#but i don't know who 'Stowaway' is referring to

[mechsbrackets]

Who has been nominated so far?

Since we have 48 nominees so far, I'm gonna go ahead and put the list under a cut:

Gunpowder Tim 22 Ashes O'Reilly 18 Mordred 14 The Toy Soldier 14 Loki 13 Jonny D'ville 11 Lyfrassir Edda 10 Nastya Rasputina 9 Ulysses 9 Dr. Carmilla 7 The Aurora 7 Drumbot Brian 6 Raphaella la Cognizi 6 Frankenstein's AI 5 Iphis 5 Marius von Raum 5 Arthur Pendragon 3 Briar Rose 3 Comsat Cheshire 3 Galahad 3 Guinevere 3 Ivy Alexandria 3 Lancelot 3 Majors Hatter & Hare 3 Narcissus 3 Yog-Sothoth 3 Alice 2 Gawain 2 Hereward the Wake 2 Rose Red 2 Scuzz Nishimura 2 Sigyn 2 The Stranger 2 Ariadne 1 Bertie 1 Blogbot 1 Dorian Grey 1 Frankenstein 1 General Snow White 1 Gunther the Octokitten 1 Jack Spratt 1 Orpheus 1 Pellinore 1 Prometheus 1 Stowaway 1 The Moon Kaiser 1 The Octokittens 1 The Rose Reds 1

[redstringraven]

alright, so after a thorough replay of the space-arc and a slightly less thorough comb of the invasion-arc here're some loose observations and thoughts regarding triceraton tattoos. i'm not touching triceratons featured in fast forward because... i don't have interest in that fjkldjks. my apologies.

this is mostly for myself, but you're of course more than welcome to use it as a resource, reference, whatever tickles your fancy. if i missed something, feel free to tell me!

there does seem to be some pattern with rank, so i'm gonna start with "low-rank" and make my way up the ladder.

citizens

we don't get to see a lot of triceraton citizens, and basically all of them are background fodder save for zed and raz (the games commentators). from what i can tell, none of them have tattoos on neither their eyes nor their arms--on the ones with bare arms, anyway. it's probably safe to assume they don't have them on their chests because those seem all-star specific.

rebellion

this is where the tattoo thing gets a bit weird--as in, i don't know if they're actually facepaint that can be removed, or if these are all citizens or green soldiers who've not earned their military tattoo yet. traximus still has his tattoo, but none of his rebellion soldiers have the ones we'll later see on every soldier as well as prison guards. it's definitely possible citizens joined the rebellion, but trax had also mentioned in the arena that he still had friends in the ranks. are they not there? did they remove their tattoos? am i over-analyzing a cartoon beyond what the creators considered? (it's that one).

you can click on the screenshot to make it a little bigger but the bottom-left shot shows an actual solder beside a rebellion soldier, the former's tattoo is barely visible but there. their concept art doesn't have a tattoo, and i didn't see any in-show who had one... but, i did more skim through the invasion-arc, so it's possible i missed one. lemmie know if i'm wrong.

prison guards

all prison guards seem to have a single, thick red-line tattoo over their right eye. the ends point toward the backs of their heads. not much to talk about here. the two in the second-to-bottom-left screenshot are missing theirs, but i'm going to assume this is an animation error.

--also, sidebar, i don't think the blue ""tattoos"" prisoners have are remotely the same type of thing, so i don't think that'd apply to my confusion over none of the rebellion soldiers having tattoos.

soldiers

here's once again where the definition of 'tattoo' gets a little blurry, because if tattoos are a sign of rank and then your rank changes... what do. maybe since triceratons already have advanced technology--and tough skin--they have... a solid form of tattoo removal. again, though, i don't think their tattoos are the same as the ""tattoos"" prisoners receive, so i doubt they'd just peel off?? if that were possible, you'd also think they would have removed traximus's tattoo after he was thrown into the games as another way to shame/derank him, too.

so, your basic and most common soldier seems to have two narrow maroon lines over their right eye. the ends do not point in any direction, they're just lines. they're thin enough that they can be very hard to see if the camera's at a distance, but they're still there--just hard to capture in a screenshot partially due to the quality i'm working with.

next is an ensign soldier, which is basically a low-ranking officer. i think we only see one of these guys (he's leading the group who find the turtles as stowaways at the beginning of s2ep3, the big house). his tattoos are once again over the right eye, maroon/purple, thicker than a soldier's tattoo, and the peak of the outer-most line has a point. for a moment, i thought that maybe you'd build on the tattoo as you ranked, but traximus and mozar are gonna kind of throw that theory out the window when we get to them.

there's also this guy from s2ep5, triceraton wars. he's labeled as "strike team leader" on his concept art, and getting a visible shot of his tattoo in-show is very frustrating and not helped by the fact it looks like they goofed his color palette, too. his tattoo is over the right eye (like the previous soldiers), red, and it's a curved line with ends that hook toward the front of his face. it's the most similar to traximus's tattoo that we see.

...also, this episode eludes to the fact that "slag" is a triceraton swear word, as zanramon uses it both as an exclamation of frustration and calls the strike team "slag brains". he could also just be calling them all stony waste matter, tho, so. do with that what you will.

there's also THESE GUYS from the invasion-arc in s3, and they confuse me because the invasion-arc not only introduces this new uniform design i don't see anywhere in the concept art that i've collected, but these soldiers have like. no tattoos. and it can't be an animation error because their lack of tattoo was consistent for any wearing this suit design. monza ram steals this suit from one of the soldiers, and looted soldier who reports back to zanramon later doesn't have a tattoo.

i wonder if these guys are like... more engineers than they are soldiers. we mostly see them in the docking bay or in the control room where the boys learn don's location on the homeworld. they're just armed because they'd stand in the way of anyone attempting to infiltrate the homeworld (or escape it), but i don't think i saw any of them leave the vessel itself.

gruell

gruell is an odd one because he has the same maroon tattoos as your common soldier--two narrow lines over the right eye--but he additionally has a tattoo on his right arm. it's of course possible that other soldiers also have this tattoo and that it's just hidden by their sleeves, but if tattoos are a show of rank or status you'd think it'd be somewhere more visible? maybe arm tattoos are additional signals of status when soldiers are in their civvies or something.

regardless, gruell's arm tattoo is the only of its kind we see: it appears to be red ink: an upright triangle that breaks into two longer lines where the top line hooks up toward the triangle and the bottom line hooks down toward another triangle, albeit this one is upsidedown. i'm not sure if this is meant to be an abstract design with the usual triceraton fondness of triangles and jagged lines, or if's maybe a representation of a bi-ringed planet? homeworld before they blew it up oopsie-doopsy? who knows.

monza ram + the all-stars

okay, if there are ANY anomalies on this list, it's these guys. none of them have anything resembling the soldier nor prison guard tattoos we've previously seen.

monza ram is the most unique; he doesn't seem to have any body tattoos, but he does have two thick red tattoos (or one big tattoo?) that rises from his jaw on both sides of his face and breaks into two spikes, one ending before it reaches his eye and the other 'cutting through' the eye and peaking on his brow. it covers the back third of his face, right in front of where his frill starts.

the other three all-stars have a much more narrow tattoo on either side of their face that looks like a jagged scratch, another narrow tattoo across the backs of their necks, then an extremely long one that seems to wrap diagonally around their back and end on their pecks. this is the only instance of tattoos that aren't maroon or red, too, as one all-star has blue tattoos and another has brown.

we unfortunately don't really know anything about the all-stars, just that they seem to be separate from the gladiator slaves, are undefeated (before the turtles), and after they lost their first fight zanramon had them imprisoned, where traximus would later free and recruit them. none of them have soldier tattoos. i know the triceratons love battle, so i wonder if they're more like the career tributes in the hunger games. they volunteered to be gladiators rather than were made to be them. eh. *shrugs*

commander mozar

title revoked because i said so, mozar is frustrating because he doesn't have an eye tattoo that we can see. those marks under his eye-patch are more likely from the injury that cost him his eye since they're a darker color than his skin tone, but where shit gets tricky is that traximus was a commanding officer before he was gladiator'd. so, it's possible that mozar has a tattoo identical to trax's under that eye-patch, and we just can't see it.

important to note, however, that his right eye--the eye where all other soldiers have had a tattoo--is bare. that's where the whole... building on your tattoo as you rank up theory kind of falls to the wayside. he technically SHOULD have one, but he doesn't.

he also has an arm tattoo, but it's on his left arm. again--he might also have one on his right arm, but it's sleeved. his left arm is only visible because his prosthetics must require a shorter sleeve. the tattoo on his arm is red: the top piece is a crescent shape lying on its side so it opens upward, then a long line that dips into a crescent shape so it frames the crescent above it, and finally an upsidedown triangle under the lowest point of the middle curve. this is much more of an abstract design than gruell's, idk what this could be.

traximus

as with mozar, traximus complicates the ranking up theory because he also lacks any tattoos on his right eye; his tattoo is on his left eye, and it appears to be reddish, zig-zagging down from his horn, across his brow, down over his eye, back along his cheek and then down to the corner of his mouth.

he doesn't have an arm tattoo on his right arm like gruell does, and if he has a tattoo on his left arm like mozar, it's covered by either his commanding officer sleeve or his gladiator armor. if mozar's tattoo has any connection to his ranking as a commander, it's possible trax has it, too. we just never get the chance to see it. pity.

the council

the council is a main indication that tattoos might be less a show of social status and more military or warrior specific, because none of the council members have visible tattoos (ignore mozar, he forgot to wear pink last wednesday idk why he's sitting with us). kind of helps me lean a bit more into my engineer theory from earlier.

prime leader (zanramon)

no visible tattoos. none whatsoever. pathetic. let's be real, he'd probably start crying before the needle even grazed his skin.

if you've made it to the end: thank you ONCE AGAIN for coming along with me on one of my dives into triceraton bullshittery. i'm sorry, i will do it again.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/11/2024: V/H/S BEYOND

There was a moment in this movie where I thought to myself, "What if this is the one V/H/S installment that doesn't have anything in it that totally sucks??" V/H/S is always a minefield, and I usually find that I'm just hoping at least one thing will be good enough to justify the ~120 minutes. Sometimes the "one good thing" is just little elements of a few different segments, and finding them can be an exercise in masochism. This anomalous example features a couple of decent things, two things that are truly amazing, and one thing that sucks so hard that it makes you want to write a letter to your local representatives. It doesn't even feel like it's bad in good faith. It's like an act of vandalism.

