#its mostly a function of having figured out exactly what the point of the character is but trying to sort through

[opal-owl-flight]

can I ask about the poster "agent 3" kids story?

Yes you can and here it all is!! Presenting…

tldr: She comes from a family of big name actors in the industry, and shes been raised from hatching to continue their legacy. Its…a lot of pressure to put on a kid, especially one who just wants to make her (impossible to satisfy) family proud. Despite being surrounded by impossible standards, the fakest friends chosen for her, being given everything she can ever want (except what she really needs), and putting on a hundred masks for everyone in her life for survival’s sake in a cutthroat industry, she chooses to be kind.

more details under the cut!!

Her name is Sariwa, which means “fresh” . Named for her spring green tentacles and as a blessing from her parents that shed stay youthful, beautiful. a hope that she would be seen and be adored (as freshness implies coolness/popularity in sploonworld).

Shes hatched into the acting industry, with both parents being big in the industry. From hatching she was expected, trained to be an actor like her mother is. The media adores them, this “sweet little family”, but no one knows how nefarious everything is when the cameras are off.

The dad is neglectful, disappearing into meetings most of the time. The mom is a helicopter parent to make up for it. Pointing out every flaw that Sariwa apparently has in either performance or appearance. Never giving praise. Except when she performs “well enough” on stage. This instills in the child this need to make them proud. to…to make everyone happy. She becomes someone whose dependent on other peoples’ praise to function.

Shes given everything else, dont get me wrong. Every material thing she’ll ever need. all the big popular “friends” chosen for her. But…shes not allowed to turf. yknow. biggest event in an inkling’s life here in Inkopolis. and shes not allowed to go to school either. shes too busy memorizing lines for adverts or-

The second she turned 14, she was chosen as the lead role for Cuttlegear’s brand new show abt Agent 3. She looked exactly like the legendary hero, according to the sources. All her time went into this project. Thankfully, unlike at home…her co-actors were very kind. Her parents didnt choose for her this time. She was meeting actual people who dont put on masks beyond their job. the actor they got for Cuttlefish, in particular, is a very kind soul, defending her when the directors get too pissy with her performance. (Those are the only people she fears, tbh shes fearful of most authority figures.)

*Cuttlefish is also depicted as kind and supportive in the show. and in most games. Unlike the real Cuttlefish, which is kind of a loony old man who pushes ideas on young inklings. He still gives more support and kindness that 3s dad ever gave, but thats only RELATIVE to how little he gave in the first place. One can only imagine the longing this inspires in the real 3.

Sariwa…since shes hatched shes had to put on an act. Be the perfect little doll for her parents. For the world. But her friends here, they inspired her to…have fun with what shes doing again. To take off the mask (mostly beyond the clock). Breathe life in the character when she can. (But lets be real…shes getting 3 spot on with how many parallels they have with each others lives.)

But what is she beyond the mask, her role? She wasnt allowed to do anything beyond this. She was forced to depend on her abusive parents and their associates. She cant live alone beyond them. Not allowed to turf bc shes “a prim and proper young lady; above such violent drivel that only delinquents participate in”. They gesture to 3, whos one of the faces Squidforce uses in their promotions, and say (ironically.) that she must not become that. Face ripped to shreds and eye mangled.

No one knows they got that from the real war that Sariwa is pretending to show.

The show does its best to be an accurate telling. Child friendly, to a point. Horrifying things still get kept in somewhat. Things that will horrify a child on stage.

If Sariwa is terrified of the props, can you imagine how it was for 3?

————————

And once she realizes all of this. Once she gets out of this situation thanks to Callie, Marie, and 3 themself. Does she feel guilt? Guilt for depicting the horrors in a way that glorifies it instead? A part of a project that aims to make people complacent to the real horrors that churned below?

There is one thing Sariwa feels about 3, that I am aware of rn.

“Im glad, that out of every story I couldve told, Im glad it was yours.”

Just like 8, she sung this tale in her hearts. Just like 8, she used this to break out of this terrible situation, answering the call of the ones who promised her safety. A better life. Like the way she stage broke through that prop in the choreographed Octavio fight, she broke through the influence of those around her.

*She actually went off-script a bit in that scene. After she beat down Octavio, she held out her hand. Mostly to help the actor up. But then, without realizing, she spoke, she spoke of making things better between the nations. That maybe he doesnt have to steal the zapfish anymore.

Her time with the octoling actors, and hearing the stories from the ex-octarians, made her aware and know the fact that theyre people too. The directors kept it in. They knew that if they released this as they have planned it, there will be fuckign riots from the ex-octarians or the Inkling “sympathizers”.

She saw the value this story held, despite the subliminal messaging that she wished wasnt implemented. That she wished she wasnt a part of. She saw that its a tale of hope. A tale that inspires one to become the hero of their own life. A tale that inspires one to make the world a better place.

————————

So she was hatched and raised to make people smile, singing her songs and dancing their dances. Much like the clan singer that was 4, except the tradition is much more healthy compared to industry standard. And she didnt become as mean as the people around her, at least not internally. She put on a mean mask but she felt the void within. When she was given kindness for a long enough time, she put her walls down.

And just like the real 3, she underwent through the horrors of expectations she had to hold up, and trying to make uninterested parents proud. They dont see her as their daughter, shes just a means to an end. She had to wear a hundred masks to survive and it made her lose her sense of identity. She had to be mature, she had to take the shitty behavior of adults who expect her to be like one too. It made her lose grip of who she is beyond this role. Hell, they made her so dependent on their handouts that shes not sure she can exist beyond this hell. Much like how 3 struggles to know a life beyond their duty.

And much like 8, she used the story she was telling to break out and get herself in a better situation. She met with the real Agents 1 and 2 (without her knowledge) and asked. Begged. for help, after her show ended. (3 also kind of pointed the two in her direction. Bc cod knows how horrifying this industry is. Shes lucky she didnt get any of the grosser horrors ~~its bc I didnt feel comfortable writing such topics~~)

And then shes faced with the same problem all the real legends faced. What comes after the end? When the dust clears, what happens next? She wasnt given a damn choice, she wasnt allowed to try to learn things beyond this role. to be beyond an imagined agent 3. a soldier for the screen. who is she now, that shes out of that battlefield?

little does she realize that the real 3s asking the same question for themself.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 63 – The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

This was the last WFA finalist for best novella I was able to get at the library, so I will I suppose just have to accept that I am not going to have an informed opinion on the category. The book is, well – Jamnia’s only other work listed on Goodreads is “Positive Interactions with At-Risk Children: Enhancing Students' Wellbeing, Resilience, and Success”, and you can really kind of tell. Not a bad book – there really is a lot of good stuff here – but subtlety is just nonexistent. Though I suppose better a plot that telegraphs itself from a hundred miles away than one that feels like the author was coming up with it as they went.

The story takes place in a ‘free and democratic’ city state established after a successful war of independence from a struggling and unstable empire, and now a not-particularly-enthusiastic sanctuary to refugees from the rest of the empire. Firuz is one of those refugees, with the added issue of being a mostly-trained blood magic adept, the proximate reason why they and their family had to flee in the first place. Disguising the exact sort of magic they practice, they get work as an assistant healer to the one of (and soon the) only free clinics in the city, doing their bits to try and help the refugee populations through the plague ravaging the city. The meat of the plot is about their investigation of the source of a second strange disease that begins spreading among the refugee population a year after the first plague dies down – looks a lot like anemia, though the word’s never used – and how they try (and just totally fail) to balance their relationships and family against the good they do working in the clinic.

The book is just very earnest, and awkward, and trying to do altogether too many things at once for its length. Also the fantasy!Iranian refugees are called ‘Sassanians’. Which, like, come on. That’s literaly calling your fantasy!France ‘Gaul’.

The medical mystery was fun – strange diseases! Dissections and autopsies! Hiding the magic that’s the only hope you have of figuring out what’s happening! - but it was too strangled for space competing with family drama and a subplot of Firuz adapting and teaching another natural blood mage and just general ruminations to really shine. Which is to say there were exactly two named characters who could possibly be responsible, and it was almost instantly obvious which of them it was.

Which left the book needing to be carried on those interpersonal relationships and character dynamics. Which were like, fine? But every character basically had their key traits and the point of their arc announced on the page – the only character written with any real subtlety or layers was the eventually revealed villain.

The book’s very much queernorm – the protagonist is nonbinary and their kid brother is trans and spends about half the book lashing out as he struggles to cope with his dysphoria. Absolutely no one cares. The brother does get hatecrimed on account of being an ethnic minority and a refugee though, which I admit is a mindset about what bits of reality need to be softened I struggle to wrap my head around. More annoyingly (and, like, actually important at all) it is kind of disappointing that it cuts off any real worldbuilding about sexuality or gender; there are three major cultures in the book, and we go through the entire thing without learning anything much about any of their standards or expectations of femininity or masculinity. The brother’s dysphoria is portrayed as a purely physical ailment – you could replace it with some exotic variety of chronic pain and his role in the narrative would remain functionally unchanged.

Which just seems like a profoundly wasted opportunity to me – it’s fun that there’s one pronoun set that’s used exclusively to refer to the divine! But also I desperately want to know what the differences in cultural understanding between the usage of the two different neopronoun sets used to refer to random tertiary characters are, y’know? If you’re going to devote such a relatively big chunk of wordcount to this stuff then, like, dig into it.

Anyway yeah – as a debut effort, this is really very good. But I’m pretty surprised to see it on any best-of-year lists.

[trellia]

I think this post is a long time coming. But also, maybe 1 - someone has pointers to help and 2 - maybe someone else is struggling similarly and would like to know said pointers too.

I have been quite the recluse the past few months. From everyone, really. Why that is why I’m making this post. If you feel like I’ve been drawing away, you’re not wrong. I have. I’ve not been doing too good since… I’d say October. A lot of events have turned my world around for one, realizing what I am living in and not what I thought I was living in. That was something on its own…. At the same time, I was going through the steps to figure out if I have ADHD. I found out a couple months ago that yes, indeed, I do have ADHD.

The diagnosis was first a relief: finally, I now know there’s nothing wrong with me, I’m just wired different. However, relief soon turned into contempt. I became very, very angry. I am very angry. I just reached my 40’s. For at least 35+ years, I’ve been degraded and hurt by the people who should have protected me, understood me, especially in my childhood. Teachers, principals and parents of other children took part in this bullying campaign their children had going, only because I wasn’t following the ‘norms’. I endured trauma so great that I can barely function today.

I mean, I look at the videos of my childhood and I see it immediately: I’m not like the other kids. I’m more hyper, excited, and I just want everyone to take part in the fun, but I’m too much for it. It’s right there. I was called names by adults, and scolded for not doing things the way neurotypical people would. I was called lazy. I was told I don’t care for anyone but myself when, in fact, I have always put everyone ahead of me because I would rather see them happy than be happy myself. So you can imagine how difficult it was to hear that I am selfish and don’t care for anyone else…

I’m also angry at the current people in my life. Some of which have told me to ‘fix’ myself because I was an inconvenience they didn’t want to deal with. So I tried EVERY way to do so, and of course that didn’t work because I was trying to put bandaids on symptoms rather than help with what was the actual problem, but then when I asked for help, I was shunned away like I didn’t deserve it. I lost an entire decade (my late 20’s and my 30’s) asking myself what the hell is wrong with me, why am I such a terrible person, and why can’t I do anything right, and spending my 30’s walking on eggshells everywhere AND in the rpc because I was connection deprived and needed everyone to love me, which led to nefarious people taking advantage and hurt me further. (that’s a post for another day.)

Now here’s the main problem: I’m so angry I want to hurt someone. Not physically, but in every other way. It doesn’t matter who you are, I just want to lash out, whoever you are, friend or otherwise. An example: a friend made a new original character that is actually perfectly fine and pretty good, it’s a great OC! — but inside all I want to do is destroy that break their love for the OC and ruin it for them. Just… because. And that’s NOT okay. The good news is that I see it, I realize it. Which is why I have isolated myself. None of my friends deserve this. But I am angry. I am enraged, because I feel I’ve lost most of my life ‘fixing’ myself until I masked so hard I didn’t even realize until it slipped at 28. I know exactly when it slipped too.

Also, considering the kind of world we live in, I feel like I’ve lived past the mid-mark of my life. I’m not sure I’ll live up to 50 at this point. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair at all that I had to go through all this and still suffer. So yes, I’m very angry. But I also don’t WANT to hurt anyone. Especially not the people I care for�� This is why I have not been on disco.rd. I have removed FB (because I wanted to for a long time tho lol ), tiktok… And have mostly removed myself from public spaces.

If you have pointers or ideas on how to get past that anger, please, please share. I don’t really know what to do with it. I don’t know how to tame it. And it scares me tbh. I don’t want to be like this. This isn’t me… but it’s so hard not to be angry…

So… yah: if I don’t respond on disco or otherwise, or not right away, it’s not you, I’m the one stepping away so I won’t say something I really don’t mean just for the sake of harming someone because I can’t accept what has been done to me.

If you read this far, thank you. Otherwise, here’s the jinx of it:

tldr; I was officially diagnosed with ADHD and realized I’ve been treated terribly by my peers because of it and shunned away when I asked for help, so now I’m extremely angry at everything and want to hurt someone (anyone) though I don’t really want to. How do I get over this?

[monk-of-figaro]

Fanfic: Every King Needs His Guard (by Rynling)

I found this story on Archive of Our Own. Approximate read time is probably around two or three minutes (unlike this blog post of mine, which is now probably clocking in around ten minutes of read time because I can't stop having thoughts).

Here's the author's description:

Cid finds his way from his outpost on a solitary island to the kingdom of Figaro, where he offers his services to the king. Edgar is duty-bound to protect the people who come under his care, while Sabin will do anything to protect his brother.

SPOILERS AHEAD

This story has stuck in my brain in a very uncomfortable way, which is an odd way for me to begin since my goal with sharing fanfics is to highlight what I liked about a story. But this one took me a bit to appreciate, I think, because it was much darker than I was expecting.

This story made me ask myself a question I had not given any prior thought to before: Given all his history and his actions that took place before we meet him in the game, does Cid deserve to be redeemed? He is, after all, the primary scientist through whose work and "genius" an entire species was subject to torture, experimentation, and death - to say nothing of the human cost of his work for the Empire.

This question had never really occurred to me because by the time we meet Cid in-game, he's already shown to be remorseful about what his work has enabled. There seems some level of obfuscation - either deliberately through the game's designers, or by the expectation of traditional allyship that the "Cid" character plays in each Final Fantasy title, or perhaps both - that separates Cid from the monstrosity of the Magitek factory and its purpose. To me, the horrors of Magitek science were more associated with Kefka, although in retrospect, that association may have been due more to my own biases - associating the obviously evil factory with the obviously evil man.

After the factory section of the game, Cid isn't really seen again until Celes' introduction into the World of Ruin. That entire sequence frames him very sympathetically; he first functions as Celes' caregiver, then as her adoptive "grandfather", then as her first palliative charge, and finally as the catalyst for her own emotional nadir (or alternatively, as the much more boring guy-who-points-her-to-the-staircase-with-the-escape-raft).

All in all, the framing of Cid throughout the entirety of FF6 paints him as a misguided but lovable father figure, who rescues the Returners and then Celes before quietly and nobly succumbing to the mentor's death required for our hero. A "good guy" death.

But is Cid really a "good guy"? Moreover, should a "good guy" be allowed a chance at redemption if all his prior work arguably led up to the destruction of the world?

"Hey, this is a blog about Sabin! Why are you yammering on and on about Cid???"

Okay, fair point. Although also, shut up; I can do whatever I want.

If Cid's redemption is the question posed, this fanfic provides an answer as seen and carried out by Sabin.

(See? I was going to bring it back around!)

This fanfic is presented mostly from Sabin's viewpoint in third-person. Although he doesn't say a word the entire story, we get tremendous insight into how well he knows his brother Edgar, and how far he'll go to protect him not just physically, but emotionally and - with surprising awareness - politically.

This story stuck in my brain in a very uncomfortable way because Sabin gets his hands dirty in a way we've never seen. By the end of the story, on a surface level, he appears as nothing more than a hit man, a thug, or a goon. I thought it was very out of character for him to simply be the brutal "muscle" for doing dirty work.

But because the story kept bouncing around my brain, I've since realized that it's exactly in character for him. Sabin loves Edgar to the extent that he's willing to be his unofficial, unsanctioned executioner. He wants Edgar to keep his hands clean so that he can be the ruler he needs to be. He understands Edgar's true desires without needing them to be spoken, without needing to make eye contact, without Edgar needing to break a part of his own soul by even acknowledging the darkness he desires. Sabin reads this darkness solely by watching his brother's face, and by knowing Edgar's soul as well as he knows his own.

