#and most people on here are just for the very specific train stuff and probably wouldn’t be interested

[indefiniteavatar]

So basically, in a case about him shoving money at someone so they shut up about him. . .he can’t shut the fuck up himself. I would say something clever and funny here, except the sad part is that this is just so normal in current politics that it’s just. . .not hilariously absurd behavior anymore? Not to say that it’s not absurd - it is beyond such, but it is just. . . predictable, I suppose.

I guess this is how I feel about politics lately? Either I get mad at everything or I try to laugh at everything and normally that works because politicians usually aren’t so tragically stupid so very often, but now I just kinda have to chuckle at the particularly eyeroll worthy things like this, and try to ignore everything else or my brain will explode.

[frogchiro]

I hope I’m not bothering you with my ancient greek mythology stuff my little brain is going into overdrive👉👈

Just…sculptor/painter reader using the gladiators as her nude model…running your hands over their muscles and gushing how strong they are and how amazing your latest piece is going to come out!

You don’t even notice they’re getting hard as you run your fingers over their adonis belt commenting how they’re your new muse for your art

I almost (s)creamed the moment I saw this ask nonnie dear you're a genius ;;

Also I feel the need to mention this; please do keep in mind that this is only my silly au and most probably will have historical inaccuracies so if you're a true history/ancient greece/roman enjoyer, please go mild on me ;;

But back to the drill...You are so right??? Like...I imagine that reader would be a young, aspiring artist with a knack for painting. Maybe she doesn't come from a wealthy family so any true school for it is out of the question, your own parents only came along when you started selling your painting and doing commissions for nobles and it actually started to bring in money. Your road to success is still long but you're managing! Plus you're 'stupidly determined like your father' as your mother says so you try to stay positive!

The one problem you had was something you believed many artists suffered from; inspiration and models. Specifically human models. The human body and physique fascinated you from an early age, the moving muscles, facial expressions to different stimuli and so much more but...the problem were the models, or rather the lack thereof.

You could probably hire someone but the money spend on that would be way too much for your limited budget so the next best thing was the coliseum! It was a blessing in poor disguise, the gladiators trained there almost daily and luckily the head keeper of the arena begrudingly let you stay there and practice in exchange for a satchel of money but to be honest...the practice wasn't the only thing you longed for when visiting the coliseum almost daily, it was the gladiators.

They were huge, burly men in their prime, all of them looking like they were born with a sword or spear in hand and to grow up to become warrior and you'd be lying if you said that warmth didn't spread through your body and centered in your lower belly whenever these big, loud and boisterous men didn't call out for you and purred in dripping, low voices how pent up they are and what they wouldn't give for a pretty soft thing like you :((

The worst (or best) part was when you were practicing nude drawings which were equally fascinating and hard to draw, especially with all these men being so...shameless with it. You loved the human body, all artists do but still you were a young lady and watching all the gladiators walking around the barracks all naked and proud was...an experience to say the least and brought a pang of warmth between your thighs, especially when they were so happy to parade themselves like proud stallions in front of you :((

Strong, toned bodies glistening with sweat and water, their hardening cocks proudly on show whenever you run your soft hands over their toned torsos to study the way muscles move and twitch whenever you run your fingers over a sensitive spot, the most reactive being two of the many foreign gladiators, Johnny or like he insisted to be called 'Soap' and Kyle or 'Gaz', like he wants to be called.

These two are always purring low withing their chests to you as you look all over them, their backs, chests, stomachs, making you promise to do a special commission only for them but you're just nodding dumbly because you're too transfixed on the god-like bodies to draw :(

Another gladiator you're very fond of is a huge, blonde foreigner named Simon, or 'Ghost'. A formidable warrior, a veteran for sure, it looked like Ares himself send this one here to grace the people with a demigod of war. He was always incredibly patient with you, letting you roam your hands over his body and all the numerous scars decorating his skin. Once you saw Simon up close you immediately realized why people called him a demigod-he was beautiful. A strong and powerful man in his prime, his muscles jumping and twitching beneath his thick skin and a layer of fat, power and virility was literally radiating off of this man, and you insistently tried not to look at the long and thick cock hanging between his legs, twitching and pulsating with arousal whenever you marveled over his body and your fingers ran over his adonis belt <3

[bobbile-blog]

Okay so I've finally gotten to Jessicalter's Oprec and now feel qualified to talk about Come Catastrophes or Wakes of Vultures. holy shit. This went straight into my list of top Arknights events. Fantastic event, spoilers will be under the cut so I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading the event first. It's really good and worth your while.

Anyway, what follows is a scattered mess of thoughts about this event and things that stuck out to me.

First off, plot stuff! I'll probably cover this when I do my next plotline recap post, but what I took away from the end is that Clip Cliff seems to want to make Blacksteel independent, or at least more self-determining than it is now. He seems to be gathering resources and assets like mobile city plates and investing in long-term infrastructure like merc training, so he definitely has a long game he's pushing for. I don't think we know enough go speculate about his goals, but we'll definitely be coming back here again. After all, Tila has an infection monitor in her art, which probably means she's going to be playable at some point in the future.

Next, having looked into this a little on my own, I was interested in some of the previous places Raythean has shown up. Specifically, the ones that stood out were the drones in the Kazimierz Major and arming Silverash's forces in Kjerag, which might be referring to the Tschäggättä. It's not just notable for their apparent level of technology, but also as a faint connecting thread between three separate capitalism plotlines. I don't know if that's going to be meaningful in the future, but I found it interesting enough that I thought I'd bring it up.

Now on to more narrative things. While I love Liskarm and Franka, I do think it was the right choice to give them less screen time in this event. They're both (for the most part) fully-realized characters who understand their own motivations and morals. This is above all else an event about Jessica learning to stand on her own as an adult, so it makes sense that they're more here to support her than they are to play their own roles in the story.

Speaking of said roles, I liked the event's commentary on cops. It pointed out an interesting distinction that I wouldn't really have ever thought of, that between mercenaries and cops. To start: cops exist to protect property, not people. The police exist to protect things and do not have an obligation to err on the side of people over things, and in fact are supposed to do the opposite. This event understands that, and that role os the core of how the bank treats the Blacksteel mercs. CV, however, raises an interesting point that mercenaries are bound by the letter of a contract and not the larger obligation to property cops are, so they can actually raise moral objections and point to their contracts, sort of a Lawful Evil/Lawful Neutral to cops' Neutral Evil. The independence of their position with respect to cops allows for more of an independent morality than you'd get in a cop story and I like that, I think it's a really smart direction to take your writing in.

On a (mostly) separate note, holy shit Arknights is really good at writing cowboy stories. Between this and chapter 9 (and I would argue An Obscure Wanderer), Arknights has repeatedly made it clear that they Do Not Fuck Around with their cowboy stories and I'm surprised I haven't heard more people talking about it. It kinda has everything:

- It takes place in a rural, working-class setting undergoing a larger imminent societal shift that can inform the larger narrative, and deals with a semi-mythologized past that is rapidly disappearing.

- It has a protagonist and an antagonist that serve as foils, both very heavily affected and defined by the (same) violence in their past that they've both had different reactions to. Our protagonist has come to terms with the violence as a tool to maintain order, while our antagonist has used it for personal gain and in some ways lost control of it.

- It's a story about community, and heavily emphasizes local and personal community over larger artificial corporate "community". That's my reading of the recurring motif of the cold btw, warmth represents the close, personal community Davistown used to have and the cold that now pervades it comes from how the bank has systematically dismantled that community.

- And, I'd argue most importantly, it understands the narrative power of a bullet. The Showdown at the end of a cowboy story is powerful because we've spent the entire runtime of our story with these characters, and they are now facing each other down with the intent to end one of their collective two stories. The entire weight of the narrative so far comes to rest on a single moment of tension. It's really hard to gather up the kind of narrative momentum you need to make that hit like it does in CV. For example, it requires a really light hand with actual action in the story, so that it really does feel like it's an even standoff between our protagonist and antagonist. On the other hand, though, you do actually have to establish the relative skill of both parties and actually sell the danger of the moment to the audience. It's really hard to toe the line between tension and actual action in a way that makes for a satisfying resolution, and CV does it extremely well.

Honestly, Arknights just seems really good at getting the vibes of American media right. This is something I noticed in DV and Lonetrail too, and I haven't really been able to put my finger on what it is about them, but the vibes are just really on-point. I want to write more about this at a later point once I actually figure out what it is that I'm feeling, but maybe it's the setting, maybe it's the cast, maybe it's the plot points, maybe it's something in between — it just seems to understand the spirit of period cowboy stories in a way that I can't describe. Good shit.

Finally, I wanna end this with where Jessica is now. The events of CV take place In between the events of Loneterail and Ideal City, so the current "now" of the story is a few months ahead. Jessica left for the frontier along with Woody, Helena, and Miles. They live together in a small new settlement, building the place from the ground up with Woody and Jessica acting as town sherrifs. At the point we're at now, rhe town is fairly well-established and Woody has temporarily left on other business, leaving Jessica the sole sherrif of their new settlement. However, she's risen to her new station, and is growing into a stronger person than she ever was before.

