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derekscorner · 7 months ago

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Fated Rantings: The Grandest of Orders Part 2

The Babylonia Front

For the first part I incoherently rambled about FGO and some Chaldean cast. There was no rhyme nor reason to it, I was trying to get my brain churning but more importantly they were things that I've wanted to say for a while.

I began this Fate journey with lore videos and FGO and for the near two years since I've slowly crawled through it as I watched other Fate series. I finished the initial Solomon arc about a month before I did the anime.

In other words I had lot to get out of my system and I didn't even touch on everything. FGO, the mobile game, is novel length in each singularity. There is too much to remember or squeeze into a blog post.

So I just got out of my system what still stands out to me...which was mostly Mash praise but enough of that! Let's talk about the actual anime~

The Age of Gods babyyyyy

I was actually very curious to watch this even though FGO's anime only covers singularities six, seven, and the finale against Goetia. Even then singularity six and Goetia are made into movies.

FGO's only real anime is the adaption of singularity seven the Babylonia Front. My curiosity for this story was only made stronger thanks to the mobile game itself.

It had unexpected highs and spectacle to it. Everything from seeing how Rin's personality can distort Ishtar into a jewel obsessed girl failure to seeing Gilgamesh while he was a live.

A demigod in the flesh, a Gilgamesh that was focused on being a king. Hell, we even got to see Merlin!

Merlin is usually locked in his tower but thanks to time paradox tom foolery he makes an appearance.

This era of Fate's world fascinates me because the gods still exist. Sadly, it's toward the end of their reign but the physical and metaphysical still interconnect.

This the era that the mages of the modern Fate world desperately cling to with their ways of secrecy and lineage. They can only hope to reach the root and obtain true magic, they can only hope to have magecraft as potent as Medea.

It is a truly fantastical setting and the kind I adore. It is probably the closest we'll ever get to seeing a truly magical place within Type-Moon.

The actual expanse that the age of gods covers is also quite long. The only thing I know of older than this age would be dragons. The pinnacle of evolution and mystery and beings that radiate magic just by breathing.

Type-Moons history is actually full of some crazy stuff. Dragons older than the gods who themselves had been shaping life since dinosaurs walked.

Machines from a dead universe whom the Atlanteans worshipped as gods and who eventually became the Olympian gods of Greece.

A white titan that slew gods left and right, the very being that set the age of gods towards its downfall. The same titan that killed Ares, took his sword, and uses it to this very day if summoned as a servant.

Things get wild and inconsistent with history. Either due to mage society hiding events or due to events seemingly having no evidence due to the age of gods ending which separates mankind from the reverse side of the world.

The metaphysical space where things like the Underworld, Heaven, or other such mythical places actually exist.

What about the Age of Man?

I gush over this because it not only shows the rich history in this world but it also really highlights how important Uruk is to the Age of Man and the planet's future.

Gilgamesh is a smug bastard but that confidence is not without merit. Even Romani, a man of the current day, is amazed by Gilgamesh's city planning and the sheer smooth machine that day to day life is in Uruk.

The anime, more so than the game imo, really highlights how important Uruk is to the future. Humans have existed for a long time, probably longer than science claims in the Fate world. However, mankind's age didn't begin till here.

Modern society traces it's origin to Uruk as Gilgamesh ran it in his final chapter of the Epic of Gilgamesh. When he became a wise king he founded a society so fundamental to human life that the entire human race ran with it.

They made alterations, societies fell, they improved upon it, they keep changing based on the environment. Nothing made by man is perfect, even Uruk, but it's fundamental.

It's the last singularity but it's the only one that Solomon himself tampered with because he knows the age of man starts here.

The anime will make you feel that through Mash, Ana, and Fujimaru. The mobile game had you do missions with the same purpose in mind but that doesn't do as well as seeing it in motion I think.

Watching Ana say she hates humans only to become attached to an old woman running a flower shop, seeing Leonidas train soldiers, Ushiwakamaru and Benki coming home after a long day battling beats, everyone gathering at Chaldea's own embassy like it's a home, Gilgamesh stopping to learn a new game being played children, etc.

It is a lot of small things that add up. You gain a true grasp of how people lived in this city. You could make a whole spin off of Uruk and it's day to day events and I would watch it.

I want to drive home how much I enjoyed those little scenes. It not only fulfilled my world building itch but these moments of humanity at it's purest made the various dialogues between inhuman characters more interesting.

Ana & Merlin

The most standout to me is the scene of Ana and Merlin discussing what it means to be an inhuman surrounded by humans. Merlin actually has a few good scenes of this topic but this one is the best for giving you insight into the minds of them.

Sure, you also have servants but many of them were human once. Ana, Merlin, and even Gilgamesh were not and so their views on humanity is by far more intriguing.

For Merlin, emotions are a lie. He feeds on human dreams to have and comprehend emotions. He openly admits he likes humanity as a whole but not individuals.

Ana, beings the goddess who becomes Medusa, has hatred for man and god but she also can't help but love them. She's even fearful of that love in a sense.

You have to keep in mind that Medusa is a very old myth. The one you know of about Poseidon raping her and Athena cursing her is actually the most recent one despite being a couple thousand years old. Both in Fate and our world her myth goes back further than this with no clear point of origin.

Ancient Greece did not have a solidified religion. The city states had a shared origin and a shared pantheon but the stories about said pantheon could vary based on the city and the age of that myth. Assuming it was even put to written record in the first place.

Ana in Fate is a nod to this. She was originally some long lost earth goddess before becoming what she was. Her hatred of the gods is solely the fault of Olympus but her hatred for man is from perceived abandonment.

Between Heaven's Feel and FGO I've come to have a soft spot for Medus as a whole. Conflicting feelings aside, she didn't deserve it and knowing that her curse caused her to eat her sisters and become a monster is just tragic.

I'd love for them to do a game or show with Medusa as your main servant one day.

Abandoned Gods

The contradictory nature mentioned above in regards to Ana is shared with all the gods we meet in the anime as well. Even the beasts of humanity have this conflicted feeling albeit the things they're conflicted on differ.

Tiamat in particular having the worst case of it by far. She's become a beast of humanity but she's original a primordial goddess. A dragon from which the primordial sea sprang.

She's trying to destroy humanity to keep it, she doesn't want her "children" (aka all life) to abandon her again. Knowing that and her true fate within this universe makes it arguably more tragic than the mythology of her murder via Marduk.

And to give you context of that I need to elaborate a bit on the planet.

The planet itself is a sentient being and in a rough sense humanity is it's progeny. The end goal of human evolution, as seen by Gilgamesh via his clairvoyance, is leaving the planet for the stars.

This growing separation from nature and man is the reason that the Counterforce even exists. As humans grow they become more at odds with the planet thus the Earth has two predominant forces.

"Gaia" who is the planet's will and "Alaya" the collective will of man. However, there was only originally "Gaia" and as the planet took shape so too did beings to shape it.

The oldest I know of is Ea. Yes THE Ea from Mesopotamian mythology. Ea shaped the world only for Tiamat and her husband to come after and seed life into the world he shaped.

So yes, when Gilgamesh boasts that his sword split the heaven's and earth he's being literal. Gil's sword of rupture is quite literally Ea's "sword" he used in those early days of creation.

What makes this a tragedy is that Tiamat, Ea, and Abzu predate death. They cannot kill Tiamat in the anime because she does not know the concept of death. She is truly immortal.

When Tiamat and Abzu's job was done they were chucked back into the void. Tiamat has been in Imaginary Number Space this entire time. No, I'm not explaining Imaginary Number Space. It's a concept bordering on zero. (complicated)

In this sense, once Tiamat was dethroned by Marduk she was just left to her own devices in the void all alone and I find that incredibly fucked up.

That gives her no right to just wipe out all life but that level of used and abused is wrong.

I legitimately felt bad for Tiamat here because I knew this expanded backstory. She wants to cling to humans in an unhealthy way since she's now a beast but at her core that is because her love as a mother is boundless. A facet of her that is true in IRL myths as well, in our myths she killed her husband for her children's sake.

I also found the anime did the final exchange with Tiamat much better because it boils down to a normal man and the mother of life. She asks him what she did wrong but he can't answer that.

Fujimaru can't answer that for her, all he can do is thank her for bringing life to the planet and say goodbye. It's so sad....

The planet wasn't even kind to her here. I mentioned Gaia and Alaya earlier, well the Throne of Heroes is originally something they use. Alaya is also known as "the Counterforce".

Summoning heroes as servants is a human ritual but the basis for it is what Alaya does when the mankind or the planet is in danger. One of those core dangers are the beasts of humanity.

The whole reason Hassan appeared is because the conditions for that were right. Hassan was sent to that era as a Grand Assassin to instill the concept of death into Tiamat. The planet itself was making sure that she truly died here.

Other Goddesses

Now I gush about Tiamat due to some bias but truthfully this abandonment issue is felt by several other gods as well. Quetzalcoatl does not seem to peeved yet she also pushes for people to do their best. "If you want to survive show it to me" in a sense.

Ishtar and Ereshkigal are heavily influenced by Rin Tohsaka's personality so it's hard for me to say how much of what they say is their true feelings. Given how Ishtar is said to behave in Fate/Strange Fake I'd wager her true feelings aren't represented.

Ereshkigal however I think is. She states that she thinks it's okay for people to blame what they don't know on the gods but she only says this because she knows that the age of gods is ending.

Soon man will seek answers for their issues and not gods for comfort or scapegoats. She'll be abandoned and she's yet to even truly enjoy their presence.

I'll admit, I felt a bit of pity and attachment for Ereshkigal as well. She just wants out of the cosmic basement and it's so sad that she can't. She did not choose to be there and as a goddess of death humans have nothing but fear of her.

She cages souls for centuries for a semblance of companionship.

Out of all the silly things the game did to make servants faun over Fujimaru it was only Ereshkigal's scenes that I believed due to this. She, very badly, pretends to be Ishtar to have talks with Fujimaru.

They're cute in the anime but I liked the games version of these moments more since the conversations were more frequent and longer. I could easily believe that she's grown attached to him.

Hell, I even found it funny when Ishtar was asking Mash things about the MC due to how obvious Ereshkigal is about her feelings.

And while many a Fate fan will gush over that due to some...questionable self insert delusions I found it cute for her but endearing. She's never had a human not cower in fear of her let alone one talk to her normally.

She so desperately wants a friend that I hope she escaped her cosmic basement once Kur disappeared to the reverse side of the world.

She so desperately wanted love that I fully feel that her feelings as a goddess against humans made sense. If the gods era truly ends she may be forever alone.

Let's rapid fire shall we?

This too has gotten quite long but I don't have it in me to make a part three so I'll gush about smaller things I enjoyed.

Such as Ishtar. I thought I'd have a bigger segment on her but she's basically just Rin that flies. My biggest impression was;

"The fact that Ishtar can be bought off with jewelry is by far the funniest thing Rin did to her personality."

And that still stands. I loved her character to be blunt, she was entertaining and she had some amazing scenes. The animation of her shooting Venus as a noble phantasm is gorgeous.

I also love how both Ishtar and Ereshkigal suffer from Rin's "girl failure" moments. But, again, that's due to Rin. Rin's mentality is...well it is what it is but what it is is such a perfect match for Ishtar they meld in a good way.

You could say the same about Ereshkigal, I know, but Ishtar isn't trapped in a cosmic dungeon for eternity. That backstory gave Ereshkigal ever the slightest bit more uniqueness to her character.

Also, fun fact, this Ishtar couldn't find her bull of heaven because the real Ishtar summoned it. So in a weird way Fate/Strange Fake had an affect on the FGO timeline.

Quetzalcoatl my throttle

She was an amusing character. I found nothing too stand out but nothing offensive. She did however have some of the best fight chorography in the anime and her noble phantasm was hands down the best one.

She drops kicks with the force of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Just put that into perspective, she is kicking with the force of a meteor. A meteor that wiped out most of the life on earth.

And before anyone asks, Quetzalcoatl is a woman because the Mesoamerican gods in Fate's lore were parasites that took on hosts. They were deified over time and this female form is simply Quetzalcoatl's latest host.

No, I will not comment on the voice. The poor accent is a part of the charm and I will die on that hill!

Hassan the Goat!

Between the sixth and seventh singularities in both game and anime form I have come to respect the beast that is Hassan I. This man is to be feared.

He made a primordial goddess aware of death. He even beheaded Ozymandias before he was even aware Hassan was in the room.

I also like that we got to see a grand servant being summoned in the intended way.

Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and Kingu

I won't make too long a segment on Gilgamesh since I'd really like to do a post on him one day. I haven't yet simply because I haven't seen his depiction in the Extra timeline and I'd love to see Strange Fake.

He's a complex character and the later entries seem to lessen the bastard you'll see in Fate/Stay Night to a degree.

But I will say that I enjoyed seeing him alive and as the wise king of Uruk. I was also impressed by the sheer magical power he had to summon several servants in a means closer to how they're meant to be summoned.

None of the man-made ritual used by a grail war or Chaldea.

The dynamic between Gil and Kingu was interesting though. Fuel for that eventual Gilgamesh post in the future.

Technically, Enkidu doesn't appear in this story however that bond he has with Gilgamesh is so profound that it affects Kingu and it's interesting to see how Gilgamesh treats Kingu due to it.

It is also through Kingu that we see how the citizens of Uruk felt about Enkidu. It really paints this beautiful relationship that's hidden just off screen. Still, Kingu was never truly his own being at the end.

That also goes to show just how powerful Enkidu's own persona was. Enkidu may have seen themselves as just a weapon and disputed it when told otherwise by others but that fact alone proves it to be true.

Enkidu was far more than a tool otherwise their influence wouldn't have been so great. Sadly, Kingu could only be more than a tool when fighting against Tiamat.

Siduri deserved better

That dynamic also made me curious about Siduri. When I was playing Samurai Remnant Gil says her name once and between the game and this anime I got a real glimpse of a person truly close to Gilgamesh.

He may deny that and Merlin isn't wrong when he says Gilgamesh only sees value in what humans make but there are exceptions to every rule.

He didn't necessarily value her as highly as Enkidu but I do believe that on some level Gilgamesh valued her as a person.

Her fate as a lahamu was just heartbreaking. I didn't even realize it when playing the game....

Conclusions and other things

All in all I really enjoyed the anime and the games story. Probably far more than I could squeeze into either of the two posts I made. I'm sure I'll be kicking myself for forgetting to add something later.

(like the passive aggressive banter between merlin and romani)

Get mad that I didn't elaborate on something as much as I had intended.

(such as Ushi and Benki)

Still, I'll stop here. I can't write anything else, my brains fried.

