#that's a pretty niche interest/ potential hyperfixation

[watatsumiis]

Being A Part of the Sumeru Squad!

I've been thinking a lot recently about being a part of the ‘in’ group in Sumeru - the ones shown to be good friends on screen already (Tighnari, Cyno, Al Haitham and Kaveh!) I feel like there's lots of ways one could slot themselves into the dynamic and it's just very pleasant and fun to think about. 

(Rambles below the cut. Platonic stuff, reader is referred to as ‘you’ and is entirely gender neutral) 

Though the squad is almost constantly making playful little jabs at one another, bickering back and forth and whatnot, they're overall a pretty supportive and kind group and accept you into their midst without too much fuss. 

You soon find yourself invited to a myriad of small, casual get-togethers where the group catches up with one another. It's kind of weirdly formal at first, with so many of them holding such high and important statuses. 

Luckily, Kaveh also ends up feeling pretty left out during these discussions, so you'll have someone to chat with or ask questions when you've lost track of the topic at hand. Plus, he's often got some very funny (and surprisingly astute) commentary to add on, even when the subject is painfully dull. 

Once all the politics are out of the way, the conversation tends to ease right up for a little while. Regardless of whether you're at some restaurant or cafe, or just hanging out at someone's house, there's usually snacks available and things will remain super lighthearted for a bit, all jokes and talks of recently released books or occasional infodumps about hyperfixations and special interests. 

On that subject, whenever the stars align and two or more group members have the same special interest or hyperfixation, hoo boy, you can expect them to monopolise the conversation and somehow always drag it back to whatever niche fascinations that they may have accrued lately. 

If you have something you want to talk about, you can rest assured that at least one person in the room will be able to engage. Everybody has their own collection of equally specific and obscure knowledge - with the occasional kind of hilarious overlap. Kaveh and Cyno’s shared fascination with Fontanian machinery, or Tighnari and Al-Haitham’s in-depth discussions of insectoid languages and their potential overlap with human ones are some of the first to come to mind. 

Of course, disagreements do break out every now and then - but everyone is fairly civil for the most part, if a little bit overdramatic and occasionally loud. It's interesting to see how everyone the group tends to take sides almost as soon as a hint of a possible disagreement rears its head. Al-Haitham once questioned Cyno's sense of humour, querying whether it could really be considered comedy if nobody was laughing, and pretty soon, Tighnari and Kaveh were arguing along as passionately as if they'd been personally insulted. 

You tend to be the tiebreaker more often than not - with such an evenly split group, there often tends to be an even balance between whatever arguments. It doesn't help that Al-Haitham likes to break it all down and give pros and cons for both sides (while still keeping his own stance firm), which may make it impossible for you to decide. 

Luckily, it's easy enough for you to guide the group's attention elsewhere. Just offer to make them some hot drinks or ask if someone wants to play a round of Genius Invocation, and it's like the argument never happened at all. 

It's easy to wind up feeling a little out of place in a group of such highly ranking people, but it's like your friends develop a sixth sense for when you're starting to get a little confused or feeling out of your depth. Instead of poking fun at you (like they do for Kaveh), they'll find a way to rope you into the conversation that doesn't put too much pressure on you. Cyno and Tighnari, especially, seem to have a way of relating things to subjects that are in your area of expertise to help you parse them better so you can find your footing and be debating back and forth with the rest of them. 

Game nights tend to get really intense. It's not a case of if someone will flip their lid, it's simply a case of when. Alliances and subsequent betrayals are all too common, and you'll often find yourself being bribed to help someone one-up another person. 

They even have a ‘trophy’ for winning each week's game night. It's a tiny crown, carved out of wood and painted gold. Collei made it and donated it to the group. Whoever possesses the crown also possesses the ultimate bragging rights until the next gaming night (or until they accidentally sit on it and squash it with their big clumsy butt. Kaveh ). 

Though the group is chaotic, noisy, and constantly teasing one another, they're all so supportive of one another and will stick together through thick and thin. As the conversations slow down, sometimes some pretty serious subjects get brought up, heavy venting and other such similar things. 

Though, they're all very understanding if someone isn't in the correct headspace for that sort of talk, and will happily postpone it or talk about it elsewhere if needed. They're also very used to multiple conversations happening at once, so it's easy enough for someone to dodge around the heavy topics if they need to. 

The squad can be almost violently supportive at times. Sometimes you worry that Cyno may be one hundred percent genuine about abusing his status as the General Mahamatra to threaten somebody who mildly inconvenienced you one time in the market last week. 

Overall, the vibes of the friend group are super fun (if a little intense at times). They may not say it directly, but everyone is super glad to have you around, hanging out with them and getting in on all the goofs they make and shaking up their dynamic a little bit.

Please don't repost, steal, copy or otherwise plagiarise my writing! I do not consent for my works to be translated and posted elsewhere, or copy - pasted into bot or AI technology.

[bts-hyperfixation]

MTL

Be as obsessed with something funny/ nerdy/ pop culture as ARMY is with them

M2L to have an obsession

Yoongi: Basketball fanboy. He has admitted to writing fanfiction. The queer brain always seems to gravitate towards obsessive culture, at least everyone I know in that space does. And like I’m not saying yoongi is forsure queer... He has the vibes though that put him firmly in at least that sort of friend group and you do not get through those friend groups without unhealthy attachments to some form of Celeb.

Jungkook: I’m not sure if he still does because they haven’t appeared in his lives lately, at least not the snippets I’ve seen. But didn’t he used to have loads of action figures in display cases. Like so many models, but the rest of his apartment was pretty bare? Literally looks my apartment... He is also pretty nerdy about marvel and stuff so he is the most likely to obsession collect. Also this man is just as obsessed with us as we are with him right now...

Namjoon: So it isn’t what we tend to think of as an obsessive media because it’s normalized, but that’s awful big attachment he has got to art. I think meeting the right artists would blow his mind and have him fangirl stumbling. Honestly for the right artist he is going to be trying to get that NDA the same way we do when we shave out legs for concerts....

