#/ like 14-15 years old depending on the timeline

[seekspatharc]

⸻ @moonofiego liked for a thing ! ( ahsoka ! )

"well that could've gone worse i suppose." staring at what remained of the droids, no doubt a scouting party. which only means that the rest of the droid army was on planet and isn't that a pain. "you're the one in charge, tano." the padawan stated as he glanced in the tortuga's direction. "what do you think we should do? continue on and hope we don't run into another scouting party?"

[nataliescatorccioapologist]

What we know about each Yellowjackets character’s life before the plane crash

Shauna

Not a lot is known about Shauna’s childhood, but it definitely seems like she had an estranged relationship with her parents. It is confirmed that Shauna’s parents divorced when she was younger. Jackie mentioned that Shauna lied to her about her father’s sudden absence, saying that he was traveling a lot because he had become the new president of Hello Kitty (aww Shauna). This suggests that, after the divorce, Shauna had little to no contact with her father. Additionally, Shauna never even mentions her parents in the adult timeline, which may imply that she is no longer on speaking terms with either of them. Further emphasizing this distance is her childhood bedroom, which appeared to be in an attic. Whether she chose to sleep there or not, this detail speaks volumes about how separated or neglected she felt by her family.

Shauna had been best friends with Jackie since grade school, although their relationship was strained by jealousy and Shauna's feeling of living in Jackie's shadow. Nevertheless, their love for each other ran DEEP (a little too deep). Shauna’s jealousy of Jackie led her to lose her virginity to Jeff, Jackie’s long-term boyfriend, behind Jackie’s back. The night before the crash, Jeff and Shauna slept together again and she became pregnant with his child.

We also know that Shauna was a straight-A student and received admission to Brown University right before the crash, and she was a very good soccer player (she was very fast according to Coach Martinez!) even though she apparently didn’t even like soccer.

Shauna was most likely a Defensive Midfielder on the soccer field, given that her jersey number was 6. This means that she was in charge of acting as a shield in the midfield, breaking up attacks, covering teammates, and intercepting passes.

Jackie

Jackie appears to have come from a wealthy family given how massive her house was (complete with those fancy mansion columns). She was an only child and lived with both her parents. Jackie’s parents seemed to put a lot of pressure on her to be perfect, and we see that they tend to brag about her achievements (even after her death), which highlights their high expectations for Jackie’s success. Jackie’s mother may have had a dependence on prescription drugs, as she mentioned that her mom was on “ten different kind of downers”, some of which (Valium) Jackie stole to fall asleep on the plane.

Jackie was popular in school and was the captain of the Yellowjackets soccer team (more expectations that she had to live up to). She was said to possess great influence over others due to her natural leadership skills and magnetism. She had been dating Jeff since freshman year, although she mentioned having broken up with him multiple times, so it seems like it was a tumultuous relationship. She refused to have sex with him due to wanting to make losing her virginity special. Jackie planned to go to Rutgers for college and be roommates with Shauna.

We can assume Jackie was a forward/striker on the soccer field due to her jersey number: 9. This means her primary role was scoring goals.

Natalie

Out of all of the Yellowjackets characters, Natalie’s life pre-crash is explored in arguably the most detail. We learn that she came from a low-income family and lived in a small, cluttered trailer with her parents, both of whom appeared to struggle with drinking and drug problems. Her father worked a blue-collar job, possibly as a mechanic, given the (tire?) patch on his work shirt, while her mother, Vera, seemed to stay at home, often drinking and sleeping throughout the day. We also know that Nat’s father was physically and verbally abusive to her and her mother.

Nat’s best friend was Kevyn Tan, whom we first see her with when she is 14 or 15 years-old, although it seems like they had been friends for a while before that. Kevyn had a significant crush on Natalie, which she was unaware of. When Nat was 14 or 15, her father found Kevyn in her bedroom one day and berated Nat, thinking that they were sleeping together. This escalated into her father beating her mother, prompting Natalie to grab a gun and attempt to shoot him. However, she forgot to take off the safety. Her father then took the gun but accidentally shot himself in the head after tripping on the stairs.

It is strongly implied that Natalie's mother blamed her for his death, as she makes comments in the present day like, "You never know what you have until it gets ripped away from you." This suggests that Natalie had a cold and distant relationship with her mother.

It appears that Nat spent much of her high school years experimenting with drugs and sex to cope with her guilt and had gained a reputation at her school for being sexually promiscuous and a “burnout.”

Somehow she ended up playing soccer, and she was likely a right midfielder or winger given her jersey number: 7. This means she was in charge of attacks in the midfield and passing the ball to other teammates closer to the goal.

And one more interesting detail: Nat was definitely a hardcore feminist in her teen years, as we can see riot grrrl posters all over her childhood bedroom walls.

Travis

We get very little information about Travis’s life before the crash, but we know that he lived with his father, Bill, his little brother, Javi, and his mother. Travis stated that his father was “a shit dad” who “didn’t even like him,” so he clearly did not have a good relationship with his father. Additionally, before leaving to get on the plane, we see that Coach Martinez leaned in to attempt to give his wife a kiss goodbye, but she turned away and appeared stiff. Travis rolled his eyes at this. My guess is that Coach Martinez cheated on his wife and Travis knew about it. His parents’ relationship was strained after the affair but they stayed together for the kids, and Travis resented his father for it. Just definitely seems like the context behind that scene.

Travis seemed to hold some resentment towards Javi as well given his harsh treatment of him even before the crash, perhaps because he received more attention and care from their father. We also know that Travis was bullied since 7th grade after he had spinal fusion surgery and Bobby Farleigh made up the rumor that he got one of his ribs removed to perform…certain acts on himself, earning him the nickname “Flex.”

Van

We got a brief scene in the pilot episode of Van’s home life. Like Natalie, Van also appears to have come from a low-income home. Van’s father was likely not involved in her life, as Van’s mom seemed to be the only option when she needed a ride to the airport and her father was never mentioned. Van’s mother was an alcoholic, as she was laying passed out on the couch and Van had to slap her to wake her up. It seems like Van had to take on a parental role with her mother and likely had to raise herself for the most part. In the adult timeline, Tai mentions that Van had always had a strained relationship with her mother.

Van went to New York City once for her 7th birthday and wanted to do the carriage ride in Central Park, but she was taken to see Cats instead. She dreamed of going back to NYC and doing the carriage ride ever since.

Van is the Yellowjackets’s goalie, and it seems like she and her teammate Taissa had a romantic relationship before the crash (or were at least flirting a lot).

Lottie

Lottie’s pre-crash life gets explored in a little more detail. Lottie grew up in a very wealthy family. Her father, Malcolm, is a businessman who seemed very strict and controlling. Lottie’s mother, Emilia, seemed more soft and understanding of Lottie’s potential gifts. We see that, as a child, Lottie often experienced strange visions, including a time in which she started to scream in the backseat of the car while her parents were at a red light, which ended up preventing them from getting into a car crash when the light turned green. It is implied that Lottie experienced these visions often. Lottie’s parents argued over the nature of these visions, with Malcolm saying that Lottie had psychological issues and needed to be fixed, while Emilia argued that Lottie had a gift for seeing the future. Lottie was placed on medication for schizophrenia, and she is seen taking this medication the morning of the crash.

Lottie had a disconnected relationship with her father. It seems like he never understood her and neglected her as a result. It is implied that he wasn’t around much due to his work. Lottie said that her dad paying for the private plane to take the Yellowjackets to Nationals was “basically his only form of parenting.”

Lottie, according to Coach Martinez, is a talented soccer player with great footwork. Lottie is likely a Defender on the soccer field, given her jersey number: 5. This means she was in charge of keeping the other team from scoring goals and stopping attacks.

Taissa

Tai appears to have come from the most well-adjusted household among the group. She lived in a nice home with both of her parents, who seemed supportive, as shown in their brief interaction in the pilot episode. Her mother offered to drive her to the airport, while her father was cooking breakfast. He reminded Tai that "the most important thing is to have fun," which conveyed a sense of care and encouragement. Despite this, Tai was always intensely focused on success and hard work. As a star player on the soccer team, she was implied to be the best player, according to Coach Martinez.

When Tai was little, her grandmother got sick and Tai often visited her on her death bed. Not long before her grandmother’s death, she saw a “man with no eyes” in the mirror of the bedroom and began to scream. Tai saw this man, as well, and also began to scream. At her grandmother’s open-casket funeral, Tai noticed that her grandmother’s eyes were missing.

Tai was likely in a romantic relationship with Van before the crash.

According to the Pilot episode script, Taissa is the star midfielder of the Yellowjackets. Her jersey number is 8, also supporting that she is a Central Midfielder, which is often considered to be the most difficult position on the field. This means she acted as a link between defense and attack in the midfield.

Misty

Misty was clearly a social outcast before the crash. She was bullied throughout her school years. One classmate, Becky, frequently targeted her with prank phone calls, spreading rumors and mocking her with her friends. During one of these calls, Misty quoted Plato, hinting at her intelligence and academic inclinations. Misty clearly loved learning and equipping herself with knowledge, as she obsessively took Red Cross babysitting classes, had a great deal of medical skills, and paid close attention in Coach Ben’s health classes. Misty always craved the feeling of being useful and needed by her peers. This was most apparent in the scene where Allie broke her leg—Misty was the first to spring into action, trying to help, although her attempt was unsuccessful.

We can also see that Misty may have always had some sociopathic tendencies, as she is seen watching a rat struggle and drown in a pool with no emotion on her face the morning before the crash.

As the Yellowjackets’ equipment manager, Misty didn’t play soccer herself but still found a way to be involved with the team. Her responsibilities likely included maintaining equipment, ordering new gear, and issuing uniforms to the players.

[indieyuugure]

Officially asking your timeline for the 2012 series!

Feel free to answer in two parts if that's easier (and/or less confusing) considering the first three seasons are less convoluted than the last two.

Thanks!

Yeah! Of course here you go:

So this is assuming that the Turtles’ birthday is in the spring, I could of course be wrong, but it seems unlikely it’s a different time.

Okay so first thing you probably notice is that the time line doesn’t start in 2012, it starts in 2011. It’s weird but according to Rocksteady’s résumé, they joined the foot clan in 2013, but they do that in season 3, which should be about 3 years later.

There’s also a few other things, including the fact that Kraang Prime states I believe in season 3 that it has been 2 years since their first invasion. I’m not as certain on that one as someone told me about that, if you have an episode number that’d be great.

If you can prove me wrong on this really weird error I would be genuinely delighted.

So I guess starting with season 1 and 2’s distance, there’s a line between Casey and Raph during the episode The Invasion Part 1 where Casey states it’s been 1 year since the last invasion: (source: turtlepedia.fandom.com)

So that means that season 1 and 2 have to span 2 years. Mikey also states there was a month gap between the first and second season heard in The Mutation Situation: (as in season 2 episode 1, not my comic)

After season 2, stuff starts getting a bit weird. Assuming we ignore the animation error that there is no snow on the ground and the trees have green leaves in early December in Massachusetts, then it’s definitely true that 3 months have passed since December so now it’s March, which makes sense for there to be no snow.

There’s another really odd error in The Croaking, where Michelangelo introduces himself as being 15 years old, when actually he’s 16 almost (or is, depending on their birthday) 17. I figure though that’s probably an error with the script writers and not related to the actual timeline.

Then of course there’s the time travel dilemma. At the end of season 3 it ends with the planet being blown up and they travel back in time an amount that Donnie claims to be 6 months given the Earth’s position in comparison to the sun.

However, there are a few issues to this. One being that in the episode Trans-Dimensional Turtles(season 4, ep 10) the turtles go back in time. The time is unclear until the end when a Kraathatrogon pops out of a portal that is the same one that they threw into a portal back in the episode The Manhattan Project(episode 13, s2)way back in season 2. Unfortunately this means that either A) all of season 2 and 3 covers 6 months, which is definitely not true, or B) Donnie was wrong about how long they were actually in Space.

Now the tricky part is the question “Well if Donnie was wrong, then how long were they ACTUALLY in space.” Now I made the guess that maybe it’s more like 1 and a half years because that way Donnie was still right, he didn’t realize how many times the Earth had made a full circle, so it’s more plausible.

