#adding onto my order lore

[vulture-venom]

Continuing into the hunters’ side of things…they are NOT in New Jersey, Gotham is just the capitol city of a currently unnamed Kingdom. The vampire hunters are primarily led by “the Bat Hunter” / Viscount Bruce Wayne. They all still use their vigilante code names (or at least something reminiscent of them) to remain anonymous because hunters are seen as outlaws.

Hunting has been outlawed due to some of the nobility being acolytes from the Order of St. Dumas who have worked their way into high society, as well as the fact that various kinds of monsters live among humans and manage to get into positions of power. Hunters are demonized to the public, said to be exacting vigilante justice without having proof of their targets’ alleged monstrous natures. The hunters work isn’t contained to only vampires, some of the Gotham rogues are different kinds of monsters or casters who have been overtaken by magic (though most were human at one point).

The vampires as created by the Order are not the only ones in the world, there are others, but they are far weaker than the Azraels. There are lesser and greater vampires, lesser vampires do not possesses all the abilities of greater vampires, but they are easier to create because they do not require any sort of ritual. They also do not have to sire other vampires using their blood, instead, they have a sort of venom in their fangs that can be used to turn others. They spread more like an infection, but they are far weaker and more simple minded. The Order of St. Dumas are the only ones who have uncovered the secrets to creating greater vampires and refuse to share that knowledge, which is part of why Ra’s Al Ghul broke off their alliance.

Viscount Wayne runs a large caravan business which he uses to provide aid to villages which have been raided by monsters or pillaged during wars. The Wayne fortune was amassed through trading and real estate. His parents were killed by a lesser vampire after seeing a stage production, the pearls, justice, etc etc. (Most backstories are largely the same, the villains have just been made into monsters/mages or work in association with them.) At this point, he’s already taken in the Fledgling Hunter Robin, who is being trained by Nightwing when the story starts. Robin is the son of Baron Drake, whose estate is on the outskirts of Wayne’s territory. He’s also working with his steward Pennyworth, a blacksmith named Harold, the hunter Crow, and a seer called Oracle. Huntress is also active but she operates separately from Wayne’s merry band.

Oracle is largely how the hunters communicate, they use gems that she has enchanted to speak to each other (similar to a walkie talkie). She is also how they source much of their information, due to her various connections and her abilities. She was a hunter as well but began studying magic after an injury from the madking left her paralyzed.

When investigating the Order of St. Dumas, Oracle was sworn to secrecy because the Bat hunter had suspected there was a greater vampire behind it all (which has been considered a myth until meeting Azrael). She does eventually share their findings with Crow once Viscount Wayne goes missing (he was injured and in the care of the apothecary Shondra Kinsolving). Crow follows the Bat hunter’s trail which leads him to the vampire Azrael. From there it is all Crowzrael slowburn nonsense 🙏

Differences between greater and lesser vampires:

Greater vampires:

•Inherently magical creatures so they are not affected by most forms of magic

•Created through rituals and siring (which is consuming the blood of another greater vampire)

•Can fly, greater strength and speed, faster regeneration, heightened senses

•Only real weakness is silver and being pierced through the heart, can be in the sun as long as they’ve had enough blood.

•Vessels of St. Dumas

•One lineage

Lesser vampires:

•Not immune to magic, also weak to crosses and holy water, cannot out heal damage done by the sun

•Heightened strength and speed, somewhat heightened senses, slow regeneration

•Cannot sustain themselves off of inhuman blood whereas greater vampires can

•Have venom which, when injected into whoever they bite, turns them as well

Overall, greater vampires are significantly stronger and more resilient, but they have begun weakening over time and can only be created by the mages of the Order who know the ritual and have access to the blood of St. Dumas and the previous Azraels. Lesser vampires can be created in quick succession but are just undead rather than magical creatures.

The Dumas lore in the Azvamps AU !

I’ve tried to keep as much of it as I could but there are a few things that have had to change. This is all more fantastical so I do not strive for realism or modernity in any of it.

The Order of St. Dumas was formed by St. Dumas (shocking) who was a holy knight studying dark magic. He reached enlightenment through his studies and earned “immortality,” becoming the first vampire. When he first reached enlightenment he had a ravenous hunger and had fed on animals (reference to the frog mentioned in Agent of the Bat #61). After he had cleared his mind and fostered his newfound abilities, he recruited other dark mages to become his acolytes and form the Order.

He and his acolytes erected a plan to overthrow the kingdom and neighboring countries working alongside the warlock Ra’s Al Ghul. They tried to do this through infiltrating the ranks of the nobility with acolytes and mages who could control the politics of each nation to allow the Order more control and leeway. Due to their polarized views Dumas and Ra’s eventually broke off their alliance and Dumas continued to grow more power hungry over the centuries. One of his acolytes, Biis, had seen the growing corruption of St. Dumas and splintered off from the Order, forming his own cult in an attempt to gather enough forces to defeat Dumas. He, along with some of the knights of the Order of St. Dumas, banded together and managed to defeat him.

Dumas escaped within an inch of his life and asked that his mages use his blood to sire another ageless warrior using the body of one his most loyal knights, creating the first Azrael. The ritual they used to drain the blood of St. Dumas had preserved his spirit and he is believed to live on within the consciousness of his Azraels, effectively immortalizing himself.

The acolytes, in conjunction with the spirit of Dumas, trained the vampire Azrael to continue Dumas’ holy work in his stead and attempt defeat Dumas and his followers so that they can resume their conquest. Only one Azrael so sired at a time due to the lengthy ritual it takes to create one and the training they must undergo. It is also a precaution taken by the Order to avoid being overtaken by the immense strength multiple Azraels would possess. (Their major contingency for vampires is the Clench but because that is more of a widespread plague than a controlled solution it is their last resort.)

The Azrael’s are controlled through the use of dark magic and the spirit of St. Dumas in their mind (the hallucinations. they also tend to hallucinate other Azraels due to generations of them being mixed in with Dumas’ blood which is why JPV sees Ludovic so often). When they are first sired, they are often animalistic due to their hunger and the Order weaponizes this bloodlust, occasionally withholding blood from the Azraels so that they are especially violent went sent after their enemies. Azraels are expressly forbidden from reading any tomes or going into any of the areas where rituals are held and Dumas’ blood is stored. When an Azrael dies, their blood joins Dumas’ in the temple and is later given to the next Azrael. In doing this, the potency of Dumas’ blood has been diluted and the vampire get weaker overtime. Ludovic was weaker than his father, Jean Paul is weaker than Ludovic, etc etc.

To preserve the secrecy of everything, very few acolytes are thought dark magic. The head of the Order, (which I’ve dubbed the high priest/ess because “brother” felt too familiar for Rollo). Jean Paul is the seventh Azrael sired by the Order of St. Dumas. The Order has been around about 900 years since the death of St. Dumas, most Azrael’s don’t live very long despite their extended lifespan due to the rise in vampire hunters and the fact Azraels are constantly sent into battle (and their skills weakening each generation). The oldest Azrael was 110 years old, Ludovic’s father. He was considered one of the best Azraels, which is why Ludovic and Jean Paul seem to fall flat in comparison.

Ludovic’s incompetence was sort of excused as a product of the impotent blood from generations of dilution. Carleton Lehah, who was both their treasurer and one of the few dark mages during Ludovic’s time, had felt that the order grew weak between their feeble Azrael and High Priest Rollo’s narcissism. Being one of the more educated on their history, he was very familiar with the story of Biis and his battle with Dumas. He secretly began studying the teachings of Biis and embezzling from the Order to find his own attack on the acolytes.

He started with the other dark mages, trying to kill off as many as he could so that no more Azraels could be sired. He was intercepted by Ludovic, who he successfully defeated. Ludovic, struggling to regenerate due to his magic induced injuries and the sun rising, made his way to Jean Paul. He died in Jean Paul’s bed but Jean Paul had found a map on his person with notes about the ice cathedral, etc etc, so he follows it and manages to meet up with Nomoz. The Dwarflings story is largely the same. The Order no longer trained knights after so many had betrayed them during the first fight with Biis, so they subjugated a tribe of Dwarfling warriors to teach and serve the Azraels instead.

After this it’s all my take on the Sword of Azrael and a Knightfall adjacent arc which I plan to include in the fic once it’s all finished.

[pbeltarts]

Hey! I decided it might be helpful to have a reference post for all the details for the AU. I'll update this periodically as new things are revealed or added. - Bec

General Info

This Au is based on Pixie Hollow and the Tinkerbell movies/books! Most of it will lean on the movie lore, but will borrow some lore from the books as well. I also am making up a lot of lore myself to fill in gaps for the storyline or make the translation from MHA easier.

You can learn more about the lore of Pixie Hollow via the wiki!

>> The Fanfic is out and updating! You can read it here! <<

#MHAPixieHollow

Want to draw or write with the AU and share it? You can use the above hashtag so it'll be connected! I'll try to check this tag regularly so I can share your work! (This should work on tumblr and insta, but I cannot be certain for twitter/bluesky.)

#pixie asks

This is the tag I use on answers to askbox questions involving the AU!

Some General Guidelines:

While my AU has a plot line and is intended to have BKDK as the focus ship, I don't care/mind if you like the designs and want to draw your preferred ship with them! As long as you're nice to others, do what you want! (So even though I'm making this for BKDK, if you like KRBK and like their designs, I don't care if you draw/write that with the AU!)

I do have a storyline for the AU and am working on a fic with that, but! I love seeing others' creativity, so if you want to use the AU for your own writing, feel free! All I ask is that you don't claim anything as "canon" to the AU unless its been stated by me!

Its unlikely I'll be able to design every fairy from 1A or elsewhere, so if I haven't designed them and you want to come up with a design for the AU, do it! I'd love to see it!

If you like any of the art from the AU and want to use it for PFPs/Banners on your social accounts, you're free to do so! I'd prefer credit if you did, thanks!

Most of my work for the AU will be monochrome sketches, so if you want to color them feel free! All I ask is that you properly credit me if you share your coloring.

The Fairies

Izuku aka "Deku" - [design]

Talent: Dust Keeper Alchemy Info: Deku's wings are covered in black veins that creep onto his back and he cannot fly, even with the help of pixie dust. He's given blue pixie dust by All Might and works on alchemy experiments in secret in order to do multiple talents.

Katsuki aka "Kacchan" - [design]

Talent: Fast Flying Info: One of the best fast flyers in Pixie Hollow, he has unique control over the winds. Constantly keeping Deku out of trouble.

Eijirou - [design]

Talent: Animal Talent Info: One of Katsuki's closest friends. He has a best animal friend, a turtle named Boulder, who he visits regularly and takes sun naps on his shell.

Denki - [design]

Talent: Light Talent Info: Playful and excitable, he has a habit of accidentally lighting himself up when excited.

Mina - [design]

Talent: Garden Talent Info: Fun-loving and overly social, she loves calling forward a bunch of colorful petals to surprise others.

Kyouka - [design]

Talent: Music Talent Info: Likes to play her guitar in various places in pixie hollow for her friends. Momo, the tinker fairy, makes and fixes her instruments.

Hanta - [design]

Talent: Scouting Talent Info: Specializes in using vines and ropes to restrain threats. A fairly laid back fairy who likes to bother his friends and laze about when avoiding orders from Hawks, the leader of the Scouting guild.

Ochaco - [design]

Talent: Fast Flying Info: While not the fastest of the flying talents, Ochaco specializes in utilizing winds to create a soft floating affect. She's most useful in helping dandelions find their way to the pixie dust tree or assisting in soft landings.

Shouto - [design]

Talent: Light & Frost Talents Info: Shouto is a unique fairy where two dandelions were growing from the same stalk when it took flight to Pixie Hollow. Because of this, him and his intentional sibling became one when influenced by Pixie dust, making him both a Summer and Winter fairy. Because of this, he can do 2 talents and also survive in both climates for elongated periods of time. However, he cannot stay in one place for a whole year, and regularly has to move between the Summer Glade and the Winter Woods.

Tsuyu - [design]

Talent: Water Talent Info: One of the only Water fairies that willingly gets into water, though she doesn't submerge her wings and only stands in shallow ends. She calls Izuku "Izu-chan."

Tenya - [design]

Talent: Fast Flying Info: A very structured fairy, he doesn't like deviating from his schedule. He's considered possibly the fastest of the fast flying talents but his wind control is lacking.

Hitoshi - [design]

Talent: Dust Keeping Info: Always tired. One of Izuku's closest friends, he'll defend Izuku in his own way from others. Has some unspoken guilt that he maybe somehow was the reason Izuku's wings formed incorrectly.