I loved this story and I'm sad so much of the anime will lose impact when the mobile game eventually shuts down. Bye for now~

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For my other experiences with Fate go here: https://derekscorner.tumblr.com/tagged/fated-rantings

#fgo #fated rantings #fate grand order #fate babylonia

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lunastarhawk · 5 months ago

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Behold my stuff and things

Rhaella made me do it.

Updated 20/12/24

I write and I fixate on things. That's it that's the blog.

Currently bouncing wildly like a pinball back and forth between The Arcana and Dragon Age.

This started off as an Arcana blog, to share my fanfiction and scroll through fanart of my favourite fictional people, but has since grown into a place for me to collect stuff I like. An interweb scrapbook, if you will. A little castle in a sandbox where I vibe with my favourite things. I'm old, tired and socially inept, but you can sit with me if you like :) She/her, if it matters.

Inbox is open for anything you may want to ask about my writing, my OCs, me, or just to say hi, but anons are off.

I ask minors to please be cautious, this is not a SFW blog. Like, at all. If in doubt please don't follow me. Stay safe out there.

I exist on AO3 as LunaStarhawk and on reddit as u/lunastarhawk.

Tags, links and whatnot...

Writings:

(please assume all my writing is Explicitly NSFW unless stated otherwise)

The Arcana Fanfic - is what it says on the tin. Encompasses all my works, including reader insert and Julian x MC.

Tides of Memories - specific to my ongoing longlonglongfic.

Tides Moodboard - references, inspo and general vibes relating to ToM.

Julian x Altheia - all things specific to Julian and my oc.

I'm screaming but I'm having fun <- that's a writing tag. It do be like that sometimes.

OC Tags

The Arcana - Altheia Featherstone

I have a separate blog for my Julian-romancing Arcana OC, Altheia, which is a themed blog based on stuff she likes, outside of the Arcana. She, er. She likes boats. And the sea. But I post Arcana-related bits here under her tags Altheia Featherstone, Altheia aesthetic and Altheia moodboard.

Her own blog in her own right is at @altheia-featherstone (Rhaella made me do it)

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Favian Trevelyan

I don't write DA fics (yet?) (oops I guess I do now) but I am obsessed with do have a handsome Dorian-romancing Inquisitor, Favian. I do nothing but stick screenshots of him and my Inquisition playthrough to my scrapbook here on tumblr dot com. Peak self-indulgence. His tags are Inquisitor Favian, and Dragon Age Shenanigans.

A separate blog exists for him but I haven't decided yet how I'll use it @inquisitor-favian (Rhaella made me do it)

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Flint de Riva - My most beloved and canon Rook. Elf, warrior, Crow, eternally cheerful sarcastic little shit. He's the golden retriever to Lucanis' black cat.

Kal Mercar - Shadow Dragon, rogue, Neve's bit of rough.

Rhaella - belongs to @rhaella-rhavelli but I love her and will squirrel her away into my pocket any chance I get.

AO3 Links (LunaStarhawk)

The Arcana

Julian x Altheia (Female OC)

Tides of Memories - current WiP. A continuation of Julian's route's upright ending and my prologue story, with my OC, Altheia.

Between the Deep Blue Sea and the Devil - Self-indulgent rewrites of a selection of scenes from Julian's route, specific to him and Altheia, as referenced in ToM. Ongoing as and when the mood takes me.

Past the Midnight Sun - Self-indulgent smut and fluff between Julian and Altheia. I love them, you see. Ongoing as and when the mood takes me.

Gender Neutral Reader Insert

The Memories We Lost - A sort of prologue to the Arcana, this is my take on Julian and MC's time during the Red Plague. Complete.

'He Was Mine' - Reimagined Reminiscences - My first fic series, a collection of mostly smutty rewrites of some of Julian's route scenes. Complete.

Domestic Daydreams - Julian and spouse do Mundane Things. Very unlikely I will add to this.

Female Reader Insert

Post-Route Shenanigans - smut with Julian and his girlfriend.

Violet - that one time I wrote Asra smut.

Male Reader Insert

Post-Route Henanigans - like shenanigans but with a He. I think I'm funny. Smut with Julian and his boyfriend.

Dragon Age: Veilguard

Dorian x Favian (Inquisitor)

Promise - Dorian and Favian have a heart to heart before the final battle.

Simpler Times - Dorian and Favian sip wine and watch the sunset in their own little corner of the Fade.

Fixations

Other fandom things I reblog a lot for my scrapbook, putting this here mainly as an index for myself:

FF7 - Sephiroth and Vincent Valentine mostly.

Loki - series, MCU, comic and Lady Loki.

The Arcana - Julian Devorak, Julian x Altheia. I avoid anything Asrian like the Red Plague.

Dragon Age - Dorian Pavus, Emmrich Volkarin, Lucanis Dellamorte, Alistair, da:o, da:i, da:v

Music - Julian and Altheia's greatest hits, music for my blorbos is soothing my soul, Friday night jams, tune Tuesday.

#beloved :)

I think that's everything, enjoy your stay :)

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fairydares · 1 year ago

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figure this blog could use a pinned post now

[There's a chance I follow you if you follow me, but it'd be under my main username: @underestimated-heroine]

pfp is some of Mashima's official art of Lucy Heartfilia.

***How to find any post on Tumblr via tags (requires desktop, handy to have in the Fairy Tail fandom imo)***

***Incomplete, informal FT fanfic rec list, and here's another***

***If you make Fairy Tail fan art, here's a reminder that you can tag ft-reboost to get your art more reblogs (they want you to!)***

-i block art reposters and anyone who reblogs them too often to be a mistake. period.

-on why we don't link our kofis etc. specifically on AO3 (idgaf if you make money off fanfic. in fact, have at it...just don't link ur Kofi or PayPal or anything on AO3 because it endangers the archive.)

-This blog is firmly anti-censorship and anti-harassment. This includes being against anyone who throws around words like "romanticize" and "normalize" or "don't like don't read EXCEPT [ship type/sex-related thing you've decided doesn't count as fiction]." I am also defending stuff I personally wouldn't read with this statement. (My own words & more on this, non-graphic cw/tw for basically all the depraved content this discussion entails.)

*tbc I don't like to make DNI's Like This, but due to some personal life experiences, a harassment campaign I went through once upon a time over a (not even sexual) fic I wrote, and some troubling trends and language I now see in this fandom, I feel the need to be clear and also show some solidarity with darkfic writers and enjoyers.

MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY OF THIS THOUGH.

My Writing

*have never opened up my inbox for fic recs. might someday, if anyone's even really interested, but not right now*

-(Mis)Communication: Gajevy week prompt I wrote f o r e v e r ago, it feels like! AO3 Rating M. Basically Levy misses Gajeel on a girls vacation with Lucy, Juvia, and Cana & tries to sext him. shenanigans ensue.

-Chasing Tails: scrungled-ass Next Gen fic. AO3 Rating E. Premise is that the NaLu child, Nashi, wound up on Our Earth as a child then forgot her family, Fairy Tail, and Earth Land by the time she was 17. Then Natsu finally finds her. Lots of the original beloved FT characters are missing in the beginning and there's a mystery as to why that is. Believe it or not, this fic is supposed to be more humor than anything, at least to my heart. Updates are going slow right now but I'm getting better chapter by chapter, and I'm determined to finish.

-Ice and Igni: feral baby mammoth next gen fic based on the Stone Age Omake, which fascinates me. AO3 Rating M. premise is Greige & Nasha "discovering each other" sort of like Natsu and Lucy did, with the necessary premise feature that the male and female tribes were separated long ago under mysterious circumstances (why do i love doing this?)

-Reminiscing on the Hard Road: a Gruvia one-shot where I basically give one version of events that might have led to Juvia and Gray getting together through memories. Couple-angsty, breakup & makeup fic with a happy ending.

-Series I did for Nalu Week 2024 (AO3 Link). Day 1: Cuddling/Nightmare - "Princes to Dragons" (Link for on here). [This is still coming out 😬]

There are others, but i don't feel they're worth mentioning. if you're intensely curious you can find them on ffnet. all fairy tail, for now.

#fairy tail #posts i actually wrote #my writing #fairy tail archive

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wispcherry · 1 year ago

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second time around on the same url baby! I swear I am NOT a bot

hi okay so this is, at the moment, a fanpage. probably for fanart and mumblings and what have you. really been consumed by good omens (+ related Europeans) lately but i also get silly with poetry, geology, linguistics, art, Scooby Doo for some reason, dungeons and dragons, Zelda. I cannot stress it enough that I'm into Mitski, and everything queer under the sun. and out of it. we here at wispcherry stay goofy.

tag guides for your favoritest weird guy:

Good Omens (Good Fucking Grief Neil)

#past my ear = good omens reblogs! not my own thing

#the plume of my imaginary tante = my own ramblings about good omens.

Still working on a fanart tag because. I haven't posted fanart yet.

Supernatural (I haven't finished it so I can only post + look at so much. Grief)

#big super naturals = my own original spn posts. you're a tumblite you know what spn is

Scooby Doo

#ruh roh. reblog = this franchise consumed me at a young age

ZELDAAAAA

#skyward shitposting = im too tired for separate game tagging. love link and zelda though

Staged

#six characters in search of one single braincell = our boys.

Unhhh/Trixie Mattel/Katya Zamolodchikova

#i got a sunburn and im fucked now = definitely unhhh, until I post more this might just be an umbrella tag

gritted teeth. dungeons and dragons / dropout

#two hundred and twenty five adult blog posts = fantasy high reblogs and posts...

#hairy baby spam = the unsleeping city... oh god..

Castlevania. Drops to my Knees.

#my immortal netflix adaptation = feral about this but the hyperfixaton hasn't kicked into full swing yet

ohhhhgod. Doctor Who

#just a few days ago i was this really brilliant secondary blog = im on series 2 baby

ATLA (all versions. we don't talk about the old live action)

#the newly refurbished blog tag

ace attorney trilogy

#gay japanese and european. triple homocide

the other ones :]

#beanfreaking = just me carping around on this account. bein a little guy. reblogs and original bits

#wispy bits = it's a staged reference. it's men. it's. i like men. men related thing. women and others too. just folks i like :]. reblogs and original bits

#queue idiot. we could have been us = IM SORRY LMAO. queued bits.

if you want to get to know a brief bit about me:

Hi, my name is Monty, I'm a trans. Something. and I use he/they pronouns. 17 going on 18. Filipino-Japanese-German-Irish. It's a mouthful. Unfortunately a boykisser, luckily a ladyliker, always an appreciation for those in between. Friendly to most. Most. I think roleplaying is kind of sick (positive connotation) and that being in fandoms is positively delightful. AI is shit. Free Palestine. TERFs, MAPs, MRAs, fascists, you know the like, can fuck off. ACAB. Unless it's Inspector Constable. (Can't say much about inspectors and constables, I'm from the states.) I'm a silly guy but please be decent on the page. And off of it.

#thats right baby all points no quills.#introductory post

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dreamsofdeathbywater · 1 year ago

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Burning my old fandom accounts

I got lazy about separating aspects of my life I don't want crossing the streams so here we are. This blog will be more focused on just fandom but some other stuff will show up too sometimes.

AO3 | SquidgeWorld | My old fic are still out there but they are not associated with this identity. Future fic will be posted under this pen-name.

Do not follow if you are a minor, and thank you for your understanding.

I think cross generational acquaintances and friendships are wonderful and important for both society and on a personal level, but due to some negative online experiences I am not comfortable with minors following my blogs at this time.

You dream that you're standing on the deck of a tall ship. It is night. Thunder rumbles in the sky, but the sea is flat as a mirror. From beneath the deck you hear a whisper, rising and falling: 'North...North...'

- Fallen London, A Dream About Whispers

"Go ahead! Panic!" screamed Picchu from somewhere in the background. "Do it now and avoid the June rush! Fear death by water!"

- Diane Duane, Deep Wizardry

Often used tags under cut:

Fandom

Marvel

Tokyo Mew Mew

Baldur's Gate

Pillars of Eternity

Fallen London

Pokémon

Naruto

Bleach

My Hero Academia

Young Wizards

Doctor Who

Stargate

Star Trek

Dragon Age

Soul Eater

Fan Edit

Fanart

Shippy

My Beloved (random collection of favourite characters)

Other

Animals

Gif

Lmao

Death by Water (aesthetic nonsense & quotes that go with the blog)

Photography

Art

Plants

Beasts & Creatures

Dragons

Tumblr Lore

For Sale

#telegrams from the high wilderness

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chudleycanonficfest · 3 years ago

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Washing Machine Heart

Day 22, Story #2 is by @rosequartzstarswrites

Title: Washing Machine Heart Author/Artist: rosequartzstars - @rosequartzstarswrites (Because of Tumblr settings, this is posting from my main blog, but it’s me!) Pairing: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley (and background Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger) Prompt: 5+1 Rating: T (only for some strong language and non-explicit insinuations) Trigger Warning(s) (if any): none apply!

“I can’t believe I’m going through with this,” huffed Hermione, struggling to keep up the brisk pace Ron was marking on the sidewalk.

“You never believed you’d have to, did you?” Ron said gleefully, seemingly unaware of just how hard his long-legged strides were to keep up with.

“You never told me you were that good at chess!”

“No, more like you never thought anyone could be better than you at anything!”

Despite only having been friends, close friends, with them for a semester, Harry had already become accustomed to the constant bickering between Ron and Hermione, to the point even of endearment. Coming from the Dursleys’, arguments and rebukes were something he was used to, but the undertone of friendship with which Ron and Hermione faced off was a welcome change (and a very entertaining one). Still, he tended to side quietly with Ron, and this particular time was no exception: part of him was delighted at the prospect of seeing Hermione get a tattoo.

This had all started from a ridiculous bet, born of boredom in the lounge of their dorm building. Ron had eyed the communal chessboard, battered and chipped from years of usage, and challenged Hermione to a match.

Hermione had scoffed: “Only if you want to lose, Ron.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Ron had said, exchanging a look with Harry as a sly smile crept onto his lips.

“I’m completely certain.”

“Certain enough to bet?” Ron had prodded her.

The competitiveness that, before becoming friends, was all Harry had known of Hermione had flared up in her eyes. “I’m listening.”

“When you lose—”

“If I lose, and I won't—”

“When you lose,” Ron had reiterated, “you have to get a tattoo of my choosing.”

Hermione had smirked. “Game on.”

In Hermione’s defense, Harry thought, she hadn’t ever considered she might lose. There really was no way of expecting how good Ron had turned out to be at chess, especially since —Harry thought— Hermione had based her certainty on how abysmal his grades were, against her own straight A’s, in their proofs-based mathematics class, which relied entirely on strength of reasoning. But, as it turned out, Ron was actually a master logician, if only somewhat lazy at his math classes, and this he had proved by absolutely obliterating Hermione with the fastest checkmate Harry had ever borne witness to.

