#but how did you keep the initial line intact?

[i-eat-spinal-cords]

Actually how did you do that to his pants in the second!

Pencil and ink practice with the long lad

Tip jar

[palepinkgoat]

I was asked by someone in the @shamelessdvdcommentary community to share things "behind the scenes" one of my fics. I just think it's the coolest thing so I decided to participate! I hope you enjoy it. <3

Which Fanfic is your DVD commentary about?

Restoration. It's my most "popular" fic by far!

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc)

Restoration is a multi chapter fic written in (big gasp!) 2016. It's 14 chapters and took me four months to write. For me that's very fast! But back in that day I was cranking fics out faster. The story is 112,794 words.

What was the initial inspiration for your story?

Well, our air conditioner needed a tune up and we called Bowman HVAC (a real company here, as well as the name I gave the HVAC company in Restoration) and a redheaded technician showed up. The wheels started turning immediately. At the time a lot of houses were being knocked down in the neighborhood (gentrification sucks) so there was a lot of construction happening. I'm sure that helped too.

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character?

I wrote it from Ian's POV. I had only written in his POV one other time. I fell even more in love with him in the process, and exclusively wrote him for years afterward. I can connect to Ian as a bipolar person, and his bipolar features heavily in the story. It seemed like a great opportunity to explore that.

What was your favourite scene to write?

I loved writing the scene with them in the bar bathroom in chapter 3. The first time they kissed . The whole scene felt very alive to me when I wrote it. I also really loved all the scenes with Ian and Sully - they were very fun to write.

How did you come up with the title?

I heard from a neighbor that there were different ways houses could be built, and if you leave any part of the house intact (the neighbor's front porch was left and they built out from that) you can categorize it as a restoration. I liked that. I also really liked the image of rebuilding things metaphorically.

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice?

I'm not sure if this counts but I worked really hard on the construction elements and making them metaphorical to the chapters at the same time!

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this?

I don't really remember but I know that a lot of it just flew out of me. I don't remember struggling with any of it, surprisingly!

Favourite line in the story?

I'll pick the end of chapter 4, which includes a scene a lot of readers like. It's the "teaching" scene, wink wink. The last line is "He leans forward and meets Ian's mouth, opening wide and tasting him, them, this."

Did the storyline change in any way as you wrote the story?

I initially thought it would be a lot shorter, but I realized it needed breathing room and a longer timeline. I'm glad I followed that instinct.

If you are writing a particular trope or genre, was it your first time writing this?

I don't think it fits securely in a trope? I'm always a little confused about those.

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc)

I'm proud of the bipolar elements to this story, and some of the dialogue. I feel like the dialogue in this was the easiest I've ever written. It was just really nice to write.

Are there any deleted scenes that didn’t make it to the final story?

In the era when I was writing it Amanda was very much in the picture on the show, and I thought her personality would really fit to be one of Ian's "helpers." But I never really got into any scenes with featuring both Lip and Amanda being with Ian at the same time.

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line?

A lot of Ian's med stories and his notebook he keeps for processing episodes and health in general were mine, as well as most of the scenes with the doctor. The office is modeled after that doctor's office and everything. Honestly that doctor and the office were pretty terrible in real life, but I made her better than my doctor was. Now I have a fantastic doctor!

Reading back the story now, is there anything you’d change or add?

I actually did not re-read it for YEARS and re-read it in its entirety for perhaps the first time ever a year or so ago. It probably sounds really vain but I was surprised how cohesive it was and how much I liked it. I'm really proud of it and so glad people like it as much as they do. I don't think I'd change anything really.

Would you ever write a sequel to this story?

I have been asked, but I don't think I could do it! Like I literally think I couldn't write it in the same tone now that it's been so long.

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc?

As far as easter eggs from story to story, I didn't add any of those things to Restoration. I did however reference the Restoration building and street in my recent fic Paragraphs! Another thing to know about me is most of the names I chose for original characters are real names of people I know. For example the developer of the property, Kowalski, is named after one of my besties. Do these people even know I write fanfic? Not really. So it's just for my own amusement. :)

If you’ve chosen your most popular story, are you surprised by the popularity?

I'm amazed at its staying power. I can't believe people are still recommending it and re-reading it. It makes me feel so loved.

Were you nervous or excited to post this story?

Back in that day I didn't feel very nervous. After I wrote this story I felt more nervous because people loved the fic so much and I felt like it was a lot to live up to!

Did you have a beta or a friend who helped you as you wrote?

I did not! Solo act, baby. I have used a beta on Paragraphs and The Ink is a Witness to This though and I think it helps tremendously. Fun fact: it makes me more nervous to share with one person than it does to share with the world which is funny to me.

Ask your followers to pick a snippet (no more than 500 words) and share your thoughts about it.

"Ian nods. Fuck it. He slides off his bed and settles on the floor between Mickey’s legs. “You want to feel it again?” Ha! This is a big reader favorite in this story (and referenced above) and even made into art. I didn't even mean to make it hot. I thought it was just a little scene, no big deal. The response was fun. The gist is Mickey is saying he doesn't know how to give an, uh, below the belt job and Ian kind of "teaches" him by talking him through what he's doing. Thanks to @wehangout for giving me this moment to work with!

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story?

I cherish every single reader and all the comments and kudos over the years. Writing this fic completely changed my life. I'm serious. So anyone who likes it or talks about it feeds in to that beautiful change and I'm just so, so grateful. I loved writing it.

[multifunctionalnitroglycerin]

The Locked Tomb Series- Alecto Theory

Brace yourselves this is 3000 words of me connecting dots that aren't even there.

First things first, this post is an amalgam of various brilliant theories I have seen posted on Tumblr, so if anything feels familiar, that will be the main reason. I am just going to present my own take on this, and hopefully add something new to what we already have.

                The subjects of today’s conspiracy theory are Alecto and Anastasia -and Cassiopeia in part, the vow to Anastasia’s bloodline and what could very possible be, Dios Apate MAJOR.

                So let’s start with what we have from the books, and feel free to correct me or add sth I might have forgotten.

                Anastasia and Samael are the only ones of the original Lyctor batch, that didn’t complete the Lyctorhood process, thanks to - in no small part – John, and/or possibly Alecto. (“I am sorry about Samael”). Which could mean that Alecto was somehow involved in the whole process going wrong, and thus she feels responsible for Samael’s death, or that she was close enough with Anastasia and Samael, that she herself felt Samael’s loss, or she felt for Anastasia’s grief. (I like to believe that they did have a tentative friendship even before the vow thing happened.)

                Anastasia is also the only one of the Lyctors we know, so far, to have had children. Which is an important bit on its own, (Can full Lyctors, have children? If so, are they different from other children, necromantic or not? Is there a reason that in spite of biological capability- if it exists-the other Lyctors have chosen not to have children? Even with Augustine’s and Mercymorn’s plan we see that in the end Gideon is conceived with Wake’s material – John is a whole different story as far as Lyctorhood goes so he doesn’t count.)

Back to our discussion though, Anastasia’s bloodline was so important to the Ninth House that it has been preserved for 10.000 years. We do not really get a clear picture on whether the Reverend Family knows why the continuation of the bloodline is important, Harrow certainly doesn’t, but it was so deeply ingrained to them that Anastasia’s bloodline must remain intact, that they effectively committed genocide, dooming the House’s future, in order to produce one more direct descendant of the Saint that wasn’t.

We do get a hint, a rather big one, on why the preservation of Anastasia’s blood is so important, in Nona’s Epilogue. Alecto states that Harrow is “the blood of the tombkeeper” after kissing her and drawing blood. What did she taste on Harrow’s blood I wonder? And how did she recognize the taste, as the taste of Anastasia’s line? Did the vow she initially made to Anastasia herself involve them drawing blood? Did it bind them to one another, so deeply that they ingrained themselves into each other on a molecular level?

To add to this, young Harrow, young desolate Harrow, who had had enough with her life and was prepared to die, young Harrow who opened the Tomb for that express purpose, loves Alecto from sight. And decides to keep living for her. And there is something exceedingly weird to just how much Harrow loves Alecto. Alecto is probably the most attractive person Harow lay her eyes upon to that day, true, but this instant infatuation, and its persistence throughout the years has something more to it, don’t you think? As Gideon points out, both to herself and to Ianthe, Harrow’s heart belongs to the dead cold body in the Tomb. And said cold dead body in the Tomb, recognizes Harrow from sight when she wakes “Alecto recalled her, for it was a face once dreamed in Alecto’s dream.”

And this line begs the question. Could Alecto dream, in the tomb? If so, how? And what did she dream of? Did she dream of Harrow? Why did she dream of Harrow if that is the case? Or did she dream of Anastasia, and the resemblance is that great? On the other hand, if this refers to Harrow first opening the Tomb, and looking at Alecto, does that mean that she was in some form conscious throughout that stasis? Does this mean that she could have heard and felt Anastasia while they were both locked in the Tomb, for however long the other woman lived?

(The scene where Nona describes the feeling of Anastasia's hands in the water and feeling safe. I am going to cry.)

I do have an interesting theory about Alecto’s “dreams” but we’ll get there in a bit.

Something else that is fishy, is that the Ninth, is the House of the Sewn Tongue. It sounds a bit like too much flesh magic for a bone magic house to specialize in, right? The cure to the Sewn Tongue on the other hand? Removing the mandible and all that? That sounds like a Bone Magic solution to a flesh magic problem. And I wonder if the fact that the Ninth House’s emblem is the Jawless skull, insinuates that the Ninth is not so much a house where many secrets are kept – though this is undoubtedly true, as the Ninth is known as the House of secrets by the other houses – as much that in the Ninth, all secrets are revealed. Where the sewn tongue is healed, and the truth comes to light. And I’d like to point out that it sounds a bit like foreshadowing, and a promise. Anastasia has been betrayed by John and sworn to secrecy, and then locked in the Tomb to die and take his secrets with her. I feel like the jawless skull acts as a constant reminder, that even with the sewn tongue, all curses can be broken, and all secrets will eventually come to light. And it feels like a promise to John, that her House, the house of secrets and unspoken truths, will be the one to rid of the sewn tongue and bring the truth he so fears forward. And this aligns a tad too well with the Sixth’s mantra, Six for the truth, over solace in lies.

And you know what else fits here, in this concordance of the Sixth and Ninth Houses? Cassiopeia and Anastasia’s friendship. Their alliance if you will. We know they both worked closely together trying to figure out the perfect Lyctorhood process, and it is possible that Anastasia made her attempt a bit before Cassiopeia. The exact same attempt, that performed in perfect conditions ended in failure, with John ultimately killing Samael.

 We also know that Cassiopeia left contingency plans in place, should the emperor become a hindrance to the empire. And from what we have seen of Cassiopeia in the books, it is safe to assume that she is driven, determined, exceedingly intelligent, perceptive, logical, and excellent at planning. She is also the one to point out John’s less than favorable qualities pre-Resurrection such as his interest in taking vengeance on those that wronged him being bigger in his interest to save lives.

So, we have, Cassiopeia and her logic driven, truth seeking brilliance, and Anastasia, the thorough, overly methodical researcher. We have them both working on perfect Lyctorhood, and we have them both, in one way or another, being betrayed by John. Chances are, that they were the first post Resurrection to notice John’s flaws, the first to concoct a plan against him. But contrary to Cytherea, Mercy and Augustine, they are more subtle than those cannonball attempts. No, I believe they planned. And they planned long term, and together. Cassiopeia left her House a note, left them instructions, she was preparing them for when John would become a liability. And then an aforementioned amount of time later, Anastasia is asked to design the tomb.

We do not really know anything about Alecto’s relationships with the other lyctors apart from the fact that most found her revolting, a “monster” in Mercy’s words. So here is a thought, perhaps Anastasia, the one of the original Eight to never ascend, perhaps the one whose failure Alecto was involved in – “I am sorry about Samael” – finds kinship in John’s unnerving pet, his undead “cavalier”, the one he betrayed first, the soul of earth. Perhaps they even became friends. Perhaps she and Cassiopeia realize the extend of what John has done and realize that Alecto is the key to undoing it. When John refuses to kill Alecto to appease the others, the plan fully forms.

