#I LOVE CLONES... I LOVE CLONES THEY ARE SO PERFECT FOR STORIES ABOUT GRIEF AND FAMILIAL EXPECTATIONS

[the--days]

so it's like this.

you're young and you're scared and you're trapped in the feywild (happens to the best of us) with the love of your life. You're a half-elf and she's a fullblooded elf but you don't think about it very much because you're barely surviving day to day. And you get offered a deal to get yourself home again, and you take it. And the price of your freedom is that you leave her still trapped there, alone.

And then five years pass. And you age a century in that time, and you grow, and you change, and you find her again, and you're still in love, and you meet people, and you lose people, and you love them too, and you learn, and you start wanting a future again, and caring again, taking care of yourself, taking care of other people--

and after all of that, at the end of things, you find out the man responsible for all of the misery in your short, sad life has cast a spell which gives him complete control and ownership of you- mind, body, and soul (again. this happens to the best of us). And you are given the choice to stay under his thrall, and live a thousand years-- or to age and die, like humans do, and to be free of him.

And the love of your life is there, and you're married now, and she's still a full blooded elf, and you're still a half-elf, and you think about what that means a lot more than you used to.

And still, after everything you've learned-- you choose your freedom. You choose leaving her behind.

[frankotalk]

honestly love robots so much especially as a trans guy bc of the sort of customisability and gender neutrality offered to robots. a lot of the ppl who voted robot on that poll seem to be hung up on the non-human element which is scary but the way i see it a robot can be lovingly crafted the way a child is born. especially when you aren't religious so the here and now means more to me than any concept of a soul. robots still have their own identity and even if they aren't 'human' they still feel... something. even if its programmed. our brains and environments essentially program us to feel specific ways so why get hung up on that as a robot. ROBOT CLONES HOWEVER

[shizuturnspages]

Genshin impact yandere.

About A Love That Won't Wake, and if the reader is in a vegetative state or brain dead, what if she is pregnant?? This kind of drama would be interesting

Can you also add more characters? :D

Thanks

A Love That Won’t Wake: Mother of a Future That Never Was

Synopsis: You are gone. At least, in the way that matters. Brain-dead. Your body remains warm, but your soul—the part that laughed, cried, and fought—no longer stirs. And yet… you are still carrying life within you. A child. The baby of one of them. Or perhaps more than one. None of them know for sure. But it doesn't matter. Because every one of them believes it should be theirs. Now they stand over your motionless form with twisted hope, their love for you consuming everything: sanity, morality, even the future of the child who never asked to be born into obsession. Pairings: [Separate] Yandere Diluc, Kaeya, Childe, Dainsleif, Dottore, Cyno, Scaramouche, Wriothesley, Zhongli, Alhaitham, Kaveh, Ayato x Brain-dead Reader

Diluc – Grief Beneath the Hearth

He sits beside your hospital bed every night, reading to you.

He reads children’s books now. His hand gently rubs your belly, fingers trembling. “It’s ours,” he murmurs to himself, “I know it is.”

No test was ever run. He refused it. He refused to let anyone near you.

His hatred of your stillness is silent, suffocating, and it burns like embers under snow. He swears that when the child is born, he'll raise them in the light you'd never see again—and that he’ll never let them feel the emptiness he now lives with.

Except… he has a plan.

He’s building a home in the mountains. One no one can reach.

Just him.

The child.

And your silent body forever preserved.

Kaeya – The Perfect Family Fantasy

Kaeya laughs when he hears the news. Not because he finds it funny—but because fate is so cruel, it almost feels like a joke.

“A baby?” he whispers to your body. “Are you giving me a second chance…?”

He talks to your stomach like it’s the only one who still listens. The only one who might still love him someday. He says things like:

“You’ll look just like her. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll dress you in blue and tell you stories about the moon.”

But he’s not sane anymore.

Kaeya has dolls made that look like you. He dresses them in nursing clothes. He teaches the dolls how to “hold the baby.”

To him, it’s not a baby.

It’s you, reborn.

And he won’t let them take either of you away.

Childe – Father by Force

He swore he wasn’t ready for kids.

But the moment he found out, everything changed.

Now he’s a father. A widower. A lover robbed of his wife.

“You’re not dead,” he snarls to the doctors. “You’re just… sleeping. She’ll wake up. She has to.”

Childe's convinced your condition is temporary. He builds a nursery beside your bed. He trains every day, vowing to become strong enough to destroy fate itself if that’s what it takes to bring you back.

And if he can’t?

Then your child will be his legacy.

A little warrior.

A little killer.

Just like their parents.

Dainsleif – Hope as Rotting Memory

Dainsleif speaks to your stomach more than he does your face.

“You were light,” he whispers, stroking your hand. “And now… your light still lingers. In them.”

His obsession is quiet. Methodical. He keeps you hidden far from civilisation, deep beneath the earth where time itself is forgotten.

He sings lullabies from a nation that no longer exists. He carves lullaby runes into your walls.

He tells the child inside you:

“You’ll never know pain. You’ll never see death. I will build a kingdom for you.”

But your body is fading.

He knows it.

He watches for signs of decay, panicking each time your heartbeat wavers.

He will raise your child, even if he must turn them into a vessel that wears your face.

Dottore – The Birth of a Second You

He’s already started cloning the fetus. Just in case something happens.

He keeps your body hooked to life-support machines. He replaced your heartbeat with an artificial one. He created a synthetic womb that mimics yours. There are multiple fetuses now.

He’s experimenting with which one resembles you the most.

He’s already chosen names.

He sometimes lies beside your motionless form, holding your belly and whispering:

“This time, I’ll raise you right.”

And when the child is born?

He won’t know whether it’s your child or his experiment.

And he won’t care.

Cyno – The Law Can't Touch Him

Cyno carries your picture in a locket and guards your room like a priest at a temple.

The child is proof—proof you loved someone, even if you never said who. That unknown eats him alive.

He interrogated every man you were close to.

None survived.

“I’ll find out,” he mutters. “If not in this life… then the next.”

He keeps your pregnancy secret from the world. If Sumeru knew, they'd take you from him.

But no one will.

Because he is the law.

And you are his sentence.

Scaramouche – The Puppet's Broken Family

He never wanted children.

Until now.

Now he thinks maybe, just maybe, if the child is born, you’ll be reborn too.

“I’ll rip myself open if it means giving you breath again.”

He talks to the child as if you can hear him.

“If you’re mine, I’ll love you. If you’re not… I’ll love you harder. Because that’s what she would’ve wanted. Right?”

He paces constantly. He hasn’t left the room in months.

And he won’t.

Not until you wake.

Or until the child cries and you don’t.

Wriothesley – The Prison of Love

He pulled strings to get your body moved to a sealed medical wing beneath the Fortress of Meropide.

There, no one can interfere.

He sits beside your bed, talking to you as if you're asleep.

“We’ll be a family. Even if you're not awake for it. Even if you never hold them.”

He tries not to cry. He fails.

Sometimes, he rests his head on your stomach and pretends he can feel the child kick.

He calls it his second chance.

But he’s terrified.

Terrified that when the baby comes, it’ll cry… and you still won’t open your eyes.

Zhongli – Memory’s Gentle Tyrant

Zhongli mourns with poise. He weeps like a statue might weep—quietly and without motion.

But the child changes something.

“They’ll carry your legacy,” he tells you.

“They’ll be an Archon in their own right.”

He’s already begun preparing a shrine.

But it’s not for you.

It’s for the child you left behind.

Alhaitham – Cold Logic, Heated Grief

He refuses to believe it at first.

Then he spirals.

He isolates the hospital. Blocks access. Analyses DNA behind locked doors.

“Logically, the baby should be mine,” he tells your silent body. “But logic doesn’t matter to a corpse.”

Still, he never leaves your side.

Your last breath, your last creation—he won’t let anyone else take it.

Kaveh – A Crumbling Father-to-Be

He cries more than anyone.

He can’t even look at the baby bump without sobbing.

“I didn’t… I never got to tell you how much I loved you.”

He starts building a crib. Then burns it. Then builds it again.

He wants to protect the child.

But he also wants to scream at it for surviving when you didn’t.

Ayato – The Strategic Widower

He files papers. Prepares the nursery. Calls it a “calculated tragedy.”

But it’s not.

He broke the day you did.

Now all that’s left is the child. The heir to your legacy.

His obsession turns political. He names the child after you.

Then makes laws in your name.

Maybe you’ll never wake.

But your legacy will never die.

[hetjoshiotgw]

Flux Buddies' ending is still so crazy to think about, to me. The story about a foolish, impulsive, immoral scientist who acts before he thinks about the consequences of implications ends with him once more flinging himself headfirst into a moral conundrum, on emotional impulse? I love it. I love it I love it I love it.

Lalna knows better than ANYONE how fucked up cloning is, and he knows that clones are their own, distinct people, and far more than just 'copies' of their original. But he'll clone Nano anyway, he'll continue to perpetuate the very dilemma that has plagued him for so long, because he just cannot live without her.