Jordan Downey's extremely video game-y "Stork" is a solid opener whose moderate goofiness doesn't interfere with how exciting it is. The rampage though a house full of alien-possessed zombies is impossible to take your eyes off of--I mean, I might have had an extra visceral reaction to this because it reminded me so much of House of the Dead: Overkill aka one of the world's best games, but it will show anybody a good time. I like that for some reason the aliens have a culture; they have a religion, they put up photos of their abduction victims like they're family portraits, which is senseless but very funny to me. Did part of it remind anyone else of LOOP TRACK?

I have one major complaint about Virat Pal's "Dream Girl," which is that it is WAY too jiggly. I don't usually get motion sickness, but this is less stable than any other found footage movie I have ever seen and it started to get to me. It's also a problem because it makes it hard to properly see the FX; I started to wonder if it was meant to hide something, though a few relatively-stable closeups don't look so bad. But I liked the zany story about a soft-hearted paparazzo who convinces a beleaguered Bollywood idol to can her controlling manager, which turns out to be a bad idea for bizarre reasons. It makes no sense but who cares, it's a fun idea.

Justin Martinez's "Live and Let Dive" is totally astonishing from beginning to end. It reaches out of the screen and throttles you. A group of friends have unfortunately chosen to go skydiving on the day of a saucer attack, and what ensues makes this segment one of the most daring and thrilling genre films I've seen in a while. I hardly know what to say about it. Even if the entire rest of V/H/S BEYOND failed, this alone would make it worth the price of admission. Just watch it.

And with that said, it is an unforgivable act of emotional violence to chase the greatness of "Live and Let Dive" with Justin and Christian Long's insulting and debased "Fur Babies". The euphoria induced by the former segment is abruptly shattered by an infantile and unfunny grossout black comedy about a group of animal rights activists who go after a doggy daycare owner for...taxidermy. Which they keep referring to as a "mutilation". Which is truly idiotic, is it supposed to be funny that these guys are so stupid that they can't tell the difference between animal cruelty and the repurposing of animal remains, which is not-vegan at worst? Or are the writers so lazy that they couldn't bother coming up with a real animal welfare crime, because they were so committed to the shtick of making TUSK-but-with-dogs? (Which is a terrible concept for a movie and this should not be ambiguous) Certainly they were too lazy to come up with a story that actually matched the sci-fi theme of the rest of the anthology. Is it that the horror community is afraid to say no to Justin Long? He owes me a personal apology now.

Thankfully this is followed by another violent mood swing with Kate Siegel's "Stowaway". This is definitely my favorite thing with Mike Flanagan's name on it. The story about a UFO nut who neglects her family to chase alien encounters in the desert gets off to a slightly awkward start, but once the encounter is underway, the segment becomes frankly magical. Siegel and co-writer Flanagan valiantly attack the challenge of creating an alien world that does not at all resemble the rules or structures of our own, nailing the cosmic horror subgenre in a way that has rarely been done. It is scary, sad, and often beautiful. It's a good place to land.

The wraparound story is sort of poorly resolved, but I found it very funny for occult-minded motivational speaker Mitch Horowitz to chase his Discovery show Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction with this pseudo-show featuring other paranormal talking heads. Cute thing to do. Unfortunately it doesn't feel that well-resolved, but all things considered, that's not a major crime.

[365runesoftheamalgamations]

The Not Yet Forgotten Introduction

hello and how are you?

This has been far too long since we have been active and we've wanted to get back into the flow of things! And we believe it is time for a Reintroduction! So, without further ado,

A Proper Introduction

Welcome to the Writing Blog! We are the Not Yet Dead Authors, the Natsume Rune! You may refer to us as Natsume as a whole, or say hi to any of the specifics who run the blog/do the writes! Our pronouns are we/they, and we are an aromantic/asexual genderfluid cluster of whispers drowning in the Void for more than two decades. So just another set of Wanderers who wish to reach out and touch the Worlds in a more pronounced way!

Full Writeblr Introduction under the cut!

Getting To Know Us

We are most comfortable writing and conversing in italics! It just feels like it speaks with our souls, so please be aware that most of the posts and such will be within that realm of writing.

Our most comfortable sense of writing is in third person present tense! We also write in first person (sometimes) and second person (rarely) but our comfort lies in others and their present.

We write mostly fantasy but also dabble in horror, science fiction, dystopian and other works and writing styles. We do hold our own universe, the Storyverse, that we will hint, note, and talk about, depending on things, as well as a multitude of Worlds that will be given over to the Stories happening within in. Hardcore about both worldbuilding and storytelling, so we will probably have a lot to say about both the Worlds and Stories that come with our hyperfixations.

Our writing forms include: fanfiction, short stories, drabbles, flash fiction, novels, poems, and role playing! We enjoy rolling through forms and trying out different ways of telling and sharing stories, so please note that there will be a lot of everything on here.

We follow from the System's Blog, @365runesofthesystem, and will try to be really active in the community, so if you see us around, then feel free to indulge us! We love to be tagged in games and sent asks and the like and will try to get to all of them in due time. [ yes, we do hoard Tag Games, shut the fuck up about it. ]

If there is anything else anyone would like to know, do not hesitate to ask or message us! But be aware that we are not afraid to deal with anything impolite or inappropriate, we have a zero tolerance standard and we will keep it without hesitation.

The Amalgamations of our Creations

We have a lot - and yes, we mean a fuck ton - of Works and Stories that we want to tell at some point in our lives, so this list will definitely grow and expand and shift as we go through our journey.

If you want a full list of all of our Works, check our both our Original Works Masterlist and our Fanworks Masterlist!

All Links to WIP Pages and Intro Posts will be added as we get things sorted and settled!

But here are a few of our more pronounced Works, [ yes, they can and will probably shift and change. No they are not in any particular order, we hate figuring out orders. ]

Grayland's Shadow

Original Work | Fiction, Low Fantasy, Horror Elements First, Second, Third Person | Second Drafts

Ecstasy. The screaming, the struggling, the pleas for mercy, he loved them all. He loved the way they always seemed to think that he would set them free. That, if they were good and tried hard enough, he would just let them live, bleeding and knowing. As if he would ever let anyone go. He never did. He never wasted an opportunity either. So when a girl, around her way into adulthood, sat down next to him on the bench that day, he had no intention of letting her go. None.

Constellations By Orion

Original Work | Fiction, High Fantasy, Action and Adventure Third Person Present Tense | Scene Drafting/Worldbuilding

Orion is the first one she goes for, as he always points North. "I am just saying, your little stowaway is pretty cute." "I don't need a man Orion, I need directions across the sea." "Trust me, if you want a purpose, you should find Ursa Major. She's the guide of adventure, new life." "And where can I find her?" "At the heart of the ocean. She is the Guardian of Polaris and her baby, Ursa Minor."

The Queen & The Heir

Short Story | Fiction, High Fantasy, Medival Third Person Present Tense | Scene Drafting/Prompt Response

She hates herself for hesitating. She stares at the note, gentle cream instead of stark white in order to hold the same connotations of the maid notes that she, and more importantly he, was accustomed to seeing. She glances at the Guard, barely catches the door closing completely, locking her in with the words that would prove herself justified. Or truly and quietly mad.

The Rapunzel Witch

Short Stories | Fiction, High Fantasy, Fairytale Retellings, LGBTQIA+ Third Person Present Tense | Chapter/Scene Drafting

Vibrant and sharp, it is another small check to his identity; the Queen is staring at him, though instead of the hard determination of a leader, he stands before the soft gentleness of a person unused to such direct contact. Something shifts in those eyes; the Royal Majesty frowns more before he lets his eyes drop to the ground between them. “Well, that’s that then, isn’t it?” The Knight feels a soft pang; he almost takes a step forward, hand twitching at his side before the Royal spins around and walks away from him. “Your obligations are fulfilled; the Rapunzel Witch lives.”

