#basically like a ton of existing villains

[error84744838]

Tbh, i don't know what I am doing. I just saw other people having this and decided i wanted to do it as well

Stuff i am working on

I am currently working on two undertale related projects that are all unpublished at the moment as I decided to rewrite them before I post them

Meet The Nulls

Meet the Nulls is a story based on the idea if there's a void between AUs where popular outcodes like Error sans and Ink sans live, why not have a void that exists between different multiverses

So Meet the Nulls will be a collection of stories that all exist in the same setting instead of a story that follows a cast in a continuous story

A few stories I got plan for Meet the Nulls is

Meet the Nulls: The Pioneer

A story about my alternate version of Ink sans going by the name Luu and his journey in the nullvoid from getting his mask to him gaining the title "The pioneer"

Meet the Nulls: Who's ready to Rumble

A story that follows a character known as Yokai Error and his time in the multiversal event known as the rumble where tons of different multiversal variants are forced to fight it out to see who wins

Meet the Nulls: Multiversal Exterminators

A story that follows an average day for the Nullvoid trio that consists of Error Prime, Nightmare supreme, and X ink, which of course involves destroying an entire multiverse, but they have there own way of making it fun

Meet the Nulls: One killer of a Salesmen

A story about a killer sans that after ended up in the nullvoid and became a Salesman and follows his strange interactions in the nullvoid as he does his new job

I have more stories plan for it, but these are the ones I am currently working and plotting for

Undertale:DATASPLIT

Basically what Undertale:DATASPLIT is about is basically the reimagining of every popular concept that the fanon had made like villain sans squad, shattered dream, the alpha bros(heavily reimagined with no connection to the AU Alphatale other then concept), fresh ink, evil ink, error being a menace, Erratum and so on all into a series where they interact alongside with original characters such as Datasplit Sans himself who's I'm still in the process of making

No story is currently planned for this yet

Stuff about me(WIP)

MY DNI LIST

Nobody, just don't be overly toxic to me, and you're fine unless you ship something weird and haven't made an attempt to make it more appropriate in that case. Do not interact with me

My kind of writing warning

I would just want to say that I am a part of the darker and edgyer side of the fandom, and my future writings have some inspiration from that which some people may not like but just know that my stuff may contain some dark elements so you have been warned

Fandoms I am in

Undertale

Hollow knight

TC (I will not be explaining what that stands for unless you really like grimmdark stuff)

Minecraft

Bendy and the ink machine

Looking for willing artists

I am on the lookout for artists who are willing to draw stuff about my creations as I am extremely supportive of any people making artwork of my characters and worlds

[euphoria-looney]

Uie wait so if ever when they start to go yandere for the reader, what happens to Serena? Or what is her deal basically? Is the entire thing from powers or their own volition or something? Are they being controlled by someone else? I'm kind of invested in the fic now OvO

Or, if ever, would reader go back for one of the love interest once they go yandere or are the love interests still the same? Will they turn yandere too or will they just be the same? Admittedly I just want them all to grovel and I really want reader to make them all suffer 👉👈

Thank you for your 'who said money can't buy happiness?' fic because it activated my neurons I live the manwha concept (no matter how much it boils my blood in the good ptsd manner everytime I read it) but also I really want another crumb of og!villainess/villain!reader because they really softened my heart, the entire thing reminds me of that one manwha with the fmc Penelope Eckart

Sorry for being long! I hope your day goes great and thank you for writing such lovely pieces of literature!! (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)/

For the first question, "What happens when they all go yandere on [name], and what happens to Serena?" They still care for her and they still love her but it’s just not as strong as it used to be especially with [name] changed now being the main character of the story her story, Serena will be on a balanced scale whether she still wants to be the center of attention and whether she wants [names] attention only on her and find everyone else as competitors.

The second question, "What's her deal?" Her deal is that that’s just how she behaves and how she acts from the moment she kinda existed in this universe she has a main character role and she obviously doesn’t know that she’s inside a novel so she’s just acting how she normally is. She is the female lead so everything will go her way. She’ll be smart, capable, and a lovable character from the reader's point of view from the og! Novel.

Whenever you read her since it’s in [name]'s POV and I like to portray her character negatively as of now what’s happening in the universe of how she acts we think she’s annoying but when we were in the other world, Serena was the main character of the novel 'I Stole the Villainess Loving Family'. She was the badass MC that you would love to read about but cringe so much that you would have to drop the novel.

On the third question, no, Serena is not being controlled by anybody. She is following the plot which is actually all her own actions. This is how she behaves. This is how she acts from your perspective. If you were in her POV, you would have to understand that she has been the main character everybody around her has admired her, loved her, and worshiped her simply because she was placed in a position as the female lead, which made a ton of people attracted to her.

Fourth, there will be many love interests that go from Serena to [name] or just love interests that simply got created because they have spent and developed with [name].

[name] Unfortunately for now, if there are no changes to my plot, will not fall in love with any of them and avoid them if anything because of how they treated her and how they treated the og! Princess [name] it is because she believes why should love someone only when they start changing and it annoys [name] to a point where she cannot, and will not forgive anybody who suddenly develops attention or attraction towards her because they only change when they start interacting with the new [name].

It just wouldn't make sense why she'd forgive them when she knew what Princess!Reader went through how the people changed around her when they treated Princess!Reader like a joke.

There will be a lot of crumbs of OG!princess [name] because in her world, technically modern old world there’s a version of batfam of their own where they neglected her, which is why the OG!modern!reader is called neglected!reader because in their own world batfam neglected them, and they left. They built a successful business of their own and made friends, and unlike in the historical kind of novel setting we have a modern one where she has never met any of the Batfams enemies or allies so that just opens up a whole other world of love interest for her as well, so sometimes I'll write her, but not a lot as she’s not the main focus of my "Who Said Money Can’t Buy Happiness?" plot.

That is all please do tell me if there are any spelling mistakes or something you're confused about 😍

[bloomeng]

I'm a little nervous to talk about this because the internet is truly the place where nuance goes to die but fuck it I'm going to do it anyway.

So misogyny in fan spaces. There's so much that can be said here, but I want to focus on a trend I've seen in fanfiction for years. This isn't a call out to anyone in particular or a fic that I read recently, it's just something I want to talk about.

There's a range in which I see misogyny displayed in fanfiction. The most subtle version is when a fic has a large cast, but despite this, the female characters just float in the background as accessories. Writing big casts is difficult and I understand that (it's part of the reason I tend not to like big casts) but despite this all the female characters will remain less developed than their male counterparts. The other version is they will exist only to advise or prop up a male character, which isn't to say that a female character can't play that role in a story. On an individual level, it's not an issue, but when it's the only role over and over it becomes an issue. My solution to handling big casts is to break them off at times into pairs/smaller groups and allow everyone to have their moment. It doesn't need to be perfectly balanced but even small moments could go a long way.

The next step up is literally ignoring them altogether. I understand not every character is going to feature in every story. Time and place and all that jazz. But it's telling when they're so clearly written out of a story for the sake of not addressing them. If we can cram in all these male character cameos we can do the same for the women. Personally I feel writing is stronger if you only include characters for a purpose beyond them just being there (and it would be two birds with one stone bc that would automatically allows for more depth), but this is fanfic that I'm discussing, where fan service rules everything.

