#and having a whole identity crisis without having that knowledge

[aroacecatto]

i've been watching heartstopper, haven't finished yet but i wanted to say-

MAN. those scenes, those shots, depicting nick's genuine confusion and struggle with his identity & figuring out his sexual orientation? god man i am aroace, not bi, but that hits so close to home.

him realising he likes a dude as well sends him into a confusion about his hetero identity. and my confusion was around if i have even experienced a crush before, confusing aesthetic and platonic attraction and being genuinely confused!

and i didn't really know what asexual meant, so i spent some time half knowing i wasn't straight but not knowing what i was then. i had a moment thinking i was bi or pan cuz i felt equally the same to everyone

either way, heteronormativity, amatonormativity and all that has instilled expectations in all of us to the point that when something diverges from the norms. it's confusion time- like how can something i've grown up believing not be true? but identity is so much more fluid than that and those norms harms everyone

you gotta accept and love yourself no matter what, you gotta back yourself up or who else will? gotta remember that it's okay to have these feelings.

just figuring out and navigating and accepting your feelings... a whole 'nother journey

[blognam333z]

Human Chimerism it’s a condition where a person possessed two sets of DNA rather than one, this prompt would focus on one type: “Vanishing-twin” otherwise known as “Fusion Chimerism” where one of the twin embryos was absorb by the stronger surviving twin embryo fused together into one. The person could live their lives without knowledge of it. Other than if there’s signs of strange birthmarks, different pigment on parts of there body and different eye color or a simple genetic tests could identify it.

A: Human I notice something, according to your medical data you have two-sets of DNA? Aren’t humans suppose to have one set? Is it mutation or genetic engineering or perhaps some weird organ transplant?

H: Oh no… I well before I was born, I sorta… ate my twin sibling embryo in the womb?

A: W-What?

H: I didn’t mean to, my brain wasn’t even develop yet. Anyway a part of them now lives inside me, as they’re too weak to gain a physical body.

A: So what does that mean for you, human, are you two people or one person?

H: I’m both, as weird as it sounds. I like the fact I’m my own twin and sorta carrying them a life they didn’t get the chance to see individually. This is just pushed more as I do want a younger sibling at some point before figuring out they’re within me this whole time.

A: I don’t know… but that’s just beautiful… (mind: As in a weird way to resolve for a human to avoid a potential identity crisis.)

[badaziraphaletakes]

In which some poor innocent unsuspecting reader submitted an ask and I respond by throwing an entire textbook at them

Like seriously i won’t even be upset if no one reads this PhD dissertation, like actually what is wrong with me omg

The ask:

I want to start by saying I love this account and really appreciate the rebuttals I see here to some of the messed up stuff the fandom’s spit out over the past few years. That being said, the most recent post about “the creepiest take you’ve ever seen,” was one I disagreed with strongly. It’s entirely normal to enjoy watching media where characters have breakdowns. It is not a desire to see a person breakdown. It is a desire to watch a good story.

(Edit: Just realized I somehow omitted to include the full text of the ask here. I apologize for the error! Will fix it soon. -Mod X)

My response:

Hi and thank you for your kind words! (Also idk why there is this huge gap in the text here, sorry haha!) If it were a necessary part of the story, or a part of the story that made sense, I would agree. But it’s not necessary (esp not at this point in the story) and therefore wouldn’t be “good”, if we are defining good art as being emotional truthful, which I imagine is a pretty uncontroversial definition.

Side note: We already saw him have this exact shattering breakdown in Uz. So that renders most of what I am about to say (and arguably some of what you have said) somewhat moot. But I’m going to continue anyway because some of the points brought up here touch on issues that I think bear re-visiting often.

It’s cathartic, it’s engaging, and it helps people who’ve been through the same thing see themselves reflected. For example, I like watching someone on tv hit rock bottom with their addiction because I’ve been through that, and seeing them finally realize they have to work on recovery and actually do it is motivating and empowering.

I’m so sorry you’ve been through that. I haven’t (although I am estranged from an entire side of my family due to alcoholism and meth addiction, which is a whole fun thing), so I can’t comment on this too much.

But addiction is not the same as an ab*sive relationship. (I do have knowledge of those, both from life experience and from my previous job in ab*se research. I edited a newsletter about family violence research for several years.) Seeing a person suffering from addiction realize they want to work on recovery, and realize that the substance they are addicted to is messing up their life, can make sense. Especially if they're in a place where they're able to work on it and have the opportunity to try to change.

But seeing an ab*se survivor “realize they need to get away from their ab*ser because they’re evil and have a breakdown about it” doesn’t make sense, because being trapped in an absive situation is not about “motivation” or what they think about the abser or even, really, about "empowerment". (Side note that word is thrown a lot to delude women into thinking our capitalist system is working for us rather than oppressing us. But I digress.) It boils down to the fact that they are in danger if they leave. The situation is not within their control.

(This next part is not directed at you, but at the general readership, in case this is helpful discussion for anyone: A lot of addictions aren’t within people's control at all either. It depends very much on the drug we’re talking about, the health of the individual, the quantity and duration of the addiction, whether the person has access to the healthcare they need to be cured, and whether there’s a way for them to get free from the broader societal dysfunctions that led to them being trapped in this situation in the first place.)

Also, with addiction, people can absolutely get past that without losing their sense of self and their identity. If they go through that kind of crisis in the process of healing from addiction, I would argue that something is very wrong. (Not with them, but with the society around them). In a best-case scenario, a person suffering from addiction would have access to the kind of mental and physical healthcare and support system that lets you get free from that without a shattering breakdown or loss of sense of self.

Besides, not everyone who has an addiction has toxic beliefs about themselves or their own identity or other people, etc etc. (Babies who are born addicted come to mind, if we want to talk about the most extreme example.) So I find the idea that addiction is down to toxic beliefs about one's self very suspect. I would argue that 95% of the time, addiction happens because your life sucks. The mental health community is starting to have this conversation about depression and anxiety - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to work on one's "limiting beliefs" and "destructive thought patterns" can only do so much to help you feel better when your whole life is shit anyway. And it can actually make it WORSE if the victim is made to believe that their depression is the fault of their "Faulty thoughts" rather than a reasonable reaction to a shitty situation. Not necessarily saying we should throw CBT out the window altogether, but I am saying that mental healthcare will be a LOT more effective when it learns to truly take the broader societal context into account. I suspect, I hope, we'll soon be having a simialr conversation around addiction.)

And that’s doubly the case for ab*se survivors. They’re not stuck in that situation because there’s something wrong with them that they need to fix. They’re stuck in that situation because there’s something wrong with the ab*ser.

Regardless of the victim’s personal worth as an individual, regardless of whether they’re a good person or what-have-you, they don’t deserve to be ab*sed.

(I'm just waiting to hear about how some therapist tells a victim to work on their "limiting belief" that they need to stay with their ab*ser in order not to be killed, and/or tells them that fearing their ab*ser will kill them is a "cognitive distortion", and tells them to stand up to their ab*ser and/or leave, and then the ab*ser kills them. But I digress.)

And the loss of self when separating from a toxic system that’s defined your whole life is a real thing some people go through. It’s not bad consider that Aziraphale could also go through that, or to want to see that experience reflected.

I want to be very clear that I don’t have the smallest objection to people wanting to see that in a show. But a. that’s not what the person was saying, and b. they were also saying it’s necessary. IT’S NOT. I can’t emphasize this enough.

Loss of self is the worst-case scenario for how something like that goes. Nothing good comes from that. That is a side effect of ab*se (because the ab*ser’s the one who says that “Everything you are is bound up in me and you’re nothing with me"), not an integral part of the process of getting away.

Trauma is not necessary for character growth.

The way these things should go is that the person is able to gradually and mindfully work through the beliefs that are poisoning them with the help of a therapist, trusted friends, etc.

I know what I’m talking about. I worked in trauma research for over seven years. Please trust me on this one.

And again, Aziraphale can’t “separate” from them anyway. There’s nowhere he can go where they won’t find him. So his beliefs are irrelevant to his situation. And if the show implies that his beliefs “need to change” as part of the earth being set free from heaven-hell’s tyranny, or that he “needs to change” in order to be free, I will be writing a strongly-worded letter to the creators.

But more importantly, *they didn’t just say giddy.* They also said apprehensive. Perhaps they’re apprehensive because they know it could be painful to watch. Or because they don’t want to see it handled poorly.

“Giddily apprehensive” sounds an awful lot like “excited” to me. I admit it is ambiguous, though, so I’ll give you that one. I maintain that the OP expressed themselves with an exceptional lack of grace, however. And fwiw, they’d be FAR from the first person to want to see Aziraphale suffer because they are mad at him. I think I have good reason to believe that's what they're getting at here, given how many people in the poster's orbit say the same kinds of things and how many other things I've seen the OP say that are along those lines. I acknowledge I should have made that clearer in my original post.

They aren’t giving this advice (if one could call it that) to a human. They’re saying they’re excited to see a character breakdown. Character arcs like that are common and enticing for good reason.

I have yet to see a reason why I should believe that the things people say about Aziraphale are different than the things they say about people in real life.

I would point you to a couple lines down where you say yourself that we respond to characters the same way we respond to real people.

Personal growth ≠ character growth.

But what makes a good character is that they act like real people.

As an audience, character growth (even negative) is engaging.

Yes, absolutely. But we can absolutely do character growth in a way that does not spread harmful mindsets or misinformation about what ab*se and recovery from ab*se looks like. In fact, I would argue that character growth can’t happen if the writer doesn’t write the characters to behave in a way that is realistic to real life.

Characters follow the same rules, though. We respond to characters the same way we respond to real people. The same general rules of personal development and so forth apply.

