#another possible plot for some future stories after TFS

[thefirstknife]

The lore you're thinking of is Star Jasmine, exotic ship earned from Wellspring! This details what appears to be how Savathun took Osiris out of the Hellmouth and into her throne world where he was, presumably, being kept until we freed him.

Since this comes from Wellspring and Wellspring is referenced in the lore tab, this is most likely explaining how Savathun created the Wellspring in her throne world which is where the Light is being kept to sustain the throne world itself. It seems like Savathun used Light from this Guardian and possibly from Osiris, to make the Wellspring function. So "this realm" would be the throne world and Osiris was the first to see it since Savathun brought him there.

But I am intrigued by the rest of your thought process here and Nezarec's potential involvement. After all, Osiris appears to have been brought to the throne world in a state of dreaming. He remained in some sort of unconscious state for the duration of his stay in Savathun's captivity and that state (the coma he was in) continued even after we freed him. I'll go into detailed stuff under:

To this day we have no idea where his mind "went." It appears he was not entirely.... there... while in a coma. In Season of the Risen, when Caiatl's Psions were helping us contain Lucent Hive in a mindscape, by using their powerful psychic abilities, Saint went to Mithrax with an idea:

The Titan took a ragged breath. His voice was a hoarse whisper: "Could the Psion machine… connect my mind with his? So that I might share his dreams?" Mithrax felt useless. He spoke softly: "The Psion tells me the subject must have residual activity for a reading, and Osiris has been asleep very long.

The bit about "subject must have residual activity for a reading" sounded super concerning at the time. Did this mean that machines could not detect activity within Osiris' brain? But we know that he had activity, because we had lore tabs from his POV during his coma. Obviously this is the benefit of us as readers with more information, but it shows that to the outsiders, it appeared as if Osiris was... not really in his body? So to speak? Perhaps not entirely? So where was he?

Clearly he had some awareness of his surroundings, given that he was able to sometimes see what Savathun was doing. He was also able to connect with her memories. In Wolftone Draw from Lost he sees glimpses of what Savathun was doing in the physical world. In LF CE, he mentions seeing "glimpses" of her memories and thoughts, bu in there he also mentions that most of the time he was "delirious and lost in Darkness." Darkness being capitalised is interesting; he wasn't lost in "darkness" as in just a place that is dark. He was lost in "Darkness," the paracausal power.

This is further explored in the most fascinating bit of his POV before he woke up, Falcon's Chase. Just the flavour text alone mentions "glimpses" and "dreams" again. It also describes how it felt to be "delirious and lost in Darkness." He also seems to, at least in one moment, recognise that his physical body, his hand, is being held by Saint. But at the end of Falcon's Chase, there's an inexplicable description of what Osiris was going through that to this day is completely baffling:

A familiar voice calls out, sonorous against the abyss, incomprehensible but sweet. I think I hear the fluttering of wings, but the hum of the Sundial gives no direction. How long has it been?

This is a far cry from his descriptions of being "lost in Darkness." Instead, here he hears some voice (unexplained, most definitely not Saint because he would recognise him) and the fluttering of wings. And then he mentions the Sundial, in a way that almost implies he thinks of himself as still being in there. And then he wonders how long has it been.

This is super bizarre for a number of reasons, mostly because mentioning the Sundial over 3 years after it's been last used and was reportedly decommissioned is... strange. Why did Osiris think of the Sundial? Why did he think that its hum could give him a direction? Did his mind somehow go back there? Did he somehow connect to some of his copies that were still in there? Osiris was no stranger to splitting his consciousness and sending it to wander the corridors of time.

Most importantly, we still don't know what Osiris did to make the Sundial; specifically, what he used as its core. The only thing we know is that it's something dangerous, very likely of Darkness origin, and that it whispers. It was so odd that even Drifter, who helped Osiris finish the Sundial, thought of it as too dangerous. Not only that, but the Sundial's core fed on Light. And even more than that, the Sundial attracted the Psions; no one else was able to find it, except for the Psion Flayer sisters who were not only drawn to it, but knew how to use it almost instinctively.

And what connects all of that? Nezarec. Drifter's involvement (Drifter personally collected one of the relics), dangerous psychic powers, whispering, Darkness, his influence on the Psions, dreams, the relics... The Sundial's core is, possibly, a piece of Nezarec. A relic, just like the ones we collected during Plunder. It's almost too perfect; the reason why Osiris was able to retreat back to the Sundial in his mind and why he was able to be woken up by the relics of Nezarec was because he was connected to that, through the Sundial and that's where his mind would go to, powered by the psychic powers of Nezarec. Post about this (pre-Lightfall: this was obviously not elaborated on in the game since, but it's possible it might be at some point in the future).

There could be another explanation for all of this of course, especially for the Sundial's core. There could also be that there really is no explanation that is super necessary for writers to tell us: Osiris' coma was paracausal in nature and we will never know the details of what happened. But the mention of the Sundial in Osiris' comatose dreams has been intriguing to me ever since it first dropped, and with the recent revelations about Nezarec and the use of his relics to wake Osiris up, I can't help but wonder if his mind did wander around, to the Sundial and beyond, influenced by his meddling with Nezarec's powers. So in a way, yeah, perhaps Osiris' consciousness was in some way, somehow, tied to Nezarec's twisted mind.

I'm fairly sure that they're done with Nezarec himself, despite his promise that he'll continue to plague our dreams. But a few points about him still remain. Namely, the introduction of his Acolytes of Nezarec and the proof that he influenced the Psion civilisation at some point in the past. The Psions are still largely unresolved as a faction and there's a whole section of Psions working on their own for their own goals (The Conclave). These are all possible plot threads we might be following after TFS. Perhaps we'll never truly know what exactly happened with Osiris, but I feel like some of these things they told us are supposed to act as hints. It would certainly make a lot of sense that there's a link here between all of these points.

Regarding Nezarec Tea and Osiris

I made some theories on why Nezarec's remains worked on waking up Osiris.

(Honourable mention to my partner, Mika, who listened to everything I had to say. I adore you.)

To start,

There is a lore entry somewhere about Xivu / Savathûn bringing a woman into a 'realm'. I could not recall which book was this from, since I read a lot in a single sitting. But this entry basically tells that Xivu (?) brought this woman inside the 'realm' that Savathûn was keeping Osiris in. Paraphrased conversation went something like:

"Is that- Osiris? Sagira's shell... What did you do to her!?"

"Hush, child. He is the first to see this realm."

I will reiterate I do not remember if this was Sav or Xivu, but the lore still stands.

So, what does this have to do with Nezzie and Nezzie Tea?

Well, Savathûn betrayed Nezarec and cursed his remains after she killed him. Entombed him somewhere in a pyramid and all. Perhaps, during that period of time, Sav has been using Nezzie's mind as a prison for Osiris? Osiris, as described in his struggles during his imprisonment and possession (wailing and shouting for Saint. Seeing he's there but cannot actually call to him), is not only trapped in his mind, but within another mind that is Nezarec.

Another spinoff I made was based on the usage of the word 'realm'. Since Nezarec is a disciple of pure Darkness, so being imprisoned in the mind of Nezarec is being imprisoned in Darkness. His mind and the realm is literally Darkness.

Both versions of my theory does lead to the logic of using Nezarec's remains to bring Osiris back to consciousness.

I'm not entirely sure if this is mentioned in the story, I do not have the expansion, I just thought it would be interesting to dive into why Nezarec was made into tea and how it woke up our beloved bird grandpa.

I apologize for any flaws in my theory and my retelling of lore.

I thank you for reading. <3

[inkfamy]

Issue 1 of Void Rivals was super fun, and in the time honoured tradition of following a comic as it releases I'm going to make some wild extrapolation predictions and hopes for the upcoming new Transformers continuity (focussing mostly on the Transformers, because of course, but also I really enjoyed this issue and I'm excited for the continuing non-Transformers story)

spoilers for Void Rivals #1 below the cut

First up wow, the art style and design in this issue is so pretty, I love how soft the colours are (I'll talk about the Rivals later)

I love that so far we have a nice reworking of the Fire In The Sky story: Jetfire is a scientist, and he managed to (presumably) crash and get stranded and stasis locked for millions of years. I like that he's very much in his G1 characterisation too, he's immediately very gentle and reassuring to Darak and Solila.

(also, moment of appreciation for this nice characterisation; science mind comes to the fore as he studies his own wear and tear and guesses that he's been down for millennia)

(additional moment to hoot in amusement as he immediately forgets about the little people and dashes off)

So making some extrapolations and guesses based on the tiny bit of info we glean here:

Jetfire is a scientist, and he crashed millennia ago, so

if we're borrowing the Fire In The Sky premise, is Starscream going to be an ex scientist again? Please let Starscream be a scientist again

The war between the Autobots and Decepticons has presumably been waging for millions of years, as per most other continuities

It would be neat to get an introduction to Cybertron as it is now and its state of affairs through Jetfire's frantic return (or attempt to return)

Darak and Solila are able to jump start(??) Jetfire with their tech which is fun and interesting (I am always a fan of "non-TF squishies can use their automobile/mechanical/science knowhow to do stuff to Cybertronians) BUT

(extreme leap) Darak specifically is inspired by Jetfire's abilitiy to transform and starts working on a way to use his and Solila's flight suits to repair their ships. Given how advanced their tech seems to be (and Handroid apparently being some kind of robo AI), does this mean we might be looking at a headmasters plot in the future?

We also got a nice author's note at the end of the issue from Robert Kirkman, which was an interesting peek at his own thoughts on the series. It was particularly interesting that he specifically mentions the 86 movie and Optimus Prime's death as both a key point in his experience as a Transformers fan, and as a lesson he took forward as a storyteller. (extremely tenuous extrapolation) While Kirkman isn't the main writer in the upcoming Transformers run, I wonder if this means we can possibly look forward to (dread?) some big character deaths and plot twists (not unusual for a comic series of course but also I am vibrating at high frequency). He also says that the Agorrians and Zertonians will be part of the EU, so super interesting to see how this is woven in with the TF story.

Moment after all this leaping to wild conclusions to appreciate Jetfire's design and his little kitty ears

So, Jetfire was there for all of 3 pages and then promptly dipped. I was expecting them to find him wrecked, but tbh I thought it would be at the end of the issue as a cliffhanger. It does sort of feel like he was just shoved in there (maybe to make TF fans buy into Void Rivals if I'm being affectionately cynical) very briefly, but I don't find myself minding too much since we're getting a new Transformers ongoing later this year (I don't mind when comics have a little thing that doesn't get explained until another series), but since the poster for Void Rivals shows Jetfire a) with an Autobot insignia [he doesn't have one in the issue #1 panels] and b) holding Darak and Solila, I am curious (but not holding my breath) that he might turn up again somewhere between now and October.

I feel like this post is getting overly long so I'm just going to bullet point some thoughts about Darak and Solila, their deal, and the things this issue seems to be setting up for the Void Rivals story:

I love Handroid so much, I don't care if it's the active tool of a Nefarious Regime

Neat parallel between the Agorrians and Zertonians and their apparently generational war, and the Cybertronians and their *waves hand*

Obviously someone(s) for some reason(s) have a vested interest in keeping the Agorrians and Zertonians at war, not learning about one another, and not getting a moment to even think about not killing each other

(another extreme leap) please give me Quintessons mixed up in the wars of multiple species across the universe

Mild disappointment that both aliens are just "slightly different coloured humans" in design but the moment they took off their helmets and looked at each other and saw they were the same was so lovely that I forgive it

I was expecting to be fairly disinterested in the non-Transformers plot, especially because GI Joe has really never called to me, but this issue really felt like a nice introduction, I'm definitely curious about what's going on between the Agorrians and Zertonians, what's going to happen when Darak and Solila inevitably manage to escape and are now known by both their factions to have worked with The Enemy, and also dying for more Handroid. Also I am shoving Jetfire content into my mouth and chewing frantically before anyone can take it away.

[lola-andheruniverse]

Hi good morning, seeing as you're doing a great work sharing fics and recommending old ones, i wanted to ask you for some help if its possible?

Its about a story, carol and daryl are together at the prison but carol dies and daryl is devastated but something happens and they go back to the beginning, to the quary, and daryl knows when someone is going to die but he tries to save them.

Do you know whats the fic name ?

Hi, dear anon! 🤗 I'm very happy to know you're enjoying my recs, especially the great old ones out there that deserve to be rediscovered. I believe the fic you're looking for is a 10 year old fic titled A Better Man, written by 27Dayz, and posted on FF.net. This fic was pretty popular back then so older carylers might recognize it too. I might be wrong but I think this is the first caryl time travel fic ever written! 🤔 Summary: After Carol's death, Daryl makes a desperate wish to save her. Suddenly, he finds himself back in the quarry, staring as she and her daughter cower in the shadow of her husband. With all of his memories of the future intact, can Daryl change life as he knows it? And just how will this journey change him? Rating: M / Mature Word count: 477.822 (103 chapters) Published: August 20, 2013 Fellow carylers who wish to read this for the first time: despite being marked as complete, the last chapter posted has a TBC (to be continued) at the end of it signaling that this story is actually unfinished. Anyway, Daryl going back in time changes a lot of canon plot points and we never get to a situation similar enough to the one in which Carol dies at the beginning of the story. A very #fix it wednesday type of fic! So, yeah, the circle is not completed, but we still have 103 chapters of caryl greatness and of second chances for every TF character! Hope I got it right, anon! Thanks for stopping by. Caryl on! EDIT: just saw another ask on my inbox from @southerncountrygirl recommending this exact fic! I think the universe is demanding that we all read/reread it and send loving reviews to our author. I'm counting on you all, fellow carylers, to make it happen! ���

[gopeachllama]

Rhys' sister

ok this might as well be a crack theory bc if it hasn't happened at this point, then i doubt it ever would, but OH WELL.

So anyway, i kinda sorta have this feeling that Rhys' little sister is alive or will be ressurected in one of the future books, and in this essay i will-

ok ok, but the other day i was thinking about rhys (wow surprise) and i couldn't help but wonder why SJM gave him a little sister in the first place. So from what we know is that rhys' mum had his sister when he was a lot older (i can't remember how long but is was definitely after The War). She was killed alongside her mother by tamlin's father - the high lord of the spring court - and brothers. Rhys and his father, the previous high lord of the night court, went to exact revenge which resulted in tamlin's father, mother and brothers and rhys' father's deaths. And that how the two became high lords of their respective courts.

And i know that rhys' mother and sister who he loved, had to be killed for his Tragic Backstory TM, and for the root of the conflict between rhys and tamiln and as an extension feyre. But im pretty sure the same thing could have happened if he just had a mother. We know that it is rare for fae to have children (we're gonna ingnore the fact that lucien has seven (7) brothers). And we know that rhys parents didn't have a great relationship and were living separately (mum had a cabin in the mountains). So it seems unlikely that his parents would concieve another child. Plus, rhys' mother saved her ring and the dresses she made for Rhys' future partner. and rhys explains that the reason that it was never meant for his sister was because the ring was already hidden away long before she was born. which, to me kind of seems like a poor reason, lets say if rhys sister and mother never died im pretty sure rhys would have wanted them to go to her.

From what've we've read so far, rhys having a little sister (other than the fact of her dying) doesn't have any impact on the story. Rhys and the rest of the IC never talk about her. For casual reader, im sure that they don't even remember that he had one.

So WHY would SJM give him a sister? When i got into ACOTAR, after i read the first book, i thought we'd never hear about feyre's sisters again. I never thought that they would become a significant part of the plot (also it gaves me some of my favourite ships of all time nessian (pre-acosf) and elriel). And it's possible that SJM could be doing the same thing with rhys' sister.

Even though the series is now focusing on the other characters as the MCs, there is a subplot that keeps feysand involved, like feyre's pregnancy in acosf. It seems very likely that the MC for the next book is going to be Elain. so my theory for a possible subplot could be that elain starts to have these visions of this illyrian female that is able to fly in some place that doesn't look like illyria (this peaks the ICs interest bc most females have their wings clipped). so elain and azriel (or whoever tf) go to investiage, and they find out this female is rhys' sister. Maybe she was ressurected by koschei, bc he is a death god and bringing ppl back from the dead seem like a reasonable power for him to have, and now she does his bidding. rhys and the IC now have a personal stake in bringing down koschei so they can free his sister.

anyway im just rambling. I've had like 3 coffees and i have an exam in 2 weeks so naturally this is where my brain went to.

[franniebanana]

CQL Rewatch - Ep 19

Wow, Wei Wuxian looks so rough here. He’s spent some time under the knife (with no anesthetic), and then after that, he has just been waiting around for Jiang Cheng. It’s been seven days since Jiang Cheng went up that mountain. And of course Wei Wuxian is worried about him. What if something happened on his way down the mountain? What if he’d been captured or killed by the Wens? All the while, he’s basically defenseless here in Yiling (iirc). He’s sweating profusely, clutching at his middle—it’s possible he’s even suffering from an infection due to the transfer surgery. Seriously, the poor guy!

I love the visuals here: all these cloaked figures just filling this tea house, and not another soul in there other than the waiters. It’s both comical and heartbreaking the way that Wei Wuxian tries to immediately nope out of there, because he knows it’s a trap right away. Even with his Golden Core, I don’t know if he could have escaped them all—there were too many Wens, including the Core-Melting Hand. This part always really gets to me, because it truly is the first death of Wei Wuxian. It’s the death of who he once was: that smart, quirky, rascal of a youth, who made a very honest oath that essentially guided him to this point.

No joke, the first time I watched this, I was like, “Is that Lotus Pier? How tf did he get there?! How much did they change the story?!” And then a few seconds later, I realized this was a super sad dream/vision that Jiang Cheng was having and I channeled all my anger into sadness. This part is also super depressing. He has this vision of this happy family: his mother laughing, his father kissing his hand, just the picture of love. But it’s so far from what he had growing up, and you just realize that his greatest desire was really to have that happy family. But his parents are dead, he’s lost just about everyone at Lotus Pier—it’s so heartbreaking.

