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wangxianficfinder · 8 months

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Fic Finder

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1. In search of another fic! This time I'm looking for a fic where wwx was taken in by lqr and grows up in cloud recesses. I think there's a scene where an adult/older teen wwx requests that lqr formally adopt him, or lqr asks to formally adopt wwx. Either way, many heartwarming feelings! I think lwj might also formally request to speak to lqr about courting wwx in this fic. Thank you!

FOUND? All will be well when the day is done by abCEE (T, 76k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Fix It, Not Jiang Family Friendly, not JFM or YZY friendly, Definitely not YZY centric, Time Travel, Butterfly Effect, Madam Lán Lives, No Sunshot Campaign, Unreliable Narrator, not JC friendly, non-yunmeng WWX, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Good Uncle LQR, Happy Ending, WWX gets the love and care that he deserves from the very beginning, WWX Isn't Adopted by the Jiāngs, verbal and physical (c/o Zidian) abuse from YZY)

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2. Hello. First time doing this so hope I'm doing it right. I'm looking for a fic I read ages ago but I can't remember the name. What I remember is that it's a Modern AU and Wei Ying was sent to boarding school (Gusu) where he was roomed with Lan Zhan. It was just him and he had a hard time adjusting before things slowly got better. He went home for the holidays and found out that he was blood related to Jiang Feingman and did not really handle that well and left home to go back to school. Last thing I remember happening is that he got tricked into picking up a call from JFM when he thought it was Yanli? If you know this fic, is really appreciate some help @cara-tanaka

FOUND? I want to stay with you by Naeme (T, 63k, WangXian, Modern AU, Slow Burn, High School, Age Progression, Family Secrets, Family Drama, Family Feels, Bonding, Mutual Pining)

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3. Hello, I’m looking for a specific WangXian fic, similar to “shoot your shot -hot or knot”. It features dark Lans where Lan Xichen sets up a mating run for his brother and Wei Ying signs up for the money. I remember a scene where all the contestants are asked to line and sign a contract and someone tries to escape. He gets shot and the rest of the contestants are warned not to try to run away. I think Lan Zhan is a feral/dominant Alpha. I believe he killed a few other contestants before making his way to Wei Ying. Hope you’re able to find it! Please and thank you 😊 @confundo

FOUND! Five Fifteen by 3neetee (M, 11k, WangXian, Modern AU, A/B/O Dynamics, Alpha LWJ, Alpha WWX, Mating runs, Graphic Description, Violence, Dom/sub Undertones, Light Bondage, Rape/Non-con Elements, Alpha/Alpha, Implied Mpreg, Dark LWJ, Betrayal, Smut, Anal Sex, WWX likes to be called Omega, Dark lans, Twitter threadfic, Unreliable Narrator WWX) locked to archive members only

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4. I’m looking for a Modaozushi Fanfic

I read this fanfic months ago. it is fic where wen qing asks for protection from wei ying, who is either a spirit or an immortal (he is definitely not human),for the wen remnants in exchange for their service for some time.

i think lan zhan (who was a winter lord or something) visits them after some time.

the story had not gone far when i had read it.

please help me find it.

FOUND? A Year and a Day by Admiranda (T, 11k, WIP, Unseelie AU, wwx is a fairy lord, making bargains with the fey, background wangxian, minor OCs, agenda: give wei wuxian some better siblings) the asker looking for the fic where WQ makes a bargain with WWX is likely looking for my Unseelie fic, in which WWX is the autumn Fey lord and LWJ is the winter prince. It is not cancelled, but the next chapter has been absolutely evil and refusing to write itself.

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5. Hii I remember this fic that happened at Phoenix mountain hunt , the blindfolded kiss scene, where wwx knew it was lwj because chenqing or the resentment didn't attack lwj , cause it knew him (recognized him) or something like that. @karinasnowwwx

FOUND? No one else but you by chrisemrys (M, 17k, wangxian, canon divergence, First Kiss, Stolen Kiss, Love Confessions, Fix-It, Everyone Lives au, Semi sentient resentful energy, Golden Core Reveal, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, First Time)

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6. pls help me find this fic

A) i am doing this for the first time, Thank you already for all the efforts. i lost a twitter fic i read ago and forgot to save. Its info that i remember is as- TW // NSFW, MPREG..............it was a omegaverse types fic, lan zhan slept with wei ying, they did stuff. lan zhan ran away at night nd collapsed in the streets due to something related to omega-alpha thing, i dont exactly remember. then he's hospitalised for some time nd his brother lan huan stays with him. wei ying had no idea about lan zhan's conditions and lan huan thinks that lan zhan is in this condition because of wi ying so he starts hating him and tries his best to keep his brother away from wei ying......................they meet in a school programme again, where they play their guqin nd flute, towards the end wei ying is saved by lan zhan from an accident nd they r really close, again, lan zhan faints. lan huan comes, and takes lan zhan away. wei ying is pregnant nd wen wind knows it, she taks care of him. lan huan hides this info from lan zhan, who discovers it only when he overheard wen qing and lan huan talking when wen qing came to fetch lan zhan because wei ying's condition was getting worse without his a/b/o partner (doctor advised it). then, lan zhan goes to wei ying nd comfortshim, he sleeps but when he wakes up, he doesn't accept lan zhan nd technically hates him but they start taking things slowly nd improve. after a while, they r normal, they live in wen qing's apartment, lan zhan often feels distant and stays awake alone at night, wei ying is worried for him. he takes best care of wei ying but not himself. one day wen qing visits wei ying when lan zhan is out and tells him and she cam smell her scent nd not lan zhan's and that might be reason why lan zhan doesn't feel fine, because he is in other person's territory. wei ying calls lan qiren and asks help for a new place. rest, i dont remember, sorry. this is killing my brain

B) tw//nsfw it was a twt soc med au, wy was a singer/idol, got laid in a party(bday mayb), finds lan zhan later, lan zhan is the man. towards the end, he releases a whole song/album regarding his story, from getting laid to falling in love with lan zhan. in the mean time when he was preparing it as a bday gift, he gave less time to lz and he thought he was ignoring him. that's all i remember sorry, its stuck so bad, i cant forget it. there was a cover for the single/album too i dont remember @dee-s085

6A)

FOUND! Twitter Thread by babyofgusu

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7. Hi, I’m so sorry to have to ask this, it’s frankly embarrassing, but here we are. I was reading one of the fics you recommended for an itmf (I think the original request was something with soulbonding) and my app closed. Now you would think finding it again would be easy, but I had scrolled a few months back by the time I found it and now fro the life of me can’t find it. So here’s the premise: CQL post canon, WWX wakes after banishing a spirit at an old manor and finds himself in pain. Turns out he and LWJ got cursed to be close, when they’re touching the pain recedes. I got maybe halfway through where they decided to visit the manor since the library didn’t deliver results. Would you be so kind to direct me to the correct fic/itmf post? You Guys are amazing, have a nice weekend ❤️ @elitharavenclaw

Hi, #7 of the last fic finder, sadly those fics are both not it. Theres not really more detail to tell though, but I will try. WWX is found by two rogue cultivators who treat him fine, he travels back to cloud recess for 2 days with little apple, sizhui and Jingyi help researching, LQR is disapproving of wangxians “unseemlieness” though he knows they’re cursed, they do check the forbidden section of the library but without success. Hope this helps.

NOT FOUND! So Why Not Crack Your Skull When the Mind Swells by greenteafiend (E, 13k, wangxian, Hurt/Comfort, Curses, Case Fic, Mutual Pining, Getting Together, Confessions, Drunkenness)

NOT FOUND! All in Good Time by bigboobedcanuck (E, 8k, WangXian, Post-Canon, First Kiss, First Time, POV LWJ, Top LWJ, Pining LWJ, Protective LWJ, Bottom LWJ, Protective WWX, Top WWX, Pining WWX, Idiots in Love, Gūsū Lán Juniors Dynamics, Good Kid LSZ, Branding, Scars, Worry, Protectiveness) thought it was one i read a while ago but-according to my giant note i keep a list of all my fav untamed fics lol- its lwj who is cursed not wwx!

FOUND? You'd Break Your Heart to Make It Bigger by vesna (mrsronweasley) (E, 32k, WangXian, soulbonding, First Time, Case Fic if You Squint, Fools in Love, soul boning, soft fools in love, Pining while fucking) With the two rogues, this sounds like "You'd Break Your Heart To Make It Bigger"

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8. Hello darlings! I'd like to ask for your help finding a fic that i cannot find anymore... it's a wangxian AU set in 1800 England, kinda. I think wei ying is a fan of this mysterious writer who wrote a fantasy novel and of course the writer is lan zhan (or viceversa?). It's a 5 chapter fic written like it's jane austen's book! And the writer added extract of this book wei ying is a fan of! It's an amazing fic with a fanart of this book. I was sure that the fics name was the monster of yiling, but i cannot find it . Thank you in advance even if it can't be found 🥰 @jaecomments

FOUND! Restraint and Revelation: or, The Necromancer of Yiling by Lirelyn (T, 16k, wangxian, Regency au, Gothic, Story within a Story, Pining, LWJ's horny imagination)

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9. Hi! I'd like help finding this one fic. It's set in the cloud recesses during the lectures, LWJ is cursed by a group of Elders so he acts like the perfect Lan (or something) and WWX is the only one who notices, I remember he tried to bring it up to others (or at least Lan Qiren) but no one believed him, Only LXC does (once he returns - from somewhere, I don't know where). I also remember that a bit form LWJ perspective mentioning that they wanted to curse LXC too, but it would be too obvious. @i-like-snakes-and-spiders

FOUND! The Meaning of Silence by The Silverfish (ZephyrAndTheSilverfish) (T, 14k, wangxian, Mind Manipulation, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Pining)

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10. hello! i wanted to find a fic where wangxian were resident doctors, they were kinda friends but turned into lovers. it was explictly rated as far as i remember! thank you!

FOUND? Anginal Equivalents by fakeplasticlily (E, 23k, wangxian, modern, Medical Residents AU, Childhood Friends, Mutual Pining, Oblivious WWX, Sexual Content, Podfic Available)

FOUND? Year Of Night Call by ailuridae (abigailnicole) (T, 22k, WangXian, XuanLi, Modern AU, What If Cultivators Were All Surgeons AU, surgery AU, Our Boys Are Trauma Fellows Now, The Lan Babies Are Surgery Interns, trauma fellows share a call room, and there was only one bed, hospital au, Medicine AU)

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11. I’m looking for the Fic where Wei Ying goes missing in high school and is homeless. Lan Zhan finds him at a coffee shop and buys him coffee and doesn’t recognize him at first. He gives him a coat. He brings Wei Ying to stay at his place. I believe wangji might be a single parent and have pet bunnies. Huaisang was best friends with Wei Ying & reconnects with him while he’s at wangji’s. Wei Ying goes missing again and xichen watches the bunnies while wangji searches and finds him out in the cold.

FOUND! Where You Fell by Sweet_William (E, 303k, wangxian, 3zun, JC/NHS, JYL/JZX, modern, Angst, Mutual Pining, Homeless, Getting Together, Slow Burn, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, accidental sugar daddy LWJ, Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Esteem Issues, Coffee Shops & Cafés au, Autistic Character, WWX Has ADHD, Panic Attacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sex Work, Implied/Referenced Substance Abuse, Eventual Happy Ending)

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12. Hi, I’m in need a bit of a help I’m struggling to find a wangxian fic, it’s involved wei wuxian and the wen refugees in the burial mound and some how they find in the burial mound they find the fountain of youth (or something like that) and they make a shop for makeup or something like that and sell it and wei wuxian dresses as a girl and I think other stuff happens but can’t fully remember. I was trying to find this fic but I can’t find it anywhere and I’m unsure if it’s been deleted or something, if you could help me find it or know if it’s been removed, I would really appreciate it, thank you.

FOUND? Fruit-Bearing Pool by rei_moon (T, 46k, WIP, wangxian, Mpreg, Crack Treated Seriously, Magical Pregnancy, Magical Pool, Out of Character, Inspired by Journey to the West’s Motherhood River, Historical Inaccuracy, WWX became a business mogul to feed his growing family, Minor OCs, Slow Build, Attempt at Humor, Crossdressing, For disguise purposes, Fix-It of Sorts, WWX and JZX being human disasters together, Misunderstandings)

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13. Hi, I was hoping to get some help with finding a fanfiction. The drescription is that Wwx tries to have naughties with Mianmian but can't perform so he goes to Lwj who lives in his mothers old house thinks about how he'd let wwx destroy the house because it was his mothers jail. They then talk and lwj tells wwx to do what he did with mm and he gets hard and they bone on the couch. The only other detail is a food scented candle that wwx got lwj that he lights? Idk sorry that's all I've got lol. @yilingweiclan

FOUND? Oh, 13 I think is sadly the deleted work "So he thinks he straight (a memoir by Lan Zhan)" by Pancho. I know there are people with copies floating around, you'll have to ask

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14. Twitter Wangxian socmed au, they r teleported to modern world, wei ying finds lz through a guqin post on insta with bunny dp. They meett..... xue yang is the villain who harms xiao xichen using suibian so the blame is diverted to wy but lz trusts him and song lan is angry from wy sonwy goes undercover. Lz tried to find him, helps him get the truth to song lan. xue yang acts like a good friend towards song lan but at the end, truth is revealed, xue yang is the villain, jin guangyao too is oresent, the mastermind behind xue yang. Its happy ending. @dee-s085

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15. Hello, I'm looking for a wangxian fic with wlw WX, in a modern AU where the Lans are secretly cultivators, but LWJ is a landscape designer. WWX is using the Baoshan name and is a cultivator that came down the immortal mountain to stop Wens from fucking the world over with Yin Tie by marrying Wen Chao and then killing off all the Wens, ending up wildly wealthy. She then goes after the Jin by being engaged to Meng Yao. LWJ is "investigating" WWX because LXC just wants to make sure A-Yao's fiance really loves him. @xxqiao

FOUND! Widow's Weeds by travelingneuritis (E, 18k, wangxian, modern cultivation, Gardens & Gardening, Wedding Planning, wedding thwarting, rich people are terrible, Light-Hearted, Smut, Gender Changes, Getting Together, offscreen deaths played for laughs, this is meant to be silly don't worry about it, Scheming, Plotting, wwx and jgy are accidentally-on-purpose bearding each other but i keep it PG, wwx running laps around the entire jin sect)

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16. Hey, thanks so much for your service! I'm looking for a fic that's very Lan Xichen focused, from what I remember after wangxian's happy ending he's left coming to terms with the past, in an effort to make a change for the future generations he destroys the Lan punishment implements and strikes away the rules on the stone that don't are not true to the founder's will @glassboner

FOUND? Twelve Moons and a Fortnight by stiltonbasket (M, 290k, WangXian, Humor, Slow Burn, Post-Canon Fix-It, Long-Distance Relationship, Epistolary, Love Letters, Family Feels, a-qing lives, teenage romance, Adoption, Romantic Comedy, Happy Ending, Weddings, Case Fic, Parenthood, Politics) I don't know if 16 might be Twelve Moons and a Fortnight by stiltonbasket but that fic has an scene exactly like the one described. It's not totally Xichen centric and wangxian are not together yet but it might be, idk.

