#coaster lore dump

[hyper-coasters]

I have mentioned Cobra Curse's immersive theming before, and how it's one of my favorite aspects of the Egypt section. The queue and ride follows the story of a vengeful Egyptian God, The Snake King "Venymyss", his followers, and archeologists discovering that "There is no escape from the Cobra's Curse." Venymyss was, at one point, a kind ruler with many followers. He blessed their land, and in return gained more power with more followers. The Snake King became corrupt, and obsessed with power, and began to neglect his followers. They experienced drought, loss of crop, famine, disease. He betrayed his subjects, and so his subjects betrayed him by destroying his idol, smashing it to pieces. Snake King Venymyss vowed vengeance, he will release a curse upon the world when his idol is replaced to its glory. Two-thousand years later a group of archeologists surveying the land uncover the idol in all its pieces, and begin reconstruction, unaware of what awaits them. They use a tall, 70 ft. crane to hoist the final piece of the 80 ft. stature into place. With the placement of the head, The Snake King is free to seek his revenge. The queue is as heavily themed as the ride itself, as you enter the line you can find notes scribbled on the wall, on bulletin boards, noting the amount of cobras in the area. Scientists uncovering proof of the curse, but far too late. The queue line is littered with mining gear and archeology sites and pieces of the idol. You board the rides train, and are moved into the elevator lift - the crane that is hoisting the head of the cursed idol back into place. You come face to face with that cursed idol as King Venymyss releases his curse. The structure of the snake statue is actually hollow, with the ability to climb in and change the lights that sit behind the eyes. They go through several different colors throughout the year, depending on if they have any current events such as Howl-O-Scream. The eyes may glow blue, which is its most common, white, or red, which is usually done for the parks Halloween event. The base of the statue is a steel spine, with the walls being made with foam and fiberglass. Each and every car you get in on the ride is unique as well, both in color scheme and emblem on the front. There are 3-D emblems, stickers, and blank cars!

[clairyclue]

my thoughts on Majestic Rep’s RTC

it’s a lot sorry guys

tags: @jencattv @ray-winters @keatondj

(spoilers below the cut)

you can tell when ocean starts questioning her attitude and how conflicted she is, especially right after WTWN 

jane gets startled so easily poor baby

noel’s riffs are amazing!! (noel’s lament)

the choreo is awesome too!

mischa is a such a sweetie he genuinely cares so much about the other choir members 

mischa flipping ocean off before “i love you guys” haha

constance’s finger guns after “fornication” 

constance laughing at ocean out down jokes and then switching up is so funny 

i love oceans line delivery she’s like three seconds snapping i love it 

jane going from being able to move

fluidly during the songs to being stiff again she looks so confused every time 

ricky. just ricky ❤️

connie i thought the crystal meth joke was funny 

^^ i love all the dialogue in that scene i don’t remember it in original cast slime tuts 

fuck mischa’s adopted parents fr you can tell his anger is a defense mechanism because when he feels comfortable with the choir he’s so sweet!!

MISCHA FALTERING WHEN SAYING HES TALIAS FIANCÉ 

“THANK YOU FOR KILLING MY MOTHER AND INDIRECTLY KILLING ME” 💔💔💔

MY LIFE IS AWESOME 

(i’m gonna start categorizing by song now i don’t have much for WTWN and Noel’s Lament so)

jane dope 🔥🔥

mlia gives mad sibling karaoke vibes 

karna i see u bopping along 

the singing too is immaculate 

OK JANE i see u dropping it down 

TALIA

this mischa genuinely seems so into it he deserves so much credit in way of character work 

the way he gets all bashful during his Talia monologue 💓

background harmonies (constance is carrying and also i can hear her so well!!)

again riffs!! well done 

the choreo goes crazy!! this applies to all the songs tho 

the arms making a steeple 🥺���

THE ENDING RIFFS 💔💔💔😩😩😩😭😭🥺🥺😞😞

the projection i’m gonna end it all 💔

MISCHA FUCKING CRYING INTO NOELS SHOULDER HELPHELPHELP and even once the dialogue moves on he’s still clinging to him and Noel rubs his back

“ocean why aren’t you talking right now it’s weird” (ricky in the bg: ☝️)

i love u connie awkwardness 

jane is so reactive to everything she hears like a little puppy 

“OKAY!! 😁😁😁���” (autismo lore dump time)

oceans face when he’s explaining it 😀 to 🙁 to 😟

AND THEN SHE FUCKING MOANS U CATHOLIC FREAK (no offense to catholics reading this)

noel’s face me too bud 

ricky’s lore is kinda gross just because it wasn’t always this way. but sigh what can you do

SPACE AGE BACHELOR MAN:

ricky my little freak boy ❤️

spacedolls realness coming through 

“sure…😬”

rip ricky u would have loved therian tiktok 

little curtain face thing “it gets weird now :)” (•.•)

“THAT SON OF A BITCH !! 😡😡😡”

the emotion behind his lines the whole time tbh adds to the comedy (“i thought i told them !! 😕😕”)

the ending “b-b-b- bachelor man!” (“meow!!”)

we love u mischa hype man (again sweetest man alive)

constance’s “oh man!” was so agressive i loved it the one in the soundtrack seems so sad. this constance is less shy more awkward and i love it

THE BALLAD OF JANE DOE:

i know i know. but choreo. 

vocals!! ily jenna 

bg vocals as well!! 

the mixing 🥹

OK THE OPT UP????

the choreo at “a choir never complete” reminds me of the opening funeral scene from beetlejuice. definitely fits the vibe!

the borderline growl/anger in “and i’m asking why lord” yes!!!!

she sounds so desperate. crying. 

“does no one care?!” again the anger and emotion!

THE BG VOCALS AT THAT ONE PART SO GOOD THEYRE ANGRY FOR HER IT SEEMS 

the roller coaster. them being sucked back into it choreo wise. reverse looking. 

THE HIGH NOTES 💋💋💋

ocean being the one to put the birthday costume on means a lot to me. idk

ocean comforting her too 🥰🥰

janes birthday claps!

SNATCH !! 🧁🧁

ocean doing connie’s hair ❤️

savannah scene!! 

we don’t get to see it but i know the waltz is happening 

“ur ma best frand 💓“

^ and then ocean immediately snaps my heart again. 

“no you don’t ocean. 😕”

i understand oceans monologue she just. executed it badly. 

constance 😝 beat her ass girl 

“or they’ll call you a cow” baby. come here. 💔

constance. i get you. i get u connie baby. 

JAWBREAKER/SUGAR CLOUD:

oceans face ❤️ i don’t know how to describe it but she looks. proud. and her sitting almost re-evaluating everything in the back. (assuming)

ricky giving her the mic ❤️

HER GIGGLE

them scooting her around aghhhahahdhdbdheh

cloud props!

CONFETTI AND BALLOONS AND IM SMILING LIKE A FOOL

jane looks so happy with her ballon skipping around 🥹

the ending!! ILY CONSTANCE 

mischa helping her down awww

ocean and connie hug!!

can’t forget the nischa hug

ocean losing her voice inflection and sounding so genuine. so scared. so raw. 

janey when she gets chosen 🥹🥹

ocean and connie hug 2

JANE REACHING FOR RICKY SNDBDJWKDJDKF

ITS NOT A GAME/ITS JUST A RIDE

crying over the ending brb 

the slideshow will always get me 

something about the whole scene. houfhhhhhhh

“and you give and choose while you live and lose” and the lines preceding it get me 🥹

ARE THOSE REAL VIDEOS OF JENNA?!?!?!

KARNA SOUNDING LIKE THEYRE GONNA CRY

the first lines of it’s just a ride. no music. so raw sounding 🥹 the teary voices. the haphazard harmonies. 

ocean and mischa holding each other. big bro little sis 💓

“WOO!”

THEIR FREESTYLE DANCING! 

they’re having so much fun. they’re dead but they’re LIVING for the first time. 

all of the hand holding. my babes. 

[asmodeusstahl]

So, I have a lot of problems with the latest (sixth) episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I’m just going to start from the beginning and work my way through the episode to the end.

Firstly, the episode title is “We Take A Zebra to Vegas.” Do we *see* a Zebra? For all of two seconds. That’s it. So much for a plot-relevant episode title. It’s a nitpick, sure, but if you’re going to make something an episode title, it should have SOME relevance to the plot. I understand that that’s the only chapter where we see the Lotus Casino, so it makes sense to use that chapter title as the episode title. But is it *really* that much more effort to add a scene featuring Percy and/or Grover chatting with the Zebra? There’s certainly run time and almost certainly budget for it.

Then we get to the casino itself and, as loathe as I am to admit it, the movie did it better without question. Even the smallest of details — like the look and vibe of the casino are done so much better in the movie. The casino is designed to trap children, so it’s filled with water parks, roller coasters, and all that makes a kid lose their mind. We see that in the movie. In the show, it’s just a regular old casino filled with a bunch of adults of all ages. There’s only like 2 or 3 shots where you really see groups of children. And that’s not even mentioning the exterior architecture of it. It’s a nitpick, but the show version doesn’t even look Greek-inspired. In the movie, it’s basically a knock-off Caesar’s Palace with Greek Columns and everything. It’s great. The giant Lotus Blossom with a roller coaster coming out of the side just… isn’t.

Much like with Medusa, all the suspense was just thrown out the window. Once they enter, Grover does the whole “wait, Percy, did your mom read you the Odyssey?” shtick and the trio figures out it’s the Lotus Eaters that Odysseus faced. Consequently, Percy and Annabeth do not lose themselves in the casino. They stay sane the whole bloody time. What annoys me even more about this is that Percy even says as they enter the casino “what if we just chilled here and played some games for a bit.” It got my hopes up that we’d actually see a competent drug trip scene — I was wrong. Annabeth immediately shuts him down and he’s like “yeah, no, I was joking.”

Anyway, they go to look for Hermes. I’m not sure why the fuck Hermes loves hanging out in this casino. The show’s explanation is that he just likes chilling there and nothing more is said on the matter. It feels weird to be that an Olympian would just be chilling in a casino run by monsters without a care in the world. Whatever.

Once they enter, Annabeth decides Grover should split off so they can cover more ground. Um, hello, if you’re trying to cover more ground why not have EVERYONE split off, not just Grover? So Grover goes off on his own, finds a Satyr that used to know his Uncle Ferdinand and starts talking to him about the Search for Pan. The Satyr is like “oh, yeah, Pan. I think I found him here. Come follow me.” Grover follows and eventually forgets who he is (and ends up playing VR). Sure, great, one of the trio lost it, but that doesn’t account for the other two and we really didn’t need to shoehorn more Pan stuff in just for the sake of getting Grover to split off from Percabeth.

Meanwhile, Percabeth have found Hermes and he takes them aside to chat after they mention they’re friends of Luke’s. There’s a few things here that annoy me. Firstly, Hermes lore dumps all of the trauma that is May Castellan — something which doesn’t appear until the 5th book. We could have — and should have, imo — gotten the backstory behind Luke’s failed quest to the Garden of the Hesperides to steal a Golden Apple. The quest he failed when Landon gave him the scar on his face. The quest *Hermes himself* assigned to him. There’s plenty of resentment for Hermes that comes for that — we didn’t need May Castellan. Not yet.

