#this is an half baked idea but i think a system where you had to disclose who the author/orginator of anything sold was

[kraniumet]

“you want me to not have copyright on my own work? you want a big megacorp to just be able to take my work and make money on it, or making it so nobody will ever see it, leaving me entirely out of the loop, if they desire?”

the current copyright system:

[cressidagrey]

Recipe for Love - Peach Cobbler

Summary:

Azriel finds a bakery and creates his very own reward system.

Warnings:

Kinda Rhys Bashing, but when don't I do that?

A/N:

thanks to @k-godling for listening to me rambling on about this and finding the perfect name for that Bakery! This will eventually be a series consisting out of One-Shots, so if you have an idea, shoot it my way! (Also, if anybody actually tries out that recipe, let me know lol)

Peach Cobbler Filling 2 ½ cups sliced canned peaches ¾ cup canned peach syrup ¼ cup brown sugar (packed) 1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch Few grains salt Dough 1 tablespoon granulated sugar ⅛ teaspoon baking soda 1 cup prepared biscuit mix (or your own biscuit recipe) ⅓ cup cultured sour cream 2 to 3 tablespoons milk (if needed)  Sweet or sour cream for topping

Place peaches in bottom of casserole. Mix peach syrup, brown sugar, cornstarch and salt. Pour over peaches. Set casserole in hot oven, while mixing dough. Stir sugar and soda into biscuit mix. Add cream and milk to make soft dough; mix lightly. Place by spoonfuls on top of hot peaches. Bake 30 to 35 minutes until well browned. Serve warm with sweet or sour cream. 

The Spymaster of the Night Court was contemplating killing his High Lord. 

Or maybe it was Azriel contemplating killing his brother. 

Maybe it was both. 

Whatever it was, Azriel was definitely mentally planning Rhys’ tragic demise as he trudged his way through Velaris. 

It wasn’t the first time he had done it. Wouldn’t be the last time either. 

He would never actually go through with it. 

(Probably.)

Regardless of how annoying Rhys was… regardless of how the words of last Winter Solstice were still echoing in his head. 

Alone the thought of a pleasure hall made him want to throw up these days, after all.  

He didn’t. Azriel knew better than that. 

It didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. 

It was his own fault for allowing himself to fall in love with a mated female. It was his own fault for thinking that maybe he had a chance…for thinking that maybe…

He had never had a chance. Pretending otherwise wasn’t going to help him. 

Rhys had made himself clear months ago and then had done the same again today…today when Lucien had asked Elain to dinner and she had agreed. 

Of course, she had agreed. Azriel had taken himself out of the running months ago. 

Azriel had followed his High Lord’s order to the letter. 

Azriel had done everything that was asked of him, even when it had broken his fucking heart and left him…desolate. 

And as a thank you, he got Rhys’ crooning in his mind that See, Az? They worked things out. 

They had. Good for them. 

The food had tasted like ash in his mouth and he hadn’t managed to get down more than half a plate. Not more before he had excused himself, citing unrest in Spring…and had walked out of the River House without even properly seeing where he was going. 

Away. Far, far away. 

He had half a mind to let the shadows take him away. Maybe somewhere deep in the Illyrian Steppes, where there was no being anywhere near him. Where he could throw his magic at a mountain and destroy some rocks with the fury that embered deep within him…

You should get a treat! The shadows told him brightly at that moment, nearly making him stumble. 

What?

Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised him. 

The more forlorn he got, the more depressed…the more optimistic they became. The more they tried to get him to smile…the more they fed him with petty gossip included in their intelligence gathering… the more they did everything to make his life easier for him. 

They were trying. 

It was sweet.

I am not a dog, he grumbled back to them. He wasn’t. 

And besides…he didn’t deserve a treat anyway. For what? Doing his job? Surviving another week? Not killing Rhys during lunch that day? Not wringing Lucien’s neck for politely asking Elain to dinner? Not scratching out somebody’s eyes like a rabid…

Of course not, Master, the shadows agreed easily. You should still get a treat. Something nice, just for yourself. 

Something nice, just for yourself, he turned these words around in his head. 

He did have a lack of that in his life, but then he always had. He had never really had started to amass anything…collect anything…no little things to litter his rooms with…not even as much as a hobby, unless one called insomnia and stabbing the practice puppets in the House of Wind until they were reduced to rubble that. 

All of it was just…his job was his life and that was it. 

And it wasn’t like he deserved it anyway. 

Just like he didn’t deserve a mate, didn’t deserve Mor and didn’t deserve Elain…He didn’t deserve a fucking treat either. 

He clearly didn’t deserve anything that made his life easier. 

There’s this little bakery, the shadows proposed quietly. You could buy yourself a slice of cake! 

A slice of cake. A slice of cake before flying back to the House of Wind, barricading himself into his room and writing another report. 

A slice of cake before he would let the loneliness take over completely…before he would never even allow himself to look at any female ever again because he was not going to go through this pain again. 

Being a little bit overdramatic, Master? the shadows asked him with a sigh and he wanted to growl. 

No. No, actually, not really. 

Why shouldn’t he be overdramatic? 

At least in his own damn mind. It wasn’t like he was throwing that into anybody’s faces. Even when he had wanted to. He had wanted to scratch that smug little smile off Rhys’ face with his bare hand and…

You don’t, Master, the shadows sighed. You didn’t even want us to steal his favourite jacket. 

They had offered. They had offered to make Rhys’ life filled with annoying inconveniences. Azriel had said no after that Winter Solstice. Now he was reconsidering it. 

The problem was just that it wasn’t going to make him happy. 

The shades would be petty and that would be it, but he wouldn’t…it wouldn’t make him feel better. 

He would still feel unfairly treated…he would still feel always pushed to the edges of his family…the one whose emotions didn’t really matter…who’s happiness wasn’t a priority, not even a footnote, set firmly behind whatever was good for the court and that was that. 

He was the one send to do the dirty work, the one expected to deal with it, because clearly it didn’t bother him… which was a lie. Of course, it bothered him. But his skillset made him the obvious choice so…

Mor and whatever these 5 centuries had been…Mor who could have outright turned him down when he had yearned for her and had never bothered to do so. He was still waiting for her to do it. Even now. 

His hands clenched slowly, the scars feeling tighter. Autumn was coming…as soon as the leaves began to turn, the joints started to hurt him. 

They have double chocolate chip cookies, the shadows whispered like it was a state secret. He couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. 

Sugar was his one weakness. 

The shadows knew that. 

It would just be a few copper coins…maybe a silver one or two…his steps faltered.

One slice of cake? As a treat? Just a few minutes sat in one quiet corner of a bakery…alone. With just his shadows…that did sound…nice. 

As a treat for not killing Rhys, Azriel proposed. and for not doing anything, saying anything…for keeping his temper in check. 

He could work with that, right? 

It could be his very own reward system. One slice of cake for…for surviving another week. For not faltering. For not scratching anybody’s eyes out…for not loosing his temper and go into the illyrian Steppes and destroy a small mountain in a fit of rage. 

Huh. 

Maybe the shadows were onto something.

One shadows wrapped himself around his wrist and started tugging him along and Azriel followed. 

Down the bustling streets of Velaris, towards the outskirts of the Rainbow. 

There, Beehive Bakery took up the ground floor of a brownstone Townhouse…a yellow and white striped awning stretching over the length of it. It’s name was screamed from it’s sign above the door that was pushed open, quiet but lively conversation reaching his ears from within. There were three tables outside, filled with people, but as he walked into the shop, careful to tuck his wings into his body…there were still one or two tables left. Even one right there in one corner. 

It smelled heavenly in there…like vanilla and almond, wafting out of the oven thet must be in the backroom…a young High Fae was manning the till. She looked young. More a teen than anything, dark curly hair covering her head…Her limbs hadn’t yet lost all their coltish length. 

“Welcome to Beehive Bakery, what can I get you?” she asked him with more enthusiasm than  he had seen in a long, long time. 

For a moment, he came up short, eyes roving over the baked goods laid out behind the glass of the counter…and then finally snagging on the first cake in front of him…Peach Cobbler. It looked…great with a golden brown crust…there was one slice missing so he could see the perfect orange of carefully sliced peaches peeking out. 

“One Slice of Peach Cobbler, please,” he requested. 

“Coming right up,” she chirped brightly. “Some tea as well?” 

Azriel answered in the affirmative, quietly charmed by her sheer enthusiasm…A few moments later he exchanged a couple of silver coins for a plate holding a slice of peach cobbler, topped with a dollop of cream and a delicate teacup. 

He took both to the table he had sussed from the beginning. Clearly the worst place in the whole shop…but for his usage, it was perfect.

 The darkest corner, right in the back…covered in shadows…nobody would be able to peek at anything if he did choose to read some reports…and nobody could surprise him from the back. 

It was perfect. 

Perfect was also the only word he could imagine for that Peach Cobbler. Quite frankly it was best thing he had ever eaten. Tart but Sweet…and the topping crumbling and the peaches ooey gooey…it was so good it was startling. He could just get a teeny tiny bit of cinnamon in there…

Alone that Peach Cobbler had been worth every single coin. 

By the first forkful, he felt likes osmehting in his chest was easing. By the time he was left with only a third of it he was already dreading to finish the whole piece, because then it would be gone. 

And that just didn’t seem fair. 

He watched the people entering and then leaving again, some just coming for a single loaf of bread, some of them buying pastries or slices of cake to go…some sat down with a friend and conversed with them…The Beehive Bakery seemd to be a quietly buzzing hub of Velaris. 

The young girl behind the counter was busy fulfilling orders and smiling at every customer, some that called her by her name, Juniper. 

Halfway through the afternoon, a new female joined her behind the yonder. This one older, much tinier, her body filled out with lush curves…Blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders, held back by a handkerchief. 

“Done for the day?” she asked Juniper, and Azriel watched silently how she nearly absentmindedly fluttered around the space, replacing empty displays and generally making sure everything was in order. 

“I can stay if you need me, B,” Juniper said quickly but the blonde female waved her off, handing her a envelope from one of the pockets in her frilly pink apron. It had strawberries all over it, Azriel realised with some amusement. Juniper took the envelope, opened it to sneak a peek and then stared at her again. 