I have some issues with how he guessed 6 months, because they are right next to the Earth, but the Earth has an elliptical orbit around the sun, so 6 months would be half a circle, so unless they were also following the earth in it’s orbit, it would actually need to be 1 or 2 years—one or two full circles to the same position—but whatever I guess. Diagram of what I mean:

The other issue is that yes, now we have a point of reference in the first timeline, but where was that in the Space timeline. There’s not a clear answer, but given that there are 14 episodes in the space arc, The Manhattan Project taking place at episode 10, and the fact that the turtles bemoan the fact that the last few episodes are actually incredibly far spaced because of travel time, I’m going to assume it’s somewhere between the first 1/3 and middle of their time in space.

(In this diagram it’s more like 1.667 years, but whatever)

So after that you have season 4 which is even harder to pinpoint the length of be about half of it is the space arc, now, you could say that the remainder 2013 is also the rest of season 4, however another question arises with Rocksteady’s résumé where he states that he stopped working for the Foot in 2016, though I’m not sure when he’s considering their work for the foot to have ended (if you have an episode that’d be great) so I’m not really sure.

So unfortunately, everything after the end of the Space arc I have no clue on, though it seems you were mostly interested in the first half.

I basically have no clue for season 5, but most of it is silly “what-ifs” so I doubt most of it has a time line placement.

So yeah, that’s my wacky timeline research, please nit-pick as much as you can. My goal is to create an official timeline so if you have more stuff to add to this that might clarify things, or prove things differently, I’m all ears!

Hopefully that made any amount of sense, feel free to ask more questions :]

[zahri-melitor]

Poking at timeline stuff again:

So Kon was ‘born’ in 1993, and hatched from his tube aged… 15ish? He turned 1 in Nov 1995 (Superboy Annual #2 of his series) – note Kon is STILL AGING here, and after this point he’s usually described as 16 physically. His age ‘froze’ in July 1997 (Superboy #41) and then started aging again after Sins of Youth in May 2000 (Superboy #74) Kon died in May 2006 (Infinite Crisis #6) Kon returned in June 2009 (Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #4)

2000-2006 is about a year in Comics Time. I think it’s 100% fair to say Kon was physically 17 year old, at his youngest, as at his death, and mentally 17-18.

Kon enrolled in Smallville High on his revival – he’s almost certainly in Year 12/a Senior – and 2009ish is known as the ‘start’ of a school year by a bunch of correlating factors (Steph starting college is one). Flashpoint interrupts and this school year likely never finished. He may or may not have celebrated his 18th birthday before Flashpoint but it either happened or was due imminently.

Known timegaps – Kon lost slightly over a year between Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis. His aging stopped either for over a year (if you use Bat timelines) or more like 6 months (given it was 3 years real time). In total I want to say Kon’s ‘age’ went backwards about 18 months to two years over this period. His mental age, however, probably only lost 15 months or so.

By Flashpoint, Kon probably was due to celebrate his 18th birthday in his personal timeline.

In comparison: Jason Todd died aged 15 (if you take canon at its word) or 14 years 9 months (if you use the canonical birthday and death day dates). He was officially dead for 6 months before getting resurrected (- 6 months) and then in a coma for a year (-12 months). He then had a fun amnesiac period which does not have a defined length of time before Talia got sick of it and pushed Jason into a Pit.

Using Bat timelines, 18 months after Jason’s death is probably some time around Contagion or Legacy. Legacy in particular makes a lot of sense for Talia to see Jason in Gotham and pick him up to take home with her. He probably had to go into a Lazarus Pit during No Man’s Land, given Bane and Bruce start the ‘destroy all the Lazarus Pits’ campaign post-NML, culminating in Death and the Maidens in 2003-2004.

Either way, Jason Todd is still mentally 15 years old as of 2000.

Jason’s not in a position to return to Gotham with Talia’s urging until AFTER the rebuild for the famous bomb the Batmobile moment (realistically probably 2000-2001), and from the rebuild process IN DC comics 2001 is a better call than 2000 if you don’t still want rubble everywhere (they didn’t manage to get Ivy out of Robinson Park until Jan 2001)

He then does his world travel training trip… but is back in Gotham for September 2003 and Hush (and Tim’s 16th birthday).

Given Tim’s birthday is canonically on 19 July, the longest Jason’s world training trip can be is 6 months, and is probably more like 3-4 months given the required futzing time either side.

Jason doesn’t legally turn 18 until March 2004 (Tec #790). He’s still almost certainly mentally 16 years old here. He’s arguably physically 17.5 here.

A set of preboot timeline facts from all of this that is hilarious (to me):-

Jason and Tim are mentally about the same age, given their canonical 23 month age gap by date of birth. Depending on how long a period Talia keeps Jason around as an amnesiac, Tim may actually be mentally older.

Yes. The Titans Tower fight was essentially two 16 year olds having a spat.

Kon, despite also having fun death times, is 100% mentally older than Jason for all periods, though they’re close to drawing even after Final Crisis. He’s probably close to physically the same age as Jason for a lot of the time up to Infinite Crisis.

Tim may actually have spent a similar amount of time training in Paris (between Robin I and some time during Legacy and the summer leading up to Cataclysm) as Jason did on his Lost Days world trip.

Anyone who questions how Tim can be one of the greatest bo staff fighters in the world when he’s working off the same time frame of intense training from masters as Jason is (and has a far more substantial training time with Bruce and Dick) is honestly discounting that Tim has more extensive vigilante experience than Jason does, particularly in terms of Gotham-focused skills.

Kon and Tim end up by Flashpoint as within a few months of each other in age.

[prezaki]

Foundations of Mendel - Durandal in Context of His Biography and World

The goal of this write-up is figuring out how Durandal's disparate backstory bits fit in with both each other and the chronology of the Cosmic Era as a whole. It's my attempt at taking the retcons presented in Freedom and turning them back into a coherent narrative. (As a side effect, I also recap a lot of important lore that was not directly mentioned on the show.)

I begin far before Durandal was even born, because I think the tumultuous context of the Cosmic Era is fundamental to the emotional development of the show's adult cast. I'm basing everything here on the official timeline, which was initially published around 2004 (in MSV, for example) and reprinted as recently as 2012 in "Gundam SEED Mechanics and The World". The timeline is translated on the Gundam Wiki here, but I'll recap everything I deem important.

Lore that is not taken directly from the timeline or the anime itself will be marked either with its source or clearly labeled as speculation.

~*~

In the year CE 15 George Glenn releases the blueprint for how to make Coordinators. Initially, the practice is outlawed. The first generation of Coordinators is born in secret, mostly to wealthy parents who can afford both the treatment and the secrecy required. Siegel Clyne, Patrick Zala and Aura Maha Khyber all belong to this generation. They grow up on Earth, hiding their genetic type from their peers.

The public view on Coordinators doesn't change until CE 29, when George Glenn brings back Evidence 01, the space whale fossil. Confronted with the knowledge that intelligent alien life exists for certain, religious organizations lose influence on public ethics, thus resulting in their objections towards 'violation of the natural order' being rejected. Fueled by the thought that humanity would have to compete with a much wider universe, the creation of Coordinators booms and becomes commonplace.

This is also where space station Mendel marks its beginnings. It's a research hub centered around genetics, one of the facilities where parents would turn in order to have their children modified. The first secretly born Coordinators are all between 5 and 14 years old by this point, and for the first time more of their kind are created outside of covert efforts. None have reached adulthood yet.

And it won't be until around CE 40 that a significant enough number of the earliest Coordinators enters the workforce and begin having children. This shifts public opinion and puts a damper on the wide-spread enthusiasm. It becomes apparent that the adult Coordinators have a significant skill gap that sets them apart from their Natural peers. The fears and anxieties caused by this observed reality sees to it that Blue Cosmos once again finds mainstream appeal

It's now, in the year CE 41. Gilbert Durandal is born. I think this makes it very likely that his parents were some of the first Coordinators, still born in hiding. While it's still possible that he is first generation and made by Natural parents around this time by sheer coincidence, I think the fact that Aura finds his genetics fascinating enough to want to study them also speaks for him being second generation rather than directly modified.

Then in CE 44, when Durandal is 3 years old, the first set of PLANT colonies (Aprilius) is completed. The PLANTs are named as such because they were intended as manufacturing plants that should help the Earth by outsourcing a lot of production to space. They wind up being pretty much exclusively staffed by Coordinators since their abilities make it easier for them to effectively work in space. They're forbidden from producing their own food, thus keeping the workers totally dependent on Earth.

I think it's interesting to keep in mind that colony living as a wide-spread phenomenon is incredibly young in the Cosmic Era, even as opposed to the Universal Century which already had millions of people living in space in UC 20.

While there are around 10 million Coordinators by CE 45, a sizeable amount of them still lives on Earth. Hatred against Coordinators continues rising and terror attacks on the PLANTs are common. This is the social climate Aura experiences during her formative teenage years.

At the same time, dissatisfaction with the Coordination process is very commonplace as well. The (rich) people who shell out for designer babies are unhappy about even the slightest variation in their orders (let alone actual emergencies as they may occur in any pregnancies). The researchers at Mendel are at theirs wits end.

Trying to solve this perceived "problem", Ulen Hibiki works on the artificial womb. But he lacks funding, leading him to accept Al da Flaga's request to make a clone of himself in exchange for more money for his research.

Thus, in CE 46, Rau le Creuset is born.

As mentioned, at this point the seclusion of Coordinators living in the PLANTs is by circumstance rather than design. The founding of an actual organization of Coordinators is not until CE 50, when Siegel Clyne and Patrick Zala found the Zodiac Alliance. In its conception the Zodiac Alliance is a movement for autonomy of the PLANTs, including a right to make their own food. It is not well-received by the powers that be and driven underground pretty much immediately.

With that, we arrive at CE 53. Exactly 20 years prior to the events of Destiny, all the key players we know have moved to their starting positions and the plot threads we are familiar with begin unraveling.

The scene is Mendel. Ulen Hibiki, one of its best researchers. Aura Maha Khyber, also on Mendel although presumably working for a different company. She is engaged in a fierce rivalry with Hibiki. (Freedom Novel) 8 year old Rau, undergoing a secluded and strict education to become Da Flaga's heir. (SEED Novel) And Gilbert Durandal, 12 years old... also on Mendel, about to meet Aura Maha and change both their lives. (I am guessing on the year number - technically this could have also happened a year later, when Durandal is 13.)

Why Durandal came to Mendel is a mystery. Did his parents work there? Was he specifically coming there as a test subject? Or was his genius intellect big enough that he was coming there to work? Either way, his intellect is noticed by Aura and found to be exceptional. She begins studying his genes. (Freedom Novel)

Having grown up in these troubled times, Durandal was already trying to think of ways to use science to improve the world and bring about peace. The Destiny Plan is born here, as the naive dream of a tween. And "maybe we can use our newfound genetic expertise to give everyone a life that makes them happy" is perfectly reasonable as the dream of a kid who has immense intelligence but not yet attained true emotional maturity. And maybe it would have remained as such a dream, if not for Aura. Aura, at this point 29 years old, decides that actually the tween is CORRECT and we should absolutely structure the world around the tween's ideals! (Freedom Novel)

Maybe Aura is inspired in her fervor by the precarious point in history that they are in. George Glenn is assassinated either briefly before or briefly after Aura and Durandal meet. Making matters worse, Earth is faced with a pandemic of a new strain of influenza, which kills Naturals left and right but to which Coordinators are immune. Rumors spread that Coordinators engineered the illness, further escalating tensions. With things turning upside down this way, Aura may well have felt that she was on the cusp of a new era and given her the resolve to try and shape that era for what she felt is the better. We can only speculate.

Either way, the end result is that in CE 54, Aura actually convinces a whole team of researchers of her and Durandal's idea and begins creating a mediator master race for the new world they envision: the Accords.

Aura, just like Hibiki, is hurting for funding. Where Hibiki took money from the earth elite Da Flaga, Aura seeks her money from the Coordinators living on PLANT. She works on devising an anti-aging treatment as it is becoming increasingly apparent that the second generation of Coordinators is incredibly infertile and thus concerns are rising about the aging workforce. (Freedom Novel) (While this is the reason we are given in the text, the oldest Coordinators would only be around 40 at this point and the second generation around 20. The realization of second generation infertility would be very very recent.) Further, Aura's relative, the Emperor Mihar Khyber from Earth, is sending significant support to her project. (Freedom Novel) (My personal conclusion is that these circumstances led to Aura's labs being far better off financially than Hibiki's at this point, further worsening relations between the two.)

