#but it still distorts the real history of all this

[katerinaaqu]

It's hard talking about the disrespect to Greek mythology and religion when every argument people brings to the table is "look at this original novel that is adapted into a movie that is turned into a tv show that didn't follow the original plot" as if the Greek culture is on par with fictional story instead of a tradition and heritage of real life people.

A media that is broadcast to the public and make accessible to everyone that erased the values and lesson of a cultural story still can do harm when it feeds misunderstanding and misinterpretion of the culture it originated from.

Greek people has the right to be upset when their culture keeps getting misrepresented, doesn't matter the good intentions behind it, why must it be at the expense of Greek culture?

You can create arts that is so beautiful and so praises by many, and years from now you could look back and see what an amazing experience and community you have created out of it. But at the same time you also continue feeding the distorted ideas and flawed understanding about a culture as a whole.

All because you took from a culture and want to tell your own story.

Retelling is telling back the story. Any addition or new ideas you bring is when there's part in the original story that is vague or open for interpretations. Even then, when you elaborate, you follows the already presented ideas that the original story already established.

If it so beloved to you and so meaningful to you, why couldn't you be faithful when adapting and retelling with the talents you have?

Shouldn't it be better if you created an original story inspired by it? If you feels that the values and standards are not to your taste, but you so loved the stories and could related to it, isn't it better to create original characters and settings with your own voice and narrative with the story inspiration as the backdrop?

At this point, what is greek mythology and lore to you? That makes you so passionate so inspired, that spark your imagination that encourage you to be creative but it is at the ruin of old age history that is meaningful for the Greek identity. Do you really appreciate the values and moral that you gained from the stories, or did you forget yourself along the way?

I couldn't have said it better! I agree to all that because that is exactly my sentiment as well! On one hand of course I am proud that Greek mythology contnues to inspire and people want to create stuff on them or that even now there are people who think the values of Greek Mythology are universal and they are!

But as you said it pains me to no limits when stories that were literally created from people based on their culture and religion to pass on messages are not only distorted beyond recognition but also to a degree where nowadays most people of Greek mythology liking spectrum know only how terrible villains some men are (in actual mythology they are complicated personas) and how weak women are (there are literlly figures in Greek mythology that are so strong personas that honestly I am shocked. See Helen for example how she is the most projected persona as a pretty face that does nothing when Helen literally taks back to Aphrodite, she is the only one who sees through Odysseus's disguise, she has knowledge of medicine and so much more for once) Mythology loses all its meaning, all its allegory and all its cultural spectrum because as you said people do not use it to retell the story, they use the word "retelling" as their excuse to just tell a story that fits them by using the popularity of greek mythology and yes as you said why cannot they say their original stories while using inspiration from Greek mythology?

Honestly I have nothing to add! You said it all dear Anon!

[isoddtosay]

it is infuriating how the media portrays the situation in gaza as - either you are antisemitic or you are islamophobic - when this is the result of both concepts

[vaguely-concerned]

I understand and agree with a lot of the frustrations about the shortcomings of Inquisition as a story. but sometimes when I hear people complain about the chosen one narrative in it I do want to just be like... you know it's a deconstruction of the concept more than anything, right. the inquisitor isn't actually chosen by anything except stumbling into the wrong (right?) room at the right (wrong?) time because they like, heard a noise or whatever. or if you think they are chosen, as many do in-universe, that's something you have to take on faith, the maker-or-whoever moves in mysterious ways indeed-style. the Inquisitor isn't actually a Destined Chosen One, they're a Just Some Guy in a fancy hat, self-delusions of grandeur to taste as you'd prefer.

a running thread that goes through all of the personal quests of the companions is the concept of a comforting lie vs. an uncomfortable truth, upholding old corrupt structures vs. disrupting them, and the role of faith in navigating that. (blackwall the warden vs. thom rainier the liar and murderer. hissrad vs. the iron bull, or is that the other way around? cassandra and the seekers -- do we tell the truth about what we find, even if it means dismantling the old order of the world? and so on.) and your inquisitor IS at the same time a comforting lie (a necessary one, in dark times? the game seems to ask) and an uncomfortable truth (we are the result of random fickle chance, no protective hand is held over the universe, it's on us to make a better world because the maker sure as hell won't lift a divine finger to help anyone, should he against all odds exist). faith wielded for political power... where's the point that it crosses the line into ugliness? is it before it even begins? what's the alternative? will anyone listen to the truth, if you tell it?

interesting how you also get a mix of companion agency in this -- you have characters like dorian who ALWAYS choose one side of the comforting lie vs. uncomfortable truth dichotomy. he will always make up his own mind to go back to tevinter and try to dismantle the corruption of the old system no matter what you say, or how you try to influence him. meanwhile iron bull is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum -- so psychologically trapped and mangled, caught in an impossible spiritual catch-22, that his sense of identity is left entirely to you and your mercy. you cannot change dorian in any way that matters; you can be his friend or not, support him or not, but he is whole no matter what. you are given incredible and potentially destructive-to-him power over bull's soul. it's really cool (and heartbreaking) to think about.

this is a game about how history will eat you even while you're still alive, and shape you into whatever image it pleases to serve it, and for all your incredible power right now you are powerless in the face of the gravitational force of time -- of more than time, of History. you won't recognize yourself in what History will make of you, because you belong to it now. you don't belong to yourself anymore and you never will again. the further you were from what it needs from you to begin with, the more you will find yourself distorted in its funhouse mirror. (why hello there inquisitor ameridan, same hat!)

and to me this is so much the core of what Dragon Age is about right from the Origins days -- how and by whom history gets written, the inherent unreliable narration of it all. I hope you like stories, Inquisitor. You are one now.

I do think it's probably still the weakest of the games narratively, and it's hampered by its structure and bloated systems. but I also find it disingenous to say that there's nothing deeper or actually interesting going on with it, thematically. if you're willing to engage with it there is Some Real Shit going on under the high fantasy-tinted surface.

[critterbitter]

re: your thoughts on legendaries (which is very cool and based) what’s your take on the differences between legends:arceus giratina and platinum giratina, especially since you defined them as hating the world? specifically the bit where giratina (at least seemingly) actively defended the world from cyrus trying to destroy it, after trying to do the same thing with volo’s help centuries prior?

Weird ghost worm upon yee (AND MORE ART BELOW CUT!)

Anyways, here’s my mad ramblings about Giratina and Arceus’s backstory.

Tldr: Giratina’s a conglomerate of angry souls scorned by Arceus.

(Here’s the playlist. It’s all about worms.)

How it Started.

The original one has chosen favorites over the passage of time. Heroes, legends, protagonists…

Arceus intervenes for those it loves, and the consequences of a god touching the mortal world is devastating in its entirety. One act of divine intervention causes entire civilizations to collapse. One whispered suggestion drives an entire legacy insane.

So Arceus, paralyzed by its love for the mortal world, acts very little, learning from its mistakes. Apathy soaks through every motion. And thus is the way of the world.

But people love the Originator. Religions are born from Arceus’s rare deeds, and generation on generation taught its benevolence. Imagine spending your entire life chasing after that golden light. Imagine knowing its real and there, and it loves you.

Imagine begging it for help, and seeing it turn away when you need it most.

I think those people would feel very abandoned indeed, if they spent their lives worshipping, and receiving no response at all.

Giratina is born from the abandoned, the lost, and the angry. They’re a hundred thousand souls who’s adoration turned to spite. They’re an entity who demands for Arceus to look at them, so they can finally rest.

Arcues can not look at them in full, because if it does Giratina will fade.

(Scio, beloved. For I can not let you go.)

So the Original One banishes the Unwanted Beast into the distortion world, and Giratina seethes, and starves, and screams.

(Here are two truths about the Beast Between Dimensions—

1. Some part of them still loves Arceus. Arceus is their anchor, after all— the sole reason why they exist, why they are. But Arceus can not love it back in a way that matters, and that hurts.

2. Giratina is made of a thousand voices. Some of these voices remember that there’s a world above. They miss it.)

Why Giratina attacked Hisui in PLA:

PLA Giratina’s not a new god, but they’re very, very bitter and barely coherent on a good day. Volo serves as a conduct to help unite the broiling mass of ghosts against Arceus, and thus Giratina’s hatred overcomes any flickering affections they have for the land.

It doesn’t help that Arceus intervened for Hisui, sending Akari to directly stop Volo from summoning Giratina.

(As for Volo, well.

Imagine being a child who was thrown into the future due to Palkia and Dialga’s fits, who learned his people (his world) no longer exist beyond a shadow in the history books and a single, bitter lore keeper.

Volo doesn’t remember his original culture beyond vague imprints and singing praises to Sinnoh, but he knew he was loved, and he knew his family is dust four hundred years in the past. There’s a special sort of rage in him that echoes Giratinas.)

(Why did you abandon my people, Arceus? What kind of god are you, to leave those who love you so callously behind?)

(Maybe some part of Giratina recognizes Volo, beyond a feeling of kinship.

Maybe some part of Giratina grieves because it recognized the child Volo was.)

When Volo gets his pound of flesh, (when he realizes Arceus is not beholden to him, that the inherent alien morality Arceus holds is not a personal slight), Giratina will finally rest.

Anyways what I’m trying to say is: Arceus is never a person, but a nebulous embodiment of the connection shared between pokemon and humans. It tries to experience what it’s supposed to embody, but millennia of watching people be and cease has given it choice paralysis, apathy, and a hoarding issue. If something lasts forever next to it? Good.

Giratina was once a person. (Correction, a LOT of persons.) They don’t think very linearly either, but they have context on mortal matters and are thus the more benevolent and malicious of the two. One day, time will smooth them into something like Arceus. We can only hope the two keep each other in check.

THE DIFFERENCE OF LEGENDS ARCEUS GIRATINA VS PLATINUM PEARL GIRATINA

If the ancient version of giratina is an angry conglomerate of ghosts scorned by Arceus, the modern iteration of Giratina’s a creature that’s more settled in its skin and more assured in its duties. Giratina still has beef with Arceus, but they unionized into one being who’s love of the mortal world has triumphed over its ancestral grudge. One might even postulate they have shifted their anchor from Sinnoh the god, to Sinnoh the place.

((We call this character developement. Good for you, weird ghost worm!))

(((FULL DISCLOSURE, VOLO BEING FROM THE PAST IS INSPIRED FROM FOXFALL. You know. The fic that got me into this fandom. Please give it some love.)))

