#i would follow you to the ends of the universe. and technically i have. multiple times.

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

they're best friends. they love each other more than anything in the world. they would literally die to keep the other one safe. they're the only solid foundation the other one has. they tell each other secrets they would never tell a soul. they cry into the crook of each other's shoulders, when no one else has even seen them cry before. they see tiny, inconsequential things and think about each other. they can tell each other's moods with nothing more than a passing glance. they would find each other in every universe. they aren't fucking though. and there's nothing romantic between them.

[asilentguardian]

Okay but I’d love to see your take on stepdad Hal attempt at parenting and trying not to overstep if you’re up for it

Thank you very much for the prompt! I love fics where Hal is slowly integrating into the batfam.

Please enjoy Hal's attempt at giving Tim advice, just in time for Hal's birthday!

-----

It’s a rare night. Bruce and Hal in the same bed, relatively early. Early meaning 11pm, but for them it’s a miracle. Hal thought that somehow being married would mean their schedules would magically align, that the universe would start seeing them as one person, one unit. But between Batman and the Green Lantern corps and their jobs and Bruce’s kids, there really isn’t time for them alone. Plenty of time to save the world together, to put out fires both literal and metaphorical, but little time for this. Laying together, falling asleep together.

Bruce has already slipped under, arm firmly around Hal’s waist. Hal would love to follow him, to curl against that heat, but Hal’s insomnia has joined them, too, and he can already tell it’s going to be a rough one. It hits him out of nowhere, sometimes, this restlessness. Bruce is still in the early stages, liable to rocket out of sleep if Hal tosses and turns too much. Good sleep is so rare for Bruce these days, so Hal begins the slow process of extracting himself from the bed and Bruce’s grip, only cheating a little bit with the ring to climb over him.

Nights like these used to find him fleeing the manor to the apartment he had refused to give up. But Bruce would inevitably come hunting him down, because he could never let anything go, and Hal would end up putting on a show of resisting, and they’d end up back in bed anyways. The apartment was another battle, one that Hal also ended up conceding. It still felt strange to have a permanent residence in Gotham, of all places.

Now, these nights have him wandering around the manor, exploring the library or one of the multiple sitting rooms or the kitchens until he inevitably runs into one of many nocturnal members of Bruce’s family. His family, really. Another argument they’ve run into, one that Hal isn’t quite ready to concede. He’s never seen himself with kids, doesn’t really think he’s cut out for that. He’s not a natural, not like Bruce.

The glow from the kitchen at the end of the hall tells Hal that he isn’t the only one awake, as usual. Hal makes his footsteps heavier, not willing to repeat the mistake of accidentally sneaking up on a bat. It’s Tim sitting at the counter tonight, another familiar sight.

“Hey kid,” Hal greets as he walks to the fridge. Tim grunts in acknowledgement, face still buried in his phone. It’s funny, the different ways Bruce is reflected in his children. Hal is certain he’s heard the same exact noise come out of Bruce when his attention is turned toward a case. Not that Hal would say so outloud. They all tend to get prickly, when he compares them to Bruce. All of them except Damian, who is still young enough to worship his father. 

Hal is still smiling to himself when he turns back to Tim, snack in hand. He scans his eyes over Tim, making sure his sleeplessness isn’t self-imposed, as it too often is. Another trait, courtesy of Bruce. Hal’s smile quickly drops when he notices that Tim isn’t actually absorbed with his phone, just kind of staring at the black screen, mind clearly somewhere else. There’s no dark circles under his eyes, but they are red and puffy. It’s clear he’s been crying.

“Hey, you okay Tim?” Hal asks. Tim blinks and looks up at him before quickly looking away again, trying to hide his face.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he responds, voice devoid of emotion. Tim is still a teenager, technically, and Hal knows that they don’t take well to prying. Tim especially keeps most things close to his chest, doesn't share much with anyone, Hal thinks. Bruce is only able to keep track of his life through border-line unhealthy amounts of surveillance. Tim seems to be aware of this and allows it, so Hal figures it’s fine. But he’s never seen Tim cry, not enough to leave him looking like this. Bruce would probably go apeshit, if someone had hurt Tim, so Hal tries again.

“You sure? Because you can talk to me about anything, if you need to,” Hal says, and immediately cringes. He sounds like his high-school guidance counselor. “I mean, I know I’m just that guy your dad married, but I’m still happy to help you with anything.”

Even worse now, Hal sounds like his own step-dad, and what a horrific thought that is. Tim doesn’t take the opportunity to poke fun at his fumbling attempts to be cool, just continues to stare at his phone. He glances up at Hal, then back down at his phone, tapping it against the counter. Hal doesn’t move, sensing that Tim is either going to actually open up to him or deflect again, and he wants to give him the space to think.

“It’s not that big of a deal, really,” Tim hedges.

“C’mon, hit me with it then,” Hal encourages. Tim glances at him again, and his shoulders sag in defeat.

“Bernard and I got into a fight,” Tim mutters. Hal is secretly grateful that it seems to be a teenager-shaped problem, and not a vigilante-shaped problem, though maybe he would be a better help with the latter. His few teenage relationships were pretty disastrous. He takes a moment to wrack his brain. He had heard from Bruce that Tim was dating a civilian, a boy, and assumes that this Bernard guy is said boyfriend.

“First one?” Hal guesses. Tim shrugs.

“Not really. But this one was just,” he pauses, trying to find the words.

“Worse?” Hal offers, and Tim nods, finally making eye contact with him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that mad before,” Tim says. Hal winces in sympathy. He remembers the first time he had seen Bruce really, truly, mad at him. It hadn’t been a fun night.

“What was the fight about?” Hal ventures, still unsure of how far he should push. Tim is a Wayne, and he’ll have no problem telling Hal when to fuck off, but he’d like to not piss off Bruce’s kids.

Tim huffs and looks away, guilty.

“Vigilante stuff,” he says vaguely. Hal raises his eyebrows. He wonders if Bruce knows that Tim’s civilian boyfriend knows his identity.

“He mad you didn’t tell him sooner?” Hal asks. Tim shakes his head, brows furrowing.

“No, he figured it out a long time ago, he’s just. He’s overprotective, I guess,” Tim says. He freezes after a moment and looks at Hal, frantic.

“Don’t tell Bruce I said that. He’s already twitchy about Bernard knowing at all,” Tim rushes out. Hal puts his hands up in surrender.

“Relax, kid, I won’t rat you out,” Hal says. Tim relaxes like he just dodged certain death. “But you know what he’d say, right?” Hal adds. He didn’t use to understand Bruce’s paranoia about identities, not really. He thought it was all bullshit, a way for Bruce to exert control over all of them. But after they started screwing around, after Hal ended up at the manor a few times, after he saw the way Bruce talked about his kids, he started to understand. The stakes were higher, for Bruce.

“Man, you used to be cool,” Tim groans, rolling his eyes. Hal crosses his arms at that.

“Hey, I just said I’d help you out,” Hal says. 

“Yeah, whatever,” he huffs. They fall into silence again, Tim picking at the edges of his phone case. Hal lets him have the time to collect his thoughts like Bruce often needs. 

“How did you and Bruce do it?” Tim asks, suddenly much more timid.

“Do what?” Hal asks.

“Stop fighting all the time,” Tim says. Hal can’t stop the bark of laughter that bursts from him, and Tim looks at him in confusion.

“Kid, we have not stopped fighting since we met. That didn’t change just because we starting fu- I mean, dating,” Hal says. Tim raises an eerily familiar eyebrow at the slip up, but lets it lie.

“But you’re married now,” Tim insists. Hal knows that his smile in response to that is embarrassingly soft, but he still can’t help it. It’s still thrilling, to think about Bruce and married in the same sentence. 

“Yeah, we are. I married him even though he drives me crazy and can make me madder than just about anything else in the universe,” Hal says. Tim shifts in his seat, clearly more uncertain than before. Hal Hal panics, just a little, at the thought of completely blowing this.

“Look, just because you love someone doesn’t mean you won’t disagree sometimes. You might even get angry at each other. Bruce and I could disagree on the color of the sky, probably, but the difference between then and now is that we actually try to understand each other. We fight because we don’t want to be misunderstood, you know?” Hal says. Tim looks at him suspiciously.

“Not really, no,” he drawls. Hal sighs.

“Well, then you can’t go wrong with a good apology,” he offers. Tim looks even more suspicious now, and Hal suppresses his laughter, this time, but can’t help but be reminded of a prickly kitten.

“Yeah, I guess,” Tim says. Hal offers him a smile, and turns to the cabinets to hunt for a glass.

“You’re not, by the way,” Tim adds, quiet enough that Hal almost misses it.

“Not what?” he asks, filling his acquired glass with water.

“Just some guy Bruce married. You’re a part of the family, too, you know.” Tim says. It’s Hal’s turn to feel uncertain now. He swallows his knee-jerk reaction of denial, takes a sip of water before turning around. Tim’s gaze is piercing, and Hal gets the same feeling he gets when Bruce stares at him, like he can sense whatever self-deprecating thought has passed through Hal’s mind.

“Thanks, kid.”

[ghostflowerhotpotch]

Spider-Woman, NOT Ghost-Spider

This is a tip for people who want to go as canon as possible WITH THE MOVIES, since I feel a lot of people do this mistake because they look into the comics and mix things up.

If you want to call Gwen, Ghost-Spider in your fanfic/fanart/etc because you think is cool, go ahead! Go nuts! I'm not the canon police.

BUT-

In the movies, Gwen still calls herself Spider-Woman.

An explanation as to why this is important in the read more.

(Spoilers about the Spider-Gwen comics, I guess because I am not spoiling anything that came after 2019.)

When I say "important," I mean it in the stick-it-to-the-details type of deal; if you care about technicalities you care about this, but I know that's not the majority.

