#but that's essentially the gist i had planned

[all-pacas]

Can we get an update on the time travel fic? How do you see possible chase-cameron interactions post break up?

Mutual avoidance, mostly, plus Chase doing his S6 development two years too early. And then he gets shot!

I'm growing increasingly unhappy with how I wrote the story so far and I don't know if I have the energy to rewrite or if I should just try to ignore it and press on. So in that light, here's a very rough version of my outline for anyone interested! Spoilers I guess!!

Next chapter: Cameron finally connects with Amber, but Amber basically blows her off because she can absolutely tell Cameron has Ulterior Motives, Cameron can't say I time traveled , it all goes really poorly… and the chapter ends with the news of the bus accident.

Cameron is able to identify Amber as missing/injured in the other hospital right away. Ultimately this makes no difference and Amber still dies. She is incredibly shaken by this; she really thought she could do this, fix everything just by force of will.

Ends up telling Kutner the truth about the time travel. He's like. Super into it. She doesn't tell him he's dead in her future, she tells him all about the Amber situation though and about Dibala (as a reason why she dumped Chase). (Kutner is like "wait, you're blaming him for something he won't do for two years?" and she's like… :| yes)

Meanwhile, Chase is retreating to his Safe Space, Diagnostics. He's the main victim of the butterfly effect, and Cameron isn't noticing. In the background there are little things. He's in diagnostics more. She sees him and 13 grabbing lunch. Cameron writes all this off.

She's trying to help House and Wilson repair their friendship because she feels like shit about the Amber thing, and befriending Kutner at the same time, because she cannot fail again. The latter goes great. The former goes terribly because House absolutely knows something is going on with Cameron but obviously is not going to guess time travel. Her meddling basically screws things up more.

When The Itch happens she is able to instantly diagnose the guy, since she was super involved in that case.

Last Resort happens. Chase has been knocked off his timeline; he gets taken hostage along with House and 13, and gets shot by the gunman. He's okay, but this triggers just a total despair event from Cameron; she wasn't paying attention to changes she caused, she doesn't know what she's doing, she keeps failing, this whole thing sucks. She likes Kutner but feels like she can't open up to him all the way because she hasn't told him you're due to die, she feels like she almost got Chase killed, just, total collapse.

Apologizes to Chase (who is like… wtf, we haven't spoken in months and this was not your fault). She ends up telling him the whole truth too and he's kind of into it and she's like listen I just need a friend right now?? Everything sucks??? How do I fix things???

Chase is like "you…………don't??? Stop obsessing over every goddamn detail and acting like you know best. I could have told you this months ago if you didn't dump me btw."

Cameron tells Kutner the truth. He's like oh, hmm, yeah, that checks out. IDK I don't feel like offing myself right now. I can keep you posted I guess?

That's basically the end of the story it's a metaphor for you can't control everything.

Flash forward to the day of House's funeral in the original timeline. Things are different. Cuddy is still around, she and House didn't date; she's grooming Foreman to take over for her (Cameron's "idea"). Kutner is alive! He and Park are besties. Going out???? Wilson still has cancer but it was caught earlier and chemo isn't going great but he probably has a couple years, not a couple months. They're all at, not House's funeral, but some other hospital event. Maybe Cameron and Chase are dating casually, but if so it's a New Relationship. Cameron finally tells House the truth and he tells her her fixing everything idea was stupid. She tells him about his funeral and he's like I bet I faked my death. The end.

[makeste]

Do you actually believe the DFO theory? What do you think supports it? (Genuine question)

I do think Deku and AFO have a yet-to-be-revealed connection, and back in my early BnHA fandom days I did think Dad For One was a possibility. nowadays though, I'm convinced there's a different explanation for the link between them -- namely, that OFA and AFO are actually the same quirk, and Deku is effectively a horcrux of AFO. I have a post here which explains this theory more in-depth, but basically the gist of it is that OFA was never a separate quirk at all. Yoichi really was quirkless, and when AFO attempted to force a quirk on his brother, he accidentally gave him a piece of his own quirk in the process. just broke off a lil section of it, like a Kit-Kat bar.

I will say that regardless of which theory turns out to be true, there's definitely something going on between AFO and Deku. chapter 217 in particular is practically overflowing with hints that the two are linked. Katsuki sees it right from the start, and even theorizes that AFO might have something to do with the SIXQUIRKS activating. and rather than disagree, All Might simply says "I didn't want to raise that point," meaning he made the connection as well. and then they just freaking drop the entire subject never to mention it again. and Horikoshi lays this panel on us as a parting gift.

which to me is confirmation that we'll be revisiting this at some point. simply because you do not lay the symbolism on that thick without some kind of game plan for the future. this isn't merely setting up OFA and AFO as foils; this is deliberately (and ominously) drawing attention to the numerous "coincidental" similarities between their two quirks. such as the fact that OFA is the only other quirk capable of holding multiple quirks within itself. and the only other quirk capable of being passed down to another user.

not to mention there's also the as-yet-unexplained link between Deku and AFO. the fact that Yoichi can "hear" his brother, and vice-versa. back in Jakku, the pre-Danger Sense Deku somehow knew that Tomura was awake before anything had actually happened. and when Deku first activated SIXQUIRKS, AFO was somehow aware, even miles away locked up in Tartarus. and we're just supposed to pretend this is all perfectly normal and makes total sense, lol.

so yeah there is definitely some sort of reveal coming up before this all ends. but I think DFO is more likely to be a red herring at this point. Horikoshi definitely knows about the theories, and that's probably why he still hasn't revealed anything about Dekupapa. he's the Hagakure in this scenario. distract me us with speculation about her, when in reality Aoyama was the culprit all along. it's the same tactic here. convince all the fans that AFO is Deku's father, when in reality the truth is even more insidious. he's not Deku's dad -- he's Deku's quirk. and the final final boss, secretly lurking not within Tomura, but within Deku himself.

tell me that's not the perfect final showdown setup. you know it's true. you know it's coming. or at least I hope it is lol.

incidentally, during the process of typing this all up, it occurred to me that if AFO is capable of creating horcrux!quirks (which we know for a fact he is regardless of how this theory pans out, since that's essentially how TomurAFO was created)... then why not Deku as well? which immediately led me down a whole new different theory rabbit hole. that's going to have to be its own separate post, though. my mind is now going a mile a minute, holy shit. this is going to be a busy weekend.

[sarah-yyy]

Sarah jie jie, In Blossom rec or no?

this is a real tough question to answer hooooo boy where do i start??

i mean, for starters, the premise of the show is actually really fun, and i like it a lot so far!! let's talk a little about this:

(spoilers for the first 2 eps in its entirety which covers the background/setup of the story)

this is yang caiwei. her dad was a minister who was framed for one thing or another, demoted, and subsequently murdered. she was disfigured in the process, and ended up in the city of heyang where she grew up to be a corpse bearer training under a coroner.

yang caiwei has been betrothed since she was a little girl to:

pan yue. this boy is the son of a concubine so his relationship with his dad is very meh. when yang caiwei's family got into trouble, pan yue's dad quickly cut off all ties with them. this led to yang caiwei being turned away at the door p harshly when she came to pan yue for help. pan yue himself though has loved her since he was a boy, and has been looking for her for 10 years!!

ANYWAY these two find each other. he wants to marry her. ofc he does!! she's his 白月光, and he wants to love and protect her!! he's disowned his family so that he can do this, he is ALL IN BABY. he's only found her again for all of 10 minutes and he's already planning their wedding in his head lbr.

she is calm and composed and v sensible because of the way she had to grow up. this whole thing seems too good to be true, and also she might be harbouring some ~feelings over the way he just cut her out of his life when she needed him the most. the yang caiwei she is now just wants to live her life as normal.

the chemistry is 😘 at this point, and i am so invested in their relationship. at this stage, i was still thinking she was the second female lead and was like. huh. this is going to be one of those shows where i'd ship these two more than the official couple i guess??

anyway enter:

shangguan zhi. sister of pan yue's best friend, who is obsessed with pan yue, putting it mildly. she also has this ~thing about her own physical appearance - essentially, she thinks she needs to look and act perfect to be worthy of pan yue's love. this involves a lot of witch doctors and v unhealthy dieting and scrolls on how to smile the perfect way and walk the perfect way. y'all get the gist.

shangguan zhi hears that pan yue is getting married (to someone ugly at that!!!) and loses her shit. she decides the way around this so she can be with her yue-gege forever is-

(you guessed it!!)