Turns out, Hermes is just stalling them because he doesn’t want to help. Fucking dick. So, Annabeth goes invisible and steals his car keys — which Hermes absolutely knew about. They rescue Grover after a brief spell of forgetfulness. Annabeth reasons that they didn’t lose it like Grover because they were together and it’s harder to forget when you’re with someone. Sure, great. How do you explain the DiAngelos? I highly doubt that Bianca would willingly let Nico wander off on his own. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

I really hate that the movie casino somehow managed to include Disco Darrin — the kid from the 70s that triggers Percy realizing something is fucked up — and that the show doesn’t. Darrin really helps reinforce the idea that the casino is full of kids out of time, which helps set up the reveal that the DiAngelos were in the casino for 70ish years and didn’t age at all. I hate that the movie did something better, I really do. But it’s just unavoidable when comparing these two scenes.

The trio then “steal” Hermes’ cab, which just so happens to have a letter addressed to the trio that supposedly tells them a back way into the Underworld. We’ll see how that turns out next episode, but I will be UPSET if we don’t get DOA Recording Studious and all that jazz. As soon as Percy (shoddily) drives the trio out of the parking garage, Hermes’ travel magic transports them to the beach in Santa Monica. That’s the one redeeming thing about this episode for me. That’s actually a really cool application of Hermes’ powers as the God of Travelers.

What I do have a problem with, however, is Percy’s experience in the ocean. Instead of meeting Poseidon, as was promised to us, we meet the Nereid from St. Louis. She tells Percy that “surprise, the summer solstice already happened. Poseidon waited for you as long as you could, but now he has to go marshal his forces for war. Go home now, your quest is done.” Um, what? The summer solstice passing makes no sense to me as a creative decision. The solstice is the reason that all the gods were on Olympus when Percy returned the bolt. You can’t expect the gods to just be chilling on Olympus 24/7 especially when war is about to break out.

Plus, you cannot tell me that Zeus wouldn’t have immediately started fucking shit up. His symbol of power was stolen — allegedly — by Poseidon. He’d want that back ASAP. In the book, it’s stated in no uncertain terms that, if Percy+Co. failed, Zeus and Poseidon would be fucking up the weather. Massive storms and natural disasters everywhere. The sky and the sea would be at war with each other. It would be like Armageddon. There’s 0 sign of that. At all.

Then, before Percy leaves, the Nereid gives him *four* pearls. Not three. Four. This takes away Percy having to sacrifice Sally for the sake of the world (even if she comes back eventually). This change just doesn’t make any sense to me. The explanation in the show is that Poseidon cares about Sally. But that makes 0 sense because there’s been an overarching narrative that All Gods Are Bastards. Additionally, even in this episode, Hermes mentioned that it was Poseidon’s advice to stay away from the lives of demigods/their mortal parents. That it’s awful watching them struggle and feel powerless to stop it. Why does Poseidon suddenly have the power to help Sally now? It just… doesn’t make any sense to me.

Another issue I have with this is that if the Nereid is telling Percy to go back to camp, why is she giving him *four* pearls? Assuming a retcon that the pearls transport the user to CHB, there’s no need for four. If Percy is supposed to return to CHB immediately, he doesn’t go to the Underworld to rescue Sally and therefore does not need a fourth pearl. If that isn’t a plot hole, I don’t know what is.

The episode ends with Percy being like “no, I’m seeing this quest through to the end.” Which is great and all, but the teaser for next episode worries me with how much it includes. We’re going to see Crusty’s Water Bed Palace, the Underworld, AND the fight on the beach with Ares. I don’t know how they’re going to fit that all into like 35 minutes of show time (accounting for the “previously on” segment and credits taking up 5 minutes of the 40 minute runtime). Crusty was the obvious cut from this episode so that it doesn’t feel rushed, but it *wasn’t* cut and that worries me.

And, furthermore, I think Crusty is going to have to be heavily modified for the screen. I see no way Disney allows Percy to go full medieval torture and stretch Crusty to death. Which is disappointing, if I’m being honest. It’s really the first indication of how Percy acts when he’s snapped/in the zone. Stuff like summoning hurricanes while fighting or overwhelming the weather barrier at Camp also falls into this category. That’s a nitpick, sure, but whatever.

Look, I didn’t want to be a hater. And I still don’t. I would love to love this show, but the problem with it is the marketing and the writing. It was marketed by Rick and the critics as a “faithful adaptation.” This is not that. This is a rewrite of the book that’s honestly worse than some fanfics I’ve read. Which says a lot because the PJO fanfic community is not known for having well-written works.

And the trio themselves just aren’t clicking as their book counterparts for the most part. Percy, especially, just doesn’t act like Percy. We’re missing his sarcasm and biting humor. It’s not Walker’s fault — anyone who’s watched The Adam Project” knows he can pull it off. Annabeth has lost most of her character development and had that screen time given to Grover. I was alright with it last episode with Ares, but it just did not work with Augustus this episode. The trio just doesn’t feel like the trio and I don’t think it’s the actors’ faults.

Like I said earlier, Walker can absolutely pull off Persass. The script just isn’t letting him do that and that disappoints me. I watched Leah in Beast and absolutely could see the Annabeth in her, but all of her moments and character traits are either being given to Percy and Grover or cut entirely. Taking away our knowledge from the books, we know the least about Annabeth’s character out of the trio. The script just isn’t making her click in my mind as Annabeth like the script in Beast did. I can’t really say much about Aryan, since I haven’t seen him in other works, but I do like that he’s being elevated above comedic relief. So… that’s a good thing, I guess.

Overall, I have a lot of issues with the show. Especially with this episode. I also have a lot of fears with the direction this show is going for the final two episodes and I’m nervous to see where Rick and the writers take this. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[sortanonymous]

Meta Knightmare Masterpost

Now the story of a team of heroes undergoing a journey like no other, and the namesake who had no choice but to lead them through all the action, chaos, heartbreak, miracles, and glory.

(Basically [the outlines of] an odd reimagining of a do-do-ton of Kirby games from the perspective of Meta Knight and his messed-up crew)

Yes, it really took me this long to make a masterpost. I'm not happy about that either.

The Main Tetralogy (AO3):

I - The Quirky Origins

II - The Insane Following Stuff

III - The Later Roller Coaster

IV - The Unforgettable Star-Studded Finale

mini knightmare side stories (AO3):

1 - A Mission Already Running Sharply on Fumes

2 - Our Little Miracle

3 - Happy Birthday, My Blossom

4 - If Only All Dreams Could Come True

Extra Fics (AO3):

Outtakes (Deleted, Alternate, and Pre-Update Scenes)

Meta Knightmare Art (Tumblr):

First Drawings of 5 A-Teamers

Meta Knightmare Stuff Tumblr Posts (Lore Dumps, Info Dumps, etc.):

How Sectonia and Taranza Became Pikiria's Parents

How Max Found Susie

Pikiria Info Dump - Part 1 (plus both my and Aiden Stolidus's drawings of her)

Other Meta Knightmare-related Tumblr Posts (Memes, etc.):

Meta Knightmare Presents: Total Halberd Island (Total Drama Parody Idea)

"Finding Nemo... IN SPACE" Meme with the Haltmanns

[eucidianlyendless]

On today's old and in need of an update, my old one off idea for a deltaswap spawned by "okay so queen has a punch out gimmick, but also what would fit for a napstablook neo form (later used in my underswap that has Mad Dummy/Mew Mew <> Mettaton) if I actually made one, and so my conclusion was Pac Man, the hunter of ghost.

And then... queen... Miss Pacman!

Mind you I totally would've used the giga queen head if I thought of it at the time, but oh well.

For lore, she basically looked like normal queen originally, but because this dark world is kris's computer (Kris<>Berdly swap and also Library<>Dreamurr house swap I guess?) She was just a famous celebrity. Kind of a model ala Kim Kardashian or Something. Maybe a twitch streamer. But what happened is one day she started mumbling about nonsense she says was told to her by someone who's been leaving her boques of yellow flowers

So her popularity and the publics liking her kinda just. Dropped.

And then she was invited to take a ride on The Grandmasters wild ride, and win wild prizes in return, including all the viewers she could ever want. So she did, and... (roller coaster <> swan ride and basement <> acid tunnel of love) she ended up flattened.

Crushed.

Compressed.

She became Q_mpress.

Queen Compressed.

A shorter, conniving, significantly less smart version of herself left to wander, trying to find her precious throne.

Sadly said throne ended up in the Krisis Computer Worlds dump. Alongside her now unfinished giant freaking robot (wires <> plugs) as all the money into that went into something for someone much more high paying, and more influential after his recent power display.

Tel Me Bery, Wud U Hep Me Fin M: Thon? I Ned M: Thone (Bery)

We Can Rue Da Word Wit A: //Iron_Fist!!

Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho He He He He He He Ha Ha Ha !!!

Plain: //(Regl- _ERROR_FILE_CORRUPTED_

[luci-j]

Hello! I love your GotG OCs and I was wondering if you could share some Laroshi and/or Farina lore/headcanons? Or even about canon characters! I'm just curious about your hcs, haha

Soooo happy that you started the new installement of your trilogy fic *-*

Hi!! Oh my goodness, thank you! I can put the ladies' ones here but if you or anyone are curious about more, I'm happy to answer!!!

Farina

- Loves some of the traditionally "less cute" animals the clinic gets in. Rats? Precious. Bats? So cool, they're rats that can FLY. That sharp-toothed thing with the fur? Would TOTALLY adopt if she could

- A little more of a quiet kid who read animal facts, facts about the universe. Got embarrassed for info dumping more than once, so stopped talking about it. One of the things she appreciates most about Nebula is that Nebula is a good listener to her, and can tell her surprisingly gently when they need to switch topics

- Also a bit of a star geek. Used to watch them from the balcony of her home when she was a kid. Also did this when she was with a bad ex and needed to get away for a bit.

- Unfortunately there's been more than one bad ex. She's learned to assert herself better though, and having her wife and the nursing staff there to back her up has been a huge help in this.

- She lets Nebula braid her hair! Nebula likes the novelty of it, and Farina likes the attention.

- Gamora still doesn't quiet get how jet dynamic works with Nebula, but loves the genuine smile Nebula has when she's with Farina.

- Really big on making sure Nebula feels included in things, and respects when she doesn't want to do something.

- Very much the "I'm not angry, just disappointed" type if fighting with Nebula. Nebula had one old-school tantrum during an argument between them, once, saw how shaken it left Farina, and vowed to be better after that. And she was.

- They've done more than one vacation to theme parks together. Everyone thinks it's Farina pulling Nebula along, but it's quite the opposite. Farina is a little more of a homebody, but loves her wife getting to experience the childhood she SHOULD have had. She's been terrified of every roller coaster she's ever been on, but her wife's maniacal laughter is just SO flipping cute.

- Big into pop music. Would play Harry Styles all day if she could.

- Identifies as a lesbian! She knew in grade school when she'd get WAY too emotional about friendships.

Now time for some Laroshi ones!

- The mom friend from a young age. Hosa and Meti were such airheads, somebody had to stop them from falling off a cliff. 🙄

- Loves numbers because they make sense! Whether it's cooking, working on alloy materials from her forge, or money, she's quite good with it all. She never really had an opportunity to spread her math wings on Fauntera, but can on Knowhere. Is the accountant for the Guardians.

- Has gotten them enough extra money they were due over the years that combined it could have bought another Knowhere.

- Comes from a large family. She had seven siblings, all who reached adulthood, got married, and had children of their own. This stung a little bit as she always wanted to be a mom and wife. It just didn't happen, though.

- Unable to have children biologically due to an illness she contracted on Fauntera during the uprising. This is why she was unable to reunite with Meti initially.

- Meti quietly offered to give her the money to have a baby like how he had Skye, and to pull strings to get her to the front of the lind. She would have taken him up on this, but she and Kraglin were too far apart genetically to have one together, so it just wasn't worth it to her. Her prayers were still answered, though, with Benji.

