Mr. 2099

4 months to the day I first saw Across the Spider-Verse, I conquered my fears and not only drew him, but I coloured him as well 💪

It took me two months to simply work up the courage to try and draw his stupid (affectionate) face!

Fragments - episodes 12-14 author notes

Hi hello and welcome to yet another ramble about Fragments C: I’m doing these regularly because there’s so much I wanna say about my idiots, and I like looking back and appreciating the work I’ve done.

You can find similar breakdown posts on older episodes in my pinned!

I haven’t commented on any of the ShB episodes yet, so here we go. Chapter 2 is estimated to last for over a year real-time, it correlates to the msq events up to Amity. The name honestly I’m not too proud of, I didn’t wanna spend too much brain juice on it :’> But the cover.....

Obligatory ShB spoiler warning!

- Investigating each other. They’ve become completely new people since ARR.

- Despite what he thinks of himself, our lord and savior Crystal Exarch has the ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ grandeur ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆.

- Vivi’s self-image is similar, he doesn’t see himself as anything grand no it’s not a height joke but Exarch rapidly grows in his eyes as he learns about him.

- He sports an outfit I once doodled and found cute, I’m just being cheeky about his newfound obsession.

- He also appears fragile to Exarch, who’s literally seen a world where he died being this young. Exarch wants to protect him, to say the least.

- Vivi’s perceived helplessness and lack of agency in ShB, although it’s nothing he hasn’t already been through in his other WoL misadventures.

- The Light, of course the wicked white surrounding them.

Episode 12 I’m proud of writing-wise, but not art-wise. Turns out the Ocular is a bigger bitch to draw/paint than I’d anticipated, and, although I’ve mostly figured it out by now (having just released episode 16 for patrons), the colors and light in the episode 12 will forever stick out like a sore thumb to me, probably until I find the time to redraw it. Same goes for the Scions, learning to draw a whole bunch of new characters over a week (roughly, an episode takes 7~14 days to complete), well, I should’ve taken a bigger break and practiced some more.

I’d even apply the ugly word “crunch” to this episode. But ah, the best page wasn’t crunched, hell started breaking loose a bit later. Yeah I don’t work in order, usually I do the most important frames first.

A bit of a sidetrack: even though I sometimes find myself wanting for more time between episodes, I don’t think I can afford making the releases even more sparse, current 2-week cycle ensures that this story WILL reach its finale in some distant 2028 if not later, I’m not kidding, it might take even longer and I’ve only been working on the script for a year. The broad strokes are complete, but I indulge in adding more sweet nonsense here and there. Or sometimes a raw af dialogue pops up in my head and MUST be included in some chapter. In other words, help, this behemoth keeps growing.

Personally I’m loyal to my fandoms, and not in a rush to finish the comic, but my mmo experience bangs on that nothing lasts forever: I don’t know where the xiv community would be in 5+ years from now, and I need A LOT of people supporting me, allowing me to work on this full time. So I’d rather keep a steady pace while it’s still possible.

As I get more xp in painting backgrounds and learn all the ShB character designs, it should become easier for me. Currently I’m fumbling through a new field, so please bear with me :’D

Back to the main topic: I came up with and scrapped at least 2 ideas of the transition between ARR and ShB, the timeskip was always planned, but Vivi needed some more introduction still. Current iteration of Exarch “interviewing” the Scions seems the most fun and creative to me.

Also, tea parties with Urianger and Feo Ul :> They’re his only two friends in my hc, Urianger he purposely revealed himself to, and Feo Ul, merely being a soul in a sparkly shell, can see Exarch’s soul as well, hoods are useless. All while they’re somewhat reliable, truly the paragon of pixies who wouldn’t randomly spill his secrets (probably).

Vivi’s a mirror. Every single one of us is, to some degree. We react and adapt to the way the others treat us, and so does Vivi. Unintentionally, of course. It’s a natural “passive trait”. All the Scions except Urianger (for the same reason he managed to trick the pixies, he’s just a special smartass) see their reflections in Vivi, direct or warped.

Y’shtola is basically this:

Can’t promise equal amounts of screentime for all the Scions, but the twins and Thancred are the closest to Vivi, you’ll definitely see more of them.

He’s 26 now, which is still rather young by the elezen standards, and he’s way too tired (tm) probably like most WoLs at this point in time.

Maybe not of life itself, but he’s definitely sick of the Source and all its inhabitants. For all he cares, this place can go to hells.

His state just so happens to be perfect for the isekai love story that awaits him. How did he get there? I know, you’ll have to stick around until I deem it appropriate to drop some flashback episodes. I’m leery of loredumping too early on: firstly, you current readers will get more invested over time, therefore have more fun learning about him at a later point; secondly, I’m personally not a fan of tragic backstories right in yo face, before the main story gets a chance to breathe. And, mind you, Vivi’s past isn’t even THAT tragic, just, well.. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes \o/

In this episode I wanted to show his practical approach to things. He may possess an Echo, Blessing, soul stone and whatnot else, but gotta stick a good ol’ dagger in a boot just in case. He’s a doubter, just a tiny bit paranoid.

Also he has The Chair (tm) where he dumps clothes on. His room in the Rising Stones looks vague for now because we indeed don’t return there for years in real time, I don’t need to spend my energy on designing this room in detail just yet.

Most items don’t hold any special meaning, he simply prepares for a journey into the unknown. Well, there’s the journal he dumps his cringy thoughts in, and doodles sometimes. The trinket he holds here is a Princess Ai easter egg:

I talked about Vivi’s character influences and inspirations here if you haven’t seen yet C:

Exarch’s glorious meltdown does a good job averting eyes from Feo Ul being right there in the beginning of the episode 14, but yeah they’re present not for no reason :>

Mentally he’s still in the msq cutscene.

Gotta mention that there’s no amnesia, insanity, or other sad brain fuckery ever in this comic. Vivi’s head’s made of dense and sturdy stuff x’D

Just a meme I made because I had to :>

There isn’t much Deep Meaning in this episode, the visuals speak for themselves, and I’m DAMN PROUD of them.

We don’t see Exarch in this moment ingame, so I took my creative liberty to illustrate the range of emotions he goes through in like 5 minutes before finally rushing out to meet his hero in person, forgetting that he can teleport at will (yet another hc of mine) anywhere in the Tower’s vicinity, and doing so on foot.

That’s it for now, thank you for reading this and enjoying Fragments C:

[this is responding to @wellmetmat's reblog of my aesthetic self-modifications post, I'm only quoting them in part so you should click and check out the whole thing if you wanna keep up. Replying like this to keep the thread from getting crazy long!]

Tattoos: I like the idea a lot. I like face/body-painting even more: not make-up, mostly, and not usually henna (blobby, a stain rather than a paint, almost a normal skin colour but a bit off, not glorious at all); but war-paint and costumes and body glitter under blacklights - gorgeous - and the tradition of children's face-painting at fairs, and getting, too rarely, to draw on people with coloured zinc cream by way of sun protection, and smearing my face and limbs with ochreous clay or ashes from a campfire, something I have a strangely recurrent urge to do and feel modern urban life is rather impoverished for lack of. I liked Darth Maul's appearance. I think most people look better in eyeliner, and would look even better again with their faces transformed into unearthly blue-black masks of woad and ashes, at least on special occasions.

This is cool there's lots of examples I wouldn't have thought to think about here! I'm gonna try to extract some takeaways about what the things you mentioned might bring to the table in contrast to tattoos and makeup, although I have little to no hands-on experience with most of it so tell me if this doesn't ring true:

I get the impression that the tactile element is important in several of these, as much as the visual element? Especially with "smearing my face and limbs with ochreous clay or ashes from a campfire" which feels like a very sensuously-motivated description, but possibly this is in play with the body-paint and war-paint too? I like this idea because it implies that the goal is a transformation where you can feel yourself changed, it's a more first-person kind of change than either makeup or tattoos where all the emphasis is on the visual effect, and therefore (perhaps?) implicitly on what other people perceive. You actively want to feel these things on your skin and feel how your body's different.

Is there an element of democracy that's important here? Tattoos/makeup are both things where there are high ceilings one can exploit both in terms of how much money you're willing to invest and how much skill you have available (with tattoos the skill part is outsourced to someone else, but still). Whereas with a lot of things on your list the materials are simple and relatively inexpensive, and the desired effect isn't particularly intricate or subtle and most people can achieve it for themselves untrained (I think!). This doesn't necessarily apply to face/body paint but I feel like it does to a lot of the other things.

There's also a quasi-ritual social aspect to some of these which I guess is somewhat connected to the previous point, I like that you've introduced the experience of being the "artist" of other people's modifications into the conversation, it's a nice contrast to my very I-centric post.

Despite that, I don't have any [tattoos]. Partly because of pain and needles (significant deterrents! I'm not brave), partly because as of last year I have a skin condition which can be pretty wretched and the thought of voluntarily seeking more skin misery for any reason at all is offputting (and I have a lot of little scars and discoloured patches from it now, and they look distressingly messy, and the addition of tattoos would probably increase the general look of shabbiness and disorder); and in the main because I'm very indecisive and slow to commit to anything.

Very reasonable to not want to put your skin through another ordeal when it's already been through a lot! I do think tattoos that incorporate scars and such as a basis for the design are one of the coolest uses for the technology, although I guess you mostly only hear about people who were lucky enough to get the kind of scar that sets up something good. (I mean "lucky" is obviously a wrong and borderline callous word but you know what I mean!)

I don't think I mentioned "reluctant to commit" in my bit about tattoos but yeah definitely a thought I always have when I think about tattoos is "how could I possibly know whether, ten years from now, I'll still be the kind of person who thinks this is a good idea?" I guess the positive spin to put on this is that I put a lot of value on leaving room to change one's mind and change one's feelings about everything, which I do genuinely think is a virtue. The negative/depressive spin on it is that at any given point in my life I've always felt like I have a lot of personal growth still to do before I'll be somebody I'm actually happy being, kind of as if my current identity is a provisional one that I hope will at some point be replaced with something better and more solid, and so making what's basically a small lifelong commitment while I'm still inhabiting the "provisional" self feels reckless. (Damn sorry wasn't expecting this paragraph to take that turn! I should clarify I'm doing pretty alright for the most part, my full-on depression days are long behind me now.)