-body-swapping with yang caiwei, and pushing yang caiwei (and also the shaman who actually helped her with the swap) off a cliff so that nobody ever finds out.

to her credit, it actually works!! she swaps bodies with yang caiwei, and marries pan yue.

what she didn't account for was being murdered on her wedding day.

ANYWAY. the actual yang caiwei, now in shangguan zhi's body (😭), survives the fall from the cliff, rushes to the wedding with the intent on stopping the wedding and getting her goddamn body back, and reaches just in time to kinda sorta witness shangguan zhi's murder.

cue her thinking that it was pan yue who killed shangguan zhi (she knew the whole wedding thing was too good to be true) and pan yue thinking that shangguan zhi had something to do with yang caiwei's death (after all, she was obsessed with him and had a whole fit over him wanting to marry someone else).

everything about this premise was *chef's kiss*. give me a bucket of popcorn and some comfy pillows, i can watch this all day.

EXCEPT.

except my dudes shangguan zhi (and subsequently yang caiwei-in-shangguan-zhi's body, let's call her shangguan caiwei for now) is played by ju jingyi. 😞 zhhz played yang caiwei TOO WELL my friends, so that when jjy took over, shangguan caiwei felt like a whole different character. it's a bit difficult to reconcile yang caiwei and shangguan caiwei tbh, which made watching the third ep onwards a bit jarring, especially after zhhz set the character up so well.

it's not like......fatal to the show. i mean. i went in expecting nothing from jjy (rightfully i think 😑) and i wouldn't say i am disappointed by it just because i was prepared to be ehhhh about her going in. i'm still watching the show mainly because i like the plot and also, and this is a big factor that i truly cannot stress enough:

liu xueyi looks so good in this show hoooooo boy

look at this!!! is this a face i would suffer 30+ episodes of jjy for??? apparently it is!!

tl;dr: love lxy + like the plot + dislike jjy = still watching and will likely finish the show. is it a rec?? conservatively, i'd say soft yes??? i mean. a huge part of me watching this show is because i'm entertained by the shenanigans, 😍 over lxy, and daydreaming about an alternate universe of the show where we have zhhz instead of jjy as the female lead. it's not something to watch seriously though!!

[endiness]

Debunking misinformation about Netflix's The Witcher (Part 5)

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7]

"The show was supposed to have 7 seasons."

So. This isn't quite true and this rumor has largely been based off of what was basically a misunderstanding of what Lauren said and the subsequent misreporting of that along with the media never really following up on any of her clarifying comments, either — all of which is the thing that I really want to get into.

First off, I will preface this by saying that at one point, Lauren did say something along the lines of how she pitched "season 1, then season 2, season 3, 4, 5, 6, 7" to Netflix. Unfortunately, I cannot find this quote at the moment, but I do think that should be noted. However, as far as I can tell, the main source of the rumor that the show was originally planned for 7 seasons is not based off of Lauren having said that but rather this SFX/gamesradar interview instead:

Which Lauren later went on to clarify what she meant in another season 1 interview:

And in an interview for season 2:

The basic gist of what she was saying was that she initially mapped out 7 seasons with the idea of 1 season = 1 book, essentially, which she mainly did in order to have an overall sense of where the characters were going. So, was there a rough draft, outline for 7 seasons? Sure. Were there definitive, concrete plans that the show was always supposed to have 7 seasons? imo, no.

Just to address this, too, and how the subsequent misreporting of inaccurate information spreads: People — and not just the fanbase but other media outlets, too — usually cite this Hollywood Reporter interview with Henry Cavill as proof that the show was always supposed to have 7 seasons because he said he'd be up for doing that many:

But Henry Cavill was never directly quoted as saying that, and given that he was never directly quoted, it's likely that the interviewer asked him something along the lines of "Would you be part of the show for 7 seasons?" which prompted the answer he gave — and there is a difference between Henry Cavill himself saying that there's going to be 7 seasons and he's down for being part of the show for that long vs an interviewer asking him if he'd be up for doing 7 seasons of the show (which has been based off of the subsequent misreporting of what Lauren said in the first place) and him answering yes.

On top of that, here's an earlier season 1 interview Henry Cavill did with Elle where he talks about how many seasons he hopes the show goes to:

Which imo also only goes to show that the idea that there were ever any definitive plans for 7 seasons is not an accurate depiction of the situation.

"The viewership for season 3 was bad."

Season 3 debuted at #1 on the Top 10, it stayed at the #1 spot in the Top 10 for a total of 3 weeks, and it stayed in the Top 10 altogether for 8 weeks.

It had approximately 54.8 million views over the course of 186 days — 6.9 million views in 2 days (from Netflix's Jan-Jun 2023 data) + 49.7 million views in 184 days (from Netflix's Jul-Dec 2023 data.)

It was also the 5th most watched show in Netflix's Jul-Dec 2023 data, which I think is the most important factor because regardless of how the season-by-season numbers look and any potential drop in viewership, it was still one of the most watched shows on the platform during that time period.

"The show was cancelled and it was cancelled because of season 3."

The show was already rumored to have been renewed for season 4 and season 5 back in September of 2022.

So, long before season 3 even aired or it was announced that Henry Cavill was leaving the show or any other season 3 related issue. Given that Netflix already has a track record of shows rarely going beyond 5 seasons, if that, I think it is entirely probable that it was renewed for season 4 and season 5 back in 2022 with the intention for the show to end after that point anyway — although, granted, this hasn't been confirmed.

Also, like, despite claims otherwise, the show is following the books and the books do have a set endpoint. The show ending where the books do is not the show being cancelled, it's just the show coming to its natural conclusion like the books do. Also just to say, but it is entirely possible for the show to adapt the last 3 books into two seasons anyway. Baptism of Fire largely focuses on Geralt's story, not Ciri's as she's hardly in that book, whereas The Tower of the Swallow largely focuses on Ciri's story, and both books roughly take place over the course of summer/fall. It is extremely probable that S4 will cover Geralt's story in BoF and Ciri's story in TTotS (especially as we already know that Bonhart will appear in S4 and he's really not that prominent of a character until TTotS), leaving the remainder of TTotS and The Lady of the Lake for S5 (which roughly covers winter/spring, just to give a sense of the timeline in the books.)

[onelinemanytimes]

So, Underverse 0.7 Huh?

As you may or may not have heard, Underverse 0.7 Part One released on youtube and it was BEAUTIFUL, absolutely incredible stuff as always. I, however, am a freak, and while all of the episode was wonderful and a delightful next part to the Underverse story, there is only one thing I plan to talk about.

If you know anything about me you know what we’re here for.

Let’s talk about Fresh and his most recent appearance in Underverse.

For this post specifically, let’s talk specifically about him in combat- Magic especially. 

First off I’m making these for two reasons!! Reason one is because I’m incapable of being normal about Fresh and seeing him delights my heart immensely. Reason two is because I’ve seen a lot of people surprised or confused about things that I was so intimately familiar with that it baffled me people DIDN’T know!

And then y’know I remembered that most people didn’t spend weeks at a time hunting down every scrap of information about fresh from any source that was connected to the source material whatsoever (be it LoverOfPiggies herself, friends that interacted closely with her, or creators that had reached out to ask for information themselves). 

SO now I’m here to share what I know with everyone else!! With the fair warning that I am deep in it and also have very strong opinions and an ego the size of the sun, and also the warning that this is also my interpretation of what happened based on what I know and an analysis of Fresh’s portrayal in Underverse compared to the information on Fresh available. 

Let’s start with one of the most shockingly unknown facts I’ve seen people be surprised about;

“Fresh’s Furbies blew up!?? They were BOMBS?”

Yep!!!! This has been a part of his arsenal for a LONG time, along with the baseball bat- and this information was in fact straight from CQ, answered and public for the past 6 years

Fresh has essentially always been able to do this!! Or, more accurately, HAS been doing this? Same thing I think, you get the gist. Furbies rigged to blow and a bat (wiffle in the answer, but I’d say baseball bat is a fair substitute) to smack someone around with has been a weapon he uses for a long time.

This is also the best place to bring up how physically capable Fresh is. Fresh is FIT, and SKILLED, he knows how to move and how to use a weapon- or at least how to hit someone real hard with something. As seen in the first pictures he is using that bat beautifully against Error- but he does this twice actually!!

