#then that's a problem in itself. but that's a whole other can of worms

[swordsonnet]

when talking about topics like maturity and (self-)infantilisation, it's important to remember that there will always be disabled adults for whom the "normal" benchmarks of adulthood are not attainable or even applicable at all. if you want to be an ally to disabled people, you need to support all of us, not just the ones you find palatable - and that includes people who have "childish" interests, who get very emotional about seemingly trivial things, who aren't able to be independent in the way that adults are expected to be. that doesn't mean that we "need to grow up", or that we're reverting to a childlike state to avoid our responsibilities, or whatever op-ed writers think is wrong with gen z these days. it's just the way we are, and liking plushies or struggling with certain tasks doesn't in fact make us children! disabled adults are still adults, and still deserving of dignity, regardless of whether or not we can live up to the rigid societal norms of what it means to be an adult.

[royalarchivist]

Quackity: Lately, I have been participating in events and projects, and unfortunately it's become clear to me that my presence and name have only been used to attract the attention of my national and international community with the objective, as I see it, of generating more attention towards controversies - destructive controversies, and a rupture that is very clear in the community. [...] In advance, I ask the organizers of any type of events and projects like this to please show more respect to me and my community, because I've shown lots of sympathy and cooperation in these various projects and events, but it's become clear to me that their only interest is in using my name. My name and my community have been used to attract all this attention for distorted purposes, and I will no longer allow that to happen. That is not what my content is about - not me nor my content nor anything I’ve done.

Here's Quackity's commentary on respect and his reasoning for distancing himself and his projects from future events and awards shows.

[ Full Transcript ↓ ]

-

Quackity: Before I leave, I would like to talk about something that is very serious for me and something that I would like to tell you about. Because for me it is a very serious topic and it is a topic that- well, I had my mind on and I want to express it- [reading Chat] yes, thank you. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.

Anyways, lately I have been participating in events and projects, and in these events and projects, unfortunately it's become clear to me that my presence and name have only been used to attract the attention of my national and international community with the objective, as I see it, of generating more attention towards controversies - destructive controversies, and a rupture that is very clear in the community, and this is what I want to say: I'm NOT ok with these types of dynamics or stuff like this, and I want to make it very clear to my stream, my community, and everyone that, for this exact reason that I just mentioned, I want to make it clear that I want to distance myself and any of my projects from the Esland Awards, which you all know is coming up.

Sadly, the Esland Awards have been an event with a history of much controversy, a lot of division, and a lot of divisions within the community, and as you guys know, as you know, my content has never been characterized by seeking controversy or divisions or anything like that. It's for this exact reason that I don't want to be involved with these awards.

In advance, I ask the organizers of any type of events and projects like this to please show more respect to me and my community, because I've shown lots of sympathy and cooperation in these various projects and events, but it's become clear to me that their only interest is in using my name. My name and my community have been used to attract all this attention for distorted purposes, and I will no longer allow that to happen. I don't want it to happen. That is not what my content is about - not me nor my content nor anything I've done. That's what I want to make very clear here.

That's about it. I'm going to continue with the projects I'm doing and I want to thank my community so much for the support and love. I appreciate it very much, but I wanted to make this clear - I wanted to make this clear. This is just a topic I wanted to address quickly.

Thank you for all the love and support, I love you all so much.

[oceanxveiined]

Dani has a Mallen streak in her hair, and the reason for that had been usage of a Pyro Delusion acquired during the time she abandoned the Fatui. She had taken it and the uniform off a slaughtered Pyro agent and used it to sneak/fight her way to freedom, promptly passing out once the adrenaline wore off.

She planned to dispose of it immediately afterwards, having become wary of it after noticing the greying, but ultimately chose to keep it in reasoning that it could come in handy. Even if she is still sort of afraid of it.

[meirimerens]

(ran this reblog through a discussion with some people who have more experience in storytelling/gamedev than i do and some who are central asian indigenous [which i'm not] to get their point of view on the Kin so it's probably going to be long because I'm condensing multiple discussion pieces in one, it's gonna be one of them Long Posts)

while the Kin is obviously heavily inspired by the Buryat, including in its language which does contain a lot of Buryat words, but also a lot of not-Buryat words (Yargachin, pointedly incredibly important in the game, is Mongolian directly. as stated above, Yas & Merdrel are also Mongolian), I do not know if I agree that finding the other inspirations is "forgetting that and trying to match them to other cultures". The Kin is not "its own somewhat distinct culture", it is its own, imagined, invented, imaginary culture, which takes inspiration from (/plainly steals) from existing ones. It is an imaginary people with heavy foundational roots, in the same way the town is imaginary with heavy foundational roots, and the disease itself is imaginary with heavy foundational roots. It is obvious the game takes inspiration from the Buryats (and from others), but it also, in the name of storytelling, creates a religion which is almost an inverse of Buryat Tengrism (Tengrism, with Kyuk-Tengri, father-sky-god as head of the pantheon, being, from what i'm understanding, pantheistic [the Main God is in everything, and everything is a manifestation of him], polytheistic [while Tengri is the main one, there is a heap of other gods, goddesses and spirits under/around him, with great importance placed on those spirits [44/55 associated with different things]], and of course with a main head of a father-sky-god; whereas the Kin's religion, with Boddho, a mother-earth-goddess* [whose name seems to relate more to Mongolian], is pantheistic [mother Boddho is in everything and everything is a manifestation of her], monotheistic [she is the only one, the all-mother, all-creatoress] OR duotheistic [her + Bos Turokh are the only deities], and lacking in spirits entirely, which are so important to Tengrism), has an important spiritual caste of women (the Herb Brides) who have no resonance within Altaic/Mongolic/Turkic cultures because no culture has Naked, Dancing Young Pretty Women Whose Sole Job is Dancing For Harvest (some types of goddess-priestesses / witches / oracles have always existed, but the Herb Brides are a distinct, obvious invention, which deserves scruteny. you could argue that they correlates with shamans, but in the text it appears evident that is more the place of Burakh [father, then son], and the Herb Brides directly go against a widespread shamanic practice which is the wearing of many layers made of animal skins, bones, antlers, horns in order to disguise oneself, to wander between worlds, to trick the tricksters, etc), and also like. Worms. "crude", "unfinished". half-man half-dirt.

*the cult of an earth-mother/mother-earth exists in Buryat Tengrism with Umai, because earth-goddesses exist/have existed in most pantheons, especially before the advent of pastoralism; however, she is daughter of Tengri, whereas Boddho is all-mother. Mongolian Tengrism has her be named Etugen, and while she is said to have all control over the natural forces and all living forces be subordinate to her, Kyuk-Tengri is still "above" her, she is the "second highest" after him. the existence of a earth-goddess within two religions does not make them more similar than any others (the Greeks had an earth-goddess, Demeter, with theories that she was there before the advent of the hellenic pantheon as an all-mother... etc etc so on). there is also sources stating that at some point, Tengrist or proto-Tengrist peoples might have worshiped him/a sky-father exclusively or so majoritaly that the other deities were aside, but it could also come from biased or outside sources.

we are also unsure about your claim that the Kin represents the Buryats in "interesting and careful" ways. We do not know of your position wrt indigenity (and it's none of my business specifically, might be the business of those in the group who are indigenous but i'll let them decide if they want to contact you directly) and if you were doing research on the Buryats out of a reconnecting journey or intellectual curiosity/desire and personally feel that the Buryats are respectfully represented in P2 as one, but I have read many other Central Asian Indigenous people in this fandom write, since the release of P2 (and possibly before that about P1, as well as in the discussion we were Just Having about this ^) about how the Kin does not represent them faithfully, or even sometimes just kindly, and the treatment of it and its members being insulting in multiple ways (including the fact that their beliefs and language are a hodgepodge of languages and beliefs that feels to "steal" from multiple sources [=appropriative instead of appreciative] which itself is another discussion, do not represent any real-life religion while obviously being inspired by some, and on other levels just the fact that the Kin's clothes do not resemble the vibrant, intricate, and historically-significant clothing of the Buryats, or any of the peoples they are inspired by. That and the fact that they literally have non-human/in text sub-human members [the Worms]). Most of the discussions around the Kin that i've seen, from Central Asian Indigenous people, recognizes and celebrates the inspirations (plural) while still interrogating how callous, cruel, sexualizing and misogynistic the narrative and metanarrative treatment of the Kin is, a far cry from a "careful and interesting way" of representing the Buryats (or any of the other inspirations).

last thing: I am personally curious as to where/how you've found the "half Chinese" data piece, because I have not been able to find anything of the sort online (doesn't help that my grasp on Russian is nonexistent). I have seen it going around, without a source, and I also have seen (in the tags of this) the data of "1/16 Manchu or Han", which is a far cry from "half-" anything, and not related to Shenekhen Buryats. [deleted the rest to add:]

Dybowski, from his own mouth, is not half-chinese, and the tagger who mentioned it being 1/16 was right: on page 57 of [this interview], he mentions his grandfather's father (so great-grandfather) having married a Chinese woman (when he was 60 and her 20, but that's a whoooole other story), making him 1/16 chinese (possibly Han or Manchu as the tagger mentioned). I do not doubt this informs his view of the world and how he is treated, even if he mentions being "the only one in [his] family who really looks Russian", but it is a far-cry from "half-" anything. that does not change the general discussion i've read for years at this point around the Kin, which is that the inspirations are obvious and should be celebrated, but it is obviously imaginary/invented, and in the hazy lines of imagination lies a treatment of the Kin which is cruel, crude, sexist (more specifically misogynistic), often racist and feels more like appropriation for a morally gray ethnicity that pays lip-service to its inspiration but mistreats it nonetheless rather than full, hearty representation.

great discussion! 👍🫂 i'm genuinely glad we can exchange on this. but what is contained in your reblog is, from what i've seen and read, pretty far from the consensus on the Kin. we all can recognize (and we should appreciate and take good care in handling) the real-life inspirations while still seeing that, in the blurry lines of storytelling and "invention" for the sake of (technically) a ~fantasy~ ethnicity, lies like. a racist mistreatment with appropriative qualities. which i've seen people talk about for years at this point.

the pathologic Kin is largely fictionalized with a created language that takes from multiple sources to be its own, a cosmogony & spirituality that does not correlate to the faiths (mostly Tengrist & Buddhist) practiced by the peoples it takes inspirations from, has customs, mores and roles invented for the purposes of the game, and even just a style of dress that does not resemble any of these peoples', but it is fascinating looking into specifically to me the sigils and see where they come from... watch this:

P2 Layers glyphs take from the mongolian script:

while the in-game words for Blood, Bones and Nerves are mongolian directly, it is interesting to note that their glyphs do not have a phonetic affiliation to the words (ex. the "Yas" layer of Bones having for glyph the equivalent of the letter F, the "Medrel" layer of Nerves having a glyph the equivalent of the letter È,...)

the leatherworks on the Kayura models', with their uses of angles and extending lines, remind me of the Phags Pa Script (used for Tibetan, Mongolian, Chineses, Uyghur language, and others)

some of the sigils also look either in part or fully inspired by Phags Pa script letters...

some look closer to the mongolian or vagindra (buryat) script

looking at the Herb Brides & their concept art, we can see bodypainting that looks like vertical buryat or mongolian script (oh hi (crossed out: Mark) Phags Pa script):

shaped and reshaped...

[emchant3d]

little blurb based off my son of the mafia Steve au - posted this on twt this morning and I want it over here too 🥰 I literally only have this and one other little bit written idk what this will turn out to be but have it anyway!!

