#I say semi-canon because it's only in my thoughts and I don't think I'd ever draw or write it out

[obstinaterixatrix]

this image is imbuing me with power... if sunshine rider is telling me to sunshine on, don't forget to be myself, then I Simply Must

#headcanoning that meihui gets to play the sunshine rider at some point with yuki's hair accessory as a good luck charm

it's actually semi-canon LMAO, in of those mall stage shows where they grab a bunch of heroes and throw them in together, the guy who's supposed to be sunshine rider has to duck out at the last second and meihui gets called in for a favor

fanart for In Another World, Bureaucracy is the Same by @obstinaterixatrix (linked below)! sunshine on

[jamelslivres]

Hama

Let's start with the canon(ish) timeline:

Assuming that the young woman with the hair loopies is Katara's grandmother Kana and she's around the same age as Hama, I'm going to say that both are in their early-twenties. This is because Kana needed time to emigrate from the Northern Water Tribe. Yue got engaged at 16, and the healer Yagoda thought Katara was old enough to be engaged at 14. Judging by these engagement customs, Kana was probably engaged and then left around 16/17. To give her enough time to cross the world and settle in, I'd say that she and Hama must be around their early 20s.

During "The Puppetmaster", Hama says "the raids started over sixty years ago". Based on this, Hama is in her 80s during the events of this episode.

As she is describing her escape, Hama says she "walked free for the first time in decades". This could mean anything, but given that she hasn't started graying yet, I'm going to say two decades. Making her in her 40s when she first escaped.

Now, when did Hama get to the village we see in "The Puppetmaster"?

I've collected the relevant pieces from the show and discussed them. I truly can't make up my mind on this point, so I'd love to hear what others think. Let me know if I missed anything or if you guys have different interpretations of the evidence.

Here is what is said in the episode:

A merchant explains to a customer that he won't have any ash bananas until next week. The customer then says 'oh right, the full moon'. The merchant then says that he can't lose another two delivery boys to the full moon.

This interaction, to me, can be used to justify that Hama either has or hasn't been kidnapping people in this specific village for a long time:

Kidnapping in the short time interpretation: The merchant looks to be around sixty or slightly older, so he'd have been around when Hama came to the village (if she arrived immediately after escaping in her 40s). Let's assume he's been running this business for that long. If Hama started kidnapping people near immediately, I'd assume the lost delivery boys incidents happened near the beginning of that time. In this case, up to four decades ago. The merchant might not bring up those incidents to a customer who is (two?) decades younger than him and might not remember that incident. Since telling the customer is kinda bad marketing and makes the merchant look irresponsible or reckless. This could imply that these incidents are more recent.

Kidnapping in the long time interpretation: The customer doesn't need to be reminded that the full moon is that night. He knows it instinctively and doesn't need the merchant to connect the dots between the two day journey and the full moon disappearances. This awareness of the moon phases could imply that this has been happening for long enough that people have been habitually paying attention to the moon for a long time.

2. The guy who tells Aang, Sokka, and Toph about Old Man Ding says he's the "only one person who ever saw it and lived".

The word "ever" here implies that this might have been going on for a long time. However, local legends are quickly made and inflated, so the timing might just naturally be exaggerated.

3. Old Man Ding interaction, in which he says, "I'm not ready to get snapped up by any moon monster".

Honestly, I don't know what to make of this. To me, this reads like a semi-recent event, but I don't have anything to really back this up. Apart from maybe Ding saying he's not ready to get snapped up by a moon monster in response to a conversation about his age, which could imply that he was already old when this event happened.

Fun fact: the credits say "old man dig" even though the subtitles and voices clearly say "old man ding" (: 

Now for some speculation:

If Hama escaped in her 40s, the earliest she could have gotten to the village was forty years ago. In my opinion, that is a LONG time to be kidnapping people and not get caught. However, she does only have the opportunity to kidnap people once a month, but still that seems like a really long time. This brings me to the part of this that is just me asking questions (so again, please let me know what you think!)

When did Hama start kidnapping people?

Did she go to other villages before she came to the one we see in this episode? If so, did she kidnap anyone in those previous villages (I'd guess yes)? If she was in other villages, was there a point before she started kidnapping people, or did she start immediately (I think it could be interesting if she struggled with it for a bit, then gave into the urge. Or even if the urge didn't appear immediately)?

Did she ever try to go home? If so, did she find that she wasn't able to let go of the need for revenge, and leave again?

[pitter-patt-art]

Ace Attorney AU August (halfway progress update!)

Okay technically it's the 16th (lol, 17th by the time this is done) so a little over halfway actually, but still I thought since I haven't had anything finished to post the past few days this would be a fun alternative!

I've been going a little nuts (affectionate) over @augustwritingchallenge's AU-gust prompts list this year so August has been a wild ride (about 40k words of one, in fact. so far.) but seeing as I will get attached to even the jokiest of AU ideas instantly, I've completed* a whopping 5 whole fics of 16, lol. Considering the shortest of those is over 3k and the longest is over 12k, I think the problem with not finishing these in a timely manner is entirely on my verbose foolish thick skull, haha, but I'm still having a blast with it.

Here is my ao3 series where I'm posting!

And a rundown / progress report / quick teaser of all the AUs including those I've yet to finish, if anyone's interested:

(*by "completed" I should note two of the already posted fics are basically assuredly going to be continued past the challenge, but let's say "completed enough to post and be on theme")

1. Canon Divergence - complete - 4.5k words ("For the Murder of Mr. Wrong" link)

Mia POV, gen. What if Dahlia succeeded in poisoning Phoenix and framed Doug Swallow instead (and then Mia defended him in court)? Basically a 3-1 rewrite. Fun Fact: I only came up with this AU because before I even remembered AU-gust existed at all, I'd come up with like 4 totally separate AUs in which I poison Phoenix in various ways With Real Consequences because it amuses me, lol, but he survives all those other ones and I eventually realized I hadn't even considered straight up killing him off yet so I figured I should try it at least once, haha.

2. Colorless - complete 1st chapter - 3.2k words ("Grey Matters" link)

Phoenix POV (for 1st ch --prob alternating after), wrightworth. "You can't see color until the first time you touch your soulmate"-soulmate AU. 1st chapter is their first meeting as kids (skipping the class trial itself). Fun Fact(s): I really love a color soulmate AU! Big fan of the "only see the color of their eyes" type of one too but uhhh on top of that working better for things that have wild anime eye colors, you could not pay me enough to try to figure out what the HELL is going on with Ace Attorney eye colors at any given time lmfao. (Also--spoilers for what i haven't written yet but hey if you're here you earned it--this IS one of my very many "teehee what if i poison Phoenix just a smidge as a treat for me" fics. NOT my fault the man ATE GLASS. That's on him.)

3. Dark Academia - complete "1st chapter" - 4.4k words ("The Spirit of the Laws of Magic" link)

Mia POV, lanamia. Magical boarding school setting featuring corruption and missing-student conspiracies and a most likely overthought system of magic with hierarchies and prejudices in societal views of academic/formulaic vs folk/innate magic. Fun Fact: I really thought for SURE i was going to skip this day entirely, lol. (foolish.) I don't think i've actually ever personally read anything "dark academia", technically--so if this doesn't read EXACTLY that way, there you go, but i did my best. I also then thought I could live with keeping this vague but I accidentally thought about it too long so... plus at least two people on top of myself at this point have expressed interest in more of this and so I have some semi-concrete Plans™ now.

4. Zombie Apocalypse - conceptualized (but not started)

Concept: probably gen and Phoenix POV, but also because I'm me and they're them, at least a little bit wrightworth even if it isn't necessarily explicit in any meaningful way bc they are Not Normal about each other lol. A little sketchy on how much of an "AU" this counts for, since it could probably be argued to be canon compliant somehow, but basically just: Universe where they make a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies-type Steel Samurai reboot movie thing (featuring, you guessed it, zombies), and Miles comes over and forces Phoenix to watch it with him just to have someone to bitch about it at, and then during that time Maya blows her way into Phoenix's apartment as well with the exact same intentions except her "day job" isn't quite as time-sensitive-strict so she's already finished watching it earlier and knows all the spoilers. Honestly a good chance Phoenix and Pearl (who came with Maya) end up hiding out in the kitchen together to let Maya and Miles rile each other up in front of the TV, but I'm never exactly sure where they'll take me once I wind them up and set them loose on the page, so who knows. I also hadn't necessarily determined the exact time frame yet but for it to make sense as a reboot-type movie/special episode/whatever it probably should be 7yg-or-later so Trucy may or may not be there as well. (That said, in my struggles to complete an actually short one-shot, I probably shouldn't even include Pearl let alone Trucy, lol.) Fun Fact: I also thought I'd skip this day bc I'm not the biggest zombie guy in the world, and to be fair, I managed to do Way Less with it than the dark academia prompt so, yippie?

5. Chess Players - incomplete (currently 3k word WIP)

Miles POV, wrightworth. Miles is a chess grandmaster and back in Japanifornia for the upcoming world cup tournament, but his greatest challenge is actually to FINALLY best Franziska in their annual who-can-get-the-best-Christmas-gift competition. Luckily, he just so happened to hear of an artist who makes bespoke chess sets, so the plan is to get a custom board made for Franziska without her finding out. The plan is not to get trapped in a weird art collective labyrinth with some model-photographer named Cindy who keeps hitting on him but also happens to be protective of the artist he's there to see because "she and her boyfriend kinda-sorta owe him big time", but this is what he gets for coming here without doing any extra research into the artist besides seeing his work and hearing only "his name is White, or, eh, something like that, you know how those artist types are" from Mr. Amano. (AU where we replace law with chess and no I don't think Phoenix could necessarily hack it in the top-world-grandmasters-level of chess tournaments HOWEVER have you considered he DID go to art school so what if he just tries selling custom chess sets until somehow that reconnects him with Miles. Is that somehow a more insane plan than studying law? Maybe. Did Manfred still shoot Gregory but now it was over fucking chess? Maybe. Idk. But I did let Greg live this time at least!) Fun Fact: we can all DEFINITIVELY blame my lovely, terrible, very wonderful friend Ben (shameless friend plug! she's an outstanding writer and has some AA fics of her own too!! @kindlystrawberry on tumblr!!) for making a total joke about "well what about au where they make chess pieces instead" while i lamented not knowing enough about chess to write an actual match and spawning this ENTIRE concept. It is her fault. 100%. She is the guilty party. (I want to finish this one VERY BADLY. Save me.)

EVIDENCE!!!!! Guilty.

