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jangmi-latte · 2 days

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this is to add up from @lovee-infected's analysis back in 2020 about leona being in the lion guard (read it here) but i randomly binged-watched the lion king series and realized scar was part of the lion guard before and has a tattoo which signifies his position. was also gifted "the roar (roar of the elders)" as his weapon but he must use it wisely or else he'll lose both his position and power (to which he eventually did).

the roar is booming, thunderous, and powerful. leona's roar is loud...really loud and it's not just his roar, it's his voice in general. AND HIS UNIQUE MAGIC IS "KING'S ROAR" and he seems well-educated in his country's defense mechanism. here's the difference between "king's roar" and "roar of the elders" take note of the bolded words

ROAR OF THE ELDERS/THE ROAR (The Lion Guard)

The Roar is strong enough to blast downward-falling water upward, scatter a pile of boulders, or force someone else backward, sometimes sending them flying miles away. However, if the Roar is used in anger, regardless of the intent, it can cause mass destruction and there is a risk of it rebounding like an echo, which can cause natural disasters such as earthquakes. When used in anger, the clouds will be dark and stormy...before Kion uses the Roar, he always tells everyone to get behind him...So he [Scar] tried to employ the rest of his Lion Guard to help him overthrow Mufasa, but when they refused, he destroyed them (Roar of the Elders from The Lion Guard Wiki).

KING'S ROAR (Leona Kingscholar)

In Leona's dorm uniform card, we see him confronting his dorm mates after they mobbed on Jack. His dorm mates threatened him [Leona], questioned his position as their boss and why does he have the right to order them around. He told Jack to "stand back" while he handles them himself. To deflect them and show them his power he used "King's Roar" which resulted in his dormmates and Jack saying:

"My foothold is trembling." "The terrain is rapidly shifting." "The ground is splitting?!" (Jack)

During his overblot, the skies and the clouds turned dark (as it commonly does during overblots). It showed that it can harm a person (such as Ruggie) by turning them into dust/sand. Ruggie also mentioned how he doesn't want to get involved in a blast from Leona's unique magic's full potential. Here's to say that turning something into sand ISN'T the only thing his unique magic can do.

ruggie also mentioned during his magishift club wear card that leona's voice is loud and that they can hear him very well despite the spectators being noisy (translation credits go to @mysteryshoptls):

We can hear Leona’s voice pretty good even when we got noisy spectators durin’ a game. Guess lions just got a healthier roar to ‘em.

if the roar of the elders is used for good and must be used for good, then king's roar is the twisted version of the roar of the elders since it is seen as something dangerous instead of something that can be used for good. seeing as the leona's unique magic was feared upon by his people in the palace, the roar of the elders, on the other hand, was seen as something admirable and worthy for a person to have.

heck the roar of the elders is confiscated if they're used for bad and evil as it musn't be used for ill-intentions. meanwhile, leona's unique magic is implied to be used for ill-intentions because "anything he touches turns into sand" and what good can it bring, right?

i see what you did there twst...very clever.

#twisted wonderland #twst #savanaclaw #leona kingscholar #took me a while to look for the post since it was one of my faves #i've been blabbering so much about savanaclaw what is going on #this is savanaclaw rook's fault haha right my ex is its dorm leader

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hijackalx · 2 days

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FEMALE BG3 COMPANIONS TEASING YOU +18

characters included: karlach, shadowheart, lae’zel

MALE COMPANIONS

SHADOWHEART

she switches between innocent/playful teasing to flirty teasing so fast. one minute she’ll be making a bad joke at your expense and the next she’s whispering in your ear about how she can make it up to you

she’s RUTHLESS when it comes to getting you super flustered— your face will be on FIRE and you’ll feel like you’re about to explode but it only encourages her

not shy about teasing you in public either. doesn’t care who sees or hears even a little bit and likes to use it to her advantage to embarrass you lol. some public humiliation, if you will

likes the idea of teasing you in bed but she ends up being too impatient. sometimes she can hold off long enough but it ends up feeling like she’s torturing you both 😹😹 any amount of teasing is relatively short lived

LAE’ZEL

kind of aggressive while teasing— it also feels like it just comes out of nowhere sometimes lol. she finds ways to turn the most bland convos into something suggestive

her teasing usually has a “rivalry” vibe that results in sooo much sexual tension. loves when you push back and give the same energy. it’s like a competition of seeing who can get the biggest reaction out of the other

not shy about it in public but only because she doesn’t understand why it would be considered inappropriate lmao. she’ll unknowingly fluster you by bringing up something you said/did during your flirty banter in front of other people 😭😭

whether or not she teases during sex depends on her mood; you never know what you’re gonna get, she’ll keep you on your toes. has a good sense of self-discipline so she can tease for HOURS without letting up

KARLACH

teases in the most immature ways ever. the type to get you pissed because she won’t stop making fun of you for losing a game/battle lol

likes to get you riled up, she thinks it’s so hot to see that fire in your eyes 🔥 whether it’s through competitive teasing or getting you horny and leaving you unfulfilled 😹. also really likes sneaky, teasing touches— like smacking your ass while you’re bent over

actually pretty reserved when it comes to flirting or teasing in public. sticks to innuendos or more subtle things. she tends to burst out laughing or make herself blush when she can tell everyone else is picking up on it

a tease in bed but won’t admit it. won’t give you what you want while acting totally innocent about it— the type to respond to ‘touch me’ by purposely kissing/touching all the wrong places

#bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 headcanons #shadowheart #karlach #lae’zel #shadowheart x reader #karlach x reader #lae’zel x reader #my headcanons

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contextfreepatentart · 2 days

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Context-Full Patent Art

Every now and then I see people in the comments who seem to genuinely want a better idea of what one of the posted bits of art here was supposed to be patenting. Giving that context myself doesn't seem in the spirit of the blog, but I absolutely want to encourage people to do the legwork to go sniffing around for original sources.

It's something I have to do a lot in my day job, something I've learned to enjoy, and the thing that led me to start Context-Free Patent Art a dozen years ago in the first place.

Let's start with today's post, which is a perfect example of art that raises more questions than it answers.

Almost every post on this blog has a header detailing the date of the patent or application and the number, which you can find on the top right. In this case, this image is from Patent Application # 20020022516.

Longtime Context-Free Patent Art fans might remember this image from when it was first featured here over a decade ago. I figured that a lot of the people following the blog now haven't seen some of the gems from years ago, so I'm going to be doing re-runs of some of my favorites this week. There's a bunch more I think would be good to bring back, so I'll use the vintage cfpa hashtag in the future so you know when a duplicate post is intentional (as opposed to me just forgetting I've posted a thing before, which happens a fair bit).

Back to the matter at hand though, if you're ever curious, the US Patent and Trademark Office has a super-handy patent search function. It's pretty easy to find from their main site (uspto.gov), but you can also just bookmark this link to the basic search form:

Check out the search results, click on the link for the .pdf, and you'll get the complete patent/application to peruse at your enjoyment.

In this case, you'll find the patent being applied for covers a method of "Advertising inside electronic games" and you'll learn that:

In FIG. 1, girl 10 is climbing onto a hamburger 11 like one sold at a fast food restaurant. However, in the displayed image, hamburger 11 is as large as girl 10. The person playing the game will therefore perceive hamburger 11 as fantastically large. That unusual scale will help to burnish the image of hamburger 11 in the player's memory as well as draw his attention to it while he plays the game.

Not shown in FIG. 1 are other characteristics which electronic games could apply to hamburger 11 which cannot be shown in unanimated line-drawings. Hamburger 11 will compress as girl 10 steps or pushes on it. That action will be accompanied by squishing and slurping sounds...

Yeah, the explanations are weird too, sometimes.

Sorry for all the words, I just wanted to make it as clear as possible to people that if they're ever curious about stuff they see on Context-Free Patent Art, it's usually pretty easy to find out what the deal is.

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thatswhywelovegermany · 21 hours

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Rübezahl

Rübezahl is the mountain spirit and forest demon of the Giant Mountains between Silesia and Bohemia. Numerous legends and folk tales are associated with him.

The origin of the name Rübezahl is not clear. Some sources say that it is a compound of the ancient personal name Riebe and the Middle High German word Zagel (tail), which could explain depictions of Rübezahl as a caudate demon.

