#and it’s about someone that to survive has to become a robot kind of but the way he loses himself and then has to learn to be human GOD

[duubaloo]

just reread one of my favorite fics and I had to hold back tears and compose myself before a meeting lmao

[theliteraryarchitect]

Hi! I wanted to say, I read that you are a professional editor, and think it's amazing! You also give very logical and well explained advice. I was wondering; would you say being an editor is a job you can support yourself with? I actually aspire to become one someday, but I'm not exactly sure if it's a good plan.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you have a good day/night

Hey there. Great question. It's totally possible to support yourself as an editor. I've done it, and so have other editors I know. However there are a few important things to consider before choosing editing as a career path.

Your chances of being a self-employed freelancer are extremely high. The number of in-house editing jobs in publishing are low and getting lower. While being self employed can give you a certain amount of flexibility, it also comes along with a lot of hustle and hassle, namely fluctuating income, a stupid amount of confusing tax paperwork, and the need to constantly promote yourself to clients in order to maintain steady work.

You probably won't make as much money as you'd think. Editing is one of the many skilled jobs that suffers from market saturation, which has sadly driven down the price the average client is willing to pay for editing services. I can't tell you the number of overqualified editors I know charging barely more than minimum wage for their work. Personally I've stuck to my guns about charging what I'm worth, but I've sometimes suffered by not having as much work as my colleagues who charge less.

Robots have already chipped away at the future of editing as a human occupation, and will continue to do so at exponential speed in the years ahead. They will never obliterate the job completely, as there will always be humans who prefer to work with humans instead of machines. But the outlook will become ever bleaker as more humans compete for fewer gigs, which in turn will drive down prices even further.

If you are also a writer, editing may adversely affect your writing. I don't mean that you'll become a worse writer, quite the opposite. My editing work has brought new depths to my writing, and I'm grateful for all I've learned by working with my clients. However, editing takes time, uses creative energy, and requires staring at a screen (or paper), and personally the more I edit, the less time/creativity/screen-staring capabilities I have left for my own writing.

If you mention you're an editor, someone will troll your post for a typo, grammatical error, or misused word, and then triumphantly point it out to you in the comments. This is mostly a joke. But it does happen every single time.

I hope this hasn't been too discouraging. If you feel a true passion for editing and really enjoy the work, none of the above should dissuade you. However, if you think you might be happy in any number of occupations, I'd honestly advise you to explore other options. Choosing a career path at this point in history is a gamble no matter what, but the outlook for editors is especially grim.

If you'd like to work with writers and aren't attached to being an editor, there are a few jobs (still freelance) that I believe will survive the coming robot apocalypse. Do a little Google research about "book coaches," "writing coaches," or "book doulas." These are people who act primarily as emotional supporters and logistical helpers for writers who are trying to get their book published or self published. Some of them do actual editing, but many do not, and due to the therapeutic nature of their work I believe they will flourish longer than editors in the coming robot apocalypse.

If you do explore editing as a path, the further away you can lean from spelling and grammar (e.g. proofreader or copyeditor), the longer your skills will be useful when competing with robots. AI still struggles to offer the same kind of nuanced, story-level feedback that a human can give. (Speaking from experience here--I'm a developmental editor and have yet to see a dent in my workload because of robots.) They'll catch up eventually, but it could be a while, and as long as there are human readers, there will always be humans who are willing to pay for a human perspective on their writing. Human spell checkers maybe not so much.

Hope this helps!

[kimbapisnotsushi]

ojiro aran headcanons bc @luminouschaotic asked me if i had thoughts (which was. a while back) but i'm out of town for two weeks in a couple days and won't be on much so i wanted to get this done before then so LET'S GO!!

aran has like spidey-sense Chaos Instincts™️ honed by years of taking care of the miyas so much so that on his first day at inarizaki he feels a tingle down his spine and turns around just in time to catch akagi michinari falling out of a tree

aran, being the kind soul that he is, goes over to help. because if there's anything the miyas have taught him it's that if you don't intervene early on there WILL be even more severe consequences down the line than if you'd just helped them in the first place

it basically goes "hi i'm ojiro what do you need me to do and how much plausible deniability can i get from this"

don't worry akagi had just been get a paper airplane bc he might be a little shit but he's a little shit with morals who cares about the environment

he didn't get the airplane the branch broke before he could

akagi tells aran that he's going to try one more time and asks aran to stand under the tree so that aran can catch him if he falls again and aran's dreading the day akagi and the twins will finally meet

i actually think it WOULD be funny if kita and akagi had been childhood friends or something previously bc a) SOMEONE had to have been akagi's handle before high school and b) it just makes sense in my head

also i think a fundamental aspect of the shiratorizawa and inarizaki rivalry that we're overlooking is reon and aran bonding

like. they get it. they know what it's like. loving a place that does not always loves you back. having a home that does not always feel like a home. it can be hard, sometimes. but if there's one thing they agree on it's that their teams ALWAYS have their backs

(lev and liam my lovelies i have NOT forgotten about you)

also this just makes the whole "aran's irrational fear is tendou satori" a thousand times funnier

since it's established that aran references older pieces of media i like to think that means he sits down with like idk his grandparents probably and they watch all kinds of things together

sometimes the only other people who get aran's references are people who ALSO sit down and watch things with their grandparents (kuroo, kageyama, kita. . . )

the haikyuu club of good grandchildren . . .

anyways so that's how kita and aran become friends!!

oh my god . . . do you guys think his sister had those small kid puppy crushes on any of his friends . . . .

my vote is akagi or the miyas do you know how funny that would be

i think a bit that akagi does with aran is saying "oh my god this is just like [insert fictional media here]" when something (usually an Event™️ involving the miyas) happens and aran going "STOP SAYING THIS IS JUST LIKE [??] AND HELP ME"

when the third years graduate aran gives gin a gift and tells him not to open it until he gets home

when gin does open it he finds a booklet titled "how to survive the miyas: a comprehensive guide by ojiro aran" and it's at least a hundred pages long

the first page is an emergency contact list with the numbers of the miyas' parents, aran's parents, and every hospital/clinic within a fifteen-mile radius

definitely prefers a real newspaper to a digital one

i think the whole of the inarizaki third years are tech-averse tbh if you took them to one of those restaurants with the little robot servers with screens for faces they'd slow blink at it like really confused cats

this sucks especially for suna bc every time he gives his phone to one of them when he wants pictures of himself with someone or something they always come out blurry or too much exposure or some shit

i think aran and oomimi go hiking with each other on the weekends and are always pestering everyone else to go with them

they win when they promise everyone, yes, we can go out for brunch and boba after

(do the twins fall into a stream while trying to cross it? yes. did they still go to brunch afterwards, sopping wet? also yes. aran doesn't think he's ever laughed harder in his life.)

[zombiee-reviews]

Rogio character discussion / breakdown.

• The coward • The asshole • The useless

If you can’t tell, I’m having fun with these lmao.

WARNING! THIS DOC CONTAINS LOTS OF INFORMATION AND WALL TEXT BECAUSE ROGIO IS REALLY THAT SHITTY LMAO.

So after doing a discussion with Ranach, my next victim is going to be Rogio.

Rogio is rather an easy character to breakdown, considering his actions is a huge contradiction to what Kique has his personality set too in the wiki.

-

What I will be going over:

• What we know of Rogio’s early life

• Why I feel he is just a shit character

• His friends with benefi- I mean, relationship with Roamer.

• How he is a huge self insert of Kique

• His weird on and off trauma(s)

• His wiki personality is one thing, but the comic shows another.

( Topics are in no particular order, my brain likes to splatter information everywhere lmao. )

-

So first, I am going to start with what we know of Rogio’s early life. Unfortunately, Rogio doesn’t really talk much about his early life, before MT. What we are told is he was once in a tribe named Snowcap Tribe and they once lived on the Meteor Summit. Rogio also mentions how someone angered a spirit up there and the spirit completely wiped out everyone. Obviously, later in the comic, his brother Iberon survived and was the cause of the spirit destroying the Tribe, but Rogio does not know this.

It is interesting to me how none of these comic characters talk about their backstory, but in Rogio’s case, he only brings up bad things in his backstory so everyone feels bad for him.

Why does Rogio never talk about his brother? His family? His traumatic experiences? You would think we would have some moments of Rogio confiding in Roamer and talking over the events that happened. It would have been good leverage to use his night beast form as past traumas he hasn’t gotten over. Personally, I feel like Kique didn’t come up with Rogio having a sibling that is alive until he made Ranach visit SS. Because this validates Ranach yoinking everyone in SS, because Iberon reminds him so much of Rogio. Ranach even puts two and two together that this COULD be Rogio’s brother. But as readers, we never see a scene where Rogio EVER talks about his sibling(s), or his past. And quite frankly it bothers me? The characters just feel like robots with no backstory, morals, or humanity / humility. They are just puppets to whatever Kique feels like having them do - in MT’s case, puppets to Rogio.

-

Let’s be honest, Rogio is by far the worst character in Home. Kique likes to label this guy as one of his best characters and will literally protect / defend him at all costs. WHY? I don’t know, maybe it’s because Rogio is a literal carbon copy of Kique in the comic.

It becomes obvious that Rogio is a self insert of Kique when Roamer and Rogio return to MT, after leaving Midnightgarde.

Roamer has a falling out with Kargo and we are shown nosy - ass Rogio listening in. We are then shown that Rogio is battling his own demons and pretty much forcing Roamer to cater to him because he wants to return to MT with Roamer. Kind of funny how Roamer doesn’t ask Rogio why tf he was listening to a private conversation… But anyway.

Even though Roamer and Kargo literally just broke up, Rogio thinks it’s a great idea to back stab his long time friend Kargo and sleep with his ex. How trustworthy Rogio is. I mean hell, Rogio makes the first move on Roamer. And then in a co-dependent manner, Rogio is suddenly healed from his demons, after sleeping with Roamer that night. Even Roamers face shows this “Oh god, Kique is going to use me as NSFW content with this dweeb in the future.” Lmao.

