#did anyone else ever notice the it/its pronouns used for moon in-game?

[nebulabrainmatter]

ive only seen the first two major sequences (opening + monty) of sb ruin so far and i am. so excited but also so worried for what the fuck sun and moon are about to go through please let it be (somewhat) niceys to them please

[axther]

Heyo, can I get a bnha matchup? I'm a bisexual ENTP, but am mistaken as an introvert often due to being bad at social interaction and liking alone time. I talk a lot with people I'm comfortable with though. Sometimes I joke in serious situations. I don't worry that much and am carefree, though I can get randomly anxious sometimes. I'm a bit bad with emotions, but I've been told I can cheer people up because I'm optimistic. I'm a deep thinker and have been told a lot I'm smart.

Fnkdaofdnskao i really took a hot second with this one tbh 🥴 but here u go!! Also, since there was no gender listed, i just went w they/them pronouns!! If u want smth different, then just hmu and i can change it!! Also, i am so sorry i made the second one as more of a scenario?? And it was...oof. yikes. Sorry. This has become my style. Scenarios disguised as matchups. Im a liar 

AS OF 05/25/2020 IM A LIAR ITS OUT TONIGHTTTT

#1 is…Denki! 

okokokokok SO

Y’all meet during a training exercise! 

It’s something similar to USJ, except it’s across several different schools and classes

And y’all had to find a bunch of objects 

So there’s a mixed bundle of people 

It’s a sort of competition

And everyone is sweating bullets 

And honestly??

You’re just vibin

And i mean this like, you don’t really seem concerned. 

You’re just chilling while everyone’s fighting, trying to find the best solution. 

Naturally, you’re worried, too

But you know that it’s kinda useless to try and talk over Monoma and Bakugou 

Now

Denki’s staying pretty quiet, too. 

While it looks like he’s just vibing, too, but honestly? 

He’s crazy nervous 

Because here are all these super talented heroes-to-be, he feels like he’s gonna be glossed over 

So as everyone’s duking it out, the two of you are just kinda...hanging in there

Now the thing is 

You guys are avoiding eye contact. 

Not in the sense of ‘oh my god, you atrocity to man,’ 

But in the ‘two bros chilling in a hot tub’ way. 

So as the entire thing is falling on its head

You look over and notice that he’s trying desperately to remain chill. 

He’s kinda fiddling with himself

And you nudge him a bit 

And as he turns to look at you, you may or may not be screaming ‘what the FUCK did I just do??????’ in your head

But when he faces you, you just give him a thumbs up 

Like that 

And he’s kinda at a loss 

But he takes it, and gives you a smile and a big ol’ thumbs-up, too!! 

There’s no interaction again, until he nudges you 

“Do you think they’ll come up with something?” 

You shrug. 

“Considering that the only brain cell in my class went to the Class Rep, and it doesn’t look like these guys their class brain cell, I don’t think so.” 

Denki pulls back a snort before wiping his smirk off his face. 

“Do you think...we could try? On our own?” 

“Maybe.” You shrug again. “You’re the shock quirk user, right?” 

Denki is stunned

Did someone remember him? 

Woah

From here on out consider him whipped 

“Yeah! What’s your quirk?” 

“Crystallian.” 

You watch his face go through a journey of emotions before settling on muffled confusion. 

“Warping, basic elemental magic.” You play with some of your hair. “It’s all tied to a crystal I keep at home. If it’s safe, I’m safe.” 

Denki nods.

He hadn’t heard of quirks where they have a variety of unrelated uses 

But he’s there for it!! 

You two begin to make your own plan to succeed in the exercise 

And once y’all look over and realise that the arguing isn’t going to change, thanks to Monoma egging Bakugou on 

Y’all dip 

And by that, I mean you warp him and yourself to the highest point in the building 

Took one (1) look at the lights 

Shared a glance 

And y’all took out the power

Within about thirty minutes, y’all have all the goods!! 

Most folks are still trying to get used to the lack of light

So when your group presents the stuff to the teachers, Aizawa is tired but takes it 

And so you guys pass!! 

You and Denki talk more after 

And he finds out that you’re part of a special school for kids with special quirks

Which off the bat sounds really bad 

But you meet folks that are like you

and you tell him that he’d probably fit right in. 

He’s over the moon!!! For once!! 

Someone that takes him seriously!! 

Y’all exchange numbers and the entire class can’t begin to fathom that holy shit Denki Kaminari got a s/o before anyone else in the class

Throws them all for a loop

And meanwhile Denki’s thriving w hugs and cuddles 

#2 is…Momo! 

Momo is...complicated

She’s in a rich family with a strong quirk

She’s got more than enough pressure on her shoulders

Especially since she was in 1-A, so the entire literal country of Japan has their eyes on her 

And all the while she’s doing her best to focus, focus, focus

She wanted one day where she could be like Mina, Ochako, Tooru, Jirou, Tsu…

Normal.

So she does it

One morning, while her parents are gone, and before anyone else is awake

She ties her hair up and places it into a gaudy blonde wig 

(Which was a massive pain in the ass, but that was the price of freedom) 

She dons sunglasses, an outfit that in any other case she would die being caught in

Leaves her phone on her bed

Tiptoes down the stairs 

And leaves 

The moment she’s past the gates of her house and out of view, she lets out an enormous sigh 

She has no idea what she’s going to do 

But her heart races a little, because that was the beauty of it!!

She finally had no rules, short of the law 

So she waltzes down the road, the city wakes up, and as the first hour drips by, she notices a distinct wave of youth

They’re not doing much, just relaxing in cafes and alleys

and Momo wonders if anyone is planning to send truant police

but considering she’s doing the same exact thing, she’s not gonna call them out  

But as she passes by an arcade, she notices a group

They’re a bit more subdued than most of the others, just watching one of their friends play a dancing game and fail horribly

But most notably, Momo sees you 

You’re snorting at the lanky girl who’s tripping over her own feet, but at the same time, it looks like you’re cheering her on 

Momo’s curious, of course, but she also doesn’t want to intrude 

But then one of them, a boy, turns and waves her over

She jumps because oh my god and makes her way over 

“Hey, did you want to play? Sorry that Tsukki was hogging the game.” The boy says, and you turn and glance at her. 

At first, Momo’s wondering if she should really join in, but then she sees you, fully…

Ohnotheyrehot.jpg

Unfortunately, you seem a bit closed off because you start talking to the last member of the party 

Momo brushes it off and nods quickly

because goddamnit that’s what she’s here for

being a normal teenager

So she starts playing Tsukki

And Momo wipes the floor with her 

Tsukki takes it well, fortunately, but it sparks conversation 

“Where’d you learn to play?” The boy, Seong-Jin, kept on asking 

Momo wasn’t crazy comfortable telling the Korean transfer student that she had ballroom classes 

But as she’s about to make an excuse

She sees Present Mic out of the corner of her eye 

And immediately panics 

But before she can tell the four that she needs to hide, you come in clutch

You notice her look of panic and take off your jacket

And you drape it over her and pull up the hoodie. 

At that point, all you can see is the bottom half of her face 

(seeing as she never took off her sunglasses) 

And a tuft of blonde hair 

Present Mic even pops by for a second to ask how the kids were doing, and he didn’t recognise Momo

So crisis averted 

Almost immediately afterwards, the five bail from the arcade and ask Momo why she freaked out 

But then you speak up 

“She doesn’t have to tell us. But next time you might need to bail, feel free.” 

You gave her a soft smile, and when I tell you Momo’s face lights up 

You two stick together for the rest of the day 

And Seong-Jin, Tsukki, and the last person, Keito, are here for it

Bit by bit, they start separating into groups 

That is, the Momo/YN group and the Everyone Else group 

Soon enough, the three disappear to do something while Tsukki is shouting

And you and momo decide to take a break by a cafe, on a wall with foliage hitting your back 

and you guys are talking as the sun begins to set 

You guys talk about everything and anything 

And Momo confesses it was the most fun she had in years 

The way you talk to her is almost methodical, with how you seemed to tip toe around any insinuations or trauma.

“I know I only met you today, but if you ever need a place to crash…”  

You trail off, playing a bit with your hands, but more out of awkwardness than anxiety.

Momo’s heart swells. 

She manages out a ‘thank you’ before hesitantly leaning on your shoulder 

And you take a deeeepp breath in 

But you don’t nudge her off

And slowly she begins to fall asleep, and her wig is tilted and her sunglasses are askew

but you glance at her out of the corner of your eyes and give a soft smile 

(that was not the last time you two met, and five years later at the altar, she’s wearing the same damn wig) 

#3 is...Kirishima! 

PINING

This sounds really simple 

But Kirishima would absolutely pine after you for 3.8 million years

Y’all went to the same middle school and you were friends 

And he’s all over you 

Sometime between the first and third year of middle school he just fell head over heels 

And so he tags along with you the entire time 

But after the Giant Figure incident, and he says he’s won’t go to U.A., you get lowkey pissed 

You tell him that he’s worked so hard, he’s come so far, why give up now, he’s only fourteen for god’s sake. 

But he doesn’t listen

And you two don’t talk after that 

After he decides to go for it and not live a life of regrets, he’s doing his best to become someone he wants to be 

But the biggest looming regret he had was the fallout with you

And it was a nasty fall out-parents stopped talking, kids took sides, teachers knew 

You went to a completely different school than what he thought you were

And he was pretty sure that due to the fallout and the constant movement of time, you changed your number 

So he knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as just saying ‘You were right, sorry.’ 

It starts consuming him

Half of U.A. knows that he’s thinking about something 

But it comes to a head when he’s sparring against Bakugou 

And all he’s really doing is blocking

And bakugou loses his shit

“Get your fucking head out of the clouds and focus!” 

“Sorry, dude!” 

“What the fuck has you acting so damn stupid?” 

Kirishima tells Bakugou, who gets it, but doesn’t really try to help 

“Just tell her.” He hisses 

But Kirishima’s nervous 

And by the end of the week, he’s gotten a flurry of suggestions 

People are coming up to him left and right, telling him what to do

And he just gets overwhelmed

On Saturday, he locks himself in his room until Mina knocks 

She comes in and they start talking about you 

And she mentions that she has your number, and that it really would matter if Kirishima was the one to text first

“YN supported you, and then it got rubbed in the dirt, and then ignored again. You need to be the one to say it, honestly, otherwise it’ll mean nothing.” 

So he gets to work

He spends the rest of saturday trying to write it all out his emotions 

But eventually he gives on getting them all neat and tidy, and just lets them ooze out 

Sunday morning he gets up early and types it all out, willing his hands not to shake too much 

Mina and Bakugou are there with him, and though Mina keeps making jokes and Bakugou doesn’t offer much in way of help, they’re there to support him 

So when he sends it and lets out a sigh, Bakugou pats him on the back

“And now, we wait.” Mina murmurs, watching the phone with wide eyes. 

And watching

And watching

And watching

And three days pass before Kirishima gets any sort of response 

He’s expecting to be chewed out, to get the text equivalent of a teary welcome back

Not fucking eight ball. 

But he clicks on it 

And he wins, surprisingly 

There’s a moment between his win and your text where he doesn’t dare breathe, just stand still 

Before you text back 

So. 

ur in ua huh 

guess you did it after all. 

Yeah. 

Again, sorry. I didn’t think a lot of stuff through back then. 

figures lmao 

u free next week? 

For you? 

I always am. 

[ike-sol]

Red Wine - Scarlet Moonlit Night - Saint Germain x MC

Was anyone else lowkey disappointed with the Scarlet Moonlit Night event we had in IkeVamp a while back? The ideas were cool but imo it was poorly executed. I really liked that they took a more horror-y spin on it though! I dunno about you guys, but I wish we had more classic horror in this vampire dating game. Anyway, I took my favourite story (Comte's!) and did a rewrite to add more background + suspense, please enjoy and be mindful of the content warnings!

And go ahead and listen to "Transylvanian Lullaby" by Erutan while you read to give it that great ambiance!

Pairing: Le Comte x Reader (lowkey) Genre: horror, slight romance. But this really isn't supposed to be a romantic story. Also, AU without all the minor vampires, just Comte. Content warnings: implied non-consensual biting, implied stalking/kidnapping, gaslighting, implied vampiric mind control, non-consensual blood consumption Reader pronouns: she/her Word count: 2,202

Your name: submit What is this?

(psst! read this story on a browser (not the app!) to insert your own name!)

Y/N woke up in an unfamiliar bed, light-headed and groggy and incredibly thirsty. A surge of panic - but as she sat up and realised she was still dressed in her gown, a little disheveled perhaps, but with nothing out of place, she relaxed.

Still, how had she gotten here? The room, extravagant as it was, was completely foreign, and a strange sense of unease began to eat at the periphery of her soul.

It was the middle of the night, it seemed. She’d been asleep. The curtains were drawn, though a sliver of moonlight sneaked through a little opening. A fraction of the room awash in an eerie silver glow, and the rest - consumed by darkness.

Y/N stood, but the moment she got to her feet, her head spun and spots of black appeared before her eyes, a darkness completely unlike the natural one of the night. One, two, three, she counted in her mind as she tried to steady herself, leaning against the bedpost for support, and the illness slowly disappeared and she could breathe once again.

Had a fainting spell brought her here in the first place? One stronger than this one?

But she was fine now, even if a little groggy and light-headed. Her neck itched, for some reason, and she reached up to absentmindedly scratch the little bug bites at her pulse.

Y/N was a little surprised, and wholly relieved to find the door wasn’t locked, and opened with ease. She stepped out into the grand hallway, dark and quiet. There were no candles burning, and with the windows facing away from the moon, there was absolutely nothing to light her way. Still, her eyes were well accustomed to the dark at this point.

In the quiet of the manor, she was certain she could leave and find her way back home.

The mansion seemed to go on forever, turns and corners in every hallway, and dozens of doors lining each wall that surely must lead somewhere. Whatever this place, who could possibly have use for so many rooms?

When she turned the next corner, she saw a lone figure at the end of the hallway, and she froze. Friend or captor? Did she dare go up to him for help? The soft sound of his footsteps as he came her way kept her rooted in place - a figure of gold in the otherwise silver darkness.

His eyes widened with surprise, but then he smiled warmly at her. “Are you alright, ma chérie?”

There was something about his eyes that made it hard for her to tear her gaze away. A golden pool of honey, sticky and sweet. A smile so gentle, so warm and endearing, that it melted the fear that froze her to the ground. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. And as she sighed in relief, the tension left her body, and suddenly the horror and confusion she’d felt seemed like nothing more than a distant dream.

“Um, I woke up in a bedroom, I’m not sure how I got here… I’m looking for a way out.”

“I see. Then, you don’t remember what happened?”

“Um…”

She closed her eyes, trying desperately to remember the events that brought her here, but try as she may, nothing came back. Yesterday… hadn’t it been a normal day? She’d run some errands in the morning, and ate lunch with her family… and then what?

“Don’t fret. Lapses in memory occasionally accompany fainting spells. Why don’t we get something to drink, and I’ll fill you in.”

She licked her lips - her throat was dry, painfully so, and a drink would surely ease the ever growing discomfort. Now that he’d mentioned it, the urge grew ever stronger, and she could hardly think of anything else.

“That sounds good.” Y/N agreed.

