#that doesn't foster any kind of good results

[catcze]

Spoilers for Wriothesley's backstory !! References to leaks of his backstory !!

When Wriothesley was younger and homeless on the streets of Fontaine, an orphan who ran from his foster home to fend for himself, there was no one for him to rely on. It was a dog-eat-dog world, and putting your trust in the wrong person could result in lying facedown in a ditch, just another casualty of the city.

Wriothesley was prepared to fight for himself for the rest of his life. Was prepared to sleep with one eye open, and ready to get stabbed in the back at any second. Everyone around him wouldn't cast him a second glance and wouldn't offer him a shred of help.

No one, maybe, except for you.

You were around his age— that much was evident from the first day he met you, when you found him crouched in an alleyway half-starved and soaked through by the rain. You were kind, if the umbrella you covered his head with was any indication. You had gotten soaked yourself, but you still smiled at him and told him to keep it, that he needed it more.

And lastly: you were born into good, good money. He found that out the next day when you bought him a packaged meal of warm meats and bread. Although he was hesitant to accept your kindness, cautious of what price you would attach to such a thing, the grumbling of his stomach won out and he finished the whole meal in less than five minutes. It was one of the best things he had ever tasted.

You said nothing as you sat beside him, uncaring of how the dirt of the sidewalk stained your clothes. When he was finished, you offered him a bottle of water. As he chugged it down, you gave him your first name, and when he hesitated to tell you his, you smiled and shook your head.

"It's fine, you don't have to tell me," you told him with a slight smile. And that was that.

From then on, you find him every few days at the same spot. He doesn't talk much, you discover, but he's always willing to listen to you talk. Anything under the sun— your lessons, your absent parents, the droves of socialites who try to butter you up with hollow words and false admiration— you can ramble about it for hours and hours and he'll sit beside you, interjecting on occasion, but generally letting you take the lead in conversation.

Once, you brought him a canister filled with tea, and watched as his eyes lit up at his first taste.

"This is some really good stuff," he told you, awe in his voice, already going for a second sip. You smile, seeing him so pleased.

"I'll bring you more next time. I'll try to make a different brew, too, to see if you'd like that even more."

When he gets scuffed from street fights, you're there to patch him up. Clumsily at first, with a furrowed brow and tangled strips of bandages, but you get better and better at it over time. He doesn't reject the help, and you don't scold him for getting hurt. It is times like these where your hands —only calloused by the grip of a pen and nothing more, unlike his that are so scarred and rough— make you both remember how different your worlds are.

One day, you go to the place you two had been meeting for nearly a year now, and it's empty. That's not particularly unusual— it's happened once or twice before where your friend couldn't make it, so it's no cause for concern. You merely leave the food and water in a little nook he had shown you before, and make your way home, hoping that he's alright and not too banged up.

When you get home, the maids and the butler all tell you of a recent incident that happened not too far away in the city— of an assault and a mangled body, of the perpetrator on death's door himself, barely rushed to the hospital in time. While you have dinner alone, they urge you to exercise caution if you go out tomorrow.

So you take heed of their words, bringing a new platter of food and hide small knife in your pocket as you head back to the same place yesterday. The food and water from before is still there, hidden in the little nook only the two of you know of.

Anxiety grips you, but you try to shake it off. You return the next day. And the next. And the next. Each day, the food you leave remains untouched every time.

You fear the worst after a week is up— you fear for his safety, for his health. You fear for the only genuine friend you had ever made, who had seen you as more than just your parents' only child. You don't leave your room for a week, poring over the newspaper and anything else you can get your hands on. The househelp thinks you're ill— and you are. You're sick with worry, sick with the late nights spent up as you stretch yourself thin trying to find something, anything about him. But when your parents learn of your seclusion, you're forced to give up your search. In the end, you're the only one left to remember the nameless boy with the soft smile and a love for tea.

It is years and years down the line. Wriothesley had been doing well as the administrator of the fortress— so much so that he had been invited to the Palais Mermonia to receive the title of Duke. He had barely managed to sidestep a grand investiture ceremony, instead opting to sign, take the relevant certificates, and be done with it.

When he enters the office of the Iudex, he's met with the man himself and a surprisingly familiar face. One that he had never forgotten, even on days where the ground threatened to crumble underneath him and the walls of his prison cell felt like they were closing in.

Your eyes blow wide, your grip on the documents threatening to rip the papers, and he doesn't miss the slight wobble in your lip as you gaze at him.

"Good afternoon, I'm pleased that you could join us," says the Iudex. He sweeps one hand in your direction. "This is one of our top attorneys,assigned to assist with the processing of your documents and certificates."

Wriothesley smiles, wider than he has in a long, long time, and reaches a hand out for you to grasp.

"Hi," he says, never taking his eyes on your face. He squeezes your hand and feels you tremble in his hold. "My name is Wriothesley. It's nice to meet you."

[aroaceleovaldez]

what do you mean by fandom infrastructure?

Oh goody I get to rant about this. Definitely gonna need a read more for this one. There's gonna be a lot of general fandom thoughts here so I'll put a big title for when I get to the actual list and pjo-specific stuff for if anybody wants to skip. Okay, my anthropological fandom thoughts:

"Fandom infrastructure" isn't official terminology by any means, but as someone who's been in a wide variety of fandoms for like 15+ years and in varying stages of participating within said fandoms, I generally use it to describe the sort of environment created by a fandom that supports and sustains the ecosystem within it (and may also extend to what kinds of attitudes are fostered within the community). This obviously looks different for every fandom (and different per platform), but I think it's really valuable to break down what systems exist in different fan spaces and how those impact the community that utilizes it, and take lessons from different spaces about what those systems do and how they're effective or not.

General forms of fandom infrastructures have shifted over time - a lot of more recent formats, at least in western fandom, tend to be very reliant on source material and you rarely see a lot of sort of classic archetypes of "old fandom" like concepts such as "big name fans" (I partially blame social media platform drifts for this - I'll touch back on that later*). A fandom with more consistent infrastructure over time (plus just a general favorite fandom case study of mine) and just a general good example of fandom infrastructure is the Furry fandom. It's a bit of an outlier to begin with as Furry fandom doesn't have an actual source material, which means it's an entirely self-perpetuating fandom, and as a result you get some really interesting community structure! (I highly recommend the documentary The Fandom for a dive into the history of the Furry fandom and even some adjacent fandoms!) One of the number one things I always like to note with the Furry fandom particularly compared to other fandoms is it's a very easy fandom to join/integrate yourself into and become a part of the community - it's one of the few fandoms that has generally agreed upon written etiquette/guidelines for behavior in the community that is very easy to find (early 2020s MCYT fandom had a little bit of this as well, but most guides were specific to individual MCYTs rather than the community as a whole and difficult to track down) and a ton of guides explaining what the community is and ways you can begin exploring it. Not to mention the absolute plethora of resources available in the community for just about anything you could think of, and tons of community-dedicated spaces where people can get involved in various ways. The furries are a very well-organized fandom in general! They're also an older and very well-established fandom, so there is much to learn from them.

I like to consider fandoms that have good infrastructure to be fandoms where the fandom is self-reliant or self-perpetuating (not fully dependent to a source material - so the fandom doesn't experience total dry spells when there's no new official media.) and one that's easy to join and integrate into.

Tangent: I have this whole personal concept about "entry-level fandoms" particularly when it comes to the cosplay community. A lot of those fandoms tend to be the ones labeled as "toxic" but when you break it down it's actually that the fandom is just very easily accessible and for a lot of folks that is their first fandom and they haven't learned general fandom etiquette yet. For cosplay, entry level fandoms tend to be relatively mainstream or otherwise easy to access the source material for and then also easy to cosplay while also offering ample room to grow (doubly easily accessible while also not limiting) - usually that the main cast of characters have very casual every-day outfits that can be easily made with a closet cosplay (cosplaying using clothes from your closet or otherwise "normal" clothes) (low barrier to entry) plus more elaborate and evolved outfits for when new fans get comfortable enough to begin exploring further (niches to grow into). Also bonus points if people are able to use their natural hair at all because that makes it even easier. Another aspect that tends to be helpful is how much one actually needs to get into the source material to begin interacting with the community - if you can get the general gist/premise of the franchise pretty quickly and not have to actually engage with the entirety of the source material, that's way more likely to be an entry-level fandom (like, One Piece for example is not likely to be an entry-level fandom, lol). Homestuck is (or more was) an easily accessible webcomic, and despite it's length for the majority of it's run it was actively updating so there was no expectation to be completely caught up, plus it was extremely common to just fully skip over entire segments. Cosplay progression: human characters in basic outfits > trolls > god tiers/etc. My Hero Academia is a mainstream readily accessible manga and anime, particularly to western audiences, and the general premise throughout the series remains relatively close to the pitch from the beginning, alongside not shifting core characters too much. Cosplay progression: civilian outfits > hero costumes and more complex characters. Percy Jackson actually very much fits the bill for this as well - its a VERY popular book franchise to the point where most people have probably had to read it for school at some point, but also it's generally not expected you'll read past Blood of Olympus or any of the side series, if you even read past the first series (and you won't be super lost if you even don't read far past the first book). Cosplay progression: camp t-shirts > adding armor, props, or maybe trying to make goat legs or etc. A more recent and very interesting newcomer to the entry-level fandoms scene is Genshin Impact because it somewhat breaks the format - it's still easily accessible (free to play game) but the character outfits are all incredibly complex. But as cosplay becomes more mainstream and just in general as manufacturing techniques improve, it's suddenly become very easy and affordable to just buy a decent looking cosplay, which is very appealing particularly for a fandom like Genshin. You can have a very nice and complex looking first cosplay with little effort, similar to the effectiveness of closet cosplays in the other examples. As varying techniques improve, the barrier to entry becomes lower in more communities, and there are more opportunities for a wider variety of entry-level fandoms. Okay tangent over -

There's a lot of ways fandoms can be self-perpetuating, but some of the most self-perpetuating fandoms I see are ones that either have a lot of room for original characters, concepts, and similar (see: TTRPG fandoms) and/or fandoms that are heavily divorced from the source material (often due to the source material being widely deemed "meh at best" but having compelling base concepts) (see: Miraculous Ladybug) which is where you often see a lot of AUs - Warrior Cats fandom is a good example of both! I have not kept up with Warrior Cats in ages, but I'm still in the fandom. I have no idea what book they're on. If Warriors stopped publishing books tomorrow I genuinely don't think the fandom would even notice. They've been doing their own thing for ages. There's a ton of room for creating your own characters, storylines, and etc within the worldbuilding of the franchise where it never stops being identifiable as Warrior Cats, which means the fandom can basically do their own thing eternally without ever cutting off newcomers to the community.