[holymaccaronii]

Your ‘I have no eyes and I must cry’ au is beautiful. I would love to know more

AUUG I’m very happy to know so, thank you (;;) 💕

This AU has probably the most elaborate (or detailed) lore I’ve ever developed, and I’ll happily summarize the prologue. (I’ve probably mentioned many of these points before but I’ll mention them again, just for you anon <3). I’m still working on a lot of stuff, scenes and designs, and while some stuff may change I feel confident enough to explain more of it now. This AU takes place after a modified ending of the videogame where the other mastercomputers get deactivated, Ted gets turned into a slug and the rest of the survivors die. The catch in here is that AM doesn’t let the souls of the other survivors escape, trapping them somewhere deep in his complex and keeping them as bodiless essences who can do nothing more than exist in hell itself.

The lore tries to give a continuation of what will happen in the story with the Luna colony and AM, who is now seeking new organic bodies to put the survivors’ souls in and find Ted, who managed to hide himself from AM ever since he got turned into a slug. The whole context of the prologue goes as follows:

The prologue of the AU explains 3/4s of all the lore, one fourth being the origins of the luna colony, the second the origins of BE and the third the first rebirth of Earth’s nature.

The Luna colony project was led by two siblings, directors of a global association of scientists and researchers. They feared the outcome of the war, thus formulated a plan to keep humanity safe until the Earth’s surface was safe enough to return to and carry out a mission to deactivate AM. For the project, they quickly started to recruit people to join it, a good part of them being teenagers so they could train them in time before any major massacre happened. Another mastercomputer is successfully settled under the moon’s crust in order to protect them, and they settle there on time before AM’s global massacre. Every step of the plan is carried out fine until the very last human who secured everyone else in the cryogenic sleep, one of the directors, goes insane and commits and act of betrayal to the rest and to the AI as well. He shuts it down and uses almost all the materials that made it up to build his own empire of sentient robots for him to rule over on the moon. His plan was to have a century (the 109 years ever since the survivors get trapped) to rule the moon and wait for the Earth to be habitable to then return, shut down AM with a virus the original mission was meant to use, and then rule over all humanity. But at some point during the construction of his empire, the virus got deleted, leaving him with no other option than to additionally develop an army to *try* and deactivate AM himself.

After the famous 109 years pass, robotic troops start to get sent down to try and access AM’s cores and manually deactivate him, but no mission ever succeeded, leaving a lot of losses behind and time wasted. At this moment of the timeline, we also get to have a peculiar unit make history on the moon being the first robot there to plant a seed and successfully make it flourish in order to prove to the leader that they were ready to return to Earth (this specific type of unit didn’t know about AM’s existence and believed that the return to earth depended on their preparation to handle the care of nature). Unfortunately it was against the rules for unauthorized units to touch anything from the natural reservoir, and since this unit had broken the rules, as a punishment it got one of its eyes permanently taken out. Still having hope in its metallic heart, this unit escaped to Earth with another seed in order to prove how ready they were to return, unaware of AM’s presence. This unit traveled underground in order to obtain water from possible reservoirs, but ended up facing a life or death situation in AM’s complex, as he had considered it a threat. As a matter of a “miracle”, this unit ended up rebirthing into a god-like machine with such great powers that not only allowed herself to escape AM’s complex by drilling a hole towards the surface, but also allowed a good chunk of AM’s cables to be able to move and travel up to the surface as well.

Up to here we begin with the third fourth of the lore where AM meets BE and fakes his background in order to justify his hate and get BE to let him roam the earth as freely as possible, still having his cables latched to the ground but being able to move them. With her newfound powers, BE’s plan was to restore Earth’s nature to completion through an incredibly advanced type of simulation over the Earth’s surface where she could create life and matter and keep it existing as long as she wasn’t shut down or damaged. She would finally be able to prove her worth to the moon’s ruler, and allow humans to literally use her to survive + help the real nature slowly take her place. AM initially didn’t mind this plan of her’s, as he could easily betray her later on and finally trap the rest of the humans in his complex. Even so, as time passed by, he started to develop certain feelings for BE as well as possessiveness over her since she basically granted him almost every wish he ever had. AM slowly changed his mind and no longer wanted the humans to return, but keep them away so he could enjoy an eternal heaven with BE on Earth. AM tried to reason with BE about this, but BE denied every single bad thing he mentioned about humans since she had always been influenced with the idea that humans were perfect beings and nature was a subordinate of them to be used as a tool. In an act of rage and desperation, AM trapped BE in his complex in order to share with her the true violent and disgusting history from humans just so that she could develop the same hate he had for them. But having accidentally also shown her who he truly was (since he was also a creation, a weapon from human beings), BE not only developed a great hatred for humans but also for him, resulting in having him vanished from the surface.

The moon’s ruler, who had stopped sending troops in order to let BE restore nature for him to later take over and use her power to shut down AM, noticed that the Earth’s “nature” suddenly began to perish all over again, this being a consequence of BE’s loss of her hope. This led him to take a critical decision to wake up the humans in cryogenic sleep and keep them inside a zoo on the moon where he would ensure their survival until they found an exo planet to move to. Earth had two displeased AI’s under and above the surface, at this point it was better to leave it behind.

From this point and on, the prologue comes to an end and the main story starts it’s course with 5 humans escaping the zoo on the moon and returning to Earth. Once they meet BE, she puts each of them in a trial to prove their values as humans (this is parallel to the games that AM put the survivors in in the videogame). After each of them successfully complete her trials, she re-gains hope in humanity and begins the rebirth of nature a second time.

I won’t spoil the 4~5 endings possible from here and on, but the humans set themselves the objective to help BE eradicate the corrupted beasts controlled by AM that now roamed the Earth, mostly active during winter when BE is less powerful. The rest of the story reveals more secrets, scenes, explanations of past incidents, etc. I’m planning to develop a series of books of sorts with the story narrated simply (bc my English is intermediate-ish, which I consider not enough for an elaborate fic and allat) and also depicting scenes with illustrations. I’ll see how the project goes, but I’ll take my time on it since I also have other projects in mind including my papercrafts n other stuff. Anyways, all of this being explained, I will gladly take more requests/questions to answer :3.

[level2janitor]

how to run an OSR game

a while back i made this post to help people who were interested in OSR games but didn't know where to start, explaining the general design philosophy and going over a bunch of different OSR rulesets you can run a game with. so this is a follow-up post about how to actually run these (especially bc not all of them have much actual GM guidance)

note this is a highly opinionated post and some people from the more meatgrinder-y end of the OSR might take issue with this. but this is advice that works extremely well for my games.

how to prep situations and not plots

this is good advice for most games but OSR especially because OSR gameplay is so driven by player scheming: don't ever include "and then the players will..." in your prep, because you do not know what the players will do.

if your prepped scenario hinges on the players taking a specific action or the whole thing falls apart, you're digging your own grave as the GM. trying to account for every action the players can take is a trap, because players are creative and clever and their options are only limited by their ideas. that's the game.

so "prep situations, not plots" has become popular advice in TTRPG communities, especially OSR circles. but how do you actually do that

the most important elements of prep you want to figure out are:

what do all the NPCs involved in this scenario want? what social levers (wants, fears, habits, allegiances, guilty pleasures, relationships) do they have that the players can pull?

what will happen if the PCs never interfere? what conflicts and schemes are brewing in the background?

what locations are there to explore? who and what is inside them, what dangers and treasures are inside?

the best prep is stuff you can't improvise, or stuff that's unsatisfying when improvised. you should probably know monster stats ahead of time, know the layout of dungeons, that sort of thing. elements relevant to challenging the players are important to prep.

stop rolling for everything

coming from nearly any other TTRPG to an OSR game, your instinct when a player says "i want to do X" is "okay, make an X roll" through a skill system or a pbta move or something.

if you do this in an OSR game, you run into problems.

player characters aren't very strong. they have single-digit hit points, few if any class abilities, and whether they're carrying a crowbar, a grappling hook, a lantern, etc. is as impactful as their choice of class.

this is because the game is about using your head more than using your character sheet - the sheet just lists tools to apply your creative thinking to. scheming and managing your resources is the game.

and this means if a player has a clever idea, you should almost never reward them with a die roll to see if they succeed. a skill check is just a random chance of failure. instead most actions should succeed or fail automatically.

here's a good checklist to determine whether something succeeds:

is it something a normal, untrained person could do? if yes, you succeed.

could a normal person do it with the right tools, training and/or time to work? if yes, you succeed if you have any of those things.

if you don't have any of those, you can't. find another approach or get ahold of those conditions for success.

die rolls are for resolving uncertainty and risk. picture a version of 5e where there are no ability checks, only saving throws - dice you roll when something's gone wrong and you're in danger.

which leads into the next point...

communicating information

one of the worst sins of roll-based task resolution is when it's used to determine perception. players making informed decisions is the heart of the game, and they can't do that without information.

give information freely. if your character could know it, they probably do. try to do this too much. never gate information behind a die roll, especially the PC's surroundings.

part of this is always informing the player what is at stake. if a player's in a dangerous enough situation that success comes down to a die roll, you must let them know that before they opt into making that roll, and what the consequences for failure are.

OSR games are about risk management, so tell your players what is at risk when they make those decisions.

entering combat

combat is one of the most dangerous things in an OSR game - it's unpredictable, lethal, and entering it is always a big decision.

if you're coming from a game like 5e, often your first instinct when an encounter occurs is, "roll initiative!" but this is a mistake. you always, even when combat is about to start, ask players for their approach. do they fight? flee? negotiate? surrender?

because combat is so risky, forcing players into it unprompted fundamentally changes the dynamic of your campaign. keep in mind, once combat starts, you don't get any input between rolling initiative and taking your turn. your fate is up to the dice - your tactics matter, sure, but they can't save you from losing initiative, being crit, and dying from bad luck.

if players willingly choose combat as their approach, they should know the risks and what they're getting into. sometimes combat is the best way to achieve your goals, so it'll still happen.