[caughtthedarkness93]

Not to do more Furiosaposting (and SPOILERS AHEAD), but a couple more things I noticed on a second viewing:

• I think Dementus is being honest about how he lost his family when Furiosa confronts him about it, and that's a big point the film is making. Furiosa isn't like Dementus when she finally chases him down. But she recognizes that she could become like him - a vile, cruel warlord who uses his own pain as an excuse to run roughshod all over the wasteland, smashing everything in her path, using her pain as an excuse to take from others. By that point, she's already a part of Immortan Joe's war machine. She is already complicit. And he does say to her that killing him won't give her what she wants. She resists the idea, but ultimately, it sure seems like she realizes he's right. And ultimately, that leads to her big choice - make a positive change rather than simply trying to hurt the people who hurt you. Granted, she still does do plenty of hurting the people who hurt her (Nice face you got there, Joe, be a shame if something happened to it). But the big, real legacy she builds is taking the Citadel in the name of a greater cause than fueling Immortan's cult of cruelty.

• Praetorian Jack is also complicit, honestly. And it's something he seems to recognize. He outright says that he's looking for a righteous cause. There's a lot we don't know about this man. He tells us very little of his history, nor do we know why he chooses to ride for Immortan Joe. But we do know that after meeting Furiosa, he wants to do everything in his power to help her. She becomes his righteous cause. So the whole film, Furiosa is kind of pulled between those two directions - Dementus, and Jack. Do you defeat the pain you carry by throwing it back to the people who gave it to you? Or do you seek a righteous cause to build it into something positive?

• Perhaps one of my biggest takeaways is related to Jack's death. It's not until Dementus kills Jack that Furiosa gets really set on revenge. Like she clearly loathes Dementus before that. Her first time meeting him as an adult, she goes straight for her gun. The camera highlights their relationship a lot, and I'm pretty sure her vengeful drive towards him has its own musical motif - listen for that driving, distorted noise that you hear sometimes. But revenge doesn't become her biggest driver until after Jack dies. Even as she feels clear hate and rage towards this man, she's still set on getting home all that time. But when Jack dies, she goes out of her way to try to kill him. And, relatedly, when Jack dies, she loses the arm that has her star map tattoo on it. So to put it another way, when she chooses to commit to vengeance, she loses her way.

• We need to consider perspective and narrator here, as this isn't like Fury Road where it's from the point of view of Max, who was directly there. Because this film's opening shot isn't of Furiosa. It's of another character - it's of the History Man. The first line belongs to him - "As the world falls around us. How must we brave it's cruelties?" The closing narration is his as well. Something that sticks in my head more and more is Dementus' ultimate fate. What gets me about it is that it feels implausible. Not only for Furiosa as a character, but for the way the series usually handles injuries. So George Miller was a paramedic before he was a filmmaker. In fact, his work as a paramedic is what partly inspired the first Mad Max film and what funded it. And in these films, Miller has put his medical knowledge to use. The characters' injuries are usually handled in a realistic way, with a few flights of fancy for people to make it through frankly absurd car wrecks. You see this especially in Fury Road, which takes the time to establish that Max is a universal donor twice so it makes sense to have him give a blood transfusion to Furiosa at the end. It talks about the ultimate effects of her collapsed lung and how to treat it. The injuries in these films feel realistic in a way movie wounds often don't. Dementus' final fate does feel a little complicatedly cruel for someone as pragmatic as Furiosa, but what really gets me is how medically implausible it is. We're supposed to believe that Dementus has been stuck in the citadel with a peach tree growing out of him for five years without dying? I...kinda don't. Why does this matter? I think it signals that aspects of the story fall to unreliable narration. These films are campfire stories from a world that fell and rose again. Always have been. But this one has a more direct narrator. The History Man is telling this story. It is filtered through his perspective.

• And that adds another layer to things, considering Furiosa and the History Man's backgrounds. We see the History Man, we see a guy who is clearly horrified by Dementus' actions. When Furiosa's mom is getting executed, he cries. He tells Furiosa that she needs to make herself indispensable - likely because he feels that it's the best way to protect her. But he still does Dementus' bidding, often without question or argument. In a word, the thing that ultimately separates the History Man from Furiosa is that where he was complicit until the very end, Furiosa chose to rebel.

• And I guess if I had to boil it all down, I think there's a great big takeaway from this film. Don't seek hope. Become hope.

Man, I love this movie.

[aphroditelovesu]

Awake

❝commission: a oneshot that explores the relationship between y/n and some of the generals and or soldiers. I'm personally torn between a 'Cleitus wakes up' fic. — requested by 💻 anon.

❝ 📜 — lady l: I can't tell if I find this cute or distressing, maybe both? I hope you like it and forgive me for any mistakes! 🩶

❝tw: slight angst.

❝word count: 1,670.

It was noisy outside. The soldiers’ voices mingled in a hubbub of conversation, loud laughter, and the sound of clinking glasses; the celebration seemed to grow longer with each passing second, like a wave of rising energy. The tumult could be heard for miles around, for this was a night of celebration — a rare occasion in wartime when everyone had a common reason to celebrate.

Cleitus was alive. Against all odds, even after Alexander's merciless attack, the man had held on. Wounded and exhausted, he now lay in the shadows of the medical tent, the smell of medicinal herbs and aged fabrics permeating the heavy air. It was there, under the care of the King’s own trusted physician, under your care, that he was recovering, his body still vulnerable but his spirit preserved — and, even though unconscious, life pulsed faintly but presently through his veins.

And it was all thanks to you. No one understood exactly how it had happened; how, amidst the chaos and bloodshed, you had managed to save Cleitus. Murmurs of your daring and skill circulated among the soldiers and servants, shrouded in awe and distrust. But the fact was undeniable: he was alive, despite the dire predictions. Although he had not yet regained consciousness, the mere fact that he was breathing was cause enough for celebration.

But while the others celebrated, you remained motionless, sitting in the shadows of the tent, facing the cot where Cleitus rested. The darkness seemed to taper around you, filled only by the regular, fragile sound of his breathing. It was as if a current of anguish was rising through your body, slow and relentless, squeezing your heart with invisible fingers.

He was safe, yes. You had saved him and you knew it. But then, why was there that weight on your conscience, that nagging feeling that something terrible had been done? The memories of history hammered at your mind, insistent. From what you knew, Cleitus should have died at the hands of Alexander. His fate was death that night, a tragic and inevitable part of history. But now everything was changed. You had interfered, diverted the course of time — the natural balance of things had been disrupted.

And it wasn’t just any life you had spared. It was Cleitus, a man who, despite his outward toughness, carried an immense loyalty to the king and, in a way, to you as well. He had stood up for you, protecting you in a situation that would undoubtedly cost you dearly. For that reason, you simply couldn’t allow them to let him die. He was more than just a historical figure to you; he was someone you had learned to respect and consider a friend.

The dilemma seemed to pierce your soul. How could you allow history to take its course, letting someone who was important to you be killed in such a brutal and cruel way?

You couldn't.

It was strange to think about it: history itself had already begun to distort itself before you saved Cleitus, before each of your interventions. Alexander shouldn't have cared about you, much less "proposed" a union that would seal your presence with him forever. It was an unthinkable, dangerous idea that was already altering the course of things.

So where was the real weight of your guilt? Was there any point in questioning your interference now, when that whole era was far from how you knew it from the books? Perhaps Cleitus's destiny had already been changed from the first moment you arrived, from the first look Alexander had given you with an indomitable gleam in his eyes. Perhaps he was saved not only by your hands, but by a new destiny that both of you were creating every day.

Or perhaps it was the work of some sadistic god.

It was no secret that there were rumors in the camp. Whispers ran through the hallways of the tents, escaped from the campfires, were whispered among the soldiers, servants, and slaves. They admired what you had done. In their eyes, you were no longer a foreigner, a barbarian, who had appeared out of nowhere; you were the woman who had faced your own fate to save Cleitus. A feat worthy of honor, worthy of respect.

These men, so accustomed to the brutality of battle, who saw death as an inevitable companion, now looked at you with a mixture of awe and reverence. It was as if, in a single action, you had earned everyone's respect, an almost heroic figure to those who, not long ago, didn't even know your name.

But this admiration only deepened the knot in your chest. What they saw as heroism, you saw as a mistake, a misstep that could trigger unimaginable consequences.

"(Y/N)?" The hoarse, slurred voice cut through the silence, bringing you back to the present like a blow of reality. Your heart skipped a beat, and your eyes widened as they fixed on Cleitus's figure.

He was awake.

Still pale and visibly weak, Cleitus half-opened his eyes with effort, blinking a few times as if trying to adjust to the soft light that filtered through the sides of the tent. There was a vague confusion in his gaze, a mixture of pain and astonishment. It was clear that he was still recovering, the features of his face carrying the exhaustion of someone who had fought between life and death.

For a moment, you stood paralyzed, unable to find words, while he tried to focus his vision on you. Each second seemed like an entire universe, filled with emotions that you could barely name.

"I..." Your mouth went dry and you shook your head. You didn’t know what to say, what to feel.

Cleitus, his expression grim, tried to stand up, but the movement made his entire body protest. A low groan escaped his lips, his face contorting as he pressed a hand to the wound. Still closed and bandaged, but far from healed, the pain was still a vivid reminder of the attack by the man he admired.

"Don't strain yourself, Cleitus." You murmured, almost without realizing it, instinctively reaching out to grab his shoulder and stop him from moving any further. Your touch seemed to calm him, and he relaxed back against the cot, the muscles in his face softening slightly as he tried to catch his breath.

Cleitus's dark eyes locked with yours, a silent, contemplative weight in his gaze. He sighed, a long, weary sound, as the fragments of the past rearranged themselves in his mind, forming the painful mosaic of that fateful night. The banquet, the laughter, the lively conversations, the rich and fragrant food, the unexpected announcement of the wedding... And then, the chaos. The violent attack, the betrayal that had almost cost him his life.

Cleitus frowned, his eyebrows drawing together in an expression of sincere concern as he studied your face. "Are you okay?" His voice, still weak, carried a concern that made him ignore his own pain for a moment. Even after everything he had suffered, there he was, worrying about you.

The question took you by surprise. He, who had almost lost his life, was there asking if you were okay. For a moment, you wanted to laugh, perhaps to ease the weight of the situation, but the sound got stuck in your throat.