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All of your tattoo ideas sound awesome to me! The dandelion is particularly compelling, I like the idea of a tattoo that's expansive enough across the body that you can't necessarily easily see all of it at once, and it's a good example of a design that really uses the medium well, you couldn't get anything like the same impact with an ink drawing on paper.

I hadn't heard of a winter count, it's a very beautiful idea, I feel like I would stress too much about my years not containing enough significant events to come up with a summarizing icon though!

I don't think I need to tell you how much I approve of the pigeon.

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Hey thanks for sharing this was fun! Fwiw chatter will always be welcome, I'd like to increase the amount of chattiness in my tumblr use in general, but more to the point I've always enjoyed your ( )-shaped thoughts whenever you've shared them so always feel free please!

did something big to make you dislike omori or was it just the hyperfixation wearing off

Like I personally am not here for omori stuff but I am curious (don’t answer this if you don’t want to idk)

i kinda just realized the game's writing sucks ass and the fandom is kinda lame and there's better stuff out there, LMAO

like don't get me wrong the game's well-crafted (for the most part) but the story and character writing is the weakest part. what fans assume is its strong character writing is mainly due to their own headcanons, theories, and interpretations and not what's clear-cut in the dialogue and events. there are some small details? but only so much. hell, even i fell into this trap. also omocat's a shit person lolololololololol

i think i also got super tired of the way the fandom's shaped. since it's a newer fandom, it's bound to have a lot of kids. and kids don't know a thing about what makes fandom good. from what i see (and from what others have observed iirc) modern fandoms have this issue where all the "content" is supposed to come from popular or skilled creators--not just fans in general. sure, you can draw, write, and share whatever you've got, but if you're not popular, super skilled in digital art, or just straight-up lucky, you're likely not going to get anywhere aside from a couple of notes here and there. and that's usually if the more popular blogs notice you. i can go on and on about how this is capitalism's fault but then we'd be here all day and i'd be biting off a lot more than i can chew and/or talking out of my ass

what i mean by this is, if you're going to craft a super long, arc-filled AU fanfic that serves as a sort of sequel to the source, and you're not popular or willing to bust your ass drawing art for it, do not go into it with dreams of people talking about how great the writing is and sharing their fanart outside of your friend or mutual circle. i had a wholeass crisis around the lack of attention i got despite what i thought was hard work in around june and lord almighty i think that's what really solidified my loss of interest.

also it's got that issue where if a fandom can't sustain itself on what's found in canon it's going to drown itself in AUs where the characters are completely unrecognizable and these people need to come up with OCs for the love of god. i'll admit my AU probably fell under this trap too but my glasses were too rose-tinted for me to see it

i think the main thing is just that it's really hard for me to draw or write for myself if it's a huge project i'm working on, so i'm really just sticking to RPing out longass narratives with my partner. and god that's been so much more enjoyable than posting chapters and getting like, minimal comments and reblogs on them. highly recommend

part of it's probably also got to do with an ex-friend of mine who used to be my beta reader? but hoooly shit that's a whole other tale i can spend ages covering

Feeling both crabby and stupid today. Hopefully my period will get started soon. That usually helps with both feelings. I'd also like it to get started sooner rather than later so it's over my the time I need to go in for an ultrasound of my kidneys. Menstruating doesn't affect that procedure, but I'd like to have less discomfort overall at the time.

I'm crabby because That Guy dumped another chore on me: Taking out the recycling. He usually does the recycling and the trash, but lately hasn't been taking out the recycling at night so I end up rushing it to the curb at 4am because the truck comes super early, and that hurts a lot to do. I even heard Son talking about it last night and he still didn't take it out.

I wasn't very nice about that this morning.

Also feeling stupid because there was a great comment on that post I boosted yesterday talking about self-teaching some programs and doing odd jobs on the internet.

I've tried self teaching myself programs and never could manage it. Like, I've been looking at those "Learn these steps to use Excel and wow employers!" kinds of things and they're like "Do THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS" and I'm still on the first THIS going

because the more complicated things are, the more steps they take, the more things that I need to remember, the faster my whole brain shuts down and nopes out.

I've had graphics programs for years that I don't know how to use at all despite trying to figure it out. I used those solely to block out personal information on photos, or draw circles or arrows on things.

I use spreadsheets to make simple lists and that's it. Anything more complicated than that and I bluescreen.

I also tried the online odd-jobs and the ones that people actually need are things that require more artistic and design

I lost the word - knowledge?skill?aesthetic?ability?

than I have. I am an artistic void.

I remember doing MTurk years ago and it took two years to earn $100 with CONSTANT work. I was on the site most of the day every day for two years and earned $100. The worst were the surveys that promised $3-$5 and would ask demographics at the end then say you didn't qualify for the survey you just spent 20 minutes filling out after they already had all of your answers.

I don't like only being suited to doing retail or manual labor, especially lacking a car and a functional body.

back in february i was inspired by @minacoleta 's count the lights to make a wrestlestory of my own. i spent the last five months narrowing down every single concept i like and melting them all down in a crucible to pour into a mold to craft THE MOST SELF INDULGENT OCs i could possibly come up with. i think its probably embarrassingly obvious where all their little components and dynamics came from but whatEVER! whatever!! it rules, actually!!! make the most insanely self indulgent ocs you can think of and live a little!!!! its liberating!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway i dont have the constitution or patience or focus to execute an entire graphic novel so i'm just going to post their character introductions / plot premise under a readmore. its 1.3k words (JEEZ) and thats about as condensed as i could get it while still relaying their individual motivations and setting up ~The Main Conflict~ for a story im not going to get around to telling properly (SORRY). i still will post drawings and comics from time to time of them all being cute though (i have a backlog i didn't want to post until i properly introduced them. i didnt realize it would take so long for me to do so however.)

anyway heres the tl;dr summary of the members of two tag teams who are in a tag team tournament:

[TAGCEN]

TAGCEN is a wrestling promotion so dedicated to tag teams that their name is twice as long as your typical three-letter acronym wrestling company. They've been around long enough that their seasonal tag team tournament (aka: the main setting for the story) has somehow acquired a lot of prestige, despite their comparatively humble level of production. TAGCEN is mostly ran by a husband and wife tag team that is too busy running the show to wrestle nowadays: Cedric (most neurotic man who has ever lived) and Arsha (who loves chaos).

[Taggart]

One passion (wrestling) and one brain cell (dedicated to wrestling). Taggart loves wrestling so much he pulls his punches just so he can wrestle against his opponents longer. That's... the kind of guy he is. His overwhelming enthusiasm and lack of ~grandiose ambitions~ does tend to limit how seriously people take him, but he isn't to be underestimated: just because he's a genuinely nice guy doesn't mean he can't hit hard, and it also doesn't mean he can't take the hard hits either. That title of "brick wall" is not for show!

His tag team partner unexpectedly had to leave in the middle of the season, which left Taggart in a bit of a bind as he isn't allowed to work the rest of his matches all by himself (it is a TAG TEAM CENTRIC WRESTLING PROMOTION after all). Due to this, he manages to convince his ex-wrestler friend/roommate Basil to stand in as his tag team partner so he can finish out the season. Basil doesn't want to wrestle anymore and Taggart wouldn't want to force his friend to anyway, so Taggart just never tags him in and fights the matches 1v2. He loses, but its fine, with the time left in the season there's mathematically no way for them to get that much further than last place anyway.

Taggart's just glad to be wrestling, and he's especially happy that he (finally…) managed to draw his friend Basil back into the ring under the public eye. With a little more time Taggart thinks he can coax Basil into wrestling proper again, so long as… nothing comes up during this TAGCEN season… ha ha ha HA HA HA

[Basil]

Officially billed as "Ben Basil" with the title of "some guy", he is apparently some rando that Taggart got to fill in as his tag partner. Taggart never tags him in, so he usually just spends the entire time hanging out on the corner in a t-shirt and hat nonchalantly watching the match. Nobody's ever heard of him, and anyone who has seen him around just knows him as Taggart's weird friend that hangs out with him all the time. But! He is not just some guy Taggart found off the street:

Basil met Taggart back in wrestleschool after he had ditched his entire existing group of friends for reasons too elaborate to get into right now. Basil didn't know anything about wrestling and Taggart loves to talk about wrestling, so they ended up becoming extremely good friends.

Back then Basil was a copycat/mimic heel wrestler named Afterburner and really leaned into being kind of a dick! With nothing else to do, he just got really good at wrestling. This didn't last too long though, he eventually got caught up in his own head about being a bad guy (oops!) and retired comically early in his career.

Usually this is where Basil would pack up and go start a new life somewhere for the third time or so, but he MYSTERIOUSLY changed his mind this time around and decided to stick around instead. It's been like X years now and he still lives in the room he rents in Taggart's house, idly supporting Taggart's career by training with him and sparring with him and helping him do work at the wrestleschool and occasionally driving him to wrestling matches whenever he needs a ride.

For a guy who adamantly quit wrestling he sure still wrestles a lot.

Anyway…

[Samson]

a charismatic, mildly sardonic well-known top-tier veteran good guy. Samson is legit skilled and has been in wrestling for so long, everything has become a bit of a game to him. Things get boring if you win all the time, yeah? Effectively, this has (over the years) turned him into a bit of a wet blanket and low-key control freak about meta things like "narrative", whatever THAT means. He gets away with it, though, as he's usually raining on the parades of heels who deserve it, and is a generally entertaining guy.

Previously, Samson was the longest running title holder of the region's definitely not cursed and/or haunted solo Interstate Championship, which he eventually lost in a very exciting (but normal) wrestling match. His legendarily long title run had him being his usual Samson self the whole time, proving once and for all that there is nothing weird about the title. Wanting a fresh new challenge, preferably away from the definitely not cursed and/or haunted Interstate Championship, Samson set his sights on the tag team world.

Unfortunately while still in the process of deciding who to team with, he unexpectedly(!) lost a stipulation match to insufferable young upstart jackass Chip and now is obligated to tag with him. Samson is crafty enough that he doesnt lose unless he chooses to, so this… is… an unusual thing to happen to him. He's taking it in stride (or at least appearing to) though, as Chip is a pretty good wrestler himself so its not like its too bad of an arrangement. Besides, he's a man of his word. :)

In any case, the two of them actually get along, weirdly enough! Maybe Samson's just used to dealing with annoying heels. It's anyone's guess as to whether Samson is going to reform Chip into a good guy, or if Chip is going to do what holding on the Interstate Championship Title didnt do and finally tip Samson over into being a bad guy. There's a lot of people keeping an eye on the TAGCEN tournament to find out.

