#josie quinn: empath disaster

[amorremanet]

Well, today, I slapped together several playlists about my loser nerd OC’s and some of their relationships, and was reminded in stereo of just how painfully questionable my taste in music sometimes is. ………Yay?

[amorremanet]

Well, this tirade about the inconsistencies and complete lack of sense-making in how JKR handles memory-related magic in the HP verse (the Pensieve, Memory Charms, the Confundus Charm, the altered state of mind induced by the Imperius Curse, the memories that Dementors make Harry relive, and how Veritaserum fits into this entire mess; as usual, the TL;DR gist was, “wow but the wizarding world sure is fucked up, due in no small part to JKR’s lack of actual consideration in world-building, isn’t it”) may not actually be good for anything as a piece of HP-related meta But at least it can get safely stashed away in my Josie-related inspiration file, because at a certain point, it basically turned into, “Okay, so here is what JKR did wrong in how she handled memory in the series, why her handling of it was wrong (TL;DR: a mix of basic inconsistencies in her rules for how her fantasy world works, and, ‘okay, Jo, but memory does not work like that’), and how I intend to do better, albeit with a bi genderfluid mutant superhero and therapist, who never quite grew out of being a goth trash theatre kid, rather than with the Bi Who Lived, the Brightest Bi of Her Age, Weasley Is Our Bi, and a rotating cast of seriously damaged adults”

[amorremanet]

oc pokémon teams, because reasons

Said reasons being, “Because I felt like it.”

I used hover text to add in some explication and extra feels. Names that are in italics are their, “companion” Pokémon — i.e., the ones they have the strongest bonds with, like Ash and Pikachu levels of devoted to each other (…or as close as they can ever get while staying in-character, since some of them — I say, glancing pointedly at Margaret and Conrad — would absolutely treat their Pokémon more like tools than sentient beings).

SEBASTIAN: Sylveon (Intertwining Pokémon; Fairy) // Stantler (Big Horn Pokémon; Normal) // Snubbull (Fairy Pokémon; Fairy) // Stoutland (Big Hearted Pokémon; Normal) // Crobat (Bat Pokémon; Poison/Flying) // Clefairy (Fairy Pokémon; Fairy) // Shiftry (Wicked Pokémon; Grass/Dark).

PETE: Luxray (Gleam Eyes Pokémon; Electric) // Houndoom (Dark Pokémon; Dark/Fire) // Absol (Disaster Pokémon; Dark) // Umbreon (Moonlight Pokémon; Dark) // Seviper (Fang Snake Pokémon; Poison) // Sceptile (Forest Pokémon; Grass) // Mimikyu (Disguise Pokémon; Ghost/Fairy).

MARGOT: Purugly (Tiger Cat Pokémon; Normal) // Lycanroc (Wolf Pokémon; Rock) // Sableye (Darkness Pokémon; Dark/Ghost) // Donphan (Armor Pokémon; Ground) // Arbok (Cobra Pokémon; Poison) // Salamence (Dragon Pokémon; Dragon/Flying) // Gengar (Shadow Pokémon; Ghost/Poison).

JOSIE: Espeon (Sun Pokémon; Psychic) // Alakazam (Psi Pokémon; Psychic) // Raichu (Mouse Pokémon; Electric) // Psyduck (Duck Pokémon; Water) // Mismagius (Magical Pokémon; Ghost) // Gardevoir (Embrace Pokémon; Grass/Psychic) // Lucario (Aura Pokémon; Fighting/Steel).

LUCY: Arcanine (Legendary Pokémon; Fire) // Blaziken (Blazing Pokémon; Fire/Fighting) // Salazzle (Toxic Lizard Pokémon; Poison/Fire) // Flareon (Flame Pokémon; Fire) // Gyarados (Atrocious Pokémon; Water/Flying) // Volcarona (Sun Pokémon; Bug/Fire) // Talonflame (Scorching Pokémon; Fire/Flying).

STEPHEN: Milotic (Tender Pokémon; Water) // Blissey (Happiness Pokémon; Normal) // Delcatty (Prim and Proper Pokémon; Normal) // Glaceon (Fresh Snow Pokémon; Ice) // Primarina (Soloist Pokémon; Water/Fairy) // Ninetales (Fox Pokémon; Fire) // Whimsicott (Windveiled Pokémon; Grass/Fairy).

TODD: Smeargle (Painter Pokémon; Normal) // Raticate (Rat/Mouse Pokémon; Normal) // Girafarig (Long Neck Pokémon; Normal/Psychic) // Heracross (Single-Horn Pokémon; Bug/Fighting) // Zangoose (Cat Ferret Pokémon; Normal) // Lickitung (Licking Pokémon; Normal) // Ludicolo (Carefree Pokémon; Water/Grass).

SARA GRACE: Vaporeon (Bubble Jet Pokémon; Water) // Breeloom (Mushroom Pokémon; Grass/Fighting) // Wailord (Float Whale Pokémon; Water) // Flygon (Mystic Pokémon; Ground/Dragon) // Dragonair (Dragon Pokémon; Dragon) // Meganium (Herb Pokémon; Grass) // Pyroar (Royal Pokémon; Fire/Normal).

CONRAD: Malamar (Overturning Pokémon; Dark/Psychic) // Hypno (Hypnosis Pokémon; Psychic) // Dragalge (Mock Kelp Pokémon; Poison/Dragon) // Grumpig (Manipulate Pokémon; Psychic) // Golbat (Bat Pokémon; Poison/Flying) // Wobbuffet (Patience/Endurance Pokémon; Psychic) // Gyarados (Atrocious Pokémon; Water/Flying).

JULIAN: Banette (Marionette Pokémon; Ghost) // Spinda (Spot Panda Pokémon; Normal) // Kecleon (Color Change Pokémon; Normal) // Quagsire (Water Fish Pokémon; Water/Ground) // Sudowoodo (Imitation Pokémon; Ground) // Zoroark (Illusion Fox Pokémon; Dark) // Tentacruel (Jellyfish Pokémon; Water/Poison).

ANNIE: Gloom (Weed Pokémon; Grass/Poison) // Primeape (Pig Monkey Pokémon; Fighting) // Zebstrika (Thunderbolt Pokémon; Electric) // Scoliopede (Megapede Pokémon; Bug/Poison) // Mightyena (Bite Pokémon; Dark) // Nidoking (Drill Pokémon; Poison/Ground) // Crawdaunt (Rogue Pokémon; Water/Dark).

ABE: Tropius (Fruit Pokémon; Grass/Flying) // Girafarig (Long Neck Pokémon; Normal/Psychic) // Altaria (Humming Pokémon; Dragon/Flying) // Bibarel (Beaver Pokémon; Normal/Water) // Swanna (White Bird Pokémon; Water/Flying) // Whimsicott (Windveiled Pokémon; Grass/Fairy) // Charizard (Flaming Pokémon; Fire/Flying).

ADELAIDE: Hydreigon (Brutal Pokémon; Dark/Dragon) // Furfrou (Poodle Pokémon; Normal) // Pangoro (Daunting Pokémon; Fighting/Dark) // Rapidash (Fire Horse Pokémon; Fire) // Raichu (Mouse Pokémon; Electric) // Tyranitar (Armor Pokémon; Rock/Dark) // Greninja (Ninja Pokémon; Water/Dark).

AMBROSE: Decidueye (Arrow Quill Pokémon; Grass/Ghost) // Leavanny (Nurturing Pokémon; Bug/Grass) // Slurpuff (Meringue Pokémon; Fairy) // Xatu (Mystic Pokémon; Psychic/Flying) // Delibird (Delivery Pokémon; Ice/Flying) // Aromatisse (Fragrance Pokémon; Fairy) // Delcatty (Prim and Proper Pokémon; Normal).

ELIZABETH: Slowking (Royal Pokémon; Water/Psychic) // Metagross (Iron Leg Pokémon; Steel/Psychic) // Aggron (Iron Armor Pokémon; Steel/Rock) // Espeon (Sun Pokémon; Psychic) // Skarmory (Armor Bird Pokémon; Steel/Flying) // Audino (Hearing Pokémon; Normal) // Lucario (Aura Pokémon; Fighting/Steel).

EMERSON: Heliolisk (Generator Pokémon; Electric/Normal) // Aerodactyl (Fossil Pokémon; Rock/Flying) // Reuniculus (Multiplying Pokémon; Psychic) // Jolteon (Lightning Pokémon; Electric) // Volbeat (Firefly Pokémon; Bug) // Victreebel (Flycatcher Pokémon; Grass) // Porygon-Z (Virtual Pokémon; Normal).

JEREMY B.: Psyduck (Duck Pokémon; Water) // Marowak (Bone Keeper Pokémon; Ground) // Abomasnow (Frost Tree Pokémon; Grass/Ice) // Gogoat (Mount Pokémon; Grass) // Lopunny (Rabbit Pokémon; Normal) // Wigglytuff (Balloon Pokémon; Normal/Fairy) // Haxorus (Axe Jaw Pokémon; Dragon).

JOANIE: Pinsir (Stag Beetle Pokémon; Bug) // Lilligant (Flowering Pokémon; Grass) // Golem (Megaton Pokémon; Rock/Ground) // Mudsdale (Draft Horse Pokémon; Ground) // Stunfisk (Trap Pokémon; Ground/Electric) // Gigalith (Compressed Pokémon; Rock) // Bisharp (Sword Blade Pokémon; Dark/Steel).

MARCELINE: Torterra (Continent Pokémon; Grass/Ground) // Meowstic ♂ (Constraint Pokémon; Psychic) // Garchomp (Mach Pokémon; Dragon/Ground) // Sawsbuck (Season Pokémon Pokémon; Normal/Grass) // Lapras (Transport Pokémon; Water/Ice) // Lanturn (Light Pokémon; Water/Electric) // Blastoise (Pokémon; Water).