Fresh seems, at the very least, familiar with blunt weapons like bats, using them twice in the span of a single episode, wowie- and there are a lot of reasons I could see this being the case! All of his weapons are things he can easily explain away- the furby bombs? Little friends! Baseball bat? That’s just a sport objects, y’know, something for games! Stick of markers connected end to end? Honestly who hasn’t snapped those things together and pretended to have a very long marker or an epic stick when given the opportunity. 

This would be MUCH harder to do with something more traditionally recognized as a weapon. You think he can walk around with some kind of KNIFE?? Absolutely not! That’s dangerous! Someone could get hurt! Or suspect him of being a threat! He would never want to do that- and any physical weapons otherwise fall under similar issues. Sure he probably COULD get ahold of swords, hammers, tridents, or any other kind of weapon- but those are decidedly weapons and he is decidedly harmless.

There’s also the matter of his spacial awareness and body control

Look at the pose he has here. This is a pose he holds for multiple seconds, up until he’s counter attacked and physically pulled out of it. That’s INCREDIBLE balance, and potentially a testament to how strong or how lightweight ink is- but also, LOOK at that pose! That’s not just any pose to me. That looks similar to a handplant- a skateboarding trick that involves pausing upside down on one hand while you hold the board and other hand above you. Obviously, there are differences, including but not limited to a distinct lack of board…

But that’s also not what I’m getting at. I’m getting at the fact that physically, he’s OBVIOUSLY skilled. He TRAINS himself- and he likely pulls from the knowledge and skills around his “interests” in order to do some of the movements he has! We absolutely saw him doing little skateboard tricks when running from ink, this is very much so in line with that and completely in the realm of possibility for him. Don’t even get me started on how he manages to heely backwards at high speeds without absolutely wiping out.

This DOES bring up an interesting question though!! What about other magic?

The answered ask by CQ is a bit vague, honestly- and there are PLENTY of examples of Fresh using magic drawn by CQ herself that eludes to a higher capability than just physical objects set up for violence (Coloured bone magic attacks and the “FRESH POOF!” come to mind immediately for me, in art with Pacifrisk and comics respectively), so what CAN Fresh do?

It’s… hard to answer that solidly, honestly. There’s a lot of interpretations for this answer, from a variety of sources that were (at the time) in close proximity to CQ and Fresh especially- The most typical interpretation is that Fresh is able to at minimum use the same magic as his current Host, and this DOES seem to be the interpretation Underverse runs with!! You can tell based on the second (third?) fight scene, more on that when I get there in another post.

I will say! It does seem like Fresh has some abilities not explained wholly by his host, unless what he’s capable of is partially because his host isn’t sans, it’s some other kind of skeleton who may just be able to do those things.

Fresh has shown to be able to definitely use: Teleportation (Both with Fresh Poof and without if he chooses to). I think it’s also fair to assume he has access to other kinds of magic- Dimensional Magic being an option here given the retrieval/stashing of various objects throughout the episode (putting the furbies in place, suddenly having Ink’s sash visible, and suddenly having a skateboard being prime examples).

I would argue that the ability to censor people’s swears also falls under magic, as do his visual effects (like the question marks) and the word changes on his shades, but THAT is also dependent on whether or not you see “fourth wall shenaniganery” as a magic or not. There’s also a point where he jumps up and flips upside down in order to avoid getting blasted by ink that I could easily relate to the gravity-esque magic Sans has- y’know, that thing where he makes your soul fall in a certain direction? Like that! Food for thought.

There’s also the possibility that Fresh has the magic of being funny. And that’s only mildly a joke- magically being able to do things that would be funny or amusing in a given situation IS very in line with the kind of character he is and could explain a lot of the nonsense he has access to- of COURSE he can just summon stuff at will, it’s hilarious when he does that and it makes him a delight to watch. Again, Fourth Wall Shenaniganery Magic in that case though.

By the way. Fresh is very, VERY aware of the fourth wall. This I’m going to be making its own post about.

ANYWAYS I think that’s all I have to say about the magic use on his part in underverse- I have NOT gotten into the possession here because that is it’s OWN thing but do be aware that possessing people is also obviously something he can do and you love to see that. Enjoy and look forward to my further upcoming posts about Fresh!

[bet-on-me-13]

Dp x Dc x Miraculous: Deified Siblings AU Pt. 1

Based on 2 Prompts.

One is the Deified Batman AU , which you can read here

The other is a Prompt where Danny, Damien, and Marinette are raised together in the League of Assassins. I can't find it at all, so I will go over the gist of it here. (Edit: Found it!, thank you to the person in Replies who linked me)

Danny is the oldest, about 3 or 4 years older than. The other 2. He is the favorite child.

Danny is 10, Damien and Marinette are 6

Damien is seen as the spare, Marinette is seen as the unfortunate addition.

As the Prompt goes, Danny wants to escape the League and takes his little siblings with him. Damien, fully brainwashed by the Leagues ideals, stabs Danny in the back and drops him off a cliff into a River below, thinking he killed him. He tries to take Marinette back, but she backs away and runs.

Damien returns, tells the League that Danny tried to run away and got himself and Marinette killed in the process. Damien only survived because he wasn't stupid enough to try and leave the League.

Damien stays in the League for a while, before he is eventually taken to his father, The Batman when he is 10

Danny survived his murder attempt, but he lost all of his memories and washed up on the shore of the river miles away. He was found by the Fentons, who were in Europe on a research trip, and was adopted. Canon goes the same for him.

Marinette ran away, using her skills to get all the way to Paris before managing to get adopted by a loving couple. She becomes Ladybug at 13, the same as in Canon.

This is where the Deification happens.

...

Lets go Oldest to youngest.

Danny became a God the moment he died. As a Demigod, he was already partially Divine. When he lost his Mortality, he became what was essentially a God with no Domain. So, he built one up.

He became known as a Protector Spirit, as a Winter Spirit, and after defeating Pariah, as a Death God.

By the time he was 16, he was a fully fledged God.

This did help his amnesia a little bit, and he did have a vague sense of what his life was like before he lost his memories, as well as some flashes. But he knew that he preferred his new life, so he never really looked into it.

...

Damien is the only one who would eventually ascend to God-Hood through Natural Growth.

Damien takes the Mantle of the Robin. And as such, he links himself directly to his father's source of Power, and creates his own Legend, his own Myths. He becomes his own God at around 14.

He is a Vengeful God, one who is Violent. But at the same time he is an Animal God, one who takes care of the abandoned Animals around him. Probably a carry over from his Dad's Protector God Domain.

...

Marinette became a God last. She had it easiest though.

Marinette was born as a Demigod, and later became Linked with Tikki, who is basically a Small Part of the Goddess of Creation tied to the Miraculous.

Her own fledging Divinity mixed with Tikki'a Divinity and helped her Acsend to God-Hood after about a Year as Hero when she is 14.

She would have done so anyways as a Hero, but without the Gotham Pantheon to attach herself to, it would have taken many more years for her to grow enough to Ascend.

She became a Minor Creation Goddess. She also became a Goddess of Creativity, and Protection as well.

If you are worried about the Balance between Creation and Destruction don't worry, Adrien also becomes a God soon afterwards. His Ascension is mostly because he is a being made of Magic (as a SentiMonster) who was linked with a God through his Miraculous.

(I don't like the stories where Adrien is mistreated for no reason, so here he at least gets to be Ladybugs Equal)

...

This is the basic premise of the Prompt. I am planning on writing out the potential Story in a Part 2, but until then what do you think?

(Honestly looking at this after finishing writing it, it feels absurd. 3 different Fandoms, plus 2 different Dp x Dc Prompts. You need to be DEEP in the Crossover Fandoms to really understand this. Imagine a casual fan finding this! It would look like Pure insanity!)

[uselesstaroth]

Over two weeks ago I made this post

And here it is.

Sonic gets attacked by new eggman robots that he cannot damage in any way, and he gets separated from all his friends.

His only leads are:

The robots are similar to the ones from Starfall Islands

A gut feeling that Sage might be involved

A mysterious medallion he found after nearly drowning to death appears to reveal a map to a location he's never been in

Creative process beneath the "read more"

So, Sonic Underground came out in between the JP and US releases of Sonic Adventure, meaning it is completely divorced from moder Sonic media.

I always wanted to make a post-frontiers story that didn't involve some form of Evil Sonic or dead/missing Sonic.

I also noticed how few appearances Sonic makes in my usual stories, so I thought him as a focus would have been fun and a change of pace.