Of course that's how it was supposed to be going…

[Chip]

Competitive topcard rising star asshole guy who plagues every promotion you can think of. Talks a big game, and the worst part is, he can back it up. He really is some sort of insane wrestling prodigy, or something.

Bitter that he wasn't able to win the Interstate Championship off of Samson, Chip figured he could get his vengeance (and a tag team championship, eventually) by roping Samson into a tag team with him. Together, they've been wrestling tag matches all over to get enough clout to qualify for the big prestigious semi-invitational continental tag team championship. They were on track to win the (fairly notable) TAGCEN tournament to further these aims, but one day Chip realized who Taggart's new partner was, and, uh, well…

Chip also went to wrestleschool with Taggart and Basil, but was still trying to do something with his college degree at the time and gradually fell behind as a result. After they graduated, Chip hounded Afterburner (Basil) for a while in a rather one-sided feud and took some things Burner flippantly said to him extremely personally (like... he changed his ring name to Chip about it...). After a string of (frankly, embarrassing) defeats from him, Chip took a brief step back from wresting matches to reinvent himself. He buckled down to become extremely tough and cool, then came back ready as ever to finally kick Burner's ass once and for all.

…So imagine how furious he was when he found out the guy quit and disappeared from the scene while he was gone. Welp!!

Chip kept wrestling in the years since and became the insane jerk wrestleguy we know today. He moved on. Except not really. Seeing Afterburner (well… sort of) at TAGCEN after all these years has rekindled every single inch of fury all over again. Everyone else may not know or care about some wrestler dropout from X years ago, but destroying this guy (on equal terms) is everything Chip ever wanted. He just needs to figure out how to get Basil to fight him for realsies.

Of course, Chip being obsessed with fighting some jobber team instead of ranking up is not good for their tag team's prospects, and while Samson is a good guy, he does want to win…

A Nice Little Moment

I know I usually just shut up and post drawings, and certainly do not have the follower count for anyone to care to read a wall of text from me, but I just wanna share a little nice moment I had recently, and one I think might be nice for those with patience to read. Things have not been going well for me lately. For a while, really. A lot of things are feeling stressful, frustrating and hopeless, and this last weekend was definitely a moment where I had no reason to be in a good mood. On top of many other stressors that I don't need to go into, my long-struggling laptop - the one computer I own, the device I need to do not only all of my hobbies, but to do the very-rare-not-very-well-paying bits of actual work my otherwise worthless, unemployable ass occasionally manages to scrounge up, finally decided to up and die and refuse to charge normally unless the cable is held at an extremely specific degree, lest it immediately lose all charge in like fifteen minutes. It decided to do this at 2 AM, the very day before I had to go to a Bachelor party that I could barely afford to attend, thanks to my economic situation. A bachelor party I ONLY had the money for, due to being given a small salary recently that, let's be honest, I would have liked to spend on something fun or cool for myself. My lack of financial stability met that I, at the age of 33, had to take my mother up on her offer to pay for a new one - using her inheritance money from my recently deceased grandfather. Not something I am proud of - it feels rather infantilizing to have mommy buy you a new computer, after all, and again - I felt as if that money should be hers to spend on herself. Naturally, as a mother, she says she is happy to do this, and I have little choice but to accept unless I want to pay it off for like eight years, but I am sitting there feeling like a burden. So there I am - sitting up at 3 AM, desperately wriggling a charger cable as I try to panick-backup all my files onto a drive that keeps digging to absolute snail shit pace. I get up in the morning to head off to this Bachelor party that I have to worry about being too poor for if we do just about anything more than planned. The weather is gray and windy, making things not look great for our plans to play various games at a park. Despite me leaving in good time, the ONE train on that entire day that decides to mess up is, naturally, the one I am on - ensuring that I will arrive just a minute later than intended, almost entirely ruining the surprise.

So you can imagine me being very annoyed as I got off at the station - cold, sleep deprived, hair all a mess from the wind, worried about finances and feeling knocked down, constantly internally ranting about how I am nothing but a leech to my own mother, incapable of caring for myself, rejected by a working world that constantly reminds me I have nothing to offer, not even doing well with my creative endeavors online. All of these thoughts are going through my head, while desperately trying to remind myself to be in a good mood after all, because in a moment I will be seeing friends and celebrating all the things that are going well for one of them. Right as I am gritting my teeth, right as I am about to have to push yet another intrusive thought about my own lack of worth in the world away, a kid runs right by me, almost bumping into me. I look at where he is headed, and I see him run straight into the arms of a smiling older lady (a grandmother, I assume). And I not even exaggerating when I say that this was like the stuff you see in movies. Arms outstretched like a plane. Her on one knee. Both smiling. Kid practically leaping into her arms before they both get up, hold hands and walk away. It'd have been hilariously corny if it wasn't so genuinely sweet. That made me smile all to myself for the first time in a solid two or so days. Oh, and the weather cleared up and I had a wonderful time. Not a less expesive time, but a fun and memorable day all the same. Things still generally aren't going great. This little moment definitely won't stave away the things that bring me down for good, and I will likely feel many of the same things again very soon and go right back into the pit. But it was a nice little reminder that on occasion, nice little things do happen. Maybe not to you, right now, maybe none that fix anything, but they do. And they're worth keeping an eye open for, cause they really can make things better, even if just for half a day.

Normal update, autumn??? XXIII

Okay, so I thought it would be a nice, winter quarterly update but turns out the last one was titled summer and I guess going by calendar, winter barely started so it's??? autumn??? I guess??? Last day of the year but autumn, sure, let's go with that. That being the case, I have no new year's pic for y'all cause I can't draw I was devving uhh, rly hard, let's say. Totally.

Anyway, the mushroom jam has ended and I planned to have a release update BUT THEN I DIDN'T FINISH THE GAME ON TIME YET AGAIN, who would've thought, so, like, there's nothing. I mean, something exists but yeah >_> I'll write a devlog when it finally looks presentable. Moving on...

Current game stuff

The spooktober game has been finished, kinda - The enmity of dead things. It, well, it works and it contains the full script and everything but lacks both art and music cause I couldn't finish it on time laziness goes brrr. Then I wanted a break and worked on other games and kinda left it like that... So that's the first item on my "Finally finish it in 2024, you stupid fuck" list. All in all it wasn't a total failure and I had fun for the most part. Committing to my bad decisions [look at the textbox] is actually the main cause the game wasn't finished on time... You live and don't learn.

The failure of the year... Or quarter at least - Mushroom game. Despite being technically published to add it to the jam, it's so unfinished I won't even link it here. And it's all my fault cause I was being lazy and, as usual, forgot I can't actually program. Yeah...

Helped with Cool Days. There's really not much of my work there, I honestly considered making a new category for games I kinda helped with but tbh the amount of work actually finished was close to zero but hey, it's still more than nothing so Check it out, it has cool graphics.

The ace teens game got shelved/postponed and it's not my fault this time but instead we're working on a fantasy kinda thing for Ace jam [and maybe also Zack jam while we're at it but that might've been said in jest]. Fortunately it's small enough I don't expect any delays. I can say it involves a golem who isn't a humanoid (灬˘╰╯˘灬)♥｡･ﾟ

Now for the big thing.

Fanfares, please.

🎉🎉🎉

IMPOSTOR SYNDROME - is a game for winter jam which also happens to be a demo cause we ran out of time but! - it will be finished soon-ish. I'll share more details in the release devlog so if the link to the game works already, that means the page's up and so is all the info. If it doesn't work, check again in a few hours but I'm assuming most people who actually read all that will do so post winter jam anyway.

Genre wise it's an otome chat sim comedy that's extremely self indulged and I'm not ashamed of that. Gotta make games for yourself and all that. Though, again, my own conribution to the development process remains minimal. I'm truly becoming the idea guy.

The "Finally finish it in 2024, you stupid fuck" list aka the stuff that should've been finished already but isn't

Umm, yeah, everything. Or, to be more specific, Mushroom game and Enmity take priority here but all the other games that needed some quality of life adjustments like making the web build work on mobile etc are also included [which is kinda funny cause a lot of them could be corrected in like an hour if I actually sat and did just that].

It's been more than three years since I released Argousze and yes, you gessed it, it's also unfinished. Which is extra funny in a pathetic way cause it was supposed to be a low effort game with, like, 2k words of wordcount. To be fair I kinda dropped it cause I couldn't design my aliens but maybe I'll actually get a good idea for once and manage to release it on its fourth anniversary. That'd be nice.

Other than that, well... That's more of a resolution than anything but I should stop constantly joining new teams and all... And either take a proper dev break or work on ye olde projects waiting for me since the beginning of HS. I'll become older than my oldest LI before I finish them at this point lol

Pariiish noootiiiceees

This year we're gonna have two new jams instead of one. Stuff happened and yeah. No links just yet cause not only are the pages not finished but there's also no planned date/duration beyond 'sometime in the later part of the year'.

The first jam is Tentacle jam which, I'm pretty sure, would bring us eroges. This was not my intention and all kind of sfw tentacles are allowed but tbh as long as there's a proper story, even a nukige would pass. Basically the rules remain like in all the previous jams I hosted.

The second jam is Insect [adjacent] jam which actually accepts all kinds of arthropods but it started as just insect jam and I wanted to keep the name. So yeah. Obviously more detailed rules of what's allowed would be written on the page when it's up properly and not in a half dead state like right now.

Incidentally, whatever the date ends up being, both of these jams would be hosted at the same time so if you wanted to make a story taking place underwater or something, you could submit it to both of these jams. Neat, right?

That's it for this year.

Over.

Michael headcanons gimme here please meowe

YESGFBDH MY BELOVED

So like, poor guy absolutely has CPTSD. I don’t think there’s any debate to be had about that. He’s been through a TON of trauma. Lost his sister, killed his brother, abandoned by his abusive dad- like shit man 💀 I’d have CPTSD too

That’s a stupid joke though given I do have CPTSD

He was a super shitty teen. He probably treated Elizabeth pretty shitty before she died too.