The idea that “Aziraphale realizes his ab*sers are terrible” is something he needs to do for his “personal development” is highly objectionable. He doesn’t need to grow in this area. He just needs his ab*sers to leave him alone. Side note: We should give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he already does think they’re terrible and only stays with them because he is terrified. Even if this hadn’t been strongly and frequently hinted at in every episode going all the way back to S1E1 - almost every scene, in fact - we should still give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also, even if we say, for the sake of argument, that Aziraphale was a terrible, awful, horrible person - I know you’re not saying that, to be clear - even then, he still wouldn’t “need to realize his ab*sers are terrible” or “have a complete breakdown” or “lose himself” in order to grow. That's not how growth works. The best growth happens when people are at peace and safe and loved. Not frightened and confused and alone. He never chose them in the first place, he never wanted to be on their side. If he were left alone, he would just spend the rest of eternity reading his books and eating Eccles cakes and snuggling with his former-demon. That’s who he really is. There’s nothing about him as a person that needs to change. I agree a story where a person loses their sense of self after escaping from an ab*sive system would be interesting to watch, but I maintain that it does not make sense for the context of this particular story. And, such a story would NEED to make clear that the person wasn’t bad or wrong for deriving some part of their sense of self from the ab*ser and that they shouldn’t have had to have a catastrophic breakdown in order to develop their own sense of self. No one should have to go through that.

It’s not the same thing as asking for personal growth from a real human being.

Good characters do not operate according to different emotional and psychological rules than we do, though. If they didn't, we wouldn’t have millions of people sobbing about how real Aziraphale and Crowley feel to them. We would be the biggest dodos in the world if we were reacting this way to paper dolls 😄

Comparing the desire to see a character go through a dramatic storyline like that (and to come out of it strong and shining) to fundamentalist rhetoric is… just total bullshit.

You said this blog has been a good place for you and I want it to continue to be that way for you. So I want to give you a chance to revisit this part and see if you can say something more constructive. Because I've gotta admit, this really made me upset and I can't let it go without saying something. It’s not cool to call someone’s commentary “bullsh*t” like this.

I heard the line “we must die to ourselves” many, many times from the high-control religion of my childhood. It is a classic cult line. Hence why so many cults have "burial and rebirth" rituals, make people change their names, etc.

I am not just making up a comparison. This is a real phenomenon. Controlling ab*sers are the ones who’ve given us this idea that “death of the self” is character growth. It’s not. Character growth happens in spite of those excruciating emotional crises, not because of them.

Growing as a person is supposed to feel good overall. Not always easy, but on the whole, it should be a positive experience.

Also - Again, they said he “needs” to do it.

And they didn’t say anything about Aziraphale “coming out strong and shining”. You added that in. I think it's wonderful that you want to see that for him (so do I) but that’s not what this person was saying

If they'd said that, I wouldn't object to it at all. But they didn't. That part was left out. Which I think may be very telling in itself.

There are a myriad of reasons someone could have that desire, including having gone through something similar themselves.

Having gone through something similar doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense for another character. It also doesn’t mean it’s necessary. And having been through something that went a certain way does NOT mean that it happening that way makes sense for someone else.

Deconstruction from a religious upbringing is different from leaving an ab*sive relationship

Aziraphale doesn’t have religious trauma. (I’m not going to talk much about religious trauma and deconstruction here, because it’s outside the scope of this blog, largely because - as attested by no less an authority than Neil Himself - Good Omens is not about religion. But I’ll say a little bit.)

Heaven and hell are not a “religion” in his world - they’re real. His fear of hell (and of heaven) is absolutely, one hundred percent, completely legitimate and appropriate, and NOT something he should be “reasoned” out of. Saying otherwise gives “your ab*ser isn’t actually that evil and scary”. But regardless, in either scenario, that kind of traumatic personal crisis is not a necessary part of the healing process. My heart aches for all the people whose deconstruction process was emotionally shattering. But what makes it ache even more is how for so many of them, the takeaway is somehow that that kind of crisis is necessary - rather than "dear god, i hope no one else ever has to go through that kind of hideous experience to get away from their shitty religion", which surely is what the takeaway should be (assuming there even is a lesson to be learned at all from an experience like that, which is doubtful) - and they go on to demand it of other survivors and gatekeep against people who haven't gone through the exact same thing they did in the process of getting away.

How, HOW did we get to a point where so many people’s deconstruction is a fucked-up, scarring experience that we think it’s inevitable for deconstruction to be that way????? I grieve.

I know the idea of killing one’s old self is inherently wrong to many people.

It’s not about whether it’s *wrong*. If that's valid for someone and they get where they need to be - you do you. It’s about the fact that it’s painful and it’s unnecessary to the process of growth.

Furthermore, it is the kind of thing ab*sers WANT to see happen to their victims when they leave. They want victims to think that they have to have that kind of crisis if they want to leave them. Because then they’re less likely to leave. When we encourage that kind of thinking, we are playing directly into their hands.

What should happen is that the victim should be given the opportunity to realize that all along there was much more to them than their ab*ser.

I don’t personally desire to watch Aziraphale do that, especially because there are so many wonderful aspects of the Angel he’s been since the beginning

Agreed.

But fwiw, this is giving a faint whiff of perfect victim syndrome. Even if he were an asshole, he still deserves to just have his ab*sers leave him alone, not to have some kind of shattering, soul-crushing emotional breakdown. They will always, always be worse than him.

but it’s not wrong to want to see that. People do go through it, and their stories are incredibly compelling.

I don’t disagree. For me it’s rather about the place this is coming from. OP was saying it’s necessary. There’s a difference between wanting to see a show address this issue overall because it’s interesting, and demanding that a specific character go through it because you think it’s necessary, or that their process of leaving and healing won't be legitimate (or whatever word we wanna use) if it doesn't happen.

And, as you said, it doesn’t make sense for Aziraphale. If the character is an asshole, I’d be able to see it a little more (although again, I still very much question the entire idea in the first place) But he's not an asshole. I find anyone’s thinking it “makes sense” for him to be highly questionable.

I know Aziraphale is much more than a character to many people

Speaking as a (very, very, very slightly, lol) professional writer and actor - every character should be “more than a character”, if they’re well-written. They should feel real if the writer and/or actor has done their job well. I like NG's line that "If you write someone who is utterly and completely themselves, you get people coming up to you and going 'Oh my God, you wrote my life!'

a desire to watch him go through a psychological breakdown is not some poorly concealed desire to watch real people go through that.

It may or may not be. I agree that it isn't always.

In this person’s case, though, I very much did get concerning vibes. Poorly concealed. (As an ab*se survivor, you start to know the vibe of victim-blamers after awhile.)

Regardless, though, the way we respond to characters is the way we respond to people in real life. Story is a primary vehicle through which people learn how to interact with one another and their environment. If it wasn’t, discussing media along these lines would be pointless, and I'd just spend all my time talking about how good David Tennant looks in those tight pants 😁 Or, probably, I would take up a different hobby altogether.

I wouldn’t have wasted my time starting this blog if the things people say about this story and especially about Aziraphale didn’t have real-world applications (not to mention making a lot of ab*se survivors feel very unsafe in the fandom - before we turned off anonymous asks, I got an average of two messages a day from ab*se survivors and other oppressed people telling them how this blog has made them feel so much safer in the fandom) - and if their views about the characters didn’t mirror the kinds of things they’d say about people in real life. (All the anti-Aziraphale autiphobic takes come to mind.) I flatter myself I have enough judgment that those takes wouldn't have troubled me so deeply if they weren't reflective of real-world societal problems and indicative of problematic attitudes in the people who write them.

In this case, the wording is identical to the kinds of problematic things people say about real-life victims/survivors. Yes, the person may not actually consciously want (or want at all) to see real-life ab*se victims/survivors suffer. But I absolutely, one hundred per cent guarantee you that anyone saying this has some major problematic biases/assumptions that are contributing to how ab*se survivors are maligned, degraded, and oppressed in our society. (I never want to see Disabled people suffer, but if I say ableist things, I’m contributing to it whether I mean to or not. I may not want to see women suffer, I am a woman, well more or less anyway lol, and I've identified as a feminist my entire adult life, but nevertheless there have certainly been times in the past when I've said sexist things. It's something all of us will always have to be vigilant against in ourselves. I suspect at this point I'm preaching to the choir, because you do not strike me at all as a bigoted or ignorant person, but I figured I'd re-iterate all that again anyway, because screaming it through a megaphone as often as possible is what this blog is for lol. :)

And what’s worse, they are spreading that rhetoric. I’ll be damned if I’ll let it go by without saying something.

Hope this makes sense and cleared some things up.

With love and respect,

Mod X.

[losersroom]

ok listen i'm not the original catholic brock anon but like i literally cannot stop thinking about. the implications of this. like... catholicism is so strict in what you should and should not do with yourself a partner. i was taught that masturbation would make you go blind. so i'm like. thinking about this. as like. what if hypothetically. brock was totally inexperienced. like. knew only what he had heard from friends in the locker room and online but was just. way too scared to try anything sexual with another person. he had a few girlfriends in high school but when he got to college he started thinking about men Like That. enter identity crisis. he only just got over the whole Masturbation Is Evil thing a few years ago. realizing his obsession with his closest friends was actually Romantic Interest. he never tells anyone of course because. embarassing. enter Brodin.

completely seriously i actually do think about this kind of thing all the time.

hockey fandom is sort of a weird liminal space for me to write in because it involves making a lot of deliberate choices about what you decide, on a case by case basis, to infer or not infer about the character of individual people based on, like, common knowledge about the world. about how hockey is, as an institution. about religion and the kind of guys who wear crosses around their necks. brock's obviously some amount of religious but he wore the pride tape on his socks last night. these guys are guys, who chose a profession that's notoriously homophobic and conservative and violent.

for me, i actually do really like thinking about that kind of dichotomy and exploring what it's like for a character to challenge their own internalized ideas of what's okay, what's sinful, what they're allowed to have. ...i also feel like it's a little awkward, FOR ME, to inject that amount of reality into what is essentially a celebrity fantasy. at the end of the day i dont know these guys and i don't want to.

all that said: yeah i think there's potentially a very compelling narrative to the idea of like. brock going to college and slowly deconstructing everything he'd been taught about sex and sexuality in that looser environment but not being ready to face it in himself. and then finally meeting one of his heroes and working with him and learning about him as a person and not just a face on a poster on his wall and realizing, ah, jesus, this is what love feels like, isn't it. is love wrong? can it be impure, when all he wants is to make this man happy? does it feel filthy when they're together, when jonas has his hands on him, showing him what to do the same way he does on the ice? and does that only make it feel better and more right, for some reason?

there's a lot to unpack there. idk that i'm a talented enough writer to pull it off without it sounding like an after school special, but like, Someone should.