Steve’s a morning person. Eddie is decidedly not. And yeah, Steve loves staying in bed with him, but the curtains in Eddie’s room are thin and the sun is cutting right across his eyes in a way that he can’t ignore, so he carefully extracts himself from the bed. It’s a delicate process, gently taking Eddie by the wrist to move his arm from around Steve’s waist, moving slowly to not jostle the mattress and startle his love awake.

Steve's making breakfast when he hears a shuffle of feet behind him. He turns, giving Wayne a little smile. "Morning, Mr. Munson," he says, nodding towards the coffee pot and looking back to the stove. "Coffee's made."

Wayne gives a thankful little hum, and moves in silence, the only sound the soft splash of black coffee hitting a ceramic mug and a slow sip.

He can feel Wayne's eyes on his back. He flips the bacon, poking it gently with the spatula, and he waits.

"I like you, Steve," Wayne eventually says. His voice is gruff and slow, and Steve smiles at him over his shoulder, knowing what's coming next. "But," and there it is. 

Steve straightens, turning to face him and rolling his shoulders back. "I don't know how good you are for Eddie. He's been through a lot, son. And you...well. We're not gonna stand here and act like you and your family don't come with a whole world of baggage." Steve hums his agreement.

"You're right," he says, nodding. "But which side of my family is the problem?" Wayne's jaw twitches.

"Ed's got enough experience with breakin' the law for a lifetime," he bites out, and that's an answer in and of itself. Steve smiles again, formal, small.

"I'm not involved in my grandfather's family business," he says, rote and regular, the same line he's been taught to use since he was a child.

"Don't give me that shit, boy." He points at him, mouth set in an angry frown. "You think I don't know your mama? You think I didn't see you runnin' round with your cousins when they'd visit?"

The eggs need to be flipped. He turns back to the stove, grabbing the spatula and keeping his eyes on the food as he takes a moment to think.

"I understand your concern," he says evenly, and Wayne scoffs behind him. "But I promise you, Mr. Munson," he picks up a plate, sliding two fried eggs onto it and adding a healthy serving of fried potatoes, "I won't let anything happen to him." He turns, meeting Wayne's gaze and handing him the plate.  

Wayne stares him down, silent. His eyes pinch, and he swallows hard. "How can you promise that?" he asks, and Steve's smile goes sharp.

"In my experience, it's best to not ask questions you don't want an answer to."

His eyes flick up when he catches a bit of movement, and he smiles as Eddie shuffles into the kitchen. "Morning, baby," he says, and Eddie grumbles at him, side-steps Wayne to worm his way into Steve's arms. Steve laughs and gives him a gentle squeeze, kissing his bedhead.

"Sit at the table," he murmurs into his hair, "I'll make you a plate." 

"Coffee," Eddie demands, and Steve's smile widens.

"Coming right up."

"Kiss," he demands next, and Steve beams at him, gently lifting Eddie's chin to press a soft kiss to his mouth. He lingers for just a moment, giving a gentle bite to Eddie's lower lip and feeling Eddie smile into it. 

He pulls away then, sleep-rumpled and gorgeous, and Steve flicks his eyes to Wayne, gauging his expression.

He doesn't look happy. Eddie's too tired to notice, though, and soon the two of them are talking quietly at the table while Steve fixes Eddie's coffee the way he likes and fries two sunny side up eggs.

Wayne doesn't like Steve, and that's fine. He doesn't blame him, not a bit. He understands.

He sets the plate in front of Eddie, brings the coffee pot to top off Wayne's mug, and knows regardless of how Wayne feels, he isn't going anywhere. Not unless Eddie asks.

And he's going to make damn sure that Eddie never asks.

[rakhalofthestars]

Under His Bangs

Synopsis: Boothill finally lets you see what he's been hiding underneath his bangs.

Tags: Boothill x gn reader, established relationship, Boothill's backstory, fluff, light angst, hurt/comfort, soft Boothill <3 a/n: This fic is based off my headcanon on what I like to think is underneath his bangs :3

Warnings: Self depreciation and talks of appearance, Boothill might also be a bit ooc here :(

wc: 1 733

Many parts of Boothill’s appearance are striking, causing him to easily stand out in a crowd. Poor guy. Blending in was never his strong suit and his metal body makes it even more difficult. There just aren’t many cyborgs who looked the way he did. 

It’s not like Boothill ever tried to blend in much. Everything from his whole cowboy get-up to his boisterous personality screamed that he was someone who you wouldn’t want to forget about anytime soon. Not to mention the bounty on his head that had risen to the billions recently.

“Whatcha lookin’ at me like that for, darlin’? I ain’t even responsible for half the things these people be accusin’ me for! I mean, just look at me, ain’t I just the picture of a saint?” Boothill protested one time when you had shoved his wanted poster in his face. On the poster was a (admittedly good) photo of him with his signature shit-eating grin along with the sum of a whopping one billion credits stamped underneath.

You had sighed back then, knowing you can’t argue with him and in all honesty, you doubt he was actually responsible for the wares disappearing from a shop at Pier Point shopping street. Maybe the poor employee was really just trying to get out of listening to Karen complain their ear off. Considering the amount of trouble he’s caused at Pier Point for the IPC, it’s no surprise that Boothill made a long lasting impression on everyone there. 

That’s the thing about Boothill. Every part of him always left an impression. Whether the impression was good or bad really depended on whether you were with the “shirt bags at the IPC” as he liked to call it. 

Even though you had been traveling with the Galaxy Ranger for quite some time now, there was one aspect of his appearance that was constantly on your mind. His bangs. They were so mysterious and styled in such a way as well. 

Why were his bangs the only part of his hair that was fully black? Why did they cover his right eye? Was it a stylistic choice to cover his right eye and look like an emo? Or was there some other, more bigger reason behind covering part of his face like that?

The flurry of questions always swirled about in your head whenever you were with him. It almost made you dizzy at times. However, since you knew about all that the man had been through prior to becoming a cyborg, you kept quiet and never tried to pry. It didn’t go unnoticed by Boothill though, the curiosity that was always brimming in your eyes when they flicked momentarily to his bangs. He really did want to explain what was underneath. The problem was that he just wasn’t sure whether he was ready to open this specific can of worms.

But when something is meant to happen, the opportunity for it will naturally present itself.

You and Boothill were lying on the motel bed, simply basking in one another’s presence. It was one of those quiet nights where all you wanted to do was to just forget about your worries and relax.

Lying on the soft mattress with Boothill’s body acting as a sort of weighted blanket whilst his face was nuzzled in the crook of your neck, you really don't want to ruin this slice of paradise by asking about his bangs. Nor does he want to ruin that lazy little smile on your lips by revealing this particular skeleton in his closet.

Your hands roam about and glide over him mindlessly until your fingers are suddenly tangling themselves in his hair. You massage his scalp gently before bringing his face out of its little hiding spot in your neck. An uncharacteristic and borderline pathetic little whine sounds from Boothill’s lips but it’s forgotten as the crosshair in Boothill’s eye locks onto you, the tiny target in the middle forming into the shape of a heart because each and every time you caress his face, he swears he’s falling in love even more than he thought was possible. He has the most adorable little smile on his face but it falters when your hand strays just a bit too far, almost brushing his bangs away from his face. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to”, you apologize immediately and retract your hand, knowing that the fact that Boothill even allows you to touch him and his hair so freely is something that not many get and you’d hate to overstep his boundaries.

“...Naw, it’s fine. I ain’t mad, darlin’,” is Boothill’s reply as he brings your hand back to his face, already missing your touch. He places your hand right underneath his bangs and the look in his eyes tells you that it was no mistake on his part for the placement.

“Can I…?”

The man hesitates, something that you’ve rarely ever seen him do. He’s always so sure of himself, so confident with each and every single move of his. What could possibly make him hesitate?

“Yeah, go ahead”, Boothill finally says.

Despite the bit of excitement that’s bubbling within you, you don’t rush to see what’s underneath. You take your time, simply feeling the soft skin and watching how your partner looks on with anxiety but also affection. He wants to know- no. He needs to know how you’ll react. Even if it might hurt him. You’ve done so much for him. You’ve loved him, taken care of him, listened to him without any judgment and have been with him through the highs and lows of this chapter of his life as he navigates through depression, anxiety and this new robot body of his. You deserved to know.

With love and care etched into your movements, you slowly brush aside the black locks of hair that covered part of Boothill’s face. 

Under his bangs, was a big, dark burn mark that marred the area his hair normally covered along with a deep scar that ran vertically down his right eye, causing it to be shut tight. 

Silence permeated throughout the room as you drank in the sight and Boothill stared back anxiously, waiting for you to say something.

“Oh…”, you finally breathe out and the Galaxy Ranger winces.

His breath hitches and his left eye widens in disbelief. Beautiful? Was there something wrong with your eyes? He was tempted to ask but falls silent when you trace the darker flesh with reverent touches and bring his face closer to press the lightest kiss on top of his right eye.

“It’s hideous, ain’t it?”

“You’re so beautiful, Boothill.”

“You’re so very beautiful.”

“Well fudge…ya can’t just say that, sugar. Gon’ make a man cry”, Boothill mumbles, his gravelly voice cracking so subtly you could’ve thought that you imagined it. He had never exposed himself like this to anyone. He could count on one hand the amount of times he felt as vulnerable as he did now. 

“Why can’t I say it? You’re the handsomest man that I’ve ever seen. If you want to cry then go ahead, there’s nothing wrong with crying. But believe me when I say you’re gorgeous.”

“How could you ever find a bag o’ bolts like me beautiful?”

“These scars on your face…they tell stories of who you are and what you’ve gone through. I won’t force you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable but you don’t have to hide them. Not around me at least,” you whisper against his skin. Hidden in your words was an underlying plea that was only for him to hear. 

“Because you are. If I could, I’d let you see yourself through my eyes just so you could realize what a sight you are.”

With every word that passes your lips, you press soft kisses across his face, paying extra attention to the right side that he deemed “ugly”. It was as if your kisses were paint and his face was your canvas as he allows you to paint your love onto him. 

Please let me take your pain and shoulder it with you. Please let me shower you with the love that was robbed from you. Please don’t push me away.

A shuddering gasp escapes Boothill, the first sound that he’s made now in a while. He needs time and that’s what you give. You fill the silence with fond caresses and gentle kisses until the man finally manages to speak.

“Mah face wasn’t always like this, y’know. It was…on that night. When them cannons were falling down from the IPC…”, his voice cracks and he trails off. You wanted to know more but stayed silent, letting him take things at his own pace.

“I was runnin’ home, praying to every Aeon that I could think of at the time that everything would be all fine and dandy…Wasn’t really lookin’ where I was runnin’ and neither was I thinkin’ much about dodgin’ the bombs. A bit o’ burnin’ shrapnel fell on this side of mah face here and well…y’can see for yerself what happened.”

“When I went to that tech doc to get this here body of mine, I asked her to not do anythin’ to these scars. Maybe it’s stupid since I can’t stand to look at ‘em, but I just didn’t want to do away with ‘em. I wanted to keep ‘em, as a reminder of that night and what it is that I fight for. Not like I need much remindin’ but heh…y’know…”

Boothill lets out a small, bitter chuckle before burying his face back in the crook of your neck. He had long lost the ability to cry but he swore that if he continued to talk, he’d end up breaking down in front of you and that was something he wished to avoid.

All you can do now is to comfort him because the fact that he’s told you all of this means that yes, he will allow you to shoulder his pain with him. Yes, he’ll allow you to shower him with the love that he was robbed of. No, he won’t push you away. So continue with what you’ve been doing all this time. Continue to assure him of his beauty and his worth. Continue to love him because Lan knows how long he’s gone without it.