I watched Sonic Underground a lot as a kid, and I have held to this day that the most interesting thing that show did was giving Sonic two siblings to bounce off of that are the same age as him.

Now for the actual fic:

Most of my fics are LARP'd / music daydreamed before I write them down, which is why most of them are based on songs, and this one is... Actually an exception.

The post linked at the top is essentially how I came up with if this one. "What if Sonic Underground comes after Frontiers", and that's it.

That means that Sonic, Manic and Sonia have been apart for many years after their childhoods and that influenced how I wrote them.

I wrote Manic as a sort of community pillar vibe because of his scrappy upbringing evolving into a sense of community and activism. It also complemented with the decision to make a cymbal shield his main weapon of choice which does appear on the show. Him always breaking silences will be a running gag, don't you worry.

Sonia is a little more stick in the mud, mostly because right now she's in "business" mode, and I do plan to have her relax a bit as they make progress in saving the world. Also, the keyboard gun is not my invention, it's in the show, and that influenced her personality in this first chapter for sure.

Sonic is Sonic. Self explanatory in my opinion. The main changes from canon I suppose is that he's a lot more awkward around the other triplets, which just came about naturally, the fact that he's careful now (I imagine because Tails eventually gave him an earful about his attitude in Starfall Islands). Changing the laser guitar into a guitar sword is my firm belief that's how they'd do it if Underground had come out after Sonic and the Black Knight. It also helps him stand out from Sonia who also shoots lasers.

The most important thing I avoided was making the triplets eager to call eachother siblings. There's no way they get there quickly, they've lived their own lives for far too long. Manic being excited about it probably says something about his character.

The ending of this chapter comes from me realizing the seven chaos emeralds aren't a thing in Sonic Underground, and wanting to incorporate that in some way.

Also Infinite! What's he doing here? Not too sure.

And that's the gist of it

[mosneakers]

i love your story soooo much but i definitely started reading... a bit late haha. do you have a plot recap of any kind? or a family tree? sometimes i try to pick things up on context clues and end up totally wrong

omg yeah so no worries most readers actually started late! My stories and lore are super extensive and there's only a select few who've been around since the very beginning, because it would take a super long time to read everything, so I'm always happy to support you with wherever you'd like to hop in and start your journey!

Again the lore is extensive, but here is a Darling family tree you can click through to visualize all the generations Darling family members My masterpost is a good landing page for getting an idea of where to begin. I plan on updating that after this season is over, but it's still very helpful 😊

If I can try to sum it up the best I can, essentially:

Every Darling generation is part of a magical legacy that must choose an heir to pick a ghost to resurrect from the dead, that will carry on the legacy with them. However, there's always been talk amongst the family, a legend if you will, of a family curse tied to love. So as you can imagine, while each generation works so hard to find their happily ever after, each time it seems to get more and more complicated. Coraleye Darling is the youngest of generation 4, and the first female heir. It was going to be her brother, Sunglo, but he didn't have what it takes. Coraleye is a hopeless romantic family sim who wears her heart on her sleeve and can come across as very naive in most cases. Coraleye entered a mutually beneficial marriage with resurrected sim and lifelong family friend Mira Salas (now Mira Darling) to not only fulfill the legacy rules, but to appease Mira's power-hungry vampire mother, Tatiana Salas, who has recently been elected president of the United Worlds of Simerica. Mira also recently entered a second marriage with Coraleye's distant cousin lesser-known actress, and most extra (see family tree) Starling Sparrow (now Starling Darling) While all this was happening, Coraleye was attending university in Britechester, and slowly falling in love with the one and only Tycho Curious, roommate and best friend of her brother, Sunglo. During their time at Britechester, Coraleye, formed a tight knit group of friends who had pretty much become main characters in the story. Tycho simultaneously had his own story being interwoven into the legacy, throwing a wrench into everything. He was in love with Coraleye from the very moment he saw her, so he kept his alien identity hidden from his friends (except for form alien girlfriend Coni Breeder) and everytime he gathered the courage to tell her, he'd backtrack and erase her memory, continuing the facade. As the season comes to a close, the group has slowly but surely fallen apart, with a dramatic ending delivered in a documentary format by filmmakers Alex Hart and Cameron Rai.

There are of course many other cousins, siblings, spares, and side characters, all who have in-depth personalities and thoughts as well, but this is the main gist. I am totally open (and eagerly encourage!) questions and dialogue if you'd like more in depth answers on specific topics or characters. There's a whole universe out there to explore so the inbox is always open please make good use of it ♥

[bbokicidal]

What did happen in the past? It was very sudden when you left and idk what happened but i hope ur better now!!!

Thank you for the well wishes! I am doing a lot better now and I really am like - glad to still be here and writing, even if stayblr is Lowkey disappointing sometimes LOL.

The gist of what happened is that I was getting a weirdly large amount of hate after I released a Hyunjin fic that was angst. While it did receive a lot of positive feedback in the notes, there were a few people that left multiple messages in my inbox calling me names, saying they hated me, I should stop writing, and even a few that told me to end my life. (over a fanfic??? bro step the fuck down LMAO)

(all of which were anonymous btw lol. they can't even come off anon.)

The next morning after all this happened I woke up to a very long, detailed message in my inbox that I don't really want to get into because I - truthfully - don't really know what it was about. But essentially someone was talking about me and saying awful things, so I decided it was best for myself to head off Tumblr for a while. I was off for.. two-ish months? Before I decided to start writing again and made an official comeback. (should've released an album fr.)

Anyhow - that's the gist! I did make a post about an hour before I left everything but it was earlier in the day so I know many people didn't see it.

And no, I didn't archive any of my writing, which truthfully I do not regret. I didn't want to be tied to anything anymore and my adoration for SKZ heavily dwindled because of those events.

But fear not, I love them more than ever now. And I don't plan to quit writing anytime soon.

Edit: I'm also relatively surprised nobody had asked me about it/suspected it before? I think the way I format things and the way I write is pretty,, I mean, telling? Maybe not lol.

[buriedalienfma]

The release of the first few episodes of ‘My Adventures with Superman’ has got me thinking a lot about Superman, and in particular, I wanted to talk about the Superman cartoon that never was - The Superman Family Animated Series.

For those who don’t know what this is all about, here’s the gist of it :

In around 2019, animation director Victor Heuck pitched an idea for a new Superman cartoon that was loosely titled “Superman Family”. The basic idea behind the cartoon was to essentially adapt the DC Rebirth Superman comics as well as the Super-Sons comics. The Rebirth Superman comics primarily focused on Superman raising his son, Jon Kent (who inherited his father’s powers) with his wife Lois Lane, while Super-Sons focused on Jon Kent’s escapades as the new Superboy as he teams up with Damian Wayne, the son of Batman.

Victor Heuck wanted to take the ideas behind the above mentioned comics and adapt them into a new Superman cartoon. The cartoon was also going to be very light-hearted in tone and Heuck has stated that the older Silver Age Superman comics was also going to be a strong influence on the cartoon. Just as an example, Heuck mentioned that he wanted to explore the idea of Jon and his mother dealing with Superman being turned into a Merman for a potential episode of the cartoon. That should give you a good idea of what kind of cartoon this was going to be.

Victor Heuck worked alongside Sean “Cheeks” Galloway to put together the pitch. You might have heard of Sean Galloway, he was the character designer behind the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series, and he drew up a couple of the character designs for the ‘Superman Family’ cartoon.

As the title of the cartoon would suggest, there was going to be a strong focus on the Superman family. Characters like Kenan Kong and Natasha Irons were going to be featured as recurring characters. In the comics, Kenan Kong is the Superman of China, while Natasha Irons is the niece of John Henry Irons, a character who built a high-tech suit of armor in order to become a superhero inspired by Superman himself. Natasha Irons followed in her uncle’s footsteps with her own suit of armor. The ‘Superman Family’ cartoon was going to portray Natasha as the big sister to Jon Kent. As you can see from the character sheets above, the classic Superman villain Mxyzptlk was also going to be a recurring character, which is fitting since I consider him to be THE silver age Superman villain.

While the pitch was received warmly by the people working at Warner Brothers, they ultimately chose to pass on the cartoon and as a result, it was never made.

So what are my thoughts on this pitch ? Well, this pitch was made in around 2019, and I can tell you right now, that wasn’t the best time for Superman fans. There was no plans for a new Superman movie or series at the time and the character seemed to be fading from  the public eye. At that time, I gladly would have welcomed this cartoon. It would have had a pretty big impact on the Superman franchise. For one, I think that Jon Kent would have been propelled into the spotlight.