The third trend and arguably the most egregious I refer to as the “Sakura Effect.” The Sakura Effect is when an author will include either a pre-existing female character or an original female character for the sole person of villainizing her to extreme proportions. It’s scary to me because as much as media can be misogynistic this is so much worse in my opinion. As fans I would hope we would be better but then I see characters flattened or created simply to be awful. And yet “no one” sees the issue in that.

I’ve seen authors go far as to say apologize in the notes about mischaracterizing female characters for the sake of the conflict. Like we’re so close to recognizing the issue yet so far. Also for some reason it’s socially acceptable to add character bashing tags to fics?? I see this the most with Naruto fics, but to this day I will never understand why people feel the need to establish how much they hate a female character in a fic that doesn’t even touch on them. Or they warn people that they made her evil bc they hate her??? Like ok so we’re recognizing the problem and doubling down. Cool.

I once saw someone create a female character for a fic who was described as ugly and with a ton of acne and a bunch of people called the author out for the description and its subsequent streotypes. The author responded by basically being like I hear you but I don’t care. But I was also concerned that no one else in the comments was concerned that the character was female as well.

I see this trend with people to make these super creepy stalker female characters as conflict for their mlm ships and it’s just like…. do we not see the inherent issue in this. We complain about the treatment of women in the source material and then we (fan culture) turn around and make arguably more offensive characters.

This is a fairly ranty non-nuance, doesn’t even touch on intersectionality, look at misogyny in fanfiction but that’s all I have the capacity to discuss today.

[celis22]

DC x Marvel AU

"Gotham Dynamic Duo" AU

Okay...this crack-ass AU was born from one of my wildest dreams to date! In essence, Gambit and Spider-Man end up in Gotham together!!

After watching X-Men 97, my mom telling me she was obsessed with Gambit in her youth, and reading a ton of "Spider-Man in Gotham" fics...I had a weird dream where a lot of different concepts were mixed together! It was seriously a freaking weird dream.

How did Gambit and Peter end up in Gotham?

• After Gambit's death, there was a glitch in the universe because at that moment Doctor Strange was casting the spell that would erase Peter from the collective memory (but as happens in many fics) instead, Peter was erased from existence and sent to Gotham... Gambit's soul got caught in the middle and traveled with him!

Where do our two unfortunate victims end up?

• In a Lazarus Pit! Yep! Rage pit for Remy and Peter >:D I like to think that the regenerative properties of the pit basically undid Gambit's lobotomy and gave him back, at least partially, his original powers! While Peter is more spider-like than before!

• The rage pit presents itself differently in Gambit and Peter! For Peter, it's like his spider-sense goes haywire, putting him in a fight-or-flight mode... while for Gambit, it's more mental; he doesn't become animalistic like Peter or lose control like Jason. Instead, Gambit suffers from not having a way to stop violent intrusive thoughts, like... instead of attacking senselessly, he plots murder!

Relationships and Interactions!

• Between Peter and Gambit: Since they're both kind of trapped together in Gotham, they stick together! With Peter creating false identities for the two of them (with Gambit assigned as his legal guardian after Peter's parents "death") and Gambit being the responsible adult who brings home the bread!

• Between Peter/Gambit and the Rouge/villains: I'm a sucker for the aunt-nephew relationship between Peter and Harley (plus Ivy) so...yeah, just silly stuff between them! While Gambit has more of a working relationship with some villains. Example: he works on the iceberg lounge for the Penguin as a waiter...and dancer!

• Between Peter/Gambit and the Batfamily: Gotham's favorite stalker bats mostly interact with Peter, since (surprise surprise) Peter goes to Gotham High and has more opportunities to interact with them. Gambit, on the other hand, is more of an afterthought to the bats; he's only Peter's legal guardian...but not for Jason!

Here we enter the strangest part of my dream...a crack ship! Please don't hate me

• Peter/Gambit’s relationship with Jason: Since our pit boys are broke as hell, they both live in a small apartment in Crime Alley…Red Hood territory! Peter is another alley kid to Jason, an interesting one since he’s caught the attention of his family…but Gambit? He’s love struck with our favorite Cajun man! After seeing him leaving Penguin’s nightclub and getting jumped by some drunks, Jason springs into action to protect him (keeping in mind his code of looking out for the sex workers/escorts in Crime Alley…though I’m not sure WHERE that iceberg is…so just roll with that!) he determines that, as a dancer, Gambit falls into that category…but who knew that Louisiana charm (and accent) would end up giving Jason a crush!

Ages & Timeline!... only for some though!

• Gambit: 27 years old. I know in the series (X-Men 97) Gambit is supposed to be between 30 and 35 years old, but I wanted to make him a little younger... That and because I thought he was around 25 when I saw the series! So... yeah...

• Peter: 17 15 years old. Following the movie canon (NWH), it's speculated that he's between 17 and 18 years old! But continuing with the cliché of Peter being younger, he physically and mentally regresses at the age of 15... the same could apply to Gambit.

• Damian: 13 years old... because I like the idea of Damian being a dangerous little pre-teen!

• Bruce: 40 years old... listen! Old and tired dad, Bruce! Besides, the life of a vigilante is stressful. This man has aged quite a bit due to the stress of fighting crime... and being a father to wild children!

Extras & concepts I don't know where to put!!

• Gambit and Peter are permanently trapped in Gotham! Peter because of Doctor Strange's spell...and Gambit because he died and his soul is no longer in his original universe, so...no Deathbit for X-Men 97!

• John Constantine!...listen, I love Constantine, my mom is a huge fan of his movie and she recently started reading his comics, so I wanted to include him. Plus, I have an AU with Constantine I'm working on.

He's just Gambit's drunk friend. The two met by chance and Constantine smelled the "this guy doesn't belong here" vibe as soon as he met Gambit, so...they just see each other from time to time to drink and shit.

• Gambit's powers, while not at the same level as pre-lobotomy, are quite strong! managing to charge things (and living matter) with kinetic energy without touching them if he concentrates enough.

• The relationship between Jason and Gambit was the main reason for the existence of this AU and an important part of my dream. I think... since Gambit is still heartbroken because of Rouge, Jason would have a hard time trying to win him over...and if we add to that Jason own conflicting feelings about being in love after so long, Jason and Gambit have a complicated relationship, like friends-to-lovers kind of thing but also puppy-love!

maybe i'll do art for this AU later, but it all depends on my motivation...also, i don't know too much about DC or Marvel, so pls don't hate on this AU! it's all harmless fun!

[jarold-rat]

i know basically nothing about pokemon world lore or most characters, but you've given me an obsession with colress because he's kinda similar to arcade gannon and occasionally i remember colress exists and start foaming at the mouth and go feral

(said positively)

I love Colress! I’ve said it a ton to friends and posted on here and other platforms that. He reminds me of Arcade a lot… he’s like Arcade if he was morally grey and a Pokemon villain lmfao . Im almost equally as insane over the two of them, and everyone knows how much I like Colress 👼

I have a crackship of them because of this . And I drew this like a few days ago and never posted it anywhere … #yes I love blonde tall smart lab coat wearing researchers with glasses and bright colored eyes that used to be apart of a terrible group and they live their lives out researching and being smart and stuff. I need to practice drawing them more cause I can never get it down when I want to 💔

[jaysarenice]

So I will DEFINITELY be doing the Smalletho superhero au fic (with my spin on it) so here’s some of the info that’s pretty relevant and some reasons for certain decisions! Enjoy!

