#plus also if someone presented themself the way they do in real life

[fiveeeee]

i think ppl forget sometimes that ppl who genuinely do not feel emotions do not do much of anything, bc u need emotions to feel motivated to do things and make many decisions. not feeling anything are characteristics of depression and schizoid personality disorder and both are characterized by lack of drive to do much of anything. often ppl use emotionless as short for smart and cold but truthfully those ppl are not emotionless, they must be motivated by something whether curiosity or fear or a sense of utilitarian morality.

and i think also ppl forget there is a price for repressing ur emotions. that shit is incredibly taxing on ur body, incredibly stressful. it will straight up make u sick. so all of this must be considered when u have a character that doesnt express themself much.

[northern-passage]

hi, i don’t mean this to be rude at all just genuinely wondering how you’re going to approach nsfw content with your nonbinary characters? i’m just curious since you’ve never revealed agab (which i totally respect that) and i’ve done the same with my own nb ROs.

i assume this is about nsfw art? i've done snippets for Clementine before, and i've always kept it vague for them (and same with Noel, since xe was gender-selectable at the time)

this is something i've thought about a lot and have talked to various people about since i've started tnp; i've always been pretty adamant about not discussing agab on the blog, and that's not going to change with this. i have a no nsfw policy almost entirely because of the way the IF community interacts with & talks about trans and nb characters, and while it has improved slightly in the last year, it's still not something i'm going to entertain. to be frank, i find people asking for agab/discussing agab in this context (anonymously on tumblr dot com), even about fictional characters, to be really weird and rude.

i don't really think it adds anything to announce a character's agab in that way, and personally for the stories i write i always want it to be something that comes up in-game between the player and the character, because it gives the character some agency and (this is entirely a personal opinion) as someone who is nb myself it makes me feel that, as an author, i am conveying to readers that this is not information you are Entitled to, not in real life and not even in fiction. you have to get to know this character, and even then, they are not required to share this very private thing with you. obviously i do understand the appeal in announcing if your characters are trans, and i understand it makes it easier for people who are looking for trans inclusive games to find them that way - this is just my personal opinion about it, and why i don't specify that kind of thing in my character descriptions or intro posts.

at this point, though, with the plans i have for the game and the sexual content i want to include, it's obvious that it's not exactly realistic of me to keep it vague. it's going to eventually come up in game, in the intimate scenes i have planned for everyone. i didn't expect that i would ever even be writing those kinds of scenes, which is also part of why i set that boundary about my nb characters to begin with (this game wasnt even 18+ at the start). but i've got more comfortable with that now, and it's something i'm actually looking forward to.

i've debated a lot about this, especially after i released the siren's call demo and posted art of Rome on that blog and immediately had people in my inbox misgendering them and calling them a man - it really frustrated me in particular that just giving the slightest bit of facial hair made people act like that... they aren't perfectly androgynous, and suddenly people felt comfortable disregarding their identity and straight up misgendering them.

however, i don't think the answer to that is to just remove all sex characteristics from my nb characters... that's silly and isn't actually addressing the problem (i'd argue it's making it worse) plus there's already a prevalent misconception when it comes to nb people and How they are expected to look and dress, with most people assuming certain things that directly harm the more vulnerable members of our community. nb people can look any way they want, and they're still nb. it's ridiculous to expect androgyny, and it's ridiculous to expect nb people to be "vague." but i also think it's ridiculous to expect Anyone to disclose personal, private information about themself, no matter how they present... and with Clementine and Noel being fictional characters, they can't really "decide" what they want for themselves.

sorry this has turned into a bit of a tangent, but basically my thoughts on all of this now is... it's Complicated. lmfao. i know a lot of people especially liked how i've handled Clementine up to this point, and i understand if people are disappointed with this potential change. i've also had a lot of people that have really liked my snippets and depictions of Merry - whereas with Clem i was always vague, i've been far more explicit with Merry.

i think, particularly with Merry, she has shared with the player that she is trans & potentially has already had an intimate encounter with the hunter. Lea, too, is very close with the hunter and they are both intimately familiar with each other, whether they like it or not. obviously we know Clem and Noel are trans as well, but the difference is that they have not disclosed certain things with the hunter like Lea and Merry have, if that makes sense. this is also why i preferred to keep things vague with those two specifically - again, i like giving that bit of agency to the characters, and we have a long way to go in-game before Clem or Noel are close enough to the hunter to want to share that information.

for the record i do think it's weird to treat it like some Big Deal that *gasp* Clem and Noel have genitalia! it's not something that needs an announcement. but i hope this at least explains my thinking & why i've done things the way i have up to this point, and why i've changed my mind slightly.

my plan now, with the nsfw art aspect, is that i may post an occasional tasteful nude of some of my characters on patreon. and that's it. it's not going to change how i do anything else, and this doesn't change anything about either Noel or Clem.

[capt-spooki3]

By The Witch's Grace

Chapter One

A Sbi "choose your own story" fanfiction

It seems Y/n, a known and hated magic user in their small town, has a lot to deal with after the rowdy bunch that is Philza, Wilbur, Technoblade, and Tommy, show up at their door step in the midst of a giant snow storm...

Warning: Cursing, talk of hate/discrimination

2.6k words

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“Alright, we need flour, milk, apples... Uh no no stop meowing, please. Shit okay, flour, milk, apples, and what? Oh god, was it- oh! Bottles! Of course, geez.” Y/n laughs at themself before kneeling down, and pets the head of their cat who was demanding their attention. The little feline, who looked like a little toasted marshmallow, purred and meowed as she was happy with the much-needed attention.

“Alright Poppy, I’ll be back. Be a good little girl for me, okay? I’ll be back in time to give you supper I promise.” They baby talked to the cat with little forehead kisses before getting back up to their feet and reaching toward the wall where a large cloak was hung on a large nail next to the door. They threw on the heavy fabric and clasped the small glass button to keep it on their shoulders, their hand lingering as it passed over the glassy eye that permanently stayed on a chain around their neck. The result of a curse placed, not too long ago, that bound it to their person until death. Just the luck of someone who often plays with magic that they can barely comprehend.

The piece would pass as a decoration to any untrained eye, but to those who delved into the arts of magic, any one of them could tell you what this object was. With the deep and light greens with accents of blue and a cat-eye pupil that was forever staring, there was no mistaking an eye of ender. The object was rich in stored-up mana, but it was no joke. Even with the most skilled of mages, they had to be most cautious and limit their time interacting with the eye. The sooner they distanced themself from it the better as the eye has been heavily rumored to take possession of people who use its magic for too long. Mages long past wrote notes in books, Y/n as read countless times, on how the eye has influenced beings to cause great harm and destruction. Its motives are still unknown. 

With the object on their person 24/7, they take caution every moment in case the eye decides it's time to take control. They hope it isn't any time soon.

Tucking the eye of ender under the latch of the cloak, they peeked outside to be met with chilled air kissing their cheeks. The bitter promise of snow.

More the reason to get their errands done as soon as they could to get back home. As if their life being in danger wasn’t the biggest reason to rush so they could hide again. They carefully pulled on their hood and hid as much of their features as they could within the cloak before stashing a satchel that jingled with coins and setting off through the door.

Being able to leave their distant home was always a treat, but also a constant threat to their life. They were never positive if they would return home after each venture. As a magic user, thoughtfully given the nickname of ‘Witch’ from the townsfolk, they weren’t liked much. They made the mistake of trying to show off their powers once before learning quickly that magic was despised among these people. It was only associated with the rich who treated people lower than them like they were dirt under their shiny boots. Luckily they still had a vendor in the town that sold to them, it was the only thing keeping them going.

After about a hour walk down a few winding forest paths that they carved out by themself after years of taking the same route, the port town was in view. Snow littered the ground to the sides of the dirt roads that they walked along and the small breeze that was present ran cold, the overcast sky promised a harsh amount of snow. That is bound to make next week fun. They sure were lucky to bring extra coins so they can stock up.

Once reaching the main town, they made sure to keep their head down and slip through the hundreds of bodies at the markets. It was all routine now, sadly. They took a turn down an alley that harbored a few stray cats and even a dog that scattered when they pressed on down the alley. Softly, they knocked a code to the shopkeep on the old wooden door.