When this character was first created, he seemed to be guaranteed to be a very popular kid-appeal character. He was the son of Superman who had to live up to his father, one of the world’s greatest heroes. His design is anime-inspired and in-universe, he was even an anime fan. He had a pretty charming personality as the kid who meant well, but tended to screw up for one reason or another. He was created in the same mold as the likes of Gohan from Dragon Ball or Midorya from My Hero Academia. By all accounts, he should have been a bigger deal.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. In general, I think the comics that starred the character were not easily accessible to the general public. The Superman Rebirth comics are still loved by Superman fans, but they’re full of continuity baggage that only long time fans would have been able to understand. They also weren’t very kid friendly and featured a surprising amount of gruesome scenes. The Super-Sons comic was a little more accessible, but it was ultimately short lived and didn’t make that much of a splash. Recently DC has experimented with aging Jon Kent up and having him become the new Superman...which hasn’t been well received by fans and to be fair his comic series is kinda mediocre. Over time, I’ve realized that while I liked the basic ideas behind Jon Kent, I don’t really care for the character as he is outside of a couple of very specific comics. And one of those comics is a fanfic, so that should tell you how bad the character has it in the past few years.

The ‘Superman Family’ cartoon would have been the break that Jon Kent deserved as the cartoon would undoubtedly be more accessible to the general public. I think the character would have been in a very different place if the cartoon went through and became successful.

As for Superman himself, I feel like the cartoon would have actually delivered on the promises of the Rebirth Superman comics. When I first read those comics, I was excited because I wanted to see Superman deal with the complications of being a parent, and especially a parent to a super-powered son, and I was rather disappointed when the stories side-stepped that idea entirely and just had Superman as a perfect father figure. Perhaps the cartoon may have fixed that ? Who knows.

Now with the benefit of hindsight and after seeing the release of two new Superman series in ‘Superman and Lois’, and ‘My Adventures with Superman’, do I still think that the cartoon should have been made ? Probably.

I have to be honest, I much prefer ‘My Adventures with Superman’ and how it took a more classic, back-to-basics approach to the Superman mythos. I think that is much more refreshing compared to the twists that other Superman stories have tried to put on the formula. One the other hand, the ‘Superman Family’ cartoon probably would have been much better than ‘Superman and Lois’, which has a similar premise and started off very strong but slowly became worse as the show was overtaken by soap opera drama that was bad even for CW standards. I’d take a more light-hearted Super-family cartoon over that any day.

But Ultimately, the cartoon only exists as a “What if ?”, and I think it’s a shame that the pitch was passed up by the higher ups. It could have been a fun little cartoon that could have placed the spotlight of a bunch of underrated Superman characters.

[puffin-smoke]

Bug questions because

1 - Do they view the other bugs as family, or as just incredibly close friends?

2 - How far is your bug willing to go in order to keep someone they love safe?

3 - Scenario time, y'all get to see why I was asking about Malascythe on the Bugcord :3

They were nearly out of the arena. The plan was going to work, they were about to escape, all of them. The end was in sight.

Bug led the half-bloods down a long hallway. Empty cages lined the walls of the hallway, giving it an almost claustrophobic quality. The low hum of a distant crowd and closer hunters filled the room like music, like the constant ticking of a clock. There was a pit Bug's stomach but they remained hopeful. This was going to work, they knew it.

Bug heard one pair of footsteps fall out of time with the rest, and then a stumble. They span around to see Bodie, on his hands and knees, trying to catch his breath. He must of tripped on something.

Bug gestured for the group to keep going without them. They'd catch up in a moment or two.

Hyper-aware of the time slipping away from them, Bug grabbed Bodie's hand, hauling him to his feet with a good bit of effort. They gave him a moment to regain his balance and then turned to follow the others.

But Bodie didn't let go of their hand. His grip on it was iron.

"Bodie? You okay? We need to-"

It was in that moment Bug actually got a good look at their friend. And it was enough to still their tongue. They ripped their hand away, flinching backwards until they were out of arms reach.

His eyes were glazed over, a pale white sheen painted over them, growing more and more opaque by the second. Veins matching the hue of his eyes ran down the side of his face, bulging out crudely. It was clear to see for anyone, especially Bug with their experience in hunting. It was Malascythe. Somehow the Malascythe in his system hadn't worked it self out, and it was now coming back for a second round.

"Bug, I..." underneath that white gloss and the impending rage, Bodie's eyes were terrified. He knew what was happening and was helpless to stop it. "I'm so sorry."

Bug only has a few seconds to act. A few seconds before the Malascythe fully takes hold. They have to be the one to do it, the others are two far away to call for help. They can hear the steadily approaching footsteps of hunters. A few seconds to make an impossible decision.

What does your Bug do?

4 - Say your Bug was given the chance to know exactly when they were going to die. Would they take it?

5 - What's something that will always make them smile?

6 - Scenario numero duo (this one's a follow up to a previous scenario. You can find it here, but the general gist is this: Duarte sent a letter to Natalie in an effort to apologise to her, but Natalie did not forgive her in the slightest. She goes to leave but Duarte grabs her arm in an effort to get her to stay. She slaps Duarte in response and leaves.) (i go on a bit for this one)

It had been about a few days since the incident with Natalie. Life had gone on essentially as normal. Duarte was refusing to talk about it, and when asked a sad look would fall over her, dejected, guilty. So naturally Bug agreed to lay off with the questions.

Bug had gone into town to go grab some ingredients that Bodie needed. It was a nice day so they'd been happy to help. They walked through the town, passing various stalls and carts displaying all sorts of goods and trinkets. One such stall was an idyllic little thing run by an old man, and was filled to the brim with fresh produce. At that stall there was a girl, her hair long and a dark auburn, carrying a bag full of various vegetables. Bug stops in their tracks. They recognise her. Natalie?

They stopped for too long. The girl turned around and mad immediate eye contact with Bug, recognition dawning on her face. And maybe embarrassment as well. "Oh- oh shit, it's you. From the other night, right?"

Bug nodded, and that embarrassment creeps further up Natalie's features. "Great. Well, not great but, well-."

Both felt the awkwardness of any potential conversation, so both of them began to walk away and leave it at that. But fate had something different in mind. Turned out both of them were walking the same damn way.

After a few moments a stilted silence, Natalie speaks. Bug notes that her voice is low, raspy, almost damaged sounding. They began to wonder if that had anything to do with the scar on her neck. "I'm sorry you had to see all that. It was shitty- I shouldn't have slapped her."

Bug nodded back to her, agreeing. Natalie went on, essentially just rambling to fill the awkward space. She was barely talking to Bug at this point, just venting her frustrations into the empty air. "Damnit, I shouldn't have even read that letter. I knew it was going to piss me off..."

Suddenly aware of what she'd just said, embarrassment further dwarfed her features. Along with something else. Resentment? "Sorry, I shouldn't be- It's complicated, y'know?"

Bug answered with a brief. "Sure."

Natalie choked out a small laugh, bitter and coarse. "Yeah... the complicated life of Duarte fucking Cardoza. Too complicated to let anyone else in."

She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. She looks to Bug. "Shit, I'm sorry, I'm rambling. You don't wanna hear this shit." For a moment she hesitates. "I mean... do you?"