[dandelionjedi]

Current AU/Crossover idea that won't leave my brain:

Daredevil (and other Marvel characters)+Star Wars (Specifically Quinlan Vos)

Disclaimer: I have never watched Daredevil. I have no intention of watching Daredevil (I've been told there's too much blood for my tastes). I have read a bunch of daredevil fanfic. All my knowledge comes from that. For that reason I will not be following the plot of Daredevil, I'll just use the characters and the setting.

Ok, so AU starts during Order 66. Quinlan is on Coruscant, investigating some case with Fox. They've been sorta dating for the last year. The order comes through, Fox tries to kill Quinlan. Quinlan knocks Fox out and kidnaps him. Eventually figures out the chips, and gets Fox's chip removed. They go on the run together.

At some point they run into teenager Boba Fett. Boba remembers Fox a little from Kamino, and also that Fox was nice to him when he was in prison. Boba joins their dysfunctional found family unit because I think it would be fun. Between Quinlan and Fox he becomes a mostly decent person, without being eaten by a sarlacc.

Quinlan tries to track down Aayla. When he confirms that she's dead, he decides to try to track down and free Bly, because he knows she would have wanted him to. Also because he's Fox's brother.

It doesn't go well, Bly dies, and they're all sort of drifting. They eventually decide to find some backwater planet to lay low for awhile and try to get back on their feet.

Fox has some health problems from Palpatine being evil, plus the chip surgery was a little rocky, since his had been activated on and off by Palpatine for as long as he'd been on Coruscant, so he wants to step back from combat a little. Quinlan needs to grieve, everyone does honestly, and Boba is having an identity crisis and needs some space.

They end up on Earth, a planet halfway to wild space with no contact with the rest of the galaxy. They're all most familiar with big cities, so they eventually end up in New York. Hells Kitchen, specifically. Quinlan whips them up some fake identities, and they settle down for a while.

Fox gets a job at a bakery, Boba decides to go to high school. There are a few incidents with Boba bringing knives to school. Parents (or in this case older brothers) get called. In front of the teachers there's the whole "oh Boba we're very disappointed in you why did you bring a giant knife to school". Boba is trying very hard not to laugh. He gets suspended for a day, which Quinlan uses to give him lessons on how to hide weapons better.

On Boba's first day he starts hanging out with Flash, who immediately reached out to the new kid for coolness points. Then Flash is a jerk to Peter. Boba asks why, Flash just says 'because'. Boba ditches Flash and starts hanging out with Peter and friends.

Meanwhile in Hell's Kitchen, Quinlan is hearing about all these vigilantes running around. He thinks 'Hey, I'd be pretty good at that! I can help people, stay in shape, and still keep a low profile.' He's a spy, so his go to is to take down big organizations from the inside out. So he finds a big organizations (maybe connected to Fisk somehow idk) and gets a job as a henchman. Starts learning all their secrets. He's very careful about keeping himself clean if the police come around. He doesn't consider Daredevil.

This is pretty early on in Matt's Daredeviling career. He's still the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, and hasn't met Claire yet. He finds some drug dealer warehouse or something and goes to beat up all the guys inside, but one guys like 'Wait! I'm not actually here to sell drugs! I've got a flashdrive full of evidence about these guys I can give you. And if you ever need help, let me know. I will not beat up people quite as much as you do, but I can knock them out and tie them up to be arrested. And I won't kill anyone. Here's my burner phone number!"

Then they give each other advice about being vigilantes, and give each other stitches as needed. Quinlan isn't as tight lipped as Matt about his secret identity, so he invites Matt over for dinner, and they eventually become pretty good friends.

At some point Quinlan meets Matt when he's not out Daredeviling, which is all he needs to figure it out via force presence. Matt knows that Quinlan is enhanced in some way, but doesn't get the full story until Obi-Wan and Cody turn up looking for Quinlan a few years down the line.

Quinlan is generally more balanced and less traumatized than Matt (having a good childhood and being trained in good coping techniques helps a lot) and that eventually rubs off on Matt. Quinlan convinces Matt to tell Foggy, rather than have Foggy figure it out when Matt turns up on his couch near death.

Matt still meets Claire, and she still becomes designated vigilante doctor, but now with additional support from Quinlan, Fox, and Boba. Fox and Boba mostly stay out of the whole vigilante thing. They offer support as needed, and every now and then will help with a particularly difficult mission, but Fox is enjoying the chance to have a life outside of fighting, and Boba is having fun with Peter and friends.

Eventually Peter starts Spidermaning. Boba, Quinlan, Matt, and friends figure it out pretty quickly, and offer quiet support and fighting lessons. They make a pretty good team handling smaller lever threats.

At some point the avengers drop by, and they come up with a system to let threats of various levels be handled by the appropriate parties that works for everyone. Between Quinlan, who was trained in negotiation even if it wasn't his preferred way to help, and Matt and Foggy's lawyer skills, the whole mess with the accords and Bucky gets worked out mostly peacefully.

Deadpool drops by at some point (another character I know only from fanfic), mostly because I think he and Quinlan would get along like a house on fire. As in they set the house on fire. Deadpool and Boba bond over bounty hunting work, and Team Red forms because I think they're neat.

Quinlan and co hadn't planned to stay long at first, but they find a sort of peace in New York none of them thought was an option. They can't sit back forever while the empire is still in control, so Quinlan starts setting up a place for force sensitive children to stay in relative safety, with minimal risk to Earth's citizens. He makes sure to leave a way for allies to contact him, and eventually Obi-wan and Cody (now married) track them down.

There's a very happy reunion, and Quinlan finally explains his past to Matt, Peter, and the rest of the superheros/vigilantes. The force sensitive kid shelter gets set up, and Quinlan starts helping with Rebellion business.

This probably exists in my somewhat vague 'still sad but not as sad as it could have been' AU where Anakin isn't evil, Padme doesn't die, and a few of my favorite Jedi survive.

I'm not quite sure how I'd end it. If I were to try to write the whole thing, I'd probably just stop after Obi-Wan and Quinlan are reunited. The fix it isn't really the point, thought it would definitely somewhere in the nebulous future. The main focus is on character interactions across fandoms.

However it happens, Palpatine gets defeated, with some help from the avengers and co. Quinlan and Fox get married, the surviving Jedi work together to rebuild the order, separate from the New Republic. Galactic laws are similar enough to American laws that Matt and Foggy can help.

Earth and the rest of the galaxy mostly stay separate, but everyone comes to visit at least once a year. There are still threats, there always will be, but a system is worked out to help everyone coexist. Everyone still alive lives mostly happily every after.

[ferallair]

Can we talk about Aziraphale dancing?

The word that keeps coming to my mind for Aziraphale is Embodied because I can’t think of anything better. There’s something very physical about Aziraphale despite himself. Even though he seems so buttoned up he he still wants to do things with his flesh body… thingy. I think the dancing means more than I realized and I wanted to puzzle it out.

Part of Aziraphale’s embodiment is eating food. Aziraphale likes to eat in a very sensual sense way, it’s shown multiple times in season 1. Which is why the scene of his first time eating is down right carnal (pun intended), and I was personally shocked by it. He wasn’t just eating and enjoying it in a sensuous way like we usually see, he was RAVENOUS. He just kept eating and eating like he couldn’t get enough. (Those three ribs used to “resurrect” the children? I think he ATE those and MORE and licked em clean!)

It’s interesting that this part of the story is also were Aziraphale really lies for the first time. And it’s a very specific and “embodied” kind of lying as well. It’s not lying to cause chaos or get out of trouble, it’s lying to create a performance. There is a whole SHOW to this lie, a performance to fool the senses using just “the body” if you will, the stuff of gross matter and not real magic or miracles (except that one tiny one to turn them back to human). ****It’s interesting because he’s SO terrified by this lie that he thinks he’s going to become a demon. But it’s also the seed that becomes his love of stage magic, and theater, and opera, and even the spy games he plays during WWII. Through the fear he fell a little bit in love with lying. (But only for a good cause.)

I’m sure there’s a million little things I’ve missed. One of the "embodiments" I like is “learning” French and wanting to use that knowledge stored in his meat brain and muscle memory instead of using the angelic knowledge of French. It's so goofy, but so Aziraphale. But I digress.

And then there is the music. I don’t think we’ve seen where he gets his love of music. I mean it could be an angel thing, Crowley also likes music. But I suspect there’s a story there, tied to Crowley of course, and I hope we learn it in Season 3. I think it’s also tied to his interest in dancing. Dancing is also very physical. It’s "embodying" music if you will, and expressing emotion in a very visceral, sensual, embodied way. It’s why angels don’t dance and demons do, but badly. Except Aziraphale. Just one dance, the gavotte, and it's a group dance with a lot of kicking. So I was kind of a shocked when he pulled Crowley to the dance floor and they start dancing at the ball. I think it’s telling that the second dance we see Aziraphale do is also a group dance (I don’t know what it’s called though).

When Crowley talks about falling in love it’s a rush of emotion under the rain, all vibes no words. And when Aziraphale talks about falling in love it’s very physical, dancing in a formal way, with other people, at a ball. And they don’t actually fall in love, the love is already there, instead they “realize they had misunderstood each other” and for some reason dancing, connecting physically, is the only way they can connect emotionally and really understand each other. (They are both projecting so hard here and it's fabulous.)

And the thing is the “embodying” Aziraphale does feels really weird this season. Other’s have noted that he’s not really eating (except that one overwhelming scene), but he’s touching Crowley all the time, he’s dancing, he’s running off in Crowley’s car alone, and plotting secret spy things without Crowley. They feel connected when they’re inside the bookshop, but disconnected outside, but it all feels very tenuous if that makes sense. Personally everything felt manic and weird between them.

I personally think Aziraphale’s been having an identity crisis since the Job incident and it’s finally become too much for him. When he asks Crowley “what am I?” at the end of episode 2 he has come to the realization that he is something strange and new. He is the ONLY angel of his kind and that realization makes him feel very lonely. I think that loneliness is part of the chemistry that draws the two together and also what keeps them apart. Crowely is similar, but not enough to make Aziraphale feel less lonely. And I don’t think he’s ever gotten over that feeling. And I personally think that when he helped save the world in season 1 he chose “us” with Crowley, and it didn’t help at all.

