs has brought me to look at Fate Core again and decide to use it for the next gorgon archer build.

Now, this is a bit interesting because character and world creation in Fate Core is meant to be collaborative. I could go ahead and just make up these other characters, I've done it before, but I might reach out to some other people this time.

So, character creation is the last bit of creating a game. And I'm going to be thinking about what sort of setting for this.

The first character I did on this blog was for a modern Earth superhero setting, the next two were standard heroic fantasy... well, I was never specific about the Hero System character's setting, but I had in mind some sort of medieval European-based heroic fantasy. I have a couple of good options for urban fantasy coming up in other games. In this case... I think I'm going to go with a sort of sci-fantasy such as Star Wars.

We're going to say the scale is a bit mixed, personal stories against epic backdrop. So instead of being the lead elements of a rebellion or war, they're people trying to survive the collateral of the ongoing issues. So we have two issues to make, a current issue and an upcoming issue.

Current Issue: Corporate Overlords

Upcoming Issue: War of Regimes

The galaxy is one run by oppressive megacorporations but they are soon facing a threat from the outside the form of another empire pressing a war of conquest over the area. I may be leaning a bit into Stellaris here. I haven't named the external empire making the press, yet, they might not even be public knowledge yet. Something coming along later maybe for the GM to shape themselves, or something the PCs will shape with their stories.

This is also sci-fantasy more than sci-fi, so there'll be some weird magic stuff. In this regard it's similar to Babylon 5 or Star Wars. (Or Stellaris in many ways, now I think about it).

So now, to start with we choose some Aspects... Aspects are used to note things that are important about the scene, the story, or the characters. Every location and character have some permanent Aspects attached that rarely change. Even the campaign will have some Aspects.

So, anyway, going to move onto character creation with that decided.

So the first thing we do is determine our character's aspects. We're going to start with two before we get to the collaborative part. These are:

High Concept: a summary of your basic concept.

Trouble: a summary of the most common and pressing problem they have.

"Gorgon Archer" is actually a perfectly fine Aspect to start with as a High Concept, but I do like adding a bit more flavor.

For a moment, I was going to go with "Project: Gorgon Escapee" as High Concept. This establishes a lot about the character and about the world at large as we now have "Project: Gorgon" and what it is to consider. In this case, I'm considering it as a secret gene-splicing project by some corporation meant to produce super-soldiers. (And now I'm drawing on Dark Angel). But I think this better fits a Trouble as while it implies some benefits in the form of whatever enhancements she has, the problems it suggests are much more pressing.

So, back to the High-Concept. The thought I had was "Star-Trekking Enhanced Archer." I'm getting the feeling that she wanders around traveling with different space craft and uses a bow of some sort. I've also referenced potential enhancements her a second time. Having Aspects overlap like this isn't a bad idea. I thought about using "Ship-Hopping" but if one of the other PCs turned out to be a pilot with their own ship, then that wouldn't fit since the PC would likely be spending their time on that one ship instead of switching ships. "Star-Trekking" has the benefit of implying traveling the stars without necessarily suggesting it's all in the same ship.

We're also supposed to name the character now, it occurs to me that I forgot to do that in the Pathfinder and Hero System characters. I might go back and fix that. In this case, let's name her something that we'd get off an experiment and turn to Google translate with "Experiment 15" to come back with "peírama dekapénte" (Experiment 15). And adjust that so that not everyone who speaks great does a head tilt when she says her name (granted, the snakes for hair might do that). "Peira Madekapen" which is the sort of silly thin cover name that might come out of a TV show.

The Phase Trio

Now we start to work on the remaining three Aspects. These come out of their first adventure and how they involved themselves in the first adventures of the other characters.

This is called the Phase Trio and the phases are:

Phase One: Your Adventure - Your character's first spot-light adventure pre-game and an Aspect that gave them.

Phase Two: Crossing Paths - A way your character was a supporting role in someone else's Phase One and an Aspect you gained from that experience.