It's unbelievably selfish and entitled and presumptuous of him to create a perfect copy of Nano to be with him. Does Lalna expect this clone to just go along with it all? Does he expect her to just accept being brought into existence for the sole purpose of being a replacement? For the sole purpose of fulfilling his wishes?

Or does Lalna just want the opportunity to be there? The opportunity for this new Nano to meet him, to choose to befriend him and go through it all again? An opportunity for her to pursue herself, that Lalna would accept her turning down?

What about Echo? Her existence destroys all logic that could ever hold up Lalna's decision to clone Nano. Echo is right there. She's a clone, too, and she's clearly not Nano, because if she was, then why would Lalna need to make another one?

And that's where it all falls apart, the wishful thinking that Flux Buddies' ending is bittersweet, or anything but tragic and bleak. The revelation that Nano is being cloned isn't any consolation at all, rather a clear sign of just how dependent Lalna was on her, and how lost he is in her absence. I don't think Lalna is so terrible that he'd go through with it, fully aware of the moral pitfalls of cloning her, knowingly creating another Nano solely for his own sake, with no thought for her own agency or individuality. Lalnable would do that, but not Lalna. Because clones are individuals.

No, Lalna is just blindly marching forward, fuelled only by grief and regret, and the results of Nano's cloning will lead to either her or him horribly damaged.

I don't really have a conclusion to this big ramble, but god, I think about them so much.

[calware]

what r some of ur fav Hal fics? Currently looking 2 read some and would love some recs!

sure thing!!

fics that are specifically about hal:

Reallocated by breezefulskies mature - chose not to use archive warnings - 324,756 words - 65 chapters (unfinished) Hal finds himself stranded aboard a certain meteor, impact-bound for Houston, Texas circa 1995. And everything spirals out from there. Because sometimes, when a system seems to be just short of defunct, all that is required is to take a step back and reevaluate the materials at hand and redistribute your available resources. And so, with birth comes a countdown on a cycle that begins as it ends: In the red.

hal is mysteriously sent to earth via unknown means and finds himself raising a baby as best as he can, which, given that he's glasses, is not easy. this is my favorite homestuck fic, not just because it's about hal, but also because i love the focus on family dynamics and the plot as it unfolds. begging everyone to read this, i can't say what happens exactly without spoiling things, it's just really really good. at the moment, it updates once a month

Ersatz Abyss by katreal mature - no archive warnings apply - 120,092 words - 39 chapters (unfinished) You look into the mirror to find your own face looking back at you. You laugh. And then you cry. Last, you try and figure out how you got to this moment. The Auto-Responder had long since resigned himself to an artificial existence, his only dwindling hope for escape hinging on a promise that has yet to be fulfilled. Then one day he wakes up, Dirk nowhere to be found. What's the point in getting what you want, if you can't show off a little?

another great hal fic. i managed to get my roommate (who has not read homestuck) to read this and they really enjoyed it, so i'm sure you all won't have any problems liking this one either. there are a lot of fics out there of hal getting a body, but this one is very different in that it's not the happy ending that you might first think it is. this fic perfects the feeling of everything snowballing into a bigger and bigger problem until it all falls apart

fics that have hal in them:

Bound in Ink and Iron by cyphertext (@4lph4kidz) teen - no archive warnings apply - 18,627 words - 3 chapters (unfinished) A prisoner in his own kingdom, the Prince of Derse seeks his freedom through the inadvisable use of a magic mirror. While making his escape he finds himself lost and in the company of a strange boy who lives alone in the ruins of his grandmother’s cottage. Both cursed, both hunted, they agree to travel together in the hopes that they can find some way to save their loved ones from their terrible fates. Or so the story goes.

hal is in this one for one chapter. but so far there are only three chapters... which means he's there for a whole third of the fic ^_^ but for real, i really like the way zero portrays him here. i am a supporter of evil shadow clone rights

Tennessee Whiskey & You by mistlafey teen - graphic depictions of violence, major character death - 12,217 words - 5 chapters (unfinished) When Dirk dies after an aneyursm, Hal and Jake have difficulties coping. Jake drinks to forget, and eventually Hal can't handle drunk Jake and his own grief - so he turns that into anger. “I’m not him, Jake! I can’t fucking- I can’t fix you. Dirk is gone and you don’t get to pretend he isn’t anymore. I can’t be Dirk, and every time you try to tell me I am it fucking hurts. There’s nothing left for you here. If Dirk was the only person that filled a void in you, there is nothing left to make you whole.”

i honestly have no idea how this is going to go but the bar scene in this one lives in my head rent-free. idk if it's ever going to update again though. hal fans forever forced to take what we can get

Falling for the First Time by nobrandhero teen - no warnings apply - 63,818 words - 11/17 chapters The game is over, Alpha Earth resets to 2009, and Dirk's bro doesn't live up to expectations. The movie director who appears so chill and stoic in interviews is actually a talkative, needy dweeb like his teenage counterpart. It's not a bad thing, as far as Dirk's concerned.

for whatever reason, i'm a sucker for fics where the characters somehow end up on earth again post-game, and out of all the fics that follow that concept this one is my favorite. hal is also there sometimes

[shadowgast-recs-weekly]

This week, we have eleven fics that feature Caleb, Essek, and at least one other person involved! Look behind the cut for some Shadowidomauk, some Blumenshadow, some Fjord/Essek/Caleb and more!

amongst the things left unforgiven by nonwal (63958, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

“In which a pair of scourgers shows up at Essek’s doorstep and saves him from himself.“ Slow-burn blumenshadow featuring heavy mistrust, mind games that aren’t mind games, and Caleb mostly in the background thinking he doesn’t deserve to be loved.

Reccer says: One of my all time faves. Nonwal’s gorgeous prose and characterization of these 4 is always top notch, but the dialogue?! The spy vs. spy mind games? The poetic descriptions of longing and grief? The visceral feeling of constant low-level panic punctuated by a full panic attack and maybe developing a crush on your current crush’s evil exes? The DIALOGUE (again)?!?! Absolutely stunning. Side note: chapter 4 features the best Jester dialogue I have ever read. The tag “openly declaring your mutual distrust can be a love language if you do it right” says so much and I love it.

Happily Ever Laughter by Settiai (1288, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: Veth’s alcoholism is brought up a few times but isn’t the focus.

Adorable Essek/Caleb/Veth/Yeza slice of life fic. Polyamory is not nearly as difficult as trying to teach a hyperactive 6 year old magic can be.

Reccer says: Incredibly sweet little domestic fic. The rapport between them is so soft and gentle and well-worn like the most comfortable pair of old house slippers. The moments where Yeza and Caleb glance at each other and manage to communicate in absolute silence (in that pseudo-telepathic way that some real parenting couples often do) are just so perfect, and Veth still finding Essek somewhat aggravating even while she loves him is :chefskiss: delightful.

Three’s Company by flammablehat (2074, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Caleb, Essek, and Fjord have a threesome, and Essek is maybe more than a little jealous about it.

Reccer says: Possessek is always a favorite! Fjord is fjeisty, and Caleb is having the time of his life. It’s both hot and tense.

altogether, infinite possibilities by ivelostmyspectacles (199305, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek has barely begun to cement his place in Caleb’s life when they bring Mollymauk Tealeaf back from the dead. Slowly, the three of them adapt together.

Reccer says: First part of a series! This was my entry point into Shadowgast!

in the pieces of what's left or what we've found by SeaWitchDreams (14620, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Astrid takes some time to figure out how she wants to rebuild her life (and who she wants to rebuild it with.)

Reccer says: a wonderfully subtle and contemplative character study, featuring four wizards carefully dancing around each other

the sea, the stars, the dreamers by nonwal (111996, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: suicidal ideation

Essek sacrifices his budding relationship with Caleb to marry Archmage Astrid Beck - for the good of the entire galaxy. But whatever Astrid's reason for marrying him is, is not nearly as noble.

Reccer says: This fic takes an unusual premise (Blumenshadow arranged marriage spaceship murder mystery with sea shanties?) and *commits* to it. Still incomplete, but if you've liked this author's other works, you won't regret taking a chance on this one.

(Oh,) How a Human Burns by witches_chant (18318, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

This is a story about Essek trying to prepare for eventual loss, depending on if Caleb wants to use the Clone spell or not. But it’s also a story about a lazy, sexy vacation on Rumblecusp where the couple stumble upon a service top and learn things about their relationship (with a happy ending!).

Reccer says: It’s both hot as hell AND feelsy! It’s a really interesting take on Caleb & Essek’s relationship. Honestly I recommend the entire series.

Victim of Convenience by se1ze (54243, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek and Caleb are together, Essek and Kingsley get together, and Kingsley is losing his mind because Caleb can’t get his shit together. An exploration of the very complicated feelings that crop up when a) no one seems to understand who you are, and b) someone you love thinks they need to stay gone for your own good.

Reccer says: The dialogue is fantastic, the sex is wonderful, and the hurt/comfort is amazing. It establishes the foundation upon which Essek/Kingsley can be a thing in a way that is both endearing and completely believable. Caleb is oblivious to how much Kingsley loves him, and once again hurts those around him by throwing himself on his sword.

