#side characters you might run into

[worthless-weight-in-gold]

Side characters you might run into if you write with…

Thew Daniels & Hakeem Porter

This is a more in-depth look at members of the Den, basically.

Smith: Best friends with Daniels and pretty close with Porter as well. Smith's a very pale and lanky Russian man, is the friend of the group who's the butt of most of the jokes but actively finds it funny; he's very aware of his weaknesses as well as his strengths. He spends as little time outside as possible and mostly just codes, watches TV/Youtube, and plays video games. He's very upbeat, easy to laugh at others and himself, and has very "shut-in kinda loser" vibes. He's very sweet and can be quite bumbling sometimes as well. He's aware his girlfriend is significantly hotter than he is. He has one tattoo that just says "shrimp is bugs" with a doodle of a shrimp under it on the back of his left leg.

Lovely: Smith's significantly hotter girlfriend. She does squats holding members of the Den when they go out drinking. She's extremely straightforward and honest, also takes a joke like a champ, and can be overly brusque. She's Guyanese, Taiwanese, and Samoan, and sports a lot of tattoos. Some are army tattoos, most of them she got after leaving the army and are artistic -- a lot of them are of or include bones. Her hair is usually a blood orange mullet. She's built as hell and quick to use it; she can be violent, but also likes just challenging people to endurance laps or arm wrestling. Lovely also has the tendency to be really oblivious to other's emotions.

Vaughn: He's a little confused but he got the spirit. About... borderline everything. Vaughn is Italian and Welsh, has vanity muscles, declares himself to be a huge player, and showboats all the time. He's actually a pathetic romantic at heart, and showboats mostly because he finds it funny. He gets picked on the most after Smith. Vaughn has a notable inferiority complex when it comes to Porter, but does his best to avoid letting it mess with their friendship or the Den's dynamic. Vaughn's low-key a huge history nerd and likes studying golden ages of art in his spare time.

Pilot: The most private and reserved of the Den by a large amount. She doesn't often join in their after-work hangouts, and doesn't add much to pre-meeting conversations. She's the oldest of the group but the group doesn't know that because she just likes to ask "What do you think?" in response to any probing about her age/ethnicity/sexuality/hobbies/etc. Pilot letting out a snort is the equivalent of Smith's full-body laughs, although she makes some very witty jokes herself. She also has a slight emotional sadism streak -- she doesn't really do anything to people, but when anyone is distressed or upset she looks amused, including her friends. She also has a fair amount of tattoos; half in black ink & half in white. Lots of snakes, spiders, and bugs. She's a chronic hater and enjoys making fun of stuff.

David: This is a lie, you won't run into David. The Den barely runs into David. He's so, so normal it's disconcerting. The wildest thing he does is go to a club that's both a knitting club and a book club. He has a husband who's as painfully normal and average as he is. He's the cleaner of the group and removes all traces of bodies and evidence perfectly, none of anything he takes care of has ever shown up. Everyone but Pilot is a little scared of him because of the juxtaposition between Average Joe So Boring And Plain vs. Your Body Will Never Be Found.

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[daily-hanamura]

[quirkle2]

What are your opinions/thoughts on the Body Improvement Club from mp100?

I personally adore them and love how unabashedly supportive of Shigeo they are. And they legitimately have helped me with personal motivation to exercise and just. Do stuff in general. My older brother and I have been occasionally exercising together since watching mp100 and "fight on!" has become our mantra when we start getting tired or don't want to do something.

I wasn't expecting them to be recurring characters but I'm so glad they are. I'm holding them so gently (despite them all being much larger than me)

i think they're wonderful!! my first watch through, i thought for sure when mob said he wanted to join the club they'd be like ://// abt it and both mob and i would have to endure suffering but no they r actually so supportive and genuine in said support

i think it's very wholesome that mob working so hard within the club "gives the rest of them courage" as musashi had put it during that wd arc fight. even if he's very tiny and unfit compared to them, and even if he does One Quarter of a pull-up, they r cheering him on. it's actually so nice that they support him sm. i wonder how mob would've reacted, if he'd been awake when musashi said that.