The majority of this stems just from being able to not rely on the source material to drive the fandom. If the community inspires itself, then it's able to continue to sustain itself without outside reliance. But to do so indefinitely it will eventually need new fans. And this brings me to the whole "easy to join/integrate into the community thing" -

*It's later - Tumblr used to be a huge fandom hub in general, but the content bans around 2018 led to a giant migration of communities to other platforms. That 2016-2018 era is when we see a shift in fandom in general, with fandom attitudes shifting from old-era concepts like ship-and-let-ship, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato, use of "squick," etc (in general a major loss of old fandom linguistics and terminology - nobody even says OTP anymore!). There's a couple of reasons for this sort of multi-fandom cultural drift, but in general it seemed to widely be the combo of a new generation of younger fans entering their first fandoms all at once while simultaneously being cut off from learning established pan-fandom culture. Newer fans never learn about the old community, how it functioned, or how to upkeep it, and now the fandom is fully reliant on the source material and fizzles out almost completely in the absence of new official media. (Also I think somewhat the lack of BNFs/Big Name Fans can also contribute to this, as they are often the people new fans will look up to and emulate the behavior of when learning how to interact with a fandom - this can be good or bad, depending on the BNF! - alongside being able to learn about the community's history through them, since they're almost always older and well-established members of the community. In the absence of BNFs, the community often turns more towards the source material/creators and it can get Bad™.)

Tumblr as a platform, due to being a blogging and sharing platform, is inherently structured for long-form discussion, long-form text, documentation, and sharing concepts and ideas in nuanced ways. Also preservation - there's no time limit for when posts disappear, and there's no algorithms restricting you to only the newest posts. Tumblr's features even make it really easy to go back and find old posts, even despite the semi-broken search features. Tumblr creates environments where these types of communities absolutely blossom. There's a reason why it was the go-to platform for fandom stuff. Instagram is image-focused, actively discourages text, has a mediocre search, and no proper means of sharing except awkward reposting most of the time. Tiktok is even worse, being short-form video-centric (so even more difficult to repost in absence of sharing features) but otherwise similar (and even less text-friendly and more difficult to search, especially for older posts). Twitter has strict text and image limitations, heavily limited sharing options, and any attempts at threads get messy extremely quickly, so nuance is dead there. Reddit has long form text capabilities but no real sharing features and next to zero longevity. Facebook and Discord are locked behind requiring an account to even view it (instagram as well, to a point). And Youtube is right out (generally it acts as supplementary to other social media). Theoretically you could try to use Ao3 for that, but it's an archive, not a discussion board or social media - at best you'd probably just be going back and forth like scientific journalists which will not be easy for most people to follow. As far as mainstream western social media goes, Tumblr is the best place for "classic fandom" so-to-speak. There's a reason a lot of very established fandoms have built their own dedicated spaces - forums, art sites, etc (usually in combination) - the more splintered your community is, the less of a community it is. It's very difficult to build a community when you never know where the majority of your community is going to be at any given point! In most cases you'll still have the source material, but how is a new fan supposed to know if everybody's on twitter or instagram or tiktok at any given time? That uncertainty immediately cuts off new fans. And you need new fans to perpetuate a fandom (or in general, new people to perpetuate a community). Not every community is capable of having dedicated hosted forum boards and such (though GOD i wish,,,, i miss forum boards,,,, forum boards are awesome,,). Maybe there's a Discord, but discords are difficult to find, easily overwhelming if large, and often intimidating for new folks to join. Not to mention difficult to moderate and if they're busy then it's basically guaranteed most people are just going to get drowned out.

ALL THIS TO SAY: For a true fandom community to exist, essentially, it needs to a.) not be entirely reliant on the source material (instead being driven by activity within the community), and b.) have a cycle of new fans that can come into the community and take up the mantle of upkeeping that infrastructure and continuing the activity within the community, usually with low barrier to entry. This is where that fandom infrastructure becomes important, because that's exactly what supports and encourages that activity in the first place.

To begin with, you must have a community acceptance for deviating from the canon/source material. This is normal and fine and okay. This is what fandom is known for. This is exactly why we have the terms "fanon" (concepts largely agreed upon by the fandom but not officially canon) and "headcanon" (the canon that exists in your head/is personal to you) and AU (alternate universe)! You have to help foster this - you don't have to actively engage with every canon deviation you see, but respect when it is other people's prerogative to deviate from canon and don't shut them down just inherently for "daring to disrespect the sacred canon" or whatever. Remember the ancient fandom proverbs: don't like-don't read, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato ("Your kink is not my kink and that's okay"), ship-and-let-ship, etc. Cringe culture is dead, engage in some whimsy, and remember that ultimately you always are the one to curate your own online experience. Etc etc.

The other major thing is you need to foster spaces where new fans can easily enter and begin engaging with the community. These spaces are extremely important in fandom communities because it's what allows fans who are completely new to fandom to comfortably begin partaking in fandom at a level appropriate for them and without pressure. It's in these spaces that those whose who wish to can begin fostering skills that then leads them to engage with the fandom in larger and more complex ways, growing into different niches within the community and thus allowing the fandom to continue. (I have a whole little essay about this topic [here] which is extremely relevant to my major points here.)

"Alright so where's the PJO-specific stuff and actual examples?"

I'm glad you asked, theoretical reader. So, to answer the beginning question - what is some fandom infrastructure I've seen in other communities (and/or Riordanverse fandom, back when we had that kind of stuff)? These are generally types of blog or other niches that prompt activity, discussion, and other forms of interaction within the community. I have comprised many examples though forgive me if my organization is messy because these are somewhat difficult to categorize concisely: (Also if you do know of examples in the riordanverse fandom of any of my examples, like specific blogs or etc, feel free to comment them!)

- General community hubs and community spaces. I have these as two slightly different but adjacent categories since I think these things generally fall into one of two categories - spaces meant for general chatting and interacting with other fans (community spaces) and spaces more meant to find specific topics (hubs).

Things like forums, discord servers, group chats, etc - these exist in the PJO community but are far and few between and difficult to find. If you run one I highly recommend putting a link in your tumblr sidebar (enable custom theme > edit theme > new page [bottom of sidebar on the left] > there should be a little dropdown menu where it says "standard layout" - select "link" and plug in a discord invite set to never expire. there ya go). A couple I know of include my own (one for general riordanverse and one for my askblog), the Titan Army discord, these two, Riordanverse artists server, Nicercy (Percico) events, Jasico challenges, and Above The Clouds (also jasico). There used to be a big general PJO server but it's mostly inactive now (I affectionately refer to it as functionally a knitting circle these days, cause that's most of what's discussed there now, lol). There also used to be a well-known TOA-specific one and a general Riordanverse cosplay discord but both had problems and I'm not sure either still exist. I've heard there may also be a Percabeth server floating around somewhere? But I've never seen it.

"Hubs" is what I label things like blogs surrounding specific designated topics, usually consolidating stuff like general fanworks, specific fanfiction, fanworks of specific characters/groupings/ships, etc. I believe there might be one or two general riordanverse fanart blogs floating around. I'm not sure about blogs for specific fanfiction. A lot of ship-specific blogs went inactive by like 2017 but a couple are still alive like @solangelo. (I'll get into some other examples in a similar vein to this later*) We don't have a designated blog for keeping tabs on whenever there's a Riordanverse fanzine or similar project but some fandoms do (I would love this btw and i am almost tempted to do it myself) - an old pan-fandom one was fanzinewatch. I run a blog dedicated just to reblogging fanart (and occasionally other fanwork) of Hazel and Nico - @deathsibs. I don't know of any individual character-specific blogs off the top of my head unfortunately. Etc etc.

In general the purpose of these things is to help connect the community and make it easier to find and promote things or meet people. These are good places to ask questions, particularly directions or recommendations. That brings me to another one-

- Ask/Tag games and memes. Back in ye olde tumblr days there used to be TONS of fandom-specific inbox and tag games, or people would do milestone promos or etc and do these massive blog recommendations or literally just list everyone they follow or similar. This was a really useful way for people to find more blogs for specific topics and engage with each other in general. Here's an old one I found as an example. My friend has a nice tag with a bunch of old ask memes as well, and Hermitcraft-ask-games is a great example of a blog categorizing fandom-specific ones (Hermitcraft/adjacent MCYT in this case). Tag games can refer to both posts where you respond to the prompt in the tags while reblogging or a game where you tag other people - the latter has mostly fallen out of favor cause it can get very spammy and posts can get very long with it. Less spammy versions tend to be something more akin to an ask game or a follow forever, where you are responding to a specific question or prompt by tagging blogs that fit that, usually as a recommendation. It's a little nicer and more favored because then you're promo'ing other folks and usually it's not a long chain of reblogs, plus the posts tend to have dedicated formats so they aren't super messy.

- In another similar vein, Art games/memes. PJO fandom doesn't have a lot of these! These are your "Draw 6 Characters," "Character color wheel," etc prompts. The fandom I see this the most in is MCYT fandom, particularly Hermitcraft/Trafficblr! There's a ton of little variant prompts I see all the time there (not just for fanart! also fanfic and etc!) - Characters in your style, Fanon species swap, color palette swap, etc etc. (I am totally going to try and make one of these for riordanverse, give me a bit, lol)

- Prompt weeks/months. Also similar - prompt weeks/months/etc are pretty self-explanatory. They're events that give you a set of prompts to create/post fanwork themed to over that time period. PJO fandom used to have plenty of these, though I only see a couple floating around these days. I know Jasico Week/Jasico Challenges and Solangelo Week are still alive, and TA week happened recently. Fun fact, in some smaller/largely inactive fandoms I've actually seen prompt weeks DM active people in the community to tell them the prompt week is happening which I actually really like. In circumstances like that where a fandom is so small, scattered and inactive, it's a good means to get the word out.

- Headcanon/ship/"Imagines" blogs *It's later (again)! Headcanon blogs used to be EXTREMELY common back in ye olde days of fandom. Some of the most popular iterations tended to be ship-specific headcanon blogs. PJO fandom had A TON of these (and many are still up! They just haven't posted since like 2017 at the lastest. Quite the trip down memory lane though). They were generally formatted by people submitting their headcanons/"imagines" anonymously, which would then be formatted into an image to match the blog's general format (sometimes themed to specific characters or subjects, depending on the submission itself) and posted. A good example from PJO fandom I stumbled across the other day while looking at old askblogs is Percicoheadcanons. Absolute classic format right there. Also bonus time capsule points - the most recent post is from before Blood of Olympus was published. That's just particularly amusing to me given the ship in question here.

- Shortform Headcanons / Short Memes & Shitposts Helyeahmangocheese reminded me of this one in my previous post - shortform headcanons are essentially any headcanon thrown out into the world in a short format. So you're "headcanon that [x]" or whatever with no elaboration. Just quick little snappy things off the top of your head that people can pick up and run with. Sometimes there would be blogs dedicated to these, with people submitting them in blog formats like the above, and then shortform headcanons to be posted in that format. Short memes & shitposts are the exact same type of thing - just short little silly textposts and similar cracking jokes that the fandom can take and run with. Both of these are more important to the fandom than you'd think - a.) they have a very low barrier to entry, which means they're a great way for new fans to begin engaging with the larger community. b.) they circulate new ideas for other fans to build off of, creating collaborative concepts. These collaborations help build the community with giving opportunities for people to chat/inspire each other's work and can create iconic fandom moments or community references/in-jokes. And old one from PJO fandom that floated around was somebody threw out the concept of Will Solace's weapon being a lasso/whip (because cowboys/he's Texan/etc) made of light, which then got illustrated and elaborated on by many other fans such as Cherryandsisters and was very popular fanon for a time.

