#so sorry for rambling op lol

[ectopolis]

as someone who is a stubborn completionist comic reader and a somewhat studied fan of DC in particular, this was the best & funniest post. "you guys haven't read the horror side of DC!" and then following that up with the flash is, like, the best. noted DC horror character barry allen. i'm calling the period in the 70s where barry was a republican to oliver queen's liberal to hal's shocked face of horror (yes, this was an actual title DC ran) the horror flash era.

i want to say that you are definitely right, but just like, substitute the flash for, like, the doom patrol. jane's powerset is by definition kind of infinite. cliff steele is a brain in a robot body who bashes his face into walls because he can't feel pain. negative man is... not altogether that different from danny, actually. alan moore's swamp thing, maybe one of DC's most famous horror titles of all time, features an issue where you find out the swamp thing isn't a person-crossed-over-with-plant-DNA, but a sentient plant that absorbed alec holland's consciousness before he died. that's also not all that dissimilar to what danny goes through, if not actually kind of worse. swamp thing's powers are also not that dissimilar, to be honest - there's one really funny bit (context: swamp thing and constantine fucking hate each other) where swamp thing has to possess constantine for a bit.... and he takes constantine's body to get a tattoo of a tree on his ass. i digress.

i'd also argue in favor of one dynamic in particular: as a character, danny is a spider-man pastiche, pretty obviously. but when spider-man was originally created, he was, like all other heroes at the time, a riff on the most popular, enduring symbol of superheroes: superman.

i love superman comics, like a lot, actually. superman comics have come to revolve around the question of giving a human person infinite physical power. there's no such thing as beating superman because the whole point is, you can't - clark's become so overpowered over the years that it's come to be meaningful within the story, like death of superman was only as impactful as it was because it was the death of fucking superman. clark's consistently depicted as always, always aware of his strength, because he can flick someone a mile away. (he does this to deathstroke once while drunkenly posing as bruce wayne. they actually hadn't met yet)

but in a real way, superman lives in a world of cardboard. there is next to nothing he can't destroy without even trying. his struggle has become power and how to wield it, power and how to manage it safely, how to use his senses without getting overwhelmed. powers so acute they cause sensory overwhelm are a superfam rite of passage, as is ethically dubious cloning, as is billionaires making tech to kill specifically you, as is growing up terrified of governmental vivisection. these things are in danny phantom because they're also features of spider-man comics, but spider-man got it from superman. there are comics where clark's hearing is so acute he can pinpoint batman's heartbeat across the planet. like, i don't do crossovers much, but i see a LOT of danny-meets-the-batfam (which is fine! i love the batfam! have your fun!) when my natural instinct is actually clark-takes-danny-to-space. i mean, clark literally has a glacier fortress of infinite ice where he houses endangered space animals. he keeps pet sun eaters. i don't even know what the fuck a 'sun eater' is but it's an alien pet and clark has a plurality of them, what more does a superpowered space geek need?

too many dpxdc headcanons about danny creeping the other heroes out that were obviously made by fans who havent read the more horror side of dc. danny would complain about slowly losing his humanity and the flash would say "i get that, i also died more times than i can count and im not sure if im fully human anymore" and they would high five and go get burgers together

[koumori-1999]

christmas shopping

[relaxxattack]

Hi i want to thank you for the QPR vs Moirail venn diagram. Its a rly excellent way of showing the difference. My gripe is about human romance, and how people will either 1- conflate it in a 1:1 ratio with Matesprit, or 2- claim it is “all the quadrants”. I personally feel both are false equivalency, and that the human romance is similar to both pale and red rom* and SO i was wondering if you agreed w that assessment, or if not, if you have the time to explain your thoughts on human traditional romance vs the quadrants (perhaps w another nifty graph)?

