#in fact he literally actively tries not to use pronouns at all when referring to me and my partner just

[stayqueer]

yeah I'm just not going to my partners parents house anymore lmao

[cotccotc]

SKZ + a ftm s/o !!

 ◌ ftm (female-to-male) refers to a transgender person who was assigned female at birth, but identifies as male. these people are awesome, lovely, brave, & valid !! (yes that’s part of the official definition !!!! look it up <3)

part of my eight as fate event !! ( requested by @lixsmullet​ ♡ )

genre/s: fluff, skz x ftm reader

warning/s: mentions of dysphoria, mentions of periods, one very brief implication of transphobia (NOT IN REFERENCE TO THE MEMBERS DW), use of various pet names, swearing, my dumb formatting and commentary uwu

wc: ~1.5k

a/n: i hope i did this req justice !!! i made sure to do a lot of research on topics that might come up in this situation so i hope everything is accurate, but also inclusive for multiple types of people within the ftm umbrella. the descriptions might not be too deep but pls know they were written with a lot of care. OH ALSO i included potential pet names they might use !! i really really hope y’all enjoy this :) lmk what u think !!

◌ CHAN

chan’s known for putting other people’s needs before his own, and this is no exception.

he’d be super giving !!! would buy you “world’s best boyfriend” mugs and shit !!! it’s cringe but you love him so it’s fine !!!

more on top of your doctors appointments or meds than you are tbh

boy oh boy… if you take/decide to start taking testosterone……

LOOK OUT HERE COMES THE T POLICE KJDF

he just wants to do everything he can to help you !!!!! whether it means literally helping you stay on top of things and being your at-home (emotional) therapist, or giving you space.

i feel like he’s very good at detecting how a person feels based on their face or body language, so he’d always be on the lookout in case you might be feeling off or dysphoric.

and, as much as it might pain him, he’d give you as much time/space as you need. once again, he has your best interest in mind 24/7 !!! he just loves you so much, you know? 🥺

potential pet names (as long as you’re ok with them !! that goes for each member.): babyboy (we saw this one coming), foxy/sexy (mostly sarcastic but also… True), sunshine

◌ MINHO

a thing that i personally love to imagine: minho introducing you to people as his boyfriend

if anybody ever gives either of you a questioning look afterward (either intentionally or not) he wouldn’t waver at all !!! he’d just stand there and keep smiling. because you’re his boyfriend, duh

constantly reminds you how strong you are !! how super tough and cool you are !!! because it’s true !!!!!!!

i feel like i always make him sound like the ceo of Boyfriend Bootcamp in my reactions but i MEAN???

for example, if you’re ever feeling down (for whatever reason. whether it applies to you being trans or not) he’d be like “MAN UP !!! YOU’RE A WARRIOR !!!! ……. a cute one <3333 bUT A STRONG ONE !!!!!!”

in general, i definitely see him as the type of person who’ll just grab your hand or hold you a little closer in situations where he thinks you might feel uncomfortable, and even if he doesn’t directly acknowledge it, you know there’s a lot of love and care behind the gesture.

also… you’re sad? here, hold a cat.

potential pet names: stud (as a joke.. but it stuck), anything that starts with “my” (like my boy, my baby, my love, etc.)

◌ CHANGBIN

ok listen

i’m not calling changbin lazy

HOWEVER

he will most definitely try and make you do “manly” things for him when he doesn’t feel like it- SJDJJ

imagine his raspy, tough, yet adorably whiny voice being all:

“BAAAABE…. BABYYYYYY….. come lift this fOR MEEEEEEEE”

ESPECIALLYYYY if you’re taller than him oh my Lord

BUT HE’D DENY IT AT ALL COSTS !!!

changbin, pointing to an object on a tall shelf: “BABE can you get this for me? you’re so strong you can do it <3333”

you: “short ass-”

changbin: “hEY”

ALSO if you menstruate, i personally believe that he would be very comforting to have around during that time !!!!! just chillin on the couch !!!!!! vibin !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

your very own personal heating pad <33 jksjfd

potential pet names: babe, bunny, hot stuff (sometimes used for moments of sarcasm !!! there are lots of those..)

◌ HYUNJIN

he’s very sweet and loving with you, which never changes despite anything you might be going through. like ,,,ever.

i can see him being especially sweet and helpful for someone who doesn’t want to or can’t surgically transition !!!!

would do everything he could to emphasize the fact that you’re his favorite boy !!!!

whether it’s through activities, pet names, playful jokes, etc., he always wants to remind you how manly and lovely you are !! lolll

i present to you a thought that just popped up in my head and Will Not Leave:

you might normally be the little spoon, but if you ever feel a bit off about your body or just don’t want to be held, THIS BOY WILL GET CURLED UP IN A LITTLE SPOON POSITION FOR YOU !! SO VERY FAST !!!

(is it also an excuse for him to be the little spoon? yeah maybe it is-)

potential pet names: hubby (regardless of whether or not you’re married sjdsdf), prince, things that start with “my”

◌ JISUNG

asks lots of questions !!!!!!! whenever he’s not sure how to proceed with something or has any general questions about being trans or how to support you, he’ll be completely transparent with you about it.

even though it makes him a lil embarrassed 🥺🥺

will overuse the terms “dude” and “bro” just to make you laugh… but you both know there’s a hidden underlayer of validation there

loves cheering you up when you’re not feeling your best !!!

also ,,,,,,Youtube Research Enthusiast

“hey y/n check this out! let’s try it :D” and it’s a two minute video about how to naturally lower your voice

and you go along with it because a.) he’s cute for suggesting it, b.) it could actually be useful, and c.) he’ll look cute stretching his neck for a few minutes and it would be a valuable use of your time to watch him do it <3 jsjdfh

oh also !!!! we know he’s just Like This anyways, but he will indeed take every chance he gets to kiss random parts of your body like your hands, shoulders, the tip of your nose, and anything else you’re comfy with :) he just likes 2 smooch, what can i say?

potential pet names: anything silly !! bubba, baby/babycakes, good lookin’, etc.

◌ FELIX

this is somewhat similar to what i’d suggested in my nonbinary coming out reaction, but i feel like he’d take a lot of care to make you feel more confident in yourself !!!

especially when it comes to your appearance !!!!! if you ever decide to try out a new hairstyle, different clothing, etc., he’d HYPE YOU UPPPPP omg

you: *exists*

felix: *silly smirk* “my handsome boy.. hehe” 🥺

bakes for u !!!!!!! will come over asap with freshly baked cookies if he even senses you might not be feeling your best !!!!!!!!!!!!!

we all know he’s a real cuddlebug, but since you’ve explained dysphoria to him (to the best of your ability), it’s very important to him that he doesn’t overstep with the physical affection

he might also suggest you use a code word or gesture to signify if it’s ok for him to get all close and cuddly with you !! he knows you have your off days, and the last thing he wants to do is emphasize your insecurities.

he loves you more than anything, and he just wants to see you smile :)

potential pet names: handsome, love, sweets (bc ya know,,, brownie boy things <3)

◌ SEUNGMIN

would regularly spend hours and hours doing research on trans rights, different forms of transitioning, other people’s perspectives (both in his position and yours), etc

honestly i wouldn’t be surprised if he posted some questions on a website like reddit or quora or something from time to time SJDK (but eventually he’d be much more comfortable asking you directly, especially since he knows not every person is the same)

he really just wants to make sure he understands how you feel to the best of his ability in order to best care for you !!!

VERY VERY diligent if he has to adjust to new pronouns. would practice that shit like it’s his JOB.

i think he’d just be very scared of screwing something up, which you might have to console him about from time to time.

you know he’s trying his best to a.) not make this about himself and b.) do everything in his power to support you

sorta similarly to changbin, i think he’d be nice to have around if you’re ever on your period !! overall, this boy would do his RESEARCH

potential pet names: baby, mister (for some playful sarcasm), bear (or baby bear, honey bear, etc.)

◌ JEONGIN

if you’re ever feeling dysphoric, depressed, anxious, or generally not the best, he will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to cheer you up.

you: :(

jeongin: “ok fine you have permission to poke my cheeks all day”

you: :D

jeongin: :D

is also very similar to changbin !!!!! he’ll very dramatically give up on a task that requires even the slightest bit of manliness just so you can do it for him…. because he’s laz- i mean thoughtful <33

ok picture something with me besties (and this is quite random so bear with me):

he buys you cologne. cute !! very sweet of him yes <3 …...but the Backstory-

he had No idea what kind to get, so he went to the store and tried on like 10 different kinds until he realized he could just swatch them on a piece of paper so now he’s covered in cologne and he buys the one he thought was his favorite but he comes home to realize it was the WRONG ONE so he has to go back to the store and test them all again until he finds the one

..all just so he could surprise you & make you feel more masculine :’)

anyways LONG STORY SHORT: innie best boy :D

potential pet names: bun (in reference to bread, of course. you must match.), handsome, sexy (BUT ONLY IF YOU SAY IT RIGHT BACK !!!!!! sexy loaf boyfriends aw <3)

tags: @stayndays, @hanniiesuckle17, @leggomylino, @freckledberries, @kisskissbanggang, @mr-jisung-main, @childofthecosmos, @kpopscape, @skzwriternet, @hyunsins, @sleepylixie, @sunshine-skz, @vera-liscious, @thatrandomoneinthecorner, @cyberskz​, @seungminsaidsta, @somethingrandomworld, @ethan806 ( join my tag list !! )

©️ cotccotc 2021 ~ all rights reserved. do not repost my work on tumblr or other platforms.

[autisticandroids]

androids!!! what do you think would happen if dean met hotgirl castiel? like, if we're talking canon-compliant?

first of all! this post is really primarily about dean like, holding some transphobic beliefs that i think it would be in character for him to hold, and how those would bump up against a more inescapably genderweird cas! so you know. careful with that.

anyway, so fun fact! i have already answered this question in a couple big long posts!

however i always love to hear the sound of my own voice so i'm going to answer a question slightly to the left of the one you asked, which is: how would dean feel if he found out about hot girl castiel. so here’s the thing: what’s interesting to me about this is that it’s a big reveal about cas that cas doesn’t realize is a big reveal. cas is an angel. he’s not gendered. he understands, i think, masculinity and femininity, male roles and female roles. but i don’t think he understands the concept of gender as something one is, rather than something one does. so for example, lily sunder. mirabel lives for a little longer. refers to cas as “she.” cas doesn’t blink, cas is used to being referred to as she. the pronoun used in the third person in enochian for angels isn’t gendered, and it’s closer to “it” than “they,” or perhaps an appropriate translation would be “soldier” or “servant-of-god.” actually while i was typing this i realized that i literally wrote a fic about that when i was fifteen, it was the first spn fic i ever posted and it was on my ffn. i just crossposted it to ao3 just now. anyway, cas doesn’t really realize that swapping vessel genders is something that would make dean re-evaluate anything. hell, cas possessed claire in front of dean and it didn’t make dean rethink anything at all, so why would this?

except the thing is that, as i said in one of the posts i linked earlier, in s4, cas was an angel to dean. he was inhuman, something intensely other. he didn’t have access to the kind of gendering that dean thinks of humans as having, because he wasn’t even really a person to dean yet. but in s12? cas is just a guy, to dean. he’s a person. and people, to dean, have definite genders. so while i’m sure that intellectually dean knows that cas has probably taken a female vessel at some point in the past, being confronted with that knowledge is a bit brain-breaking. like, i would love to sit dean down and make him read some judith butler, but no one has done that. dean doesn’t have any trans friends (if he did he would be a better, healthier person, and might use different pronouns). the idea of someone being another gender than they appear at first glance, or not having a gender, or changing genders over time - all that is foreign to him. the idea that cas could have in some way been a woman, at some point, would shake him.

and like, i’ve already said this in the posts i linked, but the difference there is that dean has time traveled away from his cas. he has some time to process, and another cas who is not his cas to occupy his mind.  but when he's with his cas, he wouldn't have the distance. i think he might start actively reevaluating cas' behavior in real time. trying to see if he could see him as a woman. he might reclassify some of cas' actions, in his mind, which had once simply been classified as "weird," as "feminine." i'm not sure how this would change his opinion of cas but i do think it would. i don't know if this would push dean into a personal gender crisis in the same way as meeting hot girl castiel, because again that requires some distance and if he is with his cas he doesn't have distance.

i actually do think this would be more likely to get dean to re-evaluate their relationship than if late season dean time traveled to meet hot girl castiel, because like. in dean's head, this makes his cas.... Kind Of A Woman A Little Bit. he's never seen cas As A Woman so instead he projects womanhood onto his cas. and if cas is Kind Of A Woman, then it's uh. more obvious that cas has been doing Wife Shit for dean for years. and dean has been responding in kind. i think that if dean were to have this realization in lily sunder, and then stuck in the middle with you happened? i think dean would realize cas was in love with him. i don't know if he would realize he was in love with cas yet. i also think he might like...... confront cas about her gender? and they would have an intensely unproductive conversation where they talked past each other because cas REALLY doesn't understand how gender works because he has special autism that makes you genderweird, like, there are definitely angels who have genders and certainly who understand gender but cas Does Not because he is full of angel autism, and dean is like. there are only two genders. g.i. joe and barbie. but i do think this conversation would impress upon dean that cas really is something other than a man (and that that thing is not "secretly a woman") and THAT realization might like. cause him to rethink his concept of gender a little. have little a crisis. as a treat.

i also think that he has a very awkward conversation with sam where he's like. "so is cas kind of..... a chick?" and sam is like dean what the fuck does that mean but externally he's like "why do you say that, dean?" and dean tries to process his feelings about this with sam and sam tries to be supportive. sam has met a trans person at least once in his life but i dunno if he would make the connection between transness and cas immediately because cas is still more of an angel to sam than he is to dean, and also sam finds it less jarring that and angel who is just a guy might still be gendered differently than a human. but he tries to help dean process his feelings about this because he recognizes that it's important to dean. a week later he DOES make the connection and like. prints out a copy of the fucking genderbread person and tries to give dean the Very Enlightened Cis Person Trans 101. because sam has had trans friends before but not close enough friends to open his gender third eye. i am rooting for him because honestly he could use some new pronouns too i think they would be good for him.

edit: i want to be clear that both dean and sam misunderstand cas' gender, it's just that sam's misunderstanding (he's like this because he is an angel) is wrong in a less obvious way and also a misunderstanding cas shares. cas is not like this because she's an angel he's like this because he has autism that makes you not have gender.

[phoenixyfriend]

AU where Deidara becomes inexplicably fond of 'Tobi' to the point of just going 'fuck it' and following Obito into crazytown and, if Obito survives The Kaguya Nonsense, he now has a bitchy art school grad student following him around like "you fucked with my head for a year after making people pressgang me into a terrorist cell, now it's my turn to fuck with you." This is partly because this one post lives in my head rent-free.

(Brainstormed on discord with help from @britishassistant​. Please note that while I do usually headcanon Dei as nonbinary, this brainstorm kept to he/him pronouns and referring to him as a boy.)

Confession that this arose because I keep imagining 'person travels back to the Founders Era and wreaks havoc via Confusions, using different characters capable of 'why the FUCK' reactions every time, pinged on T7+Obito but Obito had to bring Deidara and everyone Regrets, because... boom.

Nobody wants Deidara involved, except Deidara. People especially do not want Deidara and Sai in the same room, because between Deidara's hands and Sai's 'commentary,' someone's going to get murdered. -- (Deidara is of the opinion that he should be involved in everything where there is the potential for blowing something or someone up. Deidara was sort of invited, in that Obito refuses to leave him unsupervised, but nobody really wants him, like, doing things.)

Team Seven is trying to help push a peace treaty through for the Senju and Uchiha. Keeping an eye out for Zetsu, Obito's talking Madara around as the person who actually knows him best, Naruto is Vibing with Hashirama on a level nobody hoped they'd reach, Sakura's smoothing ruffled feathers by healing the dying, Yamato is demonstrating Mokuton as evidence of something, and Kakashi has his hand over Sai's mouth so they don't cause an international incident. Sasuke isn't helping, just kind of in a stare-off with Izuna.

And then Obito says, "Wait, shit. We're missing a blonde." "Where's your idiot, Obito?" "He's not my idiot, Bakashi, he just--" BOOM "Ah, shit." [cue maniacal laughter in the middle distance]

"This is why I told you to keep an eye on him while I talked to Madara!" "I told Sasuke to do it!” "Why do you expect Sasuke to do anything you tell him to do?"

Part of what I was going for was: 1. Deidara and Obito have a preexisting relationship that angles heavily towards mutual antagonism due to the whole Tobi thing. 2. Deidara is both completely unhinged and capable of mass destruction, which means he's perfectly set to Cause Problems. And of course 3. This means a role reversal where Obito finds the shoe on the other foot because now he’s the one trying to rein in Deidara.

Obito is 100% done with Deidara, but this asshole is kind of his responsibility? Like? What's he gonna do, hand the kid over to Onoki? Nah, bruh, his douchebag teenage sidekick deserves better than Iwa. -- (Deidara does not, in fact, deserve better than Iwa.) -- It’s like Deidara is his kid or something, like he knows he’s hellspawn but he’s Obito’s hellspawn.

Madara: You came to convince us of peace, yet you bring-- Obito: No, shut up, it's better than leaving him to his own devices, at least this way I can stop him. Hashirama: How do we convince the Daimyou this is a good idea? Madara: We need to make him think there's a bigger threat, maybe? One that he can't fight without united shinobi clans to hire, rather than pitting us against one another to maintain his economic dominance. Hashirama: But there aren't any bi-- Deidara: I VOLUNTEER

Obito: So what are we going to do? Deidara: Blow up buildings belonging to the rich and powerful. Obito: And what are we not going to do? Deidara: ...blow up the innocent? Like kids? And poor people? Obito: Okay, yes. That's pretty much it. Deidara: Wait, can I blow up a monastery? Obito: Do you want the Shinigami to come after our heads?! No!!! Deidara: What if it's a Jashinist temple? Obito: We have seen evidence that one exists, do you really want to risk it?

Hashirama, full of 😀 : I brought dango! Deidara, to Obito: Are you going to eat it with your eye again. Madara, Izuna, all the Uchiha: [turn to stare] Obito: Literally why do I put up with you.

(Deidara is that one kid who Delights in telling everyone about the weird and dumb shit Obito pulled as Tobi.)

Deidara: Hey, dipshit, you wanna-- Obito:

Also, Kakashi has his four brats so Obito gets to keep Deidara. It’s only fair. -- Kakashi at least has Tenzo to coparent, and some of his kids are well-behaved... ish. They try, at least. Obito's just got a Hell Child who actively delights in causing mischief and mayhem. -- The most Naruto's going to do is dye your hair in your sleep. Sai makes dick jokes and Sakura punches things, but overall, they're not bad kids! Sasuke is. Sasuke. But that's okay, that's why there's a solid five people in that team to handle his bullshit.

Whereas Obito is stuck. With an art school grad student. -- Deidara is contextually the epitome of "I think I will cause problems on purpose." -- (Deidara... is what Tenzo would call “a bad influence.”)

Btw? Keep Sai and Deidara away from each other. Kakashi learns that the hard way. -- "Captain, the art kids are fightingggggg!"

Kakashi: Obito get a handle on your disaster Obito: DON’T YOU TALK ABOUT MY BOY THAT WAY

Jumping back a tiny bit though, Obito regularly asks Yamato to use his Mokuton to seal up Deidara's chakra for a bit. (Is this how it works in canon? Probably not, I think it's just bijuu chakra, but I also Do Not Care.)

But honestly, when it comes to Team Seven, Deidara is that one older cousin at family reunions that teaches you how to hotwire a car. -- Deidara is okay with Naruto and Sakura, ish. -- He antagonizes Sai in a way that ends in tears. -- He. Has to be kept away from Sasuke. For a variety of reasons, most of which have to do with Eyes and Explosions and Itachi.

Sasuke barely remembers who Deidara is, he’s just grumpy he couldn’t bring anyone from Taka with him.

Meanwhile Taka is just. They’re assholes? Taka bitches enough to hunt him down. They excuse it with "Juugo needs you" -- "I'm in a different dimension, eighty years in the past, how did you..." -- "Science ninja. Best sensor on the continent." -- "Also we asked Orochimaru for help." -- "Yeah, we asked Orochimaru for help."

Taka being there signals a marked improvement in Sasuke’s demeanor and cooperation, and Kakashi just resigns himself to having four more kids. -- Juugo is a godsend when he's not being set off into a homicidal rage. And he apologizes! Meanwhile, Karin and Suigetsu are The Worst.

T7+Obito and Deidara have been in the past and bullying the clans into a peace for like a week and then they just hear MASSIVE ROARING a mile away and Sasuke's like "Oh, hey, it's my idiots." -- Sasuke’s grinning for the first time in weeks. (It’s tiny and barely perceptible but it’s there.) -- I don't know that Taka could actually help at all, but they sure can cause more problems. Unlike Deidara, most of them are not intentional.

Suigetsu: Hey, Sasuke, so I know that Deidara guy tried to kill you... Sasuke: He did? Suigetsu: --but would you be mad if I tried to hook up with him? Sasuke: I don't care, knock yourself out.

(Suigetsu is the kind of man that wears tearaway pants just to reveal rainbow leggings that say "I'M GAY" on them. If Suigetsu and Sasuke didn't have at least one 'no homo' make-out session... well, I wouldn't put money on it either way, but I do think it's a valid reading of the text.)

------------------

Deidara: What's it like when Obito actually decides to be serious? Kakashi: Uhhhhhhhhhhhh Obito, previously:

Kakashi: Trauma. It's trauma.

[zackcollins]

like my next boyfriend || brock boeser + elias pettersson

masterlist

Author’s Note: Hi! I know I’m supposed to be working on part 6 of the Tyson Jost series. But I needed a break from that for right now. Undertaking a month long writing project is a lot and it drains you, man. I just need a breather for a little while. I’ll get back to it soon. Don’t worry! (Literally as I say that, Love Wins comes on my fucking Spotify, EYE--) GIF credit to halvedhab!

Warnings: There is mentions and depictions of unfaithfulness in a relationship. If that bothers you, feel free to not read this. Other than that, I think everything is alright. Let me know if anything else needs a warning though. I’ll add anything anyone else feels needs one!

Word Count: 1.2k+

Translations: The first Swedish word means “son of a bitch”. The second one means “moron”. Of course, both of these are translated using Google, so take it with a grain of salt. This isn't exactly a translation. But for anyone that wants to know, Brock is saying "Pretty good battle" in the GIF I chose to use. Being able to read lips is fun :)

Title: Next Boyfriend by Lauren Alaina

Additional: Gender-neutral reader this time! I tried to be as non-descriptive as possible when referring to the reader’s appearance because me and one of my friends @matbaerzal​ did a survey and someone said they liked that. I also used they/them pronouns to refer to the reader because the survey said that most people who answered preferred that the reader be referred to that way. I hope that’s okay with everyone! And I hope you all enjoy this!! Feedback, reblogs, and likes are always greatly appreciated! <3

You went to bed on Saturday night not knowing if your fiance, Brock, would even be in the house on Sunday morning. He had been spending a lot of time with his best friend, Petey, recently. So much time that you were starting to wonder if the time was beginning to leak over into the realm of more than friendly. There had been rumours floating around the Vancouver Canucks organization that Brock and Petey were more than just friends but you never wanted to believe it. You wanted to believe that Brock loved you and only you. You were his fiance. That meant that he had no reason to go elsewhere. He loved you enough to want to dedicate himself to you for the rest of your lives. You wanted to believe that, you really did. And you were pretty sure that you did.