“That’s too much,” Juniper complained, clearly longsufferingly but B just laughed. 

“No, it isn’t. It’s just enough,” she promised and Juniper hugged her in thanks. 

“Thanks, B,” Juniper mumbled, before hanging up her apron and disappearing. Leaving B or whatever her name actually was, clearly in charge. 

In the meantime, Azriel had the shadows find him some of the reports he needed to read that were enchanted for secret keeping, only been able to be read by his eyes and his eyes only. 

B knew seemingly everybody that came into the bakery, knew the names of every customer, knew their order…and so Azriel settled in at that table and spend the rest of the afternoon, reading his report and draining his tea until only dark dregs remained. 

He listened to the cadence of her voice as she talked and relaxed in that little corner, where nobody paid him any mind. Nobody flinched away from him. 

Nobody cared. 

It wouldn’t stay his only visit. It would become a weekly tradition, a habit that he shouldn’t have but still had. 

Because he wanted to go to the Beehive Bakery. 

It was the one thing he wanted. 

What Azriel wanted had never mattered. 

Not really. 

Unless it was right here. Unless it was him buying himself Peach Cobbler and cream.

Unless it was him sitting in the darkest corner and just watching. 

[lillified]

im a HUGE huge fan of your work and insane story building, it always blows my mind

sadly i do not have the same advanced brain and never know where to start with story questions but was wondering what you were doing with the original Primes?

that’s a great question!

so there’s a lot of prime lore (and some that is intentionally a secret for now) but i can give you the basic gist:

The 13 original Primes are, as far as history is concerned, the first and most perfect Cybertronian organisms. Modern Cybertronians are not descended from these Primes, but rather parallel related (think of their ancestors as cousins instead of children). In Cybertronian religion and society they serve as the third arm of the Godhand, a spiritual concept that explains divinity as a concept that exists outside of time, asserting itself in the past, present, and future. The Primes are the present.

The original Primes are as follows:

(Note that all primes who died before the Quintesson reign are presented without a gender, as they never described themselves with Quintesson binary language)

VECTOR

The chronological first Prime, though as an entity Vector may exist at all times simultaneously. The least is known about them, as, according to Lore, their physical form atrophied early in history, and their individual parts scattered in space. Several of their parts are held by different entities, with the most notable being the Warp Cores, volatile Spark-like artifacts that facilitate the transfer of matter across time and space.

PRIMA

One-half of the first Twin Spark. Prima was held in high esteem by other Primes for their relative seniority and ambition, as well as their vision for Cybertron’s future. Their side was the victor in the first Great War, and their personal ideas about creation, divinity, society, and hierarchy are baked into the modern Cybertronian system. Despite their importance, they died with little fanfare before the Quintesson takeover. Their spark also served as the base material for the first Matrix of Leadership, and fragments of it exist in every subsequent Matrix.

MEGATRONUS

The second half of the original Twin Spark. Where Prima was bold, charismatic and belligerent, Megatronus was quiet, contemplative and philosophical. Not much is known about their life other than that they were part of one of the first combined pairs, they opposed Prima in the first Great War, and their Spark had the unique “null” property. The “null” spark, also known as the Null Core, seemingly cannot be absorbed or duplicated: any internal contact with the Null Core, even a small fragment of it, will cause the host body to rapidly die. Megatronus utilized this ability with their Null Blaster arm, which fired pieces of their spark to certainly kill any Cybertronian life form it targeted. The current whereabouts of the Null Core and the Null Blaster are unknown, although the energy properties it possessed were studied and replicated in some of the first Cybertronian weapons.

QUINTUS

Quintus was revered for his brilliant scientific mind and incredible ambition. His study into the creation of life and its properties formed the basis for almost all of Cybertron’s early life sciences. Though his ultimate goal to create a living Spark from nothing was never achieved, his advanced study into the functional properties of Cybertronian life was the basis for everything from the first Matrix of Leadership to the eventual wide-scale mechanization of all life on Cybertron. He disappeared from Cybertron during the first war and is now presumed dead, though not without lasting legacy. His perfect scientific creations, the Quintessons, eventually returned to Cybertron and assumed a long tenure as the planet’s overlords, permanently altering both Cybertronian society and the Cybertronians themselves. Now, Quintus’ greatest creation exists only as a system of industry and the caste system which fuels it.

ALCHEMIST

Not much is known about this Prime, even though their Energon research and development formed the basis for all food production on Cybertron, singlehandedly enabling population growth. They died before the Great War in a way historians can only agree was particularly gruesome and facilitated through their own hubris.

AMALGAMOUS

Another Prime with little historical record, other than possessing the first amorphous spark. The amorphous spark provided Amalgamous and their immediate relatives, now the modern day Shapeshifters, an advanced level of control over their physical appearance. This allowed the Shifters to adjust physical forms, easily integrate foreign body parts, and even change their physical appearances completely. Amalgamous also disappeared quite some time before the first Great War, though it is widely speculated that their body and spark were used by Quintus to develop the first “T-cogs,” artificial organs which eventually enabled transformation.

SOLUS

Solus was a brilliant engineer whose life was cut tragically short, and whose death is cited as one of the major inciting incidents for the Great War. They were responsible for most of Cybertron’s early industry and machining, and they notably developed many of the first mechanical prosthetic parts. They were also the other half of one of the first combined pairs, and one of the first Flightformes alongside the infamous Liege Maxima. They died to Megatronus’ Null Blaster, rendering their spark unrecoverable.

NEXUS

Nexus was actually seven organisms living as one, and the only recorded perfect fusion, a ‘Bot whose sparks were so in sync that they were perfectly stable and essentially existed as one spark. They facilitated the combination of Solus and Megatronus, and believed that all combination was sacred and natural. During the first Great War they aligned with Megatronus, and are most notable for being slain by Prima’s painstakingly engineered ultimate combiner team, Computron, though not before fatally wounding it. Both the Nexus Core and the Computron Core are rumored to still exist somewhere, and are said to have an aura that inspires an almost irresistible compulsion to merge with it.

MICRONUS

The first Minicon, a type of Cybertronian with a physically strong stature and an incredibly powerful Spark that can sustain immense amounts of physical strain for long periods of time. Micronus allied with Megatronus during the first Great War, making Minicons one of the many types of Cybertronians that Prima harbored a paranoid disdain for later in his life. Otherwise, their personal life is not very well understood.

LIEGE MAXIMA

Perhaps the most contentious of the Primes, second only to Megatronus themselves. Liege was one of the first Flightformes, and was known to be an artistic savant with talents ranging from painting to poetry. Unfortunately, she is much better known for her incredible manipulation and romantic history. At once the lover of Prima and later Megatronus, Liege Maxima is claimed to have persuaded the two into conflict with eachother, though her personal motives aren’t clear in recorded history. After Megatronus’ defeat, she was able to bargain for her life with Prima, and remained subordinate until eventually aiding the Quintessons in ousting the reigning Primacy. She was eventually killed by Zeta.

ONYX PRIME

Besides Amalgamous, Onyx Prime was the only other original Prime capable of physical transformation into what is colloquially known as a “beastforme.” As implied, a beastforme is a Cybertronian with enhanced physical abilities like superior strength, speed, or even flight, making them a sort of pseudo-Flightforme. Onyx fought on Megatronus’ side during the Great War, leading her people, the Beastformes, to be nearly eradicated, and for Prima to develop an extreme paranoia of them. Now, in the current day, Beastformes are near nonexistent, as their genetic material has been merged and diluted with the modern Cybertronian diaspora. Insecticons are the closest modern analogue, but those are not totally Cybertronian, and are actually a sort of Beastforme/Mechanimal cross (Mechanimals being Cybertronian-like organisms that lack some major trait).

ALPHA TRION

One of two original Primes to survive beyond the reign of the Quintessons, Alpha Trion is best known for being a historian. He is responsible for writing “Lore,” the fundamental historical text that informs everything from Cybertron’s government to its religion. Notably, he fought on Prima’s side during the first Great War. He worked with Zeta to overthrow the Quintessons and restructure Cybertronian society, and now he serves as the archhand to Zeta on the Council of Primes (a council which, perhaps counterintuitively, only consists of two Primes). His list of recorded accolades is long, but he is perhaps most known in war era Cybertron for mentoring Orion Pax.

ZETA PRIME

The youngest of the original Primes, Zeta is most known for taking after Prima as Cybertron’s principle Prime. He took Cybertron back from the Quintessons and restructured its society from the ground up, implementing the caste system into law in accordance with Cybertron’s major religious ideals. Though he and his council of Primes is responsible for anointing new leaders with the Prime title using the Matrices of Leadership (special artifacts constructed with a mix of Prima’s spark fragments and genetic material from other ruling Primes), those Primes are known to come to him for guidance. His Spark is the one to serve as the basis for the Matrix which anointed Optimus Prime, also known as the last Matrix.

[spotaus]

Hey! The ask!! Lets see if i can manage to type everything i thought about in the time i got my break!!

So. I got thinking. (This was also a half baked drabble idea but didnt feel like making it a full one so you are getting the idea like this!! >:D)

We spoke about how Killer would be guarding Nightmare in the raid where Dream manages to steal him.

The problem is. If Killer can still move this guy WILL throw himself at Dream to save Nightmare. Meaning that Killer has to be mortally wounded. (Also works with why Nightmare rushes to shield his older brother)

So we got Killer just laying in whatever room Nightmare and him ahd been in. Probably slowly bleeding out.

On one hand. You can have the Knights run in right after. But then what is stopping them from splitting up, one part staying with Killer and one part rushing after Dream? And it has been YEARS since Dream last visited the castle. He may not remember everything quite right.

So... in theory. It should take more time for the Knights to get to Killer. But Killer is mortally wounded.

So. In comes!! Ccino (my beloved).

Ccino had been going towards killer and nightmare after helping the servants and maids evacuate or go to the bunker.

He gets there to see Killer pretty much laying there dying on the ground, Nightmare no where to be seen.

What does he do?