And that is how they had come to find themselves out on the streets of their little college town that night, wrapped in their scarves and their winter coats to battle the first of the December chill, walking to a tattoo parlor Ron knew in the area so Hermione could be forever reminded of her loss by a tattoo Ron would choose. And if Harry knew Ron well, and knew how much he relished teasing Hermione, the reminder would be a strong one.

“I didn’t even want a tattoo,” Hermione was mumbling, more to herself than at either of them. “I never wanted one— did you know that you might not be eligible to donate blood if you have a tattoo? I mean, not that it’s impossible, but it’s a factor against you, like your weight and your age. And my family has a history of needing transfusions— oh, God, what if my grandfather needs a donation, like, tomorrow? The three-month period of eligibility won’t have elapsed, and my father can’t donate, and– and–” She froze in the middle of the sidewalk. “Oh, God, have I killed my grandfather?”

“Relax, Hermione,” Ron said, throwing a fraternal arm around her shoulders and squeezing her half in an attempt to get her walking again. “You’re halfway across the country from home. You wouldn’t be able to fly out on such short notice anyway.”

Harry had to stifle a laugh at how Hermione gaped at Ron then, a billion other dire possibilities to worry about racing through her head now. Ron, however, was less successful at keeping down a chuckle. “I’m kidding, Hermione. Besides, a tattoo will make you look badass.”

“I don’t want to look badass!” Hermione squeaked shrilly. “I’ve never been remotely interested in looking badass!”

“Well, interested or not,” Ron said as they came up to a dark brick building with a neon sign reading LOVEGOOD’S flickering above the door, “it seems like you don’t have much of a choice, because we’re here.”

Hermione let out a noise that sounded somewhere between a gasp and a whine as she looked up at the storefront that, to her, was synonymous not only with her doom but apparently that of her grandfather.

“Ron, please?” she said meekly.

Ron, however, looked gleeful and would not be deterred. “A bet’s a bet,” he declared, grabbing her wrist and beginning to march her up the three or so stairs that led up to the door of the tattoo parlor from the sidewalk. Harry lingered behind for an instant, watching the backs of his two friends as they waddled up the stairs, smiling as he listened to Ron debate whether he would make Hermione get a skull or a sailor’s “Mom” arrow-pierced heart, and Hermione pleading shrilly with him not to do either of those things. Watching them, Harry’s smile widened. He was lucky to have them as friends, that much he knew, despite the short time he’d spent knowing them. Why he hadn’t found them his freshman year was beyond him— but now, now that he had these wacky outings and constant bickering to enjoy, he felt overwhelmingly lucky that they had found him.

“Harry, are you coming in or what?” Ron beckoned him. He had stopped on the topmost step and was still gripping Hermione, whose face was a mask of pure, crystallized terror.

“Absolutely,” Harry said, hurrying up the steps with a little hop. “This I’ve got to see.”

Ron pushed open the door to the parlor with a little too much gusto, and Hermione cringed at the metallic sound of the chimes above the door as they tinkled with the announcement of their entrance. The front of the shop, sealing off the rest with a counter that had seen better days, was empty, the backroom separated by a beaded curtain.

“Hellooo?” Ron called into the backroom, marching right up to the counter. “Is anybody here? We bring a very eager customer!”

Hermione began to protest, but just as she did, an employee came out of the backroom to stand behind the counter. Catching a glimpse of her, Harry felt as if the wind had been knocked out of his chest: she was stunning. She was tall and slender, her toned arms visible through the ripped-off sleeves of her vintage Hole tee, with a curtain of straight orange hair pulled back into a long high ponytail. Her bright brown eyes glimmered atop a button-like nose that matched her small, round mouth perfectly, the pale fine face finished by a spattering of freckles. Even before she had spoken a single word, Harry felt the confidence coming off of her in waves, simply by how she propped her elbows up on the counter and eyed their party somewhat playfully. He was frozen to his place with the sight of her, hoping his jaw hadn’t dropped as low as it had felt in the wake of his awe.

Upon seeing her, however, Ron had had exactly the opposite reaction. “Ginny?” he said incredulously.

“What are you doing here?” the woman —Ginny— said without any greeting, returning Ron’s frown.

“I thought you weren’t working today!”

“I’m covering a shift for Demelza, she had a gyn appointment today.”

“Well, if I knew that, I wouldn’t have come in,” grumbled Ron. The tips of his ears were beginning to pink, a sign Harry had learned to recognize as a hint of extreme emotion in his friend.

“Well, you’re here now, so… what can I do for you?” Ginny said. “I mean, you can’t possibly be the one getting inked, Ron. You’re too much of a wimp.”

“Shut up, or I’m telling mom you got your helix pierced. That’ll make for a fun Christmas greeting when we’re back home, I’ll wager.”

Then the similarity became apparent to Harry: the freckles, the aggressive red of their hair, the same glint in their eyes… Ginny was Ron’s sister. Somehow, he didn’t know whether that was something he should feel good or bad about.

“Tattletale,” Ginny said, swatting at him. “And it’s called an industrial piercing. Not that you’d know.” Only then did she seem to remark on the rest of the party.

“Harry Potter,” she said, and Harry gulped as she crossed her muscular arms over her chest and leaned back, surveying him. “Come to get a sixth tattoo?”

“A sixth— how do you know?” Harry said, befuddled. Out of all the opening lines he would’ve expected her to use, this had not been one of them.

“You can credit the rumor mill at school,” Ginny shrugged, still eyeing him with interest. “You’re a topic of interest. Or at least among the soccer teams.”

“Oh, am I?”

“Romilda swore you had a griffin tattooed on your chest, but I told her I’d heard it was a dragon. Much more macho, I thought.”

“Thanks,” Harry said dully. What else was he supposed to say?

“Don’t mention it,” Ginny gave him a conspiratorial wink. “And if I were you, I’d find out who on the boys’ team has been giving you the eye in the shower enough to count your tats. I bet it’s Ron.”

“It’s not!” Ron said angrily, the red from his ears bleeding out onto his cheeks.

“I bet it is,” Ginny mouthed to Harry, giving him another wink. “But it’s not you?”

“Pardon?” said Harry, for whom the ‘it-is-it’s-not’ exchange had grown somewhat confusing.

“For the tattoo?” Ginny said, and Harry felt like an idiot. “It’s not you who’s getting it?”

“No, ah, actually— it’s Hermione,” Harry was knocked back into his senses as he gestured toward Hermione, who had stood, utterly baffled, throughout that whole exchange.

“Hermione Granger?” Ginny said, and Harry was almost glad when she turned her gaze away from him and toward Hermione. “As in, Scamander Fellow Hermione Granger?”

“The one and only,” Ron declared proudly, happy to be back off a topic that bothered him (teasing Ron) and back on a topic that delighted him (teasing Hermione).

“I wouldn’t have chalked you up to the tattoo type,” Ginny said.

“Oh, she’s not,” Ron said, his face lighting up as if Christmas had come early.

Ginny’s eyes darted between the dismal face of Hermione and the cheerful face of Ron, her eyebrows rising as she took it in. “Okay, I’m not going to ask about whatever this is. What am I doing on you?”

“I’m designing it,” Ron said brightly. And if Harry had thought that Hermione’s face couldn’t get more desolated, he’d been wrong.

“Christ, Hermione, what has he got on you?” Ginny said, already opening a drawer on the counter to pull out a sketchpad and a pen.

“I’m such an idiot,” Hermione grumbled.

Ron pored over the sketchpad, shielding the paper from Hermione’s eyes as he sketched. When he was done, he handed it to Ginny with a quick flick of the wrist that, much to Hermione’s dismay, ensured she couldn’t even catch a glimpse of what was on it. Ginny looked over whatever it was Ron had drawn and then looked up at her brother with a frown.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay, then,” Ginny shrugged. She lifted the counter to open a gap through which Hermione could walk. “Follow me.”

Looking like a lamb led to the slaughter, Hermione looked up to heaven as if making one last, futile plea before scrunching up her nose and following Ginny through the beaded curtain to the backroom. Because yes, she hated the idea of getting a tattoo, but she hated the idea of letting Ron hold one over her even more.

Ron watched her leave delightedly, relishing in the jangle the beaded curtain made as it swallowed Ginny and Hermione into the backroom. “This is going to be good,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “Oh, this is going to be so good.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a sister?” Harry blurted out all of a sudden. He startled himself as much as Ron when he said it, though he was glad he’d been able to pare down the question from what was actually swirling around in his head: Why didn’t you tell me you had a sister that looked like THAT?

Ron looked at him and shrugged. “I don’t know. It never came up.”

“You told me about every other one of your five brothers, but not the sister.”

“Nope.”

“Not the sister that seems to be about our age.”

“Nope.”

“Not the sister that seems to be about our age and plays soccer.“ And is hot.

"Nope.” Ron paused and frowned. “She’s a year below us, anyway.”

“Oh, then that explains it,” Harry said sarcastically.

“It seemed like more of a second-semester-of-friendship revelation.”

“I see.”

Harry held the silence between them for a few moments more before he allowed the next question out. “She plays soccer?”

“One more of the long line of Weasleys that get athletic scholarships to Hogwarts College. Except for Percy— no, he was a disgrace, he got in on an academic grant.”

“The family disappointment, truly.”

Harry wanted to ask more about Ginny, but he held his tongue. His friendship with Ron was the most precious thing his sophomore year of college had yielded him, and he didn’t want to jeopardize it by prying further or making it seem like he had the hots for his sister. Even though he did. He suffocated that small voice at the back of his mind: he hadn’t even spoken properly to Ginny, just stood there like an idiot and let her quip freely about his tattoos— which, mind him, apparently were fodder for locker talk back at Hogwarts.

The buzz of the needle in the backroom as it started up brought Harry out of his thoughts, just in time to see a shit-eating grin appear on Ron’s face.

“I wish I could see her face right now,” he said gleefully, and Harry let himself stop thinking about Ginny to join Ron in picturing what Hermione Granger must look like seated in a tattoo parlor chair.

“It really wasn’t so bad,” admitted Hermione as they exited the tattoo parlor and went down the little steps back onto the sidewalk.

Despite his pretensions of malice, Ron’s nobility (which had never been in question, even despite his teasing) had shone through and yielded a considerably modest tattoo: a small, capital “R” in his own handwriting. Hermione, who had almost cried with relief after Ginny showed her the design, had chosen to get it on her left thigh, on the side and at the very top, right under her hipbone.

“Why did you get it there?” Harry asked as they resumed their brisk walk back to campus.

“It’s not a place you usually show. That means if a sleeve shifts or an interviewer sees, I don’t know, my ankle or something, they won’t notice it.”

“As if a tiny ‘R’ would disqualify anyone from a job, let alone you,” snorted Ron.

“Professionalism is a virtue, Ronald,” Hermione huffed, though her cheeks had gone red. “Besides, since that part of me is always covered, I’ll save myself from having to explain the story behind it to anyone that spots it.”

“Yeah, except the bloke that eventually undresses you and sees you in your panties. Try explaining what that 'R’ means to him,” said Ron. But Harry suspected Hermione wouldn’t have to: from how Ron’s eyes had widened and his gaze had lingered when Hermione had pulled down the side of her jeans ever so slightly to show them the finished product, exposing a sliver of her underwear, Harry could almost wager that Ron would be the bloke in question.

They walked in animated chatter for the rest of the way, the tattoo forgotten until Ron made a quip about Hermione now having crossed the gateway to joining a biker gang and Hermione going positively beet-red in the face with outrage. Then Harry, his hands in his pockets, simply smirked to himself and resigned himself to their bickering for the rest of the walk, knowing he was no longer needed in their exchange. Instead, he let his mind drift to Ginny. She hadn’t really spoken to him again, merely ducking out from the beaded curtain backroom and instructing Hermione on how to take care of her tattoo, saying only a general goodbye to the three of them as they exited the shop. There had been nothing in Ginny’s manner to suggest that she might be thinking of him as strongly, as irremediably, as he was of her, and yet there he was.

The main quad was mostly deserted, except for a few scattered groups of late-night library frequenters or sneaking couples, as the three of them crossed it to get to their dorm. Ron and Hermione didn’t stop arguing as they climbed the four flights up to their floor (the elevator, as usual, was broken), and only broke it off because Hermione reached her room before the boys reached theirs, slipping inside it and shutting the door before Ron had a chance to get the last word in.

“Well, that went well,” Ron shrugged as he and Harry kept walking down the hall to their room.

“You actually got her to get a tattoo,” Harry said with some admiration as they reached their door.

Ron grinned as he swiped the key card. “I may drive her crazy, but if anyone was going to get her to do something like that, it was going to be me.”

Ron pushed the door open and let them into their dorm room. He closed the door and, without taking off his coat, immediately flopped onto his bed— or, well, what could be seen of the bed under mountains of dirty or otherwise discarded clothes. Away from his mother’s chore-mongering for the first time, Ron had let himself go wild and go to the other extreme, but even Harry had to admit that the army of socks draped over the foot of his bed was beginning to smell a little stale.

“So,” Ron said, propping his head up, “no parties tonight?”

“Well, it’s a Wednesday,” Harry said.

“So what? There’s no party spirit around here?”

“Ron, it’s the last Wednesday before final exams. People are studying.”

“I wasn’t aware I was rooming with Hermione,” Ron grumbled. Harry had to admit she might have gotten to him a little. However, Ron’s irritation was short-lived, a grin appearing on his face again. “Wait, but we’re not people. We’re not studying.”

Harry surveyed the room and, despite his desire to throw in the towel for the night and have fun with Ron, felt a pang of dismay at just how much grosser it would be if they caved and did that (last time they had, they’d had a Pringle-eating contest, with devastating results for their sheets, which still had some crumbs). “No, Ron. We’re doing laundry.”

Ron groaned. “Jeez, now I’m rooming with my mother.”

“Okay, fine, you don’t have to do the laundry. I’ll do it for the both of us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, go hang out with Dean and Seamus or whatever, see if you can get Hermione to do her second wild-card act of the day and make her stop studying to hang out with the guys.”

“Now I’m a man with a mission,” Ron said, perking up in delight at the prospect of teasing Hermione, or even seeing her once more that night.

“Just shove your clothes in the laundry bag before you go, won’t you? I don’t want to touch your nasty briefs more than I have to.”

Ron obliged, tossing all the clothes on and around his bed into his orange laundry bag and pulling the drawstring to close it. “I’ll update you on the Hermione thing,” he said cheerfully, hurrying out of the room and down the hall to the left to the room they’d left Hermione in.

Harry laughed to himself, wondering how long it was going to take Ron to realize why exactly he always seemed so eager to do anything Hermione-related, as he too threw his dirty clothes into a checkered drawstring laundry bag. Then, he hoisted one sack over each of his shoulders and opened the door using his ankle and leg to let himself out, his hands full with the laundry bags. He stifled a smirk as he passed Hermione’s room and heard the familiar bubbling sound of she and Ron rowing. If Harry knew her at all, he knew however much she might argue she’d be out of that room in an hour tops.