It may be Sabin's attempt to repay Edgar for the sacrifice he had made for Sabin. Edgar shouldered the burden of the kingdom so that Sabin could have his freedom, and now Sabin will shoulder the burden of retributive justice so that Edgar may have his peace.

I'm not sure whether I'll adopt this version of post-game events into my own personal head-canon; I honestly think I need more time to reflect on it. But I'm very glad I read this piece. It's one of those works that challenged me in a surprising way, and will likely color how I think about the world and characters of FF6 forever.

Rynling has several other pieces that I've also enjoyed tremendously, so I highly encourage everyone to check them out. I can't wait to write up about "The Queens Tears" later.'

You can find Rynling on AO3, as well as a couple of Tumblr accounts:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynling/profile

https://pocketseizure.tumblr.com/

https://rynling.tumblr.com/

[knife-moth-mc]

oo that’s actually exactly what i needed thank you! The situation with Anathema and Moth in this AU is result of an experiment with forcing two consciousnesses into one body in an attempt to gain immortality. He did not choose to be a test subject so he is understandably not happy about it. I haven’t quite figured out his deal yet but he’s supervillain adjacent ig? So far he hasn’t featured super heavily (mostly just a part where August gets caught skipping patrol to go be with him) but i plan to put him into the AU a lot more because he’s fascinating and fanfiction is how I study characters like bugs. Anyway i would always like to hear more about your boy please always. Ive watched all your vods twice now i need m o r e

Fantastic, I'm happy to help!

Anathema's a weird one for sure. I've never written or played another character quite like him, and I keep coming up blank trying to find similar characters in other media. I didn't even really create him, exactly; the very first moment he existed was the moment he spoke up during the seance. (I knew his name and the bones of his backstory by then, but I hadn't figured out his voice or personality yet.) I didn't know that the seance was going to work until it did!

As with many of my characters, I understand both C!Moth and Anathema through a combination of observation of their actions and after-the-fact analysis. This is easier for me to do with Moth, since it's so directly patterned on myself. There's been significant drift but we fundamentally think very similarly so there's not much of a gap to make up. I don't have as easy a time with Anathema because his thought patterns are pretty foreign to me, so I tend to go ramble in DMs about why he did what he did after each stream. This means I have a LOT written down about how he works.

One of my favorite things about him is the way he understands people and conversely the ways in which he struggles to understand them. He has a wildly accurate knack for reading people in exactly one specific way, which is to say that he can see very clearly who people are but is blind to the justifications and plans and trains of logic that overlay that. This makes it less useful than it sounds, a little like having X-Ray vision you can’t turn off. Everyone else is concerned with the color of people’s clothing while your only view of them is their bones; it’s hard to functionally engage on the same level. And as it turns out, people’s actions tend to be more informed by logic than by some nebulous ~who they are underneath~ so the experience of being Anathema is one of consistently being blindsided and doubting your own ability to understand people in any way.

He’s missing a pretty significant chunk of default social software in general, honestly. There’s this relatively common thing called the “nerd social fallacy,“ which essentially boils down to “all my friends should be friends with each other.” Anathema doesn’t have that, or rather, he has its opposite rather than its lack. The (healthy) lack of the nerd social fallacy goes something like “sometimes people just don’t get along, and it is good and normal to have different non-overlapping friend groups.” Anathema just... doesn’t think about how other people feel about each other. To him, all his relationships are separate and have no bearing on each other. It genuinely didn’t occur to him until prompted to tell Lux he was dating August or vice versa, for example. This is also how he’s capable of being besties with K while dating Lux.

This is where I’ll leave things for now, but I’m always glad to answer more questions if you have any. (Or point you towards symbolism or similar, because I put a lot of thought into that but don’t want to say outright what most of it means. @blorbosfromminecraft can confirm that there’s a bunch of this and I love when people engage with it.)

(Also what do you MEAN you’ve watched all my vods twice, even if you’ve just watched the lore edits those are almost 70 hours of content are you okay)

[bigskydreaming]

@destefaniart Yup, “In Their Shadows Grow Trees of Good and Evil” is definitely Court of Owls related. Its literally just using that series’ AU setting and family dynamics with the premise: 

What if the Batfam found out about the Court’s existence and plans for Dick before the Court ever tried to make a move on him, based purely on fifteen year olds Jason and Cass watching Court members be skeevy around their older brother at galas and being like...mmm, don’t love whatever’s going on over there. I sense Evil afoot.

(The following is just some off-the-cuff dialogue along those lines, but not actually likely to be the actual dialogue I go with because the character voices aren’t quite what I’m aiming for Jason and Cass to actually sound like in this. I’m mostly just being goofy for the LULZ at the moment. But like. You get the gist).

Jason: I do not care for their vibes, sister. 

Cass: Samesies.

Jason *spluttering*: Samesies? SAMESIES? Did you not hear the intonations I put in that? The gravitas? You couldn’t just like....match my energy, nooooo, you had to go and fucking derail by being like ‘ha ha, samesies, tee-hee’ which by the way, is something I have literally NEVER heard out of your mouth before now and I somehow doubt I will ever hear you say again...ugh. God, would it KILL you to just follow my lead for once?

Cass, regarding her dramatic-ass brother with all the gravitas he wanted before: Yes. I could die. Would you like that? Do you want me to die?

Jason: ....what?

Cass: I see. I would literally die for you. For our brother. But me? I can die. You’d be fine. Ideal, even. Good to know.

Jason: What is happening right now.

Cass: Learning I love you more than you love me. Its fine. Why? What’s up with you?

Jason: Why are you like this?

Cass *shrugs and stares deeply into her flute glass of sparkling apple cider as though its a scrying pool that contains the answer to his question, which is now suddenly the most important question to ever be asked and/or contemplated*: My parents are bad people. That could be it.

Jason snorts, the mood broken: Oh please. My dad’s an ambulatory piece of shit with just enough of a credit history to trick society into thinking he came out of a womb instead of a public toilet. You ain’t special.

Cass *shrugs*: Knew it wasn’t going to land. Figured I’d commit anyway.

*both pause to soak in the sudden uncomfortableness*

Jason: Right! So! How do you want to play this? Should we just skip straight past the awkwardness to an abrupt subject change and pretend neither of us ever dropped the dreaded ‘p’ word? Or we could do the whole ‘mine are worse’ ‘no mine are worse’ thing until we make a scene that ends with Dick assuring us its not a competition and we can both have shitty parents while getting that weird pinched expression where its like he can’t decide whether he wants to apologize for having good parents or like, pat us on the head for having terrible ones? That’s always fun.

Cass, nodding thoughtfully: I do enjoy that. I shouldn’t. But I do.

Jason, bumping her shoulder with his: Eh, don’t feel too bad. He gets the same look when Bruce burns toast and Dick can’t decide if he wants to roast B for it or apologize for being a functioning adult who can safely use a toaster without having the fire department on standby just in case.

Cass: Also very funny.

Jason: Exactly. Sides, its not like its your fault. I mean, how do we know you finding that funny ISN’T because your parents are shitty people?

Cass, eyeing him with the dubious air of someone who WANTS to believe, but is well acquainted with her brother’s brand of bullshit: I laugh when our brother gets the awkward look where he doesn’t know whether something’s just sad or something he should feel bad for.....because my mother kills people for money.

Jason, spreading his arms as if points were actually just made: Can you prove there’s for sure NOT a connection there?

Cass: People are right. You do use that too much.

Jason, who has never backed down in his life and for damn sure isn’t about to start right now: And you know who’s fault that probably is?

Cass, with eyebrow raised: Your dad’s?

Jason, triumphant: EXACTLY. Its not my fault the math all checks out.

Cass: Right. Its math.

Jason: Yup. Can’t argue with math. The only empirical truth of the universe. I mean, could you imagine if you tried to say math led you astray? Bruce might actually cry.

Cass: Are you done?

Jason, pausing to consider. Yeah, I can be done.

Cass takes a deliberate chug of her drink, eyes watching her brother the whole time as if just waiting for him to reverse course and pick right back up.

Jason: Hey wait a second. People say I use that too much? What people?

Cass *shrugs*: People.

Jason: Well what people are talking about me? Are they talking about me TO you? What do they say? Are you defending me at least?

Cass, after a pause: Sorry. I lied. No people were talking. Definitely not about you.

Jason, narrowing his eyes: Why don’t I believe that?

Cass shrugs: Because I just told you I lied?

Jason: Ugh, no, not about that, I don’t believe you about lying.

Cass squints: I lied about lying?

Jason: Yes. That.

Cass: That’s weird. Why would I do that?

Jason: I DON’T KNOW.

Cass: Well if you don’t know how should I know?

Jason: You’re doing that thing again.

Cass: Now you’re lying. I never do things. I’m a thinker, not a doer. My therapist even said so.

Jason, rolling his eyes: That’s because you’re a demented little chaos monster who pathologically lies to your therapist just so you can giggle at Bruce’s face every time she comes back with increasingly niche diagnoses for stuff you read about on WebMD.

Cass: Bruce said I needed more hobbies!

Jason: Yes, and manipulating your therapist into basing an entirely absurd and completely off-base CASE STUDY on you is what he meant.

Cass, the unrepentant: He should have been more specific.

Jason: She’s going to publish only to be completely discredited and then laughed right out of her tenure isn’t she.

Cass, shrugging: I don’t know how tenure works.

Jason, eyeing her sternly: Don’t you think that a) there’s a chance this might have gotten a LITTLE out of hand, and b) you should be at least a LITTLE concerned that I of all people think this is a bad idea?

Cass: Why do you get to be the only one with bad ideas? My parents are bad people too! Math!

Jason: Eww, stop making me see the error of my own ways! I’m too young to repent!

Cass, rolling her eyes now: I’m only doing it because she’s a terrible person who shouldn’t be allowed to work with children who can’t tell when she’s being secretly judgy while saying things that would make them feel bad if they couldn’t tell she doesn’t really care about helping them like I can.

Jason: So you’re saying.....this is all just because she’s actually a danger to the people she’s supposed to be helping, and you’re only doing it for the greater good.

Cass: Mostly for the greater good.

Jason: Cass!

Cass: Its not my fault its still funny!

Jason groans. He’s so not cut out to be the responsible sibling. It feels gross. How does Dick do it all the time.

Cass, exasperated: Jason. She thinks I have an imaginary friend.

Jason: What? Why the fuck does she think that?

Cass blinks: I told her I did.

Jason groans again.

Cass: She didn’t have to believe me!

Jason: Why didn’t you just tell Bruce the real reason you don’t like her and let him deal with this?

Cass, hotly: I’m not a QUITTER.

Jason: You get how absurd you’re being right now right? This is ME. Judging YOU. For YOU being the absurd one here!

Cass: Your last therapist was convinced you were a pyromaniac!

Jason jabs a finger at her: Hey! That is NOT the same! ONE time, I said ‘fire pretty’ as a JOKE, and he just leaped to conclusions!

Cass: You started a fire. In your room. That same night.

Jason: That was an ACCIDENT! 

Cass crosses her arms. Judgmentally.

Jason: He was being RIDICULOUS and it was totally ridiculous that Bruce just like, BELIEVED him because like ‘he’s a professional Jason, he knows how to do his job,’ as though the fact that I can literally LIE TO HIS FACE about secretly being fucking ROBIN in session after session wasn’t kinda a big red flag that maybe the dude’s not that GOOD at his job, y’know? But you show B enough diplomas on a wall and he’s like ah excellent, an expert, like people don’t BUY their way through school all the fucking time and I was just TRYING to make Bruce see how ridiculous it was to think this guy had ANY clue what he was talking about by being like hey, look at all the super flammable and incendiary stuff I have just readily available throughout my room, and yet surprise! No fire! Could a pyromaniac do that?!

Cass: And then a fire started.

Jason: Yes, obviously, but only on ACCIDENT.

Cass: From all the super-flammable and incendiary stuff you accidentally had in your room TO start fires.

Jason: Okay, see, I feel like you’re not getting it.

Cass: That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

Jason: Oh great, now I’m getting judged by Miss Watch Me Gaslight My Therapist Into Losing Her Job By Writing About How Not Normal I Am, With This Of Course Being a TOTALLY NORMAL THING TO DO

Cass glares at him. Jason glares at her. 

Cass: This is why Bruce is so sure we need therapy, isn’t it.

Jason: Can we agree that he can never know that we’ve come to understand why he’s concerned, and that making us go might not actually be the worst thing he’s ever done to us?

Cass: Obviously.

Jason: Great. Now to distance ourselves from this uncomfortable self-awareness as quickly as we possibly can, let’s jump tracks: where did we land on those creepers talking to Dick and how we feel about their vibes?

Cass: The vibes are rancid. 

Jason: Awesome, we’re still on the same page. And this leads us to conclude that the owners of the rancid vibes give Major Skeeve and we do not like and or trust them or their skeeviness right? 

Cass: Duh.

Jason: So in conclusion, rancid vibes, skeevy dudes, probable evil afoot. At the very least, insidiousness. We should definitely investigate further.

Cass: Yes. There will probably need to be punching.

Jason: Any particular reason, or because you just want to punch them?

Cass: *hesitates* Sure.

Jason: I am so uncomfortable with this inverted dynamic wherein I am the voice of reason and also moderation. Are we done yet? Is opposite day over?

Cass, rolling her eyes: Fine. Minimal punching. And I won’t even enjoy it even if they are evil and my parents are still bad people and math said it was okay.

Jason: See? There we go. And Bruce thinks we need therapy. Hah!

[qqueenofhades]

Hi, I’ve been tasked with researching Richard Plantagenet for a paper and thus far found extremely negative accounts of the king, his religious bigotry being a reoccurring theme (his treatment of Jewish dignitaries attending his coronation and his reasoning to join the third crusade etc)

I stumbled across your wonderful tag for Richard at the weekend and wondered if you wouldn’t mind sharing your informed opinion of Richard and his views on religions ? Your writing seems very well balanced regarding his attributes and flaws. Thanks :)

Oof. Okay. So, a short and simple question, then?

Quick note: when I was first reading your ask and saw "Richard Plantagenet," I briefly assumed that you meant Richard Plantagenet, father of Edward IV, or perhaps Richard III, both from the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth century, before seeing from context that you meant Richard I. While "Plantagenet" was first used as an informal appellation by Richard I's grandfather, Geoffrey of Anjou, it wasn't until several centuries later that the English royal house started to use it consistently as a surname. So it's not something that Richard I would have been really called or known by, even if historians tend to use it as a convenient labeling conceit. (See: the one thousand popular histories on "The Plantagenets" that have been published recently.)

As for Richard I, he is obviously an extremely complex and controversial figure for many reasons, though one of the first things that you have to understand is that he has been mythologized and reinvented and reinterpreted down the centuries for many reasons, especially his crusade participation and involvement in the Robin Hood legends. When you're researching about Richard, you're often reading reactions/interpretations of that material more than anything specifically rooted in the primary sources. And while I am glad that you asked me about this and want to encourage you to do so, I will gently enquire to start off: when you say "research," what kind of materials are you looking at, exactly? Are these actual published books/papers/academic material, or unsourced stuff on the internet written from various amateur/ideological perspectives and by people who have particular agendas for depicting Richard as the best (or as is more often the case, worst) ever? Because history, to nobody's surprise, is complicated. Richard did good things and he also did quite bad things, and it's difficult to reduce him to one or the other.

Briefly (ha): I'll say just that if a student handed me a paper stating that Richard was a religious bigot because a) there were anti-Jewish riots during his coronation and b) he signed up for the Third Crusade, I would seriously question it. Medieval violence against the Jews was an unfortunately endemic part of crusade preparations, and all we know about Richard's own reaction is that he fined the perpetrators harshly (repeated after a similar March 1190 incident in York) and ordered for them to be punished. Therefore, while there famously was significant anti-Semitic violence at his coronation, Richard himself was not the one who instigated it, and he ordered for the Londoners who did take part in it to be punished for breaking the king's peace.

This, however, also doesn't mean that Richard was a great person or that he was personally religiously tolerant. We don't know that and we often can't know that, whether for him or anyone else. This is the difficulty of inferring private thoughts or beliefs from formal records. This is why historians, at least good historians, mostly refrain from speculating on how a premodern private individual actually thought or felt or identified. We do know that Richard likewise also made a law in 1194 to protect the Jews residing in his domains, known as Capitula Judaeis. This followed in the realpolitik tradition of Pope Calixtus II, who had issued Sicut Judaeis in c. 1120 ordering European Christians not to harass Jews or forcibly convert them. This doesn't mean that either Calixtus or Richard thought Jews were great, but they did choose a different and more pragmatic/economic way of dealing with them than their peers. This does not prove "religious bigotry" and would need a lot more attention as an analytical concept.