* which is why Rose’s destructive tendencies during sburb & her descent into addiction on the meteor were not addressed by kanaya, who feared palezoning herself like she did with vriska

OH MY GOD! YES!!!! why am i getting such great asks today?!

no, you're EXACTLY right. people are constantly conflating matespritship in those two ways; "all of the quadrants" being especially irritating (since Some humans occasionally argue, Occasionally in a kinky way, and i guess that means that they totally have all of kismesissitude covered?? :/).

matespritship is its very own thing. of the two interpretations above, i feel the idea that it's 1:1 to human romance is the closest to true. i mean, that's what they literally say in the comic, for gog's sake.

humans do not truly incorporate moirallegiance, kismesissitude, or auspisticism into their lives in any meaningful way. while it's possible for humans to sometimes have romances that might seem more like one of those than matespritship, they're considered abnormal or toxic-- and they often ARE, because humans do not have the same sort of biological drives or social understanding of these things that trolls do. humans do not understand the true needs and ramifications, or even the ROMANCE of moirallegiance. humans would be hard pressed to understand a kismesissitude in a 'healthy' way. i don't even need to mention how auspisticism flies over people's heads.

so, yes, humans only have the one quadrant. (and karkat vantas, i am sorry to say, is not going to "human date" anyone as the "solution to his quadrant problems". this would literally be the same as him trying to stick only to matespritship, and we all know exactly how that turned out.)

however! matespritship is not an exact 1:1 on human romance either. the direct quote from the comic is;

"[It's] the closest parallel to the human concept of romance trolls have." [x]

this is not really expanded on much in the text, honestly-- the intricacies of the social and biological traits of matespritship aren't shown enough for us to draw clear distinctions between them and human romance.

however, i think you're right that rose and kanaya are the best example we have of that-- despite them both aiming for matespritship, they have cultural misunderstanding quite often from some of rose's flirting, or even just her needs, crossing wires into a pale threshold that kanaya is weary of.

it's entirely possible that the differences between troll and human "hearts" might have made it difficult for kanaya to really connect with rose's problems and discuss them with her.

which might explain why when things go "better" for them in the retcon, they're portrayed reading a book on troll romance together:

it could be implied here that searching for a more in-depth understanding of quadrants actually helped rose with her ability to connect to kanaya-- and maybe, reading into it a little too hard here, this also could have been an opportunity for kanaya to work through her vriska-based hangups with the pale quadrant. that's entirely speculation on my part, though.

at the end of the day, we don't really KNOW enough about the details of quadrants for me to paint a clear picture of how matespritship differs from human romance. i mean, i could try, but it would certainly be more of a headcanon post than an analysis one!

[wifiwuxians]

there are few greater joys as a creator on the internet than creating something so absurdly self indulgent (dawn chorus) and having people support it and even enjoy it

[mintypsii]

HEY IF YOU SENT SOMETHING ON MY STRAWPAGE I'VE PROBABLY ANSWERED IT ON TWITTER (SINCE THAT'S WHERE THE REST OF THEM ARE) BUT NOT ON HERE IM SORRY 😭😭😭🙏🙏🙏 ill compile them all into one big post ,, i got 30+ sanusos on there already (which im incredibly grateful for i love them with all my heart)

[daily-linkclick]

im gonna miss xixi every day until forever, lowkey want the og timeline to be restored so that she can live

oughgh... sometimes i delude myself into thinking she can still be alive through qiao ling NOT in the sense that her powers transferred to ql (i actually hate that idea) but in the sense that her soul transferred to ql but not in the intrusive way it's like now ql has a little tianxi ai who she can talk to . for fun

[tirfpikachu]

Tumblr may have filtered my last ask bc it had a link, or maybe you weren’t interested in responding. If it was a fluke, I’d love to hear your thoughts on a post by butchmartyr/760478305191346176/noooo-trans-person-dont-mistake-your?source=share

My first thought was “there shouldn’t be gender affirming clothes” just clothes you like wearing or clothes that feel expressive. I stewed on it for a while because I definitely support people doing what works for them, but seeing this “no it’s not ur radical self acceptance, it’s trans apathy and don’t die wondering, u could be happier” was kinda wild. Anyway take care out there!!

NAUUURRRRR I WAS TOO LATE THE POST GOT DELETED???

but honestly from what you've said... i feel like trans ppl, especially those who go for more stereotypical opposite sex gender conforming clothes/hairstyles/etc can 1000% do gender affirming things that are sexist, or at least describe what they're doing in a sexist way. they often don't bother to look at their own behaviors thru a feminist lense. in their defense, they are often dealing with debilitating dysphoria and can't really think much beyond "i want the discomfort to stop" and humans often draw conclusions about strangers based on very stereotypical characteristics like long vs short hair, makeup, skirts/dresses vs shorts/pants, high pitched vs low pitched voice etc so for them, conforming to the opposite sex's stereotype means having an easier time being recognized as the opposite sex/agab. it means the awful feeling inside them stops and they get relief from the distress that dysphoria gives them. so they aren't thinking clearly, and i say this as someone who was dysphoric for like, 13 years.