Ccino's crisis management skills activate. He wants to find Nightmare but he has no clue of where Nightmare went and he has no way to fight whoever took him. Killer is in front of him actively dying.

He goes to Kilelr's side.

Killer, the romantic idiot, probably realises he is fucking dying. So maybe he is like. Maybe i can confess? (Add some extra angst and make it that the hit was by either his neck or spine or soul. Making him unable to communicate)

Ccino is trying to keep the wound closed but he has no healing magic. He doenst even have first aid kit on him beyond the bare minimum. What does he do?

Well... he knows there is one being still in the castle. He does a little prayer and asks for help.

For Killer? Killer is slowly falling unconscious. He tried to confess but cant speak. He cant even apologise for failing everyone and losing Nightmare. At least Ccino is here in his last moments. He isnt alone. So he falls asleep.

Maybe some warm light guides him. A familiar voice that was once a friend? He tries to follow only to be stopped. Stopped by something sharp and pulling him down. Back into the darkness. It feels like when he fell into a bush. The way those thorns prick his bones.

Killer at first tries to follow the image of his friend (were they his friend? They saved him right? So why shouldnt he follow them?)

Only to hear so soft. So quietly from the darkness. 'Please dont let him die...'

And that sounds like Ccino... so Killer follows that voice. Goes into the darkness and it feels as if he traveled through a overgrown forest with sticks and stuff all pulling on his limbs.

And he wakes up. His skull in Ccino's lap as Ccino keeps the wound closed and did the best first aid he did. Moments later the Knights rush in to assist.

(Yes. The tree pulled Killer's soul back to the living side while the memories of chara were trying to pull killer into oblivion and get him to die)

Okay that is all. I wanted to get that out of my system.

Okay. Hi. As always, losing my everloving mind over this. Gonna make a Cut so it's easier to scroll hehe-

First off, you are SO right about Killer fighting till he physically can't move. I think that the combat between Dream and Killer is actually decently drawn out, because Dream is kinda in a frenzy (Storm growing outside + just obliterated Cross as far as he knows) and as a mostly long-range attacker it was stupid of him to try and fight Killer alone in a confined space. Killer's fast, and has a lot more to lose if he loses this fight (Nightmare is still hidden but low key stuck, and Dream is very adamant about ending his life) so he gets up close and personal for a while and lands quite a few solid attacks. However, Killer has also heard about Dream. He saw the distress on his little face when Cross admitted who had sent him and why. How Nightmare refused to send an assassination party to end things prematurely. This is Night's brother, so Killer won't kill him. As much as he wants to.

This leaves him at a direct disadvantage, and anytime he backs off to recoup Dream shoots arrows at him. (I also think he took a couple on purpose, because where he'd hidden Nightmare was the trajectory and he couldn't block it fast enough). And then, I like to think that when Killer gets in really close one time, Dream summons his blades, the ones he was still a novice with. But! One of Them peirces Killer's outer ring of his soul, and Dream jabs upwards (kinda using his other hand on the hilt to have more force) and wedges it into Killer's spine just past his ribcage. When Dream does this it his the magical equivalent of a vein, and when he shoves Killer away and off his blade, the other can only stay upright for a few stumbles before he teeters and falls onto his back.

Soul out in the open, covered in wounds (I like to think Dream's arrows peirce and burn), and now bleeding and seemingly paralyzed, Dream pulls out his bow again, ready to shoot Killer straight in his target soul. But, he's still selfish, and he wants to monolgue a bit, curse Killer (who he believes has been controlling his brother for so long) and shoots his hand, then a gash in his neck from a well-placed arrow, until he can see that dusty layer rising on Killer's bones signaling it'll be a slow death.

But, when he finishes cursing out Killer, is ready to fire the final shot? Nightmare had been hiding in a wardrobe, when Killer had stopped talking he'd gotten worried and peeked out against his better judgement. Now, with the scene, he rushes into the crossfire and, like we've discussed, the arrow ricochets off the mask and knocks it off, revealing Night in his teen form.

And it's a quick pleading, a desperate little plea from Nightmare not to kill Killer, or hurt his knights or the people. To just stop. And Dream, after his moment of shock + probing Night's emotions to find this really is him, scoops him up. His intention was to finish Killer off, but the storm outside roars louder and he can feel a strong emotion hurrying his way, so he decides to retreat. Killer should bleed out anyways.

And now finally to your point!!! Ccino is absolutely the best option! The Knights have no idea what's happening inside, and all they can. Do to help is keep Blue and Ink occupied. Cross is down for the count and looking rough, and they just have to trust that Killer got Night out or somewhere safe. Ccino? Ccino finished his part of the job, efficient af, and is rushing to go find Nightmare and Killer. He doesn't know Dream got in, he doesn't know quite where they'd be, but he can kinda sus it out based on carnage and wet steps in the halls where *soneone* got it. If they did, Killer would probably be stalling with Night nearby.

And like u said, he gets there and finds Killer actively dying, and crisis management kicks in! Ough everything about this moment is so perfect... Ccino never learned medicine, and has no healing magic, so he can only make Killer a little more comfortable and put pressure on his wounds to try and stop the bleeding. And he *sees* that soul injury. No matter how well he staunches the blood flow with his apron, that would surely kill him without treatment. And Killer seems to still be conscious, but barely. He's fading. And silent, which is deeply eerie and Wrong.

And good gods. Killer wanting so so bad to confess because, he's gonna die anyways so he wants to get it out, but he Literally can't say anything?? Wauhh!!!!!

And Ccino reaching out to the Veing in the castle... praying, begging for Killer to be saved, because Ccino refuses to leave him alone, and also refuses to lose him. Killer was Night's first knight, the most important person in that kid's world (Ccino doesn't count himself). All the Knights rely on Killer for guidance and support. Ccino needs Killer in his life, this idiot, this criminal, is somehow one of his favorite people in this castle. Please, please, please don't let him go. Keep him here until help arrives. *please*.

And the Castle obliges. Not only is Killer the one who protected Nightmare, the prince who is restoring this land, but Killer is one Ccino values. Ccino is here, stopping his wounds, begging for help to save a life. He hasn't done that before.

And!!! The description from Killer's perspective!!!!! For all intents and purposes, it seems the warm friendly voice (Chara!!!) Should be the one he follows. It's gentle, beckoning towards a soft glow, it's peaceful. And then the tree's method of getting Killer back is to snag him. Darkness, unpleasant contact that stabs and pricks and scratches. It's not nice, it's not subtle, it's dragging him back into pain and agony of his injuries (even if it's not immediate). But Killer doesn't fight because he hears Ccino! Even if he doesn't process that it's him, it unlocks something in his core that makes him decide to take the hard route and push back through that dense forest until he's back to the living realm. Still on death's door, but alive!

Oh I love this visual so dearly, frothing at the mouth about it....

And ofc the aftermath. Dream couldn't find the main entrance, so he snuck out a servant's door and signaled from outside that he was ready to go. The militia (I think the guard was busy holding off militia members from entering the castle walls) retreats first, scattering into town and Rogers demands no pursuit, hold the walls strong. Then Blue and Ink narrowly escape by simply using Ink's magic puddles, appearing somewhere else in the city through a big enough rain puddle. (Though, miles out they're still dodging the occasional lightning strike).

Only after they're too far off do the knight rush back. Horror's got Cross (in critical condition due to a blow to the side of his ribs+spine but ultimately stable) and Dust leads the way to search for Night and Killer, also following the trail Dream had left, and... they find Ccino and Killer. Killer is very very much limp in Ccino's lap, they're basically sitting in a pool of Killer's blood, and Ccino upon spotting them rapidly tells Dust to go find a healer and bring them here. Immediately.

Horror sets Cross nearby and focuses his efforts on trying to help Ccino put pressure on Killer's wounds but he can't do much either.

But, y'know, the healers who have magic for it are able to stabilize him (they are flabbergasted that he's not dead) and Cross is alright too. Dust + Horror go searching for Night. Nowhere to be found.

[cerastes]

I'm thinking back on my experience with IS2 and IS3 -- both as someone who loves the game mode on his own free time, as well as someone who has streamed hundreds of hours of both -- as, yeah, thing is, the most exciting part of IS3 was definitely the scramble to get the Week 1 Waves 15 clear. It gave an achievement in the horizon, something to strive for, a real endgame challenge that required team building knowhow, execution, and luck.

But after that, it never quite reached the same level of fun as playing or streaming IS2 consistently got. In a lot of ways, IS3 was an improvement, but so many things were half-baked, that you couldn't help but imagine the version where these ideas were legitimately fleshed out: The Light system exists almost exclusively as an extra layer of punishment, and the punishments associated with light ranged from "slap in the wrist" to "you got Metastatic and your 3 damage dealers have it". One particular IS3 exclusive enemy, quite the common enemy at that, requires you to build around it at higher Waves or just fight a constant uphill battle forever: If you don't have at least one source of air Stun, you're constantly at the edge of losing Lives or the run. One end boss, The Last Knight, suffers from Overwatchitis the way the entire gimmick it has is that it inflicts you with hard crowd control (freeze) for basically 80% of the map's length, which, yes, it's an entirely manageable boss, but god it's so mind-numblingly boring. And that's not mentioning that going for that boss can just be a bust at any time if you don't have a Gopnik Solution, further limiting your build options. Another boss, Izumik, while thematically sound, is another slog to deal with, needing around 6 minutes of dealing with a an actual ton of enemies while trying to prevent it from absorbing said horde of enemies before you can even start damaging it (and it's got baseline 150k HP, 2000 DEF, and 70 RES so it's not a fast deal, either) while regularly unleashing map-wide 8 second Stuns after it becomes vulnerable. It's just not fun to constantly have to deal with "oops your entire gang is hard CC'd" as a main mechanic while trying to whittle down what's already an incredibly durable boss. Of course, fun is subjective, but at least everyone I've asked, from my circle or otherwise, has agreed that it's a slog to have to deal with that.

