#cause i have no idea what happens post arc 6 yet

[saelrum]

"This is your last chance"

[ihopeinevergetsoberr]

the counterpart

chapter 6 — done it warning, done it now

art cr: @zaunitearchives our most faithful viktor lover <3 (can you guess which one of the inspo pics belongs to me?because i wasn’t joking when i said i might start using my pictures for these silly frames — I‘M DEDICATED to this fic okay)

word count: 2,2k

VERY nsfw, horny idiots in love, dialogue dialogue dialogue, explicit language, public masturbation, vehicle sex if you will. some porn to prepare you for the chaos i may or may not cause in the next chap 🫣

part 7

—

“Do you ever feel like a pawn?” 

He turns around and his weary head tips deeper into what little comfort an old bus seat could provide, honeyed eyes a confused reproach pointed at your sheepish smile — had you dawdling over the halo of sun rays slipping prettily into the dark scatter of his hair, turning chestnut into rich, warm bourbon. 

“Since when are you interested in philosophy?”

It makes you stumble over an innocent chuckle; fingers grow flush and hot against his, threatening to slide out of the warm press of hands — to satiate the sudden whim of cradling his face and dipping your thumbs gently into the sharp lines of defined cheekbones. 

“Answer the question, Viktor.” 

Oh the forwardness. Always gives him the urge to comply no matter how ridiculous the request is — be it a hypothetical silly ‘what if’ or an actual firm demand. 

“I don’t project on inanimate objects, milackú,” he maneuvered smoothly out of your prudent trip, placing a cheeky kiss on the curious arc of your mouth. “But, in order not to digress — yes, I suppose I do. Quite occasionally. In your arms.” 

“Smooth. Bravo, Viktor — that was so sweet I might have to see a dentist now.”

“Don’t forget to send me the bill.” 

You gawked at the tooth gap in his proud grin with a hopeless sigh, leaning closer to tuck your face into the crevice of his slender neck. Couldn’t care less about the other passengers — nor did they care about you, to be frank: your seats were hidden in the back corner securely enough. Lips pressed to the fresh love bruise, so poorly covered with a mess of his unbuttoned collar — a not so humble possessive remnant of the morning tryst in his room. You craved a change of scenery: ravishing only one bed quickly becomes boring and unfair to its just as much ravished owner. 

“No, but seriously,” you kept prying, words a muffled mumble against the slim of his skin — had you smiling when you caught the subtle scent of soap on the barely exposed collarbone, and his hand found tender leverage in your hair as thoughts drifted to the delicious things he did to you in that bathroom this very morning. Even longed to hold him there for a little longer — if not for the damn bus, that was now rapidly moving towards your opportunity to flaunt. Or to become a pitiful disgrace. Unfortunately, so far you were only leaning towards the latter. 

It was Viktor’s idea. To play a local tournament — a somewhat silly for a person of his rating gathering, that he had no valid reason to attend. And yet he was so insistent on taking you there, held your hand so securely tight as you tried to fruitlessly convince him of your incompetence. Well, not incompetence, per se — you were simply a tad bit rusty, with a long forgotten dream of ever turning your passion into something professional. Endured a lengthy back and forth filled with his soft persistence and your capricious reluctance (which was secretly just a failed attempt to cover your incitement). 

Because you loved the competition. Used to live off the thrill of having people at the edges of their seats, consumed their defeated groans alongside each captured piece, and forcibly swallowed the spiteful comments spinning at the tip of your tongue during each bitter post-defeat handshake. Adored the elegant gall-spitting on the checkered board, and loved hearing people whisper malicious things whenever you entered the room. 

What happened to that version of you? Was it still there — a sharp tiny warrior, or ‘that pretentious little cunt’ — a title you wore proudly after a certain querulous opponent had revealed it to you generously all these years ago?

Well, certainly. Angry girls grow up shaped into furious women, but your fierceness is now only imposed on men, poetry and lechery. Anything but tournaments. 

And — while chess still owned your heart — you had to bow your head to the countless obstacles of life, aiming for stability; fed the vigorous child inside you countless books and analyzed hundreds of games, hoping that, eventually, that stupid yearning will be sated. 

But now you had him — your bright opponent, rated strong intermediate and highly respected in narrow circles. A player of great potential — he was everything you could’ve been by now, a living proof of one’s passion and major coexisting peacefully. Your personal Czech serpent, the gentlest hangman of your fortitude — eager to get you rated, to make you see your skills through his meticulous eyes.

So here you were. Entwined with him in the contentious privacy of this backseat, harried with occasional chokeholds of your nervousness. Viktor was waiting for your point, all flushed ears and uneven breath. 

“What I mean is,” you sighed again, tongue dancing skittishly over the front row of teeth, “don’t you ever feel so small and utterly unimportant? Like everyone else is so much more valuable?” 

“But pawns are very important,” he protested, coaxing you to quit hiding from his acute eyes, “I delivered checkmates with pawns countless times before. And so did you.“

You couldn’t argue with that logic. Just sank deeper into his arms and watched the light run through his dilated pupils — the slipping boredom of the city both of you were getting out of today. 

“Yes, but would you rather lose a pawn or… say, a rook? Or a knight? Or quite literally any other thing?” reluctant to bend to his attempts at soothing your restless mind, you refused to retreat and sweetly troubled him further. His smirk curled atop yours in a curt little touch — but one can’t kiss away a worry that excessive. Even as determined as he was to try. 

“Depends on the circumstances. Surely, choosing to lose a powerful piece over a less significant one sounds unreasonable when you put it that way — but we both know it doesn’t exactly work like that.” 

His sigh — or was it the rough scorch of the sun? — was making you melt; took care of your misery like the acidic little thing it is. Big palm stirred over the hem of a cotton dress, tracing it with a tremble, then slipping cautiously underneath — to curl around your thigh and pin it to the seat like a gentle shackle. You could still make out the grip through the sheer restraint of fabric; had your legs clenching together to trap it viciously into a crate of skin and soft little hairs: they stood on their ends oh so treacherously, each shiver palpable under the calluses of Viktor’s fingers. 

“Moje laska.” There it is again. Turning you into a dumb pile of freshly discovered weaknesses — he could burn you to ashes that very moment and you’d gladly let him get away with it, as long as that hand stayed so close to home, damp from your sweat and whatever beads of slick seeping through the soaked ruin of your underwear. If only he could reach down and throw а quivering thigh over one scrawny shoulder, tongue a trail chasing the wet deliciousness of your lust after him — just how he likes it: sweet, slow and salacious. The holy trinity of your fervent undoings.

“You’ll make them all feel like pawns,” you felt him sting the shell of your ear in a tortuous whisper, his caress tenderly cruel against what little composure left between tense legs, “I can promise you that much.” 

“We have a tournament to play, and that’s what you’re thinking about right now?” you tried to snatch the power out of his hands, but tripped over his long middle finger — so viciously close to the swollen folds. He could’ve grasped the shape of them through the obstacle of fabric if only you approved of the mischief. 

“We have a tournament to play, and you’re wasting our precious time on baseless self-consciousness. I am merely providing a pleasant distraction,” he explained, then retreated to offer you a moment of hesitation. “Unless the setting is too public for you, of course. I don’t mind proceeding in private, with less prying eyes nailed to your potential, eh… agony.” 

“My, you’re shameless.” 

“You’re one to talk. So? May I?”

Gaze quickly flipped through the row of potential witnesses, failing to notice a single giving a fuck one. Viktor waited for your permission with patiently bated breath, watching your throat move when you gulped, slightly strangled. 

“Please.” 

His lips protruded into a line — a show-off of a smirk at the eroded crumbles of your sanity. Because, indeed — your writhing was needy to its very core, legs tumbled in to coax your salvation out of him. Impatient, fitful, stubborn — your demand was impeccable in its tacit delivery, emphasized the urgency when a single fingertip brushed the entrance soft and languid, then found the wet, laced at the edges barrier. White and see-through, with a silly bow sitting prettily right on top — he watched you put them on fresh out of shower, all damp-skinned and weak-kneed, the swift slide of light fabric over the divine thick of your thighs. It’s a shame he couldn't see the mess he’d made out of them. 

A well-rehearsed route: a casual slide inside the delicate garment, a timid swipe over each plush fold. Immutable, but you liked it — begged for more into his rouge under the white shirt shoulder. It matched you so effortlessly. Though his attire was sticky only from sweat. 

Torturous. Purely, perfectly, obscenely tortuous — that’s how his finger felt, hot and slick, in a precious little roll against the swell of your clit, and you found hold of his lean thigh, nails like sharp anchors in the gentle flesh of it — squeezing hard enough to cut through his pants. And his little chuckles —  these warm brisk spurts of muffled laughter. They had your free from gnawing at him hand pressing tight against your mouth, pushing the debauched whine back into your throat until it was practically strangling you, swallowing hard to keep everyone present unaware of the stage of bliss you were going through in that damned seat. As tempted as you were to scream at the top of your burning lungs — it was best for your audience to remain unconcerned. 

Don’t get caught, don’t attract attention, don’t fuck it up — but god was it difficult when you needed so much more than just these restrained, subtle cirles against your aching clit. Glassy-eyed and so tense, you silently pleaded him to keep going — a second away from rolling into his lap to fall strung up on his just as much aching cock and have him thrust your heart out in that very grimmy seat. And he would do it, always so happy to please — no doubt muttering swears towards the oblivious handful of other passengers, mourning the urge to tend to as you deserve it — full-course and thorough. 

He probably won’t fuck you in public ever again. Not where he couldn’t pay you every last neck kiss and every last lewd little word, at the very least. 

But for now he tormented you meticulously towards the sweet climax — clockwise, calculated, gentle. With an occasional flick of darkened eyes over each potential witness: to make sure he’s the only one to savor your collapse, the ever thoughtful protector of your pleasure. And there he was in your ear again — with a filthy helping of pleasantries spoken softly to ensure you get what you want. 

“You’re so beautiful.” Voice satin, motions timidly flawless. He had a bit of a hard time pronouncing it, choked on a humm so utterly awe-struck. “Oh, the things I’d do to you if only we were alone. The things I’m tempted to do to you — to hell with privacy. Being quiet doesn’t suit you, milovaná.” 

And you finally spilled. Heavy head dropped back in what could’ve been a loud lustful moan — mouth formed an eager O under the slam of your sweaty palm. Buckled knees and tiny convulsions — you came not nearly hard enough in comparison to what he usually puts you through, yet it still lanced through you and turned limbs numb, and your clit felt sore from the remnants of your dissolving arousal, throbbing under the generous stroke of his fingertips. 

A slow orgasm — both in delivery and departure, a taunting treat that left you delightfully dizzy. You captured the warm sight of him through the fluttering cover of lashes, myriad white dots biting roughly at your vision, rubbing rudely into a sunny line that melted the ends of his wild hair into a lighter shade. His hand slid away, tremulous. Left a glossy trace all the way up to your shaking knee. His thin wrist definitely caught a little cramp. 

“Breathe.” A sultry reminder upon the slope of your shoulder as his lips found some skin in a brief kiss. Cheeky. Self-pleased. Had you nearly sobbing in fresh desperation when he wiped two glistening fingers to a fetched out handkerchief ostentatiously. Absorbed every drop of you and tucked it back into his breast pocket — to lewdly wear you there next to his heart. 

You’ll need a few cigarettes back-to-back to recover from this.  

The bus needed fifteen more minutes to gently spit you out into the hostile arms of the competition.

—

tags: @thehistoriangirl @zaunitearchives @blissfulip @queen-of-elves @vyshnevska

[snowbellewells]

Self Promo Sunday: "Sky's Canvas"

This little future Swan-Jones-Mills family fic envisioning them during their happy beginning post-s6 would probably have been well suited to Father's Day last week, but I didn't think of it until too late. I hope it will still be enjoyable this week too. It's a part of my one shot collection on AO3 or ff.net (if you'd prefer to read it either of those places instead) I hope you have fun picturing this alternate idea of what might have happened - and I'd love to hear what you think!

Notes: I toyed with the idea for this one for quite some time. The prompt elements that I have used are: a museum, the phrase “it was just a joke”, and also some small art facts – mostly about the particular museum itself (which is real). I have also put in a CS daughter (my personal head canon imagined one, Morgan Ruth Jones, whom I have written about before), and a college aged Henry. So, this is set somewhere in an alternative post-season 6 reality, where Henry stays in the Land Without Magic to seek his story, and also to be close enough to visit his family often, and for them to return the favor…)

by: @snowbellewells

The bubbly, nonstop chatter of her four-year-old little girl, which has cheerfully been filling Emma Swan’s ears for the past hour and a half, suddenly stills, immediately grabbing her attention and setting off an interior maternal alarm. She turns to seek out Morgan Ruth Jones – her little pirate princess – wondering if her daughter has yet again managed to sneak away from them and find herself in some sort of trouble.

Luckily, Emma doesn’t have to look far before she hears a chortling trill of baby laughter and locates her toddler with the disheveled head of dark, ringlet curls and twinkling, mischievous eyes – an aquamarine mix of her own green gaze and her father’s ocean blue – standing before a huge oil painting of a Spanish galleon rocking precariously on the stormy main and looking up at her father with fixed adoration. “Really, Papa?” Emma hears Morgan chirp, practically bouncing on the balls of her little feet as she tugs anxiously at his hook in eagerness to hear his answer. “Was it a storm that big you sailed ‘Roger’ through when you went to save Henwy in Neverland?!”

Emma is just chuckling wryly at the changes which have transpired in her life to give her a little girl more interested in daring adventures, ancient naval ships, and sword fighting than frilly dresses or dolls and makeup, even as her husband raises his eyes just enough to smirk at her knowingly over Morgan’s head, when another voice, youthful, warm, and settling into its masculine, adult timbre, answers Morgan’s question from over her shoulder, announcing Henry’s arrival to join them. “It was bigger, Pipsqueak,” he confirms jovially, pausing briefly to wrap a wiry arm around his mom in a quick side-hug before continuing to the side of his younger half-sister, kneeling to her level and adding with a gleam in his eye, “A mermaid summoned it to drown them all.”

“Hen-wy!!” Morgan squeals with glee; the painting, and even her papa’s beloved ship, forgotten as she flings herself into her brother’s arms with enough force to nearly bowl him over, causing Henry to chuckle as he catches her close to his chest.

“Hey Munchkin,” he greets affectionately, standing to his full height again – now even with his stepdad’s – still holding Morgan, her arms wrapped around his neck so tightly that Emma has to wonder if she’s ever going to let go. Turning to include his mom and his surrogate father in his next statement, Henry adds. “It’s great to see you all. Things must be quiet in Storybrooke, if you’re still going to stay all weekend.”