MARGARET: Kangaskhan (Parent And Child Pokémon; Normal) // Chansey (Egg Pokémon; Normal) // Miltank (Milk Cow Pokémon; Normal) // Walrein (Ice Break Pokémon; Ice/Water) // Bewear (Strong Arm Pokémon; Normal/Fighting) // Staraptor (Predator Pokémon; Normal/Flying) // Illumise (Firefly Pokémon; Bug).

MAX: Leafeon (Verdant Pokémon; Grass) // Ampharos (Light Pokémon; Electric) // Meowstic ♀ (Constraint Pokémon; Psychic) // Cubone (Lonely Pokémon; Ground) // Trevenant (Elder Tree Pokémon; Ghost/Grass) // Noctowl (Owl Pokémon; Normal/Flying) // Dragonite (Dragon Pokémon; Dragon).

MELANIE: Vikavolt (Stag Beetle Pokémon; Bug/Electric) // Purugly (Tiger Cat Pokémon; Normal) // Sharpedo (Brutal Pokémon; Water/Dark) // Glalie (Face Pokémon; Ice) // Oricorio (Dancing Pokémon; Flying) // Politoed (Frog Pokémon; Water) // Samurott (Formidable Pokémon; Water).

TAMSIN: Bellossom (Flower Pokémon; Grass) // Mienshao (Martial Arts Pokémon; Fighting) // Excadrill (Subterrene Pokémon; Ground/Steel) // Vivillion (Scale Pokémon; Bug/Flying) // Liepard (Cruel Pokémon; Dark) // Nidoqueen (Drill Pokémon; Poison/Ground) // Cinccino (Scarf Pokémon; Normal).

TITUS: Galvantula (EleSpider Pokémon; Bug/Electric) // Persian (Classy Cat Pokémon; Normal) // Slowbro (Hermit Crab Pokémon; Water/Psychic) // Froslass (Snow Land Pokémon; Ice/Ghost) // Fearow (Beak Pokémon; Normal/Flying) // Poliwhirl (Tadpole Pokémon; Water) // Serperior (Regal Pokémon; Grass).

XAVIER: Honchcrow (Big Boss Pokémon; Dark/Flying) // Gliscor (Fang Scorpion Pokémon; Ground/Flying) // Cacturne (Scarecrow Pokémon; Grass/Dark) // Dusclops (Beckon Pokémon; Ghost) // Toxicroak (Toxic Mouth Pokémon; Poison/Fighting) // Wobbuffet (Patience/Endurance Pokémon; Psychic) // Relicanth (Longevity Pokémon; Water/Rock).

YAEL: Empoleon (Emperor Pokémon; Water/Steel) // Steelix (Iron Snake Pokémon; Steel/Ground) // Mawile (Deceiver Pokémon; Steel/Fairy) // Umbreon (Moonlight Pokémon; Dark) // Scizor (Pincer Pokémon; Bug/Steel) // Kangaskhan (Parent and Child Pokémon; Normal) // Gallade (Blade Pokémon; Psychic/Fighting).

[amorremanet]

oc aesthetics: josie (josiah daniel) quinn & margot temperance gabriel.

[amorremanet]

oc quoteswaps because i felt like it, episode 1:

(everyone is gathered around the mess of what used to be the office’s fancy coffeepot)

Deputy Section Chief Lucas Howard: Who broke it?

[silence]

Lucas Howard: I’m not mad. I just wanna know.

Unit Chief Terrance Holmes: *looking around at everyone* I did. I broke the coffee—

Lucas Howard: No. No, you didn’t. Emerson?

Emerson Arden: Don’t look at me. Look at Josie.

Josie Quinn: What? I didn’t break it.

Emerson Arden: Huh! That’s weird. How’d you even know that it’s broken?

Josie Quinn: Because it’s sitting right in front of us, and it’s broken.

Emerson Arden: Suspicious.

Josie Quinn: No, it’s not.

Alexandra Valentine: If it matters, probably not, but Sebastian was the last person to use it.

Sebastian Moncrieff: Liar, I don’t even drink that anymore!

Alexandra Valentine: Oh, really? Then what were you doing over by the coffee-cart earlier?

Sebastian Moncrieff: I was eating the fake-sugars because they keep me from passing out after a transformation. Everyone knows that, Alex!

Terrance Holmes: Okay, let’s not fight. I broke it. Please, just let me go to Mickey and I’ll pay for it—

Lucas Howard: No! Who broke it!

[awkward silence]

Josie Quinn: *hushed voice* Uh, I’m just saying? Layla’s been awfully quiet—

Layla Sullivan: Really? Really!

Josie Quinn: Yeah, really!

Layla Sullivan: Oh my god!

[everyone starts arguing]

Lucas Howard [offside, to Section Chief Michaela Brixton]: I broke it. It kept beeping at me, so I punched it. I predict that ten minutes from now, they’ll be at each other’s throats with war paint on their faces and a pig head on a stick.

Michaela Brixton: [huffs] Good. It was getting a little chummy around here.

[amorremanet]

for the ocs meme: juniper's favorite person in the world is her familiar (or witch's guide), selima, a gender-noncomforming guide who can also take the shape of a cat.

send me a fact about your ocs, i reply with a fact about mine!

Ooooh, I have a couple ways I could go with this (or rather, I had a few things come to mind all at once and couldn’t just pick one, because I suck at picking things)

So, I have Sebastian, who is trying but he’s a mess and has made a lot of questionable life choices, enough to make Isaac, his AA/NA sponsor (Nick)’s husband, think that Seb is essentially a walking, talking relapse trigger. A big thing that made Isaac start revising his opinions about Seb? Was that his and Nick’s incredibly fickle cat, Ms. Dorothy, took to Seb almost immediately

Josie is a genderfluid Hellenic pagan whose primary divine relationship is with Dionysus, and who would probably have fifteen cats if they didn’t have one job as a therapist and another as a part-time government-employed superhero who super did not ask for that — so, instead, they just lavish affection on the three cats who live with their bff Rocky and Rocky’s boyfriend, Sasha

aaaaand Stephen is a gay drag queen, and fairly gender non-conforming in his day to day life as well, and he also has a cat. He and Yago (one of his best friends from high school, one-time boyfriend, and roommate) wound up taking in one of Yago’s aunt’s cats when she moved to Wisconsin with her wife.

Said cat is named Duchess. She’s spoiled but sweet, pretty even-tempered, and amenable to things like being propped up on Stephen’s shoulder like a human infant, then danced around the apartment while he sings, “I Feel Pretty” because his and Seb’s first date went well and he’s happy about it.

Duchess is amenable to this because she’s getting attention and affection, and aside from food, that’s about all she ever asks for. Well, that and for you to not complain when she sits on your wrist while you’re working, but she would lump that under, “affection,” if she understood the concept and words

[amorremanet]

"Most likely to" asks: 1, 6, 27, 28?

“oc most likely to” meme

1. most likely to clean up everybody’s crap without asking

Josie or Lucy — with the former doing it because they have to be on top of this shit in their own self-care regimens or things can get bad, which would be messy anyway and is even worse when keeping your own mental health in order is one of the only ways to keep from losing control of your psychic powers and, among other things, mentally spying on people and being overloaded by all their feelings, to the point that you forget where yours are.

So, Josie isn’t a fan of just letting messes accumulate, and if you happen to benefit from them picking up your stuff, that’s nice and they’re happy for you, but they primarily did it for themself. Not that they don’t care about you, but they care a lot more about staying centered and not losing control of their powers, so. Yeah.

……and the latter would do it because putting things in order helps her clear her head, sometimes.

6. most likely to survive the zombie apocalypse

Probably Pete. Like, the mutants who have healing factors would probably be okay, too, since… well, they have healing factors. But Pete is the one who’d survive by sheer resourcefulness, ingenuity, adaptability, random knowledge that he doesn’t even remember how he learned it or why he knows it but he does, inability to forget some of the stuff he learned as a kid when his Dad made him go to Boy Scouts, refusal to die as long as he has someone to spite by living, and so on.

Of the mutants who have healing factors, Sara Grace is the one who could most easily survive the zombie apocalypse without it, in large part because she knows how to keep her wits about her in stressful situations, she’s creative (and while she could definitely get in trouble due to periodic inattention, she can usually figure her way out of the trouble she gets into. Usually), she’d be a really good post-zombie apocalypse McGyver (“I have some twine, some pine needles, some duct tape, a pocketknife, and a paperclip. Let’s do this”), and she was a Girl Scout who actually wanted to be there (unlike Pete and Boy Scouts)

27. most likely to listen to one song for four days in a row

Margot and Lucy.

28. most likely to eat cake for breakfast

Todd, Stephen, Margot, Lucy, Annie, and Julian — and aside from Julian, all of them would be pretty chill about it. Todd would grouse at himself like, “God, would Wes Anderson or Jean-Luc Godard eat cake for breakfast, what kind of auteur are you” (you’re an auteur who eats cake for breakfast, Todd. It’s okay, you’re allowed), but he wouldn’t really be a dick to himself over it.

Julian, on the other hand, would absolutely be a dick to himself over eating cake for breakfast. He would also be obnoxious about it while doing the thing, and while debating whether or not he wanted to do it, and afterward…… but in fairness, he’s pretty much always at least a little bit obnoxious, so that’s not particularly noteworthy.

