#i never related to people my own age y’know?

[arcaneprism]

Coffee Shops

Requested by: @catuskat666​

Prompts: Soulmate AU, magic coffee mug

Warnings: Mentions of food

Notes: IM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LATE I ACTUALLY STARTED WRITING IT AGES AGO BUT I GOT HIT WITH THE WORST WRITERS BLOCK - like... i literally havent written anything I could release as even a short story for years??? So I decided to like... bullet point hcs (my thoughts may wander and be incoherent im so sorry) instead or else this will never see the light of day. I will leave the few lines I’ve written at the bottom tho!! 

———————————————————————————————————

So most people have soulmate marks that make it easy to find who their soulmate is. It could be an odd mark but once you knew who it was referring to then it’s pretty obvious.

Okay some people had rather unfortunate marks because of this (Claire had the trollhunters amulet in a pan poor girl) but he’d still say they got lucky

Douxie got a fucking coffee mug

He worked in a coffee shop constantly surrounded by people who are addicted to and reliant to coffee how on Earth was he supposed to rely on a coffee cup to figure out who his soulmate was???

Okay well, he knew that they were magic at least.

His soul mark was on his left forearm and it spends most of its time under Douxie’s magic bracelet thing and his hoodie sleeve. It was a magic wand pouring coffee into a mug with magic sparkles surrounding it. the mug had a ribbon banner type of decor around it that said something Douxie couldn’t fully make out. All he could read of it was ‘- alive because of coffee -’ and ‘-ally die’. 

(Pardon the sketchiness i kinda just doodled it like 5 minutes ago)

Once again, Douxie did not find this information helpful. Arcadia was filled with magical creatures - trolls, aliens, wizards and witches, it was literally magic central and again !!! He works !!! in a coffee shop !!! surrounded by caffeine addicts !!!

When asked, Douxie would probably shrug it off - he’d been alive 900 years after all, if he was going to meet his soulmate, he’d probably have done it by now. (Especially now that, y’know, he worked where their source of life can easily be found - no he wasn’t salty at all that he’s not met them, what made you think that?)

It would be nice to meet them though. He would love the intimacy and understanding people with soulmates seemed to experience. Platonic or romantic, it didn’t matter. He’d love having a lifelong friend he could bare his soul to. 

If he was being honest, the reason he craved meeting his soulmate so much is probably his lack of a support system?? He had Archie and Zoe and made various friends over the years sure but Archie wasn’t human and he didn’t always get it and Zoe had her own life and her own issues and both of them often needed space from each other (900 years of constantly being around the same person does get quite suffocating) and his other friends were mortal so... that wasn’t great. What he build proved to be a sufficient support system over the years but a sufficient support system doesn’t make for an ideal one and yeah, he’d like something more stable

Whatever ROT alternative happened, Douxie went to Metrocity or somewhere and came back to Arcadia after.

(I like the thought that he probably bumped into his soulmate at Metrocity honestly??? They were probably holidaying or lived there or something idk but the universe dictated that it was not yet time for them to meet so no significant conversation happened and definitely nothing coffee related they probably just passed by each other or something)

Back at Arcadia, Douxie went back to working at the coffee shop

Everything was settled, his family has grown, he felt at peace. Soulmate existing or not, he was happy with the support system he finally built. He was happy.

Then one day someone walked into the shop speaking into their phone.

“Okay, I’m at the coffee shop now.” “Oh come on, you know me. I’m literally only alive because of coffee. I need it. Without it, I’d literally die.”

The words they spoke felt familiar but he wasn’t quite sure where he’d heard them before.

He took their order and didn’t notice them staring at the skull necklace around his neck as they spoke.

He made their order, not realising that he had grabbed one of the takeaway cups with a ribbon decal around it.

When he passed them their order, their fingers brushed and Douxie could feel the small distinctive tingle of magic on their fingertips.

When he looked up, he saw their soulmate mark on their shoulder and stopped.

The customer furrowed their brows then asked if he played guitar and oh

Oh, this was them.

He’d finally found them.

I imagine his soulmate’s mark to be something somewhat like the doodle above? A guitar with a skull on it surrounded by wisps of magic.

But okay yeah that’s pretty much all I had in mind for this there’s a bit of prose under the picture underneath but as you can see I was... struggling for coherency akjefsajdn

Douxie had the stupidest soulmate mark, he decided.

Some people had soulmate marks that were clear and told them who their soulmate were. Jim had a skull on top of the shadow staff made out of roses and Claire had the trollhunter’s amulet on top of a frying pan - which looked kind of weird but it was clear. They could tell who their soulmates were. They knew.

Douxie had a goddamned coffee mug. A COFFEE MUG!! HE WORKS IN A COFFEE SHOP HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE HELPFUL!?!?!?

If he’s only worked in

[jadeburdened]

6; 18; 33

Character Development Questions || accepting

@vishapsking

6. Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams?

They sleep very little or not at all, if it can be helped, because the same jumbled mess of night terrors plague their mind every time. Seeing their old friends suffering, dying, vanishing just before Alatus’ own hands can reach them. Losing what little sense of freedom they have all over again as if their old, cruel master has returned to enslave them once more. Feeling the karmic energy take over their body and bring fatigue and searing aches to every part of them until they can’t freely move any longer, restricting their breathing until they wake up choking for air.

18. Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others?

In general it’s a mix of both. Although when it comes to mortals, they tend to find themself a lot more intrigued by the ambitions humans have. Kind of cool. Kind of insane, some of these funky lil mortals. The adeptus tries not to judge too harshly-- at least never out loud-- but there’s no denying that they are impressed. 

33. In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve?

There’s always willingness to improve but sometimes they’ll internally mull it over a little later on self-consciously. I guess it’d depend on who was the one to criticize and correct them, and how they’ve been spoken to? Xiao highly values their peers’ and higher-ups’ opinions (especially Lord Rex’s), and they would quietly beat themself up about having failed/disappointed these people, even if it was merely a minor issue. They’ve been alive for thousands of years, have been training and fighting for most of that time, and they’ve convinced themself there’s very little room for errors at this point (when it comes to important subjects and roles pertaining yakshas/adepti/immortals, anyway).

Modern Teyvat and human-related topics, however? It’s a completely different situation, and perhaps they get a little defensive and show their age when criticized lol. (”Yes. Well. Back in MY day....”) But they try! Oh my god do they try! There is still willingness to improve! They just had to take a liking to some human and their kooky lil mortal shenanigans for Xiao to start caring enough to be open to learning about these things, y’know?

[deyadee]

Do You Have Kids?

I just thought of this from the other day, so maybe I should’ve just put this on the other post but fuck it.

I like to have fun with the kids at bat are in line when I’m working. Even if I don’t want kids, it’s nice to give them a sucker or see them smile because I feel like I relate to them more than people my age. Especially with all the borderline model looking girls with their gaggle of friends like it’s a fucking 2010s pop music video. So anyway, I do my usual joke shit with the kid and this older woman in line behind him smiles and says “You’re so good with children, do you have kids of your own?”

I know she had good intentions, and it was meant to be a compliment but it fucking stung like she came up and called me a fat fucking pig. Any time I’m a little happy I gotta get fucking shot down like- alright well I can’t come up with anything that wouldn’t be a shitstorm and a half from Twitter so I’ll just let you fill in the blanks. Thanks for fucking reminding me that no matter how good I treat people, no matter how much good I try to put into the world or at least try to cheer myself up during work that I will always always be fucking ugly and look older than I am. I already feel disconnected from my generation as it is, how fun does it fucking feel also that no one can tell you’re 20? And yes I know some people have kids early but FUCKING 20?!

My fucking combination of having dark circles under my eyes, pale skin, deep voice and y’know being a fatass makes me seem like I’m older. I already know I’m ugly, but knowing that anyone around my age doesn’t see me as an equal fucking hurts.

Any dating site, any fucking person who I could connect with instantly sees me as an adult. I know, 20 is an adult, but I feel like I’m already missing out on something other people aren’t yet…

There’s never any fucking benefit of looking older for me. Fuck alcohol. Fuck cigarettes. Fuck any of that fucking bullshit. There’s not a goddamn motherfucking cocksucking thing on this goddamn earth that is positive for me that comes with being fucking ugly and looking old. I thought maybe it’s just because I’m always with my sisters and a mom and daughter are more common to see than two sisters- but fucking no. No goddamn fucking fucks goddamn motherfucking shit doubts about this fucking thing! I’M FUCKING UGLY. Nowadays, you think someone my age would see the ugly fucking hog with high maintenance and choose them over literally goddamn anyone else?! GOD I FUCKING WANT TO DRILL A FUCKING HOLE IN MY GODDAMN MY FUCKING SKULL THERE’S NO FUCKING REASON IN LIVING IF YOURE GOING TO SUFFER EVERH FUCKING DAY TO THE BITTER END IF YOURE FUCKING UGLY JUST FUCKING KILL YOURSELF BECAUSE LIFE DOESNT GET FUCKING BETTER. GOD FUCKING HATE YOU. OF COURSE YOUR FUCKING MOM TOOK A SJOT LOAD OF TYLENOL FURING HER FUCKING PREGANNCY YOU FAT GODDAMN RETAR I CANT FUCKING DO THIS ANYMORE

Ooh did I forget to mention? My mom took only and I mean only Tylenol during pregnancy. So I guess all those fucking bitches in Culinary were fucking right. Fucking ADHD and possible Autism! FUCKING AMAZING FUCKING GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING AMAZING

[jollyfang]

This blog has been titled ‘Late Night Ramblings’ since it’s inception, but it’s only been recently that I’ve actually started, y’know… actually posting anything that’s not just reblog if other peoples posts.

Which is fine, everybody reblog the stuff they like so they can share it with their own group of followers. And I’m really glad I’ve decidedly to put myself out there and start chiseling out a tiny place for myself in the fandom spaces I’ve been lurking in.

The point I’m making is I haven’t really done a whole lot of the so-called ‘late night rambling’ I set out to do. So here’s some of the shit that’s been on my mind tonight. It’ll be long so I understand if nobody wants to read about something not fandom related (fandom adjacent, maybe?? I do bring up some of my redacted ocs) if you do decide to keep reading- then that’s very sweet if you, much appreciated and I love you for doing that 😊

ANYWAY!

So back when I was still a teenager, roughly around the age of 15 and bored out of my mind on summer break- I discovered a website that would be my first foray into the role-play world. (Not that kind of site and not that kind of role-play, just in case anyone’s mind started swerving into pervy territory)

It was a role play game site called Reign of Blood, it’s still up today but I haven’t played in years. You could make a vampire, talk in the forums, do quests and level up, join a coven; all that fun stuff. PVP and PVE were a thing too but I never did any of that. And it was all completely text based. I was obsessed with it for years, all throughout highschool.