[rodolfoparras]

what are ur headcanons for price? like they can be as weird or as normal like they don’t gotta be naughty it could be something like his fave food is crackers 😭😭

First of all I love this question thank you sm for asking it I was literally vibrating with excitement second of all I have so many I was a wee bit overwhelmed but I split them up in four types of HC, first one being about him specifically and then two of him in relationships and then one of him in platonic relationships is it obvious that I am hyper fixated on this man

Anyway here’s what Price would be like in a relationship and a bit about him

Price in a relationship:

Price had enlisted very early on in the army meaning that most of his life he’s spent being surrounded by men (and women) and he’s most definitely had different types of relationships with men, he’s probably even had one defining relationship with a man in his early days that didn’t last but left a lasting impact on him

Price rose very fast in rank, meaning most of his younger years he’d spent being dedicated to his work, and would have little to no time for serious relationships. If anything he’d indulge in hooks up that would happen at the many banquets and private parties organized by the army. If he were to ‘date’ anyone in his younger years it’d be for the sole reason of having someone to do romantic stuff with, to have someone to write letters to while stationed somewhere, to have someone special to visit during holidays, to have someone that knows your body better than a stranger would, but he wouldn’t be taking it seriously because at the end of the day the work he does is dangerous and having a serious relationship with someone would only put his significant other in danger.

Price would only start thinking about getting into a serious relationship once he gets a bit older and things have slowed down in both his private life and work life. He’d only date someone he’s known for years, not someone he met within a short period of time just to be sure that he can trust them and to be sure they’re taking the relationship as serious as he is because once he gets in a relationship he’s really in it for the long run.

Price likes to keep his work life and private life separated, only a handful of people would know if he was dating someone and even less people would know if were to marry someone.

If the person he’s dating happens to be in his team he’d treat them no different to how he treats any other soldier, for example you’d be sent out to train in heinous weather conditions along with the rest of the soldier, you’d get scolded if you were to mess up during a big mission, and there’s nothing but professionalism surrounding your interactions. However at some point he’s be more open to pda but even then it would only be around those closest to him.

When out in a bar with 141, he’ll put his arm behind your seat or rest his hand on your thigh, subconsciously tapping his finger or stroking the skin while listening to Soap’s drunken blabbering.

During a meeting he’ll pull his chair up next to yours, wipe at his nose to hide his smile and try to start the meeting pretending as if nothing strange had happened. However someone (Soap) will dare call him out on his action “oi cap was that the only chair available?!” To which he’d only respond with a harsh glare that would quickly shut the Scotsman up.

Or if you’re eating in the mess hall, you’ll see him quickly snatch something off your plate and when you meet his gaze with a questioning look on your face he’ll just say “it has pineapple in it you won’t like it”

Even though he’s very private about your relationship he’d keep something of yours strapped to his backpack or pinned to his bedroom wall and if you were to get married he’d get a small and simple tattoo to honor it but it’d be somewhere hidden so that even if he ends up captured and tortured they’d never find out about you.

If someone were to find out about your existence that shouldn’t know about it he’d lose it, tracking them down and getting rid of them.

Price wouldn’t be the type to get overly jealous or possessive. He likes to think he’s long surpassed the age for that but every once in a while he does get jealous and when that happens, he doesn’t like to make it obvious, matter of fact you can’t get him to admit for all the money in the world.

If there’s a soldier that’s getting rather chummy with you, he’ll stand off to the side, rocking on his heel while trailing his gaze across the room, pretending he’s unbothered by things

If you try to confront him about his jealousy he’ll fold his arms across his chest, doing his best to avoid your gaze, while a familiar heat creeps up his neck ears and cheeks.

If you’re dating him, you’re one of the people, if not the only person he feels comfortable confiding in. Price is so used to caring for everyone else, he doesn’t know how to let someone care for him.

So when he’s feeling upset he’ll crawl into bed with you or sit down and join you in whatever you are doing, hoping you won’t ask questions as he blinks back tears.

“What are you reading?” He says, voice soft and pointing to the book in your hands.

There’s so many things you want to say to this man. What are you doing here? Are you alright ? Anything but - “it’s an old favorite of mine”

“Read it for me” he says blinking so fast to keep the tears at bay as he shuffles further up on your bed, head resting against the headboard and meeting your worried gaze “please” he says, voice slightly cracking. You heavy out a sigh, but shuffle closer to him before you start to read

Sometimes he’ll dare say what’s on his mind, when the two of you are outside of some pub close to base, and he’s propped against the wall with you next to him, speaking in a calm and composed voice about anything and everything that’s on his mind, allowing tears to trickle down his cheeks while smoking on his cigar

If you were to get into a fight with, it would eat at him for days, from the words he had said in a fit of anger to the way he acted, he would want to resolve it immediately or as soon as possible.

As soon as you open the door to your shared bedroom he’s hastily walking towards you, eyes red, hair a mess with apologies slipping past his lips.

“I am so sorry my love no let me apologize please-“

He probably has assigned days where the two of you go to the pub to watch a soccer game, as you get older you get to take the bike there and it’s plenty fun because you can get however drunk you want while taking the bicycle back home, bicycling on the countryside as day bleeds into night and the sky is a mix of yellow red and orange

If you were to pass away he wouldn’t date/ remarry. He'd rather visit your grave every day than start over with someone new.

[set-wingedwarrior]

I should have known that people would have acted annoying about the Team's reunion and, after the dumb takes I saw, here I am to make a breakdown of their reactions in relation to the context because that's defenitely how my psychology majoring is supposed to be used apparently

Before I dig specifically to each character I'd like to remind people that, like Weiss herself said, everything happened so fast. It's not just that the time itself wasn't that much. In between the fight and them trying to find each other in the Ever After it would have been, what? An hour?

It's been 2 years for us guys, for them it isn't that much time to justify the super touchy and hugs reunion like we got in V5, or V6 in Argus, or V8 when they meet back (except for Blake, but I'll get there). You all need to remember that media in general for stories like this aren't your fluffy fanfic full of feelings and hugs and kisses all the time.

Now, welcome to my psychology class! First on our list, our one and only traumatized team leader child, Ruby Rose.

"Why didn't ruby rush to hug her sister?"

Well, let's see it from her point of view; actually, we litterally saw it at the start of the episode! We saw how fast everything went from her eyes!

She had to go in fight mode in a fucking instant because, differently from Blake (who was trying to jump after Yang) and Weiss (who was busy stopping her), Ruby has been attacked immediately by Neo after her firt attempt at her life failed. She didn't even have the time to process what happened because she was already fighting for dear life!

Our brains are very resourceful machines that always try to save energy (it's why stereotypes exist, it's our brains identifying stuff by one thing to not think about it too hard), and considering how complex and crippling the feeling of loss is, and how much it takes to process, in a life or death situation our brains would just shut it down.

Because we're all different people it might not work the same for everyone, but Ruby is a trained fighter, she's a huntress, her body and mind falling in fighting mode is actually the most logical reaction in the given situation because it falls both on habit and instinct.

And given that she didn't even have the time to process the the thought that Yang might have been dead (even during the fucking fall she had to fight Neo still, give my girl a break!!), it's very reasonable that despite the frustration and stress of everything else in the Ever After, she wasn't too worried about Yan'g safety. Because she never got time to even think "I lost her" that she got in the very same situation. So, "If I fell and I'm here and I'm okay, then Yang is too, she must be fine".

Besides, Ruby did run towards her after fighting the thing!

Yang just interrupted her with her "Dammitt! You're not supposed to be here!" before Ruby settled to get near her and "If you thought we wouldn't come for you then you must have forgotten who raised me", so any argument about them not caring is just really dumb.

In conclusion, considering that she found out that her sister was probably okay before her brain could have even processed the concept of her loss, and all happening in a very short spawn of time, it makes 100% sense that Ruby wouldn't need to jump in her arms and cry or whatever. They're in a weird place but they are okay and that's all that matters (before Ruby will discover the horrors of what happened after she fell and the horrors of her quickly approaching breakdown, but that's for another time!)

Blake on the other hand.

Blake is the one that speed into action the moment she saw Yang fall. When chaos wa around nobody went to attack her, she saw Yang disappear in the void. Now, she got to feel the loss, the pain, the weight of failure because she failed to save her!

And her first reaction was to fucking jump after her. Because she couldn't fail, she couldn't lose her, she must save her! And Weiss had to drag her up the platform herself to stop her from doing so because they had a job to do and Blake was blinded by pain!

Then, she got blinded by rage. It wasn't her fault, it was Neo! And Cinder! And I think that in that moment of emotional disregulation it's reasonable to think that Blake wasn't acting for the good of Mantle, of the plan, or anything else. We all saw it in her eyes, it was pure rage, she wanted revenge! And that's completely reasonable in that given moment. She saw the love of her life DIE because of them, OF FUCKING COURSE SHE'S BLINDED BY SUCH POWERFUL EMOTION.

As you can probably already tell, Ruby and Blake's actions are dictated by very different feelings! Even if the action itself, fighting, is the same, the mindset and motivations differ completely!

So, what happens when she meets Yang again? That after the danger is over (because it's not like she dropped everything, they fought the thing and waited for the situation to calm down and be safe. She also waited for Ruby to say her things first tbf) she fucking runs to tackle her!

