#so applies to my other canon-adjacent stuff too

[bisexualmcqueen]

In the apoc au, can working parts be taken from already dead cars? If so, does that mean that grave robbing could be a thing? Digging up the dead for their parts…

hehehee

excellent question. so this is already baked into the entire setup/conflict

Cars are mostly metal, but they have some semi-organic bits. Eyes, mouth-flesh, some internal organs, a non-mechanical circulatory system: all stuff that decomposes. It turns to sludge, and drips out of gaps in the living metal. As the months have gone on, the corpses have started to turn a bit …gummy. In places where winter never touched, the scattered bodies of unfortunate souls lay in pools of rank, thick liquid. [Turbine]

we've established that there's just dead bodies Everywhere. millions of people died, not nearly enough are left to bury them all. its a horror show. cars dont decompose as fully/quickly as organic beings do. theyre mostly metal/synthetics. so youd think there's just a buffet of free parts laying around right?

well, back up. how are the cars Alive in the first place...? its some sort of undefined fantasy-like magic. they are whimsical, fantastical beings. they can feel temperature, pain, pleasure- theyre fully alive as machines.

their Metal itself is alive.

and when they die, their Metal dies too.

same reasoning why when Dusty needed a new gearbox they had to find one from the Factory for him, or repair what he already had. Like... why?

same reason Doc died at the same time the AMC-badged cars went into a parts-war. [context: IRL the Hudson brand became AMC, then went out of business].

the new parts are Unclaimed/New metal, and they Bond/Mesh/Heal Into their new Body. the living metal bonds and cannot be unbonded without potentially being killed. the metal dies unless its handled by someone who knows what theyre doing- which is why car mechanics of a certain knowledge can be Doctors. or... other professions :)

Now this isnt to say parts-harvesting or graverobbing is impossible. sometimes some of the metal can rebond- some of it never died. [this is the type of work Mater does in salvage- it's part of his expertise to recognize these usable bits of metal from junk]. none of it is an exact science, because its magic, like the cars themselves.

this is where we crash into the second issue: the thing that Killed The World. The Blast, the EMP, the whatever it was, the End:

it tore up most cars on the inside. most vehicles blew the fuck up- not just their engines, but electrical systems flowing through their bodies caused damage to surrounding areas too, organic and mechanical.

not a lot of the corpses are salvageable. its mostly dead metal, and all torn up too.

Lightning’s eyes are already heavy, but in his last moments of consciousness, he tracks Cruz through blurry vision, fumbling with some living-solder and a propane tank, looking at the still-seeping bullet wound on Chick’s flank with a silent frown on her face. [Hi. I'm a grub and I live in the soil.]

parts are rare. this causes trouble. >:)

"-There’s nothing left anymore. I’m sorry.” [Old Spare]

[further reading on the blood-side of Living Metal theory, both worldbuilding ideas by Non]

OC Rundown POV in apocalypse Rundown is an old parts-harvester/engineer, forced to taste his own medicine of torment when the apocalypse strikes. He's modified himself enough to have survived- but just barely. He's trapped himself in a hell of his own evil making.

OH YEAH and to go even further. i think the vehicles themselves were employees of their own factories making their own parts [like any other manufacturing job], so the survivors have to learn the art of part-forging with unbonded living metal. its a whole process of skill-preservation. ive been slowly picking at who in the cast learns the forging skill- several characters certainly. and of course some of the factory experts survived, but they cant do everything alone!

thanks for the ask!

[littledead-ridinghood]

sorry if this is a weird question to drop on you you were just the first person I thought of who might know but do you know if it's canon/canonically-based evidence that jason is physically stronger than other bats because I always see people say jason is the one with "brute strength" and I can't remember if that's based on anything besides people saying that as a nicer way to call him a brute(maybe it was on lobdells stuff? but I wiped most of those out of my memory)

You thought of me first? <333333 I'm blushing. And it's not weird at all! Even if it was, I love answering weird shit.

Anyway:

So part of Jason being considered "the muscle" of the bats comes from the fact that Jason's currently the biggest of the robins. (Adult!Damian is usually drawn as the tallest of the kids when all is said n' done (that's vague for "age")).

Well, how big then?

I always go with this chart which was released while UtRH was being released:

(I Love this! I wish DC still did little info things like this within their comics. Or maybe they do and I'm just blind. But Look! Canonical Information!)

So canonically speaking, at least when running around pre-crisis, Jason is 6 feet tall and 180 pounds. (Also note criminal mastermind and put a pin in it)

But you've probably heard 200 & 220 thrown around a lot. Those numbers are specifically pulled from two different DC character encyclopedia books which I don't trust at all because there notoriously filled with false information and are dubbed as not canon all the time.

Personally, I use the 6', 180-195 pound range which estimates for fluctuating weight, the passage of time, muscle mass, and minimum bulk & cutting (which I assume is part of most superheroes' training to stay in fighting form, but please recognize that vigilantes are more athlete than bodybuilder) because it's from a canon source (Canon is "king" and all that). No shame to people who use the other numbers or even headcanon something completely different, but again, vigilantes are predominantly running all over cities day after day, not stagnant weight lifters. Cardio vs weights body compositions are quite different even if both are healthy. (And it's not all "swimmer's body illusion" either (they have that body because they swim? No, they swim because they have that body.)

How much muscle mass a person can maximally obtain is up to your genetics. But that max only comes with constant maintainment. It's not feasible for Jason to be doing all that cardio and also have that much muscle mass and fat. Cardio burns "fat" (calories), weights build muscle. We constantly see the former and former-adjacent workouts more than the latter with him. Jason is running across rooftops, flipping off them before falling into a shoulder roll onto the next roof over chasing after bad guys every night. The number of calories he'd have to eat and time put into lifting weights (too many reps a week lead to damage, not growth) to maintain his max (max being what a lot of weights category athletes try to achieve which Jason just hasn't been shown to be (except in his jailbird phase where he could literally only lift weights, read, and avoid being killed to pass the time)) isn't possible.

Using comic art to "prove" how much he weighs doesn't work either. Firstly, because everyone wears weight differently. Two people can be the same height, weight, and sex and look completely different. This is due to different body types, composition, genetics, diet, (what kind of) exercise, and many other factors. Assuming someone thinner is automatically "super light" doesn't factor in different body compositions (fat, muscle, bone percentages). (yes, I know it's stupid to apply science to comics. There's my digression. let me live). Secondly, Jason (just like everything else about him) isn't drawn consistently at all. Sometimes he's pretty damn massive, but we also have Twink and Twunk Jason (DC can't even decide on hair color? Do you think they're gonna decide on his body?).

So, comic book art isn't super reliable as evidence unless we want to theorize if, how, and why he seems to fluctuate between weights all the time (<- Which I have a whole headcanon about if anyone's curious), especially in comparison to the others because, seriously, it's totally a Jason thing. Most characters are pretty consistent in body type. Anyway, someone could argue "See! he is 210!" but it's also not for a long enough period to stick around :/ Again, hard to consistently maintain that much weight as a 6-foot-tall, cardio-based athlete.

Also note: DC is horrible when it comes to weight-to-height lineups. A woman hero can be ~5'7'' and then we're told she's 110 lbs which Fact 1. is considered underweight for this kind of height-to-sex ratio, Fact 2. probably isn't factoring in the fact that muscle is heavier than fat, she just "looks thin", and 3. Usually, totally, absolutely is just blatant sexism.

Really, the numbers don't seriously mean anything of actual substance because their comics, are unreliable, and also usually just...scientifically wrong. But Jason's perception on page, as well as the information we've been told, is one reason he's considered "brute strength first and foremost."

Furthermore, Jason has been shown repeatedly to be on par with Bruce (even when Jason, most of the time, plays defense in their physical fights) but many people chalk this up to him and Bruce having similar physiques making it "easier". Again, counter-productive argument because Bruce and Jason have been drawn very similarly before in stories as well as completely different from each other in others. Also, this purposefully, blatantly ignores Jason's actual skills. No one chalks Dick Grayson or Cassandra Cain beating Bruce up to their body types. Moreover, when Bruce and Jason are drawn similarly in body, no one refers to Bruce as "Brute Strength" either. Bruce gets to be tactical, strategic, clever. (Also Also: In Pre-Crisis, Bruce, Dick, and Jason are deliberately drawn to look similar (height, mass, looks, etc.) to get that Brothers in Blood effect. Still, No one chalks the formers up to all strength. Just Jason)

And that brings us to your question, Anon: Is there canonical evidence for Jason being stronger than the other Bats?

Remember how I told you to put a pin in that "Occupation: Criminal Mastermind" note? Well, first off, Jason creating jobs for his community. Go off, king. Second off, and more importantly so, "Mastermind": a person who supplies the directing or creative intelligence for a project (Merriam-Webster).

When Jason was first re-introduced, what made Jason dangerous was that he was highly skilled and smart. He was playing with both Black Mask and Batman like a cat batting a toy mouse. He orchestrated an entire "slow-growing" takeover of Gotham's underworld (he was actually very quick about it). Jason controlled the situation and planned so well that he had the villains and heroes who were both after him fighting each other so he could slip away and do what he actually needed to do.

Throughout Jason's history, he's always had tools with him when he fights. To the point that Bruce says to Jaybin "You won't always have this" cutting his utility belt, insinuating he relies too much on it, which Jason returns the favor to on his return and fights B hand to hand <3 Love a cocky callback. Furthering this, he knows many, many different fighting styles and techniques both from life experience and from extensive training. Jason's a quick learner by nature and is incredibly adaptive. Guns; knives; swords; pens; sets bombs to specifically implode, not explode; makeshift gadgets; a baseball bat just laying around; a tire jack that one time; brains. I could go on. Jason doesn't just hit things. He uses what he has as a means to an end. He's canonically known as one of the best strategists in-universe and is incredibly creative with his surroundings. Jason isn't just great at extensive, long-term planning either. Bruce himself has remarked on the fact that Jason thinks incredibly quickly on his feet, he's really good at improvisation. Concisely, he has plans A-G and if all those fail, he can pull something out of nothing. Contrast this with Bruce who needs to have a plan for everything. Even if it doesn't look like he's following a plan, Bruce is. Opposed to Jason who can go with the flow and figure it out along the way.

Jason even said this in present-era in TFZ:

And that's the whole point, isn't it? Jason is strong. Incredibly so. He's big and tall and has gorgeous thighs. Not to mention, has a mean right hook. But just because Jason's strong doesn't mean he isn't a bat first and foremost who relies on his brain before anything else. He died 4'6 (on his death certificate, his height varies depending on what source you pull) and famously had to defend himself his entire life ever before being Robin. Being young and small and forced to survive shaped Jason into a quick thinker who could either get away or take enemies 10x his size down. Nowadays, he just has a longer reach.

