#if someone already posted something similar uhhh ignore this post

[meowunmeow]

Buroja Arc

[lizbotw]

SEVEN MINUTES IN HELL: INTRODUCTON

YOU’VE ENTERED THE FOREST: CHOOSE A PATH (MASTERLIST)

pairing: various (bakugou, iida, jirou, kaminari, midoriya, todoroki) x reader

summary: You go adventuring in the woods with your friends as part of the Halloween spirit, but things don’t exactly go as planned.

a/n: this is the intro post to my collab with kristy! since it’s a choose your own adventure story, check out the masterlist here for additional details and for links to the other routes ♡ i hope you all enjoy and feedback is very much appreciated!

word count: 4.1k

Go exploring in the forest for the hell of it. It’ll be fun, they said. Halloween isn’t complete without late night adventures, they’d said. We’ll only be gone for a few hours. Mr. Aizawa wouldn’t mind.

Well, you know what? They had lied. And by they, you meant Kaminari because of course he had been the mastermind behind this grand idea. He was wrong about all of it and especially that last point because in your heart of hearts, as much as you wanted to believe you were all magically given permission to go perusing on your own, you knew that a detention notice awaited all of you when you got back. Not that anyone seemed to care.

Leaves crunching underfoot, jackets and sweaters wrapped snugly around you, Kaminari’s victims—ahem, your friends that he had roped into this scheme—trudged behind him as he jabbered on about the positives of this bonding experience.

“Do you think we’ll actually find anything?” Midoriya piped up after Kaminari’s latest spiel about this forest being infamous for the random skulls travelers always swore they spotted conveniently resting at the bases of trees or perched upon its branches. There was a barely noticeable tremble in his voice at the prospect.

You heard a scoff. “Slim chance,” Bakugou sneered from next to you as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. His hands had been stuffed into his pockets the entire time, kicking stray rocks in his path at every opportunity. “Who the hell would believe that anyway?”

As much as you wanted to scold him for ruining the Halloween spirit, you had to agree. What were the chances of you finding anything noteworthy during this expedition? There was a reason no one could ever produce actual pictures or evidence of the horrors they had supposedly witnessed.

Kaminari was apt at ignoring skeptics though—maybe a little too good at it—and Midoriya’s interest seemed to have lit a fire in him as he whirled around to face the group now, walking backwards. His expression said it all—Finally, someone believes me! “Duh, we have to carry something back to show the others. They’re totally missing out!”

“I don’t think a skeleton is an appropriate thing to bring back to our classmates. Perhaps they’d enjoy something educational, like a sample of leaves from the different trees or-”

“No one cares, four-eyes.” You’d lost count how many times Bakugou had interrupted Iida at this point. And each and every time it had resulted in an argument—including now. That would be entertaining and all if not for the fact that you were pretty sure your right ear was going deaf from being next to them.

You tuned out the biting remarks (Bakugou) and the gasps of surprise at the vulgarity (Iida), as had become routine to you at this point. What was that saying about groups tearing each other apart during horror movies before anyone even gets killed off? Or maybe you had just made that saying up yourself… hmm… well whatever it was, it definitely applied right now.

“This is stupid,” Jirou mumbled from your other side and you almost groaned. How did you end up sandwiched between the resident pessimists of the group again?

Maybe it was the combination of Bakugou and Jirou that was starting to make you skeptical, or maybe it was the fact that you had been walking for who knows how long and your legs were tired, or the fact that you were hungry and thirsty, or that there was no reception out here, or—or maybe it was just all of it. You wrinkled your nose the more you thought about it. Maybe everyone was right, there really was nothing out here. You suddenly wanted to go home, sick of the whistling wind, the towering trees, and the flits of rapidly fading sunlight that shone through the leaves.

“Kaminari, maybe we should turn back.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Jirou threw her hands up in exasperation. “Why did any of us agree to this anyway?”

“Just for the record, I’m only here to make sure none of you do anything irrational.” That was true. The only reason Iida of all people ended up on this expedition was because he’d heard Kaminari advertising the idea a little too loudly and realized there was no way to talk him out of it. So here he was, playing babysitter.

“Yeah? Well, just for the record, I don’t need you to watch me.” And Bakugou was back to stirring up trouble, just when the latest argument had started to die down and the ringing in your ear had stopped.

You almost felt bad for Kaminari being at the receiving end of everyone’s frustration until you saw that his grin was no where close to faltering and in fact he seemed to take the challenge head on. You admired his drive but you were wondering for the umpteenth time why he didn’t just bring Kirishima, Mina, or Sero on the expedition too—they wouldn't be complaining… much. (Probably because those three were so into Halloween it was insane. Tough chance of getting them away from the yearly Halloween festival planning. They didn’t want to miss anything.)

He clicked his tongue in disapproval, shaking his finger at the others. If anything, you were impressed how he was able to navigate the forest walking backwards while continuing his chiding. On second thought… your eyes darted up ahead to a rapidly approaching object. Wait, was that—

“You guys seriously have to lighten uHHH-AH.” A crash echoed through the trees as Kaminari tripped over a well-placed log, his back hitting the ground and knocking the air out of him. In the distance you saw a few birds fly out of the trees in surprise at the noise, beating wings black against the afternoon sky.

“You really should’ve been watching where you were going,” Todoroki spoke up from the back of the group after a moment of shocked silence from everyone—even Bakugou had shut up.

“Are… are you okay?” Midoriya was the first to check up on him, walking forward and crouching down next to his friend, craning his neck to examine him closer.

Kaminari sat up, rubbing his head. “Yeah, never been better.”

“We should all be more careful. We don’t have a first aid kit to use if something goes wrong.” Please, Iida, it’s not that serious—but also, good point. In the middle of the woods with no first aid kit—way to make this seem way more scary than it actually is.

“Guys, quit worrying—”

“I wasn’t worrying,” both Bakugou and Jirou cut in.

“—I’m fine, see?” He stood up, rustling the leaves at his feet further. He did seem fine, although you were sure he would start complaining later. “I’m tough!”

Kaminari admitting that everything was alright opened the floodgates for the concern from the others to morph back into claims of how you should definitely not be in this forest at all, now paired with chastising him for not being more observant.

“I’m turning back. And you’re coming with me so we don’t get lost.” Jirou took a hold of your arm to pull you after her. “You're the only rational one around here.”

“Wait, but I-”

“I uh… I don’t think it's a good idea for us to split up.” Midoriya’s attempt at stopping Jirou didn’t exactly work as intended.

“Then we should all go.”

“That’s not really what I-”

“It’s probably for the best,” Todoroki said. He shrugged when you looked at him in surprise; he had been fairly neutral about the ordeal up until that point. “Kaminari,” he turned to look at the blond now, “We should get your head checked out too, to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

“I didn't hit my head,” Kaminari whined, “Seriously guys, you worry way too much.” He shifted his weight to his other foot, crossing his arms as he took a second to think. “...but fine, if you really want to go back, we’ll go. Not just because I fell though.”

“Finally,” Jirou breathed out. You felt her grip on your arm tighten for a second and then she released it.

“So… which way?” Midoriya prompted, eyes scanning the trees that were starting to look a little too similar now that you thought about it.

Everyone turned expectantly to Kaminari, although it seemed that the same idea was already budding in their minds as well.

He blinked at the sudden attention and then a sheepish smile overtook his features and he rubbed the back of his head, averting his gaze. “Well…”

“We’re lost,” Bakugou deadpanned. It wasn’t a question.

Kaminari tried to skirt around the issue, making up half-excuses and telling all of you not to worry, fumbling with his words. He wasn't very convincing. Realizing it was a lost cause a minute into the act, he gave up with a deep sigh. “Okay, yeah, we’re lost. We have been… for a while.” He mumbled that last part.

“We what?”

Kaminari held his hands up in defense. “Woah, woah, Bakugou, calm down. I'm sure I can get us out of here, no sweat.”

“I knew we passed that tree before. We’ve been walking in circles this entire time.” You looked over to see who had said that and found Todoroki, hand on his chin, staring contemplatively at a large tree with a spiral carved into its trunk. Now that you thought about it, it did look familiar.

The quiet that had followed ever since Kaminari fell was slowly falling apart, being replaced with loud, frantic discussions about what the fuck were you going to do. The bordering desperation in some of their voices wasn’t well hidden—it didn’t help ease anyone’s nerves that none of you had told a single soul where you were headed off to, hoping that no one would notice your absence at all. You were starting to realize just how many bad decisions everyone here had made up until this point. Note to self: maybe don’t get mad at horror movies portagonists for acting stupid once you get back to your dorm and flip on a new show to watch (now you were thinking about your dorm and how cozy you could have been in it right now, safe and sound with all of your friends for an impromptu movie night).

You shook your head. No time to think about what you could’ve been doing. Someone around here had to do something about this chaos because it seemed like everyone was seconds away from being at each other’s throats and you're pretty sure that's exactly what happens before things go horribly wrong in horror movies.

You cleared your throat, clapping your hands together. You took a deep breath, filling your lungs with air before opening your mouth and— “Shut up!” The echo of your shout had even more birds in the distance fleeing from their trees (oops?).

Everyone fell quiet, all looking at you now and their pinning stares were not happy. “Um…” You hadn’t actually thought of what to say once you got their attention. What could any of you do? “We need a plan.”

“No, duh.” Bakugou rolled his eyes.

You fixed him with a glare. “I said shut up. Anyway, we’re not going to get anything done at this rate if we all keep panicking.”

“You’re right,” Iida spoke up, “We all need to remain calm. Let’s discuss this properly.”

Looks like your plan to instill some order among the group hadn’t been a complete bust because everyone was nodding in agreement now. Maybe this could work and you all would be safely back at U.A. within a few hours.

That had been until the downpour had started, rain splattering through the trees and soaking into the fabric of your shirt.

A drop of water came from above, landing on your arm and chilling to your core. Then there was another and another, cold and unrelenting. No one had noticed the gray clouds heavy with moisture rolling in and it was like it all came down at once, stunning you all in place before you realized you were getting absolutely soaked.

It was a blur what happened after that, but let’s just say that the sense of order from before didn't last long. Those who had hoods on their jackets pulled them up, and anyone who didn’t held their hands up to shield themselves, or pulled their jackets up and over their heads by the collar. In a frenzy to find shelter, you all took off, feet thumping against the ground, yelling about your horrible luck so far. It was as if the forest had decided that you had been standing around too long talking and that it was time to get a move on.