So, they construct the tomb. And Cassiopeia is well-known for building mechanisms within houses, so maybe her and Anastasia create secret passages, and mechanisms with extra access to the tomb that would be independent of John sneaking in, or whatever he planned to do with that blood-ward.  And hear me out, we know that Cassiopeia stayed 7 minutes in the river before being torn apart by the resurrection beast – at Mercymorn’s account at least, not sure how reliable of a narrator she is. But what happened during those seven minutes? Paul says he thinks he knows how to get to the Locked Tomb via the River. So, the river and the Tomb are connected. What did Cassiopeia do, I wonder? (Here I’d like to say that my other theory is that she did eventually die, or rather was consumed by Varun the eater, much like Judith Deuteros was. The RB burned through her in what, a couple months? How long would a Lyctor last? Perhaps that was the reason that Varun didn’t resurface until 100 years after Cassiopeia’s presumed death. She could have been alive and slowly wasting away, while still making failsafe within failsafe until she lost her sense of self and eventually wasted away)

To recap until now, the first part of my theory is that Anastasia and Cassiopeia dissatisfied with the world John had made and the truth he had served them, probably worked together to find the truth. And they worked together from the shadows, to create a plan, a long-term plan, with which they could bring John down if the need ever arose, and undo what he had done. And Anastasia’s bloodline and their secrets are really bloody important to that plan. (Also, some nice symbolism about the Ninth being about secrets revealed, rather than secrets kept, and that functioning as a bit of foreshadowing.)

Now into the second part of my theory. Anastasia’s bloodline is so important because she has bound her bloodline to Alecto. And I think this happened in the premise of the Vow Alecto has made to her, or they have made to each other. This might be part of the initial vow, of which we know nothing about, apart from the fact that Alecto pledged herself to Anastasia, and that it is important enough that she pledges herself to Harrow, or a failsafe within it. A failsafe to ensure that should Alecto wake after Anastasia has passed, she will not be fooled by any imposters, or anything else John might have planned. Or perhaps, a failsafe to ensure that even if John changes his mind and finds a way to rid of the body within the tomb, to “kill” Alecto, she will not be completely gone, she will keep existing within Anastasia’s line, thus ensuring that the plan for John’s demise can still be enacted and that the soul of the earth will not be dead.

That plays really hard in the Alecto is within Harrow from the beginning theory. And I will explain. I believe I saw something that looked like this in Twitter by lesbian_mothman, but I do not really remember so I apologize if all this has been said before.

In all the dream chapters with John, we relive memories from just before and after the resurrection, and John talks to Harrow as if she is Alecto “You always say that Harrowhark” as a response to “I still love you.” Or when Varun recognizes the Earth’s soul “green thing” within Nona in the car chase scene, or when Judith regaining consciousness asks “Harrowhark?” and Nona replies, “No, and I never was.” So that begs the question of how much of Harrow is Harrow, how much is Alecto and how much are the 200 souls within her? (And there was a crowd of dead children there. They were striving loudly against living children on the far-off shore of the tomb. CHILLS)

In Nona we learn that Palamedes and Camila on the one hand and Pyrrha on the other have two different theories about who Nona is. The Sixth believe that she is an amalgam of Gideon and Harrow, and Pyrrha believes she is Alecto, golden eyes and all. And I am more inclined to believe that it is indeed Alecto, or at least a part of her, that resides within Harrow, and took the wheel when both Harrow and Gideon were gone. Think abt it. Gideon is back in her body, and we have no idea what the hell happened to Harrow, only that she doesn’t have the wheel, and Nona acts nothing like Harrow or Gideon did. It’s like she is learning how to be human for the first time. She learns how to love and be loved for the first time. So with no soul to govern the body, the part of Alecto within Harrow takes the wheel.  

And then there is the candle metaphor in NtN. Alecto’s soul is the candle passed from one necromantic heir of the Ninth to the other.

So long story short, part of the vow, if not all of it, is that part of Alecto will always live within Anastasia’s descendants, so long as they are necromancers. And here comes the part of Alecto’s dreams. Because if indeed she lives within the souls of Anastasia’s necromantic descendants, does she see through their eyes? Does she feel through their hearts? Does she dream of their lives, while locked in the Tomb, while a part of her lives in them? Is she conscious within them? Or does the whole thing act like a cavalier- lyctor sort of connection, where she cannot take the wheel unless the other soul in the body Is gone?

 Part of her soul is bound to Anastasia’s line, and they are bound to her, and over the course of 10.000 years do they spill over? Alecto to Anastasia’s descendants and they to Alecto.  Was this part of the plan to have a failsafe within Anastasia’s line in case something happened to the body in the Tomb? Was it a promise Anastasia made to Alecto, to give her a chance to live, to be human, through the lives of her own descendants?

All in all, I guess I could some it up in a few concise points.

Cassiopeia and Anastasia worked closely together, they were friends and allies and saw in John, the unfulfilled promises he made, and all the faults he tried to cover with rewriting his own version of history.

They decide to make a plan, a long term one, a detailed one, for when John is more a liability than it is worth. And thus, Cassiopeia creates the mechanisms in the Sixth and leaves the protocols for the rest to find. Truth over solace in lies.

Meanwhile Anastasia attempts to ascend, and John kills Samael. Alecto might be consciously or unconsciously involved and harbors guilt over Samael’s death.

Anastasia probably befriends Alecto or finds kinship with this strange being that is the soul of a planet that no longer is.

The planning continues and John after being asked to kill Alecto decides to lock her in the Tomb instead and has Anastasia design it. He later asks her to stay in the tomb and guard Alecto. (Antigone style)

Anastasia designs the tomb, probably with Cassiopeia’s help, probably with a few hidden mechanisms of its own and or a secret pathway through the river, an extra way out.

At some point, Anastasia sires a line, and she makes her vow with Alecto.

The vow probably is in regards of bounding Alecto to Anastasia’s line so long as there are necromantic heirs. A part of Alecto is constantly alive within each descendant of Anastasia’s.

It might work a bit like the lyctoral process, because Alecto only takes the wheel when there is no Harrow and no Gideon in Nona’s body, aka when there doesn’t seem to be another soul guiding it.

Alecto dreams. Whether she dreams of herself within the tomb and that’s how she recognizes Harrow on sight – from the memory of Harrow first unlocking the Tomb – or her dreams are glimpses of the lives Anastasia’s descendants lead I don’t know.

Alecto is thus bound to Anastasia’s line by blood. She recognizes Harrow by her blood, tasting either Anastasia, or the part of herself residing within it, when she kisses her. It also ensures that the line is intact the vow is intact and it’s not a pretender trying to fool her.

Anastasia and Cassiopeia planned to bring John down by opening the tomb when the time was right and leaving her to Alecto’s (and the RB’S???) mercy. There is still a lot left to be explored.

The tomb is to remain closed until the time has come God has to die. We can all see how that can be misinterpreted to > if the tomb opens God will die. And instead of a promise to be fulfilled it becomes a terrible terrible thing, that will spell everyone’s doom.

The freaking skull of the ninth is a threat, a foreshadow and a promise. The Ninth was a house that should have died with Anastasia in the tomb. But it didn’t. It continued existing its bloodline unbroken for 10.000 years. Nine for the tomb and all that was lost. The Ninth is predominantly I feel a house of mourning – the whole nuns, all black, and skull makeup thing. But it is also a house of secrets. It is a house represented by the cure to even the tightest secret held. So the Ninth, the house that should never have been the house that should have died with its secrets in the tomb of its inception, is the one that will break the sewn tongue, and reveal all the secrets, bringing the truth to light.

[nono-bunny]

Here's something to consider: Do you think Bryke were kicked out of Netflix's LA ATLA because they were toxic during the whole set? I saw an article on Instagram saying they were fired because they were unproductive, hard to deal with, and were rude most of the time. I sincerely BELIEVE that this is what happened to cause them to leave, because of how you heard all of Mike's jerk ramblings on things (Zutara) and how he and Bryan were praised for the show. I'm thinking Bryke couldn't handle the criticism and Netflix wanted something different to the story but still wanted to keep the story of Avatar intact. Which makes you think...what could make Bryke so adamant about not wanting to change anything? Was it scenes, moments...relationships? Ever since the trailer came out, everything looks fantastic. So WHAT could be so different that made Bryke act like the way they did?

Something to think about. ;)

Thank you for the ask, some interesting points here!

So first of all, I haven't really been active on Instagram since they killed the chronological feed a couple of years ago, so I obviously have no clue what the article you're talking about is and how true it is, but. Yeah, I'd believe that lol, wouldn't be in any way out of character for what I've heard of them and for the rep they've built up over the years

As much as the guests on the podcast are constantly talking about how good at managing the show they were, you also get a very real sense of how rigid they actually are in terms of listening to other people's ideas when they go against their initial ones, even if they would make the show better. Something that really stood out to me is how many times other people are credited for all of the best parts of the show- Zuko's arc being great had nothing to do with them, Iroh's personality was different from what they initially wanted, Toph being a blind girl rather than a huge dudebro (I don't remember if he was also blind or not but like. Regardless they weren't the ones to come up with the Toph we know and love at all)... All of these are things that they've basically admitted to be changes proposed by other people, which they initially resisted. Like!!! They legitimately cannot take the credit for the show's best parts, because they're shit writers- but they have a massive ego because they've been constantly getting praise for shit they didn't do for years. Genuinely they sound like nightmares to work with!!! The cavalier way they dismiss people all the fucking time whenever they disagree with them is just. Really weird for show creators imo, and the way they keep milking the franchise even though they've long since run out of any good ideas- or, really, the ability to execute them in a way that works... Those two fuckers barely worked on anything else worth remembering/noting, so they just keep coming back to the thing that worked once and wondering why they can't get it to work again- and the answer is that they were never the reason why it worked, and they refuse to accept that

As much as I love the original show, it's also incredibly flawed and imo needed many many changes to be deserving of the perfect image it seems to have, and like? I'm genuinely hoping that the changes Netflix make are along those lines rather than like... Sensationalizing it with gratuitous violence or whatever. Zutara would be great, obviously, but... Yeah mostly I just don't want Kataang, and like. I'm being 100% serious when I say that I'm gonna wait for other people to watch the show first so I know if it happens or not, because if it does- I'm just not gonna bother with it.

[n0maku]

Some details from the Undertale Legends of Localization book

271 pages! If the localization of Undertale into Japanese interests you, I suggest getting the book off of Fangamer yourself. Anyhow, here's some details I noted from my reading:

-"mt.ebott is "toby" backwards, inspired by mt. itoi from MOTHER" (translation note from Toby to 8-4). This detail is also mentioned at another point in the book.

-An image of the debug tool that 8-4 developed to quickly jump to points in the game has "No Mercy" as a tab...(?) selector...(?). I don't quite recall what other names have been used for the route 'officially', so found it interesting enough to note. It is also referred to as such a few other times in the book.

-The name they used for the fallen human (shown in their debug tool menu image) is "Rose".

-Toby instructed the translators to keep ICE-E somewhere, even if to keep it funny the wordsearch got changed to something else.

-It has been known by people already, but the book notes how each item has three names! One standard name, one abbreviated for battle menus, and one abbreviated for battle menus during serious scenes. I think I recall some post calling it "Serious Mode"...? For example, the Butterscotch Pie goes in the battle menu from "ButtsPie", to "Pie" in the Toriel fight from "Serious Mode" . (Though, it says they cut the abbreviating for the Japanese translation as there were less space needed for the item names. I guess that means the japanese version didn't get any 'silly' item name variations...?)

Now, this gets pretty long, so I'll just put a readmore here...

-The translation of the Wrong Number Song comes up in the book, and it actually references that the main fan theory for who the "G" is is Gaster! BUT it reveals nothing about it basically. Toby remained mysterious about the "G..." person referenced in the call, with his note on it being "Character's name beginning with "G"... Actually, it might be suitably bizarre if you leave this line completely intact in English." Disappointing, but admittedly expected that this book wouldn't give any more details about it.

Apparently initially the localization team also thought it was meant to be "Gaster" and put a "Ga--" in an early draft, but it got overruled by Toby's decision to keep the call in English.