To Crowley “us” is running away to Alpha Centauri and being independent, but to Aziraphale “us” is staying and making a difference together so they won’t be so alone. It’s dancing together in a formal group dance, not an isolated couple, but a part of a larger pattern. He wants to be with Crowley not just as an “us” but also as an “US” a larger piece of a community because he’s be feeling cut off from that for a few thousand years. (Haven’t they both been alone on Earth for all of time?)* But he didn’t get that when they saved the world. He didn’t get the little “us” or the big “US” of being a part of Earth and humanity. Like Crowley warns, there no use getting too attached to humans. (Or is there?)

I think Aziraphale wants Crowley to be an angel so he will stop feeling so alone, so he won’t be the ONLY Angel that is… what ever he is. I don’t think Crowley know what he wants, except for Aziraphale, and they why he kissed him. It was desperate. But I think from Aziraphale’s POV it’s also a manipulation. An appeal to that embodied aspect of Aziraphale that Crowley knows about and is always using to sway the angel back to his side.** I think that’s what Aziriphale really means when he said “I forgive you”, it’s him forgiving Crowley for using this part of Aziraphale against him, this part that makes him different from the other Angels and keeps him feeling lonely and isolated.

*And haven't they spent so much time trying to get back to the Garden? Back they were "innocent" and didn't know just how different they were. Back to when they weren't lonely. Crowley with his plants like he's back sashaying around the garden without a care in the world and Aziraphale with this books back on "apple tree duty" guarding all the knowledge of good and evil? **Even the Metatron uses it against him. I’m not saying he’s NOT an idiot, I’m just saying I feel some feelings for him right now.

[hermanunworthy]

To Be or Not To Be?

"With heads showing Hermie's face, the thespian could pretend that those decisions were genuine, while the drama mask for tails could excuse their more obviously villainous behavior. Little did their new 'friends' know that they were both just acts. Thank the theatre gods for this perfect role."

Five times Two-Face is forced to follow his coin's decision, and one time Herman makes one of their own.

10.3k words, oakworthy, 5+1 things, hermie pov, pining, set during ep17-20

prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | +1

also on ao3!

2.

Acting as Risky Click isn't too much of a challenge, despite Herman's limited interactions with and knowledge of him before The Main Characters brutally murdered him. There's just something about putting on a positive attitude that's meant to be disturbing and in-your-face rather than subtle and realistic that's so... comforting. Plus, he has a stylish moustache, so how could he complain?

He greets all the unnamed-background-characters that he calls "Customers" with the same off-putting grin, and it just goes to show that faking it does, in fact, make it. The shift manager can feel true joy as he witnesses memories being drained from each Customer, without having to inject himself with the Joy he already has in stock.

Maybe this whole Doodlerizing thing isn't so bad after all! Who wouldn't want to feel this happy all the time? When he gazes upon the hundreds of different flavors of pizza sauce, he begins to fully understand the true meaning of being "on the sauce".

Risky grabs the ticket with the most recent order. Apparently, this one calls for only one singular topping: Rejection. Easy!

He makes his way into the kitchen, his bones making sickening cracking noises with each movement of his body. Inside, he searches through the many, many jars of different flavors to find the one that has been requested. Young Love... Identity Crisis... There! Rejection!

Risky's smile, which has been unwavering this entire time, even when he has no audience to receive it, falters for a second. These were all quite familiar to him.

Well, maybe not him, exactly, but someone inside of him. Someone he's been trying to put a mask over for lord knows how long he's been working in this nightmare of a restaurant. Someone who nobody seems to accept, no matter how hard they try.

He can feel that person crying out inside of him, but he tries his best not to listen. "You must be used to being ignored by now," he says aloud through gritted, smiling teeth, "So just shut up and go back to being a background character!"

In this tense moment, the shift manager mindlessly ends up knocking over multiple jars with his clattering hands. With a cartoonish yelp, he ends up with three different flavors of sauce spilling from their containers into his open mouth.

The first sensation he feels when coming in contact with the raw ingredients... is his heartbeat stuttering, and then pounding heavily. At first, he thinks that he's just startled by the mess he's made, but now heat is rising in his face. Was one of the flavors spicy? His stomach is exploding with butterflies. Is he allergic to one of the flavors?

His brain won't let him focus, because it's too busy making him think about Normal Oak again.

Herman tried so hard to push the stupid mascot kid out of their head before, but now they could feel all of that effort unraveling. They could feel themself unraveling. Why are they thinking about Normal? Aren't they Risky Click? When did they become shift manager again? Who were they before?

What are they supposed to do?

With sudden clarity during this breakdown, Risky— Herman— Two-Face remembers his coin. He shoves his hand deep in his apron pocket, desperately digging for the tiny object. For one horrifying moment, Two-Face thinks he may have lost it, but when his fingers grasp metal in the bottom of one of his pockets, balance is restored.

He pulls the coin put and looks at it again, at long last. The poorly drawn face stares back at him dumbly. It is a face he hardly even recognizes anymore.

He remembers the last time he saw this coin. Particularly this side of it.

He remembers being himself, Two-Face, but he also remembers The Mascot Kid even stopping to listen to his advice before turning his back on him. He remembers the painful sting of rejection as well as he could any line from a script.

Two-Face looks around the kitchen. He doesn't know how long he's been here, how long he's been pretending to be Risky Click.

All the nonstop smiling catches up to him and now his face hurts. He raises a hand to his face. He is met with the warped, blistered texture of burned flesh, and he flinches. Another reminder of The Main Characters leaving him behind to die.

What would it be like if he did die in that awful cheese incident? Would they all just move on with their day and their mission as if nothing happened? Would Normal forget about their time together and go find someone else to fool him into loving them? At least Two-Face wouldn't have to be stuck running a disgusting restaurant by himself right now if the plot took that turn back then.

An idea hits him as he notices a telephone mounted on the wall. He literally has The Mascot Kid's number. He could march right up to that phone and call him right now. He could give that stupid kid a piece of his mind. One-half of it, to be exact.

The thought of getting to hear his mark's voice again makes his breath hitch. In annoyance. In anger. He pictures his face, with his phone pressed to it, breaking into a wide smile and saying his name. Not his name. His character name. His body is heating up again. Side effects of the pizza sauce. Or maybe he needs to turn down the termostat. This goddamn kitchen is burning him up. Again. His skin is on fire. He needs out. He needs Normal back, to heal him again.

Two-Face flexes the fingers on his right hand, wishing so badly that he could just tear off his skin. No, he doesn't need The Mascot Kid. Hermie is the pathetic one who needs to be saved. Hermie might've felt relief when Normal's hand, his real hand, free from the mascot costume, rested itself upon Hermie's chest and made them experience a glowing warmth somehow much more potent than the heat that had marred half their body. But Two-Face? Two-Face didn't need it. So what if Harvey and Bruce were best friends? Two-Face is still Batman's enemy.

And yet the Harvey-Hermie half of his brain betrays him, recalling Normal's determined face before he left. Their pinky fingers interlocking. Normal's desperate cries. "We will" to "I will".

Two-Face wishes he could stamp out the foolish hope still lingering in half of his heart. He is going to make sure hell is unleashed upon The Main Characters if they don't come back. Especially his mark. How dare he betray the betrayer.

Instead of reaching for the phone, he reaches for his coin. This will settle it.

He flips his coin. Tails.

He looks back up at the phone. Despite the decision already being made, he remains standing there, staring at the phone, a wordless expression of longing. He wonders what his mark is doing right now. He wonders if he's okay. He doesn't know why he's thinking like Hermie when he's supposed to be acting as Two-Face.

"Boss?" a voice suddenly calls, causing Two-Face to nearly jump out of his skin (and God knows he wishes he could). "We still need that pizza out! Customer's getting impatient!" There's a sound of glass shattering in the distance.

Oh, shit, that's right. He's not supposed to be Two-Face right now, either. He quick-changes back into Risky Click, with Young Love and Identity Crisis and Rejection stains still on his apron, and dons his creepy smile.

Time to go back to pretending everything's alright.

[14muffinz]

Hey! Yes pls, your fusion au is a delight and sending an ask is my pleasure!

I have a couple questions, how do you think things would change if it was only mm x rise? Considering mm are so Baby and stuff; they also seem to have a range of genre awareness, do you think any of the fusions would change due the extra lil input if just, you know, having considered fusions as a concept before? (I would think they do have a media presence nowadays)

And with other possibilities (12 seems to be the main one -In general, forced fusions are... interesting, charged with all kinds of fun stuff like identity issues, shifts And clashes in how you view reality, emotional (and all types rly) crisis, lack of trust in yourself, yk, the fun stuff. But, well, a rly beautiful part of (intentional/positive) fusion is being known completely, that full understanding and acceptance, recognizing the components but also the whole, a self that is more than the sum of the parts and becoming other without losing oneself, yk the other fun stuff –and some works even work to make that transition from the former to the latter, which I think would be really fun for a xover!

Would you have any intention of the fusions becoming aware and working through their issues first or would they stay as is? Is the allies' goal to separate them as quickly as possible, where we could then explore the aftermath? Or even leave them in an unstable space where it's on and off, or maybe just leaving the possibility of fusion (I might have missed that post, but is it even plausible to separate them?)

Speaking of both the rest of the gang and things I might have missed, but are they in the rottmnt verse or the 12 one? It seems both sets of allies and fam are there? Did they cross over looking for the missing turtles? How did they react to the fusions? (And any other tidbits you might have about the new relationships? :3)

Jsjjsjs I hope those aren't too many questions

Jsjjs

not too many questions, but i have a feeling it's gonna take me a bit to read all of this, hoo boy

OH MY GODS, I'VE BEEN WAITING ALL WEEK FOR SOMEONE TO ASK ABOUT THE MM FUSIONS. IT'D BE SUCH A DIFFERENT STORY I AM!!!! NOT NORMAL!!! Gonna put them under a cut at the end, because it'd definitely be different and lengthy

Yeah, steven universe is the only example of fusions in canon media that I know of, and usually fusions are shown to highlight the positive attributes of a character, and in a lot of cases seems to be the two characters controlling one body. I definitely have a third consciousness, that is the fusions, but they're a combination of the two people who fused into them ofc. But at the same time, being unaware that they're fusions, and seeing all of these inconsistencies in their memory and in themselves, it's certainly challenging.

