#wildly different experience which i should have expected

[do-rey-me]

man ive missed hockey

[absolutely-esme]

What do you mean he's not eldritch?

What if all of the members of the Bat Family other than Tim Drake were secretly eldritch abominations?

They all work very hard at pretending to be human, and they've even gotten pretty good at passing. They can even mostly avoid the uncanny valley when in their civilian identities. There was a heck of a learning curve, but they've gotten things figured out for the most part.

Enter: Tim Drake

Weird, poorly socialized, probably autistic Tim Drake

The Bats think they've encountered a fellow eldritch being in disguise, and one that seems like he could use some help blending in. Naturally, they're quick to welcome him into their fold. Jason is delighted to take his turn at being a big brother mentor.

It takes a comedically long time for anyone to realize something's up because there is an absurd amount of overlap between stuff you need to know for masking and stuff you need to know to pass as human.

Meanwhile, Tim is amazed that the Bats have apparently decided he's cool enough to hang out with. It's like something out of his daydreams. They even have good advice for him on problems he hadn't known how to ask about. They are so patient and understanding about it, too. They never get annoyed with him for not already knowing. They also seem to be okay with the bits of weirdness he can't change.

Just weird kid Tim getting bundled into an incredibly helpful and supportive found family of eldritch entities. They're all going to get a good grade in human-ing, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve.

...

I imagine the Bats are various different kinds of eldritch abominations because they're still adopted. They look wildly different when not in human form.

Bruce is a mass of... shadows? Smoke? Something dark and formless that shifts and flows in different ways depending on his mood.

Dick kind of looks like a pile of owls that is also somehow a single body.

Barbara is a spiral galaxy with stars that are also eyes somehow?

Jason is a solid-looking mass of muscle with six strong legs, a thick coat of shaggy hair, a mouth that opens much further along his body than it seems like it should, and even more teeth than you'd expect a mouth that size to have.

Stephanie Brown is kind of like an incredibly dense storm system with purple glitter.

Cassandra is a silhouette through which undiscovered nebulae can be seen. What she is a silhouette of depends on her mood.

Tim, they have only ever seen in his meticulously well-crafted human form. He's really good at that part even if he needed some help with the behavioral bits.

Damian is half human. Talia saw a mass of living darkness trying really hard to pretend to be a man and decided she was into that.

...

Dick: So, eye contact is actually pretty simple once you have the formula figured out. You need to cycle between looking at the other person and looking at something else at the appropriate frequency. If you look at them too much it will come across as staring. If you look away for too long they'll think you're not paying attention to them. You'll need to experiment to figure out the appropriate frequency.

Tim: *frets*

Jason: You don't have to look straight at their eyes, just in the general direction of their face.

Tim: Oh! I can do that!

...

I think Eldritch Bruce having history with the league of assassins in a markedly less inentional way than Canon would be funny. Like, you'd think an encounter between an eldritch abomination and a cult would be deliberate on someone's part, but no.

Bruce was still young and unskilled at differentiating between normal and abnormal human behavior.

[malevolententity]

oh! hey didnt know this was recent twt discourse im just like this 24/7 and decided to make it everyone elses problem again LMAOO

i thought about name dropping d20 and critrole and labynight because while i love them all dearly. they were in mind as some of the biggest podcasts in this space that actively do this. and fun fact! the example i gave about watch X hours of AP and ur smarter than someone who reads the books. is in fact a brennan lee mulligan quote from i believe an episode of adventuring academy with matt mercer or another interview they did that pissed me off when i first heard it a few years ago. but because i couldnt find the source immediately i didnt wanna full send attach it to him in first post unless i could attach a source fsdolhfs

like even jrwi which still feels p home gamey a lot of the time. i would Never rec someone listen to any of the dnd campaigns to learn dnd or pd to learn mutants and masterminds. or bitb for call of cthulhu or suckening for vtm dear god suckening is so bad for learning actual vtm. i started writing my meta essays Because suckening is so bad at explaining mechanics and people were curious how stuff actually worked!

like its def not an Every AP Sets Out To Do/Cause This. but i think the people who are Attracted to having ap shows be their first/main exposure to ttrpgs typically end up with the same expectations on how a game should go that just. does not mesh with the average ordinary experience. because every show even the small ones are extraordinary by virtue of having an audience at all that they are performing for

would u all understand what i mean when i say that i love actual plays theyre some of my favorite things to listen too but i think they are bad for the ttrpg community who actually Play Games as a whole? or like are u gonna hit me with rocks for this opinion?

[aziraphales-library]

Hi there!!! I was wondering if you happened to have any fics where Crowley calls Aziraphale ‘sweetheart’? Any other pet names are amazing (including angel of course) but I’m just very in love with the idea of Crowley calling Aziraphale sweetheart

Thank you so much for all you hard work!! This blog is a lifesaver <3

Hello! We have a #pet names tag you might enjoy, but here are some fics in which Crowley calls Aziraphale sweetheart...

Four times Crowley called Aziraphale "sweetheart" without noticing (and One time he did) by TheLadyZephyr (NR)

"Sweetheart" (1290) - A person who is very dear to another; one who is loved. From sweet (adj.) + heart (n.) Over the years, Crowley has called Aziraphale "sweetheart" on at least four different occasions. He just hasn't actually noticed himself saying it.

In love, I am, with everything you do by 2ambiace (G)

Following the phone call with Crowley during lockdown, Aziraphale contemplates the letter he wrote and whether he should've taken Crowley up on his offer to 'slither over' and watch him eat cake. Aziraphale finds the courage in his love for Crowley to invite the demon over and cake and love confessions and kisses are shared.

Let Our Epilogue Be Soft And Sweet by Tenoko1 (T)

Crowley hit his palm against the steering wheel. “Of course I’d get upset, angel! Those bastards have tried to kill you twice, Aziraphale! Twice! I spend every damn day worried they might try again! Now-- Now-- your conveniently found and rescued angel is on the loose,” the road forked, and they veered off to a smaller country road, flying past a sign Aziraphale didn’t need to see to recognize, though Crowley gestured wildly to it, “in a god-forsaken national park? Well outside of London where no one can hear you scream? This mystery angel that just so happens to be leaking grace and emoting a distress signal so loud you can still sense it?” Crowley dragged a hand down his face. “Angel, sweetheart. Wake up and smell the trap.”

Waking Up Married by Caedmon (E)

"So you’re telling me that my options are either to convince this man I just met and drunkenly married to stay married to me for six months or lose two thirds of a billion pounds?” “That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Fergus said. “Fucking shit,” Crowley spat. He hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment before rubbing his eyes with his fists. Now his job would be twice as hard. He needed to talk Aziraphale into staying married for six months. Should he try begging or bribing? This was a huge ask, and Aziraphale would be well within his rights to tell Crowley to fuck off. But Crowley was prepared to offer him pretty much anything, up to half of the trust, if that’s what it took. He didn’t care. But that was only part of his concern. Even if he got insanely lucky and Aziraphale agreed to stay legally married to him for the next six months, how the hell was he going to talk Aziraphale into dating him during that time? And was it foolish to even try? One thing at a time, he decided. First, he needed to convince Aziraphale to stay legally married to him. Then he could set about wooing his husband. He hoped.

flightless by viperinz (T)

Crowley finds Aziraphale injured and without his wings long after he stops the Second Coming all on his own. He just didn't expect their reunion to be so morose, and so final.