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17. I'm hoping you can help me find this fic. It's a shorter fic from Lan Qiren's pov. It starts with him sitting in an inn next to four teenage boys. He recognizes one as Lan Xichen. There's a flashback to Lan Qiren not stopping a pregnant Madam Lan from escaping with Lan Xichen. It ends with Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen talking. The other boys at the table were Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. Thanks for any help!

NOT FOUND! The Dreams of Youth by sami (E, 86k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Time Travel, Fix-It, Family, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Gore, Not Lan Sect Friendly, Bad Dads, good dads, JFM's A+ parenting, QHJ's F- Existence, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Sort Of, Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Mothers Who Live, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Not Everyone Dies au, Canonical Character Death)

FOUND! leave the ruins where they fall by tardigradeschool (G, 4k, WangXian, Found Family, Canon Divergence, Hair Braiding, Slice of Life, LQR apologism, Family Fluff Childhood Friends)

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18. Hey there hope you are doing fine . So I was searching for a wangxian fanfic which is based in modern times and in this wang ji asks for xian's help to look after his pet spirit rabbit, so he invites him in his apartment and xian cause need the job came ( jiang family has already kicked xian out after taking his golden core) while looking after rabbit the pet came to realize that xian is hurt badly and the story goes on like this ... Please help me find it ... @legendarywarrior99

FOUND? the soft animal of your body by sysrae (T, 15k, wangxian, modern cultivation, Golden Core Reveal, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Animal Transformation, Shapeshifting, Getting Together, Confessions)

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19. hello, i was just in the middle of reading a fic and accidentally closed tumblr. It was a link to a03, but it isn’t in my history. Jiang Cheng is raising Wen Yuan as the Jiang Sect heir. When Lan Wangji sees them he moves to Lotus Pier to help raise him along with Jin Ling. At some point Mo Xuanyu alerts Jiang Cheng and Qin Sui about Jin Guangyao’s plots and they decide to raise Wei Wuxian from the dead to help and Lan Wangji is angry they are trying to use WWX again and decides to hunt down Xue Yang. He and Mian Mian run into Song Lan and join up to search and then.. I closed it by mistake. Any clue what the name of this fic is? @julnyes

FOUND! The Sun Sets Like a Whispered Regret by OrdinaryRealities (T, 41k, WangXian, Resurrect Your Gays, LWJ and JC enemies to brothers, Minor Character Death, Kidfic, Sort Of, Happy Ending)

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20. Hello! I am looking for a WangXian fic where Wangji runs away to the countryside and becomes roommates with Ying who I think runs an aesthetic farm-life youtube channel? I remember the fic was really beautifully written in how it described the old houses, countryside, local festivals, etc and you could practically “see” the filmography of the videos. I also remember a scene where Ying takes all the local kids to go hand fishing in the river. Thank you for your help!

FOUND! 🧡 【那夏天的我們】 a stroke of fate by puddingcatbeans (G, 59k, WangXian, Modern AU, Fluff, Slice of Life, Falling In Love, Summer, Barakamon AU, renowned musician lwj escapes to tiny village and falls in love with local farmer boy wwx, good times only, YouTuber WWX, Food)

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#wangxian #mdzs #wangxianficfinder #the untamed #wangxian fic finder #long post #wangxian fic search

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nevertheless-moving · 2 months

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Stormlight Archive AU Number 9, Words of Radiance

In an attempt to ruin the reputation of the only kholin with decent social standing, illai sadeas manufactures a rumor that adolin is fucking the new dark eyed slave captain of the guard.

Double social whammy for a) getting with someone filthy and beneath his station and b) dishonorably taking advantage of poor slave boy

At this point adolin and kaladin straight up don't like each other but the sideye can be read many ways and any attempts to discourage rumors only make them stronger. Brightlady Sadeas got 20 ex girlfriends swearing that adolin has a fetish for dark eyed men. She's got 40 different people prepared to take a vow that they walked in on the two together. The evidence is so compelling that adolin is starting to be convinced.

By the time the first assassin in white fight rolls around adolin's pretty much given up on denial and started trying to get bridgeboy to at least dress better. Bridgeboy is still fighting the accusations and wardrobe with the dignity and demeanor of a feral axecat.

Shallan rolls in, still very much desperate to make the causal happen. Ok. She can work with this.

Starts laying down hints like she can't entirely fault his taste, she just prefers her woman less grumpy. Oh, did I say women? Talks very dreamily about working under - working with Jasnah, how beautiful she was in the bath - (this is a shockingly easy lie. Pattern complains there's too much truth mixed in, whatever that means).

Adolin is somewhat left with the impression that Jasnah and her had a... dalliance, which wasn't quite Shallan's intent.

Adolin does not know what to do with this information.

He makes one solid, nearly successful effort to convince her that the rumors were manufactured, bridgeboy and him don't even like one another. Then the whitespine uncaged fight happens and people are like damn.

Kaladin out there discrediting anyone who thinks there's some unwillingness on his end while simultaneously raising the bar for boyfriends everywhere. You wish you had a man who would fight four SHARDBARERS unarmed for you.

Opinion around camp flips from 'nasty affair' to 'glorious warbond.' Sure it's with a jumped up darkeyes, but...

Alethi storming love a glorious warbond.

General opinion on the amaram boon thing was that it was a bungled attempt to get another set of shards

Adolin's Prison Solidarity is really the nail in the coffin. He figures he'll try and convince Shallan after they're married and he is decidedly still not sleeping with bridgeboy. Assuming that doesn't happen. Not that he wants it to! Though if Kaladin were interested, haha jk. Unless...

Adolin: He was really hot during the duel. And well, he has to at least like me, right? Why would he jump in the arena if he didn't like me even a little.

Renarin: It's all going to end...

Adolin: you know what, you're right! Life is too short for regrets! And shallan's practically given us her blessing! I should at the very least try, right?

Renarin: a storm is coming

Adolin: thanks Renarin, I'll talk with him after this expedition. There really is...something about him.

Then the expedition! It Does not go well! Adolin genuinely thinking he's cursed, watched two whole love interests plummet to their deaths. Next several days are Not Good.

Meanwhile in the chasms:

Shallan: I mean his pectorals are...I suppose you've seen them closer up than I have. Do you think you could describe them in better detail? Does his sweat taste different when it runs down his back as opposed to his chest?

Kaladin: this. This is hell, right? I'm in hell.

#stormlight archive #words of radiance #stormlight au #stormlight fanfiction #adolin kholin #my au #stormlight au no 9 #Adolin x kaladin #cosmere #nevertheless cosmere

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zhongrin · 1 year

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“oh, hi.” (alternatively, “oh. ugh.”)

◇ characters ◇ (no romantic pairing) kaveh, al haitham, xiao, zhongli, diluc, kaeya, tighnari, cyno, itto, shinobu, ayato, ayaka, collei, amber

◇ tags ◇ no pairing, crack mostly

◇ a/n ◇ lmao this prompt hit me so i just had to write something about it okay?

𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 ⬙ 𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡

you know how when a character gets added to a team, a voiceline triggers? wouldn't it be fun to have a game mechanic where, depending on who’s in your current party, whoever gets added gets special voice lines about that person?

all prompts will be in this format: “x → y” which essentially means “when x joins and y is in the party”. e.g. when kaveh joins and al haitham is in the party.

kaveh → al haitham

“ugh, not this guy! our aesthetics are ruined now! ruined, i tell you!”

“really? him?? not to be rude, but… you have bad taste.”

al haitham -> kaveh

“tsk. it's useless to say this, but... don’t pull the team down now.”

“an unwise decision. given our fighting styles, there is no need for him to be in the team.”

xiao -> zhongli

“it is my honor.”

“wh- mora- ahem. well... this is… unexpected.”

zhongli -> xiao

“at ease.”

“ah, now this is quite nostalgic.” *chuckles*

diluc -> kaeya

“try not to get in my way.”

“aren’t the knights quite busy these days? why don’t you run along and do your knightly duties now?”

kaeya -> diluc

“to think this day would come once again, huh, big brother?”

“what’s with that look, 'luc? it’s not like i’m skipping out on work~”

tighnari -> cyno

“a wise decision.”

“forewarning, if he makes one more joke, i am leaving the team. or burying him alive.”

cyno -> tighnari

“why did the fox cross the road? to catch up with the chicken… get it?”

“ah, a rare fox sighting outside gandharva village. today’s going to be a good day.”

itto -> shinobu

“yo shinobu!! whooo-hoo!!! things are gonna get crazy in here!!”

“owowowowow- hey why’re you pulling my ears already- i wasn’t getting the traveler in trouble, i swear!”

shinobu -> itto

“ah… is this why you called me in? very well.”

“boss, try not to cause too much trouble, alright?”

ayato -> ayaka

“oh? well hello, dear sister.”

“a family outing? how delightful. now this is definitely worth taking a break for.”

ayaka -> ayato

“huh?! b-brother, what are you doing here? i thought you were busy!”

“ahem. good day, big brother. i am just hanging out with a friend, is all.”

collei -> amber

“a-amber?! it’s been so long! uhm- uh- i-i have so many things i wanted to talk about with you!!”

amber -> collei

“oh my gosh, collei! hi!! you grew up so much!! i’m so glad to see that you’re doing well!”

itto -> cyno

“oh. my. god. cyno? the legendary cyno?? the master of tcg, cyno??? yooooo!!! my bro, my man, my dude, duel me!!”

cyno -> itto

“arataki…. itto…….? my apologies. am i supposed to know who you are? you don’t look like a criminal at all.”

#rin writes #rin releases a plot bunny into the wild #genshin impact #genshin #kaveh #al haitham #xiao #zhongli #diluc #kaeya #tighnari #cyno #itto #shinobu #ayato #ayaka #collei #amber

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mixes-archive · 1 year

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heyyy, i really need a wrench's sfw alphabet 🥺🥺 i love him so so so much and i haven't found any new headcanons of him in a while

WRENCH SFW ALPHABET

I can’t believe we finally got a Watch Dogs fan, I hope you enjoy your stay in the archives!

A = Affection

(How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Shows affection everywhere, all the time and with everything he has. Likes to show it physically and with little trinkets he either finds or makes. If he sees something in a store and it reminds him of you, consider it yours (he did not steal it not at all no of course not he wouldn’t do something like that).

Will cling to you even when you’re fighting about some petty thing, he cannot bring himself to let go of you ever. Probably even got you safety gear so he could continue to hug you when absolutely fucking up a toaster or something of the sorts.

B = Best friend

(What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Stupid. Wrench is a stupid little man with no idea how to properly talk or communicate. Either someone in Dedsec told him to finally ask you to hang out or he was high out of his mind, since he hates talking to new people.

Once’s that’s done though, he’d go with you through thick and thin, acting much like he does with everyone else in Dedsec.

C = Cuddles

(Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

If he ever doesn’t want to cuddle, that’s a clone and you should shoot it immediately. Wrench is down to cuddle whenever, just tell him to take of the spiky stuff first because he will not remember.

Loves to cuddle in the morning or after stressful missions the most, he would cling to you for hours if you let him.

D = Domestic

(Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Not yet. Possibly never. He would probably keep moving around forever if you weren’t in the picture. He’ll try to be a bit more domestic if it’s something that you really want, but Reggie still has a need to do society justice. It’s not like he doesn’t want to settle down ever, but he almost feels pressured to help the ones who cannot defend themselves (please take him to a therapist, he’ll be much more inclined to settle down after that).

He is shit at cooking and who do you think made a mess in the first place? He’ll try his best to help out however he can, but for the love of your stomach do NOT let him near the stove.

E = Ending

(If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Stole your pets if you had them and hacked all your devices to be completely useless. You’d have to really fucked things up for him to actually break up with you, so his reaction is (partially) rationalized.

F = Fiance(e)

(How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Very committed to your relationship. Would be down to get married whenever tbh, he already knows you’re the one anyway.

G = Gentle

(How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He can be a bit brash, but he means well and would never do anything he knew or thought could upset you. Wrench is always very sweet with his words and everything he says, no matter how cheesy or dumb, he means wholeheartedly. Always careful to never upset you.

And if you ignore the spikes and other various pokies from his clothing choices, he is quite gentle. You’d think mans would throw you around however he wants with the way he can swing that sledge hammer, but he’s surprisingly gentle whenever it comes to you, his touches featherlight when caressing your figure.

H = Hugs

(Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Fucking LOVES hugs. Morning hug, getting out of bed hug, brushing your teeth hug, before breakfast hug, breakfast hug, after breakfast hu- I think you get it. Hugging you so much it’s embarrassing.

They’re firm, comforting and can last from a second to a few minutes depending on his mood.

I = I love you

(How fast do they say the L-word?)

Quite fast probably. Maybe on the first date even. He’s not ashamed to admit it.

J = Jealousy

(How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Wrench trusts you with his life, not to mention in the relationship. Buuuttttt…. He would be jealous of a screwdriver if you looked at it too long. He thrives off of your attention and wants it on him as much as possible, so no other person may flirt with you, thank you very much.

Gets really physical when jealous, maybe even lifts his mask a lil to kiss your neck from behind or something. Whatever gets your attention off of whatever he’s jealous of and onto him.

K = Kisses

(What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Dramatic. Would dip you just to give you a tiny little peck on the cheek. Loves to kiss you on whatever skin is exposed on you, whether that be stomach, neck, hands, eyelids, whatever.

He loves to be kissed on his mask in public, but honestly melts every time you kiss his scar(s).

L = Little ones

(How are they around children?)

No, absolutely not. Pets? Yes! But children not so much. He’s scared he’ll be just as awful as his parents and honestly, he wouldn’t be fit to be a dad period.