The canopy of trees darkened the area, and you had to focus on the forest floor to prevent yourself from tripping several times. It was a miracle you all were able to stick together considering that it felt like you ran off in a seemingly random direction. The search for cover was suspiciously short though when Kaminari spotted a cabin in the distance. No one thought to question it much and before you knew it, you had shoved open the unlocked door and collapsed inside. The sound of the rain against the roof was deafening, but once the door was shut the clatter wasn’t as bad.

After everyone had caught their breaths and settled in, they’d gone back to arguing, mostly because no one was expecting to get drenched like that. Cute outfits? Ruined. Kaminari was going to be put on the chopping block for that one.

“It doesn’t make sense for us to be stuck here. Can’t we just use our quirks to find our way out?” you asked. The solution seemed obvious to you and you folded your arms against your chest, trying to keep warm.

Todoroki stood near one of the small windows, dusty from years of disuse, and swiped a hand over the glass to clean it. “I don’t think we should go out just yet. There’s low visibility with all this rain so there’s a high chance we might lose track of each other.”

Grumbles of agreement at that brought you to where you were now, sitting ducks in an ominous building in the woods with some of your best friends. This was starting to seem like some over done, predictable horror movie plot more and more.

“Can you help me carry those?”

You snapped out of your stupor, eyes drawn to the fire blazing in the mantle, and then up at the person who had spoken. Jirou.

She was pointing at a stack of logs near the door that Todoroki was crouched in front of, running his hands over the wooden pieces. You wondered how long you had been sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall for, acutely aware of the ache in your back and the stiffness in your legs now. This was boring.

“Well?” Your eyes snapped back to Jirou, her head tilted expectantly.

You cracked a smile, rising to your feet. “What? Are they too heavy for you?”

She rolled her eyes and pushed your arm lightly in retaliation before walking over to the stack. You followed in her wake.

Up close now, you could see that Todoroki was using his quirk to dry off the wood, the dripping droplets that splattered onto the wooden floor slowly dissipating away under his touch.

Strangely enough, aside from a light coating of dust, the cabin seemed ready to live in (or, er, crash in… for now, until you got back to U.A. and could forget this ever happened) and a small pile of logs had been situated next to an empty fireplace. Todoroki had thrown the wood in and lit it up no problem, casting light over the tiny room and providing some much needed warmth, but there wasn’t enough to keep the flame burning long.

The rain had eased up not long ago and with that Iida had decided to venture out to find more kindling. It didn’t take him long to skirt around the area to find branches and fallen logs that could be lugged back to the cabin with his super speed, and currently he was still out there gathering extra pieces that you’d surely need through the night. Despite the rain no longer pouring down, the sky had darkened significantly and it was decided that it was probably best if none of you went very far out there; same reason as the rain—low visibility. (You’d already been stuck here for a few hours so a few more until sunlight breached the horizon didn’t seem too bad… right?)

Normally wet kindling wasn’t ideal and would be a recipe for disaster once the flames caught ahold of it and the room filled with smoke from the combination, but luckily for you, Todoroki was perfect for survival expeditions. The plan was that he would simply dry off the wood with light heat from his hands, similar to how he had dried off most of your clothes earlier on to prevent anyone from getting sick from the cold.

While Iida went looking for large enough logs outside, Todoroki worked diligently to dry them off, sitting expectantly by the door for the next bundle. Then, one of the others would lug the wood either to rest next to the fireplace for when you needed it, or throw it into the flame when it started to die down. There weren’t exactly perfect pieces of wood laying around the forest, so many of them burned out quickly if they were too small and had to be replaced frequently.

You noticed the flickering light of the current flame starting to die down. Todoroki noticed your footsteps behind him and looked back at you before standing and moving so that you and Jirou could grab either end of a large log, slowly walk it over to the flame and then swing your arms for momentum a bit before throwing it in. You repeated the process with a few more smaller pieces and within no time the flame was back to its healthy, roaring self. The glow it cast would be cozy if the situation was any one but this.

Wiping your brow from the exertion, you had your other hand on your hip as you stared into the fire and admired your work. Jirou lingered a second by your side doing the same before walking off to go slump down in a seat somewhere, and you felt eyes on the back of your head once she left. You spared a glance over your shoulder to find Todoroki still standing in the same spot as before with his arms crossed watching you.

“How long do you think these will last us?” you asked to break the tension, referring to the slowly growing pile of wood.

Todoroki’s eyes shifted away from you and to the pile on the floor. “That should be good. I’ll tell Iida we should be set for the night when he comes back.”

You nodded and looked down. Not able to think of anything else to say, you padded back over to the corner you had been sitting in before and slotted yourself against the wall as had become familiar at this point, leaning your head back and closing your eyes. Maybe if you ignored the situation it would all pass faster.

“This is just plain depressing.” You pried one eye open in exasperation at the interruption—come on, you had just gotten in the “zone” (oh well, not like you had a time limit on doing that anyway). Kaminari was standing right in front of the fireplace at the head of the room, addressing all of you. He was back to giving you that disapproving shake of his head, the same kind he gave when he thought you guys were being boring. Uh oh… where’s this going to go? It was great and all that someone wasn’t feeling down in the dumps over this whole thing, but with it being Kaminari you weren’t sure how high the scale of how great it was actually went.

Bakugou’s eyes were following Kaminari’s movements now, waiting to see what dumb idea he had probably come up with this time—preiovusly, Bakugou had been staring out of the window at the full moon, elbow resting on the window sill and head in his palm (it was nice to see him calm and peaceful like that for a change). Even Midoirya, who had been alternating between sit-ups, push-ups, and planks in the the opposite corner of the room (where he got the energy for all of that right now was beyond you), had sat up to focus on Kaminari, his knees bent and his arms looped around his knees.

“You guys seriously need to lighten up,” Kaminari continued, dismissively gesturing with his hands as if to ward off the negativity all of you were emitting right now.

You saw Jirou quirk an eyebrow. “Yeah? And how should we do that? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re stranded here.”

“Well, yeah, I know that, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun.” He could tell he was already losing everyone’s attention as you diverted your gazes, each wanting to go back to being solemn on your own. “Why don’t we play a game?” he tried as a last ditch effort.

You let out a huff through your nose. “And that game would be…?”

“Truth or dare! Obviously.”

“Right,” you breathed out to yourself, rolling your eyes, although you couldn’t help but smile a little at the thought.

“I wouldn’t mind that.” Bless your heart, Midoriya.

“Awesome! See, at least someone around here knows how to enjoy themselves.” Kaminari planted his hands on his hips and the light of the fireplace behind him illuminated his outline. “Okay, the rest of you sticks in the mud have to play too. Form a circle in the middle of the room. Chop chop now. You have to admit it beats sitting around like this.”

You looked over to your side when you heard Jirou sigh and then the creak of the floorboards when she got up. “I guess.”

Midoriya had already gotten up from his spot and had lowered himself down to sit near the center. Jirou followed suit.

“Whatever.” Bakugou cast the window one last look before he moved towards the forming circle.

Just as Todoroki stepped forward as well, the door swung open with a creak, and Iida stepped inside, dropping the wooden bundles in his arms to the floor. Just as he moved to go back outside to no doubt collect more, not even sparing a glance further into the room, Todoroki stopped him, reaching out a hand to grasp his arm. “We have enough, Iida. I think we’ll be fine tonight.”

He nodded. “Sounds good then. I guess all that’s left to do now is wait this whole thing out,” Iida said. His gaze flickered from Todoroki’s face to the wood pile near the fireplace in order to see if there really was enough and that was when he noticed the circle forming in the center of the room. “…what’s going on?”

“We’re playing truth or dare!” Kaminari declared from the head of the circle where he’d sat down.

“You don’t have to play if you don’t want to,” Todoroki said.

“Nonsense. I think it’ll be good to lift our spirits. Excellent idea, Kaminari.” Kaminari was absolutely beaming at the praise from Iida.

Iida stepped further into the room and leaned forward to shake his head out from side to side, water droplets flying from his hair—they’d probably dripped down from the towering trees onto him as he moved around outside, even after the storm.

As Todoroki and Iida choose their spots in the circle, you did as well, rising from your place against the wall, stretching, and then situating yourself among the others.

Once everyone was done squirming in their seats and getting comfortable, Kaminari clapped his hands together and leaned forward as if he had a secret to tell you all. A mischievous, almost dangerous glint was in his eye and the fireplace cast shadows over his face. “Let’s play.”

Catching the shine of the full moon in the far edge of the room in your peripheral, you shivered. You had a feeling the night was about to go from humbling to downright horrifying in true Halloween fashion.

TRUTH OR DARE: WHAT WILL YOU CHOOSE?

[raendown]

Todays follower milestone gift fic is for @sparklemagpie with the prompt word importune. Can you tell I had fun writing this one?

Pairing: ShikamaruTemariTayuya Word count: 1966 Rated: T+ Summary: For the two women in his life Shikamaru will do whatever it takes. As long as they're happy he's happy. When they're not...well, when they're not you get situations like this one.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Just The Right Cherry On Top

Shikamaru would have told anyone who asked that it didn’t start off as begging. No one was really asking, though, and the shreds of pride still buried in the back of his mind somewhere told him that was a problem. If no one was asking questions that usually meant they thought they already had the answers. But they didn’t. They really didn’t. When it came to his two girls Shikamaru was smugly aware that he was usually the only one with answers. 

Well, answers to questions like ‘are you sure they’re not trying to kill each other’ or usually ‘how can you stand to live between that’. The questions about what might be going on in either woman’s mind were ones he didn’t even try to guess at. He knew when to back away from a problem he would never figure out. 

Right now he didn’t so much have a problem as he did have a disaster. He knew very well that relationships took work, that his work would be doubled when he agreed to marry both of the most important women in his life, and since he had not a day went by when he didn’t consider that work so very worth it. For the most part their days were happy. Blissful, even. Shikamaru was as flawed as any other human being but among his flaws pride wasn’t usually the one that tripped him up. Disaster only really happened when pride snuck up on the other two parts of his soul. 