-A section emphasizes how while Monster Kid's dialogue uses ore, a more masculine pronoun, ". . .Toby designed the character to have no clear gender," and "Monster Kid's gender is never specified in the original script." I personally found it nice how the section asserted Monster Kid's gender neutrality and emphasized the pronoun choices being more purely used to reflect character, and chosen after consultation with Toby. -Onionsan's unclear gender led to the translators choosing for them to use watashi (which the section describes as a "polite, somewhat gender-neutral" pronoun), or simply "Onionsan" (which works to emphasize their childish vibes). -There is nothing about Frisk/their name is never mentioned. A section on Parsnik only notes that Hard Mode is accessed when you "give yourself a certain human's name." -Apparently Toby says Alphys is pronounced "al-feez"

-It is noted that Toby did not mean to reference the "it's over 9000!" meme with the dialogue "OH YES! MTT-BRAND OVENS CAN REACH TEMPERATURES UP TO NINE-THOUSAND DEGREES!" -For the (slightly inaccurate) Kitchen quote CHECK text (two lovers standing over the cauldron of hell...), Toby asked the translators to just translate it directly instead of grabbing the exact lines from the Japanese version of Kitchen. The section emphasizes how Toby was so unattached to it being a reference that he specifically requested the translators to not bother with it.

-There is a section on Entry Number 17 (the wingdings one, not the unused alphys one)! However, it is not referred to as such, merely vaguely talking about it- how most people never see some of the lines in Undertale, and the process of translating the wingdings. (They wrote out the Japanese translation with English spelling, keeping the same wingdings font.)

The image examples they use are images of the wingdings "THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING" and it translating to wingdings "YAMIHA NOUDO WA MASHITE YUKU". Funnily enough, the section notes ". . .it almost feels like these messages contain dark secrets. . ." and ". . .the localization team wanted to preserve the 'dark, mysterious, and unreadable' vibe in Japanese too." "Dark" twice... ha ha, these writers, I swear...

Sadly, no mention of Gaster or any other insight on the entry. An example sentence they use for Wingdings is "I EAT BUGS EVERY DAY," so uhhh maybe that's a clue that he's a bug eater? (I'm joking...) -"Asriel Dreemurr" being an anagram of "Serial Murderer" is confirmed to be intentional by Toby. -Toby notes how the "But it refused" line has two meanings: One, that it can mean "refused to die," secondly, that it can mean "'re-fused', referring to how the heart fragments fuse back together again." It's another thing that's been noted by some people, but a neat detail regardless!

Alright, that's what I've got...! There's a lot of other stuff, like how dialogue that was referencing other games was handled, (which is a LOT), but these notes are what I found the most personally interesting and relevant to Undertale.

[puffymucher]

I might have made a hazbin OC.. how did you figure out a story I'm struggling 😭

OH. GOD FINALLY AN EXCUSE TO POST HAZELS STORY

so, first- how did i come up with it? i tried to think about what i wanted for an oc- i wanted a hell hound, i wanted an "old fashion" butch inspired a lot by our narrator in the book "stone butch blues" (AMAZING read) and i wanted a country gal

so, how did i put that into my story? let's read the basic blurb of what i have first

----

Hazel was born into the gluttony ring, like a good amount of hellhounds are, but she wasn't exactly from the.. Best family. You always had to fight for your part, and if you were rude or out of line about it, you got snapped at to get in place or *starve.* Her family is mostly consistent of her and her handful of siblings (shes the first born in the litter, followed by Bolt [@mirconreadzztuff22 's oc!] and you can feel free to add on siblings if you'd like!! always ask me though LMAO), her parents, and her grandfather.

Her grandfather was actually the one who, when she was about to leave the family for work in Pentagon City, helped her dress up to look snazy. He would also comfort Hazel during the harder parts of her family moments, and even if he was the one who instilled some of the "manners" talk, he didn't feel exactly right about watching his grandpups starve, and he'd often sneak into the pup's room at night with small snacks to feed the ones who weren't fed

Once Hazel made it for the city, it was rough at first. Being a hound, she was treated like absolute DIRT, and constantly had to either fight or kill for her own survival (or, job) and a few years later in the city, that's when she saw applications for Vox Tech's Guard Initiative.

(I CANNOT DIVE MORE INTO IT WITHOUT SPOILING THE "Just A Simple Job" BUT a basic thing to note, most art of hazel herself is nearing half a decade she's worked for velvette! (if you're curious, Hazel in current time is just entering her 30's, she got the job with velvette around her mid 20's :^>)

Hazel was soon promoted up to Velvette's personal guard after that, and it was so significant that Hazel was constantly called and chided as her "lap dog" or "pet" by others, but never infront her or the overlord- It wasn't a good idea if you wanted to keep intact.

-------

the whole gyst of what i want her to be is in her roots and ties to hell itself n all that- shes a guard because hounds are expendable, and its setting up something that can be touched on in my scenes with her and velvette as i touch into their first day together you'll get to understand how exactly they got together

basic gyst of this shit though is have fun with it! who fucking cares if it makes sense why they kiss whoever!!!!! just have fun!

[triptychofvoids]

Soooo what did ya do with the mercs orginal hearts? after you switched them to Über compatible hearts, that is. Do you like have them in jars somewhere, or on display? Also do you have engi's cut off arm somewhere too??

(Idk if your familiar with magnus archives, but theres mention of a shed with the walls lined with shelves of beating hearts in jars. And medic feels like he'd have someting like that. With also other organs and "souvenirs".)

i think you will be interested to hear that i actually did not have to switch all of their hearts out! a few of them were actually über compatible, especially once i actually managed to refine the implants a bit more!! heavy, obviously, was not one of them, which i found very surprising considering how sturdy his body tends to be with most other experiments. thats why he makes such a good guinea pig for initial trial runs! ah,, but not in this case heh.

to actually get to your question, yes i do keep anything i take from a teammate! sometimes this is so that i will have a spare, sometimes i will give it back after im done with it, and i do occasionally keep things for display but not for each and every little thing. im sad to say that i do not have any of their hearts, or at least not intact, because like i said a few of them got to keep their original (and now improved!) hearts, and the remains of an exploded heart are not much use to me unless i can salvage a majority of it. but not all is lost! i have plenty of other things from them! and finally, i do have dells hand! its preserved in a jar on a shelf above my desk!

[wild-karrde]

Congrats on 800 🥳 !!!!

For a quote-ficlet request, Commander Cody and Ahsoka Tano (underappreciated duo imo)! “What did Skywalker do now?”

THANK YOU SO MUCH and THANK YOU very much for the ask! I completely agree that they are an underappreciated duo! I hope you dig what I came up with!

Rating: T

Warnings: language, extremely fluffy sibling dynamics

Word Count: 1.6k words

“Ah good. Anakin’s returned.” 

Cody glanced up just in time to see the 501st’s gunship landing in the hangar of their Venator. The doors hissed open, and he felt himself already doing the mental tally in his mind, checking off brothers as they stepped out one by one. Their numbers still appeared to be mostly intact, and Cody felt himself relax slightly, especially when he caught a glimpse of a pair of painted blue Jaig eyes emerging from inside the ship.

“I’m curious how his mission went,” General Kenobi remarked. “Hopefully, he and Ahsoka were able to hold the line on the eastern front. That will make recapturing the capital city much easier.” 

Cody had a sneaking suspicion that things hadn’t gone quite according to plan. They rarely did when his general’s former padawan was left unsupervised. The first glimpse he caught of Skywalker’s new padawan only seemed to confirm that suspicion. He could already see something was off in the way the young Togruta’s shoulders slumped as she strode off of the gunship. Her eyes were glassy, and her teeth were digging firmly into her bottom lip. She was clearly trying to keep her head up and put on a brave front, but something had battered her, and judging by the fact that she had no visible injuries, Cody suspected it was her master. His mouth turned downward in annoyance.

What did Skywalker do now? 

It wasn’t that he thought Skywalker was necessarily cruel for the sake of being cruel; he just hadn’t wanted a padawan, a fact that he had made abundantly clear to that padawan despite her not being at fault in any of this. She was a child, one that had been placed on a transport and sent into a warzone. And Anakin had yet to accept that fact and adapt to it, something Cody couldn’t understand. 

We always took care of the cadets. Always protected them when we could. Always looked forward to mentoring them so that they would be able to stay safe. Why won’t he do the same for her?

Rex had told him what Skywalker had been subjecting his padawan to for training, and quite frankly, it enraged him. While Cody was as stringent about preparing his men and their counterparts for battle as anyone, he vehemently disagreed with Skywalker’s methods for a multitude of reasons. 

Firing on a teenager, even with stun bolts? Unacceptable. 

Rex had confessed how much he hated it after a few rounds at 79s, and while he had to support his general in front of his men and toe the line, watching the young Togruta’s confidence slowly slip away under her reluctant master’s constant berating was beginning to wear on him as well. Cody had teased his brother relentlessly about how quickly he’d become protective of Ahsoka, joking that she might as well share their face and have been born from a tube. 

But in spite of all of his teasing, he understood it. He couldn’t deny he felt a certain level of protectiveness over her as well, as did Kenobi. When he’d found out that his general had initially thought she was assigned as his padawan, Cody had allowed himself to think about how things might have been different, how she’d have been leading with him rather than Rex. He’d liked the thought of having her around, but he also knew Ahsoka had had a positive impact on Rex, and that the two of them working together had maybe tempered some of his brother’s recklessness. 

Kenobi would have been the better choice, of that he was certain. His general was empathetic to a fault at times, normally very cognizant of the feelings of the people around him. However, at the moment, it seemed that his general was completely focused on his former padawan, oblivious to the mood of the young Togruta as he strode by her, absently resting a hand on her shoulder in greeting as he passed. Cody could see the touch brought her little comfort as Kenobi continued past, not even sparing her a second glance as he greeted Skywalker. Anakin was obviously in a foul mood, his brows knitted together in his trademark scowl. Ahsoka turned and looked over her shoulder at master one more time as he exited the gunship, clearly hoping for some sort of reprieve, but Skywalker pointedly ignored her, meeting Kenobi and walking off with him in the opposite direction with Rex in tow. The captain of the 501st removed his helmet as he fell into step behind them, his gaze lingering on Ahsoka as she slumped off before he turned and met Cody’s eyes with a pleading look. The unspoken ask was clear. 

Keep an eye on her. 

Cody gave him a short nod, and Rex responded with a grateful grimace before he disappeared out of the hangar with their commanding officers. 

Ahsoka had made her way over to one of the large windows on the hangar deck and was hugging herself tightly, staring out at the starfield before her. Cody ran his hand through his short-cropped, regulation haircut before sighing to himself and striding over. She didn’t turn to look at him when he stopped next to her, her eyes only briefly flicking over to where he stood before returning to the empty space ahead of them. 

They’d had a few interactions, all of which were brief and simple, but this time, Cody wasn’t quite certain where to start. He didn’t want to drag Skywalker through the mud in front of her. As far as he understood Jedi tradition, she was permanently bound to her master, and they had to figure each other out. Driving an even larger wedge in between them wouldn’t help things, and it would only make Rex and his brothers less safe if their two Jedi leaders were at odds. But she wouldn’t want to be coddled either, that much he’d gathered from her personality. She was a good kid, as stubborn as her master, but above all, determined to prove that she was competent, that she could do this, that she would do this. It just might take more time than she had patience for. 

Cody wet his lips. “Would you like to talk about it?” 

Ahsoka shrugged, but he could see her eyes were still glossy. “Same as always," she muttered. "I disappointed Master Skywalker again. Did something wrong, and apparently, I somehow should have known better.” She sniffed. “I know he didn’t want me, and I’m trying so hard to be a good padawan and a good leader, but I don’t have it all figured out yet, and I feel like I can’t learn it all fast enough. Like I’ll never be good enough.” 

Cody nodded, thinking for a moment before taking a deep breath and wading in. “You know, no matter how many times I come up here, I never get used to the number of stars I can see from this deck. More than I can from any planet’s surface.” 

The padawan was quiet for a moment before dipping her chin in agreement, not questioning his abrupt change of topic. “They’re really pretty.”

“That they are. But you know, it’s always funny to me how they all look the same from here,” he noted. Ahsoka turned to him, raising one eyebrow in curiosity, clearly wondering where he was going with this. Cody pressed forward. “They’re all different when you’re up close. Some are burning hot and blue, while others are cooler and red. Some are massive and others are smaller. A few are part of a binary system with two stars, some have even more than that, relying on one another to keep things in balance, but you can’t see them separately from here. Some are at the beginning of their life, others moments from going supernova or burning out. All so different, but from here, they all look the same.” 

Ahsoka rocked on her heels. “I suppose that’s true.” 