He groaned as he looked down the stairs, and rued the day he had been placed in the dorm with the shittiest elevator on campus. Resigning himself, he began to walk slowly down the poorly-lit stairs to the basement, where the laundry room was. However inconvenient this descent was, Harry was at least comforted with the knowledge that the laundry room would not be crowded, which would be the greater inconvenience once the elevator was fixed.

The basement was even dimmer, the white lights flickering and buzzing with electricity as Harry walked to the laundry room almost at the end of the hall. Sure enough, the laundry room was deserted, oddly quiet with none of the familiar hum and rattle of the machines as they worked. Harry knelt in front of a washing machine and began unloading the contents of the laundry bags into it, cramming them in so they’d fit because he sure as hell wasn’t shelling out quarters for two washers. When he’d made it all fit (which had involved the use of force to jam the door shut), he went to the shelf that held the communal detergent and poured it into the soap compartment. With that done, he dug out eight quarters from his pocket and inserted them into the washer’s slot, pressing the “Start Cycle” button when he heard the clink that let him know his quarters had been accepted. The washer rumbled slowly to life, jets of water trickling out as it began to spin in one direction and then the other, and it was a couple minutes before it was spinning at a hearty pace.

Rising from his crouch (he had always liked to watch the washing machine as it booted up to wash in earnest), Harry took the laundry bags and turned to head back upstairs, already thinking of what he might do to pass the time in the hour he had before he had to switch the clothes to the dryer.

He was so caught up in thinking of this that he didn’t see the person entering the laundry room at the same time as he was exiting, which ended in an awkward clash between them.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry blurted.

“No, it’s fine, I’m sorry too— Harry?”

Only then did Harry realize who he had bumped into, and only because she kept standing there did he believe it. “Ginny?”

She still wore her Hole shirt, but had discarded the ripped jeans, combat boots, and round-the-waist flannel he’d seen at the tattoo parlor. Instead, she wore frayed gray sweatpants and flip-flops, her hair pulled up from the long ponytail into a messy bun. She, however, somehow still managed to look almost unbearably beautiful. What’s happening to me?

“What are you doing here?” he asked, the only thing he could think of right that second. Spotting the laundry basket she was cradling, he added: “No laundry in your dorm?”

“No, yeah, there is one, but it’s always too crowded, it being a freshman dorm and all.” Harry nodded: his first year, he too had done entirely more laundry than he had to, and was thankful by the quarters he saved just by realizing he could wear a pair of pants more than once before they were dirty. “So I use the one here. Much quieter. I know Ron’s ID and password—”

“You do?”

“He gave it to me once so I could pick up his books from the library. And my memory’s great.” She gave him a half smile and looked beyond him at the laundry room. “Doing laundry?”

“No, I just like the ambience down here. The shitty lighting and bleach smell are really my style,” said Harry. Ginny laughed, and Harry felt a rush of pride at what was probably the first witty thing he’d ever said to her. “Need a hand?”

“I’d appreciate one, sure,” Ginny said, again smiling at him. Harry moved so she could walk into the laundry room, and watched her pick one of the washing machines that lined the wall. When she’d settled on one, he crouched down next to her and help her lob the clothes into the maw of the machine.

“Tattoo parlor let out early?” he asked as they placed the clothes inside.

“More like you guys came in really late. You were my last customers— I just cleaned up and closed after you left.”

“And you work there?”

“Sure beats a regular work-study, doesn’t it?” Ginny grinned. She tossed in a Tide pod that was left at the bottom of the basket, closed the door to the machine, and rose to find the quarters needed to activate it. “Oh, shoot, I left my wallet in my other pants—”

“I got you,” said Harry, digging for eight more quarters in his pocket. For once, he was glad of his bad habit of carrying an excess of loose change in his jeans, something Hermione already got on to him about (sometimes, like when she’d gifted him a money purse, not too subtly).

“Thanks,” Ginny said, picking the laundry basket up from the ground.

Harry listened for the telling clink and then pressed the button. The washing machine whirred to a start, but for once, Harry didn’t feel compelled to watch it boot up: instead, he turned to Ginny. “So how did you come to work there?”

“At the tat shop?” Ginny asked, hopping to sit on the top of the washer where her clothes were spinning. “My friend Luna’s dad, Xenophilius—”

“Gesundheit.”

“Shut up,” Ginny said, but the hint of a laugh was (to Harry’s satisfaction) visible on her lips again. “Anyway, Xenophilius owns the place. He set up in a college town because he knows college is the first time kids are truly free to make rash, impulse decisions.”

“Like getting a tattoo?”

“Exactly. And besides, all the college students love his New Age bullshit, they think it’s very 70s, so his shop is always full. He got a big boost after he started placing crystals in the shop windows.”

“He’s in with the kids, then?”

“Don’t tell him that, he’ll be mortified. But he’s great, really. A little eccentric, but great. He knows me from when Luna and I took an art class together in 10th grade, and he’s always complimented my art, so he helped me get my tattoo artist license as soon as I turned 18 and hired me.”

“Is Luna the girl with the shaggy blond hair and the weird glasses?”

“That’s her. Though I’m surprised you didn’t know her by her bottlecap necklaces. That’s usually what people comment on.”

“Does she work there too?”

“Yeah, though not as an inker, she’s useless with a needle. She designs a big chunk of the tattoos, though, both original designs and commissions or requests.”

“That’s awesome,” Harry said. He realized that was the first time through the whole conversation that he had stopped. He’d never hesitated on what to say next: conversation with Ginny had flowed easily, naturally, and he hadn’t had to think too hard to keep it going. Still, he was a little disappointed that it had stopped. Ginny, however, seemed to share in this, because rather than say goodbye and take her leave, she opened up a new topic.

“So how long have you and Ron been friends?”

“Er– since the start of this school year, actually.”

“Really? You’d think from how he talks about you, he’d known you forever.” Harry felt a flush of happiness at hearing that Ron talked about him.

“Well, I got him for a roommate this year, and we just clicked. Then it turned out we had a lot of the same classes. And we’re both on the soccer team, so it just got better from there.”

“It seems strange that you never crossed paths your freshman year.”

Harry shrugged. “I mean, freshman year is weird for everyone. I certainly felt like I was just bouncing from one place to another. I still hang out with a lot of the guys from last year, but my friends have changed. It makes sense— the first year, everyone is trying to meet as many people as possible, as if it’s a race, but by sophomore year you know more of what you want and what you’re looking for. In a way, I’m glad I met Ron now that I’m in a more stable place, now that I know my way around the college and have a better grip on things. I have a feeling he’s a friend I’m gonna keep.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’re sticking around the Weasleys,” Ginny said, and Harry felt a tingle run up his spine. Was she… flirting with him? “And Hermione?”

“Oh, Hermione’s great, Ron and I would be dead by now if not for her— I don’t know how I got through a full year without her.”

“But she’s very different from you guys, isn’t she?”

“Well— on the surface, sure, but not in the things that matter. The fact that she went through with the tattoo tonight when she could’ve kicked up a fuss and bailed out tells you all you need to know.”

“So what I’m hearing is that Scamander Fellow Hermione Granger is as much of a bonehead as my brother at heart?”

“Stubborn, is the word I’d use. And only when Ron’s involved, actually.”

Ginny smirked. “Idiots. They haven’t even realized it.”

Harry knew exactly what she meant. “You think it too?”

“Oh, I’d bet on it. Ten bucks says they’re together by the end of the year.”

“Hey, did our visit by the parlor today teach you nothing about bets? They can be dangerous.”

“But I’m betting against you, aren’t I?” The way she said you made Harry’s heart skip a beat. “Fine, not ten bucks. But I’ll bet you a load of laundry, how’s that?”

“Deal,” said Harry, taking Ginny’s extended hand to shake it. The touch of her palm, with its long, slender fingers, sent warmth coursing down from his hand and the length of his arm. They let go and dropped hands, and perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but Harry thought he detected a certain reluctance in Ginny as they did.

Harry leaned against the washer, his propped elbow almost brushing up against her thigh. “How about you? How’s your first year going so far?”

Ginny winced. “As well as you’d expect, I suppose. Lots of people still behave like it’s an extension of high school, and I’m very much over that. But as things go, I’m having a blast. Being on the soccer team certainly helps.”

“Congratulations on that scholarship, by the way.”

“Thank you,” Ginny said, her wide smile revealing a row of perfect, square white teeth. “You’re on a scholarship too, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. My aunt and uncle would’ve never paid a single cent for me to go to college, so it was the only way. But I’m sure they were glad to be rid of me anyway.”

“They sound like lovely people,” Ginny said sarcastically.

“I should introduce them to this Xenophilius sometime. My uncle Vernon would have a stroke just walking into that shop.”

“Well, if you ever swing by, you have an insider contact,” Ginny offered, and Harry loved the implication of something, even something as simple as an 'insider contact’, between just the two of them. “I’d be happy to arrange a meeting, especially for such esteemed patrons.”

“I might take you up on that, if I ever planned on seeing them again,” Harry said. The words came out a bit more harshly than he’d expected, and the second silence in their talk set in, brought on by the darker implications of his family situation. Desperate to break it, Harry cleared his throat and geared up to talk again: “So, do you have any tattoos?”

He was relieved to see the smile, that coy, almost lopsided smile, appear on Ginny’s face again. “Actually, no, not a single one.”

“Do you think you’d ever get one?”

Ginny thought for a second. “I might, if something meaningful enough came around. And only if I was 200% sure. But really, I feel like one tattoo would lead to another, and then I’d never stop and run out of room on my skin. So it’s more of a containment mechanism, really.”

Harry smirked. “Hm. Interesting.”

Ginny broke out onto a full grin as she watched him. “What?” she asked, but when Harry’s smirk only deepened, she shoved him playfully, her touch on his shoulders eliciting the same warm sensation as the handshake. “What, Potter, tell me! Why is it interesting?”

“I mean, since you work at a tattoo shop, and you’re wearing a Hole t-shirt, I just thought you might be the type—”

“The Hole tee? Oh, don’t tell me you’re gonna gatekeep it, like you’re the type of guy who’d be like 'name three songs'—”

“No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I don’t know a lot of music by Hole. I really only know who they are because of that one Fall Out Boy song Courtney Love was featured in—”

Ginny winced. “Not Fall Out Boy, please.”

“Why? What’s wrong with Fall Out Boy?”

“Harry—”

“I know they get a lot of shit, but really, their first albums are pretty good—”

“Harry, you’ve gotta stop right here, or you’re going to make me stop finding you so attractive.”

And just like that, there it was, out in the open. Harry felt stun: he felt his mouth open to offer a witty retort, but no words came out. Because the girlish grin had evaporated from Ginny’s face and turned into a different, more mature look, her eyes smoldering slightly and her mouth slightly pouted.

“What about you?” she asked, her words slower, as if she was choosing each one individually. “If the soccer team gossip is true, I know you have five tattoos.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, his voice having dropped as well. “Yeah, there were a few tat shops around my neighborhood where the rules were pretty lax.”

“What are they?” Ginny asked.

“The tattoos? Well, the first ones I ever got were my mom and dad’s birth and death dates, on my wrist,” Harry said, rolling up the sleeve of his shirt to display two small lines of numbers, in plain black ink, on his forearm.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ginny said softly.

“Don’t be, I was really small when it happened. But I still wanted to pay them homage. Anyway, I’ll not bore you with my family history right now.”

“But tell me sometime?”

Harry was ecstatic at the implication that Ginny wanted to spend even more time with him. “Yeah,” he said, smiling at her. “Yeah, I will.” He moved on to the second tattoo, shifting the other sleeve up a bit to show Ginny a small black paw print in the center of his wrist. “This was my third one. My godfather was the only person my aunt and uncle would let me see while I was growing up, and even then only because he threatened them. And he had this huge, black shaggy dog, I think it was a Newfoundland, that looked almost like a bear, named Padfoot. I loved that dog, and every time I think of the happiest moments growing up, Padfoot’s in a lot of them. So when he died when I was sixteen, I got this to remember him by. It seems like a tribute to my godfather, too, so I like it doubly.”

He didn’t need encouragement from Ginny to keep going. He raised his left leg and propped it up on the washing machine by where Ginny’s legs hung, rolling his sock down a bit to show a green, line-art tuft of grass snaking above his ankle. “I got this when I got the soccer scholarship to come here. I wanted something to commemorate soccer, seeing as it’s not only, y'know, my passion, but also what got me out of that damn house for good. But I thought something like a soccer ball or a net or even the pitch outline would be too cheesy, so I got a bit of grass, y'know, as in the field…”

“Tasteful,” Ginny nodded her approval, and Harry felt newfound appreciation for that tattoo. “That’s three down, Potter.”

“I’m getting there.” Harry brought his leg down from the washer and turned his back to Ginny, taking his hand up to the nape of his neck and using it to shift the hair there upward to reveal the back of his neck where it turned into his back. “Can you see it?”

“The little lightning bolt?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the story of that?”

“That was my second one. To be honest, I was a little ink-happy after my first one, so a couple of weeks after I got it I went back and got this.”

“But why a lightning bolt?”

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted, turning back around to face her. “I guess it was just cool.”

“Oh, very,” Ginny said, and the edge in her voice let him know she was teasing him. “That leaves us with one, then. The emblematic chest tattoo.” Again, the playfulness disappeared from her face and was replaced by that strange look, the one Harry couldn’t really decipher but really, really liked. “Tell me, then, Harry— is Romilda Vane right?”

It was only because of the suggestiveness in Ginny’s voice and the permanence of that look on her face that Harry did what he did next. His movements slow, he pulled his shirt off over his head, setting it on the washing machine right by where Ginny sat. He heard Ginny draw in a breath and it hitch in her throat as she saw him, her eyes moving over his bare skin to spot the ink blot that had brought this all on. Curled above his right pec was a small, S-shaped dragon, colored in red and gold.

“I win,” Ginny said, her voice still husky, as she extended her left hand to touch the dragon with her fingertips.

“Are you going to tell Romilda?” Harry said, his own right hand settling lightly on Ginny’s thigh.

“No, actually,” Ginny said, her palm now coming down flat on Harry’s chest. Her other hand had also drifted to him, and she had placed it on Harry’s left side, right below his ribcage, as if to hold the side of his torso. “I think I’d rather keep this moment to myself.”