Seokjin: The amount of gaming he does leads me to think he has obsession potential but I couldn’t say whether he’d get army levels of attached. If he was a regular human I could see him being a convention goer and trying to score tickets to Nintendo direct etc.

Jimin: I think if he could find the right interest it could have him trying to be a fanartist type but it would be an obscure fandom niche that doesn’t really have a rabid base, more casual and friendly observation among a small group.

Taehyung: I think Tae has too wide an array of interest to get hyperfixated on any long enough to get invested on fandom culture. Although I think he is a casual observer of all his past interests.

Hoseok: Gets way too many bitches to be on our level of fandom. Has too much of an internat free existence to be plagued by such things. Might get into a plushy line like the line friends if he had a partner that collected them.

[auralina33]

Opal and Mari for the ask game? Mayhap?

OPAL VALLE (acesophiewalten's AU Mrs. Afton- They're allowed to ask this because we've discussed these characters in DMs!)

First impression: Stoic mom... She's funky. I like her design (Her design proceeded to stick in my head the way it was forever even though you changed it)

Impression now: She's still kind of stoic to me but I also see now that she's more just calm, composed, and autistic. I don't think I'd say I was expecting her to be uncaring, but how loving and affectionate she is was a nice surprise and warms my heart... I'd trust her with my life.

Favorite moment: Write her confronting William. Do it. I require it. /j but what you've implied about that lives in my head rent-free. Asides from that, her trying to protect Mari so badly in our first AU still makes me sob.

Idea for a story: Honestly if I were to write her, it'd be something with either Mari or my William... Probably Mari, my William's character is wobbly. And also I've pretty much never written Mari and that's a crime. Hurt-comfort between them real perhaps...

Unpopular opinion: I don't know what the popular opinion on her is so unpopular opinion, she's my mom, here I can show you the adoption pape-

Favorite relationship: Actually, I LOVE her relationship with your Elizabeth... I don't even remember many of the specifics, but I remember a feeling of both comfort and sadness when I heard you talking about them. Also biased one, but her relationship with Mari is so sweet to me too.

Favorite headcanon: Opal with a prosthetic still lives in my head sometimes... Otherwise, Opal also having ADHD and being aspec makes me insane.

THE MARIONETTE (I'm gonna take it like you meant the canon character because. Mari's mine I made him up at this point)

First impression: I LOVE THIS DESIGN SO MUCH. And you're telling me this character is actually secretly super important and has some kind of ghost powers? yoooooooOOOOOOOO (<- Sound of 11 year old Aura experiencing the mix between an special interest and an hyperfixation for the first time)

Impression now: Everyone is wrong about this character except for me (I am completely detached from reality and I do not want to acknowledge it). The Puppet has such an interesting characterization there is DEPTH there is INTRIGUE there is THE POTENTIAL FOR ANGST guys please come back guys gu

Favorite moment: "The others are under my protection." is a line that still makes me batshit insane. It literally confirmed the headcanon I'd had for this character for YEARS prior.

Idea for a story: Mari being mentally ill as a character exploration. I'm leaving it at that because I don't feel like slapping TWs on this post. More complicated one that may get outdated, but sometimes I still think about that fic I wanted to write centered around Mari finding out that William's keeping him and the other Toys from telling Henry what's going on.

Unpopular opinion: Please guys... Please spare some non-Charlie and non-CC Puppets again... I know that's been blasted by canon but I loved it so much... PLEASE. SammyPuppet or Puppet kid who wasn't connected to William or Henry gang rise up. Also for a less niche opinion, I'm completely convinced that the Puppet's wracked with immense amounts of Survivor's Guilt by FFPS and I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Favorite relationship: Puppet and Henry and Puppet and William as actual developed dynamics make me insane. Also despite the above statement, I'm not immune to propaganda and Puppet and Charlie in AUs where the Puppet itself is sentient can hit so well sometimes.

Favorite headcanon: The Puppet's based off or connected to the Fredbear's animatronics but is formally a Toy animatronic.

Can you tell I never moved on from the 2010s FNAF fandom

[another-corpo-rat]

💯💕👀💑 for Vic?

tyyy for the ask 😘😘 | Questions are here!

💯 - What is my muse’s ideal date? One where she is utterly spoiled and the absolute centre of their attention. Ideally, this would be a nice, expensive dinner at Embers (one she ISN'T paying for), a walk around the cleaner parts of the city after, maybe dancing together to a song no one else can hear - a lil spin into her partner's arms before they carry her the rest of the way home. And then, the rest of the night spent under them, or riding them, usually a mix of both. (she isn't adverse to that walk toeing the edges of more dangerous gang territories either. Something about a lil dose of violence can rile her up just as easily as foreplay.)

💕 - Would my muse ever be in a polyamorous relationship? ngl i have legit been considering Adam/Victoria/Michiko as a potential thing to explore, so I'm gonna say a solid maybe to that. Usually Victoria might be too territorial to even consider it, but since she counts both Adam and Michiko as hers and genuinely loves them both in her own way, I could see it working. In the fucked up, borderline unhealthy edge that all of Victoria's serious relationships have, granted.

👀 - Is my muse the type to sleep around? Prior to Smasher yes, she was a lil whore. Kept a little black datashard with the contacts of her fav one-night stands who'd become, well more than one-night stands. Now, not so much. Why go for fast food when she has a whole steak dinner waiting for her? (worth noting that she still does go to Clouds on occasion, though due to both Victoria and Adam's…disparaging thoughts on joytoys, neither of them see that as cheating.)

💑 - What are my muse’s requirements for a potential partner? For a serious relationship, three things mostly: power, physical attraction, and compatibility. For a one-night stand, usually just interest and physical attraction. She's not strict on those forms of interest either, it could be their personality, their skill in a certain niche matter or with a particular weapon. Hell, once a woman caught her attention merely because Victoria found her knowledge on some extinct form of sea creature fascinating. (woo this bitch with your pretty smile and hyperfixations, it's entirely possible)

[threewaysdivided]

Ghost Aliens?