A legend tells a different story how Rübezahl got his name: According to this story, Rübezahl kidnaps the king's daughter Emma, whom he wants to marry, into his underground kingdom. He tries to satisfy her longing for her home with turnips that she can transform into any shape she wants. But the turnips wither. Finally, the woman promises him her hand if he tells her the number of turnips in the field. If he fails, he has to let her go. The mountain spirit immediately sets to work. To be sure that the number is correct, he counts again and again, but comes to a different result every time. Meanwhile, the prisoner flees to her fiancé prince Ratibor on a magic turnip that has been transformed into a horse and mocks the demon by addressing him as Rübezahl. Therefore, he becomes very angry when he is called by this nickname. The correct form of address is “Lord of the Mountains”. Another respectful term is “Herr Johannes”. (“Mr. John”).

According to legend, Rübezahl is a giant moody mountain demon. The first collector of Rübezahl legends, Johannes Praetorius, described Rübezahl as a very ambivalent "spirit of contradiction" who could appear fair and helpful one moment, and deceitful and capricious the next. Writer, critic, and folk tale collector Johann Karl August Musäus wrote: "For friend Rübezahl, you should know, is of the nature of a genius, capricious, impetuous, strange; mischievous, rude, immodest; proud, vain, fickle, today the warmest friend, tomorrow strange and cold; at times good-natured, noble, and sensitive; but in constant contradiction with himself; silly and wise, often soft and hard in two moments, like an egg that falls into boiling water; mischievous and honest, stubborn and pliable; according to the mood, how humor and inner urge make him feel at first sight of every thing."

The mountain demon appears to people in various forms. In particular, he appears as a monk in an ash-grey robe, but also as a miner, squire, craftsman and in similar shapes and disguises, but also in the shape of an animal or as an object (tree stump, stone, cloud).

Rübezahl is the weather lord of the Giant Mountains. He unexpectedly sends lightning and thunder, fog, rain and snow down from the mountain, while everything was still bathed in sunshine a moment ago.

He is generally friendly to good people, teaches them remedies and gives gifts especially to the poor; but if he is mocked, he takes severe revenge, for example by bringing on storms. Sometimes hikers are led astray by him. He is said to have a garden of miraculous herbs, which he defends against intruders. Humble gifts from the mountain spirit, such as apples or leaves, can be turned into gold through his power, just as he can occasionally turn money paid to him into worthless currency.

The oldest records of the figure of Rübezahl are from the 16th century, but it is thought that the legend is at least a century older. At first he was just a local legendary figure who only later became known nationwide.

#german mythical creatures #rübezahl

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merakiui · 1 day

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Step brother riddle

I am a freak for stepcest.

Step-brother Riddle........ 👁 👁

Can you really blame him for falling in love with you when you were the only true "friend" he had outside of Trey and Che'nya? While those two were banned from stepping foot on Rosehearts's property, he got to see you every day because you're his step-sibling. Even though his free time was very limited, he spent nearly all of it with you. You were the only good thing to come out of his childhood. Maybe part of his attraction to you is just the result of you being able to sympathize with his mother's abuse. You're the only one who knows him best and, likewise, he's the only one who knows you best.

Or that's what Riddle always thought. But you're sly and secretly rebellious. He'd never dream of doing anything behind his mother's back. He could never disobey the rules! You snuck out to go see some friends last summer????? Oh, he's so shocked. >_< you're much too daring. But he admires that quality just as he admires everything else about you. Riddle's very late to romance and sex because that was the last thing on his mind when he was spending every waking second studying. Now it sort of,,,,, hits him head-on and he's starting to notice things about you he hadn't before.

He definitely steals some of your laundry, whether clean or dirty, and he feels so guilty about it. T_T but he can't just return it to you now or else you might think he's weird. And he is. He's so strange when he goes shopping with his NRC friends and offhandedly remarks that that lingerie would look nice on you when he passes a storefront with Trey and Cater. And they both look at him like: "???? (Name)?? As in, your step-sibling (Name)??????"

But Trey and Cater are also freaks, so maybe they're the safest ones to learn of Riddle's not-so-platonic affections for you. orz Riddle's just so genuinely honest sometimes and a lot of things go over his head when it comes to things that aren't textbook. He has no idea what hook-up culture even is and Cater has to explain it to him word for word, and Riddle is horrified because if you're hooking up with others...... >:O !!!! what if you fall in love with them and then he won't be able to romance you and !!!!!

It's with great relief when he learns that most of the time there's nothing more to that sort of dynamic. It's just sex. But even that unsettles Riddle. Knowing that his beloved step-sibling is sleeping with others who aren't himself........ >_< it's troubling news. He'll have to remind you not to do that next time he comes back home for a break. Isn't he the better option, after all? :)

#twisted chit chat #tw: stepcest

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television-overload · 19 hours

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of our own making

(an X-Files fanfic)

Chapter 3/34 - soft blue sweater

[Read on AO3]

That weekend, it is with giddy excitement that Mulder and Scully spend the day at her apartment up to their eyeballs in paperwork, brochures, and Chinese food.

“Next question: where would we live? Together or separate?”

“Together,” she answers, before thinking she should probably soften that affirmative answer with an indifferent, “if that works for you.”

“It more than works for me,” he says with certainty. “I can ask Frohike for the number of the real estate agent who hooked him up with the lair. Or we could live here, either way.”

This is crazy. They’re moving so fast. What they’re thinking of doing doesn’t even make sense. Everyone will think they’ve well and truly lost their minds, and maybe they have!

“This is giving me a headache,” she admits, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.

“I’ll flag that as one to revisit later,” he says, jotting something down in a notebook. “This communicating thing is a lot of work, huh, Scully? No wonder we don’t do it more often.” He grins at her, more freely than he has in a long time.

She rubs a hand over her tired eyes. “No, it’s good. It’s good. I’m glad we’re doing this, Mulder.”

“Me too.”

He just looks so happy, she can’t help but smile back at him. The knot of uncertainty she’s been harboring as a result of her overthinking dissolves instantly in the radiance of his boyish enthusiasm. He’s all soft edges today, for once out of his G-man uniform. Instead, he wears that soft knit blue sweater she likes so much, and jeans that hug him in all the right places.

His socked feet rest on her coffee table while he flips through various documents, assembling them into binders with an attention to detail that she’s only ever seen him apply to their files. She’s mesmerized.

This might be her life. If they go through with this… He just said he’d live with her. Weekends spent together flash before her eyes, not having to say goodbye after one of their movie nights, just ‘goodnight.’ Takeout containers morph into home-cooked dinners at the table in her kitchen. Him making coffee in the morning. Driving to and from work together…

As much as the thought appeals to her, there’s one tiny detail missing that could put an end to this entire operation before it even begins.

“Mulder?” she asks, inadvertently cutting off whatever rambling he’s been doing while she wasn’t paying attention.

He glances up at her, pushing his glasses back up his nose to keep them from sliding off. The sight almost makes her forget what she was going to ask, as important as it was, but in this case, her concern far outweighs anything else.

“Do you think they’ll buy the co-parenting thing? I mean, I’m not really seeing a precedent for it in any of the literature I’ve looked at. Would they even accept our application?”

He’s quiet for a second. That second stretches into two.

“I’ve been thinking about that.”

She swears the entire block goes silent, not even the sound of a car on the street outside or the hum of heat pumping through her apartment. It makes his words feel heavy. Meaningful. Like she’s just dipped into unfamiliar and dangerous territory without knowing it.

“And...?”

He rubs the back of his neck, obviously struggling to verbalize whatever is going on in that beautiful mind of his.

And then he just outright says it.

“We could get married.”

Her eyes go wide.

Married.

“Mulder…”

He puts his hands up, halting her speech. “No, I’m serious. You just said we’d be living together. What’s the difference if we also happen to have a piece of paper that makes it official?”

There’s that look in his eye, the one he gets when he sits her down for one of his slide presentations. Never could she have imagined he’d have the same look when trying to convince her of marriage. It’s overwhelming.

“Unless,” he pauses, “you think you might meet someone sometime in the future, which is a completely valid concern…”

She has to stop him there. “That’s not it at all. I just– What if this doesn’t work out and we don’t get a baby? You’d be stuck with me and have nothing to show for it.”

