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shinynewboots · 7 months ago

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The Alchemy: Adam x AFAB Morningstar!reader Part 2

AN: Hello all! Thank you so much for all the love and support you have given this story!! Once again want to give a special shoutout to @jennieyeager for the wonderful prompt! I do apologize for the wait. I had a lot of different directions I wanted to go and this was the final project. With that being said:

Confession time: I definitely think this is going to be longer than 4 parts! I kept trying to condense this as best I could but these two idiots really took the plot and ran with it so I hope y'all are ready!

Warnings: 18+ eventually, somewhat dubious consent, language, Adam-typical misogyny

Part 1

The clock on your arm was ticking quickly, time moving at a faster pace than you could fathom. You had made the executive decision to not tell Charlie about your arrangement with Adam until it was too late for her to stop it. A cowardly move, perhaps, but you knew she would try and talk you out of it if she sensed even the smallest hint of hesitation in your decision.

And there was some hesitation. To leave everything you had ever known to marry this man who had only ever been the boogie man of your nightmares? But you thought of Charlie and her mission and dreams and you knew the answer could only ever be yes.

There was another part of you, a part that you weren’t completely ready to acknowledge, that was curious and intrigued. No one ever chose you first. Ever. And yet this mythic being upon first glance knew that he wanted you. Now maybe it was the slight resemblance you bore to your mother or desire for his weird revenge but it was still you that he had chosen. That had to mean something, right?

So you left a note for Charlie to find once she finally realized you were missing.

Charlie,

I’m okay. Please don’t come after me. I went with Adam, the leader of the exorcists. He promised in exchange for me, he would stop the exterminations and give your hotel a shot. Please, Char, I had to do this for you. For us. For…everyone. Please don’t tell Dad, though I doubt he would answer your calls anyway. Please don’t do anything rash. I will try and contact you when I can. I love you. Y/N.

The embassy looked more foreboding than it ever had. The building almost looked like an eyesore along the skyline. Almost too perfect to be seen amongst the squabble of Hell. You glanced down at your watch: 0:05.

Five minutes until your life changed forever.

You trekked through the embassy, the rooms were just as quiet and dark as when you and Charlie were here only 24 hours earlier. You finally made it back to the meeting room where you had met Adam originally. Light streamed through the cracks in the door and you knew he was there. Another glance down at your watch: 0:02.

There was no use in waiting for the clock to strike midnight. For your carriage to turn into a pumpkin. It was inevitable, so why put it off? Sighing, you opened the door.

You looked around the room and only saw Adam, his feet on the table, and leaned back in one of the boardroom chairs, a golden guitar in his hands.. He wasn’t wearing his mask so you got a good view of his human features. He also wasn’t wearing his white and purple robe and instead wore a simple black cotton t-shirt and blue jeans.

There was no one else present, not even his loyal exorcist from the first meeting. Adam was strumming the guitar, his eyes closed, and his expression was peaceful.

You glanced down at your watch. 0:01.

You cleared your throat to alert Adam of your presence. The gentle melodies from the guitar came to an abrupt stop and you were suddenly face to face with Adam, who had flown to you with such a speed that you still couldn’t wrap your head around.

“Hey Babe, good choice.” He said, smirking and taking in your appearance. You found your eyes drawn to his lips and the memory of his smoldering kiss only 24 hours early. My, how much can change. Adam seemed to notice because his smirk became a hungry grin and revealed to you his sharp canines. You found yourself so distracted that you missed his question.

“Hard Candy?” He asked again, holding a small wrapped cherry-hard candy in your line of sight. You looked at him, your eyebrows scrunched.

“Uh, sure. It’s not poison, is it?” You joked, giving a very Charlie-esque awkward smile.

“Nah, babe. It's for the travel. You ever portal-traveled before?”

You shook your head.

“Thought so. Don’t want you puking on me or anything once we get there. This should help.”

You nodded and went to grab the candy from his hand. He had other ideas. He unwrapped the candy himself and held it out in front of your lips. You involuntarily took in a deep breath and could once more taste his kiss from even the subtle scent of the candy.

“Open,” He whispered and you did just that. He placed the cherry candy on your tongue and it took everything in you not to unravel. To forget your arrangement and to try and find out if his kiss was just as sweet and flavorful as the hard candy that now sat on your tongue. Instead, you chose to swirl the candy in your mouth, the juices emitting their pleasant sweet tang.

“Thanks,” You breathed out, not trusting yourself with any more expression of language than that measly word.

“It’s fucking good, right?”

“Yeah, I, uh, wouldn’t expect anything less from a candy from heaven.”

Adam shook his head. “Nah, that's not from Heaven. They don’t get the cherry flavor right. That’s from Earth.”

“Oh,” You said lamely, trying to locate this special cherry flavor Adam seemed to enjoy. You wouldn’t call yourself a candy connoisseur but at least now you knew one more thing about your soon-to-be husband: His hard candy preference.

“You ready to go?” Adam asked, holding out his large hand for your grab.

“You promise that you’re going to stop the exterminations? And give my sister’s hotel a shot at redeeming sinners?” You asked, just needing one last verbal confirmation that you weren’t making a mistake. You could have tried to hold him to a deal but he was an angel. An angel, who despite being a villain in your parent’s history, had done nothing to conceal his true intentions as far as you knew. And you always felt icky making deals. The idea of owning a soul? Could you even own an angel’s soul?

Adam grinned in a way that could only be described as shark-like, his canines glittering in the light. He held a hand over his heart as if to further prove sincerity. “I promise to do everything in my power to stop the exterminations and give your sister’s stupid hotel a shot.”

You breathed a deep sigh and nodded. You gave him your hand and he squeezed it in a surprisingly gentle manner. His hand was calloused, surprising you as you thought all heavenly things were perfect. But his hand was rough and weathered and worked (especially his fingers, which you attributed to his years of guitar).

A portal suddenly opened in the wall and you got your first glimpse at the Pearly Gates of Heaven. It was even more beautiful than you could have ever imagined. A piece of your heart began to ache. Charlie should be here to see this.

Adam pulled you forward.

“Close your eyes,” He whispered, his mouth dangerously close to your ear and warm breath tickling you. “And hold on to me.”

You looked up at him, your eyes wide with wonder and a little disappointment that you couldn’t take in the sight before you for even a moment longer.

“Trust me, the first trip’s the worst.” He said, and suddenly he pulled you to his side. His body was warm and softer than you had imagined. You closed your eyes tight. He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you even tighter to his side. You heard the flap of his wings and suddenly you felt weightless as the ground beneath your feet ceased to be. You could feel yourself flying higher and higher until…

You felt a rush of air and a glorious sun shining on your face. You felt as though the universe had taken you by the belly button and was pulling you closer to it. Your stomach began to flip and you were very grateful for the candy, as the flavor was helping to settle your nausea, at least for a little bit.

The sensation was lessening and you felt your feet hit solid ground. You hesitantly opened your eyes and were immediately met with various cameras shoved in your face.Angels, winners, and Cherubs crowded around you and Adam. Your mouth had run dry and you couldn’t think. Lights flashed and you felt yourself melding closer into Adam’s side.

“PRINCESS! PRINCESS! Care for a comment?”

“Princess! Over here! How did you manage to get Heaven’s most eligible bachelor to lower his standards to a Hell Born like yourself?”

“Hey Fuckers, get the fuck off my lawn!” Adam growled.

“YOU HEARD HIM, FUCK OFF!” You heard someone else yell. You looked over to see the same Exorcist angel (Lute?) that had been with Adam at the meeting yesterday. She had a menacing grin on the face of her mask and had a spear pointed at all the reporters. Adam gave her a nod which she returned (after she speared through a camera cherub was holding).

Adam decided to act quickly since Lute could only hold off so many reports and so he used his wing to shield you and make a path up to the house. You mirrored his footsteps, though you couldn’t take in the world around you due to his wing. Finally you made it inside Adam’s house and were able to take a free breath.

“Fuck,” Adam cursed. “Fuck Babe, I’m sorry. I don’t know how they found out.”

He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. You could still hear the reporters outside but chose to not let it bother you (well, it would bother you at least a little. You had never been one for the spotlight).

“It’s okay. It’s fine,” You said softly, placing a hand on his arm. He looked over at you with curious eyes and you felt your heart stop. And then you felt yourself accidentally swallow the cherry candy. You immediately began to cough and choke as the candy slid down your windpipe.

Adam’s eyes widened in shock and fear. He ran up behind you and began to push on your stomach in a pitiful attempt at the heimlich maneuver. Fortunately, you weren’t solely reliant on him to save your life, and you coughed up the remaining cherry red candy. A sliver of what it had been when you had been given it early. Really Sexy Princess Morningstar, real sexy.

Adam must have been relieved when you stopped choking, at least enough to make a joke. “Fuck Babe, don’t choke again unless its because of me.”

Ah, there was the asshole you had originally met. You had let his kind, sexy gestures fool, but the asshole was still there.

You scowled at him and began to look around the house. It was a modest house, the perfect size for one or two people. Cleaner than you expected too. You had honestly expected trash and leftover food to be strewn around the house, but you were pleasantly surprised.

A sound at the front door caused you to jump and you looked to see Lute entering, an irritated look on her face. Adam walked over to her, his hand up to give her a high-five which she begrudgingly returned.

“Thanks Bitch, I don’t know how those fucking reporters found out.”

“You made a bit of a spectacle of yourself, Sir. Apparently one of the Saints let it slip that you requested the Hell Spawn.” Lute said, eyeing you with disgust. The feeling was mutual and you could feel your demon form bubbling under the surface, your eyes beginning to turn a reddish color.

“Fucking Peter,” Adam scowled. He glanced over at you and seemed to feel the irritation seeping from your pores. “Babe, she doesn’t mean it.”

“Yes I do.”

“Yes she does.” You said, crossing your arms and stepping closer to Adam.

You and Lute glared at each other.

“Okay, okay ladies reel it in. Lute, you’re a real one. I fucking appreciate it. Just let the girls know I won’t be at training for a few days while I get Y/N settled.”

“Of course sir. Hell Spawn.” She said, nodding at Adam and then you. Your eyes narrowed.

“Bigoted Cunt,” You responded, giving her a just as condescending nod. Lute bristled but one look from Adam and she quietly slipped out the door.

Adam turned to you, suddenly more sheepish than you had seen him in the past 24 hours. He rubbed a hand behind his neck. “So, uh, I only have 1 bedroom. I mean I have more rooms, I just haven’t had a chance to get more beds or anything. So I put your suitcase in my bedroom.”

You know, this is the part of the story where the main character gets nervous. Worries that her very sexy, very annoying husband-to-be is going to ravish her and take advantage. Her mouth would run dry and her palms would get sweaty. Only one bed? Give me a break.

But you weren’t the main character in the trashy romance novel and he certainly wasn't the main love interest material. And you could make do with the idea that maybe living in a romance trope. And he seemed sheepish enough that it was genuine.

So instead of doing as you would if you had been the same person you had been in Hell, only a few hours before, you decided to draw on some newfound confidence. You closed the distance between yourself and Adam and looked up at him, a coy smile on your features. “Lead the way.”

This seemed to him, as his features brightened up considerably and he grabbed your hand to guide you to the bedroom. Butterflies fluttered in your stomach and you could feel your nerve breaking the longer you walked with Adam.

When you entered his bedroom, you were surprised to find it to be rather plain. Very few features had been added to the space to make it homey aside from a guitar propped against one of the nightstands. Not a picture or painting or any decor to be seen. Like the rest of the house, it was shockingly clean. On the bed, your forgotten suitcase sat.

“I’ll leave you to get settled. I'll grab some wine or beer or whatever you drink down below.” Adam said, motioning towards you to begin unpacking your suitcase. You smiled at him, feeling as though you were seeing the real Adam already in the few moments of insecurity he had let shine through.

“Wine is good.” You said. He nodded and made to move towards the door before stopping and turning back to you. He stood in front of you, his golden eyes meeting your own before they looked lower at your lips. Emboldened, you licked your top lip slowly and looked at his own before devilishly looking back at his eyes.

His large hands cupped your cheeks and suddenly his lips were on yours. Your senses were once again overwhelmed with that delicious taste of cherry hard candy. Feeling more and more impish, you licked the seam between his lips, a soft request.

Adam responded in kind and opened his mouth, tongue meeting your own and licking in a controlled, hard manner. Your hands found their way into his hair and tangled in his soft brown locks. One of Adam’s hands left your cheeks and snaked its way down to your waist, pulling you closer. His large hand cupped your hip and squeezed with a firm pressure that sent a pleasant chill up your spine. His body felt so warm against your own and you could feel your resolve weakening.

(But would it be so bad if it did?)

You reluctantly pulled away from him, your lips missing the feel of his against your own. His cheeks were flushed and his golden eyes were bright and alert.

“I uh, I should unpack,” You whispered, untangling your hands from his hands. Adam nodded, though you weren’t sure he heard you.

He coughed awkwardly and you tried to avert your eyes when he tried to discreetly ‘adjust’ himself. “I’ll go get the wine.”

“I’ll unpack,” You replied, mentally kicking yourself for the repetition. You nervously brushed a piece of hair behind your ear. Adam nodded once more and left the room, leaving you alone.

You sighed and tried to calm your breathing. You unzipped your suitcase and smiled forlornly at the picture that sat on top of your clothes. It was a picture of you, Charlie and your parents. You and Charlie were children, grinning wildly at the camera.

You folded the picture so it just showed the two of you. You placed the picture on what appeared to be the unoccupied side of the bed and continued to unpack.