As for saying that the crusades were motivated sheerly by medieval religious bigotry, I'm gonna have to say, hmm, no. Speaking as someone with a PhD in medieval history who specialised in crusade studies, there is an enormous literature around the question of why the crusades happened and why they continue to hold such troubling attraction as a pattern of behavior for the modern world. Yes, Richard went on crusade (as did the entire Western Latin world, pretty much, since 1187 and the fall of Jerusalem was the twelfth century's 9/11). But there also exists material around him that doesn't exist around any other crusade leader, including his extensive diplomatic relations with the Muslims, their personal admiration for him, his friendship with Saladin and Saladin's brother Saif al-Din, the fact that Arabic and Islamic sources can be more complimentary about Richard than the Christian records of his supposed allies, and so forth. I think Frederick II of Sicily, also famous for his friendly relationships with Muslims, is the only other crusade leader who has this kind of material. So however he did act on crusade, and for whatever reasons he went, Richard likewise chose the pragmatic path in his interactions with Muslims, or at least the Muslim military elite, than just considering them all as religious barbarians unworthy of his time or attention.

The question of how the crusades functioned as a pattern of expected behavior for the European Christian male aristocrat, sometimes entirely divorced from any notion of his private religious beliefs, is much longer and technical than we can possibly get into. (As again, I am roughly summarising a vast and contentious field of academic work for you here, so... yes.) Saying that the crusades happened only because medieval people were all religious zealots is a wild oversimplification of the type that my colleague @oldshrewsburyian and I have to deal with in our classrooms, and likewise obscures the dangerous ways in which the modern world is, in some ways, more devoted to replicating this pattern than ever. It puts it beyond the remit of analysis and into the foggy "Dark Ages hurr durr bad" stereotype that drives me batty.

Weighted against this is the fact that Richard obviously killed many Muslims while on crusade, and that this was motivated by religious and ideological convictions that were fairly standard for his day but less admirable in ours. The question of how that violence has been glorified by the alt-right people who think there was nothing wrong with it at all and he should have done more must also be taken into account. Richard's rise to prominence as a quintessentially English chivalrous hero in the nineteenth century, right when Britain was building its empire and needed to present the crusades as humane and civilizing missions abroad rather than violent and generally failed attempts at forced conversion and conquest, also problematized this. As noted, Richard was many things, but... not that, and when the crusades fell out of fashion again in the twentieth century, he was accordingly drastically villainized. Neither the superhero or the supervillain images of him are accurate, even if they're cheap and easy.

The English nationalists have a complicated relationship with Richard: he represents the ideal they aspire to, aesthetically speaking, and the kind of anti-immigrant sentiment they like to put in his mouth, which is far more than the historical Richard actually displayed toward his Muslim counterparts. (At least, again, so far as we can know anything about his private beliefs, but this is what we can infer from his actions in regard to Saladin, who he deeply respected, and Saladin's brother.) But he was also thoroughly a French knight raised and trained in the twelfth-century martial tradition, his concern for England was only as a minor part of the sprawling 'Angevin empire' he inherited from his father Henry II (which is heresy for the Brexit types who think England should always be the center of the world), and his likely inability to speak English became painted as a huge character flaw. (Notwithstanding that after the Norman Conquest in 1066, England did not have a king who spoke English natively until Henry IV in 1399, but somehow all those others don't get blamed as much as Richard.)

Anyway. I feel as if it's best to stop here. Hopefully this points you toward the complexity of the subject and gives you some guidelines in doing your own research from here. :)

[tomatograter]

What would you say is the very core of dirkjake? I struggle to put it into words beyond dirk being afraid jake will get tired of him

Ok this is a fun one hang on, strap in,

Much like vrisrezi, and in fact a reoccurring theme throughout HS as a work in full -represented in varying levels of relevance to its cast of core characters- dirkjake is about the masks we willingly fashion ourselves after to starve off insecurity. Everything else is a permutation of that.

But also akin to vrisrezi, their interpersonal relationships and character arcs are heavily about how said performances can be turned into destructive weapons that hinder the development of one's growth and personal identity, rippling through friend groups and plot events. That's a lot of words. So let's break it down like this: 

Vriska's Mindfang performance is a defense mechanism created to strengthen her resolve when dealing with isolation and an abysmal monster as a mother, and serves to advance the plot, but is highly harmful to vriska and those around her. (Of note - Vriska doesn't see herself as a villain, it is incredibly important that she's a HERO, just a highly polarizing and problematic one.)

Terezi's Legislacerator ((space cop)) performance is an elaborate persona created to make sense of an antagonistic and temperamental environment, and seemingly dole out punishments that would ensure things continue to function as they should, even to terezi's personal detriment. Vriska is far from the first troll or human terezi has killed, but it's the one that breaks the scale, because terezi knows she's just another victim of the system.

Neither of the above make up the entirety of vriska OR terezi as characters, simply the masks they've chosen to slot themselves into a narrative that will not stop for them, or anybody else for that matter, to have time to 'figure themselves out' before steamrolling them. Vriska and terezi's relationship relies in the bond they formed through the cracks on their masks, to a point in which hopefully they can help eachother to get rid of them.

When talking about dirkjake, instead of focusing on the alternian or human society we have the introduction of dystopic hyper isolated homescenarios that will define their viewpoints as Characters in this story. If vrisrezi is cops-and-robbers, dirkjake is princesses and dragons. Oh yeah, they're both simplistic morality plays.

It is precisely how set apart they are from everyone else but immediate danger (may it be rogue lusii naturae or imperial drones) that molds them into people who crave connection but are too cocooned inside their own walls to let anybody through, even those they care for. Taking the brunt of responsibility for a Legacy and attaining a greater future plays a key role for most of the alphas, but in dirk and jake's case this is demonstrated through the necessity for brash, masculine heroism and the suppression of fragility or sentimentality. Before the story has a chance to admonish them for stepping out of line, they'll do it to themselves out of habit.

The situation gets a little worse when the roles they've picked to enact (invariably, The Hero!) don't match with the roles the story wants them to play.

Jake is the archetypal swooning and good for nothing princess who's there to look pretty and provide motivation To others, modernized into the cool action girl trope we've known to find and despise in every other movie, those who often say 4 lines about how cool and smart they are or how they were raised by their older brothers with big guns and then spend the rest of their screentime in varying states of distress, undress, or concerning unconsciousness. Sometimes all three!!!!! 

It is because of this lack of agency that jake stresses his role as a charming gallivanting and STUPID action hero, thereby providing a excuse for his lack of control over his own life, and makes stumbling into situations ass-first look charming. He wants his friends to be impressed with him, and he'll lie to achieve that effect, because he wants to be liked and to be taken seriously. The problem is that he's all too aware of how he's been set up, and he vehemently rejects it.

Dirk is the dragon. Yup. Function? To be slayed. Duty? To make your life a nightmare in just about every possible way, giving the eventual story payoff a grander climax. Inadvertently, accidentally, well-intentionally, and yet sometimes on purpose, dirk strider ends up in the antagonist role. His awareness of the fact and penance for its weight is such he'll preemptively take the blame for things that aren't even his fault, like a loser. While jake eventually has to deal with how he ends up breaking things on accident to provide a backdrop motivation for others, dirk is stuck in a self-fulfilling loop of having mostly negative input in everyone's lives, including (if not specially) his own.

Dirk's hyper-investment in playing the Knight, like his brother before him, and ensuring his input on everyone's stories remains constructive and ever-helpful even if he doesn't know what the FUCK he's talking about or what is happening 99,9% of the time is a byproduct of multiple timelines spent in less glorious ways.

The core of dirkjake, then, is how they're simultaneously the one person who's the closest to seeing the other for what they truly are, but ashamed of their own shortcomings, they do their best to advance the fantasy version instead. To know and value a loved one is to become aware of your own lies, and to acknowledge the performance panic that comes with it. Ye olde jingle of "Self-recognition through the eyes of the other" and "the pants-soiling fear that actually you're still a faker and you will never be enough", weaved up and remixed. Their problem is that Princesses don't marry Dragons, and in a realistic setting neither do Princes and Knights for that matter, they're too busy with- doing the other stuff!!!!! The stuff that should be done! Even if they wanted to! 

Which actually goes right back to my claim that dirkjake is exactly like Shrek, The Movie, And This Is Why.

[scripttorture]

So I don't know if this falls in your area of expertise but I don't know who else to ask. My story is fantasy, and one of the ways they torture people is by boiling the victim's blood (using magic). I haven't been able to find resources about the physiological responses to blood being boiled. What if it was just blood from a small area (like a finger)? Could that person be healed? What about a larger area, or like the blood in the brain? Sorry if you don't cover this! Thanks for your help :)

You know this is actually a first I don’t think anyone has asked me about something like this before.

 It’s an interesting fantasy idea. I don’t think it would work the way you’ve intended though. I’ll go over why, what I think you could use it for instead and a pretty simple adjustment you could make if you’d rather keep this misuse of magic as a torture.

 I’ll start with the relevant disclaimer: I am not a medic. Which in this case means that there are probably intricacies and details that I will miss.

 I have however worked in medical testing for quite some time and I can cook. So I can tell you what happens to blood when it boils: it cooks. If you think of it a bit like cooking an egg yolk you’ll have an idea of the ways blood gets used in cooking.

 Blood is an organ. A lot of people forget that because it’s a liquid. But it’s made up of multiple specialised cells and components, all of which are necessary for it to function. And it contains a lot of protein. The denaturing of proteins using heat is basically… cooking of any meat, dairy or eggs.

 If you want to see a short youtube video about cooking with blood there’s one over here. You can see how it solidifies with heat and hear the chef talking about how over cooked blood meals are ‘crumbly’ and dry. Blood isn’t used in cooking back in Saudi, it’s not halal. But both the European cultures my parents come from use blood in cooking sometimes. So I’ve seen it used and cooked a fair bit and probably eaten it way back when.

 Bringing this back round to the question I don’t think there would be a non-lethal way to do this. Unless your magic also allows people to be brought back from death.

 I think it could make for a horrifying method of execution. And that might fit into your story, especially since a lot of cultures historically have had torturous executions reserved for crimes they judged particularly terrible.

 Here’s why I think this would always be lethal: the way you’re describing this the heart continues to beat, when it’s heated blood clots and water takes a long time to cool down.

 Together those first two facts mean that even if a small area was targetted you would get unusually large blood clots inside the body. Since the heart is still beating blood is still moving through the area that’s being heated. That means that boiling blood is being pushed out of this targetted area into the rest of the body.

 And it’s bringing blood clots with it.

 Now there are natural situations where blood clots can build up in one smaller part of the body and then be washed out into the rest of the body. So we do know what this does. The blood clots end up getting stuck in blood vessels and they disrupt or completely block blood supply to the effected area.

 In the brain this is called a stroke. In the heart it’s a heart attack. Either of these can be lethal and I’m pretty sure that this kind of effect would be similarly catastrophic in other organs.

 And whatever the area targetted I’m pretty sure this would happen. But it’s not the only lethal problem here.

 As I mentioned before, the blood in this scenario is still moving through the body. And it’s hot. Blood isn’t the only thing that cooks when it boils. This scenario would create serious internal burns and because water takes time to cool down and because the heart is still beating it would effect every part of the body.

 Blood is mostly water. The rate at which water cools depends on the volume, surface area and surrounding temperature along with some other factors. I took a quick look online to see if I could find an experiment where someone measured the rate of water cooling from boiling. I found one here. It doesn’t give a precise measure for all circumstances where water boils but let’s use their figures for a moment.

 According to those figures in one minute you’d see the temperature drop from 100oC to about 97oC.

 At normal resting heart rate the blood circulates the body roughly three times a minute.

 This means the entire body would be exposed to blood at a minimum of 97oC within a minute.

 A well down steak takes about 8 minutes to cook.

 You could still use a magical torture where the blood is being heated but you’d need something way below boiling and even then I think it would be very easy for it to be fatal.

 It doesn’t take much heat to denature (ie cook) the proteins we (and all other life on earth) rely on to stay alive.

 If you want to use this idea as something your characters can survive then the best place to look, for the effects, treatment and temperature range is sources on heat stroke and heat exhaustion. You can find Script Medic’s posts on the subject over here in her archive. There’s an NHS page on it here that’s freely accessible too.

 I think the original idea would make a really awful method of execution. But the point of blood is that it doesn’t stay static in one part of the body. We live by its movement. And so heating any small part of it involves heating the entire organ.

 If you’re the experimental type you can have a go at testing some of this out in your kitchen. You’d need to ask but butchers in many countries will sell blood. With a kitchen thermometer and a pan you could see exactly when blood starts to fail with temperature.

 Just don’t leave it for your house mates to wash up.

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[generallypo]

in all sincerity, kim dokja makes me happy and he deserves to be so too :^(

incoherent yelling and sobbing under the cut. these fEELINGS will not be contained aaauuunnghhh. 

------

anyway i binge-read all 500+ chapters of ORV this week and i honest to god feel bad for this -- completely! fictional! aghhhh -- guy. in case you haven’t figured it out, the following is some spoilerly shit

i went in expecting a fun, brainless power trip fantasy for dudes with an isekai addiction. instead, it turns out ORV is actually a gigantic, self-deprecating prank on the entire genre itself. kdj plays more into the sad -- if high-functioning-- clown trope than the sexy, edgy, chuuni bastard type i was prepared to laugh at. there were -- gasp! -- female characters with personalities! parents (aka ADULTS who act like ADULTS) who actually survive and feature prominently! adorable children! a real sexy, edgy bastard! a power trio with amazing fashion! sexual tension and bickering! friendship! life and death bonding! 

*breathes in deeply* fouND FAMILYYYYYYY.

like, yeah, the plot around the first few arcs seems a little aimless, but the buildup is worth. the world-building is pretty decent. there’s discernible effort put into the fight scenes, and i can appreciate that. but -- but! what i stayed for were the characters -- namely, the fantastic OT3 of KDJ, HSY, and YJH -- who come together despite their initial rivalries and end up saving each other’s asses, like, every other day. granted, the other characters don’t get as much focus, and they do fall into certain character tropes.. 

but a trope done well is nothing i would gripe about. every significant character in ORV has a coherent, and more importantly, respectful take on their respective trope. maybe it’s because sing-shong is actually a married couple, but all the interactions between even minor characters are a convincing blend of awkward rambling, suggestive humor, sharp remarks, and casual banter. in other words, this cast of mostly working adults (plus a teen and two kids) talks like working adults. the relationships built throughout the story are, frankly, some of most realistic of its genre. sing-shong has managed to craft a dynamic that undoubtedly brims with fluffy fondness all around, but also drips with sarcastic tension, with unspoken urgency, with a wariness that softens into sincerity over the course of many, many chapters. it’s the kind of progression that makes even stock characters read like more than just the 2-bit villain or comrade or love interest. here, we have relationships both straightforward and not, strained or otherwise, romantically-oriented as well as decidedly the opposite -- and then numerous others scattered along the spectrum with the freedom to shift either way. 

it’s also an interesting point of note that our MC kdj actually does not end up with a stated romantic partner, much less a conventional heteroromantic harem. he gets teased about that fact from time to time, but it’s with less of the sleazy shonen locker room humor one would expect and more of the good-natured ribbing you’d find among friends or that one especially nosy auntie at the yearly family reunion. kdj is a grown ass man. in the background, i applaud his maturity, and he handles all the prodding like a champ. 

so instead of finding and fulfilling his horny, he builds himself a wealth of loving family. yeah, there are beautiful men and women around him. yeah, they unequivocally adore him. but they’re also adults, and they have priorities, too -- which are not so much finding a way to bang kdj’s brains out and more so simply keeping the damn guy alive. this is truly not ‘oblivious mc with his thirsty, sex kitten harem’. it just so happens that a guy proves himself to be unflinchingly gentle and capable in an apocalyptic setting despite his broken self-esteem, and lots of people find that attractive, romantically and platonically. 

it.. kinda makes sense? he’s a hard worker, thoughtful, and good with kids. kdj is the kind of guy you know would make a reliable partner, and anybody with eyes can plainly see and appreciate that. 

and it’s not that our MC’s a total brick wall. in fact, it’s likely the opposite, and he’s just too darned repressed to admit it. from what has been implied, kdj does indeed recognize and accept love, or at least a primitive concept of it. i like to imagine that the kind of love that he ends up seeking out simply manifests itself more easily as acceptance and safety, as warmth and a home of people to return to every day. even better, the people who surround him know this, and they give him exactly that. it’s refreshing, and honestly, really sweet.

(as a side note, i really, really do appreciate the cosmic bi energy radiating off of kdj, who canonically earns the title of being loved by all and is all but in name married to yjh and hsy. he also respects women and small children and honestly anyone who isn’t total scum to him or his family. i respect that.)

but the happy stuff aside, you know it it just ain’t ORV without the generous screaming dollop of angst. admittedly, there’s self-sacrifice, injury, lonesome wandering, more sacrifice, some epic fighting, reunion and confrontation. all of it is a lot to digest, sure, but never does it feel entirely hopeless, or truly, truly heart-clenching. ORV, up until the final act, is a mostly light read. you relax in your chair, thinking that nothing beyond this point can disturb you. 

yeah fucking right.