Cody flexed his fingers, glancing over down at her to see if his hastily cobbled-together metaphor was landing. She was clearly mulling it over, but he decided to maybe be a bit more clear rather than letting her meander towards his meaning. There were enough riddles and metaphors in her Jedi training.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned down and nudged her with his shoulder, knocking her slightly off balance. “What I’m trying to say is it’s easy to think we’ve all got our shit together at a distance. Jedi, clones, even other padawans. But everyone is on their own path. Sometimes we are burning brightly, sometimes we're close to burning out, and sometimes we’re relying on the ones around us to hold us up, and all of that is part of life. Doesn’t make you any less or the general any more. Just means you’re doing it differently, and from what I know of General Skywalker, different comes with the territory. You’re doing alright, Commander. You’re finding your way, just like the rest of us, and no one can rush that. Not even The Chosen One.” 

A smirk tugged at the corner of Ahsoka’s lips as she recovered her balance and shrugged. “You mean to tell me you and Master Kenobi don’t always have things figured out?” 

Cody chuckled quietly. “If we did, do you think I’d have a clip on my belt specifically for when I recover his lightsaber?” 

Ahsoka giggled, and Cody warmed. “Don’t tell him I said that though," he whispered.

The young Togruta grinned. “I won’t.” She leaned against the clone commander slightly. “Thanks, Cody.” 

The gesture took him aback slightly, but he reached down and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Of course, kid.” 

Thanks for participating in my 800 Follower Celebration!

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[mllemaenad]

I think I need a break from Fallout 76. I swore I was going to get through it, and Tessa and I have been making good progress. My biggest complaint up until now is that they won't let you have Sofia and Beckett active at camp at the same time. I'm sure this is a resourcing issue, but Fallout 76 is such a lonely game. I get that you're supposed to play with friends, but unless you have a dedicated role playing group (and while I am sure such things exist, I do not get the impression that they are the majority) that's companionship for the player, not the character. I think Tessa, who did a lot of her growing up in a vault, would love a tiny community of her own.

But I have just slogged through Steel Dawn, trying to justify to myself why Tessa, who loves books and writes poetry and runs down the road to help out Lane and his Responders with food runs or package deliveries every day, would even be there. That's immediately followed by Steel Reign and ... I just can't. Not right now. There is no option to tell the Brotherhood to go the fuck back to California and leave us alone.

The entire first part of the quest line was "these idiots mislaid a bunch of dangerous weapons and are now complaining about other people in the region having the dangerous weapons". You know who I don't think is qualified to have dangerous weapons? The Brotherhood of Steel.

While I appreciate that "dangerous super mutant attacks", which seem to be part two and presumably have something to do with the dodgy scientist guy who showed up earlier, constitute a serious problem ... I am struggling to believe that Tessa would work with them on it. They would also kill Grahm! And Gail! Those are her friends. There are so many other people who could help deal with this, but that's not how the story goes.

So I'm going to give Fallout: London a try. It seems to be the hot new thing at the moment, and I am curious. Mods can be something of a mixed bag, and I'm hesitant to be very critical even when I don't like them, because the labour involved in some of these things ... I can just about do some simple patching in xEdit. So, you know, not really my place to criticise. But I've been trying to mod Bethesda games since Morrowind, and the worst you can say is "Why the hell did I install this? Was I drunk?" and scour it from your game.

But I have (so far) enjoyed Sim Settlements 2 and Tales from the Commonwealth. I did not take to Depravity and Outcasts and Remnants, for several reasons although the ... thing ... with Preston was the last straw (Except that they allowed you to pause your search after going through Kellogg's flat. I do not want to install that mod again ... but I sometimes think ... just for that one feature ... Emily could have a bath and a nap before tearing off again.).

Thank heavens for Mod Organiser 2. I can swap this thing in and leave Emily's load order intact.

I have named my girl Hannah, and since the premise is that you wake up in a lab with no memory of who you are or how you got there, I am going to learn about her as I go.

Initial impressions:

Wait. Is that Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy performing unethical experiments? That's ... something. Tortured by no less than two Doctor Whos.

Radshrews are terrifying. Little mice creatures should not be this hard to deal with. Admittedly with Hannah's fists since the game seems to be allergic to starter weapons.

This is not quite fair, as some guy kindly handed her a pocket knife once she crawled out of the train crash. But we are now fighting raiders with a pocket knife, and it is only slightly easier to deal with.

While Churchill is adorable, and we are keeping him, I do question his previous human's judgement. Hannah is a lost amnesiac wearing the rags she picked off the last raider she killed and wielding a pocket knife she does not know how to use. What on earth made him think she could care for a dog?

Now we need to go talk to some people called "the Thamesfolk" so Hannah can stop taking 30% more damage (Why? Just why? She can be one-shot killed by a bloatfly looking at her funny). We are about to find out how London feels about mutants, I think!

[ut-versotale]

A Trip Down Nostalgia Lane

This AU's been in existence for so long, and the most current iteration is so wildly different from the rest. As such, I felt it'd be kinda cool to show you guys how the AU's progressed over the years. I don't think it's too big of a problem to reveal what the initial plans were for each iteration, what I liked and didn't like, and my thought process behind forgoing the old ones

If you don't particularly care for all that, here's the iterations' major characters lined up. (Iteration 4 I only have revealed Asriel and Undyne, so the rest I've designed so far are silhouetted)

Iteration 0.5

Oh boy, where to begin with this one...?

I number it "0.5" and not "1" because there were only two parts that never even officially released on this Tumblr blog. I did upload Part 1 for an April Fool's joke a while ago. But really, it was only ever present on the TS!Underswap Discord server over half a decade ago.

To put it bluntly, Versotale at this point was just a reskinned Undertale roleswap AU. The personalities, while I tried to keep them intact, were not the main driving force. As such:

Asriel is a silent protagonist (And not in a cool clever way like Kris; I mean just straight-up silent)

The only difference with Undyne as a narrator was noting that Frisk was a human at the first save point

Flowey had a more formal speech pattern but was otherwise barely affected despite carrying Chara's consciousness. They weren't even named Asthana yet.

Frisk... well, I can give my past self this, he certainly made an effort to differentiate Frisk from Toriel. I can't say he did a GOOD job at that, but they certainly were different. Awkward dialogue, though, and not much sense behind why they were the mayor of the Ruins at 13 years old

Overall, you can 100% tell I made this as a young teen. Awkward dialogue, barely any effort put into the concept, unoriginal...

It's pretty easy to see why I forewent this version of the AU. Only two parts were ever made. I must thank @beethovenus who gave me a lot of very helpful critiques, such as giving Asriel a voice and making original sprites rather than using sprite edits, as well as encouraging me to make this Tumblr blog for it. Thus, brings us to what I'd like to consider the first PROPER attempt at this AU...

Iteration 1

Ah, this one... this ALSO lasted only two parts. Can't remember why. But I made a lot more headway on this one. Quality aside, I am happy that I had the guts to try and make original sprites of my own back then, even if they aren't particularly good compared to now.

This was where I really attempted to make the characters act noticeably different. Though there were still quite a lot of problems, some that would even persist all the way up until Iteration 4.

I wanted to give Asriel a combination of his regular and Flowey personalities. A cool idea on paper, but the lore doesn't support him acting like that well enough. Thus, I refer to this version of him as Sassriel. This was one of those problems that persisted up until Iteration 3.

Undyne having this snarky back-and-forth with Sassriel. Again, cool idea on paper, but it is not supported by her personality in Undertale, nor the altered circumstances in VT Iteration 1. Also, with Undyne being a disembodied consciousness, it means she's merely an observer of the story and not an active participant, meaning her dialogue got very boring very fast. Undyne in canon was always an active character, so putting her in a role that basically FORCED her to be a passive character was maybe one of the worst decisions I could've made that lasted way too long, all the way until Iteration 4.

You'll notice a whole bunch of characters that never actually saw the light of day in the comic. In the bottom row, starting from left to right, there would have been Pepper (Who DID have a design but I've lost it), Donavan, Dr. Aakil, Lily, and Queen Alice. There's not much to say about them story-wise since I mainly just got the designs down, and you can probably guess what the plot was gonna be like given this was the early days of the AU where it was still very much following the Undertale formula. I think the only UNIQUE things I should mention are that Aakil's version of the amalgamates would've been cyborgs.

Iteration 2

This is the one that's lasted the longest (so far), managing to push its way into the Cold West. I tried to break out of the Undertale formula a tiny bit with this one, to varying degrees of success. There's not much history I can recall or find with this iteration, but I suppose I can give a character rundown of the ones you never saw, ironically enough all positioned on the bottom row again.

Donavan... not very unique compared to Undyne. The main gimmick that separated him from her, I think, was that he had gloves designed by Aakil that were soul-powered.

Valencia... a new character who was meant to be an expanded version of Napstablook's role. Fun fact: Valencia's hooded trenchcoat design there was originally Pepper's Iteration 1 design.

Everyone else was... about what you'd expect.

Looking back on this version, I am... honestly very embarrassed by how badly I butchered the Cold West. I wanted to do so many cool things, like a bounty on Asriel's head and all. But my God... Spade and Pepper sucked so much. Especially Pepper. For characters who at this point were meant to be this AU's replacement of Sans and Papyrus... what poor substitutes.

And honestly, I think that's why I scrapped this one; because I hated the Cold West and how I did it. It felt rushed, awkwardly-written, bad characterization, horrifically-bad puzzles, etc. Thus, Iteration 3 was made.

Iteration 3: Hybrid

I nicknamed this short-lived one "Hybrid" for multiple reasons.

It's where Deltarune became an extremely prevalent influence in Versotale's universe. So no longer is Versotale just an Undertale AU, it can also be considered a Deltarune AU as well.

Many characters could be considered hybrids at this point. Asriel and Undyne shared determination and a body. And, more interestingly, the Mettaton role also shared a body with Mettaton. More about that in a bit

When I was making Part 10-B of Iteration 2, Iteration 3 was meant to flow naturally into it, effectively replacing all of what had came beforehand. That never worked out.

Ultimately, I abandoned this version because it just simply wasn't doing it for me. By this point, the project was beginning to feel stale and boring. Despite my attempts to make a new unique storyline, it just kinda... felt like it was still following in Undertale's footsteps far too much. I mean, you've got the protagonist kid, an old fallen member of their species, the double-crossing flower, a mentor who's lived in a secluded area all their life, a chef who wants to join the guard, a tough grizzled guard captain, a morally-dubious scientist, a celebrity, a monarch... you see how I became dislliusioned with the quality of what was supposed to be my "Unique Undertale storyline." The most unique thing at this point WAS probably Spade. But still, many elements of this version of the story were very fleshed-out. I tried to turn Pepper into a character who wasn't just a bargain-bin Papyrus clone, I had come up with a more unique Hotland area, and it probably could've turned out really nice.

I think the thing I genuinely really liked from this old version was that Shella (This iteration's celebrity character) actually was also possessed by Mettaton. There was this huge backstory thing where the scientist character had monster dust and was injecting humans with it, and since Mettaton was a ghost, his consciousness became attached to Shella's and served as her sort of "assistant." He gave her all the tips and confidence to become famous and gave Mettaton the opportunity to indirectly entertain humans like he always wanted. While a cool idea on paper, having... well, essentially Mettaton technically in the same place as canon Undertale again just felt cheap and lazy. Not to mention it only continued my disillusionment with my "unique story" being far too similar to Undertale for comfort.

But the Surface shenanigans this iteration... man, for as weird as Gaster being king was, I had such a cool thing planned for all the Ebottobia characters. It's something I wanna carry over into Iteration 4 to a certain extent.

Iteration 4: "King Asriel"

This one's really freaking cool. Going back to the drawing board completely, the story resembles almost nothing like Undertale's, with the sole exception of the main premise: People underground, free them from imprisonment through peace or violence.

I'm so proud of these ideas so far, you have no idea. The new Ruins area I'm excited for, the new Cold West feels like an actual proper flowing storyline now, the other areas have way more uniqueness, the characters feel like their own characters with their own stories now (Even the ones that appear in canon), the plot feels completely different... I think you all are really going to like it

That's all. Just felt like taking a trip down memory lane and share some ideas and designs the public never got to see.

[crazycoke-addict]

The Smiling Critters Theory Part 1 (HoppyHop Scotch, PickyPiggy, Bubbaphant, beary bearhug)

This is a continuation from the last post. I wanna discuss the smiling critters and what I think what happened to them.