- She helped give Benji a Spider-Man-themed bar mitzvah without knowing what a bar mitzvah was or what a Spider-Man was.

- Practiced calling herself "Laroshi Geer" way too much as a kid. Would have had binders with their initials in hearts if she could have.

- Marrying Kraglin is literally the first spontaneous thing she's done in her life. She immediately fell for his kindness. She also loves that he isn't as proper as she felt she had to make herself be in order to help guide and protect her people, or to find a spouse.

- Loves going to bars with him. He gets her to loosen up like she's always wanted to, but never knew where to start.

- She, in turn, respects him from the get-go. He's never had to prove himself to her.

- She collaborates with Rocket a lot on creating things! She created all his mobility aides during his surgeries, so that they'd be portable for him, and has helped him mod some weapons.

- Loves jewelry making for herself. Kraglin brings her gems from planets, she turns it into bracelets, necklaces, etc for herself. Her favorite is a necklace with a gem that matches his eyes, and she wears this a lot when he's on missions.

- Big into punk rock.

- Is the neighborhood mom now. If there's a kid who needs something, they know they can go to her forge and she'll try to help.

- Learned English for her adopted son. It wasn't easy, but she loves Benji that much.

- She loves making knickknacks for the house. Yondu would have taken a shine to her.

- Intensely proud of her husband. Faunterians can be a little bit of a haughty bunch, so she brags about him a LOT. Kraglin doesn't get it, but he also doesn't mind.

- They don't get in blowup fights, but he knows she's annoyed with him if dinner is cold. She knows he's upset with her if he seems quieter and mutters about needing to look at something around the house.

- Has an iffy understanding of genders and sexualities, but is incredibly supportive. Most likely identifies as cis and hetero.

- Some of their favorite things to do as a couple is visit the beach, go to the farmers market, and making upgrades to their weapons. Ya know. Couples things!

Omggggg that was so much fun! Thank you for this request!! If anyone has any others, characters or otherwise, please feel free to throw them my way! Will probably also be doing more on my own since I LOVED this. Holy cow.

[oligoweee]

Smile Hell Info Dump

I'm going to basically info dump about my old Smiler story called "Smile Hell." I never even got close to finishing the story, I only got roughly 20k words in and that didn't even get into it all however I had lost motivation.

In this universe, the Ministry of Joy (it's not actually called that) basically has locations all across the globe that aim for bringing joy to everyone but have many faults and there was even a reversal serum in the works. The Smiler roller coaster does exist at Alton Towers and there are many rumors surrounding it, some of which are in fact secretly true. I think it is an interesting take on the MOJ and I'd love to go back to it someday but for now I will give a fairly in-depth summary and talk about what was written, general lore/ideas, and what I had planned, including the ending.

Trigger warnings for: suicide, mental illness, kidnapping, murder, medical themes, abuse, and gore.

(Not going into detail for these because this is just a summary-type thing but they are referenced so I am putting warnings as a precaution.)

This is gonna be a VERY long (roughly 4.5k words long) post so have fun reading if you decide to, you're in for a long ride :)

[Also here was the cover for it!]

So, the important characters are:

Levee Bailey

Lance Hawks

Archie Bailey

Isa [No Last Name]

Doctor Thomas Lukes

Braylen [No Last Name]

This story takes place in 2021 in Maine USA and specifically a real life county by the name of Oxford.

Many people over the span of a year were going missing and no one was able to find them or they would be found but they behaved drastically different than before.

In Oxford County, two families lived there known as the Bailey family and the Hawks family. Lance Hawks was a theme park enthusiast and would travel all over the world or just go to theme parks nearby in the US, one of these trips was Alton Towers and he offered to bring along his neighbor and closest friend, Levee Bailey alongside her two teenage brothers, Archie and Koda. This trip was only left to references in the story. They went on the Smiler of course and things were fine up until they flew back to the US.

Before that, Koda had been struggling with mental illness and it kept declining but then the trip (and specifically the Smiler) had boosted his mood for a few weeks afterward until it started to decline again. In May, he committed suicide however his sister had been there and for months afterward, she thought it was her fault and that she was a murderer despite everything telling her otherwise. His death was all over the news and attracted a bunch of public attention and many articles online.

So now we get to where the main story begins, September of 2021.

Levee is still dealing with her grief and she often finds herself standing in Koda's room just grieving. She has flashbacks of the day he died quite often. Since the loss of Koda, Levee tried making attempts to get closer with her remaining brother, Archie, but experiences a lot of pain when looking at him because of his similar resemblance to Koda.

Since her brother's death, Levee constantly feels like she's being watched. Like hundreds of eyes are on her at all times. She's constantly paranoid outside her home and is always telling herself that everything is in her head. What she doesn't know is that she is in fact being somewhat watched in one way or another. This feeling is both real and in her head at the same time.

One morning she wakes up and realizes that her best friend (and neighbor), Lance, is not in his garden and she finds that really odd because he's always gardening in the mornings unless he's traveling. Levee tries thinking logically but deep down she feels that something bad has happened. And she is absolutely correct. We soon learn that Lance was in fact abducted and a missing person report was filed however with how many people have gone missing from Oxford County with little to no updates, there's not a whole lot of hope about Lance. (Sorry, pal.)

One of the people missing from Oxford County is a woman by the name of Aria Davis, her case was by far one of the most popular because she is one of the longest lost people, having been missing for nearly a year. Levee came across an article about her disappearance and was quite panicked and that is when she stopped thinking logically about Lance not being outside. So, she did the smart thing and went to his house and spoke to his mother who told Levee the news.

She was obviously upset to the point she didn't tell Archie so he decided to go over there himself and then he got back, wondering why Levee didn't tell him. When he questioned her about it the two started to get into an argument so he left the room clearly pissed.

Now there's a bit of filler but since it's September, Archie is going back to school. Well on his first day of school that boy got kidnapped and Levee did not know until she herself got kidnapped. Fun times with the Bailey family, am I right?

So, on this day, Levee goes to her job which is at the end of her street and it's roughly a ten minute walk (or in her case, a five minute run.) She feels like she is being watched the entire time but gets to her workplace and the day goes on until she has to go back home.

Levee dashes back home as the sun is setting and while thinking Archie is home from school, she knocks on the door as he usually unlocks it for her but this does not happen so she tries calling him and he doesn't answer, she assumes that he's still mad at her from the previous day so she grabs her house key but quickly realizes that it is not inside of her satchel bag (which previously belonged to Koda, fun bit of lore) so she gets a bit panicked as that feeling of being watched is not going away any time soon.

So, she runs over to the Hawks' house and rings the doorbell because she thought someone would be home but nobody answers and this causes her even more distress as she is alone outside in the dark. Levee then proceeds to out of reflex try and call Lance who obviously does not answer and then after this she calls her mother who tells her to go back to her workplace and wait there because her mom would be out of work shortly.

And this is where Levee's fate is set.

She makes a run for it back to her workplace but since it is very dark out, she doesn't quite know where she's going and the streetlights are dimmed. Then she notices a truck going down the street and she could have sworn it was following her. This completely screws up her course and she ends up going the wrong direction and running face first into a telephone pole which breaks her nose.

Levee is pretty much stunned for a moment and sitting on the ground to try and recover and she comes to the realization she ran in the wrong direction so she pulls out her phone and tries to go onto Google Maps but has no mobile data or anything.

She sits there trying to regain her energy and strength to get up off the sidewalk and she eventually does when she hears heavy footsteps coming from behind her. So, once again she starts running and then it turns out she's being shot at by whoever was chasing her.

Levee can only dodge the darts for so long before one lands in her neck and stuns her, within a few moments exhaustion overcomes her and she passes out with one last thought in her head, "I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

---

Levee wakes up on a bed inside of a hospital-like room and it brings back memories of being with Koda when he died. She can't quite recall how she got in this place but is aware of an odd sensation on her arm, specifically the crook of her elbow which has gauze taped to it (implying that she had been poked with a needle of some sort.) For some reason, there is a very small feeling of joy that she can't quite focus on but it keeps her calmed for the most part.

She realizes there is a somewhat dull pain all throughout her head and neck but again, she can't recall what had happened. Despite her recognizing the room she's in as some kind of hospital one, she knows for certain she is not in a real hospital.

There is a description of the room which I will share a little of; the upper halves of the walls are a sandy-gray color whereas the lower halves are made of black and bright-yellow stripes and at the very bottom there is short white trimming lining the walls. The floor is made of light-gray tiles.

There's a table in this room and on top of it is a key card lanyard so once she gets herself off of the bed, she stumbles over to there and takes it. There is a name written on it alongside numbers and she doesn't quite understand what they mean. Next to the lanyard there is a note which tells her how to use it and that only her key card and her roommate's key card will work on the singular room door however the cards work on all other doors within the "Sanctuary." It also explains that she is a "employee," for this place and that she's currently on the third floor and needs to make her way up the fourth floor in order to change into uniform.

Levee looks over at the other side of the room and notices her roommate who is fast asleep, the table on their side contains the same items as Levee's.

Using the key card, she leaves the room and makes her way through a hallway with many different doors that need to be unlocked some of which are other rooms.

She makes her way to the fourth floor, changes uniform, notices there are spots of yellow in her irises (which are normally brown), then proceeds to leave the employee only floors (third and fourth) and skedaddles to the second floor which has a locked staircase as nearly all the doors in this building require a key card.

I will not be going into much detail about the second floor however, it is a living area for patients and has some bookcases that have books and brochures.

The low, somewhat raspy voice of someone catches her attention as they ask her who she is, she introduces herself and they introduce themselves. This is where Braylen is introduced, he is a patient in the Sanctuary and is implied to be a trans guy (this is canon it's just never outright said within the story.) There is no yellow present in his eyes which shows that he hasn't had any treatment yet. Levee states her confusion which causes her to giggle and it makes Braylen uneasy but he tells her the information that he knows about the place.

Braylen states that the place was in fact a real hospital back in the 2000s owned by a man called Doctor Thomas Lukes however the doctor calls it a "Sanctuary."

Levee thanks him for the information and then proceeds to continue her exploration throughout the Sanctuary. She finds the cafeteria on the first floor and there are a couple people sitting at tables some of which are employees. Then a voice calls out to her.

It's Lance, who is sitting at a table in the back of the cafeteria. The two are both in shock at seeing each other and Lance had scratches on his face which would have concerned Levee if it wasn't for her emotions being messed up. She greets him in a cheery manner and sits down by him.

They have a discussion and Lance, being the theme park enthusiast that he is, compares the place to the Alton Towers Smiler roller coaster lore. He actually goes on to explain the similarities and brings up the fact that there had been previous rumors of the Smiler being based off of real events or that the backstory was real.

Levee is completely weirded out and quite frankly thinks he's being stupid, she tells him he's not making much sense and then comes to the conclusion that he was trying to make light of the dark situation. They continue speaking some more and eventually Levee tells Lance to stop talking about the Smiler.

Levee then remembers her brother, Archie, and begins to worry about him to which Lance slowly states to her that he thinks Archie is in the Sanctuary too.

Levee does not take this too kindly but her rage is dulled however she still shouts at Lance asking what he means to which he then stupidly asks why she's panicking and she states that she's not but doesn't know what she's feeling.

Lance asks her a question.

"Does it feel like your emotions are just barely there and for some reason you're happy?”

Levee says yes with no hesitation as that is exactly how she was feeling. Lance is feeling this way too.