[amorremanet]

describing my oc’s like a, “tag urself” meme because i felt like it:

Sebastian:

is full of love but also sadness and confusion

too soft to be Chaotic Gay, too chaotic to be Soft Gay

doesn’t get why his morbid, self-deprecating “jokes” aren’t funny

the, “hey hold my beer/coffee” friend but also the, “hey hold me, if i’m alone with my thoughts, i go to a Bad Place™” friend

high-key human disaster but he’s trying his best, okay

looks like a sinnamon roll, is actually a burned cinnamon roll, has literally been to hell and back, slightly charred

Pete:

constantly Dramatic™, perpetually Extra™, fluent in sarcasm and talking shit

Theatre Gay to end all Theatre Gays, he will fight you; acts like a Mean Gay™, but is soft inside and scared of getting hurt

aggressively supportive AND supportively aggressive

acts like he has it all together, but doesn’t think before starting shit

says he doesn’t care, actually does tho

stale cinnamon roll, has been in this world too long, too cynical

Margot:

high-key Judging You™, always Done with everything and three days past her bedtime

stone-hearted ice witch with a citrus-flavored center

Mean Gay™, but hey, she has a set of ethics

hums the mission impossible theme song when she’s working, it makes her feel cool

probably the Vodka Aunt friend

looks like she could kill you, is actually a stale sinnamon roll

Josie:

looks calm, but screaming on the inside

Neutral Goth, Chaotic Bi, Mom Friend™

dresses so nice because they have to be in control of something

their life is like trying to avoid the youtube comments, then seeing them anyway

too beautiful for 90% of the shit they go through

looks like a cinnamon roll (too good for this world), actually is a cinnamon roll; would give you their cinnamon rolls

Lucy:

HEY YOU GUYS LET’S TRY SCIENCE

CHAPSTICK FUTCH BABY LESBIAN SHE’S JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE

NO EDGELORDS ALLOWED, IT’S GOOD TO BE NICE AND EXCITED ABOUT THINGS, LET PEOPLE BE EXCITED, JEEZ.

doesn’t need to use all caps but she has SO!! MUCH!!!! ENTHUSIASM!!!!!!

get her on your team for roller derby or the scavenger hunt. seriously. do it.

looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you (but she’d rather not)

Stephen:

low-key Art Gay™, high-key Soft Gay™, the Dad Jokes Friend

laughs at his own jokes before he says the punchline

single, trying really hard to mingle, he may have misinterpreted?? ………or did he??? was that flirting or did he imagine it, like???? someone please help him??????

drag queen, sister of perpetual indulgence, wants to dance with somebody who loves him

would hum the pink panther theme for extra stealth

looks like he could kill you with his cinnamon rolls… and his tembleque… and his homemade ice cream…… aaaaand………

Sara Grace:

High Femme Ballet Lesbian, high-key Art Gay, Fruity Cocktails Cousin friend

says she speaks fluent cat, mostly just makes, “prrrrrfb” noises at her kitty

doesn’t think it’s pretentious to want to make out in an art museum, fuck you

one time, she won a law and order: svu trivia contest while totally shit-faced

she’s beauty, she’s grace, if she has an issue with you, she’ll bring it right to your busted face

looks like a cinnamon roll, is actually a princess

Todd:

tries too hard, really needs to chill

high-key Hipster Bullshit Gay

that white boy in every philosophy class who thinks he knows what he’s talking about, but doesn’t

bashes all the things he loves for fear of being mainstream

please do not confuse the problematic fave

looks like a cinnamon roll, is actually a low-key sinnamon roll

Conrad:

have u ever met the human version of a headache

don’t call him Hetero Satan, satan did nothing to deserve that

thinks loki is the true hero of the thor movies and the avengers

hey come on, he said, “no offense,” so why are you offended

doesn’t get why, “for the greater good” and, “some animals are more equal than others” are bullshit

garbage. like, really, he’s just………… trash

Adelaide:

Neutral Bi, Lawful Prep, Wine Mom Friend

always ready to DO ALL THE THINGS!!! JUST YOU WAIT.

is everybody’s cool big sister, whether they particularly want her to be or not

snarkmaster 5000 from the planet Done™

but if she keeps her mind active and her body moving at all times, she will avoid falling into a bottomless pit of despair and/or punching someone in the face

looks like a sinnamon roll and actually is a sinnamon roll

Max:

tries too hard, always stressed

the Dad Friend, also a literal dad

how do you interpersonal skills, we just don’t know

my god, does he try

here’s your token hetero character who doesn’t suck, straight people. the rest of them are pretty much garbage.

looks like a jerk, is actually a stale cinnamon roll

Yael:

Low-Key Femme Protest Lesbian, Mama Bear Friend, Badass Grandma, loves her wife so much

Chaotic Gay, Political Angry, actively repels anything even remotely resembling chill

always looks like she’s plotting and/or up to something, but that’s because she usually is

excuse you, children, but she and her wife and so many fallen friends didn’t spend their lives fighting against oppressive systems for you to hate yourself, you are a star and you don’t have to listen any white hetero-capitalist patriarchal pigs who say otherwise, don’t you dare let the bastards get you down for too long, because that is NOT what these fights have been about — yes, she is do re mi fa so done with your shit, but in like, a loving and supportive way

isn’t allowed to chaperone the girl scouts when they go sell cookies at the stop and shop anymore, she got too enthusiastic, people got scared

looks like a sinnamon roll, and probably wouldn’t kill you. ……probably. but you are cordially invited not to test her on this.

Elizabeth:

Soft Butch Library Lesbian, Whisky Grandma Friend

Neutral Gay, Chaotic Prep, calm but terrifying when enraged

has a constant twinkle in her eye, especially while being subtly snarky at people who don’t get it

she’s very sorry for her wife’s lack of chill, but also usually thinks Yael is right, sooooo……… she’ll only rein Yael in if things get really out of hand

isn’t like a regular teacher, she’s a cool teacher, right, kids? gets a rush of excitement whenever she gets an excuse to make a dirty joke while teaching

looks like a cinnamon roll, is actually a sinnamon roll

Julian:

hiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeee! he’s here to ruin everything!!

high-key Chaotic Neutral Gay, high-key Nihilistic Gay

got a “cease and desist” letter from kesha this one time

is the Tequila Cousin friend

got sick of people hurting him and decided to hurt other people for a change

sinnamon roll that you bought two years ago at a backwoods gas station, then lost on the floor of your car, and now it’s all grody and there’s mildew inside the wrapper and ugh, gross

Annie (Antoinette):

genuinely doesn’t understand how Extra™ she is

feels like the fuck-up twin because she’s always treated like the fuck-up twin

smiles like a stepford daughter, is actually made of rage and sadness

Chaotic Bi, but she’s so deep in the closet that the Narnians are charging her rent

says she’s just happy to be here, but only because her bullshit family made her say that

is exempted from the cinnamon roll meme pending attempts to get her away from her abusers and into therapy

[amorremanet]

Sorry if this is a weird question but Is Sebastian the only one of your OCs you have a fancast(?) for or are there more 👀

Well, he’s the one whose fancast is the most set in my mind, but that’s mostly a function of: 1. him being around the longest (since… this whole thing got started, originally, as me writing background for him when he was an RP character, so my DM could have more ammunition for future plots and/or character torture);

and 2. me going, “Kassie, no, do not imagine him looking like Hayden Christensen, istg” — which clearly worked out about as well as telling a goat to do your calculus homework, since going, “don’t do this thing” only made me continue thinking about it so much that it stuck

But some other fancast thoughts I’ve had are:

Todd initially looked like Aidan Turner, but that’s currently in a state of, “ehhhhh, not quite so much” — they still have a few things in common but not enough that I like the fancast anymore

I’m annoyed that Margot, in my head, looks basically like Scar*Jo in Ghost World, if she were about 4’11”, less skinny (like, Margot is in that irritating, “in-betweenie” body type where you’re not really thin, but you’re not fat, but your weight isn’t distributed in the right way for people to mean it in a nice way when they call you, “curvy”), and had black hair and glasses

I’m annoyed with this because I’m annoyed with Scar*Jo in general — but I’m mostly letting it go and hoping that someone else comes to mind, because the last time I fought myself too hard on fancasting these losers, I went, “No, stop it, no Hayden Christensen”…… and now Seb looks like Hayden Christensen, so?

Maybe if I don’t argue with myself too hard, Margot won’t look like Scar*Jo forever.

Lucy changes between Kat McNamara and Sophie Turner, because I really do like both of them for her.

That said, I wish I knew what either of them looks like with short hair, because the long hair works for a little while, but eventually, she’s going to cut it short (because if you’re going to run headlong into things where fights could ensue, then giving your hypothetical opponents something they can easily grab onto, like long hair, is a really bad idea)

(also because I personally find the idea of an eager beaver go-getting young autistic hemokinetic with short, bright red hair and no chill…… super cute)

For Sara Grace, I really love Asha Bromfield, who’s currently playing Melody Valentine on Riverdale

I am perpetually cranky that I don’t have a fancast for Pete, because I love him more than GRRM loves Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister — and I initially thought of Karl “Manila Luzon” Westerberg, because Manila and Pete are both white/Filipinx biracial (and as I just found out, they are apparently the same height)…… but Manila’s skin is a few shades lighter than I see Pete’s, and their respective tones are pretty different, too

Convenient points of comparison: I see Pete’s skin tones and shades being closer to Bianca “Jiggly Caliente” Castro’s or Ryan “Ongina” Ong Palao’s (who are both also Filipinx, though not biracial afaik) than to Manila’s

Pete’s older brother Jimmy is closer to Manila in terms of shading, though their skin-tones are still different

I do know that Emerson, one of Pete’s cousins from his Dad’s side of the family, looks like Eddie Redmayne, but that’s just because Emerson used to be in a different project, and I moved him to this one, and he’s looked like Eddie Redmayne since, like, 2009.

He’s also a really secondary/tertiary character, so it’s kind of a cheap consolation prize to not having a fancast for Pete that makes me happy

Like, Emerson is not quite to, “I could replace him with an interesting lamp and have the same effect” levels, but he’s not a big deal.