6. Reality Show - incomplete (currently 700 word WIP)

Phoenix (& Franziska) POV(s), background wrightworth wedding planning going on as set up but it's also definitely just one of my many excuses to set Phoenix and Franziska up as bitchy worsties who can't admit they enjoy each other's company and will cut you down if you suggest it as such. So far I've only written the quote "set-up" section which is in Phoenix's POV, but that was SUPPOSED to be like 5 paragraphs and cut away and then lead into my actual plan for the main body, which was to be in Franz's instead, so. This is very similar to the zombie one in that it's them watching reality tv instead of being contestants on a show (I don't personally like or watch a lot of reality tv so my creative well was somewhat dry on how to make that work) and then I accidentally thought about Phoenix and Franziska watching something just to judge and tear apart the decisions of every person on it and that was too fun to not consider further, haha. Basically the plan is just they get left alone together and don't know what to do with that and end up wine-drunk and making fun of some reality dating show of some kind and Miles and Trucy come back to them losing it together over something stupid and are like "......uh. what's happening." Fun Facts: I really love the thought experiment of Franziska somehow discovering how often Phoenix's internal dialogue/reads on situations and especially people can be So Bitchy And Judgey despite his affable complexion, and her unfortunately finding his opinions to SOMETIMES be somehow slightly okay. Moderately correct, even--occasionally. I know the section she follows you-as-Phoenix around in T&T is really not long at ALL, but I adore it. There's something about it that so badly makes me want to force them into proximity more (to both their chagrin, I'm sure).

7. Farm/Ranch - complete - 12k words ("Two Little Dickey Byrdes" link)

Gumshoe POV, gumbyrde (tho i still think dickeybyrde is a funnier ship name). 5+1 things--except more like maybe 7-or-8+1 to be honest--so it's more: over 5 times Dick and Maggey sit on a wall together and 1 time they find someone else there instead. AKA: Dick runs his family's small farm (think fantasy farm like in a farming sim or maybe horse girl novel type of thing that has nothing to do with what a real farm is like lol don't worry about it) and Maggey starts working at the next farm over as the latest of her many odd jobs. Fun Fact: oh god this one got so far away from me. it was not supposed to be this long lmao. it's literally the elaborate set-up to a very silly Nursery-Rhyme-I-Didn't-Even-Know-About-Prior-To-This -based punchline!?! still, i was pleasantly surprised by how happy i was with this once it was done... two sittings and about 16 total hours later. haha).

8. Nomad - incomplete (planned/outlined)

Apollo (or possibly Klavier) POV, klapollo. Sort of Jove-Thalassa swap adjacent, but basically: AU where Jove survives the Khura'in fire but loses his memories for [contrived convince sake reasons]. (And also possibly loses some or all of his eyesight just to really go for the parallels?) Therefore: Jove and Apollo stay with Dhurke and Nahyuta and the Defiant Dragons for a time, while Jove recovers, but eventually they leave and head out on their own, just the two of them, and do the traveling musician thing, both because it's dangerous in Khura'in and Dhurke already canonically didn't want Apollo to get caught up in it and potentially get hurt to begin with and because with a functioning actual parent Apollo doesn't need to be taken in by him--and also Jove from what little we know seems like he prefers to be on the move and was already a world traveler anyhow, so even amnesiac maybe he gets a little antsy stuck in one place too long. And so like amnesiac Thalassa, Jove thusly becoming a renowned mysterious musician--and then Apollo, sweet tone deaf Apollo, becoming the sonager of all time (like a momager but...you get it) because he's not that into music but he IS into arguing for better conditions/making deals (contracts!! international legalese!! woohoo!!) with venues and promoters and stuff. And then--oops dang Lamioir still exists and now they have a meet-cute (2 electric bugaloo) (but by then it's later enough Trucy still exists because it will be a cold day in hell when I don't find a way to make her work) and they do music collabs or join up to form a group or whatever and OOPS this means now that Apollo and Jove are with Lamioir when The Gavinners / Klavier specifically meet her and get her to come to do the Guitar's Serenade concert eventually. And Apollo and Klavier ofc thusly also have a meet-cute and then talk and bond etc etc. AND THEN the au STOPS THERE and I DON'T think about how without Apollo Phoenix is totally getting convicted of Zak's murder because there's no way that trial works out as well for him with some other attorney and I also don't think about how reasonable it would then be that maybe Trucy ends up helping Valant with his work setting up the trick for the concert afterward on account of the one father in prison and the other being dead and having left behind a notarized confession clearing Valant's name of suspicion, etc. AND I DEFINITELY do not think about how i could then still so easily get everyone in one place at the concert for Turnabout Serenade and/or any possible funny Sibling (And Thalassa) Reveal that could happen i dont i dont i do not--

9. Accidental Baby Acquisition - conceptualized (not started)

Gen, possibly my weakest / least defined idea on this list, but basically: Phoenix kind of already lives this in canon, lol (insomuch as an 8yo counts as a baby) so I thought, well, how to take it a different direction, then? And I thought, I don't usually go for a Phoenix Fey kind of au because I personally really love the relationships he has with all the Feys as-is in canon and so it's not quite as funny to me as, say, a Miles Fey AU where like Misty and Gregory are married, or any of the ones in that bent, because I'm sorry but that's just SO funny (and sad, but mostly funny) any way you slice it--plus his NAME is RIGHT THERE mia-miles-maya he FITS--anyhow, that completely aside, there are just a lot of reasons I really love the platonic relationships the Feys already have with Phoenix and I don't think it NEEDS to be made specifically familial to still be so very important, y'know? BUT. That said. AU where Phoenix is idk abandoned as a baby or maybe his parents die young or something and it's like a Thing to leave babies at temples or churches or whatever, right? So like--Phoenix adopted by the Feys AU but only because the more i considered it the more i thought it would be WILD for him to literally know Maya her entire life, and it's fascinating to me to consider a Maya who ISN'T basically left all alone to her own devices (and Morgan's) and who has someone absolutely in her corner in the village the entire time even after Mia leaves (who isn't a baby when Mia leaves, love you tho Pearls), AND also and perhaps more importantly, the ships-passing-in-the-night-ness of a scene where, like: Morgan does something sketchy or whatever and Phoenix wants to keep Mia updated but for whatever reason decides to go down to the city and actually tell her in person and so he's waiting outside the courthouse or something (possibly part of or perhaps Most Of the reason he goes in person is because he knows her first courtroom trial is that day and he wants to see her + hear how it went) and when he gets there she's in a heated argument with some asshole in a fancy over-embellished jacket and once that guy leaves Phoenix is like "Sheesh, what's his problem?" You know???? And maybe he really would never even know!!!! Bc he grew up in Kurain!!!! And has no reason to care!!! About some random prosecutor who was mean to Mia!! Aaaah!!! So that, and on top of that, Diego would be there too ofc at that point, and I feel like he would ALSO be quite a funny interaction in this scenario. ("Wow, someone's popular, kitten, you have all sorts of guys waiting on a chance to talk to you, heh?" "Uh.--I'm sorry, WHAT did you just call her")

10. Enemies-to-Allies - incomplete (currently 370 word WIP)

Ema POV, faraskye. Cyberpunk AU where Lana is still under Gant's thumb and Ema, with no other way to stay close to her and getting rejected from any of the sorts of jobs she really wants to do, decides to just join the security force (or cyber police or w/e I decide to call it) and is tasked with hunting down the Yatagarasu, guerilla hacker supreme who is threatening the sanctity of the capitalist overlords. Except Ema's squad gets ambushed and she's captured and tied to a pole, and with her useless fop partner seemingly not coming to rescue her (if he even noticed her absence), she does some quick cost-benefit analysis and decides she didn't really like that job anyway and maybe there's another way she can get her sister back in her life. So she breaks free of her own handcuffs (which she definitely didn't modify into incidental ineffectiveness she's still testing for bugs) and helps fix the "Little Thief" device her captor seems to have broken despite how obviously valuable and impressive the tech is, and they eventually come to something of an agreement. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and all that. Either Ema as the hardware-engineer one and Kay as the software-programming one as the two sides of the tech coin, or else Kay can just be like doing the physical sneaking kind of spy stuff only--or maybe she knows a little about software but not so much she's a pro the way she is with infiltration and such. Possibly toying with the idea Kay herself is just completely an android, but if not, I think she has some cybernetic cyborg things going on regardless. Possibly from or inspired by her father? I also like the idea that Gant did something maybe more drastic with regards to having dirt on Ema to get Lana to do his bidding--like maybe Ema has a whole cybernetic hand because instead of just her handprint on a leather jacket, Gant has some sicko jar with her entire hand in it in his office safe, or something. I don't know why this would be useful to him but it is certainly an image. I also find it funny if Miss Fingerprint Powder Enthusiast doesn't actually have any fingerprints of her own anymore somehow in this AU, lol.

11. Retail Worker - complete - 6.7k words ("The Bake Anything Boulangerie" link)

Apollo POV, gen. Phoenix gets a job at a bakery instead of the Borscht Bowl Club during the 7 year gap, and Apollo happens to stumble across it and ends up meeting the Wrights while he's still in high school. He becomes a regular at the bakery and is already close to them by the time "Shadi Smith's" murder comes around. And also, yes, sibling reveal right away--at least as soon as Phoenix realizes and can reveal it. As a treat. (Other reveals, though, I might put poor Apollo through on a delayed basis. Also as a treat, lmao, just not one for him.) Fun Fact: I'm being redundant bc this is also in my a/n, but, Baker Phoenix lives rent-free in my brain because Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright was in fact the very first Ace Attorney game I ever played, technically, and Maya and Phoenix semi-brainwashed in that bakery was literally one of my first impressions of them. ........followed immediately by starting a let's play of Justice for All (which i watched through the first case, after which I was like oKAY fine maybe i DO need more context here, i should probably figure out what the actual first game is, and went back to start the series properly at the beginning hahaha). What do you MEAN i have a disproportionate fascination with amnesiac Phoenix, even if I have yet to finish and publish one of my myriad AUs that utilize stupid, unrealistic, plot convenient re-temporary amnesia?? Hm???? Idk what you're talking about. Also everyone who complains about 2-1 is wrong lmao it's objectively (okay subjectively is what i'm saying yes BUT objectively) such a funny place to start without knowing broad plot strokes, it's great. I both knew so much and absolutely shit-all nothing about Maya after PLvPW and 2-1, LMAO. god.