"I..." You hesitated, trying to find an answer that didn’t sound absurd. It was a simple question, but it seemed to carry all the weight of the guilt and doubts that hammered in your mind. You had defied fate, broken the lines of what was supposed to happen and, in a way, you were feeling lost amidst the whirlwind of consequences. And now, with Cleitus looking directly into your eyes, this barrier of defense seemed increasingly fragile.

"I... Just wanted to make sure you were okay." You finally said, your voice barely above a whisper.

He stared at you for a few more moments, absorbing your words, and then nodded slightly, as if he understood something that not even you had fully understood.

Cleitus took your hand in his and squeezed it lightly, your fingers gently touching. Cleitus touch was warm and firm, despite the evident weakness. He wrapped his hand around yours, his fingers squeezing yours gently, almost reverently. The warmth that radiated from his touch seemed to dissolve, even if only for a brief moment, all the tension you had been carrying since that chaotic night.

Cleitus smiled, a genuine smile full of gratitude, which lit up your tired face, softening the lines of pain and fatigue. It was a smile that spoke more than any words could. He didn't need to know everything that moved you to thank him — all the fears, the doubts, and the guilt you still carried for having interfered.

"Thank you." He said, and that was enough.

A soft laugh escaped your lips, and you smiled back at him, feeling the tension slowly dissolve from your body. For the first time in so long, you felt light, a sense of peace and happiness nestling in your chest. Amidst the chaos, the battles, and the uncertainties of being lost in a time that wasn't yours, there was finally a safe haven.

"That's what friends are for, isn't it?" You murmured, your smile widening. The word seemed to vibrate with a special meaning, something rare and precious in that place. Friends.

Amidst a time full of uncertainty, distrust, and danger, you had found something as simple and profound as friendship. He smiled in response, and in that moment, all the confusion, the weight of decisions, and the uncertainties about the future seemed to disappear. Cleitus was more than a warrior or a character from a distant story; he was your friend, someone who cared, who had risked everything for you.

And now, in the midst of all this madness, you had done the same for him. And, you knew now, you would do it all again.

[aventurineswife]

A kinda specific and maybe long but fun idea i had for a req:

Essentially, {and bare w me, i’m half asleep writing this lol} Reader x Sunday, and Reader is a childhood friend of his, who he loved, and someday when they were older, Reader was tragically killed in an incident. Sunday however, in a grief stricken state, decides to rebel against his original goal for the sweetdream paradise (penacony arc reference) and decides to shape it into a dream instead where he’s happily married to Reader, although for the sake of the dream he’s altered their memories. ending is essentially up to you!

{some additional ideas i had if you wanted to, were things like an argument between gopher and sunday, or robin and sunday, in whichever points of the story you wanted}

alternatively, a different Aventurine version would be interesting, mostly w the same set up but Sunday met Reader during Aventurine’s mission on Penacony, liked them, and Aven has to basically fight off the dream and Sunday.

but yeah, that’s pretty much it, everything else is up for creative liberties! i hope this one is at least somewhat interesting lol xx and srry if some of it doesn’t make sense 😓🤍

“Sometimes, the hardest part of letting go is realizing that the dream was never real”

Summary: In the idyllic yet hollow world of Sweetdream Paradise, Sunday crafts a perfect life with you—his lost love, altered memories and all—to escape the sorrow of reality. But as others begin to break through his illusion, and you start to remember fragments of a different fate, the dream begins to fracture. Torn between love and the harshness of truth, Sunday must finally face the choice to let you go, or remain forever in his self-made paradise.

Tags: Sunday x Reader, unrequited love, grief, loss, dreamscape, bittersweet ending, altered memories, memory manipulation, moral dilemma, angst, hurt/comfort, alternate reality, surrealism, slow unraveling, denial of reality.

Warnings: Grief, themes of manipulation, psychological trauma, implied death of Reader, reality distortion, emotional conflict, bittersweet resolution, morally ambiguous decisions.

A/N: Don't worry, anon! I appreciate all the details, the more details the more I can try to understand what you want exactly! Though I probably changed some bits of it here 😪

Sunday had always been proud of his role within Penacony, the creator of Sweetdream Paradise—a place where sorrow could be stilled, where suffering dissolved into an endless realm of serene dreams. It was a comforting reality he believed people needed, a soft oblivion to cradle them. Yet, in the depths of his mind, his peaceful philosophy hid a darker purpose, shaped by the ache of a loss he could never endure.

You had been his friend, a constant light in his youth, a companion who grounded his dreams. For as long as he remembered, you were there, with laughter that melted his worries and eyes that could see through his layered philosophies. But the day you were lost, taken too soon in a tragic incident, the world itself had hollowed out for him. The pain of your absence haunted him like a shadow, feeding a grief so deep that he was willing to defy his original purpose. In that moment of desolation, he turned Sweetdream Paradise into something far more personal—a realm where you still lived, where you loved him just as much as he had loved you.

In this new dream, Sunday made alterations. He reshaped your memories, softened the sharp edges of reality, and wove a seamless history where you had married him, where together, you built a life free of tragedy. In this dream, he could protect you eternally, shielded by his crafted illusion.

You woke to sunlight filtering through the windows, lying beside Sunday as the golden morning glow danced over his features. His eyes opened, catching you with a familiar warmth, and he reached over, brushing his fingers across your cheek.

"Good morning." he murmured, voice low and rich, as if savoring the simplicity of that greeting.

Every day was like this—a gentle, perfect rhythm that never seemed to break. You didn’t remember a world outside of this home, this life with him. And as you looked at him, you felt safe, loved, yet there was always a faint unease, like a fragment of something forgotten.

But the days went on, filled with laughter and love. Sunday seemed devoted to making sure you never doubted this world, his every word a reassurance that here, you were whole and happy.

One evening, as Sunday worked quietly at his desk, a visitor shattered the peace of his dream. It was Robin, standing just inside the doorway, her expression dark with a kind of wary sadness.

“Brother, you need to stop this,” she said, folding her arms. Her gaze fixed on him, seeing through the veneer of the dream. “This isn’t right. This… this paradise you’re keeping isn’t reality.”

Sunday straightened, his face hardening at her words. “Who are we to deny people peace, Robin? Haven’t we seen enough pain? Haven’t they?” His voice broke slightly, the facade slipping as he glanced toward where you sat by the fire, unaware of the intensity in his voice. He softened, as if trying to protect the dream from any trace of discord.

“You’re keeping people trapped. Yourself included. And for what? A fantasy? Is that really what they would have wanted?” Robin’s voice grew more urgent, her frustration showing. “They’re gone. You have to accept that.”

Sunday’s fists clenched at her words, every fiber in his body resisting the truth. “How could you understand?” he whispered. “In this place, they’re alive. I’m not hurting anyone. I’m giving them peace. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Robin stared at him, her gaze a mix of pity and sorrow. “At what cost, Brother? You’re keeping yourself from moving on, holding them hostage in a world that isn’t even real.”

In an alternate version of Penacony, Sunday’s paradise faced an even stranger twist. Aventurine, the cunning Stoneheart known for his strategic mind, was on his own mission in Sweetdream Paradise, seeking information that only Sunday could provide. But as he delved into the fabric of this dreamscape, he found himself questioning the reality around him, the shimmering dream where Sunday lived an idyllic life with you.

Aventurine confronted Sunday one night, his tone half-amused, half-concerned. “Interesting setup you have here,” he remarked, eyes gleaming with curiosity as he took in the flawless surroundings. “I almost believed it myself… almost. But what happens when the dream can’t hold itself together anymore?”

Sunday’s gaze narrowed, his protective instincts flaring. “What do you mean by that?”

Aventurine shrugged, his gaze flicking to you, sitting quietly, oblivious to the tension. “Everyone in this place… it’s all too perfect, isn’t it? You’re clinging to a memory, one that doesn’t belong here.”

In a rare flash of anger, Sunday stepped forward, his eyes darkening. “This isn’t any of your concern, Aventurine. Leave.”

Aventurine met his glare, his smirk slipping. “You think you’re the only one who’s loved and lost? Reality has its flaws, Sunday. It’s messy, painful… but it’s real. This—this is just a prison you’re keeping yourself in.”

Sunday’s voice trembled, caught between anguish and fury. “Better a beautiful dream than a brutal reality.”

Aventurine’s gaze softened for a brief moment, though he couldn’t abandon his sardonic tone. “But at least in reality, they would have remembered you for who you are, not a god in a gilded cage.”

In the end, it was you—within the dream—who finally confronted him, feeling the intangible pull of memories you didn’t recognize. “Sunday… something doesn’t feel right,” you whispered one night, as he sat beside you. “I keep… remembering pieces of something different, something that feels like it wasn’t supposed to end this way.”

Sunday’s face grew pale, fear creeping into his eyes. “No, you don’t have to worry about that. You’re here. We’re together. Isn’t that enough?”

But as you searched his eyes, you could feel the truth breaking through, the dream trembling under the weight of reality. “Sunday, what are you not telling me?”

He looked away, his heart shattering as he realized he couldn’t keep you here forever. Slowly, he whispered, “I… I just wanted to keep you safe. To give us a life that didn’t end in sorrow.”

With a trembling hand, you reached out, brushing a tear from his cheek. “It’s okay to let go. You have to keep going… even if it means letting me go.”

Sunday’s shoulders shook, the dream beginning to unravel around them, pieces of the illusion fading as he looked into your eyes one last time. “I… I don’t know if I can.”

But in the final moments, he felt your hand slip away, leaving him alone in the vast silence of his own grief. And as he awoke from his dream, Sunday found himself in a world still plagued by loss, his heart hollow yet somehow freer. Though you were gone, he understood, at last, that he had to face reality, no matter how painful it was.

And in that pain, he found a fragile hope—a sliver of light breaking through the dark.

*cutely posts all my drafts that have been dying to see the light* 😇💖

[h0bg0blin-meat]

Idk who needs to hear this but removing Mughal history from history textbooks completely to the point that the future generations wouldn't even KNOW who the Mughals were, is not the way to go.

You can't just distort history and remove a chunk of it. That's a very biased way of viewing something that actually happened not even 500 years ago. History is not fiction. You can't remove the existence of real people.

