#and those are already noncanonical events

[cathalbravecog]

my first daily roller (and friends!) before april first ! who knows where hr waits before april anyway?

not guaranteed daily. originally intended for my main, but i do have a toontown blog for a reason so i'll use it. training myself to be okay with shittier art that just gets the point across without the need to be perfect as well. also this is an actual sc i took going into the farlands before my minecraft fucking bricked itself by being there

[seedsofagony]

Secret (KnY ♡ Hotaru)

Cherrytober Day 29: Dirty Little Secret // Love Bites

Series: Kimetsu no Yaiba

Characters: Haganezuka Hotaru

Word Count: 1,404

Summary: Swordsmith Village au, noncanonical character death, x reader (f/gn), light horror themes, ghosts, angst, grief, monsterfucking/spectrophilia, unprotected sex, no pregnancy 

Notes: A couple of things. First, I feel like "monsterfucking" and "spectrophilia" are pretty strong terms for what goes on in this one shot, but I also feel like I need to include them for anyone who may be upset by that sort of thing. Second, since everything is green and growing when the Swordsmith Village arc takes place, I took the liberty of assuming that six months later would be winter ⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Disclaimer: Underage, ageless, and blank blogs will be blocked. For everyone 18+, FUB free or filter my unique tag for this event: #sweets🍒24

Hotaru died six months ago.

But you know he never left.

It's a secret you keep to yourself because who would believe if you told them? The sad ravings of someone who'd lost their love.

In the dark, abandoned streets of the old village, nature has already started to take over. Dry leaves whisper in the alleyways and weeds, now withered, hunch in the dirt like beggars. Glowing eyes peer at you from the shadows, nighttime creatures that replaced the people not long after they'd left.

You raise the collar of your hanten against the cold, surrounded by the billowing white clouds of your breath. Even in the dark, you know exactly where you're going. You've walked these streets so many times, and you could find the workshop with your eyes closed. You're not even afraid anymore—not since the first time you came back. Back then, you were just desperate to find anything that reminded you of him, anything he'd touched. But now, you know what to expect.

The workshop emerges from the gloom, a hulking shape beneath the twisting bare branches of the trees. It's exactly the kind of scene you've been warned about since you were a child—there are things that lurk in lonely places—but it's only the cold and the night, only four walls and a chimney.

You lean on the doorframe and blow into your hands. The moon hangs high overhead, full but for a sliver. It won't be long now. An owl calls somewhere in the leafless woods. A twig snaps beneath a misplaced paw. Leaning your head against the wall, you can still detect the faint, charred smell of the forge.

Then you see it—mist rising on the road, the path where you'd only just tred. It wavers and begins to coalesce, slowly taking the form of a man. Hotaru. He walks toward you with purpose, a pale shape closing in with long strides. You watch as he breezes past you into the workshop, as indifferent as the winter wind. Pushing yourself off the wall, you follow him inside.

The workshop is mostly how he left it—or how it was left on that night half a year ago. The hardpacked dirt floor is littered with splintered furniture, the forge broken and cold. There's no trace of his broken mask. You picked up those pieces the morning after, holding them forever dear.

Kneeling in the center of the room, you close your eyes, listening to Hotaru bustle, unseen, around you. You can hear the roaring of the fire, the splash and hiss of hot metal quenched in water, the scrape scrape of a blade being honed. You can't help but smile when the angry muttering begins—to anyone else, it would be absolutely terrifying, but to you, it's just him. Just Hotaru. The same in death as he was in life.

An icy chill brushes over your cheek. You open your eyes, Hotaru's face, unmasked, inches from yours. He's never appeared like this before—startled but unafraid, your heart still beats a little faster.

"I miss you," you say, your voice loud in the empty room.

You don't expect an answer. In all this time, he's never once answered you, no matter how much you called to him, cried, cursed him. And yet, there's something in that ghostly visage that seems to solidify. His eyes become a little clearer, a dreamer awakening. But it's only for a moment, not lasting.

Pressing your hand to your heart, you try again. "Hotaru…?" You reach for his arm, but your fingers brush through him as if through smoke.

Anger wells in your chest. "It's not fair," you mutter through gritted teeth. "It's not fair!" Hot tears spill down your face. "Why can I see you, but you can't see me? I love you…"

That icy chill strokes your cheek again. Eyes blurred with tears, you scrub your face with the cuffs of your sleeves. When are you going to stop trying? When are you going to stop stealing away to this godforsaken place? When are you going to stop talking to shadows?

"... cry…"

You inhale sharply, jerk back.

"... –'t cry…"

Hotaru cups your cheek in his cool hand, "...don't…"

"Hotaru?"

You stare as his body comes in and out of focus—the suggestion of a man, the man brought to life. Finally, he solidifies, not as he was on that night, bloody and broken, but from some other, happier time.

"Why?" your voice catches in your throat. "Why now?"

He furrows his brow, pursing his lips in a pained smile. He holds out his arms to you, beckoning, welcoming. Your Hotaru.

Your hands slowly ball into fists, nails digging into your palms. "Why here?" you ask, hoarse. "Why here and never to me?"

You don't wait for an answer—you're done waiting. You pound your fists on his chest, but Hotaru only cups your elbows, accepting the abuse. You know—in your heart, you know—he can't tell you. It doesn't matter. You sob and let your fists come to rest against him, clutching his collar.

Hotaru folds you into an embrace. There is no rumble in your ear, no breath, when he speaks. "...n't… much time…"

You pause. You never considered that, now that he was here, he would leave again. That this might truly be the last time. Gripping his collar, you yank him toward you, crashing into his lips.

Compelled by the same force, Hotaru kisses you, hungry, desperate. Your hands tangle in each other's hair, his fingertips icy against your scalp. You fall back onto the floor, Hotaru following after, chasing your lips.

His body has real weight as he crouches over you, and you can feel the curve of an erection pressed between your legs. Pulling him closer, you deepen the kiss and grind your hips against him. It's been so long, and maybe it will never be again. It doesn't even occur to you that what you're doing should be impossible or that it might be wrong. All you want is your lover again.

Hotaru groans. He fumbles with the hem of your clothes as you tear at his—the most mundane of hindrances amidst the most supernatural of moments. Then, with nothing left between you, he kneels at the altar between your legs and enters. You wrap your arms around his neck, kissing his jaw, his chin, his lips—whatever you can catch—as he thrusts, urgent, into you.

There were other times like this. In the spring, beneath a cherry in full bloom. In the summer, when the cicadas were loud, but your cries were louder. In the warmth of the onsen when the autumn air was first becoming crisp. You fell down together and made love—slow in the morning's first light, hurried at the end of a long day.

Now, as it sometimes did then, it doesn't take long. It never does when you're starving. You writhe as your body spasms around him, as he throbs inside you. You clutch each other, buffeted, till the last waves of pleasure ebb away.

Hotaru lowers his face to yours and kisses you softly. "I've missed you, too," he says, his voice full, substantial. "But I have to go."

You shake your head, helpless. "Will I see you again?"

But he doesn't answer—just another lingering question. You watch as his face grows pale, then transparent. The weight of his body begins to evaporate until there's only a chill lying over you. He smiles, sad, and then, there's nothing at all.

You lie there in disarray, wondering what just happened, waiting to see if it will happen again. But nothing stirs in the room—no phantom sounds, no shape, no Hotaru.

Pulling yourself to your feet, you draw your hanten tight around you and smooth your hair from your face. For some reason, your hands are shaking. You stumble to the door and peer into the darkness. The moon shines high overhead and the mist on the road vanishes in the breeze. The night carries on as if you'd only been dreaming.

Maybe you had been.

You set off down that road like a sleepwalker awakened, unsteady, unsure. The cold air stings your eyes and rouges your cheeks, but clears your mind. You can never tell anyone what you saw tonight or what you did. But you will go back, you will always go back, no matter how many times it takes to see your lover again.

[it-happened-one-fic]

Ghostly Happenings - Silver (Part 3)

Author Notes: Only one more section to go after this one! Anyhow, this is the third section of my Halloween/October twst fic series. Much of what I said about the first and second parts of this fic holds true for this one. The entire series is post Diasomnia overblot, hopefully non canon-compliant, and was greatly inspired by the 1947 movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." I also listened to "Freaking Me Out" by Ava Max while writing this fic series. As per usual, reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Type: Gender-neutral reader/ Ghost AU/ noncanon compliant/ Post Diasomnia overblot/ tad bit of angst with comfort/ fluff/ romance implied/ pining

Word Count: 1105

{Part 1}, {Part 2}, {Part 3: You're Here!}, {Part 4}

Also available on AO3 (link deleted due to glitches)

Predictably, I didn’t get much sleep that night, and I was still exhausted even as I trudged into the bathroom to scrub the floors.

I hadn’t said anything to Grim about the identity of our new ghostly companion, and I hadn’t seen Silver since he’d disappeared last night.

To be honest, a part of me doubted that I’d ever even seen him and hadn’t just dreamed him up in one of those brief snatches of rest I had gotten.

After all, I had been reminiscing about my school days, and the memory of Silver was an indelible one. 

His death was something I would never forget. How could I, when it had happened the way it did after I’d just become close to him?