All Might

Talent: Unknown Info: When acting as king, All Might presents himself in a full-bodied muscled form. But out of the public eye, he presents as a feeble older fairy named Toshinori. The other fairies outside of the Never Council and Fairy Inko don't know that they're the same people, which allows Toshinori to speak comfortably with others and keep an eye on Pixie Hollow from the sidelines. Izuku meets Toshinori and helps him with something, despite the task being far harder without the help of flight, and Toshinori sees how hard Izuku is trying and feels something special about him, so he gives Izuku a supply of blue pixie dust.

More TBA!

Other Characters

Eri

Eri is a human child whose laugh Deku was born from. She lives a difficult life.

Mirio aka "Lemillion"

Mirio is a blonde mouse and Eri's only friend, who attempts to look out for her and make her smile. Eri gave him the nickname "Lemillion" because it sounds like 'lemon' (because of his fur) and how he's 1 in a million.

More TBA!

F.A.Q.

What happened to Deku's wings? Can he not fly?

Deku's wings did not work since his arrival. They look different from others' wings and don't respond to pixie dust, so he cannot take flight. Because he was born from Eri's sorrowful laugh, there was not enough joy in it for him to form correctly. [You can see Deku's Birth comic here!]

What about [insert character name]?

I have plans for most of the main cast from MHA, but not all of them will be fairies. As for other characters, like students from 1B or other NPCs, I don't have solid thoughts for all of them and really only think of them if I plan to insert them into the story so I probably don't have a role for them.

How did Katsuki and Izuku meet?

Katsuki met Izuku on Izuku's arrival day! He was the fairy to see Izuku's dandelion come into Pixie Hollow and aided it to the Pixie Dust Tree. [You can see the comic here!]

Is this a fanfic or comic I can read?

Right now, all that exists are the little snippet comics and drawings I've made. However! I have a storyline in mind for the AU set roughly 6 years after Deku's birth, and I'm going to try to write it! I'll definitely share it when I'm able.

Will there be other ships in the AU other than BKDK?

Probably! But I haven't given it much thought or focus yet.

Can I cosplay your fairy designs?

ABSOLUTELY!! And please show me because I will cry.

Am I allowed to do fanart/write something for the AU?

OF COURSE!!! Please please share it with me too I'd love to see it! You can also use the tag #MHAPixieHollow !

More TBA as needed.

[antimony-medusa]

gosh i am so so sorry to come into your askbox with this but you seem a knower of things and as an extreme latecomer to this fandom, i have been. a little bit genuinely mystified by the ""dadza"" phenomenon in general? like i've seen figures or characters Assigned Dad At Fanbase before but it's usually because of like. dad hobbies or jokes or fashion sense or an actual child they talk about often or a tendency to actually make "ah yes, i'm your dad" comments/jokes, none of which the real streamer seems to have or do, or a some manner of "gruff character is soft and caring under the surface and looks out for children" archetype, which his RP character doesn't seem to be (outside of MAYBE qsmp, the story that literally became about parenting through peril, but i know this goes back further than that). Is it just because he's older by internet standards and people can't imagine people with more than a 3-year age difference interacting in a way that isn't """parental""? was it a one-off joke that got taken too far? is this all a symptom from the dsmp plot point that snowballed to the extreme? i need to ask because it is just SO far-reaching and i see no clear origin and as you can imagine that is confusing.

Okay so. This is a fascinating question because as I throw my mind back I am a little fuzzy on the actual order of events. I think it was a bunch of things happening that kind of compounded, but to the best of my knowledge what happened was:

Through SMPEarth and MCC, the original sleepy bois becomes popular. Technoblade, Philza, and Wilbur Soot. Shipping is frowned on, so people start getting invested in a family dynamic (often with all three of them as siblings). Through a MCC win, Tommyinnit (also exploding in popularity) gets added to the "official sleepy boys" dynamic, and now we have 4/4— still often interpreted as siblings, if you ever read Snapshots in Lavender, which is drawing from this time period.

Wilbur particularly is huge into the family dynamic, often talking about being twins with techno, brothers with tommy, and referring to Phil as dad and Dadza (cause he was ten years older and that means of course he's OLD and DAD, and Wilbur had a daddy kink). When SBI joins DSMP, wilbur takes the opportunity to canonize Phil as his dad in lore at the same time as he makes Phil kill his character, and tries repeatedly to make Techno his twin, and refers to tommy and him as "like brothers" a lot. Tommy plays into the dadza stuff (he is like a decade and a half younger than Phil so at least it makes more sense) and also is clearly relying on Phil for things like tech support and moral support as the fandom is exploding. Phil is dependable and safe, therefore dad. Fandom takes this and RUNS with it. Passerine happens, and Phil gets written as the dad of wilbur and tommy, Techno as an ambiguously sworn brother to phil, and brother/father/mentor to wilbur and tommy.

Pandemic is happening. 30k people are showing up to Phil streams. TTS off kids basically in distress are latching onto Phil as a supportive and dependable figure who they are seeing as dad in fanfic and on Wilbur streams as Wilbur is playing up the dad thing whenever he interacts with Phil. Phil is like (to the fandom) sure if you haven't got a dad or a good dad you can call me dad I guess and just sort of laughs at his friends calling him dad.

Techno puts his foot down in canon that Wilbur is not his twin, though that doesn't stop either Wilbur or the fandom, and Phil clarifies that Tommy isn't his kid, and Techno isn't his kid, just Wilbur, and this does not stop fandom at all. Tommyinnit's Unbeatable Method and Clinic for Supervillains are written in this period, and Phil dad and techno+wilbur+tommy trio of kids are locked in. Other huge fanfics use this lens— importance of being kind, ars poetica, his curse of binding— a few people such as silverwing are doing techno and phil platonic marriage with wilbur and tommy adopted kids, but the phil=dad lens is inescapable. Even bones in the ocean, which I think might be the biggest phil-centric fic, has a subplot about him being wilbur's dad and how that went.

We start getting into fandom schisms about if Phil is a good dad or a bad dad in canon, with his treatment of Wilbur/Ghostbur/Tommy being variously argued. A common refrain is that cc phil is a great dad, c phil is a terrible dad, so this fic is writing phil as a good dad cause that's what's real. Phil in real life continues to have no actual children, but the fandom refers to Phil as techno+tommy+wilbur's dad so often that he puts "father of three" as his end screen. [EDIT: i have been informed that Tommy made that and send it to Phil and told him to put it as his end screen, so that was still Phil just playing along.] It becomes a common interpretation that okay in LORE phil is only wilbur's dad, but in like pure SBI phil is everybody's dad, and people are writing just the pure character dynamic, not LORE. This is still tagged as not RPF. Dark SBI starts to happen.

The DSMP kind of stutters to a halt, with various endings good bad or contentious. Technoblade passes. The fandom declines, but the fan fiction is kind of self sustaining at this point and has firmly established character interpretations. People are regularly showing up to Phil streams to call him dad. He keeps saying that he's just a guy playing block game, but it's fine if people call him dad if that helps them.

QSMP happens. Wilbur immediately assigns Phil as his dad again, though Phil manages to wiggle out of it enough to say that it's not a bio relationship, they just met on the train. Phil becomes a father of an egg child, and the Phil good/bad dad wars start up again. People start interpreting DSMP canon through the lens of Phil's QSMP actions and explaining how that makes him a good or bad dad. However, shipping is kinda legalized due to Phil having a (platonic) husband, so the lens of viewing Phil as a character in a relationship starts up, but the phil-dad people also continue, notably interpreting team bolas as a family with phil as the dad, and starting wars on the wiki about who gets listed as Phil's family and how/why.

Wilbur is revealed as a domestic abuser, the QSMP ends, and both arms of the fandom decline again. Phil's stream numbers are declining to a more manageable level where he can actually read chat and respond to donos, and he starts responding more firmly to people saying that they love him, dadza, saying that that's parasocial and they don't know him. He is notably no longer laughing at it, and he re-emphasizes that he's just a guy playing block game on the internet. We still get like one dono a stream fully latched onto him as their dad.

A year later, Phil blocks dadza in his chat.

Which is to say to my knowledge it mostly came from fanfiction/other people, and Phil went along with it, and now he is no longer going along with it. He has never seemed particularly dad-y to me, but people viewing him through a wilbur-centric or tommy-centric lens had that wiring laid down for them, and then the fandom fucking Took Off With It with how popular those characters/character focuses were. That's my understanding of what happened, if anyone else wants to chime in go for it.

[owliellder]

Two's A Crowd

College Bully! Leon Kennedy x fem! Reader

MDNI 18+

(Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5)

Description: College is proving to be a lot harder than you imagined. You cannot fail this math class. So when you've tried everything else, a well-known student is recommended to you by your professor for tutoring lessons, not really leaving you with much of a choice but to work with him.

Warnings: Not proofread, No Use of Y/N, Dub-Con, Unprotected Sex, Bullying, Yelling, Cursing

Tags: College AU, Bully! Leon, Shy! Reader, both are in their early 20's, Leon is Rude AF in the beginning, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Fingering, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Additional Tags to be Added

Author's Note: Yay!! New multi-chapter fic in honor of 800 followers!!

I'm a sucker for tropes and mean Leon is one I can't keep out of my head. If you're not good at math then this is the fic for you! (also don't mind me slipping some Sky lore in here...)

Cross-posted onto AO3

Chapter 1

Growing up, college had always been a big dream of yours, leaving you fantasizing day in and out about all the possibilities that would open up, along with actually getting to live through the renowned “college experience”.

In reality, college was a lot harder than you were expecting. Your parents had told you to jump right into it after high school, fearing taking a gap year would ruin your good streak. The stress was starting to get to you and it was only a semester into your freshman year. All the tests, projects, and general studying really wore down on your mental health, not to mention you were failing the one math class you had.

You couldn’t tell your parents, no, they’d probably have a heart attack, especially since that math class was a prerequisite to another class that you needed to take. They were already worried enough that you hadn’t picked a major yet, so who knows how they’d take the news that you were failing right off the bat.

It was hard enough that you were feeling homesick. This was the first time you’d ever been this far away from home, studying at a university when you would’ve been perfectly content going to a community college closer to home. Your roommate was nice, but the two of you weren’t growing any closer than mere acquaintances, so it always felt awkward to just exist in your own dorm room.

Your eating habits worsened with the lack of any real food within five miles of campus. Sure there were a couple fast food chains on the campus itself, but they closed incredibly early. By the time you finished studying, which was around six in the evening, it had already closed. Not to mention that when they were open, the lines were comically long. University food was out of the question after you got violently ill from their “chicken nuggets”, so you were left with the little money your parents provided once a week to order takeout or make quick trips to the store to buy a frozen meal. Only one, since the mini fridge in your dorm was almost always occupied by your roommates stuff.

Everything was so exhausting and you were way out of your comfort zone having to use the community bathrooms for all your hygienic routines. Walking in always made you feel like you were interrupting a meeting in the president’s oval office with how many nasty looks you were given when all you were trying to do was brush your teeth.

The first thing you saw whenever you opened up Canvas was a massive F staring you down from the little box that comprised the majority of your math assignments and tests, making you feel less than worthless. This one semester alone helped you understand why so many people dropped out, this was hard.

By now you’d already gone to your math professor multiple times asking for redos or extra credit work. He was probably sick of seeing you since you showed up after almost every single assignment’s grades were submitted.

“Heeeyyy, Mr. Lebovic..” You said after knocking your knuckle against his open door to grab his attention. “Listen, about that last quiz, I-”

He cut you off with a wave of his hand before gesturing towards one of the chairs sitting in front of his desk. You hurried to sit down, watching nervously as he slowly pulled his eyes off his computer and onto you. “I get it, you don’t need to explain yourself.” His relaxed tone and faint smile was enough to ease your nerves a bit, letting your shoulders slump with a sigh. “You’ve been trying really hard, I can easily recognize that.”

You nodded eagerly, licking your dry lips as you opened your mouth to speak, only to be cut off again. “I’ve been looking into studying options that might help you. Resources are scarce for this material, but I think I finally have a tutor to help you out.” 

A wave of relief washed over you at the mention of tutor. Maybe you wouldn’t have to face the wrath of your parent’s disappointment after all! “Oh.. o-okay…” you stuttered, eyebrows furrowing as you silently beckoned him to continue.

“I teach another math class, it’s higher level, but I have a student in there that’s just taken up tutoring the material you’re learning.” Your professor seemed just as happy as you were about the opportunity. “His name is Leon Kennedy, he’s got one of the study rooms in the library from three to five in the afternoon on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”

It took you a second to process everything Mr. Lebovic was telling you before you scrambled to pull out a sticky note and a pen to write all the information down on. You heard the older man chuckle softly, looking over at him when he held out a small piece of paper to you. “I wrote it down already for you, don’t worry.” You wished you could’ve thanked him tenfold, but his office hours were closed for the day now, so you said a quick goodbye and hurried back to your dorm, holding onto the piece of paper like a lifeline.