Do they?

tags:

@rozeliyawashereyall @willowve01 @asmrbrainrot @kaiamtt @iistxrmyskyii @insignificant-anarchy @stxph-artist @aspenm00n @keyaartz @fangsshadow @rustycopper4use @piffany666 @dreamyshape @idontevenknow7878 @lunaritychuwolf @littlesiren79 @castbracelet240 @strayharmony943 @proxdragon @tiefling-chaos @threeweekinsomnia

@recated @wilderrorcard @diamondzoey @fennaboysenberry @lunnats

@lightdragon789 @pinkcocopuff-aqualoid @itsargyle @not-5-rats @astralbulldragon13

@ccstiles @puffin-smoke @fruity0salad @takashishihoin @megapugman

@reefhastoomanyaccs @kaydenskiwi @greaysharkboi

[eternalflashh]

i give up. i've been thinking about the fontaine lore too much to not put my thoughts somewhere.

no, this is not at all going to be organized, because i hardly have it all together yet. but i've been trying to get a gist of fontaine's prophecy, and i'm just trying to put the pieces together after what we've learned of fontaine's history (albeit not much, and neither is the theory the best. i'm just thinking on paper here.) this is going to be *very long* by the way. very, very, very long.

naturally, beware of spoilers, particularly: fontaine AQs and world quests (narzissenkreuz, elynas (the melusines) — including the canotila side quest, institute of natural philosophy, khvarena), artifacts (nymph's dream, marechaussee hunter), weapon (fleuvre cendre ferryman)

also, disclaimer: i may be wrong. i am not a genius—kind of an idiot, really. i'm just thinking. thinking. read this as someone's journal, not the wiki entry.

here's a brief recap of the three fontaine world quests, because we're going to need them:

in the narzissenkreuz adventure team quest, we accompanied the tiny oceanid ann in order to save a "princess lyris", only to find out that she never existed and this was all a fictional tale—one, though, that has its roots in the real narzissenkreuz institute.

in the elynas quest, we saved mamere from getting her paintings stolen, and found out that she was painting with elynas's blood. a man named jakob ingold has been trying to collect this blood, and now, apparently tries to revive the dragon itself—for a cause that is beyond even the abyss's plans.

the quest with the institute of natural philosophy wasn't quite as plotful, aside from the fact that we simply were led to the institute thinking it was the narzissenkreuz institute, and found plenty of old records. it's also where the narzissenkreuz ordo's quarters was buried inside, and where we managed to unite ann and seymour to continue their story.

now, from the many ancient texts and artifact/weapon descriptions i've managed to piece a rough idea of what happened 500 years ago, which i will try my best to summarize coherently according to my understanding:

the narzissenkreuz institute, which had an oceanid as its director and basil elton as its vice, was a special unit founded with the purpose of protecting fontaine against the evils (of khaenri'ah, presumably). that being said, they housed orphaned childen. these included the mary-ann we see in "the real annapausis" (whose consciousness was transferred to our oceanid ann), alain, rene, and jakob.

it was said that "the director and her sisters went off to fight the evil at its source" (nymph's dream), which i'm assuming is khaenri'ah, while the vice director set off for the seas in the Sponsian ship where she eventually passed. shortly after, the institute was disbanded. before the vice director (basil elton) set off, though, she had entrusted the children of the institute to her close friends: emanuel gullotin and karl ingold (marechaussee hunter).

alain guillotin and mary-ann guillotin, taken up by emanuel, became marechaussee hunters; rene de petrichor and jakob ingold, in the meantime, headed for sumeru's girdle of the sands with karl ingold to research the remmants of the lord of amrita. (if you did the quest, you would've had "rene's investigation notes" in your inventory—which essentially describes what they've been researching; rene appears to have recently turned into a young adult, while jakob is still "a child", but they both sound... young.) it also seems that before this, they infiltrated elynas—in the investigation notes, they seem to be hiding their condition from karl; later we find that jakob seems to be surviving on elynas's blood.

sometime after this, alain guillotin is enrolled into the institute of natural philosophy where he researches (i assume) the mechanics of arkhe and pneuma-ousia annihilation; rene and jakob are also enrolled in there some time later. at first, they were working on the same research (alain's), until rene and alain eventually broke off their working relationship (noting that they, including mary-ann, still hung out together as friends), apparently having disagreed on something.

now we saw jakob ingold— which clearly means him having absorbed elynas's blood (and all those research) has somehow given him the powers of immortality, which rene and him had been researching in the desert; although it appears that rene has found a different way of implementing immortality. rene, in his "memories" as told in the book of revealing, discovered a way humans could surpass death by dissolving in the waters, their consciousness preserved even as doomsday comes (i assume this is how the water from the primordial sea came to be rediscovered after ages), and chose himself as the first test subject to be dissolved. alain, meanwhile, went off to establish the fontaine research institute that studied clockwork and created the meka we see roaming around fontaine now—i personally think the specific use of clockwork was intended to allude to the underlying goal to surpass their time. but yk, that might be overkill.

mary-ann's end, though, was never quite explicitly told. and in fact, the "mary-ann" we see in annapausis described the place in the book as her tomb, even though the story (whether the one we were going through, or the literal story you find in the fountain with the "statue of princess lyris") was unfinished. she might not have been a particularly "important" character in the history, but she was significant to each of the other childen— the various notes always expressed joy whenever they see mary-ann, may it be alain who was said to care for his sister (so much that he made her seymour), rene, jakob, even carter (alain's assistant).

this is important because, coincidentally, it resembles ann's role in the narzissenkreuz adventure team fairytale. ann was described to be their leader, a sort of mascot, among the team fighting against the fell dragon. and in fact, each of the characters we met resemble someone in reality: 'al' is from alain, 'ney' is from rene, 'jak' is from jakob, and 'mori' from seymour. (the others are... a bit complicated and i cannot yet discuss them because I'm Still Thinking, and that'll go besides my current point.) basically, the fairytale was literally told with the children as real life inspiration. (even though, of course, it was cut off quite annoyingly.)

then, it's worth understanding the tale to understand their true motives as well. the tale talks of the adventure team's existence essentially to help princess lyris to protect her realm and fight against the big bad evil, the fell dragon narcissus. narcissus was fighting her for "a treasure of hers that he did not have", and in order to help fight against this evil, princess lyris shared her time with her friends, time that allowed them to be ahead of the dragon's attacks. but in the end, the dragon still had the upper hand; eventually she trapped herself in the high tower, entrusting a treasure to the adventure team: a bright pearl of water.

common sense tells that this princess lyris alludes to the archon of their nation, egeria; the adventure team being the narzissenkreuz institute, while the fell dragon narcissus is the khaenri'ahn invasion. judging from this, then, it appears that the archon left behind this "bright pearl of water" as the last thing before she trapped herself in the high tower. and that's it— that's the end of the story, so we don't know how the rest of history went. well, except for the fact that the former hydro archon is, in fact, dead, and now we are left with a most ominous prophecy: of the original sin, of why it's exclusive to fontaine, of why the oceanids do not recognize their current archon, of why furina is exempt from this prophecy—and what she is waiting for.

i have so many questions, and no idea of how to approach them in a methodical manner—so i will first point out all the things that bother me.

i wondered why this problem is exclusive to fontaine. regarding there is a problem of exception mentioned in rene's notes, where the children's constitution are different from karl's; i still have no idea the nature of this distinction, only that rene and jakob's bodies are like the power of the sacred lotus (i.e., the former archon's power). at first i thought that this distinction may be the reason for them being susceptible to the primordial seawater's effects, but without understanding the distinction, it doesn't help in answering the question.

then, again, i wondered what their real motives was. neuvillette says that the former archon left furina with the prophecy—but it doesn't sound like a problem so much as a statement of what's to come. we don't know what egeria actually believed. but i went back to the final feast teaser, and found that egeria actually had some narration:

the original sin is the fairest: everyone sinks. make the most of the final feast, because for the sinners, the curtain call has come.

which certainly does make it sound like she sees them all as sinners, and that they have always been bound to sink.

the interesting thing is— this might not necessarily be a bad thing, no matter how we see it as a crisis. even the victims of the disappearances case regard dissolving into the waters as "relief" (vigniere from the AQ); even the people say this is just like returning to whence they came from, and mary-ann of the sunflower annapausis says that together, as one body of water, they can become strong. in line with this, perhaps rene's act of dissolving into the seawater doesn't seem so much as a radical act anymore.

i always come back to this line at the storybook:

"So, in Narcissus's story, I'm the evil villain?

it may sound like an innocent question, but a fairly odd one for a child to be asking. and i believe it says more than it seems. for one, i'd like to point out that narcissus is another term for the flower daffodil, which symbolizes rebirth—the narzissenkreuz also means "narcissus cross", aka, death of rebirth. which makes sense when you think that they're enemies of "the fell dragon". but why would they be fighting rebirth? perhaps because the narzissenkreuz institute were fighting the prophecy, which they, including egeria, perhaps, believed at the time to be a good thing.

i say "at the time" because, look at what became of the children. in essence, they became "villains". rene, for one, founded a source of the primordial sea, which was certainly what led to the current problems—and, hence, what would lead to the realizing of the prophecy. jakob is out here trying to revive elynas in order to use his blood to strengthen human lifespans, so that they can overcome the surmised cataclysm that would come? to turn everyone immortal? meanwhile, alain's deviced a way to subvert the usage of celestia's elements by making work of pneuma-ousia power. essentially, they are each fighting for rebirth, instead of fighting against rebirth. perhaps not precisely rebirth, but a way to preserve humanity, to subvert the crisis. even mary-ann, in a sense, had managed to attain this goal, by preserving all her memories—despite it being unfinished—in that storybook.

