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veilkeeper · 1 year ago

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the emperor is basically roz's controlling boyfriend

disclaimer: *i do not hate the emperor and i am not admonishing anyone who likes him or interprets him in a different way. i actually really like the emperor as a character and i enjoy his writing. part of the joy of characters like this is that people can have vastly different interpretations and still have them all be rooted in canon. *im going to be speaking specifically about my tav throughout this. im using their name as a way to specify that this is my tav's experience and feelings, and not necessarily every tav's experience and feelings. *im only partway through act 3. this is talking about roz's feelings during and immediately following the scene in question. they may change and develop later.

so you know how when you meet raphael at sharess' caress he temporarily breaks the PC's connection to the emperor to give them privacy, and then as soon as you leave the devil's den the emperor slides into your proverbial DMs demanding to know where you were?

let's talk about that.

for folks who haven't been following the roz saga, let me set the scene really quickly. roz is a githyanki tav. the "dream visitor" took the form of the elven priestess who took them in when they were a teenager. it was a relationship that was pretty bad for roz, but they were always loyal to her. roz trusted the dream visitor and completely betrayed their queen to protect them. when the emperor reveal rolled around, roz refused the astral-touched tadpole but failed the save and became a partial-illithid against their will. they've been having a bad time because of that, mostly because everyone in the party had really bad reactions to them becoming partial-illithid and now they feel gross and unwanted.

so now that the truth is out about the emperor being a mind flayer, roz is a little conflicted. on one hand, he's already lied to them about a lot of stuff, and they can't tell when he's manipulating them or being genuinely vulnerable. on the other hand, he has been protecting them, and in a time where they feel very off-kilter and alone, he's the only one who doesn't seem fazed by their new... everything. he reaches for a sort of intimacy and implies a sort of understanding between them that roz craves but doesn't know how to reciprocate when everything feels uncertain.

needless to say, their feelings are complicated, and roz feels... trapped, for lack of a better word. despite their hesitation, they have to rely on him - he's the one keeping them from transforming into a mind flayer, and if roz fucks up with him then the whole group is in danger.

and it is on roz - correct me if im wrong, but at this point in the game it seems like the emperor has given up on manipulating everyone else. i say that because party members stopped commenting on dream visits even before the emperor reveal; the first two visits everyone had a "so, i had another visit from our mysterious protector last night" but after that those conversations stopped. it seems that the emperor picked out roz as the best person to focus all his attention on, and as it turns out, all of the emperor's attention is a lot.

which brings us to raphael. the first thing he does when he turns his attention to roz is shut out the emperor... and the dialogue when that happens is interesting.

*For the first time since the nautiloid, your mind is clear. It's... unsettling.* Roz: I feel... empty. What did you do?

unsettling. empty.

i think this is the moment that makes roz realize just how... present the emperor has been. they've been passively aware that he's around; as early as the grove the dream visitor is pointing out tadpoles to pick up, and since making it to the city he's made a few comments on the environment. but this is the first time it's really clicked for them that he's been here, in their head, paying attention, ever since they woke up on the nautiloid.

how much has he learned about them? how much has he seen? how could they ever trust a single word he says when he knows exactly how to manipulate them?

it's a terrifying thought, isn't it? to realize all at once that someone else truly does hold all the cards.

they need time to think, and making a deal with a devil while they're freaking out internally seems like a recipe for disaster, so they say no to raphael's deal. and when they walk outside, all of their fears are confirmed by a little voice in their head, questioning them before the door is even closed behind them.

The Emperor: There you are. I thought I'd lost you. Something was blocking me from hearing your thoughts.

he just says it. mask off, he tells roz as if it is the most natural thing in the world for him to hear their thoughts, always. it feels like he's making fun of them, suddenly. like they're on the wrong end of a practical joke and they only just realized, right before it was time to deliver the punchline.

they don't know how to navigate this conversation. they're frozen. they don't want to tell him anything but they know being too evasive will only draw suspicion and whether they like it or not, they still need him.

they're as vague as they can be. it was raphael, he wants the crown. they hope it's enough but of course it isn't - the emperor asks what raphael offered them.

Roz: Does it matter? I said no. The Emperor: I'm glad you had the sense to turn him down. But it certainly does matter. [...] So I ask again - what were the terms of the deal he offered you?

it isn't enough to have said no, it isn't enough that they told him it was raphael. the emperor needs to know everything, and that's the problem, isn't it? he talks about being allies but he has the upper hand, always has, and he won't tolerate roz knowing anything he doesn't. if he isn't in control of the situation then he wants to be, and he has the power over them to make sure they do exactly what he wants.

so they tell him the terms of the deal. they wonder if it's too late to turn around and accept it, if raphael would be willing to shut the emperor out of their head while they took the hammer into the prism, so they didn't have this looming over them a second longer.

but as they expected, the emperor knows exactly what to say to plant that seed of doubt, to make sure they stay in his influence.

The Emperor: I trust that you will continue to remember who is really on your side. Without my protection, you cannot defeat the elder brain. You cannot even get close to it. No matter what the devil whispers in your ear.

he knows them. more than they ever wanted him to. they never told him anything, but he knows them better than anyone else they've ever met. and worst of all, they never gave him permission. for any of it. he has crept into every corner of their mind unbidden, looked through their eyes, seen some of the most intimate and personal moments of their life, changed them, all without permission.

yet as much as they want to get away, they can't. he's not wrong - they need him, and the only other person who can protect them, orpheus himself, will probably try to kill them on sight if they try to free him. and if that wasn't enough, the means to free orpheus in the first place is locked behind making a terrible deal with a skeevy devil or going on a heist to the hells that the emperor will watch every single moment of.

they feel violated. they feel manipulated. they feel like a puppet on a string. they feel helpless. and they feel like they can't breathe a word of it to anyone, not just because the emperor will hear it, but because they still don't know if their companions even want anything to do with them.

the emperor feels like a controlling boyfriend. the kind who grills roz on where they've been and demands to know everyone they've talked to. the kind who belittles them and tells them that they need him, and then turns around and tells them that they're the only one he trusts and he's so glad to have them.

at every turn they're being manipulated by people; guys with power who try to offer them whatever might sway them. but the emperor might be the worst of all of them, because he doesn't just want their cooperation - he's taking it, in the most insidious way he possibly can.

#as per usual i am okay with discussion on this post but please be civil!!#the emperor #roz pt #bg3 #bg3 spoilers #bg3 meta #mine #my meta #emperor critical #<- not really but im trying to be like. respectful i guess?

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selfspinninglies · 1 year ago

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👁️👁️?

hi aureo that was fast . anyway explanation under the cut woo

its kinda fuzzy in my head since ive only had this idea for two days including today so . but basically theres magic in the world that this takes place in (side tangent that isnt totally important but im gonna talk about how it works now if you dgaf skip to the plot stuff) its mostly not demonized/hated/feared/whatever cause i dont feel like it . anyway basically the energy needed is inside of your blood so whenever you use it it draws it out of you in some way (depends on what its used for) or you can draw it out yourself (bloodletting) and depending on how strong the spell you're doing is a certain amount of blood will be needed which causes !! a lot of problems for magic users . also its not like . a lineage thing anyone can learn how to do it because another part of how it works is making bonds/pacts with spirits that hold power over certain things and the blood is like . the offering also and you can either use incantations of sorts to do spells or just command things that youve borrowed power over also if your family has a pact with a spirit you are automatically in that also

vey end up going into the center of the woods and there's a grave in the clearing so vey go to it and make a blood offering assuming that this is the correct place (<- its not . oops) which ends up pissing off the spirit there because they do not have a pact together so vey are Not supposed to do that . it ends up pissing the spirit off more by admitting that it thought this was the correct place to be for a different spirit who was apparently not even close to here . who knew (everyone except erika) . the spirit ends up laying a curse on nem as its one of those angry and restless ones + got angered further . the spirit explains that somewhere in their body the seed of the plant that fits them best will start growing inside of them at a random place and slowly kill them by taking all of their energy and eventually spread out of them and essentially take over their body . they don't say if there's any way to cure/get rid of and it doesn't really sound like there is . they also say that when ey're at eir deathbed ey'll drag eir body back to this very spot and become part of the forest in the same way the spirit is . (sorry i keep saying "the spirit" i know it sounds kinda weird but i havent named them yet) (also ihave sooosososo many thoughts about how this would work so . maybe another time but if you wanna hear me go insane ask)

(other side tangent) also the way that the spirits work is that if you're connected to something deeply throughout life and your death is also connected to that thing (ex you have a connection to oceans/lakes/rivers your entire life and then you drown and die) you become bound to it spiritually and it becomes literally a part of you which means you have command over it kinda (does any of this make sense . idk) but it sucks a lot because the thing draws out your energy after death to fuel your ability cause like i said earlier spells require energy n shit but you also gain the ability to share your ability with others which relieves it a little since the burden isnt all on you BUT some spirits are angrier and curse anyone who steps foot near the area where they died . also their abilities and people who have deals with them's powers are amplified in the death area