Tags: @jennieyeager @tati-the-fangirl @alastorswifeee @randomgurl2326 @marxo5 @dragovegogrimborn @ella-janehaven @honestlyshamelesskid @miniaturetalent @klorinda @turtle3586 @naniiiii12 @belladonnadeath

#the alchemy #hazbin hotel adam #hazbin hotel fandom #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fanfiction #hazbin hotel reader #adam x reader #adam hazbin #adam hazbin hotel #adam x morningstar!reader #hazbin hotel morningstar #morningstar reader

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m1ssunderstanding · 11 months ago

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Get Back Rewatch 55 Years On: Day 20

I literally got second-hand anxiety hearing, “How many numbers do you think you’ll have by tomorrow?”. I was like. TOMORROW? They are Not ready. The only reason the rooftop works out is because they’re the fucking Beatles. No one else would pull that out of their butts so well.

If only John could’ve listened to Glyn about Klein. smh

Classic Paul. Starts out saying “us” ends up just talking about John. “The best bit of us always has been, and always will be, is when we’re backs against the wall and we’ve been rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. And he knows it’s a take on the dub. And he does it great.” It’s okay, Paul. We all know you like to get him up against a wall. No but seriously, Paul is not okay about John.

Takes every opportunity to flirt, doesn’t he?

“I can’t wait to work here, you know . . . I mean, here in our life, it’s like home.” It’s the gentleness, yeah. But it’s the focus, too. Most people (I know I would) would be so done with him and his anxiety spirals and his neuroses and over-thinking on and on and on by this point. John probably is, but he shows no sign of that fatigue at all. He is zeroed in on working him through this. He’s done it a million times before, and he’s ready to do it as many more times as Paul needs. Ugh, they make me into such a sap!

“Yeah, well that’s why I’m talking to John, not you.” If Paul can talk like that to George Martin, one of the most respected men in his life, when he’s in the middle of a thing with John, imagine how he must’ve bullied other people that tried to worm their way in.

That smile he gives George though! That’s how he got away with all his shit, isn’t it? So fucking cute.

“I agree with you, I think it’s disappointing, but all right, we only got to seven. Let’s do seven.” The tone of voice, man. So. Fucking. Gentle. No wonder Paul can't stand the projected "acerbic, tough Lennon" shit. If that was how someone treated you and took care of you? And then everyone acts like that part of them just didn't exist, and emphasizes the parts of them that they themselves hated and actively worked against? Yeah I'd be pretty pissed too.

Glyn reassuring Paul that there’s no reason they can’t come back and do a TV show later. Yeah, fifty years later.

John’s eyes constantly flicking back to Paul as George is talking . . .

George really does take so much better care of himself than the other three at this time. Pictured here, silently begging viewers like you to chip in just ninety-eight cents toward his freedom.

I actually think, though, that if Ringo had said he didn’t want to go on the roof either at that moment, that they wouldn’t have done it. I think they look to him for common sense in their decision-making, and Ringo saying he didn’t want to do it really might’ve broken the whole thing.

George’s reaction to Ringo voting for the roof VS John. It’s giving tragic heroine VS villain origin story

Honestly heartbroken at the “I love you, blue”. How many times did John just straight up say those words to Paul only for Paul to be completely unresponsive? That genuinely hurt to watch.

The tiny little looks they give each other. “Okay. We got this.”

“Fuck all that. I’m just gonna do me for a bit.” Good for you, baby.

“I had a good dream last night, you’re black or you’re white, you want equal rights.” I know some people say it’s hypocritical or preachy or whatever, but I ADORE this John. Look how fucking happy he’s making Billy right now and then talk to me about how John’s political side is meaningless. I think it’s beautiful.

I think it’s actually too embarrassing for them at this point to sing Two of Us without being insane.

“We’re all sleeping at Georgie’s tonight. Get in the mood.” Oh how I wish they actually had. I mean, maybe they did. Someone write the fic!

Oh, the “who knows, Yoko,” moment. It’s so embarrassing. The fact that there was just no response whatsoever. Yeesh.

So many nerves when I saw the camera zooming into that circled date with “Rooftop Concert” written on it. What is wrong with me?

#paul mccartney #the beatles #john lennon #mclennon #ringo starr #george harrison #get back #only the rooftop concert left guys!#this was so fun thank you all so much for supporting my obsession and melodrama #all the comments in the tags that I don't respond to because they're tags I just want you to know I appreciated all of them #You all have made some excellent points #And I want to make a post of the tags after this I think #Thank you thank you everyone

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yuujiheart · 6 months ago

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Yuuji is becoming Sukuna's equal.

I like everyone, was hoping for yuji's reaction towards yuta taking over gojo's body., although I did suspect that they wouldn't have enough time after yuta gets done and yuji will prioritize saving megumi instead of questioning this whole thing and there is a good reason to believe that todo might have explained him already....I had some doubts that I believe would only be solved once we get yuji's reaction...But what happened this chapter actually ended up answering my question in a different way..

yuji completely ignoring yuta falling on the ground, todo getting black flashed and him not stopping even for a second ,completely locked in. when even todo, a trained sorcerer got distracted reminded me of this panel...

Here sukuna talks about how one should completely let go of everything without worrying about anything and should focus on their desires.

And what yuji did here is exactly that, he didn't let anything distract him at all and he kept moving forward towards his desire to save megumi.. Which he has been doing since Shibuya. And he's the only one except Sukuna who has displayed this behaviour..whether it's during his fight with Sukuna after him possessing megumi, or the moment when todo appeared. The whole shinjuku showdown arc has evidence for that..

Yuuji has gone through so many changes . He went from wondering why he needs to die to happily sacrificing himself. Mahito completely destroyed his belief in himself but not his desire to help/save people. He reduced himself to a cog in order to not let the guilt of sukuna killing people overpower him and allowing him to keep doing what he thinks is right. So much so that Hakari also questions his claim of being a cog. (Which in my opinion he isn't as cogs solely focus on doing their part which is not yuuji style).. And it is quite similar to sukuna..

Sukuna also works in a similar manner without worrying about anything and keeps doing what he thinks is right.. The only difference is the nature of their desires, while sukuna does everything for himself, yuji does everything for others...

Apart from that, this was uraume's (who has known Sukuna for a long time) first thought after sukuna revealed his and yuji's origin. Which is self explanatory I think.

This panel here also suggests something similar. Kenny here calls both yuuji and Sukuna the reason why curses cycle exists and it will remain so as long as BOTH of them are alive. I personally think this could also mean they both are the reason why curses exist in the first place. Not to forget he also called BOTH of them a time bomb. Although It makes more sense now.

Yuuji is called tiger of the West and has tiger in his name while sukuna is associated with dragon (dragon scales) . The two beasts that represent yin and yang . Now yin and yang are not opposite forces but complementary . They represent the balance that exists in universe. Gege also tries to depict something similar in manga initially through yuji and sukuna 's clothing as yuji is all black with white hood and sukuna with all white and black scarf which gege himself mentioned in an interview.

We can also see this as a conflict between strong vs weak where yuuji went from being strong to weak ( him being special in high school but weak in jujutsu world) and sukuna weak to strong ( him being ostracized and undesired to being known as king of curses.)

Another thing that connects them is their feeling of loneliness.. Yuuji does not want to be alone when he dies so he tries to save people. He doesn't let yuta kill him because he still hopes to help people. Otoh Sukuna also feels lonely and that's why he listens to yorozu kashimo gojo but after seeing their version of love which is them connecting to him through strength ,he declares he doesn't want that .

This is my personal opinion but yuji and sukuna are not completely opposite.. Both of them are striving for what they believe in and what they want to do. That's why only they can understand each other like no one... But it wasn't like that from the start, it has developed slowly into one.. Sukuna who has only cared about his pleasures and desire, started to understand other's ideals through yuuji and yuuji understanding through sukuna what curses truly are . To me it's like both of them are forces that are needed to create balance but disrupting one of them can cause chaos too.

So I am imagining that both will save each other, yuuji by connecting with Sukuna not through the strength and sukuna will help yuuji realize his true potential because merger is still there and I strongly believe sukuna is not in the story only to die by good guys hands I guess. Gege said nobody is completely wrong or right so i don't want to discard this possibility at all.

#i had this in my mind since yuta reveal but wanted to wait for yuji's reaction #i think i will post more on Sukuna's perspective as its intersting.#gege is making yuji go through all this so that he can come up with actual solution #Kenny was right him being eye of the storm and he is in the process of becoming one in this shinjuku raid arc.#jujutsu kaisen #itadori yuuji #ryomen sukuna #sukuna #jjk yuuji #sukuita #jjk #yuji itadori #sukuna ryomen

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maleficore · 8 months ago

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It always makes me feel so ehh when people use chosen!Durge when they strictly mean this bloodthirsty cruel person because be honest, what choice did they really have? Unless you play Durge as being incredibly suicidal and unhealthily self-sacrificing, telling Bhaal they will do his bidding is for the most part a survival choice. Durge as a character doesn't know Withers will just swoop in and bend the fabric of the universe to his will to save them, they have no idea that their refusal won't be the last thing they do. So it makes perfect sense for someone who is not necessarily an Evil person to go along simply because they're scared of dying (and being tortured in the Bhaal's domain forever), but both the game and a large portion of players refuse to acknowledge it.

Chosen Durge is always the baddie, a lost cause, and while that can well enough be true for some characters to me it's just.. boring? Unless you play/write them evil from start to finish, it really falls flat. Where are the blurry lines? Where's the moral complexity? Not everything is binary, but it feels like in Durge's case everyone from the characters in-universe to a lot of people engaging with the story only believe they can be one or the other. Completely different, changed person who would rather die than to endure Bhaal's hold on them or a monster so soaked through to the bone with Bhaal's taint, even amnesia wasn't enough to save them. That's what the "redeemed" and "chosen" shorthands look like to me. Even using [alignment]!Durge is better. Someone saying they made a redeemed!Durge tells me nothing. Yeah they let Bhaal kill them, great. What are they like, though.

Ezra could very well fall under the Chosen category, but he is SO far removed from what that means in the fandom, using it for him would be doing him a disservice. I refuse to simplify him that way, he has too many layers and is too complex as a character to put him in a box like that. Even alignment does a shoddy job at summarising him to me. People don't work like that. They're often self contradictory and don't think before they act. Okay his baseline is chaotic neutral, but sometimes he borders on evil and other times he's so incredibly selfless you could call him chaotic good even. Circumstance and emotions can affect people greatly!

It really just boils down to.. PLEASE try to get out of the black hole of Larian's rushed "Oh shit we need to put a bhaalspawn origin in this" black and white narrative and see just how many galaxies there are to explore. Don't constrain yourself to the story forks they established, you're just hurting your character writing in the long run and putting a big ass sign on them that pretty much makes them get lost in the sea of all the other "redeemed" and "chosen" Durges. They might make good descriptors if you're just crafting characters to play as, but I wish we dropped them entirely. It's not OC language, it's AU language for canon characters who already had all the work done on them by writers and that people at large know well enough to tell there's more to them than that. In here it doesn't work.

And I also consider it kind of TikTok lazy and uncreative to use, but that's just me.

#in general i have a very strong beef with oc stories that are just strict retellings of someone's playthrough lol #great you put your character in the dev's y/n fanfic #the backstory can be interesting i guess #but if you don't craft your own game canon it's gona be a pass from me #you gotta be autistic about it #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #the dark urge #bg3 spoilers #durge spoilers

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the-fandom-crossroads · 9 months ago

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Just finished rewatching Advent Children with bro and wow that explained a lot more than I thought it would. Bro had never seen it and I remembered the white void showing up there and that the 3 villains were sephiroth clones. I completely forgot the other hints towards Remake.

But Spoilers for Remake and Rebirth I guess?

I now understand why everyone insists Remake Sephiroth is Advent Children Sephiroth. Like the exact same monologue about going to space with cloud. And Advent Children was him revealing this new bigger plan to cloud. If Remake Sephiroth was the original VII sephiroth he should still just want to use meteor because it's "mother's" will.

But like all that is old news for folks who remembered Advent Children when playing through Remake 4 years ago.

I think the things Rebirth builds on about the lifestream is more interesting. The pond that forms in Aerith's church in AC is a natural mako spring like the countless ones we find in rebirth. Flowers are able to grow there long after Aerith's death because of this spring just below the surface.

When Cloud "dies" in Advent Children he meets Aerith and Zack in the white void before they decide to put him back. He's released from the lifestream in the natural mako spring now in Aerith's church just like how Tifa is tossed back out when she enters with the whale.

Again for anyone who's recently watched AC it's obvious the white void is meant to represent the lifestream. But that means Rebirth is confirming the Lifestream is a bridge between the different universes. Zack enters the Lifestream and runs into Remake cloud who's also been pulled in. AC is all about how Sephiroth is still in the lifestream and that's how Kadaj is able to be possessed by him once he has enough Jenova cells. Cloud kills Sephiroth putting him back in the Lifestream. The Lifestream that connects all vii worlds.

AC Sephiroth then uses the lifestream to start appearing before a Cloud that has only just reached Midgar. His Meddling summons the whispers which fight back to keep things to the "cannon" timeline. Sephiroth of course tricks team Avalanche into destroying the head Whisper allowing him to take control of them. Again old news for anyone that knew Sephiroth wanted them to break the bonds of Fate.

But if Sephiroth is using the lifestream to mess with other worlds. it shouldn't be a surprise one of the Aerith's also already in the lifestream got involved too. As other's have pointed out the Aerith that gives cloud the not empty White materia isn't remake Aerith. But another Aerith that pulled him into that universe to give him a functioning white materia. But somehow Remake Aerith knew the hand over happened? Because in the white forest she asks cloud for the materia and they swap so she has a functioning white materia. That part confuses me a little. How did our Aerith know the handoff happened?

Also Rufus and Kadaj have a conversation about how everything's a cycle. That Jenova "Mother" will always try to destroy the planet and the lifestream/humanity will always fight back. Made me realize AC Sephiroth wasn't going back on his timeline to make a new one but hopping into the next timeloop. OG VII and Advent Children's cannon is locked in. Remake is truely that a remaking of the timeline made possible by Cloud and Co defeating the whispers that enforce the timeloops. So now instead of one spiral after another and infinite number of spirals are forming while the remake loop is still happening.