God, he just looks so broken! I’m sad now.

So even though I know the cost of Jiang Cheng’s happiness is Wei Wuxian giving up his own Golden Core, I still feel so happy here, seeing Jiang Cheng feeling like himself again. It’s because Wei Wuxian knows Jiang Cheng’s heart truly that he could offer up his own future so that Jiang Cheng could have a better one. I also just love this shot of Jiang Cheng kowtowing to the Immortal One, thanking her for healing him, and the camera pans past him, showcasing the beautiful scenery again. And then he walks down the mountain path with such a spring in his step! I love it!

I love that Wei Wuxian is still able to use his mind and play to their weaknesses. Wang Lingjao is extremely superstitious and fearful of the supernatural, and just the idea that he could haunt them scares the shit out of her. It’s just very cool to me that with all the abuse he endures, he still maintains a clear head and is able to fight back with his wit. This is yet another reason why I get annoyed when I see Wei Wuxian characterized as an idiot or someone who isn’t very smart. He proves his wit in just about every scene, so I don’t know why he gets this reputation in fanon. I feel like it’s derived from some overused yaoi/shojo trope where the “girl” has to be less smart than the “guy.” I don’t know how many things I’ve watched and read with a scatterbrained (but not charming) female lead—it’s overused.

This is so cool, because Wei Wuxian is scared out of his mind—he’s terrified of being left to die in the Burial Mounds. He’s heard all the stories: people don’t return, their souls get torn apart, etc. But what is cool is that he turns everything around and makes this place his source of power. He’s the man who conquered the Burial Mounds. It’s very satisfying to see that. FYI, I’m not going to talk about how he falls for like 20 minutes.

But I do think it’s really cool how the dark spirits catch him (and that’s all I’ll say).

This part still gives me major chills: you hear so many people calling out Wei Wuxian’s name, and then a “Wei Ying” breaks through. My breath always catches in my throat the first time I hear it. And then you hear it again, and the other voices have faded away before you hear it a third time. And that all feels nice until the screaming starts, which is hard to listen to, let alone hard to watch Wei Wuxian go through the mental turmoil.

Lan Wangji is back, bitches! He’s got a new title, a new headdress, and he’s hotter than ever. Jokes aside, though, this entrance is beyond epic. Other than that tiny glimpse of him in the last episode, it’s been ages since we’ve seen him, and it’s so satisfying that we get this great entrance, walking up this enormous staircase. Obviously by this point, I’m ecstatic to see him (it’s been way too long). Everything about this scene is great, from his entrance, to the way he uses his guqin as a spiritual tool, to the way he and Jiang Cheng are now a team. I don’t think there’s an awful lot of comradery there, but they have a common goal: find Wei Wuxian.

So we’re not really used to seeing a ton of emotion from Lan Wangji. Even when he’s annoyed, he doesn’t tend to show it. But, man, he is pissed here. Because of the magic of fiction, he’s probably heard the Wens’ conversation as he was walking up the stairs, so he heard them mocking Wei Wuxian (and the Yunmeng Jiang Sect), and he is not happy about it. He even uses the Chord Assassination Technique right off the bat against at least two of the Wen soldiers. Lan Wangji means business, and he’s not leaving until he gets what he wants.

The other great thing is that he doesn’t even need to come up all the way. He defeats them at a distance, while he’s still on the stairs. And the power and respect he commands is so great that they all know him by his face.

What Wen Chao does here is so relatable. His girlfriend is freaking out, having nightmares, convinced Wei Wuxian is going to turn into a ferocious ghost and haunt them until they lose their minds, and he, of course, rationalizes: they’ve sent so many people to the Burial Mounds and none of them have ever come back. In other words, “You’re being ridiculous.” But when he turns away from her, you can see the fear in his own eyes. When something spooky happens, my first step is always to rationalize—there’s a logical explanation for most things, right? And it always makes you feel better to rationalize it to someone else, but when you’re alone and thinking, your mind starts to wonder, your imagination starts to go wild. It’s easy to psyche yourself up in the dark and quiet of the night.

There’s this really gorgeous cello version of “Wuji” playing during this scene—it’s so beautiful, so moving, hitting me right in the feels. The look on Lan Wangji’s face when Jiang Cheng is telling him about how he and Wei Wuxian were supposed to meet in Yiling, how he thought Wei Wuxian had abandoned him to meet up with Lan Wangji in Lanling—he looks so defeated there. Defeated despite taking down the Qishan Indoctrination Bureau. Defeated because he hasn’t found who he’s been searching for. And then he holds Suibian so tenderly and lovingly—I’m emotional, okay?

It’s really cute and heartwarming to see Jin Zixuan starting to fall for Jiang Yanli. We’ve known for quite some time how Yanli feels for him, so it’s quite satisfying to see his walls come down as he starts to care more and more about her. He becomes protective of her. When she gasps at the hanging head at the gates of Qinghe, his instinct is to hold her—of course, he stops himself, but it’s very obvious that he wants to comfort her physically (and not in a dirty way, get your minds out of the gutter).

I love the dichotomy here: on one end, you have Jin Zixuan asking Lan Wangji where Wei Wuxian is, while you have Jiang Yanli echoing that on the other end with Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng can’t answer—he’s crying, trembling, emotionally responding to his sister without speaking. And Lan Wangji can’t speak either. His lips part, but no words come out. Again, you get this great sense of defeat from him—he’s completely at a loss, but he can’t or chooses not to show those emotions.

It’s also interesting how they kind of clipped the reunion between the Yunmeng Jiang siblings in favor of showing the conversation between Jin Zixuan and Lan Wangji. In my opinion, it’s to remind us of the reunion that isn’t happening right now—the one that should have been—the one between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. And why isn’t it happening? The conversation reminds us that he’s still missing. I don’t doubt the importance of the Yunmeng Jiang siblings in this story—they are obviously instrumental to the plot and to Wei Wuxian—but it’s choices like this where the writers/scene directors remind us that the relationship to focus on is the one between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji, and not Jiang Cheng, holds onto Suibian, the only remaining item that is most spiritually connected to Wei Wuxian. Isn’t that interesting?

“A-Cheng, you’ve grown up. As your sister, there’s nothing I can do but worry about you.” Such a wise line—such a sad line. This really brings out how powerless she feels in the lives of her brothers. She’s a bystander, she has no influence. All she can do is watch and worry, and nothing either of them says or does will change that. It’s something we as parents and caretakers and guardians at some point have to admit: we can’t control our children’s lives, we can’t control those we take care of. Once they reach a point in their lives, it’s them who has to make their own decisions. They must thrive on their own, they must fail on their own. And all we can do is watch and worry and hope for the best. God, Yanli breaks my heart.

Me in bed when I watch a scary movie any time of the day.

She does crazy so well, though.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |

[ravenclaw-questions-gone-writing]

Outline # -1 Abandoned Lore (Trinity)

@fanfics-and-fangirling

I have learned my lesson, I will be writing these on Google docs and then copy-pasting onto Tumblr. While I am on GD, I figured I might as well open the docs I used to write the actual fic. Man, I went through a ton of hoops to get where I am. I will be using the most coherent ones for reference. 

I can literally track my thought process as I went through writing all the different versions and I still have no idea how tf I went from this to dropping a flaming papermache whale on Ra’s Al Ghul. And I will die mad about it. Which means more meticulous notes in the future I guess.

Also, I’d like to apologize for how long it took to get this out, I have no sense of time whatsoever and as always, there’s a lot more than expected. This was 7 pages long

Original Ramble Post 

Like most of my stories, the MC is an OCI - reincarnator brought into a fictional world they once watched. (Because I am obsessed with that trope.)

I now find the original name I had for her cringy and out-of-place given these are norse gods. So, from now on her name is Lokka, which is the female version of Loki

There’s a whole ass backstory about the transition of godly names and power I won’t go into. Just think Thor and female Thor kind of thing I guess. She’s basically seen as a spare Loki but it’s also a respected position.

Was tempted to name her Sigyn since Marvel doesn’t care about actual norse myth relations. No, Idc that there’s a canon Sigyn.

If you’re curious, the original name was Aradia. Yes, like the queen of witches.

MC is an asgardian, the daughter of the librarian in the royal palace and a blacksmith

She managed to get an apprenticeship under Loki and is occasionally taught by Frigga. She also learns under Eir when both her royal teachers are busy.

Lokka found her way into the central plane, probably having found it’s location from Loki’s notes and is unaware that it’s unstable.

So, Lokka is in the central plane, having the time of her life exploring new lands when she stumbles across a crying Marinette who is very lost 

Unlike Lokka, Marinette does not know where she is or what is going on. She literally just tripped into a portal and has no way home.

Lokka takes Marinette under her wing and promises to help her find a way home

Problem is, she doesn’t know which of the three universes Marinette is from.

Even if/when she finds out that the girl is from MLB-verse, she still wouldn’t know which one that is because she has no reference to which world is which. Only that Marinette is probably not from Asgard.

At this point, she is unaware she lived in Marvel, she just knows Asgard is Norse Mythology.

So they continue to wander the central plane, Marinette ends up picking up a card guardian for a pet, accidentally becoming a cardcaptor. 

Marinette has trouble pronouncing Lokka and Lokka gives Mari permission to call her Cosette (pre-reincarnation name)

Meanwhile, Ra’s sends Damian and Talia into the Central plane for combat experience and resource gathering.

Ra’s might be 700 years old, he might have access to the Central plane but he sure doesn’t know about magic or how it came to be or the current state of it. He might know something’s off because all the inhabitants have been increasingly on edge and the weather’s been stranger than usual but he didn’t deemed it important

Notably, he has never seen anyone other than those who he’d sent in himself in the central planes (CP, from now on bc I am getting tired of typing the entire thing out) so as far as he knows, the CP’s only entrance point is under his control.

Talia and Damian, who’s still going by Hafid, go hunting for resources and training

They separate for a bit for individual hunting/training time

Marinette and Cosette (Lokka) stumble across Damian’s camp

Misunderstandings occur, Damian fights them, more accurately he fights Cosette

Cosette tries to protect Marinette while also making sure not to harm her opponent

It was harder than she expected considering her opponent was a child

Asgardian training pulls through and she is able to do both

Damian’s tied up, Marinette is confused, and Cosette does not want to deal with this

Negotiation time

Marinette can’t speak Arabic, Damian doesn’t know french, and Cosette has all-speak

This means Cosette’s sitting there, having to repeat everything the kids say to each other for translation’s sake

also misunderstandings before the kids realize allspeak is a thing

Cosette is stuck with two kids who don’t like each other, one of which barely puts up with her so she does what most adults do when kids are too troublesome

Distract them: she does magic tricks with actual magic

Damian+Marinette are fascinated, Cosette accidentally gains two magic students 

even though she’s still learning herself and all she has for guidance right now are Loki’s and Frigga’s notes

So, the trio end up travelling together

Damian demands Marinette should at least be able to fight so they train her too

They also figure out that Marinette and Damian’s worlds are not the same.

Cosette drills some value of life, basic morals, and feminism into Damian’s head

Marinette and Damian (Hafid) have trouble pronouncing each other’s names

They chose nicknames for each other from Cosette’s bedtime stories

Marinette is obviously angel or Tenko

Damian is gets Kabane, the name of a half demon

Kabane later changes to Kasane, protective blade

Yes, Cosette was/is a weeb and yes, they still mispronounce names which defeats the whole purpose but at least they kids don’t notice now even if Cosette is cringing every time they

They run into another card guardian and this one goes to Damian.

Cosette does not pout about this, it would be very immature

One training montages, several fights, a couple language lessons, and an abandoned (and Cosette-raided) house later, Cosette gets to the part of Loki’s notes where she figures out that the CP is collapsing in on itself and uh-oh

She tells the kids the gist of it but they’re too smart, ask all the right questions, and end up figuring out the important parts of situation that she’s trying to keep from them

Cosette is both impressed and a little put out, mostly impressed because not only did they figure out extremely complex magic, they also mostly remained level headed.

Marinette wants to rescue the card guardians and for once Damian is backing her up so Coestte gives up the notion of returning home and they go collect the guardians.

Remember, DC and MLB universes are closing in on each other 

MCU is drifting away

If they don’t collect the guardians, Cosette would have the time to just drop them off at their world collection points and head back to hers

After collecting a couple guardians, they end up finding Talia and explain the situation to her.

Talia joins the gang, she may or may not be plotting a marriage

They raid a couple more houses, collect the 54 card guardians, and complete the power transfer ritual (replacing the Yue’s trial because the cards are the guardians)

The cards end up latching onto the three kids. 

Marinette gets the Mistress title, Damian gets Sun Guardian, and Cosette gets Moon guardian.

Originally Cosette was going to be the mistress and Marinette the Moon guardian but because of the way I’ve decided magic works in this world - explaining that will need a whole other post - if Marinette is the moon guardian and gets the Ladybug miraculous, she will - for lack of better word - get sick and possibly die... or not.

Y’know what, it made sense at the time. But now that I think about it, we’re going back to the original idea.

Cosette’s the Card Mistress, Marinette’s the Moon guardian and Damian’s the Sun guardian.

Spoiler alert: that is a plot point for tropes-verse.

The completion of the ritual breaks puts CP deteriorations in high acceleration

Damian and Talia get into their circle, Cosette and Marinette in the other

Damian doesn’t have any cards bc he doesn’t want his grandfather trying to get to them. He and Talia agreed Ra’s would only know about the CP’s destruction. He does, however, have a CP beast that they picked up.

CP beast: magical creature that was born of CP’s magical residue or smth

Damian’s looks like a Teddiursa (Teddy bear pokemon) it is not

They have a notebook from a raided house detailing CP’s deterioration for proof

Cosette goes with Marinette because she can’t make it back to her universe and in the event that Marinette’s also from Cosette’s universe, she won’t be alone

They separate with the promise of meeting again.

At this point, I have had several differing ideas

They all go into DC world because they aren’t sure of Marinette’s world

Child trio goes into MLB world and Talia tells Ra’s Damian died

Everyone goes into MLB and Ra’s finds out about the collapse when he tries going in himself and finds out he can’t and just assumes they died

Y’all, I’m starting to see why I can’t do one-shots…

One of the things I forgot to mention in the rambling post is that while Marvel-verse was pulling away, it also messed with the time regulation thing, a day in the Maribat-verse will

Time in CP was very messed up

Kind of assumed readers could piece it together but I figured might as well make it obvious and straight up say it

MLBU: Cosette and Marinette arrive safely 

Marinette is delivered home and Cosette has to figure something out

They find out Marinette has only been gone for a week

Marinette has some separation anxiety for about three days

Cosette slowly realizing this is an MLB universe and having a crisis

Cosette gets adopted by the Dupain-Chengs and starts working at the bakery

I have not figured out ages for Cosette

MLB goes like most Maribat fics pre-gotham because I’m lazy

Will likely be adjusted if I ever actually write this fic

Except Cosette steps in when things got too far and Paris has 3 heroes

Cosette is the known as the Sorciere or Lokka

Her uniform is just her asgardian armor

Good but misguided Adrien, Cosette probably adopts him too

Love square goes platonic and Cosette is glad this rom-com is over

Magic tutoring continues

Cosette is neutral with Fu and fascinated by the miraculous

You remember those ghost interactions? Those are filtering in

One of the first things to merge is the internet, because it doesn’t have a physical body and it’s just waves of information

News and discoveries between the world are being swapped

Given what I remember from DC and dimension travel, it wouldn’t be surprising if they figured out universes were merging.

The news about JL and Paris’s situation are causing all kinds of confusion

Cosette beings looking for information on Damian

As the physical world begins merging, there’s pockets of space where you can slip from one world into another; not quite portals but close

Eventually the trip to NY became a trip to Gotham because their plane slipped between planes (sorry, I saw the chance and I had to take it.) but yeah, that happened.

There’s quite a few details I’m forgetting

DCU: Damian and Talia arrive ok and report bare basics to Ra’s

It has also only been a week

Ra’s is displeased to find them back until they report the state of the CP

There’s the whole coup not long after and Damian is sent to Bruce

Damian is much more innocent looking when he’s bringing what appears to be a teddy bear with him

It’s name is Abd and it has grown wings by now. Actual name pending.

He gets teased about it, but under Cosette’s teachings, he has learned the virtue of patience, underestimation, and getting revenge with a side of entertainment

He does not try to kill Tim either

He also has to make the choice of bringing Abd with him as Damian or as Robin

He choses to make a side company for WE making toys based off creatures from the CP so Abd wouldn’t look too out of place

It takes two weeks for the bats to realize there’s something off about the Abd

They are convinced it’s haunted and Damian is very entertained

Abd only moves in daytime when no one - Damian excluded - can see it

Movement can expel magic that interferes with recording tech

Alfred is the first to figure it out and surprise, surprise, he has some magic books for Damian to learn from

It’s from the Wayne family library and they just assumed the language was lost to time. At least three are from Alfred’s own family.

Bat brothers spend the next 6 months trying to convince Damian his magical pet bear is a haunted doll.

Damian sort of getting along with Poison Ivy because his Sun magic is very compatible with plants and they love him

On an unrelated note, the plants seem to refuse to attack the new Robin

Damian randomly, unconsciously humming to songs Cosette and Marinette sang

Damian just vibing with the magic users of JL and Teen Titans

No one took him seriously at first but he pointed something out during a conference

“Robin, stand down and let the magic users handle this” - Green Lantern, probably

Constantine who actually knows what he’s talking about “No, no, let the boy talk.”

The plan was twice as efficient after Damian was through with it

Now Constantine’s trying to adopt Damian as an apprentice, he’s failing bc the bats are protective and possessive of what is theirs

Reminder that Damian brings Abd with him everywhere and he’s still getting teased about it from anyone who is not a bat (still convinced the thing is haunted)

The only thing the magic users have picked up about Abd is that he’s a magical construct which could mean a number of things but they brush it off as just a doll.