IS2 wasn't without flaws, but I have a lot of fond memories running the most disgustingly crappy meme comps requested by viewers on stream, and never really thinking "this is straight up hopeless", sure, sometimes it'd be difficult because we had a straight up ass team, but that's all it was: Difficult. There's so much that can go wrong in IS3, and that's not necessarily bad at all -- it's a roguelike mode, after all, it comes with the territory and I would not have it any other way -- but at least, in IS2, whenever something goes terribly wrong, you still have things you can do about it, when things go terribly wrong in IS3, and the way they can go wrong without it being any bad decision of yours (such as oops! Metastatic on your key units) makes luck that much more punishing and thus outside of the player's agency in a game mode that otherwise demands a lot of execution and knowhow. Luck is more impartial in IS2, basically, while Luck mostly exists as either punishment or avoidance of punishment but very rarely as a benefit in IS3, and I hope IS4 is better about this because, look, I enjoyed IS3, but it very rarely reached the consistency of IS2 in terms of quality, in my opinion.

[wishforged]

welcome to the very long postscript to Steal Ahead, a persona 5 fanfiction, that I doubt very many people will read in full but I have chosen to write anyway for my own self-aggrandizement.

before proceeding, please take note that in the following, I reflect on my writing decisions in some detail. reading these notes may color your perception of the story. if you prefer for the author to be dead, I'd advise stopping here!!

introductory thoughts

this fic is titled after a lyric in the song "Tape Song" by the kills.

pretty self-explanatory, right?

I started writing this fic because... well, that was 5 years ago and since then I've gotten a concussion at least once and my memory is kind of bad in general but I can still confidently say goro akechi is my favorite character in the world. a lot of post-vanilla fans might not completely understand the degree to which goro fans were imbibing copium before all the additional material royal gave us-- goro's story ended very ambiguously, and a lot of things about him and his relationship with Ren were left up to our little fujoshi imaginations to ruminate over and decipher. I couldn't help but want to give him a future in my own way.

I also really wanted to write a SUPER SLOW BURN LONG TERM YEARS-LONG EPIC AKESHU LOVE STORY!!! it ended up being a little different than what I envisioned lol but I think it's still true to my original aspiration, which was to create an intimate, realistic, friends-to-lovers dynamic between the two of them. I hope you enjoyed it...

one of my major influences was In Good Company by weialala. yes, it's a naruto fic, one that I've held dear for many many years. weialala's internal monologue for Sasuke and how she deals with questions about his life, as well as her take on Sasuke and Naruto's relationship, goes beyond Naruto canon in an incredible way that really influenced how I wrote Goro and the slow burn romance in this fic. I highly recommend checking the fic out if you're a naruto fan!! sorry if you're not and this revelation gave you psychic damage.

I outlined this fic pretty heavily, keeping a google doc with a timeline of events spanning the four years over which the story takes place. that didn't stop me from changing things and adding stuff up until the last minute, though. I also struggled to keep the timeline straight a lot because I made the questionable decision to start the fic two years after canon left off and I can be kind of dumb.

a look into my struggles/twisted mind. my outlines tend to be quite rough.

in the rest of this post I talk about several things in the fic, like Goro's disability and mental health, how Ren is portrayed, and the original characters, with some behind-the-scenes thoughts.

"redemption"

when it comes to characters who have Done Stuff Wrong, there is a lot of discourse to be had among fans about how they can Atone for their crimes. these arguments often touch a lot of nerves-- in my opinion, because our contributions to this discourse are influenced by how we think about crime and rehabilitation in the real world.

I live in a country where the carceral system is incredibly brutal and discriminatory, abuse of incarcerated people is routine, and the goal of incarceration is not rehabilitation but the infliction of suffering upon those deemed "criminals" by the state. this has shaped my beliefs about incarceration as a form of punishment. to put it simply, I am not a fan. and in a fictional context, I find the idea that a character in a work of fiction can "do their time" and have all their guilt and sin magically removed to be a cop-out.

this is just me and these are just my own thoughts of course. again, I think questions about crime and rehabilitation in fiction are influenced by our thoughts on these concepts in the real world. for that reason and many others this is quite a personal story that draws on my own personal philosophy in its telling (as half-baked as that philosophy may be bc im not a super genius who has all the answers). whether that is a flaw or a feature is up to you as a reader to decide.

in this fic I wanted to explore how to move forward after you have done something horrible. it was hard, because in this story and perhaps in life, there are no pretty answers and no perfect ways to make up for doing the things Goro did. I settled upon an "answer" that reflects one of my deeply-held beliefs: we do what we must after tragedy, and what we must do is move forward, rely on and be there for those we love, and try to do as much good as we can.

original characters

as stated in the tags of the fic, I wrote in OCs so goro could have actual relationships and friends. I tried to gift each one with their own unique personality and some depth! a lot of the OCs are women, maybe because I find it easier to write women lol. sometimes I feel like a lot of female OCs in fic can lean towards being misogynistic caricatures -- I'm not really blaming writers for this as much as I am blaming Society; fanfic deals in tropes and when you constantly see the trope of the bitchy secretary, the shallow seductress, etc. in the media you consume it becomes second nature to unconsciously replicate it, even if you identify as a woman. this is why IMO as a writer you need to make a conscious effort to do things differently (and read more books) although I'm sure there are a lot of ways I come up short...

one of my favorites is cleo which is funny because she only shows up for a handful of scenes in the last chapter lol, and maybe it's recency bias but I spent so long working on the last chapter she feels like my own child... I feel like her first name doesn't make sense for a Japanese-American person to have but I got attached to it lmao.

I actually do think I gave the Kato family too many problems, what with Kagami's illness and Taku's behavior -- I think I kinda reference this at one point by having Goro wonder what kind of a fucked up Dickensian family this is lol. I have some other self-critical thoughts on how I wrote them but I'll keep that to myself... still love them a lot though. I really enjoy messy but loving sibling relationships in fiction so I had to put one in here too.

(fun fact: like Goro, Taku was going to be Deaf, which is why Kagami comments that Goro is "like my brother" during her first appearance in chapter 1. when I decided to go another direction for Taku's character, I changed this to mean Goro and Taku have eyes that are the same color.)

shout out, also, to Hirakawa, who seems to be something of a fan favorite judging by the comments. she was a blast to write lol and I really love her relationship with Goro.

ren

I consider the Ren in this fic to be my Ultimate™ portrayal of him that is the closest to how I see him as a character. my most popular p5 work is The Next Time Around, an AU fic where Ren is an older adult that I wrote when I was a teenager (more than five years ago) (lol) (😔) and although I do have pride in/affection for that work and the Ren in it, he is a far cry from the way I imagine Ren today. (for one thing his name wasn't ren in that fic. lol)

being a silent protagonist, Ren is a tricky character to get right. I was very active in the p5 fandom space on social media for several years before I basically completely stopped paying attention to it, but like many others, in those early days I absorbed parts of others' portrayals of Ren into my own. I actually think that's quite a lovely thing about silent protagonists-- everyone in a fandom space kind of works to build the character together. yes, sometimes the portrayals that attain the most popularity are flattening or flanderizing, but ultimately, it's kind of fun to build a Frankenprotagonist. until you're writing a fic which prompts you to really sit down and think about what a true-to-canon portrayal looks like and how to make it also true to Yourself and what you really believe the character to be. (it's hard)

in Steal Ahead, Ren is superstitious and avoidant and quite bad at expressing his feelings. he's a charismatic anti-authoritarian, a middle child, and a neat freak with a strong, stubborn sense of justice. he's full of contradictions and flaws, and he's healing in his own way from the events of p5 proper, struggling with returning to a mundane life when for a short, glorious while, he was extraordinary. (hence the shoplifting subplot in chapter 2. fun fact -- that was originally supposed to be smoking but then I decided to change it. I forget why but I'm sure I had a good reason, probably. don't smoke, kids! or shoplift if you think you might get caught. kidding etc)

Ren argues and bickers with Goro quite a bit in this fic which I enjoyed writing. though they share many similarities, they're very different people -- I thought it would be only natural for them to clash sometimes, though they always come back to each other.

this Frankenren is composed of a bunch of headcanons, a lot of which were influenced by/shamelessly stolen from friends. I love him very much. thanks to everyone who helped me build my Ren along the way!

disability

goro has a disability in this fic-- single-sided deafness-- which I included because I felt it was unrealistic for him to have escaped from the engine room with no lasting consequences. I was pretty conscious of portraying it respectfully and realistically so I did my research on the condition. this source was helpful as a personal testimonial from someone who has this condition about how it affects their life.

by the way, goro's hearing aid in this fic is a CROS hearing aid, which is designed specifically for people with single-sided deafness.

one of my favorite moments in the fic is the brief conversation Goro and Ryuji have about their respective disabilities in chapter 2 -- it's short, because I didn't think either of them would really be enthusiastic about opening up to each other at that point lol, but it's nice.

I welcome criticism of how I handled this part of the fic from anyone in the Deaf community -- I'm not perfect and don't have firsthand knowledge.

mental health

obviously goro is not doing great mentally in this fic for many reasons. I have written a lot of goro-centric fics, but this one required really tapping into the headspace of a flawed person who has been traumatized & manipulated and is dealing with immense depression and guilt while recovering. like many (most?) writers I draw from my own past experiences and emotions while writing, which made this a particularly taxing fic to work on, and is definitely one of the reasons it took so long to finish 🥲

other than that I'd say one of the most difficult things was being realistic while avoiding melodrama, and portraying a real story of recovery/imparting positive messages without being too cheesy, which made some of the self-help book sections hard to write.

if you relate to goro's depressive thoughts in this fic, I hope it can be an affirming story for you. I also hope you're taking the time to reach out to people who can support you and practicing self-care.

the ending

I actually don't have a ton to say about the ending because I'd like to leave it up to interpretation. however, I will say that the ending is not the original one I had in mind when I started the fic. I'm not sure how people will react to it (if you've been following this fic maybe you'll just be happy it got an ending at all LOL) but I hope it didn't feel like it came out of nowhere.

concluding thoughts

compared to my other p5 works, this one isn't as popular even though I do consider it my best, which I will admit is disheartening. the release of p5 royal also created a new canon in which this fic does not take place, which I imagine certainly doesn't help. despite this, I got some lovely long, thoughtful comments and even occasionally saw people on social media discussing how they enjoyed this fic despite it being unfinished, which always made me super emotional. trust me, in those 4 years that this fic was lying dormant, each new comment motivated me to crack open the Google doc again and ultimately finish this work. let this be a testament to the power of comments and the ubiquitous egotism of fic writers. or writers in general, actually. thank you so much for your kindness!

if you actually read all of this, thank you again! I do like talking about this fic so feel free to ask questions or give feedback via my ask box, retrospring (linked on twitter) or ao3 comments.