That's why Sephiroth waited until the *spoilers* cannon event to appear in Rebirth. It's an all the stars a line situation. All timeloops have that moment, regardless of how it's different in different versions.

But Rebirth's cannon event was just a test run. Sephiroth wanted to see how much power he could gain just from multiple timelines merging at one point.

Sephiroth already told us what he really wants. The Black materia but not the one from the remake universe no the ultimate black materia forged from all the black materia. And what's the next big plot point that could be a cannon event? Cloud's breakdown at the northern crater after handing the Black Materia over to Sephiroth. If there's any point where the timelines would over lap it would be there. We already saw the power boost Sephiroth got. If that power boost happens to the black Materia yeah that's a multiverse destroying meteor right there.

Wow was that a long wall of text about stuff everyone else probably already knows. But I just had to put all the clarity Advent Children gave me about Remake and Rebirth somewhere. Expect a spiral timeline graphic in the future. Cause I feel like i'm forgetting to explain some of it right.

#final fantasy vii #final fantasy vii remake #final fantasy vii rebirth #ffvii #ffvii rebirth #ffvii remake #final fantasy vii advent children #ffvii advent children #rebirth spoilers #cloud strife #sephiroth #douglitheories

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respectthepetty · 11 months ago

Note

Second wild theory based on some thoughts and your tags that all Phee and Tan want is a confession: what if that's true? What if Phee and/or Tan gets the gun and starts an exposition drop about Non while holding the remaining boys are gunpoint and demanding answers and THEN THEY GET ATTACKED BY THE KILLER WHO IS NON'S BROTHER???

First, I need you to know that on a scale of "being completely normal about this show" to "if this show fails me, it'll be my villain origin story" that I'm currently FAR PAST the latter.

So with that being stated, I'm operating off of Wild Ass (Slasher) Theory 101 for this show aka

We've already met the killers and brother.

TLWR: Non is still alive. And it's all Dr. Sammon and Pit Babe's fault.

All the players are already on the board. We've seen all them in the first half, so now we are being reminded that we have seen them in the second half, like how the woman Keng was speaking to on the phone in episode seven about the money laundering was there in episode six.

And Perth's character was there too. (In the background in the purple/black jackets with the grey shirt)

So we've already met the brother somewhere in the first six episodes. Considering that two of those episodes were set in the past and Non would've noticed his brother, that means that we've seen the brother in the present.

We all keep stating White or Tan is Non's brother. There are some theories Perth is Non's brother, but he didn't notice him the gambling hall, and if the parents are really sending money to their gambling son then what is life?

White is my vote for final gay, and yours too. White is morally superior to the rest of the group and he is clever, which are two qualities a final girl must have. He also has a thin background story - he is dating Tee. Tan has no background story. He is simply everyone's friend who came along AFTER Non went missing; therefore, he is Non's brother.

And I think that Phi and Tan wanted the boys to confess to whatever they did to Non. Phi's dad was and perhaps still is a police chief. Tee's uncle is possibly going to jail, but wanted Non dead. Perth's character might be an uncovered reporter like the lady speaking to Keng was, and maybe, just maybe, the knowledge of what happened to Non could be of use to somebody beyond just Tan and Phi.

So scare the living shit out of the boys? Sure! Terrify the hell out of them? Of course! Maybe stab them a little bit here and there? Well, when in Rome (or the woods), do as the Romans do. Give them some hallucinogenics? Duh! Yet I don't think they intended to kill any of them (well, at least not until they got the confession).

But Por just had to run into the damn tree after seeing something in the camera.

Which caused Phi to ask Fluke how long he could keep Por alive since they planned to get that confession before the next vehicle arrived. But then Fluke cancelled their Uber.

White found the walkie-talkie that could be called for help. White found the gun that Fluke is now waving at everyone. White found the knife. White realized there was no cell phone service. White saw the tape. Pure and innocent White just keeps doing ALL the things that nobody asked him to do when WHITE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO EVEN BE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

But now we have Jin seeing Mr. Keng, and Fluke spilling all the tea as he screams that "these fuckers killed someone," so Tan is going to get what he came for one way or another, even if a couple of dead bodies have to be exchanged for him to finally hear what happened three years ago to his brother?

And all of this makes sense in my head. Tan and Phi just wanted a confession. They didn't want anyone to die. However, they couldn't control every aspect of this weekend plan and shit went off the rails. Por ran into a tree. Fluke got a gun. Their Uber was cancelled. And now they have to figure out how to finish this murder mystery party when half the participants are losing their effing minds.

But then there is Uncle Dang.

And our Troublesome Trio looked genuinely shooketh when they saw what had become of him.

In Wild Ass (Slasher) Theory 101, nothing is supernatural. The killer can be everywhere because there is more than one killer, and that's why I'm praying Non is still alive.

The boys made Non the killer. Jin said since Non wrote the killer, Non would understand him better than anyone else.

Uncle Dang died first in the original film. Por was the director who took Non's writing credit. Top was the next to die before he screamed "cut!" at everyone. Fluke was probably next after that. Tee replaced Non, so it would have been Tee and Jin in the end, and Jin was the original main character and final gay as he deserted Non in the woods.

Non is finishing his movie, the way he wrote it.

And this is where my crazy really kicks in.

Phi knows.

Por, Fluke, Tee, Top, and Jin did a very bad thing to Non and ALL have seen and heard something out there in the woods.

White is Tee's boyfriend. He came around after Non went missing. He has seen a rash on his skin.

Tan is probably Non's brother. He wants a confession, but Tan saw something in the house that scared him.

Phi has seen . . . nothing. Phi has heard . . . nothing. He knew how to work the security system. He keeps giving orders. He continues to state the killer is a person.

And he'll do anything for Non.

He was very upset at Non, but he did tell Non he'd forgive him . . . if Non got lost and died.

Por, Fluke, Tee, Top, and Jin couldn't decide if Non was missing or dead, and the mafia is sending death threats and putting hits out on Non, so perhaps Non took a note from Pit Babe's Charlie and died. Or maybe he took a note from a different Tan and died (after killing his boyfriend).

Dr. Sammon, the writer behind Manner of Death, and Pit Babe's writers are the writers for Dead Friend Forever. Pit Babe is based off a novel, but in the Venn Diagram of BLs in which someone fakes his death the overlap is very slim with Chains of Heart being the third, and surprisingly, the screen writer for that series also wrote the screenplay for Dr. Sammon's Make a Wish. The world is small.

So why not disappear? Why not fake his own death?

But also, why wait three years to show back up?

Because the main threat is neutralized and awaiting jail time, but maybe, just maybe, Non hasn't been completely quiet for three years.

Mr. Keng very well might have died from the mafia. He was warned to watch out knowing how dangerous investigating them could be.

But . . . what if somebody else killed him?

Like I wrote at the beginning, I'm being crazy about this show. Wanting Non to be alive is very wishful thinking, but in my mind, if anyone is attacking these boys, I want it to be him. Tan seems pissed, but the most he has done is (intentionally) lose Top in the woods, and Phi is busy protecting Jin (because he wants to save him for last?), so they might start demanding answers in all this chaos, but if Phi's boyfriend died like Pit Babe's Charlie, don't you think he'd be like Barbie and forgive his boyfriend if he came back into his life magically? And don't you think he'd be willing to help his boyfriend get revenge on all the boys who left him for dead, especially the one who is about to leave the country forever?

Because I think he would.

But, then again, Non could actually be dead and Jin could be a good guy who I keep incorrectly blaming for everything.

Because it wouldn't be the first time Dr. Sammon killed a gay.

But it would be the first time she kept him dead.

So is this gonna be like Director Tee & Co. finally skipping out on a time jump when I needed it the most in Hidden Agenda even though that's what he is known to do, or is Dr. Sammon and the Pit Babe crew going to stick to the game plan and raise the gay from the dead?

I guess I'll have to wait and see.

#dead friend forever #dead friend forever the series #Wild Theories #I have theories for days #and they only get wilder #if he is not alive I will weep a thousand tears #do what I know you normally do #raise him from the dead

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descendant-of-truth · 1 month ago

Text

Okay I waited to get this out there because I didn't want to be a bummer the second it released, but. The story in Shadow Generations was... kind of nothing. Which sucks, because it had literally everything going for it.

Shadow gets plunged into a white space where people and places from different points in time are unceremoniously dropped in due to the power of the Time Eater, and that means Black Doom is here to try to manipulate Shadow again. Shadow starts developing alien mutations that mess with his sense of identity and only make Black Doom stronger, but he's determined to use them to take him out for good.

At the same time, Maria and Gerald Robotnik are here, and of course the first thought on Shadow's mind when he discovers them is how he can find a way to save them from their original fates. So he's got two goals: defeat Black Doom, and save his family.

This setup is really good. It's immediately engaging for all sorts of reasons, from the surface-level "whoa cool alien powers!!" to the heartbreaking implications of Shadow being forced to say goodbye to Maria and Gerald again. (Because naturally, we've seen where the games go from here and we know the timeline isn't changed that drastically.)

And it's clear to see that the people involved in working on this game were passionate about it, too. The animation and cinematography is quite good, and while I have my critiques (I still don't think the character models are that great), so much effort was put into making Shadow the coolest guy ever, and I think it paid off. He's both very cool and shows a wider range of emotions than we've seen from him in a while, which is always a plus for me.

I mean, goodness knows that Shadow needed his character to be revisited and given respect after, what, over ten years? The step up that this is can't be overstated.

And yet.

The story itself is so empty.

Let's go in order:

The game opens with a narrated recap of Shadow's basic history in order to catch people up. I can't say it doesn't technically serve its purpose, but given the fact that the premise of the game is exploring Shadow's past, it's a little weird to spell it out at the start like this. If you're a newcomer to the series and don't know much about Shadow, wouldn't it be cooler to find this stuff out by progressing in the game?

It also leaves out crucial details that, while they could arguably bloat the scene, provide a lot of relevant context that a first-time viewer isn't privy to.

"At the last moment, Shadow remembered Maria's final wish... to protect her beloved planet and all who lived there."

The last moment of... what, exactly? What made him remember, what made him forget in the first place?

In order, these are the answers the scene doesn't give you:

The last moments before the ARK crashed into the Earth, which would've caused catastrophic damage.

Amy was the one who pleaded with Shadow to give everyone a chance, which echoed what Maria told him, triggering the full memory.

It's actually unclear if Shadow forgot what Maria said as a natural trauma response or because Gerald messed with his memories on purpose, but this would have been a great opportunity to clarify.

It also leaves out the fact that Shadow teamed up with Sonic to save the world after he tried to destroy it, so that's two connections with other characters he has that are completely left out in the recap. I know we're finally getting back to showcasing Rouge and Omega as his best friends, but he does hold respect for Sonic and Amy, too. Plus, his interactions with them in SA2 were so iconic, why leave them out?

Then again, I suppose Rouge and Omega aren't in this recap either... which is really weird, the more I think about it.

But even as it's describing the moment he chooses to be a hero, they don't show him in his super form alongside Sonic, he's just... what, on fire?? I don't know what that's supposed to be depicting, it just looks cool.

"Shadow didn't understand why Black Doom expected him to be the vanguard for his invasion of Earth."

A fine start, but shouldn't we have gotten a passing mention of Shadow's amnesia somewhere in here? He spent two whole games trying to remember who he was, and Black Doom's whole tactic was to exploit his desire for answers. That's important characterization for both Shadow and Black Doom that we're missing out on, here.

"Shadow the Hedgehog. The lone, dark warrior who judges the world by his own code."

This is maybe best addressed in a separate post, but. does anyone else find this description of Shadow kinda odd? "Lone warrior" I get, even with his friends he's not big on groups, but it's everything else.

Yeah, he judges the world by his own code, I guess, but his actions are all in service of following Maria's code. It's Sonic that lives solely by what he wants without much influence from others, not Shadow.

And what exactly makes Shadow a "dark" warrior? He's been explicitly characterized as someone who doesn't kill as recently as the prologue animation to this very game, where he goes out of his way to save a pilot when he doesn't need to. His entire life's purpose is protecting the world, and this doesn't involve killing or torturing people, so... what exactly is the dark part of his morality. Nothing about this recap has given me reason to believe he's anything but a heroic person with a traumatic past, and the subsequent game will only reinforce that.

I guess he did kill all the Black Arms, but that's not something the game ever treated as an immoral action. Shadow blows up Black Doom and the comet his people live on and all of our heroes cheer as he does it. It happens in the True Ending and everything, where Shadow's supposed to be proving himself as a hero for real, so that can't be the example of him being a Dark Warrior.

Is it because of how he treated Infinite, a character that this game doesn't acknowledge despite featuring a level from Forces? We'll never know. They just want you to accept the idea that he's Darker and Edgier than Sonic based on his surface-level demeanor alone, which... given that the objective of this game is to showcase Shadow's nuance, this is really out of place. Overall, not a great scene.

That said, the first real cutscene is pretty good, and it immediately showcases how unnecessary that recap was by showing how excited Maria was to meet Shadow for the first time. From that scene, we learn that Shadow was artificially made, that he's "the Ultimate Lifeform," that Maria was likely close to him, that this happened on some place called "the ARK" which is in space, etc. Why did we have a narrator tell us all of this a minute ago when we were just about to see it for ourselves?

I do have one nitpick, though - Shadow claims that he arrived at the ARK "an hour ago," and Rouge on the other end of the comm is already at Sonic's birthday party. Rouge only agreed to help Shadow get to the ARK if he would go to Sonic's birthday party afterwards, but how was Shadow supposed to have time to do anything up there if Sonic's party was that soon? I was under the impression from watching the prologue that Sonic's birthday was at least a week away, because how else would Rouge expect him to conduct a full investigation and potentially fight some huge battle before then?