The Plague Begins With Me

Original Work | Dystopian, Horror Third Person Present Tense | Scene Drafting

Lost to the devastation of the Plague and destroyed by the aftermath of Humanity’s Fall, the World of Zeomia holds nothing but the dystopian devastation of disease and decay. Shouldering a responsibility that no one else is allowed to know, Zero tries to give mercy to those who have fallen from her own twisted fate.

Main Tags of the Blog

rune ⊹ writings | general writing tag rune ⊹ works in progress | where you can find all of our works rune ⊹ wanderlust | general tag for other blogs rune ⊹ nonsense | fun and silly things outside of the writings/writeblr rune ⊹ beloved | general tag for the mutuals of the writeblr rune ⊹ asks | tag for answering asks and anything from the inbox rune ⊹ authors | writing updates and softer thoughts of us rune ⊹ background noise | anything to do with the blog

[covecornerarchive]

corbinthemysterypirate asked:

I wanna know, since it seems that most people don't really realize this but, are there any other kids in candle cove. And if so has Janice ever met them, how does she react to others?

Ok, I can only really speak for my au, not other people's, but yes there are other kids in candle cove besides Janice, it's just that she's the only one there from our world.

I know on the wiki Nathan is mentioned as another kid member of the Laughingstock Crew who was Janice's neighbor in the real world, but because I think that's kind of distracting and takes away from Janice being the focus of the story (and creates a HUGE plot hole for my au's world building) in my version he's also a puppet like everyone else. He's also a little older than Janice in my version, about 13 (just to make sense out of why Calvary seems more chill with him being on the crew than Janice at first), and while he and Janice are pretty close friends and can come to each other as kids about stuff in a way they can't with the other adults I also cut the tid-bit about them having a crush on each other out cuz, again I made him older and it felt like another distracting thing.

There's also Auburn! I don't nearly talk about her as much as I should considering how much she rots my brain (again just referring to her in my own au not the wiki). In my version Thade and Lillian aren't her biological parents, but rather she was a stowaway on the Tarantula ship (for reasons I'll get into later) and was just sort of...adopted by the crew over time? Lillian did practically become her mom and while it's more difficult to discern what relationship she had with Thade, since I hesitate to call him a dad sometimes because they feel like a more terrorizing little sister and very tired older brother duo, they were all family none the less. This also means Auburn was there for Red Mary's attack on the crew though, and along with Thade and Percy, was the only survivor (though the other two aren't aware of this and presumed her to be dead since they were separated).

I can't really get into her too much since I also have a big sequel au where the good guys and bad guys team up to defeat Red Mary and Auburn is involved in a big way, but the basic gist is after the attack she was just on a hellbent path for revenge which ended up getting her involved in a bunch of magic stuff, as well as hurting others and herself. In the same au she does end up joining the team and by this time both her and Janice are a bit older, Janice 14 and Auburn 16, but they actually get along great. Much like how Janice has Thade parallels in her characterization and story arc, Auburn has a lot of parallels to Lillian in the same way, so the two of them have a similary dynamic personality wise. Janice honestly just thinks Auburn is super cool and learns much more about magic and abyssians through her, and Janice helps Auburn give herself a break and move past some of the survivors guilt from the attack on the crew and how she was never able to avenge her mother on her own. I think they may also bond over losing their moms at young ages and having to live without them.

I've always loved to imagine Janice, Nathan, and Auburn just being this super chaotic trio of rag tag kids doing pirate crimes and getting into trouble. Auburn is usually the one to start chaos, Nathan tries to stop her, and while Janice helps her with it she's also usually the one to get them all out of it. It's their thing :] They should have like....a "Traumatized pirate kids who have been through some shit" therapy group they all need it.

Also, even though in my version she never actually makes it to the cove itself, me and a few friends on discord have come up with this sort of spin off story focusing on Melrose and what's happening back in Ohio after Janice goes missing that has more of that og candle cove cursed tv show feel than the main candle cove story I have where the feel is more aligned with grimm fairytales.

It's basically Melrose, who's going through guilt hell after Janice goes missing, seeing her sister in candle cove on the TV one day, basically the actual candle cove show described in the og creepypasta. Because everyone else only sees static though, she feels like she's going crazy, until one day a kid from school tells her "I saw your sister on TV too." From there Mel and a few other kids who have also witnessed the show (all oc's I'll share later) form this little group aiming to figure out what the hell's going on and to hopefully get Janice back from where ever she went. It sort of has that 80's horror movie vibe with the group of kids banding together over weird shit happening to them and having to solve a mystery or face off against something evil before it's too late. It's fun, it'll be fun I'm definitely not going to drag them all through trauma.

(April 12, 2022)

[inyvat]

MY THOUGHTS ON LUMINE'S TRAVELER ARCHON QUEST (from 3.5)— read more cause idk how long this is gonna get everyone.

Just to let you all know that I in-game play as Lumine. So when I say Abyss Prince, I'm referring to when AETHER is the leader of the Abyss Order.

First thing's first. Kaeya calling Paimon a FLOATING LITTLE WHITE HAIRED FAERIE and having her as the address for his Letter is FUCKING HILARIOUS. IDK about y'all, but I laughed. I mean KAEYA'S NOT WRONG. She's basically SUPERGLUED TO LUMINE.

Ahhh Kaeya, how I've missed you. I haven't seen you get any screen time since FUCKING SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER! He says he's here on official business, and I'm inclined to believe him. And we've NEVER ONCE seen Jean actually pissed. She's always so cool and collected, even when angry or sick. So if Kaeya's seen her actually pissed off then yeah it would make sense if she terrifies him. But he could also be saying this in jest.

Paimon chastising Kaeya for drinking on the clock while also telling him to STOP HOLDING A GRUDGE AGAINST DILUC AND GIVE HIS BIG BROTHER THE INFO is golden. Since Diluc is no longer a Knight and he HATES any and all alcohol despite being in the business. So it would fall to his brother who loves his wine to be sent for spice deal for wines because he'd HAVE to taste them. Dawn Winery is too busy to send people ALL THE WAY TO SUMERU for this.

And then there's the casual Kaenri'ah name drop. Just out of the blue while talking about his past. He said, "when he was very young". So I'm looking at anywhere between the ages of 4-9. Why not 10? because once you hit double digits, you slowly start to learn more and more about the adult world, making you grow up little by little. Kaeya will never be in the single digits again in terms of age. He'll always be in the double digits. He'll start having more responsibilities by the time he's 10. They'll be little and a lot less than Diluc I'm sure, but he'll still end up having some responsiblity entrusted to him and that'll grow as he does.

He wanted to find out about Khaenri'ah. He read it in a book somewhere. Either in the library at the Knights HQ or in the library at Dawn Winery. And he's probably kept the book with him ever since. Since Lumine would know if she saw anything, any book, that has any mention of Khaenri'ah within its pages. But what he did was very serious. He probably scared Diluc and Crepus half to death by being a stowaway aboard that ship.

Kaeya as a kid used to believe that had some sort of destiny to Khaenri'ah. And that's what everyone in the RPC, theorists, etc headcanon or think. That he's got to be some sort of savior for them. But I don't think so. Khaenri'ahns didn't have a God at all. And yet the CRYO ARCHON HERSELF, THE TSARISTA, or Celestia or whoever truly grants the Visions to a small percentage of people thought he was fit enough for the power of a Cryo Vision; a small amount of the power of the Cryo Archon herself. Khaenri'ahns detested the gods and yet Kaeya is friends with the Anemo Archon himself as well. If he had some sort of destiny to avenge his distant homeland then he would still harbor such hatred towards the Archons and the other Gods that failed to win a seat in Celestia and would have forsaken his Vision. That thought of him having some sort of destiny faded after some time and now he's more Mondstadt than Khnaeri'ahn, regardless of his roots. He'd protect his friends and his life there in Mondstadt if push came to shove.

I would assume that what we heard during the Wine festivial of Kaeya's father's last words to him, that he was their last hope, was that he was their bloodline's last hope at something GOOD; at something decent. Not the last hope for Khaenri'ah. Because remember his family, the ALBERICHS were REGENTS OF KHAENRI'AH. Not Queen, King, Princess or Prince. But REGENT. And REGENT is someone who rules FOR someone else, either due to the monarch being mentally unstable or a minor, and it is a position that is not INHERITED but granted by the monarch at their choosing usually to a someone of NOBLE FAMILY.

Kaeya knows he's being cut off. From what? We don't know.We can all assume that it's the power from the Abyss or the Abyss Order itself. But what if it's not? What if the love of a mother and a father? Of having blood related siblings? I'm sure he still loves Diluc with all of his heart, but there are things that he's kept from him. Perhaps it's something more concrete. We don't know yet or perhaps we'll never know. We just have to see.

Then there's the last name Alberich. The very same name I was just talking about. Dain comes in and says that he knows the last name Alberich is the same last name used by the man who founded the Abyss Order. This does not make Kaeya "Prince of the Abyss Order" as that role immediately went to Aether when his journey was done. Not even "king" would be correct. As the founder would have had to induct his family into the order for it to be a "family business" and have Kaeya inherit the title. And if that were the case then there would be no need for Aether as the Abyss Prince.

Put a pin in that for a second. I'll come back to that.