Phase Three: Crossing Paths Again (It's literally called this) - Same as Phase two but with a second character.

In a 3 player game, you would all end up being each other's Phase Two and Three and be connected twice over. In a four player game, you'd be a supporting role in one other character's story, another character would be a supporting role in yours, and for the third comrade you'd be both supporting and supported by them in your Phase One. And in a 5-player game everyone would have two other people show up as support in their stories and show up as support in two other character's stories.

Her first adventure was about how she got clear of Project: Gorgon and shook the trail of their hunters.

Agents attached to Project: Gorgon tracked Peira to a farming colony run by a rival colony. While there, some type of intrusive creature appeared on the colony, threatening everyone. Maybe the first sign of the empire that will be invading soon, or maybe some project of the corps they needed to test. Peira helped several of the colonists escape the danger and the colony as a whole was written off, leaving Project: Gorgon at least temporarily convinced she was dead.

From this, I'm going to focus on her rescuing some of the local colonists even though it might have been better for her to just escape herself. "Guardian Serpent" comes to mind... it's also starting to hit on the fantasy part of sci-fantasy. But let's add a bit more maybe "Secret Serpent Guardian".... or... you know, let's go for some alliteration and more flavor. "Shadow-Stepping Serpent Sentinel"

Okay, so I reached out to some friends and I got two characters:

A cyborg waitress with base-tech upgrades.

A human nekomaido waitress, bright-eyed and unprepared for terrible things.

For first stories, the cyborg waitress gets hired to do some grocery shopping for a merc and gets caught up in a robbery that she has to fight out of with her not too-impressive tech.

The human found herself stolen from her planet find herself deposited somewhere strange and she's trying to figure out why this happened and figure out how to move forward.

So now, I have to decide how Peira served a supporting role in those stories.

For the cyborg waitress, literally on a milk run, what if there was a chase sequence in both stories and at one point the chases crossed paths, giving each of the two characters an opportunity to gain an edge. In this case, the aspect Peira gets out of this, I'm going to call "Convenient Chaos".

For the other case, Peira probably also recognized the other person's look as a fish out of water and gave her some advice on how to get by in a new place with little to no resources. And we're going to call this aspect "Experienced Drifter".

So, no pilot, but maybe this group does indeed hop from one ship to another. Also, I foresee some light-hearted moments where the gorgon gets roped into doing server work in one place or another. At this point the other two characters would state how each of their characters served a supporting roll in two other stories.

Note that there might be more than 3 players, and the way you decide who's story you had a supporting role in is that character sheets are passed around, clockwise or counter-clockwise, or some other predictable method. And then the sheet is returned. So, everybody is connected to at least two other people. I'm not going to get into the other stories, even the ones where people had a supporting role in her story, because those don't affect her character sheet.

An alternate way to do this is for a person to determine how they were a supporting role in someone else's story as normal, but instead of taking an Aspect from how you supported someone else, you instead take an Aspect from how you were supported. I chose to use the default method from the core book.

Side note, if I were to actually play this, I'd predict some shenanigans with Peira being drafted to do server stuff with the two waitresses.

Skills

Now we come to the part that, admittedly, I long found the most obtuse.

It took me a long while to realize that Skills don't actually refer to skills in the way we talk about them in common day to day parlance. They are instead descriptions of how the character is able to reliably influence the story. Their "skills" from a common sense are often more shaped by their Aspects. I used to get upset that the pyramid structure they use (see below) doesn't represent how skills are built based on my training as a teacher and that some of the things they call skils aren't skills.

I figured this out once they released Fate Accelerated where they used the term "Labels" rather than skills, and the labels were basically personality types. Very much similar to how Monster of the Week or other Powered by the Apocalypse games do.

My best example for this is Bones from Star Trek. He would have an Aspect to be a skilled surgeon and medical professional, but the skill most often related to medicine wouldn't be his highest skill. This is because his primary role in the story has nothing to do with his medical skill and "he's dead, Jim" is one of his most iconic lines. Medical issues are either trivial for him or else very strange and something that takes a lot of effort. So his medical skills could do with a mild to low bonus and be fine. Bones' biggest impact on the story and biggest role is to call people out for being stupid. So his highest skill would likely be "Provoke". He's often the voice of common sense and reminding people of basic morality.