Tayuya, as usual, was the first to start throwing insults. And of course Temari, when faced with a hot temper, flared her own with the kind of heat usually accomplished only with the most deadly katon. Standing on the other side of the kitchen with a frying pan in one hand and his face in the other, Shikamaru briefly wondered if there were any missions available that would take him far away until these two crazy goddesses sorted their own shit out. 

There weren’t. He checked. Discreetly, of course. 

After the first couple days of cold silence it became obvious that this was one of those fights they needed him to bring them back from, when pride and stubbornness and sheer petty spite held both of their lips shut, eyes refusing to meet, tempers refusing to back down. These were the kind of fights that reminded Shikamaru why the three of them really worked as a full unit, one single whole, any weakness in one covered by another. Knowing that never made it any less annoying trying to be the cover to their weakness. They might need him but in those moments they sure didn’t want to need him. 

“What’ll it take this time?” Shikamaru could hear the exhaustion in his own voice but that’s just what happened when he hadn’t gotten more than three consecutive hours of sleep for the past week. 

“Nothing,” Temari snapped. “Maybe this is just it!”

Drawing a hand down his face spoke louder than words how little he believed that. If he looked really close he could see the lines of aching tiredness in Temari’s expression that told him she didn’t believe it either.

“Right,” he murmured. “I’ll just go talk to her then.

And so he did, though it would be hard to express just how unsurprised he was to get a very similar reaction from Tayuya.

“Fuck that bitch and her high horse!”

“You could if one of you would say sorry,” Shikamaru couldn’t help pointing out. 

“Oh no fucking way! Not with a ten foot god damned pole!” 

“What if I said please?”

So that was how it started. Or got to the middle, really. Much to the contrary of what other people seemed to think, Shikamaru was not so whipped as to just fall on his knees and beg any time he encountered the slightest of resistance in their relationship. He had some self respect. In the face of these two boneheads, however, self respect was a concept he was more than willing to throw out the window in favor of a full night’s rest, something he would not be getting until their home saw peace again. 

One instance of saying please did nothing. Twice did little more than that. Somewhere around the fifteen ‘please’ he switched tactics and added a cherry on top. Tayuya rather harshly reminded him that she hated cherries and described in very colorful detail where he could stick his polite words. Clearly another tactic was needed.

As a smart man Shikamaru very carefully ignored all of Naruto’s well meaning suggestions like sending his wives flowers pretending they were from each other. Maybe that would have worked on someone like Hinata who was determined to look at the world and see the best in everyone but Shikamaru had married two people determined to look at the world through a cold lens of cynicism. Gods but he loved it. Loved the both of them. He just didn’t love the fights. Naruto meant well but the one and only time any of them had seen Hinata truly mad had been the middle of a battle against the reanimated body of a dead man handing Naruto his own ass. It was great for the two of them to finally find happiness. When he thought of their calm and sweet relationship Shikamaru sometimes just couldn’t help but wonder how they didn’t get bored with no one around to throw a plate or two. 

Since being nice about it didn’t do much his next step was to try being firm. This time he went to Tayuya first because if he could crack her then honestly he was pretty sure he could crack the whole world. His efforts in this round were about as successful as the first. 

“Go ahead and try to tell me what to do one more time, Nara.” Right up in his face Tayuya was all fire, in her hair and in her eyes and in every move of the arm currently jamming in to his chest. “I’ve had just about enough of being ordered around for one lifetime, you hear me?” Oh he did. He did hear her. He also heard the undertone of heat and it wasn’t until an hour after he left their home in the daze of post orgasmic bliss that he realized he’d been had. Maybe Choji was right and he did think with his dick a little too much. 

Going to see Temari hadn’t exactly had better results - although he’d known better from the start than to consider either one of them ‘better’ than the other in certain departments. After making it very clear how much she both enjoyed and scorned his attempts to law down some kind of law Temari rode him against the nearest walls and sent him off afterwards with a few choice words about how she really didn’t mind wearing only his marks on her skin from now on. Since he hadn’t been the one to bring that up Shikamaru saw through it right away. They missed each other, a blind man could see that. Getting them to admit it was the hard part. 

So that was a bust on trying to put his foot down but if he were honest Shikamaru hadn’t expected any different. The next thing he tried was bribery. After the harsh years both of his wives had experienced it was entirely understandable that they should enjoy being waited on hand and foot. Usually the offer was an irresistible one to them; hence why he didn’t make it very often, a special treat for special occasions when he needed to remind them just how precious they really were. When not just one but both of them turned him down this time Shikamaru had to take a nice long walk through the woods and feed the deer for a while, wondering if maybe the magic offer had lost its touch at last. Or if maybe he was the one that had lost his touch. It took a good long while and three different deer taking curious nibbles of his ponytail before he shook himself and stood up with a little more steel in his spine. 

Clearly this problem was running out of control and that meant bringing in the biggest weapon he had at his disposal. One didn’t spend a lifetime best friends with the Yamanaka heir without picking up some tricks. 

“Please?” 

“No.”

“Please please?”

“I said no, fuck off Shika.”

“Uhhh, please and please and please?”

Tayuya actually stopped walking to round on him with furrowed brows. “You get hit upside the head or something? This is- you’re acting like a damn child!” 

“Maybe.” Shikamaru clasped his hands together and lifted his eyes to the clouds above them. “How many times I gotta say please? Cause I will. Give me a number, I’ll do it.”

“For real?”

“Please, please, please, please, plea-”

Ignoring the baffled looks of anyone passing them by was a lot easier than ignoring the sharp voice that spoke from the doorway, rough at the edges under the heavy weight of defeat and sadness. 

“He might not look like it, but he’s really just a child in a man’s body.” Temari studiously did not look at her wife when Tayuya whipped around to stare at her, missing the ripple of yearning that went through all those well honed muscles. “You probably shouldn’t test it. He really will just keep going.”

“Sounds annoying as hell,” Tayuya ventured. 

Neither of them seemed to notice when Shikamaru fell silent, still, waiting with baited breath. 

“It’d probably be less painful if we just give in. He already did that to me for two hours this morning and I don’t know if I can listen to it for much longer without violence that I’m pretty sure I would regret.” The proud set of Temari’s jaw was that of a queen making concessions. The dark warmth of her eyes when they finally canted sideways was that of a wife who missed the touch of her beloved.

“Good fucking god, two hours? Yeah, hell no. I ain’t listening to that. Let’s just get this over with or something then.”

“For the best.”

Despite that agreement it still took about five solid minutes of staring wordlessly in to each others’ eyes before either of them made any more toward the other. In the end they moved at the same time, reaching out with the same hand, laughing in a fondly awkward way as their fingers entwined. The moment would have been utterly beautiful if Shikamaru hadn’t breathed in very deeply just to let it all back out in one great rush. 

“Finally,” he muttered. Both of his wives frowned at him. 

“Wait.” Temari narrowed her eyes as though only now realizing what she’d done. “How did you do that?” She didn’t seem to appreciate the sheer exasperation filling him up in place of all the soft pleading he’d been wearing for days now. 

“You don’t just hang around with Ino for this long without learning how to annoy someone in to giving up.”

Before either of his wives could say anything Shikamaru was spinning on one heel and marching out the door, grumbling under his breath while he rummaged around his flack vest for a pack of smokes. Troublesome women and their troublesome tempers. At times he really did wonder why he put up with it. Two sets of footsteps rushing after him was a good reminder, though he thought he would be well within his rights to make them do a little begging after all the trouble he’d gone through just to bridge the gap between their overinflated prides. Worth it, absolutely worth it, but damn if they weren’t trouble sometimes. 

[solarcitymelodies]

Wowza sorry y'all about the random massive Rockafire spam, I'm pretty sure ??most?? People on here? know me for just Knight Rider because that's the only thing I've ever REALLY posted about--

but I Do Not Care it's RAE hours right now so uhhh here's some headcannons that probably aren't Canon compliant very much because I just got into RAE like last week

So like. I feel like Mitzi is a Good Amount younger than the rest of the band like she was in highschool when she joined, the rest of em were all Adults™ and she was a little bit nervous about it because...... ADULTS™

She was just lookin for a place to get her singing voice out there, because ya girl REALLY wanted to perform, and showbiz happened to have a slot open, but she did not expect all of the members to be older than her (although looking back, she realized she probably should have expected that)

It was intimidating at first but Billy Bob and Fatz were just the absolute sweetest and they introduced her properly to the rest of the band because she was like "oh I barely talk to them because I get nervous :(" and the resident dads p much said "aight we can do all the talking for you then, how about that?" And badabing badaboom she's now attached to these two and like honestly who isn't or maybe that's just me but ANYWAYS I feel like the band would become a second home/safe space for her

Yeah fr some reason I have BIG long headcannon for her joining the band but the rest of them? Nobody knows how they got there for all I know they just Showed Up One Day

Also I came across this

https://youtu.be/UU7BeUWQBDI

Which got me thinkin about what my headcannons were as far as sexuality/gender stuff

And I find the concept of Billy Bob being Very Much Straight And Ignorant but trying his hardest to be a good ally SO funny like if someone came out to him he'd probably be like "oh!! I don't understand why you would choose that lifestyle but I respect you!!" not realizing how incredibly stupid he sounds sjkrjh like I don't think he can very easily wrap his head around how people are just. not cishet. so he's like "OH then it must be a choice, right? like you can choose to be gay but you're born straight. Right?" and everyone just shakes their heads in the background but he does earnestly try his best and my man would rather DIE than disrespect someone's pronouns I know this for sure

Fatz is pretty similar, straight ally and a lil confused but he's got the spirit, you know? He still least knows being gay (as well as,,, m o s t sexualities that aren't straight, although some he doesn't get/know about at all) isn't a choice but he hasn't quite grasped that being trans is also not a choice. He will respect your pronouns to hell and back but by god he doesn't get it,,, he's trying though and he feels very accomplished in himself that he's starting to get the hang of using they/them even though he slips up a lot

The rest of the band encourages the HELL out of these two because they're. Trying their best and making an honest effort which is more than a pretty good chunk of people would give

Rolfe, Earl, and Dook are the reasons Billy Bob and Fatz are trying so hard to understand it lmao

Rolfe took it upon himself to hang up a MASSIVE gay pride flag backstage, being the flaming homosexual that he is, and the rest of the squad quickly realized "oh he's GAY gay he wasn't kidding" because at first they literally thought he was joking as he was actually just being openly and obnoxiously a raging mlm (and like I mean no shade to him this isn't me tryna to make fun of it because my dumb sapphic ass almost crashed my car once because I saw a pretty girl walk down the street. And by "once" I mean. Yesterday.) Anyways yeah that's when the rest of em Realized and were like "OH" but after the massive pride flag was hung up that prompted Dook to come out and they were all like "???? YOU TOO????"