(nothing in my bones can say) just where you’ve been by SaltCore (8216, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

It takes more time than Caleb realized to get home from the Hellcatch Valley, and in his absence, Essek’s tentative alliance with Astrid and Eadwulf has grown to something more.

Reccer says: Soft and complicated and briefly heartbreaking. The way it manages to feel like an outsider POV reinforces the sense of missing time, of having missed a massive change, and the softness and warmth of everyone’s love for each other is palpable throughout even in the most tense and anxious of moments.

i'll meet judgement by the hounds by necromanticomedy (yelenavasilyevna) (6553, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Dubcon/Consensual Non Consent, knifeplay

Astrid and Eadwulf come to a dinner party to meet Essek Thelyss. Things either go very poorly or very well, depending on your definitions.

Reccer says: the author called it a "insane psychosexual foursome" but neglected to mention that it's the best insane psychosexual foursome you'll ever read

To The Bone by thetickingclock (2919, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Snapshots of Astrid and Eadwulf's opinion of Essek changing over time (and proximity to Caleb Widogast.)

Reccer says: Hits all my favorite notes when it comes to Blumenshadow, and there's an astounding amount of characterization and relationship development packed into less than 3k words.

Aeor is for Lovers is an 18+ Shadowgast Discord server. The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. All fics, unless otherwise specified, will primarily feature Shadowgast. Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ! Next week, we’ll be back with Lifespan Angst!

[coffeeandbatboys]

His New Religion (Wolffe x Fem!Reader)

for my friend @alegendoftomorrow in the @cloneficgiftexchange!

A/N: So this ended up summing up a lot of what happened before, during and after Right Here Waiting and its wedding sequel, part 2, which I know Legend had read, so my brain took the idea and ran with it.

Warnings: a little bit of angst, some awkward fluffies and a badly summed up slow burn with a happy ending

Prompt(s): “But somewhere there's a light//A sign that it's alright//I find it by your side” (New Religion, The Heydaze),

“Always thought those feelings, they were stories not made for me // It's terrifying, but I'm pretty certain it's worth it” || “I didn't know you were something I could need // Until you, until you loved my everything // The good, the bad, the in between, all of me” || “But all the hell we've been through had a purpose // Together we are chaos and it's perfect” (I Didn’t Know, Sofia Carson)

Wordcount: 856

If someone had sat cadet cc-3636 down and told him that he'd be living with the love of his life one day…

…He would have broken out laughing.

And yet Wolffe, the grumpy, no-nonsense commander of the 104th, had melted like a puddle the first night he spent in your embrace.

The two of you had met during a whirlwind campaign. You had needed him to sign some forms to accept supply restocks, and he’d obliged with a grumble, voicing his negative remarks about ‘redundant protocols’.

The next meeting happened in the mess hall. You’d been covering for a friend in the food line when you caught his sharp, analyzing gaze. With a blush and a smile, you served him his rations, a begrudgingly mumbled ‘thanks’ reaching your ears.

A few weeks later and it was in the medbay. You'd dropped a box on your foot, earning yourself a broken toe, while Wolffe had garnered a blaster graze to the bicep. He was reserved as usual, but engaged in some awkward, short-lived conversation about your odd jobs in the GAR while the medics patched the two of you up.

After that, you didn't see him for a long while.

And one night you found him at the door of your quarters, pacing; deciding whether he should knock or not. That was the night he had first asked you out on date.

Shore leave dates turned into nights curled in each others’ loving embrace and soft mornings filled with nothing but bliss. Harrowing weeks apart turned into joyful reunions and a growing love between you.

And one night, all of that became your beloved Wolffe falling to a knee and asking for the honor of your hand in marriage. You'd never given a second thought about saying yes.

You vividly remember after that weekend the way he kissed you goodbye and promised to return safely.

But as fate would have it, he was taken away from you. The Empire rose out of the Republic's ashes, throwing everyone's lives into pure chaos and cutting the ties between you and your love.

You didn't see your fiancé for a year. Instead, you'd joined a network of rogue clones that led you to Rex, and had began working with them.

Then there was Teth, where you saw him again, but not as an ally. You were glad to see Wolffe, despite the reunion being marred by grief and despair. But oh, how you wanted to reach out and bring him back into your arms, even knowing he wasn't the same.

Weeks passed, and he seemed to make his decision when Rex and Echo brought him back to the new base. He danced around the subject for a while, afraid to find out what you would say. But one look into your hopeful eyes was all it took for him to break down in your arms.

The two of you wed in a simple ceremony, surrounded by his brothers, who had become just as much family to you. In that moment, the trials of the past gave way to a hopeful future, with you and Wolffe facing the challenges of a tumultuous galaxy together.

Now today, as you look out into the setting sun, you smile. Who would have thought that a love tested by loyalty, betrayal and heartache would heal in such a way?

Wolffe hums behind you, arms wrapping around your waist as a kiss is pressed behind your ear.

“If you keep staring at the sun, Mesh’la,” he remarks, squeezing you a little. “—you'll go blind.”

You laugh brightly and wiggle around to face him. He smiles and let's his lips brush across your cheeks, nose and forehead, before landing on your own in a tender kiss.

“I suppose I have something better to stare at here,” you tease. The golden hour glow highlights his best features. His hair has begun to gray at the temples, silver strands fading into his thick curls, and his cybernetic eye glitters in the sunlight. His jaw bears a little bit of stubble; a deliberate choice, you assume.

“Oh?” He asks, forehead resting gently upon yours.

“Yeah,” you answer, reaching up to caress his scar. His eyes flutter closed.

“What's going on in that beautiful mind of yours, huh?

You smile. “I was just thinking. About us.” Your head rests against his shoulder as a warm breeze dusts both of you.

He hums deeply in acknowledgment, a kiss being placed to your temple.

“Also known as: a scratch and dent clone falls in love with a smart, caring, drop dead gorgeous woman?”

You laugh lightly and shake your head. “More like, How a man and woman’s love made it through all sorts of trials.”

Wolffe’s face falls a little, but you cup his cheek to turn his gaze toward you.

“And what happened is in the past. We have all the time in the world now, yeah?”

He smiles ever so slightly and holds you close. “Yeah Mesh'la. That sounds perfect.”

And he thinks now that he’s had a taste of love, he can get used to it for the long run.

[twinsunstars]

"Can you braid my hair?"

Summary: Omega helps Emerie braid her hair during their time together on Tantiss.

Additional Prompt: "Can you braid my hair?"

Notes: Wanted to associate this prompt with Omega and Emerie getting some time to be siblings together. Hope you enjoy this small fic! divider by @summer-of-bad-batch

The same everyday routine on Tantiss never really got tiring for everyone else as they continued to work their jobs. For Omega, it was getting boring. 

Four months had passed now ever since she was brought here, and every day there was a lot to do. Blood samples, feeding the lurca hounds, keeping everything organized, behaving well and not making trouble. Omega had forced herself to adapt to her new surroundings while continuing to wait for her brothers to arrive and rescue her. Deep inside, a tiny part of her was starting to lose hope when they never came. But every day was a new day, and Omega had to keep finding the perfect route to make an escape.

All of her time was always spent either with Emerie, Batcher, or Crosshair. Emerie was always the first face she would see and always took her blood samples, along with making sure she was doing well. Batcher and Crosshair were stuck in cells, but they were still around. Omega developed her own daily routine while completing her given tasks. She was happy Crosshair was there to listen to her, and it still took time for Batcher to warm up to her. 

Emerie was also a good listener. Omega often told her stories about her brothers while they worked on tasks together. Omega deeply missed them. She told Emerie all about who each of her brothers were and what they were like. Omega even enjoyed telling her about the different places she had visited and the new life she was making for herself on Pabu. She never mentioned the island’s name explicitly just in case anyone was listening nearby.

“At our new home, Wrecker loves to catch a lot of sea creatures and help the locals fish. Hunter’s still getting used to everything. Echo sometimes comes to visit away from missions and I would show him around the beach. I think you would love beaches, they’re beautiful. Tech would hang out with Phee and talk about a lot of things.” 

Whenever Omega talked about Tech, she paused for a few seconds before continuing. Emerie would see sadness and grief in her eyes. 

Emerie loved listening to Omega talk about her brothers. The only clones she knew personally were Omega, Commander Scorch, Crosshair, and the other clones kept in cells here on Tantiss, so Emerie was intrigued by all the specific details Omega would tell her.

She noticed Omega’s hair had been growing longer each day, eventually reaching her shoulders. Emerie helped Omega tie her layers into a small ponytail so it wouldn’t get in the way whenever she completed her tasks. Emerie had always kept hers in a neat ponytail after her hair grew out while she was growing up, and Nala Se wasn’t there anymore to continuously trim her hair to keep it short.

Omega had hers always kept short with the headdress tied around her forehead. Having longer hair took some time to get used to. Sometimes, she let her hair be free whenever she had some leisure time or was alone in her room. She leaned against the wall and let her fingers play with her growing blond locks. Maybe her hair was almost as long as Hunter’s. 