For the years that I was playing what I mostly took part in were the one on one RP chats. There were open chats where you could role play with everyone online at the time but it was much more fun to find a partner and just start telling a story together, just the two of you.

Which is kind of why I’m writing all this now. Because after a year on the site, and I can’t even remember how we found each other, I found an incredible writing partner. We spent two years cultivating a story that, while more than a little cheesy and possibly a bit cringy, has stuck with me for years. And I never knew his real name. His user name was John, he had a proofs picture of Moriarty from Sherlock, and his character was named Dakota.

Dakota Zero. A fallen Archangel.

My character was a hybrid, half susdubus/half vampire. Her name was Xhex Shadowheart. (I was a teenager, it was a vampire game okay..)

She worked as a bodyguard for other supernaturals, was estranged from her family and was hiding from an obsessive ex boyfriend who at one point tried to kill her during the course of the story. Dakota had a whole swath of cool abilities, like healing, teleportation, and telepathy. A skill he taught to Xhex as their relationship grew. He told her that no matter where he was, if she called out to him- he’d hear her. It’s corny I know, but it just seemed so… sweet and poetic for them?

They met, eventually fell in love and had kids. Twins, (Raine and a boy whose name I can’t remember) and they had another on the way we were going to name Calia (I think). Every time she’d get pregnant, Dakota would be so overjoyed and Xhex would be too. She spent a lot of time working out, staying in shape for her job and it was impossible to keep her sitting still throughout her pregnancies.

Dakota was estranged from his parents because of his fallen status, but I distinctly remember a time where his mother sought Xhex out behind her sons back because she wanted to meet the woman that had claimed her sons heart. And Xhex was SO nervous. She didn’t want Dakota to be mad at her, but she also wanted to learn more about him. There was also the fact that she was terrified that she would be deemed dirty or disgusting because of being a vampire, or that her children would be treated poorly by their grandmother for being born from such a disgusting creature.

But it wasn’t like that at all. It was such a sweet moment, the two women meeting, the twin toddlers playing and meeting their grandmother for the first time. I could talk about their story for ages. I used to write down transcripts of our messages just so I wouldn’t forget them because I loved the world we’d created so much.

But… we kinda fell out of touch. Life got in the way for both of us. But just when we’d finally gotten back into contact, we both admitted we’d missed each other and our characters. I was SO happy to reconnect with my friend who I’d missed so much.

We made plans to start the whole story over again, but… unfortunately luck wasn’t on our side. The game site, which was our only point if communication, has a policy of deleting any account that’s been inactive for 30 days. And they didn’t count logging in to the game or sending messages as activity, only completing quests and pvp counted. So they deleted my account. I’ve tried several times, with different accounts to try and find John again, but… I never have been able to. It’s been years since I last tried, and I’m wondering if I should make a new account and try and track him down one more time.

I don’t think it’ll pay off, but you never know till you try right? I’d give anything to talk with him again, find out how he’s doing and ask if he’s missed our friendship as much as I’ve missed his. I don’t know any other way to find him but I really wish I could even just to check in or maybe even restart our story like we’d planned.

I have whole role-play character charts set up for Xhex and their daughter Raine, because even after all these years I still care about them so much. I thought about drawing them and posting them here, but we’ll see what happens.

Anyways, that’s my rant for tonight. If you read to the end, thanks. If not, I understand.

[vigilantejustice]

sometimes i think there’s definitely something like. diagnosably wrong with my personality + the more i examine my childhood the more i’m convinced there’s an explanation.

got gifted a guidebook for the sims that had a SUPER detailed multi-generational tutorial playthrough which was just a cool way to highlight all the fun new mechanics of the game but kid me followed this tutorial with complete unwavering rigidity every time and felt like i was somehow playing the sims (a game with literally no rules) wrong or that it didn’t count if i didn’t follow the guide letter for letter what kind of...

[childishfluff]

a compilation of unspoken agreements + common tropes in mcyt agere fics

I think we should talk about the unspoken agreements/common tropes in agere fics that no one talks about, specifically in mcyt agere fics. These were put together by me and my discord friends, feel free to reblog and add on/comment on these. This is also not a critism of agere fics! I use a lot of these! 

I just thought the common trends among the mcyt agere fics were interesting and thought I’d point some of them out. 

First of all, there’s the unlimited amount of little gear age regressors/age dreamers just have for plot convince and their caregivers aren’t constantly broke somehow. The elaborate playrooms, the bottomless toy boxes, the one million decorative pacis? They’re all free, they’re just there. 

Also everyone knows how to make angel milk naturally, and no one ever throws away their kid stuff. Unprepared cgs definitely just have sippy cups and childhood stuffied animals just because and when someone happens to regress they’re prepared, somehow. 

Oh and in mcyt agere fics specifically, Wilbur always knows a bunch of lullabies? no explanation he simply does. music interest = know every kid song ever to comfort the babies. 

The ‘i had a friend in high school/college who regressed’ trope is a common way of explaining why a cg/friend knows about agere things, too. again with the ‘conveniently having kids things for fluff reasons’, cgs always have kids books or fluffy blankets with the excuse of baby sitting younger family members or whatever. 

Regression always lines up with meet ups in rpf fics so that they can cuddle and domestic family fluff can ensue. Speaking of physical affection, caregivers are usually incredibly strong just so they can carry one/multiple teenagers/grown adults while they’re little.

If the little and cg aren’t already in the same place, they’re somehow able to get to each other really quickly. And if the fic *is* internet based, Discord calls/chats are the main form of communication. There might be a Discord sever for all the mcyts who are also littles/cgs used to quickly introduce to the readers who else in this universe is aware of agere-related things 

When there’s a confession scene, the person the little is talking to may or may not reveal that half the people they know are either littles/cgs and they might get added to the previously mentioned Discord server. Also! There might be an agere minecraft sever just because? 

If someone walks in on someone while regressed the ‘you weren’t supposed to know!’ ‘know what?’ ‘this! *motions to kid things*’ ‘*knows what’s happening for some reason/quickly picks up on it* it’s okay to be small’ conversation always takes place. 

Another version of the confession scene could be a situation where the person they’re telling doesn’t already know, they usually come back a day later talking about what they learned on their own, talking about how they were curious and ‘googled a whole lot’. 

Everyone is always awake to reply/answer to distressed littles at 3 am, and ‘reward from cg’ packages arrive the very next day. 

If littles go out with their cgs, no fan ever recognizes them or questions their behavior despite them never attempting to disguise themselves because uh...writers don’t wanna deal with it, I guess. 

Phil and Wilbur usually fill the role of ‘teasing family-figure’ who’s always great at making littles slip. Tommy is either ‘calm cuddly baby aww he’s so soft when he’s small’ or ‘chaos and only chaos’ toddler-younger kid when he’s the regressor in fics, not much of an in between. 

Ranboo is usually more well behaved and when he does act out, he gets anxious. Tubbo is either super little/just a bit younger then the other regressors or the friend who doesn’t regress but isn’t the primary caregiver either. Techno can go from the friend who ‘doesn’t like kids’ to the big-brotherly perfect cg, or be an older toddler-aged little, depends on who’s with him and what’s needed for the fic. 

There’s a lot more that we’re missing, but these were just some ones me and the server noticed! It’s actually really interesting to think about how we either silently agreed on these things or a few people did them and then so did everyone else, and about the actual reasons we chose these tropes/common things to stick with. 

Most of them are plot convience or based off our perseptions of the streamers and content creators, but it’s still cool, y’know? feel free to reblog/reply with more examples or comments on this little list! thanks for reading! <3

[hexfeathers]

My thoughts on the growth of the witchcraft community

Hi, I’m Rex. And I’ve been an active member of the witchcraft community since I started studying it in 2005.

For the past few years, I’m sure everyone in the witchcraft and pagan communities have noticed the sudden *boom* of interest in what we do. Crystals are becoming trendy, you can purchase books on magic at Walmart, and many, many younger people are posting about their journey into witchcraft on their social media.

On Tumblr, #witchblr was one of the most active tags of 2020, Reddit has seen a growth in related posts, and we’re all quite familiar with just how large the “WitchTok” community has grown on TikTok.

I’ve seen the influx of people approaching those of us who have 10, 20, 30 something years of experience in the community, proudly labeling themselves as a “baby witch”, wishing to learn as much as they can about the craft. And that’s GREAT! It’s AWESOME! I LOVE sharing my knowledge with all of these new people joining the community!

However, I’ve also seen an increase in comments such as:

“This sucks, witchcraft is so popular now and it’s being used like a fashion statement.”

“I can’t go anywhere without hearing some Gen Z kid claim to be a ~Space Witch~.”

“Ugh! These young kids are embarrassing us and making things up about witchcraft!”

“I used to be bullied as a teenager for being Wiccan, now it makes you cool.”

Folks, the reality is that we as a people are becoming more and more open to alternative lifestyles. Humanity is opening up and becoming more in touch with their spirituality. And that is a good thing.

Yes, it sucks that we got bullied and were made to feel like outcasts when we were young practitioners, but just because we struggled, doesn’t mean we should wish the same out of envy on the newcomers. If anything, we should be gracious that they’re safe.

The fact that we have younger people who can safely practice witchcraft THIS openly means that we did something right.

We made it safer and more acceptable to read about the occult.

We made it safer and more acceptable to talk about holistic medicines.

We made it safer and more acceptable to talk about energy, the stars, the planets, and everything that we adore about the universe.

And yes, I’m just as guilty of rolling my eyes when I hear someone claim that a certain crystal is going to destroy their life because it’s super powerful (looking at you, Moldavite), but we all started somewhere. Just because we started out by reading Scott Cunningham and Raymond Buckland in the back of a Borders or Waldenbooks doesn’t make us any better than these younger people who are getting their first taste of the craft from TikTok, Amino or Tumblr.

It’s our role as people with more experience in the community to gently nudge these kids (and adults) in the right direction, if we so choose to be teachers. If you’d rather not be a teacher, then at least be patient with these kids.

I’m personally grateful that witchcraft is more accessible in this day and age. When I was a young witch back in 2005, it definitely wasn’t. Unless you had a local metaphysical shop or a bookstore in driving distance, we were basically SOL. I kinda wish that I could have just jumped on the internet and found PDFs of what I wanted to learn! And, I’m certain that these kids jumping into the craft in 2021 will grow to be wonderful practitioners, and more knowledgeable than us one day-- because that’s the point. We want the generation after us to always be better.

And y’know, maybe there WILL be people who are only jumping onto this for a trend. . . That isn’t new though. I knew many people in middle school and high school who read books on Wicca just because all of their other friends were, and then never picked a book up again. We still shouldn’t shame people for their curiosity. 

So, as someone who has been doing this for a while, this is what I have to say to those who are new to this awesome community:

Never stop reading! Read as much as you can, the best knowledge that you’ll get is what you pick up yourself.