ANYWAY actual plot time . the protagonists name is erika/erik (goes by both) (any pronouns but mostly uses neos) and ney're part of a family that has a pact (<- i think im going with that as for what ill call these) with some sort of plant spirit ney aren't sure which one though ney didnt pay much attention to the explanation of it all . it doesnt care too much about its lineage its more interested in biology and anatomy related things (<- woaww title reference) and also salamanders . its not story important but ve really likes salamanders . anyway x2 nix is somewhere in nixs early 20s and lives alone in an apartment planning on going to college soon but is putting it off . probably works a shitty 9-5 that it hates idk . very tired guything . theyre kinda bored and start thinking about their abilities and general ineptitude with it and decide that they'll go to the forest that their pact spirit dwells in to feel more connected to it or whatever . ey didn't really plan things through a lot . It makes a small bag with some supplies in it just in case and goes to the place that it thinks is the correct one but ends up being wrong and ends up in a very large forest . paragraph break because this one's getting long

obviously it freaks the fuck out about this and ends up running veryvery far away from the clearing and ends up collapsing somewhere because its really fucking tired . in the morning to nix's surprise nothing happened to nix in that time . anyway first thing he does is take out a diagram of the human body that was in one of the notebooks that he took with him and starts drawing out what the curse might look like on the inside . (which is also kinda where the name of the story comes from)

hey remember how i said energy needed for spells lay inside someone's blood . and how the plants will sap off of the person's energy and therefore blood . and how erik's family has a pact with a plant spirt . hey do you think that might be just a little important -

so anyway she tries to find her way back but fails miserably because the one thing she happened to forget was a map of any kind so now she's stuck in a forest with a deadly curse and no idea how to fix herself. they frantically walk through the forest and end up finding a village filled with totally normal people yayyy . anyway when they get there they say that they got lost in the woods and need a place to stay until they figure stuff out . oddly enough someone agrees to house them for a bit . The people of the town are incessant with questions, particularly about if they've encountered the spirit . on impulse he lies saying that he didnt which totally wont bite him in the ass later i mean who said that . anyway thats basically the plot theres more but this is already long as fuck and i dont feel like typing anymore idk how much of this makes sense but whateverrr im sleepy n sickly (<- has a cold) so . yeah hope you like it :]]

#noodle talks #ask #moot #whatever this goes under our writing tag #drabbles #writing #oc stuff #erika #the anatomy of being wrong #passes out #anyway this one makes me insane im already obsessed with ideas #taobw

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igniting-quill · 1 year ago

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1,2,3, and 19 for any OC? :3

Thanks for asking! I'm going to answer your question with my main D&D character Hai for this one.

What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)?

Our party needed a tank, so I was thinking of creating a martial character with a strength based stat. You know which (fantasy) race shows up as one of the first options on D&D beyond? Half-orc.

So I chose a Half-Orc, I wanted to really go against the grain of what that fantasy race is associated with, and decided to choose a character with a noble background.

So yeah, that was the beginning into her backstory, and for most of my characters it will probably be backstory!

2. Did you design them with any other characters/OCs from their universe in mind?

Yes I did! @silly-goofy-mood was creating a character concept more or less at the same time as I was, and we wanted our characters to have some sort of connection prior to campaign. We eventually decided on being exes.

Otherwise, i think I knew that I wanted Hai to have a deity so I was also aware of one god, the God of the Unknown, which was my DM's creation @theccrowsnest!

All other characters and OCs were mostly just figures from the past that only now am I really beginning to flesh out. This consists of a human mother, a human stepfather, an orc father, an orc grandma, and a younger sibling, all which were concepts that I created around Hai.

I don't know if you noticed, but there's already two dads in the equation, three because the God of the Unknown is basically a dad, four if you count the first mate who I'll touch up on later.

3. How did you choose their name?

I wanted some spice in this fantasy campaign so I went to my heritage, but also be aware that my Chinese is pretty mid.

Hailang = 海浪 (hǎi làng)

Ocean waves. Yep. I named a character ocean waves. But! Consider that it is a pirate campaign so I needed to get even more sea themed stuff.

By the way if you're thinking of naming your character this, don't. Every time someone says "Hi" I don't know if they're talking about my character or greeting me because I'm not with a group of people who know about Mandarin Chinese tones nor do I expect them to. This was shortened to "Hai" because it was a cute nickname in my mind, until of course, reality caught up to me about the "Hi" as a greeting vs "Hai" as a name thing.

Only after I named her did I realize the conflict between the big famous Japanese wave that might be conflated with her name. I did not mean that. Whoops. And also, the Japanese word for indicating “Yes” so. Whoops x2.

Also after I named her, I realized that there's 骇浪 (Trad. 駭浪 Pinyin: hài làng) or “swelling/stormy seas" according to my translator app (can you tell, I'm not that proficient in the language). Well. My character has the personality of someone who's pretty calm so we'll see what happens. Will she start becoming more akin to those stormy seas or stay the way she is? I'm asking because I don't know either.

Saangbiar = “上边儿” trad: “上邊兒” (sǎng - An incorrect interpretation of the Wu dialect, biār - erhua Northern/Beijing Dialect)

Yeah. If I stuck to an actual Wu Chinese dialect, her last name would be "Zabiar," as zɑ̃ would be the correct tone for 上, so that's my bad.

Originally, I was going to have Hai's last name be from the north, as it means "above," but uh then my DM's map came out and I realized the location from where that last name came from would be the south.

Fair, because I also tried to use the Wu dialect, which is a much more south-eastern dialect of Chinese, in her name. Did I want to change her entire name of "above" to "below" just to fit the standards of a fantasy land? No, not really. Plus, I was getting kind of attached to it already, with the funky non-pinyin type spelling Frankenstein of two Chinese dialects that are part of my heritage (tho I messed up one I apologize to everyone on that side of the fam).

And that is how I got her name.

19. What is your favorite fact about your OC?

Ooo, great question. Fun fact, Hai's favorite fruit is oranges because the island that all the orcs are from produces those. She's got memories of sharing the pieces between her and her grandma (orc dad's side, 奶奶, iykyk).

She also shares these with the First Mate of the ship, @wall-e-gorl's character. Pirates you know, gotta keep up the citrus fruits lest the scurvy gets you, matey.

Edit: also oh my gosh I need to find the art they did of the oranges stattt

#hailang saangbiar #thanks for the ask!#crow's next crew #crows nest crew #gay pirate campaign #oc #my oc #my ocs

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hochsleep · 8 months ago

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Post for introductions and important information!

Series Masterlist

Hi, cuties!

My name is Hochsleep and here I write stuff about Daryl Dixon (my favorite man ever)

Basically I'm just learning how to use this site, so I apologize for my mistakes and errors, I'm a newbie;)

I'll tell you a little bit about myself before we discuss some important things about my art and this account!

• Hochsleep ("hoch" is a form of a word in my native language that translates to "want", sleep you know what it means. I am a Hochsleep because I always want to sleep😴)

• I'm 20 so I can read and write all sorts of vulgarity and am more used to twd content with violence (which I actually hate, I'm a pacifist and don't accept violence anywhere but movies, TV shows and games)

BUT if you are under the age of 18 you really should leave this profile and only come back when you are of legal age!

• she/her

• Autistic moment (just for further understanding and to resolve possible questions about my writing)

• Journalism student at university (I'm close to a nervous breakdown🙂)

• I'm a big fan of twd and Daryl Dixon (obviously, yes) so you and I here will enjoy the company of this wonderful man (yes, I only like fictional men, no other way)

• I'm really just learning how to use Tumblr (it's important for me to say that again) and I really admire the design of other accounts, so hopefully I'll grow in that my profile will get better and more comfortable for us us!

Well, I don't have much more to say at this point. I mean, I'm just an ordinary young girl with no personal life and dreaming of a fictional man from the show, what else is there to tell? But maybe I'll update this post later if you're interested and I feel like sharing;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now important information regarding this profile and my work!

• I plan to write mostly for female readers with a female anatomy, as it's closer and easier for me. But I don't mind the prospect of gender-neutral and male readers in the future!

• I'm currently writing a big paper on ao3 (the link will be below, as well as all the other necessary links, leaf to the end of the post to get it!)

• But I have to warn you, I don't plan on writing big pieces for Y/N just yet! My fanfic on ao3 is entirely about my OC, who has a spelled out past, appearance, character, and more (but it's still interesting, I promise)

• But don't worry, all the work here will be all about you, dear readers. In Y/N format without detailed descriptions of appearance or any specific character (that everyone could more or less match themselves with the character). Everything about Y/N will be mostly left to your taste and imagination ;)

• I'll mention again that English is not my first language! I mostly use a translator (with a bias towards American English), so there may be mistakes and inconsistencies. Feel free to correct me in the comments! If I use any phrases from my native language that are unclear due to being translated word-for-word (I mean, every language has such phrases and stable expressions), I will be sure to clarify for you the meaning of the speech abortion I used! I try to improve my English (also with the help of this blog), so I write in a way that the translator and readers can understand me, so I hope you will find it easy and comfortable to read me!

• You can send me your ideas and requests if you would like them written in my hand, I very much welcome this and would be delighted! All copyrights are reserved, I make sure to credit anyone and everyone whose material, including post ideas and queries, I use! It's important we stay ethical here, guys!

• I will try to appear here as often as possible, so hopefully we won't get lost;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now it's time for the very important part: the rules of use!

