#but most protags are dumb. that helps more

[purple-obsidian]

I'm in love w your writing Arkham knight bc on one hand that while series has me screaming at the girl bc she's really a horror movie protag making dumb choices to me. Like- “Bitch are you stupid!?!? LEAVE!!! FLEE, BITCH, FLEE!!!!” she quit her job to be with an abusive man,, it's quite literally the DUMBEST choice a woman can make BUT!!! At the same time, I think it's very relatable to put your own welfare on the back burner for a person you love bc they're suffering, and Jason Todd, man that he is, suffered more than Jesus. But, aT THE SAME TIME, she really gave that man some pussy after a domestic violence episode, what is wrong with her? Is her self esteem low? Why wasn't she gone when he came out of the bathroom? Does she have a death wish? Bc she is willingly in what is a both physically and verbally abusive relationship with a TRAINED KILLER. Why is she ignoring how dangerous he is to stay with him, when its apparent to her that her presence is not helping him, and he does not make her happy and she justifiably feels unsafe?

hi there, anon. thanks for sending in the ask!

i encourage you to think of my writing as a horror movie, like you mentioned. because this is all fiction, and anyone that finds themselves in a situation similar to this irl should absolutely leave immediately.

this is dark fiction. for entertainment only, and should not be viewed as an example of a healthy dynamic or healthy relationship. reader could be sticking around for a lot of reasons. i imagine jason was her first boyfriend. not only that, but he was robin, boy wonder, charming and athletic, sweet and caring, and they were in love. and then he fucking died, bro. she mourned him for over a year, praying and begging that it was all a bad dream and she would wake up and have him waiting there for her. she didn't grieve properly, and like many people who lose a partner, reader struggled to move on and find happiness. living in gotham didn't help her any, either. especially with the events leading up to and including the arkham series.

and then he does come back. he is alive. at first she thinks her prayers are answered. when reader finds out what happened to jason, i mean- just imagine the guilt and anguish she felt over not knowing, and not looking for him when he was all alone and suffering. jason doesn't hesitate to remind her, either. the guilt tripping and constant accusations are a new habit of his, courtesy of joker and harley quinn. her sweet, loving boyfriend is now a tortured ghost of his former self. she feels like she failed him, and after idolizing their relationship in her mind for the past couple years, reader is yearning for what once was.

she stays because she loves him. she stays because she feels guilty, like she owes him. she stays because she knows that he needs someone to be there for him, and she's the only one he will let in. most of all, though, i think she says because gotham needs jason todd, and she hopes that jay will find himself and step up now that batman is 'gone'.

its not healthy. reader is not acting in her own best interest. but hey, who know what will happen in part 3.

xoxo sid

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Propaganda why Anakin Skywalker is insufferable:

It's less about his character and more about the way ppl talk about him and narrative around him in a lot of current stuff. The way everyone try to bend over backwards to prove how his reasons to turn Darth Vader were somehow noble or good when almost every single bad guy in Star Wars (expect Palpatine and that guy who taught him) have much more sympathetic history and reasons and how he's not a bad person bc he cried a few times while doing atrocities. And how everyone else gets the blame for all his shortcomings ('they did it but never taught him!!!' -he literally parrotos this same lessons to his own student, it's obvious he knows better but chooses to not apply to himself anything that is slightly uncomfortable to him). Like, I love characters being genuinely not good people as much as a next guy but let's not pretend they're good people actually

the guy has zero critical thinking skills, he whines about everything all the time. I love him, but he’s awful to listen to. THIS BITCH. I HATE HIM. NO CRITICAL THINKING. NO SELF AWARENESS. WHINY MURDEROUS ASSHOLE. LIKE SERIOUSLY. He's a JEDI. LIKE. THEY HAVE HISTORY CLASSES!!!! He should have KNOWNNNNNN that when he had prophetic dreams they're not necessarily true!!!!! Also like. In the Star Wars universe, do Jedi just not have imaginations that can create NORMAL dreams when they sleep??? Do Jedi just not usually dream??? If he hadn't gotten paranoid from the dreams of Padme dying in childbirth

BILLIONS OF LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED. FOR THAT MATTER, if you're gonna have A SUPER ILLEGAL SUPER SECRET MARRIAGE, wouldn't you, I don't know, USE PROTECTION SO THAT YOUR WIFE WHO IS SECRETLY AND ILLEGALLY MARRIED DOESN'T GET PREGANANANT????? LIKE LOOK I LOVE LUKE AND LEIA MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF BUT THEIR PARENTS WERE SO FUCKING STUPID. ANAKIN SKYWALKER HATES CONDOMS BECAUSE THEY DONT FEEL AS GOOD I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. Man is an IDIOT. How can you have had a role model and father figure like Obi-Wan for most of your fucking life and grow up to do the shitty, STUPID things Anakin did. Ok this is way too long I'm sorry but I love Obi-Wan so much and Anakin ruined his fucking life and hes just such a little DICK. MURDERED A WHOLE VILLAGE OF SAND PEOPLE. AND DOZENS IF NOT HUNDREDS OF CHILDRENNNNNNNN. ANGSTY WHINY TEENAGER. FUCK HIMMMMMMM

Yes he was probably directed to act that way but the way his lines were written did not help

Propaganda why Tim Jackson Drake is insufferable:

oh man. i've had enough of this duckboy (as the protag, he's tolerable in yj and stuff.) like when tim is the protag every character in the story becomes Worse. lady shiva gets nerfed. steph is turned into jealous hormonal catfight girl. helena is dumbified and too womanly to function (they have a nice dynamic as long as tim isn't the protag). cassie and tim were great in yj98, but as soon as he is The Protag then she is his best friend's girlfriend and they're barely friends anymore. cass is turned into a rapist. dick is turned into a lazy mediocre robin. jason turns into fucky wucky dumb brute yaoi stalker boyfriend who is suddenly obsessed with tim's awesome skills. 10 y.o. damian somehow deserves to be put on a hitlist because he's a savage and tim is civilized. Sometimes the story is bogged own with tim's internal or external lectures about their flaws and how they need to be better (better like him), except for dick HMMMM wonder why that is. probbly wouldn't be so bothered if tim wasn't crammed into the spotlight of every crossover in the 90s and early 00s and then so much of dc and the fandom wave it around as the peak era of comicbooks. like im sorry. he is not a relatable protag. like the editors literally told newspapers that he was created for gen x white dudes who blow their money on comics and merch, the info is on wikipedia.

White twink rich boy who always has to be smartest bestest boy even when he is a part of a whole group of smartest bestest ppl (aka bat family as a whole, like he's literally THE Mary sue of a group of Mary sues) at expense of literally everyone else

His definitive writer is a conservative Republican. His series is full of moral PSAs, *dumb* *hormonal* girls getting into catfights over him, and blatant sexism and racism. He gives anti-marijuana speeches to a standing ovation, he lectures about how babies need a father and a mother, and sex is for marriage. Other characters suddenly become stupid around him so that he looks smart. The other characters talk about how he is the best, nicest, smartest Robin ever and ALL the others were dumber and meaner than he is, even the one that mentored him. He as a grown adult man is canonically still bitter about ""his"" child sidekick role being given to an actual child (fans pretend he is the victim of this on both sides—nope he's the adult fighting a child for the child sidekick role, no adult wanted to replace him). Did I mention that this character is the amazing pure white boy, and his 10-year-old successor is painted as a savage Arab terrorist who needs to be put in his place? T*m is a 5'9""+ adult grown man, not a delicate sensitive baby boy.

[garfeildfanpage]

What is your opinion on teru minamoto and how he is as a character :3 I find him and akane’s (boy) interactions very interesting tbh

Woah an ask! And as of the recent chapter(s) I think they help confirm a few things I had already thought, but I’d love to go in depth!

Overall, Teru is probably my favorite. He’s different from the rest of the cast in the sense that he’s not a “hero” nor a “villain”. To me he, Akane, and Aoi all sit right in the gray moral area rather than characters like Kou, Nene, and the members of the broadcasting club, who play the direct roles of protag and antag. But he’s always held my attention over any of the other characters because everything around him is just as morally gray, from childhood to now his values never changed as his view on the world is just as strict, though with a few exceptions (which are pretty important).

His interactions with other characters show his views in the most obvious way. He acts charming and aloof around Nene, but he’s never really paying direct attention to her (ex: the mokke of the dead arc and the current trial arc).

When with Kou his actual softer side is shown a little bit more, acting as normal as he possibly can be; save for the times when Kou goes against Teru’s moral code (Young exorcist, Bound for the far-shore) and he goes on the defensive, when Kou’s view on supernaturals rival his he immediately goes from being on his side to disregarding him and acting on his own judgment full throttle. Which shows how he ignores their differences instead of actually addressing them, since he wants Kou to not only NOT be an exorcist but also to not get in his way. And to him pretending Kou isn’t doing exactly what he doesn’t want him to do, keeps the positive dynamic alive and well in his mind.

