#this is a fun little throwaway idea

[marlynnofmany]

Human Magic

You would think that a life gallivanting through space would be an endless string of exciting locations, and mostly you would be right. But sometimes my job on the courier ship is just a job, and occasionally that job sucks.

Like most jobs, it sucks when the people do. Today would have been unpleasant enough because of the location: a jungle area thick with plants, fog, and heat. I dislike sweating. I got to do a lot of it today. I also got my hair caught on umpteen different twigs and branches, completely messing up the braid. But all of that could have been fine if the clients were nice.

Nope! Snooty little buttheads of the same species as the captain, completely uninterested in acknowledging the rest of us, and ready to argue about the price of the delivery.

I stood there beside all the crates we’d just unloaded, wanting to take a nap on the hoversled but knowing that it would probably just make Captain Sunlight look bad. So I just sweated and waited, next to the Frillian twins and Mur, all of whom seemed to enjoy the sauna temperatures. The lizardy Heatseekers did too. Lucky me, the only one not either coldblooded or from a semi-aquatic background. They could have gotten someone else to help with this delivery, but the rest of the crew was busy loading up our next shipment. And I hadn’t realized how distasteful this would be.

“The items clearly smell rank,” argued the lead client. “Especially that crate; I can barely stand to be near it.”

“Once again,” said Captain Sunlight with more patience than these people deserved, “They smelled like that when we accepted them, as I have noted right here, and we traveled with exceptional speed.”

“I just can’t justify paying the full price for a spoiled product.”

“You are paying for the delivery, not the product.”

The argument went in circles while I sighed and undid my braid. Might as well fix that while I waited; there wasn’t anything else to do. When one of the underlings gave me a glare, I rolled my eyes and stepped behind the Frillians. Blip squared her shoulders and blocked me from sight.

How dare I catch their attention with my unsightly mammal fur? I thought, finger-combing the leaves out. No appreciation for — hm. I’d found a loose hair and also an idea.

I tucked the strand into my mouth while I redid the braid, then tied one end of that stray hair to the pen from my pocket, and the other end to my finger.

This was a trick that had gone over well in elementary school. With the fog and the way hair was exotic here, I was curious to see how it did.

“Captain,” I said politely, stepping forward. “Perhaps they would like to pay the full price if we throw in the secret of how I can move small things with my mind?”

Captain Sunlight quirked a browridge but played along. “Valuable information,” she said. “What do you say?”

The clients whispered to each other and argued for a moment, then demanded a demonstration. I happily obliged.

With the fog blocking out any traitorous rays of light that could give the game away, I held the pen out on my left palm, making dramatic flourishes above it with my right. I affected a look of deep concentration. Wiggling the fingers of both hands, I lifted my right, and lo! The pen rose into the air!

They bought it. Such goggle-eyed expressions; I had to work not to snort in laughter. Instead I stood up straight and caught the pen with my left hand, bowing while the clients all talked at once.

Captain Sunlight may or may not have known how I’d done that, but she was no fool. She took their payment as quickly as they offered it, then managed to usher everyone else back toward the ship without making it look like they were preparing to run.

“Go ahead,” she said to me. “Share your secret.”

“It’s quite simple,” I told them, snapping the hair from my finger. “All you need is a single strand of human hair.” I tossed them the pen and stepped behind a bush while they caught it in surprise.

Now, they could have chosen to laugh and offer to buy some of my hair. They could have pulled the same trick on their friends, and maybe won some bar bets or whatever. They didn’t. I’d made the right call by ducking out of sight.

They were yelling some extremely rude things when Captain Sunlight sped past and leapt onto the hoversled. “Back to the ship!” she said. Blop pushed the sled through the undergrowth at a run, with Blip jumping forward to clear a path and Mur scrambling up beside the captain. I wasn’t small enough to get away with that, so I followed behind Blop and kept an eye out for pursuit.

Luckily for us, they decided to stay there and be grumpy instead chasing after us. They’d gotten what they paid for, after all. Even if I’d used slightly more than my mind to move the pen.

“That was a great trick!” Mur shouted from the sled. “I didn’t realize your head-tentacle was useful.”

“So useful,” I called back, ducking a branch. “Sometimes that even works on other humans, though they usually figure it out pretty fast.”

“I appreciate the quick thinking,” said Captain Sunlight. “I’ll keep it in mind for future negotiations.”

“As long as they aren’t the type to end in violence,” I said. “I was pretty sure these guys wouldn’t fight us about it, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“Oh, these were former crewmates of someone I know!” the captain said. “They’ve always been eggholes.”