------

and then the beginning of the end arrives. when the squad finally break through to their ‘ending’, the scene that kind of breaks me is the reveal of the Most Ancient Dream. it ties so much thematically into the little tidbits that we get of kdj’s past, and it though it feels like almost a joke that the source of the goddamn apocalypse is a kid with bruises smeared across his skinny ass body -- it’s such a pathetic picture that it’s kinda poetic, actually. you’re left mystified but somewhat convinced, like a math problem explained halfway through. this.. child.. is a villain somehow, isn’t he?

and then 999th turn uriel speaks up, and she. just. hugs him. 

[[You are this universe’s most powerless existence, aren’t you.]] 

that. that gets me. kdj’s reaction immediately upon this revelation? absolute murder. seeing him essentially self-destruct upon realizing that all these people he’s surrounded himself with -- some who continuously proclaim their loyalty and affection for him throughout their journey, some who suffered eons of war and loss and trauma because of his existence -- not only forgive his younger self but smother him with unconditional acceptance and love is stifling, is too vulnerable and exposed and he simply can’t cope -- it’s so telling of his true mentality, of his crippling insecurity and crumpled sense of self-worth. kim dokja is a liar, through and through, so much that he fails, or perhaps refuses, to comprehend the veracity of others’ kindness and love towards himself. 

by some miracle, the events at the end of the world somehow resolve.. or so it seems. there is a departing train, a liberated team of ex-gods, and a child rousing from his slumber. in the aftermath, i am left shaking. somehow, despite the ending having been (happily?) reached, there’s still another chapter ahead. what is this witchcraft?

------

and then ah, yes -- the epilogue arc. i teetered on the edge of being critical for a little bit there -- is that display of deus ex machina, of sad, self-sacrificing nobility a bit too egregious to be acceptable? is this some wild last let-me-yank-this-outta-my-ass plot twist to drag out the chapter count? i sincerely thought that the arc before it would have been the finale. i was wrong. thank god.

anyways, as an answer to the above: no, and no. i stake my firm claim on the belief that the epilogue arc was meticulously planned out well in advance of its release, confusing and time-warpy as it is. i liked it. tremendously. even if it entirely invalidates all of kdj’s supposed development (”haha lol yeah sure i won’t sacrifice myself or anything anymore guys don’t worry about me” -- KDJ, at some point because he’s a lying rat bastard). actually, our beloved MC disappears for a large chunk of this arc, and i think it’s great. in his absence, the other characters not only go absolutely fucking nuts, but they have to figure out this new problem on their own, even if the lure of peaceful complacency in the newly saved Korea might convince them otherwise. 

and then the whole time paradox thing comes around. yjh goes to space, hsy saves the only life she can, and kdj grows up. the crew waits, holding onto their hope even if it bleeds them dry. sing-shong does a damn good job of illustrating their fraying calm, their lurking madness, the unseen but pervasive depression that seeps in from kdj’s absence. the kids lose their father, lhs and jhw lose their reliable leader figure, ysa loses a best friend and confidant, lsk -- as distant as she pretends to be from her son -- loses her only child. and then there’s hsy and yjh , who are essentially bereft of the other half of their existences. their pain is palpable, is grounded in the hopeless, gnawing frustration of an utterly meaningless victory. emotionally, ORV hits all the right -- if agonizing -- beats.

however, a story can’t sustain itself just through its pathos. i’m happy to say that ORV doesn’t drop the ball after the first milestone, and after all the hurt, the characters do leap straight back into action. even better, the plot holes actually do get patches, and the poetic cycle of writer, protagonist, and reader comes full circle by making use of all those supposedly throwaway characters from the myriad world lines. 

at the end of the road, there is a distinct sense of unity, of a delicate but undeniable cohesion to the world lines and their origins. sing-shong lets us guess a little here at the finish, but there’s just enough information to feel hopeful. maybe there never had been a definite start -- or finish -- to the story of kdj company, and... that’s okay. everybody ends up where they were meant to be, where they fought and struggled to reach. it’s.. almost like a happily ever after, if we’re allowed to dream of that.

------

now, i realize, this was all an orchestrated maneuver.

i’ll take it.

to me, all of this work sounds like someone put some serious thought into this behemoth of a plot. it cements the entire original premise of the story. it suggests -- but never explicitly confirms! -- the possibility that breaking free of the cycle is possible through the exact same system that sustains it. it’s terribly interesting -- and inspirational! with all the dramatic revelations and life-threatening scenarios  and the cast’s resigned acceptance of them that essentially make up ORV’s entire mood, there’s still that last hint of rebellious and righteous anger that lights up the whole damn nebula. it’s like the kdj company blasting away at the heavens just to yell into the nether: we’re not looking for the happy end, but the free one. stay alive.

it’s subtle, and yet it’s such an emotional gut punch. i came away with the most ruinous, frustrating, bittersweet sense of longing in ages. i pined. for these fictional darlings. god, i am weak.

so. yeah. ORV is pretty good. flawed, but ambitious and impressively thought out.  i’m stoked that the webtoon is making pretty good progress, even if it’ll take an eternity and a half to meet that monstrous chapter count. i’m still gonna follow it. hell yeah. 

------

(by the way the idea that secretive plotter and co are literally gonna take care of and raise baby kdj and spoil him and be the best friggin family a kid could ever want does things to me. protect him. he’s suffered too much. let at least one worldline’s version of him know happiness. and actually, aLL OF THEM DESERVE DOMESTIC BLISS TOGETHER IN A BIG OL MANSION WITH SUN AND FRESH AIR AND TENDER FAMILY MOMENTS UGH)

------

and there you have it, folks. you made it to the end. in the far, far distance, i’m cheering you on and crying my eyes out in gratitude. thanks for tuning in!

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

As your resident cranky goat I got some things to say about this video by (@ohnoitstbskyen):

This is, to put it politely, not good.

Actually its absolute garbage but let me first elaborate WHY I say that:

It starts great but then completly ignores every single implication Sorakas lore made with some "design ideas" so purely centered around the idea of "old" and fat "motherly" that I wonder if the author has some things in his subconscious he's not exactly aware of yet.

So first of all, Soraka is a extradimensional entity. "Motherly" does not apply to her because the entire concept in its mortal form is foreign to her. Soraka is FASCINATED by mortal material life as an OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVE. She's A LITERAL ALIEN - on top of being an eternal constant, which adds to the weirdness. The very concept of having kids is probably entirely exotic to her. Her body runs on pure celestial energies and that should be reflected in the design - she should in fact be even skinner! Not "sexy model skinny" but "holy shit how is she alive" sort of skinny. A shell of skin and bones held together by powers beyond mortal comprehension that somehow give the illusion of a regular biological being. Add to that a certain size, and you got a prime uncanny-vally approximation of a mortal form that might pass when viewed from three galaxies over but fails to hold up when looking at it closely.

Trying to figure out her age should be impossible as an immortal - putting biological age markers on a being that DOES NOT AGE NOR FUNCTION ON ACTUAL BIOLOGY sounds remarkably pointless if you ask me. It takes away from the fundamental "otherness" that she posesses no matter how hard she tries to blend in. There is a certain level of isolation, a level mortals can never relate to her and the other way around, no matter how much she helps or how benevolent she is. This little piece of "immortal loneliness" must be perserved as it is a key to her character - she is not mortal, but also a rebel to her celestial kin. The "otherness" is intergral part of who she is, and the fact that she still helps despite being so different plays a huge role as well.

Small deviation as that was no point in the video: Expanding from the point of age, her gender should also be somewhat more vague in her presentation. "Male Or Female" are some very unusual categories when talking about swirling masses of extradimensional energies, but I'm not even going to bother with that direction. Riot has never been that experimental with gender presentations, and since there's no David Bowie-esque champion yet even after a decade I doubt that they even consider that direction for a rework of an established character. I sure wish we got more Illaoi, but instead there's shirtless dude #14. But that's a whole different topic for another post.

Also I got to ask: what is it with people connecting "healer characters" with "motherly attributes"? Y'all got no fathers? And why are those "motherly attributes" always signified with body fat of all things? Is this an american thing? Some random boob fetish? I just do not see it, but that might just be that the women in my family are mostly skin and bones by the blessing of genetics. It just makes zero sense. How many years is a child raised by their mother? Ideally until adulthood. How many of these years are they "on the boob"? A mere FRACTION of that that they can't even remember even at a young age. This sounds just like a MASSIVE collective-cultural fetish projection accepted as universal truth because it was parroted enough times to infest our culture.

It was enough projection to completly turn ignore the key aspect of Soraka's lore which makes her essentially the "Lucifer of Runeterra" (hooves, horn(s), red/purple-ish skin color, defies the celestial order, meddles in the lives of mortals, also GOAT) but then pulls a switcheroo by making the divine entities actual assholes and her rebellion therefore justified - even if she might be doing it for entirely selfish reasons like giving her bone-headed celesital kin the metaphorical finger and proving she was right.

[theoreticalli]

tma and unreliable narration

you know in thinking so much about melanie and jon and helen and jon (and to an extent georgie and basira and martin too) I just keep coming back to how good an example of unreliable narration tma is (spoilers thru 160 and for 187, as well as a link to a post abt the finale).

because jon is our pov character, right? for the vast majority of the series, outside of statements, everything we experience is implied to be through his perspective. we start out with him and him alone, we return to him again and again-- alone in the tunnels, alone in America, alone after the Unknowing, alone as the apocalypse swirls around him. we let him entrust us, an unseen confidante, with things he won’t tell anyone else. we are intimately familiar with his experiences and his personality, and we see every little moment of development he goes through. we spend so much time with him.

but jon... is wrong sometimes. like, objectively, we know that. his paranoia spiral in s2 is the first major indicator that this character, who is functionally our narrator, is not objective. he makes decisions based on prior experiences and the information he has and assumptions from both, like we all do. it’s just good character building! it makes him feel more real if he’s wrong sometimes, if he has flaws and blind spots!

and sometimes he is wrong. the most signposted and indisputable moment is the web table, when he just straight-up puts the clues together and comes to the wrong conclusion, or when he spends a whole season being suspicious of tim and martin (and elias) when not!sasha’s right there. basically, He Is Not Immune To Propaganda

so that’s our sign that this is not the kind of character who is always or even usually Objectively right or in the right. he’s not frequently outright wrong, either, but his view of things is always limited, and the other characters are carefully placed to be foils to his perspective, to highlight things he isn’t thinking about or illustrate contrasts or just other opinions. again, It’s Good Character Building! it’s smart writing to have all your characters exist first and foremost as bundles of principles and priorities informed by certain key backstory events, because then you can rely on that to figure out how they’ll react to any given situation, and personalities and quirks tend to fall into place from there. my brain is not moving on the frequency to illustrate exactly what all these foils are right now but I’m sure there’s other posts about that so moving on

most of jon’s conflicts with his allies are not because either of them are wrong, but because they each have distinct and conflicting perspectives. and there’s some posts I see that just... frustrate me because they only take into consideration the context for jon’s actions, and don’t extend the same analysis to any other characters involved. there’s no thought put into why georgie might feel the need to draw the boundaries she does, why melanie goes off on jon at the specific times she does, or god forbid when either of them try to reconcile with him at various points. jon is sympathetic to us as the audience in his shoes, but the actions he takes don’t always have positive effects on those around him in the same way that other people severely hurt him without really meaning to. really, my first reaction to posts like these is always to want to just point out 5 different moments of context that show that most of jon’s allies are never being malicious to him because they’re bad people, or heartless. they have their reasons, and are not being cruel for cruelty’s sake like many of the avatars. they aren’t required to agree with him to still be taken in good faith.

(I have a post about this wrt the end of s5 that I’ll link here to make this stay mostly spoiler free so feel free to go read that but anyways)

and there’s also the things jon directly says about other characters, which again, should not always be taken at face value! and this bit is partly a personal grievance with the way helen’s arc ended, so ymmv, but I think that leaving the exact nature of the distortion (esp how it meshes with its host of sorts) more vague is much more effective in terms of her function in the story. so to my interpretation, even though jon says a lot of things about what the distortion is, that doesn’t necessarily mean any of them are entirely accurate! that’s a point helen made repeatedly, and her role as a foil is to make it clear that the truth is never one thing, no matter how the eye likes to pretend it can find objective reality. she wiggles her way out of the liar’s paradox because reality is complicated, and there are many statements that lie in that grey area between true and false while still sounding very sure. so even though jon states a lot of things in a very certain tone, that doesn’t mean any of them reflect the nature of the distortion any more than anything helen said before. it’s just one more piece of information to put together with everything we’ve seen about the character’s words and actions up to that point and come to our own conclusion!

to me, that’s a much more fun and interesting way of engaging with this story than only looking at things through jon’s pov and taking the things he says without a grain of salt, and I think jonny’s done a really good job of having a lot of characters with specific traits and clear histories that pretty consistently inform how they engage with any given situation. of course, there’s a lot of characters and a lot of extrapolations one can make, especially for more minor or intentionally mysterious characters, so there’s no one right way of understanding a given person. but it’s fun to mess around with, to discover new bits that you’d forgotten about that inform your interpretations, to fill in the gaps.

that’s all no I will not shut up about melanie king if you read this far thank you so much you have my affection and pls reblog w your thoughts!! xoxo

[klugpuuo]

almost every puyo~tet single-character headcanon wie have

every character we've put more than three minutes of thought into are gonna be in this post. this *does* leave out a lot of characters, but still includes so many that hopefully that'll make up for it. ^also i forgot about this entirely while writing and tried to add a few characters i literally never think about everat all so you get extra funny commentary i guess

welp! enjoy the ride. and dont forget to like, comment, and subscribe (/lh)

warnings: mentions food, implied self-harm, delusions (not inherently triggering but still), general violence, some madou-era content, death. (more to be added + ask to tag) none of the things mentioned are in much detail.

Madou Monogatari / OG Puyo~Puyo characters:

Arle – 16 (chronologically 20 due to the Madou time stop but doesn’t realize it), has PTSD and ADHD + nonbinary transfem + sex-repulsed and questioning (she/he/they)

Assorted headcanons:

-Her armor was made into a sort of magical puberty blocker by her grandmother, who knew Arle was trans and wanted her to live her life to the fullest. -Although she has never been in an (official) romantic relationship, she’s usually the first person her friends go to for relationship advice. -She stims a lot, usually by twirling her hair around or jumping.

Relationship headcanons:

Partners: She’s in a vaguely romantic relationship with Serilly. “Vaguely” as in they go on dates frequently, kiss a lot, and would live together if they could, but neither is sure if they are actually dating. Friends: She adores Ringo and Amitie and wants to protect both of them – not in the super creepy and sorta patronizing way, but in the “she really cares about them and their well-being” way. Despite thinking that Schezo is an absolute fool at times, she still cares about him quite a bit. She’s come to regret what she did all those years ago, and is determined to make sure that Schezo never remembers it.

-

Schezo – ~200, has ADHD and PTSD + transmasc + homosexual (he/it/gore)

Assorted headcanons:

-Although he can be away from his sword, it’s bonded to his body so strongly that if he is too far away from it for too long he becomes incredibly weak. -He borrowed a thesaurus from Aya and Klug and is not planning on ever giving it back. -He doesn’t remember a single thing that happened before Puyo~7, and can hardly remember anything from then until Puyo~Tetris 2. -After learning about tone indicators, he begins to put “/nx” at the end of *all* of his messages online. Although a few people make fun of him for it, many people find it either endearing or some form of cool, and he’s affectionately known as “the /nx anon” in a few social circles. -His main special interests are forging and dark magic (good for him <3)

Relationship headcanons:

Crushes: He has a slight crush on Lemres, and thinks that Incubus is.. interesting. He also thinks Witch is cute but can’t tell if that’s a crush or what. (Good) friends: He considers Arle to be his best friend, and she’s usually the first person he’d go to for anything. The two actually lived together for a while. Although he thinks Rulue is a fool at times, he still cares about her and thinks she’s pretty impressive. Enemies...?: He once was always looking to pick a fight with Satan, but after (rather awkwardly) remembering that he once saw the prince as a father, he mostly stopped doing that.

-

Rulue – ~40-ish?, experiences delusions + cis lass + questioning (she/her and a few neopronouns)

Assorted headcanons:

-She’s not sure why there are so many people who are like her and at this point she’s wondering if it really is just a coincidence. -She secretly wishes that she could join Arle, Schezo and Witch’s arm-wrestling sessions, but as they’ve been going on for so long without her she feels almost awkward asking. -Although she still experiences delusions sometimes, she’s gotten a lot better at telling what’s true and what’s false.

