#welcome to sage gets autistic about music

[infernalcrypt]

listing to ethersea main theme for the first time in a while. gonna cry.

[as8bakwthesage]

Ladies, gents, and all those in between and beyond, may I present...

The Hacker!

AKA Sage Corvid, age 28, and chronically tired hacker and computer virus programmer.

With their robotic arm, they are able to hack into any Dispenser, Teleporter, and Sentry in order to change the side of the device to service their own team for a brief time. They can also hack into Spy's disguise kit to disable it for a limited time as well. However, in both of these instances, they have to touch the device in question with the hand.

Alongside their Quick Hack arm, they also have a taser and a pistol. Their taser is built into their arm, so they have to be within melee distance to use it on someone to stun them. Their pistol is their long range device which doesn't do a lot of damage.

However, their final ability and arguably the most useful one is their shapeshifting ability: the ability to change into two animals (a crow and a cat.) They use this to sneak passed enemies and escape tricky situations more swiftly.

Small Things:

They have a tattoo of a crow on their left arm and a cat on their right arm.

The headphones they wear are noise-cancelling because they cannot stand the sound of bullets and loud noises in general.

Sage is Autistic and has BPD.

Under their oversized jacket, they have a machine strapped to their back that connects to their Quick Hack arm. It's basically the computer that is also connected to the headphones.

During fights, they always have music playing on their headphones.

They are seldom phased by shit.

They eventually develop a crush on Medic, who eventually returns their feelings

Backstory Stuff:

In 1940, Sage was born to a Yugoslavian father and American mother, who met right before the start of WWII. Their mother was forced to flee back to the United States because of the pregnancy, while their father remained in Yugoslavia to fight for the Partisans. Unfortunately, Sage's father arrived in the United States disabled post war.

Their mother and father were married when they were 5. For the next few years, Sage lived a happy childhood and learned Serbo-Croatian. However, at age 9, their parents were killed in a car accident, putting them in the care of their mother's tribe - the Abenaki. The US government tried to take them away multiple times, only for Sage to hide. It's here where Sage learned Western Abenaki.

It was among their people where they learned that they could shape-change into two animals (a crow and a cat), a gift that was passed down through Sage's father's side. Sage used this ability to escape out at night, play mischevious pranks, and escape unwanted situations. (This is often how they would escape the government looking for them.)

During these years, Sage lived with a war veteran who helped decode German messages. His name was Francis Brault, and he taught Sage all about codes and how to decode messages and other stuff. He even built his own computer. He taught Sage how to make one from spare parts, alongside how to fight and use guns. Francis also began working for IBM at this time, and this gave Sage a good window into computers and programming.

When Sage was 13, Francis took Sage to his work place, and Sage took to it very well - impressing Francis and some of his fellow programmers with their understanding of programs and computers. They were often invited by the programmers to experiment on their own, and their skills only seemed to improve (obviously they received help when they needed it.)

However, when Sage was 14, Francis died of cancer, and Sage was taken into the state's custody. Frustrated with being placed into foster care, Sage often avoided going back to their foster parent's "home" to go back to the IBM, where they were welcomed to come after school by the workers there who grew attached to the poor kid.

When they were 18, they aged out of the system, and Sage was effectively left alone. Their knowledge of computers and their fast growing skill with them allowed them to get a job working for a college in New York. And with this new job, they were the first person to create a computer virus.

During a regular day assisting with the computers, Sage found a rogue program in the system and used their own virus to combat it. They succeeded, but the person who actually messed up blamed them for the incident. Because of racism and general bigotry, Sage wasn't believed over the white guy and was fired.

At age 20, they began to built their own computers again, looting garbage bins and stole from hardware stores to do so. They moved to NYC, where they got a job as a cashier, but at night they'd make programs and computer viruses before sending them off via email to infect the systems of companies so they could steal money.

They did this for a while, worked for a few shady people as well, and started going by the name CROW. Learning from their mistakes, their programs and viruses became more and more advanced and dangerous. This eventually led them to discovering about Mann Co.

Originally it was just a curiosity, but as they began to syphon money from the company, they noticed that something wasn't right. This looked like a coverup for something else. Digging deeper, they found out about the Gravel War and found this to be especially interesting. They hacked the cameras to watch the fighting take place, finding it all very fascinating that these men were fighting over a gravel pit of all things.