So, now let's get to assigning skills.

You get the following:

One skill at Great (+4)

Two skills at Good (+3)

Three skills at Fair (+2)

Four skills at Average (+1)

In most (not all) Fate Games, +4 is the highest a skill can get. As a farther note the way skills improve at Milestones is that you can either choose a new skill at +1 or you can improve an existing skill by +1 or you can switch the position between two skills. But also there have to be at least as many skills at the lower values as those above.

So you can't improve one of your +1s to a +2 right away, because then there would be four +2s and three +1s. This is the pyramid thing I was talking about... there has to be a foundation for the skills to rest on. You CAN do a column, but getting to that takes some effort.

This was another case where my brain couldn't accept this because you don't suddenly switch from being good at seeing things to being good at punching them, but once I realized these are personality and attention focuses rather than objective capabilities, that was a concern that faded away. I'm still not especially fond of the pyramid structure, but meh.

Anyway, let's list the default skills:

Athletics

Burglary

Contacts

Crafts

Deceive

Drive

Empathy

Fight

Investigate

Lore

Notice

Physique

Provoke

Rapport

Resources

Shoot

Stealth

Will

When I said some of these are not skills, I was thinking: Contacts, Resources, Physique, and Will. These are things that you can improve with effort though, but they're not really skills the way most games mean the term. And again, that's because these aren't skills so much as roles in the story.

So let's see how Peira has the most impact on the story. I don't think it's Shoot, but I am going to put that as a Good skill. I'm also going to take Burglary as a Good skill... but I think her biggest impact on the story is going to be Willpower. Stealth, Physique and Investigate will be the the Fair skills. Then I'm going to go with Empathy, Athletics, Notice, and Fight.

So her skills will look like this:

Will +4

Shoot +3, Burglary +3

Stealth +2, Physique +2, Investigate +2

Empathy +1, Athletics +1, Notice +1, Fight +1

So, she doesn't impact the story much at all with Resources or Contacts, and she doesn't like to attract attention so Deceive and Provoke are also not present. She also doesn't do much with making stuff, knowing things, or piloting vehicles.

So, now we come to Stunts.

Stunts and Refresh

Refresh is the number of Fate Points you start each session with. Fate Points are gained when your Aspects cause you problems and they are spent to activate Aspects or Stunts. (You can also activate Aspects for free via the "Create an Advantage" action). You do not have a maximum number of Fate Points.

Important note from someone whose run a lot of Fate: it is vitally important for a GM to keep the Fate Points flowing. This means you are engaging the characters' story arcs and giving them the fuel to be awesome.

You start with a Refresh of 3 and three free Stunts. You can get new Stunts by reducing your Refresh one for one to a minimum of 1. So you can get to a maximum of 5 Stunts.

Stunts do one of several things:

Add a new action to a skill.

Add a bonus to an action in certain circumstances.

Create a Rules Exception

They very much function similarly to PbtA moves.

There are a number of example stunts for each of the skills in the Core book, a large library of stunts available online by the communities that run Fate, and lots of guidelines for how to build Stunts.

The first thing I'm going to do is make a Stunt for the petrifying gaze. I'm going to say that she can Attack using Will by activating her gorgon powers. This will be a paralysis rather than true petrification. This is fairly powerful, especially since I chose Will as the strongest roll. But I also don't want it to be a commonly used thing, so I'm going to balance it by making it cost a Fate Point to use.

Basically, she can project a psychic jolt through a flash of light, allowing her to paralyze people that can see her face. Making it an AoE introduces collateral damage potential for drama and also balances making it cost a Fate Point, because otherwise attacking with a Skill that normally isn't used to attack is usually fine on its own for a Stunt.