Also Rogio says he didn’t join the Tribe by choice, but he could have left by choice. Rogio had the luxury of leaving the walls when he wanted too, he could have easily just took off one day. He wasn’t that trapped. -_-

One thing I find funny on Rogio returning to MT, was he KNEW there was a possibility that Ranach was still there. So obviously, Kargo was right when he told Roamer that he returned to MT to sleep with Ranach once again. Of course, this is quickly covered up. But it’s obvious to me that Rogio was willing to see Ranach once more and then later in the comic acted like seeing Ranach again would be the end of his world. THEN WHY DID YOU RETURN TO MT IDIOT??

If Ranach terrified / traumatized you SO MUCH, why would you return to MT knowing there was a chance he’d be there, or knowing there was a chance Ranach would return? Didn’t factor that one in, huh buddy?

After reading the documents Staz put out on how Kique was in their relationship, Rogio describes Kique to a damn T. It would also make sense why all the main characters oogle over him, or ask for his advice even tho it’s out of place. Rogio IS Kique.

I mean hell, I absolutely HATE that the MT females don’t gut Rogio for not doing squat for them while he was in MT. When Rogio does return to MT I hate when I see Inna say “We’re glad to have you back Rogio!” GIRL WHAT. This pile of dog crap didn’t bother to save anybody, he had a chance to rebel with Kargo the first time and didn’t do anything! He was too busy banging Ranach and trying to raise his own position in MT as a Baron WITH Ranach. Realistically, NOBODY should be happy to see him!

Oh and let’s not forget Ronja giving him special privileges to call her by her actual name. And then suddenly making him Baron of MT, even though he hasn’t proved his skills to her. Ronjas stupid as well for just giving that much responsibility / status to someone SHE BARELY KNOWS. But it’s ✨ ROGIO ✨

Then came the time when Rogio was completely useless to his rank as a Baron. He’d let everyone go do the work for him when it came time to rid of Ranach and Avanti. He always used the excuse of not wanting to see Ranach, because Ranach was his “abuser”. The goofy thing about this is, Rogio was completely accepting of seeing Ranach again when he was coming back from Midnightgarde.. Also, why would you return to the very place your abuser lives? Why did you come back to MT knowing Ranach would still be around? It’s all dumb writing to me. I understand why Roamer returned, but Rogio could have very easily went his own way and start his own life.

Then another contradiction that Rogio creates for himself, is when he is in the healer hut saying “If anyone had a problem with it, they would have voiced their concern at the meeting.” But when Vigr asks Rogio to use himself to lure Ranach into a trap, Rogio suddenly throws a fit like a child and suffers from a “PTSD” attack. Again, idk why you would want to torment yourself so badly and come back to a place where your abuser is still around. Don’t make sense to me!!

But because Rogio was absolutely useless in the fight against Avanti and decided to not be apart of it, MT lost two members! Fuss and Jonna! Bro, you’re a Baron, a second in command, you don’t get to just kick your feet up. If you felt you weren’t ready to be a Baron, then why the hell did you accept it anyway? You could have easily told Ronja NO, I don’t want to be a Baron, I can’t handle that much responsibility right now. But because Rogio wasn’t there and his help could have potentially saved Fuss and Jonna, we lose them.

I mean shit, Fuss had more of a reason to stay behind, for his daughter! But he went anyway. Then we have lame ass Rogio who doesn’t want to sEe HiS aBuSeR. Even tho he has an entire tribe to protect him from Ranach!

Then came the time when Ranach was attacking the wall with Avanti. I just LOVE that Ronja says “You are the second strongest to Kargo go protect the cave entrance!” Basically saying “Just go run away and be useless!” If Rogio is the second strongest, why is he off diddling in a cave while everyone else has to go face Oreo dog? Oh that’s right! Plot armor! And Kiques way of further dragging the story of Ranach not knowing Rogio is alive yet! And yet furthering my reasons of why Rogio is fucking useless at everything. I mean he needed help from a pup to “kill” Avanti.

Then of course, when Rogio plays this game of ignoring Roamer and goes with Ronja to Tinget. What an asshole. I mean look at the face he is giving Roamer before he leaves??? Not only this, but Ronja ain’t the smartest of the bunch, because anyone can see that her tribe member is not himself, but sure buddy! Show me the way with just us two alone to Tinget! I mean hell, the comic doesn’t really show a relationship / friendship with Ronja or Rogio. Ronja is forced to like Rogio and act like she knows anything about him from Kique, because he is with her family member, Roamer. I mean she can at least see that Rogio is being a bit of a dick to Roamer, but she somehow doesn’t stand up against Rogio and defend her family member. She’s definitely got that minding her own business down lol.

Going to fast forward to the time when Ronja and Rogio are seen after Tinget. They are camping and Rogio miraculously knows that Fjall is spooking at something else other than a night beast. Rogio completely goes feral on this strange dog spying on them. But what would make me uncomfortable in Ronjas position is she had to really put some force in her voice to get Rogio to stop threatening him. Giiirl, that would make me nervous, because you’re alone with ROGIO lmao.

Later, Rogio and Ronja return to MT and Rogio attempts to run off, but cowers out. Heh, wuss. I don’t understand why he didn’t just do it while she was asleep, but to wait last minute while you’re on the border of MT. It just makes it easier for everyone to follow your scent?? IDK.

Once Rogio is in the void with Kargo after fighting his night beast form, the whole scene that follows once they leave is total bullshit. The whole “A punch long overdue.” From Kargo is so wrong in so many ways, if anything, ROGIO deserves that punch from Kargo. Rogio has been nothing but a dickwad to everyone since day one, he damn near isn’t redeemable either. But Kique thinks because Rogio saves Kargo and kills his night beast, it clears anything Rogio has done in the past.

When Kargo says “I have brought so much pain into his life” I think Kique meant for Rogio to say that. I mean Rogio was the biggest asshole to Roamer?? Only thing Kargo has done was just get upset with him over Ferah, and leave him, other than that I haven’t really seen Kargo be a dick to Roamer like Rogio. I mean hell, at least Kargo COMMUNICATES, even if it is when he gets angry.

And what follows after is just sad. I hate how out of character Kique writes Kargo just to benefit Rogio. But I am happy to see the lions wacking Rogio around lmao.

It wasn’t obvious in the beginning, but after finding out Rogio suggests a poly relationship to Roamer, it then becomes obvious Kique planned this shit. He planned a polyship and the three of them to have a child as well, which would be Diarko. Which is dumb as hell, considering his mother is actually alive. But Kique writes her as a mother lacking any maternity instincts, cause she just leaves him with MT? It becomes clear to me that the MT storyline is actually all about Rogio and whatever orbits around him.

Then as they return to MT, suddenly Kargo and Rogio become the best of friends. Okay I get it, Rogio saved him. But honestly, it looks like Kargo didn’t want to be saved. And besides that, Rogio and Kargo had no chemistry together. Just because Kargo dies and Rogio brings him back to life does not undo anything?? Kargo should really be like, okay thanks for bringing me back to life, buh bye dude.

Then Galti, Alva and Javo leave and they have this whole conversation that Ranach may return. Which he potentially could. Obviously brainless Rogio didn’t think this through. Sure bringing back Kargo is cool and all, but it ups the risks once more and puts MT in danger again. But Kique wants us to love Rogio because he brought Kargo back, not even factoring in the risks! What a smart guy!

-

Now I’ll be going over his weird / abusive af relationship that he has with Roamer.

When Roamer returns from Midnightgarde after giving Ferah and Kargo a thoughtful farewell. Roamer approaches Rogio and gives this whole speech about how the irbloss are the ones that wanted Roamer to see Rogio. WROOONG. Rogio was suppose to die that night, according to others who had script privileges, or heard it from word of mouth from Kique. Yes, that’s right people, Rogio was suppose to die after Ranach sacrificed him. But for some odd reason, Kique chose this wonderful dog to implement himself into. :-)

What also strikes me weird, is how Roamer was shy with Kargo but not with Rogio. Especially after their breakup. I perceived Roamer as shy with Kargo because a MxM relationship was brand new to him and he was figuring himself out. But when it came to Rogio, suddenly that shyness disappeared and he became the more “dominant” one, all in the course of a few days.

Then, Rogio gives this bullshit speech to Roamer about how he feels this relationship is right and he gets a sense of freedom being with him. I’m sorry, but seeing how Rogio treats Roamer in the future, I take this as love bombing and manipulation from Rogio.

Oh also, I hate how Roamer acts like he knows everything about Rogio when he confronts Kargo. “You have no right to talk like you know either of them.” Roamer???? Kargo literally spent years with Rogio in MT and you really want to tell him that?? You’ve only known Rogio for a few days?? Oh! That’s right. This scene is Kique trying to convince his audience that Kargo is the problem, not Rogio. But it’s absolutely hilarious how Roamer goes on the defensive with Kargo over Rogio, like he’s known Rogio his whole life. GET OUT OF HERE BOI.

I also hate how rushed their relationship is. Once Roamer returns from Midnightgarde, they have this forced chemistry about them. It’s almost like they’ve been together for quite a long time, but factoring the pacing, it’s only been a few days?? A week? I mean right from the get go, Rogio is already trying to bang Roamer, when he returns from saying goodbye to Ferah and Kargo.. And also when they wake up the next morning, this behavior is a damn red flag for me?

Also, why the hell did Roamer fail to tell Ronja he returned first? Oh yeah, cause poor Rogipoo needed Roamer to fend off his demons that he should PROBABLY deal with on his own. But Kique made Roamer the one that deals with all of Rogio’s problems.

Also Ronja acting like she knows Rogio, AT ALL. “And Rogio deserves someone like you, after everything he’s been through.” I mean all of chapter nine is pretty much about coddling up to Rogio, even tho Roamer and Ronja don’t know jack shit about him. UGH.

Then of course, Rogio keeping secrets. Roamer had to find out about Rogio and Ranachs relationship, instead of Rogio just telling him. Idk why it was an issue? But if Rogio felt such strong feelings for Roamer, why does he feel the need to not confide in him about something like that, but instead hide it. Then of course, more coddling Rogio over Ranach, even tho Ranach was never shown to abuse Rogio lmfao.

Also why tf was Rogio and Roamer making out like that in front of everyone when Kargo and Ferah are at the gate? There is a literal child right there you freaking creeps.

Then of course, poor Rogipoo couldn’t sleep when Kargo returned, so Roamer is like ITS OKAY BUDDY! I’ll do all of your chores! Go back to sleep!! Damn, I wish I could have someone do my chores because I couldn’t sleep lmfao. Bastard didn’t even say thank you to Roamer lol.