• All my work, here and on ao3, is copyrighted!

• You can use my art as inspiration for your pieces, but be sure to tag me!

• If you want to share my art on other venues discuss it with me first! I do not authorize the copying and distribution of my art without my permission!

• I do not give permission to copy and distribute my creations to pass them off as your own without any mention of the real author!

• As for Daryl Dixon and other "The Walking Dead" characters: they are all entirely the property of the creators of the series. I am only responsible for MY OWN vision of the original characters of the series and signing them as part of the fanfiction!

Yes, it's gotten pretty long here, but please understand me. Don't think I'm a nerd, but the intellectual property part of legality is really important to me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now as for the rules for reading this profile! It's pretty simple here.

• I'm completely open to constructive criticism, it is necessary. Therefore, be sure to write if you consider it necessary to correct me and of course express your opinion!

• But don't forget that your opinion shouldn't include: insults and aggressive forms of expression! No insults towards me, other readers and authors!

• My content may contain detailed descriptions of sexually explicit scenes and violence. IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 DO NOT READ THIS PROFILE!

• No distribution of materials prohibited by law in the comments!

• I don't accept hatred based on sexual orientation, gender identity, race, nationality, etc. here. NO HATE!

Okay, we're finally done 🫠

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm happy to everyone and anyone here! I suggest you to lose yourself in the forest of my fantasies ;)

I will endeavor to provide a comfortable environment for all of us here. This profile is your safe space!

We have a lot of interesting things waiting for us, guys;)

Thanks for sticking around! Enjoy reading!

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Useful links to other:

ao3:

The darkest night is before the brightest dawn

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teeth-cable · 2 years ago

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Heres an issue I've been thinking on that I don't see anyone talking about in them critical space. I wrote a long ass ask to another blog about how Vivziepop sucks at portraying ethnic groups but its was and since your on the topic of Vivziepop FUCKING up basic religions I want to send something more organized and specific. I have an issue as an ethnically Jewish person with Rosie.

I will preface this by stating I am disconnected with my culture but I am trying to reconnect and I am not practicing. I actually would welcome people more connected than me or practitioners to add to this or correct me.

So we know Rosie is supposed to resemble a Jewish mother... I feel gross with that phrasing because there's a lot. Like again I'm disconnected but why did Vivziepop have to specify Jewish Mother? Like this almost feels like a stereotype and the best faith things I could guess is Vivziepop just thinks jews are a religious group or is just ignorant in general. The thing about our religion is that it's mostly closed... Like typically as far as I'm aware you can only practice if you are ethnically Jewish. So she wrote this in an official document highlighting a character specifically being jewish in a way that feels gross.

Another thing is you literally can't have a setting set in hell with Jewish characters because Hell doesn't exist in the Torah (the holy book) like all that stuff that Jesus said contradicts what was already written which is why Jews don't worship or see Jesus as the Messiah. I'm unsure if he is viewed as a prophet or not. I know in Islam he is seen that way.

I forget the name of the afterlife but basically when bad people die they only suffer for a year and everyone goes to the same place.

Also Rosie possibly being Jewish makes no logical sense because to be Jewish your mom has to be and her mother before her. It's a matriarchal aspect though there are a few places that accept patriarchal descent that is a recent thing. Rosie is Hellborn last I checked and sinners can't reproduce with Hellborns so.... How the fuck is she Jewish?

Then her being a cannibal is very off-putting because a lot of people who barely know anything about Judaism know that Jews usually have a specific diet practice. Now not everyone knows the name of it but it's called Kosher. And yes not everyone practices it is still widely known we aren't supposed to like eat stuff that comes from pigs. It's a bit fucked that the only Jewish character is a cannibal... That probably is connected to some anti semitic stereotype somewhere that I'm unaware of since there's a fuck ton.

Also Vivziepop wants an ethinically accurate cast but instead of specifically asking for a jewish actress she mentioned someone who sounds like a jewish mother... What does that even mean?

Like unlike the goblins from the series that must not be named, this reeks of ignorance instead of malice. Especially, since we know Vivziepop absolutely refuses to do research for her shows that require literally more than a 10 minute google search.

Like you can't fully separate an ethnically Jewish character from the religion itself unlike uh a character from Spain can be separated from Christianity. Like our blood and religion are deeply tied together especially as we are being prosecuted throughout history and still managing to survive it all because of it.

Like if you absolutely want a jewish character in Hazbin your gonna need a sensitivity reader and have to make them a sinner.

The character I see get talk about most about antisemitism in Hazbin Hotel is Mimzy and Rosie is just an "Ah-Ha!" moment for critics because her leak bio directly confirmed it. While there can a discussion if Mimzy can technically count as an Jewish stereotype because we don't know if she's Jewish or not, I found Rosie to be more egregious because Viv used the line, "Rosie has a strong presence and confident energy as a Jewish mother." First what is that even supposed to mean? And second by this description Viv see Rosie as a Jewish character and will code her as such.

I think the critics forget Rosie will be a recurring side character in the show which is why we haven't seen many discussions yet about what it means for Rosie's character to be Jewish coded.

I will said Viv's ignorance is getting to a point of malice to me since she very aware of the criticism she gets for characters like Velvette and Alastor and her not doing research and purposely spreading misinformation because of it is icky. Like this woman has to know eventually she can't just keep making up information of POC groups and religions out of nowhere and has to hire someone from those groups to help her. If Viv really did care about researching about these group for good rep she would have consulted with them first. If Viv hired a Jewish person to help her write Rosie, she would have learned about the problems you addressed with Rosie being a Hellborn who is jewish and the weird implications she added like making the only Jewish character into a cannibal. Viv has claimed Hell is supposed to take inspiration from different religions and cultures but that's just not true because Viv's hell is clearly christian inspired with a hint of demonology elements.

I'm unsure how she would even make the idea work in the first place if Christianity's hell is supposed to be the main setting in Hazbin Hotel and Helluva because different religions have different rules and interpretations of Hell, Heaven, and the characters, heck some religions don't even have Heaven and Hell like what we discuss here.

#hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin critical #vivziepop criticism #vivziepop critical #꧁rambles꧂#➥asks

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7deadlycinderellas · 10 months ago

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Lost season 1x07-08

Today, we have two more episodes of season 1- The Moth and Confidence Man.

Each of these episodes are two things: the former is a Charlie episode as well an an episode continuing the "survival on an island/getting rescued" plot, the latter a Sawyer episode as well as presenting the first seriously life threatening health crisis on the island (should more have occurred? That seems to be another sign of the Island's magical nature).

Charlie's character archetype choice of the "addicted rock star" is in retrospect an interesting one- because the writers both do and don't invoke it heavily. I mostly am grateful that they didn't utilize him for random musical numbers. I will admit I don't know a great deal about opioid addiction, but in perhaps a bit of foreshadowing. it seems like his withdrawal could have been milked for a more dramatic health crisis, and I find it interesting that these chose not to.

The Moth also introduces the "beach vs caves" conflict, and the early mystery of Adam and Eve's identities (this is probably the mystery that caused the most dissent among the answer we got- I've got opinions on it and all of Across the Sea, that will be addressed when we get to Across the Sea). It's definitely well-placed- confirms not only that other people are/have been on the island, but they have been for ages, not just recently. It also gave more ammunition to the theorizers who thought the Smoke Monster was a dinosaur.

Confidence Man handily adds depth to Sawyer's callous, bigoted redneck conman character: namely, questioning how much of his behavior is sincere and how much is due to his own self-loathing. Shannon's asthma attack story is also suitably tense- its a common enough ailment that it really drives home the potential danger of the situation even for the common people (anyone looking to write something and wanting a similarly high-stakes and potentially deadlier option? Have a character with diabetes. Their insulin runs out, they die. Simple as that). I do have a couple of very specific issues with the plot, noted in Stray Observations below.

And the end, where Sayid decides to leave the survivors and strike out on his own, is great for many reasons, but mostly for what it meant. It's hard to describe just how shackled network TV used to be to "the status quo is God", where every episode would return the characters would be back where they started. Breaks in this convention in this happened of course, but weren't common, and showing that Lost wasn't going to stay tied to these shackles was a great sign.

Stray observations:

*The early theories for the identities of Adam and Eve included basically everyone we'd met. I'm not sure why people assumed we'd met them before.

*OK seriously, you guys, you have Sawyer restrained on one side of the island. Why go immediately to the torture instead of, oh, I don't know, FIRST RANSACKING HIS STUFF? You've been on the island a week! How secretly could he have hid things?

*I also find it rather interesting that Jack, the doctor, didn't take any longer to resort to force, than Sayid did.

*While I adore Sun getting to be the hero at the end of episode 8, I seem to recall the correct low tech treatment for an asthma attack is actually a cup of coffee.

TWoP thread for the Moth

TWoP thread for Confidence Man

#lost #lost abc #lost tv #lost rewatch

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flakytartart · 2 years ago

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Box split FAQ (Who, What, When, Where, Why + How)

Who are you?

Hi! I'm Flaky, a hobby artist that likes to buy merch of my favorite characters (mostly from Danganronpa and Persona 4/5). Nice to meet you if we haven't already interacted! :J

What's this post about?