Lumine and Paimon go with Dain to the Avidya Forest. To an old abandoned hut. The hut is checked out, the only things worthy of note are the strong smell of medicinal items coming from the bowl and the broken mirror. Lumine takes on some pyro slimes while Dain goes off to check the ley lines in the area living Lumine and Paimon alone for the night.

It gets a little emotional as Paimon reveals that she hopes that Lumine isn't growing or doesn't grow tired of her. Lumine has to cheer her up because Paimon being down in the dumps hurts her to see, she doesn't like to see her friend or any of her friends sad. It gets even more emotional when Paimon asks about Aether and her travels before they came to Teyvat. Lumine tells her a little bit about their travels and how this is the first time in all of her life she can remember ever being separated from her big brother.

Paimon notices that Lumine is exhausted and probably a little sad since she brought up Aether and so she tells Lumine to go sleep and that she'll wake her when it's time for her shift since Paimon is taking first watch instead of her. Lumine falls asleep, dreaming about Aether.

She wakes up to Dain but everything is groggy and disoriented and she doesn't move to get up and she doesn't see Paimon at all or hear her. But Dain tells her to go back to sleep while he goes back into the forest after he tells her that he noticed her tear stains. She falls back asleep and wakes up sometime in the late morning.

That's when she goes to the hut and sees weirdly dressed man with STAR SHAPED pupils. Just like Kaeya and Dain. Immediately I know that he's Khaenri'ahn. But I don't know WHO exactly. He's mentally unstable, since his moods go from one extreme to the next and during the conversation with Lumine, Lumine is introduced to a hilichurl by the name of Caribert. Now Caribert means GLORIOUS WARRIOR in Old Frankish and probably has the same meaning in Khaenri'ahn or something similiar.

What strikes me is that Caribert is HALF KHAENRI'AHN AND HALF MONDSTADTER. And he's this man's illegitimate son. Meaning he was born out of wedlock. We only see Caribert in his hilichurlian form, so we don't know what his eyes would be in his original form. This man, his father, is trying to give his son's mind some clarity again so that they can talk again at the very least.

The man "Eide" tells Lumine that he was fed up with his arranged life, which means an arranged WIFE and KIDS and everything planned for him but not by him. But then he met and fell in love with a Mondstadter woman turned naturalized Khaenri'ahn citizen. They had an affiar and it produced a son, Caribert. After that, he had to hide his love and his son from the eyes of his family. He couldn't be there for either of them, as "Eide" said, "I resented my life arranged by my family… Caribert faced great hardship from the very moment of his birth, all due to my selfish desires… and I was never able to be there by his his side for any of it…" So this tells me that Caribert was perhaps sickly from the time of his birth. And he also had to deal with being a hidden son, who would be viewed as a great shame by his noble paternal family and half siblings and thus grew up poor.

"Eide" during the Cataclysm went to his lover and his son, more than likely ABANDONING his first wife and kids, and watched as mother and son were changed into hilichurls. But because HE, his first wife and their kids as well as every other Pureblooded Khaenri'ahn were just that PUREBLOODED, they received a curse of Immortality. While those who were of the other nations, or were only half Khaenri'ahn, were turned into hilichurls. Lumine helps make some medicine for Caribert but it doesn't work. And "Eide" goes slightly more insane at the fact that it failed. But she reminds him that maybe one dose isn't going to be enough. Maybe it'll take more than one.

When Lumine and "Eide" go into the Chasm via the route into Sumeru after the man freaks about a lone hilichurl being Caribert and they end up facing a Frost Abyss Herald who tells them to go back that they have no business being down there. Now normally Abyss Heralds, Lectors and Mages (thus far) all have attacked Lumine. So it's strange that this one gives Lumine and "Eide" a chance to escape unscathed. But it ends up a battle anyway a "trial of destiny" as the Herald called it since it came to think that they were there for some sort of audience. Audience???? WITH WHAT OR WHO?! They go in and they see all these hilichurls bowing down to a crystal hanging in the sky. And it gives off the same familiar and unnatural evil that the Defiled Statue gave off. GREAT JUST GREAT!!!!!!

"Eide" bows and it reminds Lumine of the deceased thief from the Treasure Hoarders. YEP THIS IS BAD PLACE TIME TO YEET! And Lumine tells Eide pretty much that but is stopped from trying to pull him out of the trace/bow by a voice in her head, describing itself as a "sinner" not a god and to go and become a transcented one and learn the truth. Then the voice zaps "Eide" with a purple light and goes dormant.

THAT CAN'T BE GOOD OF FUCKING HELL NO. "Eide" gets up and Lumine and him return to the hut and they try the medicine again and this time it does work. I'm wondering right now if it's not the Abyssal Power that the voice gave him that made it work… Once Caribert regains his mind and he and "Eide" talk for a moment or two, he's told not take off his mask and to never look in a mirror. For good reason. Hilichurls hate how they look as they mourn the faces they can never have again.

Lumine and "Eide" go to unnamed/unknown sanctuary to go see the crystal again and find it missing "Eide" ponders if it was really a "sinner" and not a god after all. But soon as they return to the hut, Caribert had gone missing and "Eide" finds the broken mirror. They search around but find nothing. They decide to search outside of the hut and run into some forest rangers. One of them tells "Eide" that he saw a hilichurl just walking aimlessly and left be after a brief and heated confrontation.

Lumine and "Eide" find Caribert and he's got the dark purple Abyssal power following out of him. And he tells his father that it hurts and that he can't take the pain anymore and that he's sorry just as he takes off his mask and starts to fall the power explodes out of Caribert and Lumine passes out.

She wakes back up in the hut, but with only "Eide" there. Caribert is nowhere to be found. Lumine panics, understandable, as she doesn't know what happened to Caribert after he took off his mask. She hopes that he's okay, that he's not dead. And "Eide" laughs and tells her that Caribert can now weave his own destiny that he has become the "Loom of Fate".

So Dain is looking for A HILICHURL WITH A SCARF ON HIS ARM?! AND WHAT DOES THIS DUDE MEAN WHEN HE SAYS CARIBERT HAS NOW BECOME THE "LOOM OF FATE"?! IS HE DEAD, IS HE STILL ALIVE????? Or is he something else entirely now???? Is he something that's no longer human or hilichurl? Has he become something almost mythical to the point where Aether has to be the one to now find him as a part of his plans??????????

"Eide" then reveals that he's really CLOTHAR ALBERICH and is the FOUNDER OF THE ABYSS ORDER. Since he worshipped the thing that was a "sinner" and he figures that only salvation for a sinner must also come from a sinner. And then he reveals that to the people of Khaenri'ah that like the Abyss, which is mysterious and powerful and otherworldly, Lumine was viewed in the same light and everyone figured that she would lead them into a bright future.

Clothar then reveals to Lumine the title of PRINCE OF KHAENR'IAH. Which isn't right. If it was Lumine he was talking to then it would have to be PRINCESS! Right????? Well, Lumine looks into the broken mirror and doesn't see her own reflection staring back at her but AETHER'S INSTEAD! Meaning that this wasn't really happening in the here and now. THIS WAS AETHER'S MEMORY RIGHT BEFORE HE JOINED THE ABYSS ORDER AS ITS PRINCE.

The dream memory ends and Paimon and Dain are there relieved to have her awake and she relys to them both about everything she saw and heard. Dain reveals that 100 years after Clothar founded the Abyss Order he went completely mad due to the curse and then simply vanished. And that Aether had made no mention of this to him during their travels except for the "Loom of Fate" a few times.

Lumine asks Dain to help her dig up the field remembering the weird mushrooms that Clothar had given Aether for the medicine. There she finds two human skeletons. One male and one female. And around one of them, the female, is a scarf that Lumine recognizes as having once been Caribert. Then she says that she thinks the male skeleton, which was brought back over here at a later date, was Clothar's and that he found some way to break the curse of immortality and died.

Dain wants to say more but he has to go and shift through his memories. And he's pretty sure that an person he refers to as "he" as seen Lumine and that if it is who he thinks it is, Dain will be in touch later on at some later date once he's shifted though his memories and leaves Lumine and Paimon. Lumine gives Paimon and hug which is sweet.

— —— — —— — —— — —— — —— — —— — —— — —— — ——

Quick thoughts on the Abyss Heralds, Lectors and Mages. I think that the Abyss Heralds were the royal mages and their apprentices and other minor mages were the lectors and mages that we fight against in the game. That they were toying with the Abyssal magic and energy and it turned them not immortal humans or hilichurls but into monsters of the Abyss. And that they have their memories which haven't eroded away due to the curse of immortality. They know hilichurlian because it's a corruption of Khaenri'ahn.

The only royal mage who DIDN'T turn into a monster of the Abyss is Peirro, the 1st Harbinger. He left Khaenri'ah, but due to his being a pureblood, he's still cursed with the curse of immortality.

— —— — —— — —— — —— — —— — —— — —— — —— — ——

Now back to Kaeya. Is he Caribert?! I don't think so. It's possible, but only just. But Caribert is the "Loom of Fate". Meaning he can be ANYTHING or ANYONE at this point. I think he's something that's not human or hilichurlian or Abyssal monster. I think he's something more mythical now and is in hiding because he knows that if he's found by the Abyss Order it will be the end of everything. It's why Aether and the Order is so hellbent on finding the "Loom of Fate" since it's a major part of their operation to revive Khaenri'ah.