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, the saying goes. If this fails, she could lose… everything. Is that a risk worth taking? Would he grow to resent her? Would they have to jump through legal hoops to undo all of this if things don’t go their way?

“And you could meet someone too,” she reminds him, “someone that could give you a real family. What then?”

He ducks his head, shaking it in a poor attempt to hide a wry smile. “What’s a real family, anyway?” he counters with a shrug, then grabs her hand. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be stuck with than you, Scully.”

Her eyes find his, searching them for something to clue her in to his thought process. Is he serious? Has he lost his mind? She finds nothing but bare honesty in his emerald depths. Bare honesty, and that hope she’s been seeing there since this whole idea came up. It’s a different look for him, but oh how she loves it. She wants to do everything in her power to keep it there.

“Would you believe me if I told you I’ve thought of asking you before?” he asks.

Her brows furrow, and though part of her wants to bolt, to declare this whole evening an error in judgment, she stays, looking at him warily. His thumb runs over her knuckles, soothing, as if he had known her inclination was to flee from this conversation. Stay , his touch says. Stay with me.

She shakes her head, lips quivering in an almost-smile, and says what he always loves to hear her say. “You’re crazy.”

“No, I’m not!” he counters, equally amused and defensive. “When you had cancer, and I had to fight tooth and nail to get to see you in the hospital…”

She swallows at the memory of waking to find him collapsed by the side of her bed, his hand clasping hers like a lifeline.

“Really?”

“Really,” he answers, his smile softening into fondness. “Though I’m pretty sure Bill would have killed me.”

That brings out a laugh, which Scully shyly hides behind her hand as she wipes it across her nose. When had she started tearing up?

“We’ll buy you a helmet and some shoulder pads, then,” she concedes teasingly.

His mouth quirks up in a smile, knowing precisely what is implied by that response.

“Is that a yes?”

She pauses for a moment, eyes locking with his. Is it? Is she about to agree to marry her best friend?

It should be more of a question, but it isn’t. For some reason, this feels like the most logical thing to do.

She nods.

He shifts on the couch, suppressing a smile and squeezing her hand before letting go. “Well alright then…” he says, crossing his arms in front of him for lack of anything better to do with them. “We can go to the courthouse whenever you’re ready. Or, if you want an actual wedding—”

“No,” she says, a little too quickly. “No, the courthouse will be fine.”

“As long as your mom doesn’t pool her money with Bill to order a hit on me,” he jokes.

“She wouldn’t do that,” she says, rolling her eyes. He does bring up an interesting point though, one that fills her with trepidation. “God, we’ll have to tell her, won’t we? And your mom. And Skinner .”

The dread increases with each name listed.

“We’ll figure that out as we go,” he assures her, placing a calming hand on her knee. “For now, this is just between us. Until you decide otherwise.”

“Just between us,” she agrees, letting his words melt her worries away.

-.-.-

He had lingered for a while in her doorway when the time came for him to go back to his apartment. It was awkward, but not in a way that might cause alarm in light of what they’d just agreed to do.

No, as crazy as it might sound, this was one decision neither of them could imagine regretting. The gravity of the situation, though, was what led to the uncharacteristic silence and shyness as she bade him farewell with an impulsive, last-minute hug. He had smiled, and walked backwards out the door, maintaining eye contact until she slowly shut the door between them.

She lies awake in her bed hours later, unable to sleep.

This morning, she was a perpetually single federal agent with a pipe dream of being a mother. Now, she’s engaged to her partner, and there’s partially filled out adoption paperwork with both his and her names on them burning a hole through her top desk drawer.

The Dana from seven years ago would tell her she’s lost her mind.

But then, that Dana also wouldn’t know how important her crackpot new partner would end up being in her life. Skeptical as she was, she’d hardly believe it anyway.

Engaged . She’s always thought about this day, how it would feel to have a man ask for her hand in marriage. She can say without a doubt that this is not how she expected it to go, but the disappointment one might expect in her situation is absent. They may not be going about this in the traditional way, but it is nothing less than what she’d expect with Mulder.

He had long since rewritten her thoughts on what a normal life was supposed to look like. Her eyes had been opened, the possibilities now seemingly endless instead of linear and predictable. Despite the heartache she has endured over the years, it’s worth it to live with a more complete view of the world. Sometimes, it feels like she and Mulder are the only ones who can see it.

Sighing, she rolls over, her gaze settling on her nightstand.

She shouldn’t. He could be sleeping.

All the same, the corded device beckons her. It’s a temptation she’s familiar with, although tonight it is particularly strong and irresistible.

Don’t, Dana. It’s not real. He’s not really your– Give him space.

She picks up the phone anyway.

Before she can even change her mind, she hears the line connect, and she greets him in the way he’s come to expect.

“Mulder, it’s me.”

She can almost hear him smile on the other end of the call, and all thoughts of this being a bad idea fly from her mind.

“Well if it isn’t the soon-to-be Mrs. Spooky Mulder,” he says jovially, sounding much too awake for her to have interrupted his sleep.

She rolls her eyes, but can’t help the flutter in her chest at his words. At the timbre of his voice, lazy and drawn out at this late hour. He can be endearing when he wants to be. A real sap at times.

“Hey, Scully. We’re engaged.”

“I know,” she speaks into the phone, curling in toward it and holding it with both hands up against her ear. Her pillow welcomes her into its embrace, and she sinks into it, grinning into the covers.

“We’re gonna give poor Skinner a heart attack,” he says with a laugh.

Their poor boss. He must have had no idea what he was getting into when he was assigned to oversee the X-Files.

“He’ll get over it,” she says dismissively.

She hears Mulder chuckle a little, the breathy sound tickling her ear. She can tell he’s tipping back in his rickety desk chair in his apartment by the rhythmic creak that sounds, and she pictures him with his feet up on the desk, maybe spinning his basketball around idly in his hands.

“I don’t know, this might break his heart, Scully,” he teases.

Scully rolls her eyes. “Oh, would you stop that? He does not have a thing for me.”

“He absolutely does, and so does every guy in the building.”

She almost asks, ‘Every guy?’ but thankfully catches herself before uttering those words. Sometimes she wonders, but then everything with Diana had shaken what she thought she knew about him. They are still working on getting back to where they were before. It’s far too fresh for her to make any suppositions about where they stand now.

They fall into a brief silence, each waiting for the other to speak first.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he finally asks, when it becomes clear she won’t tell him why she called unless prompted.

She sighs. “I can’t sleep.”

He hums softly in amusement, the sound rattling over the phone. “I don’t know if I’m really the expert you want to be talking to on that particular subject, Scully. Just what exactly do you want me to do about it?” he teases.

“Just talk to me,” she says softly, as if speaking quietly will somehow lessen the embarrassment she feels.

“Ah, so you want me to bore you to sleep. Got it,” he says, taking it in stride. “Which cryptid would you like to hear about tonight, Miss Scully?”

She closes her eyes, her lips tightening into a tired smile. “No monsters, Mulder. You know I find those way too fascinating.”

“Ha ha, Scully,” he says, laughing at her obvious joke. “Okay. How about this? There was this kid at my school growing up. Mark. One of twelve siblings in the same family.”

“Twelve?” she asks incredulously.

“Mm-hmm. All of them adopted.”

Her smile widens, and she burrows further into her pillow, tucking her comforter over her shoulders. She loves these little glimpses she gets into his old life, rare as they are. She doesn’t have to ask why he chose to tell her this one tonight of all nights. His motives are as clear as can be.

“They’d go to Disneyland every summer, all twelve of them plus their parents,” he continues. “Sam and I were so jealous. One of the girls was in the same grade as her, so we all hung out a lot. Well, not all of us. With that many siblings, there were bound to be some you just didn’t get along with. We had fun, though.”

“How’d they afford Disneyland with twelve children?” she asks sleepily.

“It was Martha’s Vineyard, Scully,” he answers simply. “They were filthy rich.”

She hums, feeling herself begin to relax at the soothing monotone of his voice. The line falls silent, but she knows he’s still there. She can hear the gentle sound of his breathing. She allows it to lull her into a state of restfulness.