Because one parent was abusive and neglectful and the other MIA, he was basically made to be the babysitter, the third parent, and he hated it.

After everything that happened to his siblings he’s way mellowed out. He absolutely hates having kids look up to him, because it kind of terrifies him.

He could probably never be a father, not out of lack of ability or that he would be a shit dad, but solely because of his trauma from his dad. He would only be able to see his dad in himself.

Which he already does. He loathes looking in the mirror.

I like to imagine his hair is deliberately longer than his father’s to try to distinguish them. He spent his whole life hearing he’s just like his dad. Part of him really does believe it, but he doesn’t want to be anything like him. You’ll notice this is a recurring motif between my main AU and my rebirth AU, which both involve Michael’s actions as an extension of his father. In fact the exact phrase “I don’t want to be anything like you” shows up in the rebirth AU.

I like to make jokes about Michael smoking weed but honestly I see a lot of people draw/write him as a smoker and I’ve kind of adopted that headcanon

Post-scooping, he has an awful phobia of worms, snakes, wires, maggots, tentacles, and, most embarrassingly, spaghetti. Just the sight of any of it makes him sick.

He still lives in his family home, but it’s a complete mess. He has a lot of money from his dad’s business, but no use for it. It’s livable, but it’s not in good shape, and he doesn’t care to fix it.

He doesn’t usually go outside before dark. He stays inside with the windows drawn and lets all his old friends think he’s dead.

While he’s a pretty emotionally troubled and still very jaded and cold, he has a heart of gold underneath it all, and he loves his siblings more than anything. He has an odd way of showing it, but he cares a lot about people, especially the children.

If I say he’s a bottom will I be judged because he’s totally a bottom

Because of the scooping he is prone to random facial bleeding. It is somehow a much more disturbing thing to see because his blood is all dark and deoxygenated. Like you’d think a corpse guy having black nosebleeds would be less scary than normal blood. It’s still terrifying.

Despite his inhibitions, he’s actually pretty good with children. A bad role model, definitely, but a caring and protective figure, especially for kids who otherwise wouldn’t have one.

He is just so done with everything all the fucking time, constantly. 0 energy. Go girl give us nothing.

He gives me very specific gender vibes I can’t place. His gender is male but not and also it’s the fact that purple is his favorite color

were you the one who posted that cool 4 part essay on why today's anomation looks worse (with cels being solid colors, difficult to make them look bad, todays anime is comped to hell and back, etc)? I keep searching for it but can't find it somehow :(

Afraid not, though that sounds like an interesting essay!

But since that's a topic I find interesting, let me give you my thoughts on it ^^'

I'd say for my part that a reason cel animation often looks so much better is not so much to do with overuse of compositing effects (though, that can definitely do a lot to ruin a shot!) so much as...

the fact that cleanup (douga) is usually done at a fairly low resolution (720p is common) as essentially pixel art and then upscaled, which results in distinctly blurry lines and a loss of the precise texture in the linework and subtle grain in the cels that were characteristic of traditional animation.

lack of strong colour direction, and the limitations of TV colour spaces - I don't know too much about this but apparently there are certain restrictions on the colours you can use in TV animation that leads to a lot of very bland palettes

shitty background painting that overuses digital shortcuts like texture fills, and goes way too hard on lighting effects. it's not that digital paintings are necessarily worse than physical media, but in an industry in a state of overproduction and endemic crunch that's constantly squeezed for time...

One interesting trend that's come in with a lot of recent shounen shows such as Ousama Ranking, Demon Slayer and even recent One Piece is to start using rougher, more textured lines, almost like they're going for the look of traditional cleanup and even overshooting and exaggerating a bit. But hey, it's definitely distinctive.

Anyway, it's absolutely possible to make a beautiful shot with a digital pipeline. Look at anything by KyoAni, Trigger or 4C, or certain recent Science Saru works like Eizouken or Heike Monogatari, or Made in Abyss, Wonder Egg Priority (despite how it ended up collapsing under its own weight), later Makoto Shinkai films (an interesting case because he's probably the main culprit behind the rise of heavy compositing, but works like Your Name make a much stronger case for it than most examples)... You can also go for extreme compositing effects as an aesthetic in its own right as in Ufotable's Fate works.

The other issue is that, well, we're not making a like for like comparison. The works from the 80s and 90s that tend to get remembered are the absolute best works, while today we're in a situation of overproduction and we're aware of all the works that are... unlikely to be remembered, lets say. All the same, there's definitely a certain quality to even the cheaper end of the bubble era work that seems to have been lost.

So that's my current thought on it. I definitely miss the look of old cel style... you can sort of simulate it digitally (there was a short in Star Wars Visions that went for a very 80s look) but it's a lot of work that will just make your video play worse with modern compression algorithms, just to be appreciated by a relatively niche group of fans so I can see why they don't. And of course, what really made those great older works was... a strong aesthetic vision, incredibly strong drawing, creative layouts and timing... things that certainly still exist despite the pressures of modern breakneck productions, the push to higher line count leading to a proliferation of overworked animation directors, the crumbling of the layout system, etc.

Anyway if you find that article, send it my way! Would be curious!

Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene post DBT-09

Budget friendly here we come. It’s my boy, Eugene. AKA maybe the worst boss card from DBT-01? But that was over two years ago. Eugene himself might not be the best by himself, but his rearguards more than make up for what he lacks. Why is this post DBT-09 instead of DBT-10? Because I haven’t decided if I’m going to add any of the newer cards yet. Needs more testing. The triggers here are a bit messy, but I’ll finally have all effect triggers eventually. They’ll be listed a bit differently from normal since I don’t want to list a bunch of one-of placeholders.

Deck Log Code: GEKN Ride Deck: -x1 Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene -x1 Cataclysmic Bullet of Dust Storm, Randor -x1 Gunning of Dust Storm, Nigel -x1 Double Gun of Dust Storm, Bart Main Deck:     Grade 3 -x3 Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene -x4 Hunting Gatling of Dust Storm, Firas -x3 Best Harvest (Order)     Grade 2 -x4 Twin Bullet of Dust Storm, Travis -x4 Strong Fortress Dragon, Gibrabrachio     Grade 1 -x4 Assault Bullet of Dust Storm, Oswald -x4 Strong Sharp Dragon, Geizfort -x4 Twin Buckler Dragon     Grade 0 -x3 Draw Trigger -x4 Critical Trigger -x4 Front Trigger -x4 Heal Trigger -x1 Dragon Deity King of Resurgence, Dragveda (Over Trigger) Eugene gets overlooked a lot. Since he wasn’t very good when he came out, most people tend to forget about him, and that’s probably only going to be even more true now that Gandeeva exists. But Gandeeva is expensive. And thankfully, Eugene mostly isn’t. There’s really only one card that breaks the 10USD threshhold, and that’s the over trigger. If you used base rarity for everything and stuck to vanilla triggers and Olbaria, you could put Eugene together for around 35USD as of writing this. That’s including the special perfect guards as well, so you could drop that about 12USD or so if you run one of the start deck ones. Heck, you could even get frame rares or holos for a lot of these units and it would barely change the cost at all. The main goal for Eugene is to retire rearguards. Somewhat expected for Dragon Empire. His second skill is mainly useless unless you’re in desperate need of units on the field. The main skill you’ll want to be using every turn, assuming the other player lets you, is his first skill. You rest two of your own units to retire an enemy rearguard, then he gains 10k power. That skill might have been a deal-breaker way back in DBT-01, but as early as DBT-02 he already had a card that could use that to its advantage. Gibrabrachio can stand itself and gain 5k power as long as your opponent only has one rearguard when battle starts. Even if you don’t rest it with Eugene’s skill, you can soulblast one and rest it to retire one, so it can get the re-stand and power anyway. Geizfort works similarly and is one of your preferred rest targets. Once per turn, when an enemy rearguard is retired, it can stand and gain 2k power. Since the skill that rested them in the first place retired a unit, they would stand right away and essentially be 10k boosters. The newest card I’ve added to the deck is Firas. He helps you search out Best Harvest when he’s placed, and he’s another preferred rest target. Despite being a grade 3, usually you actually want Firas in your back row. When an opponent’s rearguard is retired, as long as you soulblast one, he can stand and gain boost until end of turn.Since ideally you’re retiring something every turn, he’s consistently a 13k booster. Your final unit capable of retiring is Travis. He’s not the cheapest since he sees play in other decks as well, but he makes things so much more consistent. Once a turn when an enemy rearguard is retired, you can counterblast to soulcharge and retire another unit, then he gains 10k power. And your last grade 1 is Oswald. It’s not too often that I’ve actually gotten to a situation where I can use Oswald, but his skill is just too good not to have. Your opponent has to have no rearguards, but with all your other units working together, it’s 100% possible to clear them all out before the battle phase. As long as he’s boosting Eugene and the opponent is also on grade 3, he lets you counterblast one and discard a card to re-stand Eugene with one drive and one critical. In situations where this is possible, you want to attack with Eugene first to maximize how dangerous your front row rearguards can be. Oswald is also why you can get away with having Olbaria instead of Dragveda. Best Harvest is the only order this build runs for now. What is does is simple enough. When you play it, just choose a vanguard and give it a continuous skill that lets you draw a card whenever an opposing rearguard is retired. If their board is full and you retire everything while this is active, that’s five new cards in hand. The only excuse for not including this would be because it’s only gotten more expensive over time. As of writing this though, it’s only around 3USD, so still budget friendly. A few possible alternative choices for the deck would include: -Spiritual King of Determination, Olbaria     Technically any of the over triggers with the same skill would also work. Dragveda is not cheap, and until it gets reprinted as much as Gallmageheld has, it’s not going to be cheap. Thankfully, Eugene doesn’t care as much about which over trigger you use, they’re both effective. Sure Dragveda gives you the opportunity to re-stand the vanguard,but since Oswald is also here Olbaria giving 100mil power to two units instead of just one is also plenty effective. -Fierce Bullet of Dust Storm, Nawfal     I guess Randor needed a friend that also had a not normal name. This promo card is still a bit on the pricey side at over 3USD, but if you happen to have him and want to use him, then go for it. His main use would be recycling units you might want to call by putting them on top of deck as long as you’ve retired something that turn. Downside is he can only select cards that are normal units and not sentinels. -Howitzer of Dust Storm, Dustin     This card used to be played in this deck before the addition of Firas. You have to put a hand card into soul, but he lets you draw one and then retires a grade 2 rearguard. His second skill gives him 2k for every open rearguard circle on your opponent’s field for that battle for the cost of a soulblast. -Inscribing Bullet of Dust Storm, Baxter     This guy is weird, but the art is nice. I can’t imagine his continuous skill ever being of much use since it requires your opponent to attack it from a column other than the one he’s in. Especially since it just prevents him from being hit. His other skill is the interesting one. Baxter on his own can’t retire any units, but when a rearguard in the same column as him is retired, he gives 5k power to himself and the vanguard. If the column was previously full and you retired the whole thing, then Baxter gives himself and your vanguard 10k power just because he’s on the board.     I wouldn’t run more than two or three copies, but this is a DBT-10 card I’ve considered making space for. -Scarlet Flame Bow of Demolition     This would be in addition to Best Harvest, not a replacement. Remember how Baxter benefits from retired rearguards in the same column as him? Well this order, for the cost of a counterblast, chooses a column and retires the enemy units in it. Since this order chooses a column, instead of a unit like most of the other retire skills in the deck, this can get around units that say they can’t be chosen.    If I can find the space, this is another card from DBT-10 I’d like to test in this deck. Sadly Eugene often gets written off as a bad deck just because he wasn’t great at initial release. Thankfully for budget players, this means that most of his cards are extremely affordable, and the powerful rearguard skills more than make up for what the vanguard might lack. He might not be winning any major tournaments any time soon, but Eugene is still a really fun deck that manages to pull out a victory sometimes. Remember, these deck lists are for fun and not necessarily optimized. If you have another card that you think would make a better fit, then go for it and test it out. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to send me a message!