- To start, I wanna mention that Grian, Jimmy, Joel, and Gem are family. Grian, Jimmy and Joel are biological brothers, and Gem is their adopted sister. Their last name is Solidarity, and their middle names are more related to the person. I just really like the family in Wild Life, and in the fics that I read recently, I interpreted their dynamic as one of siblings, and I am taking some decently big inspo from these fics. I imagine their family to be like the characters from The Outsiders. Idk why, just do. Also, I’m going to refer to these characters as the Gang, because they are their own little family villain gang, but also so I don’t have to type their names a ton lol

- As alluded to, the Gang are villains. Joel is the main leader, but the others are still pretty involved. Joel led them to being villains after Lizzie’s disappearance (will touch on later), blaming it on heroes.

- As you can maybe guess by that then, Etho is a hero. Other heroes include (at this point in my developing): Scott, Scar, BDubs, BigB

- Other villains are: Pearl, Ren, Martyn, Impulse dabbles in villainy sometimes

- Skizz, Tango, Cleo, Mumbo, and Lizzie are civilians

- Now to get to Lizzie. I wanted her to have the same “haunting the narrative” stuff she does in Hermitcraft s10, but I also wanted to play around with her Empires s1 lore a bit. So she’s an axolotl/fairy model that disappeared about 2 years ago (at the start of the story). She was Joel’s girlfriend, and dreamed of being a strong hero. However, she didn’t have much power on her own, especially out of water. So she immediately signed up when the S.P.I.P.A. (will talk about next) proposed giving civilians artificial superpowers. Lizzie was ecstatic; she would be able to hang out with all her friends and save people, like she had always dreamed. Things didn’t go the way anyone planned. She began losing her memories, and eventually she was just.. gone. Joel blamed her disappearance on the S.P.I.P.A., and chose to forever fight against them, starting the Gang and quickly becoming one of the top villains in the world. He really misses Lizzie.

- Now for the S.P.I.P.A.! The acronym means “Super Powered Individual Protection Association.” They’re basically the big organization most heroes in the city are under. Joel hates them with every fiber of his being. The whole Lizzie thing was actually an accident, but did anyone care to talk to the madman burning down their trucks and their outposts? Absolutely not. Mumbo works with them quite a bit, but he’s pretty unaware of their inner workings.

Now time for the even more fun stuff! The characters themselves!!

This section will include powers, species, and alter egos. At the end will also be some relationships pre-existing at the start of the story as well as some of the extra abilities of characters. Also please note, this is only characters I’ve developed! Please feel free to give suggestions for characters!

Joel - Phoenix/demon, fire powers but also faster healing and soft precognition, alter ego is Wildfire

Grian - Parrot/demon, star powers but also syncognition and soft mind control, alter ego is the Watcher

Jimmy - Canary/demon, water and electricity powers, alter ego is the Bandit (<- place holder name, need some more ideas!)

Gem - Jackalope centaur, sculk control, alter ego is the Wilt

Etho - Arctic fox, ice powers and soft metal control, alter ego is Hoarfrost

Scott - Unicorn, light flower power (like light magic and flower magic combined), alter ego name is still in progress

Martyn - Bat/small bit of demon, plant control and super hearing as well as artificial mind reading, alter ego is the Liege

Ren - Were-hound, soft shapeshifting and blood magic, alter ego is His Majesty

Scar - Cat, powers undecided, alter ego is Hawkeye/HotGuy

Pearl - Wolf/moth, necromancy and shadow/moon powers, alter ego is Actias Luna (<- placeholder for now, need something more moon or death related)

Now time for pre-existing relationships!! Hooray!

Scott + Jimmy - dated for a while but split after Scott joined S.P.I.P.A. Still sometimes hang out but it’s pretty awkward (also Joel wants him nowhere near Scott)

Grian + Scar - dating (who would have guessed). Grian does a little less villain work because he doesn’t want anyone to catch him with Scar because Scar is terrible at forgetting that they’re supposed to be enemies

Tango + Jimmy - Jimmy has a side job where he’s coworkers with Tango and he’s been trying to get closer with him. Aka Jimmy has a big fat crush on his coworker

Pearl + Gem - Gem and Jimmy are in similar situations with Pearl and Tango. Gem’s got a big fat crush on the most elusive villain (actually maybe person) in the city. Gem and Pearl collab on gadgets and gizmos often and also help each other with supplies

Martyn + Jimmy - Brotherly bond. Martyn helps Jimmy and Jimmy entertains Martyn. Martyn is disliked by the other Gang members, but Jimmy is sure he’s a great guy

Martyn + Ren - Married. For about 3 years. They met in high school theater and went to college together and ended up some pretty good villains. Probably the only villains in the city who are open about their relationship (they always show up together and have matching names). Outside of villainy the two are popular actors in dramas

Lizzie + Joel - Dating up until Lizzie’s disappearance. While Lizzie was doing the S.P.I.P.A. stuff, Joel was working hard to get her a ring. He keeps the ring he finally was able to get on the day of her disappearance in one of his vest pockets. He never goes anywhere without it.

Mumbo + Grian - Very close friends. Mumbo usually doesn’t question the villain stuff Grian keeps from him, so that’s why he’s allowed to stay around.

Character Extra Abilities:

Grouped by if they share some cus I’ve been writing this for a while and I’m lazy so

Jimmy, Scar: Understand animals

Joel: Walking heater, emotions affect intensity of wings and tail

Etho: Walking A/C, emotions affect body by turning some parts to ice (can be melted, it’s usually caused by high stress)

Jimmy: Emotions affect weather (inspired by @/insomnya777’s fic)

Grian: Emotions can turn parts of his body on fire (purple fire)

And that’s it! (For now….)

This is all the stuff I can remember thinking about so :3 hope you enjoyed will probably start writing the story after my therapy appointment today :D will update on that of course. Thank you for reading all this! I hope you enjoyed! <3

[alevolpe]

Hello! I plan on doing a Sailor Moon rewrite later on next year (bc i have a lot of shit to do in the entirety of my 3rd year of university) and I'd like to know what issues you have with each season of sailor moon. You don't have to name all of them, just name the biggest problem(s) you have with each season!! I hope I am not troubling you :3

Hi! You're no trouble at all! Thank you for asking, I'm humbled you're interested in hearing my opinion.

Ok, let's see. Before I start I wanna say, these are MY opinions based on also how I'm doing my own rewrite AU thingy, so don't take it personally if I don't want to include elements or characters you love. (Most fo the time it doesn't even mean I don't like those characters in canon, I just don't think they'd fit with the specific narrative I have in my mind)

I'll say for Season 1, my biggest issue is the amount of time it takes to get everyone in the cast. By the time we get Mina it's like what, over 3/4ths of the season in? I like that the show takes its time introducing everyone and giving the girls some organic bonding time in the filler, but there's better ways to do it imo. That's why I have Usagi be the last to awaken and meet an already tranformed Ami and Rei, so we don't totally break from Usagi being the center at first. We can use her as a vessel to get to know these new people and this crazy new identity at the same time she does, letting us know more about her too in the process, while not slowing the pace of the story to a crawl. As we get to know more, you can introduce the rest of the girls and break from the main group to catch glimpses of Mako and Mina, to later unite them. But that's my fix, there's other ways to fix the slow introductions, just.. don't maybe go manga style and spend only one ep per girl and immediately move on to the next, give them time to breathe.

My main issue with Season 2 is the time travel. The show does NOT know its own rules and that is a recipe for disaster, once you introduce an ally that is able to time travel, you got a LOT in your hands. Everything in the show could be solved with one travel through time, but they never do. Why? Cause otherwise the show wouldn’t exist. It leaves too many possibilities and questions that is not ready to answer. Idk how one could fix it, I'm sure there's many ways you could, I just have 0 interest in incorporating time travel in sm.

