#i thought he'd be outshined by the others lol

[harmonysanreads]

I been head over heels for Sunday since I first encountered him in the story...

Just want to let you know that I think your take on Sunday is FANTASTIQUE, IMMACULATE AND IMPECCABLE JUST LIKE HIM

Been lurking but I do not want to be a silent reader pfttt

Speaking of mbti I'm so glad he wouldn't go for prideful infp without filters past stranger politeness :) I do not want to deal with him going biblical accurate angel on me NO THANKS

Hiii! I'm glad you're enjoying yourself<33

It's kind of a bummer as the only thing I can offer (due to a lack of free time) about the Penacony crew are hcs at the moment, I'd love to write detailed fics about them :(

I've come to really enjoy doing these before-we-know-everything-about-character-era studies with my anons and others. There's nothing like making a guess about a character and seeing that it was indeed true!

If you have any thoughts on Sunday as well, you're more than welcome to share with us :>

[another-lost-mc]

Bathin!!

Mephisto’s brother has been mentioned so little in the games but I already desperately want to buy him ice cream. He seems like such a sweet kid (at least from Mephisto’s totally accurate and unbiased perspective) and their sibling dynamic is the cutest thing. I can’t wait for your OC to outshine the real thing though lmao

Bathin is in the Ars Goetia, if I remember correctly. Does that mean he’ll be making a pact with Solomon in the future? Or maybe they already have one! Meffy’s going to freak 😭

BATHIN! I needed to give his little brother a name. I have so many Mephisto story ideas where he's mentioned/involved in some way because I love imagining their sibling dynamic.

As for the Ars Goetia thing, yeah. Honestly, picking names for my OCs are the worst part. (That's why I have two placeholder names on my OC Masterlist LOL.)

I picked his name mostly because I liked it, but I have two ideas to explain the whole "pact with Solomon" thing:

1 — Solomon and Bathin have a pact. I don't think modern!Solomon would make a pact with a literal child demon, but I think old King Solomon would. He'd probably assume the demon's child-like appearance was a disguise or ruse. (If he knew it was a child, I don't think he'd care.) It's a case where the pact is long established but in current times, Solomon wouldn't really call on him when he literally has dozens of other options first.

2 — Solomon used to have a pact with Bathin, but not this Bathin. Thanks to some half-baked worldbuilding and making up demon lore, my thought is the ancient demon Bathin was exorcised which broke the pact he would've had with Solomon. Mephisto's brother was given his namesake under the expectation that he would eventually take that empty space in the Ars Goetia once he matured.

Option 1 is kind of funny but the easier explanation. Option 2 ties in better with some of the traits I gave Bathin when I started developing his character.

[melonlthawne]

Oooh, how would meloni raising Thad change things? Bc I’d imagine it’d change a lot lol

HI. sorry this took a bit. im notoriously terrible at answering asks or like anything at a practical pace so i had to get my brain into the mood to answer. but thanks for sending i really appreciate it!

so yes the short answer is that A LOT changes. i think the main aspect here is that thad is actually raised as a wanted, loved child with his own thoughts and feelings that matter versus president's thawnes upbringing of him only being useful when he can be used as a tool to terminate bart or hurt the flashfam. though meloni definitely wasn't expecting another child in this au, she welcomes thad in with open arms knowing that if he's raised by eobard, thad won't be loved and she would never want that if she could help it. so the best option she has is to take him home and raise him herself.

she's not the best parent ever. no one is. but if there's one thing meloni can ensure she does is make sure thad knows hes loved and appreciated no matter what his origin is. when thad is older she probably explains the complex situation to him so that he doesn't have to find out in some other way that could be traumatic.

assuming things go to plan, mel would encourage thad in any way she could much like how she does with bart canonically in the very little time they have together. in this au/verse, bart's rapid aging either doesn't exist or is solved when hes still a baby which makes things a bit more normal though i imagine raising any speedster child can be a nightmare at times.