The door just barely creaked open and an old green eye peered out. Y/n looked down to meet the weary eye peeking out at them and couldn't fight a smile. An old cackle rang out and the door opened up wide to an older woman. She was small and had all gray and white hair that was long and braided over her shoulder, but her eyes were alive and she was brimming with joy.

“Oh my little bird, how are you doing?” She said fondly with a slight German accent and Y/n knelt for the woman when she reached to hold their cheeks and look them over.

“I’m well Oma, thank you. You look as young as ever.” The kind words made the woman laugh and she put her hands on her hips and let out a sigh of contentment.

“So what do you need today? I just got in a big order of sugar if you want some.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful actually. I need flour, milk, and is Opa at his shop today? I need apples and he always has those bottles that I need.”

“Actually, he is home sick today,” She started and she walked into the shop to retrieve what Y/n needed. “He caught a small cold but he’ll be better soon. Wait just a moment and I’ll go grab everything.”

The lady went off on her way and Y/n sat on the doorstep, waiting and watching the people walk past the end of the alley. They cringed to themselves whenever they caught the word witch in some distant conversations, they seemed to be a tall tale at this point. At least they weren’t being actively hunted down anymore.

A few long minutes passed and there was a small thump that caught their attention in the shop, when they looked back there were two large sacks and no sign of the woman. Rest assured, after a few moments, the old lady was just barely managing to carry two more large sacks filled to the brim with the few things they had asked for plus much more as they usually only bring one sack home each trip.

“Oma! Oh no, I don’t have enough for all of this! Besides, I can’t possibly carry this all back home.”

“I know, I know. You’ll need it with the weather we have coming on tonight, as payment you can show me that magic you talked about last time. You know that… carrying magic..” She gestured wildly, trying her hardest to remember the word as Y/n stood back up.

“Oh, my spatial magic? I’m not too good at it, but I am sure I can manage this. Alright, are you ready?” They checked the alley for possible watching eyes before holding their hands out with their palms toward the bags.

The old woman stepped back and watched with excitement, her eyes practically sparkling already. Y/n closed their eyes and sucked in a deep breath, their hand flexing a bit and opening wider. A soft purple light began to emit from their hands and two thin, long arms that seemed to be made from the night sky itself stretched out and each hand touched the sack and engulfed it in darkness before retreating back within Y/n’s hands. They let out their held and concentrated breath with a deep sigh, their muscles and bones feeling heavy as they held some of the weight of the sacks within their being.

“That was amazing! Oh, you are so talented, I am so proud of you.” The woman said happily and walked forward, pulling Y/n down and kissing the head of the young mage she seemed to love. “Please hurry home now, stay safe. Opa and I love you and I hope to see you again soon.” 

She waved them off and Y/n waved back, pulling their hood down more for precaution, and slipped into the crowd toward the road they took back home. They felt rather blessed they were able to make it home without even a scare.

They walked along the road, waiting to see their well-worn path as the heaviness of their body grew with walking uphill. Using magic like this weighed on the body and the soul with however much the individual was carrying. They reached up, pulling down the clasp to their cloak to reveal the eye of ender to the world. As much as they didn't want to rely on its power, it was the only way they would confidently make it home. Grasping the warm object tight, it pulsed with magic beneath their fingers as if it were alive, they sent their mana into the eye to mix and grant them a magic boost. They knew quite well the item was evil and no good to toy with, what else should one do when it's bound to them for life? With a soft purple glow to their eyes now, their body felt lighter and the strain to keep their goodies in a personal pocket in the dimension lifted almost completely. They shook off their bits of anxiety with the gain of power and picked up the pace to get home as small flurries were filling the air around them.

The walk back home was fast and they were beyond relieved upon opening the door and feeling the hug of the warm cottage and a string of excited meows when their familiar raced to greet them.

“Hey Poppy, miss me?” They stroked the cat before kneeling on the ground to perform the same technique of magic for consuming the sacks to spit them back out onto the ground in front of them and hummed a soft tune while they went through the goodies and put them in their respected places around the three stories of the home. Before they noticed it, the world outside had grown dark and they lit the lanterns around the house and peered through a window to see the snow blowing strongly and the wind howling, they hadn’t even gotten a chance to see the sunset. This was turning out to be a real blizzard, they did a silent prayer that it wouldn’t last long.

Just as Y/n was trying to put the last of the sugar away there was a heavy thump on the door followed by a hurried couple of knocks of which were all inconsistent but did the job of grabbing their attention. They fumbled with the sugar but safely put it down before hurrying to the door, their fast movements spooked the cat and caused her to scramble away to go hide.

Once getting the locks undone they opened up the door to see four individuals standing there, waiting. Two of the larger individuals there stood on the sides to frame the group in a way. The one on the left most who had shoulder-length pink hair and noticeable tusks sticking out from his bottom lip and inhuman down pointed ears, was using his large, red cloak to hold a blond boy who was about to his shoulder, against him and shield him from the snow. The two both had on heavy armor, though, the blond’s armor was a bit more leather than metal. On the other end stood a taller man with brown hair who also was in armor and was hunched over to be able to get covered by a large dark grey wing that held him. Said wings belonging to a man who was shorter than the brunette and had on expensive-looking mage robes and messy blond hair. The winged man looked to Y/n in desperation as he began to speak.

“Please let us stay for the night. We will leave as the sun rises, please just-”

“Stop talking- just come in. Hurry! It’s got to be below zero out there.” Y/n hurriedly ushered the bunch inside as they held the door open for them.

The burly pink-haired man was the first to make a move as he pushed the blond boy off of him and through the doorway and was already reaching over to push the brown-haired man next. He made sure the winged individual made his way in before going in. He looked at Y/n who was still holding the door and adjusted his jaw, a nervous habit it seemed, eyes darting around a bit before he returned his eyes to them and gave a nod of appreciation.

Y/n barley was able to get the door closed after him before they turned around and was assaulted with a hug from the winged man, he was incredibly cold. They hugged the man back, rubbing his back a little as he said many soft thank yous to them, though they watched the other three who stood close and looked around at the bottom portion of their home. The blond boy hugged himself close, shivering and the brunette rubbed his back as he looked around.

They hope they wouldn’t regret not thinking it through before letting a bunch of strange people into their home.

“I truly cannot thank you enough for this. We would have died out there.” The man said as he finally let go of Y/n and studied their face for a moment, looking for words it seemed. “We should introduce ourselves. I’m Phil and the big guy back there is Technoblade. The lanky one is Wilbur and the blond one between them is Tommy. They are my sons.”

Y/n watched them as Phil introduced them, each of them giving them some sort of little greeting when they were called. Whether it was a head nod or a little wave or a smile. They seemed nice.

“One hell of a family..” Y/n mumbled which Phil seemed quite funny and even Wilbur chuckled a bit.

“Oh yeah, but they are my boys.” He said while looking at the three with fondness.

The sweet moment was caught a little short when Technoblade crossed his arms, his body language screaming distrust. He looked down at Y/n and sized them up as he grumbled out a question that sounded more like a command. “What is your name. Who are you.”

“Techno- for god’s sake be a little nicer could ya? Bloody hell, they just saved us.” Wilbur retorted and Technoblade huffed a little growl and looked away. Wilbur gave a short and annoyed sigh, looking back at Y/n as he pulled his hand away from Tommy and instead rested a hand on the hilt of the sword at his waist. It wasn’t meant to be seen as a threat, but the gesture did make Y/n a bit uneasy as they shuffled back a tad. Instead, he just spoke kindly with an inviting hand gesture.

“What is your name?” He stated and he and Phil looked at them expectantly.

They hesitated for a moment with the eyes on them and cleared their throat, standing taller. “My name is Y/n... it’s nice to meet all of you.” They thought for a moment about what they should say to these people who stood awkwardly, warming up from the cold. “How about I uh… go get some blankets for you all. Blankets and I’ll set up my two spare rooms.” They added as more of a side note to themselves than the group and hurried up the stairs to get things together. 

This was going to be a long night. They can only hope the snow stops soon.

[Chapter Two]

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Hi!! Spooks here. Like the first chapter? Want to make sure you know when i post the next chapter and any after that?