With Season 3 I'd say it's the introduction of the whole Pharaoh 90 or Mistress 9 thing. I don’t know, I know they are the main baddies, but like.. just make Saturn the main threat, she already basically is. That's my problem with it, I'm sure a ton of people disagree, but I'd rather the season just focus more on Saturn, Haruka, Michiru and Pluto, I don't need another "queen Nehellenia" type villain that gets introduced 2 seconds before the end. And I lovee Eudial and Mimete, but we don't need 5 of them. I'd just make those 2 Tomoe's assistants and that's that. Too many villains, especially if you're not going to do a motw format.

With Season 4.. uff where do I even begin. Tbh I scratch the whole season and do a ground up rebuilding project, but if I HAVE to stick with the canon structure I'll say make Nehellenia more present. She's THE BEST part of SuperS, make her more present and more threatening. Give her that mirror power from the get go, make her appear in mirrors, reflections, show her subtly , in the background, give the season a subtle but palpable atmosphere of unease, make her scary. I WANT TO BE SCARED of her! Also unrelated, but get RID of the S*A metaphor with the 3 eyes.

With Stars the whole pacing the season is a mess. The start is way too slow and the end is rushed as fuck. Introduce Galaxia as a present threat earlier, again idk how you'd do that exactly while keeping the episodic tempo of the show, but my solution is. Don't! Lol

[marinsawakening]

The thing about Skyward Sword's story is that I basically agree with a lot of the criticisms levelled against it, but simultaneously feel that people are wildly overestimating its impact on the series.

My biggest issue with Skyward Sword's story is that it's an incredibly boring, safe take on a Legend of Zelda prequel game (which Skyward Sword actively tries to position itself as). Skyward Sword follows the typical Zelda formula beat-for-beat, with little reflection or deconstruction of it. As a result, Skyward Sword does very little to reframe the rest of the series. Which is why, in a way, it's kind of baffling to me to see how many people got mad at it for 'ruining the Zelda lore'. Frankly, Skyward Sword isn't interesting enough for that. You can't ruin anything if you refuse to innovate.

Skyward Sword added exactly three things to the overarchiving Zelda lore that affect previous entries: Hylia, Demise, and Fi. Of the three, Fi is in my opinion by far the most interesting, and also the one that was handled the worst. I consider the writing for Fi's character to be one of my personal biggest issues with the game, and I genuinely struggle to find a single good narrative decision they made for her. Fi's existence ultimately has little impact on the series for me because her character had little impact on me. Your mileage may vary.

Fi's not really the addition people take issue with though: that would be Hylia and Demise. And I get where people are coming from. Largely I don't even disagree. I also think that having a flat good/evil dichotomy represented by gods is boring as hell. I just think it's weird when people get mad at Skyward Sword for introducing this to the series, because. Like. All Skyward Sword did was add gods to the flat good/evil dichotomy already present in the series.

Establishing that Zelda, and therefore the Hyrulean royal family, is descended from a literal god absolutely has a ton of unfortunate implications. Like, y'know, in general you should probably think twice about canonizing the literal divine right of kings. But here's the thing: the series was already operating under the divine right of kings. That doesn't mean the choice to make it an explicit in-universe correct belief is now exempt from criticism, but, well. What does it actually change?

LOZ never meaningfully critiques the Hyrulean royal family; even when it acknowledges them as having done bad things (rare in its own right), the narrative will still ultimately position them as the good guys against the evil Ganon/Ganondorf/[insert villain here]. In at least the seven games I've played to completion, their right to rule is never questioned, and neither is Hyrule's dominance over other peoples, for that matter. The Hyrulean royal family's rule is treated as a self-evident fact of reality, as fate and destiny, the correct order of things. What is that if not the divine right of kings?

The divine right of kings was already the logic the series was operating under. What does Hylia's addition change about the framing of the previous games? Were there protests from non-Hylian peoples against the royal family's rule that have now been invalidated by canon? No. Because anyone who challenged the Hyrulean family's right to rule was already the bad guy. Skyward Sword did not introduce the unquestionable divine right of kings to the series; it merely agreed with it. That warrants criticism, but blaming it for 'ruining the lore' is strange when all it does is fall in line with the previous games and their framing.

I can't argue against the critiques regarding Demise as much, since they mostly center around what it does to Ganondorf's character, and the only game I've played with him as of yet is Ocarina of Time. Until I've played Wind Waker, which apparently does a lot to deepen him as a character, I'm not comfortable making statements on his character (that don't strictly pertain to Ocarina of Time). I will say, however: Demise is not out of character for the series' treatment of evil either. The vast majority of villains in the series I've encountered so far are evil for the sake of being evil. The flat good/evil dichotomy that Hylia and Demise represent changes nothing about the rest of the games I've played, because that dichotomy was already part of the fabric of the universe. Whether or not there is an Evil God causing it materially changes nothing about the series.

Also, I've seen people blaming Skyward Sword's introduction of Hylia for Breath of the Wild's Fantasy Christianity and monotheism, which is just blatantly unfair. Breath of the Wild very obviously wanted to create a world even more in line with typical Western-style fantasy than Hyrule already was in previous games. That's why they added Monotheistic Fantasy Christianity and did away with (or at least ignored) the Golden Three and other gods established over the course of the series. Skyward Sword did not do that. Din/Farore/Nayru are canon and heavily implied to be far more powerful than Hylia and Demise ever were. If Hylia hadn't existed Breath of the Wild would've picked another god to be monotheistic about, or invented one. Blaming Skyward Sword for Breath of the Wild's narrative decisions is simply unfair and unfounded.

Lastly: the Zelda series does not care about what previous games in the series have canonized. Skyward Sword is actually probably the game I've seen that is most careful about not contradicting previous lore, even if it did obviously go ahead and make a bunch of stuff up. Pretty much every Zelda game I've played so far has blatantly contradicted previously established characters or lore in some way. The games use whatever canon and lore they want to use, and discard the rest. Skyward Sword hardly ruined the possibility of the series ever challenging the Hyrulean family's divine right of kings or the good/evil dichotomy, because if a Zelda game wants to do that, it can simply ignore Skyward Sword's very existence, or radically retcon its lore. The lore established in Skyward Sword is not any more binding than the lore established in the rest of the series, and it's silly to pretend otherwise. If the series ever wants to take on the daunting task of confronting the unfortunate implications baked into the very fabric of its reality, Skyward Sword's lore is hardly going to stop it. Like, TOTK completely retconned the entire game's plot pretty much, come on now.

(And if the LOZ series itself is perfectly content ignoring or retconning parts of its lore, I don't see why fans can't do so either. Skyward Sword does not stop you from forming your own interpretations.)

There are a lot of rightful criticisms to be made about Skyward Sword and the lore it established, but they're largely extensions of criticisms that apply to the series as a whole. Skyward Sword did not invent these issues, nor did it remove the possibility of confronting them. Its lore is the product of the series' unquestioned acceptance of the good/evil dichotomy and the divine right of kings, not its cause. It's a symptom, not the problem. The worst you can accuse it of is being a particularly blatant symptom.