Dook is a non-binary ICON he's a demiboy and goes by both he/him and they/them and probably would have a bunch of pride pins I think,,, I'm not really sure of his sexuality though!! honestly he kinda gives me bisexual vibes but Who Knows . Not me. He has a HELL of a time trying to explain his gender to the rest of the band (except for Rolfe because like. He's a part of the community so he knows) and basically he was met with "so you're just a dude but ✨spicy✨?" and it was like, "no, but I have no idea how to explain it in a way that will make sense to you, so. yes?" And that explanation seemed to suffice for most of them

Mitzi went in knowing NOTHING about what being non-binary was so she asked a l o t of questions about it, which Dook just kinda dealt with answering (he's heard most of it before, and it gets tiring after a while. if you're nb or trans or honestly any part of LGBTQ+ you know what I mean) but he thought it was really sweet of her to be so determined to learn about it and eventually she did get a grasp on it ish, so she was able to understand why it wasn't just ✨spicy male✨ (the conversation pretty much went "well if i was just male, don't you think I would label myself that way instead?" "....oH TRUE!!!") and she ended up a VERY passionate ally, and she'll ask occasionally about how to be better at it, bein a queen as she is 👉👉 also definitely started questioning her sexuality after a while and just went with "maybe bicurious" and Rolfe, Dook, and Earl were all like "ONE OF US, ONE OF US"

Earl has never once spoken about his sexuality in his life, because 1. He's very aware that's an awkward conversation to have with a puppet, and 2. He's aroace anyways, which is basically what people assume even if they don't realize it just for their own peace of mind, because seriously, puppets and any identity that ISN'T aroace creates a really uncomfortable mental image for... Most people, pretty much. So it's not like he ever needed to say anything about it, which is convenient for him because he wouldn't want to say anything either way. not worth the risk of embarrassing himself and making everyone feel awkward

(side note ish though Rolfe 100% came out to Earl first and was met with "I already knew that but okay." Rolfe was mildly offended)

And spEAKING OF EARL he's VERY much sentient but he can't say he's particularly enthusiastic about it because Rolfe has to carry him around everywhere

He can move on his own but it's limited and generally annoying to maneuver around with his tiny body so he just says screw it half the time and stays on Rolfe's arm or hitch a ride on Random Object, but like... Yeah, the majority of the time Rolfe just has to deal with only having one arm available and a puppet directly next to him making fun of him at every possible chance

They high-key have chaotic and unorganized college roommate vibes (like they're actually roommates because... Where tf is Earl supposed to go?? So Rolfe took him in) and idk if this is really like a part of my headcannons or if I just think it's funny so I keep entertaining the idea of it but I think it would be Fantastic if Rolfe had no idea how to cook but Earl somehow did so this idiot is trying to take instructions from a puppet, who can't physically show him what to do, and it's like Hell's Kitchen live featuring a furry and a sentient stuffed animal

Aaaaamd going off of my Rolfe and Earl headcannons still Rolfe for SURE has some sort of executive dysfunction issue. ADD or ADHD I'm not sure (probably ADHD) but he definitely has it also this totally isn't just me projecting how dare you accuse me of that

And!!! More about Dook!!!! I don't know how or why I thought up of this but I cannot possibly imagine him any other way now-- he's autistic and space is his Big Huge special interest, and if you ever ask him about it you have to be prepared to get infodumped or possibly even shown a PowerPoint presentation, because GOD he loves space!!! He wants everyone to know all about it!! He knows not everyone thinks it's as cool as he does so he tries to keep his mouth shut but when someone asks about it he can't help himself and will infodump a LOT, also haha drumming stims go brrrr, playing the drums isn't really a stim but he likes to just take his drumsticks and whack em around in the air and get that good ol Wavy Arm Action (wavy arms is best stim change my mind you can't it's GOOD)

Also i bbbbelieve earlier I reposted somethin about someone else headcannoning that he has echolalia, which I don't really know enough about to say anything on it?? But even if he doesn't have echolalia he'd probably repeat phrases over and over until he gets tired of them (which is,,, something I do lmao, it's either memes I get stuck in my head or things I've heard from various medias I like the inflections in (like one tiktokker I saw was talking about their tourettes and their vocal tics and one of them was "uh oh! How unfortunate!" and now I CAN'T STOP SAYING IT)) but like uhhh yeah :))) repeating phrases that get stuck in your head for various reasons for the win

This is already really long so I'm just gonna vibe out thanks for coming to my Ted talk feel free to ask questions I probably won't be able to answer a lot of em though because my headcannons are a Mess hehe >:)

[the-final-sif]

interview about writing processes

Hey Lady Sif,

thank you for taking time for us and agreeing to answer our interview questions.

Since this was of short notice we decided to change the deadline to June 19.

We hope the time frame suits you.

Here are our questions:

Can you shortly describe us your writing history? How did you start off? How did you come across fanfiction?

Do you have a writing philosophy that helps you overcome challenges in writing?

Could you describe your writing environment? (workplace, prefered writing tools, fandom discourse, discourse with friends)

What inspires you to write and post in and for a fandom? What triggers your headcanons? Does your educational background influence your writing?

In how far does your fandom experience influence your writing?

In how far do you work with others to create fan content? And what ideas do you integrate in your writing?

Are there certain steps you take/decisions you make when/before responding to a post/prompt?

When and why did you decide to host writing events like your fake fics event? What was the purpose and how did you approach the title prompts?

How would you describe the difference between writing alone and writing spontaneously with others (first in creating fan theories and headcanons and second in creating fanfiction)?

Do you think knowing that others read and can comment on your texts subconsciously influences your writing?

What motivated you to create a story where your readers can decide for an ending (name)?

Is there anything else you consider important in your writing process that you would like to tell us?

Thanks again for your time and effort, we are very much looking forward to your answers!

If you’re interested we’ll keep you updated on our findings.

Kind regards, Dana and Helena

----

Can you shortly describe us your writing history? How did you start off? How did you come across fanfiction?

I started writing when I was very young! I was a huge reader, and even before I was writing stuff down I was a storyteller. It’s a really important part of my family & how we communicate with each others and others.

My first experience with fanfiction was when I was,, 7 or 8? That sounds about right. I hand wrote a fanfiction called “ShoppingCats” which something between warrior cats and Cats vs Dogs, but also made primarily of my OCs (+ a handful of warriors characters I liked). I still have most of it, it’s sitting in my desk drawer in it’s original binder, since my mother saved it.

I came across fandom spaces / online fanfiction in 2012 with fanfiction.net, and published my first fanfiction in 2013 (under Rosae-Sif on fanfiction.net). I’ve taken breaks as my interests changed & life got chaotic, but I’ve always enjoyed retelling stories that I hear and changing them to suit me more / explore new themes, so I’ve stuck with it after all this time.

Do you have a writing philosophy that helps you overcome challenges in writing?

Yes! I write for myself above all else. It’s fun to write stuff for other people sometimes, and I like getting feedback and what not, but I never let that be the focus of my writing. I always try to write what I want to be reading, so when I go back and reread what I’ve written, more often than not I find I’ve produced something that makes me happy, and that helps keep me going when a lot of other things couldn’t.

Could you describe your writing environment? (workplace, prefered writing tools, fandom discourse, discourse with friends)

Uhhh, I don’t really have any one set thing. I mostly write on my laptop, sometimes I use a notebook + pen. I have 5$ fountain pen that I got that I really love when I have writer’s block.

I think the most consistent “workplace” for me is actually discord/my friends. Almost all of my AUs/fics/ideas start as me storytelling (either typing things out or out loud) to someone else. That’s where the spark comes from, and then that slowly is refined through several iterations until I have something I like. 

I really like taking long walks with headphones & nobody else around. That’s when a lot of the very early forms of my favorite ideas come to me. It’s a key part of my writing process the few times I get stuck on stuff too. I just go walk till I figure it out.

I don’t really get involved in discourse much. I like debating people, but I try to stay away from destructive stuff and just have my own fun corner where I create things. I’m in fandom for fun, and I refuse to let me experience be tainted by people who try to turn it into Discourse Central.

What inspires you to write and post in and for a fandom? What triggers your headcanons? Does your educational background influence your writing?

As I mentioned before, I write and post primarily for myself! I have a lot of ideas in my head all the time, and things I want to see, so I create those things and then put them here. It’s fun when other people interact with me + add onto my ideas + create things in response!

My headcanons are usually just kinda,,,, coming out of my brain. I think it’s just how I am. I have a question or a thought and I start looking into it and before I know it, a whole new thing has come out of it.

I think my family actually influenced a lot of my writing style more than anything else. I mean, I was homeschooled for a long time, and my parents were very encouraging of whatever weird projects I was creating (my dad once even let me cut down and drag actual brambles into the basement to create a warriors style fort). I was allowed to dress however I wanted (during high school I worn nothing but PJ pants b/c they were most comfy for me, and also I had/have several capes that I would rotate through), I was allowed to dye my hair (still do! it’s current a side shave in red + purple + blue!), and I was encouraged to just,,, be weird and happy. I think that shows in how I write. I pursue the ideas I want to go after, I indulge myself, I commit to thinks and I focus more on what I want to write rather than what I feel I should write.

That being said, a lot of science nerding that comes out in my writing is def from my educational background. I’ve got a bachelors and stuff. I did take some writing classes, but to be honest, I think my fanfiction experience influenced those a lot more than they influenced my fanfiction (years and years of writing constantly and quickly paid off in college where I would BS papers the night before and get top marks on it).

In how far does your fandom experience influence your writing?

Hmm, I don’t think it does that much? I mean, for the BNHA fandom in particular, I think that seeing all the cool content + ideas other people create really keeps my brain chugging along and creating new things, and god, having seen people make fanart and fanfiction for my stories has been one of the best feelings I’ve ever experienced, but I don’t think that’s really changed how I’m writing.