Oh and the Time Eater shows up in two places at once (at Sonic's party and on the ARK), I feel like it would've made more sense to have it grab Shadow after it was done with everyone else. Now I'm gonna be forced to ask "why doesn't the Time Eater multiply" for the rest of the game. Whatever

Moving on, our first real sign of things to come is the fact that Omega does not have a proper speaking role despite showing up in the first cutscene. He's right there, conveniently next to Shadow, but as soon as you think they're going to talk to each other... you're dropped into the hub world. Speaking to Omega results in text bubble dialogue, wherein Shadow is mysteriously hit with Silent Protagonist Disease and we don't get to hear anything he says. Effectively, Omega just. talks at Shadow three times, saying nothing of interest. and it's completely optional.

I repeat: all of the dialogue from one of Shadow's best friends is OPTIONAL, and Shadow himself says nothing to him. Yeah, we're off to a great start.

(Omega even says that he's going to assist Shadow, and I just. I have to laugh. I'm so sorry Omega but in terms of physical actions, you're genuinely going to do less here than in Forces)

Shadow: "No. She's gone. I'm seeing things."

Pardon?? Seeing things??? I'm sorry but there is no way that Shadow can see and recognize Maria from that distance but not from ten feet away with her back turned. He's also never been implied to have super-vision, so the whole scene just doesn't make sense, and frankly adds nothing to the story.

Even if he doesn't mean literal sight, then 1) why did he phrase it like that, and 2) I kinda don't care. He doesn't need to be able to sense Maria's presence or whatever's going on here, because he's just as shocked when he actually sees Maria properly later. It builds suspense I suppose, but I feel like it would've been more impactful to discover that Maria was really here the same way Shadow does; in the cutscene where he saves her.

But before they can reunite, we've got the first proper cutscene with Black Doom:

Black Doom: "You defeated us, but the Black Arms live on. And this temporal anomaly has accelerated my plans to revive my forces and consume the world."

I'm gonna be real with you guys. I have no idea what he's talking about here.

The game makes zero attempt to really explain how the Black Arms "live on" despite Shadow blowing up their entire comet along with Black Doom himself, and going into the game, I kinda thought it was just... time displacement. Maria and Gerald are brought in from a time they were alive, so I thought it would be the same with Black Doom, but no - he revived himself before the Time Eater even got involved.

Which I'd be willing to accept if they gave me an explanation for it, but they didn't, and the whole foundation of the plot suffers for it.

Plus, what the heck does he mean that the temporal anomaly has "accelerated his plans to revive his forces"?? The Time Eater's powers don't... accelerate anything. At all. They pluck things out of time and freeze them in a void. How does that help Black Doom's plans whatsoever?

If the idea is that he's going to pluck his own forces out of time and bring them back that way, why not just say that? Why are they withholding such basic information from us? It doesn't create intrigue, and the story doesn't even treat it like there's a gap in our knowledge to begin with. I think it's genuinely supposed to be the whole explanation, and that's a problem because it explains very little.

Then you've got the Black Moon, and this thing annoys me to no end because guess what?? Despite gradually opening more eyes and cracking open every time you complete a level, it's never once explained what it is or what it's for. All it does is turn the white void into a red void and open a portal to Even More Radical Highway. Maybe I'm forgetting something from an optional piece of dialogue, but that only creates a different problem, which is that you should never lock basic understanding of the story behind optional dialogue.

Why does it have eyes? Is it a living creature or some weird bioweapon? It's oddly mechanical for a creation of the Black Arms; even their weaponry is organic, as this very game tells us through Omega, so what's its deal??

You'd think it would have something to do with time, considering the framing of this scene:

Shadow says "perhaps I can change their fate" and then looks to the Black Moon as though it may hold some relevance to this new plot thread, but. nope. it just takes you back to Radical Highway.

And hey, look at that, I was so busy complaining about the moon that I seamlessly transitioned into one of my biggest issues with the game: Shadow says this. and never follows up on it. EVER.

I'm not kidding, there's literally NO point in the game where we're shown Shadow trying to do ANYTHING to change Maria and Gerald's fates. There's no scene where he attempts to understand the void better, he never investigates anything, he makes exactly zero attempts to accomplish one of his main goals. of BRINGING HIS FAMILY BACK TO LIFE.

What is the point of them being here, then.

No, I'm serious, literally why are they here if we don't get to see Shadow try to save them?? By the time the final cutscene rolls around, they start fading away back to their own time, and suddenly Shadow's like

(WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED, YOU DID NOTHING TO PREVENT THIS OUTCOME)

But I'll talk more about Maria and Gerald later - for now, since we're on the topic of Shadow having odd reactions to things, how about those stages and bosses, huh?

Well guys, I'm pleased to announce that despite there being dialogue in some of the stages, absolutely none of it provides context to the locations Shadow visits or his thoughts on them! If you didn't play Heroes and have no idea that Bullet Station is where Shadow found a destroyed Shadow Android, kickstarting a new layer to his identity crisis, then congratulations, this choice of level will mean nothing to you.

And before anyone tries to be like "the Sonic Generations levels don't get commentary from Sonic on their significance to him, either," it's a problem there, too. But it's an even bigger problem here, because they went out of their way to choose levels that have real emotional significance to Shadow and then proceeded to do nothing with it.

Isn't this the game where we revisit Shadow's story up until this point? Would it have been so hard to drop a line of dialogue indicating that Shadow's not thrilled about returning to Bullet Station? Maybe add a brief cutscene where he finds the same broken android from before, and says something like "hmph, I can't believe I let that thing make me doubt myself for so long," thus demonstrating his growth?

Here's a fun fact: Shadow has zero cutscenes that happen inside of levels. This is something Sonic beats him at, by having one cutscene that takes place in a level (Chemical Plant). This should not have been a high bar to clear, but they fell short somehow, anyway.

(Space Colony ARK doesn't even use the Final Chase music. The Shadow game starts out with a song exclusive to Sonic rather than him. He actually has more ARK-related music than Sonic does and they still didn't use any of them. How did they mess that up)

This problem only gets worse when they start pulling in levels from Forces and Frontiers - games that this Shadow hasn't experienced yet and wasn't there for, respectively. Once again, on principle, this is a cool idea! Shadow getting a peek into what his and Sonic's futures have in store? The confusion over when these events take place, if they're even connected to him like the others have been? Great stuff

And hey, if he's going to Chaos Island, and we saw from the trailers that the volcano is exploding in Act 1, then maybe we could even see Super Sonic fighting Knight in the background in Act 2! The debris from their fight could even act as platforming challenges, can you imagine how cool that would be? What will Shadow think of the advanced tech on the island, or of seeing Sonic fight something so massive? Surely this is a great opportunity to elevate Frontiers even further--yeah of course they don't do that.

No Knight fight in the background, which is... fair enough, I guess, but then why bother with the volcano exploding? It only does that moments away from when Sonic is about to fight Knight. Yeah, it looks cool, but we didn't need it. The more egregious problem is still the fact that Shadow has no observable thoughts or opinions on being sent to unfamiliar terrain in the future, though.

The bosses all have dialogue, though, which is a step up on a technicality and little else. Most of the dialogue from Shadow is just him being a self-aggrandizing badass who doesn't see any of the bosses as threats - even Neo Metal Sonic, who he should really not be so confident in beating all by himself, considering that he. didn't do that before. It actually took eleven other people to defeat Neo Metal, including Super Sonic, but I guess he just doesn't care at this point.

If they wanted to, it would've been easy to make him overconfident on purpose due to his new Doom powers, make an arc out of it, but no. Shadow's just Like This now, apparently.

There's a similar power scaling issue in Sonic Generations too, where Sonic can somehow defeat Perfect Chaos without his super form, but the game had dropped location-specific cutscenes so long ago that it was hard to feel like it was even canon at a certain point. The game never cared about making sense or really being anything, but Shadow Generations doesn't get that excuse. The bosses having the most mid-gameplay dialogue tells us that they're Definitely Happening, and so I care more about them as a result.

Which takes us to the moment that I truly realized that this game had no interest in doing anything with its material: the Mephiles boss fight.

Shadow: "What's this? A seal of some sort?"

Okay real quick before I get into my big issues with this fight: I know it's a magic glowing artifact, but what about it actually looks like a seal, specifically? Does Shadow just have a sense for this kind of thing? I don't recall him ever demonstrating that ability before.

I feel like this line is just here to clarify what it is for people who don't know, but since Shadow also doesn't know, it's just kind of weird. I'm not even sure why he's in the Scepter to begin with, considering that Shadow's sealing attempt in this room was a failure, but whatever.

Of the three bosses in Shadow Generations that precede the final boss, Mephiles is the only one that can both speak and had a relevant dynamic with Shadow that would be interesting to revisit. The Biolizard is cool but doesn't have a personality, and Neo Metal had no real opinion on Shadow. (In Rivals 2, Shadow and Metal Sonic have a developing friendship, but this has unfortunately never been brought up again. If they did so here, it would only have been on Shadow's end, since Metal hadn't gotten to that point yet.)

But Mephiles? So much of his character revolves around Shadow. It was Shadow who sealed him away originally, and it was Shadow's form that he took when he broke free. He's the main antagonist of Shadow's story in 06, and even though his primary goal is rejoining with Iblis, he takes a vested interest in trying to manipulate Shadow over to his side by showing him the worst of what humans will do to him - not unlike Black Doom, honestly, though he was focused on Shadow's past instead.

Plus, it's been so long! We thought we would never get to see Mephiles again! What have you got for us, game?

Mephiles: "I will defeat you, then restore myself to the timeline." Shadow: "I don't know what you're talking about, but I will crush you all the same." Mephiles: "What? Did you forget about me AGAIN?"

*deep sigh*

Contradictory dialogue back-to-back. I see. Cool.

Mephiles should not be surprised that Shadow doesn't remember who he is, because he literally JUST SAID that his goal is to restore himself to the timeline. He KNOWS that he never existed, and therefore SHOULD KNOW that nobody he encounters will remember him. I'm convinced that he only reacted this way because the writers thought it would be funny, and that's it.

Even if it made sense, though, Mephiles isn't supposed to be funny. He's supposed to be ominous and threatening. For as much care that went into recreating this environment and his powers/body language from 06 (and I gotta say, this whole section looks extremely nice), none of that same care really seemed to go into his personality. He's just as drab as Neo Metal, occasionally repeating lines from 06 so that you know they played it and not much else.

The end of the fight features some absolutely unhinged dialogue from Shadow for no reason, though.

Mephiles: "No... I want... to exist...! Shadow: "There is no future for you. Ever."

Look, I get it, they've done nothing but fight this whole time . But Shadow has no personal beef with this guy. Even if they're going with the idea that Shadow wouldn't care to learn what Mephiles is rambling on about (kind of boring, and why wouldn't he be curious about why someone like this has it out for him), there's no reason to go so far as to say he'll never have a future. Is this the "dark" part of that "dark warrior" thing they were talking about in the beginning?? Kind of a random place for it to jump out of him, if so.

The kind of intensity coming from Shadow here would be justified if he remembered who Mephiles was, but he doesn't. As it stands, it gives off the impression that he didn't actually process a single thing Mephiles said about wanting to exist and restore himself to the timeline, and just said the first cool, edgy retort that came to mind. Which makes the sentence both less cool and even more out of character.

After this boss finished playing out, all I could feel was disappointment and a creeping sense of emptiness. If this was how the game was handling Mephiles, of all characters, if this was the extent of what they were willing to do with an idea... the rest of the game suddenly seemed much less exciting. I got to this point, realized how comparatively little of the game was left, and thought oh no.

Now, uh... where was I in the story, again?

Oh right, Shadow was about to go save Maria. I actually have no notes on that scene, it's pretty good and I liked that Maria was immediately thrown off by his aggressive fighting style and whatnot. It implies a lot about what Shadow used to be like without really showing or telling us, and that's pretty neat.

The following cutscene where Gerald explains how Shadow's growing powers only make Black Doom stronger in the process is also fine, there's nothing super specific for me to gripe about it in isolation.

And this good streak it has going is immediately interrupted by the worst, most nonsensical scene in the entire game.

Sonic: "I found you, Shadow!" Shadow: "The blue hedgehog... of all places..." Sonic: "You have something I need." Shadow: "You can wait until my business is finished." Sonic: "Yea sorry, but that Chaos Emerald and I have a date with a monster!" Shadow: "Well then, it'll be a date to die for."

This is. a really stilted conversation, no matter what way you look at it. On one hand, it's repurposed dialogue from two different scenes haphazardly mashed together, neither of which should represent their current dynamic anymore since they were both antagonistic at the time. And on the other, it just... completely lacks character from both of them. They're so unbelievably dry despite their attempts to sound quirky, it's actually impressive.

I have to ask - have the script writers not heard the incessant complaints from fans about there being too many references in modern Sonic dialogue?? Because this scene plays out like an actual parody of that trend, the kind I would expect to see on twitter or something. I initially saw the animation for this cutscene without audio due to leaks, and I thought it looked pretty cool because the animation was nicely done.

Boy, when I tell you I was stunned to discover that THIS was the actual, official dialogue. What happened here?? Why is this what Sonic cutscenes are turning into?? In a game that costs $50-$60??And people are saying it's the best Sonic game???

Somehow, the god-awful dialogue isn't even the only thing that's wrong with this scene, but I'll compile the rest in bullet points to speed it up a little.