That was until that Sunday morning.

Brock hadn’t been in your bed. That was nothing unusual. He was rarely in bed anymore when you woke up. He usually got up a few hours earlier to let Milo and Coolie out and feed them. So, you didn’t panic when you slipped out of the bed and out into the hallway to go into the kitchen for some breakfast.

No, you panicked when you found Brock in the kitchen. He was making pancakes. That wasn't what made you panic. Brock often made you pancakes on Sunday mornings when he didn't have team activities to attend to. What made you panic was the fact that Petey was plastered against Brock's back, his hands around Brock's midsection. Petey was pressing kisses to Brock's clavicle and you thought you could hear him saying things softly in Swedish.

Without realizing it, your cellphone slipped from your hand. It hit the tiles and made a resounding echo in the room. Petey jumped backwards, looking in your direction with the guiltiest expression you had ever seen his face convey. Brock gingerly put down the spatula he had been holding before he dropped his shoulders and turned around. His face looked much the same as Petey's did.

You leaned against the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, your eyes letting go of the tears you had been holding back. Petey looked at you sympathetically before he conked Brock on the back of the head, glaring wickedly at him.

"Jävel!" Petey sneered, hitting Brock on the back of the head again. "You told me that they knew!"

"I thought they did," Brock said, rubbing the back of his head as he looked at Petey. When he turned to look at you, he looked guilty and mouthed 'sorry'. He turned back to grab the spatula and flipped the pancakes, ignoring the way you whimpered in anguish.

"You… you 'thought?'" Petey blinked owlishly at the back of Brock's head. He ran a hand down his face, sighing. He looked over at you, sighing again and smiling sympathetically when you shook your head to indicate that you, in fact, didn't know about Brock's affair. "You mean to tell me that you did not actually use your words and tell your fiance that you were in a relationship with me as well? You just assumed that they could read your fucking mind?"

"I, uh… I… um," Brock stammered. He didn't look at either you or Petey, choosing instead to take the pancakes off the griddle and place them on the plate next to it. He grabbed the scoop from inside the bowl, scooping more batter onto the cooking surface. He sighed as he put the scoop back. "I guess it sounds stupid when you say it out loud. But, yeah. That's what I did."

“Brock, wh… why?” You asked, your voice absolutely shattered from how devastated you were and how hard you had been crying. You saw Brock’s shoulders sink and you heard him sigh. He ran a hand down his face as he held the spatula against the edge of the counter. You tried to take a steadying breath but all that came out was something that was halfway between a whimper and a hiccup. “Why would you do this to me? You know how much I love you. I thought you loved me too!”

Petey walked across the room to stand beside you. When he offered his embrace, you accepted because he wasn’t the one you were mad at. The way he and Brock were acting made it genuinely seem like Brock lied to him about you knowing about their affair. And you knew how naive Petey was in the first place so you couldn’t hold it against him if he genuinely thought it was okay for him to have the relationship with your fiance.

As you cried into Petey’s embrace, Brock remained silent. You cried harder and more violently the longer he went without answering your question. Petey seemed to notice because he sighed and ran his hand along your back.

“Brock, answer their damn question,” Petey said with exasperation. “You are making things worse by staying quiet. You realize that, do you not, dumhuvud?"

"I'm afraid my answer is gonna upset them," Brock said so quietly that you barely heard him.

You stepped back from Petey, looking at Brock. He still hadn't turned around so you couldn't tell what his facial expression was or get an accurate assessment of what he was feeling because you couldn't see his face. All you could tell was that his shoulders were slouched and he was shifting his weight slightly to the left, his hands gripping the edge of the counter.

"If you don't love me," you said, voice trembling. "You can just tell me. I'd rather you go be with Petey and be happy than stay with me and be miserable."

"I'm polyamorous. I want both of you," Brock blurted, finally turning around to face you and Petey.

Petey looked at you; you looked at Petey. You both blinked in surprise, mouths slightly agape. Your tears continued to stream, though they started to taper off somewhat. Brock seemed close to tears himself so you walked over and looked at your fiance.

"Jesus Christ," you mumbled, dropping your head against Brock. Brock sniffled, crying softly as you ran your fingers through his hair. You ran your hands along his ribcage, making sure to be as comforting about it as possible. "Why didn't you say so?" Your tears had mostly stopped now, only a few stray tears were now running down your cheeks. "Being poly is part of who you are. I'm sorry that you felt like you had to hide that from me."

"Same goes for me, Brock," Petey said, walking over. He placed his hands on Brock's shoulders, massaging them gently. Brock dropped his head back against Petey as Petey kissed Brock's clavicle in much the same way as he had been when you walked in on them earlier. "It doesn't change anything between us."

You chuckled, wrapping your arms around Brock and putting them on Petey's back. Petey, in turn, moved his hands from Brock's shoulders, wrapping them around Brock and placing them into your back. Brock placed one hand awkwardly on Petey's hip and the other hand on your hip. The three of you stood there, wrapped together peacefully.

You were the one that eventually broke the silence.

"It will actually change things between us," you said, kissing Brock's jaw. You then kissed Petey's cheek after he gave you permission. 

"What exactly will it change?" Brock asked, somewhat concerned. "I'll understand if you're brea--"

"I'm not breaking up with you," you chuckled, flicking your fiance's chin.

"What is the problem then?" Petey asked, equally as concerned.

"We're gonna need a bigger bed."

[five-rivers]

Adoption

Based on a prompt by @fabnamessuggestedbytumbler for the Phic Phight! An excuse for Lost Time fluff? Don't mind if I do...

.

.

.

The Ghost Zone had a legal system. A court system. A prison system. A police system. A set of established rules. There were even lawyers.

In theory.

In reality the courts (Observants) refused to look at anything that wasn't world ending. Every group had their own, private prison. The police made up their own rules and, even then, broke them regularly. The actual rules had gone several hundred years without an update and referred to places, organizations, and customs that no longer existed. The lawyers were all clinically depressed. That's what happens when there's no active, unifying head of state for hundreds of years.

Still. Every so often a sufficiently foolish ghost, possessed of a brave purpose, would attempt to navigate the ruins of the legal system. Few made it out alive.

(True, being ghosts, they didn't necessarily go into it alive, but it's the thought that counts.)

But those who did make it out (metaphorically) alive, did so with prizes... well, not great enough, but something enough to convince others to make the attempt. Hence Clockwork's current location and headache.

"Sign the paper, Walker," snapped Clockwork.

"That would be against the rules," said Walker, leaning back in his stupid chair. Clockwork's nonexistent spine hurt just from looking at it.

Maybe he should give himself a spine, just so he'd have a reason to feel this way.

"How," he began, "would it be against the rules? This form needs to be signed by a law enforcement official that has seen or witnessed conclusive evidence the child in question being abused by their natural parents. That is you."

"Yes, but the law enforcement officer must first get a warrant approved by an appropriate court in order to collect such evidence," countered Walker.

"Not if the official came across the evidence or act of abuse while pursuing a different case or simply following standard operating procedure. You saw them shoot at him. His mother put a gun to his head. Have mercy, Walker. I know you don't like him, but he is a child who needs guidance. Not a criminal."

"He's a criminal in my books," said Walker.

"What he did was hardly a crime."

"Jailbreak is a crime!"

"Not if one is unjustly imprisoned," said Clockwork. "He was attempting to remove the foreign object." No matter that possessing material-plane items wasn't an actual crime.

"He let others escape!"

"And what were they imprisoned for?"

Walker grumbled. "Some of them are dangerous, and even he knew that," said Walker, nodding at the file spread over his desk.

"Consider it a cry for help. While you were watching him," stalking him, Clockwork did not say, "on the material plane, did he really strike you as criminally inclined? Or perhaps he was simply confused and scared? One thousand years is a very long time in human terms. The targets of his Obsession would have died. Even if he did commit a misdemeanor, he would have rightly been granted clemency, or at least had his sentence deferred."

Walker frowned.

"That's not what this is about, is it? You covering up a mistake?"

"No," said Walker.

Clockwork blinked, quickly running through potential futures. "No one will care that you crossed the veil without authorization. No one who can do anything about it, in any case."

"There'll be an investigation if I sign that there piece of paper. What's the big deal, anyway? Like you said, humans don't live that long. Just wait fifty years."

"They almost ended him," said Clockwork. "He's a child. Do you really want that on your conscience? With the knowledge that you could have stopped it?"

Sighing, Walker picked up his pen.

.

Danny went to school. Mainly, he went because he didn't know what else to do. He needed the routine, even if the routine was a lie and he felt like trash.

"You could have stayed," whispered Sam, as his hand inched towards the bandages on his chest for the fifth time that morning. "They wouldn't have noticed you."

Danny shook his head. His hand shook more. He put it back in his lap. "It wouldn't have been right. Besides, I need a passing grade in this class, right?" He couldn't get another F, or his parents would kill him, except- except- except-

They had already tried to kill him.

Everything had gone so much worse than he had ever imagined- No. That wasn't quite right. It had gone- It had...

At least he hadn't been cut open.

(Much.)

"Mr. Fenton?"

Danny jumped, banging his knees painfully on the underside of his desk. He looked up, wildly, tensing himself to flee, only the fact that he was currently human keeping his powers from activating.

(Well, that and... what had been done to him.)

When had Mr. Lancer gotten there?

"What?" he asked, breathlessly.

"Are- Are you alright, Mr. Fenton?"

"I'm fine," Danny said. He wasn't. His ghost half was urging him to go find a nice, dark, quiet, safe corner to hide in, preferably one in the Ghost Zone, his heart was hammering out of his chest, he'd spent the night not-sleeping in one of the guestrooms in Sam's house, and that was before even touching on his injuries.

He forced a smile. Mr. Lancer was one of the few teachers who hadn't given up on him, which was alternately touching and frustrating.

"You look sick," said Mr. Lancer. "Are you sure you don't want to call home?"

Danny's heart stuttered, his core painfully cold. "I'm sure," he said.

"Today is a project day," said Mr. Lancer. "You wouldn't be missing anything in this class, and I can talk to your other teachers."

"No, I'm fine."

.

The legal clerk for the family court was the kind of ghost who seemed to have fused with her role. The sleeves and collar of her shirt melded seamlessly with her skin. Her nails were brass pen nibs. The lenses of her glasses were part of her face.

She lived in either the basement or the attic of this particular building, depending on how one oriented themselves, among barely-organized stacks of books and papers. There were parchment scrolls and stone tablets, too, the later often re-purposed as elements of the room's furniture. Green-marbled filing cabinets grew out of the walls, and electronic somethings glittered out of the shadows.

The clerk had been reviewing Clockwork's paperwork for literal days. Rather, she would have been, if Clockwork hadn't surreptitiously dropped a time medallion around her neck and stopped time.

She hummed, thoughtfully. "In this document, you are using the pronoun tsai to refer to the adoptee. Are you certain you don't mean tusui? Or perhaps chahe?"

"Absolutely," said Clockwork. The intimation that he wasn't fluent in nchabhatsi was insulting. On the other hand, the requirement for that particular piece of paperwork to be in the language was also, in his opinion, rather ridiculous. Many ghosts, especially the recently dead, did not know nchabhatsi.

"The adoptee is liminal?"

"Yes," said Clockwork.

"Hmm." She stood up and flew from her desk to an inverted bookshelf anchored to the ceiling. From a box she took a huge sheaf of papers, and blew an amount of dust from them that was unhealthy even to a ghost. "It has been a while since we used these," she said, giving Clockwork a faded-ivory smile. "You'll need to fill these out and have them notarized by the proper officials before you can proceed. Liminal spirits are so rare, after all! They require special care. Oh!" Her hands fluttered. "And I'll have to get in contact with our liminality expert. That may take some time."

"If you can give me their name," said Clockwork, "I will take care of it." He gingerly took the stack of slightly-decayed paper. Had it really been so long since a partly-human child had been adopted? Probably.

"Oh, you're such a dear," said the clerk, not noticing the sudden absence of the medallion around her neck. "But that paperwork won't do itself, and-"

"It's done," said Clockwork. Fulfilling some of the new requirements had been more challenging than others and avoiding a paradox had taken considerable self-control, but what good were his temporal abilities if he couldn't use them for personal gain now and again? None at all.

"Ah," said the clerk.

.

Familiar, and very loud, voices spilled from the hallway near the office. Danny, one hand on his locker, trying to remember his combination, froze like a deer in headlights. His heartbeat picked up, his core buzzed frantically. He couldn't move. Grey crept in along the edges of his vision.

"... not him. It was never him! He's dead-"

"Mrs. Fenton, Mr. Fenton, I'm not sure what you're getting at, here, but your son has been at school all day, and we-"

"A ghost killed him and took his place! It's been playing a sick game with us this whole time!"

"Danny would never have gotten grades like this. We should have noticed the lower intellect right away, if nothing else."

"That's-" spluttered Mr. Lancer. "You- Daniel's work is exemplary, what little of it he turns in. I'm going to have to ask you to go back to the office-"

"No! Not until that piece of ectoplasmic scum is wiped from the face of the Earth!"

"Danny," said Tucker, much closer. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Right. Ghostly super hearing. Tucker and Sam, staring at him with concern, couldn't know.

"They're here," he managed, the words like sandpaper in his throat.

Sam uttered a word that would have sent her mother into a screeching fit. "We need to get you out of here," she said putting a hand on his back and pushing him down the hall.

"I'll run interference," said Tucker. "Make sure they can't follow you in the GAV."

"Good thinking," said Sam.

"Call me when you're safe," said Tucker, peeling off, presumably to hack the GAV.

"Danny, breathe," ordered Sam, as she propelled him through the double doors at the back of the school. "We're going to get you through this."

.

Clockwork had resorted to trapping the legal complex in a massive temporal bubble. Not the neatest solution, true, and it seemed to encourage the various functionaries, regulators, and bureaucrats to take even more time to process even the simplest request, but at least it would keep Daniel's suffering in the meantime to a minimum.

However, that didn't change the fact that he had been bouncing back and forth between the various floors of the building like a ping-pong ball, never getting closer to the solitary family court judge, for well over a subjective year. He was exhausted, frustrated, and he missed Daniel.

"You will be able to provide steady, stable access to the adoptee's preferred haunt?" asked his present interviewer.

"Yes," said Clockwork, dully. The room was ringed with runes that prevented deception of any kind.

"You will be able to provide shelter adequate for both his ghostly and human form?"

"Yes," said Clockwork. He had answered these questions so many times before.

"You have taken the mandated class on liminality?"

"Yes," said Clockwork. He was beginning to understand why other ghosts just gave up and sought extralegal solutions.

"You are aware of a liminal spirit's developmental and emotional needs?"

"Yes," said Clockwork. This was just so boring.

"And are you able to satisfy those needs?"

"Yes," said Clockwork. If only it would end.

The interviewer nodded. "Then we're done here," he said.

"Ye- What? Does that mean I can see the judge?" asked Clockwork, hopefully.

"No. That means that your adoption motion can move on to the next stage," said the interviewer. "Our liminality expert will examine your arrangements and determine whether or not they are sufficient, and we will contact law enforcement to follow up on your claim that the adoptee is being abused."

Clockwork bit back a groan. At least he was making progress.

.

They cut through the empty field behind the school, angling back toward the surrounding neighborhood. The grass came up to their chests, except where there were holes, mounds, and gouges from ghost fights. When there was one in the school, Danny tried to bring it out here, so people wouldn't get hurt.

He wasn't often successful.

Sam led the way. Danny felt- He felt ashamed. If his powers were working, he would be able to fly them away, or at least turn them invisible. This would all be so much easier. He could have taken care of himself, and Sam and Tucker wouldn't get in trouble, because they would definitely get in trouble for this. But he couldn't.

He couldn't even convince his parents that he was himself. He had to screw that up, too.

Before, he had thought, worse case scenario would be that they'd try to 'fix' him, to remove his ghost half, or maybe they'd think he was overshadowed. At least, he'd convinced himself of that, convinced himself that dissection would be off the table if he ever told them, that they would still love him. Maybe they might still want to do tests, but they'd love him. They wouldn't want to hurt him.

But he had been so, so wrong. They didn't believe him. They thought he had killed himself, replaced himself.

They had tried to cut him open.

(They succeeded.)

His core shuddered at the memory.

At least, though, there hadn't been any ghost attacks today. He wouldn't have been able to fight anything stronger than the Box Ghost. Heck, he might have lost to the Box Ghost. Like this, he would have to leave the ghosts to his parents, Valerie, or the GIW, none of which were particularly good options for the hunters, the ghosts, or the innocent bystanders of Amity Park.

His core pulsed uncomfortably at the thought of any of them getting hurt, including his parents.

He flinched. His core had been very jumpy, very active ever since... it... happened. Usually it only did this while he was in ghost form, and was otherwise almost dormant.

"Are you okay?" asked Sam. "Is it hurting?" She was the one who had bandaged him up last night.

"We can't stop now," said Danny.

Sam flattened her lips. "That isn't an answer. As soon as we get somewhere quiet, I'm checking you out, okay?"

"Yeah," said Danny.

When they reached the short fence, Sam gave him a boost to get over and they made their way into the suburb. There was a small library branch down the road a ways. It had a small family bathroom that Sam and Tucker had patched Danny up in before. It would be a good place to regroup before trying to put as much distance between them and Danny's parents as possible.

"We could take the city bus, I think," said Sam. "There's a stop outside the library. Maybe we could go to Elmerton?"

"Maybe," said Danny.

"Any ETA on Jazz since last night?"

Danny shook his head. "She couldn't get a flight. She's taking a Greyhound. Won't be here 'til-"

There was a beep. Danny stopped breathing. That could have been anything, a phone, a watch, a car, something from a building, but something about it tickled at Danny's brain as wrong.

"There is a ghost twenty feet in front of you."

The whine of a charging ectogun-

Sam slammed into his side, and they both fell. Danny felt the cut on his chest begin to bleed again, and he curled around it protectively. It hurt so much more than it should, and Danny wondered if that was because ghosts were ultimately shaped by their minds and his was in so much pain right now.

His parents had just shot at him. From behind. Not ghost him, Phantom him, either. Human him.

They hated him. All of him. Not just half of him.

His ghost sense went off. Because things could always get worse for Danny and the universe apparently hated him.

He struggled into a sitting position and blinked, confused. There were people surrounding him, protecting him, standing between him and his parents. Sam was shouting. Danny couldn't make out what she was saying, what anyone was saying, not with his heart pounding in his ears.

"Kid," said one man, shaking his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Danny considered that. "No," he said, finally.

The man pulled a phone from his pocket and began saying something about calling the hospital. Normally, Danny would be worried about that, but he was looking for the ghosts. It was possible one of the more benevolent spirits that haunted Amity Park had happened across the scene, but, somehow, Danny doubted it.

His ghost sense went off again. He whimpered.

His people were in danger.

Ghosts usually came for him (he was leading them here, an evil ghost, causing all this trouble, murderer), or at least attacked him first, to get rid of him as a threat. He staggered to his feet. He had to get away. Still clutching his chest, he turned and bolted.

Almost at once, he was surrounded by ghosts in police gear. Walker's goons. Definitely stronger than the Box Ghost. Still, he was going to at least try to fight. He put his fists up. Maybe some of them would be dumb enough not to phase out of the way of his stupid human punches.

Then Walker himself descended from the sky.

"Daniel," he said, stiffly.

"Walker," returned Danny. A small part of him was grateful that Walker hadn't called him Phantom and spilled his secret. It was strange, but no ghost had ever seemed particularly inclined to do that, despite how easy it would have been.

"We have a court order to take you into custody," said Walker. "Someone wants to ask you a few questions."

Danny decided today's mood was 'pointless bravado and defiance.' "And why would I want to come with- whoa."

As Danny talked, Walker had taken a piece of paper with strange symbols written on it in green ink out from the inside pocket of his jacket. The symbols made his head spin... Or maybe that was just his injuries catching up with him. His left leg was trembling, and he wasn't sure how much longer it would hold out.

He shook his head, trying to clear it, and focused on Walker. "I have no idea what that says."

Walker sighed. "Just come quietly, son. Make it easier on yourself."

Danny swallowed his discomfort at being called 'son.' "You won't hurt anyone else?" he asked.

"I'm just here for you."

There really wasn't much of a choice. Whether he went quietly or got himself beaten up even more, Walker would win and carry him off. Anyone could see that. Besides, ghost prison might be a better alternative than getting dissected by his parents.

He raised his hands in front of him, wrists together. "Go ahead, then," said Danny, flatly.

Walker nodded, and the goons converged on him. The cuffs they put around his wrists glowed green, but they had weight in a way most purely ghostly things didn't. Danny doubted that he'd be able to phase his way out of them, human or ghost. Then they picked him up and the whole swarm started to fly away.

.

"Yes, this is my lair," said Clockwork. "I can, however, duplicate and be both here and at the secondary residence I acquired expressly for the purpose of ensuring continuity of Daniel's human life."

The 'liminality expert' grunted. "He's still been here, though, hasn't he?"

"Yes," said Clockwork. "He has."

"And he might be here again in the future."

"Yes. I do plan to have him here, for short periods of time."

"And later, when he sheds his human life?"

"Perhaps."

"Then I need to know, are these up to OSHA standards? Your entire lair needs to be up to OSHA standards."

"They're time viewers and tools for unraveling paradoxes. OSHA, even the OSHA of the far future, does not regulate these items," said Clockwork. "Why, in the name of time, do you even need to know? Surely, OSHA didn't even exist the last time a liminal child was adopted."

"Well," said the expert, slightly sheepish. "No. But regulations state that all residences must be safe for children by both human and ghost standards."

"Then OSHA is not what you should be using," said Clockwork. "OSHA is the set of rules for occupational health and safety."

"Ah," said the expert. "Then we can move right along to the next check mark, shall we?"

.

"Hi," said a cheerful voice.

Danny looked up from his contemplation of the examination room table and glared balefully at the ghost who had just entered the door. They didn't seem to be affected. But then, why would they be? Danny was handcuffed to the table and clearly not a threat.

"I'm the interviewer," said the featureless ghost. "Do you know why you're here?"

"No," said Danny.

"Well," said the interviewer, "I work for the eighth authorized family court of the Infinite Realms, we're actually the only one right now, but there used to be more, and a little while ago, an adoption request was filed on your behalf."

Danny blinked and made a face. "You mean, someone stole my identity in ghost court?"

"No, no," said the interviewer, waving one amorphous hand. "Not at all. I mean to say, I ghost filed a request to legally adopt you."

"Who?" asked Danny. "Not Vlad?" Vlad was the only ghost he could think of who had demonstrated any interest in adopting him.

"No, that's not the name listed here."

"Plasmius?" asked Danny, still cringing internally.

"No."

"Then who?"

"Clockwork."

"What, seriously?" Danny liked Clockwork, and he liked to think that Clockwork liked him back, that they were friends, but the older ghost always seemed somewhat aloof.

"Yes, he was very serious. Now. I have a number of questions I need to ask you." They took out a small, glowing crystal, and set it on the table. "Do you know what this is?"

