#I hope I don't end up contradiction anything canon with these two stories...

[avirael]

Rain of Fire

As Rael looked up to the sky they strongly hoped that they hadn’t made a grave mistake. The red moon above had grown closer so fast and whatever the Garleans plan was, it was going to happen soon.

The first time Rael had noticed that something was wrong with Dalamud, they had been at the Thavnairian coast near the village of Yedlihmad. Suddenly the wind had freshened up and carried ominous whispers with it. Rael had looked up to the clear night sky filled with glistening stars and observed the twin moons. They tilted their head and wondered if the lesser moon shone redder than usual.

The next morning Rael had decided to return to Radz-at-Han as fast as possible because the feeling that something was wrong hadn’t left them the whole night and had followed them into their sleep with visions of fire-red Dalamud closer than seemed possible by it’s very nature.

The trip back to the city took longer than Rael had hoped and by the time they arrived the smaller moon had undeniably grown bigger or rather closer than it had been a few days ago. Immediately the Viera tried to gather as many information as possible and asked around for news they might have missed while they were out in the wilderness.

After another few days a terrible rumour reached Rael in hushed voices. It was said that the Garlean empire somehow found a way to use their Magitek technology to manipulate Dalamud and now planned to use it as a weapon of mass destruction by making it crash into Aldenard like a giant meteor. It sounded almost to crazy to believe but the way it made the Viera‘s skin crawl let them suspect that there at least was some truth to it.

Rael wondered what they should do next. Knowing things and drawing the right conclusions wasn’t the same thing, a lesson they had learned rather quickly after first being trained to harness their powers. What would happen if the Garleans succeeded with their mad plan? How far would the destruction of such an impact reach? Possibly not as far as Thavnair or Dalmasca, because that would mean that it would hit Garlemald too, and Rael doubted that they were crazy enough to destroy their own territory. But even if the destruction would be limited to Aldenard it would still have catastrophic consequences not only for the people there but also for the aetherial balance of the whole world.

Rael didn’t doubt for a second that they needed to do something about this but the question was how? The Thavnairians seemed reluctant to do anything about the situation. After all they were not only a comparably small nation but also had a non-interference treaty with the Garlean Empire.

But what was Rael supposed to do on their own? Where should they go? For days they tried to find the right answer or at least a hint at it, listening to the voices of the wind, the sound of the waves and rustling of the leaves but to their frustration their gift rarely showed itself when they needed it the most.

Think, think!, they told themself over and over again and went through as many scenarios as they could imagine. Going to Garlemald seemed senseless. Not only would it be far too dangerous but Rael was only one person. There was no way they could sabotage the Empire‘s plans all on their own. But who would have an interest in helping them other than the designated victims of the Garleans plan? Would there still be enough time to go to Aldenard? And would Rael be able to help them at all? Rael didn’t know any of that but at least they had to try. They had already wasted enough time and with every minute they hesitated the catastrophe got more and more inevitable…

Luckily Thavnair had lots of trade relations to all corners of Eorzea, including Aldenard, so it didn’t take Rael very long to find a merchant who was willing to risk a journey there and would allow the Viera to travel with them in exchange for their help. So Rael spent the rest of that day carrying boxes and bags with all kinds of local goods onto the merchants ship before it set sails early the next morning.

As they left Thavnair towards the west Rael stood at the stern of the ship and watched the land grow smaller and smaller for a while, listening to any kind of sign to prove their decision right. When Thavnair had vanished at the horizon Rael turned around looking forward instead. So they were really going to Aldenard. Further from their home than Rael had ever been.

After leaving the Golmore Jungle Rael had first turned to the north, traveling through Nagxia up towards the Azim Steppe. Then they had turned to Yanxia always careful not to catch the attention of the Empire. From there a merchant had taken Rael to Kugane. They had hoped to travel the various islands of Hingashi but were denied to leave the city, so after only a short time they instead decided to take yet another ship to Thavnair, where they had spent the last few months. And now they were headed towards Aldenard, Vylbrand to be more precise.

Rael had never imagined that their journey would lead them this far to the west, since they had always suspected the threat they saw in their vision was one closer to their homeland. But a meteor crashing down to earth probably proved that hypothesis wrong.

The way from Thavnair to Aldenard wasn’t a short one, even on sea. Only Rael’s journey from Kugane around the southern coastline of Othard to Thavnair had been longer. And all this time the red moon in the sky had grown closer and more threatening. Proportionally to the size of Dalamud the nervousness of the crew and it’s captain also grew.

The man had probably estimated a slower descent of the moon or a faster travel and by now he considered altering the course of the ship so they would make it to land in time, no matter where. Some suggested that it was best to head back to towards Cape Mete which they had passed a few days ago but the captain explained that they wouldn’t make it back there in time. There was no way to tell what would happen if the consequences of Dalamud’s fall would catch them on the open sea. So they kept heading west hoping to make it to one of the islands on the eastern shore of Aldenard and praying that there would be enough distance between them and Carteneau, the estimated area of impact on the western shore of Aldenard.

Rael cursed themself for being stuck on this ship, for not being fast enough, for not having known better than to try this hopeless journey in the first place. But what should they have done instead? Why was it so difficult to hear the voice of the forest recently? Had they strayed to far from home? But didn’t the Oracle intend for Rael to go out into the world? Didn’t they say that it would be the only way to save their home? Then why would the forest haunt Rael with visions of doom and then leave them clueless to fend for themself out here? Where did they go wrong?

No!, Rael desperately tried to silence the turmoil in their thoughts. There had to be something they still could do, there had to be a reason for all of this. The signs had been there and Rael had not entirely misread them for sure. They breathed in and out, slowly and deeply, sat down, closed their eyes and listened, carefully and concentrated for hours. But to their terror they found that there was nothing but the sound of the waves crashing against the hull of the ship and a storm growing closer in the dark clouds above.

"Land!", a man suddenly yelled down from the crow’s nest. "Land in sight!"

Quickly Rael jumped up and ran to the bow of the ship observing the horizon and indeed after a moment a landmass started to appear, dark against the evening sky filled with thunder clouds dimly illuminated by Dalamud’s ominous red and orange glow. A few of the sailors cheered with relief and for a second Rael almost regained hope. Almost.

Then the rumbling of distant thunder grew louder and along with it something else reached Rael’s ears and send a shudder through the Viera’s body. A faint distorted voice, strangely different from any they had ever heard before whispering in the wind. The voice was almost unintelligible and sounded far far away but at the same time it felt so much more intense than anything Rael’s gift had shown them since a long time. They didn’t understand what the meaning of this strange voice was but it was unmistakably important. Rael pressed their eyes shut and tried to listen more precisely. They understood bits and pieces but the meaning behind the words still remained mysterious to them.

Suddenly a loud crash made Rael open their eyes again and turn their gaze to the sky where Dalamud had almost reached it’s destination. Something was happening. Glowing blue lines spread across the moon’s surface like cracks but the pattern was way too geometric to be a coincidence. Nonetheless the moon seemed to break, it’s shards ablaze flying in all directions and crashing to the ground with fiery tails.

Once again Rael shuddered and their skin started to crawl. The eery voice faded to the background as dizziness took over and made them stumble to the floorboards, their vision starting to blur. For a moment everything went silent and black, then the rumbling thunder seemed louder than before and Rael could feel the heat of fire on their skin.

In front of their eyes a city appeared, built on a rocky island with a myriad of piers and wooden walkways connecting the different buildings. Fire rained down on it, crushing bridges and buildings were it hit land and making the water boil and rise were it hit the ocean, causing waves to swallow the lowest areas of town.

Then Rael’s vision blurred again and turned this way and that before coming into focus again. This time Rael looked down like a bird onto a big round city with lots of towers and domes and an enormous palace in its centre. Here the burning shards of Dalamud also crashed down and made thick stone walls burst like glass. Rael also felt like they could hear the panicked screams of the townsfolk fearing for their lifes in the distance.

Then another shift and this time it made Rael’s stomach turn. Below them a dense green forest stretched out pulsing with life, giant trees as old as time with all kinds of animals searching for shelter below their foliage. Then fire started to rain down on it, ripping gaping dark holes into the green and setting the forest around ablaze.

Just like their vision back at the Sanctuary in the Golmore Jungle. Had they been too late to prevent it? Had they failed? Was everything going to be destroyed now?

Rael started to scream. But the terrified shriek they heard didn’t sound like their own voice at all.

Maybe it was that scream that brought Rael back to reality or maybe it was the swaying of the ship or the person shaking them and trying to pull them to their feet.

"No!", Rael yelled and struggled, stretching a hand out to… to what exactly?

"You should go inside unless you want to go overboard!", the friendly voice of the merchant yelled loudly beside them. "Like this we are never going to make it to any of the islands."

Finally Rael started to focus on their present situation again. The ship was being tossed around by tall waves caused by falling fragments of Dalamud that landed in the ocean before and beside them. It was a miracle none of them had hit the ship yet. That was not all however. The fiery shards were accompanied by burning bright beams of light. Confused Rael looked up to the sky and couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

"Is that a…?"

"A freaking dragon? Yes I think so!", the merchant offered. "It hatched from the goddamn moon!"

That sounded crazy. But then again it didn’t sound much more crazy than using a moon as a tool of mass destruction. The beast hurtled through the air with outstretched wings sending beams of light down to earth destroying everything in its way. It was difficult to estimate the dragons size but from this distance alone it looked enormous.

Panicked Rael turned around remembering their vision and trying to orient themself. Aldenard and the destruction lay to the west, so that meant Dalmasca had to be exactly in the the opposite direction. Relieved Rael realised that only a few of Dalamud‘s fragments reach much further east than their current position. That meant the Jungle, their home, was probably safe, at least for now.

However that wasn’t supposed to be the most urgent of Rael’s worries right now, as the sudden surge of terrified screams around them proved. Quickly the Viera followed the gaze of the men back towards the sky over Aldenard. A massive burning chunk was headed directly their way, coming closer and closer every second. With a rough jolt the ship started to groan and turn.

"Everyone! Hold on tight!", the captain yelled down from the quarter deck while pushing all of his weight onto the ship’s wheel.

The ship made a turn to the right just in time to evade the falling meteor fragment crashing into the ocean only about a dozen yalms away. The water hissed and splashed and a tall wave crashed against the side of the ship making it tilt dangerously. Hadn’t Rael clung to the railing as tightly as they had, they would have fallen and rolled across the deck like some of the others did. Luckily none of them seemed to have gone overboard as far as Rael could see.

