#Futures vs. Options: Understanding the Differences

[kc22invesmentsblog]

Futures vs. Options: Understanding the Differences, Pros and Cons, and Trading Strategies

Written by Delvin In the world of financial markets, futures and options are two popular derivatives that offer opportunities for traders and investors. While both instruments have similarities, they also have distinct characteristics. In this informative blog post, we will delve into the differences between futures and options, explore their respective pros and cons, and discuss some common…

[oh-no-its-bird]

Staring into the void thinking about my unloved little guy favorites and feeling the thoughts mix with my adoration for stupid niche crossovers. I want a svsss x Naruto crossover but instead of anyone especially notable from svsss who crosses over it's my favorite "really not as bad as he could be" award winner, Ming Fan

Squinting back at naruto and flipping a coin to decide if he lands in warring states era or modern konoha and deciding I like both of these options, so we're going to do 2 separate stories/timelines. Or maybe we'll have him land in the past then get flashed forward to future Konoha when he tries going home so he gets the best of both worlds, who knows— I'll decide when I get there.

With that said, buckle in baby because it's time for:

✨️ Ming Fans very unfortunate fall into the mess that is naruto canon ✨️

Ming Fan gets flung into another dimension due the ultimate possible sin in svsss: being a background character.

Some obligatory crazy adventure was happening to Luo Binghe and SQQ involving some magic artifact, and in your stereotypical "someone not too important to the plot touches the object and gets exploded, proving it's dangerous to touch + upsetting SQQ so LB can appropriately comfort him" (probably originally a wife plot) scene, Ming Fan gets zapped into naruto canon. Woops!

If it helps him feel any better, SQQ really is upset by this. Binghe is not. At all. He might think it's karma but also this guy doesn't know the first fucking thing about appropriate levels of karma so maybe he should keep his mouth shut.

(Neither of these facts make him feel better but do you know what does? Imagining SQQ yelling at Binghe for this. He's so fucking sure it's that guy's fault somehow. It's always his fault somehow.)

So boom, he gets zapped into the worst possible (and my personal favorite moment for inconvenient time travel) moments; The final battle between the Uchiha and the Senju.

Specifically, he gets zapped directly onto Tobirama's sword. Queue shocked Pikachu faces from everyone— including Ming Fan but with added dramatic blood and cursing in chinese. Bc hey!! They don't speak the same fucking language actually!!

Unfortunate.

So Tbrm and Izuna both jump back away from this unknown as Ming Fan continues to bleed and curse and be very fucking confused as to where he was.

He took the hit in the shoulder of his non dominant arm, it's a pretty clean cut and he's a cultivator so he'll be fine with some rest but MAN if it don't hurt like a bitch. On top of the motion sickness of being launched through time and space too, and wrapped up in a little bow of "surrounded by hostile looking strangers all yelling in a language I don't understand"

Yeah he's not having the greatest time right now.

So like, Ming Fan just sort of appeared out of nowhere, right? Which has Tobirama extra fucked up bc, yk, hiraishin.

Izuna doesn't know that he was just saved from death death, so he's appropriately grateful at avoiding being stabbed but also like. Who the fuck are you. How did you get here. You just interrupted my battle with my rival and I take a little offense to that actually.

Everyone is yelling and confused and Ming Fan is seriously debating hopping on his sword and flying off because fuck this.

Madara and Hashirama finally enter stage left and are both like "well he's not one of ours" so now everyone is eyeing him even more suspiciously and a couple people are for sure lowkey tensing to attack

Enter convenient svsss mcguffin! Because "idk it sounds like something SQQ would know how to do," Ming Fan knows some language technique that allows him to speak/understand a language for a certain amount of time.

So he grabs his sword and circulates his qi to prepare the technique, and everyone tenses up because hey what are you doing over there buddy

Tobirama, a really good sensor, can actually sense the differences between Ming Fan's qi circulating through his dantian vs how shinobi would circulate chakra through their chakra coils. So he's holding a hand up like 'wait let him cook' @ the Senju who tensed up for a possible attack, if only because he wants to see where this goes and is confident that if he tried anything fr, well, he's kind of surrounded on all sides rn by two entirely different factions

The Uchiha meanwhile don't want to be the first to strike, so everyone's just kinda cautiously gripping their weapons in this very odd battlefield stall

And boom: now he can speak their language.

I'd say the first thing he does is grab Tobirama and shake him while cussing him out about watching where he's swinging that sword of is but he's smarter than that. (For sure it's what he wants to do tho. He is picturing it. Oh man is he picturing it.)

So like, actual communication for now

Now. PIDW is fucking filled with all sorts of mcguffins, "I touched something I shouldnt have and when I opened my eyes I was somewhere strange" is alarmingly common, and the sect absoloutley has some sort of "teleportation checklist" to run through whenever your random, unfortunate disciple gets fucking zapped.

(I like to hc that Shang Quinghua had some sort of hand in making an "official" checklist taught across the peaks, and that different peaks treat this checklist with uhh,, different amounts of respect. (LQG thinks its useless but has simultaneously run the tally for peak lord whose gotten stranded by artifacts he shouldn't have touched the most. These two facts may be directly correlated.))

Anyways; Ming Fan gets to doing that checklist. He's demanding to know where he is, when he doesn't recognize the name, how close he is to the sea, what year and time of the year it is, where the nearest sect is, etc.

At first this is directed at Izuna and Tobirama both, but when Izuna fails to answer as directly as Tobirama does (with quick, flat answers) and also tries to return the questions ("who are you, how did you get here, etc.") he directs his attention soley to Tobirama. Even though hes a little BITCH and stabbed him

(Ming Fan can recognize he teleported directly onto his blade but this will not change him being butt hurt ab it)

For everyone watching, this is weird as all hell! Who is this guy? Why these questions? Ew why is he deferring to the Senju, our Izuna-sama would be so much better to ask—

Now, quick side note, the thing about Ming Fan is he's just like a dude. He's just a guy. But also he's really not, but also he really is? If that makes sense?

He's the senior most disciple and (correct me if I'm wrong here bc its been a while) SQQ's head disciple, which means he'll be the next peak lord in however many years when SQQ and his generation chooses to ascend. So he's definatley not a slacker when it comes to power or wit. Even if he does rank pretty low in the overall SVSSS canon, but also like, yeah, background character vs actual heavenly demons n shit.

So he's definitely a pretty impressive guy!! But also he's just a guy. And he's in contact with the power houses and freaks that is SVSSS main cast (*cough* Luo Bingghe *cough*) So his sense of self and where be ranks power wise is probably skewed to a degree. (Though I imagine that when left to his own devices and not having to defer to his shizun, he definitely suffers from "haughty bitch disease" (tragically not fatal, for now at least)

Thus; cultivator version of just a dude. I love him!!

(arguably the only better option for the "svsss just a dude award" would be Gongyi Xiao, who I also love dearly but he's not here right now, so, winner by default Ming Fan!!! (Story of his fucking life tbh))

Anyways, back to plot:

So, thinking that Ming Fan immediatley recognizes Tobirama's hiraishin design bc it was actually enscribed on whatever artifect got him sent here. Wwoahhh mystery or something idk but theres that

(Was Airplane thinking about naruto when he created this specific object? Did he maybe google "sealing design ideas" then copy paste the hiraishin directly into his work, knowing no one but him would know what he had done since there was no artwork to go with it? Maybe. Perhaps. Just possibly.)

I honestly dont really know where itd go from that, but like Ming Fan probably sticks around specifically to harass Tobirama in the hopes he can send him home.

He points at the Hiraishin and goes "Your talisman brought me here. Take responsibility."

Tobirama understands this as his activation of the Hiraishin in battle literally summoned Ming Fan (only half true) and the poor mans presence here is thus entirely his fault. (Ehhhhh not really)

Ming Fan will not correct this assumption.

Either way though, Tobirama would not give up the chance / excuse to interact with and help return an interdimensional traveler. Can you say science experiment?? Because Tobirama sure fucking can!

Tobirama ends up having a fucking field day trying to find ways to replicate Ming Fan's different techniques with chakra instead of qi, and just in general studying how the energy in their bodies flows and works so differently yet so similarly

Anyways !

Through convoluted reasons peace happens somehow

Ming Fan calls Izuna a dumb bitch to his face maybe, idk that sounds like smthn hed do. But also like more politely bc they have different ways of speaking and SQQ probably gets on his ass about 'if you're going to insult someone do it in a way that reflects well on your own and the peaks teachings'

Actually I love that and now I need Ming Fan and Izuna cat fights

Actually I need Ming Fan and everyone cat fights, Izuna just gets the worse of it bc in my heart he is diva coded in a similar way to Ming Fan

Tobirama also bites back but hes too interested in the opportunity to study Ming Fan to risk being proper rude like he usually would to like, pretty much anyone else.

"Did this guy call me and my entire clan useless warmongers with the collective IQ of a tree stump? Yes. Do I want to cut him open to see if his organs match my own? Also yes. And my chances of getting to do this are very slightly raised by at minimum not pointing out that he has the attitude of if chihuahua got fucked by the worlds angriest hairless cat and spat out a human shaped baby."

Madara is NOT safe from the Ming Fan bitchfest but hes too busy happily drinking with Hashirama at the prospect of peace to give him his full attention, so he lets Izuna handle the cat fights

Hashirama meanwhile thinks hes kind of a tool but is also too busy happily drinking with Madara to really care, and is also the sort of guy to think that bitchy people are funny (as long as he isnt the one who has to deal with the consequences they bring) so honestly? Hes also having fun watching him and Izuna fight

Ummm stuff happens, peace is achieved, Konoha is developed and Ming Fan is in the thick of it bc he still needs Tobirama to send him home. He's kind of just,, there. Hanging out. Doesnt really have anything to do here, isnt particularly invested in this city building shit. As head disciple he has experience with things like management and the like, but nothing on this scale. He is however familiar with the concept of government-esq bodies overseeing superpowered people in societies equivalent to something close to a village. So that might come in handy, idk

But yeah, Ming Fan is just kind of hanging around, maybe he's brought in as a fresh pair of eyes / consultant

When it comes time to elect a Hokage, it's Madara vs Hashirama, with both of their younger brothers obviously backing their elder brothers.

Ming Fan, who has taken many, many missions across many different villages, countries, kingdoms and more, has seen this fucking story go down a million different ways. Better yet, he's seen this story go down a million different ways, often with SQQ hanging over his shoulder providing live commentary and a fucking insiders POV on the mechanics of this

The thing about Madara is that he is clearly respected by his clan, and feared by others. But he's not really,,, approachable.

Meanwhile Hashirama is the same, but he is approachable

And Izuna? Well, he has a real charm to him that his brother lacks. A charm that could realistically stand pretty well against Hashirama's own charm. He's popular, genuinley, among his own clan and surprisingly among some Senju as well. Whereas Madara was 'the force to be reckoned with' Izuna occupied a sort of middling space, always standing against Tobirama. Plus, hes easy on the eyes and can rock a pretty effective 'open and friendly smile.'

Not to mention he was the Uchiha's spy master, probably would go on to be Konoha's in the future, so he's a pro at managing people

Between Madara and Izuna, if you want an Uchiha to run for Hokage and win... wasn't Izuna clearly the better option?

Ming Fan brings this up to Izuna one day and he's actually kind of blindsided by this. The idea straight up never occurred to him, too used to being in the position to back his brother and raise him up to ever consider wanting the position Madara desired for himself.

He considers it for all of 3 seconds, a noticeable hesitation, before he laughs and shakes his head, saying that he would never steal his big brothers dreams like that. If he has the skills to win the Hokage position, he'd just use them to make sure Madara does instead

(Madara, overhearing their conversation from the hallway, retreats silently to think.)

A week later, and right before the intentions of Madara and Hashirama are announced to officially begin running for Hokage are announced, and a switch is made. A strangely quiet Madara switches out with Izuna at the last minute, a surprise to literally everyone but Ming Fan, who huffs approvingly

(This... has been his dream for so long. The village, his clan, safe and at peace. To be able to lead that would be... everything. But if his own baby brother would be more likely to be choosen for that over himself... At the very least, Madara wants to see an Uchiha with the hat.)

It's worth mentioning also that at this point, Ming Fan has a decent amount of influence on his own. Like, obviously, he's hanging out with the clan heads and heirs, he isnt contributing too much to the village, but he is contributing. He's pulling his weight, and he often spends time just kinda wandering around, talking to people, learning about this different world and the things it has to offer— different food, clothing styles, stories, the culture, just all of it

And that on its own is enough to endear him to plenty of people. Plus, as Konoha grows and more clans join in, he remains at its center sort of by default of having landed in that position from the start.

I think he's especially popular with more common people, bc he'll often be wandering around, just kinda exploring and all that, and if you complain to him theres a chance he might take that complaint all the way to the top, and your complaint (if its serious enough) might actually be dealt with. And as Konoha grows and more and more people clutter the information train, that's really fucking valuable!

All of that is to say that when Ming Fan makes a mostly careless comment in public about thinking Izuna would make a better Hokage, well, it's an endorsement from a well respected person. Who knows if it truly impacts the outcome, and god knows Ming Fan isn't like, actively campaigning for either of them—he probably doesn't care too much on who wins, finds them both agreeable enough as leaders (they both annoy him in different ways but at least with Izuna he's clearly grown begrudgingly fond of the back and forth they have)

So! It's an incredibly close race, but in the end Izuna wins, becoming the first Hokage

(His dramatic ass is absolutely on board with Hashirama's idea for a carved face in the mountainside, even as Tobirama, Madara and Ming Fan both physically cringe at the idea)

Ming Fan ends up being stuck there for a couple year, which is... annoying, but he's an immortal cultivator and has had much longer missions, so overall he's mild about his displeasure. Clear progress is being made by Tobirama, who is open about each new discovery he makes between Ming Fan and a normal mortal of this world

("To discover what made the hiraishin bring you here from another world entirely, we must first map out exactly what makes you and me so biologically different that the seal would react so strongly")

Anyways, Tobirama finally figures out how to fuck with the hiraishin enough to send Ming Fan back !! Yay, the day is saved and everyone is different levels of sorry to see him go, ranging from mildly fond to 'oh thank fucking gone, LEAVEEE ALREADYYYY' from the many, many people he's probably annoyed while here

Izuna and Ming Fan say goodbye and "Ill almost miss fighting with your bitch ass" in the weird language of insults they've developed, which to others just sounds like "dont go missing me too much, even tho youll never find someone else on my level to talk with again 💅"

Izuna gets one last jab in as Ming Fan is teleporting away but literally right as he's dissapearing Ming Fan gets one back in, making him officially holder of 'Got The Last Word' and this will piss off Izuna for the rest of all time

And so Ming Fan is safely returned hom— OH FUCK WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WHERE IS HE NOW?? GODDAMIT TOBIRAMA

Yeah, so, Ming Fan is instead zapped some decades into the future, into Kakashi's genin days

I mean, congrats to Tobirama, he just invented time travel, so, thats cool

Ming Fan doesnt actually give a shit though because this is not what he was promised, Tobirama you useless hack—!