I just ran a word count on this and it's like 2.5k words. good lord. bye

[ahoyimlosingmymind]

About lava cake, I want to hear your thoughts about how Marella, as a pyrokinetic, is technically considered talentless in the matchmaking system. Therefore making Fitz and Marella a bad match. How do you think Fitz would react when he realizes this, knowing this could end up in a similar way to Sophitz?

-lava cake anon #2 ;)

Oooo this is a hard one. I'm open to any thoughts!!! @autistic-daydreamer @myfairkatiecat @sacrificialloving

What I'm about to write is so half-baked, I apologize in advance lmao I think it would begin with Alden or Della pulling him to the side and noting how much time he's been spending with Marella-- at this point, Fitz knows he has feelings for her, but he's also very aware of the ramifications. They remind him how important his reputation is, and how it will hurt not only him, but Marella, her family and his own.

He doesn't want this to end the way it did with Sophie. He doesn't want to care about it. But he does- especially as his age creeps closer and closer to the time he's expected to have a winnowing gala. For a while, he starts to distance himself from Marella.

And because she knows him so well, she clocks the reason almost immediately. However, she doesn't confront him on it immediately like she normally would. Because part of her is just as terrified of being a bad match. she doesn't want to hurt his reputation either. She doesn't want to ruin his life. And really, she doesn't want to handle the scorn either. They've talked about it in the past, how big of a deal it is to do things by the book.

But the desire to be with one another is so powerful, that at some point- Fitz takes a leaf out of Keefe's book- finds a forbidden cities leaping crystal and asks Marella to go to the human world with him. It's stupid and reckless. He's never done anything like this. But he's really starting to feel trapped, and well-- he's not friends with Keefe for no reason. He understands his childhood bestfriend's desire to run. He's just never been brave enough to do it before.

But this situation is the final nail in the coffin. And he's just like 'Well, let's seen if Keefe's method really works.' (it's the first time he feels he's ever done something for himself. It's freeing. and terrifying.)

Marella agrees to go with him after a few weeks of radio silence. Because in the human world they can just be. They both agree that this will be their final hurrah, and then, they wont pursue anything with one another. They'll follow the paths laid out for them. However, this does not work, and they end up just secretly dating-- the lie dangling over their heads.

Fitz, of course, realizes he's a hypocrite for it. For suddenly being so willing to do this with Marella, where he wasn't with Sophie. His whole life he has been watched and seen as an image. But Marella is the first girl to truly see through to who he really is, and to shed the false perceptions she had of him early on in their friendship. Whereas, part of him- though he denied it at the time- always felt like Sophie also saw him as perfect in many ways. It was an idea she wasn't quite ready to let go of when it came to him- It feels different with Marella. And besides, Sophie has Keefe now. (but of course, Sophie is still hurt by this when she finds out. Not enough to cause friendship ruining drama, but definitely like 'damn ok ig' lol)

Marella gets exposed as a pyrokinetic at some point, which leads to massive scorn, on top of people finding out they're together.

It's a mess. They probably break up a few times in between everything-- but then one day, things calm down. The Neverseen is defeated, and real societal changes are made, and while it isn't perfect, you can't erase a way of thinking completely, it makes it easier.

Or maybe they just fake their deaths and go to live among humans idek

[umihoshi]

some tips for people who just started living on their own

It's been 4 years now, and I'm not regretting a single day that I moved out. No more adapting to what my parents want, no more reporting where I'm going or who I'm bringing over, I can create my save haven the way I like it. For me, it was really the start of becoming myself.

But, there's a bunch of stuff here and there that would've been nice if I had known it from the get-go. And I thought: let's share them!

1 what appliances to invest in?

one thing that is going to come back every single day is cooking. and food is expensive AF if you're not careful. I found 2 great ways to save a bunch of money and they both rely on one thing: Invest in a good freezer! Many grocery stores have systems where they price down things that are close to the shelf life date. One of our local grocery stores can go up to 70% discount! But the problem with those is, you need to eat it right away.... OR DO YOU??? Freezing things close to expiring will let them last for a full freaking month extra. and vegetables go even longer. Plenty of time to use it when you need it (just don't forget to thaw) Be careful though: once you thawed it, you can't freeze it again.

Items are usually also WAY cheaper if you buy them in bulk. Chop them up and in the freezer they go! This one's also great if you don't always have the energy or drive to cook: cook up a large pot of whatever you like, put it in containers and freeze them. I always like doing so with pasta sauce and then cook the pasta fresh~ But it also works great with stews, curry and other types of sauces. stores like IKEA have containers that are just the right size for one meal.

For some of you, the next one may be a no-brainer, but.... My mom was really proud of how fast she was with doing the dishes. She was always like 'why get a dishwasher, I'm faster if I do it myself'. And I have lived up to that same idea up until half a year ago. My kitchen was always a mess, I didn't feel like cooking, inviting people over was embarrassing. I exhausted myself every time visitors would come and I had to fight that monster pile. Please, if you recognize these problems: invest in a dishwasher. Life became SO MUCH easier. My house is clean, my mind is more at ease, social contact increased cuz it's not as big a hassle to clean before guests show up. I really wish I wouldn't have wasted those 3 years fighting a monster that was this easy to tackle in the end...

2 easy cooking

Though it's also a bit of an investment: cooking becomes fucking easy with an airfryer. No oil is added, so it's a bunch healthier. you just put the temperature and timer and it's done. and a lot of things can just fry simultaneously. chuck in some meat and potato's at 400F (200C) for 20 minutes and all you'll have to worry about is adding some vegies with it. springrolls, pizza, potato's, meat. it all gets nice and crunchy too. (prepare vegies in a rice cooker for the same don't-have-to-keep-an-eye-on-it experience. you can cook them simultaneously with rice too!)

Something that became one of my fave dishes of the late is 'stir fried whatever'. it goes like this: Bake whatever meat you fancy, great with egg or tofu too. add whatever vegies (straight out of the freezer is fine). add stir fry sauce in whatever amount seems nice (little for coating, more if you want it to be saucy). make some carbs and you're fucking DONE! no measuring, no thinking what spices to use, it goes with anything and everything. and your local grocery has probably like 5 different flavors. (or at least, it does here. dunno if that's true for America...) like it creamy? add half a cup of soya milk. it takes like 10 minutes tops (not counting the cooking of rice/pasta/potato/bread)

3 think in money or think in space

With tricks like a good freezer, saving money with discount products becomes a whole lot easier. But there are also different discount products that can save you a lot of money. my mom always used to buy like.... packs of 4 toilet rolls. and if you calculate it, buying 3x4 rolls is so much more expensive than buying a 12 pack. But what you'll need for that is space. Try keeping account of a spot like that in your house. cupboard underneath the sink, the spot where they installed the boiler, top shelves you don't often use cuz it's high up, on top of the fridge, garage. I live in an apartment and have a small storage space for my bicycle. Perfect spot for non-consumables. (be careful to keep them out of reach for mice) think toilet paper, tissues, cat litter, soap, shampoo, toothpaste. they'll be good in 2 years too, and you'll still be needing them all the same. I once found this 6 pack of toothpaste for like 3,-! aint no one selling 1 tube for 0,50 when I buy it once I need it.

dunno if this is of any use to someone, but I hope this can help out anyone to safe some money, time or energy! Because it sure did for me.

[ditzyblues]

Dumb question but what is an Enneagram?

Not a dumb question at all! I'm happy to answer ^_^

In recent years, the Enneagram has been sensationalized into another "personality" typing system, much like MBTI. However the Enneagram isn't exactly concerned with your personality, but rather your pathology.

The core idea is that as a child, you learned that your needs would only be met if you behaved a certain way. This developed the way you interact with the world around you, yknow, to get your needs met.

The Enneagram outlines 9 types, and splits them into gut, heart, and head triads.

"But how does every single person in the world fit in only 9 boxes?" Excellent question, I had the same one. That's where a lot of the sensationalization came in. I implore you not to think of it as a personality system, but as a problem identification system. That reduces a lot of the (correct) notions that humans are able to fit in small boxes. It's more like your problems and what you do to address them that the Enneagram focuses on. Plus, there are a few subtyping systems within the Enneagram.

(Diagram not mine) (Also ignore the "the" labels those don't matter)

Let's take my own type for example. I have a 4 fixation, right in the heart (shame, feeling) triad. I know this because I've read through every type description and found myself relating most to the 4. This wasn't easy, because initially, you don't fit every single aspect of the type description.

That's where two systems I personally favor come in: the wing and instinctual variant.

My wing options are 3 and 5, since they're on either side of the 4. I recognize my behavior and mentality favors one side, the 3, so I'm a 4w3.

I couldn't be a 4w6 or 4w8 because they're not beside the 4 on the chart.

Now I'm closer to my truer self. Wings open up 18 more possibilities, which is a lot more than other "personality" typing systems.

Another important system is the instinctual variant. I honestly suggest reading this article detailing the TWENTY SEVEN instinctual variants. It's very helpful and comprehensive, and you'll pick up quickly what it means to favor an instinct (social, self preservation, and sexual.) I'm still learning about this, so I don't wanna feed you my half baked understanding.

I also love You've Got A Type's channel on everything Enneagram, especially if you're in it for the intended purpose of the Enneagram: self help. This system isn't supposed to be a neutral personality thing, it's a system built to identify your levels of unhealth and help you reach health beyond your afflicted type.

It's helpful for identifying character motivations and growth points as well, hence the reason I spent FOREVER going through each type with April in mind, and settling on one fixation for her. I also did this with Casey. It might not be the end all be all truth bomb system, but there's a reason our problems (and characters problems) are able to be "categorized" in one system. There's just human patterns we all work to recognize.

