#i'd kill for that

[byfulcrums]

So my brain basically functions only because of angst so I made some kind of AU??? about what could happen with Nuwa if she appears and stuff

I've always liked body horror and all that dark stuff so there's gonna be some of it here! It's not very explicit though. Just some small things that might point to it happening

So. It starts with Nuwa finding MK!! Or MK finding Nuwa first idk. Nuwa starts to like MK (PLATONIC) and MK really loves hanging out with Nuwa! So everything is great. They're some kind of friends or at least allies

However, Nuwa is still, well, a god, and MK is a mortal (as far as she knows at least). She may like him, but she can't care for him the way a mother would care for a child. She doesn't even know she's technically his mother yet!

So shit happens, blablabla, and Nuwa finds out MK is the little stone monkey she carved all those years ago. She gets very excited to see that her attempt at creating such a powerful lifeform like SWK actually worked and immediately goes to tell MK, who has some very mixed feelings about this

Eventually MK starts to sort out his feelings on all this and wants to have some mom and son bonding time! Just to see what'd it be like. Nuwa of course accepts, saying that she'd love to run some tests on him to see how alive he is and how stone he is. Nothing bad yet! Things are great!

So Sun Wukong finds out while MK is gone w Nuwa. He freaks out because "ohh shit why why why not AGAIN--" and speeds off to her lab or whatever she has to find her and MK. Turns out they're not there, but what is there are some very disgusting attempts at creating some kind of Monkey King clones?

So of course, Sun Wukong is disgusted. And also mildly traumatizing because there is a lot of beings who look so much like him and are literally mutilated. They have blobs all over their bodies and what they are is clear: failed attempts at creating a being as powerful as he is

He goes to explore a bit (ignoring how disgusting the whole scene is, because nope he is not dealing with the emotions this brings right now, MK needs help and he's gonna get it!) and finds some other failed attempts at life! Except that this time, they're not him. They're MK

Now, they don't all look that much like MK. Some of them are just broken stones and unhatched eggs. But the similarities are very obvious and easy to see and SWK does not like that

So basically, to summarize, Nuwa was going crazy while trying to find a way to create a weapon as strong as the Sage himself. There were many failed attempts (she first started by trying to make actual clones, then continued by making stone eggs which melted very painfully when they were born) but eventually, she finds a way

Nuwa realices that cloning the Monkey King won't work, but that maybe, just maybe, if she made something similar to him, it'd come to life safely. So instead of trying to create a second Monkey King, she decided to make some kind of weird sibling for him

MK wasn't the perfect being she wanted (that was obvious because while the egg she made was stable, it wasn't radiating the power Monkey King has), but he was the closest she got to creating actual life, so even if she decided to let him live, he was thrown out and ended up in FFM. Nuwa doesn't check on him because he's not the one she wanted. Or maybe she accidentally threw him out by idk, kicking him or smth and straight up didn't know he exists

So now MK has to deal with knowing that he's just a failed experiment and that he has thousands of siblings who didn't make it and died in painful and horrible ways. Hooray!

[dashintrash]

He is THE King (and the father)

[wormtime123]

i couldn't rest until i made something this is driving me insane. so what if i dismissed your success as because of your hardships instead of in spite of them

[bananonbinary]

jfc i just saw a "morally grey girlboss" poll and mabel pines was one of the contenders. she's not morally grey she's not a girlboss she's 12 and never makes a single moral decision that's worse than "you have stuff going on but i'm focused on my own problems" what are you fucking talking about

[mirrorhouse]

There are stories that need to be told. If things ever get bad again, these are the words you'll hear in your mind like a tape playing over and over, like a song stuck in your brain. These words will hold you up and carry you. They are your lifeline.

[shimmershy]

Chara can stand exactly ONE human. That's it.

[thestrawberrypimp]

Y'ALL I AM SCREAMING, HOW HAVE I NEVER NOTICED THIS

THEY GOT POPSICLED???

[candlebel]

I can't cry... I want to cry... I feel so much sorrow...