However, they soon caught the attention of the Administrator due to a mistake on their part. And she sent someone after Sage. They kidnaped the enbie and took them to the Administrator, who offered them a deal. Either stay in Teufort and work for her, make tons of money, or be exposed as the thief who stole thousands from other companies and go to jail.

Sage chose the first option and became another mercenary. Their ultimate goal is to eventually take down the Administrator, but for the moment, seeing a bunch of grown men fight each other is equally fun.

[plurality-is-international]

My poor attempt to introduce us

Hello! I’m the host of the system, my name is Avery. This is a simple (ish) introduction post so maybe things can make a fragment of sense.

So we are a DID Traumagenic/Neurogenic system dubbed the “International” system! We’re open to asks about us and our experiences with plurality. We are very endo-inclusive and mogai-inclusive <3 Here’s a shit list of everyone and what we know:

First, some about me. I’m Avery (again), I’m 19 and genderfluid. I have a partner who has OSDD and we���ve been together for two years now. I’m also autistic, and I love gaming and anime. <3

Frequent Fronters:

Jonus - Co-host, Internal Helper - He/him - 18 - Very sarcastic, witty dude. Very emo, loves his music. A little bit of a hothead but that’s okay, he just loves his family. Biromantic Homosexual, questioning/experimenting poly, Toni is one of his partners, as well as someone in our partner system

Toni - Protector, s*xual alter - She/her - 18 - Silly, also a bit hot-headed. Identifies as demigirl. Loves music as well, and usually the one to welcome the new alters when we split. Polyamorous bisexual, Jonus and Mika are two of her partners (and two in our partner system). She’s also POC (one of the three in the system).

Mika - Caretaker, Trauma Holder, Nonhuman - Ve/vir - 20 - The second of us that we know of so far, things have been discovered and we don’t know what else there is hiding in our plain knowledge. Vir very quiet and tend to take care of things “behind the scenes”. Polyamorous pansexual, Toni and three others in our partner system are vir partners. Ve are also a demon.

Hoshiko - Fictive (Danganronpa OC source) - She/her - 16 - Very shy, but helpful. Tries her best to appease everyone. She’s very sweet and tries to doll the body up when I feel feminine. Bisexual.

Emily - Little, Internal Helper, Nonhuman - She/her - 6 - Emily is a very, very silly little girl, and very pure. She is slowly starting to learn the gender spectrum and pronouns with the help of Mika. She’s very wild and loves to draw, and loves to cuddle with our stuffies. She’s an elf.

Liam - Nonhuman - He/him - 13 - The only other one in our system with autism symptoms. He’s very quiet and hyperfixates specifically on Pokemon. We collect games because of him. Doesn’t seem to show any interest in dating or romance yet, but we haven’t talked to him about that yet. He’s a literal angel <3

Newest Alters

D’vonte - ??? - He/him - 20 - Toni’s older brother we recently found in headspace. We don’t know too much about him yet

Gadiel - Little - He/him - 7 - An alter who split off about two months ago. All we’ve really observed about him so far is he gets along very well with the rest of the system and loves to talk to other littles. He also seems to really like gaming.

Sage - ??? - She/her, they/them - ??? - An alter who split off earlier this week. We don’t know too much except she has memories not belonging to the body, and is transgender. We think she split off due to the stress of the c*r*n*virus

Silas - ??? - He/him - 17 - Very quiet, secluded alter who doesn’t like to front for long periods of time. Seems very confused about everything around him still, despite being here for a few months now.

Stella - Nonhuman - She/her, possibly Kit/Kitter/Kitself - 19 - Seems to be “scene” (Jonus often claims she’s “stuck in 2006″). Loves music and loves getting to know everyone. Just fronted for a long period the first time yesterday. Half-cat (neko girl?), and lesbian

Other Alters

Denver - ??? - He/him - 21 - Very, very shy; has only fronted maybe once or twice on his own, then would go back into hiding. We don’t know anything except he is Lisa’s twin brother

Lisa - Protector - She/her - 21 - Not shy, but really only fronts when Denver is comfortable. She’s sort of a “backup” protector if Toni can’t handle a situation on her own. Also don’t know much about her.