No one is prepared for the thing to come to life, multiply in size, and start spitting ice, sleep sand, and illusions. (Hiccups bubbles and can also turn into a cloud.)

They are also not prepared for the thing to quadruple in size and for Damian to ride it like a horse into battle. Reminder that Abd has wings and can fly.

Confusing talk about what’s going on in Paris and some other parts of the world

JL slowly figure out the universal merger that Damian already knows about

Damian is not impressed, it took him and Angel about 2 hours as 9 year olds

Somehow, Damian still has the ice prince image, less demon spawn though, that goes to Abd

Time moves on and one day, a plane from the other world arrives in Gotham

There’s a bit of confusion but it’s not exactly the first time something like this has happened at this point

WE steps up and offers jobs and a tour and all the usual Maribat plans (not just for the kids but all the other people on the plane)

Given the merger of the internet, MLB class and crew have some idea who the Waynes are and they accept. 

Estimated about 6 months for full merger so people from MLB world are kinda just stuck there until then

Lila literally cannot lie about knowing the Waynes personally but she sure can lie about other things.

Dick and Damian are sent in to monitor the group

The reunion is awkward given they can’t freely interact and are not supposed to know each other. 

While Dick is talking, there are just wide eyed staring between Marinette, Damian, and Cosette. With something a little extra between Marinette and Damian.

Cosette is torn between laughing and groaning at another rom-com trope coming in fast.

She ends up filming it bc blackmail is always good to have

Adrien is confused and quite frankly, he’s really just there to cover for them

The tour begins and about five minutes in, the trio breaks off and exchanges stories and names.

Cosette hears about Batman and has a dawning realization of what this world is, mentally nopes out, later digests that they are going into Maribat verse

Starts checking off Maribat tropes they’re coming across bc she might as well have fun with it

They continue to meet up

Batfam thinking Damian somehow managed to get two girlfriends

Damian choking on his breakfast when it is brought up

The girls are invited to dinner and Damian is just dying inside

Cosette blatantly hitting on all Damian’s brothers in the first 5 minutes

Damian screaming internally while Cosette cackles

Dick is awkward until he realizes it’s a joke, Jason plays along, Tim has an awkward bean crisis

Tim x Cosette? Maybe.

Cosette does that sit and repeat thing at least three times out of habit

Batfam gets full explanation about how they met and everything

I have played with the idea of Cosette getting fear gassed a couple times and Idk how it would go tbh.

That’s as far as I got with this version, so shenanigans ensue

Pretty sure they used the cards and magic throughout even if I didn’t mention it

Absolutely would be useful for being in two places at once

I later changed so the merger happens and then Paris’s heroes meet the Justice League

Damian immediately recognizing Cosette but not Marinette bc magic

still effective but weaker because of Damian’s magic type

He later recognizes Marinette later when she pulls off a move he taught her way back in CP

Nickname confusion for everyone else

Cosette vs Constantine on who gets to teach Damian magic

Damian goes to Paris. They beat Hawkmoth and then go to Gotham.

Also had a general idea of a plot with LoS that never got fleshed out past existing

If we’re going for the rebound version: Cosette reunites with Thor and Loki during the Avengers movie

Also, poor Heimdallr. He probably had a lot of headaches with the universe crash

Accelerated merger because of the convergence in the dark world.

I wanna go with 2012 Avengers towers shenanigans. + Loki and his sort-of but not really daughter

Cosette vs Antman, shrinking/growing, science vs magic.

And then there’s the whole Ironman vs Batman vs Arrow rich boy fight

Hammer x Luthor or Hammer vs Luthor?

Also, Cosette just staring at her home universe in betrayal and being insulted she didn’t think of it earlier because classic Nordic myths had Loki as Odin’s brother and not his son among other things but still

Fight against Thanos is a bit anti-climatic when you give a gremlin murder child magic and a sword that can through anything, including magical artifacts.

this baby boy can and will fight God and Cosette’s not really the kind to hold him back

If I actually wrote this, a lot of things would probably change because I’d actually have to put more thought into logistics and how things work

[twdmusicboxmystery]

How Scars MIGHT Relate to Leah and Daryl

Okay Everyone, this is a post that I wrote like 6-7 months ago. It was after we learned about Leah and 10x18, but before the episode actually aired. It was really just conjecture on my part. Me, trying to connect patterns and similarities I was seeing.

Why didn’t I post it back then? Because we decided we thought Leah was a hallucination, and at that point, I thought this less likely to pan out.

What I’ll say now is that, if she IS real, this may still be true. And if she isn’t, this pattern may hold but it might be about some other character, other than her. 

Even if it turns out to be completely untrue, just see this as patterns I’m seeing that may come into play in the future. And I wanted to post this today, before ep 1 airs and ep 2 shows up on AMC+.

Also, someone sent me this yesterday:

Norman saying there’s some double agent stuff going on DOES suggest she might be a villain. It’s hard to interpret exactly what he meant by that, but this is one possibility. So here’s what I wrote to my fellow theorists several months back:

Here’s what I have to say about Scars, and I’m still grappling for how best to frame this, so I’m sorry if it meanders a bit. And honestly, it’s nothing super ground-breaking. It’s a lot of what we’ve already talked about concerning Leah, and it comes from what you found about the “masks” lines in the Michonne/Zeke convo, as well as between Daryl and Michonne in Scars. I’m really just giving more evidence for this and predicting a future storyline. You know, like I do. ;D

And one thing I will say is that, while I WANT to tie this to Leah because both her storyline and Jocelyn’s happened during the 6 year time jump, I’m not 100% sure this even has to do with Leah. It might, but it also might not. So, I think this is a coming storyline one way or the other. But it may have to do with Leah or may be completely independent of her. No way to tell, yet.

So, in both conversations (both between Michonne and Zeke and Michonne and Daryl on the swings) they talk about people wearing figurative masks. Daryl specifically talks about someone who has so much evil in their hearts that they actually lie about who they are and present themselves in one way, as one type of person, when really they’re the opposite. 

We see this theme played out all through Scars, because obviously Jocelyn did that. But now that I’m alert to it, I’m seeing it a lot. Even in 10x17, the Sniper fell under this theme. Mostly literally in his case because he was wearing camouflage (a kind of mask) to hide out and kill people. But figuratively, that’s kinda what Jocelyn did, too.

Okay, so let me start at the beginning. I’ve watched Scars twice now and I’m thinking more and more that the thing with Jocelyn happened BEFORE Leah. Now that we know Daryl’s story spans 5 of the 6 years, I think Leah must happen after Jocelyn. Michonne is big and pregnant, so Scars can’t be more than 6 mos after Rick disappeared. 

Michonne asking Daryl if he’s okay being alone definitely hints at the Leah storyline (another reason to link Leah and Jocelyn). But I think it’s a jumping off point for his story. Because he tells Michonne he’s okay being alone, and in that moment, I think he really is. Or at least he really believes he is. The story with Leah will be him realizing he really doesn’t want to be alone. Romantically or otherwise. Which pushes him back toward TF when Carol comes knocking with Henry.

But let’s get to the good stuff.

After Jocelyn shows up, she tells Michonne that some of her kids aren’t with her and she wants to go get them. Jocelyn is hurt and Michonne’s about to pop, so neither of them go. But this is interesting. The three people who go to get her kids in the one building are Gabriel, Aaron, and Eugene.

It was Eugene that really caught my eye. I started going, “hmm. What could this foreshadow?” And I don’t know the answer in detail, but I think it may foreshadow his entanglement with Beth’s return in some way. And of course Aaron and Gabe are both major proxies for Beth, with Gabe being the resident Sirius character. So yeah, kind of side-eyeing that.

The next thing is that we see two hand-drawn posters detailing, through pictures, how to skin and drain both a deer and a rabbit. These are things Jocelyn has obviously made to teach the kids to survive. And I know we noticed them before, with the deer and rabbit being big Beth symbols. But I’m seeing a much bigger theme, having watched the episode several times.

The poster of the deer shows the deer strung up by its legs (head pointed down, I assume). Then, after they bring all the kids to Alexandria, we see several deer strung up this way, and Michonne comments that Jocelyn’s kids are amazing hunters. So, we learn that two of them, Winnie, the blond, and Linus, one of the boys, killed the deer and even prepared them for everyone at Alexandria.

But here’s where it gets more interesting. When Jocelyn captures Daryl and Michonne, she strings them up over pipes in exactly the way the deer being slaughtered are strung up. And of course she brands them like animals. So, in a way, they’re meant to be the deer that she’s going to slaughter.

And I’m not even sure exactly what to make of that where the deer symbol is concerned. I thought about how killing the deer does keep people from the danger of starving to death, so it fits with Deer = Tractor = getting rid of the threat, as I discussed HERE. But I also wonder if deer is synonymous with captivity in some way.

Then there’s the rabbit. I have less to say about it except that the biggest place we saw rabbits were around Lizzie and Mica. And the poster specifically lays out how to kill a rabbit, which is what Lizzie did to Mica. And I think it works here because we’re dealing with evil kids. Like Lizzie. (I will have more to say about the rabbit theory next week. We’ll see them in a big way in 11x01.)

This is where I’m going to link it to the good twin vs evil twin theme. Remember I talked about this with Noah’s twin brothers and of course Lizzie and Mica, even though they aren’t twins. I don’t think we have to have twins or even siblings for this theme, though it’s common for them to do it with siblings like Lizzie/Mica and even Daryl/Merle. Back in S4, there was Pete and his brother as well.

It occurred to me that we have a representation of it here, with Michonne/Judith on one side and Jocelyn/Winnie on the other. Sorry to go racial, but even the ethnicities match up. Michonne, a black woman with a Caucasian daughter (Judith) who isn’t biologically hers (good). And Jocelyn, a black woman with a Caucasian daughter (Winnie) who isn’t biologically hers (evil). See what I mean?

One scene that really jumps out at me is when Michonne and Jocelyn talk in the kitchen. Jocelyn goes out of her way to REALLY earn Michonne’s trust in that scene. Michonne even says, “I’m so glad you’re here,” so she’s obviously fully trusting and loving having her friend around. This is the biggest place where we see Jocelyn’s “mask.”

Then, when Michonne and Daryl are on the swings, Michonne says, “she was a friend. Like, a real one.” She talks about how they’d been through a lot together before, like heartbreak, losing parents, etc. And then she says, “I wanted it to be that way again. I believed her. I let my guard down. I should have known. Should have sensed something.”

Okay, so many ways I could go with that. First of all, it’s REALLY close to what Carol said about Lizzie. “I should have seen it. It was already there.” So, another link to Lizzie/Mica.

But I was also thinking that I can see Daryl thinking this about Leah. Like, he wanted to believe that she would stay with him, that he could love her, but it was all just a mask.

Okay, that may feel like it came out of left field, but it’s essentially where I’m going with this. Let me keep going and I’ll circle back.

When Scars first aired, I said I thought Jocelyn was an anti-Beth parallel. I don’t think many people agreed with me, but I believe that more than ever. And @wdway​’s X/Chevron stuff actually backs it up. My biggest reasoning, originally, was just all the child/baby stuff around Beth. I can see her doing something similar to this—raising an army of mini-Daryls—but of course she would be good and raise them with good values. Jocelyn will be a foil to her.

Watching it again, there are SO many Beth symbols around this Jocelyn story. There’s the deer and rabbit, which I’ve mentioned. At one point, Gabriel is telling a story to all of Jocelyn’s kids, and he covers one of his eyes, showcasing only his Sirius eye. We have Eugene going to find the kids. And of course, the X-shaped brands in Michonne and Daryl’s backs, which is where the Chevron stuff comes in.

So, one way or the other, I feel like this is a foreshadow of something to do with Beth and/or her return.

Then, at the end, I paid close attention to what Michonne says to Judith, and I picked up on a few things that had never registered for me before. Remember that, in this episode, they juxtapose these Jocelyn flashbacks with Daryl coming to Alexandria with Lydia and Henry, and Michonne doesn’t want them to stay, but Judith does, etc. And at the end, Judith takes off on her bicycle and Michonne has to go find her.

So, at the end, they’re sitting on the rock together and Michonne is telling Judith about the Jocelyn situation. She says that when Judith came out of the trailer, it “was like you were looking right at me and didn’t know it was me. I thought you’d changed, or that I’d lost you.” (Emphasis mine.)

Think about that. It’s a really odd thing to say about a two- or three-year-old kid. Like she thought Judith had turned evil or something. And I think plot-wise, she means that she thought Judith would think differently of her because she’d just killed all these kids. Michonne had a lot of guilt about that. But it’s a really odd wording, and kind of hearkens back to the mask symbol. People wearing masks, appearing to be something they aren’t.

We’ve also discussed extensively the idea of Beth’s memory loss: (X, X.) Maybe her seeing Carol but not knowing who she is, or Daryl seeing or hearing Beth but not believing it’s really her. It just sort of plays into the whole hallucination theme obliquely.

Judith then says that Michonne just didn’t look like herself because of all the blood, but after a moment, she saw it was her. So, more masks. And Michonne was kind of right. At first, Judith really didn’t recognize her, or at least thought she looked like someone else. More of the same theme.

But that bicycle is a big deal. It’s showcased obviously in the episode, and bikes almost always represent kidnapping or captivity. We saw them around Glenn in S1 when he was taken by the Vatos gang. We saw one outside the Claimer house when Rick got away. I feel like this foreshadows Judith being kidnapped. She already was once by Jocelyn. But Michonne sees that bike in the present-day scenes, which makes them a foreshadow, not a callback.

So, I’ll be the first to admit that this is mostly speculation and at least half head canon, but I’m really wondering if Leah and Beth will be the good and evil to one another. (This is obviously going to be the case in terms of a good/healthy vs unhealthy romantic relationships. And if Leah is a hallucination, and Beth will obviously be real, you can already see how they’re doing this with Beth and Leah.)

Leah is wearing a mask when Daryl is with her. And once again, she may not be totally evil like Jocelyn was. But she may be misrepresenting herself in some way. Toxic at the least, evil at the most. But maybe the reason she’s practically wearing Beth’s clothes is that she’s a foil or anti-parallel to Beth.

And you see what I mean about how, if Leah turns out to be a hallucination, clearly this won’t apply to her in a literal way.

I still think there’s a good chance she’s a hallucination, but I think this still applies. It wouldn’t be literal or physical if that’s the case, but she’s still the “bad” relationship as opposed to the good one Daryl will have with Beth. We all talked extensively about how unhealthy the relationship was right after 10x18 aired. How Leah gave him an ultimatum, didn’t seem to want to meet his family, etc. So, you can see that, real or not, the relationships will be juxtaposed, with one being good and the other, bad.

The other thing want to mention is that it’s interesting that they did this story (Scars) with Michonne instead of Daryl. It makes me think that something about Michonne and Rick’s reunion story might follow this template as well.

We’ve discussed how Leah might be part of the New Mexico symbolism, and I’ve had people message me that they’re afraid that when Daryl and Carol take off together for the spinoff, he’ll be looking for Leah. Now, I obviously don’t think he would be looking for her in a romantic/looking-for-Beth sort of way, but it’s possible that she may be involved.

And like I said at the beginning, I think there’s a good chance of parallels between Leah and Jocelyn, because they both happened during the 6-year time jump, and then there’s all the other ties like, “are you okay being alone,” the mask theme, and that Carol knew about her/the acorn conversation.

I’m actually thinking this less and less, now. I really don’t think the New Mexico symbolism will be fulfilled until the spinoff, and we already know Leah will be in s11. So, I suppose if she survives S11 (and depending on whether she’s real or not) she COULD still be involved, but the timelines just don’t seem to match up to me. At least, not right now. This may change depending on what S11 brings us.

So, total conjecture here, but I’m really wondering if Leah (or if not her, someone else Jocelyn foreshadowed) will kidnap Judith, and that’s why Daryl and Carol leave to go after her. It would fit with the TWB template for Daryl and Carol (Felix and Huck on TWB) to be following Judith (Hope and Iris on TWB). If so, Daryl might really might be following Leah to New Mexico, but not out some romantic inclination, but rather because she took the kids.

Another possibility, of course, is that Leah is real, but Daryl was drugged or is just remembering things wrong. If that ends up being the case, then this could still happen. But again, we’ll just have to wait and see.

So yeah. Let’s just say I have plenty of head canons filed away in which Beth kicks some evil Leah butt. I would enjoy that very much. :D Granted, it probably won’t play out quite that neatly for us, but that’s what head canons are for, right?

And as I said, I can’t be sure this has to do with Leah. It’s possible this storyline is completely independent of Leah, and she’ll be something else entirely. But I think something like this will happen either way. And I’m sure I’ll recognize it as fulfillment when it does.

Any thoughts?

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 71 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 176 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

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RATE THE EPISODE 172 responses

This week’s episode keeps up the high mark of the previous episodes, with 98.8% of respondents giving the episode a score of 3 or higher (overwhelmingly 4s and 5s). Nice!

It was aight. 

It's cool

8.5/10 

great!

Very rocky imo in terms of animation, as the cracks are beginning to show but overall look like the backgrounds and music choices were top tier.

Really good episode, I was disappointed in the jacket scene but it’s not the end of the world

loved it

It was overall a great episode I loved it. 

🔥🔥🔥

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 174 responses

46.6% of respondents overall were most excited to see Eren meeting up with Floch and the others, with 23.6% of those respondents favoring the scene of Eren putting on his jacket specifically. 12.1% most enjoyed seeing the angry citizens shouting out the Survey Corps motto. 9.8% were thrilled to see Zackley’s death animated. 8% were psyched to see Pieck in disguise at the end, and 6.9% most enjoyed the moment where Hitch caught Armin red-handed trying to touch Annie’s crystal.