honestly in some way i don't blame them - often they do this only until transition, and then i've found they (at least transmascs) are more likely to want to be visibly gnc post-transition. so they aren't just giving into the patriarchy's demands and reinforcing stereotypes permanently; it's a form of treatment, in a way. but the thing is that it's also addictive... they get validation from one stranger, whether it's just out of trans allyship or not, and then it makes the following times they're misgendered that much more painful. which makes them seek transition that much more desperately, understandably so.

the problem with this is that many of them don't just affect themselves with this. they affect "cis" gnc people too with how they talk about themselves and how they talk about gender-validating crossdressing ("crossdressing" can be a cringy word, but ykwim). they aren't just talking between themselves, as much as they tend to think they are. they're posting about this shit in public social media spaces with mildly dysphoric ppl and gnc people who can very well develop dysphoria thru reading their "how to Look Like A Man/Woman" type posts. if to "look like a man" or "look like a woman" you need to be gender conforming, what would that make "cis" gnc people reading it feel about themselves? in a world where we're always told that we're not man enough, we're not real women, we don't act or dress or think like a woman should? of course i developed dysphoria. ofc i did. many other detrans & post-trans gyns and detrans men developed it as a result of this kind of rhetoric. i understand that these ppl need tips from each other to figure out how to manage their dysphorias. i get that. but this shit isn't well moderated at all. they don't actually tell people hey, it's okay if you're just gnc. they don't put a dysphoria-inducing trigger warning or something. they don't realize that this is a... okay, this will be a weak metaphor, but kinda how some mental illness communities will give each other tips that really makes shit worse for ppl reading it who might not even have had any signs of mental illness symptoms before reading it. <<< another thing that happened to me btw, those tumblr spaces really made me mentally sick. i was always prone to it, same as how i was prone to dysphoria, bc of my upbringing & genes. but reading about very mentally sick people's deep inner thoughts really fucked with my head!! and reading about very dysphoric people's deep inner thoughts REALLY fucked with my sense of self. reading about them calling their boobs in masc outfits gross and disgusting and feeling slimy or whatever on their chest made me start feeling dysphoric about them; i had always felt insecure abt my body, and hated that it was so sexualized by boys, but suddenly i developed a whole new complex about it. i know gnc male/amab ppl can have similar feelings when transfems talk abt their bodies and how gross they looked in feminine outfits, how they wish they looked like cis women, how they can't wait to have that happened bc their current visibly gnc bodies are disgusting. cis/bio gnc men reading or listening to that shit can really gain so much shame abt their natural inclination towards femininity and traditionally unmasculine things.

trans people, dysphoric people really need to watch how they talk about their gnc bodies pre-transition and how much they casually gender clothes, hairstyles etc (even just in jokes). they also need to make sure their audience doesn't have ppl who are mildly, potentially treatable dysphorics who can fall deeper into dysphoria by reading what mainstream tras say about their gender nonconforming bodies and womanhood/manhood. they have no idea how many vulnerable, insecure people susceptible to new insecurities are reading what they're writing or hearing what they're saying. also, them trying to steal the "don't die wondering" sapphic slogan by making it about transness, making it about transition, is truly fucked up. if they listened to detrans/desisted/post-trans people AT ALL they would know what to do and not to do to prevent future detransitions. and detransitioners makes them look bad, as they always love to remind us, so why the fuck would they be so careless as to create more of us by not moderating their spaces? it harms trans people too, doesn't it?

we need more tra accountability. we need them to call this shit out.

[daxite]

are people really mad that of all things shadow is actually kicking ass in the movie trailer, come the fuck on lol

[obsessedwithgale]

Well I have someone (or a very intelligent bot) who flags my videos.

Enjoy them as long you can still watch them!

[lord-squiggletits]

hi!!

I do actually have a question about IDW1 Optimus Prime for you... it may be a weird one, but still. So. If you were an IDW writer, what would your OP be like? I mean, if you had that chance to make your vision, you know, officially canon? Would you change something, or create something new?