When you remove Mughal history, you also remove the good and bad they did. You remove the reason behind the beautiful blend of Indo-Islamic architecture, culture and art we see today, few of the things that have implied towards a sense of harmony amidst the religious chaos that reeked back in the day. But with that, you ALSO remove the massive destruction and looting of thousands of temples, the inhumane measures, laws and punishments they put up against non-Muslims, the struggles and sacrifices of the Hindus and other oppressed groups who protested against these atrocities oh-so-courageously. You remove their cries, their brave stories. You remove the valiant fights Shivaji, Maharana Pratap and their likes put up against these people. You remove the martyrs of the several genocides these guys (especially Babur) caused. You remove them all, because once there's no Mughals, who did these brave souls fight against?

Also why only Mughals? What about the Khaljis, Mamluks, Tughlaqs, Ghaznis and others? They committed way worse atrocities than the Mughals did tbh. So with that logic all of their histories should be wiped out? But that's almost like a 700-800-year-history-wipeout we're talking about (the dates might not be accurate). And that's not how it works.

Here's a better idea. Just... show their good and their bad, and just don't glorify them and their tyranny. We keep the struggles and the sour lives the suppressed groups lived under the rule of these dynasties, and maybe glorify the brave souls who fought selflessly against them. We show how they plundered any place of worship that wasn't a mosque (or Islamic in general), and treated the idols of these religions post-destruction. We can also include the non-Islamic kingdoms and kingdoms that stood still and strong despite the invasions, like the many Hindu kingdoms in the south, then the Ahom dynasty and a few other small kingdoms in the northeast, etc. We can bring lesser-known and highly underrated non-Islamic kingdoms into light too in this process, and how they dealt with these invaders. (Half of these points are already depicted in the existing textbooks, or... atleast the textbooks *I* studied back in school, but I think they get kinda overshadowed by the subtle glorification of these invaders)

These are the solutions I'd provide. If anyone has anything to add, please do, or if yall have better solutions, pls lmk. But removing a huge chunk of history just out of pure hate and revenge like this is NOT the way to go about in the field of history LMFAO. It's the same as how that one biased historian recently claimed that no Hindu temples were destroyed by the Islamic invaders.

[nqueso-emergency]

you know it isn't even the Bucktommy of it all that makes me mad. I think most of us here are 911 fans first, Buck fans second and then what's left has been given to Tommy and this relationship. Yeah Tommy is fun cuz he's new and he's cool but first and foremost, he's good for Buck. We love him right now but if god forbid this doesn't work out, we'll move on too when Buck moves on to someone new and someone better for him.

But all of that aside, the thing about Buddie fans that I find intolerable is how they behave like Buck and Eddie's relationship has to be romantic to mean anything. You see all the theories and it is always 'He screamed his name in fear so he must be in love' or 'he was trying to protect him and that is loml behaviour'. And no. Does that suggest they are each other's person? Yes. Does that mean they are in love? No. You don't have to kiss to be precious to each other. The difference between 'love' and 'in love' is just in the extra word and friendship can and often do mean as much as romantic relationships, just ask any adult out there. These two characters are still they characters we love and their relationship, as it is now, still means something so why does it feel like no one really cares beyond their fantasies anymore? People can write or say or draw whatever they want. I love consuming them. I have always been a prime Buddie consumer but it gets real old, real fast when every other fic I read now has been dismantling and distorting what Buck and Eddie mean to each other and the history they share. Is it because of how far canon has moved away from that path? Is it a sense of desperation? The feel of the ticking clock at the back of their heads? I don't know but it really tells a lot that Bucktommy fans — the ones, that people say, hate Eddie — have been kinder to Eddie and better at respecting him and his relationship with Buck than the so called people who are their die hard fans. It's good to be ooc now and then, but when it gets Fifty Shades level of ooc, it's time to jump ship and write a new book.

Oh they're 100% desperate. They see the end of the ride and they don't want it to end.

[some-pers0n]

I think the idea of a "heaven is corrupt" sort of storyline could be a neat way to explore the faults of the church and how religion distorts the word of God and turns a faith that should be about love and taking care of one another under the light of the Lord into a means to demonize and other those who aren't "normal", but is kinda wasted in Hazbin Hotel from a lack of understanding of how it works and favours a less nuanced approach.

Throughout history, Christianity has been used to justify discrimination. Demonizing sex and saying sex workers and those who partake in casual sex will be damned. Addicts and the mentally ill are seen as demon-possessed (or demons themselves) and are sent to hell. Of how people justified themselves in colonizing other countries and massacring these people whom they arbitrarily deemed to be unwanted and unlovable in the eyes of God. Twisting His words into hate and viewing those who go against Him in some way, even if it's as small as enjoying sex outside of reproductive means, as sinners undeserving of redemption.

Redemption of sinners I view as being the main theme of Hazbin. Yes, there are murderers and terrible people down there, but does that mean they aren't possible of redemption and salvation? These sinners aren't much different than the saved in heaven. Still human and still capable of kindness and care. Charlie's optimism and hope for salvation and redemption in the sinners contrasts with heaven deeming that they cannot become better people and are better off dead.

Which is a shame since Hazbin seems to take a somewhat black-and-white approach to it all. Adam is so bluntly evil and it kinda takes the fun out of it. I get it because there's also not real subtly with how real Christians see nothing wrong with their hate and say the most outlandish things possible because it just Makes Sense to them, but Adam straight up saying that they kill sinners for fun is too straightforward this early on.

I personally would've preferred it to be more nuanced, or at the very least heaven just attempting to be kind and perfect. An aura of fake-niceness that makes it seem like it's some peaceful and idyllic place, but it only is meant for those who apply themselves to impossible demands and refuses to believe in redemption. Wouldn't it be nice if Charlie harked back to the idea that Christianity is about loving thy neighbour and that Jesus died for our sins? That, if God's love is endless and He forgives all, hell should be empty? Bring up the hypocrisy and how His words are used as a means to hurt and divide rather than bring together community and support.

But where's the fun in that? How am I supposed to know I should root for the red demons and not the angels if they don't make it extremely clear I should hate them? Nuance is stupid anyways.

[magicamicitia]

WARNING: Mentions of suicidal/intrusive thoughts.

Volume One, Chapter Two

“You’re not alone anymore.”

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Click!

Sunset Shimmer once again woke up to the sound of her alarm clock, and carried on with her morning routine as normal. However, the memories of the previous afternoon refused to leave her thoughts.

She was aware of the existence of magic in other worlds, but… This one wasn’t supposed to be one of them. So what’s up with all of this? Magical girls? Witches? A talking cat-with-bunny-ears freak? It was weirder than anything she’d ever seen in any other world. Apparently, humans like her weren’t supposed to be able to see witches like she did. Sunset figured her background as a magic interdimensional traveller could explain that abnormality.

Whatever this all meant, she hoped Twilight knew what she was doing.

“I have no idea what I’m doing!” Twilight Sparkle skipped nervously around her room.

“Don’t worry!” the small white creature, who referred to itself as ‘Kyubey’, carefully groomed its fur in a corner. “If you ever need any help, you can always ask me.”

Twilight couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“Yeah, that’s real reassuring. The last time I asked for your help, You-“

Her train of thought was crudely interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Sweetie?” Her mother’s voice called. “Are you okay in there? You’re gonna be late if you don’t come out soon!”

“Shoot! I’d better get going!”

She left her home in a hurry as to avoid being late, despite her family’s attempts to tell her she still had twenty minutes until her usual time of departure. With a half-eaten sandwich in her hands and a trusty Kyubey over her shoulders, she was surely ready for another day as a high school student AND magical girl!

Huh?

Twilight Sparkle suddenly felt a strange weight on her chest. looking down at the soul gem ring on her finger, she noticed it emitted a strange glow.

“What’s all this now?”

“Your soul gem is reacting to magic,” kyubey answered. “There must be a witch nearby! We have to go after it!”

“NOW?! I can’t go after a witch NOW! I couldn’t even finish off the last one, and if I take too long fighting it… I’ll be…”

She gulped, terrified.

“…TARDY!!!”

“Twilight! You’re a magical girl now, the future of humanity relies on you battling witches!”

“I know, I know… But… Like, can’t you do it or something?”

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about witches in their physicial form. But once you defeat the witch, I can collect its grief seed and make sure it never comes back!”

“Ughhhh!!! Fine, I’ll do it, I’ll do it…”

Her soul gem’s magic led her to a beautiful hedge maze just outside an ancient history museum.

“Wow… this place looks so peaceful. Odd spot for a witch to make its lair.”

“You’re right, Twilight. Usually, witches will try to hatch in locations where they can collect the despair of nearby victims. But this maze is a total ghost town…”

“Well, then that must mean this one doesn’t feel like it needs any extra power, huh?”

“Yes. We’d better get ready; we’re about to enter the labyrinth, quite literally.”

As Twilight moved towards the center of the maze, she could feel reality around her become more and more distorted. But she noticed a strange consistency among the chaos.

“These patterns… these creatures… This is the same witch from yesterday!”

Kyubey backed up against Twilight’s legs, looking for refuge. “Looks like we got real lucky then. If we had decided to fight it then, with a human tagging along, things would have gotten real dangerous.”

Twilight spared no time - casting her magical power, she transformed into her magical girl self and barged through the horde of familiars with her shield. The familiars, however, laughed at her futile attempts. Their torn bodies sewed themselves back together to take on another form.

“P…Principal Celestia…?” Twilight felt an enourmous weight fall onto her shoulders.

“Twilight Sparkle,” said the mirage. “What are you doing here, when you should be at school? You used to be such a good student…”

“U-Used to be? No, no, I still am! In fact, I was on my way back-“

“It’s too late for that now. You’ve already been expelled from Crystal Prep, do you want me to expel you from Canterlot High as well? That won’t look good on your records.”

“No! I wasn’t expelled! Candace just thought it would be better for me if…”

Her legs were shaking.

“I… I’m… You’re not supposed to be here!”

Mustering up her strength, Twilight attacked the illusion of Celestia with everything she had. The familiars, however, simply dissolved themselves while laughing, leaving Twilight to fall to the ground, crying and defeated.

“What’s happening… Why am I… So weak…?”

The laughter around her turned to chants.

“End it!”

“What good is a magical girl who can’t fight a witch?”

“End it!”

“Give up your soul gem and feed us!”

“End it!”

“End it!”

“End it!”

Her vision was starting to get blurry. Why did she accept this awful offer in the first place?! She didn’t have what it took to be a magical girl at all!

