#/and then falling for a villain who's currently messing up his probation

[ohsoverylittlehoneybee]

#/i love orube so much. i love her arc so much. i wish they had allowed her to fully finish it#/it's still good the way it is but HHHH THEY COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING WITH HER AND CEDRIC#/i'm on my cedrube bullshit literally always but imagine fashioning yourself a perfect servant of kandrakar#/and then falling for a villain who's currently messing up his probation#/orube had ALL the settings to deeply sympathise with cedric's motivations while also staying aware of the lines he crosses#/and she does sympathise with him so much re.: the being far from home and earth being confusing thing!#/now what if they had gotten to bond over the 'we were always told what to do and discouraged from making independent decisions' thing?!#/we'd be living in a utopia rn#/let orube learn something from cedric as well! please!#/let her use that 'oh i'm gonna let the astral drops go' energy on him! i had genuinely expected that to be her arc when i first read this!#/and then it WASN'T#/yes i am still crying over cedrube over a decade later no talk me i angy#/anyways i love them and i think they should kiss and found their own independent cultivation sect - wait wrong franchise#/(the issue with applying 'if something is not the story you want it to be let it go' to w.i.t.c.h. is that w.i.t.c.h. WAS that story.)#/(for 4.5 arcs. as shown above! the change was very sudden!)#long post#w.i.t.c.h.#[talk less smile more]#/i am on my 'w.i.t.c.h. is really fucking good actually' agenda again and i will die be buried and decompose on this hill.

Today's take of undefined temperature: The W.i.t.c.h. comics have an overarching narrative, and while it was obviously not planned out from the beginning, it is fairly coherent until the end of the Trial of the Oracle arc. Hear me out.

Here are the main arcs, summarised for your convenience with a focus on what I believe to be the narrative golden thread. (Disclaimer that I don't have the comics with me rn, they just got tattooed onto my brain tissue when I was 12. So feel free to correct me if I get anything Very Wrong.)

Twelve Portals arc. The girls are tossed into an ongoing intergalactic conflict and given immense magical powers with little to no guidance on how to deal with that. Since Kandrakar is not allowed to interfere with anything except through its guardians in matters that concern the general safety of the universe or its own interests, the girls have to make their own decisions.

Because they have a stake in the Meridian civil war, they join the side of the rebellion and help Elyon claim the throne. The barrier between worlds falls. While Kandrakar generally approves of this, it was highly unorthodox.

This comes back to bite them in the shape of Luba messing with the quasars to take the W.i.t.c.h. out. This leads to Nerissa's awakening.

Nerissa arc. Ho boi.

The W.i.t.c.h. uncover the disastrous story of the former guardians, which includes a straight-up murder within the group. Will struggles with the responsibility of carrying the heart, which got to Nerissa's head. The girls meet Kadma and find out that she and Halinor broke ties with Kandrakar completely over Cassidy's death, which the Oracle knew about and let happen due to the rule of non-interference.

Can we take a moment to appreciate how fucked up the Nerissa arc is? Thank you. Moving on.

There Are Three Arcs Happening At Once Things Just Keep Fucking Happening arc. In the wake of all of That [gestures at Nerissa], Taranee decides that Kandrakar messing with her bodily autonomy and "curing" her eyesight is the last straw. She doesn't want to be used without being able to make her own informed decisions anymore and quits.

She is replaced by Orube, Luba's mentee, who is less than thrilled about working with the girls she blames for Luba's death. Orube is incredibly loyal to Kandrakar and initially rejects anything that isn't straightforward compliance with its orders. The Oracle is however a pretty interesting character who appreciates some unorthodoxy, and thus sends her to Earth. I want to stress that Orube only goes along with that due to her sense of duty. She does not actually want it.

Arkhanta is fundamentally a filler plot, though Ari's grievances do add to the theme of Kandrakar being flawed, and Yua fits the autonomy theme. More importantly though, the Arkantha missions and life on Earth make Orube more open-minded. She comes to consider the W.i.t.c.h. her friends and mentors and learns that sometimes, listening to your enemies and helping them can make them your allies. (Orube Will Remember That.)