In addition to that, Silver always had looked like someone a person could only dream up. Being that attractive ought to be impossible. Though, to be fair, a lot of my classmates had been and remained unrealistically attractive. 

I’d always just assumed it was something about the water in this world.

I scrubbed at one particularly stained tile with a frown as I continued to muse to myself about the events of last night.

 It really did make more sense for me to have dreamed up Silver being the new ghost at Ramshackle. His being here didn’t make any sense. 

While it was true he probably was unhappy with the fact his life had been cut short, I couldn’t see Silver being someone to keep clinging to life. He’d always been so accepting of everything that came his way.

Not to say that he hadn’t been a fighter, but… He hadn’t struck me as someone who kept clinging to something after it was already over. He was graceful that way. It was something I’d always admired.

And then there was the matter of Lilia, Sebek, and Malleus. Silver would stay near them if he’d become a ghost. They were the people he’d been closest to. His family. He wouldn’t come and live at Ramshackle dorm, even if that was where a lot of ghosts liked to come.

I’d probably just dreamed up the events of last night due to missing him, regretting things that had happened, and having let myself wallow in nostalgia for a brief bit. 

I’d always had weird dreams since coming to Twisted Wonderland anyway. Plus, it wasn’t like I hadn’t ever dreamed of Silver before… It was just that they weren’t usually quite so realistic and usually left me waking up with a frown. Wishing I could just go back to sleep and re-enter my pleasant dreams rather than having to get up.

The worst part about my dream about ghostly Silver was that I couldn’t talk about it with anyone. They’d only worry about how I was living alone with just Grim and some ghosts.

Pretty much all of my friends would invite me to come live with them just for fear that the solitude was getting to me. And it would be kind of them to do so even after I’d already told them no several times.

Malleus, in particular, wouldn’t let the matter go. I knew perfectly well that he blamed himself for Silver’s death and had always regretted everything about his overblot including, my involvement in it, since, up until then, I had been his means of escape from the chains his own life held.

Bringing up a strange dream about Silver haunting me at Ramshackle would only serve to drag up those nasty old memories.

So I knew, for a fact, that Malleus would insist that I come and live at his palace in the Valley of Thorns so that I would no longer be alone. Because he knew and understood loneliness to a special degree that many didn’t.

I sighed to myself as I pondered the fae who remained a close friend of mine even after everything that had happened. He was one of the ones who always expressed so much concern as to how I was coping with continuing to live at Ramshackle dorm.

I had no doubts that he was, to a degree, projecting his past loneliness and sorrow onto me. Because that’s just the way Malleus was.

There was no way I could ever broach the subject of a ghostly Silver to him or any of my other friends from the Valley of Thorns. After all, Lilia had blamed himself much like Malleus did, and so did Sebek.

All of them persisted in blaming themselves even though, in reality, there was one person who bore far more blame when it came to Silver’s death….

I shook my head, annoyed with myself for even starting to go through that same dusty old thought process as I willed myself to stop thinking about the dream that continued to haunt me, much like how its contents would have been if it had been reality. And perhaps I wished it were reality.

But going down that line of thought was never a good idea and was precisely the reason I avoided thinking about Malleus’s overblot in particular. Nothing good ever came of it since it always brought silly little what-ifs to mind that could never come true.

Guilt-tripping myself wouldn’t fix anything. It wouldn’t bring Silver back, and it wouldn’t change anything at all. 

My fingers curled around the wet cloth in my hand as I focused hard on the floor. Swallowing thickly as I repeated that same harsh truth to myself as a way to ground myself from my own depressing thoughts.

Silver hadn’t come back just to haunt my home and spend time with me. And I couldn’t decide if that was a truth that relieved me or broke my heart.

I dropped the now-filthy rag back into my bucket of now-dirty water as the bell tolled that classes were about to start. I was right on time with finishing my cleaning as usual.

The bathroom was clean for the upcoming horde of students who may or may not maintain a reasonably clean state. But I wasn’t actually bitter about it. 

After all, I’d been far harder on this school than any of them had managed thus far, and I honestly prayed it stayed that way. I didn’t know if the teachers could handle that level of drama again.

Now all that was left to my day was a bit of mopping and cleaning up any accidents that occurred in alchemy or potionology. Both were, without a doubt, the messiest classes outside of P.E. And the lawn wasn’t part of my job, so P.E. was of no concern to me.

@vera-deville

[summitclan-chronicles]

Hello!! I hope you're having a good day :) I just have a couple questions about things since these are very new systems to me! Firstly, would you be able to share any more details about being assigned an age range based on experience? Mostly I'm curious on what the age ranges are / mean (for example, are senior characters retirees or are they just older warriors?) I'm also wondering if there's any flexibility with that - for example two characters that would fit great as littermates but one person was assigned the warrior age range and one was assigned senior...! I know you said these are large ranges but I'd love to know more about them, almost every rp I've been in before involved making characters prior to joining the server so I'm super curious.

Also, this might be looking way too far into the future haha, but how do kits functioning as adopts work in the event that someone isn't able to remain in the server? Like, would people be able to keep the designs they're given or are they only to be used in the server since they have traits based on their parents. And would their be an option for former members to let their characters be adopted by new members or members without characters if they don't see their story ending just yet?

Apologies for the wall of text!! I'm super curious about these systems especially since it seems like you've put a lot of thought into them! Excited to see where this rp goes :)

Hi there! I am, and I hope you are too!!

First, age ranges:

Youngans are cats between 2 and 18 months of age. (this covers summitclan's equivalent to kittens and apprentices)

Warriors are between 18 months and 6 years of age.

Seniors are between 6 and 12 years of age. (for now, 12 is as old as you can make your character!)

Regarding the littermates question, I think we were on the same wavelength because I spent an entire Target trip obsessively thinking about this hoping someone would ask about it. AND THEN THIS HAPPENED!

The age ranges given to players are loose - if two cats in side-by-side age ranges (youngan/warrior or warrior/senior) are compatible as littermates, you can totally doink down or up a peg to unite them. But youngans & seniors can't swap for each other! And if the age you made your character needs to be adjusted for that to happen, just let me know so I'm aware of the change! (and as a reminder, everything is open for editing until the character's first post!)

Seniors are defined as cats that are old enough to be  considered wise and experienced; this can be a perception ranging from a well loved uncle/teacher to the village grandmother. They aren't really considered retirees until 9 years, but if they're doing the Creme Puff thing they don't always have to. Between 6 and 9, they're mostly looked to as secondary mentors, pools of field-wisdom and folks to come to when you need advice.

Life in the mountain is as full of love as it is brutally hard at times, and by 9 years cats are pretty worn down. But they spend their golden seasons being celebrated and served by the younger cats, and advising those they are surrounded by.

And hey, looking into the future makes the now more secure! I love far-flung questions! I actually answered a similar question just now, but repetition is key --

As long as a cat is active in Summitclan's canon, they need to have their canon design in depictions considered canon. But once they die or leave permanently? It's free real estate. Do what you like, change whatever! Or you can keep everything the same and mould them to the roleplay they join next. They're your kitty!

... But something I didn't mention in the last one (see why I encourage repetition? Even I need it!) is that if you're doodling something noncanon you can be as bonkers as you like. This is how I was sketching Arrowseeker for one of the ads:

About adopting characters... that's difficult to say, because anyone that knows the character particularly well would already have characters of their own. Anyone without a character would be a newcomer and not know them very well.

But I don't want to give that answer prematurely. I'm going to wait until it happens, and discuss it with the people involved!

NO PROBLEM on walls of text!! I love talking about Summitclan and what it entails! I love that people are interested, it makes my heart full of happy!!!

[littleeyesofpallas]

huh maybe i just didn't tag it, it was probably before i started collecting my batman headcanons under the #random headcanon tag, but I have always had a very specific noncanon vision for Ra's Al Ghul., one that i do understand a lot of people don't really like, but obviously that I consider pretty defensible, if not an improvement over the existing canon's mishandling of Ra's and the League in general.

See my beef is that the League of Assassins is just a cluster fuck of problems to begin with, both stylistically and internal continuity wise... For one, Ra's as written is just kind of an idiot and it's ridiculous to have to reconcile the idea that he is in fact this unquestioned ruler of this ancient order of assassins that's been operating for over a thousand years. On the one hand we can sort of blame the pit madness for some of it, but it's also clear that for all his scheming and seemingly improbable resources, he has literally never actually accomplished any of his organization's goals.

Secondary to this is that the league itself is just this massive stupid fucking hodgepodge of bad racist cliches. Why the fuck are they ninjas? Why do they use katanas and wear the stupid americanized ninja pajamas? Why do they keep showing up in like Buddhst temples deep in the mountains of Tibet? Also, in a bunch of his earliest appearances, why is he just a guy in a three piece suit and a cape? Also why would the leader of an ancient organization like the league of assassins have such a stupid, blatantly fake, and "i looked at an english to arabic dictionary once" name like Ra's Al-Ghul. (obvious answer is that it should be a title not a name, but then his stupid kids all take it as a surname)

My answer to all this(other than just ignoring a few of the dumber details) is that Ra's is not an ancient leader of the League of Assassins at all, he's a "modern" era usurper. A dark inversion of the white savior narrative and all it's inherent problems, a kind of supervillain Lawrence of Arabia(yeah yeah i know Tom King already did this with Adam Strange, but I've had this kicking around in my head for longer, shush) where he was sent to the Middle East as a British soldier in WWI to fight the Ottomans and much in the style of Lawrence parallel to him, rallied the locals to help in his efforts. While there he'd gain a certain appreciation and indeed a love of the local culture, but never fully forget his role as a foreign power come to exploit those people to his country's own ends. In that way his personal turning point becomes that he is unwittingly allied with the actual League of Assassins, and as the war begins to wind down, and he is forced to reckon with the idea of going home to England a nobody, or staying a war hero in the middle east, he goes full Heart of Darkness, and instead uses his military position and resources to seize control of the League for himself.