Click here and interact with this post! I'll add you to my tag list!!

And thank you so much for reading!!

[peemil]

☕evangelion 😳

y'all are killing me

the more time i spend apart from this show, the more i find myself kind of hating it shsjhl;hjsdhjso;d. i am somehow now in an even worse place mentally than i was when i first watched evangelion but even so i am NOT letting myself fall in the same traps of woobifying shinji and excusing the behaviors i shared with him and vice versa.

starting with my most general take, i don't like the rebuilds. like, at all. granted, i haven't seen 3.0 + 1.0 yet, and i will be avoiding spoilers until there is an official english translation, but i feel like the rebuilds are kind of what you get when you listen a little too hard to people who didn't get the psychological parts of eva and spent the latter half of the series wishing it would go "back" to being a regular mecha anime (which it never was in the first place). the rebuilds lack a lot of the same internal conflicts that drive the characters (especially shinji), and higher budget means the rebuilds can be more direct in their storytelling and less reliant on alternative ways of communicating ideas, which causes the rebuilds to lose some of the avant-garde present in the original series. as a result, it's jarring to see some of the attempts made at this in 3.0, and painful to watch these attempts fail, as they have no real precedent in the film series. the best way for me to explain the rebuilds is they feel like sterilized and polished, but hollow versions of the original anime series. but maybe i'm just biased, because none of the things i liked about the original are present in the films.

on to more minutiae... i've said it once and i'll say it again, asuka langley soryu is a LESBIAN and there's nothing anyone can do to make me stop reading her character in this way. the only male characters she is depicted as having any romantic feelings towards in the series just (unintentionally) so... comphet. her obsessive flirting with kaji is rooted in her need to prove her worth as an adult, i.e., to prove to others that she is something she inherently is not. plus, he's older, and he's conventionally attractive, so if she didn't have feelings for him (or at least publicly perform having feelings for him), she'd be out of her mind, right? asuka is also someone shown to pursue connections out of convenience (literally citing it as her primary reason for wanting to be friends with rei), and any intimacy she shares with shinji (i.e., their kissing scene) is done only because 1. she's bored 2. shinji is the closest person available. i find the notion that she's a tsundere hiding her real feelings for him laughable, because we've seen what asuka is like around people she genuinely likes and whom she wants to like: the hatred she shows for rei takes a different form from her hatred for shinji: whereas asuka is disgusted by shinji, she is resentful towards rei. her resentment towards rei curiously begins only after rei rejects asuka's offer of friendship, so i am inclined to believe that asuka's feelings of anger when she sees rei receives more respect than she believes she does at nerv are compounded by the fact that she wanted to like rei and have a connection with rei, but wasn't permitted to do so. we also get to see how asuka acts around the one person with whom asuka is able to form a meaningful connection with, whom she lets herself trust and open up to: hikari. asuka actually has fun with hikari and feels safe enough around her to not only seek refuge with her and her family in her time of need, but also to admit that her rage is mostly towards none other than herself. her behavior towards shinji is nothing like her behavior towards either of these characters, but it is not much different from her behavior towards kensuke and toji, two other boys in her class, so maybe... maybe she just doesn't like boys? lol. i'm aware that asuka is genuinely homophobic and awful in the episode 24 drafts, and that it was in no way, shape, or form the writers' intent to turn that into some sort of commentary on internalized homophobia. but with the canon footage that did get animated, i'm really not sure how else i'm supposed to analyze this aspect of her character.

similarly, i don't appreciate how many fans will treat headcanoning shinji as gay instead of bi is somehow "bi erasure." number one, shinji's behavior and attitudes towards the women around him is actually kind of appalling, so i wouldn't necessarily want to use his objectification of and acts of violence against their bodies as particularly strong evidence that he's genuinely attracted to women. number two, of course a show about a young man made in the late 90's is going to try to portray the people to whom he is attracted primarily as women. partially because they can't start from the get-go with him having his teenage sexual awakening with another male—for a mainstream anime, that wouldn't be profitable—and partially because this is an anime and showing women and girls in a sexual light is profitable. and given shinji's role of audience surrogate, of course he is going to be the one doing the ogling and sexualizing because he is us, and after all, it is the viewer who wants to see the anime tiddies, no? shinji's more sexual encounters with the women in his life are always either deeply awkward, uncomfortable, and even unnatural, or they completely obectify and commodify the bodies of the women in question. for this reason, i have always seen these moments as existing without genuine attraction: only either confusion (because these situations really are quite blatantly sexual) or simply a disingenuous performance of the attraction shinji thinks he should be displaying, manifesting as the same objectification of women he has seen men exhibit for all of his life—it's little more than a mimicry of the bad behavior he has grown up watching, because that's what he thinks attraction towards women is supposed to look like. conversely, his actions with kaworu, while skittish, seem to come much more organically. shinji is constantly and consistently drawn to kaworu, in addition to being willing to open up to kaworu in ways he doesn't let himself with any other person. granted, kaworu is the only person to give shinji the love he desperately needs and craves throughout the entire course of the series, but the fact that kaworu is the first person shinji genuinely acts like a kid his age with a massive crush in a way that doesn't feel blatantly scripted around, as well as the fact that shinji goes on to feel more slighted by kaworu's perceived betrayal than any mistreatment he experiences from anyone in the whole course of the series (save for his literal father)... idk. sus lol

been awhile since i've done a proper rewatch of this show so i can't speak super generally since i unfortunately don't remember too much. one thing i will say though, i LOVE how the series is very upfront about the fact that shinji's loneliness and trauma (and loneliness and trauma in general) are going to be core themes in the series from the start. people say the first 6 episodes are slow just because they don't have as much action as some of the episodes in the middle of the series, but i remember speeding through them in one sitting because i wanted to understand more about shinji and his inner workings; i was fascinated by his psychology. people famously refer to evangelion as a bait-and-switch, and maybe that's true to a degree, because i don't think anyone really saw the shift to more trippy animation coming, but the psychological themes present in the latter parts of the series are still very present in episodes 1-4. i'm also amused by people who say they're "caught off guard" by the last four or so episodes, because the major shift towards being a show primarily about psychology really begins in episode 16, when eva unit 01 is consumed by leliel and shinji has to confront the "self within his self" for the first time in the train car of his mind. i know it begins as just another angel fight but like... guys... how did you miss that... episode 16, because it really is where this shift begins, is actually my favorite episode in the entire series. that, and it was where i was first introduced to this hegelian concept of each person functioning both as an actor or operator who carries out actions, as well as an audience perceiving and observing their actions, their thoughts, and themself. which, to a degree, solidifies the notion that anything and everything technically could be considered performance. it's made my work much, much easier and my day-to-day life much, much more dramatic.

[straightfacedstrangeness]

Not that anyone asked (but seriously I’d LOVE for someone to talk to me about PokeSpe (just no spoilers past vol 13)) but since I made an offhand remark about my Top 5 favorite characters, it occurred to me that I actually DO have approximately 5 top favorite characters, and I’m procrastinating on work, so I’m gonna ramble

**just in case, note that a lot of this will revolve around my childhood experience with gender in a “I’m AFAB (and present-day me still identifies as a cis girl) but I don’t fit in with what media is telling me girls are like” way, a brief childhood feeling of homophobia, and probably general TMI about my opinions and emotions throughout my life, haha

1. Yellow

Okay, so, I was a little kid when Pokemon Adventures started coming out in English, back when manga was released as single-issue monthly comic books instead of complete volumes.  So I was rereading the same chapters over and over while anxiously awaiting the rest of the story (and wound up missing a bunch of issues anyway)

I enjoyed the RGB arc, I thought it was fun, but I didn’t LOVE the series until Yellow showed up.  At that age my ideal crush was “a cute boy my age who would be nice to me” and Yellow was presented to the reader as a cute boy my age who was sweet and kind and gentle, but also good in a fight, as all shounen protags must be.  Extra bonus points because they had just a few physically weak Pokémon and tried to fight battles in a way that minimized damage to their own and the opponent’s Pokémon, which meant they fought in a particularly smart and clever way.  And I was considered “smart” for being good at school, so being a SMART cute “boy” my age who would be nice to me, Yellow was PERFECT.  I mean, I loved the arc in general because of the clever battles, and the mystery of what had happened to Red, why these people were after Pikachu, why Yellow was so secretive about themself and their mission, etc was really engaging.  But also I adored Yellow as a character and partly in a “I wonder if ‘he’ would like me??” kind of way X’D  So to my tiny child self who didn’t even know it was possible to like-like someone of the same gender (because I hadn’t read Cardcaptor Sakura yet XD ), the reveal that Yellow was a “girl” was devastating—I had to cross out floating hearts on at least one drawing of us holding hands (scandalous!) and, while kind of stunned and shaken for a while, decided that what I’d felt all along was a deep, intense desire to be friends X’D (which probably wasn’t too far from the truth since I was pre-puberty and later turned out to be asexual)

(Also note that I never got the RGB issue that had the chapter where Red helps a little ‘girl’ capture a Rattata—later proven to be Yellow’s backstory—so the gender reveal really came out of nowhere for me.)