Ryn Harrington - Homework 01: Tumblr & Bio

> IMAGE 01: WHO

Hey there, I’m Ryn. I’m a 22 year old transmasc entering the final semester of my bachelors degree, but it’s not in art. I’m a Cellular and Molecular Biology major, with all of my previous studies in Genetics and Biotechnology. I currently work in a genetics lab on campus studying the link between embryonic muscle function and the development of skeletal structure (It’s super fun). Despite being a STEMlord, though, I’ve always been an avid artist, and have been creating traditional art since I was in elementary school. I picked up a drawing tablet when I was 14, and that was that. Consider me a jack of all trades. 

> IMAGE 02: WHERE

This image is more a location that spoke to me than it is geographically where I’m from. This is an abandoned missile silo found through urban exploring, something that I thoroughly enjoy doing and never end up getting enough of. I tend to consider myself someone that exists on the fringes of the world, within the uninhabited and abandoned, making a home there just for me. Link to the original post [here].

> IMAGE 03: WHAT

Here we have Mordecai and Rigby.... holding... stuff. All jokes aside, this is one of my favorite pieces I’ve made recently, and it’s honestly just because of how dynamic and fluid my character poses look. I struggle with stiffness and lack of movement, and I broke through that artist’s block just to make this. I also find that in this piece, I was able to start giving it perspective and depth, which is something I struggle to do in other pieces.

The rest of these images are examples of what I usually create. Although I like these, I feel that they lack movement and perspective. There’s just something missing there. 

> IMAGE 04: WHY

One of my biggest inspirations to animate and draw (and one of my biggest inspirations in general) is the show Mob Psycho 100. The animation style that Studio BONES uses to portray scenes is dynamic, colorful, emotionally moving, and visually stunning. The characters and settings move fluidly in visual space, and there is no stiffness; they are full of life. I’ve always wanted to create work like this, and when I picture myself animating, I picture drawing scenes like the ones you see here. There is no link to a page, as this is an animation studio. 

> TEXT 01: CHALLENGES & FAILURES

Challenging myself usually means making a healthy comparison. When I see an artist whose style, flow, and creative process I admire, I challenge myself to create pieces in a similar way in order to push my creative process forward. I have a few unfinished pieces inspired by, honestly, fanart I saw that I really liked. When I see others making work that I’d like to create, I like to turn it into creative fuel. I find that a lot of artists go, “I can’t ever draw like that,” or “My art will never be that good,” and that’s setting yourself up for failure before you even start. When I see art that’s better than mine, I treat it as a challenge. I think, “I can make this. I can work to create something like this, maybe even better.” And even if I don’t end up creating what I pictured, it’s still progressing my skills and pushing the boundaries of what I’m comfortable creating.

I find that failure coincides with challenging myself. I will admit that I’m a bit of a perfectionist-quitter combo, and bite off more than I can chew a lot of the time. That leads to me giving up halfway, and never really finishing my “challenges.” I suppose this is something I’m still working on. I love the idea of challenging myself, and get excited about pushing my boundaries, but get stuck in the implementation. Because of this, I’ve stopped treating unfinished work like a failure. Unfinished work is still an attempt, and it’s better that I put tablet pen to paper than create nothing at all. This is why I posted works in progress here. I’ve stopped viewing the things I create as “failures” when they don’t turn out the way I want them to be, because the only failure, in my eyes, is not creating anything at all. 

[Link to my Vimeo page!]

so with this being the Hot Topic of the week i wanted to make a post talking about fat characters and body diversity in IF. if we’re going to talk about it, let’s actually talk about it. and as a fat person myself, i want to talk about it.

i don’t think i really need to say that fat bodies are neglected in media in general - we all are aware of this. in interactive fiction specifically, there is definitely a notable absence of fat characters, but especially fat romance options. and when there are fat romance options, they tend to be stereotyped, or sidelined, or seen as “undesirable” to the average reader. more mainstream IF games don’t even have any body diversity at all, with all romance options being described as conventionally attractive (euro-centric) and skinny, or “super model-esque” which is usually just another way of saying conventionally attractive and skinny. on the other hand, a lot of IF leaves characters more vague and up for interpretation, simply because that is the nature of IF and it is designed for people to be able to fill in the gaps with what they want to see.

unfortunately, this may lead to people automatically defaulting to “skinny.” which, it’s already been said: that says a lot more than i ever could about how society views fat people. though, i do think it’s important for authors to be specific in their descriptions and identities when it comes to representing marginalized groups, not just with fat people but all across the board.

this lack of fat representation does feel particularly malicious when it comes to romance, with fat people very rarely, if ever, getting to see ourselves depicted as the person that is desirable, or the person that gets to be in love, and receive love, be deserving of love. fat people are mocked and shamed and fetishized from a very young age, with no positive depictions of people like us in media to look up to, and it can be extremely cruel and alienating. 

and society is actively hostile towards fat people. the BMI is used to shame us, despite being fake science. doctors actively ignore our problems and reduce all of it to “you need to lose weight.” there is no standardized sizing when it comes to clothing, and fat people are almost always left out. fat bodies, when they are represented, are reduced to negative stereotypes and “cautionary tales”, a thing to avoid and fear. only in recent years has there been any kind of push back against this, but we still have a long way to go.

and then there’s the word fat itself. there can be a lot said about the word “fat” and what exactly it means. it’s something that i think every fat person has strong feelings about. and i know a lot of people have a complicated relationship with the word, myself included. a lot of times people avoid that word to describe their characters - i know i tend to, because as a fat person it’s been used against me all my life and i’m still trying to unlearn that. it’s a word with a lot of stigma around it, and for some people it can be really personal. but ultimately, it’s a neutral word, a descriptor. it took me a long time to realize this, but fat is not a bad word.

i wanted to write all of this out because i do think this is an important conversation to be had, and i think the first step is just making people realize that fat is not bad. skinny is not the default. if you find yourself constantly interpreting characters as thin unless they are explicitly stated otherwise, challenge yourself about that. if you’re an artist, start drawing more fat bodies. if you’re a writer, think about what you can do to normalize fat people through your stories, and help destigmatize the word fat.

here are two articles i want to share:

Fat is Not a Bad Word

Creating Fuller Stories About Fat People

And the Health At Every Size website, which has its own page of resources.

finally, i wanted to highlight some authors & games that do include fat ROs. this is by no means an exhaustive list, but simply the games that i’m familiar with, and i think it’s important to show support to the people that are already doing the work and making strides to turn IF into a more inclusive community. (i also want to note that all of these games are WIPs, and may not yet explicitly state in game the description of their characters. however all have been portrayed and confirmed to be fat by the author on their blogs)

The Unknown One in The Moonless by @moonless-if (demo tba)

Bautista and Devin in Greenwarden by @fiddles-ifs

Florrie in Body Count by @bodycountgame

Hekate in Fields of Asphodel by @asphodelgame

Charlie in You Live and Fern by @beetlebethwrites

Nico in When It Hungers by @roast-ifs (currently undergoing edits)

Aja and Luc in Magician’s Voyage by @magiciansvoyage

EDIT:

Jabberywocky in Rabbit Hole by @if-rabbithole (demo tba)

Blake and Carmen in Off Script by @offscriptif (demo tba)

W in Witches of Ferngrove by @witchesofferngrove (demo tba)

James in Inner Demons by @innerdemons-if

C in The Heir Quest by @theuwriting

Roselyna and JM (as crush options) in Mommy, We Created a Plot Hole! by @mwcaph-game​

Greta and Galeon from Trails Lead Home by @trailshome

Azalea from Speaker by @speakergame

{ Childe x GN!Reader }

{ Summary } Childe gets an owie while sparing. Series Masterlist

{ Warnings } Violence, Swearing, Angry Reader, Injury, Physical Intimacy (Kissing).

{ Notes } Hurting Childe just a little because he refused to come home for me. Lost the 50/50. Reader is a sword user. Reader is suggested to be the Traveler. Self-indulgent again because all my writing is. This one is a real trainwreck but I didn't want to go too long without posting. Something better than nothing? Masterlist

{ Word Count } 2,404

Meeting Childe at the Golden House every week had been your routine for a while now. Right after you had defeated him the first time, he immediately begged you to train with him and you gave in, unable to bear those puppy-dog eyes. And the entire week he spent pestering you about it.

The whole fiasco with Osial had been put behind the both of you. It was probably true that you were too quick to forgive Childe, but he was just so charming. Not to mention he often paid for your meals, suggesting going out to eat after your sessions or if he saw you around the harbor. On a few occasions, you had been out eating with friends or on your own and found he had picked up your tab.