Relationship headcanons:

Partner… sorta?: She’s sort of in a QPR with Raffina, and they go on platonic dates a lot. (Good) friends: She’s quite good friends with Arle, especially since she’s no longer chasing after Satan. Speaking of Satan, as she’s no longer absolutely obsessed with him she’s actually beginning to get along well with him, and the two regularly have friendly battles.

-

Witch – >16, might be NT + cis lass + omni (she/it)

Assorted headcanons:

-The only thing she can transform people or things into without help of a potion is mushrooms. -She’s surprisingly strong and quite good at arm wrestling. -She’s not sure if she had any sort of neurodiversities, but she doesn’t really care either way.

Relationship headcanons:

Crushes…?: She might have feelings for Arle, but even she doesn’t have any clue. She’s also.. interested in Feli, as she sees Feli as quite the interesting person. Family: She’s an orphan, although she doesn’t mind it. (Good) friends: She’s okay-ish friends with Schezo, and the two usually do arm wrestling matches with Arle in their free time.

-

Satan – ~3000<, only god knows + cis trans man (somehow less than a joke) + pansexual (he/it)

Assorted headcanons:

-As he’s so old and has changed his physical appearance so many times, he’s completely forgotten his original sex, if he even had one. -After getting very literally schooled by Raffina, he realized that his plans to acquire Arle were just never going to work, and after a while of self-reflection he decided that he’d rather spend the rest of eternity doing other things he liked than chasing around an underage lass. -Due to having completely remade the world himself, he feels almost completely disconnected from it. All the people he used to know.. aren’t the same, and it’s destroying him.

Relationship headcanons:

Partners: Misses his dead wife a lot, but is now happily dating (nd half-joke married to) Ex (Chosen) family: After Satan had a good long think about everything, he realized that he did actually care about Lidelle a lot, and now properly sees her as a little sister. Friends: He’s on good terms with Rulue and actually properly hangs out with her sometimes. -

Serilly – >16, has anxiety and experiences delusions + trans lass + questioning (she/her)

Assorted headcanons:

-hgnggng operea

Relationship headcanons:

Partners: She may or may not be dating Arle. (Chosen) family: Although she’s presumably an orphan, she has Suketoudara, who she sees as an older brother figure. Best friend: She platonically loves Harpy a lot, and the two of them spend a lot of time together. - Suketoudara – ~30, NT + about as cis guy as a fish can get + polysexual (he/him)

Assorted headcanons:

-I literally do not think about this guy

Relationship headcanons:

Sibling serilly

Puyo Fever (2) characters:

Amitie – 14 and a half, autistic + binary transfem + fem-leaning panromantic (she/fae/flare)

Assorted headcanons:

-She found out that she was trans when she was 7 years old, and managed to convince her parents to let her transition when she was 12. -She taught herself how to bake, and Arle taught her how to cook more salty things. She regularly makes lunches for her friends, even if they already have their own. -She cares a lot about Sig’s ladybug friend and usually “babysits” them when Sig has to leave to wherever. -Raffina and her are the only two with two parents who haven’t divorced and/or died, but as Amitie's parents are almost always at work she doesn't get to talk to them very much. -She stims by twirling her hair when it’s long, or squishing a puyo-shaped stress ball when it’s short.

Relationship headcanons:

Partners: She’s in a QPR with Sig and Klug, and says she wouldn’t give it up for the world. Crushes: She has a huge crush on Ringo, and a squish on Ess, but she doesn’t think either of them feel the same way. (Chosen) family: She feels rather lucky having contact with both her mother and father, as most of her friends don’t have contact with their own parents. Also, she looks up to Arle a lot, and sees them as an older sibling. Friends(?): Nobody can tell what exactly her relationship with Raffina is, but the most common theory is that they’ve kissed at least twice. Even during Lidelle’s fight with Sig, Amitie supported her, knowing she truly did regret her actions and it was mostly just a big misunderstanding.

-

Klug – 14 and three quarts, autistic and has ADHD + transmasc nonbinary + ace/aroflux (he/they/wir)

Assorted headcanons:

-Although he had initially asked to be called by neopronouns just as a joke, he found he actually liked the wir/worm set a lot, and now tends to go by that exclusively on some days. -On one night he doesn’t remember, all of his cosmetic glasses were mysteriously destroyed, along with all his contact lenses. After that, he stuck to just one pair of functional glasses -He was gifted an “EiPod” by Ringo and Amitie, although only the latter took credit for it. -He stims by humming, writing, and aggressively cleaning his glasses.

Relationship headcanons:

Partners: He’s in a QPR with Sig and Amitie, and secretly wants to leave Primp and travel the world with them both. Chosen family: He sees Feli as both a rival and a sister, and now has come to see Lemres as an older-sibling figure of sorts. Friend: He’s on good terms with Lidelle, and she’s one of the only people who’s younger than he is that he still treats with respect. Rivals(?): He thinks Raffina is pretty rude, and he never lets her go without remembering that he’s better friends with Amitie than she is for more than a month.

-

Sig – 15, autistic and has ADHD + transmasc demilad + biromantic (he/bug/they/it)

Assorted headcanons:

-Doesn’t consider any sort of bug to be his “favorite”, but has a soft spot for ladybeetles, stag beetles and fireflies. -After a failed attempt at acquiring Sig’s power, Aya accidentally gave Sig half of its own power, causing Sig to become slightly more than just a half-demon. -After he scratched himself one too many times, Amitie and Lidelle worked together to make a glove for Sig’s claw hand. -His main special interests are both bugs and history, and he usually stims by repeating words he likes.

Relationship headcanons:

Partners: He’s mostly queerplatonic, partially romantic partners with both Amitie and Klug. During the first half week of their relationship, he was the only one the two felt comfortable cuddling with, which he was completely fine with. Family: Although initially Sig and Aya were almost enemies, they managed to reach an agreement after being left alone together and now see each other as both family and friends. Friends: He’s pretty good friends with Lidelle, and he helps her with bug-related problems whenever she has any. He’s also pretty good friends with Raffina even if they don’t hang out much and he still has trouble with her name. Enemies: Schezo.

-

Raffina – 16, has (canonical) imposter syndrome + transfem + pansexual demiromantic (she/her)

Assorted headcanons:

-As her family is very upper middle class, she was able to medically transition almost immediately after coming out. -She once tried to start a Primp Town Fight Club. It did not go well. -She’s the only person aside from Amitie that has two parents that did not abandon her and are not divorced. Unlike Amitie, however, only her mother works, so she gets to talk to her father frequently.

Relationship headcanons:

Crush: She secretly wants to kiss Lidelle really badly. (Good) friends: Although she was slightly distanced from them during the whole fight ordeal, she’s quite good friends with all the ASK trio. She’s pretty friendly with Ess.

-

Lidelle – 14, has social anxiety + cis lass + questioning (she/her)

Assorted headcanons:

-She feels genuinely sorry for what she did and said to Sig and those bugs, and she’s proud of herself for apologizing. -She likes playing with marbles and has made pretty big marble “race” courses in the past. -She doubts her self-worth a lot, and is worried that others don’t take her very seriously.

Relationship headcanons:

Chosen family: Despite not having any surviving biological family, she’s found a family in the form of Draco and Satan, who have been taking care of her for some time now. Best friend: Lidelle hangs out with Raffina almost constantly, and she considers Raf to be her very best friend. Good friends.. again: After a very large fight with Sig over the fact that her flesh-eating plants killed some of his bugs, she and Sig stopped being friends for a bit. After a lot of talking with Amitie and Raffina, she realized her mistake, and she apologized to Sig – and to her surprise, Sig apologized back. Even during the fight, she and Amitie stayed friends, and Ami gave her a lot of emotional support. She looks up to Klug, although Klug sees her as an equal and even spares a warm smile for her during some of his most jerk-y moments.

-

Lemres – 35, autistic, has SAD and PTSD + transmasc and nonbinary + aroflux/aceflux (they/them, he/him and any candy-related neopronouns)

Assorted headcanons:

-They are actually entirely blind due to personal reasons, and sewed their eyes shut as to not freak others out too much. They “see” by feeling the magic of their environment, and cannot “see” in low-magic areas (they also cannot read faces. At all.) -They have a sort of “vacation house” near Primp which they visit during the summer or any free time they have. The fact that it was built so close to Primp was a coincidence, but something they like very much. -Schezo occasionally “visits” the vacation house for a few months before running off on some random adventure for whatever reason. -Their broom was broken, presumably by Witch as they had fought with her not too long before that. -Su has a certain type of magic that allows sucre to read minds (or at least meaning). -His type of magic does not work on demons for a plethora of reasons. -They usually stim by twirling their staff around and messing with what remains of their broom.

Relationship headcanons:

Partners: They’re in a weird sort-of relationship with Schezo. The relationship informally started after Schezo assisted Lemres during a restless period and it doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon. (Chosen) family: Although they want to keep their distance from their biological family, they’ve found a new family in Primp in the form of the ASK trio (Good) friends: They’re very close to Accord, having know her since Highschool (and even before she made Poipoi).

-

Feli – 16 and a half, experiences delusions and has disorders + transfem + bisexual (she/her evi/evil go/goth)

Assorted headcanons:

-Rather compulsory heterosexuality with her. She doesn’t actually have that much love for Lemres, mainly just lust and a feeling that she has to date or marry him. -She personally believes sharing one’s birthday with someone else is a sign of extreme trust due to Zodiac reasons. -She feels like her gender is influenced by gothic aesthetics, but can’t really describe it further.

Relationship headcanons:

Crushes: She still very obviously has a crush on Lemres, although it’s starting to lessen now that Lemres is in a closed relationship. (Chosen) family: She sees Klug as an annoying little brother, although he’s marginally more mature than she is. (Good) friends: She’s pretty good friends with Lidelle and Raffina.

-

Accord/Poipoi – ???? + cis lass and agender respectively + god knows (she/her for accord, he/it for poipoi)

Assorted headcanons:

-Accord secretly really likes hitting things with her hammer to the point where she’d go quite far in order to get a chance to do so. However, she would never readily admit this as she finds it to be incredibly childish. -Only Accord knows what happened to Lemres’s eyes. -During Highschool, Accord enchanted a puppet and gave it its own thoughts, personality, dreams, etc. That puppet was quite obviously Poipoi.

Relationship headcanons:

(Good) friends: Accord is close friends with Lemres, having known him since Highschool (she was his upperclassman by a few years) and never passes up a chance to talk to him. Poipoi managed to make friends with Aya in a particularly independent moment where it ran away.

-

Ayashii – >800, has a lot of trauma + whats a gender + (it/any neos/they/he/she)

Assorted headcanons:

-It genuinely forgot what a gender was because gender is so unimportant to it. -It somehow found a way to continue being friends with the puppy it rescued, even going so far as to teaching them the difference between it and Klug. -As it has extreme claustrophobia, it tends to take very long walks whenever it’s using Klug’s body.

Relationship headcanons:

Crushes???: Aya has some interest in Lemres and Schezo, but isn’t entirely sure what kind of interest. (Chosen) family: It’s beginning to see Klug as a son of sorts, and recognizes Sig as its descendent. huh what: It doesn’t trust Accord at all, especially knowing (and being friends with) Poipoi as an individual.

-

Yu and Rei - ??? + phasmaeic + (both use she/he/they gho/ghost spec/spectre and dar/dark)

- - -

Relationship headcanons:

Puyo~7 characters:

Ringo – 16, ??? + questioning (demigirl?) + bisexual (she/they)

Assorted headcanons:

-She’s questioning pretty much every single thing about her identity and beliefs to the point where she’s actually been having frequent migraines because of it. -She’s not at all proud to admit it, but she’s not-so-secretly envious of Maguro’s “beauty beam”. -She eats a LOT of things that you’re not meant to eat, to the point where everyone except for Sig (who does the same) is worried for her.

Relationship headcanons:

Crushes: She has small crushes on both Amitie and Tee, although she likes Amitie a *bit* more. Epic friends: She’s best friends with Maguro, and he’s one of the few people she properly trusts (not for edgy reasons, just because). A lot of people assume she’s dating him, which makes her feel pretty uncomfortable, but she doesn’t feel like she can really blame them.

-

Maguro – 16, has ADHD and PTSD (latter from AU) + questioning + bisexual (he/they)

Assorted headcanons:

-He’s questioning the same stuff as Ringo, although he’s a lot more chill about it. -He was pretty scarred, emotionally and physically, after an unfortunate incident concerning a badly thought-out prank, a fishing net, and a timer set to one month -He remembers all of his trauma in perfect clarity, and has good memory overall.

Relationship headcanons:

Partner:He’s been in a romantic relationship with Tee for a few months, and so far it’s been really nice. Best friend: He’s best friends with Ringo, and he feels really comfortable around her. They share almost everything, and are planning on moving in together once they get the chance to have a proper house. Good friends: Although Ris moved away to study abroad a while back, they still send a lot of gifts and letters to him on a regular basis. Also, they’ve been staying in contact with Ess ever since the whole beauty pageant thing and the two go shopping when they’re both free.

-

Risukuma – 19, NT + trans man + male-leaning pansexual (he/him)

Assorted headcanons:

-He’s incredibly interested in all types of love -After graduating school, he decided to study abroad to learn more about other cultures (and of course, love). -He really likes music, even having written some of his own songs in the past. One of his favorite bands is IDKHOW.

Relationship headcanons:

Partner: Despite only having interacted a few times, he’s quite good “friends” with Ai. Good friends: After moving away from Suzuran, he’s not been able to hang out with Ringo or Maguro as much, but he still sends them letters and gifts on a regular basis. What: He does not want to know about Ecolo. Do not tell him about Ecolo.

-

Ecolo – ageless and has so many disorders (affectionate??) + gender + probably so (it/they/he/she/other in that order)

Assorted headcanons:

-If asked, it would describe its gender as “Once In A Lifetime” by Talking Heads. -It’s trying really really hard to respect Ringo’s boundaries nowadays, and not just because she refused to acknowledge its existence for a whole week after it accidentally hurt her. -It can change into its human form at will; however, if it wants to stay in that form for more than a few hours at a time, it has to actually sleep for several days straight. -In its humanoid form, it sports several scars. -It genuinely loves fidget spinners and has this really creepy one it carries everywhere.

Relationship headcanons:

Crush: You know it wants to kiss Ringo so bad. Friends: Ex-friends with Satan because Ringo hates him. Pretty alright friends with Ex and Marle, not entirely sure what to think about Squares. Uh…: After.. an accident it caused, Maguro started to be able to remember it.

Puyo~Tetris characters:

Tee – 16, + trans man + questioning (he/him)

Assorted headcanons:

-He can’t pronounce any name longer than four letters long. Somehow, the worst case of this is with Ringo and Maguro’s names. -Having transitioned at a very young age and only interacting with one lass for most of his life, he has a lot of internalized sexism. After Ringo points this out, he starts trying to work on it, but he hasn’t been doing very well so far. -He’s also trying really hard to find a balance between being too basic and too over-the-top, but..

Relationship headcanons:

Partner: He’s been in a romantic relationship with Maguro for a few months. It’s been really nice, but as this is his first relationship he tends to go all-out with everything, causing Maguro to get rather flustered. Crush: Although he’s very hesitant to admit it, he has a pretty big crush on Ringo and wants to kiss her. Chosen family: O is his parent, Ess and Ai are his siblings, and the twins are his messed up if true gay cousins. Friend: He’s pretty good friends with Sig because of their shared inability to correctly pronounce Raffina’s name.

-

O – infinite, ??? + ???? + probably gay? ????? (any and all pronouns)

Assorted headcanons:

-I cannot reasonably take myself seriously trying to make headcanons for this godforsaken cloud cube -Squares themself made this thing (on accident?) -Anger management issues incarnate

Relationship headcanons:

Parnter: Kissed Carbuncle once eChidle: Tee is its son

-

Ex – ~40, has autism, minor intrusive thoughts and (canon) depression + some form of Guy + yes (he/they)

Assorted headcanons:

-He’s not sure how he identifies gender- and sexuality-wise and feels as if he’s too old to try to figure that out (which isn’t true, but still) -He genuinely misses Ess and Ai a lot and is unendingly grateful for the chance to see them both again. -His intrusive thoughts are usually fairly easy to deal with, but can sometimes get pretty bad if he’s left alone for too long.

Relationship headcanons:

Partners: I’m pretty sure he has an ex-wife somewhere and that scares me. Also he kisses Satan every day of his life (Chosen) family: He misses his children, Ess and Ai, so much. (Good) friends: He’s become reluctant friends with Ecolo, and very good friends with Marle and Squares.