[ipostmysimpingstuffanonymously]

Oh wow I didnt know chapter 249 already leaked lol

[tomboxed]

jesus christ could you get any gayer

[hi-intrepid-heros]

I can't get over Brennan getting up to hug every single ratfish contestant as they came through the door. This man has achieved his final form and it is Dad™.

[heartorbit]

find another role, carry on the show

[merlinemryspendragon]

What is the primary force that guides us along our paths? Is it our minds, or our hearts?

[eightyonefour]

these two little shits and their complicit glances and internal jokes 😭😭😭

[lesbiancientforesttroll]

Think about Harrow's AU Bubbles

Thinking about Harrow's AU bubbles, not as fanfic references, but as expressions of her subconscious fears and desires, is so fascinating.

The Harrow Nova one is pretty obvious. Harrow's parents were obsessed with her being a necromancer, were willing to kill for it. It's only natural she'd wonder, "What if I hadn't been?"

And the answer Harrow gives herself is: Your parents and everyone would reject you (except, wildly, for Crux). Also they'd be alive cuz you'd never opened the tomb, and you'd be an unpopular orphan they'd abuse (Just Like Gideon). And you'd still be just as devoted to serving the Ninth with a blade. There's a lot there. But the other really telling bit is her relationship with Gideon. Harrow Nova professes to hate the reverend daughter even as she seeks to (re) create the necro-cav bond with her. But that hatred doesn't seem to be mutual. And the bit about the daughter intervening when Harrow was whipped…

That's Harrow's subconscious saying if their roles had been reversed, "Gideon would have treated me better than I treated her. Gideon would have protected me."

The Ball AU also seems like a reasonable extension of Gideon's childhood query: "What if my other parent is the most important guy in the universe?" Answer: Emperor Dad would throw a big party.

But also… it's a bride-finding ball! That's so very telling. It could have been anything, but Harrow invents another scenario where she's fighting, competing to get to Gideon, to be awarded the role of her sworn partner (first cav, now bride), while outwardly claiming not to want it.

Now The BARI Star AU often gets described as a "coffee shop" one, but it's actually set in a cohort cafeteria. And normally I wouldn't split hairs over that, but I think the cohort setting is actually really significant. The Cohort was Gideon's dream, and also Harrow's rival for Gideon's attention. It's what she kept trying to leave Harrow for.

So now Harrow dreams that she's left Drearburh to join the cohort and will meet Gideon there. Not fight or compete for a role where they're bound to each other, but just meet her there. That feels like yielding. Like compromise. It makes me think Harrow's subconscious has matured past trying to keep Gideon with her always and is instead looking for ways that SHE can be with Gideon. Meet Gideon where she is.

(Also this may be a stretch, but I always find it low-key funny that Harrow imagines Gideon in the cafeteria… I like to think her brain is skimming lists of hypothetical military jobs like... what sees the least action... ah, coffee-adept, she'll be perfectly safe there...)

[criticalsyourroles]

now i've watched a fair amount of d&d i've started to pick up on the differences between dm style i think

like brennan IS all the bad guys. every game he dms is brennan vs the players. he makes npcs and battles that make his friends throw things at him and he smirks the whole time. he makes them tell him their worst fears and then he makes them do it. and it's awful and amazing and really funny

matt IS exandria. his characters and battles never feel written or constructed, they just feel like things that already existed in the world. it's all about verisimilitude with him, and he's amazing at it. he tends to fade into the background and let the players react to the story and it makes everything he does incredibly cinematic

aabria dms like she's just another player at the table reacting to the story, right up until someone gets lulled into a false sense of security and tries to fool around and THEN she throws a curveball by making them deal with the consequences of their choices. she's like oh you think that's funny?? then i'm about to be hilarious, bitch. and she keeps getting away with it bc she's just that good!

basically, brennan's an evil bastard, matt's the world, and aabria's the queen of consequences

or:

brennan - fuck

matt - around

aabria - find out