- Confessions Blogs These ones can be decisive in fandoms, depending on how they're run. Confession blogs in general are blogs where people anonymously submit fandom thoughts, opinions, etc (formatted similarly to HC/imagines blogs like above). There's also usually a decent amount of funny confessions like initial misunderstandings or confusion about things. Most well-run ones of these will have rules against negativity towards other fans and similar. When done properly these blogs can be a nice way for the community to have discussions about topics that they may be afraid to broach publicly, and easily can generate community in-jokes.

- Positivity blogs / Fandom voting Somewhat opposite to (at least, more negative) confession blogs, fandom positivity blogs are a very sweet way to spread compliments around the community. Sometimes they're anonymous, sometimes not. Generally though the format is people can submit compliments or kind notes to other people in the community and it'll get posted tagging the individual in question. Trafficblrpositivityproject is an MCYT example of this concept. Fandom Voting is a little bit more odd and varies a lot between communities. An old one PJO fandom used to do was PJO Prom, where people could nominate blogs for different categories, they would either accept or deny their nominations, and then folks would vote for their top favorite blogs of each category and winners would be announced (though the event also included more than just that - like blogs asking each other to prom and etc). In other fandoms I've also seen elections where various members of the community would jokingly campaign for election (including choosing other members of their campaign), people would vote for a winner, and then do it all over again. Fandom elections tend to be a lot more chaotic and silly, versus stuff like fandom prom voting is more geared towards just appreciation towards members of the community.

- Fandom Events / Community Projects Related to PJO Prom, (and prompt weeks/months) general fandom proms or valentine's events used to be pretty popular, especially amongst RP and askblogs. These weren't always strictly organized, but they generally involved asking other blogs to prom/to be valentines and then people would draw cute prom/holiday art or similar to celebrate. Some blogs would send out valentines to multiple blogs just as a nice cute lil treat in a similar vein to how some blogs still do trick-or-treating events. Trick-or-treating events have been a thing for awhile, generally following that same structure, but it's become significantly more popular in general now that tumblr has image embeds possible in asks rather than having to submit a post. Other fandom events can include fandom elections like mentioned before, or any number of things really, but the majority of regular ones will include gift/fanwork exchanges in some form. Secret Santa projects are very common (and PJO did have them! There isn't one singular PJO Secret Santa blog since it seems different folks did different years so I can't link it, but I participated in 2016 iirc. It looks like the most recent one was in 2021 - pjosecretsanta2021). I did find Rrversesummerbang as a recently active one as well. Zines and similarly collaborative projects are also common - PJO fandom does occasionally have zines but they aren't very frequent and generally don't get a ton of traction (which is very sad cause zines are very fun - most of it seems to be just the fandom doesn't have good ways of getting word out about events through the community). We've also had a couple of coloring book projects! I participated in the 2016 one and there was another in 2022. Some other fandom and pan-fandom examples of similar stuff is Mcytrecursive (Gift exchange for fic-of-fic, in this case MCYT-specific), Fic in a box, Mcytblraufest (AU fest), general holiday exchanges, etc. (A lot of my examples are MCYT cause man that fandom is active). There are a lot of pan-fandom ones of these, but usually involvement of specific fandoms is entirely dependent on sign-ups and it can be difficult to know or guarantee any specific communities participating. Fandom-specific ones are generally more well-known in their own communities for obvious reasons. In other projects, Riordanverse fandom even once had a Multi-Animator Project! These are more common in fandoms like Warrior Cats that are very artist and animator-centric, but the fact that we have at least one major one at all is pretty cool! Collaborate games in similar veins to big events/projects like this (see stuff like the art meme/games) can also be great ways to get the community active and engaged. Voting/poll stuff like character or ship brackets can be really interesting too and depending on how it goes down can become an EXTREMELY major event in the community (see: MCYT Tumblr Sexyman bracket). Very fun times.

- Incorrect Quotes / Text Post Memes / Chat Posts Rolling back to headcanon/imagines blogs, incorrect quotes for specific ships/character groupings used to be extremely common. And not even just dedicated blogs, but incorrect quotes/chat posts were pretty much the number one thing the average fan who didn't create fanart/fanfic/etc would post. I was actually quite surprised to see that Incorrectpercicoquotes is still alive. They post more than just incorrect quote/chat posts (not uncommon for blogs of those nature, especially back in the day), but still it feels like seeing a thought-to-be-extinct-species in the wild eating a bag of chips. Anyways, like shortform headcanons and memes/shitposts (of which these are somewhat a subcategory of), these are another low barrier to entry type of fandom engagement, which means they're great for new members of the community.

- Askblogs MY FAVORITE TOPIC. I have a list of PJO askblogs on my sidebar actually cause I'm very passionate about them and askblogs in general. For what an askblog is, my blog @askblog-index goes over that and also I answered some questions about askblogs recently, which you can find in my askblogs tag (also I'm always open to answering questions about askblogs please ask me about askblogs I love them so much). There's so many different varieties too - text, illustrated, cosplay, voice acting, combination, etc etc etc. Askblogs are a really fun means for collaborative storytelling in the community, especially with how much they tend to generate headcanons or put characters in silly little scenarios. Cherryandsister's Will Solace askblog is practically personally responsible for a solid 50% of all Will fanon. Photokinesis!Will was entirely popularized there. They're also a really great place for people in the community to build up their skills - yknow those jokes about "the best way to improve your art is to become obsessed with something and draw it one billion times?" yeah askblogs are that. My art improved so much by starting an askblog because it pushes you to draw things you might avoid normally or wouldn't expect to draw - or if it's not an art askblog, is just plain good practice for writing or voice acting or whatever. It's a regular outlet where you can build up your skills with not a lot of pressure but also outside encouragement and concepts to build off of. Character or fandom-specific daily art blogs and similar request art blogs are similarly also very useful to building up skills (and can be applied to other artforms like fic writing!) (Request blogs are not the same as askblogs though please dont send random art requests to askblogs just gotta put that disclaimer). I also personally consider them extremely vital to fandom ecosystems, though often overlooked - remember those old "ask the seven" posts that would be the terribly colored text in random fonts on a white or poorly-chosen-color background that'd just be random stuff and it'd get reposted absolutely everywhere? For a lot of people that's both some of the first stuff in a fandom that they might make, and also some of the first stuff people used to see in fandoms in general. With my whole silly theory of fandom ecological niches, those types of posts are your base of the pyramid, because it's where most fans are going to start out. It gives them a low-stakes place to begin engaging with the community and figure themselves out and begin exploring the characters and media on a deeper level. That's what fandom is all about! It's what separates fandom from just the general audience of any particular thing. Those types of posts were popular because they're just easy to make! All you need is mspaint, if even! They get across their concepts quickly and easily in an easily sharable format - that's exactly why they got reposted absolutely everywhere! The concept of those posts (and general character chat posts/incorrect quotes) still exist in other spaces in fandom communities, but in different formats - usually tiktoks, being spoken and acted out loud. The problem with that format though is it can't go anywhere - even in shortform video format there's no way to easily condense it down (and also they have a higher barrier to entry, as the format at it's simplest usually requires some aspect of showing your face/using your voice. This means you inherently have to sacrifice some amount of privacy to engage with the format, which isnt friendly to new/younger fans). Meanwhile these ask-the-seven posts are one jpeg that gets across the entire concept. And we've evolved! We have better technology! We can pick better colors and fonts and add image descriptions! We can bring the format back!

- Cosplay This one is pretty self-explanatory - just. Cosplays are a type of fanwork too! PJO cosplay used to be pretty common on tumblr actually! Particularly there used to be a decent number of cosplay askblogs (which are just askblogs where instead of responding to questions with text or a drawing, asks are answered with either a gif or image of the mun/mod in cosplay reacting in-character). Cosplay is cool! And in PJO fandom it's particularly easy!

- Roleplaying Spaces PJO fandom does have a pretty active tumblr RP scene as far as I've been able to tell, which is good! Also you can find people who want to RP pjo just about anywhere. It's just somewhat of a matter of giving them a space to do so. I talked about how to get into roleplaying recently on my blog as well. RP is also one of the forms of fandom infrastructure in this list that transfers well to other social media platforms, in large part due to social media RP making it a whole lot easier. The fandom is mostly just severely lacking in hubs to locate RPs and help people find ways to begin engaging with them.

- Public AUs / OCs Public AUs/OCs are a bit of a weird one to describe - they're basically any AU/OC that the creators (if there is a singular known creator of it) have given total free reign to people with. More often it's an AU that doesn't have a particular known creator but the fandom likes to run around with and do a lot with. In PJO fandom, the ye olde fandom OC was Peter Johnson, a son of Demeter. The AU generally was about how Peter Johnson was a new camper and Mr. D's favorite camper, and just generally a sweet lil guy while Mr. D proceeds to torment Percy because of the name jokes. A series of public AUs that's completely unique to PJO is Godswap aus - there's no one singular set godswap au, but the two most common swaps tended to be Demeter!Percy (in part due to Peter Johnson) and Aphrodite!Nico (admittedly this one was like 90% gay stereotypes/homophobic tropes and there's a reason why the fandom kind of dropped it. It was absolutely the most popular godswap for a time though, and some of the concepts from it have bled into general Nico fanon for better or worse). General pirate aus have also always been very popular in the fandom - there were some old ones back in the day, including local BNF (Big Name Fan) Saberghatz having at least one, maybe like two or three, including a cosplay. Pirate!Nico in particular was very popular. There was actually a slight resurgence of PJO pirate AUs on pjo cosplay tiktok in like 2020 or so I wanna say. Truly we came full-circle there. There's also just general popular AUs that fandoms like to run with. For awhile PJO fandom had a HTTYD au they really loved. The current fandom favorite AU seems to be Velinxi's Young Gods/Hades Game AU.

- Fangames This one might sound odd because Riordanverse fandom doesn't really have this, but fangames can be REALLY fun and cool. Fangames also often spark mini-fandoms in themselves and are just really awesome in general. There's a lot of different varieties of vastly varying complexities, but a lot of it is pretty much just "I made a game, it's about [fandom], here ya go." Some good examples from other communities off the top of my head are games like ClanGen or Untold Tales for Warrior Cats, or Featherbent from the Homestuck fandom which was a visual novel / AU fanfic. Btw, visual novels are actually not all that difficult to create. If you're interested in trying to make one I highly recommend checking out Ren'Py - it's basically a program to make visual novels with.