In Event Levithan when Damian says: "Jason Todd is one of the Great Master fighters of all time" He doesn't say strongest because Damian doesn't mean strongest. Damian means adaptable, smart, capable, and well-rounded in skill.

While I don't doubt that Jason is most definitely one of the strongest Bats due to his size, what makes Jason dangerous is not his body, but the fact that he knows how to use it. It's not "Brute Strength" as many people like to say, it's Strategic Strength. He knows just because he's stronger than someone doesn't mean he'll always win. A la see panels above. Jason knows throwing his body around won't do anything of real, long-term substance. That it's just blindsided and stupid.

I'm sure if I looked I could pull panels where other bats and/or vigilantes refer to Jason as the muscle, brute (strength), all brawn (no brain), other such implications, etc, but whenever people do, it's always to undermine Jason's skill. Because it's not actually about his strength. Jason, with his taller, more built form, makes walking quiet seem easy. And it looks easy because he's good. Jason himself knows his skill set, it's everyone else that undermines him time and time and time again. (Again, Event Levithan, Bruce doesn't agree with Damian's statement even though Jason just outsmarted the six or so people who all just tried to take him down (for something Jason didn't even do, mind you))

But, again from Damian, Jason's not known as "the muscle," he's "the emotional one" also usually used to...degrade Ja--We can't have anything nice apparently is what I'm saying. But yes, when people refer to Jason as "Brute Strength" it's usually them trying to find a nicer way of saying Brute or "thinks with his fists" or "Jason hits first, asks questions later." It's in the same vein as when people say "Jason likes books" as short-hand for "see, he's smart at something" rather than acknowledging that Jason achieved a degree's worth of knowledge in comp-sci by age 13.

Anyway Smart and Strong Jason, my beloved. I wish DC & others loved you as much as Rosenburg and the teams of artists he's been working with do.

[molinaesque]

Cooper Howard and Lucy MacLean's rare and wonderful dynamic (and how it's ultimately alright if they don't become "endgame" or whatever)

First off... I'm saying this as a HUGE ghoulcy shipper btw. I don't wanna hear about some bullshit about how "you just don't like the ship" or something dumb like that (have you SEEN the state of my blog??). I ADORE this ship. These are also ultimately my own thoughts. Do not be affronted if this somehow doesn't apply to your hcs. At the end of the day, this is fiction, nothing more.

Something I have to note on about the wonderful dynamic between Cooper and Lucy. Even if ghoulcy stays platonic, I'm fine with it because this is the closest dynamic to Jack/Liz from 30 Rock that l've seen, and if anyone's seen that show, you KNOW what I'm talking about. Let me explain.

Jack/Liz were two v complex characters that had so much chemistry but the way their "relationship" worked was so unique in that they were never romantic but they're WAY more than just colleagues/ friends, etc. There was literally an article titled like "why you'll never see this kind of relationship in television again" and ghoulcy has the potential to be that again which is still GREAT! It even goes on to talk about how they're COMPLETE AND POLAR OPPOSITES but the dynamic still works and how they feed off of each other in the only way no other characters can. The "dynamic" is THEIRS and theirs only. Seem familiar?

From what we're getting not just in the Fallout show but from interviews with the actors and creatives involved, we're already getting that special dynamic. However, I must stress that many of the comments and those interviews (imo) are sometimes taken TOO literally. The existing text and subtext of the ship is already abundant and ripe so I feel like not EVERYTHING has to be referred to the ship and the ship only. I know it's mostly funsies but I legit wonder if some of this is taken too seriously to the point of misconstruing an actor's words and getting tunnel vision JUST for the sake of the ship and ship only, in turn cheapening what is already there. Kinda like what I've seen with people having to vilify Barb further with unnecessary inferences to scenes that give her more layers (like questioning her genuine love for Janey and Cooper. She can be loving AND a villain y'all. Both things don't have to be mutually exclusive) EVEN THOUGH SHE IS CLEARLY VILIFIED BY THE SHOW BY THE REVEAL SO WHY MAKE UP STUFF? To "punish" her more?? Apologies but this kinda reads as "I need to prop up my ship further so I MUST degrade the other ship" even though it's again... SUPER UNNECESSARY (I must stress I've seen this on ALL sides of shipping/character stanning. Both sides suck when you engage in this behaviour). Have fun and faith in the strength of your ships (ESPECIALLY if they're not "canon" adjacent)!

Anyway, as I was saying...

Going back to 30 Rock, there's literally a scene in the show where they get married due to shenanigans, they get in a big fight the whole episode and in the end sit down and have the most revealing discussion with a councilor about why they're so much more complex than typical relationship. And another scene where they sleep in the same bed together and addressed why they never hooked up with each other and why that's okay. By the way, I was also a HUGE shipper of these two... But I was fine with how they ended up with because the story of their special relationship that makes them uniquely THEM was clear and concise. This did not stop me from reading fics where they make kissy faces. It is possible to do both and I think some ppl tend to forget this.

I'm not saying this for the antis (don't like what you don't like, but if you harass shippers then you can suck eggs and leave. This applies to shippers to non shippers too btw. Be. Nice.), I'm saying all this because I want shippers to not "despair" if the ship that they've become so invested in doesn't come to fruition (and not go overboard into thinking that writers should listen to whatever audiences want all the time, we've been down this road SO many times, it's terrible. Do we REALLY need to talk about how The Rise of Skywalker turned out the way it did due to unnecessary pressure from the loudest antis/asshats in fandom? I think not). Maybe this is also more towards the younger audience members as a cautionary tale because we old ass millenials have seen and been through this but didn't have the immediacy of social media at our finger tips, so it was kinda easier to not be as reactionary. I don't like playing the "you youngins don't know what it was like" card, but at some points it is just a statement of reality. Some of you are/were LITERALLY too young to have experienced this.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is even if ghoulcy doesn't become "romantic", I'm fine with it as long as they stay within the "something more/beyond definition" dynamic which is ALWAYS refreshing to see. Give us more "what are we"! Give us more "it's complicated"! Give us more "we can't be summarized in neat little boxes"!

As long as they don't end up in the pit of "one dimensional interpretation of the Found Family trope which is somehow only just Familial and in this instance Father-Daughter". Please, I BEG. Nothing wrong for people to like this dynamic, but to immediately categorize this into that box is just... Tiresome. You can make the same arguments about "shipping two living beings together on screen all the time" too for sure... But again it leads to my point of if we're going the platonic route how about we NOT just shove it in the same boring dynamic of Father-Daughter that if you want, can find in multitudes of other forms of existing fictional media.

Tldr; have fun but always remember this is all fictional media in the end where we play with dolls in a sandbox. Just remember to BE. NORMAL. and not forget this and start shitting in it and flinging poo at each other. That goes with relationships with creators of said media too. Do NOT become parasocial and expect everything to be catered to you. The creators want to tell a story THEY came up with in the first place.

LET THEM.

[polliwoggers]

What do you think HR-D3 is? Is he a machine created by the Humans of the Forgotten Land/Shiver Star due to creating HR-H or did Dedede created the machine? How did it get under Metal General's control?

More asks! answers below the cut.

HR-D3 is a machine made by humans in collaboration with Halcandrans (and others) as part of a larger defense act against future invasions from off-world foes. Both humans and Halcandrans have experience being invaded by alien enemies -- humans with Elfilis specifically, and Halcandrans with all sorts of things, including but not limited to Dark Matter. So, both would have good reason to collaborate on defensive robots like HR-D3 and HR-H.

Part of why both HR-D3 and HR-H are still active for (at LEAST) some centuries after the places they defended fell is because they incorporate magic as an energy source. Lots of electronics and other technologies humans created incorporated magic, once the concept was introduced to them by Halcandrans. It's really very practical! Although, both robots can use alternative power sources as well.

This may not seem relevant to that last point, but it's important to note that Earth physically moved location in the galaxy between its original Solar orbit and when we see it as Shiver Star in K64, and moved AGAIN before it became the Forgotten Land. Specifically, it moved relatively nearby to Popstar for K64, then fell into Another Dimension in KatFL. The first move was violent, the second by chance.

You know how some places are hotter than others, because there's more energy there in the form of heat? Magical energy works like that too, and Earth's original location happened to be eerily low in the stuff -- unnaturally "cold", so to speak. That's part of why Earthly life evolved not to be able to use or sense magic energy, and why Halcandrans were BEYOND surprised to find any life on Earth when they first went to check up on Elfilis -- they didn't think life could exist without magic, let alone intelligent life!

Metal General belonged to a later line of defense robots that were mass-produced, mostly to replace the dwindling population of puffballs that had previously made up a large portion of the Halcandran empire's military. As it was produced later, it's a lot "smarter", and doesn't necessarily have to fill the role of a foot soldier -- it can be a drill sergeant, a tactician, and even a general! That last case was true for Metal General, who was placed in command of many of Halcandra's larger war machines, including HR-D3.

Also, HR-D3 has no connection to Dedede, at least not in my lore. My guess is that the devs for RTDL felt they had to include a Dedede-adjacent fight to make up for the fact that he's not a fightable boss himself, being a playable character and all. In-universe, it's simply just an uncanny resemblance!

So. Um. This is awkward.

I don't consider Rainbow Curse canon to my lore, at all.

This is for two reasons: firstly, because of its concept of "color". As the shown in the game, "color" is something that can be "stolen" and reused for other projects. Claycia's "theft" of it alters Popstar to become gray and lifeless, apparently yielding all that "color" energy for Seventopia's creation, without any obvious energy loss. This MAJORLY messes with the conservation of energy, which is a law in physics I try very hard to adhere to for non-Dreaming processes, including magic.

As a rule of thumb, altering anything takes energy. Altering something by heating it up takes heat energy, and altering something by hitting it takes kinetic energy. Altering something by using magic OUGHT to use up magic energy. You do not "gain" energy from these processes; at least, not any more than you put in. Entropy is a thing, so you MUST lose energy by performing an alteration. No transfer of energy is truly lossless in real life, and that applies to my headcanon lore as well. Therefore, to alter Popstar, Claycia ought to LOSE energy in the process, not gain it -- assuming "color" is even analogous to energy.

secondly, a pause screen in Robobot (which I consider a significantly "more canon" source for information than a spinoff like Rainbow Curse) states that Kirby is a being of infinite energy -- which, yeah, I know, breaks the conservation of energy again, but I keep it in my headcanon lore because it's cool and fits into his gimmick of infinite potential and change. This just... breaks Rainbow Curse.

SO. In the intro cutscene of Rainbow Curse, where Claycia is stealing the "color" of Popstar and its inhabitants, how did she manage to steal all of Kirby's energy if he has an infinite amount of it? I can think of two ways: either she counteracted HIS infinite energy with HER OWN infinite energy(???), or she SOMEHOW managed to defy the laws of physics and losslessly(?) STEAL his infinite energy to create Seventopia. I think both of these explanations are very unlikely, both from an in-universe power-scaling standpoint as well as a narrative one.