He was sent back from the battlefield where he appeared, something about eliminating the chances of the specific location being involved in the act of breaking through universes, and reappeared in that same place.

He pretty quickly makes his way over to Konoha via flying sword, easily dodging the many patrols in the area who are at pretty much full swing due to the fact that we're nearing the start of the second shinobi war.

(Sakumo has not yet been assigned that doomed mission of his but will be any day now)

Ok so. POV you're one of the guys guarding the gates of Konoha.

And out of seemingly nowhere this fucking GUY. Just. DESCENDS FROM THE SKY FROM THE BACK OF A SWORD. Immediately starts angrily yelling at you about demanding to know where Senju Tobirama, the fucking nidaime who died years ago, currently is. And that he needs to get his bitchy little quack doctor ass out here RIGHT FUCKING NOW and do what he GODDAMN PROMISED

As Im sure you can imagine, the gate guards. Do not react too well to this.

I think Ming Fan received a konoha headband, and he usually doesnt wear it unless he's like, going into battle and needs to be able to be identified by his allies. And he wasnt wearing it when he was ready to hop on home, so he takes it out now and kinda shoves it in their face like THERE LOOK IM ONE OF YOU NOW WHERE IS TOBIRAMA.

They might have tried to arrest him but he was rocking with that "do you know who I fucking am, let me speak to your manager RIGHT NOW. Who is your hokage is Izuna still in charge I will ask him to light your ass on fucking fire if you dont bring me to him 5 goddamn minutes ago" swag and, like, he was just so confident about it the gate guards didnt?? really know what to do?? HE SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT HES TALKING ABOUT GUYS AND THATS SCARY

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOULL ASK THE SHODAI HOKAGE TO (WHAT, RISE FROM HIS GRAVE?) TO GIVE US A SHAKING

(He wouldnt lmao, Izuna would probably have given them a gift basket for inconveniencing Ming Fan tbh. This fact however will never and has never stopped Ming Fan from using his name as a blunt force weapon against those who dont know better.)

So.

Ming Fan is brought to the Hokage.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE AS WE NOW INTRODUCE KONOHA'S SANDAIME HOKAGE IN THIS TIMELINE MING FAN HAS NOW LIGHTLY FUCKED UP,,,

KAGAMI UCHIHA !!!

Yeah so with Izuna as the first Hokage, the hat then went to Tobirama, who then passed it down to Kagami, who is currently looking at Sakumo as his possible successor

So, a very peeved Ming Fan is escorted to the Hokage's office. On his way over, he's taking note of the buildings and the clear passage of time. He looks at the mountain and finds 2 new faces besides Izuna's own annoying one, and catches wind of exactly what happened pretty fast.

Hopefully Tobirama isn't dead yet though, because oh man does Ming Fan have some words for him

(Ming Fan is annoyed to find his favorite little shop from before has been replaced by some stupid fuckin ramen restaurant. Ugh.)

Ming Fan finally arrives, and Kagami, who actually interacted with him more than a few times back in the day, does a fucking comedy spit take and blurts out, "Fan-dono?????"

Ming Fan does not recognize him at first and when he finally does, it's him going oh you're that hanger on brat who was always begging Tobirama to teach you.

Not. The most flattering take. But Kagami will take it.

So Kagami is like, Hokage now. But also he has memories of Ming Fan as both Tobirama's friend and also Izuna's friend and also just like. "Respected guy my mom told me to be good around."

So theres all sorts of things happening in his head rn on how to react to this situation

Ming Fan meanwhile has never interacted with a Hokage he wasnt allowed to call stupid to their face (to be fair Izuna would immediatley call him stupid back) so he is not giving Kagami the respect expected of like. Literally any ordanary shinobi to give him.

But he lucks out and gets a pass on it bc Kagami still has him slotted into the "sensei and Izuna-sama's respected friend" part of his brain that makes him feel like a kid again

(behind him, the ANBU squad does not like or agree with this turn of events. at all. who the FUCK are you to talk to the Hokage like this what the FUCK)

I think Danzo fucking despises Ming Fan, just because its funny. Ming Fan called him a nosey little brat one too many times as a kid and Danzo developed a childish grudge that he totally forgot about later in life— till he runs into Ming Fan again, years later, looking annoyingly exactly the same, and reawakens the rage of a slighted 12 year old

Sarutobi I dunno, I think hes somewhere between Kagami and Danzo on "this guy hits the buttons in my brain that make me feel like Im a kid being scolded by my sensei again" and also "holy shit FUCK this guy"

Anyways! Heres the thing:

When he left, Ming Fan absoloutley took some of Tobirama's research with him. It was probably some sort of exchange thing— way back when Ming Fan agreed to be a little science experiment in the first place, he probably made a deal of "yeah ok fine but I want every crumb of research you pull from me and I wanna take it home when I go"

Tobirama kinda shrugged and went "yeah fair enough, but were gonna have to agree on what kind of person is allowed to see some of it"

Shook on it, the end

So Ming Fan has this big ass thing of notes up his sleeve— filled with stuff about the differences between a shinobi and a cultivators bodies, some different fun notes Tobirama took while adapting some of Ming Fan's techniques to be used by chakra and vice versa w Ming Fan trying to use Tobirama's techniques with qi, notes on editing the hiraishin to try and get him home, etc.

Theres also probably just some other random stuff— mostly medical and jutsu / sealing guides, which Ming Fan traded information to bring home thinking the sect would benefit from it. If nothing else, his shizun will get a kick out of it

(oh boy would SQQ get a fucking kick out of seeing goddamn naruto lore written out in detail and refffered to as texts from another dimension)

^ so all of that is to say that Ming Fan has the traces of the seal to try to bring him back home, but he cant fucking use it himself bc he doesnt know how to preform the hiraishin, which is a major component of it

(and also part of why Tobirama let him take it to begin with, unconcerned of Ming Fan or someone else ever using it to come back bc they've already established his different biology somehow makes him physically unable of using the hiraishin)

So he just needs to find Tobirama again, or minimum someone who can use the hiraishin, and he can at least just try again. Maybe the last time sending him forward was a fluke? It probably only needs some minor tweaks, right? So just— get him Tobirama, and they'll sort it out

Learning Tobirama is dead, Ming Fan is,,, well, he was already prepared to say goodbye when he left the first time. And looking at the statues, Tobirama clearly lived an accomplished life. Same with Izuna— Ming Fan kind of resolves to just not think about it.

When he asks about Madara, Ming Fan is informed that a year after he left, Madara apparently turned traior and attacked the village. This is. A lot. For him to swallow.

Ming Fan has a moment of blaming himself for not having seen the darkness festering inside Madara, but brushes the feeling away. There was nothing he could have done, and he has been down the road of blaming himself for not catching a tell that hinted towards secret evil intentions one too many times during his missions to do it again here.

(Still, a complicated feeling rises in him. He'd spent years, at that point, by the founders side. To hear Madara had gone and tried to kill them all— If nothing else, Ming Fan had truly thought Madara loved his brother.)

BUT DO YOU KNOW WHO IS SOMEHOW ALIVE? FUCKING HASHIRAMA AND MITO !!!

Hashirama, having never become Hokage, was never poisoned! Instead he retired, now too old to fight even if he wanted to, and lives in the Senju compound with his aging wife and big family (including his granddaughter, Tsunade)

In the last few years, it's seems like he's become sick, only a few people allowed to visit him, and almost only senju. Very sad, he's expected to die any day now

SO !

Ming Fan hops over to the Senju compound, and though literally everybody expected he wouldn't be allowed to see him, Hashirama permits him to enter his rooms

(The list of those who can see Hashirama is as follows:

His wife

His children and grandchildren

The Hokage

and on one very memorable occasion, the current Uchiha clan head, Uchiha Hikaku)

Ming Fan being added to that list,, well, he may not realize it's weight, but its safe to say that once the fact gets out, it's enough to pretty instantly cement him as trustworthy to most of Konoha. Especially those in higher circles

So, Ming Fan goes to Hashirama's side, and Mito greets him. She explains that the Mokuton is as much as a curse as it is a blessing, and opens the door for Ming Fan to see exactly what she means.

For the past few years, Hashirama has been stuck in the process of turning into a tree.

There... isn't much more to say about that.

They had prepared a room for him to spread his roots in, open aired and protected by enough seals to blind a man if they attempted to look in. With grassy floors covered in wildflowers, and a small stream that Mito says they decorated with rocks from the Naka river.

Hashirama sits at the center of it all, more tree than man, asleep most days but having miraculously awoken just in time for Ming Fan's arrival.

Hashirama jokes that it must be fate, and Ming Fan, sobered in this moment, nods and says that his Shizun has often said that everyone is bound by the strings of fate. Whether they obeyed the strings was up to them, but so long as they walked, the strings would continue to guide them to the places they needed to be.

Hashirama laughs, and tells him that he half expected to be cursed out once he'd heard that Ming Fan had been stranded here by his brothers seal.

"Is that really how you wish for this reunion to go?" Ming Fan asks, and Hashirama only laughs again.

"I'd rather hear you curse my name than sit and suffer through you playing polite because you're too offput by this old mans condition to say what you're thinking."

Ming Fan sighs, laying on the grass and staring up at Hashirama's leaves and halfheartedly curses at Tobirama's name, lamenting his situation as Hashirama listens with a smile.

"You don't seem as distressed as I'd expected!" Hashirama notes, and Ming Fan only shrugs. "I'll figure it out, I'm sure."

"How uncharacteristically optimistic of you!"

"I suppose that's just you rubbing off on me then."

Hashirama and Ming Fan talk for quite a while, and it reminds Ming Fan of older nights, when Konoha was still young, before even the Hokage was elected. Nights occasionally spent drinking together, sometimes alone, sometimes with others— Tobirama, Izuna, Madara, Touka, Hikaku, an array of clan heads and heirs, people who've come to make a home, find some peace, and in that moment only share a drink.

To Ming Fan, it had only been a couple of years since those early days.

To Hahirama, it had been decades.

Ming Fan is invited to stay at the Senju compound for as long as he needs to find a way home.

When he stands, he turns to Hashirama, and offers a bow. Lower than any he's offered before, in this world.

"Thank you for your generosity."

Hashirama smiles, and accepts the gratitude for all that it means.

That night, Senju Hashirama falls asleep, and never wakes again.

SOOO ANYWAYS !!

Ming Fan is now staying with the Senju!! In this verse the family is a bit bigger than canon, due to Hashirama's continued survival throughout the years and how that impacted general Konoha politics. This is also before Tsunade left the village, with her little brother Nawaki still alive and Orochimaru's student (though much like Sakumo, their tragic fates are destined to happen any day now)

Through Ming Fan interference, both of these characters eventually avoid these fates, dont ask me how tho but just know that it happens, so.

Ming Fan has 2 goals!

Find someone who can preform the hiraishin!

Find someone who can alter the seals Tobirama used last in an attempt to get him home!

Luckily for Ming Fan, Mito knows just how to help in both of these cases! She can cover number 2, as Konoha's leading (and oldest) seal expert, and her darling grand-niece, Kushina, just so happens to be dating the only guy in the world who knows how to use the hiraishin, isn't that convenient?

With Mito agreeing to help alter the seal and someone to actually use it set in place, Ming Fan has nothing left to really do other than just,, wait.

The good news is that, since he brought Tobirama's research with him and the alterations shouldn't take nearly as much time as last time, it should only be a few months!

This is where we get Ming Fan once again fucking around the village, and how inevitable interferes with Nawaki and Sakumo's deaths

Maybe he's bored and goes with Nawaki on his mission? He's definitely interacting with him, they both live in the senju compound after all!

Nawaki idolizes his grandfather Hashirama, and Ming Fan is apparently a good friend of his!! So hes totally harassing Ming Fan to know more about that!

I think the "time travel" bit is kept secret from the public, just bc like, messyyyy, and Ming Fan's own involvment in early Konoha is pretty unknown in general just bc he was overshadowed by more relevant historical figures— plus its not like he had a clan to continue to remember him.

So very few people even know he existed, let alone that he's that same guy from history

Ummm Ming Fan and Sakumo friendship, I like to hc skaumo as being friends with the sanin so maybe hes around the Senju compound sometimes, idk

A panicked Sakumo is called in for a super last minute mission and tushes over to beg Tsunade to babysit only to realize shes also out, then somehow ropes Ming Fan into watching over Kakashi

Ming Fan ends up lightly making fun of Kakashi's use of chakra (his own pov of how to use chakra being heavily skewed due to experiments with Tobirama) and ends up being roped further into helping to train Kakashi using techniques, tips and tricks told to him by Tobirama

Ming Fan does NOT want to teach Kakashi, Kakashi is very much harassing him into doing it and Ming Fan is less teaching and more 'throwing techniques at him in the hopes hell go away only to find that Kakashi has figured out how to do it correctly on his own and wow thats really alarming actually'

I think Ming Fan would like Kakashi and also be a terrible fucking influence on him bc he is absolutely encouraging him to be as mean and bratty as possible (with other people)

Ming Fan is the kind of guy to teach his students to be evil under the table so they can get away with it, like, "ok so I heard you tried to sabotage someone. And Im really disappointed actually bc you chose such an obvious way and if you're going to sabotage someone at least dont do it in a way that will tie back to you, like, really" kind of energy

Minato receives Kakashi as a student around this time and has to beg Ming Fan to stop bc the things hes teaching Kakashi keep clashing with shit he's trying to teach him and also "did you really tell Kakashi to try and beat up Obito behind the ramen shop to establish dominance because he almost did and I can not express how bad this is for team moral"

Minato is STRESSED but unfortunately this is not Ming Fan's problem. Sorry. Do better.

