#i do not get to decide what is canon about quadrants based on my own analysis... you can get different results from the same analysis.....

[relaxxattack]

i COULD make a post about how the fandoms' lack of respect for moirallegiance led to the really weird popularity of kar♦kan despite kankri explaining beat for beat why that would be incest. but i'm too busy trying to be normal

[a-stitch-in-time-and-space]

some (not new) ideas I’m throwing at the wall vis-a-vis gender and star trek (esp in ds9)

Note: We’re eeeeever so slowly moving into times in which “transgender” - as useful a phrase as it is - isn’t the catch-all it’s been for the past 15 or so years, mainly with an understanding that gender is an infinite, fascinating playground that is affected by culture and time. I’m partially using transgender/trans here, and partially terms like nb, genderqueer, femme, and masc as well as “gender transgressive” which is useful to describe, well... transgressive gender.

However I wish I could jump into the future to see what terminology exists then...

I do think there’s something interesting in certain transphobic media, esp the kind that deals with crossdressing-for-laughs (vs drag, which is ofc community-based), because even though it’s usually done mockingly by cisgender heterosexual guys, it reveals how undeniably queer certain ideas are, even if that queering is done in a punch-down sort of way

surprise, this is about Profit and Lace, specifically in how it introduces the idea of transgressive gender in Quark and in Rom, accidentally building off Pel’s story in Rules of Acquisition.

surface story is yeah: Quark makes an ugly woman, with a dose of misogynistic haha women and their hormones amirite (and that opening *shudders*), but what is fascinating is how easily Quark is able to access what we’d today call gender affirming surgery in a future where you can be altered to look like all kinds of different species. 

all this handwringing about regret and “staying in your gender” (which isn’t how it woooorks for a lot of us) and not allowing consent over our own bodies and the patronizing, ahistorical, unscientific, slew of unwanted commentary from everyone and their mums, it’s just... not there. they know Quark is going to reverse the surgery the second the jig is up and Julian still just does it, because sure, got a moment to spare.

you wanna have boobs? yeah, go on. you wanna have boobs and still be considered a man? uh-huh, that’s cool - wow, Rom makes a wonderful “woman,” don’t you think? (and Leeta’s.. kind of in support of that!) 

I’ve argued a fair few times that Rom is trans/nb/femme/genderqueer by Ferengi standards (that is, gender is measured by business-sense/lobes and is its own kind of binary -- also on that note... their mother is trans/nb/genderqueer by that measurement too). It’s a really fascinating overlap between financial class and gender as a caste system (which affects both Ishka and Rom in different ways), which also exists on earth irl today, even though that intersectionality doesn’t  get discussed enough outside of queer circles.

I think Quark fits that standard as well, but he’s fighting it a lot harder than Rom is. The central tension of Quark’s series long arc is his attempts to be A Good Ferengi Male and failing over and over and when he occasionally succeeds, how he doesn’t often feel good about that. He blames a lot of this on the Federation, but by all accounts it was in him to begin with, although he used to be able to cover it up more easily.

Quark desperately wants to get it right, but a lot of the time he’s clearly masking. Sometimes he really enjoys it though, it’s not like with Rom where he has no sense for business, so much as it takes effort.

meanwhile Pel (whom I HC as masc) doesn’t have access to the kinds of surgeries that are so easy to get in the Federation, which puts her in danger - much like not having access puts us in danger today. I'm sort of torn on the headcanon that she either gets her lobes enlarged via the same surgical procedure (which, again, is so no big deal in the future) or because she’s in the gamma quadrant, she’s able to reimagine gender without having to change herself physically - which many trans/nb/genderqueer or otherwise gendered/non-gendered people also don’t want to do.

I also think it’s interesting that Quark-as-a-woman who is dressed in clothes (gasp) is fetishized, because she’s oh so transgressive -- exactly what happens to us today and one reason why so many trans people end up in sex work (of any kind - here’s me adding: get that money however you can and want to, siblings, much love and support). 

I bet there are underground sexual “deviancy” shops that sell fake lobes to imagine your female is actually the man of the house, or even lobe-enhancement that some females take to “pass” although they were actually designed for helping out your small-lobed son “perform business better”

(all of my talk of lobes: here’s the reminder that lobes in Ferengi culture are sexual characteristics)

bottom line, the tension between cisgender (heterosexual) people trying desperately to maintain a binary system of understanding gender and how they play in genderqueer sandpits is always interesting for me to watch. 

on the one hand they’ll argue there are innate social behaviours that exist in women (and they exist across species) - the way Quark has to learn to walk for example, or even - interestingly - that when Ishka starts dressing, her style is very different from men’s dress (maybe inspired by an older version of Ferengi culture where females weren’t so oppressed? - Ishka as transfemme? She could notice that she and Rom have the same likes and she buys him - gasp buys with her own money!! - a lovely dress and one of those massive lobe-earring/necklace things (lobe-lace?), so they match) - and innate social behaviours that exist in men

on the other hand they will unknowingly present a future in which the distinctions between woman and man are so immaterial that you can access any kind of physical surgery you want - in the Federation that is, and differently defined throughout different species on different planets. I always liked the idea that the further away from the “paradise” of earth you get, the more diverse the gender distinctions become but in a lot of these places they also practise rigid systems, like on Ferenginar. I can imagine some majority-human planet worshipping the old ways of the 20th century and enforcing that colonialist gender binary, urgh, can you imagine....

You wonder what things like “assigned gender and sex at birth” might mean in a future where there’s no social capital involved in assigning those kinds of things, if anything.

 And so, Profit and Lace is -- still not a good episode. I remember one of the DS9 writers talking about how unexpectedly well it’s aged and it absolutely has not. It’s misogynistic and transphobic, but I think also very important in the canon of Star Trek’s accidental gender-exploration (Star Trek’s accidental gender-exploration sounds like the title of an article....)

sometimes you find the best gold nuggets in the trash.

and on that note: time to spin the wheel and headcanon that O’Brien was (using today’s terminology) assigned female at birth and decided he liked the sound of being a boy when he was thirteen (his parents like: “for your birthday we got you gender reassignment! and you can always change your mind.”)

also I wrote it above, but Rom and Ishka wearing matching outfits and it being equally shocking is *chefs kiss* (esp with Rom as Nagus)

[smolfailure]

FUCK IT, DREAM SMP HOMESTUCK AU

but it's only half shitposts and there are actual Thoughts in there.

You don't need to have read the comic to understand because I tried not to spoil anything major, but it'd help if you knew basic stuff about classpects, SBURB and the hemospectrum.

disclaimer: i'm not a good pixel artist and this is my first actual sprites ever so please be kind to my weird pixels

The Kids:

Tommy

Fundy

Techno

Tubbo

tommy, tubbo and fundy one of the kids because they're the kids in dream smp canon (with fundy being son of wilbur)

techno's there because i want to make a dave strider reference (haha get it because techno's name is also da-- *gets shot) and also because they are both coolguys except instead of using irony, techno has adhd

The Trolls:

Wilbur Soohte (fuschia)

?????? Ehrret (violet)

J????? Shlatt (purple)

Nihacu Niikki (indigo)

Skeppy Diamon (cerulean)

Quacki Tthiey (teal)

Philza Myncra (jade)

Dreame Wastkn (lime disguising as olive)

George Notfou (gold)

Sapphe Nahfpe (bronze)

Badboy Haelow (burgundy)

don't come at me saying only females are allowed to be jades and fuschias; gender is fake and this is an au

more of the AU and the talksprites are under the cut:

Tommy

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Red

chaotic. the first person to be introduced.

when he gets introduced instead of the “Zoosmell Pooplord” bit, Tommy is initially going to be the name inputted but then backspaced it and decided that Tommyinnit was better and he was fuming until he’s named Tommy.

Gives me big Blood/Hope vibes. Blood because a lot of the conflict of the dream smp connected to someone breaking his trust or harming the things he cares about, Hope because a lot of the plot of the dream smp stems from Tommy starting shit based on his ideals and what he thinks is right.

the first to instigate fighting against the trolls

bbh contacts him once and tommy keeps cursing until he disconnects from frustration rip

wields Gunkind and his only strife weapon at the beginning is the Vlog gun. He has Gunkind as his strife specibus mainly because he looked up at schlatt and he imitates him.

Fundy

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Orange

it was his idea to play SBURB but only through Dream.

he talks to dream the most among the other trolls fwt stans getcha juice this is the rosemary of the session

dream’s the one giving him exposition about the game so that’s how he knows how to play SBURB.

wilbur trolls fundy once and instantly adopts him.

“You’re my son.” “How does that even work??” “I was one of the people who created your universe. It’s basically the same thing.”

Fundy relents anyway.

Techno

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Pink

dave strider but dead-inside voice + rose lalonde english major vibes

he slices the text box when you try to name him "Dave " like in

techno gives me time player vibes (contantly on the move. his skyblock series, his “stays in the pit” monologue,) but also rage vibes (anarchy,  the “theseus” monologue, political alignment is Chaos) alas i am not sure what class

uses Tridentkind and claims "it came from god"

 it was dream, he accidentally transportalized one of wilbur’s weapon while he testing the transportalizer.

Tubbo

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Green

the jade harley of this session. the only thing keeping them from going apeshit. where would they be without him.

but also jade harley in a sense that he seems nice and wholesome but also don’t fuck with them they can mess you up

Heart/Life vibes??? someone good at classpecting help

i put them in prospit bc of the "tubbo third eye" instead of tubbo having a sixth sense or smth, they see the future from the clouds of skaia when they sleep

wields Stress-relieverKind at some point

bonus: everyone’s actual hair colors

Ideas about the Trolls

no i haven’t done their sprites yet bc it would take so much time and i’m not even sure if people wanna see more of this au skjdkdsakdfkl,, but i have Design Ideas.

events of the dsmp revolution are just a FLARP session drawing parallels to how the homestuck trolls had a FLARP session that spoiler alert: destroyed friendships. dtrio, eret, will are involved. eret betrays will's faction and wilbur's still Bitter over that.

on the context of alternia (highbloods and lowbloods) lmanburg and dreamsmp have their roles SWAPPED.  the emancipation theme thing is completely gone since highbloods are in more power than the lowbloods (the dream team) . 

wilbur made a faction called l’manburg because he wants a place where he and his fellow highbloods could make drugs vibe.they take a piece of land that was owned by the dream team. in normal circumstances, they shouldve stood down because lowbloods aren't supposed to start shit with highbloods (especially a group of highbloods that has the alternian heir among them)  but dream turned it into an activism thing about lowblood rights. the story plays as close as possible without tommy or tubbo in it (which is pretty hard ik but this is the best can do).

like in the dreamsmp revolution, dream kinda let wilbur do what he wants but this time he has more reason to because he’s in a lower caste. dream really only fought back when wilbur announced that he’d be building lmanburg on their land and calling it theirs.

eret betrays wilbur by supporting the lowbloods and wilbur and co. technically won but only because he finally called the drones in, as a reference to how lmanburg absolutely got crushed by the dream team in the smp but technically won. l’manburg keeps the piece of land and the dream team scatter away to find a new home.

wilbur soot's a fuschia because a) he's in a position that has a lot of power, b) yknow how he wrote a song about squids and his thing with sally… yeah.

eret's a violet because nobility!! dream looks down on him because he's ambivalent on fighting for lowblood rights when he's in a power to do so "you just sit there, and you look pretty that's it"

also like eridan he has a minor aesthetic mutation (herobrine eyes) that won't classify him as a mutant.

jschlatt is purple because it makes sense thematically because of the gamzee parallels (a. substance abuse b. if you know what happens in act 6, you know this already but spoiler alert, he ruins the main protagonists' lives) also he's a funnyman he deserves the clown caste

 quackity's a teal because he’s a law student. moving on--

 ok but for real it also makes sense thematically because he's the one who wrote the thing that tricked schlatt into agreeing also he gets manipulated by schlatt which also draws parallels to certain events in the comic

skeppy and bbh are BEST FRIENDS despite being highblood and lowblood respectively. initially, skeppy just wanted to bother bbh but they grew to be good friends in time. y’know like how they actually becane friends :D

philza minecraft is a jade because dad friend. also works thematically, because spoiler alert he gets to murder a seadweller for going batshit crazy. 

he also god tiers early. he dies fighting his quick undead denizen (haha baby zombie) but the consorts of his land carry him to his quest bed because he’s treated them all so well.

dream was initially going to be another caste but then i realized that means i have to make his hoodie something other than green which is unacceptable so its a good thing the fact that he's a lime works out

dream was the one who thought of playing sgrub in the first place- initially only planned to have gogy, sap, and bbh in the session but then realized that they four won't be enough so he invited more into his session

he’s also the first to go godtier ez clap blind speedrun not sure what classpect tho

the only reason why dream avoided being culled at birth for being a limeblood is because his rng is That Good. he quickly picked up the fact that he’s not supposed to exist and masqueraded as an oliveblood and kept mostly to himself to avoid suspicion.

george is still colorblind but he has lazer eyes along with it instead. dream lives with him in the same hive since being a mutant means dream doesn’t get a lusus of his own (dnf fans getcha juice “and they were roommates”) 

despite living in the same hive, he never really figures out that dream is a limeblood. possibly because a) he’s colorblind and when he sees dream bleeding he just sees yellow b) he’s just that fucking oblivious and it’s so valid of him.

sapnap’s a bronzeblood mainly because i know he’s the instigator of the pet war with tommy also because i associate him with the color orang in my mind so bronze it is

that’s the end of this long-ass post!! if you have other ideas PLEASE i want to hear them. i don’t know the other streamers i mentioned in here very well so if you have ideas that would be fitting to them like with classpect or lunar sway that would be GREAT. 

the only thing i’m confident about in here are the kids’ lunar sways. i’m not an expert in classpects and homestuck lore so there’s that too!! i just wanted to make this post because adhd means that the idea wouldn’t shut up until i finished it. This initially started as a single shitpost edit of tommyinnit talksprite but then the hiveswap 2 trailer came out and that means i have to combine my two hyperfixations.

also i have ideas about potential quadrants but idk how much of that is breaking some streamers’ boundaries about shipping (even the non romantic quads such as kismesistude, morallegiance and auspisticism) so i decided not to include it.

edit: apparently people want more so i made a discord server as a place to brainstorm!! please pm me to join!

[abigailnussbaum]

How to do Garak/Bashir in Canon DS9

Yesterday there was a fun tweet asking people how they would remake DS9 if they were given the option today.