In this version of events, Talia would make the most sense as a daughter of the last of the actual blood line of rulers of the original League of Assassins, her mother being the daughter of the man Ra's overthrew. This impels her to her eventual take over, and her loyalty to the League over her father specifically. It also motivates her interest in raising Damian as an heir, as he has a more legitimate claim to the League via her than Ra's ever did or than Bruce would as Ra's' handpicked heir.

It would also give room for the original League to have been a force of relative good, developing their assassination and government destabilization tactics like their real world counterparts, the Order of Assassins, as the defensive measures of a smaller kingdom against the overwhelming forces of the neighboring rivals but more pressingly The Crusades. This creates a kind of golden age of righteous fury, where the League were noble just defenders of the middle east, and their destabilization tactics a safeguard against corruption rather than the comic's preferred route of 1970s era orientalist boogeymen where "OoOoooOo uncivilized brown people want to destroy americka!" Because the megalomaniacal world conquest horseshit is Ra's' doing, and a direct off shoot of Western imperialism, not something inherent to the League's actual founding history or culture.(and more importantly not just a recycled and displaced Fu Man Chu)

It does also conveniently make a slightly more sensible motive to the league's particular brand of generic super villainy: Where as their historical purpose would be to balance out power in their local region, that same balance left them open to destabilization at the hands of men like "Ra's" and Lawrence. So Ra's' plan is just to destabilize countries in places other than the middle east in the same way, to prime them for conquest. This makes his global network of assassins make more sense as they're all the in-progress cells of his would-be warlords gone "native" trying to blend in.

This all just making Ra's basically a giant Islamophilic orientalist weeaboo cosplaying this ridiculous caricature of an illustrious ancient warlord, aligning him and his delusions more with the writers who made him in the 70s, rather than the misguided fantasy they were tapping into. All the while his daughter sitting there in the background plotting revenge for a family she never even got to know, Lady Snowblood style.

Oh it also sort of helps rectify the goofy idea that Ra's otherwise would have had what like EIGHT HUNDRED years from the 70s, or over 900 from the current day as supreme ruler of the League of Assassins and only ever had like 3 kids? Where as if he's only been at it since WWI, then it makes WAY more sense that he's only got a handful of kids. (I have the same issue with the idea that Vandal Savage has been loitering around since the dawn of human history but his only notable kid is Scandal and she's like what in her 20s?)

Also unrelated to the rest of this but goddamnitall give them a bitter centuries long rivalry with the Order of St.Dumas. They're an islamic kingdom of assassins and a secret society of crusader knights ffs

[larnax]

ok i have. i have more disgaea thoughts. my girl fuka what did they do to you

ok so the thing abt d4 is that overall its story is quite fun, it's peak disgaea because it is wacky in a way where its absurdly exaggerated literal events are used to represent emotional conflicts ie a character's dad shutting himself away in his lab for her entire childhood who reveals it was to fulfill her dream of taking over the world by developing machines that she can command to take over the world as an allegory for a dad doing his best to provide for his kids at the expense of being there for his kids so they grow up without feeling like he loves them, and it legitimately is the only story i think really intertwines serious and batshit to make "WE HAVE TO POWER THE MECH WITH LOVE SO IT CAN STOP THE MOON FROM CRASHING TO EARTH, QUICK, PRAY TO YOUR PARTNER BECAUSE WHILE YOU HAVE NO FAITH IN GOD YOU HAVE FAITH IN HIM!" instead of in d1 having the story be wacky with occasional stops to tell a standard story with normal emotional stakes and etna is there to tell jokes, or from d5 onwards basically just being standard fantasy stories with normal emotional stakes but theres wacky backgrounds.

the actual main story of d4 is all bangers, there are a lot of great heels to keep the story interesting and although they all come around to val in the end they don't all become his bff which avoids the d7 problem of "you made a new guy up just so we would have anyone to fight and nobody we do recruit puts up an interesting struggle and therefore none of us have an interesting reason we're still here beyond inertia". i do wish artina got to do more stuff i think she's way too fun a character who is way too important in the story to be relegated to third wheel as often as she is, but to fix that i would just give her most of axel's stuff. she becomes president and then is absent for the moon episode on intel that she'll meet "someone she doesn't wanna see" and then when she radios in for the roll call you have a little joke about flonne being that person.

usually i really like flonne being a straightforward heel in her adult appearances. shes the whitest woman in existence and shes very nasty when she thinks she's doing the right thing, which is always. i support women's wrongs and her stealing billions from the netherworld(which celestia already exploits in a lot of ways/sometimes just decides to destroy) to fuck around with by forcing an underling who actively does not want to do it to shake down random civilians and public infrastructure, all to fund her stupid ass mech shaped like her who's powered by prayer? thats horrible! shes so nasty! it's really funny and them being forced to deal with That being their only way to keep fenrich from having the most important thing in his life(after val) fucking exploded leads to one of the reasons they should have won that fucking noncanon gayest ships tournament FUCK those community bitches.

HOWEVER. the fuka dlc is so bad. or let me rephrase: the fuka dlc is transcendantly good until the ending at which point it becomes the worst thing that happens in disgaea 4.

bc ok ok ok. so fuka is dead. that's her story, after a childhood of being neglected by her always busy dad she breaks into his lab and finds his evil scientist lair full of mutant constructs, one of whom kills her. she doesn't accept that she's dead because she's only 14 and her life hasn't even started yet and on top of that she's been sent to hell despite being a normal ass 14 year old whos biggest crime is being a teenager. so she deals with it by denying it and deluding herself into believing that this is all a dream and someday she'll wake up in a happy life she's just starting and she won't have to confront the terrible fate she met with. so the solution is obvious, right?

after the main story resolves and fuka has a group of friends and caretakers who love her and she's patched things up with her dad, fuka needs to accept that she's dead. disgaea uses a reincarnation system as a core part of the series mythology and gameplay. reincarnation is good and necessary. fuka, eventually, needs to let go, and stop haunting the world she did get cheated out of a life in.

so in the dlc, her friends and family help her. val puts her through the toughest puzzle course he can because he's her teacher and he wants her to prove that she's strong and resourceful and capable, and she does! she passes all his tests and he gives her his formal blessing. then her secondary father figure, her bio dad, finally delivers on his promise to help her take over the world, they like. rent out a city and give her a bunch of crazy machines to go wild on with the power she's worked so hard for and the allies she's found so much support in, including her little sister who she only recently got to meet and connect with during the main story and her surrogate reluctant little brother, The Grim Reaper, who is the one guiding her through the mechanics of reincarnation in the first place as a sign of his own personal growth that he's now mature enough to handle this difficult case.

and it works! fuka accepts it! she accepts, sadly, that she's dead, and she should move on. she'll lose this life, which is sad! they're all sad about it! but it's okay. and then-- it's an ending, right?

it's going to be an ending, you think. disgaea has a bunch of specific endings. there's one for completing a single optional stage in d1. it would make perfect sense narratively and gameplay wise to have an ending with fuka reincarnating, then just. introduce a bill to resummon fuka from an alternate dimension or time travel shenanigans or literally whatever other funny joake you can think of this is a comedy series and doing it this way doesn't undercut the emotional part While Its Happening. because if that happened itd be Bad.

enter flonne. because it is not an ending. flonne barrels through the fourth wall at the last second and, dead vfucking serious, CONDEMNS FUKA TO ETERNAL HELL WITH NO CHANCE OF REINCARNATION because she "tried to take over the world" by fighting in a stage consisting of like three blocks her dad set up for her where no civilians were even present. also bc shes the ruler of heaven this is the character who condemned her to hell originally when she was FOURTEEN because when she was six she wanted to take over the world.

which is a baller heel move and i would be so so so so into it IF she was a boss fight. if they had to defeat her before she was forced to reluctantly give fuka her very well-deserved reincarnation. but, uh, nope, last minute twist, Moving On Is Bad Actually and fuka is still condemned to eternal hell. fuck you. sure its technically a sentence that lets her spend time with her besties forever but like. at what cost. flonne only works as a heel if the other characters clash with her instead of valvatorez and emizel of all fucking people being like Woof so glad we don't have to say goodbye, i guess our entire characters and the things we find important and the reasons we were doing this do not matter and all that shit about caring about fuka and wanting her to find peace was Bullshit. have fun being 14 for the rest of your life, Dumbass!

← literally what its like to be 14 years old

[fictionkinfessions]

Oh boy things to do where I talk about my current kintype that's taking over my brain!! Peter Nureyev here to talk your ear off.