Now, Akane specifically is where it gets a bit confusing. I’ll take it chapter by chapter (or arc by arc whatever)

Clock-Keeper (technically the chapter after but I’m not super technical about this and it’s close enough)

Where it gets silly! Their dynamic of not only Spirit v Human but also President and Vice-President is established. Teru’s bias towards Akane compared to other supernaturals is from the beginning pretty obvious (he didn’t kill him so that’s a good start) while he isn’t exactly nice to him, he does value Akane in some way or another. It also shows that Teru knows a lot more than he lets on, and that he doesn’t tell people what he does either (which foreshadows some stuff later) also the glasses stuff is kinda tease-y flirty if you ignore the getting attacked by mokke part. What can I say he’s just so charming!!!

(Finals)

Where the care is more obvious. Showing off the more playful side of their dynamic, along with Akane’s view on Teru, which as of now isn’t very positive. At the end, Teru asks Akane for a favor, showing again that he’s psychic or something. But his cruelty here can mostly be seen as him making sure he gets Akane’s help, so the immoral part of it is debatable, he just seems to go about things the wrong way most of the time. could also be seen as him giving an insensitive to Akane to help up his grades for the final, since his grades for the previous semester are comparatively not as good.

Severance

Oh great heavens. Teru’s continued disregard of other peoples values comes to a head here, where this time he’s shown how the person feels when not told important information. But I understand why he did it. If he had told Akane that Aoi wouldn’t have returned to the near-shore, he wouldn’t have returned either, and there’s no way Teru could’ve dragged him out. But would that have been an issue? If Akane was left in the boundary? He could’ve died, he was kindof already doing that anyway, but was that the reason? Or did Teru do it out of selfishness? Did he want Akane to stay? Maybe he wanted to kick some sense into him, maybe he just didn’t want him to leave? Could be a lot of things, Teru isn’t dumb, and typically he’s pretty rational, but he never said why so everything is always up for interpretation.

Day-Off

To regain lost trust. Hanging out, it isn’t obvious why exactly Teru wanted Nene and Akane to tag along, maybe he and his apparent prophetic mind decided it would be the best course of action to do so, or maybe he just wanted a girls day or something. Akane seems to have gotten over his anger at Teru (possibly due to off-screen conversations cause that’s convenient) but when Teru tells him that Aoi isn’t dead, a little bit of trust in Teru’s judgment is recovered. Maybe he had the whole thing planned out from the beginning who knows he seems to suck at being overt. Akane interrogates Teru about the severance and gets all up in his face. And then the “I like Akane-San” happens and stuff gets confusing again.

Red house

I’m starting to think he doesn’t actually like Aoi. Teru learns to complain for basically the first time! At least in front of Akane. It’s obvious Teru’s trust towards Akane didn’t falter the way it did for Akane, in fact in some way Teru put more of himself out for Akane because of the severance. He brings up the dreaded Akane & Aoi chapter, and remarks about it in a really…strange way. Not upset but more bitter, really. But it also seems that Akane’s view on Teru has improved as well, having Teru go from a nightmarish demon stealing Aoi away from him, to a seemingly doting husband to her, what does this mean? Something gay probably. But nonetheless it seems that Teru wants Aoi back as well, but for what reason specifically? Other than just the general “unjust death caused by some undead demi-god 10 year old”, he wants Aoi back for some “dream”. Or is he just bluffing to tease Akane? I don’t know, dissecting a characters motives is hard when he isn’t nearly fleshed out enough to infer things with any kind of confidence. But overall they end on better terms than the severance started with.

Bound for the far-shore

Back to normal-ish. Teru’s fight with Kou is the main catch of these chapters for him, but his back-and-forth with Akane is fun too. It’s playful, it’s sweet, and it’s also nice to see them show trust towards one another!

School festival / Omen

A subversion of the viewer’s beliefs that Teru would go back to tormenting Akane but in actuality he protects him from a threat and makes a weirdly flirty face at him?? I love literature! Anyway I love their interactions here, it’s fun yet simple! I really hope nothing bad happens right after!

Trial of the Clock-Keepers

Ok gonna be honest this chapter is interesting but dear god is the pacing so slow I’m kindof losing interest. But nonetheless! Divorce. It’s a pretty obvious parallel to the severance; in the sense that Akane blindsights Teru, Teru tries to fuck his shit up, and is then forcibly stopped and dragged somewhere else. And though it’s played off as comical, it’s not silly to assume that this is, just like the severance, another reset of trust. I mean Teru does dick while Akane gets his shit rocked (not like he can actually do anything to be fair). but even so he still shows the smallest bit of concern, concern about why they aren’t actually fighting back in any significant way, even though they’re all well capable of doing so. But since the arc is still ongoing, that’s about where by opinions end.

Overall, I love Teru! And I love his dynamic with Akane! Sorry this is like, really long I’ve been waiting for an excuse to talk about this, so thanks for the ask!!1!1!…,ninja out

[lifesver]

Im so in love with you and your friends’s interpretations of the victims, can I ask how you and your friends are able to develop such interesting lore for them?

hey anon! this is so, so kind, thank you sm for the message <3 ;; honestly like, i think the best answer is everything my writing partners/pals and i have written on these blogs has been a slow-cooked built over time kind of endeavor! stuff that has definitely changed and developed majorly over the months that we've been hanging around on this goofy website, haha.

i started with this blog back just before the public beta test happened for the game, and for a little bit it was just me and rae sitting here like 'well what if we just made blogs for super niche horror game characters'. which tbh, something rae and i have historically loved to do with our diff muses on diff blogs, just kind of grabbing characters that have limited lore but exist in a cool universe and have a cool 'starting point' to jump off from, sort of. it gives a lot of space to really get creative imo.

ALL THAT TO SAY rae and i were working with like... beta gameplay, character models/cosmetics/baseline lore snippets, and doing dumb stuff like combing through gameplay vids just to try and collect voicelines to see how these characters might interact w each other! and we had some months to wait before the game would actually release, so in that time we simply started crafting our own ideas and it kinda built organically! just sending prompts back and forth, trying to think about what some of the key story beats would be, as if we were retelling a movie or w/e. but i think the most fun part about tcsm is that the inherent gameplay, and how differently each match can go, lends itself well to creating all kinds of different trajectories of where the story Could go, some endings happier than others, some allowing us to explore more dark themes.

for me that's a big part of what keeps me writing on this blog-- the possibilities for exploring, esp within the slasher genre. esp within the texas chainsaw franchise, where imo, the protags are often sidelined/cut down, and where the antagonists can sometimes be more complex and even sympathetic at times. the game itself, despite what the creative team later said, implies that there's the possibility that the victims survive this horrifying event. and there's like, not a lot of exploration done in that area within slashers, i feel? when i do see it, i cheer furiously tbh like hell yeah halloween hell yeah friday the 13th 4-6 hell yeah anoes 1 + dream warriors hell yeah scream movies. i just think there's a lot to expand on in terms of the effects and healing process of trauma, the emotional connection between the characters, and complex dynamics in general that might tend to get overlooked in stories like this usually.

but anyway, through just being silly and passionate, we met our other friends who were equally silly and passionate about the game/genre/franchise/characters/etc, and started slowly connecting our ideas. like sometimes we'll just slam our general verse ideas on the dash, and someone else will start cooking with it and thinking about it, and then we have a whole connected au going. sometimes we'll be writing with each other, and naturally bring up other characters in those replies and it gives a little bit of worldbuilding too.

roleplaying is honestly such a rewarding hobby, bc i get to collaborate with really talented writers and help bring a cohesive narrative together. idk it's like instead of having to sit and write your story by yourself, you got a funny little writers room. except we're all throwing paper airplanes and also crying on the floor sometimes. but like, you naturally get to bounce ideas off each other and learn how your muse would handle certain situations just by interacting with another muse, you know? and i get to read my friends' stuff and go wow! that was a cool use of wording! or wow i really love how they visualized this scene/character thought process, and then i am able to implement certain things to improve how my own writing goes.

when you find writing partners that really Get You on that front and have the same style of worldbuilding as you, it's just really awesome and keeps the passion and muse flowing in a funny echo chamber almost. and it's like, even for people i've written with that haven't stuck around for whatever reasons, sometimes pieces of their portrayals of their own muses will stick with mine, like we all kind of help each other build our character interpretations out. and even if they end up very very canon-divergent as lore is slowly drip fed to us by the devs, we're confident in what we do have built and just kinda change and work things in as we go. it's just nice and no pressure around here, and it's rly just built off of and inspired by each others individual creative passion. ik that's how it is for me, anyway! i love seeing my friends just say w/e random hc about their muse bc then suddenly we might all be talking about a related hc for our individual muses, that kinda thing!

i'm sorry this was super long winded! i hope that kinda answered the question, i got a lil carried away LMAO but thank you again for idk, perceiving our stuff! it's not like fic writing on ao3 so it's always a pleasant surprise when ppl stumble upon our nonsense it's like oh hey man- welcome to our weird little corner!

[pugsbone]

Thoughts on Volume 9? I really could've done without Jaune during that whole arc, and just let the Rusted Knight be someone from the Evr After. I want to see more of the title characters, and not a secondary protag get his metaphorical dick sucked.

I want to see more of Ruby than I do Jaune.