Taranee eventually re-joins the group, but makes it clear that she still isn't a fan of how Kandrakar treats them all like pawns.

Astral Drop sub-arc. HO BOI.

While all of that [gestures at the above] happens, the fully sentient clones the W.i.t.c.h. can produce to keep people from noticing they go on magic space missions decide that they would like to be more than mindless slaves, seeing that they are, again, fully sentient. They start messing with the W.i.t.c.h. and eventually run away.

This eventually results in Orube catching them, but intentionally letting them escape - because she has sympathy for their struggle for autonomy and is listening to her own sense of justice now instead of what others tell her is the right thing to do.

Kandrakar is in the end forced to let the Astral Drops live their own lives.

Simultaneous Sylla/Interpol Stuff sub-arc. HO. FUCKING. BOI.

This was set up in the first arc, with Interpol noticing how Elyon's family disappeared. Just wanna point that out.

Secret agents on Earth stalk a group of teenagers and get incredibly close to discovering that magic is a whole real thing and these teenagers are overpowered intergalactic guardians.

Will's Astral Drop ends up in a Gordian Knot of a situation where multiple people are pointing guns at each other and the people present are all about to discover Kandrakar's existence.

This scene is such a dead end that the Oracle himself autonomously decides he has to step in and interfere.

He does so by warping reality, gives a banger of a speech that directly references Euripides' Medea and comments on the trope of Deus Ex Machina, and deletes the secret agent people's memories. This is my favourite scene in the entire comic. They did not have to go that hard, but they sure did.

I think we're done with the Clusterfuck Arc now. Moving on.

Trial of the Oracle arc. The HO BOI levels are off the charts.

Turns out that becoming the Deus Ex Machina comes back to bite the Oracle, because he is not allowed to interfere and this can get him fired.

Phobos takes advantage of this and other inherent flaws of Kandrakar's system, plays the entire centre of the universe like a cheap kazoo, and manages instantly to get himself elected Oracle. This gives him near-absolute power over the entire universe. No one is able to say anything against it.

This entire arc is about Kandrakar being really fucked up and really easy to infiltrate. It's the culmination of the previous arcs, which already pointed out a lot of flaws of this place, criticised the non-interference rule, and showed how little Kandrakar cares about people's opinions and feelings, even of those who are loyal to it.

The day is saved by the W.i.t.c.h.'s explicit refusal to comply with Kandrakar's orders, even before they know that Endarno is really Phobos. Because mindlessly following orders that you don't agree with is not good. That's the moral of the story here.

This whole mess results in changes being made to the core of Kandrakar's system. For example, it's not just one person having all the power now. The relationship of the Oracle to the guardians is changed as well, since the Oracle now understands what it means to be a small person tossed around by the universe.

And it's a goddamn tragedy that we never get to see the actual consequences of this change, because the quality of the comic rapidly deteriorates after this arc and the common thread of the narrative is partially dropped entirely and partially continued in incredibly lackluster ways.

Anyways, it's about control, it's about doing the right thing although it's not what you're told to do, it's about messed up governments, it's about free will, it's about rebellion, it's about things being more complicated than they seem. It's about learning for yourself, forming your own opinions, and being brave enough to make your own decisions. (And it always was - that's the core of the first arc, as well. This theme makes a lot of sense for a comic that is directed at teenagers, and it's not all that uncommon in teen media either afaik.)

Now, this is all very positive (bc I love this comic) and didn't go into the inconsistencies the first arcs of the comic do have (mostly bc I think they really, truly don't matter; it's a long-running comic that wasn't fully planned out in advance, minor plot holes just come with the medium), so let me go off at the later arcs of the comic under the cut.

What drives me insane is that the Ludmoore arc had the perfect set-up to continue this narrative. A former villain on probation? Who hates Kandrakar's guts and whose image of Kandrakar very much includes the guardians? Whose bodily autonomy is, again, compromised and who does all the fucked up shit he does in this arc not for power, but because he's homesick? Who fits the theme of control so ridiculously well, because he is always a pawn in someone's plan and, after freeing himself from one tyrant, relapses hard and ties himself to the very next one that comes along? Who interacts with Orube, who is not only deeply loyal to Kandrakar but could also pretty much be his direct narrative foil because they both have issues with emotions and making nuanced decisions for themselves? This FUCKS SEVERELY.