@mindforgedmanacle submitted:

Thought I sent this days ago xD Anyway, I very much enjoyed the newest chapter of Deathly Weapons. It felt very tense, which is not typical when a story is not dealing with its main plot. Kudos on the realism as well.

I don't know it's something you'll ever cover - it's pretty tangential to the plot - but do you ever plan to mention how aliens in the story see ghosts and if there are ghost aliens? A couple chapters back we get M'gann's reaction about there being Martian tales warning against trying to sustain the mind of a dying person (this was neat to include). But as Danny Phantom was presumably an alien-free series, we don't know of any ghosts that were ever anything but human/animal or spawned as ghosts (I'm ignoring Hartman's later backtracking, it's clear Steve Marmel saw many of season 1's ghosts as just spirits of the dead).

It probably shouldn't be a plot focus ("that's a ghost, but Martian!" isn't much to go on, heh), but these kinds of interactions always interest me yet seldom occur or get a mention. For its many faults, I did appreciate that Young Justice later showed the magic and some religious practices of Martians, for example. Avoiding the usual implication that magic is an Earth-thing for some reason, and not portraying all aliens as having abandoned religious practices. Maybe the Martians or someone else have some ideas about the afterlife (or an afterlife, as the case may be) and find it unsettling that some of them ended up in the Ghost Zone.

Well, even humans feel that way. 😂 Just a thought. Thanks again for your wonderful story. From that stellar opening chapter to now, it's been a pleasure to read.

Thank you! I’m really happy that you had fun with Chapter 18of Deathly Weapons. I’ve been very pleased to hear people say the tension of the mission came across well. Like you said Black Gold doesn’t really do a whole lot to advance the central plotline or main character arc by itself (it’s mostly important as a baseline negative control to show that the Team can operate well with Phantom on board when Ghostly Nonsense or Personal Tensions aren’t throwing spanners in the works) so I really wanted to punch up the short term stakes and espionage suspense to compensate.

As for ghosts and aliens in Deathly Weapons I’m going to have to give a moderately firm “not really”. I’ll explain why, and my thoughts, but before I do, a preface:

Hi, I’m an author, please kill me! (Figuratively, of course; if you literally do that then there will be paperwork, I shall be quite unable to continue posting chapters and the others may become rather miffed at you for it.) What I mean is that I’m a big proponent of the Death of the Author theory, and that also applies to myself. Feels a bit pretentious to call myself an “author” but at this point Deathly Weapons is punching in the same length-class as the first entries in the Alex Rider, Artemis Fowl and Harry Potter series so perhaps I have earned it? Don’t get me wrong, I love to talk about my process, I love to talk about my headcanons and theories for things. But at the same time I’m just increasingly tired by this recent trend where official creators try to retcon/ insert information/ enforce specific readings via social media, or act like it’s somehow the audiences’ fault for coming away confused/ with a different reading because key information was either completely left out or very poorly presented in-story. I personally think it’s a really dishonest and disrespectful approach and I never want to do that if I can avoid it. This stuff is fun to talk about here but until/unless it shows up in my writing you can consider it just another headcanon. And the things I suggest now may be subject to change later as I do more thinking/ research and potentially come up with ideas/ theories I find more compelling. Basically, I can tell you my intent, but I don’t want to dictate to anyone how they have to read my writing. Right. Cracking on:

So the reason for my “probably not” here is basically what you’ve said - how aliens in the story see ghosts and whether there are ghost aliens isn’t very relevant to core mysteries and character arcs of Deathly Weapons, and runs the risk of being distracting.

A lot has been said about the “Mystery Box” style of writing (where writers start raising questions before knowing the answers themselves) but personally I prefer the opposite approach. I like to know what my major answers/endings/resolutions are in advance, so I can deliberately set up questions/reverse-engineer foreshadowing to lead the audience that way. I always find it kind of frustrating/unsatisfying when a story raises a question or introduces an interesting idea only to do nothing meaningful with it by the end. It’s sometime I’d like to avoid doing in Deathly Weapons - steering people toward the answers I want while sidestepping rabbit-holes or un-fun implications. (e.g. how it kind of puts a damper on things once you stop to consider that M’gann and J’onn’s Martian biology means they will inevitably outlive all the human characters by several lifetimes.)

For me, the problem is that your suggestion would be too interesting; if I brought it up then I’d want to address it well and pay off people’s understandable curiosity, but the point where it would mostly likely appear in Deathly Weapons isn’t really structured in a way that would let it naturally come up or be properly explored without completely putting the breaks on the pacing of some fairly important late-game story-beats.

It’s also just a personal preference thing. I tend to favour character- and plot-driven stories over world-driven stories, so for me worldbuilding is a more like a foundation element that serves the narrative; either by directly providing something that is/will be useful in solving a current/upcoming plot problem, as a source of character context/motivation/development, by helping to ground the characters/systems/strategies/stakes in a sense of consistent internal logic, or by making things feels more immersive by suggesting a bigger living world beyond the story.

(M’gann briefly recalling Martian death-stories in Chapter 16 falls mostly under #4 for me - my thought process was that it would make sense for Miss Martian to have her own cultural framework outside of human pop-culture, and that it would have some distinct differences that reflect how Martians’ unique abilities/biology would produce a society with their own ways of communicating/connecting/grieving.)

That sort of incidental-feeling addition, which can come up organically and make the world feel bigger in 1-3 lines without breaking stride, is kind of my ideal Goldilocks zone for non-critical worldbuilding. It’s the Law of Conservation of Detail - the more space something takes up, the more I want it to meaningfully contribute, and if it doesn’t then I can find it really hard to justify. That’s actually part of why Chapter 18 was such a long write; Black Gold is structurally important but on its own falls just close enough to “filler” that there were several points where I was debating if that was a good enough reason to keep it in.

That all still feels like a bit of a Nigel-No-Fun response to your suggestion, though. To make up for it, what I think I’d like to do is go over a couple of the headcanons I’m using for ghosts and ghost-mortal interactions in Deathly Weapons and then maybe talk a bit about my plans for some of the alien stuff.