They continue talking and then Levee brings Lance up to the second floor to speak to Braylen who is sitting on a sofa reading a book that had no title and instead had a smiley face in the form of "=)" on the cover. Braylen then reveals that the book is fifteen pages long (albeit not numbered) and every single page consists of that same smiley face from top to bottom. It's not very important but goes to show this place is odd.

All three are weirded out but put the book aside. Lance and Levee ask Braylen if he has seen or knows anything about Archie. He states that Archie's appearance sounds familiar and that he saw employees (or at least, ones that looked very different and had metal armor) drag him to padded cells on the first floor.

Braylen also states it was nighttime and he wasn't supposed to be out of his room but decided to snoop around anyway and witnessed the scene.

They thank Braylen for his help and proceed to go back to the first floor and find the cells he was talking about. There are twenty in total and the two find Archie inside the fifteenth one that they investigate.

When Levee sees her brother inside the cell, she is quick to unlock it and go inside. Archie is sitting on the floor with red pinprick marks and bruising on his neck and alongside this his hands are wrapped in bandages that have light spots of blood that had seeped through.

The two siblings hug and Levee apologizes for Archie getting into this situation. Much like Levee and Lance, Archie can't remember how he was kidnapped. They exit the cell and speak with each other to which Archie explains a story very similar to the one Braylen shared.

Archie had woken up in his room and instantly panicked, leaving it and stumbling into two people who are later revealed to be apart of a subgroup in the Sanctuary called "The Ones Beyond the Walls." He explains that they saw him and grabbed onto him to which he tried to fight back and in the process destroyed his knuckles on the metal vests they were wearing before he was sedated and brought to a cell.

Levee takes note of his hands and suggests that they change the bandages. Lance knows where there's an infirmary and brings them to it and there is a somewhat gruesome description of Archie's knuckles. Lance cleans the wounds and wraps them in fresh bandages.

They all leave the infirmary and make their way to the cafeteria and discuss the situation for the umpteenth time. In the middle of their discussion, a young woman walks up and stands behind Archie. She introduces herself as Isa. Levee and Archie take note of one of her most unsettling features which is the fact that she has scars starting from the corners of her mouth going along the sides of her face.

(Lance had already met Isa so it wasn't as shocking to him.)

Isa states that she overheard the group of three's conversation and that she had information she could give that might help answer some questions.

...

But unfortunately, this is where I stopped writing.

Don't worry though! Like I said, I am going to talk about general lore and what I had planned including the ending.

---

So, Doctor Lukes' Sanctuary is the name of the hospital our main characters are held captive in. Despite what Levee kept thinking (it not being a real hospital) she is pretty much wrong because it was and technically still is a "real" hospital however it is not at all a professional one. Originally opening in 1999, this psychiatric hospital was operated by Professor Jasper Edmunds and Doctor Thomas Lukes, their hospital was open until 2011 where it closed permanently with no explanation.

Throughout the 2000s, this hospital was controversial and facing lawsuits in regards to abuse of its patients in there for treatment of their mental illnesses. However, they were dropped. This mostly took place in 2005. Professor Edmunds left shortly after this which meant Doctor Lukes was on his own with maintaining most things. In 2009, the hospital would once again face legality issues in regards to two murders that had happened. And finally, in 2011, the hospital was closed and nobody ever heard from Doctor Lukes again.

This is the more detailed form of the information Isa was going to tell the three if I had written past her introduction, I promise it wasn't gonna be a big info dump within the story lol, it was gonna be more spread out. Also, the Sanctuary info is similar to what Braylen had said. Isa was also going to go into a quick explanation on joy serum and laughing gas used in that place which answers the question on why everyone tends to be calm and strangely happy. (Obviously.)

Throughout the story, Levee and Lance try to uncover the secrets of the Sanctuary and they attempt to make an escape plan while pretty much being under the influence of drugs (joy serum) and doing their "job," of treating the patients. They discover that there had been a reversal serum in the works that would, well, reverse the effects of joy serum however there were many major issues with it. It's used within this story and the effects are shown; primarily aggression.

Who was the original one behind the reversal serum? Professor Edmunds, and then Doctor Lukes proceeded to try and complete it but was facing difficulties. And why was there a reversal serum? Because of withdrawal from not having injections of joy serum for a long period of time, it'd only get worse and worse so this was put in place to completely flush out the joy serum in a way. (Side note: Drug withdrawal is a major issue with the joy serum in this universe and it's especially shown with Isa who is constantly relying on even the smallest dose.) However, as said before, the reversal serum had serious issues with it.

So, what was Doctor Lukes' motive in taking a bunch of hostages ("patients/employees")?

Well, it changes in the timeline.

After the hospital had been shut down and with all of the legality issues, the place pretty much became abandoned and not only that but he lost a majority of his research and everything. He's stubborn and did not try and reach out to another facility or anything like that (they're extremely secretive too) so he took his remaining notes and studies, tried making a new joy serum, kidnapped some people that would later be known as "The Ones Beyond the Walls," and tested on them. Continuously tested on them. And then finally, later on, he wanted to try and reverse things and then give the joy serum again and reverse and... yeah.

Where was he working?

Underground beneath the original hospital. And this is where the main story takes place too. I find the Five Nights at Freddy's song "Below the Surface" quite fitting for this and the original Smiler lore in general (I remember seeing a Smile Always edit with it too so that's where I got that from!) And if you're wondering, "How did no one know he was there?" Well, the general public didn't know. With a lot of abandoned properties, there are still people that own the property and that's the case with Doctor Lukes' Sanctuary. The state people knew allat but not the public, you know? As I said before, these places are secretive.

---

The Ones Beyond the Walls are as the name states: special guard-like previous test subjects that lurk in a part of the Sanctuary that is inaccessible to the normal patients and employees but is very much behind the walls of the normal place. They do what Doctor Lukes tells them to and they lurk about at night. They make sure things are in place and such. They are very calm people that take action when needed.

---

Isa is a major part of the lore. It's revealed that she was the longest serving Sanctuary employee starting from being a patient and it's also revealed that she was Aria Davis from the news article Levee had read early on in the story. Aria was not in a good place and Doctor Lukes had reached out to her and offered her money (one of the only times he was somewhat-legally doing this shit) if she'd participate in his experiments/clinical trials and after a while she then got sick of it to which he then forcibly kidnapped her.

As a patient, Aria had gotten her face cut into a smile by an old employee who she later murdered as revenge and stole their identity (hence the name, Isa.) Due to the murder, she was put through a lot of "treatment," until she was left as who she is; an unhinged, overjoyed, snarky woman who seemed as though she was going to help but was instead absolutely hellbent on dragging everyone down with her as she interfered with Levee's and Lance's escape plan. And, she kept the identity of the murdered employee, Isa.

---

There was certainly gonna be filler but also it was gonna show patients and employees getting treatment with joy serum and then the reversal serum being used. Because of the aggression the reversal serum was causing (albeit temporary) the group decided it was best to give it to people and keep them in the "special" cells that had been mentioned earlier.

Eventually, Isa gets the reversal serum injected into her and since she has been under the influence of joy serum for a long time, it doesn't go too well and she is furious and tries to kill Lance who had injected it. She fails and once she somewhat calms down, she struggles to cope with the feeling of not being in a constant state of joy. She experiences withdrawal extremely quickly and this is one of the faults of the reversal serum however it shouldn't have lasted too long.

Isa still tries to interfere with the plan and eventually she kills Doctor Lukes which wasn't apart of the other two's plan but aids in the escape and when she realizes this, she isn't happy. She isn't happy that the newest group won't go through the Hell she went through and thus she attempts to murder the main group but instead gets it turned around on her and Lance kills her which leaves him guilt stricken but Levee tries to reassure him that it was for the best.

‐--

Finally, we get to the ending. The ending is a decent one and although a majority of the facility inhabitants are killed along the way (by Isa and eventually she herself was killed too), nine out of thirty people (patients and employees) escape and this doesn't include TOBW. Levee, Lance, Braylen, and Archie make it out safely albeit very much changed and still having the after effects of the reversal serum. I did in fact write out the epilogue before most of the other things because that is a habit of mine with writing.

So, the epilogue goes something like this...

Two months pass since the events of Smile Hell and our three main characters are trying to return to their normal lives. Braylen, who was cut off by his family before the events, moves in with Lance's family since he has nowhere else to go. Levee's paranoia is very slowly starting to go away and she starts leaving her house more often. It is stated that after escaping, the group had told all they could to the police and it opened a full blown investigation on the grounds of the Sanctuary and they ended up finding bodies buried far behind the hospital.

And yes, the main group gets well needed therapy after all this Hell they've been through lol

Levee, Lance, and Braylen are all out shopping in the town square before they visit Koda's grave which is their plan for the day. Levee sits down on a bench and waits for the men who are inside a store and there is another bench across from her. Someone sits down on it and they're wearing a mask and sunglasses (which she finds odd as it's not very sunny) but she tries not to think much of it before going onto her phone to pass the time.

The stranger across from her giggles which catches her attention and so she glances up and notices their sunglasses are off. Her heart just about skips a beat when she realizes that they have one yellow eye that was fading and one normal eye (implication that this is someone from the Sanctuary.) This obviously makes her highly uneasy and she prays to whoever is listening that her friends would hurry up so they could leave.

Eventually they appear and they don't pay much attention to the person across from her, they all leave but Levee looks behind her to see that the mysterious stranger now had their mask down and was smiling, but not in the unsettling, forced Smiler sense; it was a sincere smile that pretty much said "Thank you." Not only that, but they had very faded scars present on their face. Levee does not recognize them at all before she realized the possibility of them being one of the Ones Beyond the Walls. She gives them a quick thumbs up and a nod before walking off with Lance and Braylen, off to visit Koda's grave at the cemetery.

And that's all, that is the end of it all.

---

Thank you so much if you read this whole thing! I very much appreciate it, I've been working on this lore for roughly two years but never really shared it with people until now.

If I ever do go back to this project and decide to continue the story I think there would be changes but for now this is the "settled in stone," lore of Smile Hell. I don't really know what my inspirations were for this exactly but obviously the general Smiler lore and what the community has come up with. Also I love stories that involve secret organizations and medical stuff like that. There are certainly things that I find unfitting but for my sake and everyone else's sake, I'm not going to critique my own lore for now.

Once again, thank you very much if you read this entire post, I hope it was interesting!!

—

and here's a meme before I go which sums up all of this /j

[twistthescript]

Warehouse AU Lore Dump: Karnak, His Backstory, and The Warehouse-

I've been working out a double reality scenario for Karnak, where he exists in the 'living world' (the fall fair) and the 'afterlife' (the warehouse). As I came up with his backstory, I knew I wanted him to have firm roots in the living world, so I allowed him a few interactions building up to the Wonderville and Family-Friendly Mode we see in the show.

I never really saw Karnak as the traveling type (unlike the week-long fairs that exist where most everything gets packed and moved when the fair leaves)... But also, I wouldn't truly be able to explain why Virgil had been chewing on Karnak's power cord for two years if the fair packed up and moved constantly (I doubt the fair would take the rat... unless Virgil was just that spiteful and found his way in the loading truck anyhow. I wouldn't put it past him).

Uranium is a small town- there are probably a few run-of-the-mill stores amongst the few houses and St. Cassians. Karnak would certainly be an odd item out, especially being able to read death fortunes. So, what did I do? I sat him in a 'mom and pop' shop before throwing him into a family circus act as a luring attraction. (Which led to him getting picked up by Wonderville).