Since Liyue hadn't been destroyed and you got free food out of it, you really weren't all too upset about the situation. The Snezhnayan was actually pretty easy to get along with when Fatui matters weren't involved. He made you laugh too, so you supposed you could tolerate the once-weekly sparing sessions with him.

Childe called it sparing, but normal people didn't spar with actual weapons and fight like they were going to kill their partner. At first, you had tried to convince him it would be much better and safer for the both of you to use practice weapons instead of sharpened blades and arrows. He was quick to decline, saying something about both of you being competent enough not to get seriously hurt. You thought about refuting that on the basis that he had yet to beat you even once.

Even so, every week you found yourself pushing through the doors to the chamber Childe was always patiently waiting in. You'd never gotten there before him and wondered if he intentionally came early. You wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, he probably paced the room plotting his seemingly unobtainable victory.

The hydro vision paired with his combat experience and skill made him a difficult opponent, but he didn't seem terribly good at strategy. He might have been careless because it wasn't a real fight, but somehow you doubted that. He seemed the type to always give it his all. It could be that was his problem, since his loss usually came due to his exhaustion. Maybe if he didn't spend so much energy trying to show off he'd actually be a proper challenge.

"You're finally here," Childe proclaimed dramatically, voice echoing off the walls, "I thought you might have gotten lost on the way or something. Was starting to worry I'd need to go out and rescue you."

"I'm fifteen minutes early, Childe. How long have you been waiting?" you asked dryly, raising your eyebrow questioningly. You took a moment to shrug your adventuring pack off your shoulders and drop it near the door. You rolled your shoulders, relieved to be free of the weight.

"Ahah, anyways, we should get started. I have some business to attend to today," he responded, indiscreetly ignoring your question. It shouldn't have been very surprising that he didn't wait for your response before sending an arrow flying in your direction, but he'd always waited for you to signal you were ready before starting in the past.

Materializing your sword out of habit more than anything else, you raised it to block the arrow with the flat of the blade. The arrow bounced off the metal with a weak dink, clattering to the ground. If you'd reacted a moment later it would have pierced you.

You shot Childe a dirty look, irate from the cheap shot. He responded by grinning wider and taking aim again. You silently promised that he would face your wrath shortly.

Advancing towards him, you swatted the arrow flying your way with your sword. A bow would be less effective at close range, so you intended to close the distance. The redhead laughed, a hint of nervousness creeping into the sound at the pace of your advance. Or perhaps it was the building rage in your eyes.

The bow dematerialized, now Childe held dual hydro-blades in his hands in anticipation of close combat. Once in range, he immediately swiped at you with a blade. You stepped back out of the way, quickly bringing up your sword to parry the next slash coming from the opposite blade.

Childe seemed encouraged by you backing away, a smug look crossing his face. You furrowed your brows, he was so unthoughtful. He insists on using real weapons, shoots at you before you're ready, and now he has the audacity to get cocky.

You raise your blade to swing down at him and he catches your sword on crossed hydro-blades. He lets out a little huff of air, not expecting you to strike with such force, but his arms hold steady. You swiftly draw your blade back to slash at him again. Thorough training has you swiping at him with practiced ease while Childe is forced to switch to the defensive.

It gives you a sort of satisfaction to see his expression change to one of worry, it was your first time seeing such a look on him. You had no intention of actually hurting him, but it was nice to scare him a little. Maybe after this, he'd take the dangers of sparing with actual weapons a little more seriously. But probably not.

You're hardly thinking when his hydro-blades finally fail to parry your blows, the flat of your blade slamming into the side of his chest resulting in a soft crack barely loud enough to reach your ears. A look of surprise crosses your face when he lets out a pained grunt, what had happened finally being processed in your mind.

Immediately you drop your sword, ignoring it as it clatters to the ground before dematerializing. You were internally relieved to see his hydro-blades dissipate too, it would have been terribly unsportsmanly of him to stab you now. Stepping forward on instinct, you pause as you realize you're not exactly sure what to do.

Childe clutches his chest as he coughs a few times and a flood of panic washes over you. If you broke his ribs, his lungs could have been punctured. That would be bad.

"Fuck, that hurts," he huffed out before he attempted to gingerly sit down, right in the middle of the Golden House. Childe winced at the movement, but he managed to settle, leaning on his arms for support. His breathing was heavy from the strain of sparing and you felt extremely guilty, broken ribs had a tendency to hurt terribly and pain would flare up with every breath. At least he seemed to be breathing okay, so his lungs were probably intact.

"Let me get something to ease the pain," you said hastily, jogging towards the door to grab your bag. Your first thought was to numb him up before bringing him to Bubu Pharmacy to get some proper help.

"Aw, are you actually worried about me?" he cooed teasingly, maintaining that signature annoying grin despite the pain that followed him speaking. It was easy to ignore him as you rummaged through your bag for something useful.

It crossed your mind that it would be exceedingly difficult to get him all the way back to Liyue if you gave him anything strong. That limited your options rather greatly, adding that on to your lacking medical knowledge and limited variety of resources left you with fewer options than you would have liked. He probably could make it back without any anesthetic but it would be slow and you'd feel terrible for it.

Even with your lack of selection, you were thankful to have some knowledge and materials for this sort of thing, adventuring made you better at improvising and you learned a lot along the way. Taking everything into consideration, you decided it would be best to go with something topical. You could make a salve to numb up the area and then hopefully drag him to Bubu Pharmacy.

"I'm really sorry, Childe," you apologized, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Oh don't worry about it, this isn't the first time I've broken my ribs. Probably won't be the last, either," he replied with a laugh, which caused him to wince. You only frowned at him as you pulled out some plants to grind up. A rock would have worked, but you kept a mortar and pestle for this kind of thing after realizing you'd be doing it often.

You were soon mashing some leaves and a few petals into a paste, with some water Childe so graciously provided. Having a hydro user around was rather convenient when practicing field medicine.

"Whatcha makin'?" Childe asks after a short period of silence, leaning over to get a closer look. You wonder if he's actually curious or if he just can't tolerate the quiet. It seemed the two of you were always talking when you were together, save for when your sparing got too intense to spare the breath.

"A salve to numb you up so I can drag you to Bubu Pharmacy," you responded, still mostly focused on getting the paste to the right consistency.

"What? No, I can't go. I've got work to do," he argued, moving to stand up now.

You were quick to grab his wrist to prevent him from getting up, furrowing your brows. Childe paused, waiting for your explanation.

"You have at least one broken rib, whatever you need to do can wait," you told him sternly, maintaining eye contact. He turned his gaze away from you to hum in contemplation. He knew well enough that giving injuries time to heal was important, but so was his job.

"Fine, I guess what I was supposed to do today isn't that important," he relented, leaning back into a comfortable position once more. Childe had a feeling that if he had insisted on working you'd have found a way to stop him anyway.

"Can you take off your shirt?" you asked, trying to sound as casual and not awkward as possible once you were satisfied with the consistency of the paste. You would have offered to allow him to apply it himself but you figured it would be less painful this way, plus you'd need to bandage his chest afterward, so it didn't make much of a difference.

"Oh my, you're not usually this bold," he teased, reaching to begin undoing the clasps holding his jacket together. His remark made you decide against offering your assistance despite the awareness that even just wriggling out of the jacket probably hurt. It's okay to be a little petty sometimes. As a treat.

Once his torso was bare you shifted your position to be a bit closer and examined his side. There was already the beginning of bruising, but it would get much darker by tomorrow. You ignored the scars and other bruises that were present, very aware of the fact the redhead would tease you for staring if you looked any longer.

"I promise I'll be gentle," you assured, "But it'll probably hurt a little."

Childe just hummed, waving off your warning, so you gathered some of the salve on your fingers. You silently wished you'd had gloves that weren't absorbent with you so your hands wouldn't grow numb later.

It was a quick process of spreading the paste over his ribs, but his eyes remained on you the entire time. You couldn't be sure if he was just interested in what you were doing, but it surprised you that he remained entirely silent.

"It'll take a little while to numb up. I'm going to bandage your chest for support. This will hurt more," you informed him, dragging your pack towards you to dig out a roll of bandages.

"Don't worry, I'm a tough boy," he laughed in response, and you could only smile and shake your head at him. You had faith in his strength, but that didn't stop the guilt you felt over being responsible for his pain. It did make you feel better when he started reminiscing on past injuries he'd sustained in battle once you began bandaging him. How he could look back on them so fondly was a mystery to you.

At first, you were mindful to touch him as little as possible while you were wrapping the bandages. They needed to be a little tight to provide support but you tried to ensure they put as little pressure on his ribs as possible. Unfortunately, your fingers started to grow numb and you hadn't realized you'd been bandaging too tightly until Childe let out a soft grunt of pain.

"Fuck, sorry," you apologized, quickly unraveling the last section of bandaging to rewrap it more loosely.

"Don't worry about it," he said, thinking for a moment before adding, "But, if you want to make it up to me, a kiss would make me feel better."

Pausing in your ministrations, you looked up to see a cheeky grin on his face. You raised a brow, giving him an entirely unimpressed expression. It wasn't entirely uncommon for him to flirt like this, trying to get a reaction out of you. But as you reached one hand up to gently grab his chin, it was his turn to become flustered.

Leaning up, you pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek before moving away and releasing your hold on him. You patted his cheek twice, giving him an amused grin.

"You're welcome."

"Hey! That doesn't count!" Childe immediately whined, pouting at you. You could only laugh at his playful antics as you finally finished wrapping his chest.

"You're cruel, you know that?" the Snezhnayan grumbled, eyebrows still furrowed as he continued to pout. He really did seem like a spoiled kid at this moment and you laughed again, causing his frown to deepen.

You knew his demeanor was all theatrical, but as you stared at his expression you found yourself leaning towards him again. You gently pressed your lips to his, smiling into the kiss when his hands eagerly flew up to your face. You indulged in the kiss for a few moments, smirking when he followed you as you pulled away. Putting a hand on his shoulder, you halted his attempt to continue.

"You can have another kiss once you get checked out at Bubu Pharmacy."

-

If you read all that, I'm sorry lol. I wanted to spend more time on it but I don't want to take too long posting things. Anyways, if you have any better ideas for what I should write send them in. Please.