Sugar And Spice by ladydragona, SylWritesStuff (E)

Queer technology giant Anthony J. Crowley is just about ready to throw in the towel after relationship after relationship has failed, but there's a new barista at the company coffee shop and he's cute and sweet and Crowley's never been able to resist blond hair and blue eyes. The tabloids will have a field day, they always do, but his assistant is getting married and a temp is needed. A temp who really isn't very good at making complicated coffees, has past experience in reception, and absolutely no idea that the latest complicated coffee order came from the owner himself. Aziraphale only knows that he's handsome, patient, and was the first person who told him he was doing well. How could he refuse the temp position? Or, he soon discovers, more.

- Mod D

[genderkoolaid]

is it weird to feel like i was still treated/classed as a faggot before even knowing i was a boy (i'm transmasc)? i was never called a dyke or derisively called a lesbian or any of that. but i was a tomboy, always was. and i was always heavily derided for crying or "being a crybaby," derided by boy and tomboy friends if i ever liked any Girly Things with comments like "that's so gay (derogatory)", and being masculine but still interested in boys was regarded as this weird and disgusting thing. it's like being a tomboy and, for at least for a part of my life that being accepted, i had this expectation of masculinity placed on me that led to me being castigated by my peers for stepping outside it.

there were still expectations placed on me for "being a girl" and i was punished for not doing that correctly and i experienced heaps of misogyny, but there are so many instances in my life where i was specifically punished for being a tomboy who wasn't masculine in the right way but instead in a gay way. i never felt targeted by anti-lesbian sentiment but always felt very heavily targeted by anti-gay man sentiment. but despite desiring my whole life to be a boy i didn't truly know and accept that i was one until i was 18 and didn't start living as a man until i was 20

idk man my experience with gender growing up was always so weird and confusing and people's assumptions about what i Must Have Experienced based on agab and identity are always incorrect and it's just so incredibly alienating.

I've heard things very similar to this from a lot of trans(+) people. I myself have been out since I was very young and spent the majority of my life openly (gender)queer which definitely shaped how I experienced gender socialization.

This is the problem with using socialization as a Gender Binary 2: Its Inclusive Now! While there are broad trends, people can have such wildly different relationships with gender. Some trans people have always felt targeted based on their assigned sex, some people have always felt targeted based on their gender identity, some people have felt both.

The thing about the patriarchy is that it's a liar and you should never trust anything it says. The patriarchy claims to be a strict gendersex binary for control purposes, but it also must grapple with the existence of queers (gays, trannys, intersex folks) whose existence proves that what it claims to be natural is constructed. Because the ways in which misogyny and transphobia actually function are not tied down by any logic other than "stay in control." Demonizing queer&trans+ people for being "monstrous" for blurring the boundaries between (cishet) men and (cishet) women is like, alongside misogyny, a core part of how gender oppression works. Whenever people expect us to have the exact same experiences as cis people, whether based on gender identity or agab or socialization, they are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

[genlossranboothrowaway]

what you said about philza’s privilege in terms of the qsmp experience (and just in general) is a great point tbh. i believe that HE believes in what he’s saying taking into account that he has access to different information than we do (not necessarily MORE, just different — dudes not on twitter for example so may not have seen testimonies from ex admins, but has info from people still involved in the server that we are not privy to etc). ultimately he’s only intending to talk to his community and reiterates that he’s not a spokesperson for the project, just another guy playing on his friends server taking what’s been told to him in good faith, so his truth is his truth but not necessarily the objective truth etc.

one thing I’ll say about the ‘no rp actors’ thing is that probably that’s referring to those specifically hired to do full time rp. my thought is that some admins still on the project that have been doing rp (the ‘5 active’ ones) are doing it for fun in the downtime from their main tasks. this seems pretty indicative when you only really see them doing this with bbh, because if it was actually their ‘job’ they would be available for the other creators still playing too. (i saw a bbh fan comment that ‘these admins suck at improv’ which, yeah. not their primary job probably lol). the only admin I’ve seen hang out with several creators is ‘ollie’ who we now know is ricardão, and that speaks for itself really given how many hours he’s clocked on the server just for fun outside of his ‘work’ obligations. so it’s like, should the new team specifically be telling the admins not to rp on the server if this is the case, to strictly stick to their tasks, or is it better to allow them autonomy over their time regardless of the arrangement? idk. in the end i’m reserving most of my judgement for if/when they release a statement on what changes have been made after (/if) this ‘restructuring’ gets done.

Hi anon, thx for the ask.

Even if they are not rp admins specifically I personally don't think they should be playing on the server at all right now unless they are getting paid for it. Letting the admins do volunteer work like that sets a dangerous precedent moving forward for all admins workers. The studio will be more inclined to hire (or keep employed) people who will do extra just because they want to, without pay, and it will end up the same way it is now: people being underpaid and expected to do much more than they are reasonably able to.

It's easier to picture when you imagine that it's something more boring. There's a guy at this restaurant that hasn't been paying their staff for overtime but he keeps pulling overtime anyway because he loves cleaning dishes so so so much. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but he still shouldn't be encouraged to do so until the restaurant gets their shit figured out.

"Autonomy over their time" would make more sense if they were being paid hourly wages or a fixed salary, neither of which we've seen evidence for. As far as I'm aware all employees who have come forward were paid in unrecorded one-time payments or as contractors for a fixed project/piece/job.

Quackity Studios is going to have to figure out how to pay workers who are often working overtime hours, whose hours are not fixed and fluctuate wildly and unpredictably, and who are living in many different economic climates, which is a task I do not envy them at all.

They also (best case scenario) will have to figure out retrospectively how much they owe all of their unpaid and underpaid workers from the past year. I do not have much faith in this happening given the size and scope of this task and the fact that there is no way, at this moment, that the QSMP has made anywhere close to the amount of money that cost to run it. I personally think that QS is going to fight very hard to not have to pay any of their workers for work previously done, although I would love to be wrong.

Even considering just those two things, not to even mention the logistics of a structural and leadership overhaul that we've been told is taking place, it is irresponsible and honestly self sabotaging to continue to allow those admins to rack up rp time on the server.

The RP admins are not essential for continuing to run the server. If they are being paid that is money that could go towards backpay for the under/unpaid workers. If they are not being paid their activity on the server is only increasing the potential liability QS has in regards to their unpaid laborers.

[bugflies00]

I have been thinking about the same thing!! like au fics are so cool!

also its a controversial opinion, but I don't think ooc fics really exist because if you change how major parts of a character's background like how they grew up, they would act differently than their canon self because they don't have the same experiences anymore.

idk if this makes sense so sorry if its a bit all over the place

THIS IS TRUE even if i say this as someone who regularly partakes in haterisms about ooc but like. its moreso i think that "out of character" doesn't exist as a concept in a Vacuum that's applicable to fics universally and equally. the Type of fic wildly changes the expectations you can have for how similar to canon a character's personality will be!

like fics that deem themselves canon-compliant can be expected to follow pretty closely canon characterisation, but not AU fics... and even then it depends on the type of AU and how different that is to the original media! for dsmp "dick jokes in between death scenes", a modern AU will probably have a closer tone/characterisation than a medieval/high fantasy/royalty AU will. except if you're going for crack, which also bangs. and except if the modern AU has very specific social conditions that would also change the tone... see its full of contradictions it's so fucking interesting there Has to be some kind of studies on this...

and theres the question of How much of it is intentional, adapting the essence of a character to their newfound environment, and how much of it is unintentional; and if the latter happens bc we unconsciously apply stereotypes or patterns of thinking that can be harmful to characters that don't exhibit those stereotyped traits in the first place, That's when i think it can be source of criticism

BUT OBVIOUSLY yknow fanfic is for fun and i love fanfic authors and this should never be something used against fanfic authors who are often amateurs and putting out these banger stories for free, its just really interesting to analyse as a whole

cwilbur would still not call ctommy toms though

[coldresolve]

hi, anon who asked about your writing process here 👋

i have returned from the trenches (university tests) to ask some specific(ish) questions.