There was something about him that made her trust him, and when he, a perfect gentleman, offered her his arm, she took it with no hesitation and followed him down the array of halls.

“It’s dark,” he explained, “So please be careful, Y/N. You might still be feeling a little unwell after yesterday…”

“Oh, thank you.”

As he led her through the manor, he spoke in voice made of the night itself, calm and gentle. “I am le Comte de Saint-Germain, the master of this manor. I held a ball last night, and you were in attendance. Do you remember?”

“I’m sorry…” She shook her head, abashed. How had she forgotten that? To be invited to a ball, much less one at as an impressive manor as this! It must have been grand, and more importantly, a once in a lifetime opportunity for someone as common as Y/N. Whereas balls were an everyday occurence for the aristocrats, she’d never attended one before. And now she feared she might never experience it again...

“It’s alright. You felt unwell quite early into the night, and fainted after one of the dances. So I brought you up to a bedroom in which you could rest.”

“I… I see. Thank you.”

That was simple enough, an explanation with which Y/N was happy. There was an itch somewhere deep inside of her, a whisper that she’d never met this man before, that she’d never told him her name, but le Comte’s sense of calm quieted down those thoughts. It was just a memory lapse. Besides, she trusted him, and she trusted his word.

Finally, he brought her down to the dining room, illuminated by candlelight. “Take a seat. I’ll bring you something to drink from the kitchen, but you needn’t tire yourself further.”

She nodded and sat down at one end of the table, watching the man until he disappeared through another door out of sight. She was alone once again. Selfishly, she prayed he’d return soon, with something - anything - to quench the awful thirst.

Idly, Y/N looked around. The dining hall was large, certainly fit for grand parties and beautiful guests. Already she could imagine women in extravagant gowns of all colors, their skirts billowing as they danced with handsome men in suits. Chatter, laughter, appetizers… She could imagine it all, save for herself in that scene. At least, the dining hall brought back no memories of yesterday.

The room, and every other part of the manor she’d seen, was spotless to the point of perfection. The servants must have cleaned the house immediately after the ball, because there was no sign of a party having taken place here at all.

Several portraits hung on the wall, each depicting a gorgeous individual. Intrigued, Y/N stood and came over to them to take a closer look. A beautiful woman in an extravagant hat, a man smoking a cigar with a lazy smile… Oh! There was one of le Comte, too!

“Lovely, aren’t they?”

His silken voice took her by surprise, but she smiled and turned back at him, only a little sheepishly, feeling almost as though she were a child caught snooping.

“It’s really captured your likeness. It’s a very handsome portrait.”

“You flatter me.” He smiled, and handed her one of the wine glasses he was holding. “Here, drink. You’ll feel stronger.”

“Thank you.” She took the glass from him gratefully, admiring the deep red of the wine. Like rubies. Darker.

Their fingers brushed against each other when she received the glass, and she noted, for the first time, just how cold she felt. His fingers were even colder. The only warmth in the room, it seemed, came from the candlelight, dancing like figures to an unheard waltz. Still, it did not reach her bones, and Y/N shivered.

She drank from the glass and all but sighed at its taste. It coated her tongue and soothed her parched throat and filled her with a warmth she could not name. But there it finally was - warmth. Never before had she tasted a wine so delicious. Perhaps it was just a placebo, but already her mind began to clear and her head stopped throbbing. She felt stronger. More awake.

She realised that, in her thirst, she’d drank most of her wine already while le Comte was still politely sipping at his. A little embarrassed, she turned her interest back to the portraits, not wishing for him to see the blush growing on her cheeks. She needed her strength, she told herself, and surely le Comte did not mind.

“Are these your family?”

They were beautiful, really. Each face handsomely sculpted, with pale skin and gleaming eyes. Jewellery and expensive attire. The background dark, but seemingly illuminated by the same glow of candlelight in which they now stood. Flickering, almost.

“Friends.” He explained. “I haven’t seen them in a long time, though. Admittedly, it’s been terribly lonely, living in this huge manor all on my own...”

She looked at the paintings over once again, admiring le Comte’s gentle smile in the portrait, so like the one she’d grown to admire in person. The whisper of a wave in his hair, his golden eyes…

And the date. The date written so neatly in the bottom right corner of the painting. One number that made her blood run cold.

August 19, 1712

Dated over a century back. She swallowed. Her mouth felt dry. Shakily, she raised her glass to ease the feeling of cotton in her throat, and noticed, for the first time, its consistency. Like honey. Or not quite. It coated the walls of the glass and oozed down slowly, almost unaffected by gravity. More black than red, really. And far, far too thick to be wine.

She raised her hand to her neck, to the subtle itch at her pulse.

“So, you’ve realised.”

It was not a question.

Y/N couldn’t tear her gaze away from the glass. It was still a quarter full, and the aching thirst deep within her was not yet sated. But now, it was accompanied by a bubbling disgust that burned in her stomach and scorched her throat.

How… how could she have swallowed it? Drank so much of it, too? She was human! What disgust! She wanted to recoil, to scream, to throw the glass at the wall and cut whatever threaded her to it. To go back. To erase the mistake.

The glass dropped from her hands and shattered at her feet. A red stain amongst the glittering shards. Defiance.

And yet - Y/N mourned. What a waste! Her throat cursed her, begged her to get down on all fours and lick it clean off the floor. Not let a single drop go to waste, or she would starve.

But she was frozen in place.  Le Comte raised a hand to her cheek, and gently turned her head towards him.

“That’s alright. Be careful not to step on the glass- I’ll have it cleaned up later. Here.” A hand on her waist, he guided her gently, one, two, three steps away from the broken glass.

He was still wearing that smile of his, gentle and, even if tainted with a drop of sadness, not at all apologetic. His honey-like eyes drew her in. Sweet. Dangerous. He was a spider, and she was stuck too tightly to his web. She could not move. She could not scream. She could do nothing but watch as he drew closer, until his lips brushed against her ear and he spoke in voice as sweet as his eyes.

“Don’t be afraid, I’ll take care of you. We’re the same, now. I’ve been so lonely, but now you’re here.”

His lips pressed gently against her neck, a kiss at the same place where he’d bitten her mere hours ago. An apology, perhaps. Or a promise of what was to come. 

A plea: don’t be afraid of me.

He pulled away and smiled at her. Raised his glass to his lips in an elegant sip. The blood coated the curve of his lips and the sudden shock of red somehow… matched. It smudged at the corner of his mouth, and he raised a finger to wipe it off and licked it clean.

His glass was still half full. He brought it up to Y/N’s lips and held it there.

“Drink,” he whispered. “You’ll feel better.”

She could not find it in her to refuse. Her lips parted as if on their own, though she tried to fight it. The disgust shrank and then faded and then disappeared entirely the more she drank. If she didn’t think too hard… she could pretend it really was wine.

He took the glass from her when the last drop was gone, and set it aside on the table. He cupped her cheek once more, and as she looked into his golden eyes, the fear she felt faded away like the morning fog. And she placed her hand atop of his, still at her cheek, and leaned into his touch.

Her mind was finally quiet. The hunger and thirst gone, and with it - her fear. She sighed out and relaxed into his touch, finding a strange sense of acceptance with the count. It was not just calm, but - euphoric, even.

She was sated.

For now.

[punkinroses]

Yugioh Season 4 Quotes Prompt Meme

I am stressed, tired, sick of my job and needing a brain break. Yugioh Abridged is my go to for that at the moment. So. Have a sentence meme thing. Feel free to reblog, change pronouns, etc. Go have fun kids. Be wild. Be gay. Do crime. Love you

“The whole saving the world thing really eats into your study time.” “But my teacher gave me, like, a bunch of gold stars! And an A+ in trying.” “I already know everything I need to know about mathematics from playing card games.” “I was also thinking about doing some of the drugs later.” “(name)’s hand is on fire!” “That sounds like a commotion! .......Yes. Definitely a commotion.” “Well, I’m sure the city can defend itself.” “Those neutral motherfuckers. I never cared for them.” “How the hell did you people get in my house!?” “I’m not sure I like the rich douchebag channel.” “We figured you had more of an emotional connection to these.” “Damnit, (name), we agreed I would do the monologuing.” “My spirit guide has once again served its purpose.” “It’ll be called the bitch ass retirement plan. Named after you, ya bitch ass!” “That’s some OP bullshit right there.” “Broseph...Brosephine...Bro DiMaggio.” “I’ve got shoulder pads!” “Now what are you gonna do, Bromeo and Juliet?” “It’s not often I get to hear the worst insult ever coined by a human being.” “Yeah, they once sucked out Channing Tatum’s soul as a joke.” “I have nothing else in my life, please!” “So you’re someone I haven’t seen in a really, really long time? .........Are you my parents??!!” “Stop abusing the concept of friendship!!” “You must have spent YEARS researching this! Even though you can find this exact information on the back of any Yu-Gi-Oh! DVD!” “King of doors, bitch!” “That’s two points for Middle Earth, zero points for (name).” “I was not prepared to watch this today.” “Okay, so, you’re a lost cause.” “If even one of you makes a Sharknado reference, I will end you so hard.” “Try this on for size, you Sauron-looking motherfucker!” “I thought we had an agreement! You agreed to not be a little bitch, but now you’re being a little bitch!” “Maybe they’ll take someone’s soul that we don’t care about this time.” “Goddamnit, you never help me, ever!!” “Alright, douchebags! I’m sick and tired of us not being on top!” “These meetings get fucking weird.” “How much more specific can I get? SOMEWHERE in CALIFORNIA.” “I wonder if there are card games on the moon.” “I knew it. This is just some cheap trick to get me to come see you, so you can hit on me with a bunch of cheap innuendos, isn’t it?” “And, to think, people call you a diluted egomaniac.” “That’s not possible! I’M the adorable one!” “For some reason, cruising for chicks has caused me to become severely injured.” “I would be so turned on if that wasn’t such a huge waste of trading cards.” “I’d like to spread some vegemite on those things.” “You left me on a blimp with a known psychopath, while I was in a coma, so you could go off and play video games.” “So, in other words, since we’ve never seen your balls drop, we can assume it hasn’t happened?” “My douche-senses are telling me that (name) is mocking me somewhere.” “Should I remind you to tell them to go fuck themselves when we get there?” “He will eat you with his crocodile face.” “Okay, did you have to include the part of the story where they insulted me?” “Hey, a sword! I can stab people with this!” “Seriously? That was your one Koala joke?” “Try believing in the heart of the cards.” “Quiet, you sorcerer.” “If you’re seeing this, (name), it either means I’m dead, leaving behind a very fabulous looking corpse, or my soul has been captured.” “Maybe it had something very kinky on it and 4Kids had to censor it.” “I’ll leave that up to the fanfic authors.” “I’ll write a highly unfavorable research paper about you! With inconclusive findings!” “I feel like I should be concerned, but I just can’t stop thinking about how Copernicus is such a stupid name for a horse.” “You know that thing takes people’s souls and I found it on a dead guy, right?” “That was acting, children! Bravo for me!” “According to my research, I’m in a crapload of pain.” “Learned that trick from playing Super Mario World.” “I’ll just be over here wibbling to myself. Please, pay me no mind.” “Okay, everyone. I’m going to go scream into a pillow for the next five minutes.” “Are you telling me that we can't build an elevator into space?! Because that sounds like something a guy who doesn't want to keep his job would say!” “And let me tell you one last thing. All those times I got angry and declared that I would have my vengeance on you: I WAS FAKING!” “I'm glad we spent all our money on this bag of potato chips and generic brand soda.” “By the way, I memorized several dozen dinosaur puns, just so I could use them in this.” “The only reunion that’s about to happen is my size ten up your buttocks!” “Dorō! Monsutā Kādo!” “You're right, (name). I lost control. At the end of the day, this is just a game.” “We’re going to disturb the spirits of the dead! Yay!” “What the fuck even is this season!?” “Won’t somebody fetch me some ice cream!?” “I’m old and I hold a stick. That automatically makes me the wisest person in the valley.” “It’s a good thing I played all that Assassin’s Creed!” “It’s a good thing I played all that Banjo Kazooie!” “Oh, thank God, because I really wasn’t listening to any of that. Any of it.” “Now, I have to go back down there and challenge that vulture to a card game.” “Okay, (name), I’m going to level with you; I may have lied about the pizza.” “It makes me look really bonkers cool while I kick the shit out of you.” “Actually, he says his name is Cornelius Jr. and he wants to play basketball, just like how his father wanted him to.” “You can talk to snakes!?” “Hey, are you sure it’s safe for us to fly straight into that strange weather phenomenon?” “I guess we’d better confront whatever villain of the week that is.” “Well, these buttons look important.” “We mostly get by using our street smarts and ingenuity.” “No, I'm mad because I never wanted to know what one of Hideo Kojima's wet dreams looked like, and now I do, so thanks for that.” “I swear on my life we didn't keep a single flying war machine of death.” “Well, it would be way more intimidating if its face wasn't so damn adorable.” “Yeah, they’re dead. Dibs on their crappy broken stuff!” “Did you guys notice that this episode had the exact same ending as Bee Movie?” “I'm also glad we're not going to Florida as it means that we are not going to Florida.” “OK, but wait! I'm almost to the part where we met two ghosts in the California desert who just happened to be related to the guy we're fighting. Oh God, you're right; it's all just bullshit, isn't it?” “Breaking stuff will fix it!” “I'm bi a lot of things, but lingual is not one of them.” “Welcome back, asshole.” “Hey (name), wanna reenact a scene from Back to the Future Part II?” “I'd rather throw myself off the roof.” “Damn you, Microsoft Flight Simulator!” “Yes, but you had to steal my catchphrase to do it! Is nothing sacred to you?” “That is the single most offensive thing anyone has ever said to me.” “OK, children, from now on, everybody uses the Buddy System. When I say "Go," I want you all to choose a buddy and form an everlasting and inseparable bond between them 'till death do you part. OK, go!” “(Name), remember, whatever happens, you mustn't become an evil little sh*thead.” “Suckers! Consider yourselves ditched.“ “Well if any other anime in existence has taught me anything, most of the drama tends to happen on...the roof.“ “Just my luck. Dork Fest continues.“ “No! It's got a scythe. The deadliest farming implement known to man.“ “This heavy-hearted metaphor was brought to you by Da, a subsidiary of Doy, Inc.” “OK, this is also total BS. When I came back from the dead, I didn't get a chorus of heavenly music and a light show.“ “It's a good thing I'm so buff or that fall would've killed me.“ “(Name), promise me you're not going to embarrass me in front of the U.S. Military.” “ Guys, I think we took a wrong turn, because I'm pretty sure this is the Chamber of Secrets.” “Those aren't Funko Pops! They're much more disturbing!” “Yeah, makes your measly five thousand years look like a five thousand years of being a bitch, bitch.“ “Okay, but why are we in space?” “I have no idea who that is. You are talkin' fucking crazy right now, man. Are you okay? Do you need water? How long were you in the desert for?“ “For the record, I was dressing up in suits of armor before it was cool.“ “(Name), this is like, the third time you've tried to murder one of my friends, stop it!” “Nah. As a teenager with unlimited access to the Internet, I get to do that every day.” “As I was saying, (name) is a damn handsome and valuable person. Thank goodness for them.” “They died as they lived... pissing me off.” “Okay, who let the posh shithead in here?” “I'm so happy you escaped the cold embrace of death so that I could experience your deathly cold embrace again!“ “Wow. My eBay sensors are tingling.“ “You know, we really have no idea where this portal will take us, but I have total confidence in this decision.“ “None of this matters to you! You're already dead! Blah, blah, blah, omae wa mou shindeiru.” “Glad we came all the way up here so that we could not know what was going on.“ “Does this mean I can take back all the nice things I said?“ “I'm not doing any of those things. I'm just enjoying being with you.”