-

Jay & Elle – 13, autistic and have separation anxiety + nonbinary + ??? (they/them)

Assorted headcanons:

-Individually they’re okay with all pronouns, but nobody can reasonably refer to them as separate entities. -After a few people asked them, they stopped bullying Ai as much, but they still “prank” him a lot. -They were separated exactly once. It was not a very good time for them.

Relationship headcanons:

Partners:They’re queerplatonic partners with Yu and Rei, since that’s just kind of what happens when you’re two sets of evil twins who like bothering others. Friends: They don’t really have many friends as their creepiness scares people off a lot, but they like hanging out with Ecolo (even if they forget about it a lot)

-

Ai – 20, has pretty severe anxiety + transmasc + bisexual (he/him)

Assorted headcanons:

-He found out that he was trans after he managed to get a sort of wi-fi thing going during a five-month-long stay in a densely-packed asteroid belt. He had actually medically transitioned before that, but nobody on the SS Tetra had the word for it. -He has exactly one large scar from a prank gone horribly wrong. Otherwise, he’s not been seriously injured by anything the twins have done. - Recently he’s started to become slightly braver in general thanks to a lot of therapy and emotional support from his boyfriend, this has allowed him to stand up to the twins a lot more. He is also more physically strong, and plans to drop kick them both someday.

Relationship headcanons:

Partner: He kisses Risukuma on the daily Chosen family: As he canonically sees Ex as a father, he headcanonically sees Ess as a sister. Pure hatred(/j): He’s no longer as afraid of the tetra twins, and sometimes even manages to prank them back on good days.

-

Ess – ~15, only ex knows. Has serious abandonment issues, apparently canon(?!?!) PTSD, and so many things + cis demilass + lesbiab (she/they/ze)

Assorted headcanons:

-She actually has a job, and on the last weekend of every month she goes shopping with Maguro (or Amitie if he’s busy) on Saturday and Raffina on Sunday with the money she gets. -She kinda wishes that she were more physically strong for a multitude of minor reasons. -Ess doesn’t actually know how to say Ringo’s name and tries really hard to hide that fact.

Relationship headcanons:

Crushes:She’s absolutely in love with Amitie, although she’s in very deep denial about it. Chosen family: She sees Ai as a brother, and the two bond over the fact that Ex totally ditched them to go patch up dimensions or whatever. Speaking of Ex, she’s very recently found it in her heart to maybe forgive him for leaving her when she was young, although she still is a long ways away from seeing him as a father again. Friends: She and Raffina hang out and talk about their insecurities a lot.

-

Zed – uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (he/him)

Assorted headcanons:

-uhhhhhhhhhh -I genuinely don’t think of this guy He reminds me too much of my ex-chosen-father -…to be added.

Relationship headcanons:

Ess is his belovt daughter that’s all you need to know.

Additional headcanons:

-Most of the Madou Monogatari gang feel entirely disconnected from what’s left of their humanity, so they identify with it/its along with whichever other pronouns they use. -Sig, Dark Sig, and the evil Sig from Sig’s Secret are all different entities. -Speaking of Dark Sig, they can actually purr, although Sig himself cannot. Klug thinks this is incredibly interesting and actually conducted several half-serious experiments to try to figure out why. -All of the SS Tetra crew see each other as family, although some have more clearly defined views of that. None of them have any romantic or sexual interest in any other member.

[dragonheartftherpays]

Twi’lek Skin Color Genetics

Hello naughty children, a few weeks ago I spent five hours or so hashing out how Twi’lek skin color works genetically, and now I’m here to make that everyone’s problem. This is going to be a very long post, so I do apologize for that, feel free to hit J on desktop to skip. But it’s interesting, and it’s actually worked for every canon Twi’lek family I’ve tried it for so far (not that there are many to try), so here we go!

And yes, I made APA citations for this. Because I’m a nerd.

How Does Twi’lek Skin Pigmentation Work, Anyway?

Because it’s not as simple as humans. After all, Twi’leks come in a huge range of colors. The first challenge I had to deal with was figuring out how exactly Twi’lek skin coloration works in terms of pigmentation, before I could even start to figure out the genetics behind that.

See, in Earth mammals, most if not all pigmentation comes from melanin. Melanin comes in two forms, eumelanin (black/dark brown) and pheomelanin (reddish), and between the two of them in various concentrations melanin can produce colors ranging between black, brown, gray, red, yellow, and tan (Douma 2008).

Problem: Twi’leks, obviously, come in a lot more colors than that. See, mammals don’t generally produce blue or green pigments. However, you know what does produce green and blue colors? Reptiles and amphibians.

(No, I’m not suggesting Twi’leks are reptiles or amphibians, put that pitchfork down. They can hybridize with Humans, I think it’s pretty solidly canon that they’re mammals.)

So how do reptiles and amphibians produce blue and green colors? Well, instead of their coloration being based solely on melanin like us, many reptiles and amphibians have cells called chromatophores, cells containing certain types of pigments. Chromatophores generally come in three layers, from top to bottom: xanthophores, which contain yellow pigments called pteridines, iridophores, which don’t contain a true pigment but instead contain platelets which reflect mostly bluish light through physical structure and thus act as a blue “pigment,” and melanophores, which produce melanin. The topmost layer can also contain erythrophores, which contain reddish-orange/orange pigments called carotenoids (aka the reason you’re always told that if you eat enough carrots you can turn orange). Between differing amounts of each of these cells and their respective pigments, the three layers of chromatophores can produce a wide array of colors (Douma 2008).

Wide enough to cover all known wild type (naturally occurring, without mutation or intentional genetic manipulation via breeding) Twi’lek skin colors? Let’s find out.

Thanks to Wookieepedia, we do have a list of canon colors Twi’leks can come in, although I take issue with some of them (Twi’lek 2020).

Known wild-type colors: blue, green, tan/pale, orange, pink, purple, teal, yellow Known mutations: Albinism, leucism, red (erythrism?), vitiligo

Cosdra seems to have vitiligo, but it might be paint - it’s hard to tell (Cosdra 2019). Technically, since pink/red eyes do exist as a wild type in Twi’leks, it’s possible Bib Fortuna isn’t actually albino and just happens to have white skin and red eyes, but given how rare white skin seems to be and how he’s portrayed, I’m assuming him to be albino (Bib Fortuna 2020). Leucism, partial loss of pigmentation that most often results in white skin/hair/fur and dark eyes, is also a guess, technically speaking. We see what appears to be leucism in Lyn Me, with “true white” skin and dark eyes, but it’s not confirmed officially; however, due to how rare white skin seems to be, I am comfortable assuming Lyn Me to be an example of a leucistic Twi’lek (if she isn’t, she may instead be an EnEnii genotype with very little melanin production, as discussed later) (Lyn Me 2020).

Wookieepedia claims Twi’leks can have black skin, but it doesn’t have a citation, and I took the time to click through the entire list of canon Twi’lek characters and didn’t find a single black-skinned Twi’lek (”true black,” not dark-skinned). If a Legends character exists with “true black” skin, I feel comfortable assuming that to be an example of a melanism mutation or something similar, rather than a wild type color morph, due to its rarity.

Red being labeled a mutation is interesting, and I believe it’s technically Legends instead of strictly canon material, but I also didn’t find any counterexamples in canon, which leads me to believe it may as well be considered canon (Lethan 2020). I’ll talk more about the “true red” color mutation later in this post.

For now, we have a list of wild type skin colors. Can chromatophores, with variation between the various pigment cells, account for all the different colors Twi’lek skin can take on?

The answer is yes.

I didn’t take the time to chart out a hypothetical melanophore variation chart, since in most phenotypes how much of each type of melanin is present merely affects the saturation and brightness of the dominant color. Anyway, I imagine melanophore genetics would be more similar to human skin color genetics to begin with.

But Dragon, I hear you ask, I don’t see teal on this chart! Patience. We’re getting there. Because in order to talk about teal skin color, we have to talk about the actual genetics - teal comes from two incompletely dominant alleles being expressed together, rather than being a trait with its own allele.

So let’s get into the genetics, then!

The Genetics Behind It All

I’m going to put the Punnett square hell I went through beneath a cut at the bottom of this post for anyone who’s interested in seeing my evidence for this conclusion, and for everyone else I’m just going to put my conclusions.

I’ve assigned each allele an abbreviation, although they don’t display properly on Tumblr because I don’t know how to do subscript and superscript or if Tumblr supports that in the first place:

Ex: Xanthophores (yellow pigment) present. Ee: Erythrophores (reddish-orange/orange pigment) present. En: Neither xanthophores nor erythrophores present/both nonfunctional.

I: Iridophores (blue “pigment”) present. i: Iridophores not present/nonfunctional.

For the purposes of figuring out this system, I actually used a hybrid family, the Lawquanes.

Wait, hold on, why a hybrid family? Well, first off because they’re the ones who started all this, because someone pointed out how the hell did a pink mom and Human dad end up with a teal-and-tan child and an orangey-tan child? So I wanted to answer that question in a way that also fit any other canon Twi’lek families.

However, using this family had another advantage, as I quickly realized: because Cut Lawquane, the father of the children, is Human, we know his genotype for the purposes of the relevant first two layers of chromatophores: he doesn’t have them. He’s homozygous for both non-expression traits: EnEnii. That simplified figuring out the genotypes of the children and his wife a ton - in fact, I’m not sure it would have been possible to extrapolate those answers, if not for the fact that we know his genotype for these traits 100% for certain.

So without putting you through the whole process, this is what I came to:

Suu Lawquane (mother): EeExIi (pink phenotype) Cut Lawquane (father): EnEnii (tan/melanin-only phenotype) Shaeeah Lawquane (daughter): ExEnIi (teal phenotype*) Jek Lawquane (son): EeEnii (orange/tan phenotype**)

* I’m not dealing with the patching Shaeeah has going on because I’m assuming that’s an effect of hybridization on her phenotype, since we haven’t seen markings like that on any canon full-blood Twi’leks. I’m assuming teal to be her “base” phenotype as far as Twi’lek genes go, since teal obviously isn’t a color we see in Humans. ** I’m genuinely not sure whether to call that skin color orange or tan, nor do I know whether Ee or En is dominant or if they even have a simple dominance relationship - more on that in a moment - so I’m leaving that be. The point stands.

So these are the rules of dominance we end up with:

1. I (iridophores present) is dominant over i (no iridophores present/functional). Evidence: Suu Lawquane must be heterozygous Ii in order to have produced both a teal (I phenotype) and tan/orange (i phenotype) child with her homozygous ii husband. Furthermore, Shaeeah would be yellowish-tan if i were dominant over I, since she must be heterozygous due to having a homozygous ii father and yet displaying the I trait as her phenotype.

2. Ex and En are incompletely dominant with each other. Evidence: this is how you get teal children, a mix between blue (EnEn) and green (ExEx). An EeEx x EnEn pairing is capable of producing an ExEn child (Shaeeah), which tracks with this logic.

3. Ee (erythrophores present) is dominant over Ex (xanthophores present). Evidence: Suu Lawquane must be heterozygous EeEx in order to have produced both a teal (ExEn phenotype) and an orange/tan (Ee and/or En phenotype) child with an EnEn husband while still displaying the Ee phenotype (pink) herself. Since she displays a strong Ee phenotype and must also have an Ex allele, the Ee allele must therefore be dominant over the Ex allele.

These rules can be applied to other Twi’lek families, as well - for instance, the Syndullas (not counting Jacen Syndulla, both because he wouldn’t be an interesting addition due to his Twi’lek influence being Also A Green Phenotype and because I will never forgive Rebels for that horrible boring hybrid design) work out to:

Cham Syndulla: EeExii (orange phenotype) Tislera Syndulla: ExExIi or ExExII (green phenotype, not enough data to prove conclusively whether she’s heterozygous Ii or homozygous II) Hera Syndulla: ExExIi (green phenotype)

Because En and Ex are incompletely dominant, neither Tislera nor Hera can be ExEn, and they must be homozygous ExEx because Ee is dominant over Ex. Because Ee is dominant over Ex and his daughter must be homozygous Ex, Cham must therefore be EeEx, showing the Ee phenotype but carrying the recessive Ex allele which he passed on to his daughter.

There is one small problem: We still don’t know for sure the relationship between Ee and En. I just don’t have enough data to figure it out. I went through the entire list of canon Twi’lek characters on Wookieepedia and didn’t find a single family with the right color combinations and enough data to figure it out. I even went through some Clone Wars crowd shots in hopes of finding some, only to discover that apparently the Clone Wars series doesn’t really use child models in their crowd shots, only adults. Maybe someday I’ll go through the entire list of Legends Twi’lek characters in hopes of finding a family with the right genetics to solidify my guesses, but for now, all I have to go on is how common various phenotypes are. Which isn’t perfect, because how common a trait is doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with whether it’s dominant or recessive if it’s an advantageous trait, but it’s all we have. My current hypothesis is that En is dominant over Ee, because blue and tan are both more common phenotypes than purple and orange, but that wouldn’t hold up to the standards of biology by any stretch of the imagination. I simply don’t have enough data to give you a better answer, unfortunately. Maybe some of the new media coming out, like the High Republic series, will give me that - I don’t know. They might not even have a simple dominance relationship; they might be incompletely dominant with each other like Ex and En are, producing bluish-purple, though I find this unlikely given the phenotypes we’ve seen in Star Wars media thus far.

So Why is Red Skin a Mutation?

It’s an oddly specific thing to be labeled a mutation, because you’d think it would just be a variation of the Ee-i phenotype, which normally produces orange or reddish-orange. In order for this to make sense, we have to assume one of two scenarios:

a) Erythrophores in Twi’leks are typically more orange than red, or b) The melanin produced in orange Twi’leks (the Ee-i phenotype) prevents a “true red” from showing as the final skin tone.

In the first option:

1) True red is produced by an erythrophore mutation that causes the carotenoids produced to be more red than normal.

In the second option:

2) True red is produced by a lack of melanin, leaving the final visual color completely dependent on the red/reddish-orange carotenoids rather than mellowing it to orange, or 3) True red is produced by a mutation in the melanophores that cause them to produce only a very red pheomelanin with no eumelanin to balance it out.

Alternatively to both of these:

4) True red is produced by a mutation in the xanthophores in a Twi’lek lacking iridophores (the Ex-i phenotype), causing them to produce a true red pigmentation rather than the yellow pteridines they would normally produce.

Even in Legends, as far as I could find, we don’t have any families of Lethan Twi’leks (Twi’leks with the true red mutation), so I have no evidence to support any of these possibilities (Lethan 2020). However, in any of these cases, the mutation would be rare, not only because the genetic mutation itself is rare, but also because it must occur simultaneously with a specific set of other conditions to produce the true red coloration: 1) and 2) must occur in conjunction with the Ee-i phenotype (and in the case of 1, presumably with melanin that’s light enough to not obscure the true red coloration), 3) must occur either with the Ee-i or En-i phenotype, and 4) must occur in conjunction with the Ex-i phenotype. Since I is dominant over i and seems to be the more common trait, that helps explain why the true red mutation(s) is/are so rare.

Bonus: Why Do Twi’leks Come In So Many Colors, Anyway?

(This section is entirely conjecture and headcanon on my part.)

Because, really, most species tend to consolidate until they’re almost identical color-wise, because the environment tends to select for a given color scheme. However, there are instances in which this is not the case. Personally, my headcanon explanation for this is that Twi’leks as a species tend to have a preference for the unique - if you’re the only person in a group with your skin color (or some other notable physical characteristic), you’re more likely to be found attractive than if you’re in a group of people with the same skin color (or other physical characteristic). This is a form of negative frequency-dependent selection, in which the fitness of a given trait or genotype decreases as it becomes more common (Frequency-Dependent Selection 2020). Negative frequency-dependent selection is itself a form of balancing selection, which serves to actively maintain multiple alleles in a population rather than selecting preferentially for one trait (Balancing Selection 2020).

(What’s the evolutionary advantage behind finding the unique attractive? Who knows. But the point is, it is feasible, and negative frequency-dependent selection is something we see out in the real world.)

In Conclusion

In conclusion, it turns out there actually is a system that works consistently to predict the genotypes and phenotypes of Twi’lek families, with the small exception of not having enough data to determine the dominance relationship in one out of the four allele pair relationships yet. If you know of a canon or Legends Twi’lek family, feel free to try to apply this! If it doesn’t seem to work, feel free to poke me about it, and I’ll see if I can make it work - if I can’t, I’ll have to take another look at the system. (Heck, apply it to your own OCs and see if it works, if you want - or use it to predict offspring traits of various pairings, if you like.) I learned a good bit about chromatophores and pigmentation in animal biology while doing this, and I hope you enjoyed the ride and maybe learned something too. Reblogs are always appreciated if you enjoyed yourself, found this interesting, or learned something! Thank you for reading! (And don’t forget, if you’re interested in reading about the process of how I figured all this out, the screenshots of that are below the cut!)