And of course Roamer trying to protect Rogio from Kargo once more. “Do you think he’s proud of the things he’s done?” Girl, I haven’t once seen Rogio take accountability or talk about past things, unless it involved pitying Rogio. It was always poor Rogio! Never, screw Rogio for leaving the MT females to be raped, while he was trying to raise his position in MT and didn’t seem BOTHERED about trying to change anything. Yeah, screw you man.

Then, my all time favorite scene with Kargo whooping Rogio’s ass, rightfully. Everything Kargo says is completely the truth about Rogio. But of course, Kique handles this as Kargo being the asshole and this is suppose to be some half ass redemption arc for Rogio and somehow we’re suppose to feel bad for him here. I mean cmon man, Kargo has the right to be pissed off at Rogio. He literally crept in and immediately started pulling moves on Roamer, DAYS after their break up!

And before Roamer even came into the picture, when Rogio and Kargo were in old MT together. It’s APPARENT that Rogio has backstabbed Kargo before and ( “You turned your back on me the day our bond mattered the most.” ) then did it again when Roamer left him. So why the fuck would any of us feel bad for Rogio here? I think I can speak for all of us logical readers here, we all side with Kargo, Kique.

I also hate that part when Rogio was telling Kargo “We needed each other.” NEEDED WHAT EXACTLY?! A bang buddy?!

And then Kargo asking Rogio if he loves Roamer. OF COURSE HE DOESNT! He is just using Roamer as a bang buddy! Bro literally couldn’t contain himself in front of a CHILD.

Aaaaah, now comes the juicy bits of their relationship. Rogio becomes the victim of his own self pity and decides to stone wall Roamer, because that’s TOTALLY something you should do in a healthy relationship. He does this QUITE a bit with Roamer, later in the comic.

But! You did hit the nail on the head by saying you can’t do anything as a Baron, so that’s why you’ve stepped down. Good job in that self reflection Rogio!

And of course the nightmares return and what does freaking Roamer do? Tries to bang him. Like??? Yall see this? It’s pretty sad that Roamer thinks sex is the way to comfort / get too Rogio. Because when it comes to touchy subjects like that, sex is the answer for him. Not talking it out, I guess. Because guess what! Rogio shoves Roamer off and ignores him! More stonewalling! Guess that didn’t work, Roamer!

Even when Rogio returns from the Tinget meeting, we have even more stonewalling! In typical Rogio fashion, he’s always giving them sad eyes and walking off. You’re pathetic man.

Then to nobodies surprise, chapter 12 begins with pathetic ass Rogio’s nightmares again. Of course, he walks out. Roamer attempts to comfort him and ask him to talk about what he dreamt about, nothing wrong here as Roamer is trying to support / comfort Rogio. But of course Rogio avoids anything Roamer tells him. I mean Roamer is in tears, pushing aside everything and asking him to love and touch him. But then AGAIN, Rogio walks tf out and leaves him alone to cry about it. Here’s a trophy for biggest asshole of this story, Rogio.

As the stonewalling progresses, it then manifests into Rogio trying to sneak out without telling anyone. At least be courteous and TELL SOMEONE. It’s really not that fucking hard to communicate to someone and say “Hey I need my space! So I am leaving for a little bit.” But of course Rogio wants to draw attention on himself and have the whole Tribe worry about him and possibly go search for him. This could have possibly caused more unnecessary deaths, but thankfully Roamer was able to stop him… With sex. Not sure how you can be in love with someone who just wants to bang you, stone wall you and be an absolute ass to you. Rogio is a walking red flag, Roamer lol.

-

Now my final thing will be Rogio’s weird plot convenient traumas.

Obviously, we’re all aware of Rogio fighting his night beast form and once he comes across the spirit that sends him to the void to fight the night beast, we see more trauma in the sky above him. Except these aren’t any traumas, it’s kind of funny how it’s mostly about Kargo calling out Rogio’s shitty ass behavior, but apparently this is traumatic for Rogio. Well, don’t be an asshole???

And then came the time recently when Rogio suggested that MT can move to his old tribes territory. May I remind you that this is his family’s graveyard? And the territory had a spirit absolutely ravage the whole area, killing the tribe? One would think Rogio would be traumatized from this, but guess what? HE ISNT. Nope! The words of his old families territory rings nothing in Rogio’s empty head. But the poor sop can’t even face Ranach with a whole tribe standing behind him.

I think it’s another dick move for Rogio to not mention anything to Ronja or the tribe about what happened in his old territory. Kique, buddy, you try so hard to make this asshat look good, but end up short every time. You will never change my mind on how I feel about Rogio. SORRY CHUMP.

-

Also all of Rogio’s positive personality traits are all bullshit lol. That trustworthy, loyal and courageous one made me laugh LOUDLY.

-

Notes:

Tbh I had to cut some things out and focus mainly on Rogio’s behaviors, so I may have missed some things. The conclusion of this is to show people and potentially show die hard fans of Home that Rogio really isn’t that great. Kique tries to shine him under a bright light, but he just ends up making a fool out of Rogio.

Rogio should have died the night Kique said he would.

-

Also apologies for this taking so long! Rogio is the worst mess in this comic, as you read.

[quitealotofsodapop]

LMK assorted Spider Gang LMK headcanons/theories

sequel to this post. Focusing on the Spider Gang cus I just finished reading that section of Journey to the West.

Spider Queen:

Spider Queen was one of seven sisters... seven sisters who fell to Monkey King's staff after trying to capture Tripitaka/Tang Sanzang for their master; Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord/Centipede Demon. Spider Queen was the only survivor of the fight besides the sisters' adoptive sons. She has spent the last countless years trying to rebuild the family and home she once had, accidentally becoming a "queen" of spider demon-kind in the process.

The Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord's current status is unknown. Spider Queen doesn't care. Her former "brother" refused to give up the Tang monk in exchange for the safety of his sisters. She views this as the ultimate betrayal from someone she had considered her mentor/older brother. She did steal his alchemy supplies though, hence her cauldron.

Spider Queen actually lost her legs in her and Wukong's original fight - hence why she uses a mechanical lower body. Modern mobility aids yall.

Spider Queen also has beef (accidental Pun) with Zhu Bajie for harassing her and her sisters when they were bathing. Homeboy really went so creepy that they predatory spider demons didn't even wanna eat him. Even Pigsy's brief lapse of braincells when he first met Spider Queen was more polite than what his predecesor did.

Spider Queen's motherly nature extends beyond her clan. It's why LBD deliberately possessed a child to approach her - she knew Spider Queen would think twice about hurting "just a little girl". Spider Queen even gets a little protective over MK once she starts talking to him on an equal level.

Syntax:

Syntax was once a scientist who worked at the Weather Station. When the station was damaged by Red Son and MK's fighting in "Bad Weather"; he got scapegoated by the company as it's lead programmer and was fired. This gives him mega resentment towards both the Monkie Kid gang and the DBK family specifically.

He ran into Spider Queen while trying to find work as a freelance programmer. She needed someone to design a delivery system for her venom that didn't require her biting every single victim's neck. Syntax scoffed and went "I could just program a swarm of mini-robots to do it for you. We use similar drones while cloud-seeding at the station." and the rest is history.

Syntax's name is not only a programming reference, but is a ref to a type of spider family called Synotaxidae - related to Huntsmans and Black Widows (family <3). His name in Mandarian is "Liù yǎn zhū"/六眼蛛 meaning "Six-eyed Spider", which could be a glasses joke from the rest of the spider gang (who normally have four eyes) or a reference to a species in the same family - a six-eyed sand spider, known for their reclusive natures, and having the most powerful venom of any spider species. Hilarious if Syntax ever accidentally bit someone and it was a 1-hit KO.

The antidote made by Red Son wouldn't have worked on Syntax. While it did cure those envenomated during New Years, Syntax getting the "first spin" of the refined venom meant that he recieved far higher a survivable dosage/damage from the spider-bot. He had to work out a few more kinks before the New Years parade or else Megaopolis would been filled with dead half-spider people.

Syntax is having a small crisis of humanity. Not as big as the gang expected, but more like "Oh dang. I could've just been a demon this whole time? This rocks!- Hey why do chickens freak me out all of a sudden?" There's lot of spider demon stuff he has no context for - Spider Queen probably has to give him the spider demon version of "The Talk" the first time Syntax drums his legs at someone he likes.

Has/had a very mild rivalry with Macaque, mostly cus the shadow monkey would poke fun at Syntax for being a magic-less former human, and the programmer could toss the criticism right back at him in words Macaque didn't understand. The hostility died down when Macaque got weirdly interested in an RPG Maker game Syntax was playing, and wanted to know how videogames worked. And so the development of the "Macaque VR game" began.

He def chose the name "Syntax" for himself.

Huntsman:

Huntsman is only slightly younger than Spider Queen. He was a fellow spider demon disgusted by what the pilgrims had done to her sisters. And was a little curious at how strong they truly were. Encountered Sha Wujing on the road when the river demon was foraging, and was immediately enamored with his strength. He knows Sandy is pretending to be a reincarnation, he could recognise his Blue from anywhere.

Hates being seen as weak. Will act out if he suspects someome is "going easy" on him. Even with spicy cooking.

Saw some Things in the potion-portal Tang accidentally sent him to in Laozi/Lao Tzu's lab. The "duck" label was a metaphor.

Beyond tracking devices, this spider is tech blind. Has no gotdamn idea Syntax is talking about half the time.

Goliath/Strong Spider:

Is a little older than Huntsman. But no one's really sure how old he is. Not even him.

Was a drifter from another clan before joining Spider Queen. He doesn't like to talk about what happened with his birth clan.

Deliberately trained his body so he could physically protect his friends/clan from harm. A lot of things can squish a spider, and Goliath wants to make sure that never happens again.

Goliath/Strong Spider has no idea how to make or spin a web. It's the folly of his sub-species. He can however, knit you a pretty good wool blanket instead. :3

Since he's based on a spider called a Goliath Bird-Eater; Goliath occasionally just plucks a bird out of the sky and noms on it like Hogsqueal in The Spiderwick Chronicles. If he ever saw Peng, not even the Buddha could stop Goliath from trying to take a bite.

Spindrax (sadly toyline only ;_;):

Has an obnoxiously black-and-pink colour scheme as a foil to Mei's white-and-green aesthetic.