She missed him so much. She missed everyone. Omega knew they were looking for her. She longed for the day they would come for her or when she would finally figure out an escape plan for her and Crosshair. 

Playing with her hair, Omega remembered how Hunter taught her to braid hair. He would sometimes make small braids in his own hair when he would be sitting by himself, lost in thought and wrapping strands of his hair around until they formed neat braids. Omega had watched Hunter braid his hair many times and wondered if she could make braids in her own. It had been too short the first time she saw him do it, but Hunter had offered to teach her how to braid so she could try it with him when her hair got longer. 

But he wasn’t here. Remembering the steps Hunter taught her, Omega grabbed three strands of her hair and looped them over one by one until it created a perfect braid. She kept on creating small braids to pass the time and calm down her anxiety while relishing the memories.

During another surprise inspection, Emerie noticed the small braids Omega had designed in her hair. While the troopers checked the room, Omega kept on toying with her hair and making braids. Emerie had seen that hairstyle before as other female doctors around Tantiss had crafted their hair into neat braids to work comfortably in. She loved how they looked, but had never learned how to do it on her own. 

After the troopers left, Emerie paused before heading back to wrap up for the night. Omega kept herself fixated with making her small braids, eventually noticing Emerie’s stare. “Is something wrong, Emerie?”

Emerie breathed. She wanted to have her hair in braids just like Omega’s and the others. Have something different other than the ponytail. 

“Omega,” Emerie began. She held her datapad close to her.  “Can you braid my hair? Please?”

Omega stopped toying with her hair and faced Emerie. She gave her a smile. “Of course I can!” 

Emerie smiled. She was happy Omega accepted her request. Omega patted the small cold bunk she slept on every night, signaling Emerie to sit down.

Emerie took her glasses off and undid her ponytail, allowing her dark brown locks to fall onto her shoulders. It was a breath of relief whenever her hair was let out of that tight ponytail after a long day of work. Omega sat up on her knees and got to work. 

Emerie’s hair was soft and beautiful. Omega separated her hair into three and wrapped them around to create a comfortable braid for her. 

“Hunter showed me how to do this. He said a clone named 99 helped him learn how to after Hunter saw it on the holonet during non-training hours in their room on Tech’s datapad.”

That number sounded familiar, but Emerie couldn’t remember. It felt like a fleeting memory. 

“I’ll teach you how to do it too! It took me a while to get the hang of it, it takes a lot of practice. Hunter said the same thing."

“I would love that.” Emerie would prefer it if Omega always braided her hair for her. She continued listening to Omega talk about her family. Emerie hoped she could meet them and get to know them one day, but she knew it might not be under the right circumstances.

For now, Emerie loved spending time with her sister. She was safe with her, and that’s all that mattered.

Nini's Writing Masterlist

taglist: @summer-of-bad-batch @orion-tyche @bossboudicca @magicandmundane @kurlyfrii @ahsokashawarma1138 @locitapurplepink @marvel-starwarsfangirl

[frostbitebakery]

I'm so in love with all of your art. My favorites have to be Codywan, Cody and Obi-Wan separately, and your cursed series art.

May I ask how you came up with the idea for the cursed commanders and Boba Fett series?

Ahhhh this message was the best way to wake up! Thank youuuu 💜💜💜

The Unlucky Ones, my beloveds! That one started like all the others: I went “lmao wouldn’t it be cool” and then it grew into a monster of a concept and venus flytrapping @adiduck in the process.

TUO started because for Halloween I had already Eldritched Obi-Wan so it was Cody’s turn.

I love character design. I like to play around with the given themes or throw them into the ocean and do my own thing. So every time for character designs it really does start out like, “I want to draw that character in these clothes”. There’s no plan. That always happens along the way.

For TUO!Cody I wanted him scary but still being Cody. I thought about typical Halloween things and went with skeletons. Mainly because of the white armor and I thought how cool it would look if the armor was shaped like bones. But I didn’t want the armor to look scary, I wanted him to look scary (and badass) (and like a sexy bastard). While looking for bone refs, I saw enough skulls in different positions. Some of them looked like they were screaming, howling. And I thought, duuuuuuuuude. Duuuuuuude. A skeleton projection rising out of Cody and growing taller and lifting its arms and rushing forward with a scream while Cody stands there like 😎??? YES. LET’S DO THAT.

So the concept of the Curse was born.

It always starts as a visually appealing concept. I try to make sense of my decisions later.

For the other Commanders I thought about how to apply the Cody concept art on them. I didn’t want to copy paste the armor design. But I also wanted them to visually belong together in the same verse.

The designs should be distinct and representative of each character. Even if some details seem questionable at first glance, I always want them to make sense in context. So I add snippets to basically explain myself.

Wolffe’s armor in canon went from red to grey in grief and is rather neat with stenciled designs. For TUO!Wolffe I wanted to up that grief given what Wolffe goes through in TUO. The grey canon design turned into rotten fabric and veils. Which turned Wolffe into a banshee-inspired design. The armor design is reminiscent of those fluttering torn fabrics that indicate a tragedy happened here and the grief is ever present. Going with the banshee and with how I deformed Cody’s face, Wolffe got a deformed jaw (think The Mummy when the corpse screams) which he hides behind a bandana.

Adi suggested beauty in decay for Bly. So he’s got flowers growing out of him. And I desperately needed a reason for him to tell Aayla “General, hold my flower”.

Fox has a deformed back which is only known so far to Adi and me. He started with the little white tufts of hair bc I love that on him and wanted it for TUO!Fox. By then it was already established that their hair goes white with each death. So that meant if I wanted the Fox ears, Fox had to have died twice already. Things like that were the reasons the backstory avalanched into a monster. And suddenly you go from “aww, the white hair looks like ears so cute!!” to “actually Cody killed his brother in training because how the Curse was genetically modified and added to the Commanders makes them go into a berserker state” to “the non-command class clones have instated containment protocols for when a command clone goes berserk”.

Now Ponds. Ponds had to survive. I’m not spoiling his whole story but his character design was inspired by “rising like a phoenix out of the ashes”. So his armor has bird bones and wing bone structures. And with how he looks, his backstory makes perfect sense and is heartbreaking.

Boba was a request by a dear friend. He’s not cursed in TUO canon but my friend loves the design so much she asked if I couldn’t do a Boba design. So I did.

[acertainmoshke]

Updated Intro Post

I am just going to have to accept that I need to redo this every 3-4 months, aren't I?

Updated: 5/1/2024

Active WIPs

Cold Iron

Genre: dark urban fantasy Current word count: 48,747 Word count goal: 85,000

There are monsters lurking in the shadows. Things creep through the night. They are faster and stronger than you. They will try to trick you, hurt you, eat you.  Sometimes, baby monsters are left in cribs and precious little humans are stolen away. Changeling children are almost universally hated, reviled, and neglected by grieving parents. Most are too weak to survive in a world of smoke and iron and don’t live to adulthood. The ones that do have to be mean, sharp, and cold. Just like the monsters who abandoned them.  40 years ago, in 1916, a baby girl was stolen from a Chicago apartment under her parents’ and brothers’ noses and a thing was left in her place. That thing grew up and these days Shakatra lives with their adopted brother in subway tunnels and spends much of their time picking fights with territorial wildlings. They’re excellent with a knife, and because of their—forbidden—secret weapon, they can’t lose.  But when they turn 40, so will she. The innocent baby stuck beyond the veil, servant to the Fae. It’s only fair that Shakatra free her, give her the adult life she missed out on because they exist. That’s all they plan to do, find her and free her, and then they can return to their own marginal existence.  If only it were that simple...

Tag list: @stesierra @amielbjacobs

Cracks in the Stone

Genre: high fantasy Current word count: 2,587 Word count goal: 150,000

Ko’a was once content with their simple life in a small town on the Halaran border, dreaming of writing for the newspaper and surrounded by friends who accepted them and their unusual face. But the year before they were to start their apprenticeship, they found themself swept off to court to occupy the unusual in-between position of royal bastard: too valuable for freedom, too common to do more than serve in the kitchens. But also too clever to stay there. Over the next twenty years they carve out a life at court, rising from servant to tutor to noble to royal advisor. It would be a perfect life, except for the decades-old prophecy hanging over it: something terrible is coming, something that could tear apart the kingdom. And the only one with a chance of saving it is a commoner with royal blood and impressive skills. Ko’a tries to be ready, but when tragedy actually strikes there is little they can do besides go into hiding and hope grief doesn’t overwhelm them before they find a way to save everything they love.

To Die Among the Stars

Genre: dystopian science fiction Current word count: 19,569 Word count goal: 85,000

People are going missing on Zjakour. People no one will miss. Poor factory workers and illicit modders from the underworld. Burnt out hauler engineers and the incoherent mod-shattered on the surface. Failed genetic experiments and mutated clones from labs high in the spires above the yellow clouds. But everyone is missed by someone. Heartbroken siblings, amateur detectives, and a particularly lonely robot make it their mission to find out what is happening to the people no one should miss, a mission that will lead them to the secrets at the heart of their planet and into the stars beyond.