At my core, I’m still doing the same thing my 8 year old self was doing with her pencil and that binder full of paper. I take the strange thoughts out of my head, and I follow them onto the paper until I create something that makes me happy.

I’ve had some negative experiences of course. I mean, everyone does. They’ve all been fairly minor, mostly just people trying to tell me I’m wrong about stuff that’s either in an AU that’s already not supposed to be canon, or stuff I’m right about. Most of the time it’s just annoying. Sometimes it’s concerning. I ignore or delete the annoying stuff, I don’t want to give it any of my time or attention. 

The concerning stuff I try to reply to. It’s been rare, but sometimes I get comments on certain fics trying to tell me what’s being depicted in my fic isn’t abusive when it absolutely is. I try to correct that and link to resources when I do get that. I usually don’t get a reply, but a few times I’ve had people realize that what they thought was normal was actually abusive behavior. I’m happy that I’m able to help people come to that realization.

In how far do you work with others to create fan content? And what ideas do you integrate in your writing?

Hmmm, I’ll be honest, I’m not quite sure how to answer this one. I don’t exactly work with others when creating my fan content? All of my writing (save one RP collab homestuck fic from ages ago) is done by me exclusively, and most my ideas are also mostly from my own brain. Although I will say one exception to that is @windschildfanfictionwriter​ whose an amazing bnha writer I chat with fairly frequently when I need help figuring something out.

It’s less of “working” with people, and more discussing things/ideas, and being excited about stuff. Sometimes literally all I need is someone to be my rubber duck while I talk about an idea for 2-3 hours to get it solidified. People in my discord server often help me by betaing (editing/reviewing) my wips. My adhd means I often make weird mistakes, and they’re wonderful at helping me catch that.

As for ideas I pull into my writing, it’s hard to pick out specific ones. I think I kinda create + absorb + integrate lots of stuff at once. A lot of the times my ideas don’t come from things other authors write, but instead come from things other authors didn’t write. When I see an thought/idea/thread in a story that isn’t followed up on, or isn’t handled how I think it should be handled, that often inspires me to either use a similar base concept or similar thought but in the way I wish it had been done.

Are there certain steps you take/decisions you make when/before responding to a post/prompt?

Not really? I tend to just go with whatever comes to me or what I already had prepared. I’m rather impulsive, so unless it’s a delicate subject matter, I roll with whatever’s going on.

I do always make myself take a step back before responding to stuff that annoys me/any sort of anon hate. I have to remind myself it’s not worth the effort and I should focus on positive/fun stuff. I’ll admit though, I have a very combative nature that can get the better of me sometimes. I’ve gotten better at that though! Hooray for proper adhd medication to help prevent destructive stimulus seeking behavior and therapy! Although I do still like to debate stuff for fun, I just don’t let myself get hostile about it.

When and why did you decide to host writing events like your fake fics event? What was the purpose and how did you approach the title prompts?

Oh, I just saw the post and thought it looked fun so I reblogged it. Stuff like that is mostly an impulse more than anything else.

I just kinda went with the flow for the titles. God, I got so many of those, I still have a lot of them sitting in my inbox, most of which I probably won’t ever post. For the ones I did do though, I picked ones that sounded like fic titles I would actually use, and then asked myself what sort of story I would use that title for. Then I just kinda wrote whatever came to me.

How would you describe the difference between writing alone and writing spontaneously with others (first in creating fan theories and headcanons and second in creating fanfiction)?

Hmmm. This one is also a bit hard. It’s rare I truly “write alone”, most of my stories start as a form of oral storytelling and then are adapted to “proper” writing. Most of my theories/headcanons start the same way.

You’ll notice a lot of my posts start with “Also” “Okay” or “I’ve been thinking” or “You know”. When I’m writing my headcanon/theory posts, it’s all written very conversationally because I’m still following my family’s storytelling in a way. It’s a public post, but I’m not just making statements to a void. I’m still talking to people, addressing them, leading them through stuff. It’s just how I communicate on a very fundamental leave.

I’m still writing for myself, I’m creating for myself, but I’m doing it with others. I’m telling a story constantly, and sometimes I’m telling that story to myself, but I’m still telling it to someone.

I think you can read that in my fics, with the perspective I tend to use. I use limited third person POV, but when I’m writing, I try to write it how the character I’m writing from the POV of would tell their own story. I’m not just describing what’s happening, I’m letting this character tell their story through their own voice, to others, to me. It’s a core part of my writing, and that makes it hard to say that it was ever really written alone.

Do you think knowing that others read and can comment on your texts subconsciously influences your writing?

I mean, it’d be impossible for it not to. But I don’t think it influences me that much. I’m still writing for myself most of the time, and I hold onto my bullshit tightly. I don’t change my writing based on what I think other people want to see from me.

That being said, it’s still something I think about. It’s more of a conscious choice, but specifically regarding my stories that have abuse in them, I try to connect in elements of realism and common underrepresented traits/habits of abuse (which I do try to check via research when I can) and ensure that they are then called out as what they are. I’ve gotten a number of comments/asks/discord messages from people telling me that my works helped them realize they were in a crappy situation / understand what they were going through, and that’s something that’s important for me.

I think The Green Eyed Monster is an example of that, where I explore platonic stalking/obsession/pressuring. It’s something I don’t see taken seriously often enough, so I wanted to frame it in a serious but realistic light and make it clear that what was happening was wrong and harmful. I wanted to explore this concept, but I purposefully did it in a way that I hoped would help others who might’ve dealt with it on some level understand it for what it was, and I think it really shows. In the comments of that fic, there’s a lot of very personal responses/stories from people who went through similar experiences. I think that’s important, so it’s something I try to do when I can.

The other thing is I do 100% put references/lines in certain stories with an evil grin on my face knowing that a certain handful of my commenters are going to rip their hair out over it, either because they have no idea what I mean by it, or they know exactly what I mean by it. But hey, I’m a hurt/comfort writer at heart, so you can hardly blame me.

What motivated you to create a story where your readers can decide for an ending (name)?

Oh, uh, “Seven Year Old Katsuki Has The Ability To Kill A Grown Man And No Concept Of Legality”.

I actually can’t remember the exact inspiration for this one? I think I saw uhhh, Markiplier, playing a text adventure game, and I got curious about creating something similar.

I considered using a platform meant for text based games, but true to my family’s long history of needlessly complicating things and creating things where they aren’t meant to be created out of some mix of spite and creative hubris, I decided I wanted to make it on A03 instead. I looked up a style formatting guide, and went to work.

That whole project took like 1-2 months, around school work and everything else. It was created entirely using links that sent you to the next page. That’s it. That’s the only ‘code’ functionality I had to work with. So I made a whole paper map of the routes, separating them out into “steps” and then created unique text blocks for each step based on prior choices. I used a secret point system for one of the main routes, and ended up with 97 unique steps, and 155 different text blocks/variations.

Fun project. A03 was having some trouble/going down right after I released it, and to this day, certain members of the discord server still blame me for that as I was forcing the website into bullshit it was not meant to contain.

Is there anything else you consider important in your writing process that you would like to tell us?

Nothing I can think of off the top of my head. Other than maybe I have an African Gray named Cecil, and sometimes when I’m not ready to share an idea with humans, I’ll talk it out with him first. He’s an excellent listener sometimes, and by that I mean he’s usually ignoring me or I’m giving him scratches and he’s not paying my rambling any mind.

Though sometimes I get lucky and when I finish up a point and ask for his opinion, he’ll just look at me for a moment and say “I love you.” He does it because I’ll always cave and give him treats since I’m weak for him, but it still makes me smile.

[i-lov-them-beans]

Theories: Colour Wheel and the Orange Side

Ok, so, we have the colour wheel theory. It's essentially been confirmed now by the new flower T-shirt design that it's real, and specifically the T-shirt seems to confirm there'll be only one more side, which is the orange side. I'm not gonna mention the T-shirt again throughout the rest of this, it's just that's what kicked me off to finally write this lol.

The premise of the colour wheel theory, of course, is that each side corresponds to a colour, and the sides can be grouped into pairs that are both opposite in terms of what aspect they represent, and also opposite colours. That's all dandy and nice, right? But alas! There are some problems with the theory, aren't there? Namely, with people disagreeing on who should be paired with who.

For example, one popular take is that Deceit is Patton's opposite. The reasoning being that while Patton represents morality, Deceit is often seen as being not very moral. Patton strongly supports honesty, while Deceit is literally Deceit.

However, other people say that Deceit is actually Logan's opposite. Due to the fact that in lying, Deceit goes against facts, which would seem to go against Logan represents.

So? What version of the theory is right then? I have read so many colour wheel theory posts, each arguing a different way, and they pretty much ALL seem to make good points. They all seem as reasonable as each other. I would have no idea how to tell which one seemed more accurate than the another.

Which is the problem. There's no actual clear way to cut them up into one single system of opposites - there's too many different possibilities for there to be one unanimous theory based on opposites.

Not to mention that there's stretching going on with all of them with what colour they are in order to fit them as opposite colours, or sometimes just straight up ignoring opposite colours (as with versions that put Virgil as opposite of Logan or Patton) making it even more difficult to figure out which one makes the most sense.

Which is why I have a new, slightly altered theory:

The sides can still be grouped into pairs. But instead of opposites, the pairs are based on compliments. I.e., pairs of sides whose functions are similar and could work together. Since opposite colours are also called complimentary colours, this still works thematically with the colour wheel theory.

Specifically, I was thinking that the sides would be paired based on them being two versions of essentially the same aspect, except where one is [viewed by Thomas as] immoral, and the other is not immoral. I also found that with this system the sides fit perfectly into sets of opposites colours.

So, who goes with who now?

Well, the obvious place to start is with Roman and Remus. The two are already in canon posed as being two halves of the same side, with one being good and the other bad. Specifically, Remus represents a part of creativity which Thomas is concerned would be harmful to the world, henceforth immoral, whereas Roman's creativity Thomas has no moral qualms with. Their colours are the complimentary colours red and green, of course.