And thanks for all your works, those are amazing

Tbh that's a little bit of a tough question? Because the way I interpret your question, I think of it in a couple different ways like: If I were a writer at IDW during the IDW1 run, what would I have done? Or if I were just given an opportunity to add an OP-centric story? Or if I were completely starting/writing for a completely different continuity? It's truly not as simple as just me writing whatever my own vision is, because my understanding of IDW1 in particular is it was a very collaborative effort with writers and editors (iirc Barber wrote his own series as well as being the editor for JRO's stuff and possibly others, for example).

I guess if I were an IDW writer and got to write an Optimus-centric story, I would've preferred that his post-war story be more focused on Cybertron and Cybertronian politics. It's not that I don't like the Earth story (in fact, I think I'm one of the only people who cares about humans in the story and thought the Earth plot was fun), it's just that the plot is so contrived and full of mess/unrealized potential that I would probably scrap everything except a few bare bones things and start fresh. ANYWAYS.

TLDR: If I'd gotten to write for the IDW continuity, I'd have 1. focused more on Cybertronian politics and 2. set up a rivals-to-friends/foil relationship between Optimus and Pyra Magna

I would've liked to see an Optimus-centric story that focused on Cybertron's politics instead, especially with his efforts to create post-war peace and arbitrate issues between Autobots and Decepticons. I really enjoyed the Punishment story which showed the pitiful state of the Decepticons (mostly jobless, everyone sees them just as fighters and criminals, pushed to slums on the outside of the city) and how it was an Autobot who was going around murdering Decepticons based on his own sense of vigilante justice. I really liked that story because it showed how Optimus' ideals of post-war conciliation clashed so much against reality, the way that not everyone is as willing/able to move on as he is. I think more stories where Optimus specifically works to resolve Autobot-Decepticon differences while also trying to deal with Starscream's shitty behavior and getting involved in politics and Primacy shit with the colonists would've been great. Because I mean, Megatron isn't here to give a shit about his Decepticons being in slums, so if someone is going to help them it might as well be Optimus.

I also really enjoyed the parts of various stories like the Autocracy trilogy and Death of Optimus Prime that showed how neutral Cybertronians only saw his legacy with Zeta and/or the 4 million year war. Those are very real positions for members of their species to take: not trusting Optimus to be anything more than another corrupt Prime, or hating him because of his involvement in the war that painted their species as all bloodthirsty warriors and led to mechanical species being persecuted to some degree. I feel like a story focusing on the politics of Cybertron would've been a way better way to criticize Optimus than the weird crap that became canon (Optimus being equated to Megatron for the annexation of Earth which only happened because of tricky politics and to get more resources to avert another invasion, being framed as 'going too far' by killing Galvatron, and some other stuff I don't care to get into). And I feel like a story focused on Autobot-Decepticon social conflicts post-war, and the division between the war faction mechs and neutral non-combatant mechs, and the different cultures of all the colonies, would've fit in better with all the pre-war lore brought in by MTMTE/LL. MTMTE/LL would've given us a lot of pre-war lore that would've then given more context to how and why people see Optimus the way they do in the present on Cybertron. There would've also been more chances to show Decepticons as sympathetic characters suffering from a similar systemic discrimination as they did before the war. I mean, there ARE sympathetic Decepticons, but there's not as many as there could've been IMO.

I also would've set up Pyra Magna as a more fleshed out rival/foil to Optimus. Canon gave us fucking nothing, man. Pyra and Optimus met, Pyra (as Victorion) made Optimus admit that he doesn't believe in the Primacy and doesn't think there's anything good in that legacy, Pyra is like "you know nothing and you're a shit Prime, I can try to teach you something though".......... and then Pyra Magna and Optimus literally never talk about anything except tactics and Pyra is only there in the background to punch people, until OP when all the sudden she's bitching at Optimus for manipulating people and being "unteachable" when she never fuckin taught him anything??? Maybe Optimus wouldn't have been like that if Pyra had actually had character interactions like the story SET HER UP TO HAVE, but I guess Barber just really wanted to have another person scream at Optimus about how much he sucks.

I would've liked to see Pyra and Optimus butting heads over the issue of the Primacy and having a lot of cultural clashes because of the separate histories of their planets. Because clearly Pyra Magna is offended by Optimus viewing the Primacy as nothing more than a tool, but she came from a planet where Primes were venerated as gods so of course she's offended by Optimus' secular position. Optimus grew up on a planet where the legacy of the Primes was corruption and oppression and genocide/colonization of organics, so of course he's really jaded about the Primacy and thinks that it's nothing more than a corrupted mantle that he's trying to clean up by being as good of a leader/person as he can be.