[it-happened-one-fic]

Thats How You Know - Leona

Author Notes: This fic is actually for the @briarvalleyarchives "Anthems of Old" event. It was inspired by its namesake song, "That's How You Know" from the Disney film Enchanted. It's surprisingly nerve-wracking to be posting a fic for an event, but I had fun writing thing and had to curb the urge to not just rip of the scene from the film. As per usual, reader is gender neutral. I hope you enjoy.

Type: Fluff/ romantic/ gender-neutral reader/ sfw

Word Count: 1782

“You know he likes you, right?” Ruggie had leaned over to look you in the eye better as he voiced his question, but you looked away as soon as his words registered. 

His question drew a sigh from your lips that didn’t quite match the odd smile on your face as you kept your silence. You weren’t quite able to answer his question, even as Ruggie frowned at your silence.

The truth was that, in a lot of ways, you felt like Leona did like you just as much as you liked him. But he never really did anything to show it if he did, which left you with questions. 

How could you really know if he did like, much less love, you?

Despite what others said, you weren’t certain. You knew you liked him. After all, you’d taken to picking up on his interests, worries, and other such little tidbits that made up the individual that was Leona. They’d affected you, becoming interests and worries of your own.

What had started out as curiosity and wanting to get to know him better had swelled from there. You’d fallen in love with Leona. And while you knew that Leona didn’t hate you, the matter of romantic interest was….. Well, it was a whole other can of worms that you weren’t nearly as confident about.

Or at least you weren’t until recently. 

It had started out simply enough, with a small note being left on your desk on top of a stack of books. The note itself was pinned in an elegant but largely unfamiliar hand and mentioned the upcoming practical magic test.

Something you knew you were going to flunk, what with your lack of ability to practice magic.

But after just a little bit of studying, it became clear that maybe you had a better chance of passing than you had thought. 

The books in the mysterious stack handled the subject well, showing intensive instructions for how to draw an appropriate magic circle that would help you pass the test without having to actually use magic.

That wasn’t what really caught your attention, though. What caught your attention was the signature on the reverse side of the note, which you hadn’t found until you’d given it a closer inspection.

 Elegant and small-lettered, the signature was barely noticeable but easily capable of causing a smile to appear on your face.

Leona Kingscholar.

You’d known he’d helped Ruggie get caught up with the rest of the school in terms of tutoring and having uniforms when he’d first come to NRC, but you’d never expected him to help you.

Perhaps he did care a bit more for your concerns and troubles than you’d thought….

You’d thanked the Savannaclaw housewarden after you’d passed the test, but he’d  brushed off your gratitude with an almost trained ease. 

“You help Jack out with his work, so if I give you stuff, I don’t have to tutor him myself,” A lazy smirk had spread across his features. He’d looked over his shoulder at you as he’d walked off, throwing a final comment back at you, “Less work for me that way.”

His words had caused you to frown slightly, but you shrugged them off. He wasn’t wrong after all. You and the other first-years often studied together to help each other with your problem subjects. If you could teach Jack things, then Leona wouldn't have to worry about it. Though you were pretty sure he’d never bothered with that in the past either.

But what followed the next day had you forgetting your previously dismissive thoughts. 

You and Grim both stared down at the bright yellow flowers that greeted you from your doorstep. At odds with the otherwise dreary day, they smiled brightly up at you from the discolored wood of your porch. They were one of your favorite flowers from the ones you’d seen since coming to this world, simply due to how happy they looked.

You frowned at the blooms even as you knelt to collect them. They were tied with a rough cord, an oddly rugged touch to such a sweet sentiment. 

You fingered the cord slightly before taking them inside to plop in a glass of water before heading off to the botanical garden for Potionology class.

Except when you at last reached the botanical garden, you froze. Staring at the familiar yellow flowers that greeted you, yet again, with smiling faces from alongside jaggedly cut stems that had no doubt been where your little bouquet had once resided.

It could have been a coincidence that Leona spent large amounts of time in the botanical garden where these pretty little flowers, that perfectly matched the color of yellow he wore on his dorm uniform, grew. 

It was a color that was slowly becoming one of your favorites as the days wore on and was possibly one of the reasons you did like these flowers so much

 Either way, the oddness of it all was enough to make you wonder and smile to yourself at the possibilities.

You were still smiling as you were chopping the potion ingredients and you almost missed the grin Ace was wearing when he leaned over closer, “So, anything interesting today?”

You frowned, immediately suspicious since you knew good and well that Ace didn’t bring those flowers when he’d just claimed they aggravated his allergies mere seconds ago.

 His question, though, was incredibly fishy considering that getting a bouquet of flowers from an unknown sender was definitely an interesting start to your day.

“I got some flowers this morning…. Some of those yellow ones you said you were allergic to,” You eyed him skeptically, but he merely snorted.

“Ooh, got an admirer, have we, Prefect?” He bounced his eyebrows at you before laughing at your eye roll and continuing on.

“My day had a weird start too. First thing this morning, Deuce informed me that Jack apparently overheard Ruggie telling Leona that you couldn’t read minds.” 

The redhead’s grin was sly now as he shouldered you playfully, “Weird, huh? Would’ve thought everyone knew that. After all, if you could read minds, you wouldn’t have needed those books to help you with the practical magic test, right?”

You blinked in surprise at the redhead, ignoring the teasing tone he used in favor of thinking about this new information.

The rest of class went by in a blur until Ruggie came trotting over, an exasperated expression on his face, “Y/n, hun, help a guy out?”

You sighed almost immediately at his wheedling tone but found yourself turning to face him anyway, “What is it, Ruggie?”

You were fully prepared for some sort of grand tale about how he had too many jobs and needed help running something to a class or that he’d found some sort of new couple deal and wanted to go on a fake date in the name of sales.

But it was none of those things. Instead, you were met with a sandwich being shoved into your hands, “Give this to Leona for me. I haven’t got the time, and he’s miffed with me anyway. You’re a real pal, bye!”

He was skittering away, waving with his signature snicker, before you even had a chance to object. You glanced Ace’s way only to be met with a rapid head shake, “Oh no, he gave that to you. You’re on your own, Prefect.”

The redhead backed away like you were carrying a bomb and quickly abandoned you to your newfound work. You rolled your eyes at both of the men’s dramatics but turned on your heel, striding towards where Leona always napped with a sandwich in hand. You had some questions you wanted to ask him anyway.

You stepped into the clearing to see him sitting there with some food already in front of him, causing you to frown at the sandwich in your hand.

He looked up at you with his tail flicking in an oddly energetic fashion behind him. Unlike you, he didn’t seem to  be surprised in the slightest bit. In fact, he almost seemed amused by your confusion.

“About time you got here. I’d almost begun to suspect that Ruggie had somehow missed you,” His words were delivered with the customary smirk, and all of the various pieces snapped into place.

“So, the flowers were from you?” You grinned slightly as you sat down across from him and started unwrapping the sandwich in your hand, only to find that, rather than his preferred variety, it was your favorite kind of the sandwiches offered by the cafeteria’s deli. A rare luxury that you couldn’t usually afford.

Leona looked down at the food in front of him and, instead of answering your question, posed one of his own, “So, have you got an answer for Ruggie’s question yet?”

Your eyes widened slightly at his nonchalant question, and your mind went racing back to just a couple of days ago, when Ruggie had been questioning if you knew how Leona felt about you. “You heard him?”

Leona grinned outright at your shock, “Oh yeah, I heard the whole conversation.” He looked up at you, ears twitching almost pointedly as he leaned back. Totally relaxed despite your own embarrassment.

“You ought to pay better attention to your surroundings. Herbivores like you have to be careful if you don’t want someone catching you off guard.”

He was so smug, but you found yourself recovering from being flustered as a thought registered, “But that’s how you came to know how I felt. Right?”

He snorted before leaning forward, entering your personal space with a single easy motion that had your previous confidence failing you, “I already knew. You’d already proved that plenty of times.”

Mercifully, he leaned back, “So, have you got your answer?”

You found yourself smiling slightly at his question this time despite how pleased he seemed with himself.

 Because of course you had your answer. After he’d done so much to prove that he did care and that he paid special attention to you, how could you not?

He’d known that you’d needed help on a test, that you liked those flowers in that specific color, and that you liked this sandwich. They were all little things, but those little things made up who you were. And he’d taken the time to do all of those things just to show you that he did care and did like you because he’d overheard Ruggie’s question and correctly interpreted your own concerns even though you hadn’t voiced them.

 Paying attention to little things like that and taking the time to reassure you…. That's how you know that someone loves you.

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

What Is and Isn't a Fish: an Essay and Guide by Fishyfishyfishtimes

A simplified list of the animals I discuss can be found here!

Hello folks! I created this post to have a kind of definitive essay/explanation of what is and isn't a "fish", starting with defining the term and going over animals that fit and don't fit the bill. As other fishblr artists, writers and educators must know too well, some people are confused about where this term begins and ends, mistaking other aquatic animals for fish. I have my fair share of arthropods and cnidarians as fish fact requests in my own askbox, heck, some years back a friend of mine asked me if clams were fish. The event that finally made me decide to write this was someone requesting that a fish-only account draw a crustacean, pondering to themselves if they count as fish.

I don't want to hold it against these people. It's impossible to know something when you've never been taught! So that's what I'm here to do, hopefully achieving a pretty correct and universal view ^^' If I make any mistakes please correct me. I'm learning all the same as everyone else is.

Definition of fish

Immediately, we run into a bit of a problem with the definition of fish. See, what the term "fish" means has fluctuated for centuries! For a long time, pretty much any animal that lived in water was a "fish" — I say "pretty much any" instead of "every" animal because for a long time sessile animals like sponges or corals were thought to be plants. This is why we have such remnants in our language like shellFISH, starFISH and jellyFISH, they lived in water so they were called such!

Occasionally these definitions would be changed for cultural convenience too. Many Christian churches take part in Lent, and in the Catholic church red and white meat is forbidden on Fridays and Ash Wednesday. In the Middle Ages, in my own country, Finland, this abstinence of red and white meat could last up to 140 days! To make fasting easier, many animals were labelled fish for convenience so they could be eaten as well. These newfound "fish" included seals, beavers and swans, pretty much just anything that was aquatic or semiaquatic in nature.

Nowadays just going off of looks or behaviour won't do, though. There has been much more of an effort to define fishes coherently based on their anatomy and phylogeny, which is great! Problem is, that's easier said than done: fishes are an extremely diverse group, and uh.. not really a single group, either. I'll show you:

As you can see from this heavily simplified phylogenic tree, fishes are not a singular group like, say, mammals are! The animals that we group under "fish" are actually a part of several distinct lineages of animals, some more closely related to us than each other. Heck, tetrapods, which include amphibians, reptiles*, and mammals, are fish themselves! Phylogenetically speaking. Our ancestors were lobe-finned fish, and, well, you never stop being the previous taxon even when you evolve into something else. If you try to exclude tetrapods, no such unified group as "fish" exists. Still, when discussing fish, we tend to want to avoid talking about every vertebrate ever and instead focus on the very specific aquatic ones we mean when we say "fish". This is why many definitions of the term "fish" still exclude tetrapods, even if we share a common fishy ancestor. "Fish" describes more of a lifeform than it does a clade, much like the term "worm"!

(*birds are reptiles! This could be a whole post in and of itself, but I'm not here to write about that. Someone else has most likely taken up the task!)