Oh,

That’s right…

The reason was…

“Hold on tight, sugarcube!”

From the skies, a mysterious sillhouette came down to Twilight’s aid. Once it landed, she was surprised to see another magical girl, just like her!

Well, maybe her clothes were a little different. Very country. And instead of a shield, this girl took out five mint-condition flintlock muskets from her stylish cowboy hat. With the aim and confidence of a professional, she took down the monsters without missing a single shot. Then, she whipped her hair around, adjusted her hat, and turned to a baffled Twilight on the ground.

She smiled and reached out her hand.

“You alright over there?”

Before she could even say anything, four other girls made their way to Twilight and the mysterious magical girl.

“AJ, no fair! You said this one was mine!” A feisty girl with rainbow-colored hair rushed in first, clearly very upset.

“Oh, darling, please, that was clearly not the witch. You’re making a scene for no reason.” Added a purple-haired girl dressed in gorgeous modern-victorian couture.

“Wait,” said the multicolor girl. “Who’s that one over there?”

“I-I’m… Twilight… Twilight Sparkle…” She clumsily adjusted her glasses and got up.

“Pleasure to meet ya, Twilight.” The girl with the muskets smiled. “Name’s applejack.”

“I’m Rainbow Dash!” the spunky girl added.

“My name is Rarity, but you may call me Miss Rarity if you’re a fan.”

“Oh, I’ve heard your name before! You’re like, a prodigy star of the design world, right?”

“You’re quite right, darling! And those two over there are Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy.”

“W…Woah… So, you’re all magical girls…?”

“ALMOST all of us. Flutter can’t seem to come up with a wish, so we just drag her along as moral support.” Rainbow Dash cut in with a sarcastic tone.

“Rainbow, don’t say that!” Applejack reprimanded. “Don’t you worry, sugarcube. I know how scary it is to fight them mean witches all by yourself, but you’re not alone in this no more. We got your back!”

[wallterwall]

-Yum Zlurplie

You know what? Fuck you. You useless piece of shit. You absolute waste of space and air. You uneducated, ignorant, idiotic dumb swine, you’re an absolute embarrassment to humanity and all life as a whole. The magnitude of your failure just now is so indescribably massive that one hundred years into the future your name will be used as moniker of evil for heretics. Even if all of humanity put together their collective intelligence there is no conceivable way they could have thought up a way to fuck up on the unimaginable scale you just did. When Jesus died for our sins, he must not have seen the sacrilegious act we just witnessed you performing, because if he did he would have forsaken humanity long ago so that your birth may have never become reality. After you die, your skeleton will be displayed in a museum after being scientifically researched so that all future generations may learn not to generate your bone structure, because every tiny detail anyone may have in common with you degrades them to a useless piece of trash and a burden to society. No wonder your father questioned whether or not your were truly his son, for you'd have to not be a waste of carbon matter for anyone to love you like a family member. Your birth made it so that mankind is worse of in every way you can possibly imagine, and you have made it so that society can never really recover into a state of organization. Everything has forever fallen into a bewildering chaos, through which unrecognizable core, you can only find misfortune. I would say the apocalypse is upon us but this is merely the closest word humans have for the sheer scale of horror that is now reality. You have forever condemned everyone you love and know into an eternal state of suffering, worse than any human concept of hell. You are such an unholy being, that if you step within a one hundred foot radius of a holy place or a place that has ever been deemed important by anyone, your distorted sac religious soul will ruin whatever meaning it ever had beyond repair. You are an idiotic, shiteating, dumbass ape and no one has ever loved you. Rhodes Island would have been better off if you'd never joined us. You are a lying, backstabbing, cowardly useless piece of shit and I hate you with every single part of my being. Even this worlds finest writers and poets from throughout the ages could never hope to accurately describe the scale on which you just fucked up, and how incredibly idiotic you are. Anyone that believes in any religion out there should now realize that they have been wrong this entire time, for if divine beings were real, they would never have allowed a being such as you to stain the earth and this universe. In the future there will be horror stories made about you, with the scariest part of them being that the reader has to realize that such an indescribable monster actually exists, and that the horrific events from the movie have actually taken place in the same world that they live in right now. You are the absolute embodiment of everything that has ever been wrong on this earth, yet you manage to make it so that that is only a small part of the evil that is your being. Never in the history of mankind has there been anyone that could have predicted such an eldrich abomination, but here you are. It’s hard to believe that I am seeing such an incredible failure with my own eyes, but here I am, so unfortunately I cannot deny your existence. Even if I did my very best, my vocabulary is not able to describe the sheer magnitude of the idiotic mistake that is you. Even if time travel some day will be invented, there still would not be a single soul willing to go back in time to before this moment to fix history, because having to witness such incredible horrors if they failed would have to many mental and physical drawbacks that not even the bravest soul in history would be willing to risk it. I cannot imagine the pure dread your mother must have felt when she had to carry a baby for nine months and then giving birth to such a wretched monster as you.

Not a single word of the incoherent, illogical rambling you may be wanting to do to defend yourself or apologize would ever be able to make up for what you just did. The countries of the world would have wanted to make laws preventing such a terrible event like this from ever happening again, but sadly this is not possible since your horrific actions just now have shattered every form of order this world once had, making concepts such as laws irrelevant. Right from the moment I first set my eyes on you I knew you were an absolute abomination of everything that is wrong with humanity. I was hoping I would have been able to prevent your evil from being released upon this world by tagging along and keeping my eye on you, but it is clear to me now that not even the greatest efforts would have been able to prevent a terrible event in this scale from occurring. You are the worst human being, or even just being in general, that I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Events like the infected plague apparently only happened with the goal of teaching humanity to survive such a horrible event as the one you just created, but not even mankind’s greatest trials were able to even slightly prepare anyone for the insufferable evil you have just created. If you ever had them, your children would be preemptively killed to protect this universe from the possibility of anyone in your bloodline being even half as bad as you are, except you will never be able to have children, because not a single human being will ever want to come within a hundred mile radius of you and anything you have ever touched. You are a colossal disappointment not only to your parents, but to your ancestors and entire bloodline. The disgusting mistake that you have just made is so incredibly terrible that everyone who would ever be to hear about it would spontaneously feel an indescribable mixture of immense anger, fear and anxiety that emotionally and physically they would never truly be the same ever again. The sheer scale of your mistake, if ever to be materialized, would not only surpass the size of the world, but it would reach far beyond the edges of the known, and almost certainly the unknown universe. I could sit here and write paragraphs, nay, books describing your immense failure, yet even if I were to dedicate my life to describing the reality of what has just gone down here, and I would spend every moment of it until my heart stops beating working as hard and efficiently as possible, yet there is not even a snowballs chance in hell that I would be able to come close to transcribing the absolute shitshow you have just released upon the world. You are an irresponsible, idiotic, disgusting, unloved, horrible excuse for a living being who’s soul contains less humanity than every ginger in history combined. The absolute disgust I feel when thinking about anything that has even a slight resemblance to anything that might have to do with you and your unholy actions is so incredibly great that when I am honest about it I think that even I do not posses a consciousness great enough to comprehend my own feelings about it. When people of Columbia fought to break free from Lungmen, countless soldiers fought and lost their lives in favor of a chance at a better future for their children, they did not give their lives to have you fuck the world up beyond repair to the degree that you are doing right now. Honestly, even when technology advances and studies on the subject become more and more accurate, I do not think humanity will ever truly be able to understand what your failure actually means for the universe.

My hate for you and everything you stand for is so much deeper than the depths of Shambala that you could probably take the entire Lungmen population down there and back up around twenty million times before you would have sunk to the end of my hate, and honestly, I do not want to exaggerate, but I think that that insult was low balling it such a massive amount that all mountains in this world combined would not be able to stack up to this imprecise judgement in light of the fact that when being honest, my hate is almost certainly bottomless. There is no one in this world that has ever loved you, and especially after what you just did, no one will ever love you in the future either. There is no hope that your idiotic behavior and especially your crooked soul will ever change for the better, and in fact quite the opposite might be true. By making the mistake that you just did, you have shown me that you are so incredibly hopeless that you will only devolve into a more idiotic and wretched creature than you already are. The only possible way in which your future would be brighter than the black hole your existence currently is would exclusively be because there is absolutely no conceivable way that you would even be able to sink lower than the pathetic place your current failure has put you in. But then again, you are so incredibly abominable that you would probably be able to surpass the worst conceivable failure a living being could possibly make. You are so incredibly pathetic that you are honestly not worth any more of my words nor my time. Just remember that I will forever detest you for your failure and everything you stand for, and no matter what happens, I will never ever forgive you.

[bestworstcase]

tin hats on. let’s talk about the great war.

first, a general point about the relevant world of remnant spots: qrow narrates all of them. i think this is important to keep in mind when assessing the information provided, because he editorializes constantly, and i do not believe that we are meant to take qrow’s obvious biases at face value. rather, this is a narrative choice to introduce us to this history through a very distorted lens; qrow is ozpin’s man, loyal to the bone before to the revelation of ozpin’s lies, and it is also very likely that he had no formal education prior to his enrollment at beacon academy.