actually, staying on that scene, i don't see it talked about literally anywhere, but can we fuckign . talkabt that. can we speak about this. this guy was fully willing to die for mob. he was willing to lie down his life for a kid who joined their club maybe a couple of months ago. he was willing to get fucking crushed to death about it

i also rly appreciated when musashi tried to keep mob out of the black vinegar stuff after teru's arc. pretty much every scene with the body improvement club made me like them more and more—there was always some sort of new kindness to appreciate about them

[cheriekos]

these are super, super informal and unorganized thoughts but god these panels are haunting me so:

it’s interesting to finally be reading some of the issues that i assume influence general fanon perception of damian because there’s so much emphasis on the actions against tim (and like yeah fair, fucked up let’s not move past that) but also there’s little moments sprinkled throughout that made me go “…this is a child. This is a whole child.”

like idk man! These two pieces of dialogue are very striking to me! “See? I can be useful!” And “Look at me, Mother!”. Maybe it’s just because I work with kids but i read this and very clearly hear a child’s voice! And sometimes i think because a lot of people get caught up in the “formal” way that damian speaks that people forget he’s a kid. A very competent, highly trained kid. But he’s a kid.

Again, i don’t think Damian’s actions can be brushed off just because he’s a kid, and (within the content of the Morrison run), has had some fucked up shit going on. But like - for fanon, I’m just begging folks to strike the balance between talking about Damian being held accountable for his actions and also understanding that in this point in time he’s like maybe nine or ten-years-old. Idk! I’m tired of reading analysis and fan fiction that absolutely crucifies Damian and doesn’t try to find the nuance at all.

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

I’ll be honest, whenever I start enjoying a fictional lesbian couple I start to ask myself which of them seems more transgender that I can project trans headcanons onto. Usually it’s not that difficult, but for both Marcille x Falin and Sorawo x Toriko I’ve flip flopped multiple times

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent game related things .. hrmm...

[whatudottu]

Hot take: the Ben 10 fandom and the NSR fandom are pretty much complete inverses of each other when it comes to what kinds of characters they simp for.

Ben 10 has tons of sexy aliens to the point of literally featuring an entire species of buff leotard-wearing cephalopod people that you think would attract alienfuckers by the dozen, but like 80% of the fandom simps for the basic white boy and white girl.

NSR has an entire boy band of conventionally attractive anime boy robots who outright flirt with the female playable character, but like 80% of the fandom simps for the DILF cyborg war veteran with a screen for a head and the space-themed forty-something DJ with a bowling ball for a head.

The NSR fandom said 'those old men can GET IT' and fucking ran with it so hard that it's the most written about romantic relationship (going by ao3 stats) by almost 50 give or take if you're reading with an account or not- honestly? 'Round of applause, y'all really meant it, those old men CAN get it!

But I suppose it might be helped due to the more 'boss rush' style presentation of NSR, being a game centered mostly around who you fight rather than who you fight as. More time is proportionally spent in the media (game in this case) actually focusing on characters like DJ Subatomic Supernova - representation of the self-centered DJ - and Neon J - representation of boybands and specifically as the manager - and getting a comparably significant amount of focus; space themed object head has an ego so dense it LITERALLY causes a singularity (and causes spaghettification) and war veteran cyborg ordering around troops with protocols.

With Ben 10 god I fucking wished more people simped for Tetrax, bestie is just such a cool fucking character let alone how he was introduced and thus executed, but as a show with MANY iterations we kinda need to have a central cast (that gets narrowed down eventually into a central character). Whoever wears the Omnitrix - the one main driving force of the series - is essentially forever a main character, and that character just so happens to be Ben Tennyson after one alien device did what it did.