And then she was leaning in and kissing him, touching her lips to his first with tentative softness that turned into a stronger, more determined fire as the kiss deepened. With both of Ginny’s hands on Harry, and one of Harry’s on Ginny’s thigh and the other supporting the weight of the kiss against the solidity of the washer, they leaned into one another. Harry’s mouth sought out Ginny’s eagerly, overcome by the fiery feeling pooling in his stomach and rising up to his throat through his chest, by the fact that everything he’d thought about on their walk back from Lovegood’s was coming true much sooner (and much better) than he’d expected. He felt Ginny’s tongue nudge at his lips and opened his mouth to let her in, engulfing more of her lips with his as he did so. Ginny kissed passionately, her tongue meeting Harry’s even as her teeth dug lightly into Harry’s lower lip, making him kiss her more deeply. With her this close, he was invaded by the flowery smell of her hair, by the soft feel of her skin, by the low humming sound she made as she kissed him. And everything was coming together, making the fire in his chest grow, and it was a good kind of burn, better than whiskey, better than anything—

The loud ding of the washer as it announced it had concluded its cycle startled them, and they pulled back from the kiss looking a little dazed, that one upbeat chime having been all they needed to bring them reluctantly back into the real world. Still Ginny didn’t take her hands off Harry, and Harry felt less than inclined to move his from her leg.

“I should, uh, switch to the dryer,” he said, the only thing that popped into his mind there.

Ginny tightened her hold around his middle and moved her hand from his chest, wrapping it around his upper back to draw him closer. “Oh, let it wait,” she said, and then she was kissing him again, and Harry was finding that the dryer could wait for hell to freeze for all he cared.

The sleepy sound of the chimes above the door didn’t even make Ginny raise her gaze from her stats study guide, which she’d pulled out to make the best of the not-too-busy lull at Lovegood’s. “We’re almost closed,” she announced to whoever had come in.

“You can’t make room for one last customer?” a familiar voice said, and only then did Ginny perk up immediately.

“Harry!” she said brightly, shutting the stats book as it became all-but-forgotten. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to add one more tattoo to the five I’ve already got,” said Harry. “Think you can give me my sixth?”

Ginny didn’t even need to say yes, just opened up the lift-up counter door and disappeared through the beaded curtain. “Flip the door sign to 'closed’ before you come through, will you?”

Harry obliged and flipped the sign before following Ginny to the backroom. He sat patiently on the tattoo chair as Ginny milled about, getting the supplies ready.

“Y'know, you never did tell me the story behind your dragon tattoo,” Ginny commented as she went through the sterilization procedure for the needles. “Seeing as we were, um, otherwise occupied…”

The memory of the kiss flooded through Harry with the same fire that he’d held in his chest ever since, the flame growing to engulf his whole body just hearing Ginny mention it. “Should I tell you now?”

“I’d like to hear it.”

“I got it as a tribute to my old headmaster back home, Albus Dumbledore. Funny old man, and incredibly cryptic, but he’s the one that first gave me the idea of applying for the scholarship and helped me get all my grades and papers in order so I could make it here. We were very close, and he had this saying that he used to tell me whenever I ended up in his office for getting into trouble— 'never tickle a sleeping dragon’, he’d say.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Harry laughed briefly and shrugged. “Hell if I know. But it was his catchphrase. So after I graduated, I wanted to get something to commemorate him, so I got the dragon from his favorite saying. He came with me and got it too.”

Ginny turned to him and eyed him quizzically. “Your headmaster got the tattoo along with you?”

“I told you he was a funny old man.”

Ginny pulled a pair of black latex gloves over her hands and rolled a wheeled office chair over to Harry, the needle in hand. “So by what I’m hearing, you only ever get tattoos of things that are extremely meaningful to you, right?”

“That’s right,” said Harry.

“So, Mr. Meaning, what’ll it be this time?”

Harry smiled. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it slightly upward, just enough to uncover his lower trunk. He pointed to a spot on the left side of his torso, right under his ribcage— right where Ginny’s hand had been, where her touch had been burned into his skin. “Right here,” he said. “I’d like a little washing machine.”

#chudleycanonficfest2021 #HP fest #hp canon pairings #canon fest platonic #canon fest romantic #submission #hinny #harry x ginny #side romione

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buubuu-sedai · 2 years ago

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Eye of the World Prologue - Dragonmount

Welcome and salutations various beings! I broke out this bad boy for the re-read and I feel all the warm fuzzies right now. I definitely have at least 3 different version of Eye of the World, 4 if you count the ebook, heh. A lot of my early books are pretty worn out from reading so this special edition is a really smart purchase. Also the cover design activates my brain in a really pleasing way so it's got that going for it. Oh! It's got a cloth bookmark, too. Pretty snazzy.

Ok so let's go over how I'm intending this to go. I'll post a chapter recap at the top with my impressions and keep all the spoilery rambling and musings at the bottom. I really thought about doing 2 separate posts - one spoiler free and one full spoiler - but I ultimately decided against. It is a re-read after all so I'm expecting most readers to be familiar with the full series. If there's enough interest maybe I can make a separate blog specifically to be spoiler free. But for now, here we are.

I'll post maps and images with notations to go along so we can follow along where the characters are.

Let's get into it, shall we?

Ok so we don't know where the Prologue actually starts, but we know for sure where it ends. Lews left a handy marker for us.

Prologue: Dragonmount

The prologue begins inside a palace that had been a recent sight of battle. A man named Lews Therin Telamon wanders the ruined halls looking for his wife Ilyena, stepping over bodies - including one of a sun-haired woman whose face is frozen in disbelief. Lews catches sight of himself in a mirror and laughs, calling for his wife to come see. Another man appears behind him from a ripple in the air - Elan Morin Tedronai.

Elan knows Lews but it’s clear Lews has some memory loss and Elan asks if the ‘taint already has you so far in its grip?’ Lews remembers fractured things, like not saying Shai’tan and that Elan is known as ‘The Betrayer of Hope’, but he keeps losing his train of thought. He calls for Ilyena once more to come offer their guest welcome. Elan grows tired of this and uses Shai’tan’s healing to Heal Lews Therin’s mind. The pain of it sends Lews toppling over while he writhes in agony. When he can finally move again he sees his wife’s body and screams once more.

Elan calls him Kinslayer and tells him the Dark Lord can bring her back if Lews will serve him. Lews thinks Elan must have slain his wife, but Elan demands he remember and taunts him. And Lews does remember, howling once more as he looks around, recalling hazily his trek through the palace, murdering everyone in it including his wife, children, friends, family and servants. Unable to handle this knowledge, Lews reaches out to the True Source, tainted Saidin, and Travels far away.

In an empty field next to a river he still can’t escape the eyes of the dead. He calls out for forgiveness and pulls on True Source until the power of it consumes him in one searing beam of lightning from the heavens. The earth erupts, spewing magma into the sky and rising up a mountain in its place. The force bends the river, creating an island and when the land settles Elan appears on the island, contemptuously declaring “You cannot escape so easily, Dragon. It is not done between us. It will not be done until the end of time.” There’s a couple of blurbs that follow this prologue, written as if from a scholar looking at past events in flowery language. Both excerpts are from ‘Author unknown, Fourth Age’

Don’t worry for any new folks reading this - You’re not supposed to understand or know what’s happening here! The full understanding comes in later books but by the end of Eye of the World you will know the context of the events and what they mean to the story in general.

I love this prologue so much!! Young me was fascinated by it. It’s so cryptic and bonkers, like who even are these people?! All the terms thrown willy-nilly like RJ is like ‘don’t worry about it, it’ll make sense later’. In modern writing this would probably be such a no-no. You can’t introduce things without context clues, that will turn away new readers! Hahaha that’s what keeps me reading, baby! It feels very epic and mysterious.

Spoilery Bits Below - BEWARE

This got really rambly but I kinda enjoy it that way. What follows is my real time musings all mashed together into a loosely organized list.

I love all the tantalizing bits we get about the Age of Legends. Lews having worn the ring of the Tamyrlin and once summoned the Nine Rods of Dominion. I wonder if that ring was what the current Aes Sedai serpent ring was based on? The nine rods are usually associated with the oath rod, however the Big White Book talks about how the AoL handled criminals by binding them from repeat offenses. One of the forsaken at some point in the story says the current Age Aes Sedai ‘bind themselves like criminals’ in regards to the Three Oaths they take. Aaaand we also know oath rods can be used for obedience - that’s what Therava did to Galina later on. So the Nine Rods are pretty unknown. Perhaps something to do with interdimensional travel or something along those lines. It sounds cool anway.

Fitting how the story begins with Ishy telling the Dragon they’ve fought this battle a thousand times a thousand. One of my favorite quotes is “I win again, Lews Therin” (I like to say in a Waluigi voice and imitate his mannerisms. Omg I’m so weird)

We have Elan using The True Power here without the notable black specks floating across his eyes. I’ve always felt like the first 3 books follow a looser set of rules for magic, where in book 4 there are clearer sets of rules that hold the world together. Also it comes off more mystical with the grandiose speeches we get, the use of the True Source is more fantastical (Moiraine spinning her staff, the illusion of her growing and stepping over a wall, her wall of fire, Rand slamming the ground and disrupting the Shadowspawn army) Later on it feels more practical, but maybe that’s more because we get the perspectives of those using saidar/saidin so it seems less mysterious.

This prologue establishes right away that you can hold too much power and it will destroy you - albeit very dramatically in this case. Also another indicator that Lews could handle a ridiculous amount of power if his overdraw is enough to create an entire fucking mountain. Interesting that lews didn't like being called Dragon. I wonder if he disliked being the reincarnation of such a polarizing figure, someone who could just as easily destroy the world as save it. Lews did both essentially.

Did the AoL have prophecies about the Dragon Reborn as well? We know they used portal stones and tel'aran'rhiod liberally. Reading the pattern was the specialty of the Aelfinn and the Eelfin and we know there were treaties in place to get that knowledge from them. No one even suspected a being like the Dark One existed so perhaps Dragon was just a name Lews felt uncomfortable with. Afterall, his peaceful society was forever shattered and he became a machine for war. The name Dragon must have felt really bitter for him.

Ishy was a philosopher before defecting. Which honestly makes so much sense. I can imagine he was already questioning the purpose of existence and then here comes the Dark One whispering in his ear telling him all about the endless cycle that will only end when the Dark One wins.

Ty for reading if you’ve made it this far! Feel free to share thoughts, ponderings and your own reminiscing.

The AoL Aes Sedai had foretellings (at least those at the end of the AoL) - they knew where to leave things for the Dragon to find at the Eye, Rhuidean and the Stone of Tear. Was that a consequence of opening the bore? I don’t recall if the forsaken think or talk about foretellings in their time during any of their perspective chapters. Drilling a hole through reality could have some funky effects, though. Would be really neat if that bore allowed the pattern to be read similar to what the twisty red doorway boys do.

Oh boy I didn’t expect I would have so much to ponder just from the prologue, holy moly. This is some of my favorite stuff, however, thinking about what could have been in the Age of Legends. Robert Jordan made such a cool expansive world, it’s really a joy to read every time. I am happy to be back in this world once more.

#wheel of time #wheel of time reread #eye of the world #dragonmount #full series spoilers #wot #wot reread #tumblr of time #twitter of time

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mageglory · 4 years ago

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So I have recently seen Dragon Age: Redemption with the amazing @dalishious and boy if it wasn't an experience. But while we were laughing and commenting the decision to make a rewrite of the serie came up and I offered myself for the job as a fun writing exercise to start my blog. So here we go. This is made with the assumption that we are in the middle of Dragon Age 2 Act 1, because that's what I understood?

Dragon Age: Redemption (Of A Plot)

-The movie still starts as it does in canon, with Tallis doing a voiceover while looking dramatic, because that's the type of things Tallis does.

-The first difference is when Sarebaas (the villain) walks in to interrogate a prisoner elf. Instead of doing weird unknow magic, Sarebaas cut the elf palm and uses his blood to compel the elder elf to talk. So we estabilish a familiar narrative element since the start and don't have to suffer bad visual effects because blood magic is incospicuos

-Tallis still gets told by the qunari that she is Tallis again and there is a mission for her ecc, but the qunari also add that they intend to destroy the Sarebaas once reunited because he got corrupted by staying away from the Qun. They have no idea of Sarebaas plans, they just want to follow the Qun and would kill him even if he was loyal. (As seen in DA2)

-Tallis meets Cairn (the Templar) while handling the racist asshole with the necklace of elven ears and Cairn does his "leave him be he is my prisoner in the name of the Chantry". Cairn doesn't show any concern that the guy Tallis is handling has literal *elven ears* as a necklace, only that it's only his right to apprehend him and for separate reasons.

-Tallis mocks him for being a good church little soldier, that's fine. But she doesn't tell him she's qunari (why the fuck my Hawke wasnt informed but this bitchy Templar yes Tallis) and doesn't propose to work together at all. Cairn treathens Tallis, saying that Knight-Commander Meredith told him to recover the "escaped apostate" immediately and he has the authority to arrest her if she doesn't collaborate. He's the one who wants to "work together" but at HIS terms.

-Tallis quickly makes some cool rougue move and ends up with her daggers at Cairn troath, before telling him to say to Meredith hello and knocking him down. Then, with the informations she got from Necklace Racist GuyTM she leaves for the Dalish Camp. Since this is Kirkwall and there shouldn't be more than one dalish clan for area, the clan we meet is actually Clan Sabrae.

-While she is with the dalish, Tallis hears some yelling and sees Cairn somehow found her. She asks him how and he says that before being a templar he was helping his father, who used to hunt for their village, so he knows how to follow tracks and followed her here. She compliments him for being "not totally usless" and decides to tell the dalish to let him in saying her "he is with me, we are all elves so I garantee for him" bit.

-No they are not going to have a romance.

-Clan Sabrae is NOT IMPRESSED and tells her that while they accept any elf as part of the people, Tabris is a guest and qunari and doesn't has the trust of the clan. Surely not enough to guarantee for a Templar. In the end they let Cairn in (because plot) but they tell him he will be guarded by their ex First, who's visiting, and will have to leave his weapons to them.

-Being an usless Templar, Cairn is all like "how dare you I work with the authority of the chantry, savages" until a dalish snaps at him that their patience is growing thin and he can enter weaponless or not enter at all. Cairn makes A Face and accepte, saying that he has to complete his mission and his superiors made clear the importance of the task (yes Meredith yelled at him. *world smallest violin plays*)

-The Keeper is busy doing... Something. Maybe she's talking to Audacity and it's an hint to the events of DA2, but they as said before they can talk to their ex First and also the actual First.

-Merrill cameo! :D But what the hell is she doing here? Well Merrill, because she is good like that, cares for her clan even if she's not part of it anymore and came to help when she heard what was going on. Hawke and co are busy on adventuring atm, so it's just her tiny badass self.

-Merrill obviously infodumps them about the mask of Fen'Harel, because Merrill is a badass. Instead of saying that they don't know what it does she says the Mask has many powers and it was always treated carefully because you do not call the Dread Wolf without risks. She says usually the Mask was used to amplify the power of a mage wearing it in moment when there was great need of consulting the Fare.