“After Sam disappeared, it didn’t seem fair. He had so many siblings, while I lost the only one I’d ever have. I stayed away from him for a while after that. He was one of the only people at school that didn’t treat me like some criminal or freak after she was abducted, but I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him or his little sister anymore. It was too big a reminder of what I was missing.”

Scully’s heart aches as she listens. This bedtime story doesn’t have a happy ending, she knows. Though her eyes are closed, she feels a tear leak onto her pillow, hurting for the lonely little boy her partner had once been. She wishes, like she has so many times before, that she could have been there for him then like she is now.

His voice returns, crackling over the line. “Eventually I started going over there again,” he continues, “before they moved away. They were kind to me. Treated me like one of their own. It didn’t make up for Sam being gone, of course, but at least I wasn’t completely alone. And it taught me an important lesson, one I think I’m only just beginning to understand.”

“What’s that, Mulder?” Scully slurs, barely keeping awake but wanting to know the answer—this epiphany he’s had. She has to know how he can tell this story without breaking down into tears as she would if it were her own.

“You can choose your family,” he answers finally, as if it were the obvious conclusion to this story. “They might not have been connected by blood, but Mark’s family was connected by something stronger. Love .”

He breathes, perhaps lost in the memory of his childhood friend. Perhaps he’s contemplating the great mysteries and joys of the universe. Either could be possible for this deeply philosophical man.

“It seemed to work out pretty good for them.”

Scully’s heart blooms with emotion, her eyes filling with tears.

“It’s time I choose my family, Scully,” he says softly, his voice lowering to just above a whisper. “I hope one day I’ll find out what happened to my sister. I– I still need to have some closure, I think. But it feels good to hope for something else too, for a change. Something more than piecing together a family that was never together in the first place. So, thank you. You’re the one who showed me it was possible. I think I owe you more than everything, at this point.”

She smiles softly into her pillow, reminded of the feel of his breath on her lips that day in his hallway. It’s a thought she has come back to innumerable times since it happened, and though there have been some shake ups since then, it still brings her comfort.

She allows the memory to wash over her, covering her with a blanket of warmth and security.

And finally, she succumbs to the pull of sleep.

-.-.-

It’s quiet. He listens, recognizing the subtle change in her breathing, and he knows she’s fallen asleep. He could hang up, call it a night, but he selfishly isn’t ready to.

There’s still one more thing he wants to say.