I mean?? He’s Pete’s cousin. Both of them are the gay cousin, but Emerson is a gay Libertarian who works for the FBI and Pete is completely certain that he’s making up his alleged boyfriend because why would someone who sounds so cool and nice want to date Emerson

He’s not making up his boyfriend. But Pete’s enjoying himself in trying to prove that Emerson is making Asa up, just like how he made up two separate girlfriends before he accepted that he’s gay, and Pete’s had a pretty rough time of things in the past few years, and he really is Em’s favorite cousin, so Emerson figures he can let Pete enjoy the, “prove that Emerson’s boyfriend is a big conspiracy theory” thing until about Thanksgiving

But that’s beside the point, and seriously, about the most relevance that Emerson has is being Pete’s cousin and being employed by the FBI’s department of mutant shenanigans

Josie, once upon a time, looked like this goth model who I’ve never seen anywhere else but the face-claim suggestions/resources blog where I found the banner and icons that I used for Josie, back when they were a character in an all-dudeslash RPG because in those days, all-slash games were one of the only ways you could play any characters who weren’t 100% hetero without it being hella mocked and/or hella policed

—unfortunately, said goth model’s name is, “Aaron Gilmore” which makes him impossible to Google because there are a ton of people named, “Aaron Gilmore” and none of them has ever been the one I want, excepting the one of whom very few pictures actually exist

He’s also only good for Josie c. high school and undergrad, and?? idk, I kinda like Ben Whishaw, but I also have reasons why I don’t entirely like him for Josie

Another minor character whose face I know: Nick, who is Seb and Pete’s sponsor and Stephen’s boss, looks like Nathan Lane, and pretty much wandered into my head looking like Nathan Lane as soon as I decided that Seb and Pete’s sponsor existed, his name was Nick, and he has an art gallery

I’m kind of annoyed that I have no freaking clue where to start looking for Stephen’s fancast, but I’m also not surprised because he’s tall, and chubby, and a dork whose favorite colors are hot pink and acid green, and who laughs at his own jokes so much that he cannot finish telling the damn joke, and his Dad is black/white biracial while his Mom is Puerto Rican mestizx, and here we are

There is, to the surprise of absolutely no one, a side-character who looks like Tyler Posey. He… needs to be renamed, because I named him at like three in the morning and only just realized why I felt weird about him being named, “Rafael Delgado” (…because Melissa McCall’s maiden name is Delgado, and Scott’s blobfish-shaped gene donor was named Rafael, oh jeez)

—but anyway, he’s a member of the Wardens, who are “totally not” a middle finger to a lot of my issues with how Marvel has handled the X-Men over the years, and he teaches music at their attached school for “the gifted”

This wasn’t the first time that I did something like this, either.

For example: Pete has an ex-boyfriend, who is very much an, “I could replace him with an interesting lamp and it would be essentially the same”-level character. I named him Wade, first as a placeholder, and then I liked it so it stuck but something felt a little off about it

It took me about a month to remember that Spidey*pool is a Thing, and their civvies names are Peter and Wade, respectively, and ohhhhh, that’s why it felt weird…… well, shit. (Interesting Lamp Ex-Boyfriend has since been renamed Blake)

I also have “fancasts” for all of Sebastian’s dogs (Lola, Achilles, Angel, Oscar, Renly, Chewie, Toby, Biscuit, and Cat) and for Nick’s cat (Ms. Dorothy), but that literally just means, “I decided what breed I wanted Ms. Dorothy and Seb’s dogs to be, I went on Google Image Search, and I found the ones I liked the best, yay cute animals”

[amorremanet]

Things I did tonight: blah blah writing, and then also screwing around with some of those, ”toggle the settings to make the dolls look like however you want them” to put together images for some of my loser nerd OC’s

Headshots (L to R, top to bottom): Sebastian, Josie, Pete, Stephen (who got screwed by the lack of body type diversity in these games because he’s supposed to be fat with an undercut and a fondness for cute pink shirts), Lucy, Sara Grace — and the twosome shot is of Seb and Pete, because loser nerd best friends are perpetually my aesthetic, even when that game doesn’t have a lot of variety in clothing choice

Josie would be the token blonde, if they didn’t dye their hair, but their hair hasn’t been its natural color since they were like thirteen. Stephen only looks calm and composed because he’s not currently trying to tell a joke and laughing at his own punchline before he gets it out. Also, I did make little ones for Margot and Todd, but I didn’t like how they came out, so here we are

[amorremanet]

31 for the ask meme!!

asks for fanfic writers.

31. easiest part of writing

Talking about writing, procrastinating, research (it’s way easier to gather the information than to figure out how I want to turn it into fictional stories, a lot of the time. It’s also easier to gather the information than to to turn it into a non-fictional argument, sometimes, though), getting emotionally overwhelmed and taking naps — pretty much all of the stuff that doesn’t involve actual writing.

But for me, the part of Actual Writing that’s easiest is probably dialogue — which is a misleading statement, because writing good dialogue is actually very difficult, and there’s always a struggle in trying to find a good balance between dialogue with a naturalistic flow and dialogue that isn’t redundant or boring to read. Like, one of the go-to examples in How To Writer Good books about doing the dialogue thing is that, when you write a phone call, most readers don’t want to hear all of the, “Hi, this is Character A” stuff or all of the small talk.

Unless it’s somehow important — like showing how comfortable two chars are with each other by showing us that they greet each other on the phone with, “Hey, fuck-face” or like how I used the Scott-Stiles phone call in this one S*cerek fic of mine to show how Scott’s not doing so hot on an emotional level, how he’s lying to Stiles to get out of spending time with him, Allison, Lydia, and Isaac on his (Scott’s) birthday, and how Derek is so wrapped up in his own desires that he’s at the point of, “not being actively helpful” that he’s starting to just be outright UNhelpful — then most stuff about a phone call’s script can be inferred by the readers, so you don’t have to bog people down with all of it.

But finding the right balance in any given section of dialogue is hard and it doesn’t even take practice, because… Yeah, sure, the more you do it, the easier it gets to find strategies that work? But every scene is different, and even writing things with the same characters, you often can’t just copy and paste techniques or plans that worked for one scene onto another.

Like, usually, I have to map most of the dialogue in any given scene (if not all of it) before anything else. Partly, this is to figure out how the scene itself will go — and I generally go into that with at least an idea of what Point A and Point B are for the scene, or what Big Deal Things need to happen in this scene regardless of how I get there — and partly, it’s to figure out which are the most important parts of the scene so I can try to build up to them and showcase them (unless there’s a point in not drawing the reader’s attention to them — like in mystery stories where you plant the clues there but don’t want to give the end away so you want to make them seem totally natural and not special at all).

Then, there’s all the fine-tuning, like revising stretches so that they don’t restate things that have already been in other scenes unless there’s a new perspective on them or new information — a good example of this idea in action is all the times in the HP series when JKR has Harry be screwing around on his own and learn something, then the transition is like, “Harry found Ron and Hermione and told them all of the things, wow” and then jumping right into Ron and Hermione being all, “omg, I can’t believe that Professor Lupin has trashy gay bodice-rippers about vampires in his desk and marginalia about factual inaccuracies scribbled all over a copy of Gilderoy Lockhart’s Wandering With Werewolves, wow, what do you think Voldemort wants with that”

Then, there’s building up the rest of the scene around the dialogue outline (which is often the hardest part for me, because a lot of my dialogue-only outlines are like Shakespeare plays in that the stage directions are minimal at best — like, I note entrances and exits [give or take being pursued by a bear], and important things like, “fyi, Character B is riding a unicycle in this scene” or, “Character C is leaning his chair back on its hind legs like he’s fucking twelve,” or, “Character D tries to drink his water and spits it out the pub window because there’s something wrong with it holy crap,” but that’s usually about it)

Then, there’s rewriting and revising the fully written scene — especially to cut down on how often my characters sigh and roll their eyes at each other, because… they end up doing that a LOT — and trying to make sure that everything makes sense, both on the individual scenes and in terms of the bigger picture stuff…

Still, even though it’s so difficult on a technical level and it takes so much revision, dialogue is one of the easiest parts for me because it’s one of the parts that I love the most. It’s one of my favorite ways to characterize all of these fictional weirdos — like, unless it’s a character choice that you are doing for a reason, you can’t just have them announce how they feel (that makes the Robot Devil feel ANGRY), and you have to have them do shit other than just sit around and talk about things to the exclusion of all else (unless this is an actual character choice that you’re doing for a reason)

But with dialogue, you can show them playing off each other in all kinds of fun ways, and figure out their unique voices better, and you can get a lot of potential insight into how them that can be useful for more action-oriented scenes

e.g., there’s a difference in behaviors and approaches between a character who is aggressively sarcastic, snippy at most people, and very direct about telling other characters to fuck off or that their ideas are ridiculous, and a character who is a more subdued kind of deadpan snarker, tries to be softer and more ostensibly respectful when talking to other characters even when they’re angling for something in particular, and bites their tongue a lot — and this is easier for me to translate into action than more abstract statements about the ideas of the characters like, “Pete is done with your shit and a stale cinnamon roll, been in this world too long, too cynical, too hard” and, “Josie is a total cinnamon roll and too cute for the shit they go through.”

Also, dialogue is one of the best places in a story to be witty and that’s always fun for me to write, even when it’s hard (but the hardest part with my witty characters isn’t even getting it right — though that IS hard — but having to cut out lines that I love)

[amorremanet]

11, 14 & 17? ^.^

asks for fanfic writers.

I did 17 over here, but! <3

11. do you listen to music when writing?

Sometimes, yes! It sort of depends on what I’m writing and what kind of mood I’m in, but I pretty much always listen to something. It’s more just a matter of whether I’m going to listen to music or TV/movies.