(Also, it was a dick move of Winter to look right at Jaune, and not help him get to safety.)

Personally, I don’t think Jaune should’ve fallen in with RWBY, and this is for a few reasons.

1. The dude gets a lot of exposure during most of the volumes, definitely feels like he’s THE main side character at this point, and this isn’t getting into the common debate on if he’s Miles’ self insert or not. It would be nice to get a break from Jaune, mostly so that both sides of the fandom can calm down about him. Also, side point to the Jaune thing, it would've been nice if he actually brought up the fact that he "had" to kill Penny (had is in quotation marks because it feels like to strong a word for what happened during that volume.) Hell, have it be part of his dialogue when he's shouting at Ruby, let that be the final straw that breaks our hero, to learn how her BFF died.

2. I really think it should have been somebody else from the main group who was forced to grow up in the Ever After. In my personal opinion it should have been either Ren, Nora, Oscar, or Emerald. Ren/Nora for arguably the same reason, Nora wanted to figure out who she is without him, and this situation is a freaking monkey law of that, either she thinks he’s dead or has been given plenty of time to find the answer to her question. If she fell in, suddenly she has all this time to find herself, let her grow as a person while also figuring out just how much she does love Ren and misses him. If Ren falls in, he now has to deal with being all alone along with his brand new semblance, seeing all the different emotions of the strange creatures around him, making this whole experience even more confusing as he has to deal with this alien culture.

Emerald because this could all be her way of trying to show that she has become a better person, her guilt over the fall of Beacon, making her guarding the paper people even more poignant since she wants to make up for who she was, not wanting to be like Cinder ever again. Like just imagine her trying to keep the paper people alive, acting a little crazy as she calls them Penny, Hazel, or Pyrrha, all people that she has either helped get killed or watched die for her, she's just trying so dang hard.

And for Oscar, this would be the first time where he’d be someplace where Oz is just as clueless as he is, the two of them being on even footing as they explore this new land. With them being in the Ever After, we can finally get a conclusion to the convoluted mess that is the whole reincarnation thing, which is a rant for another day. Also, it would be cute to see Ruby's reaction to a grown up Oscar, I'm sure it would be adorable.

With Jaune, it just feels like we're getting kind of a rehash of his arc during the fourth and fifth volume, where he's trying to process his grief and trauma, only to channel it in some pretty self destructive ways instead, until he gets better through the power of friendship. We've done this song and dance before with him.

Now for my real thoughts on the season, it had some decent ideas, just poor build up to them. Like I love the whole thing with talking to a part of themselves that they don't want to face when they go into the smoke, love that trope, but all the problems that the girls face don't feel like they were actual problems. (Mostly Blake's dumb ass thing, "Am I a person or an animal?" When has that ever been a thing for this fictional race?!) Could've done a sweet callback to Volume 2 by having them face their old dreams, Weiss becoming the head of the SDC, Yang doing this for the thrill and adventure, Blake trying to help the Faunus, Ruby becoming this fairytale hero, let these be what they have to face. Weiss, Yang, and Blake can all see how far they have grown, seeing how they have become better than those old dreams, that sort of thing. All while Ruby just gets asked "What happened to you?" or something, just another part of that is cracking under the pressure.

But yeah, most of the ideas just didn't feel they were implemented all that well. I think it's just another example of something that CRWBY could have foreshadowed better overall, heck, even just having someone reading The Rusted Knight would have been a pretty easy way of doing it, like during the montage of good deeds they do in Atlas, maybe Yang is reading to a bunch of kids or something. Would've been sweet.

[visitorjon456]

Murder Drones Ep. 7 Rant Review

Before I get started I just want to say that I respect Liam Vickers/Glitch and co for always trying to put their all into these indie animations shows and bringing them into the light for us all to watch in either awe, amazement or entertainment. But as much as I appreciate their efforts I can't say that the Murder Drones series is flawless nor the handling of certain episode storytelling is good. I'm going to start with the few things that I liked about the episode:

The Good

Mitchell keeping Yeva out of the Cathedral due to immediately noticing the Sentinels disappearances and figuring out somethings up.

J's brief graceful flying paired with Eternal Dream+Techno music as she leaves in the ship.

Typical walking away scene as explosions set off behind them.

The Nori+N vs. Cyn/Uzi fight was kind of cool but I feel like any actual serious/tense moments were wasted due to N not giving it his all in the fight and finally accepting that he has to brutally kill Uzi now.

Khan showing up with a replica of Uzi's railgun and being not nonplused about being lifted into the air or what's happening to the planet at large.

Now that's out of the way; moving on to the bad parts...

The Bad

I hope when episode 8 comes around that Glitch will have a new Murder Drones intro that will feature V along side N and Uzi because I don't know why they couldn't just add Uzi along the previous intros, besides the crew wanting to be silly/mischievous, before episode 7 dropped. I'm not exactly hanged up on it but I do hope it does get changed though.

I'm pretty much always going to die on this hill and say that ep. 7 should have been an almost or full on flashback episode that heavily features the Cabin Fever Test Subjects, particularly Alice, Yeva and Nori, and the Humans as well. The reason for this is because I'm a firm believer that even if you have a small group of main protags of a show/novel that doesn't mean that the spotlight should be fully on them 24/7 and not have any of that be given to side characters that can be just as interesting as the protagonists.

Most importantly of all I want to see how each character was using there Solver powers and how Nori was the most practiced when using it.

I don't like the fact that Nori is just Uzi 2.0 but older and seemingly a bit more mature than Uzi. I would rather headcanon her a egoist, self-assured, aggressive, lack of empathy, talented Solver Host that was sometimes given special privileges by the Humans and the one who deliberately caused the Core Collapse on Copper-9 and almost all of it done without being Solver-possessed.

I dislike the fact that Liam Vickers finds it funny and acceptable to portray Humans as this almost technologically backwards/advanced, idiotic, and bad decision making civilization in Murder Drones. To really illustrate my irritation with this matter; the complete beginning of episode 7: You can't tell me that all those scientists are literally trying to get Nori/Solver under control but not have any 3-4 Solver Test Subjects that are either in the Cathedral with them or just outside the doors, waiting.

And seriously, the Humans have all the Test Subjects wrapped up in chains and stuffed into lockers instead of in high-security rooms. Really, Liam.

I hate how Liam has made Uzi so unbearably emotionally dumb and vulnerable just so things can happen easier within the episode instead of working towards it properly. Like, it's understandable that Uzi starts to get upset and a bit defensive towards N and "Tessa" but she should know better then to keep using the Solver in her state but also to completely go off on her own through the tunnels. It doesn't help matters that N is also forced to be an idiot at times and didn't immediately run to Uzi's side in order to not be separate from each other due to the dangers of the tunnels.

I fucking hate you Liam. You are going to force J to job really hard against three minor characters. Don't even think about it. My heart goes out to you J.

Again the Nori+N vs. Cyn/Uzi fight was okay-ish but is heavily held back with the fact that N won't do what he needs to do and brutally put Uzi down for good.

Just like how I give my condolences to J for what's going to happen to her in the next episode, I also feel sorry for both Tessa and Doll as the former is possibly being worn as a still living skinsuit and the latter got her chest cavity torn out but also got her Core eaten. Of course given the merch leaks we will probably see Doll again in ep. 8.

Liam once again making characters emotionally stupid with Uzi footballing her mother into the fleshy hell pit and N doing fuck all about.

Literally seeing Uzi and N screaming and slowly coming towards each other to hug is the single most over the top thing in this episode and I hope both of them die for it.

Overall this episode is just a 4.8/10 honestly.

[saemi-the-dreamer]

(Probably unpopular opinion for you but idk): I know that Prince Hans does not "deserve" a redemption arc and will probably not get one in Frozen 3 or 4. But I can't help but hope for one anyway. Sorry not sorry.

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

Anon, I can tell you weren't following my blog after Frozen was released XD

I see Hans as a complex character, not just a greedy villain, so yeah. I really hope to see him getting redeemed!... just hoping Elsa is not the one to redeem him, otherwise I'd flip a table ffs. We barely know anything about him, it'd be great to learn more about the Southern Isles and the Royals there. We only know Hans is the last of 13 kids, and that 2 of his brothers pretended he didn't exist. For. Two. Years. Talk about a messed-up family! While it doesn't excuse his actions, it's no wonder he was desperate to get away and became twisted himself. And Hans getting redemption doesn't mean he has to be friends with everyone or live in Arendelle, it can be Anna getting closure for what happened and then she reaches out to help him and end it on the two saying goodbye with a smile, each going to live their own life. There is a wonderful fanfiction that I recommend: Based on a True Lie which does a very good Hans redemption (in a way) and where Anna is really the main heroine <3

I honestly feel like Hans was done dirty and handled poorly, even as a villain. I wouldn't have minded him being a villain if the movie had done it well, Hans being a twisted villain could have been very good, but honestly? Every time I re-watch Frozen, I think "Nope, still not buying it."

Watch Toy Story 2 and there, you have a very good twisted villain! At first watch, there is little chance you'd suspect Stinky Pete to be a bad guy; but when you rewatch it, you can see the foreshadowings and little hints of his manipulation of both Jessie and Woody (even if I personally believe he did care about Jessie, at some point) to get what he wanted.