“I choose you, Scully,” he whispers into the phone, too cowardly to say it when she might hear him. “You’re my family. And I can’t wait to see how it grows from here.”

~~~

Lovely tag list ♡: [if you would like to be added or removed, let me know!]

@today-in-fic @ao3feed-msr @agent-troi @angegova @baronessblixen @calimanc @captainsolocide @cutemothman @danasculls @deathsbestgirl @edierone @enigmaticxbee @figureofdismay @frogsmulder @hippocampouts @invidiosa @monaiargancoconutsoy @numinousmysteries @primrose19 @randomfoggytiger @skelavender @skylarksong @slippinmickeys @stephy-gold @teenie-xf @the-redhead-in-a-dress @vincentsleftear @whovianderson

#msr #txf #x files #xf fanfic #mulder and scully #my fanfiction #fox mulder #dana scully #of our own making #ooom #msr adoption fic #adoption

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nin-carab-nidh-madt · 3 days

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I have thought on Jadzia Dax from Star Trek Deep Space 9.

I'm currently rewatching the show (midway season 2), probably my 4th watch through over 8 years? My first time with slightly more youtube-essay-driven media analysis skills. I'm enjoying picking up on a lot more things than I used to but there's one thing that bugs me above all else.

Jadzia Dax doesn't really have a strongly defined character that shines through.

I've spent a while thinking about it. Obviously as a science officer its a little harder to tell stories the audience can understand and relate to compared to Odo's murder investigating or Sisko's exasperated diplomacy, but her stories have issues greater than that.

Both the stories centred on Dax, in season 1 where she stands trial for a crime supposedly committed by a former host, and in season 2 where someone tries to steal her symbiont, are about things that happen to Dax. Not the things Dax does. She is neither the perspective character through which we can see the world of Star Trek, with her own unique views and feelings, nor is she the one actively moving the plot forwards. She's either the victim who sacrifices herselr or quite literally refuses to do anything. Unfortunately this is quite a common failing of writing that's easy to fall into, writing about a character instead of the character making decisions that drive the plot. Its one that sci fi writing at the time seemed to do quite often with a lot (but not all) female characters. Ivanova and Talia from Babylon 5 fall victim to this too, especially in early seasons. In contrast, Major Kira, and even Ezri Dax later on have stronger characterisation and are the centre of their own stories.

I doubt this was intentional, its clear through the successes of writing other characters in the show that the writers, actors, and showrunners are trying to make everyone alive and meaningful, so what went wrong?

Looking at Jadzia Dax's character, I think what's clearly missing is a strong drive for her character. No real desires or vulnerabilities. No questions either. To provide constrasting examples:

Odo (who gets almost too much screen time in season 1) is clearly driven by a sense of justice no matter whatever starfleet rules say. He's in constant conflict with Quark, ever vigilant, somewhat isolated from other people. No one ever asks "Why does Odo do what he does?" His motivations are clear, and they even tie it up with an extra motive that's very plot relevant: the mystery of where he comes from. All things a single episode writer can use and explore.

Major Kira has her own conflict with starfleet, her desire to do right by her own people, to get justice for Bajor, and always stand up for the underdog which creates really good stories as she struggles with her own values and constantly has to make choices that affect the story.

Bashir wants acclaim, accomplishment, romance, and also for everyone to like him. Quark wants profit without putting himself at risk. O'Brien wants to just do his job and go home to his family. Sisko wants to hold everything together with the responsibility of peace and reason on his shoulders while singlehandedly raising his son. Jake wants community, friends, and freedom in his life. Funnily enough Ezri Dax has far better drive. Trying to figure out what she wants in life, handling this enormous change and overwhelming personality, and her own lack of confidence that she's useful to anyone sometimes. She grows and changes more over the course of a season than we ever see in early seasons Jadzia.

What does Jadzia Dax want?

I think in attempting to make a wise 300 year old person who's seen everything, they accidentally wrote themselves into a corner. Jadzia has no strong motivations to do much at all. She does fine as a secondary character, and I love how her friendship with Sisko plays out on screen, but beyond being surprisingly enlightened about a lot of things as the result of age and experience there's no drive there.

And so no drive or motivation, and no stories told from her perspective. We have ourselves a problem.

I thought for a while if I could find a solution to the issue rather than just offer criticism. I originally tried writing an outline for an episode. Jadzia would be a fantastic protagonist for any wacky sci fi short story concept that required a scientist to explore, such as time travel paradoxes, simulations, weird space anomolies that do "plot relevant thing" that she would be perfectly posed to actually explore instead of "technobabble and tap console" until the problem is solved.

Then I decided that all we really needed to have a framework any writer could use is to establish a strong character motivation for her. Here's my shot at it.

Jadzia Dax, in harmony with seven lifetimes of experience, is an extremely competent twenty seven year old woman. She can almost certainly do the job of anyone on the station better than they can. Fix a computer? Better than O'Brien can. First aid? She's there and solved the issue before Julian can get there. Solve a murder? A past host was an invesigator of course she can to Odo's chagrin. She has better ideas of what Sisko can do to bring the Bajorans towards the federation. Hell she's the best representative of federation values on that station and could constantly be presenting that of the story.

Dax struggles to hold herself back when she sees her friends failing at what she can solve the problem for them. She tries not to, that's what her training tells her to do. But out here on the edge of Federation space where there's constantly lives on the line? She finds herself interfering in other people's work more and more often. She just doesn't want it do be done wrong. She pushes herself hard to do too many jobs. She doesn't sleep or eat enough while telling everyone else to take care of themselves better. After a while people start relying on her. It turns from her helping to her having those responsibilities. Pilot. Diplomat. Linguist. Researcher. Mechanic. Leader. So much emotional support for her friends because everything they're suffering she's been through herself. It becomes too much for her and you could make the core of one story her just crashing. Learning how to balance her experience with giving room to other to shine through and solve their own problems, which they're very capable of doing. There's plenty more detail to elaborate on but I think this gives a core drive and conflict that lasts a character a couple of seasons at least to explore and grow through.

I happily invite thoughts as to whether my original observations are astute, or wether you think there aren't any problems with how Jadzia's passivity plays out in the show. If you think there are problems, do you think my perscribed solution helps fix them? How would you go about it?

#star trek #star trek ds9 #ds9 #jadzia dax #babylon 5 #writing

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astarionposting · 19 hours

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tell us more about ren she’s so pretty i need lore

Hello anon!! I am so flattered u want to know more about her! Ren is an alternate universe version of my usual Tav. I’m much better at storytelling visually, so I’ll explain some of my visual choices I’ve made for her character, which contains a bit of the lore I have created thus far. (also thank u for the excuse to just create a character dump post for her lol - i spent way too much time on this)

content warnings: mentions of dissection, scarring one's own face, unhealthy obsessions, stalking, religious trauma... just general fucked up Bhaalist things. + spoilers for BG3

EYES

A keypoint in her design are her eyes; Ren has the same eyes as The Dark Urge's Fiend butler, Sceleritas Fel, reflecting her origin as a creation of Bhaal Himself. Similar to other creations like her and Sceleritas, she was made with the purpose of serving and assisting Bhaal's Chosen.

SCARS

The right side of her face is deliberate scarring of her own doing during her priestess "training". Her body scars, however, are the result of the experimentation performed on her in her early training days. These experiments are often done with the purpose of making unnatural "improvements".

HANDS

I really love how Scarlet Witch's fingertips will stain black as a result of her use of the Darkhold's chaos magic spells, so I took that inspiration and headcannon that Ren's hands/arms do something similar from her "training" as a priestess of Bhaal and her use of necromancy/shadow magic and rituals.

For her general aesthetic, I was mainly inspired by the concept art for Bhaal for BG3 and this art of a priestess of Bhaal. She often wears a large dusty cloak over her usual gown. Placed on the top of her cloak, she will also sometimes wear a crown of thorns, mimicking the "spiky" style of common Bhaalist attire. During their time in the temple, before the events of BG3, she often adorned her face with a broken piece of a human skull. Since her coat is quite heavy, she walks a little hunched over… kind of like a creepy gremlin. Additionally, she will wear a small Bhaalist charm at the collar of her cloak.

Underneath, she wears her typical black gown; the top half resembles Orin’s carapace and blends into her skirt, with leg slits for better mobility, of course! When she isn’t wearing her cloak, her hair is loosely tied back and styled into a collection of braids, accessorized with Bhaalist jewelry.

*Keep in mind I am not a lore expert in terms of D&D deities or Bhaalist lore in general. I took some stuff from the forgotten realms wiki but also just made some stuff up lol, so this NOT D&D or BG3 lore accurate.

Also, again, warnings for unhealthy relationships/obsessions, as well as brief mentions of torture but not in detail.

THEY ARE BHAALISTS THEY HAVE ISSUES!!!!