Once they dared to loosen their grip again Rael and the merchant stumbled towards the quarter deck, where the captain tried to hold the ship steady.

"What should we do now?", the merchant asked.

"We‘re going to head north, towards Gyr Abania.", the captain answered. "We‘ll never reach the coast safely like this. We have to get away from this rain of fire."

"Gyr Abania?!", Rael protested. "But that‘s garlean territory!"

The merchant put a hand on Rael’s shoulder trying to reassure them. "I don’t like it any more than you do, but staying on our planned course would be as good as suicide. Gyr Abania is our best hope right now."

Reluctantly Rael nodded. They knew the man was right. There was no way to undo the damage of Dalamud anymore, they had been too late. But what should Rael do, now that they were in Aldenard? That was assuming they safely made it to land to begin with…

Should they just continue their journey like they had before? They could travel whatever would be left of Aldenard once the dust settled and learn what this land had to offer. The least they could do was to try and help the people recover from this catastrophe and help them to prevent whatever the Garlean Empire had planned next.

With uncertainty they looked back towards the catastrophe unraveling in the night sky. Something called them there, they could feel it, but it felt different than before. Rael couldn’t stop thinking about that strange voice that was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time and that scream that still echoed in their head and that felt like their own but at the same time sounded like a cry for help from far away.

[dotthings]

It's a mistake to jump to the conclusion that Jensen meant there would be no follow-up or response from Dean's side. He was speaking about Cas's confession and making it clear there's no confusion, awkwardness, or barriers between them, over that confession. Only love and acceptance, mutual understanding. They can move forward.

Cas, we know from the canon, in his speech, is fulfilled just in saying it. We, as fans, would love to see Cas getting verbal confirmation on how he's loved, but Cas already knows. It's a lack of understanding of Cas not to understand this, it's still okay to want and need to see it said to Cas, but Cas understands. Cas had his own freight train revelations hit him, maybe he knew since Purgatory II, "you don't have to say it, I heard your prayer." Remember angels can sense longing. The story might still require it, but the point is that Cas isn't eating himself up about it, he knows he is loved, he even saw it in Dean's eyes.

Dean, otoh, did not get to speak his loving truth to Cas. That is still hanging. Sometimes it's not in the having it's in just being. It's getting to say it. Dean hasn't gotten to say it. We saw Dean's self evident grief.

We've heard Jensen speak about Dean's regrets about Cas.

We've heard Jensen saying he hopes "we get to see that at some point" about a reciprocation, a response from Dean, and Jensen has said "it would probably be a big embrace and then Dean would say 'can we talk about that goodbye a little bit?'" (Jib 11) This doesn't contradict what Jensen said at Purcon 8. Jensen seems conscious of a missing piece in the story from Dean's pov, from Dean's end.

At Vancon 2022, Jensen said about Dean's regrets (and I love so much how he personalized it so deeply, that Jensen spoke using "I" when he was speaking for Dean): "I lost Cas but because I didn't say anything, I didn't give him anything. And what I had in my head was I should have said I love you too and hugged him." This was in Dean's head in the moment he saw Cas get taken. The sense of loss. The regrets. Jensen said "I have an answer for that, and I had an answer for that in the next camera setup." What he gave us at Vancon 2022 was part one of Dean's feelings. He hadn't given us part two yet.

Purcon 8 was about the realizations that hit Dean like a freight train while he's sobbing on the floor, and it's not complete, but it's still a big piece. We still don't have the full picture. But it's about Dean's realizations as it hits him fully how much Cas loved him and how Cas loved him and how Cas loved him so entirely. And the mutual understanding and acceptance.

I am dubious this means there won't be any follow-up or reciprocating moment from Dean, that Dean has nothing that he still needs to say, for his own peace, it seems clear from Jensen's statements that Jensen believes Dean wants to hug Cas and say I love you back.

And that, in my opinion, would be massive. No it doesn't have to be along drawn out speech or a complicated conversation. But I'm not going to go rushing to assume there will be no response from Dean either.

[koraesrambles]

Thoughts on the conclusion of Gotham War

Alright, so I've made it absolutely no secret that I've been enjoying the crap out of Gotham War. Is it structurally sound with good pacing and clear stakes? HELL no. It's not an air tight story, there are so many holes in all of the characters logic, but it is also an extremely good time.

I don't mind loose storylines in comics like this. Mostly because the premise "full grown man dresses up as a bat and cannot stop himself from mass adopting every orphan that looks like him" is already so ridiculous that anything they posit as a solution in their "war on crime" I think, "Yeah, I can see that." None of the rules of this world make sense.

But I don't really read most things for their air tight plot. Slight detour (There's a point, I swear!), but some perfect examples of this are Puss in Boots and the Last Wish and The Super Mario Bro movie. The last wish is PHENOMENAL. A literal work of art. I've seen it so many times and just basked in it's beauty. Love everything about it, absolutely stellar. But do you know what movie made me look up fan content, read fics, and forced me to buy the digital copy of the movie before the DVD came out? Yep. Mario Bros.

Why? Because I like stories about brothers who love each other and the mario movie gave me exactly that. It's not an air tight, phenomonal story with gorgeous real world applications, but it gave me a fun time where two characters worried about each other incessantly and honestly? that is what I'm here for.

So back to Gotham War. If I'm not actually looking for a ground breaking story (which honestly, I know those happen in these big super hero comic books but I feel like they're usually the *exception* rather than the rule) and just want good character interactions, then Gotham War delivered phenomenally. Especially since my favorite character was the one constantly being wrung through the wringer.

It was a great time. I enjoyed reading it, the art is better than anything I could ever produce even when the characters made weird faces. It was great. But did they stick the ending?

Eh, endings are hard. I would love to see more consequences for Bruce. Him just going off at the end and getting away with the horrible things he did to Jason is annoying. I almost wanted Jason to actually die at the end there, just so that Bruce would feel stupid and sad. If Bruce never acknowledges what he did to Jason (which . . . he probably won't, given the track record) then I'll be pretty disappointed. That's some juicy angst right there that should absolutely be addressed.

And I appreciated that literally every character that interacted with Bruce that knew about what he'd done yelled at him for it. Even Dick's seeming about-face at the end with "I'm sure you had your reasons" came after two weeks of getting used to the idea AND him trying to actually get Bruce to make good choices for once. I mean, Bruce doesn't, but A for effort, Dick. Thanks for punching him in the face last time, that was cathartic.

I surprisingly really like the fact that it wasn't Zur who did this to Jason. It was Bruce. Horrible, wacked-out, messed up Bruce Wayne who is so desperate to control everything around him and so terrified of losing the people he loves that he constantly overrides them like they're his freaking pets. Bruce is in a BAD place, and I sure hope that there will be tons of fics exploring that even if canon never acknowledges it.

But that's how I deal with comic universes like this. Everyone jokes that "Canon? what canon!" and we all laugh but honestly . . .yeah. Like, seriously. Canon is whatever works for the writer's plot in the moment. They make stuff up and contradict themselves all the time. They're constantly retconning stuff. It doesn't take away from any of the stories I like, I can still read them. And at this point, legitimately, I approach every single comic I come up on as though it's an AU. There is no canon timeline for me, because it's too messy. DC is literally just an AO3 platform that's allowed to make money.

Because the people who originally created these characters are long gone. These guys (gender neutral) writing and drawing the comics now are just fans like we all are. It's all fake. None of it is real. So let's all just have a good time.

I was talking to some friends about this and they pointed out, "It's difficult because people feel like when they're constantly screwing around with things like that why should they even care about the characters?" And they were absolutely right, that's extremely frustrating to deal with. I put a lot of emotional investment into characters, but every writer is going to approach the characters differently and with a universe like DC has, you just have to roll with it. There are no stakes. We all complain about it, but nothing is done to change it because we love these characters and we'll keep coming back for more, and so they keep having to make more content and that means messing with stuff they already have. It's a never ending cycle. These are living legends, mythology that's being written out in real time. Nothing about them are ever going to be cohesive.

Wow this is getting long, sorry about that. Things I loved about the Gotham War conclusion: Jason almost sacrificing himself and being a hero even though he was terrified. A+ content. Gorgeous, you go my boy! Tim telling everyone how to beat up all the rouges (Good job sweetheart, way to be a morally ambiguous little shit like you always are). Even if he claimed to be the second best robin at the end, those are fighting words my man. I also liked Jason's "Go 'save' another one of your sons." jab. That was great. I liked that everyone told Bruce he was wrong, even if it could have been stronger. The rest of the issue was plot stuff that I didn't really care too much about. I really like Bat/Cat, so I didn't mind those scenes too much even though Bruce is still the worst (affectionate AND derogatory).

I didn't really expect anything spectacular from the conclusion, and it really did end kind of like what I expected (nothing's changed except now Jason gets to deal with the Joker when he's sick with Super Anxiety -- which I actually am really excited for). But it wasn't as much fun as some of the previous issues.

That said, I would not mind owning an omnibus of all the gotham war issues, if just to re-read all of my favorite scenes. There were some truly unhinged crap in there, and that's just my cup of tea.

Story telling quality? eh, 6/10

enjoyment had? 9/10

[crusherthedoctor]

Do you have any advice for making an OC villain (or OC in general) in a Sonic fanfic feel more like they “belong” in Sonic?

Questions like this can be tricky to answer from an objective lens because there's always going to be a hint of personal taste that seeps into one's advice, however subconscious. It's why you'll get one fanfic advice post saying one thing, and then a second one says the complete opposite.

With that said, here are a few suggestions:

Let's get the obvious one out of the way: don't have them kill off Eggman just to flaunt what a great villain they are, and don't have them intrude on his territory to make them seem more impressive than they truly are (*coughIDWcough*). I'm not saying this solely because I happen to be an Eggman fanboy: he's Sonic's arch-nemesis, that's all there is to it, so anything that would be considered disrespectful to the legacy of villains like Bowser and Ganon would logically apply to Eggman as well. I don't actually think it's impossible for non-Eggman villains to stand on their own two feet; it's just that most of them - official and fanmade alike - have not tried very hard.