Let’s go:

Headcanon #1 - How Ghosts Work

I like to take a blended approach when it comes to the whole “monsters from another dimension” vs “manifestations of ectoplasm and post-human consciousness” thing. There are some ghosts in the show that were very obviously intended to read as former people, but even early on there were others that read as most unnatural/ monster-y. My solution is to break the ghosts down into 3 categories:

Post-living: These ghosts are the imprint of a departed mind/soul, left in ectoplasm and formed into a new entity. Phantom explains a little bit about this in Chapter 16 - if there is enough ambient ectoplasm around, and the dying mind leaves a strong enough imprint then if creates a seed pattern which gets built upon to manifest the ghost. (This is also my explanation for why so many post-human DP ghosts seem to be so gimmicky; the imprint isn’t necessarily a perfect encapsulation of the mind, and minds with strong fixations/personality traits are more likely to leave an imprint, which biases the pattern into something like a caricature/Flanderization. What was a prominent trait in life can become a dominant train in the entity that forms afterward.)

Conceptual: These ghosts are also the result of living cultures, but rather than being an individual imprint are the result of a myth/story/legend being left as a collective imprint over time. (Pandora would be one of these.)

Native: These ghosts manifest within the Ghost Zone and develop/adapt/evolve with little to no external influence. This category runs the full gamut from minor entities like ectopi to more monster-y sorts, to living terrain and extremely eldritch/primal beings. (Clockwork would be one of these). There’s some “chicken vs egg” when it comes to these ghosts vs conceptual ghosts as it’s not always clear whether the legend originated a conceptual ghost or if a native ghost passing through a portal inspired/influenced the legend, but in general the more myth-specific ghosts are likely to be conceptual and the more primal/elemental ghosts are likely to be native. The yetis of the Far Frozen have been the subject of much scholarly debate among the few ghosts that care.

Ultimately though, the categories don’t mean much to the average ghost since (outside of a few powerful figures) there isn’t much by way of systemic hierarchy across the whole Zone and (with a few notable exceptions) most ghosts tend to skew more solitary in nature unless brought together by a powerful ruler/ common threat.

Headcanon #2 - DP vs DC Ghosts

One of the worldbuilding challenges of DP x DC crossovers is how to create a system where DP ghosts can exists alongside more “traditional” DC ghosts like Secret or Deadman. For me, the answer has been that morphology-based categorisation systems are for chumps and suckers. Basically these are two completely unrelated phenomena that just happened to get lumped together because of some shared surface level characteristics, and because instances of either are so rare that they tend to get folded into the broader mythology/ folklore of “ghost stories” rather than identified or classified.

If you wanted proper names for them, I tend to go with “ectoplasmic entities” and “shades”: ectoplasmic ghosts being what’s described above and shade ghosts being the original mind/consciousness/soul held in the mortal world through willpower/magic/curses/other paranormal phenomena. (One distinction I find interesting with this is that shades - being the original soul - could potentially be revived or allowed to move on, where ectoplasmic entities - as a new being formed from the imprint of a departed soul - could be destroyed or potentially transformed into a new living entity but not used to bring back the original.)

But when it comes to the average person, if it looks like a ghost and it spooks like a ghost then it’s a ghost.

Headcanon #3 - How the Ghost Zone interacts with the living world

I’ve talked about this in other asks, but my go-to explanation for why DP’s ghosts are so unknown and so often a surprise to the other heroes in crossovers (and also why Ectobiology is routinely dismissed as woo-woo rather than accepted as actual science) is that, outside of a few locations/ points in time, ghosts are incredibly rare.

My take is that the different dimensions all kind of sit on top of each other, and that the barriers separating those dimensions only get thin enough to allow incursions under certain conditions.

In Deathly Weapons the conditions around Earth (whether mystical or simply due to elemental makeup/ rotation/ magnetic field) cause the barrier between the living world and the Ghost Zone to thin from a curtain to a veil; enough that ghostly encounters can be measured at a rate of decades rather than centuries/ millennia. And then on Earth itself there are specific places where the phenomena concentrates to the point that the veil either spontaneously tears with a fair amount of regularity, or grows thin enough to be readily punctured with the appropriate rituals/ technology/ magic. I also like to think that - while the Ghost Zone is fairly amorphous - there is some degree of fixedness, and that most of the post-human ghosts tend to congregate in lairs/ territories around the area(s) where the Zone-Earth barrier is thinnest, which is why the ghosts get weirder and less humanoid/ more unrecognisable the further the crew travel from the Fenton-portal.

When it comes to the rest of the universe, ghosts could theoretically show up anywhere but the chances of the curtain spontaneously tearing are negligibly low - most likely a one-off event. That said, it would be perfectly reasonable to expect that other planets/ locations in the universe could meet similar conditions for their own Ghost Zone connection.

So I guess the answer to “are there Alien Ghosts in Deathly Weapons?” is that it’s not impossible but it’s also unlikely to be from planets in Earth’s immediate galactic system and the planets thatare connected could be so far removed from Earth and connected to such a distant part of the Ghost Zone that they might never encounter each other and possibly wouldn’t recognise the other as originally being from living world if they did.

Some stories that might interest you: JaredBlueRose’s Smallville x Danny Phantom crossover Just Another Meteor Freak includes some worldbuilding around Krypton being connected to the Ghost Zone and known about by the people of the Far Frozen. I feel like Danny Phantom fans in general might have fun with Jonathon Stroud’s Bartimaeus Sequence books. The concepts of seven planes of reality, the spirit/demon denizens of the Other Place and how they and their realm interact with the human world are very DP-ghost-adjacent. Also the de-facto narrator is delightfully snarky. (And, if you want something even closer to home, Stroud also wrote the Lockwood & Co. series about a psychic detection agency in a ghost-infested London.)

That isn’t to say that other alien cultures wouldn’t have their own rituals/ practices/ mythology/ superstitions around death, dying and the afterlife. Mortality is one of the universal experiences, and the questions of where did we come from? why are we here? and what happens after we die? hang over basically every society with enough intelligence and existential awareness to recognise that they have a finite lifespan. I do kind of wonder about Atlantean funeral rites, considering the specific challenges involved in interring or cremating a body several miles below the surface of very cold flesh-preserving saltwater.