YOUR REACTION TO EREN PUTTING ON HIS JACKET? 171 responses

Eren putting on his jacket was a scene many obsessed over when it first appeared on page and many looked forward to seeing it animated. Most of the response choices were focused on various forms of swooning over Eren and his abs. Some (13.5%) stated that they didn’t really understand the dramatism and some others (another 13.5%) simply stated that they did not see much in Eren outright. We’ve gotten a lot of write-ins about comparisons to the pre-animated trailer shot of said scene. More on that in a later question. 

i mean i understand the thirst, but eh

Prefer manga :/

The trailer did it better 

Meh. Better in the trailer and the manga.

TF was that? Well it's still good in its own way. 

YES! YES! YES! YES! Y E S! 

both "HOOOOOLYYYYYY 😳" and "so dramatic and for what?"

Trailer/Manga shot was way better

Manga shot/trailer version are way better. Dissapointed

Trailer looked better :(

Mappa only made Reiner thicc, why Eren is so frain he has 1,85! He is so strong in the manga

I don't care

Manbun.........👀

He can have my babies anytime 😌💅🏻

Not as sexy as advertised; that’s okay, though.

That scene looked weird af ngl. It looked better in the trailer 😔

Me after THAT eren scene: 🤰🏻🤰🏻🤰🏻

Eren makes my dick rise

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW HAPPY ARE YOU NOW THAT WE APPEAR TO BE GOING BACK TO LEVI AND ZEKE’S PERSPECTIVE NEXT WEEK FOR A BIT? 171 responses

Levi and Zeke’s chemistry has been the subject of praise for many, so it’s no wonder that 87.1% of respondents are rather excited to get back to seeing Levi and Zeke again. Wow!

ARE ARMIN’S FEELINGS FOR ANNIE GENUINELY HIS OWN? 173 responses

Armin’s feelings for Annie have been looked at under a microscope for a variety of reasons, which is why we’re asking if you believe that his feelings for her are genuine. A plurality, 49.1% think that they’re a mixture of his feelings for her, as well Bertolt’s. Slightly less (30.6%) believe that Armin’s feelings for her existed since before any of the recent developments. Only a select few believe that he either became interested in her post-timeskip or that his feelings are solely influenced by Bertolt. One person doesn’t think Armin has any feelings for Annie at all. And a few others just don’t care.

Bertmin simping for Annie and that apparently being enough for her to start considering him as boyfriend material is the fucking worst. I hate this shit. It's made me like both characters considerably less.

Uhh Armin where ya reaching?! 

He was interested with her even before it was revealed she was the Female Titan and now that he has Bertholdt's memories, he sympathizes with her too and wants to understand her more so maybe Bert's memories intensified his feelings

His feelings for Annie are mostly his own. Bert's feelings might be in there a little, but the feelings are still Armin's.

CONTINUITY ALERT! EREN HAS HIS HAIR UP IN A BUN IN YELENA’S FLASHBACK. THOUGHTS? 173 responses

Uh-oh, Eren’s hairstyle moment. It would appear that there might be a continuity error with Yelena’s flashback and whatever that means for the timeline. A slight plurality (37%) didn’t seem to care about this, actually. But 33.5% appeared to believe that it was a mistake on MAPPA’s part that might get fixed in the BluRay version of the episode. 16.8% also believe that it was a mistake, but don’t believe it’ll get fixed. 9.8% think that it’s actually a retcon and that Eren’ll have the man bun when Chapter 123 gets adapted in Final Season Part 2.  

I hope it gets fixed because it's bugging me.

I really wish it was like how it was in the manga. Eren looks good with his hair down in his 16-17-year-old phase. Despite the error, it wasn't a deal breaker for the episode.

He looks totally gorgeous with his hair up in a bun, please let this mistake be

Honestly I don’t mind it. It looks great either way.

Eren in a manbun is a total win for me!

WHICH PIECES OF INFORMATION MISSING FROM YELENA’S ADMISSION IN THE MANGA DO YOU WISH WOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE ADAPTATION? 163 responses

As with almost all dialogue-heavy chapters in this series, there are cuts. In this episode, these cuts mostly affected the conversation between Yelena and Pixis. The most yearned for cut material was Yelena never telling Eren to go along with the plan and Yelena saying that she used Floch as a “go-between” between her and Eren. Others also noted missing lines about Yelena wanting Eren to stand up for himself, Yelena stating that Zeke gave the volunteers a hopeful future and the idea that her and Eren came to quick agreement. The plurality (31.9%) however, didn’t seem to mind any cuts. 

WHAT ARE YOU OVERALL FEELINGS ABOUT SOME OR ALL OF THE AFOREMENTIONED DETAILS BEING CUT? 161 responses

There is often a sort of expectation to have everything (or almost every) line from the manga adapted in the anime, so it’s interesting to see how people react to that sort of stuff. An almost 50% of respondents stated that they didn’t really care about the cuts, whereas smaller handfuls of respondents stated that the cuts either took away from the characterization of the conversation, or from the context and timeline-building purposes. 

I'm not thrilled about the cuts, but I understand MAPPA can only fit so much in on each episode, so I'm okay with it

the yelena/volunteers plot has always been wonky and hard to follow

I don’t think it’s a problem, they need to cut certain things. 

i literally never notice but i agree that it makes it harder to piece things together 

Meh

It might seem for anime watchers that Yelena didnt do much, and Floch and Zeke that did the most part, in their own plans. Floch to betray and Zeke in predicting Eren wouldnt be on his side in some way. Yelena helped Zeke a lot to where he arrived in the rumbling 

All of the above

ZACKLEY WALKS OVER TO HIS TORTURE MACHINE IN THE ANIME BEFORE MIKASA ASKS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO EREN, RATHER THAN GLANCE OVER AT IT AFTER HER QUESTION. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGE? 170 responses

There was a partially comedic insinuation in the manga that Zackley thought about strapping Eren to his “art piece”. The insinuation is possibly still there in the anime, but in a different form. So we asked how you felt about it. Slightly below a half (48.8%) stated that they thought the subtlety was still there. 18.8% thought the subtlety was lost with the small change and 8.8% believed the change made Zackley seem less unhinged. 21.8% really didn’t care at all. 

Why is this a question?

The glance was funny as fuck in the manga, but might have been awkward to pull of in the animation

They're blown up tho, does it even matter?

DID EREN KNOW ABOUT THE BOMB? 170 responses

Whether Eren truly knew about the bomb is a bit unclear to this day and with how it endangered Armin and Mikasa. A plurality (40%) believe he knew about the bomb, but did not know about his childhood friends meeting Zackley. Slightly less (30.6%) think that Eren did not know about either the bomb or AM meeting the Artist. A minority (7.1%) does believe that Eren knew about both the bomb and meeting and 21.8% simply aren’t sure!

Even if he didn’t know, he obviously doesn’t care either way.

THERE IS SOME DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER EREN’S JACKET SCENE WAS BETTER ANIMATED IN THE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO OR IN THE EPISODE ITSELF. WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE? 170 responses

Here we go… The elephant in the room… Which Eren abs scene did you prefer? The Promotional video or the actual episode? A somewhat slight majority (57.1%) seemed to like the version seen in the promotional video more than the episode itself versus the ones who preferred the episode’s style (42.9%).

THE EPISODE MARKS THE BEGINNING OF FLOCH’S ACTIONS AS THE VOICE OF THE YEAGERISTS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT IT? 170 responses

Floch has always been a controversial character and the developments seen post-time skip have not been any less debatable. You may floching love him or floching hate, but he’s here and he’s staying for a while. A plurality (48.8%) notes that although they may not personally be a fan of the character, they truly do appreciate the nuance his appearance gives to the story. Just over a quarter (25.3%) stated that as big fans of the character, they’re looking forward to all the screentime the Flochster will receive. In contrast, 20.6% despise the man and his questionable haircut and are also dreading the showcase he’ll soon receive.  

I hate Floch and will cheer again when he dies, but I enjoy his character.

I detest Floch but I'm not dreading all the screen time he'll take up.

Since he died in the manga, my hatred for him has cooled down somewhat now that I'm watching the anime.

I am once again asking for you to shut the fuck up, Floch.

WE KNOW NOW THAT EREN DID CONSPIRE WITH FLOCH TO BETRAY ZEKE TO ENACT THE RUMBLING. STILL, DO YOU BELIEVE HE DID IT BECAUSE HE HAS THE SAME BELIEFS AS FLOCH, OR WAS HE JUST USING FLOCH AND THE YEAGERISTS AS A MEANS TO AN END? 161 responses

An overwhelming amount of respondents (87.6%) stated that they believe Eren never truly saw eye to eye with Floch and his ideology and that Eren was simply using Floch as a means to an end. In contrast, 9.3% truly do think that Eren was ideologically similar to Floch and the “New Eldian Empire”. A select few thought you couldn’t just say one way or another. 

They both wanted to protect Paradis

DO YOU THINK IF THE YEAGERISTS, BESIDES FLOCH, KNEW ABOUT THE FULL SCALE RUMBLING BEFOREHAND THAT THEY WOULD WILLINGLY FOLLOW EREN? 167 responses

The majority (53.3%) feel that the Yeagerists would see a divide if they knew beforehand that Eren wanted to initiate the rumbling, with some sticking around for the cause and others possibly leaving because it’s too extreme. 25.1% believe that they all would have fully supported the rumbling in the name of their own survival. 15% believe that every Yeagerist already knew about the plan to commence the rumbling, and only 6% feel that they would most certainly have betrayed the Yeager brothers (and Floch) if they had known. 

I don’t know, this is a loaded question and I’m tired.

DO YOU THINK THAT, IF THE STORY ENDS PEACEFULLY, MIKASA WILL HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN HIZURU? 170 responses

While this plotline may not be going anywhere in the manga (or so it seems), the reminder of its existence is brought to light again as we revisit these older moments from the manga. 32.4% feel that Mikasa wouldn’t leave Paradis behind to start a life on Hizuru. 23.5% think that she wouldn’t leave Paradis behind, necessarily, but will still have a role to play in Hizuru. 21.2% think it doesn’t matter because Isayama has completely discarded (or forgotten) about this plotline. 12.4% don’t know what to predict (if anything) and only 8.2% believe that her future lies in Hizuru beyond the main storyline.

The last two options plus me not caring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

hizuru is already rumbled, gone, but she will continue the azumabito clan in paradis

Is no one else gonna question Kiyomi's hair being sucked into her skull??? HELLO MA'AM???

Hizuru is likely flattened

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 171 responses

Episode 72 has already broadcasted as of the completion of this poll. For scenes that were most anticipated, 35.7% were most looking forward to seeing Levi and Zeke’s interaction in the forest. 33.3% most looked forward to Niccolo leaning straight from Gabi’s mouth that she is Sasha’s killer. 18.7% highly anticipated the Blouses learning about Gabi killing Sasha, and 9.4% were looking forward to Gabi/Falco and the Blouses gathering at Niccolo’s restaurant. Only a small amount were looking forward to Niccolo protecting Jean and Connie from drinking the wine.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Man the animation was gonky 

no levi </3

So many faces of Niles are weirds !

Let hange aloneeeeeeee and happy, please

I have no word for this, but I feeling good

Shit is getting really real now! 

Everyone talking about Eren’s abs and I just wanna say the music in that scene was amazing!

I loved how it was all neatly put together and fast moving

Armin looked so good. Homie walked from point A to B and i SCREAMED. Thank you. 

i wish they included eren's warhammer escape from the prison, besides that solid episode all around, the people chanting 'dedicate your hearts' gave me chills 

I can't stand Hitch at all but MAPPA made her really pretty. Re: The jacket scene The trailer version was pretty much identical to the manga panel. But I liked the version that made it into the final episode too. People have been so ridiculous about MAPPA ""ruining everything"" this season, they should stop watching if that's how they feel. I thought Eren looked great and found the sun shining on his abs funny. The scenery was better in the episode, imo. I hope they don't cut Jean's line about booze not caring about what race you are. Lmao

Meh. It's not bad of course, I just find the rythm weird and I don't really feel many emotions watching the episodes. And I was so thirsty for the jacket scene, and it turned out weird too.

Mappa pls stop drawing eren like shit he is gorgeous in the manga

MMGH SOON!! LET'S GOOOOOOO

You friccin moron, you just got zooked!

i miss eremin </3

Wish they had shown how eren used his titan powers to escape.

I'm so not looking forward to the controversy that's gonna be reignited during the EMA talk scene. I'm actually dreading it, but we'll finally get the Levi vs Beast Titan scene so I'll be fine

112 will destroy ships 

I felt the animation was flawless as usual but the script was kinda boring, I expected more of these aspects: -Yelena, it was bland with the cuts -Hange, they cut something I cant figure what in this Yeagerists coup act that turned her scenes a little bit lacking? Idk something -Again the soundtrack in the episodes is so silent. The only episode so far I liked the ost beyond the Opening and Closing themes is Reiner episode. I miss the melodrama of Witstudio osts

Eren putting his jacket on in slow-speed whilst talking at regular speed is fucking trippy

Just happy to see Hitch!

It was slow and mainly plot driven. I enjoyed it despite the changes.

goddamn is that a hella well-animated explosion

more abs please

Great episode. Really ridiculous how many people overreacted about the jacket scene. It's ok to perfer the way the trailer did it but to those who say Mappa is ruining the adaptation because of minor things like this, calm down. 

I wish the jacket scene was better But over all the ep is pretty good

Boring, but then again so was this phase in the manga.

I really like the VA they chose for Onyankopon! His voice is very warm and genuine, which suits his character well

The sunset was so aesthetically pleasing 

yoooo just read ch. 138 and im crying in da club :(

These MAPPA episodes have been a low point for me. I’m trying to enjoy them because I love this story but it feels like a chore.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 161 responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

[transformers-fan-continuities]

Spotlight: Rise of the Radiotrons

Here it is folks, the first fan canon spotlight, showcasing Rise of the Radiotrons created by sleeveev! You can find this over at @riseoftheradiotrons and also on AO3! This is a long post, fair warning.

Q) Give us a run down of your cont! What's it about, what's it called, what's it like?

the cont, despite being called Rise of the Radiotrons, revolves around five main groups of characters, and the mystery that accidentally intertwines all of them. a lot of false identities, undiscovered pasts, mystery that you need to read all the way through to really uncover. it also takes place during the attrition phase of the Autobot-Decepticon war, and Megatron and Optimus are... dead. but... weren't they made immortal by the Eternal Surge? where are they?

Q) What characters take the lead here? Any personal favorites?

characters that take the lead? hoo, boy, there's a lot. and be warned, this is OC-heavy. Wavecrash, Blackarachnia, Sparkplug, Pascal, and Ness make up the Earth detective team, the first to investigate the Radiotrons: Nanotube, Quicksilver, Greenscreen, and [REDACTED] (that is not their name, you will learn it later!).

Starscream, Moonkiller, and Pharma investigate a series of rust-related murders, later with the help of Eclipse and Terraform. the two they investigate? two hulking beings that carry a rust of sheer destruction of anything metal, Turbulence and someone known only as The Crimson Doctor. the third part is mostly with just a few characters. Dial-Up and Absolute Zero are in a cat-and-mouse chase, Dial-Up attempting to capture Absolute Zero and return him to the prison he escaped from. other 'bots come into this story, including Pylon, Airachnid, Suture, and Cyclonus, but they are not the main focus.

Turbulence.  this motherfucker. this moldy bitch.

my personal favorites? i love Sparkplug, i love my little gaming PC gal. The Crimson Doctor has also grown on me quite a bit. i'm gonna make fat robots and you can't stop me.

Sparkplug above, Crimson Doctor (Crim) below

Q) I love how he isn’t crimson at all.

oh you'll learn why he's crimson

Q) Ominous! Is there a bigger point to this, like a theme or some catharsis? Or is it just fluffy fun?

a bigger point to this? well, i have quite my fair share of trauma for being in a military family - being on the home front of a war i never even learned about until i was like 12. i wanted to show the horrors of attrition above all, because attrition is the part of war that everyone seems to forget, but is possibly the most dangerous part of it. everyone's killing each other over resources, dying of preventable diseases, resources are spread thin among soldiers and thinner among civilians. it also lets new, perhaps worse groups arise from the dust.

war was never about who was right. it was about who could live longer. and RotR, with its rampant killings that people can't even begin to investigate until their leaders are toppled from their thrones and complete anarchy reigns among military sites, is a testament to that.

war was the cause for part of the namesake of the Radiotrons themselves - the Great Radiation Crisis. war was where everything went wrong

Q) How long have you been working on it?

now, for the slightly less dark - it varies from character to character! while the official plot of RotR was established on August 25 this year, some 'bots go much further back - Pascal's earliest concepts were made on May 8, Nanotube's were made on April 25, and The Crimson Doctor's roots go as far back as a character called The Crimson-Eyed Doctor, a character created on Dec 11, 2019 (happy belated birthday, Crim!).

Q) You’re very meticulous with your dates!

i lose track of all time otherwise

Q) Give us a behind-the-scenes look! Show us a secret ;))

behind the scenes.

this is a mystery cont.

THERE'S A LOT BEHIND THE SCENES.

i will start with some no-context spoilers, here.

and, now for something a bit more genuinely secret.

whether this is a crimson doctor or a red herring, you decide.

Q) Where did you draw inspiration from? What canons, what other fiction, what parts of real life?

this varies from subtle to shameless.

my cont would fit best in an comic format, so it makes sense that i was inspired by IDW - and that it was my entry into the TF fandom! there is also some TFA bits in there, but the majority of it is personal robot worldbuilding, with a couple sprinkles of headcanons and OCs taken from Afterburn, a cont made by a longtime friend of mine.

other fiction i took inspiration from is mostly in the character designs. Blackarachnia was loosely inspired by Tawna from Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (you went through such a good revamp sweetie. neon lesbian.). if you can't tell that Turbulence took inspiration from Cioccolata from JJBA: Golden Wind, i don't know what to tell you. Crim took less inspiration from a character and more from a trope - the "ever-obedient villain subordinate". i just sucked all of the homoeroticism out of it, and also decided to give him more of a self than just someone who serves the villain.

here's Tawna (specifically Crash Bandicoot 4), one of the big inspirations for Blackarachnia's design! we don't talk about your past sweetie.

and Blackarachnia headshot to compare, because her fullbody is still in progress.

i am sharing this specific image of cio, one of turb's inspos, because i BASED A TURB PIECE OFF OF IT.

real life? RADIATION, RADIATION. i have radiation and radioactive things and the PERIODIC TABLE as a special interest and it SHOWS. it's all radiation. even the names. Quicksilver comes from mercury, Starborn comes from all elements being created from stars in space, Nanotube comes from carbon nanotubes, and [REDACTED] comes from... well, you don't know yet. there's also the whole attrition war thing, for real life inspiration, too.