Hooray, it's definition time! As stated previously, fishes are an extremely diverse group of thousands of species, and what terms might apply to the Atlantic cod may not apply to the yellowfin tuna or giant mudskipper, let alone a Pacific lamprey! Encyclopedia.com defines a fish as "an ectothermic chordate that lives primarily in water and possesses a cranium*, gills that are useful virtually throughout life, and appendages (if present) in the form of fins". Encyclopedia Britannica notes that "the term fish is applied to a variety of vertebrates of several evolutionary lines", instead highlighting five classes. These five classes are left partly unspecified, but ones that are mentioned are jawless fish, cartilaginous fish and bony fish (which still includes tetrapods, however), and the two classes left can be assumed to be two classes of extinct fish. Wikipedia defines a fish as "an aquatic, craniate**, gill-bearing animal that lacks limbs with digits". Tim M. Berra, an academy professor and ichtyologist, defines fish as "poikilothermic***, aquatic chordate with appendages (when present) developed as fins, whose chief respiratory organs are gills and whose body is usually covered with scales".

(*cranium=upper part of the skull **craniate=an animal with a skull ***poikilothermic=an animal whose internal temperature varies considerably)

From these more or less detailed definitions we can gather many defining features for fish: a cranium-having chordate, primarily aquatic, gill-bearing and uses gills as their main respiratory organ, lacking any limbs with digits, instead having their limbs be in paired and unpaired fins when present. Most fish are also ectothermic, meaning their body temperature is determined by their environment, but some can heat up parts of their body or their entire body in the case of the opah. Most fish also have scales, but not all, just like how most fish are fully aquatic, but some like lungfish or mudskippers can spend considerable time out of the water. Such is the way of these magnificent and diverse animals!

Finally, with all this out of the way, we can get into...

What is a fish!

Here, I will be detailing animals that are fish! Well, at least the broadest strokes; there are more than 30 000 fish species and if I listed them all we'd be here all life. I shall instead go over the major classes and list, in short, some groups that belong in them.

Jawless fish (Superclass Cyclostomi)

Jawless fish are often a topic of debate, especially in matters of their relation to each other and to jawed vertebrates. Evidence seems to point to hagfish and lampreys being closest related to one another and to lampreys being more closely related to jawed vertebrates than to hagfish (which would make hagfish craniates but not vertebrates). In the phylogeny tree above I decided to portray hagfish and lampreys as a monophyletic group, as molecular studies and microRNA analysis seems to point to a monophylegic superclass. Please note that this could go either way, though.

Jawless fish is a group containing two extant fishes, hagfish (class Myxini) and lampreys (order Petromyzontiformes)! Jawless fish are more "primitive" than other groups, for example both lack true vertebrae and scales. Still, they both have craniums and gills and they are aquatic, and so they have earned their place among fish!

Cartilaginous fish (class Chondrichthyes)

Surprisingly, I've found that this group has a lot of confusion surrounding it. I have received many a request confirming if sharks are fish, or asking if I'd cover a shark "even if it's not a fish". So I'll say it now: good news, sharks are indeed fish! So are their cousins, rays, skates and chimaeras, also known as ghost sharks! All of these fish have a primarily cartilaginous skeleton, tooth-like dermal denticles and lack gill covers and a swim bladder. Out of all the sharks, I also want to highlight that the whale shark, despite its confusing name, is a shark and not a whale. So, it is a fish!

Ray-finned fish (class Actinopterygii)

Name any fish, and there's a 96% chance the species name you said belongs to a ray-finned fish. Unless, like, you really like sharks. But this isn't about them.

Ray-finned fish are the biggest group of fish and incredibly diverse! It has your seahorse, your pufferfish, your bass, your tuna, your anglerfish, your clownfish, your salmon, your sturgeon, your lanternfish, your perch, your oarfish, your gar, your sardine, your moray eel... and this is only a tiny, tiny fraction of the groups that belong to this class! Defining features of ray-finned fish are that they tend to have a swim bladder and a bony skeleton (some exceptions though. Sturgeons, for one, have evolved a cartilaginous skeleton but they're still ray-finned fish). The largest group of ray-fins, the teleosts, also have leptoid scales, which are thinner and more flexible and grow with growth rings.

I want to bring special attention to some members of the ray-finned fish which tend to have a lot of confusion surrounding them and their heritage: eels and seahorses. Many people think these two are not fish due to their strange anatomy, like lack of scales or (many) fins and their elongated bodies, and I wouldn't blame them! Seahorses belong to family Syngnathidae, which also includes seadragons and pipefish. Eels, meanwhile, make up the order Anguilliformes. All of these long friends of ours are fish!

Lobe-finned fish (clade Sarcopterygii)

I shall merely focus on the fishy fishy fish individuals of this class, which excludes tetrapods. Lobe-finned fish house the two extant species of coelacanths, and six extant species of lungfish! These fish are bony and their fins are placed at the tips of fleshy, lobelike stalks, resembling the limbs of tetrapods. It is thought that the common ancestor of coelacanths and lungfish and tetrapods had similar structures that then became the four limbs the members of our clade typically have. Coelacanths and lungfish are wonderful fishes and deserve a lot of love and respect, not only because they're our closest cousins but because they're unique and we have so much to learn about them!

So, these are the fishes! There are also extinct groups of fish, namely class Placodermi (armoured fish) and class Acanthodii (spiny "sharks"). I'm moreso an extant fish account however, and so I shall move onto...

What isn't a fish?

Now we get into the real meat of this post. Without further ado, here are some aquatic friends of ours that can be mixed up with fish very often!

Crustaceans (subphylum Crustacea)

Many of our hard-shelled many-legged friends belong here! Crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill, isopods, triops, barnacles, copepods, you name it! Even though many crustaceans are aquatic or semiaquatic and have gills, you'll find that they're invertebrates that lack an internal skeleton (so no cranium, not even vertebrae)! We still love them though!

Mollusks (phylum Mollusca)

Creatures both soft and hard-shelled! Cephalopods like octopuses, squid, nautilus and cuttlefish, bivalves like clams, mussels, oysters or scallops, gastropods like sea slugs and snails and chitons go here! These friends of ours are also aquatic and have gills, some even have the suffix -fish (cephalopods used to be called inkfish, even!), but their lack of an endoskeleton is even more obvious than the crustaceans'. They're invertebrates, and therefore not fish!

Chelicerates (subphylum Chelicerata)

This group has many animals that are very hard to mistake for fish, namely spiders and scorpions, but horseshoe crabs and sea spiders are two groups of extant marine chelicerates! Both groups are aquatic, and horseshoe crabs have gills. However, they're both invertebrates, lacking a cranium or vertebrae. Other aquatic chelicerates exist, but they're usually very small, like water mites.

Cnidarians (phylum Cnidaria)

This phylum has the sessile corals and sea anemones and the usually more mobile jellyfish and siphonophores (includes the infamous Portugese man o' war!). I imagine corals and sea anemones are mistaken for fish less due to their sessile nature, but they're good to bring up nevertheless. None of these animals have a backbone, or, any bones really. They lack gills, they lack fins, they even lack the bilateral shape of fish. Jellyfish, despite the name, are indeed not fish! Some people suggest the name sea jellies be used for them instead, and I think it's much cuter.

Echinoderms (phylum Echinodermata)

Animals like starfish, sea urchins, brittle stars, sand dollars, sea cucumbers and feather stars go here. It seems that this pesky "-fish" -suffix is hard to shake off, as now we have the starfish. Once again, all of these slow-moving bottom-dwelling friends of ours are invertebrates, as they lack vertebrae or a cranium. Interestingly though, they are among our closest invertebrate relatives! So we ought to give them some props for that. I also want to mention that starfish can also be called sea stars, which ought to lessen confusion about their being too.

Comb jellies (phylum Ctenophora)

Comb jellies look a lot like jellyfish, but they belong in their own unique phylum! They have the same deal going on; they are invertebrates, they lack gills, they lack a cranium, they are simply aquatic.

Lancelets (subphylum Cephalocordata) and tunicates (subphylum Tunicata)

A double feature, because I wanted to save space didn't want these guys to be all alone! Lancelets and Tunicates, like sea squirts and salps, are chordates, which you can find in the phylogenic tree I drew all the way in the definitions section. They share many a feature with vertebrates, like a bilateral bodyplan, a notochord at some stage of life and a post-anal tail, but I'm afraid they're still not fish. They lack a cranium and their notochord does not develop into a vertebral column! Sorry friends, you tried. We can still hang out at the chordate convention.

Annelids (phylum Annelida)

The infamous bobbit worm, bone-eating worms, sea mice, giant tube worms, feather duster worms, spoon worms, bristleworms in general, leeches... many, many worms go here! Pretty self-explanatory: they are invertebrates, even when they live in water. They're extremely cool invertebrates too! I suggest taking a look at some of them, there's many interesting species.

Flatworms (phylum Platyhelminthes)

Flatworms are another very diverse group of worms, having many species both terrestrial and aquatic, however mostly I want to put attention into the free-swimming marine flatworms. They may swim beautifully (and fence with grace), but they are nevertheless invertebrates! Flatworms can live a variety of different lifestyles, from predators to parasites.

Amphibians (class Amphibia)

We've made it into vertebrates now! Amphibians include frogs, salamanders, and caecilians. While they have limbs with digits in their adulthood*, they can be easily confused for fish in their larval stages! This is no surprise, as they use gills to breathe underwater and tadpoles lack any limbs at all for a while. Many amphibians later transition into a terrestrial or semiaquatic way of life and lose their gills, not to mention gain their digit-having limbs.

(*excluding caecilians)

...Well, many amphibians do this, but not all. It's important to mention there are also species of aquatic salamanders which can bear great resemblance to fish with their elongated bodies! Amphiumas, which are sometimes mistakenly called "conger eels" (which is an actual species of fish), are aquatic salamanders with small residual limbs and both working gills and lungs. Giant salamanders and mudpuppies/waterdogs have lungs and gills as well, and lead an aquatic lifestyle — olms are close relatives of mudpuppies. Sirens, meanwhile, lack hind limbs and only have small front limbs, along with retaining their gills in adulthood. Among aquatic salamanders I also want to bring up one most often talked about species: the axolotl! They remain in their larval form, have external gills and lead an aquatic lifestyle. It can be hard to tell with aquatic salamanders sometimes, but these friends of ours are amphibians and not fish, even if they've rejected the land life.

Caecilians are a bit less known overall, but they can also cause a lot of confusion due to their long, limbless body. While most caecilians live underground, some are aquatic in nature, and can therefore be mistaken for fish! However, caecilians breathe via the use of their lungs and through the skin and don't have any gills at all.

Reptiles (class Reptilia)

Most commonly mistaken for fish in this group are sea snakes, sea kraits and water snakes, sea turtles, turtles, penguins, and other (semi)aquatic birds. Sea snakes and water snakes bear a very strong resemblance to eels, but they are indeed just snakes adapted to an aquatic or a semiaquatic lifestyle! The same goes for sea turtles, turtles overall, and penguins. They all need to breathe air and they lack fins, even if their flippers, webbed feet and built-in paddles may look like fins! They also have wholly different types of scales (or feathers!!) than what fish have, even if they share the feature. I assume that other aquatic reptiles, like the marine iguana and crocodilians are better read as reptiles thanks to their limbs with digits, but I want to give them a reptile shoutout anyway. They’re aquatic or semiaquatic, but they are air-breathers and fin-lackers all the same!

I also want to mention one specific extinct group of reptiles, ichtyosaurs! These marine reptiles were rather shark- or dolphin-like in appearance, which is actually a really good example of convergent evolution! Like all other reptiles, they also needed to breathe air and they had... erm... well, I'm not sure if I can call the bones in their flippers digits, but, that's what they used to be, so...? They were cool reptiles and among my favourites! There were many other aquatic reptiles too, but I will only mention just the ones now. A paleontology account would be better-suited to list you allll the marine reptiles.