Shadow suddenly shows up in Sonic's section of White Space, despite it not being visible from a distance and therefore giving no reason for Shadow to venture out that far

Sonic says he "found" Shadow as if he was looking for him, even though the only people Sonic has seen here other than his and Tails' past selves are people who were at his birthday party

Classic Sonic is neither seen nor mentioned despite the extremely fun potential of having him interact with Shadow

A purple portal conveniently shows up in front of Sonic and Shadow while they're talking for no reason

The boss fight with Sonic is just a cutscene (lame), and Shadow gets taken out completely by one solid bonk from Sonic (even lamer)

The fake Chaos Emerald switcheroo, while clever, is presented as if it was done deliberately when it was clearly a coincidence that it got knocked out of Shadow instead of the real one

(I guess this technically happens before the Mephiles fight so my faith in this game was already plummeting, but I was willing to tolerate this scene being bad because I could understand them not wanting to add too much to Sonic's side of things. They had completely free reign with Mephiles and still delivered nothing, which is why it really cemented itself in my head)

The one thing I really liked here was seeing Shadow almost use his Doom powers to defeat Sonic, deciding against it, and his hesitation being what lost him the match. Shadow refusing to fight Sonic on unequal terms is some really good characterization that I was happy to see.

Black Doom: "The promised time is nigh upon us, Shadow. Soon, you will be mine."

So did we ever learn what the "promised time" was, exactly? I've played every route of Shadow the Hedgehog (some more than once) and still can't remember. If he's referring to the time when Shadow awakens his full power then I guess it makes sense, but otherwise it's kind of an oxymoron considering that time doesn't exist in White Space.

Gerald: "He has grown a new body, and used the nebulous nature of time in White Space to accelerate his plans for revenge."

Shadow, buddy, your animation is positively kickin' right now but Gerald, I'm gonna need you to do literally anything other than just repeat the same lackluster explanation we got earlier as if that's going to make it any less confusing. What ABOUT the nebulous nature of time? Is time not largely just frozen here?? We're somehow around 3/4s into this story and I still have NO idea how anything works

Maria calms Shadow down from his frankly justified anger by holding his hand and talking about how she doesn't want him to be driven by darkness. They find a way to throw in the fact that apparently Maria named him "Shadow" because the presence of a shadow can show you where to find the light, and it's... nice? Very wholesome, but it feels awkwardly placed and I'm not sure anyone was seriously asking why he was named that. Like, of all the questions to spend this game's limited screentime answering, "why is he named Shadow" was probably not at the top of most people's lists.

And before you have a chance to think about it, we're already at the endgame.

Shadow: "I'm letting go of that destructive anger."

Wow, and in the very next scene after it was brought to your attention, too! You sure do grow fast, Shadow!

Okay, all jokes aside, there's not much I can say about the pacing in this game other than It's Rushed and Bad, but I think it's finally time to talk about Gerald and Maria.

Gerald first: He's mostly just here to give out exposition. His relationship with Shadow is much less focused on than Maria's, which I find to be really frustrating because I always had a lot of questions about how those two interacted. In SA2, we only know him as a grieving, hate-filled man who was heavily implied to have scientifically messed with Shadow's mind - not long after they had both just lost Maria - in order to make him inclined towards Gerald's revenge plan.

In Shadow's first game, we see a side to him from before then, when he really seemed to care for Shadow and we got some clarity on the purpose of the Eclipse Cannon and whatnot. But what were their average interactions like? Who was in charge of Shadow's training? If it was Gerald, did that ever create a sense of distance between them? Shadow never has warm, nostalgic flashbacks of him, so I assumed their relationship either wasn't as close or he has too many conflicting feelings now for those memories to be very comforting.

This game decides to lean into Gerald being a kind, supportive man, but regardless, Shadow's feelings should be a lot more complicated, no?

I'd imagine that, in a way, it's a relief to have this Gerald around again. It would make it easier to pretend that the man who used him in an attempt to destroy the world and go against everything Maria stood for was just... a fluke, or something.

But still, Shadow knows that he would do bad things to him if Maria died. It's already happened.

Dark Beginnings also suggested that either Shadow was there when he shot down by the firing squad (unlikely given the context), or he watched the recording that played at the end of SA2 enough to be able to see it in his dreams. Neither of those are good for his psyche, and would only add to the number of emotions he has to suppress whenever they interact. There is, of course, none of this nuance within the game itself, despite it being right there and ready to be worked with.

Then you've got Maria, and. hoo boy.

I take no real issue with any of Maria's traits that are on display. Her being a nice girl with boundless energy and goodwill does not make her boring, and I've always been fascinated by her character. So, I need you guys to understand that it's with a heavy heart that I must say that Maria is... barely a character in this game.

And like, she doesn't exactly have a history of being deep or complex. But we've also only ever seen her in Shadow's memories up until this point, and that means this game was a unique opportunity to flesh her out more.

When a character is as idealized by another as Maria is by Shadow, and we only see them through that lens, it's natural to assume that the depiction isn't completely accurate. I was never in doubt that Maria was kind and gentle, or that she was always there to help Shadow when she knew he was struggling, but I always wanted to know what she was like outside of that. What makes her angry? What was she like on a bad day, when she inevitably got frustrated at her lot in life? How did Shadow comfort her? What was her sense of humor like?

While we technically learn more things about Maria in this game, there's never a point where she acts differently from Shadow's vision of her. She's not really shown to have flaws, and she's only really there to be saved and offer emotional support. It's like... a textbook example of what you shouldn't be doing when writing a female character, having her be defined entirely by her relationship with the male lead and never speaking up or complaining about her own problems or feelings. They don't even make a point out of it, that Maria tempers herself to be "perfect" for other people or anything like that.

Why don't we get to see how she and Shadow would handle an argument or something like that? Especially this Shadow, who's all shaken up by everything? Wouldn't it be beneficial for both of their characters for Maria to be seen as herself, the way she was in life, rather than just the nicest moments she and Shadow had together?

I'm gonna make a comparison here that people aren't gonna like, but... I think Elise is honestly shown to be a more nuanced character than Maria is. And this is coming from someone who thinks that she was also mishandled in her game.

Similar to Maria, Elise is genuinely a deeply caring person, and lives mostly isolated with a condition of sorts that makes her life difficult. Her most important relationship is also with the male lead of her respective game, but she doesn't exist solely for his benefit. (Amusingly, Sonic actually seems to be there primarily to further her arc, so it's a bit of a role swap there.)

But we see more from Elise than just Being Nice all the time. We see her being resolute and bold in the face of danger, or disappointed when she has to go back to the castle. We watch her try her hardest not to cry and retain her strong, regal exterior when faced with overwhelming emotion.

We get to see her open up and laugh and become more confident, we watch as someone who's been forced to put her feelings aside for the convenience (and safety) of others her whole life finally break down and shout something selfish for once. And then we watch her ultimately choose to do the right thing, anyway. Her strength of character is shown to us by putting her in situations that challenge her, and the narrative never once shames her for being imperfect; it's actually encouraging her to be her real, flawed self.

Why does Maria not get this same treatment? Why don't we get cutscenes of her being excited about the new environment she's in, or frustrated that her symptoms are making it difficult to do anything here? When does she get to be selfish? Why can't she get upset at people treating her like she's frail, even if it technically "makes sense" for them to do so?

We're told, in Gerald's journal, that some of the people aboard the ARK doubted that Maria was really sick due to her symptoms not being clearly visible. Because it's his journal, we only get to hear his feelings on the matter, but in the full game, we never once get to know how it makes Maria feel, the person this is all about to begin with. They absolutely could have incorporated this into a cutscene somewhere, but they didn't.

Once again, I have to ask: what is the point of Maria and Gerald being in this game if this was how they were going to be written? Not only does Shadow fail to even attempt to save their lives, he doesn't even walk away from the experience with renewed understanding of who they were as people.

So what even happens in this story, then?? Every single aspect of it is dragged down constantly by the game's refusal to do anything with what it has:

Shadow revisits places from his past, but has nothing to say about them

Shadow visits places from the future, but has nothing to say about them

He has nothing relevant or interesting to say about any of the bosses

Mephiles trying to restore himself to the timeline is a plot point that exists solely within his boss fight and nowhere else

He doesn't struggle with any of the bosses, emotionally or physically, turning them into a boring power trip

He barely struggles with his Doom powers, the things that are supposed to be giving him an identity crisis

Sonic is not a playable boss fight and he also says nothing relevant or interesting

Classic Sonic doesn't even get a passing mention

The Team Dark friendship is supposed to be a highlight but Shadow never speaks to Omega, who also never shows up in cutscenes, and Rouge is just kinda there

Maria and Gerald never meet Rouge and Omega, or anybody else on-screen, despite it being extremely easy for them to run into each other

Shadow's relationships with Maria and Gerald are barely explored past their surface

Most importantly, Shadow is never shown making any sort of effort to save Maria and Gerald from their fates, despite it being one of his primary goals

...Oh yeah, I forgot to complain about how Shadow barely struggles with his Doom powers. I was gonna go on a whole spiel about how it would've been super easy to make into an arc and how it was wildly underutilized despite being a major selling point of the game, and the only real consistent conflict whenever Black Doom isn't on screen.

Well. Anyway. Once the White Space becomes Red Space (something that once again makes me question how far away Sonic's area is, to not be able to see this happening), Shadow magically gets over his "destructive anger" and goes to Radical Highway one last time for the epic final boss.

And it certainly is epic, I can't deny that. A massive technical improvement over the first fight against Devil Doom, and I'm not about to sit here and act like the wings aren't cool. But I can't say it feels very rewarding, since I never really understood what was going on and Shadow didn't really struggle that much to get to this point. Not to mention, he's still acting all high and mighty during boss fights, which makes it feel stale really quickly. Black Doom isn't really that interesting by himself, so Shadow kinda needed to carry that fight, but no, it's just more of the same.

One last point before I wrap this up:

Where was Emerl???

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a promo animation for a game should, in theory, provide you some idea as to what kind of things to expect in the game itself. While a lot of them take their share of creative liberties, I don't think they're in the habit of putting spotlight on entire characters who never appear in the game at all.

This is THE GAME where we bring back the people from Shadow's past that he's lost, and Emerl most certainly qualifies. He's from the more recent past, yes, but Shadow still cared about him and absolutely would have been affected by his death. There's no way that, had he been in the story, Shadow wouldn't have been determined to save him as well. But no, he's just there to be a cool lore detail in Gerald's journal.

Which means this is yet another depiction of Emerl where we refuse to acknowledge his personality. Do they seriously think Emerl is more interesting as an emotionless killing machine that Gerald researched in his spare time? Where's the fun-loving kid who mimicked everyone around him, splicing things he heard them say together to communicate and creating funny tonal whiplash? Where's the robot with the soul that Gerald gave him, that was nurtured by Sonic and his friends?

Not in this game, apparently! They went out of their way to canonize Battle and still managed to treat it with zero respect. Kind of impressive, really, and just another footnote in the trend of this game not actually caring to do anything with Shadow's past.

There are definitely moments in this game that I like, but that's kind of all they are: moments. The game's total cutscene runtime is around 30 minutes, and that means there's not enough time in any of them to get anything done. A scene that's good in isolation is tainted by the fact that it's all there is.

And it's just... so baffling to me. There are so, so many points in this game where you could have fit additional cutscenes in. We could have had one after each act, or at least after each level. Give us more cutscenes after activating things in the hub world or something. I mean, a game that claims to be this story-driven doesn't usually need an excuse to throw cutscenes at you, and they certainly didn't need to force each scene to be so unbelievably short.

If they really needed to downsize on cutscene length for some reason, then maybe they should have just made a less ambitious story. The game wants to do so many things at once, but it doesn't have the time to do any of those things justice. We could have gotten a short, sweet, well-done little story, but instead we get a story that easily needed at least two hours to tell crunched into a measly 30 minutes.

I mean, Dark Beginnings in its entirety is half the length of the full game. Think about that for a second.

This game's story was supposed to be something, man. It's getting so much praise for what feels to me like the bare bones structure of a story, and it's frustrating because I know this series can do better. The writer of this game can do better, and I know that because I've read his other Sonic material and it feels much more complete than this does.

I was genuinely looking forward to this game, is the thing. I really didn't think it would be this lackluster, because like I said at the beginning of this post, it had everything in the world going for it. But no matter how nice it feels to have a Shadow who isn't wildly out of character for once, that alone can't carry an entire story.

Shadow Generations is a mess of good ideas executed in the least interesting, most nothing way possible. Its only real saving grace is its animation, and the fact that Shadow generally feels like himself.

Except for when he's talking to Sonic. What the heck happened when he was talking to Sonic

#sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #sonic x shadow generations #sonic x shadow generations spoilers #sxsh generations #sxsh spoilers #sxsh generations spoilers #analysis #meta #This uh. might be my longest post ever??#I didn't go into this planning for it to be 7000 words but I just kept finding new things to ramble about #And of course I just wanna say that this post is NOT here to tell people that they can't like the game's story #I just needed to air out all of my issues with it because I felt like I was going insane

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thatoneloonaticsfan · 7 months ago

Text

I don't know if anyone thought of this, but what about a Loonatics Unleashed opposite au? I already have a few ideas:

Common stuff:

- All the Loonatics are villains while all the villains are the heroes.

- The Loonatics black part of the suits are white.

- The triangles on the Loonatics suits are upside-down.

- Some of these might change.

- Zadavia and Optimatus are gods instead of aliens in this au.

- Might genderbend them later but I don't know.

- They have the same powers as they do in the normal show.

Now, the Loonatics themselves:

- He's usually always angry and has a big temper.

Ace Bunny Rabbit:

- Refuses to share the same last name as his sister Lexi.

- His laser eyes are always activated, meaning he's always ready to shoot and blast at anyone.

- His laser eyes are only off when he looks at someone he likes (cough cough Duck cough cough.) or is calm. (Which barely happens.)

- He literally hates everyone, especially Zadavia, Lexi, and sometimes Rev.

- Only leader because Duck didn't want to be.

- He has a big ego and will usually use it to make himself bigger then he actually is.

- Everyone hates him besides Duck and Tech. (Tech is too dumb to hate him or to really care.)

- "God damn it guys! You always ruin everything!"

Danger Duck(ling):

- Cares about Ace a lot and is the only one who calls him a good leader.

- How is he a villain?

- The others don't understand and see him as more innocent and such.

- He doesn't really like being looked at or having attention on him.

- Hates attention actually.