1. how do you choreograph fights? they're quite easy to follow along, exciting/unique, and still maintain a sense of realism, all of which i tend to struggle with.

2. how do you write renee's internal monologue, especially when it comes to his little panicked moments and varying pacing?

3. how do you build and release tension so effectively in the story itself? obsessed with the "Renee stops running" part

4. how do you switch perspectives fluidly?

ik it's a lot of questions, but this is the condensed version so i count it as a win (?)

my favourite way to procrastinate recently has been annotating mm and i just. need to understand how your writing brain works a little. thanks :)

obligatory 'writing is subjective so take what you find useful and discard the stuff doesnt apply to you' and 'im not an expert in anything, this is just the shit i try to keep in mind' and 'i may sound disjointed as hell cause its 4am 5am and i cant sleep' etc

under a cut for mercy reasons

writing fight scenes

things you need to set up for your readers: character drives and aim with the fight itself, the stakes of losing, and how it all ties in with your wider story

things for you to keep in mind: how much fighting experience your character have, how your character's state of mind affects their behavior, their relationship to violence and/or how far they're willing to go

subverting expectations will keep people on their toes. this can be as simple as changing the stakes of the fight midway through, or having a character do something that isn't typical for them (which you should set up before so it doesnt feel too out of place)

make each (or most) impact/s mean something. getting kicked in the side of the mid-thigh will make a character limp for a bit; a hard enough hit to the liver will make anyone crumple; etc. dont make your characters, no matter how badass theyre supposed to be, immune to this, since that would erase the stakes entirely

fights are usually chaotic and short-lived. depends on what genre you're writing, though

give your characters (short) moments to react to what their opponent is doing/trying to do. dialogue is cool, but keep it sparse. people generally don't prioritize clever quips when theyre beating the shit out of each other. sometimes a simple "motherfucker" is enough

im bad at this one but characters using their environment during fights is fucken nice and helps with immersion

fights are more or less just a string of reaction-action over and over, and it can get sort of repetitive going back and forth to describe every punch, since it removes your reader's ability to imagine or read between the lines. meanwhile, if you never go deeper than 'they exchanged blows', you lose all sense of atmosphere - it's not supposed to feel like a detached news report, you want your readers to be there. so writing fight scenes is basically a balancing act in detail - how much to show, how much to suggest. whats the right answer? there is none, sorry. no two authors will have the same approach, but both can pump out riveting shit with wildly different approaches. its something you learn over time. im personally in the lots-of-detail camp

people will tell you that sentence length matters, but thats bullshit imo, it's just about using flow effectively. a good example of what i mean: short sentences make the pace seem quicker, but run-on sentences in particular have this neat thing where they can make your readers almost out of breath by the end of it, which is also pretty useful when you're writing something high-tension.

there's tons more shit than this but my brain is a puddle of goo, so

renee's internal monologue

ayyy! internal monologue is your opportunity to shovel around the grey matter of your characters, its the Good Stuff imo. in the case of mm, the plot is largely driven by character development, so its been hella important to me to express why each character (except davin) does what they do, what thought process lead them to change their minds, and in renee's case - the flaws in his reasoning, the lies he tells himself, and how he reacts when those things no longer help him cope with what he's done

pacing is sth im insanely mindful of but unable to effectively put into words lmfao. if you mean renee's entire internal arc, it follows the narrative tension in the story; renee is the protagonist, he's the one driving the plot forward. as for pacing out any internal monologue itself, i try to have it follow somewhat of a 3 beat structure with setup/elaboration/conclusion (most of what i write happens in 3s), but some monologues have veered off if i felt like it was called for (it's a vibes thing). flow is important: one thought has to lead to the next, and it has to reach a "logical" conclusion (whatever the character decides is logical at that point of their arc). it has to be relevant to the plot obv, and the atmosphere also has to compliment the scene/chapter it exists in. otherwise, yeah, like. theres not much of a difference between pacing a normal scene and pacing an internal monologue

building and releasing tension

idk if you saw it but i made a whole post squeezing mm into a model for narrative tension here

so ok, listen. this is all wishy washy and means nothing, except it means everything. its the entire structure of your story which is pretty important, but like also its just a vibe thing. the reason you've heard about setup/payoff in writing advice circles is because of the build and release of tension. it's a pacing thing. if you set something up without having a payoff down the line, unless you're writing a mystery and your setup is a red herring, your readers are gonna come away disappointed. it's about what rhythm you've established and how an average person might expect it to continue. we're making music here. if you payoff something (payoff is a verb now) without having set it up previously, you've essentially just smashed all the piano keys in the middle of claire de lune with no warning. and you can do that, but you have to know that that's what you're doing, otherwise its gonna sound like you smashed all the keys solely to keep your audience on edge, even though it adds nothing to the song itself. this is all pacing. everything is pacing, including tension

building and releasing tension is about making music. you typically start out low and then you gradually turn it up. and you might have a moment where it gets a little low again but now the audience knows its been up there before so there's more intrigue, you've set an expectation. and then you build it and you take it a little further than the last time. you add harmonics maybe, if harmonics are your thing. you keep teasing the climax. that sounds like sex and to be fair music is kinda like sex. so is narrative tension. you add a funky little kazoo in there an the crowd definitely did not expect that, but if you've got a vision, you might just pull it off. it's about atmosphere. you're not just setting up for the grand finale, you're setting up a hundred tiny peaks along the way, meeting each as you go. it's like you're walking toward the harvest while hauling the plow behind you. (that made no sense. kinda like sex.*) (*= i'm ace). and then eventually, bam, cymbals and headbanging and shit. if you've done your due diligence in the gradual buildup, that release feels earned

switching perspective

i may be stupid and/or just kinda tired but i dont understand this question rn lmfao. ig i just treat it like i would going from any one scene to another

in conclusion

thank u for the questions. apologies for making it weird. in my defense, it is very difficult to explain pacing, and also its 5am now

[least-carpet]

Pursued by lesser ghosts 😭😭😭😭 are they gonna figure it out. Let JC in there

Hello, anon! Perhaps I will also link Pursued by Lesser Ghosts for context, since it took me so long to answer this ask. (You do need an AO3 account to read it.) It's wangxian with left zhanchengxian. Left in the sense that both chengxian and zhancheng had previously occurred, and they have left Jiang Cheng behind! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

In my heart, they figure it out, but I’m never going to write that because they are all in WILDLY different places and that would take... so long. This is partly what makes it interesting to rotate to me, because I think it’s a situation where the way any of the people involved would describe the facts in a relatively similar and nonchalant way, but their intellectual frameworks for the facts and emotional experience of the facts are so wildly disconnected that getting all three on the same page would be, uh, challenging. Rough character notes below.