But anyways, I still love Yellow as a character for all the above reasons, without the crush aspects because I’m way older than them now.

Also when I reread the series ten years ago, I finally realized “wait, aside from surprising the reader, there’s no real plot reason for Yellow to pretend to be a ‘boy’ except that Green told ‘her’ to—so why did ‘she’ do it?”...and because at that time I didn’t even know that nonbinary genders existed, I decided it was cus they had low self-esteem and pretending to be a different person gave them courage (the same reading I had for Mulan at the time).  These days I’m more inclined to “yeah, I think Yellow’s nonbinary,” but that other interpretation was deeply relatable to me and only made me love Yellow even more.

2. Bill

Bill’s definitely a character I’ve grown to love more as an adult, since I’ve gone from seeing myself as “a protagonist doing cool things” to “a side character just living their life who hopefully gets to do something once in a while.”  But as a kid and now, I like him mostly for the slapstick and goofy expressions and the (early chapters Viz translations) outrageous accent  X’D  My brain desperately craves endorphins and the best way to get em is through a good laugh.

But also, I liked that he was introduced as a goofy character-of-the-week who got into ridiculous trouble and had to be rescued, but then kept being brought back, was slowly built up to be the “smart sidekick who explains things,” and eventually got to the point where he was participating in big battles (the Yellow finale on Cerise Island).  I rambled about this in the tags of another post, but I liked that he was a character who was “weak” without being “useless.”  As a kid who was good at school, I was obsessed with being good at things and had developed a black-and-white view of the world where either you were “strong/smart” or “weak/stupid” to the point that failing or just being not-so-good at anything was devastating (it still kind of is), because that meant I was actually “weak/stupid” when I was supposed to be “strong/smart.”  So it was kind of awesome that this guy who kept getting into trouble and having to be rescued—and didn’t even want to BE part of the final battle—managed to hold his own and get through it and help out instead of being a burden that dragged everyone down.  Seriously, he used a MAGIKARP effectively—the Pokémon everyone makes fun of for being “useless” and he used its one attack to save his life!

(Bonus points for all this happening in contrast to my devastating childhood experience of stanning The One Girl Character in every popular shounen series, waiting desperately for her to get to do something in battle, and then her one spotlight episode revolved around her struggling because she was so weak...not only was that actually happening to a boy for once, it was actually happening in a more satisfying/empowering way :’D )

3. Gold

I have extremely specific tastes when it comes to “the dumb shounen/action movie protag,” because as a kid I hated it when the main character was “dumb” because I was “smart” (re: good at school) and people who were “dumb” shouldn’t deserve to be the main character and have all the cool powers and save the world and stuff.  As an adult, I hate it when male characters are dumb and/or jerks but it’s treated as fine or even sexy(??) and the other characters fawn over them, and I generally still kind of hate it when characters who are dumb and/or jerks get the big important role when there’s a female character RIGHT THERE who’s more competent (and OF COURSE she has to wind up falling in love with him)

But anyway, I have extremely specific tastes, and Gold is it  X’D  He’s the perfect combination of “unshakably confident in his own stupid/egotistic views” and “treated as annoying and/or comic relief by the rest of the cast” with a bonus dash of actually being really clever in battle (so my inner child goes “Ah yes, technically, he is ’smart,’ and therefore...worthwhile“)  Making me laugh while also impressing me is like the key to my heart.

4. Crystal

I’m too lazy to look it up, but when Viz was publishing Pokemon Adventures as monthly comics, they must have switched to publishing it as trade paperbacks only and/or had a huge gap between the end of Yellow and the start of GSC, because for YEARS I’d thought Yellow was the end of the series and was shocked the first time I saw later volumes.  (My dad was buying us the monthly issues at the local comic store, and either they wouldn’t have ordered the trade paperbacks or he wouldn’t have thought to check those shelves.)

Anyway, that’s a long lead-in to the statement of “Crystal would automatically be my #1 or #2 if I’d read her arc as a kid.”  She’s a girl, she wears pants, she’s EXTREMELY smart (genius-level “book-smarts” about every Pokémon’s behaviors and weaknesses PLUS being clever in a battle), was tough as nails (she KICKED her Pokéballs!!), had no interest in romance or her appearance, AND had a short arc about losing her confidence and training herself back up to full power.  I would have KILLED for a character like that when I was a little girl being told that “girls don’t like action shows like Dragon Ball Z” (but I was a girl and I did???) and that girls were supposed to be pretty and obsessed with fashion and dating, and that girls were never the main character of action series, just side characters who either did nothing or got one chance to do something and were pathetically weak (see above, and/or Sakura’s fight against Ino (Naruto), those couple filler eps where Téa/Anzu played Duel Monsters (Yu-Gi-Oh), Videl getting pummeled by Spopovich (DBZ), etc).

So anyway, she’s awesome, she’s exactly the type of character I would’ve loved as a kid.  The only reason she’s behind Gold here is because at my age, “makes me laugh” > “the kind of main character I used to wish I could be”

5. Green (the girl trainer...I’m just too loyal to the Viz version to call her “Blue”...)

I’m trying not to rehash the same “I’m a girl but none of the girls in my shows/comics are like me!” childhood woes over and over, haha, but as much as I always enjoyed Green for being extremely clever and outsmarting the boys and being funny when she did so, she always lost points with me for being “pretty” and flirting to get her way, because that put her in the box of “girls are supposed to be pretty and desired by boys and obsessed with their appearance and romance” that was so foreign and disheartening to me as a kid.

But her staredown with Ho-oh at the end of the GSC arc TOTALLY got me.  As a sad adult with anxiety, watching characters who are absolutely terrified overcome their fear, watching characters who are completely beaten down struggle back to their feet and keep fighting, is like my ultimate power fantasy.  That sequence genuinely had me in tears.

Also her bond with Silver is super precious, especially since that’s like the first time in the series we’ve seen her be genuinely emotional and vulnerable with someone instead of teasing or manipulating them.

Honorable mention: Sapphire

I haven’t gotten up to R/S in my reread yet, and I only read that arc once over like a weekend ten years ago, but I’m pretty sure she’s gonna be a Top Fave cus again there’s that “I'm not like other girls!” childhood feel  (last time I’m saying it, I promise)

It’s a story arc where one protag wants to fight the gyms and the other protag wants to win the beauty contests, but the one who wants to fight the gyms is the girl!!  And she’s the typical “dumb but extremely good at fighting” shounen protag but she’s the girl!!  She’s feral and illiterate and a total tomboy and wins all her fights and she’s a GIRL!!!!

--

Anyway, those are my kids and my dude and my probably way-too-personal reasons why.  If you wanna reblog, reply, or send an ask about your own faves...please

[danieljgrouse]

Gender

I think most trans and nonbinary people have these memories from their childhood that could be completely normal and inconsequential kids stuff or a proof that this is what they have always been. It is difficult to place a definitive value on these memories. Your childhood behaviour could mean anything and the human memory has the nasty habit of being coloured by our present. Still, I suspect we all sometimes sit there and wonder. Whether we have always known or not, we still have these little pieces of the past of inderminent value.