And then in each case, there’s the issue of like, “do I want to listen to the Twilight Princess OST or the Silent Hill 2 OST?” (because video game OSTs are great at both evoking mood and increasing focus), or, “do I want a video game OST, or my playlist for [character, ship, project, the mood I’m in, whatever; I have playlists for everything]”

—or if I’m going to listen to TV/movies, then it’s like, “TV or movies?” and then, “Disney movie or superhero movie? Marvel movie or DC movie? Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, or Female Trouble? The Prince of Egypt or Crimson Peak? Star Wars” or in TV Land, it’s more, “Well, I can’t work and listen to something relatively new [which is one of the biggest reasons why I’m perpetually late to everything new on TV], so… House or Criminal Minds? Yuri on Ice dub [because I can’t watch the subs and write at the same time] or SVU reruns? Firefly or Futurama?”

14. easiest character to write

Oh gosh, that’s…… hard. And it often depends on the fandom, and sometimes it depends on what kind of mood I’m in, but…

Barty Crouch Jr. has always been really easy for me (partly because he has Favorite advantage, and partly because I’ve put 16+ years into his character at this point, so like. JKR could drop all of her notes about his family and backstory and everything on us tomorrow — not that I really think said notes exist, but if they did — and I’d probably just go, “Yeah, that’s nice, but with all due respect, Mum? My version’s better, and I’m just going to continue treating it as if it’s canon because bite me, that’s why”).

AlSev Potter and Scorpius Malfoy are both really easy, too, but tbh, I think that’s because my versions of them are essentially glorified OC’s, since my attitude toward Cursed Child with regard to characterization is, “*nods mildly* That’s nice, but I’m going to pick and choose at my leisure, thanks. No offense, but I’ve been working on these kids since DH first came out, and I much prefer my headcanon Scorpius who is the biggest, loudest, gayest Drama Princess you have ever met in your life and has been trying to shock Lucius into having a heart attack and dying since he was like six,

“and my headcanon AlSev who’s sometimes Ruby Minerva Severus, most often genderfluid but sometimes a binary trans girl and other time a gay cis boy, loves Ginny but has a complicated and often strained relationship with her (but in fairness, AlSev-Ruby talks to Godfather Neville and Hagrid about their problems more than they talk to either Harry or Ginny), has a complicated relationship with Harry too but for other reasons and when Harry and Ginny eventually divorce each other, AlSev-Ruby is going to stay at their Dad’s more often than their Mum’s, and never lets anyone forget that their middle name is Severus because AlSev-Ruby likes pissing them off with that fact — especially their Weasley grandparents

“Ron but AlSev-Ruby usually feels bad about this because they know on some level that they’re usually lashing out at Ron unfairly because it’s not about their name in most of these scenarios and entirely about other emotions that AlSev-Ruby has no earthly idea how to handle or express in a healthy or constructive way, and they boil over very easily when people needle them about their name (and if it weren’t Ron on the receiving end of this, it would probably be James)

“and Snape’s portrait, whom AlSev-Ruby accidentally made respect them by going, ‘You’re a painting. You are oil on canvas, magically imbued with the real Severus Snape’s personality and memories. Snap at me all you want, but you can’t do anything to me that’s worse than what Rita Skeeter and Molly have been doing for my entire life so far. If you want to get to know me, instead of using me as some conduit for all of your lingering issues with my Dad, then cool, I’d like to get to know you, too. You’re the closest I can get to getting to know my real middle-namesake instead of the myth of him that’s been built up since the War. But if you’ve got nothing interesting to say, then please shut up and let me wait for the Headmistress in peace’ in their first year, if not as eloquently because they were eleven and being Sulky™”

As much as I still hate being compared to her, even accepting that I totally deserve it, Hermione Granger is another easy one for me to get into and always has been. The hard thing with her is not reducing her to either Perfectly Perfect Hermione (which JKR can even fall into some times, like when Hermione hexed the DA sign-up sheet and it scarred Marietta’s face without regard for how Umbridge is the one to blame in that situation and not Marietta) or some joke about some of the times in canon when she was Over The Top about something, in ways that Harry didn’t entirely get so the narrative treats them as Totally Hilarious, even though SPEW (for example) is actually not funny when held up to scrutiny and Hermione works so hard at school out of deep-set fear of failure and being dispensable, and probably also fear that maybe she doesn’t belong in the magical world

Luna Lovegood is also pretty easy for me, though the hard thing with her is trying to make sure that I write her thought processes honestly but in a way that makes sense for the reader (it’s a variation on the big problem of stream of consciousness writing, where writing actual facts stream of consciousness looks like Finnegan’s Wake and is tedious as fuck to read, so Luna has to be close to stream of consciousness but tamed enough so that the experience of reading anything written from her POV is more likely to be enjoyable, and less likely to be like getting hit upside the head with a tire iron labeled, “IT’S ART OKAY, IT’S NOT FOR YOU”).

Then, Remus Lupin is by far the easiest of the Marauders for me to write, and Andromeda Black Tonks can actually be pretty hard for me sometimes, but she’s easier than either of her sisters and still one of the easiest MWPP-era characters for me, period.

And as far as non-HP characters go: well, my other biggest source of fandom writing in the past while has been Teen Wolf, and the top five easiest kids for me there are Scott McCall (to the surprise of no one ever), Kira Yukimura (#still bitter),

“Camden Lahey (but lbr, he’s pretty much just an OC with a canon name because literally all we know about him in canon is, “Isaac’s older brother, on the 2005/6 swim team, died in the military” so the rest of it is shit that I wholesale made up and of course he’s easier for me to get into character with than, say, Allison — who is probably the third easiest of the ladies for me to get into character with, after either Braeden or Malia but it depends on the day — because Allison has, like, actual canon shit to deal with and Cam…… kinda doesn’t.

Like, all of the vaguely Actual Canon shit that he has to deal with is stuff that’s off in the realm of extrapolation, interpretation, and, “Hey, nothing in canon says that he DIDN’T visit Derek and Laura in New York on his way back from his first visit home during his service, or that he DIDN’T drag Derek uptown to see Patti Lupone as Mama Rose because Cam is a Fanboy for reasons relating to his and Isaac’s late Mother, or that they didn’t argue at the intermission about how IT’S A MUSICAL DEREK STOP TRYING TO QUESTION WHY THE CHARACTERS SING JFC IT’S LIKE I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOU”

or, “lbr, Derek is as subtle as a brick hitting you in the face at 5,000 mph and Paige canonically figured out that he was a werewolf anyway, so I don’t think it’s entirely implausible that, if we accept the idea of him and Cam being friends — and Cam being one of the only people who, like, genuinely likes Derek, instead of tolerating him because he’s okay at basketball and his family is rich — then Cam probably figured out that Derek and Laura are werewolves, and if that’s the case, he probably got trotted over to the Hales’ place so Talia could give him third-degree about whether or not he’s with the Argents or any other hunters.

“And, because he was like fifteen and had literally just found out that supernatural shit is real, Cam probably showed that he wasn’t a hunter by getting way too excited about hearing which magical creatures are real and temporarily shelving his hate-on for Talia to be all, ‘oh my god, are vampires real? can they infect werewolves? could Derek be like, a vampire werewolf, how would that even work’ or, ‘so silver bullets don’t hurt you, but what about someone saying your True Name? is True Name magic real?’ or, ‘do seances actually work? I’m totally not asking because I want to try and perform one to contact my dead Mom, I just want to know, like. For curiosity’s sake. Yeah……’”

[spoilers: Cam was TOTALLY asking because he wanted to try and use a seance to contact Eleanor. Derek and Laura had to stop him from trying to do the thing no fewer than eight times before Cam and Derek graduated. To his credit, Derek at least skipped trying to give Cam any kind of lecture, but tbf, he did that because he knew Cam would argue back at him about how Derek had no right to tell Cam that he was doing something stupid and dangerous and playing with things that he didn’t understand, and that Cam’s argument would probably be more than fair.

This did not stop Laura from giving Cam the lectures that he completely deserved, though, because: 1. he was essentially walking up to a big red button labeled, “do not push” and trying to push it without even reading the owner’s manual or the informational plaque on the wall that had a full explanation of why you shouldn’t push the button, and he KNEW that he was doing this, but he felt like it was all going to work out TOTALLY FINE because he wanted his Mom to be not dead and in lieu of that, why can’t he have a seance, Laura, UGH;

and 2. because, unlike Cam and Derek, Larua generally doesn’t do shit that’s too horribly stupid or that has completely awful consequences (…mostly), so she had an actual high-ground from which to give Cam these, “don’t screw around the magic, what the fuck are you thinking” lectures and wasn’t intimidated by Derek’s loudmouth little friend who, like, actively repels everything that even vaguely resembles chill.]

—so, anyway, the point is that I can pretty much do whatever I want with Cam and it makes him a lot easier to write. Laura is a similar case of, “this character is easy for me to write because I made her up,” and in fairness, a lot of my characterization for Braeden is headcanon, too. It’s just headcanon that has more of a basis in canon than Camden and Laura do.

I mean.

Except for parts like Braeden’s twin sister Belladonna who is a ballerina because fuck Jeff Davis, that’s why and also the only family member Braeden still talks to on any regular basis, and their parents who teach at Miskatonic University because I’m pretty sure it’s in the public domain at this point so nyeh, I’m gonna use it, and also they’re in the know about the supernatural but part of a group who has a policy of strict non-intervention, which Braeden thought was bullshit so she set out to do her own thing, which initially involved more plans to help people…… but then she learned that a girl’s gotta eat, and the mercenary work got started.

Also, she will wipe the floor with you at karaoke. Because I felt like it, that’s why.

Yeah, that’s all pretty, “this is not even remotely implied by canon and I wholesale made it up because canon wasn’t giving me like any damn Braeden backstory beyond the barest implications and I fucking felt like it, so there. PS: fuck Jeff Davis.”)

Derek Hale (I’m not always proud of this fact or entirely thrilled about it because when I get into Derek’s head, I take a lot of things from his canon characterization — especially in earlier episodes, before he started trying to be less of a jerk and discovered that: 1. he sucks as an Alpha, and 2. he loves Scott sooooo much — to their logical conclusions and his head is usually not a very pleasant place to be.