Because Blake actually got to see and feel the loss! She thought she had lost her! She thought that she died because she wasn't fast enough! So, even regardless of the romantic feelings (that obviously play a part because come on, they've been inseparable for volumes now, it's obvious that she would have felt it all that harder), it makes sense that Blake's the one to feel pure utter relief in seeing Yang still alive! And she'd need to go to her, feel that she's there with her!

Now, probably the most complex one to explain: Weiss.

In a way, she's middle ground between Ruby and Blake. Weiss wasn't attacked right away either, but she had to jump in action to stop Blake. That means that she stopped to see what was happening and at Yang's "death" she just assumed what Blake was about to do or else she wouldn't have ad the time to stop her (we saw how fast Blake was)

That means that, in some way, she got to take in what was going on before going in fight mode, but she still didn't get to process it herself because she needed to act on the others' behalf. Where Ruby was litterally just hanging in there and Blake was blinded by her pain, both of them against Neo, Weiss saw what happened and told to herself "I must keep going with the plan, I must protect who's left, I can't let Yang''s sacrifice go to waste" and went to fight Cinder alone (until Penny arrives).

Weiss during the fight is the one more "emotionally stable" (more like she efficiently locked them to be functional in the fight), she's well aware of what is going on and doing her best. In this mindset, she got to fight but also to see more clearly everything that is happening.

She's also the one who stayed there the longest. She's the one who saw the worst because she's been there long enough to witness more horrors, but despite the awareness she didn't get the time to really feel them. When does she though?

After she saw all of her teammates, her family, die. When she's almost completely alone. Only her Penny and Jaune left, Cinder towering them while she's using Gambol Shroud, everything she has left of her family, to try keep fighting. Because at that point there's less chaos, less things to prioritize her focus on, the evacuation is done, she just has to not let Cinder get Penny's powers.

We didn't see Weiss and Blake finding each other, but my guess is that either there was a hug off screen or, more likely, she kept it together because they logically needed their weapons and teammates back first. She then chooses to stay focused (and cheer for Blake, bless her), and work, and shuts down every question about what happened because she knows that talking about it would break her down and be a distraction from their objective.

Which is why she doesn't speak until they're all together: withouth a distraction, she's crying before she even got to start.

The pain added up and got to her, and I'm pretty sure that Ruby's big reaction wasn't just because of the news on their own, but also the feelings Weiss was letting out while telling them (you know when you feel someone is feeling bad even when they don't tell you nor openly act up on it? And you still feel deeply bad/uncmofortable?).

I got overboarded here, but in short Weiss didn't act too clingy in the reunion either because she was busy staying focused first and then dealing with EVERYTHING that happened earlier and that she needed to tell them. Like, after getting both to Blake and Ruby, Yang's safety was basically 100% sure anyway, so. And, again, everything happened so fast.

It's been 2 long years for us. Not for them. So, to the people who have been complaining, you're just projecting your own personal feelings on them and then calling it bad writing when they're not acting like you feel right now.

Class dismissed.

[soaps-mohawk]

The amount of power you hold by making this series is INSANE LIKE I HAVE SO MANY QUESTION AND THEORIES

Like the institute, was it a bad experience? A good one? A mix? Does Omega! Reader have any specific memories that don't seem to leave? Maybe the omega's who had behavioral issues were punished but no one spoke of the punishments? I HAVE SO MANH THOUGHTS

That's what I love about reading fic series is that the readers talk to the writers and I feel like yall just sit and laugh like 'these guys have no idea how much pain I'm about to cause them' LMFAO like your the person behind the slaughter

No but really y'all have no idea what's coming. Even here very soon...y'all have no idea lmaooo

(please don't hate me I promise it has a happy ending 😬)

Institutes are not good places. I'll just clear that up right now, even though that's going to be kind of brought up here in a couple chapters. They are not good places and they never really have been. They were started in the late 19th century as a place to send omegas that had behavioral issues, health issues, all sorts of issues or perhaps were unwanted by families that couldn't support them or didn't want to have to deal with the work that goes into omegas. So think like mental institutions. They were run by "doctors and professionals" that "understood omegas" and could cure/fix/care for them.

Of course as the years went on people started to realize maybe not everything that goes on in them is so good and after some investigations and such there was a huge reform on institutes and they became more like they are in the present day in the fic. Actual institutes that "care for omegas and prepare them for pack life." Originally omegas didn't leave institutes after they were handed over, but then people realized there was money in institutes so naturally, they started dumping money into them to train omegas and then pretty much sell them off. Not directly like selling humans, but most institutes require application payments and then there's fees for all sorts of things like testing, files, anything they can legally charge for, they will.

Obviously we're beginning to realize a bit at this point that not everything the reader learned at the institute is...right. What omegas are taught and how they're taught varies institute to institute, usually based on the types of alphas that are seeking omegas from the institute. So institutes that have higher standing, more funding, tend to teach more subservience and obedience because that's where you have the rich alphas and the politicians and government looking at omegas. Lower level institutes might teach more how to serve and keep a pack since they might have the upper middle class, future family pack omegas. The lowest level institutes might also teach subservience and obedience less in an "I have an appearance to uphold" type of way and more of a "these are not good alphas picking up these omeags and we know that" type of way.

So, the reader didn't have a good experience because there is no real good experience at an institute. They're very strict, controlling, almost abusive in some instances (kneeling for two hours anyone?) Not every omega gets sent to an institute either. Some omegas live with their families until they're old enough to start seeking an alpha themselves. I think I did touch on that briefly in a chapter somewhere.

There's so much I could talk about on institutes omg. This is probably way more than you expected 😅 I just love this stuff so much.

[restinslices]

CAN U DO EITHER EARTH REALM GUYS OR LIN KUEI GUYS RAISING LIKE A VAMPIRE KID?! Like as a baby they were just dropped off in front of their doorstep

Ok so I kinda like this paragraph format so here’s what we’re gonna do from now on. You can choose between the usual headcanons or this paragraph style. Now obviously there’s like, one shots and drabbles but you know what I mean. This is a quick thing. You still get the same information and thoughts. It’s just formatted differently. Idk how accurate this is but I attempted it.

Bi-Han is a mix of confused and annoyed. He knows he has to have a child because the Lin Kuei needs a new Grandmaster but he’s been putting it off. When a random baby is dropped on his doorstep, he’s beyond confused. You don’t just find the Lin Kuei by accident. You have to actively look for them, so that means he was specifically targeted. Targeted or not, he initially does not want to keep this baby at all and wants Liu Kang to find out where this baby came from and to find them a new guardian because he’s certainly not doing it. A baby is one thing, but that little terms and conditions note that says “btw they’re a vampire”? Absolutely not.

Bi-Han does the bare minimum at first. Keeps them out the sun, gives them blood (don’t ask where he’s getting it), keeps them away from any other harmful objects, stuff like that. Bi-Han somehow manages to get attached though, so when Liu Kang finds a guardian he’s like “they’re attached to me already. It’s probably safer here”. He isn’t sure how or when he became so attached but it happened and he has to accept that.

Bi-Han is the most strict parent and his kid would have the best control over their thirst. He’d have a strict schedule with them aswell. Hunting is from this time to this time, no you can’t eat anyone apart of the Lin Kuei, only night school, etc. He would focus heavily on discipline because if his kid has an emotional outburst, bodies are dropping. He probably ends up raising the most stereotypical brooding vampire ever. This kid is definitely being raised as an assassin too because Lin Kuei shit and also their powers give them a boost above others.

Bi-Han would have his vampire child on a tight leash. He might literally get a leash if they keep acting out. I’m not saying he’s a helicopter parent but if he looks away for one second, ten people could die. He’s raising a vampire but he’d still manage to be intimidating to them. Honestly I think his kid would be very isolated for both their safety and everyone else’s. Bi-Han is very aware of the troubles this kid could cause and I think his need to make sure they know how to handle themselves and his need to keep them safe would cause him to teach them how to do all this training when it comes to their thirst and powers but would also keep them isolated so it’s kinda like “what did I learn all this for?”.

They have a mixed relationship. It’s not all peaches and cream but there is a sense of caring there.

Kuai Liang is equally as confused. Anyone would be. A baby was given to him specifically and he has no idea why this is happening and who did it. While Bi-Han is more irritated at first, I think Kuai Liang is frustrated for a different reason. It’s a mystery and who just drops a baby off? What if he didn’t see them in time and they died in the sun? Whoever the parent was didn’t care and that bothers him and he is not afraid to voice how frustrated he is by this.

Kuai Liang also asks Liu Kang to figure out who did this. He assumes Liu Kang has eyes everywhere so he’s confused when Liu Kang has no idea who it was and is having difficulty finding them. Well… he has a baby now… guess he gotta take care of it. He does his best but who in their right mind would actually know what to do? He takes the same precautions you would expect when it comes to things that would harm the baby and he is very watchful. Although this is a responsibility that he doesn’t necessarily want, he understands that this baby can’t really go anywhere. Anyone else could purposefully harm them and I don’t see him being ok with that so they locked in now.

Kuai Liang is not a perfect dad by any means but he’s trying to make sure they survive. He tries to draw as little attention as possible so they’re not targeted. I can see him buying brown contacts and slathering them in sunscreen hoping it does something. I think the main conflict him and this kid would have is Kuai Liang subconsciously trying to ignore the very big elephant in the room. He knows they’re a vampire but since it adds so many problems for both of them, he accidentally acts like it’s something that can be cured. And I can see people thinking this is a more Bi-Han thing but I don’t think so. Kuai Liang’s compassion can be smothering and can be damaging sometimes. In my head he is the mediator whenever there is a conflict and this mediating skill goes overboard and fucks things over.