i'm sure some traits that thad has typically still show up, like him being very dedicated to whatever his tasks/responsibilities are, maybe being a little unintentionally rude or blunt, and he and bart would probably still bicker and fight a lot but not physically or to an extreme degree. just like typical sibling junk. but because from the moment they got him thad isn't "trained" to be evil or whatever he probably just ends up in a sort of chaotic good position or maybe even chaotic neutral but NOT evil. he still has the potential to be bad just like we all do but it would only end that way if he has some other influence outside of mel bart & don that is frequent and persistant enough to outshine mel's well intentioned upbringing.

he'd probably still end up as a hero. idk if he'd still be inertia maybe cause its just a cool ass name but maybe with a different suit that isn't inverted-color impulse since he has his own life now and has different interests and thoughts outside of his genetical coding being identical to bart. he's allowed to become his own person no matter what his dna says. he's not constrained to JUST be the better or inferior bart/bart-clone. and meloni and don would make sure thad always knows he is his own person and he's not just an extension of bart. they may be brothers but they are not the same person.

i could probably ramble even more on this and i will probably. i have that fic i plan on touching after like a year and a half of nothing. i have a surgery coming up and a buttload of time to recover so i might get some writing done soon. if you're interested in this stuff, keep an eye out! plan to get more art and writing in this verse asap : )

[sunflowercider]

What if Lloyd gets to stay in the Frontera fiefdom and a few years passed already until suddenly a new wave of monsters or war are happening at the far side of the kingdom and Alicia is calling all knights and soldiers would you think Javier would participate here and leave?

OHHH so many juicy thought experiments today!!

Now keep in mind that I havent gotten to the end of the novel (just read ch 370/408 today in fact), so there may be future events that may change my mind BUT WITH THAT CAVEAT OUT OF THE WAY-

Honestly? If Queen Alicia is at the point of calling up Javier for reinforcement, it must be pretty damn bad. Strategically, Javier is the equivalent of a nuclear fucking bomb.

Swordmasters were so important that the mere presence of one deterred invasions from other nations, and the presence of several even outshines the strength of a regional military.

Javier isn't a swordmaster. He's a grandmaster. If you want to use your nuke, you need to take it away from elsewhere. So the border of the Sultan kingdom would be potentially open to attacks with the biggest threat moved away. It may behoove the Queen to leave Javier behind as a giant defensive wall to cover her back as she attacks the front lines with literally everything else.

Buuuuuuut. If she thought she needed Javier... he does have a fast ride to finish things quickly - Draggy. A grandmaster and a bone dragon arriving at bullet speed would be quite the blow to any amount of monsters. And goodness, Lloyd can't just let Javier take Draggy out without him, he'd better join on the strategy side too (lol).

If the question was about Javier's loyalty, we already know that Javier will disobey the Queen to stay with the Frontera's. The struggle of the people on the other side of the kingdom may pain him, but... Javier may be an excellent and noble knight, but he's loyal to one family only, and that family is not where the peril is.

(Maybe he'd try to convince Lloyd to have the Frontera's join the cause? But he wouldn't leave without either Arcos or Lloyd telling him to, no matter what the Queen demands.)

If you're looking for juicy drama due to Javier being called away, you may want to set your scene before he becomes a grandmaster and Draggy joining. For that delicious angst about power level differences ;3c Javier has already rebuffed the Queen nearly the moment we meet her, but if the County doesn't have enough of a reputation in the story yet, the Frontera's might not have a choice but give up Javier in an emergency.

[alovelyburn]

Not gunna lie I'd absolutely //love// to hear even unfinished thoughts about that sequel idea you mentioned? ☕👀

And soon I'll be rereading everything again, cause time has passed enough for me to forget the wording and storylines for Maximum Effect lol

So, sorry if you get comments that sound exactly like ones I might've left before 😅

I hadn't thought that deeply into it since I didn't really mean to do it. But it kind of starts from the central question of how does Griffith go about seeking his kingdom in a world where he doesn't have Charlotte's claim to legitimize his rule. And...