Then, in CE 55, Mendel sees its own little baby boom.

Via Hibiki gives birth to Cagalli. The first successful artificial womb gives birth to Kira. Lacusmama gives birth to Lacus. Aura gives birth to Orphee. An unknown researcher gives birth to Ingrid. (There is also a white haired baby in the movie screenshot, but Shura is two years too young to be the baby depicted. Mysterious!)

This is where I want to once again reiterate my belief that the Accords were carried to term rather than born from artificial wombs. Rau goes through great pains to tell us that an incredible amount of fetuses died in the attempt to get even a single live birth out of the artificial womb. It's absolutely nuts to think that Aura, two labs over, had successfully made three live births from artificial wombs just a few months before Kira was born.

The much less lorebreaking explanation is simply that Aura and Hibiki just had wholly different goals and priorities to start with. (Fukuda himself has stated at a live event that Aura's claims of Kira being a 'failed Accord' are nonsense, as Hibiki was never aiming to make an Accord at all.) Where Hibiki was trying to create a Coordinator that is 100% accurate to the genetic settings input by himself, Aura was much more focused on creating babies that had psychic abilities. It stands to reason that mild variations caused by natural pregnancy weren't a big obstacle.

In the same year, genetic modification is once again banned on Earth. From here on out, the only new Coordinators would be second and third generation Coordinators born to Coordinator parents. The creation of new Coordinators seems to have basically stopped entirely - if some secret births are happening, they do not impact canon significantly enough to ever be brought up.

Unfortunately neither the ban on making new Coordinators nor Mendel's scientists successfully developing a vaccine for the pandemic satisfy Blue Cosmos. They launch a terror attack on Mendel, as it is the epicenter of genetic research. Ulen Hibiki loses his life in the attack. Aura gets exposed to an overdose of her own anti-aging drug prototype and begins a painful months-long process of gradually aging in reverse until her body turns into that of a child. (Freedom Novel) Kira, Cagalli and Lacus are all brought away to their respective families. Durandal, now 14 years old, seemingly gets through the attack with no lasting injuries and decides to remain on Mendel, making more Accords with the now tiny Aura.

Around this time (presumably by CE 57), things start heating up for the Da Flaga family. Rau is introduced to the Da Flaga main house (and Mu) as the new heir. It is implied that it is then that Da Flaga finds out that Rau suffers from short telomeres. (SEED Novel) This essentially means that his cells are the same age as Al's cells - middle-aged. Rau will die around the same time as Al, making him completely useless as a successor. It's possible that this prompts Al to call up Mendel labs to order a second clone - if Rey is born around this year that would make him around 16 by the time of Destiny, matching the timeline pretty well. Before Al can find out whether or not Rey suffers from the same defect as Rau, he is burned alive within his mansion. Rau has decided to do a little righteous arson in retribution for having been discarded.

With Rey now born, he winds up living a sad shadow existence on Mendel. In one lab, there's Rey, growing up isolated and alone. In another, Aura and Durandal merrily keep making siblings for Orphee and Ingrid and raising them all carefully (as specimens and tools). Knowing they were only separated by a few buildings sure is a terrible irony....

The last Accord (Redelard) is born in CE 60, when Durandal is 19 years old (and Aura is 35 going on 11). I feel like it puts a great amount of context to Durandal's messiah complex to consider how much his teenage years were fully dominated by Aura and her reinforcement. An idea for creating a simple utopia is something you might grow out of as you learn more nuance, but it's hard to learn that nuance when you have an accomplished older researcher constantly telling you you're right and literally making designer humans for you. I believe that at this point, Durandal is still fully convinced of the Destiny Plan (Masterrace Edition).

The Destiny novelizations feature a scene from when he and Talia were still dating, in which he gets all starry-eyed telling her about how he truly believes science will save the world and everyone in it. With the retconned-in knowledge that at that point he's hiding half a dozen of genetically-engineered children from Talia, the scene takes on an even more sinister tone... And yet his enthusiasm and desire to do good are sincere. The scene should take place sometime around this time. We don't know when Durandal and Talia started dating, but I imagine it's a year or two after Redelard is born. After all, Durandal and Talia already break up in CE 63 - when Durandal is 22 and Talia is 18. (Omake Quarters)

At the time of this scene, there are 7 children who think of Durandal as their father - but he doesn't think of them as his children, both because they were made when he was too young to be a father and because they are not genetically 'his'. It's such bitter, bitter irony. Aura certainly created a mess for everyone involved when she decided that making custom babies for a 13 year old boy was a reasonable thing to be doing.

I tend to think of CE 63 as the big turning point year for Durandal's life another way as well. In my opinion, it is the year in which Aura and the Accords move to Earth.

This picture appears to have been taken in a colony, so it must have been while all of them were still on Mendel. The Accord's sterile-looking outfits support that assumption. If you ask me, Redelard looks about 3, while Orphee and Ingrid could feasibly be 8. Durandal could easily be 22. Going with those ages would place the image squarely into CE 63. In my interpretation, this picture is a commemorative goodbye photo, taken specifically as a keepsake.

(Since the picture shows Durandal wearing his chairman outfit (that he shouldn't be wearing until a decade later), it's hard to take the clothes Aura and Durandal wearing seriously as indicators of timeline. They appear to have been chosen solely for being their most iconic looks. However, I'm still choosing to interpret the fact that Aura donned her queen garb here as supporting evidence towards this headcanon.)

My more relevant reasoning for Aura moving to Earth at this point is that it solves a major timeline conundrum: it gives an explanation for why Rau doesn't know about the Accords (as confirmed by Fukuda at a live talk session). If Aura and the Accords had still been living on Mendel while Durandal befriended Rau, it'd have been odd for Rau to not find out about them. But if Aura has already left for Earth, then Durandal has a much easier time lying by omission.

Besides, Aura has good reason to want to hide out on Earth. Due to her connections to a royal family, she's guaranteed to have a safe and comfortable living - and it gives her opportunity to amass more power and influence. Once the Mendel labs ceased being needed (for producing more Accords), why wouldn't she leave them behind to try and advance her plans elsewhere?

I think that Rau and Durandal met shortly after Aura left. The exact year is hard to pin-point, but I assume it's been the same year (CE 63) and CE 65. This would make Rau between 17 and 19 years of age, matching his appearance in the flashbacks.

Why would Rau return to Mendel at this point? Funnily enough, Freedom provides a plausible answer to this!

With Aura gone, Durandal is presumably the new head of her previous research team. This also leaves him as the person in charge of whatever is left from her anti-aging program. Rau, who is literally dying of accelerated aging, has every reason to try and check out this research. It's plausible that the pills Durandal custom-makes for Rau are roughly based on the same medication that de-aged Aura. The de-aging itself is likely not an option for Rau as a) it seems to have left Aura incapable of ever going back to becoming an adult and b) it is unknown whether or not her physical transformation actually extended her lifespan at all. Further supporting this idea is the fact that Rey only goes symptomatic during the events of Destiny (Destiny Novel), when he is approximately ~16 years old. Being genetically identical, Rau might not have experienced any seizures or migraines until he was a teenager. His symptoms would make it necessary to seek out treatment in order to be able to continue his career unhindered.

Over their time as doctor and patient, Durandal goes intrigued with Rau. And how could he not? Rau is the shadow-side of everything that Durandal had venerated. Durandal had been creating designer babies with good intentions, but now one such created child is staring at him with hatred in his eyes. For the first time removed from Aura's direct influence and confronted with a person entirely unlike anything he'd seen before, Durandal can mature for the first time.

Seeing Rau teaches him about the unhappy byproducts of ambitions, and it also shows him that Coordinator supremacy is a load of bullshit. Rau is a Natural, a terminally ill one at that, but he's blending in with Coordinator society without issue. Between that and the first-hand knowledge that Naturals like Ulen Hibiki were also able to keep up with Durandal and Aura just fine, Durandal's view shifts more strongly. Coordinators may be all-rounder talents, but a Natural (when doing what they have aptitude for) would not lose to them. Unlike Aura, who is stewing in anti-Natural sentiments, Durandal is open to seeing the talents of others and adjusting his ideas accordingly. The rift forms.

Sometime into Durandal and Rau's friendship, they find Rey who's still been isolated in a different laboratory. Rey would be between 6 and 10 years old at the time. Testament to the trust between them, Rau leaves raising Rey to Durandal. Durandal, now well into his 20s, is now actually of an age to be having children and also actually loves the person the child is tied to. It makes Rey fundamentally different from Orphee.

Then in CE 68, Mendel has to close down due to a bio-hazardous incident. (I am fond of the theory that Rau is the cause of that incident and that's why he told Durandal to take Rey and move to the PLANTs beforehand.)

In CE 69, the existence of a ZAFT military is made public knowledge. Some of the Junius colonies are converted for food productions as PLANT takes real steps towards autonomy. By then, most Coordinators have fled Earth to the PLANTs.

The first PLANT-Alliance war begins CE 70. It continues into CE 71, the year Gundam SEED is set. Rey, then 13 years old, enters the military academy to follow in Rau's footsteps.

Meanwhile Aura is plotting on Earth, still believing Durandal to be fully on her side. She seems to be sorely mistaken.

When Durandal tries to enact his new version of the Destiny Plan (notable not featuring a masterrace) in CE 73, he never once calls on Aura for assistance. It stands to reason that he has emotionally and materially abandoned Aura and the Accords after meeting Rau. Fukuda himself has questioned whether Durandal was truly on Aura's side. (Live Talk Event) Further, fandom friend made the pretty salient point that Durandal personally handpicked Shinn as his ace. Shinn is a super-pilot notable for fighting purely on instinct and thus being impossible to defeat with psychic abilities. He's the perfect anti-Accord weapon. Had Durandal won, would he have had Shinn wipe out Aura and her children? We cannot know, but it's definitely possible.

The Durandal we see on the show earnestly believes that the Destiny Plan will be an equalizer between Naturals and Coordinators, bringing out Naturals' full abilities and allowing them to compete fairly. He does not seem to hold any specific Coordinator-supremacist view. Some of the most important people in his personal life (Rau and Rey) are Naturals. This is fundamentally at odds with the picture of him that Aura tries to paint. Durandal on the show wishes for Kira's death so no 'Ultimate' remains to imitate. By the same reasoning, he would want to get rid of the Accords so they cannot inspire greed and jealousy that would lead to more suffering like Rau's.

That's why I say that taking what Aura says about him at face value wholly destroys the character as had been established prior.

But laying out the backstory like this, I think we can peace it all back together into a consistent character. Was this the intended read? I do not know. It's the read I am going with anyway.

Despite being a nihilistic murderous maniac, Rau le Creuset did manage to change one man for the better. Even if 'better' only means 'slightly less deranged' in this case, I appreciate it on a thematic layer. Even a man who thinks of himself as wholly unlovable, as destruction incarnate, can bring about positive change simply by existing and being loved in spite of it all.

[spopsalt]

So… I was on the wiki. And I found this.

Here’s the video link btw.

https://youtu.be/U1627KxmKM4?feature=shared

So… In the video, they try to celebrate Adora’s 16th birthday, and say that it takes place not anywhere near here actual birthday, hence it being a surprise.

So if it’s true that every season is a year (even though S2 and S3 feel more like one season rather than two…) We can also assume Catra and Adora are around the same age, though Catra is confirmed to be younger. We’re not sure how much you her though. Could be a few months, could be a couple years. But for simplicity, let’s say they’re about the same age. We do the math, and… Here are Adora’s canonical ages.