Next I would argue that Virgil and Deceit are compliments. Aside from the fact that they obviously have history, Virgil's job is to protect Thomas, as we all know. Deceit, regardless of how you feel about him, mainly represents self-preservation, as any sympathetic-Deceit fan will tell you. Especially with him using lying to achieve that goal, Deceit's aspect is definitely about protecting Thomas too. The difference? Thomas finds Deceit morally reprehensible, whereas Virgil, although not exactly an enjoyable side to experience, is not exactly doing anything immoral. Their colours? Purple and yellow, exact opposites. Next.

So now we come to the final pair, which by colours is Patton and Orange. Which means we have to go into my theory about what the Orange side represents. So, who's the Orange side?

I think Orange is Anger. I first started thinking about anger being represented in the series last year, while I was headcanoning about Patton. I was thinking about how, since he represents emotions, that must mean he includes anger; I was thinking how it would be interesting to see that in Patton since we never normally see him like that (I like seeing stuff we don't normally see in characters). It didn't occur to me back then that anger could be represented by a separate side, because since it's an emotion, I assumed it had to be represented by Patton. But then: Remus was introduced. Dun dun dun. Literally another version of an aspect we already have a side for. And later, when I saw other people talking about how Orange could be anger, it clicked: Anger could be a separate, dark side the same way Remus is. So my main reason for theorising Orange as Anger.

Other reasons why Orange would be anger is that A. Orange is an angry colour (I've always associated it with annoyance and frustration), and B. Someone suggested a theory that all the dark sides were hinted in the Christmas video. Deceit's hint was first and I can't remember it but I'm p sure it did make sense, Remus' was second and was the "Naked Aunt Patty" line, which was literally referenced in Remus' song sequence in DWIT. And the third hint that this theory proposed was in the episode's conclusion, when Thomas says "that's never constructive. that's destructive" and then pauses weirdly, and the idea was that the next side has something to do with destruction. If this Christmas hint theory is true, then "destruction" fits quite neatly with anger.

So, Orange is Anger and I've already linked him to Patton in the previous paragraph, but let's just tidy up the loose ends. I can definitely see how Anger can be seen as an immoral emotion, especially from Thomas' POV, he tries not to get angry at people. Whereas the emotions Patton represents Thomas doesn't see as immoral. Even sadness and depression, although unpleasant to experience, just like with Virgil they're not immoral. However there's also the fact that Patton represents morality itself. Obviously, that's not gonna be immoral. How does Orange tie into that as an "immoral morality" though? Well, Anger can be a part of morality. Have you ever seen something absolutely awful, and gotten angry that that's happening? Of course you have, you're on tumblr (lol). Just look at any activism; although yes, inherently it's driven by a desire to make the world a better place, I would say a large portion of activism is also driven specifically by anger. It's a special kind of anger you feel, as an activist, too. Idk exactly how to describe it. But activism, morality and anger are definitely intertwined. And to top it all off? Mid-orange and light blue are slap-bang opposites of eachother. Thank you. *drops mic*

"But, wait a minute-" I hear you ask, as I'm already bending down to pick the mic back up cause I wasn't finished talking yet anyway- "where's Logan in all this? You're phrasing it like it's a perfect theory, yet you haven't even mentioned Logan!"

...Well I'm glad you asked, tumblr user ipissmypantsdaily*!

*if there is actually a tumblr user called that and they see this, hi, I hope you're not even in the TS fandom so this joke is even more stupid. Idk how you would have found this post though *shrugs*

Actually it's not that exciting. In my theory Logan doesn't have a pair. The main reason is literally just that there's no one left to pair him with and all the others work too perfectly to rearrange them lol. However, my explanation is that he wouldn't fit in a pair anyway: he's a fairly morally neutral side. He provides logic, which can reach morally good or bad conclusions, curiosity, which could be curiosity in anything (Intrulogical much?) (although it seems it's mostly harmless in Thomas' case), and apathy, which seems to be in the form of disinterest (that's the one where someone provides a neutral, unbiased third-party opinion) mainly. Obviously, Thomas tried to use him for good, but ultimately he seems like a fairly neutral/morally mixed side.

Anyway, that's my current hypothesis on Sanders Sides. I'm really proud of it, I was really excited when I thought it all up. I hope you enjoyed it! To round it all up, here's an actual colour wheel with the sides' names on it:

Something I didn't even realise til making that actually, is that all the pairs are really equally spread across the colour wheel, too. Nice.

Someone's probably going to find a million and one problems with it as soon as I post this, but oh well. That happens I guess, lol

uhhh... bye 👋

[cozykhaos]

A New Sun: Part 9

I awoke next morning in a tangle of blankets and my head pounding. Maybe I had drank more of the fruit punch than I thought..

Ash was staring at me from the foot of the bed, his head cocked to the side. I licked my lips before asking. “Do you want breakfast?” His response was a fiercely wagging tail. I dropped the food in his bowl then changed into my work clothes. Outside I planted the flowers for the festival, the next day I was thankful for that decision, since Haley stopped by. The whole time she was there she kept a hanker-chief over her mouth and nose. She ended up coming by twice more that week to check on the progress, she admitted a squeal of excitement at the first bud that popped out of the soil.

By the time the Flower Festival came around I had a field of flowers and the farm smelled of spring. Ash would run through the beds of flowers, every once in awhile his head would pop up as he bounced. The sun had just started to rise, budding up over distant pines. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, breathing in the morning. I was filling wicker baskets with my flowers, I had promised to deliver them this morning. An hour later my baskets were full and my fields empty except for a few parsnips. Most of them were a gift for George, the others would be the last of my crops for this season.

Next month I would be busy with so many crops available and I had already promised Mayor Lewis hot peppers and fresh veggies for the luau.

“Farmer!” Haley’s sing song voice rang out across the fields.

“Morning Haley!” I waved at her. She paused to wrap a sunflower print scarf around her nose and mouth.

“I just don’t know how you deal with this.. smell,” she said as she approached.

“I really don’t smell anything,” I shrugged and picked up a basket, shoving it in her direction.

“Oh you know the smell,” Haley motioned to the ground before taking the basket.

“Soil?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Dirt, nature, dog.”

I looked down at Ash who had his nose in the dirt, he inhaled deeply then let out a loud sneeze.

“Smells like victory,” I smiled to myself.

Haley took me to a part of the Valley that I’d never been to, it was a clearing on top of a cliff. I sat down the baskets and went to cliff edge. The blue of the ocean seemed to stretch on forever, before disappearing into the sky’s horizon. Behind me Asher yipped, I turned to look at him. He was standing several feet back from the edge, tail tucked between his legs. “Its okay buddy,” I soothed him, stepping back from the edge.

Alex stepped into the clearing, thermal mug in each hand. He gave me a small nod and approached Haley, handing her one of the mugs. “What is it?”

“Try it,” there was a small smile on his lips. She looked between him and the mug before taking a hesitant sip. “Oh, chia tea, this is good babe!” She took another drink. “Did you make this or grandma?”

Alex’s smile grew. “Grandma gave me some pointers, but I did!”

“You did a good job!” Haley took his hand in hers, giving it a squeeze. Alex brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.  

I shifted were I stood and dug the toe of my boot into the ground. This was awkward. My few interactions with Haley had always been short. Not only in time together, but her answers to me. Not only that, but everything I had heard about Haley were always less than nice. She was rude and selfish, seeing this side to her was.. strange.

Next to Asher let out a loud sigh that grabbed the attention to the other two.

“Farmer, come here, I need help making flower crowns. Alex, please start setting up the tables.”

At least one of us got a please.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed making the flower crowns. I had even made one for Ash, getting a smile out of Haley as he paraded around his new accessory.

“Thanks for this Haley,” I spoke before I could stop my brain. She paused in her flower arrangement, looking up over the petals at me. “For what?” She asked.

“Having me help,” I shrugged. “I haven’t done anything like this in a long time. It’s… it’s nice.”

“Yeah, of course,” Haley smiled. “Thank you for helping, I know the others hate this tradition, but,” she paused, taking a long deep breath she closed her eyes. “There is something romantic about it. Something warm. I love the dancing, the smell of the flowers, the sound of the ocean below us.” Opening her eyes, she smiled at me.

“I can see that, I’m glad I get to be here to witness it.”

An hour later we were set up, Emily had delivered the outfits, Gus had arrived with Lewis and set up the buffet. Alex had finished the picnic tables, now the other villagers were coming in. I watched as Abbie ran across the clearing, throwing herself into Sam’s arms, laughing. Sebastian was leaning against a fence post, cigarette between his lips. He says something that I can’t make out, but he received a playful punch from Abbie. I felt a frown tug on my lips, a similar tug was felt in my chest. I swallowed the lump that was forming.

“Sebastian, huh?” Haley said from next to me. We were putting the bouquets she had made onto the tables. After this I would be free.

“What about him?” I sniffed, suddenly focusing on the flower arrangement.

“You like him,” she crossed her arms across her chest, her bright blue eyes were hard. I shrugged.

“Kit!” My eyes snapped to Haley as she said my name. “Do you like him?” She asked again.

“Does it matter?” I turned away with a huff. I could feel her watching me still, but I ignored her and kept my focus on the arrangement in front of me.

“Abbie dear!” Haley’s voice sang across the field. “Could you come here please?”

I stared at Haley, mouth open as she smirked at me.

“What’s up?” Abbie was breathless as she approached us.

“Does our little Miss Farmer here have a crush on Sebby?” Haley was blunt with her question, but her voice was sickly sweet.

“Uhhh,” Abbie shot a glance over at me. I groaned, digging the palms of my hands into my eyes. I giggled erupted from Haley as she clapped her hands together. “Oh this is just perfect, yes!” Haley spun in a circle, her blue skirt flaring out around her legs.

“What?” I looked between Abbie and Haley.

“YOU and HIM, it is SO perfect, how could I not see it BEFORE!?” Haley’s voice was becoming more shrill as she spoke. “Haley, what’s going on?” Emily asked coming up to us.

“Farmer likes Sebastian!” Haley clapped her hands in excitement. I slapped my hand over her mouth. “Shut up, before he hears you!”

There was a muffled reply from Haley.

“Haley, don’t interfere. Kit obviously doesn’t want him to know.” Emily frowned.

Haley pushed my hand away and shook her head. “But he is just so… awkward and totally oblivious to everything.”