Contrary to what your math professor thinks, you knew the name “Leon Kennedy”. You had a couple friends that you hung out with occasionally out in the grass in front of the science building and they’d brought him up before. The few vague bits of info that you’d heard weren’t flattering, painting this Leon in quite a bad light; the stereotypical jock in a frat flying by on a full-ride scholarship. However, he was your saving grace now and you needed to develop more of an unbiased opinion of him if he was going to help you raise your grade from an F.

“Yeesh, sorry I’m not better at math or I would’ve helped you.” One of your friends, Sky, spoke up as they read the piece of paper your professor gave you yesterday from over your shoulder. “Even if you were better at math, I still wouldn’t trust you.” Ella, your other friend, laughed out.

“Ha ha, yeah, Sky failed math four times. Big whoop.” Sky waved their hands dramatically before walking over to sit down next to Ella in the dead grass. “Seriously though, you’re better off taking a failing grade and dealing with your parents. Kennedy is the devil incarnate.”

“The devil incarnate sounds easier to put up with than my parents, so I’ll take my chances..” You grumbled, taking a seat on a medium-sized rock close to the pair. “Maybe he’s turning a new leaf? Deciding to tutor?” 

Sky crossed her arms and rolled her eyes which made Ella elbow them in the side before giving you a sympathetic smile. “Maybe so, but please just be careful. I don’t want you having to put up with some jackass that has an ego bigger than Texas.” 

You nodded with a slight frown, moving your foot side to side lazily to push the grass blades around. You didn’t even think to consider the repercussions of studying with some random junior. “I’m sure it’ll be alright. Besides, just tell Sky and I if he’s giving you any trouble. I know damn well no man likes to put up with two women yelling in his face.” Sky nodded and pointed to Ella for added dramatics. “Yeah, and I bite. My top six teeth are porcelain so that shit hurts. Trust me.”

Your friends never failed to make you laugh, a slight resolve in a pool full of worries, you suppose. “Don’t worry, you guys’ll be the first to know if Leon is mean.”

“Good. Now, when’re you gonna go see the guy?” Sky rested their arms on their knees before looking up at you. “Uh.. in a couple hours I guess. I already made the appointment.” Your response seemed to surprise both of your friends, giving them a confused look in response to their shocked ones. “Is that.. Is that not a good time?”

“No no, just.. I thought you would’ve maybe taken a little longer to go and see him.” Ella shrugged, reaching a hand up to scratch behind their neck. “Proud of you, taking the initiative like that.” She then looked at her phone before pulling herself off the ground with a small groan. “I got class in a couple minutes. Good luck with the frat boy.” 

She patted your shoulder as she walked off towards the larger building on campus, leaving you and Sky alone for the rest of the time. Part of you wished both of your friends could walk you to the library when the time came, but having Sky was enough. “So.. Leon’s bad bad?” You needed a bit more clarification on the guy you were going to spend one-on-one time with, something to calm you down after running through countless scenarios in your head.

“He’s not all bad, 'least I don't think. I’ve exchanged a few ‘hello’s’ and ‘excuse me’s’ with him here and there since we apparently frequent the same building.” Sky scooted over to the rock you were sitting on, placing the back of their head on your legs. A couple brown leaves blew over from a nearby tree which they grabbed and crunched with their hand. “I haven’t personally experienced any bad happenings around him, but he is part of a pretty notoriously rowdy frat, so you have to promise me that you’ll only study with him on campus and never go to that frat house or any frat house in general, alright?”

Sky pointed up at you, poking the underside of your chin which made you laugh again and swat their hand away. “As much as I rave about wanting to have the stereotypical college experience, going to a frat house was never part of my daydreaming.”

“Good. Keep it that way.” They switched their fingers to give you a quick thumbs up before letting their arm flop down into their lap, eyes closing with a sigh. “Anyways, besides all that, wanna go get some food? I don’t have another class today and you’ve got about an hour and a half to spare, so actually you have no choice. Get up.”

You stood up with a shake of your head once Sky pushed off of your legs who stood up as well with a small stretch. “Don’t burn me at the stake, but I kinda want grocery store sushi. I’m feeling lucky.”

“Please don’t.” You sighed, pocketing the piece of paper before beginning to follow behind Sky as they started to walk across the grass. 

After the two of you shared a sandwich from some random shop not too far off campus, Sky walked with you up to the library, stopping just before the front desk. They agreed to not wander in with you under the condition that you’ll go to their dorm straight after to discuss details.

To say you were nervous was an understatement. Most of what you heard about this guy meant he was bad news, though you really didn’t have much of a choice when it came to seeing him. Like your math professor said, there weren’t a lot of options when it came to studying the material you were learning. Sure you had the internet and other students in the class, but you preferred the idea of a tutor since you’d already exhausted yourself trying to follow along with various youtube videos. You needed the in-person teaching, it just stuck better in your head that way.

Slowly starting to walk, you made your way over to the study rooms lining the back of the library. The rooms seemed pretty private with the only window being on the door, which had glass nearly top to bottom. Thankfully the rooms were numbered and Leon had texted you which room to go to when you made the appointment with him, you had no idea what he looked like and you didn’t want to look like a creep eyeballing people through the door until you hopefully found the right person.

Standing off to the side, you could see the number you were looking for sitting above the door, taking a brief moment to collect yourself and hype yourself up to talk to someone who didn’t have the greatest reputation. Set aside everything you’ve heard and just hope for the best..

You took in a deep breath as you strode over to the door, glancing inside through the window before knocking to let him know you were there. The table was angled off more to the left so you didn’t immediately see him until he leaned over the table to see who had knocked. Confidence left you as soon as you made eye contact with Leon due to the groan you could hear through the door. It took you a couple seconds, but you eventually managed to get your body to work with you, hand turning the handle to let yourself in.

“-the last thing I need..” You caught the end of his little rant to himself as you opened the door. The saying “fake it ‘till you make it” is harder than it sounds since your entire body decided to betray you, deciding that shrinking in was the best move. Quietly, you shuffled over to sit across from him at the table, placing your backpack in your lap in some weird way to provide comfort in this situation.

“You weren’t supposed to show up.” Leon grumbled, sitting far back in the tilted chair as his feet lifted the front end of the chair slightly. His arms were crossed and he was giving you probably the nastiest look you’ve ever seen, next to your parents, of course. All you did was sit there giving him a blank stare. It was obvious what he’d said, yet the sheer forwardness of that snide comment had you more than confused. “What?-”

“You weren’t supposed to show up.” Apparently he felt the need to repeat himself with some added bite, barely letting you get a word in. “No one ever shows up to these shitty tutor- whatever the fucks.”

Wow. Okay. “Uh..” You didn’t even know what to say to that. It completely caught you off guard. You’d run through countless ways this interaction would go in your head, but this wasn’t one of those ways. The two of you sat in a very tense silence with Leon just glaring at you from across the table, continuing to rock back and forth in the chair.

Without uncrossing his arms, Leon lifted a hand and waved it around slightly while shaking his head. “Are you actually still gonna sit here orrr…?” The sound of his voice finally snapped you out of shock, causing you to shoot your gaze down to your backpack, fumbling with its partially broken zipper. “I-.. Mr. Lebovic recommended you..?”

You pulled out a few of your failed assignments from your bag before setting them down on the table with shaky hands, keeping your eyes glued to the papers to avoid that burning stare the man in front of you has. “I need-.. I need help..?”

“Do you?” Leon let the chair fall forward, his sarcastic tone starting to make your whole body tremble. “You don’t sound like you do.” He snatched one of your assignments from the table and held it up, pursing his lips as he studied the various red marks made on it closely. You chose to not respond to that, letting your hands rest on top of your backpack so you had something to squeeze.

He turned the page around, the sound of the paper wobbling the only thing you could hear right after the sound of the central heat blowing through the vent in the room. Suddenly, Leon started chuckling to himself, shaking his head incredulously as he flipped the paper back and forth a couple times before letting it fall back to the table. “This is terrible!” His laugh grew louder as he tilted his body to the side to pull out his phone, taking a picture of the assignments you’d put on the table. 

How on earth were you supposed to react to that other than just sitting quietly? He was actually making fun of you right to your face. Hell, he might as well point and laugh if he’s going to be this brasen. 

The most you could muster up was a quiet yet high-pitched “... huh?” in response to him. This whole ordeal was spiraling a little too fast for you to keep up with. You were expecting to put up with some grown man with a bratty attitude or even just a very uninterested, not all there jock with how Leon’s been described to you, not blatant bullying.

“Huh?” He mocked, taking one last look at his phone while loudly sucking on his teeth before pocketing it again. “Anyways, this is actually sad. How are you managing to fuck simple math up like this?” He roughly grabbed all the papers on the table and stacked them before partially tossing them back at you, some slipping onto the floor. “You’re too far gone, even I can’t fix that.”

You let out a gasp when the papers were tossed at your face, scrambling to catch some of them. Pushing the chair back, you leaned over to grab the few that fell on the floor, desperately holding back tears. “Please, you don’t understand.” You pleaded, voice cracking as you tried your best not to start crying in front of him. “I-I need to pass this class. I’m passing everything else, I just can’t keep up with this one!” You were speed-talking to try and argue your case, sitting back up with the small pile of papers that you struggled to stack properly.

Leon started rocking back in his chair again, arms back across his chest as he watched you with squinted eyes. The corners of his lips soon turned up into a smirk, taking in your sorry state before rolling his eyes with a dramatic groan. “Alright, alright, stop whining, jesus..” He cleared his throat, letting his head fall over the back of the chair. “I’ll help you only because I feel bad for you.” It’s not like he was going to admit that he was being forced to be a tutor, no one needs leverage over him like that

You couldn’t help but give a small smile despite his implication. It was a start. “And I’m not gonna do it today, either.” Well, the sooner the better, but still, it’s a start.

He then stood up from the chair, fixing his jacket with a sigh. “If you show up even a minute late on Friday, I’m not helping” and before you even had a chance to reply, he walked out of the room, the door shutting with a slam which made you flinch. Luckily, you were a very punctual person when it came to this kind of stuff. This was important, so if you had to show up early, so be it. You hurriedly shoved your assignments back into your backpack, not even fully zipping it up before rushing out of the study room, back through the library, and to the dorms.

“He said that?!” Sky yelled, quickly wiping their hand over their mouth to quiet themself once you shushed them. “I don’t really feel comfortable with you going to another ‘study session’ with that guy if he’s just gonna bully you.”

“I wouldn’t call it bullying-”

“He was bullying you.”

“OKAY! So what if he was?!” You fell back onto Sky’s bed with a sigh, arms splayed out with your legs dangling off the side. “I can handle it. As long as I get my grade up, who cares?”

Sky sat down next to you on their bed, giving you a sad look as you sat yourself up with your elbows. “I care. So does Ella. You shouldn’t put up with that just for a grade. I’m sure if you explain to your professor and-”

“And what? Tell him that I’m a grown woman getting bullied over something I should know by now?” You sat yourself up fully now, leaning forward to place your elbows on your thighs as your head rested in your hands. “It’s only until finals are over and we’re already halfway through October. Maybe I won’t even need that much time, maybe I’m just missing one simple… math move and it’ll get the gears in my brain moving again.”

You tilted your head to the side to look at Sky, head now resting only in your right hand as you took in their annoyed look. “Trust me. I can handle this.”

“If you say so.” They ran their fingers through her hair before looking away from you, directing their attention forward to stare off at nothing. “Just remember that I bite and I’m not afraid to use my fake chompers on that no good-”

“I don’t wanna think about escalations right now, but thank you.” You chuckled, playfully nudging Sky with your free hand before moving it back to hold your head up with the other. Though you were trying to convince Sky on this, you were mostly just trying to convince yourself that you could handle this. Handle Leon and his.. alluring charm..

Only until finals, maybe even sooner.

[losers-clvb]

Do you think sam ever lets someone sit on his lap while he reads? And like… slowly gets distracted? 👀

Asking for academic research.

i know you probably meant fully clothed, innocent sitting on the lap, however, i just have to proclaim my affinity for cockwarming while reading. it just seems so intimate, and you can't tell me sam wouldn't be all about that! c'mon, he wants to crawl inside his girl's skin he loves her so much.

so yes, i do think he lets someone sit on his lap while he reads, and yes, he does get distracted. especially if you're getting all shifty when on him.

now, we can imagine this a few ways.

one, you're both feeling it immediately. it starts innocent. you're tired, or maybe you just wanna be close to him. he's reading up on some lore for that week's case. it's mindless, the way his arm lifts to let you crawl onto his lap.

"love you." you whisper to him, head resting on his shoulder. your arms are draped around him. he repositions himself, holding his book with one hand so he can wrap his free arm around you.