S1-15 years old

S2-16 years old

S3-17 years old

S4-18 years old

S5-19 years old

Yikes. I always thought maybe she was about 17 in S1. But… Yeah, it’s bad. And depending how old Catra is compared to Adora, Catra could possibly be only 17 by the end, meaning she could have been a minor throughout. After all, two years isn’t that noticeable at times. Just look at ATLA and Owl House. Aang and Toph are about two (biological, I know Aang is technically 112) years younger than other characters who are about 14-15, but it’s not that noticeable. And Owl House has Hunter at 16, Willow at 14-15, Luz and Amity at 14, and Gus at 12-13. Apart from Gus, they all look to be the same age. So like I said, Catra could be a few years younger. And that’s not even getting into the fact we don’t have a frame of reference for any of the other characters besides Frosta. (Just think, Frosta is the same age at the end of the show that Adora was at the beginning!) And again, I personally would like to think S2 and S3 are the same year since they feel like the same season and we’re released in relatively close proximity iirc, so I’d personally like to adjust the age timeline by about a year, ending it at 18. But that’s me, so it’s whatever. My point is, after all this time we finally have a canonical age for Adora. And buddy, it’s not looking pretty for all the creepy fans. But it never really was pretty with those creeps.

That makes it worse- Here I was thinking them being 17 in season one was bad, but nope! Turns out they were teenagers for the majority of the show! What is with Catradora fans and sexualizing minors? I don't get it, why can't they just like a ship without sexualizing it for 2 seconds especially when it turns out the people in said ship are teenagers for the majority of the show?

[horizon-verizon]

The whole Alysanne/Viserra conflict is so bizarre I’m not sure why GRRM wrote it like that. Alysanne fears Viserra wants a crown…even though Aemon is still alive and Baelon hasn’t been named heir yet. Alysanne weeps for Daella dead at 18, blaming Jaehaerys for having her wed at too early of an age…but then pushes Viserra into a betrothal that causes her death at 15, again with a man older than Jaehaerys in the dreary and boring North, widowed 4 times and already with 5 children. Marrying an older brother for politics isn’t acceptable…even though Aegon the Uncrowed/Rhaena & Aegon/Visenya did it, plus she and Jaehaerys did it in defiance of their guardians, but I guess it’s so much better because of true love. Viserra is said to be a manipulator and committed alcoholic by 14, not even liking boys, but using her looks to get them to fight for her…yet her ambition is to go after Baelon, the man with two healthy trueborn sons already, 14 years older than her, not yet the heir with Aemon alive. How much influence could Viserra possibly have even if she did marry him at the time ? Obviously she had some attraction to him, if she wanted to seduce him (let me just roll my eyes at the mother trying to protect her nearly 30 year old son with 2 children from a “seductive” 15 year old girl…it’s pathetic) with all of the drawbacks. Alysanne’s view of her just makes no sense for her character or the timeline of events. But Viserra is so one dimensionally vain and openly ambitious (even when it contradicts itself, like surrounding herself with boys while having her eyes on Baelon) that she doesn’t come across as a person. It’s like the worst anti’s view of Cersei.

*EDITED POST* (4/17/24)

I recently wrote a Tweet about Alysanne vs Rhaena HERE, & the legacy of women/family destroying the other. And I have a Tumblr post abt Alysanne and her daughters HERE.

I don't know about your points about Alysanne's inconsistency, since I can see it happening in real life from the women I know or interacted with, their hypocrisies & self-defeating compromises. I do, however, see something in your critique of Viserra's writing. I'm offering a set of headcanons based on the knowledge that women are still subject to promoting patriarchy while also trying their best to look out for women's survival and/or rights, especially when their ability to even do that depends on their connection/support/allowance on certain sorts of male authority:

A) Alysanne's Attitude towards her Daughters

This is the passage anon refers to for Alysanne's grief over Daella being too young & her blaming Jaehaerys ("Policy, Progeny, and Pain"):

Watsonianly, I believe GRRM reasoned that Alysanne was less willing to not ship off Viserra because she compared her "slyness" and seeming confidence to Daella's timidity and seeming helplessness and concluded that Viserra was more needing of containment, less needing of her protection and partly because she had more of a will of her own towards her marriage. Viserra, more than Daella, was maybe perceived more as a trip of Alysanne's authority as both mother and a Queen in the face of Jaehaerys'....less charitable and constrictive privileges over Alysanne's earnest desire for women to advance more in the realm and especially in the monarchy itself (heir buisness). She was way more "eager" to have her away than she was for Daella.

I also say in my Twitter post these:

Alysanne looked at Viserra wanting to be Queen as insulting to the feeling that ALL the family should mourn & respect Alyssa's passing, not just her seemingly "protecting" her son from Viserra's shamed "preening" & demonizing her daughter for the sake of a male child she favored. Perhaps Aysanne felt Viserra showed she did not care about Alyssa as much as she should have. perhaps she resented Viserra for showing how shallow the bonds b/t the siblings actually were due to the age differences & how little we actually hear of the 1st set of kids interacting w/the 2nd. Perhaps Alysanne thought this reflected a failure on her part as a mother. maybe she partly resented Viserra for not "respecting" the boundaries of a man's posthumous grieving for seemingly one of her favorite kids...certainly she preferred/made more time for Baelon & Alyssa over Viserra, Vaegon, Saera, even though she definitely loved all her kids.

Alysanne perhaps saw in Baelyssa her own marriage with Jaehaerys AND it's "success" proved their joined right to rule/soulmatism (their union created another perfect, happy union & thus and wanting to believe their marriage was perfect, couldn't tolerate any corruption to that...unconsciously). By desiring Baelon for queenship, Viserra--to Alysanne--again does a "taboo" against Alysanne's private-public relation order. She may have taken it very personally (2nd line after "PLUS" in paragragph below).

But most importantly after Saera's "scandal" & Daella's will against a more routine marriage arrangement/determination to find a husband on her own terms, I think the fear of Viserra "ruining herself, being separated forever from the family like Saera (the North is better than Essos), and ruining the family's/Jaehaerys' prospects PLUS her own experience of helplessness transformed into her needing to direct and arrange the circumstances that she did for Viserra. As well as look at her like she was an issue to be reconsolidated more than a child even though she also did seem to love her. It's possible she justified to herself that Viserra would always be as close as she can be.

Marriage is not just about the couple's happiness--the first priority is actually usually for the respective families' politics and it is a business move. There were political incentives for her to marry Theomore Manderly--the old lord of White Harbor in the North that weren't there for Daella marrying Rodrik Arryn. Theomore was a Seven-faithful vassal to the lords Stark. Jaehaerys had severely angered the Lord of Winterfell, and even though Alysanne made him more amicable, the lord liked her better than Jaehaerys and Jaehaerys seemed too anxious to always make sure the North remained less willing to see the Targs as enemies, which a marriage would do. In one of the last 4 pics below, we see Alysanne try to convince Alaric to have one of his family marry some woman of her choosing.: (A Surfeit of Rulers"; "Triumphs and Tragedies").

vs

Some might argue why he didn't allow Daella to marry a Stark: one, she already had the chance to marry an old gods worshiper, Royce Blackwood, but once she found out about the house still worshipping the old gods, she refused the marriage saying she didn't want to go to hell; two, I do not think the Starks even had eligible sons at the time when they were deciding who she'd marry. Neither Rodrik Arryn's loyalty nor his positive feelings towards the crown were doubted.

Plus, Jaehaerys was growing much more impatient and fed up with Daella than he did with Viserra because of Daella's constant refusing to marry any lord that was chosen for her which I don't fault her too much for, some were questionable ("Policy, Progeny, and Pain"):

So again, I think that Alysanne grew more wary & frustrated with his dismissiveness to the point where she became much more protective and also caring or attentive towards Daella in a way she wasn't for Saera or Viserra because the latter both acted more independently or self-soothed. Alysanne also might have seemed to/might have that Viserra--in her "sly" willfulness ("oh, you think you're grown?") didn't deserve or need her protection as much as Daella did, even though Viserra was younger when she arranged the marriage. The eagerness for Daella's departure came more from Jaehaerys than Alysanne, while for Viserra, it was more Alysanne's own negative feelings driving her arrangements. So on Alysanne's end, it's easier or more obvious to blame Jaehaerys for Daella than it is herself for either Viserra or Saera. Though for Saera, though I blame both, I still blame Jaehaerys more and while it was certainly Alysanne's doing to arrange Viserra for the old-guy-with-four-kids Theomore, it came after the heels of the "trouble" with Daella's marriage.

PLUS they came after the group of kids Jae & Aly had & already gave their most emotionally energetic years to (I mentioned in another post that you are less able to practically give your love to more than 4-5 kids, esp if you are devoted to your job, profession, or duties as these two parents were). Daella died in 82 A.C. while Viserra died in 87 A.C. And though they are part both of the second set of kids Aly & Jae had together (the first set Daenerys, Aemon, Baelon, & Alyssa), even within this set the age difference b/t Daella and Viserra was 7 years.

While Alysanne observed their kids more than Jaehaerys and knew what they did and stuff, she also was herself "tired" or less willing to accommodate more deemed "disruptive" personalities even though she loved all her kids. Why? Again, too many kids, her using marriage (as Visenya & Rhaenys did) as a more political tool than one to totally satisfy her daughters' personal preferences, and a less interested-domestically-participating husband while trying to participate in politics herself but also expected to be the head of child nurturing simultaneously. The ones that can be more "managed", the more able/willing Alysanne will be sympathetic towards them or fight with Jaehaerys over their futures.

Therefore, it seemed Alysanne was a lot more eager & self-convinced to "get rid of" Viserra than she ever was for Daella because of the different pressures from her husband, her conclusions about their daughters' characters, and her own stake in the policy-making she wanted to participate in even though she expressed. Women can be like this, semi-subtly & subtly perpetuating patriarchal limitations thinking that it is "for the best" while really using the subject's seeming or real noncompliance with socialized gender ideology and behaviors.

Also, though Aegon V and Betha Blackwood married for love, they insisted that their kids marry for politics and by their direction anyway. Parents/leaders often compromise their own previous actions or intentions for the present necessities or perceived "greater" needs. Jaehaerys himself cites how he doesn't like how Alyssa Velaryon & Rogar Baratheon both seek to control him...and then he goes on to do this to his own kids. 🤷🏼‍♂️

B) Viserra's Desire isn't all that Vain

1.

You:

But Viserra is so one dimensionally vain and openly ambitious (even when it contradicts itself, like surrounding herself with boys while having her eyes on Baelon) that she doesn’t come across as a person. It’s like the worst anti’s view of Cersei.

a)

Yes, it is like the worst anti's view. Because an anti is writing about her. It is their perspective & Fire and Blood is written in hindsight, written around Robert Baratheon's time.

When we talk about her being "one-dimensionally vain", it comes down to the Unreliable narrator and the lack of grace they afford to her. Not saying she wasn't vain...but she had a lot of good motivation to rely on looks.

Viserra was 15 when she died. Fifteen-year-olds hardly know themselves, compared to those above 18, at least. And they tend to be a lot more self-concerned or confrontational, rebellious, testing the social limits of whatever, etc. But they also can still use reasoning and draw conclusions about their society's implications for them based on their roles to get what they want or to oppose legitimately unfair restrictions against them.

Viserra was a female royal of parents who some might describe as "workaholics", determined to politick their way into maintaining the dynasty, and as I mentioned above, Viserra was part of the latter, less-emotionally-attended-to brood. Her role, as we see how Jaehaerys treated Saera, was to marry & reproduce and not do as her brothers Aemon & Baelon did which was to work with Jaehaerys & work together in anticipation of becoming the next leaders of said dynasty and Westeros.

As a princess who'd not politically trained similarly as her brothers and after being taught/directed by Septas, learning how to become a lady of a court for when she marries she's got little comparatively to do other than, hang out with other girls of the court & any willing siblings, read, play games, dance, maybe ride horses and hunt, etc. she's got comparatively bigger slots of time to herself and perhaps be a bit lonely. Especially when she has parents who worked often. We don't see nor hear of her actually having close relationships with any of her siblings: Maegelle, Alyssa, Baelon, and Aemon are adults with families of their own or out of the keep in other ligelong devotions; Vaegon is, I believe a maester by the time she was about to married off, and still, he wasn't interested in any of his siblings; Daella seemed...more attached to Alysanne and not that engaging; Saera, it's said, that NONE of her sister liked, which includes Viserra; Gael hadn't been born until 80 A.C., and was 7 when Viserra was 15.