I agree that Hylia and Demise are uninteresting additions to the series' lore, and I think it's fair to be pissed at the way they give an explicit in-universe validation to the games' framing. But ultimately, all Skyward Sword did was fall in line with logic the series has long since operated under: that Hyrule and its royal family is good and all who oppose them are evil. Singling it out as uniquely problematic does nothing except let the other games off the hook.

Skyward Sword's story operates under some very concerning logic and has some extremely unfortunate implications, and criticism for that is warranted, but saying it 'ruined the lore' is disproportionate. The lore sucked to begin with.

[genopaint]

Been in a big Axel the Alligator mood lately so I redesigned some characters the last couple days and even introduced a new villain!!

Here's some of the notes I included about them all from twitter :) it's below the readmore

To go along with the new Axel the Alligator arts I did a bit ago, I figured I should draw the No-Name Grunt again! I gave them a bit of a make over from last time

Most notably their suits are now purple to match Camilla the Chameleon's, since they are her henchmen after all!

If you don't recall, these are basically Axel's goomba. The basic bottom of the barrel enemy the main characters fight. They're all a part of Camilla's seemingly never ending gang. They all follow her every order because they're obsessed with her, but she can't even be bothered to remember their names. Thus, the No-Names. Instead, they're each given a numbered belt and she just calls them by their number.

There's TONS of No-Names, that's why there's even color variations for the grunts you encounter. But there's even different classes of No-Names.

Like bruisers, fliers, stuff like that. However, I want to redesign them a bit more cause I wasn't 100% on their old designs. SO you'll have to wait and see if I bother with them. But you get the idea, the grunt kind of represents the whole army of underlings anyway.

Oh, and of course... No-Name 10,000. The super special ultra rare No-Name encounter. When you defeat it, it drops TONS of gold and exp!

Also some really quick sketches for some of the other No-Name classes with this suit redesign. I think it's cute they're all kind of matching but now I worry maybe they're not unique enough? Before their suits were all different colors... idk... Much to think about...

It's gonna be a WHILE before I get to make an Axel the Alligator game so I'll keep thinking on it lol

And of course there's probably gonna be a lot of No-Name enemy types it all just depends on what I would want / need for each game I suppose lol.

They're like Badniks, they reuse a lot of old ones but new ones or variants could show up wherever it's needed

----

And of course, where there's No-Names, there's the No-Name generals! Similarly, Camilla doesn't care to remember their names. But they're juuuuust important enough to be allowed to command her underlings when she's off doing more important things.

Uno the Uromastyx is Camilla's original #1 super fan, and as such is the leader of the generals. He's a bit stuck up and loves to wave the fact he's #1 in the others faces.

Dos the Daboia is a bit of a loser and is ALWAYS panicking. He's constantly worried his suit is too blue.

And Tres the Tree Lizard is a chaotic girl who loves explosives. She's constantly building bombs to create chaos. Whenever the No-Names use explosives, they're probably her creations.

They're the ultimate undying loyalists to Camilla, and they all HATE Carnage and Behemoth because the trio was there first and yet Camilla makes Carnage and Behemoth her right hand men. Out ranking even the No-Name generals.

But of course, Uno, Dos, and Tres stand no chance at ever beating either of them. Even if they gang up on them.

----

Two more Axel the Alligator characters! Sol the Saurus I've shown before and has a shiny new redesign. But Ceaser the Ceratops is his brand-spanking-new rival!! Pretty neat!

These two existed from before the meteorite came... What on earth are they doing in present day???

Sol fights with a giant sword that builds energy as its swung, and Ceaser fights with a giant shield that builds energy as its hit. They used to be allies but that was a long long long time ago

Also I'm not 100% on Ceaser's design or name so don't be surprised if I touch it up

Also here's an updated height chart with the No-Names and these dinosaurs. Again it's not 100% accurate but it gives an idea (Behemoth IS taller than Dos it's just a bad pose I promise)

also a comparison with some short guys in front of the dinosaurs :)

My concept is that Axel characters don't really stop growing as they age (which I believe real reptiles do the same thing?) so since these dinosaurs are from ancient times they'd have grown a CRAZY amount in the mean time. idk

[i-love-my-dorks-and-simps]

addressing my abandoned wg comic for my wg followers:

(ty @cargoshortsenjoyer for the suggestion!)

it will likely never be completed so as a result ill be sharing the basic ideas i had planned out for it below:

it was a highschool au staring becky/wg and tobey as being in a relationship (where tobey doesnt know becky is wordgirl)

important context for this au:

after some time of their elementary shenanigans, in middle school, tobey quits being a supervillain due to his aspirations of having a normal life. he's tired of pining over someone he knows will never reciprocate, and even more so of working so hard on his inventions that go unnoticed by everyone, especially his mother. (mommy issues alert)

after tobey's disappearance from villainy, becky/wg gets concerned for his wellbeing and check up on him (as becky). after seeing hes decided to change his ways for once (given its been years since wg originally takes place) she gives him a chance at friendship from which their rivalry turns into a sweet yet playfully competitive relationship with one another by the time theyre in highschool.

au starts:

the two are roughly in junior/senior year (undecided) nearing the end of highschool by the time the au takes place as tobey sees how the stress of school has taken a toll on becky. they have a conversation about it with tobey doing his best to comfort her when she mentions how much the supervillain population in fair city has been affecting her. being a former villain himself this sparks tobeys interest and he starts to pay more attention to his surroundings.

thats when he realizes the sheer amount of villains that had come since he quit. given they only have 2.5 heroes pulling the work of a city practically run by villains, tobey notices the imbalance there is. he finds it unjust that this has to be the state becky goes through everyday. he knows how important justice is to her (she also wants to be a district attorney like her mother) and decides to take things into his own hands

he takes out his robots for the first time in years, (only bigger and better than the ones he made when he was 10 (he's had more time to hone his skills in private)) and begins to "apprehend" supervillains in town, which prompts wordgirl to swoop into his robot warehouse to see whats been going on. (where else would he store those things? his backyard?)

from here tobey tells wg all about how hes being a hero now and creating less trouble or innocent citizens out there when she tell his that this is not the world becky (herself) would have wanted at all. shes not happy to see him like this again knowing the progress hes made and she doesnt want to fight him again after all this time.

events after the existing two parts i posted:

from there on tobey enlists the help of other 'retired' supervillains to achieve his goal of making fair city a better place (for becky). the story continues on as becky/wg urge him to stop and think about what hes been doing which he stubbornly disagrees with her, putting strain on their relationship.

throughout this tobey starts to adopt a savior complex and truly thinks its his duty to cleanse the world of villainy. everyone in fair city is too dense to realize what him and becky do. the fact that just jailing the villains alone wont stop them from crime. there needs to be an end. and he's going to be the one to do it. (adding onto this, tobey will eventually start to target regular criminals without superpowers after he gets rid of the supervillains through his mandated death penalty of those with unnatural abilities. at some point he will begin to view wg as a threat despite being a hero because she stands in his view of whats just. wg tries to save as many villains as she can and tobey is on her trail. at this point its likely rose may hold a part in his investigation, wanting to get closer to the action to get a better scoop.)

the fate of this au is undecided from here on (though there would be a ton of character moments unmentioned here to keep it from getting too long. i would love to touch on how tobecky is holding up throughout this alongside other characters reacting to the scenario (ex. family, friends, villains))

[alpaca-clouds]

Why is it so hard to deconstruct Magical Girls?

As some might have noticed, I have recently been rewatching a lot of old anime from my teen days. And something I cannot help but think about while doing this is: "Why is it seemingly so hard to deconstruct the magical girl genre?" Because here is the thing: I know several attempts at genre deconstruction for this specific genre... But none of them are actually what I would count as a genre deconstruction.