It would've been nice for Optimus to have a genuinely spiritual person as his critic/advisor and eventual supporter/friend who could try to alleviate Optimus' cynicism about the Primacy and maybe teach him more about the history of the Primes and the spiritual importance of his job from her perspective. While simultaneously, Optimus could talk to her about the burden of leadership and how his position is tied so much in warfare and corrupt legacies, and Pyra Magna would come to see Optimus with more empathy as a person who's suffering under the burden of trying to be a good Prime and questioning whether it's even worth it. I really would've loved to see Pyra and Optimus having some sort of rivals-to-friends dynamic in that regard. Pyra could've been a little bit like Windblade, providing Optimus with advice on the culture and politics of Caminus (and other colonies) but with a firmer and more aggressive style that Windblade doesn't have (and Windblade would be busy doing politics, herself). Just UGH Pyra Magna was so fucking interesting the way she was first introduced in canon. Also she's so fucking sexyyyyyy why did Barber have to do her dirty by giving her basically 0 meaningful purpose in the story for all of exRID.

[wereh0gz]

It's so funny how if you scroll for a little on a terf's blog you'll find that some of the haha funny posts they reblog are from trans ppl lol

[dbphantom]

[paperhats-and-evil-schemes]

Hello! So I was wondering if it was ok to ask something, and please please PLEASE just ignore this if you're not in the mood to answer or anything like that, the last thing I want to do is make you feel pressured in any way about this, I was just wondering if I could ask how the writing was going..? I saw you mentioned that you've been getting a little bit done recently and was just curious about how things are going on that front, but I couldn't figure out how to word this without sounding like a peer-pressuring a**hole trying to make you write faster or something like that, so please don't take it that way, I'm just curious, but only if you're actually in the mood to talk about writing stuff! >-< I love your work a lot and you're a really nice person and I hope you're doing okay! Please totally ignore this if you don't wanna discuss fic stuff of course!

It's no prob, anon, I get what ya mean lol

Fic stuff is very slow-going right now, it's mostly just me taking notes and fixing certain details that didn't make sense in hindsight (I guess the one positive of a five-year hiatus is that I could take a refreshed look at my WIPs? haha...) Most notably of my changes so far is that I had to rearrange the chronology of my WIPs because there were some major pacing issues in the way I currently had it laid out, so now instead of the White Hat fic coming out after Bond and Happy Anniversary, that one's gonna be before Bond. (So, the next fic due to be posted, whenever that may be. Whether that's good or bad news is in the eye of the beholder, ha...) I've finished a few small scenes too, but not a whole lot to speak of.

Unfortunately I actually ended up losing a lot of notes as one of my documents got corrupted or something? I had a backup copy but it wasn't as up-to-date, so that's a bit of a bummer to lose some chunks, but what can ya do. //shrug// Most of the notes lost were on the shorter fics and not the White Hat one at least, so it wasn't really as big a loss as it coulda been, all things considered.

[shleemies]

Oh fuck I forgot to take 18 months post op pics of my chest! It was a few weeks ago! Gotta remember to take some

[k0mmari]

SYSTEM! SHEN YUAN AU (Pt.2)

Pt.1

Im not done with this, so to the people that wanted more, here it is! I, fortunately or not, have thought way too much again, so once more this is going to be a very, very, VERY long post. If you guys have any ideas about this btw, please do share them! I really am just letting my mind wander a bit more than usual, so maybe someone else can have more structured thoughts than me lol. (Fair warning, there probably will be plot holes, so sorry in advance!)

Please read Pt.1 if you haven't, or this won't make any sense!

After SY warped away from his impromptu meeting with Binghe, the last place he would like to end up would be even deeper into the Endless Abyss, but according to his System, the next piece of the virus was here. While not happy, since his Personal System was (mostly) working as intended, SY managed to activate Ghost Mode and walk towards the next part without having to deal with any of the creatures down there. (He had to try very hard not to get distracted by the monsters, lest his supervisor thinks he also went missing.)