If they're going to be antagonizing Sonic, then make sure they actually do that. One reason why Erazor Djinn is a good villain is because he's established as a credible thorn on Sonic's side, and gets under his skin, thus making it all the more satisfying when Sonic eventually seals his fate. Compare that to Mephiles, who spends all his time screwing around pointlessly with other characters and has no dynamic whatsoever with the title character of the franchise.

Very few ideas would be considered farfetched in the world of Sonic. Whether your villain is magical in nature, scientific in nature, or something else entirely, I wouldn't worry about it being too out there for Sonic. This flexibility has always been one of the Sonic universe's greatest strengths IMO.

If they're an anthro, play around with the animal kingdom. Your character is more likely to stand out if they're not another hedgehog or echidna, especially if there's recognizable thought put into how their chosen species reflects their personality and/or traits in some form or another.

Giving them a link or a deeper connection to an official character isn't inherently a bad idea (the existence of Sonudis would make it hypocritical for me to claim otherwise), but it can and often does go poorly due to lack of build up, contradicting canon, contradicting the characters themselves, and so on. If there's a history or relationship with an official character, tread carefully, and perhaps come up with a scenario that hasn't been overused to hell and back, like all those fics where Shadow has a previously unmentioned second prototype that turns out to be Shadow With Tits the Hedgehog.

Likewise, if they have a link to a piece of official lore, pick one. If you try to pull a Flynn and connect everything to everything, then it makes the universe feel smaller, not bigger. A former Babylon Rogue is fair enough, but a former Babylon Rogue who is also part-Black Arm, and also the descendent of Chaos, and also a resident of Blaze's dimension, and also a reincarnation of Solaris and Dark Gaia simultaneously... is not.

During Trudy's development, along with Stellar as a whole, I've frequently worked backwards by looking at the end destination and other climactic points in the story, thinking "Okay, how do we get to that point?", and building my way from there. For me, it's easier to smooth things out this way, and easier to spot potental plotholes and nip them in the bud. Maybe this is something you could try out with your character?

Hope this helps. ^^

[whereistheonepiece]

For the writing prompts a story about Cavendish and Law meeting again accidentaly (like he saves Law again or anything you'd like to write I just love Cavendish being a gentleman)

I love your icon btw!!

Why, thank you!

Originally I was going to set this after Zou and before Wano, but I took so long in answering this that Oda finally revealed what happened after Law and Blackbeard's fight, and that provided the perfect opportunity for Cavendish to save him (and Bepo).

Oda's going to release a chapter that contradicts this, so let's just enjoy this as the canon divergent fic that it is.

-

The Heart Pirates had been defeated. The Polar Tang had sunk to the bottom of the sea, presumably taking its crew with it. Law couldn't know for sure, as he'd been unable to lift his own head after Blackbeard was done with him. Law couldn't know for sure if his crew had managed to escape the depths, unlike their submarine; he had to trust Bepo was right and have faith that the Heart Pirates had made it out alive.

And that's what haunted him as he slipped in and out of consciousness. He couldn't know for sure the fate of his crew, couldn't know if they'd all made it out okay or if some of them had been killed in the destruction of the sub. He couldn't know if some had suffered injuries that left them unable to swim to safety.

Come to think of it, how much longer could Bepo hold out? Bepo was a Mink, so he was a stronger swimmer than your average human, but even Minks had their limits. How much longer could his polar bear swim before his limbs began to fail him? How much farther to the nearest island? Law, in this state, couldn't begin to picture where they were, so he couldn't know where they were in relation to land.

Would their retreat be in vain? Would Bepo come to the end of his strength, his stamina, before they could reach the next island? Would Bepo reach a point where he could no longer move his limbs, and lose his ability to float on his stomach, causing Law to slip off his back and into the sea? Law had no hope if that happened. He'd sink like a rock, and they'd have betrayed their crew for nothing.

-

"Ahoy!"

Law slid his eyes open. He stared up into the sky. Was he hallucinating?

"Captain!" Bepo said. "Captain, I see a ship."

"What's it look like?" Law rasped. He could feel Bepo's movements begin to grow sluggish; he wasn't going to last much longer. But in the world of Marines and pirates, a ship did not automatically mean their salvation, and Law would rather drown than leave himself at the mercy of an unknown adversary.

"Really girly and frilly," Bepo panted. "The figurehead is a huge white horse. I think they're called the Beautiful Pirates."

"Care to come aboard?" called the voice.

"Captain?" Bepo asked, looking to Law for his next move.

"We can trust them," Law said, feeling his lips curve in something approximating a smirk. "I know their captain." He and Luffy may no longer be allies, but Cavendish didn't have to know that.

"Aye!"

-

Cavendish swept onto the deck, smelling like roses and an inoffensive unisex cologne. He took Law and Bepo in with his large blue eyes, his lips parted in thought.

"Here," he said, slipping off his coat and fitting it around Law's shoulders. "You can use that to keep warm until we can get you two in a bath."

Law gripped the coat to himself, quietly shivering. Wearing Cavendish's coat, Law was reminded of the time Cavendish had held him in his arms when he could barely walk after Doflamingo had finished with him. Just how many times was he going to accept this man's chivalry?

Cavendish looked at his subordinates and ordered one to start on the bath, another to bring tea, and a third to find Law and Bepo a set of clean clothes after their bath.

The three Beautiful Pirates dutifully ran off to carry out their orders, leaving Law, Cavendish, and Bepo alone at the bow of the ship.

"I don't imagine you'd want to share with me how you found yourself in your current predicament," Cavendish began carefully.

Law clenched his fists in the fine silken outer fabric of Cavendish's coat. "You're right," Law said. "I don't."

Cavendish laid his hand on his hip. He sighed. "Well, you're welcome to stay the night. We're stopping for a supply run tomorrow. We can drop you off then."

Law let out a breath. "Thank you."

Cavendish nodded. He perked up when the pirate who'd left to make tea returned with a tray of three delicate teacups. "Thank you," Cavendish said, taking the dainty porcelain in his hands.

Law and Bepo took teacups of their own; Bepo had some trouble at first figuring out how to shape his claws to hold his cup, but he was grateful for the tea. Law looked into the green depths of his tea and imagined a miniature sea, with a miniature Polar Tang and a miniature, broken crew. He squeezed his eyes shut and brought the cup to his lips and sipped without testing the temperature, scorching his tongue. He didn't care. He took another sip, scorching the inside of his throat.

"What do you plan to do next?" Cavendish asked.

Law finally opened his eyes. He stared at Cavendish, with his golden hair, his delicate features. What did he know of hardship? "I don't know," he admitted quietly.

A sympathetic look crossed Cavendish's face. He nodded. "Then I'll leave you two to it," he said, turning around. He took a few steps before he paused, looking over his shoulder. "If you should need anything, come find me."

"All right," Law said. He'd try not to need anything.

"Can we have something to eat after our baths?" Bepo asked.

Cavendish laughed. Law didn't want to think about how pleasant a sound it was. "Of course!" He turned to face them. "How stupid of me. Yes, I'll talk to the ship's cook immediately."

"Charlie should be ready to escort you to the baths soon," Cavendish continued. He turned his back again. "I hope your stay here is a comfortable one."

Law inhaled. He looked into his tea. He said nothing.

Cavendish walked away, leaving Law alone with Bepo.

"Captain," Bepo said, "do you really not know what to do next?"

"I'll think of something," Law muttered. He just needed rest, a decent meal, and some sleep. "I just need time to think."

That was actually the last thing he needed right now, but it felt like the right thing to say.

Law and Bepo drank their tea in silence. Soon enough Charlie came to take them to their bath. Law wasn't looking forward to what came next—whatever that entailed—but he could use a nice soak. Maybe the hot water would be enough to quiet his mind.

Maybe, Law thought, but probably not. But he would try to take his time on Cavendish's ship as respite before he and Bepo got off on the next island, and then Trafalgar Law would come up with a plan to reunite his crew.

[jaimehwatson]

1, 2, 10, 11, 15, 19!

Thanks Syb! <3

1.What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again?

I wrote erotica involving a trans character for the first time in A Proper Apology! (Well, technically he's not actually human and wasn't really assigned any gender at birth, but you know, basically I wrote him like he's trans.) As someone who's still in the process of figuring out a transmasculine identity myself, I often prefer to read and write fics where the characters are all cisgender because it's like, I'm here to have fun, I don't even want to deal with thinking about all that complicated stuff that affects my real life right now. But I'm happy to have given something different a try with this fic, and I hope it's something I'll be able to do more in the future as I get more confident in who I am. Shout-out to @glitterarygetsit for beta-reading that one and helping polish it!

2. How many fics did you work on this year? (They don’t have to be finished or published!)

Apparently I've published 16 (most of which are pretty short), and I also have my Yuletide fic about to be revealed and bring it up to 17! Then in my unfinished drafts I have at least 5 more, all of which are for Our Flag Means Death. The new season gave me so many ideas that I didn't finish all of them, but maybe I'll revisit some in the new year!

10. What fic made you feel the happiest to work on?

Probably my magnum opus, Tonight on Ring of Revenge! It's my longest fanfic and probably in my top 5 longest works of fiction I've completed in general, and it was really fun and satisfying to be able to gradually make a wild idea I had while watching wrestling work out. I'm really proud of it and it feels very unique to me - like plenty of other people are also great at writing the kind of horny one-shots I do a lot of, but no one else made the pirate wrestling AU, that's a Jaime Special

15. Rec a fic you wrote or posted in 2023

I'll do the same one I just answered - Tonight on Ring of Revenge! It loosely follows the overall plot of season 1 of OFMD but set in the modern era with the characters as pro wrestlers instead of pirates. Is that an extremely silly idea? Yes! Does it also actually suit the themes and characterization of the show really well? You bet! Are there ridiculous campy wrestling plots and choreographed fake violence and also sex? Hell yeah! I had a lot of fun doing research for it and I think there are plenty of details in there that wrestling fans will appreciate, but I also added plenty of author's notes explaining things for readers who are less familiar with wrestling. It's about 26k words and has a cute happy ending! Enjoy!

19. Share your favorite opening line

I think I have to go with this one from When You Like And Where You Like!

"We have three years of the past to discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon the notable adventure of the empty house." As Sherlock Holmes leaned casually against the desk in my study, a self-satisfied smile on his pale and aquiline face, I was seized with a momentary urge to leap from my chair and throttle him.