Wei Wuxian:

Feels like JC should be mad at him, since he projects guilt about JYL already on to JC. additionally hates JFM’s treatment of JC but in total denial about both what the treatment means and how he feels about it. LWJ’s rejection and replacement of JC with WWX is going to trigger all of that BECAUSE it brings WWX's past understanding of JC into conflict with his current understanding of JC.

In the past, WWX’s JC feelings were positive; therefore any negative treatment by JFM had to be denied (and also Fixed by WWX).

WWX’s JC feelings are now negative, partly because of the projection and self-blame, and partly because of ongoing resentment about the core transfer (VERY traumatic plus the feeling like that degree of devotion and sacrifice was not reciprocated).

The emotional experience of REPLACING JC AGAIN is an experience that belongs to WWX’s childhood self, who loved JC and was extremely possessive and protective of him (the JZX beatdown was triggered finally by the insult about JC).

Also triggers memories of childhood > adulthood intimacies (some degree of sexual contact as teenagers that both of them “forgot about”).

WWX also terminally unable to leave shit alone, and now there’s a mystery about HIS HUSBAND and HIS SHIDI.

LWJ is just like “oh we had sex sometimes” but JC is a prude who doesn’t do that and only lets WWX touch him??? This is not a sufficient answer for WWX??? [meltdown]

CONFLICT CONFLICT CONFLICT KABOOM

Jiang Cheng:

I mean, Mr. Abandonment and Betrayal Issues got some feedback about what had happened, and that feedback was “it was duty, I never loved you like you loved me, let me go” (WWX) PLUS “now that the person who is better than you, who I really love, is here, I will replace you with him and never look back because you are Bad” (LWJ).

On one hand, closure! On the other hand, what if every childhood belief and fear about yourself all came true at once? Wouldn't that be fun? (I mean, the ones which had not already happened and left most of your family dead.)

Like he worked so hard to be good for love (root of childhood issues -> “if I am very good maybe dad will love me eventually and mom will finally be happy”) and this functions as proof that it has NEVER culminated in that love being returned.

I also don’t know how much he was aware of LWJ’s fixation on WWX before/during the time they were sleeping together. how blindsided he feels would change depending on that.

Also will blame himself for it (see childhood coping mechanisms… so abandonment by LWJ is “his fault” because he “should have expected it”).

He is. He is not doing so good. Genuinely bad to contemplate and I don’t know how you fix that, like, degree of damage.

He also Never Gives Up and JL is still alive so he’s not going to kill himself but like. it ain’t good.

Lan Wangji:

To me, this is the chewiest problem. Because he has these rigid categories of “good” and “bad” but is also missing a lot of information about what happened between JC and WWX (such as the fake fight/removal from the sect), he's made up his mind but it's based on incomplete information.

Also like, he's not particularly empathetic (so questions like “how would you feel if someone you unconditionally trusted accidentally killed your beloved sibling?” are ones he has perhaps never contemplated?)

IMO this intersects in a pretty ugly way with his canon sadism during the period he has a sexual relationship with JC. I would have to make some decisions about how bad that was, but I don’t think it’s good. I think JC goes along with it partly as a form of self-harm and partly because JC is under a lot of stress, touch-starved, and is genuinely pretty submissive in bed? But has no standards about it (healthy!) and doesn't know how to protect himself.

Initially this is fine to LWJ because it “doesn’t count” and “JC is bad” so LWJ doesn’t have to feel bad about how he treats JC.

But if it was a multi-year intermittent thing, I think that might change? Because I don’t think LWJ is actually that cruel, just inflexible and not great at people.

So they hook up semi-often and LWJ perceives JC worrying about JL, about YMJ, and to some degree about him (offers him salve for his scars, inquires semi-rudely about family, feeds him thoughtful vegetarian foods when around each other) and they get comfortable and sometimes they spend the night together and LWJ gets a lot less mean but not any better at talking…

But even as their behaviours change, LWJ’s mental model doesn’t, so when WWX returns, he just, like, ditches JC without any discussion whatsoever.

And he gets everything he thought he wanted!! And he’s happy about a lot of it but feels Weird in a way that he can’t articulate or explain.

So to get him to the throuple, his whole understanding of what they were doing with each other and what JC’s behaviour signified would have to change. On the other hand, he is now married to the nosiest and most determined man in the world and that man is going to ask him a LOT of questions.

He just has SO far to go. I think both WWX and JC at least understand that a loss happened, but LWJ hasn’t worked that out yet. He's feeling it, but hasn't been able to articulate it to himself because of how it conflicts with his beliefs.

So getting them all to kiss would be really hard work. I think they do, though!

[thefisherqueen]

She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of what occurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you are aware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there are few wives, having any regard for their husbands, who would let any man's spoken word stand between them and that husband's dead body. Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her. It was badly stage-managed; for even the rawest investigators must be struck by the absence of the usual feminine ululation.

Woman not having the emotional reaction which one would expect = evidence of guilt, according to Holmes. In reality, people of course do react in all manners, some of those wildly different to what one would expect, to a shocking event. If you are curious to learn more: I recently read this excellent article on counter-intuitive responses in victims of sexual violence. People are commonly judged, disbelieved, treated as suspicious for not showing the 'appropriate' response. It's actually a huge problem and stands in the way of true justice.

[lilbittymonster]

If your OC's relationship involves a gender or orientation different to your own then how confident did you feel about exploring or writing this? If your OC and the character(s) with whom they are in a relationship are the same as you in terms of gender/orientation then was this a conscious decision?

I simply do not see gender as an obstacle when writing a character. I have exited the gender binary entirely, so trying to divide everyone into "same" or "different" categories just...doesn't work lol. I don't think that gender should matter when trying to decide how to write a character. Gender is a descriptive facet of someone, like hair colour or height. I'm not going to look at a character and think "hmm, well they have brown hair but I don't, how the hell am I going to figure out how to write them?"

I find it far more useful to look at a character as a sum of their lived experiences and environments. And that's not to say that gender doesn't still play a role! Gendered expectations absolutely do still exist and absolutely do shape how people move through the world. But trying to separate into "same gender as me is like This" and "different gender than me is like That" gets a little too close to gender essentialism for my comfort.

A man from a Seeker family and a man from a Keeper family are not going to be raised the same. An elezen who was raised in Gridania is not going to have the same experiences as an elezen raised in La Noscea. Any five people of any five genders from the Azim Steppe are going to have wildly different lifestyles from each other. A woman raised in the Brume is going to have different expectations placed on her than a woman raised in the Pillars.

Kitali's mother is Dazkar. And the Dazkar people are matriarchal, with the women going out into the world as hunters and gatherers and traders while their husbands stay at home and do all the housework, hardly interacting with other people outside their own homes. Which is a pretty direct inversion to the Ishgardian patriarchal society, and doubly so in the upper nobility circles. And Aymeric makes a point to bring it up early on in their relationship that, as the sole heir to his house, he will be expected to marry and produce heirs, and that he doesn't want Kitali to feel trapped by that if she doesn't want that.

Kitali has no real concept of gender roles. She has her mother, who was raised to be the breadwinner, and her father who is Gesi. And We don't have a whole ton of Gesi specific lore beyond "good with spearhunting', but given how much of a point is made about how the Dazkar have the women as their hunters, I think it's a safe assumption that that is not always the case. So Kitali is raised by two people who have differing but not incompatible upbringings, and she's never told she must grow up to be like one or the other. She's not ignorant of it, since there's still gender roles present in Doma, but she's sort of shielded by it by way of being the daughter of two working mercenaries. So her whole life she's moving through the world kinda looking down her nose at any sort of gender based expectations bc she's seen firsthand that they are, in fact, utter horseshit.