Despite it's main focus BEING the aliens that Ben turns into - in addition to being a universe with an active alien presence - it never particularly set out to be more than anything other than a sci-fi alien flavoured action story, centered around a human boy (who probably gets his egg completely shattered only to crack an entire coop of eggs in the aftershock) walking only a few steps in other species' shoes. It was only rather late that the actual extraterrestrial exploration of the series really came around, at least in full force (SoTO my beloved 😫). Kinda hard for EVERYONE to simp for your favourite side character when you've got like... seasons worth of a mostly human main cast, lmao-

[zevranunderstander]

i love watching youtube analyses of movies and shows and i love when the person explaining something is totally wrong about the thing theyre talking about

[quibbs126]

I’ve been trying to take a break on my requests (emphasis on trying), but at the same time, I need to create new OCs, I must create!

[katyspersonal]

This is belated but just wanted to say that one thing that people don't get about cancelation and similar public drama is that it only extremizes people. It shows who's an untrustworthy potential backstabbing zeolot willing to burn you at the stake despite prior good interactions and who isn't 🙃 Without taking sides I know which people I absolutely won't talk to now. Way to create more reactionaries too.

Oh... Well, yeah, it IS somewhat belated, heheh. I addressed a similar point back in summer - that drama a certain someone caused brought its use! It split the pool of people I knew onto those who sticked with me because they could realize what person I am (if not only got MORE defensive) and those that instantly turned on me without any benefit of the doubt despite how warm and admiring they've been, some even used to call me friend. Ironically, it were the one admiring me the loudest who jumped into witch burning without any hesitation - however that kinda... didn't hurt much, because I already learned that in the internet excessive admiring and excessive friendliness gives away shallow "feelings" and I don't need to get attached to such people. They turn on you as soon as being nice to you costs them!

And, yeah, you are right, it creates more reactionaries, it is a rift that keeps growing, so people can no longer throw a bridge over it and HAVE to retreat to ether side. I can assure you that I've irreversibly changed since summer, but I am glad I was strong enough to stay here instead of... desperately trying to jump there, only to be pushed into the pit the rift caused. Those people do not want the conflict gone - they want YOU gone.

There were like... two people who as much as talked to me and they used to be reasonable and chill upon ceasing interactions with me (one for real, another only publically). But as much as I try to not keep up with people who left, on Tumblr it is not possible every time, so I inevitably learned they've changed to the worst on 'that' side, and it will probably only get worse. Like, at this state the mutation into cringe is permanent, why do you think I lost it and blocked certain someone? And past that point, that blog for a bit appeared basically Yharnam with half-beast people attacking a human under excuse that this human is a "foul beast" gfjhhfgh So, good call that I left- smashing the door or not. Just as you said, even neutral and open-minded people are FORCED to become much more of reactionary, angry, hostile blockheads, because attempt to stay neutral will inevitably make you fall in the pit. Because these rifts don't quite patch themselves! Bb fandom used to be very neutral, civil and basically an anomaly amongst fandoms, peaceful place full of autonomous mature people that only had tiny argurments about the certain old man - and I saved his reputation with facts and evidence, not with pleading to "let people enjoy things" now didn't I? It was obvious with how much larger audience ER grabbed that woke cancer was soon to get here too, and here you have it! People thinking publically alienating someone is somehow acceptable *cough cough*, more of the radfem fits that make not only male fans sick but anyone normal, bringing someone's heavily personal conflicts up in the public to dig into *cough cough*, normalizing being willfully ignorant about lore just to bash the WHITE CIS MALE :'(, having a tantrum about "sexism" when gamers rightfully dislike an unfair female boss... you name it.

It is a very common mistake to make when witch hunters come to lynch you for some dumb reason, too! You know what's the difference between religious fanatics and woke warriors? When you "confess your sins and repent" - religious fanatics forgive you, accept you amongst themselves and help you to stay on the same path with them. When you "acknowledge your behavior and apologize" - woke warriors STILL hate you and find 500000 reasons to doubt you and not only ensure permanent sense of alienation in you, but also you ever doing what they deem bad ever again will serve as "evidence that you can never change". How to avoid that if even the best people who fit their ideas of purity- errr, moral correctness to a T can make mistakes? SHRUUUUUUG. It is very ironic that they often compare themselves with demonic entities or call themselves 'granddaughters of the witches you could not burn' when they ARE witch hunters. When THEY are religious fanatics. Only that traditional fanatics hate LGBTQ+ and step on women's rights, but the wokies hate cishets and step on men's rights. But THAT sort of foolishness and cruelty is not about certain beliefs, it is about attitude alone. Targets can change, but yearning for purification can not.