Similarly to Sceleritas Fel, Ren has a lot of "care" for The Dark Urge. She favours him over Orin, and often clashed heads with her... but of course I have to have some doomed yuri content too!!!!!! so maybe they kissed once or twice >:) (but waaay before the events of BG3) Her "training" as a priestess of Bhaal consisted of torture, religious indoctrination, and extreme mental corruption/manipulation, especially by Orin. As implied before, she faced experiments in order to "improve" her usefulness to Bhaal and His Chosen. As a result, she is not the most stable person you'll meet. She is mainly chaotic evil aligned, however, her final loyalties will always lie with The Dark Urge, and she is accepting of his resistance/redemption path, as well as his acceptance/murder hobo path. She is essentially a certified Real One (also doesn't rlly vibe with Bhaal after he kills her evil Dragon boyfriend yk). The tadpole in someway also helped "release" her mind of Bhaal's influence, and while she is still an obsessive and violent girlie, she can be persuaded to not be a total murder hobo and sometimes even decides on her own to go against Bhaal's wishes (she still cool with murder though). As I previously mentioned, Ren was created by Bhaal to assist His Chosen in his duties and leading the temple, as most priestesses/priests of Bhaal do. She is more of a companion and advisor to The Dark Urge, rather than a servant like Sceleritas Fel. She is deeply (obsessed) "in-love" with The Dark Urge, and supports him over Orin. A while before the whole tadpoles, absolute, blah blah blah stuff, her and Orin had a brief history, but it was moreso Orin's jealousy of what Durge had. Her in-game class is a Bhaalist class mod! It is very fun so far, and she just levelled up to level 3 and can now has the ability Verminous Metamorphosis, so she can turn into a… RAAAAT!! 🐀 sorry, Astarion :( However, I see her as a combo of this and a death cleric of Bhaal. In terms of how her story is going in the BG3 campaign, i still haven't fully fleshed anything out yet! I would assume she would have a large impact on Durge's memory loss. Maybe she will have her own gaps in memory, but knows they have a reason to go to Baldur's Gate. As for other durge events, I believe she would be proud of The Dark Urge for such a "beautiful display of gore!" after Alfira night lol. I'm still undecided if I want to do redemption or murder hobo durge... I don't want to kill Isobel so I'm probably going to headcannon that Bhaal tasks The Dark Urge with killing her, as a way to test if he is "losing his way", or if he cares more about the life of a "mere servant of Bhaal" than his own "birthright" as Bhaal's Chosen.

For now I am just going with the flow of the game and doing some fun photo and gif series of Ren and Durge's adventure in my Durgetav playthrough!

♡ PLAYLIST

dividers made by me with canva; graphics by @/brand314195326 and @/dhtgip. screenshots by me ♡

#oc: Bhaalist Priestess!Ren #my inbox #bg3 #bg3 oc #bg3 tav #sorry im still not great at writing lol #i really like a lot of these photos so ill probably make them their own posts too!!

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thorraborinn · 3 days

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Hi there! I was wondering, would you know where I could find anything on like, social taboos involving marriage? I wanted to know if there's anything in the sagas or maybe in archaeology/anthropology that touches on forbidden unions. I know the goddess Lofn is cited as one who grants permission to such people to be together, but I wanted to know if we have anything on what these forbidden unions could look like? Off the top of my head, I imagine feuding families to be a good start, but I can't find much else on the subject. Thank you!

Marriages in Old Norse society were arranged by families (usually between the prospective husband and the father or other male relative of the prospective bride), and more for political and economic reasons than for personal ones. Some people were married specifically because their families were feuding, to bring the feud to an end (often the people involved wanted out but failure to retaliate could have consequences; uniting the families could end the feud in a way that saved face. In Old English a woman who is married into an enemy family for this reason is called freoðu-webbe, 'frith weaver'). Frands Herschend went as far as proposing to see women in Iron Age Scandinavia generally as hostages (in the sense that Freyr and Njörðr are hostages in Ynglinga saga). If the sagas are relatively accurate there does seem to have been an understanding that the family should be arranging things such that the woman is happy with the result, but they weren't legally obligated to.

In this kind of situation, a marriage that's forbidden would be basically any that either side of the family, especially the woman's closest male relatives, opposes. The reasons were probably diverse and personal, and not generally based on widespread taboos. Most of it probably had to do with money and social hierarchy.

Feuding certainly played a role here, or rather we should say relations based in reciprocity, whether positive or negative, did. As I said, marriages were sometimes arranged specifically to bring hostile families into a single family and end the conflict, but if one side thought they had the upper hand and stood to gain by continuing the hostilities then they would surely not permit such a marriage. Marriages might also be arranged out of obligation to more powerful people.

In fact, it might be possible to frame any actual social or legal prohibitions on marriage that did exist as protections for the woman from being married off to someone she didn't want, rather than restrictions on her freedom, because she hardly had any. We can surely consider divorce in a similar way, which was permitted in certain circumstances.

The main restriction that we do have evidence for is marrying someone who is too close a relation. There were probably situations where the financially or politically advantageous thing to do is to get two close cousins married to each other and it may have actually happened, but it's illegal in the laws we have a record of. This may have been less regulated in heathen times.

Of course, there could have been culturally-assumed restrictions that weren't formally prohibited in the law. There's speculation that, while a Nordic man marrying a non-Norse woman was not uncommon, happening the other way around was not generally permitted. This is supposedly reflected in the mythology, where the male gods marry jötunn women but the goddesses do not marry jötunn men. However, there is archaeological evidence from the Vendel period that contradicts this (the book I'm getting this from is over 20 years old, so by now there could be contradictory evidence from the Viking age too, but I'm not sure), so if there was ever such an ethnic taboo it must have either not been universal, or developed later. I'll also remind that there is a contradiction in the mythology as well; Gefjun isn't described as marrying a jötunn but she does have kids with one, which scholars do typically count as a violation of an ethnic taboo, sometimes as grounds to reject the myth itself as "impossible" (Lindow's description).

A lot of this may have varied by class. We mostly know about the land-owning class. It's hard to say whether poorer people would have even less freedom over whom they married because of their dependence on land-owners, or if they had more freedom because there was less social and financial stake in it. It seems likely that their marriages weren't as regulated, but their ability to actually move from place to place was the major limiting factor.

I'm not aware of any sources for it, but I have no trouble believing that illegal or otherwise unsanctioned marriage happened. The thing that kept people in line was inheritance. So if people were in a position where they could turn down their inheritance (whether because they had another source of resources or because their families were so poor their inheritance was negligible anyway), and could have a place to live, they could probably just do what they wanted.

So I think for the most part, if we were to picture Lofn's intercession as historical events, we might picture the site of those intercessions as kind of distant from the actual marriage, like opening opportunities to get by while forgoing one's inheritance, or unexpected changes elsewhere in the social network. Or a simpler example would be a woman successfully convincing her father, brother, or other male representative to let her do what she wanted.

This is a little out of step with Snorri's etymological explanation of Lofn's name as related to 'permission' but as I explained here I think the actual etymological meaning of her name was 'hope'.

Of course a lot of heathens read Lofn's description in the Edda as affirming of marriages that deviate from gender and sexual norms, which the text does in fact leave room for but probably isn't what Snorri had in mind. There's a lot of room for speculation about how this may have been relevant in pre-Christian times but it would be difficult to move it beyond speculation.

Unfortunately quite a lot of this is already pretty speculative, because of how much later our sources concerning marriage are than the time when Lofn may have actually been recognized. Frankly, the same applies to our sources for Lofn, and the time when she may have been recognized. If I'm right about the etymology of her name then I think it's at least a partial vindication of Snorri but that does not necessarily mean that his description of her is entirely reliable.

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cryptocism · 2 months

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Since I think about clones like I’m getting paid for it, I've been rotating those alternate universe "what if Bart and Thad were actually raised together" scenarios in my brain, with Thad either post-redemption-arc or pre-villainy. Because adjusting Thad's character to fit an ally role while still keeping true to his core motives and personality is so so fascinating to me.

Like I think there's an immediate first instinct to slot Thad into a "bad" twin category: ie rebellious and prickly, doesn't get along with people, mean lil shit. And obviously it's not wrong bc we're outside the realm of canon, but the reading still feels a little left of center.

Because Thad is mean and prickly in canon. In the Impulse comics he belittles Bart and Bart’s friends/family constantly in his appearances. He loves to goad, and monologue about his own superiority and intelligence. He’s very Not Nice, and he causes many problems, and he even does it on purpose.

But, I think it’s important to consider the context. From the jump Thad knows very little about anything except which team he’s on and who he’s playing for. He gets his orders from an unseen authority and he carries out his tasks because success means his team wins.

For all his self-aggrandizing talk, everything he does is in service of an end goal that doesn't actually center him. He's trying to get revenge for grievances he's never personally suffered, retribution for actions never committed against him. Everything he does is on someone else's behalf.

Thad sees in black and white, us or them. Up until the final few issues of Mercury Falling, Bart and co. are Thad's enemies, of course he's not going to be nice.

So Thad's motivation seems pretty simple: Thawne Supremacy™.

But it’s in Mercury Falling where this starts to fall apart, and the real core of his motivation gets revealed. Thad pretends to be Bart and suddenly Helen is nice to him. Bart’s friends think he’s funny. Bart’s teachers are impressed with his grades. Max ruffles his hair and gives him hugs and tells him he’s done a good job.

If he was actually an inherently mean and standoffish character, if Thad actually had significant personal stake in the Thawne VS Allen conflict, the weight of such tiny acts of kindness wouldn’t completely break him the way that it does in canon.

Thad thinks his goal is superiority and revenge and Thawne Supremacy™, but he's chasing validation. Thad doesn’t have a personal stake in the Thawne VS Allen conflict. He wouldn't get much satisfaction if he actually destroyed Bart and his family. Thad's personal victory would be the recognition after the fact: the praise and attention from the other Thawnes (a group of people he has literally never met) for his success.

He wants validation. That's basically it. And the fact that he gets it so easily from Bart's family and friends doesn't align with how he's told himself things are supposed to work.

Actually tangentially, Bart and Thad’s respective relationships to authority is so diametrically opposed and tbh kind of subversive in a superhero narrative. Where the hero is the one carving his own path without regard to social or societal rules, no fucks to give what anybody thinks of it. And the villain is a chronic people-pleaser.