Like, power-wise, possessing infinite energy or being capable of "stealing" it would place either Claycia, Dark Crafter, or the possessed fusion of Claycia AND Dark Crafter as being the de facto MOST POWERFUL ENTITY IN THE KIRBY UNIVERSE, which is something I simply cannot stand for. Narrative-wise, if she's got infinite energy (either on her own or by stealing it)… why would she stop at making Seventopia? Why not control all existence? She's being controlled by Dark Matter; isn't subjugating the universe to live in darkness kinda their thing? Why stop at making some pretty islands?

Also, I have… NO idea what "color" even IS. Like, WHAT is it that Claycia even steals from Popstar? Is it their Soul Matter? Maybe some supposed "life energy"? -- that can't make sense, because she steals the "color" from non-living things too, like the sky and the water Kirby's fishing in. Those hold no Soul Matter and aren't even alive. Is it not energy, and instead matter? But nothing changes size or apparent gravity when she steals it??? WHAT IS COLOR IN THIS GAME.

So I just… don't bother. I can't make Rainbow Curse fit into my framework, so I don't include it in my canon! Its prequel, Canvas Curse, IS still canon though. Just in case you were wondering.

And listen: don't take this as me hating Rainbow Curse. I have nothing against that game -- its visual design is SO charming and quirky, and some of my FAVORITE Kirby songs (both remixes and originals!) are from its OST. I haven't played it, so I can't vouch for its gameplay, but I'm sure that's wonderful as well. This is purely a transcription of my own frustrations trying to work its story and concepts into my lore, which I ultimately decided wasn't worth the headache and scrapped entirely.

So uh. Long story short: The events of Rainbow Curse do not happen. Seventopia is never created. "Color", as defined by the game, does not exist. Dark Crafter probably also does not exist, but that's just because I find his design ugly and unappealing. Claycia and Elline likely DO exist, but they're off doing their own things, sculpting and painting to their hearts' content, very far from Popstar.

[ancientbygone]

intro post

Copper, 19 years old, it/its pronouns (he/him acceptable; no they/them). made this side blog as a contained space for my own Sleep Token art and ramblings and such first and foremost, as well as others' Sleep Token posts i like.

if you want to support me, consider donating or purchasing from the store: https://ko-fi.com/copper_sands prints are available at https://ko-fi.com/s/622c53b51c

DNI:

the basics (racist/queerphobic/etc), including zionists

unmasking the band members

if you romanticize/glorify incest, zoophilia, sexual depictions of children, etc. (fictional or not, either way it's block on sight)

if you use, support, or in any way condone any use of generative AI (images, music, text, anything at all)

strictly/mostly NSFW blogs (if it's just occasional NSFW content that's chill)

taglist & more info under the cut:

notes:

DO NOT REPOST MY ART. if you wanna use it for non-commercial means, ask for permission & if allowed, credit me when used. if you wanna use it for commercial means, fuck right off.

my native language isn't english. if i fuck it up i fuck it up.

i do not ship the band members themselves or their stage personas and i find it uncomfortable in general (for myself). i know i listed RPF in my dni but i feel the need to elaborate that for the sake of personal taste, it applies to their stage presence, too.

adding onto the previous point, whenever i talk about the vessels in terms of lore/adjacent, i am talking about them as characters. always. this blog is not for speculating on their private lives, and if you do so, you will be blocked.

i'd prefer not to discuss any of the sexual connotations in the lyrics for my own comfort. i know they exist, i just prefer not to think about them for my own interpretations.

i would appreciate people not leaving NSFW comments on my art, especially the more emotionally heavy stuff, thank you very much! if you really Have to say something, please do it in a separate post or just in a place where i'm unlikely to see it.

even if i might tag my writing as "theories", they aren't necessarily intended as such. if anything, i'm telling a story of my own based on the lyrics. if you try to claim there is one correct interpretation and it's yours, you're getting blocked.

adding onto the previous point (x2), a lot of the time i interpret the lyrics in tandem with my personal life experiences. it will absolutely get a little too real here. if the subject matter is too heavy, it will be tagged with #[subject] and #[subject] tw.

let me know if you want/need me to tag anything specific! either in an ask or in my DMs. don't hesitate to reach out about that :]

in addition to everything, i will be posting about my Sleep Token D&D AU, which is as simple as it sounds and also not at all. it's also very removed from my "main canon" or most of the band IRL, so it's really just me (& @mapleborealis !) fucking around. also, unlike the "main canon", they are a polycule and all kiss with tongue /hj

blog tags (WIP):

organization:

#bygone art - my own art

#bygone talks - my ramblings & the more disconnected bits of writing/theorizing

#bygone writes - the more coherent writing/theorizing

#bygone lore - everything related to my version of the lore of Sleep Token, be it art, writing, or anything else

#bygone silly - my memes

#bygone shows - any post of mine related to a personal Sleep Token ritual experience (pics, rambling, etc)

#bygone footage - images/videos/etc of the band, mine or not (credited as much as possible)

#bygone beloved - posts i particularly like and want to archive, mine or otherwise

#bygone off topic - things vaguely related to sleep token or not related at all

#others' [___] - a post of any variety listed above, just made by someone else

d&d au:

#sleep token dnd and #dnd au - general au tags

#dnd au vessel/ii/iii/iv/etc. - character-specific d&d au posts

little clarifying moments:

#espera - tag for vesselettes (hopefully no maskless posts; won't call them vesselettes either)

#sleep token him - separate tag for whatever Vessel and Sleep were pre-Sundowning. you can glimpse more on that in my posts about it.

#sparrowverse (thank you @fivewholeminutes for the name) - everything related to the lore of a timeline alternate to my main lore in which each vessel of Sleep has to kill the one before them to assume their place. outlined in my fanfic "kill the sparrow". there isn't much to it right now but there might be more trust

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide 2023 letter

AO3: laughingpineapple

(treats welcome, AO3 settings a-ok in that respect)

Hello and thank you for writing for me! I hope you’ll have a great time playing with one of these wonderful canons!

I love a wide variety of fics - from strict gen to explicit, any tense, any format, big yes to all kinds of weird experiments up to and including external povs, found documents, interactive fiction etc. In general, I love canon expansion (showing new places/events/stuff in the setting or exploring those that are barely mentioned, just outside the borders), character work of all stripes (expanding on little quirks, putting characters in situations that complement/challenge certain personality traits of theirs, just… observing these weirdos as they live their lives, for better and for worse), magical realism and adjacent approaches. I eat up emotional moments with a spoon when a fic is character-centric (pining! danger! catharsis! hurt/comfort! the nitty-gritty of attraction!) and also love abstract stuff that at most touches shrimp emotions from afar: fake academia, a wider focus, inhuman povs, anything goes.

For both romance and friendships, I love it when it’s clear (not necessarily to the characters themselves, but to the narrative) what it is that they like about each other, how they get along, if and how they trust each other. The specificity of each dynamic! I also love it when the characters are very into something that makes sense for them, be it a hobby or a kink or whatever, even if it’s something I may not personally care for.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, pregnancies, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents and paired-up OC randos are okay!), canon retellings

Ghost Trick and Pyre are old staples, prompts and musings in my old letters always apply! There's some PJÕL too in the last two. And now, in strict alphabetical order and with the usual disclaimer that shorter prompts don’t mean I want it any less:

GHOST TRICK (Cabanela, Jowd)

I'm into Alma/Jowd/Cabanela or Alma/Jowd&Cabanela, or any Jowd/Cabanela that doesn't downplay/erase the canon relationship (anything set during the game timeline or in alternate scenarios where they don't reset, for example!), or even one-sided on Cabs' end and Jowd caring for him in a different way, or a Very (Very) Intense Friendship. Shippy or not, for me the draw is that these two are an unstoppable/immovable pair of burning determination and cosmic pessimism, big on loyalty (or at least being on the receiving end of it in Jowd's case) and being two difficult individuals who can and do get on people's nerves in record time but just fit with each other so easily… and ace the broccoli test like nbd. when they want to. which they might not. In Sissel's own words, whatever these two have got going on, warm or cold, it's "immeasurably deep" and I love to see that OTT play out in any way. And feel free to add anyone else in the tagset if your idea leads you that way, I love them all dearly. Pigeon Man, for example - we only see his grump complement Cabanela's energy, but how does he play off Jowd, toward whom he is extremely loyal? Alma, of course, what's your take on her, there are so many great possibilities - could she be as cheerfully nihilistic as her husband, when push comes to shove? Or what about Missile the little warrior with his own brand of unstoppability? Is there a supernatural/ghostly situation Jowd and Cabanela (and Alma? or Lynne? Sissel?) walk into that sees them well on top of their game thanks to their experience with the friendly ghost cat in the house? Or something eerie that's out of their wheelhouse even with Sissel's ghost tricks? What about a beach day but also a hiking trip, snowed in, anything? Dancing? Does Cabanela fail to remain spotless in any sense, ranging from oily bike repairs to more serious symbolic scenarios?

Ship-wise, Jowd falling in love fascinates me. Cabanela feels like he's been down bad for an impossible target for some time (or two, conveniently married to each other) but for Jowd it all comes at such an awkward moment. He was ready to die and hurt them all posthumously (with the music box twist) to make it easier for them to leave him behind, and now what's this? He may not even have considered being into men before, what's that like, when does he realize that that's what's happening? Then it turns out his old friend laid down his life for him??? wild. and then he's ten years younger again, with a loving family and a Sparklesue of a friend-colleague-rival, and all these memories…

Fandom-specific DNWs: Cabanela-Yomiel reconciliations, everyone having memories of the old timeline

PÜHA JA ÕUDNE LÕHN | SACRED AND TERRIBLE AIR (Ignus Nilsen)

So there's this man of extremes (even for Elysium standards) who lived and fought for the burning belief in a better world, who left his homeland with a double middle finger and somehow, in a foreign land, grew devoted to a good man and his ideals and theory, their theory, and then lost him and their hope at once, and still tried to keep going, to begin anew, and failed there too, and even after his death in exile his beliefs did not waver. Always a live wire. He loved the world, every atom of it. A man whose devotion was so intense that it had to be erased from history, giving birth to a different legend instead. As a friend once put it, the spectre of communism is real and he's a bitter old queen.