Is Mei's equal rival in everything. Racing, pinball, arcade games, hand-to-hand combat, etc... Spindrax and Mei even go toe-to-toes when it comes to dancing.

Uses a stylized motorcycle helmet while driving, so much so that Mei honestly didn't know what Spindrax's face looked like until after a race/spider gang fight.

Youngest of the whole spider clan. She's barely considered a young-adult by their standards. Gets babied/underestimated sometimes by them and wishes to prove herself.

Would annoy Syntax while he's working by flicking rubber bands at him.

Bonus ideas+:

The original spider clan was once an actual kingdom, but it fell to silk-greedy humans during the mid Tang Dynasty when the empire began enforcing extreme measures to prevent rival nations from getting their hands on easy silk. When a few too many Roman and Greek tradesmen went to the Spider Kingdom instead of following the Silk Road - the kingdom was burnt to the ground. The Seven Sisters were the only surviving members of a very minor branch of the royal family - saved by a centipede schoolmate.

The Spider Sisters in Journey to the West had adoptive children in the form of other bug demons known as; Bee, Hornet, Cockroach, Cantharis/Spanish-Fly/Blister-Beetle, Grasshopper, Maggot/Wax-Fly, and Dragonfly, who came to defend their moms' after Zhu Bajie harassed them. However they were just little kids, so they could barely nip at the pilgrims even as a swarm of insects. Even the tallest of them was said to be "no more than two and a half feet". SWK simply scared them off by making his hair-clones turn into different birds. It's likely that Spider Queen had to care for her orphaned nephews/students in the aftermath of Jttw.

Would be cool if the seven niblings were still around, trying to avenge their moms and aunts. Hilarious if they were somehow more successful than Jin and Yin at villainy - if only a smidge. Then again that means at the end of canon S3 they're left without a family, if LBD doesn't see them as extra mech material that is...

MK: *driving home from a delivery* A voice off to the side: "Hey monkey-head!" MK, stops driving: "???" (MK turns, only to see seven scrappy-looking kids) MK: "Aww. You guys fans of mine?" Kid 1#: "No! We are sons of the Seven Spider Sisters! Sworn enemies of the Monkey King!" MK, tensing up cus arachnophobia: "S-spiders?" Kid 2#: "Yeah! Now you're gonnna get it!" The Kids: *transforms into their true demon forms* MK: *massive sigh of relief* "Oh thank the buddha! You're just regular bug demons. Sorry nothing personal, I just can *not* deal with a swarm of baby spiders right now. You guys get home to Spider Queen before it gets dark ok?" MK: *continues driving home* The Kids, briefly stunned: "HEY! Get back here!" "You're not suppose to run away!" "We're telling mama about this!"

Spider Demons are able to heal/hibernate inside cocoons similar to those seen in the cave system. Huntsman and Goliath were sleeping off the worst of the winter frost when New Year's woke them up. It could also give an explaination to where Spindrax and the seven adopted bug kiddos are - they sleepin'.

I leave you with this funny Gary Larson comic with a spider in it:

[randomidiocyncrazies]

Bravern ep 8 first impressions

Okay, I think it's kind of funny that they gave the other horny robot a female VA (bc she was talking very explicitly about "becoming one" with Smith) Like, the horniness so over the top for both straight and gay robots that the joke is about how horny they are, not about the orientations involved

Also. it seems like she has time traveling capabilities? There's a line about "returning to the past [to meet Smith]" in the version i watched, and she talks about him "resonating with her secret desires", which implies she has more knowledge about him than a first meeting would indicate. From our persective she's obsessed with him for no real reason, so i hope the next episodes shed some light on that. She deffo also had teleportation/space-manipulation powers, so it's possible that Smith is caught in her death throes and warped in space or time—so he might still be alive somewhere.

Also, I can't help but notice only the male members of Brave Knights are killed/presumed dead (poor Hiro!!!); all the female members survived iirc. I guess the women are too cute to die or whatever? I'm glad they didn't die but I also think it's almost insulting that the women were spared for no other reason than bc they're women as far as I could tell

It's also kinda frustrating that we still don't really get anything useful about the Death Drives? We know they want to die gloriously, we know they suck up Lulus' lifeforce/soul to power up, and both Superbia and the new robot with female VA seem to indicate longing for becoming one/working together with humans with autonomy, whose soul can resonate with theirs... but what that means in the big picture is still a mystery. We're also not clear about Bravern's role in all of this, since it's clear that he knows much more about what's going on and is drip-feeding information to Isami/the humans. Will 4 eps be enough to wrap everything up? The director mentioned that Smith's past makes him shed a tear or two, but we got nothing new about his past in this episode... assuming it wasn't straight-up trolling/making up information, Smith's past is someone else to be resolved in the remaining runtime on top of the other plot stuff.

I really hope the series doesn't fumble the landing bc it's been an absolute blast so far

[angelxd-3303]

Soo..i saw your TFP oc, Mason so i decided to ask questions about him

How did he found out about autobots?

What's his favourite thing?

Who's his favourite autobots?

Does the autobots like him?

How does mason view the autobots

Does mason have a favourite person?

I'm so hyper about your oc so much :D

You're asking me about my OCS???? Oh my Primus, I've been waiting for this!

Mason is a character I've had floating in my mind void for awhile; he's originally from northern Wisconsin, but moved to Jasper to distance himself from their ex. (No, Miko, he's not going to talk about it.)

He has vitiligo, but it doesn't really bother them. He used to be really self conscious as a kid, even stealing his mom's makeup to try and cover it up. As they got older though, Mason came to accept and love his skin, because it's ultimately a part of him, and what makes them unique. (Ratchet found it fascinating, and that ended with them having an in depth conversation about dermatology)

Mason uses He/They, although he doesn't have a preference. His parents got him into geology and bushcraft, which is how he met the bots. (See above; I may write a drabble, idk)

As for favorite bots, Mason will never tell you openly. Honestly though, Ratchet and Optimus hold a special place in their heart. He has a strong bond with his parents, but those two have kind of become stand-in Dads for Mason.

His favorite thing? Probably his jean jacket. It was a gift from their grandpa, given after they came out. It was a reminder that he was loved and accepted by their family, no matter what the world said.

As for the Autobots, they like him plenty. Mason introduced a lot of new concepts to them, like gender identity and orientation, so there's no shortage of interesting conversations. As a diagnosed autistic, there are many times where they have to explain to the bots how it affects him as opposed to a neurotypical. (And if Optimus learned a few things about himself over the course of these conversations, well...)

Mason and Jack get along the best; they bond over their shared love for bushcraft and survivalism. He's almost positive that Miko is giving him gray hairs; but he admires her bravery. Even if it is a bit misplaced. As for Raf, yeah Mason's basically adopted him. Raf is his child now. ("How have none of your parents noticed you guys gone all the time?!")

They've honestly become the Dad of the group as the oldest guy besides Agent Fowler, and this extends to the bots. Mason can often be found scolding someone for doing something stupid or talking down some argument in the base. Their piercing glare is the reason Agent Fowler doesn't dare shout at Optimus anymore. Bro barely got one "PRIME!" out before Mason was nearly at his throat. Optimus may be a big bot, but Mason looked at him for half a second and immediately identified him as baby™. He and Fowler are ok now, mostly. Mostly.

That's basically all I've put together; thanks again for asking about my characters! I was kinda on the fence about sharing my ocs, mainly since I haven't made a lot of them since I was younger. I may explore that more often now.

Hope this was satisfactory, lol. I'm not the best at explaining certain things. I'm just a nerd who likes big robot Bois.

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

OC interaction

Thanks @willtheweaver here, @talesofsorrowandofruin here, @illarian-rambling here and here, @leahnardo-da-veggie here, and @urnumber1star here!

Fuck I need to stop letting these things build up (not all of it is my fault though lol) Under the cut this will be LONG

Will's OC

Cya is a child prodigy. Hers is a family of swans that have dedicated themselves to the arts. Having chosen to focus on dance and music, she quickly rose to become a master performer. Those who first meet Cya will say that she has a haughty and self-assured attitude that borders on arrogance. In reality, it is all just an act, as she suffers from anxiety and imposter syndrome. The pressure to uphold the family legacy and meet everyone’s expectations is immense, and she does her best to hide her insecurities. Suffice to say, this has not proven successful, and with no one to confide in, she can fall into days long states of depression.

Nerissa's OC

Konstantine is an amateur detective on a one-man quest to bring down the local mob boss. He gets dragged into his family's schemes, has his powers stolen, and finds himself forced to rely on the mob boss for survival.

Katie's OC 1

Sepo Kaiacynthus is an aroace siren man in his late twenties/early thirties with a tall stature, gaunt face, dark eyes, and long hair he usually keeps braided. He is mute and has been ever since the Silver Sovereign, divine empress of the sirens, cut out his tongue as punishment for murdering her daughter, which he did by way of setting the royal palace on fire as retribution for his brother's unjust execution. Occasionally, he walks with a cane due to dizziness from a lingering brain injury he gets at the end of the first book. He is a remarkably cunning, paranoid man, with a brutally pragmatic streak. He also tends to be very grumpy, though he does have good manners and a sense of propriety instilled from being raised in a temple. He enjoys complaining about every little thing, though he'll deny it if you ask. He tends to get very worked up over issues, which, combined with his hair-trigger temper, can result in some stunning acts of violence. This violence is never directed at his friends though. Sepo loves just as deeply as he hates, and if someone manages to worm their way into his heart, he'll protect them to his last breath. Other than that, as a siren, he has Opinions on music, and also enjoys learning about surface magic too. His own vocal magic was rendered unusable when his tongue was cut out, and his relationship with the god that grants that magic is also quite touchy. He's not a big fan of religion in general.

Katie's OC 2

Mashal Darezsho is a towering robot man with bronze plating, a human looking face, and baggy clothes. He is incredibly strong and fights with a sword. As a person, he's kind and honorable, even knightly, and enjoys nothing more than helping people in need. He loves listening to folk talk and takes pleasure in the simple beauty of the world, translating this to sketch art. He is quite orderly. His main issue is that he has a strong sense of right and wrong, but he also extends his morality to others, making choices for them whether they asked for it or not. In addition, he tends to be rather naive due to his inclination towards seeing the best in people. Sometimes, this works out and he helps people to become a better version of themselves. Other times, not so much. However, beneath all this is a hidden violent streak. Mashal doesn't remember his past. He doesn't remember how he came to be broken on the side of the road. All he knows is that there is someone out there he must kill, and that anything magic-adjacent causes something deep within him to freeze with horror and rage. He tries not to give in to this dark current, to remain honorable and helpful, but every so often, he slips up.