[koreanbibliophilegirl]

I suppose I should talk about possible/confirmed plan changes to my WIPs?

(Fair warning: I've mostly calmed down, but I don't want to work myself up again, so I'm gonna be writing in a normal tone. I promise I'm not ignoring or trying to make light of the whole thing! I just don't wanna talk too deeply about it. All the love and support to Shelby Shubble & all victims of abuse!!!💖)

First off, I believe characters are separate from their creators- anyone who continues to create content about c!Wilbur has my support and respect!

(I will most probably continue to consume content related to c!Wilbur as well, though I will tag him as "c!Wilbur" now, rather than "Wilbur Soot"- I've been tagging all dsmp characters only as their corresponding CC's names, mostly out of laziness. For instance, c!Tommy wasn't tagged as "c!Tommy", he was tagged as "TommyInnit". I don't want to change my whole tagging system, but c!Wilbur at least will be tagged as "c!Wilbur" from now on!)

None of my writing was RPF in the first place, it was all about the characters- but I'm not sure if I myself am ready to freely write c!Wilbur or fanfiction!Wilbur stuff yet. Maybe I never will be; idk.

So here are the changes I'll be making!

DSMP Superpower AU: c!Wilbur will stay. I was planning to include all the DSMP characters(The 'mains', at least, I'm not sure about secondary characters yet), and the notion of leaving c!Wilbur out doesn't really appeal to me. So c!Wilbur will still appear here!

Temporal Transcendence: Honestly, at first I thought TT!Wilbur would be irreplaceable, but after some thought, I was surprised to find it might just work! Karl and Niki would play bigger roles than I expected, but it could definitely work. Heck, it might even be better than the original plan! So I think Wilbur will likely be cut from TT.

Oshi No Ko but Happier AU: I'm on the fence about this one. Wilbur's character isn't CRUCIAL crucial, but he's still pretty important. The outline of the plot will look much different if he does indeed end up getting cut out. So I'm gonna mark this WIP as a solid "idk" and just work it out as I go.

Rarepair Royalty AU: I've never talked about this AU. This one is a bit funny, cuz cutting Wilbur's character out actually solves some of the problems I had with the outline! The plot will actually work out better if Secondborn Prince Wilbur didn't exist- so he's definitely cut from this one! I just need to find someone new to pair with Karl. (Probably Seapeekay; I have the currently ongoing MCYT crackship brackets to thank for the ship!)

Lucky Star: Another fic that's never been talked about- this one is my newest WIP! :D I wasn't even sure where I was going to fit Wilbur in- a character called Wilbur never even existed here. Well, he did, but I'd deleted him for plot reasons a while ago and was in the middle of trying to find another slot. (Cyberknife is Techno's dead twin in this WIP btw- he's not a replacement character for Wilbur, the twin was always going to be Cyberknife.)

Tome AU: SBI literally only serves as Tommy's rich and powerful family here- at least, up to where I've fleshed out. Wilbur's only moment in the spotlight is when he argues with Tommy over dinner, bc he doesn't like how Tommy "got stuck" raising baby Shroud with Purpled(who found Shroud in a trash can), & is caught glaring at Purpled. I'll edit him out maybe. Or leave him, he's not a major character after all. idk.

Others(Mostly Bedrock Bros-centric): Honestly, I never could figure out how to write Wilbur's character that well. So 'Wilbur' isn't too big a character in most of these. Will likely cut.

Tom and Bunnypig(Bee and Puppycat AU): You know what, I think I'm going to make this half-baked idea into a proper WIP. Wilbur never existed here either, so yeah.

CONCLUSION: The whole thing is a mess, and I'm sad and mad, as we all are, but I'm gonna stop thinking about how horrible Wilbur Soot is & focus on how brave Shelby Shubble is!

I'm intrigued at what removing a single character did to my plot outlines, and hopefully, this will open a lot of new opportunities in my writing. I'm certainly looking forward to how my writing skills will develop after this.

To everyone who's actually read through this; thank you for reading this whole thing, I know it's kinda long.😅 Have a cookie and a hug, we all need it🍪🫂 Remember to drink water & eat something! All my love💖💖

[magicspace114]

New faces - food adventures

So, assuming care of this strange little alien was actually not the best idea you've come up with. For one, they could get sick from anything and what were you going to do? Take them to a human doctor? Give them human medicine?

First, you figured the best course of action was to find out what they could and couldn't eat. Toby's stomach grumbled and you chuckled as the kid curled their arms around it, flushing with embarrassment.

"Alright, Tobs, what do you eat? I'll try and find a substitute that might work."

"Tobs? Didn't you already shorten my name to Toby?" Toby tilted their head.

"Well yes, but this is where human nicknames get weird. You can have even shortened versions or longer versions of short names. Typically, if you're close with a group of people, you'll pick up lots of nicknames, some not even related to your name." You said, heading to your kitchen and not even looking back to see if Toby was following you. You heard the clip clopping of his hooves on the wood. "I've got nicknames like 'flower', 'maisy', 'Taco gremlin', all manner of names really." You shrugged, opening your fridge, "so, food. Do you eat fruit?" You pulled out a punnet of strawberries that you were keeping for a special occasion. This was a rather special occasion.

Toby just blinked for a minute, trying to keep up with your conversation. Were you talking too fast again? On seeing the fruit though, Toby's eyes widened, "what are those?"

"They're strawberries. Pretty fresh still," you pulled the film off and ate one yourself, passing another to Toby.

Toby took it carefully, looking it over in their hands. "Are all those seeds?" They pointed to the specks on the outside.

"Oh, yeah. They don't have any taste or anything. They just pass harmlessly through our systems. Will they be a problem for you?" You asked.

"I-I don't think so," Toby looked down, "I heard that seeds are designed to make it through digestive systems unharmed as a dispersal method. If they survive your systems, they should survive mine, right?" You smiled and nodded. Toby took a small cautious bite.

You waited. There was a moment of silence where both you and Toby held your breaths. Then the sugar kicked in and you saw it kick in as soon as Toby registered it. Their eyes widened and they looked back at the strawberry, taking another, larger bite.

You just laughed. "Like it?"

"Yes!" Toby said, "this is great! I've never tasted anything like this before."

You laughed more. "Want another one?" You asked when Toby finished their first.

"C-can I?" Toby asked, voice cautious again.

"Of course," you smiled, "all you need to do is ask." You handed them another and they ate it up. "As great as it is that you like them, we could look into what filling foods you can try. Strawberries are more of a treat."

"Well, back home, we'd have these green, leafy plants that we'd eat from. They're very cellulose based but they have plenty of vitamins in them." Toby explained, "my moth- uh- well- Mylaiha would also use some ingredients to make this thing called uh- Pola. It had to be baked and it smelled lovely when it was fresh. I'm not sure what the equivalent would be."

"Hmm, can you maybe describe what the ingredients are?" You asked, "we like to bake things too, we might have something like that."

"Well, um... there is seeds and roots that are ground into a powder. She'd mix it with some other things like water and um... well... I don't really know. I wasn't allowed to see how she made it." Toby shrunk down now.

"Seeds and roots ground into a powder?" You pondered, "that sounds like flour to me and when you mix it with water, it turns into a paste like dough. Are you describing bread?"

"What's bread?" Toby tilted their head to the side.

You smiled and pulled out half a loaf of bread from your cupboard and gave them a slice to investigate. They turned it over in their hands, squeezing it gently then ripping it a little. You just held back another chuckle at how child-like they seemed, like a toddler given play-doh for the first time, having no idea what to do with it.

"It looks different," Toby mumbled.

"It will. We tend to add other things into it like sugar, yeast, I think white bread is meant to have fortified calcium in it too." You listed off, turning to look at the ingredients list on the loaf.

Toby took a bite. You watched as they chewed, their face twisting thoughtfully. Like with the strawberries, you could see their whole thought process. First, there was confusion as they tried out the new taste and texture on their tongue, then it turned to thought as they compared it to their memory.

Finally, Toby just shrugged, raising their eyebrows and nodding. "It's alright. I think I like it. It's a bit similar to Pola."

"That's good," you nodded, "there are many different types of bread. We could try more later. Right now, let's make you a proper meal." You ruffled their hair before turning away to make something with bread. Surprisingly, Toby didn't flinch away at the contact like you'd expected. If anything, you thought they leaned in a bit.

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[solar-sunnyside-up]

Did you know that cottagecore has been known to have ties to fascism and colonialism?

this was the link added in a separate ask, and it is a very good conversation so I'm putting at the top here!! https://www.tumblr.com/solarpunkcast/189377668416/time-to-stop-tagging-cottagecore-alongside Yes I am very aware of this problem. While I think it's a problem to fix, I don't think it's worth abandoning the entire thing. To be brief though if you can't read the linked think yourself, cottagecore, and trad like sub cultures always have ideas of colonialism, classism, ableism, racism, sexism baked into them. And in general just a very western perspective to things. So I totally understand why this is gross to ppl who are looking to escape those systems through solarpunk. These points are the most important part to this convo, I think these points should be on everyone's mind when interacting with almost any aesthetic. We as a solarpunk community aren't safe from Nazi shit. we aren't safe from our bigotry seeping in. And if anything I post is either tied to or supporting this you let me know I'll sort it out (with violence and arson where needed) I think cottagecore in particular is a … weird one. A lot of its bones of cottagecore are related to why ppl like Solarpunk. But not just that. It was born in a time of isolation, of the government abandoning it's citizens during a plague, of burn out over ungrateful and exploitive jobs. Ppl where rejecting the American Dream in mass, questioning the appeal of city and career. Instead they wanted so badly to make clothes for their friends, to read books on rainy days and make soup, to have control over their food supply. I know many ppl in solarpunk who started in that initial trend of cottagecore and then realized they didn't have to day dream about a cottage lifestyle that half of them couldn't even live bc of accessability. They could build it where they were. For me the reason is bc cottagecore is this gutteral reaction. There is something WRONG with society, and our natural instinct, particularly when burnt out and too tired to even dream of a better place, we think of running away. Run away from war, from environmental disaster, from the bigots on your doorstep that want you dead. Run. it's the only option!! But then they tend to create small social circles through crafts and recipes, jokes about coliving with friends in the city, and somewhere in there they realize ppl need each other. Slowly the mentality goes from a flight response to a "I'm going to just do what I want in the place I already live" and mutual aid and common spaces form almost on accident. But bc of the base appeal, just like homemaking circles, the community that doesn't examines things further tend to breed this  Colonialistic, ablest, sexist culture of farm life being the only answer. But I don't blame cottagecore for this if we don't give them any other options to remove the bigotry but keep the helpful, kind and sweet parts. I like to think about it like Riot grrrl, a group with good intents that didn't dissect just ENOUGH of the problem to remove the racism from their ideals. But there where still parts worth saving, parts worth reusing and refining and protecting. There were ppl in these circles that took it to the next step of equality, that handled that problem of solidarity and inclusion. But many stayed within the Riot grrl circles to refine this rather then abandon it in its entirety. I think it's worth letting cottage core go through the process of letting them know better is possible even within their aesthic niche. Just know I'm not turning my eye from this, I won't ever turn my eye from the truth. I know it's a festering wound that could kill off any good intent it had. I just think it should be given the chance to realize the overlap we have.

