#frankly the past lives thing make it likely that they're still in the line

[paigemathews]

This headcanon doesn’t really make sense, but I really like the idea of the Warren line having elemental powers in the past. So have some thoughts on that:

Canonically, P. Bowen had cryokinesis and P. Russell had pyrokinesis

Phoebe had levitation, but what if it originated from a distant ancestor? Phoebe’s power didn’t grow in that way, but that ancestor could have gone levitation -> flight -> aerokinesis?

Paige’s past life had Conjuring the Elements, and I know that the Evil Enchantress wasn’t a Warren, but the idea of retaining powers from a past life? And specifically reincarnating into the Warren line? Plus, Paige did tap into those powers when facing the Evil Enchantress so she wouldn’t have presumably lost all of them forever.

Electrokinesis feels like it’d be a fitting witch power for the Warrens. Just something about the storm-like nature of it with a family like them.

Hydrokinesis was a popular fan power for the next gen, which was more based on Logan Lerman as the Henry Jr. fancast or using the actresses in H2O as the girls though.

I don’t really anything concrete (lmao) for geokinesis, but still.

[common-dace]

so i have not stopped thinking about gillion's banishment ever since it was revealed, but episode 114 has got me feeling fucking unhinged over it because it has given me new thoughts.

cause like, here's the thing. gillion's banishment never made sense to me. clearly, the prophecy and the chosen one are extremely important to the undersea. it is literally about whether their people continue to live or are exterminated. it is so vital to them that they took a literal child away from his family and trained him under the most important, highest-position figures in the entire undersea. just think about all the resources and time and effort they piped gill's way.

so the idea that they would just… send him away doesn't make sense. if they send away their chosen one, they're basically fucking over the entire undersea. according to the undersea's version of the prophecy, they need their chosen one or it's literally the end of the world. and even if maybe the elders didn't fully believe the prophecy, they'd still have to answer to their people who definitely believe the prophecy. (hence why the whole shebang was swept under the rug, to the point they refused to tell edyn anything about it.)

obviously, there's unseen factors at play here.

it's possible that it was, indeed, the elders' choice to exile gillion. maybe they decided they were wrong that gillion was the chosen one - after all, he'd spent the past decade or so failing in his training, and maybe this was the straw that broke the camel's back. they sent him away as punishment for the incident and to get him out of their hair, kept the whole thing on the down low to keep the people calm and preserve their reputation, and started searching for who they believe is the real chosen one.

but i can't believe that. it doesn't make sense to me, especially since time and time again, various people have been able to look at gillion and see the sheer divine energy he radiates. the elders - the most powerful people in the undersea - would surely be able to tell.

or maybe they simply didn't care whether gill was the chosen one or not, just that he had disapointed them one too many times. like it's one of those things where the people care about it much more than the government. but frankly, that just seems too convient and doesn't really line up with the intensity of gillion's training. i don't believe it either.

which means, the most likely scenario is that it was not the elders' choice to exile gillion.

i can only imagine what kind of a diplomatic nightmare it would be to try and sort out the aftermath of such an incident. it's wasn't just some rando stabbing a human - it was the chosen one, one of the most important figures of the undersea, stabbing a vice-admiral, one of the most important figures of the navy. entire wars have been declared over less. there is no way the navy would just let this slide, especially considering how hostile the navy has become and how their desire for an alliance with the undersea was really an attempt at manipulation. any opportunity for control they see, they will take.

perhaps gillion's exile, then, was simply punishment by the navy. if the navy did not know exactly who gillion was (it's not like he introduced himself to jayson prior or anything, and it's possible the elders did not tell the navy) then it would be an act that doubles as justice and as an example that resistance would not be tolerated. maybe it was part of a larger suite of demands, including opening a line of communication with the navy - after all, it seems that there might be some sort of communication going on at some level, given what gillion overheard at the all-port base in episode 61. (or maybe there is no communication, and the chosen one they talked about transferring was already in navy hands after being forcibly captured. who knows.)

speaking of, something about that whole all-port bit doesn't sit right with me - specifically, the alternate chosen one thing. the undersea seems to have appointed another "chosen one" after gillion's banishment. however, a few questions arise. did the undersea do it on their own accord, or at coercion of the navy? does the navy know that this isn't the original chosen one, or did the undersea manage to keep the whole switcheroo secret? was this chosen one even appointed by anyone or did they just kinda assert themselves? there's still so much that's unknown.

if we continue with the assumption that the navy did not know that gillion was the chosen one, then that would indicate that this secondary chosen one was likely chosen in an attempt to save face - possibly in the eyes of their people, possibly in the eyes of a navy threat (after all, it wouldn't be good to look weak). it would also indicate that the navy believes that this person is the true chosen one, which paints one hell of a picture. one of the things gillion overheard in episode 61 was that the chosen one was being transferred, presumably away from the undersea and the people they're sworn to protect. it seems like a very intentional move to try and lower the undersea's defenses and open them to attack.

i'd also like to add: i saw this wonderful post by here-there-be-drag0ns that you should totally check out if you haven't already that talks about how the gathering of undersea leaders might have been a front by the navy in order to get them all in the same place at the same time to take them all out. i just wanted to say that if this is true, then the idea that the navy would pre-emptively take out the chosen one to leave undersea folk more defenseless fits too well for my liking. they're making sure that the undersea's supposedly-best warrior is not present at this mass murder meeting where they're trying to decentralize the undersea. fucking yikes.

however, as much as all this makes sense to me and is a possibility, it still feels like there's something missing. it's up to some debate whether the navy (at least the higher-ups) know if gillion is the chosen one or not.

so. uh. episode 114, huh? what an episode. the tritons hanging on meat hooks and the triton skin on the ground was extremely striking to me, mainly because this is the first time we've actually seen other tritons in the campaign. for 113 episodes, the only tritons we've seen were the three tidestriders (and technically that one elder but like that was in gillion's mind so it doesn't count. also does gillion even count? anyway). that made the scene hit so much harder, and it really stuck in my head. in the time between gillion being exiled and now, the navy managed to get their hands on tritons without our resident pirates having any idea. this led me to a new thought:

what if the navy knew that gillion was the chosen one, and they knew exactly what they were doing in demanding that he be banished?

i'm not sold on this thought because it would make the whole "transferring the chosen one" thing kinda pointless (unless that was just a symbolic move meant to instill complacent despair into the undersea folks, etc.), but shit, it does make some sense.

because again, the undersea probably wouldn't banish their chosen one without some sort of coercion, and it doesn't make too much sense to me that the navy would particularly care about some rando (i.e., i think they'd leave the punishment to the undersea and instead focus on more significant ways they could use the incident to acquire control). the most likely reason they'd demand for gillion to gtfo is if they knew who he was, because then, they'd definitely want him gone. if you had the opportunity to get rid of one of the biggest obstacles between your plans of domination and the people you want to dominate, you'd fucking take it. it would make it all the easier for them to do what they want with the triton people.

but if this is true, then an even larger question arises: why wouldn't they just kill gillion?

well, maybe they wanted to. maybe they made that demand to the undersea, but the undersea refused. maybe they knew that the undersea wouldn't do it so they didn't even make the demand. maybe they knew that if they pushed for it or did it themselves, it'd piss off too many people and things would get a whole lot more messy. maybe they originally planned to secretly kill him and then replace him with someone under navy control to placate and manipulate the people, but it didn't go as expected.

or perhaps - and hear me out - gillion's banishment was not a punishment forced by the navy, but rather, an act of protection by the elders.

surely, the undersea knew they were in deep shit. for the first time possibly ever, the navy had come down to the undersea with attempts to manipulate them, but before they could turn the navy away peacefully, their goddamn champion barges in and all but makes a war declaration. shit could only go downhill from there.

obviously, the elders are shady and not morally great. they're flawed people who have caused a lot of hurt. they're as transparent as mud and withhold (and even lie about) significant information. however, i'm convinced of one thing - the prophecy and long-term survival of their people are important to them.

which means… the chosen one must stay alive.

but "oh, wouldn't it make more sense for gillion to stay in the undersea so he could fight off the navy because he's the chosen one and-" no. nope. we've all heard the way gillion talks about his training. the elders definitely saw him as a failure, no ifs, ands, or buts. they would have no confidence that he would do anything but be killed. so if your only options are 1) have your people be taken over by the navy but your chosen one is probably alive somewhere, or 2) have your chosen one be killed and then your people get taken over by the navy anyway, you're gonna go with option 1. you're gonna sacrifice the current well-being of your people with the hope that some day, destiny will lead the chosen one back when it is time and prevent the undersea from being wiped out entirely. an awful choice to have to make, but if you truly believe the prophecy, then you're gonna do what you have to to make sure it is fulfilled, even if the immediate consequences are dire. literally a last hope type of moment.

but "oh, wouldn't they at least tell gillion some of this because, again, chosen one, and-" nope. gillion is gillion. mf would absolutely go hero mode and try to stab another navy vice-admiral, get himself promptly killed, and fuck over the undersea worse. but if gillion thought he was banished as a punishment, well. that's not exactly something you can just return to the undersea from. it's a serious charge and gillion would know it. he'd be more likely to stay away and, by extension, stay out of navy hands. the best choice for the elders was to keep him in the dark and send him away, praying that destiny will lead him to where he needs to go.