Viserra was not hopelessly stupid--it's implied that she, like Saera, wanted more autonomy and/or political power. And like every other royal or noble girl, she did not really interact with people outside KL or the Red Keep that she could or was allowed to. Perhaps. As I mentioned, she's not out of KL at all, spending her relatively contained life in the castle or in illicit adventures with her followers. Baelon is not only familiar and a more predictable option to Viserra, but he'd be more willing than any other candidate to treat her respectfully for the sibling tie/his disposition. No, she doesn't love him, but she doesn't seem as romantic or idealistic as 13-year-old Alysanne was like. Yeah, attracted to Baelon, but not in love or nor yearning for him as Alyssa did, as Alysanne was. Which yes, would read as her being less "worthy" of Baelon to Alysanne--even though I think Alysanne still saw/sees Jaehaerys' reign as righteous and herself destined to not just be his Queen but to be Queen, for her own ambitions to shape Westeros through him.

Viserra may have seen through her Aysanne's influence, self-confidence, and comfort with wielding what little influence she had over Jaehaerys power that a Queen Consort can do a lot, and that a woman can have "more". Baelon is trained under their father, Jaehaerys...perhaps Baelon will also let her have as much or close influence?

And she knows that in her society, a girl's looks are one of her greatest currencies towards access to a man's power because a girl's looks are what draws a man...besides their rank or family's money/political prospects. But a man will really care about a wife in this society if she's exceptionally or conventionally attractive, as long as she is publicly recognized as attractive. This plus what I mentioned about her not having any granted access to real political activity is thus part of why her vanity is one of the most potent we read in Fire and Blood. If her beauty, rank, and Targness are what she has that gets her what she wants and what she is barred from without, she's going to emphasize and rely on them.

And/or she just loves being beautiful. It's a weird state of being for girls, when they have beauty. Beauty for women & girls tends to fall subject to objectification/currency and a way to trap them in a catch-22 of being perceived as "arrogant" (if they actually acknowledge and celebrate their beauty) vs "having no self-respect/untrustworthy"(if they do not cultivate their beauty or insist--whether genuinely or not--that they do not see themselves as attractive or that attractiveness doesn't really matter). Their beauty can be used for social currency & access to wealthier men's privileges and rights than both women deemed less attractive AND men. Men especially tend to believe that women actually do not go through much hardship bc it's "easy" to have others "take care of" you--as a woman, and esp a pretty woman, you are "in demand" & "don't have to work". Not realizing maintaining beauty does take focus, attention, time AND it can still get objectifying uniquely for women. That beautification is a process & women more than men are expected to do it or have no value at all, while men do not have to be pretty to be respected, though it certainly adds points even to other men.

All of these things, the first level of the narrator--the maesters writing this record--do not consider, because she is a girl with little policy-making or incumbent power, nor does she ever become like Alysanne, supporting and advising a powerful man. No, she is not really treated as a person. They, unlike Septon Barth explaining Saera's motives at the time, not hundreds of years later, do not break down Viserra's.

b)

But Viserra is so one dimensionally vain and openly ambitious (even when it contradicts itself, like surrounding herself with boys while having her eyes on Baelon) that she doesn’t come across as a person.

Let's take this as it is for a second. The girl is fifteen and a princess. Again, fifteen-year-olds are already not that...idk, shrewd? Esp with such a high status or privileges and getting a lot of admiration when their parents may not give them much attention [Saera again], Viserra would have maybe used the male attention for her confidence level, and rationalized it as her due, as she already says she knows she's beautiful when some lord or something says that. Again, reliance on beauty PLUS teenhood with nothing else for her to do with herself. It's a fascinating intersection.

The male admirers thing & seemingly contradiction of attention thing. She, like Saera, led a group of followers/admirers similar, perhaps wishing to emulate a Queen's household or at least to borrow a kind of retinue to mimic that/set up through these male admirers. As I explained about isolation, a girls' beauty, and her possible loneliness, yes sometimes people do not-so-smart things to feel a little less lonely or validated. I know a person who, at high school, actually tried to "seduce" their history teacher. wild stuff, but it came from a place of severe insecurity, which was fostered by misogyny and neglect at home. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Again, she could have rationalized it as her "practicing" "holding court" for the future or affirming her ability to get such admirers. That itself is an attempt at power-denied or trivialized.

c)

Now, let's consider how Viserra rationalized Baelon seeing her with her male admirers. If Alysanne and Jaehaerys weren't too concerned and Baelon was busy or inattentive, then Baelon wouldn't be that suspicious of her virginity...nor care all that much. She's still his sister and Baelon is presumably the least prideful/machismo of all his brothers except maybe Aemon and we don't even know that much of Aemon.

If anything, she might have thought that if Baelon did see these male courtiers around her, that raises her "value", bc these guys think she's pretty enough. Baelon, as a man, must too--if he only really looked at me. If the court gossip about it is true, this would have motivated her into "forcing" her to look at her by catching him with her clothes off. Why getting drunk? Because she is 15, a virgin, never has tried something like this before, and thus sought out liquid courage. She was also very anxious about being married off to Theomore and felt pressure to get Baelon to marry her instead, so the alcohol was also to reduce her fears so she could seem more in control....until she got carried away. Again, IF the gossip has truth.

And yes, some men of power do look at how other men see a women's beauty to evaluate how much social status she'd be to him if he partnered up with her. "Trophy wives" came from somewhere. Plus, men often validate themselves through other men's evaluation of them and whatever they can claim control over or claim, which is nearly often women and "lineage", real or not real.

2.

You:

yet her ambition is to go after Baelon, the man with two healthy trueborn sons already, 14 years older than her, not yet the heir with Aemon alive. How much influence could Viserra possibly have even if she did marry him at the time ? [...] (let me just roll my eyes at the mother trying to protect her nearly 30 year old son with 2 children from a “seductive” 15 year old girl…it’s pathetic) with all of the drawbacks.

Now I don't know if Viserra knew much about the actual ins-and-outs of Visenya and Aegon I's relationship (we don't we just know she was active in politics and loyal and confident and bold) or if she actually put as much thought into this as I have below, but I do think she felt she just had more of a chance to not be subject to others' authority the closest she could be to the highest authority available to women and that if she thought Baelon would be king, it's because Aemon had no male heirs.

From how Saera at least knew that Maegor had 6 wives and presumably their names and what their recorded actions/legacies were, Viserra also would likely have known about Visenya and Rhaena as was recorded by the maesters. More or less what we the readers know, if not a bit more. there would be several accounts written of Rhaena and Visenya, but we don't have that, we have just AWoIaF, Fire and Blood (which was written around Robert's time), and whatever random stuff from the main series.

Baelon already having two sons would seem to contradict Viserra pursuing him just for power. However, maybe:

[Aemon & Jocelyn marry in 70 A.C. Rhaenys was born in 74 A.C. Aemon dies in 92 A.C., so Rhaenys was 18 when he died and she was 13 in 87, when Viserra dies.] In the 13 years Rhaenys was alive, Jocelyn never birthed another kid. And after Rhaenys, the couple enjoyed many years together before Aemon's death, so they all probably thought her infertile. Jocelyn and Aemon had no sons. So, yes, people could have thought Baelon would eventually become the heir apparent to Aemon. And Jaehaerys never went out and declared it until Aemon's death, but he also never declared or approved Aemon's daughter Rhaenys being heir to the heir to the throne...ever. Despite some people praising Rhaenys as the next ruler after her birth. This is where Viserra/a reader could come from is perhaps coming from, if just to rationalize. This sort of almost panicky rationalization so pretty perfect for a girl who desperately did not want to marry a really old man.

part of Baelon's draw would be because, as I mentioned, familiarity, security, and assurance of his taking care of her/non-abusiveness or non-suppressiveness. That comes with or without sons/kids. Even with Aemon being alive.

she'd be escaping a much, too old guy that lives too far from King's Landing, the only home she's ever known and her parents gave her no other options

Women both in real and Westerosi history still relatively benefit from being married over being unmarried in some ways in feudal/monarchial/highly-patriarchal systems. Sometimes even when their marriage has had no children.

Viserra can birth children later after marriage (again, she was 15 and had a lot of childbearing years in her--as gross as that sounds--in the context of the society where she lives). No matter how back in the line of succession those kids with Baelon would be, having shared legitimate kids with the monarch/heir secures her staying married to him and thus secures her own position as one of the highest-ranking woman in Westeros, which is the aim of her marrying Baelon. Because less of her life is determined by others and she is one of the women who has the highest authorities.

Even though Baelon already had sons, she'd still be his Queen Consort, no matter what. After he dies, she'd still become a "Queen Dowager", as Rhaena, Visenya, etc. were. Visenya had Aegon's younger son...still Queen Dowager and a force to be reckoned with in court. Rhaena was once feared (unjustly) by Alyssa Velaryon, Rogar Baratheon, and her own parents--Alysanne & Jaehaerys. Rhaena and Maegor never had kids (thank god), but Rhaena was a Queen Dowager with her own ability to set up a household & direct men & women as if she were a roaming, quasi--Queen Regnant (which inspired the fear in her own family).

Alicent plays a similar game with marrying Viserys. She knows, like everyone else, that to marry a King, you become "first lady" of the realm. And becoming the mother to the next King, you definitely become the most powerful woman in the realm--before any princesses or Dowager Queens of the past Kings. But even if she didn't have Viserys' kids, she'd still have been a Queen Dowager. Alicent managed to bear 4 kids for Viserys, 3 of them male. Technically she should have enjoyed the certainty of being that "most powerful woman" by having a son as King. But unfortunately for her, Viserys had a daughter whom he named his heir and maintained her above Alicent's sons in the succession line. Having no kids or sons is not the absolute end of the world for a woman seeking power in Westeros through marrying the royal family, but Alicent wanted the surety of her sons being King. As we see Visenya has more power than Rhaena.

Viserra would have been the stepmother of Daemon & Viserys, but she'd still be a parental figure, raising them (or doing the bare minimum) PLUS their aunt by blood. She still has access to power through them after Baelon dies if she plays her cards right, esp if she has just daughters or never had legitimate kids. And if she has kids, those kids are sibling-cousins to Viserys/Daemon/the future probable King. As long as it doesn't devolve into a green-black situation (which it likely wouldn't, not with her being a Targ already and not so devoted to the Faith as Alicent), she can enjoy and feel secure her stepkids/nephews will treat her own children/her well.

Either way, she has a better deal being the Queen consort, then a Queen dowager, than being a lady-wife to some lord--in her perception and what she's observed has learned so far without knowing of the various lords' holdings or how much power she'd had outside her own family. Again, she doesn't travel and is likely not to have heard any comprehensive details of any lords outside the Keep. Broad strokes, little detail.

Someone said in a TikTok once--I think GoThistorian--that Cersei might have fared better if she married Oberyn Martell and not a royal like Robert or Rhaegar because in Dorne noblewomen have so much more value, authority, & autonomy even as not a lady regnant nor a Princess, which was what Cersei needed above all else. Her mother, Joanna, actually seemed to have started or was planning for her to marry a Dornish person when we hear she was friends with the Princess of Dorne and the trouble with Aerys'...attentions towards her. Viserra--for the moment we see her--is somewhat like Cersei here in that she wants more access to power than she does. Cersei dreamed of being Rhaegar's wife and wanted to be Robert's because she wanted that access above any romances. Viserra, same.

Some real noble women have become the mistresses of kings--whether the parties involved were already married themselves and/or had kids already or not--even though their kids would inevitably be illegitimate. Whether more by their own choice or by the insistence and arrangement of their families.

[blackcat419]

Rewriting HotD: What to Keep and What to Change

Season 1: Ages of the Characters

(poll at end of post)

One of the biggest changes HotD made to Fire and Blood was changing character ages. Many did and did not like the change for multiple reasons, from Alicent and Rhaenyra, who are now the same age, to characters' ages that are inconsistent with the timeline given.

I like some of the changes. Aging Rhaenyra up so she's not nine at the start of the show is very good because we got Miley Alcock as young Rhaenyra. I also initially like the friendship between Rhaenyra and Alicent that then goes sour - Not what they've done with them in the last episodes of S1 and all of S2 - as it adds more drama and emotions for these two characters. The part I don't like is how messed up the timeline is.

Referencing this chart for A Wiki of Ice and Fire I created a handy dandy little chart to show how messed up the timeline got.

From this, we can see that the show pushed the timeline back instead of aging up characters. This keeps some of the original age gaps like between Rhaenyra and Daemon but forces the extra four years of the fire and blood timeline to be condecended.