There's a new piece of Danganronpa merchandise available for pre-order on AmiAmi - Key of Love keychains!

You can buy a single keychain at random for 1,210 JPY or the complete set of 16 for 19,360 JPY. Buying an entire set gives you 1 random photo card as a bonus.

I preordered 3 full sets (THH, SDR2, and V3) to collect my favorite characters and will be left with 39 extra characters. Because of that, I put together a box split/sales post in the hopes of getting rid of the extra!

I'm charging $8 USD for each keychain + shipping ($6) and taking payments via PayPal and Venmo. Photo cards will also be available for reservation (keep reading for more info).

When...

...do the keychains come out?

Preorders are expected to release/ship out sometime in February 2024. I'll start sorting/packing when they get to me.

...do we have to pay for our claims?

As soon as possible please! After you send in your claim, I will calculate and send your total along with my Paypal link/Venmo username via DM.

Where will you ship to?

I'm located in the US so I'll only be selling/shipping domestically. :0 I don't know how much shipping to other countries would cost and it makes me a bit nervous to deal with that so I'd rather not attempt anything. I'm sorry.

Why are you doing this? (And why should I trust you?)

I think it's a pretty good deal for everyone! You get the exact keychain you want for a decent price, you help me (not really) break even, and I don't have to own 48 keychains. Hunting for merch can be difficult/pricey, plus I've always wanted to organize a box split. I'm pretty much selling these at a loss but I think it's worth it even if just one person gets what they want! If these don't sell here or on Mercari I'm most likely gonna pass them out for free at our local anime convention next year.

As for trusting me - I understand if you don't or are nervous. I really am just some dude on the internet. All I can say is that I have good standing as a seller on eBay and Mercari, am very serious about handling other peoples money, and that your information (emails, names, address, regular things I'd need in order to send stuff to you) is 100% safe with me. :] 👍

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Okay so you've made it this far -

How does this work?

Well! This is my first time doing this so the main post is mostly based off of how shsl-box-split runs their splits (+ throw a bit of Harpys_ on IG in there too). They're both incredibly wonderful and friendly so I highly suggest checking them out!

I am one person doing this alone so please be patient with me during this process. Basically, it'll go something like this:

Decide on what keychain(s) you want + what photo cards you'd like to try for.

Send me an ask containing which characters you want (I will not post your message, it's just to help me see who claimed what first!) as well as your preferred payment method (Paypal or Venmo). Claims are first come, first served.

I'll DM you to confirm your claims, total, and send either a link to my Paypal or my Venmo username. Please do not claim keychains if you cannot immediately pay for them.

After payment is received, I will update the split post with your username and log down relevant information into a separate spreadsheet. At this time you are free to send me your shipping address (recommended) or wait to send it at a later time.

We time travel wait for the February 2024 release date!

Shortly after the keychains get to me in February, I will begin sorting and packing. Before sending anything out, I will message you one last time to confirm that your claims and address are correct (or ask for your address if you haven't already sent it).

I send off your package using USPS! It arrives at your mailbox! Boom, transaction complete! :D

About photo cards...

Each set comes with one random photo card. Every character will have 3 slots and you are allowed to reserve one photo card for every keychain purchased. Reserving a photo card does not guarantee that you will receive one. Some examples: You buy one 1 keychain and reserve a Hajime photo card - if any of the sets come with Hajime, he's yours! You're the last (third) person to reserve Hajime's photo card. You will only get him if - by some miracle - all three bonus cards are revealed to be Hajime. You claim Hajime, but the photo cards are of Makoto, Kaede, and Shuichi. You will not receive a photo card with your order. Your best bet is to reserve characters that don't already have reservations or to reserve different characters (if purchasing multiple keychains). I don't think there'll be duplicates, but for the sake of covering all bases, 15 slots are available for reserving photo cards.

This split will be open until the sets arrive at my door. If you need to pull out of the split, please, do not contact/start a dispute with Paypal or Venmo. Let me know what's up and I will send back your money. No shame, no judgement.

If for whatever reason my preorder is cancelled, something comes in damaged, etc. I will send out an explanation message + offer refunds to those affected. I do not give out refunds if your package has already been shipped.

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And that's...pretty much it! Thank you for reading this incredibly long post lol. If you have any questions please let me know! :J If you're interested in joining the split, feel free to see what's available here.

#box split #group order #danganronpa #dr1 #sdr2 #ndrv3 #drv3

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bahamutgames · 1 year ago

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AFTERTHOUGHTS - ROUNDUP ROUND 10

January 2024

Hello again! I hope 2024 has been treating you well so far. Even if it hasn't, we have 11 months to make it better, so hang in there!

So far I haven't played anything I wanted to give massive extensive thoughts on, so I'll go ahead and talk about everything I played in January here! The year might be a little rough already but the gaming's been decent so far at least!

As always these aren't reviews, just my thoughts, please play anything and everything I talk about if it interests you!

Final Fantasy 3 (April 27, 1990) - NES

First game of 2024 and my first RPG of 2024! It's Final Fantasy 3, and the last of the NES FF Trilogy! I went back and forth on which version I wanted to play for a while. 1+2 I played the PS1 port, but the DS port of 3 felt WAY too different for my liking. So, I decided to go with a fan translation of the NES original. It... was interesting.

FF3 is a peculiar game to me because it feels like a step forward from FF1, but not a step forward from FF2. FF2 was a kind of boring slog in my opinion, but it did to a lot to drive the series forward. Named characters, multiple teammates, stuff like that. But it WAS boring, make no mistake. However, FF3 didn't feel like a continuation and a correction of FF2. It felt like an alternate universe FF2, if that makes sense? Like they were going back and building off of FF1 again. This reverts back to (mostly) silent characters and jobs. And it just feels like FF2 more than FF3 if that makes ANY sense at all.

But it does have some interesting stuff in it. I think the plot is very unique with the Crystals being sentient, and the dark world having its own Warriors and Crystals (though they show up SUPER late lmao), and the reveal you're on a floating island is very cool! And while I'm personally not SUPER into changeable Job Classes PERSONALLY (in games where this is an option I MOSTLY tend to just stick to the character's default class), I do think this game does some interesting stuff to play around with it. Like requiring mages who can shrink the party or thieves who can unlock doors. It's a neat idea. The soundtrack also had some gems in it, like the final boss in particular was REALLY good. And while it's NES so it's not visually mind blowing, I was impressed with some stuff in it. Water effects look REALLY nice and I was really impressed to see animated crying when a teammate was low on HP. It's small, but it is neat!

But I don't know... it was still kind of boring to me. The plot is certainly more interesting than 2 (I remember most of what happened in 3 lmao) there's still some details that have already slipped my mind... Who was the guy who awoken the Dark Cloud? I genuinely do not remember lmao. And while changing job classes for Paper Mario-esc overworld puzzles is COOL. It's barely used. You mostly just do it to shrink your party for sections where you have to run away from all the giant enemies anyway. I think more sections that required different classes would've been cool. But even still, changing your classes is SUCH a HUGE headache for NO reason! You have to unequip a character's ENTIRE inventory to change classes, and if your inventory is full? Bummer! Then you have to reequip them. And I get it, some classes can't use some tools, but just auto remove those, right? It's SO time consuming it's crazy. And of course being an NES RPG just comes with certain drawbacks, battles can get pretty boring, random encounters can be pretty brutally common, basic stuff like that.

Most of what FF3 tries to do is interesting, but still just doesn't hit as good as FF1 did. And while it is WAY better than FF2, I just feel like it's a step back from FF2. Not to say 2 is better, but I feel like 2 had some good potential to build off of that 3 just didn't feel like it did right. Did I think it was bad? No, not by any means. I had a good time with it and there were moments where I genuinely got a rise from it like when everyone comes to fight the dragon statues and stuff like that. But even though it was certainly better than 2, I just think 1 was so surprisingly solid that is genuinely casts a shadow over the rest of the NES games in the series, sad to say. And so, without further ado, here's my current rankings:

And that's about that on that. Glad I played it, and I'm VERY excited to play FF4 next. The SNES is when the series is supposed to start REALLY cooking, and I cannot wait to see what all the hype is about!

Here Comes Niko! (August 3, 2021) - PC

A shiny new collectathon I've had my eyes on for a little bit. Here Comes Niko is a game where you run around doing tasks for people as an audition to become a Professional Friend! You collect junk, play some minigames, do some jumping, typical platformer collectathon junk. But I would actually describe this as a mix between walking simulator and collectathon. There's no enemies or anything to really impede your progress, it's a very relaxed game where you just around and do these tasks at your own leisure. And I really enjoyed it!

I thought the game was very fun, Niko feels pretty good to control, maybe a little standard with nothing too flashy in their moveset. But considering there's no real pressure in the game I think that's okay. I like the art a lot, the Paper Mario style suits it very well and is neat to see in a non RPG game. And I LOVE the NPCs, there's a lot of REALLY hot furries in this game, more than I expected. I liked the Seagull girls a lot, the volleyball cat chick was cute, I liked the leemur music person too... There's a hot hedgehog in it. There's a lot of really hot characters in this game. And everyone else is ADORABLE if they're not oddly sexy. So that gets the game my approval. Cute music, lots to do, some really nice summery vibes in each world, and some really nice and relaxing worlds make this game a lot of fun and a very relaxed time. The summery vibes actually really reminded me of Sunshine in a great way cause I fucking LOVE Mario Sunshine.