but if we go this route, then it doesn't really work with the idea that the navy knows who gill is. it's possible that the undersea told the navy they killed the chosen one to try and cover their tracks, or maybe the navy knew they just exiled him and it angered them enough to react with a stronger iron grip and more demands, but… that doesn't really jive with me. if the navy knew the current "chosen one" wasn't the real one, there'd be no need to transfer them out. also, gillion has come face-to-face with jayson multiple times since the incident, and surely, if he thought that gillion was anyone of real significance, he'd remember his face (although, perhaps he's so preoccupied with jay that it was the last thing on his mind). plus, it's also worth noting that gillion's bounty from the navy only ever increased in connection with his pirate shenanigans. surely, if they really wanted the chosen one gone, they'd place a high incentive to lure in bounty hunters. in general, the idea that the navy knows who gill is just doesn't mesh well - it seems that they really don't know.

another possibility blends the banishment as protection idea with the concept that the navy doesn't know that gillion is the real chosen one. perhaps the navy, not knowing this, didn't really give a shit what the undersea did with gillion as long as he was punished and made into an example. however, just because the navy didn't know who gillion was then didn't mean they would never find out. again, gillion's got one hell of a hero complex - he simply would not stop at a single attack. he would persist, endangering any diplomatic attempts by the undersea to straighten things out and revealing himself as a very important figure and target.

this paints an interesting picture. perhaps while the navy did not directly force the undersea to exile gillion, banishment was still the best choice. it keeps the screw-up from making things worse, keeps the chosen one out of certain death, and keeps him a secret. in his place, the elders scrambled to find a suitable replacement to show to the navy and avoid suspicion. this way, if the navy exerted their newfound control over the undersea and did something like, say, transfer the chosen one out of the undersea to do gods-know-what, the real chosen one would still be hidden, safe, and ready for the day destiny pulls him back to liberate them all. gillion would be their plan b and secret weapon, should they fail.

("hidden," "secret," i say, like gillion hasn't spent the majority of the campaign immediately introducing himself to everyone as the champion of the deep and the chosen one. oof. never said my theories were solid. maybe in his long list of titles, the navy didn't notice those.)

anyway. i don't know. i have many thoughts, few of which are coherent. i have no idea what to believe. there's still so many missing bits of information, like everything regarding edyn. maybe i'm totally misinterpreting the transferred chosen one thing. there's also that whole storyline where gill was in the luxbris pearl and it was clear the (technically imagined?) elders banished him as punishment. there's that comment by that hanging triton where he says gillion abandoned them, which makes me feel like i am so off on the elders' intentions because maybe they publically blamed gill to save face. or maybe the elders didn't blame gill on their own accord, but rather were coerced to blame it on him by the navy, which, by this point, surely has deep hooks in the undersea government. fuck, dude. brain's going conspiracy theory mode now, i feel like i'm losing my mind. if y'all have any thoughts or better ideas than me, i'd love to hear them.

[auramgold]

On Acht and Romance

going into side order, from the september direct trailer where Acht was first revealed i remember the joke at the time clearly being "and now Marina's ex is here".

the way this line [image description in alt] was written was basically the only evidence for this kind of idea, when the theories were kind of "Marina's order tantrum is sucking people in from her past and the DLC will be about going through her memories", so ellipses in a line like this is basically all theory crafters on no info need to go for shipping.

i'm not one who's super into plot theory crafting, i know full well the tendency to theorize something that's cooler than what you actually get and being disappointed that the story didn't live up to your imagination. the things i was obsessed with in side order promotional material was the obvious bleached coral theme, the symbolism of coral ejecting it that which keeps it safe out of stress being mapped onto Marina, the idea of her pushing those she loves (and those that keep her colorful) away out of a spiral (and it does turn out that was basically exactly what the prologue was going for)

so the whole "Acht and Marina exes" thing was kinda just a joke to me, wasn't even on my radar as something they were actually going to lean into, frankly i was still scared nintendo was going to make them kill pearlina by sending Marina to superhell or smth and we'd end up with a splatoonified destiel meme

so when the DLC comes out and it is legitimately a "they knew each other since childhood" thing, and the running bit is Acht feeling awkward third-wheeling pearlina, and it's explicit in text that one of the reasons they're coming back after the DLC is over is to scope out Pearl as the girl who took down the NILS statue who is now dating Marina... it struck me as really interesting.

at first it was me keeping up the "Marina and Acht are exes" as a joke, but as i kept reading dialogue lines, it slowly became less of a joke, they were to some degree dating because opposite but complimentary autisms, and then drifting apart as Marina got pulled away on the big girl assignment with DJ Octavio, and then the despair of knowing Marina left without even saying goodbye to Acht... it fits well into that reading, it slowly became less of a joke to believe that

but the thing that really makes me think this is intentional subtext is the final Acht diary entry you get from clearing Eight's palette. through the rest of side order talking about Acht's backstory, it seemed like they were retconning the OE lore that Acht had gotten themself sanitized intentionally, losing themself so they could explore their music deeper. but in the final diary, where Acht directly says they drifted into the deepsea metro to fall into their music, because, and i quote

"Hey, Marina. You can guess the chaos your desertion caused. I ended up without much to do except make music. "

they fell into a depression spiral when their girlfriend deserted their society without so much as saying goodbye, falling into their music deep away from interacting with everyone else, to the point that, as the old lore implies, they chose to give up their identity to escape the depression, but sanitization so thoroughly did it that they forget even making the choice.

so when they get brought out of that haze back into being themself again, with the only the barest strung-together horrified memories of what happened in the half a decade interim gap in their life, only to find themself replaced by some inkling they don't know at all, of course they're gonna be awkward seeing the two flirting.

they put on a stoic face because that's clearly their coping mechanism within this damaged body they barely recognize, hiding their eyes behind their tinted glasses so they can't be seen beneath. but the only time they let themself be vulnerable, the only time their eyes can be seen, is when they charge out in the climax when the world is at stake, diving in to try to save Marina, leaving the elevator and its protection behind to help the only person they remember ever caring about.

it's why i don't really like the aroace reading that much, because i think this reading is even more tragic and fits into the themes. the world has changed, it can't go back to how it once was, you can't put the octolings back in the canyon bottle. Marina abandoned Acht to the point they got their identity destroyed willingly to escape the pain, and when Acht came back they were replaced by the inkling whose voice they remember even through the haze of sanitized memories.

the lingering effects of sanitization have changed how they relate to everything (i think there's a fair argument to be made for the idea that sanitization took their gender can't have shit in the deepsea metro), but Acht clearly still cares for Marina and still, the slightest bit, resents having to be reminded repeatedly every time pearlina flirts in front of them how they were replaced.

[utilitycaster]

VERY glad that Evontra’vir said “the titans are dead” because like there are currently living beings that will suffer if Ludinus’s plan succeeds and they just don’t seem to matter compared to titans that died a millennia ago??? (After trying to wipe out mortals themselves)

Hey anon,

Agreed. The thing about the titans coming up is that it does, actually, make a lot of sense for the two characters who have been most vocal about it - Ashton and Laudna - to feel this way! But it doesn't come from a rational place; it comes from profound trauma and loss about which they can't be objective.

Taliesin talked about this on 4-Sided Dive: Ashton is grabbing on desperately to the one piece of information they know now about their missing childhood and is "leaning into it...probably before he should." We know this about them; Ashton's been emblazoning themself with the Hishari and Dunamancy symbols without having a single clue what they were. The titans are part of that. Did you notice how he keeps saying "things are changing" and didn't actually like...provide any meaningful information? Again to quote 4SD: "...there's not a lot of judgment happening about whether or not that's a good thing or not, and what it actually means." Like, I think that, based on Ashton's past position of "don't kill everyone for your goals, that is shitty" if they did stop, and process, and set aside that strong emotional factor that's in play (which is not something I'd expect them to be able to do easily!) They'd realize that the titans returning, were that possible, would be cataclysmic. But that's not what they're thinking about right now. I think Evontra'vir bluntly stating that the titans are dead was a needed splash of cold water on that line of thinking.

My thought re: Laudna is that it's slightly more metaphorical. Consider her backstory: a conquering force swept in and destroyed most of what had been there before. She is a relic both of that earlier time and of that conquering force, and the subjugation she experienced never truly stopped, even though Whitestone has moved on. Of course she'd see herself in the titans in the telling of stories about the titans! People like Percy get to return and revitalize and build a new family and grow old and happy and die, despite their trauma, and she's caught between life and death forever. Of course she'd relate to some half-buried thing that people call monstrous and ancient and displaced! But that doesn't actually help her do anything about her situation and it's not a philosophy that really is useful in understanding the larger geopolitical (and, frankly, cosmic) reality happening right now, because, yeah, if you let the titans back, people will die.

For both these characters - who have spoken to each other about being physically altered and left for dead, alone, in ways no one else can quite understand, I think there's something immensely seductive about the idea of something older than the gods, something defeated but could rise again, which both is relatable to their own situations and comes neatly packaged with a reason why it didn't save you when you called out. But it's still a fantasy. It's not real, it's not going to happen, and so it's important that Evontra'vir, who as Jirana said, does not mince words, called it out for what it is. The titans are dead. Something of their essences does remain for you to use to make a choice. You are going to have to do this using your own judgment; you are doing the saving; stop worrying about the dead and start thinking about what you will do to serve the living.