- Doesn't feel like he deserves to be loved by anyone or anything.

- Everyone likes him.

- Has 0 self-confidence.

- He usually likes staying away from fighting so he always asks Zadavia if he can just stay at HQ because he hates fighting but still does go out in the field to try and help.

- Has never harmed anyone during a fight unless he has to get away.

- He is Zadavia's favorite.

- Cares about the others and if they get hurt. (He usually bandages them up and such.)

- He usually tries to hide when there are a lot of people.

- Hates having a lot of eyes on him. (He's better with one on ones.)

- Never swears (He refuses to and sees them as very hurtful.)

- Everyone respects and loves him, which he doesn't get.

- Hides his face most of the time. (He thinks his scars make him look ugly.)

- "Are you guys ok? Nothing broken or anything right?"

- Unlike what his original name says, he is actually very dumb and stupid.

Tech E. Coyote Experiment 402/The Mutt:

- Doesn't know what is happening a lot of the time.

- He is more like a savage animal.

- Enjoys getting hurt or killed because he at least knows he'll just come back.

- Is around Rev most of the time because he enjoys Rev's threats to cut him open or skin him when he's fully aware he'll be fine.

- Speaks about nonsense a lot of the time, which annoys Rev more as Rev corrects him a lot.

- He would kill the rest of the team if it wasn't for the collar Rev made.

- He has a big kill count.

- Dispite hating Rev as well he does find Rev attractive for some odd reason.

- "Come on, just one bite won't hurt."

Rev Runner:

- His hair or top feathers are down all the time, and his tail feathers are very short and also down

- The smart guy of the group. (Someone has to be.)

- Likes roadrunner meat. (Yes, he's a cannibal.)

- Blames Rip for all his scars. (An accident happened causing Rev to have a lot of burn marks and losing an arm which he had to replace with a robot one and losing vision in one of his eyes.)

- Hates Tech but also enjoys him sometimes.

- Was the hated child who also got abused. (Which is also why he hates Rip because Rip got a lot of good attention.)

- If you ever use 'Runner' when addressing him, he'll completely ignore you.

- Is the only one who can keep up with Tech's nonsense, which while annoying, he knows what to correct.

- Is lazy most of the time and only makes inventions when he feels like he has to.

- The one who least repeats or likes Duck, but he still does somewhat.

- Usually talks business with Slam.

- Never goes on missions because he's to lazy to.

- Always wears a lab coat.

- Rip believes he's dead.

- "No, you can do that later after a few tests I do on them."

Slam Tasmanian:

- Secret Villian

- Is the only Loonatic people don't know about as he doesn't go on missions and is very busy with his business.

- Has a successful business and is very rich.

- Speaks perfect English and is British. (Don't ask how.)

- Hates getting his hands dirty.

- Is the only reason Rev can make his inventions.

- "As you can see on this chart."

Lexi Bunny:

- Is a spoiled brat.

- Hates Ace as she seems him as very usless.

- Will usually say how beautiful she is and comparing herself to the others to bring them down. (She barely does it to Duck.)

- Hates it when people bring up her flaws, but she's perfectly fine with bringing others flaws up to make herself look better.

- Hates video games and sees them as a waste of time.

- Is usually putting makeup on herself or making herself look good before missions.

- "God damn it! You broke one of my nails!"

Zadavia:

- Godess of chaos and disharmony. (Again and her brother are gods in this au.)

- Hates everyone besides Duck.

- Hates Ace the most.

- Actually tries to spoil Duck which he's uncomfortable with.

- Keeps asking Duck if he wants to be the lead, which he says no to.

- "I'm so proud of you Duck."

That's all for now! Note again that some of these might change and let me know if you wanna know if you guys want a part 2. Hope to see ya all later!

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darklinaforever · 7 months ago

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I want to say this as a black women who is not a part of the LGBT community but has been in fandom for a long time and would love to be a writer. When anyone tackles diversity, they should try their best and hope to be genuine about it. Because no matter what someone does, they will always have someone who hates it. I have adored Bridgerton, it has been fun to see a variety of women and men who aren't just white be love interests and get to wear beautiful gowns. I love that Bridgerton doesn't dive too heavily into the racism aspect. Yet, one of the many criticisms Bridgerton has is that people believe it to be akin to revisionist history. Many don't like it because they feel like taking away racism is an insult to those who suffered in the past. Some are fine with it but prefer racism was never addressed (i.e. "love conquers all"). But if Bridgerton decided that they wanted to be historically accurate and make it that the servants are black and for characters to mention the trans-Atlantic slave trade, people would've been upset as well. People would've mentioned that they no longer want to see trauma porn of BIPOC characters. Which I understand because I've been enjoying more happy and fun representation tbh.

I mean I can go on about the ways diversity in general and how it should be treated causes so much issues within so many BIPOC communities. What one person wants for diversity, is not going to be what another person wants.

The point is, I feel for book fans with the whole Michael/Michaela change. People are acting weird about how this whole thing is "no big deal" but people want what they want. Also, many people, like all humans, tend to be hypocritical. The amount of people who are part of the BIPOC community who didn't necessarily like that race wasn't being discussed (like I wrote in the long essay above), are some of the same people who are cheering on this Michael(a) situation. One of them being a friend of mine where I had to remind her that book fans are allowed to be upset. Besides, didn't she spend all of S1&2 harking about how this show would be more interesting if they addressed race and hated how it was revisionist history? A little contradictory to suddenly hate on others for a change that by her logic (and some others) she wouldn't have supported because it is revisionist history.

Sorry for the rant. It might not make sense, but diversity always gets me heated. I think it is important but people fail to just disucss with nuance and understanding that no everyone is going to think diversity should look the same and that is OKAY.

And that is me saying it as a black fan who have been annoyed by fans who've been saying that Bridgerton isn't diverse enough because there aren't enough black characters. Completely ignoring the non-black characters count as diversity as well. Before the rumors of Sophie possibly being Masala, I saw a lot of fans who originally wished for Sophie to be east asian and were sending hate to them for that because Kate being from Asia was enough representation.

Idk, diversity really has people's worst sides coming out of them.

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darcytaylor · 5 months ago

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I'm newer here so I wasn't around for the live developments, but from looking at it now, it appears that the DM timeline was: Nicola and Luke attend some dinner together and someone submits a blind to DM that L had kissed a Real Housewife who was sitting next to him on the neck. The woman in question and the dinner host respond, debunking it, saying that L was a gentleman and had a gf. Meanwhile, there are articles out stating that L is single, but there are also A's IG posts. Then, L and N slag DM off in an interview, calling her an unreliable source who had posted lies about L. DM gets pissed off and posts that she has proof that L has a gf and people fight her about it in the comments. Then DM sics Backgrid on L and A on premiere night. L is furious and refuses to play into it, so DM keeps A's name in her mouth to continue to piss him off and hopefully go public with her, thus validating DM as a source. Now Backgrid and People have dollar signs in their eyes, so they keep going after him.

Now, if this is what in fact happened, why are people mad at L exactly? He might've not been serious with A when those original articles came out or was determined to protect her, given what happened with J, so he decided to claim he was single in public but be open about her existence in private. I agree that the people around him have been a bit callous with their posting of him, but are they not allowed to live? It doesn't make sense to me for anyone connected to him to have orchestrated any of this, it looks like DM just has a vendetta against him and Nic, given how she's been targeting her as well lately. It appears she has indeed succeeded in turning public opinion against them. I mean, is there anything I'm missing? Or does the fandom feel gaslit first and foremost, hence the backlash? I know about the HBS behavior, I'm just curious about the infamy of the pap walk and how it squares with them being completely caught unawares and how that would change people's opinion, if at all.

I will say that I don’t think this will be an easy question to answer. Or if I am even able to because it all comes down to what people believe and how they perceive certain situations. It is also not a black and white situation. I believe there are multiple things that took place before and after the premiere night that caused hate and outrage. But the tipping point was definitely the paparazzi walk.

Your summary about the Deuxmoi timeline is pretty good. But I will say that Brynn Whitfield didn’t say that Luke had a girlfriend, but said “Flattered but definitely not true. Very much a gentleman and I’m very happy to call everyone from the dinner a new and dear friend ❤️." (Although, correct me if I am wrong and Brynn went on to say anything else).

People knew about Antonia and Luke starting back at the end of 2023, but it didn’t get much traction until New Years, where the video of them kissing came out. After the video came out that is when they officially became friends on Instagram. So even though there were many articles that came out that said that Luke was single, a lot of people knew that he did have a situation with Antonia (and her continued stories and posts with his hands, legs and arms confirmed that there was obviously something there).

At this time people did not like how she presented herself online (her public persona did not get a warm welcome and a lot of people thought she was baiting the fans with the things she did post). So having her be in photo’s with Luke on the night of the premiere seemed disingenuous towards Bridgerton and season 3. There was a build up to the hate Luke and Antonia got and the paparazzi walk was just the breaking point.

To be honest it wasn’t a good look, but I also do not believe that Luke or his team were responsible for the paparazzi (but some people still think it was a hard launch for his relationship and that him and his team had something to do with it. I can understand why those people would be upset if they still believe that).

People could be angry with Luke if they still believe he's contributing to media manipulation, which would seem deceitful. I think fans are frustration with him because he appears to be playing games with the media and fans.

I will link my post where I have stated why I DON'T believe Luke or his team were involved.

There are also people who do feel gaslit, just like you said. This has definitely caused some of the outrage towards Luke and the whole situation.

There is a slight perception of deception that I can see happening (and not at the fault of Luke really). Articles reporting Luke as single while he was "privately" involved with Antonia, could create a perception of dishonesty. Fans and media might feel misled because Luke's public persona didn't match his private life.

I do think that after the night of the premiere it seemed like Luke didn’t quite understand the backlash he was receiving because of the whole situation, and so when Milan came a couple days later and there was the paparazzi 2.0 (I think people thought it was like pouring salt on a wound). It just didn’t seem like the timing for that was the most ideal. I think it fuelled the fire even more.

It was right after Milan photos came out that Nicola posted her Sex In The City TikTok monologue and I believe crisis management became involved. I think this was Nicola’s way of trying to tell him the hate was really becoming something and he needed to regroup. Then the Jimmy Fallon interview happened. Luke’s team said that the Milan fashion week was Luke’s last stop for the promo tour, and if his team thought it was his last stop, why the Jimmy Fallon interview? Crisis management. Although this is all speculation on my part.

Do I think that Deuxmoi liked the fact that Nicola and Luke both called her out? Nope! And I can see how the timing of everything does make it seem like this is some type of hidden agenda (and I wouldn’t be surprised).

If Deuxmoi is indeed targeting Luke and Nicola out of a personal vendetta, it could make the situation more complicated. The public and fans may be reacting to the drama rather than the facts, leading to misplaced frustration.

I know of two interviews where Nicola did bring up Deuxmoi and how she had to stop reading. The first one being in the Tumblr interview where she says that she had to stop reading when she started to see her friends on it and she would read stuff about herself that wasn’t true.

youtube

Then the interview she did in Brazil with Luke where she mentions that the stuff she read about Luke was not true (and she wanted to defend him) and that she has also had some untrue things said about herself.

The situation involves a mix of media manipulation, public perception, and privacy issues. Like I said earlier it's not a black and white situation. People might be upset with Luke due to perceived dishonesty or frustration with the ongoing drama. The media's role in escalating the situation and targeting individuals also contributes to the overall tension. It’s a multifaceted issue where understanding the full context is challenging and hard to summarize, especially with competing narratives and personal agendas that may be at play. So I hope this somewhat helped? I'm not even sure if I actually answered anything at all?

I also have to say that this is all speculation. I do not know any of the people I have mentioned personally. Anything is possible, but lets show everyone a bit of grace.

#luke newton #bridgerton

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coldslaws-gear-station · 1 month ago

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Lol, knew you'd ask for it

So first we have the redesign of UDU N;

First order of business, I changed up the coat pattern COMPLETELY. I felt as if for somebody who is not only the son of The Prophet Of Truths but also a full blue blood royal, her design was so BORING

So I added golden rimming, simply because gold is associated with royalty and, well, Ghetsis' reshiram IS shiny (who has a custom sprite that I made btw). An inner coat pattern of squares simply to add that sorta mathy look to it, I also made it closed so the coat would resemble canon N's normal white overshirt

And the symbols. I didn't want to just give her the normal plasma symbol, as this team plasma is different from the canon plasma. So I made it the symbol of the tcg pack "Plasma Blast." The symbol resembles the stones and the set itself holds a very special card of a Pokemon UDU N has specifically; A full art of Genesect decked out in Plasma Plasma insignias. Her Genesect's name is Genesis btw and he's a good boy

Now for Ghetsis;

Originally I went into this fully blind, no idea what I wanted in regards to professor wear, but then I had an epiphany. Who says I have to put him in an actual lab coat??? Then I went bonkers from there.

White clothing, as the castle itself is entirely white and again, reshiram, who's stated to be very important to Ghetsis' character. A corset with a tailcoat to give him a more fancy feeling, same with the ruffles on his cuffs.

A shoulder coat designed after his signature eye patterning and colours which come together with a clerical collar, something to give him more of a religious feel to him because, again, that's important to his character. The eye patch because that's important simply because his babies made that for him and he loves it (also yes hi lil N I didn't forget about you)

Here's another with me sorta getting used to drawing him along with a better view of the outfit (ignore the latches not being there on the corset I forgot to colour them 😭);

The post BW2 sketch to the side is because in regards to the Au. Back then Harmonians would cut off their long hair during war to symbolise and show their strength and commitment, as it was customary that Harmonians would grow their hair out to symbolise nobility and youth

Ghetsis' family never upheld this tradition obviously, but during bw2 when Juniper and co kidnapped N he saw it as a direct attack and threat to himself, the kingdom, and his children. So he chopped off all his hair in return, it upsets N everytime they look at it because it serves as a constant reminder of what happened and they feel guilty he did that for her

Now here's a pretty big thing that applies to all art even outside of au art that you may have noticed; the butterflies.