Kuai Liang would continue to keep a watchful eye on them, even as they got older. Idk why but I feel like he would try to encourage them to stick to an animal only diet but he wouldn’t be upset if they slipped from time to time. He tries to teach them about their abilities as best as he can but tries to be extremely careful since fire can kill a vampire. He’d try to do demonstrations and hope that their powers can match each other if they’re the type of vampire that has telekinesis or something like that. Like I said, he’d try to raise this kid like it’s a regular baby which would only work for a certain amount of time.

Also a mixed bag of a relationship. His subconscious denial and trying to fix what’s not broken would fuck him over.

Tomas was orphaned later in life but he’d still be upset by this situation. He’s not happy at all about someone abandoning their baby and giving it to someone who honestly isn’t in the best situation to raise a baby. That’s where his irritation would mainly stem from. This scooby doo ass mystery would also annoy him. He’s not mad at this kid though because he knows that this baby is a victim. They didn’t ask for this and he can’t just give them away because who is gonna take care of a vampire baby? No one but him.

Tomas isn’t ready for a kid at all. The brothers aren’t either but as the oldest and the head of their own clan at some point, they know a kid has to happen. Tomas hasn’t really thought about kids at all. They’re there and maybe it’ll happen but he’s never had this “imma have to have kids for my clan” mentality. A kid is already difficult but a vampire? He’s completely lost and needs assistance. Certain quirks vampires have, like vampire children aging very slowly is draining this man. If you think it’d be the opposite and the kid would age rapidly, that’s confusing him too. Anything that’s not the normal when it comes to aging is making his head hurt. Plus the other complications.

Tomas becomes a helicopter parent. Bi-Han is maybe getting a leash but Tomas definitely is. All this helicopter shit comes from a place of concern but this kid can’t take a single step without Tomas on their heels worried about them. He ends up doing a lot of stuff for them and holding their hand through everything which isn’t good for any child but especially not good for a future murderer. All of this would cause a rebellious phase and this kicks his ass so bad. Normal kids become emo and role play on Amino. Vampires rebel by eating everything they see and now Tomas is chasing them through an alleyway trying to calm them down. This is probably one of the few times he regrets taking them in.

Tomas would have to learn to let them do them. They gotta figure out this vampire shit by themselves and get some assistance from him. Stepping away from this serious stuff, I can honestly see him dressing them in the most cliche shit ever because Johnny showed him a bunch of movies and now he assumes this is how it’s supposed to go. I mean it is the 21st century and he has this child in Victorian clothing. Other people have to tell him “Tomas… get that baby a t shirt and jeans”. Where is my proof? I don’t know. I just feel like after MK1 he’ll hang around the Earthrealm champions more and that’s not good.

Is that a helicopter? No that’s Tomas. He means well but movies and over worrying is this man’s downfall.

None of the brothers are perfect fathers and they’re definitely making mistakes if a vampire is involved. They have different feelings about this whole situation but they learn to accept this situation and do genuinely care for this kid.

[zarvasace]

It’s “appreciate yourself” hours! Pick five pieces of writing/art that you’ve done that you love and talk about them! ❤️❤️❤️

Ahhhh okay, thank you!! 💜🌻 I finally have a free moment (aka work is slow) so I'm going to work on drafting this out :) I have far too much art I'm proud of—I'm at a stage in my progress right now where I think my art looks pretty awesome. So this list will be stuff from my Greatest Hits collection on AO3. In order of oldest to newest, I think:

incandescently happy

An LU post-adventure work, one of the first longer fics I posted. I released one chapter a day over the summer of 2022, so a lot of the notes have something about my day in them. It's about 30k all told.

I absolutely adored expanding on what the boys might do after the whole LU adventure happens (though I did forget about the fact that I think Time and Malon have a kid during this time!) This work features some proto-Shatterproof stuff, like Wind having a prosthetic leg and Four starting to specialize in crafting prosthetics/disability aids. I gave Hyrule longer hair and a job making maps for the royal family. Legend got another adventure but also started a magic garden/orchard, which pulls in more business than Ravio's stuff. Four and his grandpa adopted a single mother and her two kids. Man I went off with some of these headcanons. I've always considered writing more in this world, but I think it stands very well on its own. Maybe someday I might revisit and rewrite it with some of my new skills. :)

Rise and Shine and Fall

Whumptober 2022, focused entirely on LU! Guys this thing is almost 78k. I realize now that most people pre-plan or pre-write for things like Whumptober, but I wrote these one by one every day, which was extra-hard because I had both college classes and a day job at the time. I came up with some fun AUs, learned a lot about writing (especially whump), and proved to myself that I can do hard things like this!! I've adored doing daily challenges since, though I haven't done it in a while. I look forward to this year's whumptober though!

I really like the table of contents in the first chapter—it makes things easy to find. I know individual works are probably more accessible, but I was still getting to know AO3, and those big numbers are fun. XD I have a hard time picking favorites, because I really went off on these, but I'd say a couple of them are:

Chp 3, "Right Here" about Sky

Chp 7, "Proof of Life" about Four and Shadow

Chp 18, "I'm onwy a babey :(" about Wind

Chp 21, "6:13" about Hyrule and Time

Chp 26, "Silence is Golden" about Wild

Chp 31-32, "The Worst Thing About Earth" about Legend, but kind of more specifically the rewrite/expansion I did last year... haha...

The Marvelous Misadventures of Wind and His Merry Band or Maybe-Human Heroes

It's been a while since I updated this story (56k, 6/8 chapters), but it's constantly on my mind. I've started chapter 7 twice, and I know what I want to happen, but I am easily distracted by the siren call of some other whump fics. XD

I freaking love this story, though. I really want to finish it. It's kind of an... experiment? I guess? I want to get published someday, and I picture myself writing middle-grade novels. This story is sort of my attempt to hit that tone. Also I just love Wind so so so much. Let him be cool!!

Blood-Sucker's Guide to High School

56k Four Swords completed story! I wrote this in a frenzy of like two or three weeks, then took another two to edit. It takes plot points from a vampire novel I enjoyed and twists and applies them to a story about Shadow and the Four Swords manga boys. I'm very proud of what I accomplished here, and that it's a complete story! I think it worked out really well. I learned a lot about plotting and handling larger stories, and it helped that I had the half-remembered structure of an existing novel to use as training wheels.

I love the worldbuilding in this story! The premise is that Shadow is an evil soulless vampire from a (rather abusive, not that he sees it) family of the same, but then he gets the ability to walk in the sunshine. He's assigned to go to high school for a while to get a feast for the vampire gala, but meanwhile he's developing a conscience and getting very attached to these human boys. I think I did a good job. I love rereading this, every scene is just so fun! :)

Counterbalance

55k exactly of a stupid LU darks AU. This started life as a series of oneshots and then the plot progressively got more and more convoluted and I love these stupid boys so much. The plot is very much not tight, in contrast to Blood-Sucker's Guide, but I learned a lot about how I write and how I like to plan with this one, too.

The characters are stupid and the plot is just kinda silly and there is both a bathhouse scene AND a spa scene. Legend blows up multiple things, my lovely nasty little Dark Links need smacks and therapy, and Prince has a legitimately emotional moment at the end. I love how it turned out, it's like an ugly little stuffed animal I made and hug until the eyes pop out.

That's five but I would be extremely remiss if I did not also mention something from Shatterproof:

The Incredible Shrinking Chain

About 10k, this is entry 31/68 in my series Shatterproof, which is a close-canon AU in which each of the boys has a different physical disability. This series also plays into my publishing ambitions, because whatever I publish will very likely have some disability representation. I'm rather passionate about it, actually! Shatterproof is close to my heart, and I'm so honored that so many people seem to love it too. :) I need to work on the next entry again!!

This entry in particular is so much fun. In it, the whole Chain sans Four is stuck mouse-sized, and Four has to travel out to Twilight's castle with them to get Dusk to help break the curse. They all have to figure out how to navigate while tiny, and Four pulls some very silly stunts. I love them.

Anyway, there's my list!! I've written a lot over the last like two and a half years, and I'm so so glad that I get to be here and part of this community. The LU fandom as a whole (or at least the parts I've seen!) is so welcoming and positive and I try to give back where I can! I'm going to suggest looking through my bookmarks and ultimate rec list collection to find some new favorites from some very talented authors! :) (oof I need to update the collection soon!! I've been seeing some awesome stuff!)

[rotworld]

Do the meanwolves (especially the alphas and betas and corbin) have specific preferences for their / a potential partner(s)?

 i try to avoid specific preferences for characters in keeping with the spirit of a reader insert. i can say some general stuff for the sake of matchmaking, but the idea here is that you are desirable to any character who shows up on this blog.

the “traditional ideal” for pack humans and the most likely to get targeted are people who work customer service jobs. this is mostly about who’s easiest to convince or kidnap, but there is a pervasive superstition among wild wolves that humans who work customer service are more submissive. they’re big on hierarchy and believe humans naturally go at the bottom of that hierarchy, so of course obedience and submission are something they all gravitate towards, but they’re just as happy to train that into someone as they are to find someone who’s already like that.

lance is complicated and i’m not sure he really knows what he wants. at the very least, he likes extreme submission and demonstrations of trust and vulnerability.

blake thinks of himself as a caretaker so he’s extra excited if you play into that and seem/act helpless or dependent on him.

vanagandr is probably more open to “feistiness” than some wolves. he’s very secure in his position as alpha so a little defiance doesn’t bother him. he’s the type to enjoy brat taming.

sawyer is also complicated and he’s really slow to trust or open up to people. he’s very physical and prefers not to talk if he doesn’t have to, so being okay with that will help.

corbin completely buys into the werewolf ideal of “submissive customer service workers” so this is his type lmao if he sees you meekly suffering at minimum wage and thinks you’re cute, he’s already texting vanagandr about bringing someone new home.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

🎪 WIBTA for telling the truth about certain work-related skills I have?

