#they must be written

[eldenrat]

Demigod Constitutional Monarchy AU: The Miquellan Imperial Presidency

Returning to the pseudo-crackfic idea I baked up months ago to reflect on the idea of how an immortal being with pseudo-divine origins and the power to shrive clean the hearts of men would operate in the conditions of a 19th-20th century liberal republic barely a few years into its existence and facing existential threats from both church and nobility.

One: The Imperial Presidency

A term that became popularly used in the United States in the 1960s to describe the nature of the executive branch of the government. Specifically, it listed two major issues outlining how the office of president had exceeded its constitutional limits: the vague nature of presidential wartime or emergency powers, and the secretive nature of politics within a far larger presidential staff. Staffers appointed often had greater loyalty to the person immediately above them as someone that they were to in the form of patronage, and the appointment of people to Presidential staff was not legally overseen by Congress (unlike the cabinet). This essentially created a presidential court and an executive that was not accountable to congress save for election years or impeachment.

Miquella is, in both the official story and in this AU, a very secretive person. His city and the Haligtree he grew to usurp the power of his mother are located in one of the most inhospitable areas in the Lands-Between. The only way to reach this place is via a secret key to the Grand Lift of Rold, and even once through there you must light fires within the town of Ordina to access Elphael itself. His presence in Mohgwyn palace is a long-standing mystery that neither Gideon nor Sir Ansbach appear to be able to unravel until his ascension in the Land of Shadow is well underway. His purpose within the sealed off lands is only clear insofar as he seeks the divine gate of Enir-Ilim, but little is known about what exactly that means until it is already too late.

His followers are, in their own ways, reflections of the secretive nature of their kindly lord’s operations. Leda professes her devotion to him regularly and keeps good on that by simply not divulging any of his plans, a loyal right hand who believes zealously in his promise of a gentler world and will brook no treason or internal opposition. Hornsent, Dane, and Moore are those who find themselves in the pilgrimage through the promise of something to gain. Hornsent is promised redemption for his murdered clan, Dane can see the aims of the Dryleaf sect through to their conclusion in the ascent of a new God, and Moore and his brood can find love and belonging where they were once outcasts rejected by their own mother. Thiollier, Freyja, and Ansbach are potential subverting elements that are, unlike the others, deliberately kept largely in the dark about Miquella’s plans for St Trina, Radahn, and Mohg respectively.

While the other Demigods have this court system in place themselves as the heirs of an imperial system based on the rights of lineage held by the aristocracy, none go to the same length of secrecy that the master of Elphael will go, nor do they have the sizable following that are active in their most private plans. Hence why I see him as a much more standout example than even the likes of Morgott or Ranni.

Two: On Political Corruption and the Nature of Secrecy in Democratic Politics

Miquella would not be a personally corrupt executive. He has, after all, gone to great lengths to divest himself of the things that interfere with his impersonal compassion. His love, doubts, vacillations, and fears are all put to the wayside. But this does not make him wholly infallible, and his desire to embrace the whole of the world, including those with ill-intent, can be examined further. Many of the followers he has taken in are some manner of person with a long history of violence or murder through more indirect means. Even were he to make himself into the perfect and impartial ruler he would still find himself having to deal with the very personal flaws of the members of his court. As that court grows new people will be added at the recommendation of his followers, and those that enter would each need to be shrived clean lest they contribute to turning the office into a space of petty factionalism and scrambles for favor and power. This would, if only temporarily, make the court or executive office of this hypothetical AU Miquella into a functioning state body when by all means it should be tearing itself apart in a struggle for personal standing like a school playground. But this stability rests on a knife’s edge, should Miquella falter or be out of commission this house of cards would collapse in on itself and do potentially irreparable damage in his absence.

There is also the problem of how secretive Miquella is in his operations and his unaccountability tlwards a democratically elected legislative or judicial branch of government. Even if the two branches found something that they could potentially use to get him to share more of his staff’s inner goings on, it could just as easily be turned on a specific member of the court who would quite willingly put their career on the line for Kindly Miquella’s sake. The information would go the way of a paper shredder or kindling for a small fire as with the Iran-Contra affair and other instances where documents were destroyed to prevent legal accountability from being placed upon the president or higher-ups.

To be clear, I doubt that Miquella’s staff would end up in a position like this for reasons similar to that of Nixon or Reagan. His imperial presidency and the corruption and secrecy of his staff would not rise out of an open desire to smear and ruin the lives of his enemies, nor illegally sell arms to keep funding an anti-communist drug cartel just for being anti-communist, but rather one where his efforts to pass laws and policy for the sake of the welfare of the underprivileged is stonewalled by a legislature that he, like many American presidents after a mid-term election, no longer has control over.