Like, he’s my werewolf disaster and I begrudgingly love him but we’re still talking about a guy who, when I write him, makes leaps of logic like, “Well, Cam said to look out for Isaac because he’s not here to do it himself. That is totally the same thing as giving me verbal permission to stalk his baby brother and manipulate him into accepting the Bite, very good plan, way to go, Derek!! :D” and thinks that, “Scott kissed ME first and didn’t explicitly SAY that he’s NOT 17, therefore I’m totally not obligated to ask him shit about shit or consider whether or not he’s having sex with me as a form of emotional self-harm” is a completely valid conclusion and way of doing things

He’s also a guy who would do things like cheat on Braeden with Cam and Cam with Braeden, while telling neither of them about this, and then when he gets arrested for doing something ridiculous, he would call both of them to come get him at the Sheriff’s station because he’s pretty sure that one of them will be mad and decide to just leave him there to think about what he’s done this time — which would end up in both of them coming, and figuring out that they’ve both been getting cheated on, and skip right past the, “being mad at the other cheated upon party” part to the part that’s more like,

“going for coffee and complaining about the fuck-up they’ve both been dating and making fun of things like his secret One Direction blog, or the Star Wars fanfic he writes where his blatant self-insert OC gets to bang Han, Leia, Mara Jade, Lando, both of the Solo twins, and Padmé (in some wonky shenanigans involving time travel) — oh and sucks for Derek, but Cam and Braeden decided to tell Parrish to just leave him in his holding cell because fuck him, they’ve been getting cheated on so he can just call Laura and beg her to come save his ass tonight”

negl, one of my favorite places to put Derek in non-supernatural AUs is prison. How he wound up there usually involved him killing Peter, and it sometimes involved him panicking and hiding Peter’s body under the floorboards because he’s a loser who thinks Edgar Allan Poe is actually a good model for How To Handle Murdering Someone, and…… yeah, I just. I love Derek, he’s easy for me to write, but he’s a disaster in ways I don’t always feel like dealing with, so sometimes, he gets to just go the fuck to prison so I don’t have to deal with him today.)

and……… ugh, I can’t pick between Danny Mahealani and Jackson Whittemore for the number five spot, but both of them are really easy for me, and like. Jackson, I am still vaguely ashamed of, but I don’t feel that bad about it because I got here by virtue of writing him when Astrid and I RP’d TW stuff together and she didn’t want to just talk to herself for ages by writing Isaac and Jackson, and I refused to half-ass it with Jackson and found a way into his head and here we are.

And Danny as I write him is, in a lot of ways, only somewhat less of an OC than Cam and Laura, so…… basically, that.

And bonuses, because I like talking about my legitimate OC’s, oops: Margot, Pete, and Sebastian are the easiest for me to write at the moment but in fairness, that’s largely because I’ve done the most work developing them as characters, relative to everyone else in the cast.

Like, Todd (who is officially Seb’s “it’s complicated,” and Seb’s Gawain Stacy, if you ask Pete — or sometimes even if you don’t ask Pete, because he will totally tell you this whether you like hearing it or not, especially if your name is Sebastian) — Todd has this notion that he, Margot, and Seb are basically gay boy!Hermione (Todd), lesbian!Harry (Margot), and, “Ron but like what if his family had Malfoy money and he was gay” (Seb). He’s not entirely wrong (and their Houses map onto the Trio’s secondary Houses because of course I know my OCs’ Hogwarts Houses, like why would I not know that)

(This whole Thing of Todd’s actually STARTED because I knew that he is a Ravenclaw, Seb’s a Hufflepuff, and Margot’s a Slytherin, and went, “lol, it’s like the Golden Trio in an AU where none of them wound up in Gryffindor, heh”)

and it makes sense that this is how Todd sees things with them because the three of them found each other in undergrad (though Seb found Margot when their RA paired them up for some “getting to know you” thing during orientation because they were the tallest and the shortest people on the hall, and he found Todd at the first meeting of the campus LGBTIQ students organization, had a crush at first sight on the cute chubby guy in the hot pink t-shirt with the screenprint of the Pink Flamingos poster, and totally meant to go be Super Cool about asking Todd out……

……buuuuuut he got excited and instead it came out like, “Hi, oh my god, I love your shirt, you like John Waters, I love John Waters, he’s my hometown hero, oh my god hi hi hi, my name’s Sebastian what is yours do you want to go get coffee, please be my friend, do you like Rocky Horror too? there’s a theatre a couple blocks from here that does a regular shadow-cast, we should totally check it out, I have just met you and I like you please be my friend” instead of like an actual date invite. And he totally called his Mom later that night to go, “MOM, I MADE ANOTHER FRIEND. TWO IN TWO DAYS, MOM. yeah no i still kind of hate my roommate he’s a jerk BUT I HAVE TWO NEW FRIENDS MOM”

………He was very lonely before undergrad because his only constant friend who wasn’t one of his siblings and didn’t shun him after he got outed at Catholic school [though technically, he sort of outed himself in an attempt to spare his boyfriend/best friend from being outed because Seb’s parents already knew he was gay and were totally cool about it, but Damian’s parents believed in reparative therapy and his uncle was the priest at their Catholic school, so him getting outed was really not an option]? Yeah, that only friend was Pete. But I digress.)

Anyway, Todd’s view of things is a little skewed by how he’s lived them, and strictly speaking, trying to map any of my kids onto the Golden Trio and Company is going to end up being a discussion of archetypes and tropes more than anything else because…… But they’re not the Golden Trio and Company.

There are some similarities, but they are mostly in the realm of archetypes AND the ones that aren’t quite as trope-y happened by accident (like, when I noticed that Seb actually does have quite a few similarities with Ron, aside from having Malfoy money — right down to his dad having an A name (Abraham) and his mom having an M name (Marceline) — I went, “well, FUCK” and started trying to get some of those similarities to be…… less so? Because…… Seb’s not Ron. And I don’t want him to be too overly similar to Ron because I want him to be himself, in his own right.

Fortunately, though, Ron isn’t a filthy rich, gay recovering addict who’s been living with undiagnosed major depression for his entire life and sort of accidentally stumbles into finding his mutant superpowers, and whose abusers aren’t his parents — because Abe and Marceline are pretty chill and have been fab to all four of their kids — but rather a series of douchebag ex-boyfriends who [unlike Molly and Arthur] are for real in-text acknowledged as being abusive jerks, and that’s a pretty solid start on Seb Is Not Ron)

But if you were going to try to do the Golden Trio And Company map here, then Todd would probably be Ginny, actually. They don’t have a lot in common, but there are some points of crossover, and the biggest one for me at the moment? Is that right now, I’m guilty of something that I bag on JKR for doing all the time, which is, “Ginny is a great idea for a character but you didn’t fully actualize her like she deserved in the text, you regularly reduced her existence to being Harry’s Significant Other, and it’s frankly bogus, Joanne” — and I’m aware of this, so I’m trying to fix it by working on Todd as a character

But I’m also trying to not spend forever fine-tuning every last detail about a story and then not having a draft of it so much as I have a two-foot stack of print-outs about different parts of it that kinda sorta look like a complete picture when you arrange them just so and tilt your head slightly to the left. So, basically, at the moment? Getting Todd to be more fully realized is on my List Of Shit To Do, but it’s way less of a priority than, “actual complete draft of this train-wreck” because I can do some of this work in revisions and rewriting

But since I opened this door anyway and want to complete the thought for the amusement factor:

Seb, obviously, is Harry in the bigger picture, even if this is mostly based on, “Harry is The Protagonist of his series, and although MY series is ultimately going to be more of an ensemble cast thing, Seb is the focal character for the first book because, in fairness to all the others, he was here first”

Todd is Ginny for the reasons that I just said

Pete and Margot both have very fair claim to being either Ron or Hermione, so they could arguably take turns, and ultimately, the big reason why I’m going to say Pete’s Ron and Margot’s Hermione?

is that Pete has two older siblings and some Issues with both of them (though he’s working them out with his sister, and not so much with his older brother) and has been Seb’s friend longer

while Margot’s an only child and they have totally used the, “we’re both gay, we love each other like brother and sister” line when they don’t feel like explaining their no romo soulmates kind of relationship to people (and sometimes when trying to make Seb’s siblings be less…… not pleased that Margot is so important to him, because to varying degrees, all three of them kinda sorta blame her for some of his problems in ways that she doesn’t entirely deserve)

Lucy is Neville but, like, a plucky ginger lesbian. This is probably one of the comparisons that looks a lot more like reaching, because on the surface, Lucy has a lot more in common with Ginny outside of their roles in the plot — but the thing is?

Even once I get Todd to be more developed, and even if he and Seb aren’t endgame (which was my original plan and I might stick to it but they have a LOT of shit to work on before they can go there so we’ll see how that goes), Todd is still going to be Ginny’s closest analogue to me because the ideas of them and their arcs are closer than anyone else’s (though in fairness, my idea of Ginny and her arc isn’t necessarily anybody else’s because JKR botched writing Ginny so much that this is almost, “room for wild mass guessing” instead of, “room for interpretation”)

Whereas…… yes. Lucy comes on strong, she’s a plucky go-getter who would probably try to fight the sun if she thought the sun was looking at her girlfriend funny, she’s a complete loudmouth and not always in ways that are conducive to anything, she’ll call you on your shit but usually without realizing that she’s saying something she needs to be hearing too, she tries too hard to do everything on her own and usually needs to experience some kind of big setback before she’ll consider accepting help with anything, and she will probably shout at someone while telling them to go calm down because they told HER to calm down.