The first line of dialogue is directly out of "The Adventure of the Empty House," and if I remember correctly, it precedes a bit of a timeskip to the story picking up later that night. The second line is me starting a little missing scene! I really enjoy writing stuff like this that follows canon closely and could arguably have happened in between without necessarily contradicting anything, and I think it's a solid opening in terms of how much it establishes in those first two sentences: if you've read this story you'll probably recognize that line and know immediately at what point in canon this is set, and you'll understand why Watson is angry and why this is something that deserves a missing scene to get into his reaction to what's going on more!

2023 in Review Fic Writer Asks

[grandhotelabyss]

Hi, “imagined you in a fistfight on Twitter” guy here again. I somehow missed your acknowledgement of me on here the first time, although I can’t say I’m surprised to find out Carriere was in logo/Kantbot’s orbit. I was in considerably more vulgar though related spheres at the time- a curious thing about the culture war of the 2010s is that everyone right (at least online) seems to have some kind of prehistory on the left, and everyone left has some sort of prehistory on the right. Hell, I’ll admit that in that first flowering of antiwoke populism 10 years ago I even entertained a kind of neoneoconservative hope that the right could restore a sense of healthy liberalism to culture- and now I too sit in the grand hotel overlooking the abyss.

Thank you—and thanks for indulging the way I've blown up your Tweet into part of my "lore." In case you don't know my story, I'll tell it quickly so I'm not concealing my background.

As your Tweet pointed out, I'm older than the people in this scene (not quite 42 though!). I contracted my first humanly irrelevant and unworkable meme ideology from the internet almost 20 years ago. Under the pressure of the Bush years and the Iraq War—we really did think they were Christian fundamentalists who would deliberately end the world—I found the Marxist blog circles of which Mark Fisher is now remembered as the laureate. Within a month or two in the winter of 2004-2005, I became essentially what Haz is now: a Stalinist anti-imperialist, the hard left of the hard left. I remember doing push-ups every day in case I had to join an Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Venezuela!

This period lasted until a year or two into graduate school, coinciding with Obama's election, when the coursework convinced me such an ideology implied a socially functional approach to the arts, a puritan-iconoclast obliteration of literature by sociology, even a psychotic totalitarian terror of the emotions loosed by art. I decided the attitude I'd first carried to college with me as a lower-middle-class suburban teen remained far superior to Marxism: a flexible apolitical liberalism or "left conservatism" fortified by the aestheticism of The Western Canon and Sexual Personae (and ethically protected by the crypto Judaism and Catholicism, respectively, of those volumes). I stood down politically and wrote my dissertation as a defense of modernist l'art pour l'art—implicitly and inherently queer, for whatever it's worth to the people coming after me for my answer to that last question about alchemy. From that vantage, I watched the big woke-NRx wars of the last decade with alternating spasms of panic and mirth.

As for the whole sick crew of online ideologues, though, I wouldn't be so hard on them, at least not on the ones truly innocent of raw political power. When called upon to justify her own cultural and political shifts over the years, from radical anti-war activist to liberal pro-war activist and from avant-garde theorist to high-middlebrow novelist, Susan Sontag said the critical intellect always had to assault whatever was hegemonic because it was hegemonic, thus reified and soul-dead (I paraphrase and elaborate), hence her attack on high culture at the beginning of her career and her defense of it at the end. This seems right to me. If there weren't contrarians, even mindless knee-jerk contrarians, there wouldn't be anything, just the heat death of culture. Modern culture is dialectical; it functions only by negation. A major writer or thinker without either wild political shifts or, if they stayed on one side, work torn with political contradictions, is an impossibility. As a guardrail to negation, however, writers and thinkers should stay out of practical politics—out of Hanoi, out of Sarajevo, out of empire's (whichever empire's) direct line of business. The man said "unofficial legislators," emphasis on "unofficial."

But I believe the last decade's radical politics of left and right are over now—as I could feel the foreshocks of identitarian militancy in the college classroom in 2013, so I feel the foreshocks of ironic metaphysical quietism in 2023—and it's time for most people in the arts, if they can, to rest, to retreat into art and spirituality, to recover for a while.

[the-force-awakens]

Oh it frustrates me too. I think when it comes to the visual dictionaries, it's safe to say they're not the best examples for Poe - and imo nothing by Pablo Hildago is going to be. He seems to not like Poe and doesn't seem to have a problem skewering facts to suit that (see: the tlj visual dictionary pretty much entirely rewriting Poe's arc and claiming he 'seeks out' Finn and Rose's help to mutiny as soon as he meets Holdo which we see plainly in the film is not what happened. There also seems to be the preferred method of the tros dictionary to refuse to acknowledge Poe blew up Starkiller and saved countless lives, instead wanting to pin him as an arrogant mutineer who just causes trouble instead of a hero who has saved lives.)

With the flight log and etc, I just sort of play fast and loose with stuff in what I personally consider canon — it could be the Doctor Who fan in me, but I'm a little more willing to accept a handful of small continuity errors (such as him meeting Tekka, there being jetpack troopers in the first Poe arc), but if something is regularly contradicted — yeah I'm gonna say that's probably not canon.

This is now just my own personal thing but I count the first, I want to say 25 issues? of the Poe comics as canon, ending with that issue when Snap and Karé get married and he has that conversation with Tekka — because that was actually supposed to be the end of the comic run, but the title and Poe was so popular Marvel extended it and Soule had to very quickly hobble together another two arcs, but those two arcs have been contradicted by a ton of other media. Obviously, you have the tfa novelizations and the flight log contradicting Poe's version of events in tfa, but in both tlj novelizations Leia gives him his rank back officially pretty much as soon as they reach Crait, whereas in the comics it isn't until afterwards in the Falcon.

Furthermore, those arcs just keep getting contradicted - Wrobie (my beloved lesbian starfighter pilot) is cited in the star wars databank to have been missing from the D'qar evacuation because she was on a mission with Snap, and then last year's fantastic short story between Rey and Poe in Stories of Jedi and Sith takes place a few weeks after tlj and they're still living on the Falcon, which effectively knocks out both those arcs and (to my personal euphoria) Resistance Reborn - which in itself, gets retconned by tros, because they go for the (imo more meaningful) explanation that the galaxy has lost hope and that's why no one responded.

As for the overall timeline of the cold war - I just don't think they can decide how long it took, quite frankly? They change their minds on it every so often (originally, Han and Leia had only been separated for a year which I find hilarious considering their dramatic ass reunion and I wish they hadn't changed it for that reason), and again...I personally don't count the visual dictionaries as good for anything beyond minor character work + details on tech and little snippets of background stories because they're so often retconned. I know the fandom treats them like bibles but I see them as suggestions rather than orders.

I personally feel vindicated that it's officially confirmed my estimate for freefall's events have been canonized (since the visual dictionary did positively nothing to try and line up with it) and I was right about when the Resistance was formed but I utterly refuse to believe everything in the comics and SW Resistance happens the same year as tfa, I know time works funny in the gffa but damn (the implication Poe became crucial to high command in the span of (1) year and a general in 2 is impressive I'll give them that).

I like to think, regardless of what Lucasfilm tells us or inevitably changes their minds on, that he's been there for at least 3-4 years before tfa happens, just simply because I like the idea of him, y'know, being there for so long and having this rich history with the resistance and leia before Finn or Rey ever enter the story.

Maybe it’s the fact I’m studying to be a historian and instead applying my research skills to crafting a Star Wars mega timeline but I have personal beef with whoever is in charge of Poe’s timelines in the visual dictionaries and timelines books.

Joins spice runners at sixteen, in Freefall only a year goes by before he leaves but the visual dictionary says he goes home five years later, same dictionary says he joined the resistance three years before the force awakens and now the Star Wars timelines book has retconned that to one year before and squashed all of the comics into that year as well.

As frustrated as I am I do appreciate them feeling the need to point out in the visual dictionary he’s rarely clean shaven.

There’s just so many contradictions in canon media when it comes to Poe, such as having him meet Lor San Tekka in the comics and then in the flight log having Poe comment on he was surprised by his appearance when they met on Jakku

If only I could pay this much attention to detail when it came to my actual university assignments.

[thequiver]

1, 2, 3, 4, 6GA, 11, 14GA, 20GA, 21, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42GA, 48, 50. Please and thank you.

1. Who's your favorite character and why? So I don't.... have one. I have a lot of characters that I like hyperfixate on? But I don't necessarily think I have a favorite. I definitely do have favorites but not one in particular. So like Ollie, Roy, Mia, Connor, Dinah, Emi, Jade, David, Pietro, Wanda, Terry, Kurt, etc.

2. Who's your favorite supporting character and why?

I don't.... think I actually tend to classify characters as "supporting characters" to me they're all just.... characters, but uh... Shado.

3. Who's your favorite comics hero/sidekick duo?

GREEN ARROW AND SPEEDY

4. answered already!

6. Who's a character you love seeing interacting with Green Arrow?

for Ollie I LOVE seeing him interact with Shado- and for Connor I really like seeing him interact with his civilian family and Master Jansen!

11. already answered!

