#with consistent internal logic......

[adamsvanrhijn]

another day another thought about how literally all they needed to do to make the maud plotline make sense. before even making it Better. is to simply have her not go to anybody's house other than aurora's

[fite-club]

gotta be honest a lot of these "everyone unfairly demonizes men and treats them as dangerous!" transmascs got suspiciously offended at the suggestion to ask roided-out dudes at the gym where they get T. like a suspicious amount of people decided to interpret that as them being told to go get assaulted and are using it as proof of "transandrophobia". but like, why are you automatically assuming that buff men are going to assault you for talking to them? what happened to the unfair stereotyping of being dangerous??

[serpentface]

I had a shockingly in-character dream where I was showing Janeys photos of like, sexy men's halloween costumes + thigh high stockings and also various Breaking Bad characters under the vague premise of 'this is what it's like in The Future'. And he kept insulting our 'menswear' and then would get visibly shaken whenever a BRBA character came up.

It was like

[wisteriasymphony]

Fully understand why Chloe was blocking people in the Ladybug community given their history but. Now I have to know what her apparent issue with Nino, Nathaniel, and Max is??? What have the three of them done specifically to earn her ire.

Misandry. She doesn't know the others' identities so she assumes the rest of the guys are just he/him butches but Carapace Caprikid and Pegasus are the ones she's the most sure about. Her gaydar&guydar is suuuuper good guys trust her on this.

*Addendum: She knows Nino and Max, my bad. In that case, Kim is exempt from the misandry because they used to be friends and then Luka is exempt because she finds him cute I guess.

[whetstonefires]

#4 please !

Now see this could be tricky, because generally if I don't get some key elements written down very quickly the idea flows away again and the 'yet' disappears, even if I remember generally what it was about, but I have one this time! I am still just enough plagued by this vision that it's not out of the question I'll go for the capture, but so far nada.

Idea was basically a Jiang family character study by way of modern au. (So tw canonical abuse.) I started from the reflection, in a modern au very high chance the Jiangs are divorced, because being a divorcee wouldn't necessarily ruin Yu Ziyuan in the modern world, as long as she was allowed to control the narrative enough that she didn’t look at fault, so it might be on the table.

Especially because modern views on child abuse are such that while she'd hold back more than she already does in terms of physical chastisement, Jiang Fengmian would also be under less societal pressure to not interfere in her disciplinary system too much, and both these factors mean he’s more likely to put his foot down.

So, concept: Jiang Fengmian, when his son is eight and his daughter thirteen, forces the issue of taking in his best friends' abused orphan child whom he’s just managed to track down in a nightmarish group home, probably leveraging the fact that wherever their money comes from it's mostly his, something he usually doesn't do, but she has always known he could, and been fucked up about it (reasonable) and hated him a little (less so) and hates him so much more now (understandable but still fucked up).

They were obviously still both pressured into this marriage by their families, because I literally cannot imagine them choosing one another of their own free will, and if they did that would be an au in an even more dramatic way than being modern, and no longer work as a character or relationship study as far as I'm concerned. I mean or it’s a cql-based au, but that’s not the version of this toxic marriage I find compelling.

Situation subsequently deteriorates to the point that when the boys are around twelve some outside party observes and is repulsed or otherwise upset by Yu Ziyuan's treatment of Wei Wuxian specifically--she's emotionally abusive to everyone in the family, canonically, and it harms Jiang Cheng significantly more than Wei Wuxian, which I think is also pretty explicit on the page, but she's more openly antagonistic about going after wwx because he's basically a proxy for her husband, whom she doesn't consider to be someone she's capable of harming.

And ofc in a modern family scenario, being abusive to your foster kid is more plainly personal misconduct than being unfair in how you discipline one of your husband's many students, even if it is his favorite. Which means she's very unlikely to chase him around with a whip, but whatever she does do will sting that much more emotionally.

Anyway the outside judgement provokes a more explicit confrontation than the last four years of maneuver and attempting to balance all the competing needs according to two very different standards. And the upshot is that by the time wwx is 13, the Jiangs are divorced. To avoid making a humiliating spectacle of themselves they present a weirdly united front in court and have a very smooth uncontested proceding, although the closed meetings with their respective lawyers involved a lot of vitriol.

Yu Ziyuan, despite having a smallish trust fund and probably a job of some kind, though one that's more prestigious than profitable like uh. Olympic fencing coach. Idk what they make but it's probably not enormous. She and Cangse Sanren probably competed in the same events back in the day.

Anyway she gets a solid chunk of alimony, the house, and primary custody of both her children, although Jiang Yanli is almost 18 at this point so mostly she just gets Jiang Cheng. Everyone thinks Jiang Cheng wants it that way, including sort of Jiang Cheng; he has this idea that if he has his mom to himself they'll finally have a good relationship, even though he's also terrified of being left all alone with her. He's complicated. Families are complicated.

Also she would never have forgiven him if he hadn't concurred that he wanted to stay with his mother because she was the only one On His Side.

Jiang Yanli ofc does not move out right away when she comes of age, in part because her brother needs her, but she probably does go to college, so she's only around part-time.