Okay full honesty here, one of the main reasons I would be reluctant to do a sequel (aside from generally not doing them) is because I write NeoGriffith (Neo specifically) a certain way and I don't necessarily know that anyone wants to read that, lmao. Because he's not a black hat sadist the way Griffith haters would want to see him, but he can be Machiavellian, cold, ruthless and cruel in ways human Griffith wouldn't be. This doesn't come out as much in my normal stuff with NeoGriffith because they're usually from Guts' POV or they're all about the romance - I don't need to get into the chess game he's playing with the world because I'm just writing about him pining for Guts so it's not relevant.

So basically, the main thing he would need to do if he doesn't have Charlotte to legitimize his claim is find a way to remove her from the field. This doesn't necessarily mean having her killed - I don't really see Griffith (any Griffith) as someone who kills people just because it's easier than doing something else, so if there's another path then I'm sure he'd take it. But given that she's the rightful ruler of Midland anything he does is sure to be a major downgrade in her life's prospects even if she's alive.

And of course the other side would be him arranging to place himself in the position of "most desirable start for a new dynasty." Charlotte is the last of her line, and Midland doesn't necessarily exist anymore, so it makes sense to choose a new leader. That's the easier part - saving them from Ganishka would do it on its own, nevermind all the savior shenanigans and summoning souls and such.

The other thing is, the original Hawks are still out there - the ones who aren't dead anyway. They don't have any reason not to rally around Griffith - just like Rickert on the Hill of Swords was ready to do. And of course I'd need to explain what happened with Casca (whether or not she's dead).

So that's the main thoughts on the general PLOT, politics, war and the awkward mix of the old Hawks and new Hawks.

As for the other thing, you know, that thing -- When Night Comes Down was a straight up romance (at least as close as I ever get, being me), and I suppose the will they/won't they is covered at this point. But there's always interesting things to look at - immediately there's the question of how Guts, who even as an Apostle has a kind of insecure core - handles being next to the man who outshines the sun. Not to mention, Griffith is the destined master of all Apostles which is worth addressing if only before it makes for a seriously weird power dynamic.

Etc etc... just some rather raw unformed thoughts.

You know, it's interesting to me - I feel like a lot of the people who normally read my extremely rare writing were not enthused by When Night Comes Down, but at the same time I got some of the most effusive praise I have ever received from other people and that's kinda fascinating. CURIOUS.

[melodygatesauthor]

Woah! Thought that haunts my brain be upon ye! (you don't need to do anything I just need to expel it from my brain somehow so just let me-)

Imagine going on a double date with either of the moon boys (I always imagine Jake for this, you'll see why), and the other couple is a co-worker/'friends' who in all honestly you don't really like for whatever reason.

But you wanted to be nice and take the offer to go in the date with them and their partner. Jake already can sense that you sort of don't want to go because the 'friend' is a bit stuck up and weirdly makes being in a relationship a competition or something. Jake offers to make up a lie to get out of it but THEN... he gets an idea.

So you guys end up going and the whole time, Jake is pampering you and doing all the gentlemanly stuff (that he already does because he likes to make you feel special) to sort of show off to the bitchy friend that always acts like they have the better relationship. I'm talking he opens the door for you, pulls out your chair for you, walks along side you, all that and maybe some more.

And it's literally just you guys trying to mess with the other couple for being snooty or whatever.

(Sorry for just springing this in your inbox but I just needed to get it out somehow because I have no other means of getting it out lol, ignore if you want)

Nonnieeeeeeee

Thank you for sharing this with me. Thank you for choosing me to share such a sweet idea with.

I think Jake would outshine them in any relationship, and he'd look great while doing it. I also think he'd show me a good time when it was done hehe <3

Thank you again, love this so much.