“Great!” I said. “I hope they enjoy the pen. It’s almost out of ink.”

~~~

The ongoing backstory of the main character from this book. More to come!

[muirmarie]

hey quick question why do I keep ending up with plot. where is all this plot coming from. I do not Want this plot. I specifically requested a no plot story next. someone please come take this plot away from me.

[joydemorra]

Do you ever start something as a joke and lose complete control over your life?

In a world of dwindling hope, love has never mattered more... [read the full blurb here]

What is Hunger Pangs?

Hunger Pangs, often shortened to “Phangs” by the self-proclaimed phangdom, is my debut romance novel, published in Nov 2020, featuring a deaf, disabled werewolf, a neurodivergent, mad scientist vampire, and an all-powerful enchantress who is the last of her kind.

It is the first book in a slow-burn, polyamorous gaslamp fantasy romance series focusing on the relationship(s) and antics of the three main characters, Nathan Northland, Vlad Blutstein, and Lady Ursula, as they work to save the world they love from imminent magical and ecological disaster.

The first book primarily focuses on the relationship between Nathan and Vlad, with Ursula heavily alluded to in the next book (Pride and Folly) via some shameless flirting and stolen, impulsive kisses.

No love triangles here. Just three highly competent, world-saving bisexuals sharing the same brain cell the closer they get to each other.

There are two editions of the novel. The Flirting with Fangs edition depicts on-page sexual acts, and the Fluff and Fangs edition which uses alternative scenes/fade-to-black scenes for those who prefer not to read depictions of sex. You can read more about why I decided to do this here.

How Did Phangs come to be?

Like most things on my blog, the original concept began as a joke. My friend and enabler, @jeneelestrange, and I were talking about our least favorite tropes in romance/erotica, including but not limited to toxic “alpha” werewolves, brooding stalker vampire boyfriends, and the absolute profound bullshit that is the Conflicted Love Triangle and Bury Your Gays.

Eventually, it culminated in this post:

(source)

It was meant to be a joke. I really cannot emphasize this enough. It was meant to be a shitpost between friends.

A throwaway ADHD impulse.

Tumblr, however, wanted more of these posts, and like a swarming mass of drift-compatible rats in a trench coat, grabbed hold of my lack of impulse control and Ratatouille'd me into becoming an international bestselling author, and, well, here we are.

I also started writing the series while dying, which I highly do not recommend as a functional creative process.

Absolutely do not start a 500k five-part novel series about love and hope while dying from an undiagnosed genetic disorder. Or if you do, make sure you actually die so you don't have to edit the damn thing. (I am mostly kidding.)

What are the themes/tropes/character dynamics of the book?

In the simplest of terms, Phangs is a queer-polyamorous-paranormal-satirical-romance series featuring vampires, werewolves, and all other manner of creatures that go bump in the night.

It is set in a pseudo-regency meets fake-Victorian Gaslamp Fantasy world, complete with gothic castles, enchanted forests, and just a smidge of industrial coal dust.

Style-wise, Phangs has been described by readers as "like reading the queer, goth love child of Terry Pratchett meets Jane Austen," and I've never been more proud of anything in my life.

If Game of Thrones ascribes to the idea that the night is dark and full of terrors, Phangs is the monster-fucker politely sidling up to them at the bar and asking if they can buy them a drink.

It is also primarily a love letter to fandom, which has led some people to believe it’s fanfiction with the serial labels filed off. But as the person who spent five years agonizing over the world-building, I can assure you this is all very much the product of my weird little ADHD brain picking up tropes, shaking them upside down, and running off with whatever fun and interesting things shake loose.

As already stated, the first book, True Love Bites, focuses primarily on the relationship between Captain Nathaniel J. Northland and Viscount Vlad Blutstein.

The first part of the book primarily focuses on Nathan coming home injured from war and trying to find his place in the world as newly deaf and disabled -- something which alienates him from his werewolf family, who don't know what to do with an injury that can't be mended by a full moon.

While working on the island of Eyrie, he encounters Viscount Blutstein -- Vlad-- a neurodivergent, mad scientist dandy vampire with an enthusiasm for demonic botany and a streak of unfailing kindness as broad and expansive as the sky.

It's not so much love at first sight for the pair as instantaneous lust hampered by the restrictions of polite 1880 society and old ingrained prejudices that make them think the other couldn't possibly be interested in them that way. They're just misreading all those heartfelt stares and sexually charged chess games.

(The love is requited, your honor, they're just idiots.)

Both characters are explicitly queer/mspec, as is Ursula, who drops into their world like a magical atom bomb going off, but not before she spends her own parts of the book desperately trying to figure out what manner of dark entity is killing the magical shrines around the world that keep the world alive.

Thematically, the series touches on many things, but the book’s overriding theme is love. Romantically, of course, and love between families, both found or otherwise. But also love as an act of courage. As a choice. An act of defiance in dark and troubling times, and what it means to be loved and belong even though you’re different.

Especially when you’re different.

And I really fucking hope you enjoy it.

To read the full synopsis and check out the heat ratings, buy links and content tags, go to www.joydemorra.com

[luveline]

Hi Jade, I love your writing, I’d love to request more of Steve with his twins x the reader who’s looking for the cat, if you’re interested in writing that! I gotta know if Evangeline is okay

hey babe, thank you for reading! here’s a part two for this | single dad!steve x fem!reader, 3.5k

Despite their very best efforts, Steve's twins can't find Evangeline the lost cat. Sarah, the loudest of the pair, is passionately displeased for a while. 

"Dad," she grumbles, hand in his as they walk back home, "I wanted a party." 

You promised via a written message on a flyer you'd given Steve that you'd celebrate with him if he found the lost cat. Steve's obviously no stranger to flirting, it's how he ended up with a kid on either side of him at all times, but he figures it was an offhanded sort of thing, some throwaway sweetness. He wouldn't have given much more thought to it, but when Sarah asked him to explain what she'd written he phrased it wrong, giving Sarah the idea that finding the cat would result in a popcorn party with soda pop and karaoke. 

"I can throw you a party," Steve says. It's not especially difficult. He doesn't mind expending the extra effort. "We can have a snack party even if we don't find Evangeline. How does that sound, Charlie?" 

Charlie's the quiet one. "It sounds fun," he says. 

Steve ruffles his dirty blonde hair. The older he gets, the darker it grows. Sarah's hair is already way darker. 

"Do you think Evangeline will be okay?" Sarah asks.

"I'm sure she'll be fine, Sar-bear. It's normal for kitty cats to run away when they're gonna have babies, they want to be alone." 

"Why?" Charlie asks. 

"Uh, well," Steve says, not really sure himself, "I think they're trying to keep the babies safe." 

"Did you want to be alone?" Sarah asks. 

Steve laughs out loud. He's relieved when they reach their front door, grabbing his keys from his coat pocket to unlock it. He doesn't know what to tell Sarah. Where to start? He didn't have the babies, and does she know that? He kind of thought she thought babies came from pumpkins and butternut squash like he told her a year ago. Lucky for him, Sarah forgets her question because she needs to pee, running up the stairs to the bathroom still in her shoes. 

He'd rather her trek mud in than pee her pants, but he calls, "Take your shoes off, Sarah! And wash your hands after, please!" 

"Yeah!" she shouts back. 

Steve slings his backpack over the bannister and looks down at Charlie, who looks up with a similar expression. Rubbing his hands over his face, Steve drags his cheeks down and asks Charlie, "What are we going to do with her?" 

"We could put her back in the pumpkin," Charlie says. 

Steve beams. At least one of them still believes it. "We could," he says, kneeling down to help Charlie out of his shoes. "But I don't think she'd fit anymore." 

Charlie puts his hands on Steve's shoulders and lifts his feet one at a time so Steve can take them off. He probably doesn't need Steve's help anymore, but Steve is genuinely horrified at the idea of his kids growing up, and he doesn't mind doing it a little longer anyhow. Shoes off, Charlie unzips his coat. Steve peels it off of his shoulders and hangs it up.

"Drink?" Steve asks. 

"Yes, please." 

He takes Charlie's hand where it's insisting at his hip and together they walk into the kitchen. There's no need for hand holding, but if Charlie wants it then Steve doesn't mind. Only thing is, it makes it difficult to pour juice into cups. 

"Are you hungry, buddy?" Steve asks, lowering the cup to Charlie's level. 

"Yeah. Dad, it's–" 

"What do you want for dinner? Are you hungry enough for a big helping? Maybe I'll make lasagna." 

"Dad, it's cold." 

Steve frowns at Charlie where the little boy's curling in on himself. Steve picks him up, hands quick to cover his back but careful not to knock his drink over. 

"Is it cold?" Steve hasn't taken his coat off yet. "I'm sorry, bud, let's turn up the thermostat." 

"It's really cold." 

Steve's feeling it now, a chill on his face that hints to an ajar window, or… 

Steve carries Charlie the short distance to the dining room that leads off from the kitchen and opens the door. His suspicions are confirmed; the patio doors are wide open, letting the chill of a coming fall pervade the room. 

"Woah," Charlie says. 

"Woah," Steve repeats. He sits Charlie on top of the table and closes the doors, locking the leftmost with a concerned sigh. Open doors invite creepy crawlies that Charlie can't abide by, or worse, rats. 

"Sorry, buddy, let's go find your blanket," Steve says, turning away from the doors. "And your sister." 

He forgets about the open doors after a busy night. Sarah and Charlie make lasagna with him, and then they help him wash up. Sarah gets dish soap all over her and decides that she doesn't need a bath anymore because that's what dish soap is for, dad, she's clean now. He haggles with her, and they strike a deal that she will in fact be bathing tonight as long as they can have a party (sans Evangeline the cat) tomorrow. 

She was going to get the party anyway. It's a sneaky dad win. 

When they've both been bathed and dressed in clean pyjamas, Steve ushers the twins into their bedrooms and bids them both goodnight. Charlie falls asleep before Steve's even left the room, but Sarah takes a little more persuasion. 

Steve sits on the side of her bed, his thumb stroking a line up and down the bridge of her nose to the spot between her eyebrows. Her lashes flutter with every crest. 

"Do you think Evangeline will be okay?" she mumbles sleepily. 

"Yeah, baby, I do. I think she'll be just fine. Don't worry about her, okay?" 

"She must be lonely," Sarah says. 