My biggest issue with the game though, is actually an issue I had with Super Kiwi 64 too. And that's the fact the game has NO map for each world and NO hints as to what your objectives are. The maps are tiny and you don't need to 100% each world to progress, yes. But I feel like it becomes a bit of an issue when you go in to 100% the game especially. A quick and easy way to see where I am on the island, potentially see where NPCs are, and a list of what objectives I've completed would be SO helpful! Sometimes I'd run around for a hot minute just doing the wrong job cause there's no way to tell really. You can return to the start of the map to see your totals, and talk to your employer who will tell you if you have something else to do. But if you're in the middle of something, you have to drop it and walk ALLLL the way back to get there. It's a little annoying.

I have some other issues like Niko being a little hard to control at times and the water volleyball making me so mad I had to go on a walk considering it's a very easy game aside from that one challenge lol. But overall I think the game is fine. Just could use some quality of life improvements to make getting everything feel less like a massive chore (especially where totals and seeing what you've already gathered is concerned)

Also can I just say... they never say Niko is trans but oh my GOD it's so obvious. I doubt they're actually trying to hide it. But like... The game is all about frogs... You're not fooling anyone.

Toree Jolly Jam (December 23, 2023) - PC

Well... it's another Toree game! I'll be honest, there's not much to say about this one as it is just one single stage. But it is fun! It's super cute, got great music and aesthetics, and it's not scary thank god! I didn't find a single creepy thing which was a relief. Also it played like Toree Saturn which is great! And Toree seems to have a new friend on their back which is interesting.

I also liked all the fun little presents you could unlock. It's mostly just alt characters but the demo for the other game featuring a bird (I forgot the name) was also neat and I can't believe they teased me with a Toree RPG!! PLEASE SIACTRO I NEED A TOREE RPG! I NEED TO SEE THIS BIRD THROW HANDS!

But yeah, it's simple, just a single stage like I said. But it's cute and I'll shill Siactro at any opportunity I can!

Mighty Switch Force Academy (November 23, 2015) - PC

Have I ever mentioned I'm a Mighty Switch Force fan? I feel like I never talk about it but I loved the first two games a LOT and I think Patricia is SOOOOO hot. Ahem. Anyway. So the only game I had never tried was Academy. But a while back one of my bffs bought me the Mighty Switch Force collection, and I saw it as the perfect opportunity to try it out!

Academy is interesting as it's not exactly what I would consider MSF3. It's more like a spinoff. It's meant for 4 players at once, although you can play it solo like I did. However, I will say, playing is solo make it VERY apparent imo that you should not be playing it solo. It's clearly meant for multiplayer as the maps are MASSIVE.

But if you do play it by yourself? It's fine. It's short and pretty typical MSF stuff. But it does have some unique stuff like screen warping, so you jump into pits and end up at the top of the screen. And the stages with the giant blocks were interesting. But overall I kind of thought the levels were a little boring or sometimes even frustrating. But again I think that's cause I played it solo. Idk about buying this game on its own but in a collection? I think it's a fine addition. You have 2 fantastic solo games and a neat spinoff to play with 3 friends who also think Patricia Wagon is SOOOOOOO hot-

M.U.S.H.A. (December 21, 1990) - Sega Genesis

Another cool Shmup on NSO! It's genuinely kind of a treasure trove for the genre if you haven't played a lot of the old ones like I hadn't. I was sitting around on the couch, with nothing to do. And I decided, hey what the heck? Why not try that MUSHA shmup on NSO? So... I did. And that's why I'm here now.

MUSHA is a shmup where, from what I can gather, you play as a person piloting a big humanoid robot and fighting against the military force sent out by a rogue AI trying to destroy earth? The plot is a little difficult to find because from my understand it's different in each region. Also this game is a sequel? Well, regardless. It's cool. You fight massive waves on enemies, and get to use elemental power ups that give you different powers and have 3 stages of progression! Electric was, as is always the case in shmups with elemental powers, my favorite. And of course you have the little blasters orbiting you that you can command to attack in a variety of patters. It's all well and good, but I will be honest the gameplay wasn't anything mindblowing. A LOT of Shmups from this era have similar mechanics (even down to 3 elemental weapons with multi stage upgrades) and a lot of them tend to have more gimmicks to play around with like tractor beams and sub weapons.

Where MUSHA really shines is in its presentation. The sprites are GREAT, this game looks SO good. There's a level where you can see a river of lava far down below the stage, and shooting down enemies actually makes them fall down into the huge chasm and explode in the river of lava below you. It's honestly kind of impressive to me! The soundtrack is also good, and I like that the game kind of has a Metroid twist at the end. I was genuinely surprised to see I had been playing as a woman the whole time! And even having a boss show up at the end and try to sneak attack you after the final boss was pretty neat and not something I usually see in shmups. Genuinely cool!

So yeah MUSHA maybe isn't the most mind blowing shmup in the world but I think it's very good looking and cool.

Guilty Gear Isuka (December 17, 2003) - PC

Alright... So for a hot minute this was the only GG game on Steam I had never beaten. And the reason for that? I think this game kinda sucks lol. For context this isn't a traditional fighting game. It's a 4 player fighting game where all the characters are on screen at once and you have to press a button to turn around and there's lanes I couldn't figure out how to use (cpus barely use it either so it doesn't really matter) and while it's certainly interesting. It just kinda blows.

It's not super fun, even with the interesting gimmick, it's very clunky (having to use a button to turn around is BRUTAL, I get why they do it... but like, dude...) and overall just feels not fun to play. And a big reason for that is that I think the Steam Port is a little messed up. Mapping buttons to it is VERY difficult and took a long time to figure out. The Arcade ladder being like, an endless roguelike but without any of the upgrades that make roguelikes fun made it very boring imo. Genuinely, I think this might be the worst GG game. I finally got one I like less than Strive, you guys (at least Strive works).

But it's not all doom and gloom, the game does have some good stuff. It's got a good soundtrack like you'd expect, a personal favorite of mine (and one of my new favorite GG songs) is 'Drunkard Does Make Wise Remarks'. It has some GREAT stages that never returned after this as far as I'm aware? There's a pirate ship stage, a stage in a field with weird giant beasts walking through it, and maybe my personal favorite : A cookout on the beach with the Jellyfish Pirates. The stages in this one rule! Leopaldon is also super cool. And the fact you can make your own custom colors genuinely rules. Here's a custom Sol I made when I tried to play this game ages ago:

#roundup #2024 #thoughts

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woodstoneconfessions · 2 months ago

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I live in the US so theres already a show but a West Coast Ghosts show isnt a horrible idea, for the setting I was thinking Pointy Reyes area abbey house maybe?

ghosts :

Native American - 10,000 years ago - 1542 possibly some coastal miwok ghosts that live near the property?

Spanish Colonial - a middle aged friar who accidentally drank poisined wine, would sort of be a Thor equivalent in terms of role?

Mexican Period - Daughter of a Ranchero Owner who died right after she was married, cries a lot and mostly is very dramatic about stuff, a completely orginal character, sobbing can be heard by the livings, maybe fell down stairs?

Early Gold Rush - the ghost of a stagecoach bandit that had a "rivalry" with Murietta, possibly hanged on the property? feels stupid later on because of Murietta's crimes being to avenge his loved ones while his were simply to seem cool, would probably have a Humphrey sort of personality?

Gold Rush - the ghost of a folk "hero" and entertainer, born in oregon country in the 1830s, and was shot while resting with his horse on the property after being chased out of town, secretely born a female, might have identified as trans if they were alive, equivalent to Thomas possibly? Isn't in love with the living girl. a slightly more shyer and insecure personality then Thomas or Friedrich, overcompensating by being dramatic, Ghost power could be something revolving summoning his horse?

Railway Age - A neighboring property ghost and minor character who fell out of a train, a female reporter, and a love interest for the goldrush entertainer (I've decided his name is Wells) possibly? basically a nigel, similar personality to Katherine from Newsies

Gilded Age - Lady of the House who ran the house while it was a girls school, Husband hit her on the head with a frying pan when she refused to sell the school, her sun hat hides the wound , treats everyone like children, always correcting others mannerisms, Hetty/Fanny/Adelaide equivalent but also sort of Svenni?

Great Depression - ghost of an Okie younger teen who died after falling out of a window during a dare to go into the abandoned at thw time abbey, sort of a Mary/Kitty counterpart, but less obsessive and more whimsical, loves stories and watching movies like anne of green gables

Vietnam - 17 to 18 year old from San Diego, went on a road trip with her family so they could have good memories incase her brothers got drafted, stuck head out car and got decapitated by a sign, undiagnosed autistic who loved animals, ghost power is that she can travel anywhere in a car as long as the car was made before the day her brothers were drafted

90s - A coastal miwok teen who died during a cultural event, who pretends to be a colonial era ghost and to not speak english, which the other very old ghosts find strange since older ghosts often learn to speak the modern languages

2010s - a silicon valley tech bro college student who is a trevor/julian equivalent, stereotyped as the type to be obsessed with manic pixie dream girls, but hes actually a decent person who feels protective of the younger ghosts, 100% has a mustache tatoo

the ghosts do kind of skew younger, gosh i spent 4 hours on this

I know having two gold rush ghosts is a lot but I was enamored by both ideas, I'm a big history nerd, so this shows humor would probably be pretty history based (Oregon Wells is basically Scottish Thomas) and californian culture references, I really wanted to include a asian (either a chinese 49-er or a filipino field worker) ghost in but I couldn't find a good concept

My favorite is probably Wells, Lavinia "Lauvey" (the oakie girl), Bell (70s), or Darren (Tech Bro).