[oatmealaddiction]

I am so sorry to come careening into your asks like this, but that post you reblogged where OP directly conflates conservatism with nazi germany is driving me insane. it’s like, has it occurred to people that painting a whole community as remorselessly evil perhaps has some drawbacks? maybe that history can also tell us about other times having no empathy for ‘the enemy’ has worked out well for all involved?

like. I get that conservatives have done violence and significant harm to our communities. those things are unforgivable. at the same time you cannot simply write off like half of the US for having bad politics. fight against them, fight against fasc alt right shit, just don’t say there’s something innately wrong with those shitheads that is beyond changing. that’s such eugenics bullshit.

There's a good book called "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" by Hannah Arendt. Arendt was a Jewish woman who fled Germany and the book was about the trial of Adolf Eichmann, an SS Officer who oversaw the deportation of many Jewish people to Auschwitz. What Arendt found after studying Eichmann was that at the end of the day, in spite of everything, he was just a normal guy. There was nothing off in his psychology, he wasn't mentally unwell, and by all accounts he was a regular citizen who had 'enthusiastically' upheld the system that the Nazi's put in place. Eichmann harbored zero guilt for any of his actions up until his execution, and argued throughout the trial that he bore no personal responsibility for what he'd done. I don't think it's inaccurate to compare conservatism to fascism these days given how many alt-right members are chomping at the bit to install an authoritarian in office, but if all you're going to say is that Republicans got the "Nazi" gene, you've got a misunderstanding about what makes people evil and how they justify evil to themselves. It's not that conservatives are born without the capacity to feel for others or that because they were born bad they became conservative and because you were born good you became liberal. When evil is systematized by those in power and held up as a status quo, doing depraved evil shit becomes ordinary and normal. For example, plenty of Americans still think it's normal and justifiable to enact the death penalty because it's been systematized as part of our criminal justice system. It's the status quo, so therefore it must be upheld no matter how immoral it is.

Frankly, I'm not going to sit here and try to defend conservative beliefs at a time when the Supreme Court is out here just chipping away at everyone's civil rights and white supremacists are breaking into the capital. I don't particularly feel bad writing off the people who continue to vote for and empower fascists. How do you empathize with someone who thinks you're a child predator or that you shouldn't have bodily autonomy? How do you keep your heart open to people advocating that teachers be shot for using someone's correct pronouns? Personally I think galvanizing more liberals into using their vote strategically and engaging in political action will have faster positive action than trying to win over the group who's dictated by bigotry. That said, it's important to understand that these views have been baked into America before the Pilgrims even got here. These ideas didn't pop up over night because an evil person invented them, they've been present for thousands and thousands of years. The conservative party acts the way they do because transphobia and misogyny and racism are normal aspects of American culture that have been systematized into our government and our society, Conservatives believe that because those things are normal, therefore they are just. So I take issue with the idea that there's something inherent in their brains or psychology that turned them evil, and that liberals are immune to this problem. Liberals will uphold the status quo too, albeit with different lingo. Plenty of liberals engage in True Crime podcasts where they celebrate when the police infringe on civil liberties in order to catch a serial killer. "No ethical consumption under capitalism" is often used as a blanket excuse to ignore unfair labor practices. The Queer community loves to accuse it's own of toxicity and predation just as much as the conservatives do. During the Heard v. Depp defamation trial, tons of liberals rejoiced at the way the legal system was used to silence a DV survivor and were happy to support suing a woman for talking about abuse. A lot of the time the people saying things like this, do not think of themselves as doing anything wrong. Evil is boring, and it's normal, and oftentimes those who act immorally do so without a single ping of their conscious. Thinking that conservatives were born with abusive personalities is the exact thinking people had about Nazi's in the wake of World War II. Americans assumed that there was something fundamentally sick and broken in the Nazi psychology, when in actuality it wasn't that different from the institutionalized segregation and systematized eugenics America itself had going on at the time. Being a Nazi was super normal in Nazi Germany just like being a racist was super normal in America. If you tell yourself that there's something fundamentally abnormal and inhuman in the actions of your enemies, you miss the wider picture of the systems they're part of. Worse, you're telling yourself that you could never be like that, that you could never do what they did, rather than examine the ways you're already complicit in abusive systems. Bigotry and abuse and apathy towards injustice are all human traits, and buddy we're all human.

tl,dr: Conservative politics aren't evil people politics, they're ubiquitous and we probably all hold them to some extent. So do your due diligence.

[lovelanguageisolate]

Extremely half baked research idea, I am probably a crank:

The neutron transport equation and the light transport equation are actually remarkably similar. This is why a lot of computer animation pioneers had been trained as nuclear engineers.

I wonder if the GPU support for ray tracing could be used to accelerate neutronics simulations, possibly at higher fidelity than existing simulations (which generally have to quantize time, positions, energies, etc., or use diffusion approximations).

A quick glance at a Vulkan ray tracing tutorial from Nvidia suggests that arbitrary shaders can be attached to ray-surface intersection events, which I presume leads to the creation of more rays. I think it would be fairly easy to go from a table of nuclear interaction cross sections to a bunch of shaders that represent scattering, absorption, neutron birth, etc. possibilities.

I don't know exactly how flexible GPU ray tracers are, but it looks like they can simulate diffuse reflection and anisotropic scattering behavior, which is more flexibility than a lot of neutronics code enables.

The lack of instantaneous travel can be dealt with by testing each neutron with a displacement radius sphere for each frame, saving the momenta and positions of each neutron, and buffering this for the next "frame". At a time scale of 1 user frame = 1/10 to 1 shake or so, this could be a really high fidelity sim!

The biggest obstacle I'm aware of is that hardware ray tracing apparently excludes ray sources outside the viewing frustum by default. The Wolfenstein notes says that they fall back on spherical harmonics, which is a strategy used by a lot of neutronics codes everywhere now. There also aren't a lot of opportunities for culling, as neutron simulations that go "off-screen" can still affect system dynamics. Also, a lot of neutron interactions are volume rather than surface phenomena, so you will need to do some computational geometry and scattering sim in an any-hit shader.

None of these problems seem fatal. In cases where the limitations of the ray tracer work against us, we can fall back on old school approximations that are used in traditional neutronics codes.

And thankfully, there are standard setups and computed values that are used to benchmark neutronics codes, so if the best ray traced neutronics simulation sucks, we could learn exactly how and brainstorm better approaches.

The main practical benefit this could have is tightening the feedback loop on the computation-driven design of nuclear systems so that nuclear engineers could iterate faster.

And I imagine having (coarse) real-time visualization of neutron behavior could be a great intuition-building tool, assuming that that performance-fidelity tradeoff is made correctly.

But is this idea really useful? Nah. The things holding back nuclear aren't really related to the time and expense of neutronics simulations. It's just cool that ray tracing has the potential to go back to its roots.

[azdoine]

IN THE DREAM, the sun was still swinging down to meet the horizon, where the sky turned to gold without occulting the pale dust and ocean blue; the disc of the moon fluttered across the waters before them, a little bobber suspended on a line of silk. He had never needed the gestures, not once since he began the work, but now he turned his hand gently over still, crooking his fingers and pulling taut each ribbon tied and bowed around his pinky.

The salt waters twisted and heaved along with the quaking earth beneath them, but neither and both of them were consumed by the force of the waves - which occasionally receded, falling back for kilometers to expose the sedimentary bone beneath - which sometimes crashed far behind them, lifting overhead like tsunamis of perfect mercy. And as the oceans immersed them, she asked a question through the sea between her teeth.

She said, Mine other self, my flesh and blood and soul, art thou any more content than I?

And he said, Never.

So she asked again. "Then Teacher, why do you persist in destroying yourself?"

And he just laughed at her by way of reply, gently condescending as a mother to his daughter, not even hateful or contemptuous. "Because God cannot be soft."

"I don't understand."

And he said, "Neither did I."

The exit wounds of the Resurrection Beasts tore light-years through the solar system, but now he repaired them one by one, each orbital geodesic wrenched free like a rib falling outward from the detonation of a heart. The bones of the solar system shuddered around them, CR-EAAAAAK, as he grabbed the armature of each body and finally deigned to set it gently to rights.

He said- "In the beginning, I still believed that I was outplayed, that there was anything I could have done. That I could have saved you if only I was bolder, if only I was braver, if only I was meeker, if only I knew the right things to say."

He said- "In the beginning, I'd barely worked out where to put them so they couldn't get away. In the beginning, I'd barely decided who to resurrect and who to leave behind. So I searched my mind for ideas, and in the end I left them in my dreams."

And in this, at least, she understood.

She said- "And so you tried again."

He echoed: "And so I tried again!"

He said, absently- "It was the most natural thing in the world. It was the easiest thing in the world. It was so easy a child could do it... it was so easy, the waters of the River leaped to part around me before I even asked them. It was easier than being awake."