"No?" said Danny.

"It's a record crystal," said the ghost. "But one of its other functions is that it can sense deception, and record when in an interview it is being used. Go ahead, say something you know is false."

"I... like toast?"

The crystal's glow dimmed slightly before returning to its previous level.

"There, see? Very useful, don't you think?"

"I guess," said Danny. He didn't know how to feel about this. Any of this. What would ghost adoption even mean? He trusted Clockwork, but this felt like too much, too fast. He hadn't even properly processed what had happened with his parents a few hours ago.

"Right. So. We'll start with an easy one, then. Is your name Daniel Janus James Fenton-Phantom, also known as Danny Phantom, or simply Danny or Phantom?"

"Yes," said Danny, eyeing the crystal warily.

"And what would you prefer to go by, for the purposes of this interview?"

"Phantom," said Danny.

"Alright then, Phantom," said the interviewer, "could you please tell me where you primarily reside?"

"Fentonworks," said Danny, "in Amity Park." So far, he hadn't really had a reason to lie. All of this was common knowledge for both his human and ghostly acquaintances.

"And what would you consider to be your haunt?"

"My what?"

"Your haunt. The territory that you have metaphysically claimed."

"I- I don't really understand."

"Is there an area that you feel compelled to defend against hostile persons? An area in which non-hostile ghosts defer to you?"

"I- Yeah. I guess. Amity Park. And some of the bits around it, too."

"The entire city?"

"I guess? I don't know," said Danny. "Is that weird?"

"It would be unusual," said the interviewer.

Danny really wished the interviewer had an expression he could read. Or even just something approximating a face.

"Now, do you feel safe in your home? In 'Fentonworks?'"

The correct answer to that question would be no, but he wasn't sure he should answer. What if this was some kind of elaborate trick?

"We can come back to that," said the interviewer. "Are there any other places where you do feel safe?"

"I mean, sure?" said Danny. He fidgeted.

"Would you please share some of those places?"

"School, I guess?" Except that he got beaten up there all the time and his parents had hunted him down there and he had to escape and... Yeah.

The crystal dimmed. Danny grimaced.

"Ah," said the interviewer. "Anywhere else?"

"My friends houses," said Danny. "And the Far Frozen." To his relief, this time, the crystal stayed bright.

"Have you ever been to Clockwork's lair?"

"Yeah," said Danny. He slouched in the chair as much as possible. He wasn't sure he should be answering these questions, but he was. Maybe he should stop.

"Do you feel safe there?"

"Not at first, but now I do."

"I see. Why not at first?"

"Clockwork and I didn't meet on great terms and we sort of got into a fight." Maybe that would get the interviewer to stop. They'd decide Clockwork couldn't adopt him and leave. Did Danny want that? He wasn't sure.

"That's more common than one might expect. But you feel safe with him now?"

"Yes."

"Alright, moving on. How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

There was a long, drawn out silence that managed to be skeptical despite the interviewer's lack of a face.

"I know I'm small," said Danny, insulted, "but I am sixteen."

"Excuse my indelicacy, but... how old were you when you died?"

Danny flushed. "Fourteen," he bit out.

"Then you're fourteen."

"It was two years ago. I'm sixteen."

"Fourteen is your natural age," said the ghost. "A ghost's natural age is the age they died at."

"Yeah, but I'm still half human. I'm still aging. So I'm sixteen."

The interviewer shook their head. "As a liminal spirit, your apparant age range is likely larger than a normal child's would be, but your natural age, your true age, is still fourteen. Based on records of liminals, the highest extent of your age range is most likely to be either twenty-one or twenty-eight. That's part of the reason we investigate official adoption request so thoroughly. The relationship may very well last for thousands of years, if not forever."

"Wait, are you saying I could live forever?" asked Danny, incredulous. This was not how he wanted to find out he was immortal. Heck, he didn't want to be immortal.

"I'll admit, my understanding of liminality isn't perfect, but I believe that is the case. Why? Is that problematic?"

.

"The results of the law enforcement investigation have come back," said the bureaucrat to whom Clockwork was currently assigned. "As well as an inquiry as to the opinion of the mortal law enforcement arm."

"And?" asked Clockwork. "Their findings?"

The bureaucrat, who had up until that point not displayed evidence that xe possessed any emotions whatsoever, made a face of extreme disgust. "When the officers found the child, the human parents were openly shooting at him. Other humans intervened for long enough for law enforcement to pick him up. Of course, they then felt the need to arrest him and carry him away in handcuffs... I have no idea why I keep at this job, really I don't."

Clockwork's core shifted in worry. His first impulse was to leap up and go comfort Daniel, but he suppressed it. If he left now, he would lose his place in line and have to start over.

"The public nature of the event means that the human police are now investigating the child's circumstances and may recommend that the child be removed from his human parents' custody. If you have a human identity and you are able to gain custody of him there, it will aid your case here."

"I am aware," said Clockwork.

"Well, then," xe said. "I believe this is all in order. Here is your ticket to see the judge. Just show it to the door. You know where it is?"

"I do," said Clockwork, rising.

He had walked by the door several times in his dealings with the various clerks and notaries. The room behind it lay directly in the heart of the family court building, all the other rooms and residents armor for this one.

The door itself was made of dark wood full of eye-shaped knots. As Clockwork approached the door, the eyes opened, watching him. He held up the ticket and the doors swung inward.

Inside was a courtroom, complete with benches, tables, a witness stand, a courtroom recorder, a judge's box, and a judge.

The judge was a one-eyed ghost in pale purple robes. She examined Clockwork.

"We had not foreseen this," she said. "Not until you filed the first motion."

"You were never able to see me clearly," said Clockwork, hoping this would not turn into a power play between himself and the Observants. "Did you receive the relevant paper work, your honor?"

"Yes," she said. "Take a seat, Lord Clockwork."

Clockwork flew to the front of the courtroom and settled himself in the applicant's chair.

The judge leaned forward. "Why are you doing this?" she asked.

"Because I love Daniel, and I believe he deserves more care and protection than he is currently receiving from his biological parents."

The judge waved a clawed hand. "Yes, yes. But you didn't have to go through all of this and get to me in order to do that. You could have just taken him. That's what most people do, nowadays. Ever since the King was sealed and our systems of governance began to decay."

"I believe it is the only way Daniel will truly be safe," said Clockwork, meeting her one eye calmly.

"You want to prevent us from 'interfering.'"

"That would be nice, yes," agreed Clockwork.

"You want this to be binding," accused the judge.

"You say that like it is a bad thing," said Clockwork. "But what else could induce him to fully remove himself from that situation? You see how they treat him. Have you looked at the medical report, yet?"

"I have," said the judge, looking at her desk. "Very well. All the paperwork is in order. I am approving you for a one-month trial period. At the end of the trial period, the status of the child will be assessed. If his state is found to be acceptable, the adoption will be approved and bound. If it is not, this court will take custody of him until such a time as an appropriate guardian can be found." She scribbled something on a piece of paper and then hit it with a stamp. "The probationary bond should be active. You may go."

"Thank you, your honor."

.

After the end of the interview, which had become much more distressing than Danny wanted to admit, one of Walker's goons showed up and took him away, to another room.

This room was different than any of the other rooms he had seen in Walker's prison. For one, the walls were a soft, pastel green with purple accents, not the harsh, neon pink of elsewhere in the facility. The chairs looked soft, and were arranged almost randomly, clustered in little groups, or around tables. There were colored pencils and crayons on and occasionally floating over the tables. A large basket sat in one corner, overflowing with toys of various sizes.

Alright. Danny was confused.

He let the goon- the... officer?- guide him into one of the chairs and put a stuffed rabbit on his lap.

"I- I don't understand," said Danny. "What's going on?"

"Didn't that interviewer guy tell you?"

"He said I was being adopted," said Danny, who still hadn't wrapped his head around that particular tidbit of information. "But I thought- I was under arrest?" He raised his cuffed hands. "You arrested me?"

"Those're just so you don't run away," said the ghost. He ruffled Danny's hair. "You're not under arrest. We're just waiting for the court to decide what to do with you."

"And what if they don't do anything with me?"

"Then it's up to the boss."

"Oh," said Danny, not liking the sound of that at all.

"But, if it helps, I think that the court probably will decide to do something with you."

It didn't really help, no.

"Do you want a lollipop?"

"Sure," said Danny. It wasn't like this day could get much weirder.

The ghost handed him a lime dumdum. Yeah. That was about what he expected there, honestly.

The sensation of a thick, weighted blanket being draped over his mind hit him with such intensity that he looked around, trying to see if someone had just wrapped him up in a blanket without him noticing. Tension bled out of his muscles, and his core finally stopped the angry/depressed/frightened/pained dance it was doing in his chest.

He felt... protected. Which was wrong, because he was in Walker's prison, and Walker would use any excuse he had to keep Danny imprisoned for a thousand years. Danny was not safe here. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

And yet, that feeling remained.

He brushed his fingers over the bandages over his chest. What was wrong with him? His parents hadn't even cut all the way through, but he was so messed up. He didn't understand.

This feeling... This 'safety'... It felt like a cruel joke more than anything else, only it was one he couldn't escape from because it was coming from inside him and he was calm but he was also crying.

"Oh, heck, do you not like lime? I think I have some green apples-?"

The door to the room opened, and Danny looked up. Before he could register who had come in, he was swept up into a hug.

He blinked into silky purple cloth. "Clockwork?" he croaked.

"I'm here," said Clockwork. "It's fine. You're safe now, Daniel."

Danny pushed away. Clockwork let him. "You're adopting me?" asked Danny.

"Yes," said Clockwork. "Unless you don't want me to."

"Why?" asked Danny. "I don't understand. I didn't think you liked me that much."

"I like you very much," reassured Clockwork. "I want you to be my family."

Danny sniffed. "Okay," he said. It wasn't as if he really had anywhere else to go. "Okay. But what about," he made an awkward gesture with his cuffed hands, "Amity Park?" The idea of leaving hurt, even worse than the cut on his chest.

"You won't have to leave," said Clockwork, soothingly. "You can still have your life there."

"I'll have to go back?" asked Danny, in alarm. Back to Fentonworks, where even the walls had it out for him with how much anti-ghost weaponry they had packed into them? He couldn't. Not after what his parents had done.

(A small part of him knew that wasn't what Clockwork had said, and that he was being irrational. That part of him was ignored.)

"No, no," said Clockwork. "I have a new place, just for you. If you'll let me show you?"

Very hesitantly, Danny nodded.

"Alright, good," said Clockwork. He turned to the police ghost. "Do you have the key for these? We really must be going."

"Yeah," said the ghost, producing the item. "The boss says that he expects you to teach the kid how to respect the law."

"Appropriately," said Clockwork, neutrally, unlocking the cuffs.

Danny felt an urge to hug Clockwork. So he did. Clockwork hugged him back, and rocked him back and forth, gently.

"Are you ready to go?" asked Clockwork.

"Yeah," said Danny.

With a gesture of his staff, Clockwork opened a portal.

.

Clockwork wanted custody of Danny. He wanted full custody of Danny. Legally. In both worlds.

This posed a bit of a challenge, as he did not legally exist on one of those two worlds. Thus, Clockwork had to establish a legal presence in the human world.

On the surface of it, this did not seem too difficult. Between his temporal powers, his minor shapeshifting abilities, and overshadowing, simply creating an identity was easy. The hard part was creating an identity that Daniel would not have encountered before, in order to avoid a paradox, while making it plausible that Daniel had encountered the identity before, for the purposes of dealing with mortal law.

In one timeline, the hill to the west of town stood empty of habitation, owned by the county but rendered unusable due to a dangerous failed mine on the site. In this timeline, however, the mine had never been built, and the property was instead owned by a reclusive hermit who went by the name of Charles Worth. The property had passed through many hands in the years before Mr. Worth had purchased it in his youth, and a stately, if somewhat faded, mansion sat at the hill's crest, overlooking Amity Park.

Charles Worth went to Amity Park only rarely, and for good reason. He was an albino, with red eyes, white hair, and even whiter skin, and superstitious people often thought the worst of him. In recent days, he had even been mistaken for a ghost.

'Mistaken.'

He rubbed Daniel's shoulders, and the child startled, pulling away from him again. Daniel had missed Clockwork's, admittedly minor, transformation, and now blinked up at his newly pale face, confused.

"Do you like my disguise?" asked Clockwork.

Daniel's eyes flicked up and down Clockwork, assessing, processing. He gave a tiny nod, and reattached himself. "Where are we?" he asked.

"Hickory Hill," said Clockwork.

Danny frowned, mouthing the words. "Isn't that owned by... Charles Worth. Charles- Oh. I get it."

Clockwork gave Danny a little squeeze. "Would you like to see inside?"

"Okay," said Danny.

.

The house, Danny had to acknowledge, as they approached the front door, looked haunted. As if some pale, frail, spirit might look out one of the lace-draped windows on the upper floor at any moment. As if there was a Gothic mystery just waiting to unfold. A murder mystery, maybe, full of forbid love and jealous lovers. Or the tale of a sickly heir to a great fortune.

Or that of an ancient ghost and his adopted half-living son.

Even before they stepped inside, Danny's ghost half had decided it loved the building.

The door, as Clockwork opened it, creaked in a loving sort of way, the tone low enough to be comforting instead of annoying. The entrance hall's floorboards did not creak under the weight of the ghosts, but Danny could tell that if a human tried to cross them, they would. He hoped the rest of the floors were like that.

He padded forward, daringly leaving the protection of Clockwork's cloak, examining all the dark nooks and crannies, the odd architectural choices arising from generations of additions, smiling at cold spots. Clockwork shut the door. Even then, there was a draft, curling around his ankles, cool and refreshing.

Danny smiled. It was small and strained, but it was a smile. "It's perfect," he said.

"Don't you want to see your room before you say that?" teased Clockwork.

"Yes," said Danny.

Clockwork led Danny to a staircase with an elaborately carved banister and began to climb. Danny followed eagerly. He had never thought his core would be so happy simply to have somewhere safe to exist.

It almost was enough to let him forget what his parents had done to him. He stopped, hand on his chest.

"Daniel?" said Clockwork. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," said Danny, automatically.

Clockwork frowned, the expression both familiar and foreign on Clockwork's falsely-human face. "Why don't we take a look at that, once we get to your room, alright?"

Danny nodded, swallowing back his irrational fear.

They went up, and Clockwork opened the door to a large room, much larger than the one he had back at Fentonworks. The bed was similarly large and equipped with curtains and enough blankets and pillows to turn it into a nest at a moment's notice. The walls and ceiling were painted a deep blue, with tiny green-white dots picking out a star map. The room also contained a number of carefully curated hiding places, areas where the dressers wardrobe or desk created blind spots and deep shadows. The floor was carpeted, but still icy.

It was an excellent room for a ghost (or half-ghost) like Danny.

He was too nervous to enjoy it.

Clockwork pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat down. It was a little strange to see Clockwork actually sitting and not floating or coiling. Actually-

"Can you have legs in ghost form?" asked Danny.

"I can," said Clockwork. "But typically I don't bother." He patted the bed. "Let's take a look at you."

Danny hesitated, holding his hands clasped in front of his chest. Clockwork's face went soft.

"I just want to make sure you are healing. I know this is difficult, but neither you nor I want things to get worse."

"I'm fine," said Danny. "I heal fast. It was just- It should be gone now. I've gotten worse."

"Is it?" asked Clockwork.

Danny could still feel it. "I don't know," said Danny.

Clockwork patted the bed again. Danny sat down and started fumbling with the hem of his shirt.

"Would you like help?" asked Clockwork.

"No," said Danny. He pulled his sweater off. Taking off his t-shirt was harder. Then there were just Sam's bandages. He bit his lip a the red and brown blotches staining them.

"Would you like to talk about it?" asked Clockwork, taking one end of the bandage and starting to unwind it.

"I don't know," said Danny. "I just- It's so stupid. I shouldn't have- They saw me walk through a door and- They don't even know I'm Phantom. They just-" Danny hiccuped. "They tried to cut me open. They pretended."

Clockwork pulled free the last layer of bandages. The long, shallow cut was still there, straight along his breast bone until the end, where it curved sharply right and tapered off. That was when Danny had jerked free of the restraints and ran.

"Why isn't it healing?" asked Danny.

"It isn't just a physical wound, Daniel. Ghosts are spiritual creatures."

"Oh," said Danny. It made a sick kind of sense. "So my core is really hurt? I thought I was just... That it was in my head."

Clockwork raised a hand to touch the bottom of the cut. "Your parents are important to you, and to your Obsession, your existence as a ghost. Of course their rejection would affect you." The cut began to knit itself together underneath Clockwork's fingers. Danny's core thrummed strangely at the touch. "I can heal your physical injuries."

"But not the mental ones, huh?" said Danny.

"You need time for that," said Clockwork, reaching the top of the cut.

"Good thing I have you, then."

"It is," said Clockwork. He leaned forward and kissed Danny on top of his head.

Danny ran his fingers up and down the newly healed cut. "So my powers aren't going to work until, what, I get over this?"

"That is one possibility," said Clockwork. "But everyone heals differently."

"Can't you tell?" asked Danny, reaching for his shirt.

"The more involved I am in an event, the more difficult it becomes for me to see its future," said Clockwork. "The timeline branches and splinters as I look at it. Also, it may surprise you, but you are fairly difficult to predict on your own."

"Oh," said Danny. He pulled his shirt on, ignoring how it caught on the dried blood on his skin. "So, what now? Should I just, I don't know, hide out here? I mean," he shifted, uncomfortably, "It's fine if I can't let anyone know I'm here, I get that, but I'd like to, um..."

"Live your life?"

Danny flinched. "As much as I can, yeah." He licked his lips. "Sam and Tucker didn't get in trouble, did they? They're fine?" He'd been so wrapped up in how miserable he was, he'd barely spared his friends a second thought, and now that guilt from that rained down on his head.

"They're fine. Due to the circumstances, they haven't gotten in any trouble at all, so stop that."

"What?"

"Feeling guilty. I know for a fact that the safety of others was your first consideration." Clockwork patted his shoulder. "As for your continued presence here on the mortal plane," Clockwork smiled, "would it surprise you to learn that I am in fact registered as a foster parent? I have even had a few children here, although not many stay for long."

"Really?" said Danny. "But... Wait, um. What about- What about Mom and Dad?"

"They were seen shooting at you in public after insisting that you were a ghost. They've been arrested."

Danny swallowed. "Are they going to be alright?"

Clockwork sighed and shifted so that he was sitting on the bed next to Danny. He put an arm around Danny's shoulders. "They'll be fine," he said. "But we should come up with a story about how you wound up here, hm? For the social workers."

.

During Daniel's periodic visits to Clockwork's lair, Clockwork had noted how tactile he was, how much he enjoyed hugs and other physical expressions of affection. After Daniel got past his initial hesitation concerning his new situation, that particular personality trait multiplied.

Clockwork suspected the Fentons were ultimately to blame. Their hostility towards Daniel's ghostly identity and their tendency to carry objects that could hurt Daniel precluded him from seeking comfort from them, and his friends and sister, while very remarkable, were children themselves. Their relationship with Daniel was different.

This meant that Daniel could and would spend long periods of time laying against Clockwork. Usually, he would be doing homework during those moments or talking to Clockwork about various ghostly things that he had never had a chance to learn about before.

Today, however, he was just sitting there, quietly, almost dozing.

"I'm not keeping you from doing things?" asked Daniel, abruptly. "Am I?"

"No," said Clockwork.

"You don't have to do time stuff?"

"I can make duplicates and also time travel. I can be wherever I need to be. But if you want space-"

"No," said Daniel. "This is good." He snuggled closer and startled as a ring of light flashed around his waist. He was, for the first time since before his parents had attacked him, a ghost. Clockwork, in turn, shed his human guise.

Daniel was blinking down at his gloved hands.

"What?" he asked.

"I think you finally relaxed," said Clockwork, ruffling Daniel's hair. The smaller ghost leaned into the touch, purring. "Your transformations might be a bit unpredictable for the next few days."

"Good thing it's a weekend, then, huh?"

.

Danny jittered nervously as he and Clockwork passed through the large, eye-covered doors. This time last week, strange ghosts had been in and out of Clockwork's house, asking questions, poking things, and staring. Clockwork said they were checking to see if everything was in order, if the adoption could become official.

Danny didn't really see why it being official mattered. The Ghost Zone didn't really have a government to speak of. Families that Danny had seen just sort of decided that they were families, and that was that. It seemed important to Clockwork, though, and Clockwork claimed that there were certain benefits, like strengthening connections... Danny didn't get it. Wouldn't their connections be strengthened anyway?

Clockwork guided Danny with small nudges, directing him to a seat in front of the judge, who stared down at them with her one enormous eye.

"I have decided to approve the adoption request regarding Daniel Janus James Fenton-Phantom," she said.

Danny felt Clockwork relax incrementally beside him. He smiled. The judge's pronouncement felt a little anticlimactic to him, but, well, whatever.

But the judge wasn't done speaking. "The child's familial bond with his biological parents will be severed. The familial bond will be established with his current guardian, known as Clockwork. On all levels legal, physical, metaphysical, metaphorical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, Clockwork will be the sole parent of Daniel Janus James Fenton-Phantom. Due to the child's status as a liminal spirit, the memories and associations stored in his human brain will not be altered, and he may still experience feelings, especially those of nostalgia, towards his former parents, however, this is expected to fade with time. Questions?"

Danny had rather a lot, actually. Clockwork hadn't quite explained it like this. "Wait, are you saying I'll forget my parents?"

"No," said the judge, in a rather condescending tone.

"You won't forget them," said Clockwork. "But your core won't recognize them as your parents anymore. It's so you'll be able to defend yourself." His tone was almost pleading. "Your relationship with your sister will, of course, be unaffected."

"Okay," said Danny. They clearly didn't see him as their son anymore, so... It wouldn't really change anything. He didn't like the idea of ghosts he didn't know messing around with his core, but he trusted Clockwork. Even if he was apparently really bad at explaining ghost adoption. "What about the other stuff? The physical, metaphysical part?"

"The severed bonds in your core are replaced with ones to your new parent. Similarly, new bonds will be established in your parent's core," explained the judge. "Are you satisfied?"

Clockwork gave Danny an encouraging smile.

"I- Yes. I'm satisfied," said Danny.

"Very well." The judge waved forward a seven armed bailiff who had been waiting in the corner of the room.

The bailiff carried two tall glasses and a large, covered pitcher. He set one glass each in front of Clockwork and Danny and poured a thick, white, faintly glowing liquid into each of them.

"What is it?" asked Danny.

"It is a potion designed to stop our cores from fighting the changes that are about to happen," said Clockwork.

Danny looked at the potion dubiously. "Like an anesthetic?"

"Like an anesthetic," agreed Clockwork. He had already picked up his cup. "Together?"

"Okay," said Danny, still doubtful.

He picked up the cup and brought it to his lips, watching Clockwork carefully over the rim. Clockwork tipped his cup back, and so did Danny.

The potion reminded him a lot of eggnog, except that it was thicker, heavier, sweeter, like it had been mixed with honey. Almost at once, that heaviness settled into Danny's bones, weighing him down, a sensation just to the left of sleep settled over him. He lowered the cup from his face, his grip on it going gentle. The bailiff caught it as it tipped over.