“That’s what I said!” Abbie nodded. “And it’s true. You have to grab him by the face and be like ‘Sebastian, I like you. I have since we were kids, that’s why I shoved you off the dock that one time. Then that other time we were in the mines and I kicked a rock, it bounced off the wall and hit you in the head and thought I killed you-’”

I groaned. “I thought we were never going to mention that again.”

“I cried, a lot.”

“I legit thought he was dead!”

“Then you take him by his dumb face and kiss him!” Abbie batted her big blue eyes at me.

“Yeah, or something like that!” Haley nodded. Emily shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look, Kitten-”

“Kit.”

“Kitten,” Haley purred. “Sebastian has only had like two girlfriends his whole life. The longest one was with that girl Yuki and that was hella toxic!”

“Hella,” Abbie agreed.

“And he is totally oblivious when someone likes him, because he just doesn’t think someone can like him!” Haley flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder. “So go and work your charms on him girl!”

“I have zero charm,” I mumbled.

“Zero,” Abbie echoed. I glared at her.

Haley looked between the two of us, a scheme forming behind her eyes. “Abbie, congrats girl, you are out of the dance this year. Kit, you are taking Abbie’s spot!”

“Oh, that’s dirty,” Emily winced.

“I like that,” Abbie cackled.

“So what?” I asked. “I have to do your dumb cult dance, woo-hoo!” I twirled my finger.

“You have to do the dance with Sebby,” Haley winked at me.

“Well fuck.”

I started towards the fields entrance, Abbie, Emily and Haley grabbed me and dragged me backwards. I stumbled over my boots and fell hard onto the ground. I groaned and leaned back into the grass. I’m beauty, I’m grace, I’ll fall on my face.

“Get up,” Haley demanded. “People are staring, get up before I make a scene.”

“She’ll do it Kit, get up!” Emily urged. I scrambled to my feet, dusting myself off. Ash trotted over to me, his flower crown had fallen off playing with Pepper. “I don’t want to do this!” I crossed my arms over my chest, a scowl on my face. “Look at me, I’m a mess!” I motioned to my grass stained jeans and muddy boots. Even my tank top was dirty and pulled my plaid over shirt closed.

“That’s okay, you get an itchy dress to wear!” Abbie beamed.

“And I’m sure Emily can do something with your hair,” Haley picked a piece of my red curls between two fingers. She let it fall to my shoulder, before she flicked it back with the same two fingers.

“What’s wrong with my hair?” I whimpered before gathering my beloved curls over my shoulder and holding it close.

“It’s just.. messy,” Haley shrugged. She wasn’t lying, it was messy, I hadn’t been taking care of it since I moved onto the farm.

“Come on Kit,” Emily took my hand in hers. She pulled me along, I glanced back over my shoulder, Abbie had a wide smile on her face and she waved at me. Haley was smirking, she tossed her hair over her shoulder before she skipped off.

Within the hour Emily had me in the dress meant for Abbie to wear today. It was a good thing we were similar in size. She had braided my hair back, two curls framed my impish face. I had tanned since moving to the valley and she didn’t have any foundation that matched my new complexion, she was able to frame my big green eyes in black liner. Emily smiled as she looked me over.

“This dress is itchy,” I looked down at the monstrous dress. Even though it was the correct size, it still managed to swallow me. I found Maru across the changing tent, the small woman was nearly lost in a sea of tulle.

Emily laughed. “It is!

“How come you don’t have to do this?” I asked.

“I did up until.. oh I don’t know, four year ago?” Her nose scrunched up. “I danced with Shane. He is a surprisingly great dancer! I however am not. I tripped over my own feet and fell, knocking down Penny who was next to me. The whole line went down like dominoes. I was out after that.” Emily laughed. “Poor Shane though, I think he might of actually enjoyed it though.” Emily fidgeted with her hands.

“You should ask him to dance then,” I bumped her shoulder with mine.

“Oh no.. I couldn’t,” she shook her head.

“You just got me all dolled up to make me dance with Sebastian,” I started. “If you don’t think for a single second I will drag you across the field and shove you into Shane and hold up a radio for you guys to dance together, think again!”

“Haley would be mortified,” Emily spoke softly. I glanced around the tent for the queen bee, she was near a mirror, arranging a flower crown of blue jazz upon her golden waves of hair.

“Well then,” I huffed. “I will think of another way to have you dance.” I grabbed my own flower crown and jammed it on my head. Emily straightened my crown of purple tulips. Outside music started, I got into my place in line, behind Maru and walked out.

I was thankful that the dance was easy, the steps simple and the music terrible. I was also thankful for the five years of summer dance class that my mother shoved me into as a child. I was not a bad dancer and before being swallowed up into the Joja Corporation black hole I would frequent night clubs with my friends. Still, I felt nothing had prepared me for this and my heart hammered in my ears. I couldn’t hear the music any more over the roar of blood in my ears. On the edge of the crowd Abbie gave me a thumbs up and smile, I wanted nothing more than to flick her off and punch that smile clean off her face. I took a deep breath and looked at Sebastian who was standing across from me, clearly confused at his change in partner. I shrugged, then took in his outfit. Biting my lip I kept myself from laughing. It was a denim explosion and it was hilarious to see him out of his usual dark skinny jeans and black shirt.

‘Shut up,” he mouth at me. Suddenly the panic stopped and I smiled at him, the music came back and my heart calmed. A new song came over the speakers and the dance started. Sebastian kept his eyes on his feet as he moved towards me, his fingers tapped against the side of his legs. I flowed through the steps that Haley had taught me. His fingers intertwined through mine as we spun. He clenched my fingers tightly as we moved into our next steps. I looked down at our hands, then back up at him. He was biting his bottom lip, his eyes still on his feet.

“Bash,” I whispered. He glance up at me, just for a second, his dark eyes met mine. “Bash, breath.”

He let out a long breath of air, he squeezed my hand again, his eyes locked onto mine. The music faded out and the dance was over. We took our bow to the sound of applause.

“Kit you were so good!” Abbie bounced over to me.

“I think I might make you a permanent dancer,” Haley smiled at me, she was wrapped up in Alex’s arms who placed a kiss on her cheek. She wasn’t paying much attention to him, instead her eyes were glued to Sebastian hand, it was still clenching mine. I looked over at him, he was still staring at me, his head slightly cocked to the side.

“You okay Bash?” I asked, looking him over. His other hand was clenching and unclenching over and over. He was still on the verge of a panic attack.

“Fine!” He finally gasped out.

“Oh Sebby!” Robin slammed into Sebastian almost knocking him over and our hands finally came apart. “You did so good!” Kissing her son on the cheek she held him at arms length.

“Mom!” Sebastian tried wiping the kiss off with his shoulder. Asha and Asher came bounding over and bounced around my feet.

“I don’t know about everyone else, but I want out of these clothes and some food!” Sam came over and rubbed his stomach.

“Saaaame!” Alex groaned out.

“Food sounds amazing!” Maru said, Demetrius putting a wall of over protective dad between her and Harvey.

Just like that the moment was gone.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

im supposed to be working on uh literally anything else but instead i gotta get this outta my brain

tl;dr: slag is causing the Psychos to spread across the galaxy bc the Calypsos are using it to both brainwash their cultists and give them ‘special powers’. i mean, its not just slag, it’s eridian ruins/tech, too, but the Twins are utilizing slag the most. which explains the slagfalls and also the processed eridium everywhere still. im hoping sirens will help us cure this- starting with Krieg because slag/Psychos have some sort of connection to the other dimension, just like Sirens, but more messy. also this insanity from the slag/Psycho-ness is literally Mayhem and us fans are taking part in it- we’re the cult irl. plus, this game is gonna be about love and the relationships we have with the people we care about and that’s all the roses mean because i’m feeling s o f t tonight. tomorning. whatever maaaaan

“… among their fractured ramblings, it is tempting to try and find a deeper meaning…”

“[their madness] defies attempts at explanation or containment. from an isolated region of a single planet, to a nearby moon, to systems throughout every human colony, madness is catching…”

you can’t tell me this isn’t just BEGGING for us to figure it out

so, for my own sake:

i have a theory.

i kinda sorta hinted at this with my destroyer theory but i REALLY wanna go all out in this because i think this is actually something to think about… mostly because ive seen A Scene… and i wants to talk about it, vh. i wants it

now im gonna `lol` ignore everything about my lost legion eternal theory and start entirely from scratch. it’s also 1am here for my apologies if this comes across as incoherent because wow i should be asleep but fuck it i got research to do

so it all starts with psychos. i mean i guess it does. it’s gotta right? i brought in pictures it must

anyway

the guide admits that the first psychos came from Dahl’s prison colonies

the ones abandoned on pandora, now ive kinda talked about this b4 but imma talk about it again bc uhhh fuck it? why not.

so we know a lot of the bandits left on Pandora mutated because of the eridian ruins/the key. this is referenced mostly in sledge’s mine

its like world-wise called headstone mine but i never remember that. SLEDGE’S MINE

notice that line “most went crazy and many were physically mutated as well”

so i think it’s safe to say whatever they found in there started causing psychos to appear on pandora

im saying that i think eridians are the cause of Psychos across the galaxy

i have a lot more proof for this so please sit back and enjoy the ride because i think its really really cool

so lets look at hector’s logs from the newest dlc

“one of my boys found a shiny alien trinket”

“a few boys went rabid already, had to put them down”

now idk if there’s a connection here, but it’s interesting that both times, people who found these eridian artifacts started going crazy soon after

shit i mean even tannis begins to go off the wall after her and her dig team start investigating the eridian sites. although if that is because of the horrific incidents that befell her and her team or the ruins idk for certain. i’d bet its the shitty incidents tho

there’s more to this, hang on…

alright, so, lab rats? they’re pretty cool right?

we all like lab rats! personally, chase is my favorite, but adam is hilarious. that final season, huh? pretty wicked… wasn’t really a fan of the island setting but you know what, to each their own. it’s cool they actually progressed the show instead of staying stagnant. that got my respect even if it moved in a direction that wasn’t my cup of tea.

anyway Q U O T E S:

“Hyperion opened my eyes. i didn’t want it!”

“needles in my eyes!”

“don’t you look at me!”