Here he arcs an eyebrow in curious bemusement, a trait Emma realizes all too well that he has picked up from her dashing scoundrel of a husband and probably uses to equally charming effect on all the girls he meets in his freshman courses at Bowdoin College. It is clear he has settled easily into the small arts school in Brunswick, Maine, just under a two hours’ drive from them, and that the campus atmosphere and freeing anonymity and normalcy he has there must be agreeing with him. Emma wants to snort in disbelieving laughter at his jest, though well aware that he knows better than to ever think his hometown would go completely, boringly normal. Instead, she shakes her head resignedly, merely giving her grown son a playfully long-suffering sigh. “You know how it is,” she shrugs, “never a dull moment. But – if you don’t count the dwarves coming to blows at Granny’s the other morning because Tom Clark accidentally sat in Leroy’s spot at the counter and got his flu germs on Leroy’s plate of bacon and eggs…”

“Which I do count,” Killian interrupts smoothly, winking at his adopted son. “I am the one who risked infection from the virus in forestalling their skirmish.”

Emma rolls her eyes at her deputy husband’s interruption and mutters “drama queen” under her breath, which Henry and Morgan both clearly hear and snicker at before she continues, “Otherwise it’s been as quiet as it ever gets. No deathly dangerous villains or curses meant to tear us apart and wipe our memories blank.”

“Yet…” Killian adds on needlessly, an ominous tone in his voice acknowledging the fact that they all know it’s only a matter of time before some new threat is wreaking havoc again. Their sleepy little town might seem like a place lost in time and space, but it is still a veritable magnet for trouble, and none of them can deny it.

Killian, however, waggles his brows playfully after his foreboding aside, making Henry shake his own head at his stepfather. It had seemed a rather grim pronouncement for the reformed pirate – more like his mom, really.

Morgan grins widely back at her father, nodding in gleeful agreement, her gap-toothed smile showing where she has lost a fair few of her baby teeth recently. “Yeah…yet!” she exclaims, not fully understanding the concern behind the sentiment, but always ready – as is her entire extended family – for action and excitement.

Emma shakes her head in humored exasperation at her two “children” – wondering, as she often does, how someone who has seen and experienced as much as Killian, who has witnessed some of the worst humanity had to offer and suffered at their hands, who has lived so long and weathered such crushing heartbreak and hate, can still easily find such simple, child-like joy in the littlest things. “Really, guys?” she questions, looking to her college student son for more mature support. “Can’t we just enjoy things being normal for once?”

“Aye, of course, my Love,” Killian replies deftly. “ ‘Twas merely a joke,” he adds, leaning over to brush a quick kiss to her brow that makes Morgan giggle, hide her face in Henry’s shoulder, and cry out, “Eww, they’re kissing again!” in a frank, tickling whisper against her older sibling’s skin.

“Just a joke is right,” Henry declares, motioning them forward to venture on into the rest of the Bowdoin College Museum and toward the particular exhibit he wants them to see. The collection was an 1811 bequest from a wealthy benefactor to the school and was one of the earliest college art collections in the country, as Henry had enthusiastically told her over the phone some weeks ago when his project had commenced. His Maritime History class had done a cross-curriculum partnership with the arts department to put together a student exhibit of research and mixed media in the college’s museum, and Henry has been quite secretive about his entry, even if insistent that they needed to see it in person. “Like anyone could be around you lot for long and think you were normal!” he scoffs.

“Ha ha,” his mother laughs drolly, bumping into his side with her shoulder in playful retribution as they move ahead side-by-side, with Killian, who is now holding a wriggling Morgan once again, following closely behind. However, once the jostling ceases, Emma grasps her nearly-grown son’s hand in hers for a moment, stunned anew at how much he has changed from the little boy who had found her in Boston all those years ago, and led her into the very life she has now. Squeezing tightly with emotion welling up in her throat, she wishes he could truly understand how much she loves him.

“Missed you too, Mom,” Henry murmurs softly, pressing her fingers back with his own wrapped around them. It is more than enough and makes her heart flutter in gladness.

Once Henry leads them through a few different rooms and several intriguing displays, he slows when they reach a large, somewhat circular room with a high, arched ceiling, and then turns to them with a mysterious smile on his face and clear anticipation in his big, brown eyes, just as they have always held, even at ten years old.

At first glance, this particular exhibit, this room in itself, seems empty. Looking around with faces equally full of curiosity and confusion, Killian, Emma, and Morgan end up staring back at Henry expectantly until Killian finally speaks up, “Begging your pardon, Lad, but I’m afraid I am not quite certain what you wish for us to see.”

Henry gives a nod of acknowledgement, rather knowingly pleased, and making Emma smirk to herself with a mother’s satisfaction at seeing her son so confidently happy and in his element. ‘He’s definitely got something up his sleeve,’ she thinks affectionately, admittedly finding herself anxious to see what his surprise might be. She knows that Henry has been loving this course all term – not to mention how thrilled her husband had been at the news – and that the long term practicum research projects are being showcased here throughout the entire month of April. Emma can only conclude that her son’s hard work has paid off in a way he’s proud of, and he must believe wholeheartedly that they will be too.

All Henry says is, “I take it you’re ready then?” and at Killian’s nod and Morgan’s “Yes, yes, YES, Henwy!!” exclamation, while she hops up and down exuberantly, he switches off the lights and presses a previously unnoticed button next to the light switch.

Immediately, the light and airy sound of some sort of flute or piccolo trickles through the quiet air of the room, a gently evocative melody with a lingering, haunted quality to its tone, enhanced by the sound echoing beneath of waves washing gently against the hull of some easily floating ship or back and forth over the shore of some deserted bay. Even as the sounds which are familiar and comforting to his tiny family audience wrap around them, small pinpricks of light appear just like stars in the night sky out on the ocean, sparking to life on the walls around them and the high ceiling overhead. It is a constellation spread out just for them in breathtaking majesty. Then, the Author begins to narrate his newest story…

Listening to Henry’s words, Emma feels her breath catch just a bit in both awe and emotion, glancing quickly over at her husband and daughter, before either of them realizes they are being observed. Morgan’s green eyes are wide and sparkling with interest and excitement, her mouth an open “o” as she looks above her, dazzled at what would appear for all the world to be the stars and constellations in the night sky brought indoors and spread out for their entertainment. Killian is silent and still, so much so that Emma knows – as few others would – just how valiantly he is battling some strong emotion…how very touched he is. Emma was never as great a student of the star charts and navigational astronomy as her sailor would have loved to make her, but Henry ate it right up, and she would bet her battered and beloved old VW that Henry has recreated some particular display that holds an extra meaning for he and his stepdad alone.

Shaking herself slightly to bring her focus back to earth and her attention back to the words of Henry’s presentation once more, she hears her son’s voice – soothing, engaging, and reeling her into the adventurous stories behind the scattered specks of light arrayed above them and their meaning and guidance to generations of sailors making their ways on a wide and pathless sea.

“The Cygnus,” Killian mouths silently beside her, appearing genuinely awestruck as he takes his gaze just momentarily from Henry’s representative “sky” to look in the eyes of the young man he has for years now cared for and loved like a son; a sincere gaze of fond understanding passing between them that brings a film of unshed tears to Emma’s vision that she has to rapidly blink away. In fact, soundless though it may be, she catches Killian’s comment only because she is so focused on her husband and his emotional reaction to this gift Henry has given all of them – but her pirate in particular. Emma senses that Killian knows it in this moment and holds tightly to his fingers twined with hers while practically beaming at her son, wondering again how she ever got lucky enough that the two most important people in her world would love each other as much as they each love her.

Morgan reaches over from Killian’s arms to pat her mother’s cheeks as Henry concludes his tale and turns the lights back up. “Don’t cry, Mama,” Morgan coos sweetly. “Henwy’s story was happy in the end. The Swan leads the sailor to his home.”

Emma smiles shakily at her daughter, and then the rest of her family with their looks of understanding. “I know, Baby,” Emma murmurs softly, still brushing away the evidence, but with her smile growing broader all the while. “Don’t worry. These are happy tears.”

Tagging a few who might enjoy: @jennjenn615 @searchingwardrobes @kmomof4 @jrob64 @apiratewhopines

@whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi @stahlop @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @winterbaby89

@spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @tiganasummertree @optomisticgirl @xsajx @bluewildcatfanatic

@xarandomdreamx @booksteaandtoomuchtv @anmylica @jonesfandomfanatic @motherkatereloyshipper @branlovestowrite

@linda8084 @lfh1226-linda @the-darkdragonfly @elizabeethan @donteattheappleshook @let-it-raines @ineffablecolors

[generalluxun]

Fanfic Author 20 Questions

Thanks to @erisluna35 for sending this along! 1. How many works do you have on AO3?

On AO3? Right now 63, soon to be 64(tomorrow probably) and a couple on FF.net

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

1,020,860 on AO3 plus another ~86K fic I never ported over to AO3, as my 'recent' stuff, starting back in 2021

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Miraculous Ladybug, I did others a long time ago before joining AO3, but that was a long time ago. I've considered a couple others recently too, but nothing yet.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

At The Gala- A Chlonette fic inspired by fanart, and actually the sequel to my #2 by Kudos. This is just a cute series of strange interactions with Chloe from Marinette's PoV, culminating in understanding and discovery on a fated evening.

Slippery slope- Little Chlonette ficlet inspired by a fanart. Very short, it's about how a single unexpected moment can change someone's entire world.

Ever After- A long chapter fic set more than a decade post-canon that looks into the idea that 'Ever After' can be a long time, and that expecting life to be solved at 14 is a recipe for eventual disaster. Yet at the same time life continues to offer new experiences, new possibilities, and new ways to grow. Ships include Adrienette, Chloadrien, and Felinette.

Showing Love- An alternate ending to Queen Wasp, where instead of reuniting Chloé with her horrible mother by highlighting everything horrible about her (seriously, what?) Marinette comes face to face with the reality that a mother really *can* not love a child. Being Marinette she can't let such a thing stand, even if it is Chloé. Marinette&Dupain-Cheng family goodness.

What Do you See?- Adrigami fic that kicks off right in the middle of Kuro Neko. While Adrien is struggling with the pain of giving up Cat Noir, one thing crosses his mind. He can finally give one important person the truth she deserves. After all, he *Was* Cat Noir, not *is*. The two both struggle to navigate the ramifications of this revelation, especially when Plagg shows up once more with the ring. (there's a little bit of eventual Lukanette)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to respond to most, especially any questions or curiosities. I love engagement.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh heck this is so not fair. I am in love with bittersweet ending, and have a couple of doozies.

I can't decide between three.

What Happened- The 'real reason' Chloé Bourgeois's redemption arc failed. What do you di when you do everything right, only to find out your happiness causes the end of the world, in every timeline?

A Modest Proposal- Marinette is happily impatient for Adrien to finally propose to her. Little does she know, a secret long kept is going to come back to haunt her. It's worse than you think.

The Risk Outweighs- A look into someone else's life during the episode 'Risk'. The courage to do anything finally gives Chloé the strength to break from the cycle. But the Ladybugs must set things right, and a few moments of clarity weigh nothing against a lifetime.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, lots with happy endings, though I prefer 'open' endings, so...hmmm

Cafe Noir- has an unambiguously happy ending, but I specifically set out to write a romcom so that feels like cheating.

Dog Daze- probably has the most comprehensively happy ending, Adrien's dad even managed to try to parent. They do go through a lot on the way to the happy ending though.

In Direct Opposition- My latest work, seems to end on a solidly happy note for all involved.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Ever After drew some upset people that expected their OTP to be the main ship. I never tried to deceive anyone, but a few people were just really upset.

I also had this weird thing where someone thought I was someone else, and stalked my comments for a while. That's why I use moderation now.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've done M rated fics. I'm not sure 'smut' works for them, even if there's lots of sex narratively, it's usually mentioned rather than being detailed. I did one single 'this will be a smut fic' fic. And even that ended up with like, 5K words mostly plot, and about 2 paragraphs of (I think emotional and important) sex.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Nah, I've never had the crossover itch. I generally find each world intriguing enough on their own.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of...

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep! I had someone ask if they could translate one of my fics to Russian.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope. Talked about it before, but never went through with it. Not against the idea. I do a lot of rubber ducking for my friends though, so some of my ideas can end up in their finished fics.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I'm going ot have to go with adribrina, my goobers. I like exploring all kinds of ships, and these two I threw together on a whim but Oh, they're so comfy! I wrote Puppy Love to see how they would work, and then that evolved into Dog Daze, my Largest work to date. I had *intended* for them to amicably break up and Sabrina to be a wing-woman to Adrien in the canon ship of Adrienette.... but they just did not want to break up. Even if they wouldn't admit they were dating, they were just too *comfy* together. These two make me happy. (Marinette ended up okay though, she's happy!)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

A third fic in my Senti-Sentai AU. 'Worlds Collide'. It was set in 'vague eastern Europe country in the middle of violent conflict' and then that suddenly got too real, too quickly.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character voice. I write third person limited, and I've been told many times that I do a very good job of writing characters as their canonical selves, just in different situations that bring about different outcomes or changes in them. I consider that a high compliment, because the characters are what I am here for.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Brevity. Even simplistic plots 'enemies to friends road trip' become detailed 'Marinette manipulates Chloé into chasing Adien and Lila across the globe to prevent Lila from wheedling an arranged Marriage out of Gabriel' and then that blossoms into a 98K fic.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I feel like my last of understanding grammar and colloquialisms for another language would have me sounding like bad google translate. Singular words used? Viable.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

SWATKats. My first ever fanfic was a 30K fic about that show.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

They are all my babies! This is so not fair. I've spoken about some of my favorites earlier though, so I'll use this spot to mention some other ones :)

He's Perfect- Gothic Horror Adrienette! It even has a sequel and an entire AU in my head if I can circle back.

The Orphan and the Marionette- Written to feel like one of Grimm's fairy tales. Chlonette(kind of) with a heavy dose of magic and a surprise appearance from Marianne.

There are so many more but I'll plug Dog Daze again, because I to like how it flows and the alternate S5 we get from it. It also inspired a raft of 'post story' one shots, and I have another chapter fic waiting in the wings to continue the AU. There's plenty of stories to tell here.

@taketwoinink Tag, if you would like to play.

[destinygoldenstar]

I got to Episode 6 so far

I’ll make a post on full thoughts when I finish

It’s wild to me cause I’ve never seen Ninjago be trending this much since Sons of Garmadon in 2018. So I had to question “What in the name of FSM caused THIS much riot”?!

It’s good so far. Obviously it is.

The fear sequence REALLY took me for a loop in craziness.

And Bonzle… I didn’t think she was gonna play a major role at all, but the casual way she revealed her identity… Me and my GF literally paused and went “I’m sorry, WHAT?!”