However, to be honest, that aspect of culture isn’t really something that’s going to get a lot of attention in Deathly Weapons. YJ:DW is a character-focussed mystery/espionage story with a slightly smaller scope than YJS1 so things are mostly going to be Earth-centric and driven by the main cast. Individual members might have some opinions, but how different alien cultures feel about ghosts as a whole just isn’t going to be super relevant to solving the immediate problems the Team will face. (And most of the relevant characters did their major reacting across Second Impressions and Assessment).

The primary way I want to explore alien cultures here is as character context. Culture shapes character, and a character’s values/ behaviours/ beliefs/ experiences can paint a picture (however incomplete/ distorted) of their home culture, even if we don’t visit that culture directly.

The Team gives us Conner (who isn’t particularly connected to his Kryptonian heritage and is going to be playing somewhat of a support role for most of the main character arc) and technically Kaldur (whose culture canon already gave use a glimpse of, and whose spotlight scenes in Deathly Weapons will be focussing on a more specifically personal experience) but the one I’m most interested in is M’gann. Her personal experience with her home culture was a huge part of her character motivation/ behaviour in Season 1, it didn't get a lot of elaboration and I want to see if I can potentially give my own take on what kind of experience could have led her to be like that.

As for later seasons I'm not sure what you mean, since - far as I know - the show wasn't properly continued after the primary directors left? I think the producers and a couple of the writers tried to sell some X-years-later stories as sequels but since the lead showrunner turned out to be a disingenuous queerphobic incel (and his co-creator an inexperienced adaptation-fanboy) those entries kind of fell apart into insultingly threadbare grimdark cynicism that simultaneously tried to be every DC story at once while also trying to both out-clever and exploit nostalgia for the original season, and ended up completely gutting the themes, stakes, characterisation and relationships while wasting the few compelling characters and concepts they introduced.

Anyway, there are a few things that specifically interest me about M’gann:

First is that she doesn’t express any indications of her culture - no phrases, no gestures, no observed practices, no instances hinting at it. And yes, some of that is her leaning into the “Megan Wheeler” persona but that façade never slips, even in the period where she’s lost her memory.

M’gann also doesn’t volunteer information about Mars very much and even more rarely does it come with a specific personal opinion attached (and again, because she spends a large part of the season acting it’s hard to distinguish when she’s offering her own opinion vs the one she thinks a Green Martian would express). She never volunteers any specific personal experiences - even ones that would be mundane, positive or otherwise non-incriminating - unless pushed, and even then she keeps it brief (the only time that she elaborates unprompted in the S1 companion comics, it’s to lie about her false backstory as a Green-born Martian who won her protégéship via contest).

It’s also noteworthy that M’gann never talks about her family or any Martian friends, and is never show to express any regret/worry/speculation about how they’re doing back on Mars. The only exception is that one passing titbit about having 12 sisters (and even then it’s potentially telling that it’s a quick afterthought at the end of a more sincere-sounding statement that “I always wanted a sister”). Again, she never volunteers information or visibly reacts to the topic of family, even when witnessing/speaking to/consoling other characters who are dealing with family issues. Then there’s her actual backstory - that she stowed away off-planet on the ship of an uncle she barely knew, seeming without telling anyone or saying goodbye, and that we never see evidence of her attempting to communicate with anyone back home after she arrives on Earth.

And then there’s the two things we’re directly told about White Martians: that they’re treated as second-class citizens, and that the primary experience driving M’gann’s attempts to hide her status and terror around being ‘clocked’ was not one of direct violence or active punishment but of constant rejection.

To me, this all speaks to the possibility that M’gann already felt unusually disconnected/separated from her home culture, even compared to other White Martians. (I know it’s tonally a very different show but contrast the 2004 Teen Titan’s cartoon, where the influence of Tamaran and Azarath pervades Starfire and Raven’s visual aesthetics, powers, personalities and day-to-day behaviour). It also suggests that M’gann didn’t have many close personal connections, even within her own family - or at least no-one she felt was worth staying for or who she worried would notice/ significantly miss her when she was gone. (That isn’t to say that her family was necessarily abusive or actively neglectful. Plenty of people can feel like “the Black Sheep” simply because their passions/interests/aspirations don’t align to the rest of their family, or feel overlooked due to their position as a child in a big family or in a family with other more “difficult”/“successful” siblings.) It seems like she might have latched on to Hello Megan! as a source of comfort/escapism from a consistent feeling of loneliness/ostracization in her everyday life, and that this might have influenced her decision to leave her culture behind entirely for a new life on Earth.

Whatever the case, M’gann’s behaviour in Season 1 seems to suggest an experience of feeling very alone even in places where others like her might have found connection, and that’s more the line I'd like to run with during her character spotlights in Deathly Weapons.

So, yeah. There we have it. Hope you’ll come along to see.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this:

A small thought I wonder how Martians would react to Human stage magic? So many of our sleight-of-hand tricks and illusions - moving things without touching them, passing through objects, changing the appearance of items - are things that come naturally to Martians as part of their telepathy, telekinesis, shape-shifting, density-shifting and mind-reactive bio-materials. Would they even immediately register most of what’s happening as unusual/impressive by human standards?

Thanks for stopping by! 💜

[scrawnytreedemon]

sephiroth, hornet?

Sephiroth AND Hornet!

But yeah, I’m assuming this is about the ask meme.

Starting off with Hornet:

First impression: My dumbass when I saw her in clips of the trailer years and years ago thought she was a male rival; a stern one. As for in the game? A sharp, righteous, if rather callous opponent; someone to keep your journey in check.