- Other project types / General Collaboration Related to community events, particularly Multi-Animator Projects (MAPs), AMVs/PMVs/Lyricstucks ("animated music videos" and "picture music videos" - lyricstucks are the same as the latter but usually in a scrolling tumblr post format with the song linked at the beginning rather than video format) are very cool and can be both individual or collaborative projects (in Riordanverse fandom most are probably very familiar with Viria's old lyricstucks - Nothing Left To Say and How Far We've Come). Some folks do dubs of fancomics (also used to be a thing in PJO fandom, particularly back when the PjoVoices group was active and the brief stint in the fandom when we had some Voice Acting askblogs) which can be a nice way to collaborate and engage with other fans in different mediums. "Aesthetics"/Moodboards (usually an arrangement of either 2x3 [former] or 3x3 [latter] grids of images) and the more recent "webweaves" also are a great low barrier to entry type of fanwork that has a lot of variety and versatility (just make sure to credit art/photos used) - especially if you make moodboards/webweaves inspired by people's AUs/fics/etc!

- Gifset Makers / Editors In Riordanverse fandom we don't see this often, because we're primarily a book fandom, but back in the days of the movies and more recently now with the show, editors and gifset makers are a very cool niche of fanwork creators. Gifset makers is pretty self-explanatory - they're people who make gifs. Editors can range from people who make edits of clips or put together clips of images or a whole bunch of very different things. Very wide range there. Edits (with credit to the original artists) can be a really fun alternative to AMVs/PMVs/etc if you don't draw but you have a concept (CREDIT THE ARTISTS - trust me, having your art used in an edit can feel super cool but ONLY IF IT'S CREDITED. IF IT'S NOT CREDITED IT'S NOT FUN. if you ask and credit people will probably be happy about it!). Edit blogs can also be very fun and are often a big hit in fandoms - "Where is [x]" and "[character] in places" are classics. Again just remember to credit artists appropriately and ask permission to use their work.

- Fanwork Promotion Blogs/Hubs PJO fandom does have a couple of these still floating around I think! I don't know them off the top of my head but I swear i've seen them recently. Regardless - these are any sorts of blogs that promote other fanworks. Maybe it's dedicated to just general fanart, general fanfic, stuff of a specific AU or concept. Going back to previous bullet points, character or ship-specific blogs are a form of these. They can range from elaborate and complex with how they promote or spotlight and recommend works, to just literally being random reblogs of stuff of a specific topic. These can actually also be a really nice if you're looking for a simple way to get more involved in the community, because chances are if you're on tumblr you know how to reblog things and that's about all it takes. These hubs can be really nice ways for more fans in the community to get spotlighted/recognition and become more well-known, and it also helps fans looking for specific types of fanwork. (The only caveat with these is if you are going to make a generalized hub blog, you have to actually make it generalized. You can't just exclude the things you personally don't like just because you don't like them - if you don't want to deal with that, make a more specialized hub blog for your more focused interests instead.) (Also personally I'd recommend if you're making one of these types of blogs that you're an adult, cause these blogs can require fandom tag-spelunking that may not be appropriate for all ages - ESPECIALLY if you run a fanfic hub.)

- General Resources This can look like a lot of things, particularly depending on what the fandom is about, but in general a lot of fandoms will have dedicated places to finding different types of information, and often important fandom terminology and sometimes fandom history. Fan Wikis may cover some of this, but not always (and depending on how the wiki(s) are run in a particular community, may not even have reliable information to begin with. I'm looking at you Riordanverse wiki). In furry fandom for example there's a ton of resources for how to get started in the community, commonly accepted community guidelines and general etiquette, fandom history and terminology, resources to find fursuit makers or other artists, various tutorials, etc etc etc. PJO fandom does not really have this! Like i mentioned in previous bullet points, while we have some hub/promotion or character/ship-specific blogs, they're relatively far and few between and commonly inactive, not to mention usually very specific in what niche they're focused on. The wiki only covers the source material (and is questionable quality at best most of the time) with there being next to no resources in the community in general for stuff like fandom history or terminology or etc. Did you know PJO fandom used to be part of the Superwholock of book fandoms (it was PJO, HP, Hunger Games, and Divergent. there was a whole symbol for it)? Did you know we used to have our own fandom lingo? Members of the fandom were usually called demigods or half-bloods, people would put their cabins in their bios (people would make little banners or other decorations to put on your blog themes to show your cabins or pjo stuff in general!), and we'd say stuff like "Spread this like greek fire" and "Amazhang" and etc. Those are actual things people said unironically very frequently. You're probably most likely to be familiar with "Persassy." We don't necessarily need to bring all of those things back, but point is we did use to have a community identity and sort of genuine subculture! And we lost that! There are so many community jokes and similar that most people have forgotten or at best kind of know of but don't remember the origins or contexts for. In other communities they have documentation for this kind of stuff - you should see some of the documentation that MCYT fandom does, particularly if the MCYT in question is a popular streamer or the SMP is primarily streamed content. Holy cow it's thorough. Resources and documentation are what help keep fandoms alive, because they give a means for new members of the community to learn the history of the community, learn established rules and etiquette, and just generally find their way around where they otherwise might be lost. It's really invaluable but often overlooked.

Okay, i think that's all the ones i can think of. This post has taken me over a full day of working on it, lol. Anyways i'm very passionate about fandom history and PJO fandom history/community in general so this was very fun for me to go on a deep-dive about. Also now i'm really tempted to put a lot of my old fandom knowledge and unnecessarily complicated lists/documentation to good use and try to help build up some of these bullet point concepts for riordanverse fandom myself because dammit somebody's gotta do it. But that's all i've got for now! As always feel free to ask me to elaborate on anything, or if you just wanna hear me babble on more about general fandom structures (i have another ramble about different types of fandoms relating to what fanworks they tend to exhibit the most!)/pjo fandom history/askblogs/RP community/whatever, I am always more than happy to talk!

[reineydraws]

Hey Reiney! i've been following your Renkaza comic for some time now and it's kind of gotten me into the ship. Would you happen to have any fic recs to get me started?

im so honoured my comic got u into the ship! (@sshcomic for those who don't know! 🫶) i love giving out fic recs omg thank u so much for asking!!!! i have 15 for ya haha.

i'll have specific recs under the cut, but first i wanna just say that anything by emilieee @e-milieeee ; dragonsandcryptids @lesbiansanemi ; and tippertupper are great places to start! they're amazing writers with a good body of work and i've definitely gone through a lot--if not all--of their renkaza stuff! please check them out!

word count is rounded to nearest thousand btw! :) smoke and mirrors + demon's choice are big inspirations for my comic, if ur coming from there!

i've also realized these can be pretty lengthy so if u want recs with shorter word counts just lmk and i'll comb through my bookmarks for <15k. but anyways!

Smoke and Mirrors by emilieee (272k)

canon happens in modern times au, where akaza ends up as kyo's apartment neighbour, tho kyo doesn't initially realize akaza's a demon. it's emotional! it's plotty! akaza mentions kokushibo made all the kizuki's fake id's and i still think that's hilarious! it's got one of my fave enemies to besties akaza & shinobu plots ever! please read this!!!

last sunrise by DragonsAndCryptids (182k)

akaza turns kyojuro by accident bc he bleeds too much into kyo's open wounds during the mugen train fight, and neither notice until it's too late. shinobu notices too and decides perhaps that this might be a prime research opportunity... uh-oh! the ethical quandries are good in this, and shinobu while flawed is very well-written. renkaza also end up with a soul bond. another emotional one but god is the journey amazing. tw for some torture scenes that could be graphic.

Small Fire of Winter Stars by phabulousphantom (66k)

modern au where akaza is a tattoo artist and kyo runs a teens program at the local community centre. it's one of my faves bc i just love stories about jaded people opening up and finding love and trust again, and this is exactly that. i also love the ensemble cast in it. the teenagers are adorable, especially inosuke who is a problem kid that finds something aspirational with akaza. thinking abt this fic is making me smile again!

Camp Kasugai by si1verbird77 (20k)

also modern au where renkaza are both counselors at a summer camp. kyo runs a percy jackson program, and he and akaza fall in love over the summer with the help of the deep trust that camp atmospheres usually end up fostering. kyo and sen, and akaza as well, also touch on the grief of losing parents, and the nature of camps as a place to grow into yourself and how time keeps moving. it's nice. i love this one a lot.

Inertia (series) by TipperTupper (23k)

akaza saves kyo from freezing to death, and kyo marvels at the compassion and humanity that akaza seems to hold in his muscle memory. ends up digging a little bit into akaza's trauma both as a human and as a demon controlled by muzan. sanemi gets a little mad about it in the third part and it's funny. overall vibe of the series is warm.

The Neverending Night by apodis (155k - incomplete)

when i say this fic rotates in my brain 24/7!!! akaza gets stuck in a time loop that resets every time kyo dies. it explores akaza's nature as someone who is willing to sacrifice everything for loved ones, and it's interesting bc at first kyo hates him, and then he starts to realize there's something wrong with akaza's memories bc of muzan, and he starts to really see how self-effacing akaza is. it's SO good, and the realizations both kyo and you as the reader have build and layer as the story progresses. akaza and kaname (kyo's crow) also build a friendship that is so important to me.

Demon's Choice by Celeste Gladnick (lairMorbidon) (69k - incomplete)

akaza defects early and joins tamayo, and so many more people are alive as a result. kyo in this one is interesting bc he's bigoted against demons thanks to his upbringing in a slayer family under abusive shinjuro, and refuses to see that akaza is anything other than dangerous, despite literally everyone else sticking up for him. extra fun bc he crushes on butterfly assistant hakuji without realizing that it's akaza in a human guise. akaza himself also has some deeply held trauma he doesnt quite realize he has.

what i wouldn't give by DragonsAndCryptids (59k)

senjuro becomes terminally ill and his end is fast-approaching. akaza, who's been bothering kyo on and off for two years since mugen train, hears about it and offers to help by turning sen into a demon. at first, kyo gives a hard no, but as his baby brother's illness progresses... well, anyone would get a little desperate, wouldn't they? love this bc one of my fave things abt renkaza is pushing kyo to his moral and ethical limit lol.

if you fly (say you won’t come back) by apodis (10k)

siren au! well, akaza's a siren, and kyo is the caretaker of a house that sees many different travelers. akaza's just the latest one. i love this one bc it's fantastical elements are wonderful, and it builds a very interesting world. as the reader, you have a lot of questions and it's an experience getting them answered. it's also prettily written. :)

Little Fighter Boy Comes Marching Home by VTheTrashKing (19k)

akaza gets de-aged by a demon's blood art, and kyo comes upon a little human boy with black hair and blue eyes, a chip on his shoulder and a very implicitly sad past, what with the criminal markings on his wrists and the way he insists he can take care of himself. another one of my fave renkaza things and kyo getting bowled over by hakuji's tragic story so i loved the way he puzzles it together in this one based on the little boy in front of him, and just finds one sad thing after another.