I also find a lot of relatability with Arin so much, especially nowadays. And right now, I think this arc is being handled very well. I think Arin is one of those characters that speaks to adults more than kids. Ironic. Him not understanding social cues, his insecurity about being inferior to everyone around him even when they encourage you it’s just mistakes and it doesn’t help your case at all especially when everyone seems to have their thing figured out when you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing and why you’re even here-

IM IN THIS AND I DONT LIKE IT

Gosh I hate that dragon teacher. He reminds me a lot of the worst teachers I’ve had growing up. But I think I’m supposed to hate him.

Also, they are HEAVILY building up to Sora and Riyu learning Spinjitsu. They’re gonna learn it at the end, aren’t they? ARINS GONNA BE SO CRUSHED.

So yeah, it’s good. And we know now why it’s called Dragons Rising.

Is it better than season one?

SO FAR, eh…?

I do have some problems right now. I think Dragons Rising’s weakest aspect is it’s villains, compared to one’s in the main show that interact with the main characters quite a bit, these ones kinda just have a handful of confrontations and then do their own scheming thing and let the armies do the work. It’s kinda less threatening for them as a result.

And even then, those armies went after the lost family once, the ninja once when they went to cloud kingdom, and that’s it.

Except for Cinder shattering Wyldfyre’s bones, that’s insane. I’m surprised that doesn’t happen more often in this show.

It’s kinda off to me that we haven’t seen what went down in Cole’s little journey before he’s suddenly back. And I’m not a fan with putting the mech disks in this with no explanation on how they got them unless you’ve seen the shorts.

I also am hoping Lloyd’s little PTSD, or… foresight traumatic stress disorder, FTSD I guess, isn’t resolved yet.

Also WHAT DID KAI AND WYLDFYRE SEE IN THEIR FEAR VISIONS?!?! THAT IS GONNA DRIVE ME INSANE UNTIL I GET AN ANSWER

I need to get my full thoughts once the whole season is done. I always kinda have to do that.

But RIGHT NOW, I still question the hype a bit. Yeah it’s good, but… wow, WHAT happens in these last four episodes that could’ve POSSIBLY caused this much insanity across the community?

[skye-huntress]

She’s so Cheeky for a Commoner Volume 2 Thoughts

I’m back, and incidentally, I’m still be doing I’m in Love with the Villainess content. For clarification, She’s so Cheeky for a Commoner is a spin-off series that follows Claire’s point of view of the many events early in the series. However, it is not a complete retelling of the series, it only retells certain key moments, while sprinkling in entirely new scenes, new characters and story arcs, as well as occasionally giving the perspectives of different characters. It does not serve as a substitute for the original light novels, and you should still read those first if you don’t want to be spoiled.

Anyway, this particular book only covers Chapters 4 through 6 from the original series, with Chapters 7 and 8 presumably being covered in Volume 3. Spoilers below.

Starting off, we have the Scales of Love arc. My first point of interest was how much more conscious Claire was of Rae’s change of behaviour, and yet so oblivious to the cause.

The first big change is the conversation with Loretta and Pepi about their doubts and suspicions about Manaria. To be fair, those two didn’t become actual characters until the manga fleshed them out. Interestingly, they actually asked Rae for her opinion and took her observation into careful consideration. Turns out, Loretta also had another more personal reason why she was weary of Manaria.

Follow that up with Rae nearly dying in Claire’s arms and her going off at her precious Manaria for it. She seemed harsher here than in the anime.

It makes sense that after the “breakup” the first person to truly get a chance to console Claire without any ulterior motive would be Catherine. They are roommates after all. Also, we finally get to see what Catherine looks like. She’s so adorably and sweet, it’s all the more unacceptable that the rest of her family (who will likely be the death of her) are all complete scumbags and criminals. So Catherine manages to convince Claire to patch things up with Rae, unfortunately, while this conversation was happening, Manaria was escalating things yet again.

Personally, I think the anime did the confession best. Actually, my last post was a reblog of that scene.

Okay, so Claire is being congratulated and teased by Misha, the Princes and the minions. First interesting thing, we’re establishing the Rod is already into Rae and intends to pursue her but is letting Claire have her turn, I guess. Second interesting thing, everyone assuming it is a given that Rod will snatch Rae from Claire. To be fair, it is assumed at this point that Rod will be King, and none of them could imagine that Rae has such a fundamentally different view on marriage than the rest of them.

So now we enter that very weird stage in Rae and Claire’s relationship. They’ve finally acknowledged that Rae’s feelings are genuine and are requited, but they’re not actually together-together, yet. In Claire’s case, the issue is that all her social conditioning is telling her it is always the guy to make all the moves.

Apparently, Claire can get anxious whenever Rae acts overly familiar with anybody of the opposite gender. She knows Rae is gay, and will never fall for a man, but she doesn’t want any of them getting the wrong idea and thinking they can hit on her Rae.

Okay, so Loretta is also in love with Claire. I’m not surprised that so many characters are in love with our protagonists, but I find it somewhat comical that the canonically bi one only has other women falling for her, and it’s the lesbian who happens to also attract men. Claire is such a girl magnet, she might give even Manaria a run for her money if she really tried.

Also, unsurprisingly, Pepi has fallen for Loretta. Looks like that ship still has a chance to sail.

Dole is a master strategist and he knows Claire well. Even if Rae didn’t tell him, he would know Claire has a growing interest in anything to do with Rae. He likely acted the way he did on the trip to Euclid to intentionally make Claire feel she couldn’t stay in their summer home, and make spending the night with the Taylor’s seem all the more appealing. An underhanded and effective way for Claire to get first-hand experience on what life as a commoner is really like.

One thing the original novels didn’t touch on was what Rae Taylor was like before she met Claire. I know the manga has been exploring what BC Rae was like. My impression is she was a lot like the Pope, Clarice. A very stark contrast to how the present Rae acts, it’s no wonder the minions were so confused. It is a wonder why Misha never questioned it sooner.

I feel like this whole chapter was more for Loretta and Pepi’s development. There wasn’t much going on on Claire’s part we weren’t already aware of.

One of the more interesting developments is Pepi being tutored by Misha on using siren magic. There is no way they are proposing the idea of using a magical instrument to boost Pepi’s magic without following through. Considering the potential consequences, Pepi is not likely to use it unless Loretta is in imminent danger, and the only major conflict left is the revolution, so that’s concerning.

There were hints of it earlier, but now it is confirmed we have a human trafficking conspiracy, and of course poor Catherine’s family is in the centre of it. It doesn’t even seem like they are trying too hard to hide it so it’s only a matter of time before their house of cards crumbles. The only problem with that is just like with what happened to the Aurousseau’s, typically in this world the whole family is punished for the same crimes regardless of their involvement. If Claire were to decide to take matters into her own hands, that a-hole, Clément wouldn’t hesitate to use Catherine as a human shield, figuratively and literally.

Enter everyone’s third favourite character, who apparently can never catch a break, Lily.

And now we’ve found out that Pepi’s father is part of the aforementioned conspiracy. Which means now I have to worry about her AND Catherine, AND Loretta since her fiance that her family set her up with is also in the thick of this mess. As much as Pepi is worried about her father, I say he should go to hell with the rest of them. Pepi should worry more about herself (and her future wife).

Wait, wait, wait. If even Catherine, who is viewed as less than a pawn by her family, knows about Yu, how well kept is this secret? Could Yu’s potential reign have been any more compromised? If the royal family wasn’t already screwed by Dole’s schemes, what Rae did would have been considered a huge favour to them.

As Catherine rightly points out, Claire has yet to make her own confession, which is a huge part of why her relationship with Rae is stalling.

Hold on, did we ever establish before if Lily’s alter ego had a name? Okay, I just checked and in Lambert’s part in the previous volume, he did refer to the nasked stranger as Alter. It’s been a year since I read that and the name doesn’t appear anywhere else so I’m not surprised I forgot.

I would not be surprised if Salas was using the Achard’s human trafficking operation for his supply of test subjects. Bastard was doing all sorts of human experimentation, so he had to get his victims somehow.

It took me a moment to realise where Misha’s train of thought was going, but I will grant her it makes a lot of sense for what little she knows. I actually wouldn’t have held it against her if she turned Rae in. Rae might not have either. Claire definitely would have, though.

One thing I’m glad they addressed even if it didn’t occur to me, how does Rae cast antidote magic without a wand? She’s in prison, she shouldn’t have a wand, but apparently Dole pulled some strings on the sly. Anything for his partner-in-crime/future daughter-in-law.

As for the Misaki vision, since I finished the series, I’ve actually suspected that was TAIM’s doing, since she’s pulled similar stunts before.

And as soon as Claire returns from visiting Rae, she immediately wants to declare war on Queen Riche. Which I’d be down with. That bitch got a better ending than she deserved.

Volume 3 will probably be the last. Will Pepi and Loretta get together? Will Catherine finally be freed from her family of criminals? Will the Achard’s finally get their comeuppance? And what the hell was Claire up to during the whole revolution chapter since she ditched Rae?

[and-the-universe-said-au]

I wasn't actually planning on posting anything until I had the prologue and the opening page for Chapter One done, but I'm actually so so hyped about making this?? This is just going to sit in the depths of the Legundo tag no doubt, I don't think much is gonna happen over here, but like. Have some planning ramblies, just a handful.

Obviously, beware spoilers ahead?

I LOVE worldbuilding, and I should very clearly be given base rules and set loose more often because I have ideas all of the time, so The Choir is a fun little bit of that, I suppose. I'm both happy, and a little sad, to note that the original level of involvement I was planning for is a lot lower now, so instead of a 6 or so on a scale of 1-10 it's closer to a 2 or 3? The Soloist is still plot relevant, but the plot is more "protag vs situation" than "protag vs antag" now, which should be fun!

On another note, this is going to be long as hell, just for pacing and everything. I'm looking at a rather ironic 100 chapters or so? Each chapter won't be incredibly long, some will be longer and some will be shorter, but because of the way I've built the world, there's going to be some fun downtime chapters which is where I'm hoping the whole "audience participation" part of this will come in the most

Technically this can actually run as a "normal" comic, but I'm still going to hope at least one person decides to add onto it every so often.

On yet another note, I'm going to have an outrageous amount of fun with The Other Characters, because I know i said it in the pinned post, but theres more than just Legundo's in here eventually. I love character dynamics. And angst. I feel like I need to mention this, I'm a sucker for Problem Causing and while I don't like being involved in drama, damn do I like hearing about it. Or writing it.

On yet another note, I'm going to drop what I reckon the first few chapters will be. I have done them in the order of How Excited I am to actually make them, because I'm ramping up my own excitement as I go.

PROLOGUE - THE CHOIR, ONE - THE HUNTER, TWO - THE CAPTAIN, THREE - THE MERCHANT

It's roughly the first half of what I reckon the first kind of 'arc' will be, mostly because four and five are the ones I'm kinda most excited to do.

On another note, a poll I put on my main, which has so far been unconnected to this blog, has had a bit of an interesting effect on the details, because I started planning for one thing because it seemed to be going one way, but it slid to the other last minute so we'll see exactly how that goes, and also how I'm gonna have to adapt based on what I find out when I do some digging. Research, in this context, just means Several hours worth of minecraft videos. Fun!

Though I'm forever going to be holding up a sign that just says "WARNING, POTENTIAL CHARACTER MANGLING, I WAS MEDIOCRE IN ENGLISH CLASS" so. Who knows!

[jonathankatwhatever]

Began 26 Sept 2023 with yet another betrayal narrative. Then an Alternation into a sudden understanding of the idea if a Furstenberg set, which I stumbled over yesterday. Oh right, same day I realized the old Yale Station post office box I have is 6283, which is 2Pi, which is weird. This becomes a 3:2 Alternation form when we construct using Bricks: just add the next Brick, the next 2gs, to the side that didn’t count a Brick last count. Back and forth by Bricks is probably the underlying description for the ‘discretized sum-product problem and projection problem’. Need to look that up, but it sounds like we’re Alternating the second count, meaning Alternation by 2, which invokes all the 2T and Halving machinery.

Note how this is a version of the same can’t fit game that I//I plays all the time. Like covering a board with dominoes or having an Irreducible form because I//I can’t shift to the next level. Like try to count 3 Alternation: can’t happen in the base 2 form because you need to count Brick then Brick on each side. Then look: say you are x2,y1, so add 2 to y to reach y5, then 2 to x2 is only 6, so you need a 3rd Brick. That grows the Brick count, which makes this a series form of Alternation, not a constant count form. This is becoming something.

See? Can’t count by 3 without adding infinitely more Bricks each Alternation. Can count by 2 just by adding a Brick in Alternation. Irreducible forms. We shift 2T in the 2-Alternatiin form of a Brick. This generates both the 1+ form and the 2+ form with the same projection. That is why it should be the explanation for those problems.

So betrayal says I doubt and the way to assuage that in Alternation is to generate the next level of Understanding.

Going back to bed. It’s 6:40. Do not betray me becomes how could you when the stakes are so high and that translates the pathway which links over those states. So this 2-Alternation by Bricks asks what the limit of cooperation might be. Does this end now? Did you cut the binding cord or fiber bundle connecting us? Then the positive generates. That’s motive. This motive also generates from wanting to please, which grows stronger as the Alternation has progresssed.

This draws orthogonal nSquares. Each is endowed with a 2Square, then there are Alternation forms, and the L-counts or Extents as nSquares. I’m getting a picture here.

———————

Two Things to get out. One is that I carry in me a version of you that wants to hurt me. Having identified that, it can be minimized. The other is I was opening my throat to sing out and inadvertently discovered a link to bulimia. That was strange. I was working on expanding my breathing deep into the right side, trying to get at the root of that cough to the extent it shows as impingement in that area. I arced myself so I was lifting and pulling in from lower right waist up and into my left chest. As the shape connected, I could twist slightly to the center and there the compulsion was. It has an addictive quality as a movement and it connects to girls because some may be enacting keeping their pitch high and girlish. Once got upon, it becomes almost an art. We can treat that! One way is to show how to open the throat so that urge diminishes.

What an idea! Occurred to me this embodies why there are multiple string theories. Makes sense since these are disconnected superficially but connected mechanically and thus in sets and fiber bundles that trigger uncontrollable responses.

I did that by thinking this is within an enclosing gs and that means I count Tri over the gs within that. Thus singing to throat to urge, and pitch reaching higher and girlish youth taking throat and attaching meanings like these. So condition affects girls more, not absolutely. This is likely not the only cause. But address these cases and see where that gets us. The underlying issues may then be seen in a new light.

I got way up there. Found the urge when I twisted to make the color in my voice more purely balanced over the entire shape. I was working in shaping the palate better, then I turned to center the tension and blam.

The dance aspect is contained in the movement. Dance is enactment of process, the constructing of the chain which enacts the solution best you can, both physically and mentally. That’s my issue with Navier-Stokes: that yes such a solution must exist but it’s an ideal and thus actual is generally not. Think of it as a separation inherent in the non-ideal. That maps the 1-0 where we overlay 1 over the last piece needed.