Impression now: She’s hard as nails, and canonically I don’t see her as the begrudgingly-lovingly older sister we in fandom like to image as-- However, there is a solemness to her. She doesn’t love the Vessels, by any means, and I highly doubt she truly sees them as kin, but at the end of Dream No More, when she looks back at the Knight’s shattered mask, I think a small part of her aches. I feel even in a world without Hallownest’s fall, Hornet would’ve still been stern, cold, perhaps, but I doubt she’d’ve been driven to such militaristic ruthlessness. It’s tragic, really. She didn’t get a chance at a safe upbringing; with loving parents; with security. After all, she was born to save.

Favorite moment: When the Wyrm’s corpse is crumbling, and she rescues the Knight at the last moment. It’s such a potent act.

Idea for a story: Ohohooo, quite the question? Well, if I were to come up with one on the spot, one where she comes to terms with the Infection’s end, where she learns to live in a world with relative peace. Where she perhaps learns to open up a little more, let others support her, instead of standing completely on her own.

Unpopular opinion: Mmm, can’t think of any really unpopular ones. Most I can say is that while it is incredibly cute and I love it to bits, I don’t think Hornet is particularly affectionate-- Especially not toward the Vessels, whom she doesn’t even see as entirely people. I feel that Hornet is alot more emotionally constipated than assumed. Yes, she’s incredibly eloquent and expresses her thoughts with ease, but I think she struggles with truly connecting with people, due to her years of isolation growing up in a dying world where all whom she relied on either died or disappeared.

Favorite relationship: Hollow Knight doesn’t have alot of characters to ship, lmao, so I’m going with Lacenet romantically :) Love me some rivalry!

Favorite headcanon: Daughter of Three Mothers! Love that so much, man! Adds such a depth and history to Hornet; really ties her into the Kingdom she protects.

Now, getting onto Sephiroth:

First impression: Sephiroth is one of those characters that just slips into your consciousness without you knowing. Cool, strong, charismatic, mysterious, delightfully cruel-- Everything a villain could want. Oh, and very handsome~

Impression now: While Sephiroth absolutely has this cool, aloof, put-together exterior, underneath is a very messy, bleeding individual with little sense of self despite all his bravado. Born and bred in Shinra’s labs, Sephiroth was created to be the ultimate weapon. Growing up without a mother, and a barely-father who medically abused him for years on end, Sephiroth had little security. Depending on how you construe the timeline, Sephiroth was deployed to Wutai as a preeten/early teen. What few friends he had left him, and all the while he was paraded as a war hero. I would argue that when he finally snaps, it isn’t because he’s broken free and is running amok, but rather because he’s latched onto yet another, more destructive authority figure. Jenova gave him a semblence, a semblence of safety, of love. An answer for why he’s here. A purpose, a higher calling; one not owed to suit-clad presidents, cheering crowds, or the fickle affections of his peers. For all his talk of becoming a God without bounds, Sephiroth clings to others-- Hell, his revival in Advent Children was through his sheer hatred of Cloud. I could go on for much, much longer, but I think I’ll leave it here.

Favorite moment: Ohohoho, if I’m going to pick one, it’s the one just before he becomes Safer Sephiroth. Tried looking for the script to confirm this, and there’s a chance I’m remembering this wrong, but he says something along the lines of “Everything... Everything shall begin anew, with me.“ And bRO I was like like chjjkKHJHKJFFSDJ?????? Metal as fuck. Of course, if it was even there at all. But yeah, anything with religious imagery and/or themes of death and rebirth.

Idea for a story: Ooooohhhhh, honey, where does one begin? I feel like more works focusing on his dynamic with the Remnants, who are essentially his progeny, would be wonderful! Working on some myself, actually :)

Unpopular opinion: Not so unpopular nowadays, but sexgod Sephiroth doesn’t feel realistic at all lmaoo. Oh, he can be passionate! Deliciously passionate, if I may, and I feel like he’s very good at getting under your skin, but I feel like outside of anyone he truly clings to... Seph’s a bit awkward. Not in that dorky, nerdy way, but in this very deadpan, doesn’t know how to act around Normal People kind of way-- Y’feel me? If I may throw this in, too, I’m not such a big fan of his Remake facial features??? Just looks... off. AC’s my fave, so I suppose I have a soft spot for the more delicate features there.

Favorite relationship: Hah, if we’re picking ships, Sefikura. I’m a stickler for hero/villain dynamics >:) But, if I’m picking dynamics, again, him and the Remnants could have some great potential. Overall, though, I’m very flexible with this sort of thing, and have shipped Seph with all kinds of characters, in-and-outside of the Compilation. He’s a very interesting character to put in new situations.

Favorite headcanon: Goodness gracious, I have so many. For shits and giggles, the idea that he eats cleaning products as snacks is hilarious and I love it to bits. On a more personal level, and these are pretty niche as far as I’m aware, I have a soft spot for seeing him as genderfluid and autistic-- God, without any context, that has the potential to sound really, really stupid and perhaps a little offensive(???).

But yeah, I have alot of thoughts, like, so many. I could probably go on for hours about Sephiroth in particular-- Hyperfixations Are Like That, Man. This was lots of fun, thank you for asking!!!! Have a lovely day <333

[lovethatlaiduslow]

i was tagged by @meridianheroine​ and @liathgray thank you babes!! ♡

1. name: syd!

2. gender: f, she/her pronouns

3. star sign: leo sun, sagittarius moon, virgo rising

4. height: 5′2, 5’3 on a good day

5. time: 11:10 AM

6. birthday: july 29

7. favorite band: mmmrjkdjd it changes a lot but currently florence + the machine. i’ve been listening to them (her?) an embarrassing amount recently

8. favorite solo artist: mmmmrjdjfn once again somewhere between mitski, fka twigs, phoebe bridgers, björk, fiona apple, sufjan stevens, and hozier

9. song stuck in ur head: girls in the hood by ms megan thee stallion. at any given moment in the day i am going i’m a hot girl i do hot shit spend his income on my outfit i don’t text quick cause i ain’t thirstyyy these bitches mad mad they wanna hurt meee

10. last movie: antebellum. it was... interesting. if you ever check it out please make sure to look up the content warnings because there’s a lot of potentially triggering subject matter

11. last show: bojack horseman. i’m currently on the third season and i’m losing my gd mind it’s fucking excellent