I think an emerging theme of this campaign - and arguably a secondary theme of the past campaigns, and really, the theme of D&D if you think about it, is that the person you developed into because of your trauma, and the coping mechanisms and behaviors and presentation you developed as a result may eventually cease to serve you once you find a support network and begin to be given more and more agency within the world; and indeed, if you cling to these things they will begin to hurt those around you, and eventually you as well. I think "The Titans are dead" is one way to very, very bluntly and effectively communicate that.

[queenofbaws]

Hi again!! I have an offer for a 6 sentence prompt, after reading a few of your great fics with the matt + ashley dynamic, I'd love to see your take on a world where they're the only two survivors of UD!

He woke up and the bed was cold, but there wasn't anything shocking about that. Almost everything else about them slotted so cleanly into place, fitting into perfect little notches like gears meant to keep each other turning...sleep schedules, though? Nah. Never. He doubted that one would ever take.

It wasn't until he grabbed his phone off the nightstand and checked the time that it occurred to him, something might be wrong. There, in dark, bold numbers set against his lockscreen (still that terrible picture from Thanksgiving, all of his grandma's ridiculous bouquets of glass gem corn and plastic maple leaves peeking out from between their exhausted smiles), proof this wasn't just an early-to-bed-early-to-rise thing.

Ashley was up before him. And he didn't like that.

She was a night owl - and that was putting it lightly - her brain hitting its stride sometime around lunch, her first yawns coming closer to sunrise than sunset. She used the quiet hours to read, to write, to dump out all the poison thoughts she was still too shy to let him see. Matt knew that, and, frankly, got it. He was the same, but opposite; he got more things done before the sun was up than most people got done in the day, jogging, stretching, working out, meal prep, shower, shave, clothes, chores, and he'd be a liar if he said he didn't vent his own worries then, forcing them out in the times and places he knew she wouldn't see.

What had happened...well, it was like a lot of things. The same, just opposite. There were things she'd had to do that he'd never understand. There were things he'd seen that she'd never understand. Not for lack of trying, just...brains could only take so much. Even hers. Especially his.

So they lived in the overlap, the comfortable (shockingly comfortable, in fact) place where their schedules lined up and their experiences meshed, where they fit together like those gears. It was a funny place, most of the time, caught somewhere between 'birds of a feather flock together' and 'opposites attract,' always just as much one as it was the other. She laughed when he tried to make jokes, he nodded thoughtfully and did his best to spark her memory when she needed a word, she only winced a little when he'd tried going keto a few months back, he'd finished reading the first draft of her novel even though it'd taken him the better part of two months to get through. And it was good, that living. It was good, and it was beautiful, and some days he forgot that they hadn't always been like this, that something had come before.

Matt got up, leaving the warm, rumpled covers for the chilly, chilly hall, rubbing the bleariness from his eyes as he went. There were no lights on to suggest she was still writing in the back room, no noises to lead him to a percolating coffee pot, and with each step he took, his worries gnawed a little deeper, tapping into that part of him that remembered what it was like to turn around and see the person you thought had been following you was just gone. Vanished into thin air.

He found her sitting beneath the bay window, her knees to her chest and her chin to her knees, the side of her head resting against one of the panes of glass...and the dread went out of him in a wave. He breathed it out, louder than he meant to, but even at his (admittedly) comical little 'whew,' Ashley didn't look away from the dark, sleeping world outside.

He joined her - as best he could, anyway, given the size of the alcove the window was in - sitting with his legs outstretched and his feet bumping hers, looking not past the glass but straight ahead at her. "Couldn't sleep?" he asked with another good-natured jostle, his foot nudging the sugar-plum-and-candy-cane print of her pajama pants.

Instead of answering straightaway, Ashley tapped a finger to the window, her nail clicking slightly, and when Matt turned -

"...oh."

Together, they watched the snow fall outside. Watched it become a dusting on the grass, the street, the sidewalks, the cars parked and waiting for the morning. The sun would melt it, erase it, and most of their neighbors would never even know that it had happened, but there it was. White and frail and bitterly, bitterly cold. A promise of the winter ahead; a reminder of the one they'd left behind.

"I think we should go on vacation," Ashley said after a long while, her voice rasped. From the all-nighter, he'd let her say later, not from anything else. "Somewhere...somewhere warm, maybe."

"I think...that's the best idea anyone has ever had," Matt agreed, and when he opened his arms, there weren't words for how grateful he was that she moved from her spot of her own volition, scooting over to tuck herself against him.

It was easier to watch the snow gather on the ground that way - her back to his chest, his chin on her head, their arms crisscrossed, knotted, interwoven. They were stronger in that overlap, and they would keep being stronger there, too - no matter what winter threatened them with.

[drarrily-we-row-along]

Arsonist's Lullaby

As you may have guessed, this one is inspired by "Arsonist's Lullaby" by Hosier. cw: arson (as you might have deduced, no one is hurt and they're burning their own property)

Draco was doing that thing with his hands again. The thing Harry had noticed first in 8th year and then hadn't stopped being able to notice in the past five years since.

It's what had drawn him to Draco in the first place, like a moth to flame (pun very much intended). There was something completely mesmerizing about watching him snap his fingers and then cradle the blue flames in his palm absentmindedly while he talked, or read a book, or performed any number of mindless tasks. It was sexy as fuck.

"You're staring again," Draco murmured, not raising his eyes from his book as the fire danced across his knuckles.

Harry hummed, "You're doing the fire again."

"You're as obsessed with fire as I am," he said, mouth curling at the corner.

"Mostly obsessed with you," Harry replied and Draco laughed and finally looked up for his book.

He stared at Harry for a moment, the fire winding its way through his fingers the way some people rolled coins along their knuckles. "You know," Draco said, voice a hint too casual and Harry internally perked up at what was sure to be a fantastic confession, "I thought it would end."

"What would?" Harry asked after a moment when it was clear that Draco wasn't going to go on without a bit of prompting.

His silver eyes latched onto Harry and his head tilted as he looked at him, like he was trying to parse something out. "The desire to light things on fire," he said and something hot flared in the pit of Harry's stomach.

"Tell me more," Harry said softly, voice low and seductive in a way that it normally wasn't outside of their bedroom.

Draco's pupils dilated sharply, "when I was a child," he said, the fire burning brighter in his hand for a moment, "I would sit for hours and stare at the flames in the manor's giant fire place. My parents couldn't understand it, they'd find me just sitting there, doing nothing but watching, like I was transfixed."

And frankly, Harry could understand that; he could watch Draco hold fire all day.

"When she caught me, Auntie Bella would say, 'don't ever tame your demons, Draco,' then she'd wink and tell me, 'but always keep them on a leash.'"

"What did that mean?"

Draco gave him a little smile, eyes flashing, "she could sense the bit of chaos, the desire for destruction, I think."

Harry hummed, "What did you want to destroy?"

"Oh, it changes," he replied easily. "When I was sixteen, the last time she said those words to me, I wanted to burn the entire world to the ground."

A shiver raced up Harry's spine, he remembered feeling the same way at sixteen. "And now?" he asked.

"I always thought it would go away," Draco said, "after I fell in love, after I had given the fire within me permission to consume someone the way I've consumed you."

Harry made a soft noise, low in his throat in agreement.

"The way I've let myself be consumed," he added. "But there's still this desire to burn down the past, to start fresh."

He nodded slowly, "that makes sense, actually."

"What if-" Draco started before snapping his jaw shut and clenching his fist around the fire to put it out.

"What if..." Harry prompted, moving to straddle Draco's hips, looking down at his lovely face.

Draco swallowed and rested his head against the back of the sofa, staring up at him. "What if we did start over? What if we moved to the states, or moved to some muggle city? What if-"

"Yes," Harry said, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Draco's lips, fingers skimming up his neck. "Godric, yes," he said, living in the world as the chosen one had only gotten harder since defeating Voldemort.

"What if I burned down the Manor first?" he whispered.

He felt his eyebrows hit his hair line, "What?"

Draco shrugged nonchalantly, but Harry could see the tension in his jaw, the fear of being too much. "Just," he sighed, "no one lives there. It's full of dark, cursed magic and even darker, more cursed memories." He blinked up at Harry, "What if I burned it first?"

He stared at him for a long moment, just searching his face, and finding only earnest desire there. "Alright," he said finally.

"Yeah?" Draco asked.

Harry nodded and leaned in to kiss him again, Draco's palms skimmed up his back and sides, touching him reverently.

"Pack for us?" he asked when he pulled back.

"Everything?"

Draco shrugged, "not furniture."

He closed his eyes and gathered his magic for a moment, letting it pool in his gut before holding out a hand and snapping. The contents of the flat organized themselves into boxes, shrinking down until everything fit into a tote that they could easily put into the back of the beat up old Subaru that Harry had purchased and refit with magic.

"Fucking hot," Draco said, pulling his face down and kissing him soundly.

Harry let himself get swept up in the moment, lost himself in the fire of Draco's kiss, let himself be consumed as Draco's fingers slipped under his shirt, nails raking up his back.

Far too soon in Harry's opinion, Draco was pulling back, flushed and panting. "Drive us as close as we can get to the Manor?" he asked, "then I'll get us through the wards?"