However, I do want to bring it up because the reason why Gwen switched in the comics, or rather, why chose Ghost-Spider of all things- is really neat and interesting story line that I feel a lot of people skip over when they 'chose' to call her that without knowing why she chose that name.

If you think Gwen has it rough in the movies, don't read the comics because they put this girl through the wringer.

Let's go a little bit before she chose that name.

As you can see, Gwen feels that she has always been marked by death, some way or another.

First her mother, then Peter, and is now hitting pretty hard after losing Spider-UK (is not Hobie, or Malala, I don't think he has appeared in the movies,) Noir and Karn, though arguably Billy was the one who hit her the hardest.

She went to other dimensions to tell their love ones that Billy and Noir passed away; it is implied how this is her way to try to make amends to what happened, make peace with herself.

But is not really enough, the topic doesn't leave her mind,

Death and pain certainly follow her often; she almost lost her dad for good, and she was definitely shaken after Harry got gravely injured precisely because he was always there for her.

That last panel never stops hitting hard for me.

There is just some quietness to it, about how no matter what she does, how hard she tried, Death continues to follow, one way or another. Even when she tries to be a hero, to do the right thing, death follows her.

In the comics, Gwen switches her name because she is studying in Earth-616 rather than her own dimension, so she switches names in order to avoid stepping in any toes.

So, in the movies, is kind of hard to think the switch would happen. Sure, Gwen is interacting with Jessica and other spiders, but believe me, the multiple spider-man haven't changed their names, so having Jessica in the spider society doesn't change much.

However, I do bring all of this because I think implementing this story line in the movies not only is feasible, it would be *amazing.*

The phrase "Death loves Gwen Stacy," not only hits hard for the Spider-Gwen in the comics, but for the movie counterpart too.

Think about it for a second; in the movies, Gwen feels she can't have friends because otherwise, they may lose them like Peter, she has convinced herself it can't work. And then. she goes to the Spider-Society.

And now she feels Gwen Stacy and Death always go hand in hand.

She learns how in so many universes, Peter is the one bitten, he is the one who lives, while Gwen Stacy dies, over, and over again. It almost seems like she is the outlier out of spite, how because she gets to live, everyone else pays the price.

Because Death loves Gwen Stacy, powers or not, that's not changing.

But at the end of the day-

And that's why, no matter what, she will continue fighting to protect her people.

[yanderelinkeduniverse]

Yandere Sky Headcanons

Sky is, without a doubt, a hopeless romantic when he’s in love. We’ve seen him swoon and sigh dreamily when thinking about his loved one, he’s THAT kind of lover boy. Naturally, when adding a layer of insanity tinged love sickness to that adoration, he’s prone to becoming very affectionate.

Unless you are as dense as a rock, it will be no secret that the Hero of the Skies is head over heels in love with you. He basically has heart shaped pupils whenever he looks at you, cartoon heart bubbles magically appear around his head when in your vicinity and his face turns so red you’d think he had a high fever.

Sky is a devout yandere, obsessive in every way, shape and form, and protective to a fault. Even when not around you, you occupy his thoughts and daydreams to the point where it seems like he’s never not thinking about you.

He’s got a masters degree in yearning from Pining University.

And while he hasn’t lost that many people like some of the other mentally unstable chosen ones in the Chain(namely Wild and Legend), the fear of losing them is very real to him. He’s known the blood chilling terror of being a few steps too slow and a few minutes too late with the only thought in his head being “what did I do wrong?”

Following the conclusion of his first and only journey, Sky has come to accept that he made his mistakes and that he must move on in order to grow, but that doesn’t stop him from taking those lessons to heart when falling in love with you.

We’ve seen multiple times throughout the various installments that one of Sky’s favorite hobbies is playing his lyre. It’s a simple pleasure he indulges in whenever they have a moment of peace and the sound never fails to remind him of his home. But he’s found another reason to love it and that is the attention you end up giving him whenever he plays a song.

He isn’t the best musician in the group, but there’s no denying that the simple melodies he strings together are pleasing to the ears, so it’s no wonder you’d take the time to sit down, listen, and compliment him.

Sky doesn’t see it like that, though.

In his deluded, love hazy mind, all that registers is that you’re there giving him your attention and your praise; two things worth more than gold in his eyes. He’s like a drug addict who just got hit with another dosage. If he had a tail he’d be wagging it so hard it would thump against the log he’s sitting on, so he better consider himself lucky that Twilight is the dog of the group.

Though, if would please you, he’d willingly let you collar and leash him. Tell him to sit and roll over, he’ll do it on command without any shame whatsoever. He’ll even walk around on all fours if you want!-

Anyways-

THIS! 👏 MF! 👏 STEALS! 👏 FROM! 👏 YOU! 👏

I mean, technically it isn’t for long, he won’t permanently take something that belongs to you without ever giving it back(in secret so you never find out it was him), but he WILL swipe something of yours from time to time. Most commonly he’ll take a tunic or shirt from you, something you won’t immediately notice is gone.

When he has a moment of privacy, he’ll take out his little treasure and press it against his face, taking in a deeeeeep breath, and sighing lovingly. He’s got it bad for you and he knows it. If he could he’d use your tunic as a pillowcase whenever he went to sleep, but there’s no way he wouldn’t get caught.

Despite all this sugary sweetness, Sky isn’t solely a soft and gentle boy. If he is provoked, or if you’re being bothered, Sky doesn’t hesitate to step up and glare down the nuisance, all the while keeping a calm smile stretched across his face. This is where his surprisingly deep voice comes in handy, people aren’t expecting a voice like his to come from such a soft face.

Out of all the members of the Chain, I actually think that Sky would be one of the most patient when it comes to people trying to mess with them or you respectively; he’s dealt with Groose’s bullying for a few years, I think he’s a natural at letting nasty comment slide right off him like water off a duck’s back.

However, even then his patience is dangerously thin regarding people. If provoked he won’t hesitate to begin plotting the fool’s demise, whether it be a swift cut to the jugular or a slow, agonizing demise is up to the person in question.

And finally, just a hint, do not try to run from him, it won’t work.

If Fi’s ability to dowse objects and seek them out is based on Sky’s own desire to find them, then if you were to try and run away, he’d be able to track you right down to the exact spot you’re standing in. Because there is nothing and no one alive that Sky wants and needs more than you.

Hide in the woods, in a cave, in a dungeon, in a mountain, it doesn’t matter. He will hunt you down, find you, and drag you back home in his loving, suffocating embrace.

[thevioletcaptain]

Day one of the @spnficrecfest called for rec lists featuring fics set in a specific season or era, so here are five of my all-time favorite Purgatory era Dean/Cas fics! I'm also including fics which deal with the immediate aftermath of Dean & Cas' time in Purgatory, as I consider those to be part of the era as well :)

The Legend of the White Light by EllenOfOz | Explicit | 50k Angsty, pine-filled alternate season 8 fic with a happy ending! This was written for the Pinefest a few years back, and it quickly earned a place on my favorite Purgatory fics list. (Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, explicit sexual content)

Ritual by takadainmate | Teen | 10.8k This is a really unique fic that follows Dean, Benny, and an extremely changed Cas through Purgatory. I don't quite know how to describe this one without spoiling it, but... possibly sentient lightning wants Cas dead? Just go read it, it's strange and lovely. (Warnings: none)

Just After, But Before by cymbalism | Explicit | 8.7k As the title says, this fic is set just after Dean and Cas escape from Purgatory -- and unlike the show, they get out together. It's a short and sweet hurt/comfort fic, with Dean looking after Cas after the journey through the portal leaves him weak and injured. (Warnings: explicit sexual content)

What Fun It All Would Be by 8sword | Mature | 22.5k A Purgatory fic that deals with the fact that Dean's half-Amazon daughter Emma must be there, and a really inventive and twisty one at that. When you start reading you're going to be confused. Stick with it. Enjoy the journey -- but mind the tags, and be prepared for pain. This one doesn't have a happy ending. (Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, major character death, body horror, supernatural "drug" use)

Tales of Brave Ulysses by snarklyboojum | Teen | 55.9k This one is just beautifully written -- one of those fics that, despite not having re-read it in a while, I can still picture specific moments perfectly in my mind's eye. It's not an entirely happy ending, but it is a hopeful one, and there's some Where the Wild Things Are stuff in there that's especially fun. (Warnings: graphic depictions of violence)

...AND A BONUS SIXTH FIC:

Redemption Road by multiple authors | Explicit | 652k Technically, this sprawling, slow-burn, round robin masterpiece was written long before Purgatory ever appeared on screen, with fans starting the project during the hiatus between seasons six and seven. The central story follows Dean as he tries to bring Cas back to him after he's been driven to megalomania by the monster souls he consumed during season six. Seeing as a significant part of the story takes place in Purgatory, and it's still one of my all time favorite fics 13 years after it was published, it gets an honorary place on this list. (Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, explicit sexual content)

Check under the cut for links to all of the rec lists I make for this fest! I'll update with new links as I post them :)

Day One - Purgatory Era Day Two - Dean's Canon Kinks Day Three - Long Fics Day Four - Alternate Universes Day Five - Rare Pairs Day Six - Case Fics Day Seven - Tropes Day Eight - Gen Fics Day Nine - Vintage Fics Day Ten - Coda Fics Day Eleven - Mystery List

[ivymarquis]

hi beautifuuuul. I have a quick question about your John x reader fic (which I absolitely adore) so by the time y/n’s baby is born... would John ever have conflict since the baby is not his or would the man not care at all and father the baby as if they were his?

Hello!! I am glad you are enjoying!

So technically the John x Love cinematic universe only currently contains Blind Date (which is a one shot) and SYWLG (which of course is our beloved zombie!au), but I have like…. Multiple other AUs planned in addition to the main “canon” verse for them following Blind Date.