[takaraphoenix]

Teen Wolf Season 4 Rant!

I finished season 4 of my Teen Wolf rewatch and like with 3A and 3B, I’d like to recap.

Before I started this whole rewatch, I was bemoaning that seasons 1 and 2 were the only truly good ones and that with season 3, it went downhill. I corrected myself after theseason 3 rewatch that, while 3A was indeed filled with all the warning signs of decline, 3B actually caught it again pretty well.

Season 4, while not exactly bad, is just... offensively boring and filled with so much retconning that it gave me whiplash. Which, actually, scratch that, it was bad.

For those with as bad a memory as me and not boring to remember what every single season of every single show is about - season 4 was the one with the deadpool, the Benefactor, the Calaveras, Kate Argent and the introduction of Liam.

Honestly, where do I even start...? Let’s start before this season.

The Calaveras and Kate Argent. It’s borderline offensive how badly this was retconned in, to be honest. I mean, on top of how last season’s “Where is the shewolf” was just such a bad, bad attempt at the pronoun game where it would have been infinitely more sense to ask where Kate Argent was. Especially considering she didn’t turn into a wolf.

Kate Argent “died”. And her dad, aka the hardass who is super in love with his code (most of the time, until it becomes more dire to survive), came back just for that. You can not tell me the Calaveras disrespected the Argents so much so that they personally came by to check in if Kate was really dead. Gerard would have done that. You can not tell me the Calaveras just stole the body without even consulting them.

And what exactly did they do for the past fucking year...?

Kate Argent dies at the end of season 2. Season 3 already starts with a three months time-gap. So if the Calaveras stole Kate and then Kate turned and killed them, they should have been at Derek’s doorstep even before season 3 rolled around or at the latest when it actually did. But then all of season 3A passes, another additional months, and only then do they seek out Derek... to... torture him a little and play the pronoun game, just to have him be freed and return right back to Beacon Hills. Why exactly did they not bother to go back and recapture him earlier, but conveniently waited until the Nogitsune was taken care of before they kidnapped Derek again...?

My point is, those are offensively bad hunters. They claim to care so much about the code, but only when it’s about their own people killing themselves?

They seemingly live close enough to Beacon Hills to come and crash a funeral. They didn’t live close enough to come and take care of the Alpha Pack. They knew there were only two living Argents left, the Alpha Pack must have been news that traveled fast. They also conveniently only came after the Nogitsune was taken care of, instead of, you know, helping there. It’s frankly quite ridiculous.

And that they then threaten Scott that if he ever bites someone, they’ll come for him. So... remember how Peter turned Scott and Lydia? How Derek turned Boyd, Erica, Isaac... and Jackson? Because y’all didn’t seem to care about turned people back then either.

But speaking of Derek and turning.

Kate Argent’s convoluted plan of deaging Derek so he trusts her to bring her to the vault is just utterly ridiculous. Really? That... That was the only thing she could find out about learning control? That the Hales had a talisman in their secret vault? That is such specific information, I bet it would have been easier to find actual information on how to control being turned.

Now let’s talk about the talisman that Derek then proceeds to use to teach Liam control. Nice, considering that for his own betas, he used medieval torture devices.

They could have come up with a better reason for why Kate wanted into the vault. Heck, I’d have bought greed and her wanting the 117 million dollars.

But to retcon in some talisman that the Hale pack used to teach control is bullshit considering huge chunks of seasons 1 and 2 was how to teach betas control.

Secondly, the vault itself.

That’d have come in mighty handy during season 3 too. You know, a safe place that could only be opened by Hales. Great to hide your pack at least for a little while. Or, like, to lure Cora and Boyd in there and lock them in safely instead of the fucking boiler room. Or just generally, for the betas to go in there where they can’t hurt anyone else during the full moon.

But that thing was only retconned in now, so don’t think too hard on how its existence would have affected earlier seasons.

Now, let’s continue with the pack. Or lack thereof.

Pack is such a vague thing in this show. First two seasons established that an alpha turns betas and that betas give the alpha strength.

Third season establishes that “losing pack is like losing a limb”, but at the same time also establishes that if an alpha kills his own betas, then he gains more power. Being... rewarded... for cutting off his own limb, killing his own family. In a way, it makes sense, considering the whole system is rigged that you are rewarded for killing your own leader by becoming the new leader. But if the existence of betas give an alpha power and if losing pack is like losing a limb, then killing off your own betas shouldn’t have an effect on you.

And that’s not even starting on the whole issue of how pack is even defined.

Beta wolves give an alpha strength. That makes sense.

But how do the non-wolves factor in? They don’t feel the pack-bond. They’re a whole differen species that should work in a whole different way and thus not really factor into a wolf pack.

Scott McCall’s pack is literally non-existence in wolf-terms.

He had one beta in Isaac, but apparently being in a pack wasn’t important enough for him because he up and vanishes. We see him leave with Argent at the end of season 3 and okay, I’m fine with them seeking comfort in each other. But Chris returns and Isaac is nowhere to be found. So what, after all the ordeals he just abandons the pack and everyone he knows... and no one even talks about him. He lived with Scott and Melissa but we don’t even get a casual mention of anyone still being in contact with him or of where he is. It’s utterly ridiculous, to just pretend like... like he was never there to begin with.

Isaac aside, Scott has a human (Stiles), a banshee (Lydia), a coyote (Malia) and a kitsune (Kira).

There is not a single wolf in that list.

What I liked about 3B was that they set it up like Ethan and Aiden would join the pack, which, yay because then Scott and Isaac wouldn’t be a two wolf pack. But then they kill one twin off and send the other away and it was infuriating.

The so-called True Alpha who earned his alpha-ness by being a born leader has literally no pack to lead. Heck, he seems incompetent enough as an alpha that his only beta doesn’t stick around so they could comfort each other, but instead just abandons him.

And then the so-called True Alpha turns his first beta. And, just like you would imagine from a born leader who earns his alpha status through his natural talent at leading a pack... he kidnaps his beta and ties him up in the bathtub before panic-calling his human friend to fix this mess.

Look, it was a fun comic relief spiel. It’d have been easy enough to buy that he’s overwhelmed if he were a regular alpha. But if you’re trying to sell someone as a super-special snowflake who earned those intense powers by being meant to be an alpha, then you damn well should show him display actual alpha-ness naturally. If you’d give me Scott, handling Liam smoothly and naturally, instantly connecting to him on the basis of this being something Scott has gone through, then that’d have been a good sell.

But abducting Liam and tying him up in the bathtub like you want to go serial killer on his ass is in no way or shape the behavior of a True Alpha.

Also, what about Derek.

I mean, is he now a beta to Scott? Because they work together very frequently now and very smoothly. Or is he an omega? We never talk about it at all.

And since it’s never explained how exactly the pack-bond works - because it seems severe and strong and important, but at the same time it can be shrugged off so easily, as shown by Scott jumping on and off the pack-wagon in season 1 and 2 so often that it makes you ditzzy - there is no telling.

Now, let’s talk parents.

Specifically the parents of Malia and Liam, who seem to have no fucks to give. I mean, those kids sneak out literally all the time but neither parent seems to notice at all. Not to mention the part where Liam’s father is a doctor and he is not the least bit suspicious that his son’s broken bones healed literally over night? Even if it had been a sprain or something, it wouldn’t have healed over night.

Especially with Malia’s father, it pisses me off. He thought she was dead for 8 years. Then he throws her into Eichen House to help, but afterward kinda... nothing. Not even when the school’s under quarantine. We should have really seen the man who lost all his family before be worried there. But just... she sneaks out every single night to spoon her boyfriend and her dad doesn’t notice or care or anything.

And on that note, I’d like to talk about how utterly ridiculous and unrealistic it is that Malia goes to the same classes as Kira, Scott, Lydia and Stiles (I mean, the fact aside how disturbingly convenient it is that literally all the teens are always the exact same age; Aiden, Ethan and Cora were all also exactly in their grade).

The girl’s disappeared eight years ago when she was nine. That made her, what, a third grader. And now, eight years later, she is returned.

And immediately placed in high school. She has no middle school education, she hasn’t even finished elementary school, she is literally missing EIGHT YEARS of education.

And somehow, that all is reduced to a running gag of teachers poking and prodding and making her feel deliberately dumb. Which she isn’t. Holy shit, Malia must be a genius to not just catch up with eight years of general education but then dive head first into algebra and manage a passing grade.

It’s just... It’s already unrealistic enough that the girl who was raised and lived as a wild animal for 8 years is, just like that, reintroduced into society without some major hitches - again, something that is reduced to a running gag by Stiles continuously calling it “It’s progress” whenever she doesn’t follow her instincts - but to assume she’d just... go to... high school... and not immediately fail all of the courses?

That aside, because I’m still not done here, let’s talk about the stakes.

Because, boiled down, that is one of the main reasons why I thought this season was mindnumbingly boring. There are no stakes, at the end of it, everyone survives.

And, yes, I am 100% aware of how hypocritical that sounds considering my main complaint about season 3 in general was that they killed off characters left and right or wrote them out like they had no care in the world.

But you gotta take into account the dimensions of things.

Season 3 was one lousy Alpha Pack and one Nogitsune, yet it had a major character body count of Boyd, Erica, Aiden, Allison.

Season 4 literally has an army of trained assassins as well as untrained greedy assholes, but absolutely no one dies. Not. A. Single. One.

Sure, characters we never met before are seen killed, but, like, no one cares?

Liam should have 100% been dead by the end of it, because he is completely untrained, his parents have no clue whatsover so an assassin would have had such easy game breaking into their house and just killing him while he’s alone at night in bed. Not on like a lacrosse team with the entire pack backing him up or anything.

Heck, it would have been a good way to add stakes by killing off Kira’s mother. Because, yes, always reducing the already barely existing pack is annoying, but Kira’s mom is an elderly kitsune who sacrificed all her powers already so is relatively defenseless. It’d have made the whole thing more real, added a layer of pain and not removed any of the main characters.

And while I love Derek and am immensely glad he survived, that cock-teasing of him being a key because he was about to die, just to instead have him... come back from the dead... was just as deflatting.

If no one dies, there are no stakes. Not if you literally set the play-field out with countless killers and assassins highly motivated by millions of dollars.

And on that note, let’s talk about the Benefactor.

That just hurt. It was just so painful that it is the other big part of why this season was mindnumbingly boring.

It had me super engaged while they were still looking for the Benefactor. Running all the possibilities through my own head. And I came to only one logical conclusion. Gerard Argent.

Because why else would you go through the trouble of keeping him alive after Scott poisoned him? Also, how exactly, because everyone else poisoned kinda died within hours, but he’s been hanging around for months now...? And then how they deliberately showed him in season 3 even though he brought nothing new to the table that Deaton or Peter didn’t also know... I was so sure they set him up as the Benefactor, wanting revenge on the Hales and on all supernaturals.

To have it be Peter, who doesn’t even remember it, was such an immense let-down. Honestly, the pay-off was non-existent in that one.

Lastly, before we end this, let’s talk about Danny.

Or, let’s not, just like the show. Look, he became more and more important over season 3 and then they set it up that he knows about the supernatural. And then he just disappears. Without any explanation.

They could have, at the very least, mentioned it. When Coach goes through his list of players, he somehow still mentions that Jackson is gone even though he’s been gone for a while. That’d have been the moment to explain why Danny is gone. That his parents moved away with him, or whatever. Just... one sentence.

But just like Isaac, he’s simply removed from the plot without any explanation whatsoever.

And in both cases, it really wouldn’t have been hard to just mention where they went, without even having to show it, just to acknowledg that they indeed exist.

Actually, I got one more left in me.

Eichen House. Or Arkham Asylum 2.0. The sudden supernatural prison that was never-ever mentioned before in any form or shape.

You know, the place where Peter Hale should have been sent after he was resurrected. Because he kind of killed Laura and terrorized the entire city? But he went free and somehow was only placed in supernatural prison after... uhm... a crazy-ass banchee decided to turn his thoughts into a supernatural killing-plan?

That’d also have been a great place to put Deucalion, by the way. Because this bullshit spiel of “Hey, so, you slaughtered your entire pack and made four others slaughter their entire pack and then you started slaughtering them too and you also killed my entire pack, but we’re just gonna restore your sight and let you leave” was the biggest bullshit ever. The dude killed so many people but you just think that... that if he gets rewarded for that, he should also go free? No, his ass should have definitely and at the very least been thrown into supernatural prison.

But supernatural prison didn’t exist before it was retconned into season 4, so let’s not think too hard about it, mh.

Which, yeah, to sum it up. There was so much retconning, there were no stakes, there was no pay-off to who the villain was and what his plan was, Kate Argent who was set up to be something bad and fearsome was in the end a total let-down too and it was overall just kind of a mess.

Don’t get me wrong, it still also had good things. It wasn’t entirely bad.

I actually really loved Malia, this third time around. I think that Kira was too much reduced into Scott’s Girlfriend in this and would have loved to see more of her on her own, or which would have been great to concentrate more on Kira’s budding friendship with Lydia and Malia. Or have her more involved with her new role on the team, see her train and talk to her parents about it.

I think the introduction of Parrish and the mystery still surrounding him are great. He’s a great character who brings a nice and fresh dynamic into this.

I loved the team-work between Scott and Derek.

There was still humor in it. Already much less than in previous seasons, but as of now, I still had things to laugh about (my main complaint about season 5 is that I haven’t laughed once in it).

I love packmom!Stiles. And packmom!Stiles was actually really, really strong in season 4. I mean, he moms Liam a lot. He literally shakes his head and mutters “Kids” when Kira and Liam run off into danger. I love that. Made me want to dive right into packmom-fics again.

I enjoyed that we explored Lydia’s banshee powers, and banshees in general, more.

I’m very glad that Chris decided to return, because with him I feared they would write him out this season. What with literally his whole family dying in Beacon Hills, you would so not make me stay there.

I also enjoyed that they brought real-world issues into this. With the financial struggles of the Stilinskis and the McCalls.

Though, gotta admit, Rafael was kind of a throw-away character who literally just repeated the same lines every time “I’m sorry I missed the game/will miss the game. I promised to be there”. They could have done more with his character. I was also missing that Scott and Melissa didn’t tell him the truth. I mean, they tell him to stay in Beacon Hills but they don’t think, from experience with both Melissa and the Sheriff, that telling him the truth would be the safest...? Really not?

So, yeah, that’s my two cents on season 4 in depth. Now time to dive into the season I considered one of the worst things I ever watched on television. Not looking forward to that at all...

[amorremanet]

You reblogged an OC meme! Thank god, tell us about Josie!

oc profiles meme!

…oh my god, i was so excited to click post and babble about josie at people that i initially forgot to come back and fill in the placeholder with something about how excited i was to talk about josie (—it’s like 4:15 AM where i am, which is probably part of the problem but i digress)

Full Name: Josiah Daniel Quinn — but, please, they explicitly prefer to be called, “Josie,” so unless you’re one of their bosses over at S.T.R.O.M.A*, whom they’re in no position to argue with, call them Josie. If not that, then use their surname. But if you can avoid it, just please do not call them by their full given first name, okay?