If you ever find yourself in a situation like this - retreat. You might be civil and cool, you might accidentally lose the grace in (justified) anger, but retreat. And you will be happier. The "evangelists" also dislike people who don't take sides sooner or later, but the "witches" accept everyone who is not a treat to themselves xD If you are ever forced to take side, you know where you will be safer. There is no way back and even friendly people by hostile side get overpowered by Executioners- errr, I mean by the drama-hungry freaks and become blockheads too.

Anyways, anon, thank you for this ask. I legitimately wanted to make a post like 'hey guys can anyone talk to me' because I needed to vent but not wanted to be too random, and you allowed me to talk about it and reflect on the past! You are also very based from what I can say.

[worthless-weight-in-gold]

Side characters you might run into if you write with…

Devilworker Jim

His shop is generally full of artifacts he mostly wants to sell, to spread curses or corrupt people or just to make some money, but he also uses what's in his shop frequently to help him do magic since he really doesn't get that much from his contractor.

There's artifacts that he uses often -- books, a locket that drains and holds magic power, his connection mirror -- but also one he uses in emergencies only that acts similarly to a familiar for him which is his ringing bell.

The ringing bell is a slightly rusted, ornate bell tightly stuffed with cheesecloth and wrapped in twine to keep the cloth in place so that the bell cannot ring. It has more sentience that most of the artifacts in his shop, and is very affectionate to Jim above all others but often tries to get other people to untie the string and pull the fabric out so it can ring. It feels a constant compulsion to ring.

However, the bell stores the remnants of souls that were tortured to corrosion. The second it starts ringing, all living creatures in the vicinity are incapacitated by hearing hundreds of thousands of anguished screams shatteringly loud in their minds. While there is no sound out loud other than the relatively soft chime of a bell, the shouts cause ears to bleed.

Magical energy can be drawn from these souls if they are heard, and if someone is able to willpower through the pain, but it is incredibly difficult to.

Its primary drive is to ring for eternity, as much as possible. Its secondary drive is basically having a little crush on Jim, as much as a bell can have a crush, and getting attention from him or making him happy. Jim has an odd fondness for it in kind and privately tends to pet the bell and sometimes drop fond kisses to its surface when it tries to be helpful.

The bell also likes playing chase and will happily either chase after others or be chased by others. It is not particularly fast and can be outpaced by the average jog. It is also not very dexterous and can be grabbed without much trouble. So playing with it in a way that lasts longer than 2 seconds requires some "I'm playing hide and seek with a toddler" self-nerfing.

If someone gets friendly enough with the ringing bell, it will try to be helpful to them. Sometimes it'll warn them away from more dangerous artifacts or help them find ones they're looking for, but it is very hard to persuade to actually leave the store. Even Jim usually can't get it to come along with him when he goes out.

[inkskinned]

which is fine, because love is love, and you're getting gay-married, so it would be kind of ironic if love was only sometimes love.

except The King Of Demons (his is Edmund) is always late, to everything, always. which is fair, because time doesn't work in hell, and it's not like he can just catch a bus. except that you specifically asked him not to do this, didn't you, because he's always doing things like this.

He splays out his hands, the light catching on long, ivory claw tips. god, doesn't he know not to wear white to a wedding?

so many people are screaming right now.

it's not that he's the golden child. you guys had normal parents, middle-class. your mom was kind of an "almond mom," according to your fiancée, who pursed their lips when they found out about how your mom used to wrinkle her nose any time you asked for an extra snack in your lunchbox.

you close your eyes for a moment. think of your beautiful almost-spouse. ashe. their name like a bloom inside you. how the dress looks on ashe's body, their shy little smile. how they'd walked down the aisle, and you'd both been half-laughing, half-crying. your hands had trembled when you saw them. like the whole world was pouring down your throat, golden. like you were catching a moment and casting it in amber.