ALL THIS TO SAY;

To directly answer your question- yes he will! While initially it stemmed from a sense of duty (since whilst obviously he’s a MASSIVE war criminal, he thinks he does the right thing in a “the ends justify the means” sorta way- so of course he’s gonna latch onto the concept of getting the helpless pregnant civilian back to safety!), somewheeeeere along the way he rather quickly decided he was going to keep her, and by extension that includes her baby.

And were gonna see just how pissed off John gets when the baby daddy comes sniffing back around for her lmao

With the zombie!au, there is mostly gonna be scenes showing he’s getting more attached to Love and her baby pre-delivery, although the story will end soon-ish after she gives birth so admittedly post birth there won’t be a ton

BUT there will be other AUs to explore his dynamic as the step daddy to Love’s first baby.

[mixelation]

I would enjoy hearing your rant about how a/b/o reproductive/mating systems drive you batty if you're willing! As someone who is not well studied in that subject omegaverse has still made me furrow my brow and wonder how society has not collapsed

i got this a while ago and debated answering, but i do like rambling and have time tonight. i will not go into specifics because i do not intentionally seek out omegaverse content; my experiences with it are from being in fandom and spec bio spaces where someone just starts talking about it, or every once in a while i read it by accident (i am not actually good about reading tags). i am aware that not everyone follows the same rules and i don't need anyone coming into my askbox to explain how their personal version doesn't do the following things i'm about to say. one reason i know more about omegaverse than i want to is the strange phenomenon of people thinking that a person can be "converted" if only they understood it more....! so: yes, i support any hypothetical fans on my blog writing and enjoying whatever version of omegaverse they want, but no, i do not want you explaining it to me.

anyway, i guess we should first talk about the biological definitions of sex and gender.

sex can be defined multiple ways by biologists depending on what they're trying to study. the one i use for animals & plants is the evolutionary definition, which is based on gametes-- basically, are you set up to make small gametes (male) or big gametes (female)? this is called anisogamy (two different sized gametes within a species) and it's shockingly universal in plants and animals, which is why it's my preferred definition. (although note that gametes size and morphology can vary a ton between species and even between individuals-- the only constant is that within a species, sperm are smaller than ova.) the resulting traits that go along with sex (physical traits, chromosomes, etc) are NOT universal, but i'll talk about some patterns.

note that there ARE isogamous organisms-- such as fungi or algae-- which do not have differently sized gametes. usually instead of sorting them by "sex," they're sorted by "mating type"

also important to know-- lots and lots of plants and animals make both types of gametes. the technical biological term for this is hermaphroditism, but if you're reading this for spec bio reasons i highly urge you NOT to use this term for humans/near-humans. that is because it's unfortunately also a pejorative/dehumanizing term for intersex people (and biologically inaccurate to them). i've seen people use "dualsex" but another scientific term would be "monoecious" (although i have never seen this used outside of plant scientists lmao). technically "bisexual" also works but you can imagine this could be confusing and someone who's never read an old scientific paper might yell at you

okay. so now we've defined sex. what is gender? i am by no means an expert in this, but most people will define it as some sort of social role. for some people it is very personal and definitions are individual. i am only including this paragraph because there was briefly a trend amongst biologists to define "animal gender" as social roles animals play when interacting with each other. i don't personally like this because it often ends up tying the concept of gender to genetics or underlying biological traits. i prefer the more historical term alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs), which refers to when there's multiple strategies/phenotypes/"genders" within a single sex of a species. for example, side-blotched lizards have three different male phenotypes which all exhibit different behaviors with different advantages/disadvantages in terms of procreation.

so, biologically, omegaverse is a mating system where both sexes (that's male/female) experience ARTs (that's the alpha/omega/beta), and mating occurs in a disassortative way. Disassortative mating means that individuals are more likely to mate with (and are perhaps are more likely to successfully produce offspring with) other individuals that are "different" from them in some way. for example, white throated sparrows have two morphs per sex. both "tan" males and females invest energy into parental care, and "white" males and females invest energy into acquiring multiple mates, which white females even using brood parasitism (leaving eggs in a nest that's not hers). tan males mate with white females, and tan females mate with white males (i know there's been studies where two of the same mate with each other and the outcome is less good, but i forget what it is just now lol).

one puzzling part of the omegaverse is that by the definitions i see most often (where humans are born male/female and then develop "secondary dynamics" later), alpha males/omega males shouldn't be able to have children. Sperm do not have enough physical "stuff" to make a baby, even if you ignore genetic imprinting and other mechanisms that prevent people's own gametes from fusing. I don't like mpreg on the grounds that i just don't like stories about pregnancy in general, but I get confused when people go in depth about the biological set ups of their AU and then just don't go into what sex even is? Like, if it were just magic or completely handwaved, sure, fine. But why delve into biology and then get basic things wrong? Like, does your world just have mating types? Are some people dualsex? Are your males actually not males? If any of these things, why are the genital configurations they way they are? I will accept "because I think it's hot/fun/whatever" as an answer, but please be honest that that IS the answer. A lot of time people try harder and harder to explain biology and just get nonsensical. Which, again, that's fine for having fun, there's nothing wrong with it or enjoying reading it-- but it will bother me.

im sure someone is already opening their bookmarks to send me an example where one of my suggestions happens. don't do that. i know different people do different things and probably there's examples of at least a few of the above. i know this because people keep sending me things i don't want to see, and often times they're still wrong. don't be that guy

my biggest gripe re:biology in omegaverse, like many people, is with the bioessentialism in sex/ARTs/"gender" that omegaverse aus tend to hang on their invented mating system. like, obviously, the aspects where heats/ruts/whatever make people so horny they have to fuck or end up in extreme pain is already dubcon because it's basically just rebranded sex pollen, and it gets worse when writers choose to also include biological mechanisms where one individual can "force" or compel another one, especially when it occurs along sex-specific lines. and like, don't get me wrong-- i like some dubcon tropes. i do not have an issue with people enjoying what they enjoy in fictional scenarios. what bothers me is the shocking frequency with which i will run into people preaching their "moral omegaverse" and then they literally just describe slightly more complicated dubcon. this isn't just an omegaverse fan issue-- people do this with all sort of other tropes and AUs too-- but it is a pattern and it's annoying.

and! here's the thing that extra gets my goat. a reason why a lot of people (not everyone ofc) like sex pollen and other biology-compulsion based dubcon tropes is that the fact that it's "biology" feels like it should free the involved characters of responsibility for their actions. but this is not how human behavior works, and it's literally not how biology works. animals have coercive sex all the time, but evolution does not actually favor this. it is not evolutionarily advantageous to be at the whim of your alpha a male. female mate choice is incredibly important to evolution, and if coercive sex is happening, then something is simultaneously also evolving to re-establish mate choice. that's how you get things like weird shaped penises to match weird shaped vaginas, or females being able to selectively kick out sperm.

also the world is filled with interesting mating strategies and it makes me sad that people want to "explore" it and then just stick to made-up quasi-wolf dynamics. :( where are the anglerfish dynamics. the whiptail lizard dynamics. the dynamics based on whatever that frog is that can only mate with a different species of frog. why aren't so many people at least googling how seahorses work, and also why do so many people spend so long describing alt biology for how they're getting (insert man here) pregnant only to get the very definition of sex wrong. even if i were into omegaverse, i think i would leave the most unhinged mean comments............

[googleitlol]

Sorry if my thoughts are all jumbled here. Or if it doesn't make sense. I'm also kinda being vague here cause these are kinda in the beginning stages of forming to proper theories.

But first of all, thanks for answering my question and indulging me.

Also sure I'll share a little bit of my theories here. Once again, you don't have to confirm or deny these. Hell, you don't have to answer this if you don't wanna.

I had a feeling since the title and the dove symbolism kinda went together, there would be at least some surface level nods to it, but now that there's confirmation that there's more reason behind the dove transformation I can kinda go into my little "theory" (more or less speculation). Not really connected to the stories ending too much that I know of buuuuut, I've just been thinking what enlightenment would be for Dove herself since everyone is going through their respective character arcs to achieve enlightenment in the end. I'm also keeping in mind the love symbolism from this creature, even though it's not really symbolism from religion and more so a universal thing across multiple cultures, as a possible significance.

But also, these little teasers with the endings and the one shots here got me (oop here comes more theory and speculation) thinking about what the hell happened. Cause the heavenly court and Buddha don't seem to be the "badguys" in this story. So i kinda figured a 3rd party got Dove separated from the group somehow since everyone else (allegedly) got to stick together. So something really bad definitely happened here, and either Dove is going through some corruption arc or someone else is pulling at some strings here. But nooooow, I'm inclined to believe the latter, if not this 3rd party, causing the corruption arc. These are just things I kinda think about in 2 possible endings. I hope this all makes sense.

I could be waaaaaayyy off though so yeah

Oh, you know I'm gonna answer these! Also, I'm glad you caught onto some of this!

Love is definitely a big part of Dove's character arc, tho it's more of a catalyst for what she has to realize. Dove at the start of the journey isn't really… her own person. Or at least, she wants to change herself to be more like the person who saved her. It's like she thinks there's some moral obligation she has to follow in Guan Yin's steps, and as her relationship with Sun Wukong develops, she starts to question that.

Your other thoughts on what happens near the end… muahahaha…

I've mentioned it in passing so I won't try hiding it, there's another party involved in PoM. They don't get too involved until after the Red Boy arc, which is lowkey why I decided to start posting to AO3 after I finished with those chapters. Everything from the start of PoM to Wukong realizing his feelings can be considered… the first act of my little soap opera. This third party doesn't become more prominent until Act 2.