Q) Show off something you're really proud of, a particular favorite part of your cont.

this piece of Eclipse and Turbulence('s hand), for one

(the image is at the end of the post under a readmore, as it contains eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

and another thing i am particularly proud of are all my worldbuilding posts! they look like textbook entries kinda but i really really love em. here's one of them, though there are many more on the blog!

lastly, my favorite character introduction post. if you know Afterburn, you may be pleasantly surprised seeing this.

Q) Ah, that guy.

fun fact about RotR Absolute Zero! his color palette is taken from a diagram of a human heart. here is the motherfucker in question,

Q) What other fan canons do you love and why? Would you like to see them interviewed?

Afterburn. my best friend made this i can't just NOT advertise it. go look at it there's murderers and there's an OC that's actually very inspired by not one but two of my creations (the original OC he was a fanformer of, and his altmode - I'd had thoughts of various greenhouse 'bots like that). @transformersafterburn​. please don't simp for Abzero. or maybe do. he's a better option than Turbulence.

Mirror Mirror. found at @transformers-mirror-mirror​, it's got so many epic character designs and realistically sized altmodes despite not having realistically sized altmodes this makes me go happy flappy and is also inspiring a future project of mine, also Shattered Glass!

NEW PRIMES OF CYBERTRON. RITO I LOVE YOUR CONT SO MUCH. i summed it up in "transformers ungunned" but THERE IS MUCH MORE GO CHECK IT OUT AFTER YOU FINISH READING THIS INTERVIEW @thenamesblurrito​

Q) [insert flattered keysmashing from me, creator of New Primes of Cybertron, otherwise known as TF:SNAP]

Thank you very much veev! Everyone go check out Rise of the Radiotrons! Stay tuned for next week, when we’ll get to see some Shattered Glass...

(aforementioned image under the cut, warning for eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

[roomofshitposts]

Thoughts & Opinions on episode 122?

episode 122 came into my house, took all of my bread, and desiccated my crops ,,, what the fuck, like 50 separate things happened and all of them reveal some new shitshow that’s been happening behind the scenes

i’m gonna go over some of the bigger points & my theories around them under the cut 

don appeared in the medieval times

okay so there’s two possible ways to see this event: don appeared in tori’s era before he was imprisoned by the shadows, or he manifested there somehow after he was trapped in the ROS.

-> if this happened before his imprisonment, then i think don had started travelling around time to help others with his abilities after attempting to save his family from the anomalies, and gradually grew more corrupt as he tested the limits of his powers, or started losing his mind as things he did in the past started having butterfly-effect style impacts on the future that he had to try and fix over and over. 

this could possibly mean that don started a paradox where he himself introduced anomalies to the world by meddling in the past, which amplified the number of anomalies in the present and ultimately looped back to giving him his abilities and killing his family in his original time, though it does still leave a blank as to what exactly started this real-world cycle of anomalies in the first place (who pulled that ‘thread in the fabric of time and space’ don mentioned? how does he even know what happened?). 

anyways, don’s interference grew to a point where it had become dangerous to the fabric of reality, so the shadows imprisoned him in a realm beyond time and space, the room of swords, to contain his abilities (perhaps reducing his ability to rewrite reality to be limited to changing one day’s events) or maybe punish him, with the knowledge that by trying to help others, he’d doomed them to becoming anomalies and being imprisoned themselves.

things that point to don being in tori’s era before he got yoinked to space jail: in the flashback where he tries to save his family, he has a mustache (bigger than his current one), and he could have grown that out into a beard as he travelled. he looks pretty damn evil in tori’s memory so maybe at this point he’s pretty much lost it, and he has a full beard, similar to how it looked when he was first shown in the room of swords during the season 1 finale, so maybe this is just about when the shadows took notice and imprisoned him. 

-> if this happened after his imprisonment, unlike the above where we can probably assume he started jumping around time soon after he tried to save his family (if he succeeded maybe he felt that he could help others too, if he failed maybe the guilt drove him to try and save others from the same fate), it’s harder to pinpoint when he might’ve manifested into tori’s time. 

if we go off of the theory that the ros exists in cycles, repeating its objective with the same (or new) voyagers each time, and the constants are don, the black box holder(gyrus) and the shadows, it’s likely that don somehow got out of the room of swords in an earlier cycle. he used his powers to manipulate reality in tori’s time, and this resulted in her gaining her own abilities as an anomaly, sending her to the room of swords.

maybe don was trapped in the ros for trying to rewrite reality to save his family and was imprisoned by the shadows. thinking this was unfair, he tried to escape, but failed. he then realized that maybe he couldn’t break out, but somehow (i can’t guess what method he managed to use ghfdsjfj), he could still affect the outside world. he started out by wanting to help people and protect them from the anomalies that happened in their era, but this resulted in the people he helped becoming anomalies and they would get trapped in the room of swords as well, both because of their abilities and to remind don to Stop Doing That. this eventually resulted with don slowly losing his mind and morals, hence why he began as such a warm, friendly person, but later showed himself to be so determined to escape the room of swords that he’s willing to kill nephthys and poison hinju.

things that point to don being in tori’s time after he got yoinked to space jail: his harmonica. in the episodes that show events taking place before the main timeline, and most notably in the flashback where don explains how his family died, he’s always shown using a guitar to channel his powers. he’s only started using the harmonica to try and kill nephthys, and only in recent episodes, in the present timeline. maybe the harmonica is an item he found that can channel less power than the guitar, which makes it weaker but much more discreet so that other ‘meta’ beings (shadows and maybe gyrus) don’t notice him slipping out of the ros or using it to switch boss swords with fakes, murder people, etc, and he keeps the harmonica secret and only uses it when he’s doing shady shit.

DON STOLE A FUCKING BABY???? HELLO????? WHAT THE GENUINE FUCK????

i’m going to elaborate on this point later but like what the absolute shit happened there

gyrus is possibly queen amelia’s son (or at least, her descendant)

so like. hi this entire plot point drove the discord nuts

first off, like,,,, gyrus is descended from (presumably) european royalty? i know that toon stated that gyrus was of korean descent and he’s shown to be able to speak in korean but i mean it’s also possible that the foreign king that queen amelia married, was from east asia, and their marriage was entirely out of necessity to lift the curse on her kingdom. the king dipped tf out after the ceremony to rule his own lands. 

don took the baby (assuming the baby is gyrus) to gyrus’ era, and this displacement amplified a chain of anomalies that began to deteriorate reality, leading to the world don describes as gyrus’ in episode 109 (’catastrophic anomalies are commonplace’ ‘whole worlds destroyed without warning’). in addition, don notes in the same episode that gyrus had ‘kind relatives that [took him] in and [gave him] a life of comfort’, which means that either his parents died on his home planet, or he’d never known his parents-- which would be the case if he was a baby don sTOLE FROM ANOTHER ERA.

alternatively, the baby isn’t gyrus, but rather they were gyrus’ ancestor, who don brought to a time before gyrus’ era. that displacement started creating disastrous anomalies. gyrus’ parents died on his home planet and his relatives took him in, as per don’s words. gyrus leaves home to become an astronaut and joins captain iro’s crew. bing bang boom

don’s bottle of shadow juice

what the hell even is this. people on the discord have theorized that this is the origin of gyrus’ inner shadow or his black box, but. how did don. get a shadow. in a bottle. as far as i know, he’s unable to influence shadows directly so he can’t sing ‘get in the bottle or else with this shoe i will throttle [you]’, but also the shadows are his jailors, why would a) don help them by giving them a host or b) the shadows help him by complying. do they both think they’re being slick and using the other gfhdjgfdhgh

and if it’s the black box, how did don bottle it. why didn’t he just take it. what is going on. 

either way this might be another paradox situation where don found out the origin of gyrus’ shadow abilities/black box/event horizon breaking point and realized he had to take part in getting events to line up so this could happen. so he essentially manipulated reality to ensure that he could get a powerful ally that would hold the black box and defend it from the shadows, and who would be the second constant to appear in the ros (and first voyager), so don could try again and again to gain his trust and get a pawn for his plan against the shadows.

trouble in paradise the black box

ok rip to black box gyrus i really liked him as a character and as a design and he was fun to shitpost about but there’s no goddamn way he’s going to survive this season. he’s been weakened from losing memories and control over the black box, and i’m pretty sure the shadow dragged him off to kill him. plus kodya being yanked back to the black box and the shadows of the people lost during the incident being released means that black box gyrus has either died or lost the command room/a significant amount of control.

and even if it wasn’t for the fact that the situation is pretty much spelling out black box gyrus is doomed, his plot relevance is also wearing out. it’s the same ‘pupil must outgrow their mentor so the mentor dies’ that happened with kodya but this time black box gyrus genuinely has no more purpose to serve after this arc. 

like,,, kodya has plot threads (like nephthys and his own backstory) that exist outside of gyrus. black box gyrus does not exist separately from gyrus. anything he can offer to his reset self, can be found in the black box’s memories once he’s done training him, and they’ve unlocked all the beacon memories. just about the last thing bb!gyrus needs to do is reconcile with kodya and relinquish the black box to gyrus, and then all his story points are technically over. that doesn’t mean i don’t want him to stick around, he’s a well-written character and i am bonkers for his stupid emo outfit, but i don’t know why toon would keep him around after setting up all of the shadow-taking-control-of-the-black-box business and bringing current gyrus to this point in the story.

SHADOW CIB I’M SHAKIGN AND CRUING

y’all i know this is irrelevant and i’m just going 👁👁 because it’s cib but it’s CIB and i’m hoping this means that she’ll become a more recurring background character, in shadow form or in flashbacks, since she seems to be really important to ragan and she’s the second voyager. and maybe there’ll be a way to save people from shadow death without gyrus losing all his limbs. god i hope

[louiserandom]

The MadaTobi adventure has been chosen...

AND IT’S SOULMATES EXCAHNGING POWERS WOOOHOOOO (purple and green are the same option i just edited the form like a dumbass)

However, I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion THAT I WANNA WRITE ALL THESE FREAKIN PROMPTS or at least a couple more, so after this CYOA ends, I might just tackle the rest :D Thank you ALL so much for voting! I seriously didn’t expect this much feedback and I’ll do my best to deliver :3 *sends you all hugs, positivity and rays of sunshine during these trying times and hopes that each one of you is safe* Hopefully the story will provide some fun and distraction from the grim anxiety <3

Now, I couldn’t resist writing the first part before Camp Nano started so I’ll be posting the chapter a bit later today once I’m all done with work stuff :3 And as always, a few more notes on the rest of the survey questions~ 

Thank you for enabling my thotty side. Again ehehehehe

AND OH LOOK AT THESE VOTES FOR THE ADDITIONAL PROMPTS EH

+ Virgin Tobirama knows everything about sex; semi-feral tobirama who spends too much time with his summons; Hate to Love; A+ banter, maybe 1 combined w/ secret relationship; shameless Izuna - oh, 3 of these are definitely gonna be in the story ;)

Now, fair warning: it will be long because my brain made me add this huge plot and Zetsu’s fuckery to the mix which will result in his gruesome elimination from existence sorry for spoilers lmao and because I’m hopeless, expect some bijuu shenanigans as well👀👀👀 Granted, some of the plot points and tropes are going to be revealed in the story; like, Tobirama’s obliviousness level and the exact level of Hashirama’s over-protectiveness will depend on your choices :3 Hope y’all have fun with me!

And below the cut, comment responses <3 I’ve had to group some because I’ve got so little time right now but will hopefully be able to answer every question separately as time goes. Again, THANK YOU all for voting!!!

I would really like both options two and four, any chance? This all sounds incredible I am super excited thank you!

The third option also sounds good

I like Plot II and III too actually as well

I wish I could pick all of the story options ;)

I love your work and am so excited for this! I had so much trouble choosing answers in the poll because everything sounds so good!

Chose option I but strongly hesitated with option II cause it could be so funny.

All of these plots sound so awesome!!! It was super hard to pick one.

Argh! Why is choosing so hard? I want at least one of every option in every combination imaginable. That said, I chose plot 2 for the hilarious potential of put upon Tobirama with a sharingan but plot 1 was a very close contestant. I can't wait to see what you cook up. It's gonna be so great! - oz

DUDES ALL YOUR COMMENTS AND MY OWN EXCITEMENT ABOUT THESE PROMPTS MADE ME WANNA WRITE THEM ALL, FUCK IT!!! I definitely want option 4, it’s peak hilarity, tho I wonder if it would work more as a story proper, not a CYOA (I can think of a few interesting conflicts and choices in that verse tho, so we’ll see). But I do love option 1 as well; option 3 may be a little overdone? But basically, just lemme finish this one, try my best to deliver and then put the rest of the plots to another vote <3

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND THANK YOU, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!

p.s. Oz, you’re as always too kind <3

It would be funny if Tobirama was hilariously confident and actually decent at flirting with a flailing Madara but was actually a virgin. Like just completely and utterly shamelessly saying something like, 'yh I'm a virgin so you better make this good. I've got a lot to learn ;)' And of course Madara flails :D

THANK YOU. YES. THIS XD (Tobi would, wouldn’t he. And he very likely will, in this fic ;)

He is the dumbest Bitch alive with Tobi and Hashi running for second place. Bitch should have gotten some Senju dick to calm tf down.

No comments, only applause. You know what’s up

The fandom thanks you for doing God's work ;)

My insecure ass thanks you for your kind words <3

Hurt Tobi to show how protective Madara can be

Bold of you to assume I won’t hurt both of them and have them build each other back up again (lmao ignore my dramatic ass, as I said, nothing but light angst haha. But still some pain because plot said so :o)

Both being stupidly weak when it comes to kids

YEPPPPP YOU’RE READING MY MIND :D CAN’T WAIT TO WRITE THOSE SCENES

CLEARLY. Hashirama, Mito, Touka, and Izuna should all be one giant poly pile. 👀 Also it was impossible for me not to pick the option with Kurama. I love that grumpy asshole fox and I have... So many... Headcanons for him.....

HashiMitoTouIzu poly pile *stares* this... this.... MAYBE NOT IN THIS FIC BUT I WOULD LIKE TO TACKLE THIS IDEA AT SOME POINT LMAO THAT WOULD BE AWESOME :D (will maybe try to write a fic with them for camp nano ehehe)

Also, although ultimately, option 2 was chosen…. I couldn’t resist and added the possibility of Kurama appearing, I love his grumpy ass too much :D (Altho this will depend on the votes👀)

Maybe a child, adopted (kagami) or mpreg

Hmmm, no mpreg, just in this particular fic, but lots of interactions with children ;)

Wasn't he already? ://

ALWAYS

Madara is clearly the dumbest (Hashi is a close second)

YOU SPEAK THE TRUTH DEAR READER, I’M GLAD YOU SEE THE LIGHT

(Personally, I think Hashirama is the dumbest founder lol) But could you maybe make Tobirama and Izuna actually get along? They don’t have to be friends but just no active animosity. Maybe. You obviously don’t have to— would probably love it either way— but ‘tis my request

I may have to write that thesis about Madara’s dumbassery after all lol, be sure that I will convince you

And oh yeah, they definitely get along, don’t worry! Writing Tobirama and Izuna’s friendship warms my heart :3

I love flaily Mads and oblivious Tobes

WHO DOESN’T :D

Madara is not dumb, just a dumbass ^^ Also, bringing in Tobi's sensing is always a YES from me!

Nooooo HE DUMB AND A DUMBASS HOW BOUT THAT XD ehehe oh there’s gonna be a lot of sensing fuckery in the chosen option so I hope you enjoy! :3

At some point please let Mito and Tobirama befriend Kurama 'cause they're all powerful sassy bitches that will bitch slap you into your place and they all put the ultimate smack down on meddling Elders who've teamed up with Zetsu?

Although option 2 has been chosen… Kurama may appear in the story *shifty eyes* AND mf Zetsu lmao I need to kill that bitch. He’ll know pain^-^

Hashirama should be a smiling sociopath a la Symbol of Subjugation style. He knows there's something wrong but, hey, he wants to see his precious all happy :)

Oh, I considered that actually, I adore that fic! But imo it works better with a couple of other plots so I may consider writing him that way for a future CYOA :3 

I can already tell that this is gonna be one hell of a ride and I can’t wait!

Hell yeah go forth you funky lil author, you got this :D

Na

Nope nope I have non good luck

Luv ya <3

AHHHHHH YESSS I AM READY

Have fun

Thank you so much guys! <3 I’M EXCITED AS FUCK AND I CANNOT WAIT TO START :D

[tiffgeorgina]

alright trailer thoughts

watch it here slutties: https://twitter.com/SHOBlackMonday/status/1216778009044291585

1) HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT’S HERE THIS FEELS SURREAL

2) HOLYYY SHITTTT

3) but actually let’s get it. this song bangs showtime stays on their excellent editing.

4) trying to analyze showtime’s trailers is like trying to grab smoke so this is going to be extremely barebones for a while. 

5) somebody drives off with the busted up limbo, but we can’t tell who it is yet bc their face never comes into view. they’re wearing a gray suit tho, so it may become more obvious who it is once the episode itself is out.

6) mo is being dramatic asf which as of 1x10 is perfectly in character lmfao

7) bro what the FUCK did you do to your hair i gotta ask fuck the 80s. also there’s this character on IMDb tagged “Vanessa (hair like mo)” so that makes more sense now maybe?