12. Animagus Wings (Joker) - incomplete (planned/outlined)

Miles POV, wrightworth. Angel/Demon AU, except I'm playing super fast and loose with the rules on that because all my knowledge of Christian-mythos comes from firstly and unknowingly the Chronicles of Narnia and more recently and cognizantly Lucifer (Netflix) and Good Omens. I know that's probably more or less what we're all doing with this kind of AU but still, I'm not even sure I want to refer to Heaven and Hell here, I'm kinda on the fence about maybe just keeping it all very vague? I also accidentally semi-worldbuilt more than i intended incidentally on account of "But Then How-Why Names If Angelic Creatures?" Format-wise it would semi-follow gomens s1 where it's hopping through some meetings between long stretches but also a kind of pre- and post- Fall type of thing? And potentially à la Lucifer becoming, like, these are My Mortal Humans and i will be Spending Time With Them, screw you celestial duties, I'm making my own Free Will, etc. And i mean i guess Lucifer is also a crime procedural lmao maybe they still solve crimes in the end too. Fun Fact: I didn't want to do the original prompt for several reasons, and sure fuck jkr is one of them but even before I knew about her I still wasn't really the biggest hp person in the first place? So i wouldn't know/don't remember at all the way it works without having to do the specific research and i...don't want to haha. Hence. And I know the prompt seems to be using it loosely / might just be borrowing the word and not actually referencing hp specifically but tbh either way human-animal shifter things just in general I can be somewhat picky about haha. (Okay okay plus full disclosure the ONLY idea I have for this sort of thing actually ties into my day-3-dark-academia-extended-au-verse and i COULD make my life simpler by just connecting the two days but Heh who would I be if I simplified things for myself... *sigh*) All that to say: I saw "wings" on the wild card list and I thought, ooh, well that's still sort of a related concept! Let's tag that one in! So it's still kind of day 12 prompt-adjacent, if you squint.

13. Found Footage - incomplete (planned/outlined)

Video Transcript POV? Is that a thing? Possibly capped by a little Phoenix POV (but i don't want that to get too long), wrightworth. Larry's new girlfriend of the month bakes weed brownies and Larry does not realize this and swings by the Wrights' apartment to beg some kind of help off Phoenix and forgets the whole tray there somehow (because it's Larry) and they leave to deal with Larry's thing and by the time they figure the brownies out, in some twist of fate Miles and Trucy have been hanging out (last minute babysitter/adult supervision? but she's at the very very least 14 or 15 here and most likely older, and Nick clearly isn't the most strict about like uhhh supervision in general lol sooo idk. he's helping her with a project or smth. it doesn't really actually matter; he's THERE, that's the important thing.) The point I'm very clearly getting at is they accidentally get incredibly high (not dangerously so because I'm not going that far haha but also, neither of them has actually been high before, so they are Affected) before Phoenix finds out what was in the brownies and tries to warn Trucy and hurry home to like, dispose of them or at least put a warning label on them or whatever, but he is too late lol. By a lot. Definitely an underage drugs tag on this bad boy because it's definitely sometime 18-or-earlier for Trucy, let alone 21. (idk about other places but as a Californian I can tell you Japanifornia "LA" could theoretically have it legalized at 21 for anyone (like alcohol) and 18 with Dr's permission--which Trucy definitely does not have in this AU lol.) Basically, Phoenix grabs Trucy's phone to get photo evidence so he can let them never live this down (after making sure they're okay lmao), but he ofc doesn't get technology so he doesn't realize he leaves the phone still recording when Trucy asks him for something / needs his help, so the recording just keeps going and captures a lot of tomfoolery and eventually some inebriated-to-Extremely-sober Feelings-Adjacent confessions (or maybe more like allusions). Idk, this was actually a fic I thought of before August and wanted to use as an excuse to try a Weird Format for fun, but then i saw this was a prompt on the list and...well. Fun Fact: Cannabis was legalized in California on November 8, 2016 (the first election I could vote in!!! ......uh, rip. lol. but yeah babey I helped legalize weed at least!! gotta remember the positives), which means it was legal right in time for Miles' case(s) / Turnabout Goodbyes!!! Yay!! I mean, I suppose that's genuinely seriously one way to try to mitigate nightmares and manage insomnia--not that I think Miles Edgeworth would ever deign stoop so low as to use an aid to manage his severe PTSD and trauma symptoms, psshaw, who do you take him for? (Get these people some help lol. They all need so much therapy.)

14. Princes & Princesses - conceptualized (not started)

So I've been reading a lot (a LOT) of isekai and/or revenge reincarnation romance fantasy manhwas lately (like, oh, too many, hahaha. they're quite good and they're VERY popular in webcomics at the moment.) Soooo. Soft pitch: Apollo already gets slapped into so many wild backstories he's constantly trying to dodge in an effort to be just a Normal Guy, he's honestly, like, the PERFECT protagonist for one of these lmao. And tell me Kristoph doesn't make a perfect "Upstanding Duke" kind of persona, and Klavier couldn't be the "wild rake" younger brother no one expects much from, and all I'm saying is it wouldn't be that hard to contrive a reason Apollo tries to get Klavier to agree to a contract marriage the way all these stories go, lol. And also, something something, Apollo from the "real world" is an orphan/has an absent family (also like so many of these manhwa protagonists, lol) but then he gets to actually have one in his second life!! I'm such a sucker for that shit. Slightly harder pitch, and the reason I did not let myself actually start writing anything (...yet): so what if the actual plot of the "original romance novel" Apollo is familiar with from the "real world (Earth)" is actually about the slightly older generation and something something instead of admiring Phoenix as a defense attorney, it's just that he instead was Apollo's favorite "love interest" character (not, like, for himself, just the one he most liked to read about) in every way except what a blithering idiot he became when the author had him fall for the female lead--but BEFORE that, he's a cool information guild leader guy who seems like he's trying to work toward some way to improve conditions for commoners in the kingdom (but abruptly there are no more mentions of this after he gets involved with the lead, which is annoying). Aaaand... I guess what I'm saying is, Dahlia is the original female lead because she REALLY fits the whole White Lotus trope, and I'm thinking Klavier is the original male lead because A) hilarious, B) fits in with the idea there's more going on in the ACTUAL world Apollo ends up in that is written in such a way as to make things seem different in the novel (like, that Dahlia and Klavier are actually as nice as they seem and that the terrible things that happen around them are just the trials and tribulations of being main characters and not anything they're directly involved in). And Apollo, the character in the novel Apollo, is an adopted prince of Khura'in, but he's the sickly younger prince and of course not actually of the royal bloodline (and also a man, considering Khura'in is matrilineal), so Rayfa and Nahyuta are the ones the public and other nobles actually know and care about and deal with. But wait! As it so turns out, The Wright Anything Information Guild (I feel like the actual guild name CAN'T have their freaking name on it front and center lol but you get the idea) happens to know some other things that aren't really expanded on in the original novel, and might be key to preventing Apollo's death so he doesn't follow the path of the original story, and also idk maybe Apollo and Trucy are half-fae or something like that and instead of like Aw Yay Bracelet in this AU it's more of a secret Iron Shackle Tool That Will Hurt I Mean Totally-Definitely-Help Us Later (still, in a way, passed down to him by Thalassa, but more as, like... she's kind of a secret hostage and does not manage to hide pregnancy number one so Apollo's now also a secret hostage, but she manages to escape so they don't know about Trucy, only she didn't tell Apollo basically anything to "keep him as safe as possible" or w/e, and......) Well, anyway. It got away from me before I even really wrote anything, that's all.

15. Secretly Alien - unfinished (currently 2.6k WIP)

Trucy POV, gen. Apollo gets sick of very consistently always losing the card games they play at the Wright Anything Agency (usually and in the specific instance the fic starts, Bullshit/BS) and in a stroke of inspiration somehow ropes everyone into playing Among Us instead. ("What! It's still a game of trying to lie/trick everyone else--like you like!--but I actually stand a freaking chance, so we're playing this or I'm going home.") Yes. This is my Among Us AU. Hi. They play Among Us. I'm justifying this one as prime AU territory however because A) Among Us has to exist in this universe, and even more pressingly, B) I found a way to force Phoenix to have--for at least a period of time if not moving forward in perpetuity--an actual smartphone instead of a Nokia-type brick cellphone. Which even under the wild but somehow plausible considering Ace Attorney circumstances I contrived, is just automatically a complete AU lmao. Fun Fact: I am so mad this one wasn't just totally finished day-of, lol. Why I ever thought I could give myself run of an entire WAA 4-person conversation and NOT get instantly derailed is beyond me. (And I want to get the prosecutors there, too?? Someone take the characters away from me.) Anyway. No, I have not written ANY of the actual Among Us part yet. Sigh. Also I haven't personally played amogus since like, 2021? maybe? And I know (now) that it's been pretty updated since then, but, ehhh, I'm just gonna run off like, lockdown-era amogus rules and vibes, lol. If I can get to the game part.

16 - Hobby Drama - conceptualized

I'm going to go out of order this time to say: Fun Fact: I have ALWAYS wanted to write a Reddit-style fic!!! I absolutely love them and I've read some REALLY, really good ones, so I've always wanted to try my hand at it. So theoretically this is the perfect time to make that a reality and write a r/HobbyDrama subreddit fic, buuut I got stuck before starting because I'm torn on two possible routes to take it (I can easily foresee myself caving and just doing both lol). - Option 1: Steel Samurai fandom discourse, always a fun/funny thing to think about, definitely would enjoy having Maya and Miles post some stuff for that. - Option 2: courtroom law fandom discourse, because come ON, how are those galleries ALWAYS SO FULL. The little wiggling rabba-rabba onlookers have GOT to have investment in this shit. And why WOULDN'T they, honestly. I've seen those trials and I have, in fact, spent a Lot of time thinking about them, not that any posts I've made lately would reflect that in any way or anything. Like I know it's hard to tell, but if I can be invested in the Lawyers Fandom, who's to say the people in the courtrooms aren't????? And I LOVE an outsider POV fic actually, I think they're so fun. So anyway. Reddit fic. You will be mine. Just as soon as I can hone my energy

And, what the hell, since it's so late now by the time I complete this "Heh This'll Be So Quick To Throw Together" post, I'll include today's, too:

17 - Flower Shop - conceptualized (at work earlier today. lol)

AU where Daddy Hawthorne is like, 97% less shitty. And the Hawthornes have a flower shop instead of like a gemstone industry or whatever. And he takes both Dahlia and Iris with him instead of dumping one of his daughters at a fucking secluded mountain temple and seemingly forgetting about her forever. On second thought, maybe what I actually mean is he's like 999% less shitty, lmfao. Anyway, Iris POV, but Dahlia (while not a "nice" person by any stretch) is not pushed to such extremes or nearly as desperate as canon, so Valerie lives, Terry Fawles lives, Doug Swallow lives, and Dahlia gets to live a good life overall--because as much fun as I love using her as a villain, she's really such a product of the absolute worst circumstances and I really do find her interesting so I've been kind of wanting to explore her in a less cartoonishly evil light, haha. (Don't get me wrong, I do love the cartoonishly evil light too, but I like spicing things up sometimes.) Like, she does (more) normal teen rebellion things ("Look at my inappropriately older boyfriend, Dad" "I'm going to talk my way out of speeding tickets and petty shoplifting as a bid for attention" etc.) and she still totally orders Iris around and Iris still totally does whatever she asks very much to her own detriment and has to learn to break away and be her own person. Fun Fact: I have a very passionate love for Iris/Adrian Andrews. Is that. Um. Is that a ship anyone else has ever considered before? Is that just me? I'm not sure but very possibly I'll just make this a rarepair fic as a treat, for me alone, teehee. (Like... it's about the becoming the master of your own destiny it's about breaking out of codependent cycles it's about how I genuinely honestly think they'd be each other's type and have chemistry even though they've obviously never interacted lmao... idk what to tell you.)