Which led to some fun discussions (you can see my answers here). Obviously one thing that pretty much everyone said was “canon Garak/Bashir”. That’s generally considered one of the show’s big missed opportunities, with both Andrew J. Robinson and some of the show’s producers expressing regret over never having gone there. But it did get me thinking: how would you tell this sort of story? Because look, it’s one thing to write Garak/Bashir in fanfic, filling in gaps in the canon or changing the entire tone of the story to suit your ‘ship. But if you’re retelling DS9 along basically the same lines - the end of the Cardassian occupation, the discovery of the wormhole, the Jem’hadar, the Dominion, the war with Cardassia - and with the personalities of the characters and the tone of the show largely unchanged, how do you fit Garak/Bashir into that story?

There are some obvious issues with trying to work this ship into the show’s story and overall tone. For one thing, Bashir is a Starfleet officer. We like to make fun of his early, annoying incarnation, but even in that form he is clearly a decent, principled man with strong values. It’s one thing to flirt (literally or figuratively) with a mysterious, sexy spy, but getting into a relationship with him would not only be stupid, it would run counter to Bashir’s image of himself. You could go in a dark direction with this - Garak seduces Bashir purely as a way of gaining power over him (and perhaps out of force of habit); maybe they end up in a kind of Hannibal/Will relationship. But that doesn’t seem sustainable in the long-term, or congruent with the type of show DS9 was. Bashir can’t trust Garak, and Garak has done things that Bashir would consider disgusting. That’s something you have to take into consideration if you want to write them as a long-term couple.

It’s also worth considering that, as much as the Garak/Bashir pairing lingers over the fannish perception of the show, it’s not actually that prominent in the series itself. The last episode that I would call a Garak/Bashir story, “Our Man Bashir”, is an early S4 episode, well before the Dominion War happens. And Garak is absent for a lot of the later developments in Bashir’s life - “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” (you’d think Garak, with his complicated relationship with his father, would have something to say about Julian having been illegally genetically enhanced by his parents) or “Statistical Probabilities” (a troupe of savants who claim to be able to predict the course of the war would surely be of interest to Garak). In most of these stories, Bashir is accompanied by O’Brien, a much safer option as far as suppressed sexual tension is concerned (it should go without saying that this feels like a deliberate choice on the show’s part, to undermine any idea of a Garak/Bashir relationship). Meanwhile, Bashir is absent from most of Garak’s important Dominion War stories - his relationship with Ziyal and her death, his position in Damar’s rebellion, “In the Pale Moonlight”. So if you’re going to retell DS9 with Garak/Bashir as a real ship, you'd have to rewrite a lot of these stories to take that into account.

Finally, you’ve got the show’s ending, which is an extremely dark one for Garak, who gets everything he thought he wanted - his position restored, a place of honor in Cardassian society - just at the point where Cardassia is decimated and, in his words, left dead. Working a romance with Bashir into this ending would be tricky, and risks ending up with the final scenes of Man of Steel - two people making out atop a mass grave.

(Obviously, I’m taking it as a given that this hypothetical version of DS9 is much, much better at writing mature, complicated romantic relationships than the real one. Most actual DS9 romance was painfully juvenile, and the one exception, Sisko/Kasidy, was also an extremely low-drama ship - Sisko literally sent Kasidy to jail and the next time they met they were like “so, that was a bit of a bump in the road; dinner later?” It should go without saying that Garak/Bashir would not be a low-drama ship, so the writing would need to be there to support it.)

Anyway, complicated but obviously not impossible. This is what I’ve come up with for how I would rewrite the show with Garak/Bashir as an ongoing couple. I’m sure there’s plenty of fanfic with other, better ideas.

To start with, lose the claustrophobia business. Or, you know, keep it, but the reason Garak was expelled from the Obsidian Order and banished from Cardassia is that he’s gay. (To be fair, I feel like “claustrophobia” was pretty clearly code even in the original show.) A lot of people in the upper echelons of the Cardassian hierarchy know this - Dukat certainly knows - and miss no opportunity to harass him about it.

Obviously, in this version of the show Cardassia is deeply queerphobic. I don’t think this is a huge leap. Cardassian society is deeply conformist, and family-oriented in a fascist-adjacent sort of way that prioritizes the father as the master of the home. It’s hard to imagine a society like that tolerating deviations from gender norms, and it seems fair to assume that reprecussions for such deviations would be severe.

Garak doesn’t actually have a problem with this - or at least, not that he expresses. Garak’s defining trait is that he believes in, and loves, Cardassia deeply, and espouses its chauvinistic (in both senses of the word) values to anyone who will listen. But at the same time, he’s smart enough (and enough of an outsider) to know how hollow and destructive those values really are. So Garak will explain to anyone who challenges him on it that Cardassian homophobia is right and proper, while knowing that he has fallen victim to it himself.

Bashir is out. Though “out” might not be the right word because the Federation is so nonchalant about queerness that the notion of being closeted doesn’t really exist anymore (this is a version of Star Trek where we actually follow through on the promise of a more progressive future). But at any rate, to Bashir and the other Starfleet characters, him being gay is so unremarkable that it doesn’t even come up until his and Garak’s frienship is already established. This deeply shocks Garak - he knew humans were perverted, but the good Doctor, his friend? Bashir, meanwhile, wastes no opportunity to needle Garak about his society’s barbaric homophobia (Garak: “humans may be prone to such... urges, but Cardassians are made of finer stuff”; Bashir: *rolls eyes so hard he can see the back of his head*). But at the same time, and without being entirely willing to admit it to himself, Garak is intrigued.

And so we continue for about five seasons. Garak flirts with Bashir, partly because he thinks this is a way of unsettling the good Doctor, but really because he wants him. Bashir assumes that it’s all an act, and plays along with it a little because, hey, sexy spy. But he never imagines that it could go somewhere real, and probably wouldn’t follow through if it did.

And then Bashir gets replaced with a Changeling (this is a version of DS9 where that idea was seeded throughout the first half of the fifth season instead of being decided on five minutes before “In Purgatory’s Shadow” started shooting). And the changeling takes one look at Garak, sees an obvious in, and seduces him. Which clearly causes some awkwardness when Garak finds the real Bashir in a Dominion prison camp.

Bashir finds out. Worf tells him (this is a version of Worf who isn’t weirdly sexist and judgmental about other people’s sex lives). (Bashir: “why is Garak being so weird around me?”; Worf: “he and the fake you were doing it”; Bashir: “what”; Worf: “they were boning”; Bashir: “WHAT”; Worf: “they were engaging in sexual intercourse”; Bashir: “that's not possible. Garak only flirts with me to keep me on my toes”; Worf: *shrugs* “if that’s what you want to call it”.)

So now Bashir is upset because he’s spent the last five years bugging Garak about Cardassian homophobia and it turns out that Garak was a victim of it, plus he’s now been victimized by someone wearing Bashir’s face. And Garak is upset because he let his attraction to Bashir (Garak: “my base lust!”) blind him to the fact that his friend had been replaced by a changeling, leading to him being comromised as an agent (I will leave it as an exercise to the readers which one bothers him more). And, well, if you can’t get from there to romance on your own, you may not have read enough fanfic in your life.

Then you get the war, and honestly, I don’t know. You could do an on/off thing. You could make it a very casual relationship in between the two of them trying not to die and/or lose the Alpha Quadrant to the Dominion. You could have Bashir say “fuck it, I might die tomorrow and this guy makes me happy; who cares if my boyfriend is a liar and a murderer”. You could even go the Worf/Jadzia route and have them muse romantically about having a life together after the war. But either way, they spend more time around each other than they did in the original series.

But! When Garak goes back to Cardassia to help Damar’s rebellion, there’s a lot of tension between them, because Damar heard from Dukat that Garak is a pervert (you could still keep Ziyal’s death and Garak’s anger at Damar over it; those two always made more sense as friends anyway). And then it turns out that there’s an entire Cardassian queer underground, and in typical Cardassian fashion they’ve turned it into a whole spy network with operatives at every level of government. (Garak: “why did you never approach me?”; queer Cardassian underground: “dude, have you met you?”) And they’re willing to work with Damar if he promises that in the new Cardassia, they will no longer be persecuted (I think this dovetails pretty nicely with Garak’s observation that Damar needs to be disillusioned about the flaws of Cardassian society). So all of a sudden Garak is looking at a future where what he is doesn’t make him a pariah anymore.

And then you get to the destruction of Cardassia, and, again, I’m not sure how that combines with Garak/Bashir. The entire ending of DS9 is pretty rough on romantic pairings in general, but at least when Kira/Odo and Sisko/Kasidy break up, it’s bittersweet, and in service of other new beginnings. Garak’s ending is just bleak, and I’m not sure how you deal with a romance on top of that. The best I can come up with is Bashir saying “yes, this is horrible, but you can rebuild, and if you need my help with that, I’m not far”, leaving a door open for them to reconnect in the future.

Thoughts?

[ardenttheories]

I found this post in my drafts, and I decided to finish it up. It’s fairly old, based on some old posts I saw, but I still think it’s important - on the off chance that this is still something that’s going around, and because I’m still a little bitter about it. 

There is something inherently wrong about the idea that Hope is an Aspect of sexuality (as in “being sexual”, not of figuring out who you’re sexually attracted to) and sensuality. About the concept that all Hope Players are heavily inbued with this concept of sex, sex appeal, and sexual awakening, because some of the interactions we’ve seen with Hope Players were centred around these things. 

If we were to focus on that as a defining factor of Hope, then we'd have to say Time is heavily influenced by Relationships (Dave is the first character in Homestuck to say he loves anyone; Aradia is the only Beta troll in a redrom relationship prior to the game; Damara has been in several ongoing relationships during her introduction, and is actively persuing someone as her main character motivation).

This has no baring on their Classpect. These events, while interesting, are not any part of their abilities as Time players - especially not in the same way that Heart is intrinsically connected with relationships.

Another issue is that Hope's connections to sexuality... are hardly positive. Cronus frequently attempts to insert himself forcefully into people's quadrants. Eridan is hardly connected to sexuality at all; his main focus is the romance of redrom, not the bucket filling. Jake faces frequent unwanted sexual attention/advances, and has a very ambiguous sexual (and romantic) stance - which is only worsened in the Epilogues and Homestuck^2, now knowing that he is likely a victim of sexual abuse/assault.

To say that a crude or sexually open nature means a character must be a Hope player is also flawed; Porrim, a Space player, is one of the most open of all characters, followed quickly by Damara. Even Caliborn has a note of sexuality - in his weird kink art he requests from Dirk - but that does not make him a Hope player, either.

All of these situations can be easily explained away, also. For instance, Caliborn’s oddly sexual components are to show his immaturity; that he’s putting someone else in an uncomfortable position because he thinks it’s his right, that he’s pointing out these sexual things about other people (usually woman, and most often Jane) to try and knock them down. Damara and Porrim are just slightly older women who have had time to figure out who they are, and have made the decision that their presentations are what make them comfortable. They can be sensual and sexual because... that’s just what they decided they liked. It doesn’t go much deeper than that. 

There is no reason to include sexuality as a specifically Hope thing - especially since it completey deprives other Aspected players of this trait. So, we just assume that Hope players are nymphomaniacs or Sex Icons? And that all other players are boring, straight, and uninterested?

It doesn't have an accurate dichotomy. We can’t completely erase the potential for other Players to be associated with these things. 

To suggest that sexuality or sensuality has a baring on the Hope aspect also makes it a very uncomfortable one to be classpected as. Imagine knowing that your aspect is the Sex Aspect. That forces an unwanted mentality on everything you do, particularly when combined with the knowledge that most of the Hope Players we see are victims of or enact unwanted sexual advances. It just isn't healthy.

I could compare this to Heart as the Romance Aspect, but at least some of that is about other people. It’s about understanding who you are, who they are, and figuring out who best complements them. If you, specifically, aren’t invested in Relationships, at least Heart isn’t seen as “the Aspect where people fling themselves into relationships and mack on people a lot”. If anything, it’s... the complete opposite. We know a lot of Heart Players suck at their own Romance, and that they just tend to have a very good grasp on what people want.

It’s also not quite comparable, since it’s not the concept of Heart being the only Aspect that has Romance at its core - that to be in a Relationship, to be a Romantically available person, is a wholly Heart thing. Nobody could look at Heart and say “these are the only Players we could ever associate with Romance, Romantic attraction, and Romantic promiscuity”. As Classpectors, we actively shy away from this definition, because it just isn’t viable. It would mean every other Aspect is inacapble of Love, would completely deny that possibility to anyone else. 

It would mean we’d have to Classpect anyone with any inkling towards Romance and Romantic Endeavours as Heart - and wouldn’t that just completely ruin our understanding of Karkat, a Blood Player, who is so fervently in the know of Quadrants? Or of Jade, a Space Player, who has opened up about who she is and what she likes, and is persuing multiple quick relationships in the Epilogues, and who questionably has the most trolls interested in her throughout Homestuck?  

I think, furthermore, that it ignores a very important fact of Homestuck. Literally every Player, as we first see them, is a minor. They start at 13, and we see them on their journey to adulthood, with the session ending when they are 18. 

Of course the Players are going to have some focus on sex? It’s the same reason why there’s such a focus on relationships. They’re kids figuring out who they are and what they like. They’re going through puberty. Nobody turns 18 and then suddenly decides what they like and what they don’t like. It’s an ongoing process, a growth, that everyone goes through. It’s something that not a lot of us even have defined by the time we are 18. 

The way people look at Jake’s body - the focus on his butt, for instance - isn’t an indication that Jake, as a Hope Player, is inherently associated with sexuality and sensuality. It’s just evidence that a bunch of 16 year olds pumped full of hormones saw the best goddamn but they’ve ever seen. It’s an ongoing joke of “people who seem dumb but are actually hot as hell”. 

I think, too, there’s this issue with... what are you supposed to learn from it? Why is being sexual or sensual important to a person’s growth - in the same way that having Freedom or having Bonds, or having Desires and Restrictions is? How are you going to be an inherently better person through sexuality and sensuality? How are these things going to make you the best you? And why is this associated with Hope - how do these things intertwine with your Belief, your go-getter personality, your Positivity?

To associate sexuality and sensuality solely with Hope does not work. Even with evidence in the comic, and in the Homestuck extended universe, it brings up too many complications with other Players, with canonical events, and ignores too much about the general race to adulthood that Homestuck’s actually about. There’s too negative a mentality about it, and when we place that on real people, people who are trying to figure out their Aspects, it can get so unhealthy so quickly.

As I said before, I don’t know if this is something we still see in the Classpect community - it’s been a while since I’ve seen posts about this, thank god - but just in case, it’s probably good to say. 

[fyrapartnersearch]

Get ready to form voltron!