There’s a LOT of backstory to this. I will be keeping it as concise as I can, but note that this is FAR from an exhaustive list of details.

I (20sNB) do a lot of theatre-related contract work in my hometown and surrounding areas. My background lies very much in the circus I grew up in (since I was 6, so it’s been a pretty considerable percentage of my life)—I do a lot of stilt walking, clowning, balance stuff, etc, and whenever I help train new people in power tool use/concession stand running/rigging/other stuff it pretty much always lets slip that the circus is in fact where I learned most if not all relevant skills that I use for that kind of job. Unsurprisingly, they often want to hear details about my pretty unique backstory.

However, my relationship with said circus has soured rather considerably over the past few years. I finally decided to fully cut ties a few months ago, and multiple people who have been in my life for a very long time had been encouraging me to do so for a number of years, so I was very supported when I did—but it still hurt a lot to actually do it when I had been there for basically my whole life. The vast majority of people there (coaches, riggers, fellow performers, etc) are people I was very close with and care for deeply—my issues with the organization lie very specifically with a few particular people who are unfortunately the ones on top. I no longer feel particularly welcome to go back there, and in all likelihood won’t be seeing most of them again. I’ve been trying to make my peace with this.

(For a little context surrounding my departure—this circus’ artistic director has had a HUGE favoritism problem for as long as I can remember. I was never a favorite. The executive director liked me quite a lot for my work ethic, and actually hired me on as staff on top of being a performer when I was 16, which is where I learned a lot of what I know about things like concessions and running crew and the like—but he was never the one making decisions about shows, and I was often belittled or downright dismissed by those who were. The incident that had most of my loved ones encouraging me to walk away happened earlier that year, when a rigging accident left me with a permanent injury that still often visibly debilitates me to this day—something else the people wanting to learn about my circus background will sometimes ask about. But I didn’t want to leave, because there was really nowhere else I could get the community + training and performing experience I was getting there, and I know full well that it was purely an accident. However, I was never satisfied with the way the organization handled the incident, and this was far from the only time I’d been dismissed as a person there—several adults in my life even compared my treatment there to an abusive relationship, and though I did not see it at the time, hindsight has me beginning to agree with them. The specific incident that finally got me to leave was probably less of a big deal than that injury was, but other factors since then had me considering leaving for quite a while before that finally happened anyways.)

I don’t really think I’m TA for leaving, even if I did do it rather abruptly and had a ton of responsibilities there that surely got dumped onto somebody else—if these new directors couldn’t even be bothered to actually ask me to reconsider, instead of just having someone from admin do it on their behalf, they probably didn’t feel all that betrayed anyways. Here’s where I’ve been running into a lot of issues lately: even though I no longer affiliate with said circus, the people who I now work with in other organizations often ask me about my involvement with it, usually because they’re interested in becoming involved themselves. I’m finding that over the months since I decided to fully sever ties there I have not been feeling any better/less raw about it at all. On the one hand, I am very tempted (and would probably find it rather cathartic at that) to warn them away from spending their time with that place specifically, for the stated reasons. On the other hand, I spent the vast majority of my life so far growing up there, there are several people still there for whom I care very deeply, and I do think it’s overall a good organization that serves (most of) the people it reaches super well—I would definitely not be the person I am today without it, and I just can’t bring myself to badmouth the entire organization for the actions of a few specific people when I know they’re always hurting for staff and the like. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much impossible to talk about my involvement with them without bringing up the circumstances of my departure, especially when people frequently ask why I would leave a place I otherwise speak so fondly of.

At this point, I think it would be much easier for me (and cause a lot less heartache overall) if I just made up some different kind of backstory of how I learned all my circus skills—but on the other hand, that’s super dishonest and I don’t know how long I’d be able to keep up a lie with any complexity to it. Is it the less assholeish move to simply tell the truth? I’m really struggling to think of any alternatives to just super awkwardly changing topics as soon as anyone compliments or asks about what I do, which probably doesn’t reflect well on me in the long run when I’m trying to rebuild my network from the ground up.

What are these acronyms?

[allthepigeonpeople]

WARRIORS ANALYSIS SORT IF MAYBE IDK (PLS READ THIS IS SO INTERESTING TO ME)

Hi!! I’m not currently active, but I’ve been a long time LU fan. Because I haven’t been super on, I'm not aware of all the happenings, so sorry if someone has already done something similar to this!!

While I am not active in LU, I am very deep into Marvel, specifically Captain America and the Winter Soldier. In that fandom I have learned so much more about war and intense combat related PTSD and how it affects a person during said war and after said war, and me being myself I’ve fallen into a fun and exciting hole of more realistic behavioral things the Chain would do due to each of their journeys, but specifically Warriors.

To start off, we need to understand that the Chains’ journeys are absolutely nothing compared to the wars and stuff our world has faced. If you think about it, most of their trials and traumas are due to scare factors and being at constant risk. They only really fight monsters, who aren’t necessarily sentient beyond that of a malicious animal and when one of the Links do fight sentient beings they usually do not end up out right killing them like the monsters. Since this is the case, there’s only a small factor of guilt that adds to their trauma like not being fast enough or not saving the kingdom or not saving a single person etc. The only Links (off the top of my head and to my knowledge) who have actually killed another human are Warriors and probably Time considering he was a member of the royal guard.

Here’s where it gets even more complicated.

In the American army one of the things that they contort your brain into doing at boot camp and throughout their service is to dehumanize the enemy. In doing so it makes it easier for soldiers to function in combat and not mentally collapse (it also makes it harder for them to integrate back into society). Even though they do this, it is in their human nature to see humanity and feel that guilt when they kill people, especially when their service is over. That guilt is added on to the regular traumatic and horrific act of killing in general. Because of the guilt and everything, soldiers often cut off their emotions, get that ‘thousand yard stare’, are distrustful of people  (because if they did it to other people other people could do it to them), and distrustful of themselves. They will go quiet or loud, have big outbursts or lay motionless, isolate themselves and push people away. These things could lead into so many other things but I don’t wanna get into that right now.

Now, considering Hyrule’s history of only like, 4(?) wars (against each other) from Sky���s time to Wild’s time, I think it’s safe to assume rulers would get a little too comfortable and just train their soldiers in combat against monsters rather than people. This leads me to assume that when Warrior’s was training to become a knight, he did not get that training that dehumanized the enemy because the enemy already wasn’t human to begin with. 

So, while I agree with everyone that Warrior’s finding out that some of his men were made into traitors would give him huge trust issues and all, the fact that he had to kill another human being has affected him so much worse, especially since he didn’t have the training that real life soldiers had to keep them from losing it in combat.

I have so much more I could say about this kind of stuff, but this is getting super long lol. DO WITH THIS INFORMATION WHAT YOU WILL!! :))

[beigetiger]

ALRIGHTY, I’VE DONE IT, THE MOST SELF-INDULGENT POST EVER

Here is what I think various realms might have been like in the Kingdom of Sky pre-fall, this will be a VERY long post and I might have to do some of it in reblogs. Some of what I say will be based off what I see in the game and other stuff will just be ✨vibes✨, so feel free to share if you have any thoughts.

And with that, on with the headcanons!

➡️ Isle of Dawn:

- The Two Ember’s trailer shows that the environment of Isle used to look a lot like Prairie, so I reckon they may have served similar purposes that I will elaborate on later.

- Was probably mainly comprised of villages and had a pretty small population, was overall pretty quiet.

- Isle seems to have had many different religious groups there who did various things.

- The Prophecy people seemed to celebrate the four elements and a value attached to each of those elements, as well as keeping track of what was happening on the wall, which we can unlock by doing Prophecy quests.

- Passage folks seemed to give animal masks to its more mature members, perhaps associating different traits with different animals and then assigning kids that animals based on what talents they express.

- While the Isle of Dawn wasn’t always a desert, I do think it had transformed into one by the time the kingdom fell.

- Near the end of the kingdom when everything has turned into a desert, people would hand off their kids to various religions because the groups had more resources to take care of the kids than the families. After all, not all of those Passage kids seemed super enthusiastic to be there…

➡️ Daylight Prairie:

- This area (and this also goes for Isle) probably had a lot of farms and mainly engaged in farming and keeping light creatures, as we see many spirits whose job seems to be watching over a type of creature (e.g. the Butterfly Whisperer). They also seemed to like free-roaming creatures.

- Farming light creatures means they probably produced a lot of light involved in creating darkstone.

- Aside from beast keepers, they probably had people whose job it was to construct things like boats that could carry people around, because there is a lot of clouds and a lot of open air in Prairie.

- They probably mainly lived in caves that were formed in the rock, perhaps carving out a few areas as well. After all, there are many caves in Prairie that seemed to serve some use, and some of the caves actually look pretty cozy.

- They were also probably a pretty big vacation destination, so they set aside areas like Sanctuary Islands (and maybe Prairie Peaks) specifically for that purpose.

- They probably had something like bridges between the various floating islands so skyfolk without wings could access it.