Clockwork reached over and gently, slowly, pulled him close. Then he went as limp as Danny.

Inside, Danny's core became open. Not open, as in vulnerable, but as in receptive. Listening. He felt soft. Malleable. Like someone could press their thumb into him, and it would leave an impression when he hardened again. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation.

The judge sighed with something like disapproval. "So mote it be." She raised a stamp up off her desk, brought it down, and things changed.

Or, at least, Danny did.

.

Clockwork, being the elder ghost, recovered faster from the potion than Daniel. There was no reason to stay at the court, so, after bidding a goodbye to the judge, he picked Daniel up and left, flying a polite distance before opening a portal back to their home outside Amity Park.

He settled Daniel down in his bed, phasing him beneath his covers and tucking him in. Daniel would need to sleep off the potion, as well as take time to adjust to the changes to his psyche, however minor they might be.

"I love you so much," said Clockwork, brushing Daniel's hair out of his face. Getting here had taken subjective years of work and planning but it was worth it, because now Daniel was his child, in every way that mattered.

Forever.

.

.

.

Yes, that ending line was a little bit ominous, but they're ghosts. They wouldn't be happy if it wasn't ominous!

[sobdasha]

i’ve been rereading a lot of my favorite stuff for months now

since I'm lacking in spoons for library trips

And when I was cottoning on to the fact that I have, in fact, been autistic all along, one of the things I realized is that the connecting thread between the kinds of stories and kinds of characters that I like is in fact that they display autistic or autistic-adjacent traits. I had realized this, come up with a lot of examples. I knew this.

Haha yeah as I'm actually rereading the things the evidence is damning that I did not come even close to understanding the full depth of it.

~ Taucris Ithesta is Autistic and Other Adjacent Things re: Leckie's Novels ~

Actually let's start with The Raven Tower because you can't actually argue with me about autistic Siat.

Siat actively avoids eye contact, is """shy""", speaks too softly, has an excellent grasp of humor, likes rocks as a special interest, likes to collect rocks, likes to sort rocks, likes to line up rocks, has one (1) bff to conduct social interactions for her, notices patterns, is good at learning, and is considered disabled by society's standards.

Ughhhhh all that talk about rocks makes me sad all over again that I pitched my rock collection when I moved out (I saved the best fossils, though).

(ETA: I have since bought more rocks because polished gemstones with carvings on them make for great stims, I am very pleased with me)

Okay so now that that's been established, let's talk about Strength and Patience of the Hill.

Because this rock gets me. Originally I figured it was probably, y'know, like with Ancillary Justice Leckie's given me an ace-aro main character and I can identify with that as an ace-aro. But unlike Breq, who very much loves people and wants to take care of them and found family etc, Strength and Patience of the Hill doesn't give much of a shit about people. With some exceptions of people that are it's people, how dare you mess with them, Strength and Patience of the Hill will kick your ass. Although even then I'm not sure Strength and Patience is all that great at taking care of people. Also Strength and Patience of the Hill is very much absorbed in its own selfishness, very much consumed with his own internal world, and I am also a jerk like that so it was very relatable.

(Yes I am using multiple pronouns because one of my many favorite parts of the book signing was watching everyone scramble over pronouns for a rock because "It never came up so I never figured it out" and I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't even use pronouns because why would you need a gendered pronoun to refer to yourself??? You don't even need a name to refer to yourself, actually I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't actually consider itself to have a name.)

So it made sense that this rock just really gets me. I know it's bad when the majority of representation for ace-aro characters is stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens (oooh or sentient space rocks wait wAIT now that I've said that I've just realized the Myriad is the definition of a Crystal Gem, pffft) or whatever but honestly I don't care because I just really identify with the robots??? So I really liked it, YMMV.

(It's probably also bad if the trend for autistically-coded characters is just stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens or whatever too but like honestly a big autistic #mood is feeling like you are a robot or an alien or whatever so maybe that's why I'm not offended???)

My point being that Strength and Patience of the Hill displays a lot of autistic traits and is therefore very relatable, in this Ted Talk I will.

Strength and Patience of the Hill processes things slowly. She will come up with the perfect retort and tell you 5 years later with absolutely no context.

It loves daydreaming, staring at things, noticing patterns, and enjoying quiet and solitude. It loves thinking about why things are the way they are. Look I have fantasized about what if I could exist as just a pair of eyeballs and a mind floating around in space, observing things, thinking things, and not having to actually interact with the world, and I'm pretty sure this rock is living that life. (Until y'know it gets told life doesn't work like that.)

Despite his slow processing speed, and taking a while to learn language, Strength and Patience of the Hill is good at learning things, and I feel like it's the kind of sort-of-sideways, context-based accumulation of knowledge that I learn through as well.

Strength and Patience of the Hill has one (1) friend, and through the Myriad it benefits from the fact that the Myriad has an actual social circle, without having to put forth any effort of maintaining friends on its own, which is 100% the way to do it.

Strength and Patience of the Hill tends to attract the other "quirky" kids--that is, my impression is that the people who become his priests tend to be those people who look at the world a little differently, those people on the fringes. Trans people, autistic people, people with other disabilities.

Strength and Patience of the Hill trying to explain the state of affairs in Vastai to Eolo: "Okay so my first memory I can recall is…" No, okay, no, I know, it's just literally how the narrative has to be told, I'm not criticizing, but that doesn't make it any less reminiscent of "autistic person trying to explain a simple thing but starts in with 10 pages of context first to ensure the over-explanation makes sense" (haha that's why I consistently got stuck training endless new hires, I'm literally so bad at it that I'm the best in the department and I hate life).

Difficulty understanding other's feelings/points of view/circumstances (I know it's because he's a rock and a god but that doesn't make it any less relatable), hmmm what else…

Oh right, a typical interaction with Strength and Patience of the Hill:

Person: (gives offering) Strength and Patience: (offering is accepted because the transaction literally occurred, no need to respond) Person: "(asks petition)" Strength and Patience: ... Strength and Patience: wait Strength and Patience: what Strength and Patience: wait was I supposed to do something else Strength and Patience: did you ask something of me? Strength and Patience: I don't understand what you asked????? Strength and Patience: it's been an entire year now it's too awkward Strength and Patience: i'm sure it's. Fine. Strength and Patience: It's fine. (rinse and repeat)

Like I said, this rock gets me.

(Haha I was reading through my notes from the book signing and I found "Strength + Patience doesn't give a shit about balance, Strength + Patience is just selfish, which it manifests as apathy, which is why this rock gets me. All of my best interpersonal traits also spring from not giving a fuck and waiting ppl to go away faster lol" and why is that, oh because ~I'm~ ~autistic~ pfffft)

I started this post a while ago and this was as far as I got and I don't remember if I had more??? Time to talk about Taucris probably!!!

(I'm skipping Ancillary Justice etc for now because I do want to make a post about that but like there's just. So much. In those books. It's masking all the way down. So it can be its own post. One day.)

Because I waited so long I forgot what I was going to write so I'll just grab the book and flip through and comment as I see things.

To start off with: Taucris and adulthood. I've seen other people pick up primarily on the gender aspect of it--that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she she never figured out what her gender was (non- uhhhhhh what's the word for binary when it's three and not two? Non-tri-something Taucris in a society with 3 options but all 3 options are gendered? I'll go with that.) What really resonated for me was that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she never felt like an adult. And I get that ~everyone feels that way~ but I feel like it's Different for Taucris in the same way it's Different for me. Anyway I feel like no matter which aspect you choose, it's probably an autistic vibe.

Also Taucris seems to have a bit of a flat affect? She seems very serious (both in body language and in speech), and kind of intense sometimes when she talks, and Ingray notes how Taucris usually doesn't smile (she smiles with Ingray because Ingray makes her comfortable) and has always been """shy""".

Also Taucris...talks strangely? I am not sure exactly how to explain it. It's not written badly or anything, it's...you know how sometimes you suddenly sit back and look at dialogue and go no one speaks like this and it throws you out of the story because you dropped your suspension of disbelief? Taucris kind of gives me that feeling, and only Taucris. Almost like her speech is a little bit stilted? Awkward? She's very serious and matter of fact and says things like "You've always been so kind to me" with a straight face. But it doesn't feel like a """bad writing""" (quotation marks for subjectivity) thing. But I notice it every time I read her dialogue… I think it's just that Taucris is autistic and awkward and that's how she speaks. Also I think she's adorable.

Police work is Taucris' special interest. So much so that that's the entire reason she became an adult, so she could engage in her special interest better. She's ~weird~ for her single-minded interest and her interest in a job below her ~status~ and she doesn't care, she set her heart on this anyway, volunteering and interning so on.

Oh that was something else I was going to talk about--Taucris mentions feeling like she doesn't have her shit together, not like Ingray (who also doesn't feel she has her shit together. Kind of like "no one really feels like an adult). But Taucris seems quite calm and capable in Planetary Security. I don't know if this is just masking, but...I really hope that she does feel that way in her job. That because it's her special interest, that helps balance out the stress of being alive and simultaneously employed full-time. That because she's been volunteering and interning here so long, she's been familiar with the office and it wasn't a stressful transition. That she acts confident because she feels competent and respected. Taucris may look calm and cool and collected on the outside and be screaming on the inside but I hope she actually feels pretty good on the inside too.

I would also like to say that I like Taucris' nother. Despite what Danach implies, I get the picture from Taucris that e is supportive of Taucris' personality and interests even when e doesn't get it. E indulged her interest in police work, e didn't understand why Taucris wasn't taking an adult name but tried to be patient about it...so I assume that also means that e was understanding of all of Taucris quirks and stims and particularities. E's been a good support system while Taucris' peers have not.

(Except for Ingray, Taucris' one (1) friend.)

I like Taucris' relationship with Deputy Chief Veret too--the way Taucris quietly manages breakfast so e doesn't have to think about it or be put out (this is The Love Language to me, not being inconvenienced, and I feel that this is part of my personality because my personality is autistic, so). I don't know why specifically Taucris does this, but all the reasons I could come up with feel very wholesome. Taucris respects Veret as her boss and as a person. Taucris is empathetic and thoughtful (she doesn't like Danach but she tries to consider and understand where he's coming from; Taucris isn't Hatli but she considers Veret's fasting etc to be valid rather than a choice of superstition). Taucris' situation is different but she knows that it doesn't feel good to be treated as weird, to be sneered at because you don't act the way people expect you to. Taucris, being autistic, maybe has a lot of experience with "perfectly good foods" she won't eat. Taucris strikes me as someone who observes quietly, and considers carefully, and maybe takes a long time to make up her mind but when she moves it's deliberately and not carelessly. Which is, to me, a masking trait.

In the quantum version of this post I was going to write everything so polished and lay out my points so nicely but clearly that didn't happen and I don't know where to end this and I'm sure I didn't even explain things that well so I'll just say, I feel it was very autistic of Taucris in the last chapter to just be like "well IDK what you want from me and rather than expending massive effort trying to suss it out and guessing wrong I'll just be direct: I know you can't talk about what happened so I won't ask you about what happened unless you want me to ask you about what happened in which case you should say so and I will ask but I think maybe you just need to watch a movie with me instead."

[steponmepinkjun]

I NEVER FINISHED MY STORY OMG. ok so i left off at being too proud to tell my friend she was right and kpop fucked hard. the difference between u and me is that i’m too good of a liar. too good. i kept up the “i hate kpop it’s cringe” facade for ALMOST TWO WHOLE YEARS, I SHIT YOU NOT. why? bc my dumb ass, extra ass, dramatic ass self thought “ok if i’m gonna have to deal with the embarrassment of admitting i’m wrong, i better do it in such an extra ass way it’ll knock ur socks off so hard that YOULL be the one embarrassed not me.” the original plan was to learn the entire choreography to bts dope, bc it’s the song that she told me to listen to and inevitably the song that got me into them, but later switched to bts fire bc i saw too many of those “choreo matches w any song” videos, and then her birthday party came up. and here’s the real kicker. her birthday is April Motherfuckin Fools. so it would be So Perfect for me to reveal my kpopism as a birthday present And a april fools prank in one. so i was Set on the Reveal being on april 1st, but the day rolls around and god that choreo is so fucking hard and i am Not a dancer. never have been. so i abandon that and go ykno what… i’ll do it Next Year. BC MY BITCHASS WAS LIKE NO THE MOMENT IS TOO PERFECT TO DO IT ON A NORMAL ASS DAY ITS GONNA BE ON APRIL FOOLS ON HER GODDAMN BIRTHDAY OR NOT AT ALL. a year rolls by, i’ve told most of our friends except her and they’re all in on it, i’d made so many subtle kpop references to her without her realising they were fully intentional and had too many scares where she almost figured me out but i lied my way out of it, and i’d given up on showing off with choreography bc i couldn’t make that shit look good. i’m not a dancer. i am, however, a rapper, and a damn good one, so i inhaled the agust d mixtape and decided i’d just rap the eminem of kpop’s anthem at her face. in korean. and change the lyrics at the end (if u haven’t listened to agust d, the bridge repeats “i’m sorry” a lot) to “i’m sorry i kept this from u for so long” and “i’m sorry i actually ult got7 not bts” (this was like the april after skz debuted ok i was holding onto got7 for dear life knowing full well skz we’re going to convert me smh) and the best part? she never saw it coming. her official present was a cd with a bunch of kpop on it but she thought it was just a personalised mixtape for her so i told her to play the first song out loud and she knew the song Instantly. it has a long intro so she was like “i guess u did listen when i recommended u this song!! i knew you’d like it since u like rap so much!!” and then i started rapping and i shit u not. she started SCREAMING. like the initial reaction was her jaw dropping and then instinctively covering her mouth but when i kept going and she realised i wasn’t fucking around she just fucking screamed like a banshee. at the end during the sorry bit i threw off my jacket to reveal a got7 shirt on the inside and she fell off her chair and started rolling around on the floor. needless to say it was every bit as satisfying as i thought it’d be LMAOOOO afterwards her ass was like “I CANT BELIEVE U HID THIS FROM ME FOR OVER A YEAR” and when i tried to explain my ego couldn’t take the “i told u so” she was like “you know i wouldn’t have made fun of you for it right? i would just be glad you’re not hating on my boys anymore” so basically i’m a big dramatic fool and she was always too good for me.

don’t mind the weird spaces here my ipad is being all fucky wucky w me rn. damn sad to hear ur sideblog experience didn’t go so well, i’d have shown u the cool side of the fandom if i knew 😤😤 leading u thru the cursed halls of kpop stan tumblr like a sketchy tour guide that’s actually 3 small raccoons stacked on top of each other like a trench coat, like “over here we have the fanfic writers that honestly need to publish a book, over here we have the gif makers that are responsible for my entire camera roll, if we take a quick swerve past the death threat anons and the twt fanwar screenshots - mind ur feet bub the 14 year olds were tryna make a grab for ur ankles - ah here’s the holy grail of shitposts, you might be here for hours, to the right we have the weird aussie side of the fandom that projects our childhoods onto chanlix but also all the members as we decide what their life in australia would’ve been like, and down there is a secret trapdoor to the blogs w endless random headcanons that will make you laugh, cry or blush depending on if the author woke up and decided to choose violence today. enjoy your Stay!” but then again i’m not so active on tumblr anymore (ngl you’ve become the highlight of my tumblr experience these days, interaction wise,) so maybe all my Local Hotspots are inactive now. i know a bunch of them are, it’s sad. “i don’t fw stan twitter for the same reason i don’t hang out in meth dens” oop. guess i’m a meth addict. no but i get u i rly do, it’s a hellhole out there, but the fact that things get shared and spread a lot easier than on tumblr and how short most things have to be (therefor keeping up w my adhd attention span without having to resort to the mental torture that is tiktok, with the added bonus of not always needing headphones.) that i just. couldn’t leave if i tried. maybe i should try being active on tumblr again but it’s a dying site in comparison.

“their music doesn’t consistently hit for me as much as skz” i’m sorry we can’t be friends anymore. what. what. you don’t dramama ramama ramama hey? you don’t feel a little jealousyyyyyy, naega anin? you don’t shoot out, shoot out, shoot out, or aremdaeun love killa love killa? you can’t be your hero du du du du du du du du du dududu? u disappoint me. literally like everyone i know who likes skz music likes mx music like it’s a rite of Passage. they’re kindred spirits, monsta x music is like skz’s music’s cool but mildly heterosexual older brother. neither of them know what a bad song is it runs in the family. and both their music runs in my VEINS. whenever i describe my music taste they’re always the first two that come to mind, skz being my number 1 bc they are my best boys but mx bc of the Flavour. pls listen to the entire the code album then get back to me 😤🙌 ok but fr ur so right they are 7 of the finest men i ever seen (yes i say 7 bc i’m including wonho cause he deserved better and i’ll die on my ot7 bullshit.) like don’t get me started on them either LOL i LITERALLY downloaded that one insta video of changkyun working out his back n arm muscles w his tattoo showing bc i needed that shit saved for Science. they could do Anything w me like frfr. yes vixx is the bdsm contract group i’m telling ya they wildin. or at least they were. it’s been years since their last comeback idk what they’re doing anymore tbh. and yeah that makes sense, savouring the hyperfixation i feel it, but also i’m so attached to skz that i never let it die. like i hyperfixate on other things and other groups but i will Always go back to skz cause they’re my homeboys. hell, they’re my home. being a predebut stay i’ve spent more time w skz than most of my actual family members at this point. but that’s just me you do u boo xx just know that if ur anything like me ur never letting go once skz it’s been my longest lasting fixation cause they hit like Nothing Else Do. ik i’ve already said that but i cannot stress it enough. they’re really special. i’m gonna stop here before i get all sappy and emotional bc i really love those boys so fucking much and i don’t drop the L bomb often. SIDE NOTE I WOULD LIKE TO SEE UR LIST OF GROUPS RANKED BY THORSt. i need to judge ur Taste. and omg cat&dog is such a guilty pleasure song bc the lyrics make me cringe so much bc while pet play can be fun they be doing it in more of an “i’m an innocent soft dogboy uwu” kinda way that just Does Not Sit Right with me. it comes back to the objectifying of asians that asians themselves don’t help in industries like these and maybe i’m looking too far into it when rly it is just wholesome n cute or maybe they are into some pet play shit idk idc i will bop to the song regardless but i will not acknowledge the lyrics nope.

YOURE RIGHT THO SKZ’S OPENNESS IS IN FACT, A BIG DEAL, i’ll grab them for u if u want but i found these twt threads of skz supporting the lgbt community and i just felt a special kind of happiness man like sure the delusional part of me likes going “haha they’re gay” bc my brain likes to imagine them as my polycule of mlm boyfriends bc sometimes thats what gives me the serotonin to get me thru the day ok don’t judge but also bc it’s nice knowing that yes i’ll never know them personally, but at least i can support them knowing they’d respect my gender identity and my pronouns, they’d respect who i choose to love, and that’s already more than the general public can say so shit, it is special! it’s special that they don’t treat being cishet like the norm - they constantly remove gender from their songs and speech entirely, they don’t assume all stays are female anymore, we don’t talk abt the babygirls incident cause we got babystays in the end outta that ok, and it’s just. so refreshing and important to me bc i can’t get that anywhere else!! like my semi ults are the boyz and while i love them very much and there’s no way all 11 of them are straight i refuse, i do get just a little bit sad whenever they she/her their fandom by default and call them their girlfriends n shit even tho i do still identify as a girl, i’m also genderfluid/nonbinary/transmasc, and i have a very love/hate relationship w my womanhood and rarely use she/her pronouns, cause it’s like, do you not see me? see us? the ones who aren’t cishet women? i mean i know kevin does bc he congratulated a fan who came out as nb but it’s just not the same as the openness we get w skz. like how do i trust cishets i could be supporting them as a queer person when in reality they’d call me a slur. what would i know, behind the screen? so it’s so good that skz go the extra mile to make it a safe space for everyone. this is already long enough i will reply to the second half of that ask in another message… tomorrow cause it’s 1am and i’m tired gn -felix bi anon

I'mma have to start putting these under a readmore so that i don't absolutely make everything who is still following me for some reason go totally fucking insane 😂

NDJDHWJJAHFNAKBSJSBFBHHDBDNAJD YOU HAVE NO IDEA THE FACES I WAS MAKING READING THIS, I WAS FUCKING CACKLING AND GASPING EVERY OTHER SENTENCE SO HARD THAT I SCARED THE CATS NDJWHSHSB the fact that you went "oh you want me to get into kpop? Give me a hot minute, and I'll give you a whole ass private concert for free" biduehsjdbd biiiiiiiiiiitch you're a fucking ICON, I stg I could NEVER 😂 (and not just because I couldn't find a tune if you gave me a printed set of Google maps directions and that I embody the steriotype that white people can't dance, like my sister kept sensing me tiktoks of the whole "dance like a white girl" trend going lmfao look it's you and eventually I was like "sis please this trend has me feeling like being white is a disability and these mothafuckers are being ableist 😭 also I could NEVER be that on beat so yall ain't even doin it right 😭😭😭😭"). Tbh if I told one of my friends (lol what friends, i got jokes) to get into Skz and they showed up at my bday and performed the entirety of I Got It I would simply shower them in money and go "aight everyone else go home, you are no longer needed, you are being laid off, your position has been eliminated, we're downsizing, the company is moving up and you're moving out, you are not qualified for this role any longer, best of luck with future endeavors" 😊

I think part of the reason I can't deal w Twitter is the exact reason I refuse to leave tumblr, in that I've been on tumblr since 2006 and twt since 2008, and tumblr literally has not changed at all, not even a little, whereas going from the early days of twt where there were no corporate sponsorships or ads and you had to manually copy and paste someone's tweet and @ them to retweet it, to how it is now, like 90% ads and showing me shit from the timelines of people I don't even fuckin follow n whatnot, it's just not enjoyable. Idk how anyone finds anything on twt, it confuses and frustrates me because I am old and have not adapted well to technology changing 😂 But arguably, the skz fanbase doesn't want me on skztwt anyways so like it works for both of us lmfaooo. I am old and cringey, and also still think of twt as stream of consciousness whereas tumblr is your teenage bedroom where you can decorate the walls with anything that interests you. I do really love the nonsensical kpoptwt shitposts tho fhshsbdjjss like it is a very specific flavor of mental instability that I enjoy immensely 😂 OH and also I initially misread part of that and thought you were saying you actually irl do meth and I was like 😳 WHAT DO I SAY TO THAT. HOW DO I HANDLE THIS. Like how do I express like "I wasn't being judgy of people who use substances cause I've been there but I was just being insensitive 😳" And then went back and reread it and was like WHEW, IM JUST AN ILLITERATE FOOL 😂😂😂😂 ejeywhdhrhjwbfbdjshdhdhd I spent like an hour bwign like "IS THE REASON WE GET ALONG BECAUSE THEY'RE ON METH???? WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS INFORMATION??????" hrhehshe I am literally a fuckin idiot it's fine

It's not that I don't fw them, it's more like... Okay so like there is no situation in which I am going to skip a skz song if it comes on shuffle. You will not ever catch me NOT in the mood to listen to Sunshine, if God's Menu comes on we are THROWIN the meager amount of booty meat I got hither and thither, I could be in the happiest mood of my life but if Ex comes on I will stop to SOB. And I'm not like that with most music, so mx just falls into the category of "there is a time and place." Idk why but it just doesn't forcibly grab hold of my heart and ass the way skz always does. I really don't WANT my skz fixation to ever end, but I know that eventually it'll stop giving me dopamine bevause my brain is my worst fucking enemy 🙃 like my arcana fixation is to date the longest running hyperfixation I've ever had, going on almost three years, and I used to not be able to spend every single second of every day thinking about Asra, but now... I just feel nothing when I look at arcana stuff. As you can probz tell by the fact that I hardly post arcana anymore 😂 So I know that eventually all my happiness will end, it always does, I can never stay just as obsessed with something as I was for long. I CANT SHARE THE LIST BECAUSE I DONT *HAVE* TASTE YET 😭 I'm basically just compiling a list of any group someone tells me I should look into, ranked by how strong the kitty purred upon googling pics of them 😂 My mom read my ass to FILTH over txt lmfao she was like "they're not that adorable. Maybe your standard for adorableness has gone down with You Know Who still on hiatus 🤔" bfjwhdhd like MOMMAAAAA THE LIBRARY IS CLOSED 😂 she attacks me any time I even hint at stanning other groups, she is a skz purist and stans skz only, unofficial Momma Stay of All Stays keeping me in check lmfao.