Well, Donnie's already aware. Being the smart one, I feel like he would have noticed somethings wrong the quickest and would have fallen into a bit of a mad scientist spiral about it, at which point the supporting cast decided the best way to help them out was just to flat-out tell them that they're not supposed to exist. Which somehow helped for a bit? Wow. Yeah, they're going to be separated. I think at least Mikey and Donnie will know at that point, and Raph "knows" but is very much not taking to the knowledge. He thinks that it's some long-running joke and he forces himself to not think about it as much as possible. When they're separated, I do in fact like the idea that the fusions could come back, but only in the case of a very strong enemy showing up. They've got the ninjutsu skills of the 2012 turtles, and the ninpo from rise, awkward as it is to fuse they can't not use that to their advantage. (The Mikeys have a bit of guilt, because they feel like the fusions are a third set that they're keeping locked up, in a way)

They are in the rise dimension. Currently, the only way proposed for them to have fused in the first place was a spell put on them in the hidden city, possibly by one of big mama's henchmen The 2012 April and Casey are definitely there. I'm not sure if 2012 Splinter would be there (probably not, knowing him) but we haven't even established if this is post-series and he's dead or not. How did they react? Ohohoho, so the april's and caseys were the ones who found them in the first place, after rise donnie had sent out an emergency alert. They were... quite alarmed, to say the least. A third set of alternates? Where are the other two? Where are all their gear? Why is so much of their turtles' gear torn and on the ground... oh no

Alright, now for the mayhem fusions under the cut:

Leo: Sooooo much anxiety, omg. Where does he put it all? He needs to distract himself a lot, because if he's left to his thoughts for too long he notices a lot of weird things about them. His favorite distractions are Jupiter Jim, and hanging out with Donnie.

Raph: Avoids his brothers, a lot. He's definitely the biggest of the four fusions, and considering MM Raph flipped a van, they're pretty strong as well. He's also got MM Raph's sort of "I don't need you, i want to be my own guy" thing paired with rise Raph's hate of being alone, so I'd imagine that'd result in a lot of time spent in the hidden city, where he fits in more, or maybe hanging out with the MM Bebop and Rocksteady(?). We can always have there be a stable portal between the dimensions and say that they can't return quite yet. That also allows MM April to go to school which is probably important or smth

Donnie: Autistic. Just in case you think I would somehow remove that lol. He's got problems with loud noise, but also prefers to have music blasting when he works on a project, so he carries around MM Donnie's headphones pretty much everywhere, for when either situation arises. He's tried different enhancements on the bo staff, but ended up going traditional with it. Projects for them are probably on a smaller scale than Rise Donnie's, but if he managed to convince himself that he can make something on Rise Donnie's level. His shell is also the most fucked up of the four, we're throwing together the rise softshelled one that got ripped out of the technordrome and the mutant mayhem one that got crushed. No matter if the fusion is softshelled or not (not sure yet) they definitely a need battleshell. Also This one does not know they're fused I kept writing they/them on accident since that's what I usually do for this au

Mikey: Silly little guy. There's so much creativity stored in this turtle, he likes art and dancing mainly. Has a 'Dr Delicate Touch' and it's somehow more alarming of a switch. He's also great at masking, externally he's fine then internally he's just "wtf is going on in here???? Is this what old people mean when they say they don't remember their childhood very well???" He also follows the sleep schedule that MM Mikey does for school.

I'll do awareness judgements for them a little later, just gonna put this out there for now

[barrencelenny]

What even is the general central city resident’s understanding of speedsters in the city honestly? Like do they even know the names of all of them?? Why are there so many speedsters compared to the rates of other powers??? Do these questions keep CC people up at night???? (I have very little recollection of later seasons despite watching them so genuinely welcome any answers) i assume it’s something like:

The Flash - that’s our resident superhero :D sure he does really annoying things sometimes like completely mess up your hair when he runs past, but on the whole we love him :) we named a day after him :) (is flash day a public holiday in central city? Can they even make public holidays for only one city?)

Reverse Flash- do they even know him? Did he ever introduce himself to the public at large? Do people notice that every so often they’ll see red lighting rather than yellow and go huh, guess that other one is back again. Does he have a place in the flash museum’s villains wing? (And what would the plaque describing him even say without revealing details of Barry’s mother’s murder?)

Zoom- hey wtf he broke our flash’s back on tv :(

Jay Garrick- also answers to the name the flash? Wears a hat? Who even is this man??

Kid flash- so he’s a yellow speedster but he’s not evil like the other yellow speedster? Okay. He seems young :) hope he comes back one day :)

Jessie Quick- well I mean I guess it’s nice we know her name. Where did she even go?? (She’s dead after crisis on infinite earths right???)

Savitar- does the public know Literally Anything about him????

Iris west in one episode (did she even have a code name)- oh yay another female speedster we haven’t seen one of those in years. Why did we only see her for a day. She had purple lightning that was cool.

XS- Huh purple AND yellow lightning haven’t seen combination colours before. Also her outfit is the same as the other lady speedster what’s up with that?

Impulse- oh a silver outfit that’s fun. We can literally see through his goggles though, it’s barely a mask? Seems really young

Godspeed- oh great this guy has white lightning, the dude that had black lighting was evil so maybe he’ll be good? Oh god. Oh no. Why are there so many of him.

Meena/ Fast Track- who?

Also given that so many of these speedsters get their official name and introduction from Iris writing about them in her articles, are there a bunch of people online who’ve realised the flash’s identity because they looked her up, saw her wedding photos on insta or smth, and went oh lanky white boy yeah that’s probably him that’s how she’s getting all the scoops. do they all agree to just keep this knowledge unspoken amongst themselves?(there’s several thousand of them in the subreddit)

[gillespiejr]

identity crisis under the cut!

i have a complicated relationship with my identity and "jewishness" because my mother's *father* carries the jewish line. so i don't want to call myself jewish without a disclaimer at least (i wasn't raised jewish either), but i'm the same "degree" of jewishness as i would be if it was her mother carrying the line, and then bc of jewish tradition i wouldn't hesitate to call myself jewish... i just want to be respectful of jewish people especially considering the fact that i wasn't raised in the culture ,just with the knowledge that i'm of jewish descent. and then when i feel affected by antisemitism i feel like it isnt..justified? its like... youre talking about me but also not... idk lol. its like i feel and relate to the pain of the jewish people as a whole but idk if i should. argh. i dont really have jewish friends that im close enough with yet to talk about this stuff with :/

[melissak2802]

To systematize what we know on the complicated topic of secret identities in ML.

Season 1:

Two heroes. No one knows or is allowed to know anyone's identity besides the Guardian. There's an episode dedicated to the importance of secret identity, with Cat Noir and Alya learning to understand it ("Lady WiFi"). Everything's neat.

Season 2:

We have first temporary heroes, whom only Ladybug knows as guardian-in-training. (Remind me, does Fu actually know the identities of temps or it's fully on Ladybug without adult supervision?) Okay.

Chloe goes public, that gets her targeted then gets her incapacitated during Heroes Day when her family is targeted. Alya and Nino accidentally reveal to each other, that also incapacitates them during Heroes Day when their feelings for each other are used against them.

Everything's still neat, and the finale shows clearly without extra words why it must be secret.

Season 3:

More temporaries. Okay.

Chloe is personally targeted again and removed from the team for safety. Okay.

The Multimouse gambit had "Multimouse revealed her identity to Cat Noir and is removed from the team" as part of it. Okay.

Ryuko exposes herself, is removed, Ladybug breaks the rules to use her again, this is shown as serious mistake triggering Chloe's betrayal. Well, okay, heroes make mistakes too...

Miracle Queen happens with mass reveal of the temps, not just to someone, to the villain directly. And so things start.

Season 4:

The exposed temps are still active like nothing happened. They get personally targeted and still nothing happens. The author's explanation around the lines of "they had to take this risk" is not valid because they could easily redistribute Miraculouses. And this "dangerous necessity" is never even discussed by characters in canon.

Alya in particular gets personally targeted twice. First she is made permanent user, then goes Rena Furtive. Viewers are livid because the "new form, new identity" thing changes everything: somehow it was never an option for Queen Bee, Multimouse, Ryuko or any of Miracle Queen's victims.

Alya reveals herself to her boyfriend again (learnt nothing from Heroes Day), despite promising not to, and it is framed as good thing. It still backfires later, forcing her retire this time, and causes the loss of the Fox Miraculous, but still seen as good.

All while Marinette tragically parts with Luka because secret identities matter more.

But does share hers with Alya. (It is psychologically understandable, she is on peak of crisis, but this supposedly out-of-ordinary fact and the fact it does not backfire kind of loses its intended impressiveness considering how in this season almost no one cares of secret identities)

There is the second what-if episode where Ladybug and Cat Noir knowing each other equals apocalypse.

And Luka learns both and acts like nothing happened.

Nino gives away himself and Alya to Adrien for no good reason.

And Cat Noir keeps wanting a reveal (forgotten Lady WiFi, forgotten Heroes Day, forgotten the whole Chloe thing, forgotten the targeting of temps in this season).

Season 5:

Alix is sent into hiding with an extremely dangerous Miraculous. Her identity is made public with heroes' permission for no reason at all.

Luka after a risk of akumatization finally takes measures and has to leave Paris and his family in order not to be a danger...

While Kagami learns, does nothing, is akumatized several times, nothing happens.

And then she casually gives Ladybug (the Guardian, the hope of Paris and wielder of one of the most important Miraculous) away to Felix whom she had close interactions with for like several days and who recently was an enemy, had committed betrayal before and is known for good acting. (Which also is after she was tricked by one girl twice in a row, anyone should have gone paranoid especially knowing their own absense of social knowledge) And everything's apparently okay about it.

Have I forgotten anything?

[tacticalhimbo]

— OC TAG GAME

i was tagged by @detectivelokis to fill out this fun little oc meme! thank you very much 💕 i loved reading abt all your girlies!

i'll tag @ladysanjo , @vendettapandav (or if ya wanna do this on your rp blog, @vendettamuses ), and anybody else who wants to do this! my mind is blanking skdjdkd

FAVORITE OC -> VINCENT HALE

Yep. It's him. He has his own tag ffs. But for real, he's one of my most complex characters. I will admit he totally started off as a self-insert, but he's evolved into such a character. He's got strong convictions, he has flaws (boy, does he have them), he has this whole identity crisis and kinda redemption arc…. Man. I love Vinny.