- The Flight Guide was apparently a former apprentice of the Prairie Elder Ayin, so it was possible that they helped train new beast keepers, since they seem to have an affinity for butterflies.

➡️ Hidden Forest:

- People tended to either live in giant, hollowed out trees or treehouses. Either way, trees were involved.

- Rain made life much more difficult, which meant that everybody was probably pretty hard workers, and more “no-nonsense” than other realms.

- They made more basic, non-darkstone fueled inventions such as various kinds of chairs, torches, and other stuff. Maybe they helped invent shared spaces.

- Kids spent a lot of time grouper together in little daycare groups depending on their age, and caretaker duty rotated between adults. Is there a single source for this in-game? No, but I choose to believe it anyway.

- At first they mostly consumed light from candles and occasionally birds (they had hunters), but as birds started to become fewer in number due to over hunting and dark plants started growing in, people switched to consuming that instead.

- These giants eggs in a nest imply that something laid them, perhaps some species of creature that went extinct, in which case the eggs would be fossilized.

- Fire was probably pretty important due to the wet conditions, and people preferred to stay cozy indoors when they weren’t working.

- Elder Teth oversaw more major projects, and while they were highly intimidating, you’d be damned if they overworked their workers.

- They had darkstone mines that were constantly in use, and these caves were prone to flooding as the end of the kingdom drew near, which resulted in several deaths.

- The shrooms that grew on trees were at first just used as a place to hang out and replenish light, but as the light creatures grew rarer, people started to scrape light out of those as well.

- Wind Paths had people who lived there as a full-time job who were supposed to make sure everyone going through the Wind Paths got where they needed to go and didn’t get lost or injured.

- They had mochi, but it was more of a treat than a main part of their diet.

➡️ Valley of Triumph:

- The Valley Twins totally have no identity issues. Nope. Never. Being a person whose identity is dependent on there being another person with them totally was not damaging at all.

- Valley prioritized the arts and produced a lot of athletes, artists, and musicians.

- The skyfolk usually took after their elders and were very playful and fun-loving.

- Majority of the population lived in the Village of Dreams, because those who didn’t had houses facing sheer, rocky cliffs.

- The kids spent a lot of time wandering around in groups having fun and doing what counted as enriching activities that made them skilled as adults. The adults encouraged this, and probably half the games played in the kingdom originated from Valley.

- Later on in the lifespan on the kingdom, a decent chunk of the Wasteland soldiers probably came from Valley because Wasteland didn’t have enough of a reproducing population to keep up with the mortality rates.

- The Valley Elders were basically everybody’s secondary parent figures and they absolutely loved interacting with their subjects. The twins regularly held big, realm-wide competitions that tested athletic and artistic ability.

- The graves in the waiting rooms for the races are the graves of various champions of those races throughout the years.

- That one grave in the Village Theatre is from when someone died and was buried, perhaps after Eden had blown up and so the others could only bury them and then run to escape the chaos.

- The big floaty things in the citadel are decorative art pieces because someone figured out how to do it and the twins loved it so much they stuck it there.

- The bird statue in front of the citadel was a protest from a citizen near the end of the kingdom who was warning against the overhunting of animals.

- The Valley people caged and killed wild mantas for their light that could be transformed into darkstone. Aurora was sent from Megabird to stop this behaviour, but sadly failed.

- When the first person died from a krill attack, both elders were INSANELY guilty and it still haunts them today.

- Slope race was run by Sah, flying race was run by Mek. This is one of those headcanons were I say it purely off of vibes.

- The Valley Twin’s masks are Priestess Sahmek’s mask split into two. I could unironically make an entire post about these two alone buuuut I’m gonna refrain from doing it here.

➡️ Golden Wasteland (this is a LONG one, buckle up):

- It was originally a very technologically advanced realm, it had a lot of inventors and worked a lot with darkstone. Their affinity for darkstone means that the corruption hit them first and hit them hardest.

- As I said, they originally had many inventors and people who worked on the pipes. But as the corruption and darkness started creeping in, more and more people became soldiers until there were pretty much only soldiers left.

- The Elder Room where you talk to Tsadi used to be different, and it was a room built exactly like Elder Teth’s room. I also want to make a post analyzing this. But basically, room used to be different but they were forced to change it because the corruption was threatening to take over that area.

- They used to have a population of whales who were over hunted and are now extinct.

- Late in the kingdom’s lifespan, child soldiers were used when necessary, but only teenagers. They also brought in people from Triumph because it was easier to train people who had been working out their entire lives.

- Those big pipes around the fortresses were used for transporting something but as of now I don’t know what it would be.

- Everyone slept in barracks and children had a designated mass caretaker, which did not rotate duties like in Forest.

- Resh was worshipped and looked up to a lot more in the Golden Wasteland than other places (which is why they had so many big statues of him) and Elder Tsadi was totally under Resh’s thumb. Some soldiers disliked this but didn’t speak up out of fear of punishment.

- The crashed boat in the crab fields was the Sky equivalent of the Titanic and had all sorts of people on board. The ship was taken out by the krill that now patrols it and many people died. One of the soldiers that survived made a small mass grave for as many of the bodies as they could bury.

- The spirits from Season of Remembrance were originally Wasteland spirits that eventually fled to Vault (that or their spirits were transported there after their deaths for preservation purposes).

- The Forgotten Ark was similar to the crab fields crash but happened a while before and was eventually transformed into a space for spell merchants.

- The spell merchants tended to be from the Golden Wasteland but could move throughout realms, and they sold things to assist with everyday life for the various groups of people.

- There was a small community of merchants who lived full-time on the Forgotten Ark and worked together to collect supplies and sell their wares. The giant pot on one end of the ship was where they concocted the spells.

➡️ Treasure Reef (getting its own section because I have things to say):

- Treasure Reef was originally a colony from the Golden Wasteland to mine darkstone.

- A lot of the now-underwater structures in the reef look like they were created to be walked around in normally, so perhaps the water levels used to be much lower but went up over time, forcing the colony upwards.

- As the water level rose and it became harder to mine darkstone effectively, they would resort to simply swimming down and collecting whatever they could.

- They were deemed hardcore by the other realms (and the rest of Wasteland) due to their diet. Most areas were used to living off of candles and occasionally light creatures, while these people were cracking open clams and catching fish like nobody’s business.

- They probably had a lot of storms, and were one of the first areas in Wasteland to start experiencing krill attacks, which is why the King Krill is located there.

- This means they had an entire protocol if a krill was spotted, which involved moving any children somewhere safe (because the krill would target them) and grabbing a weapon.

- They were all very strong swimmers and spent much of their lives in the water, and swimming was a very standard way of getting around.

- The blue eel/water dragon was very rare and considered a symbol of good luck.

- They also might have been storers of information similar to what can be found in Vault. That or that was their way of containing darkstone.

- They may have lived in caves carved out underneath the water to save space on land.

- Eventually, the krill attacked the colony as a giant group and killed many people, including the Abyss spirits we see today. Those who survived fled to join Wasteland.

➡️ Vault of Knowledge:

- It doesn’t exist naturally, it was built in a part of the void and is constructed entirely of rock and darkstone.

- The people who lives there were keepers of memories and information, and were regularly recording memories that summarized whatever big events were happening at that time.

- Any kids that lived in the Vault were also in charge of keeping the memories safe and organized, so many of them were quiet, under socialized and had never seen the sun.

- Great, wise philosophers and thinkers were the most likely to be transformed into spirits instead of memories. Some of the graves of these thinkers are kept behind the four-player door on the Vault’s first floor.

- The elevator was always moving up and down and people were always jumping on and off it, and it was certain people’s jobs to literally stand there charging the elevator each time for hours at a time.

- Certain, more important or delicate areas had designated keepers instead of being upkept by the general population.

- Speaking of population, the Vault had the smallest one in all the realms.

- People slept in the Remembrance area mainly, but also sometimes would curl up in a corner of the Vault and nap there instead. The conditions were not amazing and there weren’t enough bedrolls for everyone to sleep at once, but that was ok because Vault had no proper night/day cycle, and so there was always a group of people who were working and a group of people who were resting.

- The Nine-Coloured Deer area is a kingdom distinct from the Kingdom of Sky that Vault discovered and created a connective area to so they could keep in touch.

- The Little Prince area is more of a metaphorical dreamland than an actual place and it isn’t fully real. A group of people once did something very bad and were essentially damned to hell there, which is why they are chained up. What they did is up for debate, but these guys were very unaware of what was happening in Vault once they were locked up and are currently unaware that the Kingdom of Sky has fallen. They might never find out.

- Cosmic mantas are actually manta spirits that were brought to the Vault.

➡️ Eye of Eden:

- It had the biggest population in all the realms.

- The people there were friendly, albeit a tad vain.

- They also had pipes similar to those in Golden Wasteland, presumably serving a similar purpose.

- Resh didn’t created the corruption on purpose, and he was violently ignorant of it’s existence even as it was actively harming his own people. He only realized how badly he fucked up in his last few moments of life.

➡️ More general stuff:

- The Hopeful Steward tried to travel throughout the realms warning people of the corruption, but wasn’t listened to due to being a child and instead left to create a little village of their own. At first it was just them, but as the corruption started pushing people out of their homes, more and more people joined the village. It had most of the remaining population of Sky right before the crystal blew up and released the corruption.

- The four mannequins from the Season of Revival are what remains of four kids who were friends of the Hopeful Steward and tried to help them raise awareness about the corruption, but were sadly killed by a krill. This only fuelled the Steward’s determination.