Obligatory warning for a long post ahead: Whilst I know this post may be intimidating to some people. please do not let it put you off from reaching out to me :) “I say vol and you say tron! Vol…..” “Eh.... voltron?” “We’ll work on it.” Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well and that you’ve been able to stay safe and healthy during the pandemic (and that the easing of some restrictions depending on where you are has not negatively affected you). After binge watching legendary defender on netflix I’ve had the undying and uncontrollable urge to do a voltron rp. Now I bet you’re all wondering what I want and if you’re going to get to do some shipping.......we’ll I guess you’re just going to have to read on and find out. I’m looking for literate rper’s only. That means people who write in third person past tense, can give me at the very least one well thought out and fleshed paragraph (as well as be willing to write more when the situation calls for it) and has a decent grasp on their spelling, grammar and punctuation. I will not yell at you for the occasional bout of typonese but one liners, one worders, poorly written responses and lazy writing in general will not keep me around. If I can’t read what you’ve written and you’re not willing to put some effort in or correct it then there’s no point in me sticking around. I also require rper’s who’ve actually watched voltron whether it be legendary defender, defender of the universe or voltron force. If you’re someone whose a stickler for canon accuracy then I’m probably not the rper for you. When I rp in a fandom setting I treat it a bit like a base as in there’s rules to follow but I don’t have to follow them as if I’m reading the show script. To put it simply I value creativity and ideas that allow a different take on the characters and what could’ve happened. I only rp male alien or alien hybrid characters and they’re premade but flexible in how they’re written. I do not have pictures nor do I desire to spend endless hours of time to find a face claim of a creature that isn’t the typical different coloured humanoids you see in voltron. I have descriptions and that’s it. I do not care if your character is made up on the spot or if you prefer to rp as a canon character. Shippers......I’m sorry but I will not rp a canon character as anything other than a side. I do not rp them as mains so if you were looking for some sheith or klance I’m sorry to disappoint you. That being said you are free to play as any canon character you desire or an oc as I’m open to oc x oc pairings or oc x canon pairings (you being the canon character) and I do either MxM or FxM pairings. Romance and non fade to black smut will both occur in the rp but it must be slow burn. I do not do fast paced love at first sight as it’s just not something that holds my interest. No sub dom dynamics, switch dynamics only and please no characters whose entire personality is just one emotion or one trait they have. Guys.....please don’t call my aliens furries or whatever. I don’t rp generic spray painted humans and we’re rping in a world full of wacky and crazy aliens that have fur,scales,tails,multiple arms, etc so I find it Incredibly annoying to have a label forced on my character like it’s a bad thing. Alien means something not from earth, if a human was to be born on altea or daibazzal, it’d be considered an alien despite probably being a hundred percent human. If your view and comfort zone is restricted to aliens that look like an altean and nothing else then you needn’t not message me. I’m not going to make you rp with me if this is a dealbreaker so if you don’t heed this warning then you do not be rude after pulling a shocked pikachu. Be mature about it if you realise it’s a deal breaker rather than just blocking or suddenly deciding you no longer want to talk to me and that you’ll just ignore me till I unfriend you. DO NOT COME TO ME SAYING OR ASKING YOU WANNA DO A SHEITH RP/ DO YOU RP AS THESE CANON CHARACTERS! I cannot stress this enough. I don’t know how I can make it any clearer that I do not do canon character mains nor do I do rp’s solely for the purpose of shipping said rp characters. As I’ve said before, if you wanna play a canon character go ahead but I will not rp a canon character as anything other than a side. My oc’s are my mains. You and your characters must be 18+. I’m in my twenties and will not rp with a minor, especially since I have mature and adult themes in my rp’s that I do not want to get into trouble for Rping them with someone whose underaged. Underaged characters are just........a big no for the sole fact that my characters are adults and that i do not feel uncomfortable playing against underaged characters. You must be able to give me one or more responses a day. If it’s been two weeks since the last response and you’ve mysteriously disappeared then I’m not going to stick around for the day you decide to answer me. I do not like having my time wasted for any reason. My time zone is the eastern Australian time zone but I’m available and awake at odd hours so time zones aren’t too big of an issue for me. Remember that I’m looking for a long term partner, someone to carry an rp with for more than just a few days or a week and someone to write multiple stories with. I have tonnes of ideas and head cannons for the rp but I’m open to brainstorming and ideas. We can mix and match ideas till we get something we both like. I want this to be a shared job, don’t expect me to be the one to carry everything just cause I’m the one supplying the idea. Down below I’ve decided to list a couple of ideas that I have: New school defenders: the paladins of voltron have been defending the universe for years. Many stories of their countless victories, battles and struggles are something that every parent who was alive during the war told their children. Once the main three were taken out (haggar, lotor and zarkon) the paladins settled down to teaching the garrisons new generation of cadets. The new change in curriculum was welcome for many as well as a new change in ship style. To make sure that peace could be maintained in every quadrant of every galaxy the paladins of voltron has trained the cadets to fly animal styled space ships like the lions. The animal ship a pilot was assigned depended on their personality, strengths, weaknesses, how well they worked in a team and their style of fighting and piloting skills. The importance of team bonding was something the paladins basically preached. When news of the return of an old foe forces the paladins to return to their jobs as voltrons warriors and they suddenly disappear many write them off as dead or perhaps in distress. None of the superiors are interested to find out..... so who will? Lotor’s reign: It was unbelievable. It couldn’t be true. It had to not be true. Voltron taken down by lotor, son of the mighty emperor zarkon himself, and the paladins were now working for him without question as his top generals?! When the news had first hit many people had panicked whilst countless others had been slain for daring to believe and protest that it was all just some lie made up by the half galran prince who was now an emperor like his father before him. Princess Allura herself was locked away in an unknown location after refusing the cruel man’s hand in marriage so she is no help for what is now a lost hope. Lotor’s reign had well and truly begun all those years ago and it was holding steady. People had forgotten long ago that even in complete and utter darkness….one can always find a speck of light that burns bright no anger how small. Mirror mirror: For many years people believed the galra were a race of cruel, vicious, animalistic thinking beings whose only goal was to destroy and conquer words. No one would’ve ever believed that it was the peacekeeping alteans that had been working to plot the galaxy’s downfall. Voltron, belonged to the galrans, they’d been the ones who’d built it after all despite letting alfor pilot voltron’s right arm. When the king had been turned down on his idea to share the mighty robotic war machine he simply built his own. Five dragons that formed dracotron were what the alteans used as their voltron and weapon to conquer the galaxies. Emperor zarkon, under the advice of Haggar the witch, was one of the few world leaders who managed to get his people to safety. Ever since watching the great kingdoms that he’d known for almost ten thousand years fall under the alteans greed and obsession for power over peace, he prayed for miracle in whatever form he could get it in. When two young stragglers end up stranded on the galra’s second home world, the cards of fate are laid according to haggar, much to everyone else’s confusion. What could two lost souls possibly do to bring back what was lost to the alteans? Gamora’s guns: The guns of Gamora was a rebel group with the goal of foiling any plans of the altean empress allura. Led by the brave commander Sven and his somewhat neurotic sidekick Slav, the gun’s were spread far across the galaxy in little pockets of altean dominated space to keep tabs on the empires schemes and try their best to counteract them. The new recruits were aliens and humans from far and wide working together hand in hand to try and prevent a reign of terror from truly taking over. When plans for creating a super weapon fall on the ears of a trusted source, the newest batch of recruits are sent to locate, find and bring back the blueprints. Of course, such things are easier said than done. The chosen: Keith.lance.hunk.shiro (or Sven, depends on whether you want this to follow a legendary defender type story arc or one of the older series). Allura. Pidge. These were names that belonged to the universe's greatest heroes. Legends beyond all compare. They were champions of the universe and paladins of the mightiest robotic warrior to have ever been built: voltron. The great robot and the lions that formed it were well over ten thousand years old…..sadly for the paladins, they knew that they wouldn’t live to or beyond the great age their lions and oldest enemies had. The galaxy garrison had worked extra hard on ensuring that the next generation of pilots would be suitable candidates for the possibility of becoming voltron’s future paladins. Each paladin chose a student whom they felt like would be the most suitable to take their place and trained them with the knowledge that they were not the ones who had the final decision as to who flew who…..or even if they’d fly at all. What happens when one student fails and is rejected by not one but all the lions? What becomes of them and what is their place on team voltron? What happens to the rest of the team? Only time will tell, according to coran, such a thing has never happened before…...but what happens if it does? From all walks of life to the universe's greatest heroes: Shouldn’t have to explain this one too much. Forget the show paladins, bring your oc’s or next gens onto the table and let them take the stage! Before we reach the end of the post, here are some important reminders: 1: NO REACHING OUT TO ME ASKING FOR A CANON CHARACTER SHIPPING RP! I DO NOT DOUBLE SO DO NOT ASK! 2: DONT MESSAGE ME IF YOU’RE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH NOT VERY HUMANOID ALIENS! 3: NO GARY STU’S OR MARY SUES! GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS A PERSONALITY THAT ISN’T JUST ONE EMOTION OR TRAIT ONLY! For those who’ve read this thoroughly thank you and congratulations! If you’re at all interested please send me a request via one of the contacts below that says who you wanna be, which lion or paladin you think you’d most likely to be if you were in voltron, which idea you liked (or one of your own) and the numbers 123 to confirm you’ve read everything. My discord: tiberionsunsconqourer#6187 My telegram: Tiberionwars My hangouts: lleo52560@gmail.com Hope to write some awesome stories! Will accept requests as long as this ad is up.

[annakie]

Am I once again posting about the Voyager Relaunch Novels?  Yes.  Yes I am.

I am re-reading the Post-Endgame Voyager Relaunch novels and marathoned reading The Eternal Tide over the last two nights and all I have to say is Janeway and Chakotay love each other so much, I was literally sobbing through about six sections of the second half of that book.  

The Kirsten Beyer books are SO GOOD.  And as I’m re-reading them I love how she handles every single one of the Voyager characters but especially Chakotay.  I feel like she understands Chakotay and gives him everything the writers of Voyager never quite grasped about his character in seven seasons.  Full Circle is such a powerful story of his love and his grief, and the rest of the crew’s love for him (especially Tom, B’lanna, Harry and Sev-- wow his friendship with Seven is so awesome throughout the Beyer books, everything it should have been in the show and not what we got in Endgame.  The support they have for each other without forcing a cringey relationship back onto them adds so much to BOTH of their characters.  Hey this paragraph went way off the rails but I don’t care.)

Anyway I really love the plots of each of these books, I love how they handle EVERY character (well, I miss Tuvok -- at some point I’m gonna get to the Titan novels) and the new characters are pretty great (oh man Cambridge is a fave, and so much better than the new consular that was introduced in the Spirit Walk books.  Loved Eden, love Farkas.)

I made a post a few days ago about how Chakotay is the whole “upstanding, solid, good guy” archetype that some people dare to call “boring” I’ve previously talked at length in a post about Mass Effect about how that’s just... my favorite kind of character.  And Chakotay is just... so that.  It also made me realize that the Janeway / Chakotay dynamic is also very similar to a Shepard / Kaidan dynamic (powerful commanding officer of her own ship woman character, solid, good, honorable mature right-hand man first officer (or close to it) male character and maybe that’s why they’re both two of my favorite ships.

Anwyay here’s some spoilery thoughts about The Eternal Tide.

Chakotay telling Seven about his relationship with Janeway evolving before she died, and how he doesn’t think he’ll ever love any other woman!

Confirmation that Chakotay was thinking about proposing when they were supposed to met in Venice!??!  What!?

Janeway thinking about Chakotay right after her resurrection and how deeply she feels for him and wondering about how her death affected him!  Also I kind of love that Chakotay DIDN’T come to her mind when deciding whether to return to life or not?  This was her decision and making it about A Man I think would have made it feel less about her and how she knew she would be taking responsibility for The Multiverse, which is what it absolutely should have been about.  Realizing what her death would have done to him basically the second she was alive again... that part was so well written.  I loved it.  Her relationship shouldn’t become the basis of who she is -- but it adds to her.

Their... reunion... scene... almost being ruined by Q... Chakotay’s utter shock and disbelief and the description of him slowly beginning to have his heart open up to the possibility, him inching closer to her as she’s thinking that maybe she’s made a mistake and understands just how deeply her death hurt him... that.... entire... SCENE.  (Actually about once a year I dig that book and Full Circle out just to read their getting together / reunion scenes.)

Getting Seven’s reaction to Janeway was also very, very good.  I wish they hadn’t cut past the scene where the rest of the Voyager staff sees her for the first time but we did get a little taste of it.

Um okay and then Janeway tells Chakotay she loves him for the first time and he says it back, naturally but like, this is as Chakotay was preparing to go on a suicide mission?  SOBBING.  They didn’t even get a day together, but at least they got to say goodbye this time.

Janeway forcing herself not to think about Chakotay’s death because things just got so much more dire.

Yes they won, but Janeway all alone on the battle bridge and she can’t even bring herself to contact Voyager yet because she just needs time to mourn Chakotay for a few seconds and takes a few seconds, a few breaths, a few moments... and then... OMG.... Chakotay is returned by Godson Q just before his death and they’re so happy... I CANNOT.

THE EPILOGUE where they’re in bed and had spent every possible moment together and so casual and free and happy together... it’s everything we ever wanted for seven seasons and seven more books.

--

Oh I started this post now almost a week ago and now I’m a few books forward and hey am I now going to talk about Protectors?  Yes, yes I am.

J/C don’t get to spend a lot of time together in this book.  Janeway gets sent back to the Alpha Quadrant to undergo counseling and evaluation which, tbh, is totally valid considering she DIED A VIOLENT HORRIBLE DEATH and then WAS DEAD FOR FOURTEEN MONTHS and then you know RESURRECTED AND IMMEDIATELY HAD TO SAVE THE MULTIVERSE oh yeah not to mention WAS REUNITED WITH THEN HAD TO TELL CHAKOTAY GOODBYE FOREVER A FEW HOURS LATER then oh wait THE MAN SHE LOVES WAS ALSO BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD (or the brink of death, whatever.)

There’s a short and sweet goodbye scene then for the bulk of the book Janeway is back on Earth going to counseling (which, that second counseling scene was so great, and seeing her slow down and enjoy life with her mother was so great, and um also that scene with her and Picard?  Wow.  Just Wow.  Also I can’t wait to go back and read some TNG books because I need to see JL/B actually get together.)  And the entire time she’s just like... not even doubting her relationship with Chakotay even a little.  She thinks of him and is excited to be reunited but every time it’s like “the man I love” “The person I plan on spending the rest of my life with” and even “the love of my life.”  WOW.  Just Wow.  Chakotay worries a bit but never doubts.