Paralyzing Gaze - Peira can direct her snakes and gaze together forward, forming a psychically active light show and attacking those that can see her face using Will.

For her other two stunts, I'm going to take two of the prebuilt stunts from the core book.

Indomitable - +2 to Defend against Provoke attacks specifically related to Intimidation or Fear.

Always a Way Out - +2 to Create an Advantage whenever you're trying to escape from a location.

Stress and Consequences

Now we come to Stress and Consequences.

Most of this will be gameplay talk so you have context for what the values mean. The actual creation is pretty simple. Default is two Stress Boxes and it will be improved by Physique and Will.

Stress represents the temporary harm a person takes in the course of doing dangerous things. It heals up as soon as you have a chance to take a breath. There are two tracks by default: Physical and Mental. Some versions of Fate will also have other tracks such as the following:

Social - representing your reputation with other people and societal consequences.

Wealth - representing money.

Various power sources like "Energy" or "Soul"

Characters also have 3 Consequences (in some versions of Fate, they will have three Consequences for each track, but by default the consequences are mostly shared). Also, unlike Stress, they don't immediately go away just because you had a minute to catch your breath.

You have to take a deliberate action to recover from a consequence. After this action, the Consequence will recover at a time determined by it's severity.

Mild - After one full scene has occurred. (so if you do the recovery in the middle of a scene it will recover in the middle of the next one)

Moderate - After one full session has occurred. (so if you do the recovery in middle of a session, you will finish healing in the middle of the next session)

Severe - One whole scenario (adventure/mystery) after the recovery action happens.

When you recover, the consequence will either drop one level of severity or will go away completely if it was Mild. You name your Consequences to match the source of the harm.

So if you were attacked emotionally via Provoke trying to scare you and suffered a Moderate consequence you might name it "Frightened" if it was Severe you might name it "Terrified" or, if you want to be more flavorful, "The Fright of your Life" and you would change the name to represent healing after the recovery. So, "Terrified" might change to "Deeply Unsettled".

On the other hand a "Broken Leg" might turn to "Walking Cast".

So, how damage happens. An attack is rolled and the amount by which it succeeds determines the Stress coming in. If you can't account for even 1 Stress, then the character is Taken Out and will no longer be able to take part in the current scene. What this means generally depends on the situation. It could mean that they flee or get knocked out. They might be captured. Or they might be dead. This is largely determined by the players and GM at the moment.

Each box has a value equal to it's position.

Let's say you have 3 Stress Boxes and you suffer 2 Stress from an attack. You would go from this:

OOO

to this:

OXO

If you took 3 Stress instead, it would look like this:

OOX

If you took 1 Stress it would look like this:

XOO.

Now, if the Stress Box for the value you just suffered is filled, you have to go to the next higher value. So, if you were at this:

OXO

And took another 2 Stress you would have to fill in the third box even though it is worth 3 instead of 2 and you'd look like this:

OXX

Alternately, you can suffer a Consequence.

Mild Consequences are worth 2 Stress

Moderate Consequences are worth 4 Stress

Severe Consequences are worth 6 Stress

And again, if you suffer 1 Stress but all of your Stress Tracks and other consequences are filled... you might have to suffer that Severe Consequence for that 1 damage.

Now, that bit of gameplay away, let's get back to character creation.

Physique and Will improve Stress Tracks and give extra Consequences.

Physique of +1 or +2 means she has one extra Physical Stress box. While Will of +3 or higher means she has two extra Mental Stress boxes. For games that allow skills of +5 or higher, the character would also gain an extra Mild Consequence purely for the type of harm related to the skill.

So This is the final result for Peira Madekapen

Peira Madekapen - Refresh 3

Aspects

High Concept: Star-Trekking Enhanced Archer

Trouble: Project: Gorgon Escapee

Shadow Stepping Serpent Sentinel

Convenient Chaos

Experienced Drifter

Skills

Will +4

Shoot +3, Burglary +3

Stealth +2, Physique +2, Investigate +2

Empathy +1, Athletics +1, Notice +1, Fight +1

Stunts

Paralyzing Gaze - Peira can direct her snakes and gaze together forward, forming a psychically active light show and attacking those that can see her face using Will.