M = Morning

(How are mornings spent with them?)

Him trying to coax you out of bed to “get a head-start” (even though literally nothing is going on whatsoever). He has very little need for sleep to be healthy/productive/awake, so he just goes to sleep at ungodly times and wakes up even earlier. Will gladly stay in bed and cuddle though.

Since he can’t cook for shit, if he wakes up much earlier than you, he’ll go to a bakery and get you your favorite dessert.

N = Night

(How are nights spent with them?)

Probably watching a shitty movie you stopped paying attention to hours ago in favor of flirting or making out. If you fall asleep, he’d carry you to bed and start working on some tiny project before joining you in bed.

O = Open

(When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

When he opens up to you, most likely a few months after you started dating, he’ll dump everything out at once as not to surprise you later on in the relationship. He’s very open with people he knows and never afraid to speak up when something makes him uncomfortable or reminds him about a worse time in his live.

He’ll also frequently joke about his past trauma, so be prepared for that.

P = Patience

(How easily angered are they?)

Gets mad all the time, but never directs it at you. If you’re scared of yelling, he’ll get you to somewhere you can’t hear him, and then scream his lungs out. Or, he’ll probably just cling to you instead, you make him calm down with your presence alone.

Q = Quizzes

(How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He couldn’t really be a hacker if he was forgetful, so it’s safe to say he very quickly picks up everything you say and do. Deffo memorizes all the names of the people you gossip about.

“So Samantha called her a-“

“Isn’t that the one who broke up with her boyfriend because he was ‘too ugly’?” ?_?

“YEAH!- wait how’d you know that?”

“Babe, you told me like, a month ago.” -_-

R = Remember

(What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

Going to the shittiest looking döner kebab restaurant with you and eating without his mask for the first time in public. He can still see how you laughed at him when the white (very sus looking) sauce dripped all over his chin, only for you to start choking on your food, which made him laugh and also start choking on his. You were very quickly kicked out, but continued laughing together until you got home.

S = Security

(How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

So fucking protective of you omg. Scary dog privileges is all I can say.

He doesn’t need to be protected, if anything, you need to protect others from him.

T = Try

(How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Everything comes to him quite naturally, he never goes out of his way to plan something, he’s much more spontaneous. But he still puts effort into making everything as enjoyable as possible for you, but plans aren’t really his thing.

U = Ugly

(What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Beating himself up over not being pretty enough and his rash decision making. It’ll take some effort on your part to get him to think and act differently.

V = Vanity

(How concerned are they with their looks?)

He is a crust punk and wears a mask 24/7, doesn’t really care most of the time unless he’s feeling self conscious about his (very lovable) face.

W = Whole

(Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Definitely couldn’t do without you if you’re apart long enough. You’re his rock and his comfort. Doesn’t like going on long missions anymore, because he’d just miss you so much.

X = Xtra

(A random headcanon for them.)

He is SO GOOD at braiding hair, no matter what hair texture you have or what style you’re going for. Has no idea where he picked up the talent himself, he’s just a natural at it. (Please let him do your hair please please please he won’t even sniff it that much)

Y = Yuck

(What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

A capitalist.

Z = Zzz

(What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

Clinging onto you super tight and if you have tiddies, burying his face in them. (He doesn’t need air anyway)

Also a prolific blanket AND pillow thief, you either freeze or buy enough of them to supply a whole army.

A/N: the silly

#watch dogs #watch dogs 2 #watch dogs x reader #watch dogs 2 x reader #wrench #wrench x reader #the silly #he totally has autism you guys #x reader

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iamsonny-j · 5 months

Text

This was originally going to be in reply to @glowinggreeneyes-e post about the Captain's education and career path...but then I got carried away because I'm so normal about this stuff so it's now its own post...with added angst because I have no control over any of this, my brain just goes.

So for a start the Captain would have gone to a public boarding school. I think it's worth pointing out that public schools and universities operated scholarships for students from less wealthy backgrounds. We're still talking middle class and upper middle, but not always full on wealthy and privileged in the way of someone like Julian. Cap strikes me as having the background of a family well enough off but he probably always had to work hard to prove himself for his place, maybe not so much for public school but definitely for university.

Whatever school he attended would have had an Officer Training Corps junior division. Basically cadets. This would lead to the possibility to do an exam (written and practical) to get what was called certificate A to show he had participated in the OTC.

From the Button House Archives it says Cap got to the front in WW1 at armistice and so never saw action. So I imagine he finished his studies at school in the summer, enlisted and completed basic training, and then was out to Europe just in time for things to end. Because he got his certificate A at school he had the option at university to join the OTC university division. This was a route to becoming a commissioned officer. You either needed certificate A or experience in the ranks to join. For the sake of argument, serving in the army for a couple of months wouldn't count as experience so he must have had the certificate A...

University options at that time were limited to Oxbridge, Durham or London. All of those had OTC. I think London can be ruled out...only because it was busy, loud and ugly, even then (sorry London friends!) and the Captain likes wildlife and the countryside and nature walks...I can't see him thriving in London.

Training with the OTC at university involved physical training, military strategy, history and law etc. The Captain would have had to complete 2 years training before he could have done exams for his Certificate B - practical and written. Passing the exams would have entitled him to a commission on graduation. Getting Certificate B wasn't common because of the amount of work involved and dedication required to be successful. It was hard!

Like I want to point out that to get that far would have required so much effort and dedication right from being a child. And this is where I will get sad and headcanon-y for a bit (let me have this one thing out of all this research!)

Bullying and abusive rituals were a big part of public school life at this time and any boy seen as even slightly different would have been targeted for sure, even by some of the teachers. So although Cap comes across as clever and capable at what he knows I think school would have been socially really freaking hard. For a child in that situation I could see the OTC being a respite and something the Captain would have found very comforting with the set rules, order and expectations and from there you can understand why career army would have been appealing...

And I think that's when things get a bit complicated. The army was his life but in a different way to officers who wanted to be on the front line, like Havers. Obviously Cap worked extremely hard for his commission - and he was obviously very well qualified and knowledgable in his areas of interest, but he was always ever going to be best at HQ tasks like intelligence or engineering or whatever his particular career skills were - loving the army in theory, but some of it would have always been out of his reach. And I think being in a public school during WW1 and hearing of so many former pupils (some he would have known personally as seniors, prefects or head of houses) losing their lives on a daily basis during WW1 would have had a huge effect on him and probably influenced some of the guilt about not having the opportunity to fight himself, but ultimately I think he probably knew that wasn't his part to play even with WW2.

And I think all that that shows in his interactions we see in his past as CO - he was obviously doing a good job at whatever secret little operations he had but he really didn't have the skills/personality needed to be a CO. Having someone like Havers as a second hid that (and that's also seen in Havers getting 2 promotions in 4 years...he was much more of a natural CO) and I wonder if a lot of affection that Cap had for Havers originally came from the fact that Havers not only respected him as CO but he was also just kind to him and saw a person worthy of affection - rather than the CO that everyone tolerated but secretly disrespected and laughed at (just look at how all the other officers couldn't wait to come down on him in 5.05)

And then he lost Havers. But still had to command up to 150 men and operations at Button House for the next 4 years. And it's obvious from the letters and information in the Button House Archives that he really REALLY did try and I think with considering everything it's no wonder he overcompensates a lot and that's where he's at in the first couple of seasons of Ghosts; fighting for authority and trying to do his best.

Last sad point because it does relate: When he died Havers gave Cap the swagger stick to hold - Havers still called him 'Sir' even though he outranked him at that point. I don't know if I can begin to unpick all of that, but there's definitely something in there about respect, belief and the burden of responsibility that he clearly took seriously into his afterlife not wanting to let Havers down both personally and professionally.

If you read all of this I love you and respect you and appreciate you for appreciating my level of not normal xD

#bbc ghosts #the captain #i missed sharing infodumps so much #please feel free to add

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classpectpokerap · 2 months

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Give meq tgat fefat <> roxy stuffff please

alright bear with me for a second i gotta paint a word picture

imagine youre roxy lalonde, right.

you just entered the game. youve got a bottle of momslime. your modus was literally built to hold ectobiologized goo. youve been feeling the weight of destiny on your shoulders -- YOU ARE GOING TO MEET HER. she might be dead but you are going to meet her.

and you get to your sprite,

and theres just

a fucking

CLOWN

and two corpses that he throws into the kernel.

(the first homestuck fic i ever read, Conference Call, has a version of the erisolsprite prototyping. they fought gamzee and got their fuckin asses kicked. its great.)

and then youre left with just. Some Alien Bitch. and its like the universe is teasing you, because she's partially the DIRECT DESCENDANT of the fishwitch what killed your mom, and also a cat???? you are so sick to death of cats. you have been up to your fucking ass in cats. its just too much

and then she just. talks to you

and you slowly start to listen

you hear about her lives on alternia. what it was like being a princess, what it was like being the pauper. how they weren't even really friends, before -- they ran in different circles.

but they're one person, now. one person dedicated to *helping you.*

we never find out how roxy quit drinking, or who helped her through it

(it was fefeta)

and fefeta *loves* you. she listens to you talk about boys. you talk about your mom. fefeta never really spoke to her... but her nepeta half *knows what happened to your kitty frigglish* after he died. and frigglish said that your mom was okay.

that everything was going to be okay

and it's just. jane had her shit. jake was up in his shit. dirk had fucked off with his shit. and roxy really only had fefeta!!!!!!!!

and i think they were moirails and i think they loved each other so much. frankly. tbf.

roxy is a trans woman, fefeta is newly plural. they have a lot in common. tbqh. its like. its very beautiful. in my eyes. in my vision.

and then

she dies

and this is like. this is a really big fucking deal honestly?

fefeta's death is like. a huge thing. its one of the only things she tells john about when summarizing the entirety of her session.

and this isnt something she magically gets back in the post-retcon timeline, either

like... when fefeta dies, there isnt a post-retcon fefeta. (we'll GET TO YOU JASPROSE.) it's just roxy who remembers fefeta's existence at all -- her friends dont have any connection to her. *nobody alive in all of reality* remembers her.

fefeta isnt just dead, dude, shes Fucking GONE. shes the goner ever. shes fuckin erased.

but honestly

on a level? good for her.

we've seen what being in homestuck does to people. it warps them, reshapes them. (see the new hsbc upd8 for some cool imagery about it.) fefetasprite was never a real part of the story. she got away with being silent -- her words are hidden from us. she was never in LE's clutches.

and why would LE even want to clutch her

she's the sword that's going to kill him, after all

i call fefetasprite the "cat fish witch" for a very important reason. a) its cute BUT B). if you look at caledfwlch, dave's sword, and just sorta. squint at the word. it looks like cat fish witch. that's fefeta. she Iss the cat fish witch.

so what does her death mean?

well it's not like dave used an UNBROKEN sword to fight LE.

feferi is the part of the sword still left in the stone. the part we forgot and left behind.

which leaves Nepeta, the other half of this broken sword, of the Cat Fish Witch

to kill the shit out of Lord English. B33

the sword was always going to kill him!!!!!!!! fefetasprite was the sword!!!!!!!!!!! NEPETA WAS ALWAYS FATED TO DEFEAT LORD ENGLISH!!!! AM I CLINICALLY INSANE? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway. all this to say.

i wrote a fic about this.

check out the second work in the series for roxy processing the emotions that none of her post-retcon friends remember her moirail. it's some good stuff i think!!!!!!! also hal is there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway jasprose is just roxy's initial dream of reviving her mom in her kernelsprite brought to life through the most roundabout and indirect and stupid way possible. send POST

#hs meta #homestuck #homestuck fanfic #etch asks #fefetasprite #feferi peixes #davepetasprite^2 #nepeta leijon #my fanfic #roxy lalonde #roxy <> fefeta

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stillness-in-green · 8 months

Text

On Heteromorphs & Heteromorphobia (Arcs VI - X , Hero Killer to Provisional License Exam)

(This post will also cover the bonus chapter “Tsuyu's Ribbity Diary.”)

Thank you all for your amazing response to last week's post, my goodness! I thought I'd found about all the audience I was likely to get for my harping about heteromorphic discrimination, so I was delighted to see a number of new names!

I do have to warn you all, if you haven't done much looking into my archives, that I'm pretty critical of BNHA these days, especially of the ways it insists on holding up individualistic solutions to problems clearly established as systemic in nature. That will become more apparent when I get into the post-war material, as the endgame is absolutely rotten with it.

This week, though, we'll start by getting out of the school to get a look at signs of and contributors to heteromorphobia in the wider world.

The Vs. Hero Killer Arc (Chapters 45-59)

Chapter 45:

Mina’s preferred alias, Alien Queen, in reference to the Xenomorph queen from the Aliens franchise, is turned down by Midnight. The reason for this is never made especially clear. Class 1-B gets away with a number of villainous or monstrous hero names, like Phantom Thief and Gevaudan, violent ones like Battle Fist, even an animal reference in Jack Mantis. But Mina, for whatever reason, gets pushed towards the indescribably twee Pinky instead. Does Midnight the R-rated hero not think girls should get to have hero names with some edge? Surely not; her entire persona is based on titillation. Length is clearly not a factor, given that Midnight personally approves Can’t Stop Twinkling. I don’t know exactly what went down here (from a Watsonian perspective, that is; the Doylist guesses are readily apparent and all eyeroll-inducing), so I will simply point out that a non-baseline gal wanted to name herself after a famous monster with acidic blood and was pressured into going with something cutesy based on her skin color instead. Bakugou’s choice gets turned down as well,[1] but he actually has “murder,” like, right there in the name; Alien Queen is quite roundabout by comparison!

Chapter 48:

Introduction of Uwabami, the Pro Hero gal with the head snakes. She’s a bit of a weird case. Given that all we know she does is find hidden people using the snakes’ keen senses, do they have some self-awareness that makes them able to communicate with her—a case somewhat like Tokoyami and Dark Shadow, perhaps? Does she just tap into their senses at will rather than being able to speak to them? Or are they rather just extensions of herself, with no particular consciousness of their own, and they function like what must be a fairly dizzying array of extra-sensory perception that she receives at all times? Whatever the case, she’s a model and celebrity, and thus our first clear example of a heteromorph who doesn’t seem to suffer for her looks. Her looks are, of course, quite accentuated, given that her hero costume is a low-cut evening dress with a slit in the side up to her hip. Other than the hair-serpents, she’s a baseline woman who checks all the boxes for modern beauty standards; she will serve in this fashion as a good predictor of other highly ranked heteromorphic Heroes.