Technically, the third party has been causing problems since the prologue. They're just chilling cuz one of them doesn't know about the journey yet while his accomplice… she knows about the journey, she just gives less of a fuck. But when they decide to take action, stuff gets fun (stressful and full of agony). I'm excited to get to them, who they are, their backstory and powers, EVERYTHING! UUUGGHHHWVBOJNVUSBDCS I WANNA TALK ABT THEM SO BAD–!

ahem, anyway–

As for your theory about a 'corruption arc'… depending on how I end PoM, Dove may or may not cross a line she wouldn't have crossed at the start of the pilgrimage. The fun part is, the ending I consider the 'good ending', the one where she doesn't get separated from her friends and loved ones… is where she crosses that line. If Dove kept trying to be like Guan Yin, she would never think of going down that road. So in that good ending where she stops trying to be someone she's not, and the ones who helped her get to that realization are put in jeopardy… she has no hesitation.

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for...

~*~

1. A) Itmf fics where wwx is actually a servant. B) Or has a specialized skill that is not cultivation related, possibly one he's known for?

1A)

The Myrmidon by Basingstoke (E, 33k, wangxian, NHS/WWX, LXC/JGY, major character death, graphic depictions of violence, underage, WWX raised as a servant, spiritual weapons, gusu summer camp, Flirting, they're young, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Behavior, War, WIP) sadly this is probably never going to be finished, but the WIP is great on the concept of wwx actually being raised as a servant to the jiang household

~*~

2. Itmf any fics that readers of this lovely blog absolutely adore. Their favorite fic, and please tell us why! :D Did it have beautiful writing? A plot you think about even ages later? Introduce a new idea or change ur mind about a rare pair? Was it a tearjerker, or make you laugh till you cried? Did it make you warm and fuzzy to read, or scare the bajeezis out of you? Let us know! :D

The Bunnies and The Roomba: A Love Story by Nikki373 (T, 6k, wangxian, modern, Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Siblings, Siblings Try and Are Trying, College/University, 1 if by phone; 2 if by text; 3 if by mouth, Kisses, Romance, Falling In Love, LXC is the eternal captain of the good ship Wangxian) I adore The Bunnies and the Roomba by Nikki373. It's a hilarious and sweet story that I believe is hugely under-appreciated.

The Fifth Type of Non-Contact Force by Caixx (Not Rated, 83k, WangXian, Modern AU, High School, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Fluff and Humor, Actually Somewhat Canon, Mutual Pining, Horny Teenagers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Non-Graphic Smut) this fic has been on my mind a lot lately!!! i love the yearning and exploring the complexities of their relationship in this setting. i also just love the way the author's prose

ruined me with your regard by laallomri (T, 46k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Introspection, Epistolary, it is not all letters but there are quite a lot of letters, Discussion of Canon Events, Pining) there's so much lyricism and elegance and emotion and I keep going back to it every time I need it.

Keep Holding On by abCEE (M, 316k, JYL & WWX & JC, wangxian, canon divergence, demonic cultivator JYL, YLLZ JYL, yunmeng siblings dynamics, role reversal, ghost general WQ, sunshot campaign, angst w/ happy ending, established relationship, accidental baby acquisation, PTSD) I’ve always LOVED roleswap AUs, and this one is the most in-depth one for mdzs. I’ve always loved reading WWX in JYL’s role just because I have the inner need to see him doted on and loved like she is, and this has all of that. Even past that, everyone in this fic is very fleshed out and all of the arcs still follow the og mdzs timeline, but have just enough divergence so it’s fresh!

~*~

3. Itmf wwx and wicked musical crossovers. Esp anything that uses/has the vibes of the song "no good deed goes unpunished"

it's not *technically* a fic, but I think the asker would enjoy this song parody

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4. pretty sure this answered this before, but i couldnt find it for the life of me. im looking for fics where jiang cheng (usually its him) makes wwx be forgotten or erased from the timeline and things just go downhill from there. if its bashing or at least not friendly to the other characters its preferably

The Way It Wasn’t by KouriArashi (T, 72k, WangXian, XiYao, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, (eventually haha), Slow Build, Family Feels, Moral Ambiguity, Eventual Happy Ending)

Ad Oblivione by Baph, HikariNoHimeWriter (M, 70k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, POV Multiple, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Identity Reveal, Golden Core Reveal, Cultivation World Critical, Not JC Friendly, Abusive YZY, Angst with a Happy Ending)

~*~

5. hello and thank you for all that you do. i was hoping you could help me with the itmf post and share some fics of wei wuxian’s core getting restored, perhaps with a focus on dual cultivation being the cause of it? and if none come to mind then what other fics handle the restoration of wei wuxian’s core well and stand out?

🔒 Truth Will Out (when caught on video) - End_OTW_Racism! by KizuKatana (E, 117k, WIP, wangxian, WN & WWX & WQ, graphic depictions of violence, modern cultivation, canon divergence, YZY abuses WWX , caught on camera, partial core removal, WWX kicked out of Jiang sect, livestreamer WWX, meet ugly, dual cultivation, smut, no war)

these colours fade for you only by doodlebutt (T, 36k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everybody Lives, Golden Core Transfer, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, …eventually, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, bed sharing, Mutual Pining, like really unreasonable amounts of pining, Slow Burn)

The Core Issue by Hauntcats (T, 21k, WangXian, Angst with a Happy Ending, Not JC Friendly, Canon Divergence) WWX meditates his core back, not realising he's actually taking his own core back from JC

Golden Core Reveal / Golden Core Fix-It Comp

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6. Hello Mods! 😃 for ITMF I was wondering if there are any fics that

A) have LXC be angry at JGY for everything that happened/he did, or just let LXC be angry at JGY

B) do something with WWX being the Yunmeng jiang head-disciple, like focusing in on that or it being a plot point or something like that

C) show JYL and WWX being close and spending time just with each other, - I can't really find any where get to do that without JC being there and while I like Yunmeng trio I would like to see them have a bond independent of him

thanks! 😃 and have a great day!

6A)

Twelve Moons and a Fortnight by stiltonbasket (M, 290k, WangXian, Humor, Slow Burn, Post-Canon Fix-It, Long-Distance Relationship, Epistolary, Love Letters, Family Feels, a-qing lives, teenage romance, Adoption, Romantic Comedy, Happy Ending, Weddings, Case Fic, Parenthood, Politics) in 12 moons and a fortnight verse, there's this lovely scene (and I belive it also is recurring addressed through the series to various degrees of lxc dealing with how he feels about jgy and what jgy had done) where lxc *spoiler alert* has a rebellious breakdown and starts slashing up the Lan rules with his sword *end spoiler*

There's a fic that I can't find yet, its short (tagged angst) where lxc hurts himself with his sword in guanyin temple as leverage so jgy doesn't hurt wwx. he's either angry or cold toward him iirc

6B)

Check out "First Disciple WWX" under The Untamed fandom here

Twelve Moons and a Fortnight by stiltonbasket (M, 290k, WangXian, Humor, Slow Burn, Post-Canon Fix-It, Long-Distance Relationship, Epistolary, Love Letters, Family Feels, a-qing lives, teenage romance, Adoption, Romantic Comedy, Happy Ending, Weddings, Case Fic, Parenthood, Politics) (Link in 6A) literally the opening premise of 12 moons and a fortnight is based around the training that wwx received as the first disciple. He was always intended to be jc's second in command - who could even lead the sect in his absence or injury etc

🔒 Heart's Courage by RighteousInAdversity (T, 19k, wangxian, WWX & WQ, NMJ & WWX, WWX & Yunmeng Jiang Disciples, WWX & WN, Lotus Pier, Sunshot Campaign, No Golden Core Transfer, Golden Core Destruction | Golden Core Melting, WWX has a Golden Core, Genius WWX, Jiāng Family Critical, not Jiang family friendly, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, BAMF WWX, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Canon JC Characteristics, Jiang Family Has A Redemption Arc, WWX Still Leaves Lotus Pier, not YZY friendly, Bad Parent YZY, not JC Friendly, As for JFM and JYL, not Bashing exactly, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia)

6C)

it's a long road but we're not alone by Stratisphyre (M, 62k, wangxian, JYL & WWX, LWJ & LJY, LJY & LSZ & JL & OYZZ, Canon Divergence, Not Everyone Dies, Canon-Typical Violence, Parenthood, Grief/Mourning, Family Feels, Reunions, Golden Core Reveal, Getting Together)

Atlas by Folderol (T, 2k, JYL & WWX, JYL & YZY, JYL & SL, JC & JYL & WWX, Child Neglect, Metaphors for living life with a cultivation disability)

~*~

7. Hi!! for itmf, could i ask for ppl's fave canon dynamics authors? (self-recs very welcome!!) i was advised to avoid untagged E-rated fics but then i feel like i'm missing some great fics, so i'd love some help! thank you!! 🙏🏽💙

hi! i asked for 7, and i didn't wanna over-explain, but since it was asked, maybe you could add this to the itmf to clarify, if it's not a bother? 😅 thank you

i do mean top lwj and bottom wwx (only because sometimes the other dynamic can get a little ooc, which is fine, put the blorbos in situations! but not what i'm looking for currently), but /also/ canon dynamics for me means exploring while keeping their personalities: lwj being mean and bitey and awkward, but respectful when it counts, wwx being bratty but confident and enthusiastic. both dom & helpless waif wwx are interesting headcanons rather than canon to me. (also cnc/breeding kink r nice but not obligatory ofc adskjkfs)

tl;dr basically i've been 4+ years in this lovely fandom, and i feel im still not done appreciating the thoughtful way mxtx writes the characters and their dynamics, literally none of her MCs or MLs can be called 'typical' in BL standards

these authors do mostly tag their works but to be sure: 🔒kizukatana, diamondbruise, and saltyfeathers are some of my faves

~*~

8. i’m in the mood for fic where wwx is a talisman genius! @efavs

🧡 Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 712k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement) This is absolutely *the* fic about WWX being a talisman genius

🔒 Truth Will Out (when caught on video) - End_OTW_Racism! by KizuKatana (E, 117k, WIP, wangxian, WN & WWX & WQ, graphic depictions of violence, modern cultivation, canon divergence, YZY abuses WWX , caught on camera, partial core removal, WWX kicked out of Jiang sect, livestreamer WWX, meet ugly, dual cultivation, smut, no war)

💖 Lessons relearned by Iamnotawriter (T, 44k, WangXian, LQR & WWX, Not Madam Yu Friendly, Time Travel Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inventor WWX, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, No Golden Core Transfer, YZY Bashing) his main invention is an array but talismans too

~*~

9. For itmf, does anyone have any recs where folks treat wwx gently? Thanks!

🔒 Instead by apathyinreverie (T, 27k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, like self-indulgently so, by way of dark(er) gusu lan, manipulative elders, but in a good way, Golden Core Reveal, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, of sorts, not Jiang friendly, not really gusu lan friendly either, not particularly friendly towards anyone really, aside from wangxian of course, Cultivation World Critical, Sunshot Campaign, Fluff, Politics, Courting Rituals, possibly implied mpreg, Genius WWX, Talismans, No demonic cultivation, but wwx is still the lynchpin of the war, Possessive LWJ, Protective LWJ) (link in #11) depending on your definition, instead (in #11) counts for #9 as well?

