#this doesnt have a title yet so...

[starshifter]

yeah, fuck it. who wants a random excerpt from super hero au prologue? just cause i feel bad taking so long to post anything 😅

(unedited; subject to changes)

-

“And here we are,” Baiheng declared proudly as the longest elevator ride of his life came to an end. She’d been the one to meet him by the waterfront and escort him to what had to be a small shell company where they’d boarded the elevator in question.

The door slid open with the same weird hiss of depressurization that it had made in the shell company, only now, Yingxing understood why it was happening. He stepped out with wide eyes into a glass airlock, the bottom of the Luofu’s bay stretching out in front of him.

It was a breathtaking sight, but it was also a bewildering one. He turned back to Baiheng. “The base is out there? How do we get to it?”

Because the airlock they were in was absolutely barren. There were no dive suits, or attached submarines, or any kind of apparatus that would let them leave this tiny airlock and proceed onwards.

Was he being pranked somehow?

Baiheng grinned as she joined him in the airlock, the doors sealing with another little hiss behind her. “Watch this,” she said and pressed the button to open the airlock’s doors before Yingxing could stop her.

He lurched forward, his heart leaping into his throat as the threat of the entire bay flooding into their airlock hit him with a shock. Except, when the airlock hissed open, there was no water. No, instead of drowning, a hallway made of glass appeared in front of them.

Well, part of a hallway appeared.

He gaped at the weird cessation of the hall about five feet out. It looked wide open to the water, but there was only air around him. Fascinated, he stepped out of the airlock. His view of the hallway expanded slightly with his steps.

He paced forward a few steps and the bubble of hallway moved with him. When he glanced back, Baiheng following behind him, he realized that he couldn’t see the airlock anymore. He moved back towards it, bringing it back into that five foot or so range, and it reappeared. It reminded him a bit of fog mechanics in video games or a heat mirage in the distance. It gave the base the weirdest sense of being a single floating island that was building and disassembling itself around him as he walked.

Incredible. He’d never seen cloaking technology like this even theorized about before.

“How does this work?” he asked, his brain clamoring with theories that he discarded as fast as they appeared. None of them would work.

Baiheng shrugged. “No idea,” she said brightly and bounced past him down the glass hallway, her tail swishing from side to side in excitement. The blue light filtering down through the water—their secret base was underwater. That was incredible—painted her into something ethereal.

Outside, a school of fish flashed silver as they caught the light in just the right way. Yingxing watched them swim closer and then abruptly change direction before they got too close with interest.

This was nothing like the perfected metamaterial cloak that Arumaton used.

He slowed his pace, letting Baiheng get ahead of him, to examine the hall for clues. There was nothing resembling anchorage points for a projected cloak in the glass walls or the metal floor—though he couldn’t rule out something hidden beneath the metal sheeting—but even if there had been an obvious anchor, he didn’t know how they would accomplish the cloak extending to the insides of the base rather than merely creating a bubble around it. Was there some kind of suspended matrix in the air and water? How would they accomplish that?

No, more saliently, how would it clear the cloak only for the vision of the person walking through it, without clearing the cloak for outside observers as well? Yet that was clearly how it worked, because Baiheng was just in front of him, but he couldn’t see anything but the bottom of the Luofu’s bay and his little bubble of glass hallway. She’d completely vanished.

He’d known that the Vidyadhara had advanced technology remaining from the Apocalypse Era and their progenitor, but this was the first time he’d ever seen it. An arm and a leg would honestly be a bargain to study it in depth. The things he would be able to do with this… Studying a random curio here and there couldn’t even begin to compare to what he could learn here.

He came upon a pair of doors set into either side of the hall that seemed to lead to different hallways—were the doors there in case of flooding? The airlock would also be explained by that—and realized that he had no idea where Baiheng had gone. He paused for a moment, looking between the doors and the hallway in front of him, before he decided that Baiheng would have stopped if she’d changed directions.

Nonetheless, “Baiheng?” he called out as he slowly started walking forward again.

“This way!” her disembodied voice called from ahead.

Baiheng was waiting for him at the end of the hallway, not that far away from where the doors had been. Behind her was another glass door set in a metal frame. She tossed him a grin as she came into view. “It’s sure something, huh?”

He nodded wordlessly, his brain buzzing with so many questions and theories and observations that he didn’t even know where to begin. The Vidyadhara were notorious tight-lipped about their technology, but Yingxing absolutely had to know.