Chapter 51+55:

Endeavor, as will be made clear in Chapter 55, doesn’t really have any idea what the Noumu’s deal is. As far as he knows, it’s just like any other villain—and yet in Chapter 51, he opens up with an attack that bathes the Noumu in flame anyway, and comments in 55 that he’s never known anyone to remain conscious after such an attack. While I think this mostly speaks to the general brutality with which villains are treated by heroes—much different from standard police practice in real-life Japan!—it’s nonetheless notable that the Noumu he attacked with such casual ferocity certainly doesn’t look very baseline to the casual eye, between the exposed brain, the significant height, and the crawling movement.

Chapter 56:

Midoriya is startled by Chief Tsuragamae’s “woof” interjections. He doesn’t comment on it out loud, so I’m not inclined to hold it against him (not like someone else I’m about to bring up), but it wouldn't be the first time he’s come across this kind of vocalization: Tsuyu makes ribbit noises pretty frequently.

Tsuragamae notes that the authorization of a certain class of people, called “heroes,” to weaponize their quirks against others was initially a heavily criticized decision, one which only garnered public support because those original heroes were careful to always obey the laws dictating the circumstances in which they used their quirks. He goes on to say, of using one’s quirk to inflict harm without explicit instruction from the powers-that-be, “Such action would represent a stunning breach of law.” Like Thirteen before him, he completely omits any mention of how such laws disproportionately affect heteromorphs, who can’t turn off a permanent physical trait, and, particularly in cases of people whose entire bodies are divergent, have little choice in whether or not to use their quirk in any sort of physical altercation that might lead to harm.

Shouto, angry over what he perceives as punishment for a good deed, calls Tsuragamae a mutt. The chief doesn’t react particularly strongly to this, but as the chief of police, you have to imagine he’s pretty used to the slings and arrows of public opinion. The incident passes without comment, but it will not be the last time we hear a Todoroki derisively referring to another human being as an animal.

There are some sweatdrops and exhortations to get the kid to cool it, but those were ongoing before the animal words came out.

Chapter 57:

Gran Torino notes that the age they live in, for better or for worse, is one of suppression, and that the situation with Stain and the League will draw people out who are influenced by that ideology. Gran doesn’t elaborate on exactly what sorts of people he has in mind—All Might says only, “Then heroes will deal with them,”—but it’s an early hint that there are people in this society who feel unjustly suppressed. Crucially, Gran Torino doesn’t even necessarily think those people are wrong; he just thinks it’s a necessary evil. But what, exactly, is it that he’s grudgingly accepting as inevitable for the sake of maintaining the status quo? And how might his circumstances need to differ for him to have a different opinion?

In Chapter 27, we learned that producing support goods requires a government license; here we find out, courtesy of Giran, that dealing in and producing support goods without such a license is a major crime. So if you, for any reason, failed that “rigorous examination” to get cleared for support goods for quality-of-life reasons, you’re unlikely to find someone who’ll just provide them to you out of sympathy provided you keep quiet about where you got them. Instead, you have little choice but to turn to black market brokers—all because the government doesn’t think your quirk is affecting you negatively enough to qualify you for support equipment. Again, this isn’t specifically about heteromorphs, but someone having an emitter quirk they can’t control well who needs the support item because they are choosing to pursue a career requiring them to learn that control is a very different case than someone who needs government support because of an immutable, always-on physical trait.

This chapter contains the first appearances of both Gigantomachia and Spinner, both fairly extreme heteromorphs: Machia for his size and rocky hide, and Spinner for animal traits considerably more prominent than e.g. Tokoyami’s bird head or even Tsuyu’s conglomeration of mildly froggy traits. Indeed, Spinner’s heteromorphic traits are so much more prominent than something like Jirou’s earlobes that it hardly seems accurate to even categorize their bodies the same way.

The sidebar for Daikaku Miyagi, the anchorman with the quirk that gave him two big horns who amputated one so that it would be less in the way during newscasts and other things that required there to be a camera on him. This in and of itself wouldn’t necessarily be notable, save that the same extra goes on to describe how the decision garnered some backlash from “a certain human rights group” who said that decisions like his fostered discrimination and were linked to the rejection of quirk-based society on the whole. Horikoshi further notes that he enjoys thinking about the lives and stories behind minor characters—even this far back, then, three and a half years before the introduction of the CRC, we have concrete evidence that the author was thinking about quirk-based discrimination and the politicization of heteromorphic features.

Chapter 59:

All Might drops some exposition about the Advent of the Exceptional, during which we see an image of a crowd full of implied-quirkless people holding up signs proclaiming their humanity and the monstrosity of those with quirks. Conversely, three of the four quirked people we see have obvious physical divergence from baseline human appearance. So from early on, that “monster” turn of phrase was heavily associated with changes in the physical appearances of those with special abilities. Later on, the PLF advisor at the hospital will tie these two things together explicitly.

The Final Exams Arc (Chapters 60-69)

Chapter 61:

Ectoplasm’s character sheet. The teeth are creepy no matter which way you cut it, but they look much more profoundly unsettling when they’re right there on his unmasked face, as opposed to behind a black cowl, where you can let your eye fool you that they are in some way part of its design. His hero costume, naturally, includes the cowl, but his daily clothes do not—I wonder if he ever tried to have a gentle talk with Shouji about why Shouji wears the mask even in his downtime? I wonder even more how much the teaching staff in general, and Nedzu and Aizawa specifically, actually know about Shouji’s history. o It’s also noted that Ecloplasm looks scary, but has received continued support after coming back to the job after losing both legs in a fight with a villain—we see this same pattern with Jeanist after Kamino. No word on how regular his support was before the traumatic double limb loss, though.

Chapter 66:

Nedzu, we find, was “toyed with by humans in all sorts of ways in the past.” Nothing we know about him suggests that he has any particular longevity, but his dynamic with Endeavor,[2] many chapters down the line, does suggest to me that he was at least on the staff when with Endeavor was at UA some thirty years ago. Thirty years is within the span of All Might’s career, well after society began to stabilize with the formalization of the Hero System. And yet, despite that, a sentient being, one with human—above human!—intelligence, was mistreated badly enough that he bears a grudge to this day. Nedzu is, again, not in precisely the same situation as a human heteromorph, but he serves as an indicator of what humans have, even in the age of heroes, been willing to do to those they think of as “animals.”

A shot of Koda and his mother, who look much alike. Interestingly, the biggest difference in their appearance is that she has horn-like protrusions that her son lacks. We’re a long way from the first quirk evolutions, and even farther from Koda’s quirk evolution, but we will later see Koda’s mother specifically tie those horns to her animal communication quirk becoming more powerful. This makes for another good piece of evidence towards Horikoshi having a grasp of heteromorphobia from early on, as the evidence is pretty good that Koda-mama got those horns as a result of a quirk evolution of her own, and those don’t happen under normal, non-stressful circumstances. More on Koda’s parents in a bit, as they're a pretty stand-out case in another way that isn’t immediately apparent here.

Can we call it foreshadowing for Koda defending Shouji at the hospital that Koda is wearing the same scarf as the main character in Horikoshi's Oumagadoki Zoo? Hmm. I'll leave that one to codenamesazanka.

Chapter 67:

A flashback panel to Mineta’s days in middle school. While I don’t doubt that there are P L E N T Y of reasons Mineta would be unpopular with the girls in his class, it is nonetheless notable that the popular boy getting showered with attention is perfectly baseline, while Mineta and his friends are not.

Note also that the cute heteromorph girl has long-ish ears and no other obvious divergent features.

Chapter 68:

Shouji and Iida are specifically called out to at the mall, trying to attract them as customers with claims that whichever storefront employee is hailing them can help them find anything they need. Midoriya mutters to himself about the difficulties of catering to everyone, given the many different types of quirks scattered across multiple age groups.

Crowd scenes at the mall show scattered numbers of heteromorphs, a somewhat higher number than usual for such civilian crowd scenes. The Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall is noted for being the biggest and trendiest in the prefecture, with a variety that attracts lots and lots of people, so perhaps it’s no surprise to see somewhat more heteromorphs than usual there.

The Forest Training Camp Arc (Chapters 70-83)

Chapter 70:

Introduction of the Wild Wild Pussycats. A team of three Emitters and a Transformation-type, none of them in the slightest heteromorphic (give or take Tiger’s permanent :3 mouth), they nonetheless theme themselves after cats, including fake tails, big costume paw gloves, and cat-ear-esque headsets. It’s cute and unobjectionable in and of itself, but I do wonder what people like e.g. Officer Sansa think of it.

Chapter 71:

Shouji is missing from the hot springs scene. It doesn’t hugely stand out in the moment because Aoyama and Sero aren’t there either, but it does read a bit differently with the benefit of hindsight. Given the strong possibility that Aoyama is off doing Traitor Activities and Shouji is avoiding any possibility of having to torpedo the hot springs fun-times with an explanation of that time he was savagely beaten by people in his hometown right in an open street, it kinda leaves Sero as the only one who maybe just skipped for normal reasons, like that hot springs would gunk up his tape or something.

Chapter 73:

Bakugou addresses Ojiro as “Tail”—referring to him by his heteromorphic trait. He’s not even particularly angry at the moment; he’s just still nursing a grudge about Todoroki’s underwhelming performance in their Sports Festival match and wants to swap partners for the Test of Courage. Early Bakugou is very much a “judge a person by their quirk” sort.

Pixie Bob ushers Tsuyu and Ochaco into the woods for their turn at the Test of Courage by referring to the latter as Uraraka-kitty and the former as Ribbit-kitty.[3] While in the English, this reads as a baseline woman in a cat costume referring to the heteromorphic student by her animal-themed verbal tic and the baseline student by her actual name, uraraka is a fairly onomatopoeic way to say bright and cheerful. I would guess that Pixie Bob is probably referring to Ochaco’s personality here, which makes it somewhat less egregious. It won’t be the last time someone refers to Tsuyu via the frog sound instead of her name, though.

Chapter 75:

Mandalay telepathically compliments Spinner, calling him both cool and handsome. While I doubt he’s the only person in the world who’d react the way he does—he blushes, gets flustered, and missteps, giving Mandalay an opportunity to attack him—the moment does get some new context when you consider how everyone called him “the lizard freak” in his hometown. Approximately zero people calling him cool and handsome back there, one imagines! Having it immediately turn out to be a ploy likely informs some of the outraged anger in his response.

Chapter 81:

Mandalay points out that Spinner never used his quirk during their combat, implying that she doesn’t think just his lizard-like appearance or his claws “count.” Chalk another one up to the classification problems of “heteromorph” as a descriptive term. This will turn out to rather neatly illustrate one of the issues I’ve been talking about with regard to the way heteromorphs are unfairly disadvantaged by the current laws about public quirk use. Remember, a “Villain” is someone using their quirk illegally. So if Mandalay doesn’t think Spinner used a quirk here, and since he has no record, why does he get categorized as a Villain instead of just a garden variety criminal? Now, one could say that by associating with the League of Villains, Spinner is rather claiming the designation for himself, and we don’t know how the legal system will technically classify him, when and if he ever actually faces trial. To that, I would say to hold the thought, because Skeptic will eventually back me up on the, “Heteromorphs are unfairly targeted by Villain designations,” claim all but word for word.

BONUS CHAPTER 1: Tsuyu’s Ribbety Diary

We meet Tsuyu’s family, all various froggy types. They’re a cute family, but the husband and wife both being froggy kind of raises some questions about pressures that might exist about marrying your same “type,” or at least refraining from marrying anyone too obviously not. I’d be more willing to wave it off if not for two things. First, we get the same sort of scenario from Spinner’s character sheet, that his is “a family full of reptilian quirks.” Second, there are very few romances in the series between someone close to “baseline” and someone with a more extreme heteromorphic appearance. The most obvious, clear-cut, canonical example is Koda’s parents—his dad has slightly weird hair but is otherwise entirely baseline; we see him defending his wife from other peoples’ mockery. That, of course, is a single panel limited to a flashback inside a flashback, so not exactly very visible to the reader! The next-most significant one I can come up with is Natsuo and his mouse girlfriend, who has likewise been seen in one (1) panel, had no dialogue, and whose appearance and identity were so incidental the anime deleted her entirely. Who’s next? Well, if you assume all those No Comments from Kamui Woods and Mount Lady about their relationship are indicative of a relationship between them, they’d be another, though we don’t actually know what Shinji actually looks like under his mask, only the implication that it’s divergent enough that he prefers to cover his face. Next up on my tally would be Thief Takami and Tomie, but since the sum total of Takami’s animal traits are tiny little elbow wings, you can see how fast the drop-off is there. Compare this to the number of pairings/families we have between people of like type: Bakugou’s parents, Iida’s, Jirou’s, Aoyama’s, Tsuyu’s, Ochaco’s, Shouto’s, Toga’s, Spinner’s, and Tomura’s whole family on both sides. Then you get the ship-teasy stuff that’s more about crushes, people dating, or hints that are perceived as pointing towards epilogue romances: Deku and Ochaco, Jirou and Kaminari, Shindo and Yo, Gentle and La Brava, Miss Joke’s flirting with Aizawa, and Toga’s variety of crushes (among which Tsuyu is the most distant from Toga’s own body type).[4] I think Kirishima and Mina are right on that borderline, with Mina having a normal body type but a collection of minor but highly visible divergent traits. So like, the vast, vast majority of the romantic relationships in the show are between relatively baseline people. In that context, it sticks out like a sore thumb to me that Tsuyu and Spinner are both explicitly said to have the same type of animal heteromorph quality on both sides of their family tree. It’s not an incest concern or anything, just that I wonder what the pressure is on cross-type couples, or what social circles look like post-graduation.

Two classmates talk about how it’s hard to tell what Tsuyu is thinking; one of them says, with her eyes hooded and a kind of cool expression, “That expression of hers never changes. Maybe ‘cuz she’s a frog?”

Tsuyu tells us that she never really made any friends; while some of this may simply be because Tsuyu didn’t have much time to socialize, between hero training and looking after her family, it’s also true that all of her classmates that we see have baseline appearances.

This lasts until she starts getting stalked by a snake-headed heteromorph girl named Mangusu Habuko—a fellow loner. Tsuyu is initially frightened by Habuko’s behavior, but has an intuitive sense for what the deal is, that Habuko wants to be friends but is awkward and doesn’t know how to broach it.