Without Izuna around to shoot the shit with Ming Fan actually finds himself incredibly bored. He got used to having someone he can be catty around, now hes like. All bored. And maybe a little lonely.

LONELY? WHO SAID THAT? HES NOT LONELY WHAT THE FUCK SHUT UP !! YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOURE TALKING ABOUT !!!!

He goes to the stupid ramen place that replaced his old favorite shop and discovers he does not like ramen.

This does not improve his mood.

He's fucking bored is the thing, which is why he decides to take missions. And how he ends up with surprisingly high clearance (due to being technically a founder)

And how he ends up on the same team as Sakumo for a very specific mission.

And how, when the mission goes wrong, he sends Sakumo home saying that he'll rescue their mission partners bc at least he's not stupidly recognizable the way Sakumo is.

And how Sakumo never falls from grace

And how just a week later, Sakumo is announced as Kagami's pick for the 4th Hokage.

Sakumo is very grateful towards Ming Fan for the mission thing, considers him to be a good man. He is a little bit blind to the awful fucking influence Ming Fan is on Kakashi, much to Minato's despair.

ANYWHOOO

some months pass and the seal is now complete! Minato is brought in and let in on the secret, and agrees to help!

(getting rid of ming fan? holy shit sign him up!!)

Ming Fan says his goodbies, Nawaki and Kakashi are especially sad to see him go while the adults are all different flavors ranging from "understanding but fondly sad to YES GO GO GET OUT GET OUT LEAVE ALREADY GO PLEASE THANK YOU GOODBYE"

Mito is in general amused at all the shit Ming Fan has managed to start while here, she's a fan of watching him fuck around from afar, eating popcorn

So.

Third times the charm, right? Right???

As Ming Fan immediately realizes, no, no it is not the charm.

Ming Fan reappears on the fucking eve of Konoha's destruction by Pain's hand.

Now. As already stated: I love Ming Fan "just a guy but not really" so much! I think he is decently powerful on his own, just overshadowed by the general cast of SVSSS, and I also think that these past few years hes spent here in naruto, sparring with people like the founders, participating in experiments with Tobirama to see how far qi can be pushed in contrast with chakra, learning new techniques and adapting to the different levels of ambient chakra and qi in this world— well, he's not ready to split skies or anything like that but its safe to say that Ming fan was, and now is even more pretty fucking strong.

All of that is to say Ming Fan may be more attached to Konoha than he realized bc when he sees it being destroyed it isn't just the anger of a righteous cultivator seeing innocents be attacked that's lit inside him, nah Ming Fan is about to throw the fuck down

(It takes him not even a second to affix the konoha headband to his belt before he jumps into the fray)

So! Lets take a peek at the Hokage time line in Ming Fan's absence!

Kannabi bridge went unfortunately similar to canon, and Obito fell into Madara's hands.

With Sakumo still alive at the time, Kakashi was able to recover from this without the major personality shift, and due to a combination of Sakumo and Ming Fan's additional training, when it was Rin's turn on the chopping block, she instead survived and now continues to live as the Konoha's second jinchuriki

Obito attacked Konoha with the intention of releasing the kyuubi, and at the time Kushina and Minato were in the Senju compound for the birth

Mito got in his way, delaying him long enough for Sakumo to also arrive

In the fight, both Mito and Sakumo died (fucking thanks, Obito. I dont think Kakashi's gonna be able to forgive u for that one this time around) but Kushina and Minato survived, and Naruto was born healthy and without the fox sealed into him

Kakashi is understandable devastated, and as recovery efforts begin, he's taken in by Minato and Kushina. He offers little fight against this.

With Sakumo's death, Kagami was once again appointed as the Hokage. After only a year or two of stabilizing Konoha + preparing his successor, he quickly gives Minato the hat, and retreats once again to retirement.

Minato makes Kakashi and Rin both ANBU, expressing his desire to have them by his side (at least this time they're slightly older, with Kakashi at 15 and Rin at 17) and puts them on home guard, specifically as Naruto's ANBU guards. It's an easy job, and helps Kakashi in particular to heal some, even if he gets even more rigid about things like rules and formalities

With Izuna as the first Hokage and Kagami as the third (and technical 5th) Uchiha-village relations were actually very good! Thanks to this, the Uchiha massacre was avoided entirely

Kakashi is raised pretty much as Naruto's very protective older brother, with Rin in a similar boat but she still has her own family so there isnt quite so much trauma fueled dependency from her end.

Naruto grows up to be alarmingly talented, with Kakashi and Rin tutoring him, and Minato and Kushina obviously doing their best (though Minato remains mostly busy due to the unfortunate realities of being a Hokage. Meanwhile Naruto is absolutely a total mommas boy)

Kakashi and Rin end up actually fighting over who gets to be Naruto's sensei (Naruto wants NEITHER OF THEM!!!!! HES A BIG BOY NOW STOP CODDLING HIM!!!!!)

Canon then proceeds mostly the same, though with some very obvious major changes

Somewhere along the way, Itachi is convinced to ditch Konoha even without the massacre, and later down the like Sasuke also follows suit to investigate what happened with his brother— though this time he leaves with orders from Minato to go undercover, and investigate Sound

(fucking THANKS dad!! -Naruto, probably, when he finds this out)

COOL! SO! WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY!

Ming Fan fucking bodies Pain right before he kills Kakashi. (Sorry Kakashi, no fireside chat with your father for you)

Now, Ming Fan had a pretty lasting effect on Kakashi's life overall, but he was only around for like, idk, half a year maybe. And Kakashi was young during the time, so his memories of the man remain very blurry and overall half forgotten.

So Kakashi doesn't recognize him immediately— Though from Ming Fan's side, he's immediately mistaking him for Sakumo, then realizing no, wait it isn't him, doing the mental math and making an educated guess that this has to be Kakashi then.

But that doesnt matter rn bc it is THROW DOWN OCLOCK !!!!!

The overall battle goes mostly according to canon but w less casualties since Ming Fan joins in, but then Naruto does his talk no jutsu or however that goes, Pain agrees to revive everyone, boom there done.

So tbh my knowledge of Naruto gets HELLA blurry from here on out, so we're gonna keep it vague, but, like, MING FAN IS HERE AGAIN YAYYYYY

Unfortunately p much everyone who could have instantly recognized him is fucking dead now. Kagami, Danzo and Hiruzen got picked off in previous battles or smthn, Mito and Sakumo are fucking dead, the kids who grew attached to him were too young and the time they knew him too short to really remember,

BUT.

Despite literally only being around for like, 6 months. Ming Fan succeeded at being so annoying that Minato never fucking forgot his face <3

(also there are probably some Uchiha around w sharingan memories of him)

So Minato sees this guy and goes through all the stages of grief at once. Meanwhile Ming Fan is seeing the hat and raising his eyebrows and going no way Sakumo chose THIS bitch boy for the job.

Meanwhile Naruto is standing direcly next to Minato going DAD WHOS THIS WHO IS THAT DAD HEY DAD HEY DAD WHO IS THAT DAD—

(Listen this is a hard day for everyone. Minato included. But this. This. He could just. Really use a fucking break. Thanks.)

But anyways Ming Fan is here and even if he got the option to go home, like, right now, he honestly probably wouldnt take it bc now hes kind of pissed. What do you MEAN Konoha is under attack? What do you MEAN some masked figure killed Sakumo years ago and now is back and also claiming to be Madara Uchiha and theyre trying to fucking kill everyone??

So yeah he's on board to fight, Konoha headband equipped to his belt, he's ready to stick around some more before he tries to go home again.

(and then someone gasps theatrically at Pain's eyes and goes "omg the rinnegan,, the mystical eyes said to be able to traverse time and space,,," and Ming Fan goes WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY THOSE EYES CAN DO")

But also Pain is dead now. So.

(Distant Sasuke, who is still following the beats of his canon story but just undercover under Minato's orders now noises)

So like Ming Fan sticks around, battles happen, we get Kakashi and an older Nawaki remembering him. Nawaki falls back a bit into his old view of thinking Ming Fan is just the coolest, but meanwhile Kakashi kind of takes on the role Izuna used to have, and now him and Ming Fan are having little cat fights in the bg

(With Sakumo having lived so much longer + having been able to comfort his son after Obito's death, the lack of Rin, Minato, and Kushina's death, and just in general all the little things stacking up in a different way than before, Kakashi avoided his major personality shift and is a lot closer to being the strict, bratty kid he used to be than the lazy, perpetually late slack off we know and love in canon)

anyways, blah blah blah, stuff happens, lots of battles, drama, oh my,

Finally we get to the Hokage's being revived for the final battle.

For whatever reason, Ming Fan was occupied somewhere else, possibly getting wrapped up in Sasuke's shit, when they were brought back.

So like.

POV he enters the battlefield, intending to face off with Madara. Then just.

Tobirama, distantly across the battlefield: ᵒʰ ˢʰᶦᵗ ⁿᵒ ʷᵃʸ

Ming Fan, who can hear him just fine bc cultivator: OH SHIT YES WAY YOU USELESS HACK

Ming Fan spends way too much time shouting at Tobirama when he should be FIGHTING GET BACK TO WORK MING FAN

I need a Ming Fan > Izuna > Kakashi bitch fest where they all just fucking snip at each other actually, I think it'd be funny

Ming Fan probably winds up yelling at Madara too, who did not expect to see him here

"Didn't the Senju send you home??"

"Didn't you die after making a fool of yourself in front of all of Konoha??"

Ming Fan doesnt use chakra so he's able to help back up Gai in his fight against Madara, and Gai is able to leave the battle not crippled for life, which is nice

Kaguya descends, things happen, the fight is won and the day is saved, and the fighting finally comes to an end

Sasuke somehow manage to end up with the rinnegan, and instead of trying to use the hiraishan for the third fucking time, Sasuke agrees to try and instead use it (and Ming Fan's qi) as a homing beacon to try and find his original dimension w the rinnegan! Much more reliable method

And so, for the final time, Ming Fan says his goodbyes.

It's,,, an event.

The old hokage's, including Sakumo, are still around with the power of edo tensei, and he's able to give his goodbyes to them all once again, one by one.

Tobirama gives only a brief apology for the seal not working as it should before dissolving into mumbled theories of what might have gone wrong— then remembers himself and shakes his head, offering a curt goodbye

Izuna scoffs and says that at this rate, he expects to see Ming Fan again in a couple decades when the next chakra goddess tries to explode the world and the living are forced to once again turn to him for help💅

Ming Fan tells him to shut the fuck up, and if it happens then he'll just look forward to getting another opportunity to call him a fool to his face, instead of to a grave.

Izuna laughs, and waves him away

Kagami doesn't have too much to say, but thanks Ming Fan for his help. "You may be from another world, but you are just as much of a konoha man as any of us."

Ming Fan... chooses not to take this as an insult. Instead, he nods his head, and gives Kagami the full respect a Hokage would ordinarily deserve, for quite possibly the first time.

Sakumo, he finds holding his son as Kakashi clings to his shoulder. Ming Fan watches for a moment, and Sakumo catches his eye. He gives him a big, genuine smile, mouths thank you, and bows his head.

They already said their goodbyes once, and Ming Fan doesn't wish to take any of the time he has left away from his son. He nods back, and continues.

Minato, when he finds him, is hiding out on the battlefield, laying down with an arm covering his eyes. He groans, when he sees Ming Fan, but sits up.

"Don't despair, you'll finally be getting rid of me." Ming Fan sighs, and Minato snorts.

Minato is... Well, he's a lot more fond of Ming Fan than he once was. Even if the man is still a giant pain in the ass. They speak for a bit, Ming Fan advises him to go ahead and retire already, god knows its what his son would want, and Minato stares up at the sky.

"At this point? I really should have ages ago."

Minato shakes himself, and finally stands, offering a hand to Ming Fan.

Ming Fan clasps his risks, and they nod to each other, probably more civil than they ever have been before.

"Fighting with you has been.... a wonder." Minato seemed to settle on, and Ming Fan arched a brow.

"Not an honor?"

"I think we both know the answer to that."

Ming Fan rolled his eyes, but still smirked.

"Likewise. Take care of your family."

"May you finally return to yours."

And with that, they part ways.

He's walking back to Sasuke, when those who had been edo tenseid fade away. He's just in time to see Kakashi, back turned, as he watches his father go for one final time.

When he turns, he catches his eye. Eyes, plural, as it seems Obito had left him with quite the gift.

Kakashi nods to him, seeming still overwhelmed with his fathers departure, and not quite sure what else to say to Ming Fan.

It's a stark cry from their first goodbye, Kakashi so far from the young boy who once clung to Ming Fan's leg, huffing about him not being allowed to leave till he taught him just a little bit more.

It's Ming Fan, who takes the steps towards the man.

"I'm glad my lessons were ever of any use to you. You've certainly made better use of them than I ever could have imagined." He says, and when Kakashi goes just a touch red under his mask, Ming Fan thinks he might understand what Shizun was talking about, when he laments about the cuteness of his students even once grown.

"WHAT? Are you seriously gonna go, just like that?"

It's Naruto, who's apparently caught wind of Ming Fan planning to leave sooner rather than later.

"No way am I letting you leave with the bastard before he's given me an explanation!" Naruto grabs Sasuke, who with the pained face of someone who knows they're about to get what they deserve, just sort of lets it happen.

"You gotta stay for at least the celebration! We finally won, it's time to party!"

(Ming Fan laughs, and he decides that just for a bit longer— Just a night more, he will stay)

.

.

.

It has been one year to the day, since Shen Qingqiu's head disciple disappeared.

The exact allowance of a disciple to vanish, before you must consider declaring them dead.

Shen Qingqiu...

Doesn't like to talk about it. Binghe seems to realize he can only comfort him so much for this fact, and today has taken to giving him a bit of space, which he appreciates.

It's for this reason, when a swirl appears in his bamboo hut, depositing two men, that Shen Quingqiu is alone.