Noncanon family members?? Boy do I! In canon I am an only child who was orphaned at a young age. I was still orphaned at a young age, but in every single canon I have for this kin I had an identical twin sister. Her name was Steliana and she was amazing. In my canon timeline she died when we were young, but I have a couple timelines she lived to our teens or even adulthood. She is so, so important to me. (This isn't quite the question but I don't have any other blood family, so.)

Mundane thing that reminds me of the kintype is knives. I had a near-obsession with knives.

Fixations? I definitely could've been diagnosed with some form of autism or ADHD as well as OCD. I was very meticulous about maps and planning as well as my appearance. The more positive part of that fixation was my love for fashion, and if I had the chance I really flourished.

Most of what seems made up in my source is time frames. Many of the events took longer than is shown because they were more spread out. Otherwise, it's pretty true to what I remember. Except Juno's internal monologue, which was melodramatic as always.

Ambient sound that reminds me of this kin is spaceship ambience. I spent so many nights on various ships, and some even in the bowels of the ship itself. Hearing the noises brings me back to those times even now. Quiet mechanical churning.

Scents or smells? Well, my partner and I are on the hunt for a perfume or cologne that is the same as the one I wore. I stopped wearing it daily after a while of being in the same place (more or less), but it was still a good scent. Earthy, rich, with a bit of spice. I hope I can wear some of it again.

Something from canon to bring to now would probably be either one of my knives (I had quite a few with sentimental value…none more so than one in particular) or my jacket. That old thing was comfortable and I flooded the pockets with nonsense. I still do, sometimes! I find old wrappers, receipts, random items I left for myself. Convenient when I need a mask and my jacket already has one. Annoying when I can't find my nail clipper.

Ironically, I can't remember any landscapes from places that mattered a lot to me. Brahma was mostly city, and Hyperion City was never a home. I never let myself settle anywhere that could be considered a real home by most people. That said, the Carte Blanche in general is somewhere I miss dearly. The skyline of Hyperion City in one of my alt canons was also comforting in its way — knowing that somewhere out there, the lady I loved was protecting people. But nothing more specific because I didn't let myself have a home.

All my best, Peter Nureyev

(source is The Penumbra Podcast)

(#🌿🏹🐺)

[onewomancitadel]

Pretty much the guiding ethos of writing The Distance Which Fools the Skimming Eye has been that I'm not writing canon, I'm just writing an epic romance that is the plot. The ensemble cast and the actual broader consequences of the romance reflect what I think may happen in canon, but the romance itself IS the plot, and however certain events progress in the story is directly inverse to the romance. If it's constrained to Jaune and Cinder's perspective, then everything is through their eyes; I do enjoy tapping into that element of 'stories that would break hearts if we knew them' which is one of my favourite themes that this is their story but there's still plenty going on in the background (which tbf is partly a conceit of R/WBY already). It's just about what's relevant to them that's relevant to us. It's not R/WBY because R/WBY is not the Jaune-and-Cinder show.

This has been on my mind since I started writing and I have written a post before specifically about my Vacuo (I can't find it): even if V9 - well, it will definitely happen - changes the characterisation of a setting like Vacuo, you can pretty much read the setting of Vacuo in the story more like a magical place of many places that serves a particular thematic role in the fanfic which can co-exist with canon!Vacuo. If anything I kind of like the fantastic room for mixed interpretation. My Vacuo can only be what it is in the story on the story's terms and can be a kingdom of romance.

Obviously I'm picky about my canon and I wanted to take the opportunity where I could conceivably write this fic and incorporate my interpretation and predictions but I also realise that with V9 around the corner that opportunity is sort of coming to an end - at the very least I'm glad I am where I am with the current romance in this fic lol. It's very hard for me to take that canon hat off because that motivates my enthusiasm to write.

Although it has been funny that some things I have theorised people have asked if they are canon facts. The thing about the alchemical use of magical eyes in the story are my thing. They might be implicit in canon in some way but it may not be literally treated like a witch's potion or directly described as something explicitly needed to create human-Grimm abominations. But I think it's terrifying body horror and neat and very witchy.

Although although more prominently I think it's interesting when what I feel to be are canonical elements are taken as noncanonical interpretation, and I would say this is true of the story in many ways just by nature of Jaune and Cinder being polarising and overall dismissed characters. So, if anything, my concern about canon scrutiny, canon Jossing, etc., is sort of unfounded, because I'm already in a fandom-precarious position.

But my own personal principles and interests matter to me the most in writing the fanfic because there is no reason to write it otherwise. I like to think that no matter how bad my fic is, I at least care about it very much, and try very hard. Even when I'm up late editing and crying I still want to keep writing it lol. Well, I want to keep writing everything hahahah.

I thought I'd get those thoughts out because yes, I didn't hit my goal of finishing before Volume 9, but I can't control my illness or my specialist appointment taking over six months to come to fruition. I am glad that I haven't given up though and that I went in with intentions that have supported ongoing writing and meant I didn't end up feeling as demoralised as I otherwise could have.

Overall it's a very weird fic to write, because I am very dedicated to it but obviously so much of it runs contrary to the fandom (I mean just the fact that so many people think it's a crackship/people have tried to talk to me about competing Jaune ships as if I want to do that on a Jaune/Cinder fic etc.) and there's a weird relationship between fanon and canon in this fandom it means I'm in an even more weird position because I care about canon... on and on it goes. No I don't think I'm special, I'm just a rando loser writing Jaune/Cinder fic who's weirdly obsessed with it and I want to be very intentional about the way I craft my story especially without running into too much scope creep. I don't 'want' to write canon, I want to write a canonical possibility of Jaune and Cinder's romance... and hopefully that means it can hold up in some small way lol.

I don't mean to sound up myself discussing my fanfic, I just enjoy getting the opportunity to talk about mechanical considerations when it's something I derive a lot of pleasure from doing so about other media (and R/WBY especially) - especially from the interaction of romance with plot, romance as plot.

[zuko-always-lies]

The Avatar Comics and the problem they pose for Avatar Studios

With apparent confirmation that Bryke are aiming to create new works within the lifetime of the Gaang, one readily apparent issue I see is the Avatar Comics. One of the first things Disney did when they bought Star Wars was to declare the entire existing Extended Universe noncanon, as otherwise it would be entirely impossible to create a sequel trilogy. Avatar Studios very much faces the same problem if they want to create media set in the 40 or so years immediately following the Hundred Years War.

There are three issues that the Avatar Comics present:

1) They suck bigtime and are not great media, and the fandom knows it and tends to heavily dislike them(for one example, “comics compliant” fics on AO3 have become quite rare).

2) Very few people have actually read the comics, particularly the later instalments. Moreover, the fans brought in by the Avatar Renascence are less likely to have read them, as are more casual fans, two demographics critical for the success of anything Avatar Studios puts out.

3) Despite #1 and #2, Bryke have been heavily involved in the Avatar comics since the beginning, and have always clearly declared them to be Official Canon. This seems like it would likely put the Disney route off the table.

So we have a situation where new movies set after the Hundred Years War must work off the premise that the comics are canon, even though very few people have ever read them, and a very large portion of the people who have heavily dislike them and their depiction of the postwar world. Moreover, as I will discuss a bit below, the comics have already done many of the postwar plots that would be most interesting for a movie.

Can’t the movies just gloss over the events of the comics? Theoretically be canon to them while largely ignoring their existence? The issue is that, while surprisingly little important actually happened over the course of the six comics trilogies, they still managed to include many important plot developments that would be very difficult for any movie, particularly a Firelord Zuko movie, to ignore:

1) Ursa’s postwar fate(i.e. Zuko finding his mother)

2) Azula’s postwar fate(and really her actions in the comics trilogies would be impossible to ignore, in addition to being completely nonsensical outside the context of the comics).

3) Azula and Ursa’s relationship.

4) Ursa’s backstory.

5) Kiyi’s existence.

6) How Republic City got founded, and the fact that the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom nearly fought another war over it.

7) Zuko and Mai breaking up.

8) Political opposition in the Fire Nation to Zuko, including Mai’s father.

9) The Kyoshi Warriors randomly becoming palace guards in the Fire Nation.

10) Toph founding a metal bending academy.

11) Hakoda picking up a new girlfriend.

12) The entire conflict between the Northern and Southern Water Tribe in the North and South.

It would be very hard for a new movie set postwar to ignore all of these developments, yet including them, with many of them not making very much sense on their own terms, means relying on the audience to read the comics, even though very few of them have, and those who have are likely not to be very interested in continuations off of them.

[thewertsearch]

just found your liveblog today, and had a great time catching up to present! I know everyone's already said this, but it's so fun getting to see your theories and takes on the characters as they evolve during this. you've got a lot of stuff to look forward to, based on what you've been enjoying so far! (also, not sure if this has been mentioned, but while paradox space/friendsim/pesterquest aren't fully canon, they're not NOT fully canon either. can't elaborate, but I think they're worth it)

Thanks so much! It's always lovely to get messages like this, it's great motivation to keep going and give the liveblog my best! 

I've got a few messages to this tune, and I'm starting to get the idea that Homestuck side projects straddle the boundaries of the canonical and non-canonical in kind of a weird way. This is actually really interesting to me, so I'd like to talk about it for a bit.