When asked if she wants to be friends, Habuko flips out. She calls herself treacherous and untrustworthy; she calls Tsuyu a foolish frog and says she must be joking, and that she should choose her friends more carefully. She then immediately dissolves into tears. Somehow, I doubt all this self-loathing about her innate nature manifested out of thin air!

The Hideout Raid Arc (Chapters 84-97)

Something that’s observable throughout this arc is that we’re in another sequence, like the Sports Festival, where the percentage of people with heteromorphic features in the crowd shots tends to run a bit higher than the norm of the series to date. Unlike the Sports Festival, though, these crowds are just civilians, not heroes. So what’s the difference between Kamino and the earlier on-the-street crowd scenes? Well, the neighborhood the Noumu warehouse is in is a somewhat rougher area. Part of the visual shorthand for that is people in edgier clothes, stuff that’s indicative of districts with bars, clubs, sleazy hangout spots, and so forth, but another shorthand is an increased number of heteromorphs.

These panels are respectively from Chapters 87 and 92.

Chapter 87:

The character sheet for Kamui Woods notes that the story of his early childhood is “grand and compelling,” and that his story was made into a documentary. That, to me, has Inspiring True Story written all over it. Probably not coincidentally, Kamui Woods is another character whose face we’ve never seen. As more pointing in the direction of him having a childhood marked by severe discrimination, he’s not sure of his age—it’s given as “29 since he started counting.” So was he abandoned as an infant for his weird face? I could come up with other explanations, all equally over the top (extreme confinement, for example, that left him unable to properly mark the passage of time), but the fact that he can’t e.g. look up a birth certificate for himself suggests that whatever went so wrong for him, it happened very early. …Though I suppose there’s the possibility that he’s not human, but rather a tree that manifested a quirk. As documentary-worthy origins go, though, that feels less Inspiring True Story and more Educational Biopic About Rare Phenomenon.

The Provisional Hero License Exam Arc (Chapters 98-121)

Chapter 99:

Shouji’s room is shown, all but barren. He says that he doesn’t care much about owning things, but knowing what we come to know about his history, it’s easy to wonder if he really doesn’t care about owning things or if this is rooted in a childhood in which it was believed that anything he touched would be polluted. Not a situation that led to him being given much of his own, one suspects!

Chapter 103:

This chapter introduces Yokumiru Mera, from the HPSC, who gives an opening statement that has some very interesting ruthlessness lurking in its subtext. Particularly relevant to our current topic is his comment that in the modern era, the time it takes to resolve a given incident is incredibly short, so the test that year will be prioritizing speed. Prioritizing speed (wouldn’t want some other hero to get the metaphorical kill first, after all!) is a surefire way to guarantee that heroes are not taking the time to really examine all factors in a situation or make any attempts whatsoever at calm, considered de-escalation, but rather are just making snap judgements based on their biases and gut reactions. Guess what group of people that’s going to disproportionately impact? o Now, it’s notable that Mera says the test prioritizes speed, but the conclusion many others come to is that the test only pretends to do so; that actually, it prioritizes care and information gathering. Indeed, we find a few chapters later that the actual priority is teamwork, as requested by police higher-ups—the idea is to fill in the gap left behind by All Might with hero squads that work well together.[5] However, while the intention may be to gather those good at teamwork, it certainly doesn’t stop people like Shouto and Inasa from cruising through—and, in any case, whether the groups learn teamwork or not doesn’t take away from an HPSC rep telling them to their face that speed of incident resolution is one of the most important things to a modern hero and never following that up with any kind of amendment or clarification.

Chapter 107:

Introduces the HUC, or Help Us Company, professionals trained to act as victims in disaster rescue exercises. Given that context—what they’re communicating to students training to understand what “victims” look and act like—it’s extremely worth examining what they, well, look like.

God, this is so Yikes.

And having asked that question, we find that the only people in this group that might not be baseline—the ones with short, childlike statures—are dressed to emphasize that stature. The end effect is a crowd of “victims” with not a single heteromorphic representative.

Chapter 109:

Shiketsu’s class rep, Mora Nagamasa—the extremely hairy one—approaches Bakugou to extend an apology for Shishikura’s behavior during the exam. It’s noticeable here that, having matured somewhat since Early Series Bakugou, and having been approached in downtime in a reasonable manner, Bakugou manages to refrain from coming up with any demeaning nicknames centered on Mora’s appearance. Kirishima remarks internally on all the hair, but only internally; he’s much too polite to say anything out loud.

Chapter 110:

A big splashy introduction for the man ranked #3 in the Heroes Who Look Like Villains ranking, Gang Orca. He’s at the test to play villain and is, just as noticeably as all the play-victims are baseline, a heteromorph. At the time of his introduction, he’s ranked Number 10 in the Hero Rankings, but will be bumped out later on. This does, however, make him the highest-ranked known heteromorph who doesn’t have a human face,[6] with the possible exception of Kamui Woods—who, like Shouji, covers it with a mask.

Gang Orca’s character sheet notes that, while he’s a popular guest at aquariums, his intimidating face and “stony personality” always result in weepy children. He apparently finds this relatively upsetting (“lots of angst”) but, unlike Shouji or Kamui Woods, has not taken to wearing a mask, nor trying to tone down his personality on any level—to the contrary, Present Mic suggests much later on that he exaggerates it.

-----------------

Next time, I'll cover from the Shie Hassaikai arc through the end of Joint Training. Thanks for reading!

--------------------- FOOTNOTES ---------------------

[1] Initially. He sticks to his guns long enough that he gets away with it in the end, though.

[2] The big tell is that Nedzu addresses Endeavor as Todoroki-kun rather than Todoroki-san or simply by his hero name, but his observation that Todoroki-kun has “matured” (literally in the Japanese, “become an adult”) doesn’t hurt, either.

[3] Kerokero neko and Uraraka neko.

[4] You can get further out there with this, but by the time you get to e.g. Shouto and Momo or Ojiro and Hagakure, the ice is definitely getting thinner on whether you’re seeing groundwork for future wedding bells or just reasonably close male/female friendship. Your mileage may vary depending on how tightly attached your shipping goggles are or how cynical you are about shounen authors’ tendencies towards timeskip marriages. Also, I can’t be bothered to dig up and list out the crushes or shipping patterns among the Class B kids. Koroiro likes the mushroom gal?

[5] Note that Mera phrases this as being merely a stopgap until they find the next All Might. The HPSC is not so eager to change the methods they’ve come to rely on over the last thirty some-odd years!

[6] We don’t know enough for me to say for sure whether Wash is a heteromorph.

#bnha #heteromorph discrimination plot #my writing #bnha meta #bnha worldbuilding #huc for no. 1 group that needs to have mandated diversity hires #seriously there needs to be a lawsuit or something #where's that “certain human rights group” when you need them

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antimony-medusa · 10 months

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Hi! To preface: I don't think there's any one right or wrong answer to my question necessarily, but I value your opinion as a level-headed adult in this fandom who can probably provide sensible input on the issue I'm having, so I thought I'd ask.

If a CC asks for their character not to be drawn (specifically referring to fanart, which they likely saw on Twitter) in a sexualised way, what does that mean for written fanwork content? Is it "wrong" (putting this in quotation marks since that's a loaded word, to say the least) to write nsfw content about said character and post it on Ao3, considering the differences in visibility/CC knowledge of those platforms, as well as the general consensus/expectation that CCs don't generally read fanfic anyway? Where is the line between "you should respect the CC's wishes" (avoiding the word "boundaries" since that's also very loaded in mcyt spaces) and "you can do whatever you want forever; fanworks are created by and for fans, not for the creators" drawn? Does "just don't put it where they can see unless they go looking" (i.e. correctly tagged on Ao3, not on a CC-frequented site like Twitter) apply? Would it be better not to do it at all, or only create and share said content in private spaces like Discord? Or is this all a "there is no single 'morally correct' answer, make your own personal judgement" thing?

(Sorry for the long-winded question but this is genuinely something I'm struggling with right now, lol. As I said I value and respect your opinion and views about these kinds of things in fandom, so if you have anything to say on the matter I'd appreciate your input!)

Alright so, obligatory warning for discourse on this one right at the top, and possibly also long post. These tend to be me rambling.

This is a situation that I think it's fair that a lot of people disagree. Your personal comfort level with making NSFW content in general is not where my comfort level is, we can come to totally different equilibriums. And then you add in creators expressing that they don't like seeing NSFW content of their characters, and people end up in a whole lot of different places, whether that's a complete no on shipping or NSFW, or people feeling fine to consume it but not create it, or only if it's archive locked, or only specific ships or smps, or whatever. I think it's fine that we don't all agree on this, creation is a fickle beast and we are in a weird place as a fandom of being not rpf but kinda cousins, and we can get *really* close to the creators with twitch and twitter, so people's comfort level in meshing all the parasociality and roleplay and real life of it all can end up in a lot of different places.

I just think that the most important thing for the fandom being a healthy place to spend time on the internet is that we don't go aroud sending hate/abuse to those we disagree with. a) i don't agree with internet mobs or suicide baiting or anon hate in general, b) the number of times I have seen internet games of telephone happen when it comes to this subject is unreal. To use an example from literally today, I saw someone saying that Pac of qsmp pacmike was uncomfortable with shipping art and fic and we all should stop shipping immediately, and once I tracked it back to its source, it turns out that what had happened was the creator said that he wasn't a fan that all the art was of him in the jumpsuit that used to be his skin, he has a new skin now, which turned into sexy jumpsuit art was the problem, which turned into pac hates all sexy fan art, which turned into "pac is being bombarded with nsfw art and shipping and he hates it". Now he might actually also not like NSFW art, but that's not actually what he was adressing, but it was certainly what was being circulated! So like, people warning me off of certain subjects— how do I know that they're actually accurate or if twitter just went twitter on a passing mention of something someone said on a twitch stream?

So I think it's way way way healthier for us as a fandom to sometimes disagree on the subject of "what we're drawing/writing about" and when that happens we implement Don't Like; Don't Read, and we just ignore that, or block if necessary. Don't Want To See it? Simply Don't See It. It's a bad idea to start hate campaigns for sinners, and half the time it's based on bad information anyways.

But in cases that you do know that the creator doesn't want to see that, you found an accurate clip? So this is a case where I think that there's no single moral answer to this that everyone is gonna agree on. We're all coming at it from too many different cultural backgrounds and different streamers in mind and comfort levels with NSFW in general. I don't think there is a firm answer that is gonna make you morally safe. But my personal feelings is that in cases where we know the creators doesn't want to see that, I think the important part there is that the creator never sees that, not that we stamp it off the internet entirely.

I do think, personally, ymmv, that you are not necessarily doing anything morally wrong with drawing or writing NSFW of someone's character, even if they think it's weird. There's a long history of creators saying "you can't do [this] with my characters," and it happens to be you can't [make them gay] enough to make me uncomfortable in general principle with saying creator of the character gets to call the shots in all settings forever. This happened with Anne Rice and with the supernatural fandom and like— it's the internet, we get to make the characters be gay together. This is the making sex jokes about fictional characters website, and Ao3 is the making porn about fictional characters website. I think it's fine if it exists on the internet, the question comes down to one of what we're forcing the creator to see, or what we're putting where they'll stumble upon it. Like, examples from real life— if you have a friend who's vegan, it's polite to not spend time rhapsodizing about how good meat is around them, and if you know that meat makes them sick, it's polite to do a meatless meal around them. That's a human person you want to be okay around you. But that's their boundary for their life, not yours, so even when you're being polite you have no obligation to go vegan when they're not around. And they have a politeness obligation to not walk into a steakhouse and freak out because there's meat there. They have a boundary for their life, and I'm going to respect it, but my life is a different story, and they need to take reasonable steps to protect their boundaries and not just expect everyone else to conform to them.

Or walking by someone on the street and waiting till they're out of earshot and then going "jesus christ that guy was hot" to your friends— that's fine. That's normal human behaviour. What becomes rude is when you make it hot guy's problem and yell at him. Being attracted to someone in your own space is not a problem. I'm aroace, I am not going to be in a relationship with anyone. I'm not going to ban having crushes on me, as long as you don't make it my business. Talking about an attractive person in your own space is not a problem. Being sexual in your own space— and again we are talking about fictional characters, the way I see it, these are lies we're telling about folks that are not real, who live in little minecraft worlds— that's fine. The problem is if we start catcalling people about it.

When you walk into fandom spaces you are walking into a space where we all like taking fictional guys and telling stories about them and a good portion of those stories are going to include kissing. That is not necessarily baseline normal for like, all of humanity, but people talk about tv shows they watch as one of the classic work small talk techniques. Fandom takes the "I hope ted gets together with jessica" "no he needs to work on himself first" discussion and writes stories, is all, to share with each other. Privately. On our special private website where there's a button you can click to hide your work from search engines and another one to hide it from logged-out users. If you log into the website and search things up, no tags blocked, what you find is on you for saying "I will see literally anything that exists on this subject in a space meant for literally anything". You will find gore. You will find kissing. You literally just opted in to seeing it. That's on you.

So like, there's my little defense of nsfw work existing in general, I think it existing is not a problem. I do think that we should keep it FAR AWAY from streamers. They get to set the rules for their spaces, and if someone doesn't want to see sexualized fan art, I do think we should make sure that in a reasonable way, they never have to see sexualized fan art/fic.

So like me personally, I'm going to hit that Ao3 button to hide my work from search engines, and anything NSFW (or shippy, depending on the person) is not going to go into the main tags on tumblr or twitter or anywhere I'm aware that the creators ever check that tag, and I'd probably archive lock it if the creator had publically mentioned being uncomfortable with it, and if I was regularly posting NSFW I'd block the creators on social media with any account I discuss NSFW with. I want to make sure that I am talking to my friends about the cubitos, not catcalling someone.

And I would probably err on the side of caution when it comes to social media sites that creators are on? Okay so the fandom has a habit of saying that NSFW and Shipping is BAD and can't exist, on the one hand, but on the other hand it says that anything that isn't Bad Wrong Shipping/Explicit NSFW is fine, which leads to like— extremely sexy thirst trap art being drawn and then the creators are tagged. People putting family dynamic fics that really pushes that envelope in the main tag. Gahhhhhh????? No? Don't do that?