Just based on Thad’s reaction to simple praise and affection from Max I really think Thad’s motivation has more to do with the response he gets than whatever the details are of any given task. He has no actual personal convictions beyond getting positive attention, and whatever he did have crumbled as soon as Bart’s friends laughed at his joke one time. Which of course leads into the core of his whole conflict at the end of Mercury Falling. He cares too much about Bart’s friends and family now, he doesn’t want to kill them, but worse than that, he’s faced with the sudden realization that he’s on the wrong side.

The Allens gave Thad everything he actually wanted and needed, but his conception of himself is inexorably tied to the Thawnes: who gave him jack shit. These two facts are in opposition to each other, and he can’t reconcile the reality of it.

Anyway all this to say, in an AU where Bart and Thad are raised together or Thad gets an actual redemption arc etc etc, I think my personal take on Thad’s personality whether it be pre-or-post-villainy would be one that is extremely socially conscious. He is much more of a people-person than Bart. Whether he's actually accurate in assessing people's feelings and how to respond to them can be hit or miss, but he wants to behave in a way that gets people to like him.

Pretending to be Bart isn’t remarked upon as, like, a difficult task for Thad. In his internal monologue he’s literally bragging to himself about how easy it is. But what’s especially notable to me is where his act differs from Bart's typical MO. Everyone notices, and lots of people comment, and presumably if Thad didn’t have the excuse of Max’s illness to “motivate” Bart to do better he would’ve been found out immediately. And those things are, specifically: paying attention in class, doing his chores, staying on task, and being helpful around the house. The one thing about Bart he chooses not to emulate is Bart’s rebelliousness.

Thad wants to prove himself, constantly, to whatever authority he respects (probably Max in this scenario) and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. In contrast to Bart, who only listens to authority when the shit they're saying actually makes sense to him. It’s excessively difficult to convince him to go against his own interests. (And I think a key part of that is Bart’s security in knowing that no matter how much he fucks up or doesn’t listen, the people he loves will always love him back.)

Thad’s got the people-pleaser in him that has to deserve whatever he’s given. It’s why he’s happiest when he’s given a clear goal or objective to complete, because it gives him an opening to prove himself.

All this to say that if we are quantifying Bart and Thad as a "good" or "bad" twin, in the eyes of every authority: Bart is the bad twin. Bart is the bad twin, Bart is the bad twin. Bart is the one who doesn’t care about school and whose grades vary wildly depending on his personal interest. He’s the one who goes off to do dangerous shit for fun and gets in trouble constantly and doesn’t do his chores and is thoroughly unconvinced by any authority figure trying to sell him bullshit.

Thad is the one who needs to know all the rules just so he can experience the joy of following them. Relentlessly obedient. He'll put all his effort into doing all the right things that’ll endear him to whoever he wants to impress - meaning he’s the asshole who reminds the teacher about the assigned homework. Bart might be the most popular boy in school, but Thad is a pleasure to have in class.

Like Thad can (and should) still be high-strung and short-tempered and sarcastic and edgy and mean, because he is. But he can’t be doing all that without rhyme or reason. Colouring every interaction has to be that one-zero binary of ally or enemy. He needs to have somebody he’s proving himself to: a team he’s on and a team he’s against. He’s not an inherently rebellious character. He can go up against The Enemy, whoever he deems as such, but it has to be in service of a hypothetical future in which somebody eventually tells him he did a great job.

And in the interest of continuing to beat a dead horse, it connects to their respective upbringings. Thad and Bart were both raised in VR, but Bart’s experience had the side effect of basically hard-wiring him against insecurity. His world was a playground tailor-made for him, and he was never made to feel bad or insufficient about any aspect of himself. His first interaction with a real human person was Iris moving heaven and earth to save him, without him knowing her, without her knowing him, with no reasoning for the act needed beyond Being Her Grandson. Which is probably a significant factor in why Bart moves through the world with frankly atomic levels of autistic swag.

Thad’s VR upbringing installed self-consciousness in his psyche before any other personality trait. As in: he is immediately made conscious of himself and his relationship with everyone he will ever encounter. He’s told two things: he’s a clone of someone else (inherently derivative, lesser) and that he was made to be superior (a status to achieve). Which is such an instant clarifier for Thad’s everything. Where superiority is a condition that everyone either has, or does not. It’s the one-zero binary again: are they better than me or am I better than them. Being above others is mandatory, and if his superiority is ever challenged by hard evidence or god forbid nuance Thad’s brain physically cannot take it. He needs to be better, to be worse is unthinkable, and there is no other way to be.

And this status of better or worse is, crucially, not up to Thad to decide. He needs The Authority to validate him. Bart never tries to prove himself because he has nothing to prove. Thad’s entire identity hinges on the self-worth he gets from doing a Good Job.

It is such an inherent part of his motives in the Impulse comics canon, which is why it always feels a little off when he’s interpreted as a jackass indiscriminately.

Like I don't think he needs everyone to like him. But I do think he has either one person or a set of very particular people that he needs to like him. Everyone else is either in that circle or outside of it.

(Which is why Bart is such a great foil for Thad tbh. There is no set of words or behaviors that’ll change Bart’s opinion of Thad, because Bart is unaffected by obedience or charm. So ironically Bart is probably one of few people that Thad doesn’t bother to put on even a little bit of an act for.)

While Bart goes with his instincts, his personal beliefs and convictions at all times, Thad is hyper-conscious of big-picture goals. They balance each other out that way. Thad's keeping track of whatever expectations he has placed on him, and how his actions reflect on him and the team beyond short-sighted solutions. He's a team player. AND he's an asshole.

#soapbox #dc #thad thawne #thaddeus thawne #inertia #bart allen #impulse #like he cannot be mean indiscriminately... u must interrogate WHY hes mean and to whom #if hes being raised with Max and Helen he would not intentionally do anything to make their lives more difficult #if hes being raised by Meloni same situation #he needs to be trying to get validation from SOMEWHERE u know #and of course he'll mess up and hurt the people he loves or wants to impress he is a human being #but while that can sometimes be the result #that is never the Goal u kno #not his Core Motivation #i feel like the more i talk about this the less sense im making

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sunderwight · 4 months

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Bingqiu roleswap where disciple Shen Yuan knows he's gay, and figures out that he has a big huge crush on his handsome Shizun, but also concludes nearly at once that he's not going to be drawing Luo Binghe's eye any time soon. Firstly, Luo Binghe is notoriously straight. Secondly, even if he weren't, he wouldn't go for his scrawny untalented nerd of a disciple! Shen Yuan's not bad looking, not before or after transmigrating, but he's neither a beautiful nor a hot manly man, and he assumes if Luo Binghe were into dudes he'd be into the same kinds of twunks that Shen Yuan likes. Guys on his own level, etc etc.

Plus Luo Binghe hated the original disciple Shen, and only started to warm up to the transmigrated version after Shen Yuan got injured in front of him trying to stop the other disciples on the peak from killing a small animal. For some reason, Luo Binghe brought Shen Yuan medicine. He got even nicer after Shen Yuan distracted the skinner demon by trying to convince it to take his skin instead of Luo Binghe's, and then again when Shen Yuan successfully fought off a demon invader -- though initially when Luo Binghe volunteered him for that job, he thought it was an assassination attempt. His heart was in his throat when Luo Binghe nearly took a poisoned blow for him, but luckily he reacted more quickly and got hit by the thorns instead. His heavenly demon blood took care of the poison, and he managed to convince everyone that he narrowly avoided getting cut at all.

Shen Yuan's careful not to read anything into it when Luo Binghe finds out about his, erm, uncomfortable dormitory situation and moves him into the side room, or when he completely messes up trying to make dinner and Luo Binghe takes over cooking and bans him from the kitchen (he swears he's not actually that bad at cooking, he just never had to use a kitchen without a microwave or an electric hot plate before...)

After all, it's not like Luo Binghe is cooking for him, he's just making food he likes and letting Shen Yuan eat it too! Because he's nice! He's way nicer than the book gave him credit for being, see, clearly Shen Yuan was correct in signing up for his defense squad, "top ten worst villains of all time" his ass that poll was nonsense...

Unfortunately, though, the plot's still gotta plot. Shen Yuan is heartbroken when the Immortal Alliance Conference rolls around and his shizun stabs him and throws him down into the Endless Abyss. Heartbroken, but not surprised. After all, it was always going to go this way, wasn't it?

But at least, now that it's done, he has some agency in how he reacts to it. He's changed the story enough that he doesn't need to go get revenge. Maybe Luo Binghe's still the villain of his story, maybe that was inevitable, but some heroes let the villains get away. Don't they? It's all part of that noble, breaking the cycle of abuse type stuff. He can be that kind of hero. He can let it go. As long as he avoids Luo Binghe altogether, it should be fine, right? It's not like he's obligated to turn people into human sticks. He asked the system, he's definitely not!

Technically he's not even required to conquer the demon realms. He just has to get out of the Abyss and the be sufficiently cool and/or tragic. Conquest is just one means of doing that, and not even Shen Yuan's preferred, since he doesn't exactly want to rule over anybody. Going around the demon realms beating up some jackasses and rescuing some damsels in distress and becoming sworn brothers with Shang Qinghua, one of the current demon kings, is suitable. He definitely doesn't want to marry any of the damsels he encounters (thank fuck the system lets him off the hook for that!)

But eventually he has to go back to the human world. Not only is it mandated by the system, but he also misses living there. The demonic realms are in many ways better than expected, plus a lot of the monsters are really cool, but he misses the weather and plants and the people he's more accustomed to being around.