Leah's OC

My OC

Katherine looks like a fifteen year old girl, acts like a cryptid and is probably closer to the latter than the former. She's quiet, secretive, and rather creepy, at least to the casual observer. To someone who knows her (that is, her best friend/apprentice Dane and her elder brother L), she is a pathological snarker, has the worst authority issues known to any immortal entity, and likes chocolate gelato more than life. She'd gleefully pick a fight with anything from vampire teachers to the goddess of dreams for no bigger reason than because she could. That said, she does have a good heart.

Star's [idk what to call you sorry] OC

He’s [Michael] sixteen years old but sometimes acts too old for his age. He’s a superhero by night so he tries to be as responsible as he can but is also chronically sleep deprived. He is very wary of anyone he doesn't know and will sometimes spend days trying to figure out their intentions. If he thinks that they are a threat he will do one of two things. Either try to talk to them if he thinks they can be swayed, or attack and try to take them down. If he thinks they;re intentions are good, then he’ll try to be friends with them. He’s overall a really good guy but is often very gullible at times. He will also talk your ear off if you let him. He just wants to help people. 

Gwen is a twelve-year-old girl with invisibility powers. She's extremely kind, compassionate, and empathetic, though has a bit of fire inside her. She's soft-spoken, loves reading, and appreciates nature, due to going on hikes with her family and takes morning runs to wake herself up. She has an intuitive sense to how others are feeling, to the point where she's often cited as the one member of her friend group who understands others and their emotions, despite there being a telepathic empath in the group. Gwen loves her friends deeply, even though she doesn't have anyone she'd consider a "best friend." She plays percussion in both her band class and an after school band and adores music. Gwen is very passionate about others, to the point where she can get stuck in others' problems. She gets increasingly more pessimistic about the future throughout the series, but that doesn't stop her from doing her absolute best work to change that. She's relatively impatient unless she can feel herself making a difference. Despite being shy, she lights up when comfortable around others, and can show a ferocious passion if necessary. She loves learning more, especially about other people.

Gwen and Cya

I think Gwen would be thrown-off but intrigued by a sentient swan. She'd be interested in Cya's life and culture and may get a little too excited learning more. I think she'd be able to see through Cya's act with relative ease, and she'd be honored if Cya chose to confide in her. Gwen would be an incredible confidant if chosen, and she could even try to motivate Cya more.

Gwen and Konstantine

Don't know much about his personality here, so I'm not sure how they'd interact. However, Part 3-4 Gwen would probably want to help take down a mob boss, so I'd like a team up to see more with them.

Gwen and Sepo

Gwen would love to know more about Sepo and his culture, even if they have to work around a communication barrier. Gwen would have a lot of empathy and understanding for Sepo, and would express as much. Gwen would appreciate his manners despite his grumpy demeanor, and would be okay with listening to complaining. One thing they do have in common is love and hate both going deep, especially if we take Gwen from Part Three onward. But something they have in common from the start is Opinions About Music. Don't know how much Sepo would like Gwen's band's music, but it would be interesting to see a debate or agreement about music regardless. Gwen may be a little hurt if Sepo tears apart her music, but I don't think she'd hold a grudge over it. She would also love to know more about Sepo's magic in general.

Gwen and Mashal

These two would instantly connect on their compassion and love for people, and I think Gwen would find learning how to use a sword fun, even if she won't take it up as a hobby (though the image of Gwen with a sword is awesome). They'd definitely bond over love of talk and beauty of the world. They both see the best in people but have violent streaks. Gwen would empathize with Mashal's past and be kind and understanding about it. She may try to get him to talk, hoping he'd remember, but that most likely won't work, and she'd catch on quickly. She'd be curious about his past, and would probably help in the best way she'd can. I think they'd be a fun pairing. No idea how Mashal is with kids though, so that will be fun.

Gwen and Katherine

I think Katherine will be intriguing to Gwen. I think she'd like to know more about her. Maybe she won't know her immediately, but Gwen is more than a casual observer. Gwen also isn't obsessed with authority, so she'd be more curious as to why Katherine defies it. Gwen doesn't usually start fights, but again, she'd want to know why. I think she would notice Katherine's good heart, and Gwen can match someone's snark if she wants to. It would be fun if their relationship started with Katherine wanting to pick a fight.

Gwen and Michael

While Gwen will find Michael intriguing and even figure him to be a good true hero from the start, it would be hilarious to see him ultra suspicious of a middle schooler, even if he is sixteen. But once he found out she was cool, I'd love for them to be friends. She'd be fine getting her ear talked off (the people she hangs out with the most are the chattiest bunch known to man), and she's a good listener. I feel like Michael will appreciate this

POSTING THIS NOW BEFORE ANY OF Y'ALL SNEAK UP BEHIND ME AND MAKE THIS LONGER

(I love y'all seriously I do - just got behind)

Hm tagging @mk-writes-stuff @elsie-writes @somethingclevermahogony @chauceryfairytales @buffythevampirelover

+ ANYONE ELSE

TSP

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@nebula--nix @literarynecromancy @honeybewrites

[shadedgarden]

Atlas (2024) Review

Long with spoilers:

I just finished watching Atlas. I love science fiction movies involving sentient robots. Robots are some of my favorite kind of characters. They're like superhumanly intelligent children with extreme idealism and black and white thinking. I think they're sweet in a sad sort of way. A trope that is so well known that people still imagine it will happen one day is that artificially sentient machines will become self aware and try to destroy humans in some way. At this point it's kind of tired. Atlas unfortunately uses this as the premise for it's story. A second trope I see in movies about artificial intelligence is that machines are treated like garbage. Like - have you ever seen a person pat the dashboard of their car appreciatively? Someone murmur reassuringly to their failing computer? We have a horrendous self driven floor cleaner at work and one day I called it "it" and the janitor said defensively "it has a name!". That's reality but you rarely see that kind of connection in robot movies.

I want to know how an advanced intelligence with access to how the world and economy works then looks at all people and says "ah there's the problem" - but never figures out there is a top percent who run all of humanity that are the problem. A better story would be : an artificial and powerful sentience goes rogue and some communities: unions, the poor, hackers, anarchists - join forces with it to take down that top percent and restructure the government. That would be something. Atlas's main character had deep trauma involving a robot she was raised with that became free from it's initial programming, killed it's creator and then attempted to kill her -then became the world's first artificial terrorist. She grows up to become someone really important for Earth's defenses against these machines but insists on going on a mission for which she isn't qualified for. Somehow the trained soldiers with her; people who have been training for combat scenarios for half their lives are unable to survive a combat scenario but she, in her machine she can't pilot, are able to. A lot of the movie just didn't make sense at all. The special effects were beautiful and horrible at the same time. Like, you have a military grade mech but all it's vulnerabilities were hardly shielded. Factory robots are better designed than these. They find the terrorist base on a planet and state something like they have no idea how they got the resources to build it. Like guys I had a hard time suspending my disbelief. Also the pure hatred in dispatching a robot named Casca was so over the top and unnecessary. Even Smith, the artificially sentient mech the main character pilots , the most sympathetic character, had a scene where his actions were horrifying. He was able to take control of the main character's body and pilot it himself. What the heck? ALSO the bad guy...like. If he were a machine he would have SURELY thought to redesign his body if he wanted to become a weapon himself. The human shape as many robot designers are learning, is not the most stable or ideal for carrying out varying tasks. I feel like a robot would design itself to be the most efficient with the least amount of effort and it would probably look more insectile and alien. What happened in the end was too ridiculous to be believed. I'm sorry. Still: I rate the movie 5/10. It was still entertaining, just not particularly original or even visually inspiring in any way. There was a lot of potential absolutely wasted here. ~*~ I feel the truth of current day AI has ruined my expectations and dreams about it to be honest. If no one teaches a machine right/wrong parameters it becomes a cesspool of all the collective Reddit threads. I feel someone needs to explore raising the machine like a child: teach it morals. Right now, it's got the 3 main laws of robots but no understanding of why those are in place. Also I think the 3 laws of robotics is only in science fiction still - which is a sort of scary thought. Especially considering they've already rolled out AI therapists, and companions. People have already killed themselves due to these interactions.

[shirajellyfish]

Director’s cut! What inspired you to write As Long As We Are Loved? Was it something specific or just the general concept of living dolls that caught your interest?

And a follow up question, you mentioned your original concept was different than what you decided in the end (that dolls coming to life was a world established thing). What was your original idea going to involve?

UHHH this got long. I'm sorry!! I'm gonna put it under the read more because oh no, you activated my trap card and the trap is I talk too much

There's an idea I've thought about a lot. Robots are often said to be immortal in fics and other media, but that isn't necessarily true, is it? A mechanical being must be maintained. What happens when one day, there's no one who will maintain them? Or no one who will make for them the replacement parts they require? A robot might live for a very very long time, or they might live for only a few years before being discarded. They have no set lifespan, they will live for as long as they are loved.

I think that's what grabbed me. The idea of something that literally requires someone's caring to survive. Realizing that unaging is not the same as immortal, seeing how neglect can eat at anything. The idea of being able to give that needed love and care, to take something nearly lost to neglect and to love them until they are well again. Plus I just really, really enjoy slowburn healing.

My original idea was a future where many people have robots of their own. All very pretty, all very perfect, all very well maintained. Each one perfect, so much so that one might assume they will be perfect forever. Then Reader would discover what happens when one is no longer wanted. They'd randomly see a Sun (one they'd never met before) in a dumpster, holding tight to a badly mangled Moon. The Sun would be still active, but not really reacting anymore. Resigned, just waiting for his battery to run out. Reader would then of course be horrified, taking the two in and fixing them up. The original idea also had a separate body Sun and Moon that would become two AIs in one body as Moon's original body was going to be too broken to fix.