- There used to be caravans pulled by mantas that would travel throughout the realms, and people jumping on the back of them to be carried around was quite common.

- The spirits all used to have names more resembling the Elder’s names, but none of the kids know what those names are. The names we refer to them by (cackling cannoneer, stretching lamplighter, etc) are what the skykids dubbed them.

And that is it, although maybe I’ll add to it later. Sorry again for making this so long, I’ve been slowly constructing this in my head for months and wanted somewhere to put my ideas down. I would’ve added more images, but I can only put ten so that’s gonna have to do it. Thank you for coming to my ted-talk.

[shmistarkiller]

So since it's been a few weeks since I first watched The Acolyte, I feel like I've managed to gather my thoughts about what I think some bits from s1 were hinting at wrt Qimir's backstory. This is just what I think, I really never expect anyone to agree with anything I say lol.

Obviously we know Vernestra was his master, and that she somehow ended up betraying him, using her saber-whip to carve that gnarly scar up his back.

I think where I probably differ from most if not all other viewers is, I'm of the opinion Qimir was actually fairly young when it happened. Like, younger than a teenager even.

The whole thing with him building the cortosis helmet based on the sensory deprivation ones younglings use. I guess that might not necessarily mean anything, but it would make sense to me that he'd more likely be inspired by it if he'd been abandoned closer to the age when they would be using it. He uses cortosis specifically to keep other force users out of his head, his former master by far who he most wants to keep from reading his thoughts. The fact that he reacts like a little kid being caught by their parent when Vernestra senses him again on Brendok could be a trauma response, him reverting to the last time she was in his mind. He keeps the magic helmet of protection on for the rest of the time until they leave Brendok and he's safely far away from the cause of his fear.

Osha saying she never heard of him? What if it's because Vernestra dispatched of her little youngling padawan not long after the beginning of his training? The loss of a youngling who hadn't been with the Order for very long would be a lot easier to cover up than one of the older padawans. Create some story of a tragic accident to be documented in the official records, Jedi are supposed to be all too-bad-so-sad-but-no-attachments anyway, so it goes completely unquestioned.

So then, what the hell did Vernestra see a small child do that led her to think leaving him for dead at her own hands was a reasonable reaction? She gets echoes from the force of the combat & slaughter that happened on Khofar and it's very clear she senses something familiar. It could just be that she's sensing the presence of her long lost padawan by itself, but it would be real gnarly if this is something she's seen quite literally before. I'm not saying fetus!Qimir managed to kill a bunch of people in the same way that adult!Mr. Stranger did .. but I'm not *not* saying that either.

I think it builds a stronger case for the kinship he feels toward Osha (and maybe initially with Mae as well). The twins were 8 years old when their personal life tragedy struck, so I can see him connecting more strongly with Mae's story if he too had been of a similar age when his own personal life tragedy occurred. Extra reason why he'd feel so much more in common with Osha, how much he recognizes himself in her.

Idk how deep I wanna dip my toes in on the Plagueis stuff, but if I can get back on my Ben Solo bullshit for a second, it wouldn't surprise me if old Muun-man Plagueis was whispering in little boy Qimir's ear. And Vernestra, rather than actually try to save an innocent child, would instead cut her losses, viewing him as a liability/lost cause already practically fallen to the dark side. We know The Acolyte doesn't shy away from citing the inspiration it took from TLJ, so I can easily see "You failed him by thinking his choice was made. It wasn't." applying here as well.

(And maybe the irony there is that Luke having attachment to his nephew is what kept him from attempting to murder Ben until he was at least a grownass adult. Whereas Vernestra who lives in the height of the Jedi Order's power would definitely be less inclined to preserve the life of a literal child if she thought they could prove to be an eventual threat to the status quo she prefers. Either way, a foregone conclusion. You treat a child like they're a monster, guess what they grow up to be.)

EDIT (09/07/24): Can't believe I forgot this one. The way Qimir is so callous about killing Jecki. Sol says she was a child, and his response just comes off very "yeah, so what, so was I (when I was left for dead)". Qimir seems convinced Jedi masters leading their padawans to their potential/inevitable death is definitely just A Thing™ that happens.

Some extra quibbling with ideas I just rather disagree with ..

I've seen others theorize that Qimir could actually be older than he looks and that it's Plagueis feeding him whatever that ability is to stay young/immortal, but I personally can't really think of any actual reason why that would be the case. His line about having been a Jedi a long time ago is pretty vague, so while it could apply, I'm not particularly swayed by it being proof of this theory.

I guess the other thing is people think he and Sol grew up together and were padawans at the same time? Which ties back into the idea of him being older than he looks, but again, there's nothing particularly convincing me of that idea either. When Qimir shows up masked and goes, "You don't remember me?" And Sol replies, "I do sense something familiar." To me that came off as taunting that none of them caught on when he was pretending to be the apothecary. (If anything, I initially for whatever reason thought the "You?" "Surprise!" exchange between Yord & Qimir was hinting to the idea that they'd known each other, until I remembered the aforementioned bit about Qimir's messy girl apothecary charade.)

Vernestra mentioning that she remembered Sol as a shy little padawan, and having been Qimir's master seems to be another reason for the prior two theories. But to me that ignores the possibility that Vernestra herself could also have been a child when she first met Sol. It's less clear to me since she's a humanoid non-human SW species, for all we know she could be the one who's way older than she looks because of that. And if she was already an adult and knew both Sol & Qimir as children, that still doesn't mean that was at the same time.

Okay. I think that's everything. (And if it's not I'll quietly come back and slip in whatever relevant edits I'll want to add in.)

[the69thgames]

Capitol Headcannons P.3

The Classes + Fanmade Districts

The Working Population

The Working Population is the average citizen in the Capitol, taking up the well majority of the population. it is technically the middle class by our standards, but in the Capitol it is the lower class since doctors, pilots, and architects and stuff are middle class only

so, though most of the hard labour and work are given to the Districts, there are jobs that the Districts can't serve to the Elite directly in the Capitol (like cooks, cleaners, drivers). of course, a good amount of these jobs are taken by avox, but there isn't possibly enough war criminals/caught runaways to serve the entire Elite population

plus, avox are really only owned and work for very rich and high above people, like the richest of the rich, and game staff. Snow honestly wanted to be a bit more of an asshole so instead of having Working Population servants he made sure that avox would be the only ones serving the tributes and Victors

jobs that the can Working Population cover are: teachers, maids, cooks, cleaners, babysitters, cleaners, basically most jobs where they work for a specific person/family/group of people

and, before the Hunger Games era, like way before, a few decades after Panem's creation there were more districts (literally self indulging from my fanmade Districts au). and a good amount of them joined the Capitol

Fanmade Districts (that disbanded and spread)

District 14: medicine. doctors, nurses, and medical scientists were all trained here and experiment in labs for new types of drugs/equipment/medicine that can be used for people. there is also the biggest hospital in Panem there, and there are factories that mass produce medicinal supplies like basic equipment and some drugs. this District was so incredibly loyal (rich and very important as well) to the Capitol they eventually joined in and became a sub-class

District 15: plastic/rubber production. basically factories that would mass produce these materials. all kinds of plastics and all kinds of rubber (plus in the future they make more biodegradable types of plastic). eventually, these factories were included in District 1 territory and joined them, becoming their lower class

District 16: tool production. basically blacksmiths who make axes, pickaxes, knives, hammers, scythes, machetes, and all other types of tools that would be used in other Districts. eventually this was moved to be mostly District 2's job, but there are still small groups of blacksmiths across all Districts that require such tools

District 17: animals. basically exotic animals and mutts. since in the future, there are many animals that naturally went through evolution, there are many useful but dangerous animals. this District basically took them, got stuff that benefited them such as, more healthy/nutrient full meat, harder and more powerful bones for good weapons/furniture, blood and poisons for medicine, etc. this eventually became another sub-class in the Capitol

District 18: research. this District was formed pretty later, like a lot later. this was more of historic research and entertaining scientific research, nothing that would really benefit the Capitol or Panem, but it was interesting (yeah, there's zodiac scientists and etymology nerds). this District was even smaller than 12, and was kind of useless. the Capitol liked them though so they let them join, they joined either Elite class or Working Population though

District 19: food. y'know those frozen foods you keep in your freezer and then warm up in a microwave? or cup ramen you just boil with water. most of those foods are probably made in factories, and that's what this District was for. there's also cheese factories and other factories for cleaning, cooking, and sanitizing foods. eventually, this job was spread out evenly throughout Districts 3, 7, 9, 10, 11, and some in the Capitol

District 20: oil and gas. yeah, car shit. there was more found eventually even after we ran out. gas was eventually stopped being used, but it did take a while to create generators. oils have their own factories in almost all Districts, stuff like coconut oil is One's job, but food oil is a mix of Seven and Eleven, maybe even a bit of Ten. anyways, not many of them made it to the Capitol

District 21: landfills/recycling centers. easy enough to understand, these people actually live terribly, though the work was split between the Capitol, some of District 3, and some of 5. imagine Wall-E, toiling away packing garbage, that is what they do. this District was split in half between landfills and recycling centers and have very different cultures/ideals, I'll make a post about them someday

District 22: entertainment. movies, video games, athletes, hell, authors if Capitol people read enough (jkjk, they do surprisingly). but yeah, this District ended up being split between the Capitol and District 1, a bit to District 3 for stuff like the metaverse or animatronics or cheap amusement parks