#1: the pre-war kingdoms.

vale sits on the northwestern coast of sanus, sandwiched between “steep mountains” and “waters too shallow for any real monsters to pop out of.” throughout the kingdom’s history, every attempt to expand the kingdom’s borders past the mountain range has ended in “colossal failures”—the most recent of which is mountain glenn, in the post-war period.

however, vale was also engaged in a different expansionist effort in the century preceding the great war: the kingdom was building settlements on “the small islands and peninsulas” of the northeastern coast.

to the north of vale lay the kingdom of mantle. qrow does not give a lot of detail regarding the settlement of solitas, just that “at some point, a group of settlers were crazy enough to venture out into the northernmost continent,” but i submit that the founders of mantle came from northern sanus. why?

mantle’s location at the southwestern tip of solitas is geographically closest to the island of vytal, just off the north coast of sanus; had the settlers come from northern anima, they would have more likely landed on the eastern side of the continent.

qrow says this: “the harsh weather conditions proved to be just as useful as the mountain ranges when it came to keeping the creatures of grimm at bay,” and while anima does have mountain ranges, they’re not remarked upon in WOR: mistral. it is vale that depends upon “steep mountains” to bulwark its eastern flank against the grimm, and vale that has made repeated, unsuccessful attempts throughout its history to expand its borders beyond those mountains.

it is unclear how long mantle existed as an independent state prior to the great war, but we know that it’s not very old; qrow also states that the century preceding the great was “filled with so much tension” that it might as well be “lumped together” with the great war. meaning almost certainly that there were smaller-scale conflicts throughout the whole period. sometime during that century, vale began to build settlements in northeastern sanus. mantle was settled “at some point” by “a crazy group of settlers”—and “i guess when you’re that desperate,” qrow opines, “a frozen hunk of rock doesn’t seem like such a bad place to call home.” mantle is geographically closest to northeastern sanus. there are—there have always been—people living outside the kingdoms, who do not want to be part of the kingdoms.

you do the math. or i will: mantle was founded by people displaced from northeastern sanus by valean expansion, probably in the neighborhood of a hundred years prior to the great war.

meanwhile, mistral was conquering anima. notably—because qrow doesn’t like mistral, particularly—there is less ambiguity on this point than on vale’s settlement of northeast sanus: this expansion was an imperial project. a conquest. mistral was (and based on the language used in the present, still is) an empire, meaning its “territories” are all conquered people or polities from whom the imperial core extracts resources, which—both historically and in the text of this story—includes slaves.

so, argus. during the century preceding the great war, mistral’s attention turned to northern anima. according to jaune and ren in 6.7, mistral’s expansion into the region was stymied by the cold until forming an alliance with mantle; qrow describes mantle as an “unlikely friend” to the empire. the goliath in the room that none of these characters acknowledge (and may not know, given their upbringings—bandit, orphaned young, & very sheltered) is that the region was probably not uninhabited at the time.

empire. conquest. controlled territories. you cannot have these things without also having conquered people. what stymied mistral’s expansion into the region was likely not the cold per se but the logistical burden the cold imposed upon military action here; invading a cold region with an army in the wintertime is famously not a good idea. and, if mantle was founded by people displaced by valean imperialism… well, that explains both qrow’s view of it as an “unlikely friend” and why mantle would make such an overture of alliance to mistral in the first place; vale and mistral were the great world powers, and for mantle—a small, vulnerable, dust-rich but otherwise resource-poor state with every reason to fear its closer southern neighbor—cozying up to mistral would have been just rational politics; hug one great power to insure against invasion by the other.

and then there’s vacuo.

WOR: vacuo is easily the least factually trustworthy episode in the series to the point that i think it is probably all but worthless in terms of the historical narrative given; it’s worldbuilding the modern day cultural narratives about the conquest of vacuo, not the actual history.

(the CFVY novels, i believe, support this reading: in the present, many city vacuans believe the narrative qrow offers here that the old kingdom of vacuo was a “paradise,” but “comfort breeds weakness” and its people were complacent, soft, helpless to defend themselves from invaders from more hardened kingdoms… but the first king of vacuo was a man called malik the sunderer, shade’s history teacher states that it’s been centuries since vacuo was conquered and the real history has been so obscured and distorted by myth that it’s impossible to know what it was truly like, and desert vacuans—the nomadic peoples who don’t live in the kingdom—have a starkly different cultural outlook on hardship that is much more in line with the story’s themes and also reality, valuing community, hospitality, and resilience over “strength.”)

but there is one kernel of very interesting information in this episode: “after the great war, a formal government was finally established.” meaning there wasn’t a formal vacuan government before the great war.

vacuo was not a state before the great war.

of vacuo’s entry into the great war, qrow says this:

Up to this point, Vacuo had done its best to stay out of the fight. Mantle and Mistral, having both already established a small presence in Vacuo territory years before promised to leave them alone, provided they didn't interfere. Soon, those talks evolved. It went from "Don't side with them" to "Side with us and you'll be safe". Vacuo did not much care for that, and they came to the conclusion that if Vale were to fall, there'd be no one left to stop Mistral and Mantle from conquering them next. So they did what they considered to be the logical thing. They drove Mantle and Mistral out of Vacuo and told Vale they had their backs.

at this point in history, vacuo did not have a government. at this point in history, vacuo was not a state. the kingdom of vacuo had been conquered centuries ago (by “more developed kingdoms,” qrow says—by whom?), and according to rumpole (<- an actual authoritative source, given she teaches history at shade!), “few documented accounts or records remain from that far back.”

the conquest of vacuo predated the conflicts of the prewar century (and probably predate the existence of mantle). this illustration in WOR: vacuo implicates all three of the other kingdoms—blue for mistral, white for mantle, green for vale:

so there is no question that vale participated in the butchering of vacuo; it did. but this illustration is also impressionistic, ahistorical, not a literal representation of how vacuo was conquered.

by the time of the great war, vacuo was a territory occupied by mantle and mistral, but vale does not seem to have had a significant presence there. in the present, vacuans harbor a lot of resentment for mistral and atlas, less for vale. vale is also, by virtue of being located on the same continent, the kingdom best positioned to invade vacuo if it so chose.

(qrow asserts that vacuo was conquered by “more developed” kingdoms, but it was also dust-rich—the CFVY novels confirm this—and there is a clear correlation between technological innovation and access to an abundant source of dust. it’s possible that a scarcity of, say, iron inhibited ancient vacuo’s technological development and put it at a military disadvantage, but generally i think it’s more likely that qrow is regurgitating historical propaganda there.)

the point being: vale conquered the kingdom of vacuo and then either withdrew or lost a war with mistral for control over the territory at some point prior to the great war.

regardless of the finer details, the historicity of qrow’s account regarding vacuo’s entrance into the war seems… pretty suspect given that vacuo did not have a government. what sort of “talks” do you suppose the mantle-mistrali bloc was having with the non-state actors of vacuo? what kind of “presence” did mistral, the empire that conquered all of anima, actually have in the vacuan territory?

hmm. i wonder.

vacuo “drove mistral and mantle out” and threw in their lot with vale; meaning, the vacuan side of this war was really a war of independence. vacuo wasn’t “doing its best to stay out of the fight” so much as it was under mistrali control until the vacuan people rebelled, then sided with mistral’s enemy.

#2: salem?? ?

ozpin—and qrow by extension—believes that salem ignited the war with a false-flag op in northeastern sanus (“to this day, no one knows who shot first” + “salem’s smart. she works in the shadows, using others to get what she wants, so that when it comes time to place the blame, we can only point at each other”). much of the fandom not only takes this at face value but also assumes without… really any basis at all that salem was responsible for the “incident” in mantle that the mantelian government used to justify a raft of draconian censorship laws.

but… authoritarian regimes can and will use any pretext to justify repressive new laws whose real purpose is to punish dissenters and strengthen control over the populace; banning art and all forms of self-expression is not a move that anyone would think with any seriousness would protect people from the grimm. qrow is either being disingenuous in purpose or (more likely) just doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about because four years at the monster-hunting college is the sum total of his education: “the people of mantle had come to believe that they would be much safer from the grimm if they could only keep the emotions of the masses in check” is the kind of bullshit nonsense you would expect if the guy doesn’t know how government works, either the modern-day democratic councils or whatever system prewar mantle had; what is the distinction between “the people” and “the masses?”

in. the. unreliable. narrators. show.

mantle’s autocratic government found a pretext to crack down on subversive speech and pumped out a massive body of propaganda to the tune of “we’re just doing what we must for the good of the people :)”—that’s what happened. that’s why mistral imposed the same laws on its territories but not in the imperial core, and why mantle didn’t have a problem with that “selective” enforcement.

maybe salem sent some grimm to attack mantle, maybe she didn’t. maybe there was a public protest that got angry enough to attract grimm. maybe there was a protest that got too rowdy, and who’s going to openly question the government officials claiming that officers on the scene opened fire into the crowd because a grimm jumped out of the sewers? grimm evaporate when they die. kind of a hard thing to fact check.

and in a similar vein… vale’s king rolled out a welcome mat for mistrali colonists who came to colonize valean settlements. it is beyond nonsensical to think that there was no violence involved. colonization is an inescapably and inherently violent process. and remember, the rioting began shortly after mistral imposed draconian censorship laws on its occupied territories, which absolutely would have included parts of eastern vale.

it was inevitable and completely predictable that this situation would explode. might salem have sent someone to fire the first shot? sure? but why would she bother, when the fuse was burning down all on its own?

(and that’s assuming she even had an interest in provoking a massive war at all, which seems rather unlikely given her apparent disinclination to engage in wanton destruction; see also her consistent choices to limit civilian casualties by pulling out of vale quickly / planning a surgical strike on haven academy / not attacking mantle / not sending grimm into the subways of atlas.)

but. but–

they did put her in the thumbnail. the point of this is presumably to imply that she did, in fact, do something to influence these events.

specifically.

they put her in the thumbnail superimposed over the leader of the vacuan rebellion, who:

led what must have been a pretty desperate fight against steep odds to drive an industrialized global power out of vacuo,

kept that coalition together after they won and formed an alliance with vale, and

was a faunus.

ozpin is superimposed over the king of vale because he was the king of vale. so: is the choice to position salem in this way similarly non-arbitrary?

looks into the camera like i’m on the office.

salem is a faunus. she identifies herself as such (“your grace” is the mode of address for menagerie’s chieftain) and she has been socially understood as a faunus for thousands of years (in a time when faunus were hunted and caged like animals, the stories about the witch who lived in the woods among “beasts and monsters” were, uh, probably not referring to wild animals; “beasts” was a euphemism for the people the ones telling those stories hunted and caged.)

to this day, ozpin associates the faunus with salem. he suspects blake of being her spy; he similarly singles out velvet after the massacre of lower cairn (and we don’t get to see what he actually says, only that velvet is in tears by the end). at haven, leo more or less says “the council overruled me and my hands are tied,” and ozpin immediately decides to freeze him out and insinuates to the kids that he suspects leo might be a traitor; meanwhile james “two votes” ironwood is closing atlas’ borders, cutting off the global supply of dust, recalling his troops from an allied state, and behaving so erratically that mistral is evidently anticipating a fucking invasion, and ozpin instructs qrow to take the lamp to atlas anyway. lionheart is a faunus; ironwood is human. the tea set ozpin gifted to lionheart is a replica of salem’s tea set. math.

so the fact that salem is superimposed over the faunus leader here does not seem coincidental; the narrative is very consistent in linking salem to the faunus because she is herself a faunus.