"love you more." he mumbles back. it's this little game he tries to play, usually leading the two of you to go back and forth. you never know who wins. it's a tie, you suppose. tonight, you only respond with a kiss on his neck, stubble scratching your lips.

sam continues to read while you lounge on him. you focus on his breathing, the sound of the pages flipping as he finishes reading them. at some point, you become increasingly aware of the position you're sitting in. even soft, sam's dick presses against you in just the right way.

you try to stay still, you really, really do. the muscle of your cheek twitches with the effort of slowly shifting your hips enough to give you any sense of relief.

sam notices immediately. he always notices everything you do, though the added heat seeping through your jeans helps the realization of what you're doing come to him faster.

"mmm, babe, tryin' to read," he hums. he wouldn't mind putting the book down to touch you, but he wants to let you ask for it first. with the knowledge that he's noticed your movements, you roll your hips down deeper.

"can't help it," you sigh into his ear, "you're just so hot." you can feel him hardening beneath you. you let out a whimper with another grind against him.

"say it." he orders. he's already shoving his book across the table, hands flying to your hips. you moan theatrically for him, getting a rise out of how he twitches in his jeans.

"want you to fuck me, sammy." you let out breathily, nibbling on the skin just under his earlobe. you didn't want to play games tonight. you needed him in you.

sam slides his arm down your back and under your ass, lifting you just enough to free himself. he shuffles your shorts and underwear down your legs. you ease onto him with a gasped sigh, sinking down with no resistance.

you two work in sync, you lifting your hips, sam thrusting into you when your pace stuttered. in no time, he's got you whining out with your orgasm. it's not until he's sure you're fully satisfied that he lets himself go.

you two stay like that for a while. sam is still inside you, your arms are back to draping over his shoulders. he's gone straight into his book, humming small words of love to you when he feels it's right.

two, you're forced to sit on his lap for whatever reason. for example, let's say it's at a hunter reunion! it got a bit out of hand, so read it here!

three, stanford era! sam letting his lab partner sit on his lap to look at samples. you wouldn't say you were close friends with sam. you're just lab partners, of course. sure, he's cute and nerdy and kind and kind of smoking hot, but he's also super shy and seems to not be into you.

wrong.

sam has never been into someone more than he's into you. in his eyes, you're an angel. everything about you. he thinks you're absolutely gorgeous, insanely smart, you're nice to him, and your fucking legs in those little skirts you like to flounce around in has had him stumbling to the bathroom to "relieve" himself more than once.

he's ashamed to say it, but you are the only thing he thinks about when he's jerking off.

unfortunately, he doesn't see how a girl like you could be interested in a boy like him. and add on the extra threat of the supernatural coming after you? he's never touching you.

that's why you have to make the first move.

the instructor had brought out microscopes for the day's lesson. it was middle school shit, just seek out the differences in the samples to determine which one was the odd man out. you didn't mind. it gave you the perfect opportunity to get all over sam.

you would use this as a sign of him really being into you or not. he would either let you sit in his lap while you looked (signaling into you status), or he would decline and move from the stool (signaling never gonna happen status).

"sam, can i look at the samples?" you ask, fluttering your lashes. sam nods, maybe too quickly, and swallow before moving to stand. you lay a hand on his chest, making his eyes widen and his movements to falter. "can i use your lap for an extra boost?"

sam balks at you. he can't believe this. you, his angel sent from heaven, wants to sit on him, the boy who can't even go home for christmas break. his mind -- and eyes -- fly to your skirt. it's short, like usual, and he can see the slightest bit of your midriff peeking out at him where your shirt wrinkled upwards.

"sam?" you ask when he still doesn't answer. his gaze shoots back to you and he nods, more than technically necessary. you smile sweetly at him and perch on his thighs. his hands instinctively go to your waist to steady you. this time sam smiles sweetly when you don't swat him away.

you're acutely aware of your lace panties pressing into the denim of his jeans when you bend forward to look in the microscope. so is sam, it appears, because soon you feel something hard pressing against the fabric covering you.

you bite back a smirk and glance behind you to see a nervous sam. he opens his mouth to apologize, but you cut him off before he can speak.

"you wanna show me how the cowboys from kansas do things?" you purr to him, low enough so the rest of your classmates can't hear. sam's eyes darken with something that has you clenching around nothing.

that night, you see the shy side of sam drop away with every orgasm he pulls out of you.

and four, some good ol' fashioned cockwarming. it's night, just before sleep. sam has a book cradled in his hands. you're laying on him, sleep shirt (his shirt) bunched up around your waist to account for your positioning. the positioning being you warming his cock while he reads to you. it's some book from his childhood, one of his favorites.

you did this often. the reading and the cockwarming. you two preferred it. it made you feel... closer. like there was something binding you together. it wasn't inherently sexual. yes, there were times it would lead to sex, but most times, it ended with you passed out on his chest.

it's the beginning of this book. the night before, he'd finished reading one of your favorites. it was how it worked. one book was your choice, the next sam's, and so on and so forth. of course, by the end of each book, you both claimed it as your favorite, even if it had been the other's pick. you were slowly building a little library of your shared-love books.

you let out a deep breath as sam speaks. his chest rumbles under where your cheek is pressed against his shirt. you've never been happier, or fuller.

eventually, you fall asleep. that fact slips past sam for a few pages. he's gonna have to go back and read them again the next night, but he doesn't mind. he just loves you with everything he's worth.

sam dog-ears the page -- something you'll scold him for when you see it ("use the pretty bookmarks i bought!") -- and sets it on the bedside table. he flicks the lamp off and settles into his own sleep, still inside of you.

alright! maybe more than you asked for, anon, but it was what popped into my mind as i typed.

oh, my favorite cockwarming fics? i'm so happy you asked!! here's a few that pretty much center around it from some moots:

"letting you" by @chxrrywines

"gotta earn it" by @angelicjackles

untitled sam drabble by @littlesoulshine

"says i'm his favorite (yeah, i better be)" by @sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth (okay, it doesn't center around cockwarming, but it's there, and is one of my favorite fics. BOY KING SAM SUPREMACY!)

if anyone else has any cockwarming fics, send them my way. i'mma eat that shit up!!!

[drrealityslenderverse]

Marble Hornets Pokemon Teams Round 1!

Teams & my reasoning for picking them below the cut:

Hoody/Brian:

1. Pawmot- a Pokémon Brian had pre-MH. Mostly picked because of the "that's some nice hair" line lol. However, Pawmot is also great to have around because he can charge devices like the camera while out living in the woods!

2. Umbreon- originally an eevee he had pre-MH. The color scheme just matches Hoody well & the whole night-theme seems fitting. His specifically is easily aggitated ever since things starting going downhill.

3. Banette- Brian took it in just before things fell apart after finding it at one of Alex's film locations. Banette has prove to be a loyal companion, usually easy going and the one to sooth frayed nerves, but fully willing to curse its enemies. I thought it'd be cool to have a megastone in place of one of its eyes, although Hoody doesn't mega evolve it often. Again, color pallet seemed fitting, but Banette's Pokédex entries also seem fitting for his character.

4. Mimikyu- brought onto the team shortly after he took up the mask and acted as Hoody. His is rather shy and likes to mimic him. Picked mostly because I thought the cloth disguise fit nicely with his cloth mask and the mentions of loneliness in the Pokédex.

5. Yamask- the worrier of the team who showed up one day. I wasn't going to give him a yamask, but the color scheme is so perfect lol. I suppose the whole, 'the mask it carries is of its old face' lore could refer to Brian's life pre-MH.

6. Nickit- Hoody specifically caught one just to steal things like Tim's medicine. This one has a rather childish personality but is always eager to cause trouble by following Hoody's orders. I feel like this one is obvious; I picked it for the team because of its thief skills. I kept it unevolved because it seems cuter and I liked the 'cautious and cunning' description more than Thievul's.

Tim/Masky:

1. Growlithe- Given to him as a child to alert for seizures! Tim worries the poor pup when he goes into the Masky state. This well-trained Growlithe is his closest companion. I had to give him a friendly loyal dog Pokémon and like to think this one's mane has that well-loved stuffed animal texture.

2. Absol- he added this one to his team around the time Alex's project crumbled. Absol came to him in rough shape already and is often grumpy due to years of no one heeding his warnings. I wanted to add one to the team because I feel like Tim's character does warn Jay often of the dangers to stop, but keeps investigating & helping Jay anyway. Absol's colors also match Masky's mask well.

3. Mimikyu- found it one day and it followed him home. This one is curious about things and often helps Masky and Tim find items to help their goals. I wasn't going to add this to his team, but shiny Mimikyu reassembles his mask so I tossed it in.

4. Yamask- haunted him since childhood but Masky didn't add it to his team until the project fell apart. It's friendly and also likes to find tapes to bring back for its trainer. I specifically put yamask on the team for the mask item it carries around, and made it shiny to get it closer to the white mask color.

5. Pangoro- a powerful Pokémon that Masky exclusively tends to use. It's the muscle power to the team. Tim is... wary of Pangoro's aggressive nature but wouldn't feel good about abandoning it. I had to give him something that was a strong hitter since Masky is usually the one to attack. Pangoro's color scheme works well for Masky's mask too.

I didn't give him a 6th Pokémon because I felt like this was a nice line-up. I did consider and espeon or other eeveelution to play off Hoody's umbreon, but decided none really vibed well for me to add.

I also didn't plan on giving them duplicate Pokémon, but I liked yamask & mimikyu for each for different reasons, so there they are. If anything, they could reflect how the two seemed to work together for a time.

[conflictofthemind]

TL;DR: HNL was studying how to give human subjects electromagnetic, most specifically visible light based, powers in order to bend space-time for their needs.

I’m going to try and condense this as much as I can because considering electromagnetism as a major force in ST (pun intended) opens up so many potential areas of analysis that can only be a brief cover of without turning into multiple essays.

Let’s go over the electromagnetic spectrum:

I hope you might already be recognizing some symbols we see often in Stranger Things, especially if you’ve been following the BTS and some location and set leaks from Season 5.

The electromagnetic spectrum encompasses the different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation - waves of energy that travel at the speed of light (and produce visible light to us at certain frequencies). You’ve probably heard of most of these, including cancer-causing gamma rays and x-rays, the visible light spectrum (the rainbow), microwaves, and radio waves.

In S5, we have the radio station as a main location for the characters. They’re also driving around in the radio station’s van, which has an image of a hawk emitting a rainbow (visible light radiation). Steve’s car also has a massive antenna on top of it. My first thoughts were that the team was trying to keep in contact with Max in hopes of her being able to hear them in her coma, considering she has a radio near her bedside. While that still may be a reason, I think the characters may have come to realize how important electromagnetic fields could be in their fight against Vecna (this where leader of the AV Club also focused on electromagnetic objects Scott Clarke may make his triumphant return).

Now to pivot onto why electromagnetism is so important to the lore of ST:

What the scientists in Hawkins Lab are likely studying is a way for human brains to produce or manipulate certain types of electromagnetic waves through telepathy. Most obviously this is seen by them having the kids try to manipulate and turn on a circle of light bulbs. Our brains actually already produce electromagnetic waves, but at a very slow frequency. The scientists are constantly measuring brain waves while conducting these experiments. We even get full shots of El’s brain waves during NINA, for example. We also see similar shots in S2 while Will is in the HNL.

You can also observe that the Hawkins National Laboratory has absolutely massive satellite dishes on it’s rooftop; ones that do not exist on the real life building but are added in post because they pose some sort of significance. Nudge, it’s because they are transmitting and receiving massive amounts of electromagnetic waves.

Why are they studying electromagnetic waves then?

They are studying electromagnetic waves because they are a method in which time travel can theoretically be achieved - the focus of the Montauk Project in which Stranger Things is based on. The military likely is investigating time travel as another war tactic against Russia.

Let us take a look at the first chapter of the Montauk Project: Experiments in Time book (they are seriously plagiarizing the living hell out of this thing):

Also, did you catch the whole 'attaching a massive antenna on the hood of my car to pick up a secret signal' thing? That's suspiciously similar to the state of Steve's car! Anyway...

The story of Stranger Things starts chronologically, as does Montauk, with the disappearance of the USS Eldridge and Project Rainbow (named after the bending of the visible light spectrum). Brenner’s father was revealed to have captained the boat in TFS, which disappeared for 12 hours into Dimension X and when it came back, the crew was killed or driven mad (except for Brenner Sr). This inspires Brenner to continue onto the Nevada project, and eventually, Hawkins National Lab’s studies. The USS Eldridge / Philadelphia Project conspiracy from real life went as follows:

They were studying electromagnetism, specifically the bending of light, to make objects invisible. This was only the first step in the experiments. Once Henry got involved and came back from his trip to Dimension X with powers, Brenner must have realized he could potentially use human subjects to manipulate electromagnetic fields themselves. Human subjects didn’t require machinery or set up and could bend space-time wherever they pleased, as long as they were able to learn the ability.