There's a part two now: Part 2

aahhh I’m so excited I love your writing!!! your sokka “help me” fic is one of my favs ever I seriously think about it at least twice a week. in a similar vein, would you be able to combine prompts 10 & 12 for sokka x fem!reader? thank you!!! :)

SOKKA + “can i try that new chapstick? i wanna have a taste” + “i hadn’t noticed but my sweet, funny, goofy best friend is kind of hot, especially since they’ve been on this fitness kick”

⇦ 𝘔𝘈𝘚𝘛𝘌𝘙𝘓𝘐𝘚𝘛

“nastiest skank bitches” Group Message

loml: ladies, i need a girls night

loml: desperately

babygorl: god i’m down, this semester blows

fugly slut <3: i’m in!! always here for a girls night 🥰

loml: y/n??

you: gals. pals. as much as i would love to...

fugly slut <3: ughhhhhhhhh

babygorl: you better not be blowing us off for sokka again istg

you: 😅

loml: TRAITOR BITCH

fugly slut <3: HOES BEFORE BROS

babygorl: WHORE

you: bruh.mp3

you: he’s coming by after the gym to help me with my physics homework!!! I NEED THE HELP PLS I PROMISE ILL BE THERE NEXT TIME

babygorl: lying is a sin y/n

babygorl: sinner

loml: if sokka’s gonna b there maybe she’ll be sinning in........ other ways...... ahaha

loml: fuckboy_emoji.jpg

fugly slut <3: when you gonna tap that fr

you: NEVER LITERALLY NO EW

you: HE’S MY BEST FRIEND

you: UNLIKE YOU RATS

fugly slut <3: he do b kinda yummy tho liiiike 👀

you: STOP

loml: yeah he’s hot sorry queen

you: HE’S NOT HOT

babygorl: i almost hate to admit it but...

babygorl: his biceps 🥴

fugly slut <3 emphasized “his biceps 🥴”

loml loved “his biceps 🥴”

you: hey! i hate u guys! jsyk!

fugly slut <3 disliked “hey! i hate u guys! jsyk!”

babygorl disliked “hey! i hate u guys! jsyk!”

loml disliked “hey! i hate u guys! jsyk!”

babygorl: uh huh yeah sure

loml: yall hear sumn?

NEW MESSAGE from sokka :^)

“hey i’m omw up!”

you: whatever you guys suck

you: i gtg

fugly slut <3: AND YOU SWALLOW

babygorl: bye girly!! get that bestie dick!!

loml: save a car, ride an engineering major >:)

you: desgostang.jpg

You dropped your phone onto the bed next to you with a groan. Your friends really and truly could be such freaks about your relationship with Sokka—or lack thereof. They’d been especially adament ever since he started some stupid bet with Zuko about who could get the most “gains” by graduation, incited by Aang making the mistake of commenting on Zuko’s more pronounced muscle mass.

Idiots.

That’s what Sokka was. Your idiotic best friend, who was funny, and sweet, and intelligent. You loved him, of course, but not like that. And he was not hot.

Definitely not.

The pounding on your dorm door interrupted your musings before Sokka let himself in, dropping his gym bag on the floor and kicking off his slides. His hair was loose and still damp from his post-workout shower and he wore slim joggers with a loose muscle tee.

“Hey!” He smiled brightly when he spotted you sitting in your bed. “What’s up?”

“The usual.” You moved your legs out of the way so he could flop down onto your mattress. “How was the gym?”

Sokka groaned. “Cardio. I’m already sore.” He stretched his arms up to fold behind his head, pulling his muscles taut.

Hm. He does kind of have nice biceps...

You shook yourself internally. Thoughts like these had been creeping out of your subconscious for weeks now, no thanks to your rabid friends.

“My leg’s been killing me, though,” he continued, rubbing his opposite foot across the skin that covered that metal pins and plates holding his bones together after a nasty break in high school. The leg often still gave him problems, ranging from the dull ache he could ignore on the day-to-day, to throbbing pain that left him limping.

You frowned, looking away from his arms to meet his eyes. “You should probably rest up before you hurt yourself,” you said.

“I’ll be fine.” He shrugged and propped himself up on his elbows. “Gotta catch up to Zuko, y’know.”

“Why? You’re already taller than him.”

“So? I wanna be more yolked, too.”

You rolled your eyes. “Buncha dumbasses.”

Sokka quirked an eyebrow. “You want this dumbass to help with your physics homework or not?”

“Haha,” you chuckled nervously, “just kidding, buddy! I meant Zuko and Aang. You—definitely not a dumbass. Nope.”

“That’s what I thought.” He shot you a smug look as he pushed up to sit cross-legged across from you on the bed. He held his hand out with a dramatic, world-weary sigh. “Alright, give it here.”

You opened your laptop to pull up the website that hosted your homework practice problems. “You know I love you, right?”

“Mhm,” he hummed, grabbing a notebook and pen from your desk to work out the math as you handed over the computer. He paused before standing to retrieve his bag, plopping it on your desk chair so he could root through it and pull out his glasses case. You felt your cheeks warm a little when he set the frames on the bridge of his nose.

Fine—he was kinda cute. You could concede that without having to dig too deep into your somewhat jumbled feelings for your best friend.

But you would certainly not “tap that.”

Well...

No. You would not.

You watched his eyes flick over the screen as he tapped the pen against his chin, catching the cap between his teeth while he thought about the formulas he’d learned in a past semester. He nodded to himself and started scribbling out a diagram and the math to go with it. You found yourself a little mesmerized by the way he simply just knew what to do, confidently scratching away at the paper as easily as one might write the alphabet. Your eyes trailed from his long fingers and calloused hand sweeping over the page, up his toned arm (lingering on his bicep a little longer), and to his face. He chewed at the inside of his cheek in concentration, sometimes parting his lips to murmur the logic to himself.

For someone who often said a lot of stupid shit, he sure had a pretty mouth.

You considered what he might do if you snatched a fistful of his shirt and yanked him into a kiss. Would he shove you away and leave? Awkwardly but kindly reject you? Or, would he kiss you back—throw the work out of the way and grab your face to coax you in deeper? Maybe push you back onto the bed and—

“Okay, so basically—”

Jesus Christ, get a fucking grip.

“—from the problem and draw it out like this to apply the formula, yeah?”

Sokka looked to you expectantly and you blinked at him as your face burned. “Sorry, I zoned out. What did you say?”

“C’mon, I know you hate physics but you gotta at least pay attention to me if you wanna pass,” he teased, shifting close enough that the sides of your bodies pressed together. Was it getting warmer in your room, or was it just your best friend?

He launched into the explanation again and you nodded along while internally willing the blood to leave your cheeks. Even as your thoughts ricocheted around inside your skull he managed to break it down in a way that somewhat made sense. He sat back and watched as you slowly worked through the next problem. You glanced up when you heard a soft pop to see him applying chapstick.

“Is that a new flavor?” you asked.

“Yeah, chocolate orange or something.” He held the tube out to you. “Wanna try?”

Fuck it.

Before your rationality could catch up you pressed a hand to his cheek to turn his head and pulled him in for a kiss. Your lips only slotted together for a brief moment before you pulled back to stare wide-eyed at each other. You could feel the fire creeping from your cheeks down your neck, mirrored in the reddening of his tanned skin.

He blinked. You blinked.

The chapstick slipped from between his fingers. Rationality arrived late.

You bolted.

“Uh, see ya later!” you shouted as you threw the door open and rushed out of the room.

“Wait, (Y/N)—“

You didn’t stick around to hear the end of his desperate call. Even thought it was your dorm and you were barefoot you still raced down the hall, wincing at the sound of a door slamming behind you.

“(Y/N)!”

Damn that lanky bastard. You were booking it and he was already hot on your heels. You barreled into the door leading to the stairwell and almost made it down the first step when he grabbed you around the waist and yanked you back. Despite your struggles, the arm hooked across your middle was unyielding until he pushed you into the corner and crowded you against the wall, hands caging you in from either side. Your heart was racing and you weren’t sure if it was because of your escape attempt or that he was close enough you could smell his body wash and deodorant. It was almost enough to make your head spin.

“Sokka, I-I don’t know why—I’m sorry, please, I shouldn’t’ve—“

“(Y/N),” he said firmly and your mouth snapped shut. “Why did you run away?”

“Uh, I—well, um...” You shrunk down against the wall and swallowed hard. “I-I don’t know.”

“You didn’t even give me a chance to respond.”

“Look—“ You paused and stared at him once you processed what he said. “What?”

He laughed, dropping one of his hands to brush against your cheek before threading into your hair to cup the base of your skull. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

With that he surged forwards and kissed you enthusiastically, making you gasp into his mouth. You balled your hands into the front of his shirt to keep yourself steady as you melted into him. His free hand pressed into your lower back to bring you in closer. His tongue slipped out to tease at your bottom lip and he chuckled when you had to quickly grab his shoulders as your knees almost buckled.

“Get that,” he murmured against your lips, pressing his forehead to yours as the two of you gasped for air.

“Oh,” you breathed, “that.” You hummed happily when he kissed you again, his stubble scratching against your chin and under your palms when you cupped his face.

You both looked up when a stairwell door somewhere above you slammed open, followed by a group of jostling male voices. Sokka grinned when you glanced at him with wide eyes and shiny, swollen lips. You tried to hide behind him as the clamor bounded closer and closer. The group of guys rounded the next flight and gave shouts of recognition upon seeing you two standing against the wall.

“Sokka!”

“Hey, man!”

“Hey, guys,” Sokka said, holding his hand up in greeting.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, is that (Y/N)?”

“Nice, dude!”

“Ah, yeah...” He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck and you raised an eyebrow at his turned head. They all cheered and congratulated him, slapping his back as they passed and disappeared down the next set of stairs. When Sokka met your eyes again you cocked your head.

“Who were they?” you asked.

“Honestly, I’m not sure.”

“Sokka.”

“My reputation precedes me, what can I say?”

“Mine doesn’t.”

“Well—“ he suddenly became very interested in the underside of the stairs above you “—my reputation may or may not involve talking about you. A lot, apparently.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t do it on purpose!” he interjected quickly, taking your hands in his. “It’s just—I dunno, I guess I think about you a lot, so...”

“Oh.”