He said, now savagely- "I held them in the hour of their judgement and they held me in the hour of our judgement because it was all any of us wanted to dream about, that silver age when we still believed we would all survive... sometimes it was even all you wanted to dream about, the last time you still believed I would save you."

He said- "How do you think you would have felt holding that bubble in your hands, if you were awake enough to remember that you were its lord and master?"

And he said- "I was their god, and it wasn't enough."

Every moon they didn't think to hold fast before it fled was gone, turned to ivory and seashells for the soft tissue of the first and last revenants in the universe; almost every moon in the system was gone, then, where the Resurrection Beasts fled their cooling corpses and made exodus ships from the bodies of their kin.

The light of the sun existed at his discretion, but he was the watchmaker, and so the light of the sun poured forth. From the darkness of the outer reaches it began to rain, comets streaking in as condensation from the dust of the Oort cloud. Coronal mass and fusion ejecta blasted out from the white hot heart of Dominicus, baking ash into clay and hydrogen into iron, and from that black and white porcelain he fashioned flawless prosthetic moons, immortal replacement cogs for the gravitational clockwork of the nine sleeping houses.

She asked: "Teacher, how could you have ever failed?"

He said, half-laughing- "This game absolutely will not have a happy ending."

He said, half-wistfully- "In the box, I was the only one who remembered, and that alone should have made me their god. Their days and nights belonged to me, each hour hand and second tick.

He said- "In the dreams, I turned them in my mind, closing their eyes to repetition, squeezing out all their power to resist. I turned back the gears of memory at my every failure, not because the waking world would ever change, but because I wanted to know what I'd done wrong. I walked across the branches of the dream because I wanted to know if there was any world in which I could have saved you."

He said- "There wasn't."

She said, gently: "Teacher, everyone in the bubble would have remembered how it really happened, even if they didn't know that they remembered."

He shook his head, now beginning to cut the ribbons of fire around his fingers.

He said- "Do you know why they even gave me that damn bomb in the first place, Harrowhark?"

She didn't reply, because she didn't understand; she waited patiently, holding out for exegesis, because more than anything she needed to understand.

He said, contemplatively- "We relived the ending years for seven days and seven nights, and every time it came down to the same wire. I never understood. I needed to understand more than anything. I had to know, how could they hand me the loaded gun and never imagine that I would fire it?

He said, contemputously- "I had to know, when did they decide that they could use me up, but that I would never eat them in turn? I had to know, when did they decide I was so subhuman that they didn't even have to listen to the words coming out of my mouth? I had to understand."

And he said with a voice so full of hate it was dead- "So I pinned them between my teeth. Every cop who came armed to the teeth and already prepared to blow our skull cavities open. Every last hostage negotiator who spent the last hours of their lives trying to reach a hand up my ass and disarm my bomb in place of just shutting up. Every last yottarich motherfucker who served their bombs up on a silver platter. Every last king and president who decided to send us all to hell before I ever could."

And he said with a voice so full of hate it was hotter than the sun behind her eyes- "It had to be seen to be believed. The depths to which they would sink to destroy themselves, no matter how I tried in the dream to learn from my mistakes and turn the other cheek. I thought I understood just how much the world held women like me in contempt. I thought I'd seen the worst from every last genocidal pakeha fuck. So I bit down until I broke their skin."

And he said with a voice so full of hate that the hate didn't stop, yawning open like the mouth of hell- "And I saw exactly what I'd always been to them, saw exactly how J- would never be obeyed."

And he said with a voice so full of hate now directed at her: You made the wrong choice from the beginning. You have made a mouthpiece of a poisoned well. You have made a champion out of me when I never could have even saved you.

She protested: "It would have been different, if you changed them like you changed your Hands and Gestures."

He laughed again. It was not entirely a kind laugh, this time. The cosmos shuddered around them with each sharp kick to the rotational speed of the First, inertia reduced to a bad joke. His eyes were fixed intently upon her like black hole mouths, his breath up close like the exhalation of quasars.

He said, swerving again- "How did you know that my daughter wouldn't kill you for everything your House did to her, Harrowhark? When did you decide that you trusted her enough not to wall her up in the tomb yourself, let alone to take her as your cavalier?"

And ice water dripped down her spine.

"She couldn't have hurt me," Harrow said.

He said- "Wouldn't, or couldn't?"

She said, "Both."

"Even though you knew she was my daughter?"

Harrow locked her expression down more tightly than ever before in her life, but it wasn't enough.

He said- "Oh, yes, as soon as I met Kiriona, I thought you must have noticed that blood ward on the tomb after all. But it almost doesn't really matter, does it? Not when you already knew she was immortal. Not when you'd already seen just how much of a monster she already was."

And this, more than anything, was what threatened to destroy her; not the Kindly Prince witnessing the sin of her birth, but that he saw the sins that were worse by far.

He said- "But you weren't ever really even afraid, were you? Not when you knew she already belonged to you in every way that mattered. Not when you knew you could use her life up, and she would never eat you in turn. Not through the fatal softness of her soul beneath her body, which I could not stop you from seeing even with ten thousand years of my hands around your throats."

"No," she said tightly.

No, it wasn't like that between us? No, I wasn't afraid, because she was already mine?

And he said, "God cannot be soft like an adulteress."

Unlike Ianthe and Pallas where being trans fits neatly into their narratives, there's really no reason to think that John is trans and that gives us the freedom to go wild and do whatever we want with it.

Some options:

Transmasc John

Transitions before the resurrection

Sometimes the only way to get people to stop saying your deadname is to cause the nuclear extinction of life on earth

Literally named self John Guy

Has title The God Who Became Man for a reason

The bit where he's confused and horrified by Mercymorn somehow stealing his sperm is even funnier if he doesn't have any to steal

Considers opportunity to be a neglectful father extremely gender validating

Transfem John

Transitions after the events of Harrow

Gets betrayed by all her friends, has a midlife crisis, inspired to become trans by hanging out with Ianthe who's the only person who will talk to her anymore

Locked her woman shaped soul in a tomb for ten thousand years so no one could see it

You think getting people to stop calling you your deadname is tough? Try having an entire religion dedicated to worshipping you as a dude

Did the King Undying have girl power when she murdered ten billion people and founded a colonial empire

[insanetwocubes]

Kinda lyke.... thinking about this whole thing.

Cuz we have this plan, right. But I feel like something is missing. Like something isn't moving right.

So between the system, right, there's this sort of agreement, right.

about lyke... with the people, y'know? Lyke Emillie is out here being lyke "let's be friends." And I'm lyke you gotta be fucking kidding me. After all that we went through, you wanna be friends with them. Ey is lyke "Well, it's wrong to not" Angel, my dearest, it is anything but wrong. See I just don't get them y'know. They're horrible for one. And it really should stop there. So anything short of lyke killing them honestly is too good imo.

But Emillie and Flare they're lyke fucking brainwashed. I don't know where they got this freaking idea that it's bad to lyke actually react to people mistreating you?

And granted okay, it's not all of them. But it's lyke 95% to be fair???? So lyke uh. I mean how much are you really gonna lose?

It's actually... I prefer it that way y'know because there's no will-they-won't-they y'know? If they just all die. In this ideal scenario.

Idk. I'm lyke fine you can be friends but be careful but there are some people (again 95%) that I wouldn't let my kid near? And lyke Idk what you want from me? Lyke I'm not being a "bad person" or whatever. They literally hurt us.

They literally hurt us.

They hurt us.

Lyke what's so hard to understand.

Safe place/shmafe place. Lyke really.

Idk is it bad to lyke not want to be around people who are horrible? Fuck me sideways if it is.

I mean lyke. Level with me here. There are studies where they lyke mistreat us. Because they get the wrong vibe. For no reason. And then they justify it to themselves. Lyke it's just lyke that. So why am I even allowing this shit?

Lyke studies, Flare, I'm not kidding. This isn't lyke "oh Four's perception" lyke I'm serious. This is science.

So. I don't know. "be friends with them" give me a break.

Then again, there is Emillie's point...

Can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you gotta get the dirty fucking NT's on your side.

I dunno, man. I mean I'll fucking do it but just not Emillie. But Emillie wants to do it, that's the thing. And I'm trying to be like "don't get too close" But ey will. I know it. We keep getting hurt.

I dunno.

I keep thinking back to that time at college where we had our biggest like bout of depression till that day. And it was lyke....a literally danger to our life. And no one ever did anything about it. Lyke not with lyke. Empathy. No one reached out. Everyone gave you those lyke half baked ideas. Guess what needs to happen to be able to take a summer semester?

Idk. It's all just shit. Everything leading up to it, too. Lyke I wouldn't trust any of them with a kid. Why should I trust them with my kid. Or even Flare?

They don't even know how to help. Fuck, they don't even know what the problem is.

Idk man.

Pfff I keep thinking about Marc Spector who's always lyke "I work alone" and he's there with lyke 8 different people fucking helping him.

Do you think he looks at Frenchie lyke "My time is running out with him."

But it's not lyke he's scared they will hurt him. Or maybe he is and he just won't admit it. I'll admit I'm scared. I'm fucking scared. More than that. I'm hurt and I just want it to stop. But they just won't. Cuz they're like that. But we need them. Is this how Moon Knight works? Nah, he actually cares about the people around him.

They /are/ like that, though. Lyke there is no way around this. So why won't Emillie believe me?

Aughhhhhhh

Why is everyone always lyke "no Four you can't do that, they're not like that"

You in pain right now?

Yeah. I am.

Flashbacking?

Kinda. Maybe. I dunno. Trying to figure it out.

We'll figure it out :)

You're so gay.

Stop being depresso-espresso. That's my job.

You're gay.

I know you're hurt.

Yeah? Why doesn't anyone else.... know.

*shrug* But I know.

Do you think I'm lyke....I dunno.

What?

Wrong?

"Wrong"? No. But you can tell something is off.

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Mm.

Hm?

You're right, something is off. I'm putting myself in this victimized position. I don't have to stay here. I can do something about it.

See? You got something eventually. Just had to calm down a bit.

...okay.

~Four