Kenna - ??? - She/her - 15 - Gothic, and very quiet. Only fronts if things are quiet and secluded here. She likes to read, and seems to be the only one who can wrangle Ocelia to calm down.

Ocelia - Persecutor, Nonhuman, Trauma Holder - She/her - 25 - Only fronts for short bursts. Doesn’t seem to want closure for her trauma (different than the other two trauma holders’ trauma), but seems very upset still. We’re still trying to help her, we have hope in her. Very loud, brash, doesn’t like anyone. Demon (about the typical “story” demon: red beady eyes, claws, etc), and biromantic asexual (but doesn’t seem interested as of now)

Margie - Little - She/her - 11 - Mute and doesn’t like to write as she finds it difficult, so likes to speak in emojis and pictures. Emily is trying her damnedest to help her. Very shy and timid, unlike the other two littles. Don’t know much about her as she doesn’t front often.

Titus - ??? - He/him - 16 - Transmale and super chill. Tends to front in short bursts (comes for about a week then disappears for a month, rinse and repeat). Good friends with Toni and Jonus.

Marigold - Trauma Holder - 14 - Skittish and very shy. She was the first of us to form and took most of the ab*se, and it’s caused her a serious fear of men. Because of that, she doesn’t front much. She claims to hallucinate sometimes while fronting, but we think it’s more very severe PTSD than anything else.

[subtletyislost]

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1. Tell us about your WIP!Currently I’m working on a lesbian romance novel about two girls in college,one is a double majoring in business and english education, the other doublemajors in computer science and astrophysics (the college she goes to doesn’t do“rocket science” or aeronautical engineering, so this is probably as close asshe’s going to get for programing rockets and theoretical space flightpaths/devices). The other major part of the story is that the MC (the rocketscientist) is searching for her missing brother at the same time.

3. What is your favorite/least favorite part aboutwriting?My favorite part about writing is that moment hen someone tells me eitherthat they like my writing or gives me some kind of critique/encouragement (yes,I actually like receiving constructive criticism). My least favorite part aboutwriting is trying find people to give that critique/trying to stay focusedenough to actually finish a story.

5. Top five formative books?I don’t know what this means but the books I read as a child that made mewant to write were: 1. The Magic Treehouse Series 2. Molly Moon’s IncredibleBook of Hypnotism 3. Bloody Jack 4. The Tale-Tell Heart (and other Edgar AllenPoe things) 5. The Little Princebooks that shaped my writing style/preferences though were 1. Molly Moon’sIncredible Book of Hypnotism 2. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witchof the West 3. Welcome to Night Vale: The Novel 4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide tothe Galaxy 5. Martin the Warrior

6. Favorite character you’ve written?Fandom: Sera, Leliana, Josephine, Cole (Dragon Age), Jack, Liara, Peebee (MassEffect), Pharah (overwatch), Raven (Teen Titans), Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)Original: Cassandra Tesla (the MC of the wip from question 1), Scion, Xia,Sage, Ruka, and Nvros

8. Do you have anywriting buddies or critique partners? yes! @wardenpharah @snowstorm-thirteen @uswhovianswillholdasiton and acouple others who I mostly talk to on discord

9. Favorite/leastfavorite tropes? Favorite: I don’t know trope names, but there’s trope that I didn’t know was atrope until I came across it in a few fics and a podcast where basicallysomeone is separated from their spouse and when they meet back up with themthey’re like “I missed you so much! Btw I kind of accidentally adopted thiskid/[wayward character]”; that trope “remove your weapons” *pulls a ridiculousamount of weapons out of nowhere* “ALL of them” *reluctantly hands over one ortwo more*; “will this work?” “I have no idea” *thing explodes* “was it supposedto do that?” “I don’t know but it was awesome!”Least favorite: that trope where they destroy the MCs hometown/house/familyjust so the MC has nothing tying them back to where they began and then proceedto do absolutely nothing with that plotwise and it affects nothing but gettingthe MC to actually leave their town

10. Pick an author(or writing friend) to co-write a book with@snowstorm-thirteen or @wardenpharah or one of my new friends from discordwhose tumblr I’ve forgotten

12. Which story ofyours do you like best? why? Original Works: either Light in the Dark or The Forgotten Realm of Dreams orThe Invisibles, because they’re all really really gay and really really nerdyFanfic: Is This Home Yet is without a doubt my best work ever. I’m consideringrewriting it as a novel. Wouldn’t be hard because the only thing making it afanfic and not an original work is that I used the two mcs to basically justget more attention.