ashe'd been the one to help you when your parents were pushing for you to invite edmund. god, the amount of fights you'd gotten in with your parents - the same six sentiments, over and over again.

you'd been sitting on your bed, biting your lip, your fingers hovering over the little button send. ashe'd nuzzled your neck. you used to be close, and i think that's important. but you know your relationship to him the most. i'm willing to make the effort, and i love you no matter what you choose, they'd said. we don't have to if you don't want to, though, no matter what your parents say about him.

you'd thrown yourself down, supine, arm over the eyes. he's just... we are just.... you tried to phrase that-which-is-love-and-rage.

you're the normal twin. your "big thing" was only "being a lesbian." in high school, edmund started being able to make birds die by looking at them. you came home, trying to tell your parents i kissed a girl. i think i'm - and they just kind of nodded at you. edmund was eating the bible in front of them, like a goat.

on the bed, you'd held your hands out vaguely to ashe. edmund is a just always a lot.

ashe had shrugged. don't invite him then. and it was that - that they were okay with either of your decisions - that is why he even got an invite, in the end.

and now here he is, like how you wanted (?), and your hands are red, clenched hard around your bouquet. the officiant is crying. some people are on their knees, praying. some are trying to touch your brother, like he could impart a blessing.

"i made it!" he's triumphant. "i know i'm late, i'm sorry, there was - do you know anything about right-wing politicians?"

"i'm going to fucking kill him," you say, although you're not actually sure who you're talking to, or if he can be killed.

ashe is blinking, their face in a tiny oh of surprise. you take their hand, drop their hand, take their hand again. they blink at your brother. their voice is low but steady. "there's, um. is there a dark halo around him?"

you duck your head to meet their eyes. "fuck, ashe. i'm sorry. he wasn't supposed to -"

"did i miss it?" Edmund is swinging his head around far-too-wide. his 2 sets of horns leave little red mist any time they scour through the air. "I didn't miss the kiss, right?"

the town clerk is in the audience, and she's frowning. you send her an apologetic look. she shakes her head. "as we've discussed," she manages to throw her gentle voice over the din, "the wedding isn't official if someone objects. that is the legal statute. which people tend to be understanding of." she sends a dirty look to edmund, and that makes you love her. she seems completely calm, which makes sense, because she works in the town hall, and this probably isn't even her first demon-showing-up-at-a-wedding.

he somehow hears her, holds his hands up. "i'm not objecting!" the back of the event hall catches on fire. of-fucking-course. "i'm not - don't mind me, uh, please continue." edmund sends a look to the back-of-the-room fire and it whimpers and gutters out. he flashes you a winning smile, and then puts his hand to his king's-garb chest and mouths sorry! and then cartwheels his glittering talons to say go ahead.

"i think i'm going to throw up." the officiant's voice is barely a whisper.

you watch in horror as edmund tries to awkwardly slide into a waiting line of chairs. the sound of begging follows him, people on their knees at hell's king. he pats a few of them on the head, holding up his finger in a sheepish shh! while his touch leaves a bleeding rune on their skin. his hooves click, and his footprints leave ruby-bright fireroses in his wake.

he tries to sit down, but the wooden chairs are made for people and not the lord king of demons, so he has to span his furred hindquarters over two seats. he smiles again, offers you a little wave.

the room is dead silent, minus the weeping. you look back to ashe. you ruined this. you shouldn't have invited him. you spent so much money on this event, and ashe looks so fucking handsome, and you haven't even gotten to kiss them. to make it official.

ashe looks up at you, manages a little smile. "could be worse?"

you feel yourself start to smile too, but then edmund's chairs give out, and he falls directly on the floor, and with his startled yelp, everything around him bursts into the cold whip-crease of hellflame, disintegrating everything that isn't-a-person, including the flowers and the decorations and the cake and the tables. everything you saved for months to be able to afford. the venue that you both agonized over choosing. you picked this place because it was significant to both of you and was equidistant from both your parents and had a deal with the local hotel for people coming out of town. two years of planning, literally burning down around your ears.

edmund manages to stop the fire pretty much immediately, but it's too late. the officiant faints clear away. the town clerk gives you a sympathetic look and mouths see you soon and steps neatly out of the room, taking ashe's parents with her, chatting gently. an arched flower frame collapses into dust with a loud whoomp. pretty much nobody is left in the building, and you're standing at the top of the steps, at the fucking hour of your marriage, and there is nothing left but blue-cold embers, the lights blown out in favor of the eerie hellfire glow.

you sit down, hard. after a few seconds, you feel ashe sit down next to you. you put your head between your knees so you don't puke with rage, which would be somehow more humiliating than everything else happening at the moment.