This just got interesting. This is also pigeonhole because we overlay on the occupied spot. It’s occupied by the 0 which signals the End of that chain. Thus the IC labels of 1 and 0 and flipping.

This explanation generates turbulence. Holy cow. That came out of my fingers. There is a gap between the ideal and the actual. That generates turbulence when that gap is compressed in time. This is an entirely new approach. I’ve never seen anything like it. Is it good or stupid?

The gap is the excess energy. That’s why the Reynolds number works. It’s pattern. It’s constructed grid squares which render through I//I. Oh wow, this generalizes so much it knocked me completely off the ball. Like the clarity of a decision versus the messiness of the acts. Like the way a dog grans a toy or acts out when excited. The dog’s ideal is to get what it wants. Your ideal may be to get your coat off without being knocked over. There is a smooth solution but that may not be happening.

This application of I//I is absurdly powerful. Like if I whack my hand into a table really hard, the Irreducibles have only a few Pathways. Like my hand breaks.

That resolves another issue, the Irreducible of a physical existence isn’t how it unravels but how it constructs. So take Hexagonal. Think of each half as being the directions of the perspectives. Makes a loop too.

This also makes SBE3 and CM36. What about that? SBE3 this way is an area formed by the chaining identifying the quadratic, meaning into gs. This is an open D2 in which we have a 1-0Segment and thus 2 Ends plus a 1Segment. Goes either End. Or, we have two D1’s which Attach to the same 0End. This means either or, both or none are 1. We need both the open D2 and the D1’s.

Back to I//I. It’s the process of having two paths at every step because each step has ambiguity which becomes a next step. Built in. You can only be on a path and it can be treacherous. The treachery of a slip.

This is some of the most amazing work yet. I say that a lot. Interestingly, I think my worst case may be improving to continuing without you. That’s new. It would suck to see the cost of that in eternity but I have a job to do.

Also realized that I define alpha over a long term. Long term alpha.

————————

The growth in alpha male culture over my life has been insidious. Aggression. Glorified in football. More men want to be an alpha. They align in alpha tribes. Those that can’t often strike out with violence. Particularly with guns because then you really make a mark that lasts.

Much is caused by the loss of older male identifications. It was easier to fit as a male if you were head of the house. And just being male gave you a sense of place.

Women too. What do you grow up to be? The expansion has costs there too, along with the increase in freedom. Can’t be ideal so potential turbulence. Or disappointment. And more.

Kinetic energy. This is becoming an idea.

—————

Also, a treatment for vertigo is to restore the balance in movement, which requires the flexible strength of tensioning. I can feel dizzy, but now it’s more like being a child when getting dizzy was normal and you took it in stride because you could. When you can’t, as you can’t, the systems decline as the response provoked negative response, meaning increasing restriction.

——————

As I was working through some very difficult knee positions, I was also working through a negative, which is that my perspective isn’t rational, which is true because it’s transcendental. I mean my perspective about you. I do an astonishing number of parity checks on that every day. It’s a key module, meaning it recurs so often because so many threads depend on the value being not only correct but up-to-date, which creates anxiety, meaning external information acts kinetically within me, and that not only drives the constant parity checks, meaning a lot of SBE2 and thus CM36 devoted to checking whether I believe in my version of you. That’s specifically whether I believe I correctly understand your inherent attributes and how you express those, and thus why as a Triangular of attributes, expressions, why. The why has powerful Attachments, because it 1-0Segments and thus can be superficial to deep, not superficial but not what it appears, etc. because those are generated according to the inherent attributes. Those inherent attributes are processes, not states, so they refer to your way of processing, your way of doing and being, and explicitly how that forms ordinals over various scales. You really are shockingly adept at that. It’s astounding how good you are at defining spaces and ordering across them. I long ago concluded we learn in tandem, in Alternation, so your achievements make me feel really good about what we’ve been doing. No, achievements isn’t the right word. I mean the structure of your mind. It’s supercalifragilisticexpalidocious! That may even be spelled correctly.

There is no word for this. It’s like the idea of an ideal: the concept is flexible, an ideal for anyone or for those like you, an ideal abstraction, like a stick figure, or an ideal fleshy animal, an ideal generated from measurement or calculation or social choice, an ideal that’s relative versus one that is absolute, like it’s a contest for perfection that of course then no one can achieve.

I guess the main thing is that I flip between saying your internal perspective pairs to mine, versus what it looks like. This takes me to dark places which often spike with statements about the absurdity of my beliefs, which passes directly into yes, but the more we adhere to the version I want to believe, the more correct the math gets. So when I had one of these maybe 20 minutes ago, it was intense, like a nerve firing pain, and then I remembered the startlingly original Understanding of Navier-Stokes and the underlying problem of turbulence. That was amazing. The issue had hit my consciousness a few times over the past week or so, but I had no idea there was so much progress until the second it came together.

That idea about nerves is correct. We can say what happens is a connection is made to the negative version of you which exists in the Thing of me, and that fires the negatives of you must be crazy or an idiot or a dupe, etc. I remember saying earlier that this was inherent in Alternaton, and that reaching a negative connection meant that defined that direction in the Alternation so the next comes positive.

I had a new thought, but it was fleeting. Oh, it was that I get a lot wrong. Like all the time. Pretty much anything that happens with you because I refuse to accept the signs for what they are. You make things very obvious. I resist that and thus I’m always wrong. But then I find a reason to continue to believe in you. It feels very much like torture, and it isn’t enjoyable, though the positive Alternations are worth the pain. I ask you the same question: worth the pain?

It’s funny because I was just looking up null sets and they way they’re phrased. Like I could define one as some enormous amount, including some countable infinity, and then exclude its existence with some form of negation, like all these but only if this condition which is impossible. So it reads in gs as vast constructions or small, with an Attachment, meaning a 1-0Segment which conveys an impossibility. Like all counting numbers below 1 when they begin with 1. That means all the counting numbers construct to an Attachment which says, oops, not you guys.

I don’t think that’s difficult when you think in gs construction terms.

Examining my thoughts, I have been taking this parity checking as a referendum on my own identity, which adds so many permutations to the space that it’s a mess to find the answer which should be there. As in, I’ve done this many times, so I quickly pulled out the statement of context for the negative I experienced above, that it came after work that blew my mind. But that hasn’t always been the case. And I can see how easily people become enmeshed in those Complications. They are Complications because, and this is lovely, they pull on the pairings and that transmits the issue. So, if I’m doing a parity check on your internal identity, then that tugs an my internal identity when the number of times my internal identity is actually challenged is low because I know that it works for me. So, my End gets tugged, which isn’t always a bad thing, and that causes a Complication because now I have Alternation between how I see me and how I see you. Because I don’t really address the internal labels I fit, the how I see me part becomes an often messy set of resentments and other displacements of that energy, of that gs construction finding its outlet for expression.

I need to go to bed. A showing early in the AM, so I can’t sleep very late. Oh, I started thinking about this because I started hearing some extremely nasty scenarios, and I wanted to turn them off, so I started to think about how nothing can add up to balance. It’s been proven: can’t count the finite to make the infinite. That is the nature of gs construction, which is another form of proof of that and pretty much every deep mathematical fundamental. I can’t believe I just said that, but it’s true.

[avelera]

My head's kind of brimming with a bunch of writing advice thoughts so IDK instead of trying to make a nice formal post thought I'd just word vomit for a bit:

Hurt/Comfort: As a subgenre is attractive because it has a plot arc built into it. We start with hurt (inciting incident) and move to comfort (resolution). Many fic writers who don't think of themselves as being "good at plot" should realize that hurt/comfort describes a plot. A plot doesn't need to be saving the world. It can simply be "what problem (the hurt) is solved by the end of the story (with comfort)?"

On Emotional Character Beats: Some character introductions are more emotional on the re-watch. The one I'm thinking of is Dream's reunion with Lucienne in 1.01 of The Sandman. When they embrace, it's Dream's first physical contact with someone who cares about him in 106 years. It's powerful, but at this point, if one isn't already a Sandman fan, the moment doesn't land as heavily as it will on the re-watch because we haven't been given much reason to care about Dream yet. In part, because he's kind of an asshole for much of the beginning of the story. In part because he spends most of the first episode before that reunion either not speaking or speaking in a very cold, reserved way.

This speaks to a larger question (one I lack a solution to but which haunts me daily) of how to make characters likable as quickly as possible. The movie "Up" has an incredible intro where we learn to love Carl and know his entire tragic backstory in about 3-5 minutes. It's a feat of efficient storytelling. Yet with Sandman, I didn't feel that I very much liked Dream until episode 6, when we're introduced to people who like him, people like Death and Hob who were sad when he was missing and worry about his health, and we see Dream unbend enough to show he likes them in return. That is... quite a long time to ask an audience to engage with a piece of media before we're shown a reason to like the person who is, ostensibly, the main character. But after 1.06, 1.01 hits a lot harder.

Sometimes, there's no way around this. If the inciting incident for your story is something bad happened in the past and we open with the after-effects of it and then the plot is about unwinding what happened then, yeah, that opening of the character stumbling away from some horrible situation, bloody and in pain, isn't really going to land until the creator has earned the emotional connection of the audience to the character, and that might take a while.

But I can't help but feel that while liking the character from the start isn't always required (for example, Dream is meant to be an emotionally distant character who is hard to like, and it adds texture to the story that we take a while to like him, even if that might also lose some audience members before we reach that point) I can't help but think it is possible to earn the initial affection of the audience efficiently enough that we do feel bad, or are at least emotionally intrigued by learning how the hurt happened and eager to see the comfort happen for a character we just met.

One way to make an instant connection with a character is to make the character love something or someone. Not just love like dutifully love certain family members, but I mean adore another person, or a cause, or an idea. We love characters who love things/people. Having a character who loves the plot-relevant thing or the plot-central person, makes the audience see that thing or person through the eyes of someone who loves them. We learn to love Dream when we see people like Death and Hob love him. We learn to care about the plot-relevant cause (Enjolras and his obsession with the Revolution in Les Mis) or the plot-relevant thing (Newt Geiszler and Kaiju in Pacific Rim) when characters are obsessed with those things.

This is why, in theory, were I the one rebuilding Sandman from scratch (disclaimer: I am dirty shipper trash for Dream/Hob) I would want to see either before the fishbowl or immediately after it the people who missed Dream while he was gone. The people who saw him as a person and were worried about his absence. The people who love him and the people he loves such that 106 years of confinement was not just an inciting incident for the plot (ie, everything Dream needs to fix now that he's back) but an actual tragedy because of the amount of time that was stolen from him and the people in his life who were hurt and scared and worried while he was gone, so we can learn to like him.

(Edit: It should be noted, though, the reunion with Lucienne is the first moment we get of someone who loves Dream and missed him and suffered without him reacting to his return, which is an effective tool at making us like a character. We love Dream more through Lucienne's eyes and vice versa. I personally think we needed more moments like that before we, say, saw him dissolve Gregory in what was effectively our main character sacrificing someone's beloved pet in Ep. 2, but your mileage may vary. Different stories are making different points and Sandman doesn't require us to like Dream. That said, it's a risky move to have an unlikable main character and not one I'd suggest for anyone other than an expert at the craft of writing.)

And finally, last craft point that's in my head, this sort of relates to:

Don't open a scene with dialogue. Now, this is one I'm skeptical of, my teacher instructed me in this and I think it's not always correct. However, it was tied to a larger point, which was that dialogue unmoored from setup, character, setting, etc doesn't really earn the emotions that we're asking of the audience. It mostly confuses them. Setting the scene with even a single paragraph before the dialogue tells us who/what/where/why/when/how so that the dialogue actually lands as needed.

Similarly, to tie it to the above, we the author are often emotionally engaged in our characters, especially our OCs. By the time we finally introduce them, stumbling away covered in blood from the inciting incident that kicks off our plot, we are emotionally connected to them. The hardest thing sometimes can be to step back and realize the audience doesn't give a fuck yet about our super duper special OC. We have to earn that love, otherwise who cares about the fact this character has suffered? This requires setup, breathing space, time and an inherent arc of some sort (think: the intro to Up). It doesn't have to be before the character stumbles away covered in blood and kicks off our story, because that can mess up pacing, but it should be placed at such a time that when we think back to that moment, our hearts clench because we now have context to feel what the author wanted us to feel about the suffering of their special blorbo OC. And if you can manage to make our hearts clench at that opening scene of their suffering while it's happening, so that we don't need to backtrack and see the scene with new eyes, then you are IMO effectively a storytelling god. It's not easy. But it is possible!

[dimonds456]

*sees your tags about being salty about suf spinel*

YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THAT AND NOT SHARE YOUR SALT /LH

Okay, but I'm warning you, you asked for it.

LONG POST WARNING.

LIKE A REALLY, REALLY LONG POST WARNING.

Dimonds456 Presents: How They Did My Baby Dirty: An SUTM and SUF Analysis on Steven and Spinel (Told by a Progressively More and More Angry Narrator)

THE CONTEXT: There was a post talking about how you think a character will fix everything, but then they wind up making it works. My tags were "#*looks at suf spinel* #I am still salty about that like the bitch I am fghdjskgfa"

Grab some water, guys.

Let's start by talking about Steven for a moment. In the original show, when we were following him as a 12-14-year-old, we watched as he built up trauma and then learned how to hide it expertly well, to the point that most of the audience didn't even realize he was struggling.

You can actually pinpoint the seconds he makes those decisions, too. The best example is in "The Test," when he's storming up to the gems. He's pissed. His fists are clenched, he's got that anime eye shadow overlay on his face, he's frowning, all that. the Crystal Gems are clapping for him and lying to his face, and he KNOWS they are because he overheard them talking about how it was "impossible for him to fail" that test (- Garnet).

And yet... he also overheard them saying that they're just trying their best. They don't know what he needs. They never really have. No one is sure. So, Steven realizes that by picking a fight, he would just be making it worse for them because they would know they messed up, and nothing gets solved, and everyone gets more depressed and Amethyst and Pearl go back to fighting each other and- well, you get the picture. He doesn't have a full understanding of what's going on, so his kid brain went "so I can either be angry at them and cause problems, or I can tell them I did a good job to make them happy."

"I can lie to make them happy."

He storms down there angry, still mulling this decision over. He drops to the floor, frowning and pissed, and says "I can't believe you guys." He is so close to yelling at them, and yet, when he looks up at them...

"That was so... INSANE!"

You never would have been able to tell. It was right there. That moment. And then he never stops. For the ENTIRE REST of the series, he NEVER STOPS. He puts the Crystal Gems above himself every time. Think Rose's Scabbard, The Message, The Return/Jailbreak. The Cluster. Peridot. Dealing with Jasper. The zoo arc (ESPECIALLY the zoo arc). Aquamarine. Then pretty much the entirety of Season 5.