I used to play with dolls occasionally and was fascinated by beauty products. Sometimes strangers would assume I was a girl when they’d meet me. It always made me feel strange. On one hand, I was flattered, they obviously did it because they thought I was cute and pretty and so I had to be a girl. I liked the idea of people thinking I’m cute and pretty. But it also made me angry that being cute and pretty was a girl thing.

My family would tease me for liking red and wanting to wear red clothes. “Red is a girly colour!” (Now, if you’re thinking “Dan, is that a local thing? Is red considered a feminine colour where you live?” … No, not really, I still don’t get it.) Whenever my mum would be fixing anything around the house she would say “you should be doing this, not me, it’s a man’s job”, which would just make me quietly angry. I never understood these weird gender stereotypes men’s job thins, women’s job that, plus I was a child and she was an adult, pretty sure she was more qualified and none of it was a job for an eight-year-old.

Once I reached my teenage years I had begun understanding that I should probably try to fit in. I was worried about people seeing me as more of a weirdo than they already had. I didn’t want “Is he gay?” to be part of their distaste for me. Even though I kept asking that question about myself constantly. So I would start leaning into the masculinity thing. In my weird and misguided way. Not really macho, just… a twitter egg. With all of the self-important cluelessness, just with better intentions. I’m still paying for that part of my life, trying to unlearn all of the bad habits, it’s a fun source of self-loathing.

Then came uni and I slowly started becoming less of a shitty person yet still a totally clueless one. See my whole life, since the moment I knew transgender people existed, quite possibly even before that, I would occasionally stop in my tracks (literally, I would stop in the middle of the street) and think “Am I trans? Am I a woman? Would being a woman make me happier?”. The answer would always be “No, I don’t think I would be any more happy as a woman.” and so I would carry on with my life being totally convinced I was a cis man. There was an essay about our personal identity I had to write for a social psychology course. I wrote about how I was a white European cis straight man and how the cis straight man parts of my identity really never felt like a real and important parts of me probably because thanks to my privilege I never really had to think about them (conveniently totally ignoring the fact there was never a point in my life since my teenage years when I wasn’t questioning my sexuality and my gender).

Not long after I began realising things. My asexuality, being bi/pan, started accepting being aro-spec much later on. It had actually started with pronouns years before. I had realised I was uncomfortable gendering random people, especially non-specific ones. And then I had realised I prefered to think about myself in gender-neutral terms. Somehow not even that managed to tip me off. And then this video came along. And suddenly many things started making sense. I never really cared for my assigned gender, it never really felt like me. But neither did the other binary one. And being “misgendered” never really did much to me. Sure, I probably wouldn’t feel better as a woman but I wasn’t a man either. I didn’t have to be either. My discomfort with gendered terms suddenly started making sense. I realised I was agender. And started following the work of more trans people. And releasing more and more things as I would identify with many of their experiences. Figuring out that some of the feelings I used to connect with my depressive episodes were actually dysphoria.

I identify as nonbinary now. Most of the time I don’t really experience gender. Sometimes I feel dysphoric and wish I could present differently and have a different body. But I know that if I did have a different body I would still feel dysphoric, just in the opposite direction. My experience of my self is way too fluid. Sometimes I feel feminine and my life becomes painful. Sometimes I feel masculine and I question whether I’m just faking it all. Sometimes I feel like something completely different. Most of the time, I don’t get the whole gender thing. Most of my social dysphoria doesn’t come from wanting to do things that would be more me but rather not being allowed to do things and being expected to do others based on gender norms I truly do not comprehend.

My dream is to one day be allowed to be out and do whatever I want. Both because I would be happier as myself but also because I feel bad about being in the closet. I feel like I’m letting down all the people who still have to figure things out and who need the inspiration and encouragement from their fellow queer people who are further along the journey. I feel bad about pretending to be a cis man and being allowed all the privileges that come with that, even if I have to pay with my mental wellbeing for that. I feel like there’s a lot of figuring out I still need to do but can’t as long as I don’t experiment and stay closeted. But the reality is that for as long as I need to rely on work to be able to eat and pay the bills I can’t afford to visibly break out of the expected mould. Already I have people use homophobic slurs when talking about me behind my back when they think I can’t hear them.I can’t really help anyone on their journey of self-discovery by being that queer on the street who has it figured out and is just being themself. But I can at least write a wall of text nobody will read in hopes it might help still someone. And if not, at least it helps me to get all of these thoughts out of my head.

[amorremanet]

@apolloniae Okay, first: skffghfk, omg wow, thank you!! That means a lot, especially since this passage is all still early-ish in the writing process for me (like… it’s not as early as the borderline stream of consciousness first-person POV stuff that I was writing with this project last summer, but it’s still fairly early), and I consider it pretty rough still

THAT SAID. omg, dialogue is actually something I both love and dread writing, because I never feel like I have the best gauge on how much is enough or if I’m shoving in too much exposition with it or what, but! I have a couple things I rely on

Not-so-fun secret first: that particular section might be a pretty early draft, but I’ve still revised it something like four times, from jotting the initial idea down longhand, through the different typed versions of this scene that I’ve written (which have gotten changed around pretty significantly), and revisions help a lot with dialogue, in my experience. They can be anything from small stuff like figuring out a better word order but mostly keeping things the same, to taking a really sketchy outline (e.g., “A says something about B’s shoes, B thinks A is being rude and what is up with that, and C is just happy to be here, why can’t we all get along” or full on snatches of dialogue, but written in a way that doesn’t fit the characters) and building the scene up from there. Either way, revisions are a writer’s friend.

But, okay. Speaking more generally: the best place to start is just getting familiar with dialogue, both in real life and in fiction. You really do need both of these influences to write dialogue, because getting more familiar with how people speak IRL can help your dialogue feel realistic — and in some cases, it can be really important to have that verisimilitude, e.g. when you’re writing a bilingual or multilingual character and don’t want to fall into some of the more tired, unrealistic tropes of how multilingualism can manifest in people’s speech; and when you’re writing a deaf character (disclaimer that I’m not deaf, and this fic isn’t the be-all and end-all of how to do this well, but I really like the portrayals of Steve and Clint in, “Trump Diet” by caloriebomb on AO3, and they’re pretty well-researched and well-written portrayals of deaf characters).

On the other hand, though, only listening to how people talk IRL isn’t enough. You can learn a lot from that, for sure — especially when it comes to things like how people present themselves from situation to situation, and how their speech patterns or word choices can change in different contexts (from full-fledged code-switching, to more simple things like swapping in child-friendly substitutes for swear words when you’re with your godkids/younger sibling/grandma/whoever) — but you also need to look at how different techniques for writing dialogue work or don’t in order to figure out how to best present the dialogue so that it helps tell your story.

Different writers also have different strengths that you can learn from, e.g. JKR is really good at blending summaries of things the audience already knows into new scenes (like Harry witnessing the, “Snape brings Remus his Wolfsbane Potion” scene, then immediately running and telling Ron and Hermione), vs. Neil Gaiman’s ability to make dialogue read as realistic and natural even while his characters are talking about patently non-realistic things like magic and whatnot (which I think especially comes out in American Gods, but I’m biased because I’ve been rereading it in honor of the TV series starting), vs. the way that the late, great Terry Pratchett had of really making the dialects, accents, and so on a part of his characters, rather than something pasted on (JKR can also be good at that, but sometimes she goes a bit overboard). So, reading as much as you can is good, and paying attention to how the different writers use dialogue will help you write your own.

Unfortunately, a lot of dialogue-writing ends up being a, “play it by ear” sort of thing. You can easily overdo it with flowery dialogue tags, or repeating, “said” too much. Having too much action between bits of dialogue can bog down the scene, but not having enough can make it feel like nothing’s happening while these people talk (plus, what characters do or not during a conversation can help characterize them as much as, or arguably more than, what they say and how they say it).

One of the biggest pitfalls for a lot of writers is that we put too much dialogue in, usually focusing on the parts of conversations that don’t do anything to help show who the characters are or tell the story. Like, unless your characters have a particularly unique way of saying, “hello” (and showing that to the audience helps establish the characters for us), or there’s something important about how they answer questions like, “Nice day, isn’t it?” (e.g., the, “Wonderful weather this morning” / “Yes, but I always carry an umbrella” exchange from CATFA, because it’s not actually about the weather, but is the password into the secret SSR laboratory), or, “How’re you doing?” (e.g., your character is someone who doesn’t actually respond to that question with some variation on, “Fine, and you?”), then there’s a lot of dialogue that you can probably skip.