Indomitable - +2 to Defend against Provoke attacks specifically related to Intimidation or Fear.

Always a Way Out - +2 to Create an Advantage whenever you're trying to escape from a location.

Stress Tracks:

Physical: OOO

Mental: OOOO

Consequences:

Mild

Moderate

Severe

[kingsroad]

Anyyyway I'm back, I'm the one who said you inspired them to create some ocs. I've kinda worked some aspects of them, missing the names (how can we in universe have something like Rhaenys and then Jon, no shade to my boy tbh) and some backstory details.

So I kinda wanted to ask if you have any advice for well built characters/have some resources to suggest, whatever you want, if you can of course!!

(Alyse in the last chapter broke me btw🤧)

oh my gosh, hi!! i'm so happy to hear from you & hope you've been well! i'm proud of you for continuing to work on your oc. not letting yourself give up is such a huge beginning step. as for names, i have a few resources for you! this site has a list of all male & female names used in the series, since there's typically some crossover. there's always fantasynamegenerators, too, which also has an extensive asoiaf section!

aside from naming resources, i do have a fair bit of advice about creating characters, mostly things i've learned through experience!

try not to get too in your head about having the most unique oc or doing something specifically because it's popular. this pertains to character traits, their appearance, their background, their ship. don't sweat small similarities between your ocs and other ocs. it's important that you do what drives you and what inspires you. take it easy on yourself.

balance is the most important thing. shadows are darker beneath brighter light, after all. having a character's story be entirely devoid of happiness or of strain leads to them coming off as very one note. beat them up a bit. give them a win. humble them. inflate their pride. make sure your character is a mixed bag. i've found that it makes them a lot more relatable.

speaking of giving them a win — give your character something (or someone) that they're passionate about. history? art? warfare? a sibling? a childhood friend? a parent? give them something they're good at. even something they're unmatched at. it makes them human.

i try to pin down as much as i can about a character physically and make a note of it. i know where all of alyse's scars are. i know she has a beauty mark on her ankle. i know she's 6'4 with hair so dark it's nearly black and stretch marks on her stomach and hips and breasts. referencing little things like this about them just makes the character feel corporeal. give them flaws. give them something that is strikingly beautiful about them. make them the same thing, even.

let people hate them. let people love them. i've seen a lot of people who talk big about not having your oc be well-loved by characters, to not have multiple people be attracted to your character. but there's genuinely no harm in it, as long as it doesn't feel super forced.

ultimately, this is for you! think long and hard about what you want out of your oc and fucking GO for that. write what your heart wants to write. ship with the character you want to ship with. nothing else matters at the end of the day.

this is about you finding a creative outlet. that's it! chase your bliss, my friend, no matter what it entails!

[beautifully-lumpy]

introducing my new AU...bricks and border!

back in april, jetpackbraggin's thumbnail image for caddicarus' resident evil 4 remake stream series sparked something in me - i started developing an idea for a cartoon series about the personas of online reviewers living in a large city. this idea eventually evolved into bricks and border!

bricks and border follows the escapades of the nintendo-obsessed scott (the woz) - an ambitious guy from the midwest who just so happens to be the younger cousin of the hot-headed mayor, and "laz" (caddicarus) - a brit with a mysterious past who is only known by his nickname. together they solve mysteries and get into other shenanigans in their city of oaksport. nothing is off limits!

this is basically a love letter to the entire comedic review genre on youtube. i'm super excited to start working on this!!

more info about the world and its wacky cast of characters will be revealed soon, but first we need to get into some format/release/disclaimer talk...(some of it's pretty important!)

this project will be written in prose format. i'm still deciding whether it will be in first person with the chapters alternating between scott's and laz's viewpoints, or just in third person. i know first person is looked down upon in fanfic, but that's just what my mind immediately goes to because they're youtubers who review things, and it's easy to imagine them narrating their points of view. i'm still deciding that though.