And Kitali's utter refusal to submit to any sort of expectations puts her in the best place to break through all of Aymeric's own self-imposed rules for how he must move through the world. It's a fun exercise writing them together because Kitali has no idea how to navigate the delicate web of Ishgardian high society that he is expected to move through, and by extension her as his wife. And so a lot of the time she simply refuses to, and forces them meet her where she is instead.

As for the orientation bit of this question, I do actually have a more defined orientation and can definitively say "this is my sexuality" vs "they have a different sexuality than me". But largely, the above still applies, it's a descriptive facet of someone just as much as hair colour or height or favourite colour and I don't think just because a character is a certain sexuality that they need to behave all exactly one cookie cutter way. I find that boring and a little dismissive of the vast spectrum of sexuality and attraction. I don't tend to use microlabels for myself or identify with any specific subculture, I'm just capital q Queer and leave it at that.

This got extremely long winded and maybe a little away from the original question but it's just something that I think about often, and I still have a whole other TEDTalk on Ishgardian gender expectations and social castes saved up in case I get this question again for how it affects Estinien and Aymeric's relationship and how it plays around Kitali.

Thank you for the ask @mimble-sparklepudding

OC Relationship Building Asks

[verdemoun]

Truelly intrested in how Jack is doing in the timewrap, like his relationship with the gang, whats his favorite thing in this era. I know in this AU he past away just 3 years after abgail, but in some datas in the game and other theories said he lived enough to write a book; in my headcanons he should have had a friend who fought in WWI who also get very traumatised, and probably being part of one this early mafia gangs from the 1920s. When John argue with Jack about him becameing an outlaw he would just reply " at least i didn't had to go to the army and dying in a horrible way some random battlefield in a senseless war, or surviving and get traumatised for life" then Jack leave the room that got in silence, who heard that probably got curious about the war, hope they were intrested about knowing what heppended in this 100 years they were dead.

I know you said you got a lot of asks but I like to share this ❤

this ask has been haunting because i love jack so much. he is my boy like i just want him to be happy and get a chance to act his age and find fun and happiness. but boy his relationship with john in timewarp is so far away from good. accidentally wrote 1k words so below the cut

jack has almost no memories of the gang. he remembers being told they're not meant to discuss arthur because it upsets his father, and that if he sees 'uncle dutch' around he's meant to stay well away

it is a lot like meeting those long distance relatives who say 'wow i haven't seen you since you were 'this' tall!'

he gets along pretty well with most of them because a) he is a very polite young man and b) they're such a fun group to be around in modern era. damn straight at a cookout none of them care he is technically under modern era drinking age they see him as an adult and encourage him to be an adult in that rdr2 a quiet time style

he wishes arthur was his dad a little bit. he is constantly trying to inch his way into isaac and arthur's father son activities (which isaac encourages and arthur allows)

hosea getting to see how him teaching jack to read has become such a major part of his identity like jack is a nerdy little bookworm and how exciting they both find it when hosea ask about what jack's been reading and jack can talk to someone about books again

the silent assurance of getting to know lenny. lenny being an adult with a job and very settled into modern era with a life so far away from what he was in 1899 who died at the same age as jack. lenny is proof he can get used to modern era and settle and leave the mistakes and trauma of canon era behind in a healthy way

his favorite thing about modern era is without a doubt isaac morgan. having someone his own age who Gets It. even though they had wildly different experiences of timewarping and general lives, being the child of a VDL gang member is a very specific niche they both know too well

also just - time. not having a ranch or to hunt for food, with the gang still helping each other out so jack isn't expected to rush off and get a job all the hours that would have been spend doing ranch work jack can spend exploring his interests, reading, learning about modern era and getting into trouble with isaac but having the actual time of day required to be a kid (he is 19. he is a kid who never got to be a kid)

i think eventually they would have gotten into a screaming match. john getting sick of jack sulking in his room reading and glaring at him like it was his fault he became what he is vs jack seeing how john changed over 3 years to raise addie alone when he timewarped and how quickly abigail runs back into his arms as if john didn't leave them ruined and with nothing when he died. in timewarp au, abigail died at the end of summer 1914 and jack didn't make it to christmas of the same year.

starts with john asking what happened to jack's college fund. jack had already applied to college and gotten rejected very politely on financial grounds prior to 1911, but with the assurance he was extremely intelligent for a young man who lacked formal education.

jack began corresponding with the literature professor regularly (simply because he still craved that paternal bond and quickly came to love having someone he could actually discuss books with instead of just talking at). john began saving every cent he could to have the money tucked away to get jack into college because he always wanted his son to be happy and better than what they were.

jack laughed and said they had to use that money to survive. he wouldn't have gotten in anyway, and even if he did he couldn't leave abigail on her own.

john, maybe drunk or just too frustrated to hold back, snapped he was too smart to be that much of an idiot, he could have gone to college after abigail died and lived a normal life

jack finally losing it. what did john expect? he was going to survive the great war, and then world war ii a few decades later? forget the first 19 years of his life, survive two wars that ended or ruined millions and millions of lives, settle down with a nice wife and be old enough to watch the moon landing on a boxy black and white tv?

he only made it to 1914 and was still devastated by the war - because the literature professor, his one escape from what life was after john died, a canadian who volunteered to go fight because it was a noble cause, didn't even make it to the front line. the ship he was on sank. there wasn't a funeral or burial, just a letter that might as well have read 'any chance of salvation for you is gone'. jack learning that dying for a noble cause was just as stupid as dying for revenge, because once you're dead you're dead

jack admitting he was planning on dying anyway because what else was there the only thing killing edgar ross did was give jack the satisfaction of knowing at least one of them outlived the bastard

john not actually having the words to express he's been there and he knows what that's like, the survivor's guilt he felt over arthur's death and needing to kill micah and how sorry he is jack had to experience the exact same thing

jack still did have a book published and when he found out he was mortified. in writing to the professor over 3-4 years he'd started sending him drafts of a biographical novel heavily based on his childhood memories of the van der linde gangs and sneaking into john's room to read arthur's journal (which john held all those years). when the manuscript was found in the professor's desk, the university was impressed enough to have it published on a very small scale.

isaac morgan, who had a very bizarre morbid fascination with the idea of jack, the little cousin he never got to meet, who exists somewhere across time as simultaneously younger than him but has already reached 19 and killed edgar ross and been executed for it, stole a copy of it from the university's library when he was only 12 and has read it over a dozen times by the time jack timewarps.

jack is horrified because it was a draft and he started writing it at 15 imagine jumping 100 years into the future and finding out something you wrote unedited at 15 was not only published but considered a valuable and significant part of narrative history.

when jack is in a mood, isaac with read excerpts to him and jack will be so overtaken by cringe and trying to snatch the book off him he will forget whatever passing thought was making him depressed

[sommerregenjuniluft]

@wolfstarmicrofic august 21 — Ice Cream — 1.5k words — this one's for @appreciatedmoron because if bea wants wolfstar microfic bea gets wolfstar microfic<3

“Dad,” Teddy shrieks in his ear, starting to wildly trash in the fragile hold against Remus’ boney hip, “Dad, look! There’s the Ice Cream van!”