AND THATS MY AU-GUST UPDATE POST!!!

If you made it this far, take a sprinkle of my undying affection, and may you be blessed with AU inspiration if you so desire it!! (If you do not desire it, hopefully you are not cursed with it. I do not take refunds if you are. Sorry.)

Wish me luck with completing some more fics soon!!! Unfortunately weekends are actually my least free time because I work the most and the earliest hours so I have less time and am more tired, but also on Wednesday I'm leaving for a family vacation, which will either be the BEST thing to happen in regards to AU-gust or the WORST thing lmfao. If nothing else I have 2 flights, and I actually Love writing on an airplane, so fingers crossed for it being Good. <3

EDIT: Now with part 2 for the rest of the month here!

[imagineitdearies]

firstly, perfect slaughter is so brilliant! you must be so proud with what you have created. your characterisation of Tyrus fits so well into the story and his relationship with Astarion is amazing. i don’t have the right words to express how much i love this.

one thing that also really stuck to me was cazador’s characterisation and his sick and twisted obsession with astarion and tyrus, you have clearly done so much research to understand his character.

which brings to my ask (apologies if you have already spoken about this): cazador says some really interesting things about astarion before the fight if you don’t bring astarion with you. it got me thinking about what are the factors that really drive cazador’s obsession with him specifically, considering most info the player gets is from astarion directly. i want to get your take on it, is it a deep rooted, subconscious fear/hatred that astarion has the capability to rebel, like in someways he is similar to cazador before he killed vellioth or is it more ‘simple’ as astarion is just the most fun to torment in comparison to others??

long ask, sorry

Hi anon! Thanks so much 😊 definitely feeling proud of PS, it's really shown me the high-level storytelling I'm capable of when I feel passionate enough about a project!

I think I've talked a bit about Cazador's obsession with Astarion but I'm not sure it was on my tumblr, so I'm happy to throw in my two cents! Like you've already listed out, though, there's multiple theories and likely all are true to some extent.

Thoughts below the cut:

When I think of Cazador Szarr, I think of how much fear can be a poison. A little of it is healthy, but when you let fear drive every decision you ever make, you're on a swift tunnel downward into all the no-good emotions: distrust, loathing, contempt, malice, sadism, etc, turned outward and inward. So yes, when you're a person who's let fear drive basically all your emotions and decisions, what kind of individual would make these ugly reactions flare up even more drastically? Yup, someone you fear. Now why would he fear Astarion extra--I have a few theories:

As you said, he sees Astarion's defiant nature (e.g. "the boy has always been troublesome" he writes in his journal) as similar to his spawn self, and therefore believes he has a similar potential to rebel and overthrow him. (This idea not only plays into Cazador's fears, but also his internal self-loathing.)

I like the fanon idea that Astarion shares a semi-similar personality and even physical traits with Vellioth, which certainly would trigger the hell out of Cazador and fuel the need to go extra hard on him out of anger, but also leftover fear.

When I meet the other spawn in bg3, there's just such a stark difference between Astarion from the very start of meeting him--he retained his sense of self in a way the rest really don't seem to have. They all act and talk a certain way, feel almost actually like siblings despite no physical relation, while he stands out like the black--silver?--sheep of the family. Therefore, outside of just his defiant nature, because it's not like he was always defiant with Cazador (i.e. Leon calling him a "lickspittle"), I'd argue Astarion simply has a resilient force of personality. He won't "drink the kool-aid" and lose himself in the name of survival. And maybe this is a hot take, but I think Cazador deeply fears ridicule and judgment. Having a spawn who retains a personality and even worse, opinions of him beyond fear and submission...how terrifying.

Of course, there are factors besides fear that could be examined. We cannot ignore Astarion's canon line: "He[...]did take special pleasure in my pain--he said my screams sounded sweetest." You can argue Cazador enjoyed Astarion's screams only for deeper, more contextual reasons like those outlined above, but I headcanon (and included in PS) that Astarion had the hard combination of a more resilient spirit but a lower pain tolerance than his siblings. So it was easier to get him screaming, but harder to truly break him, which is a hell of a lot more fun for a certified sadist like Cazador.

Alright, that's probably enough yapping from me! Cazador is quite the interesting beastie, isn't he?

[do-you-know-this-adhd-character]

Characters Marked Anything Other Than "Accepted And Ready To Post" or "Already Posted"

someone said they thought this would be useful, so I'm making it. I have nothing against any of the submitters for these characters, to be clear, and for anything not in the "Dark Red: Inherently Unpostable" category you can submit more evidence to make them more postable!

Dark Red: Inherently Unpostable

You, from Real Life: Real person.

Oli Theorionsound, from Empires SMP: Too close to a real person for me to be comfortable posting them.

Red: Not Enough Evidence

Todd Chavez, from Bojack Horseman: Only evidence provided was vibes.

Estinien Varlineau, from FFXIV: Evidence provided was for neurodivergence, but not for ADHD specifically.

Siyun Baek, from Dreaming Freedom: Only evidence provided was fidgeting, which is not enough to say ADHD instead of other neurodivergence.

Kris, from Deltarune: Evidence is vibes only.

Richard Lipschitz, from Nerdy Prudes Must Die: Evidence is vibes only.

The Collector, from The Owl House: Only evidence provided is energetic personality, which isn't inherently ADHD.

Orange: Unsure If Enough Evidence. Would Prefer More. Please Submit More

Max Good, from A Goofy Movie: This one teeters on the edge for me; it has some evidence, but doesn't feel super compelling. Will probably end up deciding whether to post on the day it comes up, honestly. Please submit more if you see him as ADHD!

Tom Paris, from Star Trek: Voyager: Feels like it's on the edge between proof of ADHD and just proof of neurodivergence or personality traits. Would like more ADHD-specific evidence. I have watched Voyager but it was too long ago for me to provide my own evidence

Mammon, from Obey Me: Only evidence provided is impulsivity. Unsure if that's enough or not. Because at least part of my criteria is does it Feel Compelling To Me I vary day by day on if that's enough. So more evidence would be great.

Rand Ridley, from Inside Job: Feels kind of vague, I probably could judge this one if I actually knew the character, but I don't. Might do a wiki dive and see if that helps. More evidence would be great.

Dewey Finn, from School of Rock: Evidence is a combo of factual and vibes-based, and the factual evidence is a little weak (not getting things done on time and irresponsibility are common in ADHD people, but I'm not sure if it's enough or not.) More evidence please!

Yellow: Postable, But I Need To Look Into Something First

Mac McDonald, from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Apparently someone makes a comment about him being ADHD in the show. Someone was kind enough to find where this happens for me, but I need to get around to watching it for myself and evaluate if it counts as canon ADHD. I'd usually say any assertion of ADHD in canon is a confirmation, but this is a sitcom and ADHD is unfortunately often used as a punchline. Been debating whether to just post him as "semi-canon".

Kaveh, from Genshin Impact: Submitter thought it might be canon. Need to check. Even if not, evidence was sufficient, so it'll be posted once I check (honestly should have been posted ages ago if I'd gotten around to checking.)

Tigger, from Winnie the Pooh: I've seen some cool analyses on how different Pooh characters represent different neurodivergencies and Tigger represents ADHD. Would like to dig one up to include in the post.

Flywhisker, from Warrior Cats: Author said she "wouldn't be surprised if Flywhisker was on the ADHD spectrum". Need to look up context because I think that's a canon confirmation, but she was submitted as noncanon.

Heinz Doofenshmirtz, from Phineas and Ferb: Submitter talks about how the writer based doofenshmirtz on himself and was later diagnosed with ADHD. Need to look into if said writer ever connected those two things. Evidence looks sufficient even if noncanon, though.

Amy Rose, from Sonic: Submitter's evidence was a video and I just haven't gotten around to watching it yet lol. Sounds postable from the text, I just need to watch the vid to make sure.

If your submission is not listed here, it has been deemed acceptable. If you see a character listed here as ADHD, this does not mean they will never be posted no matter what (except the dark red)! Feel free to make a submission with additional info.

[95jezzica]

Additional Scion Jobs

Long title: Additional Classes & Jobs I think would suit/have suited the Scions. 👀 (And no, I'm not gonna cheat and put Scholar on all of them, although in some case it would actually fit).

[Sorry in advance, the European FFXIV servers went down and they didn't bother to get them up again before the planned maintenance in a few hours, SO this accidentally became a long one post of thoughts, so I'm putting it below 'Read More']. 😂

So. Additional Classes & Jobs I think would have suited the Scions.

Minfilia Warde: White Mage. 🌟 I always wished for her to get something more to fight back with - and White Mage would fit her with the themes of seeking peace, harmony and wanting to support her friends. Seeing as Minfillia spends most of ARR stuck back in the HQ overseeing their operations it'd also make sense to make her a Healer who can take care of her returning comrades once they come back from their missions. Minor spoilers for HW/Shadowbringers, but her being White Mage could also further explain her connections and deeds later on in the game. Though there's a lot of memes about White Mage being a "green DPS" I think she'd be more focused on the healing part.

Tataru Taru: I was about to jokingly say Machinist to give her a gun, but jokes aside I'd give her the class/job Botanist. 🌼 Tataru not being a fighter but still wanting to help is kind of a plot-point within the game, and so I shall abide by the rules. (Though I suppose her being an Arcanist can still be considered canon considering the blue quests in Stormblood?). At any rate I think she'd fit well as a Botanist. Not only would it give her a way to Sneak around, but it'd also help her Gather the resources she or her friends need. As her only listed canon class is Weaver on the wiki, I'm also tempted to add Leatherworker and Culinarian into the list, seeing as we do have some moments where she already works on these even if they're not listed as canon classes (yet?).

Y'shtola "Master of Destruction" Rhul: Summoner. 🔥 No one can deny Y'Shtola is a master of magic. With Conjurer & Black Mage already under her belt it should come to no surprise I think she would continue with a similar line of study, and because of this I think she'd be perfect as Summoner. We COULD technically argue Arcanist/Summoner is semi-canon considering her past studies, but since it's not listed as one of her canon classes/jobs I shall not count it as one either, because the job is too perfect for her to ignore. Additionally I could see her pick up Blue Mage for the challenge it'd give her, even if it wouldn't be a main-job she'd use in world-deciding battles.