The more conspiratiorial side of Theoretical Physics proposes using circulating light beams to warp time-space, creating a wormhole in which one can literally walk through time. This is pop-science, likely not true but interesting for fiction purposes. This method of time travel being used is heavily implied due to the fact that the USS Eldridge was already able to disappear into another dimension by the bending of light.

This is how it worked in the Montauk Project book (absolutely ridiculous how much they took from this honestly):

My guess is that in the Stranger Things universe, they have not yet managed to time travel, only to create portals into this alien Dimension X. Previously, said portals were only made twice by highly advanced technological equipment. El demonstrated that she was able to open a portal all by herself - another step to achieving time travel with singular human subjects. Season five is when we will see the beginning of the time travel plot line, though it like in Montauk is likely already in a loop.

That’s where we get the name for the Rainbow Room, named after this Project Rainbow. The rainbow represents the full spectrum of visible light, and the goals of the project to bend said light into portals and eventually time travel wormholes.

Implications?:

-Well, first of all it seems very obvious by this point that we are going for a time travel plot line, and this is how it will be achieved.

-Will is heavily connected to light in general, the sun, and of course… the rainbow. He is also implied be the one involved in the time travel plot line. This will be very relevant going forward and deserves it’s own post. Potential funniness of defeating Vecna with the power of the rainbow afoot.

-Coma patients are known to have odd, barely detectable brain waves. The kids will be able to communicate with Max in her coma using the electromagnetic spectrum somehow, probably through the radio waves.

-On the farthest end of the spectrum, we have ionizing gamma ray radiation, which is known to cause cancer in humans. Expect Hopper’s daughter Sara to connect to this plot line (and perhaps Sam Owens’ dead son). There is a whole theory on this site already called radiationgate. I have not managed to look into it yet but I think they are probably onto something there. The original al pitch mentions the UD leakage into the real world causing cancer as well.

[bloominheresy]

After being inspired by Kj's Band AU months back, I have decided to also throw my hat into the rink! (👉ﾟヮﾟ)👉

I only have Narinder and Leshy's streetwear designed so far, but anyways!! Lore drop time YYYYEAAAAH

An Eternal Vessel for a Voice AU ( Bishops ):

Legally recognized foster family, all used to live in one house until a few years prior to the current timeline

Shamura the eldest sibling, estimated 35 yrs old, is the founder of their own rapidly growing tech company. They used to be a super popular anonymous producer online but retired to pursue the challenge of technological innovations + support their siblings as the main breadwinner of the family

Kallamar (30-ish) used to work at a private clinic as a doctor and also supported the household, but has since parted from the household to watch over Heket

Heket at her early twenties is currently touring the lands and is a well-renowned vocalist known for her deep and powerful growls and control (think Ado!); doesn't want to return home just yet in order to heal from the rift caused by a certain event

Leshy (18) is still a high schooler on his last year; one of those 'stupidly smart without studying' type of kids who has too much free time on his hands and uses it to indulge himself in art and anime weeb stuff HAHAHA he got gifted a drawing tablet by Kallamar for his birthday and has been obsessed in exploring the art medium

Narinder (24) finished college a few years back, but a certain event made him a social shut-in for a while, taking care of the house now instead and being the only sibling Leshy loves to constantly annoy since Shamura often comes home late and barely has time to stay for the weekends. He has a great passion for music producing thanks to Shamura's influence growing up and has been using his spare time at home to hone his craft and post his work online

They all have social media accs Twitter Narinder and Leshy's mascots / pfps uses their crowns; Leshy is actually the artist for many of Narinder's album covers and music videos and is often seen bantering online on the TL even if they're literally in the same house most of the time 💀

This one is just self-indulgent and projecting but Narinder loathes the idea of socializing in order to collab with other online musicians so he forced himself to learn how to play the piano so that he could just use VSTs (virtual instruments) instead to cover all other parts his songs would need BWAHAHAHA ( I wish I knew how to play piano for the same reason :') )

Adding onto here some more Nari and Leshy-specific hcs:

Magic doesn't exist in this Modern AU, so Narinder's eyes are an olive green, and his third eye has been replaced with an oddly symmetrical scar he got from an accident years back

Leshy's social media handle (@chervx888_) is based on the romanized spelling of worm in Russian, while all the 8's are meant to represent a lot of eyes

Leshy has once bursted into Narinder's room, phone in hand, to proclaim with his volume turned up to eleven: "BRO, BABY GRONK JUST CALLED OUT THE RIZZLER TO FIGHT HIM IN THE BOXING RING"

Leshy is really REALLY nearsighted but refuses to wear the prescription glasses he was given since it looks "uncool" to his classmate friend group consisting of the Darkwood mini bosses

—

Be warned that I need to add another set of woody horns on Leshy to match his sprite... but. BUT- what if... the third set starts growing out or something later down the line.... (no clie, just add the third set instead doubling down)

Anyways, this AU is meant to reference popular JP entertainment media online! NicoDouga, Vtubers, Vocaloid, Utaites, JPop, and much more!

[crayfee]

School Bus Graveyard Fanfiction Recommendations!!!

Okay so there are SO MANY good fanfics within this fandom we have truly been BLESSED by some talented writers! So, if I miss any out that you feel deserve a mention/want to self promote, feel free to add a comment/repost to add to my list!!! The more the merrier! Also, fellow authors who I have recommended, let me know if you see this and have a tumblr you would like me to @! (I will probably do a part 2 of this because there is just THAT MUCH good out there)

First I'm going to do some self promotion myself...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62451622/chapters/159821806

Banana Split, 60K+ words, incomplete.

This is set post season 2 and focuses primarily the duos we left of with (...and includes some of them interacting with the other pairs I wont say how tho...) with some side focus on characters like Ryan, Jasmine and, as of recent, the parents/Lily. I have a few OCs added in there however they are minor characters. I have my own lore regarding the "clones" we see in the season finale, Logans family and so much more!!!

(It has been so fun to write this fanfiction and I can't express how happy I am with the supply I have gained so THANKYOU!!!)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64489975/chapters/165603121

Twists And Turns, 12K+ words, incomplete.

This is basically a "what if" fic I wrote about an AU where Charlie (and Ryan) got out with the kids. I have tried to stick to Charlie's POV however I've ended up delving off into others POVs (Aiden, Ashlyn etc).

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64776157/chapters/166451539

Vera Stone, 3K+ words, incomplete.

Another "what if" fanfic which focuses on Vera Stone, an OC of mine, and delves into her relationship with group, how she affects her dynamic etc. She had her own lore, however I also have taken this chance to expand upon side characters lore, open new storylines and write scenes that Red didn't include in the webtoon. It's a rewrite of this fanfic:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/60070603/chapters/154633063 (13K+ words, abandoned)

Okay now onto some fanfictions I have read and have REALLY enjoyed! (In no particular order)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62718334/chapters/160560073

Underneath the Scarlet Skies, 103K+ words, unfinished.

Another "what if" fanfic based on the zombie apocalypse like scenario of everyone (like EVERYONE) getting shifted to the Phantom Realm. It's based off The Walking Dead and includes some vague references. Brilliant writing, especially when it comes to Aidens relationship with his parents (his mother in particular) and the gangs dynamic. It had a series of side stories that you can also read, which is just as good:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63332935/chapters/162248446 (2 chapters, unfinished)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61754659/chapters/157873156

Not All Change is Bad, 9K+ words, unfinished. @pinkbirddiaries

Admittedly I haven't read this one in full yet however from what I have seen it's AMAZING! It's a mermaid/summer camp AU (with Mr Thomas and Jasmine acting as a camp councillor, which is amazing).

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64884724/chapters/166771669

What it takes to fight fate, 2K+ words, unfinished.

The same author as above also has this SBG OC fanfic which is HELLA interesting! It's on their profile if you wanna read it, I definitely recommend it. It plays around with time travel and memories!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64766245/chapters/166424209

The Phantom Games, 16K+ words, unfinished. @astro-can

Amazing Hunger Games AU! Based of Catching Fire. Victor Ashlyn Banner is sent into the games for a second time... includes our main gang as Victor's, alongside OCs (mine included, thanks again!!!) , Maverick as this AUs Plutarch and a brewing rebellion.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63697894/chapters/163294051

Adrenaline Junkie, 16K words, finished.

Aiden centric! Focuses on Aidens life on the lead up to the jeep mission. Includes conflict with the group and some BRILLIANT Clark cousin content. Truly amazing stuff (...and there may be a part 2/prequal coming.)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62434777/chapters/159774217

If We Remained United: The Long Road to New York, 35K+ words, unfinished @carnivalconflict

This is set after season 2 in an AU where the gang remains united. Includes a military base, planes, a training arc and a brilliant execution of the groups dynamic with some equally good characterisation and minor OCs!

[gargoyleandgremlinpress]

Sudden Nature by everbrighter

This MDZS fic/series is a modern AU that's mostly without magic... except there's a heavenly bureaucracy. And every once in a while, it makes a mistake, and sends someone who's died back to earth. This is rare, but frequent enough that hospitals have resurrection wards just in case.

If you're at all familiar with canon, I think we can all see where this is going.

Wei Ying is a a whistleblower on the Wen Corporation in this one, who's adopted baby A-Yuan. When he's killed in an accident, Lan Zhan raises Lan Yuan and lives with his grief... and then Wei Ying comes back. This is a story that's emotional and heartfelt, and very funny in bits, about grief and loss and family, and getting something back you never thought you would, much like canon.

The series is a bunch of interconnected short fic with two long segments. The first one is from one from Lan Sizhui's point of view: "Lan Yuan has lived most of his sixteen years not knowing the man who raised him as a toddler. So when Wei Ying suddenly comes back to life, both Lan Yuan and his dad, Lan Zhan, work to make room in their lives for him. Too bad he has a science project due this week..."

The second one is from Wei Ying's: "Wei Ying comes back from the dead, all of a sudden. Over the course of a week, he remembers what it is to be alive, and what it is to be in love." (Not gonna lie, I kind of love the parts where Wei Ying is adjusting to no longer having the body of a twenty year old, in terms of sleeping for a week on the couch now has CONSEQUENCES.)

But it was the very first part of the series that hooked me, where Lan Zhan falls in love. And it's not who you think.

"Aren’t there classes for this? Aren’t there books a person is supposed to read for this? Should he have done research? Shouldn’t he have prepared? But ah, it’s too late now, and there’s a baby in his arms, face to the shoulder of Lan Zhan’s cable-knit sweater."

I finished the typeset for this fic back in the fall of 2022, and it was in my pile of text blocks to finish binding for Binderary, an annual fanbinding challenge, in February, 2023. It was the last one left. I looked at the text block. I looked at my bookcloth and paper options for the cover. I pulled out two options... and couldn't decide. It turns out, I just didn't have the right combination of colours.

In the interim, I obtained some Duo book cloth, a particular line that has a two-tone colour shift to it, gorgeous in person, but really hard to photograph. The company that makes it, sadly, has gone out of business, and the final group orders for it obtained near epic status among @renegadeguild circles. (It has its own lore. And fic.)

Which is to say, the spine of this book is Duo Dragonfly, and the cover is chiyogami paper. The endbands were my first time trying a double core, in sewing thread, and are a little bit shaky as a result, though I'm pretty happy with the colour combo. Lettering stencilled in gold acrylic paint.

I was going for an ethereal, heavenly feel with the title page, and a shout out to the Toronto setting with the spread on the table of contents. (Hello, fellow Canadians!)

A few interior shots here, and a vaguely Lan cloud used for the section breaks. I did a bit of formatting to mimic a newspaper column for the article that starts off "Thirty-Seven," the long section from Wei Ying's point of view.

I am pretty happy with how it turned out, and glad I held off to get the match that felt right for the cover materials!

And behind the cut for spoilers... the last sentence in the short chapter right before Wei Ying's death gets me RIGHT IN THE FEELS every single time I read it.

Lan Zhan held onto A-Yuan! He held him for fifteen minutes, and then for the next sixteen years it took for Wei Ying to come back from getting milk at the 7-11! Oh my heart. Nnngh.

(Also, I slid in a fan art illustration for the fic from GreenTeaPikachu, so enjoy the drunk!LanZhan Does Parkour as an added bonus for clicking through!)

[ladyofthebookcase]

ok here's my review of the watcher so far! spoilers for both endings probably.