Besides, I always found it odd that there was a full stage in a warehouse. I never figured there would be, unless there was a driving force behind it... and every circus needs a performance space, so there. (Plus, the son's ring of fire in KARNAK! Chapter 3 I threw in to mark the stages' turntable).

Wonderville seems to be a lazy company- they wouldn't go out of their way to remove something complex... like the stage. So, the stage stays, Karnak stays when he's not needed, and stuff piles in the warehouse around it all.

Double Reality input below the line:

Okay, so now we're at the double reality:

Up until one 'living world' year before the Cyclone accident, Karnak lives solely in the living world- 1 week at the fair, and 51 weeks in the warehouse. Emotions are odd things (and it's clear that he has them, to an extent. Annoyance is still an emotion... which is something sarcasm stems from. Karnak is nothing if not sarcastic).

After an incident [KARNAK! Chapter 4] causes him to short circuit (or for lack of better term, lose it), the 'time loop' of the warehouse is created. Time works differently here. A month can pass in the warehouse, and a full year can pass in the living world. (An example from the show would be during the final song's Penny Lamb slideshow, where we see Penny's full life in a matter of maybe 30 seconds).

It was during this one 'living world' year that he created his favorite project- and it was complete (mostly) before he was pulled for the fall fair where he read some choir's fortunes and they died on a roller coaster. (Shame).

The moment the dead choir stepped in the warehouse, the 'time loop' became 'the afterlife.' Time is still odd here. The events of RTC happen, and that's where my AU begins- in the aftermath of Karnak dying too early (He did say in a little over an hour... and the show is an hour and a half... which is not just a little), and the choir picking the pieces up after Sugarcloud.

Anyways, here are some rules about the double reality:

Karnak still exists in both. (Albeit a little differently now- he still did technically die, but now he IS the warehouse... or rather, in the electrical system). His box still exists, short-circuited and all.

Anything moved in the warehouse by the choir in the afterlife, WILL NOT show up as moved to the living world.

Anything moved in the warehouse by someone living, WILL show up moved in the afterlife.

The doll is the anomaly to this rule (there will be another post on this), and will show up moved to all, no matter who moves it.

Karnak's box is also an anomaly (Will probably be in the same post as the one mentioned above).

If an object in the afterlife drops and makes a sound, it will still make a sound to the living, which could not be traced back to the object.

As mentioned before, time acts differently in the afterlife... which might end up being semi-important to some scenes.

[rextheravenous]

Would you guys like it if I ranted about Louisiana's biggest amusement park. Can I dump a little Rex Autism Lore on y'all. Would that be ok

[reverd-ck]

. ݁₊ ⊹ HUH?! A CARD?! ⊹. ݁₊

hi! my name is renee! i'm 14. i live in canada and i'm asian. this is still my first writing thing, so be nice. <3

entj-t, she/her.

my favorite color? PURPLE!

if you couldn't tell i really really like kuromi. (i have a big fat kuromi collection)

i have a dog!

🎧music taste- k-pop and j-pop and the occasional popular pop song.

top plays: whiplash by aespa, armageddon by aespa, how sweet by new jeans, ditto by new jeans, crazy by le sserafim, kyu-kurarin by iyowa, deep sea girl by yuuyu

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||| 0:10

ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁 i play mario kart, roblox and project sekai colorful stage!

animes/manga's i watched/read:

jujutsu kaisen, the disastrous life of saiki k, kaguya sama love is war, the promised neverland, komi can't communicate, one piece (NOT CAUGHT UP), demon slayer, assasination classroom, omori, spy x family, pjsk, death note, haikyuu!!

˖ ֹ੭୧ fav characters! ⊹ ࣪ ⑅

CHOSO KAMO I LOVE YOU CHOSO I LOVE YOU CHOSO SO MUCH PLEASE MY BEAUTIFUL SWEET WIFE CHOSO KAMO PLEASE OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, megumi, yuji, nanami, gojo, inumaki, yuta, shoko, nobara (i'm nobara irl), maki, mikoto aiura, mizuki akiyama, teruhashi kokomi, saiki kusuo, misa amane, yor forger, nishinoya yuu, hinata shoyo, sugawara

(biases) winter from aespa, and haerin nwjns, ahyeon from babymon, eunchae from lessera! oh and my friend is obsessed with skz so i had to choose a bias so it's hyunjin.

ships i like: itafushi, satosugu, nobamaki, yutamaki, mizuena, kanamafu, ruikasa, akitoya, shizuairi.

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ likes! -- internet, strawberries, writing, drawing, talking with my friends, gossiping (drama), reading fics, designing clothes, shopping!, k-beauty, miniso ice cream, popsicles, halloween (halloween > christmas) pho, lavender/lilac scent, nerds gummy clusters, starburst, dressing up, collecting, doomscrolling

(╥﹏╥) dislikes! -- AUTOCORRECT FUCK YOU AUTOCORRECT, mcaffe, n25 tierers hogging all the spots, piano, spiders, dirty desks and platforms, congestion, and late nights..

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ IRL HOBBIES!

-figure skater and badminton player (peak asian)

my friend tried to teach me volleyball for a week but i failed miserably.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ i like science (like biology) and history!

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ i run on pop drinks

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ i like cosplaying and dressing up and feeling pretty and choosing some random aesthetic i feel is pretty then trying to build a look out of that #hotgirlhours

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ i travelled to china, france, italy, greece, usa, cuba, canada (well the other parts), and maybe more! hoping to go to japan tho!'

lore dump: i got stung by a bee on a roller coaster once.

dividers by @.adornedwithlight @.animatedglittergraphics-n-more @.kodaswrld

[coerthas-enjoyer]

shb log #7

ok some shadowbringers thoughts pre-emet-selch fight

( very long post, all text )

im ngl this expansion was a hell of a roller coaster when it came to whether i thought it wss good or bad. overall my impression of it is good but i wonder if i dont think of it as highly as so many players do

main thing is the plot was very predictable for the first like 2/3 of the msq. defeat the lightwardens of the four areas, absorb the light, restore the night sky. before that, interact w the locals and help them w their problems.

the only unpredictable things were at the very beginning when we were still tryna understand what the exarch revealed, not knowing how to handle the light becoming too much to bear, and what happens after kholusia (i kept thinking “its def not gna be that simple”)

while i liked the worldbuilding, the predictability was the main reason the plot wasnt v exciting for me. heavensward and stormblood did have a clear end objective, but the journey wasnt as predictable. we didnt know what the “subtasks” would be before achieving our final task.

and then it finally got better once we reached the tempest, bc then it was uncertain how we would ultimately triumph. plus we get some lore dumps which i always welcome

anyway this doesnt make shb any less of a great expansion. i was just a little disappointed, thats all 😅

and i say this now before actually finishing the game bc in my opinion, if i have to wait until the very end to be satisfied with the plot, that isnt the storytelling i personally enjoy. i care more abt the journey than the destination / last moments

but now onto the good parts! each area was very well designed in terms of their culture, lore, and current struggles. it was rly fun getting to meet w all kinds of ppl in norvrandt & honestly its hard to choose a favorite ;w; entering a new area was always so exciting bc of this

the dungeon and trial bosses are much more engaging and fun! i rly like the combat in this game and its been fun figuring out the mechanics of every fight. so much more involved than doing ur combos and dodging a very simple aoe every now and then LOL

ike i was actually gripping the controller & sitting at the edge of my seat during the final dungeon boss of amaurot

i also like the designs of the sin eaters and lightwardens. i think its cool to see what we previously perceived as good (light) turned into monstrous beings. probably not a new concept, but i still like it :D

love their roman empire (i think) aesthetics too

as i progressed thru the quest i was more involved in the idea that everyone is morally grey, even ourselves. we’re villains to some while heroes to others, and our enemies r the same. sometimes makes u stop and wonder what ur rly fighting for instead of blindly charging forward

so i think in terms of the broader message and having the origins of ascians and the worlds involved, shadowbringers is the strongest expansion so far. but in terms of storytelling & overall pace of the quests, i actually prefer hw and sb 😅

but im excited to finish it up!!

[stayarmytinyzenmoa-l]

Thanks for all the love! I had fun reading your reblogs and tags and I am honored that you had so much fun with this fic! I wanted to keep y’all in the game until the last word and looks like I did that well so far! And yes a roller coaster that gives you no time to prepare is a good way to describe this fic lolol

The podcasts were some of my favorite sides to write! I’ve never been a fan of intense info dumping when it comes to things that aren’t too “plot heavy” so I figured it’d be better to kind of only reveal what’s necessary in the main story while elaborating in the podcasts, and of course I had to draw some attention to it by lining up the events and giving them a shoutout in the main story as well, so I’m glad they’re a good read!

But yes, thank you! Honestly Without a Trace was a bit of a passion project starting like two or three years ago and I just lucked out that the actual ATEEZ lore moved toward vigilantes/outlaws (lucky me!!) so now that this series is gaining a little more traction I am forever grateful for whichever KQ employee decided to stalk this blog (I’m joking ofc) and I’m even more grateful to all of you guys for reading and reblogging this silly lil story of mine!

Have fun with the reread! It’ll be cool to catch all the times I’ve hinted toward the climax and conclusion of the story! Especially in regard to a certain member of the Outlaws (hehe) and if I didn’t say it before, thank you so much for the reblog and your kind words <3

Without a Trace [Masterlist]

Vigilantes AU

Genre: Drama, Angst, Light Comedy

Pairing: ATEEZ x Reader

Y/N Pronouns: Not Specified

Summary: Vigilante work has been outlawed, thus sending nine prominent vigilantes either into retirement or into lower ground and, while some abide by the law, a few continue on. Then, one day, a greater threat forces these vigilantes to come together once again, regardless of the law.

[Other Groups Masterlist]

[Ao3 Link] | [Wattpad Link]

Disclaimer: Please remember that this is an AU and a work of fiction, obviously the idols mentioned/written about in this story would never partake in these actions. The idols mentioned in this work are meant to be seen more as face claims rather than the actual idols themselves.

Last Updated: 6 July 2023

Status: Complete

Keep reading

[iicheeze]

3 MONTHS, 3 DAYS, AND 33 MINUTES

SUMMARY || you've always had feelings for your gray haired senior. To the point that you'd confess to the man in front of the whole Akademiya. Pitying you, he gives you 3 months, 3 days and 33 minutes to make him fall for you. Let the roller coaster of chaos begin!

PAIRINGS || Alhaitham x Gender Neutral Reader, a bit of Kaveh x reader

GENRE || fluff, angst, rom-com (romantic comedy)

AU || Modern, College

CW || not proofread, possible ooc characters, curse words here and there and some cringe parts

PROFILES || broke bitches 💸 , rich bitches 💵, [name]'s fake famous k-pop group 🌟

CHAPTER I — ugly person thinks they're hot and confesses to crush in front of the whole Akademiya

CHAPTER II — [Name], the reckoning

CHAPTER III — how to cook for dummies

CHAPTER IV — arcade date?? More like FNAF lore dump

CHAPTER V — it's time to drink water 😊💧💦

CHAPTER VI — why [name] should date Kaveh instead of stupid dry man like alhaitham 🤢🤮💩

CHAPTER VII — why I cat 🐱🌟💞💓💖💘

CHAPTER VIII — EXAMS EXAMS EXAMS EXAMS

CHAPTER IX — better roll out your mitski songs

CHAPTER X — no deal 😦 NO DEAL?!!?!?! 😭😭

CHAPTER XI — im so sad a big buff pair of arms could comfort me so much right now *wink* *wink*

CHAPTER XII | ENDING — graduation with a bang 💥😉🤭

ALT CHAPTER X — a cold heart

ALT CHAPTER XI — sun and jupiter

ALT ENDING — a lovely wedding for a lovely couple

AUTHOR'S NOTE || yes this is a series *wink* *wink* yes i will include some spice for reader even tho theyre gender neutral

I will even give them a drop of my “ Spicy Sad Lore ” sauce ✨

and yes, the title is based off of the lucky number believed in the chinese culture

SERIES WILL START AT JANUARY 17, 2023!!