Remus sighs, internally cursing his choice of parking spot. He’s only just taken Teddy out of the car seat. 

He’d hoped to make the Gelato trip back from the beach, not the other way ‘round. But that’s the thing with kids, one mention is nearly a promise and Teddy is five which means he’s relentless on a good day and Remus more often than not doesn’t have the backbone nerve to argue.

“Blue, blue, blue, bl—” 

“Yes, yeah, Teds, goodness sake, we’re getting you,” Remus squints his eyes at what the small sign in the display says, “Blueberry Wizard.”

Teddy lets out an excited litany of giggles, trembling in Remus’ arms. He should definitely be more meticulous about his sugar intake again.

The pudgy, young woman behind the counter throws him an amused look that Remus feels himself flush at, “Um, and I’ll take a scoop of dark chocolate, please. Both in a cup.”

Remus is reaching for his wallet, looking back up only for him to experience some sort of whiplash at the flurry of pale skin and raven hair he hadn’t heard arriving.

His head pounding with the way his eyes are trying to take in everything at once. Long hair and broad shoulders under an obscenely low buttoned, thinly striped shirt. Remus counts red, yellow, blue, is pretty sure there’s a hint of white in the mix but is then distracted by the sinful display of chest. Fine dusting of dark hair and tattoos, fuck, and pecs that look like he’s either lifting weights or working with his hands and Remus is actually in serious danger of fainting right now.

What Remus, belatedly, realises—far too occupied mapping the stranger’s beauty marks on his face and the regal jut of his nose bridge—is that there’s an equally black haired but significantly more dark skinned boy crawling up the man’s length as well.

“Go on, Hazza,” the man nods his head at the array of different Gelato, voice rich and deeper than Remus had expected.

His toddler lets out a long breath, “But how do we know which ones are good?”

The way the gorgeous man’s lips twitch has Remus’ knees attempting to buckle, “Well, you could always ask for recommendations.”

The kid’s mouth forms an ‘o’, nodding importantly, and then proceeds to lean right around his adult to where Remus is standing dumbly, “Hello, which flavours are the tasty ones?”

Remus feels his mouth work uselessly, barely daring to look the other man in the face.

Thankfully, his son has no such qualms, “Hi, I’m Teddy. The blue one is my favourite.” 

The bespectacled boy follows with wary eyes as the cup gets handed over the counter and into Teddy’s little palms. 

Luckily for him, Teddy is not done yet, “And I also looove Banana,” takes a big glob on his little plastic spoon, “And strawberry, and vanilla, and—”

Remus absently puts a gentle palm against Teddy’s cheek to quiet him down, then lets him onto the ground, leaning back up to chance a glance at the stunning stranger.

Which seems to be staring back at Remus with a nearly empty expression, safe for the slightly slack jaw.

Remus scratches at the sweat-damp curls at the back of his neck uncomfortably and the man’s eyes flutter, then he blinks violently before his head shoots back to his toddler. 

“Well,” he clears his throat, licks his lips, “You do really like the banana shakes I make for you every now and then, Haz.”

The boy’s eyes glow a little, smile blooming, “A-huh.”

Grey eyes land back on Remus, fixing him in his spot, unable to move a muscle when the man moves closer towards him, “And what would you recommend, …?”

It takes a beat too long for Remus to realise he’s waiting for a name.

“Oh, Remus.”

The man flashes a glint of sharp canines through his pink lips, “Hi, Remus,” tone sickly sweet and tilting his head to look up through his lashes, “I’m Sirius.”

God have mercy, is he flirting with him?

“So, Remus,” he sets the kid, including ice cream cone, down and then props both hands on his narrow hips, nudging him with an elbow, “what do you reckon?”

“Uh, well,"Remus stutters stupidly, "I always get myself dark chocolate when it’s available,” he grimaces, confessing, “Horrible sweet tooth.”

“Yeah, it’s gotta come from somewhere, huh?” Sirius grins and nods his head down at Teddy taking a huge bite of frosty Blueberry Wizard.

Remus rubs at his flaming neck sheepishly, “Uhm, you can never go wrong with Stratiatella, I think. If you’re looking for something less hardcore.”

He has barely time to cringe at his choice of words when Sirius eyes take on a glint that, embarrassingly, has Remus cock twitching with interest in his cut off jeans shorts, “Oh, yeah, what if I’m into a bit of hardcore, though?”

Swallowing is so very hard for Remus right now. And maybe he shouldn’t have because now his mouth is awefully dry, voice hoarse when, “Well, the– the cookie flavour has some big chunks of dark chocolate chips in it.”

Sirius hums low and happy, “Sounds perfect,” and turns back to the woman behind the counter, “Another scoop of cookie in a cone, please,” throws a charming grin over his shoulder at Remus, “And I’ll be paying for our two handsome advisors as well.”

Oh. “Oh, you don’t have to, it’s—”

“Too late,” Sirius sing-songs, handing over the folded bills. And then, horrifyingly and excitingly, steps back and leans into Remus’ personal space. Takes the wallet Remus was still holding in his palm, like an idiot, it’s embarrassing, in his own hand—and Remus simply lets him!? too occupied marvelling at the clean three-day beard framing rosy lips and the flash of silver eyes through dark lashes—and leans around Remus to tuck it into his jeans’ back pocket. Murmuring into the curve of Remus’ ear, “Let a gorgeous bloke buy you an ice cream, huh, sweets?”

Remus nods dumbly, caught in his spot and then Sirius pulls back and Remus already misses the smell of expensive sunscreen, spicy cologne and shea butter conditioner that clings to his beautiful waves. 

Something tugs at the white threads of his shorts and, oh, right, his son is still there, that’s good, Remus hadn’t even— “Dad, can Harry come with us to the cove?”

Remus blinks at Teddy, entirely lost.

His son sighs irritated, apparently thinking Remus is refusing to answer due to lacking manners, so he adds, “Pleeeaaasee, please, please, please, Harry said he can already swim, his Padfoot teach- taught it to him so—” the rest of the sentence blurs into the background as Remus looks up and eventually concludes the other kid to be Harry, leaving Sirius to be Padfoot.

Which glances back at him amused, equally getting tugged at and begged, mischievous glint dancing in his eyes, raising an eyebrow in question.

Remus smiles back, “Well, it seems I couldn’t possibly do anything against this self-assigned playdate even if I tried to, Teds.”

The kids erupt into elated shrieks and Sirius and Remus shake their heads in a similar fashion as they go to pick up their beach bags and stroll after the toddlers running ahead, Teddy leading the familiar way.

“So what’s this cove, huh? Secret, special bathing spot we’re getting introduced to?” Sirius asks playfully, “Lucky us.” 

His voice is deliberately sultry, Remus knows it, and well. Fight fire with fire, right? Also, he’s simply stating the truth when he replies, “Just this secluded spot I know from when I was a teenager. Hasn’t been used in ages so I always go there to let Teddy and me run around butt-naked, away from the eyes of creeps.”

When he peeks out of the corners of his eyes, Sirius’ jaw is hanging open rather adorably again, “Please tell me you didn’t bother bringing any bathing trunks.”

Much to Sirius’ whinging, he did bring some swimming trunks. Has them even already on under the jeans, for a matter of fact.

They spread out their towels, slather the kids in sunscreen before they beg off into the pools of shallow water to build a sand castle. 