Finished/On Hiatus

7 Days for Fae

Genre: middle grade realistic fiction Word count: 23,957 Stage: finished, edited, printable but not published as I have yet to deal with marketing logistics

Fae struggles to do a lot of things that are easy for other kids. She has a hard time talking, running, and reading facial expressions. She finds other things easy: reading, making up stories about fairies, flapping her hands to tell the world she’s happy. But in 5th grade it’s not good to be different, no matter how much she can’t help being disabled.  Now Fae’s aunt is moving in with her family and suddenly nothing feels right—all of the adults are quietly upset for reasons Fae doesn’t understand. Aunt Lana gets mad at her for things she can’t help and makes her feel like a baby. She just wants things to go back to the way they were.  Meanwhile at school, the new kid doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo that Fae is supposed to be invisible. He sits right down next to her and starts talking about spaceships. She isn’t sure what to do with this loud boy, but when he still wants to be her friend after a meltdown gets her suspended, it seems worth giving him a shot.  And now, as her life is falling apart, it looks like it might be up to Fae to discover if people really can change, and if change can sometimes make everyone’s life better. 

Dragonfly Wings

Genre: middle grade historical fantasy Current word count: 2,595 Word count goal: 40,000

Current status: on hiatus while I figure out book completion priorities.

Ilse lives on a farm with her parents and siblings. She works hard and tries her best. Everyone says she’s very pretty. But she’s also Wrong. And Different. Called changeling and fae touched, her head drifts into the clouds and she screams at rain droplets on her arm. She wants only to watch insects flutter in the sun and has no interest in farming and marriage. But she tries to be a good girl, so she does her best to pretend it doesn’t hurt, to look like she understands, to mimic everyone around her. She’s not very good at it, so honestly she doesn’t really mind when the fae come back for her and take her to another realm. The only issue is, she no longer knows how to stop pretending. Nele was taken away from her human parents as a baby and raised in the snowy realm of the fae, always knowing she was there because she was strong enough to survive and one day she would be sent back. She dreams of that day, of returning to somewhere she belongs and where things make sense. She doesn't cry like some of the others when the day finally arrives, ready to meet her human parents. But she wasn't expecting it to be just as hard and confusing, with everything she doesn't know. She wasn't expecting her family to miss the inhuman changeling she replaced. And she wasn't expecting to stand out for what the fae taught her. What does home mean when you’ve never belonged? The girls may have to turn to each other to find out—and to stop something terrible befalling both realms.

Emerald Outpost

Genre: sci fi spy thriller Current word count: 5,390 Word count goal: 50,000

Current status: first draft on hiatus because of scheduling issues

No one remembers what started the war between star systems, but everyone knows what it’s about. Wars need soldiers, thousands of them, but they are won by spies. Esther Dahan, Tony Mourad, Valentina Ruiz, and their boss Minerva Thompson are young and fresh but among the most clever at the agency. Which is why they are sent away from their homes and families to a dusty little planet on the edge of the system to protect something from attack that none of them have clearance to know about. That was because they’re good at their jobs…right?

After the War

Genre: urban high fantasy Current word count: 772 Word count goal: 85,000

Current status: first draft on hiatus because of scheduling issues

Madeleine was 1 year old when the Witch Wars began. The fighting took her childhood, mother, and friends away and left her with nothing. By the time it’s over, she’s an adult with a child to raise alone and no dreams because there was never supposed to be a future. And now she’s just expected to live alongside her enemy like they didn’t gas her streets.

Aletha was a 30-year-old youth when the Witch Wars began. She had a future, grand dreams of higher education, maybe a job in politics among the elfin high council. Instead her entire graduating class was drafted to fight until their bodies were no longer useful. She was lucky, really, to marry a soldier who still cared for her—until he was killed in the final battle the morning of the treaty. Now the only way for her to fend for herself is to take her child into enemy lands and smile like she can’t still hear her parents’ screams among the bombs.

The werewolf diaspora was spread across every land, including the small human factory town where Violet was born. All of her memories of it include fear as distant wealthy werewolves threw their lot in with the elfin, followed by soldiers telling them this was no longer their home. But Violet did promise her mother on her deathbed to return if she was ever able, and it’s not like the elfin ever treated her like she belonged, so she’s going to keep her promise even if it means traveling with two babies and no husband.

Sellie was the rare vampire to live outside her homeland, but she was happy in her elfin community before the war. Many of her friends even stood by her as the vampiric committee officially sided with the humans, but it didn’t stop the laws from banning her after more than a century. And so she moved, and forged a new community. But now the war is over and her neighborhood is the home of the new “peace exchange” program, most of her friends are leaving to avoid contact with the elfin and werewolves, and Sellie is alone again.

Kellop never knew there was a war on; the mers were never much involved in others’ business. She got her first kiss to the beautiful flares of distant bombs. She grew up and married and had a family before the fighting reached her in violently dramatic fashion. One can only rebuild so many times before becoming a refugee in a war zone seems the safer option. Kellop’s family eventually reaches the point and reluctantly decides to raise their daughters in a foreign land of smog and concrete.

[thebisexualmandalorian]

Inviting controversy by asking a controversial question which you may feel free to ignore but. Thoughts on Karen Traviss' Star Wars books, from the old EU? I assume you've got Opinions

BOY DO I

I'll probably forget to include everything, but I've gone on an hour long Rant before and I'll do it again lmao

Okay, so the good. There is good in these books and I'll drag it out with teeth and claws if I have to.

I love Kal Skirata. You can crucify me for that if you want to, but as a daddy issues having bitch, I want him to be my dad. He's a wonderfully flawed character, and he owns up to those flaws. He's made mistakes and he's grown and he knows he isn't perfect but by god, he'll try for his boys. He fights tooth and nail to protect them from what he can, and what he can't, he'll go through hell with them (literally, I can't remember the exact wording, but it's said in Hard Contact I believe, that any training he puts his men through, he does it himself first). He's overprotective because there's so much he can't protect them from, and it's clear that he loves them with all his heart.

The clone and GAR and Mando culture building. This is a grayer area for me because there is a lot of internalized bullshit KT is dealing with that I'll talk about later, but! We wouldn't have nearly the background we do for these cultures without her books. I love most of what she did with it, from the military worldbuilding to the Mandalorian culture and the different facets of it we see through the eyes of different characters. And the language! Mando'a isn't a heavily developed conlang, but the tools are there, and it makes sense within the world. And we have music! We have songs.

I love the characters. There are gray areas, no one is perfect, and they all get down and dirty when things call for it. They love each other deeply and make good and bad decisions, they're realistic. The relationships are tender and gentle, and I love the interactions between everyone, the loyalty and the devotion, and the overarching feeling of grief because we know how this ends.

The clones! I love them! They are wonderful and well developed, and I love hearing their thoughts on everything, and their bond with one another and those around them. I'm not coherent about this one because I think about them for five seconds and start making high pitched noises like an overexcited dog.

The descriptions are so deliciously visceral, and I love reading them.

The bad:

Another unpopular opinion: I loathe Vau. Hate him utterly. He's a good character but a deeply horrible man, and this might be my trauma talking but it's my opinion and I'll die on this goddamn hill. He's verbally and physically abusive, and sees absolutely no consequences (or even reproach) for it in the narrative, aside from Kal breaking his nose, and he deserved so much worse than that.

The misogyny. Oh, Karen honey. That internalized misogyny got you good, huh? The blatant way she treats Etain and Besany through the mouths of other characters is... oof. There's a little bit of reversal, but it's still pretty bad. Even though they're "not like other girls," it's pretty obvious that Karen has a lot of issues with womanhood. It was the 2000s, so I'll let some of it be with the caveat that the 2000s were pretty damn misogynistic in general, but goddamn. Also, on that note, she seems to be fighting herself on whether Mandos have a gender neutral society or not? Like, she'll say on one page that there's no difference between men and women, and then go on to say that men go out and fight but women stay to guard the home and raise the kids. I am putting my head in my hands.

On a related note, Karen is the Jedi who hurt you in the room with us right now? Why do you hate the Jedi so damn much? It doesn't make any sense in the story and it doesn't make sense on a metatextual level. Bro, are you good?

Anyway! Yes! I have many opinions about this book series and I'm sure I forgot to cover everything! Please feel free to ask more questions!

[fieldsofview]

The Orphan Story - Baby Steps into Storytelling

I had a realization today because three of my interests (Spider-Man, D&D, and Writing/Storytelling) got their wires crossed - bear with me because this is probably going to be a long-winded post.

Something that's really prevalent in the Spider-Man fandom is the trope of "Dead May Parker" in fic. Usually, it starts with Peter's aunt and primary guardian, May Parker, being killed off-screen to set up the fic, often with just a small blurb about it like it wouldn't completely shatter Peter's world, but ya know.

It can be done in any number of ways (car crashes, cancer, and being caught in a supervillain's crossfire are all pretty typical for this).