But what does that look like exactly?

Three: “I TURNED MYSELF INTO THE TELOS OF HISTORY MALENIA! I’M END OF HISTORY MIIIIIIIIIIQ!”

For those of you who have not heard of the work The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama: I envy you. I can offer little but a surface explanation of what it entails but it is a thesis that states that the competition between the modern political ideals in the 20th century ended with liberal democracy triumphant on the grounds that it proved the ethical, political, and economic superior to the various strains of fascism and communism that arose to challenge it. History as an evolutionary process with a distinct point that will always find a way to prominence even if another breed of anti-democratic politics find its way back into prominence. The French Revolution let loose a genie that cannot be put back in a bottle so long as there is a democratic impulse present.

Miquella in this AU is the head of state of a republic that has only just unleashed this genie upon the world. The empyrean has seen what the previous governments have done for the lower racial castes and lower classes of baseline humans that the governments of his mother and Ranni, and he has found them wanting. The young Empyrean seeks to raise these people up through the establishment of welfare programs and sweeping redistribution of properties into the hands of both smaller landholders and worker-run business ventures, and a massive increase in the power of the state to acquire and use funds for public services through heavy taxation and cooperation with non-government enterprises. These policies are criticized by the conservative forces in parliament as radical, socialistic measures that represent a betrayal of the republic’s core principle of individual liberty, while others even among Miquella’s allies say that the policies on their own are not enough and that a complete and total war against all forms of private ownership is the only way forward.

In practice, Miquella’s plans seek to stifle the rise of the type of men and women Fukuyama (and some later schools of Marxism) predicts rising to prominence within the prosperity of liberal democracy. The wealthy middle class that has gradually allowed their own upward-mobility to cloud their civic sense of duty with a perverse sense of entitlement. A democratization of aristocracy without the noblesse-oblige that maintained the stability of the old feudal system. People who are bored by their own success, who lack a sense of what to struggle for, and thus turn what little community they have to a struggle against the prosperity given to them for the simple reason that they desire to have servants and workers who are made desperate and willing to cater to their every whim.

To Miquella, this threat to the end of history, to the most compassionate and capable political force that he has witnessed in the course of this AU, is unacceptable. His presidency will meld both socialist class struggle, a widespread cult of reason and civic responsibility akin to the projects of Radical Jacobins, and the ultimate supremacy of liberal democratic institutions as the means of shaping society.

However, when the legislature is lost to him in an election and now presents naught but opposition, how can he bring about an end to history and the cycle of unending conflict his mother and others before her inherited? The president cannot sit idle while the people who elected him to office call out for aid, and so Miquella chooses to find a way around the institutions he has upheld as sacrosanct. Use of emergency powers will become more frequent as the republic becomes embroiled in internal conflict and the real threat of aristocratic counter-revolution. Secrecy within his staff allows him to circumvent the other branches with new departments and agencies willing to go to great lengths to seize property and place it under the jurisdiction of people that will need to be trained in economic management, which in turn necessitates the creation of more departments in order to accomplish this. These departments achieve their intended effect, but how long can they last when they are instituted at the command of one branch ignoring its limits? How can he trust the many of the people that comprise the electorate when the privileges and newfound wealth afforded to them from those who came before have infected them with a disease of abundance? What happens when Miquella himself cannot go on? Those are questions left unanswered, for every person in his staff dreads what will happen when they recieve one. What they all know is what must be done.

In the name of compassion he will create a utopia where the holiest liberty and justice are the commandments of god, and ‘love thy neighbor’ is a law enforced with the same violence as all others like it must be. It is terrifying, and for those who have long suffered under the previous reign of Queen Marika and her flawed attempts to balance the crown upon a republic, that terror is worth the beauty of hope for something better.

[telestorm]

my brain has generated so many jeanororo stories lately that i wish i could just download my thoughts to ao3 and call it a day.