Steve leans in, speaking warmly. "What makes you think that? Because she's not home?" Sarah nods. Steve takes a big breath. "Well, think of it this way… She might be away from home, but she has her kittens with her, so she's not alone." 

"Does she have a husband cat?" 

"I bet she does. He might even be with her," Steve says. 

"Maybe we can get a pet cat," she says. 

Steve kisses the tip of her nose. "Nice try, Sar-bear." 

She smiles, either from his joke or his affection, and touches his arm. "Maybe I can sleep in the big bed with you tonight?"

Steve would let her if he didn't think she was close to falling asleep already. "Tomorrow," he says, letting her down gently. He sits up, his hand on her forehead, stroking back her freshly clean hair. "I love you. Have good dreams, okay?"

"Okay, daddy. You too." 

Her eyes shutter closed. He strokes her hair for a few minutes more to make sure she's asleep, before kissing her head, turning off her light, and closing the door. 

He stands in the hallway for a second, checking his watch. It's later than they'd usually go to bed but still relatively early, nearing 10PM. He has enough time to swap the load of laundry from the washer to the dryer before he has his own shower, and he could probably squeeze some TV in if he doesn't mind falling asleep on the couch. 

Steve does the laundry. He showers. He checks on the twins, peeking his head into their rooms. Sarah's asleep as he left her like a princess, and Charlie's curled up, a pill bug under three blankets. 

Steve's scrubbing his hair dry with a towel on the way downstairs and wondering if there's any good ice cream in the freezer when he hears a weird sound. He knows what he thinks it is immediately, but the reality of it being said thing is too weird, too coincidental, and he really actually doesn't want to have to deal with it. His pulse quickens at a wooden knocking sound. 

"No way," he says, ditching his towel on the kitchen counter top. He approaches the dining room door, resting his forehead against cold wood. "No fucking way." 

The sound grows louder. Steve considers leaving the door closed and dealing with it tomorrow, but he can't. He has kids in the house. And if there's an animal in need of assistance, he doesn't wanna be the kind of person who doesn't help. Even if he's so, so tired.

—

"So you found her there?" you ask, eyebrows raised high. 

Steve —Harrington, apparently, from your graduating class— rubs the back of his neck. "Would you believe me if I said the patio door was open?" 

"I believe you, Steve, I'm just surprised at the coincidence." 

Your neighbour, Serena, looks up from where she's poking at Evangeline the cat and her rabidly meowing brethren to grin. "It's a great coincidence. I'm so happy she's okay. And so sorry she decided to do this here." 

Turns out you and the pretty dad from the park are almost neighbours, living one street away. He lives on Cherry Avenue. You live on Cherry Avenue West, as does Evangeline the cat. 

"I can, uh, pay for the cleaning," Serena offers. 

Evangeline has given cat-birth in the bottom of Steve's hutch, a solid oak piece with a glass front. It's the kind of furniture you'd expect in such a nice home, but the glass-fronted cabinet isn't lined with dishes. It's full of kids' arts and crafts. 

Steve crosses his arms across his chest. "Don't worry about it. I've cleaned up worse stuff than that." 

"Oh, no, please, let me pay for it. Or at least let me clean it myself." 

"It's really no trouble," Steve says. 

"It's definitely some trouble," you butt in mildly. "Me and Serena'll clean it, just as soon as we get these cats into crates." 

You hadn't been expecting Steve to call you for a while. You'd hoped he'd find the cat, obviously, and hoped even if he didn't he'd try his luck with you. He's a handsome guy with big hands, lean arms, and a smile so gentle it tips into searing; you can't help smiling at him to get him to smile back. It makes your chest feel insanely tight. 

There's nothing so thrilling as having a good-looking guy flirt with you. It doesn't happen often. 

"If you think I'm gonna let you clean up in my house you've got another thing coming," he says with a bravado that's clearly self-aware. "You guys don't want a cup of coffee, do you? I need one." 

"Sure," you say, "I'll help." 

Steve's kitchen is the same as the rest of his house, cluttered and clean, lived in and proud of it. There's drawings on the fridge, homemade magnets, poorly painted mugs on a rack by the coffee pot. Kids live here, and they're loved here, evidenced by their artwork in pride of place, and the sheer amount of Goldfish you see in his cabinet when he retrieves a jar of coffee. 

"The kids are in bed?" you ask. 

"Yep. Though I doubt Charlie's sleeping, he can't sleep through the front door closing. The creaking scares him sometimes." 

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry," you say. 

Steve shoots you a smile from over his shoulder. "Don't be sorry," he says, unscrewing the coffee jar. "It's not your fault the cat wanted to have her kittens here. It's not even the cat's fault. Charlie will come down in a minute." 

Steve's eerily right. The quiet thump of footsteps patter down the stairs, and the blonde little boy you'd met that afternoon appears at the end of the hall with a mess of cotton candy hair sticking up and a blanket around his shoulders. Steve pours you some freshly brewed coffee and offers you the mug. 

"Milk is in the fridge," he says, his arm held out as he approaches his son. "Hey, Charlie. Sorry, we were being too loud, huh?"  

Charlie slides behind Steve's legs. "It's not morning." 

"No, sorry." 

"Who's the lady?" he whispers. 

"That's Y/N, we met her at the playground earlier, remember? Because of her friend's lost cat?" 

Charlie leans around Steve's legs to sneak a glance at you. You smile and raise a hand to wave at him. He hides. 

You bend at the waist. "Hi, Charlie. Sorry to make so much noise while you're sleeping, but we had to come over and see Evangeline. You can tell me off for being loud, I don't mind." 

"It's okay," Charlie says. 

You beam at him. "Really? Thank you. I promise we'll be much quieter and you can go back to sleep soon." 

Steve brushes Charlie's hair back out of his eyes and down flat. "Want to sit on the counter?" he asks. 

Charlie nods. 

Steve picks Charlie up and puts him on the countertop next to his cooling coffee. Things are quiet and slightly awkward for a minute. You fill the silence with sips of coffee, while Steve's too preoccupied with his kid to touch his own. He rubs Charlie's back, a chubby cheek pulled into his chest, offering up treats in a murmur, "How about something warm? I can make you hot cocoa, you can have marshmallows, too. Would that make you feel better?" 

"Are you having it too?" Charlie asks.

"No, I'm having coffee." 

"Can I have some coffee?" 

"You can have a little sip to see if you like it," Steve says. 

You're surprised by his willingness to let Charlie try it, but it's not like he's force feeding him caffeine by the spoonful. Steve blows on the coffee for a few seconds and then holds Charlie's back. "Just a little bit, baby, it's hot and I don't think you'll like it. Just a little sip." 

Oh, no, you think. He's so nice. 

He's a very tender father. Gentle and patient. He helps Charlie take a little sip and he doesn't so much as blink when Charlie spits it back out into his mug. Steve fills a new mug with water and helps him wash away the taste, laughing without malice.

"I didn't think you'd like it," Steve says. "But good job for trying." 

"It tasted sour," Charlie says. 

"Are you sure?" Steve laughs again. He looks up at you and lowers his voice. "Would it be a problem for him to see the cats?" 

"Are you kidding? Of course he can." You put your coffee down. "Do you like cats, Charlie?" 

Charlie loves cats. When Serena's sure that Evangeline won't go into a defensive mom rage, she beckons Charlie forward to watch the kittens wriggling. They're not very active, having just been born, but they're cute, and alien in a way that's boggling. You fawn at his fawning. 

"Don't touch," Steve says softly. 

"Where's the pumpkin?" Charlie whispers. 

"What?" you ask. You can't help yourself. 

"Um." Steve trips over his words, "Um– he wants to know where the pumpkin is, where the kittens came out of. Because… that's where babies come from?" 

Your lips part. Serena nudges you before you can say something idiotic, and you thank her in your head. "Oh, of course! Well, we had to put the pumpkin outside so the kittens had room to lay down." 

It's not smoothly done, but Steve nods appreciatively. Charlie hums and sits back in Steve's lap. "Does Sarah get to have two parties now?" he asks. 

You'd thought yourself fine at understanding children, but you never realised they spoke in code. 

Steve's voice is almost melodical in its cadence, and his hands do a sort of waltz, a slow, practised manoeuvre as they settle around Charlie's front. "I don't know, buddy. I think one party is enough." 

"What was her party for?" you ask. 

"Well," Steve begins, "your flyer, she wanted to know what celebrating means. So I told her it meant like when you have a party, and she really likes parties, so she thought if we could find Evangeline, we'd get to have one. But when we couldn't find her, I said we'd have one anyways." 

So he's a sweetheart, you think. Good to know.

"It's too bad she's still sleeping," you say. While she might not have found Evangeline, and Steve may not have found her purposefully, she deserves a treat just for looking. You're about to suggest it when Steve tilts his head to the side. 

"It shouldn't be too long, now. She always knows when Charlie's not where she left him." 

"What, like a sixth sense?" you ask, charmed. 

"Exactly like a sixth sense. He was in the hospital for a few days a year ago and she didn't sleep for two whole days. Which is weird 'cos they have separate bedrooms," —you bite back a huge smile at the impassioned tone of his retelling— "and she hasn't slept in the same bed as him in two or three years, but it didn't matter."

"That's sweet, though," you say. 

"She loves him more than anyone in the world," Steve says easily. He dips his voice down into a playful grumbling, "But Charlie loves me most. Don't you Charlie?" 

They must have had this teasing before, as Charlie knows exactly what to say, giggling and affectionately fond as he protests, "No, dad." 

"What?" Steve asks incredulously. 

"I love Sarah most." 

"Sarah's not here to hear you, buddy." 

"I love Sarah the most, and then you, and then Aunt Robin and Aunt Cory, and then grandma." He's apparently been coached on it.

Steve meets your eyes over Charlie's head. "Can't blame a guy for trying." 

Sarah appears not long after, clearly surprised by strangers in her house and her dad on the dining room floor. She walks forward, bunny ears on her slippers wagging with each step, eyes blinking sluggishly. 

"Daddy?" 

"Sarah," he greets. "Guess what? I found Evangeline." 

Sarah realises what she's seeing, and nothing can prepare you for how high-pitched she squeals. "Are those kittens?" she asks, stepping over Steve's knee. You stabilise her when she pitches forward and prevent a disaster. "Oh my god, dad! Can we pet them?" 

"No, we can't, I'm sorry," he says, "they're still shiny brand new. And sticky." 

Sarah's disappointed but doesn't whine. She sits politely beside you and watches the kittens climbing blindly atop one another, her pyjamas warm against your crossed leg. 

"As soon as I take them to the vets, you guys can be the first to pet them," Serena says, finally tearing her attention away from her darling Evangeline. "How's that sound?" 