If there was a Ghosts series for your country what kinda ghosts would be in it?

#der geister #ghosts bbc #ghosts cbs #ghosts ard #ghosts uk #bbc ghosts #ghosts fandom #ghosts us #ghosts regional concept #woodstone non confessions #ghosts ocs

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prince-rowan-of-the-forest · 2 years ago

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(Vi)vianne Marie Zephyr (1/2)

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Here’s a list of things that Vivianne Marie Zephyr knew.

One, she was twelve years old.

Two, twelve-year-olds should not be trusted to make their own decisions.

Three, twelve-year-olds didn’t know anything about themselves or the world. (at least, according to her extended family they didn't.)

Four, Vivianne is not a girl.

----

| Ao3 | Next -> |

Warnings:

Virgil gets deadnamed, mostly by himself but also by people who don't know he's trans.

Pairings: Virgil & Remus

Word Count: 5535

Notes:

This fic is basically exploring Virgil's story more or less up to the point of 'Mine is a World of Rooftops and Love Songs', the first chapter especially focuses on him discovering that he's trans. Because of this there's a lot of deadnaming/using the wrong pronouns for him at the start because he's learning.

This is also written from the perspective of a twelve-year-old learning about the idea of being trans for the first time, so obviously he's not going to get the terms exactly right, etc.

I'd also like to note that I myself am not trans, so I'll apologise now if anything here is inaccurate, feel free to correct me if the need arises.

----

Disclaimer over, this fic is a precursor to 'Mine is a World of Rooftops and Love Songs', the fic I wrote for New Years exploring Virgil's backstory. This one will(should) have two parts!

I'm hoping to write a similar 'backstory' fic for every side before moving onto oneshots in the 'present day'

I've decided to name this AU Forests and Rooftops, (at least for now, I might change it if I come up with something better lol)

I'll be tagging fics from this au with 'Rowan's F&R verse' on Tumblr, and they'll all be collected in a series on Ao3 :D

Happy reading!

(and apologies for such a long note

----

Here’s a list of things that Vivianne Marie Zephyr knew.

One, she was twelve years old.

Two, twelve year olds should not be trusted to make their own decisions.

Three, twelve year olds didn’t know anything about themselves or the world. (at least, according to her extended family they didn't.)

Four, Vivianne is not a girl.

Now Vivianne knows very well that she has girl parts and long hair and because of that everyone seems to think it’s ok to pester her-

Actually, if she’s not a girl, surely she shouldn’t use girl words to refer to herself, like those pesky ‘she’ pronouns that made her feel all icky and gross whenever anyone talked to her.

Maybe she should try ‘he’ instead. That’s what all the boys used. Now she- no, he - wasn’t sure if he - ok no stop that thought, the ‘he’ actually made her- him? Feel really good, all warm and fuzzy inside.

Ok, well that’s the first step. Vivianne was a ‘he’ not a she.

Obviously this revelation didn’t come immediately or all of a sudden.

She- he - had always hated it when her- his! ( Why was this so hard? It was what he wanted for gods sake!) parents called him a girl, especially hated it when they called him their little princess, or tried to style his hair or make him wear a dress for some fancy occasion. Couldn’t they see that he wasn’t a girl? Weren’t parents supposed to know that kind of stuff?

Oh well. Vivianne thought as he was going into his seventh grade homeroom for the first time after a summer moping by himself in his room doing nothing as usual. Maybe his parents just didn’t realise. Maybe he should tell them, but- uh- later. Once he’d figured out everything himself first.

Because at the moment, though he had concluded that he liked ‘he’ much, much better than ‘she’. Vivianne was still only twelve years old, and he still had a lot to learn.

—-

It took almost a week for Vivianne to get used to referring to himself with the different pronouns in his head but he was pretty sure he’d gotten it down by now. Despite that, though, he still didn’t tell anyone. He was pretty sure the other kids in his class would laugh at him, and he didn’t really have any friends he could talk to about it either. So for now, he decided he’d just do his own research. (Oh, he really really liked he pronouns).

So, that weekend, Vivianne walked to the local library, wearing the biggest and cozyist hoodie he owned (both for comfort and anonymity, even at only twelve years old, Vivianne knew that gossip at their school spread like wildfire and he didn’t want to be called a nerd on top of everything else). At the library he sat himself down at one of the old computers, pulled an empty notebook out of his bag as well as a few pens and started researching.

Now it might be weird that he did his research in the public library instead of within the safe confines of his own home, but he wasn’t quite sure about what adults would think about him not being a girl yet, especially not his parents. His parents were the last people he wanted to know about this right now, not when he wasn’t sure.

His researching took up a lot of the cool Saturday afternoon. He learned about a lot of new terms and ideas, things like ‘trans’ and ‘nonbinary’. He discovered that he wasn’t weird for not feeling like a girl and he definitely wasn’t the only one. He learned that there were also girls who had originally been boys, and people who didn’t feel like either. He discovered that there were people who sat at every point inbetween and even some people who didn’t fit on the spectrum at all.

There were so many more pronouns out there too, more than just ‘he’ and ‘she’. There was ‘they’, for starters, and then whole anthologies of other sets that he’d never even heard of. (He was a little intimidated by how large the list of neo-pronouns he found was, so he just wrote down the term and underlined it a few times in red, hoping it would remind him to come back to it later). He tried out ‘they’ pronouns on himself for now, by whispering them under his breath. They didn’t give him the same fuzzy feeling as ‘he’ did, but it still felt considerably better than the thought of ‘she’ so he would accept it.

The research session had been groundbreaking and he walked home swinging his arms back and forth, happy with the pages he’d filled up with notes.

—

“Vivianne?”

A few weeks later, when someone called him by his name he found himself so overcome with revulsion at the thought of that name belonging to him that he almost didn’t even respond to the teacher who had called on him. Because of the shock, he had muddled up the words he had been trying to say in response to her question and ended up being laughed at by most of the class. He shrank back into his seat, mumbling the last of his answer so quietly that the person sat beside him had to repeat it for the teacher.

So, Vivianne didn’t like that name. Which, now that he thought about it, actually featured in his research a little. He remembered a section about how trans people (which he had concluded was what he probably was) as well as other’s who didn’t identify with their birth gender quite often chose new names.

Now that he considered it, he hadn’t always been as comfortable with the name his parents had given him as he had thought. It was a nice name, objectively, it would have been a lovely name if he had actually been a girl and he was sure he would’ve loved it in that case. But… well he wasn’t a girl, he was aware of that much by now, so obviously ‘Vivianne’ didn’t fit.

For a few days, he tried referring to himself as ‘Viv’ instead. It was just a short version of ‘Vivianne’ and his parents called him that sometimes anyway, a nickname at best and it still felt pretty feminine. After that it was shortened just a little more to ‘Vi’.

‘Vi’ stuck for much longer than Viv had. He’d managed to co-erce his parents into calling him Vi as a new nickname and it felt good, much better than Vivianne, or even Viv. He liked the ‘V’ sound. For some reason there still felt like something was missing. Vi wasn’t his . Not in the way he thought a name should be. But it was good, better than Viv and definitely better than Vivianne. He liked it, even if it wasn’t perfect, he could search for something better later and use Vi for now. Until he found his name.

—-

About three quarters of the way through seventh grade, Vi cut his hair.

It had been in the spur of the moment and he regretted it immediately. Regretted it so much it almost brought him out of his current mental breakdown and into another one.

He had an awful day at school. The teachers kept picking on him to answer questions even though he could hardly ever find words to speak normally in school nowadays. At lunch a group of older girls had been picking on him for hiding himself away in the corner and he’d ended up going to the nurse with a scraped up knee where he fell trying to get away. His favourite hoodie had ended up getting covered in dirt and mud where he fallen. And then of course he’d had to go back to class, where everyone had laughed at him for not being able to answer a question he was picked on for because he just couldn’t force himself to speak.

During the walk home he’d worked himself up into a panic, thoughts spinning round and round his head and everything was just so much bigger and brighter than it usually was.

“Hey Vi!” His mother called from somewhere inside the house when he opened the door, “How was school, sweetheart?”

Vi didn’t answer, instead he burst into tears right there on the spot, unable to hold it in anymore. He choked back a sob and ran for the stairs, slamming his door and collapsing on the bed. He couldn’t breath, no matter how tight he curled himself he couldn’t get himself to take even breaths through the sobs.

And then he looked up, and though the tears he saw his reflection in the mirror.

He saw his long black hair, hair that fell in thick waves down his back. Now pooled around his tiny curled up form like a shawl. It made him sick. Every time he looked in a mirror, every time he saw his reflection, every time someone called him a girl .