Lyse Hext: Dancer (and/or Monk?). 💃🏽 I was admittedly surprised Lyse's only canon listed class/job on the Wiki is Pugilist, and I honestly can't remember if Lyse ever got to upgrade to Monk, but I could have sworn she got the Dancer? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but either way I think she'd fit well with the Dancer job. She has always been light on her feet and being Dancer would also give her a ranged class to complement Pugilist/Monk, which is very close-ranged.

Papalymo Totolymo: I'd say Sage, after much consideration. 🛡 He was a difficult one to decide on though, but in the end I think it's the one who would make the most sense for him given the lore of Sage being a Sharlayan job difficult to master. It's also canon Papalymo studied the arcane for most of his life, so it'd make sense to give him something related to magic outside of him being a Thaumaturge. That, and I don't feel like he'd fit as a Scholar (the job), Astrologian, Summoner, Red Mage or Pictomancer. I could give a maybe to White Mage, but that's a MAYbe.

Thancred Waters: 🔫 Machinist was obviously my first thought, because hey, canon Gunbreaker already - but given his past as both Gladiator & Rogue he also has a lot of potential as Dark Knight and/or Viper, all which I feel would fit him well. Since he's already a tank with Gunbreaker I'd say Thancred getting Machinist and Viper would be the most useful for him though, and would let him use his experience at the same time as giving him better DPS stats. 🔪

Urianger Augurelt: Scholar, to the surprise of absolutely no one. 😂 xD Listen, if any of the scions deserves the Scholar job, it's him - and it'd be especially fitting for Shadowbringers and give additional reason(s) as to how and why he was able to get along so well with the fae. 🍄 Perhaps a little more surprising is instead that I think he'd also do well as a Reaper. Urianger has proven again and again he does what's necessary to save those he cares about, even at the risk of earning their scorn, and since he's already a canon Astrologian with Scholar added to the list from me Reaper is a good way to balance him out a bit to not only be focused on the healing jobs. 👻 Especially since there's already so many Scions who are Thaumaturge and/or Black Mages and I can't really imagine him taking on a job as a tank. Even with his character development I wouldn't say he enjoys being the center of attention.

Alphinaud Leveilleur: I so badly want to give him a DPS job, but tbh I don't think he'd really fit as any of them? As previous Arcanist and nowadays Scholar/Sage I could simply give him Summoner and be done with it, but it'd be kind of ironic to see him running around summoning a mini-Bahamut. If hard-pressed I'd give him Pictomancer instead, which would be a fun nod to Shadowbringers/Endwalkers as well, but it doesn't feel like a perfect fit either. 🖌 Tbh the perfect job for him would be a tank focused on magic with magical shields and the likes, and to this day I badly wish FFXIV will introduce one in the future. Sadly I think it might be difficult for them to make it different enough from Sage, so Idk if I'll ever get my wish come true.

Alisaie Leveilleur: Gunbreaker. 🔫 / "Jezzica, WHY!???" / Okay, so admittedly part of it is because it'd be hilarious to see her run around with a big gun, but given her personality a job as a tank would actually suit her very well and make her tanky enough to actually continue to stand in the aoe without moving. 🔫 Alisaie is not the healer in a battle, but doesn't mind helping out with healing outside of it. She's loud, honest, and loves being in the middle of it all. Additionally Alisaie has always been the most outspoken about how everyone is relying too much on you (the WoL). Her being a tank fits her personality really well, and quite frankly I think she would quickly become a Dark Knight if you (the WoL) ever died within the game. Given the fact Alisaie is already a Red Mage she also has potential as a Viper, but at the current time I still think Gunbreaker would fit her the best as an additional class/job.

Krile Baldesion: Another difficult one, but I'd probably give her Dancer based on vibes alone from the DT-trailer(s) and her already being a canon healer and Pictomancer. 💃🏽 She's a difficult one though, because I haven't spent as much time with her in the game yet.

Estinien "Wyrmblood" Varlineau: Defeating dragons was his entire life for so long that I think he'd struggle to be anything but a Dragoon even if he has another purpose now. 🐲 The fact that he was basically raised by the former Azure Dragoon after being orphaned wouldn't have made it easier to introduce Estinien to another job either. 🐉 Part of me wanted to put Estinien's additional job as a Dark Knight ⚔ , but tbh he's more of a "attack is the best defense" kind of guy, and he's more driven by attacking the problem than defending those behind him. 🪓 He could potentially fit well as a Warrior, but then he'd probably be a "one-man army" kind of Warrior who forgets to turn on his stance. 😂 Anyway, in all likelyhood I think Estinien would aim for another DPS if he had to add another job, and amongst those I think Reaper might actually be the best fit. Purely physically he could do a good job as Pugilist as well, but I have a hard time imagining him go around unlocking chakra(s) and/or later upgrading to Monk. x)

G'Raha Tia: 🐱 Jack of All Trades, Master of None, is yet always better than Master of One. With that said I think we can all agree that adding Summoner to his list of already many jobs is too perfect to ignore. 😂 With Archer/Black Mage/Paladin/White Mage already under his belt we probably shouldn't add more to his big list after that though. 😂 xD

[paradoxcase]

@wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess:

'baby-soft skin hammocks'...from a necromancer..gives me the icks.

I mean, I don't think it's any more gross/weird than a lot of other stuff that has happened in the book so far. John already wears baby fingerbones in his hair for adornment

I find it fascinating that John says he could cure cancer....and yet we have Cytherea...

@turtletotem:

@wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess John could have cured Cytherea :) at any time :) instead of letting her suffer for 10,000 years :)))) no wonder she wanted him dead

Oh wow, I didn't make that connection, but yeah, he could have. But instead he really was just like, the only way for you to live is if you become a Lyctor and help me kill resurrection beasts while you suffer from cancer for 10,000 years. I can't imagine what he was thinking, but I also have no idea what he was thinking by just letting the other Lyctors think that the cavalier had to die to achieve Lyctorhood

@eye-lantern:

For the Jesus comparison the nurse gave: she isn't saying it was what made the Romans kill him. Jesus (in the texts) knew that he gave too much for his own good. And he knew the Romans would kill him and he knew Judas would betray him. But he did it anyway because he gave himself to others entirely, even if I meant it killed him. She is saying John needs take care of himself even if it meant refusing to help some people, or he would die wich doesn't help anyone.

Which makes an interesting parallel with the actual Jesus parallel that is Griddle, who died for someone on the iron fence instead of a wooden cross,for someone that would have preferred her to live even if it meant not receiving her help. Gideon spends the entire first book helping everyone, without asking for anything in return, and it litteraly kills her. Maybe twice if we consider avultion. John may have had the apostles but Gideon had the self-sacrificial drive

Oh, right, I guess the sort of canonical interpretation is that Jesus died in order to save everyone else, etc. That is an interesting parallel, I wonder, since presumably Gideon is getting brought back to life at some point, probably by John I would guess, if John is ever going to tell her this story and this particular piece of advice he received?

I don't know if Jod is dreaming with her. To me it could absolutely have happened and she is just dreaming of a memory. The narrator never says something out of place, except for calling him lord, and he only says Harrow. Everything else could be an actual event where names are "translated" to something that makes more sense to harrow, and the crossed-out names are not replaced because she has no idea what to replace it by

@racefortheironthrone:

My interpretation is that Harrow is semi-lucid dreaming Alecto's memories.

That's true, I guess, this could just all be Alecto's memory. But if John telling Alecto this story actually happened, I guess that means Alecto was not around to perceive it at all while it was happening?

@eye-lantern:

I do like that we can get a vague time frame and something more of John's religious background when says he went to Parachute when he was younger. So he's most likely a Millenial or Gen Xer (since it seems that festival was from the early 90s to 2014). Not sure that says anything deep about him, but I find it interesting.

Ahh, that part didn't mean anything to me, haha. That's interesting, though, I'd sort of expected this story to be happening further in the future than that, like the way he is describing people's thoughts about climate change don't really align with the way they are currently, I don't think, it feels like this is happening at a later date, and John isn't described as looking old in the story. Like, if John is Gen X, he'd be 40 at the absolute minimum right now, in 20 years from now he'd be 60+, and I had the impression that this had to be least like 20 years in the future

[misc-obeyme]

Hello again CC! I suppose I'm becoming a regular anon now. (In hindsight, not particularly shocking as I have found your posts and answers to asks delightful for awhile now. I was also vaguely suprised when I realized your blog isn't more popular because of that.)

I've been playing the latest event to get more devil points and demon vouchers and I had some thoughts about the events that have happened since I started playing. (I am a relatively new player of a few months.)

Some of the events seem to try to hard to appeal to fans of every character and in that, they lose focus and quality. My personal favorite events have been the ones focused on a smaller cast of characters with one character they more primarily focus on even if they aren't my favorite character(s), I think they tend to have better, or at least more enjoyable, writing and storylines.

Coincidentally, many of these events tend to be the shorter ones with the linear pop quiz rewards from my observations. Those are generally better than the two part box events... which are my beloathed. If only they ditched those... I hate getting stuck on box 1 for the entirety of an event because random chance is not in my favor.

That being said, I enjoyed this current event as Barbatos is a character I rather like, (although certainly less than a lot of others in the fandom). I'd love to have a friendly chat with him over a nice cup of tea and I cannot believe the event's objective is making him cry.

Anyways, I am going back my mission of obtaining more Satan cards as a free player. I hope my rambling was not too lengthy and you have a good day/night!

-🦇🪐

Hello there, 🦇🪐 anon!

Oh? What is the measurement for popularity? I feel like the blog has gotten a bit quiet in the last few months, since I've stopped writing fics. Unchained doesn't count because it was already finished for the most part and it was an OC story, so there wasn't a lot of interest in it. But I haven't written a fic featuring the canon characters for two and a half months. So perhaps that's why? I know my semi-hiatus had an impact, too. But! These are just interesting things to think about lol! I am always pleased to have anyone interacting with me, so I'm glad you've been enjoying the blog!

Yes indeed, the evolution of events is quite interesting. You see, back in the OG they didn't do the character focused events for a long time. So every event attempted to include every single character. In the very very beginning, I believe it was just limited to the seven bros because the side characters weren't dateable initially. But when they made them dateable, suddenly there were eleven dateable characters and Luke that they had to fit into every event.

People rightfully complained because it was like you'd get a single line from each character, making the stories extremely bland. There were a few I remember playing in OG that I only remember because of this lol.

So then they decided to do character spotlight events. The way they label them has always been iffy. Sometimes they say an event is featuring a specific character and sometimes they don't. The first one was in OG and featured Satan with Diavolo as a secondary character. Ever since then, most of the events have had this format. They choose one or two characters to be the main focus, then a few more characters to be background characters, then leave out the rest.