Shiny mutant superhero codename: Lyaeus — derived from an aspect of Dionysus who is traditionally invoked as a reliever of pain and a deliverer from anxiety and emotional turmoil and so on, which is one of their preferred uses of their psychic abilities and one of Josie’s larger goals in life (for them, it’s a mix of, “If something bad is going to happen, and you can do something to stop it and choose not to, that’s on you” and, “The world is a mess and largely sucks, but that’s no reason not to do what we can to take care of each other”).

Their codename is doubly special to them because although they were raised loosely Catholic and have a Mormon extended family who mostly doesn’t acknowledge their existence (and hasn’t for their entire life, since their Mom left the Mormon church to marry Josie’s Dad, oops), Josie is a hellenic pagan whose primary relationship is with Dionysus.

They thought for a long time and did a lot of reflection about whether or not it was too presumptuous of them to use one of his aspects as a codename, but eventually, they went with it because they see their codename and its meaning as someone who they’re continually striving to be and a set of values that they’re always trying to bring to bear in the world, and they feel like Dionysus is probably okay with that.

Gender and Sexuality: DMAB Genderfluid. // Bisexual.

This isn’t actually specifically about their gender or sexuality, but I couldn’t think of where else to put it: Josie grew up around all things Rocky Horror. Like, their parents were highly involved in the local community theatre, which did a semi-regular RHPS shadow-cast, and Josie’s parents brought their kid with them often enough that Josie grew up with their blood family and their, “Rocky family.”

Josie would rather deal with their Rocky family than their blood family a lot of the time, because their Rocky family was more immediately there for them during a lot of rough stuff while they were growing up, and their Rocky family handled it better at the various times when they came out, and their Rocky family didn’t say shit like, “Wait, I thought you were gay, why are you going back in the closet” when they came out as bi or ask invasive questions when they came out as genderfluid and was more supportive in general of Josie’s evolving sense of their own identity, and so on.

Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs.

Josie does also answer to He/Him/His pronouns, but that isn’t a choice on their part, so much as it’s an issue of, “Well, I can be out at work and open the door to potential harassment and people who will invalidate my gender identity and likely flat-out refuse to respect my pronouns, which will create more difficulty for myself in a job that’s already difficult because it’s stressful to begin with and I hate working here — or I can suck it up and just be grateful that my friends and parents are all good about this”

Like, one of the things that Seb does when he and Josie first meet that makes Josie go, “I’m still not totally thrilled at being assigned to help out the newbie (especially since I know I’m only getting this assignment because: 1. our bosses are playing a game of, ‘lmao just toss the LGBTQ ones together’ because the newbie’s gay and pretty much everyone here thinks that I am too; and 2. Deputy Director Gray is still cranky with me over that MSNBC round-table that I did last week where Yael kept pushing me to voice my own opinions and not the Bureau’s official line) — but maybe it won’t actually be completely awful and maybe he’s going to be okay as a new partner”?

…is noticing that Josie wears two woven yarn bracelets on one wrist — one of them in the lavender/white/chartreuse colors of the genderqueer flag, and the other in the pink/white/purple/black/blue of the genderfluid flag — and first waiting for them to be alone in Josie’s office, then going, “Oh, so are you genderfluid? What are your pronouns?” and then listening and respecting it when Josie explained that they’d rather Seb just kept using he/him/his at work

Species: Human (mutant with aforementioned mutant psychic powers)

Race/Ethnicity: White, and the only real part of Josie’s ethnic background that’s ever been important in their life was that their late paternal grandmother was very proud of being Irish.

Like, her parents had come to Ellis Island from Ireland — though she was too young to have any actual memories of the passage herself — and she wasn’t so insistent about it that she objected to her son marrying a Mormon girl instead of a Good Irish Catholic Girl, but still, the Irish thing was a big deal for her.

Josie, personally, doesn’t get it beyond, “I’m white and I have a particular aversion to St. Patrick’s Day because first of all, some of my extended family members can turn into a bunch of rowdy, off-putting little shits on St. Patrick’s Day, and I always had to suffer through that because we always had a party for it, first because Grandma wanted one, and then in honor of her memory.

“And secondly, because as soon as anyone hears that I’m partially Irish and/or a Dionysian, it is just assumed that I want to go get wasted on St. Patrick’s Day, which I don’t, but I still end up going out into environments that are absolute Hell for someone who has both telepathy and hyper-empathy, because the spaces are crowded, emotions are running high, and there is basically nowhere to escape to where you can get some peace and quiet and a break from the sensory and emotional overload of being at a rowdy bar on St. Patrick’s Day.

“And I endure all of this with people whom I may not even like that much just so they’ll have a designated driver, because I would feel bad personally if I didn’t go to make sure they all got home okay, and just because they don’t understand my god or might want to get something else out of him than I do, doesn’t mean that I should brush them off and risk them getting hurt while they’re completely shit-faced.

“Which doesn’t make this any less exhausting and awful, but it’s better than taking the chance that they might get hurt, y’know?”

Birthplace and Birthdate: Saratoga Springs, NY. // 22nd February, 1980 — they’re a Pisces (Libra rising, Gemini moon).

Guilty Pleasures: High-quality dark chocolate, high-quality makeup even if they can’t wear most of it as often as they’d like^, the original Vampire Chronicles novels (and though they will sometimes claim that only the original six ones, “count,” Josie owns everything that Anne Rice has published, even the ridiculous Jesus books), binge-watching reruns of Project Runway…

And they don’t feel particularly guilty about it, but one of the simple things that makes Josie happy is playfully teasing their emergency contacts/best friends over how their parents named them after Beatles songs

Jude, naturally, was “Hey Jude” and Rocky got named after, “Rocky Raccoon” because, at the last minute, his and Jude’s parents decided to veto naming him Desmond because he’s a character in “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” but his name is not in the title, which was apparently a deal-breaker because of reasons

Rocky also sometimes gets playful ribbing about all things Rocky Horror, because he and Josie are ridiculous nerds, and RHPS isn’t their exclusive thing because Josie will share it with anyone who gives them half a chance to do so…… but it is still a thing that is special to Josie and Rocky, so here they are

If you ask them, Josie will tell you that they don’t believe in associating pleasure with guilt, and in their defense, they do believe in encouraging people not to feel guilty for enjoying the things that make them happy or that help them survive, because as long as those things aren’t hurting anyone — yes, that includes you, person Josie is talking to — then you have a right to be happy and a right to take care of yourself

The reality is that Josie says this to people so often because it’s something that they often struggle with themself, and even though they’re better, in some ways, than they have been in the past, there are still a lot of places where they need work

Also, Josie wouldn’t call some of the more poppy music that they like, “guilty pleasures” — especially because, if you ask them, there is no reason to feel guilty about listening to, for example, Beyoncé or Nicki Minaj

—but it is still the case that, if they were going to have a mini-reunion with some of the old goth crew friends from high school whom they don’t keep in touch with that often, Josie probably wouldn’t mention Nicki or Beyoncé, unless it was by accident or until they were sure that the old gang wasn’t going to do the judgmental goth kids thing they used to do of going, “ugh, all pop music is soulless empty bullshit for posers” and so on

Also also, there is almost no chance of them ever admitting this to most people, but…… Josie kinda loves the goth kids from South Park. Like, Josie really kinda loves them.

There’s basically no chance of them ever admitting it to most people because for one thing, it’s embarrassing to them, due to the whole South Park of everything.

For another, they’d feel the need to give someone a lengthy, tedious disclaimer about how they don’t actually watch South Park or enjoy it very much, they just know about the goth kids because one of their best friends went, “Oh my god, Josie, you have to watch this, the new Goth kid characters are so you” way back when, after the first episode with them in it aired and said friend (Rocky) was still taping new eps on VHS to watch after he got home from night classes

And…… well. Josie still wouldn’t give South Park much credit for anything else, but they do really love the goth kids, and they agree with Rocky’s, “omg it you” moment because the South Park goth kids are often eerily similar to shit that they said and did as a weird little goth kid back in high school

At one point, Rocky actually made Josie little plush dolls of the goth kids that he’d designed himself, and they are a big reason why you’re not allowed in Josie’s room until they trust you.

Other reasons include:

Josie doesn’t want most people to touch their makeup or put any of it out of order, and they keep most of it in their bedroom, on their dresser, in front of the vanity mirror that they found someone just throwing out shortly after they moved to Baltimore, even though it’s a perfectly good mirror so wtf;

some of Josie’s favorite and most personally meaningful religious and spiritual paraphernalia is in their bedroom (they keep their actual shrine to Dionysus and their, “worship workspace” in a different room at their place, but some of the more personally significant things are in their room most of the time, and they’d rather you didn’t have a chance to touch them);

Josie just tends to be an incredibly private person who places a lot of value on their personal space and having spaces that are set aside as Theirs. They were like this even before their psychic abilities kicked in and made them value even more their personal space, and ability to have a place that is set apart as Theirs Exclusively where they can go to get some distance from all the mental, emotional, and sensory overload that comes from feeling almost everyone’s feelings and hearing many of their thoughts**, to some extent or another, almost all the time;

and the few albums of old photos and framed old photos, some of which are just garden variety embarrassing like, “yes, my hair is naturally blond, here is photographic evidence from before my parents let me start dyeing it, and oh yeah, that was probably backstage after the community theatre production of Oliver! that I did in eighth grade — oh yeah, definitely that one, there’s my Artful Dodger costume and my glaringly blond hair”

but others of which are, for lack of a better term, fairly emotionally complicated for Josie. There are several different reasons why any of these photos might be kinda complicated — ranging from, “they feature Josie’s one particularly heinous ex-boyfriend who used his wealthy family’s connections to get Josie blacklisted from working in fashion after they graduated from Pratt’s School of Design” to, “they’re from the year in high school that Josie wound up having to do over because they had to spend a few months getting inpatient treatment for their eating disorder”

^: even before getting recruited to S.T.R.O.M.A., Josie got really good at finding a balance between the, “I don’t want to look pretty, I want to look otherworldly and possibly like a vampire fairy from Wonderland” style of makeup that they want to wear, and a “more professional” style that is less likely to make their clients feel uncomfortable or get them harassed — but god, do they wish that they didn’t have to strike said balance.

It wouldn’t actually make their fondness for high-quality and often expensive makeup feel like any less of a guilty pleasure, for several reasons — on one hand, their awareness of how makeup is always politically Complicated, at best; on the other, if they got to wear their makeup exactly how they want it every day, they would end up spending more money on makeup, and it would make them feel guilty because they’d feel like it’s very irresponsible and probably going to screw them over down the line because they bought makeup instead of saving the money or putting it toward something else; and on the tentacle, a whole laundry list of other reasons

—but they would still feel more comfortable with themself and more at ease with everything because they’d be presenting exactly as they want, instead of censoring their own personal gender expressions (which they’re more okay with doing when it comes to their clients because that’s a case of compromising part of their well-being in the name of [probably] helping people who need them and pay them for that help, whereas toning it down at S.T.R.O.M.A. is tedious and Josie would seriously rather not)

(They have more than once said that the degree to which they have to tone things down for S.T.R.O.M.A. makes them feel like Ned “I’m not a Satanic sex god anymore, used to be a super gothed out androgynous rock star, but is now a straitlaced and nerdy substitute teacher” Schneebly from School of Rock.

This is not a good feeling, in Josie Land. They don’t like it and they live for the weekend because, barring any major incidents that get them called in to S.T.R.O.M.A., they get to wear what the fuck they want, forego pants in favor of their favorite skirts, do their gender how the fuck they want, and wear makeup that makes them look like a vampire fairy from Wonderland)

Phobias: Josie’s biggest fear, in the immediate sense, is losing control of their psychic abilities and ending up hurting people and/or destroying themself somehow.

Underlying that, they have a bigger and more further-reaching fear of being out of control of themself and their own actions, in general.

They’re simultaneously afraid of crowds (largely because they can get really overwhelming for Josie, really fast), and afraid of isolation, which ends up making them a lot like the sort of cat who goes all like, “cuddle me cuddle me cuddle me please please please i need love and affection… no wait, fuck you, this is stifling me and i need to get out of here… wait shit i’m lonely someone please love me… no, not you, you fucking suck… why am i so lonely, why won’t anyone pay attention to me… and so and so forth ad nauseam”

That said, when I was doing Pottermore quizzes for my kids because that is the sort of thing I find both fun and useful, Josie’s picked, “Isolation” for the, “Which is your greatest fear” question on the wand quiz

They picked, “An eye at the keyhole of the dark, windowless room in which you are locked” for the, “Which nightmare would frighten you most” question on the Sorting Hat quiz

Other miscellaneous fears and squicks: Worms, eels, and anything like that (but snakes are okay, snakes are great).

The possibility of never finding love (which they know is kind of ridiculous, because they do have a lot of love in their life… but Josie does want to be with someone romantically, and all their miscellaneous issues with their blood family aside, it’s weird and kind of disheartening for them that most of their cousins have gotten married or settled down with someone, so yeah, Josie knows that this fear is based on a lot of ideas that they generally don’t like and don’t want to live by, but still.

They’re 35, their closest friends both have longstanding romantic relationships, they’re one of the few cousins left who doesn’t have a plus-one to bring to the next family wedding, and they want a romantic relationship, so being perpetually reminded that they’re not in one kicks them in the larger fear that there is something about them that is just fundamentally unlovable, so they might end up being forever alone).

What They Would Be Famous For: Realistically? Probably how they’re going to start a new superhero team with Lucy, Pete, and Sebastian — later accumulating others — and how they’re all going to kinda stumble into trying to foil some other mutants who also happen to be neo-fascist supervillains. But had Josie’s one ex, Danny, not effectively gotten them blacklisted from working in fashion, Josie might well have made a pretty big name for themself there.

They used to joke about being famous for going on Project Runway and winning, but… this started after they’d already gotten onto the path that led them to therapeutic practice, and seen that they had the potential to do a lot of good in the world by continuing on that path, so the chances of them actually doing the Project Runway thing were almost nothing

What They Would Get Arrested For: While they haven’t technically been arrested before, Josie could have been arrested for illegally overstepping the bounds of what their particular level of metahuman license allowed them to do, and if they get arrested in the future, it is almost definitely going to be for something like protesting or some trumped up nonsense charges that actually boil down to, “getting on the wrong side of neo-fascist supervillains who have wealth and connections and political power.”

OCs You Ship Them With:

Romantically: Pete is my favorite here, but: 1. I’m also going to make them work for it, because they would be good for each other, but it wouldn’t just happen super-easily for several reasons, both about the two of them individually and about how they get on together;

and 2. I’d also dig shipping Josie with Seb, Stephen, Vince, Sylvia, Izzy, Raphael, and Cynthia — though tbh, I like non-romantic Seb/Josie better than romantic Seb/Josie

Platonically: As mentioned, Jude, Rocky, and Sebastian. Aside from them, Margot, Lucy, and Sara Grace (who are all ruled out as romantic options by the three of them being lesbians), and Josie being genderfluid, yes, but not identifying with womanhood enough for them to consider romantically pursuing someone who identifies as a lesbian. Todd (who I kind of feel bad for, because he’s sort of the loser in love so far, but otoh, that’s partially his own damn fault and he has a lot of growing to do before I’m letting him have a romantic relationship that actually lasts). Yael and Elizabeth. Really, everyone on the romantic list is a good platonic relationship, too.