He nodded and stood, tugging Draco up behind him and out the door. The Subaru brought them faithfully through the night to the Manor and Harry parked just on the other side of the wards.

They climbed out of the car and Draco reached for Harry's hand, his cloak billowing dramatically behind him. Harry took it and they were being moved through time and space to a hill where they could see the whole of the Malfoy estate, the Manor centered in front of them.

There was fire flickering in and out of the hand that wasn't clasping Harry's and he watched the other man carefully. "Are you sure about this? You don't have to-"

"No, I know," Draco said. "And there's a part of me that doesn't want to. I loved this home when I was young."

"We could-"

"But it feels all wrong now," he said, shaking his head. "Can't you feel it?" he asked without looking at Harry, "the way that the darkness seeps from this place, it's killing everything around it," he added, pointing to the forest and the meadows, even the yard was brown and dead.

Draco shook his head, "For a little while, it felt like all I had was this fire burning within me, ready to scorch the earth, to wipe out that maniac and everything he stood for. I just feel like there's something more for me out there."

He slid his fingers through Draco's, holding the hand that wasn't currently holding fire. "There is," he promised, raising Draco's knuckles to his lips.

"I don't think that you can tame your demons," he said softly like he wasn't talking to Harry at all. "And I don't think you can keep them on a leash, either," he added. "I think the only thing to do is to destroy them entirely."

Without another word, he released Harry's hand and held up both of his, letting balls of flames build in his palms before hurling them down toward the Manor. As soon as those were sent on their way, he started on two more, then two more, and so on until the entire building was ablaze, flames leaping dozens of feet in the air.

He threw one last ball of fire, then collapsed. Harry dropped with him, reaching out for him and supporting him as they watched the representation of his old life, of everything evil, burn.

What could have been minutes or hours later, they heard the sound of distant sirens and the first few firefighters apparated in, wands blowing streams of Aguamentis at the raging fire.

"Time to go," Draco said, squeezing Harry's hand and apparating directly into the car.

"Where are we headed?" Harry asked, starting the car and punching the button that turned it invisible.

Draco hummed, turning his head and staring at Harry with a thoroughly blissed out, content expression on his face.

He leaned across the center console and kissed him, "You're so," he shook his head and kissed him again, "fucking amazing."

Humming, Draco kissed him back before redirecting his attention to the open sky, "the world's ours. Wherever you want to go," he shrugged, "we're free."

And it never really mattered where they went, there were always plenty of things to find joy in if they were together.

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

Read more of my fics inspired by songs

[leonawriter]

One of my favourite ideas with regards to Ryoji is this sort of... thing where he can just exist outside of time somehow, because of how short a time he's allowed to exist in reality.

(massive spoilers for P3 onward past this point, obviously, if you haven't already gone through the game.)

[EDIT: I've cleaned it up a bit and edited and put it on AO3. So, if you want like... an entire extra scene plus some, go here.]

Which is great in theory, but a bit more complicated if you wanna put it into practice, other than going "well, he's here because... oh, a wizard did it." There are possibilities and plausibles, but they're frankly limited if you have (like me) a logical mind and a need for something to suspend your disbelief.

Except then I had a thought - Ryoji is also known as Death, or Thanatos. He takes on that role at the climax, even. So, I started thinking along those lines, and wound up with-

Ryoji the psychopomp. Ryoji, the grim reaper.

Not "the Reaper" as in the one that roams dungeons (he exists during P3 and is implied by design to be connected somehow to Tatsuya Sudou, anyway).

More like, that it's a case of "Life gave her creations to Death, no matter what they both knew would happen the moment he touched them."

Minato (or Kotone) dies on the school rooftop, and there he is, able to talk to them, and they're able to tell him that everything worked out, that everything will work out. Their spirit lingers at the Door, and they talk like it's passing notes in class.

A young girl finds herself on the receiving end of unwanted advances, and then she's somewhere strange, confronted with uncomfortable and unwanted truths, and then- then, there's a boy in a yellow scarf wanting to know all of the things that she loved about her life. At first it's strange, and more than a bit hard to think of things for this weird guy who she's never met before, but the more she talks the more she realises that she really did have things she treasured.

He thanks her for telling him, and as she makes her peace with the fact that this is it, he tells her that he'll keep them in his heart now, too.

Wakaba Isshikki knows about the cognitive realm - a little too much, perhaps, but not enough to stop. Enough, perhaps, to see the shadow of a boy following her for a day or two. Enough to feel as though she's already living on borrowed time, when she feels that surely she knows what's happening, and she simply... doesn't care.

She's a little wispy, still, when he leads what's left of her toward the Sea of Souls where she now belongs. He's concerned, and rightly so, about what that means. Wakaba's more worried about the kids.

(A few people don't get Ryoji. Those unhappy few get the floating mask of Death and a series of coffins to tell them that their time has come. For some it's because even in death they have no humility, and for others still it's simply easier, that way. Easier to not be Ryoji wile dealing with it, even if it would have been easier still to simply walk away and let them find their own way to the Sea.

But Kunikazu Okumura had sent so many his way, that it was only right that Death came to meet him personally.

"I didn't even get to finish my speech," the man said, blubbering after the towering figure that Death made.

You had a daughter, Death reminded him, and he was silent the rest of the way.)

Goro Akechi comes to, and the first thing he sees is a bright yellow scarf.

The first thing he does is swear, because boys with slicked-back hair wearing yellow scarves aren't supposed to exist when you're dead. The second thing he does is look around, and realise that you aren't really supposed to exist in a sea of stars and sit on nothing when you're alive, either.

"Please tell me this isn't the afterlife," he says, mostly because although he figured it could be worse - he could have found himself in hell, or surrounded by all of the people he'd killed over the years, all of the ones who had every reason to make his afterlife hell if it wasn't already - it could definitely be better.

"It is and it isn't," comes the cryptic answer. "Usually it is, more or less. Each of those lights represents a soul, after all." And there were so many of them. "But you're a special case! You're both dead and not dead right now, which, usually that doesn't happen? People can almost die but not actually die, but they aren't usually both at the same time, I mean."

"Maruki," Akechi practically spits out. "In that case, I'm surprised you're not inundated right now."

Blue eyes - far too blue to be human, they almost remind him of Morgana, and he was neither human nor a cat, apparently - duck down, glancing away.

"I felt what happened. Everyone caught up in a lie, completely oblivious... if the one controlling that power had wanted to bring ruin, then..." But he shakes his head, bringing himself out of his own thoughts. "It's a good thing that didn't happen, really! And- you're wrong, by the way."

"What?"

"Like I said, you're a special case. I've been able to talk to a lot of people, but I've never been able to ask anyone to send a message back before!"

"Back?" For a moment, Akechi is reduced to parroting back words. Surely they mean something, but the obvious meaning is impossible, and he can't think of anything else. "Who would someone like you even want to send a message to, anyway?"

"Would you believe me if I said they were old enemies, who were also old friends? But, I guess you've had a few of those yourself, right?"

"What would you even know about me?"

Akechi got a lopsided, bittersweet smile in return.

"I've been following you for a lot longer than I think we'd both have liked," come the words that send a shiver down his spine as instincts and senses that were rusty from disuse told him what that meant even as his more conscious mind shied away from the idea of it. "But I hope that after this, we won't be able to talk again for a long, long time."

Something tells Akechi that he's both in no danger whatsoever, and also that he really shouldn't refuse. He expects to be on a strict deadline (ha, dead) but time moves differently here, and apparently they have exactly as much time as they need. No more, and not a second less.

When he opens his eyes again, he can remember everything-

Someone really wanted you to live, Ryoji had said, with a teasing smile, and bright eyes.

It makes him feel small. It makes him feel indebted - to Akira, to Ryoji, in ways that he can't even begin to examine or think of how to repay. It makes him want to give it all back, so that he doesn't have to deal with it, but that would be purely theoretical and besides, he has promises to keep.

First, a debt to Akira, something that to Akechi feels like barely a drop in the ocean and that hopefully Akira and his friends will feel the correct amount of gratitude for.

Secondly-

"Hello- yes, this is Goro Akechi speaking. Is this Mitsuru Kirijo-san? I have a message to pass on to you. Are the names Ryoji Mochizuki and Minato Arisato familiar to you, at all?"

[mollysunder]

Gilded Jinx Looks Like What I Thought Chembarons Would Look Like.

Look at her, she looks like an 80s punk pirate queen with bolder coloring than both her gilded and chembaron counterparts, complete with bright makeup (by Victorian standards) and big hair. Zaun is supposed to be set apart from Piltover by the unmistakable creativity and innovation expressed through a loud punk aesthetic that it's inhabitants are meant to embody, at least the younger inhabitants do. The higher up the food chain you go in Zaun, the punk aesthetic filters out with only the Victorian base remaining.

(Finn's a bit of the exception but his aesthetic is kind of supposed to coincide with his self-serving nature rather than a reflection of Zaun's culture.)

On one hand you could argue that it's some kind of social commentary where these violent gangleaders are adopting the aesthetic of their oppressors to take on similar roles. But even chembarons that are antagonistic to Piltover, and frankly just hate Piltover for what it's done to them and their families still take on Piltovan aesthetic. If it isn't a straightforward Victorian aesthetic, then it's more of a fusion of modern business clothing and evening wear. This goes for characters like Silco, Renata, and Corina Veraza.