8) establishing shots that almost make me think mo is hiding out in california. since we know his orphanage story is bullshit, maybe he’s visiting family? maybe this is where that marcus wainright iii character comes in? since i dont think he’s in the trailer?

9) keith is living. almost has out-of-the-closet energy. i bet that scene of him roller skating is either after a) he comes out to his wife and divorces her or b) he gets a call from mo and flies straight out to cali to meet up with him.

10) the editing is so good you guys holy shit they jsut never quit over there do they?

11) a shot of mo in some suburb. could be a family member or a friend’s house? which again leads me to think he’s in california.

12) there’s this TV show called “America’s Most Unsolved Crimes” that mo shows up on bc he’s being solely blamed for the crash. how dawn and blair managed to avoid any blame whatsoever is beyond me, but mo is an excellent scapegoat since he confessed on record. no idea who the guy sitting on the desk talking about him is tho, since he wasn’t announced as one of the new guest stars. probably just a one off. maybe this is where “reenactment dawn” comes in from the IMDb page?

13) mo is bringing back the 70s and i do not like it. when i said the 80s were cool bc nobody knew how to dress themselves This Is Not What I Meant.

14) he wouldn’t just casually play basketball with some random kids, these are probably either his cousins or his nephews or the kids of a friend. again leads me to believe he’s in california, possibly visiting marcus? it would make sense. either that or we finally get some real concrete background on mo that isn’t total bullshit.

15) keith is in contact with mo. it’s hard to tell if keith went to cali to see mo or if mo came to NY seeing as both are extremely suspicious. assuming mo is in cali that is. keith is definitely going to get mo back in the game. speaking of mo, this entire first 30 seconds is Mo-centric, so i bet mo’s arc is going to be plottier than blair or dawn’s in 1“A” (showtime doesn’t really have A and B arcs for this show bc there’s no midseason hiatus i just like the terminology)

16) throwback thursday lmfao

17) no idea who this guy shooting/probably fake shooting is?? like no idea. could be nothing of importance and just a transition filler/tone setting moment.

18) the heat is on motherfucker! let’s get this cat and mouse shit im ready for it!

19) here we go here’s dawn. back at the jammer group. back at DAWN AS THE PRESIDENT HIRING A BUNCH OF WOMEN???????? BIIIIIITTTTCCCCHHHH I LOVE TO SEE IT. INCLUDING DEANNA CHENG (she’s friends with casey which means she’s friends with half the cast we should’ve known she wasn’t going anywhere) AKA THE SALES CLERK WHO HARASSED DAWN IN 1X02????? YES BITHC

20) then wayne and yassir fucking it up (nice facial hair wayne it’s hideous kjsfkjdhg) and the women throwing paper at him??? LKJRHGKLJSERH????

21) blair and tiff dressed up??? guys. they’re going to some rich people gala thing. this is what i was talkinf about. im almost certain this is how blair and harris meet. their wives are gonna see each other after not having spoken in years bc of whatever but they used to be friends so they go to talk and the husbands and dragged along and *closet case to closet case communication sounds*

22) ok now BLAIR’S on the exercise craze? i thought that was just gonna be dawn like in s1 also how long is this exercise montage in the show bc there are some things a god fearing lesbian shouldn’t have to see. this weird mirror talking shit feels like voyeurism from this perspective i feel like i shouldn’t be seeing this.

23) she’s still topping him??? after all that??? aight yk it’s part of the dynamic

24) tiff is wearing the same dress in “you do, hunk” as she is in the bit where they get out of the limo and deal with the paparazzi so i presume that workout scene is immediately before that gala thing im establishing a #timeline

25) the skants reveal??? we call that PLOT DEVELOPMENT i love a good callback to the first season

26) the shocked gasp i can’t tell if it’s good or bad. also does this mean tiff’s starting her own company? since georgina is liquid?

27) larry telling dawn that mo’s on his way back for revenge? spliced with mo staring at the wall like he so frequently does while smoking? mayhaps this editing went off also i never thought i’d say this but the brotherfucker has a point mo is gonna pop off when he sees yall again

28) FBI wyd........ that’s a lot

29) that falling out last season bit: blair’s definitely talking about tiff’s parents, and im almost certain andrew flubbed right there and improvised over it by saying “autumn.” well im appreciative of that bc a) it’s funny and b) it indicates when this is going on a bit. it’s not like we’re two years in the future or anything. this is probably gonna start a couple of months after the crash and that’s it.

30) no idea who blair is talking to tho since i can’t see the woman’s face. could be one of tiff’s friends? idk. also nice hair tiff

31) that ball spinning around like a gumball in a machine? weird transition but aight. also immediately after, dawn is in the lehman office, again no idea why. probably the same scene as larry telling her that mo is plotting his revenge but idk why she’s there.

32) that shot of a plane coming into JFK? now im near certain that mo is in cali it would make so much sense please showtime just MAKE SENSE. 

33) confetti and mo’s entrance? you know what it’s what i should’ve expected tbh it’s all so delightfully in character EDIT: THE CONFETTI IS NOT BEFORE MO’S ENTRANCE. YOU CAN SEE DAWN’S CLOTHES CHANGE COLOR, IT WAS JUST AN EDITING TRICK.

34) mo’s just gonna pull up, zero fucks, in the middle of the day. much different than how i thought this scene would go, with a lot of betrayal and drama involved instead of this bitch just pulling up. now idek if dawn and mo are in contact before this, when before i was almost certain they would be.

35) what blair says here is definitely not the first thing he says when mo walks in, i can tell from the editing. also im near certain that blair doesn’t say “bro.” it sounds edited in/done in post (his voice pitches up a lot there when that’s usually a beat when your voice would fall), so i wouldn’t be surprised if blair curses a lot there and they just had to edit it to stay in the green band. 

36) ol polluted waterfall lookin ass jshgkjfdhg mo quit lying that hairstyle is not popular fuck off

37) im loving this tagging order tbh. paul scheer getting tagged in the trailer is just. what he deserves. do we consider keith a protagonist now? he’s in all the promo material by name and face now.

38) regina and andrew look so good god yes also the editing is so GOOD fuck

39) keith (hand holding emoji) blair

        getting hit by random vehicles

40) NO THE LIMBO FUCK SHIT THESE CARS WERE NOT MEANT TO LAST almost looks deliberate :eyes emoji:

41) what’s keith doing with this barbershop quartet wtf

42) almost certain that’s tiff singing? based on 1x09 this oughta be good lmao

43) THE HEEL CLICKING IS TAKING ME OUT HGKJDHFGKJFD. could this be mo and marcus? who knows?

44) look at all the cash wtf what’s all that cash for? ah shit here we go again

45) tiff entering another dimension followed by dawn doing what is certainly a mountain of coke? kind of poetic cinema ok

46) ok dawn’s wearing that green suit again from my icon so??? what does it mean what does it all mean

47) who is mo squaring up with tf? is this marcus? i can’t tell in this lighting maybe it’s fake shooting guy idk also where the fuck are they? some party? but not a rich ppl thing just a thing? idk

48) guys. we have it. the fucking airdate. i have been stanning since the first fucking episode almost a year ago today and finally we have an airdate. respect to the new stans but yall dont know what seven and a half months of network radio silence in regards to your current obsession feels like. @hatimbinaba msged me and said we had a date and the shot of adrenaline i felt was like nothing else. serotonin is currently stored in the black monday and now the serotonin is stored in the ME. Sunday, March 15, 2020, 10 pm motherfuckers. put that shit on the calendar. also looks like we have a slightly earlier timeslot which is nice.

49) and to top (ahah) it all off we have blair just straight up gay panicking at the end. that’s definitely tuc and june and if yall have been following yall would know that tuc is playing blair’s love interest and june is playing tuc’s wife so this is all very jghsrkjghs im rly excited for this scene. no way of knowing if this is before or after blair and harris get together but it’s still kshgkdjhgdkj. rich people golfing? more like rich people existing lmao. also where’s that onion video i need to find the onion video fuck this is just like the onion said would happen. i will post it and make memes later. 

50) then blair just gets hit??? by the golfcart?? and there’s this scream that is definitely not the scream of andrew, tuc or june so??? whose scream was that??? did they add that shit in post??? tf???? also tuc and june barely flinching is really decapitating me kjshkrjdg

51) there’s no way of knowing if tiff is also at the golf course, but if she isn’t? then it’s just blair and his canon love interest and canon love interest’s wife???? which is so funny “hey come play golf with me” “oh is anyone else coming?” “ya my wife” “you’re so stupid i have to question how you’re even still alive”

52) WHEEWWWW AND THAT’S IT YALL!!! BUT A COUPLE MORE THINGS. some distinct absences: no known shot of marcus (which is wack yall would think they would want to plug the hell out of dulé hill) and very few shots of harris and corky. why. promote your newcomers some more tf.

anyways that’s all on this long ass post. @ mutuals expect more freakouts xx love yall this is unedited just raw emotion

[robot-unicorn-attack]

alicia’s plotting ideas/notes??

SNOW (MARIVANA)

ideas & stuff!! feel free to message me either here or on urstyle or wherever else u have me, or comment directly on this post, to plot! ill put finalized notes w/ rest of snow’s info once we have it down :)

Sky - so since seraphina’s a newer racer, she and marivana don’t know each other super well? but they’re almost complete opposites, in terms of like racing specialties, and marivana doesn’t feel threatened by seraphina in any way. she probably keeps her distance whenever they aren’t doing things their agency has sent them on? 

It would be kind of fun to say that maybe, as a publicity stunt, twilight’s official statement is that snow has been mentoring sky behind the scenes? 

and they have to pretend that’s true, even though it’s not lol

LOL but it would be funny if one day marivana showed up at the track while seraphina was doing stuff and was just like, “so twilight wants me to teach you something that makes it look like i’ve actually been helping u. u free atm?”

but overall I don’t think marivana has too many strong opinions about seraphina, unless we want to create some kind of drama?

Ice - premade; tbd

Supernova - Marivana is…pretty indifferent? when it comes to Supernova. She knows who she is and what she’s done, of course-who doesn’t?-but if you think that she’d be starstruck and/or falling over herself when Supernova’s around her…well, you’d be wrong. Marivana’s had multiple trusted parties tell her that she’s just as good as Supernova was, at her peak, so she knows that she’s not a threat-for now, at least. Marivana’s a bit wary of the other racer, but also a bit curious to see as to where this comeback will lead.

So, depending on how much of the wedding and divorce was public....Marivana def would remember 1) the wedding, and 2) not giving a shit about it

The 2 of them have raced together, right at the very beginning of Marivana’s career? like 10+ years ago? and if As even remembers all that girly snow princess stuff, she could be like “lmao so twilight really pulled a 180 on her”

AHHHH so I know I never made this explicitly clear because I suck as a human being but - the deal with unicorns is that agencies/manufacturers/etc say that they’re just robots? agencies probably actually believe it, but in terms of the manufacturers they might be vaguely aware of otherwise but also don’t want to jeopardize any profits so they keep that shit on the DL

but obviously for ppl like Mari/As who have been riding for p much their entire life, they can tell when horses are distressed, happy/content, etc?

and robot unicorns are basically horses in terms of how sentient they are? 

so i have no fucking idea when this would happen, but the 2 of them mutually acknowledging that RUR is pretty fucked up for the unicorns?

also like....IT WOULD BE SO CUTE if the two of them sort of rolled their eyes at the same time about some kind of story regarding another rando racer who quit maybe a lil after As did (so the newer racers aren’t familiar with her)? and then they realize that they both rolled their eyes at the same time LOL

honestly just being Tired Grandmas together

anyway. @interluxetumbra LMK what u think!!!

Sunbeam -  tbd

Flower - Marivana knows exactly what 𝑅 𝐼 𝒮 𝐸 is pulling with Flower (her own agency did the same thing to her, after all), and she is not fooled at all. She’s not stupid; in the robot unicorn racing industry, nobody is completely, utterly unknown when they debut unless they had no prior experience with robot horses/unicorns in the past. Marivana knows that Flower probably had to work her butt off to stay with 𝑅 𝐼 𝒮 𝐸, and she would bet her right hand that the image that Flower puts out to the public is just that - an image.

*chanting* AURIVANA AURIVANA AURIVANA

is the lil club plot we have how they meet/1st time they actually talk 2 ea other????

speaking of which - how do we want to write that? collab in a gdoc???

& then they just keep coincidentally running into ea other randomly????

aura saying something super Flower-esque and marivana just rolling her eyes and being like, “ok great now tell me what you really think about __” ??? lol

aura somehow discovering that marivana is into BOTANY, of all things????

maybe this is when she makes some sort of dry remark about the bio for Flower on the RISE website? “[Flower] grew up in a lush green meadow, hidden away from prying eyes by miles and miles of ice. How Flower managed to get the ice to melt for long enough to plant flowers and trees will always be a mystery.” and marivana’s like “lol magic my ass there’s literally no fucking way”

she explains it with a good amount of scientific jargon thrown in and aura’s just like watttttttttttttt :0000

literally hit me up ANYTIME i already adore them

also - their aesthetics as racers? put together? a+++++++++

OMG THIS IS LIKE WAY IN THE FUTURE BUT LIKE, we should say that their secret relationship somehow ends up going public for the ~drama~??? and instead of being super freaking pissed off, both of their agencies are just like “lmao okay ice queen x fairy princess? best ship” and use it for publicity?????

Flame - Marivana knows about 1) the image that she projects, and 2) that this image is pretty true to who Flame really is, for the most part. Her verdict? Flame could prove to be annoying, if she gets relevant while Marivana is still in the industry as a racer. Marivana doesn’t know what life not racing would be like, but she’s well-aware that she’s the oldest racer out there (well, besides Supernova, who doesn’t count. She’s making a comeback, after all), and that retirement is probably not too far out in her future. So, if Flame is still around within the next 5-10 years, then Marivana might start worrying about her. For now, she’s just the irritating racer with ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ who won’t ever stop causing a scene.

So they haven’t really interacted much yet, do we wanna say? 

they’re wary of each other because both their unicorns specialize in high power/strength so they’re like, more directly in competition?

are they going to engage in the RUA equivalent of a twitter fight??? in a publicity stunt that both of their agencies are putting on?

maybe snow has once insulted kehlani in an interview??? though it was fake/staged/scripted by her agency so she doesn’t actaully feel that way but ya know. doin it for the vine

and kehlani responds in kind, maybe at the behest of lazer, maybe not?. and it just keeps going???

but ya, marivana prob finds her personality kinda annoying so would generally avoid her unless kehlani approached first

Nyx - so like, snow probably thinks sol is way too flashy and all over the place, & does not engage her ever? she knows of the rumors of foul play, ofc, b/c who doesn’t, but she assumes that the rumors are super blown out of proportion (as rumors tend to be)?? and snow knows that if sol ever tries to target her/other ice world racers specifically, twilight will literally strong-arm lazer into dropping her. so she’s not that worried about that stuff????

definitely thinks her razor-sharp precision with U-800 is something to be admired, though, even if it’s not the flashiest skill like dressage or speed

OMG LOL spoiler alert but the 2nd event is a race on lava world, so they’re all on the main LW training/practice facilities in the days leading up to the race???? and we TOTALLY need to have them do that weirdly super aggressive staredown/pre-game smack talk sesh that they do in super extra sports anime LOL

Widowmaker - snow’s heard of her, knows of her, has competed against her, but since they both tend to keep to themselves they haven’t really talked? it could be potentially cool if eleni guessed about/found out about what actually happened with marivana’s 1st unicorn?? OMG DRAMA but what if she actually knew of the armed thief? who was on ice world for whatever reason lmfao we can hand-wave it. bonus points if she’s pissed that 1st unicorn killed the person?????????? lol

and it could be POTENTIALLY FUN to write a scene with them where eleni basically calls her out on the fact that, yeah marivana fucking hates twilight for deactivating the first unicorn so why tf does she still race for them/earn them so much money???

also marivana has literally no retirement plans atm so.....i have NO FREAKING IDEA if this would ever be possible or not, but if she somehow?? gets involved? with the people who wanna fuck up TEF govt for not giving a single shit about black hole ??? ? ??? ?? thru eleni????????//

idk dude feel free to just be like “lmao alicia that would never happen” if it feels too OOC!!! it’s also like 4 am & i’m only half coherent so ;D

but i literally have no idea in what context the calling out would be in!!! maybe if marivana saw some top sekrit info that eleni might have access to and was like “i won’t tell anyone at TWILIGHT if you tell me why you have this”? and eleni is like *eyeroll* “not like u have any reason to like ur agency”

Taglist: @ayzrules @bebemoon @jay-swagsby @filthysoulls @shiftyprincess @kzombi3 @now-on-elissastillstands

[ancient-depressed-druid]

My opinion on reylo and why the writing forces them together (not in a good way)

First of all, I am a reylo shipper, that, however doesn't change my opinion on the subject that their relationship was the result of bad writing.

I didn't ship them when I saw TFA, because I was sure they would pull a Luke/Leia archetype and make her either Han's daughter with another woman or Luke's own daughter. I actually didn't ship her with any character (strong female lead that doesn't need a love interest) and was sure the relationship between Poe and Finn would develop as the "romantic ideal" (it's space, they don't need to have heteronormativity). Rey was supposed to be the Luke of this trilogy, too busy with being a Skywalker and having to save some family member from the dark side, blablabla. But it made sense.

TLJ however, proved me wrong. She wasn't a Skywalker, but she had a connection to the last of them. The franchise is supposed to tell the Skywalker story, so, if you're making the main character be "no one" (and I did really like the idea that you don't need to inherit the force from a big name already. Force sensitivity is not royal blood) it only makes sense to be building for that character to be a Skywalker in the future, this time by marriage.