If you aren't aware, in Poppy playtime Chapter 3. A line of characters was introduced as the smiling critters. Their names are Bubba Bubbaphant, KickinChicken, Beary BearHug, PickyPiggy, HoppyHop Scotch, DogDay and Catnap. Not only we're they sold as toys with each of their signature scent. They were also given their very own tv show. However, parents start to express their concern about the catnap plushie because while making the toys instead of the lavender scent that catnap was supposed to have, instead, he was given a poppy scent That even the bigger body catnap has to make the kids go to sleep. Parents express their concerns because their kids kept having hallucigenic nightmares. We even hear this when a woman named Clare Harper talks about how one of the orphans, Marie, had a nightmare involving a colourless monster.

Just like how many of the toys were made by playtime Co. Each of them ended up being part of the bigger bodies initiative. We saw Catnap in that form as well as dogday, so it would be that far-fetched that the other smiling critters were bigger bodies as well. But the question is what happened to them since DogDay says that he is the last of the smiling critters.

We need to talk about where we found DogDay. After managing to get power back on for the school area. We manage to find ourselves in the playhouse. Ollie appears to not like the playhouse, and when we get there, we know why. While the other places have destroyed with blood stains all over. The playhouse looks unsettling, especially when we meet DogDay. He is chained to, but also, he's in a prison cell. The first time we saw the prison cells was a surveillance camera in project playtime. While finding DogDay, we do see some sort of underground lare, which is where catnap used to be in. This is where they kept the bigger bodies of the smiling critters.

Now, let's talk about what happened to each of them. During the playthrough, you come across a cardboard cutout of one of the smiling critters. It starts with them introducing themselves, and we get to know a little about their personality, but things take a dark turn where they say things that are unsettling. While cardboard cutouts have been there since the beginning that never really introduced themselves. Huggy Wuggy expresses the importance of hugs, CatBee makes bee puns, and Bunzo Bunny talks about birthdays.

The reason why this is important is because if you listen to their cardboard cutouts, you'll notice that it sounds like they are at the brink of insanity. Since CatNap was already devoted to the prototype since the prototype saved his life. He is pretty much aware that there is a plan since he tells Lieth Pierre about the prototype saving them. If you look at the promotion of the smiling critters. The other smiling critters express emotions even if they have grinning faces except for Catnap, which still keeps the same emotion. CatNap's personality revealed that he has a calming presence.

While Catnap does worship the prototype because of what he did for him. CatNap accepts the influence that the prototype has on him. Meanwhile, DogDay says that him and the other tried to resist the control of the prototype and how if someone disagrees with the prototype, Catnap eliminates them. The other smiling critters are trying to keep their personality intact, but because they are trying to resist the control of the prototype, their sanity becomes a problem.

The cut-outs even give us in-depth what happened to the smiling critters, and we may even figure out what happened afterwards. We'll start with hoppy hopscotch. She introduces herself and asks if we want to go jump on to the moon. This is basically a generic cartoon way since HoppyHop Scotch is described as being energetic and wants to go on adventures. However, the more we hear, the more it sounds like she is determined to jump on the moon. She's also appears frustrated with the player for supposedly messing it up and that looking at feet doesn't matter. When she does jump, you hear the sound of falling. Since we know that they were trying to resist the control of the prototype, it is likely that hoppyhop Scotch couldn't deal with it and she really want to go the moon so she unalive herself for the process.

Next up is PickyPiggy. Hers is interesting because It tells us what happened to 3 of the smiling critters but not hers. It is heavily implied that KickinChicken, Bubba Bubbaphant, and CraftyCorn were eaten by PickyPiggy herself. However, I see them as an offering by catnap since its a knowledge that pigs eat everything that they see as food. PickyPiggy talks about how she's still hungry despite eating an elephant. It is likely that picky piggy died of starvation because if she was eating her friends in front of her friends, they probably saw it as a punishment if they tried to escape.

Bobby BearHug is next on. We are going to look into it. Bobby BearHug is the compassionate of the smiling critters where she appears to care a lot about her friends. In her cardboard cut-out, it appears that she has abandonment issues where she asks the player if they are going to leave her. This is leaning towards that Bobby BearHug died of a broken heart. It is like that when some of the smiling critters tried to escape, which led to their deaths, they abandoned Bobby bearhug. While yes, it sounds absurd that a toy can die in such a way, but these toys have organs where they can eat, breathe, and even die. So, I don't think it would be out of the ordinary that a toy like Bobby bearhug who is known for her compassion but also trying to break free of the prototype's control would end up dying of a broken-heart.

Bubba Bubbaphant was the first cardboard cutout we saw in the game, and because of this, it is likely that he was the first to die. Bubba Bubbaphant's cardboard cutout doesn't act weird until the end when he is screaming. He expresses that he remembers the player, which could be because we know the main protagonist used to work here while also stating that elephants always remember. If you listen closely to his screams, it sounds like he's also laughing at the same time. The only time he's done this is when him and the smiling critters are given the red smoke at CatNap in that episode.

While Bubbaphant is laughing and screaming, it sounds like he's saying, "Grandma." I looked up, and grandmothers take the role as the matriarch of the elephant and make sure that the baby elephants grow into adulthood and that the mama elephant gets the support she needs. It's so interesting because it appears as though Bubba Bubbaphant was given the knowledge as an elephant itself. Since the red smoke is known for the person showing hallucinations. It is likely that when Bubba Bubbaphant got the red smoke, he may have been hallucinating an elderly female elephant, which was probably catnap in disguised, who ended up killing him and offered him to PickyPiggy.

[los-ninos-tortugas]

Alright so I ended up watching both episodes three and four of Tales before I went to sleep last night (although honestly I was tempted to stay up later and just keep watching but I'm trying to maintain some semblance of a sleep schedule). I'm going to talk about just episode three here. episode four may not get it's own individual post because I kinda feel like a lot of what I have to say about it will sorta overlap with what I have to say about the arc of the first four episodes overall, which most likely will be it's own detailed analysis (I say. maybe. I'm kinda flying by the seat of my pants here and I don't exactly have a set format for when I do these watch-throughs.) I also kind of just want to get on with watching the rest of the show since I am thoroughly enjoying it so far. so as I go through it i'll probably just make shorter little comments and save these longer sorts of posts for a little more after the fact when I've maybe watched it a couple more times and had more time to kinda mull it over.

I feel like the series really hits its stride with episode three. honestly I was a little on the fence about each of these episodes starting off in medias res and giving a roshomon style flashback for each turtle, but Raphael's episode really hits the ground running. truly it doesn't stop either. of the four opening episodes that reacquaint us with the turtles I feel like Raphael's is the strongest, with some really excellent pacing and tight writing.

I also kinda found myself being a bit taken aback by just how violent (both explicitly and implicitly) this episode is. and then I was taken aback by the fact that I was taken aback. because by nature TMNT is just kind of a violent franchise, that's just kinda how superhero media works and they're, you know, ninjas. and it's not as though previous iterations haven't gone to dark places. 03 and 2012 particularly come to mind with their pretty frequent use of body horror as a go-to storytelling device. Rise has a bit more of a "Steven Universe" approach where violence is kinda hidden under a thin layer of cartoon logic, where the line is kinda blurred about whether certain things will have consequences or not; sometimes characters shake off an injury with relative easy (usually turning it into a visual gag) or then there's... the movie. (movie notwithstanding rise does a lot to kinda soften the blows a bit) but I think the difference comes from the fact that the violence and horror from previous series is always firmly in the realm of the fantastic. the prime example is what happens to Stockman over time in the 03 series but it's a kind of horror that is strictly sci-fi. but Kitsune coming up to Raph and point blank saying "I am going to sell you on the black market to be experimented on and also I am going to cut off pieces of you for the same purpose" hits a little too real. (i'm sure the angst lovers are enjoying their juice) I'm going to suspend my suspension of disbelief for a second to say obviously I know how this goes, Raph escapes with all his fingers intact. He's the hero, that's just how it goes. but in the moment of watching this happen, with my suspension of disbelief fully engaged, the presentation of this threat makes me believe in its credibility.

Now Mutant Mayhem did a lot to set up the kind of stakes we deal with in this iteration in particular, we know Superfly has blood on his hands, and now the payoff is Tales staying committed to that more grounded sense of danger and Raph really is the perfect character to do this setup and payoff with, since he himself is so tied up with violence as a character in any given iteration.

It's probably also why the purple dragons really shine in this episode.

Being used to Rise I initially thought the the leader was going to be a new version of Kendra (and there seems to be a little bit of a callback to Kendra's design in her) but I was really excited when she was revealed to be Angel. Same for Hun as well. He and Raphael kind of develop a bit of a frenemies dynamic by the end, and if this show gets more seasons it'd be pretty interesting to see where that goes.

this episode doesn't just test Raph's wits but also his moral compass in a really interesting way. Out of the arc of the first four episodes I think this one in particular is shaping up to be my favorite (favorite episode of the series overall tbd).

[cherryfairytwist]

RickFic Ch5. The Vat

(Tags: drinking/violence/light gore)

—- HELLO —-

—- INITIATING DOWNLOAD SEQUENCE MEMORY CLUSTER #5 —-

—-PULLING UP EARLIEST ASSISTED MEMORY RECORDS —-

—- NARRATION SIMULATING NOW —-

Somewhere in space,

“O-Oh seems s-simple enough.” Morty said with a shy grin looking toward Astrid.

“Y-yeah. Simple enough, survive a carnivorous plant jungle a-and get out with everything intact.” Rick stated as Morty’s face puckered not knowing how to respond after that.

“Come on Grandpa, stop trying to scare Astrid. She proved herself last adventure.” Summer said with a huff from the back seat of the ship. 

“Yeah yeah. We’ll see how she handles this one.” He said with a grunt while nearing the Jungle planet’s atmosphere. 

Astrid sat relaxed in the back next to Summer silently taking in the sights all around them. They glided through thick dense jungle and slowly started to weave around trees and other plants until they found a spot to land. Once out of the ship, Rick tossed all of them laser hand guns this time and then looked down at Astrid. 

“I take it you still have my hunting knife from last time?” He said a little annoyed. 

“Right, I figured it wasn’t a big deal… I mean if it was, I figured you already know where I work.” She said with a cheeky grin. 

“Next time ASK.” He said with a huff as he turned around and headed into the jungle. 

The siblings and Astrid followed close behind him making sure not to lose sight, it was so densely covered in plants you could blink and  get lost. They continued on into the jungle for quite a bit, climbing, dodging and maneuvering around giant roots and leaves. The deeper into the wilderness the more apparent the dangers became. From small to massive bugs, they all started to swarm nearby water pools and plenty of creepy crawlers scattered about on the jungle floor. Still the group trucked on deeper into the thick of it. The noise of nature around them became deafeningly loud. Suddenly one of the large alien bugs flew right towards Morty’s face as he let out a squeal. Astrid’s muscle memory kicked in and shot the bug out of the air before it could make contact with his face. He let out a sigh of relief and gave her a smile. 

“Nice reflex.” Summer said continuing to climb over roots. 

“Growing up as a hunter comes in handy I guess.” Astrid said humbly in reply. 

“Hopefully y-you didn’t go hunting with a hand gun.” Rick said, giving Astrid a bitter glance. 

While out in the woods Astrid kept seeing some dark silhouettes randomly out of the corners of her eyes, weird beings stood just along the tree line as they got deeper in. She pipes up and asks Rick, 

“Are there any other apex predators on this planet besides the carnivorous plants and bugs…?” She asked suspiciously eyeing her surroundings. 

“Uh… this planet only ever had one small food chain…so no.” He said while giving her a funny look noticing her paranoia. 

Astrid started to feel a little weird after his reply but decided to keep it to herself and continued on with them through the underbrush. As they got deeper and deeper towards the center of the jungle the humidity and dampness increased. Rustling and slithering noises started to stir up more as well when suddenly both Summer and Morty were pulled under the underbrush as they both let out two screams in reply, 

“AAAHHH GRANPA RICK!!”

“R-RICK!! ASTRID!!” 

Astrid quickly morphed her eyes into a different species’ that saw heat signatures. She did this discretely as to not let Rick notice. She saw the two siblings being dragged far away by what must have been plant vines. She quickly morphed back to normal and looked over to Rick at her side who was already shooting at vines that had tried to grab him. 

“UHHGG!” He grunted while shooting through a few of the vines that had wrapped their way around his legs. 

Astrid looked down and saw some were creeping towards her as well and shot them before they could make contact. She then continued shooting any that came near both her and Rick. Once Rick had freed himself he pulled out a little device and threw it on the ground. It sent out scans and then beeped when it was ready, frying any near by vines. 