(NOTE: I went back and rewatched that scene for the screenshot. There is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it lip tremble in there too! D,: )

He lives for the people around him, and not for himself. Almost never for himself.

Put a pin in that.

Now, let's look at his maturity. People thought that was just him being mature, right? That he grew up. No. That was not it at all. He was learning from his own behaviors as well as the people around him, and building up this idea that he had to "fight to be everything that everyone wants [him] to be when [he's] grown" (- Steven, the extended intro).

Yes, he matured, but not because of that. He started making various decisions to benefit the group that oftentimes he wasn't fully comfortable with, but something he believed would be better for everyone.

Put a pin in that.

Then, later in Future, we see it all manifest. He is selfless to a fault, to the point that he can't think of himself in a positive light in the sense that he's good. We see it a couple of times, but especially in "Prickly Pair," when he vents to Cactus Steven about everything that happened. He feels useless, which is taking a toll on his mental health.

"Why do I need to be needed?" He needs to be needed because that's everything he was as a kid. His entire IDENTITY rests on his ability to help other people, no matter what happens to him. He literally sacrificed himself for them countless times (the big one of course being the Aquamarine incident), and now as a teenager, his whole sense of self is wrapped up in this need to get up and do something to make the world better.

And when he can't make the world better, his world falls apart.

Put a pin in that.

Now, let's talk about Spinel, the moment we've all been waiting for.

Spinel, as a gem, was made specifically to be a friend. That is her niche, and her purpose. Her reason for existing. At first, she and Pink Diamond got along very well, as shown in the flashbacks right before Drift Away plays (I headcanon she has illusion powers and was literally projecting her trauma, but that's a completely different post).

She and Pink vibed together for who knows how long, until one day, Pink started to not like being around Spinel anymore, finding her annoying and childish. We don't know what really caused the switch, just that it did happen (but of course, I have headcanons for that, too). Spinel never realized until it was FAR too late.

Steven actually describes his younger self as annoying at one point during the Diamond Days arc, when he decides to throw the ball, so I'm legally allowed to make this comparison.

Steven and Spinel were the SAME. They were both young and dumb, and something that at least a few people found annoying. People put up with their BS though, since they cared about them. But, while Steven realized this and matured because of it (or bottled up his emotions, to each their own), Spinel never did. She never matured. She was never given a chance.

In the movie, we saw her as a child, and watched as she played with Pink and never tried to be or do anything else, to the point that Pink Diamond thought to realize she might be struggling (and maybe Spinel didn't, either!).

She lives for the people around him, and not for herself. Almost never for herself.

And when she can't be friends with this one person, her world falls apart.

Sound familiar? It should. I literally pulled from things I said earlier lol.

Spinel and Steven are mirror reflections of each other. Reset!Spinel is 14-year-old Steven, completely devoting her entire self to one idea. Steven's was helping others no matter what, Spinel's was serving Pink no matter what. Spinel is like a combination of 14 and 12-year-old Steven in this sense, honestly. Goofy, without a care in the world, except one thing: the people around her. She would do anything for Pink, just as Steven would do anything for his family.

Now, Pink Diamond left Spinel. We all know this story. She left Spins there in the garden for 6,000 years because she grew more mature and started a rebellion, effectively forgetting about this one gem she kinda stopped caring about standing there.

Personally, I don't think Pink had any malicious or even intentional intent in that, but this ain't about her. This is about how Spinel continued to sacrifice herself for Pink, even when Pink didn't need her to anymore. She wanted to please Pink 24/7, all day every day, to the point she self-sacrificed and stood perfectly still for her for millenia.

Now, back to Steven. The gems don't need him anymore in Future, right? They've all grown up and matured and headed off towards their own futures, effectively stranding him alone in terms of self-identity and self-worth. But he stays there, ready to assist at the drop of a hat, or- in Future's case- the call of a phone.

Episode 6 anyone? The one everyone says shouldn't be in Future? That it should have been cut to allow more focus on Steven himself? The fusion episode? YEAH. THAT. He is running himself RAGGED to try and help others, to give himself a purpose. He is self-sacrificing. (He's a professional, don't worry. /j)

Steven metaphorically planted his feet down and decided that he was going to devote himself to the people around him.

Spinel's feet were literally tied down soon after she made that very same decision.

Okay, enough with the backstory. Time for the salt.

In Future, Steven is at his lowest low. He is running to the Diamonds for help, to see if there is SOMETHING they can do to help him. And we first see Spinel.

Spinel has been through the ringer on a lot of the same mental problems Steven himself is facing. She self-isolated, watched as everyone grew up and left her, and then began to lash out because of it. She understands what he's going through. We even see her concerned as Steven starts to tell her why he's there.

Spinel takes him from Diamond to Diamond, until he's running out of White's room in a blind panic. Spinel is able to catch up with him, and Steven realizes the same. SHE GETS IT. He turns around and says "Hey, you used to have vengeful thoughts!"

Spinel replies "Ohhhhh yeah, but I don't have 'em anymore."

"How did you make them stop?"

She then goes on to sing Change to him, effectively cutting that conversation short.

On paper, that sounds very in-character for her. She's goofy! And that is what worked for her! But the problem is that they had to dumb her down in order to make that character decision work. In the movie, she was shown to be observant and able to put two and two together, even if she often jumps to conclusions (see her being the one to figure out that the gems needed to remember their "pieces," as she remembers the Garden, her re-realizing what Pink did, and her meltdown later when she reactivates the injector).

Spinel is smart. It should have been in character for her to realize that Steven was panicking just as she had been, and needed to be talked to gently. But no. Instead, she starts belting out Change, which given Steven's situation, would not work for him.

At the very least, she would have started doing little tricks or started trying to get him to join a game, which would have taken his mind off of it (to her anyways, that wouldn't have worked either), which then could have prompted further discussion.

Then, once they finally start talking, Spinel could have been able to share some legitimate advise. She was hurt and lashed out. What worked for her was opening up to others and letting them in, learning to trust again (which Steven also has problems with- he can't trust that the Gems won't break down the second he turns his back. Trust does NOT equal love, there is no doubt he loves them to no end), and allowing other people in.

That is what Steven needed, too. He needed to let his guard down and just talk to someone. Sure, Spinel was not going to be a fix-all, but she could have at least offered some insight on what to do.

She UNDERSTANDS him. They are a reflection of each other.

But instead of offering help, Spinel made it worse. She was dumbed down to allow the rest of Future to happen, to make Steven feel even worse. Because- and here's the kicker- because the one person who MIGHT understand him doesn't, that means there's no hope for him.

At least, that's how he sees it. And so, the denial- and "Everything's Fine"- begins.

Here's the thing, though; they DIDN'T NEED to make that decision. If the Crew wanted to have Spinel not understand Steven, then draw the line of her being a Gem from Era 1, used to the Diamonds shattering people.

Steven has killed Jasper and revived her at this point, so maybe Spinel offers that at least he's trying to get better, just like the other Diamonds! See, they're doing so great now! And then that makes him feel worse since he IS trying to do better, but is only failing, while the Diamonds- who were MADE to be nasty dictators- are doing better than him.

The Diamonds shattered a lot of people, and they're doing better than Steven, who has only shattered one person, and not even on purpose. How horrible is that?

Then boom. THERE'S your angst, with a much smarter, more helpful Spinel.

Look, I knew going in that Spinel wasn't going to be able to help. The finale had to happen somehow, and we hadn't seen Wormy Boi yet. I have always been a storng believer of the corrupted Steven theory, so I knew it was bound to happen. But I was hoping that Spinel would at least try. But she really didn't. She just brushed him off, offering really loose advise that didn't even fit his situation and thinking that would be enough.

No. It's not.

I can see where the Crew was coming from. I still love that episode, and I love seeing Spins in it (until that exact moment). This is probably the only thing in SU that genuinely gets me mad. Or, well, maybe not mad, but definitely annoyed and- you guessed it- salty.

I have an unfinished fic where I kinda delve into Spinel's head for that episode called "A New Start". If you really want my thoughts on where Spinel's head was at, there's a bit in there that really explains it. In the fic, Steven decides to rejuvenate himself and brings Spinel along with him, and that's all the context you need for this.

I cannot explain that moment in the climax of the episode, though. Maybe she thought it would make him feel better, or that maybe he really did just need to open his eyes and see the error of his ways (which doesn't make sense, he KNOWS what he did). Maybe she thought that being silly would help somehow.

But you'd think she'd learn from her time with Pink as she grew more annoyed with her, but apparently not. Or maybe she would realize for a second that being loud and annoying was bad. Or maybe she doesn't learn.

Either way, it- and she- was dumb. And they did my baby dirty.

*drops mic and walks away*

[gamingstar26]

Duck AU Ideas and Stuff

just reposting some ideas and shit ive posted on amino. you can suggest ideas for my au if you want. its going to be long so here we go: 

Super Paper Ducktales Roles Help

I need help with some characters roles I haven’t decided on yet here are the ones:

Bowser for the adult heroes ver

Dimentio for the adult minions ver for now it’s Magica but idk if I’ll keep it.

Most of the important side characters

The characters can come from any Disney Duck media not just Ducktales.

(Note: Merlon and Nolrem are counterparts to each other. Same with Fracktail and Wracktail. Bonechill is basically Satan/Lucifer.

Jaydes is basically Hades and Grambi is basically God. Luvbi is the child to Jaydes and Grambi.)

Merlon

Nolrem

Luvbi

Jaydes

Grambi

King Croacus IV

Old Man Watchitt

Fracktail

Wracktail

Flint Cragley

Bonechill

0----------------------------------------------------

Myth AU Ideas Part 1

I’m mixing different canons together for this with dt17 being the base.

Some of The Coots and Ducks have creature forms but it’s a 50% chance overall. (It’s genetics in this case. While with the McDucks it’s a bit of genetics and curses) Here are some of them that have creature forms:

Coots: Elivira Coot (Grandma Duck), Casey Coot, Gus Goose, Don de Pato aka Don Dugo, Cuthbert Coot, etc

(fun fact while doing some looking into Don de Pato, also Don Dugo is his German name. he was originally from the McDucks, but in the LOT3C he was changed to be a Coot ancestor instead. Also the conquistador armor makes more sense now cause he’s actually from Spain. His creature form would most likely be something Spanish but idk yet and with the others idk what there creature forms would be. Also that maybe Panchito and José’s ancestors would also have a form, there’s will also be European for Jose’s ancestor Pascoal Papagaio it would be Portuguese not Brazilian because of the time period same with Panchito’s ancestor Gallus Maximus it would be Spanish not Mexican.)

Ducks: Pintail Duck, Eider Duck, Abner Whitewater Duck, HumperDink Duck, etc

people with creature forms have two different puberty’s the regular puberty and first few transformations. 

In Lena’s redemption arc in the au will be a bit different her creature form changes a bit kinda like the mlp changelings in season 6.

Goldie is a mix between a Sirin and Alicanto from Russian and Chilean myths with a bit of Siren. Alicanto is a gold associated mythical bird and Sirin is a bird woman hybrid.

Those who have creature forms are usually seen as a different group compared to those who don’t have one, you usually can’t tell someone has one unless you see them transform. There sometimes seen as a minority depending on the location.

There’s an really rare case where one person has more than one creature form, it’s usually for those with a personality disorders for example D.I.D. but can also happen without the personality disorders, but it’s extremely rare.

The Legend of Three Caballeros Versions of April, May, and June will be in this au as Daisy’s nieces along side the clones May and June from dt17 canon. Webby is not a clone of Scrooge in this au or any au/ new headcanons I make. but May and June are still clones of Webby. TLoTC April May and June all have creature forms I don’t know what they’ll be yet.

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Myth AU Duck Family stuff

just to catalog which ones would have a true form and ones that don't, for future reference.

i had to look at a couple of duck family trees for this. and i thought my family tree is complicated. i would add more but this took so long to compile so yeah.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

McDucks: All of McDucks have creature forms

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Spouses/Parent/Lover that have one: Downy O' Drake, Daisy Duck, Goldie O' Gilt, Donna Duck, etc

Spouses/Parent/Lover that don't have one: Molly Mallard, Ludwig Von Drake, Goostave Gander, Lulubelle Loon, Luke Goose, Grstchen Grebe, Gertrude Gadwall, etc

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Father of HDL: Unknown

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Ducks:

Has a True Form: Pintail Bos’N Duck, Humperdink Dabney Duck, Eider Duck, Abner Whitewater Duck, Donald Fauntleroy Duck, Della Dumbella Thelma Duck, Huebert Huey Duck, Dewford Dewey Deuteronomy Dingus Duck, Llewellyn Louie Duck, April Duck, May Duck, June Duck, Clones May and June Duck, etc

Doesn't have one: Daphne Duck, Quackmore Duck, Fethery Duck, Gladstone Gander, Moby Duck, Dugan Duck, Dickie Duck, Clyde Shamrock Gander Duck, etc

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coots:

Has a True Form: Elivira Abigail Coot, Cuthbert Coot, Casey Coot, Don De Pato Dugo, Gus Goose, Kildare Coot, etc

Doesn't have one: Cornelius Coot, Clinton Coot, Fanny Coot, etc

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Honorary Family:

Have True Form: Webbigail Webby Vanderquack, Bentina Beakley, Launchpad McQuack, Lena DeSpell/Saberwing/LeStrange, Gyro Gearloose, etc

Doesn't have one: Fenton Crackshell Cabrera, Violet Saberwing, Goslayn Mallard, Drake Mallard, Boyd, Panchito Romero Miguel Junipero Francisco Quintero González III, José Carioca, etc

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All Duck AU’s and OC’s Ideas and shit

Super Paper Ducktales Ideas: im going to try not spoil anything from the game (even tho it’s 15 years old but still) cause I highly recommend you watch a let’s play or play it for yourself to understand what im trying to do. Plus it’s a amazing game.

Since Mimi is Webby (kid minion) and Della (adult minion) they both should have the “true” form like Mimi does In the original game (if you know you know) idk if I’ll stick with the spider aspect of the original or go for something different. The Thing aspect of the original will still be there, it has to be terrifying.

Some scenes change depending on the version of the au. Like for example the love simulator portion of chapter 3-4 will stay both versions with slight differences.

Im thinking Gladstone or Dapper Duck for Bowser in the adult hero version, but Im debating whether or not it’s a good idea.

Some events are completely changed or removed to make it fit more with the duckverse.

Angst potential everywhere. >:) Donald and Louie get tortured to hell and back (literally) just like Luigi does in the original game. (My favs getting lots of trauma is my fav thing to do cause I love em)

Some Super Paper Mario lore (and yes there is more for this, seriously look it up) will stay the same like pixels origins for example, while others will change to be more close to the duckverse like the origin of the prophecies. Etc.

