#another instance in which the prompt is so vaguely followed that it's like I didn't respond to it at all omgggggg whoops

[002yb]

Can you write about domestic dickjay cuddling on a rainy day?

It's not that they weren't anticipating the rain, there was just fuck all they could do about it while they were working. Crime doesn't stop for inclement weather, after all. Which somehow works out fine for Jason, but Dick? Not so much.

Poor guy braved the elements and lost bad.

Jason snickers as he saunters closer, the cape of his Robin costume pulled over his head to spare him from the worst of the downpour. Though Jason hasn't said anything, Dick still tamps his foot down in a puddle, splashing at Jason because Jason's cheeky smile says it all.

Between one step and the next, Jason closes the distance between them with a playful splash of his own. Lighthearted retaliation followed up by an easy truce as Jason raises his arms, lifting his cape higher to offer shelter.

Cold as it is, Jason's smile is warm; both biting and soft in a way that has Dick's lips curling into something just as tender. It's enough to chase the chill out of Jason's bones and make a soft flush settle across his cheeks.

Dick pushes his hair back out of his face, stooping low to duck beneath Jason's cape as Jason stretches up onto his toes. Beads of water cling to Dick, chasing down his skin to trail across his jaw and beading at the ends of his hair and - oh. Jason didn't think things through this far.

Like this, they might be too close. Jason can do little more than stare at Dick, wide eyed and flustered. A warm blush burns hot across his freckled cheeks, a contrast of color to the dreary grays around them. It's not something Dick doesn't not notice. Jason watches how Dick's gaze drops, lingers; how his lips quirk into a ghost of a smile.

Jason drops down from his toes and Dick follows him with how Jason's cape catches over his head, drawing them unwittingly closer - knocking their foreheads softly together.

And Dick laughs, faint and breathless and warm over Jason's heated skin.

Poor guy braved the storm and lost, but the joke is ultimately on Jason because time and again he braves Dick and loses just as bad.

[viceroysalamancer]

@tes-summer-fest this ones from yesterday and i just forgot about it completely anyhow its based on the prophecy prompt and its about how Dnefruuk and Shaz get back to mundus from their little sabatical in oblivion with a little help from the dragonborn

"No, child, no, I have a plan."

"Care to share it with the rest of the class? Because I don’t really see a way out of here." Shaz sat dejectedly. Their good ship the R.S.V Hellfire rocked under her but she was far past worrying about falling out. After a solid two years spent in Oblivion, most of the time in this little boat, she wasn't worried about falling in the drink anymore. Quite literally in this instance, being that they were floating on a sea of wine. 

"There is a prophecy, you see, one which you should be quite familiar with, coming to pass very soon," Dnefruuk picked up an old book and shuffled through it. Shaz was still unsure why they had had to brave Apocrypha just for that musty old book. Hermaeus Mora had just laughed once they were discovered and let his seekers have at them. Shaz was still sore from that fight.

"Here." Dnefruuk turned the book so Shaz could see what they were talking about. The page was covered in runes that Shaz could only vaguely grasp and strange circular diagrams that spun and interlocked in different ways as she watched.

"I see." Shaz lied. Dnefruuk, too absorbed in whatever the book said, nodded and didn't bother to elaborate. Shaz sighed and pulled a loaf of sweetbread from the food barrel. She looked out over the sea of wine and at the yellow sky. The clouds drifting lazily above were white, like on mundus, which Shaz wasn't sure about because the water was literally wine. She took a bite of sweetbread and twisted in the boat so her feet dipped in the drink.

One thing about Oblivion that she had not expected was that it was hot. All the time. Everywhere. Shaz slung her head over the edge of the boat and closed her eyes, listening to the wine foam and lap at the hull. She had another bite of sweetbread and opened her eyes.

She blinked.

"Dnefruuk." she said.

"Not now, child," the dwarf said, scribbling away in a different book.

"Yes now, child!" Shaz scrambled upright and fumbled for the looking glass.

"What are you-"Dnefruuk stopped short once they saw what she was looking at "oh. Oh OH!" they fumbled through their notes and the book.

"What is that? We should move, right? I’m gonna move us-"

"NO! That’s our way back to Mundus! I think." Dnefruuk yelled. The roar of the incoming projectile was getting quite loud now.

"No thats our way to drown in Sanguines fucking wine glass!"

"That’s your friend the Dragonborn! We need to follow him back to Mundus!"