And if Kaeya was Caribert in a new form, Aether would know I think since he knows the feeling of that power that Caribert was trying to hold back and then when it exploded. No I think Kaeya is descended from Clothar through the family he had that was ARRANGED. As a noble, regardless of fantasy or reality, or even a royal; marrying for love was very rare. Everything from birth was arranged for Clothar. As he was either the OLDEST son or the SECOND oldest son in the Alberich family at the time of the Catacylsm. So that means he has no freedom in what he wants in terms of life. His only rebellion was falling in love with a woman who was NOT noble and who bore him an illegitimate son who he could not even with. So Kaeya being descended from this legitimate line of the Alberichs would make more sense.

And we KNOW THAT KAEYA IS A PUREBLOODED KHAENRI'AHN TOO. Because BOTH HIS EYES, even the one that's hidden, the one that has the scars from the night Diluc and he fought, are star shaped. Yes he's dark skinned, but who says that all pureblooded Khaenri'ahns were PALE?! We've only seen 3 pale Pureblooded Kaenri'ahns. Dain. Peirro. Clothar.

That's how Kaeya knows about Dain being pureblooded. Star shaped pupils. And STAR SHAPED PUPILS are the immediate identifiers of someone who is pureblooded either by descent — pureblooded Khaenri'ahns marrying down the line to other purebloods — or by the sole factor that they are the cursed immortal humans of that ruined nation. Dain even says that humans, pureblooded Khaenri'ahns by descent or cursed, still live in Khaenri'ah despite it being in a ruined state.

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

thoughts on everything and anything?

(i need reading material) (ok this is gonna sound stupid BUT GO CRAZY AND RANT ABOUT ANYTHING) (i’ve been forced to reading too much boring stuff i need a palette cleanser)

okay not much going on at the moment because we woke up *looks at clock* maybe 30 minutes ago, not sure what kinda rants you want (unfortunately can't ramble about philosophy and stuff here because i doubt half of the people who see this things would care but uhhh) BUT I'm happy to make the attempt!

our reading criteria is fairly similar (i don't think there's anything I've read recently that you haven't read previously)-still reading tale of two cities (also Dostoevsky but you already know that)-have you read Animal Farm yet? It's more of a historical criticism (love the fact that a lot of people don't catch onto the fact that it's just Orwell talking about Lenin and Stalin but anyways) but it's written interestingly-maybe Caesar? Read that one and it was pretty good, but if we're trying to venture out of classics...would recommend The Endurance by Alfred Lansing-it's a nonfiction work about the Endurance, which was a ship trying to reach the poles after the first world war, if memory serves correctly. It's written the way a novel is while still holding a lot of cool information and imagery, you might like that one? There are a lot of go-to titles that I remember really liking when I was younger, though I don't remember the plot for half of them-Stowaway by Karen Hesse was good (the plot is in the title for that one). Scott O'Dell's books were really good, from what I recall; The King's Fifth (about the Spanish search for gold in the Americas) and The Serpent Never Sleeps-I can't really give off too many book titles that aren't in reference to things you've already read, really. The Plague and The Stranger (both by Albert Camus, you know the one) were great, lot of analysis potential there. I dunno, those are just some titles off the top of my head.

[xenon-demon]

i had some more thoughts about this concept, SO:

Steve and Robin very much have a 10 and Donna Noble type dynamic going on. It's a fifty-fifty gamble on whether they're mistaken for siblings or a couple, which makes them feel either absolutely thrilled or disgusted, respectively. Also, they tried one (1) singular time to weaponise this by saying they're couple as a cover story (they were trying to infiltrate a 13th century royal banquet at the time, a married couple was much less suspicious than a pair of bachelors), only for everyone around them to go "oh you're a couple? You don't seem to like each other very much... I don't know if this is going to work out..."

Robin refers to herself as a Time Lord and not a Time Lady, even though technically the latter is the proper term for a female Time Lord. Soft Butch Robin my beloved <3

She also has a sonic trumpet (Steve is the only one who calls it her sonic trumpet, and Robin gets mad every time because "all trumpets are technically sonic, Steve, they all involve production of sound"). It's a regular trumpet she tinkered with and added technology to until she could use the buttons to alter the sound waves it produces to give it that classic sonic device functionality - while still being able to play it like a regular trumpet when she wants to. It's wildly impractical in a lot of situations but she likes it, damn it Steve, so she's not giving it up! Plus, it's kinda funny watching her run around in a life-or-death situation with a trumpet holstered to her back like it's a rifle or something.

Steve is Just Some Dude from the early 21st century. He's been traveling with Robin for a few years now and is roughly in his early-to-mid twenties, but at this point he doesn't go home very often. With the way he and Robin are attached at the hip, they lose track of time, and while they intended for Steve to maintain at least some of his regular life, the time between his appearances back home are getting longer and longer. He doesn't speak to his parents anymore, at least, so they won't miss him, and he quit his job not long after he started traveling with Robin. The only people he thinks could possibly be missing him are like... the kids from his apartment complex he used to babysit, maybe? Their names were Dustin and Lucas, and then Lucas' little sister Erica, too. But their parents stopped needing him for babysitting at least a good six months before he started traveling with Robin, and then he was working night shift all the time, and then he met Robin and he's barely been home since. Sure, he stops and chats with them when he sees them around the complex, but that's just being polite, it's not like these exceptionally bright young teenagers want to spend time with him. At some point they'll grow up and forget about him, right?

...needless to say, on one of Steve's rare trips back home (he wanted to show Eddie was his home time period is like), Steve and Robin and Eddie come back to find three stowaway teenagers in their TARDIS. These kids are tenacious as hell, good at pattern recognition, and as soon as Dustin realised Steve's once-in-a-blue-moon reappearances coincide with that weird blue box showing up down the street, in the same spot every time, he started researching the shit out of it. Turns out, Robin and Steve aren't too crash hot at hiding the evidence of their time travel from historical documentation.

The rest of the party also gets involved eventually too. Max is from an alien planet in the future with a very trade-based economy (the whole planet is essentially various marketplaces run by different organizational factions, and it's an interplanetary hub for trading). She desperately needs to get away from her step dad and abusive older brother, who have both gotten Significantly Worse since her mother passed away, so when the gang bump into her during a trip it doesn't take much for Steve and Robin to agree to take her with them.

As for El/Mike/Will: Hopper is a former Time Agent from the 51st century who quit when he discovered a spacetime anomaly - Eleven - and decided instead of reporting her (which would turn her into a lab rat for the rest of her life, assuming they let her live) he was going to keep her and raise her himself. El has endogenous time/space travel powers (essentially teleportation, but through time AND space) that she can't control very well, so she ends up in Hawkins in the 1950s by accident one day. This is where she meets Mike and Will, who end up coming with her - also by accident - on her future time travel adventures. It's incredibly dangerous though, even if Hopper is tracking El's hops through time so he can keep an eye out for her and rescue her if needed with his illegally-retained Time Agent technology. Eventually they cross paths with Team TARDIS and the party immediately becomes a box set. Do Not Separate Them.

In a steddie doctor who AU neither of them are the doctor. ROBIN is the doctor and Steve is her long term companion who basically just lives in the TARDIS with her because he didn’t have a whole lot keeping him where he was originally from. They meet Eddie when they’re in Hawkins in the 80s investigating some strange events that scream of spacetime fuckery and Steve goes “can we keep him 🥺” and Robin says yes absolutely - after hitting Steve with the I Know What You Are eyes of course. Once it’s established he can come back without anyone missing him (cause yknow, time travel) Eddie is thrilled to come with them because oh my god??? Aliens are real??? TIME TRAVEL is real???? Eddie’s got enough self-authored Star Trek fanfiction hidden under his bed to not need to think twice about this decision, okay.

Cue adventures and shenanigans and Eddie having the classic companion dilemma of “I love travelling with you and also am kinda falling in love with Steve but I also have friends (the CC boys) and family (Wayne) I really care about waiting for me back in Hawkins that I can’t just abandon”. I’m thinking the solution to that is something along the lines of Steve settling down with Eddie and staying with him on Earth, either in his original time in Hawkins or somewhere/sometime else with Robin generously helping Wayne out so he can go with them.

Also Eddie demands they use time travel for the greatest possible good: allowing him to see all his favourite metal bands live in concert in their prime.

[subway-tolkien]

The Bargain

Some BobaDinLuke pre-relationship that I wrote because I am procrastinating. I don't know what this is or where it could go, but it was a fun 1700 words!

🌞🌞

Luke didn’t really understand why Din brought him to Tatooine, let alone Jabba’s palace. Luke was certain he’d seen the last of the place years ago after dispatching Jabba and retrieving Han, but there they were, standing at the massive door as a TT-8L/Y7 demanded identification.

Din just looked at it in silence. The droid’s yellow eye stared back.

Finally, the TT-8L/Y7 seemed to sigh, uttered a soft Huttese curse, and slid back into the wall. The door opened.

“You gonna give me a clue as to why we’re here?” asked Luke as they descended the stairs.

“I told you,” said Din impatiently. “An ally of mine needs my help. You’re the one who insisted on coming with me.”

“Had I known you were coming here I’d have stayed home.”