[tardis--dreams]

Is anyone else like- concerned

[matchabot]

swordmaster fashion

[shepscapades]

A handful of sketches from some dbhc projects i've been working on lately :D Been working on stuff on and off as i prepare for this semester but I'm too excited about them not to share some progress :3

[keferon]

OKAY OH MY GOD THIS FIC IS GREAT I HAVE ONLY READ THREE AND A HALF CHAPTERS AND IM ALREADY IN LOVE

I originally wanted to make both of these pieces in color but I’m gonna be honest I have no fucking idea how to draw Ricochet…he is described as black and red and…mmhhmmm does he have canonical (canonical for this fic I mean) design? Do I need to design him myself? Idk I’ll figure this out later

[millionsknives]

what did i mean by this

[prahacat]

when the horrors catch up and you take an evening off to batch-process

[starchbean]

The reason I'm diving so headlong into the SVSSS fandom when I also love TGCF (I haven't yet read MDZS) but haven't delved NEARLY as deep into the fandom is thus:

Fanfic for TGCF... well, it FEELS like fanfic. That isn't bad. I LOVE fanfic. But the story of TGCF is self-contained. The /real/ Xie Lian and Hua Cheng etc are them as portrayed by MXTX. They had the trials they will have, and now these poor old men get to rest in each others' arms, which is beautiful.

AND ACROSS THE ROOM

Scum Villain fic does NOT feel like fanfic, because IT IS REAL! It happened! It ALL happened! Thanks to the Bing-ge extra, the persistent existence of multiverse and multiple instances of Binghes and Shens etc is evidence that there is definitely more out there the original MXTX story doesn't touch on. And the best part is, it doesn't matter how wacky it is, it's STILL REAL!

Terminally ill Shen Yuan finds his way to a catgirl cafe where femboy catboy transmigrator Binghe is trying to work his way out of poverty? Mobei Jun kidnaps Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky and forces him to rewrite PIDW so that HE becomes the demon emperor because Binghe is real fuckin unstable and it's a headache--and every written change alters their world immediately after Airplane writes it? It's out there somewhere in the multiverse, surely!

And of COURSE they'd act slightly differently between iterations, BE slightly different--it's not OOC, it's multidimensional variation. No matter how hard you meme, it doesn't feel fake at all, and that's INCREDIBLE! It lends itself to being a superfandom!

I'M COMPLETELY NORMAL ABOUT THIS! ABSOLUTELY HINGED! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!

[yuukirita]

So about Killing B-127

Imma be honest- actually no one told me NOT to do this.

https://www.tumblr.com/yuukirita/764457936468754432/two-bumblebees?source=share (the og post were I talked about this)

So imma do it- HOWEVER. It won't be in the main DeceptiBee au. I might not even write it. But I will DRAW IT. Probably.

You can keep reading the DeceptiBee au and be assured that Bee won't die- but when that fic is done I might do an alternate ending with it where Bee does die- like a series.

But i'll write it in a way You don't need to read the previous fic to understand what's happening. That first chapter is gonna recap and compress the story and it won't reff the previous fic other than 'Bee was a decepticon who died'

I guess that Au would be called 'SecondBee au' or 'TwoBees au' since theres another one. idk i'm bad at names.

So about this Au, it's in the tfone continuity. Where Bee choose to follow megatron when he got banished. He died. War raged on and then another Bee is forged right before Primus peaces out. And then a lot of bad things happen to him C:

I don't remember which continuity Tfone is attached to (it can't be the bayverse don't lie to yourself) but Imma say that the endgame to this is Earthspark (because it's the happiest ending we're getting so far) so I might even write to that part because since new bee and megatron are on the same side now I smell some good sad times.

What do we think? does any of this make sense to yous?

Does this make you exited? Dreadful? Tired?

If you stumble upon this and you want to make your own- feel free (and give me the fragging link so I can read it) Bee doesn't even need to be a decepticon before he dies. Endless possibilities.

P.S. no telling when I'll be making content for that Au cuz I'm working on deceptibee rn- Next chapter is out tomorrow. hug hug

P.P.S. Just a small- SMALL look at what this au could be

Megatron could not believe his optics. In front of him, on the screen, stood a scout, painted yellow, with horns, an autobot logo were a deceipticon brand should be. The same, the same, optics he'd seen fade in front of his very own. He'd been caught on camera and Shockwave had given him the footage.

"He. Replaced. Him." His servos balled into fists "Another usurper." When would Primus cease taking his fallen friends and produce failed facsimiles to torture him with? After all this time...

It only justified his actions further. He would not be deceived.

[cracklewink]

MY GIRL FINALLY HAS A REF SHEET (my longest yeah boy ever)

I'm working on a comic about her see tags for more 👀

[expelliarmus]

[secondbeatsongs]

going through some old logs, and I need you to understand just how truly unhinged early 2010s RP omegle was.

genuinely you could stay on there for hours with just one person, hashing out complex traumatic backstories, drawn-out love confessions, detailed action scenes...collaboratively describing graphic violence, past abuse, comfort, hurt/comfort, hurt/no comfort, any number of sex acts...and then one of you would be like, "oh haha it's 2AM! I have to sleep :(" and the other person would say, "omg saaaame. :( gnight!!!" and then you'd exit the chat and never speak to each other again, and this was. fine.

you could just spend an entire evening shoving your wretched, bleeding soul into a chat log with someone you'd never meet or learn the name of, achieve some form of emotional catharsis, and then go about your day or night like this was an average way to spend your time.