There are a myriad of common storylines that build from this choice. IronDad, Homeless!Peter, and Foster!Peter are all really prevalent. Sometimes it's so that characters that people ship with Peter will be pushed together out of a need for Peter to live someplace new and/or needing someone to lean on. (I could go on, but you get the idea).

I could spend a lot of time talking about each of these storylines and the ways they can be done well or poorly, and the greater implications for the fandom as a whole, but that's not what this post is about so I will leave that here.

Peter Parker as a character, despite his many iterations among the various Spider-Man comics and adaptations, has always been a character with tragedy engrained in his story (Richard & Mary Parker, Ben Parker, Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborn, the clones, his marriage, etc., etc., etc.). It's not necessarily out of the norm for more tragedy to occur, and having his only living family and primary guardian for most of his life die would definitely be on par with the rest of his life.

However, I don't think that the instances of the "Dead May Parker" trope in fic are because of this. At least, not when you dig.

I think people do it because it's easy.

I'm not saying that writing grief is easy, but that's part of the problem. Most of the stories using this trope don't bother to show the grief. Her death is just a device used to further other relationships.

Generally speaking, it's easier to write stories with fewer characters. Balancing a large cast with varying points of view, backstories, voices, motivations, etc., is always going to be more complicated. For a writer who's starting out, or perhaps someone who just doesn't want to make things harder on themselves for their hobby-writing, it's easier to do what you can to shrink the relevant cast. And for something like Spider-Man, there are more side characters relevant to his life than I think any person could possibly count - especially when you look across all the versions/adaptations that exist.

(That's part of why I love this fandom, despite its flaws. There are SO MANY stories to be told and so much room to pick apart what's there and transform it into something new. Fandom is transformative in nature, after all, and comics like Spider-Man are a buffet to choose from.)

I also think that it's easier to put a character like Peter Parker (especially if you're writing him as a high schooler as so many adaptations seem to permanently keep him as) into convoluted situations if he doesn't have a primary guardian to keep an eye on him. Especially one who's loving and caring and is actively parenting him. (I would argue that this is the perfect time to write him as an adult with his own autonomy and whatnot, but you know, that's not what the movie makers seem to want so... I digress.)

And lastly, I think someone being young and completely orphaned with no caretaker to look after them is also a sort of trauma that is easy to understand. I'm not saying it's a trauma that's easy to live with, but as an outsider looking in, it's easy to say "Oh, well yeah, of course, that person is struggling. Look at the hand they've been dealt."

A character - just like people - with more complex reasons for 'Why They Are The Way They Are" TM, can be harder to empathize with, especially if those reasons are not something the reader is familiar with. And it's most certainly harder to write, with all the layers, intricacies, imperfections, and generally weird ways that the human experience works. (In the same vein, it's why people with certain traumas, triggers, mental health issues, etc., are often dismissed or harassed, but that's a whole other can of worms that I'm not going to dive into atm.)

"But FOV," you might be wondering, "How does all of this relate to Dungeons & Dragons?"

Well, y'all ever heard of the Orphaned Rogue Trope?

In the greater online D&D community, there are a lot of common tropes and character builds that people are familiar with. They're common enough that you get a lot of memes shared around about them and a lot of people building characters that both lean into the tropes and/or subvert them. (The horny bard, the dumb barbarian, the warlock with daddy issues, etc.)

One of these is the 'Orphaned Rogue'.

(Please keep in mind that I'm referencing 5e specifically. I've played many editions - don't quote the old magic to me, Witch - but 5e is the most common edition to ever be played and has brought a massive influx of people to this game in the last decade, so that's what I'm talking about here.)

A lot of people start out with a Rogue as their first character, I would argue disproportionally so. There are a few reasons for this. 1) Rogues typically (I'm not going to argue over subclasses here, don't come for me) don't have any magic, and magic-using characters are typically more complicated to learn to play than non-mages. 2) For players who aren't as familiar with high fantasy, a thieving, backstabbing character is usually still one that people can recognize. (Similarly, I think this is part of why a lot of people also start by playing Rangers). 3) Especially at low levels, Rogues don't have a whole lot of character abilities. They're really really good at the few things they do, but that's about it, so it's extra easy to step into as a beginner.

So where does the orphan part come in? Well, a lot of beginners to D&D are also beginners to storytelling in general (with exceptions, you'll always have the people who side-stepped over from LARPing, theatre, writing, etc.). This means that they're new to the idea of creating a character that has no reliance on their own personal history. Their character can be literally anyone, and they will be able to interact with the story in whatever way they want to.

Creating a character is one of the most overwhelming things for a new D&D player. It's a boundary to entry that I've seen turns a lot of people away from the game. It's work that has to be done before you even get to roll your first die. It requires math, decision-making, and creativity in a way that not everyone is prepared for right off the bat.

(Yes, I know I might seem to be exaggerating here, but please remember that we live on the hellsite for creatives. This is not the norm for a lot of people. I once invited a co-worker into a game who was an avid non-fiction reader and had never done any theatre, not even drama class. She had genuinely never put herself into a fictional character's shoes since she was last playing Let's Pretend as a small child at recess. It was a hard learning curve for her, but she grew to love the game a lot and now is an avid LARPer as well.)

Your character has to have somewhere that they came from. They are a person, through and through, and should therefore have lived experiences that shape their point of view, their actions, and the way that they interact with other people.

It's not easy to think of an entire history for a person all at once, all while you're just trying to wrap your head around the math and learn the rules required to play this damn game that your friends have been bugging you about for who knows how long.

And so - orphan. No existing family means no extra characters to have to build personalities for or shared experiences between your PC and them that you have to write.

It's easier. It's removing a barrier to entry to the game.

(This is probably also why amnesiac characters are also really common first-time PCs, now that I think about it.)

So what's my point in all of this?

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure.

I think it's really easy for anyone who has been a storyteller of any kind for a while to see the annoying, problematic, or sometimes downright concerning ways these tropes manifest. There are connotations for the stories that use these 'easy' orphan tropes, and these can and should be talked about. As I said above, I could talk about the "Dead May Parker" trope and the problematic themes that regularly exist in these stories until I'm blue in the face.

But, at the same time, I think we should also take these things with a grain of salt. New storytellers of any kind are going to make mistakes. They're going to write imperfect things. Humans never pop into existence with a fully formed skill. These things need to be learned through practice and exposure, and these choices most often aren't made with malicious intent.

Long ago, when I was a wayward young teenager, my first major foray into fanfiction was through an A:TLA fic that I put on ff.net. (No, I will not link it here. No, it was not under any USN I use anymore. Don't ask.) But, looking back, even though I was so immensely proud of that story, it also had a lot of things in it that I wouldn't write today. Things that my gut reaction would be to judge and raise an eyebrow at, if I read them now. But I also learned a lot while writing it, and there was a lot of heart in that story, too. I was just writing from a naivete that made me think I had the know-how to tackle themes that I was too young to fully understand.

In many ways, I am still proud of that fic, not because of the story itself, but because of the effort I put into it and the things it taught me about storytelling and writing as a learned craft.

I think my point is this: everyone has to start somewhere.

Sometimes people need to start off with those easier stories so that they can learn enough and build enough confidence to tackle the bigger ones.

So, do I think we shouldn't critique something when it does have harmful implications? No, we absolutely should. Critique and open discussion are how individuals and communities learn to grow. (No, I am not advocating for you to leave criticism on random people's fics. I mean critique of tropes in general. It's never cool to leave negative comments on people's fic.) Open discussion is good and healthy, and it's part of what makes fan spaces and communities flourish and bond.

But I do think that those critiques can be done from a perspective of learning. I often see people so far split down the middle that it alienates people from each other.

In fan spaces where the content shared is inherently made as an act of love, freely given and freely received, it's easy for people to say that no criticism is ever acceptable. "It's free content, just enjoy it and move on!" & "You're taking it too seriously!" are often phrases I've seen spouted about both these communities. And they are true things to an extent. It is fictional and freely made content. There is a point where it can be taken too seriously. The other side will often say things like, "Enjoying ___ media makes you a ___ supporter!" & "Anyone who writes ___ is a terrible person!" I would argue that these also have some truth to them, but they are also taken too far.

(If you like a fictional trope that has problematic or harmful indications, it's a good idea to unpack why you like that trope. What draws you to it? What enjoyment do you get out of it? A lot of times, the answers to this are not actually harmful, but they can be, and it's always good to self-reflect.)

Fictional stories are a way for us to feel aspects of the human experience that we cannot experience for ourselves. It's also a way for us to find catharsis when a character does experience something similar to our own lives. It's a way to broaden our views and feel our way through the wide range of human emotions. It is not meant to reflect life perfectly, and yet it is often done best when there are still echoes of reality embedded in its soul. (I digress, again.)

Communities - even online ones - thrive when the people in them are doing their best to be open to each other's perspectives.

Nuance is never easy in online spaces. When the person on the other side of a post is an anonymous little picture with no connection to your life, it's easy to take one small piece and blow it up to be your whole picture. They become that one post, that one hot take, or that one fic in your mind. But that's not people.