As far as I'm concerned, canon is a binary. Interpretations of canon events may be considered contentious - the infamous spinning top from Inception comes to mind - but it's odd to me that, say, an aspect of a character's backstory can be neither canonical nor noncanonical.

If I read ‘Froot’, a Paradox Space vignette about John becoming a fan of Froot Loops, and learn that its canonical status is ‘debatable’, I can be pretty sure of two things.

That it has not been stated as canonical by the author.

That Homestuck itself has not referenced this story as something that has happened.

Ergo, this Paradox Space story has had the exact same effect on Homestuck's canon as an AO3 fic with the same content.

How, then, is its canon status in any way 'debatable'?

Is it a Schrodinger's cat kind of deal, where we just don’t know if it happened? That’s fair enough, but if that’s the case, I wouldn’t consider it ‘neither canon nor non-canon’. I’d say that it is one of those two, and we just don’t know which yet. 

The cat’s not ‘neither alive nor dead’, it’s alive or dead, and if someone opens the box, we’ll find out which. If John brings up the day he tried his first Froot Loop in canon material, then Froot was always canon. If he mentions in passing that he always hated them, then Froot was never canon. 

If it’s never confirmed or denied, it’s still non-canon. That’s exactly what a canon-compliant fanfiction is. We can’t prove that any of those didn’t happen, but we wouldn’t call their canon status ‘debatable’, would we? All sorts of things could have happened, but they’re still noncanonical unless stated otherwise.

How can a work truly be neither canonical nor non-canonical? This is something I’d quite like to see for myself.

And I’ll keep this in mind when I do! Homestuck Collection keeps paying dividends, I tell ya. 

[sweet-murder-slime]

Just some guesstimates on what students could be added someday.

Now I didn’t do everyone cus it was getting hard not only for find those that would be from the movie but even the shows so I did the closest I could.

Heartslabyul of course is full so we are skipping it with Pomefiore and Diasomnia unless they can make a spinning wheel a student but since we have green lighting, a silver sword/sleeping spell and an Apple, who knows?

Lets start off with Savanaclaw.

Of course a student basic on Shere Khan the Tiger would be here. Them being from another country that had Shere Khan as their king who maybe kept certain invaders from taking over the jungle lands.

He does butt heads with Leona on differs between Tigers and Lions when it comes to ruling and might be the few in the dorm not afraid of Rook Hunt due to their pride of being a hunter not the hunted (Oh how foolish this tiger can be letting him even touch his tail) and also telling Rook, Leona would look much nicer as a throw rug.

Now Tick Tok the Crocodile however wasn’t really a villain unless you were a pirate but still everyone in Savanaclaw did put on a pirate outfit for halloween event (Noncanon) could be a shout out on how the game couldn’t have Captain Hook as one of the Big 7. Cus he was eaten before he could be “Heroic” Also Tick Tok was raised by the fairies Neverland in later shows and such I mean people think Sebek might be a Crocodile fae but better just have this student wonder if he is one.

One more think Tick Tok is a saltwater crocodile so the student might be banned from the Mostro Lounge for diving into the displays and stealing fish out it.

Octavinelle

Speaking of which, for Octavinelle we have Bruce the Shark here, basically he also represents the shark that went after Ariel and Flounder in the start of the film. A mershark here but like Bruce the Student is scary but friendly and wishes to be more “cute” so others will want to go near him...Somewhere an Apple is screaming in rage.

Meanwhile, Why Jack...I mean the Captain of the Skeleton Pirates From James and the Giant Peach be here? Well Davy Jones was a thought but the fact we already have an octopus would fill the roost with double the type here. Having an Undead Pirate in a sea dorm makes sense and he would be the one in charge of shipping mech Azul sends out or orders in that Sam can’t bring, like from Atlantis. He would be a SEMI-nomal human or just an undead as we know TW does have vampires, zombies and such. Besides the dorm does have normal magic users that are not merfolks as well.

Also another jab at not having Captain Hook or Jack Sparrow here and admit it next to the Robot Shark and Rhino seeing Captain and his crew underwater scared the crap out of you more. 

Scarabia

Now lets get to the real problem.

Almost ever villain in Aladdin film or show was either:

A) Try to steal Aladdin from Jasmine

B) Try to steal Jasmine from Aladdin

C) A Jafar wannabe 

D) Misunderstood or was killed off

Here I really tried and here we go

Mozenrath. The student is the future ruler of the Land of the Black Sand one of the other Desert Kingdoms. He wants to out-do his “Rivil Kalim and became a first year at NRC. His family was inspired by Jafar’s deeds and accomplishments and are very immense in the knowledge of the dark arts, necromancy and using the black sand.

Or he could also be Kalim’s supremely vindictive cousin.

Next we have a student basic on Razoul, the student is training to be the future captain of the royal guards and will be protecting Kalim someday. He would proudly add in that his forefather served the Great Jafar and help “RID” of the  swindler that was pretending to be a prince and trying to trick the sultan's daughter.

Why is he here? Rumors reached to the royal family that Kalim was involved in an overblot incident. However despite Crowel telling (Lying through his teeth) there has never been an overblot in the school let alone Kalim being in any danger, the captain of the current guard sent his son the student to spy and protect the prince just end case and to “Take care of Jamil if he failed in his duties. chances are a lot of students are going to snitch on him for the whole hostility take over a while back and with the other prince of the Black Sands around there is going to be a lot of problems.

Last one is Mukhtar that was recurring character in the show. The student is descendent from him because originally he was the last surviving member of a race of Mukhtars, but became allies with Jafar that helped him find more of his kind. Now these types of reptilian beastmen can be found in the Scalding Sands as merchants, assassins or bounty hunters. Was hired by the Mozenrath student to cause problems for Kalim and undermined Jamil’s abilities to protect him.

Now I was going to put Mirage but then we would have 4 catboys (Leone, Ruggie yes Hyenas are more related to cats than dogs, Shere Khan and Mirage) plus two cats in this game.

Ignihyde

Just Meg, male Megara trying to get Idia out of his room and talk about how much his Ex was a NightMARE. 

cus the cartoon are mostly Hades and monster of the week and there is a two headed cyclops name Ortho as well in the show and if I use even one from the show that causes problems.

[darkstarofchaos]

Okay, so I can understand Jro’s desire to stop cheese-grating relationships. But does anyone else feel like he chose the wrong one to stop on?

To clarify: his original plan for Rewind and Chromedome was that Chromedome was involved with Dominus Ambus’ disappearance, including the very direct action of wiping it from Rewind’s memory. And by original, I mean “a major plot point not only in MTMTE, but RID as well”.

Yeah, I’m talking about that scene. The one where Prowl tries to blackmail Chromedome and ol’ Domey decides the appropriate response is to hack him and erase the information. And that information - information Chromedome did not want Rewind to know - was the truth about Dominus’ disappearance.

Except Jro decided that was noncanon. Which means he created a gigantic plot hole in *both* comics.

Does it matter? After all, the reveal only had a little bit foreshadowing, and the event itself was far in the past. Just change the details and ignore that original groundwork and we’re good, right?

I mean. If you only care about the relationship, then sure, maybe that’s good enough. Personally, though, I think the change actually weakened Chromedome as a character. Let’s look at that hacking scene again. Prowl wants Chromedome to do a thing and Chromedome says no, he promised Rewind he’d stop doing the thing. So then Prowl’s like, yeah, that thing you don’t want your husband to know about? Sure would be a shame if he found out about that. And Chromedome gets mad, because he doesn’t want Rewind to know he was involved with the disappearance of the guy Rewind has been looking for since before they (officially) met. Because Rewind might just leave him for keeping a secret like that. But Chromedome is horrible at dealing with loss, so instead of risking his relationship, he makes sure Prowl can’t expose him. And that’s understandable. Incredibly selfish, because he just did what he said he promised not to do, but relatable insofar as he doesn’t want to ruin what he and Rewind have. Except that’s not what Prowl threatened to reveal, because Jro retconned that. If you can retcon something without something to replace it, anyway. So what else could Chromedome have been afraid of Rewind knowing? What else would drive him to break the promise he was just defending? What else would pose such a threat to their relationship? What did you do, Chromedome? What did you do?

There are two possible takeaways here: either Chromedome did something far worse than anything Rewind already knows about, or he’s just... a really short-tempered jerk who will lash out at any perceived threat to his relationship. Or, third possibility, he just hates Prowl enough that all he needed was a reason. Whatever the answer, it paints him in a much less sympathetic light. He’s either done horrible things beyond the countless memory modifications we know about, or he’s sitting on so much anger/hate that he’s willing to break into someone’s mind without much provocation. And either way, he broke his promise to stop breaking into people’s minds (and continues to do so throughout the comic. Glad your promise means so much to you, Chrome).

Like. It’s good for characters to have flaws, and Chromedome has plenty of them. But when you take away his motivation for his actions, that makes those actions... empty? A plot device with no in-world meaning, perhaps?

Also, his whole deal with erasing his memories of his previous husbands? Completely pointless. Good for character depth, but it leads to a straight-up plot contrivance when he decides not to erase Rewind (because Jro needed him to remember so he can get together with Alternate Rewind). I guess the idea is supposed to be that Rewind is different somehow, and Chromedome is willing to live with his memory when he wouldn’t keep the others. But if you just drop the memory erasing thing it becomes... not an issue?