-Cairn probably says some shit about the mask having to be destroyed or demons but let's just assume that's 90% of his dialogue and ignore him. Maybe Merrill gives him a verbal burn, she's good at that.

-There is still a missing mage from the clan, the elf who was interrogated by Sarebaas at the start and he was Keeper Marethari's *brother*, but was took away from the Templars. (Or hell even just a respected magical elder, as you want)

-They also talk to the new First of the Clan after Merrill left, and it's our boy Josmael *immediate applaues*. Josmael says all he says in canon and how Sarebaas kidnapped his beloved while stealing the mask the clan. He teams up with Cairn and Tallis to rescue her. We also discover that he's one of the few people in the clan who stil likes Merrill and since she left and he was made the new First he has been anxious about having to fill her hyper-competent shoes.

-Yeah that was just me using the movie to give Merrill a friend in her people so what.

-Merrill says she has to return to the city but tells Josmael to keep her updated and he thanks her for caring.

-Cairn and Tallis say to Josmael that he cant come cuz they can't babysit him to which he answers with gentle determination that he doesn't need any babysitting and shows him magic.

-Cairn can't work with apostates blablabla.

-Tallis calls out Cairn for his anti-magic sentiment and says her "people" don't judge magic (which is bullshit but from her pov is the truth). Then she stabs Josmael to make him heal himself and prove himself to them.

-I take a pause because the water in the bath is getting cold and this post is getting too long, so i'll post this rewrite in parts.

#dragon age #dragon age redemption #rewrites #tagging dalishious cuz i said i was gonna to #first time i rewrite anything so i hope i didnt't fucked up #but then again even if i did #can't be worse than the original #the dalish are the only valid people in all the show

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daggersandarrows · 3 years ago

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updated my description and about section a bit! since i recently got an influx of new followers, here’s some general notes/housekeeping stuff:

i spoiler tag till monday with #cr spoilers. i do not spoiler tag anything that has been out longer than that, regardless of campaign, so i would recommend blacklisting #vox machina or #the mighty nein if you don’t want to be spoiled for those campaigns.

any negativity will be tagged #cr discourse

i’m in the process of transitioning. all posts about that are tagged #the magician transitions

i work with dogs! and i like to post about them :) occasionally that means there will be some unpleasantry but i always trigger tag for pet death/neglect/abuse/et cetera. my work tag is #dog days are here

i play this life consuming cute little dragon game. i actually have a separate blog for that, @kingparda , but it often migrates over here and will be tagged #flight rising (psst if anyone ever wants to get into that game, MESSAGE ME. holy shit. it is so good. i will absolutely help you get started. my username on there is salamoonder #558798)

most of my ships are polyam and aspec. (and trans.) i don’t experience attraction in a “normal” way and i project that, hard.

my ao3 handle is salamoonder and i’ve written some neat cr stuff over there :)

and then some plural stuff:

i’m the host of a system of five (that we know of). what does this mean? well essentially nothing on here, this is still my blog, although you might occasionally see one of my headmates using it. if we’re friends or even acquaintances, however, i’d love for my headmates to be able to talk to more people--not many people irl know we’re plural.

quick rundown on us:

vax, yes he is a vax fictive. he/him. older than the body (and me). very open to talking to strangers. for some reason. that’s his choice though lol

wulf: eadwulf fictive, he’s asked to only be called by his nickname. he/him. unknown age.

october: one of our littles. he/him. loves people but i’d like to limit his interactions to people we already know well.

luna: another little. you will likely never see her.

if anyone wants to talk plural stuff/discovering you’re a system, please hit me up. this is all super new to me.

#thane.txt #also hi new people!!

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feathered-serpents · 3 years ago

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Tagged by @crit20lesbian (thank you!!)

1- why did you choose your URL?

When this blog started I was really into Good Omens (still am! just quieter about it but that’ll change as we get closer to season 2) so I wanted a URL that referenced Good Omens but was also neutral enough that I could switch fandoms without it being weird. “Feathered-serpents” is meant to be referring to the angels and snakes in Good Omens but also the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl because I’m a mythology slut. I love this deity so much and he’s ALWAYS made to be a monster in Western media when he’s!! A god of art, wind, and knowledge!! And created humanity!! He’s so cool Aztec mythos is SO COOL

2- Any side blogs?

Not really. I used to have a Flight Rising side blog but it’s been abandoned for awhile. Been thinking about making a Dragon Age sideblog but I basically just use Twitter for that so this is what we get

3- How long have you been on Tumblr?

10 years. Since I was 13. Technically 11 if you count when I made a blog in 2010 but didn’t know how to use tumblr since it’s not user friendly and just let it sit there for a year until I figured it out.

It’s certainly done something to my development. Dunno what. But something

4- Do you have a queue tag?

No. Everything you get is live

5- Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I’ve had a series of blogs over the years, leaving older ones by either switching fandoms after I’d built too much of a niche in one to change my whole blog or by deleting the accounts cause I was swearing off tumblr and we can all see how that worked out. This one is my fifth main blog and I made it cause the fourth one got shadowbanned for no reason! Yay!

6- Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

There’s this amazing comic by the artist @hollow-head of Aziraphale and Crowley’s drunken debate from the book and it contained a panel with Aziraphale in a little rocket ship as Crowley explained interstellar bird travel. I thought it was cute and asked if I could use it and they said yes and even sent me a version with a white background. I love it and I’m never changing it

7- Why did you choose your header?

I really like the book Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman it’s DEEPLY weird and I’m still waiting for an adaptation. There’s an illustrated version which is beautiful and my header is the scene where the main character first enters the Underground world. I thought it was cool!

8- What’s your post with the most notes?

The fucking. Stupid female aliens post I made in a rage after hearing that female aliens were barely included in the game Mass Effect because the artists “Didn’t know what that would look like”

Like five seconds after I made this some dude reblogged it with “takes more than a voice and pronoun change but aight” after calling me a “puritan who hates women” on a separate post for expressing my approval of a scene in that same game being changed where a woman is confiding in you about her tormented childhood while the camera is just. Glued to her ass for no reason

(he also reblogged and disagreed with me on like. many Mass Effect posts. It was deeply strange. I did not know him. He’s blocked now)

9- How many mutuals do you have? Not sure but quite a few! I’d say about half the people I follow are mutuals as I tend to follow people I see in my notes a lot

10- How many followers do you have?

1,577 but the number tends to go up and down constantly and also a good amount are probably porn bots

11-How many people do you follow?

279!

12- Have you ever made a shit post?

That’s all I do here

13- How often do you use Tumblr each day?

That’s between me and god

14- Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

Not really. If someone is annoying me or if they just post too much content I don’t like I’ll just block them. Usually it’s not even because I think they’re a bad person I just don’t wanna see their Eliasfucking posts in the TMA tag I’m sorry it’s too much*

*(that’s an example i’m not referring to anyone specific)

15- How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

Usually avoid unless I think it’s very important

16- Do you like tag games?

Yes but I will usually forget to do them unless I do it RIGHT AWAY (like this one)

17- Do you like ask games?

Also yes but I tend to forget to respond to those too. I will do the WWDITS/TMA prompts you all sent I will do them I just get overwhelmed by things I enjoy

18- Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

We’re all in pretty niche corners so I don’t think any of us are “famous” but I am mutuals with some really cool artists. That’s fun!

19- Do you have a crush on a mutual?

Platonically <3

Oh god now I have to tag people uhhhhhhh @alexiley, @dudeiwannasleep, @annabelle--cane, @ghostbustermelanieking, is that enough? that feels like enough (no pressure!!)

#personal #tag game

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inhonoredglory · 4 years ago

Text

I thought this needed to be its own post, since it’s a huge meta and I really loved writing it.

The following is my attempt to analyze the symbolism and staging of @tenyai ‘s impeccable storyboards to Douxie and Merlin’s farewell, in the final episode of Wizards: Tales of Arcadia.

Teny, your boards and the thoughtfulness, heart, and passion you put into them have legit inspired me to take up boarding as a truly narrative, imaginative, and character-driven art. Thank you for these and for all the love. Your skill and craftsmanship and sincerity of emotion come shining through in these arts, and it warms my heart and fills me with absolute joy. I’ve been in awe of your handle of cinematographic symbolism ever since you teased so much meaning out of the final scene in Killahead Part 2, and I’ve changed my entire view on how to analyze scenes and characters on screen because of it. I cannot wait to see your analysis of this scene. It’s rich and powerful in ways I cannot even express.

People, please go check out her boards on her blog and at her professional portfolio on the website in her bio!!

______

Waking up in Merlin’s Study

First up, parallelisms… Merlin’s study is the symbol of everything Douxie is aspiring to in his life. It’s the heart of Merlin’s knowledge, his position as a master and a wizard. It’s full of things Douxie is off-limits to (like the safe or the time map), as we saw in the second episode. He’s always been a student and an inferior in this room; that’s why he considers it an ironic Hell. But unlike in “Dragon’s Den,” when he wakes up in this room on the floor, scared and confused––here instead, he wakes up on the table, surrounded by Merlin’s books, Merlin’s knowledge. And he’s much more comfortable and relaxed. Symbolically, he’s not scrubbing the floor anymore as an inferior.

I almost want to say that Merlin’s tables represent the places where Merlin crafts and makes things––like in “History in the Making” when he is shown making the amulet over one of the tables in his study. But in this case, the person Merlin had a hand in crafting was Douxie. And being a father to Douxie, by saving him from the streets, is Merlin’s greatest accomplishment. He may have saved Douxie, but Douxie took on a life of his own and surpassed Merlin’s wisdom, in a way much like the amulet took on a foresight far more wise than Merlin could have ever predicted (choosing a human to be the Trollhunter, despite Merlin’s belief that a human wasn’t enough).

Walking to the Light

After Douxie wakes up, we get the walk towards the Light, with Merlin starting out in the Light and by the end of this scene, falling into Shadow. Symbolizing Douxie’s growth and perception of Merlin, and symbolizing Merlin’s position as Master Wizard of this realm and his willful relinquishing of that role to Douxie. At first, Douxie wakes up, thinking about his past in this room and all the service he did for his master––who in this shot appears as a hazy halo-ed vision speaking down at him from the unattainable glow: “Hello there, boy,” said with the kind of judgmental snide Douxie’s used to from Merlin.

Then they start walking and then we hit the window at the far end of the room, a kind of apex in the parabolic staging of Douxie and Merlin’s movement through the scene––with the arc going from the back of the room and the table, to the window, and swinging again to the back, this time from the right side of the room. Merlin’s dialogue when we hit the window is important. He’s first talking about how he’s dead and vaporized into soot, etc, and then he opens the time map and asks, “The question really is, Why are you here?” A charged, thematically rich question placed right when we see the mingle of blue and green light from the time map’s lenses––the mingling of these two’s lives through the ages, the summation of all Douxie’s insecurities and all Merlin’s expectations, all Douxie’s greatest mistakes and his greatest triumphs.

Why Are You Here?

Why is he here? At this point, Douxie’s finally let go, he’s accepted Merlin’s death, accepted the title of successor, accepted his gifts and powers and heroism. And he’s accepted that death is part of the job of Master Wizard if it means saving those he’s sworn to protect. So why is he here? Because he’s done everything and more that a true Master Wizard is supposed to do. He’s equalled Merlin, nay––surpassed him in heroism, wisdom, and responsibility. The mingling of the time map’s lights symbolizes that Douxie has achieved everything Merlin represented to him, and more.

And then Douxie touches the Light, looking out into the glow of the hereafter, saying nothing (I love that and makes me crave for his thoughts).

There’s something so fundamentally and chillingly introspective and metaphysical here in this shot for me. It comes on the heels of not only “Why are you here” but also “I am most certainly dead. You saw me vaporize into soot.” Cuz that’s what happens when we all go, isn’t it? You might be the wisest person on this earth, mastered all there is to know about life, become the greatest wizard, lived a thousand years and more, and still in the end, you will die, and to the dust you will return. Maybe Douxie’s thinking, Am I here because I’m dead too? Because my body is gone, because somewhere out there beyond the stained glass is the explanation of the mystery of what happens when we die? Because even if you master life, there is no mastery over death, because none of us will ever feel what it truly is to be on the other side until we get there?

Separate and Equal

Symbolically, with the lighting, it also means Douxie’s touched Wisdom/Maturity in a way. If the hazy glow of Merlin at the start was from this Light, from this Unattainable Essence––then by the time of this staging’s apex, Douxie has achieved what Merlin has. He’s touched the thing that he has sought for so long. He too can be framed by the Light of the person he wanted to be. So now, we see Douxie talking back to Merlin, and not being silent anymore.

Merlin and Douxie are on the same plane now––as equals. We get the vitally important shot of them side by side, Douxie laughing off Merlin’s disapproval, both of them framed by the Light, both of them standing on their own, balanced by the pillars and the light, each of them solid and independent, separate and equal.

Douxie’s Need for Validation

And then we get to the other side of the parabola, the shift in Merlin’s dialogue from disapproval to one of admiration and pride. “I can see you no longer need my validation.”

This line kills me, because you can see in Douxie’s face that yes, he does. Oh how he desperately wants it. But he’s worked so hard to NOT need it, so that he can grow and flourish. And Douxie falls back into that quiet again, waiting on Merlin’s every word, because his rebellious veneer is stripped right now. Merlin’s hitting on the core of his needs, the source of his insecurity. In the film version, he’s even holding his hands together in front of him, and if that body language means anything to me, it’s Douxie feeling small and childlike again, needing and wanting something from his Dad but not having the courage to tell him.

Staging-wise, Douxie’s still very much following Merlin. He’s behind him, chasing after him, looking up to him. The “ancient Draconic” stand-off was the first and most important show of Douxie’s growth, born from Douxie’s own gumption and sass, when Merlin for the first time in this scene walked up to *Douxie* instead of the other way around, even if it was to judge him:

But like any good hero’s journey, after one win, our hero gets a setback, a reminder of his failures, before he wins again. And this time, it’s Douxie feeling like this latest monologue from Merlin is again some kind of judgement, some kind of backhanded lecture. Would his show of strength and independence fall on deaf ears?

“Remember when I told you that magic is mastery over life?” Merlin says, holding up an alchemy bottle and then a book––tools of the trade, spellcraft and tricks. All the things Merlin taught him. In a huge way, Merlin wasn’t there for the real lessons Douxie learned to become truly wise. Douxie became strong and selfless and kind because he had to, because those were the ways he knew in his heart would take him on the path to reaching that wisdom of life Merlin was talking about. I wonder if there’s something to the fact that once Merlin starts saying, “Nine hundred years you’ve guarded this realm…” he puts the book away––putting away his own knowledge and symbolically recognizing that Douxie’s wisdom has taken him far past Merlin’s own teachings, and that in the 900 years that went by, Douxie has guarded this realm with a mastery of life all his own.