Why am I not convinced about Hans being "Evil", before his "reveal"?

One: after the meet-cute scene with Anna

This looks way too genuine, and he had no reason to fake it, no one was looking! And don't use the "red herring" excuse, it's not good either. They could - no SHOULD - have cut the scene the moment he fell into the water if Hans was meant to be just a greedy bad guy.

Two: there are no real signs (read "red flags") of manipulation in his speech and actions.

They're vague and a stretch at best, like the line "'Cause, like, I've been searchin' my whole life to find my own place" Many Disney protags have used similar lines and were looking for a place where they felt they belonged (Belle, Ariel, Hercules, Quasimodo, Aladdin...). Honestly, it's more that he adapts to the situation (that he has no control over btw).

He's not the one to push Elsa to reveal her powers, the two sisters were arguing and both were at the end of their own rope. No one knew Elsa had powers.

He doesn't manipulate Anna to push her to go after Elsa and give him control of Arendelle; Anna makes the decision on her own, he even tries to stop her or says that he should go with her, but she's the one to ask him to watch over Arendelle while she's on her journey.

The candlestick falling on Elsa was an accident! I don't care what everyone says, given how fast it happened, Hans couldn't have aimed so precisely. Hans glancing up is once again too vague, he might have been checking for a place where he could deviate the arrow without hurting anyone but he had no time. Plus, I don't know for you, but I saw plenty of people glancing up as they think/before they act (and do so too sometimes) for no real reason. Light argument at best.

At most, you can argue he lied to seduce Anna.

And honestly? Revealing his evil plan this way is just so dumb! I get that many villains tend to monologue too much for their own good because they're overconfident and when they believe they've already won, but here? It's stupid and too risky, a good manipulative villain wouldn't have revealed himself at that moment in my opinion. Either you make him a master manipulator, or you just make him a puny opportunist, you can't have both; and either way, he should have acted way differently before the reveal. No wonder so many fans (myself included) had a theory that the Trolls were the ones who messed him up with their magic "Get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed" so their champion (Kristoff) would get the girl.

[flawsofdawn]

TW:// GORE/DISTURBING CONTENT. (not tagging as mature so everyone can see.)

Character Introduction time! BEFORE READING!>>> (FOD is short for Flaws Of Dawn just incase anyone is confused! writing it out every time is tiring!) SOME THINGS ARENT SET IN STONE YET BUT I WILL TRY MY BEST TO KEEP THINGS ACCURATE AND FLUENT! (keep in mind I'll refer to some areas with placeholder names such as "hybrid area" "demon area" "mortal realm" etc. since not everything is quite figured out yet :D)

Aurora-! Aurora is essentially Protag #1 in the story, shes a human that lives among the people In the world FOD is set in. As of now she can use magic to summon temporary wings to get across large gaps but they don't last very long and are only used when ABSOLUTELY NECISSARY. She used to live down in the Mortal realm until she was brought over at some point, which she then moved to the outskirts or the "hybrid area" in the woods with a smaller tight knit community. When Aurora lived in the mortal realm she was held up in her small apartment most the time except for when she either had to go to school or work at her part-time gas station job. All of this changed later on when she'd met Mizuki and she'd essentially had a friendship with with them forced upon her due to a misunderstanding. Why did I even keep talking to her anyway? Later on Mizuki would be the one to bring Aurora over into the realm (FOD) is in. Somethings not right...somethings off..

Aswell as Aurora I'd like to talk a bit about Pina and their species as a whole!. Pina is Auroras pet dragon, They are part of the "Crystallium Dragons", a species which has no gender. These creatures asexually reproduce in the form of "eggs" , these Eggs are actually Mana crystals that absorb magic and energy from the "parent" to form their offspring over the span of around 5-12 months. A dragon that was carried and fed mana by their parent for 9-12 months would grow to be much much larger and stronger than a dragon that was carried only 5-8 since they rely on the mana for their growth as a entity. These Dragons can grow to be 60ft tall (not including wings) OR larger, but, it all depends on the circumstances of how a dragon is formed and the life it leads going forward. These creatures have existed for as long as the land itself has, they aren't dangerous unless provoked and tend to be quite gentle giants if you will :) They have many abilities by "default" such as portals, flying (DUHH), healing magic, ability to "bless" others, Shapeshifting (into more "humanoid" forms), etc. Since I mentioned it!, Yes, the dragons can shift into more humanoid forms, Intelligence/"human-ness" depends on the age, strength, and how often the dragon socializes in their humanoid form with others.

TECHNICAL YAP OVER! TIME TO GET TO PINA THEMSELF!

As stated before, Pina is Auroras pet of sorts. They were gifted to her by Mizuki at some point when they were freshly hatched. Pina is still considered a baby by the dragons time it takes to age so they are quite clingy and generally pretty dumb and silly. They act similar to a dog but also kind of like a bird?? its hard to explain, BUT before Aurora was able to use any magic whatsoever (and still currently when needed) Pina would help Aurora get across the suspended landscapes via gliding to different ledges/platforms, also making portals to random places for her. (Pina don't know how to use their magic properly yet WAAH)

Autumn-? (Protag #2)

Autumn Is a Hybrid fox girl that lives and works directly in the populated areas of the "hybrid area" which is a large cityscape where any species/mix may reside no matter what they are made up of. She works at a small coffee shop/diner to sustain herself in the city. She lived alone in her parents vacation home they rarely use until she'd met Aurora and gave her a place to stay with her. Autumn comes from a larger family having a sister and 2 older brothers and a newly born baby brother. This is common for Hybrids since there isn't many threats for the people to have kids where they stay. She rarely see's her family because shes been off trying to start her life independently in the city, hoping to see the rest of what the world has to offer and explore. She enjoys gardening and studies magic phenomena and language as a hobby.

?::-What is the relationship between the three?

Aurora , Autumn, and Pina all live together trying to get by. When Autumn first met Aurora and Pina she had to teach Aurora how to speak the common tongue around (FOD) since she was only able to speak her native language from the Mortal realm. Autumn generally thinks very fondly of Aurora but is a bit hesitant towards Pina due to a dragon related trauma within her early childhood, but she tries her best to look past that and interact with Pina as normally as she can!. Everything is going to be okay.

Later on in the story they become devout lovers <33 (Aurora and Autumn!) Mizuki- ♡ (Protag #3?) Mizuki Is a Purebred succubus who was raised in nobility with her parents and brother Shoda wasnt there a third one?. She lives quite far away from the Hybrid area, rather being where most "demon" based people reside, The community around her is quite strict with its rules and expectations for whom you speak to, build bonds with, etc. This causes her to have some deep rooted prejudices and dispositions about hybrids since she was taught and shown to be "pure". (Essentially she along with most other demons don't really like hybrids like Autumn since they are made up of alot of different species genetically, unlike demons who are mostly made up of either demon/elf/succubi genes primarily. Some have external species mixed in but it isn't usually in excess.) She commonly travels to the mortal realm to socialize with others around her age, while in the mortal realm she hides her markings/horns/tail/wings/etc. since mortals don't know of the existence of the (FOD) universe. Mizuki would meet Aurora while with a group of friends and later bring her to the (FOD) realm, gifting her the ability to use magic and re-writing Auroras genetics so she could survive the strain of traveling between realms. Aswell as hanging out in the mortal realm she commonly smokes with a group of friends. Mizuki gifted Pina to Aurora to show her affections for her and make everything feel more welcoming.

Why'd I do that?

(CONTEXT: Mortals CANNOT travel between realms without the aid of an insider, even if they knew the realm existed and could make a way to travel there the strain of the transition would tear their body apart and cause the person to die. This is why someone would need to give the person a part of themselves/their magic which would then allow them to survive the transition, though they will be quite weak in their realm until tolerance is built or they learn more about how to utilize their magic to adapt.)

Shoda- ♡ (semi-Protag #3.5) Shoda is Mizukis older brother, He is also a purebred succubus. Whilst Aurora stayed with Mizuki, Shoda had built a bond with Aurora, offering some solace and comfort after they would argue. Occasionally Shoda would take Aurora into their city to learn more about where she now resides, taking her to parties and to see shops around. Shoda spent most of his childhood ignored once his sister was born due to his disobedience and ignorance of the rules his parents had set for him. In his teenage years he would meet Jackie, whom would become his best friend and later on Dedicated partner to him.

(NOTE. Jackie's introduction is confusing on purpose. C'mon why would I spill everything immediately!)

Jackie-🥩♡♡♡♡♡♡!!!!!! Jackie Is a Shark/Panther/Succubus hybrid who resides in the countryside area south of where Shoda and Mizuki are (The nobilities city) Her hobbies include... [redacted] ...?, Hanging out with Him!, talking to Him!, Loving Him!, what else would I do? Jackie grew up an only child with her two parents. She made friends with a girl named Koma in Pre-school!, they would become best buddies and spend all their time together in and out of school, having many playdates and sleepovers!. After an accident Jackie never was able to see her again and left to explore the world on her own. That doesn't sound right, that's not how it went. Jackie would become independent at a young age after her parents kicked her out, she would have to [REDACTED] herself out for others to survive from a young age causing [REDACTED]. Later on once she had the funds to, she would pay to attend a public school away from where she had lived before, this is where she would meet Shoda and quickly become obsessed attached to him. She would spend most of her time from then on with him, besides when she would [REDACTED] in the mortal realm, which she kept a secret from him. You could say she has a preference for fresh meat.