I feel like skz really do follow thru on their promise that they're a safe space for stays, it's nice to see that they hold space for anyone and everyone in their fanbase and do it in a really simple and elegant way, I feel. Like they never make it seem like "okay here are the fans and here are the token weirdos that were only recognizing to make a buck off of them" the way a lot of artists make it feel like 😑 like they don't go out of their way to act like it's some revolutionary act to do the bare minimum of not shitting on certain parts of the fandom, if that makes sense. They feel very "yeah, of course we love all our stays, this is a welcoming space for literally anyone, that's how it should be, that should be normal," instead of like "Hi fans we love you 😊 and special shoutout to you ell gee bee tee folk, make sure to buy my rainbow merch after the show!!!" you know? Like, they're the friends who would never make you feel weird or different for some shit, the friends that take the attention off you if something they know ur sensitive about comes up, instead of weirdly snapping at whoever brought the unfomfy thing up which ruins the mood and makes you feel tiwce as bad, yk? They just give off this vibe that they, and the space they create with their music, is just a genuine and chill place to be and hang out and relax and bond. I feel like they'd be the friend group that is so goofy and sweet and silly and accepting and lovely and always makes you feel loved and excited to be alive 🥺 They are all good noodles 🥺🥺🥺

[secretgamergirl]

Hate Mobs Gotta Go

Last night, I did something I have never expected to do, and just full on gave up on a fun RPG writing assignment. Which I had to do because I hit a point where it was so overdue and unfinished that I was falling asleep sitting up and stress vomiting and other such things. There’s a whole lot of factors behind that. Other health issues, the toll of being on total pandemic lockdown for months, with neighbors just straight up open mouth coughing at my door, emergencies with friends and family, multiple fires and hardware failures, but the main thing was, and still is, the constant harassment from a militant hate mob, completely out of touch with reality.

Years ago, I remember there was this thing the internet at large was fond of doing with foaming at the mouth far right religious extremists- Mercilessly ridiculing them in public to expose how disconnected everything they said or did was from reality. Remember seeing this one float around and laughing your head off?

And if I mention the Westboro Baptist Church, you immediately picture a single family of raving bigots picketing funerals and such with their big homophobic signs, with a bigger crowd mocking them, right?

For some reason, the modern version of that particular flavor of fringe weirdo doesn’t get that sort of ridicule. Presumably because they’re focusing almost exclusively on trans people, and most people have this weird thing where like if you stick up for trans people you get cooties or something and never dig into the real juicy ridicule fodder. But for real, this stuff is OUT THERE. Just look at a few examples here.

Come for the weird ravings about harvesting baby organs. Stay for the... adult woman who apparently believes breasts get their shape from actually being sacks filled with milk under women’s skin? Now, how about this colorful comparison?

For anyone who wasn’t aware, pronouns are words like “I” “you” “he” “she” “it” and “this,” while rohypnol is colloquially known as “the date rape drug,” so this is utter gibberish. The full context of course is that this person is trying to make the argument that forcing this bigot to refer to women she’s prejudiced against as “she” instead of arbitrarily tossing around “he” or “it” is... raping her brain, I guess?

So... this is pretty clearly some creep’s weird little fantasy. The obvious giveaway is pretending that trans women “aren’t in the correct bathroom” when going to... the correct bathroom, and that the non-existent law about this is somehow enforced by... random bigots opting to deputize themselves. What DOES happen for real though is bigots like this being arrested for barging into public restroom stalls with camcorders aimed at the crotches of women on toilets and trying to defend themselves by insisting they have some duty to check what their genitals look like. On which note...

That’s just disgusting. It’s also as close as I feel comfortable to posting all the graphic fantasies I see from these people about the barbaric genital mutilation they imagine trans women subject ourselves to which really has no basis at all in reality. Well maybe I can post this one.

I’m not going to go through and itemize all the baldfaced lies in that, because I really kinda hope I don’t have to, and also because the person who slapped this together was kind enough to break it up in such a way that I legitimately can say “every single line of this is a completely baseless lie.” Also the art in the corner is stolen from a child-friendly comic whose author is trans, so, that’s extra slimy. Also wow that “bone scans” bit is actually one I’ve never seen. Where the hell do they even get these ideas?

Also this one needs some setup. If you have time, this right here is a freaking journey, if not, I’ll try to summarize.

So a while ago, this one particular unhinged bigot decided the most productive way to spend all her time was to get in touch with a bulk sticker printing business and order thousands if not millions of these weird gross poorly framed slabs with a really crude drawing of a penis and bunch of gibberish she really wishes were the names of popular twitter hashtags that nobody else but her ever uses. And then after receiving these, just... wandering around the city she lives in all day every day plastering them on phone booths and power poles and the mirrors of bathrooms in like.. elementary schools and park benches, just everywhere. And then makes multiple passes a day apparently to make sure nobody has tried to remove any of them, as detailed in this amazing thread I’ll link again.

So the latest break in that particular saga is that same zealot going around plastering stickers like this around too, to make it seem like “both sides do it.”

It should be obvious that that’s a “blacks rule!” sort of fake between the baffling text and using the extra inclusive, particular emphasis on supporting people of color, general purpose LGBT+ flag, but also, like their fellows on 4chan, they plan this sort of “false flag” crap in broad daylight:

I should really properly credit the whistle-blowing on that particular oddity, and I should also note that aside from the breast milk sacks, this is all just stuff I saw TODAY catching up on my twitter feed, but my main point with all this is to illustrate that we really are dealing with Jack Chick/Westboro Baptist-level unhinged zealotry... but again, nobody’s out there pointing and laughing. And it turns out, when you don’t have people pointing and laughing at this sort of thing, you get people taking it seriously. So... when I went to quickly search for a news story to link with the bit about creeps barging in on women with cameras, the results I got were... this.

That... sure is a lot of stories about totally innocent people in a demographic I belong to being murdered by total strangers goaded into blind murderous hatred by the sort of people I’m pointing and laughing at! Ha ha! There’s a very real chance of that happening to me every time I step outside, for any reason! Tee hee! I live in a state of constant fear! Whoopsie!

And it’s not just stuff like that. The people posting these rambling tirades about ���breast milk sack implants” and putting crude penis stickers everywhere, never being called out as the unhinged weirdos they are, either have the world turning a blind eye to all this crap, or have everything they do downplayed in the media to the point where outright sexual harassment, doxing, and slurs I don’t want to repeat get headlines like “so-and-so made comments that some fringe trans activists on the internet deem ‘possibly transphobic’” and that’s AT BEST. More often you get stuff like the one incident I managed to bring a lot of public attention to way back when, where some bigot just literally walked up to someone on the street, grabbed them, savagely beat the hell out of them until pulled apart, had friends film the whole thing, and bragged after the fact about it, and every story that appeared as a result claimed the assailant was the victim, because they were all written by her friends.

Face obscuring provided by me here, by the way.

And that isn’t a one-off incident. Because, see, most of these unhinged weirdos spewing out all this transphobic gibberish are not, as you would think, a bunch of barely educated Trump hat wearing members of some fringe religious congregation. They’re editors and producers in major British news outlets. This isn’t me shouting conspiracy nonsense either, this is well-documented. Like, The Guardian gets public internal protests over this crap. So does the BBC. Yes, other respected news sites cover this. Media watchdog groups do their best to reign this in with hearings and such, but, don’t actually have any power to enforce anything really. So when there’s “reporting” on this crap, it’s coming directly from the “breast milk sack implant” people. Oh and here’s some screenshots of the headlines of those stories you’re too lazy to click through and actually read:

And of course, sometimes when they want to really come across as respectful, they try to find “scientists” and “doctors” who back up their ravings but all they have to fall back on are disgraced quacks who spend most of their time on activism work to normalize pedophilia.

I’m not bringing that point about Cantor up to discredit his writings about trans people by the way. He doesn’t really HAVE any writings about trans people. He just pasted the names of a bunch of random studies from the 70s about whether playing with barbies makes you gay into his blog a few years back and this crowd was so desperate for validation they declared him an “expert in the field” and started passing out links to his.... pro-pedophila blog. Which is part of this whole pattern, but I’ve written about that before. Oh and the governments of multiple countries manage to treat all these people as “experts” and make policy decisions based on their ravings. That’s fun.

Anyway, aside from encouraging random people to, you know, just randomly murder anyone they see who looks like maybe a trans woman, every so often this weird little cult pulls in an actual celebrity who then has a public meltdown as they post all this gibberish to a wider audience. Currently this is going on with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling (who’s actively promoting the pedophile guy up there on Twitter), and I think also William Shatner, but I haven’t really looked into it. The last big one though was Graham Linehan. Who you might remember from co-writing some sitcoms that were popular decades ago in Britain, or from being the weird cartoon villain who tried to kill the funding of a children’s charity, prompting this strange pledge drive marathon of Donkey Kong Country.

You might also know him as one of... I think honestly just two people who have ever managed to be such out of control stalking hate mongers that they were actually given a permanent no possible appeal ban from Twitter. Personally though I know him more as, you know, that one absolute creep who’s been obsessively stalking me for like 5 years and never shutting up about his weird personal obsession with me.

I WOULD link the recent freaking filmed interview he did where he spent forever rambling about me, but I’d have to actually watch it to confirm I had the right link, and also the only place I could quickly find a link to it would be on his twitter feed, which as stated, no longer exists. Oh and random side note there, despite being personally, by name, the person he was explicitly targeting all his hateful ramblings at, he wasn’t banned from that site for any of the disgusting stuff he said to me. He just slipped up and mentioned a cis woman with a professorship while shouting about this crap recently and that caused people to actually take action. I do so love being invisible.

Anyway, point is, prior to Rowling grabbing the baton from him as his social media presence went up in flames, this guy was name-dropping me a LOT. Presumably he still is, just in places fewer people see it. And when you have as big an audience as he did, and that audience is as full of hatemongers as his was, that has a pretty noticeable effect. I’ve been deluged with so much hateful garbage for so long it’s impossible for me to put any numbers on it. The closest I can do to quantify it is note that hate dump was big enough that I was also flooded with more weird messages intended as support from total strangers than I could deal with, totally losing access to social media feeds and my e-mail from the volume for a good bit, and THAT flood was big enough that I got this whole second wave of creepy stalkers who’d built up this whole weird fanon where this stalker here is like, someone I used to date or be business partners with and not just some creepy dude like twice my age stalking me over the internet, from a completely different hemisphere.

And I mean... in the broadest of strokes, I can kinda laugh all this off. Because... these people are completely ridiculous, out of touch with reality, and mostly live in other countries. But... all the threats and shouting are very real and very constant and like.. picture someone outside on the street shouting at your windows about how they’re going to break in and kill you. You really can’t ignore that. Even if they’re unarmed, and all they’re really capable of doing is shouting and pounding on your door, you can’t really just ignore that shouting and pounding and just watch a movie or play a game or write this article you promised would be done 3 months ago. You can certainly try, but a pretty big part of your brain is going to be occupied with thoughts about how maybe you should call someone to see if they’ll escort this violent person away, or maybe you should barricade your door in case all that pounding does something.

And I mean this isn’t a bad metaphor for how all the constant threats and stalking I’m dealing with thanks to celebrity bigots personally obsessed with me impacts my life, but it also does a pretty good job of describing how my night went pretty recently when I ACTUALLY DID HAVE SOMEONE POUNDING ON MY ACTUAL REAL PHYSICAL DOOR SHOUTING ABOUT STABBING ME TO DEATH, and no, there was no resolution to that beyond the sound of sirens causing that person to back off.

I also had an experience not too long ago where I was supposed to take a cab to a routine appointment, a car showed up with the cab company’s name on it, somewhat early, and proceeded to drive me... out to the middle of the freaking woods like an hour from where I live, and when my phone rang with my actual cab asking where I was the driver freaked out, had me get out of the car, and took off leaving me just... stuck in the middle of nowhere freezing to death and trying to find a landmark an actual cab could pick me up from. Still don’t know what the hell that whole thing was about and whether a cab driver just REALLY didn’t know what he was doing and panicked or what, but I do know that talking about it publicly in the vaguest of terms lead to a bunch of unhinged shouting from... apparently some unconnected ride share driver with a habit of dumping trans women between stops when they try to get medications or something, convinced I was calling him out for that.

So.... yeah. Things aren’t exactly going great in my neck of the woods. I’d really appreciate it if people would properly treat these unhinged violent weirdos like unhinged violent weirdos and not respectable members of society so they quit getting so bold and public with the violent stuff, and people who listen to them get properly shouted down for doing so.

[mutantsrisingrpg]

Congratulations CAITLIN! You’ve been accepted as EPIMETHEUS.

Tierney is a skeleton that I hold near to my heart and it’s clear from your application that he’s just a dear to you, Caitlin! The backstory that you weaved together for him not only broke my heart, but made me actively root for him. The bit about Blake and how important he was to Tierney was such a great addition to him and added another layer that pulled at my heart. “But nothing good lasts forever,” whew did that line slap me across the face. I can’t wait to see where you take Tierney on the dash! 

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

Out of Character Information:

NAME/ALIAS: Caitlin

PRONOUNS: she/her

AGE: 27

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: CST; Due to the current pandemic I have lost my job. I’m currently under a shelter-in-place order at my parents place so I have…a great deal of time. Sure, there are days I’m not around but those days are usually cleaning and shopping days. We’re trying to get attached to a schedule with….some success. So I’ll be pretty darn active for a while. In the event the pandemic is over I’ll let you know how my activity will change but that strikes me as a ways off.

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Tierney Sinclair; Epimetheus

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis-Male, he/him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS:

Tierney is a lot of things. But at his heart he’s a boy reaching out for a hand to hold. He’s been denied so much in life and now that his life is in his hands he wants to grab the things he never had. Family. Friends. Purpose. He’s been adrift for so long, lost in a world he doesn’t understand and that doesn’t want him, that finding solid ground to stand on has never been easy. And now that he’s found all of those things he’s finding life isn’t as simple as reaching for your goals and taking them. He struggles with himself some days. He wants to be the boy that never got to be and the man he’s proud of being today. He’s tugged between finding out what normal might have been or could be and doing what he’s good at and known for. It’s like a game of tug of war that he can never win.

BIO:

Content Warning: child abuse, murder, death

Tierney Sinclair was born to a single mother in the slums of Las Vegas, Nevada on September 8, 1979. And that was all he ever knew of his life before the orphanages. Abandoned on the doorstep of a local orphanage with nothing more than his name and a ratty hospital blanket. The Las Vegas Home for Orphans was not a kind place to grow up, especially not for a mutant. Tierney’s powers first manifested when he was three and throwing a tantrum. The bottle of milk he wanted so badly, rather miraculously, appeared next to him because he’d willed it. Easy enough to ignore, which is exactly what everyone opted to do. Mutants were trouble and the last thing they wanted here was mutant trouble. That was, until one of his tantrums caused one of the workers to black out and wake up two hours later.

He was four when he was given to the government for testing. And they tested him for years. Tierney was thirteen when they slapped a level five rating on him and finally released him to a mutant “friendly” orphanage out in Las Vegas. Not that life in the orphanage was much easier than life in the lab. Unaccustomed to the modern world Tierney found himself behind his peers in almost everything. Lost and alone in such a strange and different world made him an easy target for some of the tougher kids in the orphanage and they bullied him relentlessly. It all stopped the day Tierney snapped, nearly killing one of his biggest tormentors. He was punished severely for his actions and Tierney found he just didn’t care. He’d had enough of being walked on and over like a door mat. He was Tierney-fucking-Sinclair and woe to the person who thought him a push over.

Between his powers and his dangerous penchant for using them when angry Tierney did a lot of orphanage hopping until he aged out of the program at eighteen. Life outside the system proved to be….difficult, at best. With a petty crimes rap sheet as long as his arm and a level five label on top of that Tierney found no forgiveness is the world of humans. He survived on odd jobs and theft. Stealing was easy enough when all you had to do was wiggle your fingers at a lock and convince the elderly security guard to look the other way. It was stealing that landed him in the Blackburn Syndicate’s lap. Over confident in his abilities he ended up stepping into the middle of one of their cons at just the wrong moment, causing the whole job to flop. Some would say it was luck that they got out alive, but everyone there knew it was Tierney’s powers and fast thinking that got them all out and in one piece. That didn’t stop the Syndicate from being angry though and they presented Tierney with an offer he couldn’t refuse. Join them or die.

It was simple enough to say yes and shake the hand that sealed his fate. He slipped into life with the Syndicate with ease, surprising even himself. He job hopped for a while, struggling to find his place in the group. It was only after Blake Ryans, the Syndicate’s hitman, took him under his wing that he found it. Killing didn’t come naturally to Tierney but Blake never let him back down. He always said that if the government deemed him as dangerous he may as well live up to it, right? And eventually, he did. Blake crafted him into the best hitman he could be, expertly passing on the wealth of knowledge he’d accrued over the years. Tierney soaked it all up like a sponge and within three years had become Blake’s second in command, trusted enough to do Syndicate jobs on his own sometimes. But nothing good lasts forever.

On a job gone wrong Blake was lost and never returned. Tierney waited, and waited, and waited; but it became increasingly clear Blake was dead. He wasn’t surprised when the Syndicate asked him to step up and take Blake’s job, citing they’d been planning on asking him to do it anyways in the next couple of years. It was an easy enough yes. Blake never returned and after a while Tierney found he’d stopped waiting for him. It’s what Blake would have wanted anyways. He’s been the Syndicate’s most trusted hitman for years now, a job he takes great pride in. The Syndicate has become the only family he’s ever known and he’s exceptionally protective of them because of it. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to protect them. Nothing.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:

ABIGAIL IMANI - (The tug towards what ‘normal’ could have been.) Tierney knows…almost nothing about this woman, save for the fact she’s always getting a cup of coffee when he is. At first it was just a weird coincidence but after a while it simply became routine. It’s easy to talk with her over things that don’t really matter. She makes him feel almost normal.  What it’s like to be a person rather than the scary mutant most people peg him for these days. With Abigail he’s simply Tierney, the guy who likes too much sugar in his coffee.

CIARA SAWYER - (Another chance. Living vicariously through another.) Tierney can’t explain what drew him to Ciara the first time they met. Maybe it’s because he saw a little of himself in her or maybe it was the way she looked at him and smiled despite his reputation. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t really care. Like Blake all those years ago he tucked her under his wing and has tried to help her find her place in the Syndicate. He never expected someone as soft and quiet as Ciara to wind up being his most trusted asset in the field. Sure, the first couple of jobs were…bumpy but Ciara was a fast learner now they’re like a well oiled machine. He makes their car keys dances and she robs them blind. It’s brilliant. He hasn’t told her, but he’s resoundingly proud of who she’s become. There’s no one he’d rather work with out in the than her. It’s no secret that Tierney is soft on Ciara but woe to the person that tries to exploit that. If there’s one good thing he leaves behind in this world it will be her. He tries his hardest to shelter her from the more grisly aspects of his role in the Syndicate with varying degrees of success.

GERRARD BERMUDEZ - (The tug towards who he is today. Someone to rail against who isn’t afraid to rail back.) Tierney doesn’t hate Gerrard but he certainly doesn’t like him very much. No one knows why, not ever Tierney himself. It was such an instant distaste that lingers on his tongue like bad fish. He avoids him when he can…and when he can’t he’s not afraid to push at his buttons. It’s almost entertaining to see how far he can get sometimes.

EXTRA:

Content Warning: murder. abuse, violence, guns

-> Tierney doesn’t like killing. He never has. He knows it’s an odd trait to have in a man who is literally hired to kill people, but it’s something his mentor Blake instilled in him from the minute he started training him. Tierney will never kill someone simply because they are there. If they’re not his target then they don’t matter. He goes to great lengths to avoid unnecessary bloodshed but it’s happened on the rare occasion. He regrets those deaths and only those deaths. -> Some might say Tierney has a nasty habit of over planning his hits, but Tierney would disagree. He likes having a plan, likes watching as all the little pieces fall into place. It’s a heady sense of accomplishment. And the coup-de-grace? The ending parts. Tierney might not like shedding blood unnecessarily but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like shedding it altogether. There’s something heady in holding someone’s life in your hands and knowing exactly what you’re going to do with it. -> Tierney is trained in every aspect of killing imaginable. He’s talented with a gun, with his fists, and with his powers. It doesn’t matter how it happens so long as it happens, so Blake made sure Tierney could do the job any way imaginable. -> Outside of off hand remarks and vague references there is no one in the Syndicate who knows anything about Tierney’s life before the grand fuck up. Anyone that’s tried to ask about it has been rudely told to fuck off or out right ignored. As far as Tierney is concerned his life didn’t start until the Syndicate found him. -> Don’t touch Tierney without his permission. Years of abuse have made him a distrustful and jumpy man. Touching is prohibited to everyone except those he trusts and even then, he’s never been the kind of person who liked hugs anyways. -> Tierney never really managed to adapt to the modern life style that surrounds him. He’s hopeless when it comes to anything more complicated than the texting feature on his phone. Computers have always been a mystery to him and he’s perfectly okay with that. There are plenty of others out there that can do what he wants. If that means he has to ask or intimidate he’s flexible. -> Tierney is a staunch believer that mutants deserve more than they’ve got. Deserve more than a childhood of cruel experiments and homes. He wants mutants to be treated as equals instead of dangerous lab rats. It might not happen in his life time but he wants to pave the way for others like him. He buts heads with people who think mutants are more than humans. He wouldn’t wish his life on even them. -> Tierney doesn’t own a car. He owns a motorcycle. In fact, he owns four. He’s a grease monkey when it comes to bikes and can’t say no to a good deal. He finds something very soothing in spending a day working on one of his bikes. The Syndicate pays him well, but there’s people out there who pay him more for one of his custom bikes. -> Tierney has amazing control over his powers. But his powers have always been deeply tied to his emotions. He’s stronger when he’s feeling a powerful wash of emotions than when he isn’t. He hasn’t lost his cool in nearly twenty years but the effects of it can be damaging. He tries not to let himself get too overwhelmed. -> Tierney’s powers are tied to his hands. He can do things without them but using his hands as focus points helps him with the accuracy of his powers. There is no physical sign that Tierney is using his powers outside of someone who knows that when his hands are moving…things are moving. For Tierney manipulating his powers feels like a string of energy connecting him to his target. He can equate it to almost being like a puppeteer. -> Tierney has a fantastic amount of fortitude when it comes to using his powers for an extended period of time but after a while he will start to get tired, especially for tricks that require his full concentration. -> Power Break Down: ——> Telekinetic Choking: The ability to choke someone without physically touching them. One of the first of Tierney’s powers to manifest and one of the ones he relies heaviest on even now. He must be within sight of his target in order to achieve this power but his range can be as long as a basketball court if he concentrates. ——->  Telekinetic Homing Effect: The ability to cause an object to lock onto a target and follow them until they collide. This trick is one of Tierney’s most useful. And he’s always found it fun to grab someone’s bullet and send it back at them, even if they run. Tierney doesn’t know the full extent of his range but again, he must see the person in order to send anything with homing capabilities at them. ——-> Telekinetic Object Manipulation: The ability to move objects by focusing on them. Probably the best distraction technique ever. Nothing gets people to stop paying attention to their surroundings like their car keys dancing out of their pocket, right? It’s taken him many years but Tierney is now capable of performing this talent with a multitude of objects at the same time. The bigger the object the more concentration it takes. Also a useful skill for picking locks and one he mastered early in his petty crime days. There isn’t a lock he hasn’t been able to pop, yet. Tierney’s range for this is huge but he must be able to see the objects he’s moving if he wants any degree of success. ——-> Telekinetic Mental Manipulation: He’s not able to take over someone’s mind and turn them into his puppet but with a little meddling he’s often able to get people to do things they weren’t prone to doing before. Looking left instead of right, forgetting to check the closet doors, little things that can have a big impact on a job at any given time. Tierney isn’t afraid of his abilities but he hasn’t explored this one as much due to lack of useful targets. His range on this is fairly short and for anything bigger than a stray adjustment or two must put his full concentration on the target. ——-> Psionic Explosion: The ability to create a large mass of energy that can cause huge amounts of damage. Using this power exhausts Tierney and he rarely uses it unless it’s an emergency or a last resort. What little he knows about it comes from the tests he underwent as a child and the two times he’s been forced to use it in his adulthood. Both times leveling a building.