13. Describe yourwriting processIt tends to be: sit down, open a notebook/grab paper/open scrivener/word/googledocs, stare at the page, start writing, erase things, write different things,listen to music, check tumblr, write more, somehow things get done or they don’tget done.

15. How do you dealwith self-doubt when writing? look at paper, say “I hate this”, cry, complain to anyone who will listen,stop writing for however long that takes, go back to writing, say “this is bad”,complain more, talk shit out, then it branches: if feel better, keep writing! Ifnot, stop writing and play video games then come back to writing two or threedays later!

16. Cover love/dreamcovers? I love me some good book covers, but professional ones are expensive orrequire talent that I do not have. Light in the Dark would be good with eithera mysterious cover, cover with a bunch of letters and envelopes, a soft gaycover with two girls that fit Cass and Ruka’s descriptions, or a cover that’s likethe soft gay cover but with space and video games/a computer incorporated intoit.

17. What things(scenes/topics/character types) are you most comfortable writing? scenes: anything not smut or fightingtopics: I’m comfortable writing about anything except incest/ddlg|mmlb/anythingthat falls in the realm of ‘not my thing to talk about’ (ie. I will write transcharacters, but not specifically about trans issues—nonbinary/agender issuesthough I will; I’ll write mlm characters but not specifically about theirissues; I’ll write poc or religious characters but I won’t write specificallyabout the issues that they face-without a lot of research and talking to peopleand such—because it’s just not my place. To explain a bit, I mean that I’llwrite characters that are not like me, and will do research to make sure I don’taccidentally do that in an offensive manner, but I won’t tell their stories forthem because I am not them. I hope this makes sense.)character types: women or nonbinary individuals, rebels, nerds, autistics,abuse victims/survivors, lesbians, ace people, the secretly nerdy femme, thesecretly nerdy butch, the secretly nerdy anyone,the tough girl who likes soft things, the soft girl who will kick your ass, thereptile person (person who likes reptiles), pirate, scientist, explorer, ectthere’s a lot of character types I love to write

25. What’s yourworldbuilding process like? this deserves its own post

21. What aspect ofyour writing are you most proud of? characterization

22. Tell us about thebooks on your “to write” listmost of them are in some way all part of the same series, but not necessarilyconnected, and not necessarily linearly or direct successors. Some/most can be stand-alonethat just happen to take place in the same universe as the others

27. Every writer’sleast favorite question - where does your inspiration come from? Do you docertain things to make yourself more inspired? Is it easy for you to come upwith story ideas?Dreams. Most if not all my story inspiration and ideas come from dreams, therest come from songs or random thoughts that just get stuck in my head. To getmore inspired I play games, bounce ideas off my friends, listen to music, orsleep. It’s fairly easy for me to come up with ideas, almost as easy as comingup with characters *shoves my like 300 ocs into the closet*

28. How do you stayfocused on your own work and how do you deal with comparison?I don’t focus, that’s the problem that’s why there’s so much unfinished shit onmy ao3. Tbh I’m usually the one doing the comparing and I deal with it bylearning from the work I’m comparing mine to and improving.

30. Do you like toread books similar to your project while you’re drafting or do you stick tonon-fiction/un-similar works?I don’t read. I can’t focus long enough to read. Instead I play video games inthe same genre or daydream or occasionally relisten to the Welcome To NightVale novel audiobook. I’m starting to branch out and try to find otheraudiobooks to listen to, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a pretty goodone on Audio.

33. What’s yourrevision/rewriting process like?draft one on one side of the screen, draft two on the other side of thescreen and literally rewriting draft one in draft 2. Sometimes I’ll rewrite onthe same document using markups like strikethrough instead of deleting thingsand other colors for the new additions, also lots and lots of sleeping andcrying, and soda (I don’t drink coffee).