However, it can sometimes be difficult to tell where the too much/not enough line is, once you get past that — which really just goes back to the, “Revisions are your friend and you shouldn’t be afraid of them. They don’t mean you’re a bad writer; they’re a part of making your work stronger and telling your stories in the best ways for them” point.

Finally, though, the best rule of thumb is just knowing your characters. Knowing at least a few baseline things about where your characters come from and how they present themselves are helpful for finding their voices and keeping true to it in different scenarios. A character who excessively tries to mold themself according to what other people want them to be, or who unconsciously mirrors those around them, probably won’t have the same speech patterns as a character who doesn’t give a fuck what other people think of them, or who might give a fuck but is too tired/upset/intoxicated/whatever to censor themself effectively. Characters’ upbringings and backgrounds can also come out in their dialogue, so being (more or less) clear on them can be helpful.

One pretty classic example of these ideas is the trope where someone who’s going about in unfamiliar circles may be able to emulate other people’s behaviors, pick up the common speech patterns, verbal tropes, and lingo pretty well, and so on…… but still has a particular verbal tic or cadence to their speech that they can’t shake.

For instance, my Sebastian, from that passage, grew up in a wealthy family that would be minor nobility if the U.S. acknowledged that we totally have a de facto system of nobility (and his paternal grandparents often make a big deal out of how they’re descended from a legit, “Our ancestors earned their title as knights in the service of the King of France before certain well-to-do members of the Third Estate started buying their way up into our ranks, back before the glorious Ancien Régime was even a Thing” noblesse d’épée bloodline). He’s been around folks from a mix of different backgrounds during his time in school, and more so in his adult life, which has involved a lot of hijinks in places that would make his Grandparents go, “Good Heavens, why are you slumming it with the lower classes” before focusing on the actual issues like,, “Why on Earth were you dating an ecoterrorist” and, “Oh dear, our grandson who wanted to join the priesthood when he was a boy seems to have developed a serious problem with opiates”

Like, real talk? Roland and Cecile love their grandchildren, they really do. But when Sebastian went to rehab, they tried to push for sending him to a ridiculously expensive inpatient clinic in California with a huge, pedigreed list of celebrity clients because they thought of it as Rich People Rehab. The explanation, “No, okay? If I’m doing this, then I’m going to this place in Minnesota that exclusively hosts LGBTQ clients because I really don’t feel like I’ll be helped by potentially being around homophobic fellow patients and/or staff”…… was mostly met with blank stares that were the human equivalent of the, “buffering… buffering…” spinning wheel of doom, and the response, “…But going there will put you in treatment with the common rabble, why on Earth would you want that.”

Thankfully, Abe and Marceline, Seb’s parents, were nowhere near this bad — but that classism and the emphasis on how We Are From A Distinguished, Noble Bloodline, So Act Like It were still part of the atmosphere that Seb and his siblings were raised in. Their experiences in schooling moderated it a bit (though less so for, say, eldest brother Max, who went to Posh Boarding School for all four years of high school, then did his undergrad at Columbia and grad school at Harvard), and Seb got a lot of moderation by learning the hard way that sounding too posh in a decidedly not-posh environment is a dead giveaway that you don’t belong there and might get you mistaken for a Federal agent. But it’s hard to completely shake that posh upbringing, and it comes out sometimes in his phrasing, his word choices, etc.

On the other hand, though, Seb is also a human disaster in ways that affect his speech (…and he’s multilingual, but that doesn’t fall under the heading of, “human disaster things”). The trick with those parts of him — like his anxiety and how it kicks into overdrive in certain situations (like, when he’s talking to Stephen, his sponsor’s curatorial assistant, who Seb is crushing on) — is finding a balance where it’s part of his characterization but also doesn’t get completely impossible to read (like the mistake that some people make when writing characters with stutters, where they overdo it to the point that you can’t tell what the characters are saying, but because the writers didn’t do this on purpose, you’re expected to know what’s being said).

Anyway, I’m sorry this got kind of long, but I hope it helps a bit! Dialogue can be tough to work on, but you can learn a lot from experimenting with different ideas and techniques, and just continuing to work on it, even when you hate what you’re writing. ❤️

[askarkham]

Title: I Stand Corrected

Genre: Humor/hurt/comfort

Time Frame: A few weeks after this--[link]

Warnings: Mention of blood, brief mention of suicide attempt

Word Count: 2428

It was a bright, dull and microscopically sterile of a place. Three things Edward Nigma hated.

Well, he hated a lot of things, but that particular trio in combination irked him far more profusely than if he had encountered them individually. And certainly not in living quarters he himself would have to exist in. But this was his current lot in life it seemed.

These were the sort of thoughts that drifted in Edward’s mind as he paced quietly to the table with his dinner tray, along with calculations of a potential escape plan involving mustard (spicy, not honey), the lyrics of a Van Halen song (from the Roth years), and theories on how to rework an old file version of Windows Movie Maker to work on his new PC (the lime green one the Police had missed when they ransacked his place during his last capture). Edward Nigma was one to multitask, as it helped block out peskier thoughts and memories of his past he cared not dwell on.

Besides, what sort of puzzle-master would he be if his mind wasn’t a constant maze and tangled web only he could understand?

He sighed as he sat at the end of the table, knowing full well his choice of seating was uncomfortably close to Crane’s placement beside it. It made him smirk to see Crane scooch an inch away. He enjoyed getting in the taller man’s personal space. Maybe he was suicidal, maybe he was desperate to bridge the gap and form some kind of friendship—it honestly depended on his mood at the time. Today it was boredom that fueled his actions. Boredom and a need for companionship now that Dent was in solitary for a few weeks (the former lawyer had managed to break an Orderly’s arm after a snide remark about his mis-matching hair. Edward thought the punishment was a bit harsh considering the context, but he understood the need to make an example when people like Joker and Killer Croc were present. And Leland let him sneak Twinkies to Harvey every couple days, so win-win).

Anyway, Edward had noticed Crane often sat alone during mealtimes (or anytime that required socialization at Arkham) and he could see now that this time was no different. Having known the man for only a few months, he had taken it upon himself to unwrap the riddle that was Scarecrow. Though he had heard rumors that Jonathan Crane and Scarecrow were sometimes very different people. Not like Harvey though, which in itself was confusing but Edward didn’t need to overcomplicate his plans just yet. He just needed a foot in the door. Even if his every attempt to befriend Crane had come up empty handed—and with the occasional scratch.

At any rate, the resulting hazel-eyed glare he earned from Crane made him grin gleefully in return as he plopped down whole-heartedly, efforts renewed for another try.

“Jonny!” Edward greeted. “Salutations!”

“Don’t call me that, Nigma.”

Edward visibly pouted, then reached across Crane for the salt, nonplused by the snap.

“What are you doin’? You don’t reach your dirty little elbows across a’body like that at a meal!” Crane reprimanded, now sitting straighter in his annoyance. Edward heard a hint of an accent that seemed out of place, and wording that echoed just enough off from Crane’s own usual speech patterns (Edward paid attention to that as well—not much else to do in this dump), but the thought was gone in a flash as Crane continued. “What were you, raised in a barn?”

“No, were you?” Edward countered, slapping on a terrible amount of salt on the mush that was supposed to be lima beans. Or butter beans. Or…something faintly green.

“How I was raised is none of your business.” Crane replied in an icy whisper, clenching his fork. Edward eyed it, not forgetting who he was talking to, but not scared off quite yet. If anything, this reaction intrigued him.

“Fine. I’m no psychiatrist. And you aren’t either anymore.” Edward decided to twist in the proverbial knife as a different approach. He still had a nasty compulsion of saying the wrong thing (or exactly right thing) to set someone off.