“Good to know for next time,” said Din. Luke didn’t appreciate the snippy tone but let it slide as they entered the throne room.

“Skywalker.”

Luke looked up and blanched. Boba Fett—last seen falling into a sarlacc pit with a comical shriek—stood on the dais, helmeted and holding a blaster at the ready, though not pointed at Luke.

At least not yet.

“Uh,” said Luke intelligently. “Congratulations on escaping the sarlacc, I suppose?”

“No thanks to your friend, Solo,” said Fett evenly. The visor turned toward Din. “Mandalorian, it is good to see you.”

Din nodded. “I thought I gave you leave to call me by name,” he said, which was news to Luke. A little spark of jealousy flared in his chest, but he let it go quickly. Attachment, not possession, said Obi-Wan in Luke’s ear. Luke knew Din had other close friends, but none of them ever referred to him by name.

Except Boba Fett apparently could.

“You have the same privilege, yet you also do not use it,” said Fett. He adjusted his hold on his blaster and Luke’s fingers twitched for his saber. “Was that not a mutual agreement?”

Din chuckled. “You’ll forgive me,” he said, and Luke could feel the sheepishness beneath the amusement. “Names are new to me and speaking them aloud still feels like a violation.”

“Understood,” said Fett with a nod. Luke wondered how much Fett knew of Din’s past. “Skywalker.”

“Yep!” Luke stood up straight, his hand hovering at his side. “Right here.”

“I appreciate your coming, despite our history.”

Luke sniffed. “Well, I didn’t know I was coming here,” he said curtly. “We have a lot of history.”

“That I would like to let go of,” said Fett. Luke blinked at him. “I require your assistance, which is worth more to me than an ancient grudge.”

Luke squawked and looked at Din with betrayal. “Wait, I’m the mission?”

“If you want to call it that,” Din shrugged.

“How did you—”

“I knew if I said I had a mysterious task on another planet,” said Din with an audible smirk, “you would either demand to come along, or stowaway.”

“Excuse me,” said Luke with a sniff. “That’s entirely not true.”

Din sighed and Luke sensed the eyeroll. “You’re not going without me,” he said, in a lilting exaggeration of Luke’s voice. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

Luke glared. “Yes, I said that because last week you jetpacked during a lightning storm and got blown out of the sky,” he said. “You can’t be trusted.”

Fett laughed, a rough-sounding thing that Luke suspected was little used. “You may do well with strategy and combat, Djarin”—Luke recognized a compromise when he heard one—“but your lack of common sense may be your end.”

“Get to the point, Fett,” said Din, not unkindly. “I’d like to get back to the Foundlings.”

Fett nodded. He set aside his blaster and lifted off his helmet, and Luke was surprised to see an older man with a scarred face and what seemed like a permanently dour expression. He leveled his gaze at Luke.

“I wish to discuss this in private,” said Fett. “Djarin, if you would please leave us for a moment.”

Din, to his credit, hesitated. Luke appreciated that. “If I can ask that Luke remain alive and undamaged.”

“Ah, he is Luke,” said Fett. Din made a non-committal noise. Luke watched the corner of Fett’s mouth quirk in something like a smirk. “Do not worry, Djarin. Luke will remain unharmed. This is a simple conversation, nothing more.”

Din nodded. He looked at Luke. “I will be outside,” he said. Luke heard the unspoken call me if you need me and smiled.

“I’ll be fine,” said Luke. He knew he could defeat Boba Fett if necessary, and even without killing him, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. ”Don’t worry.”

“Not worried about you,” said Din, but Luke knew there was a smile in his words. Din patted Luke’s shoulder and went up the steps. Luke swallowed and faced Fett.

“Well, you have me,” said Luke. “What’s this about?”

Fett said nothing for a long moment. “I am going to tell you something, Skywalker,” he said at length. “It is something no one else knows.”

“Not even Din?” asked Luke.

“As I said,” Fett sounded more patient than Luke thought he should, “there is no one alive who knows this. Before I speak, however, I need your word that you will not share this information with anyone.”

“Well,” hedged Luke. “Will it hurt someone if I keep your secrets?”

Fett sighed, and Luke felt his weariness. “It is debatable,” he said. “I’ve no interest in harming those who do not deserve it. However, if you swear to keep my confidence, I will not lay a finger, or a weapon, on your family.”

Luke set his mouth in a thin line as he considered the offer. It wasn’t a bad deal but certainly a selfish one, but Luke knew it was the best he’d get from a bounty hunter turned crime lord, apparently. To be honest, Luke was desperate to know what Boba Fett had to tell him that was so dear to him that he would shelve their past in order to discuss it.

“Does that include Han Solo?” asked Luke. “He is my brother-in-law, so. Family.”

Fett grunted. “Yes,” he said, and Luke knew how much it pained him to say that. “Despite the years of torture in the sarlacc’s cursed belly, I will not harm Solo if you would agree to this.”

Luke was convinced. “You have my word,” he said.

For a long, long moment Fett regarded Luke with an assessing gaze, before he took a deep breath and let it out again. Luke felt the tension leave Fett’s body—along with a barrage of emotions Luke couldn’t begin to place. Fett was a cacophony of thoughts, and it took Luke a moment to realize he wasn’t in Fett’s head.

“Wait—”

Fett raised a hand and Luke’s mouth snapped shut as a bottle of spotchka rose from a table across the room and sailed into Fett’s outstretched hand. Luke watched in shock as Fett took a drink and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“Do you understand, Jedi?” he asked.

Luke sputtered. “Have you always…?”

“No.”

“When did this happen?” asked Luke.

“Three days ago,” said Fett. “I awakened in the night above my bed. I took it as a sign that something was wrong.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Luke, bewildered. “I’d say so.”

Fett glanced up and for the first time Luke looked him in the eyes. They were brown—not like Din’s, but where Din's were dark and vaguely sad, Fett’s were bright and sharp like the tip of a blade.

“I need guidance,” said Fett quietly. “Which brings me to you. I will pay you handsomely and support your Foundlings and your school, in exchange for lessons in how to control this curse until I can find a way to rid myself of it.”

“Oh,” Luke swallowed. Today seemed to be a day of deals, and Luke wasn’t sure about this one, either. On the one hand, he was thrilled the way he always was to find someone like him. On the other hand, Boba Fett could wield the Force, and if Luke didn’t teach him how to use it, very bad things could happen and Luke did not want to be responsible for that.

“Well, Skywalker?” pressed Fett. “Do we have a bargain?”

Luke cleared his throat. “I don’t really have a choice in the matter, do I?” he asked dejectedly, not wanting the answer.

Fett hummed. “You can choose to leave here with your Mandalorian and return to your school, and I will make my own way. Or, you could prevent whatever chaos I might inflict without your counsel.”

“Not much of a choice,” grumbled Luke. “I won’t do it here. I hate this damn planet. You’ll come to the school, alone.”

“So be it,” said Fett, sounding annoyed. “But you will not make a Jedi of me, Skywalker. I will accept no creed but my own.”

“You don’t have to be one,” said Luke. He couldn’t imagine Boba Fett as a Jedi, anyway. “I’ll show you the basics, though you have a significant amount of control already since I couldn’t sense you.”

“I am not convinced that is of my own doing,” said Fett. “This power does not belong to me.”

Luke frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

Fett looked at him darkly. “You did not answer my question, Skywalker.”

Luke pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. The school really could use the extra support, and he did not want Tatooine to suffer a crime lord who can kill things with his brain. He was furious with Din for getting him into this, though he knew Din had no knowledge of Fett’s plans. He resented Fett for putting this weight on Luke’s shoulders.

He had a duty, though. He had a legacy to uphold, and even though Fett would never be a Jedi, he was a brother in the Force. Luke could not turn his back.

Luke sighed. He had a bad feeling about this.

“Yes,” he said. “We have a deal.”

—

TBC?

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

Corrupted Memories Pt.4

Ganondorf: Alright first order of buisness we must apprehend Kirby.

Hades: How're we gonna do that?

Ganondorf: One of us is gonna have to lure him here so we can trap him after that our plans should be a cakewalk.

Sephiroth: So...Who's going?

The villains all stare at K.Rool who at the time was stuffing his face with the bananas.

King K.Rool: ... ...What?

-A few minutes later-

King K.Rool: Now guys I want to win against the heroes just as much as the next guy... ... ...But why am I dressed as Dedede?!

Ridley: Come on just think of it as revenge for when he trolled everyone. Now go get Kirby!

King K.Rool: Ok! You don't have to shout at me!

Cut to Kirby who is eating all the food in the Halberd's kitchen.

King K.Rool: Hey there Kirbeh! What do you say me & you go looking for something fun to do around here huh?

Kirby: Poyo?

King K.Rool: What!? I look different you say?! Kirby I'm offended! You are disrespecting one of your closest friends simply because of a few differences in my texture!?

Kirby, guilty: Poyo!

King K.Rool: It's ok I forgive yah. Now how about we go have some fun. I'll carry you to. All you gotta do is step inside this totally safe not at all trapped container.

Kirby, excited: POYO!

Kirby stepped inside only to end up up being forced to the containers' floor due to the increased gravity of the trap. K.Rool then takes off his disguise.