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like that husband-erasing thing would be way more important to his character if he had a pattern of refusing to deal with the past. A pattern like, say... not telling his husband the truth about their respective histories? A truth he erased from said husband’s mind? And from the mind of someone who threatened to reveal it? And yeah, technically that pattern is still there. But it doesn’t mean anything anymore, because whatever he erased wasn’t about Rewind anymore. The thread between the two moments was cut.

TL;DR: Jro chose the wrong relationship to spare, because that relationship was conceived on lies and secrets that were woven into MTMTE from the very start.

[bladekindeyewear]

THE DEVICE

I don’t usually put images from the latest updates on main outside a read-more cut, but I’m getting further people messaging in today saying they think THE DEVICE hidden under a sheet in HS^2′s latest -- the one at the very center of the noncanon singularity, where they believe bringing Vriska and having something too important for Canon to ignore happen will make a difference -- matches the shape of the Hiveswap door.

And it definitely, INTENTIONALLY matches the general SHAPE of the door as well as its “trapped under a tarp” aesthetic, but in Homestuck that’s no guarantee that the device is the SAME, much less even similar.

Plus, as much as a Hiveswap door gives things a “trading between worlds” feel in a story where we’re ALREADY bifurcated between Meat and Candy sides, and as much as Dirk is specifically afraid of Yiffy in a metatextual making-that-story-better-than-mine sense, there’s some reason to believe from Calliope’s language that the goal of the device is a bit more esoteric:

CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist! JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...? CALLIOPE: almost certainly not! CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now.

If the device’s purpose were to more or less directly enlist the help of those in Canon -- at the present time, at least -- or pull one of them away while shoving another in their place who could relay the status of their current predicament, then Calliope answering John’s question this way would be pretty weird.  Though, by using the weasel-wording “very few”, she does not rule OUT the idea that this device DOES allow SOMETHING to take place between Canon and Non-Canon.  Especially since, considering their goal:

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more. CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it. CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

--could easily be accomplished by forcing all of canon to heavily, HEAVILY depend on noncanon, by inserting some crucial event or extraneous factor at some important time and place, important beyond even the typical canon-centric doomed timeline’s occasional importance to the plot.  Note, Calliope already mentioned, earlier in the conversation:

JOHN: you mean we ended up with the bad possibility. CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are".

--that Meat and Candy could not exist without each other.  Which could just have to do with the fact that “choices” matter to Paradox Space, especially the choice to do something Heroic for the sake of reality or to relax and sit back, and that if it weren’t important enough to have required a choice, then it wouldn’t have been important enough at all.  But Terezi had interactions with people across BOTH sides of the coin flip, and Vriska specifically was able to get a message through to her on Meat Earth C from deep in Candy (which Calliope lampshaded she would have been very surprised to find out happened-- another thing that makes Vriska powerful for sending things back and forth even if the "event" may or may not directly involve her, (edit:) not to mention John too with Breath's mail/messages association!).

So, simply sending ANYTHING or ANYONE across the gap, if this tarped machine even DOES that, wouldn’t do on its own-- it would have to be something important, important possibly to all existence.  If you wanted to get super-serious, maybe even the as-of-yet-unsourced final frog sent to young Jade.  Thus proving that without the Candy timeline, Earth C’s universe -- not only the place of the kids’ victory, but the eventual birthplace of Calliope and Caliborn and the origin of Lord English -- couldn’t exist at all, and consequently either forcing the Candy version of Earth C out of the singularity or forcing reality to acknowledge the fact that the WHOLE singularity -- all of “non-Canon” -- has relevance, and thus stability. Alt!Calliope would have made her fanfic-timeline come true.

But, that���s just one theory.  I wrote this post so y’all could reblog and debate other possibilities for both the machine under the tarp and the dramatic act of relevance that they intend to have take place.  Some sort of silly dramatic kiss?  Shoving Vriska into Hiveswap’s timeline?  An “oops, all Vriskas” disaster?  I’ll keep this up to date with some of your theories and addendums under the cut as y’all reply/reblog and send in asks.  What exactly do YOU think is the eventual, silly-serious-or-both purpose of all this bullshit?

titenoute said: “There has been people thinking at the beginning of Hiveswap that the Portal could link the characters of Hiveswap to Earth C. Tbh, knowing that Earth and Alternia are going to be destroyed in Hiveswap no matter what it makes sense to have the possibility they’d survive this way, by going through the portal.”

Anon points out that Dirk could have the other side of a Hiveswap door on his end under the tarp he’s hiding from Terezi, and I had some thoughts on that in the link, including what he might use it for.

[unofficial-cactus]

The Canonicty of Fanon in the world of the Dream SMP

In fandoms like this I think fanon plays a special role in a way that doesn’t happen in traditional media fandoms. I’ve mentioned the concept of schrödingers canon a couple of times before - the concept that any content is considered both canon and noncanon until and unless otherwise specified. Considering that so much canon information is unknown or retconned, and as a patchjob measure for the fact that these are a large group of creators with human imperfections in communication and planning, canon on the smp is more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, canony-wamony stuff. That is to say highly malleable and somewhat incomporeal: canon is depicted both by unreliable narrators and an unreliable word of god.

That alongside the tenuous fourth wall between lore and the cc’s going about streaming in a non-lore sense means that fanon can and does play an especially important role in dictating how we experience the story. The 3 canon lives system originating from a fan’s reddit comment is a leading example of this. Fanart depictions of characters being absorbed into official canon such as Philza’s wings and Tubbo’s horns are another prime example of this. However the absorption of fanon ideas into official word of god canon is not the core of what I’d like to discuss today.

What I’d like to discuss is: in fandoms such as that of the Dream SMP, the fandom body has a non-negligable degree of control over canon.

That means that mainstream fanon interpretations (and even possibly to a degree non-mainstream ones) significantly incluence our understanding and appreciation of canon.

My first pillar to this idea begins with the question: how many of you have watched the more popular fandom animatics? I think that especially for newer fans, these animatics are an important introduction to what is canon as they are easily digestible summaries of important canon events. Not only when they are people’s introductions to canon, but also when supplementary, these animatics have a notable impact on the fandom zeitgeist. How the characters in these animatics are framed, what scenes and lines the animatic creators choose to include, and the visual depictions of characters influence how we percieve those characters. When artists draw smp!dream and writers descript smp!dream, how many of them draw on SAD-ist’s depiction, or depictions influenced by that? Dream’s own smp!Dream cosplay was specifically based upon SAD-ist’s design. That these is an example of fanon becomming quasi-canonised (though I think dream’s humanistic depiction still sits somewhere in that schrödinger’s canon space as “officially” he’s just a green blob with a white face. However I think here how these fanon depictions of Dream have been absorbed into the fandom’s collective conscious is more imporant than that quasi-canonisation.

My second pillar is the plethora of analysis that circles the fandom. I’m not sure how influential that is on twitter as I myself am not really present there, but for tumblr I can certainly say that analysis posts and discussions about canonical events pass along my dash a fair bit. The most notable feature to these analysis and discussions is that they are highly opiniated and subjective. Due to the unreliability and incompleteness of narration, alongside the fact that there are just so many perspectives and stories being told within the same space and time, means that these discussions and analysis fill in the gaps and flesh out canon events in distinct ways. Althought the authors are very much still here and the story is actively in the process of being written, fandom space for the Dream SMP really takes to the concept of Death of the Author. An example of this is Tubbo’s reaction to c!Tommy’s death. cc!Tubbo was very clearly unprepared for and not wanting to settling into c!Tubbo to appropriately react to this piece of lore, yet his underwhelming lack of grief at his best friend’s death is what we got. And that stream exists in that very schrödinger’s canon space. Where the role of fandom and specifically fanon comes in is how sections of the fandom have already decided to take that response in as canon and justify cc!tubbo’s unprepared response as c!tubbo being very deep in the denial stage of grief. Right now even as Tubbo stream’s his ‘5 stages of grief’ smp stream that’s meant to respond to Tommy’s death, I and other fandom participants have been discussing how this whole depiction of Tubbo speedrunning the stages of grief is him still deeply in denial even though cc!tubbo tells us trhough the voice of c!Tubbo of how Tubbo is sad and angry.

Here fandom is currently in the process of building that fanon element of the story. Most importantly, these discussions and interpretentions that are being disseminated across the various fandom communities influence our understanding of, appreciation of, and entire experience of the Dream SMP canon. While the Dream SMP canon is enjoyable on its own, These widely accepted fanon additions add a layer of depth and enjoyment that I think really drives many of ours involvement in and enjoyment of the content and fandom space. Furthermore, given the collective power of fanon compined with the malleability and inconsistency of canon means that I think it’s right to say that we as fandom are collectively developing our own canon for the Dream SMP. And there isn’t all too much that gives word of god canon more authority than collective fanon, especially when some fanon interpretations are so wide-spread. If tubbo were to turn around and say ‘no I don’t have horns’ I highly doubt the fandom would collectively stop depicting him with horns, keep imagining him with horns, keep experiencing canon with the understanding that he does have horns.

That is the non-negligable degree of control over canon that fanon has. We have a signifcant power as a communal body to decide what is and isn’t ‘real’ within the Dream SMP story, and I suspect that might be a part of why it has so many of us hooked.