Jiang Fengmian, meanwhile, keeps most of his financial assets and Wei Wuxian, and gets his kids on the weekends.

So that's all setup for how you have this situation where Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are entering high school--probably the same school, together, but no longer sharing the commute except maybe Monday mornings--and Wei Wuxian's primary residence is Jiang Cheng's dad's apartment.

It’s really chill. They get a cleaning service in once a week and eat a lot of delivery food, but they do cook at least once a week. The canonical thing where they largely agree about what’s funny and what’s right-or-wrong, and so forth, on the one hand really pops when there’s mostly no external conflict disrupting it, but also probably gains more complexity now that it’s not a thread of positivity fighting for its life against a background of drama. They get to know each other better than they ever had a chance to in canon.

Some of that isn't all that positive, because now they have the space to discover the places where they do actually have the capacity for friction, but both of them are very good at dispersing tension (I do tend to suspect jfm's dad was abusive he sure acts like it), and on the whole it's a good thing.

Jiang Cheng is going to have such a mental health crisis, and Jiang Fengmian is going to handle it so badly. Because of course when his son starts replicating his ex-wife's toxic attitudes and behaviors more now that she has primary custody, he’s going to feel guilty and like it’s His Fault, but he’s going to feel like it’s his fault that Jiang Cheng is growing up to be a shitty abusive person.

And even if he’d never say that the subtext would come through, in the assumptions he made when framing communications and so forth, as in canon, so the thing where Jiang Cheng’s father loves Wei Wuxian more than him, or at any rate likes him better and thinks he’s a better person and prefers his company, would wind up feeding into a self-reinforcing loop.

(Jin Zixuan's nasty public remark about Jiang Fengmian treating Wei Wuxian better than his own children hits Jiang Cheng significantly harder in this scenario, where he's being Tormented by the feeling that all his peers know his dad walked out on him for another son. Wei Wuxian's punch is therefore even more clearly primarily for Jiang Cheng's sake, although Jiang Cheng is probably more inclined to see it as being for his dad's. Jin Zixuan is about halfway between the Jiang kids' ages here, so he's a senior saying this shit to a sophomore.)

So that cycle builds to the point where Jiang Cheng would eventually have one of those rare moments where he resorts to actual violence, because his poisoned feelings are choking him so bad his rationality deserts him.

He’s not going to be nearly as close to actually murdering Wei Wuxian as he was in canon the night the Jiang Sect was massacred, because it’s a less extreme situation, but he still goes for the neck. So Jiang Fengmian is in his home office one Saturday about a year and a half into this new normal, and realizes the boys are fighting. He hears through the wall the accusation you stole my dad. He says to himself, well that’s terrible but interjecting myself into this situation would definitely make it worse.

Then he hears sounds of violence, and then an ominous abrupt silence, and updates that analysis.

And when he opens the door to the boys’ room, Wei Wuxian is being strangled. He’s not really resisting, which is because he’s made the call that that’s way more likely to get Jiang Cheng to snap out of it, and thinks it might make Jiang Cheng feel better to get it out of his system (because he does sort of feel like what Jiang Cheng is going through is all his fault, or at any rate is much worse as a result of decisions made for his sake) and is severely underestimating the dangers of choking, but looks to a third party like he’s already passed out and Jiang Cheng is still at it. Which is to say, it looks like a serious murder attempt on the brink of success.

So that sure made that situation worse!

So yeah that's my idea that I probably won't write but it sure has its teeth in me.

[not-poignant]

Michael believes that Gary doesn't need Efnisen and will stay with him forever? Is that why he's acting like a rapist, explaining his actions with his alpha penis?

Hi anon,

I can understand you're feeling pretty heated given everything in a crisis point in the story right now! So I'm just gonna point out some things that might help situate Michael's perspective a bit better:

Hillview Rehabilitation Facility is a rehabilitation facility. It's primary and most central job is to permanently get omegas out of the facility. And so Gary, when he calls Michael the first time, and to a degree the second time, calls him with this in mind.

Of course he's going to think that Gary doesn't need Efnisien. Of course he thinks there's a high chance Efnisien will stay with him forever even if he's been told it's 'only temporary' - especially with the added benefit of something like a claiming bite. This is literally what Hillview does. It rehabilitates omegas temporarily, and then sends them away, forever. That's...Hillview's job.

The fact that they're not doing that with Efnisien, and that he's been placed with the CEO, is actually why Hillview might lose its ability to practice at all. Because that's...literally the job of an ORF, no matter how radical or non-radical it is.

That's why Lucien and Mosk have left. It's why Flitmouse has to pay for Anton, now that Anton's no longer working as a companion (because they're literally just taking up space that could be used for a new omega).

Michael is behaving like someone who understands the function of a rehabilitation facility, who is taking advantage of that. That's...honestly, pretty normal. Just like Gary doesn't know that Michael's a predator, which is why he didn't think to get the address. Michael doesn't know that Gary's bonded strongly with Efnisien, but he does know what Hillview's main function is: rehabilitation facility. To get the omega out permanently, one way or another.