I want to propose a new timeline that allows all 24 years of history between Aemma's death and Viserys' death to still make sense without needing any character cut. This timeline will also keep who is older than who as close to the same as possible from the books.

The first step is to figure out how old Rhaenyra can be. Rhaenyra's mom, Aemma Arryn, had her first pregnancy and miscarriage at the age of 12 in 94 A.C. If this were to be made Rhaenyra's birth year then she would be 11 or 12 years old (depending on the day of birth) at the start of the story. Lets look to Aemma's mom, Daella Targareyn. Daella marries Rodrick Arryn in 80 A.C. and dies giving birth to Aemma in 82 A.C. We can push Aemma's birth back to soon after Daella marries Rodrick, adding 2 extra years to the timeline allowing Rhaenyra to be born in 92 A.C. easy allowing her to be 14 at the beginning of the story.

Laena and Laenor do not need as much complicated timeline shifting as Rhaenyra did. Their mother, Rhaenys Targaryen, married in 90 A.C. when she was 16 and gave birth to Laena in 92 A.C. Laena's birth can be bumped up to 90 A.C. making her 15 when the story starts. Laenor is two years younger than Laena in the books but he's older than Rhaenyra. Laenor can be born a year after Laena making him the same age as Rhaenyra when the show starts or be born 2 years later making him 13 when the show starts.

For the kids, I decided to bump them all up a year in age. Viserys marries Alicent in 105 A.C. making it very easy to add a year to Aegon's age. I also moved Rhaenyra and Laenor's marriage up one year so the two are betrothed and married in 113 A.C. This makes Aegon II 23, Helaena 21, Aemond 20, Daeron 16, Jace 16, Luke 15, Baela and Rhaena 15, and Jeoffrey 13.

Aegon and Viserys will keep their original birth years of 120 and 122 for they are 9 and 7 respectively. Jaehaerys and Jaehaera also keep their birth year of 123 so they are 6 when the story stars. I also wanted Maelor to be older than 2 so I aged him to 4.

The main question left is how old should Alicent be? She's pretty easy to age down to Rhaenyra's age or she can stay older than Rhaenyra and Laena. I'll leave it up to you, dear audience.

[jackwhiteprophetic]

Okay, so, I checked the wiki fandom pages and according to those... Harry was born in 2009 (February, I believe), Denny in 2010, and Chris in 2011 (Eddie Begins Canon). That would make them 15/16 (Harry), 14/15 (Denny), and 13/14 (Chris) in seasons 7 & 8 (depending on the timeline we go with). May would be like 23/24 and Jee would be like 3/4 (upcoming school shenanigans in s8 for the Hans?).

Thank you!!! So sorry I didn't see this so it's been left in my inbox for a while... Omgomg Jee school shenanigans would be SO cute!!! Idk when school starts in the US, in the UK the first year, reception, is 4/5.

Also do we know how old Mara is? I tried to check but couldn't see anything, also I realised I have just been tagging her as "Mara Wilson" BC it came up after Mara but that's BC of the Matilda actor lmao...

[thelediz]

Just finished my bi-yearly reread of Professor and Student! I absolutely adore the story with all of my heart. It’s incredibly well done and contains so many wonderful complexities and character traits that I can’t help but think of as canon. To this day, it remains one of my favorite stories of all time, both within and outside of ao3. It really is amazing.

But I wanted to ask, in your mind, roughly what age is Ash? (In both P&S and Return).

I always assumed his age looked to be something like this.

Kanto - Johto : 10 - 11.5, Honen : 12, Sinnoh : 13, Unova : 14, Kalos : 15 and Alola : 16

Is it roughly the same for you? Or do you imagine him to be younger?

You're too sweet.

But that is a good question and within fics I prefer to leave my answer to "yeah, about that". Canon is crazy, so we let it vibe.

But because you buttered me up so nicely and gave me the out of instead saying how old he seems across the different series...

I generally agree, though the timeframes get wonkier as the series goes on. Unova-Kalos-Alola seem to occur over much shorter timeframes than Kanto-Johto, Hoenn, and especially Sinnoh.

Kanto is definitely about fourteen months (however much the writers don't want you to remember him specifically saying so), Orange islands plus Johto is probably another year (again, either don't take the Pikachu shorts as canon or ignore him saying it's an anniversary), Hoenn a year, and Sinnoh a year.

I often think of Unova and Kalos each lasting about eight months max, despite the called-out two month training montage in Unova, while Alola always feels more like six.

That said, based on actions and attitude, Ash definitely feels like an angry fourteen year old in Sinnoh, while in Kalos there's an overburdened sixteen year old vibe to him. So it kind of fits with the timeline.

Alola, however, definitely feels like a "yeah, about that", because it changes depending on who he's hanging out with and what he's doing.

Sophocles and Lana feel fourteen, Kiawe feels seventeen, Gladion is an edgy fifteen year old if ever I've seen one, height- and body-wise they all LOOK somewhere between ten and twelve... it's weird. They feel like 'generic high schoolers', so that's kind of what I headcanon them to be.

I do, however, appreciate how much that non-answer annoys people, so I'm sorry to everyone.

It's just the joy of Ash Ketchum: the implausible oddity!

[felixblankspace]

〔» •••〕 ↷ ❝ The Time Difference Saga ❞ ↺

────── ── ─ 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭 ψ(｀∇´)ψ ── ─ ──────

Summary:

Time Difference is going to be a series of fanfic(s) about (Rise) Leonardo Hamato / (UY) Miyamoto Usagi telling the story in two separate lines; Present, Future and a little twist. Present is more of a love story with a lot of fluff and a bit of angst. While Future is a more bittersweet love story with no emotional maturity to be reasonable and open with your feelings (?) In total the saga is going to have 3 fanfic(s) + extras and each fic is going to have a different content and is not going to be for everyone. I really like leosagi in the Miyamoto / Leonardo way and I will try to make the characters less ooc possible taking in consideration than this is a Rise oriented adaptation. I'm reading Usagi Yojimbo, theres changes in the canon timeline and basically de-age Usagi in order to make him more appropriate but, I make him live his early history at the age of 15 - 16 and in the present timeline he is 17 years old + he is a teen dad (and he does not know-) (he have his affair with Mariko post- adachihara btw) I really like how Usagi is in the comics and is gonna keep a lot of that. All TW and Ratings will be put in the respective fic but as a general recommendation please be at least 16 before reading the SWF fic and only +18 for anything else. This also will be in Spanish and English :D

── ─ ── ─ ━━━━━━━━╰☆╮━━━━━━━━ ── ─ ── ─

────── ── ─ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐜(𝐬)(❁´◡`❁) ── ─ ──────

Now we move to the fanfics and its states of progress （￣︶￣）↗　

This is work in process please be patient with me (?

Time Difference - Diferencia Horaria

Status: Published - COMPLETED (unedited)

Rating: Teen And Up Audience ( +16 Recommended )

Art: TDS Art - Tag

(*) More Tags Will be Added

Chapters:

01 .- A New Place - Un nuevo Lugar 02.- The Turtle and The Rabbit - La Tortuga y el Conejo 03.- Meditation - Meditación  04.- You Need to Sleep! - ¡Necesitas dormir! 05.- Meeting the Family - Conociendo a la Familia 06.- Pizza! - Pizza! 07.- Samurai Tourist (or something like that) - Samurai Turista (o algo así) 08.- Being Together - Estando Juntos 09.- Not so Many Explanations - No hay Muchas Explicaciones  10.- Usagi Adventures (and Drunken Fellings)  - Aventuras con Usagi (y Sentimientos en Alcohol) 11.- I missed you  - Te extrañe 12.- Us and I - Nosotros y yo  13.- A Glimpse into the Past (or the Future, it's up to you) - Un vistazo al Pasado (o al futuro, depende de ti) 14.- Shared Feelings - Sentimientos Compartidos 15.- As you Are - Tal y como estas 16.- Our life Together - Nuestra Vida Juntos 

Extras (It can have explicit content, please read the tags):

1.- I Waited a Lot - Espere Demasiado 🔞

If One Of Us Die - Si Uno de Nosotros Muere

Status: In Process (unpublished)

Rating: Explicit (+18 Only)

TW: Graphic Depictions Of Violence - Canon Major Character Death - Explicit Sex Descriptions

· · ─────── ·No Fic for now· ─────── · ·

Chapters:

In Process

Horny Extras:

In Process actually (?

Ready Now - Estamos Listos

Status: Not Started (in planning)

Rating: Mature & Explicit (in a more funny manner idk) (+18 Only)

TW: Explicit Sex Descriptions

· · ─────── ·No Fic for now· ─────── · ·

Chapters:

Nothing for Now... (∪.∪ )...zzz

────── ── ─ This is Over for Now ── ─ ──────

Latest update: 03/09/2023

[princess-of-the-corner]

Amnesia Dabi: What is Fuyumi's initial reaction to the "Everything"?

In canon and presumably in CC she had a hard time accepting how bad the situation really was. In a timeline where Touya's death got Enji to be less terrible she would probably have an easier time of it, even if Natsuo and Shouto don't reconcile with Enji.

Also, what is her first reaction at finding out about Dabi?

So I'm gonna go on a few different tangents here on like.

Fuyumi's optimism isn't denial. Not exactly. She's aware that things are fucked. What she /doesn't/ accept is that it can't be fixed. Fuyumi has solid memory of when things were better in the family. She /knows/ that, with some help, they can fix things. Not perfectly, of course, there was damage done, but as best they can.

Now this can push some buttons for the rest of the family. Enji himself is the one in the most denial about things being fucked(he's a little aware but in canon/cc he's going 'I can fix this if I just keep going'). Natsuo is ready to cut his losses and get away, even though he does entertain Fuyumi's optimism enough to keep showing up, but he has serious doubts that anything can change. Shoto, as much as he loves Fuyumi, doesn't understand her optimism because he's too young to have many good memories of the family. But he's also kinda stuck here being the baby of the family and hasn't fully decided on things. Meanwhile, in canon and cc, Toya is very full of rage and wants Enji to answer for his crimes.

All the kids reactions to their situation is pretty valid and understandable.

Now for the Amnesia!Dabi AU:

With Enji fixing things when Toya dies instead of doubling down, this is going to change some things by the time canon comes around and there's two factors to that

1.) the time. This AU would be focusing on current time, so Toya has been 'dead' for years and the family has had time to heal. Time for Enji to work on his shit and to do his best to make up for his mistakes, time for Natsuo and Shoto to realize that this is genuine and get used to the new dynamic.

and

2.) the ages. Shoto and Natsuo are younger when this change happens. Shoto is 11. Natsuo is either 14 or 15 depending on when in the year this happens. Them being younger helps with the shift as well.

Swinging over to Fuyumi: in between the grief of Toya's death, she's glad that things are changing. There is some upset to it. Did it really have to take Toya's death for Enji to realize things are fucked? But she's good at accepting that and it's in her nature to fix things, so the fact that things are being fixed helps her.

The reaction to the Dabi situation as a whole is. It's A Lot™.

At first there's the initial 'oh my god he's alive and he's okay' thing. Which is confusing and exhausting but also how can you not be happy about it?

But then there's the amnesia stuff. Which puts that 'he's alive' relief on hold because he's 'alive' but he's not fully 'back'. It's Toya but it's Not™. He feels like a ghost haunting the family for a while. A stranger wearing her brother's face. Fuyumi feels touch of jealousy because he talks about Himiko the way he used to talk about her. (it gets better as his memory starts returning, but sometimes she'll mention an old joke and he'll just stare at her)

Of course there's also the fact that Toya in general is just Not Okay™. He's clearly been through so many kinds of hell, between dying and whatever was done at that shady ass clinic he woke up in then living on the street with no memory and joining a group of villains.... plus the more they trigger his memory the more they also trigger trauma responses so he's having a hell of a time with that too.

It's. It's a lot.