[webkinz-05]

Hey hey!! May I request an overall tarot reading for my Tubbo kin canon? The main thing I remember is that a noncanon named Aster was my older brother figure (idk if we were actually related or not). He was tall, had Herobrine-type eyes he covered with sunglasses (like Eret, who he was related to), and was nonbinary (used he/they pronouns). I was also still best friends with Tommy!! And I mightve been close to Punz too? Sorry for rambling, I hope some of this helps with the reading ajdkjff

hey no worries anon! rambling is all cool here the more info the better honestly!  reading under the cut since they all tend to be pretty long!

the self - the world

you were a very goal oriented person, and you were VERY good at reaching those goals, whatever they may be and for whatever purpose they may serve if there was something that needed getting done you could get it done. the world is a card that represents journey, and the struggle to get to the end of that journey is typically very long and very hard. personally you were willing to put in whatever effort needed to help yourself and others get where they needed to be, no matter how challenging these things may be. you were also very reflective, many things happened in your lifetime and you had lots of time to go over these events and really think about them, as well as the impact events had on yourself and others. i imagine this made you a great friend and someone who was able to understand the fairness of situations presented to you.

you also loved to SEE the world, traveling most likely with Aster and Tommy, sightseeing, I imagine Snowchester wasn’t the only place you’d set up! there were plenty of bases and little villages you’d started in order to fuel your love of travel, and at times others may not have been able to keep up with this rapid place to place movement, but they regardless of their stance on what you were doing you were still well respected and had plenty of supporters on your journey, i assume punz tagged along for the ride too!

all in all this card gives huge happy ending vibes

relationships - two of swords

as i said before, when it came to making decisions, this was something you often didnt Want to do, but not something you were bad at or unfair with. the two of swords is a card of choice, i imagine this has to do with exile and what you chose to do ultimately. the two of swords represents coming to an impasse, and attempting to avoid conflict as much as possible. this decision weighed on you heavily, and in whichever context it was that you had to send Tommy into exile, it was a decision that never truly left your mind. 

like canon Tubbo, you made the call to protect others before Tommy, not because you cared about him less, but because you thought it was the right thing to do by your loved ones. the answers one seeks in life are rarely clear cut for us, and this is a prime example of that concept. i do think this had a massive impact on the two of you, but looking at the two of swords another way, as a card of judgement based of of the knowledge one already has on another person, i would say that the two of you remained close, with a lot to work through post exile.

i do believe that Aster tried to help as best he could with this decision, but in an effort to try and “remain neutral” or fair, you may have disregarded their advice. not as a slight against them but because you didn’t know whether it would be right to take that advice or not.

environment - king of swords 

your environment got increasingly more challenging to navigate post exile, with little room for expression of emotions. fearing that others would take this as a sign of weakness, you became very cold and calculated, attempting to come across as a leader in command with the knowledge he needs to rule, but instead you may have come across as tyrannical, regardless of intent. it was incredibly hard for you to keep your emotions in check, which is fair, as you are a person who relied on emotions to convey what it is that you needed. without that pillar of support there, and without your close friend to aid you, things became very overwhelming very quickly. luckily Aster made an incredibly advisor, trying to get you to take care of yourself as much as possible despite your resolve to work towards a better nation. 

challenges - six of pents reversed

your challenge was to learn to practice self care in lieu of everything that had happened. trying to do everything for the people of your nation didnt help with keeping your own health in line, as i mentioned Aster was around to try and help, but there’s only so much someone other than yourself can do to try and keep things stable. it was very difficult for you to focus on your own issues, so instead you may have used travel as a coping mechanism to distract from things you may have had to Genuinely sit and reflect on. being reflective is nice until you realize that those reflections do have to apply to yourself, and not being able to process certain facts or truths can easily turn a normally reflective person to seek out distractions.

triumphs - seven of swords reversed

one of your many triumphs was overcoming the sense of impostor syndrome you felt in relation to the events youd experienced. especially when it came to the presidency, feeling like a failed president was something incredibly present for you, but with support from your friends and probably some therapy you were able to look at the events of the past and acknowledge that you did what you thought was best, which is all anyone could truly ask of you. you also learned to open up to others who care about you, swords is a suit of duality, so i imagine this includes ranboo. thinking of your spread in big picture terms swords does pop up a lot in this reading, i imagine ranboo was incredibly integral to helping you get through tough times, and he wanted the best for you as you did him. you were able to stop keeping smaller or larger secrets from others out of a sense of self preservation. you also learned how to properly reach out and ask for help, setting boundaries along the way. these events feel like they would have taken place during snowchester, after things had calmed down a bit, and you were even able to talk with tommy about how you felt in your decision with exile.

overall - king of wands

another king card, the king is a powerful figure in the deck, one who makes decisions and rules over his citizens in different manners, sometimes fairly and sometimes not. the king of wands is representative of finding true balance when it comes to leadership. you Are a natural born leader, and with the help of your loved ones you were able to figure that out and lead your peers effectively, without the stress of a false choice presented to you at every turn. 

three cards popped out at me during this reading, they follow in order:

the devil

im going to be honest when this popped out i immediately thought of schlatt because of the design on the card. i suspect there was a connection there between the two of you, whether it was biological or you had looked up to him at one point is unclear though. the devil has to do with the darker side of coping, and i do think that under the influence of schlatt (through no real fault of your own) you very well could have picked up drinking as a coping mechanism, this was something im sure aster would have tried to help you with, and seeing as your reading has such a positive ending vibe to it, its clear that regardless of how deep certain negative coping mechanisms may have ran, they were all overcome due to your own resolve and reaching out to others for help.

two of wands reversed 

with so much uncertainty in your life during the tougher times, lack of planning was something that seriously got to you. this card is tied to the world (your self) in the sense that its focused around being goal oriented, and being able to achieve those goals through a strict plan of action was something you were skilled at

four of cups reversed

there was a period of withdrawal from you before you were able to fully break through that barrier of silence and secret keeping. perhaps in the aftermath of tommy coming back to life, after having so much to process, you retreated and kept to yourself, unable to have a conversation with anyone about the ramifications of certain events like that one. you had to take the time to realize that that wasnt an efficient way of dealing with your problems, and after some concerned talks with people like ranboo and aster, you were able to open up more gradually.

thats all for your reading! this is unrelated but when we saw this ask OUR tubbo who is named aster perked up and was very happy to hear about another nonbinary smp member out there named aster. i hope this was helpful and if you need any clarification dont hesitate to send in another ask!

- mod j ☄

[whyarewecalledtheshipname]

kh3, khux, recoded spoilers:

ramblings about unreality, the BoP, and the journal:

ngl i'm hella late to the party and i'm still not super familiar with what ideas and theories have been made regarding khux shit, unreality shit, etc. these are thoughts i had after rewatching recoded.

i know the maleficent/book scene isn't novel, but i wanna ramble about it anyway.

a question i had when listening to some khux talk: is it agreed that MoM made unreality? bc we know he hid there, right. idk how or since when, i'm guessing it's where he originally disappeared to.

But what's our understanding of that scene in the khux finale, where MoM's telling Darkness about the fictional world, the world he couldn't even conceive? Where neither light or darkness rules?

i've only watched that scene a few times, and i'm not clear on whether MoM's talking about the fictional world as if it already exists, or something he's envisioning.

pff i can't even organize my thoughts lmao. So, my guess at this point is that MoM was envisioning/imagining this world where neither light or darkness rules (and where voices and eyes can't reach but idk what dictates THAT particular rule). By simply imagining/thinking of it, i don't think it resulted in that world becoming real. Cause i thought he said something about that idea having to be "realized", but rewatching that specific scene, he doesn’t. If anyone knows for sure if he ever mentioned something like this i’d appreciate confirmation. [EDIT: MoM does specify putting your imagining into realization in the fan translation, which is more direct/literal and often times more accurate than the official localization…🤷🏽‍♀️]

But—IF it's not enough to /just/ think of it, and you do have to literally put it into realization—. My interpretation of what that means is, you know, putting the idea into action. /Making/ it real. Manifesting it. And that can happen any number of ways. Namely, in this case, putting it on paper. In the Book.

THE BOOK, UGH. The recoded scene. I know it kinda basically confirms that the book can create worlds but again i wanna scream about it a little.

But first. So far, i have that idea. Now as for the actual sequence of events, mmm. My brain goes all over the place for that one. Bc before rewatching those scenes, the question took form of "what came first? the chicken or the egg?" bc an idea i had heard was that Verum Rex, the game, could be a documentation of what's going on in unreality. And i've been flip flopping on that.

for me it would depend on whether unreality as we see it was spawned (that's the word i use) as soon as MoM originally thought of it, and wrote it down. Bc then Verum Rex could be made in the image of that world. On the other hand, if Verum Rex is like, 'additional' realization of the /idea/, then that would mean the game came before (most/some of) the world. But i think the first option is more likely.

So MoM conceived the world --> MoM wrote about it in the Book --> the world became real --> SOMEONE made the world into a game

and that gets into my thoughts about who tf has access to unreality, at least to the extent that they can see into it and observe it, and how. and obv, square enix (in kh) made the game. and square enix is literally "the powers that be" so. kinda an obvious option. but anyway.

i covered my main points ig. so time to scream about how tf this even could happen and why. not that i have any actual answers bc how tf could a book make worlds.

recoded. GOD, RECODED. If i didn't already ramble about HOW the Book could make worlds then i'm about to.

idek where to start lmao. Maleficent. she brings up the book, after she and pete have been rescued/released from the datascape.