~*~

10. ITMF fics where jiangs are actually a family. Like not that they're only fam in name and are living together like in canon.

The Late Great Custody Debate by stiltonbasket (G, 9k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, LXC/NMJ, JC & WWX & JYL, modern, Domestic Fluff, baby a-yuan, Single Parent WWX, LWJ is a confused rabbit owner, nielan are married, nhs is: xoxo gossip girl, Custody Arrangements, engagement, Confused WWX, WWX voice: if i'm the one with the kid why are you suing ME for child support?, LWJ kills his own love life in the worst way, Happy Ending)

~*~

11. Hi! For itmf, does anyone know of any fics where JC and LWJ find WWX in Burial Mounds after Wen Chao throws him in there but before WWX learns to conduct resentful energy? Like, they scoop him up and rush him to healers and WWX never goes down the single plank bridge?

🔒 Instead by apathyinreverie (T, 27k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, like self-indulgently so, by way of dark(er) gusu lan, manipulative elders, but in a good way, Golden Core Reveal, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, of sorts, not Jiang friendly, not really gusu lan friendly either, not particularly friendly towards anyone really, aside from wangxian of course, Cultivation World Critical, Sunshot Campaign, Fluff, Politics, Courting Rituals, possibly implied mpreg, Genius WWX, Talismans, No demonic cultivation, but wwx is still the lynchpin of the war, Possessive LWJ, Protective LWJ)

Hope Dangling by a String by KouriArashi (M, 70k, wangxian, canon divergence, fix-it, everyone lives, angst w happy ending, hurt/comfort, psychic bond, telepathy, communication, emotional/psychological abuse, jiang family feels, lan family feels, canon-typical violence, canon-typical politics, improper use of sacred forehead ribbons, gratuitous hair washing) I'm not sure if this counts or not for 11. Lwj saved wwx just a few days after he's thrown in the burial grounds, but wwx still learns demonic cultivation. He's never alone though, and has support from lwj and his family

~*~

12. Hi!! Is there any fic where Wy is indeed Jfm's illegitimate son?

leading tone by silencemostofall (G, 32k, WangXian, Modern AU, Soulmates, with a lil twist, Eventual Happy Ending, lesbian wq rights, Music, Orchestra, platonic and romantic pining)

~*~

13. For your next itmf I’d like to find fics that focus on wwx’s kindness. It can be any setting except a/b/o. I just want to read stories where we see his kindness and generosity shining through.

Thanks for all your help.

~*~

14. Are there any fics in which wangxian are in military? @constellationdks

囍 | a ghost wedding by sweetlolixo (E, 11k, WangXian, Arranged Marriage, Ghost wedding, Pining LWJ, Ghost Groom LWJ, Corpsefucking in the most romantic way possible, Angst with a Happy Ending, Non-Explicit Sex, Love at First Sight) probably not quite what OP wants, but LWJ is technically military in this fic

~*~

15. Explicit ITMF! I recently reread the incense burner extra and I would just love to read some more stories where wwx is already soft and open without prep because of their everyday! Thank you lovely mods and reccers (novel dynamics only please!)

To Know, To Be Known series by cqlorphan (E, 38k, wangxian, Cock Warming, Multiple Orgasms, Marathon Sex, Under-negotiated Kink, Porn with Feelings, Aftercare, Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, let LWJ get railed agenda, LWJ Learns Some Things about himself, sex tears, gratuitous use of names, Begging, Kink Discovery, Post-Canon, Bottom LWJ/Top WWX, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Switching, Light Bondage, Blow Jobs, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Let wwx get tied up but also let lwj railed, Repressed LWJ, and his journey to sexual abandon aided by, Inventor WWX, Cock Rings, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Dirty Talk, Rough Sex, Dildos, Rimming, Edging) a treat really this entire series, mentions of u what u asked for AND lwj being soft and open w/o prep as a bonus

~*~

16. hello! are there any fic recs or lists about a Lan Sizhui Sect Heir? thank you! @mexicantransman

~*~

17. Does anyone know of any WangXian Sentinel/Guide aus? Sentinels are kind of like superhumans with heightened physical senses, and Guides are like empaths and/or mind readers. The two usually bond with and balance each other.

Hyperprosexia by malkinmalkout (E, 192k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Sentinels & Guides, Sentinel WWX, Guide LWJ, Empath LWJ, Slow Burn, Rivals to Lovers, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, WWX POV, LWJ POV, Tags Contain Spoilers, Telepathy, Marriage, outsider pov, they have a kid, Telepathic Sex, Rough Sex, public exhibition, breath play, Rimming)

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

[pebble-pictures]

WIP

That's a Homeric AU, alright! This is what living in my brain looks like. Would you believe I haven't actually listened to Epic yet? Idk why I'm putting I off. Maybe I'm terrified of disappointment.

Anyway! AU notes beneath the cut!

"Rage — Fable, sing the rage of Pthia’s daughter Ruby,

murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,

hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,

great fighters’ souls, but made their shards carrion,

feasts for the dogs and birds,

and the will of the heavens was moving toward its end.

Begin, Fable, when the two first broke and clashed,

Diamond lord of men and brilliant Ruby. . . ."

-Rose plays a similar role to Odysseus! The morally grey trickster monarch who just wants to be with her spouse and son in the end. Seen as a coward and a bad friend, but the intentions were good. A brilliant strategist and completely hubristic idiot simultaneously. I give her the Pink Diamond palette whenever she isn't disguised. The Rose palette goes to Nobody!

-Pearl as the Athena-parallel goddess of wisdom, arts, and warfare. The pearls will be the patron gods of their respective Diamond monarchs, but Pearl is the closest to her monarch. She follows her everywhere until something big separates them due to a choice Rose makes, thus aiding Rose's son instead in growing up and his mission to learn more about a heroic mother he never knew.

-Lapis of Sparta and Troy, the demigod prisoner whose face sailed a thousand ships. Kidnapped from her home and loved ones, then blamed for the fallout.

-The rage of Ruby, heir to the throne of Pthia, greatest of the Greeks, and her gentle yet coldly terrifying equestrian companion Sapphire, exiled princess of Omas. Technically the same stone irl, but there's a great status disparity. Their ranks in this AU are swapped, though, to better fit the backstory of our Myrmidon boys!

-Padparadscha, disgraced Trojan princess, whose predictions are always ignored and ridiculed. Until it's too late.

-Jasper of Troy. Captor of Lapis Lazuli. Favorite of the detached Pink Pearl, goddess of beauty and lust. A pawn who thinks she's in control. Always inferior to her eldest sister.

-Hessonite of Troy. Favorite of the vain Yellow Pearl. Goddess of prophecy, archery, medicine, music, plague, the sun, and being an annoying little overachiever. Hess commands Troy's armies. Eldest of the royal children. She was canonically the governor of the Earth colony, so she technically counts for my efforts to make all the Trojans pink court gems under Queen White Diamond. Yelp is the only exception, cause I wasn't making Aubergine or Lonely into Apollo. It fit her too well.

-Steven goes on a journey to learn about and live up to a heroic parent he's never met. Prince of Ithaca. Spends his early life constantly having to fight adults who want to kill him, and having to defend his home and single parent from said adults.

-Greg. "I've never had that many exes show up at once since—" has hundreds fighting for a hand that's technically already taken. Known for his artistic pursuits, like Penelope for her weaving. A lot more clever than he first appears. A damn good dad.

- Amethyst is undecided. Maybe an Ajax? A goofier Diomedes? Absolutely up for suggestions.

-Garnet as the tall, blunt, crazy strong child of Ruby who joins the war in her early years. Neoptolemus/Pyrrhus, who I'm now realizing isn't as universal as the others, so I'm saying it explicitly.

-Aquamarine as the (justifiably) murderous sister of Helen/Lapis, Clytemnestra! Eyeball as the lover who helps her kill her spouse! Freckles and Curls as their brothers, the twins Castor and Pollux! I'm cooking.

And the Lapis twins ESPECIALLY work for the Gemini! One was callous and spiteful, one was kind and followed his brother. However, because a lot of people in those times/place thought you could have multiple fathers per set of twins (or per baby if you ask some of Alexander's contemporaries about him), one twin was a fully immortal demigod. Not full-blooded Spartan royalty. Freckles isn't a pure Lapis, she has pyrite flecks!

And the Gemini later both became water gods! Idk who will fill Orestes' slot. Probably Blue Zircon, since Orestes was the impetus of the founding of the Athenian legal system.