"okay, it's definitely too soon," they whisper in your ear, "but i have to admit there is something that's going to be so funny later about my name being ashe and my wedding going up in flames." they wrap their hand in yours. "i can't believe we worried about candles. we should have just gone with them instead of worrying about safety. are you okay?"

you send them a look. "am i - am i okay? this absolute bitch -" you gesture with your free hand out to where edmund is trying to piece together the cinders of his chair, "ruined my fucking wedding."

your mom is standing awkwardly in what used to be the "family" row of chairs. your father is absent, of course. she makes a noise at you. "don't call your brother a bitch."

"oh my fucking god." you have to put your head between your knees again, fighting that stupid fucking rage-puke urge. your blood pressure has obviously reached "skyrocket".

"he's here, isn't he? you're not being particularly grateful," your mother says, because of course she does.

"oh my god! ohmygod. ohmygod." you feel yourself hyperventilating, and then you start laughing, and you hate the hyena hysteria of it, the way it pitches dangerously close to a sob. "this is just - this is just like you! this is the fucking - you blow out the candles on the birthday cake! you curse the kids i'm trying to babysit! you get straight-A's on every test without studying, and get all the friends, and everyone is obsessed with you! and then when i graduate from art school, do i fucking get a party? nope! but hey, let's throw edmund a party for his 300,000th tortured soul! and his 300,001st! and fucking everything else. and fuck me, i guess! edmund gets hurt on the playground, let's burn down the playground. i got fucking bullied, and our parents don't even notice. i am fucking struggling, but we need to pay attention to edmund. he gets fucking everything. while we're at it, why don't we let him fucking ruin my wedding!"

you are dimly aware of ashe wrapping one arm around you and then the other, and then you are sobbing into their shoulder.

"oh, come on. stop with the hysterics," your mother chides you. "you had a perfectly fine childhood. all kids fight. you should have gotten the ceremony done faster. and you know i didn't approve of you spending all this money when you have student loans to -"

"respectfully," ashe's voice is cold and cutting while they rub circles on your shaking back, "and i know you're about to be my mother-in-law, but -" you hear them force a smile, "maybe you could choose this moment to leave your daughter the fuck alone?"

you are so fucking in love with ashe at that moment that it stops your weeping like you got hit by a truck. you look up at them, and want to go back to crying, just overwhelmed by the sheer fucking amount you care about them, but then you look over at your mother, and her shocked expression, and you burst out laughing.

your mother makes a few almost fish-like motions with her mouth, and then turns on her heel, stomping over cinders on her way out. and then it is just you and ashe and edmund and how you are half-crying half-laughing quietly to yourself, like a tap that won't stop dripping.

edmund has put the chair down. he is staring at his hands. he is at least 500 pounds and over 7 feet tall (he doesn't use metric, he's the devil). and somehow, right now, he just looks... small. crestfallen.

"yeah, i mean." his voice cracks. there's no boom of thunder or hellhound echo. he sounds like he did as a kid, before the strange powers and the levitating and the souls of the damned. he sounds like he did the night he accidentally melted most of the pieces in your first glass art show. he sounds - like your brother. he puts the heel of his palm against his eye. "i ruined my sister's wedding."

ashe offers him a little half-grin. "i do just want to say i love the aesthetic, by the way. but you did very much ruin my wedding too."

he points at them, finger-guns. "....ruined their wedding too." something in the attempt at humor - how his voice breaks on the words, how lonely he sounds. it makes you have to close your eyes against the sound. "....you seem cool," he says. "it's... it was nice to meet you."