Mammals (class Mammalia)

Our home class! Some of the aquatic friends we have in this class include whales like baleen and beaked whales, dolphins (orcas go here), porpoises, belugas, narwhals and sperm whales, pinnipeds like seals, sea lions, walruses, and sirenians like manatees, (occasionally known as sea cows) and dugongs! We also have some semiaquatic buddies like hippopotamids, otters, beavers and platypuses! Whales and pinnipeds especially often cause a lot of confusion due to their very streamlined, fishy appearance. They are, however, air breathers that feed their young with milk (some dolphin calves are even born with some hair), and their ancestors were land mammals! The same goes for pinnipeds and sirenians too. True seals, fur seals and sea lions still have fur even! Hippos, otters, beavers and platypuses are a bit more obvious as mammals with their fur and.. distinct air-breathing.. but I wanted to mention them anyway. Their adaptations to aquatic life are just one example of how fascinating evolution can be!

And here we are! A hopefully comprehensive list of fishes and non-fishes, beginning with the ever-shifting story of the term "fish", phylogeny, and why some animals are called fish when they really aren't. I hope you have found useful and interesting information in this post, and perhaps learned something new! I bid you a farewell! :D

[vasito-de-leche]

I've read all of your Reverse: 1999 related posts about a hundred times already and I'm still mesmerized! I love how your writing is fluid and meticulous — all of your analysis feels so precise that it might as well be official.

I was wondering if you could write a one-shot or headcanons about Forget Me Not with a human partner, whichever you believe to be more fitting; to extend what you said in his relationship headcanons. It's such a fascinating concept... at least I think so.

If you are not feeling up to it, I beg of you to at least write some of your thoughts about this. That would make me more than happy!

;R1999 FORGET ME NOT - Relationship Headcanons (2)

Compilation of headcanons about Forget Me Not's relationship with a human partner. A continuation of this post.

thank you so much for the kind words! I really love talking about blorbos so it means a lot to me that you like my work!! for this post, I went for HCs since I already wrote two FMN fics lolol

warning for abusive/toxic relationships!

Even though this is a continuation of the first relationship post, I feel it would be nice to bring back that one point I made about Forget Me Not's potential relationship with a human or mixed - just so everyone knows the themes this post will dwelve into!

The way I see it, all of Forget Me Not's relationships naturally lean towards unhealthy and dysfunctional dynamics, regardless of his partner's status. Being a pure-blooded arcanist only means you're simply trading a specific set of problems for different ones.

So when it comes to humans (note, humans, not mixed - that's a whole different can of worms) Forget Me Not is at his worst. After all, you represent everything that he sees wrong with this world, he's conflicted and torn between his hatred and his love.

He's a difficult character to grasp, but it's clear that he's fully dedicated to Manus Vindictae's goals, as they align with his own unique set of experiences and emotional baggage - this means that he would need a lot of work, effort and time to reconcile with many, many things such as being in a relationship. Especially one with a human. And yet, I don't think it's impossible for him to grow and change as a person.

On the subject of Forget Me Not's mentality towards a human partner.

I want to stress the fact that Forget Me Not is, above all, a cowardly man - it's easier for him to act behind the scenes and react accordingly than to be upfront and confrontational.

He's manipulative, but not controlling.

And one can argue that manipulation is just a different type of control, I agree! But I feel there's a bit more of nuance in this context. Compare characters like Arcana or Constantine to Forget Me Not - the former use manipulation as a means to an end, it's just one of the many tools they can employ to maintain their control over their respective groups. But they have other ways to remain on top. Forget Me Don't doesn't have anything else. When it comes to Forget Me Not, his manipulation comes across as the single thing he can do to win, or turn the tides to his favour, even if it means winning by the smallest of margins. Chances are he's already mentally prepared himself for the worst, anyway.

This originates from the fact that he's fully accepted the fact that he's inferior, that the universe will constantly try to undermine and step all over him, dealing the worst hand for him over and over - so for someone like him to win, he needs to outsmart and pull the strings from behind the scenes, to cheat at a system that could never allow him to get his way. Hence all the emphasis on his two-faced and contrasting themes (a snake in the grass, waiting to reveal itself. a docile and put together bartender, controlling the flow of the market, etc).

Why do I bring this up? Because when it comes to something as unfamiliar and daunting as falling in love with a human, Forget Me Not doesn't have it in him to even take the first step or decide how he even wants to approach the situation. He knows he's already at a disadvantage, and so he defaults to manipulating.

A lot of his behaviour is heavily dependant on your personality and the way you see his actions. Again, it's much easier for him to adapt like this than to confront why he's having so much problems admitting he might've caught feelings for you.

Basically, this is a lot of text to give some insight to why he manipulates you. It's not done out of the desire to control and dictate your every move, your every thought, let alone mold and/or break you into a more ideal partner - Forget Me Not can barely take responsibility for his own life, don't expect him to do that with yours. He does it because he's very sad, pathetic and desperate, that's about it!

His view on love is also an important thing to discuss in this specific point - in the first post I talked about how Forget Me Not is quick to catch feelings, he falls hard and fast. This still applies despite everything I just mentioned.

In the context of this relationship, love and hate simply go hand in hand to the point where he cannot tell one from the other.

He latches onto you like a parasite because you're the only person who seems to care for him or give him the time of day. As negative or harmful as his interactions with you could be, he's addicted to your presence.

If his partner is oblivious to his actions and ties with Manus Vindictae.

I decided it's easier for me to just tackle all the big possibilities, so here we go!

This is possibly the best outcome for Forget Me Not, a partner who is entirely oblivious to his unpleasant sides and morally corrupt actions. It doesn't even matter what your opinion on Manus Vindictae and their goals might be, because you don't know he's related to any of it! This way, he doesn't have to unpack any of those complex feelings and thoughts, nor think too hard on the fact that you're a human - who cares? You're not tainted with all that unnecessary knowledge.

And this would also allow him to continue living in denial, to indulge in a delusional fantasy in which he gets to be happy without putting any sort of work into being a better man. It's perfect for him!

The top priority is to keep you in the dark, and he'll do pretty much anything to make sure you never find out anything that could paint him in a negative light. If he could edit his own files - the ones that the Foundation had - to erase all traces of his past, then he would have no problem gaslighting, lying and playing all these mind games so that you only focus on how loving and doting he is as a partner. All while telling himself that he's simply protecting and shielding you from the horrors of the truth, that he doesn't want you to deal with the stress.

Forget Me Not could continue with this façade for years, presenting his best, most gentlemanly persona to you. It's easier for him to be vulnerable, to allow scarce moments of quiet, gentle intimacy, now that he has a way to excuse his actions.

I'd say that the only thing that could ruin it is, as usual, his own mind. He's the one who took all these precautions into maintaining the fantasy of a perfectly normal relationship, and yet he'll start spiraling into depression over that exact same thing. What if you were faking these feelings all along too? He made you fall in love with a fake version of himself because there's no way you'd love the real thing, etc etc.

Depending on how long you two might've been dating, I can see him choosing to disappear from your life without even saying goodbye. One day, he's just gone and he makes sure that you cannot find nor follow him. Alternatively, he can fall victim to the usual impulses and confess everything he's been hiding, to scare you away and see how you'd react to the truth.

If his partner is aware of his actions and ties to Manus Vindictae, while being very vocal against it.

This dynamic is the one that absolutely leans heavily into a very codependent, toxic mindset. The relationship itself makes no sense: you're a human, therefore someone who Forget Me Not resents and loathes. And he's a member of Manus Vindictae, a group you recognize as extremely dangerous and biased, rejecting all of their ideals.

And yet, you two stick together exactly because of that. Whether you have good intentions (wanting to fix him, save him, what have you) or not, it doesn't matter because Forget Me Not will instantly assume that you're exactly like him: you want someone who sees you for who you are.

Knowing that you openly disapprove of everything that he does and says is addictive, as he's spent a good chunk of his life concealing all of these aspects. Knowing that someone sees him in his totality, without turning away, without fear, it gets to his head pretty quickly. You're the only one who knows him and you continue to stand up to him, all while claiming that you care for him - Forget Me Not eats that shit up. It's a type of affection he's never been shown.

But the more you call him out on his bullshit, the more you attempt to help or challenge him, the more Forget Me Not will sink into Manus Vindictae's mindset - because he loves to see you put so much effort into a lost cause like him. His manipulation tactics are used to make you believe, just for a moment, that you can truly change him for the better. He pretends to breakdown, to reconsider his lifestyle, just so you don't feel disheartened and continue pushing him.

In the previous post, I said that Forget Me Not would get a little unhinged around his crush - this also applies here, but on a much bigger scale. Everything he does is a cry for attention, he wants you to witness everything and still come back to him every night.

Given how self-destructive Forget Me Not can be, he would never think of ending the relationship. It doesn't matter if you begin to pose a threat to Manus Vindictae or The Walden or whatever, he'd gladly give up everything he's worked for if it means having his life ruined by your hands.

If his partner is aware of his actions and ties to Manus Vindictae, but supports him wholeheartedly.

One would think that having a supportive partner who encourages Forget Me Not to never change and to commit as many crimes as he wants as long as he has fun, would be a dream come true - but he's much too paranoid to accept this reality, always expecting to have the rug pulled from under him the second his guard is down.

Now, when I say "support" I mean a lot of things! From truly siding with Manus Vindictae and hating humans as well, to simply being there for Forget Me Not no matter what - as usual, it's up to you!

Your never-ending kindness throws him in for a loop and he channels all that energy into figuring you out. What do you get out of this? Forget Me Not wants to know the catch, and he grows more and more vulnerable each time you show him that there's no catch - you just love him, that's it. All of him, scales and all. At his worst and at his best.

Confronting the antithesis of everything he's believed in is difficult, but overtime I think Forget Me Not would slowly reconsider things - if you, a human, coud love him so earnestly regardless of his constant hatred and bitterness towards the rest of your peers, well... Maybe he can learn a thing or two from you.

This dynamic is the most confusing, however, as Forget Me Not will be clinging onto you like his life depends on it only to keep you at arms' length, emotionally and physically, for the next few weeks. A lot of back and forth between those contrasting aspects, cold and hot, love and hate - but this is good because it's a sign that he's reconsidering things, that he can't just make up his mind with a half-assed excuse. Here, Forget Me Not lacks that conviction and confidence from the previous two points, he doesn't know how to get the upperhand when faced against such brutal, honest love.

His manipulation tactics come across as a half-hearted attempt to get you to slip up or to distract you from the fact that he's losing his edge. Forget Me Not relies on his distant and intimidating persona to operate, but none of that works on you, and so he attempts to keep up the façade to make himself look cruel and heartless.

I think this is when you get to see Forget Me Not at his most pathetic and saddest self - the way he's been lying to himself and to the world for years, how hard he tries to have power to make up for the fact that he has any substance as a person. How afraid he is of letting you in his life because by doing so, he'll have to step out of his bubble and face the consequences of his actions.

[briannysey]

Forsaken Week Day 2: Aginor

            Another long low wail shook the complex. Dr. Chuain scribbled another note on the paper before him just as a timid knock came from the door.

            Exasperated the biologist called, “Enter.”

            The assistant was young, not even a legal adult by reckoning of many of the fallen nations. The boy shuffled across the room.

Dr. Chuain said, “What is it? I’m mid-observation.”

            The boy stammered, “There’s been a logistical problem Dr. Chuain. One of the trucks with uh- subjects for more experiments was taken by one of the fades and its cohort. The fade has not answered calls to report since.”

            “Myrrdraal,” Chuain corrected. “Use the appropriate designations or I’ll find an assistant who can.”

            “Yes, Mast – Yes, Doctor.”