-Yellow Diamond, Queen of Men. Favorite of Blue Pearl, goddess of the seas, storms, earthquakes, and horses. Angry and selfish, hated but feared by her gems. Later murdered by her family. Only using Lapis' kidnapping as an excuse for war and plunder.

-Blue Diamond, queen of Sparta. Also favored by Bloop. Desperate to take Lapis back from Troy. Constantly grieving her rapidly dropping family, but still terrifying.

-White Diamond, queen of Troy. Starts detached, cold, and neglectful. Loses everything, becoming a humbled and grieving old mother and grandmother.

-Gimme ideas for Peridot! Was gonna make her Meneleus, but it'd be weird making her Blue's sister.

-Bismuth = Hephaestus

- Rose Buds = The Fates

- Aubergine = Artemis? Hera? Idk, man, I just REALLY wanna include the Hera/Artemis fistfight.

-Lonely Pearl = Hermes

-Pyrope = Hera, probably, actually. It fits her Vibe. Or Zeus. Or Demantoid as Zeus?

-Navy = Ares. Full stop.

[zalmoxis-the-great]

About Orikan, Divinity, Divine Sparks and Speculations

C.W. Spoilers from TITD, T.W. mentions of death

A more technical aspect of Orikan's ascension can be explained in the D&D universe. There are a lot of real world religions that touch the subject of divinity, but I found a pretty satisfying explanation about reaching Godhood from role playing games, and by consulting forums online, as well as a well-made homebrew guide which clarified the information. I am sharing my understanding of what I read, as well as my own speculations.

In Dungeons and Dragons (the source I am using for this is The Extensive Guide to Godhood/ The Path to Godhood V1.2, which is homebrew, but the forums I consulted used the same concept from the 3.5E up to the 5E, and are very similar, but less organized), there are multiple methods to becoming a god, but all of them require the divine spark. A divine spark is what transforms a normal being into a divine entity. “To behold a divine spark, in the flesh, is akin to staring into a star”.  That is something that the divine has but mortals lack.

“If the soul is a flame, the divine spark is a star”. Depending on where you look, some will say that a few normal people are born with a bit of a divine spark in them, or that only a few special someones have some divine spark. But the facts are: it can be taken, gathered, accumulated, and after all that, if somehow, someone manages to absorb one, they get to go under Apotheotic Ascension, where “their bodies attempt to cope with the fluctuation of raw power inside of them, at the end of which their form will try it’s best to maintain that power without perishing”. That change is only the beginning of the transformation into godhood. Huh, that is an interesting and familiar concept. (Extensive Guide)

The issue is that many who dare try, fail to hold that power, those who succeed "will walk away with something more". In the book, Orikan didn’t explode nor die when absorbing the spark, therefor he succeeded his roll in absorbing it, otherwise, the only other outcome would have been complete and utter death and destruction of his being.

A way to acquire such a spark would be to simply slay a god and take their diviner spark(s) (dnd5e), other way would be to be worshiped by followers (“A deity’s divinity is measured by how much sparks they have”), another way mentioned in the guide is by harvesting the rare divinity of others within a week’s time, so pretty much mindless slaughter (the chaos gods growing fat with power from the divinity harvested by their worshipers), a less bloody way would be receiving it as a gift from another divinity, at the cost of theirs, them (the donor) growing weaker to birth a new god.

The eleven race, the equivalent of Aeldari, used Mythallas, magic items with a lot of power, that could manipulate the fabric of reality itself, drawing their energy from the weave (Dndbeyond 5E). Sometimes the essence of those Mythallas would contain the essence of the collection of hundreds or thousands of souls – that can form a divine spark. Sounds familiar? (Extensive Guide)

That is one way, the other way Orikan could get his divine spark is by using Mephet’ran.

We can assume that the Deceiver is a divine being, a star god. The more divine sparks you have, the greater the divine being you become, or are. Unfortunately for him, (the diviner) Orikan, cannibalized him at the end of the book. Since in the Warhammer universe, it is impossible to kill Star Gods without actually changing the natural order, since they are the embodiment of the laws of the universe, and killing them alternates the fabric of the reality, we can speculate he lost some of his divine ranking, by losing some of his divine sparks, consumed by the newly ascended god.

Based on the events in the book, I think Orikan has two divine sparks: one from the aeldari gem (which concentrated thousands of souls, and not any old regular souls, but aeldari souls, so long-lived and powerful), and another one from consuming the Deceiver.

Orikan right now seems to be a Quasi-deity, “he has enough divinity to be spectacularly powerful, but lacks worshipers, or power, has no clerics, no one to pray to him”. He is, I presume, an Ascended Being ( I liked how the Guide describes it, even if it is homebrew, “divinity being absorbed by him, able to walk among the material world unhindered, still bound by their “mortal shacks””).

So I think that Orikan might just become a deity of the Time Domain if he keeps on growing his powers, hopefully turning that divine spark into a fully fledge Godspark. (Extensive Guide)

~Z.

[roboyomo]

i need to take a moment to see all about your OCs, but I'll take the opportunity to get to know two of them better.

✂️ and ❤️ for Amor and Apollo, please.

!! HAIII hello eve!! glad to see you here :] ghjwehej this has gotten. Quite rambly so just warning ya o7

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

okay. Both of them have some terrible Terrible stuff happen to them but the Worst memories for them do correlate in some capacity. Amor's worst memory to recall would be the day of the betrayal. Not only was it the worst day for him bexause a coworker and a colleague he trusted has Betrayed him, but his body was also used as a vessel for a 3rd party entity to wreck havoc and also make him seem the one to be responsible for the murders of his subordinates at the laboratory. He has lost the community he has built and the trust of people he cherished like a family, with either most of the other people working at the lab being dead from his hands by technicality or alive but now resentful of him. He had no one besjdes Apollo left now and it was the time where the realization had finally hit him with the aftermath. The corporation did not care a single bit about the incident, they only swept the tragedy under the rug and expected him to continue working like the obedient employee they wanted him to be. It was a chain of epiphanies where he just thinks about how much the corporation has took from the members of the Order (context: The Order is the squad employed by the corporation on the side of the Lunar God, sometimes called the Grand Order. Amor and Apollo are part of it along with multiple other characters and are all responsible for the safety of their perspective world in the Afterlife)

This is just making him realize that the Order is nothing but power that the higher-ups could exploit for their benefit. There have been many, many instances that support this claim of his but before that he was oblivious and was far too naive to think that they're all just working for the better of people and humanity as a whole. Amor absolutely fucking Despises remembering this, as it only serves as a reminder that it was wrong from the start and how it all only got worse from that point on. My son who hates the fact that the corporation tries to dehumanize them all until they behave like mindless creatures who follow orders and nothing else

Apollo's worst memory is also closesly related to that. Having the same colleague, who has always been Kenix (seemingly), betray Him too. With the context that the two worlds, Ortu Lunae and Descensu Solis, constantly having tension between them, they are constantly fighting. Risk of war even. And and the Solar Goddess's. Plans. That Totally don't involve a virus that turns the people of Ortu Lunae into mindless husks that fight on her side until this virus drives them to utter insanity where they will most likely die by the end of it. Kenix Totallyyy did Not trap Apollo injured on the battlefield just long enough to get infected.

All of this came to the whole thing of Apollo Also being used as a vessel for a 3rd party entity and his body was used to harm others, that also including Amor and his own family. The thing is that the souls in the afterlide can Also sisappear, or in a way, die twice to no longer exist anywhere in the universe. With the death of his parents and younger sister already having a huge impact on him since he was barely a child and had to survive. Alone somehow. And now when he's not even seen them for years after reaching afterlife, this was their only ever meeting again. A very fucked up family reunion if you ask me. Apollo was not mentally present as it was not Him who committed these actions, but fuzzy memories of how he killed his family when all his life he wanted just to have a chance to see them again were Exhausting to endure as these visions never truly left. They are haunting reminders of "his" actions and he still blames himself for that. A guy who thinks about the tragedies that were out of his control and immediately thinks "i should be shot in the back of the head i'm a terrible person". Recalling this memory really Fucks Him Up when he is Already quite. Unstable in his daily life because of this all. And yet again, the corporation did Nothing about this. Apollo was the second victim of the corporation's clear apathy and their desire to reduce their the Order employees into nothing but warriors that could be used as they pleased.

both of them. Are having a terrible time and such tragedies caused them to hurt each other (not on purpose) and if you know just how Much the both of them mean to each other since they were 10 year old kids, you'd understand that this was just more additional tragedies to them both. And now they cannot tell each other anything they truly feel about this whole ordeals because they fear hurting each other again. Their worst memories is that they were used to hurt others and most importantly, Each Other. doomed by the narrative little guys but at least they still get to stay together,, ,

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Okay now This!!! Their best memories Also relate to each other because of Course you guys think of each other as your best memories wwwhgjehf. Amor's particular fvorite memory is when they played on their instruments when they were younger, around 16 years old or so. Amor was made to practise playing on a violin as a child becahse od his family's standards but thankfully he e joyed it himself so he didn't really fight that. And Apollo learned to play the piano at the same time as Amoe was learning to play the violin. There were often moments where they would practise together, with each time their perfomances creating a more coherent and harmonized sonata. It's the love that they put into creating music together that Amor always cherished. Since they were teenagers until now.