Also, she’s the only one in my main ensemble cast who’s a legit Gryffindor, for better and for worse (Pete is a Slytherin — though in fairness, Gryffindor is his secondary House [he is aware of this, thanks to an ex of his who made him get Pottermore Sorted and was dead shocked when he wound up in Slytherin, but he has no idea what this means but he’s offended by it because Gryffindor’s colors are red and gold and no thanks, he doesn’t like how he looks in red and gold. He loves how he looks in green and silver, though] — and Josie’s a Ravenclaw)

—but a lot of how Over-The-Top Extra™ she is? that comes out of insecurity and trying to be various things that aren’t true to herself, because she deeply believes that she isn’t good enough. Granted, a big difference between her and Neville is that, while Neville spends a lot of time in the early books being terrified of his potential because he might screw up and prove right everyone who’s ever called him useless, Lucy instead tries to outrun her all of feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing instead of dealing with them, and basically plays a game of, “if I ignore them and just act like the popular idea of me — or like the me I want to be — but louder, maybe they will go away!!”

She’s going to be shocked when this catches up to her, because when she first shows up in the story, she’s of the mind that hey, she has accepted that she’s a lesbian — even if she’s only out to a small handful of people because…… uh, she’s Damian’s baby sister and their parents are still Not Really Very Safe to come out to. Their dad is probably going to die without Lucy coming out to him and she has VERY fair reasons for being afraid that he’d disown her for this — but!!! She has still accepted this!!!! Clearly it was the ONLY THING in her life that she wasn’t at peace with and now she IS so everything is going to magically be ALL BETTER NOW RIGHT!!!!!

No, not really, Lucy. Your sexuality is just one of the things about yourself that you aren’t at peace with.

Lucy’s response: *throws herself even harder into trying to outrun her self-doubt and being completely disingenuous to herself in the process, while trying to smile and laugh like nothing is wrong even though it really blatantly is*

So, that’s all going over about as well as you’d expect (i.e., not very well, not even a little bit whoops), and a lot of her arc in the series is going to be about finding peace with herself and finding her own ways of being a hero that may not necessarily line up with any more conventional expectations thereof, or even her own preconceived ideas of How To Hero Good, and yeah. She’s Neville, but like, a plucky ginger lesbian.

Also, she and Seb are foils for each other in a loooooot of ways that make them mapping onto Harry and Neville make more sense than trying to make Lucy map onto Ginny, in structural terms

Josie is Luna, and I’m short-changing my genderfluid empath child a lot right now but I’ve also been writing this post for WAAAAAY longer than I intended and ahahaha, everyone’s probably bored

And Conrad is Draco Malfoy, but absent any of the excuses that fans love making for Draco (especially not the age thing, like. Draco behaves in a LOT of ways that are completely unacceptable for any person of ANY age, but I will acquiesce that his age is a contributing factor in some instances because he’s a freaking CHILD. Conrad’s not, though. Like, Conrad is 46 and the oldest member of the main cast in the first book. Conrad gets no excuse for his bullshit based on his age.

He also doesn’t get to claim anything about being terrified for the safety of the people he cares about, because…… uh. While I think that the HP fandom oversells that point re: Draco in HBP because at first, he was completely gung-ho and proud of himself for joining a group of Pureblood supremacist domestic terrorist fascists, Draco was still abused and manipulated by Voldemort here — and during the entirety of HBP and DH — and…… well. Conrad was lied to and played by people who are even bigger douchebags than he is, yeah. But he wasn’t sold on joining the neo-fascist supervillains by having his loved ones threatened; he was sold on it by having his ego stroked and only giving a fuck about how this could benefit him)

So, basically, Conrad is Draco with even fewer redeeming qualities

Given that I think Draco only has, like, TWO redeeming qualities, or maybe three on a good day (and that’s debatable because at least one point here is, “it’s not really a quality of his own so much as the fact that I hate victim blaming more than I dislike Draco”), uh

Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah, no.

Conrad is only not The Literal WORST EVER because there are other douchebags in his neo-fascist supervillain club who are even worse than he is.

i just love my oc mutant weirdos a lot, thank u for reading

[amorremanet]

4, 31, 44

asks for fanfic writers.

Well, I did number 4 over here, and number 31 over here, but! <3

44. do you write linear or do you write future scenes if you feel like it?

I prefer to write linearly, but it often doesn’t get to work out that way. I also outline things a lot, but not always linearly either, and I do a lot of early draft scenes before I even know where it’s going to fit into things because I have an idea and want to get it down right away quick.

Like, one example of this happening lately was a direct result of me trying to come up with a superhero team name that hasn’t been used already and getting so frustrated that I just went, “Okay, screw it, I’m not looking at this anymore tonight or I’ll just give up and name them The Fighting Mongooses — which isn’t even my joke to use, it’s an old Futurama joke.”

The scene idea that grew out of that is basically my three main mutant weirdos — Seb, Lucy, and Josie — trying to figure out a team name. It is pretty much entirely Lucy’s idea because all three of them are sorta vaguely related to the FBI’s department of mutant affairs, but Seb and Lucy are recently awakened mutants who are sort of on a trial run and not planning to stay with the FBI in an official capacity,

and Josie is stuck filling a few different roles for S.T.R.O.M.A (primarily that of media liaison and de facto team therapist) as a result of how they got recruited in the first place (which involved them accidentally getting on the wrong side of what they were allowed to do with the, “I’m a mutant but I really just want to live my life and not be a bother to anyone, superheroic shit sounds really stressful, let’s not” license, and getting caught, and being handed an offer that basically went, “Hey, come be on our team on a consultancy basis and we’ll make the censures all go away”)

—but none of them really likes working with S.T.R.O.M.A, for several reasons, and Lucy, bless her heart, thinks they should have a team and work together to be heroes.

This is a Thing that some super-powered people do, and teams are registered and licensed like mutants are in general — which isn’t actually sinister so much as tedious, like?

It’s a fair point that, when we’re talking about people who can breathe fire and shoot fricking laser beams out of their eyes and whatnot, then that is not really the same thing as the government trying to make people register on the basis of their race/ethnicity, religion, sexuality, etc. Like, yes, a lot of the rhetoric that can be pulled out in justification of this can be Bad, but we are talking about people who can exhale toxic gases, mind-control people, shoot freaking eye lasers, walk through walls, etc.

That’s all stuff that has legitimate, immediate potential to harm people, and a potential way to compromise — trying to keep everyone safer without infringing unfairly on the rights and civil liberties of mutants — is to treat it like getting a driver’s license. Like, acknowledge that most people didn’t ask for mutant superpowers and it’s not something that they can help (but it’s also a little more complicated than, “you have the mutant X gene so it’s mutant superpowers fun-time, whee”), don’t blame them (especially in the cases where really young kids have freak accidents with powers that no one suspected they had, and especially because there’s a tendency for that to happen in situations with kids who are being bullied or abused)

—but also acknowledge that these powers do have the potential to do a lot of harm, both to the people who have them and to others, and try to do whatever possible to make sure that resources are provided for mutants so that they can learn to control their powers and have the licensing laws in place to make sure that they get said resources. (This is obviously VERY ideal and it doesn’t usually work out so neatly because we’re talking about the U.S. government trying to do things, and there are so many factors — money,  institutionalized isms, public opinion, grassroots campaigns on all sides, fuckery in Congress or the different state and local legislatures, list goes on — that make this go other than as planned on paper. But in an ideal world, this is how it would play out.)

So, in this world, getting a mutant license can be done at the DMV or the local Secretary of State’s office (if you live in some place like Michigan where we’re a bunch of hipster fucks who refuse to just have a DMV), and there are some tests to go through, to prove that you’re not going to lose control of your powers in potentially lethal ways and make sure you know certain legal rules (e.g., “hey, we get it that you did not ask to have mind control powers, but using them to make someone have sex with you? That’s rape. Don’t do that, rape is wrong and you’ll go to prison”).

There are more tests to go through if you want to get the superhero license, but it’s still more comparable to getting a license to drive a motorcycle or a school bus than any of the other metaphors for registration that we’ve seen in different X-Men stories.

Some teams are even Big Deals and have corporate sponsorship and everything. Their members are basically celebrities (at least, the ones who are Big Deals on the level of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Iron Man, Ozymandias, or the old school Minutemen from Watchmen), and whether or not any of them are actually good at being superheroes anymore is a matter of some debate.

But in fairness, the smaller deal heroes affiliated with these teams are usually still doing the work, even if tools like Doctor Delphi pretty much have a few token acts of heroism, show up to NYC Pride every year, shoot commercials, and compulsively document their lives on Instagram, without doing any work that makes a meaningful difference at all.

Also, superhero comics and their related adaptations are still A Thing.

Like, I see where Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons were coming from by replacing the superhero comics with pirate comics — but I could also see people keeping superhero comics around even with irl mutant superheroes. You’d probably also see ex-heroes making memoir-style graphic novels, and not-that-thinly veiled versions of irl heroes showing up in the Batman or Hulk comics.

S.T.R.O.M.A has an entire sub-team whose primary job is going over comics, movies, YA lit, and all the rest to make sure that no one’s using, “lol fiction” to spill information that has a security clearance attached. They have a picture of Stan Lee on a dartboard because the sheer number of times they’ve had to investigate him is ridiculous. Their counterparts at MI6 have three filing cabinets just for JKR.

But Lucy is a really pumped up about this team idea, so she’s trying to get Seb (who is less than entirely jazzed about this concept but refuses to just let Lucy go do the thing on her own) and Josie (who has mixed feelings about the whole thing but is curious enough to come along for the ride) to help her come up with team names. Mostly, this involves the two of them shooting her ideas down as such:

Lucy: *suggests a name*

Seb: Marvel already has one of those.

Josie: Also, there are two real-life teams registered with that name and I think four different individual vigilantes.

Lucy: *suggests a different name*

Seb: DC got there first.

Josie: There aren’t any real world teams with that name, but it has been one of the most popular names independent vigilante names for five years running.