ANYTHING ELSE: Nope! All good on my end! Let me know if you need anything from me!! <3

[celestialarcadia]

Dear Chocolatier

This ended up kind of long. I really hope this doesn’t come across as too picky! While I’ve included prompts and general rambling, I can’t predict everything that I’d be interested in--so as long as your idea doesn’t fall under my DNWs, I’ll be happy to read whatever you come up with! This is mostly geared towards fic, since I’m not very good at talking about art, but I’d also be ecstatic about art fills. Full letter under the cut. (Note that I missed nominations, so I was limited to whatever was in the tagset; not all of my favorite relationships in these works are represented.)

What you need to know about me is that most, if not all, of my favorite pairings include some element of opposites attract. I’m not sure that’s the right phrase to use, since it’s often not literal opposites that attract me to a pairing. What I love is when characters have some sort of large difference(s) between them that is impossible to ignore, requires there to be communication between the members of the pairing, and (this is the big one!!) all the members of the relationship love each other in part because of the differences between them as well as recognizing the similarities they have. It’s a bit hard to explain in words, but I hope that helps. To use examples from the pairings I’ve requested: human/elf, human/alien, alien/different alien, human/robot AI, mage/warrior, warrior/diplomat, witch/fairy, angel/demon...I let out a dreamy sigh just typing those out, which should explain how much I love this trope lmao.

I want happy endings. There’s a place for tragedies, but I need to be in a very specific mood to gain satisfaction from them, and right now in my life I can’t really appreciate them much. I generally prefer a “happily ever after”, but “happy for now” is also acceptable (and is more appropriate for several of the pairings on this list). While I enjoy fluff, I’d also be happy with something more dramatic as long as it ultimately has a HEA/HFN. I’ve enjoyed hurt/comfort, but I usually prefer them to be heavy on the comfort.

Regarding smut: I’m fine with or without it. I’m asexual and porn does nothing for me sexually, but I can enjoy erotica, even PWPs, as an exploration of intimacy between characters. (Not necessarily even romantic intimacy--I’ve enjoyed smut about friends with benefits.) Stuff I enjoy in smut: blindfolds; body worship; bondage; cunnilingus; edging; facesitting; femdom/malesub; gentle domination; intercrural; mirror sex; multiple orgasms; mutual masturbation; pegging; praise kink; service topping; vibrators; wax play. And if the scene goes into BDSM territory, aftercare!

However! I am also a very, very big fan of non-sexual intimacy. Kissing, hugging, cuddling, spooning, literal sleeping together, massages, holding hands, words of affirmation...I could go on and on. Love it all. If you headcanon a character in a requested pairing as asexual, go for it!

Special shoutout to characters bathing together (preferably in a very large bathtub or similar body of water). It can easily lead to sex, and I don’t mind if it does, but I almost prefer if it doesn’t cross that line.

General DNW: 24/7 D/s, A/B/O, abuse between characters in requested pairings, ageplay, amnesia, ass to mouth, BDSM society AU, bestiality, bloodplay in settings without magical healing, breathplay, cancer, canon bi character portrayed as straight or gay, canon gay character portrayed as straight or bi, cheating/infidelity by character in a requested pairing, crossovers, daddy/mommy kink, death of a character's parent(s) as a major plot element (references to canon parent death OK but try not to linger too long on it), describing genitals of any kind as "weeping", dub-con, eating disorders, enemas, explicit underage, fake relationship, feederism, fisting, guro, hatesex, humiliation kink, incest, inflation, kidfic (canon kids OK but I'd rather not have a fic centering around them), lactation kink, love triangles, maledom/femsub, necrophilia, nipple clamps, permanent death of a character in a requested pairing, petplay, plots centered around prejudice or -isms, pregnancy, rape/non-con, rape roleplay/consensual non-consent, reader insert, rimming, scat, school-related AU, self-harm, sex in public places, soulmates AU, sounding, spanking, vore, watersports/omorashi, zombies

Some of these fandoms/pairings have more written about them than others. Please don’t take that as an indication that I’ll be disappointed if you pick a pairing or fandom I’ve written less about here--I really will be happy with any of these pairings!

Cinderella Phenomenon

(Psst...this is a free game...consider playing it?)

Delora/Parfait: I didn’t consider this pairing until I saw it in the tagset and now I 100% ship it. Love me a goth witch and pastel fairy couple. I’d like to see them negotiating around the drastically different perceptions of witches and fairies in Angielle. Or maybe something a bit fluffy, like sharing a stolen moment away from the Marchen, or just taking a break from the trials of everyday life.

Pairing-specific DNW: Work set during/after Rumpel’s, Waltz’s, or Fritz’s routes

Lucette Riella Britton/Karma: While I enjoyed the game as a whole, I think Karma’s route was my favorite. For all his eccentricities, Karma recognizes Lucette’s terrible upbringing and how it affected her before the other characters do, and the fact that he’s a prince means that you can get up to some really nice royal intrigue and politics with this pairing. (Also, I wonder--does Karma continue to wear dresses after his curse is broken, just for the fun of it?)

Pairing-specific DNW: Explicit smut (fade-to-black is fine)

Dragon Age

Fandom-specific DNW: Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor sides with templars, rivalmances for DA2 LIs, Cullen as major character

Alistair/Male Surana: Oh, Alistair, my first DA love. Even though he never actually became a templar, he was still trained as one, and I think that could cause some issues in a relationship with a mage. And being an elf mage? Whew. Even though I don’t want something where Alistair becomes king, I’m fine with something where they discuss the possibility of Alistair becoming king, as long as they ultimately decide not to put him on the throne. You could also do something set after DAO/Awakening, where both are active Wardens--maybe they’ve been separated for a few months for Warden-y reasons and they’ve just reunited?

Pairing-specific DNW: Alistair as king, Loghain recruited into Wardens

Fenris/Hawke: Any gender Hawke is fine (I just have m!Fenhawke tagged because it was in the tagset). My Hawke is female, but feel free to write male or nb Hawke; my Hawke is also a mage, because I like the idea of them falling in love despite the tension that causes between them--but if you’d rather write a warrior/rogue Hawke, that’s also good. (If you want to include specific details about my Hawke: she’s named Samantha, specializes in healing, and is mostly purple/joking with a blue/diplomatic streak. I headcanon her as asexual even if it can’t really be replicated in the game. But I’ll be fine with whatever Hawke you choose to write.)

Zevran Arainai/Warden: Like with Fenris, I’m not picky about which genre or origin you pick and only put in the tags in the set for matching purposes. My Zev-romancing Warden is a f!Brosca, but if you prefer another gender/origin, do whatever you want. These two are my favorite enemies-to-lovers pairing, in part because Zevran never had any hard feelings for the Warden in the first place. (And the Warden telling Nathaniel “Some of my best friends have attempted to kill me” during Awakening gains a whole new level of hilarity with romanced Zev.) Zev comes across as a devil-may-care flirt, but he turns out to be a respectful lover if you actually put the effort to get to know him beyond surface level. (Also, that cool-ass Crow armor from the World of Thedas artbook. A+)

Female Lavellan/Josephine Montilyet: Josie! (｡♥‿♥｡) And I romance her with a f!Lavellan, so it’s a nice coincidence that this was in the tagset lol. I’ll be good with just about anything you come up with for this pairing. Josephine is one of the few non-Dalish characters who at least tries to be respectful of Lavellan’s Dalish heritage, even if she is a bit clumsy about it sometimes. My Lavellan is a lesbian mage named Ilena if you’re interested in including those details, but I’ll be happy with any f!Lavellan.

Josephine Montilyet/Cassandra Pentaghast: Fun fact--I ship this because of a bondage fic I read lmao. They have a very interesting dynamic--a warrior who kills on a regular basis (even if for a good cause); a diplomat who has renounced violence. I won’t be picky about anything for this pairing, either.

Good Omens

Fandom-specific DNW: Reverse AU (I don’t mind these but I’m not interested in receiving one), Aziraphale falling, smut involving Crowley’s snake form, work set before Crowley’s fall, strict top/bottom dynamics

Note: I’ve read the book and watched the series. I’m fine with stuff set in either canon (hence why I requested both). If you want to combine elements from both, that’s cool too.

Aziraphale/Crowley: My most recent love. I have lots and lots of feelings (at least a billion) about these two. Enough that I have a goddamn LIST.

I’m fine with any combination of genders/presentations/efforts/pronouns for these two. I headcanon Aziraphale as being agender with he/him pronouns and Crowley as genderfluid, but again, anything works. Lately I’ve adored fics and art of butch female-presenting Aziraphale, too.

Chubby Aziraphale!! I love!! So much!! Dovetails very well with my interest in body worship (sexual or otherwise). Crowley loves his soft angel!! So much!! And! So much cuddling potential!! (More serious note: I’m not a huge fan of stuff where Aziraphale is extremely self-conscious about his body. Surely he’d miracle himself a different shape if he hated it so much? And he’s been around for millennia, so he’s witnessed beauty standards change drastically over time. It makes more sense in human AUs, but it’s still something I tolerate more than enjoy.)

I’m a big fan of “Aziraphale and Crowley through history” stuff. Pick a time period you like and go wild. Personally, I have a huge soft spot for the 1920s--Crowley would look amazing in a flapper dress. (Realistic or Hollywood-style, take your pick.) (I know that according to the TV script they didn’t see each other between the fight at St James and the church scene, but...bah. Flapper Crowley!!) Some great opportunities for mutual pining, or if you want to write an AU where they got together before the Notpocalypse, go for it.

I have a big soft spot for stuff where Crowley is in his snake form (no smut, please--if the story turns that way I want him in his human form for sex)

I will never ever get tired of “first love confession” or “first kiss” stories for these two because I am a romantic sap who just wants them to be happy (they’ve spent so long not being able to be close to each other! they deserve it!!)

Outsider POVs: “random normal person weirded out by bizarre relationship between fussy bookseller and his goth husband” is one of my favorite fandom tropes

Praise kink! I mentioned this in my general smut likes but it bears repeating here. The major fanon is Crowley having a praise kink, which is wonderful and valid (tfw your crush calls you nice and it turns you on so much you try to play it cool by shoving him against a wall). I’ve seen some stuff recently with Aziraphale having a praise kink and now that’s an idea. (He’s spent so long just wanting to be good for Heaven! Even though Heaven’s standard for what’s good is kind of terrible and they hate him anyway so he’d never be good enough for them! But Crowley knows that Aziraphale is good and he’s more than willing to tell him every little thing he loves about him! aaaaaaaa) Regardless of who has the kink, I think they’d be a bit embarrassed at first at having it found out (Crowley: “Being turned on by compliments? C’mon, that’s not me” [it’s totally him]/Aziraphale: “It’s...a bit selfish, isn’t it?” [but since when has that stopped him]), but the other would be more than willing to indulge. (And while Aziraphale is naturally suited to provide praise, given how good he is with words, I think Crowley could grow into the role too, in his own way.)

Heart of the Woods

Tara Bryck/Morgan Fischer, Abigail Dalsing/Madison Raines: I put these two together because they’re so intertwined in the original game, but if you want to focus on one pairing over the other, that’s great! Something that really interests me would be seeing how Morgan and especially Abby would react to the...idiosyncrasies of modern-day America. Also, Abby being introduced to the internet could be hilarious. (Also also, Morgan getting to live her best butch life, and Tara being her slightly overly enthusiastic cheerleader.) On a more serious note, how does Maddie move on after leaving Taranormal?

Lake of Voices

(Psst...this is also a free game...consider playing it too?)

Kikka/Margret: I’m less interested in fluff for this pairing thanks to how dark the original material is, but I’d still rather not have something totally grim. Margret’s route isn’t truly romantic, not really, but considering the short period of time the game takes place during, that’s not surprising--so I’d like to see how their relationship progresses after the events of the game.

Mass Effect Trilogy

Fandom-specific DNW: Sabotaging the genophage cure; Control/Synthesis/Refusal endings; synthetics dying in Destroy ending (yes I know this is canon, no I don’t care; please don’t do post-ME3 if you aren’t willing to work around this); dead Wrex; no peace between geth and quarians (for ME3)

Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian: While Shakarian isn’t my favorite ME pairing, I do still love it. No Shepard without Vakarian, after all. They work so well as a battle couple and have such great chemistry. My Garrus-romancing Shepard is a Paragade Vanguard named Elliott, Earthborn/War Hero if you want those details.

Female Shepard & Mordin Solus: Death DNW doesn’t apply to this one; hit me with all the feels over Mordin’s death (I don’t like what you have to do for him to survive). Or avoid the issue by doing something set during ME2. Alien Sex Ed is always a classic trope, or something more serious regarding Mordin’s past as an STG operative or his work with the genophage.

Grunt & Female Shepard: Shepard is very proud of her strong krogan vat bby.

Kolyat Krios & Female Shepard: With or without Shep/Thane (”YOU’RE NOT MY REAL MOM”), either works. If there’s romance, how does Kolyat react to his missing dad showing up with a human girlfriend? Does Shepard try to become a part of Kolyat’s life or does she try to stay out of it? There’s less reason for Shepard to get involved if there’s no Thanemance, but I think there’s still opportunity there, since Kolyat and Thane keep in contact after the loyalty mission is completed.

Pairing-specific DNW: Thane dying

Thane Krios/Female Shepard: My favorite ME pairing! At least until BW fucked it up in ME3. (I still kind of haven’t forgiven them.) They have a very mature relationship, I think--both of them a bit weary--and they find solace in each other, at least until the inevitable. I would prefer a fic set during ME2, or in the time period between the end of ME2 and Shepard being detained before ME3. If you want to make something set during ME3, I’d like to see him receive treatment (not necessarily a cure, though I won’t complain if you go that route, but preferably something more realistic than “oh I took a pill and now I’m all better!” or similar) for Kepral’s. I also don’t like the defeatist “well, I guess I’m just gonna lay down and die now” attitude he has when you meet him at Huerta in ME3; it clashes so much with his entire ME2 arc, which has him realize that he does still have things to live for (his son, for one, and Shepard if you romance him). If you’re interested in details about my Shepard: her name is Diana; she’s a Paragon Infiltrator, Colonist/War Hero.

Pairing-specific DNW: Excessive focus on his illness (I know it’s a big part of his character, and I don’t expect people to avoid it entirely, but I don’t enjoy stuff that’s centered totally around it); Irikah bashing or trying to portray her as unimportant

Nyreen Kandros/Aria T’Loak: (STILL SCREAMING ABOUT BADASS TURIAN LADY) I want to see something from when these two were still together, or a fix-it where Nyreen doesn’t die and she and Aria enter a (possibly uneasy) truce. Less concerned about happiness for this one as long as neither of them dies; I’m fine if it ends up that their relationship just doesn’t work out.

EDI/Samantha Traynor: Geeky lesbian with a robot kink + sexy fembot = ooh la la. On a serious note, how would a human/AI relationship work? There’s a lot of possibilities here.

Stardew Valley

Fandom-specific DNW: Player siding with Joja-Mart

Abigail/Female Player, Elliott/Player, Leah/Female Player, Maru/Female Player: I’m putting these together not because I think they’re interchangeable (they’re not), but because what I want is basically the same for each of them--slice-of-life about the farmer and their partner (either dating or married...or dating then married; no kids please), with emphasis on how the partner’s personality and lifestyle meshes, or doesn’t mesh, with the player’s farm life. Maybe there’s conflicts that have to be resolved, compromises that have to be made. (But I do want them to eventually work it out and be happy together.) If you pick Elliott/Player, I’m fine with whatever gender farmer you want.

Sweet Fuse: At Your Side

Inafune Saki/Meoshi Kouta: One thing I enjoyed about Meoshi’s route is how he doesn’t have to give up games entirely in order to deserve love and improve as a person, he just develops a healthier relationship with gaming. I like the idea of Kouta participating in a fighting game tournament with Saki cheering him on...or maybe he taught her how to play and she’s a competitor too now? DUN DUN DUN. (but it’s all in good fun)

Pairing-specific DNW: Explicit smut (fade-to-black is fine)

Original Work

Dethroned and Dishonored Queen/Lone Loyal Female Knight

Lady Locked in a Tower/Lady Who Turns Into a Hawk

Female Werewolf Hunter/Her Boyfriend Who Gets Turned Into a Werewolf

Female Tall Muscular Badass/Female Short Chubby Nerd

Hiker/Sporty Girl Who Sprained Her Ankle Miles from Nowhere

Grumpy Lonely Sorceress/Female Courtesan She Hires for a Ritual

Female Witch/Female Werewolf

Female Witch/Female Demon She Accidentally Summons

Female Knight/Female Bath Attendant with a Crush

Female Gamer/Female Bookworm

Female Court Painter/Impatient Princess Sitting for a Painting

Female Armorsmith/Female Warrior Who Needs Frequent Repairs

Female Adventurer Lost in the Snow/Female Fire Spirit

Male Speakeasy Bartender/Male Speakeasy Piano Player

Librarian/Her Monster-Hunting Wife Who Keeps Dragging Her Into Wacky Supernatural Adventures

Sensible Royal Guardswoman/Arrogant but Skilled Court Sorceress

Dark Mage/Light Mage

Beleaguered Playwright/Actress Cursed to Ruin Any Show She’s In

Female Vampire/Female Vampire Hunter

Victorian Lady/Victorian Lady

GO WILD. Just don’t hit my DNWs. For the pairings that don’t specify the genders of both members, I’d prefer f/f works.

[twinsoflima-blog1]

WHAT YOU SEE

full name: al yheen “AL” cohen-chang

face claim: kwon hyuk (DEAN)

age: 25

birthday: november 10, 1991

birth order: second fraternal twin

hometown: Lima, Ohio

gender identity: cis male

pronouns: he/him/his

orientation: heterosexual/romantic

occupation: middle school teacher / part-time producer at Loca Bonita Records

WHERE THEY’VE BEEN

TRIGGER WARNING: Mention of attempted suicide and panic attacks

Getting scared of settling down. Al’s parents have always been a bunch of pacifists. Now, it’s definitely not something he could complain about because, in a certain way, it actually had its perks, but not when there’s an elephant in the room and his parents would rather not talk to each other to keep a fight from happening in front of their kids and wait until everything’s shoved under the rag and everyone moved on. As a child, he didn’t really think much of it. In fact, he was grateful, but the older he got, the more he was exposed to other people’s way of dealing with things, and his opinion about his pacifist parents soon changed — especially when they made him their mediator, telling him contradicting things about the same problem. He tried his best to encourage them to talk, but it was like talking to two solid walls that he just got tired of it at some point. One particular Saturday night, fifteen year old Al packed his bags, left just before dinner time, and went to stay at a classmate’s house not far away from their own house. He’d refused to answer their calls and even refused to take the food that his parents sent later on for their sleepover. It wasn’t until the next day when he finally answered his mother’s call, telling him that they were going to church together (to which he asked, “All of us?” then later on answered with, “Yes. All of us.” by his mom). Somehow, even as their family car stopped in front of his friend’s house — his mom and dad smiling at him as if nothing happened the previous night — Al knew that nothing had been fixed; that his parents simply decided to forget everything and talk to each other again (not about their problem, though) just for the sake of getting Al back. Somehow, even after what he did, his parents never tried to change their attitude. They still refused to talk about their problems, still used Al as their mediator, and Al just got so tired of it that he eventually came to a conclusion that marriage was fucking overrated. This had caused a shift in the way Al worked in relationships as years went by. Al still knew how to like people; he still got himself in relationships, and yet when his girlfriend would start talking about the future and settling down, he’d oftentimes step back and refuse to talk about anything that had to do with the future, always insisting that they were good as they were — that they should enjoy what they have in the present time before they start fucking things up because of getting tired of each other’s presence in the future.

Meeting the first person he trusts. Al’s family had always been musically inclined. His father knew how to play the guitar and sing; his mother and twin sister were exceptional singers; and then, there’s Al with his love for the guitar, piano, and singing. One would have thought that he was set to become a singer one day, but his parents — as much as they supported his love for music — refused to let him have it as his career. Al wasn’t much of a rebel, but just to (lowkey) spite his parents, he created a youtube account, set up his own mini-studio at home (just his laptop, midi, guitar, and microphone, really) and became a cover artist during his freshman year in college. In the midst of being an aspiring teacher, Al soon became a relatively well-known cover artist, even collaborating with other cover artists in youtube — which was where he met Dino Lopez. Due to fans’ demand, both cover artists worked together and became good friends; Al would even visit LA to hang out with Dino the summer. With Al being an ambivert and Dino being an extrovert, it was no surprise that they hit it off right away, and Al just loved having Dino around, since she’s basically his ticket to everything crazy. Lord knows Al usually never did half of what he’d usually do when he’s in the company of Dino.