It could've paralleled the theme of autonomy present in the Cedric-Ludmoore relationship to Kandrakar again. It could've been the arc to paint an even more nuanced picture of our villains and point out that even this guy right there [points at Cedric] is worthy of basic respect. It could've leaned into the Cedric-Orube parallels way more than it did. It could've shown us literally anything about what's happening in Kandrakar now that they are, presumably, implementing reforms.

Instead, we get... a bunch of useless MacGuffins? A narratively completely inane Redemption Equals Death for Cedric? The sad, sad end of Orube's presence in this comic, which I don't even want to refer to as part of her arc because it has nothing to do with who she is? Don't get me wrong, I love the Ludmoore arc a lot and it has its strengths - Cedric's characterisation and his entanglement with Ludmoore are really good, as is Matt being dragged into magic bullshit - but considering how many details of this arc's premise play into the themes W.i.t.c.h. has followed since its first arc, the execution falls tragically short.

And then... hm. Then we get the Ragorlang arc, which was still somewhat solid, but also has very little to do with the overarching narrative anymore. And then, with New Power, it's only a matter of time until the entire narrative structure falls apart, the tone of the comic changes significantly, plots are recycled, narratives become much simpler and more black-or-white, and the comic appears to deliberately court a much younger audience.

What I'm saying is, the overarching narrative was abandoned at some point during the Ludmoore arc. Maybe it died with Phobos, maybe it died with Cedric, maybe it left with Orube. But it was there in the beginning, and it was good, and I wish we could have at least seen the Ludmoore arc told with the same effort.

[nyssablxck]

*So I read this prompt a very long time ago and I couldn’t find it again, but basically it was something along the lines of “the hero shows up at the villains door beaten and broken, saying they had no where else to go” I’ve been wanting to write my version of it and I finally did. I have not written in a very long time so sorry if it’s not the greatest and if there’s errors, but here’s my maybe Dramione fic?*

A small sliver of light started to peak through Draco’s curtains, he rolled over, wishing for just one more hour of rest. His wand started to vibrate next to him and he let out an irritated moan into his pillow. That was about five hours worth of sleep, the most he’d gotten in a whole month. Sleep did not come easy for him anymore, come to think of it, it never really had. Even as a boy, he’d always struggled falling asleep and staying asleep for that matter. Only now he would’ve loved having his childhood nightmares of monsters under the bed and werewolves in the closet. Now his nightmares tormented him of the mistakes he made and the lives lost because of them, they haunted him of the horrors of a war he longed to forget. He rubbed at his eyes before throwing the blankets off and mustering up some strength to start the day. He got dressed quickly, his usual grey slacks and black button down shirt, and a traditional wizard robe to go over. He liked to mix some modern clothes in his attire, but not too much to draw attention to himself. He made his way to his kitchen and put on a pot of tea. He slid into one of his bar stools and flipped open the Daily Prophet, it was sure to have something about Potter or one of the Weasley’s on the cover and a five page story to go with it. No matter what they did they always made it into the paper. Since the war ended news hadn’t been as riveting, which Draco was completely fine with, but Potter was already his boss, he could do without seeing him in the paper every day. Draco worked for the Auror department, he wasn’t one himself, just assisted them when they needed it. He had a vast knowledge of dark objects and past death eaters. There were hardly any active today, but some were still in hiding, Draco helped as best he could to try and find them. The Auror’s only came to him if they were really desperate, most of the time they just dumped files on his desk for him to transfer into the system, tedious work that they were to lazy to do themselves. Old Draco would have been furious being used and under-appreciated, but now he kept his head down and took whatever came at him. He thought that maybe if he let them barate and sneer at him, it’d make up for all the terrible and awful things he’d done at Hogwarts. He put down the paper and poured himself some tea into a mug, he drank it as quickly as he could after looking at the clock. He always liked to get to the ministry early to beat the crowds. When Draco first started crowds would surround him, spewing insults and threats. Now they just avoided him like the plague he is. He still preferred to enter work unseen. He grabbed a handful of powder and stepped into his fireplace calling out “Ministy of Magic”, the fireplace roared to life and within a few seconds he was at work, ready to start the day.