12. when you created this blog: december 2020. i used to be on tumblr in the past, but this is my first time being active since then. it’s weird as fuck ngl but i’m really enjoying it

13. what you post: my specialties are gay shit, pretty shit, pure brainrot, and my other incredibly niche interests i subject my followers to

14. last thing you googled: “i bet on losing dogs chords” i don’t wanna talk about it

15. other blogs: [redacted]

16. do i get asks: i do! i have quite a few in my inbox i need to answer lol i’ll get there

17. how many are you following/how many followers do you have: wouldn’t u like to know weather boy

18. average hours of sleep: 4-6 currently but i’m working on improving that shjhghfrrg

19. lucky number: 69

20. instruments: i played the violin when i was younger, but nowadays i love playing the ukelele, esp baritone :) i also own a melodica entirely to annoy my friends and siblings

21. what are you currently wearing: sweats and fuzzy socks wrapped in a huge blanket. i have work soon i am Decompressing

22. dream job: ur guess is as good as mine my dude

23. dream trip: anywhere in the continent of asia i’ve never been and i would kill a man to go. india or china or thailand or nepal or indonesia anywhere idc dude.  

24. favorite food: probably either pancakes or sushi :)

25. nationality: american (derogatory)

26. favorite song: oh yikes. do i. have a favorite song. ig it tends to cycle through mitski’s discography atm it’s probably happy bc it’s the one i’ve been hyperfixating on the most

27. last book read: the song of achilles! i just bought it and circe recently and i’m so fucking excited to read them. it’s already destroying me ksjdkd

28. top three fictional universes i’d like to live in: most studio ghibli films (i’m looking at you, grave of the fireflies), the fma-verse (yes ik im a clown), and either atla or tlok 

anyone feel free to jump in if you’d like! ♡

[ca1e70-deactivated]

a list of my entirely way too niche headcanons ive actually implemented for everyones imagination:

name options ive used and refuse to retire: david elizabeth strider (sometimes i dont feel like being a douche to others and saying thats not his name), harley davidson strider, and david james strider for the sake of simplicity

im not gonna tell yall the like. oc exes ive given him bc thatll take eighteen years. 

i dont rlly have an explanation on the ghost thing besides the fact he just can? ive occasionally pulled from family ghost stories and experiences bc i somehow got landed with family members who lived in a haunted house for a decade and enjoy scaring me with all the stories (including the time my cousin literally died on the kitchen floor from a bronchial spasm and one of the friends that was over asked my aunt later what was up with the old man she saw in the corner of the room that night - my cousin is fine btw shes just a huge bitch and a third grade teacher and i dont like her)

whether or not hes done drugs is based on absolutely nothing besides how im feeling in that moment. either hes the designated driver and sober friend forever or he got fired from his job after doing a line at work during graveyard with some random customers theres no inbetween (this absolutely happened @ waho. if dave works at waho hes a mess of a person and thats on the diner itself.)

ok look i hc dave w/schizophrenia besides when i was 14 i had a hyperfixation with learning about it and then at 16 was prescribed a medication and had side effects so wack my therapist genuinely thought 14 yr old me was onto something and its a weird way to cope with the idea that lady put in my head that i might “develop it in my twenties” which i turn 20 this year and i havent been able to stop obsessing and panicking over the prospect so PLEASE dont come in my inbox calling me ableist im not out here all harley quinn in suicide squad with the voices ok hes medicated, he goes to therapy, the hard fast delusion that lil cal was nearly sentient and informed bro of every single thing dave did no matter how asinine it was is no longer a debilitatingly affecting him ANYWAYS

i actually use the chicken/egg farming family pretty often just because its hilarious to me to give dave like. an actual mom and dad. hes literally an uncle to like three different kids he just never visits because they make fun of his skinny jeans and he hates one of his (incredibly bare-bones ocs all of them) brothers who threatened to bash his head in with a little league bat after dave broke his star wars lego set apart on accident (but not rlly) so their parents were like “why dont you stay with your brother in the big city for a lil while champ” and then they just never picked him back up? and thats on favoritism 

the other one is that his name is actually david reed and hes the middle child of a family of three who literally live the standard golden retriever white middle class life only they went to disney land or something equally as dumb one year when dave was like 6 and he wandered off so bro literally just went “huh free game” because frankly he was an idiot who thought maybe i should take this kid home because its real dangerous in parking lots and then it was too late to NOT have it seem like a kidnapping and thats why daves never had a summer job, seen his birth certificate, or gone to school. but vaguely remembers what kindergarten was like and having a pet dog and calling someone mom as a kid. 

im not making a bullet point about his sex life headcanons just use your imagination and acknowledge the fact bro essentially worked within the sex industry and i enjoy putting dave through trauma as a catharsis 

i stopped doing this one usually but if he did go to school hes been in percussion since fifth grade and played the drums in his high schools jazz band as well as various edgy teenager garage bands he likes to pretend dont have a youtube presence and that hes absolutely never been shirtless in front of plenty of his classmates because he wore a hoodie to a show like an idiot. idk occasionally ill put him in an actual band he doesnt hate but keeps separate from his lil turntechGodhead internet persona (which i will ALSO touch upon in a sec) until they wind up getting looped into a tour with some bigger named band that has a show in *insert beta kid here*’s city and hes gotta come clean solely so he can visit his online friend. sorry derseasterous thats the one time weve ever run into each other and i made him have a crush on one of his bandmates i was in my anti-daverose phase where i made dave a hoe and also didnt want to admit i still loved the ship all these years later 

i hate it so much but you know the whole vr loli trap voice shit that was popular a while ago? hes fucking baller at it for some reason. he did it as a joke while talking to bro and they both about shat their pants. if im feeling real ambitious, hes got a separate soundcloud solely dedicated to doing dumbass rap covers or making his own but in the voice under the pseudonym elizabeth “beth” davids that he will never admit is his. well, he will, but hes gonna be really fucking embarrassed about it. irony or not.