Breaking down, finally. Growing up in the presence of people who usually never let out their thoughts and emotions, it was no surprise that Al grew up just like them. Not even his sister — who was admittedly very sweet and considerate of his feelings — could keep him from being just that. However, one could only keep things bottled up for long. One particular night as a senior in college, he’d been pushed to the point of attempting suicide, but he’d miraculously managed to dial Dino’s number (she’s seriously the only person who’s not direct family in his phone) in the midst of his panicking, and it was through the phone where he poured all his concerns for the first time in his life even before Dino could say hello. Since then, Al had tried his best to change himself a little bit, talk every now and then to Dino just to keep himself in check. He couldn’t believe that he’d actually considered ending his life, and he was truly scared of going through that again.

Becoming a teacher; a better him. After graduating getting his license to teach at the age of 23, Al wasted no time to start teaching in his alma mater, and it was a couple of years later after that when he finally started working at Dino’s label as a producer during the night (or during his time outside of school). With Dino’s influence in his life, and the colleagues he eventually met at school, Al began socializing even more. Nowadays, with the natural need to be outgoing as a teacher as well as the encouragement of his friends, Al was a lot more approachable, and made conversations with strangers easily compared to when he was younger.

WHERE THEY’RE GOING

PLOTTING

for someone to heal him: kind of? kinda want to see this guy go through a very slow process of changing his views in relationship and marriage all over again. lots of push and pulls, maybe — it’s going to be one hell of a frustrating ride, but that’s what makes it fun.

for someone or something to bring out the beast in him: not what it sounds like — definitely not. al bottles up his emotions too much and refuses to do anything that is generally considered violent, and while talking to Dino helps him every now and then, sometimes — a guy just got to grab some gloves and punch something to let out his frustrations. the lack of gloves can work too, depending on the situation.

for someone to fuck up his clean reputation as a teacher: people sometimes, if not most, just love thinking that teachers should be literal angels outside the school so that their students wouldn’t be influenced negatively. But like most teachers in the world, Al believes that he’s free to do whatever he wants outside the school, as long as he wasn’t hurting anybody. His covers of songs with inappropriate lyrics, as well as the songs he helped produce and composed for ADULTS, will be brought up by this person, causing uproar among some parents aka he’ll be labelled a negative influence to the kids because of his works in the music industry. this could be a potential dark time for Al, but it could also lead to some changes in his life (like his job or something). it’ll depend on how things work out.

CONNECTIONS

healer: basically the person who’ll change some of Al’s views in life, particularly in relationships. would rather have this as an organic development, however.

bro: this person could be a man or a woman or whatever; basically someone who’ll bring out the human in Al (since he loves to refer to himself as an alien sometimes with his lack of interest in activities that people of his age often like), someone who’ll encourage him to act reckless and do something bad in his life even just twice a year, and someone who’ll encourage him to explore his talents more than what he’s done in the past. this person could also be considered his one and only best friend.

first lady: she’s the first lady to ever experience Al’s changes in the past; the first person Al would ever hurt with his refusal to talk about feelings and anything considered sentimental; the first Al would have a nasty breakup with; the first person in Al’s terrible record in relationships.

THEIR GOALS

Other than seeing his students be successful in life (and never let them forget about him as the awesome and very nice teacher in middle school), he just wants Loca Bonita to be one of the most successful records in the country whose artists are genuinely talented and passionate in music.

THE PLAYER

name: D

pronouns: she/her

age: 21+

timezone: GMT +8

[lostmyurl]

This is a personal post about my own identity, about some realizations I have long since been coming to, something I need to get out and organize and get off my chest, so please don't come here with any generalizing comments, or about how I'm generalizing people. This is me, my experience, my dysphoria, my life. If you want to reblog or leave a comment or something, or inbox me, or something, you're more than free to, just please, please realize that this is about a post me and my self-image alone. As a kid, I always wanted to be a scout. Always. I never did, though. We only had Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts back in Texas, and in Poland, too. Idk. It just didn't sit right with me to be included in "oh, just girls here" or "oh, just boys here." I don't like gender-separated areas, and I never did, even if I didn't know why it put me off so much. I mean, I guess I didn't know when I was that young that it was dysphoria speaking up? But as I got older, and I started to hit puberty, shit just started getting a LOT worse. I had a period of time where I decided, nope, you're DEFINITELY a cis girl, I wore so much pink it was bizarre and outrageous. I like the color still, just… I feel bad because I associate it with that period of time really intensely. So I can't wear it at all or I just… hm. It's a shame, really. It's such a nice color. But it's just tied to so many memories of trying to wipe out anything I felt that didn't fit. After that, it was a period of 'so what the fuck are you?' Anybody who knew me about two years ago knew I kept changing my mind, trying to figure out what was going on because nothing felt right. A friend had to suggest it, if maybe I wasn't just imagining things/had low self esteem/was gnc, and really, for the longest time, I wondered if I was a closeted trans boy. But while being addressed as "he" helped, it didn't feel right, either. It was SO LONG until I realized that what actually felt right wasn't the decision to use "he" or "she," it was the actual moment of hesitation, the fact that I was presenting androgynously enough for it to be unclear. It's… still really really frustrating and muddled, but I've figured out enough about reading testimonies from trans people to know that what I'm experiencing is definitely a combination of dysphoria and euphoria. Here's the thing, though. There's a distinct line between nonbinary and gender-nonconforming (gnc). Being gnc would mean that I wouldn't feel uncomfortable or wrong when somebody used a set of binary pronouns for me in accordance with my assigned sex, or even the one across the binary. You can be gnc and cis, or gnc and binary trans, and one doesn't preclude the other. And neither of those means nonbinary. It's an identity that's… okay. TMI, I guess, but ideally? In a world of people who identify as men and women, I'd like to inspect my own body, go on a character selection screen, and remove all primary and secondary sex characteristics traditionally thought of as belonging to binary genders. Penis? Wrong. Vagina? Wrong. Boobs? Wrong. Facial hair? Wrong. Hourglass figure? Wrong. "Dorito" figure? Wrong. Et cetera. Et cetera. I'd like to be freed from all of those and I don't know why it's weighing on me so heavily. Delete, delete, delete, even if it meant leaving me a near-featureless default doll. Before anybody accuses me of hating people, I don't mind any of those traits on anybody else. This is my own body I'm talking about, a truly personal experience and an idealized dream. In dreams, I am occasionally perceived as male, rarely as female. Regardless, whenever I can remember, I have always been "other" in my dreams. You know- like on multiple choice exams, 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' 'D,' 'none of the above is correct'? Like that. I first learned that nonbinary genders were a thing from a classmate. Pejoratively. Like they were other, lesser, freaks. "What do you mean, neither? You can't be neither." It was religious studies class, that I remember. Of course, that wasn't the word they used. It was "homo-niewiadomo," a partially reclaimed slur that literally translates to "homo-who knows really" and doesn't just refer to gay people but any people falling under the queer umbrella as a whole. I was torn between "what???" and this kind of "that's a thing?" My next experience was on tumblr. I met a wonderful person who actually lives in my city. We've met nowadays. Years later. I was a kid then, maybe 15? 16? They said… I don't remember what it was. Gender-questioning? Something like that? I didn't pretend to understand, not yet, but I wanted to know more. All this sounds like I've had a lot of influence, but really, so much of it was based on introspection, questioning, doubting. Yeah, self-harm happened, too, whether by actually drawing blood or intentionally forcing myself to embrace hyperfemininity or by pushing myself to the point where I can't wear a color I love because it has all those negative associations with things I did to myself, things I said, trying to cut off unwieldy and inconvenient parts of my personality and decide I'm "moving on." I did the same thing about being autistic, about being ADD, and I look back on that now and realize that all I was doing was ensuring both my mental health and my physical health suffered. And my grades. Those dropped too. Performance in all respects. I ruined a lot of friendships that way. I guess some of that is a behavior learned from my parents. Forbid anything that's not productive or conductive to school that you're too "dependent" on. It's… really the worst fragment of their parenting (I think it's how they approach themselves, too) I could've possibly internalized. And something that disappeared basically overnight as soon as I was old enough to point out it wasn't actually helping, it was hurting. Now it's just there in my head, eating at me. They're not bad people. They're not bad parents. They treat us like human beings, instead of like enemies to trap in a maze of "because I said so" and arbitrary obstacles, like so many fakey-nice perfect suburban American families I've seen. They're learning, too, their home lives weren't perfect and they're not prepared to deal with a neurodivergent (not "normal") kid at ALL. They're always so confused about how "brilliant" I am and how I have trouble with "easy" stuff, about how I get overwhelmed with too much input. About how no, exposing me to that input doesn't help, it just increases the chances of a grown adult having to lock themselves in a dark room bawling into a pillow because it's /too much/. The truth is, I don't know. I know that what I need to alleviate dysphoria is basically impossible. That unlike a binary trans person I do not have the possibility to transition and eventually attain the body I identify with. This is why I can't go back to the Bible Belt, or attend a super-religious school I might've gotten a good scholarship from. I can't. If I had to go back to all that, to dressing up and doing makeup and "girl talk" and asserting over and over and over that I am like you, I am like you, I am like you, I would lose my sense of identity completely. What fragile sense I've even built up for myself. A person I can be now, somebody I almost like. Not quite, but almost. It's progress. So much progress. I'd go back to hating myself for not being like you, yes, of course I'm crushing on a boy, oh, yes, absolutely, please help me look more feminine more often, I'm just a clueless tomboy who doesn't know what she's missing :) :) :) If you're a girl who loves engaging in typically feminine activity, I support you and your interests, as I would if you were anybody else and your interests didn't hurt anybody. But it's not for me, and honestly, it's silly, but so many of my nightmares involve people turning on me and deciding they'll help me look more like I'm supposed to, be like I'm supposed to. "You have such a beautiful woman's body! Don't throw it all away!" you can have it you can have it you can HAVE it please take everything, take the horrible breasts, take the horrible curves and the horrible cinched waist and the awful "delicate features" right off my face. I don't want these. I can't be grateful for something that I look in the mirror and I feel can't belong to me, it shouldn't. It's wrong. That's not me. Please don't tell me "you're a pretty girl, you should appreciate it," don't tell me I'd like it more if I wore more skirts, I promise, I TRIED that. I did. I tried all the possible ways of loving myself and embracing a female identity in both gender-role-conforming ways and not. It doesn't work. It's like a software patch called "gender" was installed in almost everybody's brains except my own. All I'm left with is extraneous hardware that acts as malware without the driver patch. In a way, though, things are looking up. I've managed to figure out a thousand and one ways to avoid the entire (gendered) past tense in the language I speak at home. I've figured out a thousand more ways to avoid revealing, I've learned to see when I'm succeeding and when I've slipped up, when their eyes shine in triumph and they finally use binary pronouns without asking. Would it be so hard to ask? I'm not even sure what I'd say except "thank you." It's only happened once to my face without snark and it was the best thing I'd ever heard. I blew it. I wasn't expecting it. I shrugged and said "whichever you please" because I got so flustered, I didn't know how to respond. It was unexpected. It was wonderful. I should've said "neither, really." I could've said "I'd prefer not to say." If I hadn't been speaking Polish, I would have asked for “they.” Maybe. If I had the guts. "Whichever you please" was a step in the right direction though… right? This post doesn't have a point. Not really. Just laying some stuff out in text because they finally make sense that way. If you want to send hate, save it for other posts, okay? Have a shred of dignity and comment on posts tagged discourse, or posts in which I express an opinion about something that isn't this introspective.

[crossroadsdimension]

Puppet AU Chapter 9

Heh heh. As soon as I posted that drabble, I decided to throw this nightmare out.

It’s not from Ford’s perspective, though. You’ll figure out who it is soon enough.

Doing the Dirty Work

Probably the one good thing about these little “infiltration missions” the Master sent Stan out on was the fact that he didn’t have to look at those damn triangle tattoos when he was disguised as someone else.

He knew he didn’t have a choice, but he hated the Master with every single fiber of his being, and there was no way that he was just going to let that go. Not like Ford seemed to have done.

Stan drummed his fingers against the table impatiently. He’d taken on the form of a young man this time – a clearly athletic kid who he’d devoured back in Portland when they were given the chance to test out their abilities for the first time – or the only time, in Ford’s case. Football player, dark, curly hair, tall, heavyset – kinda like how he’d been back in high school, except…different.

Getting into the group in Piedmont, California that had been trying to fight back was the easy part. With his present form and the memories of the dead kid, he’d been able to pretend he was on the run and looking for a way to fight back.

Knowing that he was going to be the one to tear the group apart whenever the Master decided? Not so easy.

Especially considering that Dipper’s and Mabel’s parents had joined up a little bit before he had.

“Goddammit, Alex,” Stan muttered under his breath, rubbing at his right temple as he watched the other members of the resistance move around the strangely still-intact house. “He must’ve known you were up to something.”

Another good thing about being out from under the Master’s shadow was that he could find other ways to refer to him in order to stay undercover. Name-calling and pronouns abounded, and it gave Stan a sick glee to know that he could get away with it.

But there was still that ache that he got in his chest every time he attempted to want to help people get away from that triangle freak, and it reminded him that he only had a semblance of freedom at this point – not the real deal.

Stan gritted his teeth and the ache in his chest started up even more fiercely as he attempted to imagine himself tearing the demon’s eye out of its socket, only to hit a mental wall before he could even picture the throne room.

Goddammit.

“Say, son?”

Stan looked up at the voice and stiffened when he caught sight of Alex Pines – Dipper’s and Mabel’s dad – sitting down on the other side of the table.

“Are you feeling all right?” Alex asked. “You’ve been making some odd expressions.”

Stan grunted. “I’m fine. Just thinking about that stupid demon dorito.”

The best lies were half-truths. Stan had learned that a long time ago.

Alex gained a sympathetic expression and nodded. “Yeah, I know the feeling.” His expression turned into one of anger. “He’s taken my family. I’m not going to let him get away with that.”

Stan wondered how Alex would have known about them. Had he run into Dipper and Mabel when he had sent them out?

“Your family?” Stan repeated.

“My uncles – one of whom faked his death and the other who started the apocalypse – and my own children.” Alex sighed and shook his head. “I can’t believe that something like this could have happened to us. It sounds too impossible.”

Stan frowned. Apparently, Alex also knew about what he and Ford had both done and been up to for the last thirty-odd years – at least, before Weirdmageddon hit. Kinda hard to keep track of time when all the clocks moved at different rates and there was no sun to speak of, but people were apparently adapting to the mess of a world that he had managed to create. Not sure what the triangle would think of that, but if humans could find a way to adapt, they’d definitely find other ways of being able to annoy him.

“Yeesh. I don’t know what I’d do if my parents were taken by that freak.” Stan started drumming his fingers against the table again in a nonsense rhythm as he tried to drive out the idea of his Ma and Pa being forced to do what he was doing.

He was certain that they’d be fighting back just as much as he was, but he didn’t know how long they would have been able to hold out.

Or even how long Stan himself was going to be able to keep feeling that echo of an ache in his chest every time he thought of trying to get away from his present situation.

Stan paused, focusing more on what Alex had said. “How’d ya know, anyway?”

Alex sighed. “That monster hunted us down using Dipper and Mabel. Apparently, he wanted to see where Dipper and Mabel had come from, then went off to Glass Shard Beach. But Grandma and Grandpa died years ago, so I don’t think he’s going to be able to find what he’s looking for.”

The Master did what? That was something Stan hadn’t heard about.

“Dipper and Mabel?” he prompted instead.

“My kids,” Alex explained. “One of my uncles – the one that started this whole mess – was with them, too.”

So, Ford knew about the kids’ parents.

“Trenchcoat? Fox ears?” Stan guessed.

Alex looked at him sharply. “You’ve seen him?!”

“Yeah, him and this guy who looks a lot like him.” If Stan was going to play this how he wanted to play it, he was going to have to be careful how he worded his responses and what exactly he let slip. “They were up in Portland a while back. Completely destroyed the place. I think I saw that uncle guy’s lookalike eating people.”

“Eating people?!” Alex looked startled at that. “That’s…” He looked sick for a moment, then gained a dark frown. “Even though beating that Bill Cipher might be impossible right now, I bet we can weaken him by taking his minions down one by one.”

“He’s been getting more minions, though,” Stan pointed out. “I had to hide from a number of them coming down here. Do you realize how hard it is to not get burned to death?”

A near-complete lie, considering that Stan wasn’t actually going to get attacked by any of the Henchmaniacs, but he thought that Pyronica probably had a bit too much fun shooting fireballs at him in order to get him into the resistance’s safe house.

Stan tried not to think about the dead look that came over his brother’s face whenever the demoness entered the room with that hungry look in her eye.

“Which is why we’re planning on laying low for a while and figuring out their strengths and weaknesses before we make a move against them,” Alex insisted. “I’ve talked with the leader of this group, and he agrees with me.”

“What about your family?” Stan frowned.

Alex blinked at the question, then sighed and bowed his head. “And that is presently my problem.”

Alex didn’t want to do to them what they were probably planning on doing to the rest of the demonic monster’s henchmen. Stan didn’t know if that was a smart idea or a stupid one.

Considering what that creep had done to them? Probably a stupid idea.

“You’d probably been better off not knowing,” Stan muttered.

Alex turned his head and blinked at Stan’s statement before frowning. “You’re suggesting that I forget that my family is working for the demon that caused this apocalypse?”

Stan blinked. “Uh….”

“Young man, I don’t know how exactly it is that you’re feeling right now, considering what’s happened, but I am not about to abandon my family, even though they are with some…some geometrical horror!”

Geometrical horror. Stan added that to his mental list of names for the demon.

“We are going to find a way to rescue them, physical changes or—“

“I’m gonna stop you right there, because you didn’t see what happened in Portland.”

Alex blinked at that, then frowned.

“There was this one guy – fox ears and a tail—“

“I saw him,” Alex said.

“Yeah. He was setting stuff on fire – literally throwing fireballs from his hands at people.” Stan mimed throwing something, causing Alex’s eyes to widen. “Magic or something. Those kids? One of  ‘em was able to cover the entire city in trees. The other one sucked up the nuclear power plants in a black hole.”

Alex suddenly looked very uncertain at what Stan was telling him.

Now to really hit him in the gut.

“And that other old man? The one in the sleezy suit and looks like the guy with the ears?”

Alex nodded slowly.

“He eats people and turns into them. He could look like anybody, act like anybody – shoot, he could be anybody.”

Alex’s eyes widened at that. “Becomes the people he eats?” He sat back in his chair, looking sick. “Have they really changed that much?”

“Yeah. If you wanna think of a way to turn ‘em against that monster, go ahead, but it’s gonna be hard.” Stan made a dismissive wave and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

He didn’t bother to mention that he was starting to think that the idea was hopeless; that Alex may as well give up and go into hiding somewhere with his wife instead of actively fighting back. Getting attention from that three-sided freakshow would only get him killed at this point – or worse even, depending on how he felt when he would finally catch them.

At least Stan could still hold onto his anger, even if the concept of free will and hope slid between his fingers and left him feeling empty inside. Empty, he was familiar with – it’s hard not to feel like that, when your brother is a know-it-all genius and Pa kicks you out for messing something up and saying that you’re pretty much worthless – but this kind of empty was one that Stan was certain he was never going to get used to.

Or at least, he was going to try to never get used to it.

Stan felt an itchy feeling at the back of his mind, and he snorted a sigh and closed his eyes for a moment.

“GET MOVING, FEZ! TEACH THOSE HUMANS A LESSON!”

And Dipper and Mabel’s parents?

“EH. DO WHATEVER. I’VE GOT NO USE FOR THEM.”

“No.”

Stan opened his eyes when he heard Alex’s voice.

“I can’t just give up on them. That wouldn’t be right. There has to be a way to get them on our side!” Alex slammed a fist into the table.

“You’ve got pretty good…determination, Alex,” Stan growled as the pain in his chest flared up, “but I really doubt yer gonna be able ta do anythin’ ta get us ta come around.”

Alex turned his head sharply to stare at Stan in shock and surprise as Stan’s entire body seemed to ripple before morphing into his original shape. “Wh-what the – Uncle Stan?!” He scrambled out of his seat as Stan rose from his own. Alex’s face quickly paled. “That kid – he – you—“

“Yeah.” Two extra sets of eyes opened on Stan’s face, one pair above and below his original set, all six eyes glowing an ominous green. “I warned ya, didn’t I?”

Alex backed up against the wall behind him, then gritted his teeth as his eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do now? Eat me?”

“Nah. You know who’s actually bein’ surprisingly lenient on that. For now, anyway.” Stan jerked his head towards the door. “Take Karen an’ go. I might not be so nice next time we run into each other.”

Alex didn’t move.

“What are ya waitin’ for?! GO!”

Stan started shifting, letting his feathery, furry monster form take over and making Alex weak in the knees in terror before he turned and ran out of the room. Stan exited the room in a different way, merging with the shadows and making his way to where he knew that the leader of this particular resistance happened to be. The man’s scent was all over the place, but it did happen to be strengthening in a certain direction….

He found the rebellion’s leader working on paperwork in the back of the house, talking with advisors – seriously, who does that anymore? – about trading groups in order to get the weapons they needed.

“The only thing that you’ve got to your name is your life.”

The leader of the rebellion and his two advisors stiffened and looked around at the sound of Stan’s warped voice. He hated how it sounded when he was like this – it sounded like he actually was a monster. He didn’t need to sound like one when he already felt like one.

“What are you?!” the leader demanded. “How did you manage to get in here?!”

“Like you’re ever going to find out.”

Stan melted out of the shadows and lunged for the two men, jaw practically unhinging as he went.

When he left the room moments later, licking the remaining inner bodily fluids from his lips, he could already hear the screams from the other people who happened to be in the building. He transformed into the leader’s right-hand schmuck and ran down the hall to join the panicking people.

The freak in the pyramid was gonna want chaos, and Stan had a lot of anger that he was holding onto. Might as well make use of that while giving that goddamned Master one hell of a show.

Change in POV

Dipper and Mabel were outside the “base” that the recent rebellion had taken over – a large house in what used to be southern California – when a loud round of screams came from some of the open windows.

They exchanged looks, then jumped off the remains of a church steeple seconds before it collapsed. A large lilly pad covered in frills of grass materialized under Dipper’s bare feet, giving him a soft landing as Mabel glided down and landed next to him.

A loud, deep bellow suddenly echoed out of the house, gently shaking the earth and making Dipper’s antlers rattle.

“Grunkle Stan’s really scary,” Mabel said, shivering. Stardust fell from her hair and twinkled faintly as it fell to the ground, which was starting to grow a number of probably-poisonous flowers at their feet.

Dipper nodded in agreement. “Y-yeah, but we’re probably pretty scary, too. I haven’t seen people look at us the same way since….” He trailed off, thinking back to what happened in Portland, and quickly put it out of his mind.

He didn’t want to think about the blank look that came over his sister’s face every time she went that far with her powers, and the look of horror she had afterwards when she’d realized what she’d done.

“I-I don’t like doing this,” Mabel sniffled. “It hurts, Dipper.”

“Yeah,” Dipper replied quietly. “I know.” He reached over and grabbed Mabel’s hand and squeezed it, hoping that it would help ease the pain he knew she felt in her soul – the want to make sure that their parents were all right. It was like when he felt the pain from the echo of his more paranoid self from the past, when he could have tried to put together a plan to stop Bill – or, at least, rescue Ford.

But now….

Dipper closed his eyes and shivered as a voice echoed in his mind.

“ALL RIGHT, YOU TWO. FEZ IS NEARLY DONE IN THERE – TIME TO DO YOUR THING! AND MAKE IT SHOWY!”