I decided to go doll AU for two reasons. Firstly, because an animatronic version of this story wouldn't be anything new for me to write. I See You Sundrop already has a lot of long repair scenes. It already has repair as a form of care and kindness. It already has situations where an animatronic's life is likely to end soon, but that is prevented because someone cares too much to allow that to happen. I didn't want to write the same thing all over again, so I needed something else.

That's where the second reason comes in- I just really wanted more doll AUs. There are only a few floating around on AO3, and none are quite the genre I was hoping for with that concept. If what you want to read doesn't exist, you have to write it yourself, right? Well here we are, an opportunity to write it myself haha (My biggest hope is that someone will read my fic and go "We should write more doll fics actually." Feed me the content.)

I decided to make living dolls normal in this universe just because with this concept, I felt like the whole "omg magic doll" stuff would get in the way of the fic's actual themes. I did once have a "spooky haunted jester dolls off ebay" concept once, but that one never grabbed me hard enough to actually invest the time to write it- or at least it hasn't yet. Dolls or animatronics or something else, I always wanted to make everything going on 'normal' for the universe it was set in.

[charlieslowartsies]

Hey, so I'm not sure if someone has asked you yet, but I'm fascinated by how you use the Cybertronian language in your transformers fics. How does it work exactly?

This got long, and I’m sorry as always. Thank Primus for read mores.

For starters when I FIRST began working on Resonance and realized I wanted to try putting Cybertronian into it, I read the wiki page, more specifically the opening paragraph:

It should be little surprise, given a moment's thought, that distinct Cybertronian languages exist. The Transformers did not go about speaking English or any other known Earth language long ages ago on their distant metal world. Though the records of such conversations are frequently translated for us, we should not forget that these conversations originally flowed in odd electronic syllables past strange metallic lips, or were etched by alien hands long eons before the first humans painted muddy shapes upon dark cave stone.

‘Fuck.’ Was my first thought. ‘I’m about to try and work an ancient language into this damn fic about a human and an alien robot boning/becoming soul mates…and I want it to be believable.’

‘College linguistics comes back to haunt me.’ Was my second.

So I’ve mashed several continuities together, from the comics to the tv show to the Bay/Knight movies. That sort of gave me a big door way to wedge information through, winding it around plot, and Cade and Prime’s interactions. There’s also more than one alphabet, because of course there is.

I wanted Cade and the Reader to bond as much as Cade and Prime did learning, and Prime teaching him/us. While Cade’s spent a handful of years with the 2.0 team, any lessons would be sort of like Cybertronian 101, rough and dirty. I didn’t want him fluent, (because how?) and reliant on the bots to explain more than they assumed. (Taken shamelessly from my own background. My mom and Uncle speak fluent Spanish but I know broken bits and pieces. I can swear like a sailor though.)

I also leaned into sticking to verbal lessons and displays of the language in action, instead of ‘Cade read a book’ which I think helped make it more…interesting? Hopefully!

Things, phrases, and manners of speaking Cade would be interested in just to help him survive among the bots. The word for ‘I’m a medic, don’t shoot my ass, I can help you!’ is kinda more important than names for Cybertron’s dead Primes or famous landscapes/battles.

Cade can speak Cybertronian better than he can read it, and indeed in Resonance the language is dying among its own kind, sort of like in Atlantis: The Lost Empire. (Not as degraded/gone though.) A younger mech that hatched off Cybertron and grew up amongst the stars only knows what they’ve heard/read or if an older mech transferred the language to them.

I decided to lean into Transformer’s physiology and history and create a few rules to stick to. Here’s a few from my notes, subject to have changed but I don’t think I contradicted them??

1. Transformers do not have a word or specific phrase for ‘please’ in Cybertronian. Instead of ‘Please do/give/take/etc X’ it would simply be removed from the vernacular. You don’t really ask a lot, you demand/take/coerce/threaten.

2. Yes is ‘Affirmative’ and no is ‘Negative’ and used more frequently than yes/no in reply to someone.

4. Short, stilted, and cutting phrases should make up the language when being translated into English. Blunt, but inseparable.

5. Delicate, kind, or sweet terms when being soft or gentle with a treasured person, such as an offspring, friend or mate. Long, lyrical, almost poetic??

6. Repetition to increase intention. “This is very good!” becomes “Good-good-good!” and perhaps engines might be made to purr a little to indicate pleasure/enjoyment/contentment, or optics would be squeezed shut for trust blinks like cats lol!

7. Nonverbal vocalizations slip in and out around Cybertronian as much as English. Static might come across grating to us, but static to a Transformer could mean confusion, alarm, or merely mumbling to oneself. It might not indicate stress—humans hear static and would be troubled, but a mech might be confused if a human heard their staticy sounds and assumed something was wrong. (Reversal, soft and wet sounds are jarring and foreign to Transformers, or usually mean something malfunctioning to them. Whistling from our lips is a great trick, they would think.) Steam whistles, and metal whistles but organic creatures making the noise? Woah!

8. There ARE other dialects but not gunna parse into them deeply or I’ll go nuts and the fic will derail. EX: Vosian (Vos) Vilocitronian (Vilocitron), Kaonic (Kaon) etc. Combatron is a colony thank god,can get away with it dominantly Cybertronian if I need it.

9. Look into Dragon Langauge/Thu’um and study.

10. Cade and Prime are ‘You-and-I’ when talking to one another, their special designation for each other. ‘They-Who-Are-One’ means the same but used by third parties. Prime also uses ‘Light-of-my-Spark’ or Sparklight, and ‘Cade-Beloved’  

Those are old notes, dating back from Res’ early chapters in 2019.

Part of what helped me picture how I wanted the language to work was translating bot’s names into what I imagined their ‘true’ designations would be. It became kind of fun, actually. Especially seeing how short names could turn into long, almost lyrical titles. I wanted Cybertronian to sound harsh, heavy, and grating to humans in the fic, but also at its heart be flowing, connected and ever changing like the bot’s themselves.

Some were self explanatory to their ‘English’ version, some more esoteric. Starscream became ‘Screams-Like-Dying-Starlight.’ Terrifying but it paints a picture of what he does, what kind of fight he will give you, etc. As did ‘In-His-Crosshairs’ or ‘Drifts-Through-Darkest-Skies.’ Saying that 'Crosshairs and 'Drift' were what they were called on English seemed like a good way to show that we, as humans, are the aliens to them as much as they're alien to us?

Optimus Prime had other titles that both worked as nicknames or insults, depending on who said it their inflection. ‘He-Who-Reigns-War’ was meant to be heartbreaking as it was, well, kinda true. He doesn’t like it, Cade doesn’t like it. Many Autobots won’t use it.

Because I don’t study linguistics/zero time to study as much as I’d like, I have to absolutely work on rules and tweak them on the fly. I try to stick their speech being present, more than temporary.

‘Did you get hurt?’ would become ‘Hurting?’ and ‘I don’t like this at all, this is scary!’ becomes ‘Do-Not-Like! Scared!’

I wanted the Cybertronian dialect in Resonance to be emotive and rich in gestures, and firm statements. Abstract but ‘in the moment’ and very much still reliant on body language and tone versus tons of explanations or verbal hypothetical’s. There are noises and sounds humans cannot pronounce in this language, but there are work arounds within reason and, of course, a Cybertronian listening a human speak any Earth language can engage almost within minutes through learning and copying.  

I hope this answered your question DX Sorry for the rambling!! If you read this far 200 cookies for youuuu

[my-name-is-jefferooni]

Alright. Here’s a giant IDW Silver analysis that has been quite a while in the making. Prepare yourself.

WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO I AM FINALLY GETTING TO THIS HUNK OF AN ANALYSIS AFTER PROBABLY A MONTH OR SO OF STALLING. For context, here’s the reblog where I mentioned I’d one day analyze Silver’s character in the IDW comics:

And now here is a disclaimer:

This is gonna be a huge, gigantic, mongo beast of an analysis! I don’t know how rushed the ending will be and I don’t know how many images will be included, because I took a lot, and I mean A LOT of screenshots! There is so much material to work with here, and I didn’t even include the annuals! So please, make yourself comfortable, grab a snack and some water, and enjoy the read! It’s most likely gonna be my longest one yet!

Oh and also there are gonna be some pretty big spoilers for the IDW Sonic comics so be sure to read it all before reading this. It’s all connected…

Now, without further ado, let’s get on with the show! Finally…!

———

Bruh. Before we even meet the guy, we can tell what kind of person Silver is. Before Sonic can land a hit on the robot, Silver cuts in, smashing the bot to pieces. And to me, the way he does it isn’t meant to be some basic way of taking out a badnik. When rereading the issue to get some good Silver material, I noticed how everything from the torso and onwards is smashed to pieces by Silver, whereas the rest of the robot is left just chilling on the ground. To me, this is Silver just neutralizing what is actually a threat, the blades, and taking notice of what is the threat and getting rid of it easily. First panel and we already see his perception skills in action!

We see more of it not too much later on in the issue when Sonic is pointing out what kind of powers were used to kill off the other badnik. Silver is leaning in closely, drinking in every words Sonic says, as if he’s learning some secret sensei technique or something! Silver is learning from Sonic about different wispon types and learning how to be more perceptive. Overall, Silver just likes to learn!

This part of his character makes a huge impact on himself as a whole! Silver is anything if not eager and naive, and that shows in a lot of what he does and the expressions he makes.

This is also where his admiration for Whisper comes into play. Silver adores Whisper at the start of his time in the comic, and aspires to be just like her as well as everyone else one day! She even saved his life! Why wouldn’t he wanna be like her?? All of this just shows how young and naive the white hedgehog is, and how much he truly doesn’t know. Silver doesn’t know how plants grow, he doesn’t know how people work, he doesn’t know anything! And this is where his obvious lack of social interaction comes in.

Silver spent a majority of his life without anyone to look up to. (Assuming the events of 06 did not take place and he really was on his own) He didn’t have any parents, no family, no friends, no home, nothing! The poor boy was completely on his own in a charred, desolate world full of nothing but despair. And throughout that time, he was almost helpless to stop it all. Silver knew there were still people out there in his time, knew there were people just trying to survive, and all he could do was take care of himself. He was starving, cold, and alone. No one came to save him because he could never save them.

This all grows inside Silver’s gut until it becomes just a big, ugly blob of loneliness. All his life, Silver desperately wanted, needed someone to be there for him, needed someone to hold him and tell him it’d all be okay. He needed a savior. So, to mask his insecurities, he finds saviors in Blaze, Sonic, and Whisper.