King K.Rool: HAH! YOU THOUGHT IT WAS DEDEDE!? TOO BAD IT WAS KONO K.ROOL DA!!!

Toon Link, From a very far away room: I heard someone make a JoJo reference! I must investigate!

King K.Rool: Crap! (Runs away) Guys I got Kirby!

Dark Link: DAMMIT! He didn't die!

Hades: Thanks alot K.Rool I lost money because of you coming back!

King K.Rool: (Cries internally)

Nightmare: Dark Link the dimwit! Can't even win at a bet.

Dark Link: SHUT UP FUCKBOY! (Pushes Nightmare over)

Nightmare ended up knocking his head against something large and metal.

Ridley: Great job you knocked him out. (Sigh) I'll carry him.

Ganondorf: Now...Let's get out of here. Our buisness on the ship is finished.

Sephiroth: Wait I'm confused I though we were attacking them here?

Ganondorf: Oh you'll see Sephiroth. You'll see.

They all make their way to find a way off the Halberd. Then the metal object in the "Stowaways room" began to move and began to follow them.

Ridley: ... ... ...Guys?

Sephiroth: What?

Ridley: ... ... ...Why do I hear boss music?

Dark Link: I'll do you one better! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING!?

The metal monstrosity from before came charging at them at mach speed. Heavy Lobster was ready to kill.

Ridley: OHH SHITTT!!! GANON WHAT DO WE DO?

Ganondorf, Hades, Bowser & Sephiroth were already stepping through a portal leaving the lesser villains handle themselves.

Hades: See ya have fun!

Dark Link: GOD FUCKING DAMMIT! SCREW YOU!

Wario: Imma going in!

Dark Link: Wait what?

Wario: Remember me! (Jumps at the mech)

Heavy Lobster simply batted Wario out the way through a wall.

Ridley: O_O

King K.Rool: Oh god! Oh fuck! What do we do!?

Ridley: Fuck this shit I'm out...(Flys out of the Halberd)

_____

Meta Knight: What's this? Heavy Lobster has detected trespassers! Time to murder them.

_____

Heavy Lobster fired missles at the villains.

Dark Link, running with Nightmare: Wait a damn second! WHY AM I CARRYING YOU!?

King K.Rool, running like a mad man: I'm too fat for this!

Mini Lobsters were then sent to chase them.

Waluigi: Aww. They're so small.

They then lunged at Waluigi taking him down immediately.

Hades: They don't know we're still here watching them this is so funny.

____

Joker: ...Does anyone else here boss music?

Mario: Oh at least I'm not-a the only one.

Meta Knight: (Steps inside) VILLAINS ARE ABOARD!!!

Luigi: WH-WHAT! H-HOW'S THAT POSSIBLE!?

Meta Knight: Stowaways my friend! My Heavy Lobster Unit has picked them up. We must knock them overboard otherwise they may get the best of us.

Joker: ...Where's Kirby?...

Meta Knight: ... ...THEY HAVE MY BOIIIIIIIII!!!!

_____

Hades: HAHAHA! This is some great entertainment!

Ganondorf: Indeed. But we must continue. Enough playing around.

Ganondorf appeared before Heavy Lobster then punched it breaking the front of it completely.

Ganondorf: Hmf. That was easy. HUMANS! STOP PLAYING THAT DREADFUL MUSIC!

Hades: Hey chill out 4th wall breaks are my thing.

Ganondorf: Take the robot with us it could prove useful.

The villains then escaped from the Halberd with Heavy Lobster & Kirby to continue with their schemes.

-Later-

Meta Knight: GOD DAMMIT!!! NOT ONLY DID THE LEAGUE TAKE MY MECH THEY TOOK MY ONE AND ONLY CHILD!!! I'LL MAKE THEM PAY FOR THIS!!!

King Dedede: How'd they get Kirby?

Meta Knight: It's most likely that they preyed on his naivety. The bastards. We're almost at Popstar now. Hopefully that's where the League went. And if they are there not a single one of them will live for longer than 1 second.

[flashingmarkii]

The only logic response to this predicament is that they just ran paths with a stowaway that must've slipped in while they were loading their cargo at the spaceport. That has to be it, and now he's playing the crazy card so they don't kick him off the board.

The who's or why's don't seem to matter too much to the mechanic, rather than coming up with any conjectures, she's more focused on wondering why is she the one that always seems to run into this kind of trouble?

"I-It's okay, really," first things first, if he's sticking to this story that makes no sense to her, they'll never get anywhere. Introductions are a good way to start - no one else seemed to want anything to do with him ever since his little spectacle on the main deck. Ludger Kresnik, it almost sounded like he could be a native from Side 3.

"It's... nice to meet you, Ludger, I'm Melissa Cattania. If there's anything you want to know about this ship, then it's me you've got to talk to." He does seem to have many questions, however, for once - Melissa isn't sure if she can answer all of them. "Well, the truth is that we've always cruised like this... I mean, our ship is moderately average, I'd say... but it gets the job done. As to what we're doing, we do a little bit of everything, I guess you could say we're sort of mercenaries?"

It doesn't feel right to refer to themselves as that, but, it's better to keep who they are as ambiguous as possible until they can discern whether he's to be trusted or not.

@flashingmarkii || To get the ball rollin' with that starter idea C:

He was on a routine trip to the older Elle's dimension when he plowed into a sheet of reinforced glass. Those on the other side of the glass were just as surprised as him; they both stared each other in the face until someone spoke and walked further into the...airship-like-thing. From there, he was taken aboard and escorted somewhere out of the way.

"I-I'm sorry I wasn't too responsive-- I never knew anyone could survive in the Void without something like The Four protecting them," Without the Chromatus or The Lord of Spirits' power, everything pointed to the Void being the ultimate death trap. To have a ship cruise along with no issue... If he hadn't been involved in Origin's Trial, he'd swear this was a dream.

"So... I'll introduce myself first," With a deep breath, he shifted back to normal gear. "I'm Ludger Kresnik, no fancy title. If I may ask, what's got your... vessel cruising all the way out here?"

[ettawritesnstudies]

Does worldwonder have a main character? What’s your favorite part of it?

Yes! I know their story but I don't know a lot about the character yet as a person. I'm going to reverse engineer their arc from the shape of the plot if I can!

It'll be a dragon-rider pair, and the human part of that pair is the character Traveller from the story Matter. Traveller isn't actually their name, that's the title that dragonriders use/are given and they didn't actually ever share their name with Keeper. I'll just keep referring to them as Traveller for now though for the lack of a different moniker.

the really vague plot idea is that the dragon and rider get separated at the beginning of the story for whatever reason. This is a disastrous once in a millennia sort of event. Dragons and riders are bonded souls, they share each others perceptions and reflexes and the symbiotic relationship heightens each other's skill to the point that they act so supernaturally in sync it's practically impossible to hurt much less down them much less separate them completely. They're still bonded souls, but not being physically together is incredibly distressing.

They're away from the asteroid ring when this happens, and Traveller, with much difficulty, hitchhikes their way back home to beg for help from the other dragonriders, but when they get home, they're shunned as a failure and basically exiled. There's one friend who recognizes their loss and grief and chooses to treat Traveller with kindness instead, sending them on their way with supplies for the journey. By the time they leave home to go look for their dragon pair, they're already across the universe. The bond is as strong as ever, they're like two quantum entangled strings who are always affecting each other regardless of the displacement, but by God is it a long way to go.

Traveller spends the next section of the story in a episodic travelogue as they try to make their way to find their dragon again. It's a lot of jumping across asteroids and planets like in The Little Prince, catching passage on ships running between solar systems either through odd jobs or as a stowaway like in Treasure Planet, and the occasional wormhole jump like in A Wrinkle in Time. Each stop is a step in the character development, (but again I don't know a lot about Traveller's actual character yet) and this might be mirrored by the dragon's side of the story (which I also haven't figured out yet).

Eventually they're able to reconnect, defeat whatever had taken the dragon in the first place, escape, and fly home. It's been several decades if not centuries at this point with the relativity of time, and most of the people they know are dead and gone, but that old kind soul is still there, as the new village elder, who welcomes them back with joy and fanfare.

At the end of the day it's kind of going to be a coming of age story? About growing up, making mistakes, leaving the nest, getting lost, and coming home. The messy teenage years where you have too many big feelings and too little personal agency, or too little life experience to make good decisions with what little freedom you do have. The messier young adult years of breaking into a billion little pieces and putting yourself back together again in an off-kilter new creation. The process of maturing and sanding down the rough edges, refining yourself and becoming a better person. Owning up to your mistakes and apologizing. Demanding apologies when needed. Finding your family. Homesickness for your first family and never being able to go home in the same kind of way as before. The aching feeling of being alone in a new city for the first time knowing you have to start over from scratch all over again. Nostalgia and resentment at the same time. Soulmates in a subverted sense of the term. The themes are all there knocking around in my head and the protagonist is the blank slate at which I am projecting the image as it forms.