Oh and then she basically tells her commanding officer “yeah um, thanks but I absolutely have no plans on curbing my relationship with Chakotay to make you feel more comfortable.  Also JL/B and Riker/Troi are all married so fuck you?”  She does agree to keep separate quarters on another ship which is like.. fine... whatever.  But also her going “Yes he’s my subordinate but we’re not going to let that affect our working relationship, we’re adults.” Fuck. Yeah.  Montgomery asks if they’re gonna get married and Janeway is all “IDK, probably? We’ll let you know.”

And B’Elanna asks Chakotay the same thing and his answer is also basically “Yeah at some point, we haven’t talked about it yet but yeah we’re spending the rest of our lives together now stop prodding me.”

Their reunion when she returns doesn’t go as planned and it’s a teensy bit worrisome at the end but with notes of positivity.

--

OK I’m only about 1/3rd into Acts of Contrition but I got to a part last night that made me put the book down for a minute and thank Kirsten Beyer out loud.

J/C finally get to spend some time alone several days after she makes it back to the fleet in the Delta Quadrant.  They have a brief discussion about The Plot, then Chakotay is like “Know what?  We’ll talk about The Plot Stuff tomorrow in the briefing.  Let’s instead talk about us.”  And then he stands up for what he wants!  And Janeway listens, and they talk, and agree!  And then Chakotay is like “Okay, now I really want to hear about what happened to you back on Earth for all those weeks!”  So... literally they just... sit and talk for several hours like, I don’t know, real people would?  There’s no drama!  And they both affirm their commitment to each other and their relationship!

It’s just... it’s... so good?  Their relationship is so solid!  They LOVE EACH OTHER and it’s based on their solid friendship (something else they actually say out loud!) and they talk to each other and there’s no like drama for drama’s sake about their relationship so far and it’s like, better than even any fanfic I’ve ever read (and there’s some great fic out there for these two) because nearly every other character is also getting their screentime and character development (minus Tuvok -- who’s off with Riker and Troi on the Titan and Neelix isn’t around much -- though he’s spoken of and we see him a bit when they visit New Talax).  Also it’s... beta canon.  No matter what, this is real and accepted beta canon.

I have been going back and listening to all the episodes of the Literary Trek podcast episodes about these books, and for Eternal Tide and Protectors Beyer herself was on the podcast and listening to her talk about Chakotay and Janeway both individually and as a couple her love for them both is clear, she loves the show and knows what she’s doing and is allowed to do it, and her writing is so damn good.  One of the hosts of the podcast has said in several episodes that he used to really dislike Chakotay as he was in the show and now book Chakotay is one of his favorite characters.  And honestly? I do love show Chakotay but book Chakotay is... everything show Chakotay should have been.  But he’s also been through hell and back and I love how Beyer used that experience -- and now Janeway’s resurrection experience -- to advance them BOTH individually and how that’s affected them as a couple now that they actually get to be that.

There’s so much other good in these books.  Tom and B’Elanna’s storyline and the way she writes them and their marriage... I could write so much about it.  Harry gets better characterization!  A plotline!  A promotion!  A love interest that may actually work out?!!? We’ll see.  And SEVEN. Wow. So much happens with Seven and it’s so great, I love her so much and Book Seven is again, even better.

Two more books have come out since the last time I read the series and the final book comes out next month, I can’t wait to see all the great moments Beyer has coming up for them.  It also makes me twice as happy that Beyer is so involved with Picard. It’s so clear the love she has for these two and I can’t imagine J/C not still being Alpha canon with her involved.

[catflowerqueen]

Non-Quadrant Marriages

(Make sure to read my previous post on Earth C first!)

Human-style:

In a nutshell, this is basically human marriage as it is now. Messy, complicated, and you more or less hold all your quadrants in the same person/small groups. Weddings would likely be highly varied in appearance/traditions since certain cultures/historical events probably wouldn’t have developed in the same way as they did on our version of Earth. I mean, for all we know, the continents and climates might not even be the same enough to allow certain plants/animals to even exist outside of alchemization. I’m not entirely sure how long it would take for things like continental drift to have happened, but considering the state that the world was in when Jade grabbed it, and how it was heavily implied that a lot of time had passed for there to have even been trees and plant life around before they touched down, I don’t necessarily know for sure how much would have changed in that regard.

Those who have this form of relationship legally recognized would “officially” refer to those in the relationship as “spouse” or “spouses” in order to denote that they are referring to a human-style relationship. They would also share rings—which would be plain, aside from maybe having carvings on them, or limited amounts of a very small and specific pool of gem-types—to symbolize this. Humans and non-seatrolls would wear the ring on their left ring-finger, seatrolls would probably wear the ring as part of a bracelet on their left arm, or on a cord around their neck—because otherwise they would have to pierce through their fins. In either case, however, they would definitely still have a plain/carved ring denoting the relationship in order to differentiate it from other types of relationship that I will get into in a later post.

It is entirely possible that someone in a human-style relationship would still have outside quadrants, but it would probably be a lot messier to actually work that out among the spouses, as, by its very nature, a human-style relationship implies a certain amount of monogamy that the quadrants don’t. Otherwise, it would be simpler to just enter into one specific quadrant—likely a matespriteship, if there is a human involved—and then one spouse would simply have that as their only relationship while the other/others would enter into other quadrants. And then they would use a term different than “spouse”

Oh, and also—there is not the sort of imperative on filling all your quadrants (or at least the concupiscent ones) that there was on Alternia. All relationships would be optional on this planet.

This type of relationship is also the one in which you would hear the terms “husband” and “wife” the most, with spouse being the gender-neutral term as well as one most typically used if the marriage includes more than two people. It is perfectly fine to use “husband” or “wife” in the other types of relationships as well, it’s just that the traditions behind the word implies this kind of relationship.

Now, what that means for canon Rosemary I don’t care too much to speculate on—it seems like they prefer to refer to each other as “wives” over “matesprits,” but they’re also coming from different cultures—Alternia didn’t have weddings, and Earth didn’t have matesprits, after all—and neither of them would have been all that familiar with the specifics of the Earth C culture at the time of their marriage. It is entirely possible that other quadrants might get involved at some point, but it’s equally likely they will just stick to matespritship, or not use any sort of label like that at all. But I’m not talking about them—I’m talking about Earth C’s culture in general.

 Carapacians:

I have my own headcanons about historical Carapacian society and the way they run things that I’m not going to get into here, but basically… they don’t really have the same sort of need to label their relationships like humans or trolls do. At least, not traditionally. We obviously saw in the human and troll sessions that certain pairings seemed to follow the quadrants, but it’s unclear how much of that was influenced by the specific players of the session. After all—Bec Noir didn’t seem to feel the same amount of remorse in killing his Game’s Black Queen as Spade Slick did when killing Snowman. And even then—who is to say that’s what was really going on, rather than that just being what the troll/human audience saw when filtered through the lens of how they understood romance based on their own culture?

I’d say that Carapacian romantic relationships are probably more flexible and shifting than either human or troll romance. There are probably elements of both the quadrants and human-style forms in it, which, by that nature, probably does push it a bit closer to human-style. But, like, not completely? If that makes sense?

If they absolutely had to choose a label, though, I think they would go with “Bonded.” It would probably lean more towards couples, but small groups wouldn’t be out of the question. And I don’t think there would really be any sort of special ceremony to denote that relationship? Or any sort of ornamentation? What would most likely happen is that the couple/group would decide in private, and then maybe add each other’s barcodes into a special slot, akin to the “next of kin” or “power of attorney” position that would pop up when their own barcode was scanned. (So, like, if a carapacian got into, say, a car accident, their barcode would be scanned at the hospital and show things like their medical records, and then they could look at the “bonded” slot and see who they should inform about the accident.)

At the same time, though… while this is the most “flexible” one, I think it’s also the rarest form? You probably wouldn’t see too many Bonded couples/groups—and not just because there’s no real signifiers on the outside. I feel like because their romance is so flexible and shifting, it means that you would have to be far more certain of things to actually put the label of “Bonded” on someone. The decision would be very private and special.

 Consort-style:

I… honestly have no idea. Consorts are so weird and varied anyways, and so prone to just copying things that look cool/interesting/special that I feel like it would be hard for an outsider to tell what was going on? I’m sure that they have something, but it probably differs by species and, to be honest, I don’t think I would really be focusing on them enough in my stories for it to matter? So, sorry to those who are really interested in consorts, but I have nothing.

 Leprechauns:

Yeah, I don’t really think we got enough in canon to get the specifics of what the different symbols signify in their own culture, let alone how that would work if they were mixed in with other species, so I’m not touching this one. There aren’t any leprechauns on Earth C, anyways, so it doesn’t really matter as far as worldbuilding goes.

 Cherubs:

Same as above—there’s really only one cherub on Earth C, and Calliope isn’t really following along with any sort of relationship structure anyways, so it doesn’t really matter for my worldbuilding purposes. Cherub courtship is also so rare and complex anyways that I doubt it would be long-lived enough for a particular pairing to put a label on it. But if Calliope or some other random cherub did, for some reason, decide to enter a romantic relationship, it probably wouldn’t be with another cherub outside of mating purposes, in which case they would probably just go with whatever term/form their partner was using.

 The next post will talk about quadrants.

[b-kitsune]

Many ways to say I love you: Day Five.

Kidge-a-palooza 2019 Prompt: Execution. Pairing: Kidge (VLD) Universe: Canon-divergence Status: Complete.

The rumble around them enveloped them in a loud explosion as they had passed through space into the main nave, where the witch Honerva had decided to take shelter from the calamity that occurred as a result of Voltron's attacks. The debris around the space made a hit difficult, but the Lions were able to detect heat signals where their opponents were located.

They would have to hurry before they started a fire with the ion cannon. Or they would tear down the castle of the lions where thousands of refugees were trying to protect themselves from the damage caused by the battle.

They had wiped out almost all the fleets of the universe through the years, without resting at any time until their mission was accomplished. End against the empire that the witch tried in vain to hold with Zarcon lying in his last strength inside the ship. And Lotor murdered many years ago, there was no legitimate heir who took power soon.

Keith shuddered when the black lion suffered a deep blow to the side of his armor, destabilizing him for a moment. However, Lance helped him in time and stayed in alignment as they formed the colossus who would deliver the victory that night.

For all the fallen from that damn war, Keith would cut off Zarcon's head once and for all.

...

''So, you're a galra.''

Keith was frozen as soon as he heard her voice in the central barracks of the training room. He ended up giving the final blow to one of the droids while he was recomposing himself heavily, sweat running down his face at the constant exercise.

He looked towards the window where Pidge would surely be sitting, with a look that Keith was indecipherable, if there was someone more reserved beside him on that ship, it was definitely Shiro's favorite.

''I am. Apparently, my mother was part of Blades of Marmora, that's why I had one.''

He sighed with regret, he had already been judged by Allura and Coran about his genetic inheritance of which he had no idea before he met Kolivan. The sooner he finished listening to Pidge's contempt, the quicker he could go to the showers and rest deservedly.

''It must be incredible to know where you come from.'' Keith blinked many times before reacting to what the girl had said.

''Sorry?''

''No, I mean ... I don't want you to take it the wrong way, okay? But come on, you've been going crazy with that blade since we met Ulaz. Now that you know the truth, even if it's terrifying, it should give you some relief, right?''

''I don't know how it could give me relief to know that I have an inheritance from a genocidal race, Pidge.'' He snorted furiously, not understanding if she was kidding or just trying to make fun of him in the opposite direction, with how little they had interacted, surely it would be both. Pidge, however, just buzzed selflessly.

''Yeah, well, I'm Italian, born in Rome. So, it would be very hypocritical of me to judge you for that. Without justifying anything, the galra at least kill other races. We have been killed for thousands of years and we are on the same planet.''

Keith looked at one of the doors once heard a noise, watching as that little girl was heading towards him with nothing but a bottle of water. When she offered it to him, her smile made his chest hurt briefly.

Like a strong heartbeat.

He didn't reject it. But something inside him told him that Pidge had other intentions, besides just bringing him water.

...

After several hours, Voltron began to see a decrease in the armament of the empire, which had destroyed much of their ships, reduced to mere space junk that floated through space. Bodies burned around began to freeze at a critical level then be projected by their own admirals before escaping to the mother ship.

For Keith, it was simple, the honor wasn't written in the code of their genes.

For a second, a strong flash blinded them from a part of the universe. A ship of considerable magnitude was at their side so quickly that they barely had time to activate the Voltron shield. When observing carefully, it was Hunk who had discovered who it was.

Sendak was still alive, and he was doing everything possible to protect his dying emperor.

''Paladins, be careful. That ship is created in base with an Interdimensional comet!''

A vague memory of Lotor claiming that he still had some pieces of the comet he had used for the Sincline ships came to everyone's mind at the words of Coran. They had to leave carefully, or they would be easily annihilated at the slightest error.

''Coran, go to the nearest quadrant to take the refugees to a safe area.''

''Affirmative!''

Keith turned off the communicator as fast as he saw Coran turning around with the new directions. After that, he hoped they were the last refugees they had to save at the hands of the empire.

Already with the small number of planets defended by the galra at that time, perhaps his desire wouldn't be so far from reality.

Sword and shield were activated without hesitation once saw Sendak approach to give the first blow. Keith positioned himself to dodge the attack once he was at an adequate distance.

He took a deep breath as he squeezed the controls with an uncontrollable rage. A new battle would begin.

...

Keith was angry with his mates, with the alteans, with the universe in general. They had forgotten Shiro so quickly when he disappeared that part of him had found him a terrible offense. It was the third time this week that he was searching for a trace of his whereabouts completely alone.

Nobody was helping him. No one was interested in knowing what had happened to Shiro after the last battle with Zarcon.

He stopped as soon as he reached the door of his room, with a painful feeling of frustration rising on his chest. Keith didn't want to accept that he had died, he definitely had to see something more about what happened. Keith didn't understand much about extraterrestrial anatomies, but humans were unable to disappear at any moment.

Before turning on his feet to go to his room and try to rest something before the next mission, Keith could hear a noise, slight and fleeting, coming from the room.

Were the mice playing with Shiro's stuff again?

When he opened the door and turned on the lights, the mice weren't found, but Pidge, sitting on the corner of the bed with Shiro's jacket on her lap.

With a strong expression of annoyance at being interrupted, and tears around her eyes.

Was she crying for Shiro?

''What are you doing here?'' It was the only thing that Keith was able to ask. Pidge stared at him incredulously for a few seconds before grimacing in disgust.

''I'm not exactly coding messages from the fleets at this time, idiot.''

''Yes, yes, I know, but ...'' Keith swallowed deeply, her eyes were really red. Surely, she was crying for hours before he found her. ''I thought you didn't miss Shiro...''

''Why wouldn't? He was practically the only one I respected in this place ... And now he's gone ... Like everyone else.''