14. What's your favorite thing about character Green Arrow?

for Ollie I love all of his contradictions, they make such a fun character, and for Connor I just really adore the depth to his character, how strong he is and his constant desire to be better and do better in really meaningful ways

20. If you were given a comic run for character Green Arrow, what would you write about?

Definitely a book with both Connor and Ollie teaming up as Green Arrow and sort of them working to find a balance in that dynamic for sure, definitely push and pull in their methods of being Green Arrow, sort of showcasing how they learn from each other

21. Share a favorite piece of comics lore.

GA writers have been investigated by the CIA :)

24. What's your favorite crossover event?

I'm really fond of the Battle of Muir Island, which is apparently a lot more niche than I thought it was

26. If you got sucked into a comic, which one would you pick?

uh..... this would end HORRIBLY FOR ME, but Once and Future

29. What are some of your favorite comics blogs?

definitely @batphobique @lomakes @cissie-queen-jones @zibah-ho and @lesbianspeedy plus more friends but is late and I am bad at remembering urls

30. What's been a good change to comics status quo?

definitely hit or miss but greater understandings of mental health and the inclusion of more diverse characters - I am NOT saying these are always done well, but just the fact that they're existing is something that gives me more hope for the Big 2 especially

31. Shine a light on a character you think deserves more love.

JAY GUTHRIE AND RUTH ALDINE

32. Who are two characters you'd like to see interact more?

DAVID HALLER AND ERIK MAGNUS LEHNSHERR

33. What's your favorite tv show adaptation?

X-Men: Evolution babey

34. What's your favorite movie adaptation?

It has SO MANY FAULTS but the vibes of X-Men First Class were immaculate (also X-2)

35. What's your favorite video game adaptation?

much to the chagrin of my boyfriend and my students, I do not play video games nor am I super into watching other people play video games

37. Any characters you used to dislike but now you like? What changed your mind?

I used to really not like Pyro, but I'd only seen him in the movies and in X-Men: Evo, but I just came to really enjoy him in the comics, all it took was actually reading lol

38. What's your favorite comic book trope?

"Any last words?" being said by an adversary and then their opponent not dying- it gets me every time

41. What's a comic that keeps on giving (you enjoy rereading)?

Green Arrow: Quiver, but issue specific Legion of X #6

42. What comic had the best characterization of Green Arrow?

For Ollie it's O'Neil or Grell, and for Connor it's Dixon

48. What's your favorite elseworld/AU story?

I've never really been into elseworlds like I like making my own AUs and such, but idk... I'm a canon compliance bitch they're just not my thing

50. Share anything you'd like to about a character of your choice - a favorite fic, comic panel, an original work you made, anything!

okay so I bought this super awesome sticker of David holding his father's skull with a Hamlet reference on it and I've had to explain the context to at least 10 of my coworkers and it never gets old

[carlatsukinamistolemyhamsandwich]

Can you update the story/timeline (we already kinda know but are still confused by) by using the Young Blood story?

Hi anon, first of all I'm not going to be making any edits to that while I only have access to Tumblr on mobile (i.e. the next week or so) because that post was a lot of work and if I ended up accidentally messing up the formatting while using the app then I don't know that I would have the patience to type it all out again.

Secondly, while I am happy to add a note about Young Blood, I will not be updating the entire timeline for two reasons:

1) The stuff we see in Young Blood directly contradicts the timeline that the DF CDs and game established (as in the founders should have been sealed away before Cordelia was born let alone the triplets) and I don't have a good explanation for this (I mean I have theories but I can't point to any one thing and say that it's correct for certain). This isn't just me being obstinate either, in the Tsukinami DF CD we're told that the only reason the Tsukinamis knew they could escape the seal on Banmaden during a lunar eclipse is because they learn that's how Menae (Cordelia's mother) was able to escape, so none of the Sakamakis should ever have been able to just waltz into Banmaden during their childhood.

Now normally I'd say we should go with the most recent canon information regarding timelines but in this case, if you get rid of that plot point about Menae then it unravels the whole Tsukinami escape plotline and things start to break down. Also, point number 2:

2) It's implied that a lot of Young Blood was just Ayato's dream. Honestly anon, I find Young Blood pretty confusing in a lot of ways but it mainly being Ayato's dream would at least explain away the contradictions it causes in the timeline. Okay admin, you might say, but why would Ayato dream about Carla if he's never met him?

Honestly, I don't know, from a meta point I suspect the writers threw Carla in just to gain some excitement from the fandom but I know that's not a satisfying answer narrativewise. In fact I suspect the writers of the manga had forgotten/or weren't aware of the DF/LE timeline which is partly why the Young Blood manga ended up being so confusing.

So yeah, if we get more information from canon on the timeline then I will update that post, but in terms of Young Blood, especially with regards to the dream thing, I just don't think it gives solid enough evidence for me to change things versus the DF CDs.

I hope you understand anon. Sorry that this isn't what you were hoping for but Young Blood is confusing because well... It's confusing. As much as I wish I had all the answers, I (fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view) don't work for Rejet so while I can guess at the writers' intentions, I can't confirm anything.

[ackerpreach]

This ending .... I can name 500 reasons and I will name them right now, because I don’t think I’m the only one who is upset with how things turned out. (Also, A positive message for all of you at the end)

MAJOR LEAKS SPOILERS/ READ WITH CAUTION

Update: after reading more theories from fellow RM bloggers, and sleeping over it one day, this entire chapter might be an april fools... Don't fully lose hope yet beautiful people. It's me just giving a review on a possible fake April fools chapter

After following this franchise since 2013, so nearly a DECADE. this ending is a pure disserve to the entire fandom. I feel like Yams has rushed it just for the sake of being done with the entire manga. So many things are left open, characters and their developemt are reverted back all the way to chapter 1 or are left even worse than that...

Mikasa’s worthless character development/ Aaronmika’s horrible toxic codependent relationship 

Oh honey... Let’s start with how horrible Isayama has treated her. We were all rooting for her, because we all felt like she was so misunderstood. She had a horrible childhood and imprinted on a guy who treated her like trash 99 percent of the story. And then, slowly but surely, she starts to realize she has to stop obsessing over him in the uprising arc with the help of a real man who treats her like a queen, more importantly, he treats her like a real human being. This man sees her for her abilities and that she has the power to be self dependent. She learned parts of herself, that she was able to work together with him like no one else could.  She learned parts of herself she was unable to do so if she kept obsessing about Aaron. All this love, care, mutual understanding and RESPECT these two shared. 

but...NAH FUCK THAT, right Yams?? Throw all this development away, all this bonding. Let’s make the main female lead even more yandere than she already was in the first season. Let her make out with his decapacitated head (like dude, this is also pure disrespect to Aaron’s dead body btw) and let her obsess even more about the guy who has treated her no better than a piece of toilet cloth 99 percent of the time. The guy who was never really appreciative in front of her for saving his ass billions of times, who always pushed her away, who yells at her and snaps at her whenever he can instead of reasoning and talking calmly with her in mature way. (EVEN PARODY YOUTUBE CHANNELS WHO DONT SHIP ANYTHING MAKE IT A TROPE WHERE AARON TELLS MIKASA HE HATES HER GUTS WHENEVER HE CAN) 

Then after all that, suddenly Yams tries to last minute persuade us Aaron’s always been head over heels for her???  He should have build their relationship better which he hasn’t even tried to do so... He must be thinking his fans are stupid for eating this from his hands.    

Like seriously??? What is this??? 

Isayama is just fully contradicting himself. It’s like someone tipped him off with a buttload of money for him to write Aaron like this to satisfy shipping needs and to cash in those extra money’s from it. Even if he tried to cater to Erem*ika, this is not how you write a loving and caring couple which people will root for. 

This next two panels just freaking infuriates me to the core of my soul. I can’t even describe how dissapointed I am with Mikasa. 

Why is she clutching that head so obsessively like that?  Why is she walking and turning her back away from her comrades? After everything they have done for her, after all they’ve been through?! After everything Armin has done? Standing up for Mikasa, beating up Aaron for hurting her. I feel like even Jean, Connie and Sasha have cared more for her in a healthy way.  Sure, Aaron cares for her romantically too apparently (What a twist Yams :)), but has he aided her to becoming a mentally healthier individual? Has he aided in her mental stability? The answer is a big fat NO!  All I see between these two after today’s raw Chapter’s are too Yandere obsessed individuals who have no clue on how to maintain a healthy relationship. 

Love should only go as far as the heart can endure and it seems like her character is not willing to be aware of that. Even Armin was able to let go of Aaron in those latest panels. Why does her entire character resolve around this guy??? I really do not understand. Her Ackerbond and her age is not an excuse for her to throw her life away like this. 

Shonen’s disgusting portrayal of women 

I’ve seen this countless of times in the many years I’ve watched anime. SasuS*ku from Naruto, Ichih*me from Bleach, Shinji and that oranged hair girl from Neon Evangelion.. Why do these women get decreased to simpletons with one single goal? And that is to obsess over a bland male lead who either treats them like trash or doesn’t notice them up until the last last chapter (LITERALLY WHAT YAMS HAS DONE). Some go even as far as the male leading wanting the kill the female love interest and yet the female lead is still in love with them???. It’s disgusting for him to write the MAIN female character this way. 

It’s dissapointing we believed in Isayama doing Mikasa’s character right. That she’s finally being able to let go of her codependency and to live for herself maybe live in Hizuru and find more about her roots???, but every single time she shows some improvement, it’s burried deep in the ground again by the Author. It almost seems like a lowkey kink of some of the male Mangaka’s to write about a girl obsessing over them no matter what. I see this so many times to the point that I truly stand behind it that some of them might have this fantasy. 

I wished he didn’t portray her last panels like this. Everyone else is living their lives while Mikasa is still grieving about him. I’m not saying she’s not allowed to grieve and everyone takes it at their own pace, but cmon... Show her living her life too. This is too much. Her being next to his grave and grieving him as her last panels just shoves it in our faces that YET AGAIN, BEING OBSESSED WITH AARON IS ALL HER CHARACTER STANDS FOR. 

I truly despise how Isayama handles her grieving, kissing his decapacitated head, carrying it around like some handbag, and her last panels being thissss.

The world leaving Paradis alone miraciously after all that??? 

It’s so weird and out of place with so many political feuds and disagreements between the world and Paradis, the entire Rumbling happening and we can see Mikasa just chilling outside in Paradis with no one bothering them. You can see the rings of the walls in the picture below.  I don’t know the exact reason behind as the manga is still in Korean, but from what I see, the story went the route of: throwing a happy ending without enough proper reason and  it was all fixed just like that in a snap! It doesn’t fit the entire narrative of attack on titan for things to be so peacful out of nowhere. When it comes to the narrative, how things work in that world, how hard it is to achieve peace, everything made somewhat sense up until chapter 138. 139 seems so so out of place...  It’s like I’m reading a chapter from a totally different manga. 

Aaron Yoghurt got defeated so easily/ Aaron’s character assassination

The build up on the first part of the rumbling was great, those kids carrying coins. You could feel humanity’s fear and Aaron’s hatred in those pages. As if he truly had a goal and he has turned away completely from his comrades and his closest friends with no return. The world seemed truly doomed, but he  got defeated just like that. He was in the nape all this time (because screw the warhammer power of hiding yourself elsewhere in his ginormous titan body). There is no master plan as we all expected, and in the end he just acts all yandere in the paths with Armin and that’s it... They massacared his entire character as well. Many fan theories created a better ending with his character. Him being reincarnated as Historia’s baby would be so much better. For him to still keep on seeking and to strive for power. It has always been his motive. It’s his personality from the start until chapter 138. Even if things are okay, to keep on going and to seek that adventure, but then.. He’s so weak and directionless suddenly.. It’s so weird... This is not Aaron at all???