“Don’t die, Kyojuro” by Lenasaurous (24k)

akaza lets kyo live and often tells him not to die. kyo, who's life is often visited by death considering his occupation, begins to rely on akaza's immortality as a demon, and depend on his company as a constant--that is, until akaza passes out from not eating, and stays down for the count. uh-oh. (i also love this fic 'cuz there's this scene where akaza tries so hard to make kyo like him by giving him herbs and helpful plants, even tho kyo doesn't really want him around at that point, and it's so sweet and so sad. i wanna give him a hug!!!)

Memories behind broken glass by GammaRays (58k - incomplete)

this is the akaza whump fic of my dreams lol he gets captured and experimented on by shinobu (and it can be grisly so tw for that). kyo lured him into a trap to get him captured and ends up standing guard and starting to question his morals when it becomes clear that shinobu is being intentionally cruel. as the torture experiments go on, akaza also becomes so delirious that he begins to remember his human past. kyo loses it a little. it's good.

All the things a cup can hold by Liatheus (9k)

akaza takes shinjuro demon hunting lol. this is actually more of a shinjuro character study with side renkaza, but i love it specifically for a scene near the end where they all have tea, and ruka's empty place at the table feels obvious, and kyo and shinjuro are sort of crying about it. i also love that it explores the way shinjuro used to be a hashira, and how akaza investigates his strength in that sense. shinjuro's strength is an important aspect to kyojuro that doesn't often get delved into, and it makes sense to me that akaza sort of looks into it, as someone who loves kyo's strength.

Hello Again (the weight of memories welcome me home) by VTheTrashKing (15k)

this one's more artsy than anything but i love sci-fi as a genre so i'm reccing it lol i'm being self-indulgent. for whatever reason, throughout his life, akaza gets visited by various hashira. it's all very timey-wimey and the renkaza is more implied than anything, but there's this scene where akaza's being held trial at a hashira meeting, and then a future sanemi and future giyuu come out of nowhere to protect him and shock the living daylights out of their past selves, and it's so wild. i love it so much.

the milk incident by lattelesbean (4k)

this is just funny haha! short and fun read. modern soyama twins au where akaza's a café barista and accidentally puts his foot in his mouth in a very embarrassing way, bc he was too busy thirsting over kyo, his latest customer, to double-check what was about to come out of his mouth lol. i am still laughing.

[theheirofthesharingan]

There's a part in the Sasuke light novel where Sasuke praises Naruto for respecting Itachi's wishes, but still trying to exalt him in a meaningful way using his influence. Sasuke says Itachi wanted to leave his love for his little brother in the world, not hatred and anger. So not only is it addressed, but it's agreed upon by the only living Uchiha heir, the person who knew Itachi best, and someone who also has a stake in the matter.

While I kind of get your point about Itachi's thinking being self-defeating/self-loathing, I think it's unfair to act like that makes Itachi a victim of people like Naruto or Sasuke who "don't understand him". Itachi is dead and there was no real time to heal that part of him. Itachi also spent much of his life being told how he should think and act, and what should be what he wanted. He also spent his life negotiating those options and acting them out through the filter of his own worldview. His final wish is the only time he actually gets to voice and control what he wants his world to look like. What gives Sasuke or Naruto the right to decide what's best for him? Why would they even want to? It's true that "wanting his love for his brother to remain" could be increased by spreading the truth of the matter, but it would also foster more anger, more chaos, more distrust and hatred. Is that the correct action to take regarding transparency and accountability? Probably not, but the point of Itachi conveying his love to Sasuke was to trust him in being able to live in a way that spreads that. A more subtle means to the same end.

Fuck Kakashi though. Itachi looked up to him and Kakashi didn't give a fuck about what that meant.

Please know that whenever I'm criticizing something or someone on Itachi's behalf, I'm not including Sasuke in it. And I don't think Itachi is a victim of Sasuke (or even Naruto) because Sasuke probably has no say in what he feel, and Kakashi remained Hokage for 12 years before Naruto took over. There was sufficient time to fix things if Kakashi himself wanted to do something about it.

I also understand that truth coming out would result in ugly consequences and no one other than Sasuke loves Itachi, so to them well-being of the village is above everything else. If anyone clears Itachi's name now, gives him honour and all now, it's useless. Even Sasuke forgiving him didn't heal anything in him. So what are they going to do clearing his name a decade after his death? Nothing.

However, it doesn't make it any less frustrating that he was never give a chance to live a life that he would have wanted. A lot of people in the Narutoverse as well as the fandom take things far too literally when they say "he was confident" and "he wanted things a certain way" as if that's all he who was. Just like other kids he too had a fragility and innocence, and he was failed by every single adult in his life. And he died believing he didn't deserve better.

He suffered way more for the things he did and even didn't do whereas people who hurt him were either considered good guys or faced no consequences. Why is it the actual criminals don't get punished, but for Itachi we have to choose the better option between "being hated" and "being forgotten"?

To me, manga alluding to the information from the novel makes them relevant. I'm aware that in Sasuke's novel Naruto told people and also that no one questioned him. But again, no one also seemed to question that how come Itachi, who was reputed to kill his clan single-handedly, who was an Akatsuki, ended up saving lives in war and why? Wasn't war started by the Akatsuki?

How many people today even know or remember him? Hiruzen has his ugly face carved on the rock. I'm not even saying you have to install Itachi's statues everywhere, but at least punish the people who are alive who destroyed his life, who were responsible for annihilating an entire clan, which included innocent people.

Kakashi disappointed me with both Sasuke and Itachi. After learning why Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki, his first reaction was he needed to kill Sasuke. I excuse Naruto characters a lot because of their trauma, but what trauma response this was? The same for his indifference towards Itachi.

I love Kakashi, but he disappointed me so darn much.

[lambilegs]

kind of an evil question but what do u think some of lee’s toxic traits are?

AWEE OMG NOT EVIL AT ALL!! I literally wanna ensure I write more of lee's flaws because she definitely has them and I don't wanna frame her as being totally perfect and without fault. she's a complex character, and with that, comes her own kind of baggage and things to work through. plus, I LOVE yapping about her as a character, so I'm so glad to have received this

okay, so, for one -- overworking. I don't think she necessarily does a good job at taking care of or validating herself, and that, paired with her diligence and passion for being an agent, leads to a very apparent lack of self-care. she'll sleep super late, stay at the bureau for long hours, becomes near to obsessive with solving her current case, skip breakfast due to sleeping in. and I think this sort of tunnel-vision negatively impacts not just herself, but her relationships as well. it can lead to her not visiting ruth for a while, or neglecting friends and a partner -- you know, forgetting to check in on them, not making time for dates and hangouts, maybe even neglecting conversation because she's that focused on her work.

another one I think she has is stubbornness. I think once she feels strongly about something, it's hard to get her to change her mind or open up to another possibility. this is for a multitude of reasons, I think. her decisions are usually lined up with logic and evidence, and she's careful about making them. she feels very strongly towards what she thinks is right and correct. and if something in her decision is wrong, even wrong for her and her wellbeing, she's good at being in denial and compartmentalizing. which can make it harder to talk to her about something she doesn't wanna deal with.

which leads me to my next point -- struggling to communicate. she's so solitary, and used to handling things on her own. I think this is due to lots of things -- she's just naturally private, years of only living with ruth and not having many friends growing up made her depend on herself more, and as a result, she struggles with feeling exposed and vulnerable to other people, as well as identifying and communicating her trauma and emotions. she's not used to the openness, especially being raised in a household where she was often kept in the dark about her mom's experiences and, similarly, is now used to not telling ruth about hers. I think part of her also is just scared of facing certain experiences and emotions of hers, and undergoing all the heaviness of that, as well as sharing it and facing potential rejection, so she'll ignore it and not try. now, this in and of itself is not toxic ofc!! just a natural result of her upbringing and trauma. however, I do think it could cause her to behave in some really toxic ways. like, not speaking up when a loved one does something that hurts her, which can foster resentment. or choosing to be avoidant, like just walking away after a fight and taking space for an undetermined amount of time without any clarification, comfort or assurance. or even shutting down and exiting the argument in the middle of it, overwhelmed by all the high emotions, and giving a person no notice of when she'll be ready to talk. luckily, though, I think she's someone who has deep care and empathy for her loved ones, so if she sees her behaviours are hurting others, or that topic is brought up with her, I think she'll absolutely take it seriously and try to change.

[themightymoose]

Pepper headcanons!!!!

🎉🎉🎉

Oh yeah the moment that I've been waiting for mwahahaha >:)

This one is much longer than the other headcanon lists I did

So in a previous headcanon I sent in an ask to priz I stated that in the human au, Pepper was a foster kid who got adopted by Pete at age 13 or 14

And as a pet her foster parents were her owners

... but I don't think I stated how many different owners/foster parents she went through before Pete came into the picture. Her foster parents included:

A cult leader, a cop, a serial killer, a thief, a member if that cult that the cult leader leads, an actor, a firefighter, a director, a model, an athlete, an alpha male podcaster (I am so sorry girl-)

There's probably more but the point is is that she moved around a lot

And all of them were shit to her

also don't ask how criminals were able to adopt a child

Pretty please

They would physically, mentally, verbally, or emotionally abuse her. Or neglect her

Some treated her like an object or a trophy that they flaunted around, while others treated her like an embarrassment, a nuisance that they had to hide from the world

oh and don't even get me started on the criminals my lord-

There's only so long that Pepper moved around homes where she began to wonder what was wrong with her

She ended up liking the ones that would physically abuse her the most, because at least she got some kind of touch from it

I'm not going to be getting into stuff with Pete because their will be a fic about their relationship 😉

But I think at least one of her owners put a shock collar on her as a way to dehumanize her. I also think that some of them would try and choke her until she was unconscious

This resulted in Pepper hating having her neck touched

Even her hair brushing against her neck makes her feel uneasy

But Pepper keeps it in a ponytail because she doesn't really want to cut her hair

Pepper has to really trust you to let you touch her neck

Okay let's get into happier headcanons shall we

Pepper is ridiculously ticklish

She is immensely overprotective of her friends, but she'll never admit it

I also mentioned that she has a real comparison problem. By that I mean she always finds a way to compare herself to literally any person she crosses. It's especially bad with Zoe

Mainly because they're best friends and having the most conventionally attractive person as your best friend while you hate yourself is a not so good combination

The solution? Write down all the reason you love her and read it to her all the way through

Zoe did that

And Pepper was like >:(

Back to her being overprotective because I'm very inconsistent. Any insults thrown at her are completely brushed off by her. Why should she care? Everyone said that to her, why is it different now? Also she's a comedian, she's used to it

But if you insult her friends???? Run

Pepper was genuinely confused the first time her friends stood up for her

She cried listening to jealousy jealousy by Olivia Rodrigo

She's taking that to the grave

Pepper actually has freckles but you can only see them if she's out in the sun long enough. They were much more visible when she was a kid

She's one of those people that are so chill when she gets injured

"Oh can you grab a bandaid real quick? Yeah, no, don't worry I just chopped my finger off. It's fine I just need a bandaid..... What do you mean you're calling 911-"

Bro she is so snuggly and clingy when she's sick

She'll be clinging to one of her friends and they'll just be like "I know I should move because then I'll get sick but Pepper is just too damn cute-"

Pepper pretends she doesn't remember anything when she actually does. She just doesn't want to relive the cringe

She tells really bad jokes when she wants affection. Worse than usual

"Did you hear about the friend that... really wants a hug?" And then halfway through she'll start mumbling and rambling because she's only just now realizing she did not think this through

The most attractive thing about a person according to Pepper is their laugh

This one time Pepper got drunk and ended up rambling about all the abuse she endured to one of her friends and they just stared at her like 😦

Don't ask which friend

[pragnificent]

Ooh also ⭐ something about identically different too please

So what I'm thinking about is like, how I was pretty far into the series before I consciously realized that what I'd done in this AU was actually a social class flip, and that's what resulted in the role swap.