[primofate]

The Ruthless Prince (Part 8) Scaramouche x fem!reader [Genshin Royal AU]

Note: Officially on a one week Easter break from work! (Not to say that I don’t have anything to do for work, we’re still busy haha, but at least we don’t have to go in) Also, I actually already finished writing Ch.8 and 9 a week ago haha.... Just editing it.

Summary: When Prince Scaramouche picks you out of a random group of commoners to marry, your life is turned upside down. He’s mean, snarky, condescending and he doesn’t act like a proper husband or prince at all. However, when Prince Tartaglia from the neighbouring kingdom takes an interest in you, Prince Scaramouche finds himself even more annoyed than usual. This is the story of him and you navigating this roller coaster of a relationship.

Warnings: A LOT OF SELF REFLECTION, INTERNAL STRUGGLE AND CONFUSED FEELINGS FROM SCARAMOUCHE, GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF GETTING SICK: THROWING UP, SCARAMOUCHE-CENTRED CHAPTER, you only show up for like, 30 seconds, lol, because of that, it might be a slow chapter overall, slow burn, does not exactly follow the genshin lore, AU, swearing

Word Count: 2.6k words

Summary and a recap on the Royal AU plots are here.

Read other parts: (Ruthless Prince Masterlist)

“It didn’t pierce her heart,” was the first thing the doctor says. The weight on Scaramouche’s shoulders lifted right then and there, only for it to multiply and be dumped back at the doctor’s next words.

“But the arrow wasn’t designed to kill anyway, the finishing blow is the poison-laced tip,” 

What’s that shiver up his back? Goosebumps? 

He was getting frustrated. He didn’t like this feeling. Why were there so many thoughts flitting in and out of his head? Why are there so many questions that he wants answered? Why is he trying so hard to stay still when all he wants is to pace back and forth? He’s never had to try and contain himself like this before. 

“I’m afraid there’s no guarantee. She’ll be sick for days and has to be monitored closely. The only thing I can do at this moment is to prescribe a week’s worth of antidotes,” 

Scaramouche spaced out then, just as the doctor finished talking. Kuni’s eyes glance up at the prince who is lost in thought, rather flabbergasted that he looked so out of it. “Prince?” Kuni gently chides. 

Scaramouche’s head jerks up the tiniest bit, processing the entirety of the conversation. His eyes linger on your unconscious form. You looked peaceful now, but he wasn’t sure what would happen later on.

“...Move her to another room…set Abigail, yourself and the head maids on rotation to watch her…” 

Scaramouche was wary of the incident. They kept the arrow to see if they could determine how it was crafted, where it was from, and he could not bring himself to trust the whole castle under circumstances like this. So, he asked Kuni only to place the longest serving knights to guard your door. Other than that, the whole castle was placed on high alert and the patrols outside had intensified.

Kuni bowed, and started making arrangements for it, walking out of your shared room along with the doctor, leaving Scaramouche in the silence with you. 

Strange. He thought. 

It was already quiet enough the past week, trying to avoid you and vice versa. Yet now…he didn’t think it was possible for it to even be more silent than it already was. 

It was deafening, the absence of sound. Like a ringing in his ears that wouldn’t go away.

He finally lets out that frustrated sigh he’s been keeping in, closing his eyes to calm his still disarrayed nerves. But every time he closed them he gets flashbacks of that arrow pierced through your chest. 

He grimaces, and opts to open his eyes instead. 

What do I do with myself? 

He has his arms crossed only to prevent himself from the impulse of throwing something against the wall. A vase. A chair. A pillow. Anything. And yet, his nails are digging into his flesh from how tight his grip on himself is. 

Where is this anger coming from?

He always knows where his anger is coming from. Be it something that pisses him off, a clumsy maid, things not going his way, too much paperwork, he always knows where it’s from but this time, he’s confused. 

Because it should’ve been for me but she–

Shouldn’t he be happy then? That someone took the hit for him. He should’ve been, because he was definitely saved from the days of agony and pain, but knowing that it was you who took the fall for him…that’s it. That’s where that feeling of wanting to throw up is coming from.

“...She despises me,”

“...I don’t think that’s completely correct, prince. Perhaps if you showed…a little more…support,”

Support?

Unfortunately, Scaramouche didn’t exactly know what that entailed. Was it not support enough that he gave you things that you liked? Well, now that you were bedridden…painting and tea probably wasn’t an option. So what? What would someone count as support? 

“What’s got you so spaced out today?” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” 

“Oh, come on, you’ve hardly drank anything up until I shoved this glass to your face. I daresay I’m the better noble tonight,” 

Your expression. The way you tilt your chin up slightly higher to show how “superior” you were to him. The way a smug smile paints your face. He at once gets the sense that you’re trying to cheer him up, to put him at ease, despite possibly wanting to leave the party just as badly as he did.

The interaction echoes in the chambers of his mind. The way such a simple gesture, a simple sentence and a simple smile can give someone a sense of comfort. It was that elementary, that easy for you to offer him support. 

But for him, who didn’t ever have to give it to someone else, it was uncharted territory. 

Would it be foolish to try it? He felt…somewhat embarrassed, thinking of it. 

He shakes his head vigorously with a sigh. His mind had again wandered off to things that were unimportant. What’s important right now was to at least make sure you were going to survive. He’ll worry about this support thing later.

His first chance to practice “support” was given to him three days later. The first time you woke up after the whole ordeal. He hadn’t been in your room. It was Abigail, your etiquette instructor, that witnessed your eyes flying open and your arms pushing you up from the mattress.

She was startled, it had been so sudden, with no indications at all, but she was even more startled when you pulled yourself to the edge of the bed and started retching. Gagging, heaving, choking on air noises were all that Scaramouche heard when he entered the room, after Abigail alerted a maid to call for him and a doctor. 

Did he dare to look at the puddle of mess you made? He did, he had to see what exactly you’d thrown up, knowing that you hadn’t even eaten in days. 

It was mostly blood. The doctor warned that might happen when the antidote starts working the poison out of you. 

You took slow, deep breaths when you thought the sick feeling had passed, but you still stayed on the edge of the bed. You whimpered at all the sensations attacking you at the same time. Fatigue, hunger, exhaustion, pain and just this overall ill feeling in your stomach. 

Scaramouche heard it and turned to you after sending Abigail off to fetch maids for the clean-up. “Y/N,” he barely spoke your name, rolling it on his tongue seemed a little unnatural. “How…How do you feel?” He stumbled over his words. He definitely had not asked anyone that before, let alone be concerned enough to think about asking it. He was still standing tense at the foot of your bed, just watching you hoist yourself up with your arms and taking deep breaths.

Your head lolled towards him, blinking, not really caring what kinds of words left your mouth or his. You were just too out of it. “...Like shit,”

Scaramouche’s eyebrow quirked up, but somehow, that kind of answer was better than anything else you could have said, earning a small, amused grin from the prince. “Get back in bed,” he curtly commanded, strolling to the clean side of the floor as you rolled over to your back. 

“...Can I have some water, please?” you asked after a moment, feeling your throat on fire and just…the foul, irony taste in your mouth. 

Scaramouche obliged. There was no one else there to help you after all. With water already on the bedside table, he poured you a glass and passed it off after you sat up, chugging it down like it was a lifeline. You felt so thirsty. 

You winced though, when all that bad stuff had been washed down your throat, it nearly made you feel like gagging again, but you tried not to think about it as you stretch the glass back over to him. Scaramouche receives it, replacing the glass with a towel. 

You stared at the towel in your hand for a moment, wondering what the hell it was for. “...Wipe your mouth,” was his explanation and you made a sound of sudden understanding, doing as he said, realizing that you probably look like a monster right now. 

“Thanks…” and you throw the towel over to the bedside table, once again plopping down on the bed, only to feel a sharp pain on your chest as you do so, causing your hand to jerk upwards and push on your chest, where you thought the pain was coming from.

Ah, that’s right. You thought. That’s where the arrow entered. Bits and pieces of the incident comes back to you now, but it doesn’t explain why you feel so tired and exhausted. An arrow wouldn’t do so much damage, would it? To top it off, you didn’t even know how long you were out. 

“Scaramouche, are you fine?” you mumble, half delirious in your broken state. Scaramouche barely hears it and he raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” 

He waits, but he doesn’t get a reply. He realizes you’ve quickly fallen back asleep after that throwing up episode, and who could blame your battered body? He sighed a little, and left the room when the maids and Abigail returned. There was no point in staying there if you weren’t awake. Though he must admit, it was bugging him that you hadn’t eaten anything in 3 days. 

Scaramouche sought Kuni out the same night about that problem, finding him in his own, personal office. “Kuni,” Scaramouche greeted. 

Kuni looked up from the book he had on hand, “Prince,” greeting back naturally. “Can I help you?” 

“Y/N hasn’t eaten in 3 days,” 

Kuni was aware of that, and so was everyone else. Everyone was aware that there was a chance you wouldn’t survive. But for the prince to point it out, it was rather a strange thing to Kuni. It simply meant that he was watching out for someone else other than himself, and that wasn’t something that happened often.

“Yes, we’re hoping she’ll wake up long enough at some point, just enough to get some food into her system,” 

And then…Silence. Kuni peered over his reading glasses over to the dazed prince. It was quite obvious that the prince had been unusually quiet the past few weeks. It told Kuni that something had happened. Where before, the two of you would at least sit together and eat your meals, the prince suddenly took his meals separately from yours.

Kuni noticed it early on, but he wasn’t the least bit concerned. He had guessed that it had been some sort of disagreement, some sort of fight between the two of you. Most people would say that it was a bad thing. But, to Kuni, who had been the prince’s guardian for a long time, seeing him evidently avoid you, was a good thing.

It told Kuni that Scaramouche cared. 

Going through the effort of trying to avoid you meant that the prince was uncomfortable with something. And that was saying a lot when the prince’s usual emotions only consisted of anger and indifference. 

Kuni has to squint, but he sees the distress thinly shadowed over Scaramouche’s expression. It’s barely there, but he sees it. “...Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Scaramouche bristles, awkwardly rubbing his shoulder as he dives into deep thought. There’s so many things he wants to know. Who shot the arrow? Who did it? Why were they trying to kill him? Why am I waiting for her to wake up? 

“I don’t have control over the situation. It’s annoying,” Scaramouche says, translating what he felt into words that he was familiar with.

“...It’s called being worried, prince. Entirely natural,” Kuni took his reading glasses off and folded them atop his table, leveling his gaze towards the prince that he had served nearly his whole life. He watched as the prince’s body language shifts, uncomfortably looking away and off to somewhere unimportant, like the wall. 

Worry? Scaramouche ponders on it. Well, whatever it was, it eats at him, and it just doesn’t go away. The moment he wakes up he wonders if you’ve survived the night. At night, he finds it harder to fall asleep with the questions and what ifs in his mind. When he eats a meal at the table and you’re not there, he finds himself wondering if you’re hungry, and if your body would survive the days without any sustenance. 

All Scaramouche sees it as, is vulnerability, and Kuni sees that too. Sees how the prince struggles to accept the mess of unpleasant emotions he feels. Vulnerability was not an easy thing, not even for the normal, run off the mill guy. 