——————————————______

Mythology AU:

I’m adding aspects of the legend of the three caballeros, cause I love that show and the mythology parts of the show fit perfectly with what my au is about in a way. And aspects of other duckverse canon.

The forms for Jose and Panchito’s ancestors are based on forms from Portugal and Spain or Rome, due to the most possible time period which is the 16th century, during that time Portugal and Spain conquered Brazil and Mexico. Theirs come from curses (this is the reason why Jose and Panchito don’t have creature forms because it never passed on to their families. Maybe some family members would have one but it’s rare.) not blood like Don de Pato, who passed it on to some members of the coot kin. Their forms are: El Coco, El Cuco, etc from Spanish and Portuguese folklore for Gallus Maximus (Panchito’s ancestor) and for Pascoal Papagaio (Jose’s ancestor) Besta-Fera a Portuguese centaur.

The Shellgoose family could have creature forms as well that comes from a curse from passed on through the generations. It could skip generations. (There’s also a the possibility that Gladstone could be part shellgoose as well which honestly is a really interesting theory)

Xandra has some knowledge on the possible origins of why the mythicals exist.

People who have creature/true forms are called mythicals

April, May, and June (not the clones) have creature forms, but there’s will be different from each other. But I’m still thinking of what it will be.

————-________——————-

Zelda AU:

Like the Super Paper Ducktales au some things will change others will be removed or added to fit with the duckverse.

The only ones I’ve thought of so far are the Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time/Majora’s Mask eras. And some characters roles.

Lena is link in twilight princess era and can transform into a shadow wolf.

——————————————

UnderDuck AU:

Humans exist in this au just like in Undertale.

———————————————-

Lost Limbs AU:

Almost everything that happens in Ducktales 17 canon is the same in this au, except for Donald losing his limbs.

Donald feels very insecure about the fact that he lost his limbs. Unlike Della who is more confident about it.

———————————————

Vacuum:

Vacuum’s nickname is Vac or Victor

He’s really good at making crochets

———————————————________________

Xena:

Xena has committed murder before, but it was accidental, and sense then has become deathly afraid of losing control of herself again.

—————————__________

That’s all I have for now

[soranis-sunshadow]

Hordak can’t catch a break even on his birthday...

Oh fandom, you really like this sort of drama don’t you? 

A few days ago, on Hordak’s birthday, there was this ‘interesting’ post in the tag – since, apparently it’s impossible to get any peace even on that day.

I was  too tired to answer it at the time after being on call the day before so, here’s my delayed answer to all of that:

First off: this post has this bit in it when asked what that person dislikes about SPOP.

 He doesn’t need to get a redemption and he doesn’t get one in the show. 

None of his actions constitute a redemption arc. The man merely acknowledged his personhood and freed himself from his master and God. That’s what his arc was about: the right to have a personal identity. 

He gave himself a name and wanted to be his own person. That’s it. That’s all he wanted.

The man was merely freed from Prime’s influence- an influence he was born into since he’s been specifically manufactured to serve as a disposable mass produced soldier and worshipper of Prime.

 If the argument that Catra was “forced” to commit crimes and thus she is not completely guilty of them since she was under duress – then the argument doubly holds for a person who has been directly programmed and conditioned to do so under the threat of death or mental rape (purification).\

Even while away from Prime, he was still conditioned to obey and brainwashed by Prime’s cult. He literally knew nothing else – he was not meant to. It’s how indoctrination works.  

Prime’s clones aren’t people to Prime, they are tools. Those clones, while cut off from Prime still want to serve and please him: That’s what Wrong Hordak’s purpose in the show is- to show us just that.

Hordak is not considered “OK”  because Entrapta likes him. Hordak is merely shown – by Entrapta that he could live apart from his cult and have worth outside what Prime tells him he has. 

Just like real life cult victims, he needs an outsider to help him see a way out of the cult. The nature of indoctrination and brainwashing makes it impossible for the brainwashed person to know they are brainwashed unless someone points it out.

Now for my favorite thing:

and

oh and

Oh boy… this makes me just so damn uncomfortable.

To offer a bit of context as to why. I have never been on social media before SPOP or in any fandom and as such, I have never encountered the ‘all men are evil’ discourse that seems to infest these places. It’s been quite a bit of culture shock for me. 

What is it that makes anyone think it is ok to judge a person because of an accident of birth? (being born male)

Why does hate for 50% of the human population get such a free pass on these platforms? Misandry is just as terrible as misogyny. You are being biased against another human because of their gender. I don’t care that males are perceived as ‘privileged’ – that doesn’t make it ok to be terrible to them unprovoked. 

How does hating all men help achieve equity?

Do you realize that this sort of discourse is exactly how you radicalize people against the very cause you are championing? You breed hate and adversity for the rest of us who actually want to to have a discussion on the topic. 

I’m a feminist myself (in a country where feminism is hard-work) and let me tell you, making all men hate us does nothing but push away potential allies and make it a lot harder for our voices to be heard.

Feminism is about equality, not women dominating.

Now onto the second post: the one comparing Catra and Hordak with the question of which of them is a better person. 

This whole war orphans that were personally abducted and tortured into serving the horde HC that some ppl have is really starting to get boorish. This has been going on for more than 6 months. 

I have no idea why everyone thinks he went down chimneys and stealing babies left and right while cackling villainously. The man had a busy schedule of brooding in his lab, wallowing at his inability to use insulated cables and having his device blowing up in his face with the occasional Skype call to Shadow Weaver to see what the Horde is doing. 

And yet, to a part of the fandom, this is what he looked like:

( @bat-burrito​ made this one and it’s glorious) 

And if you don’t believe me about the lab recluse thing, you don’t have to, the show pretty much states it for me. 

and 

+

Hordak is a recluse that stayed in his lab and let the running of the Horde and most operations to Shadow Weaver and later Catra. He did not personally abuse anyone and he is not the origin of the cycle of abuse.

Shadow Weaver was a child grooming manipulative woman before she even joined the Horde – she did this to Micah while she was not “evil” or presumably abused by Hordak.

Even if you want to HC that Hordak abused her somehow, he is still not the one who started the cycle: Horde Prime is. 

The whole fandom seems to forget about the eldritch monstrosity that created a whole army of brainwashed slaves to worship and die for him. Prime is the one that sent Hordak to die and gave him the motivation to try to prove himself worthy of life and love. If you want to point fingers, point them at the origin of all of this. This fandom has a strange Prime blindness. He is never talked about when it comes to being the start of all of this.

If Prime didn’t exist, Hordak wouldn’t exist. If Prime hadn’t sent Hordak off to die, then his clone wouldn’t have accidentally ended up on Etheria. None of the things in the show would have happened.

Adora would have died of exposure in a field, the monarchies on Etheria would have continued as they are and the planet would have continued to exist in despondos. 

He is a dictator, yes. So are the princesses. Monarchies are dictatorships where the ruler is born into power. Hordak gained his through military might while Glimmer was born with hers and enforced it with tradition. I don’t really care to play “who’s the better dictator”. The princesses have their power because of the runestones- magical rocks put there by the First Ones to channel the planet’s magic and use it as a weapon. How come no one talks about that?

Do you think a king/queen keeps their crown without effort or subjugation of their subjects? 

Also, Hordak had never interacted with Catra before SW dragged her before him to be judged. He was indifferent to etherians in general and didn’t seem to care which of them were his underlings so long as the operations were running smoothly. He was more focused on his portal and returning home than on anything else. He did not set out to “ruin lives” or quest for power. What he wanted was to return to his deity and become a mindless part of the whole again – that is as opposite to power hungry as you can get.

Catra was directly abused by Shadow Weaver throughout her childhood. That makes Shadow weaver responsible for 100% of that abuse.

Catra was found in a box by Adora and adopted by Shadow Weaver. Hordak didn’t know or care that she existed.

He is responsible for the war, he is responsible for the war casualties and the property damage. He is not responsible for Shadow Weaver being a terrible person and mother figure.

Again with the orphan thing. We have 5 cadets in the show. 

Adora was found in a field. 

Catra was found in a box. Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio are unexplained. The only lizard ppl we see in the show are in the Horde or the Crimson Wastes. The other two could just as well be the children of some of the soldiers. 

I may harp on about what a bitch Shadow Weaver is – the reason I do so is because she is legitimately terrible to the two girls in her care.

I was the unfavorite growing up, I WAS the Catra in my family who could do no right while my sibling was the golden child. I don’t however hate Shadow Weaver. She is a cartoon character in a show and she does the things she was written to do. Hell, she is a very compelling and believable villain. Her motivations are clear and she is consistent. Her voice actress portrayed her splendidly and her character design is superb. I like her but that doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge her role in the story. I don’t however make up parts of the story to make her more evil than she was or treat my headcanons about her as absolute fact. 

Again, sigh: Prime is the worst villain in the show. He is quite literally Nyarlathotep and does this to planets: 

 This to people: 

and this to the people he created to serve, worship and love him: 

How is that not worse?

I love Catra and it genuinely annoys me when people erase her agency or try to paint her as one-dimensional victim. Catra was an antagonist for most of the show and she rocked it! She was 400% more efficient at it than cloneboy. Give the queen some damn respect and recognition! Catra had a lot of agency and her actions moved the plot of the show more than those of the protagonists. (they were mostly reactive).

Catra pulled the lever of the portal in a moment of distress after a breakdown, a Shadow-Weaver related breakdown because that’s how trauma works.

Hordak didn’t make her do it, he didn’t send Catra after Adora either. These were Catra’s choices. They came from a place of hurt but they were her choices still.

The portal was a means of transportation, not a weapon. Building it was not Catra’s mission, it was Hordak’s. He built it so he could contact Prime and either summon him here or go home –whichever course of action Prime wanted. Again, Hordak wanted to go back to this:

...

The only person who knew the device was dangerous was Entrapta and she tried to warn Hordak about it. Catra was the one who stopped her, violently so, then sent her to die on Beast Island- the fate Entrapta saved her from a season ago. Catra then tried to have Hordak open the portal before it was ready.

When he wouldn’t – she pulled the lever herself because that is how desperate she had gotten at that point, to show Shadow Weaver how wrong she was. That is how hurt Catra was by her mother figure’s betrayal and abuse.

Don’t take that away from her. Don’t call it curiosity or naivete or whatever. She knew the portal was dangerous but she wanted to prove Shadow Weaver wrong so badly that she didn’t care at that point. She had been pushed that far. 

Catra’s actions led to Angella’s death but she was not directly responsible for it. She didn’t activate the device to kill Angella, it merely happened accidentally. Catra was however glad it happened and wanted to profit from the aftermath of her death.  

Hordak didn’t care or plan to kill Angella personally. There is no in-show moment where any of that is portrayed. Since he doesn’t care about the specifics of running the horde seem to know what they are conquering at the moment, it seems that that was usually a task reserved for his second in command. 

^ - troop movement ordered by Catra

Hordak doesn’t even know what his own army is doing.

Again with the Hordak “drilling into orphan’s minds”… I seriously doubt that any of them had ever seen him out of his lab or that he came up with the propaganda himself.

Manipulation is more Shadow Weaver’s game not his. For all of Hordak’s faults, he is not deceptive or manipulative. If anything, he is woefully incapable of spotting lies. (it might have something to do with him being born in a society where lies were almost impossible because of the hive mind and Prime being able to browse his thoughts at a whim- as such, it wouldn’t be a skill he would have been able to develop).

Hordak canonically despises deception and lies.  I really don’t understand where this image of a manipulative and cunning Hordak comes from. He wouldn’t be able to plot himself out of a paper bag if his life depended on it.

First off.. S4 Catra was his equal, not his subordinate. Don’t take that away from her. She earned it.

He doesn’t look that threatening here... 

And again:  Prime created the system. He made clone slaves and programmed them to serve. His clones have hardware installed for the express reason to facilitate his control over them. He has a religion in place to make sure their thoughts do not stray from his purpose. I am legitimately boggled by this fandom’s tendency to completely forget about his existence.Does anyone really think that these people that are born “prechipped” and programmed to know nothing but Prime’s Light are really knowledgeable about human morality?

That they would know that conquest is bad when that is the express reason for their creation? 

If I were born in that situation, I’m not sure I would have known any better. Hell, if any of the clones even try to disobey Prime, they would get either mindraped (erased) or killed for the effort. They really have no choice, even if they knew that killing in Prime’s name is wrong (they don’t) they really can’t do anything about it. They have no choice but to be what they were made to be. I find it personally abhorrent when these designer slaves are held accountable for what Prime has made them do.

And to the people that say Hordak was free of Horde Prime once he was stranded on Etheria.. That is not how indoctrination works. The fact that I can’t go to church this Sunday because I’m locked in the house and can’t find the keys doesn’t make me an atheist.

Hordak was serving Prime even on Etheria. He keeps mentioning it to both Entrapta and Catra. He started the war because that’s what he thought Prime wanted of him and that’s what he’s been programmed to do. Personal and informed choice really doesn’t factor into his decision at all.

He is not sympathetic because Entrapta likes him. Notice how I haven’t brought up his relationship with her up to this point?

He is sympathetic because he literally had no choice but to do the things he was indoctrinated into doing. He was build and programmed for it, just like all the other clones. They are not able to deviate from that because of the way Prime functions and rules over them.

There is no point in the show where Hordak relishes over his status as a ruler or the “luxury” it affords him. He does not engage in the same behaviors his progenitor manifests.

There is no point in the show where Hordak relishes over his status as a ruler or the “luxury” it affords him. He does not engage in the same behaviors his progenitor manifests. He attempts to emulate Prime in order to project authority in the only way he knows how but since those are some really big shoes to fill, he is woefully inadequate. 

If Hordak had been power hungry, he would have stayed in despondos and ruled his own faction. Being away from Prime is the most powerful and autonomous he’s ever been and yet, he wants to throw all of that away in order to be a powerless, nameless part of the whole. What Hordak wanted was to be enslaved by Prime because that’s what he had been created for.

“vengeful” – and how did Hordak manifest this vengefulness? Who did he take revenge on in the series?  

“apologize” – when and where in his 3 minutes of screentime would he remember everything after 2 mindwipes, realize that the whole worldview he had since inception is wrong, realize that he had been mistaken into doing the horrible things he did and then go to all of the characters and apologize for it?

Would anyone be convinced of that had it happened in 3 minutes? I’d rather they don’t redeem him than do a shit job at it.

Very true. He’s not a better person. He’s just a person in an impossible situation. Both Hordak and Catra were handed a raw deal, I don’t understand why everyone insists on pitting them against one another. They both did bad things and they were both in horrible situations. The specifics don’t really matter since neither of them would have done the things they did had they been more fortunate.

This is the exact reason for which I don’t hold Cara’s actions against her. Catra’s only model of success was Shadow Weaver. She emulated her abusive mother figure because she had no other example and because she wanted to please that woman. It does not excuse the way Catra acted but it explains it.