Lucy: *suggests, “The Crusaders”*

Seb: Ehhh, do we really want to invoke the Crusades? I mean, okay, the word sounds cool, but the Crusades were military campaigns of unlawful conquest and Islamophobic genocide. Ffs, did Sister Mary Ignatius stop teaching that in her history classes after I got forced out of St. Andrew’s or what?

Lucy: You actually paid attention in Sister Mary Ignatius’s history classes? Like, enough to remember them?

Seb: You didn’t?

Lucy: I had better things to do than give that old bat more than the bare minimum, Bastian. Like, y’know, extracurricular community college science classes because the science curriculum at St. Andrew’s was bullshit—

Josie: Let’s stay on topic. So, there’s already a fictional group that’s called the Crusaders, plus two real world teams, six indie vigilantes who call themselves. ‘the Crusader,’ and it’s also regularly found in weird compound names. I wish that I could bleach all memories of Captain Dick-Cheese Crusader from my mind, but alas, it doesn’t work that way.

And so on and so forth. Until they finally hit the point of Lucy going, “FINE. If you don’t like any of MY ideas, one of YOU suggest some already. jfc, you’re older than I am, why do I have to tell you both to be more proactive”

So, Seb suggests, “The Apostates” because it is the first word that comes to his mind aaaand…

Josie: While I am pleased to heard Seb suggest something first, there’s already a team registered by that name. They’re a bunch of alumni or former affiliates of Lehrer and Woodham who had various kinds of falling outs with the good Doctors, or had Yael and Elizabeth kick them off one of The Wardens or one of their other teams for some reason. Most of them are actually lovely people, but the one who calls himself Bocca Lupo is the woooooorst.

Seb: …Personal experience?

Josie: His civvies name is Danny Walker. He used to be a fashion photographer before he discovered his powers. He was my freshman year roommate at Pratt. We dated for a while in senior year—

Lucy: And he dumped you so now you’re bitter and being a pain in the ass about Seb’s suggestion because you’re still mad at him?

Josie: Oh, no. I dumped him. He wouldn’t stop acting like eating disorders are a joke after I told him that I have one to try and make him stop being like that to one of our classmates.

And then there was a bunch of backstory-expounding from Josie that tbh, isn’t going to end up in the full draft of this scene, ever, since it really needs to be spaced out more and woven into things a bit more naturally — but the endgame for the moment is still that any team names related to, “apostate” or, “apostasy” are vetoed in full because wow holy shit, Josie’s ex is a douchebag and that he’s one of the major players in the Brooklyn-based Apostates is really Not A Cool Thing

And I have no idea where this is going to fit into the story or when but

It’s a scene that I like and drafted out in my borderline-illegible longhand so I wouldn’t forget the idea

I forget how I wanted to wrap this post up, so

Uh…… *jazz hands*? yaaaaaay?

[amorremanet]

6 & 7

oc relationships questions meme

6. What OC is the Mom Friend?

Well, there are a few in-story factions with different respective Mom Friends.

Among the main ragtag band of misfit heroes, Josie is definitely the Mom Friend. Maybe not at the beginning, exactly, since the main cast’s team needs to come together and get their dynamics going… but Josie will emerge as the Mom Friend among the main cast and they’re going to have very mixed feelings about it, because they don’t particularly want to be the Mom Friend on their free time when that’s also largely their role on the team at S.T.R.O.M.A. (the FBI off-shoot that is basically the Division of Mutant Shenanigans), but okay fine, Josie will do it.

If they need time off, then Margot would be the backup Mom Friend, but she’s more the Wine Mom Friend or the Vodka Aunt Friend than the actual Mom Friend, so that could be messy.

Among the main villains, Joanie and Margaret are the Mom Friends, with Margaret being the Mom Friend who’s more likely to make you dinner or cookies or something and actively push you to open up to her and will always be there for your soccer games and your dance recitals, and try to shelter you from everything she deems potentially inappropriate (and will insist on using euphemisms about it, even if she’s speaking to fellow adults), while Joanie is like a mix of power-suited working Mom Friend who’s got everything handled and wants to support you while also keeping everyone on track, and of, “I’m not like a regular mom, I’m a cool mom! Right, Regina?”

But as nice as that sounds, Margaret is a Far-Right Born Again Christian self-appointed moral guardian who wants to enforce her views of how everything should be on everyone and is okay with using superpowers to do so (and if she had ever read The Handmaid’s Tale, she would think Atwood’s Republic of Gilead had the right idea in their totalitarian white Christian theocracy)

…while Joanie wouldn’t exactly call herself a fascist because, see, that is some very aggressive, loaded language with a lot of baggage attached and she doesn’t want to censor anyone, of course not, but she would prefer that we use a more diplomatic equivocation that doesn’t confirm or deny anything and sounds more like a Craigslist ad than a statement of her sociopolitical beliefs or an answer to whatever question you asked (unless the question is about her love of Ayn Rand)

So, them being the Mom Friends doesn’t make anything better about them; it means that they are the Mom Friends of their group and also pretty terrible people (which doesn’t make them any different from most of the people on their so-called “team”)

Among the All-Stars, you have Ruby Marvel (who would say she’s more of the Dad Friend, because she tries to be the Mom Friend but is sometimes really bad at it) and Darkshroud (whom most people would peg as the Dad Friend, because he projects an image that is in the brooding, emotionally distant, vaguely anti-heroic model and supportive but distant and Not Good at emotions, but that is largely an act and he’s very different when you really get to know him. Still given to periodic bouts of brooding, though).

The All-Stars are basically the in-universe equivalent to the Justice League or the Avengers. They’re the most recognizable U.S. superhero team, arguably the biggest and most notable team in the world, and they’re regularly touted as the Face Of Heroism. They have lunchboxes, they have a Saturday morning cartoon, some of the big members or former members have Oscar-winning biopics directed by the likes of Oliver Stone and Steven Spielberg.

But since 1986, they’ve been doing less and less hero work, to the point that most of the current lineup is more concerned with their reality show and “their brand” than actually acting like superheroes. Two of them (Red Queen and Prince Nebula) are failed pop stars who happened to have mutant abilities, so when their albums weren’t selling, they decided to go BS their way through getting superhero licenses and put in to be new sidekicks to Captain Firebrand and The Myrmidon, and broke out as heroes in their own right in 2012.

and one last team: among the Wardens, Yael is the Tough Love Mom Friend/Mama Bear Mom Friend, Lucien is the, “Let’s go to my office, have tea, and talk out what’s bothering you” Mom Friend, and Elizabeth is often misidentified as the Mom Friend because she has more chill than her wife/co-founder of their team/co-principal of their school, but having more chill than Yael doesn’t really mean much.

7. What OC really needs the Mom Friend around?

On Josie and Margot’s team…… well. Sebastian and Lucy are likely the worst offenders in this regard, followed by Pete in a distant third place, because:

Lucy is young, inexperienced, eager, and more of a doer than a planner so she’s the one who’s most likely to need a chill down talk lest she run headlong into an obvious trap or something;

Seb is a Mess, a complete human disaster, Pete has more than once rightfully likened his psyche to a bag filled with wet cats, and to be fair, he’s trying his best……… but he’s still a Mess, though, and a mess who can turn into a nine-foot-tall wolf-man and is nearly 30 before doing so for the first time and has rather an uphill struggle about learning to control it;

and Pete is young-ish but experienced, and a Mess but he’s a better adjusted Mess who’s been putting more work into his therapy sessions than his abruptly a werewolf best friend up there and consequentially getting more out of them, and in lieu of a Mom Friend, you can generally rely on him to be like the Cool Older Brother friend, or something

……except he doesn’t always think before running his mouth off about something, or before starting shit with someone, or before agreeing that it’s totally a good use of team time to go to the mall with Lucy and sit on a bench outside the Hot Topic and make judgmental comments about all of the little Hot Topic goths because, “You never know! Observing the current social climate in that environment might help us figure out some of the things we can’t currently make heads or tails of,” which is a cute way of saying, “Because I want to make fun of the Hot Topic edgelords with Lucy, this sounds fun”

So it’s less that he needs the emotional support of a Mom Friend and more that he needs the impulse control of a Mom Friend.

And okay, he and Seb often play each other’s impulse control, and Pete is more willing to listen to his Princess than to most other people… but sometimes, they both fail at impulse control and enable each other in questionable things that could be as small as, “Okay, I get that you two wanted to win a silly bet but did Pete really need another pair of lime green hot-pants?” or it could end in a trip to the emergency room, so.

Having someone as backup impulse control for Pete isn’t a bad plan.

On the villain team: Julian and Annie, hands down, need a Mom Friend — but considering that Margaret is one of Annie’s abusers and only tolerates Julian under the condition that he, “acts less gay” in her presence (and maybe listens to her “theories” about conversion therapy and lets her “help save him”), and considering that Joanie may not outright abuse Annie but she definitely enables the people who do and still doesn’t treat Annie very well, while not just enabling Julian’s substance abuse but actively giving him whatever he wants and then some, as part of an official plan that she helped come up with, designed to keep him dependent on the higher-ups in their so-called, “team”…?

Uh, yeah, “Julian and Annie need different Mom Friends” is a massive understatement.

On the All-Stars: Knightshade II and Zephyr Haze need a Mom Friend most often (the former because she’s the youngest team member and technically still a sidekick [to Darkshroud, though she sometimes teams up with Grimm, who was the first Knightshade], and the latter because he’s a Mess and, like Seb, he’s trying, but still, he’s a Mess), and unfortunately for Ruby Marvel, she’s often in need of a Mom Friend herself, despite her being one of the Mom Friends. At least Darkshroud is usually there to rely on.

And on the Wardens, well. Most of the characters who need a Mom Friend most aren’t technically on the team yet because they’re the students who came to Yael and Elizabeth’s school from particularly awful circumstances, or whose powers are harder to learn to control and/or ostensibly more of a curse than a blessing, and most of them are under the age of 18. That said, Yael is Josie’s Mom Friend, even if Josie isn’t officially on her team.