[spacizia]

tfw the man you felt the most comfortable being yourself with is the worst person you could have met

[danaclese]

I pre-ordered this as a fan of Black Lightning.

This is a Batman comic.

Jefferson speaks 3 times, I'll show you all of them.

Reduced to supporting character in a batman story.... sounds familiar

So they did it again. But like, with the black Batman, so now it's not racist anymore.

It's a decent Batman comic, looks like a skip to BL or Vixen fans. Jefferson is supposed to be a T-Rex punching, peer of Superman.

But DC hates him for some reason so they relegated him back down to THIS

Good Batman comic but I want my money back.

Vixen is also barely present in this one.

[ganondoodle]

i am still trying to fight this weird art low i have been having for so long, everything takes so much effort, it didnt use to take so much effort i swear, why does it ... take so much .... so .. so much effort now

[everything-is-as-it-was]

spoilers for the new fic i'm writing with no context

[hon-hon-baguette-eiffel-tower]

If you're gonna be an asshole about the switch 2 then do us both a favor and block me now, baby

[sonknuxadow]

on one hand i think it should be mostly games with Actual intentional lgbt rep and themes being tagged as lgbt because tagging a bunch of random games as that makes it harder for people wanting representation to find what they're looking for. and ive also seen a lot of people who dont know how steam tags work spreading misinformation or getting their hopes up for nothing because of people tagging random games as lgbt . but on the other hand i think every new sonic game that comes out being tagged as lgbt on steam is hilarious . sonic lgbt icon forever

[waterlogged-detective]

Me creating the ex: okay so hes a fuckboy who leaves everyone he ‘dates’ in the middle of the night and broke Doe’s heart. He insulted Darcy by leaving an-

Also me: AU where they all reconcile and fuckboy becomes part of the polycule and moves in with them

[bloo-the-dragon]

Why did Solar have to die permanently while Eclipse gets to keep coming back over and over like freaking Megatron!?

anon you stirred an ancient ghost inside me with mention of megatron lmao /silly

but anyways - i think it became a running theme that Eclipse was gonna keep coming back like peepaw. But this time however there has been a big shift in his character, so the coming back from death thing has ultimately had a greater effect this time around than the last.

For starters, it's already been confirmed he is not really Eclipse. At least not the prior incarnations. He's a mimicry a different entity who carries only the fractured memories and directives of the ones who came before. The only thing that even really connects him to the Eclipse character beyond that is the fact his code was made from Solar's (who is also an Eclipse)

He is very much like Eclipse in personality for sure, unhinged and a complete asshole. But his unique circumstance, being brought so low that he truly is an inferior Eclipse, a false copy, and the fact he knows this has greatly altered his view on himself and his goals. He can say how he's superior to everyone all he wants but 1. no one cares anymore and 2. he knows it's a lie anyways.

But with Earth showing him genuine kindness and patience lately combined with the aforementiond, this has finally allowed him to actually open up a bit and maybe just maybe allow that sliver of a chance for redemption/to find a new purpose in life, even if that is away from the plex. I don't expect him to suddenly turn into a nice eclipse like Solar, in fact i would very much prefer for him to continue being a little asshole rat bastard /aff - but i do want him to be free of his past and find a new purpose, a new reason to live that isn't just antagonising others and hungering for power.

But i'm getting off track here-

We don't actually know if Solar will be dead permanently. It's been said already there is a way to bring him back but it would require sacrificing someone else, and not only that but their entire existence. My moneys on it being the creator ngl because as it stands he is pretty much unkillable. Using him as that sacrifice would be effective in removing him entirely but the only problem would be actually being able to go through with the plan because the brain's a tricky guy to pin down (plus i don't doubt Earth would be conflicted about it)

[moodycrush]

Playing God

Bri belongs to @nyneas / @vydbris

[muirneach]

remarkable how andrey has famously never ever defended a title (and god willing he never will 🙏) but is somehow likely winning hong kong25 in doubles rn which is sort of defending his hong kong24 title. top ten ways to circumvent a curse is to have a buddy. other example of this but in reverse being when he and karen won madrid23 in doubles and then andrey won madrid24 in singles.