I really don’t understand why some people want Catra punished. I’d rather she get love and help. That is what she needs. In time, she will want to do better and be better by herself. She doesn’t need to be forced, heavens know, she’s been forced enough as it is.

They are really different. Catra got an abusive, shitty and violent childhood. Hordak got this:

He was literally robbed of a childhood. 

She was taught by Shadow Weaver that weakness gets you killed. Hordak was not allowed to have emotions to begin with, or thoughts of his own, or a name...

Comparing to victims of abuse to see which one of them is more likable is such a strange concept to me.

Catra was robbed in s5 too. I don’t hold that against her. I  blame it on the writers. S5 could have been a lot better. 

[tobi-smp]

Context: [Link]

@maryqueenofmurder said: ok this is so totally nitpicking and probably incredibly irritating to see buuuuuut… “here’s the truth that a lot of dream apologists don’t like acknowledging: it’s Both true that no one deserves to be tortured And that dream’s actions lead him to the position that he’s in now.”

Actually, a lot of us acknowledge it. Being put in prison is a direct response, pretty much, to the things he’s done. But so many people use ‘karma’ and 'it’s his fault he’s in prison’ to excuse/justify the abuse he was/is put through. it leaves a kind of sour taste in my mouth to see it now because it’s usually followed with the sentiments mentioned above.

dream “apologists” are very, very, very rarely people who think what dream did was okay/excusable. Maybe a few see it from a slightly more justifiable perspective.  but most of us are aware that dream has caused harm, and that he did bad things. I don’t know how many dream apologists you’ve heard from, but most of us are aware of the fact that he’s brought a good deal of what’s happening to him down on his own head.

I personally think that even if Quackity was furious over what Dream did to Tommy, he’s still doing something very wrong. And what I’m about to say is going to sound even more irritating than the previous rant but, Practice what you preach. It’s both true that Quackity didn’t deserve a lot of things he got/will get but they’re also the inevitable fallout of his actions.

And if Dream apologists paint Quackity as the villain?  It’s because they’re seeing/writing from Dream’s perspective. I’m not saying Quackity is some one-dimensional villain. I’m saying he’s definitely an antagonist in Dream’s perspective. It’s just that us Dream Apologists don’t talk about his motivations because they’re irrelevant to the story we’re telling. Plenty of other stories/takes are written like that. And if he is OOC or does things that don’t match his motivations in canon?  it’s just a h/c i guess. or he has motivations you just don’t know them. [End Transcription]

So before anything else, I’m gonna have to ask that if you send me a response this long that you don’t put it in the replies. I’ve never had to ask that before but I’ve also never had to choose Not to include screenshots of what I’m responding to for length before. moreover, it’s much harder for me to know when you’ve finished your point if you’re sending 6 replies in a row as opposed to one reblog (for instance, several more replies came after I’d initially seen that you’d responded). if you’re trying to engage in a direct conversation with me that can’t fit in a couple of replies then just reblog or make your own post and @ me in it, anything but this would be better fadsjkljlkfds.

secondly, you’re right ! this wasn’t an appropriate response to the conversation in question and I’m not certain why you sent it to me.

The first post that I wrote was about how ridiculous I found it that people dance around, ignore, or straight up deny that dream designed and commissioned the prison as it is to hold tommy, and how that fact leads into the prison arc (and the thematic significance of that for both characters and the arc in general).

an anon fixated on a line from those posts wherein I point out the fact that the disc war finale was dream’s downfall stemming from his own actions. the anon disagreed, insisting that what’s happening now is only down to quackity’s desire for the revival book and not anything that dream has done. I got annoyed (because I’ve seen this argument in many forms often used to reduce quackity and his motivations down), so I decided to expand on how dream’s actions lead him to this point and influenced quackity’s actions towards him.

that’s the context of the post that you’re responding to, and you almost acknowledge it too. you point out the fact that I Explicitly stated that Nobody Deserves To Be Tortured, and yet you act as if I’ve excused everything that quackity has done by pointing out the reasons that lead him to take those actions. “practice what you preach” you say, while you insist that dream apologists don’t Excuse his actions while in the same breath making the assumption that I Don’t think quackity deserves comeuppance for his actions based solely on the fact that I insisted that he’s a complex character with motivations driven by revenge for him and his friends.

I think if dream fights back against quackity and sam, if he kills them even, when he inevitably escapes then that’ll be in his right to do so. I also think that las nevadas is going to blow up in his face some day, that the people he manipulated into joining him are probably going to play a part in that, that technoblade and phil are probably going to become a problem very shortly, etc etc etc.

my post was not about how quackity is going to eventually face the consequences of his actions (or how he already very much so has), it was about how dream is Already doing that. I Explicitly condemned quackity’s actions Twice, so why do I have to go in more detail now to appease you? why did you react to a criticism of dream’s actions by demanding that I criticize a different character too When I’d Already Done So?

and while I Am bothered by quackity being misrepresented in fanworks, what that post was in response to is the Overwhelming mischaracterization of quackity in the fandom’s consciousness as a whole. not just for Fun but in serious discourse, meta, and character analysis. he is Chronically stripped of his nuance All The Time. which is what gives value to pointing that nuance out. again, you tell me to “practice what you preach” and yet you’re telling me that I should just suck it up when I character I like is misrepresented while you actively identify with and push for the label of a character apologist.

finally, while it’s easier to use shorthand to refer to a general collection of ideas (and people with similar ideas) within a specific space, that shorthand becomes insufficient when you try to apply hard definitions to it. “us dream apologists wouldn’t do that,” no You haven’t done that. there are plenty of people who self identify with the label who Do excuse his actions, who Do vilify other characters and infantilize his character. they’re straight up common, especially on twitter and youtube. but those things (apparently) don’t reflect You or the people that you associate with.

which is fine, but the problem comes in when we drop nuance. I’ve attributed an action to a group that you don’t agree with, therefore this is read as an attack on you and your standing in that group. which just isn’t true. “dream apologists” are not a monolith, they’re people. and while there are trends that can be observed those trends are going to look different depending on what angle you look at them, and individual people are going to Still Be individual people with unique experiences and opinions.

“dream apologist” is not an identity, it’s not a set of beliefs. it’s a vague group of people that enjoy the character dream from the hit minecraft roleplay “dream smp” who are defensive of his character in one way or another. different people are going to have different associations with that term depending on the different people they meet because those people are going to believe and do different things. making assumptions about the people that you’re talking to based on labels Without a solid definition is not conductive to productive conversation.

you don’t have to defend yourself if I criticize behavior that you don’t do, and you Certainly don’t have defend the honor of a subsection of a subsection of a subsection of minecraft youtuber fans.

[me1ancho1y-b1iss]

Her Robin and His Little Ladybug Ch. 6

As soon as Jason’s exclamation was let out. Tikki zipped out of Marinette’s bag and flew up to Damian. “Hello Tikki” Damian nodded

“Hello little Cat!” Tikki said “what’s your name this time around?” 

“Damian.”  

“Ok, ok, ok. We get it. Big ‘ol happy family reunion. Big whoop. Can someone tell us what just happened!” Jason yelled exasperated

“Jason!” Dick exclaimed hitting Jason on the back of the head 

Tikki floated up in front of the Batfamily saying, “Hi! I’m Tikki, kwamii of Creation.” Tikki turned back around to face Marinette and Damian. “I’m going to go get Plagg, he should be able to help explain what's happening.” Tikki soon left with Kalkii through a portal 

“Ok. what the fuck. Demon spawn you got some explaining to do.” Jason said 

“Tt. Just wait until Plagg and Tikki get back.” Damian said leveling his family with a glare that silenced all of them. 

After a few minutes a baby blue portal opened and Tikki, Plagg and Kalkii all popped out. 

When Damian saw Plagg he got tears in his eyes for the second time that day. 

“Plagg!” He yelled 

“KIT!” Plagg yelled back and rushed to Damians cheek to hug him. Damian responded positively and hugged the little Kwamii back. 

After the happy reunion all the people present in the back batcave were ushered to the table. Everyone was seated with the three Kwamiis hovering above it. 

Bruce, still dressed as Batman spoke first addressing the Kwamii and the two youngest, “Let’s start at the beginning.” 

“Well father, this is Tikki and Plagg, the God and Goddess of creation and destruction, essentially” Damian stated 

Bruce hummed, he’d seen wieder things but his youngest hugging a stranger was definitely among weirdest and he needed to know the reason behind it. 

“In the very beginning just me and Plagg were created, out of what we don't know,” Tikki started. “We created the heavens and eventually other kwamis were created, at the time the kwamis didn’t have a physical shape. All the kwamis represent a concept, for example me and Plagg represent Creation, order and good luck and destruction, chaos and bad luck, respectively. There are other Kwamis that represent other concepts such as protection and transformation, to name a few. Over time my creation powers overflowed and created a multitude of universes, to counteract this Plagg’s power created what you humans have named as black holes, they are just essentially just small pockets of Plagg’s power. Plagg also destroyed planets and stars and whole galaxies. All of this was done for balance, everything requires balance, without creation you have destruction and without destruction, creation runs rampant.” 

“When Earth was created, along with the humans, all the Kwamis were interested. It wasn't till a human mage reached us that we were able to interact with humans. The original 19 kwami decided to go down to earth and interact with more humans thus the miraculous were born.” Tikki continued. “Plagg and I created two souls that are 100% in tune with us. While any person could wield the ladybug and cat miraculous, Damian’s and Marinette’s souls will be more in tune. Some people who have wielded my miraculous and was still a good fit are a few people you might recognize such as Fa Mulan, Hippolyta and Joan of Arc.”  

“Each soul is reborn when the universe is in a great time of need and they are never reborn without each other.” Tikki said  

The room was quiet for a moment then absolute chaos. 

When the brothers finally realized that their questions, ahem demands, weren’t being answered they started to quiet down, though they were still somewhat tense. Hey, it wasn’t everyday that one discovered that their hellspawn of a little brother had a magical girlfriend that he apparently had throughout time. Yeah, maybe that was still processing a little. 

“Quiet, you imbeciles. If you want your questions answered I suggest that you be silent.” Damian said a little exasperated. “I apologise for my idotic brothers, priya. They are still learning their manners and have yet to know how to behave in front of a guest.” Damian continued, glaring at the annoyances of his life that he sometimes considers his brothers to drive his point home. They just shrugged in response. 

Marinette beckoned Tikki over while Damian was staring down his siblings into silence. “Hey Tikki,” she whispered. “Is there any way to get rid of the Lazarus Pits effects? I noticed hood had some remnants on him? And I want to help, Damian has definitely been dipped into the pit, but we both know that the pits don’t affect him much.” Marinette finished. She really hoped that they could red hood could be helped in some way. 

“Oh Marinette,” Tikki sighed sadly. Her bug was always trying to help people. “I think I might be able to cut back on some of the effects, but we both know that he will never be truly healed.” Marinette only nodded sadly. 

At that point Damian looked back over at Marinette and decided to broach the topic of what was bothering her, none of the conversation topics had been too heavy, so Damian had no clue on what could've been bothering her. “What is it?” he asked 

“I think I might be able to help your brother out.” Marinette responded 

Damian raised an eyebrow at this, his brothers needed a lot of help. “With what exactly?” Damian questioned. 

Marinette took a deep breath before looking up straight at Red Hood saying,

“The Lazarus Pits”

At her words Damians eyes went comically wide as he was hit with a load of repressed memories. Jason promptly started choking while the rest of the family was looking at Marinette with a new found wariness. 

“W-what?” Jason choked out. 

Marinette sighed looking at Damian for a confirmation. Once he nodded she continued. “The reason Hawkmoth is even active is because when you combine the miraculous of the ladybug and the miraculous of the black cat the wielder is able to make a wish. The wish is able to bend reality, it’s life altering. Hawkmoth wants the miraculi to fulfill his wish, however no matter the wish, it would cause severe unbalance. As Tikki stated earlier everything requires balance, for example if he wished to bring someone back to life, someone else would have to die in their place.” 

All the bats took this in becoming very aware of what could possibly happen if Hawkmoth were to win. 

Damian sighed heavily before continuing where Marinette left off. “During one of our former lives, we were in an intense battle. At the end I noticed E- well now Marinette lying unconscious. I ran to her hoping she would heal herself, but I was there too late.” Damian let out a shuddering breath. “She was gone and I was desperate to get her back. I knew I would eventually see her again, but the fact that she was gone was still fresh in my mind. So I combined the ladybug miraculous and the black cat miraculous. I knew the consequences, but at the moment I just needed her back in my arms. Alive. So I made a wish. The wish formed what are now known as The Lazarus Pits. However, as life requires balance, the pit would cause madness for anyone who descends into its waters while still giving a person new life. There were no such consequences on Marinette due to the fact that she wielded the ladybug miraculous, but I know it was still the wrong decision to make.” As Damian finished speaking, Marinette gently squeezed his hand offering her silent support, while Damian’s father and brothers stared at him; they’ve never seen him express so much emotion before. 

“I was asking Tikki if there was a way to somewhat reverse the effects of the pits.” Marinette spoke staring directly at Red Hood for a second time that day. “It won't reverse everything but it will hopefully take the edge off so to speak, if it does work.” 