He misses Qing Jing Peak, if he's being honest with himself. Shizun's cooking and the bamboo forest and the crisp mountain breezes, the comforts of home.

Not that he can actually go back there in specific. Of course not. If he did that, Luo Binghe would try to kill him, or else the system would try and make him kill Luo Binghe. Bad ideas all around. No, he can't go back to Qing Jing Peak, but he can go find someplace nicer than the demon realms at least. He just has to keep a low profile, which shouldn't be hard since the original goods did that even while actively scheming to kill his former master!

Except.

Everywhere he goes, suddenly Luo Binghe is also there?!

Good thing Shen Yuan thought to take a page out of the book of Luo Binghe's actual love interest, Liu Mingyan, and start wearing a veil. He just didn't want any randos who might have seen him at the Immortal Alliance Conference or on any of the other missions his shizun sent him on to recognize him. But one minute he's investigating a strange case in Jinlan City, and the next the streets are full of Huan Hua cultivators (Shen Yuan has no intention of joining them, that's the path the original took to getting revenge! He doesn't want revenge!), and then Luo Binghe and Sect Leader MBJ and Peak Lord SHL show up, and SY is ducking down alleys and hiding behind columns, just trying to stay out of the way until the lockdown on Jinlan lifts and he can leave.

Except...

Luo Binghe really isn't acting like himself?

He looks like he hasn't been eating or sleeping well. There are dark circles around his eyes, and something almost melancholy in his countenance. And he's dressed entirely in white, none of the usual Qing Jing greens and blues anywhere to be seen. Of even greater concern, he's being reckless. Shen Yuan can't stop himself from rushing out when he sees his former shizun get infected by a sower demon.

Luckily, it's been some years since the last time they saw one another. Shen Yuan's gained a few inches in height, so he's almost at eye-level with his old master now, and though he's still more slender than bulky he's picked up some totally new styles from training the demon realms. He doesn't move the same way he used to. With that, plus the veil, it's enough for him to quickly swallow back his words as he grabs Luo Binghe and quickly administers a cure for the sower infection.

Well, he has one of course. He wouldn't need it himself, heavenly demon blood and all, but his time running around playing hero in the demon realms meant he rescued a lot of humans from such fates. Which is hard to do if you don't have a cure to their afflictions, but between him and Shang Qinghua, sourcing such things was almost easy.

Luo Binghe looks at him like he's just seen a ghost. The other Cang Qiong sect members are alarmed by SY suddenly accosting one of their own and of course find him suspicious, so he runs away right after, and then he has to lose Sha Hualing's pursuit in the city.

But what else could he do? He manages to evade the system's attempts to railroad him into meeting Gongyi Xiao, avoids the rest of the Cang Qiong crowd, and drops some of the cure through the current Qian Cao peak lord's window to get the incident sorted out. Then he flees and puts a good amount of distance between himself, Jinlan City, and every righteous sect he can think of.

The only problem is that after this point, Luo Binghe is everywhere.

Any time Shen Yuan stays in one place for longer than a few days, Qing Jing disciples start turning up. Any time he takes a job hunting some cool-sounding monster or pursuing some interesting tome of knowledge, the better to satisfy the system, it seems like Luo Binghe has selected and gone after the exact same target! Which is especially annoying because back when SY was a disciple, Luo Binghe was always assigning him to do this stuff. Since when does his chronic homebody master have an interesting in six-tailed scorpion lemurs or ancient spiritual kilns?

What's weirder, though, are the rumors.

It seems like any time SY stops at some well-populated place and asks for the latest gossip, he has to hear about how the Qing Jing peak lord lost his beloved disciple during the Immortal Alliance Conference, and mourned like a widow, and now wanders the earth in search of solace for his grief. Seeking something, possibly even the ghost of his dear disciple.

What nonsense! Luo Binghe threw SY into the Abyss himself. He had to do it, it was the plot! And also his obligation as a righteous cultivator, confronted with a "dangerous" half-demon. Does it sting? Yes it stings! That's why SY wouldn't just forget it! Despite logically knowing it's pointless, is there some part of him that wishes his master would have chosen differently? That thinks he should have known that no matter what kind of power Shen Yuan had, he would never use it to hurt people recklessly, or harm innocents, or especially not harm... well. It's pointless, his blood condemned him, and if there is some part of Luo Binghe which regrets what happened, it's doubtless just that he unwittingly harbored a monster for so long.

Which is fine and Shen Yuan would leave it at that, if the guy would just let him!

But no. Instead he has to deal with Luo Binghe turning up and asking him questions, trying to get him to talk (SY has no hope of disguising his voice, if he says anything he's not even sure it won't crack as he comes perilously close to tears instead, so he just stays silent), and then asking for his name, asking if he's mute, asking about his background, his sect, his kin. Is his a righteous cultivator? Where did he get that sword? (NOT Xin Mo, thanks, he used that thing once and then tossed it back into the Abyss before the portal finished closing behind him -- he knows a poisoned chalice when he sees one, although knowing the plot twist about that sword from the novel sure helped.) Where did he learn those forms? Is he... does he have a safe place to go home to? Someone to tend his injuries? Make sure he eats his meals?

SY, of course, stays silent. But it's difficult. Not only because Luo Binghe asks, but because he still looks... bad. Sunken, sorrowful, desperate almost. Shen Yuan can't figure out if he knows or not. Maybe he's unsure, maybe he's looking for SY to give him a sign, so that he can figure him out and then flip a switch and try to finish the job he started.

That can't happen. If they fight, SY will win, and he doesn't want to hurt Luo Binghe.

But even if Luo Binghe's not a heavenly demon, he is a highly accomplished cultivator, and it seems he's got his own breaking points to reach. Eventually he corners SY and gets a hand on his veil, and for a moment SY is sure he's going to rip it off, see his face, and confront him all "I knew it was you, you twisted evil demon, you won't escape justice a second time" and he feels a deep, icy terror close around his lungs--

Luo Binghe lets go of the veil before he can lift it.

But then something even worse happens. Because Shen Yuan's handsome, peerless, noble master breaks down. He falls to his knees, begging forgiveness, sobbing, clutching at his head like he's being driven to madness.

It all spills out of him, then. How he pushed his own dearest disciple into the Abyss, which obviously SY already knew, but also how he was apparently qi-deviating the whole time, and his senses could not differentiate between one kind of demonic "threat" and another. How he realized what he'd done only after he regained his senses hours later, and rushed back to the place where the tear to the Abyss had opened, but could not find a way in after the one he lost. How he had betrayed and thrown away the only person who cared about him, and couldn't even explain that he hadn't intended to. How he would accept anything, any punishment, hatred, penance, or revenge, if only he could see his disciple's face once more.

SY is stunned.

Apparently, Luo Binghe hadn't rejected him for his demon blood?

Not only that, but beforehand, he seemed to have valued Shen Yuan a lot more than Shen Yuan would have credited.

Is it a trick? Is he lying? SY would have guessed so, would have assumed that Luo Binghe's plan was to lull him into complacency only to turn on him once he finally had confirmation. But somehow, he just... doesn't think this is an insincere display. His old master is too cool for this stuff! He has too much dignity to just throw it away on a scheme! There are other ways to get what he wants.

Even if it is a lie, Shen Yuan is tired of running. He's the hero. He won't actually lose, and if it comes to it, it's still in his hands to decide if he wants to spare Luo Binghe or not (he does, of course he does, even if this whole spiel is an act). Plus he's got a backup plant body in one of Shang Qinghua's greenhouses if all goes to shit.

He takes the veil off himself.

Luo Binghe, teary-eyed, stares at him as if his face is the most beautiful he's ever seen.

Shen Yuan nearly puts the veil back on. His cheeks heat up. Dear Shizun, aren't you an immortal master? A noble peak lord? Isn't it your calling to vanquish demons? Get up off the dirty ground right this minute! Where did your dignity go? Shen Yuan did not spend all those nights doing the laundry to watch his teacher dirty his knees for no good reason!

There's a quaver in Luo Binghe's voice as he points out that Shen Yuan was terrible at doing laundry. Luo Binghe had to redo it the day after, all the time.

Shen Yuan chides at him that he should have made one of the other disciples do it then.

Luo Binghe just laughs, and stays on the ground, until finally Shen Yuan has to physically pull him up. Muttering about how he's being ridiculous, what's he crying for, why's he been moping so much, doesn't he know that handsome face should never look so bereft? Then he realizes what he's saying and shuts his mouth, but Luo Binghe just looks happy for the first time in years. Since the Abyss. How is it possible that SY, who actually had to slog through that awful place, can still smile more than Luo Binghe, who didn't?

They're standing so close. Holding on to one another. Almost as if... as if the scene's tone is... well...

Oh what the hell!

Shen Yuan closes the last little bit of distance between them, and kisses Luo Binghe.

#svsss #scum villain's self saving system #bingqiu #long post #of course the plot probably interferes further then #turns out that while luo binghe was desperately trying to get sy back he accidentally woke up sy's father #who for this au let's say is sj instead of tlj #sj does NOT approve of this match and also hates all the righteous cultivators (and demons... and everyone mostly...)#but he is also busy trying to resurrect yqy or something #kidnaps sy like well I missed the chance to raise you and actually that's probably for the best but now I need your blood #for Reasons #luo binghe is not a fan of this turn of events #reverse holy mausoleum arc when SY is mostly unconscious except to sometimes throw out advice and LBH is dodging traps and villains #the pining-over-the-dead-shizun arc is probably AFTER the holy mausoleum and lbh self-destructs to rescue sy from sj's plans #sy refuses to accept this outcome he decided luo binghe was NOT to die he didn't need a redemption arc he was FINE sy DECIDED #but luckily they're in the holy mausoleum so sy grabs a resurrection artifact of some kind #has to spend a few years restoring and maintaining lbh's corpse before he can get the to actually work but it's fine #he's fine everything's fine he's GOING to get lbh back lbh is NOT ALLOWED TO DIE #luckily unhinged sy results in way less collateral damage than unhinged lbh #so mostly he just fights off mbj's attempts to honorably recover his shidi's body and offer him a proper burial #while camping out in the holy mausoleum and arguing with sj's detached body parts #y'know normal healthy behavior

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