"Are you fucking with-" Shaz was cut off by what was apparently her friend Do'Kath hitting the water about a foot off their port bow. Dnefruuk was already opening the sail and aiming the till. Shaz knew her place and immediately filled the sail with wind and got them moving into the trail of light left behind. Dnefruuk was on their feet and singing something She couldn't hear. A halo of red light illuminated the ship and before she knew it they were underwater. Underwine? Whatever. It was the familiar feeling of hopping between planes of oblivion with the combined feeling of falling an impossible distance. Shaz grabbed for the mast and held on for dear life.

A moment later they were out of the wine and surrounded by yellow orange flames. Shaz managed to blink the wine from her eyes and saw Dnefruuk had crawled to the bow of the ship and was poking their head over the side. Beyond them, Shaz saw stars. Below them, she thought she could see clouds. Right next to them she for sure could see a loaf of sweetbread fly up and disappear into the night, because it was indeed nighttime. The Hellfire shifted in the wind and Shaz saw what should have been a heartwarming sight, had they not been plummeting towards it at an alarming speed.

Spread out below her was Whiterun hold, the White River, Dragonsreach, and even Riverwood. As the ship spun she caught sight of the Throat of the World, about half a second before they crashed into it.

[][][][][][][][][][][]

She woke groggily, still in the Hellfire, still wrapped around the mast. A fresh dusting of snow covered everything, and the early light of morning painted it all a golden yellow. She stood shakily and immediately cast stoneflesh on herself to ward off the chill.

"Good morning, Mal Fahiil," came a deep rumbling voice. It sounded to her like an avalanche was speaking. She spun slowly to see none other than a giant dragon.

"Good...Morning?" Shaz managed. The dragon was bigger than the ones she had seen, but also much much older. He was gray and yellow and had a few chipped spikes.

"I am Paarthur-nax."

"Oh uh. Hi" Paarthurnax snorted and a wave of hot air washed over Shaz.

"Drem yol lok, wundiik. You expected someone else...drog do sadon vum. You have fallen far to stand here in my hofkiin...My home."

"I uh. Didn’t mean to, we were just trying to get home."

"Geh...Wake the Onik-Fahiil and take the Dovahkiin in your...your veysun, your boat. Zu'u fen bo...I will take you to my students." With that the great shape pulled back and waited, stretching in the sun. 

Shaz looked behind her at the Hellfire. It had held up well, given the fact it had just crashed into a mountaintop. Sticking out of the snow nearby were Dnefruuk’s boots. Shaz jogged over and found the dwarf snoring and upside down.

She shook her head and looked around. Further behind the dragon was a crumbling word wall, and in the middle of it lay a familiar orange figure. She ran over and knelt beside Do'kath. As soon as she touched him her sleeve caught fire. With a yelp she buried it in the snow and looked closer at the snoring Khajiit. With a quick clairvoyance spell she saw he was covered in spectral flames. Fortunately she had just spent the past two years dealing with shit like that, so after a quick warding spell, she was able to drag him through the snow by his boots(one of which was missing) and into the boat. At that point, Dnefruuk had woken up and stumbled over to hide in the Hellfire.

"What is that!" they hissed to Shaz, pointing at the watching dragon.

"That's Paarthurnax. He’s the head of the Graybeards. I don’t think he'll kill us." She said.

"That’s reassuring. Why are you bringing him? He’s on fire." Dnefruuk nodded to Dek.

"He asked me to. Oh shit hold on," Shaz scrambled into the ship as Paarthurnax took flight. She quietly prayed to any divine listening that he wouldn’t just decide to throw them off the mountaintop as his claws gripped the Hellfire and they rose up in one great heave of the dragons wings.

[actuallyfallen]

I will be cross-posting my responses to the fictionkind dreamwidth community’s prompts onto this blog, as well~! It’s a very friendly community, highly recommend.

I love daily prompts and blogging my thoughts and the like, so I will try to respond to 1-3 prompts per day to work through the backlog!

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#1: What was the event that triggered your awakening? How did this process impact your life over the following weeks/months/year?

I began to experience a connection to a piece of fiction that was indescribable around four years ago; with that piece of fiction being Undertale. I felt a sense of familiarity when going through Toriel's home, in particular; able to vividly imagine (or so I thought) the senses associated with each part of the home.

Soon enough, I began to see it all in my dreams. That homey warm glow, white fur, a shared room with a sibling. Hair that I messily cut so it wouldn't grow past my shoulders and a bandaged knee, and a sense of belonging that I had been lacking my entire life.

This unidentified feeling led me to dive deep into my memories to anything that could be similar to this. I do not know how, but I was very vaguely familiar with the concept of otherkinity. It may have been from a blog that I had followed previously having a kinlist in their 'about', but I don't remember if I knew what that meant at the time or not. I looked into it further, and I have a specific memory of telling someone in a comment thread that I was questioning if I was kin, but being unsure. After what I think may have been around a month or two of looking into the community, I officially recognized Chara as my first fictotype around May of 2018.