Basically, deconstruction of a genre usually means that a genre is played straight. Like, you take the usual tropes of a genre and play them straight or with some sense of realism. Which we have plenty of in a variety of genre. I mean, with the rise of the superhero stuff over in the west, we have a ton of superhero deconstructions (like The Boys or Invincible), that mostly go for the most obvious issue with superheroes: "What if Superman was evil?" While also dealing with some other stuff, like how superheroes might be organized and controlled, how this would work with capitalism and so on and so forth. Now, a lot of folks are bored with "Superman, but evil", but yes, it is a very clear deconstruction.

In anime/manga we also have a ton of deconstruction going on. I mean, by now it should be fairly clear: Yeah, my original fandom obsession was Digimon Tamers, which basically deconstructs the first two seasons in many regards. And when it comes to the monster taming genre, there is also Narutaru, which is a deconstruction of the genre. And I might talk about Narutaru on another day.

There is also a ton of really great Mecha genre deconstructions - though ironically speaking, I feel like most of the Mecha genre is already deconstructing itself. When your biggest franchise (Gundam) in a genre frequently is build around the premise of: "You do realize, that this is about child soldiers, right? RIGHT?!" then maybe deconstructing the genre is not that hard.

But somehow... magical girls are different.

Like, there is a variety of shows that are kinda attempting to deconstruct the genre, but... Well, if you look on TV Tropes for the Genre Deconstruction Trope, it explicitly calls out that a Genre Deconstruction is "playing the tropes of the genre straight and more realistic", and it is explicitly not "some tropes of the genre, but darker and edgier".

And here is the thing: Most of what I know as Magical Girl Deconstructions, is actually "darker and edgier", not a straight up deconstruction of the genre. Which is not to say that they are bad! Hell no! I enjoy most of them. But they are not deconstructions.

Let me go over the three that left the biggest impact on me. Though first maybe we should define what makes Magical Girls?

I mean, the genre has changed a whole lot ever since Sailor Moon appeared on the scene. And maybe that in itself is a thing, because in some regards Sailor Moon - like Gundam - was fairly good at deconstructing itself. Never the less, I will go with the ideas that have been prevelent in the genre since Sailor Moon, even though there was magical girl media before it, that worked by different rules.

One or more girls usually between 12 and 17 years of age get a magical power to transform into super heroines.

The story usually is set in the real world.

Usually they will draw those powers over some sort of mascot character or multiple characters.

The shows usually mainly exist to promote merchandise, which is why the magical girls will usually have a ton of magic items and weaponry.

Almost always there is gonna be some fetch- or collect-quest involved for powering up those items.

The power of friendship!

Romance might or might not play a role, but it will always be secondary to the aforementioned power of friendship.

Usually the magical girls will fight "monsters of the week", that often are normal everyday things that get filled with evil magic by the villains.

The villains often are some sort of otherworldly empire, that has come to earth to either take over or collect items of some sort.

My Otome: Now, some people say that MyHiME is also a Magical Girl Deconstruction, with which I absolutely do not agree, where the fuck are my cute costumes and transformation sequences? MyHiME if anything to me reads like a monster tamer deconstruction, really. But MyOtome? MyOtome is a Magical Girl Something for sure. But... Well, it does not really deconstruct the genre, does it? This already starts with the story being set in a different world from ours, and with the girls not really being "chosen", but the setting being a school for magical girls. While some of the first half of the show does play with some of the typical tropes (monster of the week and such), the story fairly quickly goes to deep into the politics of its fictional world and the war story. While yes, technically you absolutely can argue that magical girls are in fact also child soldiers... They are not usually soldiers in a literal war, and the entire fantasy politics stuff - while I absolutely loved it - does not really feel like a real deconstruction. Instead it feels more like a fantasy war story, that you also put magical girls into. Yes, those magical girls behave a lot more like realistic teens, but that does not make it a deconstruction.

Uta~Kata: Alright, let me talk about my favorite of these, despite me being rather disturbed at some of the fanservice considering the girls are like 13. In Uta~Kata we have one girl, who gets magic powers, which is fine though, as several magical girl shows actually have just one main character. It is also set in the real world. However, this is where it ends. Because... Well, there is no fights. There is no evil. There is no weapons. There is none of the usual tropes. It is basically just deities mindfucking with this one girl to find out something, that I shall not spoil, given that nobody knows this series for some reason. But basically the only deconstruction in it is: "This is a girl with magic powers, and the girl works more like a realistic teenager would." Which... Uhm, yeah, no, does not really make it a deconstruction, does it?

Madoka Magica: Madoka is probably the one really well known Magical Girl deconstruction, but I once again will argue that it does not really qualify much as a deconstruction - because the thing that makes the entire draw of Madoka Magica is that it does not play the tropes straight or realistic, but rather subverts them completely. The entire concept of Madoka Magica is build around the idea that the girls are supposed to die/be corrupted by design, which is a twist on the usual magical girl formular, not a deconstruction. While Madoka Magica is good at playing around with the aesthetics of the genre, the show does not really play any of the tropes straight, but rather puts in completely new tropes in that place. Sure, some of those tropes (teenage girls being moody and this makes them so great for corruption) are kinda based in what the genre offers in itself - but it also does not feel like a straight up deconstruction.

Again, nothing against any of these shows. I love them dearly. I do. I just find it... interesting.

And I am honestly starting to wonder at this: Why is there not a straight up deconstruction of a Magical Girls show? And be it just as a manga or comic or something along the sort.

Sure, the shows above do deconstruct single aspects of the Magical Girl genre, but never the whole thing.

Like, thinking of deconstructions of other genre, there is like a ton of stuff I could see as a deconstruction of the magical girl genre - without actually going into fully subverting it and twisting it around. I mean, especially Uta~Kata and Madoka go more into psychological horror than actually into the deconstruction, right?

Something I would more expect to see in a genre deconstruction would be:

Magical Girls actually running into issues in regards of keeping up performance in school/clubs while also saving the world.

Magical Girls running into issues keeping their identities secret and actually facing consequences because of this.

Yeah, obviously, I also could see "Magical Girl, who gets bullied, uses her powers on the bullies" (or, depending on how harsh you wanna go with this, you could also go for more severe scenarios like: "Magical Girl who gets sexually exploited by a teacher uses her powers against teacher".)

Something in regards to: "Well, what if the power of friendship starts to break?" As well as actually kinda deconstruction the entire "friendship and love" dynamic that Magical Girl stuff does play around with a lot.

Given how prevalent sapphic subtext is within the genre, one could probably also work with that.

The entire merchandise/weapons/item thing is also so ready for deconstruction - something that could go in a variety of directions. Either with how unpractical the actual stuff is, or just how it does hinder plot.

And of course the other prime thing ready for deconstruction: You usually have a fucking alien invasion of some sort in these stories with monsters, and people getting hurt, buildings being destroyed and what not... and nobody from any government gives a shit? No, but really. I would assume that some sort of government would try to get involved here.

There is probably a million other subtropes that one could deconstruct about the genre, but that is some stuff I could think about.

Ironically it would not even need to go fully into horror for that, even though deconstructions will probably always have a slight horror-sensibility about themselves. But... you know. I think if I look at the Magical Girl deconstruction stuff at large (aka the shows that I did not name here), a lot of it is built way too much around shock factor of the violence that one gets shown. And that... is not really interesting deconstruction, right?