[nerdyenby]

Am heavily considering writing @destinysbounty’s “if Pythor didn’t suck” au and realizing that literally only season 7 remains relatively intact

Season one’s climax is largely avoided considering Pythor’s massive involvement in the resurrection of the Great Devourer

No Great Devourer = Garmadon isn’t given the golden weapons = no megaweapon plot = no traumatic loss of childhood for lil Lloyd (at least not in the literal sense), final battle may or may not still happen but if it does Garm is throwing hands with a whole ass eight year old

Assuming the final battle still takes place, we still get the first half of season three relatively unchanged until the blackout successfully wiped out the Overlord without Pythor’s intervention, no space arc and Zane doesn’t die

Chen is most likely still doing stuff but since Zane’s still alive season 4 would look a lot different, especially considering Pythor’s role in Chen’s success

If Chen doesn’t get to pythor to complete the spell the season 4 finale would probably look very different, potentially not including Garmadon’s self sacrifice that resulted in Morro’s release. If that’s the case season 5 just straight up does not happen, possibly leading to Nya not discovering her powers until even later

If season 5’s final fight didn’t happen and Stiix isn’t destroyed then most of the setup for season 6 goes out the window, depending on how this alternate version of season 4 went it’s possible Clouse isn’t even still around at this point. This one’s more up in the air but I think there’s a considerable chance Nadakhan is never released

Pythor had absolutely nothing to do with the time twins’ return!! The ninja get to fight bad guys again lmao

No evil Pythor = no Great Devourer = no evil Harumi = no Sons of Garmadon = no resurrected Garmadon, seasons 8 and 9 are out of here lmao

Season 10 is a direct consequence of Harumi’s actions and all that followed, it too is canceled

The ninja accidentally release Aspheera as a result of not knowing what to do with themselves, in this timeline they’ve seen far less action and are used to having long stretches of time between villains, possibly even have side hussles, season 11 is gone.

Okay, season 12 might stay relatively unchanged but that’s a big maybe considering the Mechanic is responsible for the inciting incident and his origin story was a result of season 4. Things probably played out similarly for him but if they didn’t then there’s a good chance Prime Empire never got going. But even if it did, if Skybound didn’t happen then Jay didn’t find out he was adopted and may not have been able to talk down Unagami as well as he did

On the surface, season 13 is vibing BUT as of Crystallized, we know Vangelis’s actions are being funded by Harumi and the Overlord, neither of whom would be active at this time in this au. There’s a good chance he’s still a slaveowner because people like that don’t really need a reason to be fucking horrid but it’s not a given

(The Island is season 14 in my books, it’s the same length as season 10) the conflict is kicked off by Wu’s mid-life(???) crisis in season 13 which may or may not occur similarly in this universe. It’s also more than likely that the ninja never met Clutch in this au since season 11 didn’t happen. It would probably still happen but it would look very different, I’m not sure and I’ll need to rewatch to make up my mind

Assuming Nya does in fact unlock her true potential at some point and some semblance of season 14 happens, I believe Seabound is relatively unchanged. Pogchamp for season 15 being the only other survivor of this au lol

Circling back to season 8, Crystallized just straight up does not happen. Nya would presumably have still died the season prior though so in this universe season 16 can be more about that. Though, since season 11 didn’t happen meaning Aspheera isn’t around, they’d have to find another way to bring Nya back. All in all would be a very different story but one I’m very interested in seeing

When it is inevitably revealed that the Merge was caused by something the ninja did, there’s a good chance DR doesn’t happen. Until then, season 17 theoretically remains relatively unchanged (with the exception of tomorrow’s tea having never happened and Lloyd being younger than he is in canon and this closer to Arin and Sora’s age)

[shippingfangirl013]

Stranger Things S5 Conglomerate Twelvegate Theory (Part 1):

Because I have no clue what to call this and it’s basically a massive convergence of all the gates/theories into one?

@chirpsythismorning and I had to solve Twelvegate to figure out the rest and… I think we stumbled across the answer just off of rambling… and playing ping-pong with ideas…

This also heavily pulls from Stranger Things parallels to Back to The Future Parts I & II (because re-watching my favorite trilogy helped me to figure out the timeline for Stranger Things).

If you do NOT want spoilers for S5, I suggest you do not read any further.

Because… this is… a doozy. And likely has some MAJOR spoilers, we’re just good at playing detective and dedicating a little too much time to this show.

———————————————————

First, we have to go back to season 1. . .

So, when we first meet the original four kids in the Party, they’re playing D&D. Will knows that he has to roll a 13 or higher here. Will is under the steps, crawling to find the d20.

This is the ORIGINAL timeline. We don’t know much more about the timeline other than seeing 2 minutes into the show. Will is still 12 years old and has a watch on, but we never get a close-up of the watch.

We’ve got a pizza one box, and two regular Coca-Cola cans… okay? Keep that in mind, it’s important later on.

When the Tv flickers, that’s Vecna using his power, likely to alter memories or the timeline/reality itself.

Right after this instance?

We get this scene:

Now, why would Will go from knowing that a 13 counts and is high enough to take out the Demogorgon, to asking if a 7 is high enough? If a 7 counts, right after the TV flickers?

Also, notice that Will is standing framed with the two coke cans and pizza one box behind him. That yellow and blue pen is important too.

(I play D&D, most times, anything below a 13 or 14 is a bad roll and you take a lot of damage. It all depends on if your Dungeon Master wants to be forgiving or not. )

So, the first 3 minutes of season 1, is the original timeline (Timeline A) differentiating/being altered; I say this because, we don’t know anything about that point in time aside from our main Party playing D&D in Mike’s basement.

A key factor here that Jo mentioned while we were talking, is that we don’t see Hopper, Joyce, Lonnie, or Jonathan during the scene in Mike’s basement. We only see Will, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and briefly, Karen.

Timeline A is altered at 8:15 pm on November 6, 1983.

Each point after the TV flickers is a part of Timeline B. But I think Will actually cast protection on the extended party; El, Max, Lucas, Dustin, Mike, Jonathan, Joyce, Hopper, possibly Murray, and maybe on the others’ families.

But Timeline B was Henry altering the timeline, creating a new reality for our cast of characters. (Putting them in a silly little play, perhaps?) Henry stole Will's powers when Will was kidnapped; but what powers could Will have that Henry needs to re-shape the world?

Time-altering powers and creation powers.

Here's the thing, Henry can manipulate what others see, he can manipulate and alter memories, and it is very likely he was able to take Will's time-altering powers while Will was trapped in the Upside Down. Henry is easily able to use time travel powers to his advantage.

But. . . Henry CAN'T create something out of nothing; as evidenced by his using others' memories to make them see what they fear. He can re-shape the particles that made up the Mind Flayer, however, Henry cannot create to the extent that Will (an artist!) is able to. This is how Will is able to do things like cast Fog Cloud in S2. In S1, Will's True Sight is used.

(I'll come back to this later, because this is literally going to be like a 10-part theory, which may literally just be 100% spoilers)

Timeline B is an altered reality; Henry gave our cast of characters new roles to play. Not just anyone though, primarily: Joyce, Jonathan, Will, El, Hopper, Terry, Sarah, and Diane.

(You may be wondering why I mentioned Sarah, Diane, and Terry; I'll get to that in a bit, if not in this one, then in part 2.)

Joyce is the ex-wife of Lonnie Byers and she is Will and Jonathan's mom. Hopper is the small-town police chief who moved back to Hawkins after his divorce from Diane, and the loss of his daughter Sarah. Terry Ives is El's mama, and Eleven is the girl with powers that escaped from Hawkins Lab. Basically, the events of S1 equate to an altered timeline, or therefore, are the repercussions of an altered timeline.

Timeline A still exists after the original event that alters Timeline A to create the altered reality in Timeline B.

The event that alters Timeline A is an occurrence on the day of Will and El's birth. Henry swaps the families of Joyce and Hopper's twins.

Henry went back in time after taking Will's powers in S1, to alter the timeline, by swapping El and Will at birth in the hospital, so that Will and El (011 & 012) grew up together in the lab, never knowing that they are twins. Will grows up with Lonnie Byers as his father, El grows up in the lab, and Hopper lives in New York for seven years and has a family with Diane. Henry alters Terry Ives' memories and scrambles the signals in her brain via Brenner.

In this altered timeline that is Timeline B, El was taken by the lab at birth, and El's Mama is Terry Ives. Will's mom stays the same, but his father (and Jonathan's father) is changed to Lonnie Byers.

In Timeline A, El was kidnapped first in 1976, and Will was taken second in 1978.

In 1976, there was a drowning at Sattler's Quarry. Seven years prior to 1983; now, for a while, I thought that might be Will, but that didn't add up.

El was taken first at five years old, by the lab. . . on her first day of kindergarten. . . which is why Mike found Will alone and scared on the swing set. El's disappearance was covered up as a drowning in the quarry in 1976. This is why El is paralleled with Maria from Frankenstein (1931) in season 1, with Nancy's pink dress, because Maria drowns in a lake after trying to play a game with Frankenstein's monster.

Now, Will was also kidnapped and taken to the lab in Timeline A, but this gets a little harder to figure out how Will got there in the first place. I think Lonnie has something to do with it, because there are one too many instances of Will being paired with trunks, and we see Jonathan check for Will in Lonnie's Oldsmobile in season 1. However, I'm not 100% certain about that and I will update this if I find anything that changes my thoughts on that.

I know that Will had to have been taken to the lab around 1978, at the age of 7, if he and El were not taken at the same time in 1976. This means, that Will's kidnapping was covered up as a death, (maybe a death from a fatal illness?) that was then altered by a character with the ability to fabricate fake memories. . . shifting the death of a son, to that of a daughter. Sarah's death is the cover-up for Will being taken.

Jonathan doesn't remember much of this either, he would have been 8 years old when El was kidnapped, and 10 years old when Will was kidnapped; if we go off of El being taken at the age of 5 and Will being taken at the age of 7.

1978 is an important year in Timeline A. This is because in Timeline B, it is the year that:

Lonnie took Jonathan hunting at 10 years old

Terry was electrocuted/had her signals scrambled

Sarah dies

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

Another thing that I need to address, is Hopper's role in Timeline B.

In 1983, when Hopper calls Diane, he’s wearing his blue flannel… just like how Max’s mom wore a blue flannel in S4…

(I have seen almost every character in the Byers-Hopper family in a BLUE FLANNEL, the only one I haven’t found in a blue flannel (without a jacket over it) is Jonathan.)

But, we see Hopper calling Diane, and then we hear a baby crying in the background. We assume that after 7 years she has moved on… but what if this woman was never Hopper’s “Diane” anyways?

We KNOW that the phones are important. We also know that the lab/Russian government are always listening in on phone calls- since season 1! So, this “Diane” woman that Hopper called was someone from the lab or someone trying to keep the truth from spreading.

Because, I went back to S3, and found this:

This is the only line that says [Diane] in the closed captions. I’ve looked through a few other shots, and the only other shot similar to this is when Hopper is watching Magnum P.I. and a little text comes up saying that the show is playing. They usually do not specify which character is talking in the tv shows with brackets - it just shows the dialogue on screen.

Hopper got incredibly drunk that evening, but the point I’m making here, is that Joyce is Diane.

Hopper’s wife, Diane.

(He never says ex-wife in season 4. He says: “My wife Diane, she wanted a baby,” )

So. . . This means that Henry has had a hand in every little kettle he could get his hands on after he nabbed Will’s time powers.

I doubt that Hopper going to Vietnam was influenced by Henry in any way, but I know that everything else we are shown is influenced by him.

I was trying to piece this all together, and after going through and making a timeline, I think I’ve got how it all lays out - at the very least, I know where the timeline that was altered. At most, I think I have a large surprise that will come up in S5 pinned down.

My focus when pinning the timeline down, was actually on Hopper and Jonathan.

In S1, Joyce tells Lonnie that Jonathan has wanted to go to NYU since he was 6 years old. Now, Jonathan would have been 6 years old in 1974, because he was born in 1968.

I couldn’t figure out why Jonathan would want to go to NYU unless:

- his parent(s) went there / one of his parents went there / something happened to make him want to go to NYU.

NYU is such a specific school, and it is mentioned once in S1, then rarely brought up again. Even in S4, Jonathan was just planning to go to the same college as Nancy, if he was accepted.

It made me think about how Hopper was in NY for seven years. . . And it took me a while to figure this out.

So, Hopper goes off to fight in the Vietnam War when he is 18. The Vietnam War goes on from 1955-1975. This means that Hopper was in Vietnam possibly from 1960 to 1970 at the latest. However, according to the ST Wiki, Hopper met Diane in 1965. . . (I am taking this with a grain of salt), because if this is the case, then Hopper could have been in Vietnam at any point in time between 1960 (when he was 18) to 1970.