Even though no one really talked to him, he liked to be kept busy, kept his mind off things. “Malfoy” he heard his name called, he looked to see Potter standing in his office doorway, motioning for Draco to go to him. “Fuck” he muttered under his breath. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch him walk to Potter’s office, nosy fuckers, probably wishing he’d be fired. Draco couldn’t recall doing anything wrong, but then again they could easily fire him for his name alone. “Did I do something, Potter?” He said, he knew he should be addressing him as “sir” or something more formal but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it, too much history, and Potter never complained. “No, actually you’ve been doing a phenomenal job, that’s why I’m promoting you” his old nemesis smiled brightly, it severely annoyed Draco. “Promoting me?” Draco couldn’t hide his confused expression. “Yeah, you’ve been doing double the work of every Auror I have and we could use you on the field, you’ll start as my partner, I don’t work too many cases currently so it’ll be a slow start, Kingsley’s requiring me to put you on sort of a probation period, your first month you have to pass some tests, stay out of trouble all that good stuff, but then you’ll be an official Auror.” Potter was smiling again and it was really starting to piss Draco off. “Is this some kinds of joke, Potter? Because it’s not very funny” He was trying to keep his composure. “No joke, I’m being serious, Draco, I’m promoting you, you’ve earned it” His smiles faded but he still had sincerity in his eyes. “I don’t know what to say then” Draco mumbled, he was never good at saying thank you, or apologies. “No need to say anything, just take these next two days to relax and prepare for training” Potter shrugged, Draco nodded and stood to leave, “Malfoy, one more thing, you haven’t heard from Hermione, have you?” He asked, Draco looked at him incredulously, why would he ask him, of all people, about Granger? “Um, no?” The blonde answered. “Right, just checking” he waved his hand, like he was trying to play it off as nothing. Damn, Potter was a terrible liar. Draco was about to close the door when he turned around and muttered a quick “Thanks, Potter” and shut the door before he could hear the reply. He was too preoccupied about his new promotion to give much thought about the Granger question, although it was odd considering Potter was her closest friend. By the time 5:00 rolled around, Draco was already packed up and ready to go, he wanted to get home to brush up on Auror research, he was determined not to mess this up. After having some leftovers and small glass of fire whiskey, Draco sat himself on his couch, surround by different types of books on Aurors. He decided to start with A History of Aurors, he flipped to the first page and barely made it through the first sentence when his doorbell rang. That was odd. Draco never had visitors, ever. Maybe it was a muggle who found their way through the magical barrier, they’d get confused and turn around soon enough. He was about to get back to reading when it rang again. This time he set down his book. The wards are set so that if a muggle did find their way to his door, as soon as they rang the doorbell they’d be struck with a bout of confusion and send them away. This couldn’t be a muggle, so that meant it had to be a wizard. Draco grabbed his wand and headed for the door. He tried to look through the peephole, but saw nothing, they could be using an invisibility spell. “Fuck” he muttered. The doorbell rang again. “Here goes nothing” he sighed and swung the door open, wand at the ready. To say he was shocked was an understatement. Draco Malfoy was looking at a very beaten and bloodied Hermione Granger. “Please help me, I had no where else to go” She sucked in a deep breath before toppling over, right into Draco’s house. “Fuck” he said again.

[veilchenjaeger]

Today's take of undefined temperature: The W.i.t.c.h. comics have an overarching narrative, and while it was obviously not planned out from the beginning, it is fairly coherent until the end of the Trial of the Oracle arc. Hear me out.

Here are the main arcs, summarised for your convenience with a focus on what I believe to be the narrative golden thread. (Disclaimer that I don't have the comics with me rn, they just got tattooed onto my brain tissue when I was 12. So feel free to correct me if I get anything Very Wrong.)