Using Aaron for him this entire post, because I don’t want others to invade our tags... :)))

Historia’s baby 

The only panel we got from Historia’s child was this. Just a normal kid, normal life... Why did Isayama put so much effort in highlighting Historia’s pregnancy if it was nothing too spectacular anyway? It seemed he had major plans for this kid and for their development too??? It’s again, big plans, big developments, big relationship dynamic, but all  got thrown out of the window... 

Don’t read the next sentence if you are a minor :’) 

It’s like almost ejaculating, but stopping right before it and repeating that every single Arc.

My energy when writing about this chapter is the same as Nostalgia Critic and his hatred for atla the live action

In Conclusion...

I know us fans should not be deciding on how this story should end, because this is Isayama’s story after all, but I truly wished for him to wrap up things much more rounded. There are so many unanswered questions... Again, I think for the sake of being done with this manga, he rushed all of it. He’s become a millionaire from this story and now his pockets are jammed full, I guess he doesn’t need to put in any effort anymore, right? Perhaps a controversial opinion, but I really wished he cared for his fans a little bit more with this last chapter by giving some answers that make sense at least. It’s his fans who gave him this platform and the opportunity to tell his story and for him to at least give in a bit of effort especially in the last chapter is the least he can do. Rivamika being canon or not, he truly rushed it without thinking much about the entire story line. He expanded it so much, he didn’t know how to bind it all together.

Even after all this, I’ll still ship them in the headcanon type of way. I do give credit to Isayama for giving us a template for such a beautiful dynamic between Levi and Mikasa. He decides to waste it, but that doesn’t mean we have to.  I want to thank all the people with amazing writing skills, the ones who give us beautiful art like @carmenlee @phit chan @vialesana​ and many more. I want to remind all of you that we can create something beautiful of our own and we don’t neccesarily need canon lore for that. The art I’ve seen, the fanfictions I’ve read have touched me deeper than Isayama ever could at times.The Mikasa in our mind is appreciate of Levi, is mature, classy and has a strong will for herself. They spend their remaining days together peacefully. Keep writing, keep drawing, stay creative. 

I love you all so so much, I’ve only been publicly active since March, but thank you Rivamika fandom for giving me so much joy as a lurker these past 7 years <3

[itsclydebitches]

so ironwood was confirmed to be dead by Miles in a $42 cameo session, where the person who bought it had asked for "comforting words to soothe our anguished souls" bc she was an ironwood fan and wanted a pick-me-up after that devastating finale. miles' response was to essentially mock his fans (it really sounded like that, especially since he ended with "thank you jimmy, may you rest in pieces, crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold up above your head."

apparently the VA, jason rose, confirmed it in DMs w the same fan who sent in the cameo ask. so like, quite apart from how rude and disrespectful it was of miles to make a mockery of james in a cameo where he'd been specifically asked for comforting words regarding the character, ngl but i think that if you have to confirm a MAJOR CHARACTER is dead outside of canon bc you failed to actually show it on screen.....you've failed as a writer. and also that kind of thing shouldn't be confirmed in an expensive and exclusive interview lmao like how hard would it have been to just talk about good aspects to james' character instead of calling him a dickbag and saying 'don't do a genocide, guys!!'

it reeks of unprofessionalism and also it just makes everything surrounding ironwood's character arc even worse since apparently 'his fate was sealed' from the moment he was introduced to the show.

Me, who received the first Moderna shot yesterday (🎉 🎉 🎉 ): Ugh I feel too crappy to answer asks today

Me, upon hearing this news: You know, I have suddenly found an untapped source of energy

Okay, all joking aside, I watched the vid and it’s definitely a lot. I don’t have any information about the request itself except for what Miles mentions in the recording, so I can’t speak to what the fan may have been looking for outside of that, but some highlights include: 

“This is for the filth in my degenerate discord server” - Yeah, that’s how a lot of us (fans) talk about ourselves. It sounds like someone who really enjoys Ironwood and makes joking, self-deprecating comments about their love of a character. That’s familiar to me and speaks to the expectation that they hoped for something other than what they got. At least, if I’d sent in a request like that I wouldn’t be happy with the vid, but that’s obviously my own perspective and not this fan’s. I’d be very curious to know their own thoughts though... 

“Sometimes a character we like doesn’t make it, does something we don’t agree with... or both!” - That is indeed how characters work! The real question is whether their death/actions make sense within the story, which is not addressed here. Many fans who enjoyed Ironwood don’t have a problem with him dying or turning into a villain  — I’ve been honest about my acceptance of either/both, regardless of personal preference, provided it was written well  — and that was always the issue. Not what happened to Ironwood, but how it happened. 

“James Ironwood’s fate was sealed the moment his character was conceived many years ago.” - Personally, I don’t believe this. RT makes a lot of grand, sweeping statements about what’s been planned “for years” or “since the beginning” and too often we’re faced with writing that directly contradicts that. Though it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the truth, neither option paints the writing team in a good light. Either they’re straight up lying about what’s been planned (or twisting tossed out possibilities into assurances after the fact. For example, someone once suggested Ironwood might become a villain somehow at some point and now that’s presented as, ‘We’ve deliberately been working towards this specific ending for years’), or they’re being truthful and just... can’t write what they want to write. It doesn’t sound good when a writer says, ‘I’ve planned this the whole time’ and a good chunk of the fandom responds, ‘Then why couldn’t we see that planning this whole time?’ 

“When James was introduced we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag, but then we realized that dickbag had a heart and was also half metal, and that was pretty cool!” - I don’t even know what to make of this. I’ve deconstructed his introduction before, but to summarize here, he’s presented as no more of a “dickbag” than Ozpin who may not be doing enough to protect the people, Winter who allowed herself to get taunted into a fight on campus, or Qrow who deliberately started that fight while drunk. Glynda is the only one who is arguably innocent here. The implication seems to be that obviously Ironwood became a villain because “we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag” but then... does that mean Qrow will become a villain too someday?? 

The comments about them realizing he had a heart and was half metal just speak to that lack of planning. No, you obviously didn’t plan this downfall from the start if you “realized” something as basic as him caring for others partway through writing him and then allowed that care to drive his character for so long that the decent into villainy read as OOC, rather than inevitable. You obviously weren’t writing him with a backstory that influenced his character  — of which his semblance is a major part  — if you “realized” he was half-metal... whenever that happened. The fact that we never saw that backstory, or the semblance on screen, or returned to his half-metal nature outside of a ‘That’s coding for evilness’ theme again speaks to the fact that either a) none of this was actually planned or b) the execution is seriously lacking here. 

“Let us all take a moment to thank General James Ironwood for his service to the Kingdom of Atlas, but... at the end of the day, don’t do a genocide [laughs]” - I’m having trouble articulating why I dislike this. I’m really too tired to be unpacking this right now (lol), but it has something to do with  — as you say, anon  — that mocking tone. Something else to do with the surge of purity culture in recent years. The tone feels like it’s tied up in an unsaid, ‘You like the character who tried to commit genocide?’ accusation when, you know, he’s a fictional character. People can like characters who do bad things. More significantly, he’s a fictional character Miles wrote. There’s something particularly distasteful about writers who feel like they’re laughing at fans for liking something when they created the thing with the intent that we would like it. And many did. So they gave attention, time, money, passion, etc. to the work and then when that part of the work finished, the creator appears to make light of that investment? Idk, I’m speaking about more than just this one line  — the tone of the vid as a whole, really — but it feels much less like “You enjoy Ironwood! 😄” and more “You enjoy Ironwood...  😬” Like yeah, fans enjoyed the character that you wanted them to enjoy who you wrote to have a heart and then suddenly commit genocide instead. There’s definitely nothing complicated in all that. 

“Thank you, Jimmy. May you rest in pieces crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold above your head. Amen.” - All of the above x2 with the added issue that this was never shown on screen. Miles presents Ironwood’s arc like this seven year long plan when in fact they couldn’t even manage the basic move of telling the audience what happened to the character in his final hour. The fact that a fan had to pay to find out whether Ironwood is dead is not a gold star for the writing. 

Every time the RWBY crew speaks about the story in supplementary material the canon itself gets worse. Hyping Clover/Qrow on social media pushes the canon closer to queerbaiting. We’re way closer to that with them hyping Blake/Yang. Long ago comments about Ozpin’s cane suddenly make Volume 8 a retcon. A Q&A about Ironwood’s semblance makes his arc a thousand times more confusing about how we’re supposed to read his character  — to name just a few. Now this. When a friend first told me this info had dropped I thought, “Thank god. He’s not coming back then. I don’t want them writing Ironwood’s character anymore,” but really... can we believe anything the crew says? “Crushed beneath the weight of his kingdom” doesn’t mean Ironwood won’t show up in Volume 9 if it’s a spirit world type adventure. It doesn’t mean he won’t show up three years from now with even more metal in his body and a, “We said he was crushed, not that he was dead ;)” explanation. Hell, it doesn’t even mean he won’t show up with no explanation at all because, as established, what’s said in supplementary works and what happens on screen are two entirely separate things. Iffy as the vid may come across to those who did like Ironwood, I was initially happy that it at least gave us some closure... but now I’m not even sure about that. 

[yazthebookish]

While I agree the 3 brothers x 3 sisters sounds a bit cliche, I can see Sarah doing it for the purpose of symmetry. And although I'm not a Elriel shipper, I can get by with that ship if Sarah goes through with it and it's done tastefully.

My issue, however, are the inconsistencies in the theories that contradict what's canon.

Elain requires sunshine and light... but being the HL of the Dusk Court, where it's the darkest of the night, is the exact opposite of that. Ironic, don't you think? Also, Nesta is the one with the 8 pointed star tattoo on her back.

Elain will be the light that drives out Azriel's shadows/darkness... but Azriel has stated his shadows will remain with him always. Why do people want him to get rid of his shadows? Because they don't dance for Elain the same way they do for a particular redhead so good riddance?

Elain is screaming to be seen and heard... but being a spy, which involves staying silent and hidden is the exact opposite of that. Let's not forget Azriel stated Elain should not be exposed to the troves after Elain offered to scry. But sure...he heard her alright.