Not everything is set in stone. What works for one practitioner may not work for you.

Practice discernment and question everything. 

Don’t be culturally appropriative, treat what is sacred to others with respect, and understand that not everything is for you.

Don’t eat essential oils... Please.

Everyone is going to tell you their own meaning of a crystal. Pick up the crystal yourself and figure out what it does for you personally.

Other witches and practitioners are not obligated to share their personal practice, spells, tradition, etc. with you, please be respectful of that. You will likely grow to keep certain things to yourself as well.

Other witches and practitioners are not obligated to be your teacher. While many of us like to teach, there are still a lot of us who would rather not, and that decision needs to be respected.

Listen to what experienced practitioners have to say about safety.

And, lastly:

There is nothing wrong with making mistakes and being curious. None of us got it right when we first started. Learn from your mistakes, and you’ll see growth.

[airlock]

I’ve been pretty scarce lately, haven’t I? last week this was because uni was demolishing me, but lately, it’s been more about, ehum, the downside of spending like 50% of your social time in Fire Emblem communities when a new game releases, precisely in the middle of the aforementioned demolishment by uni

I’m still probably going to be ignoring non-direct notifications for the next while or so, but now that I’ve finally gotten my hands on the shiny new toy too, I’m eager to become part of the problem for everyone else!

and on that note, I’m here to post my impressions of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes as of the start of ch4

maybe this should go without saying, but goddamn, the DIFFERENCE that it makes to be back to having a protagonist with their very own dialogue as well as a discrete personality. Shez and Arval’s back-and-forths really get the most out of the “gremlin living rent-free in your brain constantly complaining about your dumb ass decisions” by actually having two participants to it. even the none-too-revelant dialogue pick prompts are a lot nicer now that Shez will actually verbalize the option that you pick, which also means you really get the most out of all the funny and/or mean options-

also, Arval is cute and I want to pinch her cheeks no matter how gross the texture there probably is

plus she forced Shez not to call Alois out on telling dad jokes. she gets it

on a related note, I’ve only had this version of Byleth for like three voiced lines, and I’ve already seen more charisma than anything they’ve done in the entirety of Three Houses. y’know, Jeannie Tirado is a phenomenal voice actress -- actually giving her lines to read brings that out all of a sudden, who woulda thunk? (somewhere between this and Xander Mobus complaining about how few actual lines he had as Persona 5 Joker, I’m arriving at the perhaps bygone conclusion that one should maybe not waste highly talented voice actors on silent protagonists-)

anyway, it’s funny as hell to me that they went to all the bother of setting up the whole “hey, you’re a garreg mach student now!” thing, only to shut the academy down and send everyone home in 2 chapters. also I hope Leonie got a refund-

I’m digging the gameplay so far; I was a bit worried that it seemed to be trying to spin too many unique plates at once -- I will, of course, really see yet how all these interlocking systems hold up throughout an entire game, but in this early juncture, it actually feels like everything has a place and nothing is encroaching too hard on anything else.

on the other hand, though, I think I can see what people mean when they said the original Fire Emblem Warriors was surprisingly headache-inducing for a Warriors game. I enjoy the tactical aspect, but it feels like it comes at the detriment of direct gameplay; you decide what everyone’s going to do, it feels awesome, and then you’re like, wait, what am *I* going to do now-

(”I never quite understand which character I’d rather be playing as at a given time” was also a thing that hassled me in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, though, so I guess this is just how Warriors game are designed now. that, or I had it too good with the original Hyrule Warriors)

also, apropos of nothing, but I’d not realized how fucking sweet Ignatz’s new outfit is back at the character trailers. holy fucking hell the man is oozing drip alongside all that paint

(ETA: and how could I forget to mention Holst??? they had me at “ProZD is doing his voice btw” and what can I say, promised and delivered)

if you’ve been beholding my wretched reactions to things so far, though, you know what the thing I’ve REALLY been looking forward to in this game is. and...

just the ch4 basecamp has already hit me with TWO long documents about little details about the Alliance, including new details about the local economy as well as more lords, territories, and details thereof. even Acheron has a household name and even a full name now! and they went and gave him one of the most badass fucking full names of anyone in this verse-- but I digress; I can see I’m going to be eating out of this game’s hand when it comes to worldbuilding. which is to say, I’m high up in the clouds right now, ready for Claude’s first named murdercousin (brother, apparently?) to fly by with his wyvern and kill me instantly.

[definii]

Are there any events, details, headcanons, etc. that are specific to your Hermit!Tommy AU? :D I’d love to hear anything about it!!

Well, I don't have that much of my own Hermit!Tommy AU since I tend to lean on other people's take of it like redorich and petrichormeraki because I suck at writing, plus, I don't have much knowledge on Hermitcraft and the hermits themselves (I know widely on Grian, Mumbo, Xisuma, and Iskall however the other hermits, not so much) anyways.

Details on my Hermit!Tommy AU?

-He used to live at Joe's doghouse district (Crediting Petrichormeraki for that) settled at  Mumbo's old hobit home for a while till he's ready to make his own base. Tommy has a small cottage house, a hillside storage room in disguise, and an underground war room where he grinds weaponry, experience, ores, etc as a way to cope and calm his paranoia but surely turned to healthier coping mechanisms such as building, gardening, beekeeping, and bookbinding.

-Scar and Tommy has this soft comedic Love-Hate friendship, It all started with Tommy leaving messes like creeper holes and unsheared tree leaves which made Scar fed up and conforted Tommy about it, Scar tried to be gentle but Tommy like the loud child he is, it only led the two into an argument yet Tommy made a pinky promise to never do that again and Scar gave him tips about it.

-There's an inside joke among the hermits that whenever they pass by Tommy's place, they would leave a stack or two of building in his chest anonymously like quartz, different types of woods, slabs, etc because let's be honest, the kid's building is not too much pretty to look at and Tommy still doesn't take their gift since he doesn't want their "pity".

-Tommy after he's comfortable with the hermits (entrusting them with his trust) he hangs the old pictures (him and tubbo, the crew when the time of L'manberg and Tubbo in his presidential suit) The hermit wants to ask about it like who, what and when of those pictures but doesn't want to push him, worried if they pushed any of his personal buttons.

-Tommy has night terrors on some occasions, screaming as if he was going to getting murdered, rare hallucinations of Tubbo, Wilbur Even dream (He doesn't know the triggers of his hallucinations are yet) Xisuma and Impluse try to find a way for his night terrors to be smoothened put by potions or medicine.

Events on my Hermit!Tommy AU?

-Tommy fled after Dream blew up Logstedshire and almost attempting suicide, like any other Hermit!Tommy AU take on, He somehow ends up in Hermitcraft. He doesn't remember but he does remember blurringly like a fever dream, running away from something, wounded, blindly, screaming hoarsely for help and stepping in something but that's about it. He was found passed out bleeding beneath a tree by Zombiecleo and alerted the Admin about it.

-The Mycelium vs Grass war got Tommy wracked up, to the point he unhealthy grinded days on end but surely is informed that it isn't the same "definition" of war like in Dream SMP that gave Tommy a huge slap on the face of what's normal and what's extreme.

-Tommy took a break from MCC but soon came back, teaming up along with the hermits and agreed on being masked from the crowd, worried that he'll be found. However in the second chosen mini-game: Survival game, Tubbo, and Tommy came across each other due to the borders shirking fast

Both of them thought that they were hallucinating but fortunately, it isn't. Tubbo frantically started to ask him, begging for forgiveness to Tommy but he was killed in the process. Tommy was very quiet the next round.

(that’s it for now).

Headcanons on my Hermit!Tommy AU?

-Tommy has a short ponytail now and is very good with braiding because techno would always ask Tommy to do his hair.

-Techno has two forms. Piglin form, and Human form. 

he prefers his Piglin form as a battle appearance because it’s tanked, faster, and generally stronger than his human form so whenever he goes into something battle-related and casually in public so most people don’t know he looks like in human form. (he also has this mentality to not let his guard down whenever he’s surrounded by people unless it’s his loved and trusted ones).

-Tommy started to curse less in Hermitcraft. The day when Tommy said frick instead fuck, Scar was smiling the entire day.

-He likes ZombieCleo like a sister because he reminds him of Niki.

-He has a small bee garden hobbit (soon extended larger) where he sometimes has picnics, plans out builds, vibe, and relaxes because bees give him this sense of calmness, soft happiness though it gave him a sided homesick heartache. (Y’know, Tubbo.)

-Tommy has two huge surgical wounds on his shoulder blades, he used to have wings when he was little but got into a mega-wither accident which resulted in him transmitted to a hospital, worried that the continuous withering might cause his life so they surgically removed the already halfway severely withered wings off, losing them at a young age.

-Grian and he are the ultimate prankster duo in the Hermitcraft.

-Tommy has problems when it comes to telling what’s real and what’s fake in relationships due to the betrayals, gaslighting, emotional manipulation (from his brother, Wilbur), and the constant inner changing dreads of indecisiveness he dealt with. 

(The drawings will be posted after this)

[alberivh]

unwanted lovers

the lovers of the sinner, the thieves of the nation. Caught in despair after hiding their motives behind the ruins of aristocrats , they were now together behind the cells of execution, loving each other in no bounds of life nor death.

diluc x gn!reader

contains (proceed with caution) : major character death, gruesome death, execution. (Heavy angst, comfort/hurt, bad ending)

a/n ; I’m very sleepy these days so enjoy reading this

“diluc..are you sure we’re going to be alright?” , standing behind the cliff, both hands and leg chained up in a huge rocks; standing beyond the other side of the sinners-walls. The cliff was a sharp one, designed to be a punishment for fugitive to regret. But you in the other hand..looked like you didn’t regret anything. Seems like you gone numb and missing, probably dying out of beneficial, but for what exact reason..? Aren’t you going to die? Aren’t you?

The air was in a perfect shape, blowing through the ears of whisper into corruptors mind. It was breezing and perfect, a match for a dead end. The flowers were all a bare minimum, seems as if it was never supposed to grow; Same as how the contradictions between you and diluc relationship.