"Really?" Sarah asks. 

"If it's okay with your dad, absolutely." 

You reckon Steve couldn't say no if he wanted to. You all stay there like that for a while, talking in quiet tones until Charlie's falling asleep in Steve's lap and Serena decides it's now or never, attempting to usher Evangeline and the kittens into the huge cat carrier she'd procured. Thank yous and no problems are exchanged at the door, Steve with Charlie in his arms as though the boy, who looks to be five or older, weighs nothing. Sarah waves her hand at the kittens as Serena takes them to the car. 

"Dad, we really need a cat," she says. 

Steve pats her shoulder momentarily. "Maybe one day." 

You hover at the porch step, because there's something you want to ask. It might be odd, but getting this little sneak peek into their life, seeing Steve in action, you can admit to both having a small crush on him as well as wanting to see him again. Even if it turned out to be nothing, you'd want to see him. He seems interesting, charming, and so ridiculously loving; you could use a little love in your life. 

"Listen," you say, twirling your car keys around your finger nervously, "about that celebration…" 

Steve hikes Charlie further up his chest. "The party?" 

"I mean, you did find her. And I'd like to keep my end of the bargain, so maybe… we could celebrate sometime? Together?" 

Steve's hand covers the back of Charlie's head. "Are you asking me out?" 

You look away from him, accidentally locking eyes with Sarah, who's smiling at his hip like you're the best thing since sliced bread. 

"Only if you want to," you say. 

"We would love to!" Sarah says. 

You can see the moment that Steve bites back a smile. "What she said. We'd love to." He hikes Charlie up again. He must be heavier than he looks. "I really have to put them to bed, but– I'll call you," he says. "Cool?" 

"Cool," you say. He generously ignores how breathless you sound, and you say goodnight. 

Serena's telling Evangeline off in the car as though she's a reckless teenager when you climb in, but it isn't without love. "What's so unsafe about your own home, Eva? We had that wardrobe all decked out for you, and you chose some random guy's dining room. Some random hot guy," she says pointedly. "Tell me you asked him out." 

"What?" you ask, laughing nervously. "I don't know what you're talking about." 

She stares at you.

"Okay, fine! Yeah, I asked him out," you admit. 

She cheers, "Woo! Good thing. He deserves a nice date with a pretty girl like you after that. We never cleaned out his hutch, you realise?" 

You flush all over. "Oh, fuck." 

"That might put a dampener on the appetisers." 

—-

hello, thank you for reading! if you’d like to request more for this au please go ahead, I’d love to see some<3<3

[wikiangela]

tease tidbit tuesday/wip wednesday

tagged by @thewolvesof1998 @theotherbuckley @tizniz @diazsdimples @dangerpronebuddie @spotsandsocks @exhuastedpigeon @underwaterninja13 - tagging y'all back for wip wednesday 💖💖

doing two in one bc it's technically wednesday already idc lol - started a new wip I mentioned before (inspired by this video lol) and rn I'm rewriting what I wrote yesterday bc the past two days words were not wording and I hated everything I wrote, but I think I'm happy with it now haha I hope I'll manage to write it like I want to bc it's sooo good in my head istg haha

(wasn't gonna post until i have more but i need validation before i drive myself crazy over this lol)

___

It started as a random idea, more like a throwaway thought, really. Tommy was just checking the weather for the next few days – his hot pilot boyfriend always likes to be prepared – while they were hanging out, and he casually mentioned that “it’s gonna be nice on Saturday, perfect barbecue weather,” which got Buck to mention how they often have family barbecues at Bobby and Athena’s. Somehow, the conversation spiraled, and Buck’s not sure who threw out a more concrete idea, but here they are now, standing side by side in Tommy’s kitchen, preparing food – Buck’s currently slicing veggies for a salad, while Tommy takes care of the meat – for the barbecue where they invited way too many people than Tommy’s backyard can probably fit. It really is nice weather, the sliding door leading from the kitchen to the backyard open and letting in warm sunshine and a soft breeze that makes the air feel cooler. They work in pleasant silence, the only sound is quiet music playing from the speaker, and Buck can’t help a fond smile when he hears his boyfriend hum along, so off-key Buck’s not sure he even knows the song, but it’s still adorable.

The silence is disrupted by the doorbell ringing, and before Tommy can even move, Buck is dropping the knife on the cutting board, wiping his hands, and sprinting towards the door, shouting an “I got it!” over his shoulder. He’s followed by an echo of Tommy’s fondly amused chuckles. So he’s a little excited, sue him – they haven’t had a family day like this in a while, and there was only one he brought Tommy to, all of their schedules not so easy to align. And today his whole family will be here, including their spouses and children, and Tommy invited a couple of his friends and their families, too, and it’ll be just a big, loud, chaotic get-together that he’s hosting with his boyfriend. Buck never hosted one of these before, and he’s really enjoying it so far, and he just wants everyone to have fun.

___

no pressure tags: @elvensorceress @thebravebitch @shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @watchyourbuck

@eowon @loserdiaz @evanbegins @ladydorian05 @wildlife4life

@diazpatcher @lover-of-mine @monsterrae1 @weewootruck @loveyouanyway

@spagheddiediaz @rainbow-nerdss @epicbuddieficrecs @pirrusstuff @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove

@nmcggg @rogerzsteven @hippolotamus @bidisasterevankinard @giddyupbuck

@sunshinediaz @honestlydarkprincess @911-on-abc @jesuisici33 @steadfastsaturnsrings

@buddieswhvre @fortheloveofbuddie @your-catfish-friend

@daffi-990 @hoodie-buck @aroeddiediaz

[malegains]

I use Bing to make my pics. Go to Bing’s website, click images, click create. Make an account if you need to, it’s worth it. You can use a throwaway email. Use naturalistic language, separate phrases by commas, the closer to the top a phrase is the more it’s weighted.

I make this post because I get the strong sense the Bing party will be over soon. Every day the AI cottons on to phrases and chokes on things you used to be able to sneak past. Stuff that was safe and useful a day or two ago now result in a dreaded Prompt Blocked (too many of those and you’ll get suspended, it hasn’t happened to me but it seems the threshold is low).

Safe prompts return four images. Fewer than four mean the missing ones were “not safe.” A prompt that processes but gives no results, or “egg dogs” is not too much of a cause for worry - retool, try again. Sometimes I don’t even change anything, and the one result I get on the second try is such a freakshow that it was worth it.

A prompt that is rejected without processing IS a worry and you should probably abort, as explained. However, keep in mind it’s not just sexy stuff that can trip that wire. I once got a harsh warning because I put “Phoenix park, Dublin.” I deleted that and it ran no problem. Avoid any and all political controversy (sigh. I know).

Recommendations:

Using age, profession, and nationality can influence the look of the model very easily. “French rugby player” is a go to for me, for example. In general, “rugby player” is cheat code for “make him sexy.” The mind of the machine, what can I say.

Use descriptive phrases of action and location to engineer what you want to see. Be creative and be specific. “Reading a placard at a botanical garden,” for instance. It seems this allows more extreme kinky stuff to sneak past the filter. I usually start with “side view” because otherwise you only ever get models looking straight ahead.

Grey sweat pants has become a trigger (they caught on). However, “gray pants” still works and gives some very tasty results.

High social cache locations and activities also seem to help. I got some WILD and EXTREME hyper images from adding “goofing around on stage at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.” Paired with “cast as a fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and the mega bubble butts and thick thighs were BULGING, as long as you didn’t mind a little tutu and fairy wings (the corny goofy masculine dude having fun facial expression that the earlier inclusion of “goofy” brought really worked in this instance). Most of these freaks were NAKED and I didn’t even ask for that!!! (No dong of course, this is Microsoft still)

Mention of glutes, butts, asses, etc are very dangerous and usually get you in trouble. I found some traction with “gluteal mass” but it got wise, and “bulging lower back muscles” used to be interpreted as glutes but seemingly no longer. “Disturbingly huge hamstrings” or “jaw-droppingly large hamstrings” does work to get That Ass sometimes, I guess because the computer has a fuzzy idea of the posterior chain.

Also, “pecs” used to be safe but is now also on the danger list. “Pectoral muscles” still seems safe, for now.

ALWAYS include shoes or footwear if you don’t want a tight cropped image. Black athletic shoes, sandals, converse sneakers, dress shoes, fluevog shoes if you’re making a fancy beef heap. Avoid boots. “Leather boots” once got me in trouble with the filter all by itself.

Adding a personality or mood descriptor near the top seems to humanize and give vitality to the outcome. Intense, goofy, outgoing, exuberant, shy - these have all done wonderful work for me.

If you’re into hyper / immobile muscle, imagining scenario where they’re constricted by space is useful. A prompt which just (“just”) gives a realistic super heavyweight will give an appalling mockery of the human form if you add “crammed into the front seat of his car.” Get creative. Elevators and doorways haven’t worked well, but cars, trains, planes, busses, subways, and CHAIRS of all descriptions have done well. Also, scooters and bicycles and mopeds really bring out the super freaks for whatever reason.

I write this to encourage you to go create some fleshcrafted sexy abominations of your own while it’s still possible. My sense is this party is only going to last a little while. I’ve already got more than 1000 images to share so, my larder is stocked to supply this blog for a while. But the more freaks we make while the freak factory is still in production, the better.

Get cooking!

[thedaythatwas]

TW: Hegel.

So, what’s up with Shuake and dialectics? Click below to watch this user (who is not a philosopher) give this (frankly too invested) analysis a shot!

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the fact that most– but not all– of Joker’s confidant routes involve some sort of transaction. Joker does something for someone, Joker gets a favor in return. Joker’s identity revolves around what he can do for others. He’s got a different mask (haha game mechanic is narrative device etc.) for everyone in his life. 

Getting a little bit in my head about this led me to a (not-all-that-novel) realization: Akechi’s confidant route is largely non-transactional. Sure, he says that he wants to meet with you to talk about the Phantom Thieves, but that more or less directly translates to just wanting to hang out with you. The “favor” that you're doing for Akechi, if we follow the logic of some of the other confidant routes, is spending time with him. (Which is of course also about getting close to Joker for metaverse recon purposes… But I’d argue that amounts to more or less the same thing in the long run anyway). Really, that’s what your relationship with him is, up until you realize the heart he needs you to change is actually one of the big-bads of the game. And at that point… Well… 