In the final version, the moment Merlin says, “You’ve disrupted time, freed ancient beasts,” that’s when Douxie drops his hands, stops walking, and looks down––a brushstroke reminder of his guilt on doing these things, things that Merlin disapproved of, but things Merlin is now seeing as good and right things to do.

And then we get to the shot of the amulet blueprints, and the wonderful crowning statement of Douxie’s morality: “You’ve… fought to save one life at the risk of countless others.” Meaning Jim, meaning the very person who inspired Douxie to take his selflessness that one step further and set aside his own life so that he could save everyone. Because every life is precious. I find it fascinating that on this line in the boards, Douxie silently fist-slams the table, disappointment all over his face. While Merlin, now in Shadow, has a look of wistful regret.

This shot is so pack full of meaning, and I keep adding to this interpretation...

Douxie for so long has been stripped down for everything he’s done, been criticized by Merlin for being different from him. In some ways, he thinks this latest monologue is more of the same, more ways in which he’s disappointed his father. And clearly, despite his growth, it still hurts him.

And it hurts him that while Merlin is talking about saving Jim’s life, Douxie never really was able to save him. Douxie died while Jim was still corrupted. He died only seeing Jim lose himself to the Green Knight. He never saw Claire’s heroism in bringing Jim back. Personally, Douxie failed.

But even more than that, it hurts him that for all his love for Merlin, he could not save him. He might give his life to save the world, but he cannot bring Merlin back from the grave. Every life is precious and he would risk countless to save just one. But he couldn’t save the one that meant the most to him.

Merlin recognizing he’s wronged Douxie

In the end, Merlin here isn’t talking Douxie down, even as he’s pointing out their differences. He’s in awe at this idealism Douxie possesses. He’s not criticizing him, he’s not being wry or ironic. Merlin looks up at the portrait, knowing that it wasn’t him who gave Douxie this outlook on life. It wasn’t his harsh treatment that gave Douxie his beautiful soul. Douxie had it all along, and Merlin was too dense to see it and nourish it.

So what Merlin says next hits even deeper––

“And yet, despite such relentless hardships…” Merlin’s looking up at the portrait. He’s looking at himself. He’s looking at everything he’s done to Douxie that’s burdened his son with that guilt, that insecurity, that fear, that emotional abandonment. He’s acknowledging here his part in the trauma of Douxie’s life, and his regret is that all this time, it was Douxie who was the better man than he was.

And then we get the symbolic shot––“Despite such relentless hardships, you managed to protect those dearest to you”––with Merlin in Shadow and Douxie lit from behind with the Light. A reversal of the opening shot of this scene, when it was Merlin in the Light and Douxie, unsettled, in the Shadow. This is finally Merlin laying down his ego, seeing in Douxie the strength and force of love and protectiveness he never had. The very thing Merlin didn’t do, when he didn’t protect Douxie all those years, when he let his son down, when he left him and ignored him and took him for granted. When he didn’t give the person dearest to him the love he deserved.

Resolution

And finally, it’s Merlin walking *up* to Douxie, Merlin falling in Douxie’s shadow, and Douxie being once and finally again on an equal plane with his master and peer. “My Hisirdoux, what a life you’ve lived. What a wizard you’ve become.” This is the climax of Douxie’s parabolic hero’s journey in this room. Merlin has at long last given to him what he desperately needed to hear––pure, unadulterated pride in his father’s eyes, and an honest and sincere expression of love, kindness, and emotion.

It’s too much for Douxie’s desperate heart, and he collapses into his father’s arms, releasing 900 years of pent-up emotions and need.

(Is that symbolically why Merlin’s always in armor and Douxie never had any––cuz he’s fragile and bare in the face of Merlin’s cold, callous exterior?)

After that hug (waaaah TEARS, every. freaking. time), we once again are treated to the Light symbolism. First again to show how equal these two men are––Merlin importantly a step down from his son, with the light behind Douxie. And then to show the time map, glimmering with a calm, peaceful, happy equality.

Life and Death

And now we’re in scene denouement, as Merlin and Douxie walk to the end of the parabola (past the first table and eventually out the door). Fascinatingly, in the boards, Douxie glances around the room and then his eyes I believe land on the table he woke up in earlier, before the scene cuts and we get a shot of that same table, panning up to reveal Merlin and Douxie facing the doorway to the hereafter.

And in my brain, it’s like we’ve come full circle in Douxie’s life arc. If waking on your back is birth, snarking about your tough childhood, and now after all you’ve gone through, you look back on that time at the end of your days, ready to face what comes after death…. (well, that’s what it means to me anyway).

Douxie’s fully prepared to leave the mortal world. That’s how far he’s come in his maturity. He closes his eyes, accepting the unknown and resting in the confidence of who he is.

The Hero’s Journey

But like any good hero’s journey, the end isn’t to leave the ordinary world with the boon of your new knowledge and wisdom. It is to return to your home and share that knowledge with others, to use what you have gained and become a teacher and protector for your family and community.

Merlin gives him one last lesson, one last parting gift to tell him, Hey, you have more power than you even imagine you possess. Your rebellious spirit made you who you are today, and it’s what will keep you alive and fighting because it’s your gift and how you protect the world. Your way.

Merlin’s parting sign of the horns is the cherry on top of this whole thing, a perfectly subtle way of Merlin acknowledging who Douxie is, accepting it, and celebrating it. Saying goodbye to his son in a language meant for him. Douxie’s tears at the end (wish they got into the final oof!) speaks volumes to his beautifully mingled emotions––amusement at Merlin’s gesture and a poignant love that he did it for him. I tear up just thinking about the look on Douxie’s face and what it all means in his heart.

Anyway, that’s a wrap, folks. I love Douxie with my entire soul. Thank you for sharing these boards, Teny, and for putting your heart and tears into this masterwork of a scene. (I listened to “Moving On” to write this for the Mood and guhh, it’s a tear-jerker gosh.) This fandom is incredibly lucky to be the recipients of your favorite sequence in your career to date. It’s been an absolute pleasure to see your work and feel the heart you poured into them.

#tales of arcadia #toa wizards #douxie #hisirdoux casperan #toa meta #toa wizards meta #tales of arcadia wizards #douxie meta #merlin #douxie x merlin #*mine #*mymeta #tenyai #toa wizards storyboards #long post

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dreamersleeps · 4 years ago

Note

Hey, have been reading your blog and it is the kind of goldmine I’d brave the dangers of the Klondike for. It is SO GOOD. But I’m also curious on your thoughts on Endeavor playing god, but not understanding the science behind his creations? He seems to think Shouto has an Icyhot Quirk when it’s more likely Shouto is a Chimera. He has two phenotypes, thus one side can only use Icy and the other can only use Fire. Shouto like has TWO Quirks instead of a combination of both. And Enji seems to think Touya inherited Rei’s constitution, yet that might not be the case as according to the Singularity Theory, humans’ Quirks are evolving at a faster pace than the body can keep up with. So Touya might not even HAVE his mother’s constitution but Endeavor just THINKS he does. Also, there is his rivalry with All Might that is completely one-sided. Allmight as All For One which is the Quirk of not a single person but more eight Quirks in one. Endeavor thinks he’s going up against a single man when in reality he’s facing eight men in one.

Hello! First of all I’d like to give a huge apology for how late my response is. Due to the start of the spring semester and some other unexpected life events, this took way longer than expected.

Thank you so much for your kind comments! 😩💕 It really did put a huge smile on my face and it made my day! It makes me feel very giddy~ When I first started posting on Tumblr, I wasn’t expecting people to actually like or even read the stuff I was writing about or send messages to my inbox since most of my posts kind of make me look like the guy in this meme here:

I very much appreciate all the comments and asks I receive in my inbox, so thank you for sending yours in.

Anyways, I’d like to address this from the beginning but, unfortunately when it comes to quirks and how they work, I’m not too sure if I will be able to answer your questions properly. For example I am aware of the Quirk Singularity Theory but I don’t know if I have a good enough understanding of it to form a response I am confident in.. That being said, I will try to answer your other questions and comments the best I can.

Endeavor Playing God

So, what are my thoughts on Endeavor playing god, but not understanding the science behind his creations? Back when we had the Touya reveal and we got more information about the Todoroki household from the perspective of Todoroki Enji, there were a lot of differing thoughts and opinions about the flashbacks that were floating around Tumblr. I think if I were to give a simple answer to your question, I’d say it was Endeavor’s youth and stubbornness. Looking back at Chapter 291, we can see that Endeavor looks quite young in the flashbacks with Touya, but I’m going to attempt to do the math.

Seeing that we know that Fuyumi is currently 23, and that Dabi is older than her (I suck at guessing ages) and I’m guessing here that he’s going to be four years or older, since quirks normally manifest around four years of age. That being stated the youngest age Dabi may be currently is 27? Maybe 26.

Keep in mind that I may be off with the “math” I’m doing here but let’s guestimate Dabi’s age as being 26 or 27. Endeavor is currently 46 years old so that means he was 19 or 20 years old when he had Touya. For comparison, Natsuo is currently 19 years old as well.

At that young of an age, he already had his eyes set on wanting to surpass All Might. His hero name, Endeavor, summarizes his career pretty well: an attempt to achieve a goal.

With the hellflame quirk he has, and the wealth and power that came with his family name, he really was given a position to act as a “god.” For the sake of his ambitions, Touya, Fuyumi, Natsuo and Shouto were born, as his “creations.”

Touya’s “Weak Constitution” and Shouto’s Quirk

I’m not going to say that his youth was the main factor for why things happened the way they did because the answer is more complex, but I do think that a combination of his youth and stubbornness fueled Endeavor’s recklessness. He essentially bought his marriage with Rei in order to pass down some sort of combination of the hellflame quirk and Rei’s ice quirk to his children. I think when it comes to the question of whether he understood the science behind what he was doing, I think I can confidently say that he didn’t know in the beginning, or at least it was not something he really looked in to. I think he just saw it as hellflame + ice quirk = child with both quirks as we kind of see in the panel below.

As you state, Endeavor does see the combination of the two quirks as one. We can see below that he refers to it as, “the ideal quirk.”

I think that it is also important to point out that Endeavor was, I guess you could say, content when Touya was born even though he only had the hellflame quirk. From the first panel, Endeavor states, “the fire power he possessed was greater than my own.”

He continues to say, “He didn’t have a way to overcome the inescapable downside of overheating but... I nevertheless sought to raise the boy to be a hero.”

That was until it was revealed that Touya’s body could not handle the extreme heat which came with the hellflame quirk. This is when Endeavor began to refer to Touya’s “weakness” as inheriting Rei’s weak constitution.

Now, the Quirk Singularity Theory and just the genetic science behind quirks has always been kind of difficult for me to wrap my mind around so because of that I do not think that I will be able to give an opinion on it that I would be confident in. However, @/redphlox has a post which has some opinions that I agree with that have to do with Endeavor’s belief that Touya had “a weak constitution and Shouto’s quirk. I will link it here.

As for Shouto’s quirk, unless the actual meaning and its nuances was lost in translation, his quirk is referred to as “Half-Cold Half Hot” in the English official translation which I think further reinforces the idea that it is not really a singular quirk but a combination of two separate quirks. I agree that Shouto is most likely a Chimera.

According to Britannica, a chimera is:

In genetics, an organism or tissue that contains at least two different sets of DNA, most often originating from the fusion of a many different zygotes.

The term is derived from the chimera of Greek mythology: a fire-breathing monster that was part lion, part goat, and part dragon.

As seen below we can see the white hair, gray eye and ice quirk on his right side (our left) that he inherited from his mother Rei, and then on his left side (our right), the red hair, teal blue eye and hellflame quirk he inherited from his father Enji. He can only use his ice quirk on his right side and his fire quirk on his right side.

Shouto’s appearance reminds me of a particular tortoiseshell cat named Venus from a while back. You may have seen her back when photos of her went viral. Tortoiseshell cats are usually chimeras, however Venus was nicknamed the “Chimera Kitten” or “Chimera Cat” even though it is most likely that the chimera mutation isn’t the cause behind her unique (and cute!) appearance.

Another definition of a chimera is:

“A chimera... is a composite individual that was made up of cells from at least two different original embryos. If they fuse together early enough, they will become a single organism whose genetic input is from two completely different individuals. In a mosaic, there’s only one individual and it just happens to have different genetic components active in its cells. A chimera would be a much more unusual and unlikely event. - Columbia University Professor of Genetics and Development Virginia Papaioannaou

The image above depicts Venus the cat however the original source of the photo is unknown.

Considering that in real life, a chimera is an individual made up of cells from at least two different embryos I think we could kind of apply that sort of argument to Shouto although this is all speculation. To our knowledge, the other Todoroki children were born with only one of their parents’ quirks while Shouto was born with both.

On Shouto’s fan wiki page, it states:

If he overuses one element without utilizing the other, then his own body temperature will suffer; the ice half will cause frostbite and the fire half will cause heatstroke, Until his bodily limit is reached however, neither has any visible effect on his body. Shouto can easily negate his weakness by alternating between ice and fire.

Endeavor had been training Shouto to use his fireside and I think he mostly saw the ice quirk as something that could be used for temperature regulation however, as you suggest Shouto has two separate quirks, both equally strong in their own right. If he used his ice quirk too much, he may have to rely on the hellflame quirk to regulate his body temperature. Both quirks have very high potential on their own and with the aid of the other.

Anyways going back to the Chimera stuff, I think that although the movie, Heroes Rising isn’t canon, I do think that the inclusion of the villain, Kon Chojuro going by the name of “Chimera” with the quirk of the same name was interesting. He also fits the second definition of the Greek mythological chimera that we had above.

Even more interesting was that it was with the team of Tenya, Kirishima, Asui and Shouto that took Chimera on, with Shouto making the last blow using his ice quirk. He takes his ice quirk to the extreme and we see his body covered in ice (frostbite?) as a result before he passes out.

All Might and Endeavor’s One-Sided Rivalry

Whenever I write about this particular character I feel that I must include a little note like this but everything you see above is not an excuse for what Endeavor has done but a little exploration in to the complexity that is Todoroki Enji. I personally think that he is a very interesting character to look in to.

As you mention, the rivalry between Endeavor and All Might was completely one-sided. I think a large part behind it had to do with their differing ideas of what it means to be a hero. It is from All Might where we tended to see the more ideal-focused concepts of a hero. He was the symbol of peace, the light of hope and an inspiration for children and people all across Japan. In simple terms, a hero is someone who saves, kind of like how we saw Midoriya throughout most of the series.