and in fact, perhaps that's also why the story ended there—because it was that point, when the cataclysm occurred, where the story's moral had shifted, and they had each lost their original intention to fight. because they then realized that they needed better ways of handling this crisis, only to have one of them revert to that crisis itself. tl;dr: the prophecy ceased from being a crisis, instead becoming rene's perceived solution. which is.... interesting, to say the least.

again, it sounds radical, but it may very well hold water. one interesting thing i noted from the canotila quest was that where we saw the dark power of the abyss in "the end of things" as predicted by the world-formula, canotila instead saw a nice place with flowers, etc. and when we were talking to elynas, he noted that "the things they (the primordial dragons) enjoyed were not things that humans valued". it's similar to this situation—two different viewpoints may see the same thing to be two very different things; either salvation or destruction. which then brings a lot of suspense toward the resolution of the AQ—what, truly, will become the best solution for them? would being dissolved save the people of fontaine? or would they find a way to subvert both the dissolution and the destruction? (obviously, it's probably the latter—the question, as always, would be how? to answer that, we need to know more on why they are subject to this sin, and that is not a question i can answer, despite this Very Long Rambling. i am most stressed)

but if nothing else, at least i've figured that the foretelling of this disaster is something that's originated far before the cataclysm, from egeria's time. perhaps it'd be something like rukkhadevata & nahida, where rukkhadevata had her own way of solving the issue with combating forbidden knowledge, but it led to a whole other issue, and nahida had to find her own solution.

one thing still perplexes me, though— furina's perspective in all this.

at first i thought she may be the "pearl of water" referred to in the storytale, since it would make sense that that's where the next archon comes in—but since furina is supposed to be older than nahida (as said by neuvillette in nahida's introduction), it seems unlikely. though it's always possible that this happened several years before the cataclysm, it wouldn't align very nicely; one would assume the princess trapping in her tower to be an event that took place during the peak of the cataclysm, so the life born out of the pearl must be sometime after that. but the possibility remains.

or perhaps one shouldn't take the story too literally, and assume she was simply handed the gnosis after egeria's passing—but why? who is she to begin with? and what then is the pearl of water that the princess left to the narzissenkreuz? it must bear significance, if it was left in the story at all (and something the storyteller felt important enough to be named after the child she was telling the story to, lyris). perhaps the pearl thing was only an expression, and it was meant to allude to the passing of her gnosis to the next archon. but of course, this is only conjecture.

furina's behavior... is perhaps simply a consequence of her original personality, under her circumstances. her personality aside, though, what would her woes we hear in the fountain mean? what does she mean when she say "interminable"—what, exactly, is she waiting for in unbearable loneliness? it doesn't make much sense for her to be waiting for the prophecy to come; otherwise, she'd have no reason to research it for so long, gathering intelligence, when she hardly cares for the nation's affairs. surely she wouldn't be waiting for divine intervention to come save her from her business? lyney and lynette note that she always appears to be "acting"—so what is she acting for? why does she aim to judge other gods? if she wants to prove that other nations are also at fault for "sinning", then wouldn't she need more time, instead of being impatient? nothing seems to add up with her. perhaps she wants to save everyone, but perhaps she is tired as well. perhaps she doesn't feel like she's capable of it, and wishes for release to come instead. is that what it is? who knows. who knows. it's impossible to tell, with someone with so many faces.... it's very interesting. furina is certainly a very interesting archon.

anyways. that was long and this doesn't hold much water to it (get it) but. i had to dump my thoughts somewhere. i'll get back to it when i find more information, when more thoughts come to hound me,,,,,, yeah. anyway.

[childotkw]

sorry if this is a silly question but i just read the lone wolf dies and im curious behind regulus’ motivation for adopting harry? it wasn’t really clear to me, especially since he didnt know james and lily very well. did he just do it so he could help sirius out with his oath? really cool fic btw! i liked it a lot :))

Not a silly question at all!

I had plans to explore his motivations in future chapters, but the gist of it is that - Regulus knows that Voldemort has at least one horcrux, the locket. He knows that Voldemort will be back. He knows that something happened at Godric’s Hollow that destroyed Voldemort’s body, and he knows that Harry was involved in that incident. He knows that both he and Harry will be on Voldemort’s hit list when the man returns - Regulus for betraying him and knowing about horcruxes, and Harry for killing him.

His plan was essentially to take Harry and study him, to see if there were any residual traces of the spell or ritual that took Voldemort out, and then train him up in preparation for Voldemort coming after them. It was just a bonus that the kid who nerfed the Dark Lord was his brother’s godson.

Regulus’ motivations change over time, of course. He will very quickly lose that analytical line of thinking when it comes to Harry, viewing him less as an investment and more as his child, and he’ll love and protect Harry with a ferocity that takes most people off-guard.

But initially, Regulus is very focussed on shoring up his own defences and getting his pieces ready, and his attitude towards Harry in the first year will fluctuate wildly as he comes to grips with the fact that he doesn’t actually want this kid to get hurt. From there it becomes less about training Harry to fight Voldemort and more about just…being a family.

In a lot of ways, he’s what Lily from CS should have been. A parent rather than a general.

[cyb-by-lang]

okay so i've been thinking about A Ninja's Guide to Gotham and i think i know what Ra's al Ghul's plan is, at least what he (and Zetsu) want to do

the plan to set Kei loose on Konoha didn't go well for Zetsu and Madara, she had her team to help (and the power of foresight) but the gist of the idea could still work, if Zetsu sets up the stage right

Kei has a pretty good grasp on her emotions, but Hayate (specifically, Hayate in danger/hurt Hayate) being her trigger is known to Zetsu. so it makes sense to isolate the two from the rest of their village. drop them into a batshit (ha) crazy city, keep them separated, really pile the stress on Kei and wear her down.

all the while, they've got a Zetsu army cooking for maximum trauma later.

Ra's al Ghul wants to destroy Gotham, and this Zetsu has essentially handed him the trigger for a massive walking bomb, but can only be activated under very specific circumstances. and Kei, as stressed as she is and even with almost losing it a couple of times, has done an excellent job reigning her fury in (thanks Isobu)

AND there's the fear toxin. i imagine they've been adjusting it this whole time to actually work on a Jinchuriki.

i don't think they really want Kei to join them, necessarily (though it might save them a few steps) i think all the attacks serve mostly to increase Kei's stress until she starts breaking.

and then Zetsu was trying to take Hayate. because what would be the one thing to almost certainly break Kei?

idk if this is how it will play out exactly, but i'm guessing this is the gist of Ra's and Zetsu's plan:

Zetsu army attack, with giant Zetsu monster included to spread out the Bats and allies. try and separate Kei from team. keep her focused on the attacks without provoking her yet, but wear her down.

take Hayate, or at least manipulate the field to put him within sight of Kei. kill him where she can clearly see.

use that moment of shock to shoot as many fear toxin darts at her as possible. if she's distracted enough, she might get a few doses. and it doesn't matter much how quickly Isobu burns through the poison, because all they need is that initial ignition of super enhanced terror and trauma for her to explode into a raging Jinchuriki. throw the Zetsu monster back at her, and they take out half of Gotham ripping each other to pieces.

(the Bats and Kei's team hear her agonized beastial screech, even the ones on the other side of the city, and know this is Worst Case Scenario)

this is an excellent narrative strategy for maximum pain and plot drama for Kei and friends, and i can see it coming so close to fruition (if i'm even in the ballpark here, this is all an educated guess)

unfortunately for Ra's and Zetsu, Batman exists. he knows how Ra's operates. once the fear toxin came into play, and Batman listened to Kei talk about her past, i'm pretty sure he could connect those dots.