“Nice! That’s going to make things a lot easier.” Astrid replied positively. 

“Yeah well this will only get the outer vines. This species’ thicker roots won’t fry that easy.” he said as her pulled out his flask and took a sip. “Let’s get a move on and find where they dragged the kids.” 

They rushed ahead in the direction the vines had taken them. Astrid assumed Rick also knew it was the right way from his scanners. They then slowed down as they came up to what looked like a massive bundle of various dead and alive creatures all wrapped up in vines. Even some various looking wrecked space ships and parts were tangled in as well. A massive pink flower with razor teeth lining its petals devoured nearby corpses of various bugs and stranded aliens near the bundle. 

“Oh wow that’s what they look like? They are really pretty.” Astrid said referring to the carnivorous flower. 

“What the hell- Where you traumatized as a child or something?! Why are you so calm right now?!” Rick spat out at her in disbelief. 

“Jeez Rick! You can’t just say something like that to someone! Y-you know that’s insensitive!” Morty quickly interrupted Rick. 

They both quickly looked up to see Morty wrapped up in the vines above them in the trees. 

“Your guys’ FRIEND is acting ABNORMAL.” He whisper yelled, “You think a regular teacher’s assistant is like this? Yeah I’M being SO insensitive.” Rick hissed back at Morty.

“Omg grandpa, if you were a teacher you’d probably torture high school students. And so what if she’s not freaking out? Just means she’s bad ass.” Summer said with a bit of attitude also hanging from some vines a few trees over from Morty. 

“Aw, thanks Summer.” Astrid said whispering back with a smile. 

Are you two stupid-“ Rick got cut short as the carnivorous plant reared its head back and roared at them. 

“Oops.” Astrid said as it came barreling towards her and Rick. 

Rick then quickly grabbed Astrid and then tossed her into a nearby hole in one of the trees. Rick then jumped in behind her, slamming against her barely getting away from the flower as it tried to chomp down on his legs. The flower slammed up against the large tree not being able to get through the small hole. He then quickly tossed the gadget he had used before on the vines out. This fried the vines the flower had tried to send in the hole after them. The plant let out another frustrated roar after not catching them but went back to eating on the corpses from before. 

“Okay we’re safe for now…” he said while staring out the hole keeping an eye on the plant. 

Astrid shifted her weight trying to adjust after Rick had slammed into her. He noticed and scooted back giving her as much room as he could. But due to how small the space was they still sat huddled down pressed up against each other. He then looked at her for a second seeming to calculate something in his head. 

“What..? You got an idea?” She asked looking up at him. 

He stayed quiet and then looked back out at the creature, “Y-you really do seem too calm in these situations for being just a normal Earth woman.” He said to her while still keeping an eye on the flower. 

Astrid laughed and rolled her eyes. He furrowed his eyebrows and whipped his head back to face her again. 

“Don’t give me that attitude! I know something is up with you!” He hissed at her. 

She casually avoided eye contact and stayed silent. He then looked back out of the hole to see Morty and Summer had both managed to loosen the grips on the vines wrapping around them. They made eye contact with Rick. 

“Try to climb down without it noticing. Don’t move too fast or it will feel you escaping!” He whispered loudly to them. “Astrid and I will make a distraction.” 

“What’s  the plan?” She asked earnestly. 

“Okay, I’ll bite…. Let’s see where this goes” Rick murmured to himself, not referring to the situation but rather how he felt his suspensions towards Astrid. 

“Hu?” She said confused not quite hearing what he had said. 

“I said- Just follow me! Copy what I do.” He said handing her some small marble like orbs and then jumping out of the tree and v lining towards the vine cluster right as Summer’s foot slipped while climbing away from the flower. 

The monstrous flower noticed the tug on its vine from Summer’s squirming to get her footing. 

It reared back and was about to snap forward. 

Astrid shot after Rick. She looked over noticing Morty now had gotten free and jumped down to the ground next to them. She handed him some of the orbs too. He quickly caught on and mirrored his grandpa running towards the plant. 

“TOSS THEM!” Rick yelled as he threw his orbs at the vine cluster. 

They all did, upon impact all the vines and its inhabitants froze over. Rick pulled out his laser and aimed to shoot at the now frozen cluster. But suddenly his laser holding hand found itself in the giant mouth of the carnivorous flower. 

“AAAHG! F-FUCK OFF YOU OVER GLORIFIED FLY TRAP!” he angrily yelled at it while struggling to free himself. 

A laser slammed into the flowers face from Astrid’s gun causing it to release Rick. She then quickly shot down all the vines that were flying towards them one after the other. 

“How the hell did you get so good at that?!” He asked momentarily taken aback. 

“I’ve already told you!” She yelled back before shooting one last shot into the ice cluster Rick had been originally going after. 

Instantly the thousands of frozen vines shattered into chunks sending the plant into fits of flailing and screaming. Summer now safe hoped down and joined them. 

“Holy shit. Nice.” She said looking at the flower writhing around in pain on the jungle floor. 

“Stay alert! We aren’t done yet.” Rick narrowed his eyes at the flower as he quickly fixed his mangled hand. 

They all readied themselves, lasers at the ready. He pulled out a vial full of dark looking liquid. And popped oven the cork. He gave a glance to all of them. 

“W-watch yourselves. It’s going to be pissed. Keep away from its mouth but keep shooting it. It won’t cause much damage but it’ll sting. K-Keep it distracted while I go pour this on its roots. This will kill it by dissolving them.” He barked out giving the order. 

The kids glanced at Astrid and she glanced back at them all determined. They lept forward towards it sending out shots right in a row. The flower lashed out with is budding face attempting to snap at them with its razor teeth. 

Rick ran in and slid down on the ground to the side of it still gripping the vial. Right as he was about to pour the substance onto the roots the plant v lined over to Morty and scooped him up in its mouth. The base of its stem bent over and whacked Rick straight in the face sending the vial flying out of his hand. 

“FUCK! MORTY!” He screamed. 

Astrid tumbled and snatched the vial before hitting the ground making sure not to drop any of the liquid. After landing she slid across the ground towards Rick next to the roots. Summer in turn jumped up and lasered the plant in the face causing its petals to open wide momentarily showing Morty in the back of its throat whining. Rick sent out his robot arm to snatch Morty out of its mouth. As Morty went flying by Astrid while squealing she tossed the liquid onto the roots before the flower could react to anything else. The roots instantly started to dissolve as the Flower let out one more dying screech. Summer, quick on her feet, jumped backwards right as its massive head fell to the ground right where she had been standing. They all breathed a sigh of relief and brushed themselves off. 

Rick walked over to the dead flower and lasered its head open reveling a little pollen sack inside. He plucked it out of the petals and then started punching in commands on his robot arm. It scanned the pollen and then a loading screen popped up stating “READY”. 

“Perfect. Now we have this.” He stated. 

“W-what’s that ganna do…?” Morty asked curiously. 

“Well we can spray them with this-“ Rick interrupted himself after a cloud of the spray hit him in the face from this arm. 

“GRANDPA?!” Summer yelled out shocked. 

Rick then collapsed to the ground and started coughing and wheezing. His eyes had turned red and he started to look like he was convulsing on the ground. Both the siblings started screaming and yelling in fear while huddling over his body. Summer frantically searched his lab coat for an antidote or a poison neutralizer. 

“R-Rick!! Where is it?! Where did you stash the neutralizer?!” Morty screamed. 

*HAACK* *HUACK* “M-m-Morty…!” He chocked, “I’m-I’m fucking- *COUGH* *COUGH* “DYING MORTY!” He writhed around and gripped his chest. 

Astrid stood there staring blankly at them all on the ground silently. Summer noticed and yelled at her, 

“Astrid!! What are you doing?! Come help us!!” She said panicked. 

“Summer… he’s faking.” She said with a snort. 

“W-w-what..?” Morty asked confused and looked down at his grandfather’s closed eyes as he lay limp on the ground. 

Rick peeked out of one of his shut eyes at her and then a big grin spread across his face. He quickly sat up and started laughing. His eyes still extremely red. 

“WHAT T-THE HELL RICK?!” Morty yelled as she shoved him in anger. 

“Jesus Christ Grand dad… why would you do that?!” Summer stood up and crossed her arms looking down at him. 

“Holy shit! You should have seen the looks on your faces!” Rick continued to laugh. 

Both the siblings were now standing looking at him completely unamused as he continued. 

“Both of you are so gullible! Like HOW do you think she knew that?!” He said gesturing at Astrid. 

Astrid stood there with a loss of words for a second but then defended herself, “I could just tell he was faking… I mean…odds are that the pollen wouldn’t be poisonous right? It’s not like the plants would try to poison their own species right? They need to pollinate to make more!” 

“Well even if you DID assume that… it is poisonous to other species like me… just not in a lethal way. I-It gets you super high.” He said with a grin while rubbing his still red eyes. 

The siblings and Astrid all scoffed in annoyance. 

“Fine. Fine! Jeez it was just a joke guys. D-Don’t get your collective panties in a twist.” He said finally standing up and going back to calculating on his robot arm. “We can spray this around us as we try to get to their species’s root core in the middle of the jungle. They will think we are one of their kind so we won’t keep getting bothered. However they may or may not try to mate with us though.” He explained. 

“Ew gross.” Summer said thinking about the last part. 

“Yeah… that doesn’t really sound like the problem is solved…” Morty said uncomfortably. 

“S-stop whining. We’ll be fine. Let’s keep this up.” He barked as he sprayed them all in the pollen and around the areas they continued to walk in. 

After coughing a bit their eyes turned red. The harshness wore off at they collectively got high. Astrid rubbed her eyes as she started to notice a red hue came over her vision making the jungle around them look more pink and hazy. She looked at the Smiths and suddenly felt extremely relaxed and happy-go-lucky. 

She caught a mischievous grin slide onto Rick’s face as he gave her a passing glance back while maneuver through the jungle ahead. This made her wonder what he was up to. 

After about an hour and a half of them avoiding horny flower creatures they came up to a pit full of vines and roots all coming from what looked like a massive glowing seed halfway in the ground. 

“Here it is!” Rick said cheerfully as he scurried down to it in the pit. 

He pressed two buttons on his robot arms and pulled the seed right out of the ground ripping it from its roots. A collective shriek was heard echoing throughout every part of the jungle sound them. Suddenly all the vines connecting the carnivorous species shriveled up and died. 

Rick let out a triumphant sigh, 

“This is going to work just great for my special protein powered.” He said cockily. “Good thing they were and invasive species!”

Rick then sent out the signals to the ship to find their location so they could leave. They all sat down and rested in the pit at they waited for the ship to arrive. Astrid caught Rick eyeing her with the same expression from earlier. Right as she was going to say something the ship landed next to them. They all piled in and took off. 

Once they had gotten back to Earth Astrid noticed a big vat full of some type of green substance had risen out of the Smith’s front yard. She turned to look at the still red eyed Rick in the rear view mirror. He looked back at her with a shit eating grin. 

“O-okay. You’ve proven to me you can help keep the kids safe. But let’s see which one of them you really care about!” He yelled and slammed his hand down on a button. 

As the ship was lowering down closer to the yard, the glass covering of the ship opened up and two metal arms grabbed the two siblings from the ship. Morty eyed the vat and started to scream out, 

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Not the vat of f-“ his mouth was quickly covered and muffled by the robot arm as is snaked its way over his face keeping him silent. 

Summer squirming against the metal arm holding her while glaring daggers at Rick, “YOURE JOKING RIGHT GRANDPA?! IS THAT A VAT OF ACID?!” 

The arms then suddenly dropped the two siblings sending them straight for the vat. Astrid scrambled from the back seat and jumped off the side of the ship towards them. 

In her head she heard a voice say, “silly old man.” 

As she fell she grabbed hold of one of the ship’s metal arms and dragged it down with her. Both siblings screamed up at her as they fell. Rick quickly leaned over the side of the ship to watch what Astrid would do. As she plummeted closer to Summer she reached out and grabbed her, tying the metal arm around summer and then barrel rolling so that it would still keep her from falling even if it tried to release her again. Rick laughed and started to yell, 

“I FUCKING KNEW IT-“ but he was cut off in surprise as Astrid let go of the arm now that Summer was safe. 