(Shout out to Silco for keeping it real and stitching his pants instead of getting new ones.)

Zaun, at least in League, is it's own city-state with its own distinct culture, but so often these leaders don't really embody that (once again maybe social commentary, but that explanation only goes so far). Honestly their designs are so dedicated to Piltover aesthetics sometimes it doesn't even communicate their wealth! The thing most of them are all about! If someone has to be in rags for me to know they're rich they're not doing it right.

The chembarons don't all have to be like that, but it seems like they're usually designed to just look like evil Piltovans. The only unifying part of their design that doesn't borrow from Piltover and makes them distinct is their asymmetrical styling and the fact they all either have scars or body mods to accommodate their disabilities, or both.

And here's Jinx in her obnoxiously loud outfit ready for the runway! Yeah her money's new, what are you gonna do about it? She's the right mix loud fun 80s mess with her fishnets and and ripped mesh covered in a fancy jacket lined with ermine fur. It would have been so easy to give her hexgem earrings, but no, they're in chemtech green, hooked with actual screws. The coloring alone says to me the designers couldn't let go of Jinx's Zaunite origins because her character defines Zaun as much as Zaun defines her. You'd almost think she was making fun of Piltover if she weren't wearing her look so well, if wasn't so dedicated to playful asymmetry where here shoes are slightly different, her coattails slant in two different style. Her whole look is so customized to be Jinx sans Piltover, it's just so her. The Gilded universe is supposed to be a universe where everybody's living a comfortably ritzy and safe Piltovan lifestyle and Jinx’s missing an arm. The prosthetic looks great!

The chembarons are supposed be a coalition of leaders in Zaun. Sure, they're gangleaders, but a lot of rich people politics is gang politics. At least some of them should understand that to grow past the shadow of Piltover, they need to embrace the strengths of Zaun, not co-opt Piltie patterns. Gilded Jinx's design understands that so well. If you put these pictures in a line up and asked me to find the chembaron, my safest choice would be Jinx.

Tldr: Chembarons in League of Legends and Arcane aren't very distinct from their Piltovan counterparts. The only real difference is their visible disabilities, body mods, and asymmetry (maybe goth vibes too). Gilded Jinx is a great example of what chembarons could be, leaders with loud and eccentric vibes that actually matches the distinct culture of Zaun itself.

[rubykgrant]

Simmons would rather talk about ANYTHING ELSE besides his own gender/sexuality... but I have some thoughts~

(mostly connected to stuff that comes up in my big RVB story-line)

First of all, his parents are just sucky people. In general. They only wanted to have kids in the hope of impressing a relative, get some of that inheritance money... however, the baby was a little over-due, the relative passed away before the birth even happened, so no extra kid added to the will. Poor baby was a "disappointment" from the start.

By the time the kiddo turned 7, the question- "What if I was a boy?" had become- "Can I BE a boy?". Mr and Mrs Simmons had actually hoped for a son anyway, so they were "accepting" of this (but make no mistake, if this wasn't something they wanted for themselves, they would have been more UNPLEASANT). Because they already moved a couple of times and changed schools, Richard was able to start over where nobody knew who he was previously. A relief in some ways, however... mom and dad were very insistent that the "past" never be discussed. Again, it was encouraging to begin transitioning (first socially, then later medically), but Richard was taught not to acknowledge he was trans at ALL, which began a lot of internalized self-resentment from the get-go.

His dad was the one who would keep on "testing" him as he grew up, purposefully putting Richard into situations where he would have to prove himself, in the most backwards, nonsensical, and frankly- sexist ways; "A REAL MAN is better at sports than girls, so prove you can win against all the girls in your PE class!" and so-on. Obviously that's BS for SEVERAL reasons, and it just sets Richard up to have a weird ego-failure complex, and also think there is such a thing as "running girly laps".

Richard was always pretty scrawny, and during highschool, he had a growth-spurt that made him extra tall and lanky. More awkward, basically. He had a flat chest all on his own, but thanks to teasing from other kids, he was extremely nervous about EVER taking his shirt off. Thanks to the weird background-sexist-radiation from his dad, he thought it was just a given that he should be interested in girls... but he's a little afraid of girls (especially all the competitive jock girls who hate his guts for making them lose during team competitions). He almost tries to force himself into having crushes, but nothing ever clicks.

Once he's out of highschool, he gets surgery (no need for top, because- flat), and is hoping that he'll be able to start having A Real Life now... but he doesn't get into college, he can't get a job anywhere, he doesn't have any friends to live with, and his parents are threatening to just kick him out if he doesn't prove himself yet again. The last option is to join the Red Army, so that's where he goes... and then ALL THAT happens.

Simmons didn't exactly "come out" to anybody while in Blood Gulch, but after the whole surgery incident with Grif, Sarge knows about Simmons' medical history, and he doesn't call attention to it. In many ways, it is similar to what his own parents did (and partially why Simmons imprints on Sarge as a father figure). However, even through all the weird insults and ramblings, Sarge ironically gives Simmons more "attention" than his actual dad. It isn't always GOOD attention, but this is also the first time somebody has known this aspect of who Simmons is, and didn't treat him differently after the fact. So. That's almost kinda-sorta good? (it is still not great, because Sarge is an a-hole, but you take what you can get).

Simmons the proceeds to spend the next decade+ bickering with Grif, and not noticing MORE is going on, because they're both stupid (affectionate) (also FRUSTRATED). Simmons is still dealing with a lot of issues that are basically set in stone within his brain. When he starts to finally have genuine friendship feelings toward Grif, that alone is weird, because he barely likes anybody, and almost nobody ever likes him. When a whole CRUSH starts to happen, Simmons does not even get it. WTF is with all these weird gay thoughts in his head? Where'd that come from? For somebody who claims to be SMART, it takes him a while to do the math on this.

Eventually, waaaaay down the road, there would be some event, maybe around the younger generation on Chorus, where people are sharing things they've learned about gender/sexuality. A few of the Reds and Blues are kinda casually like- "Oh, I didn't know there was a word for that, I guess that's me!" or even- "I don't share this often but, yeah. I'm transgender," and- "I guess some of you already know, but I still want to say it. I'm gay"... and Simmons. He is just petty enough to FINALLY say- "I'm GAYER". It also takes him a full minute to remember, and add- "Oh, uh. I'm trans, too. More trans than you. I named myself Dick. I WIN"

He also works on un-packing internalized sexism and what-not, and when he reconnects with the girls on his team, he's much less nervous and better at treating them as individual people. He's aware of how much he used to suck, and it took a long time, but he's finally doing the whole "personal growth" thing. His parents still suck, but after the extended family of friends in his life have gone through changes as well, Simmons can see where he actually belongs

[karizard-ao3]

In a peaceful canonverse where they don’t suffer and have no trauma inside the walls, how do you think Eremika’s relationship would grow? (I leave it up to you to choose if Mikasa lives with the jaegers or not)

And how many kids do you think they’d have? Considering they’d go at it like rabbits at one point and there are no condoms in a medieval society

Please be warned that this ended up pretty long. I had to start reining myself in.

Let's say for fun that Mikasa's parents don't die and her brother is born healthy but the Ackermans decide that she should go to school in town to be around other kids her own age (they see how happy she is when Eren comes over) so they arrange for her to live in town during the school year and come home for summer and holiday breaks. I don't see why the Jaegers wouldn't offer to let her stay with them. She has such a calming effect on Eren, after all. And then, per Grisha's musings about how much it would benefit Eren to spend time in the isolation of the mountains with Mikasa, the Jaegers end up sending him to the Ackermans' for at least part of the summer.

I don't think Eren would want to admit how much he likes spending time with Mikasa, but Armin notices Eren goes straight home after school a lot more often than he did before Mikasa moved in.

A question I have is whether or not Mikasa's Ackerman abilities would ever get awakened in this au? Would she even have them? Are there titans? Let's say there aren't any and she's just a normal little girl.

I don't think Eren realizes at first exactly what the depths of his feelings for her are. He knows that he wants to protect her and he likes being around her but it's not until the summer that she goes home and he stays in town (shall we say he's got himself a job, maybe? Or he wants to go traveling Paradis with Armin?) that he realizes how he feels.

The entire time they're apart he just misses her. He and Armin see an interesting sight or talk to some girls and all he's thinking is it would be better if Mikasa was there to enjoy it with them. He is not even kind of making the connection between why he's bored out of his mind while Armin flirts or why he keeps scratching Mikasa's initials into things, but when he gets home and she arrives with her trunk for their final year of school (actually, school probably doesn't go past 11 or 12 in a medieval-y canonverse au unless you're furthering your education, so let's say Eren has been working manual labor this entire time because, no offense to him, he does not have the brains or bedside manner to become a doctor, and Mikasa is indeed furthering her education in order to teach school or something. Or hell, maybe she has a cute little job at a dress or hat maker's but she still goes home for long visits to see her family. I feel like Mikasa would like a job decorating pretty hats). So let's say Mikasa still boards withe the Jaegers and EMA are all 15 or 16 years old, and Mikasa has been away and now she's back. And she is looking hot. Eren doesn't know if it's because he missed her so much or if she actually looks different, but he's not the only one that notices what a tall drink of water she is. There are dances and socials for all the young folk in lieu of modern dating and the neighborhood young men are lining up to ask her to dance or go for a walk through the square and any number of things. Eren "Who has time for girls?" Jaeger has shunned this kind of frivolous nonsense in previous years, but he's got a vested interest now that dudes are showing up at his door with flowers and little gifts for his friend, Mikasa.