I'm really normal about this, actually

[flamingthespian]

I like how Neuvillette used his position as chief Justice to literally put a law on the books that says it’s illegal to misgender his kids. He said “if you refuse to she/her my daughter I will see/you in prison 💙”

[chocodile]

Amaranthine Magic System PART I: Remedial Magic For Beginners

This is Part III of a three-part worldbuilding set.

Part I (you are here) - Part II - Part III

Okay so… weird starting point, but do you remember these jerks from middle school math class? Function graphs! (I hated these things so much) The simplest possible function is a basic straight line, but by modifying the function, the graphed line can distort and take on all sorts of new shapes.

Magic is a lot like that.

The best way to describe spellcasting would be “filtering waves of energy”. Imagine a sine wave, oscillating up and down in a simple, predictable pattern. That is magical energy in its default state. It exists as background radiation throughout the whole world and permeates all living things… though some things conduct magic better or worse than others. (Magic has a lot in common with the electromagnetic spectrum in the real world)

What wizards do when they cast magic is that they amplify and tweak this ambient background energy in just the right way to contort it into a new form (lightning, a shockwave, fire, etc). The core nature of the energy doesn’t really change, but by exaggerating, filtering, and suppressing that oscillating wave in just the right amounts, in just the right places, in just the right order, it can be transformed into something very different than its base form. You could also think of it a bit like a musician playing a wind instrument, modulating the tone by covering and uncovering holes, or a puppetmaster pulling strings of a marionette—you need to deeply understand the physics at play and give each string just the right amount of slack and pull to make it do what you want.

The most common type of magical energy is magic in a neutral, passive state, just sort of existing passively as background radiation. Like the electromagnetic spectrum and gravity, it is deeply intertwined with how life evolved in this world, but also is so innate as to be largely unnoticeable. It is energy without a physical form. However, it can be harnessed and stored, given the right conduit. Under these circumstances it behaves similar to electricity.

Certain types of physical material are better at holding and manipulating magic than others. Substances that hold or amplify magic work because something about their physical molecular structure bends and filters the magic “waves” in a way that “traps” that energy inside of them, or amplifies the frequency of the waves. Nearly all crystalline structures and precious gems have some sort of magic-amplifying capability, with the best ones being highly prized and fetching crazy prices for large, pure specimens. Skilled Old Kingdom wizards could engineer such gemstones into Catalyst Stones, a special type of battery/amplifier that wizards could use to cast spells beyond their normal limits. Gemstones and crystals have been traditionally associated with wizards for this reason. However, they are far from the only material with a magical affinity—just one of the most easily recognizable.

…Additionally, other materials might have the opposite effect. Iron is well-known for its wizard-subduing properties. Simply being in a room with a large piece of iron makes a wizard feel ill and weakens their powers. Iron manacles and chains are commonly used to imprison criminal wizards. Not only do they aggressively drain magic from the air, matter, and flesh around them, they prevent the hand gestures that might allow a weakened mage to do any magical manipulation at all.

Magical energy is distributed throughout the world unevenly. Occasionally, the concentration of magic in an area is so high that the environment itself becomes effectively enchanted. A certain range of mountains might be rich in magical ores that have a subtle effect on how water in the region behaves, causing strangely shaped caves and ridges to form in the region. A woodland might be home to a large number of mushrooms that have adapted to make use of magic as a defense mechanism, causing the glen to disorient travelers who walk through it. Magic is infamous for distorting compass readings, too, forcing travelers to carry protective charms to keep their tools usable.

There are all sorts of weird subtle little things like that that can be caused by high concentrations of magic, and magically concentrated areas often have very unique biodiversity that evolved to make use of that specific environment. Discovering, exploring, studying, and documenting these regions is of great interest to many magical scholars (as well as the state interests sometimes backing them, of course).

Magic can do a lot of weird stuff in Amaranthine, but it isn’t as open-ended as most other types of fantasy magic. Things like turning oneself into a dragon are no more possible than they are in real life (unfortunately for some who may wish otherwise). You can get pretty creative with it, and there are surely techniques yet undiscovered that even Hyden doesn’t know about, but no matter how fancy your spellcasting gets, it’ll always just be “manipulating waves of energy”.

[vigilskeep]

sorry if my inquisition haterism gets a little more powerful in the coming months i try not to do that too much but the posts i see require me to add balance to the ecosystem