In the coming months I would begin to interact with the community by joining the Fictionkin Amino around that time. Yeah, I know, 'Ugh, Amino,' but it was my main social media at the time, and the list of terms that the moderators provided and the ability to interact with the wider community did prove vital. I'm not on there anymore, of course; Amino is sort of a cesspool. But, nonetheless, I feel it a very vital part of my awakening journey, as it was the first fictionkin community that I joined. During this early time, I also created a few different sideblogs on tumblr for my different fictotypes (as it was my other main social media at the time), some of which still remain up and active to this day! Even if those are just reblogging images and fanart of my fictotypes.

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#2: How closely is your identity aligned with canon events from your source?

It depends on which fictotype you're talking about; I'll discuss two examples on opposite ends of the spectrum.

On one end of the spectrum is my Bede canon, which is actually surprisingly canon-compliant. I mean, of course, what you see in the source is only half the story, as it's told from Gloria's point of view, and I sort of just get yoinked by my future grandma halfway through the game and then don't come back until the end. (Thanks, Miss Opal.) But, nonetheless, the times where I am present in canon, I am more or less word-for-word canon-compliant, except for two very small instances of mild changes in my phrasing. I don't conflate my fictotype's canon-compliance with "validity", for lack of a better word (and neither should you!), but it does feel a certain type of satisfying to know that what players are presented with is, more or less, the real me.

(On the other hand, though, this also means that, if players hate me; which a lot do; they also hate said 'real me'... But that's a discussion for another prompt, I'm sure.)

On the other end of the spectrum is Travis Phelps, where a major part of the source material just straight-up didn't happen for me. Either The Devourers of God were located elsewhere, my dad wasn't a part of it, or they kept their activities much more on the down-low. Or a mix of two or more. Who's to say? I'm certainly not, 'cause I never encountered the thing. As such, basically the entire plot of the main game just didn't happen. No supernatural stuff, no prophecy. (I'd like to say 'no death', except Sal's mom still died because of my dad. Major dick move on his part. Also funny that he killed his future sister-in-law before Sal and I even met. You know, in a dark humor sort of way.)

There are a few other noncanon things sprinkled in, too, aside from that. Sal and I both dyed our hair instead of unnatural colors growing naturally. Sal and Larry became adoptive siblings a few years earlier than the source. I have memories of regulars to our church that never appeared in canon. But, yeah, all of that is pretty mundane compared to 'the main plot of the game just straight-up did not happen'. There's not much topping that, in terms of canon deviation.

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#3: Is there a live-action movie or series based on your source? How do the actors and events match up with your noemata? Is CGI or practical effects necessary to represent the people and creatures from your source?

Yes, Detective Pikachu is a fabulous live-action take on the Pokemon world! Of course, given that the draw of the franchise is the creatures that don’t exist in our world, CGI and such is necessary, but I feel like the movie did an excellent job bringing the creatures from my memories to life.

I’m unable to speak of if the CGI is accurate to how I remember the world, though; all of my memories are remembered in a stylized way. I have no clue if this is common for those with fictotypes from an animated or video game source or not (I would love some community input on this!), but all of my memories are ‘in the style’ of Pokemon Twilight Wings (the animated miniseries based on the Galar region).

[day0one]

Trump Is (Once Again) Blaming Obama for Not Developing a Test for a Virus That Didn't Exist Yet

We are still asking the president questions about the coronavirus response as if he did not recently suggest medical professionals try injecting people with household disinfectant products in order to clean the lungs. What's good for your countertop is good for your internal organs. (This was not "sarcastic," as the president suggested, and anyway, if it was, that would just be a different kind of weird.) He does not read his briefings. He rarely attends the meetings of his Task Force, which may or may not be disbanded soon anyway. And yet we'll keep asking him questions as if he knows what's happening, or really cares, and he's not just trying to thrash his way through another news cycle.

The President of the United States visited an Arizona plant that's manufacturing masks on Tuesday, where, among other activities, he did the thing where he pretends to be a Serious Man Listening to What You're Saying while talking and breathing all over a container of masks while not wearing a mask himself. (To do so would be Weak, and our president is Strong.) Or maybe Donald Trump really was listening intently and absorbing what the guy was saying when he explained how the mask blocks "particulates." I suppose we'll never know. Meanwhile, someone blasted "Live and Let Die" on the speakers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aaron Rupar ��� @atrupar They blasted “Live and Let Die” while Trump walked around a Honeywell plant today in Arizona without a mask. It’s hard to believe this clip is real.