in WOR: faunus, qrow describes the appalling treatment of faunus by humans throughout history (first ostracized and hunted down, later enslaved and exploited) before to the great war and states that, after the great war, “the world was desperate to find compromises that would ensure they'd never see the likes of it again; the faunus were awarded equal rights as citizens of remnant, and as an apology, they were given an entire continent of their own to do with as they pleased. there were some that saw this as fair and just, but many saw it for what it really was: a slap in the face from a nation of sore losers. and so menagerie was born.”

and from the great war:

But whatever the reasoning, everyone bowed to the King of Vale by the time it was over. The Great War had ended. The world was ready to live under the rule of Vale. But the King refused. The leaders of the four Kingdoms met on the island of Vytal, and it was there that they worked together to form a treaty and establish the future of Remnant. Territories were redistributed, slavery was abolished, governments were restructured, and the Warrior King, the last king Vale would ever have, founded the Huntsman Academies and placed his most trusted followers in command of each Kingdom's school.

a few things to unpack here.

first: ozma as the king of vale would have had quite a lot of power to drive the vytal negotiations in the direction he wanted them to go; the other three leaders were given at least a notional say, but these were people who had just seen ozma unleash the horrifying powers of the sword of destruction upon their armies and bowed to him in abject terror—and that’s before getting into the possibility that ozma may have used the crown of choice to compel agreement.

second: “territories were redistributed” mostly appears to mean that mistral was forced to relinquish control over conquered territories that did not want to be part of mistral; vacuan sovereignty was formally restored (…on paper) (shade academy is the de facto government and has been since the war ended, which is worth raising an eyebrow at), parts of western anima were liberated, and… menagerie was given to the faunus.

(menagerie had to have been a mistrali colony before the great war ended, otherwise the framing of “a slap in the face from a nation of sore losers” is nonsensical.)

third: note the implication that awarding the faunus equal rights and giving them an island was a desperate compromise to insure against the perceived threat of a second war. it’s of a piece with ozma’s attempt to appease mistral and avoid war by “sharing” eastern vale with mistrali colonists.

the vacuan leader—his ally in the war—was a faunus, but it sounds very much as though ozma saw her kind as adversaries, at least in potentia, whom he made it a point to appease in the hope of avoiding a war. which is irrational on its face but does make sense in conjunction with ozpin’s clear inclination to imagine connections between salem and faunus, however baseless that suspicion might be.

and on that note, qrow also says this: “a lot of settlements were lost during those years, and most were never reclaimed. rations on food and dust were put into effect, development of technology accelerated, humans and faunus who fought alongside one another became closer and every day, mankind grew more and more efficient at destroying itself.”

pay attention to that rhetorical structure.

many settlements were wiped out

food and dust were strictly rationed

technological (military) development boomed

humans and faunus grew closer

mankind grew ever more efficient at destroying itself

one of these is not like the others.

qrow’s framing of these events likely comes from ozpin, whether directly (things ozpin told him) or indirectly (ozpin’s influence as headmaster over beacon’s curriculum). so the inclusion of “humans and faunus who fought side by side grew closer” into what is otherwise a list of ways mankind “destroyed itself” is perhaps telling of ozma’s mindset at the time; which in turn supports the implication that ozma perceived the faunus as a potential threat to appease after the war.

now!

the question is, how was salem involved—and why?

well. we know that salem is inclined to revolution; she rallied people to rebellion against the brothers millions of years ago, and in her war against the academies in the present, she aligns herself with groups like the white fang. she refers to the global order ozma established through the vytal accords derisively as “your so-called ‘free’ world.”

and we know that salem herself is a faunus, and thousands of years ago she was present enough in faunus culture that their creation myth is just a refraction of her story—transformation into something new by a choice to leap into magical waters.

we know that the faunus did not have rights in any of the four kingdoms before the great war, and mistral in particular is noted for its reliance on (presumably, mainly faunus) slave labor. reading between the lines of qrow’s slanted narration, vacuo was a mistrali territory back then, and in the CFVY novels it’s mentioned that vacuan faunus were regularly enslaved in mistrali-operated mines within that territory.

and we can guess, based on their leader being a faunus, that the vacuan rebels who drove mistral and mantle out of vacuo were predominantly faunus, plus humans willing to follow and fight for the faunus.

in the present, salem preferred sienna khan over adam and dropped adam like a hot potato after he assassinated sienna; she also clearly has no intention to attack menagerie, where the grimm notably do not seem to be a serious problem. salem also implicitly identifies herself as a faunus (“your grace”). so there are grounds for thinking that she does consider the faunus to be her people.

vacuo’s part in the great war was a war for independence. salem is both pragmatic and ruthless; she understands that nothing forces people to cooperate quite like the threat of a common enemy; she has the means to turn the tide of any war by the simple expedient of directing her grimm against the side she wants to lose. if she was in communication with the vacuan rebels—or just had spies—she could have coordinated grimm raids to sever supply lines or winnow defending forces in advance of attacks planned by the rebels, tipping the odds in their favor.

she knows ozma. if she was paying attention to the war, she would have known it began with his futile effort to appease mistral by giving away parts of vale; she has to know he sees her in the shadow of every faunus. the vacuan rebels—most of them faunus, led by a faunus—saved his bacon by joining the war he very much seems to have been losing (the frontlines were in vacuo by the end of the war; all of eastern vale was destroyed, and the king of vale and his army made their final stand in vacuo; vale itself was… probably under mistrali occupation at the time).

i am sure salem did not want, particularly, to throw ozma a lifeline. but she does care about freedom in the abstract—“your so-called ‘free’ world”—and she may think of the faunus as her people. once the war began, once it became clear that vale was losing… well, either vale would fall and mistral would rule the world, which would be undeniably worse for the faunus, or she could grit her teeth and accept helping ozma as a fair price for a shot at liberating the faunus.

and the only thing she would have to do to influence the war’s outcome is use her grimm to disrupt mantelian/mistrali supply lines and specifically target their forces on the battlefield. such attacks wouldn’t stand out against the backdrop of regular grimm activity—there are a lot of grimm in the world beyond her control—but a sustained, deliberate campaign of grimm attacks focused on one side would absolutely add up over time to a significant advantage for the other. especially given that the logistical burden of waging war on a foreign continent is already so much higher than defending your home.

if salem could also keep wild grimm off the backs of vacuo’s and vale’s armies to some extent, a la the apparent absence of a grimm problem in menagerie, that advantage would be even sharper.

…although she probably did not anticipate that ozma would use the sword of destruction to crush everyone who opposed him, or the crown of choice to do… whatever it is he did with it. you win some, you lose some.

[dipplinduo]

So happy to see more DipplinShipping!!

Do you have Headcanons for the two?

So you asked this awhile ago, but I wanna personally thank you because I vaguely referenced how I was putting off your ask to give it some thought. And then, I asked the community about their headcanons. And y'all showed up with that and it's become such a fun way to interact with you all and talk more about this ship as a community. So, in essence, you started this Jazzy!!! Thank you!! There's been a lot that others have submitted that I love, and ones that I'll sprinkle into my fic(s). Right now, I just have Sweet & Sour Dipplins up on AO3. So while there's a lot I could potentially say here, I'll keep my answer very general with all things considered:

Kieran falls first and harder. He had a crush on Juliana during Teal Mask. Juliana didn't really know what to fully think of with her feelings, but she later realized she developed feelings for Kieran here, too. She is also oblivious to Kieran's feelings. They had a lot of unofficial dates during Teal Mask.

Kieran assumes Juliana has had feelings for other people/has a dating history - she does not. She may have thought others were cute before, but Kieran's her first true real crush.

Kieran gets taller than Juliana during the time skip between Teal Mask and Indigo Disk. Before he was the same height. He is also stronger and can carry her.

Kieran and Juliana don't get together officially until post Indigo Disk because Kieran needs to have an edgy phase for personal development reasons. Juliana also needs time to grow as a person, too (in general, she's very sweet and dotes for a lot of people, but she leans more into her strength and resolve when her social relationship with Kieran is strained. Her adventures in Paldea also give her a sense of confidence, too.

Kieran actively denies his feelings for Juliana in angsty sleepless phase. He instead sees her as an obstacle to defeat because of his own insecurities, and tries to convince himself that everything she does (whether to him, or in general) is manipulative. Juliana is uncertain on how to approach him because she feels his anger even if he's not fully speaking on it, but gradually recognizes that showing up for him anyway is meaningful. Meanwhile, any time she is sweet to him, Kieran is having an internal crisis with his feelings.

Juliana likes both sides of Kieran but doesn't know what to make of it. She's also somewhat disgusted in herself for realizing she likes Kieran while he's clearly not too well mentally, let alone not getting along with her (or anyone) too well.

Biggest shippers of this ship include Carmine and Drayton. First shippers were Kieran's grandparents. Carmine helps Juliana figure out her feelings for Kieran, Drayton observes and suspects Juliana's feelings for Kieran and Kieran's feelings for Juliana. He has fun with this while also being on team "calm Kieran down and save him."

Everyone realizes Kieran and Juliana are dating before they do. By the time they announce it, everyone's like "well, duh". This especially embarrasses Kieran, who gets red in the face very easily. On the other hand, Juliana isn't really a blusher.

I'm trying to avoid listing headcanons that others have submitted, but I just have to list the whole "Kieran says wowzers after the first kiss" one because it's so funny and perfect. Juliana also likes hearing Kieran say "wowzers" even though he's trying to outgrow it because it's part of who he is at his core (he also still goes "aww man" sometimes).

Drayton can still mess with Kieran even while he's dating Juliana publicly. #Brotherly love (Note: Crispin also tries to tease, but it does not go as well for him LOL)

Post-angst Kieran is very attentive to Juliana and views her as an unconditional love because she never gave up on him. Nothing can ever distort his view of her again. In some ways, he pedestals her a bit for this and might take her side blindly.

Kieran retains his champion title (i.e. Juliana does not retain it because she's not a full time student), but he does so by working his way back up the ranks because he wants to earn it with his true ideals (i.e. channeling love and connection rather than revenge and winning). Juliana offers to help support him in his redemption arc at Blueberry, but he for the most part prefers to handle it alone since he himself was responsible for his action towards others. Drayton is proud of him when he gets beaten and teases him about Juliana's influence on him, which riles up Kieran.