            Dr. Chuain chewed on his lip in frustration. The trollocs had carefully constructed dietary regimens. They did not need to eat more! But stomach neuropathy was a common condition in the broods, and even members of the Chosen would have difficulty convincing a trolloc that it was not hungry when it set its eyes on fresh meat.

            Dr. Chuain said, “There’s a flaw in the design.”

            The boy asked, “Pardon?”

            Chuain said, “The broods that I’ve offered up to the Great Lord. There’s a flaw in their design.”

            “Of course not Doctor! Your work is perfect! I read about it in Biology Today while still in secondary school. Now that the Hall’s not getting in the way of research, you’ve been able to do such great things!”

            Chuain said, “You misunderstand. The flaw is not in the creature itself. It is in the ecosystem. The broods are like unmanaged rabbits. Leave them untended or without proper predators above them, rabbits will eat until there are not enough primary producers in the system, and the whole web collapses.”

            Again the long low wail came, shaking the floors and walls. The assistant fell to the ground clutching his ears. Interesting, perhaps Dr. Chuain was protected by his connection to the Great Lord. He scribbled another note on the paper. His pen’s tip fractured spilling over the sheet, and Dr. Chuain leapt to his feet cursing.

            Chuain said, “Boy! Did I not say to requisition another typer?”

            Moaning from the floor, the boy half rosed as he said, “I’m so sorry Doctor, but there are none to be had. Most of the engineers in Mar Ruois who weren’t loyal to the Great Lord were executed as examples to the other. The others were needed for the war effort, and also – “

            “And also Mesaana still resents that I was the advisor who tossed her application seventy years ago. I understand. Still, having to rely on paper…”

            So much was being lost in the war. Would there still be subjects for Chuain’s experiments after they won? Would there be appropriate equipment even? Chuain felt a worm of anger wriggle in his shoulder blades.

            He said to his assistant, “Summon the myrrdraal that misappropriated my research materials. I have a task for it.”

            A short while later and the Myrrdraal was stepping out of an alcove that Dr. Chuain left unlit for quick access. The myrrdraal passed a large wall mounted lens Dr. Chuain used for experiments, and the creature’s form was reflected in the lens, dark and cloudy. The myrrdraal went to its knees in genuflection, and its cloak spread out liquid and strange, defying the folding of fabric that the laws of physics would normally ask of cloth.

            It’s voice quiet and strong, “You summoned me, Father?”

            “Yes. I hear you were mishandling research materials?”

            A hint of dryness and unease entered the myrrdraal’s voice. Most wouldn’t notice, but Dr. Chuain had spent a great deal of time and energy testing the abilities of his accidental creations, and their limitations.

            It said, “I am deeply sorry. My fist was rebellious from hunger. I was tasked with keeping them in line.”

            Dr. Chuain tsked, saying, “And you were overwhelmed by the feedback of their hunger. Do you understand the problem? If your brood takes more rations thant they’re allotted, the other broods will clamor for more, and then your one indiscretion precipitates a whole system collapse.” The myrrdraal tried to protest but Chuain continued, “You have shown iniatitve. A vital element. Your brood shall test one of my newer experiments.”

            Another wail from deep below, and the myrrdraal’s repugnant white lips wrinkled in distaste. Dr. Chuain smiled.

            He said to the creature, “What you’re hearing was supposed to be a new food supply for the broods. However, there have been some complications. Your brood is hungry. If they can overcome the experiment’s mutations, then they shall eat first, and you shall be rewarded for your contributions to science.”

            The myrddraal smiled in a semblance of relief. It bowed and thanked Dr. Chuain. Chuain ordered the creature to assemble his brood in the testing chambers at the bottom of the complex.

            A little less than an hour later and Dr. Chuain stood at the observation deck with a clipboard and pen in hand. He was accompanied by hook nosed man dressed in a coat of dark silk.

            “What is the purpose of this, Aginor? I should be overseeing exercises in field movements.”

            Dr. Chuain frowned at the use of the public’s annoying cognomen for him. But he powered through.

            “A war needs warriors, does it not? Then look.”

            Below a great chrysalis was bulging outward in slow groans. The armed and armored trollocs nervously surrounded it, their pikes held far forward.

            Barid asked, “What is that thing?”

            Dr. Chuain smiled, “It’s soon to be the mature stage of a jumara.”

            Barid’s eyes widened slightly, and Chuain felt a thrill of satisfaction run up his spine. Barid was hard to shake, but Chuain’s work could not be denied. Soon great spiny tendrils were breaking out of the chitinous chrysalis, seeking, seeking, seeking. Chuain began quickly scrawling notes.

            The trollocs bellowed in fear, anger, and hunger, then charged the awaking beast. A splatter of gore rose to paint much of the viewing window red. Chuain hummed in joy as he wove air to clear the viscera from his view. Before long the trollocs were turning, searching for a place to flee. But the creature was fully free from its chrysalis, and like the trollocs it knew one sensation above all others: hunger.

            The disobedient myrrdraal below turned to find a shadow and flee. Chuain wrapped it in more flows of air and contemptuously flicked the myrddraal towards the matured jumara’s mouth. A chorus of screams rose from the trollocs who had still been alive. Where the flows of air had touched the jumara its rust red chitin had brightened. Curious, perhaps there was increased blood flow to the location? But for the One Power to cause such a change and so quickly? More tests were needed. But for now-

            Dr. Chuain turned to Demandred smiling triumphantly, “As you can imagine, this creature could be quite useful to – “

            Chuain’s assistant screamed in horror as a tentacle ripped through the glass, spraying the room with shards. The boy was dragged screaming into the chamber below. Berid swore, and began weaving blasts of fire towards the creature.

            Dr Chuain snapped “No!” more for concern over his experiment than fear for his assistant.

            As the threads of fire touched the creature, it brightened again, and the places where the power had touched erupted with more spines and tentacles. Dr. Chuain began laughing in awe.

            Demandred shouted, “Are you mad?” before he wove and skimmed Dr. Chuain and himself to flat ground outside the complex.

            A beautifully spiked tendril was following closely behind, and began glowing with vibrant crimson luminescence as it touched the gateway. The gateway itself seemed to twist somehow, as if the threads were being drank by the exoskeleton of the jumara. They closed in quickly and the gateway shut, dropping the glowing red tentacle on the ground next to Demandred and the Dr.

            Demandred swore and drew his sword, chopping the thing into smaller pieces that began to wither and die. Deep below a great shrieking bellow of pain and hunger was rising and the complex above Demandred and Chuain began to shake. Dr. Chuain’s eyes opened in awe at the strength of his new creation, and he continued to laugh as Demandred dragged him away.

            In moments the whole complex was crashing down. Chuain heard the screaming of trollocs and friends of the dark inside as they went with the building. What strength! Demandred grabbed Chuain by the lapels of his labcoat and shook it.

            “What is wrong with you?”

            Chuain continued to chuckle as he said, “All data is good data.”

[ewingstan]

So there's a few ways we've seen the public hostility to capes be framed.

There's complaint 1, the general "all parahumans are more trouble than they're worth," which has been something that's at least been brewing since Worm (a lot of Cauldron and the PRT's activities being focused on tamping down on this perception). A fairly common trope in superhero media. You see it everything from the X-Men to the Civil War comic event. Hell, its popular enough that the last two comics I've read (Chainsaw Man and Clown Corps), which are pretty much as different as you can be while still being in the same vague genre and medium, both had "Villains try to get everyone to fear superpeople indiscrimantly" plots.

But then there's the more specific complaint 2: "cape heroes aren't justifying their presence because they directly cause violence without lowering the amount of crime and violence overall." Now, Capricorn is obviously framing it in these terms because he's trying to appeal to the police he's talking to; he knows that's a complaint made about cops and he wants to make them feel like they're on the same side fighting the same battles (and in turn kinda claiming that both capes and cops are "against" a public who criticizes them). But I'd also say that the text itself wants us to consider complaint 2. Worm basically endorses it; a lot of the book reinforces the claim that capes/cops are integral to how a system gives rise to villains/criminals and largely fails to deal with such problems in a useful manner.

The question is whether Ward is best interpreted as making the opposite claim, endorsing Tristan's argument against complaint 2. Its certainly sympathetic to the frustrations of the "don't tell us we didn't make a difference when you weren't there to see" crowd—it almost has to be, given our narrator. But whereas in some parts I read Ward as saying "yeah its frustrating, but they're right, you aren't making a real difference and are part of the problem" other times it does portray Breakthrough making real changes for the better that couldn't have been accomplished other ways by fighting ontologically evil enemies (see: Teacher).

Again, kinda hard to do a story from this POV and completely avoid that. Disco Elyisum probably does the best job of it and I've still seen people argue that it doesn't avoid it entirely (still unsure where I land on that). Zdarsky's Daredevil (man I need to catch up on that) tries to avoid it in a way that doesn't really cohere; largely because it tries to be anti-prison while still framing characters like Spider-Man as paragons. Though in that at least it kinda works with Matt Murdock's whole pattern of righteous violence followed by intense doubt and guilt followed by newly directed righteous violence. I guess I'll have to keep reading to see how things ultimately land.

[couldaromanticismsavethem]

MICHAELANGELO 'MIKEY' HAMATO FROM TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2012)

Justification: “DUDE THEY HAD THIS WHOLE THING GOING WHERE HE WAS LIKE ‘eugh crushes are gross cant catch me doing that’ and i was like ‘real’ and then they just gave him a random crush on renee bc him feeling that way was framed as a problem that needed to be solved or something for him to grow out of and it makes me CRAZY like DUDE‼️ also that show has a problem where literally every single woman character is a love interest like it’s BAD MAN. like they literally gave Leo a crush on his half sister like the shipping in that show is an actual train wreck but that’s like three other can of worms but anyways ALSO I feel like a lotta aro rep tends to be more serious, logical characters that are presented as not having any big feelings so having like the silly emotional guy be aro would be nice but NO WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS 😭 honestly hc all of the turtles as aro but mikey especially like PLEASE I BEG YOU IT WOULD'VE BEEN SO EASIER TO JUST NOT HAVE HIM HAVE A CRUSH OR HAVING HIM REALIZE THAT HE WASN'T FEELING ROMANTIC ATTRACTION BUT THOUGHT HE WAS BC THAT'S WHAT'S EXPECTED OF HIM LIKE IT WOULD'VE WRITTEN ITSELF IM PUNCHING DRYEALL RN RRRRARRARARARAAASAA GOD anyways,,,, it literally would’ve saved them and I will never be normal about it.”

[son1c]

you seem like a fair and knowledgeable source when it comes to merchandise so i hope you dont mind me asking for your opinion on something.

do you think the $250 collector's edition of sxsg is worth it?

i have the money for it rn, but ive never bought anything like that for one of my interests; so I'm not sure if I'm being blinded by my little interest brain worms and fomo from knowing something like this (by 'this' i mean the concept of the game and all the stuff they're bringing back for it.and shadow unfortunately bounces in my brain like the dvd screen saver rent free) might never happen again with sonic media.

thanks and have a nice rest your day!

technically speaking the collector's edition is $200 USD, because the game itself is $50 USD and it comes with the collector's edition.

that being said, it really depends. worth is entirely personal. what i think is a really cool statue, could be ugly as fuck to someone else. i think the collector's edition comes with a lot of really cool stuff... but if you don't like ALL of it, or if you only like one part of it in particular, like the statue, then no, i don't think it's worth it to get the whole thing.

inevitably, it will be sold for parts on secondhand sites. it always happens. the statue, the shoe key chain, etc, if there's one thing you want in particular, then you will be able to find it for cheaper eventually if you wait.

granted, it'll still probably be upsold, but it won't be $250 USD.

a lot of people don't like limited run games just on principle. sometimes i'm one of those people, but i also think the sxsg collector's edition is one of their nicer sets. if it was $100 USD or even $150 USD, then i'd have no problem just telling you "go for it lol". but with shipping + tax, it comes out to be $300 USD.

do you want to spend $300 USD on a collector's edition? or would you rather spend $50 dollars on the game, then have $250 dollars to maybe get your favorite part of the collector's edition secondhand down the line? or even spend that money on something completely different. buy a commission. pay a proxy service to ship the sonic and friends sonic and shadow plushies to your front door. sanei also recently unveiled their new sonic plush line, and it includes both sonic and shadow and i think they're really cute.

ultimately, i can't tell you definitively if the collector's edition is "worth it," because i don't know what that means to you. when it comes to this much money though, i can tell you that if you think you'll end up regretting it, then i'd advise against spending it on this. there's plenty of other things you can get for that much money.

