isleofdarkness

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Who is Unity Kinkaid? What were the extinuating circumstances?

Unity Kinkaid was Rose Walker's grandmother. Unity was meant to be a vortex but, because Dream was imprisoned, never realized her power beyond her being the only known person to wake up from the eternal sleep his abrupt incarceration caused. Desire decided to fuck with Dream (sibling rivalry, Desire thought Dream was high and mighty and thought he was so much more important than Desire and Despair even though they were just as important as him due to "What are dreams if not products of desire and despair?") and had a child with Unity, either knowing or guessing the vortex would pass down and this could get Dream to accidentally spill family blood. By the time Dream escaped, the vortex magic had been inherited by sixteen-year-old Rose Walker, who he didn't know was related to Desire (she also didn't know she was related to Desire or what an Endless even was.) Unity was supposed to be the vortex, but the damage Dream's imprisonment did to his function prevented that. By the time he was free, he couldn't really kill her because she was already dead.

He did almost kill Rose Walker because Rose, being both Endless blood (not that he knew, but it made her abnormally powerful) and a vortex, was way too dangerous, but Unity stopped him. She'd figured out that she was meant to be the vortex and helped Rose give the vortex magic back to Unity, who wasn't a threat Dream would need to kill because she was already dead. (Then, when Dream asked about Rose's grandfather, Unity mentioned "his" eyes, which were like a cat's eyes, and Dream realizes exactly how badly he nearly fucked up because he had nearly spilled family blood.) Rose is no longer a vortex and has thus far been allowed to just go back to her life.

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In short, Maverick is doing the absolute most as Destiny

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Maverick is also going to make the Endless safer. The first step was making it so that other beings could enter their realms as long as they weren't explicitly told no. There are safety measures in place, other beings can only enter part of their realms and can't come further in without invitation just to be safe, but the realms are still infinitely more accessible than they were before. They'll also have waypoints on Earth, places where part of them lives and they can be found. These waypoints act as a kind of middle between Earth and their realms, though the magic here is more complicated to prevent someone from using these waypoints to cause damage. Getting their attention needs to be easier so that if something is going down that could hurt the natural order, they can be told so reality isn't doomed if they miss it. Besides, sometimes other beings will need to talk to one of them. There needs to be a way for other beings to talk to them. And maintaining the safety and stability of their realms is just easier if the other Endless don't need to wait for someone inside to invite them in. Maintaining Dream's realm during his capture would have helped him greatly after his escape, and it ensures stability if one of them were to leave. They were all very lucky in that Destruction's realm could go on just fine without him there. If that hadn't been the case and his realm had started to deteriorate and none of the others could enter to restore it, gods only know what could have happened.

She's creating safer ways for them to be summoned. Before, when an Endless was summoned using magic, their entirety would be summoned, meaning that if they were summoned into a trap as Dream was, they would not be able to use their omnipresence to get out and their role would fall into disrepair. Now, summoning and Endless means summoning only a tiny scrap of an infinite consciousness, ensuring that they cannot be completely trapped and cannot be kept from their power. She worked with the spells previously used to summon the Endless in mind, learning exactly how the spell worked and altering the magic of the Endless to make it so the spell couldn't work as it originally had. The previous spells are now considered "commoner" spells, meaning that if they feel the call of that particular spell, they know it isn't something exceedingly urgent. Then there are new spells, handed to people like Fate, Xanadu, Wiccan, and the Constantines, which will tell the Endless being summoned that they're being summoned by someone important and this is probably important. But there is no spell that can summon the entirety of an Endless, Maverick made sure to make magic like that impossible for any being.

And when the Endless leave their realms for whatever reason, she's ensuring that a part of them will always remain in their realm so that they cannot be locked out in any way. If someone tries, because part of them is still in their realm, they can just rejoin that part and be free of the lock. Preventing even a god from using their omnipresence to their advantage like this is pretty much impossible without major help, preventing an Endless from doing it is impossible period. Even Night and Time can't.

Then there's how the Endless are going to interact with other realms. Maverick is opening up relations between the Endless and the rulers of other lands such as Tartarus, Hel, Hell, Heaven, Valhalla, etc. That way, if they ever need help from one of these realms or one of the realms needs help from them, there's already an open channel of communication. These realms are part of the natural order, so the Endless need to know what's going on in them. They can't protect the natural order if they aren't paying attention.