Keith didn't remember very well what had happened after that conversation. If he had embraced her before or after seeing her cry again for the net loss of a loved one.

Or when they had fallen asleep trying to give themselves some peace and body warmth.

The only thing Keith knew later when they both woke up and left the room in silence was a warm fire in his chest and a slight smile on his lips, he wasn't so alone in the world.

 ...

 Lance was guided by instinct and went through the armor of Sendak's ship with the sword activated by his Bayard at the last moment before the ion cannon went through the armor delivered by the green lion.

Once they stopped for a few moments, Keith could see Sendak fly towards the main ship in a vain attempt to save his life.

They separated when he gave the order and thanks to the black lion's impulse, he left his mouth to cross the stomach of his enemy before entering the ship. The last tremor gave him to understand that Sendak had died at last.

''Well done Keith, now let's arm Voltron to finally end the tyranny of Zarcon.''

''No Allura.'' Keith opened the hatch to enter the ship on his own, defeating the sentinels within seconds. ''Activate the protocol to hack the defenses of this ship. We will blow it to pieces once and for all.''

''But Keith-''

''Do it!''

No one wanted to contradict the words of the black paladin at that time, the anger and pain had changed too much to reason.

Lance nodded and went along with the green lion to comply with his orders, not caring much as Keith would do to get out alive once the ship started its countdown. Really, he didn't even care if he would get it on time.

Only the vestiges of what one could call his friend remained.

...

''We have to do something!''

''Keith calms down, first, we must think carefully about the situation before taking any action.''

''It's been too many days, Shiro!''

''Keith is right, we don't know what the witch could do...''

''I know!'' Shiro ran one of his hands through his hair, stopping Hunk's words abruptly. ''I know ... But we cannot put ourselves at risk unnecessarily, we must plan their rescue in detail.''

Everyone knew that Shiro's words pointed to the rational, even if he intended to go to Zarcon's ship to save Pidge himself. He took a deep breath and sat down beside Lance to calm down, the last mission had gone worse than he expected.

Keith couldn't afford to lose another part of his family, his heart clenched painfully at the thought of Pidge might be suffering because of the Galra.

Because of him not being there to protect her.

The appearance of Kolivan caught the attention of everyone in the room. Keith knew that Blade of Marmora didn't skimp on risks when it came to vital information, but his presence didn't give him a good feeling. He looked oddly dismayed and much paler than his skin could consider normal.

A knot stuck in Keith's stomach.

''We have found a record on the status of the green paladin on the main ship.''

''Thanks, Kolivan, place it on the main screen, it will give us a better perspective on what we have to prepare once we go there.'' He nodded and sent the data to the central command in a few seconds, then went to Keith's side while he was loading the copy of the security camera record, placing a hand on his shoulder.

''Kolivan?''

When the video started, the knot in his stomach rose to the point of vomiting.

Pidge was chained, dying and barely breathing before a possible respiratory infection.

After a few seconds, the video advanced on its own, with meaningless words and several noises around her.

Until stopping at the last record, where Pidge smiled at causing the wrath of the galra who tortured her surely by a malicious comment. Keith smiled faintly, but when they heard the sound of a bullet through the screen and the poor girl's wailing after a few seconds, her body fell to the floor, and a pool of blood stained the room completely.

Keith stopped breathing.

The last record was dated two days ago.

 ...

 An accurate hit on Zarcon's throat was the last thing Keith needed to end the battle. He had found it in his room, alone, abandoned by his fleet and the witch who accompanied him.

He wiped his sword with a quick movement of his hand, and headed for the darker rooms of the ship, in search of his main objective. The witch was on the floor, with a deep cut around her stomach and agitated breathing. Surely one of Voltron's shots had given her in the battle.

''Black Paladin ... Are you coming to finish with the last vestiges of this great empire?''

He didn't listen to her and ran towards her to deliver the final blow. Keith took her by the cloak and pierced his blade deep in his chest, pressing hard at the last moment to take the sword away brutally. The witch wasn't bleeding, but the pain in her features showed that it had been a deadly cut.

They began to hear the explosions around the fleet. The cut on his back because of the battle against Sendak was beginning to numb his senses.

''Illusive child, you will not be able to come out alive from this place, we will take your life as revenge for your actions ...''

Keith smiled wistfully as the ground began to warm. The witch was so wrong.

He had died when he saw how a bullet had pierced Pidge's heart in his younger days, on Haggar's orders to end his threat.

After that day, without realizing it, he had made the decision to murder Lotor, losing the respect of his friends and Shiro's trust. The Blades had considered that the best option wasn't to return to its battle lines. Because he was capable of endangering the mission cause of his lack of discipline.

The black lion was his only ally in that dark battle.

He coughed a little as soon as he saw flashes through the corridors. Thinking a little, he had lost his way many years ago. Since he had seen the execution of his beloved, Keith had lost the will to live many years ago.

This moment, I had expected it since then.

When he closed his eyes as his strength waned from the loss of blood, for a brief moment, he could feel a familiar warmth around his chest, as short, slender arms took him sweetly. And a soft voice that welcomed his eternal rest.

Keith accepted the ship's flames, with a smile on his lips.

[irninfidel]

right so ! beforan culling. i have a lot of thoughts on this subject, but i’ll try not to infodump too heavily. for the most part, i’m going to be referring to the sorts of things kankri specifically experienced -- however, i feel like none of these are out of the ordinary for culling. that is, not every culled troll had these same experiences, but no one would hear this and think “that isn’t normal.” i’m also going to touch briefly on how i think culling is viewed by beforus at large, based on what we see in canon. alright sorry for the presentation style introduction but let’s just get into this

( heavy warnings for emotional abuse / manipulation and ableism ! )

so ! my biggest thing w kankri is (as mentioned on my rules page) i truly feel it’s a huge disservice to his character to assume beforan culling is anything other than a form of abuse. this is, imo, implied in canon, but as far as i’m concerned, it’s been long since confirmed. the main basis of my interpretation is that “taking care of mutants” really just means treating the mutant like a child regardless of how old the mutant is, how their mind works, etc.

kankri wasn’t allowed to really do anything without permission? he was always being watched over, if not by his cullers then by a babysitter of sorts. the babysitters were rarely much older than he was, but because they weren’t mutants or disabled, beforan culture viewed them as infinitely more mature. kankri couldn’t enter certain rooms in his cullers’ house, he couldn’t go outside without someone essentially holding his hand, he wasn’t allowed to lock doors under any circumstance in case he got hurt -- that sort of thing.

should he decide he did want to do something himself, he’d get guilt-tripped and manipulated to the moon and back. i always compare it to tangled’s mother knows best -- yk, the whole “you need me, look at you, the world will eat you up alive.” whenever he did get hurt (which was rarely), his cullers would say (and believe) that it was because he did sm on his own. as he got older and began to realize how unfair this treatment was, he would begin to argue that he could do things himself. this led to an inability to ask for help when he did need it -- every time he messed something up or needed sm, his cullers would use it as “proof” that he needs to be culled. he heavily internalized this belief and spent most of his game (and his afterlife) insisting that he doesn’t need help out of fear that they’ll cull him otherwise.

he had no real bodily autonomy -- since i hc that his mutation is expressed throughout his physiology (ex. blunter teeth, etc), he got pretty used to people (his cullers, their friends, etc) touching him -- examining his teeth, cooing over how things like blushing and tearing up presented, etc. this leads to his general disdain for being touched -- like, just being touched makes him uncomfortable, but as we see in canon, if it’s an even vaguely parental touch (ex. cleaning sm off his face, ruffling his hair, etc), he gets very upset.

i think the final major thing to establish is that kankri grew up being told he was incapable of consenting to quadrants. like, i imagine that to be a somewhat widespread concept in beforus, at least wrt culled trolls -- culled trolls are never told to be celibate, but should they ever have a crush, it’s treated in much the same way you’d treat a kindergartner having a crush on their teacher. it’s adorable, you’ll tell other adults about it and laugh, but it doesn’t mean anything. kankri copes with this by deciding he’ll be celibate of his own volition, which eventually morphs into deciding that he works better if he isn’t thinking about things like relationships.

so basically all of kankri’s character is attributed to all that ! on one hand, he has a holier-than-thou personality because he feels that if he ever admits to being “less than” aside from mentioning weaknesses he had in the past, he’ll be culled again. he’s also very socially driven and genuinely empathetic as a result. on the other hand, he is quite naive and gullible, and also generally “childish” from an emotional standpoint, as he never had much opportunity to mature in such a way.

i...think that’s all the major issues? so let’s talk abt others! kankri says that latula is the only person of her blood caste and above that doesn’t treat him as though they wanted to cull him. regardless of if they were actually genuinely coddling him, he felt that they were, so i imagine the tendency to think “oh, i need to help this mutant” is sm that a lot of beforan trolls have, be that an instinctual thing or a trained response. kankri likely gets it worse because he was culled -- i feel like he def tried to keep that a secret as long as he could, but everyone finds out soon after entering the medium, solely bc he has so much trouble adjusting.

part of his desire to rebel against everything porrim says is a response to her tendency to mother him. like, i don’t think her behavior is intentional or anything, but he absolutely doesn’t want to do anything that might encourage her to continue this behavior. he feels that there’s a thin line between “caring” and “taking care of”, and he’s not going to put up with the latter. almost all of his behavior revolves around a fear of being thought of as incapable again and an intense desire to avoid that.

okay okay there’s a good description! if you have any questions etc please don’t hesitate, i’m truly in my element when i’m analyzing kankri’s backstory dfksjf

[bucketogrubsarchive]

Quick Fire Facts about the muses!

(Editor Beezie here aka the mun: I will be doing small quick fires of the muses of this blog. This will include upcoming ones too. Just a few four headcanon facts about the guys.These are the official headcanon of the fantrolls in this blog. There is more facts about the trolls but these are the only facts I can tell you without spoiling their whole backstories. If you wish to know more about the mueses please send in a ask and find out. )

Calice Wahron 

.Calice makes her own paints at home by mixing flowers,precious stones and clay hence the name dirt paintings or rivercolors.

 Calice is highly allergic to salt water, because of her genetic mutation of an olive with sea dweller gills and fins.

 Her horns are based off the clovers of the bermuda buttercup or the buttercup oxalis that grow in winter months in the state I’m in and they’re my favorite flower.  While her design is slightly based on the book Winds in the willow. 

 Calice’s sign is the mun’s homestuck zodiac sign. 

Eponia Hompis 

 Eponia was originally a ship baby between two canon characters that the mun no longer ships. But still show a little bit of the ship what she was formally was once in a while whenever interacting with others or in rps.

 Yes the mun is fully aware she’s been writing Eponia’s name like this ‘Epoina’ she’s just too lazy to fix it now. 

Eponia’s current  design was originally adopt  for a flower theme of  trolls. Her flower  being irises. But I fell in love with her design and kept her. 

Eponia can make extremely fluffy jiggly  grubcakes aka pancakes which she often sees as a failure. 

Kimaoi Midria

Like Eponia Kimaoi was going to be a grubling adoption, her design was a bronze grub with vitiligo and rabbit tail. But I decided to scrap the bunny tail and keep Kimaoi for myself.

 Kimaoi’s name is the combination of kimo kawaii meaning and please correct me if I am wrong in the comments. It looks a little creepy but cute.

 If you guys hadn’t noticed Kimaoi had a few scars on her legs, meaning she had self harmed herself in the past, due to having dealt with depression and had trauma with abuse. And still recovering at her own pace to self love again.

Like the words for her name, Kimaoi loves everything spooky and scary. Basically halloween is her Christmas. She loves it and finds what we see as big scary monsters to Kimi she sees puppy. ( The mun is no better if facing monsters or dinosaurs and willing to call them puppies)

Kotton Poplus

Kotton is at this moment is one of two  out of the ask group that has their pale quadrant filled.

Kotton was suppose to be a ship baby from two canon characters but got scrapped and the mun doesn’t ship anymore. But like Epoina, it's hinted who they were who turned Kotton into a clown loving puffball who doesn’t know too much of the rules between limes and purples.

 Kotton’s name is the combination of Kitten and Cotton Candy, Hence why she appears to be extremely hyper and overly positive to some situations. 

Kotton and her morial are the youngest of the adults trolls, both being 8.77 aka 19 years old. And yes she is the party girl of the cast.

Mariot Lotora

Mariot is the only one out of the group at this moment who has their red quadrant filled and is the mama of Macleo.

 Mariot’s name is the combination of two Agatha Christie's characters miss Marple and Hercules Poirot.

Mariot had gone through probably the most design changes out of the group currently. 

Is the main mom friend of the group to make sure the younger jades in the caverns are not sneaking off or bringing something back to the caverns. This goes double with the ask cast too.

Mairuz Panais 

 Mairzu is one of my oldest oc characters, not by age but who came first in the large group when being created. he, Nefiri and Rafina were the big ogs before everyone else was created.  And went through a massive design and character change before making his appearance on the blog. 

Mairzu’s name is a play on words of the italian almond  candy marzipan.

Whenever Mairzu becomes scared or excited he would start to smell like someone’s favorite candy for the whole day. This is from an inside joke me and a friend have about Mairzu due to his namesake.  

Whenever Mairzu becomes flustered or has a crush on someone will do the goofy’s very loudly hyuck. He is very embarrassed about it.

Nefiri Bastia

Nefiri is from a very long line of huntresses/tribe leaders. Where her traditions is where both eggs from blackrom and redrom are at risk from the other mate in the chief's black and red quadrant. Nefiri’s egg is the only known recorded redrom egg in the bloodline.  

Nefiri is the old lost friend of @ask-swagger-dagger-trolls’s oc Jamari, she is not part of his quadrant. She did had  two of her quadrants filled before losing them to a rival tribe forcing her into exile.  Making her quadrants empty.

 If she really likes you, Nefiri will lick your cheek or rub her head against you much like how a big cat greets their keeper. Or full on big cat hug which she tends to forget how strong she is at times. And if Nef has red feelings to someone she will bring dead animals and extremely affectionate to them. 

Nefiri does not know how modern society works at all. If you put her in a city setting, she will become extremely tense and nervous about it. Hell she is kinda the reason if someone has some sort of new tech and its someone she’s close to. Yeah.. She’ll see it as a threat and will destroy it. 

Nixiie Apilon 

 Nixiie has a babyface, meaning she is easily mistaken to be younger than her actual age. She is 10.62 aka 23 in human years at this moment since her wiggling day is in the spring.

To Nixiie she sees any jade in caverns she’s in as family/teachers. For example @princeofdoomrps Viktor, Nixiie calls him a teacher if she knows he is not part of her cavern while with @faithlines ‘s Lacuna she is not sure in that department so big sister teacher. And feels extremely guilty if a higher authority jade sees her and she thinks she’s in trouble like anyone of us would towards our own family,teachers or bosses fearing we will be punished or be a disappointment to them.