The need for this was mitigated somewhat by the birthday events in OG. Because we used to get entire events for each character's birthday that focused solely on that character. But then they added the three new characters (although still undateable), so when Nightbringer came about, they dispensed with the birthday events. It made a bunch of people upset because really it's not the same to have a spotlight event. We liked having events that were fully focused on each character. So they kinda brought them back with the current version of the bday events, which are separate from the ongoing events.

The Celestial Blessing events are often the ones that don't have a spotlight character. (Though sometimes they do.) This is because they used the CB events for outfits for Majolish and Ruri Tunes. Due to the amount of outfits there are (two for each character), they have to put some in cards and some in each set of Celestial Blessing boxes. And even then they usually put some in Akuzon too.

Anyway, the evolution of the event format has been really interesting to me. I feel like they've been trying to balance player preference with what's feasible and makes them money. It's a bit of both, you know? Personally I have no problem with the way it is now, but I haven't been playing every event through like I used to.

I did play this one though because hello Barbatos. Not only was I gonna get that card of his, I wanted to read the story. Not that we got to kiss him or anything. They never give us Barb kisses in events. But I still enjoyed it.

Personally I found it quite funny that the goal was to make him cry. Because this is Barbatos. They are all delusional if they think they can send MC to try to get Barb to cry without him realizing it. And as I predicted, he figured it out immediately. He even knew why they wanted him to cry.

I also didn't think that if they succeeded, it would be because they made him sad. I figured it was gonna be some kind of onion type situation. Not tears of anguish, you know?

But historically, they always give Barb weird event story themes. I don't think we've ever had a tea party with him. And I'll never forget the Fangol themed one. Like what even was that about huh?

Anyway, you need never worry about rambling because as you can see, I can out-ramble everybody lol. I wish you luck in obtaining your Satan cards!

[fandomsandfairytales]

So tonight I watched my first ever Rings of Power episode.

Some brief background on my thoughts on/experiences with TROP: I haven't actually watched any of it, though I have read occasional articles on it and I've been in online spaces that are pro-TROP and anti-TROP. I'm kinda....neutral-TROP, leaning a little more negative, but I'm interested enough to read up on what's going on in the current season.

I've kept going back and forth on wanting to watch the show at all, mainly because I don't feel like dedicating the time to it. But tonight I was like "I kinda wanna watch something while eating dinner. Maybe TROP?" I didn't really want to watch the very first episode in season 1, because I'd been semi-keeping up with season 2 stuff, so I decided, why not watch the newest episode that literally came out today? So that's what I did. Here's my thoughts on 2x07—non-spoiler-y above the cut, and spoiler-y below.

Non-spoiler-y things:

My reactions were mainly lots and lots of tearing up and yelling at my TV screen. Not even in a "I dislike this" way, but a "I get easily emotional about media sometimes" way, lol.

Celebrimbor and Annatar's interactions were fantastically done. I kept yelling at Annatar XD it definitely gave me ideas for & validated stuff I was already thinking about for "but for the look in his eyes". Mwahahaha.

I enjoyed getting to see Elrond—he feels very young and it was cool to see him before the time of LOTR, when he is not yet seen as the wise lord of Rivendell.

General feelings about the episode: I liked it and was annoyed by it in turns. I think it was the best first episode I could've watched, because I already knew a fair amount of what was happening and it wasn't hard to pick up on.

Spoiler-y things (these are all over the place and really not in chronological order, lol):

Celebrimbor cutting off his thumb to get out of the chains!!! For a moment I really thought he was going to pull a Maedhros (really, a Fingon) and cut off his whole wrist. But then he only put his thumb under the metal cutter thingy and I also noticed it was his left hand

The soldiers and Mirdania had major "sure Grandpa, let's get you back to the nursing home" vibes when interacting with him

I really enjoyed watching Annatar and Celebrimbor's interactions. I'm sure some people read their relationship as Silvergifting, and I don't, but I still enjoyed it. Annatar's condescension to Celebrimbor! Annatar telling the people that Celebrimbor had gone insane when in actuality Celebrimbor didn't know anything was happening bc Annatar was hiding it from him! Annatar pulling the victim-blaming move of "you made me do this to you" and Celebrimbor going "no. nope. you're the Great Deceiver"! Celebrimbor breaking down over his city in flames and realizing he's been betrayed!!! So so good. I had fun yelling at Annatar (things like "SHUSH," "HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT," "STOP IT" etc.)

Celebrimbor and Galadriel finding solace and understanding in each other getting manipulated by Sauron was sweet. Even though of course all of Galadriel's interactions with Halbrand in season 1 didn't happen in canon, I liked that it gave Galadriel and Celebrimbor something in common.

I hated/was genuinely upset at Annatar making those guys kill each other. Not on a basis of whether he could actually do that or not, but because there was a book I read with an evil villain who did mind control and that specific thing really reminded me of that.

The parallels to Helm's Deep, like with all the archers on the wall and the orcs breaching the wall and then the light coming over the hill, were kinda cheesy. I wanted to be more awe-inspired, but I just really....wasn't.

THE. KISS. I yelled at my TV for that. I was literally screaming "NO!!! THAT IS SO WRONG!!!!! THAT SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING NO NO NO NOOOOOOOO UGH THAT IS SO WRONG"

And I was pretty sure it was for a specific reason, so Elrond could give Galadriel something to escape, and it was, but STILL. HE COULD HAVE JUST HUGGED HER AND SLIPPED HER THE PIN. SERIOUSLY. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE, SHOW WRITERS

Celebrimbor said something along the lines of "I knew he would bring trouble" and I immediately started singing "I knew you were trouble when you walked in..." XD

And then when he said "I built this city," I sang, "We built this city on rock and roll"

It was cool getting to see the footage of Elrond fighting, because I remembered those clips from the trailer and being kinda excited over them

Durin's speech to the dwarves was pretty great. I enjoyed it

I also enjoyed his and Elrond's interactions!!! The way Durin called Elrond a flagpole made me laugh but also made me think of Celebrimbor's fate, being strung up on a pole like a banner

I liked the sort-of parallel to the Nirnaeth with the dwarves not coming (or not appearing to anyway) to help

All of The Silm name-drops and mentions!!!! I got excited over those. Melian as Elrond's ancestress (I squealed), Fëanor's hammer (loved that honestly), Morgoth, the Valar, Rúmil. Like, these names are being spoken on TV in the year of our Lord 2024 and yes this show is not canon-compliant but there's references to The Silm and I am eating them up

Galadriel looked younger than Elrond, which I thought could be a possibility because Morfydd Clark and Robert Aramayo appear roughly the same age, though it kinda irked me because she's his (future) mother-in-law. But somehow, when Galadriel was with Celebrimbor, even though he definitely looked older than her, she managed to convey a sense of wisdom and care that made sense as an aunt to his character.

I decided at the start of the episode that I'm not going to be upset about how old Celebrimbor looked compared to Elrond and Galadriel, because that ship has sailed, we are firmly in season 2, complaining about how anyone looks now is completely pointless. And also if I kind of...separate him from the younger cast, the comparison doesn't distract me. Charles Edwards is a good actor and he plays Celebrimbor well, so yeah.

Gil-Galad's voice was deeper than I expected. However, the good thing was that I didn't really have a picture in my head of him before TROP season 1 came out, so he kinda got established as "that's how he looked," and his voice was the only somewhat surprising thing about him to me.

I liked Gil-Galad and Elrond's armor.

I was rooting for Arondir.

Elrond: "You should not be here!" Me: "Yeah, why are you only showing up now? Lol"

Gil-Galad's following line about how a king should not stay back in a fight or whatever totally made me think of "A king is he who can hold his own" (Maedhros)

Adar's character still drives me crazy because who the heck is he??? this man (elf, orc, whatever) is not in canon unless he has a different name but UGH

The battles and CGI and stuff all felt....not fake exactly. But it felt very modern-day and somewhat cheap in the making, whereas the LOTR movies and even The Hobbit feel like there's so much more poured into it all. The design, the pacing/story beats, the depth. Even though there was a battle, and characters' lives were on the line, I didn't...feel a whole lot about that. (To be fair, I am jumping in after not seeing any of the rest of this show, and also I know Galadriel and Elrond are going to live. So there's that. But I've read reviews that have a similar perspective, so idk.)

I loved that Elrond got so upset about his horse being killed and fought harder bc of it. I thought there might actually be backstory about him and his horse that I'm not aware of, but even if it's just that he simply cares about animals and his horse was killed, I'm all for it.

The "put your backs into it, maggots!" or whatever the orc commander guys were yelling was VERY Lord of the Rings-movie esque. Also I kinda liked the parallel to the orcs expressing concerns to Saruman about the trees and stuff (with the orc guy questioning Adar about sacrificing orc lives to reach Sauron)

I don't remember who said this, but it was probably Adar: "Leave Sauron to me" made me remark "yeah, we've heard that before. From Saruman" (in The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies)

I didn't think about this until later, but the episode didn't have any advancements in the Harfoots or Numenoreans plotlines, and I'm perfectly fine with that

All in all: I'd say the episode was a 7/10. Maybe a 6.5/10 because of the kiss. As I mentioned at the start, I think it was the best first episode I could watch—yes, because I already had some context for most things, but also because there were pivotal points in this episode for plotlines that I liked. Annatar's corruption of Celebrimbor was realized, the war for Eregion fully under way, Elrond and Gil-Galad fought in the battle, Elrond and Durin talked, Celebrimbor and Galadriel talked. I got to see the characters and plotlines I was most interested in, and I genuinely enjoyed that. I might actually watch the next episode when it comes out, we'll see!

[zerm2v0hg]

Copying some Tale of a Cat Most Curious questions from Shadowlight27 and my replies over on FF.net, with Shadowlight27's permission; for posterity.

Spoilers for the fic below if you haven't read it already.

1. What would Jaune have Ascended into? Or how would his ascencion have gone since I feel his guilt of failing will play a part into his new form.

Honestly, I haven't given it much thought and want to leave that up to the readers' minds. I previously suggested semi-offhandedly to @omnipenne that it might be something like NellVeil's Ascension AU designs on DeviantArt.

2. What happens to a Dead human in Ever After? Do they reincarnate or just stay Dead?

They just stay dead, like Alyx, Blake, Yang and the civilians Cinder bombed off the bridge. Unlike Afterans, who will come back via ascension if they're physically killed by anything other than the Jabberwalker, Remnantians in the Ever After can only ascend via the Ever Tree's leaves.

3. if Ruby just left with Cat, would WBY+J come too a realisation?

I think that in a timeline where Jaune didn't have the spyglass spell to force CatRuby into a confrontation, or he didn't think to use the spell before CatRuby got to the door on their own: no, _WBY/J wouldn't have had a heel realisation at that late point. Since the Genial Gems scene where _WBY/J's epiphany became an Ignored Epiphany has already happened, plus I thought that the main reason why Weiss might have changed after she ascended in the fic is because Blake's death and how the fight against CatRuby was going might have caused Weiss to backtrack a bit on the "ignored" part. Blake and Yang meanwhile are much too delusional and narcissistic to ever admit that they were truly wrong.