This is further reinforced in their very first phone call, where Gary is specifically looking for advice, which I'm going to post here:

'Listen,' Mike said, 'I'm not in the business of giving you the answers you want, because I think you don't know what you want. But you do have other options, aside from pursuing bonding, or transferring him. You could place him with someone who understands his circumstances in a pairing. There's more alphas out there than you realise who don't want conventional... Well, who don't want what's expected of them. Hell, even I'm someone who no longer looks for omegas. People's tastes change over time, Gary.' 'We do have a waitlist,' Gary said. 'I don't think anyone's suitable, not while they're susceptible to his alpha persuasion.'  ‘There may come a time when they’re not as susceptible,' Mike said. 'Anyway, it's something to think about. Maybe I should add myself to that waitlist of yours one day. Sometimes I think I'm never going to find the right person to settle down with.' 'As a last resort, I'll definitely keep the option of partnering him with someone else in mind.' 

This does not sound like a conversation where Michael's going to walk away thinking: 'Gary is super strongly bonded to this guy and definitely doesn't want him to leave, maybe they're even in love.' Michael's going to walk away from this conversation thinking: If enough time has passed, I'm going to be a good candidate.

And guess what? From Michael's perspective - he is. Gary calls him because it's a last resort, and asks to place Efnisien with him temporarily. The 'temporary' part doesn't both Michael that much, after all, Efnisien's case is a unique case.

Like, there is a logic behind what he believes the world to be at the moment. He's not the reader, he doesn't get to learn everything we learn. That doesn't make him a good person. But it doesn't mean he's a completely illogical one either. There's zero reason for Michael to believe that Gary needs Efnisien, or that Efnisien needs Gary. Gary's dislike of omegas is well-known, Michael doesn't believe Efnisien is truly an alpha (like Gary didn't - that's not rare either), and Gary has only previously called Michael about this to talk about how much of a problem Efnisien is. Even when he calls to get Efnisien out of the facility, it's framed as Efnisien being a problem.

And, the final cherry on that sundae is that Gary doesn't say goodbye, and isn't sentimental towards Efnisien at all, while Michael is there.

Not only does Michael think that Gary isn't strongly bonded to him, Michael thinks there's a high chance Gary actually really doesn't want him there, and just needs some time to change his mind from 'this is temporary' to 'you know what, it's better if this is permanent.' It makes more sense than what actually ended up happening between Gary and Efnisien!

[eveningdawn222]

there r some parts of fanon i dont even really mind, or even some i like! the lazarus pit giving jason side effects isn't bad in and of itself, but when it crosses over into pit rage i always tap out. tapetum lucidum? interesting and uncanny!! little fangies ? will forever be allured... eyes glow sometimes? depends how u use it, but can be cool!

i will always be in favor of jason being the magic one. more all blades, more leaning into the fact that he crawled himself out of his grave and no one really knows why! there's so much potential for jason find himself outside of the batfamily, for distancing himself from their ideas of what doing good is...

[ranahan]

Thinking of jehavey’ir again. Maybe it could be:

haav (bed) > *haveyc (bedded, lying down) > *havey’ir (to lie, lie down) > jehavey’ir (to lie falsely, to ambush)

🤔

[macbethheadband]

Why IS mash the way that it is btw. Is it just because its a good show

[porchtart]

i gotta be real, the biggest hurdle i've been facing with writing open arms is not trying to make terry and tory make sense as a ship, but rather trying to make the actual canon events of season 5 make sense, even completely removed from any shipping context.

[skatehepburn]

Jaheira Headcanon

Khalid is the only man she will ever love.

After his death, she only fucks women. Out of respect for his memory 🫡

[imunbreakabledude]

in addition to often thinking way too hard about the ~implications~ of minor details in established media (details which are obviously the way they are for expedience/concision/narrative function), i also think way too hard about the ~implications~ of minor details in my own writing.

for example: from TMDOMS. consider maeve's secret stash of cash, which elena says NOT to use but as soon as they're not fully living together, maeve starts using it for everything, including (ashley's) rent.

TMDOMS AU where maeve gets found out being alive because ashley gets audited, anyone?

[chxrchgay]

capitalist christians are so annoying for so many reasons but so many of the ones I’ve known are also climate change deniers/don’t care about conservation at all/view the earth as solely existing to be exploited for resources & its like. okay if you Actually believed g-d created all of this why would you not want to spend every living moment studying it & caring for it?? do you take everything in the bible literally aside from g-d’s command to be good stewards of the earth??? you think this world is fleeting and nothing matters besides eternity but you also think it’s the center of the universe, that the only life g-d created is Here, & you don’t care about it at all.

[the-oracle-of-the-lost]

was starting to feel better now that i'm on a bunch of meds to treat this asthma flare-up and was going to try some very light exercise and immediately had another asthma attack :(

[kt--extinction]

I kinda respect when writers make up an insanely intriguing setting then just don't explain anything

[druidx]

Running one of the more... unique... chapters through line edits and Grammarly is having apoplexy. I feel like I just got some kind of achievement 😄️