She, quite frankly, thinks nothing of the attention. She assumes it's just what's done when you're a young person of marriage age and that it means as little to the guys courting her as it does to her. She's polite but not encouraging but all Eren sees is her going to all the socials with the other girls from the hat shop and he assumes the worst.

Armin's been trying to get Eren to go with him to the activities and he finally agrees, with many misgivings because there's one exceptionally persistent guy who's been coming around and he just knows he's a threat to the domestic bliss he's been taking for granted.

Please know that Eren still doesn't realize how he feels about Mikasa at this point. Introspection is a foreign word to Eren.

He goes to the dance with Armin. He sullenly goes along with it when Armin drags him along to ask girls to dance. He dances with the girls. glowering the whole time. Mikasa isn't there yet. Why did he even come?

She shows up midway through, arm in arm with her coworkers. She's still shy but she keeps to herself a lot less as a girl who has not lost her entire family, so she's keeping to the people she knows but she's smiling and having a good time.

Eren is gratified to see that she turns down the first few guys who ask her to dance, ignoring the fact that he is observing this while waltzing around the dance floor with another girl in his arms.

Finally, Mikasa does accept a young man's invititation and this is just the motivation Eren needs to go storming up to her after the song ends and demand that she dance with him next.

It is during this dance that he finally understands what's going on. Think the scarf scene but with vastly lower stakes. Eren and Mikasa are twirling around the floor, he's feeling like shit, and she smiles at him and says, "I'm so glad you're here. I'd much rather dance with you than anyone else." She, of course, has been besotted with him since they were kids.

Eren sees spakles all around her and says, "I'll dance with you every day if you want, forever."

And then, because their lives are so simple and untroubled, they actually get to just court. They're both shy at first and it's a little silly because they live together, but Eren starts being more conscientious and Mikasa doesn't go out with the girls anymore. Carla catches them sneaking a kiss and sends Mikasa home to protect her from Eren's hormones. She's not letting Mikasa get pregnant under her roof. So then Eren has to go out and visit her until she can find somewhere else to board in town.

Eren works hard, saves up his money, and builds them a little house in the mountains because he does find it does wonders for his attitude to be out in nature, and, finally, they get married. He dances with her every day like he promised and they have at least five kids but probably twice that and their lives are just really normal and uneventful.

[mermaidsirennikita]

Please people are now speculating Rose Hanbury's twins are actually William's and how he wants to divorce Kate so he can marry Rose but that would cause a succession crisis because the eldest son would have a better claim to the throne than George 💀

Lmao I've seen the main user speculating about that. They in fact, does not know shit about how this works. And I wanna get into how hard they don’t know how this works.

a) He ain't doing that. Like, I don't know him, but I'd be really surprised if that happened. I think that is a horrible dude, but those are still three kids who've known him as their father and have known their role in this family their entire lives. I think we'd have to go from "an abusive husband and bad father" level to "a psychopath" level for that lmao.

And I mean... listen. William is clearly all about the firm. Those kids? Are in the same place he was in. I think he prioritizes legal, legitimate children born in wedlock over some by-blows~ (their words, not mine!) lmao.

b) It would not in fact cause a succession crisis.

-Regardless of DNA, unless they wanted to go through the rigmarole of getting the marquess to have his name taken off the birth certificate and William's name added to it, which seems... so unlikely! I mean, it's one thing to claim another man's kids, another to literally say "take my name off the birth certificate, I am a clown". This is a 60-something aristo, and if he doesn't have any legal sons, he has no legal heir. If he's the legal father, that's what matters in terms of succession. The kids don't become legally William's because he marries their mom, says he's the dad, and is the biological father.

-You actually can't change the succession just because you want to! I see people citing the change in the primogeniture-based succession made "for Charlotte" "by Elizabeth". First off, that wasn't actually for Charlotte, it was changed (or set into place, can't remember if they got it done before the birth) before George was born. The idea was that if the firstborn was a girl, a younger brother wouldn't supplant her as heir. George's birth made it irrelevant for William and Kate's kids. The only way that it matters is if something horrible happens to George; Louis can't leapfrog over Charlotte.

Anyway, that didn't happen just because Elizabeth wanted it. There were actual legislative processes involved. It's... a legal process.

If William did ACKNOWLEDGE his children by Rose, if they do exist, this would not suddenly supplant George, or Charlotte, or Louis for that matter. Acknowledgment does not equal legitimizing, and frankly, legitimizing does not mean leapfrogging over the line of succession. Do people honestly think Kate, or for that matter her family, or for that matter WILLIAM'S family who have a vested interest would just... go with that? It would probably cause a legal crisis within the monarchy, and it would also make William look VERY BAD!!! The public that does support the monarchy loves those kids; they're the cute mascots. George's birth was celebrated globally. Money is made off those children.

-Legitimate children of the Prince of Wales/the King of England have access to taxpayer dollars. Just adding 2-3 kids onto that payroll? Haha. Have fun with that.

-Past English kings have acknowledged their illegitimate children. William would not in fact have anywhere near absolute power. Kings who have had close to absolute power? Still haven't been able to get this done lmao. Henry VIII actually had (or was rumored to have) discussions about his acknowledged illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy being legitimized, which would place him in the line of succession over Henry's legal wife's daughter. He didn't even try to get it done... for many reasons. It's not easy, and Henry VIII was actually a lot closer to being able to do whatever he wanted to any king today.

So, the idea of him legitimizing kids born prior to his marriage is very far-fetched if not borderline impossible, and if he did, the kids would not automatically leapfrog over Kate's children, potentially not only supplanting them of their inheritance of the crown, but their inheritance of different monetary/land-related inheritances that they would typically be entitled to or expected to be given by their father.

Like. People need to be REAL FR.

[greenerteacups]

What do you think of Tonks and Remus? Wrong answers only 😒. No really, I mean he was older than her and he didn’t seem to love her half as much as she loved him. What are your theories, canon-fitted and otherwise, on their relationship? Do you think he used her?

Oh, they're beards! Next question.

I appreciate the prompt, because you've handed me a shiny free pass to go on a rant I've been holding in since reading Half-Blood Prince. Taking my preferences aside, I don't think he used Tonks, although I think the age gap ads a really unnecessary layer of skeeze to their relationship. To be clear: I like Remus with Sirius, but I don't need them to end up together to be happy. I just don't see why it's Tonks. We don't see their natural chemistry; there's no scenes of banter, I don't know what she likes about him or vice versa. I do know that she's desperately in love with him after Order of the Phoenix, and he... isn't, honestly. Or at least, he doesn't act like he's in love with her. I'm not saying this just to shit on Remus and Tonks; I'm saying this because if I did ship Remus and Tonks, I would be mad as hell at how hard I got short shifted in Book 6! I would not have been fed! That is not a romance arc! Which makes me think, you know, okay, then why are we here? Why is it this woman, i Ask Thee, Remus Lupin, whom you have decided to marry, even though you frankly have more chemistry with Severus Snape? Or, to reframe from an authorial perspective: the HP world is wide open, someone from childhood could walk back into his life, or someone from another school, or you can introduce another Marauders-Era character, or you can just come up with someone from whole cloth — why is it Tonks?

But then I thought: Tonks is intriguingly similar to Sirius in several ways. She's a disgraced Black, she's charming and charismatic, she's a skilled fighter, she's a jokester, she's generally kind and doesn't take herself seriously, she's a shapeshifter. There's a line in OOTP that says she never made prefect because she didn't have "the temperament," which suggests she might've been a troublemaker (not hard to believe). As someone who ships him with Sirius, and believes that their relationship is at least a little bit coded romantic, that all reads like Something to me. But even for strictly canonical purposes, those similarities are still hard to ignore, especially since Tonks begins pursuing Remus in the same year as Sirius dies. So it's a handful of months after he watches his last childhood friend get murdered that Remus is deflecting her advances, meanwhile he's in the middle of fighting a war, meanwhile everyone in his life is pushing them to get together Because Love or whatever the fuck, @ Molly, @ McGonagall for some reason, and it's not hard to imagine that he just... gives in.

He's lonely, he's scared, and here's this person who reminds him of his friend and is willing to freely give him affection and care, and like... to be real? I don't think Remus believes he's going to live that long past Sirius's death, anyway. He's talking about giving Tonks children, but that's stuff he says to her when he's trying to deter her from pursuing him; when he talks about himself, he uses a lot of words like "damaged" and "broken" and "[not] whole." Added to the fact that the First and Second Wars are both very bloody and he's an active fighter in several notable battles; added to the fact that if he's caught, his lycanthropy means he's a target for killing, since taking a werewolf prisoner is the kind of smart move that begs to lose wars; added to the fact that he's been undercover with werewolves for part of this year, which, though we don't hear about it outright, is obviously a move to isolate himself from his friends and cannot do good things for his mental health; all these things point to him being in a Very Dark Place during HBP, and puts him in a headspace where he might marry Tonks essentially to make her happy, because he can always console himself that she'll end up a widow and be free to go live her life after the war.