Twelve Portals arc. The girls are tossed into an ongoing intergalactic conflict and given immense magical powers with little to no guidance on how to deal with that. Since Kandrakar is not allowed to interfere with anything except through its guardians in matters that concern the general safety of the universe or its own interests, the girls have to make their own decisions.

Because they have a stake in the Meridian civil war, they join the side of the rebellion and help Elyon claim the throne. The barrier between worlds falls. While Kandrakar generally approves of this, it was highly unorthodox.

This comes back to bite them in the shape of Luba messing with the quasars to take the W.i.t.c.h. out. This leads to Nerissa's awakening.

Nerissa arc. Ho boi.

The W.i.t.c.h. uncover the disastrous story of the former guardians, which includes a straight-up murder within the group. Will struggles with the responsibility of carrying the heart, which got to Nerissa's head. The girls meet Kadma and find out that she and Halinor broke ties with Kandrakar completely over Cassidy's death, which the Oracle knew about and let happen due to the rule of non-interference.

Can we take a moment to appreciate how fucked up the Nerissa arc is? Thank you. Moving on.

There Are Three Arcs Happening At Once Things Just Keep Fucking Happening arc. In the wake of all of That [gestures at Nerissa], Taranee decides that Kandrakar messing with her bodily autonomy and "curing" her eyesight is the last straw. She doesn't want to be used without being able to make her own informed decisions anymore and quits.

She is replaced by Orube, Luba's mentee, who is less than thrilled about working with the girls she blames for Luba's death. Orube is incredibly loyal to Kandrakar and initially rejects anything that isn't straightforward compliance with its orders. The Oracle is however a pretty interesting character who appreciates some unorthodoxy, and thus sends her to Earth. I want to stress that Orube only goes along with that due to her sense of duty. She does not actually want it.

Arkhanta is fundamentally a filler plot, though Ari's grievances do add to the theme of Kandrakar being flawed, and Yua fits the autonomy theme. More importantly though, the Arkantha missions and life on Earth make Orube more open-minded. She comes to consider the W.i.t.c.h. her friends and mentors and learns that sometimes, listening to your enemies and helping them can make them your allies. (Orube Will Remember That.)

Taranee eventually re-joins the group, but makes it clear that she still isn't a fan of how Kandrakar treats them all like pawns.

Astral Drop sub-arc. HO BOI.

While all of that [gestures at the above] happens, the fully sentient clones the W.i.t.c.h. can produce to keep people from noticing they go on magic space missions decide that they would like to be more than mindless slaves, seeing that they are, again, fully sentient. They start messing with the W.i.t.c.h. and eventually run away.

This eventually results in Orube catching them, but intentionally letting them escape - because she has sympathy for their struggle for autonomy and is listening to her own sense of justice now instead of what others tell her is the right thing to do.

Kandrakar is in the end forced to let the Astral Drops live their own lives.

Simultaneous Sylla/Interpol Stuff sub-arc. HO. FUCKING. BOI.

This was set up in the first arc, with Interpol noticing how Elyon's family disappeared. Just wanna point that out.

Secret agents on Earth stalk a group of teenagers and get incredibly close to discovering that magic is a whole real thing and these teenagers are overpowered intergalactic guardians.

Will's Astral Drop ends up in a Gordian Knot of a situation where multiple people are pointing guns at each other and the people present are all about to discover Kandrakar's existence.

This scene is such a dead end that the Oracle himself autonomously decides he has to step in and interfere.

He does so by warping reality, gives a banger of a speech that directly references Euripides' Medea and comments on the trope of Deus Ex Machina, and deletes the secret agent people's memories. This is my favourite scene in the entire comic. They did not have to go that hard, but they sure did.

I think we're done with the Clusterfuck Arc now. Moving on.

Trial of the Oracle arc. The HO BOI levels are off the charts.

Turns out that becoming the Deus Ex Machina comes back to bite the Oracle, because he is not allowed to interfere and this can get him fired.