As for Apollo, it is specifically the days when Amor would show and introduce him to new things in life when they were younger. With Apollo being mostly unfamiliar with all of it, Amor was just so passionate and ecstatic about introducing his new friend to more new stuff in life. Ranging from food to activities. Apollo just enjoyed seeing that joy in Amor's face whenever he got to judt talk about things he enjoyed non-stop. That still continued on to this day, and Apollo just can't help but. Adore how someone genuinely enjoys telling him of all people about the things he loves. It's all the same back when the laboratory was still going strong and Amor was finally making his personal ambitions come true by becoming the Order's lead-scientist. Amor's first instict was to share his achivements eith his one and only partner and Apollo cannot cherish it enough

yes their worst memories is how they hurt each other on accident and their best memories are just them having a lovely time. yes they mean a lot to each other and yes they are childhood bestfriends. Yes they are having some Very Intense queer things going on but that is Not the focus, they trust each other so much they cannot envision leaving each other otherwise they will only see gloom in their future path. their relationship is fully built on their love for each other and i think that's Beautiful.

[pyreo]

On September 22nd, 2004, the first episode of Lost aired. It went on to have six seasons, 121 episodes, attained critical acclaim and caused mass confusion and disappointment.

I've taught writing classes and I often reference Lost as an example of how easy it is to sound interesting. Lost pulled viewers in with multiple promises that, as time went on, it struggled to satisfy. Creating mystery is, actually, a really easy thing to write. But you're making a promise to your audience, and it needs to be upheld later.

One thing that's remained fascinating to me about Lost's production is how the style morphed through its lifespan. The premise was simple enough to grab you in an instant - plane crashes on island. Dozens survive. How will they get home? The renowned masterstroke of the pitch was that the drama didn't begin and end on the island - each episode had a self-contained plot augmented by flashbacks to reveal more about the survivor of the week. The drama was magnetic, easy to hop into, and didn't need to promise eventual payoff as much as it enjoyed portraying human backstories of betrayal, mistakes, and foul play.

But Lost was expensive, and it needed to do well, and executive meddling took hold in a way that turned episodic drama into more of a scripted reality show.

Reactions to the episodes were closely followed. Characters that were popular became more central to the plot, and disliked characters were killed off (as, well, they were stuck on an island and couldn't just move to another city). Entertainment Weekly quoted creator Damon Lindelof:

Lindelof acknowledges that they are ''universally despised'' by fans, that's going to change, he vows: ''We had a plan when we introduced them, and we didn't get to fully execute that plan."

Their writing was reactive, engaging viewers as a two-way street - if you like them, we'll give you more. The more you hate someone, the more tragic their death. The intent of the writers became secondary to the whims of consumer ratings. It wasn't so much a scripted story as a survival show, not against the harsh wilderness of the island, but against the viewers themselves.

This method extended to the overall thesis behind the famous mysteries. As people became invested, they wanted to know answers to all the active questions being raised. Why did the survivors see random animals that nobody else noticed? Why did the same sequence of numbers keep coming up? How were Locke's disability and Rose's cancer seemingly cured? To keep everyone hooked with narrative twists, the island was not undiscovered - it was in fact a former research base from the 1970s, with old, decrepit research stations. And then, the island is not even uninhabited, and the survivors contend with being preyed on by unseen natives, and then they find a pillar of black smoke roams the island, murdering anyone it encounters. The viewers loved it and demanded more, but at the end of the day, they wanted to know why, and Lost began positing pseudoscience at random to try and explain what was happening.

The eventual writing morph took place when it became clear to the showrunners that the people demanded their 'why's, and the science fiction angle could not support everything they had set up. Seasons 1 & 2 invoke a lot of sci-fi elements - research stations, animal testing, number sequences, codes scrawled on walls, hatches and ruins hiding human activity, all of which raised expectations that the final explanation for it all would be tangible. Suddenly, everything would make sense.

By season 5, everyone was time travelling. Deep below the island sat a magical wheel that teleported the entire landmass when turned. Daniel Faraday is an outright psychic. An unaging man is revealed to have been on the island since the 1860s. All while couching the revelations in science fiction technicalities to keep up the pretense - ie, the plot revolving around a hydrogen bomb, or the psychic being named Daniel Faraday.

In season 6, the writers were forced to make a decision on how to resolve their convoluted, multi-timeline narrative, and the answer was: religion. Suddenly the sci-fi veil fell and the reasoning became completely Biblical. The smoke monster wasn't a terror beast at all; it was Some Guy. We see the literal manifestations of Good and Evil as Some Guys, fighting for control of the island since time immemorial. The core conflict was never human research, as implied throughout, but the unknowable forces of heaven meddling with human existence, including direct references to the Book of Exodus. The famous series finale shows the entire cast finding each other one last time in a church and accepting the end of their roles in the narrative.

And people were confused. They had been promised something else. It's so interesting to watch the tug-of-war between scientific teases and the final, outright admission that what they wrote was not scienfitic in the least. In some ways the marriage of unspoken reasoning with the supernatural is elegant. A station called The Lamp Post used a large Foucault pendulum and a board of ever-changing coordinates to imply the island's location could be divined by esoteric logic, but logic nonetheless. The swinging, ever-moving pendulum implied mysticism; unfathomable mathematics rooted in the earth itself. But the Lamp Post is a reference to The Chronicles of Narnia, a Christian-allegory fantasy story, and the island's location is controlled by a Magic Wheel. It's compelling, it looks dynamic, and it deftly obfuscates that there's no actual science involved at all.

The original question, 'How can they get home', is by this point obliterated, subsumed by the need to submerge everyone in Island Lore. They couldn't ever get home. The island itself is unfixed in reality. This clashed with earlier implications that the island was simply a dark spot of communications and water currents that resisted discovery, but what does that matter?

One of the earliest mysteries, The Hatch, was an underground station with a computer, into which a number sequence had to be input every 108 minutes to reset a timer. This created a problem of faith that revealed much about the characters - should they repeatedly reset the timer on nothing but the belief something will happen? Or let it run out, out of denial or curiosity? It turned out the timer displays hieroglyphs for some reason when it ran out, and then it caused a giant electromagnetism burst which is discovered to have happened on the day the plane crashed - a concrete answer. The plane was in fact broken apart in the air by electromagnetism from failure to reset The Hatch, caused when Desmond failed to input the numbers after three continuous years of doing so.

But then in season 6 it becomes not an accident at all - the crash was intentional, as the plane's survivors were 'candidates' brough to the island by God to unknowingly apply for stewardship of it. And also the Hatch exploding gives Desmond psychic powers. The original philosophical conundrum served drama between the characters and nothing else, and the entire concept gets retroactively lassoed into the new Battle Between Good And Evil angle.

My enduring perception of Lost's popularity was that at the beginning, everyone was hooked on the possibilities for what was going on - the recurring number sequence, the discovery of strange testing stations, what was the monster, what was the island, really - and then the eventual mass disappointment as the final season wrapped its character arcs in a perfectly acceptable way by having them reach spiritual peace. It made sense, honestly, it was structurally sound - but it wasn't what the fans had been been theorising together for six years. And, like when characters were killed off in quick response to negative reception... why should the audience not expect to be catered to in the way they'd been led to expect?

There's a tumblr post from 2011 I think summed it up best:

We were shown miracles and then hatches; ghosts, then scientists.  Season 5 went totally balls out sci-fi and seemed to point to “Science” as the ultimate winner.  Then season 6 came, and the question was put to rest. Faith won, and science L O S T. I guess this disappointed and surprised some people, even though they had spent 6 years watching “The Magic Island Show.”

[whatudottu]

Ever since I talked about a universal language, or at least about common languages used in the interplanetary (though given we have examples from the Andromeda system, it could also be intergalactic) community, I have been contemplating number systems. Not exactly a universal one no, but certainly what the counting systems of some of the smarter species of Ben 10.

And who else none other than the cerebrocrustaceans that I have been headcanoning so much about for the privilege!

I remember watching a video about creating a number system (part of a series about making a conlang because :P) and at the time I had misremembered what the 'best' number system was and thought 'well what if the one thing cerebrocrustaceans and galvans agree on (rivalry or not) is their numbers'. Turns out, it's a hot fucking debate in the numbers community between base 6 (senary/seximal) and base 12 (duodecimal/dozenal), and the video made a compromise for base 16 (hexadecimal).

So instead of like... going based on that, I went with the next step; fingers!

Except... cerebrocrustaceans have uh... less fingers than humans (or even galvans). Sure, maybe if their number system is so low it can actually contribute into a literal billion digit IQ using the power of a base 2 (binary, of course) number system, using the 'on/off' of an open and closed claw to count but- 2 claws, 2 hands, that only counts up to 4. So I thought 'okay, what else would they use to count?' and looked at their teeth, counting from there; it didn't end up working, the tooth count was inconsistent between screenshots even though Brainstorm specifically held the same expression.

Then one day, in the middle of the night, as I was trying to figure out how to count with the babylonian number system (count to 12 on one hand counting the joints of your 4 fingers with your thumb, hold up a finger on the other to signify how many twelves you've counted up to 60);

What if I just give cerebrocrustaceans and extra joint on their claws (which technically they do have based on animation but it isn't shown because animation-friendly) and have they count the fronts and backs of their claw per claw (though I didn't understand the babylonian counting system previous since I kinda combined it with binary which I did know how to count).

Behold! A diagram!

We will address the 69 shaped elephant in the room later.

Let's bring in the close-ups for the discussion!

Including 0 (which would be an open claw in the same way a closed fist for a human is 0) the cerebrocrustacean number system using this diagram ends up being a base 9 (nonary) system, an odd-numbered system that I am not going to get into because I am only using hands as our counting origin. While functionally in decimal (because I practiced counting this way to stress test the system) you can count from 1-80 (each section on the tens claw corresponding to a multiple of 9 ending at 72), but with the fact that you can count up to 8 in each claw in a nonary system, it's actually counting up to the equivalent of 99 with only hands alone. Considering that the limitations of claws is that there isn't a vast landscape to count with, cerebrocrustaceans make do by counting each section of a claw twice, once from it's inner side and another on it's outer side going from, using the tip to count by touching the corresponding number.