That's all for now.

If you have any questions about anyone mentioned at all, the world, or even characters not mentioned at all (or mentioned briefly) then go ahead and ask away (PLEASE.)

ToyHouse with other characters and info.

[superchat]

hihi how are you liking magia record so far :3

its been aight! it def doesnt hit like madoka magica, i can kinda feel the Gacha Story in the adaption even if it does have some changes to the story, just like, how characters enter and leave plot points, how antagonists show up, etc. im watching and im like "oh this must be a chapter in the game where the final boss fight is this character" so im imagining like, CHAPTER 3-10 or something

it rlly does bum me out that yuki kajiura didnt compose for magia record, the new tracks dont rlly hit as hard but yuki kajiura is kind of a legend for a reason,

but overall the shows been pretty cozy. kind of like a popcorn show. its got SHAFT, its got madoka aes and magical girls and witches, i dont care much abt the World Building and Lore but the aesthetics that drew me into pmmm is still there for the most part

the new characters are all rlly good too, so far im enjoying them. my only complaint is that protag is like...really really dumb, to the point that idk how shes survived this long, and also characters seem to cease being important the moment the plot doesnt call for them...what happened to black haired girl from episode 1...what happened to blonde and red hair girls that are friends with the blue haired one...it is a big cast so i get that you cant constantly have them all relevant but they rlly do drop off fast and hard once the plot moves forward...

that sounds like a lot of negative but i am enjoying it, its very cozy, characters are endearing. also the emotional maturity for a lot of the stuff is like, rlly good.

like the reckless girl who just wants to kill witches cuz one killed her parents so shes homeless, jobless, and full of hate. and everyones criticising her for being too quick to jump into fights, and when everyones going around throwing Help And Tips when she never asked she snapped like "they took everything from me, so why cant i be angry? why do i have to be the one to hold back?" and iroha apologizes for throwing advice on her when it wasnt what she needed

sana having her family essentially call her a failure and verbally abuse her and the conclusion to it wasnt like "ahh but deep down her family still really loved her! they just werent seeing eye to eye!"

it instead ended with her saying a one sided goodbye, and leaving them to live with her friends, who became her new family. she never told her parents how they mistreated her, they never Got What They Deserved. they continued to live in their self rightous lives and she never got closure from it, cuz if she tried to, it just wouldve led to more pain and suffering for her. "i want someone to call my name. but that wont happen here. im going home." to her friends who care abt her

i think! these lil moments are really good, and powerful. i like that the series isnt trying to be as dark as madoka magica was. like, madoka magica has everything in a magical girl show, its got hope, and love, and friendship the triumphs over evil in the end. it just takes a long, long, time to get there. it goes to the darkest parts of the struggle before springing up into the light, but magia record has more moments of hope throughtout, so i do think this change of pace is good for anyone who wants more madoka. gen urobochi had his fill in torture porn, we dont have to recreate that for every installment to the madokaverse

[fangaminghell]

More Torren Elite 4 lore that I don't know if I ever discussed:

Eduard: Former gambling addict who got into the wrong crowd. Lost a lot bc of this, but always struggled to get back on his feet, especially with people after him. Was offered a spot on the elite 4 as a means of protection/ being pardoned for all his past shit.

Despite his appearance, Ed is genuinely a nice guy. Like he's honestly really polite and charming, if not a bit shy and loves making music - though he gets shy about that as well. Loves riding in the desert near his hometown, and often helps poor souls who get lost there.

Yuki: Comes from a wealthy family that also happens to be assassins. Though, with that life came some Complications,which resulted in her joining the league as a means to get out of her situation.

Much like Ed, Yuki is honestly a delight. She is very much the mother of the elite four, she's very kind and cordial. Loves dotting on others, which can be such a stark contrast to her brutal ice in battles. She often holds charity parties, or parties in general.

Yuki and Eduard are t4t <3 They aren't dating by the start of the story but it's pretty clear they are into each other and are shy about it.

London: I already talked about London. Long story short he's an author who talks a lot. He can talk himself out of most situations....but also talks himself into lots of situations, and thus is in things that he has no right being in. And if he slips, he could be dead. Whoops! Now did he want to talk himself into being part of the underground higher ups? No. Did he want to accidentally find out about Reukra - who is technically his boss- is the leader of Team Perfection? Also no! But! It would make for a good book, no?

London is. Pathetic. And he really doesn't want people to know that. He wants to be seen as someone serious and suave, but ends up making him look like a fool in all the best ways. Still he has a good(ish) heart, and is like the older brother to Kayla ( a very annoying older brother but an older brother non the less)

Kayla: Okay. So. Some context before I go into my version Kayla. I did not know Kayla was a mom canonically with a whole teenage daughter initially. And while that took me by surprise, I feel kinda dumb with how I rested tbh. She can be a mom and a professional cheerleader and elite four member. And honestly that's like. So good for her. But by the time I realized that I was already so committed to my version of Kayla so. Sorry about that. Canon Kayla is honestly a girl boss.

As for my version of Kayla, I aged her down. She's now a freshman in college,who's juggling her school life with her elite four duties. You must be thinking " R what did Kayla do, everyone else got some shady past!" and to that dear reader I saw: she doesn't. Kayla is literally a normal teen with a normal life and she's surrounded by totally normal people with totally normal lives.

Kayla is honestly very chill. A bit stoic, if you will. The biggest sin she has ever committed is scrolling through her phone a lot lmao. Trust me, she's actually doing work there - she's a busy gal! These team comps aren't gonna make themselves! Kayla is very hard working and takes her job seriously, but is also just chill about it. She knows she's strong enough to handle her own, knows her co workers are crazy enough to go bat shit for her, and is honestly just content vibing. She's pretty much the normal one lol.

And yeah! That's the E4 for my rewrite. The plan is that they don't have that big of a role plot wise, just appear once in a while to help the protags with something minor.

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Semifinals

Propaganda why Oscar is insufferable:

"“I want to be famous!” Ok, what for? “Whatever means I don’t have to work.”"

"Selfish, shallow, vain, materialistic, reckless, irresponsible, etc. Doesn't even have an aesthetically pleasing design, he's horrible to look at (like every other character in the movie tbf) so bro has literally 0 redeeming qualities. That one shrimp with the ridiculous sob story should have been the protag instead"

"His entire personality revolves around being shallow and selfish, to the point he sees no issue with lying for his own material gain, in the process shamelessly screwing over his best friend/future girlfriend -- she gave him her grandmother's valuable precious pearl to pay off his debts and get out of trouble, because she cares about him, and instead he fucking gambled it all on a horse race on impulse because he overheard some rando saying the race was rigged and guaranteed to win (surprise, it wasn't). Never really faces appropriate consequences for any of his actions. Gets an undeserved happy ending to top it all off, when really he deserves to suffer a little and learn a lesson.

Also has one of the ugliest anthro-animal designs I've ever seen so he's insufferable to even LOOK at, jesus christ."

Propaganda why Richard Rahl is insufferable:

"The character always, always has to be Right and Moral and Good. He always knows more than: his wife, organized religion, any and all government orders that he didn't set up personally. While he starts out reasonable enough in the first few books, he slowly devolves into the author's Ayn Rand-fantasy stand-in. In every book there's always a huge monologue that's secretly about how bad (fantasy) communism is.

Richard is also hypocritical. He will flip flop on issues and change with the whims of the author, but the narrative always portrays him as in the right no matter the context."

"Protagonist of the most idiotic book series ever, literally wins by sheer dumb luck and being too stupid to plan as the world bends around him. His girlfriend keeps getting kidnapped so he can rescue her, despite allegedly being powerful. He’s a fantasy Ayn Rand follower. He inherited a sword and the Most Powerful Magic Combination Ever which he can’t be trained in because he needs to learn by instinct. Every woman ever falls in love with him or is determined to help him by prophecy. He gets captured and tortured by several bdsm women (author fetish, blatantly) and doesn’t even appreciate it. He gradually seizes more and more control over he world than even his evil tyrant dad, then throughs a fit and runs off into the woods to sulk, leaving them to a violent conquest, when people object to this via voting. He’s inexplicably good at death football. I can keep going."

"Literally the oc in the author’s shitty Ayn Rand fantasy novel. All the women want him, he does magic by instinct. He cannot be trained because he has super rare magic that nobody else has had for millenia. His birth has been prophecied for centuries. Every new book features a new problem only he can solve by being too instinctly good at magic and untrained. He comes up with the Wizard’s Rules of Magic by dumb luck.