“What do you know about the princess, prince?” Kuni changes the subject, successfully diverting Scaramouche’s attention towards him, face now painted with confusion.

“What do I know about her?” Scaramouche counters the question back.

“Yes. What does she like, what she reads, what her preferred dishes are,” Kuni lists off and sees the familiar scowl on Scaramouche’s face.

“It’s not necessary for me to know–”

“Is that how you truly feel?” Kuni cuts him off and Scaramouche is rendered silent. “Communicating is not just merely an exchange of words, prince. It’s an exchange of experiences and opinions, both good and bad.” 

Scaramouche gets a flash of you animatedly talking to Kokomi and Tartaglia. The reason why you never showed that side of yourself to him was…because he never shared anything with you. That’s what Kuni was saying, and yet, it takes time for that to fully sink in to Scaramouche’s mind. 

He ponders on it for a moment, then scoffs. “It’s too late to think about that now,” and he truly felt it as well. He’d decided to be a pain in your ass from the beginning. He had no intentions–and still didn’t have any–to be nice to you. He didn’t have that in him. 

But to tolerate you? That. he found that it was something he could do and possibly even enjoy. He didn’t mind it as much as he thought it would, sitting in the art room and spending time with you, even though it was him just sitting and you quietly painting…being in the presence of each other…it was…different, but he couldn’t put a finger to what that feeling was. Comfort? Peace? 

“Why do you say so?” Kuni continues to prod the prince. This was the right time to do it, he thinks. If not now, then there wouldn’t be another time where the prince would let his guard down like this. “For as long as she lives, and for as long as you live, there’s a lifetime between the two of you, my lord. Well, assuming that she agrees to stay married,” Kuni coughed, because divorce wasn’t usually talked about in royal situations. What a disaster that would be. 

A lifetime, huh? 

Scaramouche knew that when he married you. He knew that the rest of his and your life would be bound together, but he didn’t care at that moment. What he cared about was ticking off the checkboxes that his father gave him. 

“I only offer suggestions, my lord, but perhaps, when she’s well and awake again, you might consider learning a bit more about her…She may one day be your greatest ally. Your father is a great king, but there were also many a times he would turn to the queen for guidance and support,”

Greatest ally? Support? Why would he need such a thing and why was everyone talking about it? He was fine by himself, and progressing just fine. Scaramouche was about to say something crass back, but there’s a knock on the door of the study. A maid peeks her head in and bows down a perfect 90 degree before straightening up again.

“The princess is awake. She requests the presence of prince Scaramouche,”

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MASTERLIST

https://primofate.tumblr.com/post/653296890583154688/masterlist-for-mobile-version-main-links

[thedragonagelesbian]

I promised a post elaborating on the ordering of the one-on-ones, and I’m here to deliver! Be prepared for some VERY passionate structural and functional analysis.

So the order was Lou/Pinocchio -> Zac/Pib -> Siobhan/Rosamund -> Emily/Ylfa -> Murph/Gerard -> Ally/Timothy and here’s why this is brilliant and Brennan was very smart in picking this order:

First, Pinocchio is an EXCELLENT place to begin. PERFECT for establishing tone and ambiance and stakes for the multiverse/body jumping that is going to be repeating across the other characters WITHOUT too much lore-dumping upfront specifically because the Stepmother is so deliberately withholding and obfuscating. We get all the VIBES of what’s going on without getting much detail about the mechanics or rules of this crossing.

We follow that up with Pib. Also an inspired choice. We get a much needed reprieve from, y’know, all the child abuse in Pinocchio’s segment, and we learn a bit more about how this is all working. Specifically, not only the notion that the same characters appear across stories (which was mentioned in Pinocchio’s, with the horrifying detail that that Pinocchio had to die for this Pinocchio to enter that world) but that the same archetypes can transcend individual characters and stories entirely. This is brilliant to reinforce so soon after we see the Stepmother again because (as we’ve suspected since episode 2 at least with the mirror) she is the only entity of that type that we’ve encountered so far.

Also one of my favorite books as a really young child was called ‘Cat and Bear’ and it was about a cat named Cat who was a little stinker, so idk this segment was weirdly nostalgic and warm and fuzzy

Next, ROSAMUND. CINDERELLA. HOT WOMEN. What else is there to say? Well, we’re back to the plot that the Stepmother was alluding to but not stating outright. We learn more about the mechanics and rules of this world, and in addition to confirming how the crossings work, we get the pivotal piece of information that these other stories are (a) not infinite and (b) getting progressively worse as the better stories are either exhausted or die off.

Cinderella is also key as, three one-on-ones in, we are getting our most reliable narrator to date. She gives Rosamund a clear goal, something to drive the plot forward that’s less cryptic than the book.

And on a beautiful fucking nat 20, Rosamund gains an incredible awareness of her past lives and other stories that supercharged her character arc. I wonder if it is for that awareness that Rosamund (and Ylfa) didn’t get new character portraits when they crossed over: that they are able to retain more of a fundamental essence of self (Rosamund because of the nat 20, Ylfa because she succeeded on the CHAR save).

Coming off of Rosamund’s almost empowering note, the affective roller coaster continues with Ylfa, in which Emily Axford breaks my heart for like thirty minutes straight and I thank her for doing so. We get more of a glimpse of the rules and forces at work in this world, the Wolf continues to be my absolute favorite metaphysical NPC in Dimension 20 history.

Again, each session dovetails beautifully with and builds off of the one-on-one before it to show us new aspects of how this masterwork of a world functions, all while varying tone and affect in a way that isn’t jarring but keeps interest throughout the 2+ hours. I can’t gush enough about how much I admire all of the intrepid heroes and their role-playing skills.

And it was Murph’s segment that made me want to make this post in the first place. Obviously the intrepid heroes did not know what was going on in everyone else’s sessions, but the timing of Gerard as comedic relief is SO perfect. Such an excellent follow-up to Ylfa, again another point of reprieve as Murph commits to Gerard just not fucking getting the concept that we as an audience have had presented to us now for four different characters.

And again, the presence of the fairy brings us back to the PlotTM. We’re getting a sense not for the metaphysical bigger picture but the factions that are at war in this world and the consequences that their fight is having for everyone else. We also get a delicious seed of interparty ~drama~ as Rosamund and Gerard (and Pinocchio) are being courted by different sides in this tale-spanning battle. I NEED to see how much they all tell each other when they finally meet back up again...

Finally, we end with Timothy because, like, how could we possibly end anywhere else than with the storyteller? The book is one of the keys to understanding this world and takes on additional symbolic weight as the characters are passing through to another story, a different, darker book.

But there’s still hope. Things are going to be harder this time around, but there’s still a chance, in another once upon a time.

Just... I commend all of them so much, Brennan for laying the tracks for the emotional, narrative, and lore beats of the episode and the intrepid heroes for picking up on them and responding to and expanding them like the endlessly talented improvisors they are.

WHAT A GOOD FUCKING EPISODE, CAN’T WAIT FOR EPISODE 5

[imatiredtheme]

The Silenced Dj

My interpretation of Yugo's lore video, with some added stuff.

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

As the archivist placed the record(book) back, he found the need to read more. Something that happened often, he picked up one record(book), then another, and another, until he spent hours digging through the blue files(yellow pages). Usually leaving everything else he was supposed to do until the last minute. Eh, he'd written enough today, what's a few more records(books)? After reading a darker story, it was good to read something to lift you spirits, and though it made the next dark story hit harder, the emotional roller-coaster that followed was worth it.

And he knew just the one, while it wasn't exactly a happy story, it was inspirational. From the last few years of the Doomer's time, when a regime heavily restricted the populous. Yet, there was still one person that stood against them, up until his untimely death. Even then, many carried on his ideals, rioting in the streets, attacking patrols, and overall making the regime's job extreme difficult.

His metal fingers picked out the old video footage and accompanying articles before going back to his seat.

Article 277 of the android regime, under the National Protection Act, records the mental state of the nation and manages this.

The fifth item states that in order to record and regulate humanity's mental state, it is strictly prohibited to have more than a certain number of entertainment activities.

Bullshit. He thinks to himself every time he reads the opening words. He had no clue what the higher ups at the time where planning, but the effect was the complete opposite. It didn't help the first thing the tin cans did was dump a popular DJ into the river after crashing one of his concerts.

The DJ in question? A man named Yugo Asuma, who had quite the rebellious streak.

He'd been reported for minor incidents throughout his childhood, becoming a real thorn in the android's side when he entered the music industry. Holding numerous concerts in broad daylight to protest the restrictions and android regime, attracting an impressive crowd each time. Unfortunately, with the passing of Article 277, he was tossed into the river and never seen again. The archvivst wasn't surprising that a large group revolted in response, which lead to a period of chaos that destabilized the entire economy and eventually lead to the Doomer's extinction. By some ironic fate, the only surviving video of Yugo Asuma was his final moments, which the cyborg had watched many times by now, just like the escapee's footage.

There where actually multiple perspectives of the video, from the android's eyes, a nearby building's security camera, and even a lucky or unlucky bystander with a phone. His favorite was from the security camera, where he could clearly see everything going on. Well, about as clear a 400 year old record can get.

The first thing that greeted him upon pressing play was a blaring horn.

Then the rising roar of the audience alongside the music. Hands waved in the air, cheering with all their might as the black clad man appeared.

"Are you ready?!" He shouted to the crowd, his accent thick but not overbearing. The next second the beat dropped as he raised a hand in the air, the crowd's cheering following. It was difficult to see through the sea of hands, but the DJ's figure stood out on stage. A wide fanged smile on his face as he spun the black disks. Behind him, big and bold, the words "Hope in The Dark" and "Rights for Humans" in clear protest.

His advanced hearing picked up the noise before the ones in the video did.

The steady humming of a helicopter, growing louder each second. Like ominous dark, thundering clouds on the horizon steadily growing closer.

Yugo was the first to spot them, head snapping up as he froze. The audience quickly following just as the bright red androids showing themselves.

(There was always a bitter taste in his mouth knowing the resemblance he bared to the machines.)

crash

Yugo's turntable shattered to pieces as the head android landed directly on it. The music abruptly cut off just as the crowd screamed and quickly fled the scene. A few braver members finding shelter nearby to watch the scene unfold. Yet in the face of their imposing forms, Yugo stood firm, face contorting into a scowl at the sight. Barely contained rage seething out as he glared, voice sharp and defiant.

"Oi oi oi! What the hell are you doing here?!" He demanded, crashing his concert was something he had, regrettably, gotten used to. Smashing his equipment? That was a fast, one way ticket to his shit list. Though these guys where definitely on something worse just by existing.

"'DJ'," The cold, static voice of the androids began as it stood, towering over the small human. "We've warned you several times."

"And we also told you that there wouldn't be a next time." A second spoke as the other two flanked either side of him. Effectively trapping him on stage, though he didn't seem very worried.

The man let out a short, bitter laugh before taking off his headphones. Not bother to hide his clear disgust towards the empty tin cans. "I'm still following all your 'rules', man," He used the term loosely. "What's your problem?"

"A new statutory provision has just been established," The head android immediately responded as it displayed the infamous article.

Article 277 of the android regime, under the National Protection Act, records the mental state of the nation and manages this; the fifth item states that in order to record and regulate humanity's mental state, it is strictly prohibited to have more than a certain number of entertainment activities.

Yugo simply stared at the words, oddly silent as the red beings continued. "It has been determined that you are doing more than the regulated number. Therefore, you have been designated as a target of the purge."