Will is southern Old Money and the closest thing to nobility (derogatory) that the US has; Hannibal is peasant stock, whose family has benefited from (the extremely mixed bag that was) Soviet social improvements, and among other things he and Mischa are the first members of his family that grew up being taught how to read (his father was literate but only learned as a young adult). Which, ya know, kinda comes with the implication that growing up rich makes you Worse, which is TRUE actually. However, it's not really the class difference that were the deciding factors in Will becoming a serial killer and Hannibal opting not to do so (until...) so much as a matter of expectations.

Canon Will, I've always felt, was able to escape a lot of abuse simply by staying out of his old man's way. He's playing in the woods, staying at the library until it closes, anything to avoid his father, and his father is putting very few expectations on him because he just doesn't give a shit about Will. There's physical abuse but it's mostly neglect, and that gives Will the room to become Observable Weird to others, but also to build his walls and his coping skills.

IDAU Will, on the other hand, simply doesn't have that kind of freedom. There are very firm expectations about not only what Will is doing with his time, but how he looks, speaks and interacts with others, and deviance is getting beaten out of him behind closed doors. He's masking in a way that canon Will never learned (or cared) to do, but he's a fucking powder keg of suppressed emotions and trauma. And his father is Worse for some of the same reasons, and there is no way for Will to get away from any of that, because instead of being a no-account drifter who just kinda incidentally has a kid he never really wanted tagging along after him, Will's father is Focused on Will and making sure that Will behaves Properly and does not Embarrass the Family. And eventually, of course, it gets to be too much for Will and he kills his dad, (and good for him!) but unfortunately now Will has realized there there's one surefire way to bleed off all of that bottled up tension, which is by making it someone else's problem in the worst possible way. On the other hand, Hannibal grows up in a Soviet orphanage, as here he has no surviving family to come and retrieve him. He's under a lot of scrutiny, he's kept very busy (usually in work that involves caring for the interests of others), and a LOT of effort is going into fostering pro-social behavior in all of the children there. He doesn't get the chance to kind of withdraw from the rest of humanity and grow happily weird in all of the idiosyncratic ways that the canon version of the character did.

So Will is Worse in this universe because he wasn't left alone to be Weird in the specific ways that canon Will is Weird, but the opposite is true of Hannibal.

[archivalofsins]

Lope: Ah, another pain. What are these two twins? Well difficult pairs are hard to come by now a days. Maybe they could work well together? Hopefully it's not a case of like repelling like.

Lope's Commencement

Daniel Prisoner 001

002 - Mirelle Apte

Place of Birth: London, England

Date of Birth: 09/15/2007

Age: 16

Ethnicity: Indian

She has a proper demeanor befitting of her prisoner colour. Directly underneath that is an aggressively forward woman. Lacking patience, she started investigating our facility as soon as she could. A trait that would be more desirable if she were a guard. Any wannabe guards should follow her example. Information doesn’t just come to a person, sometimes you need to search for it.

The guards those cottontails pick are rather unthinkinking to take a turn of phrase from one of my superiors. They couldn’t follow a lead even if they slapped a GPS in some of their hands. Atrocious. Ah sorry I got distracted...

Since she is not a guard her behavior is very frustrating. Incidentally, she also appears to be scheming with Milko- a pain in the making. Make sure they don't cause too much trouble.

Prisoner Color: #280137

Permanent record Apte has a history of good attendance and is a B grade student. However, with enough application of effort, we expect her to progress up to an A grade average. Apte is attentive in class. However, she doesn't participate much and is prone to verbal altercations when interacting with peers.

Dear Mirelle Apte,

Congratulations!

Your application for our foreign exchange program has been accepted. This is a pivotal step in pursuing higher education for you. This will not only expand your educational prowess but your social aptitude as well. Our staff will be there to aid you during every step of this monumental process.

Make sure to pull up your information online and check that you are committed to this by changing your status to such. We can't wait to have you here in Wisconsin for the remainder of your sophomore and junior year.

Sincerely,

XXXXXXX

To all parents and students,

It has come to our faculty's attention that some students have been putting up fliers around the school with vulgar language and a student's personal contact information on it. The students responsible can consider this their first and final warning to stop. Harassment of any kind is not allowed on this premises.

These fliers and the messages on them do not reflect any of our students' character or the mannerisms our school wishes to foster. If this does not cease immediately, we may need to reexamine the privileges given to our students in order to properly reflect the sort of people they feel inclined to be at this moment.

There are many events that have yet to transpire this school semester. With those in mind really reflect on the individuals you wish to be and the sort of school year you wish to have.

Vice Principal XXXXX

Dear students and parents,

As a result of the continued vandalism. Sophomore class b will be excluded from further school functions until the vandalizer is found or comes forward. That is all. The behavior exhibited by sophomore class b along with the harassment of any student will not be tolerated.

Vice principal XXXXX

Lope: Ah, for those interested. I'm a jackrabbit not a cottontail. Please don't mistake me for one of the higher ups. They wouldn't like it and I'd definitely hate it. Sorry to burst the cute little image of me you undoubtedly had in your head.

[vaguely-concerned]

I just finished padawan by kiersten white and had a blast with it -- it was exactly the kind of thing my brain craved this week, just some nice character study and adventure story stuff for my brain to chill in. thoughts:

a) I love obi-wan and his poor anxiety-ridden teenage self so so much. peak a delight to have in class to the point of nervous break representation, someone help him. local boy manages to become parentified child to an absent father somehow. that part where he's so afraid he's so bad and useless that the force itself might just decide it doesn't want him after all........ heartbreaking. that's exactly what I would have thought at sixteen too probably. (also my personal headcanon has always been that obi-wan is on the ace spectrum, so that was a very nice thing to find supported in this book! canon is vast and can support any number of stances that way honestly everyone should go hog wild with it in whatever manner they please, but that's always been my vibe)

b) qui-gon fucking jinn if you don't step up and do something to help the child in your charge with his ACTUAL DEBILITATING ANXIETY DISORDER RUNNING HIM RAGGED other than ask him to meditate so help me I will come over there and do maul's work for him ahead of time I swear to fucking god

c) no, really, it says some not very good things about qui-gon's mentorship abilities that obi-wan really only manages to grow and be calmer when he's outside of his influence. I know this book means you to come away with the feeling that obi-wan takes a big step towards enlightenment and adulthood on this trip (and I do think that's also true to be clear!), but there is a part of me that also thinks that just as much as personal and spiritual development what we're seeing here is an avoidant attachment style definitively entrenching itself as a result of having no adult that can be consistently trusted to meet him emotionally. (which also makes a horrible kind of sense, thinking about what obi-wan and anakin's relationship is going to be like in the future -- obi-wan is avoidant and self-contained when it comes to trying to deal with his emotions, and anakin skews far more anxious and towards lashing out, and they never quite understand each other for all the love that is there. you can trace that all the way back here. sins of the master, huh.) obi-wan finds some agency and catharsis in being able to help a group of abandoned children, you say. hm. I'm sure this means nothing and has no parallels in his own inner world. you let the kid think you'd completely abandoned him instead of communicating with him openly for like five minutes. For His Own Good of course. Wow I didn't realize I was this angry about this but here I am once again livid on obi-wan's behalf, actually. 'I'm an incredible teacher and this lack of honest emotional communication I'm fostering in favour of (benign!) manipulation is never going to come back and bite the jedi order in the ass, surely'; the qui-gon jinn story

[emblemxeno]

Personally, I've kinda noticed a trend where some people assume every character who experiences a form of discrimination is black-coded if they're not human or should've been black if they are human

And it feels like a double-edged sword in a way

Where is the line between wanting to properly discuss anti-black discrimination, restricting black characters to only that side of their experiences, and the idea that kind of plotline only applies to a specific group?

I have not seen this myself, so apologies in advance if I get assumptions wrong.

I wanna give the benefit of the doubt to people most of the time and think that they're not being serious, but there's consistently a type of person who this reminds me of: good intentions, but online too often, not mature or socially savvy enough to understand the type of nuance in these conversations, secretly entertained by any and all discourse they are privy too, and-as a result of the previous points-has issues that they need to talk to a therapist who specializes in navigating the world through a racialized lens (or an "ally" lens if the person in question doesn't experience said racial discrimination applicable to the situation/discourse they are involved in).

The best answer I can give for how to respond as an individual is, depending on how volatile/open to conversation the person is, to have civil discussion or let the matter go.

Popular posts on social media get popular because social media, for some people, serves as "bite sized" news, research, or societal topics, thereby ripping away a lot of damn nuance from important conversations.

That's how you get situations like you described. "Should we discuss anti-black discrimination in media?" "Yes!" "Well this character-who we do not know is actually black-has similarly coded pain to black people so they must be black" "...Well, no. Not necessarily. Let's talk about this more so we can discuss why I disagree."

That last part is something many people are EXTREMELY adverse to doing, and unfortunately it's in part with how lots of social media presence involves constant policing and "stakeouts" of any and all slip ups-even minor ones-to the point where there's little to no wiggle room with even asking questions like this in the first place i.e. the ask you sent me, which I myself appreciate, but I can think of many accounts on various sites who'd react to even asking about this stuff as something to mock or bitterly toss away.

Throwing my hat into the topic itself:

The line of discussion is not easily found and shifts constantly depending on the media itself (context of the story, when the thing was made, who made it, why was it made, who was it made for, why is it popular for people to ascribe certain identities to this, etc.) so there will always be grounds to talk about it. It's just that, as I said, people don't wanna fucking even entertain the idea of talking/discussing things like a normal person anymore.

Further on, IMO, Black people are very much not the only racialized group who have known suffering, and to base character headcanon/interpretation on that suffering itself leans into behavior that's very ignorant, for lack of better words. At that point, the person who says "X character is Black because they have this pain experience" and that's the only reason? It's a big yikes and, again, they should really talk to a professional in order to unlearn that, even if it comes from a good place. Defining a group of people by just the bad shit that's happened to them is very dehumanizing to other people.

After all, there's plenty of non-black characters who are very more easily coded as black in ways that aren't pain and suffering, though the main examples I can think of are cartoons lol. Uniqua and Tyrone from Backyardigans, Will from Foster's Home, Darwin from Gumball, and Garnet from Steven Universe. All of those characters have unrelenting positivity and none of them are really defined by constant pain/tragedy. There's more to Black people, and humans in general, than bad shit we've been through lol.