OLDEST OC -> ROMAN ZEMLIN

I wasn't sure about this one so I went with the character I think is the oldest! I mean, I made him in high school. Maybe 2016 or 2017? Anyway, he's what got me into writing (real ones will remember the Wattpad days 💀), and he's been through so many revamps over the years. He's a bastard hitman and I love him very much.

NEWEST OC -> JUSTICE MARLOWE

This character is a WIP still, but she's another Destiny 2 character! I wanted to experiment with the different classes, so she's a Voidwalker Warlock. Not quite sure what her story is yet, but the concept is brewing!

MEANEST OC -> CONSTANCE FOX

OOO this one was hard but out of all of them? Constance. My Umbrella bastard. She's very much a believer in what Umbrella was doing and man, she'd do anything to re-establish the corporation and its experiments. Have said this before and will say it again, her villainy stems from a dangerous manifestation of apathy, one where it does not matter what happens to others, so as “nothing will come of the circumstances”. The way she clings to Umbrella/Neo-Umbrella is a desperate attempt to have control over said circumstances no matter the cost. She's a bastard through and through.

SOFTEST OC -> NADINE KRAUSE

Easiest choice on this list. She's just so babygirl. She couldn't hurt a fly. She's sensitive, optimistic, always cheerful, and she just wants the best for everyone. Not to mention, she has the softest aesthetics of my characters too. Lots of bright/pastel colors and high femme fashion.

MOST ALOOF/STANDOFF-ISH OC -> VALERIYA KHORKIN

Ah, Roman's sister that he has no idea about. She's been trained to be an effective killing machine, and a lot of her personality has been buried with the "loss" (separation) of her childhood lover, Lucas. She doesn't get close to people as a result of her career and her general background. The orphanage was god awful, Lucas saved her after she aged out, and then she lost him. So. Very much side-eyeing everyone.

SMARTEST OC -> LAVERNE ALBA

This one was hard to pick because there's a lot that could fit the bill, especially when it's broken down to different types of knowledge, but I'd probably have to say Laverne. She might not have formal education, but she's running a multi-million (if not billion) dollar financial corporation AND a whole criminal enterprise! This bitch knows what she's doing.

DUMBEST (AFFECTIONATE) OC -> SCOTT RYDER

I could pick Vinny again BUT I'm gonna pick Scott, my Ryder. He has no idea what's going on at any given moment, and he's expected to save Andromeda?? He can barely give a presentation in front of a small group without feeling the need to hurl, and the Initiative only taught him so much before putting him on glorified mall-cop duty. So. Dumb boy ♡

OC I'D BE FRIENDS WITH IRL -> BAILEY HILL

Her vibes are just… so cool. She's definitely one of the girls I'd be afraid of at first because she seems too cool, but we'd find some obscure thing to bond over (and I can confidently say it'd be Fortnite of all things 💀) and then we'd be besties. She's chaotic. She's smart. She's badass. She's just. So cool???

[joshuaalbert]

paramount needs to hire you fr i am Invested in this hypothetical changeling child

tyyyyyy he’s so fun to me and like. I feel like the idea kinda remedies some of the issues in the existing storyline (in addition to the whole biological family thing since he’s adopted and any kind of bond he has with picard relies on a desire to connect with him regardless of whether they share dna).

also this got very long bc i used this as an excuse to start reworking a bunch of plot elements so im gonna put it under a read more hold on

like ok we’re told canon!jack feels isolated but a complaint a lot of people had was that that’s never shown. changeling!jack has the easy shorthand of "if you've spent literally your entire conscious life on the run from starfleet because you may or may not have accidentally committed a crime and they're trying to track you down for it, yeah, you'd be pretty isolated (especially if you and your adopted mom then went on to commit more crime in the name of providing medical care)". i recognize that the line about canon!jack going to school in london was just their cheeky little throwaway to explain the accent and they didn't really care about the implications, but it does imply that he could actually be in the same place for a while so they weren't fully constantly on the run. obviously you can still feel isolated in this situation, but if you're trying to establish that element in a limited time, i think the more you can do to justify the idea the better, and i think them never being able to stay anywhere does amplify it

and like. the isolation can still be a plot point even if we don't bring the borg shit in! there's a readymade counterpart that just didn't come into play in picard! the rogue changelings aren't part of the great link, but i don't think that means they couldn't just set up their own version of it. and we can give jack some conflict in terms of like. he knows their plan is bad and will hurt a lot of people so maybe through the power of (unlike odo bc we don't want it to just be the exact same plotline) actually having a loving—if solitary—childhood he could mostly resist the temptation to be part of them and belong, even if there is some temptation, BUT like. he was raised by beverly crusher who believes in helping people even when it's against the rules and who sometimes has a vaguely insane brand of confidence in that regard, as well as having his own interest in healing, so maybe he thinks if he links with them, he can fix them. picard's ideals and restraint then come into play to try to pull him back from this link that threatens to sublimate him and use some knowledge he has to implement the changelings' plan.

crucially i dont want it to be like a "picard's ideology is right beverly's is wrong it's stupid to try to help people" moment bc that shit sucks but also being blindly confident even for a good cause isn't always the best either so maybe it's like. a partial victory. maybe jack creates a schism in the new link and can't save vadic without sacrificing himself (and even then he might not be successful) but does save some others and is able to impart the potential for human/federation kindness onto them. the values of both produce an outcome where he can do some good but is also able to save himself. idk i dont have the details down but some kind of in between.

in terms of personality you could go in a totally different direction from the wannabe han solo deal, or if you really wanted to keep it, i think it could be more transparently an act—kind of like both his appearance and his personality are mimicked, but there are cracks where something else comes through (genuine enthusiasm for his work! love for his mother and complicated feelings towards the brother he's never met! insecurity!). we could give him a fun little identity crisis after his exposure to other changelings where he feels like he's less of a real person and maybe vadic specifically is like "you're stuck in this human body you imitated to try to be accepted, your personality is all an act, if you join us you could actually be yourself without having to hide" etc to try to get him in on the new link. and then the "pulling him back" moment relies on like. actual observations picard has made about those aspects of his personality when the facade slips and actual bonding moments they've had. he's very much a real person with a real personality despite how he feels, and he is known by someone who made an effort to get to know him.

also just some various thoughts:

another complaint people had was that it was kinda weird that beverly cut off absolutely everyone, but I think it makes more sense if she’s harboring a fugitive. maybe she does even try to keep in touch with her former crewmates at first because she doesn’t think they’d turn on her but it gets harder and harder to communicate with them without it being noticed by starfleet, and maybe they almost get caught once when that happens, so she has to cut everyone off.

I also think it would be fun if he learned about the previous crew from old videos of them and just like. borrowed their personalities a little when he talks to them but that's less of a thematic thing and more just that i think it would be entertaining.

[thesinglesock]

Finally watching dragons rising part 2 and ngl the first two episodes scared me. I was Not having a good time. Bored out of my mind. I was afraid the series had lost its grip. But then it really picked up!!!!! The Djinn episode?? Nya just Talking about that like she isn't one of the only two people in existence who knows exactly what happened, just glossing over all the details like it's just common knowledge and they had nothing to do with any of that, the last Djinn himself with his GREAT voice acting and the honestly surprisingly real portrayal of what depression can look like (they cleaned his house up for him while he was recovering😭)

Kai????? Getting to be smart and level headed??? And dealing with a kid who's kind of a lot like how he was when he met Wu, and now he gets to pass Wu's teachings down to this new kid. It's not even directly pointed out, if you haven't followed the show from the beginning you wouldn't see the parallels at all, but long term fans really feel how far Kai has come since the beginning and it's SO rewarding. He even gets to have realistic flaws again. He's not a great teacher but he's the teacher this girl needs.

And Cole?????? My man my guy the absolute LEGEND. I don't even know where to start I love him so much and this makes SO much sense for his character and I can't remember his new partner's name but I'm losing my mind over the whole thing they have going on. Cole, whose own dad neglected him because he couldn't handle his own grief, really went out of his way to become everything his dad failed to be, and so he just radiates such a strong Father Figure Energy that he found himself in a place where neglected children literally just materialize around him. And Sora relating to these lost kids' situation and seeing an older person who's taken the feelings she's struggling with and turned them into something constructive???? The broken pencil scene was so good who on the writers team did that I want names so I can send them flowers in the mail. This season is SUCH a good time I'm so happy it went like this

Oh and also Zane needs help I think. Please someone talk to him he's taking it slow but he is having another identity crisis and I think he really needs to spend some time with his friends so they can remind him who he is. I miss Pixal too but someone please tell him he is a whole person without her and he is himself even if people's perception of him doesn't match how he feels :(

[plutonicmirror]

Zero Hour (1994) #0 [and Zero Hour in general]

Let’s continue my Zero Hour first reading. After skipping some filler tie-in issues, I reached the finale. Again, funny numbering gimmick with a 0 issue. I think Marvel also had something similar with their -1 issues back then. Oh, the 90s!

Hal Jordan Parallax reveals his master plan: “I’m gonna erase the universe so hard, I’m gonna create a new one where everything is right and everyone is happy™”. Classic case of a hero reacting to tragedy the readers are supposed to know about the Emerald Twilight story arc, but I’m LARPing as a snot-eating 10yo in 1994 who just started reading comics and doesn’t have enough attention span to know the lore with absurd amounts of cope and a plan that sounds extremely good on paper, but that other heroes must oppose because morality yadda yadda yadda. Looking at you, Injusticeverse.

Shout-out to my man Danger, a D-lister that was brought to the final fight fOr a ReAsOn. I’m gonna be honest, I skipped his tie-in because I couldn’t give a fuck about who he was. I usually like me some B/C/D/Z listers, but I also don’t give a fuck about DC’s Titans and his book was apparently tied to that whole mess so I was like “meh, next”. I mean, this young dude is a nobody right....?

*one trip to a comics wiki later*

Oh...