"Do you really think you can manage people's minds like that?" A sardonic smile spread across his face, the big sleeves of his jacket just barely hiding his clenched fists. "No! That's why you gotta add more weird rules, again!" He scoffed, unafraid of their empty gazes, cold static voices, and looming forms. "You don't understand humans at all!"

"This has been implemented based on past statistical data and human behavior," The android spoke, if he didn't know any better, or if they where at all any part human, it had just snapped. "There is no error in our android regime." Another continued as if stating a fact as clear as day, when in fact, every action went against human moralities. When every new 'rule' made the people more and more afraid. When every appearance brought him closer and closer to grabbing the nearest thing and turning the stupidly pristine metal to scrap.

"No, you are still ignoring us," Yugo's voice was surprisingly calm despite how badly his fist was trembling. "You don't know the reason why we're all stuck in this kind of place," It was happening again. No matter how loudly or how many times he spoke, they didn't spare him even a second of thought. "Cuz there's no light in this world. You know?" They where hardwired to enforce all the bullshit rules, and fully believe every word the guys in charge spoke. "There's no hope." Why would they bother listening to the words of every other human suffering as a result of the select few?

Even if he fell to his knees and begged, even if he cried his eyes out, they wouldn't listen.

His voice would never reach them through the overwhelming static in their heads.

The same song and dance as before.

"But we're still playing hard. We need to live for tomorrow too."

But there was one key difference between the past and the present. He wasn't afraid. At least, not of them.

"Come on, we own this freedom!" His voice rose, internal rage spilling into it. It was tiring, holding it all in. Suppressing all the noise in his head, acting like he didn't want to tear these things to pieces every time he saw them. "Don't take it."

"Whoever refuses to accept our commands will be eliminated. That is our policy." The androids warned as they moved closer the to DJ, seeming unconcerned with how badly he was shaking from the anger inside.

Another laugh escaped him, and he placed a hand on his head from the annoyance that was growing. The entire situation was absurd, and idiotic. "No! What the hell, man. You don't make any sense!!" Everyone had a breaking point, and honestly? Yugo was rapidly approaching his as rage began to boil over. The only thing that stopped him from going wild was the click of a bullet loading.

He froze again, the cold steel of the android's built in gun pressing against his forehead. Suddenly mortal fear replaced his blinding rage, and any protests he had quieted. The cold voice of red metal ringing in his ears.

"Stay silent and do not disturb the order. Submit to our voice. Know your place, human."

Oh, here we go again.

This wasn't the first time he'd been in mortal danger, and it wasn't the first time someone tried to silence him either.

This world is trying to keep me in the dark.

Throughout his life, the world seemed to deny him of everything. From the first time he played the guitar, to now, as he stared down the barrel of the machines that controlled everything.

And I really have no idea how to deal with it.

Music was his escape. The one way he could express everything he felt inside freely, uncaring of judgment and simply being him. And people loved it, they flocked to his voice, wanted even a taste of freedom that the world denied them.

This world is hard to live in.

But that didn't stop others from trying to stop his music. Simply by circumstance, or by destroying the things he loved. Everywhere he went, it was the same. But he kept playing, because he didn't- couldn't- give up what made Yugo Asuma, Yugo Asuma. It was tiring though, when the noise from others became too much. When it overwhelmed him, and he couldn't hear his own voice through the static. It was tiring, you know?

When they seemed to find fault in everything he did, no matter how hard he tried. How they isolated him, so he couldn't lean on someone. How when he was alone, he let out all the emotions locked inside so they wouldn't have more fuel to the fire. How everywhere he went people criticizing everything about him. His music, his voice, his looks, everything-

"Yugo, are you crying again?" How Ike-sensei placed these headphones over his ears one day, and everything stopped. "You know? We can block all the bad noises like this." He had said, after another day of criticism and isolation.

"Sensei, nobody wants to play with me. They all say I'm awkward." Yugo had admitted back then, the dam of emotions finally breaking as he cried endlessly.

His Sensei had just smiled gently, and brought him close. Silencing his cries with affection and comfort. "Oh you are not awkward! Every single person is special, I think people just don't see it," Ike-sensei had reassured his younger self, as calm and warm as ever. Before Yugo had begun to sing, before he found escape in tunes and notes. "There are many people in the world with different ways of thinking and cultures, and we live on by accepting each other. Yugo, why don't you try to learn English? You want to make friends, don't you?" He had suggested after Yugo's tears dried.

"I want to! But..." He had jumped at the chance, deprived of social interactions and company. "No one speaks English here... And I'm sure people will judge me." His fear had held him back, the want to be accepted and treasured kept him from anything that might make him more of a target.

"But you can make friends with people from all over the world. Isn't that wonderful? I'm sure you can do it, Yugo." Ike-sensei had known exactly how to quell his fears, the world was vast, with billions of people living in it. If he looked hard enough, Yugo would surely find people who accepted him.

"But I..."

"To borrow a couple of words from a certain demon I know," He had suddenly said, placing his hands on Yugo's shoulders to look him in the eyes. The scene engraved into his memory ever since. "Listen, 'you can be anyone you want. So don't be afraid and live your life, cause this world is full of hope'."

"I don't understand it in English." Yugo had pouted, not processing the words until much later, when he had complete his first song. The words ringing in his ear, giving him the strength to stand firm in the face of ever increasing restrictions.

"Well, I'm looking forward to the future." Ike-sensei had laughed, opening a textbook to begin Yugo's lesson in English.

You can be anyone you want. So don't be afraid and live your life, cause this world is full of hope.

But was that true?

The more years that passed, the more it seemed the hope Ike-sensei talked about diminished. The more time went on, the harder it was to be himself when everything was against him. The more he pushed, the further he went back. The more people where drawn to his music, the more targeted he became. Everything he did just lead to things becoming harder and harder, more restrictions, more rules, more enforcement, and less room to breath. Less time to sing, less places to have fun, and less freedom to do what he wanted.

Where was the hope in this hard to live in world?

He couldn't find it.

He, like so many others, was stuck in this abyss. This never-ended cycle of rules and regulations.

How much did he have to give up to get here?

How much did he sacrifice for tomorrow to come?

Too much to give up.

If he gave up now, obeyed these things for once in his life, what would that say? What would happen to all the others like him in the world? What would Ike-sensei think, knowing all his efforts ultimately went to waste?

Never mind his sensei, how could he face himself knowing he caved? When he spent all his life fighting the tide? Well... The answer was simple.

He couldn't.

"If I have to give up on what I wanna do... I'd rather leave this world!"

Yugo smiled, the rush of adrenaline fueling his burning hatred and rebellious spirit. His hand relaxed, voice even and calm.

"Baaaka!"

bang

The few remaining screamed in horror as the gunshot rang out, Yugo's body jolting back as bright red sprayed through the air. The smoking barrel filling the air with a burning smell as the androids didn't waste a second in grabbing his falling body. Dragging it haphazardly to the nearby river as a handful of onlookers suddenly sprang out of hiding. Desperate to save the last hope in their dark world. They didn't make in time. The loud splash of Yugo's body breaking water echoed in the empty concert grounds. Never to be seen again.

So was the end of the beloved DJ, Yugo Asuma.

Silenced for crime of being himself.

The archivist leaned back in his chair, and scrolled through the rest of the article. The fallout of the incident was huge, protests of people donning his outfit and blasting his music filled the streets. The android regime often resorting to violent measures to contain and disperse the crowds. Not that it helped, as people just found more and more ways to indirectly fight the regime and its restrictions. He chuckled at the thought of what the higher ups must've been thinking reading all the reports. The biggest advocate for freedom was murdered in front of everyone, and they thought it'd make everyone fall in line? Yugo was right on the money calling them idiots.

With another amused chuckle he got up to return the record(book) to its rightful place and browse for the next story.

***

Oh, here we go again.

He felt weightless, drifting in the freezing waters. Yet his breath escaped him every second, and his ears rang with the echoing shot.

This world is trying to keep me in the dark.

He doesn't know why he didn't die from the gunshot, but he did know it left a mark somewhere on his face from how badly it burned.

And I really have no idea how to deal with it.

Being slammed back first into the water didn't help with the dizziness he felt after the impact. Now his eyes struggled to open without vertigo flooding his senses.

I guess there was nothing I could do.

He faintly heard voices from above, shouting something inaudible from above the water. But he couldn't find it in himself to focus in on anything but the roaring thud of his heartbeat.

You now? Even in the hard times, I just wanted to play around.

He briefly worried about his cherished headphones, wondering if they'll ever work again. Before the cold realization slowly dawned on him.

I wanted to play freely, clumsily, and without any regret.

His large jacket that usually offered warmth and comfort now dragged him further and further away form the surface. Towards the dark abyss of the river, silencing him forever.

It concealed my loneliness, and showed me new things.

But forever is a long time, and there would be too many people missing the sound of his voice, or never hearing it at all.

All the while, I wanted to find a hope out of this darkness.

Light, gentle and calm, filled the dark water. Prompted Yugo to crack open his eyes at the sudden brightness, turning to look at the source. His blurry vision couldn't pinpoint the exact location, just the general direction of the soft violet-blue glow. It flowed in wisps, swaying in the current as it drew towards the injured man. A soft voice beckoned, clear despite his ringing ears and throbbing pain.

Yugo... Yugo Asuma.

It called his name, seeming to welcome his form as he grew closer. Small strings of color tenderly wrapping around his cold fingers, seeping with a warmth he desperately needed. Although he thought this entire encounter was a fever dream, or a hallucination in his final moments. Either way, the light radiated warmth, and his rapidly freezing body needed it to survive. Even as his blood filled the water, there was still a tiny voice inside him that said live. Screamed at him to not give up, and find what he'd always searched for.

He reached out, hoping to grab onto something.

A hand reached back.

Nails black, skin pale, but warm.

Yugo's blurry vision could only make out a magenta blob before darkness overtook him once more.

The rush of wind as cars sped past, the steady thumping of passing bystanders.

"Oh! Is that guy okay?" One spoke, spotting the black clothed man slumped against a wall.

"Hey, come! Leave him there! I think he's just a drunk." The other urges, despite the water dripping off his black and blue hair, and the slow trickle of red from his head injury.

Yugo Asuma didn't die.

In fact, he's doing very well.

With so many new friends, and the light he'll never let go.

He'll never know what force brought him hear, but when the night is over, he'll remember to say thank you, again.

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

Happy belated Birthday Yugo!! 💙💙💙

I literally wrote this in like 4 hours in a frantic speed-type session.

I originally planned on releasing Uki's lore fic than this one, cause it makes more sense when looking at the plot I have laid out for the 5 fics. The reason why is because Yugo inspired me a lot. For context; I have a Wattpad account, and I only have a few stories/chapters published out of MANY. Why? Because I lost all confidence in my writing. I still wrote, but I never shared it with anyone, because I hate it but couldn't bring myself to delete it. Hearing about Yugo's experiences helped me a lot with regaining even a fraction of the confidence I had when I first started writing.

I love writing, I really do, but when it comes to sharing it with others? I want to tear it apart. That's been my life for the past few years.

It probably as to due with the fact I don't own social media but.... I won't go I into my personal life.

I'm currently broke though, so I can't support any of Nijisanji as much as I want, and I can't draw and don't own Twitter. So this is honestly as much as I can do. I'm trying to get an ao3 account, but IDK how long that will take.

I just wanted to support my favorite DJ and contribute even a little to this beautiful community the YuGuys have created.

Thank you, Yugo, for inspiring me to at least try and be better! Writing may not be my career, but it's something I've loved since middle school. Thank you for helping me bring it back!

If he ever reads my other work I'm going to throw myself out a window-