In one book he defeats communism and hopelessness by crafting the perfect statue of his girlfriend Kahlan, who is a way cooler character but still a Mary Sue & an idiot. The statue is so cool & beautiful & well made for the joy of making (unlike work under communism), that he sparks a riot and toppled the evil empire. By building a statue."

[morningmask27]

Hypokits ok. Either Thistleheart x Icecloud or HollyCinder hypokits

ANON YOUR MIND! ThistleIce has now been added to RDA as a testament of how much I love this ship now

meet Asterleaf (creamer one) and Ferretchase (the technically a calico)

Fetterchase (alt names are Hareskip, Blizzardrun) is a smart and daring cat. Xe is kind and funny usually, but is quickly in serious mode when bad things happen. Xe can become a bit too strict then, but xe never means any harm and will back down when told to. Xe's also incredibly fast, like The fastest cat in WindClan right now. 

Asterleaf (alt names are Lacebreeze, Swanwing) is someone that always tries to please everyone. They're withdrawn and kind and struggle with their emotions a lot. They struggle to properly express them most of the time and bottle up a lot of emotions. This can lead them to make irrational decisions as they want the bad thing to Stop Now. 

Both are deaf since by a funny coincidence I headcanon both their moms to be deaf too. 

(Assume this is a world where both survive the great battle/between-book greencough)

Icecloud and Thistleheart bonded over being deaf in Clans that at best were being clumsily supportive. They were often talking about the latest dumb stuff they had to endure and always had endlessly long conversations about everything. 

The two slowly fell in love over the years they spent together during gatherings. Then one night at the border between Wind and Thunder, Thistleheart asked Icecloud to become mates. Ice accepted and so it began. 

This happened slightly before the start of avos (when I do slow burn, it burns sloooooooow). 

These two lovely kits were born during the darktail fiasco in a WindClan that was growing more restless by the day. These kits being born definitely did not help at all and it made Onestar be very rude to Thistleheart, but like, bordering on verbally abusive rude. This was when the borders were already closed, so Thistleheart couldn't even go see Ice anymore and this was the last straw. 

Thistleheart took her kits and went to ThunderClan with them. She wasn't going to stay in that damned Clan if Onestar was like this. This was the thing that finally forced Onestar to open the borders and tell everyone about Darktail. Thistleheart would stay in Thunder until Dark was defeated, but then Harestar wanted to prove he was a strong enough leader and demanded the kits back. Things weren't going to lead to a conflict just yet, but Thistleheart and Ferretkit were sent back to WindClan while Asterkit would stay in ThunderClan with Icecloud. (the leaders didn't listen to the protests of Violet, Twig, Alder and a few others about how bad it is to split littermates like that). 

Asterleaf (name courtesy of Bramblestar's shitty naming capabilities) replaces Brissie as the protag of TBC. 

Their painfully unrequited feelings for Plumstone (who is in love with Thriftear, and inherited xenophobia from blossomfall) and the frustration they felt about being torn away from their littermate made them a prime target for the impostor. They're technically called a codebreaker, but could save themselves by renouncing Icecloud. They were being pressured and forced by the impostor and did so. Ferret was horrified by everything and confronted Harestar to stand up against the impostor And confronted Aster about their actions in regards to their own mom. 

Side note, Fetter had grown up to be a vocal warrior that would Not back down from a challenge. And was always arguing for things to get better. 

Anyways, Harestar was already somewhat unwilling to follow the impostor, but Ferret berating Hare in front of the whole clan, and even using some spoken language, made him kinda forced to actually go against the impostor fully. 

With Aster things were a bit more complicated. They felt terribly bad about Ice boing banished because of them (Ice was safe and sound in WindClan tho, dw), but the impostor had promised them it would only be for the best as they know first paw how bad things become when half clan kits are born and they need to make an example out of the cats that made them have such an unpleasant kithood. (Ice was a good mom, but ThunderClan isn't the kindest, especially to a kit like Aster, even if kind cats like Daisy or Twigbranch were there). Ferret starts to become aggravated. Bramble and Hare were the reason their kithood was bad. Sadly tho xe could not get Aster to understand that and a Thunder patrol showed up, which forced Ferret to run. Obviously the patrol were never going to catch xir, but it was still close anyway. 

TBC continues as Aster starts to feel very stressed about "Bramblestar's" actions and they think about what Ferret said about Bramble and Hare being the actual reason they struggled. 

More cats begin to be banished, things are becoming very uneasy in ThunderClan and Ferret goes to find Rootspring to know more about what is happening. Ferret had heard about the rebellion from Smokehaze, xir good friend, and xe wanted to know more in case anything could help convince Aster to side against Bramble. Ferret learns about the possession stuff and again tries to convince Aster to stop. They didn't believe it could be true, so, mission failed. 

The rebellion decides it's too much, and plans a murder attempt on Bramble. It goes as poorly as in canon and a few cats die, including Smokehaze. Ferret is devastated and furious and runs all the way to the ThunderClan camp to kill Bramble xirself and it fails, but Ferret somehow still has some time to let Aster know xe's feeling all those things. Ferret has to flee again and by some miracle they escape yet another ThunderClan patrol into the WindClan border. 

Aster is still in ThunderClan and helps treat Bramblestar's wounds as they think about what happened. That the murder attempt failed was technically their fault (for not believing Aster, for not helping the rebellion, for having led a patrol to bramble) and they are starting to feel serious remorse for their actions there. Like in canon bramble is angry, banishes Berrynose and makes Asterleaf deputy. Many cats from all sides of the argument are unhappy with this choice, but they can't complain or they'd be banished. 

Aster actually goes to find Ferret after that. Ferret is livid obviously and doesn't want to talk to Aster, but they plead and Ferret begrudgingly accepts to talk with them. Ferret doesn't forgive them, not yet, but xe agrees to get them up to speed with the rebellion. Aster is determined to help and one of their first acts was to tell the rebels about Bramblestar's plans to attack WindClan for helping the rebels. They had the task of fully planning how the fight would go themselves, so they could tell every detail to prepare the camp as well as possible. Aster also intentionally didn't make their plans perfect to give more advantage to WindClan. 

The day of the fight Aster stands right besides "Bramble", as the fight commences. They split up eventually and that's when they see Icecloud being threatened by a RiverClan warrior. Aster jumps to their mom's defense and gets a heavy blow to their face as a reward, but Icecloud is safe at least. They keep fighting and cats from all clans die. In the end the battle is ended by Ferretchase violently attacking Bramble before running out of reach and that until bramble was too tired to continue. That's when a few rebels pin him to the ground and the battle is over. 

Most cats return to their camp. Aster isn't one of them as Squirrelflight took the deputy position back over and led ThunderClan back to camp. Aster needed to talk to Icecloud and Thistleheart first. Aster apologized to their moms about everything that happened. Aster even broke down tears because of the everything of feelings that was hitting them. Harestar allowed Aster to stay in camp for a few days. They got their wound treated and helped diligently to guard Ashfur. Ash still tried to get them to his side, but Aster wouldn't budge anymore. No they won't, never again. 

Or at least that was until Ashfur began over the fact that no-one would forgive them for what they've done. How they had broken the code and hurt their loved ones and they were an unlovable monster now. This began making Aster uncomfortable again until they couldn't deal with it anymore and lashed out, accidentally letting ash escape mostly to get rid of him. This was a bad idea as Ash immediately dragged Squilf in the dark forest. 

Aster was also starting to be tired of their bad decisions and set out to stop ash. Aster arrived at the Moonpool alone and entered the dark forest. 

Ferret was caught in a mess as both Ash and Aster were missing and cats were starting to think the two were in this plan together since the beginning. Ferret had xir own doubts, but wanted to trust Aster, so we defended them and began looking for them. Rootspring was so kind as to be a useful npc and tell Ferret about ash dragging Squilf in the dark forest and Aster following them. Ferret hurried over there and with Root's help entered the dark forest too. 

The dark forest was decaying, like in canon and Ferret nearly experienced it first pawed as we nearly dropped in a puddle of the black goop. Xe looked for any of the living cats they were looking for, but couldn't find any. Dark forest spirits found them instead. Ferretchase found xirself face to face with Sparrowfeather. Xe immediately positioned themselves in a fighting pose, but Sparrow wasn't going to attack xir. Sparrow wanted to know what was going on with all those living cats in the dark forest. Ferret briefly explained and Sparrow decided to help Ferret, if not just to get rid of Ash and have the dark forest be slightly less of a mess that's destroying itself. 

Aster on the other hand was not having such a great time. They met with some slightly less kind cats there and had to flee. They did see one of the cats accidentally fall in a pit of goop and disappear forever, which did not help with their worries. Eventually they found Ash and Squilf. The two were surrounded by dark forest spirits and Aster assumed it'd be a bad idea to fight Ash then and there. (it definitely would have been. See, Aster can make good decisions sometimes). 

Back in WindClan Thistleheart and Icecloud are worried about their kits and go look for them and arrive at the moonpool. Rootspringe also helps them enter and they find Asterleaf. Ice hurries over to her kit while Thistle follows, worried too, but slightly more hesitantly. Aster explains what happened and Thistleheart assures them they aren't an unlovable monster. They did terrible things, but that can all be repaired now. Thistle wants to know how things are going exactly with Ash and proposes to quickly spy, but not too long and Discreetly. The family go back to where Ashfur is harassing Squilf. Ash was too busy, but one of the other spirits saw them and called alarm. Ash immediately began shrieking (not that they could hear it) and sent a few spirits to deal with the three cats. 