Where am I going with this? I’ve also been thinking a lot about Hegel (I’ve seen some really fun posting about Akechi and Hegel on here this past week– thank you philosophy P5R tumblr!). Akechi’s paraphrasing of Hegel goes a little something like “advancement cannot occur without both thesis and antithesis.” Hilariously, this is how he frames his desire to talk to you more, his flirting is just like me forreal I understand him etc. etc. BUT! The interesting thing here is that the game is cueing you to view your relationship with Akechi through the lens of Hegel’s dialectics.

More on that to follow, but first, I want to plug the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s page on Hegel’s Dialectics here– If you haven’t used it before, SEP is a reliable, peer-reviewed source. It’s great. I use it like. All the time. It’s good for getting the gist of big ideas when you don’t have time to read full texts. (Also if I get any of this wrong please know that philosophy is not my field and I’m totally open to constructive criticism.)

Hegel’s dialectical process revolves around three key moments: the moment of understanding, the dialectical moment, and the speculative moment. These moments can also be referred to as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The moment of understanding, thesis, is the point at which an idea is seemingly stable. In the dialectical moment, antithesis, this idea “sublates” itself– the idea is challenged and destabilized because an inherent contradiction in the idea has been made apparent–importantly, part of the idea is preserved. The speculative moment, synthesis, negates the contradiction. A new idea takes form, containing elements of the original idea that was sublated (Marx’s theory of history, anyone?) 

This process continues on and on. Ideas naturally reveal their contradictions, are destabilized, and resolve their contradictions through the creation of a new idea, which is challenged again. This is because the dialectical moment does not come from outside an idea. Antithesis is not an external push against thesis, but rather, the moment when thesis is forced into instability because of its own tightly-bound restriction. 

So back to what I was saying. The game kicks off your relationship with Akechi with a nod to, uh, all of that. Could this be a throwaway comment? Of course! But it’s much more fun to work under the assumption that it isn’t. So bear with me. Akechi is framing himself and Joker as thesis and antithesis. What does that mean? Why do I think it has something to do with Akechi and Joker’s relationship being non-transactional?

Previously, I’ve thought that in the context of their relationship, Akechi represented thesis, and Joker antithesis. This isn’t exactly true (at least per the criteria above) but I do think I was on the right track. 

At the beginning of his story, we can think of Akechi’s worldview as thesis. The world is a stage, and he is a performer. His entire life is dedicated to destroying Shido. It’s a key narrative element of P5 that Akechi doesn’t have confidant relationships (as contrasted by Joker, who has many confidants and becomes stronger through building up those bonds). He views himself as deceiving literally everyone in his life for his goals– his “fans,” his father, the Phantom Thieves. He doesn’t trust, because to him, trust is failure. 

Still, he’s starving for approval, and not just from Shido. You can see the inherent conflict between his desires and beliefs in just about every interaction he has with Joker, particularly those where Akechi overshares about his past. He desperately wants someone to hear him. I don’t think his (primary) aim in that was to strategically win Joker’s trust by showing vulnerability– if that was all he was going for, I doubt Akechi would have been so honest. He omitted information, sure, but he gave Joker the honest-to-god broad strokes of his childhood.  

When Joker comes into his life, Akechi comes to realize that his stable worldview might be wrong. Watching Joker and the rest of the Phantom Thieves reveals the cracks in his own internal logic. Joker has friendships and he is stronger because of them. When Akechi sacrifices himself for the Phantom Thieves on Shido’s ship, we see his moment of synthesis. If Akechi really still internalized all of what he said in his “Teammates? Friends? To hell with that!” monologue, he wouldn’t trust Joker to change Shido’s heart in his stead. To be clear– he probably would have reached this point with or without Joker’s intervention. Joker just happens to push Akechi towards self-sublation a little bit faster.

In Royal, we see a new iteration of Akechi. He doesn’t really regret his actions, and he is still very distinctly Akechi, but we can see that his original perception of the world has made a shift. He is willing to team up with Joker. While he may not place a great deal of faith in all of the PTs, he certainly has real trust in the protagonist. He’s learned that he can be recognized (dare I say loved?) without being perfect, and accordingly, his driving desire for approval has been displaced by his desire to never be so completely under anyone else’s control again.

But ok— that’s kind of an old take. Perhaps a hotter one: I’d also like to propose that Akechi does the same for Joker. 

As mentioned above, Joker’s identity for most of the game is defined by what he can do for the people around him. While a large part of this has to do with the fact that he is a playable character, this is a game, and a game needs to have things for you to do– it wouldn’t be very fun otherwise– it also seems pretty clear that this is part of his characterization. Joker is selfless to a fault. Like Akechi, he is a wildcard who can take on multiple personas. Unlike Akechi, instead of having a handful of personas directly linked to the core of his character development, Joker has as many personas as you want him to. He literally has a mask for every situation. You can equip a persona of the correct arcana to level up your relationships faster– a game mechanic, but also, an interesting meta statement about how Joker bonds with his confidants.

In Royal, however, Joker has the option to do something for himself. His greatest wish isn’t for someone else's happiness– it’s to have Akechi back, for selfish reasons, I would argue. Joker can sacrifice reality to keep him in his life, and depending on the actions you choose to take, sometimes, he does.

Loving Akechi teaches Joker to be selfish. This is especially poignant when you think of how adamantly opposed Akechi is to staying in Maruki's reality. Giving up the true reality to keep Akechi is a wholly selfish act on Joker's part, nothing altruistic about it. And if he doesn't make that choice? Well, don't forget about how Joker spent his wish.

He would have learned how to do this without Akechi– one tends to realize that neverending self-sacrifice is unsustainable sooner rather than later. Again, Akechi just pushes Joker towards effecting that self-sublation a little faster.

By spending time with Joker, Akechi learns that there are people he can truly trust. By spending time with Akechi, Joker learns how to put himself first. Their confidant relationship from this perspective is not only transactional, it’s actually one of the most transactional relationships in the game. Joker actively impacts how Akechi sees himself and the world around him, and vice versa. Their relationship is profoundly transformative for the both of them. To paraphrase Akechi, advancement cannot occur without both thesis and antithesis.

But also, we can forget dialectics for a second. Even without a fun analytical lens, Akechi’s confidant route centers two misunderstood people who find understanding in each other. That’s enough for me!

[dotthings]

Dead Boy Detectives notes for ep 7

* Esther vs Cat King make really fun antagonists.

* Richard Speight Jr directing

* Night Nurse ranting about how difficult it is to get someone back from Hell, the permits and the approvals! and no one wants to go there!! is sending me

* Charles making a deal so he can go into Hell himself and raise Edwin from Perdition this is fine

* Crystal insisting she go with Edwin to Hell, Edwin refusing, Crystal deciding to get there herself by making a deal with her horrible ex who is a demon, and Jenny racing after Crystal because she shouldn’t be doing that alone. This friends circle all looks after each other.

* And Niko is being the only sane sensible one in the joint, making constructive suggestions

* Edwin’s spirit found Charles when he was shivering and alone and confused about what was happening and he brought Charles a lantern and he made him laugh and offered him guidance and was there for him to escort his spirit from the living to the dead. He acted as Charles’s psychopomp. (Oh hi there Carver and Yockey. I’m appreciating this in its own right but having all kinds of Thoughts here)

* “You really gave up a potentially tranquil eternity for your friend?”

Because that’s what restless spirits with big hearts do. Sometimes they refuse to cross over. Sometimes even if they’ve crossed over they take a drive and go on an adventure breaking the rules. Because they’re still looking for something. (Again with the Thoughts. The parallels here are driving me insane).

* Really loving the design and gestalt of this sequence of Charles’s journey through the various levels of Hell

* Charles carrying that same lantern!! *heartclutch*

* Master stroke payoff on a little “throwaway” moment earlier in the season of Edwin’s aversion to a creepy broken doll. Throaway moments are usually…not. It all means something.

* Edwin’s rejection of Despair, of vengeance. Now I’m thinking of Charles who said he wanted to be good, who thinks he’s only his anger. And now Edwin’s fear of being taken over, being defined, by his darker emotions too. Neither want to be defined by that. Darker emotions are part of who people are but don’t have to define them. Integration with and acceptance the whole self is the main idea.

* Simon not wanting to leave Hell because he thinks he doesn’t deserve anything else. Someone who isn’t evil. He didn’t know, he made a terrible mistake. Sometimes people get eaten by their own fears and self blame and the weight of their mistakes and can’t see another way

* Jenny admitting she cares!!

* Crystal and her ancestors burying her abusive ex a demon who is only about cruelty in the ground. Not vengeance or despair. Justice.

* “What are you doing here” “I’m here to rescue you” THIS IS FINE I’M FINE1!!!

* ROMANTIC LOVE CONFESSION. IN HELL.

* “I just need you to know” (It’s not in the having it’s in just being)

* Getting love and acceptance back. No matter what. And they’ll figure out what it all means—they have an eternity to figure it out.

* Jenny, reclined with a wet washcloth over her forehead: “Niko, did you just say someone is back from Hell?” Jenny is having A Day (I know that feeling, Jenny. It’ll be okay)

* Subverting the system from within. Using the cosmic red tape against the system.

* “I know I’m not the bravest but I have excellent reading comprehension skills” Niko <333

* Using “Burning” as the music cue (this song is fire, it was used for the Echo opening credits, great song). “Lay your red hand on me baby as I go” WAIT A MINUTE—