I ship him and Mazov very much (dialectically, ideologically, handholdingly, through the ages and in the eternity of the pale, everything he says about the man sounds like the yearning of a sad old lover), and Mazov himself I love in every aspect. If you go down this path, I'm good with period-typical internalized homophobia being a thing in the fic. INTENSE HANDHOLDING ACTION very welcome. Also in-universe Mazov/Nilsen academic discussion, earnest sculptors, zines etc. But also: Ion Rodionov thirdwheeling into their life like a stray cat and supporting their idea even knowing that it would fail is amazing. The fact that Nilsen indulged his whims in their exile (the orchestra, really?) and presumably got his apocalyptic moniker from him (we know that it's because he warned people of the apocalypse) paints an interesting friendship to me, especially in the raw times after Mazov's death. The Zigi&Nilsen camping trip is a delight and I'll always want more of that, and of Zigi himself, and of what Nilsen saw in him, and the other way round. Or what about the time Zigi spent with the Lund sisters while Nilsen went ballistic over teen girl mags, 'cause that sure was something canon felt the need to inform us of. Idk how to fit in Tereesz but if they met I'm sure it'd make for an interesting conversation. And rounding up the tagset IT'S AMBROSIUS WITH A STEEL CHAIR omg best tagset surprise ever. I am incredibly fascinated both by Nilsen's (and Zigi's!) opinions on the ruling Innocence, and by the possibility that bb Ambrosius may have met all the future heads of the Revolution when he was being tutored by Ion, and/or that the failure of the Revolution may have been a turning point in his beliefs. Outside the tagset, anything with Sport is bound to be terribadamazing bc Sport, and Ukhotomsky was around as another of Mazov's close friends but was the exact opposite of Ignus so that could make for interesting scenarios.

Some prompts: does his consciousness in the pale (subjectively either before or after his adventure with Zigi) meet some interesting people à la Nadia n Frantiček the Brave - "5 historical figures he met who are not Mazov + 1 long-awaited reunion" sort of thing? Some examples of Teachers Being Like That feat. him and Rodionov? Sitcom-tier shenanigans with the upper echelons of the revolution + that kid with the rancid vibes that Ion brought in? In case Nilsen's canon lil treatise on "early homebrewing" referred to tabletop homebrewing, what did their gaming look like - was it an early form of roleplaying proper or, like, reconceptualizing chess or Monopoly? What about any of his exiles, given how he was first thrown out of Katla, then Graad, then they tried to kill him in Samara too and he spent his last days in exile and according to a throwaway line he counts as one of Elysium's great disappearances (does Khan have some fun intel on all that, or maybe Ulv)? Did the various pale crossings mess him up? What about the crossing of the lungs of Graad, toward the interisolary pale, with the blood of thousands of prisoners still fresh behind them? Or how'd he take his hut era, when did those feral months in the polar wilderness happen in his timeline, what kind of weirdness can we expect above Elysium's polar circle, did he have Mazov to return to in Graad and just how emotional can we make this reunion? Any scenario like "idk, Kras Mazov was like 70% of my impulse control"? What was it like, gaining consciousness in the near pale and becoming more than Zigi's dialectic frenemy (or was there always a glimpse of him)? Did they feel uniquely cut off from the pale that surrounded them? Did they ever talk about Ambrosius? Did he ever pull off some other godly rhetoric stunt like reverting the pale through stubbornness and conviction alone? Some identity musings based on all three heads of the revolution going under new names, and considering them nom de guerre? Something about Ignus' troubled relationship with his homeland - as it goes, he fought hard to deny the Vaasan allegations and Vaasa fought harder to deny the him allegations? What about his blacksmithing skills (and what makes one an apocalyptic blacksmith, specifically - how do these two things go together)? Or any of his numerous Opinions which he penned on so many topics? Or just slap him (in person or cytoplasmically, 's not like death or censorship could stop him) in a Situation that has some weird worldbuilding in it?

Fandom-specific DNWs: that reddit theory about Målin being pregnant with Zigi's child. I'm open to a variety of options for the sisters' disappearance but should it come up I would prefer if it were their decision to vanish, a decision dictated by some kind of (non-bourgeois) ideology, and for Zigi to be loyal to all four of them. I would also prefer Nilsen's big hangup about his fellow communists to follow the translation which sees them as "prey" rather than "beasts". Relatedly, should it come up, "Failure. Failure shapes the world" rather than "Futility". And please do not excuse his grandiose shittiness. The misogyny is what it is and ditto the war crimes, etc.

PYRE (Volfred Sandalwood)

I’m so charmed by this smug revolutionary tree it’s not even funny. Make up any situation in which he can do his thing and I’ll be happy - be sort of full of himself but also sort of rightfully so, pragmatic to a fault except when he’s overwhelmed by grief, bearing the burden of taking care of the practical side of an impossible shared vision (and seeing it fail before it started and eventually picking up the pieces and starting again), long-winded and very much in love with his voice (also rightfully so) and also that’s what history professors are like, extremely charismatic, a mind reader with a higher calling which is always a dangerous combo when it comes to maybe going a step too far. I love this story set at the end of a cycle and I’m enamoured with characters who have enough historical awareness to acknowledge it and see that it’s up to them to bring about a new era. Canon’s bittersweet idealism is catnip to me.

I love him with Tariq who seems to be as charmed by him as I am (the shy, vague title of Volfred’s theme combined with its James Bond vibes are a killer combo. Tariq please) and with Oralech who’s maybe the only guy who can go “Volfred no” when needed. With oldest friend Bertrude with all the camaraderie it entails and all the Nightwings, really. Volfred & Hedwyn! & Rukey! & Pamitha! & ae!!!

I would also be interested in seeing him face people from the other triumvirates in more or less friendly situations - generally sticking close to canon for the level of danger they might pose. Volfred & Dalbert bonding and fanboying the Scribes on one end; Udmildhe maybe being a real actual threat on the other end, with Extreme Sap Drama Volfred VS Manley somewhere in the middle - Volfred haaates having to deal with Manley and what is fanfiction for if not bothering our faves? Or Volf VS Brighton for that matter, with more intense levels of annoyance and pomp and juicy ideological clashes. In these cases I wouldn’t be interested in a reconciliation, and I don’t sympathize with Manley nor Brighton but I do find them very funny and good characters in their own right and I’m just here with popcorn for the catfight. How’d it go if he had to spend some time with Ignarius? Or Celeste? And of course when it comes to the True Nightwings, things get loaded - Volfred/Oralech-wise, does Volfred get a treacherous "oh no he's super hot now" moment sneaking in between the piles of complicated feelings and hurt and confusion?

As general Volf prompts: revolutionary bonding, be it with Oralech (early on or after everything), or awakening Some Things in Tariq, or Bertie or anyone else who'll share that vision. Downside ending being a strange kind of freedom for someone who's been driven all his life. Opinions on the Scribes! Overly detailed, strong Opinionssss on tiny details like you'd expect from your average academic, and whom is he talking to? Someone who agrees? Someone who knows more than him (Tariq, ae…)? Someone who hates those guys' guts (Sandra, Oralech…)? He’s a natural schemer, does he naturally assume that everyone else is also scheming 24/7? Does anyone (my bet’s on Pam) find out that he literally graded the Nightwings’ usefulness to the Plan? Is he a chain smoker or is it a one pipe a day kind of deal?

I don’t have specific headcanons about Sap biology; if you do, please tell me all about them. With or without Tariq’s or Oralech’s involvement (whose biology is probably also delightfully weird). Capital-letter-Reading can also be involved! What’s it like to mind-meld with the actual moon, or to get permission from the guy who spent like six years hating your guts?

Ships: Volfred/Tariq, Volfred/Oralech, Volfred/Oralech/Tariq. I also like Pamitha/Bertrude and Celeste/Jodariel.

Fandom-specific DNWs: Oralech dead, Volfred and Oralech split end (I’m good with either topside or downside ending), Ignarius/Jodariel, Tariq/Celeste. The Reader being a central character in the fic.

THE SEA WILL CLAIM EVERYTHING (Any: The Mysterious-Druid, Niamh, Worldbuilding)

I got to play this game at last and I LOVE it. I'm in that starstruck-and-with-nobody-to-talk-about-it phase where I don't have many thoughts but I'd be over the moon to get anything that's vaguely in the tone of canon. Earnest, dreamy, filled with mushrooms… I'm familiar with the Postcard From Afthonia epilogue but not really with the rest of the Kyratzes' oeuvre - feel free to reference other stuff as long as it's in a way that'll make sense to a newbie reader! Or if it's something from the Oneiropolis Compendium, just drop me a line in the opening notes and I'll get caught up. In particular, I found the mentions of Oneiropolis proper very intriguing, in a certain 'classic fantastical literature' way, and I'd love to follow a beloved character like The a/o Niamh a/o anyone else on a trip there, but I don't know if there are works set there yet. An evening in Underhome, during the war? Some druiding stuff, The's addition to Underhome? Niamh's side of research (I love her so! This is what the ideal woman looks like, honestly)? Something dialectical, something marxist AND fungal? Any character visits Underhome? Or the library? Or the Isle of the Stars? I really like the Oracle, but anyone really. Everyone's really cool. If you can find a structure that'll accommodate a bunch of fun descriptions and asides, and let's not forget the mouse's opinions, that could be fun!

THE STRAIGHT STORY (Deer Woman) (technically a 5 minutes fandom since the above scene is all you need to know)

I recently caught a screening and was once again fascinated by that one standalone scene with the woman who seems cursed to hit deer with her car. Asking "so… what's up with that" felt like a Yuletide thing to do, so here I am! Please tell me anything about the woman who seems cursed to hit deer with her car! I'm open to all possibilities when it comes to the source of this peculiar predicament of hers, future developments, and her own psychological state. Feel free to get weird about it, of course - be it in a specifically lynchian, etherealwhooshy way or otherwise. Is this supernatural event vaguely & mysteriously grounded in some psychological issue of hers, reflecting her inner turmoil (what is it?), or is it a broader thing she got caught up in? Or is it a deer thing about deer? Twin Peaks crossovers welcome if that's where your imagination leads you (I'm familiar with the entire extended canon). Or Mulholland Drive or any other Lynch idk, it just feels kind of peaksy more than anything else, what with the, well, deer.

[fandomsoda]

Random question I felt like asking. What kind of tropes do you like reading? In like, fanfiction, I mean. Relationship tropes, plot tropes, yeah. I've seen you talk about fanfics before (which I entirely agree with the stuff about adding warning/major tags even if its a spoiler) but don't think you've talked about what you like reading/find interesting to read, so was curious. ^^

That’s a great question, Hex! Thanks for asking!

This was always kinda hard to answer as I often just read whatever interests me and it’s hard to find a pattern, but there are a few.

First of all in terms of relationship tropes, I seem to accidentally wind up with “they had chemistry and stuff but the narrative/canon events make that a massive issue/ignore it almost entirely” very, very often. I also am just in love with polys that are so fucking inseparable. And things with playful or silly energies, pairings that result in shenanigans.