Thank you for asking this is really nice to help break up the homework drudgery

[northbndtrain]

Hey I'm a late Reven8e watcher and I love your Jack and real Amanda posts. Especially the season by season tracker of their development. I think the slow progression of their relationship and the trust they build over the course is something you don't see a lot on TV nowadays. You mind if I ask what do you think about the couple Amanda and Aidan? At the top of my head they don't seem like a bad couple but he always felt forced into the series to me. And it seemed their bond was never as deep

Hi! Thank you for the compliment, and I am so glad you enjoy the posts! I’m doing a re-watch right now and would like to eventually finally get the S3 and S4 “moments” lists done, too.

You’re absolutely right that the slow burn isn’t often done on TV anymore…hard to believe that up until the end of S4 Jack and Emily hadn’t done anything more than kiss a couple of times.

As frustrating as that sometimes was to watch in real time (and it was so, so frustrating, especially in Season 2, when they had very little interaction), in retrospect I can appreciate the fact that the writers took their time and made their case instead of rushing through the entire romance in the first season and then moving both on to new partners.

Plus, in the end, it worked out – I watched several shows around that time period that didn’t end with my favorite couple getting together, so to have Revenge really follow through with the promise they set up in the pilot four years earlier…that was a real gift.

Ah…Aiden…let me see…obviously, I’m not a fan, but that’s not just because I love Jack and Jack/Amanda. There were other problems with his character that I couldn’t get past.

(This is getting long, so under the cut it goes…)

1. AIDEN’S INTRODUCTION: You mention in your post that he felt forced into the series; that’s how it felt watching in real time, too. All during S1, there was never any mention of Aiden or even a reference made to Emily having had a serious love interest in the past, which makes sense because as far as we’re aware he was never part of creator Mike Kelley’s original vision for the show, but rather an addition that came after the show was renewed.

In a way, Aiden’s introduction was a symptom of the larger problem with S2 – that is, the writers/producers, high on the success of S1, decided over the hiatus to take their original concept, which was so beautiful in its simplicity (woman assumes a false identity to take down the people who betrayed her father), and twist it up into a bunch of unnecessary knots with the introduction of the Initiative, so that suddenly the villains weren’t just the Graysons and their employees, but also previously-unseen members of a larger global conspiracy involving all these other pointless baddies like Trask and Helen Crowley (how pointless? I had to look up both of their names because I couldn’t even remember them, even though they were all over Season 2).

The whole thing felt like sloppy miscalculation, and Aiden was right in the middle, as his tragic backstory involving his sister was tied into the whole Initiative conspiracy.

But what was also annoying was the way his relationship displaced Emily’s relationships with the other men in her life. The big story in S1 was the Jack/Emily/Daniel triangle, with Emily/Nolan’s friendship playing a prominent role as he was the only real partner she had in her revenge plots.

Enter Aiden, who took over Daniel’s place as Emily’s current lover, Jack’s place as her long-lost love interest from the past, and Nolan’s place as her partner-in-crime. It was just too much.

2. AIDEN’S LACK OF DEPTH/CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: However, even though S2 became, in large part, The Aiden Show, he somehow remained underdeveloped as a character with no real life outside of what was going on in Emily’s life.

And I guess one could make the argument that, well, “it’s Emily’s show; of course she would have more development.” Except EVERY other contract character on the show, including all of the other men in Emily’s life – Jack, Daniel, and Nolan – had more of a life outside of her than Aiden did:

Jack: relationships with multiple on-screen family members, two love interests besides Emily (Fauxmanda and Margaux), a job running the Stowaway, a job as a cop, friendships with Nolan and Charlotte

Daniel: relationships with multiple on-screen family members, three love interests besides Emily (Ashley, Sara, and Margaux), a job at Grayson, a job at Margaux’s magazine

Nolan: multiple on-screen love interests, a career as a successful tech wizard, a hacking hobby, friendships with Jack, Declan, and Louise

As a result of their various storylines and relationships, the Jack, Daniel, and Nolan we saw in their final episodes are not the same exact men we met in the pilot – they’ve grown, been damaged, healed, and discovered things about themselves.

But all Aiden ever had was a little backstory (solely to explain how he came to meet Emily at Takeda’s), and a fling with Niko (in S3) that was so brief and pointless that I can’t even remember if it was just a flirtation or if they actually slept together. And I think in one episode we met his mom, maybe?

But that’s it. Everything else about the character was Emily-related – he was involved with the Graysons and Grayson Global because Emily was, he hated Jack because he was jealous of Jack/Emily, he hated Daniel because Daniel mistreated Emily, the only reason he interacted with Nolan was because Nolan was Emily’s BFF…. So, for someone like me who didn’t care for Aiden/Emily, there was even less reason to like his character since he almost didn’t exist outside of her anyway.

3. AIDEN’S CHARACTER FLAWS (OR, “AIDEN SUCKS”): But, you know, even all that above wouldn’t be enough to get me to hate Aiden. Find him annoying, sure. Roll my eyes at him, yes. Fast-forward his scenes, of course. Forget major details about his storyline, all the time.

In the end, it was his behavior and his treatment of the characters I did love that bothered me most of all. He lied to Emily whenever he felt it was in her best interest, and when he lectured or berated her it grated – Jack and Nolan lectured her, too, but the show often had them on a moral high ground that Aiden, as a violent student of revenge himself, could never claim. He also often made bad decisions only to shift the blame onto someone else.

But I found really difficult to get past was his treatment of Jack and Emily in S3 after he found out that Emily had told Jack her real identity. Everything that followed – Aiden lying to Conrad that Jack was the one who tried to kill him (Conrad), which put the lives of both Jack and baby Carl in danger; Aiden breaking into Jack’s home and manipulatively painting himself as the savior who only took the job as Corad’s hitman to give Jack time to leave town and stay away from Emily forever; Aiden having the unmitigated gall to get mad at Emily afterward; and then Aiden threatening Jack again a few episodes later – just had me thinking, “Yeah, Aiden’s the worst. THE WORST.”

And all because he couldn’t stand that Emily told Jack the truth that was her truth to tell to anyone she wanted to tell.

I mean, in a way, as a Jack/Emily fan, I appreciated it on a story level as evidence that Aiden was desperately insecure and jealous when it came to Jack and Emily’s relationship.

But it also just cemented my belief that there was never going to be anything root-worthy or sympathetic about him no matter how much the show tried to hold him up as one of the “good guys.”

4. EMILY/AIDEN’S SHALLOW RELATIONSHIP: You pointed out in your post that Emily and Aiden’s bond never seemed as deep. I agree with you completely. For years, one of the big criticisms of Jack/Emily was from those who said that Jack was in love with a little girl who no longer existed (a myth I debunked here), and those same fans often said in the same breath that Aiden loved the whole/real woman.

Then Barry Sloane (Aiden) came along and did a “Pop on the Pop” interview in S3 where, when asked if he wanted Aiden and Emily to end up together, he said, 

I love working with Emily. I love the chemistry we have onscreen. I love those two characters together. I think Aiden understands her and he’s in love with one part of the woman she is. He doesn’t know Amanda Clarke. He fell in love with Emily Thorne. If she was to show up as that other part of herself, I don’t know if he’d love that other half of Emily.

(Unfortunately, I can’t link to the interview because the link I saved now directs to Amazon for some reason, so everyone reading this is going to have to take me at my word that I wouldn’t make up a quote about a show that was cancelled two years ago.)

I remember being kind of stunned by that quote when I read it, but only because it was so blunt – the sentiment didn’t surprise me because his words were backed up by what we’d seen on screen: there can be no depth to a relationship if one of the people involved only loves one part of the other person and has no interest in the rest, and Aiden clearly had no interest in Amanda Clarke (perhaps thinking, his mind warped by Takeda’s training, that Amanda didn’t exist anymore, or that she was never “real” the way Emily was “real”).

Ultimately, the most layered of Emily’s romances wasn’t her relationship with Aiden, because it wasn’t enough that they simply had a shared background in and driving need for revenge.

It was her relationship with Jack that was the most layered, and that was, interestingly enough, in large part because they spent so much of the series apart, so much of the series denying themselves the opportunity to be together. That time and that push and pull allowed them the space to see and accept ALL of each other. That slow-burn struggle made their eventual union feel earned, real, in a way that Emily/Aiden never did.

Thank you for the ask, and I am sorry it took so long to finish it!

[itbpreview]

What sort of ideas would be good for the Stowaway or the Wrongfully Accused? I have an idea for a character who wants to rebel against the Company while working for them to take them down from the inside in their own little way, or possibly a character trying to escape the Company after being called a "traitor" (perhaps using a false name and taking a role on the ship to get away), but I don't know if those ideas are too out of line for what you have in mind.

Honestly, we love both of your ideas! Don’t worry so much about what we have in mind and really try to focus on what you come up with. For reference (and maybe to ease everyone’s minds), we didn’t come up with the character labels to take the place of skeletons or to try and put anyone into a box. Most of those character ideas are simply character tropes that we have seen over and over in different sci fi movies, television shows and books, all of which have been done in different ways. We’re truly looking forward to seeing everyone interpretations of the ideas. 

We aren’t going to be judging anyone’s app based on what we might have in mind for a label. Our criteria for accepting apps will be:

Did the applicant fill out the app in full and follow the guidelines?

Can we tell that they read the plot and rules?

Is the canon they created well-thought out and is there room for collaboration? 

Are their key relationships/wanted connections focused on relationships that can be plotted within the group and will help them connect with other members/characters?