34. Unpopular writingthoughts/opinions? Ernest Hemmingway sucks. He’s a terrible writer and you should not aspire towrite like him nor should you look up to him. Said is a perfectly valid word.The Oxford Comma is required not optional. Adverbs are not bad, use them if youwant. First person is a valid form to write in. Parenthetical asides (likethis) are just as valid as hyphenated asides—like this—and should be used if itfits the story/narration style. If your pov character doesn’t understand theforeign language the other character is speaking, putting the words in theother language in the text with a footnote translation is just as valid as “hesaid something in [language] but MC didn’t understand it.” Stalking is notromantic. Unhappy endings do not belong in the romance genre. Your charactercan be gay without complaining about it or it making their life hard. You canhave more than one minority character! You characters never going to thebathroom is unrealistic. Mosquitoes are a thing and if your character isoutside in the summer they had better damn well be protecting themselvesagainst them or slapping at at least one. A romance story with a character whowon’t take no for an answer, who isn’tthe antagonist/big (or little) bad, is not romantic. A romance story where thecharacters kiss or have sex when one of them clearly doesn’t want to, is notromantic. BOTH characters in your romance story need to change by the end ofthe story, that’s just good characterization. You can have polyamorouscharacters, but we are not a kink/fetish, if you don’t actually support actualpolyamorous people in real life don’t write about us in your fiction it’sdisrespectful and you’re probably going to do it wrong. Cheating is notromantic. Asexuals exist, Aromantics exist, Bisexuals exist. Romance doesn’tneed sex. … I’ll stop now, I have a lot of things I could say here.

35. Post the lastsentence you wroteShe blinked them back, willing herself not to cry.

36. Post a snippetCassandra had never been one for plans, if she had she might have actuallytalked with her roommate before move-inday. Even so, despite not planning things much, she did have goals. Her goal onmove-in day was simple: move in, preferably alone. She’d been under theimpression that she was the first one to arrive and that her roommate wouldn’tbe coming until later in the day. So, it was a shock to her when she arrived ather dorm room and found it was already open. She tapped her foot against the doorto get the attention of whoever was inside the room. She couldn’t quite see whomight be in there through the boxes that she was carrying.

“I hope you don’t mind,” a soft voice from inside the roomsaid, “it’s just that it was easier to leave the door open than to have to keepunlocking it.”

Cassandra tilted her head as she walked into the room,lowering the boxes just enough to see over them as she did so. “It’s notrouble,” she replied. “Who are you?”

The girl she was addressing, that she assumed was herroommate, was probably the most delicate looking girl she’d ever seen—wearing alight blue sundress with a ribbon around her waist and matching Mary Janes. Inher mind, the girl gave the impression of the enchanted rose from Beauty and the Beast; almost more likean idea than a person. She had long dark blonde—or was it light brown—hair withfaint, but still visible, red and dark brown streaks running through it, asthough it contained a fire within its French braid. Her smile was soft, barelyeven visible, and she looked like she might have played a sport in highschool—probably archery or fencing. Her brown eyes sparkled in the light fromthe window, like a stone of topaz against a blanket of snow. Never in her life,had Cassandra ever seen a girl that made her wonder if she was staring, but shehad now.

37. Do you ever writelong handed or do you prefer to type everything?100% depends on the story, and the day, and whether or not my eyes hurt.Sometimes ideas flow better on paper, sometimes typed, sometimes they flowbetter when I talk them out those days are bad for writing but good for gettingideas.

42. How many draftsdo you usually write before you feel satisfied? 100% depends on if it’s original work or fanfiction. Original works I’m usuallynot satisfied even after 6, 7, or even 10 drafts. Fanfiction, sometimes I justpost up the first draft without caring, sometimes I’m more satisfied with a seconddraft. It usually doesn’t go beyond that.

48. Do you prefer towrite skimpy drafts and flesh them out later, or write too much and cut itback?I just write. Usually my second draft is longer and more detailed than thefirst, and by the 5th or 6th everything has changedbecause of added or removed details.

51. Are you asecretive writer or do you talk with your friends about your books?I don’t shut up about my writing, not with my friends.

52. Who do you writefor? Myself., or anyone who pays me.

54. Favorite firstline/opening you’ve written? Absolutely nothing could go wrong, she thought just exactly as everythingwent wrong.

50. Do you share yourrough drafts or do you wait until everything is all polished?I share them, if I waited until they were polished no one would ever get toread them

55. How do you manageyour time/make time for writing? (do you set aside time to write every day ordo you only write when you have a lot of free time?) I have no job and no life. 0/10 do not recommend my method of having writingtime