Now with plot tropes… I am in love with fluff and hurt-comfort, they make me feel safe and stuff and are just great escapism. Also most of the characters I read about just deserve to rest for once in their lives. Within those categories… I really like just- cuddling and roughhousing and play fights and tickle fights and just- very active, silly, “the world can’t hurt us because we’re too busy enjoying each other’s company” type beat. I also really like more,, unique or subversive types of fluff? If that makes any sense? Characters who usually wouldn’t be sweet opening up and being kind, unlikely characters sharing tenderness, macabre and horror-adjacent stories and plots and aesthetics but somehow everyone is having an unnerving amount of fun, it’s all just about how things can get interesting in the various flavors of “happy endings”. I love seeing how someone can make a story unique and turn it on its head without need for excessive angst (though that often does have its place and can enhance things).

One particular trope I adore to no end is “non-human/atypical creature bonds with their human/typical companion via exploring their differences in behavior and physiology”. Whether it’s aliens, standard horror monsters, friendly eldritch monstrosities or whatever, never ceases to make my heart melt.

Another trope that one might be surprised I gravitate towards is, surprisingly, omegaverse. And no, not for the reasons the genre is famous for. Obviously the genre is overrun with risqué stories and excessive nsfw, but I’m much more fascinated by worldbuilding and social dynamics, how the world of whatever it’s applied to grows and changes in behavior due to this new secondary social classification, especially if the piece of fiction already has an interesting society, exploring that intersectionality and everything is absolutely so compelling to me. Sadly, I rarely get to indulge in that fascination because it’s very hard to find fics that… care about that aspect, but when I find them they are often astounding!

anyway yeah here’s some of my fic taste, y’all have a slightly better glimpse into my strange mind

[poetfilm]

#POETFILM ... ind. multi muse blog. original character focused, with secondary canon characters. triggering content may be present, but will be tagged. minors, non-mutuals, and non-rp blogs, do not interact.

— written and directed by dillon. i'm also the producer, cinematographer, wardrobe department, set department, and catering. sometimes the omniscient narrator, occasionally breaking the fourth wall. they don't pay me enough for this but also they won't let me leave.

current priority muses ... alice harmon (oc), amelie fang (oc), clint barton (canon), jane lu (oc), jess mariano (canon), lizzie madden (oc), trilogy - bea, fabian, and iris (ocs).

activity level ... always slow due to chronic health conditions, sporadically present, but usually more available on discord! a little bit more selective with following new people right now just because i like a smaller dashboard, but even if i don't follow back immediately, this does not mean i won't in the future! patience with me is always very appreciated. (updated 01/24/25.)

links — original characters. canon characters. thread tracker. inbox prompts. plotting & starter calls. tag references. blog maintenance & updates.

introduction ... basic stuff applies, i don't think we need to rehash it all, but here are the specifics: please don't follow if you're under the age of 21, if you write threads involving noncon, incest, sexualization/sexual content of minors, or participate in any form of bigotry (z.ionists, racists, tr.ansphobes, a.ntisemites, t.erfs, etc. this is not the place for you). please do not follow me if you write characters who are canon r*pists and ab*sers, even if you do not portray those subjects on your blog.

there's a few fandoms i'm not keen to interact with, just out of personal preference. i don't feel like listing them all, but the main ones i normally avoid are a.soiaf/h.otd, t.lou, wwe/kayfabe, until dawn, the boys, glee, and s.tranger t.hings. (if you have these fandoms on a multi, i may still follow, but prefer not to interact with those particular characters!) i won't be following anyone who utilizes the k.rp tag, writes h.arry p.otter, a.merican h.orror story, v.ivziepop, or depictions of real people (including but not limited to celebrities, athletes, and historical figures). for more details about dni stuff, you're welcome to (politely) message me.

i'm not familiar with some stuff like animanga or video games (and honestly, most of other fandoms too), so you'll have to forgive me there, but i may be willing to interact with certain characters if we're friends and have plotted! please know that if there is any media that is popular here, i usually take at least 2-10 years to getting around to viewing it so you can just explain it to me in the meantime.

i don't really do any formatting, but don't mind those who do. my only preference would be that you refrain from using alternative fonts (like the fancy kind of text) in threads with me because they aren't always compatible with my brain's ability to like, absorb them (for lack of a better term). i don't mind anyone using them for tags and such though!

triggering content will be present ... feel free to let me know if you need anything particular tagged; i always try to do so for common triggers, but may need reminders. many of my characters (both original and canon) deal with subjects involving past abuse, child neglect, exploitation, physical and mental illness, addiction, and more. while such themes might be present in backstory or acknowledged in passing, i prefer not to write most of these subjects in graphic detail. horror themes will occur with some characters, but i won't offer them to anyone who doesn't feel comfortable with the genre. i usually tag any horror adjacent content as 'horror tw /'.

my own triggers are images and graphic depictions of sexual violence, self-harm, suicide (non-descript mentions are okay). images of slugs or snails, as well. i would very much appreciate if these could be tagged! thank you!

regarding shipping ... i think shipping is fun but it tends to be situational and dependent on each character. nevertheless, feel free to let me know if you like a potential ship, i'd love to hear your ideas. it is also totally fine with me if your muses flirt or have unrequited crushes (or vice versa). you can send ship related memes even if we haven't plotted, i don't usually mind unless we've already ruled something out!

sexual content won't be a frequent occurrence, but will be tagged as "usfw /" or "suggestive /" if it happens. i don't write smut very often and will only really do so for certain characters. generally prefer to keep that content on discord either way. i'm okay with discussions about it when it applies!

conclusion ... thank you for being here and making it to the end of the rules page! i'll finish this off with a little bit about myself: i'm dillon (dill or dilly is okay too, if we're friends). chinese-canadian, lesbian, audhd, and usually awake at the worst possible hours. every day i stray further and further away from the light and into treacherous and untreaded waters. i like snoopy, beastie boys, wikipedia, soup, gothic literature, ellipses, brackets, and parentheses. i've been on this website for too long and now they won't let me leave.

general vibes here: i like and work best when meeting people where they're comfortable at and trying to find a complimentary energy. in other words, i may ask frequent questions, will sometimes give extra information to answer a question, and enjoy a ooc discussion as much as the writing process itself. even with my slow replies, i like being bothered, so my dms and inbox are pretty much always open to mutuals.

deeply unserious at times, deeply insufferable at others; very confusing presences of both myself and the roster, more often than not. many discussions about niche details that mostly decorative, but fun and entertaining for me to think about. every day i consider shortening my guidelines to something more concise, but i never do. my discord is available to mutuals if you ever want to bother me about anything, but be warned that i will absolutely take the opportunity to bother you as well! (threatening)

[saucedlx]

idk if my opinion is prevalent or distinct enough to warrant including, so i just approximated to "other".

i don't think it really matters? not in a "i think theorizing is dumb so people shouldnt do it way" but more like, mario canon is already so loose and varied between games. mario's portrayal itself barely has any ages more specific than "baby" or "adult" (which itself seems to be anywhere from 20ish to 40ish). tbh even the distinction between old DK (cranky) and young DK (country protag) feels like it's barely acknowledged outside DKC-adjacent games? like donkey kong gba feels like a weird in-between step where he was still shaped like 1981 DK, but he'd now gotten the tie and the people who he was hanging around were definitely called mario and pauline. idk maybe this is too rambly for a reply to a simple poll but. what would it even mean for DK1 mario to be "not the same mario" as every other mario? in the game itself he behaves about the same as the "usual" mario (tbf that's not saying much). ig you could say his behavior in Jr. is weird and inconsistent with "usual" mario, but that also applies between him and DK1 mario/jumpman.

tl;dr it doesnt seem like they ever intended to make there be more than one different guy who is mario, and any way i can think of to prove this question one way or another seems to rely on stuff that the mario series' canon doesn't care much about keeping consistent?

[frickerdoodledoo]

Soooo... guess who got really nostolgic while having a cold and binge-watched all of Sanders Sides again after almost a year?

For the last few days I have been sucked down a rabbit-hole of Fandercontent, and let me just say... while this fandom is so creative, there are just a few things I wish people utilized more in fics, you know?

(Disclaimer, I live on angst and the Dark Sides are my three favourite characters, so most of these are about both of those subjects. Also not a huge fan of non-mindscape au's, so these are all about canon-adjacent fanfiction. My only AU is Sympathetic Dark Sides where they all coexist. Yes, even Remus.)

First and foremost, and this is what inspired this post until I found more things after, why do I see so few fics that include Virgil's Dark Side Voice™? It happens whenever he get's too stressed in canon, and from how he reacts whenever it happens, it seems to be a bit of an insecurity for him. Why aren't angst authors jumping on that?

Guys. We... we all saw the end-card of Flirt or Flight, right? How come so few do anything regarding Virgil's colour-changing eyeshadow? It's adorable, it's gorgeous, talk about it, please!

When Janus takes off the gloves in order to show himself to be truthful about his name... why??? He did that for a reason. If it was just about the typical "Cross my heart" pose, there was nothing stopping him from leaving on the gloves unless their was a reason to take them off! Theorize, go nuts! (I personally believe that his scales fluctuate in their coverage of his skin, and his hands being completely human shows that he's being honest. He wears gloves to make his lies less obvious.)

And on the subject of Janus' lies, has anybody else realized that for the embodiment of Thomas' Deceitfulness... he's actually kind of a terrible liar? While disguised as other sides, he always drops some pretty obvious hints that he's not the real Patton or Logan. And whenever he does his whole "speaking in lies" thing, he has this tone about him that makes it clear to... almost everyone, (Cough cough except Roman apparently), that he's lying, or atleast just being sarcastic?

In the Five Year Anniversary special, Virgil, Remus, and Janus refer to themselves as the Cousin, Uncle, and Aunt respectively. And I know that there actually is a fair amount of content about the Dark Sides being a seperate but related family, but I just feel like not many people talk about the low-key confirmation of that as a reality, ya know?

More.👏 Protective.👏 Dark Sides.👏 They've known eachother for so long, no matter how close the whole family is, Virgil, Remus and Janus would naturally know eachother better than any of the others.

If we are to assume that Janus even just unstably co-exists with the Light Sides, (like pre-redemption Virgil), post-Redux, but Remus doesn't... Well, that's the third person that Remus actually has a connection to that just... left him. First Roman, then Virgil, now Janus. (I personally believe that the Orange side will just be an Unsympathetic Dick, so he doesn't count, but that's just me.)

I am a "Former Paranoia Virgil" Truther, as are many others in the fandom. However, something I wish I saw more of is others not catching themselves when calling Virgil paranoid. Even better, the Dark Sides not realising how much thinking of that part of his past affects him, thinking nothing of it and then feeling really guilty.

And that's all the canon-supported stuff, but just... one last thing. Consider the following:

The Orange Side is a relatively new "Relevant" or "Consious" Side, his existance only needed when suddenly there were only two Dark Sides and still three Light Sides

Janus is Patton's foil because he represents an "immoral" side to Thomas, and Remus is Roman's foil as a flip-side to one, single concept. Virgil used to be Logan's foil before his redemption, because senseless overthinking and paranoia defies logic.