Elain will reject the mating bond and choose Azriel. Their love will be based on choice and not some pre-destined bond. But somehow a true mating bond is highly possible?

Elain and Azriel will be a Hades and Persephone retelling...but that was already done for Feyre & Rhys.

I'm beginning to think some people who ship these two don't really know Elain at all. I mean, i can't blame them because Elain is an underdeveloped character but based off these theories and what we know is canon, I feel like part of this fandom is trying to mold Elain into someone she's not in order to fit into the love story they want. It's ashamed really because Azriel has his own issues which gets dismissed. While anything is possible, it's hard to keep up.

Hi anon,

I didn't ship Azriel with anyone. To be honest, I was indifferent to Elr*el back then. Yes I did think it would be cliche for them to end up together and I just hoped another love interest for Azriel would be introduced that perfectly compliments him (we got her, her name is Gwyn). It's the stans that ruined it for me.

• Dusk time is when night time starts to take over and the world falls into darkness. If it was Dawn, it would make more sense but Dawn, nope. Also, do you really see Azriel as a High Lord? Of all people? Even if he was offered the opportunity he would refuse it. Azriel isn't fit to rule. As you said, 8th Court plot likely belongs to Nesta as she is the one with the eight pointed star tattoo for a reason. Elain needs the light, she doesn't provide it.

• Nothing will drive out Azriel's shadows. They are an intrinsic part of him. Did they forget that the reason Azriel ever got out and dumped into a camp was because his father found out he was a Shadowsinger? Those shadows freed him. They look after him and like he said, they'd always be with him. There is no reason to erase one of the most important parts of Azriel just to make him more appealing for Elain. This is erasing his character.

• I really don't understand the whole Elain is a spy thing? Maybe for convenience because Azriel is a spy? Nuala and Cerridwen are spies too? But let's not forget that their main job is to be domestic helpers in the house. They're tertiary characters. But... is it a coincidence Elain is displaying spy characteristics around the time Briallyn claims she has spies in the Night Court hmm? And plus she's a seer, what would her being a spy serve? None of the IC will send her on spying mission and certainly not Azriel who would be very much against it.

• There is nothing true about a "true mating bond". It's either by choice or it's him being her true mate because the Cauldron chose wrong. Newsflash: mates are from birth, Lucien wasn't chosen as Elain's mate when she was turned, he has always been her mate just as Cassian and Rhysand sensed Nesta and Feyre could be their mates while they were human. Azriel's entitlement and overprotectiveness is what some would think a mate behavior but let's recall an earlier scene... remember when Azriel chose to go to the Hewn City and he and Cassian had to draw out sticks so the loser gets to stay in Velaris and guards the city and Elain? A mate's instinct is to protect their mate especially since Velaris was attacked not long ago. Feyre didn't even tell Lucien Elain's needs guarding because he won't stay away. If Elain chose Lucien it will be her choice still. Just as Feyre and Nesta chose their mates, they weren't forced to be with them yet somehow this is a problem with Elucien and Elucien can't get over the tension between them.

• ACOMAF was perfect I don't need a recycled version thank you very much. If there is a couple that fit the Light/Dark aesthetic it's Gwyn and Azriel. Gwyn is a priestess and she glows. If somehow which I think very unlikely because the text didn't offer much info on that, if she turns out to be a quarter Lightsinger that also fits with the Shadowsinger aesthetic. Elain is the embodiment of Spring and seeks the Light, whose name means Light and is the heir to the embodiment of the sun? Lucien.

So I agree. Azriel's issues and his healing journey is often dismissed and Elain is being molded into something that is not her.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

Okay. I passed Y6CHR45, and... I want to say that this is very bad. I mean, that... This plot twist with Merula is very illogical and obvious. I'm not a fan of Merula, but. First, why it's obvious. Because in the storyline, Merula is our rival, not our friend. How many nasty things did she do MC, etc. Well, it's too obvious that in the future they will try to make her our enemy. Second, why it's illogical. Merula has very different goals. Don't be the same as your parents, take revenge on Rakepick and kill her, become stronger and more powerful. There is not a single point in being with 'R'. Why would she want to work with someone she wants to kill? I think it would be logical if Merula joined the Death Eaters. She and her aunt had been threatened by the Death Eaters. This is what Merula said in Y5CHR28. And Andre was talking about the mark on Merula's hand in year six, when Bill taught us the Barrier Spell. Still, I think Merula was framed by someone. Merula was still ready to drink the Truth Serum. And one more thing. Won't the MC say anything about it? Not to the professors, not to Ben, not to Jacob, not to anyone about what they saw in Knockturn Alley? Hey, JC, we have a Muggle Studies class on Y7, and there will be Merula. MC will just forget about it or what? It's just stupid. I apologize, I have nobody to express this misunderstanding of the JC logic. 🤨 And one more thing. I don't think Merula is a mole. In fact, I think the mole is Penny. Because it's very logical! 'R' could have threatening and blackmailed her, like... They could steal Beatrice, or threaten to kill her, if Penny didn't follow their instructions. Penny, in her fifth year, said she would work with anyone to save Beatrice. And if you add it up in this form... I mean, Penny is the most logical option. She's the most popular girl at Hogwarts. She knows every rumor, she knows the secrets of many students. No one will even think about it! How can you think of one who is very kind, helps everyone, understands Potions, etc? This is my theory, and honestly, I still stick to it. Knowing the character of penny, for the sake of Beatrice she would betray even MC.

I don’t know, I don’t think of it as being that illogical. I suppose it was rather obvious, but in a sense, those two ideas are in conflict with each other. If a plot twist is logical, it can be predicted. If it’s not, then it won’t be, but that’s a whole different problem. In any case, this got very long, so I’m putting it under a cut.

Was it obvious?

She has been our enemy from the start, but her character arc seemed to suggest that was changing. In a way, this actually made her a less obvious suspect. At least to me. She was the primary antagonist of Year 1, but we quickly got used to her nonsense. Stopped taking her seriously. Meanwhile, the story gave her depth. Many players grew to care for her, many pitied her, but even the ones who didn’t no longer saw her as a serious threat. At the same time, the scale was gradually increasing. By Year 5, Merula wasn’t the antagonist anymore, not just because she had been deconstructed, but because the story was darkening, and the times of a school bully being the villain were long over. Hell, by Year 2 we knew about R, and by Year 4 we had Rakepick to wonder about. Year 5 not only brought Merula’s character arc to the point where she became more of a friend (but no less prickly and combative) it also fleshed out the game’s Big Bad to the point where it became clear that this was much bigger than MC, or anyone in their year. Year 5 also exonerated Ben, and later unceremoniously killed the “Rowan is R” theory by having Rowan be imperius’d like Ben was. 

No one took Merula seriously anymore, people felt sorry for her, and we felt as though we understood her completely. That nothing she did could surprise us. This was capped off by the betrayal of Rakepick, compounded with her using the Cruciatus Curse on Merula. Because MC was betrayed, but not by any of the students. But by their mentor, who was always shady in the first place. Merula was put in a horrible position where even her greatest Antis surely felt a twinge of pity for her. Anyone left who suspected her probably wouldn’t have after that night. What’s more, it played into the idea that we understood Merula perfectly. Because she reacted exactly as one would expect her to. She regressed. Year 6 depicted her as someone firmly on our side, but predictably not someone who would be nice about it. From her jabs about Rowan, to her fawning over Jacob, people were annoyed with her, but no one suspected her. The game practically taunts the player, in hindsight, with the veritaserum scene. Because that’s just it - no one thought she would betray MC. They were worried she would go rogue, but no one doubted her loyalty. 

Why did she do it?

As for the logic of her decision, I likewise disagree. I believe Merula had every reason to join R. I don’t think that the Cabal and the Death Eaters are so different that one would make sense for her to join, and not the other, if that makes sense. She could have gone either way, but at a guess, Merula doesn’t think very highly of the Death Eaters. She refers to Voldemort by his name without a care in the world. If they really were threatening her, I feel like she wouldn’t want to cave in, but she might be attracted to joining a rival faction that could provide her (and her aunt?) with protection. If there’s one thing we know about R - it’s that they have a history of making enticing offers to children, provoking them to “prove” themselves to be accepted into the Cabal’s ranks. The description of them being her new “family” gives me cult vibes, and it really sheds some light on why Merula might have been drawn to them. She was lonely, she was angry, she wanted power...and R came along to offer her everything she wanted at the time. Whether she wants to leave now is uncertain, but if we assume that she’s been the mole since the very beginning, it’s probably way too late for her to just walk away. R would not allow that.

As to the sequence of Rakepick torturing her, we don’t yet know what was going on in that scene. Though I am feeling somewhat vindicated in the knowledge that there was more to that scene that meets the eye, just like I was sure there had to be. Perhaps Rakepick and Merula planned that whole thing, perhaps it was staged. Which would mean that Rakepick faked the spell, and Merula pretended to be tortured, and that her entire vendetta against Rakepick has been a facade. Or maybe the curse was real, but Merula agreed to it beforehand. Or maybe she knew the betrayal was coming, but Rakepick went off-script by turning her wand on Merula. Either way, if Merula’s vendetta was real, I don’t think it’s out of character for her to want revenge. Who cares if it’s someone on her side? This is Merula we’re talking about - I don’t think that would stop her. Now, if we assume she was not yet an R mole at the time (I think she was, but for the sake of argument)  then perhaps R reached out to Merula, apologized for Rakepick’s torture and promised that they did not authorize it. Promised that there would be consequences, and Merula could be the one to inflict them, if she agreed to join them. It’s a longshot, but I guess it’s possible. 

The Future.

The existence of this twist doesn’t really create any holes, I don’t think, and while it may put the writers in a tricky position moving forward, that’s not the same thing as them screwing up the continuity of the past. They’ll have to find a way to make this work, and until we see the ramifications, I’m willing to wait on judging how this arc plays out. MC will have a choice to make, certainly, in how they handle this. I can’t wait to see the dialogue. What they do next remains to be seen. Do they confront Merula? Turn her in? Or...if we want to be really sneaky, what we should do, in my opinion...is act as though nothing’s changed. Spread the word to people like Moody and Ben, but...do not let Merula catch on that we know. The way to salvage this situation, from a purely tactical perspective, is to let R believe they still have a spy at Hogwarts...but begin to feed her misinformation. Lead them astray. This is quite literally a war tactic, because hey...this is a war. Now, the issue with that is that Merula will likely face punishment once R figures out that she’s being misled...but hopefully we can save Merula before that point, and to the players who despise her - or even feel like she’d deserve it for her treachery...they probably wouldn’t care anyway.