Mabel shivered next to him. “Yes, Master.”

Dipper sighed. “Yes, Master.”

The two of them faced the large house that Stan had disappeared into, then tightened their grips on each other’s hands. A green glow emanated from the birthmark on Dipper’s forehead as his eyes became even more vibrant with a strange power, Mabel’s eyes becoming the same as they glowed a deep purple.

Roots suddenly exploded from the ground near Dipper’s feet, covered in starlight sparkles as they dug through the earth towards the house at high speed, multiplying and circling around the building. Trees grew up and around the house as a black blur dashed out of the front door; they wrapped themselves around it and squeezed as they grew taller and wider.

CRUNCH.

The trees suddenly collapsed in on themselves, then molded together into one large tree with a starlight-covered trunk and sparkling purple leaves that seemed to warp and twist, even though there wasn’t a wind that could have moved them.

The black blur that had left the house moved over to where Dipper and Mabel stood, morphing into a more familiar form with a tired expression. His eyes were still alight with a fury that Dipper knew only he could hold onto.

“SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK, BUDDY?”

Stan, Dipper, and Mabel didn’t move from where they stood; they knew that the Master was above them, and he’d call for their attention when he needed it.

“NOT BAD, NOT BAD. KINDA WISH I’D THOUGHT OF THIS WHEN THOSE BRATS AND THE OLD MAN CAME TO ‘RESCUE’ MY FORDSY. HEH, LIKE THEY’D BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING FOR HIM NOW!”

The three stiffened a little at the familiar voice, but the different echo of power; was there another triangular demon above them now?

“HEH, YEAH, I KNOW! YOU REALLY DID A NUMBER ON HIM IF YOU CAN KEEP HIM ON A LEASH WITHOUT ACTUALLY KEEPING HIM ON ONE!”

“I KNOW! IT GETS A BIT BORING WHEN HE DOESN’T SASS BACK, THOUGH. I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT WAYS TO MAKE THIS A LOT MORE FUN. DOING THINGS LIKE THIS MIGHT MAKE THINGS A LOT MORE…INTERESTING, AT LEAST FOR A WHILE.”

“EXACTLY MY IDEA! BESIDES, I LEFT THE OTHER STUFF INTACT FOR A REASON – MAYBE THEY’LL START ACTUALLY ENJOYING THIS SOMEWHERE DOWN THE LINE!”

Stan stiffened at that, gritting his teeth, but said nothing. Mabel gripped Dipper’s hand more tightly as she bit her lower lip so hard that it could start bleeding.

Dipper clenched his eyes shut tightly, shaking at the idea that he’d actually enjoy what the Master was telling them to do – be eager for the next order that could come.

His chest ached when he attempted to hope that such a thing would never happen, and his heart sank at the realization that it might.

Is there anyone out there who would be able to save us?

[fluffybunnybadass]

The three TGP sisters, plus Melody (Pokeverse) and Alt-Melody. Maybe Douchebagel, too.

the prompt

Full Name:Gender and Sexuality:Pronouns:Ethnicity/Species:Birthplace and Birthdate:Guilty Pleasures:Phobias:What They Would Be Famous For:What They Would Get Arrested For:OC You Ship Them With:OC Most Likely To Murder Them:Favorite Movie/Book Genre:Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche:Talents and/or Powers:Why Someone Might Love Them:Why Someone Might Hate Them:How They Change:Why You Love Them:

Sarai Chiaki

Full Name: Sarai Lin ChiakiGender and Sexuality: Female and Demiro Pansexual. Or maybe bi, but I’m honestly not sure for her in particular.Pronouns: She/herEthnicity/Species: Human/technically half-celestial, JapaneseBirthplace and Birthdate: [sputtering noises for birthplace], I forget if I kept her berdei the same as mine considering how quickly she ran from being a self-insert like right away from point of creation. :TGuilty Pleasures: [HURR HURR] reading fluffy stuff on the occasion, thinking about dat romancePhobias: being hurt/betrayed, some heights??? I forget. I don’t think her fears came up much when I was using her. :T;What They Would Be Famous For: Last I checked, it’s underground poprock star [currently a Paramore cover band]What They Would Get Arrested For: Trespassing, tbh.OC You Ship Them With: no one atm?? i mean i’d probably ship her with her bandmates if I had to pick a ship, since her and Shroud are kind of not a thing anymore [actual reason: don’t talk to that mun anymore]OC Most Likely To Murder Them: idk Raven probably [of mine, uh. QB I guess, she’s the only one to actually commit murder out of like everyone]Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Action/comedyLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: dramas/period dramasTalents and/or Powers: uhhh does being chronically depressed count uhhh she’s kinda good at her cover band gig. She’s the only one in her family that seems to be powerless, even though her parents are a celestial/angel and a powerful mage, she has 0 abilities. She secretly blames her older sisters for taking all of them, even if that isn’t the case anymore.Why Someone Might Love Them: She was the quirky LULZ RANDOM1!! teen, also is treated poorly by her narrative tbqh...Why Someone Might Hate Them: She’s chronically depressed as of late/has become hardened as a result, like even to the point of another OC known for being a bitch coming in and being like “dude. stop being a bitch. you’re a human it’s literally against your biological inclinations to isolate yourself and be vitriolic.”How They Change: already answered above, but they go from being the low-key depressed but presenting RANDUMS LULZ!!! teen and eventually become full-blown depression because wow she has nothing to offer the world and continues to lack reasons to believe opposite.Why You Love Them: I... made... her??? like I don’t even know. Also maybe because we vibe a lot on the whole “I’m nothing special, everyone else [in my family] has something special about them” aspects of bad brain thinking.

Hamano Chiaki

Full Name: Hamano [nee Chiaki]. I forget her husband’s last name lolwoops. [alternatively, wonder if the girls all just. keep their last name and it’s only a technicality. They’re all still referred to as the Chiaki sisters, after all]Gender and Sexuality: female and I don’t know!! hetero/guy-loving?Pronouns: she/herEthnicity/Species: Human/half-celestial, JapaneseBirthplace and Birthdate: [whirrrling noises] I forget her birthday i’m sure it’s on her lj/gaia.... apparently it’s 9/30? huh. I always thought she was a summer muse. ok then.Guilty Pleasures: TRASHY ROMANCE MOVIES/NOVELS, like they’re so bad but she loves all the cheesy romance stuff. and some of the trashy stuff too. Phobias: Not being able to help someone/her sisters, losing her sisters.What They Would Be Famous For: Clothes/designing/teaching design!What They Would Get Arrested For: nothing she is too good. [maybe if mind-reading is illegal]OC You Ship Them With: @whenocsareooc / @curseyoupikachu ’s  Mikhail. ..Kurogawa? or was that someone else’s last name lol.OC Most Likely To Murder Them: who would want to murder her. qb doesn’t count, she’s always dtmFavorite Movie/Book Genre: Romance/”chick flicks”Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: hypermasculine action festsTalents and/or Powers: Psychic. Telekinesis, telepathy, spirit sensing, etc etc.Why Someone Might Love Them: She’s super sweet and her love of romance stuff is p. admirable.Why Someone Might Hate Them: she’s “too girly” and “cheats by mindreading”How They Change: She was a romance tryhard and flirty with all the boys, she eventually calms down when she finally meets Mikhail [she’s always been faithful to whomever she was dating, but she rarely found someone she was attracted to like. all the time. or something.]. She also goes from being the quiet middle sheep between her older and younger sister, and more actively mediates and takes part in their lives, instead of doing whatever she felt would create the least amount of strife. She goes from being a little timid about getting in the middle of things, to stepping in when she sees/senses the need for it. Why You Love Them:  SHE’S LIKE MY BLACK SHEEP I ACCIDENTALLY NEVER DO ANYTHING WITH HER, BUT I STILL LOVE HER BECAUSE EVEN IF SHE’S LIKE ALL MY GIRLY TROPES ROLLED INTO A CHARACTER, I LOVE HOW UNABASHEDLY HAPPY SHE IS ABOUT BEING A GIRL??? LIKE. YOU GO GIRL. #INSPIRATION.

Sakamoto Chiaki

Full Name: Sakamoto Chiaki-HertzmorderGender and Sexuality: Female, greysexual? //SHRUGSPronouns: she/herEthnicity/Species: human/half-celestial, JapaneseBirthplace and Birthdate: we just don’t know but it’s probably in Japan, and I thought it was later in may but maybe I was thinking of ALL THE PEOPLE I KNOW WITH MARCH/MAY BDAYS anyways it’s 5/18 apparently Guilty Pleasures: don’t tell anyone but her husband but she rly likes the soft quiet moments where she actually gets to be vulnerable/not strong, SHE WILL NOT HESITATE TO PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE IF YOU FIND OUT., also i’m sure there’s something else but that was the only thing to come to mind lolPhobias: Losing, getting killed, being the reason for any harm/death to come to her sisters/familyWhat They Would Be Famous For: The Potion Seller who sells you their strongest potion. am i memeing this right. also for kicking your ass with magic without breaking a sweat What They Would Get Arrested For: setting people/places on fire.OC You Ship Them With: Viktor!! :DOC Most Likely To Murder Them: lol... I’m pretty sure my friend’s OC Raven still has dibs despite them pretty much being extended family/distant relate-mates [both tough, closed off women with happier little sisters and known for being powerful as well, getting worned down by a pair of dashingly handsome vampire brothers.], but it’s more like a case of “You don’t get to die until I say you do. Only *I* am allowed to take your life.” [also a bit of pun, seeing as Raven is her realm’s goddess of death. XD]Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Nonfiction books, mostly spell/information/learning booksLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: any movies but mostly romance and action. and terribly written/”unrealistic” fantasy movies [no one is able to watch their random fantasy series around her because “THAT’S NOT HOW MAGIC WORKS WHAT THE FUCK”]Talents and/or Powers: magical AF. like. literally. High MP pool to cast those big powerful spells down a few times and blast your ass into the next 5 dimensions. Also can read tarot despite it not being a very magical thing. Why Someone Might Love Them: She’s a strong woman who don’t need no man, sarcastic af, she takes no shit.Why Someone Might Hate Them: OP af, closed off/distant even to her own siblings; kinda fucks up raising her kids/connecting with her daughter because of this.How They Change: She learns to open up more and become less imposing/threatening to her own children, especially when it shows much strain in her relationship with her own daughter. While the gap can never truly become completely filled, they have worked together on making a bridge, and as a result, she’s opened up to helping people more, whereas before it was a sort of “obligation” to the greater good. She was also mostly concerned with kicking her dad’s ass for his manipulation of his children and neglect, but while she’s nowhere near saying that she has familial love (or any kind of love for that matter) for her father, she no longer hates and despises him/just barely tolerates him.* Why You Love Them: see “reasons why someone might love them”

*bonus fact: he tries to give the Chiaki-Hertzmorder family branch gifts of goodwill, such as incredibly expensive pottery and vases and shit, and Sakamoto just lets her kids use them as target practice..... LOL. someone broke a vase? As long as it was from your grandfather it’s all good.

Melody (Pokeverse)

Full Name: Melody Ann Anson [nee Hikari]Gender and Sexuality: female, demiro (gr)ace. I think.Pronouns: she/herEthnicity/Species: Human, Kanto nativeBirthplace and Birthdate: Saffron City, 11/30/90Guilty Pleasures: buhhhhhhhhh [whirrling noise] going on adventures now that she’s a responsible adulting mom. how do u go on an adventure with two toddlers and a husband that’s a Champion and y’all are pseudo-celebs/recognizeable that is hard ok.Phobias: death, somehow doing something unforgivable, losing everything.What They Would Be Famous For: being the most accomplished trainer ever woops. [okay like. being a Champion and being married to an elite four member slash Champion? and winning a few cups/tournaments here and there? like how much MORE famous/footnote in history can you get]What They Would Get Arrested For: buhbuhbuh breaking and entering in order to free some pokemon that were being illegally kept/treated improperly lolOC You Ship Them With: no one :T [i feel like there ALMOST was one at some point. but I don’t think they were within this realm/history/limitation]OC Most Likely To Murder Them: no one within realm.Favorite Movie/Book Genre: adventure/fantasy books, action/comedies moviesLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: poorly done Kiss of LifeTalents and/or Powers: she’s a really strong/awesome trainer? and she could have been a really Masterful Coordinator in her late teens/early twenties/current age if she had kept interest in them. [Unfortunately, becoming a Pokemon Master > Pokemon Coordinator]. Why Someone Might Love Them: idk she’s just p. neatWhy Someone Might Hate Them: [insert people screaming MARY SUE here despite that getting worked on]How They Change: She starts out as this kind of. Openly willful kid, with a very expressive way about what was right and well (so I guess.. that’s like. 8th grade syndrome or whatever?), but she eventually matures, and in her early twenties she’s just this. Much more calm/reserved/wise-seeming adult who seems to have their life together, though in reality she’s still just trying to figure it out, especially when the itch to adventure isn’t something you can’t just up and do anymore when you’ve got a husband, a home, children, essentially “Settled”. Why You Love Them: she my bae/first gal  

Alt-Melody

Full Name: [redacted]Gender and Sexuality: female-presenting [maybe agender] and i’m not sure if she’s just lesbian or pan.Pronouns: she/her/they/themEthnicity/Species: humanBirthplace and Birthdate: [redacted]Guilty Pleasures: watching her girlfriend/wife?? idk tbh it’s very hard when I never really got into their character much.Phobias: becoming weak, not being able to defend/protect her gf.What They Would Be Famous For: hacking i guess.What They Would Get Arrested For: hacking, lol. and illegal time/realm travelOC You Ship Them With: alt!kiraOC Most Likely To Murder Them: QB, maybe a handful of friend’s OCs.Favorite Movie/Book Genre: tech/instruciton manuals, information booksLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: literally any of them.Talents and/or Powers: I... don’t remember terribly well? I’m not sure if she also has time/realm travel abilities or if she had a device for it. She is more warrior-trained than her alt/original.Why Someone Might Love Them: idk tough quiet person made of stone who loves her frilly gf and that dynamic between the two?Why Someone Might Hate Them: she’s p. plain for an alt.How They Change: idk she marries her gf //THROWS HANDS UP IN THE AIRWhy You Love Them: i don’t have the same affection for her like I did a lot of the other characters, but she did slap some sense into her alt [literally], so bonus points for that. *thumbs up*

Douchebagel

Full Name: idk but he’s referred to in-universe as Mafia Purge and in the past as an Alpha Purge.Gender and Sexuality: he i guess, aropan? i forget. either aropan or aroace.Pronouns: he/him/it/shitballEthnicity/Species: futuristic human thing being now made of timespace ether???Birthplace and Birthdate: one of the many alternate sc5 realms/timelines that was all mafia themed, and he was one of the few to be successful/killed his timeline’s UlalaGuilty Pleasures: everything he does is a guilty pleasure.Phobias: uh. i forget if spiders was a universal alt/purge phobia or not.What They Would Be Famous For: he is literally famous within that rpverse as being the Fallen, the ex-Alpha, for being a piece of shit, and when he and QB meet in timeline, for actually being one of the few people to give QB a run for her money.What They Would Get Arrested For: [LAUGH TRACK]OC You Ship Them With: crackships alpha and qb. separately. tho man now i wonder how the fuck a poly would work with them that would be interesting/hilarious AF.OC Most Likely To Murder Them: QB, Alpha, any of the other alt Purges... they all also HAVE killed him he’s just. beyond normal lifeline/timeline cycles when he originally ascended to Alpha status.Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Crime lol. Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Where the crimelords don’t win like where’s the realism in that.Talents and/or Powers: where do i begin? Spacetime manipulation for one, manipulation of people for another, being insanely uber powerful that only other beings who have ascended to a statehood of Alpha can even come close to harming him, making even QB hesitate. I forget what else but man he’s. he’s... someone you don’t wanna mess with, like actual demigod level here.Why Someone Might Love Them: he literally is scum the only thing he has going for him is being a source of drama and being someone QB would hatefully run from/avoid conflict with.Why Someone Might Hate Them: he is a piece of shit and tortures all his alts without remorse and is essentially the one who ruined alpha’s life, PLEASE GIVE ALPHA HIS HAPPINESS AND CHEERFUL NATURE BACK KTHXHow They Change: he gets more powerful, merges with a demon, comes back as an uber demon. is still unsuccessful.Why You Love Them: LOVE HATE MAN LOVE HATE CAN YOU SEE WHY DO I REALLY NEED TO SPELL IT OUT.

[lightningfilledsaber]

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Tw for mention/talk/description of gaslighting, ableism, racism, transphobia, gore/death, r*pe, sexual abuse, pedophilia, and inc*st.

Please blacklist/filter the tags #blacklistnow or #blacklist now if you don't want to read this

I'm adding this after I've already written this vent because I'm done being quiet about who has incestually abused me and some of the details of what happened to me. I will not be editing this to sound nicer or more coherent because I am not a nice or coherent victim. What happened to me was horrific and I won't water down my raw reaction to remembering what I went through.

Do not speculate/debate/invalidate my trauma and absolutely do not rəbl°g this post. It is incredibly fucking hard to be posting this. I am posting this however because my general silence on most of the things that have gone on has been my weakness and my former abuser has used that as power over me because my lack of detail is easy for him to manipulate to make him look like the victim. This is not detailing nearly everything that has happened to me, and I will not relive more of my trauma than I'm comfortable with, so keep that in mind as well.

I'm not airing urls/other accounts of my former abuser and (current?) stalker because I don't care if nobody knows who he (I am using he/him pronouns to refer to my former abuser because those are the only pronouns I have ever seen/been told that my former abuser uses. I have not been given any other examples besides he/him of the pronouns my former abuser has used or is using) is. He openly "jokes" about rape and pedophilia, says the n word both with and without the 'hard r' despite being nonblack, says r*tard despite not being on the autism spectrum, deadnames and misgenders trans folks, and owns a server with channels dedicated to talking about/posting both drawn child porn and graphic real life photos of gore, mutilation, and death of children and animals.

It goes without saying that the people in this server either actively participate in this or just dont give a shit. The people he associates with know his character. If you don't excuse the shit mentioned above then you don't have to worry about interacting with him, and frankly I'm tired and wary of putting myself at risk again for exposing him.

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Fuck folks, what really pisses me off about everything I've gone through with being stalked, deadnamed, and just generally harassed by my stupid ex abuser and his stupid (now ex) boyfriend is that literally the whole reason I had put my neck out like that was bc I had seen a post abt how someone had warned the partner of their toxic ex and had helped them. I just fuckin. I saw that and I felt confident enough to be vulnerable to a fucking stranger because I thought I could help him like that person helped their ex's partner but it just turned around and kicked me in the ass.

Like fuck, this ex who is a TRANS MAN talked about wanting to kill me and called me, EXCLUSIVELY, her or it. Then had the AUDACITY to tell me that he was """just checking on me""" as if he was fucking worried about me?? And that I needed to stop venting about my abuser bc """it upset him"""????? Oh yeah lemme just take into consideration the feelings of the person who lied, manipulated, abused, and yeah fucking raped me. Because pressuring someone into sex is fucking rape. And it wasn't even once! Once would've been enough but it was fucking CONSTANT! EVERY SINGLE TIME I CAME OVER. "Please can we do anal. Can we? Do you want to? Do you want to?" Over and over and over no matter how many times I shrugged or said maybe or said I wasnt ready or into it or that it was too much or even fucking RIGHT OUT SAID NO he would ask and ask and ask and ask until I caved in like YEAH. THAT'S RAPE MY DUDE. And to a lesser degree he, whether he actually has DID or OSDD or not, manipulated me into dating and being sexual with his "second personality" that had repeatedly misgendered and deadnamed me before. Not to mention the fact that HE TOLD ME HE HAD BEEN DATING SOMEONE WHO HAD EVENTUALLY KILLED HIMSELF BUT THEN LATER ADMITTED TO ME THAT HE WAS LYING ABOUT THEM DATING AND HE ACTUALLY WAS JUST STALKING HIM??? LOL. Not to mention that our """""relationship""""" started with him manipulating me in what was and is still for me the most humiliating way fucking possible. I'm not gonna talk about that but he fucking lied to me and tried to convince me that I had fucking TOLD MY DAD I WANTED TO HAVE SEX WITH HIM, MY DAD, and that he felt bad bc it was his fault for """corrupting me""" WHEN MY FUCKING DAD HAD DIED ALMOST A FULL FUCKING YEAR BEFORE OUR FIRST """""RELATIONSHIP"""""" He gaslight me so fucking BAD so fucking constantly even about the dumbest shit but that was the fucking worst. I started to fucking BELIEVE IT for a while it was so fucking bad. I didnt know what was real or fake I still dont know if his fucking ""second personality""" is real or not I dont KNOW. He just fucking downplayed EVERYTHING he did to me and had the fucking AUDACITY to say I was the reason he THOUGHT about killing himself like???? NAH LMAO. YOU USED SUICIDE AND SELF HARM AS A THREAT TO KEEP ME WITH YOU OR HAVE SEX WITH YOU OR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANTED AT THAT TIME. YALL WANNA KNOW THE WORST PART ABOUT ALL OF THIS??? THAT VERY FUCKING FEW PEOPLE KNOW BECAUSE I AM TERRIFIED AND ASHAMED AND FUCKING HUMILIATED OF THIS STILL??? HES MY FIRST FUCKING COUSIN. THIS SON OF A BITCH MANIPULATED ME INTO THINKING INCEST WAS OKAY BECAUSE I WAS AN EASY TARGET FOR BEING NAIVE SO HE COULD FUCK ME. I HAD ALREADY FUCKING BEEN SEXUALLY ABUSED IN THE PAST I ALREADY HAD FUCKING ISSUES. HE MADE ME THINK INCEST WAS OKAY AS LONG AS WE ""NEVER HAD KIDS""" I WAS SCARED AND TRIED SO HARD TO CONVINCE MYSELF THAT WHAT WAS HAPPENING WAS OKAY THAT WE """DATING"""" WAS OKAY AND THAT BEING MY BOYFRIEND WAS OKAY AND EVEN THAT FUCKING BRINGING OTHER PEOPLE INTO OUR FUCKING RELATIONSHIP WAS OKAY BECAUSE HE FUCKING GASLIGHT ME SO BAD. HE MANIPULATED AND GASLIGHT AND ABUSED ME SO BAD THAT MY FUCKING BEST FRIENDS COULDNT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT BECAUSE I WOULDVE LASHED OUT AT THEM OUT OF FEAR AND SHAME BECAUSE HE MADE ME THINK THAT SHIT WAS OKAY. SO YEAH. FUCK HIM. FUCK THIS SITUATION. AND FUCK HIS EX BOYFRIEND. BET HE DIDNT FUCKING TELL YOU WE WERE COUSINS HUH?????? YEAH. WONDER WHY. CAUSE HE'S A FUCKING PATHOLOGICAL LIAR AND COULD GET AWAY WITH IT BECAUSE I'M STILL AND ALWAYS WILL BE FUCKING ASHAMED AND HUMILIATED WITH MYSELF FOR IT. FUCK YOU FOR BEING A DOUCHE TO ME. FUCK YOU FOR STARTING THIS SHIT. FUCK YOU AND FUCK HIM I HOPE YOU BOTH CHOKE

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