But if you do the math from when Sarah was born, if Hopper met Diane in 1965 (and they began dating that year), and Sarah was born in 1971, then Hopper only knew Diane for five years before Sarah was born. Now, we know that Sarah dies in 1978, from cancer. . . and from that 1983 phone call to Diane (counting backward 7 years), Hopper would have been in NY from 1976 to 1983. . .

Another thing is, in Season 1, Hopper says that he has been in Hawkins for 4 years from the point that we meet him in 1983.

1983 - 4 is 1979 -> the year of the Hawkins Lab Massacre. . . so, why would Hopper (as a police officer) not know about that? I know, the lab is secretive and whatnot, but you would assume in an emergency situation, they might call in backup.

1979 is also the year that Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin had their Elder Tree campaign. . . (and I'm not quite sure if Will was there depending on the timeline and how things may have worked out).

And then I started to question just how much inspiration could have been taken from Back To The Future?

The Answer? Quite a bit of inspiration was taken from Back to The Future.

Marty's family is made up of his parents (George & Lorraine), his older brother (Dave), his older sister (Linda), and himself (Marty).

This is apparently an important enough movie for the Stranger Things plot that it is heavily referenced with wardrobes and it is even shown on the big screen in S3. (There is more significance here, but I'll explore that in a later part).

At the beginning of the scripting process for Back to The Future Part II, the creators were thinking of having the roles of Marty McFly Jr. and Marlene McFly set as Twins.

And in S4 of ST, we can see quite a bit of twin imagery throughout the season, in reference to Will and El. (again, I will post more in a later analysis, I don't want this to get too long).

If we go off of the basis that Henry/Vecna/001 stole Will's time powers, then we can assume that the second timeline that was generated from the changing of a fixed point in time (an origin event - in this case), changed other things throughout the seasons in Stranger Things.

Think about it, Henry could have easily gone back in time and replaced Hopper (being Jonathan, Will, and El's father) with Lonnie.

He could have manipulated Joyce, Hopper, and Jonathan's memories if the memories were STILL left AFTER the timeline was altered, making them forget that their family of 5 had ever existed in the first place. Swapped Will and El at birth, putting them in the lab or arranging for them to be taken by Brenner, and then, he could have later helped Will escape the lab massacre. . .

One last thing to address;

The Mind Flayer and why Will was possessed in the first place. . .

If Henry cannot create, then he needs Will alive to utilize that power. Henry may not have been strong enough on his own to manipulate Will into doing his bidding, but working with the Mind Flayer to get what he wants?

Therefore activating Will as the spy, taking El out of the way by using a distraction (making her focus on Max? Knowing that her weakness is the people she cares about - because he's already done this once before with the Lab Massacre by killing the other lab kids?), and getting what he wants?

The Mind Flayer literally looks like the strings attached to a hand for a wooden string puppet. . . (think Pinocchio if you need a visual)

The Mind Flayer possessed Will so that Henry/Vecna/001 could manipulate and bend the final puzzle piece to his will.

(and that's why, I think in S5, we're going in with a bang... because I think that El and Will have been Vecna'd in S4; they have been falling into Henry's traps since S1.) (I'll explain more of this in Part 2 or 3 because again, this is super complex and took me about a month or longer to compile all of the evidence)

So, in short, Henry/Vecna/001 truly has been moving our characters on the board like chess pieces. . .

(this is going to have like 3 parts explaining the theory itself and then like 20 posts of evidence all linked under a masterlist once I have the time to set that up.)

[crispinfandom]

In lieu of Project Horizon's soft cancellation and Chessington getting the old plans + 1 more bonus rollercoaster soon... Here was my lore!

CW - Pregnancy-Adjacent, Child-Birth Adjacent, and Miscarriage

-

So my dumb ass started setting up Project Horizon's lore in real time like a good little writer. Originally she was gonna be Oblivion's kid.

Coaster reproduction works very differently from human stuff. Coasters reproduce asexually (outside of a few very rare exceptions). Scientifically, this SHOULD make them an all female species, but whoops me having cis male Coasters was already set in stone sooo

Coasters don't get pregnant. I'm NOT Mpregging Oblivion, I'm NOT!! 😭😭

However, they do experience pregnancy like symptoms such as fatigue, morning sickness, nausea, being overly emotional/hormonal, nesting behaviour, etc etc. Y'know. For some added flare

"Conception" starts when a Coaster has its first mention, whether it be through planning permission, a public consultation, or what have you. A Coaster is officially born into its "child stage" (anywhere from 2-12 years old depending on the target demographic for the final product) once the first signs of construction start, however that may be defined.

The parent Coaster is notified that their child has spawned in by experiencing an intense, excruciating, full-body pain that lasts around 15-30 minutes. Y'know. Just so they know that they know.

HOWEVER! Project Horizon was concieved by this logic, but was never born! Therefore, Oblivion has officially had another miscarriage.

"Wait, another? Who were the first 2?"

Miscarriage 1 was The Smiler. If a Coaster is built in an area with another Coaster that's over 10 years old AND there's no other Coasters of the same manufacturer of the offspring at the park (IE, there was no other Gerstlaurers), then those rides become parent and child.

In 2012, Oblivion was 14, of Coaster reproducing age. However, in 2011, Oblivion was a canon alcoholic. In 2012, he also had other generally stressful life things going on. Therefore, literally less than 2 weeks aftet conception (and before he even really noticed), the parent-child connection was severed and thus marking Bliv's first miscarriage.

Smiler and Bliv are still close. This... Isn't something they really think about. Smiler was handraised by humans and kind of sees one random human as almost being like a parental figure, but absolutely does not see Bliv as like a dad. Probably for the best. Sometimes Bliv looks at Smiler and thinks "hmm. Wonder what life would have been like if things were slightly different," but the thought usually weirds him out pretty quick.

Miscarriage 2 was Oblivion: The Black Hole. Originally (in an out-of-text sense) I planned for Blackhole and Oblivion to have been Husband and Wife, (well... divorced now), and for O:BH to be their kid. I mean... No duh! Seems like a no brainer! But with BH being born in 1982-1984 and Oblivion being born in 1998 (14 years is a parent-child level age gap in Coaster Years) and BH leaving in 2005 and then RANDOMLY still having a kid with Oblivion 10 years later, the timeline didn't really pan out. So, this idea was scrapped. Instead, BH was Oblivion's Mum, and O:BH became Oblivion's sister.

"But wait! Oblivion is 17 years older than O:BH! Why are they siblings?"

If I was starting this lore from scratch, yes! You'd be correct! By my own logic, O:BH would in fact be Oblivion's daughter! Have a cookie, you clever clogs!

Unfortunately, writing is messy, and I already had a bunch of lore I was too attached to to throw away, so I made a compromise.

O:BH was ORIGINALLY going to be Bliv's kid. He conceived her, but before he even knew Gardaland was getting a new Coaster, he miscarried. Some doctors then explained to him that Gardaland was changing their lore and O:BH would be his sister instead.

Bliv's 3rd miscarriage was the aforementioned Project Horizon, obviously. Because Project Horizon was in development for 22 months before the announcement that it *might* be getting moved to Chessington, Oblivion had a lot of time to sit and ponder parenthood. He kind of figured he'd be a rubbish dad. Man can barely look after himself. BUT! He was also kind of excited. Maybe having a kid would be that nudge he needed to actually force himself to have structure and routine in his life, and cook dinner every day instead of just having pot noodle every day for 9 days straight.

However, with Bliv's fertility problems, it wasn't meant to be :(

Now, you may think it's a coincidence that Bliv seems to be a little bit infertile. Well actually, I found a reason! Blackhole also had a miscarriage before having Bliv! You see, there was a Schwarzkopf project planned to go near The Corkscrew that got planning permission in the early 90s, but as you probably know, it never happened. BH was the closest Schwarzkopf, and thus, she suffers the same fate as Bliv. In fact... A lot of Schwarzkopfs do.

Thunderlooper SPECIFICALLY was not expecting to have Nemesis and hated him because it gave him internal issues.

BH got internal issues after having Bliv, which nearly caused her death AND THEN caused Alton to sell her because they didn't wanna pay for her health problems.

Alton Beast (still unsure about the canonicity of this) got sold after having Galactica, perhaps due to reproductive health issues.

So basically, Schwarzkopfs suck at reproducing. This is because Schwarzkopfs were born in a mill, and it kind of screwed them up. Schwarzkopfs having reproductive issues may also explain why 1, Schwarzkopf was a mill in the first place, and 2. Why they're dying out.

But if BH had reproductive issues... and Oblivion has reproductive issues... Who's driving the ship? That's right, it's genetic babieee

TLDR get fucked Oblivion you're doomed by the narrative

[katerinaaqu]

About the Elpenor age thing, hypothetically, he could be in his early to mid twenties.

Hear me out.

Pyrrhus (Achilles’ son) was very young when he joined the war, teens and early teens at best.

Some sources said that Achilles was 11 when the war happened.

Others said that Antilochus joined half way through because he was too young.

Troilus was said to be very young but one of the leaders of the Trojans.

Polydorus was very young and was running the battlefield before Achilles killed him.

So the point I’m trying to make is that the age limit to become a soldier varies, either you can be 13 at the youngest or older. Also some soldiers could join later.

So, this is just a silly little theory.

According to my calculations Achilles was closer to his 20s when he joined the war because he also was married could consumate the marriage and he produced a son that was old enough or developed enough to fit in his adult armor so I think Neoptolemus was at least 15 years old when he joined the war. I estimated Achilles was in his 30s or at least in his late 20s when he died.

It depends on the source but I do not to with the Apollodorous timeline because it is too extensive because he mentions two gatherings in Aulis with ten years of difference which would make half the heroes of the war old men when they come back which doesn't align to the chronology given by Homer (he names Odysseus "green old man" which makes him in his 40s in the war. If we follow Apollodorous he should be in his 50s-60s and that doesn't fit) also again to get sexually active Achilles must have been at least 12. Apollodorous names the declaration of war as the first gathering of the fleet but he gives a second gathering 10 years later which I think it is not too logical to assume.

Troilus was said to be killed before he turned 21. He could literally be 20 at the time of his death or 15 depending on how extensive timeline we have. His age is hard to be determined.

Telemachus was also mentioned to be "too young" and he was over 20. The age of maturity was around late 20s or early 30s because Telemachus still couldn't take over (Odysseus says that Penelope should give him the position for king "when he grows his beard" aka when he is old enough. Obviously at 20 Telemachus was still not old enough to take over)

If anything Antilochus or even the suitors of Penelope prove that soldiers cannot be way too young like 13 when they join. They should have been at least 15 or something to join. Arguably Diomedes has been estimated the youngest of the kings to join the war (that is under debate as well) and Diomedes was around 19 when he joined because the war of Epigonoi was placed around 5 years before Troy and Diomedes was 14 when he began the war and again Diomedes seems to be an exception to the rule given how he was said to be the king with the longest battle experience even by kings like Odysseus or Agamemnon who lived decades more than what he did.

But either way even if we say that Elpenor was 13 when he joined (and again I highly doubt it. Even if we use the sources that claim Achilles was 13 when joining, which I do not follow personally, he was the exception to the rule because the prophecy claimed that they needed the strongest of the Greeks to fight) so even if we say that he still wouldn't be a teenager. He would be 23 at the end of the war, 25 or 26 when he died. So again no way he would be a teenager when he died chronologically.

It's possible if we count some sources like Apollodorous but he could also be exaggerating to show how young the soldiers were to show the tragic part of their youth and he also has a very extensive timeline of the war (probably based on Helen being at Troy for "20 years" although that number seems also to be a euphemism for "long time"). Also we know on how Odysseus says he is back to 20 years later and unlike Helen he is counting time. If we follow Apollodorous timeline he should be away from home 30 years instead. Etc so it is interesting to think how age works. Like I said my estimation is that they weren't THAT young when joining otherwise half of those who were at Penelope's palace should have been with Odysseus at war (like Antinous or Eurymachus) so yeah. It is not impossible completely to be that young when joining of course but from the little I see from what Homer describes doesn't seem THAT much likely. But it surely depends.

But either way there is no way that Elpenor would be a teenager when he died. In the even of the Odyssey he should be at least in his middle 20s or as I said according to my calculations late 20s to early 30s

Hope that helps.