(And what IS the datascape exactly? WHAT does it encompass? is the datascape in recoded strictly the data made from the journal? like, could there be multiple datascapes based on different source materials, or based in different devices/computers? ????)

“Yes, considering legend has it the book can conjure, making an entire world filled with beings and powers that have yet to exist.”

So that's just there. We've seen this. So this is assuming we can take the legend as (probable) fact. I'm assuming the Book really /can/ make worlds.

this next part about fairy tales i'm including to like cover my bases and see if anyone has thoughts about it bc i have not thought too much about the concept of fairy tales in kh and what it could mean:

“Really? A book that can just make up a world? I don't know. That sounds like nothin' more than fluffy, pink, kids' fairy tale stuff. It just sounds too good to be true"

“Ah, but who’s to say a fairytale’s not true?”

So that's that about fairy tales. (omg cinderella, dreams coming true, true love's kiss, sleeping beauty, WHHHHH--)

“And I ask you, how does that differ from this world they call the ‘date escape’?”

THIS BITCH. (the quote not maleficent lol) I know that early theories and probably current one's still, suggested unreality/quadratum/other-shibuya were data worlds, or something akin to them. and i mean, yeah, i wondered too, bc of the glitchy stuff with sora’s heart station in the secret episode.

but also, like. this whole world manifested "outside" of kh's reality. like, is it even possible that it COULD be /just/ data? As in, could data just exist on it's own like that? (or is there more? if the part of unreality we see /is/ data, is it only the data aspect of a bigger whole? i've seen a theory talk about this, is why i even bring it up)

If what we see of unreality so far is data, like, does that data exist within something? does it /need/ to?

and if unreality is data, like. i feel like it'd have to be different than that data worlds we see in kh. pure guesswork, but i feel like it's /more/ than just data worlds. /Bigger/.

"how does [world created by the BoP] differ from [datascape of the journal]?" thats the thing, too. essentially, what's the difference between the Book, and the journal.

sHEESH i just rambled in my notes. it's a bunch of guesswork, and idk if i should even put it here. gimme a sec.

okay well might as well address this while i’m here. my guess is that there IS no difference. there is no difference between the BoP and fucking jiminy’s journal, ability wise. We know the BoP doesn’t actually predict the future, it was simply written in the past after the future had taken place.

inherently, there’s no difference.

the difference between their CONTENTS however. one accounts the future (that has already happened, this is kinda important imo). the other records the past.

two things they both share. 1) the events in both books already happened 2) we saw them happen. in reality.

just like the past is fixed and unchangeable, so is the future (bc it’s already happened). We know this.

so what ISNT fixed and unchangeable? if literally all of time IS?

fiction.

okay, well, duh.

this is where my ideas become pure assumptions.

my guess is that like i said, neither of these books holds any special power over the other. and if my next guess is right, then neither of these books holds any special power over literally any other book (in kh).

this has no bearing on my main points above. (did MoM not discover unreality, did he THINK of it? i think he did. did MoM write his idea in the BoP? i think he did. did writing it down result in the idea manifesting as a world? i think it did.)

the idea is that ANY book [any MEDIUM, for that matter (books, shows, movies, games)] can create worlds. THIS world (or these, that we’ve seen in the secret ending and secret episode) is just the only one we’ve been shown.

i could not tell you how. and i could not tell you why. the only guess i currently have is that fictional ideas (given a medium) create worlds bc that’s Just How Things Work in kh. like, it’s literally just the laws of physics of kh.

For SOME fucking reason, fictional worlds given a medium spawn real worlds, outside of kh. hence, unreality. (bc they’re outside of kh reality, and bc they’re Not Real. fictional)

What about the BoP and the journal then? The shit in there doesn’t manifest as a separate world because it has already manifested in reality. That’s why i was saying it was important that the future already happened. bc if you wrote about a hypothetical future, not simply recorded the future as witnessed through your time traveling eyeball, then that would therefore be fiction. even if it’s based on the real world, this hypothetical future would not consist of real world events. An AU, basically. like real world=canon, hypothetical future=noncanon (fanfiction oop) (nonfiction vs fiction)

so if you wrote your fake future shit, it would hypothetically spawn as a world in unreality. IF the idea of the creation of worlds through fictional ideas given a medium pans out lmao.

On the other hand, the power to create worlds really could be special to the BoP or MoM himself. but the reason i don’t assume that in the first place is due to his wording in his khux scene.

“If you imagine hard enough, you can make anything a reality.” (maybe it’s just phrasing. maybe only he has the power and he’s just not specifying it but 🤷🏽‍♀️)

this brings me to Pete in kh2 LMAO LEGIT i just remembered that one theory video about how the fuck pete manifested a whole ass time capsule world by WISHING for it. if all it takes is JUST IMAGINING (in the case of fictional ideas) and WISHING (in the case of real world events), that would throw this whole post out the window lmao.

if imagining ISNT enough, and you DO have to go through the step of /realizing/ your idea, by giving it a MEDIUM, then.

and the reason i stick so much to the concept of giving things MEDIUMS is bc of khux. and this is all based on the english versions of the game.

at this point i’m not even connecting random dots, i’m scribbling all over a blank page but. it reminded me of time travel. to time travel, you leave your body behind, resulting in just a heart. to restore the body, the physical form, you need two things at your destination. Someone with memories of you, and a medium.

a mental/non-physical element, and a physical one.

memories could equate to imagining. a medium to restore the physical form could equate to a medium through which to express a fictional idea. and these two things combined results in a physical manifestation. Except one process restores real people in reality, and the other process creates people/places in unreality. (bc worlds don’t time travel or do they oh god)

the likely thing is that these two things aren’t related at all, esp since i’m working with the assumption that the second process even exists.

there’s also this random google definition of the word medium as it relates to computers: “a particular form of storage for digitized information, such as magnetic tape or discs” 🤷🏽‍♀️

another random idea/question regarding the process by which we’ve seen mediums result in worlds. the journal was converted into data with mickeys fucking macbook computer/machine. and that resulted in the worlds and people written about in the journal being recreated as data, hence data worlds and data characters. (and real people can enter data too without necessarily being data themselves but that’s a random note)

would the writings in the BoP require a similar process? or any other book/medium for the matter? obviously it wouldn’t be the exact same process or it’d just result in a data world, and a fictional data world would just be a video game at that point. is writing it at all the process? i mean i already assumed it is but just thinking.

i thought maybe Verum Rex could have been the process for this world specifically. The video game could be the writing converted into data but i don’t think the time aligns. Like, Verum Rex is like the best selling game right now. and MoM conceived and potentially wrote the idea down back in the age of fairy tales. I don’t know what time shenanigans could explain that time gap.

imo the wildest part of this whole thing is just the assumption that writing down a fictional idea results in the creation of a whole ass world in a whole different plane of existence lmao. like i said, i could not guess as to why this would be the case, only that it could just be part of the physics in kh world. Action, reaction. Conception, manifestation.

if anything, this whole concept of ideas becoming worlds would just be a fourth wall thing. get an idea, put it on paper, make worlds. ofc everyone has recognized the meta-ness of all this lmao i’m here trying to rationalize it in-game.

i had more quotes i didn’t add lol, in regards to the similarities between the BoP and the journal. it’s kinda additional stuff about why i do or don’t assume the things i do. (the first maleficent quote is the biggest tho for me)

“Don’t you think it might just be worth our while to search for a connection? Perhaps there’s a link of some sort between that so-called journal of theirs and the Book of Prophecies.”

(“so-called” why this phrasing? is it that maleficent suspects the journal is more than it seems? is it just the eng dialogue or just maleficent’s speech pattern?)

at this point i’m mostly gonna copy/paste my ramblings, so it’s gonna be messier:

So clearly they’re telling us to LOOK for the connections between the journal and the book. is it for proof that the book of prophecies CAN make worlds?

and also, does it make worlds OUTSIDE of kh BECAUSE you can’t change fate? it depends on the power of the book, and what gives it that power. (if it’s a power exclusive to the BoP after all)

lmao admittedly, this can be encapsulated by stuff Spuuky said during one of his streams about how Jiminy’s journal is OP bc you could create literally anything by writing it down bc converting it into data would make it real, and able to directly affect and interact with the real world. And at that point i was like bruh it’s not the journal it’s the machine but??? LMAO ARE THEY SO DIFFERENT AFTER ALL, i hate this game

and, another random question, does stuff from unreality manifest in kh? and if it does, does it do it on its own or would someone in kh need to access unreality and carry the ideas back over to kh? i already asked this earlier, and my end assumption for now was that verum rex did NOT just leak into kh by accident, someone brought the idea over. and the reason i don’t think it was MoM is because i’m guessing MoM doesn’t work at square enix in kh (nomura is MoM theories incoming lol). And MoM is hiding in unreality (tho he seems to have been coming back to kh every so often when he sees fit, such as his intervention with xehanort).

imma leave this for now, my thumbs are RIP