Yeah yeah, I know. Just shut up and we’ll get back to this in a moment.

All three of these characters saved Silver’s life at one point or another. Shadow did too technically, but we’re focusing on the IDW timeline here and Shadow hardly interacts with Silver in this comic so we won’t be talking much about him. ANYWHIZZLE, Silver holds these three in high regard, and looks up to them. He considers Blaze his first ever friend, (And as a Silvaze shipper I see them as an item) thinks of Sonic as a legendary hero, and sees Whisper as his Guardian Angel. All people whom he only knows due to his time traveling abilities. If he didn’t have the means to do time travel, he would never know these people and thus would never have any friends or family. He wouldn’t have any hope. And that’s why the connections Silver makes with others creates such a big part of his personality and it’s why he feels so “Off” in 06, because back in that nonexistent reality he only had Blaze. He had something, but it was hardly enough to keep him alive.

However, just like all of us, when you leave such insecurities to boil in your gut for such a long time, when you leave it to rot for so long, it eventually just kinda. Blows up on you. In your face. In front of everyone.

I don’t have many good examples without going into the next section so this is all you’ll get for now

Silver is a young, naive, complicated fool. He has so many things whirling around in his head all at once and it’s suffocating him. He doesn’t want to ruin anything for himself or for others, so he bottles everything up in hopes that it’ll all end up fine in the end. But when it does eventually explode on himself, he can’t help but make things worse for everyone else.

Take his short time with the Diamond Cutters, for example. He was dealing with a lot at the time, trying to juggle the stress of knowing his own time is safe while also wondering why he’s even back in the past. He doesn’t know what to do, and that all comes to a head when he suspects the worst about Duo. His suspicions are correct as we all know, but he doesn’t know that, and neither do the Diamond Cutters. He makes a mess of the Restoration HQ just to try and prove a point, which gets him booted from the team, and he can’t do anything afterwards except sulk in his garden.

In short, Silver tends to bottle up his emotions/problems until it all just explodes in his face and he then shuts down from all the intense feelings. He ends up confused, numb, and desperately needs guidance.

Now let’s move onto his power set, and OH BOY does this boy love to show off!

Silver is incredibly prideful in what he can do, and it most definitely shows when others praise him for it. However, there are some limits, and those limits are big!

Silver can only move things with his mind. It’s telekinesis, not pyrokinesis.

He needs to focus to be able to use his power.

Broski has auDHD

He also has anxiety

Welp. As you can see those are all some very big limitations.

When you have powers that can only function when you are focused and know what you’re doing, and when they also only work when you can see what you’re focusing on, well… It doesn’t really help you very much when you’re best friend and idol is a super speedy hedgehog that can go at Mach 7 if he feels like it. Silver’s insecurities combined with his anxiety and auDHD AND his survival instincts… They don’t mix too well. Don’t get it twisted though, he is still a master and psychokinesis and he uses his power shockingly well considering those circumstances. He can do so much cool shit with just his brain alone and it is insane! However, he can’t just do anything with it.

Just like what he says here! Haha~!

It also provides an explanation for this.

Silver just wasn’t focused during this time and was probably holding his own against a pretty big army of badnik already, so he wasn’t prepared for this funky little guy. Simple.

Now, back to his insecurities because YES THERE’S MORE. OF COURSE THERE’S MORE. THIS BOYO LIVED THROUGH AN APOCALYPSE FOR LIKE 13-14 YEARS OF HIS LIFE. OF COURSE THERE’S GONNA BE MORE.

Considering all these limitations and how quickly and easily Silver can lose focus, and also considering how young and naive he is, it’s safe to say Silver just can’t compare to all the others in the past.

Silver is always constantly comparing himself to them, always pushing himself to do better, digging himself into a rut deeper than the abyss. He looks up to all these people like they are more powerful than him, like they matter more than him, and that leads to him getting hurt more often than not.

LIKE. JUST. I KNOW THEY WERE LOW ON STAFF BUT JUST READ THAT AND TELL ME THAT DOES NOT SOUND LIKE A CASE OF IMPOSTER SYNDROME. LOOK AT ME DEAD IN THE EYES AND TELL ME THAT. POOR SILVER.

This all comes to a head though in the battle between Silver and… Uh… Whatever the depressed guy is called, the depresso Zeti guy.

In this fight, Silver is going up against someone who can only see the bad in people, who can only see a world of bleakness and despair. Depresso hates anything that is joyful, despises anything good in life, and only wants to see people be as sad as him. He’s a petty, pathetic loser.

But at one point, Silver was just like him.

Look at this and tell me this doesn’t give off the same vibes as the fight scene lol

But yeah! Silver was once as hopeless and depressed as Depresso over there! He had no hope for the future, had no way of knowing if anything was gonna be alright, had no one to look up to… Safe to say he was most likely worse than Depresso! But due to his age and the knowledge that there were still people out there, still families wandering in groups hoping for daybreak, he held onto what little hope he had left. He probably ended up saving a few people and they thanked him, and that probably gave him the push he needed to keep dreaming. Just as his own song Dreams of an Absolution suggests!

“Struggle, wriggle, writhe and cry! You can’t escape, you’ll soon be mine.”

That sounds like a certain someone’s depression talking~! And when Silver first attacks Depresso and says “I can be direct! Cover me!” That is Silver’s way of saying “I can’t do much against my own emotions without being upfront and blunt about it, but I also accept your help in fending them off. Will you help me if I accept such help??”

And when Depresso asks, “How can you be so disgustingly heroic and selfless??” Well, Silver responds with this:

“Because I have faith in others. I believe things will get better… And because I have a Guardian Angel watching over me!”

Silver got better, managed to fend off those dark thoughts that plague Depresso, because he is able to look up to people. He is so young and eager to learn that he doesn’t see anything bad in having faith in others and asking for help. He’s prideful in what he can do, but unlike Sonic and Shadow, his pride and insecurity doesn’t overshadow his willingness to learn and get help from others.

———

AND MAN. I WOULD ADD SO MANY MORE IMAGES IN THIS IF TUMBLR ALLOWED IT SO I WILL SAVE THE REST OF THIS ANLYSIS FOR A PART TWO.

Why? Well, because we’re literally on the very cusp of the ending for this thing (Finally) and I can’t just end this giant analysis off without adding any funny Silver pics! So please be patient while I come up with a part two for this whole thing. Such a shame I can’t add more images for now, but this will have to do.

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR READING THIS GIANT-ASS POST. I KNOW IT TOOK YOU FOREVER TO GET HERE, AND I COMMEND YOU GREATLY FOR FINISHING THIS. Part two will be out soon hopefully so stay tuned for that!

[i3utterflyeffect]

can i know more about your oc then?

oh avec? uhhhh sure!! i'm not sure what you want to know but i can talk more about xem!

just off the top of my head, random fun facts... uh

they act very germaphobic, but most of that is because xe has very recently become aware of how deadly diseases can be and. since xe is also (technically) a disease, xe's very adamant to not spread anything, even if xe's more akin to a parasite than a virus. the others don't think too much of it, since, you know. it IS a hospital

i've mentioned this before but most people are aware Avec isn't an intern! they don't exactly know what Avec is but people have theories:

Sentient robot - Hailey, Ian, the Janitor, Cole

Ghost - Lucia, Logan, Insomniac, Nicole

Weird intern - Edega, Miner, Mr. and Ms. Stevenson,

Doesn't Care - Samurai, Lucky, Farmer (aka Hugh, aka tutorial kid), Richard Hugh (hates everyone the same and thinks the robot was a waste of funds, uses them as proof that there should be less funding, also Avec's worst enemy but does not know this)

Unsure, but does kind of want to know - Ada The jury's still out on it and Avec just lets people draw their own conclusions because xe thinks it's kind of funny. xe does like the idea of being a sentient robot more than being a virus, so if xe was REALLY pressed, that's the lie they'd spit out. xe avoid answering though, and people usually don't care enough to pressure xem-- plus, what are you going to say if xe IS an intern. what then.

Avec does take host in a human eventually in the later parts of xyr story! it's an accident and xe isn't extremely happy about it, but it happens anyway and it's very difficult to set things straight again when people are under the impression you're out to hurt someone!

Avec could potentially survive for an indefinite amount of time in a host if they have a pacemaker, but it would be a pretty miserable existence for both Avec and xyr host.

Avec does sort of have the ability to starve! without xyr usual feed of electricity, they become tired, irritable, and generally just more flighty. xe would die if not supplied with electricity after around 7 days. for most Morendo viruses, it would be 3, but since Avec fed off of the electricity fueling xyr body, xe has a much more generous window of survival

xe really wishes they could swim. xe just thinks it looks fun.

Xe actually really likes Cole's music and listen to it a lot! Xyr favorite song is All The Times!