I LOVE IT. it has its flaws but it's literally impossible to make a bad rain world game + the inclusion of the original team on this one absolutely knocks it out of the park. i ADORE that we got more lore and elaborations on things from vanilla-- like, the signal spires iterators?!?! hello??? that's so sick. also, the threads of reality stuff is really really cool and i'll be rattling it around in my brain for a while i think. it's very cool that they gave us a sort-of explanation for the cycles, or at least a way to explain it ourselves. also, what tumblr user iteratorsex has been doing with color symbolism and analysis of the rot-- i agree with all of that and im rotating it in my brain at immense speeds.

i think gameplay is probably the least polished, but again, this is the first release, they gave it to us early, and considering that, i'm more than happy with what we have. future updates will hopefully polish it up and they seem to be actively collecting feedback on that and listening to the community about accessibility fixes, so i have really no complaints. common videocult W. my only real gripe with gameplay is that i fucking hate aether ridge and would really rather they'd done a badlands and just completely redone it but like eh. it's fine that they didn't ig. i also wish, conversely, that they'd kept old badlands-- the new one is fine, but it really seems like it could be something completely different. they could've added it as a subregion onto badlands 1 or sumn. but i digress. i love that they added modded regions at all: some of those are absolute BANGERS like coral caves and im glad they got the recognition they deserve!

the portaling mechanic is a bit janky right now as well, but again, i expect it'll be improved on in the future. knowing that you can just use existing portals and don't need to keep making your own ones is very nice actually and i'm just glad i figured that out at all-- i'm not upset that they don't tell you that ingame, i like having to figure stuff out on my own. yeah it was frustrating but that's rain world <3

in terms of the story. waow. they hit it out of the park. i love the watcher soooo much they're so AUUUUUGHHHHH. they have so much personality and lore to them and it's shown to us so well through cutscenes and just in general the choices the story forces you to make (i.e. infecting all the regions with rot is the path you have to take to get the ending, but from a story perspective, it's also what watcher decides to do in order to be friends with the prince. same thing with following oaoa around! i love how games will imply things about the player character through narrative options like this auuugh it's so good.) the watcher is my baby and i would like to care for them and cherish them. the lack of normal iterators is honestly refreshing-- i love those guys, but downpour gave us enough of them i think, and it's nice to explore other aspects of the lore like ancients, echoes, and the rot this time around. i especially love learning more about the ancients-- ancient urban is probably my favourite region of the entire game, and was even before i found the upper part with the ancients in it.

sorry im jumping between tangents like crazy but i want to cover all my bases here as i think of them. this campaign was HORRIFYING. like. the devs have really gotten good at making things scary and building a slow sense of increasing and terrible dread god damn. when i first entered the prince's room i was so freaked out by just the lack of anything in there besides the giant rot bulb and the singular karma flower, tiny in comparison. the presence of karma flowers at all in such a heavily rotted and decaying place as the throne is incredibly ominous and i love how they're able to make something that's normally so benign and welcome into something scary. when i first saw the prince move i immediately paused the game and tabbed out because i got so scared. this game is SO FUCKING GOOD AT BEING SCARY and i love it. even just when you're stuck in vanilla regions and the rot is slowly spreading and the lizards are starting to get infected, you get this slow and growing horror of "what the fuck is happening" that i feel is absent from both vanilla and downpour and it's amazing. exploring station annex for the first time, discovering the rotted vanilla regions, finding the throne... it's just so fucking good. i fear replays will never live up to the experience of going through it the first time but i'll really cherish that nonetheless.

also can we talk about the first ending. because that made me cry. finding oaoa in their childhood bedroom.... learning they were a child and seeing them move on... returning to their room to find their toys and getting to play with them and have the watcher reclaim some of their childhood joy... what a beautiful story GOOD LORD. and the art elevates it so much. the cutscenes are gorgeous but also can we talk about how much the background art has improved??? like god damn. the drills in outer rim look so insanely detailed and good like that really stood out to me. also their use of vibrant and bright colors in regions like signal spires and verdant waterways... AUGH. and the insane detail in ancient urban... the subtle colors there and the use of negative space... it's so damn good. i could go on for hours about the background art alone like vanilla rain world is already gorgeous and the watcher takes that to another level.

in conclusion. watcher is amazingly good and well crafted and you can clearly tell that so much love and care went into every part of this game. i haven't even talked about the creatures here GOD the creatures are so good. the creativity on display here. they got so weird with it and i love that soooo much. I <3 RAIN WORLD

[yansimstorythatiwillnotworkon]

Kokona Haruka

Name: Kokona Haruka

Gender: Female

Class: 1-1

Club: Drama

Persona: Social Butterfly

Reputation:

Overall: +33

Liked: +50

Respected: +50

Feared: 0

Crush: Riku Soma

Strength: Weak

(Despite what I claimed before, this is awfully long.)

__

I'll spoil it now. Out of all of the other characters that I may or may not kill, Kokona Haruka is NOT one of them. I won't go into detail, but she has been someone very close to my heart since I first learned of YanSim.

Onto the important stuff, though. I think Kokona is a character that is the number one best character in Yandere Simulator. I'm content with her being just some NPC as of now, but only because I feel like any other editing to her character could mess it up.

Since she was a beta rival, she has a pretty decent life, decent lore, and decent relationships with her peers. I even think that she could make a great main character of a YanSim story that was meant to be more horrific than just violence.

I don't think much of Kokona needs to be explained since I'm just adding more specific bits to her already explained lore somewhere in YanSim's history. Some of these specifics are:

Kokona's personality, which is social and friendly, but still a bit anxious and nervous around people she doesn't know well. This is likely due to her father being the same way because he only ever interacted with whoever the loan sharks sent to collect the money. (Maybe, I admit I don't know much about how interactions like these work.)

Kokona's history, which consists of her mother divorcing her father. This led him to take several loans and, in turn, fall into debt. In middle school, she started doing jobs and favors for money, but a little closer to the end of her time in middle school, she ended up dating several of her classmates for money, amongst other (non-sexual 🙏) things. As of high school, she's started going on dates with whoever would pay, which has helped a little bit for her father's debt.

And finally, Kokona's relationships. This being with Riku, Saki, Kizana, Musume, and likely Kashiko as well (due to her wanting to ruin Riku and Kokona's relationship specifically). Kokona and Saki have been friends since middle school, and it was back then that Saki learned of her secret. Since she was her best friend, she's since been updated on every decision Kokona makes, and sometimes follows after Kokona to make sure nothing happens. Sometimes, she helps her by doing similar acts to Kokona.

Riku had a big crush on Kokona to begin with due to simply liking her appearance. After joining her club, he learned more about her and came to love her personality as well. After learning her type, he specifically wore his hair the way she'd like as well as with glasses in order to win her over. After he confessed, he didn't keep this up, but he does still insist on doing so on dates with her. Kokona hasn't formally accepted his confession due to feeling guilty about what she does without him knowing, but she does still allow Riku to confidently say that they're dating.

Kizana has always been such a superstar in Kokona's eyes. She was popular, talented and confident, everything that Kokona wanted to be. So, (unlike Tokuko) she started following in her footsteps, like copying her body language when she's around her and trying her best to be confident in front of her, even if she's shot down. Kokona is a sweetheart, and whole-heartedly believes that no one acts a certain way for no reason, so she personally excuses any irritation Kizana holds towards her. (The similar hair is on Kizana, Kokona loves drilled pigtails since middle school.)

Musume always obsesses over people she believed or knew had a dark secret. (Think- Horuda; Knows- Kokona.) And Kashiko has simply hopped on that train due to loving to ruin relationships. She believes that since Riku and Kokona are so sweet together, it'll be even better when she screws up their relationship.

(I apologize for this length. I even said I was going to keep anyone outside of the main characters and rivals short.)

[thepringlesofblood]

Murderbot Citations

I'm writing a giant research paper on the murderbot diaries and how Wells contrasts utopia & dystopia in her worldbuilding to deepen both sets of lore. So, I have made a LOT of citations.

Like, a LOT of citations. I can't even begin to describe. and it has been a royal pain getting them all on the computer, formatted correctly, with page # and book attached.

So. I decided to publish my giant list of citations online in case anyone else wants to do posts/papers/projects on the murderbot diaries and needs formatted, direct quotes with page numbers attached. (Also to feel like all this work has been for more than just my own academic needs.)

TLDR: A compilation of quotes from The Murderbot Diaries with page numbers attached, ready to be adjusted to the citation style of your choice & used as in-text citations where you see fit to put them. Enjoy!

ASR = All Systems Red

AC = Artificial Condition

RP = Rogue Protocol

ES = Exit Strategy

NE = Network Effect

FT = Fugitive Telemetry

SC = System Collapse

I use 'mb' as shorthand for murderbot

It's mostly ASR, with some NE and FT thrown in, but I put all the abbreviations in case I wind up coming back and putting more citations here

My list is organized according to how I'm writing the paper (all ones about surveillance here, all the ones about contract slavery there, etc.), so the page numbers are not in order, and there might be a repeat or two, but they are in book order. some of them might be repeated bc I had them formatted in lists like "all quotes related to ___) and some quotes relate to multiple things.

if you're looking specifically for gender-related mb quotes, @worldsentwined made a wonderful post collecting them a while back. I also have a few other murderbot posts that have quotes in them that might not be here, including a reblog where a bunch of lovely people added extra citations onto my original post. I hope you find what you're looking for!

All Systems Red

“I had been on contracts where the clients would have told me to put the bleeding human down to go get the stuff.” (15) ASR

“There were groans and general complaining about having to pay high prices for shitty equipment. (I don’t take it personally.)” (31) ASR crossover w slavery

“My education modules were such cheap crap;” (34) ASR

“I’m not refundable.” (49) ASR

“(You had to check everything out and log any problems immediately when you took delivery or the company wasn’t liable.)” (52) ASR

“It was all company equipment though, per contract, and all subject to the same malfunctions as the crap they’d dumped on us.” (58) ASR

““The company could be bribed to conceal the existence of several hundred survey teams on this planet.” Survey teams, whole cities, lost colonies, traveling circuses, as long as they thought they could get away with it. I just didn’t see how they could get away with making a client survey team—two client survey teams—vanish. Or why they’d want to. There were too many bond companies out there, too many competitors. Dead clients were terrible for business. “I don’t think the company would collude with one set of clients to kill two other sets of clients. You purchased a bond agreement that the company would guarantee your safety or pay compensation in the event of your death or injury. Even if the company couldn’t be held liable or partially liable for your deaths, they would still have to make the payment to your heirs. DeltFall was a large operation. The death payout for them alone will be huge.” And the company hated to spend money.” (90) ASR

“The organic parts mostly sleep, but not always. You know something’s happening. They were trying to purge my memory. We’re too expensive to destroy.” (116) ASR

“The company required this as a security feature if you wanted your base to be anywhere without open terrain around it. It cost extra, and if you didn’t want it, it cost even more to guarantee your bond.” (124) ASR

“Okay, the problem is, I’ve mentioned this before, the company is cheap. When it comes to something like a beacon that just has to launch once if there’s an emergency, send a transmission through the wormhole, and then never gets retrieved, they’re very cheap.” (137) ASR

“I said, “This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction…. “Your contract allows—” “Shut up,” Mensah snapped.” (139) ASR

“…we’re cheaply produced and we suck. Nobody would hire one of us for non-murdering purposes unless they had to.” (34) ASR

“In a smart world, I should go alone, but with the governor module I had to be within a hundred meters of at least one of the clients at all times, or it would fry me.” (37) ASR

“I walked out a little way, past a couple of the lakes, almost expecting to see something under the surface. Dead bodies, maybe. I’d seen plenty of those (and caused plenty of those) on past contracts, but this one had been dead-body-lacking, so far. It made for a nice change.” (44) ASR

“This is how we fight: throw ourselves at each other and see whose parts give out first.” (69) ASR

““Dr. Mensah,” I said, “this is a violation of security priority and I am contractually obligated to record this for report to the company—” It was in the buffer and the rest of my brain was empty.” (73) ASR

“The DeltFall SecUnits hadn’t been rogues, they had been inserted with combat override modules. The modules allow personal control over a SecUnit, turn it from a mostly autonomous construct into a gun puppet. The feed would be cut off, control would be over the comm, but functionality would depend on how complex the orders were. “Kill the humans” isn’t a complex order.” (75) ASR

““Because if the company wanted to sabotage you, they would have poisoned your supplies using the recycling systems. The company is more likely to kill you by accident.”” (81) ASR

“I said, “I did not hack my governor module to kill my clients. My governor module malfunctioned because the stupid company only buys the cheapest possible components. It malfunctioned and I lost control of my systems and I killed them. The company retrieved me and installed a new governor module. I hacked it so it wouldn’t happen again.” (81) ASR

"“Do they really expect to get away with this?” Ratthi turned to me, like he was expecting an answer.” (105)

““They may believe the company and whoever your beneficiaries are won’t look any further than the rogue SecUnits. But they can’t make two whole survey teams disappear unless their corporate or political entity doesn’t care about them. Does DeltFall’s care? Does yours?” (105) ASR

“Freehold meant it had been terraformed and colonized but wasn’t affiliated with any corporate confederations. Basically freehold generally meant shitshow so I hadn’t been expecting much from them. But they were surprisingly easy to work for.” (26) ASR