They fled, but the spirits were closing in. Aster didn't want their moms to be hurt so they stopped right in their tracks as Thistle and Ice kept running. They faced down the three spirits that rapidly approached them. One of them was already lunging at them, but they were slammed to the ground by a white shape. A tortie sprang behind it and barred the path of the other two spirits. Aster was ready to fight and both Thistle and Ice had returned as they had realized Aster wasn't with them anymore. The family recognized Ferretchase and a happy reunion happened after the three spirits were dealt with. Sparrowfeather simply politely looked away while they were busy. 

The little family was together again and they were ready to finish this. They gathered some allies from StarClan, and from the living that Rootey got in the dark forest and prepared to launch a full-on assault of Ashfur to finish this once and for all. 

The group reunited and the battle began. It's honestly not very epic, but Ferret does specifically avoid hurting Smokehaze's spirit. Then Ashfur was threatening Squilf again, but too close to the goop and Aster had enough of it. They ran towards Ash and pushed him in the dark water. Aster followed him. Ash fought back to escape, but for good measure Aster gave them a massive push to deeper in the water. 

They were starting to drown too. The water was slowly making them fade away, the memories of their past flooding in. The WindClan camp they barely remembered from their kithood. The ThunderClan camp with all its cats, kind and mean. Thistleheart and Icecloud curled up together around them and Ferret. The pain of losing Ferret again, the joy of seeing xir as a kit when Icecloud took them out. The painful love they felt for Plumpaw when the only thing she cared about was teasing Aster. The anger they felt when cats mistrusted them, the distress of being manipulated by the impostor and the pain of hurting their loved ones time and time again because of their dumb decisions. 

Aster straightened up, the water was making them feel very light, but a sudden burst of emotions made them aware of what was happening and what they definitely did not want to happen. They got their paws to move and pushed through the water, slowly moving up. It was terrible as the water wasn't going to let them escape so easily. It craved their emotions, but Asterleaf was not going to die a traitor. They pushed harder and harder until they neared the surface, but then everything disappeared. Their body was gone, they barely could move anymore and they couldn't form coherent thoughts. Instinctively they knew they were about to die, but that was before they felt teeth grabbing their scruff. They couldn't look up, but they felt themselves being hoisted up, out of the water and back in land. 

Asterleaf took a deep breath. They could open their eyes again and saw their family surrounding them, looking at them with worried eyes. They didn't know what was going on until they looked down. They could see through their paws. They nearly took a step back into the water from the shock, but Ferretchase stopped them. Thistleheart and Icecloud slowly pressed themselves on both of Aster's flanks as they tried to understand. 

It took them a while to fully accept it, but in the meantime they had followed the other cats to StarClan. There one cat had said they needed a guardian for the new opening that had been made. Asterleaf immediately volunteered. Many cats were surprised, but the StarClan spirits accepted. 

Asterleaf now waited by the border. It was mostly a lonely job, but sometimes a kit would wander too far away, or a cat would desperately want to see their loved one. They could never let them pass, but they gave comforting words and guided them away. 

Moons had passed. Honestly more than Aster had counted. It wasn't too bad out there alone. They could be with their thoughts and start making peace with them. 

One day though they had a special visit. They saw two white starry shapes approach. They became so happy when they saw Icecloud and Thistleheart. They couldn't go too far from the border, but they hurried to greet their moms. Asterleaf hugged them for a long time, so happy to see them again. The three cats sat there, catching up on everything. Aster learned Ice had moved to WindClan after the dust was settled. This was now allowed by the code. The two had simply spent their last few years as warriors before enjoying their retirement together. Then they died peacefully next to each other. 

From then on Aster would have visit from time to time. Usually both Thistleheart and Icecloud came to visit, but sometimes it was only Thistleheart or only Icecloud. Then one time another cat came to visit. Aster couldn't believe what they saw. A wide grin and starry fun wasn't usual on xir, but they would recognize Ferretchase everywhere. 

The two siblings hugged each other tightly. They had been separated for so long. Ferret told Aster all about their life. The fights, the fun moments in camp, the deputy position xe had been offered but refused, Rootspring, everything actually. Ferretchase told Asterleaf everything. Some parts were a bit more awkward, but things were told anyway. Aster was done with not telling things to cats. 

Both siblings avoided the topic at first, but Aster apologized for everything again to Ferret. Ferret accepted the apology and told Aster things would be fine again. 

[goofballproximitysurveyor]

cuz why the heck not, kuon stroheim for that ask meme (seeing more blazblue on the dash is fun :D)

favorite thing about them

In general I think most of the XBlaze cast is really well written and Kuon is no exception! It took me a while to really get her character but after time, translating a small doujin centered around her, and her being a main piece in one of my OCs story, I ended up coming around to her more. I like characters where my opinion changes on them positively overtime.

least favorite thing about them

her end in CE is probably my least favorite end in the game it's just very underwhelming imo and while I think Mei's end managed to pull on a few specific heartstrings of mine that made me tolerate the "protagonist gets the girl in every end" structure Kuon not so much.

favorite line

I'M ON THE GIRLS SIDE!!!!!

(idk I think it's a sort of silly-romantic dramatic moment of Kuon helping Es get to Touya and it's a line that particularly stands out to me with Kuon's character)

brOTP

Acht has a line in BBDW about how now that she's not Kuon's enemy she would want to be like an older sister to her and I think about that line and get sad sometimes...

ОТР

Don't make jokes about how two characters who argue constantly should kiss because then one of them will pull this and you will ship them for real

пОТР

ig the closest is that I think that because of my distaste for protag gets a girl in every end type stuff Kuon/Touya has been tainted for me a little but it's not that serious.

random headcanon

I think Kuon and Elise did date once. They are in the midst of the worlds most disastrous teenage lesbian breakup. It is not going well for anyone involved or even really witnessing it.

unpopular opinion

I just think it's funny how people seem to like Kuon a lot and understand her but it took me like being essentially forced to do a bunch of character study on her to really get it.

song i associate with them

none really but one day I will have one...

favorite picture of them

unrestrained summer fun + dumb shitpost drawing i did of her because this is literally how she poses in one of her portraits

[musicismymoirail]

Ohhh fellow dragon age player???

Tell me more about your protags 👀👀👀

Oh, yes! :D It feels like I've been playing it forever at this point. But, okay! I do have sideblog for my da bullshit here but I haven't chatted about my protags in ages, so let's go! Apologies for the length ahead of time. ^^;;;

The Wardens: Left to Right.

Suibhne Tabris, the pragmatic & polite rogue whose always up to teach folks the old alienage proverb of 'no child of Adaia Tabris makes empty threats'. Push him if you dare. He's my technically canon warden and the leader of Origins ragtag group. Mainly because he's very stoic and chill. Mhm. He was left at the Chantry as an infant before the Tabris family adopted him. He loves his family dearly, and took Adaia's death very hard. Like he didn't speak for years after and people feel like he ended up as very muted version of his chaotic child self. But grief can change you, and that's okay. He romances Zevran (utterly smitten~), Morrigan is basically his sister, is the one that does the Dark Ritual, and he'd love to meet his son but respects Morrigan's wishes to keep away. He's just a chill sweetheart who will murder a whole castle of nobles to save his loved ones~. I love him. c: <3

Nari Aeducan, the iconoclastic & favored former princess of House Aeducan. Oh, Bhelen. You can keep the throne but you will never feel safe within the walls of Orzammar again. <3 Nari is... my newest Warden, and not super fleshed yet. She lost her eye in her childhood during a training match, and asked Daddy Dearest to get her a lyrium prosthetic eye. Because it neat. In my canon, she misses out on meeting Duncan and gets to roam around the Deep Roads until the Origins group finally stumbles over her like two months later? She's a survivor~~~ She also enjoys sweetly terrorizing her baby back-stabbing brother. <3 No idea who she'd romance, honestly? Probably no one. Her mind is just set on causing chaos in Orzammar. Bless her.

Raniel Surana, the tempestuous and diligent mage that lasted like four days outside of the circle before she turned to blood magic. To be fair, she was dying at the time & Mouse is cool. Raniel was my very first Warden~~~ Sooo. Her and Tabris both met Duncan before going to Ostagar, and she's both enthralled and terrified and so bitter at Jowan, so she's just bouncing in every direction. During the first fight, the orge atop the Tower bites off her arm and Rani, not wanting to die with her new friends, asks Mouse for help. She's Super Bitter and Pissed for most of the story, as losing your home and arm will do to someone. No one really questions the weird white mouse that travels on her shoulder. But Leliana and the others sloooooooowly bring back her old romantic self. Stories and stars do the soul so much good. She ends up as the Teryna of Gwaren, is a happy little blood mage and since Leliana is my canon Divine, is basically married to the highest religious figure in Southern Thedas. Go Raniel~~~~

I never got as attached to my Hawke as my Wardens or Inquisitor (weird as DA2 is my favorite game so far), buuuuuuut this is my current one.