She's also making it so they have the unlimited ability to interfere in matters regarding the other Endless. The only reason Dream's incarceration lasted so long and was thus so devastating is because the others weren't allowed to interfere and free him. Never again. If something is happening with one of the Endless that starts to negatively impact the natural order, the others are allowed to do anything necessary to protect it.

They cannot, however, interfere in the other realms unless the natural order is at stake. They cannot order other rulers around unless it's undeniably for the natural order. Lucifer is no longer forced to sentence someone to an eternity of torment even if they did nothing wrong just because an Endless had a grudge. They can be petty all they want but they can't force other people to agree with them. Even Maverick isn't that petty. Lucifer personally sent her a thank-you note when he heard about this rule because Dream was a massive thorn in his side over this.

As for vortexes, until they can be understood better, they are Maverick's responsibility. Because the world already knows what the Endless are at this point, she plans to talk to the parents or guardians of any vortex who comes up to explain everything to them. She's not going to tell them the doom and gloom "Your child is a massive threat to the natural order and could very well destroy the fabric of reality" speech because really, she doesn't think that's actually the case. She thinks they have a role in the natural order just like everything else. She'll explain that the magic their child has, since that magic is tied to the Endless, is extremely powerful and needs to be trained to protect them. Then she's going to tutor the child, either letting the child stay at home and visiting or inviting them into her realm or having the child move into her realm completely. Either way, she'll keep a magical eye on them so that if something happens, the child needs help, she can be there in a second to help them and prevent something bad from happening. For a Destiny vortex, they will need to be relocated into her realm because that is the only place where their power can 1000% be contained and the only place where even the most powerful Destiny vortex can't overpower her. Once she knows more about vortexes, she'll see what she should do with them. She's already working on a spell that can basically remove the magical mutation that causes someone to be a vortex, but until she knows what exactly she's dealing with, that spell is going to be a last resort because separating that magic from them runs the risk of killing them and she does not want to take that chance if she doesn't have to. Besides, until she knows that vortexes are a danger to the natural order or at least this particular vortex is, she doesn't think taking away their magic counts as protecting the natural order. And considering how unethical taking someone's magic is, the only reason she would ever do it is if it was to protect the natural order.

Plus, Endless are now allowed to be in relationships without their partner being doomed to an inevitable grisly end. They can date, marry, have children, whatever they want, and it won't hurt anyone. The rule originally existed to discourage the Endless from having children, who would be extremely powerful, but this wound up meaning that when the Endless inevitably had children, they couldn't be in their child's life because it would be proof that they had broken an ancient rule. Now, the only rule is that if they have a child, they need to tell at least Maverick and they need to be part of their child's life because she does not tolerate absentee parents. The rule forbidding spilling family blood is still there, but there's now an exception that allows them to spill family blood in order to protect the natural order, but only to protect the natural order. The only rule for how they interact with the world is that they need to do everything in their power to protect the natural order. This will mean that, in the brief period between Maverick's death and Destiny's retirement and death, Maverick will not be able to interact with the world or her family because she is not part of the natural order. Once she is fully Destiny she can do whatever she wants, because then she'll be part of the natural order as an Endless and her existence will no longer put the natural order in danger due to her status as a vortex. Once she dies, she becomes a pseudo-Endless and will be bound by the rule that she needs to protect the natural order, but she will eventually be part of that natural order as Destiny is.

Maverick has also written that if one of the Endless were to vanish, she would be able to perform their function for as long as necessary as easily as they can. If someone were to go all prodigal like the first Destruction did, Maverick would be able to take over for them until another Endless is created for the role. She's also made it possible for them to completely relinquish their role, in which case another will be created to fill their role to avoid something going wrong due to one of the Endless missing for millennia. If she were to vanish and abandon her role, she has it set up so that another Destiny will happen immediately, the role will pass to one of the beings she's training so that none of the others need to take on her role and the natural order will not be put at risk. Her role is also unique in that there are several other people who can perform it if she previously granted them permission so that if something happens and there's a catastrophe she isn't there to deal with, one of these people can basically make the decision as her. She can override these decisions, which she put in place so that none of her backups can pull a Corinthian.