[hobgirlonao3]

bullying him 😇

[snow-and-saltea]

finished like 153 chapters in one night. i love these kinds of executions for yandere characters so much. i love it when a story takes mental illness and psychological brokenness seriously and still be able to create a beautiful interpretation without fetishizing that appeals to the very raw and basic nature of wanting to be loved so badly that fractures a person. i love stories like this that show us the worst of a person but doesn't rush to ease them again. i love stories that show the darkest pits of the human psyche and makes you go, "this is happening but it isn't the end. wait just a bit, and ill show you how things get better." i LOVE when stories do that; get all meta and create a story within the story that the actors/characters have to now see their way through and reach the scripted happy ending that feels impossible and illogical to reach as a conclusion, but happened anyways. stories that are seemingly taken out of the author's hands and into the characters instead and them being like "i know you believe this happy ending to be false, because you can't believe it'll be achievable through anything but delusion. but just wait, i'll show you." (thinking particularly about the princess iron fan arc in act age bc that still makes me tear up)

the depiction of ptsd and mental illness was something i was particularly touched by, too. the "problematic" aspects, ugly aspects, of mental illness were addressed so kindly and compassionately, and the solution never felt like it was straight up telling you "you're messed up. this isn't right, you're not normal". this is something i would've expected reading a story with a yandere character, because for most people the appeal of a yandere is to be attracted to someone who is Fucked up but hot. but like. even rebuttals like "no that's not normal! that scares me!" were handled so casually -- almost to the point you could call it carelessly, but it wasn't careless at all. it was a deliberate choice to not make a Huge deal about being turned off by someone's thoughts or preferences that made for a much more judgement-free and loving environment to agree or disagree with each other.

rindo is really the ideal wish fulfillment for mentally ill buddies like me along w kim kitsuragi sjjdjdjfkfkf. like i kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, to see the twist that oh this guy is gonna be fucked up too! bc of the Genre! but no. he's kind, steadfast and humourous, and is so generous w his capacity to love people. he might be understood as a selfless martyr type with the way he keeps wanting to reassure amane even during really troubling events in the plot, but he was never traumatised by those events and he had a clear and sane mind the entire time. its so easy to think of him as a "victim" in an overbearing codependent relationship in the story, but he's just really emotionally resilient. he doesn't give up, he doesn't take hurtful words at face value because he knows something deeper is at play, he doesn't hesitate opening up first and being vulnerable or pushy if it helps amane feel less ugly being vulnerable with his thoughts and desires towards him.

this is a fictional story and not irl, so obviously like. irl, you wouldn't want to enmesh yourself so deeply with someone that you'll die if they do. but he was willing to do that. not necessarily that, but the same gesture -- "if i ever betray you, you can kill me, and then we'll both be the last thing we'll see". on paper, even just writing it, makes me sound insane and delusional. how could this be something someone sane could say? but he WAS sane, because he was also saying "you said you love me so much you want to die with me, so you must also mean that you love me so much you want to live with me forever. this means your heart wants to be with me, so stop deceiving yourself into thinking you'll be fine. know that my heart and yours are joined in the same way, because i want to see you at the end of my life too, and there's nothing wrong with that."

rindo has such a great talent for finding multiple meanings, often positive, to amane's thoughts. because his mind is often muddy and swamped with unpleasant words and memories when he spirals / ruminates , he can't stick his hand through it long enough to see what comes out when he pulls out of it. very natural, normal and human desires you form with someone you love: "i love you. i'm scared you'll leave me someday. i want to be with you forever. i don't know if i deserve to be this happy. i love you. i love you. i love you. i don't want to spend a day without you. i want you to be happy and i want to be involved in making you happy, but i feel so incompetent that i'm worried i'll fail too much. i love you. please love me back.”

the way the characters in this story is so kind genuinely ... makes me want to cry. like rindo's mom accidentally saying homophobic things at first out of surprise but then her Maternal instincts took over and she could have another son to shower with love. the way everyone looks out for them but doesn't judge their relationship or try to messily break them away from each other or intervene for their "own good". there's no unnecessary drama or misunderstanding that isn't solved within 1-2 chapters in a really clear, reassuring tone (while also maintaining a natural pace so as to be thoughtful to the writing).

man. i cried multiple times reading this story. i was just here for the yandere BL ride, not the unexpected feeling of love and validation for my mental health issues?!

[halloweenorangesoda]

is the world ready for one sided sonadow where sonics default state is being nice + enjoying competition and regards shadow as he would any threat/ally/friend, but for shadow sonic has flipped his entire world upside down

[deus-ex-mona]

it’s kinda fitting how nakamahazure is now the only mona solo song without an mv… truly an outcast to the very end

[dwarfsized]

wip wednesday, hello folks