Ahem, moving on. The Spectre shows up looking for REVENGE after all of the JSA folks get ultra aged up or straight up deleted from existence, even though they had previously asked him for help and he was like “nah that’s human bullshit, I ain’t movin’ any finger”. Good job, asshole.

So yeah, remember our D-lister? Turns out his power (which is absorbing energy and making explosions) is specifically needed to counter Parallax’s new Big Bang. So our heroes’ plan is...to recreate the universe exactly as it was. So basically Parallax’s plan but done by them because fuck you Parallax, you don’t get to play God. Except...it doesn’t come out exactly as it was, because there’s “““subtle changes”““. In a meta way, this event was supposed to be a soft reboot to fix some of the fuckery that Crisis on Infinite Earths (a big event I haven’t read yet out of fear) caused. Was it accomplished? According to Comic Pop’s Back Issues video on this event... it kind of wasn’t. Sidenote, I highly recommend that channel’s Back Issues series, after reading an event it’s fun to watch a recap that adds background bits for the uncultured (like me) even if I sometimes feel the critique of the host is too harsh.

A not-Killing-Joke’d Batgirl from another timeline who temporarily sided with Parallax because she was doing her best “I want to be a real boy” Pinocchio impersonation got killed in the heat of the moment, so the other normal-powered hero in the room (Green Arrow) gets pissed at his former bestie. After this whole event he ragequits btw and apparently a common joke is that many readers think that should be the standard reaction to the whole thing.

Parallax is seemingly killed but it’s comics so he’ll be fine, trust the process. If I recall correctly, Hal gets to be the new Spectre for a while [*Vietnam flashbacks of Identity Crisis*]. I forgot to mention that the current Green Lantern of the time Kyle Rayner and Wally West were also “killed off”. Again, they’ll be fine. I just didn’t care enough to read a wiki and find out how they come back. But that bit brings us to this “oh yeah, that happened” moment:

Power Girl was pregnant and gave birth to a baby with the help of Wonder Woman who conveniently decided to play midwife instead of stepping up to the threath. Bue hey, guess who also was sort of born in the aftermath of this event? That’s right, I was! So surely that means that baby is a very important char-

Whoops, nevermind.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE WHOLE EVENT:

“7/10 it was alright” - IGN.

The contrarian in me doesn’t hate it like most nerds out there do, but it’s certainly not the greatest event ever written. Granted I went in without knowledge of a lot of stuff, like how was I supposed to make sense of what was happening in the Hawkman tie-in issue aka the whole “let’s try to solve the problem of having multiple origins for this character by literally merging them all into one” thing? How could I know what CoIE fuckery needed to be fixed if I don’t know the big impact of CoIE besides Supergirl being killed off (this fact is cultural osmosis at this point)? Did it matter to me in the long run? Not really, because it’s not like I feel compelled to keep reading DC continuity and make sense of it for the time being. The art was good, the colors were pretty, the Parallax suit was rad, the pose Ollie made at the end was Jojo-esque and dramatic, Batman fucking off from the final fight via being killed was good.

Now, the tie-ins. Some of them were fun, some of them were a drag to read because I had no idea of background info for most of them. Almost all of the Superman tie-ins were fun to read with the exception of Steel because I was tired of wiki-hunting when I reached his issue, shout out to the alternate Jor-El and Lara, the Alpha Centurion and the “Superman tries to save the Kents during the chronal rift” stories (Superman vol. 2 #93, Adventures of Superman #516, Action Comics #703 respectively). The Legion of Superheroes and adjacent issues were extremely confusing to me as a casual but oddly engaging. I had no idea what was happening but it was sort of fun. It revived my itch to read LoSH comics even if I’m still feeling overwhelmed at the mere thought of going further with that task. Oh yeah, the silent Green Arrow issue was a lot of fun! (Green Arrow vol. 2 #90).

The characters introduced were a mixed bag. On one hand we have Bart Allen aka Impulse, who was created in the prequel to this event and was sort of interesting. But then the chronal rift time erasure bullshit happens and since he’s from the 30th century he basically does nothing of importance... Alpha Centurion, as I mentioned, was a fun read in his Adventures issue but in the core event he was... a convenient minion. Thriumph? Thriump was an annoying character, one of those “oh yeah he was totally there in the beggining of the big team but the big name characters just don’t remember tee hee!”. Don’t worry though, he would later die of a cold. Or something like that. Extant felt edgy throughout most of the core issues and the tie-ins, he really had that Madara Uchiha endgame villain energy...until he was revealed to be just a pawn that was just rebelling. And then he fucks off. Shout-out to this specific goofy panel:

Tie-in issues skipped: Anima #7, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #31, Damage #6, Robin vol. 2 #10, Showcase ‘94 #10, Steel #8, Team Titans #24 (yeah, this team got erased from existence and I just couldn’t care), The Darkstars #24. Also skipped: all of the Zero Month aftermath gimmick #0/soft reboot issues.

New Year’s resolution when it comes to DC? I’ll get around reading the 70s Green Arrow and Green Lantern book. Ever since I found some academic paper on it that mentioned the words environmentalism and malthusian I was like “ok wtf I have to read this”.

Tytyty for reading my blog.

[totallyuseless-ugh]

Across the Campus

Chapter Three: When Dreadlocks lead to Numbers

“Not gonna lie, I think I’ma cut my hair soon.”

Pico could not believe how casually Darnell had decided to be about this arbitrary news. “What the- where the fuck did that just come from?!”

“I dunno,” Darnell shrugged and did not bother to glance over at Pico for even a second. “Kinda just feeling like it. Gonna be lots easier to manage and care for then too.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

“What?”

“You’ve been growing your hair for ages, and now you wanna cut it off? You’re insane, Nells.”

“Fuck nah. I just feel like having a bit of a change. That’s all.”

“Just because we’re now in university and you had an identity crisis recently doesn’t mean y’gotta shave your hair like any other idiot does online. Jeez.”

“Fuck off,” Darnell groaned and gave Pico a nudge as to make him stop talking. He knew that his friend was just messing with him, seeing how he tried his best to keep a straight face throughout the entire conversation. In reality, Darnell was aware that Pico would never seriously expect of Darnell to take any advice from the redhead seriously when it came to fashion. And Pico knew Darnell would not ask for real advice whenever he would come and randomly say these wild ideas of his out loud.

Like the days before, the blonde student jogged to the same bent of the path at the same time. And as if Darnell had not been smiling enough already, his grin grew bigger when the stranger waved at him after taking a few deep breaths.

“Just imagine, Nells,” Pico could not help but continue annoying his friend. “Let’s say you do cut your locks off. And then you get the chance to talk with that guy! How the hell are they gonna recognize you then, hm?”

“Do you have any hobbies, or did’ya leave those at home for your lil’ sis?”

“You’re one to speak.”

“An’ you’re this close to getting my coffee in your face. Maybe it’ll make your face red like your hair.”

“At least I still got some hair left then.”

Darnell stopped waving back to the stranger and instead silently flipped off Pico. He did not bother to further engage in the harmless bullying and left the balcony once he had downed the rest of his morning drink. The redhead followed after him a while later to also pack his bag for his upcoming lectures. He was picking out his clothes for the day until he noticed something unusual and turned to give Darnell a confused look. “Since when do you take pen and paper to class with you?”

“Never too late to switch to handwriting, aye?” Darnell answered jokingly before pointing over at his laptop on the desk. “Nah. That brick just didn’t charge fast enough, and I’m not just gonna hope and pray that 47% will last for the whole day.”

“Told ya to plug it in sooner..” Pico muttered with a devious little chuckle. For once, Darnell left it uncommented as both continued getting ready and eventually headed out onto the campus. Seeing how Pico had a ridiculously short walk from their dorm to the ComSci building got Darnell feeling jealous every morning. If he had only half the knowledge about IT as Pico, he would have seriously considered switching majors for this luxury. But that would not change that his minor course still took place in the science building, just like his major courses. Darnell had no choice but to cross the campus, passing by the library and musical studies building on his way.

The lecture hall was already filling up slowly with people as he arrived. And although Darnell knew there were more seats than students for the course, he still wanted to be quick and get a good seat from which he could have good view of the blackboards behind the teacher’s desk.

He soon settled down with his bag on the seat next to him as he unpacked everything he needed for taking notes. If for any reason someone would need to sit there, he would of course remove his bag without a word. But until this were to happen, Darnell would enjoy the luxury of having his bag easily accessible by his side. While the hall continued to fill with people had Darnell not taken any notice of the person in the row before his, repeatedly searching through every pocket of their bag before finally admitting defeat with a curse muttered under their breath.

“’Scuse me?” Darnell looked up from his paper as he was being talked to. He was already instinctively reaching to grab his bag and clear the other seat. But he quickly froze in place instead once he began to recognize the face in front of him.

Despite the layered clothes could Darnell see the rough shape of the student’s broad physique, and the hair colour matched with the blonde of the jogger he saw every morning. Just this time, they wore their hair hanging down all the way to their shoulders instead of in a tight bun. He had no idea they would appear rather androgynously when they were not running around the campus in the morning.

“Uh- yeah? What’s up?” Darnell was doing his best not to show how flustered he was feeling in that moment.

“I don’t have any pens with me right now. Could I perhaps borrow one of yours?”

“That’s such a funny coincidence. If my laptop had charged enough over night, I wouldn’t have any with me today!” Darnell laughed softly as he searched for a spare pen to give to the other. Though his laughter did sound a bit nervous, but the stranger did not seem to notice that.

“Guess it’s my lucky day then,” they laughed along and thanked as they were handed a pen. However, they stayed turned towards Darnell for just a moment longer, silently looking into another direction as if waiting for something to load in their mind. “Sorry if it’s random. Or, well, it is random, I’m just curious about something.”

Although Darnell had not done anything bad, he still felt how his stomach dropped upon being spoken to again by the stranger. “And what is that?..” he asked carefully with a tremulous voice.

“You.. got a dorm on campus, right?”

“Yeah, me ‘n my friend share it.”

“Could it possibly be the dormitory near the IT building? The one close to the football field?”

At this point, Darnell could not manage to answer with even a small hum. He only nodded and waited with bated breath for the other’s response. There were a lot of things he expected to happen. None of them were to see the blonde smiling at him.