References

Bib Fortuna. (2020, April 4). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bib_Fortuna.

Balancing Selection. (2020, April 18). In Wikipedia. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balancing_selection.

Cosdra. (2019, September 9). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cosdra.

Douma, M., curator. (2008). Biological Pigments. In Cause of Color. Retrieved 30 March 2020 from http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/7I.html.

Frequency-Dependent Selection. (2020, April 15). In Wikipedia. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-dependent_selection.

Lethan. (2020, April 13). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lethan

Lyn Me. (2020, April 4). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lyn_Me.

Twi'lek. (2020, April 20). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Twi%27lek.

Bonus: The Process

Because y’all deserve to see my screaming in full. This was a five-hour process, do remember. Everything from hereonout has been just copy-pasted from the Discord server where I liveblogged the process of figuring this system out. Some things I said at various points were wrong, because that’s how the process works. Please note that I was also using different notation for the top-layer alleles at this point: E instead of Ee, X instead of Ex, and e instead of En. This did get confusing at one point because I forgot that it was X (Ex) and e (En) that had the more complicated dominance relationship and not E (Ee) and e (En), which was my fault.

[sssrha]

WangXian wouldn’t have been very functional pre-Wei Wuxian’s resurrection

So I was talking to @litescheme on Twitter and I decided to pour my heart out about how I hated the general fandom consensus that Wei Wuxian going to Gusu when Lan Wangji asked him to would have solved all of his problems, primarily because the idea of just straight up going to Gusu is incredibly flawed. Lo and behold, they agreed wholeheartedly. We had a great discussion and now I’m here to relay the discussion onto Tumblr in essay form uwu.

(By the way, this is based mostly on CQL with a good bit of novel added in, as well as a few hints of the donghua.)

Part One: “Come back to Gusu!” is a great romantic notion but a terrible plan of action.

First of all, one must ask the question: what on Earth was Lan Wangji’s game plan with the whole “Come back to Gusu!” thing? I think we can all agree that most of the Lan Sect hated Wei Wuxian - by the end, at least. Lan Xichen certainly had less than charitable feelings toward him. With such a hostile environment, the only way I can see Wei Wuxian surviving within the Sect is while being forced into a Madam Lan-type situation. I find that prospect more reminiscent of a horror movie than a heartwarming fic about healing.

Luckily for us, we can safely say that canon Lan Wangji would not have done that! Due to certain childhood trauma, Lan Wangji definitely would not have forced Wei Wuxian to do anything, go anywhere, or stay anywhere that he didn’t want to. That isn’t even touching on how much Lan Wangji genuinely wanted Wei Wuxian to be happy, and forcing Wei Wuxian to do anything had generally been proven to not make him happy. Good on him!

The next point: why would Wei Wuxian have gone to Gusu in the first place? Even while ignoring WangXian’s rampant misunderstandings, Wei Wuxian always actively had a reason to not go to Gusu. During the Sunshot Campaign, he was a major player and commanded a huge amount of power that probably aided the Sects greatly. During his stay in the Burial Mounds, he had a community of war prisoners to protect. How could he go to Gusu?

I’ve seen fics where Lan Wangji ensured the safety of the Wen Remnants, and while I absolutely adore the trope, I really don’t see that happening with canon Lan Wangji. First, I don’t think he’d grown as a person enough to fully rebel against his Sect until Wei Wuxian was in immediate danger, and second, I straight up don’t think that he had the sway to. Pulling that kind of stunt implies a good deal of political power within the Sect...and also implies that Lan Wangji would have had enough power to escape a punishment which he clearly never thought he deserved. However, I could be wrong on this point! Politics has never been my forte. 

Also, I don’t think anyone can bank on the Lan Sect accepting the Wen Remnants. After all, the Lan Sect participated in the First Siege of the Burial Mounds and thus, presumably, also the slaughter of the Wen Remnants.

Upon further reflection, I figured that the only time Wei Wuxian might have actually gone to Gusu was that brief period of time after the Sunshot Campaign and before he met Wen Qing. However, for him to agree, I figured that three things had to happen:

Wei Wuxian had to understand that Lan Wangji wanted to help him, not hurt him.

Wei Wuxian had to come to the (false!) conclusion that Jiang Cheng no longer needed his help or support at Lotus Pier.

Wei Wuxian had to accept that he was worth saving in the first place.

(The concept came pre-set with some delicious Yunmeng Bros angst because Jiang Cheng would almost certainly take Wei Wuxian (permanently) going to Gusu the same way he took Wei Wuxian taking the Wen Remnants to the Burial Mounds: a betrayal, a promise broken. Emotionally, of course. There definitely wouldn’t have been political pressure closing in from all sides the way there was in canon.)

I was going to expand on that concept, but then I hit a bit of a hurdle: I genuinely did not, and still do not, see any reason for Wei Wuxian to actually go to Gusu. At that point, Wei Wuxian was doing everything he felt he needed to: he protected Jiang Cheng because Madam Yu told him to (and because he genuinely cared for him, but Madam Yu’s command was his driving force) and he only left Jiang Cheng when Wen Qing - someone he perceived himself owing a greater debt to due to the golden core removal - came along. When looking at it from that regard, I don’t think Wei Wuxian would ever see a reason to go to Gusu.

So, even after clearing up the miscommunication, Lan Wangji would have to present a good reason for Wei Wuxian to listen to him. 

I don’t think Lan Wangji going up to Wei Wuxian and saying, “Please come back to Gusu, I want to protect you,” would have worked. Considering how prideful Wei Wuxian was back then - with a good bit of it justified when you consider the fact that he killed a large amount of people in a single night during the Pledge Conference (though the exact number is never actually confirmed as far as I remember) - I don’t see Wei Wuxian taking the implication that he needs protection very well. No matter how many good intentions Lan Wangji had, he would have ended up offending Wei Wuxian at that point.

Another route Lan Wangji could have taken: “Please come back to Gusu, I want to play Cleansing for you.” Again, I don’t think this would have worked. (At least, that was definitely his stance in CQL and Wei Wuxian still didn’t do anything.) In Chapter 78, Wei Wuxian mentioned that the Sound of Lucidity had no effect on him. The Sound of Lucidity is, presumably, one of the Song(s) of Clarity, of which Cleansing is the most powerful. Lan Wangji used the Sound of Lucidity at the Pledge Conference after the battle had started. I don’t exactly know why he didn’t use Cleansing when it was more powerful... Either way, after he played the Sound of Lucidity, Wei Wuxian said, “You should’ve known since long ago—Sound of Lucidity is useless to me!” Thus, Lan Wangji asking him to go to Gusu so he could play Cleansing probably wouldn’t have seemed like an especially compelling reason to Wei Wuxian.

After some thought, I figured that post-resurrection, Wei Wuxian agreed to stay with Lan Wangji in the Cloud Recesses after the mystery was solved because:

He was not as prideful as pre-death Wei Wuxian.

He saw no reason to go back to Lotus Pier since Jiang Cheng made it very clear that he was unhappy with him.

He managed to process and confess his feeling to Lan Wangji, who did the same.

Pre-death Wei Wuxian has none of this. Basically, Wei Wuxian at that point had no reason to go to Gusu for anything other than a short visit.

Now, I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but this entire time I’ve been ignoring not only the reality that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s relationship pre-death was...very bad, but also something else very important: the Stygian Tiger Seal. 

The Stygian Tiger Seal was, of course, stupidly powerful, and Wei Wuxian only kept it because it would take too much time and energy to destroy, and it was meant to deter anyone from attacking him since he already knew that so many people were against him. One of his main fears was someone else - someone with impure motives - getting their hands on it, so of course he was paranoid wondering who would try to steal it from him. Lan Wangji asking him to go to a place where Wei Wuxian would be surrounded by people who hated his form of cultivation? Yeah, that didn’t sound that great. 

(Also, can we please take a moment to appreciate this excerpt from the novel: “The Stygian Tiger Seal’s powers were considerably greater than what he had imagined. He originally wanted to use it to assist him, but its powers were almost exceeding him, its creator” (Chapter 30). Almost. He said the Seal was not as powerful as him! The Stygian Tiger Seal was, indeed, strong, but he was more so! I see a lot of fanfics paint the Stygian Tiger Seal as what made him so terrifying and...it was certainly a part of it, but he did most of it on his own! Ah, we love terrifying main characters~)

Now, I’ve acknowledged the existence of WangXian’s miscommunication, but I’ve never actually addressed it. So, here it is: I do not think Lan Wangji confessing to Wei Wuxian (even before his stint in the Burial Mounds after the Bloodbath at Nevernight) would have gone well. In Chapter 2, there is this excerpt: “Wei WuXian’s eyebrows twitched. Not only a lunatic, a homosexual lunatic as well.” This requires a bit of interpretation because it’s not exactly clear what Wei Wuxian’s eyebrow twitch means, but I’ve always interpreted it as annoyance - or even disgust - at the addition of “homosexual” to Mo Xuanyu’s profile. I’m not saying that Wei Wuxian was necessarily homophobic before the entire events of the novel, but I sincerely don’t think Wei Wuxian would have appreciated Lan Wangji - or any other man, for that matter - confessing to him. If even (immediate) post-resurrection Wei Wuxian had that attitude, I can imagine what would have gone through pre-death Wei Wuxian’s head. 

So, Sunshot Campaign, post-Sunshot Campaign, and Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian would all definitely not go back to Gusu, nor would they appreciate a confession from Lan Wangji. That leaves the question: what about pre-Sunshot Campaign Wei Wuxian?

Part Two: Why I really don’t think WangXian would have worked out pre-Sunshot Campaign.

From here on out, “Wei Ying, come back to Gusu!” is no longer relevant because, well, Lan Wangji never said it before the meeting in the supervisory office. (And I think I’ve made my point regarding that as well as I could.)

Starting with Cloud Recesses-era Wei Wuxian...I think that, out of all the different versions of Wei Wuxian, he would have been the one of the two most-likely to get together with Lan Wangji (pre-resurrection, of course). Even then, I don’t see that high a likelihood of that actually happening. Why? Repression! Fuck both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were so deeply repressed at that point! Lan Wangji was obviously more aware of his feelings, and Wei Wuxian...I don’t know, I haven’t read the novel far enough to actually have this be a legitimate interpretation, but looking at CQL, I don’t really think Wei Wuxian was in love with Lan Wangji at that point (but I don’t have much evidence to back that up other than my a-spec radar...).

And even if they did somehow manage to overcome their repression - and actually both had feelings for each other in the first place - they were still teenagers! Fifteen at the beginning, I’m pretty sure, and fifteen-year-olds are decidedly bad at maintaining any sort of relationship. That doesn’t even touch on the fact that WangXian was probably legitimately incompatible at that point. Lan Wangji still lived and breathed the rules and Wei Wuxian didn’t give a fuck about them. To maintain any sort of long-term relationship, they’d have to simultaneously undergo a whole novel of character development...which is doable! But! I don’t exactly see it as plausible.

Then, of course, Wei Wuxian got kicked out of the Cloud Recesses and WangXian didn’t see each other until two years later, at the Discussion Conference in Qishan. I don’t really see long-distance relationships working out very well in ancient China, so I can’t imagine them properly maintaining their relationship throughout that. And, of course, Lan Wangji’s rage after Wei Wuxian pulls his forehead ribbon was also due to his repression. Considering how short the Discussion Conference seemed to be, I don’t think there was much room for a relationship to develop. 

At the Indoctrination Camp, Lan Wangji had a whole swarm of things to worry about other than his (frankly painful) pining for Wei Wuxian so, again, I don’t see a romantic relationship developing at that point in time. 

A time-frame that I think can be uniquely isolated as a very possible place to develop their relationship would be while they were trapped in the cave with the Tortoise of Slaughter. Mostly before they killed the beast, though, since afterward, Wei Wuxian had too much of a fever for any romantic shenaniganry. My reasoning is that the cave was the first time since Wei Wuxian’s punishment in the Cloud Recesses that the two of them were forced to spend a long stretch of time together, and thus could potentially open up to each other. I remember in the anime that Lan Wangji sheds a few tears as he mentions that the Cloud Recesses had burned, that his brother was missing, and that his father was...dead? Severely injured? One of those two. He was back in business-mode pretty soon afterward, but if Lan Wangji could have been persuaded to open up a bit more by an persistent and concerned Wei Wuxian, I can see a slow confession being teased out of him - there was certainly enough time!

Then again, them getting together would only happen if Wei Wuxian were both comfortable with the idea of gay men and willing to accept that he was, in fact, attracted to Lan Wangji, and if Lan Wangji were willing to let go of the rules enough to be comfortable with Wei Wuxian’s naturally rebellious nature.

After that, WangXian doesn’t meet again until the supervisory office, and I’ve already talked about all of that.

In conclusion, “Come back to Gusu!” was sweet but misguided and WangXian wouldn’t have effectively happened pre-resurrection.

Now, what does that mean for you? ...Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. This doesn’t mean I’m forsaking all fics where WangXian gets together pre-resurrection (in fact, I absolutely love them!) and I’m definitely not trying to say that my interpretation is the only right one. I’m not trying to police what everyone thinks and decree that all fics where Wei Wuxian is open about liking men are wrong or any crap like that. Those fics are great and I love them! These are my (and @litescheme’s) thoughts on the matter that I (we) wanted to spill out into the greater world! You can agree, you can disagree, you can ignore me (us) entirely! But if you read through this meta, then I’m assuming that you found the concept interesting. That is all I was going for!

(Well, that and trying to thoroughly debunk the notion that Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian getting shoved into seclusion in the Jingshi by an apologetic Lan Wangji would be in any way “healing” or even “good” for Wei Wuxian, because honestly? Fuck that.)

Ahh, thanks for reading!

[thebadchoicemachine]

Lark

Heads up: takes place in the middle of a story, like a chapter from a book. really just a character introduction. SO all you need to know is Karl, Quackity, and Sapnap got split into different parts of themselves and Lark had to help manually put them back together while Karl was fixing himself. 

tw, a lot of existential and metaphysical talk. 

----

The three figures stood a ways from him. He watched as they felt themselves, felt each other, hugged each other. He could see them. He listened as they laughed, as relief and apologies seeped from their voices. He knew he could hear them. He observed as they grew closer, as they understood they had seen and felt parts they had hidden from each other. He knew what feeling was. 

Still, he only stood. He could experience that, it had been hours but it still was so odd. That’s another thing, he was aware of time, he understood ‘then’ and ‘now’ and ‘later.’ He knew what awkwardness was as one of the now complete figures caught his eye. (Quackity, he knew he was called Quackity.) He didn’t do anything to shake the gaze, only slowly blinking. Quackity reached over to tap the other (Sapnap) for attention. They leaned over each other whispering. 

He knew Karl. He was- he wasn’t Karl. He wasn’t even close to being Karl but he knew him. He held every thought and feeling he’d had but only in the back of his mind. They weren’t his thoughts or feelings, he just knew what Karl knew to an extent.

He didn’t exactly... know... what to do. He had needed to put Quackity and Sapnap together while Karl worked on unfragmenting himself. That had been simple. A set of instructions driving his movements. A need, a goal, one set for him. Just like always but- no, this was different. This was so very different, he’d never needed to come up with one on his own. He’d never wanted to. 

He could want. 

He’d always had objectives but here he had a desire to complete them. Before he simply... did. It was so strange how he’d attempted to do his purpose. He had needed Karl to understand what he didn’t even understand because he didn’t understand anything until a little while ago. He didn’t know, he just was. He didn’t try, he just did. He had been teaching without even existing himself, no wonder Karl had never caught on! He still had his original purpose but he was so much more than that now. 

He now had words and thoughts and... feelings... he’d deal with that one later. For now, he had to figure out- he needed to- oh, this was so much. He wished he... he... ugh, words were so strange to work with. Even in his mind, the preemptive nature of everything and the blaring constant of hindsight and foresight, it was all at once and yet so much slower. He needed to calm down, reorganize himself like Karl did when overwhelmed. He knew how to do that, didn’t he? 

Find a point to begin thinking. He wanted to have a clear mind. He wanted. He had a will. That was... odd. He was certain he wasn’t capable of that before. He’d always been, of course. Before Karl was even fully tied together at all he had been. He’d simply been something else. Something soft and notional, something abstract and far less... aware. He (in fact, was it even he? He. His. Him. Himself. Yes, he didn’t mind that. Oh. That was weird, being able to mind or not mind something.) 

“Hey!” 

He didn’t jump, although he felt he should have. He had been lost in thought. Huh. That was almost familiar. It reminded him of how he had been before, the way it required much less... consciousness. 

“HEY! Hello?” 