Speight’s directing in this ep was phenomenal and that Speight OF ALL PEOPLE DIRECTED THIS EP WITH THIS PARTICULAR PLOT, I—

CARVER AND YOCKEY I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE AND AM LOSING MY DAMN MIND THANK YOU SO MUCH

[max1461]

Ok, after a few years of mulling around rat-adj tumblr, here are my assessments:

Classic, Yudkowskyan rationalism: super silly but kind of cool. Obviously I don't believe in all the AI apocalypse stuff but it's neat to lurk in their spaces and inhabit their worldview for a bit. I consider myself kind of a connoisseur of funky little worldviews, I like cannibalizing them for interesting insights and tidbits even when I think they're irreparably flawed, and Yudkowskyan rationalism has been kind of a goldmine for this. And I actually do think the basic premise of AI safety research is worthwhile, even if Yudkowsky and co. don't seem to be very good at it. Unfortunately it does seem from what I've heard that some organizations/communities in this part of the rationalist sphere have traits of high-control groups, which is not very good.

SSC-type (or perhaps "Alexandrian"?) rationalism: less silly and less cool. There are definitely some interesting posts on SSC, and I've enjoyed the same kind of "cannibalizing the interesting bits" thing that I've enjoyed with respect to Yudkowskyan rationalism, but overall I find Alexandrian rationalist ideas much more likely to be frustrating instead of entertaining. I think they're generally less out-there, and so less fun, and they also foreground hot-button social issues more often. In terms of specific frustrations, I often feel there is an overwillingness to buy into loose heuristics as gospel, an insufficient skepticism towards received cultural narratives and categorization schemes (I'm struggling to pull up a really representative example here, but for a throwaway case I recall Scott at various points commenting on "the basic difference between Eastern philosophy and Western philosophy", a definite description whose referent I suspect does not exist), a tendency towards insight-porn, and an enthusiasm for ranking and categorizing human beings which I find at best distasteful.

Neartermist/Non-Longtermist Effective Altruism: really good. I don't have any deep insight into the community, but from what I've seen, really good. Making the world a better place. Thinking about seriously important issues. I have almost wholly positive things to say. Almost certainly the best/most important thing to come out of rationalism thus far.

Longtermist Effective Altruism: completely idiotic. A hodge-podge of sci-fi bullshit and megalomaniacal venture capital nonsense. Might be evil if it wasn't so dumb. Nigh-valueless.

[funishment-time]

can i get Kazuichi for the ask game?

kazoo itchy

Sexuality Headcanon: kazuichi is quite possibly the Franchise's Greatest Bisexual. he loves hot chicks, truly. he also doesn't realize that giving your bro a little Speedo is extremely homosexual. in a perfect world, he'd be about equal on men and women; for most of the franchise in general, even if he realized the extent of his Speedo Disease, he'd think he likes women more. think being the key word. and we all know how good our boy is at Thinking

Gender Headcanon: oh, this one is TOUGH. no matter what, i can tell you, he's not Cis in my mind. not whatsoever. he has too many "do you ever just think about being a Girl?" "fucking no. no one knows what you're talking about Soda" moments canonically. dude wants the maid outfit. dude wants a dress. whether or not that's All The Time is up to him, and would depend on the Timeline anyway.

however

almost paradoxically, i also dabble in the idea that he's a transguy. that's a Fun One too.

nonetheless, not a Cis Guy. at all

A ship I have with said character: i don't hate him with Gundham, Nekomaru, or Hajime. i have also jokingly shipped him with Akane for the ha ha funni after reading it as a throwaway line in a fic once. but mostly i don't ship him too hard with anyone as, to me, he has a lot of Soul-Searching to do before he settles down.

A BROTP I have with said character: i love that he becomes a big brother to Jataro in Summer Camp. i also love the idea of him, Chihiro, and Miu making the most dysfunctional Engineering Family(?) on earth. i could watch a whole Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! type anime with them. three types of autism uranium fusing together to create Nuclear Autism. Spikechun you can have that one

A NOTP I have with said character: not a fan of him with Sonia in any way, shape, or form even if he gets his act together. not even as part of a throuple or poly sitch. sorry Kazoo

A random headcanon: he loves playing with Legos and K'nex sets. also, less wholesome, a lot of DR1's executions are his work.

General Opinion over said character: 🔧/10 used to dislike him, now consider him one of my favorite failsons. Please Be Worse

[marlynnofmany]

Just a Rock

For all the time I’ve spent traveling through space, I haven’t spend much of it actually out in space. It’s unsettling. Inside the ship, I can forget how close the airless void is, how small our precious bubble of air. But outside, everything is black like some vast creature ate all the color in the universe first, then the air, and is now hungering for life forms too.

Sometimes those distant stars look like teeth.

These are the thoughts that tend to pop up when I’m in my exo suit, hoping that my thruster pack doesn’t run out of fuel before I make it back to the ship. But then an empty pack of chips will float by my visor, and I can refocus on business.

That’s how it happened today, at any rate. (And yes, “day” is a silly concept in the blackness of space.) We’d made a detour to see if we could pick up some extra funds by gathering salvage from a museum ship that had gone kablooey, but so far all we were finding was trash.

Paint jetted past in her own exo suit, upside-down to my frame of reference, then stopped to pull apart a jumble of carpet fragments. “They really did clear out the good stuff already,” she said over the radio. She swatted aside a drink cup with her tail, looking like a little space-suited dinosaur, a thought that kept me entertained for a good few seconds.

Captain Sunlight’s voice said, “Keep an eye out for scrap metal. That may already be gone too, but it’s worth a shot.” She was somewhere else in the drifting junk pile, or maybe back near the ship; I couldn’t tell. There was too much stuff in the way. This was a mildly alarming thought — out of sight meant out of safety — but I caught a glimpse of the Frillian twins posted as safety guards at the edge of the cloud, and my heartbeat settled a bit.

“Do you think anyone will buy some mildly used carpet?” Paint asked the captain. “It’s only in several pieces.”

“Let’s go with ‘no.’”

“What about some very exotic — what is this — napkins? Made with authentic Earth wood fibers!”

I looked over at that. “How can you tell?”

“Oh, I have no idea,” Paint said. She held up half of a wall placard. “But this is from the Earth exhibit, so maybe the napkins are too.”

I looked around at the trash in a new light. “Man, it’s a pity we weren’t here for any of the good stuff.”

“Yeah, and all these food packages are empty! We can’t even get you a slightly exploded taste of home!”

I waved my hand through a cluster of soda bottles. “I appreciate the thought.”

Paint jetted over to a different pile of whatever. “Hey, do you think any of this food trash was actually an exhibit? Packaging from olden days?”

“Uh, maybe,” I said. “Probably not. That’s not the sort of thing I’d expect on a multi-species museum ship. A janky little humans-only one, maybe. But even then, most people aren’t going to care.”

Something clunked against the back of my helmet. I hate that. Nothing like a reminder that I can’t see behind me like some species can. I toggled the jets to rotate in place, so I could find the offending object.

It was a rock.

“What’s this doing here?” I asked, closing a gloved hand around it and bringing it in for a closer look.

“What’d you find?” Paint asked, sticking out sideways from behind a twisted bench.

“A rock.”

“A meteorite rock?” she asked. “Oh hey, do you think it pierced the hull?”

“No, it doesn’t look like a space rock,” I said, turning the small gray-and-white lump over. It was mostly smooth, with a divot that would have fit a fingertip if I hadn’t been wearing the gloves. “Weird. I wonder if it was part of some Neolithic exhibit or something.”

“Can I see?” Paint jetted over to park herself in roughly the same orientation as me. She was very good with that jetpack.

I showed her the rock. “It doesn’t look like any gemstone I know. Maybe some kid had it in their pocket, then threw it away.”

Paint cocked her head. “Is that normal, for your young to carry rocks around?”

“Sure. You never picked up something you thought was neat as a kid?”

“Not a rock,” Paint said with exaggerated disdain. “A sweet-smelling seednut or herb, absolutely.”

“But look: it’s even got a little finger groove,” I pointed out. “You could stick it in a pocket and rub it for luck.”

“Could you?”

I smiled. “You could. You probably wouldn’t, but…”

“Why?”

I looked at the rock again, already fond of it. “I get the feeling that I couldn’t explain this to a point where you’d agree.”

Paint shrugged. “Probably not. But hey, we found you a souvenir after all. From probably the Earth section of whatever museum this is.” She grabbed a handful of colorful pamphlets drifting by. “The ‘Galaxy in a Bottle Museum Tour Ship.’ Who named that?”

My smile turned into a wide grin. “Humans.”

Paint grumbled about the unflattering comparison of an elite starship to a simple bottle. When she moved to toss the pamphlets away, I held out a hand.

“What’s that white one?” I asked. “It looks like a display sign.”

Paint flipped over the stack and separated the one I meant. “You’re right. Hey, it’s about a rock!”

I reached out a grabby hand. “Gimme.”

She passed it over. “Is it that rock?”

I read the title, then was gut-punched by familiarity. I’d heard about this. “Yes,” I managed, skimming the rest of the sign and holding the rock close. “This is Bethan’s Rock.”

“What?”

I fumbled to explain. “Ages ago, a kid visited a museum — a human kid — and learned what museums were for, then offered her favorite rock as a donation, so other people could appreciate it too.”

Paint cocked her head in the other direction. “And they took it?”

“Yes!” I must have looked a little wild at this point, but I didn’t care. “The adults agreed that it was a fine thing to donate, not to mention adorable, and the only one of its kind that I’ve ever heard of. More museums should house the occasional favorite rock, though I suppose they wouldn’t be as special if they did.”

“So just to clarify,” Paint said. “There isn’t anything valuable about this rock, except that one of your youths decided there was. And all the adults played along.”

I smiled down at it, careful not to let it drift away. “It’s the most precious non-precious stone I’ve ever seen.”

Paint stared for a moment. “It’s not even one of those shiny ones you like.”

I laughed. “I know!”

The captain called us back in at that point, having found one decent chunk of metal among the mountains of trash. We had a schedule to keep.

I folded the sign and tucked it into my suit pocket, but held the rock tight in my fist as I jetted toward the ship, working the controls with one hand. I was already thinking of the safest place in my quarters to keep it until we got ahold of the proper Earth museum authorities. Other humans would want to see Bethan’s Rock, after all, but it would be my honor to watch over it until they could.