He watched as she kicked off of the arm using it to speed up her fall towards Morty snatching him up and throwing him off to the side away from the vat just before she went splashing in. Now submerged she floated for a second motionless looking around in the vat. Nothing happened…. Just like she had thought. She swam to the surface and took a breath of air looking up at Sanchez who was now on the ground with the ship and the kids. 

“Rick! This pissing match between you and our friend needs to stop! Like what the hell!?” Summer yelled at him pissed. 

“I was hoping it was going to be fake.” Astrid said kind of annoyed as well. 

Rick scoffed and turned to open the garage clearly ignoring Morty also yelling at him about his annoyance for the vat of fake acid bit. While Astrid swam to the side of the vat and climbed out she thought about how “pranks” like these reminded her of the Cognito Inc. crew. She found herself standing on the lawn in silence thinking about the old days with them. 

“Uh… Astrid…? A-are you okay….?” Morty peaked back out of the garage at her worried. “Did Rick really scare you that time?” 

Astrid looked up at him trying to hide the sadness in her eyes, “I’m good Morty… just had to let my body catch up with my thoughts for a second.” She said trying to reassure him. 

“Well….. thanks Astrid. It means a lot to me that you’d still go out of your way to save both of us and not just Summer..” he said thinking about the time his mother had chosen to save Summer over him in a previous adventure. 

Astrid could almost tell what Morty was thinking about and tried to cheer him up, “Morty, there is no way I’d let something bad happen to you if I could help it. I care about both you and your sister.” She said truthfully. 

She caught what looked like tears forming in his eyes right before he turned away, “thanks….. let’s go inside!” He said trying to sound optimistic. 

Once in the garage they see Rick going to his mini fridge to pull out a beer. Summer stood to the side of him with her arms crossed looking sour. 

“That was so uncalled for!” Summer bitched at him as he drank from the can. 

“Come on Sumsum it was just a gag! Besides aren’t you glad now knowing your friend would sacrifice herself for you?” He said in a chill voice before letting out a burp. 

“I mean.. I guess but that’s still wack. Why do you always have to scare Morty and I like that?” She huffed. 

Rick turned to Astrid and asked, “Y-you want a beer?” 

Astrid arched her brow at him suspicious of his now relaxed and carefree mood. 

“Uh sure I guess?” She replied as he tossed her one. 

He then grabbed a case of beer and a bottle of liquor and said, “Feel like watching some interdimensional cable?”

“Sure” Morty said passively annoyed as Summer also replied, “Yeah, okay.” As they all went in to set in the living room. 

A few hours had gone by, both Rick and Astrid had drank all alcohol he had brought in with them. Buzzed Rick decided then to get more from the garage. Summer then looks over to Astrid in the couch and made the comment that she was hungry and asked, 

“You want anything?” so they both went to the kitchen to look around while Morty just continued to chill and to watch tv. 

Summer popped a pizza in the oven and then gave out a panicked: “holy shit I forgot to do my homework. Give me like….. 30mins or something I’ll be back!” And runs upstairs. 

A soft thud and Rick’s groan came from the garage. Astrid peaks in and asks, 

“You okay..?” 

She sees him standing with two liquor bottles in each hand and a fallen box from the metal shelf next to the door. 

“Just b-bumped in-into something, it’s fine.” He replies tipsy. 

She looks down and sees one of the liquor bottles he was holding was already half empty. She picks up the box and puts it back on the shelf as he kind of backs over to his work bench setting the bottles down. As he leans up against it  he asks, 

“ Y-you up for some-some more? *burp*” 

She sat down on his wheely stool and takes a few chugs and then sets her sights on Rick. He doesn’t notice she’s looking at him for a minute while he also chugs some from the other bottle. After he put his bottle down he looks down at her and makes eye contact. Astrid looks up at him through her eyelashes, also a little tipsy and asks him, 

“Why are you so chill with me all of a sudden after today..?” 

He comes up with, “W-well… I mean you helped get the kids out of a few bad spots already and you took that prank pretty well…either you’re a real psycho or y-you just got guts and care for them.” 

She quietly smiles for a second looking down. and then looks up at him and asks jokingly “what if it’s both?” 

Before he could react they get interrupted by Summer coming in to tell her “The pizza is ready! Also I got my homework “basically” finished.” 

Astrid suddenly thinks about how she doesn’t want to get too comfortable around Rick so she quickly says “Actually Summer… I’m not feeling too hungry right now and it’s getting late. I think I might head out.” 

“Wait- you could sleep over if you wanted!” Summer quickly offered.

 Astrid nicely declines saying, “Honestly I just want to pass out so then I can have time to get up early and plan some lesson stuff for class.” 

Summer understood and walked her to the front door while Rick went to go sit back down in the living room. After Summer shut the door behind her Astrid paused, thinking about Reagan as she was leaving. She then pulled out her old communicator and started typing up a message to send. While she stood there on the sidewalk she hadn’t notice that space Beth was sitting in her ship on the driveway. Astrid finally sent a message saying, 

“It’s been a while. How’ve you been?” 

After standing there staring at her phone for a few minutes after no reply she let her tipsy nerves get the better of her. She hit the call button and waited for an answer only to be met with ringing and then the, 

“Leave a message after the tone.” 

Astrid awkwardly stood there for a second while playing with her hair trying to figure out what to say. 

“Uh hey….Reagan…it’s me. I’m uh well… back in the area kind of… and I wanted to see if we could maybe catch up sometime..? I know we left things off on the wrong foot but I’d really like to see if we could maybe fix things… sorry I disappeared off the face of the planet but… you know…. Work is complicated…. Well, uh give me a call if you get this.. or I don’t know… just let me know if I should just forget about it.. okay… bye.” 

She then hung up and sighed. She then tried calling Reagan again but got the, 

“This person’s mailbox is all full. Goodbye.” Automated response. 

“Fuck it… I need to just let it go for now.” Astrid said defeated as she walked back towards her apartment. 

Space Beth having overheard all of that made a mental note as she walked inside the house to greet the family. 

“Uh who was that on the phone outside?” She asked curiously. 

“Oh thats just our new friend Astrid.” Summer said casually. 

Rick perked up curiously and asked, “ W-who was she on the phone with..?” 

—- PART FIVE COMPLETED —- 

—- SHUTTING DOWN —-

—- GOODBYE —-

[sixty-silver-wishes]

Just saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari because of you heehee. (This was my first silent film!!) And I've got some questions if you don't mind me asking. How tf did Cesare and Dr. Caligari appear at the end of the movie if one died and the other had gone "mad" (or is it an "up to interpretation" kinda thing? Or was Francis the one seeing things?) What did bro mean by "I know how to heal him"? (Is it another up to interpretation thing or am I missing something?) ALSO where was Francis, the man he was telling the story to, Jane, and all those people at? Were they back at the Institute?

holy shit, Caligari count 14!!!

So the ending is pretty much up to interpretation. Although the screenwriters, Hans Janowitz and Carl Meyer, opposed it, they were made to add in the asylum ending, which may be interpreted to dilute the film’s anti-authority themes (although some interpretations, including my own, see this scene as reinforcing those themes and not lessening them). On a surface-level reading, Francis and the others (sans Alan for some reason) are in the asylum the entire time, and Francis is telling this story, which he believes to be true, to the old man, who serves as a device for the frame narrative.

When the asylum director says he knows how to “heal” Francis, I personally interpret this to enforce those anti-authority themes. If Caligari represents authority as abusive and dominating (keep in mind this film also came out after WWI), his counterpart as the director may refute Francis’ perception of him- or it may enforce them. Is Francis just crazy and viewing a benevolent doctor as an evil mad scientist, or is something sinister- or at best, ignorantly harmful- going on? Not only is “Caligari” an asylum director both inside and out of Francis’ story; he wrongfully assumes that Francis thinks he’s a different “Caligari,” the character from the book in the office, who, in the story, the director is driven to become. Even if the director has good intentions, he does not know how to “cure” Francis, because he completely misjudges what’s going on in Francis’ head. I believe this line is especially significant, as it keeps the anti-authority message intact; even if the director means no harm, he does not understand the actual problem and may be doing more harm than good.

Cesare being in the asylum at the end is, as far as I’m aware, there to reinforce to the audience that the story was in Francis’ head; not only is he still alive, but he appears harmless and passive, and not a threat at all. However, it’s interesting to note that Francis acknowledges that Cesare was also institutionalized; we see him being brought into the asylum during the diary sequence.

Jane and Alan are interesting, because they really throw the idea of what’s real and what isn’t into question. While “Cesare” and “Caligari” are not the real names of the director and patient, Jane responds to her name. And her line about not being able to “follow the path of her heart” is very interesting, because it vaguely mirrors the story; she is presented with the illusion of choice (marrying Francis or Alan, although Alan dies), and Francis refers to her as his “fiancee,” despite the fact she never expresses any romantic interest towards him- or anyone. She’s the clear object of desire, without presenting any desire herself (although interestingly, Wikipedia says that in an early draft, she and Francis were initially going to be married and telling the story to their dinner guests- which I think is way weirder than an asylum setting!). This begs the question- is the story was completely imagined by Francis, or if it’s a distortion of events that he and Jane witnessed? Also, why isn’t Alan there? Is he actually dead? Is he just a product of Francis’ imagination? (Personally, I interpret him as a manifestation of the concept of lost innocence.)

Whatever the case, all this speculation is what makes me love the film so much. I could talk about it for hours, and there’s a ton of academic analysis out there by scholars on what the film could mean and what people get out of it. The whole thing is very liminal, like a dream. It functions in thresholds between binaries, in a sort of gray area that’s just so fascinating to me. Plot points happen with no explanation; storytelling tropes are both followed and subverted. It’s impossible to really understand it, which is why I think it’s so timeless.

[driftward]

Title: FFXIV Write 2023 - 3. Soulmate Characters: Liana kir Vaux, Papanan kir Sosonan, Datum lux Lorimus Rating: Teen Summary: The Nyx Project has run into some problems, but its newest member may have found a solution. This happens approximately twenty years before ARR. Notes: Thanks to @yzeltia for the word prompt for today. CW: Mild gore, frank discussion of an autopsy-like activity

The dead body of another hybrid Allagan creation lay on the bench in the Garlean laboratory. It looked for all the world like a Miqo'te, a Keeper of the Moon, with rounded pupils and skin a shade of deep blue so dark it almost appeared black. Giving away its artificial nature was the pulling back of the flesh as rot had set in, and in those places where the flesh had pulled back far enough, one could see the dark goldish hue of what was presumably Allagan technology. Flesh wrapped around what had previously been an ambulatory metal skeleton, an automaton of some sort.

It had lasted for three days after activation. The rot had started at thin black lines on the creature's skin, initially too thin to be seen, but those lines were where the flesh had first pulled away from the skeleton as the thing degraded. And as its flesh rotted, so too seemed its mind. While it had initially been able to follow simple orders, it rapidly grew to misinterpret them, or to seem to not hear them at all. And then, at last, it had collapsed, twitching and flailing in violent seizure, as its body collapsed to the floor, and some hours later, stopped moving.

Three days, and those three days represented a new record for for how long those scientists working on the Nyx Project had managed to keep one of the creatures running. The project, overall, was an attempt by the Garlean empire to capitalize on their ownership of certain Allagan ruins to bring new technology to life for the empire.

It was not going well.

Liana kir Vaux and Papanan kir Sosonan were now looking the construct over, to see if they could determine what had gone wrong this time. Liana's hands traced over its body, her eyes half-lidded as she attempted to find any thread of aether that might still be coursing through the thing. Papanan in the meanwhile had peeled back layers of polymat skin and artificial muscle to now examine the fine lines of fibers and tiny workings of machinery and circuitry that existed deep within.

Neither of them looked up when the door to the area opened. The only people who came this far into the Castrum, who were even permitted into the space, were those working on the project. And neither of them paused in their work when the swearing started, followed by the exclamation of their fellow scientist.

"Emperor preserve, that smells awful. Find out why it failed yet?" Said Datum lux Lorimus.

Papanan just glanced up at Liana, who nodded and stood with a sigh, stretching her back out as she did so.

"Same as number six. Everything appears to be in order, but the organic components refuse to maintain their vitality. And I believe Papanan has found that the fiber harness is all intact, but with no signals, there's no motion."

Papanan harrumphed. "Going to have to crack this one open too, I suspect."

Liana looked over to Datum. "I thought you would still be working on translation."