talking abt seperate soundclouds and stuff ive always had it where turntechGodhead was his like. essentially internet fucking persona facade shit he used because we all had that phase where we wanted memorable urls and stuff but also didnt want to totally ignore the nagging fear of people finding you in real life, until it turned into real life ppl finding you on the internet. so he also has basically an adjacent set of social media under the same name but its just a boring username i havent decided on so everyone he knows irl doesnt mix up with what hes made for himself as TG and the people he knows as TG dont know what highschool he goes to. (this occasionally comes with the territory of ppl on parp being pissed that daves “lying” or “hiding things” from his friends as if he was doing it out of spite instead of just keeping embarrassing tagged photos and videos from football games or when he ate shit at the skatepark from fucking with his “rap career”)

every once in a while i get on a kick where hes just german. like, i just replace houston texas with hamburg germany and have him apply to a university in whatever state is applicable for whoever im chatting with and it goes from there? sometimes he moved when he was little and went through the whole visa thing, sometimes he didnt go through the visa thing, sometimes hes a dual citizen because of family and shit, its all dependent on what suits the situation best. 

one that ive been fucking with for a while but hardly break out (until recently with like 5 roses in the span of one day hell yeah) is that he has a neighbor at the end of the hall who is like a thousand year old witch lady that hes basically adopted as his mother figure in lieu of not having one and shes totally cool with it, especially bc when she kicks the bucket she fully plans on giving dave all her occult stuff so her figure-skating coach and realtor daughter doesnt sell it at a garage sale and lets it all go to waste. she also once brought rose up by name in a conversation without any prompting of her existence which dave didnt realize for days, and then one time cryptically stopped and stared at an empty space in the wall, went “she has potential, you know.” then looked at him sitting on her kitchen counter with a smile “lots of it” and hes thought about that weekly ever since. (it is important to note one of the occult items he leaves her is literally her own personal book of shadows shes been filling out for decades its like a 600 page leatherbound book dave has no idea what its used for but the sheer amount of homemade spells and etc in it is like. gonna murder rose the second this chick gets her hands on it i promise you.)

theres the standard strife shit? im not rlly gonna get into those theyre all basically cookie cutter bullshit. its just standard bro and dave abuse talk. i like to inclulde the whole 24hr live cam up in the apartment that definitely watches dave in every room besides his own and the bathroom, but that quickly delves into the prospect of middle-aged men stalking him online and basically sexually harassing him in his own god damn home by talking about how they can see him just trying to take his shoes off in the living room after getting home and frankly? its not one of my best takes! but once you throw it into the headcanon bin, its there forever. 

he actually really does do something with his photography but not enough to warrant anything exciting, but he has his own branding for it and regularly takes pictures of his friends or anything else he thinks is moderately interesting enough to take pictures of, but those are just thrown into shoeboxes under his bed in favor of posting genuine shots because he wants to keep his image intact and blurry photos of jade smiling in the tree they climbed up together while bec paws at the base of it while whining isnt exactly something he wants the whole world to see.

i also pretty often but him into either paleontology OR i put him down as trying to become a mortician because he thinks handing roadkill once he graduated from museum giftshop specimens to doing his own taxidermy on the side has prepared him enough to perform an occasional autopsy and start embalming real human corpses. (sometimes i put my own desires in and make them his bc i have to project at some point and put him through the same EMT course i dropped out of bc it was one semester and he already has pretty decent first aid skills, but he definitely didnt expect it to be as fucking wild at times as it is, but whats he gonna do? get a job back at waffle house? the company hes working for just offered to pay like half his associates in paramedicine tuition and hes already got all his pre-recs done when he started for paleo. at least its a stable job and hes got the ability to be compassionate in the moment) 

im running out of things that ive done to the poor kid. OH 

hes not a virgin he had a girlfriend all four years of high school (shes also one of his optional and designated exes plz keep up) and their relationship ends in one of two ways: she dies in a car accident a week before their high school graduation, or she stops talking to him entirely a week after their high school graduation until a couple years later she gets into (guess what) a car accident with her current wife/girlfriend and dies which leaves behind their daughter. who just so happens to also be daves daughter. her name is hannah and i love her like my own but no one ever likes her and thats on the conditioning of dirk. does dave end up taking her in? yes. shes awesome and the first time he takes her to the park to like run off some fucking steam she disappears for two minutes and dave is moderately terrified until she comes back holding a dead baby squirrel and thats the moment he realizes huh maybe things really do be genetic.

ok at the bottom of the list im gonna add the couple of times hes been a camboy which usually coincides with the live apartment cam thing and the amount of people in his dms calling him hot or whatever, but typically its more of a started the day he turned 18 and basically dipped around 20 in favor of showing up randomly with no warning to complain about a video game dick in hand because it gives him an outlet that wont annoy his friends bc this is the fifteenth time hes had a lot to say this week about a certain boss battle and also the comments fuel his ego and daddy issues.

the last one wasnt the bottom but literally unless its explicitly proven otherwise every time anyone rps with me there is the underlying fact dave strider was a goalie on his high school lacrosse teams all four years and (shocker another one) definitely had the hots for one of his teammates like major hots like first gay experience hots. like it was painfully obvious that teammate also liked him back hots. like one night at a team sleepover one of the other guys was like can yall just makeout and get it over with were fucking tired and dave really had the balls to be offended and ask what the fuck they were talking about while literally sitting halfway in the mans lap bc for some reason they had to share the same chair. 

he is also guilty until proven innocent of being the worlds biggest loner outside of that sports team and even though hes literally a jock he still opts to eat his lunch alone in the hallway or something like that and has a tendency to leave girls on read, but bc hes got an in with the rest of the jocks hes basically drug around to plenty of parties and since hes conventionally attractive enough and popular in the aloof way that he is, hes got plenty of tagged insta posts and twitter directs and snapchat streaks going. 

THESE WERE ALL NO GAME AND DONT INVOLVE SHIPS BC I LIKE TO KEEP MY OPTIONS OPEN AND THEYRE LITERALLY ALL BASED OFF RPS IVE DONE I HOPE YALL JUDGE ME ACCORDINGLY