It takes considerably more time to find the virus this time, so much in fact, SY starts to recognize his surroundings from SQH's ramblings (not that he was interested or anything), and he feels a cold sense of dread running down his spine. There was no way he was that unlucky that the object that got corrupted this time was-

He was that unlocky. Lo and behold, after entering a run down ruin, SY is faced with the legendary Xin Mo, power so overwhelming it manifested as dark fire covering the blade. The only reason why SY wasn't immediately writhing on the ground from the sword's power was Ghost Mode, which he could not rely for too long, as his Personal System was displaying warning after warning about Possibility of Corruption and God Like Plot Point. It all meant that SY was on a timer, and if he took too long, the sword would start corrupting his System, which in turn could corrupt him.

Now, since this was a VERY important Plot Point, Luo Binghe had to find Xin Mo or else the plot would derail to an unfixable degree, SY couldn't just snip at it, which was a problem, since manual debugging took a considerably longer time! Still, he summons his Scissors and positions it so he can start at least trimming off the virus.

His plan immediately backfires however, as an ominous crack sounds through the air and he's suddenly pushed away from the sword by a gust of energy. A bit disoriented, he shakes his head and acesses the sit-

Xin Mo, the horrible sword it was, was apparently so OP that it seemed to detect the Scissors at the last second, and the thing attacked back! The metal of the Scissors was dark and broken where it came close to the sword, almost broken in half! Which, not good! It any other time, a pair of broken Debugging Sheers would be more or less fine, if not a major inconvinience (and pay deduction) for SY, but since he'd been warping all over the time for a while now, his Personal System's energy reserves were carefully rationed, and if he were to use a chunk to send the Scissors back for some emergency repair, he'd only have one chance to go back to HQ. Alone.

He couldn't delay it any longer, he desperately needed to find SQH and pray he still had some energy reserves left.

Setting his Personal System's next warp location to SQH's last known location, SY wouldn't have guessed in a million years that he would go back to Cang Qiong Mountain, but whatever; maybe SQH had wanted to start with fixing the bug on Binghe's pendant? Not that this was the right time since it was after Binghe fell into the Abyss, but SQH had never been good at warping. It takes a bit of wandering and going inside different buildings, but eventually his Personal System managed to get a dirrect ping on SQH's System, which sent a massive wave of relief rushing through SY, since it meant that SQH was still slive.

Though as to why he was at An Ding Peak, SY could only guess.

After a bit more wandering, SY enters on what seems to be a (very messy) office space, SY feels all the pieces coming together in his mind. Half sprawled across the table with piles of paper covering the entire table's surface lay the An Ding Peak Lord, which- was already weird, since wasn't this guy supposed to be an enemy of the Peak now? After the whole betrayal thing or whatever? But that would've been something to look into later, were it not for said Peak Lord casually scrolling through a Personal System screen. A Personal System that could only be used by the System's Maintanence Staff.

SY wastes no time in deactivating Ghost Mode, and when SQH's eyes snap to his, the man jumps so high from his chair he almost falls back. It's not a happy reunion by a longshot, since SY immediately jumped his friend co-worker and demanded an explaination, almost screaming about it was all his fault for doing shitty maintenence, and creating this shitty world if it's shitty OP sword which broke his Sheers? Do you know how expensive these are?? I know you do, cause the supervisor never lets you touch the good ones cause you keep cracking all the other pairs-

It takes a more or less one whole hour to calm down SY, but eventually the younger settled and lets SQH say his bit of the story: Apparently, in his messing around with the System's world creation program when he was trying to find the bug in his world, he'd accidentaly managed to get himself actually transmigrated to PIDW, though still with (limited) acess to his Personal System, which let him still send messages to their supervisor and pretend that everything was ok. He'd gotten so unlucky too! Out of all the people to accidentaly select, did it have to be the An Ding Peak Lord? Couldn't it have been Binghe? Or MBJ- (SQH cuts his lamenting when he notices SY's absolutely viscious death glare being stared right through his soul.)

Long story short, he'd initially did try to fix his blunder, but as more time passed and SQH's access to Maintenance priviledges went out one by one on his System, he eventually just... Started actually living there. In fact, he was living so well there that he dared say his life as Peak Lord was even better then when he was with the System! Of course, since he had been integrated as a 'character' now, he had his limitations, he actually managed to get to know his fellow peak lords! He knew the name of his character's family members and his disciples! He'd managed to build a life he never even thought he could have inside the System.