I don’t think we can really judge based on the Muggles Studies classes, or anything that we know about Year 7. I also don’t expect Jam City to consider what we “know” and in all fairness...I mean, they don’t have to. That is unreleased content. Nothing in the data-mines is, strictly speaking, canon, or part the continuity. With the way that scene ended, it suggests that Merula won’t be returning for Year 7. Maybe. The data-mines contradict this, but data-mines don’t provide the full context. They aren’t released content, and anything could change. There were once data-mines that confirmed Skye as being in MC’s year, as well as suggesting that Murphy felt embittered about his disability. Both of these things were cut. So they’re not canon. In general, I think Jam City has a terrible approach to dealing with hackers, but one thing I will say in their defense is that they aren’t required to write their scenes based on what the fandom has discovered in the data-mines. If we’re confused, well, that’s kind of our own fault. But I’m sure everything will become clear eventually. I hope.

Penny. 

For meta reasons, I don’t see them pulling a double twist and revealing a second character to be the “real” mole, but it’s not impossible. And I’ve said all along that the Year 1 characters were the real suspects. MC unknowingly being the mole was my theory, mostly because Moody is shady as all hell. But Ben is shady too, it’s just that he had a rock-solid alibi in the form of Rakepick trying to kill him, since she couldn’t have known that Rowan would intervene. Setting aside Merula, since I’ve also said from the start that she isn’t a good liar...that leaves Penny. I really don’t think Penny is shady. I’ve never thought that. I’ll admit that she does essentially approach MC out of the blue to befriend them, but I mean...so does Ben. This happens on a much larger scale later on with Alanza. I can believe Penny would go to the ends of the earth to protect Beatrice, and maybe when she was imprisoned in the Portrait, R contacted Penny and strong-armed her into this deal. The issue is, Beatrice is safe and sound as of sixth year. The Black Lake incident is still a bit spotty, and perhaps that was R going after her again...but I just don’t think there are enough hints for me to believe it, personally. If this were true, why was Ben the character who insisted on coming to the Portrait Vault instead of Penny? She could have demanded to come along too, and no one would have blamed her. Everyone would have understood. Not to mention, Penny has severe tells when she’s stressed. She does not act like herself. She’s mostly back to normal in Year 6, and her behavior reflects that Beatrice is safe now, just pulling away. If Beatrice was still on the hot-seat, I feel like Penny would not be keeping it together. Finally, that raises the question of how much Beatrice is aware of all this. Does she know about this deal? Because I find it hard to believe she wouldn’t tell anyone.

[dogcopter]

Doesn't saying Rose is Lion kinda invalidate all the sadness people had of her death since she would still be alive? I don't understand the Rose is Lion theory that much but thought of this kinda sad take if that theory was true. Do you have an opinion on it?

Yeah, I think it is sad. I also think there’s sweetness to it. It’s a complicated situation for all these relationships, with the potential for conversation and moving forward or everyone, (whatever that looks like), which is what I like about Steven Universe.

Aside from my opinion I also want to address something about the way I understand your ask. I regularly receive feedback from people who discard the premise that Rose is Lion because it doesn’t feel right, or in their perspective would invalidate the themes of the show, or would cheapen the Crystal Gems’ grief, and SU would never do that, and so on and so forth. I don’t know why this is, but I hear it a lot.

To be clear: My feelings about Rose being Lion, and my present interpretation of SU, have no relationship to whether my observations and conclusions are accurate. Whether or not I even LIKE it has nothing to do with what the people who wrote the cartoon wrote. I love it and talk about that all the time but it‘s completely irrelevant to assessing the likelihood of the theory over alternate explanations. My feelings do not change what is in an episode. The theory is an argument, “Rose is Lion”, supported by observations of the cartoon:

Steven can possess other people’s bodies, and we know all of his other powers were shared by Rose, so she may also have this power; Steven is able to lucid dream, so maybe Rose could as well; The first Pink Diamond dreams came to him when he needed answers, so maybe they were a response to his needs; Lars and Lion have identical abilities, so it stands out that Lion, for example, knows where to find Steven in Escapism while Lars lost track of him in Jungle Moon; Rose was known for being secretive and hiding her past, so it’s worth noting that Lion, who is an animal and only knew her in the last two centuries, knows so much about her; Lion knows Rose’s deepest secrets, more even than Pearl, and he dislikes her enemies, even those he never met, so it appears he might share her opinions; The first melon dog lead Steven to Malachite, so it may have known Steven was looking for her; Dogcopter showed Steven where Lapis and Jasper were, too, so he may have known what Steven wanted and where to find them; Steven spoke to the Cluster shards by astral projecting, Jasper came back from the dead in Fragments, the CGs were reformatted and then got their memories back in the movie, and Flint and Chert were repaired in Homeworld Bound, so it’s possible for a gem to return from the dead and regain lost memory....you get the idea.

All of those statements are [Observation of thing that happened in canon] [conclusion based on that observation] and all of those things add up to the hypothesis: Rose being able to use the same psychic powers as Steven and being a character in the story by way of Lion is the most consistent explanation for a number of otherwise remarkable or unusual behaviors in Steven Universe. I could be wrong. One way to test that is by checking the lore.

Ex. I argue: Lion has access to secrets Rose never told anyone (The landfill, Bismuth), and some she only ever told Pearl (the armory, the moon base). If Rose can astral project, this knowledge could be explained by Lion being Rose.

A counter point might be: Lion was revived with Rose’s gem, so maybe he knows things magically. However, Lars and Lion have identical abilities, and Lars does not demonstrate anything remotely similar. Therefore, I still think the first explanation is more likely.

Another explanation for Lion’s knowledge is that Rose told Lion all about her life.

Counter: Rose was notorious for keeping her secrets.

Well, Rose put the items in the mane, and the VHS tape labeled “For Steven” was in there. Maybe Rose was preparing Lion to meet Steven by leaving her secrets with him as well.

Counter: In Lion IV, Greg tells Steven that Rose not only didn’t know she’d have “Steven”, she certainly didn’t have a master plan for his life. From what we understand this appears to be true. Therefore, the first explanation (Rose can astral project, and that’s why Lion knows Rose’s secrets), even though it rests on lore questions that could debunk it overnight with a particular answer - could Rose astral project? What technically happened when she gave up Steven? Where did she go and how did she manage not to come back? - Rose being Lion is still more likely than the other explanations, which directly contradict one or more things we know to be true - Rose keeping secrets, Rose not planning ahead, Rose not knowing she would have Steven instead of Nora. It’s like a big puzzle! Sometimes I put all the pieces together and learn I was looking at something all wrong and have to revise, sometimes I even find the big picture unpleasant, but the pieces are there. So while I always say I’m happy to be disproven, the most common objection I get by FAR is based on feelings and opinions about the conclusion. I’d like to talk about the evidence and figure it out where I’m wrong by learning the actual explanations of things.

So yeah, I think Rose being alive is sad and painful and kind of messed up for absolutely everyone, just like her being dead was. I feel so bad for Steven. It complicates the simplest relationship of unconditional love Steven has - his pet and best friend, Lion - that’s so sad. That’s going to be so hard for Steven to deal with if it’s true. I also love it! I think, HOLY SHIT how would Steven, Pearl, Greg, Amethyst, Garnet, and the others react to learning Rose is alive? Would she finally have to have difficult conversations she’s been avoiding for thousands of years and move forward? What about all the times Lion was there for Steven and Connie? How would Connie feel about this? Does this mean the CGs, now fully realized and separated from Rose, can address her to her face and choose what relationship or lack thereof they’d like to have with her moving forward? You mean - an arc of change like every other character and a hopeful ending? Even for Rose Quartz??? Those are the questions that excite me about the likelihood of Rose being Lion. There’s so much possibility here! It messes with some seriously baked-in expectations about Steven Universe specifically and cartoons in general, and the lore is so interesting because it keeps adding up.

[wwjgyd]

salty asks 12 and 21?

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? Hm the only arc I've seen people dislike or not care for much has been Yi city which I personally like. While it's true the story around the Yi-city-trio is isolated I think it provides a nice amount of more world building and includes all the info to the lead up meeting Jin Guangyao and one thing I personally love: By the time we meet him, we already know he did it. Additionally making nice use of the story being told from Wei Wuxian's pov who doesn't know what happened in that time he was gone so filling the reader in about various events without being just exposition. But even if you look at the individual part outside of the main story I enjoyed it a lot. The spooky atmosphere of a nice horror movie, the field trip with the juniors, another tragic story you already know the outcome of but when finding out what happened still can't help hoping things to end well for them. Also one of the parts that feature commoners outside of cultivation society showing how little they actually know/how separate those societies are.

I'm curious if there are other MDZS-arcs the fandom considers unpopular?

21. What are your thoughts on crack ships? Crack ships are great when they are still keeping the characters in-character because you can discover a lot of fun dynamics and before you notice it they are actually interesting ships. I think it's also nice because they get you to think about how the respective characters would interact with each other or might have interacted if we don't know much about them. I think there’s something very interesting exploring a wide variety of interactions, not just shippy. How would this character realistically interact with retail workers? Their partner’s ex? Their sister-in-law? Receiving the wrong order from a waiter? These seem trivial but I think they say a lot about the person. Overall I enjoy in fandom a lot the aspect of filling in the gaps, interpreting what's ambiguous.

My 2 favourite MDZS ships started off as crack ships: Yaohan just started off as "Haha Wen Ruohan and Meng Yao having a good time doing really awful things *time-of-my-life-playing-in-the-distance*" a joke about "Wouldn't it be fucking funny if Meng Yao actually had a great time at Wen and horrible awful Wen Ruohan was nicer to him than anyone before?" to "You know what? There's not enough canon evidence to contradict this with all the unreliable narration."

Suyao started for me as a BDSM-joke about how Su She is like Jin Guangyaos pet dog he can sic on people and putting him on a leash and collar which led to me actually looking into it from a more serious perspective than "Haha Su She would do anything for Jin Guangyao". Instead looking at it more from a "Wow these two actually have common ground to bond over and were literally burying bodies together"

Salty ask list