Embedded video 71.3K 7:27 PM - May 5, 2020 · Washington, DC Twitter Ads info and privacy 29.8K people are talking about this -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's just bizarre how many people pretend he might be doing the job rather than watching TV until it's time to go out and be on TV. People actually working on this crisis, on the ground, in his administration, are saying hospital workers in many areas still face shortages of masks, gowns, and other medical gear, according to a conference call recording obtained by Politico. Those same people warn that if much of the nation moves to lift social-distancing restrictions, hospitals could be overwhelmed and we could once again face a ventilator shortage. (The administration did make progress on the ventilator issue after experts and local authorities warned it could be a significant problem early on.) Testing has improved, but it's still inadequate in many areas, especially if we have designs on reopening.

The president says none of this is a problem, however, and we're ready to reopen, and even though we all know he doesn't read anything—or really listen to anything he doesn't want to hear—many in the political media and beyond pretend his version of events could be true because he is the president. Someday, we will have to grapple with the fact that things do not become plausible because a powerful person is saying them. In fact, they deserve extra skepticism! Anyway, after the DJ performance of "Live and Let Die" was over, Trump went over to another area of the plant to sit down with ABC News' David Muir for a rare interview outside the friendly confines of the Fox News Channel.

Among other things, Trump trotted out one of his new favorite lies, that he somehow inherited "broken tests" from the Obama administration. The novel coronavirus we're all talking about is new—hence the "novel." It did not exist when Barack Obama was president. It would not have been possible to develop a test. He used to make vague suggestions that Obama failed to develop testing capacity on the scale we now need, which makes a little more sense, but his criticism of Obama's response to H1N1 and other outbreaks now looks patently ridiculous. Meanwhile, Obama developed a pandemic response team within the White House to lead exactly this kind of effort, an office that Trump's national security council eliminated. Also, the Obama administration created a pandemic response playbook, which Trump's people completely ignored.

The "broken tests" that were a problem in reality were developed in 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control under President Donald J. Trump, after the administration rejected tests developed by German scientists and approved by the World Health Organization in favor of developing their own. Trump could even try to pass the buck on this one, saying it's on the CDC, but he seems to be banking on the idea his followers will like it better if he blames Obama. He's also banking on people like Muir not challenging him on the basic impossibility of the "Obama's broken tests" claim, even though, as CNN's Daniel Dale pointed out, he makes it all the time. This is starting to rival his constant lie that he passed "Veteran's Choice"—which he also mentioned Tuesday—and which was actually signed by Obama.

Muir did press Trump on why, if the "cupboards were bare" when he took office, he did not devote any time or energy to refilling the cupboards over the last three years. (He also spent none of the extra time the United States had before the virus arrived here, compared to many other countries, to fill the cupboards—or do much of anything, really.) This prompted a predictable festival of victimhood.

Aaron Rupar ✔ @atrupar ICYMI: Trump's response to ABC asking him why he wasn't more prepared for the coronavirus was, "Well, I'll be honest, uh, I have a lot of things going on."

Yes, that's a real quote.

Embedded video 7,603 9:47 AM - May 6, 2020 · Washington, DC Twitter Ads info and privacy 4,064 people are talking about this This rant relies first of all on the notion the Russia investigation was magicked into existence out of thin air by the president's enemies. The investigation was opened because a Trump adviser blabbed to an Australian diplomat about Russian dirt on Clinton. It was not about The Dossier, which some sections of the media got out over their skis talking about. While the FBI used some unethical tactics while investigating members of the 2016 Trump campaign, they mostly appear to be the same unethical tactics the FBI uses all the time. The Mueller Report found insufficient evidence to bring charges of conspiracy, but that's different than saying there was no evidence and the investigation lacked justification. Also, the same report found numerous instances in which the president abused his power to obstruct the investigation. Also, the Republican Senate does not dispute that Russia attacked the 2016 election to get Trump elected.

And let's not even get started on the Ukraine business, a cut-and-dried impeachable offense wherein the president extorted a foreign government until it agreed to attack our democracy for his personal benefit. Even some of the president's Republican allies in the Senate granted he did what he was accused of before acquitting him because they were scared or just don't give a shit. In fact, the president appears to be using some of the same tactics now, exercising his official powers to distribute pandemic response resources in a way that seems to reward his political allies while harming his enemies. It's almost like this person's life is characterized by selfishness, deceit, and abuse of power to get what he wants, and when that runs up against the powers of the presidency, it creates continual crises that merit his removal from the office. Also, he's not doing the job.