“Fuck, okay, that sounded weird.” You laughed a little at his embarrassed floundering. “I just mean, like, things that remind me of you or, y’know, stories that involve you...” he trailed off, flushing at your amused smile. “Stop it!”

“Stop what?”

“Making fun of me!”

“I didn’t say anything,” you giggled, hooking your arms around his neck.

“You’re still laughing at me,” he whined, lips turning into a frown. His hands slipped back down to your waist.

“You’re cute.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Without preamble, he ducked down and hoisted you over his shoulder as you shrieked in protest. “Sokka! Put me down!”

“No can do, baby; we have unfinished business to attend to.” He said as he marched you back in the direction of your room.

“You’re gonna finish my physics homework?”

“Nope.”

Oh.

A/N: 2k words bc, again, i have no self control. thank you for the request!

ATLA TAGS: @hotgirlazula @octophopi @blazedbakugou @protect-remus @akiris @sunflowerazula @wooscottoncandyhair @chewymoustachio @ohno-caroline @sunflowerr-mami @1vitamin @ladylizzieofdarbyshire @u-4iia @nymeria-targaryen @tommy-braccoli @dizzy-miss-lizzieeeeee @a-sloppy-bitch @nomin-rights @siriuslyslyslytherin @starryncn

SOKKA TAGS: @fiantomartell @avatarayeaye @zvkta @sher-lockedmarvel @grandmascottlang @captainshazamerica @yuesallura

Why people keep telling you to block them if you support Pholo (Penumbra Edition)

Or: why jitterbug-juno really deactivated

I love when people categorize this as fandom wank. Really makes you feel like you’re putting the onus on either side of the conversation.

I’m making this post not because I want to stir up spoiled milk, but because I want it out there that this wasn’t a purity culture war.

The TL;DR version of this is that fans of color tried to tell Rab (prev. jitterbug-juno) not to post her Omegaverse (or A/B/O) fic. And instead of taking the L, she posted it on Ao3 and deactivated.

But, if you want context, well, buckle in. CW for mentions of racism and transphobia.

What did jitterbug-juno do?

Before I get into this I do want it out there that I will not be linking Rab’s fic, but I will show you this screenshot of the summary of it.

[ID: It is a screenshot of a fic, “As You Are” by Pholo.

Summary: Peter can hide his scent glands behind cologne; makeup; concealer pads. He can quash his heats with suppressants. He can divert the urge to nest and fawn.

But he can’t feign another gender’s subvocals. He lacks the anatomical capacity. Mag taught him to distract from his silence with fast, flashy words. For longer heists he relies on social convention. Traumatic mutism is uncommon, but remarked upon by enough war vets and soap operas to be widely recognized. Peter’s marks assume he’s been harmed long before they assume he’s a closeted omega. It would take quite the backwater brute to ask why he doesn’t murmur or chuff or growl.

On the 'Blanche there are the usual furtive glances. Juno makes clear to Peter that should he ever want “to talk about what happened,” he’ll be there to listen. The gesture annoys Peter more than comforts him.

‘Nothing happened,’ he wants to scream. ‘There’s nothing to talk about!’

There are 14 comments, 85 kudos, and 11 bookmarks /end]

You decide what you’re doing with that information, but honestly, I’d rather you don’t give it anymore engagement than it deserves.

There was a period earlier this June (yes, even though it’s only the 10th, at time of writing) when Rab was posting snippets of the aforementioned fic on her blog and tagging it appropriately, putting it in the attention of pretty much the entire Penumbra fandom.

What’s Omegaverse or a/b/o and why is everyone so against Rab for it

If you know what Omegaverse is, I don’t have to tell you why it’s controversial. If you don’t know what Omegaverse is, well, Fanlore said it best:

a kink trope wherein some or all people have defined biological roles based on a hierarchical system, with the terms originating from animal behaviour research. There may be werewolf, knotting, or other animalistic elements involved, or the characters may be otherwise purely human.

The term is generally written with slashes (a/b/o). Many fans, particularly ones from Australia and New Zealand, are uncomfortable seeing the term without slashes because it is also an Australian slur for aboriginal people.

I won’t get into the history or the heaps and tons of other discourses (mostly about fictional male pregnancy, homophobia, transphobia, sexual assault, etc.)  that go on within that. We’re here specifically on Rab v. Penumbra fans of color and we’re staying there.

Anyone who’s been in Penumbra enough to realize that everyone draws the Junoverse characters in a certain way knows that a) Juno is black, b) Nureyev is Asian, and c) as a fan you have to be aware of what you’re subjecting or saying about either of them because of the political repercussions that come with it.

And despite that, Rab proceeded to write Peter Nureyev, a gender nonconforming gay Asian male character that is widely headcanon’d as trans, into a fic using a kink trope that relies heavily on animal behavior.

Unlike most people new to fandom, Rab is aware of what Omegaverse is and is very much white. She is (and if she isn’t, should be) aware of the racist undertones that writing him in would get.

I couldn’t get a screenshot of what snippets Rab was sending out into the ether, seeing as a majority of my friends would rather not have seen any at all (I have all of the usual tags blocked so I wouldn’t have seen it either way), but needless to say, Rab got attention for it. Both positive and negative.

Anne (@hopeless-eccentric) even posted a satirical fic, in the odds that Rab was just writing this thing to be “the first” to write Omegaverse fic in the Penumbra tags.

But, I’m assuming more than one fan of color came into Rab’s inbox and messaged her about it, but someone I know (who would like to remain anonymous) was gracious enough to take a screenshot before he sent his in and let me use it for this post:

[ID: A message to jitterbug-juno about to be sent by a sender whose name is censored with a black bar. His messages says:

“as someone who is a person of color i think the nature of the fic you are writing right now is extremely racist and attributing animal characteristics to lgbt people of color is not at all appropriate, especially when you are someone who is white. i have to ask you to not publish this fic and to reflect as to why you would want to write this in the first place, these tropes are extremely harmful and”

There are 33 characters left to write into the message. /end]

I can’t speak for whoever else sent asks about the fic she was writing. If anyone was actually not-so-gentle with her, well, minorities don’t really owe it to you to be gentle about what they can tell is bigotry-tinged behavior.

But, the message was clear: this is different from your garden variety, lily white straight male character m/m kink fantasy. This is an actual queer Asian character that a lot of queer Asian people feel attached do. Do not post the fic.

What happened next: the beginning of the end

The next morning, I woke up to most of my friends being frustrated by this post on Rab’s account:

[ID: Dated 5 June, a post by jitterbug-juno:

“Gonna leave the fandom for a while. Wishing you all well.”

The tags say the following: not sure if i’ll be back, thank you so much to everybody who’s read my fics, and who’s sent asks or engaged with my art or any of that, you’re amazing and I’m sending love /end]

That... was not what fans of color wanted, but it was definitely an action they took. Some celebrated, as they were very much wary of Rab for having caused much of the same category of drama in fandoms like Voltron: Legendary Defenders and Warrior Cats. This also meant that she was probably not going to post the fic either.

Some, myself included, were relatively pissed, as they’d wanted even just the measly bit of accountability. An apology or an acknowledgement of having been called out in private and that they’ll take time to consider why. But instead we got Rab leaving in the face of fans of color telling her not to post her Omegaverse fic.

Well. The next day...

[ID: Dated 6 June. A post by jitterbug-juno titled, “Well... that was short-lived”

“I gave the situation a lot of thought yesterday. The reaction to my omegaverse previews made me figure I should leave the fandom. It seemed like the safest option.

But you know what?

Hell.

I don’t want to leave. The fic discusses the tropes of omegaverse and I spoke to several POC on Twitter, and I’m going to post it with plenty of tags so people can avoid it if they wish. I’m not going to be chased out of this space.

Thank you to everyone who sent messages yesterday. I shouldn’t have made that post about leaving. It was really reactionary. I’m okay and I appreciate your support so much.

(bolded on the post) To those who are angry and uncomfortable with me: Please block me. If you’re going to talk about this fic on Tumblr and Twitter– and this may sound odd– PLEASE NAME ME as Jitterbug-juno or Pholo. Don’t vague me. That way people who don’t want to see this discourse can add my name to their block lists.“ /end]

That certainly was short-lived, she wasn’t kidding.

This got a lot of outrage. Again, the fic is up on Ao3 and she has not taken it down. A lot of POC were pissed and I didn’t see a single fan of color actively support what she was doing, at least, not in my friend group. Everyone started making those posts to block them if you liked the fic or Rab’s content in general, in accordance to what Rab wanted.

Perseus (@mraudiodrama) noticed/pointed out that Rab deleted the part where she said she spoke to several POC about releasing her fic, as well as the part where she said she refused to be chased out of the fandom. This was an incredibly pointed detail to edit out, according to some.

[ID: A screenshot of jitterbug-juno's last post taken 11:00PM. Much of it is the same except the following bolded words are removed: "The fic discusses the tropes of omegaverse and I spoke to several POC on Twitter, and I’m going to post it with plenty of tags so people can avoid it if they wish. I’m not going to be chased out of this space." /end]

That same day, Rab deleted her blog. I actually caught this one on tape, believe it or not.

[ID: A screen recording taken at 12:01 PM of someone scrolling down jitterbug-juno's account. The posts and asks about Omegaverse and her post about leaving and coming back are conspicuously absent. /end]

Initially, I thought she deleted all mentions of it. I wanted to see firsthand if the rumors about her deleting portions of it were true. If she added things where she was saying that she wanted to write it because she was autistic and wanted Nureyev to be autistic too, regardless of the numerous QPOC telling her not to do it.

Instead, it turned out, she deleted her blog.

And now, we're here. The fic is still up. Her blog is down. Rab's public Twitter account @nataclinn is quiet about this. Her @cushfuddled Twitter account is on private after her run-in with the Warrior Cats fandom, according to a friend. And her Tumblr @cushfuddled account has nothing but memes.

Again, I didn't make this post to stir up drama. I wasn't even obsessively making this post as a call-out because she isn't in the fandom anymore. I just want it out there that this isn't a purity culture thing that got out of hand in a fandom as niche as Penumbra. This was a case of someone being called out and failing to acknowledge it before running away. And I want all that out of the way before I say:

If you are on Rab's side of this debacle, I, a queer person of color, want nothing to do with you either.