“we sure are going to be alright…haha”

a simple small affairs of thieves, relationship grew beneath titles. scrawling through the nights of the nations, searching for victims to be devour. Fortune, foods, informations and many more. Dangerous or so, we could talk about it later; after all, privileges of the poor are none to another. Dirts fill the clothes of people with nothing, looking like a lost dog from the leach of their master; it’s how you both look. generally speaking, maybe you both are really perfect from one another. Poor and worthless, messing up the people whom privileges drowns them to exploitation. beneficial for business and public figure, making the knives on both of your throat approach the second you both slaughtered another man.

diluc look so much more than perfect, he is astonishing. Fit more to be a corrupted man instead of a filth whom licks someone toes to be payed. And to live to the fullest, he repayed those who are involved with the corrupted government, by either slaughtering them or just..stealing their granted fortune. It is a job, and to be specific it is a living hell to be in love with your own partner. Loving seems so mature, yet you both found it to be quite bothersome. or maybe that’s just how nature works for someone who grew in an abandoned wilderness. Like how diluc live after his family died, like how you live after you lost everything to the ego’s of the rich.

you both were empty, like you predicted it to be. Diluc was a scum, same as his only eye which felt like a sharpened death. kissing his dry lips as you cried in his chest, embracing the figure of a red-hair thief who ones told you an eternal peace, for the poor we live and for the rich we died, that’s how our life’s work sweetheart. Even if death embarrassed your cheeks, all you wished is for you both to be alive as soon as the worlds ends to be a better place. The smoke of his cigarettes surrounded your cries, it stings the pain of abandonment, like the cries of lovers who only lives to die in the age of glory. although you wouldn’t assume the fact he was a worth of a thousand years of reincarnation, he sure is enough for puppet like you to be pleased.

“still wearing your brother’s eyepatch i see? What’s up with you always wearing it around? You look better without it anyways.”

“he lives in the other ground of the walls, possibly already meeting my father right now. He was beneath 6 feet under the ground anyways, would you like to mourn him?”

“you could just told me he’s dead, Diluc”

“i can’t he’s supposed to be alive after all.”

that’s how you know Diluc’s past, how’d you believe his slaughter and warm to be an abominable crime. As much as you loath those who stick with their family principles, you expect nothing more than Diluc’s ability to keep you both balance from the assumptions of the rich. He is a tool and a lover, even if you fall out of love with him, you could still rely within his power..or so you thought. Fate was cruel, they decided to lend a hand for the inability to be punished by the divine.

You found a comfort at his kisses, it was beautiful. A single line of poet to an old paper, perfection. Never have you though to be deeply in love. dancing like nobody but yourself and diluc himself. Skipping through the laces of fingertips as the mansion burns to the ground, how beautiful the sunset is at the evening; the dust of the corpses which were buried trying it’s best to find the wind, but they were corrupted and only both of you were worth to be despaired. The soul of the worthless, the soul who craves justice for the none; oh god, you both really are in love.

Embracing nothing but him, loving the movement like no one but him, only him, my beloved diluc. The flowers petals which was turned into a thousand of flames are now flying and surrounding the neighborhood. Burning the whole corrupted society was unexpectedly mesmerizing. It seems like it covered the injustice of your action. Burying people underneath their grasp, leaving terrors to the innocent, maybe fairness are really that blind.

The mansion was burned to dust, leaving nothing but bones in the investigation. The fortune you took was nothing, the burns of the screaming neighbors are your daily teases. Diluc found it pleasing that you both are in love once again. Dancing once again. But this time, both of you were chained up in a chamber. Legs full of bruises, cheekbones gone frail, and lips were all drying in horrors. you both are dying in tremors.

Dancing in each other arms, suffering in worth, it’s the last night they thought. The swaying burns of guilt, the loving kisses of embrace, it’s so addicting. Although diluc was hesitant to let go, maybe it’s time to grew on the fact by loving was a cursed from the start. For both of you and diluc. The chains in your legs were rotten, making a deep infection on your ankles. A fatal sources of death and unbalance.

“can we promise something diluc?” , your voice gone hoarse. Trembling and terrified, dying wasn’t so ruthless but seeing diluc suffer was something you wish you could unchange. It’s exhausting to live like no one, maybe diluc felt so too. You were too scared to shed another tears to his chest, anxiety was planting it’s ideology beyond the walls of your mind.

The night was peaceful, maybe the starry sky doesn’t deserve it’s view. Humans are frail, fragile, and too much of a pain to begin with. If you were a god, maybe diluc could be your lover for the rest of your eternal realm. The next life would be fine, just make diluc safe from the grudge of death.

“let us marry each other in the next life, even if it meant for one of us to die again..”

“your wishes is my command, love” , an agreement. He agrees to be in love, whenever the situation is those words would always be kept near. Marriage aren’t that simple to be idealized, but knowing this is your last wish, why not accept the terms? He asked himself.

“you don’t need to be formal like that y’know Diluc, we’re in the same bounds, a fugitive in a prison..”

“well that doesn’t change the fact you’re my lover?” , he replied again. The same silence scowl your emotions to a mess. You really wished you did more than just this, everything. Kissing his lips wasn’t enough, tearing up in his chest wasn’t enough, loving him wasn’t enough and lastly, maybe in the next life your time was too short. can i sacrifice the whole world for you then? So anything that could happened in this state, all of it was for us to met again. I’m too selfish to let go, you are the best thing that universe have fortune to be.

I accept each granted the world has gave, even if it meant for me to die again. Let go of diluc’s hand, let me be the crystalflies Diluc envied; An eternal peace for lovers to reincarnated as. If anything has happened to both of us, let share the burden towards the undeserved. Because in our next life, maybe there wouldn’t be us, just you and another person in chains of eternal love-life.

so whenever i’m lost diluc, intertwined my hands again. And you, whenever you’re lost diluc, love me all over again. Because if this time wasn’t enough, then let us die in each other embrace. Loving you was an intention i never have despises, and as those ancient story told. ‘The once fallen first are the once who fell in love harder.’ I though it was a wise poet, but maybe know i understand, Diluc.

I lost you after you fell to the cliff, i have no regret on loving you. But if time was partial enough for both of us, i rather fall for you without any requited relations with you anymore. Diluc, you’re free. As free as the ocean waves, as free as the guides of the wind, you’re free. I’m sorry for letting you fall away from the range of my life, i’m sorry..

so please Diluc, meet me again sooner or after, i love you.

the pleas for the corpse to hear, here you standing in the cliff alone, waiting for someone to push you apart; to follows Diluc’s path. oh diluc..he look so lonely down’s there..blood all over his head and torso; as he saw you fallen down to his side. Eyes opened in shock, as the knife inside of his stomache rumbles to death. Stings. It stings. He watches the world shutter in his eyes, the eyepatch he use was no longer his brother remnants, it was just a decoration for another corpse to be buried in burden of love. He seems so pathetic in this state, seeing you fallen to his side and couldn’t do nothing but smile.

diluc why am i the only one talking here?

The bloody place you both fallen through was a perfect place for continuation. Trying to slip your head to diluc’s unwary neck, the warm part of his body you couldn’t let go. You heard the whispers of the wind once again, it seems it pitied the living and the dead. Diluc heartbeat was long gone, possibly gone when he smiles at you; for the last time. Diluc was just a body now, your lover have returned to another universe. To another universe you promises him before.

‘in heaven we’ll be free..in heaven we’ll get married diluc.”

the thought of you slowly losing consciousness was better than before. the warm of Diluc’s corpse was starting to fade, same as how your instinct shatter to pieces. The only thing you could see beside the sky was the knife inside his stomach, waiting for it to be freed from the blood of the filth. But your strength was long gone, death already ruins your eyes in despised of being in love. As the ancient tales says in the end of the page, they told the audience a never-ending happy tales, a hope for the lovers to heard at the end. you both are free now..

TAGLIST : @mikachuchu , @zierx @childeluv @urujiako , @chichikoi , @noirkkat , @aphrodicts-imagination , @icecappa

proofread; @mikachuchu (thank you so much wtf mika ily for this /p)

[phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust]

It annoys me when people complain about Julian and call him “whiny “. The person that John hurt the most throughout his whole life is his own son! I feel like this gets glossed over because he was more attentive to Sean “At least he was a good father to one of his children”. John failed Julian massively. Having Sean should’ve motivated him to try harder with Julian but I feel like it demotivated him because he realised how much of Julian’s life he missed and that made him feel bad about himself. Even in May’s book she says that John would’ve avoided Julian for the rest of his life to avoid feeling bad about himself & the choices he made with his life. And even when he got his visa he was happy to fly to other countries but not the country containing his son! I mean c’mon that’s very shitty and inexcusable. People can’t relate to John’s callous treatment of Julian so it’s downplayed and undermined by the excuse of “Oh well, John was better with Sean”. I know John appeared more motivated towards the end but doesn’t absolve him of the damage and pain he already caused to his son.

I try to understand John’s neglect of Julian from his perspective - I don’t want to excuse or justify it, but I still want to know what was going through his head to make him treat Julian the way he did - but I just can’t really understand it in the same way I feel like I can empathise with a lot of John’s other flaws. Like I feel like I can understand Johns mistreatment of certain people, or his mood swings, or his anger etc. But when it comes to Julian I struggle to understand him, and I just think its such a shame that Julian never got the closure he deserved with John. But I guess a few things to keep in mind when discussing this are:

1. Alfs abandonment

That Johns father, Alfred, abandoned him at such a young age, this might have affected John in such a way that made connecting with children a real challenge. Of course, he ideally still would’ve made an effort to connect with Julian more - but I guess that this was 1963, and he was someone who at this point had had absolutely no therapy. John’s own father I think was placed in an orphanage around the age of 5, so this neglect and abandonment appeared to be a bit of a cycle within the Lennon family-tree. Alf didn’t develop the neurones to be able to connect with his son the way a father ideally should be able to, and therefore John had trouble forming these connections too.

A real tragic story regarding this disconnect is one that ive heard Paul tell a few times (see this interview at 6:24 to hear him tell it). He essentially compares his ability to just naturally connect with children, to John’s inability to do the same; Paul grew up in a household where children and babies alike were around all the time - and in addition to this, there seemed to have been a lot more affection involved in his early environment compared to Johns. So when Paul was able to pal around at ease with Julian, John asked “How do you do that?” - and its unfortunately just not something you can just learn. I think John did want to be able to relate to Julian, and a part of him wanted to be a real dad - but I guess he just lacked the initiative to do so, as well as not having the needed facilities provided for him to be able to function as “good” parent (< or in other words, that man needed alottttttttt of therapy omg—)

2. Aunt Mimi’s coldness

I think by now its sort of been established that im not Mimi’s no. 1 fan - I don’t hate her, and I think she genuinely loved John, but ive been pretty critical of what I perceive her parenting style to be like. One aspect of this parenting style is that I think she was cold and deprecating towards John, which I presume took a toll on his relationships in such a way that made him susceptible to cynicism and even bitter contempt towards those he loved most.

“She never hit him: her worst punishment was to ignore him…When she did, he’d plead, ‘Don’t ‘nore me, Mimi!’” - I think that this type of parenting style could have effected the way John relates to Julian, perhaps making him feel it was okay to abandon him, maybe as a result of some unrecognised childhood angst or revenge.