i will draw a lot for it as it's meant to be imagined as a cartoon series - and just like my previous major fandom project (onward the fanmade series), i will be drawing stills to accompany each chapter/episode! and i will gladly negotiate with any lumpy germ or wozzer who would like to contribute a guest still! and yes - you absolutely CAN create fanart/edits/etc. based on this AU! i would love to see them!

the big differences between this and OTFS are that B&B will not be contained in one book/AO3 work. OTFS episodes were written in script format, and episodes were released as one whole chapter. however, for B&B, "episodes" will be separate stories that could range from 3 chapters to 15.

as to when the first story will come out? i can say maybe soon, but i can't say the exact date and time. i'm gonna be a bit easier on myself with this one - as in, i won't be busting my ass to get a chapter out every single week. not only will i not be able to accomplish that with both my summer job consistently exhausting me and my senior year of college on the horizon, but i also don't want to burn myself out and not want to produce anymore content for the project. that's how the original caddicarus show died.

also, just a little disclaimer - this is not RPF. these are heavily fictionalized versions of the youtubers' already exaggerated personas - i mean for god's sake, B&B!scott is the younger cousin of B&B!AVGN, who is the mayor of the fictional city oaksport. lore from scott's and caddy's shows is referenced, and private people in their lives are absolutely not included in this (for example, cerys and the kids will not be mentioned). however, caddy's sister may be included, as she's a public figure.

with all that being said, i'm doing this as responsibly and cautiously as i possibly can - trust me, i previously wrote realistic non-AU caddicarus RPF and i almost got in trouble for it in 2017 when i was a stupid 15 year old who didn't know better. i know the harm RPF can do, which is why this is strictly being labeled as an AU. also i'm just gonna go ahead and say i won't be shipping characters in this. even though they're fictionalized AU versions of the youtubers, i feel uncomfortable shipping them. if you would like to create your own fan content of this AU where you ship the characters, i can't stop you. but i'm not gonna make it canon or anything.

that's pretty much all i have to say, i think. i hope that the caddicarus and scott the woz fans of tumblr will take interest in this!

[canyouhearthevoices]

'Crazy Form' MV First Reactions Part 2

Part 2! Analysis below the line.

You remember Jongho shooting everywhere in the last part?

Well, here is a funny Mingi picture from that scene. I can't tell if he's surrendering or going 'dude we were supposed to be undercover what are you doing?'

HELLL YESSSS. THIS is what I mean by this MV being connected to Bouncy - the screen is literally the Guardian Hongjoong killed in Bouncy, and Jongho 'kills' it through destroying the TV - they're on a literally Guardian-killing rampage.

Now, past media knowledge would tell us that this is a bomb of some kind. Especially since it starts glowing blue.

And since our tech dude Wooyoung looks so satisfied. Also, we know that Hongjoong is self-destructive enough to just let himself get blown up.

And although this shot tells us that it is a bomb of some kind, the next bit shows that it's not the type of bomb we would expect.

It's a tech-bomb thing... bringing the pirate ship to the city - the pirates are taking over, whether you like it or not!

This is where I relate this MV to Don't Stop - because in that MV, we saw 1) Mingi with a car that gets destroyed, 2) members gambling to get something important 3) Seonghwa leading in Hongjoong's absence, 4) the pirate ship, 5) Hongjoong blowing things up and then reuniting with the members. This MV is basically the same things - but progressed. Mingi destroys the car himself and is unscathed, new members are gambling, Seonghwa is also crazy now (possibly influenced by Joong), the ship is now upright and working, not destroyed, and Hongjoong blows things up, but this time he doesn't hurt himself doing so, and instead creates a symbol of hope by working with the other members.

It's very nice.

Also, full moon.

This is so goofy but I love it.

And that's the end for the main MV - but it's ATEEZ - we've got to see the rest.

Broken Cromer - red - we'll see why later.