Sure, did he betray the Peak? Yes, yes he did. Were they all going to die in a few years time when Binghe came back from hell? Yeah, yeah they were, and he was immensely guilty and terrified, but! The plot could be changed! He already assumed someone from the System had popped up in the Conference, as when Binghe had recently made his alliance with MBJ, and had mentioned in passing this weird thing that had happened to him just before he fell into the Abyss.

Anyways, eventually SY begrudgingly accepts SQH's decision to stay in PIDW, but he still had to help SY; and so they form a plan: SY was going to transfer some energy to SQH so he could temporarily get his acess to the full version of his Personal System and use his energy reserves to send SY's Sheers and get them fixed. SQH was also going to properly apologize to their supervisor for suddenly quitting without notice AND order some more energy stacks to be sent to SY's System. SY on the other hand had devises a plan to get closer to XIn Mo without the sword exploding his face off:

Infiltrate Demon Emperor Luo Binghe's palace as a lowly staff member and slowly debug the sword from the inside.

A perfect plan! What could go wrong?

SY selects to warp to a time where Binghe had Xin Mo mostly in control, so it is to no surprise he warps to a place were the Demonic Emperor's Palace is absolutely filled with women. Not the best situation, since a lot of people could and probably would be able to see him, but with that many harem members, it wasn't too much of a stretch to assume there was also a considerable number of staff, which, to SY's luck, there was! In fact, after he managed to activate a disguise for his clothes so they matched the rest of the servants, no one bat an eye on his presence; at most someone would inquire about his short hair, but other than that he was as noteable as a fly.

The first phase of his plan was already a success, so now he had to move on to reconnaissance which was mostly easy and the worst thing in his life. He was mostly looking for Binghe's quarters could be as he probably kept the sword close to him at all times, though with how big the palace was, his objective had gradually shifted to mapping out the labyrinth of halls as much as possible (SY was very glad that the System allowed him to create a map in real time or he might have gotten lost in the first five minutes). He walks so much he even manages to catch a few pieces of gossip, though the most interesting one by far being one about Binghe:

Apparently, a year ago, the Emperor had a qi deviation where, for a day, he seemed to have completely shifted his personality; he refused to touch any of his wives and kept screaming for his long dead Shizun. SY doesn't really remember that plot point, though his wondering is cut short when he hears people walking towards his direction. instinctively he his behind a dark corner, momentarily forgetting that he 'worked' at the palace now.

At list his bad luck was finally turning over as the Golden Protagonist himself walked past him with one of his wives hanging off his arm, looking just as cool as SY had always imagined. He had to snap himself out of his stuppor though, as two things caught his attention: First, Xin Mo was, predictably, strapped to his waist, still glitched but at least the virus seemed more or less contained, which gave SY a bit more time to work, though the other thing he noticed...

Hanging onto an old-looking braid laid SY's missing tassle that Binghe had found for him all the way back at the Conference.

What the hell was Luo Binghe doing wearing that old tassle at this day and age??

A few days passed and the Tassle Incident (as he called it) had to be set aside, as it seemed that passing as a servant also meant that other servants and even some wives expected SY to actually work. Not great, he sucked at cleaning and the other servants spared no words to make it clear to him, but it at least gave him something to do while he waited for his Scissors to arrive. SQH had sent him a few messages saying he'd gotten his part of the deal done, so now all SY could do was monitor Xin Mo's condition (from very far away), and occasionally manually debug some small virus pieces that had fallen from the sword, which luckily were easy enough to deal with that he didn't need to cut them off.

The only thing that was worrying him now is how... odd Luo Binghe seemed. Of course, he was supposed to be the pinnacle of the Cool Guy trope, so some edginess was to be expected, but Binghe didn't look just Edgy, he looked straight up depressed. There were bags under his eyes, and he barely seemed to tolerate the presence of 99% of his wives, and that damned braid with the damned tassle was still there-

Point is, Binghe acting so weird really threw SY through a loop, and he may have gotten a bit careless. At a random day when SY was carrying some dirty laundry another servant had just shoved at him, he had no prior warning before a voice sounded from behind him: "You seem to have dropped something."

He barely managed to shake off the violent sense of deja-vu that had sucker punched him in the face before he realized what was happening; Luo Binghe was talking to him. Directly to him. Shit- shit! Did he notice? Was Binghe doing a clever call back, spider-man style?? Was SY going to die????