“this is not a ship that i condone but i find their relationship interesting, and exploring Not Good relationships is Important to me”: Julian, who actually hasn’t met Josie yet, and won’t for a while, and their relationship will be…… tricky, in a lot of ways, many of which have something to do with how Julian is a huge tool who has a charming tendency to take his own self-loathing and insecurity out on everyone else while acting campy and making sarcastic quips as though this makes his behaviors totally okay.

Pretty much everything about Julian makes him someone who would make Josie say, “the Lord is testing me”

(only for someone — probably Lucy — to go, “But you’re not Christian” and get told either, “I was raised as one, maybe Jesus’s Dad is still grumpy that I found someone who’s better for me. Anyway, you know what I meant, right?”

or, “Fine. The Almighty Thundering Zeus, lord of the heavens and king of Olympus and He Who Was Cheating On His Wife With Everyone Ever Before It Was Cool, is testing me. There. Does that version make you happy?”)

But, yeah. Julian would make Josie go, “someone is testing me” because so much of who and what he is makes Josie want to help him, but so much of what he does makes Josie want to punch him

(an impulse that Josie largely won’t be acting on because, unfortunately for them:

1. they did not get any super-strength kinds of mutations and in an RPG, Strength would be one of their lowest stats;

and 2. first, they need to learn how to throw a punch without hurting themself more than the other person.

Punching neo-fascists isn’t their strong suit. They can let Seb and Lucy do the actual punching.

And Pete, even though Pete really shouldn’t because Pete also doesn’t know how to throw a punch without hurting himself more than the other person, so Josie is more likely to try and stop him from punching a neo-fascist supervillain in the face.

Not that Josie will always succeed in that, but… well. They and their teammates are all only human.)

Anyway, uh. Josie/Julian isn’t a ship that I’d personally want to see as the endgame of anything, ever, but I find their dynamic and the potential interactions between them interesting, and they’re something I’m looking forward to playing around with more, when it’s their time

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Conrad will kinda want to, because he finds Josie’s sense of ethics to be, “tedious and outdated,” but ultimately, he wouldn’t go through with it because Josie’s creativity would intrigue him too much.

Senator Huntington would also want Josie to die, but he wouldn’t do any of the actual murdering because he doesn’t do his own dirty work.

All things considered, Edward and Desmond are probably going to end up with the job, “Go kill the weird effete one who looks like some kind of vampire fairy from Wonderland” because everyone else is busy, and they will fail at it, because that’s kind of what they do.

They are Those Two Bad Guys, and they kind of suck at almost everything that they try to do.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Fantasy, vampire trash, psychological thrillers, magical girl everything, and horror (pretty much all kinds of horror, though Josie’s most fond of monster horror, anything with revenge-y themes, and religious or cosmic horror. They will probably tell you, “The weirder and more pointlessly, aesthetically symbolic, the better”).

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Josie would tell you that it’s how much romanticized abuse there is in paranormal romance, and to be fair, they do hate that…… but they still read it or watch it and get invested in these fictional relationships, even without necessarily coming up with a counter-reading of the text’s opinion, beyond, “this relationship is abusive even if the author doesn’t get that”

Which, to be fair, doesn’t mean that they don’t hate the prevalence of romanticized intimate partner abuse, just that it’s an, “I hate this thing” where they still engage with it, and not just because there aren’t always a lot of options without it

(Horror flicks that demonize and stigmatize mental illness are a thing where Josie doesn’t like the thing, but suffers through them because there aren’t a lot of other options otherwise)

But one trope that will make them, “nope” out…… uh.

Josie is really sensitive about The Uncanny Valley, and while they may not fully, “nope” out of things over it, they need to take more time than most people to prep themselves for seeing it and recover after seeing it

Also, not a trope, but Shia LaBeouf will make Josie “nope” out of anything. They have no rational reason for disliking Shia LeBouf, so much as he Just Irrationally Bugs Them, but they will “nope” out of things if he’s involved

Talents and/or Powers: Okay, so, a lot of Josie’s actual superpowers are discussed elsewhere, especially in the footnotes, so let’s talk about their other, non-mutant superpowers. They can sew. Even without having been actively designing anything for a while, they can still pull out a good design and they are capable of following a pattern pretty well. They know their limits fairly well, and better than pretty much everyone in the main team (this doesn’t mean that they always). And it’s almost 4 AM, so this answer is getting cut short by, “I am tired and I want to sleep” (and the next two answers will suck for the same reason)

Why Someone Might Love Them: Josie is creative and curious and once you get them to warm up, calm down, and stop worrying so much about anything, they’re a complete dork who, among other things, gives people, “C’thulhu kisses” (done by sticking your hands in front of your mouth and wiggling your fingers like tentacles, and maybe making a silly noise and saying, “C’thulhu kisses!” like you’re Sailor Moon shouting her transformation phrase). They have a pretty good sense of humor about themself, outside of their precious few no go areas. Josie is compassionate and they do genuinely want the best for most people, even people they don’t personally like very much. They try to be patient with people, even when they really don’t want to be, and even if they don’t always know what the best option is, they still try to actually do things and choose the best option for creating positive change.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: Their cycle of indecisiveness that leads to recklessness that leads to self-punishing thoughts and behaviors that leads to more indecisiveness, and rinse lather repeat. Their tendency to be really judgmental, even while acknowledging that being judgmental is something that, in their experience, causes more harm than good, and that they want to avoid more often. The way that they can lapse into talking like a high school goth kid who’s up-talking the superiority of goth subculture and doesn’t realize that they sound like an elitist, conformist prick, just like the people they’re complaining about allegedly do.

How They Change: Well, for one thing, Josie has some things to learn about how they relate to people and manage their relationships — which doesn’t necessarily make them special because this is just kind of a Thing for most of my main characters in one way or another. Josie’s specific issue wrt relating to other people has to do with their reluctance to trust people and open up and try to build any new relationships, which has often led to them practicing a sort of interpersonal-level isolationism that has hurt them and other people.

They also have something to learn about managing the façade(s) that they present to the world, much like how Seb has to learn something about his habit of acting like everything is okay while he’s suffering and thinking anyone believes him anymore because he doesn’t want to deal with his problems

and like how Pete has to learn about how…… yeah, okay, he is genuinely angry about a lot of things — some of them fair and really more, “righteous indignation” than anything else, and some of them less fair — but a lot of how he acts that anger out in the world is not actually as truthful as Pete feels like it is, but more a way of keeping people at arm’s length, testing them and testing his relationships with them, and trying to push them away before they can get the chance to hurt him

In Josie’s case, their façade(s) are a bit different because most of them came into being less because of an emotional choice on Josie’s part — e.g., Seb doesn’t want to deal with his problems because they’re painful and terrifying and they feel like they’re too big to handle — and more out of pragmatic decisions

……but then Josie came to rely on them in contexts other than the ones in which they were originally created, and balancing that many different versions of yourself is stressful as fuck-all, especially for someone who already has to do a lot of work to keep reminding themself of where their personal boundaries are, and Josie hides in their different façades every bit as much as every other character who has one, and largely only gets away with that because most people in their life don’t know them well enough to notice this, and their façades do still have pragmatic value, so most people who do notice don’t say shit about shit

Then, there’s Josie’s relationship to time, which

I’m going to explain this really badly now, because it’s 3:33 and I’m tired, but basically, I see Seb, Josie, and Lucy as complementing each other in how they relate to and orient themselves in time, and the negative side-effects that they create for themselves because of these behaviors

On one hand, Seb is way too prone to being stuck in the past. He clings to it too much — but also has a selective relationship with it, where people he cares about get forgiven too easily and Seb tries to deny that he still feels upset about anything (even when basically everyone around him knows that he does feel upset and is just trying not to deal with it), while Seb forgives himself for nothing and defines himself so much by all of his past mistakes

—and he goes past the point of, “honoring and respecting history, such as by not ignoring times when he did fuck up (of which there are many)” to, “actively impeding his own progress in life because, for example, he keeps trying the same shit over and over and over again, even though it literally never works, because it’s what he did before.” Plus, some of his ideas about the past are distorted by various factors, or missing entirely (most often due to intoxicated blackouts and/or head trauma that would have had more disastrous effects on him if not for his mutant healing factor), or otherwise unreliable, so that’s a problem.

On the other hand, Lucy is future-oriented and totally jazzed up about trying new things and meeting new challenges head on and doing things!! also STUFF!!!!! there is an entire world full of THINGS AND STUFF AND BY GOD, LUCY IS GOING TO DO ALL OF IT OR AT LEAST AS MUCH OF IT AS SHE POSSIBLY CAN AND THINGS ARE GOING TO GET BETTER SO HELP HER GOD OR JESUS OR SATAN OR WHOEVER EXCELSIOR YAH YAH YAH!!!!

……which is great and all, but she charges headlong into shit without an actual plan (seriously, most of her plans follow the good old, “step one: do this thing / step two: ………… / step three: PROFIT!” formula), and she’s a case of someone who is averse to learning from history at all because she doesn’t want to be shackled to it, but having no sense of history can be just as bad as being overly chained to it like Sebastian, and… well. You can try to outrun the past like she does, but it doesn’t tend to work out very well, and it’s not going to work for Lucy either

On the tentacle, we have Josie, who ostensibly has a balance between the past and the future orientations that we see in Seb and Lucy, because Josie’s primary focus tends to lie on the present, and at most, the very near future or very recent past

—but that’s not actually a balance like Josie wants to believe, because (among other things), it makes it very easy for Josie to ignore past lessons that are older than maybe the past two or three months; and it means that while Josie can see all kinds of potential consequences, their ability to predict what they could be gets a lot less reliable as you go further into the future; and it means that Josie has trouble actually putting together a longer-term plan, which is part of their problem with wanting to create positive change in the world but not knowing how

Josie also has a tougher road (imltho) to go on about finding a new and better balance here, because their focus on the present is something they learned in recovery, as part of learning about mindfulness, and it does help them sometimes — but on that personal level, Josie’s presentist focus can also hurt them because, even when they notice certain behaviors in themself that could get Bad For Them, they can also overlook some of these budding patterns because they’re not Obviously Bad Enough to feel like a major concern, or they look different from other past manifestations of Josie’s behavior patterns so Josie doesn’t think they need to worry about these behaviors, and so on

I’m mean to my characters and I’m going to make them work to be happy, but they will all be happy, eventually

Uh. Barring most of the villains, because letting the neo-fascist assholes win in the end would be a complete downer that would probably end up undermining a lot of the whole, “just because the world is a crapsack hellhole doesn’t mean that it has to stay that way or that we should give up on it” idea

Why You Love Them: Okay, so, this needs a bit of a story.

See, Josie is a retooled character from an old RP that I was in way, way back. I loved them a lot, and they weren’t entirely wrong for the game — they had a good run in their first incarnation — but they also weren’t entirely right for it, and they kind of floundered a bit because I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them.

A large part of this was due to how Josie was a senior at their school and, because of the year they did over, they were itching to get out and go to college, and the closest they got to an actual arc was how they didn’t want to leave behind their ex-boyfriend turned best friend (who was in the class below them), but did want to go to college already and get to the rest of their life

and how they had some trouble with accepting said best friend’s new boyfriend when Josie really wanted to be compassionate, because New Boyfriend was mentally ill and dealing with some trauma and Josie sympathized and wanted him to be well because why the Hell would you wish for someone to be *UN*well jfc — but also had trouble with that because New Boyfriend was sometimes aware of how some of his actions affected other people, but sometimes not, but sometimes he was and did the stupid things anyway, and even in working on his problems, he made the mistake that a lot of people do where they focus on getting well as defined by and in order to please the people around them, rather than doing it for themselves

—all of which Josie was sympathetic to in a big way, having been in some similar places before themself…… but they had a hard time always being as compassionate as they wanted to be because New Boyfriend’s actions had been hurting Best Friend, and even knowing that this wasn’t entirely something that New Boyfriend could be entirely blamed for (for several reasons), Josie still had a hard time trying to overlook the, “this lovable weirdo is my friend, my best friend, and even though we aren’t together anymore, I love him, and you hurt him, so yeah, I’m kinda mad at you for that” thing

And this all goes back to why I love Josie because one thing that they’ve kept in a big way, in getting retooled and updated and worked into my dumb little stories about neurodivergent and/or mentally ill LGBTQ mutant superheroes (and Pete, who is not actually a mutant but is neurodivergent, gay, an abuse survivor, and a superhero and I will fight anyone who says otherwise)

(I mean, ffs. Batman doesn’t have any mutant superpowers, and Iron Man wouldn’t have any actual superpowers without his ridiculous power-armor and, depending on the continuities, his arc reactors. So, no, I don’t think that Pete needs to have literal superpowers to count as a superhero — but that’s beside the point and to be fair, I will admit to being biased because I love Pete more than George RR Martin loves Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister)

Anyway. As I was saying.

One thing that Josie has kept in a big way is that ongoing fight with themself over two equally powerful impulses or reactions to things or desires — like their, “I want affections and I want to be around people…… okay no this is overwhelming and I don’t actually like these people fuck this I want to be alone…… oh but being alone sucks and now I’m lonely, I want to be where the people are, let’s go to the movies…… oh my god why did we go see the new Star Wars while it’s still a relatively recent release, I barely remember anything about the actual movie, I was too overwhelmed by the feelings of everyone else in that completely packed theatre… and so on” relationship with other people and being around them or not

Or like their big struggle in the first book of wanting to help people and create positive change in the world, but not being able to do too terribly much on their own for a lot of reasons (some of which are about Josie personally, and some of which are about the whole Lone Superhero thing be a lot of hot fucking nonsense that is fundamentally unsustainable), but not having an official team to belong to because although they work for S.T.R.O.M.A., they don’t like S.T.R.O.M.A., and while they are part of the extended Wardens family, they’re not a fully-fledged Warden and so much of the Wardens’ everything is based around Yael and Elizabeth’s school, so being one and not being up in Poughkeepsie would be weird and mean you end up missing out on a lot and, in Josie’s case, end up feeling like an outsider even when you’re surrounded by people who, for the most part, love you and accept you exactly as you are, but also not entirely doing everything they can to find a team because, in fairness, it can be really difficult to do that even if you don’t work for the U.S. government……

Basically, I love Josie because I love making my characters deal with internal conflict, and while all of them have a lot of it, I’m really fond of Josie’s particular brand of, “self-reflective, doing things but not things that add up to bigger things in the ways that Josie wants, trying to remedy that but it’s hard, not sure what to do or if going after these new possibilities and new ideas will make things worse, getting fed up with themself and needing to try something, but but but five million different elements all converging on each other but but but” internal conflict

And I’m really fond of it in Josie’s case because Josie is savvy enough to know that they can’t fall into the same, “do fuck-all nothing about anything until the last possible minute” trap, but their frustration is less about, “I can’t do anything” and more about, “but what do the things that I do actually mean, who am I helping, am I actually helping them or not, how can I do things that create more significant positive changes or is there a way to do that at all”

And, well. There is, Josie, but it requires you to trust some new people, bond with some new people, build relationships with them and work on maintaining said relationships, find strength in numbers, and learn more about loving and letting people love you back because one of your biggest problems in your previous relationships has been that you don’t open up — not, “you open up slowly” but, “you don’t open up with most people, period, despite knowing that this is not a sustainable way of doing things” — so yeah I’d say you need to learn about that, and learn to stop being such a lone wolf because do you know what generally happens to lone wolves? Either they find a pack somehow, or they die (without making any kind of positive changes in the world around them, relative to the size and interests of, y’know, wolves).