Sure, violence can absolutely be a part of deconstruction. And I do not think a proper deconstruction should be anything less than PG13, if not R-Rated. But... Why make it all bloody? Like the main things that one can play straight and realistic, do not need blood. It needs ore like characters being more... batshit.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

uhhh

https://www.tumblr.com/longing-for-rain/763290820131651584/im-always-confused-at-how-much-overlap-there-is?source=share

I think they are talking about you mate

Vague posting. Classic. Also, I can confirm to you guys that the overlap between liking Kataang, liking Azula, and liking Zucest is (sadly for me) basically non-existent. I've met exactly three people that like all three of these, and even then they don't like them all equally.

A ton of Kataang fans I've met either don't like Azula at all or only like her in the sense of "she's a good villain", and the overwhelming majority of the fandom as a whole (not just Kataang) dislikes Zucest, so Kataang REALLY has nothing to do with either of these - especially since, again, out of the ten zucest shippers that exist, I've only met three that actually like Kataang as well.

There is a tendency from some Azula fans to hate on Zuko - so obviously these fans HATE zucest because duh, why would they ship their fave with a character they hate? Especially when a ton of Zucest fics either have them being codependent as hell (with Azula's life basically revolving around Zuko) or super abusive to each other and getting away with it?

Zucest is a very exclusive club of "When you like both Fire Siblings AND are a kinky bitch."

I can list to you guys a TON of fics that have both Zucest and Zutara be a thing though. That was pretty common for quite some time and was how I became aware of most awful zutara tropes - one of these "overlap fics" was even a sequel to a (solely) zucest fic that was gifted to me by a former friend.

Would love to know how miss "I write Zuko being raped by Zhao then act like I get to throw stones from glass houses" would feel about beinglabelled as just the same as a Zucest shipper since there is a pattern of Zucest fics sometimes including Zutara (even if the reverse is usually not true) since she's perfectly comfortable acting like there's any overlap at all between Kataang and Zucest despite there being ZERO content overlaping these two ships.

Also, literally how the fuck does liking Zucest and/or Azula means you don't like KATARA having an identity of her own? What's next, liking Suki and Sokka together means I don't like Mai to have an identity of her own? She doesn't even go here!

[rockybloo]

As I’m doing this ask, I’m just watching Jack the Giant Slayer and making me SEVERELY wanna read Beanstalked, I’d love a passion fueled essay/reason from you why I should read it! (I’m gonna ready it anyways)

OH BOY I GET TO DROP MY LIMITERS

For starters, Beanstalked is a fantasy slice-of-life with a sprinkle of adventure and action. It does feature swearing, violence and gore as well as some body horror and existentialism. So just a heads up.

The main plot is basically that Lore, the planet that Beanstalked takes place on which exists directly parallel to Earth, has an event every 100 years where individuals are selected to become Bookmarked. This is where they are assigned roles from fables and legends from our world and gain secret weapons known as Märchen for self defense. This event has gone on practically forever under the watchful eyes of the Sun and Moon, the gods of this world.

But that all gets disrupted by an evil fairy called Nevermore who is bored of witnessing the same fairy tales happening over and over again. She has rounded up Bookmarked villains and the occasional misled protagonist to assist her and her army of ink stains as she aims to rewrite the world and rid it of happy endings.

The newest generation of Bookmarked are very unlucky as it is their turns to live out their assigned tales due to their stories all having been screwed up due to Nevermore's interference. Jack is one of these unlucky Bookmarked, who has just recently come to learn he has been assigned the same Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk. Much of Beanstalked follows hm as he learns about the magical side of the world he lives in, how to use his own Märchen, his own family history, and what exactly a "Happy Ending" is.

Beanstalked is meant to somewhat explore fairy tales and how suddenly becoming a figure in one can affect one's life-whether it be good or bad. It's also, at its center, a story about learning more about one's self and figuring out what truly makes you happy.

If you are a fan of fairy tale retellings then Beanstalked is a good pick for you. Especially if you are a fan of retellings that:

Aren't just mean spirited spins about the original tale

Aren't completely dark and gritty retellings of the source material for the sake of being edgy

Aren't just rip offs of Disney designs and characters

Or if you are petty like me, don't want to read another story about a protagonist having fallen into the land of fairy tales

Every Beanstalked character is meant to be based off either a direct character from a fable or a stock character. And for each fable, I try to bounce off the original story if there is an author (Like Pinocchio novel) or the oldest retellings as many fables don't have direct authors and simply have collectors that put their own spin on things.

So if you are worried about another fairy tale retelling story where each fable is just based off Disney's spins-DON'T WORRY BECAUSE ROCKY GOT YA' COVERED!

Beanstalked also contains a lot of found family elements, such as the entire village of Briar Patch being a community of Bookmarked who watch out for one another.

There are also cool af battle scenes due to the existence of Märchen (because Rocky grew up watching too many shounen anime and now has to put battles in everything), a ton of world building (I've had this story for nearly a decade now), a lotta characters with melanin (many being black), and a cast comprised of bi and pan characters.

ALSO ALSO...if you are a fan of pretty black girl love interests that kick ass (and may also be a monster girl with sharp teeth and claws and whole big monster form) then you will enjoy Beanstalked as Jack's love interest, Nana, is all of said above mentioned things.

SO if any of this happened to catch your attention-GO READ BEANSTALKED! As of right now I've rebooted it from the original 2010s version I had so it currently only has chapters 1 and 2. Which means you don't have a lotta catch up to do!

I have also handcuffed myself to this story which means I will be working on it till I finish it. I am on a mission. So if you want a webcomic and don't wanna worry about it suddenly being cancelled or disappearing one day-DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF CITIZEN as I am unhinged about my fairy tale babies and am in for the long haul.

[colressturtle]

Some Merpeople AU lore

I wrote some of the lore of my merpeople au in a discord server I'm in and I thought I'd share it with you all here! Some basic facts and such here.

In this au there's a ton of different kingdoms with either kings/queens/both ruling them. like for example the Aether Kingdom is ruled by Queen Lusamine or the Spark Kingdom is ruled by King Francis etc.

There's a few kingdoms you should know, each villain team/region has at least one kingdom corresponding to them for example but here's some others:

The Enigma Kingdom- King Colress/Queen Fennel The Bean Kingdom- King Faba The Platinum Kingdom- Queen Cynthia The Spark Kingdom- King Francis

There's a few others but these are the other important ones off the top of my head

Ghetsis is also still alive in this au but the members in his Plasma Kingdom differ from the Spark Kingdom, like the ocs I created that specifically follow Francis like he's a god are in the Spark Kingdom.

The Enigma Kingdom was hidden away for two years from King Colress's unusual magic that turned him into a stone statue until Faba found him and brought him back to his usual form, the reason this happened was because of a brutal attack from Francis and the Spark Kingdom and Colress used every inch of his power to seal their kingdom away and drive them out. Fennel and the rest of them are alive and thriving but of course she'd be lonely because Colress was a statue for some time guarding the entrance to the kingdom. In this AU as well they exist in the oceans surrounding the regions of the pokemon world, and humans DO know they exist but they're kind of menaces to them so they tend to leave them alone. There's fish versions of non fish pokemon as well like Beheeyem and Emolga.

A lot of canon characters also live in certain kingdoms, like for example Darach lives in the platinum kingdom and Grimsley lives in the Enigma Kingdom.