Revelry Hawke, the stepford-smiling put-upon third parent of the Highly Dysfunctional Hawke family. All they wanted in life was to keep their family together and safe, and they Failed! Constantly! Carver died in Lothering! Bethany died in the Deep Roads! Leandra died in Kirkwall! And Revelry blames themself fully. :'D They're technically a rouge, but personal headcanon is they have magic too but just for Entropy spells and this goes unnoticed by all until the Arishok stabs them in Act Two. Losing one's family does have a way of letting you let go of a lot of things, does it~~? Forever sides with the mages, I do imagine they got offered the Viscountship post-game (because it's dumb that's Templar-locked) but Revelry stepped down after like five days. They're known as the Five-Day Viscount now. And they, idk, probably ended up in a polycule with everyone accidently. That seems like a very Revelry thing to do. o:

Do I have a favorite protag of the lot? Yes, it's Mir. :D

Mir'uvenan Ruoho Lavellan, aka Mir, aka Miracles, my beloved and endlessly chaotic Inquisitor. Left his clan because of his toxic and deeply codependent relationship with his twin brother, Mir is basically a shattered mosaic of trauma, impulse and passion. He doesn't know why he's here, he wants to burn the Chantry to the ground and steal its foundation to boot, and people are! Praising him?!? Him? Why! Whhhhhhhy!?! He's not a leader! TToTT!! Except, that's all the gaslighting talking. Mir is stupidly clever and intelligent, endlessly caring and absolutely has no issues telling off Ancient Tevinter Gods and their Fake Archdemons. He lost all his fucks when he got the Anchor, so fuck it. He'll do his best because he's kinda stuck here anyways. TT____TT

(And Bull's like 'this is why you're the Inquisitor, Kadan~~')

Mir's an absolute little nerd who adores mixing his own alchemical concoctions because smashing highly volatile flasks against his skin is just Heaven~~~ He ends up losing his hearing Quite A Bit because of all the explosions, but whatcha gonna do~? Dagna and Rocky teached him Dwarven Sign Language to help. He likes hanging around Dagna to learn magic in the non-magic way too because It's Fascinating! o: <333

Mhm. Romances Bull but it's pretty open. Sera is his BFF, and Dorian a close second. Never gets comfortable being the Herald or the Inquisitor, doubly so after the Jaws of Hakkon, triply so after Trespasser. He disbands it, and is happier for it just being a Red Jenny with Sera and just finally enjoying life at long last with a good support system of friends and connections. I always play the game as Mir slowly working through his miserable self-worth and healing through all the trauma his brother put him through, so I like him ending the game having more neutral-positive outlook. He is actually Not The Worst, and ain't that nice? c:

(He's still gonna punch Solas in the face if they meet again tho. Because friends don't let friends destroy worlds, and he already proved people are just as worthwhile now as long ago.)

And if anyone actually read through all of that, thank you and bless you for reading about my silly little protags I've put Far Too Much Thought into over the years! ;;v;; <3

Also, enjoy a silly comic of Mir buying 57 hand puppets. <3

[stormears]

Ever thought of writing an original story? If so what genre and what it be about?

I started a LOT of original stories when I was tween and teen. A couple long enough to be called "novels," only ever finished 1 of them. But oddly enough as I progressed through high school age, I cared less about original novels and more about fanfiction lol. It's the creative transformation of existing characters/stories that engages me. Creating my own 100% from scratch interests me less. I haven't been seriously "writing an original story" since I was 18-19?

The tweenage stories stole 60-90% of their plots from media I liked at the time like Zelda, Princess Mononoke and Inuyasha. All were fantasy stories about dangerous adventures, lands and creatures and fighting through all those things. Either talking animal protags or humans who bonded with and/or tamed lots of cool animals along the way haha.

The most prominent story was about a group of dragon friends who had to go on a quest to find several magic jewels (one jewel per book of course). There was 1) main girl dragon who was cold and aloof and stoic and badass and 2) a main boy dragon who was brave and good and nicey-nice and totally crushing on the girl one 3) a short and fat and smart boy dragon, 4) a hyperactive dumb girl one, who walked on two legs like a velociraptor. And none had wings. Because I was also obsessed with the cartoon Dragon Booster at the time, which was about racing dragons, but DB dragons never had wings and some were bipedal like raptors. I drew a lot of "fanart" of this series and moments from future books I never wrote, still have some of it.

I wrote 'book 1" of that dragon friends quest series from ages 12 to 14 (maybe 15?) and actually finished it. It was around 120 pages on MS Word, not sure of word count. I'm sure it's 97% garbage but it's finished, somewhere. The cold bitch dragon was probably more self-insert than I wanted to admit. I even gave her a mysterious older brother dragon who occasionally appeared to save or help the group. Because my brother had recently moved out for college and I missed him.

Later in high school I started a more typical YA novel about a nation of floating cities in the sky populated by people with feathery angel wings. They never went below the clouds to see what was below. They had a tradition of jumping off a city to start learning to fly, and the MC guy's little brother fails and falls to the Earth. He and MC Girl decide to fly down and see if they can recover his body. They find Earth is a desert wasteland, and all sentient creatures left on it want to attack and take over the cities because there's nothing but hopeless starvation down here.

There's still wingless dragons in that story lmao. The main dragon they meet is an aggressive grouch who carries his completely paralyzed little sister around on his back. There was going to be some insane moment late in the story where the sister somehow lifts herself up and crawls to retrieve something or attack someone. Never got that far. Oh they did find the little brother, though, he was fine. I wrote about 50 pages of that story, haven't touched it since 2013 probably. Don't remember how I even wanted it to end.

[radio-crow]

Pine trees

(A horror story I wrote for school)

Tags: First person POV, AFAB!protag, Forest, Rural area, Late night, Horror, Possible cryptid horror

Warnings: descriptions of blood, body horror, Descriptions of gore

"Hey, Gracie, How far away are you from my house?" My best friend Chloe spoke into her phone as I peacefully drove through the moonlit streets of this rural town. "I'm about an hour out of my apartment; I should be there soon but it's raining pretty hard," I replied using my car's speaker system. It was a peaceful night which was pitch black with the only source of light being the pale yellow glow of my headlights. My task for this evening was simple; get to Chloe's birthday party without getting lost in these winding roads. Although the directions on my GPS were usually rather confusing, This time it went quite smoothly.

Along with the occasional cabins and run down gas stations alongside the charcoal colored concrete, there were several mighty pine trees that reached towards the stars. Since the Oregon countryside was usually very peaceful with the sound of crickets chirping in the twilight or the occasional rustle in the bushes from wildlife, my mood was calm and serene.

Suddenly while I was in an ocean of thoughts, my car's engine sputtered like an elderly man with a cough which caused me to pull over at a nearby state park. "Damn it Why does this hunk of junk break down now it never does that," I grumbled to myself before opening the door to see what went wrong. As soon as I stepped out though, I was immediately hit with the pitter-patter of rain which caused my mood to further sour since I didn't have anything to shelter my head with.

This state park was rumored to be cursed however I never believed in dumb superstitions teenagers told their friends around the campfire. I lifted the hood of my car which bellowed smoke like a chain-smoker only for my eyes to stumble upon the problem; the engine had decided to just explode and scatter the other parts of my car's system.

"Just my luck why can't anything go right for once?" I grumbled angrily under my freezing breath which came out as steam in the chilly weather. Although my car was by no means new, it certainly wouldn't break down in the middle of nowhere which further fueled my rage. Gloved hands fumbled my phone out of my pocket to text Chloe and tell her that I'm going to be late when suddenly, there was rustling nearby and a tall bulky man came out of the forest.

He had a beard that was as prickly as the pine needles that surrounded him and the musk of a tire shop. "Ya got a problem with your car, little lady?" The man spoke, his voice gruff; he looked and sounded to be a trucker that was taking a rest before moving on to deliver more packages.

"Yes uhm, I do. My engine died and I need to get to a friend's place, can you help?" *I replied in the most polite tone I could muster in my annoyance. He nodded in response and started to check under the hood of my vehicle, starting the procedure to get me back on track.

Eventually however, I felt something was off about this stranger. His hair had twigs and leaves in it and he looked dirty like he lived in the forest however, I tried to keep a level head to not interrupt his work before my eyes widened when I noticed something that made me want to run out into the street like a lunatic.

There was blood on his shirt, lots of it and the crimson liquid started around his throat. "Oh my God sir! Are you alright and do I need to call an ambulance?!" I yelped in panic as my hands quivered a bit. However, the man didn't respond and slowly lifted his head towards my direction. When I saw his face I was suddenly frozen in sheer terror. His eyes were two empty sockets like bottomless voids and his jaw was slack. I started to steadily back away towards any direction of safety, but his face suddenly split open exposing a wretched metallic odor that could only resemble blood and rotting flesh. I tried to scream for help but there wasn't anyone around for miles as I choked on my own blood due to the fact I was stabbed by this abomination's sharp tongue.

THANKS FOR READING!