“So what do you say, Red Hood?” Marinette smirked 

A/N: I finally posted chapter 6. we also finally get more background. Hopefully my explanations make sense, every fic I’ve read where they explain the miraculous origin is different so I hope mine is understandable. There will definitely be more past life stories in later chapters but the lazarus story leads us into the next chapter and I couldn’t get the idea that damian saved marinette by combining the miraculous out of my head so... you have this 

Taglist: @bumblebeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee @toodaloo-kangaroo @aespades @mochegato @daminette5074 @yannowhatigiveup @sekhmet5 @alyssadeliv @kking13 @callmewhatyouwant00 @henie04 @buginetye        (if you to want be added, ask and I’ll add you)

[kinsey3furry300]

A very confused Star Wars Fan desperately tries to justify their belief that “Caravan of Courage” shows the way forward for the franchise. No, really.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved Star Wars. And I mean, all of it. The books, the games, the Lego, the spin-offs: I even enjoy the Holiday Special in a The Room so-bad-you-just-need-to-see-it sort of way.  But particularly the films. But here is when we run into the big problem: I’m just the wrong age. The original trilogy launched before I was born, the prequel trilogy hit cinemas when I was already a teen and while I went and saw them and enjoyed them, I was at that age where I was self-conscious about seeing a “kids” film, and hyper-aware of how silly and cringy those films were in parts. So my indoctrination, my inoculation with the Star Wars bug didn’t happen in the cinema, and it didn’t happen with any of the main franchise works. It happened on home video, on a skiing trip in the French Alps in the early 90’s. I’d have been about 6, and this was the first time I’d ever been abroad other than to see relatives in Ireland.  And I loved it: to this day I love skiing, but more than that, I have very, very fond childhood memories of this trip. This was shortly before I lost my biological mother to cancer, she’d have received her diagnosis just after we got back from the trip. This was when my younger sister stopped being an annoying screaming thing and became and became an actual person I could talk and play and share ideas with, this was before the combination my mothers long illness and my father having just launched his own IT start up meant I didn’t see him or her any more, despite the fact they were in the same house as me. This was this wonderful, nostalgic child-hood bubble when my family was intact, and nothing could ever go wrong. I skied all day with mum and dad, and would come back to the chalet in the evening. It was an English speaking chalet, I met my first real-life American there, and having grown up in the 90’s in the UK nothing was cooler than making friends with an actual American my own age. He had a hulk Hogan action figure with springs in the legs so if you put him on a hard surface and punched his head down, when you let go he’d jump really high in the air. We used to play with it together in the bath, back in that weird 90’s time-bubble when it was possible to convince two sets of parents that this kid you’d just met was you best friend in the world and of course shared bath time was, somehow, normal and appropriate. And fresh from bath time, tired from the day, the parents would give us some hot coco, dump us kids in front of the tv and grab the first shitty low-budget VHS they could find to keep us distracted while they went to the bar. In this particular time, in this particular place, that shitty low budget cartoon was the  complete set of the 1985 Lucasfilm/ABC Ewoks cartoon, plus the two spin off movies, and to this day that cheap, kitschy, kind of bad series has a special warm and cosy place in my heart. I remember being enthralled by the world, in love with the characters, applied by the bad guys and the injustice they caused (to this day I’m still irate about that time Wicket lost his set of beads documenting his progress towards becoming a full warrior and the older Ewoks basically said, tough, you need to re-earn all those merit badges from scratch. This struck me as exactly the sort of bullshit an adult would pull, and pissed me off) and on tenterhooks about what would happen to the characters.

It was also, by a coincidence, the first ever Star Wars media I was exposed to, and the above combination of events probably explains a lot about me.

So I was surprised, the other day, when scrolling Disney+, to find they’d added Caravan of Courage AND Battle for Endor to the roster in my region. Surely Disney wouldn’t want their slick, cool brand associated with this old trash? Surely there could be no place for this in the post-Mandalorian Star Wars cannon? Surely this is a horrible mistake some intern made, right?

Unless…. What if I’ve miss-remembered? What if it’s not just rose-tinted nostalgia goggles, and it’s, in fact, secretly really, really good?

I rushed to my comfy chair, got a blanket, dimmed the lights, made some coco (with rum in it, because why the hell not?) and sat down to re-examine this lost gem.

And wow: it’s every bit as shit as you’d expect.

It has aged exactly as poorly as you’d expect a cheap, mid 80’s direct to video spin-off to age. Caravan of Courage? More like Caravan of Garbage, am I right?

And yet… I still enjoyed every moment.

And it was sitting there, in my pyjamas, watching a cheaply made direct to video cash-grab from just before I was born, seeing it again for the first time in nearly 30 years, and I realised something.

It doesn’t really matter if this film is bad, so long as I enjoy it. And if it doesn’t really mater if this is bad, then I, like many Star Wars fans, wasted a huge amount of time and emotional effort on being butthurt about stuff I didn’t like about the Rise of Skywalker and it’s ilk. Because somewhere, right now, a tired and frustrated parent is putting Disney+ on to keep their kids quiet for two hours. And they won’t think too hard about what they put on, so long as it keeps little Timmy busy for a bit. Somewhere, right now, a kid is watching Rise of Skywalker, and it’s the first Star Wars media they’ve ever seen.

And that’s okay. Because we don’t know what that kids home life is like. We don’t know if it’s good or bad. Maybe it’s great, maybe it’s about to take a dramatic plunge like mine did, and this moment here will be the cosy, warm memory they look back on in 30 years time, and that’s beautiful.  They’re getting introduced to a fun, wonderful fantasy world that could be with them all their lives, through good times and bad, and as fans we should be happy about that.

Star Wars will never, die: it’s too darn profitable, Disney will never let it. And while I hope they learn from their mistakes and make sure every future Star Wars is a timeless gem of story-telling, statistically, if you keep making enough films, some of them will be bad. And while I’d like them all to be great, it’s still okay if they’re bad.

Because nothing can take away my memories of that week in that chalet. Nothing can take-away my memories of when they put the original trilogy on in cinemas for the special edition and I had my jaw hit the floor with how good it was on the big screen, not knowing or caring who shot first. Nothing can take away you memories of the Original Trilogy, the Prequels, or the Clone Wars. Nothing can tarnish the bits of the sequil trilogy that you like, and there are good bits in there.

But wait, what about continuity? What about the sacred, perfect written time-line that used to exist?

Well, what about it? Have you seen any other big, epic fantasy universe before? They’re all a mess. A work of fiction, particularly fantasy, can be extensive, or tightly written, but not both. Harry Potter is only seven books, and the last two feel, tonally, like they’re from an entirely different series. I love them, but the grim-dark kicked in so fast you’ll get whiplash. The Hobbit is a perfect written self-contained novel, and LOTR is *The* big boy high-fantasy trilogy: fast forward 50 years, and Christopher Tolkien is desperately squeezing every last drop of money out of his father’s corpse by finishing and publishing every unfinished note JRR ever wrote right down to his shopping lists. Even Dune goes of the rails with sequels. I can only think of four fantasy works that are both extensive and consistently tightly written, Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time, Malazan: Book of the Fallen and Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe. And even then, the prequels and spin-offs mess with the timelines: the Dunk and Egg novella’s change some character’s canonical ages and timelines, Wheel of Time was going slowly off the rails even before the Jordan died, Forge of Darkness made what was a good metaphor for the creation of it’s world into a literal war deep in the past, and Sanderson’s first Novel Elantris got a re-write to bring it more in line with the rest of the shared universe. The MCU, oft held up as the modern example of tightly planned, well thought out ongoing storytelling, is a lie: it was never as pre-planned out as Disney wants us to think; the first Iron Man, apparently, barely had a script, with Downey ad-lib-ing most of his scenes. None of the MCU films are direct sequels to each-other other than Infinity war and Endgame. There are three Iron Man films, and Three Thor films, and none continue an ongoing story line across multiple films, and the Cap films barely continue an arc, but only where Cap’s relationship with Natasha and Bucky is involved.  Much like these, Star War’s cannon is a complete, nightmarish, confusing, tangled, illogical mess. And it has been since 1984, as Caravan of Courage proves. It was never consistent and well planned.

And that’s okay.

I used to care about plot holes. I used to care about which works were cannon in Star Wars lore. I’m over that now. I’m happy to imagine the books, films and games not as a blow-by-blow historical account of a galaxy far far away, but as campfire stories from within this fun, imaginative world that we’re all invited to listen to. Stories that are in-universe myth and folklore, that we can all snuggle up and listen to while drinking highly alcoholic rum and remembering better times, knowing that wherever the future throws at us, no matter how the world goes to hell around us, we’ll still have the memories, and the ability to make our own new stories in the wonderful Star Wars world we all share.

And that’s okay. No, more than that: that’s beautiful.

Also Star Wars is completely unambiguous on the fact we’re allowed to kill fascists no matter how many times they keep coming back with a new logo, so that’s timely I guess.

So, there’s my hot take two-years after everyone else stopped caring about this stuff, as per bloody usual. Tell me why I’m wrong below, and does anyone else have any truly awful spin-off shows that they kind of have a nostalgic soft spot for?

[darkpoisonouslove]

Winx Club Rewrite Is a Go

I don’t know how I ended up here because I’ve always maintained that rewrites aren’t my thing (and I still kinda do) because it feels a lot like reading the same thing over and over again and to me it can be annoying. Yet, here I am with my very own Winx Club rewrite.

I started writing the first episode today but I have A LOT planned out already. Seasons 1 and 3 are pretty solid already even if there is still a lot of character work to be done and logistics to be figured out. I also have some structure for seasons 2 and 4 and I figured out the backstory of the Wizards of the Black Circle yesterday and that gave me an indescribable feeling which is pretty much what I took as a sign that it’s time to talk about this project.

To explain what I am doing - I am taking everything and changing it while keeping it the same. If that doesn’t make sense, then imagine that I am keeping the major plot points and most of the episodes (I have removed some because they are just irrelevant) have the same starting and ending point as they do on the show but there are big changes between those. Seasons 5, 6 and - you’ll find out in a sec - are going to have a lot more changes. I have removed transformations and switched around some of the transformations so that they are earned at a different point than in canon. I have picked a place to end this already and I have arcs for each season.

Now when it comes to the seasons, I have removed season 7 which will be done as a “movie” and will have additional plot still because there really is THAT little to season 7. Season 8 becomes season 7 in my rewrite and is the last and final season. It is the end of Winx’ journey and I think it is a satisfying end to a pretty long story. I am keeping the movies but:

1) There will probably be “movies” after seasons 1 and 2 as well just to make the structure make sense and because I feel like there is enough to be talked about between the seasons.

2) SotLK is majorly different from canon because there was no sense to that movie and only plot holes instead. I’ve saved what was salvageable from it and mostly put it in season 3 to free the whole movie for more interesting and logical stuff to happen. The end goal is the same, though - bringing Marion and Oritel (and Domino) back.

3) Magical Adventure is the least changed but there will be several changes here as well. The plan is to make the movie relevant on a wider level than just to Winx and the Specialists but I still don’t have that clear a vision of it. Just some things that I want to see but need piecing together.

3) The “movie” after season 5 will deal with the season 7 plot instead. I have switched them around. There will be Kalshara and Griffin and Faragonda and some major Bloom drama as well. I need to make these pieces connect, too, but this one feels almost coherent at the current time.

4) Politea is saved for the last movie that is after season 6. You’ll see why. Anyway, major Daphne and Bloom feelings are planned for that movie... and I don’t know what else yet. We’ll see.

I am currently working on all of the seasons and all of the movies at once so it is a bit of a mess. I write down and rewrite ideas. Everything is one big map in my head that isn’t completely translatable to someone else. Anyway, you can find everything I have posted about this in the “wc rewrite” tag. You can ask me questions if you have them and I’ll see how much I’ll share while trying to resist the urge to spoil everything because I have been at this for about 5 months now and I have so many ideas that I adore and want to talk about. Despite that I have no idea how quickly I can work on it. This is bound to take years which was the hardest part of this project for me to reconcile with but I really want to do it. So let’s see how that goes.

I want to say that I am planning on doing one episode a chapter but because I have decided to both develop the characters and be self-indulgent, that will make the chapters long. I don’t think that they are devoid of tension or action, however, because this thing is packed with so much stuff happening. Here’s a little sneak peak from the first episode:

“Bloom, honey, wake up,“ Vanessa’s mellow voice reached her through the colorful explosion into which her dream was retreating.

“Just five more minutes, mom,” Bloom mumbled as she wormed her head under the pillow to block out the interruption. She reached for the fairy princess in her dream with hair of liquid light and a touch like sinking through the reflective surface of a mirror that showed none of Bloom’s own features to her. She’d lose not just the way but her own self if she let go of the figure in front of her.

“You’ll be late for school, sleepy head.”

The woman evaporated in a heap of steam with a nasty hissing sound that rattled Bloom’s bones as she jumped into bed. Vanessa’s apologetic smile came into focus to draw a groan out of Bloom’s parched throat as she threw her head back.

“Not funny, mom,” Bloom grabbed her fallen pillow from the floor and plopped herself back down on her mattress, eyes wide open as the image of the fairy burned in her mind. “I wanted to see where she’d lead me!”

“Who?” Vanessa sat down on the edge of the bed.

“The fairy from my dream,” Bloom covered her eyes with her free hand to narrow her focus to the woman. “I’ve seen her before, I just...” she threw the pillow next to her on the mattress. “I can’t remember where.”

“Well, I’m not surprised. You’ve read every book on fairies that you could get your hands on. It’s only natural that they’ve started blurring together,” Vanessa chuckled.

“Yeah, but it’s not that.” Bloom shot up once again, her vision spinning for a moment from the sudden action. “She’s not a character. She’s something... someone else.” She twisted a strand of hair around her finger looking for the warmth enveloping her at the presence of the mystery fairy. It couldn’t be the first time she’d dreamed about her but she couldn’t recall more than that. “Grandma always said that dreams are important.” Another reason not to let go of the fleeting imagery in her head.

“I’m pretty sure she meant the other kind of dreams,” Vanessa’s amusement was more of a ghost itself now that Bloom had mentioned the newest loss in their family. It was her who had to stay open and talk to Bloom about Mike’s mother when he froze every time the topic was brought up until Bloom could no longer bear to cause him that. “Did you finish your art project last night? I sure hope it was inspiration that kept you up so late and not the lack of it.”

Bloom beamed despite the deflection. “I did!” She jumped out of bed as her mom made space for her to launch herself at her desk where her masterpiece was covered by stray sheets to keep her parents from peeking without her there to see the reactions. Finals had really inserted themselves in all areas of her life–including dreams–to throw a wrench in her works. Finishing a drawing she’d been sitting on for over a month had let her breathe fresh air again. “Here it is.” She pulled two sheets from the pile. “This is the sketch I did during spring break.” She’d spent a whole day wandering Gardenia looking for the building to put her vision into. “And here is the one I’ve reimagined.”

Vanessa gasped, hands flying to her mouth as her eyes gleamed with unformed tears. Not unlike her response to Bloom’s first steps in art back when she’d been three but, somehow, her reactions had developed to match Bloom’s growing skillset without giving undue credit.

Bloom’s heart swelled in her chest with pride boosted by the trust she had in her mom. Her work was almost complete now that it’d accomplished the desired effect with one parent. She’d been in awe herself by the alterations she’d made to Earth architecture to make it elaborate and alien enough for a fantasy... something. She still couldn’t decide what format she wanted to create her world in. Comics were a handy option but a vision of an elusive deal for a TV show still reared its head every time she reached for a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. And there was, of course, the popularity of video games accompanied by her lack of skills or contacts when it came to coding. There was always one more step to the door of her fairy utopia but she had to focus on the art for now.

“I hope that keeping this up will be easier after school is done stifling my inspiration,” Bloom chewed on her lip as she waited for her mom to collect herself enough to give the verdict of whether a summer job was about to take over that function now.

“Uninspired? You?” Vanessa shook her head in disbelief. “Honey, you have the imagination to create worlds and I am sure that one day you will,” Vanessa reached out cautiously towards the museum Bloom had created for her fantasy world. Her fingers barely brushed the paper to leave no traces of their presence and the bittersweet look on her face was too much for Bloom to stand. Her art was not meant to be an untouchable monument. It was supposed to be a temple, a home. Maybe her yearning had come through too well.