In Teal Mask and angsty Kieran arc, Juliana leads the dynamic more. Post that, Kieran leads. Juliana thought she was more of a physically affectionate person, but then Kieran waltz in and becomes very lovey-dovey in this area once they're dating. Sleepy Kieran is especially clingy no matter what Kieran version we have. They also both love seeing each other's hair down and enjoy playing with it.

Juliana isn't a good cook and really only knows how to make sandwiches because they were useful. She does, however, learn a bunch of apple-based recipes because it's Kieran's favorite food flavor.

Kieran is technology deficient because of the way he grew up and often needs Juliana's assistance. Carmine, on the other hand, quickly adapted and uses technology better than the average person.

Kieran and Juliana trade each other aaplins as a surprise/way to confess love. They're both flustered when they realize they both traded aaplins.

Juliana flirted first, but Kieran made the first real move. He just needed the push/reassurance in knowing she liked him too.

Juliana can fluster Kieran very easily. By indigo disk, Kieran tries to get under Juliana's skin by turning the tables. It works. But he wasn't ready for that. So he flusters himself as a consequence.

I probably have more, but figured this was good enough for now. :) <3

[minecraft-inspo]

Why are slimes placed as an early branch off of the kingdom Animalia? 

Slimes are enigmatic. Taken at face value, they could fit anywhere or nowhere in the tree. They tick all of the boxes required to be defined as an animal, but don’t closely resemble any real phylum, though they do bear some resemblance to certain basal animal groups such as ctenophores and cnidarians. 

Why is the elytra branching off from the insects?

The word elytra refers to the hard wings of beetles. This is where beetles would be placed on the tree.

Why is the shulker a mollusk?

It’s a shelled invertebrate - anything beyond this is unclear. It has a pair of shells like a bivalve, but could belong to any of a number of different related groups. 

Why is the sea pickle so close to vertebrates?

The sea pickle is either based on a real life sea cucumber (an echinoderm), or a sea pickle (a tunicate). Either way, both of these groups are deuterostomes, which means they, like us, develop their anus before their mouth. Yeah. 

Why are guardians labeled as manufactured?

It’s an idea I’m not totally sold on, but a theory nevertheless. It has been posited that guardians were created to guard underwater monuments and are not actually animals. I am of the opinion that if this is the case, they are still at least partially biological, as they do drop edible raw fish. In this case, they likely represent a lineage of jawless fish comparable to real life ostracoderms that was further modified for their role as temple guardians. 

Why are the dragon and sniffer related? Why do they branch off the tree so early?

Both are 6 limbed, meaning they are not tetrapods, the group which includes all real terrestrial vertebrates. Instead, they may represent a different lineage of fishes which separately developed a third limb girdle and then followed a line of parallel evolution with the tetrapods. This is comparable to the various invasions of land by arthropods, in which arachnids, myriapods and insects separately evolved mechanisms of terrestrialization while also convergently evolving many of the same structures as each other. 

Aren’t creepers described as “plant-like?” Why are they included with the vertebrates?

They have indeed often been described as plant-like by various developers. It is my belief that they are vertebrates with a symbiotic relationship with some form of plant, probably a moss. This is why they are also included in Bryophyta on the other side of the tree. All promotional merchandise that shows creeper internal anatomy shows the presence of bones and the general anatomy reflects a familiar yet distorted version of the common tetrapod body plan. They do not share much in common with either reptiles or mammals, and so I split them off early in the vertebrate portion of the tree. While creepers share a developmental history with pigs, they do not actually bear any synapomorphies to suggest this relationship is canon, and so I chose not to place them nearby. 

Why are phantoms reptiles?

I’m honestly not sure what else they could be. The underside of the texture reminds me of the plastron of a turtle, though the wings are arguably more bat-like than anything else. Phantoms are all undead and their living version is likely now extinct, so we can’t fully understand the anatomy they would have had. 

Why are striders synapsids? What is a synapsid?

Synapsids are mammals and their extinct, reptile-like ancestors. Striders have hair, like living mammals, but otherwise share very little with modern mammals, suggesting they split off early in synapsid evolution.

What is the warden/sculk?

I don’t know. It’s very purposefully the most alien life in Minecraft. Most realistically, I think it’s not from the overworld at all. However, that’s not really in the spirit of this project. Therefore, I hypothetically place it as a fungus, as fungi are capable of the sprawling growth in dark environments and possible parasitism in the case of the warden itself. 

Why are blazes labeled as “manufactured?”

I haven’t got a clue what blazes could be. Are they sentient fire? Are they living creatures that mimic fire? Who knows. I finally ended up considering them to be something akin to vexes or golems - summoned by someone or something to guard nether fortresses, rather than naturally evolved creatures. This is actually supported by a really old (and likely since retconned) article from the Minecraft website. https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/visit-nether- 

Why is glow lichen connected to two separate branches?

Because lichen is a symbiotic structure formed by both algae and fungi!

Why are chorus plants where they are?

They are angiosperms, meaning they bear flowers and fruit, but do not have the characteristics of either of the more derived major lineages of flowering plants.

Why are dripleaf plants alismatales?

To me, they bear a great resemblance to members of the arum family, such as elephant ear plants, arrowhead plants, and Monstera. 

Torchflower?

It bears greatest resemblance to bromeliads, a group of plants related to grasses.

Why is the spore blossom placed where it is?

The spore blossom is another anomalous species. If “spore” is taken seriously, it must be a fern. However, ferns don’t have flowers, so I assumed the spores are actually just pollen. I placed it as a dicot based on the fact that dicots typically have flowers with 4-5 petals, while monocots have flowers with petals in multiples of 3. 

Why aren’t vines and glow berry vines placed together?

The “vine” form has evolved dozens of times in separate lineages of plants, just like the “tree” form. It alone is not enough to indicate a close relationship. I tentatively placed vines where the grape family would go, and placed the glow berries where staff vines (Celastrus) should be. 

Why aren’t dead bushes grouped with sweet berry bushes and azaleas?

Like vines and trees, “bush” is a description of a body form and not an evolutionary group. I depicted the dead bush as a real form of desert bush, a tumbleweed, specifically the Russian thistle, a common tumbleweed in the order Caryophyllales.

Sweet berries, on the other hand, are most likely based on lingonberries, a commonly grown crop in Sweden, where Mojang is based. These belong to the order Ericales along with azaleas, as well as many other common plants not yet represented in the game such as blueberries and cranberries. 

Pitcher plants are real - why isn’t there a “confirmed” lineage on the tree?

Pitcher plants have evolved several times in different lineages, and there is no clear indication which ones the ones in Minecraft are. In fact, most likely, the Minecraft pitcher plants don’t belong to any real group of pitcher plants, as none of these produce “pods” nor do they have similar leaves. However, the most likely candidates are the family Nepenthaceae (order Caryophylalles) or the family Sarraceniaceae (order Ericales).

[thebluestbluewords]

Rise of Red (princess status pending)

“Where are we?” Chloe asks, wide-eyed goggling at the buildings around her like she’s never seen a castle before. 

Okay, it’s not like Red’s seen a castle like this one before either, but still. She’s at least making an effort to fit in. 

“More like when are we?” Red shoots back. “We’re right where we were before the pocketwatch took us back. It’s a time machine, not a fucking teleportation device.” 

Chloe frowns. She’s cute when she looks confused, not that Red cares. “That seems improbable. I mean, what are the odds that we’d be standing in exactly the same spot where we left from…fifty years ago?” 

“My mom’s not that old.” 

“Your mom built the whole castle in wonderland,” Chloe says, frowning. “She was queen when Lady Alice visited for the first time, which was over thirty years ago. According to our history books—“ 

Red can’t help the laugh that tears out of her. “Hah! Your history books?” 

Chloe’s frown deepens. “What’s wrong with our history books?” 

“For one thing, they totally ignore the Wonderland War.” Red snaps, keeping her voice low and dangerous, both because it makes Chloe lean closer to hear her, and because she is not going to cause a time travel incident by making any of these pre-Auradon princess types think that they should instigate the Great War a few years early. “And they say that you guys are the source of all the goodness and light in the world—“ 

“Wonderland didn’t exactly keep their hands clean either when it came to the villains—“ 

“We were the villains!” Red hisses, so loudly that Chloe flinches back. “We were part of the villainous uprising that led to you people locking up our friends, and we didn’t want to be pushed back into tweedletown or stuck with my mother for a queen, but those were the only two options you gave us!” 

“The books say that Wonderland chose to secede from the United States of Auradon,” Chloe says, meeting Red’s glare straight on. “I know that books can be wrong, but while we’re here, we’re in a time before any of that. We need to remember that history as we know it hasn’t happened yet, so we need to be careful not to change too much and risk creating a time distortion so big we can’t get home.” 

“Home. Where my mother is staging a coup.” 

“Where my mother is a prisoner waiting for her beheading,” Chloe shoots back. “Unless you want to let things play out like that again, we need to get moving and figure out how to convince your mother not to be….” 

“Herself?” 

“I was going to say a tyrant.” Chloe says delicately. “But I suppose that works too.” 

Red throws her arm out in a sweeping Red Court gesture towards the road ahead of them. Her fingers slip automatically into the shape of a heart, and she flips them back into a rude gesture instead. She’s not giving her mother the satisfaction, even from fifty-odd years away. “Lead the way, princess.” 

Chloe makes a face that’s distinctly un-princess-y. “That’s the other thing we need to decide on before we find your mom. I can’t be the princess of Charmington here. Charmington doesn’t exist yet.” 

Red scoffs. Of all the stupid things to be concerned about, of course her roommate is concerned about her own royal heritage before she’s supposed to be born. “Your dad’s still a prince. You can be his cousin, or something. I’d never,” she puts as much sarcasm as possible into the word, just in case Chloe really is as dense as she’s acting. “Deny you the royal treatment you so clearly deserve, princess.” 

Chloe’s expression is so flat that she might as well be a flounder. “I meant that you cant call me a princess because telling everyone that I’m the heir to a country that doesn’t even exist yet is the fastest way I can think for us to get thrown in jail for espionage, if not outright treason. That is, unless you’d rather be sent to the madhouse instead?” 

“Madhouses aren’t real. They’re a story that my mom made up to get those stupid hatters off her case.”

Chloe’s face falls even further. “They’re real. And that’s where we’ll be going if we don’t have a good cover story for who we are and why we’re here.” 

Red shrugs. “You’re the one with the history books. Make something up.” 

Chloe grins. 

Oh, no.