[itsawhumpsideblog]

Character sketches

Francis was the first of the Safehouse boxboys to make himself known, although Mikey was not far behind. The thing I'm finding most fascinating about writing Francis is finding ways to convey his worldview, which I feel like I'm doing to a greater extent than with Mikey or Nathan. Because he was living with another person who had very definite ideas about what he should be like, Francis had his worldview sort of forged for him in really odd ways.

There will eventually be an installment where he learns to count higher than ten, for example, but right now he thinks everyone gets to ten and starts over and therefore functionally can't conceptualize of quantities greater than 100 (ten tens, as he would think of it).

He also speaks in third person, which obviously the other two do not, and has developed a very flowery, formal way of speaking as a result of being a living showpiece and as much an accessory in his former owner's home as the art on the walls. I imagine that his owner worked on training him to speak in a highly artistic style and move as if everything is a ballet.

Francis gets really good at interpreting for Mikey when Mikey learns to sign and ultimately decides to pursue interpreting as a career. It's a good fit for him because he doesn't have to speak for himself or produce original utterances unless they're really simple; he can just interpret from one language to another what somebody else is saying. He also prefers not being the focus of the conversation in any way and interpreting lets him fade comfortably into the background.

I imagine that he uses a wheelchair or crutches depending on how he's feeling, but because of the nerve damage in his feet, has a lot of difficult walking without a mobility aid.

When I write Mikey, I kind of can't help but make him sound small and waifish, because he's so sad and scared all the time- at least until yesterday's short story, which gives a brief glimpse of Mikey in the future. In fact, Mikey is a pretty big guy, which is likely what you'd want for a guy who lives as somebody's personal bouncer. He's probably six inches taller than Francis, although Nathan is closer to Mikey's height.

And as I elaborated on a little in yesterday's backstory, he's very muscular from a combination of enforced workouts and a low dose of steroids. Incidentally, I don't think the WRU publicizes their use of steroids but I would bet everyone knows they do it. Owners presumably make the choice to continue that practice or not, but I think Mikey's owners don't. There's probably a story about withdrawal in there, actually.

I don't know much about Mikey or Francis before they were boxboys, but I do have some idea what happens to Mikey after he's been at the Safehouse a while. As you can guess if you're caught up, he is going to be able to use his hands and arms fairly normally (although he hates when it rains because he gets so sore) and he becomes a fluent signer over time.

I think he goes from resignation at the loss of his voice to having a lot of anger about it. He experiences bouts of depression as he learns to cope with knowing how things could have been vs. how they are, but he finds strength and fulfillment in becoming an activist against the Pet trade. It's the kind of outlet for his anger that Mikey really appreciates- he abhors violence, but he feels a strong need to "get back at" the people who took so much from him. He probably does, or tries to do, research to find out who he used to be. I'm not yet sure what amount of success he has.

Poor Nathan was the last of the three to come along and I feel like he sometimes get short shrift. His backstory is the only one I have much of a handle on, and he talks about it in one chapter. He aged out of the foster care system and basically didn't have the counsel or a parent or mentor to give him a realistic perspective on what volunteering to become a Pet entailed. I think he was very briefly working a soul-sucking job somewhere he hated and was recruited on the basis of his looks and the recruiter's desire for a commission check.

Obviously, when he got to the WRU facility, it was nothing like he had imagined. I don't think he knew about the memory-wiping process, although I think most adults in his society are aware that something like that goes on. In my created world, as in many other peoples', I think, Pets are a luxury and generally only affordable by people who are wealthy or willing to save up. So Nathan went in with just the information he had from the recruiter, which obviously wouldn't reflect reality.

Once I wrote the bit where Mikey remembers another Pet who was kind to him and who was the closest thing he ever remembers having to a friend, I knew I wanted them to be re-united. I wasn't quite sure what Nathan's defining feature would be until I was writing it and sort of discovered in the process that although he had signed the papers and been sold and lived as a Pet, the memory wipe had never taken.

I was pretty fascinated with the implications, which I'll definitely want to explore at greater length. One thing it means is that Nathan knows exactly who he is and what his life was like before, although he was pretty lonely to begin with, so nobody's looking too hard for him. It also means that he knows exactly what happens at WRU facilities and can be a whistleblower, if and when anyone's ready to hear the truth.

But the effect of all this on his mental health is hard to overstate, because it's so traumatic to go through training and living as someone's possession without ever giving away that you're the same person you always were before. (Side note- Nathan is dyslexic, which is how he gets by without admitting he can read. He definitely can, but it's enough work that he doesn't see words and visibly process them without meaning to.)

The almost endless mental stress of pretending to have no memory, on top of the same stress other Pets experience, like trying to please a person who may be impossible to please, never having time to themselves, and being under constant physical strain, really takes its toll on Nathan. I think he has a sort of permanent thousand-yard stare, even when he's looking directly at someone or something. A part of his brain is just always a little stunned and distracted and he usually looks sad, even when he isn't. Meeting Mikey again, though, gives him a bit of a new lease on life, because he's so relieved and happy to know that Mikey has a chance at a happy ending.

NB: originally written for a BBU Community Days prompt that I was informed I misunderstood. I’m not able to rework the post but I hate to waste the work so I’ll leave it in case anyone is interested.

[alitontress]

Q&A: Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto

I’m going to be answering all of your asks about the story under a cut so no one gets spoilers.

Ask about the caretakers’ decision regarding Wassily going to Oslo:

Hi. Idk if you’re still doing Pluto asks but I have a question. I felt a bit confused about why the care worker ladies just let a couple strange men take Wassily away without consulting Epsilon. Maybe I wasn’t fully paying attention and there was some larger unavoidable reason for them giving him up? Did I miss veiled threats or something? Just felt like the ladies were all “oh well, we have to I guess…” Many thanks in advance.

Listen! When I tell you that part of the story makes me rage like a white boy punching drywall I just—! Ugh. Just call Epsilon *dial dial, beep boop bop* 'oh hey Epsi, my boss, the dude who takes care of the orphanage, hey ya listen, I know you're getting grilled right now, but uh there are some wack dudes here who want to take your kid away, you cool wit dat? no? okay. how fast can you get back here??' Done. Easy. Epsilon wouldn't have been put in the situation to go into Abra's trap. *punching drywall

I digress.

Here is my theory as to why they justified letting Mr. Johansen take Wassily without telling Epsilon based upon the circumstances and other factors which might have motivated them.

Of the seven most advanced robots, Epsilon has the most powerful and destructive capability. If he had joined in the war a lot of battles would have ended very, very quickly if he unleashed his photon energy.

The world might have believed a lot of people and robots wouldn't have died if he'd joined the fight. So they could've blamed him for not preventing so many deaths.

In the manga, it's stressed that people around the world very much despised and even abused Epsilon.

Not only did the world hate him for not fighting in the war, but also for raising human children.

Even though the war was over, Epsilon was still contemptible.

What I think is interesting is the false claim Mr. Johansen makes about him and his wife visiting the orphanage before, (in the anime, he says they've visited several times). Perhaps he's implying that Epsilon hadn't let them foster Wassily in the past and he's come back to try again but without Epsilon present to deny him. A child protection service would find Mr. Johansen, "a famous figure", being denied numerous times concerning if he had reported that experience to them. They might even send a representative with Mr. Johansen to see if something could be done about it...

What Ms. Griffith I think has to weigh is whether to deny Wassily being adopted because Epsilon wasn’t there to approve it, which would likely cause further scrutiny and a full investigation into Epsilon's orphanage as to why/if he's preventing children from being adopted and raised in a normal, human family environment possibly resulting in all of his children being taken away and the orphanage being shut down—or let Wassily be taken. They might even want to still take the other children away simply because they finally have enough of an excuse to prevent Epsilon from raising children, no matter how small the excuse was. Ms. Griffith knows the children are cared for by Epsilon more than any human could and she doesn't want that to stop. She could fear that if Epsilon had been there or if they had called him, that he might have denied Wassily being taken by Mr. Johansen which wouldn't have looked good, (unless, of course, Epsilon was given the opportunity to research the man and find out he had a fake identity and was working for Abullah). If the man accompanying Mr. Johansen had the authority to take Wassily away because of being some kind of child service representative, then maybe the caretakers legally didn't have a choice and they really were going to take Wassily no matter what. Letting Wassily be taken away would be beneficial to the orphanage and the children under Epsilon's care financially and maybe even legally.

So maybe the caretakers made the decision with the best interest of the other children in mind—and even to protect Epsilon.

But in the end, no one could protect Epsilon. Wassily and the other children still lost the one person who loved them more than anyone else in the world ever could...

[prpfz]

Resending this in from the old blog (rip) since I couldn't contact everyone on time before the doom💀

🗡🗡 Currently searching for someone at least semi-lit to novella, with a similar obsession to history and fantasy elements as I do! All and any muses are welcome, but please be informed that I will be playing a male muse for this one.

Anyways, I'm fostering a little too much of Game Of Thrones and House Of The Dragon brainworms in my skull, so here I am😭

While I do love both stories, I absolutely adore the setting! And so I'm not necessarily looking to rp canon characters or the canon setting at the moment, but moreso just taking a LOT of inspiration from the setting. I love the fantasy elements, the political conflicts, the aristocratic (perhaps even religious and traditional) principles!

That is to say that there will be dragons, bastards, second wives, noble houses with 'elite' bloodlines, a sought-after throne, an expansive world, and many more. Now is probably a good time to mention this may also include elements of incest and other related aspects GOT and HOTD are notorious for.

All of that said, I don't have a specific plan story-wise. I'd love to talk about it though, as I am very flexible with plot and would love someone to just bounce ideas off of! I encourage creativity as much as possible :))

Perhaps y/c is the crown prince's wife, and after years of marriage that hasn't resulted in any children, y/c contacts the only other person they can trust enough to help bear ~~bastard~~ heirs– their brother, m/c.

Perhaps a succession crisis occurs after the health of the current king begins to fail, and y/c's father, a prince, has to find a suitable husband for y/c to marry lest the throne ends up in the hands of another house, and the only option, m/c, isn't necessarily in any kind of favorable relation with them.

Perhaps y/c and m/c are in opposing factions at court, but secretly meet every now and then for... recreational purposes, not knowing they may just clash swords one day for reasons not within their control.

Or perhaps opposing houses, now armed with dragons of their own after years of multiple intermarriages to people of royal blood, begin an uprising to usurp the throne, and y/c, m/c, and an additional heir decide to join hands to reclaim and reunite everything under their reign? Kind of like Aegon and his wives, except now they have to fight distant relatives with dragons of their own. In this case, we can add another mun to play the other heir!

That is all to say that the plot is incredibly flexible as long as it stays within the confines of the elements I mentioned. Y/c doesn't even need to be a member of nobility or royalty if you'd like! Or they could be foreign nobility/royalty, unaware of the customs and traditions in our main setting. Again, anything goes! Other elements like the omegaverse may even be applied upon request.