People are always learning, growing, maturing. Every skill takes time. Everyone has to start at their first step - even if it's the orphan story.

So keep talking about those tropes. Keep discussing the harmful trends that crop up across fandoms. Keep breaking down the root of the problem and sharing ways to build better ones.

But if you see someone in their 'orphan story' phase, understand that they are new and learning. They might need a push in the right direction or a friend to guide them for the better.

[novelmonger]

Okay, what's the 'clone idea'??

Just to clarify up front: This idea has nothing to do with Star Wars ^^' I actually got it from a super-cool dream a few years ago! In the dream, it was about me and my youngest sister (but not my other siblings for some reason?), but obviously I'll be altering them to make distinct characters that aren't just...clones *ba dum bum tsh!*

This unnamed idea for a novel is set in the not-too-distant future, when cloning of human beings has been perfected. It only works with fresh DNA, and it takes about five years for the whole process to be completed. Due to this and ethical concerns, there are laws and other safeguards in place so you're only allowed to clone someone who has just died (DNA can be collected prior to death, but the cloning process itself can't be signed off on until the person is declared dead). You're also only allowed to clone someone's particular DNA once. The clone will then take over the deceased person's legal identity, in terms of social security, taxes, etc. (there's probably more complicated caveats and whatnot, but this story isn't really supposed to explore all of that). Naturally, there's a whole debate about whether these clones are actually people or not. Do they have souls? Are they the same person as the one who died? Are they a freakish abomination and the scientists who developed the process are treading in God's domain? Should they be outlawed? Are they an unnecessary drain on the economy? It's very expensive to have a clone made, as you can probably imagine, but not outside the reach of someone who's reasonably wealthy. So like...you don't have to be a millionaire in order to pay for it, but you've gotta really want it.

The story is about a family that has two teenage daughters. I think I've decided the dad is a dentist, and the mom has a some kind of career as well, or maybe volunteer work or something. The sisters are three years apart in age. They aren't best friends exactly, but they get along pretty well and genuinely love each other. The older sister is about to go off to college when the younger sister dies suddenly and tragically in some kind of accident. The whole family is thrown into shock and grief, but the mother especially is not handling it well. She can't take the thought of her baby girl suddenly being taken away from her, so she insists that they clone her. The dad is reluctant at first, but the mom says that if she has to go on for the rest of her life without her daughter, she's going to kill herself to join her. So they pull out all of their life savings and order a clone of the younger sister.

In the five years it takes to develop the clone, the family processes their grief and the mom gradually begins to think she made a mistake. She realizes she was mostly just angry at God for taking her daughter from her, and making a clone was like shaking her fist at the heavens. The cloning agency allows those who have ordered a clone to cancel their order - payments are made in installments, so besides a cancellation fee, they don't have to pay the full amount; they just won't get a refund for what they've already paid if they back out partway through the process. But even after the mom realizes it was a mistake to try to clone her daughter, she doesn't want to cancel the order either.

She says, "I realize now that it was a mistake to want to clone her. I was angry at God, and didn't want to accept it when he took her away from us. But I believe that God can take my mistakes and my lack of trust, and make something good out of it. His plans are bigger than mine. And that clone in there? That's a little girl who deserves a chance to live. I may not have given birth to her…but she's my daughter. And she needs her mommy."

So they go through with it. The mom has to quit the job she loves and get one that will pay better, and the older sister has to give up on her college plans and go straight into the work force while still living at home, so they can continue to pay the cloning agency. And finally, the day comes when they can bring the little clone home. The standard/cheapest option is to grow a five-year-old clone (for some reason that's easier than a baby or an adult, just run with it), which is what they'd decided on - to get a second chance at childhood, as well as to make it as affordable as possible.

There's an option for training/programming (not sure exactly how it works yet), using video footage and other information provided by the family, to make it so that when the clone first leaves the facility and comes home, they'll have an approximation of the original person's personality and mannerisms, which can then be fine-tuned with the family and various psychologists/trainers over the next year or so. But this family opted not to do that - partly because that would be another expense, partly because the parents have agreed that, no matter what scientists or whoever else say, this little girl is her own person. She might look like their original daughter, she might have identical DNA to her, but it's not the same person. They want to raise this little girl as their own daughter, but they want as much as possible to let her decide for herself what kind of person she's going to become.

The result of all this is that, when she first comes home, this little girl is kind of robotic. She can talk and understand what people are saying on about the same level as any five-year-old, but a lot of the nuances are lost on her because she's only observed the world for like a week at that point. So she understands the concept of food and eating, but she might look at an apple and not understand that it's food.

I just think this would be a really fascinating concept to explore. There's a really compelling pro-life side to the whole thing, as well as the age-old debates of nature vs. nurture and what makes us human. Beyond that, it would be so fascinating to explore what the sisters' relationship would be like. I think there's definitely going to be some resentment and other growing pains on the older sister's part, because here's this girl who looks like her little sister but is definitely not, and they've all had to upend their lives in order to bring her into the world. But then there are moments where little bits of the sister she remembers will peek out - the way the clone smiles, the sound of her voice when she sings, the kinds of food she really likes. I want to put a lot of me, as a big sister, into this story.

WIP ask game

[drbtinglecannon]

I just think about Flapjack, Dadrius, Huntlow, and Gus-Hunter-bros so much

How each dynamic Hunter has with them parallels a previous Caleb's story, and how each dynamic is a perfect reason in Belos' eyes to kill Hunter for "betraying him", let alone the way all of them are happening at once.

--

Flapjack being the first ever source of unconditional support in Hunter's life, as well as a gateway to wild magic, something Hunter adores but isn't permitted to be around -- just like they were for Caleb centuries ago. Flapjack is scarred and was abandoned for a long time, likely all from the day Caleb was killed, and the person who inflicted this pain onto them is the same person who abused Hunter. Flapjack didn't bond with Hunter because he is made from Caleb, but because Hunter's motivations line up with Flapjack's, and they have (literally) pulled Hunter along helping him eventually build the other supports he's made.

Flapjack represents the beginning of the end for both Caleb and Hunter in Belos' eyes, evident by his outburst upon seeing them. The very representation of the dangers of magic, leading Caleb away from his brother all over again.

--

Darius being the same witch that the Previous Golden Guard was the mentor of and became attached to, probably as something like a little brother or son, then ended up dying to protect. From the trauma and grief of loss, Darius kept a distant and strained relationship with Hunter for years until recently after a moment of rare rebellion from Hunter -- something we now know every grimwalker before him has also done. Now it has come full circle with Darius as the adult developing a similar attachment to Hunter as something like a son to him, and almost dying during the draining spell after sending Hunter away to protect him.

Belos had to have known about the Previous Golden Guard's dedication to Darius, just as Belos knew Darius was a rebel when no one else suspected him. And now here he is, ruining another perfectly good Caleb not even two decades later.

--

Willow being a witch that Hunter, a non-witch, develops feelings of some kind for, who is brave and strong and always protecting her loved ones, including Hunter himself a number of times. Hunter, a Caleb clone, who loves wild magic and the people he's bonded with in the Boiling Isles, with Willow being the very first to be positive from the start. A perfect reflection to Caleb, the original Caleb from centuries ago, who willingly fell in love with the Boiling Isles and the people there and -- most importantly -- the witch he started a family with, who bravely tried to protect Caleb in his final moments.

The original sin of Caleb that got him killed in cold blood, grave robbed, and cloned for centuries afterwards was falling in love with the Boiling Isles and a witch. The ultimate betrayal, when Caleb chose this hell over his own brother.

--

Gus being a little brother to Hunter, who is sheltered and cared for and protected by this older brother figure. This isn't the first Caleb to be an older brother to someone, blood-related or not, in fact that's how this story all started. Caleb was Philip's doting older brother, who sheltered and cared for and protected him their entire childhoods through the horrors of their upbringing. But this time it's not one-sided, Gus has sheltered and cared for and protected Hunter back, he was the safe haven for Hunter to confide in after he ran away from his home, and he shared a healthy coping mechanism with Hunter for his anxiety.

Gus' brothership with Hunter is a series of kindnesses that Philip didn't grant to Caleb in the end. After everything they've been through, how could Caleb choose a witch as a brother over him?

--

Willow and Gus reflect the original Caleb's story, Darius was directly involved in the last grimwalker story, and Flapjack was directly involved in the original Caleb's story. And all of them are here now for Hunter.

It was inevitable Hunter was going to be the Grimwalker to finally break the chain, with having so many direct and indirect ties to his predecessors all lined up together in his favor through a combination of extreme luck, coincidence, and his own actions to change.

It's beautiful and poetic, really.