This need for a foil doesn't apply to Virgil, because he is no longer a Dark Side, but he isn't really a Light Side either. A Grey Side, if you will.

Virgil encompasses both the good and bad aspects of Anxiety, and is even capable of representing more of an excitement or sense of anticipation, hence the purple eyeshadow seen in Fight or Flirt. He is his own foil in the same way that Roman and Remus are eachother's. They're the good and bad of creativity, Virgil is the good and bad of anxiety.

I am most likely not the first person to come up with this, but this is just my specific take.

Anyway, I am probably going to go write atleast half of these prompts myself, so if any of these concepts interest you... maybe stick around?

[carnassial-s]

(Teeth model here, CSP)

ok to explain tldr: hc for how namekian teeth look like, going off what canon and canon adjacent stuff like xenoverse and kakarot have stated. long explanation under cut:

(taken mostly from discord cause its almost 6am and my hands are too shaky to retype All That)

ok so teeth. teeth indicate a diet usually like ours are pretty like. pretty good for chewing pre-/molars and very sucks canines and ok incisors and also we have cheeks that can form a seal and form a vacuum that lets us suck water instead of having to lap at it like dogs and cats primate teeth throw plp off cause primate diets are weird and also teeth are also affected by selection basically canines in other primates are like. bright colors on a male bird theyre for sexual selection rather than like. actual eating (THIS IS VERY SIMPLIFIED, DO NOT TAKE MY WORD HERE) our incisors are flat cause we use ilthem as like scissors for food animals like dogs and cats that have sharp-ish incissors dont rly use them for eating they use them for uhh grooming mostly they use their canines for catching/killing and tear apart flesh with their pre-/molars their premolars are called carnassials it translates to butcherers idk what i was going on with this i forgot. ok whatever theyre molluscs(-like). they dont have teeth teeth

(tangent space)

ok so its uhh ok dental formula of vertebrates might not apply here per jaw rather than side then 5I/2C/2PM/2M i think itd be cool if they had multiple rows. alas id keep that as a personal hc or might apply it on a oc who knows

(tangent again)

ok past the teeth. Idk How They Digest Exactly Studies Say They Use Enzimes So Toriyama Got It Right but its an ongoing thing so we dont know much instead of like. visceral movement molluscs use like. spiral movements so instead of waves for the food to move its a corkscrew motion i think they can digest food like. alright. its just due to cultural/historical reasons rather than biologic considering they probs lost most of their food sources in a climate hell bar water thats like. fair ig

(tangent abt videos of snails eating lettuce)

its stated (in xenoverse 2 but w/e we take what we can) that they do not eat the ajissa they cultivate they throw it into the water bodies they live around or sell it but the first option implies that they throw it in there for nutritional value AND wildlife would feed on it so implied detritivory actually even a bit of filter feeding except with no filter which fair its probs a new development so of course theres no specialization towards filters

(tangent abt how radulas look)

once again i think. culturally due to the climatic cataclysm they only drink water + detritivory. but cause of their teeth they ARE able of carnivory and herbivory so omnivores basically very bad filter feeders decent omnivores

[nekropsii]

do you have any advice for pesterchum/trollian handle creation? furthermore is it okay for us to go to you for help / guides with stuff like character development and writing?

That is absolutely okay, I don’t mind it one bit! Honestly, I find it flattering that people find me to be that trustworthy of a resource, lol.

Canon Compliant Homestuck-adjacent Chat Handles don’t actually follow that many hard-set rules, despite everything. The most notable ones are…

Each word starts with G, C, A, or T, due to the theme of Genetics and Genetic Sequencing in Homestuck.

Must say something about the character somehow- a Chat Handle is a method of Personal Identification that was hand-crafted by the person that title applies to. It doesn’t have to be profound, and it doesn’t even have to wholly make sense, it just has to say something about the character. “turntechGodhead,” “ghostlyTrickster/ectoBiologist,” and “centaursTesticle” all day something about the characters those titles belong to.

Sounds good, in a way. Essentially just “Rule of Vibes.”

Other than that… It was pretty much free game! Personally, I find it actually helps a lot when you do give yourself set “rules��� for handles- it forces you to be a little Creative, while also not trapping you in the hell that is having too many options. Because having too many options is really, really intimidating, honestly. At least it is for me, lol. Blank Page Anxiety, you know how it is!

For our Fanventure, we mostly bound ourselves to these rules:

Usage of G, C, A, and T as the first letters, making sure no combination was left behind- which was made possible by our pretty sizable cast. It was definitely a tricky little maneuver to pull off.

The Handles have to say something about the character it belongs to, due to it being a method of Personal Identification- once again, doesn’t have to be profound, it just has to make sense in context of the character. Prime example is sov!Latula’s handle being “gnarlyCoolkid.”

Has to sound good in some way. Once again, Rule of Vibes.

Names largely follow the rule of “adjectiveNoun,” with some exceptions if Rule of Vibes applies. It’s not a hard-set rule, it’s just a guiding hand. Narrows down the options a bit more if you’re stumped.

Patrons have to reuse the same letters their corresponding Beta Troll used, in the same order. For example, Aranea has to use AG, Kankri has to use CG, Cronus CA, Kurloz TC, so on and so forth.

Now, I’m not saying that you have to follow those rules, I’m just giving examples of rules or guidelines you can place on yourself if need be! It’s definitely an interesting way to add another layer of Cohesion to your story, which can be quite pleasing, and it can make the Development process run quite a bit smoother.

If you need a good website to get some of the more eccentric words, without having to punch in synonyms for random terms constantly, here’s a fantastic website documenting a bunch of uncommon words, in Alphabetical Order. Link is embedded for ease.

Hope this helps!! If you need any more assistance, my inbox is open. Have a lovely day. :)

[lepusrufus]

Double edged scalpel ch. 1

It's finally here fellas. 

Mandatory warnings: blood, gore, medical stuff and procedures (like...a lot), all the canon typical good and bloody stuff, past abuse and alcoholism, eventual nsfw, strong language.

----

Gold, red and white. With black outlines. A delicate floral pattern carefully embroidered, firm but not rough underfoot. Covering the better part of the room's dark, ancient looking floorboards. 

Memorizing every minute detail of the carpet she was standing on was probably better than to dare meet the piercing golden gaze of the castle's matriarch. At least Nicole hoped as much.

Lady Dimitrescu was sitting in front of her, the size of her chair making it look more akin to a throne, and took a long drag of her cigarette. Her eyes fixated on the girl in front of her, almost as if she could measure her worth by glance alone. And in all honesty, she probably could. After a long, drawn out exhale of smoke, the Lady finally spoke. 

"You do seem to have an...interesting set of skills that could prove itself useful. That is, assuming you're being truthful." 

Nicole's eyes went wide, shock thankfully hidden by her long fringe. She had no documents on her, no way of proving anything about her past. Trying to remember the whereabouts of at least her passport only brought forth a vague memory of drunkenly stumbling in a hotel room that made her cringe internally.

She was about to stammer an excuse, a convincing one she hoped, when a small chorus of giggles came from beyond the closed door. The sound proved to be more interesting than her existence, as the Lady turned her gaze towards the door and waited. Waited for three other women, all in long black robes, to enter the room. 

The redhead and brunette seemed to be bickering amongst themselves, while the blonde made a beeline for her mother and passed her a sealed envelope. 

"Oh thank you. I will take a look in a moment." 

"Who's that?" The redhead, Daniela she deducted, finally took her attention off her sister long enough to notice the room’s other occupant. 

"Our newest maid, dears. I was just thinking about what task to give her." 

Daniela's eyes gave her a once over and Nicole gulped slightly. "Oh, mother! Have her clean the library!" 

"There's already a maid assigned to that," the eldest, Bela, pointed out. 

"I have a better idea." Cassandra finally spoke up, before her mother had a chance to intervene in her daughters' back and forth. 

The brunette leaned down slightly, close to her mother's ear and whispered something that Nicole could never dream of deciphering. But if the smile that soon followed on red painted lips was of any indication, the middle daughter's idea was brilliant. Or dreadful, depending on your perspective. 

"Very well. But you'll supervise her, you know that part of the castle is off limits for the staff." 

"Gladly," was Cassandra's response, voice full of mirth. 

"Just one thing," Lady Dimitrescu said, opening a drawer from the desk next to her and pulling out a key. "The key to your chambers. For after you've completed your duties."

Nicole took the key with a slight bow and a thank you, my Lady, and unceremoniously shoved it in her pocket, hoping it wouldn't fall throughout the day. 

Well that seemed to have gone well, as far as interviews for a job at a castle full of horrors go. Though she really had hoped not to deal with the daughters so soon, let alone be stuck following the family sadist down long corridors to who knows where, only stopping to ask another maid for cleaning supplies along the way.

Beautiful hallways, ornate with priceless paintings, gave way to more barren ones, where the wallpaper had peeled ever so slightly in places and the floor, now stone, had an occasional red stain that whoever was in charge of cleaning this part of the castle did not bother with. They walked until reaching a set of heavy double doors. Despite the slight state of disrepair of the hallway leading up to them, the doors looked extremely well kept. Not a speck of rust on the metal frame nor the lock. The wood looked sturdy and polished, if not for a few almost imperceptible scratches. And the Dimitrescu crest, cut through the middle so half of it was on each door, the flower petals shiny in the low light and beautifully detailed. 

Cassandra rummaged through a hidden pocket for a couple of seconds and pulled out an old fashioned key. With a grin, she wasted no time in unlocking the doors and pushing one of them open, enough for the two of them to pass through. Then, just as quickly, the doors were locked again with a click. 

The pair descended on a precariously slippery set of stairs, Nicole praying that she wouldn't drop the bucket of water she was now carrying, until they were deep within the bowels of the castle.

She was sure they were headed towards the cells, just slightly out of view across a short dark corridor, but then Cassandra took a sudden right turn. She looked downright giddy. Like a little girl on her way to get her favorite ice cream, walking ahead with a spring in her step. Except her steps turned into menacing echoes, encompassing them in an almost suffocating manner. 

At the end of the hallway, Cassandra threw open a smaller set of doors, doing a dramatic spin in the center of the room.

"Welcome to my little… work room. It's quite lovely, but unfortunately a pain to keep clean." The sadness in her expression was nothing more than a poorly concealed act. An act that she didn't care much for keeping up, as she went into a fit of giggles right after finishing her sentence. 

Said room was decently sized, a long desk running across one of the walls, while the opposite one had a wide variety of weapons in varying degrees of dirtiness. On another wall various devices that looked very much for torture and very much well used were hanging from hooks or long nails. And finally-...oh.