Datum went over to the nearby console. "Not anymore. We're fortunate. There's been a breakthrough. Some original tomestones have been found that I believe are related to whatever work was being done here, and I came here to review them in the original Allagan. Whatever work it was that E'lan jen Tia did is practically a waste. He was translating a translation of a translation - others' interpretations of what they found when they came across these ruins over the eons."

"Too many layers removed, then, I take it?" asked Liana mildly. Papanan barked a laugh.

"Well, unless you want to try to wake up the next unit and find it a soulmate using a spiritual fishing hook. All we have to do is dangle it in the deep blue sea and wait, apparently, according to what E'lan had translated. Ah, if it was only that easy. Maybe I'd have stayed in dear sweet Thanalan and found myself a wife instead of a calling," said Papanan.

"Careful," warned Datum.

"Please. If the Frumentarium wants me gone, they know where to find me, and I'll hand them the noose."

"I just would rather not have anything happen to either of you," said Datum quietly, as he sat down at the console and connected the tomestone to its interface.

"Come around on us savages then?" asked Papanan.

"Don't antagonise him, Papanan," said Liana, to Papanan's shrug.

"...whatever happened to that E'lan fellow, anyroad?" asked Datum, gently shifting the topic as the tomestone loaded in.

"I rather suspect he found he could not stomach what we were doing to what looked rather uncomfortably like kin to him. This work is rather gruesome. Macabre, even. Morbid, if you will. Ghastly. Downright ghoulish."

Liana just sighed and Pananan chuckled to himself.

"You know," he continued, "It's interesting. Every single one of these we've dug up has looked like quite the fetching young Miqo'te woman. It's weird. It's like how, you know, most Spoken undead seem to be Hyurs for whatever reason."

"The running theory is that the Hyur constitution is balanced in such a way as to favor necromantic energies," said Liana. "I do not know that there is any truth to that. I think it's perhaps just bias. You can find Hyur almost anywhere, so you find plenty of Hyur undead. There are plenty of Duskwight undead in Gelmorran ruins, as a counterpoint, but you do not find my people far from there often."

"Hmn, just so, maybe."

Datum just nodded as the tomestone finished loading, and he began to read carefully through its output. Liana and Papanan returned to their work.

It was nearly a bell later when Datum sat up suddenly. Neither Liana nor Papanan noticed, both of them still deep in the work of disassembling the construct.

"What was that you said earlier. About a soulmate?" he asked.

"Eh?" replied Papanan, who had only been halfway paying attention. "Oops," he said a moment later, as he dropped a spinal linkage.

"Careful," admonished Liana quietly. "It won't hold as well now that we've detached the myomer."

"Soulmate. You mentioned earlier that E'lan thought that these constructs needed soulmates."

"Oh, right, that. No, it was really ridiculous. He thought we needed to attach a spiritual fishing hook into the main assembly, then dangle it into a deep blue sea until we got a soulmate for it."

Datum frowned, and he turned back to his console, rapidly flipping back and forth between different sections of his reading.

"Was that exactly what he said?"

"Hells if I remember."

"Close, as I remember it. Not just any sea - he specifically said the depths of the Azure sea," said Liana.

"Which is ridiculous. They're all blue."

"... oh, he was close," said Datum, a trace of excitement in his voice.

Liana and Papanan now both fully stopped in their work. "Datum?" asked Liana. "What have you found?"

Datum just turned and looked. "Can you get flip it over? Open up the back of its main chassis? I want to see something."

"...sure. Hang on, let's back up, it's heavy. Let the arm handle it," said Papanan.

Liana nodded, and went over to operate a big crane with a large hand at the end of it, flipping the construct over. Once it was flipped, the three scientists moved back in, and Liana reached her fingers in underneath the shoulder blades, and pulled off a large panel of muscle and skin off its back.

Datum covered his nose, and moved in closer, his fingers tracing over the exposed metal that had been hidden in the torso.

"Can we open that?"

"Sure, hang on," said Papanan, as he picked up a nearby tomestone and started connecting it to the construct using fiber cables.

Liana looked over at Datum and raised an eyebrow.

"You know that thing that's over in section three - the so-called Cauldron Boundary Unit?" said Datum.

Liana nodded. "We've had no luck making any use of it. It claims to be a forge, but anything we drop in it just gets dissolved into aether and byproduct."

Datum nodded to the construct as Papanan finished hooking up the wiring. "I think it was meant for these."

Liana frowned at Datum, but he ignored her as he just stepped forward to watch while Papanan thumbed some controls on his tomestone, opening the metal inner shell of the construct. The areas where its shoulder blades had been folded upward, revealing its inner workings. A deeply complicated nest of wiring and unrecognizable machinery, dominated by a central sphere that it all seemed to either be connected to or harnessed around, suspended in the chest cavity. Datum reached out, and touched a hand to it, glancing back and forth down at his own tomestone.

"Artifacted nethicite."

"E'lan was pretty sure that word was meant to be 'auracite'," said Papanan idly, and Datum just shook his head.

"We've no other translation for it, but the phonetics in the original Allagan are obvious. Whatever it is - that serves as a core for these things. Do we have access to the aether transfer array here? I want to try to charge it."

"I can take care of that," said Liana. "What are you trying to do?"

"I just want to see what will happen."

"Might want to see what will happen a bit further back, if you think this will get it going again," said Papanan. "You weren't there for the seizures, but don't be fooled - it looks like a little Miqo'te, but that thing's muscle density is way higher than it should be, and it's a fast bastard when it's up."

"It's got nerves different from we do," said Liana, explaining as she set up the aetheric array. "Faster or broader or something. When it moves, it really moves. Its twitch motion is nearly twice as fast as any other Spoken."

"I... think I shall be over here, then," said Datum nervously, and Papanan went with him. Liana ducked down from where she was standing.

"Ready when you are."

Datum took a deep breath, and nodded. "Fix release."

Liana triggered a switch, and a steady beam of aether flowed from a crystalline array in the ceiling, aimed at the torso of the construct. Rather than flowing around it or dissipating into nether, the aether seemed to just flow into the core and stop there.

For several long minutes, nothing further happened. Liana stuck her head up over the console, while Papanan leaned out from where he was hiding. Datum, however, just watched intensely.

"Can't keep this up much longer," said Liana, looking over her readouts. "We got another minute before I'll need to turn it off and let our stores refill and the system recharge."

"Keep at it," said Datum.

And then, the core gained the faintest glow, hard to see from around the aether stream pouring into it. The construct began to twitch violently, seeming to vibrate in place as its whole body twitched, its fingers and toes violently and rapidly curling and uncurling. It began to make a low, unsettling guttural groan.

Datum grimaced. "That's enough. Shut it down."

Liana did so, and as the aether stream faded away, so did the glow from the construct's core, and its body settled back down to become still.

Papanan put his hands on his hips, and nodded, looking to Datum. "Well well well! That's progress. What is it you've got, then?"

Datum stood up, and began to fiddle with the accoutrements to his lab coat. "Well. I think that has proven several things. We won't be able to get the core online with just aether alone. But I know what will, now."

He looked to the other two. "We don't need to find them soulmates. What we need is to mate a soul to them - to quicken their cores. E'lan's translations were from secondary sources, but I see how he got them. It's not a spiritual fishing hook. It's a soul gig, and it's part of the Cauldron Boundary Unit. It's called a cauldron because it's the last step in forging one of these to completion. As for the boundary part - the cauldron leads deep down, we know that much. How far down has been a matter of speculation, but I suspect I know now. Far enough down to reach the aetherial sea."

"That's preposterous," said Papanan, but Liana just frowned and looked thoughtful.

"And that's the last puzzle piece of E'lan's translation. Not a deep blue sea, but rather, into the Azure Sea - a common enough name for the aetherial sea by civilizations past, owing due to the nature of its color."

"I understand," said Liana. "By using the cauldron to go past the boundary of the material, the Allagans thought to perhaps attach a soul to it to help power and maintain it."

"Ridiculous," said Papanan, but there was no real dissent to his voice as he looked up at the crystal transfer idea. "The idea that we would be attaching a soul to this thing seems quite beyond what even the Allagans were capable of. But, we have one of the most powerful aetheric transfer systems that have ever been devised in the modern era. I propose instead that if this cauldron does lead to the sea, or even if it does not, it leads to somewhere with deep aetheric capability. I suspect what we will be doing instead is simply charging the core. Hardly needs a soul for explanation. We saw it start moving."

Liana crossed her arms. "Perhaps leave the theorizing on the nature of aether to the aetherlogical expert."

"Oh, sure, if you'll leave the machinery to the mechanical expert. I'm telling you, this thing doesn't need a soul, just some juice, and maybe something to keep it from rotting. A dense source of aether just might do the trick."

"In either case, we know what we have to do next," said Datum. "I shall inform Kyb mal Donos. Perhaps we can get another extension while we retrieve more of these... frames."

"It's just a body. No need to get prissy about it," said Papanan, grinning up at Datum. Datum just shook his head.

"Whatever the case is, we know what we need to do next."

"Do we?" asked Liana. "And what of the current experiment? We've not gotten one to start moving again before."

"It's still half rotted. You two may be used to the smell, but we'll need to show these things to the Legatus eventually. Once the system's recharged, try again, make sure we can replicate the findings. Liana, maybe try to see if you can bind a familiar to it, we'll see if that's enough to keep them moving without having to resort fully to trying to see if we can get the Cauldron Boundary Unit to do what we want. But when you're done, just consign it to the graveyard. I'm going to report back to Kyb. Any questions?"

"No questions." "Nothing from me."

Datum just nodded, and then looked down at the weird hybrid construct once more.

"We'll get one of you to life yet," he said.

[manofmanymons]

I feel like a Survive x TWEWY crossover would be so fun

Both in the sense of TWEWY characters in the Survive storyline and vice versa

I like how both stories have the shared trait of "trust your partner or die" but in TWEWY your partner is Just Some Random Person (or whoever you happened to die alongside) while in Survive it's your fated partner

How would Neku's initial distrust play out if his partner was a digimon instead of Shiki? Would it go more smoothly because he'd connect with them since they'd inherently be similar to him, or would it go worse because "aaaaah monster" ? I'm leaning towards the former, but still.

I think Shuuji might actually initially handle a human partner better tbh

How would the Survive cast react to the end of Week 1 if they all made it to the end only to find out that only one of them could be revived and go home? Who would they choose? Would they fight over it? Or if they didn't all last the full week, well...what killed them?

How would Kaito handle the fact that he and Miu were already dead, meaning he already failed her twice?

Hell, knowing how Part 3 of Survive went, how would Ryo react to already being dead? Would he even try to win the game?

And what about Saki? Would her illness still exist even in death? If not, would it come back upon resurrection? How would that influence her attitude towards winning the game?

Conversely, how would things be different if Beat and Rhyme never died?

Would Joshua be a Normal Person or would he have some kind of unusual power like Miyuki's? Or would that just make Survive yet another parallel world to the main TWEWY world and he would be uncomfortably self aware about it aksjnd

What kind of psychs (powers) would the Survive kids have?

What partners would the TWEWY kids have? Personally voting for Joshua's partner following the straightforward Patamon->Seraphimon line because...well he's Joshua.

How would Shiki's self-image issues reflect on her partner?

What would the Survive kids' entry fees be, and how would that affect their ability to work together? Would they all look like themselves? Would they all keep their memories intact? Just what is the most important thing to each of them? And I don't mean like the objects from the waterway.

Well okay for Kaito that question has an easy answer and my real question for him is would he end up more like Beat in week 1 or Neku in week 2? As in would Miu forget him or would the reapers just straight up take her away?

Would Takuma even work as the main protagonist in TWEWY? I feel like he's more similar to Rindo than Neku, but even then he's way more open and personable than either of them. That being said tho

What if the Survive kids were in Neo instead and they were all a team together? How would they (especially Aoi) feel knowing their survival hinged on the other teams dying? Fighting monsters is one thing, but fighting other people and knowing they'll be erased if you win? That's...a bit much.

And now that I've said Neo, how would Rindo, Fret, and Nagi fare in Survive? At the very least I don't think Nagi would fall for monsters in disguise or illusions, but idk about the other two.

How would everyone even die lmao

I mean that both in the "how did the Survive cast end up playing the Reaper's Game" sense and in the "who in TWEWY would die and how in the kemonogami world" sense

I have all of the questions and none of the creativity to hc answers.

Anwyays take this incredibly self-indulgent rambly post that is incomprehensible to anyone but the maybe two other people on the planet who like both TWEWY and Survive.