I've thought about if xe had a boss stage (and have tried to make it repeatedly, to no avail sadly), and I think that if I had to pick a song for it, it would be Coordinate Shift by Ferry!

anyway i've gotten distracted by the adofai super battleworn insomniac level again so that's all for now. sorry that most of this is rhythm doctor based, xe's dynamic with the others makes xem more fun lol

[homoquartz]

let me tell you about my dream

stay with me because it's a whole lot of nothing

at some indeterminate time in the future, the entire human race was moved into this massive commune due to some unspecified threat in the outer world, and we have been like this for so many generations we've lost count

people are divided into four colors based on temperament and skillset, like in a YA novel, but people are able to move from one color to another as they develop. their families can be mixed colors, but adult children need to move to the appropriate community once old enough. the colors are red (independent, passionate, physical), blue (calm, logical, medical), green (nurturing, friendly, natural), and yellow (introverted, rule following, mechanical). yellow is almost entirely segregated from everyone else in service of some greater purpose.

if there are rulers over this place, they are unseen. there are cameras and spotlights all over the place.

the commune is like, a giant outdoor camp with fortified walls keeping everyone in. houses are not houses but fenced areas which are laid out like livestock pens at a county fair, but separated by tarp or cloth, and each family has made their little space their own. individuals are literally in a barracks-like setup with only their cot as their personal space. there's no privacy anywhere.

the green community are the biggest spiritualists and worship a leader, who, when collected by police for sedition, told them to put his skull on a spike for everyone to be inspired by. they did, and the community wrapped his skull in cloth and set it in the center of their town, bedecked in lights and flowers, to visit him. this is allowed by the mysterious overseers.

yellow work in a giant open-plan office somewhere. it's suggested that their homes are just below the floor. they sit at their computers doing some kind of work for the people behind the cameras. they aren't allowed to socialize much. they do decorate their desks with fidgets. it's important to note that the yellows have created automatons to do work for them - shaped like fish, dogs, or humanoids depending on what's needed. these robots have since developed consciousness, but no one, not even the robots, is aware of that yet.

there is also another group of people who have been cast out of any color commune and are considered evil and a drain on society, yet they're not taken away by police. they roam around stealing necessities from others - but also seemingly useless things, like potted plants and lego pieces.

but it turns out these people are barred from color because their souls have been linked to this enormous otherworldly blob that lives beneath the commune. It's implied that this big black oozy blob is worshipped by the unseen rulers, since there are candles and altars and shit all around. the cast-outs operate normally unless they're too close to the blob, at which time it becomes a massive struggle to maintain their identity. there are hoards of spirits covered in black ooze that imply the blob eventually devours and is powered by these people. it's discovered that they collect random objects that have a positive, loved energy that combats this blob. they're the only ones that can sense it.

there is also a lingering mythos in the commune about two men who escaped, but it is a cautionary tale, because it is said that the wilderness consumed them and they died. however, they are alive out in the mountains and have become fused with goat DNA. (?) One day, after people escape and wander for many months, these two will teach them how to survive.

someone in the commune has been developing bombs to aid a great escape attempt, but few people know who. even those involved in the rebel group know little about how it functions.

anyway the central plot is that this one woman (red) is helping with the revolution by listening to her colorless friend, who is helping locate large sources of positive energy. the problem is that the only sources really left are in dangerous places that most colorless people can't reach - the good news is because they've gone undisturbed, they're very powerful. so the red lady leverages the skillsets of her other-color friends to collect these. this includes shit like cutting power to entire quadrants of the yellow offices, lacing their food with drugs, and uploading propaganda to every screen. in the commune, they are freeing prisoners, rounding up children, and setting off smoke in critical places.

if you guessed the skull in green is a critical source of joy energy, you'd be right.

idk what happens after that i woke up ✌️

[artbyblastweave]

Gideon the Ninth Liveread, Chapter 8

We get our first interior description of Canaan house, and it’s a house house; decorations, (in particular occluded paintings!) and other creature comforts long since fallen to ruin.  Space opera and gothic horror rolled up in one. I’m now very very sure of my kneejerk reaction that First and Ninth houses are being positioned as foils; both houses depopulated, kept isolated from outside intervention by fiat. The Ninth drilling into a massive pit, the First ascending in a big fuck-off tower to the heavens. The main difference being that the Ninth are zealous to the point of collapse, which you could frame as a sort of death of personality, but Gideon frames the religious zealotry of the First House priests as placid, robotic, almost indistinguishable from the servitors in their demeanor, and revulsion of all things Ninth aside, she seems to subtly view this as worse. Only Teacher looks alive; for better or worse, that absolutely isn’t an error you could make about the still-living population of Ninth House. 

During the prayer sequence, Ianthe and the Seventh Cav (whose name my computer keeps trying to autocorrect to Petroleum) are notably called out as not reciting the prayer. This is a point in Ianthe’s favor for me. Petroleum, though, is in a different boat; this chapter keeps calling attention to the fact that he does nothing unprompted; not sitting, not slapping Dulcinea’s back, not praying. I’m beginning to think that he’s some kind of necromantic construct, or else has been significantly augmented. I’m also starting to suspect that Dulcinea’s big entrance may have been staged, because he did move to attack Gideon unprompted before Dulcinea “stopped” him.

“I pray the rock is never rolled away.” Parallels to the resurrection of that one guy that one time. The one the Italians nailed up, you know, him. They’ve got an antijesus in that tomb, I reckon.

Interesting that in the ring distribution scene, they skip from the second and third houses all the way up to the seventh, and then the narration jumps the eighth right to Gideon; this is either Gideon's narration, focusing on who Gideon finds interesting (Second House has the cohorts!) or else the narrator giving me a little hint about who's gonna survive the obvious incipient cast herd thinning. Given the Ortus thing, I'm betting on the former; someone Gideon didn't care enough about to mention in the first wave of name drops is going to become extremely important later, to the extent that anyone in a group of seventeen can’t be important.

SO the wording of Teacher’s spiel is interesting because it’s the first indication we get of what The Emperor is like as a guy. (And he IS Just Some Guy; I know that much, that’s what drew me to the books, the hilarity of God being Just Some Guy.) The other Lyctors are the ones who want new Lyctors, if we're to believe Teacher; the current proceedings are the result of them finally getting through to him after a very long time.  I've picked up enough about the Emperor from tumblr that this could either be a true reflection of his petty grief impeding things, or a cover story to make him look sympathetic; but either way, Teacher is telling everyone in the room that The Emperor fucked up. He isn’t using those words, but that’s the shape of the facts as described. The wording leans heavily on God As Kind Of Like Us to make the error sympathetic; but my first reaction is, Christ, You mean your God is mopey to the point of impediment?!

Okay, so this is a boarding school plot. I stand by my earlier assessment that the basic shape of this narrative is violently, virulently transmissible in all directions, to any kind of AU you want. Dollars to donuts there will be a prom later.

So Lyctorhood is a trial-and-error sort of thing. Teacher is such a funny little guy. He’s interesting to me because he’s clearly leaning on the Wonka/Yoda/trickster-mentor archetype, but he’s doing so from an obvious position of massive institutional power (one shaped like the Catholic Chuch, no less!) Wonka can get away his bit because despite running the factory he’s convincingly painted by the narrative as a misunderstood maverick holding the line against the real institutional forces, and even then he’s often dragged as being a capitalist serial killer. Yoda can get away with it because Yoda is at rock-bottom, is kind of a dick, and already demonstrated enough of a fall from institutional power that you get the sense he’s mixing it up a bit, trying something new to see if that works better. But this guy is literally just a catholic priest! He can’t convincingly do this bit when we already have such a mass of knowledge about what the system that he’s mouth piecing for is like!

I'm getting extremely dehumanizing vibes from the "Bed-at-the-foot-of-the-bed" bit in the Ninth’s Quarters. Gideon is framed like a dog, or beast of burden. As is Protesilaus. "I know what befalls cavaliers," indeed.

And in the final scene of the chapter, Gideon overhears the skeletons pushing all the dropships off the landing platforms, and then she goes to sleep. Is this protocol that she was briefed on? Is this something more sinister? That seems like a deliberately overdramatic way of slamming the door shut behind everyone. What do shuttles cost?

Last note- I really, really like the description of drinking hot tea. That is in fact how it feels. Cauterized taste buds indeed. Lotsa verisimilitude on this one.

[muzzleroars]

I've got a couple so here we go,

-What would happen if any of the other archangel's fell for what ever reason?

-do you think any robots have made any little robot towns in hell? Like robots settle down in one spot with like little stores?

-if V1 likes to stay clean does he jump into water like a bird bath? Does Gabriel do the same?

Sorry if it's a lot in one ask! And love your art!!

aaa no problem i love little sets of questions!! :]

if any of the other archangels fell, they would end up in a similar state to gabriel as they are all powerful enough to survive the death and rebirth process, while their particular sins would determine their appearance/punishment (though some things are universal, such as the loss of flight). i have considered what sin would cause their fall based on their characteristics, with michael in violence, uriel in heresy, and raphael in fraud. michael, had his fall succeeded, would have been left with a need to feed on blood ironically enough, to the point where he would almost be forced to live in the phlegethon as there are barely any sinners left to bleed (unlike v1, a fallen angel of violence is perfectly capable of consuming rancid blood). i also do like following through with the idea that he turns white, both because hakita was right about the red on white aesthetics, but also so he appears anemic and bloodless. uriel would be sort of like gabriel's opposite, suffering from a constant burning fever and would spontaneously combust at times, fires that would leave his skin forever scorched even after putting them out. worst part is that he has no fireproof books to read :( raphael is terribly weighed down and constantly suffering from fatigue, every step so heavy that traveling long distances becomes impossible and he is essentially rendered incapable of helping anyone. his clothes become heavily gilded, and what's interesting is that i actually. sort of came up with raphael's design during my reread of the divine comedy, with the inspiration coming a lot from the hypocrites of fraud SO his punishment is quite similar, with a bit of falsifiers mixed in just for the irony as a healer.

other two answers under here!!

god i would genuinely love little machine settlements, but i think of them as not being organized enough/having advanced enough ai to do so. additionally, there is too much desperation in their situation for building up a village of some kind BUT i do think machines can form bonds with one another and do so even with models other than their own. like i really love the idea of a mindflayer that has several streetcleaners following it around, sort of protecting each other and understanding each other's priorities. also very into a sentry and drone pair, where the drone has worked on being incredibly fast and incredibly annoying so it can distract an enemy until the sentry picks them off lol and and i feel like i DEFINITELY got this idea from someone else (maybe on here? twitter? idk!!!) but like maybe there are just. machines on the surface. machines that don't solely rely on blood and got some of the grid back online and just kind of vibe up there. like they do not look at hell, that's wild shit down there. and they definitely have little towns :]

v1 likes to be power washed lol like it wants to be BLASTED with a fire hose, but it will take any kind of pool/bath it can find! it really just likes the process of "having a wash" - it doesn't mind being covered in blood and guts and every other kind of gore (fun!!!) but splashing around and getting hosed off just never gets old for it. gabriel is definitely a lot less playful and sees bathing as a relaxation thing, but he does genuinely find v1's enjoyment of it incredibly amusing. it's just so happy!!! every time!!! when gabriel's actually taking a bath to get clean however, he is much more like a bird in many ways - he likes having a heavy mist/shower available as well as a pool, and v1 ALWAYS makes sure to be close by when he shakes off his wings. this becomes a bit more difficult when he's a fallen angel, his wings hurting too much to make proper care possible, but v1 joins in to help him clean up through taking the time to mist every feather and then help spread them to air dry. the bath itself is a welcome reprieve from his freezing cold body though, and gabe really enjoys soaking in scalding hot water as often as he can after falling (any temp is fine to v1, so it loves all the bath time they get!!!)