Oh.

On the far side of the room, two autopsy tables were lined, head end against the wall, their metal surface glistening slightly under the blood -both old and new- splattered on them. 

And Nicole was supposed to clean this bloody mess. 

"I want every tool in this room sparkling clean, including the tables," the brunette said with a wicked smile.

"Of course, my lady." With a slight bow of her head, Nicole started with the weapons. 

A sword, a dagger, a very old looking scythe, another sword but this one made to be welded with two hands and countless more. All with various amounts of blood dried on them. Blood that was surprisingly easy to clean off, aside from a couple more rusty blades. Whatever cleaning products they used, it was clearly very effective at cleaning gory messes. Shocker.

After finishing that portion of the room, Nicole moved to the adjacent wall, where the torture devices were hanging. She started wiping a vaguely human shaped metal frame when she heard light shuffling. It took a decent amount of self control to stay focused on the task at hand and not flinch when Cassandra was suddenly behind her, leaning down next to her ear. She was so close that her brunette hair was lightly brushing against Nicole's cheek, in an annoyingly ticklish manner. So close that Nicole got a faint whiff of roses from the perfume most likely applied earlier that day. It would have been nice if it weren't drowned out by a familiar metallic scent. To the brunette's defense though, it was hard to tell whether the blood scent was from her or from the room itself. 

After a few eternally long seconds of just hovering there, Cassandra finally spoke.

"This is one of my favorites." She caressed the metal surface the same way one would a puppy’s head. "We strap men to this, cut their wrists open and let them bleed out." The sentence was finished with a sinister cackle. 

It would have crept Nicole out too, if it weren't for the one thought that immediately jumped to the forefront of her mind. That's so ineffective. She weighed her options, with Cassandra still hovering over her shoulder in a position that couldn't have been comfortable given their height difference, and spoke tentatively. 

"Wouldn't the femoral artery be more efficient…?" 

The other girl froze for a second, narrowing her eyes and then scoffed, finally raising back up. 

"Who wants efficiency? The point is to prolong their suffering." 

She then dramatically plopped down in a chair, occupying herself with sharpening the curved blade of a sickle. She threw the occasional pointed look at Nicole each time she moved from one device to another to see if it would get a reaction out of her. It didn’t.

The devices were clean and it was time for the autopsy tables. Muscle memory kicked in and the metal surface was expertly wiped, blood and bits of flesh cleaned from every nook and cranny. After that she bent down to pull out the drainage tanks in which blood and bodily fluids accumulated. A piece of advice from what felt like an eternity ago screamed in her mind. When in doubt, hold your breath! And she did. Being used to the smell of decay did not mean being immune to it, and gagging in front of your new employee was quite the bad first impression. Luckily, it wasn't nearly as bad as she expected. Aside from some old stagnant blood, the tanks were otherwise clean. She washed both in the sink nearby and put them back in place with a content smile, hidden by the fact that her back was towards the other girl. When she turned around, Cassandra was scowling, sickle abandoned in her lap in favour of angrily drumming her gloved fingers on the desk's surface. A cold shiver ran down Nicole's spine, sure that she was about to get impaled by that very sickle in the next few seconds. When the brunette rose to her feet, she made peace with the fact that that was how she was going to die. In the humid basement of a medieval castle, on the first day of her job there. But Cassandra didn't approach her. Instead she paced around the room, scrutinizing eyes going over each and every instrument and, finally, on the now reflective surface of the tables. Her golden gaze then zeroed in on Nicole and, with a hint of a growl in her voice, said: 

"Alright. We're done here. Follow." 

Without sparing her another look, she unceremoniously threw open the doors and started walking down the corridor they had previously traversed. Nicole almost had to do a light jog to keep up with Cassandra's long strides, the glee in her posture now completely gone and replaced by frustration.

After exiting the dungeons and getting back to the more populated areas of the castle, Cassandra called out for the first maid that crossed their path. 

"You. Show this one to her quarters," she ordered and took off before the girl even had a chance to finish her yes, my lady.

Nicole and the other girl stood there for a couple seconds, until Cassandra's form dissipated into a swarm of insects and disappeared around a corner. Then the air seemed to be lighter, the threat of death no longer looming over their heads but reduced to a whispered reminder at the back of their minds. 

The pair strolled in silence down hallways that Nicole tried to commit to memory, until they reached a set of doors, modest, yet as elegant as the rest of the castle. Beyond them was a large room, with sofas and coffee tables for the staff to gather around with the central space left open. The large windows, occupying the better part of the wall to their left, sported beautifully intricate patterns of tinted glass, held together by heavy iron frames. Nicole mentally scoffed, realizing that she was looking at over glorified window bars and followed the other maid inside. 

"Do you have the key to your room?" 

Nicole pulled the key from her pants' pocket, pants that were now stained and dirty. Could've at least let me change, sheesh. The other girl took one look at the number engraved on the key and motioned for Nicole to follow her down one of the two corridors that opened up on the far side of the room. 

It almost reminded her of the hotels she and her family stayed at during her childhood. Dark hallways with doors on each side, the occasional person scurrying to their room and the big communal area. Except this looked far older and, in a weird way, cozier. 

Nicole came close to crashing into the other maid when she abruptly stopped and opened one of the doors, revealing a small room equipped with the necessary furniture for one person. 

"Well, look on the bright side: you get your own room." The other girl hummed, handing her the key. "I should get you your uniform. Size?" 

"Uh..an S please." 

In the five minutes it took the other maid to return, Nicole had time to take in her new home. She also noticed that someone had already placed her duffle bag near the bed. A sigh of relief left her lips at the small consolation that at least the few belongings she brought with her were here. Including her phone. 

"Huh. I thought they'd take it-" she had a better look at the screen. "Ah. No service. Of course." 

Not that she needed service for anything. The whole point of being there was to be as far as possible from anyone, but being able to check the news would've been nice. 

"Here you go!" She was snapped out of her thoughts by the maid’s way too cheerful tone. 

Nicole rushed to help with the stack of clothing and, once they were safely on the bed, the other girl spoke.

"There's seven uniforms, one for each day. Laundry is done on Mondays. Two pairs of flats and…" She trailed off pointing at a small wooden basket she had brought with the clothes. "Some toiletries and essentials. There's a perfume and broche with the family crest in there that I advise you make use of. The Lady likes her staff at a certain standard." 

Nicole nodded along and sat on the bed, finally letting exhaustion settle into her bones. The last few weeks had been a blurry hell. Everything from running away, to traveling, to coming to the village and finally the castle. She felt ready to curl up under a blanket and sleep for two weeks. But alas, she couldn’t afford the luxury of such rest. She almost forgot that she wasn’t alone in the room, until its other occupant spoke up.

"Oh by the way, what's your name?" 

"Nicole," she answered, extending a hand. 

"A pleasure to meet you. Anita," the other girl shook it with a warm smile.

[call-me-noa]

So on his blog Nasu said (more like clarified; Type Redline said this early on too in an author's note) that Gudaguda stuff is a parallel world from the rest of Fate and some aspects of its characters or lore may be different in other Fate worlds. Like Prillya. He gives examples of Nobunaga and Ryouma as being different in Gudaguda world's history vs other Fate worlds' history.

The statement, TL by Comun:

Keikenchi already explained about the Gudaguda Series in Koha-Ace, but it's been a long time, so it bears repeating here.

The Gudaguda Series has always be a spin-off to Fate/... Actually, more like a parallel series.

Part of its lore is different from Fate/'s world.

The biggest differences being about:

The lore and characterization of Nobunaga and adjacent characters (Tenkai included), Himiko, Counter Guardians, Sakamoto Ryouma, and Oryou.

When he consulted me about Oryou's lore and characterization, I worded my permission as:

"That doesn't mesh with Fate/'s worldbuilding, but their relationship is beautiful, so you got my OK. Do your worst!"

So note that even if Oryou was revealed to be you-know-who, the you-know-who is Fate/'s world is a different character.

The ancient Japanese mythology lore in the Gudaguda Series, much like Servant Universe content, is not exactly like how it goes in the main course of Type-Moon fantasy."

He is not saying Gudaguda is non canon, just that it's an alternate timelime so its characterization and lore don't apply to the rest of Fate. Again, like Prillya.

[thrashxunreal]

wait so do you do photography for bands and stuff? thats been something i really wanna get in to but i have no idea how those things work lol

i do!! this is my favorite thing to talk about lol I followed a very weird path to a lot of the opportunities that I've had but getting into it is actually very easy and I wish I had done it earlier!

first off - gear. if you have a camera already there's a very good chance you can make it work for what you want to do, but what does help is having a lens that's good in low light, so f/2.8 or f/1.8. Those aren't necessarily expensive but make a whole world of difference in difficult lighting situations (here's a canon example that i started out with) You can also get away with lenses more like the ones that come with your camera if you're just going to use flash though (also not super expensive to get a basic speedlight) i could go on and on here so always happy to answer more specific questions about gear

find small venues and basements and bars where there are no camera policies where you can just show up and shoot (bonus: they also generally don't care about flash) bring your camera to shows that you were already going to be at - that's how you start your portfolio. and if your friends are in bands, that makes this even easier

shoot shoot shoot ~ shoot anything and everything that you can and play with camera settings and editing until you find something that speaks to you! learn more about the fundamentals of photography and look at your favorite music photographers' work and try to reverse engineer editing that you like. don't necessarily get too tied down to one look right away because those things change over time anyway tbh Also if you're shooting digital, shoot in RAW alwayssss

share ~ tag the band, tag the venue, etc (when bands make it clear that they're stoked to see cool photos of themselves it makes it easy to slide in with an offer like "hey would love to swap photos for a list spot" or "would love to collaborate on a shoot sometime" when you're starting out, just so you're spending a little less money to do this and maybe even making a little instead) it's a mutually beneficial relationship and you'll prob make some friends!

put together a portfolio and keep it up to date with everything that you're vibing with as your style evolved (a website is ideal for this) and then inquire about contributing to zines and music/entertainment publications and blogs that can get you photo passes to cover bigger shows where you have to have a pass to bring your camera in (probably won't pay but will get you opportunities, practice, and exposure and it's not a bad way to make connections) Also talk to other music photogs you find yourself around (but definitely ignore the shitty mediocre middle aged men who have holier than thou attitudes and awful looking portfolios lol do not let them make you feel bad) there are plenty of rad people out there who are down to talk shop if you're looking for $$$ for this, apply to in-house photographer positions at venues or for venue adjacent companies like livenation, etc. (don't be afraid to ask other people who they're there shooting for)

keep sharing photos you're genuinely stoked about. just for your own sake. bc you literally never know who is going to see and also be stoked about your work. sometimes it'll be a person who has 75 bucks for you to shoot one set or sometimes it'll be a person who could change your life. I shot shows in bars for a couple years and the right person saw it and enlisted me to tour (nationally and eventually internationally) with a big band bc he liked my eye and my energy. this is all a lot but really the hardest part is getting started and you should 100% just grab a camera and shoot anything and everything you're able to!!