The butterflies serve as my signature in a way, all of my OC and AU art has them, however that does not mean they're meaningless as they do hold some subtle symbolism and character meaning

There are three different kinds of butterflies; White and Blue, Red and Black, and Grey. Each other these symbolises the inner character of my Ocs and AU characters. The white and blue ones symbolise a good character with good intentions. Black and red symbolises a bad character with bad intentions. Feet symbolises a grey character that lies inbetween, it's hard to gauge them because they do/did both shitty and wonderful things

I'll send the fanfic in another ask straight after this one as to not clutter this ask up even more lol

- 💌

YESSSS I LOVE THESE. THESE DESIGNS ARE SO GOOD IM BITING YOU IM

n is ADORABLE i love how you do the hair. also hello tcg mention 🔥 🔥 i think you did a very good job making her both regal and professor like. win

AND BABY N IS SO CUTE GODDD . with his dad 🥺.. and damn peepaw is kinda fine. sorry everyone. i think the shoulder coat + corset + tail eats. it's so unfair. and this is a minor detail but i do love the different colored shadows behind them it makes ghetsis look very imposing

i love the idea with the hair too... make him go even shorter. bald him /j ghetsis with shorter hair does get me kinda weak though. like that pic i did of him and cordelia. fuck my baka life i think he's so cute there

I DID NOTICE THE BUTTERFLIES i just sorta assumed they were space filling doodles bc same. but knowing that there's symbolism is so cool

fuck you. adds udu to the n verse /lh

low effort doodle because i wanted to do smth but im tiret. bn doesn't even have the energy to be a dick to udu n he's got too much on his plate at this point

#💌 anon #youre gonna have to give me a fat minute to read the fic my brain is slowly going empty today /lh #raising harmony #natural harmonia posting #beta unova au #unova upside down #coldslaws art #long post

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blvdprn · 4 months ago

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introducing . . .

VINCENT ! [ the vampire ]

closest look —noé archiviste from the case study of vanitas (then), kaeya alberich from genshin impact (now)

## spoiled, childish, kind of narcissistic, jealous, clingy, arrogant, manipulative

?? short white hair (originally) — hip length dark blue (now dyed), black eyes — red while or after drinking blood, dark skin, 5’9 or 175cm, physically looks like a young adult with no specific age, skinny lean — blood diet — naturally strong so he sees no need for muscle, beauty mark under left eye, back dimples

Vincent Dragomir, one of the most powerful vampires from his era. Born into the royal family, he was considered a pure blood —birthed from a long line of vampires instead of being created into one. No one really knew how they were able to procreate, seeing as they never associated with anyone other than themselves. Young but reckless, he had the reputation of legs on a chainsaw. Meaning, he left a bloodbath and a pool full of guts wherever he went. Nobody (not even his family) could stop him. That was until the royal family was brutally murdered in broad daylight —a time when all vampires are weakened. Every pure blood but him was killed, making him the last of his kind. Now, nobody but him knows the truth about what exactly happened on that day.

After that fateful day all those years ago, Vincent had to take on a whole new identity. It was hard at first. With him being from the royal family, the entire vampire world knew his face. Being easily recognizable, he tried his best in living underground —although it was a huge change. From golds and riches to grime and dirt, he had to stop being so spoiled. At some point, he felt like he was going to go crazy, so after one of his monthly hunts, he decided to take a different route.

Bad idea.

He was now in an unknown world. Void of magic and monsters.

Once he fell down the rabbit hole, Vincent knew exactly what had happened. He’s only heard stories, about a world different from theirs, one with no magical capabilities. A world where everyone and everything was completely and utterly weak. Never in his wildest dreams did he think it was true, nor that he’d ever end up there. Yet here he was, in the middle of a place called Australia (he asked around), whatever that was. It didn’t take him long to find out that he was able to control humans by simply looking at them in the eyes. After that, he was thriving. He traveled all around the world, going from country to country and changing his surname every few decades. Right now, he was Vincent Morcef —one of the youngest CEO’s in the world. The unknown face of a famous multi billionaire clothing company.

#blvdprn ocs #monster oc #oc #yandere #yandere oc #male oc #male yandere #male yandere oc #vampire #vampire oc #vampire yandere #blvdprn

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donatellowiththebookinhishand · 2 months ago

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Donatello Brainworm AU

Hey everyone- I originally posted this to ao3, but I wanted to cross-post here so I could actually tag the inspiration for the fic. My tag on ao3 however is SCREAM_ing, if you want to know where faster updates will be!

Summary:

-Based off the Brainworm Donnie AU comic by @cupcakeslushie on tumbler. I highly recommend checking their comic out, it’s pretty great! Here’s their description:

“Karai lures Donnie into her trap first in the Fourfold Trap, but what if she used the extra time to implant him with a brainworm? The brothers have to try to race against a ticking clock to save a brother who now hates them.

Warnings: brainwashing, neglect/abuse (not real, but perceived as the truth)“

Disclaimer!!! In case you missed it in the super long description- Please read this before.. reading.

This AU is NOT my idea, it comes from a comic creator on tumbler by the name @cupcakeslushie. I implore you to check their comic out before reading, their art is incredible. It’s also the basis of this entire work, and I will try to keep dialogue the same from comic to here.

This is also my first time writing a fanfic, so this pilot chapter is like a draft of a draft. Hopefully it will get better as I write 😅

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

Chapter 1

----

“I know you have tried, Donatello; some things are simply not meant to be. At least I have four wonderful sons.”

If that wasn’t the nail in the coffin. Donnie’s heart sank as the black goop in the beaker—a hopeful attempt at a cure—oozed mockingly at him. His brothers, who’d been crowded around him to witness this latest attempt at a cure, began to solemnly walk out of the lab. Donnie didn't know what to do anymore, and he was running out of ideas.

His failure weighed heavily on his shoulders. He’d come up empty-handed again, his ideas to develop the cure were running thin. It’s been weeks of sleepless nights and many, many, coffee pots later, and his latest idea hadn't even come close to fruition.

It also doesn't help that he can't even focus on his brothers’ and master’s disappointment through the massive headache he’s been nursing for weeks. It’s back at full throttle now as he chokes back tears of frustration.

His family had taken it upon themselves to stop into the lab after each supper to check on his progress toward the cure. Donnie really thinks it's just their way of subtly asking, "Aren’t you done yet?" It’s that, or it’s them checking if he’s still standing after missing yet another mealtime.

The brothers left, all disappointed—except for Leo, who turned to Donnie with hardened eyes and a mouth twisted in frustration. To distract himself, Donatello doesn't meet his brothers' eyes as they leave, instead opting to grab a clipboard and take notes on what he could actually fix around the lair. Leo stalked angrily behind him, unnoticed by the genius.

“Donnie, you know how much this means to Sensei.”

“Leo, I’m trying as hard as I can.” He could barely believe Leo had just said that to him; the words cut through him like a dagger. His face fell, the weariness and hurt momentarily slipping through before he clenched his jaw and tried to steady himself. After all the sleep he’d lost and sacrifices he’d made, he couldn’t take the thought of being asked to give even more.

Couldn't he see that Donnie was giving everything he had to Karai’s brainworm problem? He hadn't had a full night’s sleep in almost a month. Tears of frustration begin to well in his eyes; in a last-ditch effort to quell his rising temper, he grips the sides of the clipboard tighter, digging his fingers into the smooth wood almost painfully.

“Well, try harder.”

White-hot indignation shoots down his shell, sudden anger at his older brother is sharp and undeniable. The clipboard left his hands, skidding across the lab with a loud crash, not bothering to look in the direction it goes. His hurt is quickly masked by anger, and his focus is completely on Leo, fists tightly balled. “Try harder? I always have to find the solution! You’re the leader, Leo! You find the answer! Or what about Raph?”

“I got the answer for you—Karai’s a lost cause!”

“Don’t say that, dude.”

All four brothers began arguing incessantly with each other, weeks of pent-up anger and frustration pouring out of each of them. Donnie fired back quickly, gesticulating wildly as he channeled weeks of exhaustion into his voice—when his T-phone began to ring from across the room. Still furious and hurting, Donnie stomped across the room, almost happy for the excuse to walk away from Leo.

“Donnie, I need to talk with you alone. It’s important. I need you to meet me.”

It was April, and while this wasn't the best time for a heart-to-heart, she said it was an emergency. And who was Donnie to deny her? Besides, it's not like he was doing anything more productive at the lair—he glanced at his brothers, who genuinely seemed like dogs about to pounce on each other, and his mind was made up.

“Shizukani,” Splinter’s voice rang through the lair, effectively silencing their quarrel. He stalked out, hands clasped behind his back. All the turtles froze like they were children caught in the act; they guiltily turned to face their master with wide eyes. “What is the meaning of this?” Splinter said sternly, not bothering to hide his disdain for the quarreling, his eyebrows drawn together tightly.

“Nothing, Sensei, I’m heading out. April needs me,” Donnie said and angrily walked out of the lair, palms still tightly balled up. Leo, who took great offense to this, demanded Donnie come back. “You’re needed here now, Donnie!” He stepped forward, toward his taller brother, but otherwise made no move to actually stop Donatello from leaving the lair.

“Donnie! .. Donnie!”

Donnie mentally scoffed. Yeah, because you guys are always such reliable sources of positivity and gratitude, he thought wryly. His youngest brother’s words resurfaced in his mind.

“Donnie, you tried your best, brah... even if it totally sucked.”

He kept his back to his family, continuing to stride toward the Shellraiser, refusing to acknowledge Leo’s calls. The Shellraiser roared to life, and he sped out of the sewer tunnels.

---

Donnie was a speed demon as he drove recklessly toward the location April sent him. He didn't bother stopping for streetlights or at intersections, forcing himself to have tunnel vision on April’s problem to avoid dealing with his own. The large van skidded to a stop as he reached the GPS pinpoint, a random alleyway with a large weathered garage door at the end of it. Donnie double-checked his T-phone, wondering why April would want to meet him in a place like this. Maybe she’d discovered something that could help Karai?

He didn't put too much thought into it. Donnie placed his head against the cool leather of the custom steering wheel he’d created, still attempting to cool off from his earlier altercation with his stupid brothers. Why couldn't they see he gave them his all, and they still had the audacity to ask him to do more? He was dying out here, for shell’s sake!

While all they had to worry about was training and what monstrosity of a combination they were going to eat that night, courtesy of Michelangelo, Donnie was slaving away in the lab, barely taking breaks to give them even a chance at saving their half-sister. Donatello shook the thoughts from his head; it wasn't important right now how he felt. He wiped away the hot, angry tears that had unknowingly begun to fall from his eyes.

God, he felt even more stupid right now, letting his emotions get to him while April needed him—and that wasn't even a word! He shook his head again and refocused, hopping out of the Shellraiser and walking into the dark alleyway. The smell of oil hung heavy in the air, and he absently hoped it wasn’t from the Shellraiser. He hadn’t spent much time on his 'baby' lately, he mused with a pang of guilt. Karai’s condition was much more important, though, and he feared they didn’t have much time left before the damage to her brain would become permanent. He pushed the thought aside and fixed his attention back on reaching the end of the alley.

The garage opened quickly, as if she’d heard him coming. April’s figure was illuminated by a strange purple light. All thoughts of how weird that was went away when she called out. “Donnie,” April spoke in a gravelly voice, “the Kraang are back.” Donnie’s mood improved so much just from her voice that he almost didn't register what she’d said. He shook himself back in order for the third time that night. “What? We've got to tell the guys.” Donnie's eyes widened, and he pulled out his phone, immediately sliding past Leo’s contact to dial Michelangelo instead. No way was he going to call Fearless first thing after the night he's had—he'd make Mikey do all the explaining.

“There’s no time. They’re about to get away; we’ve got to move,” April rushed and leapt further into the seemingly abandoned warehouse. It was pretty hard to tell with that blinding purple light beaming out at him. Donnie scrambled after her, calling her name so she’d wait up. He supposed he’d just call the guys when they stopped the first round of Kraang—not so hard, right?

It was only after he stepped through the garage doors that he realized his mistake. It was a trap, and he’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. The heavy garage door slammed shut. He had no time to react before he was shot—a red-tipped dart and a bag roughly shoved over his head, forcing his neck back at an unnatural angle. Donnie cried out, but it was in vain; he was at Karai’s mercy now, and her scaly smirk was the last thing he saw.

“Sweet dreams, Donatello.”

After Donatello stormed out, Splinter sighed and strode back into the dojo, likely to resume his meditation. The lingering tension filled the room, and Leo stood rooted in place for a beat, Splinter’s words on unity echoing in his mind. Arms crossed, he clenched his jaw at Donnie’s blatant disregard. Didn't being the leader mean anything anymore? He couldn’t help but feel the sting of Donnie’s dismissal, and his eyes narrowed with a mix of hurt and frustration as he watched his brother disappear down the tunnel.

Raph and Mikey exchanged a look before slinking away, each to their own devices. Raph muttered something about "always being drama in this place" as he slipped off toward the training room, while Michelangelo, not too rattled by the clash, eagerly bounced back to his own mission: a game of cards with Ice Cream Kitty.

"Sorry for the wait, Kitty," he said, petting her between her cold, strangely furry ears. “Leo was being a total jerk, but we’re back at it! Now, where were we?” Ice Cream Kitty purred contentedly, her pinkish ears twitching as she smugly waited for her next move.

They played for a while, Mikey easily distracted by the cold little creature in front of him. Somehow, Ice Cream Kitty managed to take full advantage of Mikey’s earlier distraction and swept through his cards with ease, sealing her victory. He couldn’t believe it.

“No way, Kitty, you totally cheated, cheater, cheater, frozen yogurt eater! Give me that card!” Mikey cried, feigning shock as she meowed back at him triumphantly. But before he could demand a rematch, his T-phone buzzed on the table beside him. Glancing down, he saw Donnie’s name flash across the screen and picked it up eagerly.