I think in such a timeline, _WBY/J would have sooner or later been judged "worthy" by the Ever Tree's blue-and-orange morality standards to reach the door, then they would've gone through the door and gone back to Remnant - although Ruby at that point wouldn't be coming back with them, even if she hadn't been ascended by the Blacksmith in her intermediary dimension and even if the Cat did release her.

3.5. would probably be them searching for Ruby/Cat while also 'helping' the others in Vacuo likely

_WBY/J would probably find out about what's happened to Ruby when they themselves cross through the door into the Blacksmith's intermediary dimension, before they go back to Remnant.

Would The Blacksmith inform Jaune of what happened to Alyx?

(IN THE FIC'S CANON) I don't know. I'd say there's something like a 30% probability of her telling him. Since in RWBY canon, the Blacksmith showed Ruby the vision of the night Summer left with Raven, but she didn't show her what happened to them afterwards, even though the Blacksmith probably knows what happened afterwards if she has that degree of heightened awareness, plus she reserved telling Ruby the Ever After's and the Cat's backstories for when she was no longer a prospective candidate for ascension. I think it's more likely the Blacksmith would just give Jaune advice and cryptic suggestions to push him to choose between reincarnating or staying the same.

(IN THE QUESTION 3 TIMELINE ABOVE) If you meant, would the Blacksmith tell Jaune in this hypothetical alternate timeline where the final battle between _WBY/J and CatRuby didn't happen, then I'd say in line with the above that yes, she probably would.

[mischas]

i'm 35 and the oc has been my entire life as a teenager/young adult and i love this show so much. i was wondering when you became a fan and what does your life look like now? do you still rewatch it a lot? what are your least favorite plotlines in s1-s4? i love hearing your thoughts. take care :)

Hi! You're very sweet, thank you! So just as a heads up my answers here are going to veer into the negative because I'm in a super negative space with the show as of late and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I apologize in advance for the soapbox. (and I mean really really negative)

For starters, I never watch the final season. I barely even watch s3, and haven't seen a complete s3 episode in a while. Certain scenes, though, yes and on a loop. Though not lately. But the final season doesn't exist to me because I find it repulsive and a stain on the entire show before it, even the horrendous third season. I often wish I could be like Adam Brody and separate the show into 's1 vs the other bullshit'. Believe me, I'm trying. Though I'd say splitting the show in half is best since you get to end on the shooting. S1 is on another level entirely and it wasn't until CHD that I understood why (for the most part). And that's a really terrible realization the more I think about it.

I'm almost 30 and I started watching when I was about 16 in high school. My life now is... not very exciting, lol. I work too much. Sometimes I don't work enough. I struggle with mental health (as evidenced by how seriously I take this stuff). I got into this show maybe a year or two after it had been off the air and Tumblr (and FanForum) was a super fun place to be at that time (2009/2010ish). The remaining Marissa fandom in particular was just cozy and sweet. We saw ourselves in her, had head canons, made fan art, discussed what she'd be up to, etc. I obviously wasn't part of the OG Marissa/Mischa fandom so I was pretty unaware of the shit they dealt with. On Tumblr we just celebrated her and it meant a lot to me.

For years, I, like many, thought Mischa chose to leave on her own. I could semi-stomach 325 as an arc, while still refusing to watch the next season in rewatches. This is the 2010s when JS was yelling "Tragedy was in her DNA" etc. But ever since MB started talking more about her experiences in 2021, and the podcast talking around her and Marissa forever, not to mention their shitty responses to her claims of bullying by men in power, I have been on a downward trajectory with it. The book is giving us maybe 10% of what really happened on that set. Mischa has been carrying the secret of her first relationship on her shoulders for 20 years, one that went on for months when she was 17 years old, and they all well fucking know that. I am in genuine disbelief at how they treated her then and how they treat her now. This isn't a fictional character. This is a real fucking person they keep screwing over!

But that does bring me to my next point which is that this show was unbelievably influenced by irl dynamics and I think that is disgusting. It's not just stealing Death Cab away from Adam (though I have my own thoughts on all that). There's a reason Ryan never pines for Marissa in the same way she pines for him in s2. Why he pretends she doesn't exist when he isn't dating her (from s2 on). There's an extremely charged energy to the way he verbally abuses her in 209. Like... this happened to MB at just 18. And look at how they modeled Volchok after Cisco and how they made MB pretend to do coke on camera when they knew full well she had a sober coach on set. Like, I know enough to put me off the show forever, but I am unfortunately endlessly fascinated by it. I'm sorry that I can't take the show at face value anymore, because it did and does still mean a great deal to me. But they thought they were in the clear 20 years later to only partially air their dirty laundry without much pushback and MB had the guts to say "well hold on" and be a thousand times more graceful doing so than I ever would. And we still don't know even a fraction of everything else that went down to this very real teenage girl they used and abused. Not to mention how JS/SS abruptly fired her and didn't even have the balls to tell her to her face. Her father told Josh's ass to stay away from the 325 set and he DID. Christ alive, this man should never work again.

I don't feel great about going all guns blazing here but I'm very tired and I get very little joy from the show right now. And I'm sorry that this is definitely not the response you were probably hoping for. To be clear, I want to enjoy the show. It means more to me than any other, probably. It's why I've been on this website since I was a teenager. But many aspects of it have been ruined for me and idk if there's a way back. How they purport themselves to be a family show still to this day when they treated the girl that they pursued for the job (at 16!) like shit is egregious. I will never be over it.

Sigh

To answer your actual questions, my least favorite plotlines (from s1-s3) are:

Johnny

Jimmy leaving in 207

Dean Hess

DJ

Julie/Luke

Lindsay/Caleb/Ryan

Charlotte

Hospital/Newport Group

Seth/pot (on paper this sounds wonderful but in execution it is as lifeless as the second half of the entire show)

Oliver (for good measure, officially when they jump the shark; he drives me crazy but TH does such a good job playing him that I'm ok with it until all of its aftermath is unfairly put on Marissa)

[ringwraithmd]

had some convos tonight im a little buzzed but here are my takeaways. these might start some fires.

somehow they person I talked with is both Anakin apologist and Anakin critical. Idk how they have that exist at the same time, but I'd like to say this to him: the Jedi were victims, the Jedi were not evil, no Obi-Wan isn't evil, Obi-Wan didn't repress and abuse Anakin, no Qui-Gon Jinn was not the bestest Jedi who did things differently than any other Jedi and if only he lived he would've saved Anakin Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker did not fall because he was sleep deprived and had one bad day, he fell for a number of reasons, including that he made choices, which choice as a theme is something George Lucas very deliberately has chosen to emphasize repeatedly in Star Wars. Also, Jyn Erso is an actually interesting character and I think she does care about rebelling, the problem is the repressive totalitarian regime she lives in. It's understandable she'd be a little cynical and despondent after 20 years of Empire. TLJ is not the best sequel trilogy movie, Kylo Ren's a little bitch and should've died sooner. Dave Filoni can kiss my ass. "within the context of the prequels it's hard to see the jedi as the good guys --" no. absolutely not. get some reading comprehension you moron. that's the whole point. the whole point is the jedi were the victims of a plot designed to force them into a position where all they had were bad choices. Anakin chose to murder men, women, and children long before he ever became Darth Vader which is a fact so many people seem to gloss over. "they killed his mother -" and?? he didn't just kill her torturers, he killed children, too. your boy committed massacres and genocides in canon. im not talking about legends or any recent books in comics, but solely about the movies. I get still liking him as a character, but to say that Anakin has done nothing wrong is a take that I just can't understand.

folk music is different than country music. im sorry but it is. yes there are similarities. no I can't explain the differences. but country music is not necessarily folk music, or "stomp-clap" music as you called it. tell me you don't listen to country without telling me. arguably the best argument you could've made about the push back of country music pop-ification is the rise in popularity of artists like Zach Bryan, but you didn't, you started talking about fucking Mumford & Sons. my good dude. no. google them. they're literally described as a folk rock band.

edited 6/23 bc I realized I was drunker then i thought and this was semi-incoherent. hopefully that clarifies things.

[orlissa]

Tagged by the lovely @aloveforjaneausten :)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 103. (mind you, some of these are crossposted on ff.net, but many of my earlier fics were only ever published there, so I'd say that actual number of fics I've ever written is closer to 200.)

2. What's your total A03 words count? 742.871

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently? Pretty much only SaB (I usually only write for one fandom at a time). Over the course of my fic career? I've written for maybe about a dozen, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Avatar: the Last Airbender being maybe the most prominent ones.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Terrible, Beautiful, Unsaid Things (2258), Through Wide, Grey Eyes (1381), The First Star in the Black Velvet Night (1182), A Little Star in the Night (1103), and The Unabridged and Annotated Diary of Mrs. Alina Morozova (874).

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? On AO3, rarely - since the system counts your replies as a comment, inflating the numbers, it feels almost like cheating/messing with the stats, so basically I only ever reply if I get a direct question there. But I always respond here, my askbox is open, and I'm semi-present on twitter and blue sky.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Not gonna give actual titles here (I'd have to look them up), but I have used writing as a therapy tool to process losing people close to me. A family friend (almost like an uncle to me) who died suddenly in 2008, and my grandma, after a couple of months long illness, in 2015. Those two stories are, to me, at least, the angstiest things I've ever written.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Depends whom you ask, I think? :D But my fics usually have a happy ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not really. I've recieved hate personally for the couples I ship, and some... puzzling comments over the years. (One I remember clearly for some reason: I wrote a two-parter story about (mostly) Azula post-atla, playing with her fractured mind, going into a tentative improvement. There was an early scene where she basically hallucinated her childhood and saw Zuko as the younger sibling - her unconscious desire to shift the power relations. Then of course I had a reader who felt the need to school me on how I don't know the canon well enough, because Zuko is the older sibling.)

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? I do, the very vanilla kind (one guy, one chick, nothing too kinky), but in a sensual, kinda poetic way (I hope)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Once (I mean: back in high school) I started writing a Harry Potter/Wicked crossover. Thankfully, it never saw the light of day (it was also written in Hungarian, if I remember well). I think that might have been the only crossover I've ever written.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I've gotten some permission requests for translations over the years, but I've never seen any of the finished products.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before? Kinda? I once wrote a one-shot with a steamy-leaning ending, and @abedsmessedupmeta wrote a smutty continuation for it. Does that count?

14. What's your all-time favourite ship? Depends when you ask...

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? BWHAHAHA. All of them (no, I'll finish them, really). Next question, please...