There are more changes, a lot more, but this post is already so long so I'll leave off here

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The thing is, as Destiny, Maverick does inherently know everything. She knows what a preexistential-Endless hybrid would be able to do, even if that's never happened before. She knows what nephalem can do, even though there's never been one before. If she asks a question, even if there's never been a case to get a conclusion from, she will get the answer. She could just be asking herself and being content with the answers. But she isn't. She's asking herself these questions and then writing down the answers and sharing the information with the paranormal science community at large. They need to know. Yes, she knows and yes, that is usually enough, but she doesn't think one person being the sole keeper of all of this extremely important stuff is smart. A lot of problems in the history of the Endless is that they rely only on themselves (excluding Death, but Death isn't Destiny and doesn't have the same unlimited access to information that Destiny has,) they never turn to anyone else for help, never let anyone else know stuff, never let anyone else be part of the solution. In sharing all of this information, Maverick is preemptively creating solutions by working with other people.

Because the Endless aren't going to be able to drop everything when a nephalem finally happens, but the Constantines or Lilith can. They just need to know what they're getting into. In telling the paranormal community what these hypotheticals are capable of, she's preparing for when one of those hypotheticals happens and needs help as they grow into their power, or for when a hypothetical turns their power on the world and needs to be taken down. And giving people time to come up with solutions to problems. Not only do they now know that a nephalem can be immune to both anti-angel and anti-demon measures, but they know how to make blades or spells that are effective. They now have time to make those blades and write down and practice those spells, which will be invaluable if the time ever does come because it will minimize the damage done.

The Endless have the solution to pretty much every problem, but they can't always be the solution to every problem due to a massive array of factors. But if they share the solution, the problem can be solved without the variables that come with an Endless getting involved. They always thought that preserving the natural order meant dealing with everything on their own and never telling anyone anything, but really, preserving the natural order means letting other beings who are part of the natural order play their role, taking unnecessary responsibilities from the Endless and making it so that all they need to focus on is their role. Being Atlas is only going to hurt the natural order. The key is to cooperate.

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Maverick is also studying the interactions of power between the Endless and other beings. For example, the interactions of power between Death and gods of death like Thanatos or creatures like reapers and even horseman death. She's trying to learn exactly how the Endless interact with things like shedim, nephilim, nephalem, preexistentials, titans, primordials, and other similar things. Even mutants are an area of her study. She's trying to actually map out how all of this works

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Maverick studies vortexes, she's probably the world's leading expert on them. She knows what a vortex can do depending on which Endless they counteract, exactly how a vortex can cause issues, circumstances that could cause a vortex, and knows every vortex in their history. Destiny vortexes are the rarest (excluding Delight vortexes, but that's kind of tricky because Delight hasn't existed for millennia while Destiny both predates Delight and has been there long after her changing into Delirium, so of course the numbers are skewed,) Dream vortexes and Desire vortexes are the most common. She has theories about why vortexes exist and is sure they have something to do with balance. Since she's currently the only vortex (other than Unity Kinkaid, who was a unique circumstance) to reach adulthood, studying exactly how vortexes and their power plays into the universe means basing her studies entirely on herself. She plans to get rid of the rule that demands all vortexes be killed because while it is safer, killing innocent people isn't her thing and it's not like they can figure out vortexes if no vortex is ever allowed to really grow into themselves. The key is to study vortexes, Maverick is sure. There are so many questions and they've gone far too long without answers, they need to figure out vortexes for the good of the universe. Because if they don't understand what a vortex is and how they work, how can they possibly hope to protect themselves and the universe from one that's misguided like Rose Walker nearly was, or they accidentally break something like Maverick did in a moment of fear? In order to stop something like the Awakening from happening again, they need to understand how Maverick was capable of it. Figuring out vortexes could very well wind up being what saves reality down the line.

She's sure vortexes are far more important than they think, so she's studying them.

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"Gotta get your hands dirty" only it's Maverick convincing Destiny that not only is interfering in the course of the world not a bad thing, sometimes it's also a beneficial and even a necessary thing after Beast tried to kill him. Sometimes, yes, interfering is bad, especially when it's Destiny doing the interfering, but not always. Interfering isn't black and white.

(In fact, her theory is that vortexes like herself exist because of how the no-interfering rules caused problems. That vortexes exist to force them to interfere for the stability of the universe. As if the universe itself is trying to teach them that they need to interfere every once in a while by forcing them to.)