……Because I’m a lonely and bitter and it makes my half-dead little heart happy to make my characters find more strength together than they do apart and learn to love and be loved in return without it coming off as one-sided, like it can do in a lot of takes on that trope that are aimed at children, because…… uh, last I checked, the whole point of a relationship is that it is not exclusively about one person’s needs or desires???

Also, Josie is a compassionate but grumpy grown up goth kid who is trying to be a good person, and doing a better job than a lot of other characters, but definitely has a problem with their judgmental tendencies and how they sometimes externalize them and get super-judgmental of others, because on some level, their mind is like, “fuck, can i get a break from always punishing myself over here, jfc” and I don’t know, it’s almost 4AM and I have lost track of how long I’ve been writing this

Josie’s a nerd and a cat who can’t make up their mind about whether they want to be outside chasing butterflies or inside sitting on your keyboard so that you have to pay attention to them and not your computer and idk, I love them, the end

(except for the footnotes oops)

*: Special Taskforce for the Regulation and Oversight of Metahuman Affairs — or in plain-speak, the FBI’s wing of people who get involved in all of the shiny, extralegal superpowered mutant hijinks.

They have a pretty good working relationship with their counterparts at the Department of Health and Human Services (who actually end up handling most mutant affairs, because this world treats the question of super-powered mutant licensing as more equivalent to getting a driver’s license, and frankly, most mutants in the U.S. just want to go about their lives in peace — like, go to college, get a job, go on dates, come home and watch the Daily Show, and not be bothered about or make trouble for anyone else with the weird superpowers that most of them did not want or ask for — so there’s rarely any actual reason for the FBI to go stick their noses into anything, and there are plenty of cases where they get called in, only to find that they aren’t actually needed after all), but… yeah.

S.T.R.O.M.A. is a faction of people who exist. Josie works for them, for all they would really rather not. Unfortunately for Josie, particularly powerful metahumans tend to wind up on a lot of S.T.R.O.M.A. watch-lists, and they are more likely to do so when they have powers that the people at the FBI consider particularly useful or desirable — for example, telepathy and hyper-empathy, in Josie’s case. For the most part, these watch-lists don’t actually amount to anything because they don’t end up being relevant to most of the cases that S.T.R.O.M.A. has to deal with.

—but then you can have situations like Josie’s, where they were one of many mutants who got in a brief spot of trouble over genuine confusion surrounding a new bill that had just gone through Congress and revised some of the definitions of and privileges associated with/afforded to people at the different levels of metahuman licenses. (Since this is still America and we’re still talking about the FBI, there are also plenty of even worse potential outcomes for people who end up on their miscellaneous mutant watchlists — which is one of the big points that gets brought up by people who either want to reform or do away with the whole metahuman licensing thing — but in fairness to most people, they don’t know the full specifics.)

Anyway, Josie got in trouble because they are an actual therapist and, although they prefer not to use their powers with clients and extensively brief anyone who asks about trying that approach (about the potential benefits vs. potential risks, all the drawbacks, all the potential unintended consequences, etc.) while offering them plenty of chances to change their mind and go, “okay, let’s not do this,” they do still let their clients know that they’re a telepath/empath and that they can use their powers in a therapeutic context but it’s not the best thing to try as a first approach

Which is all great, except that Josie had been assured that they wouldn’t need to get a different kind of license to continue doing this, after that bill passed… except that they did. And this probably would’ve continued with no actual interference from anybody because Josie is hyper-responsible about using their powers with clients, about keeping up on all of the latest research and debates about therapeutic uses for psychic abilities and the ethical issues surrounding this, and so on…… except that one of their clients was a teenager who needed parental consent to go through with this, and one of their parents worked for S.T.R.O.M.A.

Relevant piece of context: Josie was absolutely not the only mutant who’d had some confusion over the revised licensing scheme. Josie wasn’t even the only mutant in the greater Baltimore area who had similar confusion on this issue.

But Josie was one of the only ones who was already on S.T.R.O.M.A.’s radar when they got in trouble, partly by virtue of being a “telempath,” partly by virtue of having trained with Dr. Elizabeth Woodham (who is: one of the most powerful telepaths in the entire world; a respected professor, activist, and philanthropist; one of the first mutants in the States to register for one of the early, “superhero licenses” [not their official name, but that’s the gist of what they are]; and with her wife, Dr. Yael Lehrer, one of the co-founders of the Wardens and co-headmistresses of one of the most respected schools for mutants in North America), and partly by virtue of having a lot of (mostly untapped) potential power.

And, see, one of S.T.R.O.M.A.’s problems is that it is perpetually under-staffed, in all areas but especially in terms of mutants who work for them, and moreover, mutants who will actually do fieldwork (like, Pete’s cousin Emerson is a mutant and he does work for S.T.R.O.M.A., but he’s lower on the powers scale than most of their employees who do active fieldwork, and he has no desire to do fieldwork when he could do lab-work instead). There are a lot of reasons for this problem of staffing, but one of the more noticeable end-results is that S.T.R.O.M.A. can be somewhat unethical in some of their recruitment bids. Like, yes, sometimes, you just get a visit from Some Guy Who Is Totally Not Nick Fury, who offers you a chance to be a part of something bigger than yourself and to use your abilities to help people

Other times, you get treated to a few hours of what S.T.R.O.M.A. sees and treats as the interview portion of applying for a Very Important Position somewhere, except that they don’t tell you that this is what they’re doing and they use “interview” (read: interrogation) techniques that people in law enforcement usually save for wrangling confessions out of suspects.

It will not look like it, but they are actually trying to figure out some specific things about you, including but not limited to: how you handle high-stress and high-pressure situations (like, for example, being accused of using your powers for any extralegal vigilantism, and maybe knowing things about [the biggest mutant-related news of the day] that they don’t; being threatened with a trip to one of the U.S. prisons designed to hold mutants; etc.); various details about your backstory and who you are as a person and what your biggest Deals are (i.e., getting you to help them run a damn background check on yourself); and how in control of your powers you are (since they trust the DHHS evaluations, but prefer to supplement them with firsthand evidence).

Then, once they’ve figured out what they want to know, you might very well be offered something to the tune of, “Alright, this is your first offense, and based on your dossier and this interview, we think that you could be an asset to S.T.R.O.M.A., if you wanted. If you like the sound of working for us, at least as an analyst or consultant if not a fully-fledged special agent, then we can make all of this legal trouble just go away. If you don’t like the sound of that, then……… well… *deliberately trails off to let you draw your own conclusions while still staying within the letter of the law, because hey, they didn’t actually tell you that you’d for sure end up getting prosecuted and going to prison*”

So…… yeah. S.T.R.O.M.A. and Ethics are not always on speaking terms.

Add this recruitment story to Josie’s frustrations with how metahuman employees at S.T.R.O.M.A. tend to get treated — e.g., they, themself, are often trotted out to go liaise with different media outlets as a public face of Mutants Who Work Here, Look We’re Trying Our Best So You Should All Just Totally Cooperate With Us, but they’re discouraged from voicing any of their own opinions and advised to just stick to these Bureau-approved talking points — and at having to be closeted and fairly masc-presenting at work because S.T.R.O.M.A. thinks they’re a cis man, and…… yeah, uh.

“Josie would really, really rather not work here” is an understatement af… but they continue working here anyway because: 1. as a consultant, they can still usually balance things enough to keep working as a therapist;

and 2. Josie wants so badly to help people, and for all S.T.R.O.M.A. is highly unethical (sometimes) and part of the goddamn FBI, most of the people who work there also want to help people and use their work to create positive changes in the world — and it’s not an unfair observation that, on their own, there really isn’t much that Josie can do (because the idea of the solo superhero who works alone… isn’t sustainable, like??

Aside from the political and ideological issues with that whole aspect of superhero mythology, it’s not actually feasible for one person, working on their own, to create any positive change. It would be massively unhealthy for them, there’s only so much they can do as one person, there are no actual safeguards in place if they ever get corrupted, and as multiple deconstructions of the genre have shown, it’s really easy for a classic lone vigilante model superhero to slide into a mindset like Rorschach’s — which is full of hypocrisy, double standards, misogyny and homophobia and ableism, and total moral absolutism that simultaneously allows no room for compassion and keeps Rorschach from being able to appreciate the big picture outside of his little myopic Objectivst bubble — or Frank Miller!Batman, who is often only a step or two off from actual fascism, but we probably won’t call it that because he’s wearing the Batman suit).

At this point, Josie has even had it all but confirmed that the agents who came to recruit them definitely “avoided certain truths to manipulate them” on purpose, so they’re reasonably certain that they could probably leave S.T.R.O.M.A without having their previous step out of bounds dredged up and handed to a D.A. who’d be pressured to prosecute them for it…… but they want to help people, and S.T.R.O.M.A. is one of the only options that they can currently see where they get to help anyone.

So, here they are. Working in a position that they’re not a fan of, looking at the motivational posters of gothed out kittens that one of their best friends drew for them, and trying to take, “hang in there!” kitty’s advice and tough it out at S.T.R.O.M.A. for the sake of doing some good in the world.

**: This mostly happens if Josie doesn’t have the energy enough or keep focus enough to keep their mental walls up — which they are usually very diligent about because on one hand, hearing other people’s thoughts kind of sucks actually (Josie would definitely agree with the sentiment that, a lot of the time, being a telepath is like having a youtube comments section screaming at you in your head)

—and on the other, um, hello, telepathy can, in the wrong hands, become a walking violation of civil liberties. Like, if you ask Josie, telepathy has a lot in common with wiretapping, though they consider it potentially even more dangerous than that, because it’s harder to prove that telepathy has been involved in something, since:

1. yes, the traces of telepathy can show up on a CAT scan or an MRI of the brain, but you’d need a neurologist who is well-trained, very attentive, and up to date on as much of the current research into telepathy as possible — or hey, a team of neurologists might not be a bad idea, if you can get them all, because one neurologist might miss something

—but otoh, the traces of telepathy can sometimes also be mistaken as signs of something else, especially if someone is neurodivergent and/or mentally ill, has suffered any serious and/or recent head injuries, has a history of substance abuse, is sleep-deprived at the time of the tests, may actually have something else going on in their brain in addition to the traces of telepathy

Seriously, just about anything that affects the brain can make it harder to tell whether or not someone’s been hit with telepathy

Plus: telepathic abilities are sort of mid-level common among mutants, and some mutants use them without even realizing it because their powers haven’t manifested in ways that are for sure Outside Three Standard Deviations From The Non-Mutant Human Mean, so some minor telepathic scarring is common, even in people who haven’t been hit by something as awful as, say, memory modification, or having someone go in and pick around in their brain like they’re flipping through an issue of Us Weekly

—and without a keen, well-trained eye, it can be really hard to tell those types of telepathic scarring apart

2. some of the traces of telepathy are more subjective, and while they might show up on a brain scan, the best evidence of them will come from the people who’ve been hit with the telepathic whatever

—but that’s going to be a problem because, in a lot of cases, they won’t have any memory of it, or they’ll have a false memory of it, and there’s no guarantee that further telepathic probing will be able to help here, and it could just make things worse. Plus, there’s no guarantee that the people who’ve been hit will actually be aware that what they’re experiencing is related to telepathy.

This is especially true with experienced, exceptionally powerful, and/or highly meticulous telepaths, because some of them can dick around in people’s heads and leave barely any trace that they were there

Like, for an example of what a more subjective trace might look like: Conrad is a telepath, and unlike Josie, he doesn’t really care about ethics or the rights of most other people. About ten years before the story actually starts, he took an interest in his new brother-in-law’s youngest brother (Sebastian), because he could sense something in Seb — he didn’t know what it was, exactly, but it was definitely a something — that made him go, “huh, maybe this emotionally troubled nearly twenty-year-old boy is also a mutant”

(I mean, he’s not wrong. And the something that he got a sense of back then is the part of Seb that he’s eventually going to call, “La Bête,” because if he’s going to go for the superhero thing and need a codename, then, “Gévaudan” makes sense to him because his family is insistently French [despite not having lived in France since about 1781, apart from one ancestral namesake of Seb’s who stayed in Paris for their Revolution (and Severin Sebastien Moncrieff was a confirmed bachelor, so he left behind a partner but no heirs), well before La Bête du Gévaudan was a Thing, and despite not being from the region of France where that happened] and hey, he can apparently turn into a giant wolf-man, now

—and if he’s calling himself, “Gévaudan,” then, “La Bête” is just thematically consistent. But that’s beside the point.)

Anyway: Conrad wasn’t new to his powers ten years ago, but he was much more reckless with them — especially when he believed that he was absolutely right and would stop at nothing to prove it — and he had less finesse in using them.

So, he left behind plenty of traces when he decided to use his little sister’s wedding reception as a chance to go telepathically play around with Seb, trying to either figure out if his new brother-in-law’s little brother actually was a mutant, or maybe triggering his powers into fully manifesting (plus plying him with alcohol and adding rohypnol to the mix based on the notion that either it wouldn’t affect Seb because he’s a mutant, or if not that, then it’d trigger his abilities into manifesting).

The underlying logic of the rohypnol idea was actually not wrong, because toxin filtering is one of the more common mutant abilities you find in the States (and it happens to be one that Seb has), and some mutants have had their powers manifest in response to poisoning, drugging, exposure to carbon monoxide or other toxic fumes, and even being given antibiotics or certain medications

The idea was still morally wrong and ethically skeevy, but the mutant-related logic actually did work. Where Conrad went wrong on that count was that he overly simplified the situation, only looked for two potential reactions, and didn’t know what to make of how Seb was affected by the rohypnol but not nearly as badly as he should’ve been, so he went, “Was he affected or not?? I don’t know????”

[Here is where I cut a whole big tangent explaining that whole story, but it got way, way off the point, so.]

Anyway, the gist of the story is that Conrad is the only person who consciously remembers everything that happened, since most of the people who cared about it were not present for the encounter itself, and Conrad screwed around with Seb’s memories, both telepathically and not.