"Shizun, this disciple is reporting his absence for these last 6 years. I apologize for my lateness." Ming Fan cries, falling to his knees and bowing his head.

Shen Quingqiu is on his feet in an instant, reaching towards his disciple, already having to suppress the cry rising up in his throat as he falls to his own knees, taking Ming Fan's hands in his own.

"Ming Fan will not apologize for thing out of his own control, this one is overjoyed to see you home."

The man behind his disciple shifts, and Ming Fan gestures towards him.

"This Uchiha Sasuke has assisted in bringing me—"

Wait WHAT.

Fuckin. Lugh track. Roll credits. Idk. Boom. Done. Theres ur au. Fuck how did this end up being so long

[acorviart]

Europe VAT laws not changing any time soon, recent. If understand FAQ well, mean shipping to Europe impossible for several years minimum?

That's correct, I won't be shipping to the EU for the foreseeable future due to some import packaging regulations that either have already been implemented or are planning to be implemented in the future.

Note that this is for EU countries only—I can ship to all other non-EU countries like Switzerland, except for the UK due to the UK's own convoluted VAT system.

The only workaround I can offer for EU folks is that you can have a friend or family that lives in a non-EU country place an order to deliver to their address, and then they are able to ship that order to you marked as a gift. Not an option for everyone, I know.

Longer explanation under the readmore for those curious:

As it stands now, each EU country has its own system and fees that I can't keep up with (for example, France would cost me 80 euros per year), I'd need to individually register and report to each country, some require reporting and tracking of what sources of packaging I use, I believe? It's all very complicated, and it makes my head spin just trying to figure out what the requirements actually are, so that's why I stopped shipping to the EU entirely out of an abundance of caution. I also just don't get enough sales to the EU to justify the headache, I'd probably actually lose money paying all the fees. Actually, while I was looking up details while writing this post, apparently there's a new PPWR that's going to replace the old EU Packaging Directive? This is why I can't handle this (ಥ﹏ಥ)

As for why this doesn't seem to be affecting all companies—corporations can obviously afford their own professionals whose entire job is to handle this stuff, and the requirements are also different for large vs small volumes. Meanwhile, a lot of other small or 1-person businesses straight up don't know about these requirements, because it's not like there's a memo passed around about updates to international shipping law. It's also even more confusing because some packages are slipping by without any issue, probably in part due to how the regulations are still new and still being implemented, so I assume it's kind of a mess.

I know of a few people who are willingly taking the risk and shipping to the EU anyway and have had no consequences (for now at least), but I'm not risking the fines ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now for the UK, their VAT system doesn't have anything to do with packaging, but what it does require is similar registration with the government, and I'm required to collect and pay the VAT myself. No thanks!

TLDR; laws hard. laws also expensive. too stupid to figure out and too fearful of fines. no ship to countries

fun story: someone also once emailed me this long diatribe about how they think I'm shit at research and that I'm just making all this up (specifically just to screw with europeans or something, I guess?), so I sent them a few links to the literal official government websites where I got my info (like that UK one), and they never responded. lol

[lucabyte]

i am looking at nohats au 👀 please share more

So! NoHats! I'm going to grab you and use this to ramble. A Lot.

The NoHats AU is @samhainian's it's just that I'm the strange little freak who takes the words said unto me and executes on them. But I can still do a little explainer on what our overall thoughts and vibes are. (And, that we are in fact propping up a little box with some cheese under it here. 🪤 Please (PLEASE) feel free to pick up what we're putting down.)

We're far from the only ones exploring a "what if siffrin fucking died" AU, though the main difference with NoHats is the placement of the death in the timeline. Instead of being 'Mal Du Pays Wins' or 'Act 6 encounter goes horribly wrong', the death is… Just after the (literal) falling action.

(This placement is because Sam is a comic book fan who thus has become used to characters being ripped away at the cruelest times by shitty writers. THANK FUCKING GOD adrienne is not that and isat is delightful yippieee, but, back on topic.)

Giving the party the full understanding of What Happened that you get by putting the death after black hole siffrin, but before the A6 encounter leaves an interesting gap to be filled. See, making Siffrin's death very much not Loop's fault means that… this once again reads (when not read as simply a tragedy...) as the universe doing what it sees fit to fulfull Loop's wish… Thus making Siffrin's death Loop's fault again, but only in their eyes. And only in a way they could express if they were honest about who they were…

And this is where having had excuse to waffle about my general Postcanon Loop thoughts the other day comes in handy, because Sam and I have that as our canon-compliant reading to begin with, NoHats plays off of a lot of the same readings of Loop's character. Namely: Uh Oh Somebody's Lying By Fucking Omission Again. (BECAUSE TO BE FAIR THIS TIME… HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU HANDLE THAT?)

Now, neither Sam nor I are fanfic writers, so this has been a little bit trapped in our heads and DMs (and my unfinished art but,)

But our thoughts on how NoHats like… Goes.

Siffrin's death is peaceful, but that does not mean the aftermath of it is. I can't imagine the party takes it well, especially after understanding the circumstances of the Loops. (And, of note, in A5 where nobody had the discussion on what to do with each other's bodies should something happen…) But I'd imagine it traumabonds them somewhat (understatement of the century) and now knowing how the rest of the party feels, they resolve to travel together for the forseeable future.

The party track down Loop to deliver the terrible news, since they were clearly Siffrin's friend too, and invite Loop along to travel at least long enough to (let them grieve) get the burial over with. Loop, here, can be helpful in knowing what Siffrin would've wanted where the party would be at a loss. Loop, I think, takes a bit of a lead on the funerary aspects of it all, because, um. (Performing rites on your own body, huh?)

Then, as things are after a death, life just… Kind of has to continue on as normal. The party travel, pick up Nille, and get to know Loop as this mysterious new person. Maybe in this situation they might stay in Bambouche for a while to give Bonnie more stability since. They are probably taking it the worst. It would've come out of absolutely nowhere for everyone in the party obviously but god, for a kid? For A Kid?

It should be stated NoHats is not intended to be grimdark, just y'know. An exploration of grief. This is also why it's got a bit of a lopsided focus on Bonnie vs the rest of the party because hhrrhghghhghghhhghhghhh <- incoherent

Now, a crossroads.

How does the party discover Loop to be Siffrin? How long does it take. How much have the party embraced them as part of the family (especially with something as intense to bond over as this)?

There's the Odile option. Have her put it together and have to bring it up somehow. This could also be done by Isabeau, perhaps. He's smart. (which. God. If anything's the real Isabeau Torment Nexus it's this)

Then there's the other option batted around by Sam and I. The: The Universe Dislikes Duplicates option.

The items in the house that fzzt away when inspected. The Universe doesn't like there to be two of something, at least not when they're acknowledged. But one of something is just fine…?

Which is to say. I'm not a personal proponent of 'Loop getting their body back'. EXCEPT …… except this one time.

There's only one Siffrin now, so they don't need to be obfuscated to exist.

Consider, if you will. Loop swallowing their guilt for long enough to be comfortable. Falling back into old habits. Without another Siffrin around to compete for the niche of, they actually begin to act like Siffrin again. Not intentionally, it's just… The party is as welcoming as they've always been. And the party swears they keep catching glimpses of a face under all the light.

Then, one day, while still not fully human again, the resemblence becomes undeniable. Loop having not even noticed until everyone looks at them like they've seen a ghost.

Has it been months? How long have they kept up this lie? Is it even a lie, to them? They're Loop. But they were, once, Siffrin.

Even after explaining it, does that make it better or worse?

Bonnie cuts through the betrayed, struck-nerve reactions with a sobering "I missed you."

… Anyway !

Yeah so that's the vibe for NoHats. As for LoopLoops? That's more nebulous. I think it can go anywhere really in the NoHats timeline. I err personally toward the "Loop continuously replays the last 10 minutes before Siffrin's death almost immediately after they find out and have to parkour their ass up the House in the most distressing situation possible to try and get them to hold on, just please hold on." (Remember! Siffrin can remember the contents of Loop's loop backs in the A6 fight!)

But there is the possibility that this happens months, or worse years down the road. One last Loop back. Throw it all away for the chance to just get that one thing you didn't know you even wanted but now know you NEED.

Misc:

Okay miscellaneous time.

This is where I admit that I have a bunch of unfinished NoHats art that I haven't gotten around to yet because I feel like a right tool being so obviously Loop-Centric with my fancontent (I AM . . I REALISE I AM NOT DOING MUCH TO BEAT THE ALLEGATIONS.) So like if people want to see that please say because euaghghghhfh <- the nervous.

this is like the most fucked up place to do isaloop fr. anyway.

one of Sam's mid-game observations that I'm just going to share for no particular reason is that Bonnie's hair shares a bunch of shapes with Siffrin's. The flick up at the top, the 3 pronged shape of the fringe… just something to think about.

Without 2 Siffrins around to compare each other to it'd likely be a lot harder to notice Loop's similarities. Doesn't mean that those similarities don't sting more in this context though.

If you do NoHats without LoopLoops. The concept of this all fading into memory years down the line while they just have slightly-glowy but otherwise regular Siffrin hanging out is fucked up to think about. Just like real grief. Augh

6. a peek into the original dms as a treat from us

[abbotjack]

hi just wanted to come her and tell you that i truly love everything you’ve been putting out and im wondering whats to come🤔 would you mind telling us about any fics/requests ur working on? just somethings to look forward to :))

also as a writer myself, how do you handle requests? do you just go with the ones that inspires you most atm or do you go by the order in which they entered your inbox? i sometimes go with the first option and feel a little guilty 🤣🥲

hi!! first of all, thank you so much for saying that — it really does mean a lot 🖤 and yeah, as someone who’s still kind of new to sharing my writing, i definitely get overwhelmed sometimes. but honestly? i love getting requests. it’s really cool to me that someone would take the time to think about a story and send it my way. because of that, i usually just go with whatever i have the most inspiration for in the moment — i never want to half-ass something. if someone cared enough to send it in, i want to care enough to do it justice. and honestly, people have been super understanding about that, which i'm really grateful for.

and since you asked, here’s some of the stuff sitting in my notes app right now:

part three of the life we built series : this picks up after reader and jack’s daughter is born — it’ll cover her first twelve months of life, but not in a montage-y way. i want it to really show how their lives change: the little things like jack falling asleep with her on his chest after night shifts, their first trip to the lake with her, the quiet moments where reader second-guesses herself as a mom and jack grounds her without even realizing he’s doing it. it’s going to be very domestic but layered too — lots of marriage dynamics, balancing work and family, seeing jack in this new phase of life without losing the parts of him that have always been there. i want every month to feel like its own chapter of growth, not just for their daughter but for their relationship too.

an addition to the handoff universe (pre-wedding story) : this will be set a few months before their wedding —it’ll probably revolve around some kind of high-stakes night at the hospital (a bad trauma case or a near miss), and how that forces them to confront everything they’ve been putting off talking about — fears, what it means to build a future together, whether they can survive the life they've both chosen. it’ll feel a little heavier than the life we built stuff — more about the growing pains of trying to have it all. i’m consciously not leaning into pregnancy here, since TLWB already covers that side of life. and the universes stay separate — accountant reader vs. attending reader 😭 different lives, different dynamics.

dad’s best friend jack abbot fic (potentially robby’s daughter) : this one’s still brewing, but i’m obsessed with the idea of setting it over fourth of july weekend. reader would have grown up around jack — years of cookouts, pool parties, firework shows — and now she’s grown, back home from college, and the tension’s impossible to ignore. jack’s trying to stay composed because of loyalty (to robby, to her dad, to whatever rules he thinks still apply), but the dynamic is all heat and bad timing. if i go with reader being robby’s daughter, it’ll add even more conflict: not just the age gap, not just the forbidden aspect, but the loyalty jack feels — and the way he starts to realize that loyalty is tearing him up inside. thinking major national anthem x lana del rey energy: reckless, indulgent, a little dangerous, and completely inevitable.

a jack abbot x all too well (10 min version) inspired one-shot : this isn’t going to be a direct retelling of the song, but i’m pulling hard from its structure — moments flashing by, small details that add up to heartbreak. it’ll be one of those fics where you feel the weight of time passing, even if the characters try to pretend it isn’t. probably a former relationship between reader and jack that fell apart because of timing, or choices he made that he thought were protecting her. i want it to be devastating in a quiet way — not loud fights, but all the little silences, the missed moments, the things they almost said. very lyrical, very slow-burn angst.

a one-shot based on girls / girls / boys by panic! at the disco : you, jack, and robby have always been close. too close. the kind of friendship that feels a little dangerous, a little too intimate when no one’s watching. it’s always been half a joke — the three of you piled onto the same barstool, robby slinging his arm around your shoulders like he owns you, jack sitting just a little too close, like he doesn’t trust robby not to do something stupid. you laugh it off. they laugh it off. but everyone feels it — that spark pulling tight between the three of you like a tripwire. the story would open on a night that starts like a thousand others: post-shift beers at some dive bar that should’ve been condemned years ago. the alcohol’s kicking in. the music’s too loud. the glances last a little too long. someone bumps your shoulder and jack’s hand is immediately on your lower back, steadying you — fingers lingering like he forgot he’s supposed to let go. and when robby notices, he doesn’t pull jack away. he grins. like he’s been waiting for this.

i’m trying to make sure each one-shot feels different and actually brings something new, instead of just reworking the same beats over and over! also have a lot of stuff in my inbox.. so really dk what is coming next!

[linkons-most-wanted]

I've read your analysis and kinda can't get it their relationship anyway 😭 I mean in the beginning Sylus is horrible and I don't understand why can't he see that mc doesn't like him. Since we know that he can be attentive because after he was told that mc is disgusted by him he tried to change his behavior. So it's kinda bad excuse that "he couldn't see it". I mean you're not blind dude, you definitely know what fear look like, you see it on other people's eyes.

About old mc dunno I still have feeling that current mc is just a replacement for his old mc. He loved her in the first place and since she's gone he have only one option - our current mc. Some of my friends said that he loves her soul regardless of who she is but I can't agree with this, current mc and past mc two different people imo

I really love Sylus but I thought that he's a fire that can be tamed and he loves our mc dearly and gently despite his tough exterior but now I doubt it

This actually reminds me of a couple other points that didn't make it into the last one, so I'm really glad you sent this!