you hear him come over, his hooves clacking slowly on the floor. when you open your eyes, he's sitting closer to you.

he opens his hand. inside are two little ceramic figures. wedding cake toppers. "i... i made them for you two. i figured i would try - how you make art, without magic. i... i took a class, and i made - i made them." he looks down at the little white-dressed people in his wide, calloused palm. "it's... i wanted to be ... good. i..." he looks at you, and then at ashe. "i tried, you know?"

ashe reaches up, lets him roll the figures into their palm.

he stands up. folds his hands in front of himself. "i don't. know how to be good. i know it doesn't come naturally to you, either. i saw you... choose. to be kind. you could have treated me different, too. like everybody? i was weird, and everyone knew. if you'd been ... mean? it would have been okay. but you." he shrugs. "one time you tried to kill me in the bathroom."

you don't know why you're crying. you look up at him through the cracks between your fingers. "twice," you croak. "but the second time i had a knife." you tuck your hair behind your ears. "but that was only after you pushed me down the stairs at grandma's and i broke my leg before a dance performance. you fuckin' deserved that one."

"i pushed you because you were being a wretched bitch."

"hey now," ashe says, a little edge to their voice, "that's my wife."

you squeeze their hand. "no, he's right. i had deleted his pokemon gold save file right before the elite four."

ashe drops your hand like you scalded them, showing the only horror you've seen this whole time. "you - girl, what the fuck?"

you shrug a little. "i was being a wretched bitch. and he did break my leg about it."

edmund shifts a little. "i just - you are...." his voice dies.

in your family, you don't say i love you. in your family, you don't touch each other or show affection. in your family, you just show up for each other, quietly. neither of you knows how to speak or process what needs to be said. you can see that lacking flashing over his face, literally playing out in shades of crimson. you get that weird twin-sense of something unsaid.

ashe sets the little ceramic people to the side. "she treated you like a person when everyone else treated you like a prophet."

you cut your eyes to them, and then edmund, who gives you one very short, sharp nod. "i, uh. i can. never try." he clears his throat. "i can never try hard enough. for that. i can - what you gave me. by. doing that. by ... just. i made. one thousand. wedding toppers. so it could be perfect. because - i ... it needed to be perfect." he appears to be dying of embarrassment, which does imply he might be capable of dying. oh good. in case i need to try to kill him a third time.

the thought makes a weird, wet laugh bubble out of you. "remember that one time i failed my math test and you set mr. fog's car on fire about it?"

edmund looks shyly at you, and a very small grin spreads across his face. not the dark lord - just a 30-something year old man who has just upset his one-and-only twin.

"you're throwing us the most ostentatious, egregiously expensive wedding," you tell him. "above land."

he frowns a little. "okay, but i'm not doing anything in miami. the vibes there give me the heebie jeebies."

ashe holds up their hand. "and you'll be repaying the deposit on literally everything. oh, and replacing the cake."

you kiss their cheek and then point to him. "and you'll be on time for it."

he shrugs a little. "okay, i literally can't perform miracles, so like. set the bar lower. i can't promise i'll-"

you look down at your feet. "i'd like you to be my man of honor this time. like. by my side. so. you can't be late this time. okay? we do it the right way. finally."

"huh," ashe says, looking between the two of you. "you guys have the same smile."

edmund's grin becomes a little wider, a little easier. he raises an eyebrow at them. "okay, i get that you're cool, but you're like, very cool about this whole thing."

ashe lifts a shoulder. "used to work for the monster under the bed."

"oh shit, simon? fuck." he points to them. "remind me not to mess around with you."

you want to tell edmund i love you and i missed you, but you can't. instead, you pick up the figurines. they're not perfect, but you can tell hours of his life went into each. his hands are so big - it must have taken him so much work to make these things so small. you picture him with his back bent over a workbench, trying to get a face into a tiny clay figure. the ceramic version of you is smiling. he's given you little fangs and a unibrow. he gave ashe a tiny yellow crown. you make the two figures kiss.

snow is falling indoors, little icicles of hellfire. ashe reaches out and take edmund's hand, and then, very awkwardly, he reaches out and takes yours too.

for a moment, it's just the three of you, and the beautiful quiet of the room.