Interact and I'll reach out!

Leave a like, and anon will get back to you!

[whetstonefires]

Fanfic meme: questions 1 & 11, for a fic of your choice.

Oh no vikings, it's so much harder when I have to pick which one! 😭 What if I praise myself for a fic nobody likes or something?

I'll roll dice. I will...okay online rng rolled a 165 sided 'die' and came up 69. Which is not at all a sexy fic I regret(?) to tell you. 69 fics back is and amber is ageless, the Earth-3 Ultraman pov fic where he adopts a kitten.

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

Hah! Well, for one thing, my actual kitten that I found in a bush. Provided me with a lot of detailed inspiration about the minutiae of taking in and settling down a diseased little feline who'd been through the wringer, made that part basically effortless. I'd already decided Ultraman kept a cat in the Fortress, because he is so isolated and despite it all he's a version of Clark Kent and doesn't like too much alone, but drawing on recent personal experience made that part fun and easy to write.

The other 'this way' is 'from Kal's pov with only a dim self-awareness wrt how much he sucks' and that's harder to pin down. Lotta factors.

It's the second Ultraman pov fic I did, but the first one was only a little for the sake of his perspective and mostly to get outside pov on a Jokester & Alex Luthor interaction and showcase the hammer I'd lifted from the Countdown to Final Crisis earth-3 Jokester design. And I'd done his backstory as Lois breaking down her research for Alex. Because this setting is deliberately structured to focus on its own heroes, since canon mirrorverses get hung up on the evil version of their protagonists.

So part of it was I wanted a place to really dig into what makes him tick. The way Ultraman is a product of his upbringing in the opposite direction from Superman, but also the alignment flip I gave the world left him predisposed to dickishness in a way Superman is predisposed toward being considerate. Superman is always choosing to be good, largely as a result of the person the Kents raised him to be and the bedrock emotional security associated with that self-identity.

Ultraman is the opposite and I wanted to really get on the page how much insecurity in all senses plays into that.

Because I'd done Owlman and he is extremely uh. Strange person. Weird priorities. Possibly compelled by a variety of monomanias he believes to be purely rational. Sincerely convinced of his own supremacy, although also just vulnerable enough to doubt on this subject that his need to validate his own ego is still an exploitable weakness, in the way of supervillains.

(Superwoman can be baited this way only by the prospect of losing a head-to-head physical fight, but is much more easily distracted than Owlman because she cares about enjoying herself more than increasing or showing off her naturally enormous power.)

And the thing with Kal is that he's not. Not really strange. Does not really qualify for any kind of personality disorder. Psychologically he's mostly a pretty standard product of trauma and bad life decisions, the kind of guy who resents everything because he's so unhappy but can't conceive of a way to change his life to make him happier beyond hollow external models of 'success' like getting the girl. Who just so happens to have godlike power.

Of course it's not just so happens, because he was tough and strong from early childhood and accidentally killed his parents in a fairly normal grade-school tantrum, ruining his own life.

Which like. Definitely inspired by the old superbaby comics where Jonathan Kent is constantly stressing about the baby giving away his secret identity and it's like. Your life is in danger this toddler does not know how to not kill you.

Anyway he came up through the Kansas foster system having a bad time, and not having a much worse one only because of powers he kind of hated and felt freakish for because again he accidentally killed his own parents and only got away with it because no one knew he had super strength so lying about a 'big monster' smooshing his parents with the dining room table was more plausible. A huge part of his personality is based around the inadequate coping mechanisms he developed to cope with this formative trauma.

The idea that he was a Superior Existence (who was alone in the universe for reasons that were not his fault) was delivered to him when he went back to the old farmhouse, recovered the Jor-el materials, found out he was an alien, and set up the Fortress, and for him supervillainy is very much compensating for his underlying lack of self-worth and repressed guilt and vague sense of dysphoria, because when you feel like A Very Normal Guy who is also A Freak that's what happens. I think finding out he was an alien helped a lot with hating his own body, his body which was also himself and his chief asset considering he's an orphan who got a shit education.

Kal is both the one of the Big Three villains in this setting who is the most normal and whose behavior can be most accurately attributed to 'mental illness' as such, which I think is a neat dichotomy.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I think I might have already covered this, whoops! Lmao it's definitely the effect I got where Kal is Just Some Guy who like, feels entitled to the girl he likes and thinks shitty misogynistic things when resenting other people's happiness. And whose gruesome fantasies of violence in reaction to minor inconveniences hit the beats of the average person's sense of aggravation but are backed by the fact that he really could put his hand through someone's face on a whim and has been known to do so.

But who also just. Is capable of being charmed by the attitude of a stray cat and wearing a leather glove to protect it from his skin when it keeps biting.

I think the technical element I'm most satisfied with is how I linked his reaction to Matchbox's defiance with his complicated Thing for Lois. I feel like I built up to it and showed it happening in a natural way, rather than just being like 'the kitten reminded him of Lois Lane.'

[igotsnothing]

Ok, ok, ok...I was not that excited about this expansion. When it was announced, I thought I wouldn't like it at all because I'm more of a San Myshuno kinda gal. I love big cities, grew up in big cities, and always felt the countryside was great for naps, slipping into comas, and hiding out in the witness protection program.

Obviously I am an idiot.

Less than 24 hours since I began tinkering with this pack, I am now furiously and obsessively plotting this story.

Asa Wyman was born and raised in Chestnut Ridge, where he proudly owns and runs his own ranch. He raises sheep, llamas, and keeps dairy cows. Asa is focused, hard-working, but also kind and generous. He's an idealist and is a deeply-feeling, sensitive person. This has led to much heartache in his life, but he doesn't know how to be otherwise. This soft-heartedness also causes him to make the impulsive decision to foster a severely neglected horse, Copper. While his intentions are good, he is completely out of his depth. Asa needs help with the horse, who has trust issues and is terribly defiant. This prompts him to reach out to the legendary horse trainer, Ignacio...

Ignacio "Nacho" Rodriguez is part Chiricahua Apache on his mother's side and Chicano on his dad's side. His family moved to Chestnut Ridge when he was already in his early teens, which made him feel like an outsider among the close-knit cliques at school. As a result, Ignacio comes across as somewhat aloof and indifferent. He loves the landscape of Chestnut Ridge: the rugged land and wilderness call out to him. Although he is a passionate person, he doesn't believe in serious relationships or any type of long-term commitment. In fact, his few friends joke that only horses get Ignacio's complete devotion. He is known for being a horse trainer, a fabled "horse whisperer", whose services are often sought after even beyond Chestnut Ridge. So, when Asa appears before him one afternoon begging him to help Copper, he is intrigued...by both the case and the disarmingly charming rancher who is failing-oh-so-hard at keeping his obvious attraction secret...

Copper is ADORABLE, my sweet widdle horsie-pooh! Look at him! Look. At. Him! He can do no wrong! Actually, he can. He has issues. He's scared and afraid to trust and it makes him difficult to deal with and defiant. Copper is verrrry smart, you see. He's got everything figured out: the foster guy doesn't know what he's doing AND he's on to the trainer guy's tricks. He likes it, though, when the two of them come see him at the ranch. He doesn't know what they're yammering and bickering about, but he feels better when they are both there. There's a warmth and sweetness he can pick up on when they're there and it's very soothing and healing for him; so, he needs to make sure they keep showing up. Together!

[oxygenbefore1775]

Hi! For start congrats on the milestone 💞

So for the color analysis event that got me intrigued I'm picking Reiner ofc. And the color I'm picking for me would be light purple if that's good and wasn't submitted yet 🤧💜

thanks so much for the kind words Mai <3

Reiner Braun

It's certainly an interesting choice since purple on the opposite spectrum to yellow - Reiner's "official" color and also the color that I myself assigned him. So, suffice to say, this would be interesting to dive into.

One of the distinctive features of the color purple lies in its composition, being a fusion of two colors - red and blue. This symbolic blend mirrors Reiner's dichotomy as both a Paradis soldier and a Marleyan warrior. But unlike the harmonious combination represented by purple, Reiner has always grappled with the challenge of assigning himself to either of the roles bestowed upon him.

Purple is also symbolic of mystery and the unknown. While this aspect doesn't directly align with Reiner's overarching narrative, it does coincide with the period between seasons two and three when his motivations became pretty much a mystery, sparking discussions and speculation.

Purple, historically associated with power as it was originally worn by monarchs, reflects an interesting facet of Reiner's character. On one hand, it aligns with his influential role in the RBA group (being its leader), where his decisions catalyzed major plot events such as the Fall of Shiganshina and Clash of Titans. Yet, this symbolism takes on a painfully ironic undertone in Reiner's life. Not only was his entire existence dictated by those in power, but even his installment as the Armored Titan resulted not from his efforts but from the influence of another person.

With this said, it only goes downhill, as nearly all the purple symbolism serves to underscore the ironic tone of Reiner's character rather than aligning with any of his other traits.

Take, for example, the connotation of innovation associated with the color purple - it truly drives the point across (and is my favourite to talk about). Purple, commonly linked to knowledge (hence Hange's "official" color), can also symbolize innovation, a product of intellectual work. However, innovation is precisely what Reiner is not, as demonstrated by the vulnerabilities of his Armored Titan to recent inventions - such as Thunder Spears (again, Hange's creation) during the Return to Shiganshina and the new anti-Titan artillery at the battle of Fort Slava. Innovation is simply not a defining trait for Reiner in the context of the color purple - on the contrary, it contradicts his character.

Another facet of the color purple is its fantastical quality, fostering the imagination. But in Reiner's case, not only it is ironic but also tragic, considering his initial motivation of becoming a Marleyan Warrior. Erroneously hoping that gaining a Titan would improve his family situation, Reiner imagined a future where his father could live with them, reuniting the family. However, this dream shattered when his father rejected him, leaving Reiner disillusioned. Another dream that met a similar fate was his aspiration to become a great Warrior after successfully completing the mission on the Island and earning himself a hero status. Evidently, this ambition never materialized, reinforcing the theme of disillusionment in Reiner's story. In this sense, the color purple only amplifies the mockery of magical and fantastical elements it brings for Reiner's story.

But the suggested color for Reiner is light purple - meaning, it has white added to it. While the color white may not significantly contribute to the conversation about Reiner's character, one prominent meaning associated with this color is that of a new beginning and the ability to start over. White, often seen as a plain canvas for other colors, symbolizes a clean slate. Although not directly indicative of Reiner's personality, it does represent his narrative progression of perception - initially viewed as an older brother figure, then thrust into an antagonistic role, and ultimately reinstated in a positive light, earning the role of a character worth rooting for.

All in all, the symbolism of purple doesn't directly play into the nuances of Reiner's character. If anything, it downplays and mocks the elements that are indicative of Reiner which is also interesting to see. It may not be Reiner's color but it could well be its antithesis, considering that purple is the direct opposite of color yellow (the color I believe to be Reiner's "official") which is a delight to see.