And first off I just want to say--if you're still like "I don't like it, it's too mean, not for me" that is 100% totally and completely valid! So much of this comes down to personal preference. So I don't intend this to be me trying to convince you, so much as just reflecting on why I love it and how I think about these different angles.

We're gonna talk kink, monster romance, jungian psychology--buckle up, babes. ((Content note: there's going to be some indirect references to SA.)) I'm also gonna start with what you specifically mentioned so you don't have to read through alll my ramblings if you don't want. 😅

Who is MC?

This is a really interesting point, especially because the writers play with it on a meta level. She reincarnates, so obviously there's a fantastical element to it. It plays with ideas of "nature" vs "nurture"--is her personality inherent? Is it a product of her environment? The point of the narrative isn't to have a specific answer--it's to pose the question.

It's also important to note that odds are pretty high that each LI has their own writing team and head writer. (Based on my understanding of how these things are generally done.) So while they're going to share notes on MC's basic characteristics, each writer/writing team is going to pull MC's personality in one direction moreso than the other. Each "version" of MC needs to have the traits that would cause her to fall for the given LI.

The writers are specifically telling us they're writing a "confluence of branching timelines" so we can consider all these different versions of MC--past and future--sort of superimposed on each other. Each reader can (and this is intended) decide for themselves whether those seem like all different parts of the same whole, or different people. Is the MC that plays coy with Zayne where neither wants to admit what they're doing in Absolute Zeal the same MC that says "hunters aren't passive" to Sylus in Night of Secrecy?

I don't think so. Or, more specifically, I see them as "what ifs" of the same person. "What if" she was drawn to Zayne? Who would that make her? "What if" she was down hard for Sylus? What personality traits would incline her to that? Etc.

And then on top of that, the reader is always projecting onto MC. What would I say? What would I want? What version of MC is closest to that? (Or furthest from that?) What LI does that then draw me towards?

So, are Sorceress MC and Main Timeline MC the same person? Well, if someone's been in a relationship a long time and then one person loses their memories and they don't remember the other person (rare, but it can really happen!), is that person the same person they were before?

I think the answer is "yes and no". None of us have a magic reset button where we can say "what if I was born into a different life". So there's really no "right answer". It's sort of a ship of Theseus type thought experiment.

I can confidently say that the writers are giving the version of main-timeline MC that gets with Sylus all of the same key traits that Sylus fell in love with the first time. If you asked Sylus whether he sees main-timeline MC as a consolation prize he'd scoff at you and say, "Astonishing misunderstanding". 😂 He himself says he sees her as the same person--she was "quietly transplanted to another garden", not a new flower that looks similar.

Also, getting with Main Timeline MC isn't his only option--as we see in Razor's Dance, he's willing to walk away. That's him saying, "I don't have any claim over you just because of your history. Either the current version of you wants this, or you don't." Sylus would rather go back to his solitary life than keep "pestering" MC, if that's how she sees it.

Sylus knows she's afraid he just doesn't think that's a problem (yet)

You're spot on that Sylus should (and does) know that MC is afraid when she meets him. He just doesn't see that as a problem. After all, in Beyond Cloudfall, she's fleeing from Wanderers, terrified for her life, and greedy and defiant enough to free a monster for a chance to live. (I think it's selling Sorceress MC short to ignore that she knows she's committing sacrilege.) He wants to push her to see what she'll do this time. Bargain with the devil? Try to flee? Take things into her own hands?

Not to mention, Sylus has never met someone who wasn't afraid of him at first. Ever. Even Luke and Kieran show a little fear. It's important to remember that this is because Sylus isn't really human, but we'll get into that in a sec.

In some ways, Sylus is rough not because he doesn't care about MC, but because he believes she's strong. In LAR he says confidently, demandingly, "You can handle it". And she can. The version of main-timeline MC that falls in love with Sylus gives voice to many of the traits not often allowed for female characters--assertiveness, greediness, toughness, ruthlessness, stubbornness, autonomy, vindictiveness, etc. You could look at Sylus's MC and say, "but you were afraid!" And she's say, "So what? I can handle myself. If I can take down Wanderers, I can handle this."

She is not afraid to put Sylus in his place, to tell him what she doesn't and doesn't like about his behavior. That's not going to be relatable for every reader, and that's okay! It resonates deeply with me, and I cherish that.

Sylus is a monster (romance lead)

Full disclosure, I write monster romance professionally. So I was always going to be biased to see him through a monster romance lens--which imo is pretty clearly intended by the writers as established in Beyond Cloudfall.

The "rules" of what behavior is/isn't allowed in monster romance are quite different than human or contemporary romance. A lot of what justifies Sylus's behavior are fantasy elements--him being a dragon, time travel, reincarnation, the N109 Zone being as violent and dangerous as it is, his Evol being extremely powerful, etc.

If an IRL person tries to force you to hold their hand, that's straightforwardly SA. They can't be like "oh I'm a dragon" because that doesn't exist. In the real world, indeed, none of these "excuses" would matter and the behavior would be straightforwardly inappropriate and likely unforgivable.

BUT. Sylus isn't a contemporary romance lead. He's a monster romance lead. He's not gruff and demanding and physical because of some warped idea of masculinity, he's those things because he's a dragon. He's not like us.

Monsters often serve as an allegory for queerness (being seen as 'other' and dangerous by society) and neurodivergence (misunderstanding and struggling with the rules of society). Thus, the social inappropriateness of the behavior becomes part of the point. The story is about building a relationship despite struggles getting on the same page culturally and emotionally.

If I went too far, could you still love me? If I'm initially totally misunderstood, would someone take the time to get to know me? Will my mistakes ruin everything, or is there forgiveness if I commit to change? Can you see yourself in me, your own monstrous traits you suppress to get along and fit in? If we're both beasts, can we bite and scratch and lick and cuddle? These questions beat at the heart of monster romance.

But the violent, monstrous behavior is about a little bit more than that, which is why we have to talk about how...

Sylus is a kink-oriented character

This could also be a whole essay so I'm going to mostly just point at No Defense Zone, Innocent Birdcage, and Abyssal Mark. If you're not familiar enough with kink to see the clear theming there, you can take my word for it until I inevitably write that essay. 😅

Power exchange is a huge part of kink, and it's a recurring theme with Sylus's character. Everything about "taming" him, MC asking for control in Night of Secrecy and him saying "not yet" (but not "no"), etc.

And a beloved, beloved kink is resistance play. Enjoying struggling or having someone struggle. The B in BDSM is for Bondage. There's always a playful element in Sylus's bondage which imo makes it clear that it's about kink and power exchange, not power theft. This is why that moment in Midnight Stealth when he says "I do love to watch my pretty struggle in vain" is one of my favorites because fuck, that's my kink.

It being a bit dark, deviant, inappropriate is kind of the point. We kinky mfers get off on that shit. IRL, scenes and limits need to be negotiated ahead of time. Obviously, Sylus's arc lacks that explicit negotiation at first, but a lot of IRL experiences do too. When you get off on struggling and don't have a clear understanding of kink, your unexplored desires can be exploited by others to put you in some pretty shitty situations. That's why having an outlet (like dark romance, or monster romance) is so important.

One thing I love about Sylus x MC is that as the story unfolds, we see they're both switches. Sylus loves to dominate and be on top (as we see in LAR, Midnight Stealth, Night of Secrecy) but he also wants MC to dominate him (No Defense Zone, Valleydream Bloom). For Pete's sake, in Beyond Cloudfall, seeing her sitting on a throne over him after they took over the Sanctuary made him so viscerally turned on that his desire consumed him and turned him into a dragon. Their dynamic has always been switchy.

When they talk about being the only two people left in the world that live true to their hearts, that are honest about their desires, that is 100% meant to include the dark, fucked-up desires that find safe and healthy expression in kink. They want to devour each other. She wants to gouge out his eye and win his love. He wants to consume her soul and roll with her in a field of flowers.

If you watch the start of Long Awaited Revelry with him prying her hand open and are like "who could possibly think that's hot"--It's me, hi, I'm the problem it's me. 😂

There can be this sort of visceral compulsion of, "ugh I love you so much I just wanna bite you/make you bleed/bruise you/etc." Consider it a cousin to cute aggression.

Now, kink does not need to be justified. It is what it is, and as long as you're ensuring informed consent of all parties involved and understanding the risks, do whatever makes your freaky heart happy.

BUT. I do also love to talk about kink and I think it's relevant, so...

Fear and desire are deeply entwined

Now we're getting into Jungian psychology (as in Carl Jung). In that realm of psychology, you'll see the idea that fear and desire are two sides of the same coin. For what it's worth, there's some neuroscience supporting this idea.

If there's something you particularly desire (such as winning a certain award) you might also simultaneously fear it (well I might as well not submit because I won't get it). Likewise, if there's something you particularly fear (being physically dominated by a man/person you don't know) you may also have a desire to experience it on some level (such as by being physically dominated by a man/person you know and trust). There's something profoundly freeing about being able to create a scene where you experience the "worst possible thing" and then in the end you are safe and cared for (after-care is a huge part of this).

This is never EVER EVER an excuse to do something non-consensual IRL. Kink MUST be negotiated. It is something to think about in the safe(r) context of informed consent.

A fiction story establishes safety in a really profound way. MC doesn't know Sylus really has a heart of gold when they meet--but we the readers know that he will, because that's a sort of contract we enter into with the writers of a romance. The informed consent is between the writer and the reader in these fictional scenarios. The writer says, "I am going to show you something scary, someone powerful and dominant and ruthless, and they are going to turn out to be someone you want to cuddle" and we the readers say "fuck yes".

Likewise, when my partner and I role-play, our agreement is "one of us is going to act scary, dominating, powerful, greedy, demanding. Then we're gonna cuddle and go back to gaming on the couch."

Fiction allows for these heightened scenarios were we can really get off on the things we're afraid of in this really safe and really hot way.

A final note on personal preference

I'm a big fan of head cannon and "create your own experience" when it comes to navigating what you do/don't like about characters in something like Love and Deepspace. If the initial meanness and physical dominance just isn't for you, head cannon it! Enjoy the sweetness of the new Sylus content and imagine a different origin for them meeting again. Pick and choose what details to focus on so that you can enjoy that "flame that can be tamed" vibe you're looking for. Nobody else gets to decide what version of Sylus lives in your brain, just like nobody else gets to decide what version of MC you resonate with the most.

For example, you'll see that I can easily forgive Sylus's initial bullying because I don't find it to be mean-spirited and I get off a bit on the inappropriateness. Part of why this works for me is Sylus is fundamentally honest. "I'm not just greedy--I'm greedy and proud of it." He never breaks a promise. He never outright lies.

Now, contrast this to Xavier and Caleb, who casually lie all the time. It drives me crazy! Now, don't get me wrong--I love both characters, I enjoy writing them, and I think they're brilliantly written. But I will never not be like "ugh, Xavier, get your shit together!!!" or "Caleb please go to therapy." Caleb and Sylus are both written to be darker characters (as will the 6th LI, I suspect), so they're going to tend to provoke strong reactions.

I love reading and writing Caleb content because it is a bit triggering for me--there's that sense of danger and a similarity to past trauma, but that can be explored in the safety of fiction (hello, kink).

As for Sylus, I just straight up love his physicality and brutal, fundamental honesty. With a character like Sylus, you always know where you stand, and that's deeply healing to me. I am the type of person that would rather know, would rather struggle through it, would rather have it all out in the open. Characters like Caleb and Xavier will never quite give you that. (They give other things!) Someone like Zayne is going to give you that in glimpses, but with a steadier baseline, and that's why he's my second favorite. Rafayel is also a pretty honest character but all his bratting triggers my parentification trauma, so there's that 😂

These characters are really so faceted and multi-layered that I really endorse just leaning into the facets you personally enjoy the most! A large part of why I dig so deep into the canon and enjoy analyzing how the characters are presented is that as a writer it's a treat to have such complex characters to dig into, but that's not any more or less valid than coming up with your own spin on things. (The LaDS writers even say as much in the Fractal Library World Underneath story!)

[graphx]

brainrot on the apollo!ray au

AU credit to @just-like-playing-tag! (check out the apollo ray tag!)

I always thought it was a bit odd that the lambda kids were so adamant on hating demons but we don’t really see how they feel about the ratris or how that affects their views on adults/other humans

they were experimented on by human AND demon researchers

They were the first kids to find out the difference between wild demon intelligence/consciousness and ability to have morality but they still treat them all the same

TPN has crafted a narrative of humans vs demons but doesn’t acknowledge how much the children might hate/resent those who put them in this position

It’s probably because every human forced to sell out the kids is painted in a sympathetic light in some way (except Andrew)

Legirivima/Peter was seen as brainwashed by their own delusion about their glorious lineage/history and it was a problem of the indoctrination they grew up in and the expectations/mindsets that were pressured onto them

It was glossed over in Isabella’s death and lack of living to make up for what she put each of the kids though (ray specifically)

So it's kinda never adressed in canon how cruel the kids are willing to be to those who are somewhat responsible for putting them in this position regardless of if they are demon or not (as I've addressed here with goldy pond specifically)

I think apollo!ray’s attitude vs Norman’s regarding demons would be similar to how they treat adults by only seeing their enemies (no matter what/who they are) as monsters

Norman went out of his way to ensure he wouldn’t be rebuilding the freedom of the children on top of the ratri’s legacy by doing the same thing they did (subjecting future generations to cloning experimentation/inhumane treatment) even though that was an option he could have gone with when allying with Gleelan

He could have given live Ratris to Gleelan to prove he was willing to screw over adults in order for the children to live (which I imagine apollo!ray would be cruel enough to do in this AU) but this shows there is a line when it comes to Norman’s morality he won’t cross

This shows how much norman values humanity regardless of who they are, ratri or not

His plan was for the demons to destroy themselves but he had no plan for the ratris afterward and i think it shows much how much norman unconsciously took inspiration from emma

Norman thought humans wouldn’t hurt/be prejudiced against the children if the demons weren’t putting them in that situation in the first place (he believes in natural goodness to an extent when push doesn’t come down to shove)

I think it reflects on how different his relationship with Isabella was

He asked if she was happy. He does understand (not agree with) her perspective of lying so the kids have a happy life (which he did with Don and Gilda and continues to do with Lamba squad later)

Despite calling her a demon at the beginning (which you can clearly see Emma is more uncomfortable with, but accepts given their desperate situation)

they both (eventually) see her as a human forced into this situation doing the best with what she can

He doesn’t want to kill her but he will (reluctantly) to secure the safety of his family

HOWEVER

RAY IS NOT LIKE THAT

HE IS FULLY WILLING/READY/ABLE TO KILL

To be burdened in a way Norman never was

By taking demon AND human lives

I imagine apollo!Ray would actually enjoy the torture of demons because it’s a way to vent after all he went thru via Isabella

Straight out of Grace field and Ray is most concerned about what control he has in the situation because that’s what he learned from isabella

Causing the demons pain and being encouraged by the other lambda kids would probably turn that need for control into violent tendencies that he is willing to take out on the demons

The only humans Ray has ever seen survive were those willing to climb over corpses and without meeting yuugo/lucas or any other adult/escapees to disprove this he fully believes Emma is being unrealistic and unreasonable and doesn’t go on to adopt any of her positive worldviews like Norman does/strives to

[wings-of-ink]

Hi Lunan, I was wondering about the player stats if you have time. I keep getting reckless as a go to response for things despite trying to play a more shy and timid MC and it made me curious. How do you determine what choices actions constitute which stat? I understand that the game is still in development and it may not be set in stone or other aspects of the game might be more of a priority, but I was mostly interested in picking your brain, in a general sense, if that's OK. I'm sure you're very busy so there's no rush to answer this ask, or answer it at all.