[tanoraqui]

AU: Hányǐng-jūn

(”Shadowbearing Lord”, translation by @lyratalus)

(see, this is my problem. I decide, “yes, damnit, I AM going to write this longfic!” and then 0.0003 seconds later I’m absolutely swarmed by other plot bunnies.)

anyway, Yiling Patriarch!Lan Wangji but, like...better

Lan Wangji gets out of seclusion and 3 days later takes a mostly sleeping Lan Yuan, a couple days' worth of provisions, and leaves for Yiling. Lan Xichen somehow catches him just outside of Cloud Recesses and LWJ freely admits that he's going to Yiling - the city, not the Burial Mounds themselves - and he's going to raise A-Yuan there and cleanse the Burial Mounds like Wei Wuxian was starting to do with the life he brought back to them

Lan Xichen lets him go, doesn't even bother to play the "shouldn't A-Yuan grow up somewhere healthier and wealthier" card, bc a) cheap shot, b) he knows Wangji has already thought of it (he's right), and c) this is doing NOTHING to convince him that his brother won't commit some sort of passive suicide if he doesn't get to keep that child. God damn, he thought they were over this phase of mourning but Apparently Not

so Lan Wangji gets a house in Yiling, has to deal with 50 tons of gossip - of a new variety; he's used to political gossip and "isn't he hot" gossip but wow he was not prepared for small town "ooh new hot single dad" gossip with a side order of random advice from elderly women about how to care for a six-year-old

(he is, in fact, very grateful for the advice)

(there is no way in hell that Lan Wangji knows how to be the sole provider for a six-year-old)

in the internal war between "do not let A-Yuan out of my sight" and "do not take the vulnerable child to the death mountain", I think the former wins, considering the small child already lived on the death mountain for about a year, and seemed fine except for malnutrition. Which was...well, yes it was a problem with the death mountain, but not directly. Lan Wangji has money and they live in town and commute to the Burial Mounds each day for LWJ to play Cleansing while A-Yuan runs around catching imaginary butterflies or practicing reading; it's fine

...though possibly the nosy grannies convince him to get a babysitter

and maybe to take a break?

oh no i would want so many OCs of just Lan Wangji's neighbors in this

anyway, it doesn't take long for it to become clear that even playing Cleansing all day every day is like being a bird scraping its beak once a millennia on a mountain. Sure it works, technically, but...not really. Frankly, the resentful energy grows back if he stops for a single day. And even Hanguang-jun only has so much power and endurance

he's going to have to handle the resentful energy himself. If he wants to do this, wants to leave some sort of positive legacy for Wei Wuxian, he's going to have to demonically cultivate himself. Siphon the stuff off, and do...something with it. It won't just vanish. Subdue corpses and monsters, probably? Go back to night-hunting?

I dunno how or how fast word gets out, but I guarantee you Jiang Cheng is the first person of note to hear about it and come furiously flying. The fight that follows is raw and possibly literally bloody, and 99.99% about Wei Wuxian (of course.) I think the only reason it stops is that even though they took it outside, A-Yuan wakes up (as does most of the neighborhood) and pokes his head out the window to ask what's going on, and Jiang Cheng puts two and two together with the kid he saw when he visited to disown Wei Wuxian and- 

He can't quite bear to destroy something even halfway adjacent to family He wants Wei Wuxian to have a slightly good legacy, too He storms off.

the only reason he doesn't pass Lan Xichen in the air is that they aren't quite coming from the same direction. This night is becoming very long but Lan Wangji is happy to explain himself to his brother: the careful methods he's started to use, never very much resentful energy at once, and the careful checks he has on himself, meditation and Cleansing and purification rituals. Lan Xichen isn't happy, but he has to concede that it all seems sound, and the goal is certainly a righteous one, and...there are worse ways to mourn

so when an emergency sect leader cultivation conference is called, because the news that Hanguang-jun has not only moved to Yiling but started practicing demonic cultivation has spread like wildfire, Lan Xichen calmly stands forward and defends his brother, states that Lan Wangji is working on noble goals with careful precautions and the full support of GusuLan, he can confirm it himself as Sect Leader but of course any who wish are welcome to visit Yiling as well and judge Hanguang-jun's precautions for themselves.

I cannot put in words how close Jiang Cheng comes to punching him in the face

So that’s what happens: people visit, see what careful measures Lan Wangji has in place, and are convinc- ha ha lol no it’s politics. But it works out. i wish I could say that it's some sort of tie between who Jiang Cheng hates most: Wei Wuxian for everything, but particularly for not even bothering to try to make it safe like LWJ clearly is; Lan Wangji for thinking he can just get away with this shit; Lan Xichen for helping him do it; everyone else for going along with it when they couldn't give Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng and YunmengJiang a single shred of goodwill; or himself for not standing up for either Wei Wuxian (a la Lan Wangji, however post-mortem)/his brother (like LXC)

but we all know it's nowhere near a tie

so...Lan Wangji doesn't plan to teach Lan Yuan (he's still a Lan! They're both still Lans!) any sort of demonic cultivation, but no matter what he does there's still So Much Dangerous Stuff around here, and they have no backup nearby, and demonic cultivation is just so much easier for those without a well-developed golden core yet -

so he teaches him, you know, some basic chords to make a ghost or corpse go the fuck away

(to start)

UNFORTUNATELY I'm pretty sure the timing is such that the Yi City Affair happened mostly while LWJ was in seclusion? Or at least, the start of it, such that the finding of Xue Yang by the side of the road happened either shortly before or shortly after he got out (and, in this case, went to Yiling)

and they have no reason to visit Yiling, so...all that...plays out. as in canon

no reason to visit Yiling, that is, until Xue Yang is sitting on the floor of the coffin house clutching a bag containing the shards of Xiao Xingchen's soul and feeling something like remorse for the first time in his life and he HATES it, he hates it SO GODDAMN MUCH, he wants to burn everyone who contributed to this to the ground and then torment their ghosts for centuries

so, he might then visit Yiling and the man said to be some sort of inheritor of the Yiling Patriarch's power. He almost certainly tries to play nice and helpless, just a good young man who made bad choices and lost his friend, and Lan Wangji probably tries to give him the benefit of the doubt and...yeah that does not last long.

especially if A-Qing has anything to say mime about it

Xue Yang has a fierce corpse on call and the won't-stay-down attitude of a feral weasel on crack who hates you personally, but Lan Wangji has a the home court advantage, including extensive practice siphoning and applying power from the Burial Mounds, and he's fucking Hanguang-jun.

Result: Lan Sizhui gets a sad fierce corpse uncle and a cheerfully-refusing-to-pass-on ghost-jie

HARD CUT uh...10? Ish? Years later? Wei Wuxian aka Mo Xuanyu is quickly giving up the idea of subtle launching fierce corpses at this hand bc at this point it's either out himself or people die, and the latter is not acceptable. He's just about to whistle them in when a ghost whips in and probably saves someone's life by knocking them out of the way. One of the Lan babies shrieks and hides behind another one - but a third points excitedly to the sky and shouts, "Oh, it's Lan Sizhui! Sizhui, over here!"

and who should descend by sword but one Nice Young Man(TM) with a guqin that he plays while switching effortlessly back and forth between spiritual and resentful energy, which, damn, Wei Wuxian didn't even know that was an option. I mean, it wasn't, for him, but...damn! What a clever kid! Did someone teach him?!

oh yeah, imminent danger of death by angry left hand -

Wei Wuxian does have to openly intervene, or at least, obviously intervene by fierce corpse and shouting some instructions at the kids, and then letting this Sizhui kid take the credit for the fierce corpses and trying to book it but, uh...getting caught. By aforementioned Sizhui kid. Who is polite and formal and, Wei Wuxian points out, extremely un-GusuLan-like, what with the bothering him and also the demonic cultivation. There's probably still the ghost of a teenage girl following them and making rude gestures at Wei Wuxian for insulting her little brother

"That's because I'm from the Yiling branch," Lan Sizhui admits, a little shame-facedly except that it's definitely fake shame. 

"Hmm?" says Wei Wuxian, like he knows what that means but is curious for more information (as opposed to have no goddamn idea what that means and desperately wanting more information)

"I, ah, study with Hanying-jun" says Lan Sizhui, who doesn't want to make a big deal out of his parentage. 

"Hmm?" says Wei Wuxian, who is fucking Dying here "I thought I might escort you home with me, so you can get properly cleansed after manipulating those corpses. One must be careful, of course." He sighs in a slightly teenagerish way. "It'll take most of a day, probably, after that arm. I try to use only spiritual energy on night hunts, but that was...pretty bad." 

Wei Wuxian, internally: okay, CONS: getting spiritually cleaned by Lans, even possibly Cool Lans - ugh, why are Lans always like this. PROS: finding out who the fuck this "Hanying-jun” is, bc...what the fuck. In Yiling? Is he stealing MY schtick?? And I can't just ASK, because clearly this kid expects me to recognize the title, which means Mo Xuanyu would probably recognize the title, and even a Lan who practices some sort of resentful energy manipulation isn't just going to be okay with suddenly meeting the Yiling Patriarch...And i can always run if I have to. 

WWX: I mean...okay! I don't have anything else to do!

except they do detour to Dafan Mountain a little because Lan Sizhui wasn't raised quite Lan enough to beat out the rebellious teenager streak and he wants to fight a big monster, and Jiang Cheng nearly fucking draws Zidian on sight bc he really. Hates. The Yiling Lans. And then Lan Wangji shows up just bc he heard about a ruckus and figured it was a good place to find his son

and then goddess statue, Wen Ning, terrible bamboo flute...

it's definitely not 'til after Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng have started and maybe finished fighting before Wie Wuxian finds out that the mysterious bastard who totally stole his spot as Dark Lord of Yiling is Hanguang-jun

or, you know...different title now

apparently

and then LWJ takes him and orders him bathed and - wait actually if they've developed elaborate formal spiritual purification rituals to balance handing resentful energy, he. he probably does order Wei Wuxian bathed

and then brought to his room

oh wow

beautiful

AND THEN PLOT RESUMES AS NORMAL?!? except possibly several questions of romance and Lan Sizhui's history get cleared up much faster 

also Lan Wangji - Hanying-jun - doesn’t have as peerless a reputation to trade on. Public opinion is probably fairly split between camps of, like, “he’s doing a good and noble thing, cleaning the Burial Mounds” vs. “the Lans say it’s okay so it must be, but wow that seems dangerous and/or useless” vs. “demonic cultivation is always eeeevil!” Among cultivators specifically, it’s more the first two, but...performatively more the first, genuinely more the second.