Like, Seb has more memories of it than he would if he weren’t a mutant, considering that he got dosed with rohypnol, but he also has false memories about some of what happened, and Conrad repressed Seb’s memories of certain events (like how many times he tried to break away from Conrad, or turn down the offer of another drink, because he’d promised his big brother that he wouldn’t get drunk and make a scene at Max’s wedding or the reception, and it was important to him to honor that promise)

Fortunately for Conrad, Seb is not one of the mutants who has an increased resistance to psychic attacks — largely because, contrary to what Conrad thought until about two years before the story starts, someone’s ability to resist to psychic attacks has nothing to do with whether or not they’re a mutant (aside from some special cases where someone has a resistance to any psychic attacks that falls outside three standard deviations of the non-mutant human mean)

—so, despite the feelings he sometimes gets that something about those memories might be wrong, Seb totally believes that they’re real and he doesn’t notice any of the incongruities unless someone points them out, which almost no one has any reason to do because there isn’t usually a reason for Seb to talk at length about the details of this particular incident that happened almost ten years ago

(there would be, if he ever brought it up in therapy or at AA and/or NA, or dwelled on it when he did, but that has yet to actually happen)

Unfortunately for Conrad, he did a sloppy job of this, and while it would be hard for a neurologist to tell the physical signs of his telepathic probing apart from the other brain damage that Seb’s accrued, the hardest thing for most other telepaths would be trying to find the right memories. The crap-shoot nature of telepathically digging through someone else’s mind is one of the many reasons why Josie doesn’t like using their powers as a first approach in therapy, because you can never guarantee with any reliable certainty that you’ll get at the parts of someone’s mind that you want

—but if someone did get to Seb’s memories of this incident, it would be really obvious to them that they’ve been modified. Like, images might be blurred around the edges, it might glitch like a video or audio track that’s skipping, the voices might get distorted, the colors might look wonky, and so on. Prodding a bit more would also be able to undo Conrad’s memory-blocks without doing too much damage to Seb’s brain (not so much on an emotional and psychological level, but the damage there would be more like the painful truth that hurts now but leads to something better)

Anyway, it’s much harder to get proof of this nature when you’re dealing with more skillful, more attentive, more powerful, etc. telepaths, because they aren’t as messy as Conrad was with Seb

and 3. Wiretapping operations usually involve more people, which doesn’t make them ethical or necessarily justified, but it does mean that they’re easier to find evidence of because there are more folks who can spill the beans and point you to it. Telepathy only needs two people to happen, and one may not even be aware of what’s going on, depending on how sensitive they are and whether or not they’re dealing with an ethical telepath

For example: while not metahuman levels of resistant to psychic attacks, Pete is exceptionally sensitive to them and he’s naturally better at resisting them than some people, so if someone wanted to paw through his mind, he has a better chance of recognizing that he’s being telepathically invaded and getting them out

Sebastian, on the other hand, is Bad at recognizing and resisting psychic probing. Unethical telepaths have an easier time of getting through him because at his best, if he isn’t told in advance, then he feels ill at ease, inexplicably anxious (not that it means much, because he tends to attribute that to his shitty mental health), kind of nauseated, and maybe like he’s being spied on. At worst, he doesn’t even notice.

So, basically, Josie considers it a moral and ethical responsibility on their part to do everything they can to not inadvertently spy on people, because there is already so much about telepathy that can go really bad and poses a lot of ethical problems — but they are only human, and there are a lot of ways for someone’s mental walls to come down or reasons why they would.

Letting their empathic walls down usually makes it easier for Josie to focus on keeping up the telepathic walls, since the empathic ones are a lot harder for them to keep up, but it’s only a temporary thing because if Josie takes those walls down, they open themself up to a looooooot of potential overwhelm from outside influence, and there’s always the option to find a balance between the empathic walls and telepathic ones, but sometimes, it’s easier said than done.

Josie is usually too hard on themself for it when any slip-ups on their part happen, even knowing that every other telepath and every other empath has moments like this and even if they got too overwhelmed to actually remember anything and/or heard nothing.

It’s such a big deal to them because the potential for psychic abilities to violate other people — and especially the potential to manipulate people and compromise or outright remove their agency — is something that Josie never wanted. They went into counseling as a profession, after their original plan of going into fashion went up in smoke, but part of it, for them, has always been about trying to help people get their lives back, or manage them better, and so on. Granted, they knew about their telepathic and empathic abilities before they officially went into therapeutic practice, but that, for Josie, was part of how they developed their approach to being a therapist.

Furthermore, on a more personal and less professional note, Josie never wanted mutant superpowers to begin with. After having their telepathy and empathy first manifest in full, they might’ve done plenty of things that they normally wouldn’t even consider, if they thought it could take their powers away.

Partly, that was because their powers manifested toward the end of a really bad mental health downswing that ended in Josie going back to an inpatient treatment center for their eating disorder. Any of these elements on their own would’ve been bad enough, but having them all come down on them at once was Hell for Josie, and worse, trying to get well while you are in an inpatient center and can feel everyone else’s feelings, hear a lot of their thoughts, and are currently having trouble sorting out which parts are your own feelings, which parts are coming from your eating disorder, and which parts are coming from everyone else (not least because you don’t have any proof that you are feeling things or hearing thoughts that are coming from other people).

Josie eventually got help for that part because one of the therapists at the center was a metahuman and had gone to the Woodham and Lehrer School before deciding that she didn’t particularly want to be a superhero in the traditional sense. She reached out to her old teachers, and Josie got help for that while doing more intensive outpatient treatment until they got better at tuning out other people’s thoughts and feelings.

But there’s a lingering problem here that goes back to the feelings that underlie Josie’s ED. When they are at their absolute worst, Josie can be an absolute control freak, and they tend to turn it inward more than outward because they realize that taking it out on other people isn’t fair and they don’t feel good about it. Additionally, feeling other people’s feelings as intensely as they do gives Josie an additional incentive not to take their issues with control out on other people (and did even before their powers fully manifested, because they’ve always been pretty sensitive). On some level, Josie realizes that they can’t control things like how people react to them, whether or not bad things happen to good people, and so on, but that doesn’t always help because it can lead to them feeling even more of a need to crack down on controlling themself.

Having psychic powers becomes problematic for them in two big ways, here:

1. It’s unfortunately very easy for Josie to slip into overly self-punishing thought patterns if they feel like they aren’t as in control of their abilities as they, “should” be — which happens very easily because Josie’s standards for themself aren’t always realistic, and they usually aren’t the best judge of whether or not they’re being fair to themself.

It’s even more noticeable, for them, when they try to do more complex and demanding things with their powers.

This was one of the big reasons why they’ve stayed on good terms with their friends and mentors at the Lehrer and Woodham School, and among Yael and Elizabeth’s Wardens, but consistently rejected any invites to become a Warden (and then regretted that when S.T.R.O.M.A. got them instead, since Josie would much rather be one of the Wardens than working for the FBI).

Basically, Josie trusted Elizabeth’s guidance, and they really, really wanted to trust Elizabeth’s faith in them to handle their full power responsibly…… but it was hard to believe that when they already didn’t feel like they controlled their powers as much as they, “should” have been doing, and Elizabeth wanted to push them further.

For Josie, it felt like the choice came down to, “be a superhero and do more cool superhero things, at the expense of my own well-being, which means I eventually won’t be able to help anyone and could hurt more people than I help”

or, “quietly go back to training for an entirely different career than I expected, keep in touch with Elizabeth and work on honing my abilities, and maybe not get to help people in as big a way as members of the Wardens get to do, but at least, as a therapist, I will still have the ability to help people and will probably be less likely to screw that up by virtue of losing my control over my powers”

(To her credit, Elizabeth was disheartened by this, because she believes in all of her students and wants them to believe in themselves, and really wanted Josie on her team — but she’s learned that the superhero life isn’t for everybody, and that it’s not her job, as a teacher and mentor, to tell people what they should do; it’s her job to show them new approaches, teach them how to learn, help them find what paths and methods work best for them, etc.

So, disheartening as it was, she’s been nothing but supportive about Josie’s choice not to be a Warden, and compassionate about how much Josie doesn’t like working for the FBI — and without trying to turn it into some kind of, “this could be super-beneficial for us, if Josie wanted to give us any advance warning about S.T.R.O.M.A. business that might negatively affect us here” thing like Yael)

(To her credit, Yael really does believe that she’s helping when she says things like that, because she is so fundamentally a doer, rather than a thinker, feeler, planner, or anything else. She is absolutely capable of all of those things, but she has an approach to life and problems that goes, “Okay, this is a Thing and it’s a setback, but what can we do about it, how can we use this to build something even better”

—so her idea of how to help one of her and Elizabeth’s students and comrades with an unexpected and unwanted “recruitment” to S.T.R.O.M.A.… is going, “But look, see, we can still potentially make something good out of this, and just because a government agency snatched you up doesn’t mean that you have to forget your own values or let them control you, this can be a good thing if you take advantage of the right pieces and opportunities”

—for a moment of MBTI nerdery: Yael is an ENTJ (***) vs. Josie’s INFJ (***), so while she has Extroverted Thinking (Te) for a dominant cognitive function and primarily approaches the world based on how to get results, Josie’s dominant function is Introverted iNtuition (Ni), and while they have an orientation toward the future that appreciates where Yael is coming from with her drive to get results, Josie’s primary approach to the world looks less at objective things and objective results, more at patterns and theories and trying to find the, “higher purpose” or, “deeper reason” behind how stuff happens

Which, oddly enough, is part of why Josie and Yael get on so well. They can butt heads with each other, sometimes, but at the end of the day, they complement each other really well because both of them have vision and the drive to act on it, but Yael is better at actually getting shit done, and Josie is better at checking things through the processes of making them happen, finding potential problems that Yael may not have seen coming and trying to work addressing them into the fabric of her plans.

Their Feeling functions also complement each other really well: Josie is a high Feeler, with Extroverted Feeling (Fe) as their auxiliary function, which keeps them more attuned to the state of the group and all the people in it, while Yael has a very good relationship with her inferior Fi (Introverted Feeling), which enables her to better evaluate how their actions and plans are helping or hurting their causes, where their ideals fit into everything, and so on.

So, basically, Yael is better at making sure that they all remember who they are and what they stand for, both individually and as parts of the whole, while Josie is better at attending to people’s emotional needs and keeping the whole intact by caring for the individual members of it.

And because they both respect and admire each other, neither of them devalues the other’s contributions to anything — and it doesn’t matter to Yael that Josie has a badge and would have an easier time getting a gun if they weren’t really uneasy about guns; Josie’s a mutant, they’ve been one of her students, and they care about helping other mutants, so officially being part of S.T.R.O.M.A. doesn’t mean that they aren’t part of Yael’s (larger, mutant) family

—which all means a lot to Josie because, in a lot of ways, they still haven’t entirely outgrown their early experiences of being one of the weird art freaks at school (which, even for someone who wound up being part of a subculture/clique that’s all about going, “fuck you, I’m gonna do my thing and you can love it or shove it,” gave Josie some trouble because, goth of not, they’re sensitive), and they have a huge tendency to be overly harsh with themself and don’t always love themself very much, so this whole unconditional acceptance thing is a Big Deal to them

But I digress.

2. Having psychic powers also gets Problematic for Josie because, in their mind, they’ve spent so much of their life fighting their eating disorder and their overall mental health to keep control of their life, and it’s difficult, periodically degrading, often horrific, and something that they wouldn’t wish on anybody, period…… so having the power to take away someone’s ability to control their own mind? Having the power to violate someone’s agency, potentially with more or less complete impunity? That’s horrifying, and Josie doesn’t want it

One of the easiest ways to make Josie go off the handle at you is to dismiss how hard it is for them to maintain any sense of composure. Like, okay, they can handle people teasing them about some of their self-care habits because humor is how a lot of people come to be comfortable with and accept things they don’t understand at first, and how a lot of people show that they’re comfortable with you and like you.

But if you act like Josie doesn’t have to work, impossibly hard and daily, on their own well-being, because if they don’t, then they could lose control of psychic abilities and this would be Really Fucking Terrible for everyone? ……Uh.

Just don’t do that. It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, it’s mean and please, just don’t do it.

An even easier way to make Josie snap at you is to play what they call, “the Aslan card” — which means telling them that the proof that they can handle the responsibility of psychic powers, is their own fear that maybe they can’t, their awareness of and attentiveness to the ethical and moral problems attached to them having psychic powers, the fact that they’d rather not have psychic powers in the first place because it can — and often does — feel like these powers and their attendant responsibilities are too big and too potentially Terrible Forever, For Everyone

Which Josie calls, “the Aslan card” because, uh. The first time they heard it was from Elizabeth (whose heart was in the right place in saying this, but she didn’t think about how it might end up sounding to Josie), and the first thing Josie was reminded of was Aslan telling Prince Caspian that he’s ready to become the King because he doesn’t think he’s ready

It’s just…… Josie understands where this idea is coming from, and they appreciate the underlying sentiment

But, to them, it always sounds more like, “why are you upset about how hard this is for you, at least it’s happening to you and not someone who doesn’t give a fuck about ethics or how they treat other people, quit whinging and cheer the fuck up”

Which…… yes, Josie knows that this isn’t what most people mean, but it’s still pretty upsetting for them to hear because of how much it reminds them of things that they’ve told themself so many times, when they’ve been at their worst, in terms of their mental health and emotional well-being — especially the things like, “My eating disorder isn’t bad because it’s only hurting me, not anyone else, and it’s only hurting me because I’m weak”

—and yeah, okay, Josie appreciates that you’re trying to help, but they already have enough work to do on keeping themself from slipping back into the comfort of those thought patterns, so if it’s all the same, can you maybe find a different way of trying to comfort them or praise them or whatever? Please?

Thank you, they’d like that

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, JEN!

You have been accepted for the role of VASILY BARANOV. Admin Rosey: Jen, you have no idea how completely over the moon I am about this application. You captured him in a single sentence, "He is a man who is so much more than what people perceive of him." You captured that perfectly, from the future plots, to the para sample that utterly broke my heart, to the headcanons. He's a man of many talents and intricacies - and you condensed all of that in this single application. When I read your application you brought him to life with his voice, his interactions, and just about everything else. I can't wait to watch him unfold! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Jen

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: she/her

AGE: 18

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: UTC+2 | I finish my finals this thursday and then I will start my summer holiday so my activity level will be pretty high. I’d say 8/10.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: @lyradyson

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Vasily Baranov

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

I didn’t really expect to connect with Vasily upon first glance at his bio, to be honest, but once I actually read it and got to look at the snippet of his soul which was exposed in his bio, I immediately felt like I understood him. He is a man who is so much more than what people perceive of him. Outwardly, he would seem like someone who was born for nobility; the way he speaks, the way he holds himself. He would seem like someone who knows who they are and carries it proudly but if one were to pay more attention, they might notice the slightly stiff cadence of his voice; how he strings his words together as elegantly as one would pair up musical notes but somehow, there is always a flat undertone to them. You would never catch his voice rising in pitch as he spoke of something he was enthusiastic about, you would never catch him stammering with tearful eyes and a sorrowful expression, either. He rarely smiles genuinely; whenever he does smile, it’s more out of instinctual politeness or a required reaction than anything else. He doesn’t express emotion because he felt it so intensely while growing up that it got drained out of him

I feel like, as a child and afterwards as a teenager, living around nothing but his father’s toxic presence and the ghost of his mother that constantly haunted them, he must have carried immense guilt. The mentions of his mother which used to be a constant in his life, along with his father’s self-destruction as living proof of the tragedy his birth had brought onto them, it all contributed to his belief that his existence brought nothing but destruction. And of course he had no chance to expel that guilt and all the sadness he faced whenever he was around his father–and even when he wasn’t around him–and so he ended up teaching himself to compartmentalize. He bottled it all in to keep from tilting beneath the weight of his guilt and all the other emotions he had to experience everyday throughout his life with his father. The weight which had just kept getting heavier and heavier. He taught himself not only that but practically everything; he brought himself up because nothing was going to do it for him; not the love of his dead mother, and not the envy of his barely-living father. He’s independent and self-reliant but those two qualities definitely came at a heavy cost. From how much he had kept his emotions in and how much he had learned to school and anchor himself, he ended up locking his emotions and losing the key.