Harvey had been the first to notice it while they were working together. At first it had been to hold his own as he entered the crime world green—not just in clothing—and naïve. But Harvey, once warmed up to the new rogue Riddler, had sat him down and confronted the behavior. Harvey had been somewhat kind…Two-Face threatened to snap a digit off if Edward didn’t quit provoking him. And Leland…well, she had confirmed it. From what he remembered from their recent session, she had connected it somehow to his relationship with his father, and how he had begun to talk back and use his insecurities against the man in some twisted play for control. Provoke a beating to get it over with perhaps. Violent encounters had escalated after that until he had finally left home for good. But the warped social habit had stayed with him. Defense mechanism? Or need to feed some rebellious recklessness with his life? Leland hadn’t decided yet.

And Edward didn’t really care.

But the old memories did seep into his slowed calculations and he visibly shivered before pushing them back down.

“Cold?” Crane asked with narrowed eyes and a flicker of a wicked grin. He wasn’t so easy to provoke it seemed, but then Edward knew virtually nothing about him still. So nothing of real consequence to use as ammo. Pity, that.

“Nope.” Edward grinned brightly back, stuffing the last of the residual memory down as he stuffed his mouth with the mush. Crane watched and crinkled his nose in disgust.

A shuffling noise made them both look towards the line Edward had left moments earlier. Other inmates still getting food from the buffet, servers slumping the food stuffs onto their divided trays. They were the kind that were one of six complementary colors, like the ones in grade school. They were hideous in some indescribable, irrational way.

The shuffling noise, they noticed a moment later, was from a little scuffle Croc was causing, pushing into the new guy, Tetch.

Jervis Tetch was not on Edward’s “Interesting” radar and yet he knew far more about him than he did Crane. For one thing, they had been colleagues at Wayne Tech a few years ago, before Edward had killed his supervisor. Edward hadn’t thought much of him then, and he could tell that Tetch, somehow, hadn’t liked him either. But at least they had been civil, which was more than he could say for his own associates on his floor. A conversation here and there every few months, a collaboration or two—that was the extent of their relationship. And when Tetch had gone rogue a month or so back, his entire story had been in the papers. His trial had been a media circus. Joker laughed himself silly when the story aired during Arkham’s allotted TV Time.

He went insane over that doof of a secretary, how embarrassing,  Edward had thought at the time.

So he had nothing more to really say to the man, and little Tetch seemed even more resigned to being alone anyway. Aside from allowing Crane to do that thing where he has his own little unofficial sessions with newbies he found interesting, Tetch kept to himself. Plus…he looked broken, and that was slightly more than Edward was ready to take. And with what happened a couple weeks back, Edward could cut the awkwardness with a knife.

What do you say to someone who tried to kill themself in an insane asylum?

Crane took a swig of the tap water he had gotten, eyes focused solely on the sight before them.

“Look at him, already getting into more trouble.” Edward smirked, looking on with Crane as Croc once again chuckled and pushed into Tetch, making him spill a bit of his rice on the floor. Tetch just closed his eyes, took a breath and reopened them, looking at the floor and taking it without a word of protest. As if he felt his deserved it. Or that he wasn’t even worth helping himself.

The sight made Edward want to gag, it was so pathetic.

“You gonna save him again, Crane?” Edward turned to Jonathan then, head resting on an arm he propped up on the table. Crane darted his eyes sharply to his unwanted companion. But Crane was fairly surprised to see a grimace rather than the usual smirk on Nigma’s face.

“I have no further interest in him.” Crane simply replied.

They both heard a giggle down the table where Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn sat. They were also watching the sight of the newbie rogue getting bullied.

“Serves him right.” Edward heard Pamela mumble, glaring full on at Tetch. “Stalking and kidnapping that poor girl.”

“Aw c’mon Red…look at im’!” Harley tried to sound sympathetic, but Pamela’s scowl amused her too much to keep a straight face.

Edward looked back to Jonathan, who had also turned his attention back to Tetch and Croc. Freeze was a few inmates behind Croc but spoke up in his slightly altered voice, cooling collar providing a steady mist of icy air for him to be comfortable out of his suit for the short mealtime.

“Waylon…stop picking on the boy. You’re slowing up the line, and he’s done nothing to you.”

“Mind yer’ own biz, Vic.” Croc turned and growled, making Wesker hide behind his still empty tray, but a clear snort could be heard from Scareface. Selina rolled her eyes and rested her weight on a hip, obviously waiting for the line to hurry up. Freeze made a disgruntled face but let it go.

“So, lost your interest eh?” Edward asked, jolting Crane back to their conversation again as the line finally moved forward to the mystery meatloaf.

“I got what I needed from my initial conversations with him.” Crane said, making to look as if busied by his own food, Edward noting he was just mixing his limas with the rice absent-mindedly. Edward had noticed Crane did that when he was agitated or lost in thought. Or both.

Edward lowered his voice “Then why’d you save him last time?”

Crane shot him yet another glare. “Like I said,” he said through gritted teeth, “I didn’t want his blood draining into my cell. The stain would never come out of those cheap shoes they make us wear.”

“Mmmm, I don’t think that’s why.” Edward cooed, trying to push the subject.

Another shuffle, another rough low chuckle from Croc. Crane forced himself not to look over at the pair again, keeping his eyes locked with Edward’s.

“You’re itching to protect him, I can tell.”

“Nigma, I swear, when I break out of here I will come after you next.”

“Ho-Hum.” Edward drummed his fingers on the cheap table top. That wasn’t decidedly the worst thing someone had ever threatened him with.

“Tetch means nothing to me.” Crane sighed as he reiterated, a tone that Edward knew all too well of one trying to convince himself. “He wanted to be friends, if you can believe that. Friends. With me of all people. What a joke.” Crane continued, this time quieter though. A distinct change in his mood as he mixed his food again.

That was a surprising attitude if Edward had ever seen one. For Crane at least. And contrary to popular belief, Edward was not some Joker rip-off, he did have feelings. Sometimes.

“…I’m not laughing.” Edward admitted just as quietly after a moment.

“Well, he’s just not…interesting.” Crane forced out, his mind screaming at him to take it back. Scarecrow even arguing it was not the truth.

“And that’s why you’ve been avoiding him.” Edward stated.

“It’s why I’ve stopped initiating conversation with him, yes. Nothing else to learn.”

“But…you don’t walk away from him when he comes talk to you. I’ve noticed, since you almost always do with me.” Edward dared bring up pointedly.

“I’m about to get up and sit with Joker if you don’t clamp that gaping maw.” Crane growled. Edward rolled his eyes but did stop talking a moment.

Then he broke the silence and Crane groaned.

“Well, you’re right for once. I knew him back at WT and he was a real wet blanket. He’s just not interesting.” Edward sighed agreement into his cup as he drank. Ugh, the tap water was more chlorine-y today. He smacked his lips in an unsatisfied manner, earning a smirk from Crane.

“AROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGH!” A sudden shriek called out in a dreadfully pitiful whine, and everyone stilled, shocked at the sound and looked up to where it came from. Even Joker had turned around and looked captivated by the sight.

Jervis Tetch, the small blonde man with buck teeth, was standing with his tray in his hands and a cool, unperturbed gaze as he looked up at the reptilic inmate cradling his hand, panting. A fork was sticking out of Croc’s clawed right hand.

Jervis just looked on blankly a moment more before turning on his heel gracefully and walking straight to where Edward and Crane sat.

“Seat taken?” Tetch asked in a no-nonsense English accent, a bit of Croc’s blood splattered on his shirt front and left glove.

“N-no…” Edward managed with a gulp. Crane just looked on wide-eyed as Tetch sat in front of him and beside Edward.

“The wretch of a lizard tried to take my Danish, the only good thing in my life today. And that simply wouldn’t do.” Tetch explained simply, taking a bite out the pastry. The action was framed by orderlies taking Croc to the side and wrapping his hand up after plucking out the fork (earning another whine, but it being drowned out by Joker’s laughing). Pam had decided to ignore Tetch sitting a few places down, but Harley continued to whisper in her ear while looking at him and giggling excitedly. Joker continued to laugh as he ate his meatloaf. Victor patted Croc’s shoulder in comfort. Things were already winding down. A couple guards were zeroing in on Tetch of course, with Leland whispering orders to them on how to take Tetch out of the room without more escalation. Edward knew he was about to get some Solitary too.