The order from 1-8 is counted first in the (typically) right claw by the pollex (the inner claw) on the inner edge of the pincer (the outer claw) from bottom to top. Then the pincer bends to allow for the pollex to reach the outer edge, tapping the top claw then the bottom claw. Then the pincer follows the same steps to the pollex, counting from inside bottom to top, then outside top to bottom. The pincer has a little more reach being the larger of the two claws, but the pollex folds more because it has more mobility.

As a nonary system, there is no 9 and instead the 'nine' in this instance is 10, which is counted in the same order as 1-8 but done in the (typically) left claw, mimicking binary in how it accents the units of the right claw by adding an additional ten relevant to the corresponding claw.

Admittedly I had no rhyme or reason to display these claws in the order that they're in, but if cerebrocrustacean number systems are written in the same way it's counted then technically inside out, right to left, would probably be a pretty cool and also pretty hostile way to convey numbers (hah, reference to heavy out-grouping biases).

The main goal of the claw positions is to make at least an easily distinguishable set of numbers that don't blur (too much) between each other if you kinda look at it from silhouette alone. Not sure how successful I was but it isn't the actual numbers in written form themselves, so it's a different ball-park and more of a visualisation of the dexterity used to count.

And now- gotteem!

A funny thing about making a counting system and like, actually practicing how it feels and how to actually count, is that you sometimes stumble into comedy gold and get a 69 on the decimal 69 (if you twist your hands around to mimic it at least) plus just hitting you with an almost perfect 👌👌just made me want to actually visualise this. Well... I was gonna visualise it anyway since it helps to provide an example on how cerebrocrustacean's count with claws but like- yeagh I don't care that odd-numbered bases are not optimal I'm keeping the nonary system for this joke alone (not actually but it's a bonus)!

Anyway- don't ask me how they do math and have a good time counting to 76!

[soulmatebracket]

Soulmate Bracket: Round 1 [Side A — Part V]

Provided reasoning under cut:

Wei Wuxian & Lan Wangji

They are canonically called soulmates!! In the live action this is platonic due to censorship and in the book it is romantic but the term actually used is zhiji (知己) of which soulmate is the closest english translation but is more literally like. the mirror to your soul. your own self in another person. i am not good with translations only wei wuxian dies but lan wangji mourns him for thirteen years (despite wwx being hated and despised by the world) because he can never love another. when wwx is brought back he recognises him instantly despite being in someone else’s body. they literally would find each other in any time or place

Oh boy. Ok. They're not explicitly called "soulmates" in the show/book but Netflix does use that categorization in its description of "The Untamed". Nor are either of them technically reincarnated BUT Wei Wuxian does get resurrected in another man's body through some shady necromancy, which is pretty darn close. They've got a fascinating relationship journey (basically enemies/rivals to lovers) Mr. Follow-All-Rules-To-The-Letter Lan Wangji meets Mr. Break-All-The-Rules-In-The-Name-Of-Fun-And-Showing-Off Wei Wuxian at teenage exorcist summer camp, they go through some sh*t, Wei Wuxian dies, Lan Wangji spends over a decade trying to find any sign of his lost soulmate while raising his adopted kid, then the shady necromancy happens and Lan Wangji IMMEDIATELY clocks that this guy simultaneously solving exorcist issues using slightly questionable means and causing shenanigans is Wei Wuxian. He might be in a different body pretending to be another crazy man, but HE KNOWS it's his guy because he acts the same and he knows the secret love song Wangji wrote for Wuxian that he shared one time in a cave during one of their near-death bonding experiences. Then history starts kind of repeating itself, only this time they stick together and make sure EVERYONE knows that they've got each others' backs, and they are absolutely legendary. Also Wei Wuxian is INCREDIBLY dense and it takes him just about until the end of the story to realize they're both gay and in love. They're complex and fascinating and tied to each other by the red string of fate so tightly that they are incomplete without each other. That's destiny, baby. They're soulmates, always and forever. (Possibly literally as the proper practice of exorcism (called "cultivation" in this world) can lead to immortality, and you know Mr. Follow-All-Rules-To-The-Letter Lan Wangji has the potential, and he will drag his guy along with him so they are never separated again.)

Okay so I feel like it could be argued if they count but the Netflix description of the show calls them soulmates and WWX *did* get reincarnated and then almost immediately run into LWJ who had been mourning him for 16 years. LWJ composed a little musical theme for them that ties them together and WWX playing it on a super out of tune flute is what let LWJ fully recognize him. Their magic which comes from their souls is very compatible and neither of them have ever been normal about each other in their life even though WWX spent a long time being extremely dumb and repressed about his very gay feelings (they are romantic soulmates, just takes them a bit to get there). Big "you and me against the world" vibes once WWX becomes the number 1 wanted guy in the entire universe due to dabbling in dark magic even though WWX was like "lan zhan if someone has to kill me i want it to be you" (LWJ did *not* want it to be him and did his very best to keep WWX alive even though it meant betraying his clan and the world as a whole). They got fake married as teens back when LWJ didn't even like WWX. There are multiple moments where they parallel other soulmates/soulmate-coded characters (song lan and xiao xingchen, baoshen sanren and lan an). They're the only two characters who get to be happy at the immediate end of the story and that's because both of them being alive and together and getting to wander around fighting monsters and playing music and being grossly in love is all that they both need.

Utena Tenjou & Anthy Himemiya

[SPOILERS] at the end of the series, it is revealed that they weren’t living in the real world this entire time. Utena was sent somewhere else. Anthy goes to find her in the movie, and Utena has lost all of her memories of Anthy in that world. At the end of the movie, they end up escaping to the real world

Utena falls in love with Anthy on first sight and makes sure she becomes her prince without even remembering who she is. They're stuck in a timeloop and eventually find themselves together near the end escaping from the horrors theyre trapped in. (Spoilers kinda) Anthy is hinted to have came back to life after being burned st the stake for being seen as a witch so the reincarnation exists,,,(they're in love your honor vote for my silly sapphics)

Every version of RGU is the narrative repeating itself. Devouring itself again. The serpent eating its own tail. Utena fights for Anthy again and again. Anthy betrays Utena, or lies to Utena, or cannot save the both of them quick enough. Anthy escapes, or they both escape, or they both get trapped again, and the story repeats, and Utena is winning the hand of the rose bride, and Utena cannot escape the narrative. Each time the story is told again Utena cannot quite remember how she got here, but it gets more familiar each time. RGU is a time loop that the characters can hardly escape. In every version, Anthy and Utena find each other. Betray each other. Find each other, again.

[vortainz]

How it ends

the ending of IZ is ,, a really odd topic

technically it has 4 endings, well, 4.5

1 : invader dib

no, it in no way was a planned ending ever, but i feel it deserves mentioning considering how prevalent it was

it originally started on TAIZS when the producer was interviewed, he went on to confirm there was a intention to steer the show towards IRK and talking about its “”existence””

(also istg there was a ask where he vaguely explains the plot as a joke but i can’t find it for the life of me)

there were multiple versions of it but there’s two that circulated the most

A: “this special would have allegedly followed Tenn’s kidnapping by the Meekrob, and an all-out war happening between the Meekrob and the Irkens, which would have ended with Zim (aided by Gaz) being victorious over Dib, The Resistys, and the Meekrob, and finally conquering Earth.” (fan wiki)

B: the focus of the show would slowly shift towards irk, dib would get more crazed trying to stop the empire, zim and gaz would team up (or date, depends on who you asked) and stop both dib and the empire. everyone else dies and zagf/r saves the rest of earth

2 : space smoothies

In a nicktoons magazine, IZ made its “””final””” return. in which it had its first comic iteration where zim successfully took over the earth, but just kinda gives up when he sees the merch of himself. dib complains and zim offers to just have a jolly ol’ time in space, them both leaving earth in disarray while just being buds

3 : dookie loop

The “”canon”” ending, basically zim traps dib and the rest of the universe in a timeloop due to not being able to finish a puzzle. blah blah blah i’ll rant about his reasoning for that in another post ANYWAYS,, he eventually finishes it and resigns to fixing the timeline, but the “fix timeline button” doesn’t work and the universe implodes, everyone dies.

4 : nothing is real

i haven’t fully pieced together the lore but this is what ive gathered

rk is god. kinda.

in their orginal universe, zim and dib are real people, dib has gone missing and zim conquered earth. the conditions are really bad till he finally gets the idea to just indoctrinate them all

rk uses the comics as a “coping mechanism” of sorts, avoiding what’s really going on by just reading the comics, it’s really the only think they can do anyways

here’s where my idea sort of splits

A : they continue reading the comics and recapping them all, imagining this fantastical world where life is just zim and dib fighting in middle school, each winning and losing occasionally. rk starts making their own comics and aus, getting more and more absorbed by the characters of zim and dib that anything other than them is incredibly distressing

they get so sucked into their own mind that at this point they feel as though they ARE the creator of these characters and comics. when the story in their mind gets too off track, when it’s getting to the point where it might end, they insert themselves into it and fix whatever issue there was

B : bk (brain kid) is god essentially, rk was originally from the universe as described before but was scooped up by bk at some point and put into the recap section of the comic universe, something similar to in issue 40. in the comic universe, IZ isn’t real, it’s just a comic. yet rk is still able to manipulate the story and interact with the characters, when the comic is finally coming to and end they step in and just start everything over again

oh yeah in both A n B what i mean by ‘the comic ending’ is that earth is burning and no one wins, both zim and dib are about to die

⬆️ sorry if none of this made sense 😭 i’m struggling to word it correctly + still theorizing

4.5 : timetravel

Probably the most simple one, zim conquers earth, dib dies by being stupid, zim gets killed by his younger self, the end. the only reason it’s “4.5” is due to it being specific to the timeline of that issue, as none of the other entries acknowledge it