And yet, despite all that, he walks among people gracefully, not once displaying the torment he had endured and does endure occasionally nowadays. Life as a trader; a life which depends on charisma and wit had taught him to feign; to pretend; something which must have been unfamiliar to him because he could never really pretend around his father; the living testament to his destructive existence. But when he was finally free of that, he adapted to the new environments he was constantly finding himself in which made him qualified for eventually joining the Ravkan court. The fact that he’s not emotionally expressive doesn’t mean he’s emotionless, however. Vasily feels. And he feels intensely. Which is part of the reason why he keeps it all in.

He’s just so burdened that it makes me feel genuinely sorry for him. Burdened when he doesn’t have to be. When he allows himself to think about it, he blames himself for his mother’s death, for the way his father’s life had deteriorated even if the man always claimed that he wished he’d married someone else and denied the fact that he was grieving. He blames himself for accepting the way his father had cast him aside and how he pretty much abandoned the man because he feels partly responsible for him; he feels as if it had been up to him to help the man heal somehow, as if it was his responsibility simply for being his son. He grew up to become a bright man; the only hope left for the Baranov name–and yet, he finds nothing prideful in that; doesn’t really see it as an accomplishment. I find him to be quite the pessimist but it’s justified that he turned out this way considering how every time he dared to have hope, fate always snatched it from his grasp somehow.

There’s just so much of him to explore. The emptiness that constantly envelopes his soul has made him lose sight of who he is. He has many personas; the gentleman, the noble, the strategist, the supporter. He is whatever the situation requires him to be; that’s how adaptable he is. But in the midst of his adaptation and the layers he continues to surround himself with, he lost the essence of who he is. I want him to discover it again. I want him to want to discover it again, to finally find the motivation to conquer the void he feels within him. I want to put him in situations which will test his morals, his values, his flaws, his qualities. Those are all things I can’t really see clearly right now from how much his emptiness is overshadowing it all but I want to see it. I want to know how he truly is and I want him to know it as well. In a situation of crisis, would his primary concern be rescuing himself or would he consider other people first and rush to help as much as he can? If he had a chance to, would he cheat to win the game or would he feel like he is above cheating? Who was he, who is he, who is he going to become?

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

( players of the same game ): Rhea has got plans for Vasily and although it’s a plot that mostly depends on what I could potentially plan with Rhea’s player, I feel like it would have a big impact on Vasily. He has been playing the game fairly so far; I don’t think he’s been involved in any shady business in the court; after all, he’s still establishing his position as a Duke and you could say he’s being too careful and he might agree with you but Vasily is nothing if not calculated. He’s not impulsive. And that’s why he never responded to Rhea’s offers. But he does consider them whenever he thinks about it. So, it would be interesting to see what he would get involved in with the woman and whether he would allow her to manipulate him like she wants to. If he would be willing to risk falling into something beyond his control just for the sake of the thrill he might find in the potential danger of whatever the woman has got in mind.

( pills and potions ): Vasily hates the sense of losing control of himself and the circumstances he’s in. He’s a control freak, you could say. It’s why he never drinks too much and never indulges into the blessing of obliviousness. The drug Druvik gave him represents that blessing and Vasily would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted to use it. Vasily is always stumbling in the darkness of doubt; constantly doubting his values, constantly doubting himself. He is a man who values self-control and yet, there is no bigger temptation he faces than the small, inconspicuous bag he has in his drawer and the potential it holds. It could take away the suffocating silence which only accentuates how loud his thoughts could get. It could take away the emptiness he finds every way he turns to in his miserable life. It could, it could, it could. He knows it’s dangerous; he inherently knows Druvik wasn’t really doing him a favor when he slipped that bag into his hand…or was he? To be honest, I want to push Vasily to the point where he would either allow his emotions to overflow for once or he would succumb to the temptation the drug represents. It would be so interesting to see just what it would take to get him to that decisive point; the point of deliberately giving away control. He doesn’t know what the drug is made of, what its effects are, if it’s addictive or not; it’s not something he can pre-empt which is what is so intimidating about it to him but it’s a constant temptation if only for its constant presence and promise.

( confidant ): Aside from emptiness, there is another demon that Vasily is constantly tackling; loneliness. He’s not incapable of putting trust in others, it’s simply that he never allows anyone to get too close. One reason is because he breaks everything he touches; he fears that his presence becoming constant in someone else’s life would only bring tragedy but another reason is because he never knew what it was like to trust someone or to love someone and vice versa. He’d been put at fault for simply existing from the minute he was born and that was all he had known while in the presence of his father. All the connections he’s ever formed in his life were business connections or simple acquaintance; nothing more and nothing less. I want him to find someone he can trust, someone who sees him for who he is, someone who will acknowledge Vasily’s emotional boundaries and limitations and deliberately slip past them. I want him to explore what a connection with another person would feel like; a notion that is so alien to him. I want to explore if it would have positive or negative effects on him; if it would prompt a reaction from him where he embraces it or if it would make him push it away and dismiss it; if it would change him in the long run and help him to be more genuine or if it would only make him close himself off the rest of the world even more.

( chess board ): I don’t believe being a member of the Ravkan court is easy; it’s a chess game. And Vasily is only one of many pieces. I refuse to believe that there aren’t things brewing in the background of the court and that things are a lot more multi-facted than they seem especially with the wars that are currently brewing. I want Vasily to get waist-deep in it all. He’s been playing it safe since arriving at Ravka but I want him to drift away from that, even if he will without realizing it. I want him to get knotted in the politics and tactics of it all and to see how it would influence him and his already weak grasp on his own values and morals. What connections will he form and what would their nature be? Will he gain enemies or allies or both? Will it make him more shrewd and jaded or will it make him hold on to whatever integrity he might possess? Will he get lost in it all and let himself get corrupted or will he somehow maintain his frail grip on who he is?

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: It depends on whether I end up losing muse for him and if it would further the plot, honestly.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

“You’re leaving.”

Vasily glanced up from his plate of burned potatoes and vegetables; eyes falling on the glass his father was twirling lazily in his hand, the liquor within it swishing and making soft sounds as it clashed against the sides of the glass; it was the only audible sound aside from their breathing. His father was clearly addressing him but was it a serious statement Vasily ought to consider a legitimate response to or was it the usual vague sentence he always used as a prequel to whatever drunken story he was about to tell? The young boy chose to stay quiet, his gaze falling back to his food. He’d been cooking meals for them both for as long as he could remember and yet, he always managed to burn the potatoes for some reason even though every time, he followed the instructions carefully from the cook book. He frowned softly as he fiddled with the darkened edges of the potatoes; wondering what he had done wrong. He was always wondering what he had done wrong.

“Boy.” His father called, his guttural voice hoarse as it scraped its way through his vocal chords. Vasily was nineteen now; he was a man and yet, that was not something his father was concerned with; he was only concerned with not speaking his son’s name and as bitter as it used to make Vasily, he was more than used to it by now. He was used to it all. This current situation with his father, it had been a constantly repeated pattern through the years with only minimal changes here and there. He knew how this was going to go and yet he wanted nothing but to walk away and lock himself up in his room.

“Yes, Father?” Vasily replied, a tone of caution seeping into his voice. He refused to look up from his plate.

“You’re leaving.” He repeated, still with the same lazy tone, in his same exact position, still twirling the glass of liquid poison he sought so desperately.

Vasily frowned, not knowing how to respond without any elaboration. His father seemed serious and oddly sober, though. His stomach churned.

“How…am I leaving, exactly?” He made sure his tone remained calm but his sense of dread only rose with each second that passed while he waited for his father’s elaboration. This wasn’t the way their conversations usually went.

“Doesn’t matter how,” He slurred. “You just are. Because I want you to.”

Vasily finally looked up from his food and was surprised that the man was actually making direct eye contact with him. The grim sight of his red-rimmed eyes was unpleasant but it was nothing compared to the cruel determination within those eyes. Vasily blinked then swallowed nervously, barely holding back a flinch against the strange lucidity that suddenly encompassed his father. He was aware of every single word he was saying and he wanted Vasily to know that.

“A ship is sailing with goods at dawn. You’re boarding it. You’re leaving and you’re not coming back.”

For a moment, Vasily had no idea how to react. Part of him was enraged at the way his father was addressing him as some sort of item that he had no use for anymore. Another part was cowering before the calculated cruelty he saw through those eyes that were so similar to his and yet so different. The dominant part of him, however, was already thinking ahead; his father was nothing if not stubborn and he seemed adamant that Vasily was leaving so where would he go? And how would he get there?

Why?

A few stagnant minutes passed where all his father did was glare at him and all Vasily did was clench his fists beneath the table as his gaze fell back on his food. This was unprecedented but the cause was becoming more apparent to him; his father had been more and more aloof and short-tempered around him since news had reached him that Vasily had been incredibly successful on the few trading trips he’d gone on recently. A man had come to visit his father a few days ago but Vasily had only heard snippets of their conversation; your boy is bright. He ought to raise the Baranov name from the dead!

The only reason he had gone on those trips–the only reason why he’d been going on them for years–was to get money for his education. His father wasn’t paying anything so Vasily was earning his own money and had been for years. But it wasn’t out of selfish intent; he enrolled himself into a schooling home because he’d thought his father would appreciate his self-reliance. He’d hoped it would make him less of a burden to the older man. He was wrong in that hope, apparently.

Was his father really banishing him for something that Vasily had done solely to make him proud?

“Do you hear me?”

Vasily looked up and met the man’s gaze once more, sorrow shining through his gentle eyes momentarily before they grew cold with a blink. He gave a stiff nod then slowly pushed himself up from his chair and walked out of the room.

—

Tendrils of wind slashed against his face as he stood aboard the ship that resembled his escape. It was banishment, there was no denying that. But he would call it an escape. He watched the port as it grew more and more distant; no one was standing on it. His father had accompanied him only to make sure that he would actually board the ship and the second that Vasily had stepped foot onto the vessel, his father had left. What had dread sinking into the pit of his stomach was how steady his steps were; you wouldn’t expect his legs to be aware of what a straight line even was from how much liquor he consumed on a daily basis but he hadn’t been stumbling as he walked away. His steps were steady and sure. As if he had made a decision he knew he wouldn’t regret. Casting away his own son.

Vasily shut his eyes as a particularly cruel slash of wind assaulted his face all of a sudden; although he was shutting his eyes due to what he was feeling on the inside rather than the outside. Was that pain? Why was he feeling it now of all times? He had been enduring his father’s rejection–his father’s hatred–of him since birth and it never impacted him to this degree; to a point where he felt genuine pain. There it was; an aching, pounding echo in the hollow of his chest. He had no idea what to do with this ache; how to utilize it. He had no idea what he was going to do from now on.

He took a moment to look behind him at the crew; strangers that he was apparently going to live with from now on. Each one of them was going about their business; although that hadn’t been the case when he had first boarded, when they were exchanging whispers and eyeing him strangely as him and his father parted ways. How do they think of him now, he wondered? A noble who finally gave himself a chance to go down a commoner’s winding path? A man who simply grew bored of the finite land and sought the endless stretches of sea? Or did they seem him for what he was; an abandoned son? Or did they have no idea why he was even here?

So many questions and no answers. That had been his life for as long as he could remember. He had been seeking a change. He had been working towards it. He had had hope. But he was never meant to have anything good; he only had himself and the void he constantly carried with him.

He wondered if it would ever be enough.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS

- He loves writing. It’s the only outlet he’s ever had for his thoughts and it’s among the few things that help him to center himself at times when the silence gets just a little bit too loud. Losing himself in the words he lay out on blank papers was the only time where he felt pleasantly isolated, from his thoughts and from his surroundings. His writings are very private to him, however, and he’s always keeping them hidden in fear of someone stumbling upon them somehow. He carries a small journal around with him wherever he goes.

- He’s bisexual. The only reason he discovered that was during a period of time where he’d picked up sleeping around with strangers as the new outlet for his emotions. It had worked for a while but Vasily didn’t like the instability of it and the situation with Rhea is just one out of many examples that show his sexual encounters don’t really end well, most of the time. He was always in it for the physicality and aftermath of it; for the way his mind would go pleasantly blank after a decent climax and nothing more. And while some people were on the same page with him in that aspect, others weren’t and it led to complications. Complications and the personal discovery of his sexual orientation had been the only things he had ever gained out of that time period in his life.

- He always wished to have a sibling. Whether out of a sincere desire for companionship during the lonely, lonely time of his upbringing or out of a childish wish that there had been someone else to receive the blame for their mother’s death and endure the hatred of their father, he didn’t know. But he always liked the sense of union that he felt whenever he thought of the notion of brotherhood. The solidarity of having someone who would always be there for you, if only for nothing except the fact that blood could never be water. Blood is water to Vasily, however, but he likes to think, whenever he bothered to think about it, that he might have ended up with a different perspective if he had had a brother or a sister to stand beside him.

- He considers himself more socially inexperienced than introverted. Vasily can be quite the charmer when he played the part and social gatherings where he had to fall under the guise of politeness and professionalism were the easiest thing in the world for him. However, interactions where he had to be Vasily; where he ought to express himself instead of speaking of politics and the workings of the court; those were the tricky interactions. He’d never had what people would call ‘friends’ and never experienced a situation where he could be himself or express his thoughts openly and without restrictions. He is someone who plans his every word, who embraces the politeness and manners he has taught himself over the years, who calculates every action before he makes it. It’s not in his nature to be sporadic, spontaneous and true to himself; his upbringing never allowed him to be that person.

- He is quite the tactician; it shows in his naturally calculative nature. This trait of his dominates most things he does. As a child, upon waking up, he would stare at the ceiling and list in his mind all the things he was going to do after leaving the bed and what he was going to do throughout the day until the moment he ought to return back to bed. He still keeps this habit to this day. And that trait of his is the reason why he’s not someone who appreciates an abrupt change; doesn’t like it when something happens that disturbs a pattern he had set. It’s also why he’s someone who enjoys routine. He enjoys the stability and predictability of it. He is very adaptable so if he knew that circumstances were going to change, he behaved accordingly but when a change happens sporadically and unexpectedly, it usually makes him flounder a little bit before he is able to formulate a plan to get back on track. He always got back on track. He wonders if a time would come when he wouldn’t be able to.

- He occasionally sends letters to his father to which he never receives a response. He does it more out of a sense of obligation towards the old man rather than a genuine concern for him. Being away from his father has cleared Vasily’s vision somewhat; it transformed a portion of his guilt into resentment towards his father. The man Vasily always tried to please but only ended up receiving nothing from in return. And yet he still sends the letters and actually means some of the things he writes in them. However, they have been getting shorter and shorter and becoming less and less frequent recently.

- He speaks many languages and is educated on several cultures from how much he had traveled prior to landing in Ravka. It has its advantages when he’s representing the Ravkan court in front of a foreigner; his familiarity with several cultures makes him likable to most people he meets in business or social interactions and it makes him come off as a noble, trust-worthy man which is always a perk.

EXTRAS: None because I’m uninspired as shit.

ANYTHING ELSE? Once a nerd, always a nerd; my favorite book is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.