"Superpowered ninja host of a demon able to level a city, if pressed, and her main trauma trigger is her brother being threatened or harmed in any way. Right. Best keep the brother out of harm's way. If only they could all stay put."

also unfortunate for Ra's and Zetsu, Jason exists. i doubt they were expecting Hayate to adopt Gotham's newest menace, nor for Jason to take to it like a mother goose. Kei might be correct in thinking Hayate is safer with Jason than with her, bc as volatile and explosive as he can be, he's not quite "city-leveling" tier.

as DC stories tend to go, the villains plot usually gets to play out at least most of the way. so maybe Hayate does get hurt at some point, maybe Kei does lose it, but this could be where Jason finally works with the Bats + Team Minato to save the day (and his new little brother....)

anyway, idk how much of this is right, but the pieces have been fitting themselves together in the back of my brain for a while. and if i'm on the money on any of this and you'd rather not post bc spoilers, no worries!! i just wanted to share how much i've been thinking about it, it's on a short list of things i play in my mental movie theater ಠ⁠◡⁠ಠ

[image description: a GIF of Kronk from Emperor's New Groove saying "Oh yeah. It's all coming together." end description.]

I love it when readers send me their analysis. It really helps me figure out what's working when I write and what is sticking with people.

And I hope you feel like a detective for having figured out most of today's evil plan (credit to Ra's al Ghul) before a fair number of the characters in Gotham have. I'm glad you picked up on it!

[didyoutrydynamite]

So what even is “Renegade Au?”

So people have been wondering what exactly the Renegade Au is, the very short of it is basically “What if Jaune and Cinder bonded during Beacon?” With the exception of a few character changes, the Renegade Au follows closely to the canon story line up until after the Batlle of Haven. (Had to dial Adam WAY back from his original canon writing in order for him to work in this lol In Renegades he’s less of a psychotic abusive ex boyfriend and more like the love child of Prince Zuko and Kevin Eleven.)

This Au was something I used to think about all the time back in the day when Volume Six was just coming out, but I didn’t have the skills or time to write about it. I eventually put it to the back of my mind and eventually was inspired to write JNRZ Au!

The Renegade Au is mentally stored away in eight different parts, and the posts I’ve recently been making with Jaune, Cinder, Adam, and Neo, this takes place in Part 4 smack dab in the middle of the whole story. Now, these are going to be massively edited summaries of the first four parts of the Au, and will be missing a whole lot of certain nuances and important moments, but pretty much give gist of what led up to the formation of the Renegades.

Part 1: Beacon. Jaune and Cinder meet and essentially become friends during the Vytal Festival event of Volume 2 and 3. They have friendly banter, assist each other with training and advice, and even go on a couple of “sort of dates”. Cinder, knowing how this is going to end, makes it clear to Jaune that she's not interested in anything serious. Despite this, they continue to spend time together and almost become intimate at one point. In contrast to the typical Knightfall Beacon narrative, Cinder STILL goes through with the plan, almost blowing it by giving Jaune the “Don’t come to school tomorrow”. The Fall of Beacon still takes place, Pyrrha dies, and Cinder gets annihilated by Ruby's Silver Eyes. The only real major difference is that Jaune is forced to kill Penny on national television instead of Pyrrha. (Does that mean I kinda called it several years in advance???)

Part 2: Wanderers. In this section, the events of Volume 4 and 5 are closely followed as Team RNJR journeys through Mistral while Salem's gang continues their usual schemes. The main focus of this part, however, is on how Jaune and Cinder are coping with the aftermath of the Beacon incident. While Cinder recovers from the effects of the Silver Eyes and trains to master her Maiden powers, she finds that her success is a hollow victory that leaves her with conflicting emotions and a frightening realization that she may never be truly satisfied. On the other hand, Jaune is fixated on the idea of killing Cinder, having honed his Aura-enhancing techniques to the point where he can now start pulling off superhuman strength feats. The story reaches a climax in Part 2 with the Battle of Haven, where Jaune and Cinder engage in a 1v1 fight that tears up an entire wing of the school. Despite ultimately overpowering Jaune, Cinder spares his life, and goes down to the vault to get owned by Raven.

Part 3: Reconciliation. begins right after the Battle of Haven and continues into Volume 6, with a dying Cinder contacting Jaune on his scroll, which she remembers from their time at Beacon. Instead of seeking revenge, Jaune finds Cinder by the riverbed and uses his newly discovered Semblance to heal her. Despite still harboring hatred towards Cinder, Jaune realizes that he felt emptier when he thought she was gone, so he can't bring himself to kill her even when she's at her most vulnerable. In return for saving her life, Cinder offers to help Jaune in any way she can. They make a deal that Cinder will help Jaune find Pyrrha's parents so that he can properly pay his respects and grieve for her passing. Together, they embark on a journey across Mistral, overcoming obstacles and emotional barriers, and having plenty of screaming, crying, and heart-to-heart conversations. Eventually, they find Pyrrha's parents at the southernmost point of Mistral (Instead of Argus this time), where Cinder shares Pyrrha's last words and her own regrets, stopping short of confessing to murdering her. From this moment here, Jaune and Cinder have pretty much given closure to their shared past and have essentially started back at square one.

Part 4: Renegades. This part of the story takes place in Volume 7, specifically during the four or five months skipped over in the original show before Salem's attack on Atlas. It begins with Jaune and Cinder dining in a dive bar for thugs and rogues when news of a record-breaking bounty on their heads, placed upon them by Clay Forester, a creepy and mysterious Grimm Poacher they met and fought during part, who also has a strange fixation on Cinder.bThe entire block erupts into chaos as bounty hunters, criminals, Jaune and Cinder, along with the unexpected aid of Adam Taurus (There to join up with Cinder) and Neo Politan (Originally there to kill Cinder, they cool now though), fight for survival. After the battle, Neo and Adam express their desire for revenge against Team RWBY. Jaune, having just gone on a journey of forgiveness with Cinder, invites them to join him in forming a new team called The Renegades. Despite Cinder's reluctance, they set out on a journey across Mistral, taking jobs for money and supplies while fighting off every bounty hunter, bandit, and monster that stands in their way on their way to Atlas.

Again, this the TL:DR of what’s happened so far in Renegades Au in terms of the posts I’ve shown so far, so there’s a TON of intricate details missing. When I open Asks back up after this Weekend you are all more than welcome to ask me anything you want about this Au.

[neonsix67]

Who's ready for today's Sermon?

So...I started my second playthrough of cult of the lamb with this little gal in mind. The playthough is in petinance mode (i think i spelt it wrong but its basically survival mode) which requires the player to eat and sleep otherwise you die, and if you die that way then the death is permanent. Which is fine, because that's exactly what I want for the story of this Lamb.

Lore under break (plus bonus sketches)

Eventually I plan on naming her, but this is essentially my world building playthrough whilst also my Lamb x Narinder sorta playthrough. (Awkward since just a couple days ago I saw him as nothing other than a father figure, but a different age has risen with a different lamb, and I always do what I want)

The whole gist of this one is basically that this Lamb is still mortal even after receiving the crown because she is not really the last Lamb, but she has every intent on completing the prophecy so that the other lambs don't have to die. She gave up everything, she left her family and friends for solitude so she could try and face the heretics and followers of the bishops, just so she could face the God of Death and challenge him so the stupid prophecy can finally be put to rest.

She essentially gets sacrificed and faces Narinder, who had no intention of making her a vessel, but she just goes, "You! I want to take a crack at that stupid quest, make me your vessel and I'll prove it right and wrong all at once!" Narinder just humors her, not thinking much of it up until she actually does start killing the bishops.

It's not until the Bishops see this potential despite not finding and killing all the lambs that they set their targets on her....and her family. Following the rest of the lambs as well, they will go on a deep purge. After sacrificing her family the bishops thought they had finally put the threat to rest, thinking the Lamb would give up the crown to follow her family into afterlife, but she just uses her anger and grief to kill Shamura in a swift battle, completing the project wholly.

She, of course, fights Narinder as well. The One Who Waits showed her family no time before sending them on their walk through death and not doing anything to warn her of his siblings plans. (Not that he could've or would've known or been able to do anything anyway, but she was blind by rage)

It's only through her culture, where she has gathered all the Bishops in their pathetic mortal forms, and after she herself has become God, that she stops to realize that she has done wrong....now she is immortal...and stuck with the very people she usurped. It's only then that she tries to make amends; gathering the bishops' lost parts and trying to mend what could have been with Narinder in every way she can.

All in all, her overall personality is bright, cheerful... naive...but she viewed that as a strength where Narinder saw it as weakness. And in a sense it did make her lose control, it drove her to kill without reason and become cold. But the moment she came back she had to deal with the emotions somehow whilst still maintaining her Cult. She kept to a bright smile and burying her guilt, something not left unseen by someone who watched her ever so closely since the moment she died and dared to challenge death. But that's a whole can of worms for another time (when I actually get Narinders design down).