I think it would be healthier in the fandom if we did a lot more going "this is for the fandom, not the creator" and we don't tag creators on twitter, and we took our little kissing fics, or gore, or kidfic, or neurodiverse headcanons, or anything else it might be not for the creator to see, and we kept it in fandom spaces and away from creators. But Ao3 is that fandom space that you have to opt into, it's literally archive of our Own, for fans, in that space as long as you tag it you're good.

So the TL;DR of this all is that my opinion is that if you tag it correctly on Ao3 you're fine. Maybe archive lock it. Keep it off twitter. Don't make it the streamer's problem, and you're good.

#discourse #fandom meta #ask #anon #long post

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triptychgrip · 4 months

Text

I love reading/writing Yuri!!! on Ice stories that center around Viktor's insecurities around his "worthiness" of being w/ Yuuri.

The fandom has (understandably) created tons of content around Yuuri's insecurities, but I find it really compelling to ideate around this "Living Legend" superstar athlete -- who, prior to finding love, built up pretty much his entire life around his career -- and his worry that the love of his life will one day tire of him, especially the closer that Yuuri approaches retirement and no longer needs Viktor to be his coach.

It's the subject of an ongoing post-canon, married Viktuuri story I've been working on, which currently has three chapters out (of five total, but that chapter count could very well increase, lol). You'll see it's part of my larger series, but IMO, you can still enjoy/understand it without reading the other works.

It's a Viktor POV fic, whose premise is that Yuuri (who has now achieved certification to teach group pole dancing classes) one day gets approached by a fellow instructor around teaching one-one-one classes. He mentions this idea to Viktor, but appears underconfident around it, so Viktor volunteers to become his "trial student" in order to help his husband get used to the idea around someone he already knows/is comfortable around.

While the overall story might appear light-hearted (especially b/c this arrangement gives these two ample opportunity to be all flirty and eros with one another), a big theme in the story is Viktor's insecurity around being a beginner/bad at something. It's a concept that he's still not used to, post-retirement: not immediately being an expert at things, and having to accept that he can be bad at something, and still entirely lovable, anyway.

The other element of the story that's been exciting to explore is the idea that Viktor is approaching this arrangement with a somewhat ulterior motive that taps directly into his own insecurities. While, yes, he is ultimately hoping that being Yuuri's student will boost his husband's confidence in his own teaching skills, he also believes that he needs to find more and more ways to "hold" Yuuri's interest, especially given his student's approaching retirement (after the 2022 Beijing Olympics). Once Yuuri retires and no longer needs Viktor as his coach, what could Viktor have to possibly offer him? Maybe if he learns how to pole-dance, his husband will still find him sexy and inspirational and interesting.

It's easy for an outside observer to be like "Viktor, you idiot...Yuuri has been obsessed with you since he was twelve, he's not going to suddenly think you're boring when you're no longer his coach", but that's the thing about insecurities: they're rarely rational, or based in logic. Mine certainly aren't.

As accomplished and impressive as he is, Viktor still needs reminders that who he is, inherently, is absolutely enough, whether that means he is an expert pole dancer like Yuuri, or a complete novice. A lot of this also taps into my headcanons around Viktor's childhood trauma and strained relationship with his parents, which has given him significant abandonment issues.

Gah, thinking about it really gets me in my feels; I can't wait to finish this WIP up, and hope you all would consider checking it out, now or once it's completed.

#yuri on ice #ao3 fanfic #viktor nikiforov #insecure viktor nikiforov #post canon #married viktuuri #viktuuri #victuuri #my wips #current wip #yoi headcanon #viktor nikiforov has abandonment issues

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liapher · 2 years

Text

Dracula! 🧛

[Click on the pictures for better resolution.]

After my previous experiment with wrap-around hinges, I kept thinking about how to secure the wrap so it remains shut when the book is closed. When I started reading Dracula, the solution was obvious: vampire fangs that “bite” into the front cover!

Since almost all diary entries, letters, newspaper articles and telegrams in Dracula start with a date, I decided to have some fun there and set the date in a way that matches the item: different handwriting fonts for different recurring characters, a telegram font and a newspaper font, a little waveform separator for Dr. Seward's phonograph diary, and—my favourite—Pitman's shorthand for Jonathan and Mina's diaries.

I've been reading Dracula via the Dracula Daily substack and wanted to be able to carry on doing this also in this different media format, so I added an index that tells me the pages that belong to each day, and also added the dates to the footer.

More typesetting/binding notes under the cut:

⁂

Typesetting

Set mainly in ETbb (11/14), which is based on Bembo. The various decorative fonts were much harder to find than you'd think—sooo many cursive handwriting fonts on the web, but most of them look very modern or have horrible kerning or entirely unnatural character transitions. Explaining how I created the stenography bits (over 70 distinct little "intros"!) would really warrant a post of its own, but the short version is that I spent some time reading up on Pitman's shorthand, then used a tool that can, more or less, convert English (or phonetically written English) into shorthand, then double-checked various words with the help of old dictionaries on the Internet Archive and edited the strokes to my liking.

(The appendix includes a brief introduction to Pitman's shorthand as well as a dictionary-of-sorts for the stenography bits that appear in the book.)

2. Binding the textblock

Until now, the books I've bound have always been slim enough for me to get away with square-back bindings without the books looking too wedge-shaped, but Dracula here is just over 500 pages, so I figured it'd look better with a rounded spine. (Since backing the spine is beyond my expertise and I also don't have the tools for that, I skipped that step, but I'd love to give it a try someday.) To get the spine into a shape I liked and to glue it, I used two clamps, two sheets of cardboard, and two sturdy old encyclopedias, like so:

Which worked pretty well.

I sewed two-colour (b&w) headbands, this time with 2-ply embroidery thread:

3. The case:

The main part of the case is a Bradel binding with a rounded spine. The inside of the front cover contains an extra layer of bookboard with triangular cut-out that are slightly larger than the fangs, and partially covered with some thin cardboard.

The white bookcloth unfortunately proved to be trickier to work with than I'd hoped: it's basically see-through (so I had to glue white paper to the outside of my black bookboard first) and smudges super easily.

If I do something like this again, I might consider making all of the front and back cover as thick as that fore-edge section of the front cover currently is, to make it look more even. Also, important lesson learned: even if everything fits together nicely when it's just bookboard and paper, adding bookcloth will make all the hinges much stiffer (I unfortunately had to redo the fore-edge hinges).

Cheers 🩸

#bookbinding #book design #dracula #dracula daily #crafts tag #mission update

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cannibal-nightmares · 1 month

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everything everything is so awesome im glad someone i follow also likes them <3 thats all sorry i just love music

Never any apologies on my page 8D I can ramble about music incessantly, so thank you for your ask; I'm so glad to hear the same that you like them, as well! I've not organically met anyone in person who has heard of them, only friends who've discovered them through me or the wonders of finding shared-interest-mutuals on the internet. "Warm Healer" was my first Everything Everything song I had heard back in 2016-2017ishh; the tone of the polyrhythmic bass guitar INSTANTANEOUSLY hooked me in for good, then their interesting lyrical narrative was swift to follow suit... Also let's not ignore the madness of the fantastic cover art of "Get To Heaven," my god the colors, the design, the lines, the figure... And then, of course, the subconscious love for Radiohead (unknowing this was an element at play until around the release of "Re-Animator" when--to my knowledge--the band was more upfront about their inspirations and it all suddenly made sense).

Before the release of their lyric book, "CAPS LOCK ON," I had a list of B-sides and rarities, including stuff from Modern Bison, which featured Jonathan Higgs and Jeremy Pritchard from EE. On the list was/is "Wizard Talk," which has to be my favourite Everything Everything song on two points: Firstly, as much as Higgs loves to bend and snap vocal capacities with unimaginable peaks of falsetto + fast vocal cadences that leave their music uncategorizable to genre (and etc...), "Wizard Talk" is--in my opinion--unlike anything they've ever put out stylistically. "His voice sounds like he's playing marimba runs," I have repeated to friends over and over and over again, begging people to listen to this song. And then, secondly, comes the profound lyrics of this song. EE loves to play with elaborate metaphors to dance around politics, the state of the world, and social narratives, but "Wizard Talk" feels emotional on a level beyond their common frustrations, especially having been such an early track from the "Man Alive"(?) era, and also in contrast to the stark emotionality of "Re-Animator." Idk man. It hits hard. It's sad. It's hopeful. It's beautiful. You feel the character's defeat and his acceptance in that the hope he seeks is, will be, and always has been abstract in nature while he has spent so much time looking for a concrete and tangible handle to hold onto. It feels like their most vulnerable glimpse at what Jon really has to say. That song has meant a lot to me for a long time, so I am glad EE finally released (some of) the extras from "Man Alive" in the Deluxe re-release.

Ah, anyways, the B-side archive. Something something something, if I remember correctly, there's a few songs missing from the Man Alive deluxe release and even "CAPS LONG ON" is missing a few songs. I won't be cross-referencing this information right now, I'm in bed. Regardless, I will say that a song or two off of the re-release are completely different recording takes and mixes which I find of intruige (again, only if I remember correctly, I think it's at least "The Kids Are Obese" but dooonn't quote me on it..)

Anyways, what else... I've done a ton of art based around EE, some of which is lyrically inspired, others of which are direct tribute art to the band (including a piece to "Magnetophone"!) They're currently sitting at my third-most listened to band of all time, according to my LastFM page. I love them so very very much and I'm so glad you do, too; I hope your ask could maybe inspire others, as well ^^

Can't ask me anything about music and expect a short answer, heh, I still have so much more to say about EE. I am very passionate about music.

#anon #anon ask #everything everything #everything everything band #ask me anything #cannibal-nightmares rambles

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vessilin · 4 months

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hey guys i have decided that i will now become a TMAGP account. hashtag. love this new podcast!! as soon as my hands stop swelling I WILL be making RedCanary fan art. I cannot express how much i’m loving this series rn

more below the cut! ! (SPOILERS)

OKAY SO!! episode #1 has thoroughly shaken me to the core. thank you so @sunnyspookss for listening to me yap about it over discord. love u suns!! here are my thoughts on the characters :

Sam - I cannot describe how I feel about this creature. I’m loving them and they’re giving me very… main character vibes (obviously but… anything could change who knows). Currently loving the idea that they wear glasses !!! Def a really fleshed out character (even from just the first episode).

I know Sam SAID that they were working here to ‘get back on [my] feet’ but I feel like there might be something more behind it?

Alice - right off the bat !! I’m loving her. she seems so incredibly sweet and i’m HC-ing her as a trans woman. live laugh love Alice !!! She’s so silly and in some ways reminds me of Tim Stoker ? I think it’s really interesting and I can’t wait to see how her character develops!!

ALSOOO TTHE FACT THAT SHE AND SAM USED TO DATE!??? AUGH. during college too? I feel like this is running a real close parallel to Jon and Georgie.

Gwen <333 - I can totally see some of the Bouchard family line coming in here. At first (a.k.a. the first 10 minutes or so) i didn’t really have any strong opinions and kinda forgot that her last name was bouchard but after the little scene of her and Lena in the office I started to love her even more. The boldness and the gall this woman has makes me want to shake her around like a squeaky toy.

When Lena was like “what do you even want here anyways 😒😒” AND GWEN WENT “your job” I LOST IT. LIKE.

I don’t even know if she and Elias are related but goddamn?!! I’m literally in love.

Lena - She knows something. This woman. this girl. she knows something that I do not know and I do not like it.

Colin - Live Laugh Love Colin!!! He def knows what’s going on!! I have a feeling he’ll be rlly important to the plot and his little end ‘speech’ (more like dialogue but oh well) at the end of the first episode was like??? Major Eye vibes.

RedCanary - I don’t even know where to begin. The insanity? The deleting photo? Canaries should stay above ground? The anger at ArcherK?? The mystery?

I really hope this character comes back but even if they’re a Sarah Baldwin situation that is 110% okay. I love the premise of this person finding something in that box (or maybe just the box in general) that drives them to insanity or drives them to some new information?

Misc. - Ok! Im not sure if the same like… ‘fears’ apply but someone (hi sunny) has said that there might be a new fear system? i think that’s going to be really fun to get into once I listen to the second episode. Secondly !!!! The Magnus Archive being turned into the library of alexandria (not literally but still) is such a cool concept to me. I think it’s very inchresting to think about because

A) as a child i loved researching TLA (the library of alexandria) and B) it makes a whole new timeline- i think?? Or maybe it’s some like alternate dimension or something!!! who knows!! I love it!

The idea of lost knowledge (and that knowledge once being uncovered driving people to insanity) (shoutout redcanary we will remember you!) is such a cool concept in general. the what-ifs and the maybes that can stem from it are so interesting and I can’t wait to see if they expand on that or not!! Either way- i’m loving the podcast so far.

ALSO JON AND MARTIN BEING CHESTER AND NORRIS RESPECTIVELY? DOES THIS MEAN THAT AUGUSTUS IS LIKE. ELIAS OR JONAH???? AUGH THIS PODCAST IS SO GOOD IM LOSING IT

#the magnus universe #magpod #magnus pod #the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp vague #tmagp spoilers #tmagp speculation

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douglysium · 17 days

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Episode 15 TMP Quick Thoughts

Housekeeping and Prologue

Hello, this is Douglysium and you might not know me as that guy who wrote over 100 pages of analysis on the Eye (which can be read on Tumblr here (https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the) or Google Docs here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss)) or as that guy who wrote an article on the Extinction (which can be read on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/717929126195003392/what-would-avatars-of-the-extinction-be-like-a) and Google Docs here(What would Avatars of the Extinction be like?: A TMA Speculation)). Suffice to say I might be a bit of a TMA fan. Also, spoilers for TMP up until episode 10. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (Episode 14 TMP Quick Thoughts).

However, Protocol offers a very unique opportunity and experience for me because I didn’t actually get into TMA until after it was over and I binged all of it. So this is my first time experiencing something even remotely similar to what the original TMA fans probably experienced when waiting for each episode week by week and slowly having to put everything together with the limited information they had. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring since this might be my only chance to do something similar. However, I’m working on some longer form TMA content so I can’t spend as much time on these articles giving a bunch of super detailed thoughts. I will try to keep these short and that inevitably might mean some could have questions about why I think or predict certain things and in those cases I would probably recommend you read at least some of the two articles I mentioned above to get a better idea of where I’m coming from. This also means I won’t be giving you a play-by-play of every single thing that happens in the episode so I encourage you to listen to or read them yourselves and feel free to comment if you feel something is important.