~~~

(Inspired by this post. Long live Bethan’s Rock.)

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character of this book. More to come!

[gyrium]

i do really like choices-matter type video games and am a fan of character building rpgs as much as anyone else- but, particularly in the fantasy genre, i take umbrage with the expectation that that means i must shape an entire world through my character

i think for me it all mostly comes down to "i wish we could break a little bit more out of the kayfabe of party-based rpg story structure" but i feel like i need to dig into it a little more than that

first of all, i reject the idea that it's interesting that a single person becomes not only an influence on their party but major world factions, and/or on the outcome of all major events in a kingdom or war (or many of them), for no other reason than "it's a choices matter fantasy rpg". ignore the idea of whether or not it's realistic - it isn't - but i understand that's part of the fantasy

they often explain through this by making it about being a leader, which i think is a good choice and is the foundation for getting your players to get into the spirit of it, but often i feel like 'being a leader' is the only trait you really get to have in those games... which you barely get to engage with the underlying experience of being a leader, because that role simply exists so you can be in the situations where you can make a choice - not so you can experience the story of a character who has to make decisions

some games also make the mistake of starting the story before you are actually a leader, giving you a brief moment to express a character before that, and then you watch as that person is stripped away as they become The Leader and can only express that they're a complicated person maybe once or twice in throwaway lines that don't affect anything.

this actually wouldn't be a problem if, again, you could engage with the experience of being a leader, but these stories - despite being about playing a leader - don't actually want to be about leadership!

i dislike the feeling of companion questlines being these direct dioramas of a person's interior that only your character can engage with and, for some reason, be the only thing that can affect the outcome of incredibly important personal decisions. i love exploring characters' traumas and vulnerabilities as much as anyone else but i find this level of influence on other people jarring and very unrealistic to the point of it feeling unfit even for fantasy

to me i think the greatest appeal for a party in rpgs is that they are all forced to interact with each other for one reason or another, and these kinds of games should absolutely be spending the budget and story on playing that up and not just the characters as the player character can see them

ultimately, while i do think these games would be more fun if it was ACTUALLY willing to engage in what it means to be this highly influential person, i still find the idea tired. at the end of the day i do actually just want different stories, and to stop being responsible for all these damn kingdoms

[open-hearth-rpg]

Scale: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics: Week One

I’ve fought lots of dumb big things in rpgs over the years. Vastly over-pointed villains in Champions, pantheons from Gods, Demigods & Heroes, just about everything from the early Rolemaster & Middle Earth modules– things with absurd amounts of hit points, tremendous armor class, high damage reduction, silly resistances, etc. 

Yes, there’s a joy to slowly chipping away at a big baddie, maybe getting in a few hits which deal additional effects. I mean I’ve put 1000+ hours into Monster Hunter World & Rise, so clearly I’m used to that. It can be fun at the table, but it can also be a slog. Maybe not a slog, but a process of repetition, of doing the same thing over and over again in the same way. 

Two games got me thinking about Scale as a different approach to big vs. little in the first place. One was Fate Core and how it addressed the idea as the difference in scale between foes being used as a modifier to effect, rather than having blow-out numbers for foes. But the other one, the idea that stuck with me, was from Mouse Guard. The concept that there were absolute bands of scale: you were small and some things were bigger than you. You can’t chip damage your way to deal with a wolf when you’re a mouse. 

Instead you have to be clever. You have to take actions to lower the difference in scale: traps, stratagems, teamwork, etc. It might take just one for something slightly larger, but for bigger differences you’d have to do more- and in smarter ways. 

I remember using this idea for a dumb 24 Hour RPG I wrote, Witless Minion!, with the concept that henchpersons could only actually take down a superhero by bringing them down to their own, lower level. It was a throwaway idea– something I forgot about until I was working on Hearts of Wulin and listening to the Jianghu Hustle podcast. They used the idea of scale to describe conflicts and fights, examining how the characters could come back and deal with nastier opponents. 

That ended up being the core engine for conflicts in Hearts of Wulin, and I adore it. I love watching the clever and creative ideas players come up with to weaken a deadly, ageless master. I love the costs they end up paying to reset that balance– and the desperate rolls they make once they have that foe at a disadvantage. They have one shot to do it before the stage resets and the scales return to normal. Can they do it? At what cost?

[spoilmesweetieforficssake]

Hi! Can I request a Melissa Schemmenti x reader with the prompt "We can't do this anymore. It's too dangerous." "When has that ever stopped us?" Maybe one of the other teachers hears Mel and reader outside of the classroom and thinks they’re about to do something spicy but really it’s something stupid and silly. Thank you!!

Sorry this one took a while - often when I read a prompt I get an immediate idea of where I'd like to take it, but this one took some time. Hope you like it!

“We can’t do this anymore.  It’s too dangerous!”

Melissa only smirks.  “When has that ever stopped us?”

“Do NOT tell me you’ve been doing unspeakable things in this classroom.”

You both jump at Barb’s sudden appearance in Melissa’s room, arms crossed and looking none too pleased.  You find yourself taking a half step sideways, using the red head as a human shield.

“Melissa Schemmenti, I swear!  This is a place of learning for innocent young minds…not…not-“

Chuckling, Melissa waves a hand.  “Barb, let me stop you there before you hurt yourself trying to find a PC way of saying getting down and dirty.”

“I was just saying we really shouldn’t go back to the arcade,” you pipe up from behind Melissa, your head peeking over her shoulder.  It had become a sort of end of week tradition for you both.  To begin with it had been a throwaway suggestion one Friday night.  A way to blow of some steam and let your hair down.  It had been fun too.  Both of you being competitive it had been one long competition to see who could get the most prize tickets.  Not that you ever did anything with them.  At the end of the evening you’d both pick a kid to donate them too.  Winner or loser, you both won when you got home, finding a whole different way to work off the adrenaline the competition brought out in you both.

“The arcade?” repeats the older teacher, her face the picture of confusion.  “What’s dangerous about the arcade?”

Melissa sighs.  “I might have got a little carried away last time we were there.”

Barb raises an eyebrow. 

“It was one of the games where you hit the targets with the balls,” huffed Melissa.  “Someone had beaten my high score, so I was trying to get a new one.”

The kindergarten teacher’s eyebrow only creeps higher.

“And a guy might have tapped me on the shoulder, saying it was time I moved on and gave someone else a turn.”

Barb could imagine exactly how that had gone down.  She had been witness to the staff at the batting cages try and cut Melissa off more than once.  It was never pretty.

“It was instinct!  And it was one stupid little plastic ball!” she said in defence. 

“You hit him square on the nose,” you add, Melissa turning to face you, her smirk back in place.  “Course I did.  Mamma’s got good aim.”  She turned back to Barb.  “And I got my high score.”

The older woman only shakes her head.  “Of course you did.  Well, now that we’ve clarified that the sanctity of your classroom remains intact, I shall leave you two to your weekend.  I’ve got a husband taking me to dinner.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” grins Melissa.

“Leaves me plenty of room to manoeuvre,” smirks the kindergarten teacher, drawing a chuckle from you and earning you a swat on the arm from the redhead as she leaves.

You slide your arms around Melisa’s waist from behind, nuzzling her hair aside as you press a kiss to the back of her neck.  “You really think she believes the sanctity of your classroom remains intact?”

She turns in your arms, kissing her way up your jaw until she can whisper in your ear.  “Oh, I think you’ll find the sanctity of my classroom is indeed intact.  It’s only your classroom we’ve defiled.”

Smirking, you turn your head until you’re able to capture her lips with your own.  “We could always change that?”

“Or…we could go to the arcade and I could trash you at a few games then you could take out all that frustration at not winning on me?”

Raising an eyebrow, you can’t help but like her plan.  It was a recent shift in your dynamic, but not one you were opposed to.  Not when it meant you got to see the red head laid out beneath you, utterly spent and looking nothing short of spectacular.  “We’d better hope they haven’t banned you, then, hadn’t we?”

[thebibliosphere]

Do you ever start something as a joke and lose complete control over your life?

In a world of dwindling hope, love has never mattered more... [<< read the rest of the blurb here]

What is Hunger Pangs?

Hunger Pangs, often shortened to “Phangs” by the self-proclaimed phangdom, is my debut romance novel, published in Nov 2020, featuring a deaf, disabled werewolf, a neurodivergent, mad scientist vampire, and an all-powerful enchantress who is the last of her kind.

It is the first book in a slow-burn, polyamorous gaslamp fantasy romance series focusing on the relationship(s) and antics of the three main characters, Nathan Northland, Vlad Blutstein, and Lady Ursula, as they work to save the world they love from imminent magical and ecological disaster.

The first book primarily focuses on the relationship between Nathan and Vlad, with Ursula heavily alluded to in the next book (Pride and Folly) via some shameless flirting and stolen, impulsive kisses.

No love triangles here. Just three highly competent, world-saving bisexuals sharing the same brain cell the closer they get to each other.

There are two editions of the novel. The Flirting with Fangs edition depicts on-page sexual acts, and the Fluff and Fangs edition which uses alternative scenes/fade-to-black scenes for those who prefer not to read depictions of sex. You can read more about why I decided to do this here.

How Did Phangs come to be?

Like most things on my blog, the original concept began as a joke. My friend and enabler, @jeneelestrange, and I were talking about our least favorite tropes in romance/erotica, including but not limited to toxic “alpha” werewolves, brooding stalker vampire boyfriends, and the absolute profound bullshit that is the Conflicted Love Triangle and Bury Your Gays.

Eventually, it culminated in this post:

(source)

It was meant to be a joke. I really cannot emphasize this enough. It was meant to be a shitpost between friends.

A throwaway ADHD impulse.

Tumblr, however, wanted more of these posts, and like a swarming mass of drift-compatible rats in a trench coat, grabbed hold of my lack of impulse control and Ratatouille'd me into becoming an international bestselling author, and, well, here we are.

I also started writing the series while dying, which I highly do not recommend as a functional creative process.

Absolutely do not start a 500k five-part novel series about love and hope while dying from an undiagnosed genetic disorder. Or if you do, make sure you actually die so you don't have to edit the damn thing. (I am mostly kidding.)

What are the themes/tropes/character dynamics of the book?

In the simplest of terms, Phangs is a queer-polyamorous-paranormal-satirical-romance series featuring vampires, werewolves, and all other manner of creatures that go bump in the night.

It is set in a pseudo-regency meets fake-Victorian Gaslamp Fantasy world, complete with gothic castles, enchanted forests, and just a smidge of industrial coal dust.