“The other good thing about my hacked governor module is that I could ignore the governor’s instructions to defend the stupid company.” (48) ASR

“I had a moment to feel betrayed, which was stupid. Volescu was my client, and I’d saved his life because that was my job, not because I liked him.” (79-80) ASR

“One saw me and Ratthi and said, “Again, this is irregular. Purging the unit’s memory before it changes hands isn’t just a policy, it’s best for the—” (143) ASR

“Maybe it would work out. This was what I was supposed to want. This was what everything had always told me I was supposed to want. Supposed to want.” (147) ASR

“Murderbots aren’t allowed to ride with the humans and I had to have verbal permission to enter. With my cracked governor there was nothing to stop me, but not letting anybody, especially the people who held my contract, know that I was a free agent was kind of important. Like, not having my organic components destroyed and the rest of me cut up for parts important.” (14) ASR

“I’m always supposed to speak respectfully to the clients, even when they’re about to accidentally commit suicide. HubSystem could log it and it could trigger punishment through the governor module.” (15) ASR

“…if it monitored the governor module and my feed like it was supposed to, it could lead to a lot of awkward questions and me being stripped for parts.” (31) ASR

“I had worked for some contracts that would have kept me standing here the entire day and night cycle, just on the off chance they wanted me to do something and didn’t want to bother using the feed to call me.” (33) ASR

“I don’t know why I was dancing around the word. Maybe because I thought she didn’t want to hear it. She’d just shot a heavily armed SecUnit with a mining drill to get me back; presumably she wanted to keep me.” (76) ASR

“Then Mensah said quietly, “SecUnit, do you have a name?” I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.” “It calls itself ‘Murderbot,’” Gurathin said." (82) ASR

“To them, talking to me was like talking to a hopper or a piece of mining equipment.” (127) ASR

“I know I said SecUnits aren’t sentimental about each other, but I wished it wasn’t one of the DeltFall units. It was in there somewhere, trapped in its own head, maybe aware, maybe not. Not that it matters. None of us had a choice.” (132) ASR

“Guardian was a nicer word than owner.” (148) ASR

“I’ve purchased your contract.” (145) ASR

“He said, “Good news! Dr. Mensah has permanently bought your contract! You’re coming home with us!” (141) ASR

“I’m off inventory.” They had told me that and maybe it was true.” (145) ASR

“SecSystem records everything, even inside the sleeping cabins, and I see everything.” (30) ASR

“I was supposed to check their personal logs periodically in case they were plotting to defraud the company or murder each other or something…” (57) ASR

“One of the reasons the bond company requires it, besides slapping more expensive markups on their clients, is that I was recording all their conversations all the time, though I wasn’t monitoring anything I didn’t need to do a half-assed version of my job. But the company would access all those recordings and data mine them for anything they could sell. No, they don’t tell people that. Yes, everyone does know it. No, there’s nothing you can do about it.” (27-28) ASR

“Now they knew their murderbot didn’t want to be around them any more than they wanted to be around it. I’d given a tiny piece of myself away. That can’t happen. I have too much to hide, and letting one piece go means the rest isn’t as protected.” (33-34) ASR

“No one would be shooting at me because they didn’t shoot people there. Mensah didn’t need a bodyguard there; nobody did. It sounded like a great place to live, if you were a human or augmented human.” (146) ASR

“If there’s a chance we can save lives, we have to take it,” Pin-Lee agreed.” (57) ASR

“They were the first clients I’d had who hadn’t had any previous experience with SecUnits” (40) ASR

““You have to think of it as a person,” Pin-Lee said to Gurathin.” (95) ASR

“”It is a person,” Arada insisted.” “I do think of it as a person,” Gurathin said. “An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us.” “Then stop being mean to it,” Ratthi told him. “That might help.”” (96) ASR

“Overse added, “It doesn’t want to interact with humans. And why should it? You know how constructs are treated, especially in corporate-political environments.”” (107) ASR

“”You know, in Preservation-controlled territory, bots are considered full citizens. A construct would fall under the same category.” He said this in the tone of giving me a hint. Whatever. Bots who are “full citizens” still have to have a human or augmented human guardian appointed, usually their employer; I’d seen it on the news feeds.” (112) ASR

“Ratthi smiled at the console. “Because Dr. Mensah is our political entity.” He made a little gesture, turning his hand palm up. “We’re from Preservation Alliance, one of the non-corporate system entities. Dr. Mensah is the current admin director on the steering committee. It’s an elected position, with a limited term. But one of the principles of our home is that our admins must also continue their regular work, whatever it is. Her regular work required this survey, so here she is, and here we are.”” (111) ASR

“Ratthi came over to see if I was all right, and I asked him to tell me about Preservation and how Mensah lived there. He said when she wasn’t doing admin work, she lived on a farm outside the capital city, with two marital partners, plus her sister and brother and their three marital partners, and a bunch of relatives and kids who Ratthi had lost count of.” (147) ASR

“Ratthi sighed. “Oh, yes, they know. You would not believe what we had to pay to guarantee the bond on the survey. These corporate arseholes are robbers.”” (112) ASR

““Because the scanners suck corporation balls,” Pin-Lee muttered.” (42) ASR

“Of course I need you. I have no experience in anything like this. None of us do. Sometimes humans can’t help but let emotion bleed through into the feed. She was furious and frightened, not at me, at the people who would do this, kill like this,” (107-108) ASR

“I said, “This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction. Also, I really didn’t want them to try to move me because it hurt bad enough the way it was. “Your contract allows—” “Shut up,” Mensah snapped. “You shut the fuck up. We’re not leaving you.”” (139) ASR

"I had flashes off and on. The inside of the little hopper, my humans talking, Arada holding my hand." (140) ASR

“We had a problem at the hatch of the big hopper where Mensah wanted to get in last and I wanted to get in last. As a compromise, I grabbed her around the waist and swung us both up into the hatch as the ramp pulled in after us. I set her on her feet and she said, “Thank you, SecUnit,” while the others stared.” (99) ASR

““I know you’re more comfortable with keeping your helmet opaque, but the situation has changed. We need to see you.”” (103) ASR

““It’s usually better if humans think of me as a robot,” I said.” (103) ASR

““Maybe, under normal circumstances.” She was looking a little off to one side, not trying to make eye contact, which I appreciated. “But this situation is different. It would be better if they could think of you as a person who is trying to help. Because that’s how I think of you.” My insides melted. That’s the only way I could describe it. After a minute, when I had my expression under control, I cleared the face plate and had it and the helmet fold back into my armor. She said, “Thank you,” and I followed her up into the hopper.” (104) ASR

“They were saying things like I didn’t even know it had a face.” (21) ASR

“Arada and Pin-Lee didn’t try to talk to me, and Ratthi actually looked away when I eased past him to get to the cockpit. They were all so careful not to look at me or talk to me directly that as soon as we were in the air I did a quick spot check through HubSystem’s records of their conversations.” (39) ASR

“They had talked it over and all agreed not to “push me any further than I wanted to go” and they were all so nice and it was just excruciating.” (40) ASR

“That was when I realized they weren’t ignoring the possibility of sabotage.” (43) ASR

“This is why I didn’t want to come. I’ve got four perfectly good humans here and I didn’t want them to get killed by whatever took out DeltFall. It’s not like I cared about them personally, but it would look bad on my record, and my record was already pretty terrible.” (60) ASR

“It was nice having a human smart enough to work with like this.” (67) ASR

“I do a half-assed job sometimes, okay, most of the time, but Pin-Lee had checked, too, and she was thorough.” (71) ASR

“It was starting to occur to me that Dr. Mensah might actually be an intrepid galactic explorer, even if she didn’t look like the ones on the entertainment feed.” (73) ASR

“I hoped they hadn’t been stupid about it, too soft-hearted to kill me.” (77) ASR

“My clients are the best clients.” (78) ASR

“But I think the fact that the Unit has been acting to preserve our lives, to take care of us, while it was a free agent, gives us even more reason to trust it.”” (80) ASR

“Overse sounded mad. “It told us about the combat module, it told us to kill it. Why the hell would it do that if it wanted to hurt us?”” (81) ASR

“Before anyone else could move, Mensah said, calm and even, “SecUnit, I’d appreciate it if you put Gurathin down, please.” She’s a really good commander. I’m going to hack her file and put that in. If she’d gotten angry, shouted, let the others panic, I don’t know what would have happened.” (84-85) ASR

“She continued, “I would like you to remain part of our group, at least until we get off this planet and back to a place of safety. At that point, we can discuss what you’d like to do. But I swear to you, I won’t tell the company, or anyone outside this room, anything about you or the broken module.”” (86) ASR

“Of course she had to say that. What else could she do. I tried to decide whether to believe it or not, or whether it mattered, when I was hit by a wave of I don’t care. And I really didn’t. I said, “Okay.”” (86) ASR

““We have to shut it down, or it���s going to kill us.” Then he winced and looked at me. “Sorry, I meant HubSystem.”” (86-87) ASR

“Then Arada came up and patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry. This must be very upsetting. After what that other Unit did to you . . . Are you all right?” That was too much attention. I turned around and walked into the corner, facing away from them.” (87) ASR

“I should keep my mouth shut, keep them thinking of me as their normal obedient SecUnit, stop reminding them what I was. But I wanted them to be careful.” (92) ASR

““If a strange survey group landed here, all friendly, saying they had just arrived, and oh, we’ve had an equipment failure or our MedSystem’s down and we need help, you would let them in. Even if I told you not to, that it was against company safety protocol, you’d do it.” Not that I’m bitter, or anything. A lot of the company’s rules are stupid or just there to increase profit, but some of them are there for a good reason.” (92-93) ASR

[I cited this whole conversation bc I wasn't sure exactly what bits I wanted to use. apologies for the giant block text.]

“Ratthi’s expression was troubled. “But surely . . . It’s clear you have feelings—”” (54)

“She looked up, frowning. “Ratthi, what are you doing?” Ratthi shifted guiltily. “I know Mensah asked us not to, but—” He waved a hand. “You saw it.” Overse pulled her interface off. “You’re upsetting it,” she said, teeth gritted. “That’s my point!” He gestured in frustration. “The practice is disgusting, it’s horrible, it’s slavery. This is no more a machine than Gurathin is—” Exasperated, Overse said, “And you don’t think it knows that?” I’m supposed to let the clients do and say whatever they want to me and with an intact governor module I wouldn’t have a choice.” (54) ASR

“I’m also not supposed to snitch on clients to anybody except the company, but it was either that or jump out the hatch. I sent the conversation into the feed tagged for Mensah. From the cockpit, she shouted, “Ratthi! We talked about this!” I slid out of the seat and went to the back of the hopper, as far away as I could get, facing the supply lockers and the head. It was a mistake; it wasn’t a normal thing for a SecUnit with an intact governor module to do, but they didn’t notice. “I’ll apologize,” Ratthi was saying. “No, just leave it alone,” Mensah told him. “That would just make it worse,” Overse added.” (55) ASR

Network Effect

“Humans in the Preservation alliance didn't have to sign up for contract labor and get shipped off to mines or whatever for 80 to 90 percent of their lifespans. There was some strange system where they all got their food and shelter and education and medical for free, no matter what job they did.” (35-36) NE

“...it was a natural mistake on Arada’s part. In Preservation culture asking payment for anything considered necessary for living (food, power sources, education, the feed, etc.) was considered outrageous, but asking payment for life-saving help was right up there with cannibalism.” (201) NE

“There were "free" bots wandering around on Preservation, though they had guardians who were technically supposed to keep track of them.” (27) NE

“Plus, it was Preservation and there were no scanning drones, no armed human security, just some on-call human medics with bot assistants and “rangers” who mainly enforced environmental regulations and yelled at humans and augmented humans to get out of the way of the ground vehicles.” (24) NE

"Over the comm loudspeaker, Dr. Ratthi said, 'It is a person!'" (16) NE

“Even the individual humans’ feed signatures only contained info about sexual availability and gender presentation, which I didn’t give a damn about.” (13) NE

“If this went wrong I was going to feel really stupid. The Targets would finally show up and be all “What the hell was it trying to do to itself?”“ (305-306) NE

“That’s one of the reasons Me 1.0 misses its armor.” (293) NE

“You and Amena were right. 2.0 was a person. It wasn’t like a baby, but it was a person.” (340) NE

“The damage to its organic tissue and support structure is easily repaired.” (132) NE

“- because it thought you were dead. It was so upset I thought-Oh, hey, you’re here” (227) NE

“Amena’s voice said “No, it doesn’t like to be touched!”“ (335) NE

““No, it says it’s fine,” I heard her relaying to the others on our comm. “Well, yes, it’s furious,”” (12) NE

"It's not aliens, 2.0 said. We knew it wasn't aliens, I told it. It countered, We were seventy-two percent sure it wasn't aliens. That was an outdated assessment but I didn't need to argue with myself right now." (314) NE