These reviews are probably going to end up focusing mostly on the Entities and their manifestations as they are what I have thought about the most and spent the most time interpreting and there’s been a lot of… interesting theories floating around about how the Entities are manifesting that I want to go over.

Finally, I’m just going to say it right now, spoiler warning for all of The Magnus Archives. I know that Jon and co said one could start with Protocol and be fine, and while that’s probably true, media like this tends to be made in conversation with or take into consideration what came before it in the irl chronology in order to connect them. While I’m sure you could skip The Magnus Archives, I don't really see the point of skipping over it when we are already getting characters from TMA showing up in TMP in Protocol. So to me it’s pretty clear that if we want to understand the full picture of TMP and all the things it is trying to say then we can’t just try to pretend TMA doesn’t exist or scrub it away. Just because you could understand what’s happening without the context in broad strokes doesn’t mean you're getting all the nuances.

These articles are meant to be quick and short so sorry if there’s typos and if I don’t address every possible question or possibility. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this series outside of the prologue so be sure to skim some of my other articles.

Episode 15 “Well Run”

So the transcripts have an error. While the document title matches the name of the episode on the youtube channel, etc. the transcripts themselves say Episode 15 “Good Show.”

Weird, but probably just an error. Either this was the episode's original name, and it was changed, or some other episode was originally in the slot for the 15th entry (stuff can move around a lot in development). Anyway let’s dive in.

We start the episode from the perspective of a CCTV in the breakroom at night. Sam asks Celia on a second date by showing off some theater tickets he bought for “The Pillowman.” Celia laughs, much to Sam’s confusion, and sarcastically says it’s a “very romantic choice.” Sam says he doesn’t know a lot about the story but Celia does decide to go anyway “If only to see your face.” I haven’t seen Pillowman but according to the Wikipedia summary “It tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer living in a police state, who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of bizarre child murders occurring in his town.” So Celia’s reaction is understandable and it goes to show that Sam should have asked around a bit more. It’ll be an odd date for sure, but I’m very curious to see their reactions considering that Sam and Celia’s job right now is literally to sit around listening to scary stories. Although, they know Pillowman isn’t real so it might not be that big of a deal.

Alice enters the room, seemingly to Sam’s dismay or exasperation considering the sighing, and offers them a chance to come to the performance of her younger brother’s band. Sam wonders if it’s Dredgerman but Alice corrects him by saying “Don’t be daft, they’re taking a break before their tour! No, it’s “Penny for the Well” actually” and Sam wonders how many bands Luke is in (so Luke is part of multiple bands at the same time). Sam asking about Dredgerman is actually a bit of foreshadowing for the person Alice encounters later. The person in question keeps speaking of the deep water and drowning, similar to some of the stuff Gordon was saying in a previous episode, and a dredger is “a barge or other vessel designed for dredging harbors or other bodies of water”, to dredge is to “clean out the bed of (a harbor, river, or other area of water) by scooping out mud, weeds, and rubbish with a dredge.” / “an apparatus for bringing up objects or mud from a river or seabed by scooping or dragging.” and a dredgeman (no R here) is “one who is in charge of the operation of a dredge used to mine metal-bearing sands from the bottom of a body of water.” So there’s a lot of specific water imagery going on here. “Penny for the Well” also arguably ties into this theme since a well is “a shaft sunk into the ground to obtain water, oil, or gas.” Pennies are often thrown into wells and fountains for the sake of wishes and stuff but there are also stories of people falling into wells. So you could argue there’s still a theme of drowning or deep water being laid here too.

Alice says “Let’s just say that this revolutionary indie ensemble, which may or may not also include my incredibly talented younger brother, is playing The Gladstone Arms at ten thirty tomorrow evening and you are both on the guest list. You’re welcome.” but Celia says she has to go take care of Jack (the babysitter can’t stay late enough for her to go to the performance) and the revelation that Celia has a human baby seems to catch Alice off guard. Considering Alice’s reaction to Celia last episode, it’s interesting that she invited both Alice and Sam to the event and doesn’t seem to say Sam shouldn’t go on his date with Celia (just that they can swing by afterwards). It’s possible she wants to keep an eye on them or doesn’t want to piss off Sam but it’s interesting that Alice is actually taken aback by Celia’s baby. Maybe Alice herself isn’t really a baby person. It’s possible she’s just surprised Sam is dating someone with a baby or she just genuinely didn’t realize and is surprised / awkward. Sam comments “(standing) And you say I’m clueless.”

In case you’re wondering what a gladstone is: “a suitcase with flexible sides on a rigid frame that opens flat into two equal compartments. called also gladstone bag.” Gladstone also seems to be a person: “William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS (/ˈɡlædstən/ GLAD-stən; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-consecutive terms (the most of any British prime minister) beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times, for over 12 years.” I also saw some, potentially questionable, sources saying that a gladstone can refer to a Prime Minister who’s served four years but maybe take that with a grain of salt coming from me. Since Protocol does seem to have a big emphasis on the government it wouldn’t surprise me if using the name of a politician is somehow going to end up being some sort of reference or foreshadowing for later.

At this point we are privy to 3 of the bands Luke has played for: Bullets for Saint Sebastian, Penny for the Well, and Dredgerman

We move to the statement of the episode. It’s in the form of a voicemail being delivered by someone to “The Sentinel tip-off hotline.” The bot on the other end says:

“If you are calling with information that you believe merits investigation for the public interest, please leave a message with as much detail as possible along with your name and number.

If you wish to remain anonymous, please instead leave a three word code at the start of your message that we can use to identify future calls or correspondence from you.

This voicemail is monitored by dedicated staff that are obliged to report serious crimes to local law enforcement if there is risk of imminent harm to anyone. Please speak after the tone. To end the recording, simply hang up. ”

The person giving the statement of this case is referred to as the “Caterer” in the transcripts and they are clearly in a rush since they say they can’t go to the police and start telling the story without leaving in sort of three word code or identity for future calls. The Caterer even says that they don’t know how much time they have left.

They begin to explain that they work as a caterer at a business they own. They tend to handle really high-end private functions: “We get called in for the really high-end stuff. The kind of event where the guest list is so rich that you’ve never even heard of them. There’s a big difference between “extravagance” and “elegance.” We sell the latter.” However, the Caterer’s company isn’t very big. In fact, it only has 6 permanent staff if you include the Caterer themselves (so there were 5 other permanent staff the Caterer worked with). Of course, the company did “...hire in fixed-term waiting staff and other contractors but even so…” But it becomes clear that something bad happened to the other permanent employees. For the sake of clarity, a caterer is “a person or company providing food and drink at a social event or other gathering.”

The Caterer’s company “...got the call a couple of months ago for a fairly small event at Wychwood Hall in the Cotswold’s. Apparently, they had a family shoot and wanted us to prepare the game. Normally that would be pheasant or partridge and we’d just swap it for stuff we prepared off-site since no one could ever tell the difference, but they were really explicit about it being larger game and wanting to know who’s kill they were eating. That meant a lot more prep time and equipment but they insisted and at this level you don’t get to tell the client no, just how much extra it will cost.” So immediately, we have some themes reminiscent of an Entity like The Hunt but it’s still pretty early on in the statement and Entities can overlap all the time so let’s keep reading.

The company “...set up the cooking gazebo during the early afternoon in the rear gardens on the butler’s instruction. The house itself was a massive sprawling Elizabethan thing with pristine flowerbeds and prim lawns that ran right up to the surrounding woodland. It wasn’t usual to be given center stage like that but I figured the client fancied themself a foodie and wanted to see the prep. Thankfully we brought the flashy gear, just in case. Normally you’d expect the shoot to have already been well underway by the time we arrived but people were only just arriving in their tinted Range Rovers and Rolls.” The Caterer notes that normally, the shoot / hunt would already be happening but by the time the Caterer’s crew arrived everyone else was just arriving. It would make sense that normally the shoot would already be taking place since the Caterer is just supposed to cook whatever is caught and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have them just waiting around while you try to kill the game animal. However, this is actually foreshadowing since we later learn that the Caterer and their crew are what’s supposed to be hunted. The Caterer even mentions “Another hour passed with a couple more cars trickling in, but still no one had set out. Instead, I could see them through the leaded windows, just watching us work ” So the people are watching their prey (the caterers).

Eventually, the Caterer had the house staff fetch the butler to let him know “that unless he knew something I didn’t there was going to be a distinct lack of venison for tonight’s venison medallions. He just gave me this look, told me to “prepare” and then headed back inside. Obviously that pissed me right off but what can you do? They’d paid for the day so we just hunkered down and looked busy.” It’s possible that what the butler is saying has a double meaning. They shouldn’t just be preparing food but the caterers themselves should prepare to fight each other and be hunted. This is alluded to later when “the matriarch” asks the Caterer if they are prepared.

Speaking of which, the sun begins to set and all the hunters and dogs begin to come out of their vehicles. In front of them is someone the Caterer describes as a “matriarch.” “I don’t know how else to describe her. This big, imposing, like some Roman statue brought to life and given a gun. I kept thinking of my army days cooking for the top brass. She had the same eyes, like they didn’t see people any more just “assets” and “resistance.” And if that wasn’t enough, she had this huge custom rifle over her shoulder, like an antique elephant gun or something. There was no way it was UK legal, the thing looked like it could take out a jeep, never mind a stag! And it wasn’t gilded or anything, it was dull and plain looking despite its massive size and you just knew that this was a gun for killing with, not showing off.” I think it’s interesting that the Caterer has some sort of military background. There’s an obvious commentary about the military complex but often when the Entities show up they do so to specific people or at specific times that are advantageous. This is to say that the Entities often have thematic reasons for why or who they are manifesting around at a specific time and I don’t think the fact that a person with military trauma was picked is purely coincidental.

The Caterer says that the matriarch reeked with power and “...when she spoke they all listened. She had the guns all line up facing us with their dogs at heel and then they all just stood there watching the sun set as their staff and security all headed back into the house leaving us alone with them. That was when I knew something was really wrong. The woman stepped forward with her dogs by her side and faced me with this bright and wide smile splitting her face under her electric blue eyes and gunmetal-grey hair. Then she just locked eyes with me and began to carefully load the rifle without looking, punctuating each word with another cartridge. “Are you prepared?” she asked quietly.” This calls back to what I was just saying about the butler. I think what the butler was saying had a double meaning or was vague enough to be misinterpreted as referring purely to the food being prepared.

The Caterer answers with ““As we can be” I replied. “but-“” and then the woman silences them by raising a hand to their mouth. “it was as though she had slapped a gag in my mouth. I couldn’t even think of disobeying her, the words just died in my throat.” She returns to her group of hunters with her dogs flanking her and they are unable to make out the faces of any of the other people due to the dazzling light of the sunset. Then she stood tall and proud and said with just the tiniest hint of anticipation: “Let’s begin then shall we?” As one, the hunters raised their rifles as one and levelled them at us as we stood transfixed under our gazebo. Theres a very specific feeling you get when you’re staring down a barrel at close range. First the world gets very sharp and bright, then the horizon sort of shrinks around you till it’s no wider than the dark hole aiming straight at you. It had been a long time since I’d felt like that, but it was still so familiar. Too familiar. The woman hadn’t raised her own weapon, instead she called as though directing a firing squad: “Hunt.”” The caterers don’t immediately understand what’s happening so the simply sit in still silence until the Caterer realizes that the matriarch is talking to them and not her hunters. “After seconds that felt like hours the woman seemed to grow impatient. Finally, she sighed and repeated: “Hunt” before shouldering her rifle, sighting and then pulling the trigger without hesitation.”

One of the other caterers, Steven, falls to the ground dead (having been shot). “Without lowering the rifle, she chambered another round and re-sighted, this time at me. She smiled greedily then pumped her eyebrows just once, playfully. “Hunt!”” This time the Caterer understands what she wants: “Without taking my eyes from her I reached out and gently closed my hand around the handle of the clever in front of me. It shone, pristine and unblemished, ready for its bloody work. Then slowly, so slowly, I raised it overhead, bracing myself for what followed. The woman grinned widely, her finger caressing the trigger, then I brought my hand down sharply, smashing the cleaver into the face of Marcus, our Saucier. He couldn’t even cry out as it cleft deep into the base of his neck, his arterial blood gushing out and down into the overly-hot pot, releasing a plume of acrid iron smelling steam.” The other caterers run as the Caterer pulls the knife from Marcus and turns to them.

“The party ate well that night. All told, it didn't take long, maybe a half hour at most? None of them got far. I caught Debra as she tried to hide up in a tree. Fair play to her, almost made it up there despite being in her fifties. Mira tripped over a rabbit hole in the darkness, I think she tried to beg, but I couldn’t make out the words. The only one who gave me any real trouble was Boris. He was a big guy, nearly six five, and that’s a hell of a size difference, even with my training. But it wasn’t enough. I had killed before, and he hadn’t. He hesitated, and that was that.” As the Caterer packs up the woman shakes their hand and compliments them “Then the butler handed me a thick brown envelope. It was full of cash and a note written in elegant cursive with just one word: “Run”.” They ran and say that they cannot stay anywhere for long, they can’t stop moving. “I keep hearing dogs barking and I don't know if it's just some pet or… I thought about handing myself in to the police, but that just feels like trapping myself in a dead end.”

The Caterer explains that they resolve to leave the country but as they explain their plan-

The car window shatters inwards from a sudden loud gunshot. The CATERER is wetly silenced.

Someone approaches, reloading an enormous rifle with growling dogs in tow.

They stop then yank open the car door.

LADY MOWBRAY

“Well run dearie. Well run…”

The line goes dead.

If we view this through the lens of Smirke’s 14 (plus the Extinction) the most obvious Entity here would be The Hunt. This case shares many similarities with plenty of The Hunt’s manifestations in TMA. For example, being hunted by colleagues or people you know in a death game type set up (such as in MAG 112 (Thrill of the Chase) with the Murder Club and the domain Trevor was stuck in with all the metaphorical witch hunts and people constantly turning on each other. Mowbray’s dogs are probably some sort of hunting dog and the Caterer is being chased / hunted by Mowbray herself like an animal on top of hearing the barking of dogs. Daisy from TMA has also been compared to a sort of metaphorical dog. Which makes sense if you consider the overlap between police and hunting dogs meant to pursue targets. Plus, in MAG 31 (First Hunt) we get “As I looked at him, the strangest thing popped into my head. Have you ever read The Duchess of Malfi? I had to study it for my O-Levels, many years ago. Dreadful play, as I remember, the worst sort of old revenge tragedy, all incest and murder and madness. But there’s a line that stays with me, a doctor diagnosing the Duchess’ brother with lycanthropy. As I recall it goes, “Once met the duke, ‘bout midnight in a lane behind St. Mark’s church, with the leg of a man upon his shoulder. Said he was a wolf. Only difference was, a wolf’s skin is hairy on the outside, his on the inside”. Looking at this thing that wanted to kill me, it’s the only way it’s the only description that feels right.” and Jon refers to the strange hunter in the statement as a “wolfman.” So The Hunt is not stranger to canines and it tends to lean towards more animalistic imagery.