Before he could think, Vi was standing again on shaky legs. He stood in front of the mirror, looking into his own wide blue eyes, his pale skin, his hair that fell over his shoulders. He looked like a girl. It made him so angry.

In one swoop, he grabbed the scissors from his desk and cut off the chunk that hung over his shoulder.

‘Her hair looks so beautiful!’

‘Such pretty hair for a beautiful little girl’

‘I would kill for hair like hers’

‘I would love to braid her hair…’

With each thought came another chunk, everything people would say to him, every comment about how lovely his hair was and how he should never cut it, until there was hardly anything left to cut. His hair made him a girl, and now it was gone. It felt almost a little like he’d cut away a part of himself. He felt lighter, almost, relieved, maybe.

And then he realised what a mistake he had made.

He stood in his room, finally calmer than before, but his floor was covered in hair, his hand holding the scissors was still shaking and all he could think was that his mum was going to kill him for this.

It looked horrific. He had cut some bits far too short and now they stuck out from his head, his bangs were now the only part of his hair that looked presentable, being the only part he didn’t touch. The rest of his hair made him look a little like he’d been mauled.

Some parts were cut so short he could see his scalp.

Cutting his hair hadn’t made him look like a boy. It had just made him look stupid, he would be a laughing stock.

He didn’t know what to do. So for a long while he just stood there, staring at his own reflection as silent tears dripped down his face. What the hell would happen now? What would his parents say when they found out? He’d get in so much trouble, and then- school was a whole other issue.

If he was already being bullied for barely speaking and altogether being skinny and small for his age, Vi would be bullied tenfold for this, he’d have the whole school after him, if his parents didn’t murder him first.

Speak of the devil, someone knocked on the door.

“Vi… honey? Are you in there?” His mother called through the door, “I heard you crying before, may I come in?”

“N-no-!” Virgil said as loud as he could, it was still barely an inside voice, “Please- don’t.”

“Alright,” She said, “I won’t come in, but… if you’re up for talking you can come to the door?”

Vi sniffed, before taking a deep breath that ended up choked by a sob. In the end he was able to step over the hair and sit down with his back to the bedroom door.

“I- I’m here,” Virgil said, resting his chin on his knees and trying to wipe some of the tears from his face. He could hear shifting on the other side of the door. His mum must be sitting down as well.

“Good,” She said, her voice quiet, “Now, are you ok?”

“No,” Vi said miserably, he wasn’t ok, he really wasn’t. Not right now. He knew by now that keeping his feelings a secret was no way to deal with them, this kind of conversation- with the bedroom door between them- had been happening since Vi had his own room in the house. There was no point keeping his feelings from her anyway, she could always tell, somehow, even if he didn’t tell her.

“Can you tell me what you’re feeling?” She asked, Vi squeezed his knees tighter to his chest.

“Upset, angry,” He mumbled.

“Can you tell me why?”

“School,” Vi answered, “Mostly- teachers keep calling me and- I can’t say the answer even though I know it a-and everyone laughs at me-”

“Oh sweetheart-” His mom paused, “Why are you angry?”

“At- at myself, mostly,” He almost whispered, “I… did something stupid.”

There was a long pause before his mother spoke.

“Can you tell me what you did, sweetheart?”

“I don’t- I don’t wanna,” He mumbled, “You’re- gonna be mad…”

“I won’t,” she said, “I promise you, whatever has happened I won’t be mad at you,”

“You promise?” He asked, he was still certain she’d be angry, one of his hands had come to clutch at the uneven strands of hair that jutted out from his head at odd angles now, she had always loved his hair.

“I promise,” She told him, her voice firm and reassuring. Vi still didn’t believe her, but she would find out at one point or another anyway. So he stood up, took a step back and opened the door.

She gasped when she saw him, hand flying to cover her mouth and eyes wide in shock.

Vi looked away, “I told you you’d be mad,”

“Oh honey I- I’m not mad,” She said, taking a deep breath, “Just- shocked! What happened?”

“I… I just got so angry- with- with myself and with everyone else and- I did it before I even realised what I was doing…” He said after a few deep breaths, looking away as he spoke so she wouldn’t see the tears welling up in his eyes again.

“Oh, darling that’s ok,” She said, crouching down to look up at him, “What were you so angry about?”

“Just- just the way everyone talks- and- how my hair looks so girlish and makes everyone say stupid stuff about how pretty it makes me a- and I don’t like it- so- so I just-” Vi cut off, he hadn’t meant to say that, he was trying to keep all this boy stuff a secret until he was sure about it-

“You don’t like being pretty?” His mother asked, Vi shook his head.

“No- it’s- it’s not about being pretty,” He sniffed, wiping away more tears, “It’s- it’s um, it’s that pretty is a girl thing…”

His voice was barely audible now, but she heard him and smiled fondly.

“So you don’t like girl things?” She asked. Vi nodded, hand fisting in the hem of his sweater, “Any reason why?”

“They- they make me feel uncomfortable, all icky and gross, like I’m sick,” He mumbled, oh well, he was deep enough into it now, “Cuz I’m not a girl,”

“I see,” She nodded, “If you’re not a girl, then what are you?”

“A boy,” He said, before pausing, “I think- I um- I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure… but…”

“I understand,” She nodded, before tapping his head lightly, “Now, we can fix this.”

“We can?” He asked, “Wait- you’re- you’re ok? With me not being a girl?”

“Of course we can,” She nodded, “We might need to wait for it to grow out a little bit, but we can take you to a hairdresser who can cut it however you’d like, ok? And- of course I’m ok with it! What sort of mother would I be if I stopped caring for you because you’re not a girl?”

Vi sighed in relief, slumping forwards and hugging her around the middle, she returned the gesture, squeezing him tight.

“Now, lets clean up this mess together and you can tell me all about not being a girl, okay?”

—-

The next day, Vi wore a beanie to school to cover up the absolute mess that was his hair.

He’d left his bangs out, and actually he quite liked how it ended up looking. He didn’t look as much like a girl with the beanie, and that felt… really nice.

It was weird, not having all of his hair anymore. It was weirdly relieving, even if he was absolutely terrified all day that someone would ask him a question or a teacher would ask him to remove the beanie. Or worse, that someone would take it off by force.

Which, of course, because Vi can never have a nice day, is what happened at lunch.

He was cornered by the bullies again. They were taunting him about his new lack of hair and had backed him against the wall. One of them had reached forward and snatched the beanie whilst he wasn’t looking at her and all four of the girls had gone silent before bursting out into peals of laughter. Vi had ran, trying to hold back tears until he’d gotten somewhere away from people. He’d ended up hiding himself away behind the bushes surrounding the old bike shed- it was usually quiet at this end of the school and he hoped no-one had followed him as he sank to the ground and tried to fight back tears.

“Hey!” Someone called, followed by the sound of said person forcing their way through the bushes despite there being a path just on the other side. Vi’s head snapped up to look at them and they grinned when he met their eyes, “Hey! I got your beanie back!”

Vi blinked slowly, he’d never seen this kid before, so they must not be in the same classes even though they looked the same age. He had a white streak in the front of his dark brown hair, which was cool. Bright green eyes and a curly mustache that looked to be drawn onto his face with marker. He was holding Vi’s beanie, just like he’d said, and was still grinning ear to ear.

“Oh right, you don’t talk much, do you?” He said, “I heard rumours, but anyway, here,”

He came over and held out the beanie. Vi hesitated, before reaching out to take it. The stranger grinned, before turning and slumping down next to him with a thud, making Vi jump.

“So! What’s the story with the hair?” He asked, leaning forward, “Oh, wait, what’s your name? I’m Remus!”

Vi made a quiet noise, trying to collect his thoughts. Should he tell Remus his name? He should tell him his real name, right? But then Remus would call him that- but then what if he changed Vi and then- well, Remus probably wouldn’t stick around long enough for that anyway, so… maybe it didn’t matter what he said, or, didn’t say because no matter how hard he tried, the words ‘I’m Vi’ wouldn’t make their way out of his mouth. He huffed, before reaching for his bag and grabbing a notepad and opening it to the front page. He turned it to face Remus and tapped the inside front cover, on which he’d written ‘Vi’s Research Notebook’.

“He speaks! Speaks through the book, at least!” Remus cheered and Virgil was immediately stunned by the use of ‘he’ because to everyone else he was a girl, being called ‘he’ by someone else felt almost like a metaphorical punch to the gut, but… in a good way? “Um- why’re you looking at me like that?”

Vi shrugged uselessly, though he couldn’t seem to get that astounded expression off of his face.

“Was it cuz I called you ‘he’? Cuz that’s just what I thought you were- I couldn’t really tell by looking at you-”

Virgil cut him off by shaking his head, frantically tapping the book where, underneath his name he had written down ‘He/him’. Well, at least this book was coming in useful now.

“Oh great! Me too!” Remus grinned, “Wait then why were you looking at me weird?”

Vi paused, taking a deep breath before flicking to the back of the book and grabbing a pen, writing quickly: ‘Most people think I’m a girl, that’s why I cut my hair.’