Phobos takes advantage of this and other inherent flaws of Kandrakar's system, plays the entire centre of the universe like a cheap kazoo, and manages instantly to get himself elected Oracle. This gives him near-absolute power over the entire universe. No one is able to say anything against it.

This entire arc is about Kandrakar being really fucked up and really easy to infiltrate. It's the culmination of the previous arcs, which already pointed out a lot of flaws of this place, criticised the non-interference rule, and showed how little Kandrakar cares about people's opinions and feelings, even of those who are loyal to it.

The day is saved by the W.i.t.c.h.'s explicit refusal to comply with Kandrakar's orders, even before they know that Endarno is really Phobos. Because mindlessly following orders that you don't agree with is not good. That's the moral of the story here.

This whole mess results in changes being made to the core of Kandrakar's system. For example, it's not just one person having all the power now. The relationship of the Oracle to the guardians is changed as well, since the Oracle now understands what it means to be a small person tossed around by the universe.

And it's a goddamn tragedy that we never get to see the actual consequences of this change, because the quality of the comic rapidly deteriorates after this arc and the common thread of the narrative is partially dropped entirely and partially continued in incredibly lackluster ways.

Anyways, it's about control, it's about doing the right thing although it's not what you're told to do, it's about messed up governments, it's about free will, it's about rebellion, it's about things being more complicated than they seem. It's about learning for yourself, forming your own opinions, and being brave enough to make your own decisions. (And it always was - that's the core of the first arc, as well. This theme makes a lot of sense for a comic that is directed at teenagers, and it's not all that uncommon in teen media either afaik.)

Now, this is all very positive (bc I love this comic) and didn't go into the inconsistencies the first arcs of the comic do have (mostly bc I think they really, truly don't matter; it's a long-running comic that wasn't fully planned out in advance, minor plot holes just come with the medium), so let me go off at the later arcs of the comic under the cut.

What drives me insane is that the Ludmoore arc had the perfect set-up to continue this narrative. A former villain on probation? Who hates Kandrakar's guts and whose image of Kandrakar very much includes the guardians? Whose bodily autonomy is, again, compromised and who does all the fucked up shit he does in this arc not for power, but because he's homesick? Who fits the theme of control so ridiculously well, because he is always a pawn in someone's plan and, after freeing himself from one tyrant, relapses hard and ties himself to the very next one that comes along? Who interacts with Orube, who is not only deeply loyal to Kandrakar but could also pretty much be his direct narrative foil because they both have issues with emotions and making nuanced decisions for themselves? This FUCKS SEVERELY.

It could've paralleled the theme of autonomy present in the Cedric-Ludmoore relationship to Kandrakar again. It could've been the arc to paint an even more nuanced picture of our villains and point out that even this guy right there [points at Cedric] is worthy of basic respect. It could've leaned into the Cedric-Orube parallels way more than it did. It could've shown us literally anything about what's happening in Kandrakar now that they are, presumably, implementing reforms.

Instead, we get... a bunch of useless MacGuffins? A narratively completely inane Redemption Equals Death for Cedric? The sad, sad end of Orube's presence in this comic, which I don't even want to refer to as part of her arc because it has nothing to do with who she is? Don't get me wrong, I love the Ludmoore arc a lot and it has its strengths - Cedric's characterisation and his entanglement with Ludmoore are really good, as is Matt being dragged into magic bullshit - but considering how many details of this arc's premise play into the themes W.i.t.c.h. has followed since its first arc, the execution falls tragically short.

And then... hm. Then we get the Ragorlang arc, which was still somewhat solid, but also has very little to do with the overarching narrative anymore. And then, with New Power, it's only a matter of time until the entire narrative structure falls apart, the tone of the comic changes significantly, plots are recycled, narratives become much simpler and more black-or-white, and the comic appears to deliberately court a much younger audience.

What I'm saying is, the overarching narrative was abandoned at some point during the Ludmoore arc. Maybe it died with Phobos, maybe it died with Cedric, maybe it left with Orube. But it was there in the beginning, and it was good, and I wish we could have at least seen the Ludmoore arc told with the same effort.