“Hey, Mikey! You’re not gonna believe it—Murakami whipped up something new. Get this: pizza gyozas!” Donnie’s excitement came through loud and clear, and that was all Mikey needed to hear.

The thought of gooey, cheesy, bite-sized pizza pockets made his mouth water. It was as though all the tension of the evening melted away. “Aw yeah! That sounds totally awesome D. I'll be there faster than a turtle can say pepperoni!” Mikey’s eyes went wide, practically sparkling with anticipation. He knew this was something he couldn’t miss, his head already exploding at the thought of Murakami’s latest delicacy.

Quickly, he gathered his cards and placed Ice Cream Kitty back in her freezer, laughing as she let out a playful hiss. “Sorry, girl, but duty calls! Donnie’s got something totally sweet lined up!” He shut the freezer with a wink and dashed out of the lair, visions of pizza gyozas dancing in his head as he bounded through the tunnels with pure unrestrained enthusiasm.

Upon reaching Murakami’s noodle shop, Mikey burst through the door, calling out, “Mr. Murakami, what up?” The smell of delicious food enveloped him, heightening his excitement.

“Greetings, Michelangelo,” Murakami said, a twinkle in his eye as he presented a tray. “These are for you. Each has a unique mixture of cheeses and delicate flavors.”

Without hesitation, Mikey snatched one and stuffed it into his mouth, the warm, cheesy filling melting perfectly against his tongue. “Oh yeah! This is awesome—” His voice trailed off as he savored the explosion of flavors, the world around him fading into bliss. He gobbled down another gyoza, hardly able to contain his delight.

But as he reached for a third, a sudden wave of nausea crashed over him. Mikey’s stomach growled ominously, and he felt a sharp pain coursing through him. “Oh...what’s happening?” he gasped, eyes wide with confusion. “Poison?”

“Do not worry, Michelangelo,” a shadowed figure responded, stepping forward. “It is not poison, simply chemicals to give you a nice little nap.”

Mikey’s vision blurred as the deliciousness of the gyozas twisted into a haze of betrayal. “Evil. Delicious, but evil...” he murmured, swaying on his feet before collapsing to the ground. In those final moments of consciousness, he managed to hit the panic button on his T-phone, sending out an SOS before everything went dark.

------

The silence in the lair was heavy, filled only with the distant sounds of the city above. Leo paced back and forth, his mind racing with the tension from earlier. "Where’s Donnie? He should have been back by now," he muttered, glancing at Raph, who was leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

Raph shrugged, the unease palpable in the air. “You know Donnie. He probably got caught up in his experiments again. He always does.”

Leo stopped, his brow furrowing with concern. “But he was so upset. He stormed out. I just... I don’t like this.” The weight of their earlier argument hung over him, a nagging feeling that he should have done more to support his brother settled in his chest.

Just then, a frantic buzz interrupted their thoughts. Leo’s T-phone lit up on the table. “It’s Mikey!” he said, snatching it up. “Mikey- What’s going on?” But as Leo answered, his heart sank. The only sound on the other end was garbled static—no voice, no explanation, just the unsettling sound of a struggle. Panic surged through him. “Mikey! What’s happening?! Say something, anything!”

“Mikey pressed the SOS button!” Raph leaned closer, his eyes wide with alarm. “This isn’t good. Shell for brains wouldn’t do that unless things were serious.” He ran his fingers along his Sai, the familiar weight grounding him.

Leo’s fingers flew across the screen as he accessed the tracking app. “Where is he?” His heart pounded as the location pin appeared on the map, revealing Mikey’s last known position: an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. “He’s at an old warehouse!”

“Of course he is,” Raph grumbled, frustration creeping into his voice. “Why does he always have to go chasing after trouble?”

“Forget that! We need to focus!” Leo snapped, pushing the rising irritation aside. “Mikey must have seen something. If he hit that button, he could be in serious danger!” He felt his pulse quicken, adrenaline pumping through his veins. “We need to move!”

“Great, but how are we getting there?” Raph asked, raising an eyebrow. “Donnie took the Shellraiser for his ‘important research.’”

“Of course he did.” Leo sighed, running a hand through his bandana. “Looks like we’re taking the Stealth Bike. It’s not as fast, but we’ll have to make it work.”

“Perfect,” Raph replied, rolling his eyes. “Just what I wanted: a scenic tour through the sewers before racing into a potential ambush.”

“Complaining won’t help Mikey,” Leo shot back, already heading toward the exit. “Let’s go!”

---------

Leo and Raph approached the warehouse with a sense of trepidation, their eyes scanning the area for any signs of danger. As they crept closer, they couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. The entrance was unguarded, the rusty door slightly ajar as if inviting them in.

“Doesn’t this seem a bit too easy fearless?” Raph murmured, glancing at Leo with a furrowed brow. “Yeah, it’s like they wanted us to find this place,” Leo replied, his instincts tingling. “But we don’t have time to second-guess ourselves. We need to find Mikey.”

They exchanged a determined glance before Leo pushed the door open, the hinges creaking ominously as they stepped into the dimly lit space. Leo’s heart raced, the adrenaline surging through him as he scanned the room, muscles tensed and ready for action.

“Where’s Mikey?” Raph hissed, his grip tightening around his sai, his eyes narrowing as he swept the shadows for any signs of movement.

In the center of the empty warehouse, they spotted him—Mikey lying face down on the ground, his shell scratched and dirty. Panic surged through Leo, and without hesitation, he sprinted toward his brother. “Mikey!” he shouted, fear clawing at his throat.

They reached Mikey, Leo kneeling beside him while Raph crouched down, both brothers desperate to check for any signs of life. Relief washed over them as they found him breathing, albeit with a few scrapes on his arms and a deepening bruise on his cheek. “Hey, Mikey! Wake up!” Leo shook him gently, worry etched on his face.

Mikey blinked awake, groggy and disoriented. “Yo, dudes! I just had the craziest dream. I totally tore up some pizza gyozas and got totally faked out by Murakami—so not cool!”, he groaned dramatically. Raph rolled his eyes, his expression a mix of relief and irritation. “Mikey, that’s probably what happened. Look around you, shell for brains.”

Just then, a voice rang out from above, they had company. “Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to show up.” Leo and Raph’s heads snapped up, their eyes narrowing as they spotted Karai on the balcony of the second floor. She leaned casually against the railing, a smug grin plastered across her face, her dark eyes glinting with triumph.

“What are you doing here?” Raph growled, his instincts flaring as he took a defensive stance, ready for whatever trick she had up her sleeve. “Honestly? I thought this would be more difficult,” Karai replied with a laugh, her tone mocking. “But it seems you turtles are even dumber than I thought. I only needed to use one of my holograms to distract you.

At her words, the holograms of Mikey and April flickered and vanished, leaving only the real Mikey on the ground. The tension in the air thickened as Leo’s gaze shifted back to his brother, confusion knotting his stomach. Suddenly, they noticed Donatello, not a hologram they realized, standing beside Karai. A disturbingly wide smile stretched across his face, his posture unnaturally rigid. His pupils were dilated, giving him a wild, manic look that sent shivers down Leo’s spine.

“Well, I was only expecting Leonardo, but…” Donatello said, his tone unnaturally smooth, sending a jolt of alarm through Leo. He clicked a button on a device in his hand, and suddenly the brothers found themselves surrounded by a swarm of Foot Soldiers, their black uniforms blending into the dim shadows of the warehouse.

“Having the rest of you here makes it so much easier,” Donnie finished, the hint of delight in his voice sending chills down Leo’s spine.

“Donnie, snap out of it man!” Mikey called out, pushing himself off the ground, his voice wavering between concern and disbelief. “This isn’t you bro, it’s Shredder totally hijacking your brain!”, he made a face like a strangely dizzy zombie to prove his point.

Leo’s heart raced as he assessed the scene—his brother, usually so awkward and slightly slew-footed, now stood like a puppet, a smile that felt more sinister than genuine plastered across his face.

“What have they done to you?” Leo whispered, fists clenching around his swords. Anguish mixed with anger surged through him, knowing they were once again up against something that could twist their own brother into a weapon against them.

Raph’s face darkened, his jaw tight as he scanned the area, eyes narrowing at the encroaching Foot Soldiers. “Another brain worm?” he growled, the fury building inside him. “Great. Just what we need.”, he tightened his grip on his sai and bared his teeth at the offending ninjas.

Mikey, still shaken, pointed at the advancing Foot Soldiers. “We can’t just stand here! Donnie wouldn’t want this, right? He’d want us to fight back!” “Yeah, well I don’t think he’s in charge right now Mikey,” Raph shot back, his fists clenching tighter. “But if we don’t take these guys out, we’ll never get to him.”

With a collective surge of determination, the brothers charged at the advancing Foot Soldiers. Leo led the way, his swords slicing through the air with precision, while Raph followed suit, his sai stabbing into the nearest ninja. Mikey stayed close, using his agility to dodge blows, but he could feel the tension mounting. It was an all-out brawl, the warehouse echoing with the sound of clashing weapons and grunts of exertion.

“Come on, you overgrown tin cans!” Raph yelled, launching himself into a spin kick that sent one Foot Soldier crashing to the ground. Mikey mimicked his brother’s movements, throwing punches and kicks, but every time they took one down, two more seemed to take its place.

“Hey, Donnie, how about a little help here?” Mikey shouted, hoping against all odds that some part of their brother was still inside. But Donatello remained unmoved, standing rigidly by Karai, an unsettling grin on his face, as if he were enjoying the chaos around him.

The battle raged on, but it quickly became apparent that the brothers were severely outnumbered. Just as Leo and Raph fought off another wave of attackers, they felt the weight of heavy chains being forced around them. The cold metal bit into their skin, and with a sickening sense of dread, they realized they were being captured.

“Mikey!” Leo yelled, straining against the chains, but Raph was already being dragged back by two Foot Soldiers. The ninja’s grip was unyielding as they pulled him away, the sharp clinking of metal echoing in the warehouse. Raph struggled, kicking out wildly, but the sheer force of the Foot Soldiers overwhelmed him.

“No! Let him go!” Mikey shouted, but he too was soon restrained, strong arms pinning him to the ground. He writhed and kicked, his heart pounding with desperation. “Donnie, help us!” he pleaded, eyes wide with fear.

As the last of their resistance faded, Donatello moved down from the balcony with a slow, deliberate gait. His movements were unnaturally fluid, a predator stalking its prey. The manic glint in his eyes was unsettling, pupils blown wide, giving him a wild, deranged look. The smile that had once conveyed warmth now seemed twisted, devoid of the love and camaraderie that had defined him.

“Ah, the glorious moment has finally arrived!” Donnie exclaimed, his voice dripping with unsettling delight. “All of you in one place, now here’s where it starts to get really interesting.” he spat, malice overtaking the previous happiness in his voice.

Leo felt a cold chill settle in his stomach. “Donnie, Shredder has you and Karai under the control of a brain worm!” He called out, desperation coloring his words.

Raph, breathing heavily and straining against the chains, interjected, “You gotta resist it, Don! Use that big brain of yours! If I was able to fight it off, then you can too!”

But Donnie only laughed, an unnatural high-pitched sound that echoed through the warehouse, making the hairs on Leo's neck stand on end. “Oh, but this is so much fun! And truly Leo, I’ve never felt better!”

“Donnie, you don’t wanna hurt Mikey! I’m the one you should be mad at!” Leo pleaded, hoping to reach his brother through the haze of control that clouded his mind.

Donatello's grin widened, a jarring contrast to the familiar warmth that usually filled his expressions, as he stared at his oldest brother.

His eyes, wide and gleaming with an unsettling light, were devoid of recognition. The usual spark of intelligence was gone, replaced by something manic and chaotic. His fingers trembled slightly, as if he could hardly contain the excitement bubbling beneath his surface.

“~Aw, don’t worry, Leo,” he said, voice dripping with mock cheerfulness as he grabbed Leo’s face roughly, forcing him to meet his gaze. “Karai and I came up with fun activities for everyone!”

The chill that had settled in Leo’s stomach transformed into a wave of nausea. He could hardly process the twisted words spilling from Donnie's mouth. Fear surged through him, tightening his chest and twisting his expression into one of anguish.

“Donnie, please…” he whispered, desperation lacing his voice. His brows furrowed deeply, and his eyes widened, reflecting both disbelief and a flicker of hope that somehow, someway, he could reach his brother.

But the face that stared back at him was not the Donatello he knew—the warm, goofy brother with a penchant for invention and a heart full of loyalty. Instead, he saw a hollow shell, his brother was not with them at the moment.

“Donnie!” Raph’s voice cut through the air, furious and filled with disbelief. The sound was raw, almost primal, as if he was attempting to shake their brother awake from a nightmare.

Suddenly, the grip of the Foot Soldiers tightened around each of the brothers, yanking them backward into their respective traps. Raph thrashed violently, trying to break free, but it was no use. The chains clanked loudly on the concrete, but otherwise didnt budge.

Mikey too started to get dragged away, as he struggled against the grip of the Foot Soldiers, his heart raced, a sense of panic creeping into his chest. He watched his older brother, completely not in control for once, and felt a cold sweat break out across his brow. “Leo! Raph!”, he gulped “Dudes, I’m like, freaking out over here!” he shouted, desperation lacing his voice.

“Mikey!” Leo shouted again, fear morphing into determination as he struggled against his own restraints. The reality of their predicament began to set in, a cold weight anchoring him down.

He desperately sought to make eye contact with Donnie, hoping for a flicker of recognition, a glimmer of his true brother buried beneath the layers of madness.

As they were dragged away, Donatello stood there, a twisted smile stretching across his face, looking pleased with the chaos unfolding before him.

“This is just the beginning, my dear brothers,” he called out, his voice echoing with a sinister glee that made Leo's blood run cold.

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