[ehlnofay]

Pax should have said no.

Damn it all, they should have said no. Should have said go to hell and fucked off back – stop contacting me, sort out your own shit – but they didn’t, fuck knows why, and now they’re stuck here.

(They know why. They know exactly why; absolutely anything would be better than fucking off back to Cyrodiil. What’s for them there?)

But there’s nothing worth staying for here either, and now she’s crammed in between strangers on a long table, everyone dressed in fabrics she’s never seen with dyes so saturated they seem almost gory, eating stuff that isn’t food and talking loud enough to make her want to hurl a glass into the wall. It’s bizarre. The woman next to her, ruddy-faced and bald, wears a headpiece that shines like the sun the Isles doesn’t have; the other side is taken up by a stranger in a bone-white porcelain mask who has not moved but to swill the wine around in their glass. There’s scarcely room for Pax’s chair. It all feels like such a baffling pantomime of aristocracy (she's known the real thing well enough – feasts and toasts and luxurious gifts she had no use for, and if she doesn’t stop thinking about it she actually will throw a glass), bright colours and rich settings and a god taking offerings at the head of the table.

At least, Pax thinks, no-one tries to talk to him; they’re too busy fawning over their lord. Which is probably to be expected; but it all feels so strange, so unsettling, the way they all lean in towards it like flowers turning to face the sun, like seaweed dragged at by the inescapable pull of the tides. They grow towards it through the cracks in the air, matter moving toward the inevitable centre, as if they can imagine nothing more than this.

(Even more unsettling is the way it responds in kind, listening attentively to anyone who speaks to it, leaning in as though to kiss them, as though to swallow them whole. All hell, why did Pax agree to this? Why did they come?)

(They should have told it to fuck off. Should have said no way, I don’t want to help you, don’t want to get involved in anything you’d need my help for. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m done.)

(Pax is done. Pax is sick to death of all this shit; doesn’t want to deal with this, the vaguely described problems of a god that picks people apart like it’s unravelling a thick yarn shawl. Doesn’t want to deal with anything like this. He’s had his fill of gods.)

(Why is he still fucking here? Why did he agree to this? This is no better than eating in that weird fucking inn in town. This is no better than –)

(That’s a lie. It’s a bit better than Cyrodiil. Just as much a shithole, but it pulls the rug out from under him often enough that he doesn’t have time to think too much.)

“Not hungry?” says a prowling voice, coiling catlike into the plaits in their hair, and Pax jumps enough to jostle the masked bastard sitting ramrod straight next to him.

He looks up.

At the empty placemat across from him sits a figure veiled in gossamer, glittering in the glow of the lit-up lichen on the distant throne; the fabric of its endless shawls pulls apart at the ends, peeling away from itself, shedding patches like iridescent insect wings every time it shifts. If Pax squints, they can see through it to the grand marbled wall behind.

She glances back at the chair at the head of the table, where something lounges, eyes dripping gold, intricately carved cane laid across its knees; its too-many fingers are laced with the hand of a man whose gown blooms floral. Flatly, she says, “What the fuck?”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Sheogorath asks, pouting; she can hear it laughing down the other end of the table. “It’s a proper feast. We pulled out all the stops.”

Pax shifts their eyes away to peer down at their plate. “You have served me worms,” she says. She flicks the dish with a fingernail. “In jelly. With flowers.”

“Larva, actually,” Sheogorath replies. It’s still at the other end of the table. It doesn’t seem eager to explain this. When it smiles, the gossamer falls away; its whole face splits in half.

It’s all so fucking stupid. Pax takes a deep breath – in through the nose, ignore all the odd spiced smells, and out – and does not yell at it, or try to hit it, because she’s gotten herself into a situation where that’s not really an option, because she’s a fucking idiot. Why didn’t she just say no?

(She knows why.)

The Mad God’s teeth flash bright as the ornate silver cutlery. Its chair scrapes back from the table. “It melts in your mouth,” it tells her, eyes glittering, “but I won’t make you try it. Walk with me?”

The figure still sits at the head of the table, snatching something from someone’s plate, always, always laughing. Its limbs sprawl like tentacles, like the silken threads of a tapestry, to encompass the whole room. The dinner guests stare as though bewitched, bedevilled, beguiled. Not one of them is looking at Pax. If he were to drop dead with his face in the food his corpse would not be discovered until sunrise.

Pax sniffs and shoves his chair back from the table. He lets Sheogorath (the second Sheogorath – but it must be, what else could it be?) lead him through a narrow door into some winding hallway, the walls lined and rimed with ornate coloured-glass windows. (It’s so much quieter. Still as garishly bright, but Pax is getting the sense that that is inescapable, here; the clothes they wear, as crumpled and covered in travelling-grime as ever and startlingly out of place against the odd jagged finery of the dinner party, seem unimaginably dull in comparison. Everything seems unimaginably dull in comparison.) Outside the windows, they can catch glimpses of the city – its winding, lamp-lit streets, the jumbled mess of its architecture, the sky arcing above it like a child’s attempt at watercolours. Pax wants to smash it, tear it down.

There’s no sun here, but still it’s night. The sky has shifted to purple and black.

“Isn’t it nice?” says their companion; when they look back, it’s nothing more than a shifting impression in the stained-glass window, a series of hairline cracks. It still manages, somehow, to smile at them.

It’s not. The sky is a shadow and the flamboyance of the palace is scraping at their spine. “Sure,” Pax says flatly. When she flexes her fingers, the bruising staining the base knuckle of her thumb aches.

Sheogorath looks at her – an ancient man leaning on a stick, a flickering painting, a bloody corpse, a little girl in velvet-red skirts, a breath. In its mercurial shifting she catches the flowery blossom of the man at the table’s collar, an unpleasant glimpse of her own braided hair, the smell of sulphur. It tips its head. She can’t focus on it anywhere but for the eyes.

“You don’t like my dinner parties,” it announces, as though it’s a revelation, a tragedy; its body crumbles like sea cliffs slowly eroded by the ways. It’s annoying – bloody obnoxious, and incomprehensible, and kind of weird that it noticed, that it would even care. (She’s never liked dinner parties. Nobody ever commented on it before.)

I’ve had well enough of them, Pax could say, or no, I don’t like you, but it’s the fucking Mad God, Daedric Prince of – Pax doesn’t even know what, he’s never known much about this shit, only that it’s well worth avoiding. Prince of the mad and the missing and the foolish, of breaking and breaking and putting yourself back together backwards. She should have said no, but she didn’t, and who knows what would happen if she went back on that now?

It's slinking closer. All that stay static enough to make out are eyes and teeth.

“Pax, yes?” it says, soft-voiced – a hand lands on his arm, small and dry and shivering, the skin as thing as a mouldering leaf. “You have no obligations here. If you want to be on your own, be on your own. We’ve plenty of space for it.”

Pax’s eyes narrow. He does not jerk away from it.

In the light of the coloured sky, the coloured windows, its face is phantasmagorical. “If you don’t want to be here,” it continues – still so skin-pricklingly gentle – “then your hand will not be forced. I’ll speed your way home if you wish.”

They can’t help but twitch at that. It’s setting their teeth on edge. (It’s lying – has to be. After its ages of coaxing them in, meting out information, not telling them where they were until they were on its doorstep, it would not give them the chance to leave.) Rough, still covered in road-grime, Pax asks, “Why should I believe you?”

(None of them have ever given them the chance to leave.)

Sheogorath, a figure of hollow skin and bone, inclines its head. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Pax,” it says. Its eyes are wide and bulging, whites on full display like a frightened horse; it grins again. “Others might. But we’re not a monolith. We’re not even especially similar.”

Pax bites down on the flat edge of their tongue. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

The light coming in through the windows flickers. The Mad God turns to meet it.

“I’m the youngest,” it says, its voice glittering like mist on the air. “Did you know that? I don’t remember the world without you in it.” Its form spasms, volatile, wings and limbs and eyes like a snail’s on stalks sprouting and choking and subsiding back into its mass. “I’m closer to you than any. I understand, almost.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Pax repeats. She’s gritting her teeth, tonguing at her gums where two are missing. Are two devil-gods not enough to deal with for a lifetime? Is there really going to be more of this now, too?

Rolling through the air like smoke, the voice says, “It will.”

Pax presses purple-green knuckles to her mouth. Her teeth dig into the soft meat of her lip.

Sheogorath turns to face her, hair moving as though blown by the wind, as though tugged by the tides. It sighs. “You don’t believe me,” it says. Its tongue pokes through its teeth. “That’s perfectly fine. Clever, even. But if you want to leave, all you need to do is tell me so.” It pauses, then; the train of its strange, gnarled crown shifts over its shoulders when it moves its head. “Or just leave. The door is still open.”

“You’d be fine with me just leaving,” Pax rasps around his knuckle, “after weeks of not leaving me alone?”

(Of begging him to come, poorly-hidden agitation giving way to blatant franticness, half-swallowing the fear that choked its face in every mirror it spoke to him through. Of begging him still, after he got here, after he met it – begging in a roundabout manner, casual as anything, its every motion reeking of fear. Its abject terror when he turned to leave. You’ve come this far. Why not hear an old man out? Pax told it that it wasn’t an old man, that he didn’t give a shit either way, and it slid through a child, a monster, a sulphur-burned body coughing blood, his own shuddering form in armour he hasn’t seen in months, and it said please.)

(Regained its composure, its gentleman’s face, immediately afterward. But it – the Mad God, unknowable, inconsolable – said please. Pax still doesn’t know what to do with that.)

The Mad God, now, shrugs. Taps at the hairline cracks in the stained glass windows. “I’d prefer you didn’t,” it says, one pair of hands braiding something intricate into its beard. The hand on the glass slips down. “I told you. I do need a champion.”

“And I told you,” Pax bites, something aching and ugly surging in their gut, “not to call me that again.”

A smile, bloody-mouthed and beaming. “But we will abide,” says Sheogorath, and digs its fingers into the cracks of the stone. One brick slides loose, mortar dug up under its nails. It offers it up.

Pax licks their teeth and takes it.

The brick shivers, momentarily – crumbles, in their hand, like sand slithering through their fingers, and left in their palm is a hardy slip of bone. Spiked and sprawling, carved with intricate patterns; it arranges itself around an oval of empty space, the perfect size for four sharp-knuckled fingers.

“You can always leave,” the Mad God tells them, and for a moment it does look so very young and strangely, staggeringly hopeful. “But give it a chance. I think you could love the Isles, if you choose to.”

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

(~700 words, pearlescentmoon, set during HC10. body horror and scoleciphobia warning as described above. not particularly serious.)

They twisted and climbed over each other, pulling themselves across the unforgiving wooden floors, their disparate minds driven by a unified will that still clung to its identity. The worms, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of worms, stretching towards a goal that none of them could understand. But the consciousness that guided them knew its intention as it struggled to pull its new, fragmentary existence up the stairs and to the mirror.