“I didn’t know I shared a course with you! I’ve honestly been waiting to see you around campus someday.”

“Hah- wait, what? For real?”

“Yeah! I wanted to know who I’ve been seeing on that balcony every morning lately.”

“Oh wow, what are the odds, huh-“ The conversation was interrupted by a voice sounding through the speakers around the room. Darnell and all the other students which had been waiting were looking towards the front of the hall, seeing their professor testing the microphone before she officially welcomed everyone to the start of today's course. Darnell felt as if he were stuck in a horrible comedy. Just when he finally was given the chance to talk to the handsome stranger, they could not exchange more than a few sentences. He sighed and reluctantly sat back, waiting for Mrs. Iverson to introduce the topic that he could start taking notes.

It was not exactly easy stay focused when he was sitting behind the blonde guy the entire time. Just the thought of completely ignoring the course and continuing their conversation was incredibly tempting. But Darnell did not know how seriously the other would take biochemistry, so he was not going to make himself look like a jerk who only went to university to party every day. Or was that more of a college thing? Either way, it was time to actually pay attention to the material.

While taking notes, Darnell briefly glanced up from his paper to take a proper look at the diagram his professor had sketched on the board. But as he was about to copy it onto his paper, he found a folded-up page laying on top of his notes. And although he would probably need the diagram for studying later on, his curiosity about the random letter outweighed the rational side of him. Darnell put his pen aside and tried to open up the page as quietly as possible to read the few lines written on it.

“Hey! I don’t know when you got courses today. But if possible, I’d want to talk some more with you later :)

“Ps. My name is CJ, but Jay is cool too”

Darnell's heart began to flutter in his chest. He finally knew the stranger’s name. They wanted to talk with him after class. Could this day get any better? Probably not.

He grinned from ear to ear while quickly writing a response underneath CJ’s short text.

“My course after this was cancelled for today, so I’d have time until ~11:45 AM :)

“BTW I’m Darnell. My friends just call me Nells tho”

Darnell read over his words a few times before folding up the page again. He briefly put it aside to finally finish the diagram in his notes. Knowing his professor, he had to be quick before Mrs. Iverson would clean off the board again. But with that out of the way, Darnell quickly picked up the note and quietly leaned over his small desk, tapping on CJ’s shoulder to get their attention. The blonde’s head perked up, smiling at the sight of apparently getting a response to their written message.

For the rest of the course was Darnell trying to stay focused. But that was easier said than done. With CJ sitting almost directly in front of him, he could not help but get impatient for the end of this lecture to finally come. Luckily, the wait was over eventually. The alarm on Iverson’s watch went off, interrupting her in the middle of her own speech as it did nearly every time. “Oh, well.. I suppose we will just get back to this next time. Now get outta here!” she laughed while flapping her hands as if to shoo all the students out of their seats. Darnell did not need to be told twice to pack his things and leave the hall, though he stopped outside by the door to wait for CJ.

“Ah, there you are,” CJ laughed as they found Darnell again. He was surprised to see how tall they stood in front of him. “I thought for a second I wouldn’t get the chance to give that back to you.” They returned the borrowed pen to its owner with a gentle smile.

“Oh no, don’t worry. I wasn’t gonna ditch ya,” Darnell tried to play off his slowly rising nervousness by chuckling. He quickly dropped the pen into his bag, not wanting to waste any time with finding its correct pocket. The silence between the two was far from uncomfortable, yet Darnell felt as if that needed to change before he would run the risk of doing something stupid. “Soo… where should we go?”

“I was gonna suggest the library. Partially because I have a book due, but also because it's quiet there.”

“Oh, sure thing!” Darnell chimed and followed alongside CJ to the library. He knew the directions to the building himself. But since they had suggested it, he felt it was nicer to tag along than to be the one leading the way.

While walking onto the campus together, CJ glanced over at their new acquaintance. “You said one of your courses was cancelled today, right?”

Darnell nodded in response.

“May I ask which one it was?”

“Just one of my chemistry lectures. It’s no big deal, the one afterwards is still taking place at least.”

“So, you’re doing a chemistry major, and decided to pick a biochemistry minor?”

“Doesn’t hurt now, does it?”

CJ snickered while shaking their head. “Not at all. You know best what decision to make.”

Darnell began to grin once more. As if CJ had not already been attractive enough to him, the way they laughed and smiled was just absolutely charming in his eyes. “What about you then? What are you doing besides biochemistry?”

“Well, I’m majoring in musical arts. Still got a couple more years left to study though.”

“That’s an interesting combination.. how long have you been here for already?”

“I got my bachelor’s last semester,” CJ told the other nonchalantly, holding the door open for Darnell to enter the library. He was flabbergasted and his instincts wanted to respond loudly out of utter shock. But instead, he balled his hands into tight fists and pursed his lips as to not yell through the quiet, yet large room.

“You’ve been here for four years already?!” he managed to say through gritted teeth. CJ, however, did not seem to be bothered by this in the least. They just nodded and took Darnell along to one of the library’s counters.

“So what, you’re.. 22? 23 years old?”

“20 actually,” CJ corrected Darnell. “Just because I’ve been here a while doesn’t mean I got out of high school at 18 like most.” While Darnell needed a moment to process the information he had just been given was the tall blonde returning the due book to one of the assistants.

“.. you started uni at 16?”

“M-hm. The semester began shortly after my birthday. And trust me, you’re not the first one who reacted this way.”

“Shit-“ Darnell cussed at himself, feeling as if his many questions were coming off as nosy or annoying. “I didn’t wanna bother you or som’, really! I just thought based on the info you gave me ‘n all that you were some mid-20 dude who does sports and.. I dunno, a business major? That was shallow of me, sorry..”

At that point, Darnell was sure he already messed up all of his chances with CJ, if there had been any to begin with. He was contemplating on whether he should pretend he got an emergency text from a friend and leave the situation before things could get any worse. That was until he felt a strong hand on his back, dragging him away from the counter while CJ laughed in a gentle voice. “All good, man! I’m used to people making those assumptions about me.”

“But doesn’t it get tiring at some point?..”

“Eh, sometimes. But I’m mostly around people who already know me anyways.” CJ took Darnell up a flight of stairs to the next floor of the library to find a nice place to sit at together. “Besides, you weren’t completely wrong about the whole sports thing.”

“I mean, I know. I see you jogging by every morning. But I thought you did something like, I dunno, boxing perhaps.”

“Still sorta close I’d say. It’s football.”

Darnell’s head perked up a little, though he did not know himself for what reason. “Oh dang!- That’s really.. wow.” Internally, he wanted to smack himself in the face for this unnecessary and awkward response.

Meanwhile CJ on the other hand did not seem to mind as they kept smiling at him regardless. “Yeah, it's tough. Gotta stay in shape all the time, that’s why I go for a run every morning.”

“Right, about that,” Darnell spoke before his mind even had the chance to fully consider if he should bring this up. “You.. how did you recognize me? After all, there’s a bit of a distance between my balcony and your running path. And I am about 90 percent sure that I ain’t the only black guy 'round here.”

CJ took a moment to take a proper look at Darnell as if they did not know the answer to his question either. “I suppose.. it was your hair. Yeah, you’re not the only guy with dreads on campus, but I think the length of ‘em was what stood out to me.”

In that very moment swore Darnell not to tell Pico a single word on why CJ recognized him. He planned on taking this secret with him to the grave. When CJ suddenly gave him a big-eyed look however began he to think that he must have confused them by making a weird expression without noticing.

“Ah fuck, sorry I didn’t ask before,” CJ began to apologize. “I guess I was being a bit shallow myself by just assuming you’re a guy.”

Darnell blinked a few times. This was the first time he was actually being asked whether he was a guy or not. For him, it came seemingly out of nowhere and left him not knowing how to respond for a few moments. “Uh- all good, you were right with your assumption anyway.. But since you’re bringing it up, what about you?”

CJ sighed in relief to hear they had not said anything that might have been hurtful to Darnell. “Depends on how much time you got left,” they joked, getting a curious look in response. “In short, I use they/them pronouns, but if someone doesn’t bother to ask, I don’t care if people use he or she. I ain’t the type to jump at others’ throats over that stuff.”

While Darnell could not completely relate to CJ’s experiences, he still felt as if he would react the same way if he were to ever end up in such a situation. “Fair enough. I was already talking about you like that, since Pico and I weren’t really sure how to sort you in.” The words had left his mouth already when he once more cringed over his carelessness. He was exposing himself at such a rapid pace, Darnell would not be surprised if he were to end up admitting his attraction towards CJ in that same conversation.

At least they could not see his face getting redder thanks to his dark skin, or else CJ’s smug grin might have been even wider. “So you’ve been talking about me to your friend, huh? Am I really that interesting to you both?”

“You’re making me sound like a weirdo, jeez,” Darnell tried to act as if the teasing did not bother him in the slightest, despite him actually feeling like a weirdo. “We just.. noticed how you always run by our corner at the exact same time. It was odd to us, that’s all.”

“Okay, in my defense, I don’t do it intentionally. I just get.. a bit of an ick if I can’t follow my routine exactly the way I have set it up for myself. It gets me on edge. That’s why I never changed the route either, I’ve grown used to it already.”

“Huh, interesting. I always thought it had to do with a strict time schedule. Well, I-“ Darnell stammered when his phone silently interrupted him with the vibration of his alarm going off. He uttered an apology as he pulled the device from his pocket to shut it off.

“You got to go to your next course soon?” CJ asked curiously.

“Not yet, but soon. That was just the alarm for when I go back to my dorm, to make sure I can pack up in time. I got a second one for when I actually have to get going.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be distracting for much longer though. And I gotta head out for my class soon as well.”

“Oh,” Darnell muttered. His tone ended up sounding more disappointed than he wanted to let through. “Well.. it was nice getting to know you then.”

“I feel the same,” CJ said as they got up along with Darnell. “If you don’t mind, I’d want to get to know you some more. I could give you my number, or any of my socials if you prefer that.”

Darnell’s face lit up quickly at their words, “Oh! Sure, no problem!” He unlocked his phone and handed it over to CJ, letting them type in their number into a new contact file before returning it to him. “I suppose I’ll see you around?”

CJ nodded and gave him a small wave as goodbye, “Definitely. Tomorrow morning at the latest.”