Theres also a story where I think John said something to Julian a long the lines of, “I hate your laugh!”. Like, Jules was just some four year old living his life and then John, his own father, had this massive fucking mood swing. I feel bad for Julian cause my parents were like this (had random fucking mood swings and said some pretty contemptuous things) so I can empathise with him. At the same time though, I feel like I can understand John getting these mood swings (although, I don’t think that showing that kind of contempt towards a child is at all acceptable, and assuming that this sort of thing was a regular occurrence, I would say he was emotionally abusive towards Julian. Maybe John got these mood swings from Mimi (check this post for more on that).

3. Yoko’s influence and isolation

I think we first have to take into account here that John had a history of neglecting and failing Julian, and from what im aware of, he only started making contact with him again during his ‘Lost Weekend’ after being encouraged to do so by May Pang. So I don’t think we can make Yoko take all the blame for Johns neglect of Julian (and certainly not his emotional abuse towards Julian). But I think we have to also account for the fact that Julian has stated Yoko would refuse to put him through when he would ring his dad. And I just don’t know how much John had to do with that - as in, I don’t if John knew Yoko was isolating him to the extent that she did, or if he was unaware that she was rejecting several important and significant figures in his life.

For what its worth, Julia Baird wrote in her memoir of John urging (or really, begging) her to go to Cynthias house and ask Julian to phone him, because he hadn’t been able to get through to Julian, and he was trying to construct a better relationship with him around this time (this was before Sean was born, like you said, he seemed to lose motivation with Julian after Sean was born). I don’t know why Julian wasn’t taking his calls around this time - John seemed to think it had something to do with Cynthia, perhaps it was an autonomous decision made by Julian, perhaps it was entirely just a misunderstanding; I don’t know.

When it comes to Yoko, im conflicted - to some extent, I think John was being manipulated by her, and she was clearly isolating (even abusing) him - but also, he’s a grown man, and so he had to take the initiative for his own life. So I don’t know, but id say she is still partly responsible for spoiling Johns relationship with Julian.

~ ~ ~

At the end of the day, all I can really say is that John was just a classic case of parents needing therapy before they start, y’know, parenting - but it was 1963, and thats just not something most people underwent back then, especially people with more complex and unrecognised traumas, as well as mental illnesses that, whilst prevalent, may not have been so apparent. To clarify that point, I think John could function well-enough in his day to day life to be able to get by, because I don’t think his traits of mental illness tended to disrupt his life to such a degree that he could not function (at least not in 1963, though in later years, id argue more so they did; but even still, I don’t think John tended to struggle with mania or psychosis etc.) But I think he was still dealing with mental illness in a way that wrecked almost all meaningful relationships for him, as well as made feeling love and functioning as an emotionally stable and consistent person, a real hardship and challenge for him. And this inability to feel loved and cared for etc. made being a parent, quite simply, impractical. He needed therapy, and its a shame he died before ever receiving real therapy because it would’ve been interesting to see how John might have come to terms with really acknowledging his failures as a parent, and because Julian might have gotten some real closure with his dad.

All in all, I think Phillip Larkin said it best

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Does Archaeology - Part 4

(As before, if you’re only seeing this part 4, the rest of them have the tag KyidylCL)

THE ARTEFACTS

Ok, so I’ve talked about the site and what we’ve been digging in and such, but I’m gonna be honest with you guys: I like lab work exponentially more than field work.  So I am the one who has been processing the vast majority of the finds and ergo have lots of stuff.  That’s why I sometimes make jokes about the stuff in my basement - I’m storing the majority of it here in my basement.  I’ve gotten the question before about ownership, so here is how that works.  The dig is on private land so anything we get technically belongs to the owner of the land.  Now, as far as I know, he has no interest in keeping any of it so it’ll likely end up in the hands of the arch society, who will basically just be custodians of it but not owners.  It might end up in a museum, too.  I don’t really know, but that determination won’t be made until we’re finished, and not by me.  

So every site has its own sort of categories of stuff that you find depending on who lived there (although for ease, archaeologists often categorize this stuff based on location and time - more on that later.).  For our site the majority of it falls into these categories: animal bone, shell, lithics, pottery, charcoal, modern contaminants, and artefacts.  And, to lend a bit of clarity here...lithics are anything made of rock.  So they include fire cracked rocks, flakes from stone tool making, material that was used in construction, material that was crushed to make temper for pottery paste (more on that later, too.), etc.  If it came from a rock it’s a lithic.  

And imma tell you a secret: I hate lithics.  Everyone has their thing, their category of human refuse that they simply do not like.  A prof of mine hated teeth and pottery.  That’s just how it is, and mine is lithics.  I think they’re boring, I can’t tell a flake from a blade, I don’t give a single fuck what material they are, I don’t care about the style or craftsmanship...I just don’t care.  I call them all rocks, and I do it so much that everyone on the site has started accidentally calling them rocks, too, which amuses me.  Rocks, to an archaeologist, means “stone that wasn’t altered or used by people”.  They’re worthless.  Not that I think lithics are worthless - far from it - I just really hate them and this site has so.  goddamned.  many.  Lucky for me, we have a Rock Guy aka someone who really loves lithics and actually has gotten pretty good at flint knapping and just, y’know, is really into rocks.  

And to clarify about artefacts.  When you’re out in the field everything you find is either an artefact or a find.  The collection of these things is called an assemblage.  When you’re doing lab work and sorting through it all later on an artefact is, well...like a thing.  I’m explaining this poorly....it’s a complete object with a specific function.  So, a whole pot = artefact, broken pieces = sherds (not shards, sherds.). Complete arrowhead = artefact, flakes or a broken one = lithic.  Artefacts also tend to be somewhat unique, or at least something you don’t have a lot of.  They don’t always have to be complete, anything that is a specific object can go in here.  Like, for example, this piece of pipe we found: 

To recap, we’ve got pottery, charcoal, lithics, shell, bone (animal - we haven’t found human. But I’m just gonna say bone.), and artefacts.  If you are sensitive to things like that, this is your warning that this post is going to have pictures of animal bone and you should scroll quickly.  

Now, for reference, this is what it all looks like before I clean it and after it’s been dying out for a day or two (the ground has natural moisture, so I basically just open the bags and let them air out.): 

And, yes....I am cleaning them off on an actual antique blotter with real silver edges that my mom gave me for this express purpose.  A factoid I’m only sharing because it amuses me in that sort of “bet they never envisioned this use for this thing” sort of way.  Normally, if I was in a real lab, you’d do this over a metal tray.  When you’re working with an assemblage you never hold it over empty space, you always hold it over the bench and preferably over whatever your work surface is.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t dropped my fair share of stuff anyway, but most of it just lands on the work surface and not the floor, which is why you hold it over a work surface.  But anyway, as you can see, it just looks like a brown, dirty mess.  I usually do a quick sort of the stuff I know for sure what it is and then I wash it with a soft toothbrush and some water.  The rocks I just submerge and swoosh around because they’re rocks and I can’t really damage them and there’s SO FRIKKIN MANY that I refuse to clean them individually.  

So now that you’ve gotten through that long-winded but necessary explanation of terms, where are we at? Since I’m a bioarchaeologist and I prefer things that were once alive to the general detritus of human society, we’re gonna start with the bone.  Specifically, we’re gonna start with how I know those two pits from yesterday’s post are one pit.  This is how: 

This is a deer bone.  Don’t ask me which one bc I’m really not good at ID’ing species and animal anatomy, but it’s a leg bone of some kind.  See how it’s broken? One piece was found in one hole and the other piece was in the other.  Clearly it’s the same animal, ergo the pits are related to each other.  The vast majority of what came out of that particular feature was bone, with the rest being charcoal and the occasional pot sherd.  This means it was probably used for cooking and not as a garbage pit. Also there was food in it, if you recall the cooking accident from yesterday.  but sometimes y’know, stuff falls into the fire pit or it’s put in there as a way of disposing of it.  

But wait, I have more cool animal bones!! 

Ok, so there’s this one: 

This bone has a special place in my heart. IDK what species it is (I *think* it’s a fragment of deer long bone.), but that’s not why it’s cool.  This single bone is strong evidence for the presence of dogs.  =D See that circular mark on the right? That is the impression of a canine tooth from a carnivore.  Human teeth can’t make those marks in bones - our teeth aren’t strong enough to do significant damage to bone, and anyway we tend to crack bones open with rocks (a form of damage called percussion marks.) and not with our teeth.  Those other longer scratch marks are also likely from chewing, not butchery, because they’re in the right places and they’re the right shape.  Now we know this was a settlement, and this bone was found smack in the middle surrounded by human detritus and not on the fringes or outskirts.  There were no domesticated felines in the Americas at the time BC this is from the lower pre-contact level, so what’s really the only carnivore that would be wandering around a human settlement? Dogs.  I love this kinda stuff because it’s so easy see them chilling around the fire pit, talking and eating, teasing whomever it was that spilled dinner, and then tossing the bones to their dogs to gnaw on after dinner.  It’s just such a people kind of thing, you know? All from one small, circular mark.  I actually found more on later bones that came out of other places, so it’s pretty safe to say there were dogs living here with their people even though we have found neither people nor dogs.  

So here’s another cool bone: 

Again, no idea what species it is bc I’m not a zooarch (yes, there are archaeologists that specialize in animals and wooooo boy can they tell you a LOT about migration and eating habits of people.). It’s about the size of half my thumb, IE, not large.  This one is cool, and it’s the only one I have like this, because of that notch you can see vertically in the image on the right hand side.  I don’t know what it was for, but I DO know that it was an intentionally made modification to the bone.  Those striations aren’t natural - natural bone is smooth or has a very specific texture and this isn’t that.  It’s probably not damage done to the bone after it was deposited in the archaeological record.  It has the same patina as the majority of the rest of the bone, which you can compare to the lighter area there on the right hand end of the bone.  That lighter area does not have the patina of age that the rest of the bone does, and is the result of damage in a much more recent time - probably as we were taking it out of the ground.  Small bones are fragile.  So someone gouged this channel intentionally in this bone, either because they were going to use it as decoration or it served some purpose as a tool.  I’m not really sure what though.  Hell, they could have just been bored and fidgeting after eating.  Either way, it’s a human modification to this bone that has nothing to do with cooking or consumption (damage from human consumption is cracks and breaks, not scrapes.).  It could also be a butchery mark, although it’s a bit deep for that.  Butchery marks are there from separation of meat from bone - they’re usually just shallow scrapes.  

Ok, last cool bone I’m gonna show you.  Well, bones, plural.  

Ok so this is part of the same assemblage as the ones above, and if I remember correctly these were the ones that came out of that pit.  You can see the same bone with the canine tooth mark there in the center.  There’s also some interesting things like some pottery on the left and a couple teeth off to the right (one is a deer and I *think* that curved on is a squirrel.), but the really interesting thing is the series of 3 shiny bones that are in the center.  There’s a lot of ways to cook meat, and they all do different things to bones.  You will often find the dry, brown looking ones like you can see here in the non-shiny bones. That’s like...your basic “this bone had meat on it when it was cooked”. Then you’ll see ones that are black, and that’s “this bone probably didn’t have meat when it was cooked, or someone tossed it back in the fire when they were done”. Lastly, you’ll see white bone, and that’s a bone that has been burned at a high temperature for a long time.  Usually it’s done on purpose (you can use burned, powdered bone to make stuff.).  