16. What are your writing strengths? I'd like to say emotional descriptions, dialogue, and humor. And apparently smut?

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Writing complex movement (e.g. fight scenes), longer narratives

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? It's a tricky thing, because you have to integrate it into the text seamlessly, in a way that doesn't break the rhythm of the text. A Discovery of Witches does a pretty good job of it, I think. Also, bilingual (poliglot) characters habitually using certain words from their native language, especially if they are well-integrated in fandom (see: Russian terms of endearment for Aleksander) can be a handy stylistic tool.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Harry Potter. I was 12, didn't speak English well enough yet, and it was basically the only fandom with proper fanfic presence in Hungarian. A real gateway drug.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? I wanna say Terrible, Beautiful, Unsaid Things, because while I honestly think that it turned out really well, it was my big comeback after about 1,5 years of inactivity, and I never dared to hope that it would become such a hit.

Tagging @stargazerdaisy @polikszena @menatiera @cpt-winniethepooh

[racingliners]

20 Questions for Fic Writers - Was totally, definitely tagged by @monacotrophywife

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

23, some of them are long abandoned wips but I very much struggle with deleting things.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

533,586. I just have a lot to say.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

F1 and Star Trek

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

the og rpf version of Life In The Fast Lane, The Rules of Strategy, Sister, This Must Be a Mistake (a prompt which I brushed up and posted on ao3 for prosperity) and I'll Be Okay, Someday (a very self-indulgent Charles leaves Ferrari fic with some sebchal if you really squint)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always try to respond to comments as best I can, mainly just to show appreciation for getting a comment in the first place (I don't get comments on my works that much so I get stupidly delighted with every one) and also because I just absolutely love chatting about my works and my thought processes or events that happened in a fic/chapter.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

As someone who has autistic over-empathy and is very conflict averse I really struggle to write angst so if I ever do some it's always resolved asap.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is hard bc for the reasons listed above I love happy endings. My initial thought was Night Life which is more of a hopeful ending than happy. I also loved writing the end scene for I Don't Feel So Good (another prompt request I initially posted here)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I am not a religious woman but I thank God every day that I don't because I'm pretty sure it would make me stop writing

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

The thought of writing smut has always terrified me bc that shit is hard (pun semi-intended). I also have not had any irl smutty experiences so I wouldn't really know what I'd be writing about. So I'll always do the whole "fade to black with heavying implications that they got laid" shtick. Smut writers of the world are braver than any US Marine and they all have my respect 🫡

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes! I wouldn't describe my two crossover fics as crazy, but I absolutely adore them both (and hilariously they're my two top kudosed Trek fics!)

There's Sister which is my take on Kelvin Timeline Michael Burnham and Spock, and One Admiral and His Beagle which is a canon filler here's how Kirk met Porthos fic.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Thankfully, not to my knowledge

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No but I would be so honoured if anyone wanted any of my works translated!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, an opportunity has never arose but I'd be so down for it.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Trip and T'Pol from Star Trek Enterprise, teenage Seanagh imprinted on them like a baby chick when I watched ENT for the first time and I still got feral for them to this day.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

No word of a lie I'm terrified that I won't finish my re-write of Life In The Fast Lane bc I started it in late-2022 and I'm still on the 2023 season but I am stubborn and determined to see it through to the end so I can start the Change In Colour re-write

16. What are your writing strengths?

Definitely world building, I think it's because I'm so detailed orientated that my brain instantly goes to the little things and honestly I find it so much fun even if it takes forever.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue, specifically making sure each character has their own voice. The "he would not fucking say that" post lives in a corner of my brain at all times and fills me with The Dread every time I write a dialog heavy scene and I hate it 😭

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

For me personally I'll only do short sentences because autism brain demands that I must be accurate and I can only speak and understand a tiny bit of French

19. First fandom you wrote for?

F1 actually! I posted the first version of LITFL way back in 2014.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

It's a tie between Sister, The Rules of Strategy and the second version of LITFL, I'm having such a ball writing the latter two even though each chapter takes way longer than I'd like, they're very much my babies and I love them equally.

tagging my writing besties @hungriestheidi, @kaossbells and anyone who would like to do it because I love hearing about how other writers do/view things.

[derseprinceoftbd]

Rewriting the Alpha Megido.

https://www.tumblr.com/derseprinceoftbd/747652362263527424/the-alpha-troll-rewrite-project?source=share

Damara is...

Look. I like her name, a lot. It's a great name, probably in the top 10 Troll names, unique, sensible, easy to say, non-obvious. I also like her outfits and hair and just physical design in general, girl has style. But Damara just does not work as a character that can seriously carry weight in a narrative with a happy ending, because of the two most notable things about her; she is defined by semi-justified hatred towards most everyone, and she *doesn’t speak English*.

Obviously this would be fixed if she just spoke English, that's a big easy fix, instantly makes her outfits less uncomfortable for sure. But that still leaves her character defined by an unpleasant cycle of revenge and love, like many of the Alpha Trolls, and I just don't think that's pleasant at all. Certainly I would turn down the group romantic drama from a 10 to a 7.

But now, we're left reconstructing a new character, basically, from the Handmaid and Aradia, and honestly, there is potential there. Aradia's interest in archeology and status as basically a willing pawn were both Aspects that could be expanded upon and reflected, maybe give her whipkind since we only ever saw that *once*. (A friend of mine had the idea of giving the Handmaid Battleaxekind, to match her Sign, which I liked, so maybe one of those.)

I think I would make her and Captor, once more, the ones to find, make, and encourage everyone to play SGRUB, keeping her a pawn of Scratch like the Handmaid, possibly even just her and make her a coder. I would lean into the Indiana Jones idea, maybe give her a sort of vest-fedora alternate gettup, make her want to start the game so she can have a grand adventure; this ties in to another of my ideas, making her terminally ill, as a reflection of Aradia's ghostlyness and a manifestation of Time. (I would 100% make the Troll Caste lifespan differentials artificial, so this could not just be her reckoning with a shortened lifespan.)

No ideas for her Typing Quirk or Chumhandle, but I do have one for her Class: since my idea for her is "outwardly sweet and energetic, harboring darker implulse/secrets", I think Witch can stay.

For her Ancestral Aradia, I had the idea that the Karkat set all touched down at once a few centuries back, and each went on to create a great reform in Troll society; Aradia would have been the Explorer, a great cataloger of history, particularly ancient ruins, and one of the most directly influential Ancestors on their Descendant, similar to Mindfang or Dualscar.

So, yeah. Those are my ideas, cobbled together from her Canon self, Ancestor, and Beta counterpart, for a Medigo: Damara Megido, Witch of Time. But I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions (especially because I don't have this much to say for any of the others) on how you'd make the Alpha Megido.

[latealzalost]

Have you ever tried thinking about what a "canon"-esque team for Wes and Michael would be? I mean that, what feels like a team an official adaptation of these games would go for. In my opinion for instance, I think Michael would use the Zangoose snagged from Zook since its semi-plot relevant, as well as Eldes' Shadow Salamence for the one battle left after it. You could either make him pick an eeveelution (I'd suggest flareon or jolteon aesthetically) or going with the beta starters of Vaporeon and Jolteon. Wes' would entirely depend on if you think using the legendary beasts is fair game lmao

Ah nah. I know some people try to make a "canon" team for trainers. But "canon" and stories in Pokémon games don't really mix. All versions of a game are true and they happened in their own universes. Every possible way a game was played is real and has already been done before you've even thought about it.

I believe in the definite fact that Michael snagged and purified every shadow pokemon. I also believe that Michael traded his Togepi back to Hordel for his Elekid named Zaprong, but I know some may opt not to do that. So whether or not he actually gave Togepi back it really doesn't matter cause he has and hasn't at the same time.

Now, there is an exception to that rule for my personal bias. It's canon that Michael is a good kid with a big heart and loves his Pokemon and family very much. So that scenario where he releases his Eevee to see the eeveelution captain's other dialogue is completely unlike Michael. And I don't believe he would release any of his Pokemon ever. I refuse to believe that anything that would be uncharacterstic of Michael are canon and part of the multiverse in any way.

Hypothetically speaking, referring to the story of Pokemon Masters EX, if Hoopa were to drag a Pokemon Character out of the infinite universal contexts represented by how their game could be played, Hoopa would never drag Michael from the universe where he releases his Eevee, but he could take him from the universe where he kept the Togepi and not give it back to Hordel, since I remember Hordel being a somewhat okay with Michael keeping Togepi. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

I believe that every possible universe is canon, but there are limits because the constant is Michael is a good boi. The variable is how the player plays the game. The multiverse of a game can be determined by the infinite possibilities of play, but only the reasonable universes that don't betray Michael's character should be canon.

And same goes for Wes, obviously. Anyone who releases Espeon, Umbreon, or Plusle outright assassinates Wes's character.

And you know, by extension, I'd say that also goes for the main-series games too. If Pokemas Hoopa ever dragged a protag from their universe, it would have to be a universe where they kept their starter all the way to the end of their story, or at least up until the point they were warped to Pasio.

In certain media I've seen Michael officially matched with Flareon and Jolteon in two different universes. I've never played through the game with Flareon nor Vaporeon so my bias tells me it would be Jolteon (at least it matches Michal's jacket aesthetically, I agree Flareon suits him too.)

Beyond that it's a toss up between all of the Shadow Pokemon and a few Pokespot Pokemon. At the end game he might opt to have tanky Shadow Pokemon like Snorlax. He might have an Aggron from evolving an Aron from the Cave Pokespot. He could have a Walrein from one of the Hexagon Bros's Shadow Spheal. He could have kept Teddiursa and evolved it into Ursuring. It's so hard to make a canon team without that bias you know?

As for Wes, as you know, he'd probably keep one of the Johto starters from either Bluno/Verde/Rosso and his two starter eeveelutions. Depending on which Johto starter, he'd keep Entei/Suicune/Raikou respectively. Hitmontop is a favorite. And last one, a Flygon, another favorite.

Scrolling back up to read your question, I see for an "official adaptation" I agree that Zangoose could be plot relevant. Though the one time you get to snag Zangoose is the last time you see Zook. Unless some liberties were taken with the game's story I can't see Zangoose becoming a main-stay for some rivalry with Zook. Miror B. is a better rival than Zook, and Lovrina along with other Cipher admins (excluding Ardos) have a character arc of starting out as enemies and accepting him as a friend by the end of the post-game so Shadow Pokemon belonging to them might be something to toy with for a rival thing. Zook is just a meat head masculine macho mohawk dukey-nukey wannabe who's more of a joke jerk character for how nothing goes his way after bumping into Jovi at Gateon Port. They'd have to do a bit more like how they developed Team Rocket (Jesse, James, Meowth) for the anime and how they're pretty much loved by everyone despite being the bad guys.

What I wouldn't give for an official anime adaptation, but alas all we have are obscure game walkthrough manga that few have seen and have (but I believe more should see and have)