Fugitive Telemetry

“Preservation had two economies, one a complicated barter system for planetary residents and one currency-based for visitors and for dealing with other polities. Most of the humans here didn’t really understand how important hard currency was in the Corporation Rim but the council did, and Mensah said the port took in enough in various fees to keep the station from being a drain on the planet’s resources.” (79) FT

“The Preservation Alliance has a weird thing about food and medical care and other thing humans need to survive being free and available anywhere.” (35) FT

“The employment contracts for Preservation citizens were pretty simple, because their planetary legal code had so many in-built protections already. (For example, humans and augmented humans can’t sign away their rights to their labor or bodily autonomy in perpetuity; that’s like, straight-up illegal.)” (12) FT

“Preservation has high safety standards so we passed through two air walls before we got to the cargo ship’s hatch.” (70) FT

“Right now Aylen and the other officers were explaining to their individual Targets what rights they had as detainees in Preservation Alliance territory. (It was a lot of rights. I was pretty sure it was more rights than a human who hadn’t been detained by Station Security had in the Corporation Rim.)” (85-86) FT

“As part of the rights thing, Aylen had told Target Five the scanner would be on, which I thought was playing way too fair,” (89-90) FT

“Station Security was only allowed to keep the Lalow for one Preservation day-cycle before they either had to charge the crew with something or let them go.” (106) FT

“You need a surveillance audit.” (145) “Some of those systems are under privacy lock, we’d need a judge-advocate to release their access records,” (146) FT [these are together bc its a line of dialogue from mb, a huge monologue about what a surveillance audit is, and then Indah's response, which is the thing I care about for my paper]

“Most of the station’s clothing supply came from the planet, where human hand-made clothing and textiles were so popular there was hardly any recycler-produced fabric. (I told you Preservation is weird.)” (22) FT

“The colony ship hadn’t just been left to rot; the humans liked it too much for that…Pieces of clear protective material had been placed over the occasional drawings on the bulkheads, and on the pieces of paper stuck to them and covered with scribbled handwriting and faded print. Feed markers had been installed by Station Historical/Environment Management with translations into Preservation Standard Nomenclature.” (123) FT

“…you’re on a giant spaceship that has been meticulously preserved as a historical artifact. If they still had intact lunch menus from however many years ago, the chances were good they still had the safety equipment.” (125) FT

“Station Security isn’t armed except with those extendable batons (they don’t even deliver shocks, they’re just for hitting/holding off aggressive intoxicated humans) and the officers are only issued energy weapons when there’s actually an energy-weapon-involved emergency.” (72) FT

“…they were here to assess the damage to the transport and try to repair it. (Apparently on Preservation this would be free? Gurathin said it fell under what they called a traveler’s aid rule. In the Corporation Rim, the transport would have had tp sit there damaged and racking up fines until its owner or an owner’s rep arrived.)” (55-56) FT

another "couldn't decide so the whole dang thing is here"

"For a name, I could use the local feed address that was hard coded into my neural interfaces. It wasn’t my real name, but it was what the systems I interfaced with called me. If I used it, the humans and augmented humans I encountered would think of me as a bot. Or I could use the name Rin. I liked it, and there were some humans outside the Corporation Rim who thought it was actually my name. I could use it, and the humans on the Station wouldn’t have to think about what I was, a construct made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage, a killing machine for whichever humans rented me, until I made a mistake and got my brain destroyed by my governor module." (28) “I posted a feed ID with the name SecUnit, gender = not applicable, and no other information.” (29)

[carvrmmvrmmmm]

I have a theory about Yellow Guy

In the 6th episode, Electricity, we see Yellow Guy go up those stairs, right? It’s even suggested he has been up there before - but hear me out. What if he and Lesley were always up there in the attic to begin with? Here’s my evidence: Yellow guy is shown to have undeniable intelligence when he is fitted with new batteries. His previous ones were old and “moldy”, so that suggested he never changed them. This also suggests that there was a time he had fresh batteries and this was not the first time he had acquired this ‘intelligent’ state. This could imply that as time went on, as the battery ran out, his intelligence started to deteriorate, and so did his memory. This also makes me believe that the “Big Boys Room” and the “Bigger Boys Room” were used to accommodate Yellow Guy’s mind. The higher the levels, the more ‘smarter’ they were, which makes me believe that as Yellow Guy grew ‘less smart’, he moved down each levels, going from Lesley, to the Bigger Boys Room, to the Big Boys room, and finally to the ground floor with the trio we all know and love. Adding onto that, did you notice that Yellow Guy was absent from these rooms? Red Guy and Duck was there, sure, but they seem to recognize Yellow Guy as a returning character. They even say he’s “Missing out” and he has to “Keep up”, which could suggest he had been away for a long time (due to his intelligence diminishing as prior mentioned). Lesley mentions that they are all replaceable, and that she “has plenty of backups”. But if that was the case, why is there multiple Red Guys and Ducks and only one Yellow Guy? This is here where we continue to theorize so buckle up. Lesley and Yellow Guy are obviously linked. With several evidence of Yellow Guy being Lesley’s son, David (Her saying “you’re not my real son”, Yellow Guy’s dream scene in the episode “Transport”, the photos Duck has in the episode “Family” etc. etc.) we can already see she has an attachment to him. There is also evidence that she is not the one in full control, with her felt like appearance and the fact that when we first see her, she states,

“Batteries can be replaced,

but some things stay the same.

No matter how we twist and turn,

we're still dancing in chains."

The first line is an obvious callback to Yellow Guy’s situation: unlike the other puppets of the trio, he requires batteries to function. Or at least, think freely for himself. Kind of like a toy. But he himself is not replaceable. That’s why the other levels do not have a Yellow Guy. So he “never changes”. But Lesley continues, using the inclusive pronoun, “we”, to suggest that he and Lesley are in the same position: Trapped as puppeteers for a greater being. Both of them had been in discomfort, fighting for independent control, suggested by the phrase “twist and turns” showing constant change of path, creating a sense of restlessness. But at the end of the day, both of them were still puppets “in chains”. When Yellow Guy leaves the ‘highest’ floor, it is shown that there are more stairs, which hints there being more ‘intelligent’ beings, possibly the puppeteers (aka the producers of the show and Roy as shown by ending credits). This could probably answer the question on why Lesley had the book (which has been widely believed to be their escape plan) that Yellow Guy had written in his own language and gives the show a lot more lore.

So my conclusion? Yellow Guy and Lesley used to conspire how to escape the puppet universe together in order to break free, but due to negligence on changing batteries, Yellow Guy was eventually used just as just a puppet for Lesley to replace her lost son and as a form of entertainment to preserve the memory of David, while Yellow Guy permanently loses his memories, succumbing to the inevitable fate of becoming a puppet more the wider audience.

[eldenringslut]

I feel like people are getting a bit too angry at the whole Radahn final boss thing. I’m not saying you have to like it, but I’ve been seeing a lot of rage that feels a bit misplaced in my opinion. Also as usual this is just my opinion so feel free to disagree with me.

In terms of gameplay, Consort Radahn has a new moveset and fight tempo that, despite calling back to his original fight with some moves, feels pretty distinct to fight in my opinion.

In terms of lore, I’ve also seen people saying that Miquella’s description of Radahn basically makes him reddit ‘Chadahn’. I disagree with this.

It’s important to remember that this is Miquella giving his personal view of Radahn, and that he is an unreliable narrator. Radahn still has all the same flaws and complexities as before, the evidence for that from the base game isn’t gone. The only difference is that we now know Miquella’s (in my opinion childlike) perspective of him.

Additionally, although we know that Radahn fought against becoming Miquella’s consort in the end, we have no idea if the vow was initially one sided or not. Maybe Radahn rejected it from the start. Maybe he initially agreed because he thought Miquella (as an Empyrean) wanted to become the Erdtree’s god rather than supplant it’s order. Maybe he jokingly agreed to Miquella’s childish request not realising that Miquella would never be anything but a child. We simply don’t know, and I personally think all of these interpretations are interesting in their own right.

Adding onto this, a lot of people seem to be hating on Miquella’s character for becoming the ‘villain’ of the DLC. But think of it like this. If Miquella is an eternal child who had always had the ability to compel love and affection, why would he see love as anything other than a tool. It probably doesn’t even occur to him that maniputating others with magic is wrong or sinister in any way.

This also explains why he so coldly abandons Malenia, despite his obvious affection for her. He does genuinely care for her, he just has an extremely skewed perception of what love and affection is. He probably thinks something like; “Oh, but I’ll be able to make her feel happy and loved when I come back so it’s fine that I’m abandoning her for hundreds of years 😊”. I personally really like what the DLC did with Miquella’s character, even if it’s different from what we expected.

Now that’s not to say I like everything about what the DLC did with the lore. In particular, I don’t like how Malenia’s motives in Battle of Aeonia is simplified. Instead of it being a clash of ideologies, a fight between two mighty demigods that deeply respect each other’s strength or a desperate attempt to free the stars from stasis, Malenia is reduced to a brainwashed attack dog. This also cheapens Finlay’s sacrifice in my opinion (although you could also see it as enhancing the tragedy of it all by making her sacrifice less meaningful).

I’m also still unsure as to why Miquella would embed himself in the Haligtree before making Mohg kidnap him. If that was his goal from the start why embed himself in the first place? He could have just gone with Mohg in his normal form?

One possible explanation for this is that he didn’t initially plan to get kidnapped by Mohg, and wanted to enter the Land of Shadow by using his Haligtree to form a counterpart in the LoS like the Scadutree? Maybe he switched his plan and brainwashed Mohg after being kidnapped? We know from the War Surgeon set description that Mohg already has a propensity for kidnapping so idk.

Anyway that’s enough rambling for now I think. As usual my reccomended lore youtuber is Smoughtown.

[morningstargirl666]

what is your writing process with the rewrite?

Honestly? An unholy mix of spite, inspiration and utter madness.

It's important to note I didn't start this rewrite because I completely hated the original draft. I mean, sure, I'm struck by imposter syndrome sometimes like any writer and the old draft is cringey as hell to me now, but as a first draft? It was fine. Certain things needed fixing, sure, but it wasn't awful. So originally, I started editing The Litte Wolf first (intending to move onto TBBW after), wanting to fix any grammar inconsistances, tighten up the lore, get rid of any plotholes, and as a whole create a more consistent, well-rounded fic with better, fully-fleshed out characters. It has been a few years since I had started the series, and my ideas had changed---it needed a refresh. And I knew by this point TBBW was going to be such a long fic, so stopping at the old chapter 35---the halfway point---to change things was sensible. I could change and edit, before moving on.

...Yeah, so, it's the understatement of the century to say things escalated quickly.

Here's why: I saw some writing advice on tumblr once and gotta say, it stuck with me. I'll link it here if you want to read the whole thing, but essentially, the writing process is this: do NOT edit. Rewrite. As in, I literally divided my laptop screen in two and set up an empty word document on the left and tbbw's old draft on the right. I started with a blank word document and re-typed. Every. Single. Word.

And you're probably thinking huh. But there are scenes in the rewrite you didn't change?

Wrong.

I re-typed them too. Every. Single. Line. I found myself changing their sentence structures, the description, dialogue---even the god damn grammar. Nothing in this rewrite has been left completely untouched. When you just re-read your work, editing as you go along, you don't change much. You let things slip by, your eyes miss things. We all do it---ever posted a chapter only to spot a spelling mistake right after?

When you're editing, it's often a tedious process and a lot of the time, you give in and you think, eh, good enough. But when I rewrite? I'm in writing mode. I'm immersed in my fic---without the intimidating blank page holding me back, because I've got my first draft right next to me. I can use it as a template and copy it out, but more often than not, I'm changing things as I go along. I'm reformating entire paragraphs, adding new scenes, cutting old ones out and oftentimes---reorganisning the entire order of said scenes. I discovered flaws in my plot and whole characters arcs that needed reimagining, and I rebuilt them in the best way. So not only did I add 125k+ of new content to what was originally there already, technically, I also wrote over 530k in little over a year?

And you're probably now thinking that's the insane part of my writing process.

Nope.

I also don't write in order. And when I say this, I don't just mean I ping-ponged between chapters, working on whichever ones struck my fancy at the time---because I did also do that---but I wrote chapters out of order. As in, I didn't always start at the beginning of the chapter. Sometimes I started rewriting in the middle. Or at the end. Sometimes, the first scene of a chapter was the last thing I wrote---it's the case of chapter 33, which is why I haven't posted in a few days. The rest of the chapter is written and good to go, but the first scene is not finished. Because I left it till last. I have generally more than once started at the end of the chapter and worked backwards, one scene at a time.

Insanity. Madness. Completely unhinged behaviour. Whatever you want to call it.

But hey---it works.