But the shiny ones were in a soup.  And the reason I know that is *because* they’re shiny.  Bones, especially old ones, aren’t shiny.  I mean...you can see that.  You have to do stuff to ‘em.  And bones are porous, but those weren’t.  They felt like hard plastic. And they get that way by being boiled.  The shiny patina is what we call pot polish - they were stirred in the soup while it was cooking and rubbed against the side of the pot and each other, and it gives them a smoother texture.  

All of these collections of bones tell us what and how they ate things.  I know from what I can ID here (which isn’t everything, trust me.) that they ate a lot of deer and wild turkey (we have an entire almost completely intact turkey long bone.). There is also, I believe, squirrel (I found a portion of a skull and jaw that I’m pretty sure belong to a squirrel), and an assortment of other small rodents and birds.  Lots of birds.  Bird bone is really distinctive, it’s light and the spongy bone has a distinct texture.  A zooarchaeologist can look at bones like this and ID species and age, and from there tell you what time year something was probably killed.  Societies that hunted a lot tended to do it seasonally so that they wouldn’t damage the populations.  Plus especially with fish and stuff they have very specific growing cycles and short lifespans, so they can also tell you a lot about where the people were hunting and when.  Like certain fish will only spawn in certain places, so it’s really informative.  Zooarchs are so important and there just aren’t enough of them.  

Anyway, there are other cool things in the bones but I’m trying to strike a balance here between too much and not enough and I really love bone so I’m going to stop here for today.  Tomorrow is going to be other artefacts (yeah, sadly, even lithics, lol), and what they tell us about the site and the people who lived there.   As an aside: if anyone has any like just general “how do they know this?” sort of questions about history and archaeology those would be fun to answer.  I love to tell people how we do things but I don’t just wanna infodump.  I DO want to explain procedure in what I hope is a readable way because I think understanding how we make the sausage will help people have more trust in science.  So if you have any questions, please, send asks.  If I don’t know the answer I’ll research it or pass it on to someone who does.  

[catgirlxox]

A Deconstruction of The Flame Keeper’s Circle & The Audience’s Common Complaints | Catgirl

As the title states, I’ve been reminded of a couple complaints made about this episode that stem from a large portion of the audience’s general disliking of the way both Ben and Julie were handled during the run of Ultimate Alien. In fact, I recently read a "review" of “The Flame Keeper's Circle,” or, more of a parody, actually, since a review would actually have some kind of substance to it and not just...a slew of insults thrown at a show you claim to like. It's almost like you're looking for something to be mad at, but anyway.

One of those was the OP actually asking someone to (probably joking, but anyway) explain "how Ben's mind works" to them.

And I was like, gladly!

According to the comments under the review, it seems like the general audience didn't really like this episode all that much when it first aired. Which, I bring up because, I on the other hand, actually did. And for a reason: because it proves my previous defence points right.

There's a lot of talk about Ben coming off as a “jerk” or a “douchebag”...but, in a situation such as the one presented within “The Flame Keeper’s Circle,” I would argue he did exactly what he should have done. So that's where I beg to differ.

This episode puts Ben in a position where he, once again, needs to deal with the overlap of a romantic relationship and his priorities as a superhero. The only reason there is conflict here is because they are both important to him.

A bad boyfriend would only care about himself, but Ben clearly cares about not only the safety of his (clearly, quite naive) girlfriend, but also the safety of the rest of the earth. Which, as I’m going to be stating several times, should be something expected of him considering everything else within the series that establishes who he is as a character.

So, on the topic of things that are important, ask yourselves, why would Ben prioritize going along with Julie's idea of joining a cult more than keeping her, and the rest of the world, safe when he realizes the trouble she could potentially be getting herself into?

Throughout the episode, and the fandom’s discussions from what I’ve seen, there is so much focus on "oh, he laughed at her idea so he's a douchebag and therefore a bad boyfriend" and not enough focus on the fact that he's not blindly following an alleged “good cause” because he isn't naive and that's in character based on everything we know about him as a character.

Context matters. And this kind of thing only further makes me question the people who want to cry "inconsistent" writing or characterization because he's acting the way he's been conditioned to.

Arguably from the age of ten, Ben's been dealing with situations where he needed to fight to survive and decide who to trust. Sometimes he trusted the wrong person, which wasn't done out of any other reason besides wanting to help and do the "right thing."

For example, Michael Morningstar in the episode “All That Glitters,” who fooled Ben and his team into thinking he was innocent all while abusing school girls for their life energy and almost killing Ben's cousin.

Or, Simian in “Birds of a Feather," who fooled Ben into thinking he was royalty and into helping him steal something that would aid the Highbreed in their mass murder plot.

In that way, Ben and Julie could have related in this situation because they were both trusting people in the interest of doing something “good.” Both Michael and Simian made Ben believe that they had something in common, or a common goal they could work together to reach. But, he trusted them blinded by his ambition and drive to save the world. Much like Julie is blinded by the promise of being a part of a group trying to make the world a better place.

As such, Ben has made the mistake before, so he's extra weary of how things could go very wrong. He's not against his girlfriend just to be a “jerk” - he's been through things like this before, and we’ve seen him go through those things.

Furthermore, the situation in which Julie is trusting The Flame Keeper’s Circle involves her indirectly agreeing to work with Vilgax. Who, as anyone familiar with Ben should know, is one of if not Ben’s biggest, and more importantly, most dangerous enemy.

Again, she, at the beginning didn’t know that he was involved, or what Ben had gone through already to make him act the way he does in this situation, but she does know what his job entails at this point in the series. She should probably infer that he’s suspicious for a good reason, as should the audience.

Not trusting people blindly is something he learned from being the leader of his team, while trying to protect the earth, namely from the Highbreed invasion back in Alien Force when he was putting together a stronger team. It would only make sense for him to then apply that to a situation in which his significant other gets roped into that which he fights against.

Speaking of fighting against, that brings me to another odd criticism of the writing of this episode. It’s no surprise that the flawed belief of Ben coming off as an alleged “sociopath” is brought up again, considering this episode takes place after The Ultimate Kevin arc. And yes, I realize the problematic connotations of using that term as a borderline insult as part of the issue here. But that aside, in this episode, the fact that he begins to fight Vilgax in his apparent “weakened” state is what is being attributed to that description.

Besides the fact that defending Vilgax is questionable in itself, he’s never needed water to survive for the many times he actually tried to kill Ben. I can’t find a solid answer from a writer that knows for certain if his need for water is genuine except for one who is only assuming that is the case when he’s in this state.

But regardless, (since he clearly survived long enough to morph with Dagon and become a bigger threat to the earth later on) we are still defending Vilgax the LITERAL INTERGALACTIC WARLORD.

Y’know, the guy who’s only in this position because of his own immoral actions? Who absolutely would not hesitate to take advantage of his opponent's weakened state in order to further get away with his immoral actions? Such as he is in this very episode, taking advantage of the people wrongfully worshiping him?

If we are trying to imply that Ben is “just as bad as Vilgax,” then I would assume you’d easily find the flaw in that being Ben’s motivation for incapacitating a dangerous offender who is, at the moment, manipulating naive humans to work for him and help him continue get away with his immoral actions. Which is, needless to say, not the same as Vilgax, at all.

Again, you’d think that’d be obvious.

The Flame Keeper’s Circle’s mission is to end human suffering and find a solution to certain issues happening across the globe with the help of alien technology that is much more advanced than what everyday people are used to. And, while the end goal seems like a good cause, even something Ben as a superhero would be all for, the means through which they attempt to get there aren’t a good idea, at all.

A lot of people find it hard to navigate the use of technology considered advanced by human standards in the real world, so you can only imagine the various things that could go wrong if those kinds of people were suddenly exposed to something much more powerful. In short, a lot could go wrong.

Again, Ben has been in that exact position as soon as he was armed with the Omnitrix. Which is exactly why he’d see the flaw in what these people are trying to do, and therefore not be convinced that it’s such a good idea to allow them to continue, much less endorse it.

This is why I love when the writers actually allow Ben to speak for himself instead of cutting him off for drama or plot. Once he actually gets a word in, or more accurately, has his moment of heroic monologue, he makes himself very clear and, I think, only further proves what I’m trying to say about him.

Here he is, explaining exactly what I’ve been trying to highlight throughout this body of work:

Ben: “Even if Dagon was real, using alien technology to accelerate a planet’s natural development won’t bring utopia, it’ll bring disaster. It’s happened before. Why do you think the Plumbers have those laws? But even that’s not the point, because that isn’t Dagon! His name is Vilgax. He’s not a hero, he’s a selfish, evil warlord who’s using you. And if you let him get in his ship, he’s going to fly off and start an interstellar civil war.”

It’s not that only he can use alien technology to save the world, it’s that his status as a hero proves that he knows what he’s doing, unlike these businessmen in fancy robes leading a cult for profit.

That is not what I would have assumed reasonable people would consider “douchebag behaviour.” That’s actually smart, and going back to my first point, exactly what he should be doing in a situation like this.

The actual episode does end off on a positive note for both Ben and Julie, which is omitted from the review and most of the comments I have read from others on the topic. And, I bring it up because it’s actually vital to wrap up everything brought up within this episode that I have just expanded on. Not only because they make up and seem to understand each other’s perspective after all is said and done, but because they both agree to be open to further discussion on the topic, as Ben offers to go out for dinner.

Which, needless to point out I hope, but once again, is not “douchebag behaviour.”

[phoenixyfriend]

I think it’s really interesting how a person’s gut reaction to a trope can change with age and understanding, and with the way fandom shifts around them.

Like, I’ve talked about gender bending before, and I have a lot of really intense feelings on that trope in particular, but a trope that’s been on my mind recently is mpreg, which is... related, in that it’s a gender-related trope that’s often very transphobic and fetishizing, if in different ways.

I came into fandom relatively young, or at least on the younger side of average. I was twelve when I started reading fic, and fifteen when I started exploring things in relation to my sexuality.

This is when I first ran into mpreg. Half the time it was a kink thing, and half the time it was just a plot point. I was initially squicked, but eased myself into neutrality because that was what I did with most tropes back then; I had a squicky reaction to plenty of things, some banal and some that I could have done to avoid, in hindsight. I was initially squicked by same sex couples and while I know now that this isn’t the same thing, 15yo me was... sheltered, and confused, and 

By the time I hit late high school/early college, I was invested in the queer community, and had read enough about how mpreg fetishized trans and intersex characters to have developed an aversion to it on the basis that, well, most of it was written with such a lens.