Hello, Anon!

Let's see, player stats are definitely something that will get fine-tuned as we go. And, funny that you ask, I have literally been dwelling specifically on the reckless stat this weekend.

I'll just explain how I have worked this out below. I apologize that I went a little long...I genuinely enjoy chatting about this stuff, and I gotta bit...lost in the sauce here, lol. ^_^

For the MC's personality and actions/reactions and some of their speech patterns, I have 4 main stats. These are on a scale with their opposing characteristics, so 8 total. There's a 5th stat that tracks how your MC flirts.

Reserved vs Outgoing

Gentle vs Assertive

Serious vs Playful

Reckless vs Cautious

Bold Flirting vs Shy Flirting

The MC starts with scores directly in the middle for all of these (50 on a scale of 100); however, I decided not to code for much in the way of "middle ground" behavior. This saves me tons of coding and tons of agonizing about what a middle-of-the-road response would be. So, if your MC's score is above "49" they default to the characteristic listed first, but lower than that, they default to the one listed second.

The only score that is treated differently is the one for flirting. To default to bold, the score needs to be below 40, so the character must show a fairly direct preference for boldness in this area. I did this since shyness is a fairly "safe" bet for this type of characteristic.

Number 4 does not come into play very often - yet. As things heat up, some actions that the player does not get to choose will be determined by their score in this stat. Currently, there are only a few options to choose what influences this score. It is possible to barely have any score for this stat one way or another. I'm going to be increasing the influence of this and probably adding some new ways to get points for this as I do some editing.

As for how I determine if something raises or lowers a stat in general, I try to use my best judgment to determine motivation when I design the choices that influence stats. To me, being reckless or cautious could be either intentional or not. I think the first time this stat comes into play is in Chapter 1 when MC decides if they are going to try to steal the honeycakes at the beginning. Trying to snatch one gives an increase to recklessness since it could be a naughty or impulsive decision.

I also wanted 1, 4, and 5 to be independent of one another since someone could be more outgoing but very timid when they flirt and cautious when they act. Outgoing/Reserved is another that needs some adjusting as well and will be tweaked in the future.

The others are more straightforward. If an action or speech choice is more kind/soft/mild/considerate, I label it "gentle." If it is more direct or even a bit aggressive, I label it "assertive." I kinda just have to use my own interpretation as best I can, and I know that to other people some of my options will feel flipped (occupational hazard, lol).

I have liked this system for the most part. It took a lot of working out when I got started. I was just learning so it was easily a solid week of me just hammering out what I understood and what worked. I have learned so much since then. I knew I wanted to keep things paired down to ease my own burden. Lots of stats can be so much fun in a game, but I just do not want to get too lost in it, so I keep my focus narrow.

Hope that helps, Nony! If you have follow-up questions, please feel free to let me know! ^_^

A side note, while we are on the subject...

For my next IF, I may play with a different way to set the MC personality. I may just have players pick at the beginning from either specific stats or like 4 or 5 MC archetypes. The wheels are still turning on this though, nothing is set!

[outfoxt]

Another Käärijä Research Project

aka: käärijä style-shifting project

as a preface, here are my (non) qualifications for this project and the circumstances under which it happened:

I am a linguistics student, and this past semester I took a course on sociolinguistics. the goal of this project was to become familiar with the concept of and analyze style-shifting (it's more commonly known as code-switching online but theres a difference and this is style-shifting), specifically by analyzing the speech of one person. We had the option to study oprah or to have someone else approved by my prof, so you know I had to ask my prof if I could study jere. This project is solely my intellectual property; even though I had a tutor help me a lot, everything written in this paper and on this post was my work alone.

now, on to the actual findings! the full paper and transcripts will be linked at the end :D

the actual variables (words or sounds) that I studied were the pronunciation of r, and use of the word "the".

to make things a lot easier from the get-go, i'm going to introduce you all to one of my favorite websites, ipachart.com (the international phonetic alphabet [ipa] chart is a big chart with an entry for every sound that exists in a language. this handy dandy website has an audio recording for each one of those sounds).

go to this website, and then scroll down to the table. go to the column labeled "post alveolar" and then click on ɾ and ɹ. those are the sounds i studied in this paper! ɾ is the finnish r and ɹ is the american r :)

so basically what i did to find instances of my variable was i just looked up a bunch of esc interviews and listened out for use of the different r sounds. i also transcribed the entire dinner date live because i love torture apparently :) the specific interviews and lives/stories are in the bibliography of the paper :p

after i transcribed all the interviews and lives/stories i went through and highlighted every instance of the r sound. then i calculated the ratios of ɾ to ɹ based on the context they were spoken in. the two contexts i looked for were formal contexts (sit-down interviews) and informal contexts (literally anything else).

i found that jere uses ɹ WAY more often in formal contexts than he does in informal contexts, and the same in reverse with ɾ.

i then went back to the transcripts and looked for all instances of the word "the". i also looked for instances where i thought it should be present, but was omitted. i calculated the ratio of present vs omitted "the"s in formal vs informal contexts and made some charts.

the graph with the smaller black section is "use of 'the' in formal settings" and the one with the smaller green section is "use of 'the' in informal settings" (the images are transparent, sorry)

i found that jere uses "the" WAY more often when in formal settings! there were also some instances where he added a "the" where it was unnecessary, which is studied at length in this wonderful paper by @alien-girl-21

something i also noticed that i elected not to study because this paper took enough energy on its own was that in formal contexts, whenever the "or" sound came in the middle or at the end of a word, jere wouldn't pronounce the r. it stuck out to me mostly because i heard words like "performance" turning into "perfomance", which i thought was an interesting quirk.

unfortunately i was somewhat limited by both my brainpower and capacity to do more work on this paper in the relatively short timeframe i was given (2 weeks) and the fact that i was given a 5 page MAX for this paper (not including a bibliography). i had a lot of fun doing this though and am definitely planning on studying jere for for academic credit again in the future if given the chance!

also i would like it to be known that i spent an hour searching for that 5 second clip of the urheilucast where jere said that he used to sell kitchens and understands english better than he can speak it.

link to a google drive folder with the actual paper i wrote and the transcripts of the interviews with notation:

please feel free to send me asks and dms with questions or comments about this paper! i absolutely love rambling about linguistics :3!!

[thefirstknife]

Hi Bel,

I have a question related to the lore surrounding the Vex and the way they interact with time. There seems to be debate over if they can time travel vs their advanced simulation technology just makes it seem like they can time travel etc. Would you be able to explain definitely what their capabilities are regarding affecting time? Can they change the past?

They can time travel... sort of. If we're understanding it correctly. But also the way we view time travel and the way the Vex view time travel might not be entirely aligned.

They have to be able to move through time because that's the only way we can actually see Precursors and Descendants; past Vex and future Vex respectively. For example, now in Echoes, a lot of the Vex we fight are Precursors; really odd overall because they appear to be rare. There's some in the Vault of Glass and the Black Garden, but they were mostly located on Mercury. They're old Vex, from the past.

So how can they be here unless the Vex move through time? The same question applies to Descendants, Vex from the future. However, this raises a further question: if they can time travel, why didn't they already achieve their goals? This:

"If the Vex had achieved what we would call 'time travel,' surely none of us would now exist." —Sister Faora, "Theories on the Vex"

A good explanation of this problem is this lore tab from Aspect:

The Vex, they're the closest to understanding it. They've got distance from it. If time's a river, then we're fish and they're diving birds. What's wet mean to a fish? What's it mean to an osprey, who's never fooled by refraction on the water's surface?

+

The Vex understand time in a way we never will. Doesn't matter how long I spend here watching them. Doesn't matter how many jury-rigged portals Guardians fling themselves through. We live in time. They use it as a tool. Any moment that's ever happened, any moment that will ever happen, they can go back to it. Play it again till they get it right. Simulate it.

So why can't they change things fundamentally? Seems to be good old paracausality:

The Light's a counter to that. They come back, a Guardian comes back. They simulate an ending, a Guardian tears through it. Stalemate.

Some of their powers also appear to be just them using time as a tool; teleporting is described as essentially time travelling:

The Minotaur revises its place in history, appearing to teleport forward as it shifts to a more advantageous future.

Simulation allows them to explore possibilities and options at a larger scale, but I believe it's separate from the actual ability to move through time. They can do both, for different purposes, both of which are not entirely clear to us. Paracausality is yet again a problem for them, even for simulation.

There's some technology that was capable of actually making changes, most notably the Sundial. This wasn't made by the Vex, but it was using Vex technology and the whole deal with it was that the Psions were capable of rewriting history with it. The Sundial also allowed us to go into the past, into Saint's personal timeline, and save him, by changing it (and creating a paradox with it).

Another question is the Corridors of Time which the Vex were using to move through time, but it's unclear if they've created that space or not. And one more question are timelines and how does that affect the Vex and their unique relationship with time and other realities. We could also go into the Vault of Glass and Black Garden and other Vex spaces and all of their weirdness with time. There's something going on with it, on top of simulation technology.

In truth, we're not really sure about a lot of stuff with the Vex simply because they have this strange relationship to time that we can't really grasp. Even those that explored the Vex closely like Osiris and Elsie can't really answer some of these questions.

It's a very interesting discussion, so if anyone wants to add to it feel free! Time travel shenanigans are still mostly mysterious and so are the Vex.

[luthwhore]

a while back i made a recommended reading list for lex luthor, and originally didn't plan to make a superman one, since it's a lot easier to find reading lists for him, but a lot of the reading lists i see either tend to be very short and have the same 5-10 books on them, or feel way too expansive and overwhelming, so i wanted to make a list of some of my personal picks!

this list is designed to help relatively new readers get to know the character, so i've tried to focus mostly on things that are accessible to people with only minimal knowledge of the character/world (with one single exception).

i also have not included any pre-crisis stories because i don't feel like i've read enough pre-crisis content to confidently recommend any specific comics, but i might one day come back and add a section for pre-crisis comics later!

❤️ = Personal favorite

Origin Story

Superman: Birthright, by Mark Waid ❤️

Superman: Birthright is what I would consider to be the definitive modern Superman origin story, featuring modernized versions of many Silver and Bronze age concepts. Mark Waid is, imo, one of the best modern day Superman writers in the sense of really understanding the core of his character, so I would highly suggest starting here for an understanding of who Clark is and what makes him tick. Optional: If you like "Birthright", the presently incomplete "Last Days of Lex Luthor" is a direct follow up to it, also written by Mark Waid, and delves deeper into the complicated relationship between Superman and Lex Luthor.

Superman: Secret Origin, by Geoff Johns

Written a few years after Birthrigh, "Secret Origin" technically supplanted Birthright as the official canon. Like "Birthright", it attempts to modernize many Silver/Bronze Age concepts, though it takes a different route than the aforementioned "Birthright."

Post-Crisis

Superman: Up, Up, and Away, by Geoff Johns & Kurt Busiek

Set after the events of the DC events Infinite Crisis and One Year Later, though it's not necessary to read either to follow this arc. After a year long break from being Superman, Clark returns to the cape. Since Infinite Crisis served as one of many soft-resets for the pre-Flashpoint DCU, it's a solid arc to start with.

Superman: Last Son, by Geoff Johns

Clark learns of another Kryptonian child on Earth and decides to take him in and introduces the character of "Chris Kent." Follows "Up, Up, and Away". This arc technically ran concurrently with the "Camelot Falls" arc, with "Last Son" being the Action Comics storyline and "Camelot Falls" being the "Superman" storyline. (I would recommend reading "Last Son" first, since otherwise you might be confused by Chris's presence in "Camelot Falls".)

Superman: Camelot Falls, by Kurt Busiek ❤️

One of my personal favorite post-Crisis Superman stories. Clark is told that the only way to avert an apocalyptic future is to give up being Superman. One of many, many stories that asks the philosophical question "Do heroes actually make things worse?" but has a very fresh and uplifting take on the premise.

New 52

Action Comics (2011), by Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison's Action Comics is a very sharp departure from the pre-Flashpoint version of Superman, instead choosing to do with the Golden Age what Mark Waid's "Birthright" did with the Silver Age. Morrison's Superman here is significantly more hotheaded and aggressive than the previous decade's version of him, but he's by far the closest to Siegel and Shuster's original vision for the character, so it's worth a read.

Superman: Unchained, by Scott Snyder

A Superman vs the US military story, with art by the legendary Jim Lee. It's a little dark in tone (and in color scheme) for Superman, but pretty in-line with the tone of most n52 books.

Rebirth and Beyond

Superman: Up in the Sky, by Tom King

A story that shows the lengths Superman is willing to go to in order to save one person. Has some very cute interactions between Clark children, and in general really gets the heart of Superman as a character.