Then follows a painful 15 minutes of Sirius massaging sunscreen into his neck and back and waist and thighs and basically everywhere he can get his hands on honestly which ends with both of them being half hard and having to lay down on their front for another 15 minutes of quiet time. 

It’s a fantastic day, for both kids and adults. They end up staying longer than planned and decide getting dinner together at a small local family diner that’s been there since Remus was young.

They swap numbers before they bid goodbye, beneficial to know a bloke that knows his way around town. Better just when he’s cute, too.

Remus ends up with aching cheeks in bed that night.

Needless to say, a few weeks later when preschool starts up again, Remus takes Sirius on another beach date.

This time he fucks him into the sand, like he’s wanted to the first time around.

[avelera]

Archetypes are fine and originality isn't as important as you think

I think one of the most shocking things I learned in my writing class when we brought in a professional agent to lecture was that they really, really don't want your original story idea.

Agents and publishers want to know where to put your book on the shelf. They want to know which recent books it resembles, not super-hits like Game of Thrones. When they ask "What two books is this book like?" they want recent, practical examples of which non-Bestselling authors' work your work most resembles. Nothing turns them off faster than "This is totally original" / "This is like nothing you've ever seen."

Similarly, most audiences don't want totally original. I don't mean that pejoratively. We joke in the fanfic world that everyone just wants to read their favorite ship falling in love over and over but... that is actually true. That is an engaged audience. That said, fatigue does set in when all the fics or books begin to sound exactly the same, so what's the deal there, huh?

The deal is: agents, publishers, and audiences want the familiar thing they know they love with your unique spin on it that only you as a writer can create.

Now, my theory on how to achieve this, as a pre-pro who thinks about this a lot but doesn't claim to have a solution, is that this is what, "Write what you know," really refers to. Not that garbage your high school English teacher told you that you shouldn't set a story in a fantasy world because you've never lived there.

No, what "write what you know" means in fanfic is: take these characters and filter them through your personal experience and/or your interests. Which are also things you know. That can mean "I put them in a Coffeeshop AU because I've actually worked in a coffee shop and I want to show y'all what it's really like there" to "I'm personally interested in explorations of grief so I want to do hurt/comfort for these two around grief," or any other number of variations. It's why a weird concept written passionately is 10x more interesting than trying to chase what's "popular" in fandom, people want to see the uniqueness brought by the simple fact that you are writing it. You can give 10 authors the same prompt and they'll end up with 10 wildly different fics, I guarantee you, that's why no one gets tired of the same tropes being played over and over.

Now, for original fiction, at which I have less practice but which I think about a lot because I want to change that, I think again people get too hung up on being totally original and in this case I want to talk about a tendency to design an "original character" by focusing all the little details of their character before they start writing. The thing is, a lot of those little details don't matter. (It's better to start with an archetype and layer on those details, but we'll get to that.) There's danger in that, in part because your character needs to have an arc where they change between the beginning and the end, more than we need to know details like their favorite foods. Their favorite food should be whatever is most thematically relevant in the moment.

IE, when writing a story about losing a parent, whatever the parent made for them is their favorite food. When writing about someone who needs to reconnect with their inner child, greasy Pizza Hut pizza might be their favorite food because it's about something that gives the character pleasure that doesn't play to adult expectations on them. See? Knowing they like Pop Tarts jus because they like Pop Tarts is utterly meaningless, unless for example, you the author loves Pop Tarts and you know you can write a stirring monologue about how amazing Pop Tarts are that will make the audience feel your characters adoration of Pop Tarts. But you can substitute literally any food and write the same monologue, it has to either have emotional resonance or plot relevance, otherwise it doesn't matter what the food is.

But going back to characters, I think just starting with an archetype, adding a few details from your own life that you know you can write authentically, and then kicking this character through the mousetrap maze of your plot, really goes a lot further in making them unique than any amount of pre-planning of details that get you bogged down. And most popular characters reduce down to Archetype + Story-Relevant Details pretty damn quickly when you look at them.

Here's an example:

Last of Us = is a Lone Wolf and Cub archetype, ie, grizzled man takes a dependent child on a dangerous journey. That it's a post-apocalyptic landscape riddled by zombies tweaks the necessities of what skills the characters like Joel and Ellie need to survive. Add some author relevant details - he's from Texas but he lives in Boston now, he had a daughter who died (relevant to the plot, which is him adopting a "new" daughter), and he is former military and a blue-collar worker who therefore has the skills to survive in this setting, and you've got a pretty solid character that people grasp and people love right away, especially the more humanizing moments you throw in there, like the moment we see him break down when his daughter dies.

It should also be remembered: passion is what is needed here. You don't pick a trope you hate unless you're setting out to subvert it. You pick details that you care about and that you want to write about. Everything needs to be things you authentically care about writing and innovating on because you're gonna spend a lot of time with this story, more than anyone else. But the idea that one needs to start whole cloth, rather than focusing on the tropes, stories, archetypes, and personal experience that you care about, is utter nonsense and in fact does not actually sell.

[quinloki]

Quill

So I've talked about Quill before, my (currently) one and only OC.

Quill is, in a sense, kind of an experiment.

Can something be a self-insert, a reader-insert and an OC all in one? Who fucking knows, but I'm going to see if it's possible.

Quill has a specific body, and name. Traits and personality (all my readers have an archetype at the bare minimum), and very much a sense of "This is Quill's story".

But they're also wildly malleable.

The body of Quill is effectively a vessel for the soul of something - someone - very removed from the world they're in. Someone with no form, or name.

Which lends itself to a strong reader vibe.

The story is also going to be told from the second-person perspective. I've come to really enjoy writing in it, and I don't want to be writing in multiple perspectives right now.

As weird as this whole set up is, I might be the only person who ends up liking the result XD but I'm not worried about that. The idea is to have fun with it. It is going to be self-indulgent as fuck.

Anyway, if any of that sounds interesting to you, the click the read more and check out the Prologue. It's just a bunch of foundational stuff and a little world-building, so don't expect much ^_^

Temporary Title: One Piece of Quill

Opening your eyes, you look to the ceiling.

Wood. That’s kind of unusual for you, but maybe the place where you are now is -.

The room shifts and breaks your train of thought. It’s subtle. But maybe because you were looking at the ceiling you noticed the soft shift of shadows more.

No matter, you’ll adjust to whatever this is. Maybe this new life is going to start on the shore in a boat home or something similar. It could be an island nation that raises babies on the waves because the natural tides are enough to help keep them calm and sleeping more readily.

You move your hands until they are in front of your face, and a cold dread grabs you. They’re not the hands of a child, and they should be. Not even a child, they should be those of a babe newly born.

You died.

You know you did.

You died in your last life and have now been reborn. That was normal, that was how it worked. Inevitable death, inevitable rebirth, and inevitable new world. Over and over, again and again for so long you weren’t even sure how many times it had been anymore.

But you were grown.

That didn’t make any sense! You hadn’t started any life fully grown. You’d always started as a baby and worked from there. It was how you learned the rules and language of the new world you were in. How you learned customs. What was polite, what was rude. What was edible and what was dangerous.

It was the one advantage that was constant.

No one made demands of a baby. No one did anything but feed you and teach you and you had time to adjust to things. Time to learn all the things you needed in order to thrive.

Had you gone through the cycle so much that things changed? You had no idea why you were being reborn over and over. It was so random. Different bodies, different worlds, different rules, again and again. Nothing ever happened to explain the reason for it.