“Oooooh!” Remus nodded after leaning forward to read the words, and Vi was once again stunned, because… that was ok? “Well you did a real shoddy job but I respect the effort! So, Vi, what’s school really like? I’m new see and I’ve just gotten out of doing tours and stuff with my stupid brother cuz for some reason they thought it’d be best to leave me with someone I knew even though my brother’s a donkey.”

Vi couldn’t help but let out a soundless laugh, something he tried not to do in school- mainly because people would prod at him for it. He hated questions from them most of all. He grabbed his pen again and wrote down ‘Why’d you join late?’ on the line below the previous statement. This was actually a pretty good way to communicate with someone who was actually willing to wait a second for his answers. Maybe he should talk to his parents about it.

“Oh ‘cuz a few years ago I skipped a grade but like all this year I’ve been in hospital so they put me back where I was supposed to be cuz I missed most of this year.”

He hummed, nodding along while he fidgeted with some grass, before flicking through the book and opening it to a double page on which he had written down things he’d noticed about the teachers- which would let you off with homework, who was best to go to with problems, who was worst. Once Vi was pretty sure Remus had read enough of the page to get the gist, he flicked back to the back and wrote ‘I can show you all the good hiding spots are too.’

“Perfect!” Remus grinned, bouncing a little, “I think we’re gonna get along great, new friend!”

—-

It turned out that Vi only shared one of his classes with Remus, which was annoying because he might have been able to get through all of the bullying about his hair if he had a friend with him (he’d never really had one of those before, wasn’t that exciting?). But for now he was stuck being passed notes with horribly ugly drawings of him, or whispered name calling and even more notes that called him mean names.

At least even after learning Vi’s real name Remus kept calling him Vi, and kept using ‘he’ too, even though people called him weird for it. It made Vi very happy, which was all that seemed to matter where Remus was concerned.

—-

It was only a few days later, after he’d spent lunch behind the bike shed with Remus (it turned out to become a good meeting spot) that his teacher had arrived late to class.

Usually a teacher being late would mean extra time to chat with your classmates. Usually the three kids who already had phones would be gathered around while they played some stupid video of kittens chasing lights, or something else that they considered funny enough to save to their phones.

Not today though, because a teacher being late to Vi’s class meant that the kids in the class who liked to pick on him could gang up on him like they did during lunch.

Someone spooked him from behind his desk, making him flinch and cover his head.

“Not even gonna stand up for yourself? Scrawny little freak?” Someone called from over his head, Virgil only squeaked pathetically and curled up further in his chair as someone pushed him roughly, almost enough to move the chair itself, “Look at her! She’s so pathetic!”

“What’s wrong? Cant hide behind your hair anymore?” Someone else mocked, “Oh yeah, cuz you hacked it all off, what’d you use again, a hedgecutter?”

“She does look a little like a dead bush,” A boy commented, “She looks a little like the thing my dad ran over in the road this morning!”

The people around him broke out into noises that were a mix of disgust and laughter, Vi just curled further into his seat, gripping his own arms in a death grip as the other students continued to poke and prod at him.

“Hey!” Someone yelled over the noise of the students, Vi shuddered, even without looking he could feel the magic from whoever this kid was, and Vi doubted he was even doing anything right now, “What’re you all doing? Get away from her!”

Most of the students paused then, turning to face the voice, some of them whispered.

“It’s him!” They said, “The kid who lives in the forests with the faeries !”

“Really? I thought that was just a rumour!” They said.

“I’ve seen him going with my own eyes!” They said, “It’s true! He goes in and comes out, every time, completely fine and safe!”

“Is he cursed? Does he have magic? Is he a faerie himself?”

“No need for all the whispers,” The someone they were all talking about called over the frenzied whispers, silencing them immediately, “Why don’t we all calm down and go to our seats, ok?”

“Or what?” Someone with more bravery than common sense yelled from the crowd, “You’re gonna get your pixie friends to come and giggle at us?”

“You’d probably be smarter not to insult the fae,” The person said, “They don’t like being mocked, and they have ways of finding out…”

Most of the class had scrambled back to their seats by now. Now that the crowds were gone, Vi felt that it was safe enough to look up and when he did he saw that the only students who were still standing were Kailee, one of the girls who liked to bully him, and a boy. The boy must be the one speaking, because who else could it be. He was short, but nowhere near Vi’s level. His eyes were blue, but not in the same ghostly-pale sometimes creepy way Virgil’s were, they reminded him more of a sunny day, kind and warm, though Virgil felt the tingle of something supernatural when he looked into them too long. Instead he looked at the other boy’s hair, dirty blond and falling in waves down to his chin. Most notable, though, was the brightly coloured flower crown he wore atop his head. Intricately weaved better than anything Virgil had ever seen with what looked like real flowers, pink and baby blue and a soft yellow.

What really surprised him was the magic, though, the feeling of magic rolling off of him. Vi knew he had some kind of… sense, for magic, but it had never felt half as strong as this before… whoever this kid was…

He and Kailee stared at each other for a minute before she gave up, rolling her eyes and stomping back over to her seat. When their eyes met, the other boy smiled and gave him a thumbs up before walking away and sitting down at the edge of the room just before the teacher had come in.

…No matter who he was, Vi thought he couldn’t be anything but trustworthy.

—-

Vi never talked to the faerie boy, to be fair on him, he never talked to anyone. He also didn’t like referring to him as ‘the faerie boy’ because even though the kid was easily beautiful enough to be, he wasn’t actually fae, he just lived with them, but he didn’t have a better name to call him and Vi was far too anxious to ask. He really wanted to thank the boy for standing up for him, both the first time and the few times it happened afterwards too. Vi was so grateful to him, and probably owed him a whole lot- which might be bad, actually, if this kid really did live with the fae- but because of his intervention people had started to leave him alone.

There was always the occasional thing, someone would trip him or push him or throw little taunts or quips, but the majority of people had decided to leave him alone for the most part. It seemed that knowing Virgil was protected by the boy who befriended the faerie courts was enough deterrent for the most part.

Vi still couldn’t speak and school still wasn’t great. He and Remus still spent lunches behind the bike shed because even though Vi wasn’t followed by bullies everywhere he went now, people still stared and whispered and it made him uncomfortable. Teachers still found amusement in picking on him during class and watching him struggle to answer, in classes he didn’t share with the faerie boy people still laughed at him for it.

But it was… better. Vi decided it was much better than it had been.

—-

The rest of seventh grade passed in a blur for Vi.

Somehow, he had managed to remain friends with Remus. The rumours that had been spread hadn’t scared him off and somehow neither had Vi’s inability to speak nor his limited fashion sense (Remus had tried to persuade him to wear something other than hoodies and baggy trousers a few times to no avail over the time they spent together).

They had quickly started hanging out outside of school too, since it turned out that both of them had a lot of free time on their hands. His parents had been ecstatic to find out that he now had a friend and Remus said that his own parents were glad to have some peace and quiet for once. They’d started slowly, just with Remus coming over for an evening after school one day or another, but that had very quickly become them spending every weekend they could together. If the weather was good they’d go out, to the park mostly where they’d get ice-cream or a chocolate bar and then sit and just exist together for hours. If the weather wasn’t so good they’d spend time in Virgil’s house, or at the library- though Remus didn’t like the library that much- or the coffee shop near the school.

Vi really thought this whole thing was brilliant. He had someone he could connect with, who wanted to spend time with him. Someone who was loud and boisterous and downright intolerable at times to make up for Vi’s quiet and anxious dimeaner. They balanced each other out perfectly. Vi’s mother said it was fate, Vi didn’t believe in such things, but… he couldn’t deny that having Remus as a friend was… pretty cool.

And even more importantly, now he had someone to study for his finals with.

Since 6th grade was ending and exams were almost on top of them, Vi, of course, was already getting incredibly stressed over them. He’d found- after finally getting Remus to sit down to study after half an hour of insistence- that ssitting in his bedroom and listening to Remus ramble about whatever units they had been learning was far better in comparison than making notes on a textbook for the hundredth time. Listening to Remus made it interesting, like he was using the biology they’d been learning to tell a story without leaving any of the gross bits out. Vi had found himself laughing so hard he wheezed by the end of it and came out confident that he wouldn’t forget the bio content any time soon.

Every exam came and went with just as much stress as usual. Vi was sure he’d had more panic attacks than last year- not that he was keeping count. Even with the increased amount of panic, though, he found himself going into every exam calm- or as calm as he could, given the circumstances- after Remus found him and talked him down from his worries every time.

Having a friend made the problem so much easier for him to deal with and Vi couldn’t be more grateful for it. Remus managed to drag Vi out of his little ball of stress after every exam he had and take him to get ice-cream (something else he’d definitely had more of than last year) all whilst saying with no hint of a doubt that Vi aced them.

As summer began and Vi prepared to have Remus breaking down his door every morning for the next eight weeks, got ready to be busy over the summer for the first time in his life, he couldn’t think of anything better that he could be doing.

Finally, his life was just a little bit better.

And all it took was the knowledge that he was not a girl.

----

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#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #Rowans R&F verse #NewYears Verse #gpnna put the old and new tag on there in case anyone is confused #sanders sides virgil #ts virgil #virgil sanders #remus sanders #ts remus

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