Nixiie’s name is the combination of Pixie and Nymph two magical creatures of folklore and her horns and wings are based off of the lunar moth. But went through a lot of design changes before taking in another grub adopt and turn it into Nixiie today. And like a moth to a flame if Nixiie sees something new or is extremely excited she will go after it.  

Nixiie doesn't eat meat, she will drink troll blood but will not touch anything that is made from an animal. She’s pretty much the vegan girl of the group.

Pohkin Boines 

Pohkin wears a corset under her clothes and will deny it if someone asks if she does wear it. This goes double for the weave. And bust size. 

Pohkin was held to a high standard by her lusus when being raised  to become a regel and lady of high blood society  and look down at her fellow low caste even in her own. 

Pohkin carries around a very sharp and large syringe and will use it on anyone she either deems as a riff raff or a threat. However she’s not that strong. Cunning yes, but has no muscles. 

Pohkin is at this moment tends to scare the mun and bullies me often whenever something silly comes her way. For example being put in an outfit like idk a chicken suit or something that shows way too much skin.

Rafina Uymumi

 Rafina is a run away troll, to get away from her overly controlling lusus. She ran away and joined the circus sort of speak.

She is extremely flexible, able to bend and  walk on her hands with ease and stay that way for a while before standing on her feet again. 

Originally Rafina was going to be a shut in underwater  writer for her blog for fantasy stories, but I didn’t think that would be a good fit for her. I wanted to give her the little mermaid story where Ariel wanted to go to the human world for her own means and not for a prince. But, still writes just for herself and refuse to show it to anyone.

 Rafina’s performances either contains  acrobatics gymnastics,belly dances or pole dances. Depending what’s on the line up or who’s the audience for the evening.

[weerd1]

Star Trek DS9 Rewatch Log, Stardate 1909.17: Missions Reviewed, “Inquisition,” “In the Pale Moonlight,” and “His Way.”

In “Inquisition,” Bashir is repairing Chief’s shoulder after a kayaking accident (again) and preparing to go to a medical conference. When he wakes up for his trip he is remarkably groggy and matters are made worse when he is called to ops because Starfleet Internal Affairs, led by a Director Sloan, has come to investigate DS9’s senior staff as someone has been leaking information to the Dominion. 

After some time confined to quarters, Julian is just briefly questioned by Sloan, but all seems well. Returning to his quarters, he finds they have been searched, and he receives a cryptic message from O’Brien that Miles had been questioned for two hours, and ONLY about Julian. In a second interrogation, Sloan reveals that he believes Bashir was actually turned during his time in a Dominion prison, and has sublimated all memories of this, making him the perfect spy. Sloan admits that Bashir’s motivation is to save lives, hence using the genetically engineered think tank from “Statistical Probabilities” to try and convince the Federation to surrender. Bashir continues to deny, but Sloan, seemingly with no accountability to anyone but himself begins to raise the stakes. Things just become difficult when Julian is suddenly whisked away in a transporter, and finds himself with Weyoun on a Dominion vessel. The Vorta tells him that in fact he HAS been working for the Founders, but now he has been compromised. Bashir, still simply can’t remember any such programming.  Soon after though the Defiant arrives, and Kira and Worf beam over to rescue Bashir. When he’s back on the Defiant though, he is treated as a prisoner.  The crew has turned against him. When even O’Brien literally turns his back on Bashir, Julian reaches out to turn Miles back to him, and realizes that O’Brien doesn’t have the shoulder injury he just treated the day before. Everything disappears and a black-clad Sloan is standing with Julian in a holodeck. Sloan explains to Bashir that he runs a branch of Starfleet intelligence called “Section 31” and all of this has been to confirm Bashir’s loyalty for recruitment into the covert organization.

 Sloan promises Bashir will see him again. Back on DS9, Bashir realizes he’s been gone since the morning he woke up (which was actually after just an hour’s sleep to keep him off balance).  Sisko makes inquiries to Starfleet about Section 31, and the admiralty will neither confirm nor deny their existence. Sisko and Bashir decide they want to infiltrate this organization, so if 31 comes calling again, Sisko advises Bashir to join.

The introduction of something that will become a major plot point throughout the rest of Star Trek. Section 31 will of course continue to appear in DS9 for the rest of the show, we will find out they were already operating in the Earth Starfleet in the 2150s during “Enterprise.” Section 31 is responsible for thawing Khan and trying to provoke a war with the Klingon Empire in “Star Trek Into Darkness.” And finally, the existence and actions of S31 play heavily into the second season of “Discovery.” The Kafka-esque feel of this entire episode is perfect, even if it seems like this is something they would generally do to Miles for the annual “let’s screw with O’Brien” episode. Bashir is a perfect choice though- well placed, genetically engineered, has already made friends with men like Garak, and someone who replicates espionage on the holosuite. Can’t overstate how perfect William Sadler is as Sloan either. It’s a pointed discussion. A utopia like the Federation may not be able to exist without someone behind the scenes doing the wrong things for the right reasons.  At least one of out main crew would never do that, right?

“In the Pale Moonlight,” is told entirely as a personal log entry from Benjamin Sisko. He is talking about how “it all went wrong” when he posted a casualty report; the Federation/Klingon alliance is not doing well against the Dominion. Talking with Dax, he realizes they need to get the Romulans to break their non-aggression pact with the Dominion and come into the Alpha Quadrant alliance. Sisko is convinced that the Founders plan to invade Romulus when the main war is done, but will need proof to get the Romulans to act. He approaches Garak to see if anyone can get such records off of Cardassia, but Garak reports back that the Dominion has killed every operative he still as contact with on Cardassia. 

 Garak suggests faking the proof; he can get a blank Cardassian data rod, and he knows a forger who could build a holo program to demonstrate the “briefing” regarding turning toward Romulus. Sisko is resistant…until another casualty report comes, and Sisko realizes perhaps the ends do justify the means. They proceed with the plan which keeps having moral red flags pop up, but finally convince a Romulan senator to stop at the station and see the “evidence.” The senator analyzes the data and discovers the forgery. He leaves, potentially to tell his government that the Federation tried to trick them into the war, likely leading them to join the Dominion. The senator’s shuttle explodes on the way home, and the Romulans discover the forged rod, believing it to be real and the reason the Dominion destroyed the shuttle. Sisko knows it was Garak who killed the senator (and the forger on the side) and had really planned this from the beginning. But when the Romulans attack the Dominion, Garak tells Sisko they may have saved the Alpha Quadrant, and all it cost was one senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet Officer. 

Sisko closes out the dictation of his log:

“So… I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover up the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But most damning of all… I think I can live with it… And if I had to do it all over again… I would. Garak was right about one thing – a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. So I will learn to live with it…Because I can live with it…I can live with it. Computer – erase that entire personal log."

I know I say this more than once during this show but: Holy shit. First there’s Avery Brooks’ performance throughout the episode. As he dictates the log he is just mesmerizing to watch. Andrew Robinson as Garak of course is fantastic. This is of course the origin of the internet meme “It’s a FAAAAKE!” from Senator Vrenek. 

And the moral conundrum is really captivating. This is an episode a lot of DS9 detractors use to point out how antithetical they believe DS9 is to “Gene Roddenberry’s vision.” I would argue they forget that classic Trek had many of the same tropes. Watch “Errand of Mercy” and how quickly Kirk and Spock are willing to risk the lives of what they believe to be simple peasants in order to stymie the Klingons. Or “A Private Little War” where Kirk provides rifles to a stone age tribe so the can fight a proxy war against a side supported by the Klingons. Kirk referring to himself as a “soldier” or his line from “A Taste of Armageddon,” “We can admit that we’re killers, but we will not kill today.” Yes, Trek offers a positive view of humanity’s future, but it also uses its science fiction setting to examine the human condition without ever saying humans are perfect. There is no way to examine the human condition without examining what we as a species are willing to do in war. As someone who still periodically has to assess what I did defending my county (and more than once found myself not meeting my own ethical standards) I appreciate Trek asking us to do that, asking us to take a look at ourselves, what we have done, and what we can live with.  I can live with it. I will learn to live with it.

Will you?

“His Way” introduces us to Bashir’s new holosuite program, a swinging 60’s Vegas club and lounge singer named Vic Fontaine. The AI in the program is remarkably astute and quickly sums up everyone Bashir introduces to “Vic.” Even Odo becomes intrigued when Vic looks at he and Kira, begins to ask about their status but shies away. Odo begins to go the holosuite to ask Vic for advice on Kira.

 They run through a series of exercises to help Odo learn to be “smooth,” and eventually program another 60s character, a torch singer based on Kira. Vic actually on his own reaches out to Kira to tell her to be in the holosuite to have dinner with Odo, and tells Odo that they are working with the hologram again.  The two are having a wonderful date when Odo begins to lament that this isn’t the real Kira. When he find out it is he storms out. The two of them meet on the promenade and begin to argue about whether or not they should try it again. “Well then after dinner, I suppose I should try to kiss you then!” Odo shouts. “Maybe!” Kira counters. “Why wait, maybe I should just kiss you now!” “Maybe you should!” and he does.  After five years of mooning over her, Odo and Kira have finally come together.

Oh. MY. GOD. How frickin’ sweet.  This episode is simply adorable, and the whole scene with them on the promenade is just lovely.  Always good to see your OTP (that’s internet talk- “one true pairing”) made canon.  It is just about damn time, and their joining is perfectly executed.  Also, my sincere and heartfelt thanks to whomever on the DS9 writing staff decided we needed to see Kira in a slinky 60s dress perform “Fever” while laying coquettishly across the piano Odo was playing. I just can’t thank you enough for that. 

From the larger Trek standpoint though, we are beginning to deal with questions on the sentience of AI.  Yes, The Doctor over on “Voyager” would seem to have been “awake” long enough to gain a self-awareness, but is Vic simply a hologram, or are these “lightbulbs” a new lifeform as much as Data was on TNG? There are some big SF philosophical questions going on behind this delightfully romantic episode.  

NEXT VOYAGE: Ancient Bajoran prophecy comes back into play as it is Prophet vs. Pah-Wraith in “The Reckoning.”

[lisatelramor]

I’ve been reading homestuck fic for like the last week so apparently that’s enough for my brain to do weird things and so if anyone finds it interesting, thoughts on detective conan characters if they were trolls. Yeah. I... I don’t know where this came from either, and fuck no, I am not writing a fic for it. Just take these ramblings and amuse yourself with them.

Okay, so DCMK characters as homestuck trolls.

Shinichi’d be teal-cerulean range, obviously still a detective (detecterrrorist??) who was fairly well off and gaining a bit of a reputation before he investigated some adult trolls and got slipped something questionable. And then he ended up like just past grub-molt and (maybe) with a mutation. He has low key empathy psionics that help him on cases. Strife specibus is football-kind (or. Whatever the troll equivalent of soccer would be. I dunno) Sylladex is ‘casebook’ and required writing down descriptions of things to store them and concluding out loud what the item is to retrieve it.

Ran is rust-blood. Strife specibus—fist-kind and knife-shoe-kind. She and Shinichi are circling flush for each other but are terrible at getting anywhere. She’s moirails with Sonoko. It’s a bit of a caste difference between her and Shinichi and Sonoko but they’ve never made her feel like it mattered. She can and will kick the ass of people twice her size and way up the hemosystem. No psionics, but abnormally strong for a rust-blood.

Sonoko is purple-blood, not quite tyrian fuchsia but more on the pink end than the indigo. Very willing to throw her weight around if it means helping those in her hate-friend group. Tolerates Shinichi. Ran joked once that they had pitch feelings and upset both Shinichi and Sonoko so much she was apologizing for a week. It’s platonic dislike, geeze Ran. Fell for bronze-blood Makoto and honestly despite using her blood color to her advantage at times, she couldn’t give two shits about the hemosystem. God, what even would her strife specibus be?? Handbag-kind?? I dunno. She’d probably just go at you with her claws than use a specibus really. She doesn’t do highblood rage often tho.

Heiji’s olive-blood, sword-kind. He had a pitch crush on Shinichi when he heard of his existence because, damn, rivalry!! Fuck that teal guy, olives could be sweet detecterrorists too! But then he met Shinichi and was all fuck. Pale as SHIT for him once he realized the whole Conan situation. But there’s the whole awkward thing of the current age difference so he’s trying to be cool about it but. Yeah. He sometimes gets weird looks, like, the fuck you wanting a moirail a kid for, you’re almost adult molt?? That’s not cool?? He and Kazuha have a red/pale mess going on for years and at first Kazuha’s pissed about Kudo right up until she and Heiji start moving toward more red than pale. But she sometimes still flips. Heiji’s worried he’s coming on too strong with Shinichi but Shinichi’s a dense shit. He has too much going on in his head to notice Heiji’s pale crush flashing neon lights at him.

Kazuha’s a bronze-blood, and a mess over Heiji. She alternates between bare-hand fighting and knife-kind (apparently there is some weapon use in aikido? Or at least knowing how to use a weapon once you’ve disarmed someone if you can get your hands on it). She’s really possessive of Heiji’s red quadrants because he can’t seem to decide which he wants from her for the longest time—and she can’t decide either. But yeah, more flush than not. Hates Shinichi a lot longer than she did in canon and was threatened by Ran until it was clear Ran had ZERO interest, her flush being aimed toward Shinichi and already in a moirallegiance with Sonoko. Lower end of hemospectrum and a bit indignant about it, ready to fight. Ends up friends with Ran tho, she needs more friends.