We were shown a lot less than enough to really promote the idea that Ben Solo was worth saving, the whole space Nazi shit and all. But we were exposed to the idea that he was manipulated since a child by the dark side and abandoned and betrayed by his family (totally out of character, Leia's adoptive father raised her while leading a rebellion, Han - as shown in solo - always had the need for family and belonging, Chewie wasn't even added to the equation even though we all know he would raise that child alone if he had to, and lastly, Luke, the one that saw good in Vader, a man that destroyed entire species/planets and chose to go to the dark side even when he had his loved ones there for support, but like could not sense a scared teenager feeling left aside by his parents and tortured by some dark being).

Here is not to say I condone the shit kylo did, nor do I agree with the writing of the character (Adam driver is the biggest reason why the character even works for me, his acting often conveying more hidden emotion and suffering than necessary) but if Rey is to be a main character, if we're not to accompany Ben's journey, but rather her's, then they have to be together at the end, otherwise they are just shiting all over the original trilogy (not that they didn't).

Finn and Poe, however, are left aside for the duration of the movie, both separated from each other to appear straight and Rose's character is introduced and poorly used. We could have a good dynamic between her, Finn, Poe and Rey. She was raised inside the resistance just as much as Poe. She lost her sister thanks to both Poe and Kylo's plans. She could be the one to point out just how bad war is, doesn't matter the side. She could bond with Rey on being a girl with no family and not really a purpose before the resistance. They could talk to each other! Instead they send her to a wild goose chase with Finn and force her to almost kill herself to stop Finn's sacrifice not because "she already saw so many people sacrificing themselves in order to win battles that only continue a much bigger war" showing how much her sister's death impacted her views on heroism and strategy and empathy, no! They make her confess to him and pass out.

TROS is the worst one yet. So many plot holes. Ooc behaviour. The whole movie is a first grade collage made with shitty magazines and chewing gum.

Rey being a Palpatine? Erasure of the whole idea with the children in the end of TLJ

Leia training to become a Jedi? Why tf find Luke then? Also, the whole thing with "if I end my training my son will die" but not batting an eye when her brother tries to KILL said son? Bullshit.

The whole Leia characterisation is bullshit, she would have entered the base herself, killed smoke (since they didn't even make it hard to begin with) and taken her son back to the resistance by the ear.

Poe suddenly becoming a Don Juan type? The guy was only flirting with Finn during the first movie and too busy disobeying orders during the second one. His parents we resistance pilots, Leia knew him since he was a child, but sure, make him a smuggler I guess. Not like they didn't already fuck every other part of his character up, making him petty and more focused on the numbers than the ideals of the resistance.

Finn clearly liking Rey and not even being allowed to say it (if she was a Skywalker I would be totally in on the ship, because it would make sense) and being treated like a joke the whole movie? His friendship with Jannah was good, but why make it as "the force" and not common decency? Why couldn't the have chosen to leave the first order themselves? Don't get me wrong, I was thirsting for a Jedi Finn to be like Mace Windu and everything but it breaks the idea that Finn did what he did in TFA because he's simple a good person. It shatters the possibility of free will in the Star Wars franchise.

Ben dying, his character not talking a word after the redemption, he not having a purple lightsaber, he going to battle and getting decked by the Knights of Ren (characters I was so hyped to meet since the first movie) until he gets a lightsaber, the boy was supposed to be so amazing he could just shoot a blaster and force manipulate the shot to kill all of them. We have seen him stop a blaster shot before, it would be paying off that same scene.

Palpatine's plan not making any fucking sense. He could find and manipulate Ben solo, but couldn't locate his own granddaughter? Also, he can create life (anakin) but needs her to kill him so the sith can continue? Just create another one.

Rey's parents sacrificing their lives to keep her safe, she sensing how much the suffered, (not even gonna talk about the 'they sold you for drinking money' because no) and still not giving a single flying fuck about it? Choosing to take the name of the people that knew who she was and didn't tell her? The people that drove Ben solo to a path of loneliness and darkness so much that he clang to the idea of his dead grandfather to have any sense of belonging at all (again, so out of character) she could have used her mother's maiden name or any other.

Ben dying because he could not have shared his force energy with the person MOST COMPATIBLE TO HIM IN THE ASPECTS OF THE FORCE and survived. Their kiss that felt desperate and still hopeful that she would make him find that family he wanted so much. Only to have him and Leia "become one with the force" the next second? Do you think Leia herself would peacefully die right after her own son died?

Do you think the ghost of Anakin Skywalker would reach out to Rey and not to his own grandson? Do you think that any of this is good writing?

It is not

I ship reylo for what it could have been, but I also ship stormpilot, reyfinn and many others.

Lastly I want to address how toxic shipping in any fandom, but specifically this fandom, built from the ideals of what white males in the 70's thought appealing, can be. Reylo's and non reylo's alike created turmoil with each other, and went even further and harassed the actors (whom didn't have any power to chance the bad writing) it is obvious why John, Oscar, Kelly and others hated this whole experience. The movie was badly written in a way to be a huge way of selling merch with as little intention of being good, the actors were constantly harassed by the fans be it for their characters or their skin colour or how they we shut down by a big company more interested in selling a shitty version of a Star Wars fanfic written in the 90's.

The fandom needs to see it for what it is and stop harassing others. Instead unite and harass Disney for their money hungry ideals and constrictive politics on racial/sexual/feminist matters.

[slothcritic]

Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 5 Review

Weird yet creative cutaways with strong overarching momentum.

Vegeta: Kills Bugs Dead opens with Goku finally reaching the end of Snake Way and the end of his journey to reach King Kai. The "nice job, jackass" as Goku literally craters into the planet sets the tone for this character in a big way. We're also treated to the incredible hijinks of Vegeta and Nappa.

[Title Sequence]

The pit-stop at Arlia at least receives a well-fitted and rather hilarious incarnation in this series. Even though the episode alternates its focus between King Kai and Arlia, I'm going to talk at length about Arlia first, and then move onto the King Kai segments.

I'm already going into this scene with some personal bias, as the "stronger guy playing along with the weaker guy because it'd be funny" trope is one of my favorites. And here we have exactly this. Vegeta and Nappa allow themselves to be captured and thrown in jail by the Arlians, where they meet an assortment of varied bug characters.

"Don't drop the soap" seems a little outdated for the modern style of TFS, as I feel they've leaned away from really older, cruder, less PC subject matters like calling someone retarded or insinuating prison rape, etc, but it fits Nappa's character completely as someone who is childish, crass, annoying for the sake of being annoying, and kind of a jerk. TFS has at least acknowledged the idea of possibly re-dubbing Season 1 with better equipment and perhaps a more refined script, and I dearly hope they keep this line unedited simply for the sake of nailing Nappa’s character identity.

After very nearly becoming a prison bitch, Vegeta decides he's had enough and promptly kabooms his way out of prison, landing smack-dab in the middle of a coliseum with the king of Arlia and his queen.

Nappa's blunt manner of introducing himself with simply "Hi." will never age.

It’s noteworthy that scene is also the first moment we get a good look at Vegeta as a character. Nappa was firmly established as the goofball from the start, but Vegeta's portrayal has more depth to it than could be conveyed in one-liners. Most of which is just sass, smug pride, and anger, but still.

It's also made clear very quickly that despite their bantering idiocy and gruff talk that they're not just for show, as Nappa no-diff's the thirteen elite Arlian guards with a massive shock wave that we later see level a city.

The king and queen are then more or less blackmailed into fucking. Nappa's eager fascination during this whole scene, the descriptions, visual edits and sound design are... Well, there's no other way to put it, it's fucked up. And it is hilarious! These are some very creative takes and decisions that were made entirely for internal experience of the show itself rather than as a parody of something else. Nappa even takes a photograph of it and sends it to Vegeta, since he's abstained from watching.

The comedic jabs don't stop there either, as Nappa tries to adopt the Arlian Rancor, but just like the kid who can't sit still, Nappa ends up breaking everything he plays with. Just as Vegeta is about to kill the king, rocks begin flying around the coliseum.

"What are you doing?"

Vegeta smirks. "I'm about to rock you, like a hurricane." And then boom, he hurls a rock into the king and kills him. Let's put a pin in that brick joke for later.

The long flashback scene doesn't play any music, which feels like a weird editing misstep after a series of home runs. They leave the planet as heroes, and Nappa sets Vegeta up for another predictable bit of mood whiplash, where Vegeta obliterates the entire planet. This is a huge escalation in power scale compared to everything else we have seen thus far. But then, this is Dragon Ball Z. We've already reached “destroying planets” at only the fifth episode, and everyone knows that it only goes well past 11 on the dial from here on out.

Granted, there is controversy in the official version about whether or not this would’ve been possible for Saiyan Saga Vegeta, considering Arlia is not canon, but I will not be considering that simply because DBZA contains no filler. Everything shown in the flagship series (not counting movies, DBZA Kai, or other shorts) is presented as being canon to DBZA. Also, Vegeta and Nappa are shown standing outside of their pods... in the vacuum of space. Series veterans will understand the massive can of worms this opens. I'm looking at you, Battle of Gods.

Once everyone, including the people that they JUST SAVED from a tyrannical king, have been reduced to space dust, Nappa closes off this scene nicely.

Now that we've discussed Arlia, let's focus on King Kai's role in the episode.

He explains to Goku that the planet has high gravity due to it's small size. Gregory from off-screen pipes up that this doesn't make any sense. I suppose "higher planet density" wasn't considered when writing the script - or perhaps it was, and they just decided that the easy answer wasn't the funniest one. Maybe “there’s an incredibly powerful pirate trapped in the core of the planet, which is why the gravity is so strong" was deemed better for a parody.

Honestly, I agree. Bojack works as an in-the-know reference, and is also fleshed out enough within the show that a newcomer would understand what's being discussed.

At the time of this review, the Bojack Abridged movie has not yet been released, but this is easily one of the longest brick jokes in all of DBZA, since Episode 5 was released in 2008 and it is my expectation that Bojack Abridged will be released within the year, leaving in its wake an 11 year old callback.

When King Kai asks Goku why he had been sought out, Goku explains that the Saiyans are coming to Earth and he requires training. Excellent fade-in and musical choice for Goku's uncharacteristically serious speech to King Kai.

Of course, it gets cut off at the peak swell with King Kai's indifferent "sure", leaving Goku gobsmacked.

In this series, King Kai's indifference and easy acceptance of Goku is attributed to the mind-numbing loneliness of only having a monkey and a grasshopper (cricket, sorry) to talk to for the last 500 years. Goku agrees, as he couldn't imagine anything more boring.

Major flash-forward to Namek. Just this scene being here at all is a major instance of a sequence break. But it is the introduction of another exceptionally interesting character in the series.

In terms of placement, this works as a long-term cutaway gag and reminiscent humor but not much else. We're still about half a season away from even considering Namek within the story, and the Saiyans haven't even arrived on Earth yet. The decision to slide this segment into the middle of this episode leaves some serious questions in my mind. But at face value, it's not that bad.

We're treated to a solid ten seconds of just staring at a massive fat green alien while birds chirp in the background. We hear a fish go "plonk!" in the water, and Lord Guru calls for someone named Nail, who looks a lot like Piccolo, to approach him.

"I saw a fish. That was all, you can go back outside now." 

Definitely reinforces the point of boring. And while Nail is lamenting how boring his job is, Lord Guru tells him that he saw a bird and then promptly instructs him to "kick its ass."

But we’re not Nail, are we? We’re the viewer, and for some reason in the human mind, segments of extremely boring content usually pique our interest even more, because we have it drilled into our psyche that something is going to happen to break the tension sooner or later. That notion, the idea of slowly leaning closer to the monitor during the ten long seconds of a single still image, both conveys the boring tone of Namek, but also leaves the reader waiting in anticipation long enough for these dull scenes to just fade from their perspective and only latch onto the climatic moment. In this case, Guru commanding his apparent servant/bodyguard to assault a fish.

Not to overstate the obvious, but if it’s not the viewer’s own sense of tension and curiosity, it’s the pure absurdism and characterization of Guru that carries this scene. Disregarding source material, the design of Guru is meant to make him look old, wise and compassionate. Making him a lazy, annoying, verbally violent fatass is a near-infinite cash cow of writing material. It’s very difficult for me to judge this scene unbiased, knowing what comes next, but I imagine this would be a tryhard non-sequitur at worst, or promising potential for the future at best, with regards to this scene on its own, within the context of this episode and nothing more.

This episode also saw the genesis of perhaps not the first, but one of the most popular jokes in all of DBZA: Piccolo just jobbing the shit out of Gohan. DODGE! The scenes chosen and the delivery are outstanding compliments to this cheesy, simplistic joke. At this point I feel it's important to address that my editorial reflections or descriptions of these skits are relative to the context of these episodes. Even with the best of what this episode has to offer, we're still in peak 2008 internet humor era. The use of the word "outstanding" here will not carry a similar significance should I use it to describe a later episode.

Also the most random cutaway in all of DBZA, full-stop, is the brief look into the Hall of Justice, as Superman, Batman and Aquaman debate how they will stop the approaching Saiyans. This is humorous only in its absurdity, but less-endearingly than Guru was. Even if this scene makes zero sense, and relies upon an almost lower form of comedy than slapstick, Aquaman's voice is still just Krillin's voice. At least Superman and Batman sound different than the main cast. I'm really tempted to dislike this more, but the lackadaisical attitude and context of the whole scene definitely draws your eye more than a lot of the sensible but base-line plot progression of the story. I don't know if it belongs. To me, this scene just screams out that TFS is flinging spaghetti wildly at the wall, any and everything that might be funny, and while some of it sticks for one reason or another, (Jadoshin as Solid Snake, Antics on Arlia, even Guru's abrupt cameo) some of it flops. If anything, this show builds upon the corpses of its failures, and learns what works and what doesn't work surprisingly quickly.

Conclusion

Bizarre, but I liked it. Nothing in this episode that's bad is memorable. I might criticize the Namek cutaway for being out of place, but after letting this review sit for a few days, I just remember Goku saying "Man, nothing could be more boring than that!" and the immediate cut to Namek, and Nail pleading for the love of his sanity for something to happen. I might criticize the Justice League cutaway for being wildly out of the place, but I just remember "WHAAAAAALES!"

The meat of the episode was also decent, as it establishes Goku training under King Kai, and Piccolo's continued training of Gohan, the origin of DODGE! and the realization that Gohan can transform into an Ozaru. And you can nod your head and say that these may be necessary to the story all day, but they're also presented with... let's call it a clumsy grace. It's not bad, but it's miles away from official dub quality. This is in essence what the benchmark or gold standard was for early abridging back in 2008. The quality that TFS will continue to evolve the series into simply defies all logic or explanation, and in comparison makes these episodes look downright crude. 

But let's face it, if Episode 1 began with a person lying on the ground and shot in both kneecaps, Episode 5 shows that same person at least hobbling down the street to the hospital. 

It might not look pretty on the whole, and some of the dialogue might be clunky, but it seems like a lot of the flaws in this episode are simply caused by being products of their time.

Whether we're looking at Namek or The Hall of Justice, even the most outlandish oddities of this episode have still made me laugh. That's really the end of it.

Score: 75

Passing Thoughts

"I hope something exciting happens around here soon. I don't care what it is." - Ominous!

"You're surrounded by my thirteen elite *KABOOM* ...dead guards."

"SUMMON THE RANCOR!"

[sophoreads]

Annotation notes for Wicked Saints

Attached under the cut are my word-for-word annotation notes pulled straight from my copy of Wicked Saints. Check out my previous post and goodreads review before reading the annotation notes.

I only decided to start annotating this book 115 pages in, because I realized that there were so many problems I was complaining about to my friend Sophie over text that I thought “Hey, I’d better write this shit down so I have receipts/can easily reference my thoughts.” I’d never really done annotations before, so I pulled out a new pack of sticky notes and color tabs that someone gave to me for free when I was in college and got to work. I ran out of sticky notes (started a new pad) and yellow tabs (borrowed last few from a weird tab/highlighter I found at the bottom of my college study stuff bin). I also got so frustrated I had to put the book down several times, because I’d paid eighteen dollars to pre-order this fucking garbage.

Pg 115 Pink tab – Character note --Bitch do you want to kill him or not? This is like bad Reylo fic— (Nadya being ~~inexplicably~~ held back from killing Mal, because she really wants to kill Mal, but just CANT for SOME REASON)

pg 123 Yellow tab – writing/literacy/grammar note --no note written— “He braced himself for the inevitable summons from his father. It arrived immediately by way of servant wearing a plain brown mask that left only his eyes visible. One of his father’s personal servants.”

Pg 137 Yellow tab – writing/literacy/grammar note --WTF is “it commanded attention”?! This whole throne bit is needlessly over-explanatory and could be fixed by adhering to golden rule “show, don’t tell”—

pg 139 Yellow tab --you don’t have to repeat the same thing twice!— “…Serefin paused, swallowing down the anxiety threatening to choke him. He was suddenly unspeakably nervous.”

Pg 140 Yellow tab --you just said they didn’t know who it was and now, not even a page later, you’re literally describing Mal and saying you DO know who it was?! WHO TF EDITED THIS SHIT— (Izak telling Serefin that they don’t know the vulture who escaped, then the vulture lurking behind him describing the backstory of the vulture who escaped)

pg 145 pink tab --what, is she Canadian now?— “You’ve realized your father isn’t so good a father to you, eh?” she [Pelayega] asked.