The Warworld Saga, by Phillip Kennedy Johnson ❤️

A massive story following Superman to Warworld, where he works to free a group of Kryptonians being kept as gladiatorial slaves. Leans heavily into the idea of Superman as a Moses allegory, with the Authority as supporting cast. Over all a really beautiful story, both in terms of the plot and the art. Imo, the best Superman story from the last decade. Optional: If you like "Warworld" make sure to read the rest of PKJ's Action Comics run. His last issue of Action Comics just dropped recently, so you could absolutely sit down and binge the whole three-year run straight through.

Batman/Superman: World's Finest (2021 - ongoing), by Mark Waid

Set during the early years, featuring Superman, Batman, Robin (Dick Grayson), and occasionally Supergirl. In true Mark Waid fashion, it pulls heavily from the Silver Age, and manages to balance Silver Age campiness with more modern storytelling. (If you're a Superbat fan and you're somehow not reading this already, you should be.)

Superman (2023 - ongoing), by Joshua Williamson ❤️

The current running Superman arc. Another soft-reset for the Superman canon, meant to serve as an easy starting place for new readers. Beautiful art, hopeful and uplifting, and features my personal favorite take on the Lex in the comics, which should really tell you something. Optional: Action Comics issue #1050 sets up some things for this comic, but you won't lose much by skipping it.

Self-Contained Stories

Superman Smashes the Klan, by Gene Luen Yang ❤️

A YA graphic novel based on an old radio show. Set during the 1940s during Superman's early years, and really takes Superman back to his roots as a champion of the oppressed. If you read no other book on this list, please read this one. It's a quick and easy read and gets right to the heart of who and what Superman is.

Superman: For All Seasons, by Jeph Loeb

A story spanning four stages of Clark's life, with gorgeous artwork by the incomparable Tim Sale. Delves into Clark's relationships with most of the important people in his life, including his parents, Lois, and Lex.

Superman: Secret Identity, by Kurt Busiek

A meta twist on the Superman story with a boy in the real world develops Superman-like powers and has to grapple with what that means for him and what to do with those powers. A really excellent deconstruction of Superman.

All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison

Superman, upon being told he has only a few days to live, chooses how to spend the rest of days. Widely regarded as one of the greatest Superman stories of all time, but features a lot of deep cut lore and will resonate more if you're more familiar with the characters. This is the one book I would not recommend starting with. Also leans heavily on the Silver Age canon.

[inkblackorchid]

Honestly, as someone who's mostly a Roseknightshipper, it's been a lot of fun to go through your stories and discover your decision to make Sherry the Shounen Homoerotic Tension Rival. Obviously it's a pipe dream for it to actually happen, since Faithshipping has been locked in since chapter 1, but I can nonetheless get a lot of enjoyment out of Sherry testing the limits of Aki's sexuality.

Weirdly, I find your writing of their dynamic a lot more appealing than a lot of actual Roseknight fics, since it plays on an aspect that they tend to skate over: that is to say, Sherry isn't a very good person. She's not evil, per se, and certainly nowhere near as bad as Divine, but compared to Yusei, she represents a much more dangerous option, while Yusei comes off as the safe boyfriend you could bring to meet your parents (which is deeply funny for a guy with a well-earned criminal record).

As you write her, Sherry plays into all of Aki's worst instincts and attitudes, but unlike Divine, she's not doing it for selfish reasons (at least, not entirely). She wants Aki to fuck shit up, not for the sake of using her as a tool, but because she genuinely thinks Aki is at her best when she's in fuck-shit-up mode. And unlike Divine, she actually has a point--Aki trying to outright bury that part of her is indeed unhealthy, even if Sherry's solution is hardly the correct one. At the same time, this means she has the capacity to take Aki's own jabs at her seriously, because despite it all, she does seem to have a real fondness for her.

Point being, it's a neat dynamic, and I'm interested in seeing where it goes.

Considering the faithshipping endgame in my fics is, as you said, telegraphed from miles away, I find it hilarious but also genuinely flattering that Aki and Sherry's dynamic is still compelling enough to appeal to Roseknight shippers. Because yeah, I did purposefully write Sherry as ye olde shonen rival who's a bit too up in Aki's business and a bit too close and personal not to send mixed signals. (And honestly I have a lot of fun doing it. The weird sexual tension is hilarious to write.)

And Sherry certainly isn't a great person, no! But that's part of what makes her so interesting to me. Sherry may be valiant and dashing, but while her motivations are certainly understandable... they're also selfish, to be honest. Like yes, Iliaster is evil (mostly). But Sherry isn't fighting them because they're evil, she's fighting them because they took something away from her. And the second they promise to give it back, she chooses to switch sides. Because ultimately, she's not in this for the world or for the Greater Good or for justice, she's in it for herself. Which makes her very interesting and me very sad that she wasn't written better. Sherry being the dangerous option VS Yusei being the boyfriend you can show off to your parents made me chuckle, ngl. (Also, not inaccurate, as ironic as that is.)

And your description of Sherry's motivations is pretty much spot on for what I had in mind when I wrote her for my adjusted canon. Her "guidance" for Aki isn't coming from a place of malice, but Sherry has a skewed view of the world, so her solutions are also skewed accordingly. What she thinks is good VS what would actually be good are two different things, even if she'snot wholly wrong to tell Aki not to put herself in a muzzle. But yes, the fondness is real and I love playing with the back and forth between these two biting each other, then going back to trading genuine wisdom and life advice. Mixed signals galore.

Thank you very much! I hope you'll enjoy the future encounters these two will get in my stories. The resolution is already planned out, I just gotta get to writing it, haha.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Ok, But Why The Potatoes???

I admit to not ever reading the Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds. I had basically zero interest in President Snow's tragic backstory, so I entirely skipped it. But Haymitch Abernathy? Him I was interested in. There was no guaranteed death hanging over his head, and honestly I want to know what turned him into the bitter alcoholic we see in The Hunger Games. So let's talk Sunrise on the Reaping.

This is your SPOILER WARNING. Read the book first or be chill with spoilers if you keep reading.

Haymitch vs Katniss: Anatomy of a Protagonist

I'm going to just go ahead and get the sacrilege out of the way: I liked Haymitch as a protagonist better than I liked Katniss.

That's really irritating for me, because I feel like it's not at all fair to Katniss, and it casts shade that I do not mean on the original three books. I will say that this is a personal opinion; both Katniss and Haymitch work as the protagonists of their stories and they're both handled well. The crux of the difference for me is this:

Haymitch's story is about how you take a smart, savvy, well-adjusted kid and break him so badly that he cannot be the flashpoint that takes down the fascist regime. Katniss, on the other hand, walks in the proverbial door completely broken and emotionally trapped in loss and abandonment and with no understanding of power dynamics or structures beyond the blatantly obvious. Then, when presented with the option to lie down and die about it (or slowly drink yourself to oblivion and death about it; thanks Haymitch) or the harder thing (learning on the fly the hard way while letting a different power structure exploit and use her, just in a different way), she bites the bullet.

One of these is a story about destruction. The other is about building something. And the chiasmus that comes from comparing Katniss and Haymitch is honestly too fun not to explore a little.

At the beginning of their respective novels, our protagonists have:

Haymitch Katniss

A loving, supportive family A truly fucky home life

A girlfriend A Gale

A "job" A bow and arrows

A vision of a future life No plans beyond the next meal

Emotional intelligence So, SO much emotional trauma

Power savvy No power savvy

All we can really do with Haymitch is leverage all of that to BREAK him. Like, the absolute goddamn cherry on the cake is that HE feeds Lenore Dove the poisoned candy himself. He's lost his self respect, self image, family, and future, and then his girl dies in his arms because Snow leverages the last safe refuge Haymitch has and sets up a situation where it's not Haymitch's FAULT that Lenore Dove dies, but it's absolutely by his hand. That's just impressively evil.

Katniss though? Starts almost at rock bottom (Prim and Gale are literally the only reason she's not AT rock bottom, and she loses both of them in chapter 2). And since she has no interest in STAYING at rock bottom, all she can do is climb.

There's also an interesting contrast in how Katniss and Haymitch see themselves. Katniss (as far as I recall) doesn't ever feel that she herself has descended into monstrosity at the cost of her own humanity. She's...not ok...but she manages to hang onto her own conception of herself as human, even if I do seem to recall her worrying about whether she is emotionally available or worthy. Haymitch, however, starts off VERY firm on him and everyone else being human and by the end, he thinks he has been disqualified from humanity.

Overall, I preferred being in Haymitch's head to Katniss's, but they're both deeply effective protagonists for very different stories. I also thought this was a STRONG way to show how the Haymitch we meet at the beginning of this book becomes the one we meet at the beginning of The Hunger Games. That line was beautifully and strongly drawn.

Time and Brutality

Ok, so...the Capital is way more dehumanizing and brutal in this book than I remember them being in the Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta weren't handcuffed and transported in literal prison wagons. There wasn't the same level of "ooh, they're literal wild animals that might hurt us" from Katniss's prep team. Yes, Katniss did get treated like a barbie doll (with the exception of Cinna), but the tributes in this book had a communal prison shower and aerosolized insecticide (lung cancer? What lung cancer?) that BURNED them.

All of that is...fine on the surface. The Capital is supposed to be a shitty fascist regime that dehumanizes and brutalizes its conquered, second-class citizens. But what I didn't find terribly well handled was the why of this. I suppose a regime might evolve into being less overtly brutal after 75 years, but it seemed like Collins wanted to suggest that the insistence of the tributes on being seen as human was what did it? Which...that feels like a stretch to even say, because the dots don't connect. Maysilee says it out loud maybe three times, but it's to Louella and Haymitch, and that never really seems to translate over to anyone in the Capital. Even Effie pops up kind of fully formed as good-hearted but totally under the propaganda thumb. And given how close Haymitch came SEVERAL times to publicly pointing at Snow and going "murderous asshat," it makes no sense to me that Snow would LOOSEN his grip on brutality.

Bottom line? I do not understand what happened in the 23 years between Sunrise and Games to make the Capital ease off the "just shoot them for almost no reason" vibes we get at Haymitch's reaping. How do we go from Haymitch being convinced that Lenore Dove was being raped and tortured in Peacekeeper custody to Gale being comfortable enough to show up at the head peacekeeper's front door with contraband and expect to be paid for it?

Propaganda and Helplessness

Haymitch, like Katniss, understands that the Capital floods them with propaganda and that they shouldn't take ANY of it at face value. Haymitch even understands a lot of the nuances of how the propaganda works, the nuances of the strategies, and the knock-on effects. So instead of having him LEARN about this stuff (as Katniss does), Haymitch's lesson about propaganda is that it is more powerful than you think it is when it's not your hand on the 5-minute delay button.

Haymitch tries so damn hard throughout the book to "paint his own poster," as it were. To undermine Capital propaganda and to show what the reality they're experiencing is. The unfortunate reality though? He can't change it. He literally piloted a chariot through the capital with Louella's dead body in his arms and placed her before Snow to place the blame for her brutal and pointless death at Snow's account. There were WITNESSES to this. There were people ALL OVER the place, there were cameras EVERYWHERE. And yet, nobody saw. Haymitch blew bigass holes into the arena itself, but nobody saw. The Capital literally trotted out a brainwashed, drugged body double to pretend that Louella didn't die, and NOBODY. SAW. A. THING.

Haymitch would have been well within his goddamn rights to go literally insane about this, because he understands how this happened, and knows he can't change it, but the surreality of knowing what actually happened and being gaslighted by just...everyone...about it would break plenty of people. What really gets Haymitch isn't the gaslighting though. It's the futility and helplessness. He had the wherewithal and ability to act, and hell, he DID act. It still did not have a tangible effect. Almost nobody knew. That sense of helplessness despite having acted held more weight than I think not acting would have. There isn't the comforting fantasy of "If I had only DONE X, then the outcome would have been different," no. Haymitch DID the thing, and it was neatly erased by framing and picking shots.

The helplessness isn't a helplessness to act, or offer a different possible narrative. The helplessness is in the inability to control the narrative, and that is...brutal. And it's even more brutal in this era of everyone having a TikTok and a personal brand and the ability to spin their self-narrative for global audiences. Lots of us are also watching the Trump Administration do exactly what the Capital did in real time and with significantly less competence, so...that's great. I hate that for my 2025.

The Disability Thing

So...The Hunger Games universe has a background problem with how disability fits into it, particularly given the focus on physical ability that has to come with an arena-style fight to the death. The implicit assumption is that people with disabilities (and yes, I'm including things like chronic illness and the lifelong effects of malnutrition and a lack of adequate medical care. Big, broad definition of disability is what we're operating with.) are either victims of the Capital's regime and to be pitied as they stand in the background of the games, or they're literally President Snow--the leader of the fascist regime that forces literal children to murder each other.

Peeta does end up with a prosthetic leg and a buuuuuuuuuuuuuuunch of mental and physical issues in Catching Fire and Mockingjay, but those function narratively in different ways that don't do all that much to interrogate how disability exists in the world of the Hunger Games outside of the Arena and the behind-the-scenes of the Capital where dissidents are punished. We have the avoxes to represent that, but again, that frames disability not as a physical reality that people live with, but as a crime and a violence perpetrated on people by a vicious regime. So the Capital punishes people by imposing disabilities, but until we get to Sunrise, we don't really get anything centered that isn't a direct result of the Capital committing violence on people.

Enter "Miles, the asthmatic boy." We are told explicitly by Collins that this tribute has asthma. And how is he framed? He drops gasping from the insecticide, and then Haymitch goes out of his way to highlight that he wheezes and seems fragile. Then, Miles dies off-page.

Like...

The consistent and pervasive portrayal of kids with asthma being "fragile" or "delicate" and wildly unable to function outside of like...a bubble...irks the hell out of me. It does not reflect the broad range of experiences with asthma, and it perpetuates the idea that there is no way for disabled kids to survive such situations. Like 99% of the Hunger Games tributes, they are marked for death because they just can't hack it in the world.

Full disclosure: I have asthma. I was diagnosed at age two. Never in my LIFE have I ever self-described or been described as "fragile." And that's not to say the asthma isn't a significant part of my life; my heart stopped as a result of a particularly severe asthma attack, and I have fought very hard to participate in life while staying safe and as healthy as possible. So that is where I am coming from when I say that Miles's portrayal put a bug so far up my nose, it would put RFK jr.'s brainworm to shame.