“Oh bother, I need a fork now.” Tetch left to go pick another off the silverware cart, leaving Edward and Jonathan to share a look.

“I stand corrected.” Edward beamed.

[olympus-summit]

Nesting Owls | Carmen + Nemesis + Shinobu | Epilogue

[ General CWs for full document: Dehumanization, PTSD, unwanted romantic advances, victim-blaming (both internal and external) ]

When the illusion imprinted upon them finally comes crashing down, another family takes root in the wreckage of what was once their reality. It takes a while for them to truly bloom, but after over a hundred and fifty years, what’s waiting a couple more years gonna hurt? They finally have a future ahead of them.

- - -

In a rare moment of rest among the hours of tireless work - dutifully studying over a century of information, with as much skill and precision as she did in her collegiate era - the Doctor decides that she really ought to decide on this new name.

Her new moniker is one of practicality, one forged for survival - she could not bear to be falsely referred to as Adelina any longer, and she needed a replacement. So she found some justice, in asserting her title. After countless colleagues looked down on her and refused to acknowledge her work, after they echoed the years of dismissal she got for factors beyond her control, they would now be forced to respect her title or not refer to her at all. It was almost poetic.

But she’s never been one for poetry. It served its purpose in the moment, but the moment has passed - she does not live out of spite. She does not wish to be defined by those who despise her, not in any way shape or form.

She’s decided on a new first name, at the very least. Carmen. After Carmen Rivera - who is her own mother, in a sense. She is not Adelina, but she did live with her for 24 years - she maintains her memories, until their paths diverged. She still remembers Mama’s work ethic, her grit and determination, her ability to get through to even the most problematic students. She still remembers Mama’s off-key singing voice and her gentle kisses and her kind words. She still remembers loving and being loved.

She’ll need that energy, in the long years to come. She’s long dead - but she can still honor her, still keep a piece of her with her.

Eventually, she comes up with a middle name - also to honor a woman she loved who has passed. Carmen Grace. After her late sister-in-laws maiden name. A connection to the past she’s lost without dwelling on it.

But then there’s the damned last name. 

And she’s just not sure. And she’s been stuck there, because she really can’t justify to herself trying to research last names during a time like this. 

Conversely, Nemesis had decided on a last name immediately. He hadn’t announced it right away, there were other things to focus on, but even on that first day when he’d realized he wanted a new name, the ideas had come to him. It felt almost natural, inasmuch as anything about this situation could. And so when the topic comes up with Carmen, he mentions casually enough what he’s chosen - Lechuza. Like the story he’d shared with Setsuna all those days ago, like the one Evren’s mother used to tell him, that had stuck with him for so many years. It felt like a nice compromise of the new while acknowledging the old.

She asks to take his last name - which would sound like a pickup line if they weren’t so no hetero. But she likes the sound of it - Carmen Grace Lechuza. She and Nemesis - he’s her best friend, he’s like a brother to her. She quite liked it. Sharing a last name with him.

So she began her new life.

- - -

Just as Shinobu had promised, they take on the job of supervising Team Prometheus throughout their stay on the airship, acting as both a communication proxy to keep different parties from coming into direct conflict, and a wedge to separate people when tensions do boil over. That isn’t to say Shinobu is perfect: They can’t be in every conversation at once, of course. Shinobu also quickly learns that having to relay everyone’s requests and grievances recenters much of the stress onto themself – even worse when it turns out there are matters that can’t be compromised on and that trying only makes everyone more upset.

Shinobu de-stresses by splitting their free time between the pool and gym, and the library. The former because they are familiar pastimes, and because some strength training might come in handy if a fight actually does break out (and maybe a few extra pounds of muscle will finally shut up Montgomery if he starts on his gamer bro b.s. again). The latter because… because at the end of the day, Shinobu doesn’t have any practical skills to offer to either the Councilors or the world as a whole. Their sociology education is not just incomplete, but obsolete, and if Shinobu ever goes into that field again it will have to be by starting from square one, after it’s safe to land the airship for good.

Plus, there are gaps in the Council’s knowledge that aren’t covered by doctors and programmers and revolutionaries. If they’re going to distribute all of Titan Production’s agricultural secrets to the public domain, then someone here’s gotta learn how to grow a damn potato. When Shinobu supervises Team Prometheus as they prepare themselves for farm life, they make sure to take their own notes. They wouldn’t dare call themself an environmental expert, but at least they’ll have some idea which suitable climates to raise Titan’s proprietary crops in without destroying the local ecosystem already there. Besides, being an ambassador to the real ecological experts will probably be less stressful than being an ambassador to their own torturers.

Until the day comes that they can return to society, Shinobu continues to work, cramming studies in not just the environment but in language, hoping to one day be fluent enough in Spanish and English to not rely on auto-translation devices. While they aren’t certain yet if they even have a place to call home anymore… Right now, home feels like Room 2. Home feels like Carmen commenting on her discoveries about the present-day world and how she plans to reclaim her life and education when she returns. Home feels like Nemesis grumbling about the complications in reverse-engineering Titan’s technology. Home feels like bringing them both some fried rice, because someone here’s gotta make sure they’re both eating well and Shinobu’s getting used to making low-effort bulk meals now.

If this is the sort of home Shinobu can expect in the future too, then the least they can do is make sure they’ll fit in.

- - -

Much of Nemesis' remaining time on the ship is spent closing the hundred and fifty year gap in his technological knowledge, a task made easier as much by the decades of stagnation as his own genius, and on coding and coordinating the takedown of Titan. It goes remarkably smoothly, so much so that even for weeks afterwards he continues the systematic dismantlement and erasure, making sure he leaves not even a scrap for them to work with long after the public has learned too much for Titan to ever re-stabilize anyway. He goes through their servers with a figurative fine-toothed comb and bricks everything he gets his talons into. 

It's not quite as satisfying as it would have been to see them burn, but Nemesis isn't who he used to be. The people he's formed connections with have made him better. No less angry, but now with a reason not to give into that anger - several reasons, in fact…

There isn't a lot of free time in the early days, but Nemesis fights his innate workaholic nature to make room for talks with Shinobu. Being around them is the closest he can get to feeling relaxed. There's no pressure, no sense of obligation, no concern about how they'll handle any particular truth about him, because they already know it all. It's unlike any relationship he's ever been in before, though the discussion over what their relationship is only seems to make it more ambiguous. They agree to take their time, to let things happen naturally, to get done the more pressing matters that need attending to and then see where that leaves or leads them.

Mostly, Nemesis finds, it leads them to keep sharing a room, and collapsing into the same bed at the end of a busy day. Even after the airship has landed and they've all received asylum in Castanea, when there are more than enough rooms to go around, the only times he gets any sleep at all are when he's curled up next to Shinobu. And he thinks he's alright with that.

They’re alright with Nemesis, too. More than alright. Even if they’re often too exhausted from work to do more than curl up together to share a meal or a nap, it’s moments like those that reassure Shinobu that they can be a normal person living a normal life, and that there’s a more personal reason besides vengeance and justice to fight for a better future.

The truth is, though, it isn’t just the current priorities that make Shinobu want to slow the pace. Knowing everything about Nemesis means knowing about the impact left on him not just by Titan and the Summit, but by Evren’s memories. Shinobu never wants to make him feel like he is obligated to be with them just because they’re the only guy here he can date. Nor do they want him to think they only care about the solace he offers.

Shinobu refuses to make Nemesis ever feel used and discarded again. They won’t dare allow themself to promise a future together before they’re absolutely sure their feelings are genuine. Shinobu’s found that a lot of things about themself they assumed were genuine had been manipulated by the Summit, after all. Their slow-burning pace is as much for their sake as it is for Nemesis.

Still, though. Still, their heart flutters every time they see the way Nemesis’s face lights up whenever he makes a new discovery about modern technology. Still, their breath catches in their throat when they wake up and find he’s still sleeping peacefully by their side. Still, their stomach churns with anxiety over whether or not they’ll be able to stay together after their work is done. Still, they’re overcome with a wave of relief when the airship lands, no one dies, and Nemesis embraces and asks them where they want to go next, together.

Still, Shinobu thinks they might be falling in love. (And they’re not the only one.)

- - -

And life continues.

[outletggdbsale-blog]

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