Pg 146 Yellow tab --For all that Duncan over-explains things in this story I still don’t fucking understand the High/Low prince thing??? Not once has she gone into it. And what the fuck is a slavhka?— (in reference to the first mention of there being “low princes”)

pg 148 Blue tab – Plot note --Why is the church still standing they LITERALLY TORE IT DOWN! THIS PART OF IT COLLAPSED!!!— (in reference to parijahan lying on top of pillows in the church Mal and Nadya just destroyed to get rid of the Vultures)

pg 153 Yellow tab --Are we really still saying “invalid” in the year of our unbridled insanity 2019?— “…Your mother, Estera, is an invalid…” (Mal making up a fake background for Nadya)

pg 153 Blue tab --SINCE WHEN DOES HE HAVE TATTOOS ON HIS HANDS— (in reference to the very first mention of Mal having tattoos on his hands, 153 pages into the story)

pg 155 Pink tab --Anna is so flat a character she could be removed from the whole book and not one thing would change— (in reference to Anna deciding to leave the group to re-join Kalyazi forces. I hold by this statement because Anna had no fucking role in the end of the book, and was therefore a useless character throughout)

pg 157 Pink tab --I’m sorry are we ETHNIC CLEANSING?! IS THIS WHAT WE ARE ENDORSING?! WTF?— “…then we can cleanse Kalyazin of the heretics entirely”

pg 163 Blue tab --this is the first we are hearing about any hierarchy in the vultures, which we should have read many chapters ago, not just when convenient for the author/plot— (in reference to first mention of Crimson Vulture)

pg 164 Yellow tab/Blue tab (overlapping domains) --Inches? FRACTIONS? IN THIS ECONOMY?!— (what is math in medieval Poland)

pg 167 Yellow tab --Still have not defined nobility and what makes a family “noble” or slavhka or whatever “low prince/royalty” or some shit— (In reference to yet another mention of low princes/royalty and somehow differentiating them from slavhka)

pg 168 Blue tab --I am more interested in gay Romeo/Juliet in a blood mage society than I am the entire plot of Wicked Saints— --Also this interaction feels cringey and thrown in for…no real reason?— “You’ve missed so much! Did you know that Nikodem Stachowicz was caught in the palace archives with the youngest Osadik boy?” (Zaneta)

pg 170 Yellow tab --FIRE YOUR COPY EDITOR— He shrugged, burying his tattooed hands in his pockets. “It binds over time, magic does. Especially blood magic. It’s so accessible. You don’t have to have a true affinity for it…” (Mostly I got furious over the fact that we’re only just getting Mal’s tattoo hands, which was obviously written in as an afterthought for his character partway through the writing process and not retconned into the story. I also just hate the sentence “it binds over time, magic does.”)

Pg 170 Yellow tab --Page 170: “walked on” Page 177: on horseback. WHAT IS THE TRUTH?— “Malachiasz stopped to wait for Nadya while the others walked on ahead” (this note coincides with a future note)

pg 173 Orange tab – blatant parallels to and lifts from Dragon Age franchise --you get a special shame-color for copying Dragon Age (also WHAT IS YOUR MAGIC STRUCTURE HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE) (it’s just bad writing)— “He was referring to witches—apostate magic users outside the gods’ approval—but there had been no witches in Kalyazin for decades. Their route of magic was considered just as heretical as blood magic…”

pg 176 yellow tab --Emily A Duncan focuses [more] on the little actions of Malacheezit than she does for any other character and it hurts the story— (specific reference to line “He fidgeted, fingers picking at a hang nail” interjected in dialogue. This action-dialogue tag does no service to the story at all.)

Pg 177 Pink tab --What the fuck? Is this about Holy War or is this a romance fantasy? (note the order: not “fantasy romance”)— “In a flash, his hand was underneath her chin, thumb brushing against her jaw…If Nadya hadn’t been sitting down she suspected her knees would have given out on her.”

Pg 177 Yellow tab --SINCE WHEN DO THEY HAVE FUCKING HORSES?! FIRE ALL YOUR EDITORS FIRE THE PUBLISHER— “Nadya let her horse wander instead of tying it up, sending a short prayer up to Vaclav to keep an eye on the animal so it didn’t stray too far.” (These horses were never mentioned before (note connects to a prev. note) and were never mentioned again after this. I literally cannot fathom how or why this book made it to final printing in this state.)

Pg 183 Pink tab --All this romance shit seems so forced for both Nadya and mal. I see no actual attraction on either party?— (I’m not recording the second note as it is a crude remark against the author, a remark of which I still stand by, but would be damaging to both her and myself. However, the emotion of the second note follows the concept of “anyone who knew what they were talking about wouldn’t write this kind of bullshit.”)

Pg 185 Yellow tab --“Per se”? I’m sorry is there LATIN in this world? (it’s bad writing)— “He wasn’t putting it off per se, he…”

pg 186 yellow tab --“It was fitting THAT assassins…” ugh— “It was fitting assassins chose to strike that same evening” (Doesn’t the author have a masters degree? And works in a library? How is her writing this chopped and sloppy, omitting crucial subject/action markers?)

Pg 198 Blue tab --Jesus, are prostitutes of war a NORMAL THING? WE SHOULD BE SAVING THESE POOR WOMEN— “The girl is…” He faltered, convincingly. “Well, you understand.” He winked at the soldier. (the soldier doesn’t even remark on Nadya’s sex slave status) (Also I realize that “prostitutes of war” is not the correct vernacular, however I’m committed to giving you my direct and exact notes. I know that they are slaves of war, sex slaves specifically, and do not receive true compensation or reparation for their suffering.)

Pg 201 Pink tab --HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT NOBLES? YOU LIVED YOUR WHOLE LIFE IN A MONASTERY!— “Nobles are nobles,” she [Nadya] said waving a hand. “Regardless of where they come from. The pettiness of court transcends all cultural boundaries.”

Pg 202 Blue tab --WHAT THE FUCK? EXPLAIN YOUR MAGIC/MYTHS— (referencing the blasé and brief mention of Wolf Changers, which we never hear about again)

pg 203 blue tab --WHAT NECKLACE? WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?— --Oh, that necklace, that was mentioned in the first chapter, forgotten, reintroduced the following chapter, then COMPLETELY forgotten again! Bad writing. Bad props.— “Her prayer beads were safely in her pocket, so she clutched at the necklace Kostya had given her.”

Pg 205 Blue tab --Is her accent suddenly better?— (reference to previous statements of Nadya having a terrible travanian accent, hence the sex slave thing to the border guard so she doesn’t have to talk, but now she’s talking and there was no reference to her improving her accent at all or even working on it.)

pg 207 yellow tab --I can see Emily has a kink for masks + chin grabbing— “He [Serefin] reached out and took her chin in his hand, lifting her face up to his” (Mal has also done this to Nadya countless times and she orgasms almost every time.)

Pg 209 Orange tab --The veil, yet another stolen Dragon Age concept!— “…closed her eyes, letting herself feel the invisible wall separating gods from men. She felt it the moment they had stepped into Tranavia, the weight of the veil pressing down against her, choking off her only access to the divine.” (This is also the very first reference to any such veil being in place. It took 209 pages for this to be mentioned, in a book chock full of a girl talking to gods in her head. Also, they’ve been in Tranavia for awhile. Why wasn’t this mentioned when they first stepped foot inside? (because it’s bad writing))

Pg 209 Pink tab --Nadya’s powers seem almost limitless at this point— “Holy speech whispered through her head and she moved to disassemble the spells woven through the walls. She couldn’t take them apart completely— someone would notice, precautions in place—she was just making them fuzzy, bleeding them out. She dulled them so any information imparted back to the mages who set them would appear mundane.” (If Nadya’s powers (at this point in the book) are tied to the gods, there is no mention of which god provides these powers. If this is meant to foreshadow that Nadya has her own powers, it’s a lazy job. It’s simply overpowered and oversimplified. )

Pg 210 [no tab just a sticky] --oh FINALLY we hear how they met!— “I’ve known him [Rashid] my whole life. And we crashed into Malachiasz about six months ago after getting into trouble with some off-duty Kalyazi soldiers.”

Pg 214 [no tab just a sticky] --also can we acknowledge the whole “brown girl serves a white girl” thing because WOW— (in reference to Parijahan playing handmaiden to Nadya at the palace)

pg 215 Pink tab --“Couldn’t worry about the prince”? wasn’t HE the one she wanted to kill in revenge for Kostya? (IS THAT ALL FORGOTTEN NOW?)

pg 216 Pink tab --First Zaneta is Indian [coded] and now she’s black [coded]? WHAT?— “…a tall girl with luminous skin like onyx threaded with gold…her spiral curls fanned out around her head like a halo.”

Pg 217 Orange tab --The game? Court intrigue? Masks? This all reeks of Orlais and direct theft from Dragon Age— (in reference to basically the whole castle competition, masks, etc)

pg 217 Yellow tab --And now we’re switching perspectives mid-chapter? Just start a new chapter!— (in reference to the very first mid-chapter perspective switch, which will occur more from here on out)

pg 232 yellow tab --I am so sick of these italicized words without any translation or description— (in reference to szitelka which I still DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS)

pg 233 pink tab --what the fuck is Nadya’s perspective? Does she want to kill all Tranavians or not? Emily make up your fucking mind— (in reference to Nadya getting pissed at Mal for killing the other blood mage girl in Nadya’s duel, so that Nadya wouldn’t die and the duel would end)

pg 234 pink tab --literally when has Nadya worried about his safety, esp. when she’s the one always threatening to kill him?— “She hadn’t forgotten, not even while she found herself worrying about his safety and wanting him by her side.”

Pg 235 Pink tab --oh FINALLY we get a description of his tattoos! 235 PAGES IN!!!! BULLSHIT YOU HACK WRITER!— “She found her eyes drawn to the tattoos on his long, elegant fingers. They were simple, straight lines: two on either side of each finger and one down the back that started at the bed of each fingernail and ended at his wrist in a single black bar.” (I literally vomited in my mouth when I read this)

Pg 238 Pink tab --Oh so Mal can’t murder to save you but you can murder Tranavians and its fucking justified? Nadya is such a bad Nazi char.— “It’s not an apology for murdering that girl, she noted. But it was a start. It was something from this boy who obviously had no morals and no regard for anything that didn’t serve his own interests.” (Nadya is the worst hypocrite and I want to punch her in the face)

Pg 239 Yellow tab --Hanged? Since when? Has hanging? Been a threat? Ever? In this world?— “…or else this whole mess of a plan will go up in smoke and we’ll all be hanged for it.”

Pg 240 Pink tab (this is another omitted note because it is a crude comment in part against the author, but the other half does say that Nadya is such a virgin and that I am second-hand embarrassed because this book and the “romance” scenes are so bad)

pg 242 blue tab --If Nadya used blood magic, why don’t the gods cut off her powers for her heresy? It would only make sense— (this is just a general comment on the chapter and how, after the duel and Nadya used blood magic, her gods were still talking to her. This is also before we find out that Nadya has her own powers)

pg 247 yellow tab --the way this is lazily written we’re supposed to assume it’s Ostiya at the door. Could be written much better (all of this could be written much better)— “Serefin hastily wrapped his still-bleeding hand with cloth while Kacper got the door. Ostiya blinked her single eye at the sight of both of them.”

Pg 248 Blue tab --“delicate gov[ernmen]t? we don’t even know how  the gov’t is even structured!— “This was too far. It would crumble Travania’s already delicate government.”

Pg 259 Blue tab --Oh good, a love triangle. Good to know Nadya’s type is “blood mage  tortured/charming boy” that grabs chin + kisses hands— “…and wasn’t sure what to do with this charmingly awkward boy. That he was one of the most powerful blood mages in Tranavia...She wavered too much already; she couldn’t allow herself to feel any more.”

Pg 260 Pink tab --Literally all that Parijahan does is be soft + comforting? That is literally all she does to Mal + Nadya + Rashid?— “Nadya usually didn’t see this side of Parijahan. It relieved her to see there was a warm softness to Parijahan’s flinty gaze.”

Pg 270 Blue tab --What do you mean? When did you mention that the gods had withdrawn their power from Nadya?— “She had no magic. She had nothing. She had no hope without her gods.”

Pg 275 Blue tab --But they would abandon her for using blood magic you dumbass— “The gods wouldn’t have abandoned her. Not for a few doubts, not for kissing a heretic—not even that.”

Pg 278 Blue tab --Okay this is actually a really cool scene— (when Nadya is first using blood with the pendant to see her way out of the room the rogue Vultures locked her in)

pg 280 blue tab --Calls her “little bird” is this Mal?— (referencing this unnamed god that Nadya is talking to via Kostya’s necklace)

pg 287 yellow tab --sloppy transition makes it seem as though a new person is talking— (Basically for the next two pages Emily incorrectly punctuates her paragraph breaks while Pelayega is talking.)

Pg 294 Orange tab --Velyos=Solas=Mal? Oh my god is this whole plot a regurgitation of DA:Inquisition/Trespasser?— “Have you heard of him? I suppose not. The veil went up, Velyos broke away. Your gods were probably relieved, but here he is once more...”

pg 298 blue tab --fucking called it (“acted like he was dead”? Literally said before that he was “sent to the country”)— (in reference to Serefin seeing Mal and discovering that his cousin is the Black Vulture. Previously, a not so subtle mention of a nameless male cousin of Serefin’s was “sent to the country” when he was young. I immediately pegged it as being Mal. But now it is written that Serefin was led to believe that his cousin died? The inconsistencies are rife.)

pg 308 pink tab --Does Nadya literally have no self control or sense of morality (for her own morals)? What the fuck is this?— “Then her traitorous, heretical hands betrayed her as she reached up and wove them into his hair, pulling his face down to hers and kissing him. Because she was angry with him, furious with his lies, but not even her anger was enough to cool the burning she felt when he was near; the heat that spread through her nerves when he touched her.”

Pg 308 Pink tab --ooh power shift, she’s doing the chin-grabbing now!— “She took his chin in her hand, directing his gaze down to hers.”

Pg 309 Blue tab --except for the vultures that kidnapped her? What about them?!— “Go to the cathedral when you’re finished here,” he said. “None of the Vultures will give you any trouble.”

Pg 313 Pink tab --Didn’t want the fate of nations? She LITERALLY came here to topple the monarchy and uproot Tranavia and start a mass ethinic cleansing— “She was only one girl; she didn’t want the fate of nations resting on her decisions.”

Pg 314 Pink tab --YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS YOU DUMB BITCH— [the dumb bitch being Nadya] “The war took something important to me,” she said, fingering Kostya’s necklace unconsciously. She couldn’t think about how it had been Serefin who had led that attack. (Nadya literally forgets and completely forgives Serefin for what she believes is Kostya’s murder (we know that Kostya wasn’t killed by Serefin but his BABY BRO WAS). Like, wasn’t Kostya super important to her? And she tried to kill Serefin in revenge but Mal stopped her? And in literally less than a week she totally forgets about it?)

Pg 318 Pink tab --Honestly, Mal deserves better than Nadya. He’s clearly doing his best and she’s just being racist and unwavering.— He opened his mouth, at a loss for words. Finally, he asked, “Will it always be like this?” Would it? She couldn’t say. Would she ever be comfortable with what he was? Or would it always be this constant hot and cold, friends one second and enemies the next? “I don’t know.” (Nadya is so abusive in this whole relationship I feel bad for Mal)

pg 321 yellow tab --He literally said he only told her the truth?! Mal has literally not told one lie?— “He was a liar and she wanted his truths”

pg 322 yellow tab --The whole order of this scene description + the characters is clunky and wrong— (no further comment really, that pretty much explains it)

pg 326 pink tab --Did she literally forget about Kostya? Did Nadya literally just forgive Serefin b/c she thinks he’s cute and tortured? LITERALLY? WHY?— “Serefin. He’s good,” She nuzzled his chest. “I like him. He should live.”

Pg 327 Blue tab --Can Serefin suddenly write his own spells now?! I thought only Mal could do that— “As he sat down at his desk with spells sprawled out in front of him, blood still drying on the pages, he couldn’t shake the feeling…”

pg 335 pink tab --That’s right, bitch! You’re damn nigh abusive to him and for some reason he keeps coming back! I don’t know why since you have the personality of a Nazi but for some reason Mal just really wants to fuck you!— “How could she be the only good thing to happen to him? She had almost slit his throat, had hung him off a railing. She didn’t even trust him, not really.”

Pg 351 Blue tab --since when have we seen a fucking calendar system?— “…turned the tide of a battle in 625 when…” (this is a “Vasiliev’s Book of Saints” entry for chapter 33. There is one more reference to a year in an earlier codex entry (tsk another Dragon Age ripoff) for something like 15XX. We don’t know what year it is, nor do we know when/why they started counting. Maybe it’s not critical for the story but it IS critical if you’re bringing it up.)

pg 357 orange tab --Literally Solas’s plot in Trespasser— “She bit back a cry of pain and shoved her magic harder up at the veil. If this was when she died, then fine. Fine. She would tear this veil down first and bring the gods back to Tranavia with her dying breath.”

Pg 360 Blue tab --How did she get here? Already? These scenes are so lazy, show me Nadya scrambling up the dais to Mal’s waiting neck— “He idly spun a chalice on the armrest and Serefin watched as the cleric stood and darted for a dagger that reseted a few steps away. It was time to test just what he could do with this power. (now it’s Nadya’s POV) Malachiasz’s eyes closed. He tilted his head back, baring his throat to Nadya’s blade.”

Pg 363 Yellow tab --Did we just miss Serefin fighting his father for Nadya’s sexy threatening? Was that really a real choice the author made?— (Nadya looks over at Serefin) “Serefin was on his knees, hunched over in pain, blood oozing from his head, one hand white-knuckled on the ground holding him up. Dead moths littered the floor around him. The stars around his head began to flicker out.”

Pg 368 Yellow tab --you CANNOT call it an “Adam’s apple” when there is no “Adam” or Christianity in this fantasy world! Lazy writing indeed!— “His head tilted back, Adam’s apple bobbing, as he swallowed hard.”

Pg 376 Yellow tab --this line is so cliché and fucking bad why the fuck is it even in here?— “The king is dead, long live the king,” she said, handing it [the crown] to him [Serefin].

Pg 376 Yellow tab --And why didn’t you write that the other vultures disappeared? There is so much missing here— “Where are all the Vultures?” Ostiya asked “Most probably fled with their king,” Serefin said.

Pg 378 Yellow tab --Is what enough? Power? Crown? What the fuck? This is so sloppy— “Will this be enough?” she asked him [Serefin]. “To stop the war?” … [Serefin:] “It will”

pg 380 yellow tab --No clear description of where Mal is. Is this physical or ethereal? What the fuck is happening?— (Mal’s whole epilogue)