You’re standing at the altar, about to get married to your beautiful fiancée. When suddenly the king of demons bursts through the door of the room, which naturally causes panic. You tried to warn everyone that inviting your sibling to the wedding would mean trouble, but they kept insisting.

[mantisgodiveblog]

We probably should not make a post on here every time we try and work on getting our stuff to postability, but we do want to assure people we haven't straight-up abandoned this project. Unfortunately, we also have... negative time right now, between kitten season bringing fosters, October bringing writing and art challenges, and monetary issues forcing us to seek out modes of being paid (which in our case, is 4-6 hours of Course that we can get a grant to go through).

Though we are still slowly chipping away at things, and Gaining Skills The Government Wants To Be Better Represented means that we have gotten some degree of "semi-disposable income" (technically a one-time payment but falls into the category of "there'll be more later in the program and it's meant to get us through the year and buy anything we need to attend and we already had most of this junk on hand from the last time we did schooling"), we really, really don't have the time to do almost anything that isn't necessary for keeping us or a resident animal alive, and we're dedicating the hour or so that we have free to either socializing or working on October art challenges.

We're working on it, slowly. There probably isn't going to be enough time in the day for us to breathe until the holidays, and what small work we can do on this probably won't result in anything for a while yet. Though we would dearly like to be capable of dedicating more time to porting and liveblogging here, the chunk of backlog we have is stuck in Discord not because we didn't want to chat about it in more active time, but because typing things out on our phone during lectures and public transport is functionally what we have as free time right now. If you have the time, we've been writing regular, non-liveblog fic you can read. If you don't...

In theory, the next time we'll have the chance to breathe is in about a month and a half in the winter holidays, and in practice, it might be longer. Having to deal with institutions like this is wretched for our mental health even if we aren't dealing with incompetence in people older than us. There's a multitude of reasons none of our previous ventures into academia have ever resulted in a degree, and we're in the thick of it right now. For now, even if we can manage periodic updates... god, we'll be real with you. We generally try to keep things as private as possible, and we may regret being as specific as this later, but at this point down the road, we're so far past done that sticking a fork in us would evaporate it.

We have a very, very long fuse, and a lot of patience, and that has been starkly necessary for the vast majority of our life. About a month of four to six hours of class, in combination with general issues with an ongoing Incident only ending a month or so ago where an admin of a specific Discord managed to exacerbate some key issues with two of our closest friends to the point of causing multiple panic attacks, in combination with money issues from everything in the world getting simultaneously worse and more expensive, is rapidly bringing us to the end of it. We do not believe that we can provide a decent liveblog if we are constantly on the verge of clawing someone's ears off, and quite frankly, we don't think we're going to have the time to sink into a project that requires a computer until we have enough time to make a meal that is more complex than fried dumplings.

We thank you for your patience. We certainly need it, at the moment. We will be back at this the moment that we are capable, and trust us, we would not be absent if we weren't capable. We hope and trust things will get less miserable soon. We hope and trust

[sysig]

Leftovers gone bad (Patreon)

[bmpmp3]

i was like. thinking about the software situation with the cryptonloids and i got curious if there was any progress on the non-miku NT banks yet so i went to listen to those vocals they use in that mobile game (if i remember correctly they use beta versions unreleased to the public?) and like. you know. despite how contentious miku nt herself is i think some of the betas for the others sound pretty good, len sounds fantastic and rin sounds about on par with her older banks (although i do miss a bit of her sharpness) and like. i may be killed with hammers for this but i was listening to the heat abnormal cover and i think i like the kaito nt beta sound more than his v3 like he sounds fantastic here. i dont dislike his v3 or anything but the nt bits ive heard has like some of the depth and richness i so sorely miss from his v1 while having the old-yamaha-keyboard-keyboard-key-spring sound that i do enjoy of his v3.... i do wish it had more of the v1 strength tho