[arunneronthird]

Hi, this is the Bruce and Jason anon again and you're completely right! Tim and Kon's situation is very different from Bruce and Jason's because Tim was like...literally trying to engineer a perfect replacement for someone he lost ON PURPOSE. Which is just completely fucking crazy from start to end. Especially when Kon, as a clone himself, struggled in the past with the idea of being created in a lab explicity to perfectly replace another person, then ending up not being identical/perfect enough to do that and having to learn to become his own person instead, not just superman 2.0. Like Tim was actually insane to still try and clone him while actively KNOWING all of this about his best friend and still deciding to go ahead and become the cadmus/lex luthor in this poor clone's story.

Also with the benefit of being able to actually know what happened while Jason was dead, how Bruce grieved, the whole messy process of how Tim actually became Robin, etc. through the comics, I agree that Bruce wasn't necessarily wrong. What I was mainly talking about was Jason coming back from the dead without any knowledge of how much of a wreck Bruce was when he was gone and seeing the product of that grief without any of the context.

Like Jason checks back in on his dad after maybe a year or two (idk comic timelines) and there is just a full ass new child (around the age jason was when he died no less) living in Jason's house, swinging round Gotham in Jason's old suit colours using Jason's vigilante name (the suit he died in, the name that he died for). He even LOOKS like Jason with his black hair a blue eyes. And because of the severe lack of context Talia provides, from the outside it's exactly as if Jason has been replaced, not grieved. Like when TV shows recast one of their main actors and the story continues on without stopping to acknowledge that anything is out of the ordinary. As if this new person has been here the entire time and the old one never existed at all.

Jason was also having problems with Bruce before he died so seeing this shiny new Robin take his place (and actually be good at it) is just so heartbreaking. Again, without knowing anything about Bruce and Tim's relationship, to Jason it'd seem like Bruce just got a shiny new sidekick that was Robin in all the ways B wanted and valued, all the ways Jason wasn't. It's worse when Dick, who Jason had a pretty strained relationship with, is all over the new guy in a way he never was with him. It mirrors what you were saying about Tim making the version of Kon that loved him in the way original-Kon didn't. Obviously not what happened to Bruce and Tim but WE know that not Jason

The third part doesn't really fit them so much, the only thing I can think of is Jason coming to the realisation that Bruce didn't actually care about him, or Dick, that he probably didn't even care about the new kid either. Like Tim and his clones, Robins all eventually get discarded and thrown away when they don't meet B's standards, when they're not perfect enough. It's what Bruce and Dick used to fight about all the time too, before Jason died. Has Steph been Robin yet by the time Jason comes back? Idk. It would certainly add to that idea. Child after child, in the middle of gun fight after gun fight. What kind of a monster does that? So Jason decides to put it to the test. How much does Bruce actually care about Robin? He certainly didn't seem to care when Jason died, but maybe that's too small of a sample size. There needs to be multiple test trials. If Batman thinks so little of his sidekicks, if he's really going to be so careless with them, then he should to be prepared to lose a few.

Sorry for how long this is, I was typing and completely lost the run of myself.

i... had like a page typed out and then the whole building lost power so i think thats a sign for me to stop answering while at work, i wont listen though

honestly im really glad that tumblr now shortens posts, but never apologize for length, i thought this was a great read and i love getting peoples opinions on things!

i agree with all this, really, i think jason, pumped full of green pit rage water, would come back and see himself replaced and completely snap, it works really well and i love that narrative

i dont think jason feels bad for losing robin, it wasnt his to lose, he wore dicks suit while tim wore a new one out of respect for him, i think he felt replaced in a... deeper level

he came back to see that someone was occupying the space the grief and pain would have been in, someone else was pushing his ghost away, living his life, being loved by his father, being cared for by his brother, someone better at his job than he ever was, cold and smart where he was rash and angry, he came back to see that he was not only replaced, him being dead made things better

ofc, this wasnt true, his death nearly destroyed bruce, and it took a lot of effort to get him to feel human again cause he had lost his son, but jason didnt know that, as u said

meanwhile, i love the new 52 tim, i think hes tragic in a visceral way, and i love how his pain is so easy to feel, but in a way im glad we dont really talk about that era too much and usually act like its not relevant to the canon cause... its hard to justify tim being a good person in the new comics after reading the 2015s one

like, tim failing to clone kon doesnt justify him actually trying to replace his dead best friend who struggled with his place in the world, and i think the writers recently realized if they want tim to be a dark but brave hero they cant also make him morally corrupt at best and absolutely insane, theres a difference between red robin desperately trying to find batman and being a rude mess in the process and red robin basically experimenting with lives

[resurrectedclones]

Dan

Dan is an interesting character. Mostly because of all the potential implications he has for Danny’s character development, but also because despite being given his origin story there are some massive holes the fandom has been trying to fill for years. 

What we know is that sometime in the middle of Danny’s first year of being a half ghost, his friends, family, and teacher all die in an explosion. That part we know is real because we see it happen several times and even see the graves of everyone.

The rest, however, is where things get fuzzy.

We’re told that after the explosion Danny goes to live with Vlad. This also makes sense given what we know. Vlad wants Danny as his son and has the money to convince whoever he needs to that he’s the best guardian for Danny. Danny would also not be in a good headspace to really argue, and might even go willingly since Vlad is the only one he can talk to without having to hide his ghost side.

Now we get into the part that has problems. We’re told that Danny asked Vlad to separate his ghost and human halves. Vlad agreed and used clawed ghost gauntlets to pull them apart. Danny’s ghost half then broke free of Vlad and separated Vlad’s ghost and human halves. He then fused with Vlad’s ghost half and was overwhelmed by the ‘evil’ which created Dan. He then did something horrible to Danny’s human half and left to go on his 10 year rampage.

Now most of the fandom doesn’t believe this. Not only because it came from Vlad, who is a known liar and manipulator, but also because it doesn’t make sense.

Danny wanting to get rid of his ghost half can be accepted since he’s shown to want it gone before and given how the explosion happened he might even blame it for what happened to his loved ones.

However, why would Vlad agree to it? Vlad would know that separating Danny’s two halves wouldn’t work the way he wanted it too, and Vlad wants his perfect half ghost son, taking away the ghost half kind of defeats the purpose. So I can’t see any motivation for Vlad to do this.

Also Danny’s ghost half turning evil because it fused with Vlad’s ghost half makes no sense. Ignoring that it would mean that Dan is equally Vlad as much as Danny, which would make the Observants and Clockwork only focusing on Danny kind of stupid, the idea that Danny turned evil because of the evil influence of Vlad’s ghost half is just bad writing. It turns this story about Danny being brought to his lowest point and loosing himself, to none of it mattering and it all being Vlad’s evil ghost half. The episode turned into a completely different story than the one it’s telling.

(This is also why I don’t subscribe to the Dan is a clone theory.)

So this is what I think happened. Danny goes to live with Vlad and since Vlad is the poster child for not letting go of your trauma Danny doesn’t heal or move on. He continues to spiral and blames his ghost half for everything. His loved ones would still be alive if he hadn’t gotten into that fight that caused the explosion, and he wouldn’t have gotten into that fight if it wasn’t for his ghost half.

It comes to a point where he wants his ghost half gone, but Vlad, realizing he has to be responsible for Danny’s well being now, refuses to help him. So Danny takes matters into his own hands and breaks into Vlad’s lab to do it himself. Unfortunately, he’s so angry he ends up hurting himself in the process.

Danny’s ghost half is separated from his human half and it’s clear neither half are in good shape. Human Danny is hurt but doesn’t have his ghostly healing anymore and Ghost Danny is running on grief, anger, and self hatred with no human mind to help him rationalize it. Unfortunately, do to the circumstances of their separation it’s not as easy as just fusing back together.

Vlad hears the screaming and runs down to see what was going on.

This triggers Danny’s ghost half and he lashes out. By the time he calms down he realizes that he’s destroyed the lab, and injured Vlad. He looks for his human half realizing he messed up but it’s too late, his human half isn’t breathing. Danny isn’t a separated half ghost he’s a full ghost with a dead body.

Of course this is when Vlad tries to but in, setting Danny off again, which is where the whole ripping out Vlad’s ghost happens. 

Danny could have either fused with Vlad’s ghost half or just flat out destroyed it doesn’t really matter at this point. Danny is full ghost now, full of very volatile emotions and has only learned to lash out as a coping strategy. He’s in so much pain and only knows hurting others makes him feel better in the moment.

So that’s what he does, he lashes out at everyone. Humans, ghosts, it doesn’t matter, he just doesn’t care anymore and after 10 years of this he’s convinced himself that he enjoys it and doing anything else would send him back to that horrible depressed state he was in before.

This makes Dan a direct result of Danny’s actions, making the Observants and Clockwork focus on him make a lot more sense and it’s also not so far off from what alternate future Vlad said happened.

The only question would be why would Vlad lie about this? Why would he put more blame on himself, when that goes against what we know of his character? Because alternate future Vlad is not the same as present Vlad. This is a Vlad who regrets what he’s done, not just with Danny but with Jack and Maddie as well. He’s also been hiding alone and stewing in his own guilt for 10 years. He couldn’t help his Danny when he should have so when a Danny from the past shows up he might feel a need to help in any way he can. Even if it means taking the blame in order to not burden Danny anymore than he already is.