It was only after it had pulled itself up to the mirror, the squirming and quivering mass of annelidic life pulling itself into a pillar, dragging itself up to match the mirror's height, that it realized the problem with its idea.

Oh, Pearl thought. I don't have eyes.

She knew the mirror was there, because the two thick columns of worms she'd come to think of as her arms within the last few minutes could feel it when she reached out. A smooth surface, much smoother than the wooden surroundings of the home she'd built. She knew it was polished to a reflective sheen. She also knew that she couldn't see herself in it. Worms, she came to realize, did not have eyes.

Do they have brains? she wondered. How am I thinking right now?

She could feel through each worm, a dizzying amount of sensation, and she used them to feel up and down the interior of her own form, searching for her brain, the seat of her consciousness. She didn't find it, though she wasn't sure she could recognize it if she did - would the worms, their soft and squishy bodies, be able to tell the difference between each other and the squishy flesh of her own brain? She doubted it.

But she paused when they brushed against something hard. Multiple somethings, each worm that inched past giving her more of a sense of the form of the tiny nuggets of something at the center of her new shape. Twenty-eight little prongs, loose, solid as pebbles.

Are those my teeth?

She willed the worms to shift their forms again. It was hard - none of them could understand the greater form she was envisioning, and so she had to build up the blueprint little by little in her head and urge each worm into the proper place. Slowly, very, very, slowly, she shifted so she had a roughly oval mass at the top of the pillar of grubs that formed her new body. A head, she'd call it. The worms, working together, managed to push each of her teeth up into her head, and held them staunchly in place, arranged in the way they were supposed to be.

It took quite a bit of practice, but eventually she worked it out. How to open up the right cavities within herself to push air out at the right rhythms, how to use the worms to shape that air as it emerged and move her teeth to complete the final steps.

"Thith ith.. quite... ihnconvenient," she managed.

She didn't have a tongue, which made the whole process much more difficult. Still, she preferred talking to herself out loud. It helped her think.

"I mean, I wath uppothed to meet with Joel again today," she said. "Itth not like I can... canthel on him. He'th juth the thort of guy to... mmake it a big... pr.. prod... production," she got out.

She noticed something else odd about her new body - she didn't have an accent anymore. Whatever muscle memory was responsible for that appeared not to carry over to her new form, which she supposed only made sense.

She'd have to practice that too. She was fond of her accent!

"Ah'll juth... um, go oher to hith bathe," she said. "I'm thtill in fine con... condition to argue with im," she said. "I'm alwayth ready to argue with im. I can work on getting my old body back after...aft...afterwardth," she resolved.

She reached out, unsteady, to grab her mailbag. Wouldn't do to leave home without it.

[orbleglorb]

wip weds for tma/blb au

Every now and then, Nagomi got a "problem spirit" down in the Hellmouth. A "problem spirit" is much like a "problem child." The problem is not the spirit itself, but the spirit's circumstances and environment. If you can change that (or, when working with the dead, help them come to peace with it), the problem gets better. If the problem gets better, then Nagomi can do her job as psychopomp and the spirit will pass on.

Sasha was different, because Nagomi couldn't figure out what Sasha's problem was.

Usually, the problem was straightforward: carry out someone's dying wish, exact revenge, tell a loved one what happened to them, etc. And the ghost will make sure you know, too. Maybe they get confused every now and then, especially soon after death, but ghosts weren't normally always lost and confused. Ghosts usually weren't trapped in their final moments for months on end.

Nagomi found Sasha where she normally was: sat against the wall of eyes, with her legs drawn up to her chest and staring out into the distance. She'd never be able to find Sasha if she wasn't dressed in almost all yellow. Especially because the dark warped stone the eyes rested in was only a few shades of brown away from her skin tone. The eyes seemed to finally be losing their interest in her, all of them swiveling around or watching Nagomi as she entered. Nagomi tried to ignore them.

Nagomi stood in front of Sasha and poked her with the stick end of their scythe. "Hey, Sasha?"

Sasha didn't move. Didn't respond in any way. If she wasn't already dead, Nagomi would be checking for a pulse.

Let's keep going, Nagomi, Passenger said. 

Nagomi shook their head. No, we've been avoiding her for most of the week now. We need to talk to her at some point. Maybe she's gotten better.

When Sasha still didn't move, Nagomi kneeled down and shook her shoulder gently. "Sasha? You with me?"

It's common for ghosts, especially new ones, to have an impermanent form, switching between how they looked normally and how they looked when they died. Nagomi almost threw up every time Sasha reverted back to when she died. One minute, she was a whole person, then Nagomi blinked and her skin was halfway peeled off her body and a few maggots had found a home in her exposed muscles.

Nagomi flinched and looked away, shaking the feeling of exposed muscle off of her hand. Passenger reached out and grabbed a worm that made a home in Sasha's gore and flicked it away. It being a part of a ghostly visage, it faded out of existence before it hit the ground.

One more time. Then let's go, Passenger said.

Nagomi nodded.

"Sasha–"

"Jon?"

Nagomi looked back at Sasha, brow furrowed in confusion. "Jon" was new. And Sasha was whole again, looking a little past Nagomi with unfocused eyes. She desperately grabbed at Nagomi's hand.

"Jon, it's okay, Elias is–" 

"Sasha, I'm not Jon," Nagomi said. "I'm Nagomi. Remember?"

Sasha tilted her head. "No, where's Jon? I need to warn him and the others–"

"They're safe," Nagomi said. She hoped that was true.

"Where are they?"

"Um… at… home?"

Gomi, stop talking, Passenger hissed. 

"Well, do you have a better idea?" Nagomi bristled.

Sasha wasn't phased. She didn't even seem to have heard. 

"Jon, the CO2, it's going to– we need to get out before–"

"Sasha," Nagomi said gently, holding Sasha's hands, "You're safe. Everyone's safe. You're not in danger anymore. You're here, with me, in the He– um, in Utah. Oh, you're British, that's still worrying– Look, okay–"

"Is Tim okay?" Sasha asked. She probably hadn't even heard any of that.

"Yes."

Tim was one of the two names that repeated. Tim and Elias. All Sasha ever wanted to know was if Tim was okay and if Elias had manually activated the fire system yet. And every time, Nagomi said yes, and every time, it didn't change anything. She had never gotten a last name for Elias, but Sasha had mentioned Tim's last name exactly once. Stoker. That day, Nagomi didn't even wait until getting home before searching online for him. There weren't many folks with that name. The most recently alive person named Tim Stoker had died a few years ago. Stroke, according to his brother's Facebook post eulogizing him. (Nagomi was so desperate to get Sasha to move on, she fucking downloaded Facebook and made a profile to stalk people with.)

"Sasha, how did– how do you and Tim know each other?"

Sasha furrowed her brow slightly, still looking past Nagomi. "We met working in Research. Same place we met you." 

Maybe it's worth a shot pretending to be Jon, Passenger suggested.

"...Yeah, maybe…" Nagomi started, before realizing…

Sasha wasn't looking past Nagomi.

She was looking at Passenger.

"Passenger, do you… see her staring?" Nagomi asked.

Passenger's eyes all turned to focus on Sasha. Not the first time that's happened.

"No, no, she's not afraid. Just. Pretend to be Jon."

What?

"Just go with it. Humor me."

Passenger was silent for a few moments, but Nagomi could feel it buzzing. Sasha's gaze was getting more and more distant, and her form less corporeal.

"Passenger, please, we're losing her," Nagomi whispered.

Passenger cleared its throat. "Um. Hello! Sasha?"

Sasha looked back at Passenger, and, for once, looked fully lucid.

"Jon!" She exclaimed. "I got stuck in Artefact Storage. Did Elias get the fire system yet?"

"Um. Yes." Passenger rasped.

Sasha relaxed. "And it's killed the worms? And Prentiss?"

"Y…Yes… they are all gone now." 

Gomi, this doesn't feel right.

Keep going, Nagomi urged. I need all the information I can get. She won't remember, anyway.

Passenger cleared its throat again. "I. Uh. I'm afraid I forgot who Prentiss is! Could you remind me? All this… r… ruckus… has affected my memory."

"Did you hit your head?" Sasha asked, grabbing Nagomi and Passenger's head and examining it."We've been investigating her forever! Well, not forever, but, with Martin living here, it sure feels like– oh, yes, she attacked Martin, remember? Had him holed up in his flat for days. He has to sleep in the Archives now. Well, not anymore, since Prentiss is dead. The CO2 killed her by itself?"

"Yes…?" Passenger said, shaking Sasha's touch away. "Can you tell me how Prentiss attacked Martin?"

"Same way she attacked us, except… less. Tried to infest him with her worms, and when he escaped, she stalked his apartment. Kept trying to push worms through. He gave you a statement about it, it'll be in the box of tape recorded ones. Are you sure you didn't hit your head?"

"I'll go to the doctor later today. Um. Thanks. Are… are you okay?"

"Oh, tired as hell, but alright. No worms, I've checked. Maybe I should check again, though… oh, hey, I saw something in that table while in Artefact Storage! The creepy one."

"Ah. Yes. The creepy table. That we all know so well. What did you see?"

Sasha's face scrunched up in thought. "A… person, I think? I can't remember it very well. I… can't focus on it. Every time I try to remember what they looked like, my mind just… slips off of them."

"And. Er. Could you remind me what this creepy table looks like?"

"The really ornate one you're always talking about being hypnotic, remember? We just got it earlier this summer. Might've been this month, actually. It's in a few statements, I think. Do you want me to describe it again, for this recording?"

"Yes. Uh, if you don't mind?"

Nagomi pulled her phone out and began typing all of this information in her notes app.

Sasha sighed. "Alright. It's a large, dark, wooden table with an optical illusion carved into the top. There's a piece cut out of it where a box is supposed to go. I mean, I suppose a box is supposed to go there. It's too clean of a cut to not be carved out for a purpose, and it's cube-shaped. It was in… ugh, which statement was it? I know it was in the one with the lady whose neighbor was supposedly replaced by a doppelgänger. The table belonged to the man who was replaced. I could have sworn it was in another one, but maybe not…"

"That's alright. Thank you," Passenger said.

Gomi, do we need anything else?

Nagomi stared at the notes in her phone. 

Her last name.

"And, for the record, could you, um, state your full name for me?"

"Oh, right," Sasha laughed. "Statement of Sasha James, about the worm takeover in the Archives. Recorded direct from subject, 29th July, 2016," she said in a funny voice, like she was humoring someone, or poking fun at them. "Wait, is it still the 29th?"

"Y… Yes. Yes it is. Um. Long day."

"Two-thousand sixteen? Did I hear that right?" Nagomi whispered.

Yes. Sasha must have died a long, long time ago.

"Need anything else before I head home?" Sasha asked.

Passenger cleared its throat. "No. No, you're, uh, free to go home. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. See you tomorrow, I guess," Sasha laughed bitterly.

Sasha stood and walked through Nagomi– a feeling she never got used to– and went deeper into the Hellmouth. With every step, she gradually disappeared, until she was gone.

I didn't think that would work, Passenger said. 

Nagomi barely noticed that it had said anything. She was busy studying the wall of eyes, which was quite busy studying her back.

"...She thought you, an amorphous mass of black covered in eyes, was someone she knew. And she always hangs around the wall of eyes. Doesn't that seem like a weird coincidence to you?"

Certainly, but it's not uncommon for ghosts to want to be witnessed.

"No, it's not just… I don't know. I can't explain it."

Maybe you can after you sleep.

Nagomi sighed. "Yeah. Good point."