Is that using her? Yeah, I guess, in that he's entering the relationship on slightly less sincere terms than she is, and I think what he's getting out of it is much more basic and unsentimental than what she's getting; but in his defense, Tonks has sort of marshaled the Order of the Phoenix behind her on this, and we also don't see that she altogether... cares if he's in it for her? He rejects her like, twice at minimum, and she keeps pushing, which is— like, girl, do you honestly want to be in a relationship with someone who's rejected you twice? Who you had to badger into giving you the time of day? Why? We don't know; she just wants him. Which, again, is a very 23-year-old thing to do: it's object-oriented, it's not based in compatibility or long-term happiness or even mutual affection. She's acting like someone who hasn't been in a relationship before. Which, by the way, she might not have been! She's 23!!

Whether or not the Age Gap implies mistreatment, I don't really think it does; I mean, it is a Not Great Situation, and if I were Tonks's friend I would be yelling at her very loudly about why she should wait to date someone that much older than her, but Tonks is an adult. The fact that Remus was already at Hogwarts when she was born carries a certain squick factor (YMMV) but ultimately it's not accompanied by evidence of mistreatment or manipulation on his part. This is helped by the fact that we never (ever! at all!) see Remus pursue or flirt with Tonks, or give her any encouragement, which means their relationship feels DOA for a lot of readers, but also means that the element of older-man-seduces-younger-woman is nowhere in their relationship.

(That being said, while I've been trying to humanize/rationalize Remus's decision, he's still responsible for it. He's a grown ass man, and whom he dates is his choice. It doesn't matter if Molly Weasley's being annoying about it. You're 35. Act like a grownup. Don't date 23-year-olds.)

Tonks is a much less thorny case, because she's younger, and the books are more sympathetic to her. Plus, I mean, seriously: if you're a freshly-minted college-age guerrilla soldier in a horribly traumatizing war, probably haven't been on a date in a while, you've Been Busy, and this hot 30-something war veteran comes around a lot and laughs at your jokes, then — yeah! Girl, I get it! I'm on board with Tonks having a crush on Remus because it could have been a springboard for all sorts of ruminating about age, and power, and "want you" vs. "want to be you," and the social allure of older men, with all the potential for manipulation that opens up. None of that was explored, but that's a problem of execution, not concept.

In conclusion, I like Tonks a lot, and I think she's a pretty realistic rendition of a young woman in her early twenties who, like all young twenty-somethings, is exercising her inalienable right to make stupid-ass decisions and fuck up her love life. I will defend her for that seven days a week. I will not, however, defend the authorial choice to make everyone in her life complicit in that bad decision.

[thelioncourts]

Saw this tweet: https://x.com/vampyreslvt/status/1773072361404666254?s=46&t=ScaegDPoDx52WvOgAyhYNA

Assuming that Loumand do eventually break up, do you think they even know how to live without each other?? 🥺🥺 almost 8 decades!!!! I need the show to explore this if they go there!

the tweet for context [x] loumand, my darlings ❤️❤️❤️ prefacing this with the usual: these are just educated guesses based on knowledge from the books, tv shows, and all sorts of possibilities that could happen as we begin to enter uncharted territory in the next season(s); they're also my opinion so :) if you don't like it, move on with your own I think this in itself is something that can be greatly explored in so many capacities in upcoming season(s) as ways to explore both louis and armand as individual characters and as this unit that I think they inevitably need to be to some extent!

I've said it a couple of times since the RJ trailer dropped, but the show is officially, in so many regards, putting us all in a very similar boat, and by 'us all' I mean book fans and show fans. books fans have had this slight advantage of knowing the storyline of iwtv going into seasons 1 and 2, so even with the changes of the timeline and the expansion of louis' human life, etc. the basis has stayed the same in that it is louis telling daniel the story of becoming a vampire, falling in love, creating claudia, killing lestat, going to paris, and being there to witness and be destroyed by claudia's death. now, there have been since the beginning of s1 things that book fans can't have known as it's not in the book (i.e. most of lestat and louis' love story, everything in dubai, the changes characters from the azalea brought into play, the changes made to the plan to kill lestat, antoinette, etc.) but s2, from the looks of it atm (who knows what this will look like when the season actually airs, I'm very aware this could change) is...drastically changing so much of the story, making things deviate from the books. we see the lestat hallucinations seem to be running rampant, we see claudia on the stage and fully immersed as a coven member, we see a seemingly more longstanding relationship between madeleine and the others, we see this longer courtship between louis and armand, we see this passion and tenderness in louis and armand, we see armand being part of the san fransisco interview, we see current dubai and louis and armand still being together, and I could go on and on....

basically, we are entering uncharted territory and s3 will put us into even more uncharted territory if we are keeping characters like louis, armand, and daniel as main characters as lestat gets to tell his version of the events (and I have a lot of thoughts on the show not doing the above, not continuing with louis, armand, and daniel, and none of those thoughts are good or complimentary and I don't think the show would go there so I'm not going to get into it) the show cannot do tvl as just tvl, just as they haven't and couldn't have done iwtv as just the exact iwtv. and part of that is, if they do, louis and armand will hardly exist within the narrative whatsoever and daniel will be completely irrelevant. so where does that leave us? louis needs a storyline. armand needs a storyline. daniel needs a storyline. and those three are so intertwined. we know louis and armand are going to breakup, probably -- most likely -- this season, given what we do know of the books. however!! I truly do think it would be a disservice to both of them to not explore them trying to live without each other and, frankly, finding it impossible in some capacity. as the tweet above says, louis has spent over half of his life with armand, and armand, for all his years, has spent a significant amount of his long life with louis. and with what we know about armand's past, this is his longest lasting relationship ever as well. the trailer has already had some moments, lines of 'we've been together for 77 years, daniel' and things about them finishing each other's sentences. we know from s1 their relationship is complex; armand's continued watch over louis, the things he says about this being louis' suicide, his determination to protect louis' mind and stress, the things he says in the finale about louis, things he says about 'you've only heard half the story you'll be ashamed when you hear the rest of what you say,' louis introducing armand with this determined 'he's the love of my life,' and I could go on. to just suddenly have them galivanting around without one another and without thinking of the other would be.........shameful............especially because louis and armand's relationship in the books isn't ever quite diminished. sure, louis becomes cold in the years following claudia's death and he and armand are merely companions out of apathy on louis' end, desperation and longing on armand's, but eventually louis softens to armand again, and they have this companionship that is still very much full of love. I was rereading through part of QotD and after the big final event with akasha, when everyone is coming to, armand is holding louis. and armand is always looking out for louis, even if it's sending lestat or helping lestat out in terms of something louis needs, because he wants louis (and lestat, kind of, sometimes, sort of, it's complicated) to be happy, he does. after the events of merrick, louis goes back to armand and they live at trinity gate for 15 (???) years together again, lovers, companions, friends, all the sorts, and when louis goes back to lestat, armand is conflicted, and when louis is taken by roshmandes, armand is livid, absolutely livid, angry at lestat for letting louis down, for not watching him more carefully, etc. that love never quite dies out, something I think we would have more concretely had anne written armand and louis as fully fleshed out characters instead of lestat pov followed by 300 random past vampires that are impossible to keep track of half the time. basically, the books have set up for loumand to be a continuation of sorts, to -- at the very least -- have an unbreakable companionship and to not explore that in the show would be a travesty given all that is set up.

luckily for us, this writing team has proven to be beautifully talented so far, and have turned several things on its head and elaborated on others, and I am hopeful that they will use the talent of jacob and assad to their advantages, will use the beautiful relationship already on our screens to their advantage, will not waste potential of any of this, and that we will see how louis and armand move on from each other and how -- at the end of the day -- they never really do, even if they do.

[aprillikesthings]

I lead part of EfM thing today (see earlier posts) and it went well ahhhhh thank God

and I've made my lunches for the next week!

and I'm munching on a salad

and all day I was looking forward to this, the moment I can (re)watch MORE SHE-RA

I've barely worked on my longer fic this weekend (other than copy/pasting a bunch of things Nate said after the show ended into the notes section of the doc) and tbh rewatching the ACTUAL SHOW is hella distracting bc with twenty eps left we're going to start getting into more of the really high-stakes stuff

Also, true story: I originally watched, like, the second half of season 4 and all of season 5 in two days of marathoning with Daci. So quite frankly? The last, like, third of the show is just kind of a blur to me now.

SO LET'S GO

s4 ep7 Mer-Mysteries

A mission in Dryl went badly, they've figured out someone's telling the Horde what they're doing, they're not tracking Adora because she wasn't even there--

YES

plz enjoy Sea Hawk's faces

Bow's sudden nervousness reminds me of when I was in line at the TSA in Dulles airport and was weirdly nervous. I had no reason to be nervous. AND YET. I'm usually totally fine at TSA? But the people at Dulles were scary!!!