Now... it’s case by case. A lot of it still is a gross fetish thing that’s deep in the transphobia well, but a lot of these fics are written like... okay.

I have a vague relationship with my own gender, but I’m capable of pregnancy, if I ever were to want to go through it. I definitely never plan on getting pregnant, and find the idea of doing so deeply unsettling. I also never plan on having kids, and find that idea scary as well.

But I love other people’s kids. I love seeing parents, especially pregnant people, who want to be parents, who got pregnant with a plan, because they want nothing as much as they want to have and raise a child. I love seeing small, developing children who are loved and happy and growing up in a way that makes the world a wonder to explore and just... I love the idea of the people who raise kids being genuinely excited to have and love kids. I don’t want to be pregnant or have kids but I will devour fic about people becoming parents and just loving their children more than anything else. Whether it’s biological, or adoption, or “older sibling raises younger sibling” or whatever... it’s just really, really comforting to read about someone raising a child they adore.

And fics where that’s the main idea, where the mpreg isn’t an accident so much as just a science fiction or fantasy process whereby an ostensibly cis male character goes through pregnancy because they want to, or even a character that’s “AMAB dude, but not super concerned about the body, y’know?” and so sees the possession of a uterus they didn’t have before as just a neat thing that lets them have kids...

Like, isn’t that just the penultimate expression of what I’m talking about? Someone wanting kids or being so excited about kids that their body and expression is something they’re willing to change, if only temporarily, to accommodate the desire for a family? A person whose ties to gender as a matter of the body being loose enough that they’re okay with magical or scifi changes to their reproductive organs, that’s good. I like a character with an unorthodox approach to gender. A person who, in the context of that relationship to their own gender, is then not only willing but excited to have a child?

I just. I have a lot of feelings on the nature of gender in fanfiction as a form of exploration and discovery and positivity, and on the nature of child-rearing fics as a matter of catharsis and hope and fluff, and mpreg isn’t often done in a way that doesn’t hit some kind of Weird Squick Button, but on the rare chances that it’s done well... I can’t help but enjoy the idea, that someone is so happy and ready to be a parent that they’re okay with being pregnant despite never having been in a position to expect it as a possibility.

[floof-ghostie]

floof help i just found an eri body pillow i need wholesome 1b headcanons to bleach my brain

I’m so sorry, an Eri WHAT?!

All jokes aside, I got your back.

Kendo is non binary, though she doesn’t really care which pronouns people call her by. 

Honenuki enjoys early 2010′s pop music.

Awase can and will use his quirk to stick somebody’s stuff high up where they can’t reach it.

Komori, Yanagi, and Kodai are all autistic.

Kuroiro loves the Addams Family (he’s got good taste tbh)

All of the boys have used Tetsutetsu as a battering ram during training.

When Vlad King saw it, he said, and I quote: “What’s better than this? Guys being dudes.”

Rin gets very sleepy in the wintertime. It isn’t uncommon to see him bundled in like four layers (I relate).

On another note, Rin is also a very good dancer/singer.

Tsunotori and Monoma exchange manga/bandes dessinees. They like talking about them together.

Kodai is very easy to talk to. A lot of people are somewhat intimidated by her, but she doesn’t notice.

Komori jumps up and down when she laughs.

Tsuburaba and Kaibara met during the entrance exam. They became fast friends.

Also, I know this probably won’t be canon, but it’s a crack theory between me and my mutuals that Kaibara is related to the sixth ofa user.

Tsuburaba can play the kazoo, and the slide whistle. He has played Despacito for his classmates on numerous occasions.

Fukidashi is very good at drawing realistic bodily proportions. 

His favourite hero is Present Mic!

Tsunotori is from Chicago, though she moved to New York at a very young age.

Bondo was bullied for his appearance in elementary/middle school.

When class 1-B heard about it, they vowed revenge. Even Shiozaki. 

Bondo was raised by his grandparents. They gave him nothing but love and support.

Shiozaki is Afro/Japanese/Filipino.

Tetsutetsu was raised by a single mom.

Awase has two sisters and a younger brother. One older sister, one younger sister, one younger brother.

His younger brother is quirkless, and Awase had to step in to defend him a lot...

On a happier note

All the boys in the class respect women. Unlike a certain grape skunk.

Tokage’s favourite heroes are Miruko, and Burnin. She likes her attitude.

She cannot stand Endeavor though. 

Shishida comes from a wealthy family, but like Iida, he wanted to get into U.A on his own, instead of recommendations.

Kaibara has recorded his classmates doing dumb stuff, but he’ll do the same to anyone else tbh.

Never bet against Shoda while watching a wrestling match. He will win.

Yanagi likes to go ghost hunting. She brings her friends.

Komori has used the meme “you cannot kill me in a way that matters” so many times.

Kodai has two shiba inus. One is named Rex, one is named Chiba @moshiguro came up with this.

They make her smile.

Don’t let the term “common sense kings” fool you. They share one brain cell that Rin has most of the time. 

Yanagi enjoys lofi music.

All of the boys have threatened grape skunk at least once, like the kings they are:

Awase: I will weld you to the top of the school, don’t test me.

Kaibara: How many of your kidneys would you like to keep.

Tetsutetsu: Nice skull you got there. Would be a shame if anything were to *hardens fist* smash it like a watermelon.

Kuroiro: I will drag you into the void from which I came from.

Bondo didn’t even have to say a thing. 

Shishida: If you do not treat our female counterparts with respect, I will have to use physical force. 

Honenuki: *glared through mask, and softens nearby rock* Y’know, I’ve never tested my quirk out on anyone before.

Tsuburaba: *angry sputtering* (it’s the thought that counts)

Kamakiri: I won’t hesitate b*tch *sharpens body*

Rin: *gives intimidating look* I will end you.

Monoma:.... I don’t even have to say it, do I?

Surprisingly, out of all the boys, it’s Fukidashi and Shoda that are the first to actually hit him.

Kings.

Also, the class 1-b girls? Are so chaotic?? And for what???

Hatsume is an honorary class 1-B member, because she can match the chaos.

Seriously, girls night for class 1-B is basically them doing one stupid stunt after another. 

Bless them.

Kamakiri has a tarantula, but he leaves it at home because Tokage has severe arachnophobia.

He’s a lot sweeter than he lets on.

Kamakiri also has a crush on Tsunotori, but refuses to admit it.

 Kamakiri 🤝 Kuroiro not being able to confess.

Anyways, this is the end of all my hcs, but I hope this cleanses your brain sufficiently!

[bigskydreaming]

Making an additional post to respond to @fuyunoakegata’s response to @fiyaerrigan’s post here without derailing or going too far afield from the OP:

I think an additional thing to consider that the other kids had by benefit of Dick being the eldest is......every single one of them to varying degrees had Dick to look to as a precedent for like.....reassuring themselves that their presence in Bruce’s life wasn’t a temporary thing. Dick’s constant or recurring presence was an affirmation of permanence - that no matter how bad things got between Bruce and one of his kids, since things HAD been very dicey between Dick and Bruce for awhile - Dick still was there, at the end of the day.

Now, the obvious sorta exception to this is in Jason’s POV, with it being a sorta exception cuz there’s a couple different ways you can play this. By emphasizing how much Bruce and Dick were on the outs from Jason’s POV while he was living with Bruce, you CAN cast doubt on the idea that Dick was proof things would never get so bad with Bruce that he would just stop being part of their lives. And then this in turn can be used as a sort of explanation for why Jason was so convinced that there was no coming back from a lot of what he’d done by his return to Gotham, even without the events of UTRH....like, you can make the case that this is why Jason escalated things to that extent period. He thought reconciliation was never truly ever an option.

But by the same token, you can also use the fact that Dick IS reconciled with Bruce by the time of UTRH to seed doubts about this in Jason’s head, because he DOES remember just how bad things were between Bruce and Dick when he was younger....and if they could come back from that, maybe it WASN’T just wishful naivete to think that there could be a future for Bruce and Jason’s relationship as well, y’know?

To cycle back to the beginning though....it should be acknowledged imo that Dick never had the benefit of this proof of permanence, this security blanket of knowing that no matter how bad things got with Bruce, there wasn’t truly a point of no return. That WAS in doubt for him a lot of the time. Which gives him all the more motivation to see what we so often see evidence of in the comics - Dick going above and beyond to stress to his siblings that they aren’t temporary in his eyes, and their connection is not just limited to being via Bruce. They’re his siblings with or without Bruce in the picture.

Now to respond more directly to what @fuyunoakegata had to say in that last reblog addition, I think the fact that Dick is so good at translating what Bruce leaves unspoken is actually a key part of the conflict between Dick and Bruce at so many points. Because the thing is....Dick should never have HAD to become that good at it. He became good at it by necessity, because Bruce does leave a lot unspoken and taken for granted, and at a certain point Dick realized he’d just have to fill in the blanks himself.

But given that Dick was the traumatized kid that Bruce chose to take in as an adult - no matter how young of an adult he was - there’s an inherent disservice in not recognizing that it should never have been on that kid to feel HE had to be the one to bridge the communication divide between himself and his guardian when said communication felt lacking. That is the responsibility of the guardian or parent, its literally a key part of the sense of security its their job to offer the traumatized orphan in their care.

That’s not to say, however, that its not realistic for this to happen this way - and for reasons that actually have nothing whatsoever to do with Bruce, and everything to do with Dick. Because it is possible that Bruce just never quite clued into just how much Dick was assuming the burden of translating Bruce’s intentions into actual communication and filling in the gaps where Bruce was leaving stuff unsaid.....because as I’ve said before, for all their similarities and parallel tragedies, a key part of Dick’s tragedy that Bruce simply couldn’t relate to, was the abandonment fear of being sent away for not being good enough or being too much of a burden. Bruce has HUGE abandonment issues due to his own tragic loss of his parents - but his abandonment issues tend to be more geared around losing people to tragedy or death. 

Now from a parental standpoint, he does have fears of driving his kids away by not being good enough for them or by hurting them in various ways, true.....BUT the specific overlap he lacks is that he’s never really identified from the perspective of a child, with that fear of a parent or guardian not wanting to deal with him or be burdened by him anymore. When he was raised by Alfred, he feared losing Alfred in a variety of ways, but not really so much by driving Alfred away or making him sick of him....because there has always been at least an implicit awareness, even while acknowledging that Alfred basically raised him, that Alfred still technically worked for the Wayne family, and Bruce simply wasn’t ever in a position to feel quite as dependent on Alfred and say...his ‘whims’ or whatever, as other children might in regards to their own parents. Alfred’s loyalty is readily apparent and of a more....fundamental sort than most others can claim, y’know?