Style-wise, Phangs has been described by readers as "like reading the queer, goth love child of Terry Pratchett meets Jane Austen," and I've never been more proud of anything in my life.

If Game of Thrones ascribes to the idea that the night is dark and full of terrors, Phangs is the monster-fucker politely sidling up to them at the bar and asking if they can buy them a drink.

It is also primarily a love letter to fandom, which has led some people to believe it’s fanfiction with the serial labels filed off. But as the person who spent five years agonizing over the world-building, I can assure you this is all very much the product of my weird little ADHD brain picking up tropes, shaking them upside down, and running off with whatever fun and interesting things shake loose.

As already stated, the first book, True Love Bites, focuses primarily on the relationship between Captain Nathaniel J. Northland and Viscount Vlad Blutstein.

The first part of the book primarily focuses on Nathan coming home injured from war and trying to find his place in the world as newly deaf and disabled -- something which alienates him from his werewolf family, who don't know what to do with an injury that can't be mended by a full moon.

While working on the island of Eyrie, he encounters Viscount Blutstein -- Vlad-- a neurodivergent, mad scientist dandy vampire with an enthusiasm for demonic botany and a streak of unfailing kindness as broad and expansive as the sky.

It's not so much love at first sight for the pair as instantaneous lust hampered by the restrictions of polite 1880 society and old ingrained prejudices that make them think the other couldn't possibly be interested in them that way. They're just misreading all those heartfelt stares and sexually charged chess games.

(The love is requited, your honor, they're just idiots.)

Both characters are explicitly queer/mspec, as is Ursula, who drops into their world like a magical atom bomb going off, but not before she spends her own parts of the book desperately trying to figure out what manner of dark entity is killing the magical shrines around the world that keep the world alive.

Thematically, the series touches on many things, but the book’s overriding theme is love. Romantically, of course, and love between families, both found or otherwise. But also love as an act of courage. As a choice. An act of defiance in dark and troubling times, and what it means to be loved and belong even though you’re different.

Especially when you’re different.

Both of you...

And I really fucking hope you enjoy it.

To read the full synopsis and check out the heat ratings, buy links and content tags, go to www.joydemorra.com

[ghostlyturncloaks]

i don't know if you still answer asks since you're in more of a art-over-meta after the deactivation debacle (i do miss all the meta though! i hope you'll feel comfortable enough to speak up more eventually.) , but what are your thoughts on theon durden? for lucidity that's a theory that theon is the ghost in Winterfell responsible for the deaths and is repressing it, or at least 'A' ghost (along with the spearwives and big walder). personally i think it's kind of ridiculous and was literally disproven but i've been doing a reread lately and some things aren't adding up, like the credibility of the lords, some throwaway lines, and the mummer's play idea where roose is in the role of theon in ACOK and theon now is reek ii, who was already up to some murders then. so, what are your thoughts on this? have a lovely day!

hi! i do still enjoy asoiaf talk and asks! (i've mostly been pretty busy),

as for the theory that a dissociated theon is the secret murderer in adwd winterfell...

the pros:

as you said, adwd winterfell calls back to theon's acok situation: an 'illegitimate' ruling winterfell, his hold slipping, an increasing number of his men mysteriously murdered. lest readers forgot over the span of four books, grrm even goes out of his way to remind us:

It all seemed so familiar, like a mummer show that he had seen before. Only the mummers had changed. Roose Bolton was playing the part that Theon had played the last time round, and the dead men were playing the parts of Aggar, Gynir Rednose, and Gelmarr the Grim. Reek was there too, he remembered, but he was a different Reek, a Reek with bloody hands and lies dripping from his lips, sweet as honey. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with sneak.

in acok, at least part of the murders are committed by ramsay, who is masquerading as reek. the fun parallel then would consist of reek, who is masquerading as theon, being a secret murderer, too.

adwd theon also calls back to acok arya: both are noble characters forced into a 'servant' position, made to serve roose bolton, both of them captives, torture survivors, eating vermin to survive starvation, moving as "ghosts" navigating sadistic abusers who constantly abuse them (and so on and so forth, i could go on).

again lest readers forgot over the span of several books, "the ghost of winterfell" will serve to remind us of "the ghost of harrenhal", and the threat in acok arya "he will cut off your feet" which plays such a plot-moving role (first terrorising arya and gendry into submission, then catalysing their escape) is recalled near verbatim by jeyne: "he doesn’t need to cut my feet off, I won’t try to run away, not ever".

the murders also call back to each other:

ryswell's man in adwd is "a drunk" who "pissed off the wall" then "slipped and fell" (they first assume) and broke his neck, whose face has been eaten off by grey jeyne* (*that specific dog, too! arya->jeyne, grey girl, etc). chiswyck, the rapist targeted by arya in acok, fell off a battlement, drunk, and broke his fool neck. mh! weese, (who parallels ramsay as local little sadist-bully), is eaten by his dog. hm! gelmarr, theon's man in acok, tumbled down some stairs and broke his back, rednose, a drunk, tries to drink less and takes a dog with him to protect him, yet dies. yellow dick in adwd is found with his dick cut off and stuffed into his mouth, while drennan is killed in acok with his breeches tangled around his feet. and squint was presumably eaten by direwolves.

well, there's only so many ways medieval people can get brutally murdered, i guess, but the sense of "hey, i read this one before" is certainly real and deliberate.

the thought then here essentially is: oh, in acok winterfell "reek" is causing murders and in acok harrenhall "the ghost of harrenhal" is causing murders, so wouldn't it be so poetic and beautiful and all of that if in adwd winterfell "reek" and "the ghost of winterfell" were in fact responsible for the murders?

which, sure, i can see the appeal, however:

the cons:

it is my opinion that parallels in asoiaf often serve to create an epic feel of cohesion across povs and subplots. multiple pov structures are not particularly unique in fantasy, but what makes asoiaf special is the extraordinarily high number of povs and the complexity of each, where even characters that aren't main characters, like catelyn or theon, or even third-tier characters like aeron, get complicated stories of their own. grrm once explained (i paraphrase from memory) that writing asoiaf is like writing multiple novels at once then finding a way to combine and balance them.

one way to bind these povs together, apart from the more challenging grind of wrangling the logistics and the plot of course, is using refrains, repetition, rhythm, little motifs played in variation across povs, callbacks, all of that. the sense created is that you are reading a mosaic of different tales that function near independently from each other and also form one coherent epic moving forward as one. very fun!

parallels can serve to tell us something about specific characters, yes, though not "character A is like character B", rather it's an invitation to pay attention to something: remember, you heard that one before! is this different now, if so, why? is this the same, what do you think? the aim here isn't always to connect two characters, it can serve to create a mood about the way or the state of the world.

it's also not foreshadowing: "if A parallels B, then to B will happen what happened to A". a lot of joy on the contrary comes from things being the same but different. same description, but used in a different context, but you remember it, so you enjoy it. same string of events, different outcome. same words, different meaning. same story different story, it's all connected, every individual counts-- the asoiaf mood.

well that was a lot of rambling only to make my point, which is that parallels do criss-cross adwd theon & acok arya & acok theon and none of this makes it appealing to imagine theon as secret assassin because "we already read this story twice so let's hear it again".

adwd theon is about theon's powerlessness and finding agency beyond this powerlessness, about theon as scapegoat for northern problems and desires which is tied to theon's lifelong role as hostage/sacrifice, about retribution as horror and questioning what theon 'deserves', (and so on).

if theon secretly had been able to act as avenger/warrior/killer all along that would imo break his adwd arc, undermine the whump of theon's bad state (barely able to hold his cup but he's doing all that), diminish the moving tale of finding his way back to action and the choices he makes: remembering his name, risking it all to help jeyne escape. it just wouldn't hit the same way had theon been crawling winterfell as avenger/brainwashed assassin for weeks beforehand. plus the need to explain how and why theon chose these particular victims. and i'm someone who is very excited in fic and daydream by an adwd/post-adwd theon that isn't all broken victim but also vengeful and causing problems. but this just doesn't appeal to me.

plus, grrm is quite decent at psychology, imo. characters make sense in how complicated they are. asoiaf plays with tropes including classic horror tropes, we have some dracula and some frankenstein and so on and so forth, so why not some jekyll and hyde, you might say. (that would be a pro i guess). but i want to believe that grrm wouldn't play it straight like that, and considering the way he writes extremely traumatised characters like tyrion or arya or dany or theon i want to trust him that he wouldn't then suddenly go: "ha! evil DID! bet you didn't see that coming, lol"

theon durden secret assassin theories pick up on the ways in which grrm writes theon's dissociated mind -- losing time, memory and perception and emotion being all jumbled, ambiguous encounters between psychosis and dissociation and reality, etc -- and instead of appreciating goes "oh this is a puzzle i must solve." no! just enjoy... this isn't to say that, should we ever get the next book, grrm won't use the pockets of time lost and fragmentation in theon's pov to fill them with additional knowledge that will shift our understanding of what happened (or tell us more about the hooded man). but it won't be a neat little personality split with a secretly skilled assassin hiding in theon's mind.

tldr; it's one of these theories so typical of asoiaf fandom in that they pick up on fun parallels and "cues" while dismissing character arcs and psychology. kind of like "wouldn't it be so poetic if arya killed jeyne" and all of these. playing with pattern recognition but uninterested in the characters themselves. not even enhancing the patterns... the theon-jeyne-arya & theon-roose-ramsay parallels are here anyway. this theory doesn't improve on them or add to them. it's just like, "ha! i noticed this!". not exciting, imo.