This portrayal doesn't do anything new. It doesn't interrogate disability's place or role in Panem. It doesn't resist the "disabled people die first" trope. It also doesn't ADD anything to the narrative except, "Oh hey, asthmatic kids exist for about two minutes." And because of how the Newcomers alliance was framed overall, there are undertones of "disabled people need to be saved by abled people" which is paternalistic and shitty.

So I'm not like...terribly happy about this. And I don't think it was handled well. It didn't need to be there, and by being there, it reiterated and reinforced harmful tropes and stereotypes.

The Potato Thing

There was a weirdly high number of potatoes in this book. There was a weirdly high occupation with the things you can do with potatoes in this book. I don't really have anything else to say about it, just a note that it was there? I don't even think I can say it wasn't distracting, because I was keeping a mental tally of every time a potato popped up by the end of this book. It...was just there?

Someone explain the potato thing.

[essential-randomness]

Your angle or yuor devil: choosing between LLC and nonprofit

It's time! For this week's Tuesday Content, I'm cheating a little: first, it's Wednesday; second, instead of new content, I'm "unpaywalling" a section of my $upporters-only "Quarterly Extravaganza".

Learn below (or in the blogpost) about the eternal dilemma: should our org be a nonprofit or an LLC?

To support our project (and get early access to this content), support me on Patreon!

The first step to settle the LLC vs nonprofit debate was to look at the path chosen by other fandom-adjacent entities. Turns out, there's historical examples of both!

So, armed with grit, we took the logical next step: get clarity on the legal differences between the two!

Cutting to the chase, we chose to (very soon) incorporate as an LLC. It was not an easy choice, and we went back and forth–and agonized over it–for quite a while.

However, a few considerations tipped the scales:

First, while our projects have a “charitable intent” that would allow us to qualify for 501c3 status (a.k.a. become a nonprofit), we decided that the procedures required would place a too heavy weight on our already-stretched shoulders.

Next, as we spearhead many ambitious projects with very little budget, we wanted to be able to reward those who took a bet on us with their time and work, should our efforts eventually pay off.

(You can learn about these projects here)

Finally–without mincing words–the online (and fandom) discourse around nonprofits made us uncomfortable: while it’s true that nonprofits have a charitable intent, they still have a balance sheet to balance, and produce work that deserves to be paid for. This is too easy to forget!

Obviously, given that our projects have a clear “anti-corporate bent”, becoming a for profit corporation came with concerns.

However, we found that LLCs are an incredibly-flexible legal structure that gives us ample power to add ethical guardrails!

There's a lot to say about the various options, and we've just started exploring them. If you want to learn more about these, you can read the article/slides or watch this video by the excellent Sustainable Economies Law Center, whose help has been invaluable throughout all this!

(To be clear: until we have more resources in place and a better understanding of our future, we’re going to keep things simple: at first, our LLC will be what’s called a “single-member LLC”, owned by yours truly (me). We'll keep evaluating options as we work to reach stability!)

...and that is all for this week! Once again, to support this journey towards a better web, you can donate on Patreon or on my own website!

You can also help us by reblogging this post and sharing the blogpost with all your friends and fandom-oriented Discord servers!

We'll keep you updated about this all as the year progresses. Look forward to it!

[planckstorytime]

Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age (Part Two)

II. The Threshold

Being more of a Star Wars aficionado as a kid than a pen-and-paper fan, I was first introduced to western RPGs through BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic (2003). Admittedly, I didn’t immediately grasp the mechanics (it would take years for me to understand what Armor Class or Will Save meant), but the opportunity to immerse myself in a fictional universe with a story that I could mold through dialogue exhilarated me. It was one of those special feelings that I’ve yearned to recapture for the rest of my life.

My relationship with BioWare games further blossomed with the release of 2007’s Mass Effect, the start of a series that would go on to be one of my favorites and equally as important to me as Dragon Age. While Mass Effect sought to take the roleplaying genre in a more setpiece-driven, action-oriented, cinematic space, the studio shortly thereafter released Dragon Age: Origins (2009) to cater to the more traditional RPG sensibilities: methodical pause-based tactical combat, sandbox narrative design, and your all-important +1 rings. For me, the two approaches to a modern RPG – the progressive action vs the traditional throwback – worked in harmony. I loved Origins. Even at the time of release, the whole game exuded nostalgic charm. Imagine playing it, taking in its stony interiors, crackling torches, and earthy color palette, all while the crisp autumn winds hum outside. That’s the Origins that exists in my memory.

And yet, it’s the title I have the least to say about – probably because Origins speaks for itself. Its quality as both a player co-authored story and a character-focused epic are rarely challenged, and with good reason. For its time, it was virtually unmatched in its scale and scope for roleplaying depth, being perhaps the closest approximation you could get to a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons campaign on a PC or console. In my opinion, this distinct accolade would only be unseated by Baldur’s Gate 3 in 2023, fourteen years later. That’s how long Origins dominated as the pinnacle of comprehensive roleplaying experiences.

The attention to detail and freedom afforded to the player would never be matched by any future game in the series (though I do think Origins fans have a tendency to mythologize the game and ignore the contributions and accomplishments of its successors). Take the case of Berwick. Don’t remember Berwick? I’m not surprised; he barely matters. He’s a spy for the villains that you can find in Redcliffe’s tavern. Yet despite his insignificance, the devs programmed numerous ways to interact with him: you can discover his treachery through cunning dialogue options, or through observations from the right companion combinations, or you can pickpocket him and discover a note detailing his orders. Once you’ve done that, you can confront him about it and either kill him, let him go, or conscript him into the village’s defense against an undead horde. Or you could ignore him and the town entirely, allowing it to fall to the slavering zombie maws. Most games wouldn’t give you this many options for a single quest, but Origins does it regularly. You see this pattern again with the various recruitment methods for Sten, or the different outcomes to the standoff with Ser Cauthrien, which range from a difficult boss encounter to a naked jailbreak to any combination of poorly thought-out heists by your party members. Every major quest sports branching outcomes, and even small details about your journey are remembered and referenced in dialogue. Origins gives the audience an unparalleled sense of control and reactivity in the story. More than most titles before or since, it creates a compelling illusion that it is truly your story.

On the flipside, Origins’s commitment to its hardcore RPG roots occasionally burdens it. This is perfectly summarized by playing a dwarf character during the much-maligned Fade section. The healing lyrium veins, your sole respite in this godforsaken dungeon, do not work on dwarves because they, canonically, have a resistance to the substance’s effects. Origins’s devotion to its lore and worldbuilding runs so deep that it will not sacrifice it for the player’s convenience. Aspects like this are as aggravating as they are admirable.

For all of the praises that I and others have heaped upon it, I want to emphasize that Origins is far from a perfect game. Jank, for lack of more accurate term, plagues many of its sequences and encounters. The expansion “Awakening” especially mars it, with numerous sequencing errors, narrative inconsistencies, and bugged quests. However, I mainly want to focus on what I consider the game’s few (but noteworthy) narrative and artistic shortcomings.

Fans often chide the later entries for moving away from the “dark fantasy” tone and aesthetic that Origins presented. While I do think the first game is superficially grittier than its younger siblings, I feel that Dragon Age has always been high fantasy that happened to, in its early days, insecurely masquerade in the bleak, mismatched set dressings of dark fantasy. Look no further than this actual, real trailer from 2009 that matches up a montage of gratuitous sex and violence to Marilyn Manson’s “This Is the New Shit” – a stark contrast to the game’s plodding moment-to-moment gameplay and surprisingly traditional narrative. It’s every bit as juvenile and embarrassing as it sounds, and that’s the issue. Origins feels its most adolescent when its pantomiming what a fourteen year old thinks is “adult.” It somewhat recklessly employs sexual violence against women as a plot point to a numbing degree, which doesn’t even make textual sense when the setting explicitly states that men and women are treated equally in Fereldan. If anything, women should be more privileged in this setting, since only they can be ordained as priests in the Chantry’s religious monopoly; and Orlais, the largest empire in the world, is led by an empress. But I digress. “Realistic” discriminatory violence was in vogue for the edgier sensibilities of the late 2000s, even if it lacked nuance or any semblance intratextual critique.

This key art goes really hard, though.

Origins puts up a front that tries to say, “This isn’t your dad’s D&D!” Except it is your dad’s D&D. It was a throwback to a more classical RPG style, even when it first came out – a deliberate counter-current against modern trends that skewed more toward dazzling (or obnoxious) action and spectacle. Strip away the veneer of gore and sexual violence and you’re left with a story that’s not dissimilar to The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955). The Warden must unite an army of men, elves, and dwarves and restore the rightful king to the throne in order to stand against an impending horde of monstrous humanoids led by an ancient evil. It’s familiar, romantic, even comforting – a tried and true story that’s brought new life by its lively cast and interactive components. I think this is why people responded so well to Origins – not the “dark fantasy” aspects that, by and large, contribute little and have aged poorly. The inclusion of these elements don’t amount to a substantive critique on the traditional story structure and tropes at play, so the overemphasis on brutality, gore, and sex come off more as self-conscious byproducts of their time, desperate attempts to stand out as more “mature” fantasy, than genuine artistic flourishes. It isn’t Drakengard (2003) or Berserk (1989 – present) or even A Song of Ice and Fire (1996 – probably never). It’s solid as hell high fantasy in disguise.

All this is to say that I feel the series’s eventual shift to heroic fantasy with Inquisition was natural – like it was finally admitting what it always was at its core. Or at least, it was finally leaning into what it was good at.1

Yet despite my minor gripes, I think Origins manages to tell a compelling story while interweaving its themes through each character’s personal journey. While I don’t think it has the absolute strongest narrative in the series, its combination of those cozy, familiar tropes and nuanced, textured character drama makes it consistently effective. With that said, I want to delve into what I view as the core tension at the story’s center, the thematic conflict that seems to underscore almost every major dynamic throughout.

This is not to say that The Veilguard’s method of sanding off all the edges and childproofing every conceivable problematic element was an ideal solution, or even an acceptable trade-off. Rather, I merely think that the franchise has struggled with its identity since the first day. I find that the series is best when it’s at its most mature – which is neither the excessive broodmother rape/body horror from Origins nor the frictionless “coffee shop AU” vibe of The Veilguard.

Full article: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2025/03/29/your-journey-ends-a-parting-retrospective-on-dragon-age/

[utilitycaster]

Skein of Destiny

Now that I've got your attention with a shitpost I do want to plug the article I worked on that prompted it, and throw out some thoughts that are too speculative for wiki articles!

What we know (ie, the canon stuff; much of this is also in the article with citations)

The skein is a physical manifestation of the concept of fate, with threads representing the fate of individuals - Vax and Caleb have both seen it in two entirely different contexts, and Evontra'vir's roots grow into it.

The idea of destiny and fate as a skein/tapestry/weave is nigh-universal in Exandria. It is consistent among worshipers of the Prime Deities (Raven Queen and Ioun both reference it; The Raven Queen's domain includes fate), the Luxon (Caleb sees the skein within the beacon), and nature (Evontra'vir was a druid of the Gau Drashari). Nana Morri, a hag in the feywild, acknowledges it is the Raven Queen's domain, though she has the ability to see it and influence threads beyond her own from an external perspective; Teven Klask (worshiper of a Betrayer God) identifies Fearne as being "outside the knotted weave." Arcane, divine of pretty much all known forms, fey, fiend, and elemental are all united in this understanding in a way they are not really about anything else.

Destiny and fate as understood in Exandria do not mean "all is pre-determined" (as indicated in the shitpost, this is about the interplay of fate and free will, which have always coexisted). The above entities are also united in this understanding. The Raven Queen notes that Vax, as Fate-Touched, influences the fates of those around him in unique ways not merely limited to his choices, but does grant him many choices herself, and tells Percy when he asks her for answers that "There are a great many deeds ahead of you. It's your choice to take them." Ioun says something similar to Vox Machina, and a core tenet of the Changebringer is "Luck favors the bold. Your fate is your own to grasp." The Luxon and Dunamancy are based on the concept of possibility, of many potential paths taken and not taken, and not only do chronurgy wizard spells and the fate-touched ability share certain mechanics, but also permit a do-over, since the future is not yet known. When Caleb observes the threads he sees multiple branches off of them that are implied to be based on possibility (ie, there is not merely one option). And Evontra'vir in episode 3x74 directly tells Bells Hells that while some things are fated to happen, it will be their choice that determines what happens to the gods; it also tells Ashton they are fated to retrieve the spark, but also to bestow it, a choice that is their own.

All three of the main powers discussed (Raven Queen, Luxon, Evontra'vir) also serve to preserve the cycle of life, death, or rebirth in some capacity.

Some thoughts: Honestly the big one is that while the idea of fate vs. free will or of the future being a series of possibilities rather than one definite path is a very common one in epic fantasy (frankly, the idea of Fate as "everything is predetermined" is a bad one anyway in fiction because then there's no point in telling the story), there is a particular ludonarrative harmony to play with this theme in a TTRPG. There is a general path laid out before you, but it is not ironclad, and you can make choices to attempt to change this. Sometimes you will fail despite your best efforts based on factors beyond your control but sometimes you will experience unlikely success. The narrative is shaped by this interplay of possibility/probability and choice.

Some wild speculation: I think a peaceful parting with the gods (ie, stopping Predathos and then Bells Hells making their choices about the fate of Exandria as stated by Evontra'vir) would still preserve this skein fate (as would of course maintaining the divine status quo), but a failure to stop Predathos will destroy it, and the fabric of the cosmos (the roots of Predathos are between worlds; fate connects all of the inner planes). I desperately need to know why Fearne is said to exist outside of fate, because I don't know if that's a fey thing, a Ruidusborn thing, a Nana Morri thing, or something else entirely. I would be shocked if the Luxon doesn't come up in SOME capacity later in the campaign (or perhaps in the Echoes of the Solstice one-shot coming up), and I'm very interested in seeing what other party members might gain as they gather their allies and resources. And I don't think it's coincidence that the two deities devoured by Predathos pre-Schism included Vordo the Fateshaper (nor Ethedok, the Endless Shadow, whose domain of darkness and winter is thematically associated with the cycle of life and death).