Ok, so Kid. Kaito. Blah, what even is Kaito? Like Kid is this semi-mythic figure for sweeps and no one knows who he is or his blood type. Like lowblood mythos has him as being a goldblood with psionics that help him stick it to the highbloods. Mainline propaganda paints him as a mutant to be culled on sight. Meanwhile there’s also theories that he’s in the indigo range and has a variation of chuckle-voodoos that cloud awareness or heighten susceptibility to suggestion/misdirection (allowing Kid to more easily impersonate people, even in your own quadrants, how horrifying!!) As much as I love the idea of Kid as someone with psionics, I kind of think it would be hilarious if Kaito was indigo-range. He’s hemononymous. No one knows but Aoko what his blood color is. (blah, I could make an argument for any color, someone give me a good reason for one over the other) But he has his fear of fish from a bad encounter with a sea-dweller's lusus. Poor Kaito. Vacillates between red/pitch with Aoko, and has plenty of people wanting him for either of those quadrants. Because he just gives off either red vibes, or bite me in a sexy way vibes I guess. (So many people would punch him in the face with their face??) Kaito has a solitaire modus that also has a shuffle mode. His strife specibus is prank-kind when himself, and card-kind as Kid. He also has a huuuge pitch crush on Shinichi. Which is more or less reciprocated. It was kind of idly there when he thought Conan was practically a wiggler, but he realizes he’s actually about the same age as he is and yeeeah, they flirt pitch a lot. Though Shinichi’s a bit dense on that too. Granted there’s only so many times a guy throws a heist with you in mind before you catch on. Hakuba’s freaked out by it. NO! HE IS A CHILD!!!! And sort of goes ashen for them which pisses Kaito off. All the more so because Hakuba pitch flirts with Kaito sometimes when Kaito is Kaito and just. Stop quadrant smearing black feelings in Kaito’s direction!! (Hakuba is going down with this ashen ship. He won’t put a name to it because fuck, it’d be ILLEGAL to be in quadrant with a criminal. But he wouldn’t say no to privately showing up and interrupting one of Shinichi and Kaito’s pitch moments)

Aoko’s blueblood. Could be something else, but. Yeah. She’s blue because Aoko. Strife specibus is mop-kind. She really can’t decide if she’s pitch or flush for Kaito. Because one moment he’s filling her with pity and good and the next he’s such an ASS. Yeah. Shit’s hard when you’re in the middle of your puberty cycle. She platonically hates Kid with a passion. She’s all for the law but couldn’t give a shit about the hemospectrum. Testing waters for a moirail relationship with Keiko, but sometimes has a pale crush on Saguru which baffles Kaito. Saguru’s so awkward though that she can’t help it.

Saguru’s also a blueblood, but unlike Aoko, he’s big on both letter of the law and hemospectrum. He likes to see himself as enlightened, but he’s the sort to make backhanded insults without meaning to based on blood type stereotypes. Kaito’s hemonymity is annoying as hell to him. He has SUCH a pitch crush on Kid, but he’s too rigid in his beliefs to ever consider pursuing it, so it sort of sublimates to extremely intense efforts to catch Kid that frankly unsettle Kaito. But then he meets Heiji. And bam, pitch crush. He can see how Heiji would be such a good detective! But his methods!!! Are sloppy!!! (Meanwhile Heiji’s the same way back but has no emotional awareness and is just going on rants about how Hakuba’s such an ass and how he hates him and Shinichi’s just listening to it all with complete embarrassment like, oh my god Heiji. OH MY GOD STOP TELLING ME THIS!!) Hakuba and Heiji’s pitch clicks so well that Hakuba practically sees them as an item and is already drafting hate-date ideas. Only Heiji finally gets the memo that people think he’s pitch for Hakuba and rather than putting two and two together with his own emotions goes WTF?? And breaks Hakuba’s spade. How insensitive. He made Kazuha have to flip pale to deal with that fallout. How dare? Hakuba may or may not end up having a spade fling with Kaito in a rebound attempt. Which goes about as bad as could be expected. Eventually Heiji figures his shit out though. Heiji’s bad with emotional wisdom. Hell, give him gun-kind as a specibus, but he’s good at hand to hand too.

Akako’s a rust-blood, scepter-kind strife specibus. She has psionics that make people attracted to her and manipulates the shit out of them. Kaito, by miracle of mutation or blood color, is immune. And a little annoyed at how she’s like a walking rust hemonormative stereotype with her sexy vibe. She pisses him off in a platonic way and yet she keeps trying to get him in a quadrant. Flush fails, then pitch fails, so she tries for pale and that freaks Kaito out even more than the other attempts. Stop caring!! No! (She keeps on the pale route eventually because that boy’s a disaster and needs someone watching his back. Though it’s fun to flirt with him concupiscent. )

Ai’s hmm. Not sure what Ai would be. She’s poison-kind for strife specibus, though she can use gun-kind in a pinch. The reason her poison worked to turn back the clock on her and Shinichi is a rare mutagen that they both have. Woo. Troll genetic bullshit. Has the same low-key empathy psionics Shinichi has and it lets her sense hostility directed at her. Her moirail got killed (her sister in canon?) and that kind of pushed her over the edge. She’s ruthless and will flat out cull you no mercy. As much as Heiji WANTS to be Shinichi’s moirail, she functionally is one more to him more often than not. But in her words she doesn’t do quadrants these days and so she’s not going to label anything. It’s survival, nothing else. (Shinichi doesn’t buy this. But he’s fine not labeling things)

 Ayumi=>olive, Mitsuhiko => gold, Genta => bronze. All three are barely old enough to be outside of their hives without lusus care for goodness sake. They haven’t settled on strife specibi yet or even proper modus types. Since meeting Conan, they’ve taken an interest in detecterrorism. :P  The boys are having pale/flush crushes on Ayumi but she only has eyes for Conan flush, and it’s a shitshow but they’re too young for it to matter much yet.

 I don’t think adults would be in here the same way. Like. Maybe as ancestors? Mentor figures? I dunno. I don’t really care to figure it out. Still this was a fun thought exercise. I think what I love about Homestuck is the quadrant fuckery the trolls brought to the table. That just lends itself to so much. The drama ^_^

[fyrapartnersearch]

Let’s voltron!

“I say vol and you say tron! Vol…..”

“Eh…. voltron?”

“We’ll work on it.”

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well and that you’ve been able to stay safe and healthy during the pandemic (and that the easing of some restrictions depending on where you are has not negatively affected you). After binge watching legendary defender on netflix I’ve had the undying and uncontrollable urge to do a voltron rp. Now I bet you’re all wondering what I want and if you’re going to get to do some shipping…….we’ll I guess you’re just going to have to read on and find out.

I’m looking for literate rper’s only. That means people who write in third person past tense, can give me at the very least one well thought out and fleshed paragraph (as well as be willing to write more when the situation calls for it) and has a decent grasp on their spelling, grammar and punctuation. I will not yell at you for the occasional bout of typonese but one liners, one worders, poorly written responses and lazy writing in general will not keep me around. If I can’t read what you’ve written and you’re not willing to put some effort in or correct it then there’s no point in me sticking around. I also require rper’s who’ve actually watched voltron whether it be legendary defender, defender of the universe or voltron force. If you’re someone whose a stickler for canon accuracy then I’m probably not the rper for you. When I rp in a fandom setting I treat it a bit like a base as in there’s rules to follow but I don’t have to follow them as if I’m reading the show script. To put it simply I value creativity and ideas that allow a different take on the characters and what could’ve happened.

I only rp male alien or alien hybrid characters and they’re premade but flexible in how they’re written. I do not have pictures nor do I desire to spend endless hours of time to find a face claim of a creature that isn’t the typical different coloured humanoids you see in voltron. I have descriptions and that’s it. I do not care if your character is made up on the spot or if you prefer to rp as a canon character. Shippers……I’m sorry but I will not rp a canon character as anything other than a side, I do not rp them as mains so if you were looking for some sheith or klance I’m sorry to disappoint you. That being said you are free to play as any canon character you desire or an oc as I’m open to oc x oc pairings or oc x canon pairings (you being the canon character) and I do either MxM or FxM pairings. Romance and non fade to black smut will both occur in the rp but it must be slow burn. I do not do fast paced love at first sight as it’s just not something that holds my interest. No sub dom dynamics, switch dynamics only and please no characters whose entire personality is just one emotion or one trait they have.

Guys…..please don’t call my aliens furries or whatever. I don’t rp generic spray painted humans and we’re rping in a world full of wacky and crazy aliens that have fur,scales,tails,multiple arms, etc so I find it Incredibly annoying to have a label forced on my character like it’s a bad thing. Alien means something not from earth, if a human was to be born on altea or daibazzal, it’d be considered an alien despite probably being a hundred percent human. If your view and comfort zone is restricted to aliens that look like an altean and nothing else then you needn’t not message me. I’m not going to make you rp with me if this is a dealbreaker so if you don’t heed this warning then you do not be rude after pulling a shocked pikachu. Be mature about it if you realise it’s a deal breaker rather than just blocking or suddenly deciding you no longer want to talk to me and that you’ll just ignore me till I unfriend you.

DO NOT COME TO ME SAYING OR ASKING YOU WANNA DO A SHEITH RP/ DO YOU RP AS THESE CANON CHARACTERS! I cannot stress this enough. I don’t know how I can make it any clearer that I do not do canon character mains nor do I do rp’s solely for the purpose of shipping said rp characters. As I’ve said before, if you wanna play a canon character go ahead but I will not rp a canon character as anything other than a side. My oc’s are my mains.

You and your characters must be 18+. I’m in my twenties and will not rp with a minor, especially since I have mature and adult themes in my rp’s that I do not want to get into trouble for Rping them with someone whose underaged. Underaged characters are just……..a big no for the sole fact that my characters are adults and that i do not feel uncomfortable playing against underaged characters.

You must be able to give me one or more responses a day. If it’s been two weeks since the last response and you’ve mysteriously disappeared then I’m not going to stick around for the day you decide to answer me. I do not like having my time wasted for any reason. My time zone is the eastern Australian time zone but I’m available and awake at odd hours so time zones aren’t too big of an issue for me. Remember that I’m looking for a long term partner, someone to carry an rp with for more than just a few days or a week and someone to write multiple stories with.

I have tonnes of ideas and head cannons for the rp but I’m open to brainstorming and ideas. We can mix and match ideas till we get something we both like. I want this to be a shared job, don’t expect me to be the one to carry everything just cause I’m the one supplying the idea. Down below I’ve decided to list a couple of ideas that I have:

New school defenders:

the paladins of voltron have been defending the universe for years. Many stories of their countless victories, battles and struggles are something that every parent who was alive during the war told their children. Once the main three were taken out (haggar, lotor and zarkon) the paladins settled down to teaching the garrisons new generation of cadets. The new change in curriculum was welcome for many as well as a new change in ship style. To make sure that peace could be maintained in every quadrant of every galaxy the paladins of voltron has trained the cadets to fly animal styled space ships like the lions. The animal ship a pilot was assigned depended on their personality, strengths, weaknesses, how well they worked in a team and their style of fighting and piloting skills. The importance of team bonding was something the paladins basically preached. When news of the return of an old foe forces the paladins to return to their jobs as voltrons warriors and they suddenly disappear many write them off as dead or perhaps in distress. None of the superiors are interested to find out….. so who will?

Lotor’s reign:

It was unbelievable. It couldn’t be true. It had to not be true. Voltron taken down by lotor, son of the mighty emperor zarkon himself, and the paladins were now working for him without question as his top generals?! When the news had first hit many people had panicked whilst countless others had been slain for daring to believe and protest that it was all just some lie made up by the half galran prince who was now an emperor like his father before him. Princess Allura herself was locked away in an unknown location after refusing the cruel man’s hand in marriage so she is no help for what is now a lost hope. Lotor’s reign had well and truly begun all those years ago and it was holding steady. People had forgotten long ago that even in complete and utter darkness….one can always find a speck of light that burns bright no anger how small.

Mirror mirror:

For many years people believed the galra were a race of cruel, vicious, animalistic thinking beings whose only goal was to destroy and conquer words. No one would’ve ever believed that it was the peacekeeping alteans that had been working to plot the galaxy’s downfall. Voltron, belonged to the galrans, they’d been the ones who’d built it after all despite letting alfor pilot voltron’s right arm. When the king had been turned down on his idea to share the mighty robotic war machine he simply built his own. Five dragons that formed dracotron were what the alteans used as their voltron and weapon to conquer the galaxies. Emperor zarkon, under the advice of Haggar the witch, was one of the few world leaders who managed to get his people to safety. Ever since watching the great kingdoms that he’d known for almost ten thousand years fall under the alteans greed and obsession for power over peace, he prayed for miracle in whatever form he could get it in. When two young stragglers end up stranded on the galra’s second home world, the cards of fate are laid according to haggar, much to everyone else’s confusion. What could two lost souls possibly do to bring back what was lost to the alteans?

Gamora’s guns:

The guns of Gamora was a rebel group with the goal of foiling any plans of the altean empress allura. Led by the brave commander Sven and his somewhat neurotic sidekick Slav, the gun’s were spread far across the galaxy in little pockets of altean dominated space to keep tabs on the empires schemes and try their best to counteract them. The new recruits were aliens and humans from far and wide working together hand in hand to try and prevent a reign of terror from truly taking over. When plans for creating a super weapon fall on the ears of a trusted source, the newest batch of recruits are sent to locate, find and bring back the blueprints. Of course, such things are easier said than done.

The chosen:

Keith.lance.hunk.shiro (or Sven, depends on whether you want this to follow a legendary defender type story arc or one of the older series). Allura. Pidge. These were names that belonged to the universe’s greatest heroes. Legends beyond all compare. They were champions of the universe and paladins of the mightiest robotic warrior to have ever been built: voltron. The great robot and the lions that formed it were well over ten thousand years old…..sadly for the paladins, they knew that they wouldn’t live to or beyond the great age their lions and oldest enemies had. The galaxy garrison had worked extra hard on ensuring that the next generation of pilots would be suitable candidates for the possibility of becoming voltron’s future paladins. Each paladin chose a student whom they felt like would be the most suitable to take their place and trained them with the knowledge that they were not the ones who had the final decision as to who flew who…..or even if they’d fly at all. What happens when one student fails and is rejected by not one but all the lions? What becomes of them and what is their place on team voltron? What happens to the rest of the team? Only time will tell, according to coran, such a thing has never happened before……but what happens if it does?

Before we reach the end of the post, here are some important reminders:

1: NO REACHING OUT TO ME ASKING FOR A CANON CHARACTER SHIPPING RP! I DO NOT DOUBLE SO DO NOT ASK!

2: DONT MESSAGE ME IF YOU’RE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH NOT VERY HUMANOID ALIENS!

3: NO GARY STU’S OR MARY SUES! GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS A PERSONALITY THAT ISN’T JUST ONE EMOTION OR TRAIT ONLY!

For those who’ve read this thoroughly thank you and congratulations! If you’re at all interested please send me a message and add me on my discord, telegram, email or hangouts (contact info below).

My discord: tiberionsunsconqourer#6187

My telegram: Tiberionwars

My email/hangouts: lleo52560@gmail.com

Hope to write some awesome stories!

[cxdemistake]

| So, like I said before, this is a post on the basics of my sex-repulsion and how it connects to my muses. Some TMI under the cut (and it’ll probably be long as fuck) so here we go:

Background on my sex-repulsion: I’ve been sex-repulsed for as long as I’ve known what sex is and how it works. Personally, I don’t see myself ever having sex. I’ve never wanted to. Even something that isn’t considered sex, like masturbation, is mostly out of the picture for me, because with the way my brain works, anytime I desire something even remotely sexual (like what’s mentioned above), I feel immense guilt and I have a depressive episode, of which the length depends-- on what is beyond me, but it depends.