(I was way less nervous coming back from Iceland, despite knowing I had Kinder Surprise Eggs in my suitcase. Which are actually illegal to bring into the USA. You can buy "Kinder Joy Eggs" in the USA, which do not have the toy, but the ones with the toys are against the law! Anyway I bought them for Daci. I was only nervous for a split second at customs in the USA bc they asked me what I'd brought home from Iceland and I was like...wool yarn. books. sweets (I'd also bought licorice and chocolate). But he just waved me through. WHEW.)

she's still big mad about this lolol

BUT she's right a spy IS the only thing that makes sense (but also the audience knows shit they don't)

Pearl?? A Pearl who knows too much?????

c'mon I had to

lolol they lampshaded the way lightning keeps striking when Mermista says something

to be fair she IS the most recent addition and the one they know the least

oh hey I also write everything in purple (or lavender) ink

lol

oh, shut up

well not this episode, specifically

LOLLLLL

honestly this is a lot like the DnD episode

so on the one hand, I know Flutterina is doing this to make them fight, but on the other hand Glimmer is right; on the other OTHER hand, I also would prefer a warning before being forced to see my abusive parent having free range of the castle I live in

BAHAHAHA I read Nate saying these two were interrupted on a date night, but also plz notice the colors of the flowers, it's literally most of the lesbian pride flag, they were SO unsubtle

The Ken from Plumeria is talking to the pastry chef from Dryl with the super cute outfit, and she looks bashful for a second after this screenshot; I am now shipping this and no one can stop me

speaking of ships (yes I know this isn't meant to be shippy lol)

a youtube video titled "it's raining on your window and you live in Bright Moon Castle ASMR for sleep 4 hours"

(....I'd listen to that)

(On a related note, mynoise dot net has a bunch of rain sounds on the website, and it also has an app--it's seriously the BEST website/app for ambient sounds because they're so adjustable and never repeat, and I just want everyone to know about them. The rain and ocean sounds are great on earbuds to cover up snoring so you can sleep!!! Worked better than my fancy earplugs while I was on the Camino and sleeping in all those hostels)

And back to the cartoon, where there's obviously suspicious shit happening because people seem to be in two places at once and their communications thing got shattered

oh so her name IS just The General

Flutterina (aka Double Trouble) has got to be like "oh my god wtf is up with this dude I cannot handle this bullshit"

Once again Glimmer proves that her and Catra are actually very, very alike

BUSTED

OOHHHHH they set up a trap I forgot, this is amazing

Adora: "we created a diversion :)" Glimmer: "You were a really good actress. For once."

pfft

Anyway Double Trouble is confessing the whole plan

:(

poor Mermista :(

there's a creepy-ass moment of seeing part of Horde Prime's face as he smiles, roll credits

[erintoknow]

decided to just go ahead with going into draft 3 even though i never properly finished draft 2 - there's enough structural issues that warrant fixing that i might as well given i had such an extended time away from working on it

so now i'm taking the opportunity to re-examine the cast of characters and thinking about how core/essential each one is

who've we got that are like, 'important' here?

ari, rivka, chelsea, aiden, moiré, there's also isa + the 'girl gang' in general i'll count as one character for our purposes here - they're important to the narrative but not really like 'major characters' they're support cast, at least in this novel

and then there's also crow, val, zoe, sean, glen - zoe, sean, and glen are important but they aren't major characters in the sense of having like, major character arcs, they're secondary, zoe has a small arc i guess but generally they're supporting characters for crow and val

so on that note, what are the character arcs here? what do they want?

ari wants a life free of the pressures and manipulation she grew up with and the chance to figure out who she is for herself - she is desperate for validation and utterly unprepared to live on her own after rivka's frankly wild approach to child-rearing

crow doesn't know what he wants, the life he thought he was going to have is gone and he latched onto the first thing to offer a new direction and is increasingly regretting that decision - this includes his relationship with val, where he's spent so long masking his asexuality he doesn't know how to be honest about it

rivka as the major antagonist has the most grandiose designs of the lot, as she wants a radical transformation of society and doesn't care who she steps on or what lines she crosses to get it - at least that's what she tells herself even while going out of her way to get ari back even if doing so will set her back in achieving her actual goals

those three are our major characters, the plot drivers, two of which are our primary PoVs and at least in the current planned set up, rivka still gets multiple interstitial moments from her pov

the other characters are a little more simple

chelsea – not proud of her past and is seeking a fresh start and to turn over a new leaf - ari kind of stumbles upon chelsea's latent 'mom' drive and that's about the extent of what's relevant to this novel, she's got more going on but that's for a future story to get into

val wants two things: to use her abilities to help people, and to keep and maintain her relationship with crow - the government isn't making the first one easy, and crow themself is proving an obstacle for the second

the rest of the CTF crew - zoe, sean, and glen… they have wants and goals and all but they aren't really story relevant except for glen and glen... i think i'd be better served just cutting him. fold his narrative importance back into val since there wasn't much to him anyway aside from there being a story hole that needed a character to fill it and val can do that job just fine. making the whole 'superhero' conceit val's baby instead fits with her character and helps accentuate the relationship/tension with crow

moiré and aiden... they're narratively important but not especially deep. moiré is just in it for the money, playing multiple sides, only loyal to themself. and aiden... draft 2 had aiden spiral out in some weird directions, i kind of want to try and curb that back a bit. tamp him back down to minor character status, let his weirdness go on in the background like the ctf crew's is

[sparkssys]

Hey there. Thought I'd offer my perspective on this.

But first some background. I (Layla) am a 19 year old transgender woman from a decrepit town in Argentina. I was raised by a religious mother, if I can even call her one. She's still very religious to this day. and i fucking hate that. worshipping that genocidal maniac. but im getting off track.

When I was 16 I was misguidedly instructed to create a headmate with some spiritual videos on YouTube. It went so horribly wrong, I think they're still hurting to this day deep down in my brain. It's haunting. And the comments on those videos, they were so overwhelmingly full of sweetness and love beyond measure, to the point it was fucking uncanny.

Because of that and some other experiences, I have a sort of intrinsic disdain towards any sort of centralized religion. If I see a religion that has hierarchies or leaders then I do my best to bitch about it before noping the fuck out of there. I'm more neutral towards personal beliefs, though, as long as they're not used against other people or pushed into ignorant bystanders.

But all this shit left me questioning where I should draw the line between what's real and what's not. Sure, science can't explain everything, and it's not right to fill gaps in knowledge with supernatural explanations. But this inevitably leaves us with a predicament of coexisting with things we do not understand from a logical perspective. They are things that happen and are, for some reason.

Plurality falls in like. A weird gray area in this topic. There is far more diversity of identities within plural spaces than I've seen anywhere else. And quite frankly? I think I notice a pattern.

Plurality itself is a somewhat researched psychological phenomenon. It's not fully understood outside of a clinical or medical setting, but it's a thing that happens. Most of what goes on in spaces I frequent and in the lives of some of my friends doesn't have any sort of grounding in science.

By any and all accounts, it's wrong and hurtful to deny someone's existance. But the topic of origins in systems is so widely debated I'm fucking done with it, honestly. I've got to a point in my life where so many aspects of "myself" are hard to explain, where I got so tired of trying to find words to justify my existance- ugh.

Im just done with all that shit so I just mind my own business and let others live however it's right for them. I may not understand it, I may not agree with it sometimes. I may want to know more and know better but I can't even know myself so, what does that leave me with? A miserable life of seeking answers for myself within the journeys of others? ..Hard pass.

I do what I can do best. What's probably the only thing left for me to choose. I do my best to make others feel safe. I do my best to make others feel protected. Sometimes my best is good. Sometimes my best isn't enough. Sometimes I get tired of that, too, and I fuck up in ways I end up regretting. But deep down, all I want is to be better. To let others exist in peace while preserving my own safety, of course.

And if that means believing someone who claims things I don't understand, what's the big deal?

...

OP, if you got yourself figured out. If you genuinely think all there is to yourself can be understood and described, if you genuinely think all there is to understand can be understood.

You might be right. You might be wrong.

But either way, there are things we don't know and don't understand right now.

Things that happen in the heads of these people that only they have experienced. Things that happen that are so hard to rationalize, to the point some may give up, some may find answers in things that are familiar to them, some may find answers randomly and some may never fully understand themselves even if they do their best.

I can see past the veil of my own disdain and resentment. Past my own experiences and my thirst for knowledge.

Can you?

I might say something that might be potentially explosively controversial but

we really don't like the spirituality part of plurality. we don't like it how especially some endos have made it that spirituality is entwined with plurality.

Plurality is a psychological phenomenon. Endogenic and Traumagenic are two sides of the coin. But as an atheist, it kind of hurts to see people weave this association we used to have with it that's been used against us to abuse us. Religion is a tool of control. It keeps people in the dark. It explains things that are perfectly explainable things otherwise, making them fantastical.

Now this isnt to say that culture cannot influence it. On the contrary, it often DOES influence plurality and systems at large. And I'm certainly am not going to deny these people their plural existence just because they're religious or spiritual. But as it is, we cannot believe that a "super natural explanation" is one that's true. If you just want to be plural, fine. Have it. But don't expect us to believe that.

There is still so much research needed for plurality as a whole. And we do wish to further understand TOSD and other scientific methods for plurality.

We feel particularly sick to our stomach about linking spirituality with plurality. But that's in the perspective of a white american body raised around Christians, having a "rebellious age" in the host's teenager years of ""wicca"" and ""witchcraft"" and other delusional (ACTUALLY DELUSIONAL) beliefs that teenagers are NOT supposed to be groomed into. We've seen takes from other people's perspectives and noticed that the greyness between spiritual beliefs and science is a way heavier gradient than in the west. So there just may be a catch here we're not getting.

- 🎶, 🔥 & 🐑