Faba broke away from the Aether Kingdom and started his own kingdom because he got tired of Lusamine's orders, funnily enough he DOES have people living in his kingdom! Generally the kings/queens are well liked by their kingdom but the way they work is a bit different, like for example once the king/queen dies if there is no spouse with them then they vote for who becomes their new ruler, it's not an heir to the throne type of thing. However, merpeople who get the title of king/queen do undergo a transformation through their own magic (yes, everyone has magic here) and gain a new appearance!

[alicesadventuresinffxiv]

Quick Thoughts on Occult Crescent Story

I was awake at patch launch and spent most of yesterday exploring the whole map, grinding silver pieces for the riding map, and as far as I can tell, completing the area story as far as it currently exists.

So, after getting some sleep, here’s my thoughts on it! Major spoilers for both Occult Crescent and for Eureka and Bozja which I compare it to.

.

Ultimately, I’m not sure how I feel about Occult Crescent. 

On the one hand, both Eureka and Bozja suffered a lot from biting off way more than they could chew with the story hooks. They promised really interesting stuff like (Eureka) rescuing Krile’s family and community and (Bozja) a whole revolution effort with tons of characters… but then they couldn’t match story to gameplay and devolved into “find/place magic macguffin here” quests before running out of steam and ending pretty anticlimactically.

OC is much more modest in scope (which is probably good!), and motivates the “go explore to find a place” aspect far more naturally - you’re here to explore, after all! So it feels like the FFXIV team finally learned to write a story that suits this type of content. I didn't even mind the lack of directions to find inter-quest objectives, since I found most just filling out the map and my FC members helped to crowdsource the rest in a heady patch day rush!

On the other hand… after spending the past few months with Bozja’s colorful cast, I actually really miss that aspect? What new characters there are in OC are pretty bare-bones so far. Ketenramm and Ofangeim are competent explorers, that’s nice.  Archive’s introduction is fun, but his amnesia is pretty stock and no points for guessing he’s either the mysterious Architect himself or has something to do with him. Iris has yet to do… anything, really. 

But none of them even leave the exploration base. And so there is just a big fat nothing going on story or character-wise during the exploration. No duels, nothing besides big monsters to fight as far as the eye can see. I haven’t done it yet, but Forked Tower:Blood is implied to be purely for challenge and even less related to the story than Baldesion Arsenal.

(The callback to Red Choctober with another evil Critical Engagement involving chocobos was very funny, though.)

Meanwhile, at this point in Bozja, you had a whole crew that helped you out in skirmishes, multiple villains with big personalities, and Misija had basically gone through a whole character arc with her betrayal!

The field notes for the OC ruins are… fine, I guess? But even they don’t say much about the civilizations. I was super excited for more Skalla lore when I found the western caves, but the note there doesn’t even say anything besides “yup, sure seems to be Skalla ruins.” Aww.

As first impressions go, I think OC story is much less likely to turn into a hot mess the way Eureka and Bozja's did, but it also isn’t nearly as ambitious or interesting in what it’s trying to do. 

At least the zones sure are very pretty and fun to hang out in! And I’m a big fan of the random overworld treasure chests and their seemingly absurd loot drop list. Music and emotes and Jet Black dye, oh my!

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

I'm aroacespec (and honestly confused about where I fall on that spectrum, but I do know I'm sex/romance favorable) and tbh my relationship with shipping is weird.

There are some ships I look at and I'm like "how can you see this as anything but romantic" and there are other ships where I'm like "okay but why do we have to ship them, can't they just be friends?" and it's almost always the total opposite of what the fandom majority's view is. For example, my Sonic "how can you see this as anything but romantic" ship is Espilver, and my "okay but why do we have to ship them, can't they just be friends?" ship is Silvaze.

I will say that something I've noticed is there tends to be a double-standard with allo people (specifically cishet people) when it comes to ships. You get a ton of "why can't they just be friends" with slash and femslash ships, but then those same people will ship a het pairing that look at each other in a single frame. I don't know if it's something that's more obvious to me because I'm gay myself (or even if it's more obvious because I'm aroacespec specifically), but it's weird to me. I choose to look at it this way: if this was a het ship with the same character dynamic, would people still say "why can't they just be friends?"

That's not to say aroace people are in the wrong for looking at a pairing and saying "can't they just be friends? Why do we have to ship them?" but with a lot of cishet people specifically, it feels like there's a lot of people perpetuating a borderline homophobic double-standard. I get it when it's something like Scott and Jay from Ninjago, but so many masc characters' dynamics are canonically given homoerotic or even just romantic undertones (a good example of this being, in my opinion, Sonadow; there's not an almost 3 and a half hour long Sonadow iceberg video on YouTube for no reason. As far as I'm aware it's the longest Sonic-related iceberg video on YouTube that covers exclusively official content) which is why people tend to gravitate towards those ships. I could do an entire analysis on why gay ships tend to have bigger followings than het ships but if I did this would get too long lmao. I will once again point to the Sonadow iceberg video though.

I generally use shipping to explore my own relationship with my aroace-ness, and usually I do that using characters I either headcanon as aroace in some way or who are canonically aroace, because I can relate to those experiences. It's kinda weird to me to see other aroace people acting like doing that is bad or wrong, because usually that's what people are doing, and even if that's not what's going on, fanfiction doesn't affect canon.

There is no right or wrong way to participate in fandom (unless you're harassing people and/or actively putting people in danger), no matter what you identify as.

Basically: People should be allowed to do what they want, if something bothers you that bad there's nothing wrong with blocking a person or tag.

(I might've gotten off subject a few times, sorry lol)

Okay, that thing about blocking tags inspired me to look through my blocked tags to see what ships I've blocked and here's my petty aroace thoughts on all of them without naming names lmao

Fanon het ship. They've never given any indication that they know of each other's existence. Her girlfriend is right there.

Canon het ship. Had the chemistry of two wet paper bags. Literally just shoehorned in there because god forbid any story exist without a romance subplot.

Semi-canon het ship. I'm mostly neutral about them. Just unnecessary.

Fanon mlm ship. Literally brothers?? I don't care that one of them is adopted, they grew up together?? As brothers??

Fanon het ship. I don't care what you call their relationship. You can call it professional, platonic, familial, just please don't call it romantic.

Semi-canon het ship. Again, completely unnecessary. God forbid a man convince a woman to become a villain without there being ~attraction~

Fanon het ship. She is 14?? And he is like 30??

Semi-semi-canon het ship. He did have a crush on her when he was, like, 14 but he's a grown adult now and she's the most lesbian-looking woman to ever exist and they're the most found family siblings to ever find a family

Fanon het ship. LET MEN AND WOMEN BE FRIENDS. LET MEN AND WOMEN BE PLATONICALLY MARRIED.

Fanon mlm ship. I personally see them more as brothers. But whatever floats your boat.

Semi-canon het ship. Just really shoehorned. I don't like the woman very much. I liked her more when she was allowed to be a badass without being a ~flirty badass~

Fanon mlm ship. Again. Adopted brothers. Gross.

Canon het ship. I've seen many things from this director. He's a creative man. He couldn't think of a way to move the plot forward without a smooch?? He couldn't create a series that didn't have an unnecessary love triangle??

Semi-canon het ship. The man isn't coming back for S2 and boy golly gee am I glad

Fanon het ship. Not my cup of tea. Just let them be friends

good lord I have a lot more ship tags blocked than I thought

anyway, this is your daily reminder to just block stuff you don't want to see and move on