As for Endeavor, he fits more in the role of the concept of a hero being an occupation. He had a hard time trying to figure out how to portray himself to the public after All Might retires and even asks him for some advice of what it means to be the number one. Endeavor wanted to be the number one because that meant he is the strongest man/person in Japan. He was constantly training and he was so focused on wanting to achieve his goal that if he was not able to then he wanted to make sure that his own blood would surpass All Might. For him, simple terms a hero meant someone who surpasses and wins. This is kind of like how we saw Bakugo throughout most of the series until recently.

(I’m not going to go too deep in to this as many other blogs have written amazing analysis and meta posts on Tumblr already but the adults they are often compared to Midoriya and Bakugo’s storylines have been slowly changing to incorporate both saving and winning in to what it means to be a hero.)

With this one-sided rivalry came Endeavor’s recklessness. I do not think that before and early stages after Touya was born that he really considered the science behind his “creation.” However as soon as it was revealed that Touya could easily get harmed by his quirk, Endeavor definitely should have recognized the consequences of his actions.

As his hero name suggests, one of his main goals and purposes of being a hero was to accomplish his greatest endeavor, to surpass All Might, which he calls his “eternal goal.” There is an implication here that at the age of 19 Endeavor already believed that there was a good chance that he may not be able to surpass All Might with his own quirk and strength. That is why he sought out a Quirk marriage.

“Because Toya had more potential than me... I placed my ambitions on his shoulders.”

Endeavor has a bias towards his own quirk as he wanted an heir with his quirk and blood to become number one. Fuyumi was born and she had inherited Rei’s ice quirk but unless we get some sort of explanation, I think we can assume that Endeavor did not bother trying to training her. I think the same can be said about Natsuo.

Then Shouto was born and this changed a lot of things. It seems that there was a highly likely chance that Endeavor either greatly diminished his focus on or halted Touya’s training and turned his attention towards Shouto. After all, he was born with what Endeavor believed to be “the ideal quirk.” He probably saw more potential in Shouto carrying his legacy than he did in Touya to become number one. It is likely that it was during this time that Touya “perished” in the fire.

Now that Endeavor had lost Touya, he was only left with Shouto. Driven by grief and desperation he put everything he had now onto Shouto. Looking back to Chapter 252, Endeavor tells Natsuo:

“Believe it or not... I was never trying to neglect any of you. But... all I could do was blame others and dodge responsibility.”

His actions and the past state otherwise however if we take his word, then I kind of visualize a man who was aware of the consequences and hurt caused by his actions and cruelty but had refused to actually acknowledge it: whether it was because he was afraid to confront reality, a mix of his stubbornness and desperation, the desire to become number one surpassing every other desire or a combination of all of this.

I always got a feeling from his character that he was someone who chose to believe that “the end would justify the means” as he “lost more” if that makes sense. “Everything that happened could not be all in vain” (although I’d like to point out that acting in this way is very selfish of him) which is why he continued to keep his eyes on the horizon at his goal instead of towards his family.

As you state, Endeavor was going up against All Might, the carrier of the One for All quirk, and yes, it is interesting that kind of like All for One, it is the carrier of multiple quirks. One of the main differences between how the two quirks function is that one has the ability to pass on quirks and power while the other is the ability to take other quirks and powers. Unfortunately, unless the secret of AFO and OFA come to be known to the public, Endeavor would have never known what he was truly up against and in a nihilistic view, one can say that everything he was and did ended in vain.

Although I would argue otherwise as this implies the assumption that the birth and existence of the Todoroki children would then had also been “in vain.” This is not true. This would imply that they would only be an extension of his legacy. We see the struggle to separate ones’ identity from their parent and their “destiny” through the contrasting stories of Shouto and Touya.

In the end, Endeavor did become the number one hero although it was not in the way he envisioned it to be: it was given to him as he was the next in line as the number two hero due to All Might’s retirement. He didn’t win the position by surpassing All Might hence the embarrassment and anger he may have felt when the news was announced. Now that he is (ehhh maybe was? considering where we are in the manga) the number one hero, it seems like that everything he’s been doing and thinking keeps going back to the thought of “because I am the number one hero.” The position he worked hard for, trained hard for and hurt his family for across the decades of his life, forfeited to him by the previous symbol of peace.

I always return back to the High End vs Endeavor fight whenever I talk about him but that is because there are great symbolic and narrative points that are made during it. Again, it is what establishes him as the number one hero but this is also where he acknowledges the past (however to what extent is debatable).

I remember when the episode first came out back in 2020, anime watchers were going crazy. It felt like with some viewers, they focused more on the action than the narrative that was taking place. The reason why Endeavor flies so high and captures the hearts and support of the people of Japan in BNHA and a wide majority of us, the watching audience, is so that we can feel the blow later on when he plummets down. Even when I was watching it, I couldn’t help getting goosebumps while listening to the ost and seeing the way the manga panels were interpreted and animated.

While I had been reading the chapters which I did first, I did not even really care about what was going on. I just kind of brushed Endeavor off to the side at the time. However when I was watching it I even got a little emotional, although I’d like to blame that on the fact that I had just finished a really difficult semester and watching the episodes felt like a cathartic release of stress (hahaha). It was only afterwards I went back to actually re-read and look at what was going on in the manga.

I hope that I gave the answers, thoughts and opinions that you were looking for. Again, huge apology for answering your questions and comments really late. Thank you @thewilderstorm for sending your thoughts in, I truly appreciate it and loved responding to them!

#todoroki enji #endeavor #todoroki shouto #bnha analysis #bnha meta #mha meta #luna answers

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josmarney23 · 4 years ago

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Miraculous Ladybug: Future Madness

Ok....So ... I've been thinking about this idea for a long time and it would be the first time I published a concrete and concise idea like this, even more so for a very direct fandom such as the Miraculous Ladybug fandom. It should be clarified that this is an IDEA or CONCEPT, it is not something real.

Making that clear, I continue to continue.

This idea for a video game based on the Miraculous Ladybug universe came up while I was trying to remaster the TMNT: Turtles In Time soundtrack (the Arcade version, not the SNES version).

At first I started as a very basic idea but then it evolved to the concept that I want to share with you, but before continuing, I must first divide the content into parts, to better understand how I imagine a Miraculous Ladybug video game would be.

1. THE GAMEPLAY:

Introducing you to my crazy idea, we have the most important and crucial thing, the gameplay.

This video game, from my perspective, I feel that it would be a Beat 'Em Up, a classic genre of games like Streets Of Rage, Final Fight, Kunio-Kun Saga, Double Dragon, etc. Its specific gameplay would drink a lot from the aforementioned games but would also add mechanics such as, for example, the semi-3D scenes of TMNT: Turtles In Time from the SNES and a bit of the gameplay of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.

The number of players would be 4 for a maximum of 4 characters and among the main controllable characters would be:

-Marinette (Ladybug)

-Adrien (Chat Noir)

-Kagami (Ryuko)

-Nino (Carapace)

Later, more playable characters and surprises would be unlocked.

The scenarios would have to be a little more elaborate and long than the average Beat 'Em Up, to encourage exploration but without too much open world, to find a balance between the old arcade gameplay Beat' Em Up and the new exploration sensation of the more Recent Beat 'Em Up like Streets Of Rage 4 or River City Girls.

2. THE HISTORY:

The story is why I really do this blog and this idea, since, as I said previously, it was something that evolved over time and now it is somewhat complex.

To sum up the whole general plot, the game begins with the player controlling Ladybug and her friends (Chat Noir, Carapace and Ryuko) to fight Lila and Shadowmoth (Before Hawkmoth) and the army of minions that Lila is creating with her powers of Volpina to wreak havoc and keep the heroes busy, as well as separated so she can have a chance to get hold of the Miraculous from Ladybug and Chat Noir.

The player finishes the introductory level and defeats these two bosses while getting used to the gameplay. Once Shadowmoth is defeated along with Lila, the heroes are about to unmask our villain but then a time portal appears and a very badly wounded Bunnyx and a mysterious villain who has the same powers as Shadowmoth but still leaves almost flying. notorious much stronger than the mentioned one. The villain shows her strength despite being very hurt, making it clear how strong she is, in order to take Bunnyx through the portal. The heroes chase the villain through the portal to end up in an alternate universe / future where this villain controls Paris from the shadows, with her akumas powered by microtechnology that allow her to keep akumatized who will be the game's zone bosses.

The heroes thus, would meet the very limited and small resistance whose leaders would be a mysterious heroine who would call herself "Savage Rouge" and an aging Gabriel Agreste. After some somewhat limited and mysterious explanations, the heroes would go to work to defeat each boss who controls an area of the City of Paris.

While the player defeats each boss and deakumatizes them, little by little it is discovered that each boss is actually a friend and acquaintance of our heroes and they are discovering little by little things of this alternate future, the mysterious villain, Lady Darkmoth, as they know her, is healing her wounds and gaining more energy in her secret and private laboratory while her two mysterious assistants are taking care that the " government "of his lady and boss does not fall apart.

Once the heroes have managed to free almost all of Paris from the control of Lady Darkmoth, the heroes in their hiding place of the resistance are celebrating without knowing that one of their friends has a tracker that reveals the location to the villain, to top it off the mysterious villain is already completely healthy and with more power than before. Lady Darkmoth takes advantage of the fact that everyone is celebrating the victory to give a wild surprise with hers, two mysterious helpers of hers. Lady Darkmoth sends her assistants to take care of the resistance members and who were deakumatized while Lady Darkmoth takes care of Ladybug, Chat Noir, Carapace, Kagami, Savage Rouge, Gabriel Agreste and Emilie Di Vanille (who in this alternate future has been saved and awakened by Ladybug and has separated from Gabriel Agreste), defeating everyone with great ease, being only Emilie, Lila and Gabriel who end up giving her the most fight but defeating them in the end. Lady Darkmoth reveals to heroes the truth about who Gabriel Agreste is and reveals the identity of Savage Rouge, being neither more nor less than Lila Rossi. After that she would reveal her true identity, Emma Duppain-Agreste, the middle daughter of Marinette Duppain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste.

Emma would charge a powerful attack with which she would destroy the base of the resistance, taking with her Gabriel, Emilie and Lila, thinking that with her great charged attack she managed to kill the heroes, who have been narrowly saved.

The heroes and the rebels who were left alive decide to go to the secret facilities following the villain, taking advantage of a trace that the villain's power generates and that they have just discovered to their secret laboratories, waging a tough battle against the huge arsenal of sentimonsters modified with Futuristic technology that Emma has at her disposal. There the heroes manage to enter the depths of the secret laboratory and free Gabriel, Alyx, Lila and Emilie, Lila being the only conscious one and which explains that Emma became the villain they know because of the Marinette of the future. denied her middle daughter being a superhero for fear that all her children could end up hurt or even traumatized as she suffered with that stressful life, taking it to somewhat radical extremes that ended up taking Emma away from her mother and causing her to she became more friends with Lila, which little by little would end up giving her the wrong ideas. Lila would tell them that Emma would end up misinterpreting an advice that she would give to a very moody and angry Emma and would end up attacking her parents when they were off guard, thereby assuming the blame as well and that for that she had taken the mantle of Savage Rouge , to at least try to repair the damage, freeing Gabriel Agreste from jail so that he could also help him by his knowledge of the Miraculous. After the explanation, the heroes go to try to defeat Emma before she carries out her plan to expand her control to more cities in the world but in it they face the mysterious helpers who turn out to be crazed and adult versions of Marinette and Adrien, which were used by Emma as guinea pigs to perfect her mecha akumas to control people by way of revenge.

The heroes finally arrive with Emma and fight her but in the middle of the first fight Emma cheats using an unfinished special machine to greatly weaken the heroes until Lila intervenes and sacrifices herself to expose the weak point of the girl. Emma's machine and dies, causing the heroes to overcome the final battle, defeating the young villain, who survives weakened and Ladybug and her friends destroy the laboratory while taking Emma and the others who were inside the laboratory. Emma is imprisoned for life like Gabriel (who must pay her perpetual sentence). Ladybug and the heroes are dedicated to helping rebuild the Paris of the alternate future but are later taken by a Bunnyx recovered in time, but not before Marinette writing on a paper what mistakes she should not make in the future (without revealing much of his alternate future or what he has experienced in the game). Bunnyx takes them back in time after erasing them all from her memory and ends the story.

Yes, yes, I know, the story is very long, but that does not prevent it from being used in a game and even more so in a Beat 'Em Up game. It would just be a matter of simplifying a few things. Let me know in the comments if you like the story or your suggestions.

3. THE MUSIC:

The music would have to be a fusion of styles that would be based on the musical style of the TMNT game: Turtles In Time (Arcade Version) with some musical ideas from some games like Sega's Out Run (Arcade) or some works by composer Luke McQueen.

Here is some of his best works:

youtube

(This will be a perfect Older Akumatized Chloe Level)

youtube

(Older Akumatized Chloe Boss Theme or Theme 2)

youtube

(This Would be a Perfect Akumatized Older Luka Boss Theme)

youtube

(This will be a Cementary Level Theme)

youtube

(This will be a perfect Police Station Theme Level)

4. UNLOCKABLE EXTRAS:

For this part, I got to think about what I could put as unlockable content (I don't like DLC, I prefer unlockable content and that the game is worth the money it demands). These would be the unlockables of my hypothetical game:

-Unlock characters and kwamis for heroes but post-campaign (New Game +)

-Small Playable Campaign where we explore the perspective of Gabriel, Lila and two rebellious characters that in the future will end up becoming the Ladybug and Chat Noir.

-An art gallery where you can see the concept arts of the series and the video game.

-Small Playable Campaign where we can play as Emma Agreste when she tries to be Ladybug (part of the story that tells you different characters in the base campaign) and her friends, who only two survived to be akumatized in the future by Emma, the other he died and was a major factor in Emma's fall from grace.

-Extra soundtrack but in SNES and Sega Genesis version.

-A small animated mini series that explains in detail the one that led to all the characters of the alternate future ending up as they were.

-Play maybe a little glimpse into Gabriel and Emilie's past.

5. VISUAL STYLE:

I have thought of the visual style in a very pixel art style but that borders on the almost cartoonish HD, something similar to the beautiful Pixel Art that was used for SNK's King Of Fighters XIII and the pixel art style that will be used for the new one. game that will arrive this year from the Ninja Turtles (Here are some videos to give you an idea of the visual style: https://youtu.be/yyMjlO5Ao7M and https://youtu.be/GemOAwU-9fo)

Obviously the level design would have to adjust to imagine a futuristic half Paris with things like the famous Hoverboards (Flying Skateboards) or flying cars, drones and a long etc.

I thinks this is all folks. This idea from a hypothetical videogame of Miraculous Ladybug have so much time in my crazy mind and I hope you like it. Give me your suggestions and your critics. I hear you.

#chat noir #adrien agreste #kagami tsuguri #miraculous ryuko #nino lahiffe #miraculous ladybug #Marinette Duppain-Cheng #Emma Agreste #Future AU #Youtube

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