If I can tell you one thing, it's that the Cromer being broken isn't good. The last time we saw the broken Cromer was in FEVER Part 3 era - is this supposed to be the same broken Cromer or an alternate-universe one, since THE WORLD and FEVER are quite likely different universes.

We then have this shot - with the blood moon, the source of the red light. And also usually used as a sign that blood has been shed or will soon be shed. Since there was a lack of death in this MV, and ATEEZ always seem to finish their album series with an Epilogue, I imagine there will be blood spilled in the next album's MV, when they actually, fully, take over the government and fight the Guardians. Or die trying.

There's also a bluebird here - I've circled it in red since it's hard to see. Not only is this an ATEEZ song, but it's also a symbol of freedom and their struggle. I also associate it with Yeosang, since he had lines mentioning it in HALAZIA. Am I supposed to associate it with Yeosang? Goodness knows.

It also carries some flashing light thing... I'm unsure what's going on there. Possibly the Cromer or part of it? A new hope for the Cromer?

And that's it! A nice MV that carried on the stories from a myriad of MVs - Deja Vu, Don't Stop, Guerrilla, HALAZIA, and Bouncy. Wonderful. I do like a connected story.

So let's talk...

Lyrics

Well, first, I needed to look at the 'ninety-two-four' thing. I wasn't immediately sure what this meant. I hear '24' and think of ATEEZ's debut date, but that would be ten-two-four, not ninety. So I looked up the number and got some Japanese company that owns a lot of stuff. I mean, it's possible they were referencing that company, since they are a conglomerate, and that's something they are fighting against in the storyline, but I also had my doubts. Looking up the meaning of the specific number leads to Angel Numbers, and the meaning of the angle number 9024 discusses enthusiasm and taking action, working towards one's goals, despite challenges. It also signals how someone can do great things in their life.

Sound familiar? Yet again, ATEEZ are making random obscure references that have real meaning and relevance to their MVs - here they are taking action, and doing so enthusiastically, smiling in the face of challenges.

Or it could mean something else. If so, please enlighten me. But this is the best I can come up with - and, since it fits, it reinforces my ideas.

Then we have some classic ATEEZ things - putting their whole soul on the stage, being confident in themselves, and dancing their hearts out. Also - mentions of the moon. Ahem, Cromer, ahem.

Mingi does his typical shantyman stuff - singing about going full speed ahead. He also talks about stocks - something that some people (like me) could associate with drug dealing and corruption. And he contrasts the red light (the shocking taking over of the stock market) with his green flags - a sign to go straight ahead, and which also could (possibly... it's a stretch) be considered to have the dual meaning of ATEEZ being a green flag - they are fighting for freedom.

We get some more 'join us or don't we don't mind', classic fire imagery, and more dance and music. And asking their followers to sing along.

Also - 'raise your glass'. Ahem, Answer.

And changing the game - another common theme for ATEEZ.

So overall, as expected, it's a pretty typical ATEEZ song, lyric-wise. I feel like a lot of their songs, lyrically, are very similar - they're all reinforcing the fighting for freedom, dance, etc. It's the MVs, albums, and other visual media, as well as the bsides, which have been doing most of the storytelling recently. This isn't an issue, and in fact, it has been happening for a long time, but it is interesting. Perhaps it makes them more marketable to the general public? Because I can 100% say that 'being cool' is more appealing to the general audience member than 'I'm a pirate lord taking over the government and using anarchy as a face to do that, also I'm drug dealing chilli peppers and shooting weird fencing robots.' Yep.

Conclusions

Some of my favourite MVs are the ones which have tons of references or connections with others - things like Bouncy, Say My Name, Answer, Illusion, and more. I like the MVs that show that the Directors and creatives behind it have both an understanding of media in general, and have carefully considered every element of the MV. As a director myself, I can appreciate that. This MV has many a reference, and nicely ties together many other MVs, from the start of this era - starting with Don't Stop, which gave us a soft introduction to this world. Nice job yet again, ATEEZ creative team.