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Another thing that really helped Rose and Ace on that first night was seeing Lydia. They knew her, knew her reputation, that she had just as much blood on her hands as they did and had fought to kill pretty much everyone who was anyone on the Isle, including Diego. Ace itself had fought Lydia several times, it knew she was extremely dangerous. And yet she sauntered right through the front door of Mal's safehouse, didn't even need to say anything for the crowd around Diego's bed to part and let her work, and everyone let her work without questioning her once or watching her to make sure she wasn't going to hurt Diego. They didn't yet know about Lydia's soul deal, aside from Ace having learned the hard way about her immortality, so it was extremely confusing to them. But when she sat down with them and explained the conundrum of her soul deal and being ordered to do things she didn't want to do, it was a massive relief. Because her situation was so much like theirs. And if these people can accept Lydia despite the orders she's been forced to carry out, then maybe, just maybe, they'd at least be okay with letting Rose and Ace survive the night.

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Ginny was the first bridge between the Hearts twins and the allied gangs. She'd been part of the team saving Diego's life and noticed how scared and tense the twins were (of course they were, they were deep in enemy territory surrounded by enemies,) plus how badly injured they were. So once Diego was stabilized and there was nothing else she could do to help him, she turned her attention to Rose and Ace. She knew it would be protective of its sister, so she turned to Ace first and put on her doctor's voice, pointing out that it was hurt and asking if it would let her help. When it glanced at Diego, clearly feeling he should be a bigger priority, Ginny told it that Diego was fine for now and there was nothing else they could do for him, so she was free and wanted to help them. It asked why and she answered as though treating someone who had tried to kill her so many times was the easiest thing in the world; "Because you're hurt and I'm a doctor, it's my job to help people who are hurt. I want to help people who are hurt. And that includes you."

It did let her treat its injuries and, once that was done, Rose let Ginny treat her injuries, too. By the end of it, Ginny had the two of them relaxed enough to talk to Facilier. That was pretty much the first kindness the two of them were ever shown, and they'll remember it for the rest of their lives.

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Esmeralda's family are going to become good friends with Spider's family. Spider initially went to Esmeralda wanting to learn more about Roma culture and language, wanting to reconnect with anything her mom hadn't been able to teach her before her death so that when Spider's siblings come to Agrabah, Spider will be able to teach them just like she taught them everything else she knows. Esmeralda, finding out that Spider's maternal grandmother, her mom's mother, was French Romani like Esmeralda, went all in. She taught Spider languages and dialects, taught her social beliefs, their music, their dance, their history, everything she knows as a woman born and raised into French Roma culture. Learning that Spider knows her mom gave them "real" names, not the insulting names their father gave them, but that Spider didn't remember any of them, she helped Spider come up with a few to use whenever they feel it appropriate. She's going all out

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Harriet's ability to stay calm and unbothered in terrifying situations truly should be studied. She's had guns pressed to or pointed at her head, knives to her throat, swords pointed at her heart, all sorts of weapons pointed at all sorts of vital areas, and she always stays 100% calm every time. She doesn't even need to fight through the panic, she simply does not get scared. No adrenaline, no increased heart rate, not even a twinge of anxiety. A gun pointed to kill her instantly is about as stressful to her as swabbing the deck of her ship. She had terrified many an enemy because she simply did not give a shit when they threatened to kill her. Sometimes she even laughs at them.

Harriet is truly the most unshakeable person on the entire island. And considering iron-hearted Hades is there, that's saying something.

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Occasionally Persephone forgets that Riah, Hadie, and Hades all have glowing eyes and the reminder that they do is always terrifying.

She'll come downstairs because she hears someone in the kitchen and just sees three vague silhouettes in the darkness, one with glowing red eyes and two with glowing yellow eyes, and nearly dies on the spot

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Rose gets several pet betta fish. They don't share tanks, of course, and can't see each other in their separate tanks, they all get their own tanks with snails, ghost shrimp, and some catfish with them. She loves her fish and takes very good care of them

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Dance is a huge thing on the Isle. No matter the cultural differences, it brings everyone from all walks of life together. Everyone on the Isle dances.

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Harriet's favourite quote is "Never again should a people starve in a world of plenty." It's a quote about the Irish potato blight that her father taught her and that she thinks applies perfectly to what's going on on the Isle. In this world of plenty, her people should not be going hungry, should not be starving. She aims to fix it.

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Beast keeps trying to assassinate Rose and Ace only to find that all poisoning attempts failed because Underland immune systems are tanks and Underlanders aren't even human and they both have an Isle sixth sense of when someone is trying to get close to slit their throats or shoot them from a distance so those never work, either. Infuriating

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Ivy is 5'2, which infuriates her because her stupid brother made it to 5'10 so why couldn't she? Brothers are the worst.