A finger jabbed into his shoulder. Quackity was prodding him while Sapnap peered inquisitively, both studying him with absolutely no idea what they were looking for. Karl stared from behind them, emotions also quizzical but jarringly relatable. He assumed Karl felt similarly to him; after all, they were experiencing the same thing. Meeting each other. Karl, of course, hadn’t needed to understand it while splintered but now- oh right, he experienced time now and had not responded to their addressing of him in the appropriate span. Huh. He opened his mouth to remedy the situation but squeaked, finding himself at a loss of articulation. He had- he knew- how did he express? What was this? His inability to answer made him feel… he felt… oh! Oh, he was frustrated. That didn’t help him at all but it was neat to know.

“What’s da matter with this one?” Quackity demanded, still poking him. “Why hasn’t it gone back into Karl? Is this bad? What do we do?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t look like it’s responding.” Sapnap loudly clapped in front of him. He felt himself jerk against his will at the smack. What? Why? It was custom and completely expected to flinch at such disturbances but he hadn’t reacted in such ways… yet…

Oh.

Oh, he was aware now. 

Uh oh. Oh. Oh? He was aware of being aware, he had been for hours now, but suddenly it was sinking in. He was aware of how much he took in without being aware of it. Sounds, smells, sights, the feel of the air, it all fizzled around him. He was him. He’d- he’d essentially just been born (even though he’d existed for much, much, longer). Oh wow. He could think, he could truly know, he could understand, he was him. Hmm. Now that he needed to use his newfound ability to think he found it… a lot. 

“Mmmhh,” without meaning to, he let out a light groan. 

“OH FUCK!” Quackity jumped back. “It said somethin’!” 

“What’s with its face? It looks like a loading screen. Is it your skepticism or cognizance or something?” Sapnap turned to Karl, who still mirrored him but seemed to be able to sort his words better. Practice, he supposed. Karl closed his mouth into a small, almost apologetic, smile, and straightened himself. He wondered when he would be able to settle and organize his thought so well. The way Karl was able to back-shelf what was most likely the same, or at least a similar, swarm of thoughts and feelings sparked something of a soft envy in him. 

Karl opened his mouth again, stuttering faintly as he found the words to properly answer. “That’s not me.”

“No... I’m not,” he latched onto Karl’s statement like a lifeline but it barely showed in his, unbroken and unused, monotone voice. He guessed he was… relieved? Was that it? He was relieved they couldn’t see his struggle. 

“Woah,” Sapnap took a step back. He understood. Unlike him and Karl, who were off because they knew they didn’t know, Quackity and Sapnap had zero understanding at all. It was probably bizarre to have him sound and look like Karl yet speak and act with such a desaturated, inexperienced, difference. 

“So... wait- what?” 

“I am not Karl. I am... an ‘other.’ The Other.” 

“Why were you a part of- where did it- he- come from then?” 

“Yeah...” Karl tilted his head, squinting. “Uh, I don’t know.” 

“WHAT?” 

“I mean, I know him, sort of, just can’t... understand it exactly?” 

“I am your other. You’re place in the Inbetween, your existence, is tied with mine. I am something like a loose thread from your tapestry except sewn into one of my own. I know you and you know me, I am a part of you and you are a part of me, but we are not each other. We’re... complimentary in existence.” 

“Huh?”

“What?” 

“I get that... and I also don’t,” Karl frowned, squinting more. “Where did you come from? I know you were always here but now you’re...” he trailed off making a motion with his hands. 

“Uh, forgive me. Words and thoughts are new. I am not- I was not before. Not me, anyway. I’ve existed for a very long time but I was not aware. Being a person is recent. Extremely recent. Like, hours ago recent. The only reason I’m so functional is that I have your understanding to go off of but, clearly, I am in need of experience.” 

“Hours ago... you mean when we split?”

“Yes. My understanding is when you were split all parts of you were completely severed from each other, including me. Had I been cognizant at the time I would have described it as... terrifying. Uh- lonely. We are connected and I had never been not with you. Though, I was not me yet so it’s okay... I guess. Besides, It only lasted a few moments as the Inbetween began to put you back together. When that happened I think it shook something in me, being completely separated and then so strongly reattached opened something. I was rebooted, essentially, and now I have a mind just like you do.” He curled and uncurled his fingers as he spoke, realizing something. “And... my own form? I suppose?” 

“Hold on,” Quackity interrupted. “If youse was- or rather wasn’t, how do you know about before you became aware? Why aren’t you like an infant? At least mentally?” 

“As I said before, I know of everything Karl knows… in a way.”

“What way is that?”

“Uh, I don’t know everything he knows, I don’t have a copy of his mind or anything, but I know of everything. As to how I remember when I didn’t have a mind? I don’t know exactly. All I can say is it’s like remembering thoughts from when you were asleep. Not a dream, just when you’re collecting moments but not awake. Does that make sense?”

“Uh, not really, but carry on,” Sapnap shrugged. “What are you?” 

“Uh, okay… let me… make words. Hmm, so, imagine if your shadow or reflection came to life. It’s not you, right? It’s not you at all, you are completely separate things, but there is still such a strong association. I am Karl’s reflection.” He looked towards the reflective walls and pointed at the lack of him and Karl. “I am literally Karl’s reflection. I am not only that but that is how I manifested before (and still do, I guess).” 

“Woah,” Sapnap whispered as he realized the lack of reflection. 

The four stood in silence for a moment. He blinked, waiting for a response but got nothing. Was this his first awkward silence? Huh. It felt much less than he thought it would, although he might just still be numb in terms of reactions. Maybe they were just waiting on him? Was it his job to break the silence in this situation? He shrugged internally, he might as well try. “Well, that’s mostly it. I’m here now. Hello.” He gave a light wave. 

“Wait, so what are you?” 

“I just expl-“ 

“No, no, no, I get the metaphysical stuff” Karl waved dismissively “but you’re not just my reflection. You’re... a part of me like you said before but I’m not just a part of you. You have something else going on, right? What were you before now? What are you? Or, I guess I’m asking ‘why’ are you. I feel like- I know you have a purpose that isn’t just being the opposite of me.”

“Right!” His eyes lit up, remembering an old goal. He needed to correct Karl, to get him to start functioning the way he was meant to. “I am not your opposite! I am your inverse. I do the work you do not, as you do the work I do not.” 

“Huh?” 

“The reason you were- well, you weren’t really created. That would imply some kind of intent that was not there. The role you were evolved to fill. To collect, to round, to fight and stabilize the contents I protect and care for.“

“Contents?”

“Of... everything. There are- I- I- cannot think of how to- you’ll have to excuse me, I just became less than a day ago and have, without hyperbole, all of existence to explain. I am not used to using words. Or understanding. Or even knowing really. I was a concept with just a driving force and now being able to want and understand when I fail and it all.... oh. Yeah. I’m struggling.” He stumbled back, feeling lightheaded. The reality of it all would not stop crashing over him. It was very inconvenient and uncomfortable and he would very much like for it to stop. 

He must have visibly paled because the others immediately began showing concern. “It’s okay! Calm down a little, let’s talk about something else. Don’t strain yourself,” Sapnap pleaded. 

Quackity looked like he was getting ready to catch him, as if he was going to faint. “Yeah, like, um, why was Karl made alive but you weren’t?” 

“Oh,” he snatched onto the change of subject, thankful. He did not want to keep experiencing being overwhelmed. “Karl wasn’t made anything.”

“Wait, huh? What does that mean?” Karl asked, almost offended in his shock.

“You weren’t supposed to be a person. As I said before, you weren’t ‘created’ exactly.” 

“Uh, what? I’m not... supposed to be me? A person? I’m like, broken because I’m self-aware? That’s messed up.”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean. You weren’t supposed to be anything. Person, not person, a force, an object, an animal, there’s not exactly anything wrong with you. In fact, you function perfectly it’s just your instinct was overshadowed by your mind.”

“Function?”

“You developed to fix a problem. It doesn’t matter what you are the same way it doesn’t matter what color trees are, so long as they make oxygen to support their ecosystem. So, no, I don’t think you were intended to be a person but you weren’t intended to be anything else, either. You can’t really be flawed when there was no plan to begin with.”

“Wh- s- are you saying I- me, Karl, as myself, a person with thoughts and emotions and a will and mind of my own, my existing was an accident?” 

He tisked his tongue. “Uh. Yes.” 

“Wow.” Karl took a long breath. “Wow.” 

“Are you upset? You shouldn’t be, everything in the universe is incidental, there’s no real plan except everything’s function to thrive. Wills are superficial to existence and meaning. Heck, I’m an accident you just caused!” It was true, his current existence as he experienced it was completely incidental! He very well could have just not been the way he is. He could have, so simply, never existed. Ever... oh. He shuddered, checking existentialism off the experiences he’d had and shoving it away with iron force.

“No, I’m not insulted or anything, it’s just- wow.”

“Yeah. That’s fair I guess. Anyway,” he lightly clapped his hands together. If the conversation was over then he should leave, right? That was the correct thing to do? He didn’t want- he didn’t want to think about wanting. Or not existing. He would just leave. “Quackity, Sapnap, nice to meet you and all your sides. I guess we had a more intimate introduction than most, what with me explaining my entire existence and you being divided into the rawest versions of yourselves. Karl, I already know about you. Um, Goodbye.” He held up his hand and began to walk towards the reflective walls.

“Hey, wait!” Quackity grabbed his shoulder. He stopped, waiting patiently.  “What... are we gonna see youse again? What’s da deal now that you are what you are?” 

“Now? I will go adjust. You will most certainly see me again, yes. I want to stop wanting for now, everything is a lot of things. Goodbye.”

“Okay, bye, but... what should we call you?” 

That caught him off guard. He took a step away from the wall, frowning. “Call... me?”

“Oh yeah! I assume you don’t just want to be referred to as ‘Not-Karl’ or something. Do you have a name?” Sapnap stepped up. 

“Uh...” His brow furrowed, eyes darting around slightly. “I haven’t... thought about that...” A name. Huh. It hadn’t even crossed his mind. 

“Do you want to pick one out? We can help, I chose my name based from one of the first worlds I ever visited. Since there’s no one here, we could list some and you could see if you like any?”

“Um,” he frowned. That didn’t sound very appealing. “I don’t think I want to choose one from someone else’s. I don’t have many opinions on sounds yet so picking one based on phonetics feels... wrong.”

“That’s okay, and you can always pick another one later.” 

“I guess so.”

“Something more personal based then?”

“That’s tricky, we don’t know much about him yet,” Quackity pointed out. “He don’t even know much about him.” 

“What about-“ Sapnap spoke up. “You said you were the ‘inverse’ right? What about that? Or Mirror, or Reflection, or Other.”

He shifted, frowning. “It’s correct,” he started “but it’s kind of like calling you ‘demon.’ More of a title or description, not really a name.” 

“How about Lrak?” Quackity suggested. “It’s Karl backward.” 

He made a face. “I think I’ve just got my first phonetic opinion. I do not like how that sounds.” Not to mention it was a little... obvious. He didn’t want to base his entire newfound identity around not being Karl, although Karl was a big part of him. He wouldn’t mind paying homage. In fact, that did seem like a good place to come from. He wasn’t Karl but he also wasn’t not Karl. Hmm. He looked back up, getting better at tuning in and out on purpose, to find them chittering off ideas. “Hey,” he interrupted. “What about Lark?” They stopped and turned to him. 

“Lark?” 

“It’s... an anagram of Karl,” he tilted his head, not looking at anything, just thinking “but it’s also its own, despite and including its origins. Lark. What do you think?”

“Hey, don’t fuckin matter what we think,” Quackity snapped, almost accusatory. “What’s important is how youse feel. Do you like it?” 

He was a little taken aback at the aggressive support. It was true though, he realized, none of them should get a say. It wasn’t that he was trying to please them, he simply didn’t have a strong opinion on much... but he could. It dawned on him he could have all the care or apathy he wanted. “Lark,” he said the name aloud again, rolling it across his tongue, focussing on feeling, comprehending that he could feel. “My name is Lark. My name. Is Lark. Yes. I... I like that,” he smiled. 

“Hurray!” Karl grinned before gripping him into a giant hug. 

He screamed, unprepared for the contact. He could feel his heart was beating against his chest as Karl frantically set him down. “Ah- uh- It’s okay,” he reassured him. “I just- my reactions have broken in, it seems.” 

Karl chuckled, apologetically brushing off his shoulder. “Sorry. I’m just really happy for you, man. Is- is it man?” 

“Man is fine,” he shrugged. “I am like you.”

“Great,” Karl grinned swinging his arms slightly. “I- I’m just stoked you’re something- someone I can talk to now! I mean, you’ve been around forever, but I had no idea what you were. I still don’t, I guess, but this is...” he laughed, gesturing between them.

He, Lark, smiled. He smiled a big, wide, voluntary, and genuine beam for Karl. He felt it too. There was a connection between them that, while it had always been there, hadn’t held any connotations. Now that he was him though he found it was warm and reassuring, familiar and sporadic. It was a part of him. It was a part of them. He didn’t know much about himself yet but he knew that was a very good thing. 

“Lark, I gotta say, having known you literally all my life,” Karl stuck out his hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you.” 

Lark looked at the hand and cocked his head, blinking. He reached out to take it and pulled Karl in for a (much softer than before) hug but one that still surprised Karl. “...It’s nice to meet you too, Karl. Really.” He felt fuzzy inside as Karl softened from the shock and gently put his arms around him. They stayed together for a beat, it was a wonderful moment to live in. For the first time in his life, short as it had been so far, Lark experienced gratitude. It was nice to meet Karl. It was nice to have a name. It was nice to... be alive. He blinked rapidly, a little confused at the stinging in his eyes. Oh. Tears. His eyes were watering from emotions, that was definitely new. Eventually, Karl gently pulled away.

“So,” he said tenderly, eyeing Lark up and down. “You’re my reflection, huh? Heh, does that make me yours?” 

It was a joke but... “I’m honestly not sure how to answer that. In a way, no. But- I- it’s confusing. I have things I want to explain but don’t understand how yet. In time, I guess. Perhaps with examples. For now though, if you’re my anything, maybe we could be each other’s... um...” he paused, searching for a word that described them. “Brothers? If you want?”

“Lark,” Karl’s tone was suddenly and unnaturally serious. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just said to me?” 

“I- I think? I asked if you-“

“I WOULD LOVE THAT SO MUCH,” he yelled, grabbing Lark by the shoulders with a jolt. “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS TO ME. YOU’RE SO SMART AND AMAZING, I’M SO HAPPY TO HAVE YOU NOW, I DIDN’T REALIZE HOW MUCH I NEEDED- I...” he sniffled, laughing. “I have a family!” 

He did. Lark grinned, letting him keep his iron grip on his shoulders despite the physical discomfort. It was prodigiously outweighed by the joyous emotions surging through and filling the air. Karl had a family and... so did he. 

“AW-!” 

A sharp wail shattered the moment. Lark and Karl’s heads snapped towards the other two they forgot were there. Quackity had tears streaming down his face, while Sapnap was biting his knuckle, eyes also watery, having had been the one to cry out. 

“Uh- are you guys... alright?” Karl cautiously held out his hands in comfort. 

“Y-yeah! It’s just- that’s- you guys are so sweet.” Sapnap threw his hands up to his face. “This is such a happy moment, I’m so happy for you. You guys found each other after coexisting for so long but never knowing- I- I’m a sucker for family, okay? It’s in my culture. Don’t judge me.”

“Uh-huh,” Quackity nodded, drying his soaked face with his sleeve. “It’s not like we’s crying or nothing.” 

“Aw, you guys...” Karl gave both of them a hug. 

Lark waited until they finished to speak. “Well, for real this time, I think I need to say goodbye. I apologize for rushing away so bluntly. I didn’t realize then... even just in the past few minutes I understand so much more. This has been a lot, as you can imagine, for my first day of cognizance and I would like to take some time existing. Karl, you have a purpose. A role to fill in the universe. Also, I have no idea how to explain it to you.” 

“Oh.” 

“Seriously, it is a miracle I was even able to introduce myself. I genuinely almost passed out a few times during that conversation. Just from the weight of comprehending my own existence. Please understand that, in a sense, I am only a few hours old.” 

“But you sort of existed before me so you’re also kind of older than me, right?”

“Yes. It is hella weird. I wouldn’t worry though, your design is built into you, like how animals are wired to hunt whether they’ve ever seen prey or not. For now, I am off to go get better used to... being, I guess. I intend to continue to experience people, I think I find it much more than just knowing of them. It was... genuinely... very nice to meet you all.” Lark held up his hand in a farewell gesture, waiting to leave until the others returned it, waving and shouting goodbyes and good lucks. 

He smiled as he faced the empty reflective surface. He had no idea how good ‘good’ was. He’d known about the warm feeling inside from Karl but now he had experienced it. It was such a difference he’d never expected... not in all of the (maybe seven? eight?) hours he’d been alive. With one final breathe and thought and feeling, Lark stepped into the Otherside.