Sex in general is a giant trigger for me. There’s nothing in my past that has caused me to feel this way-- I already got an anon asking about this, no, I was not raped or molested, no, I am not repressing anything. Nothing happened to me. It’s a phobia, like arachnophobia or scopophobia, and why people are able to tag those without any problems but not think that my own phobia is valid is beyond me.

What happens when I read smut, see a random sex gif, or have someone talk about sex to me is pretty much what you’d expect from someone with a phobia (which I am)-- I feel sick to my stomach, usually I feel like I want to rip my skin off, I shake, I dissociate, all that great, wonderful stuff. And I can count at least 5 times in the past year that this has happened, because of untagged/uncovered smut. Seriously, guys, just tag it. It takes less than a second and it prevents triggering on my part.

Recently I had someone tell me that I act like I hate people who have sex... idk where anyone read that, but that’s literally like the opposite of me. I’m not equipped to hate people. I couldn’t even hate my own dad during the time that I wasn’t speaking with him after he told me he would disown me, I’m just that bad at hating. (Note: Obviously that situation is much better.) If you have sex, great! If you don’t, same! If you love sex, awesome! If you hate sex, I feel! But if you hate people who choose either to have it or not, then you’re a prick, and you should probably leave me alone, bc clearly we won’t get along.

When it comes to smut, idc if you write it or don’t, or enjoy it or don’t, just like with sex. The problem comes when people decide not to tag it, because, like I said up there, things happen when I catch a glimpse of smut. Once again, just tag it, it isn’t that difficult. I don’t hate anyone for writing it, because tbh, I’m jealous of people that can write about something so intimate without feeling the need to rip their eyes out or tear their stomach open. If you understand how genitals work, great, I’m 22 and a trans guy and I still don’t understand a damn thing about mine or why I need them, so you’re already way ahead of me. If you write it, tag it and everything will be fine and dandy in Alistair-Land.

When it comes to my muses, pretty much all of them are inherently asexual, like me. This comes more naturally for a few muses, some examples being Gamzee, Ellis, and Connor.

Gamzee is a troll, from Homestuck (obviously), whose species’ romance occurs in “quadrants”, each “quadrant” being based off of a suit of cards. A basic description is this: hearts(Red)=true romance, diamonds(Pale)=platonic soulmates, spades(Black)=hateship, and clubs(Grey)=hateship with a mediator. We don’t see anyone having sex in the comics, and while Gamzee has a nice Black relationship going for a while, trolls don’t seem to have sex until it’s time to... breed, you could say.

Ellis is from Left 4 Dead 2, and we’re not given much backstory on him. if you ask a couple of people I’ve written him with, there’s quite a few reasons why I consider him ace, and the only girl he ever talks about in a romantic way? Zoey. The only other woman he meets on his journey, and he calls her an angel. I doubt this boy has had much sexual experience, if any, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s probably why he talks about Zoey the way he does.

Connor is from Detroit: Become Human, and he is an android. There are specified models (ex: Tracis) that are used for sex, and therefore I don’t think that normal models, or even prototypes like Connor, are built with genitalia. Therefore, he is basically a Ken Doll down there. In addition, while I will ship him romantically with anyone (including Hank, though I’ll also do it platonically), I feel that Connor craves love (whether platonic, familial, or romantic), but not necessarily sex. He’s just learning how to be human, after all.

Keep in mind, these are my OPINIONS, and how I portray my muses.

When it comes to a muse that is canonically sexual in nature, like Negan, things are a bit different.

With Negan, from The Walking Dead, it’s all about what happens that we see. What we do see is Negan bragging about fucking his wives, kissing some of them, holding them close, etc. But we never see any sex scenes. Obviously, TWD’s comic has a ton of sex scenes, but weirdly enough, never any with Negan. He makes sexual advances, jokes, and things like that, but he never acts on them on-screen or on-page. My Negan basically keeps his harem of wives for power-- when the man’s got your wife, you’re probably going to listen to him. In return for being treated well, they keep up the facade and counsel him when he needs it. He’s ace for a single reason-- Lucille. While he can still find comfort in someone else’s arms, after his affair while Lucille had cancer, he resolved to not sleep with anyone again, because he doesn’t want to cheat on her further.

My boundaries are simple: no sex of any kind, and no touching genitals. And I can’t understand why some people think that any affectionate action, like a kiss, or a bite to the neck, or running a hand up someone’s shirt, is inherently sexual. I write those actions as affection or flirtiness, and, y’know, there’s an easy way to make sure your muse isn’t aroused-- by not writing that they are. I’m pretty sure that’s what most of my partners have done in the past, is taken what they know is sexual, and suppressed it when they write something ship-related with me. If there’s no possible way you can do that... it’s not hard. It doesn’t take long to figure out what’s appropriate and inappropriate to write.

In conclusion: I hate being sex-repulsed, I wish I wasn’t, if you love sex or smut then I support you (just tag smut and pls don’t talk about sex to me), my muses are inherently ace, and there’s no sex of any kind or genital touching on this blog. Thank. |

[tomfooleryprime]

The illogic of a logical philosophy

The pilot episode of Star Trek: Discovery was titled “The Vulcan Hello,” and Michael Burnham was all about giving one to the Klingons.

Unfortunately, the Vulcan hello she was referring to looked a little less like this:

And a lot more like this:

Apparently, this shocked some fans, but I’m not really sure why. There are a lot of perpetuated ideas that Vulcans are strict pacifists because, after all, war is illogical. But if we really peel back some of the canon, the reality is that Vulcans probably prefer peace, but they’re certainly not above violence, and that’s the problem with living by logic.

Is violence illogical? Who’s to say? Even a philosophy based on pure logic is doomed to be convoluted because spoken language is imprecise and no philosophy is absolute. Yet Vulcan philosophy is often treated as though it must be, as if for any single issue, there is only one perfectly logical solution amid a sea of half-logical alternatives and utter irrationality.

So, what is Vulcan philosophy? Over the years, it’s expanded into a belief system that has two giant scoops of Greek stoicism, a pinch of Jewish mysticism, a dollop of utilitarianism, and a rationalism cherry on top. I would actually argue that this Frankenstein philosophy is whatever it needs to be, so long as it can be defended with a reasonably sound argument delivered in monotone, dispassionate speech. And therein lies the problem. How do we decide what is “reasonably sound?” Worse yet, what is logic?

Believe it or not, there is no universal agreement on the exact scope of this particular discipline. The ancient Greeks studied logic in philosophy, but logic also has more discrete applications in mathematics, computer science, and linguistics. I could type thousands of words dissecting the different branches of logic, but Wikipedia did it so much better than I ever could. Bottom line is, if you’re not using logic to defend mathematical proofs or write code, there’s a whole lot of gray area for what can be considered “logical.”

Me too, Amanda, me too.

So how do stoicism, rationalism, and utilitarianism fit into the Vulcan narrative? Stoicism goes back to the ancient Greeks and championed the idea virtue was based on knowledge, and that wise and virtuous people lived in harmony with reason and were able to accept reality and not allow themselves to be controlled by pain, fear, or desire. If that doesn’t sound like the first page of the Vulcan playbook, I don’t know what does.

Rationalism is a philosophy that sort of bridges ancient stoicism with the modern world and asserts that reason should be the chief source and test of logic rather than religious belief or emotional response. And lastly, utilitarianism is a doctrine that asserts that actions are right if they are useful or benefit a majority. Sound familiar?

If it doesn’t, you’ve never seen The Wrath of Khan. Or shopped at Hallmark.

But the thing is, not one of those philosophical systems says, “No violence.” If The Teachings of Surak has strict rules prohibiting violence, all the Vulcans we’ve ever met across six different series are really shitty Vulcans. 

We see many instances of Vulcans preferring to avoid violence and killing—Vulcans often employ a nerve pinch to subdue aggressors rather than smack them around—but they are capable of worse. In the TOS episode, “Journey to Babel,” a Tellarite ambassador is murdered by someone who “knew exactly where to apply pressure to snap the neck instantly,” according to Dr. McCoy. As Kirk ponders who could have possibly committed such an act, Spock is all too quick to throw his dad under the bus and say, “Vulcans.”

While he quickly adds that “Vulcans do not approve of violence” he also mentions that “it would be illogical to kill without reason.” And so:

Backpedaling at warp eight.

Sarek knows how to kill because he’s skilled in a deadly martial arts technique called tal-shaya. The fact that Vulcans train in martial arts, possess weapons like the lirpa and the ahn-woon, and cruise around the quadrant in ships outfitted with weapons suggests they are at least prepared to defend themselves if necessary, which would disqualify them from being absolute pacifists. But that doesn’t necessarily make them warmongers either.

So, what about actually instigating a war? In Enterprise, we got a view of Vulcans that a lot of people weren’t comfortable with. We saw Vulcans spying on their Andorian neighbors, we saw religious factions fighting one another, and we saw a Vulcan High Command that seemed remarkably belligerent. Some fans might argue that after the discovery of the Kir’Shara in the Enterprise story arc that included the episodes “The Forge,” “The Awakening,” and “Kir’Shara” led to a new reformation, Vulcans returned to their true logical roots, ditching their semi-violent ways. 

But it’s evident that Vulcans believe that sometimes logic requires violence. Recall those utilitarian principles woven throughout Vulcan philosophy. One of the most well-known philosophical thought experiments is referred to as The Trolley Problem, and it’s a test of utilitarian judgments. There are many variations, but the short one goes like this:

There’s a trolley hurtling down a track with five people on it. The brakes are shot and it’s going to crash, killing all on board. You happen to be standing next to a switch that would divert the trolley onto a separate track where it would gently crash into a sandbank, saving the lives of those five people. The only problem is, there is a person tied to the tracks you want to divert the trolley onto. If you pull the switch, you will actively kill one person to save five. If you do nothing, you will passively allow the person tied to the tracks to live at the expense of the five on the trolley. And so, if we are capable of acting, do we have a duty to act? (Here’s a fascinating quiz if you’d like to explore your own beliefs on the subject.) But what would Vulcans do?

Rather than spend time debating it, I can tell you exactly what most Vulcans would probably do. In the TOS episode, “Operation, Annihilate!,” Deneva colony is infested with neural parasites and Dr. McCoy can’t find a way to kill them. Kirk is struggling to find a way to prevent the spread of these parasites, and Spock points out the only logical solution, though it is “understandably upsetting,” is to destroy the colony and its one million inhabitants because there are billions of people living beyond Deneva colony to think about. McCoy didn’t handle it well.

A real dick move, Mr. Spock. A real dick move.

Now, to his credit, Spock was also infected, so he was willing to die for his principles, but he didn’t bat an eye at the idea of killing a million people. The good news is, it’s old-school Trek so of course they found a solution that didn’t end with the tragic slaughter of a million colonists, but Spock’s initial recommendation was that it was logical to commit an act of violence against one million people to save the lives of billions. 

Maybe you agree with him, maybe you don’t, but that being said, is it really such a wild notion to believe that the Vulcans would prefer occasional small acts of aggression against the Klingons if there were sufficient reason to believe it would prevent a war? 

When explaining to Captain Georgiou what a Vulcan hello was, Michael Burnham didn’t say the Vulcans slaughtered every Klingon they encountered, simply that they “fired first” in order to “say hello in a language the Klingons understood.” If anything, it sounds like the Vulcan policy was more in line with a warning shot than a Klingon genocide, and from my own simple-minded human perspective, that sounds pretty damn logical if it prevents real and prolific bloodshed.

But that comes back to the initial question of “what is Vulcan philosophy?” Perhaps we should ask ourselves who is the ultimate judge of what is logical? In theory, it should be Surak and his teachings, right?

Surak’s a smart guy who obviously knows a bargain when he sees one, as illustrated by this ensemble that looks a 6th grade home economics project met the clearance rack at the local craft store. 

Unfortunately, just because something is written down doesn’t mean everyone is going to agree on the same interpretation, otherwise, the U.S. Supreme Court would be about 99% less busy and history wouldn’t be littered with the bodies of billions of people desperate to prove their version of the God of Abraham is the right one.  

I don’t know why Vulcans are so often portrayed as being a culture of homogenous personalities, beliefs, and values, as though logic is logic and there’s no room for variation. Imagine what the series would have been like if we played switcheroo with Spock, Tuvok, and T’Pol. Picture the moody and somewhat emotional T’Pol trying to give advice to Captain Kirk, or the wise and experienced Tuvok trying to talk Archer out of half the shit he did in the Delphic Expanse.

Tuvok’s eyes are clearly asking if it’s too late to go back to the Delta quadrant and get assimilated by the Borg.

The point is, individual Vulcans aren’t interchangeable, and I don’t think their beliefs are either. Just look at what happened in the Enterprise episode, “Carbon Creek.” Three Vulcans are marooned on Earth in the 1950s and are facing starvation when they encounter a pair of deer. Despite the fact that Vulcans eat plant-based diets because their tenets about non-violence extend to animals, Mestral suggests eating one of them because:

A Vulcan Mrs. Donner.

Stron is Vulcan-horrified at the idea of resorting to “savagery,” but thankfully T’Pol/T’Mir agrees to violate the Vulcan version of the Prime Directive instead so they don’t have to murder Bambi’s mom. But that scene raises an interesting point. Who was right, Mestral or Stron? Or both? Or neither?

Put 100 Vulcans in a room and ask them when war is justifiable, I’m sure they’d all spout off some Vulcan version of Just War Theory like the smug, walking information databases that they are. But put 100 Vulcans in charge of making a real-world decision about going to war, and we’d get 100 different answers, some which directly contradicted others, but each defended by iron clad logic.  

To wrap this drivel up, Vulcan philosophy is a really bizarre hodgepodge of conflicting ideologies. They believe in infinite diversity in infinite combinations, which means they celebrate the beauty of the countless variables of the universe, unless it’s a Klingon bird-of-prey, in which case, they shoot that shit up. Pacifism is great when it’s convenient, killing is bad, except for when it isn’t, it’s not genocide if you have a really good reason, and eating animals is wrong, except for when it’s necessary. Yeah, logical.

I’m of the opinion that Vulcans are no better than humans—they do their best to grapple with complex issues according to a chaotic and occasionally contradictory set of beliefs. Even if they swear they aren’t driven by emotion, they are still at the mercy of their life experiences and world views when it comes to decision making. Logic is a tool that can help them arrive at answers, but it isn’t the answer. Most importantly, like any tool, logic can be abused or corrupted.

Given the weight of the evidence, I would re-assert that Vulcans are happy to declare anything as being logical, so long as it suits their agenda or personal beliefs. Or perhaps it’s better to say that the writers of Star Trek will call anything logical if it adds to the dialogue or advances the plot.

What say you, T’Pol?