No divinity. No game interface to track your progress. Not great fate or terrible evil needing brought low. There was nothing to guide you, and no one ever treated you as anything but a random life in a world full of random lives.

It had been utterly maddening at first, but now you were just used to it. There was no rest for you, just one life after the next. Never the same world. Never the same people. The history was always new, the circumstances different, the maps unique. The differences kept you from a certain drudgery you supposed.

Now, it seems, there was no reprieve for you between lives anymore, never mind rest.

Not only were you in a fully grown body, this body had no memories. You didn’t know it’s name, or anything else about it or this world. The knowledge of your other lives was well intact, so there was some consolation there, but nothing about this world.

You were wearing simple cotton clothes that didn’t seem to fit well, and while this body seemed unmarred, it was malnourished. You were hungry, and weak from it. You barely wanted to turn your head to look around, never mind trying to sit up.

You weren’t restrained and the IV in your arm seemed to be benign. Saline, or this world’s version of it, since you were dehydrated too.

Whatever circumstances you had the pleasure of waking up to, it seems like someone is trying to save your life.

“What a waste.” You sigh the words, but they’re little more than a dry crackle of incoherent sounds against the air. Talking burns, so you stay lying down and slowly take in more of your situation.

There’s no windows in the room, but it’s dimly lit and your eyes have more than adjusted. It looks like a medical room of sorts, and the scent of sea water that permeated the air even in the enclosed room meant you were likely on a ship.

Being lost at sea could explain the amnesia, and certainly the malnutrition and dehydration. You had a few bandages, probably sunburns or sores, but nothing felt broken and as far as you could tell you didn’t have stitches or staples anywhere.

With no immediate concerns, now was probably a good time to determine the rules of this world. Physics might be stable within a given world, but they certainly weren’t stable from one world to the next. The variance in the rate of gravity had been enough to bother you in your second life.

That had not been a good time.

Experience, however, was ever the best teacher. You learned about more things than you imagined could even be possible as the lives had gone by. World after world, even the worst of lives weren’t a complete waste, even if they were often cut short.

Closing your eyes you breathe in very carefully, and breathe out in a measured rhythm. Breathing techniques had seemed absurd in your first life. Interesting in fantasy and useless in reality, but many of the worlds you’d existed in had rules different from that first one.

Once you learned how to do one technique they became easier and easier. So the first thing you did, once you were able, was test if a world’s rules allowed for it. There were a lot of benefits to it when it worked - not the least of which was helping to heal injuries.

As the air, and the concentration it brought, filled your body, you realized there was something in this world that was like a breathing technique. It was different from others you knew, but similar enough that you didn’t think mastering it would be difficult.

The way it flowed was more like blood than air. Blood meant something physical in nature, and air was more like magic. The effects could overlap in use, but those were the two of three sources you sorted things into.

Metaphysical, physical, and technological.

Worlds overlapped in what comprised their rule set, but every world you’d lived in so far had a primary rule set that fell into one of those categories. Strong technological worlds relied almost entirely on science and engineering. Strong magical worlds could look like technological ones at first glance, but usually they created worlds more entwined with nature than forged from it.

Strong physical worlds often seemed low tech at first, but often surpassed the other two in terms of quality of life and cultural complexity.

No world was completely one or the other. Many were often a solid mix of two, and supported by the third as a foundation. Usually the support structure was useless for a human to tap into. The bulk of it was sunk into the maintenance of the world itself, and so there was little left over to make use of.

Abundance was important.

Something about the energy moving through you felt familiar. It slipped along pathways you could visualize, and seemed to slip even beyond your own self, reaching out beyond and giving you a sense of the space around you. Something… it reminds you of something, but you can grasp the word for it. The familiar feeling is a little frustrating, and so you let it go.

You can work on sorting it out later. Right now what you need is for someone to come into this room and interact with you. You don’t know if you can understand this world’s language in this state.

Plus you are ravenously hungry and would happily resort to questionable acts for a halfway decent sandwich.

A soft knock at the door is a welcome sound, and the voice from behind the door, while muffled, makes perfect sense to you.

“I hope you’re awake, yoi.” A soothing voice carries into the room as the door opens.

Wait.

Yoi?

No way.

A tall man steps into the room. He’s pushing seven feet, but you’d bet your soul he measures 203cm quite precisely. A surprisingly pineapple shaped head, topped with a few soft, wavy locks of golden blonde hair, and below that a pair of hooded eyes. He notices you’re awake and looking at him and he gives you an easy smile.

The word you were struggling to grasp earlier was haki.

[chadillacboseman]

Does Jesse feel love? Like is he capable of it?

This is an interesting question that requires a complex answer, so I apologize for the rambling.

Jesse suffered from severe head trauma as a teenager when he was in a car accident. This accident gave him a traumatic brain injury and resulted in a trigger of borderline personality disorder and damage to his anterior insular cortex when blood buildup put pressure on the area. Part of Jesse's skull is artificial due to this accident. Add in long tours overseas while in the Marines that gave him PTSD and, well, you've got a lot going on.

Jesse struggles with empathizing with others, but I would not say he's entirely devoid of empathy. He does not care about most people he meets, not because he sees them as 'pawns' or targets for manipulation, but rather he just...does not see them at all. Sometimes he sees himself as an outsider and is jealous of those who have support systems or loved ones. Losing his brother, his one steadfast tether to normalcy and structure, was a big trigger for him. Jesse now stands as the last of the Geller line, and he is painfully aware of his own mortality. Hence the Malleus exoskeleton, the constant upgrades to his forces, and the hunger for money. He will do anything to prolong his mortal life and his seat at the top of the food chain.

I wouldn't even call him a narcissist, because he certainly is not. He isn't surprised when he experiences consequences (just angry, usually), and while he can be charming, he hates doing it and, again, can struggle finding the will to empathize with the target of it.

Now, as for the love question-

Jesse loved his brother and his parents, certainly, but his love looks a little different than one might expect. He feels very strong waves of emotion that oscillate wildly to different ends of the spectrum. Anger is his most common and easily triggered- he is prone to blackout periods during which he cannot remember his whereabouts or his actions for extended periods of time. The rigid structure of the military and his brother's command of RCMG gave him outside control that helped keep him in check; that coupled with a medication regimen that Jason heavily enforced, gave him some regulation of his emotions and behavior. Jason's death made him lose all of that, and now he's been thrust into command of a massive private military operation and he is the control, which is ...not working out.

Jesse's love might look like an obsessive devotion, a willingness to kill for someone, but a constant fear of being left alone that just might piss him off or cause him to become paranoid and accusatory. It might look like an all-consuming fixation that eats at him until it is unbearable. Or, he might just love someone 'normally' (whatever that means lol) depending on the circumstances surrounding his life at the time.

All of this is to say: his injuries and disorders do not excuse his fucked up behavior. He is very aware of the fact that what he's doing is wrong, though his victim complex is still quite strong. He knows he should take his medication. He knows he should try to enforce structure in his life and get his shit together.

He does not want to.

Jesse does also have a sadistic streak, which you can glimpse in a few of my works of him. People who he perceives as having wronged him in some way are often on the receiving end of whatever pain he can cause them. He likes to wield fear as a weapon, and nothing instills fear in your enemies and your own men quite like murder. Remorse doesn't often come to him for these acts, because, in his mind, he was wronged first. It's his right to take his pound of flesh (or litre of blood).

Thank you for listening to my rambling.