The case also has some themes that parallel The Slaughter (with the violence and military background), The Web (the Caterer feeling physically unable to disobey Mowbray’s command. Although, this could just be due to the fear and massive guns), The Eye (with the fear of being found or someone knowing where you are), The Dark (with the hunt taking place at night and one of the caterers tripping over a hole in the darkness), The Flesh (with all the food imagery and the caterers are in the place of a game animal (which is meant to be caught and cooked)), and The End (with the fear of being killed).

Some people might wonder why I usually bother going through some of the other possible Entities or parallels like this (especially since if we are to assume Smirke’s 14 is still at all applicable this is the most Hunt hunts to ever Hunt. For one, it’s supposed to be a reminder that the Entities aren’t completely distinct and exist on a vague spectrum at best. All the Entities constantly bleed and overlap each other so trying to perfectly and neatly box them tends to be unhelpful and it’s very rare that only one emotional fear is present. I also do this to help try to keep my mind open. Like I said, Entities bleed into each other all the time and this can sometimes make it hard to pick apart (if at all). Sometimes I get so pigeonholed into the possibility of a single specific Entity I kind of lose sight of other possibilities or Entities. For example, while I think this case screams the Hunt there is a very good argument for something like The Slaughter here. Assuming Smirke’s 14 are even still relevant anyway.

As the line dies Celia is clearly disturbed and we hear Lady Mowbray herself say “Fascinating.” Yeah, she’s in the office now with her dogs and it was very trippy listening to this for the first time. Celia is startled by her appearance. Once again, I have to wonder if Mowbray was quiet or if the cases sort of draw people in. In TMA the statements could have strange effects, for example some characters would find it difficult to stop reading statements once they started and may sort of space out. The statements are also noted as being stressful or taxing for some people to read / listen to. However, this could also just as easily be because Celia was listening to a horrifying first hand account.

CELIA jumps up with a cry and turns to find Lady Mowbray and her dogs

standing right behind her. The dogs growl threateningly.

LADY MOWBRAY CONT.

“Sit.”

CELIA

“Excuse me?”

LADY MOWBRAY

“I was talking to the boys.”

The dogs sit. They are not fur babies, they are what turns up when

someone says “release the hounds”. (Yes this is actually in the official transcripts you can go check)

The transcripts also say “MOWBRAY sniffs her as though she were a particularly odd vintage.” and it describes Mowbray as stalking while she asks Celia for her name. So Mowbray is acting like a dog or animal sizing up some prey and comparing Celia to a vintage suggests that Mowbray sees her in the same way one might see a fine wine. Something to be savored and consumed. I think it’s interesting that Celia actually refuses to give Mowbray her name by simply saying “I didn’t.” upon being asked “What did you say your name was dear?” This isn’t the first time names have seemed important. In episode 10 (Saturday Night), as Gwen delivers the letter to Mr. Bonzo, Nigel says “Mr Bonzo meet… I didn’t actually get your name. Probably for the best.” and “The name, the address – tell him where to go.” This implies that names might have some sort of importance when it comes to how Externals find or pick their targets. The OIAR is also connected to the government so it may also have to do with the government being able to pull up a file or something using someone’s name.

Celia is definitely holding it together pretty well and Mowbray remarks on her high levels of bravery. As I went over in episode 7 “Give and Take” (TMP Quick Thoughts 7) Celia is heavily implied to have some connection to the TMA universe and know a suspicious amount about the Entities. She even shares the name of a character that shows up in TMA, specifically a member of Melanie and Georgie’s cult. With this in mind, Mowbray’s commentary on Celia’s bravery is interesting. Firstly, Mowbray’s dogs get aggressive when Celia was startled by Mowbray. It could be that they are just getting excited but if Mowbray and / or her dogs are some sort of Avatar or connected to a Power it could be that both her and her dogs are reacting to, and looking for, fear. Since Celia knows this she could be hiding or dampening her fear as a form of protection. The more fear someone has or shows the more tempting they are for the Entities to torment. Lena even says “But he didn’t, which means you’ve passed the first part of your probation. Congratulations. Did you scream?” and “You should. It really helps one cope with the more affronting aspects of the job. And they usually like it.”

Not showing fear isn’t guaranteed to keep you safe but in TMA a character named Fiona Law managed to survive many encounters due to her propensity to pass out. As detailed in MAG 167 (Curiosity): “Of course, retreat is not always possible in such a line of business, and when that proved to be the case, there was a single trait which Fiona possessed that saw her surviving encounters which had killed far braver souls than her: Because when she was pushed to the very limits of her terror, Fiona Law would faint. And while there are those things in the dark that would kill you as you slept, most get no real delight from it, unless you are awake enough to know what is happening. And so, through cowardice and unconsciousness, Fiona had survived an entire generation of Archivist. And even stranger, when Angus Stacey died and she had the chance to walk away, she decided to remain.” So while a lack of fear isn’t guaranteed to protect you it does help. Also, both names and outward displays of fear seem important in Protocol.

Gwen comes in to collect Mowbray and as she leaves she tells Celia “Catch you next time, dearie.” to which Celia says “No, you won’t.” Celia probably knows that Mowbray may be being a bit more literal when she promises to catch someone later. Gwen offers her refreshments but Mowbray declines, explaining that she ate recently. There’s kind of an implication that Mowbray ate one or more of the caterers, and probably the one that was giving this episode’s case. Mowbray also says “That’s me yes. I presume you’re Gwendolyn Bouchard?” when Gwen asks for her. It could simply be that Mowbray was told who Gwen was beforehand but I wonder if the other Externals have been told about Gwen, especially since, based on the comment I brought up from Lena earlier, they seem to enjoy scaring people like the Externals Liaisons.

Mowbray also asks “Bouchard… You wouldn’t be of the Cheshire Bouchard’s would you?” but the scene ends before we hear Gwen’s full response. Considering the implication from Lena that Gwen’s family has a ton of money (so much so that Gwen blackmailing her for money seems silly) and Mowbray is clearly very rich I wonder if Mowbray has had an encounter or connection with the Bouchard family. As for who Cheshire is, I have no idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if they turn out to be yet another person in TMA with too much money and time on their hands though.

As the scene closes the transcripts say “CELIA exhales shakily before turning back to the computer.” implying that she was suppressing her fear or at least not showing them. Mowbray said “interesting” when Celia finished listening to the case and I have to wonder what Mowbray was referring to. Was she referring to the computer itself, the information in the case she’s in, or even Celia herself? Additionally, she’s probably one of the OIAR’s externals. In the case she’s wielding a large gun that’s described as “this huge custom rifle over her shoulder, like an antique elephant gun or something. There was no way it was UK legal, the thing looked like it could take out a jeep, never mind a stag!” It’s possible she just owns this gun illegally but I wonder if the OIAR or some other faction supplied her with the gun.

I also have to wonder how many of the externals get their victims assigned to them by the OIAR and if so how many? Is it all of their victims or just some of them? The possibility of a target being in this episode is interesting since Bonzo’s target also seemed like they were wealthy or had a decent amount of money at the expensive club in episode 12 (Getting Off). Wealth and money seem like another noticeable theme in Protocol so far.

We cut to Alice at the performance of “Penny for the Well” as it comes to a close. She talks with Luke and it turns out that while Luke’s music was supposed to be a chill side gig it’s been really picking up. Luke also says “You joke but the managers already added seven more cities to the Dredgerman tour.” Alice also mentions Glastonbury and a quick google search tells me that it’s just a really big festival with all kinds of stuff (like music performances). So when Alices says “Hello? Yes? Is that Glastonbury? Why yes, we DO have a minute…” she is joking about Luke being invited to a massive event. Luke asks about Sam and Alice says he couldn’t make it. Luke says “Shame he couldn’t make it tonight” and Luke and Alice continue to hang out and drink. I think it’s interesting that Luke and Sam seem to have a possible friendship or acquaintance.

We then cut to a tape recorder again and get “A tape recorder CLICKS, distantly a body shuffles in an alley off the main road.” The body is of some sort of victim talking and muttering. They keep talking about things like how they are trying to breathe and how they are being dragged below the line of sea and sky. So it sounds like they are talking about drowning and they are also having trouble breathing as they gasp for air. Alice is heading home, and the transcripts state that she is still buzzing from the show (she’s slightly intoxicated). Alice runs into this seemingly drowning woman and the victim grabs her in some sort of panic or desperation leading to a small altercation as Alice throws the victim off. Alice begins to panic and call 999 for an ambulance as the victim appears to choke and gasp for air.

As Alice explains the situation she mentions “Yeah there’s someone I don’t know if they’ve OD’d but they’re going into a fit or something.” The victim then seemingly dies, or at least stops breathing, but the transcripts clarify that she dies from an impossible amount of water coming out of her lungs, and Alice starts performing CPR. As she panics the transcripts say “She sees the tape recorder next to the body and picks it up.” This implies that the tape recorder was on the strange drowning woman and it could be an Entity such as The Web trying to get the tape recorder where it needs to go or even give it to Alice. It could even have to do with the ERROR that escaped the Institute’s ruins in episode 10 (Saturday Night) since that situation was also being recorded via tape recorder. Maybe ERROR even saw it and picked it up at some point. However, as “The victim starts to speak again, quietly, bubbling up through the water and out of dead lips.” Alice panics, drops the tape recorder, and flees the scene, leaving what the transcripts describe as a dead woman behind as the deceased person’s voice trails off and the episode ends.

It’s kind of hard to understand what the victim is saying the entire time so here’s the transcripts of the entire speech awkwardly stitched together: “- the second time is up I try to grasp the air and fill my lungs that burn and rattle full. I can’t, there’s so much air but none inside as I go down again the cold surrounds and drags me down, the blue the black the weight of all the sodden fates awaiting me below the line of sea and sky. I kick, I lunge I flail towards the brightened blue and break above the third and final time. I know I'm spent there is no more within me save the salt spun death that reaches down my throat and spasms in my chest that cannot breathe inside me i'm done the water is... is... dark Deeper… Deeper… Down among the dead and swollen flesh so pale within this lightless place where eyes are open cloudy white and all the water pushes down upon a lifeless form that sinks and sinks down to the bottom that is not there no sandy grave below the swell no rest among the coral and the depths I feared so much but reached up and over land to claim me still.”

The force this victim is talking about is probably the same force that Gordon was talking about in episode 11 (Marked). I’ll refer to this Entity as “The Deep” like many other fans for now. In Episode 11 Gordon says, among other things, “I saw them hanging around the office when I was waiting. Waiting so long just to see it, just to know what’s in the water. And they took it. They think they’re smart, but I saw them I know where they’re staying and if they think they deserve it they’re wrong. It belongs to the deep. I’m going to go get it and I’m going to find it and if they try and stop me I swear the ocean will claim us all. I can taste the salt and spray. It’s waiting in the water.” So there’s a lot of the same imagery here, plus the earlier mentioned parallels with Dredgerman’s name.

Some people are arguing that The Deep is a completely new Entity of some sort but I would argue that what we have seen of The Deep fits in line pretty comfortably with The Buried. The Buried also has a strong association with water in the form of deep water, drowning, and suffocation (which seems to be happening to this woman). Gordon angrily says that the body Ink5 obtains belongs to the deep (which sounds similar to The Buried’s connection to burying bodies or making sure they aren’t dug up). In fact, some of The Buried’s many other names is “Choke”, “Too Close I Cannot Breathe” and “Forever Deep Below.” Forever Deep Below is especially an interesting name since the woman mutters “...the blue the black the weight of all the sodden fates awaiting me below the line of sea and sky…” So something deep below the horizon of the sea and sky. All the names I mentioned fit pretty well with what the woman seems to be affected by, she is literally choking and struggling to breathe as water fills her lungs. Even something like “The Deep” sounds like it could be right at home as one of The Buried’s names. The Buried ultimately revolves around the fear of not having enough space, whether that be from literally being stuck in a small space, metaphorically lacking wiggleroom, or not having enough space in something like your lungs to breathe. So being trapped deep underwater or underground first with The Buried as a motif. It’s also important to remember that the Entities are no stranger to having multiple names or titles. For example, there is The Eye and The Beholding but these both refer to the same Entity. I would actually be a little surprised if all the characters referred to the Entities with the exact same set of names even if Smirke’s 14 does end up being still in use by the OIAR or other people.

Some people might argue The Vast because it also has an association with the deep ocean, and Simon even tries to use this association for a ritual, but it’s important to remember that Entities can overlap in both fear and manifestation and it’s not always what they manifest as but why. When The Vast manifests as the ocean or bodies of water it usually does so to capture the fear in regards to the immense size of such bodies but when The Buried does this it usually has to do with suffocation and drowning (like what we see now). Obviously, these can overlap since something large can easily smother or crush you but hopefully you get my point, and remember even often opposing Entities are connected and bleed into each other.

Conclusion

Previously I hoped that the next external Gwen got to see would be someone who can talk and give some actual questions / answers and it looks like I could be getting my wish depending on how this goes. Although, whether Mowbray is an external is still technically up in the air and maybe she’s just been brought on but I think it’s safe to assume that her being an external is likely. I wonder if she knows anything if at all.

I’m also beginning to wonder if ERROR is somehow connected to the tapes and what it’s plan / goal is. Alice expressed fear of travelling alone previously ever since leaving the Institute’s ruins but despite seemingly being alone before and after running into the woman there is no sign of ERROR appearing to attack or anything.

If you want the categorization of the case the transcripts list it with-

CAT1RB-6451-22062023-22032024

Hunt (aristocratic) -/- compulsion

Incident Elements:

- Graphic Violence/Murder

- Futility

- Being Hunted

- Classism

- Dehumanisation

- Hostile work environment

- drowning

- Mentions of: blades, guns, military service

- SFX: Gunfire, loud music, suffocation

Archive for my other thoughts: TMP Quick Thoughts Archive

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