SY shakily turns to Binghe, keeping his eyes locked onto the floor, bowing as much as possible that he still seemed respectful but the bag of clothes he had didn't all just fall to the floor. Thankfully Binghe didn't seem to mind, and simply put the fallen piece of clothing on top of the others and walked away. Though, just as SY was regaining his breath, Luo Binghe's voice stops him again. "You... Have we met before?"

SY trembles something about only being hired recently and not having the opportunity to formaly meet Junshang, and it seems to be a decent enough that Binghe just stares at him for a while longer before walking away. He really should grow out his hair if even the Emperor got weirded out like that...

Binghe started eyeing SY way more after that day. The protagonist would rarely speak directly to him, but SY could feel his gaze as if it were burning; though, since Binghe never said anything, SY just assumed that whatever Binghe's problem with him was, it was likely nothing to worry about.

In fact, it probably was because one of Binghe's wives had used SY is an impromptu act to try to get Binghe jealous (he just frowned, separated the two and walked away) and after that she had gotten infatuated with him, so she'd turned SY into her personal servant. Because of that SY saw Binghe at most two times a week instead of the 50% chnace of seeing his shadow once a week. Wow.

Because of this, as much as Binghe noticed SY, SY noticed Binghe as well, the protagonist seeming to get even more down as the days went. The tassle was still braided in his hair (SY worried it was just going to become a lock at this point), his eyebags never seemed to leave his eyes, and he was always muttering about... something. (SY managed to overhear something about 'fairness' and what Binghe actually wanted...?)

It all culminated at a seemingly random night. Most of the wives and servants had gone to sleep, only the more in-human women still hanging around, and SY, of course, but mostly it was because he wanted to see how close he could get to Binghe's quarters (aka Xin Mo) at night. Not that it was necessary, as when he was walking his attention was adruptly caught by the strangest sight: Luo binghe, sitting on one of the stone stair that lead to one of the many courtyards, being absolutely drenched in rain. The weirdest part was that a few servants and wives had also passed this place, and they all seemed like they didn't see Binghe, or didn't care.

Hating to see such an usually proud man (not that he'd seen much of that either) just soaking outside as if he'd just caught the love of his life cheating with another man, SY decided that at least he'd do a good job as a servant and take care of 'his Lord'. He grabs an umbrella from one of the adjacent rooms and slowly walks outside, covering Luo Binghe's form, not really caring if he was also getting soaked.

They stayed silent for who knows how long, but eventually, Binghe's eyes that had been laser focused on the horizon slowly blink once, as if coming out of a trance, and slowly move to SY's face, up to his hand holding the umbrella. "My Lord should get back inside. He'll get sick that way." SY half murmurs.

Binghe doesn't respond, though after a few seconds, his eyes seem to widen a bit and his breath comes out a little shaky. SY doesn't dare comment on it.

"Have we met before?" Luo Binghe asks again.

"...Yes." Shen Yuan says.

Binghe closes his eyes, and they stay like that for another hour.

Pt.3

[pillowspace]

Uhm question about your co op au-

Do saapfrin and isatfrin act very differently? Like does saapfrin act more like loop while isatfrin acts more like, well, isat siffrin? Or do they still both act like siffrin, just splitting his traits between them or something like that?

Sorry if this question is confusing lol, i don’t know how to word this

In short: their personalities start the exact same, they grow different, but not on a scale as large as canon Siffrin and Loop.

Late into the AU, SAAPfrin becomes a lot more Loop-like since a lot of what being "Loop-like" means is... trauma. But not entirely like Loop though, since SAAPfrin hasn't had to learn the art of utter dishonesty to ISATfrin and they never really lost their own party. They're still half Siffrin-like, more so a Siffrin with Loop qualities if you understand. Later on, they'll still give those little teehees and disgusted looks, but they never formed the habit of shaping their every negative thought behind acting especially pleasant. Not... much more than the average Siffrin would anyway

As for early in the AU though (them figuring out the House), the Siffrins are largely similar but SAAPfrin is a bit more playful than ISATfrin is. (Not to say that ISATfrin isn't! Just that SAAPfrin is more so). Why? Because I want that <3 and thus because SAAPfrin wants to lean into that trait to keep the atmosphere with ISATfrin more welcoming. It's a bit hard to work with each other if you're both trying to be the "quiet listener." Then, like Loop, a habit forms. It's not much, but a single seed has been planted in separating them that will grow more with time

Sorry for the length, it's 3am, I ramble at 3am 😭