So I think one of the key divides between Dick and Bruce, a NATURAL area of oversight for Bruce, who tends to take for granted at times how much he and Dick are alike in certain ways.....is that it wouldn’t necessarily ever occur to Bruce just how much Dick feared being a burden who could and might be sent away at any time he became too difficult to be worth putting up with anymore. And by not realizing how big a role this played in Dick’s thoughts as he grew up, its natural that Bruce wouldn’t necessarily notice just how almost....eager Dick was to jump at filling in gaps in communication himself rather than risk having to insist Bruce clarify himself or his intentions in order to be understood instead. Dick didn’t want to give his guardian any reason to send him packing - so he voluntarily took up the role of Bruce-translator early on, before ever even alerting to Bruce that there was anything about his communication tendencies that might be lacking and left Dick occasionally grasping for assumptions to fill in the blanks.

But see, the problem that naturally arises from this sort of inherent miscommunication or oversight, no matter how understandable it is....is that it over time builds in an expectation or even reliance on Dick doing the majority of the work and emotional labor when it comes to understanding each other. And the precise problem this creates lies in when Dick for whatever reason - such as believing Bruce has already as good as cast him aside and no longer wants to be burdened with him - like, if for whatever reason Dick STOPS doing the majority share of their communication, if he no longer sees a reason to translate Bruce’s thoughts into actual words of affirmation and read approval into his actions or assume the best of Bruce’s intentions......if Dick basically just stops TRYING here, because he’s convinced there’s no longer any reason to try and the worst has already happened, the very thing he was going above and beyond in filling in Bruce’s gaps in communicating himself in order to avoid happening in the first place....

Then Bruce is going to flounder, naturally, because all of a sudden its going to seem like nothing he says or does in the ways he’s always been used to communicating himself like, seem to be getting through to Dick or leaving him with the same understanding or awareness of Bruce’s true feelings that he’s grown used to Dick having, based just on whatever Bruce DOES actually do or say.

So from Bruce’s perspective, its going to be like nothing he says seems to make any impact on Dick or convey to him that Bruce does in fact still love him and care....BECAUSE Bruce hasn’t quite realized yet just how much Dick has HAD to fill in those blanks for himself, because Bruce’s actual communicating of them has not actually involved ever FULLY expressing those sentiments.

Hence, their complete communication breakdown after Dick was fired and/or Jason was made Robin and adopted without consulting or even alerting Dick to the fact beforehand, or reassuring him that this didn’t actually say anything about Bruce’s feelings for his eldest. As well as Bruce’s seeming obliviousness as to why.

And another thing I want to add here is that I always tend to push back a lot against people bringing up how young Bruce was when he took Dick in, and how that explains his lapses in parenting....

Because the thing this fails to take into account IMO is that like.....by and large, and with obvious occasional exceptions like Robin: Year One.....its almost unanimously agreed that Bruce was at his BEST as a parent to Dick - whether thinking of himself as his father yet or not - in their early years together. So I don’t see how Bruce’s young age can excuse his later lapses in parenting Dick, when it was at his YOUNGEST, that Bruce was at his BEST in parenting Dick. To me, his age has nothing to do with it. The difference in Bruce’s effectiveness in being a parent to Dick at various stages in my mind lies entirely in the fact that in those early years, Bruce was most consistently putting in his most effort into being there for Dick, being the person Dick needed him to be, etc. 

Basically, those early years were so good between them, compared to other periods, because even with Dick assuming more responsibilities than he ever should have had to - but for completely understandable reasons ie Bruce simply not REALIZING Dick was so desperate to not be a burden he was making sure Bruce never realized there was a problem here at all -  the bottom line was it was in those earliest years that Bruce most consistently TRIED. He put his best foot forward. He did the WORK.

And thus the problem in the later years of Dick’s youth, IMO, had nothing to do with Bruce’s own relative youth - it was that I think Bruce had just gotten comfortable with their dynamic and lost sight of how much of that was due to his own EFFORT. He started to take Dick for granted, and thus defaulted more towards frustration when he didn’t understand why Dick did something or where he was coming from....where previously, he would have been more patient as he applied his intellect towards trying to figure out for himself WHY Dick was acting the way he was or what it might signify.

BUT. The point of all this digression is like.....me working my way around to how there’s not JUST an opportunity for Dick to buttress Bruce’s lapses in parenting for his younger siblings, and for them to benefit from him having gone first.....BUT, if people WANT there to be....there’s also every bit as much to fix or address a lot of the flaws in Bruce and Dick’s relationship via Bruce learning from things with his younger children like....an awareness of WHY he and Dick grew apart and how it can be addressed.

For an example.....with Jason. I’ve commented before on how a lot of authors doing revisitations of Bruce and Jason’s early years together in fic actually do a GREAT job of showcasing how patient Bruce is with him, and understanding of his history and why he behaves in various ways or reacts to things differently than Bruce would or expects.

And a lot of focus is put on how in the comics, when Bruce talks to Dick about why he took Jason in, he describes himself as having seen Jason as being a lot like him, and thus thought he could help him with his anger, etc.

See, I have always, ALWAYS, called bullshit on this point. (And that’s aimed at the comics canon btw, not fic writers).

Because uh, I just don’t see it at all. First off, Jason has always had even less in common with Bruce than Dick did, and second like, the only thing that Bruce has ever pointed to as feeling similar to Jason in....is Jason’s anger.

And like....early Jason, even after the post-Crisis origin retcon, like...wasn’t that angry! His supposed anger issues come from all of like, two different stories and that’s it. And I don’t buy that Jason was the first kid in all the time Bruce had been Batman by that point, that like, Bruce saw as a kindred spirit due to just being ANGRY. Umm, no. Sorry. That doesn’t track for me.

Especially because like....when Bruce first encountered Jason? When he first MADE the decision to take Jason in? First when meeting him stealing his tires, at which point he took him to Ma Gunn, and then after finding out that was a criminal front and deciding to take Jason in himself? Jason was like....literally not even angry in any of those encounters, lol. He just wasn’t.

Jason was scared. He was defiant. He was stubborn. He was proud. He was vulnerable. He was doing his damnedest not to show it. He was a lot of things.

What he wasn’t.....was...angry.

And so I truly don’t believe that Bruce took Jason in for reasons that had anything to do with identifying with him and seeing himself in Jason.

I think Bruce looked at that tiny young vulnerable but proud, spirited and defiant kid before him, utterly unrepentant about stealing Bruce’s tires and then hitting him with a tire iron and then with the Ma Gunn storyline....

And Bruce saw a young Dick Grayson reflected in the boy before him. 

Bruce missed Dick and took Jason in as a kind of do-over, a chance to fix the mistakes he barely understood making with Dick to lose him from his life or drive him away in the first place....and just resolved to do BETTER this time. To not make the same mistakes. To be patient, understanding, to try and get why Jason did and thought the things he did instead of just making his own assumptions.

And the painful irony is that despite Bruce’s best intentions in the comics, history DID repeat himself. He and Jason became estranged, even before Jason’s death - by Bruce projecting himself and his own issues and viewpoints onto Jason rather than see Jason as an entirely different person from him. He grew to take Jason and their dynamic for granted the same way he did with Dick. A significant element of the Garzonas story that never gets talked about is that after they captured Garzonas the second time, after Gloria’s suicide and before taking him into the police where Garzonas ended up just walking again....

Bruce stood back and literally encouraged Jason to take out his anger and frustration on the man. The same way Bruce sometimes did with criminals himself. He literally stood there and watched as Jason vented his anger by beating up Garzonas further.

And THIS is the heart of why Bruce reacted the way he did with Garzonas’ death, I think. Especially when you couple it with how much of Bruce’s reactions in UTRH are based around how HIS entire reason for being unwilling to kill the Joker is because he doesn’t think he could just stop there, couldn’t pull himself back from doing it again. I think Bruce just ASSUMED that Jason had pushed Felipe to his death, because he projected himself into Jason’s shoes, and saw that moment playing out from how he feared HE HIMSELF would have reacted in that moment, if he were say as young as Jason still was at the time, and frustrated by how futile everything felt. He assumed the worst of Jason, because he identified with Jason, and in that moment, was projecting his own worst assumptions of himself in a parallel moment of intense emotional frustration and anger.

Like I said.....he drove Jason away by making the same mistakes he’d made with Dick in essence - he projected too strongly on identifying with them and thus viewing their actions or choices through the lens of how he would behave in similar circumstances and WHY....and he stopped doing the WORK of keeping in mind that they were very different people from him with very different reasons for choosing the things they choose, different histories, different priorities, different contexts.

So the point is like.....instead of letting things play out like that, since fic IS an opportunity to improve upon canon, you can draw upon literally ANY of these ideas, and like.....examine what happens if not only Dick helps his siblings in their relationships with Bruce by drawing from his own experiences with him and the mistakes there.....

But you can also examine what happens if Bruce is helped in his relationship with Dick by drawing from his experiences with his younger children and using those to identify mistakes he made with Dick specifically, and address them even now....instead of just writing off his relationship with Dick as the best it’ll ever be now and damaged beyond further repair and so instead devoting himself to trying to just do better with his younger kids.

Because see what happens then, if you use Bruce’s patience and understanding while raising a young Jason, and awareness of just how different Jason is from him....to glean for HIMSELF, without having to be told by others....an awareness that no, maybe he took in Jason for reasons that had far more to do with regrets having to do with Dick than because of identifying with Jason just himself. And from there.....a simple examination of his relationships with Dick and Jason respectively, like, even just to wonder what’s so different about his differing dynamics with the two and why is so much better now than the other...that’s literally all that’s needed for Bruce to become AWARE of how patient he is with Jason and his seeming idiosyncracies, to acknowledge the work and EFFORT he puts into building and maintaining his relationship with a young Jason....and from there....the realization that....holy shit, he’d taken Dick for granted, and THAT’S why things broke down between them. He’d stopped TRYING to understand Dick the way he was working so hard now to understand Jason, and instead just started getting frustrated with the fact that he so often DIDN’T understand Dick, period.

And once you have Bruce HAVE that epiphany, GAIN that awareness....

Its the easiest thing in the world to just write him GOING to Dick and just like...acknowledging this. Owning his faults. Admitting that he took Dick for granted and put too much reliance on Dick doing most of their communicating, fell back on it being easier that way and stopped placing importance on being the one to take the LEAD in their relationship and addressing its flaws, as the PARENT.

And just saying.....its not too late to fix this. If I can do it with Jason, if I could do it with you in the first place, I can do it again. All I need is for you to give me the opportunity to try to do just that, to do better, and instead of demanding that or expecting it from you or even just hoping for it but never actually voicing it....here is me asking for it, but letting you know I understand if you don’t trust me with that or want to risk yourself like that again.

And whammo zammo, you’ve got yourself a road to a healthier, happier Batfam, and it doesn’t require actually vilifying anyone or expecting anyone but the patriarch of the family to like....take the actual wheel.