“i can see! i don’t want to see!”

so there’s obviously something ~fucky~ going on with the lab rats and whatever it is they can see from the hyperion experimentation. we know hyperion had a hard-on for slag experimentation and you know i wouldn’t even be shocked if they were injecting these rats’ eyes with slag.

the best part is their reactions when they’re phaselocked. Unlike most enemies, the lab rats will only react to maya’s action skill, and none of the other VHs.

vs something like a marauder:

who has all these voice lines for Zer0, Axton, Sal (merc), AND Maya

the lab rats will only ever respond to being phaselocked.

and what do they say?

“i see the universe!”

“i see infinity!”

“it’s beautiful!”

 (now weirdly enough i was told on the tv tropes for bl2 that the lab rats will say “I see it more!” when phaselocked by maya, but i couldn’t find a source for that. couldn’t even find it in the files i extracted from the game. i checked an online video just to double check because you know, my extraction could’ve been off, but it wasn’t there, either. even phaselocked one a bunch as maya and i couldn’t get it to proc. so, idk where that info came from, if someone could give a source/proof that would be awesomesauce.)

sooo what do other enemies say when phaselocked? usually… they just see blue. so nothing quite as interesting as infinity.

so wtf is up here? 

im thinking the experiments hyperion performed on the lab rats are letting them see the dimension maya locks them in. i mean, tbh, i think they can see into that dimension whenever they open their eyes, but maybe maya’s phaselock makes sense of it for them. because they seem to be in indescribable agony outside of it

but the lab rats aren’t the only enemies that only react to being phaselocked

turns out the psychos only react to phaselocking, too

they also have some fun lines:

“I can see forever!”

“I’m home!”

“I’m inside… I’M INSIDE ME!”

with some other nonsense thrown in for fun

so idk, just taking a look at this, it’s clear the psychos and lab rats are seeing something that the other bandits just aren’t seeing. most reactions are demands to be released or that they’re flying, or just straight up confusion as to what’s happening.

is that the side effect of their exposure to slag/eridian tech? yeah, imma bet on it. their mind machines probably broke because they saw something they weren’t supposed to (possibly into the other dimension. the one maya phaselocks them in) without proper ‘protection’ and thus went batshit. like maybe sirens are protected from the craziness of the other dimension because they’re ‘chosen’ or whatever. iunno.

i do think it’s most interesting that the psychos seem familiar with whatever they’re seeing, calling it ‘home’ and well… themselves. 

so why in the fuck am i talking about all this? because i think it ties straight into bl3.

let’s bring back lab rats and their experiments

you know how hyperion was supposedly injecting their eyes with slag? and it caused them to shoot those weird blue lasers out?

what happens to the destroyer’s eye in tps?

yeah we inject this bad boy with slag

“i only juice the eye with a little bit of slag at a time”

which ends up causing a singularity around the eye the second time you do it

“if this slag stuff is powering the laser, we need to force as much of it as we can back into the eye. the increased power will trip a failsafe and let us shut everything down”

oh, increased power? you mean like how Sirens get increased power from absorbing eridium? that kind of increased power?

we know in bl1 the Destroyer seemed to have something like slag in it- those glowing pockets on the tentacles that explode into purple goo

even its attacks are like purple liquid. which, you know… would be quite similar to slag (tho tbf, these attacks actually hurt instead of applying the debuff)

and boy does the destroyer not like it

“warning. space-time instability detected.” after injecting the eye with too much slag. but… why? it got too powerful? are its powers directly connected to the other dimension and by increasing it’s strength a bunch we created some sorta link between our dimension and the other one? 

i mean given the other dimension allows for teleportation and shit, im not surprised there’s a space-time instability!

i mean we’ve all seen it do the eye laser thing, and the tentacles, and the purple goop. but causing space-time instabilities… that’s new isn’t it? kinda like how Sirens get new powers after they absorb a bunch of eridium???

so i wanna take a guess as to what the destroyer is

we know its ‘immortal in its own realm’ but when it’s taken an actual body that we can kill it, so odds are, it never actually died in bl1 OR tps. i imagine the Destroyer we see in bl1 is just a small fragment of it, and that it’s consciousness can be spread out across hosts. *EDIT: actually the lovely @automata-systemata-hydromata reminded me that you can find the destroyers brain in Helios. The other stuff I left in should be fine tho I thiiiink (thank you!).

and that, y’know, is cool and all, but what IS it??

Jack uses slag to give it a power boost, but it doesn’t seem to be happy about it when it happens. in fact, it even seems scared.

to be honest, all we know is that the eridians locked it away for some reason

idk im just spitballing here, but what if the Eridians were the creators of the destroyer? not intentionally, or maybe it was the result of one hell of a slag experiment/exposure to the other dimension/eridian tech, but we’ve seen what slag/exposure to eridian stuff does to humans… makes them go crazy, makes them start mutating. i mean, look at badass psychos. look at goliaths.

i mean shit even think about bloodwing. she goes wild, attacking the VHs and not listening to mordecai’s instructions despite their bond

she grows to a huge size and gains a whole shitload of new powers she didn’t have before. including fucking fire breath (which we’ve seen in burning psychos)

you know these dudes

i go into all this eridium/slag mutation stuff in SO much more detail in this post here, so if you’re interested in mutations, read this!

so what if the destroyer is just one HELL of a mutated eridian/alien and it plus all the eridium was locked away forever in the other dimension to keep this from ever happening again? because god, i wouldn’t want that to ever happen again, either, and i guess locking away the eridium (you know the stuff used in all these hyperion experiments) would be their best bet at ensuring it. also maybe just… locking away anything with eridium for that long probably isn’t the best idea… maybe that’s why it’s all tentacles and death. maybe they just locked someone away in a Vault as a prison and then leaving them with all that eridium caused them to mutate wildly out of control. kinda like the FEV. 

i mean we know ‘slagged psychos’ look like this 

i wouldn’t be surprised if we gave them enough slag/time they’d end up mutating even worse. and the destroyer was left in the vault for hundreds of years.

so wtf is the connection here with Sirens? there’s gotta be one, right??? is slag experimentation the first rung on the ladder of volatile science to achieving siren-hood? like you’d have slag/eridium experiments/mutations -> the lost legion eternal -> actual Sirens. maybe if sirens take in too much eridium they become something like the destroyer. now that’s fucked up to think about.

maybe it’s better the twins took lilith’s powers away from her…

oh, speaking of mutations and burning psychos and hyperion experiments, you know what we haven’t talked about yet?

Krieg. 

let’s talk a whole lot about Krieg, because he is super important

krieg is important for a lot of reasons.

u know what his teaser trailer was named?

yeah i don’t think that’s coincidence one bit

ahhh Mayhem.

“deep beneath pandora, an experiment has escaped”

we know krieg is a hyperion test subject, dr samuels confirms this (and apparently contracts insanity as well at the end of the Crawmerax DLC)

also we know some other tests going on at the WEP from the quest Doctor’s Orders:

“this vault key didn’t make eridium come outta the ground for nothing, right?”

and there’s this one very very very interesting line by Tannis at the end of the quest:

“the spread of slag poisoning” yeah call it that DUMB name tannis, im gonna call it what all the kool kids are calling it: ~Mayhem~

so… Krieg.

what’s so special about him?

well… he gives us insight into what the hell is actually going on inside the heads of some psychos.

so idk about you guys but i always took this as a poke at Maya and Krieg, but i realize now that this is talking literally just about Krieg. it’s about his body holding both sides of himself.

krieg does appear to be like lucid behind the psycho controlling his body, which, idk about you guys, but for me that plants some pretty horrible mental images of all the psychos in-game who probably have similarly exasperated people behind them who are getting murdered because they can’t control themselves anymore.

and idk i wrote this whole post about how maybe the slag experimentation is turning people into hosts for the destroyer’s consciousness and that could explain all the wacked up psychos and shit. but tbh im not gonna talk about that today

just about slag experimentation/eridium exposure. we know what it ACTUALLY does and that’s mutate the hell out of things and cause insanity.

Krieg is like… the poster child for slag experimentation/eridium exposure

soooo why does slag experimentation make people go insane? could be any number of reasons, but tbh i would bet it has to do with that other dimension somehow. because eridium isn’t a normal ‘our dimension’ element. it came out of a vault. from a different dimension. and who knows the long-term effects of that shit.

i personally had a theory that the 4th dimension had something to do with time and that only Sirens are able to harness this power, but then i have no idea how to explain angel and amara’s powers through that lense, so eh. fuck it. just seeing an upper dimension would make you go crazy anyway, so let’s not bring any time shit into this because that’s just asking for trouble. 

either way

i think that sirens are able to make sense of that other dimension. they have some sort of command of it/some sort of tie to it that allows them to not go crazy the instant they interact with it, unlike psychos. unlike lab rats. unlike Krieg. it’s like… eridium is our window into this other dimension or some shit and Sirens are (literally) able to process it, while it just fucks over anyone else who tries to interact. ~kachow i just introduced parallels~

and tbh i think we’re going to use Sirens to help cure this plague of insanity going around the universe. probably starting with Krieg. i mean, the only time he’s able to get even an iota of control is when he sees Maya. “Turn around pretty lady!!” like… that’s HUGE for him. and Maya’s a Siren. im not saying the power of love isn’t strong… but maybe the power of Sirens is stronger. i’d love if tannis helped us out with that. maya, too, if she really did learn more about sirens on athenas. 

this all ties into borderlands 3 for 2 reasons:

1. Mayhem being both the tagline for this game and Krieg the Psycho’s DLC pack is not a coincidence

2. The calypso twins are going to be using slag to both brainwash people into becoming cultists and give them special powers

`breaks fingers` this is the real meat of this theory, all that other stuff was just getting you READY for this

let’s put the Mayhem stuff off to the side for a second and just focus on the Calypso twins.

We know they’re promising their cultists special powers and free brainwashes (lol)

we’ve seen that one concept art from the museum of mayhem with the giant slag pool

we know enemies are STILL dropping refined Eridium even though it seems like all manufacturers have stopped creating slag weaponry

and we’ve seen the slag falls in a bl3 promo material already

oh yes

okay so i said right at the very beginning of this document that i’ve seen A Scene that i wanna talk about and oh baby this is it

This Scene right here

look in the very back there

look familiar???

~it shooouuuuullld~

yeah this is it!!!

so what i think is going down: anyone who’s not already insane is sorta ‘baptized’ as their entrance into this cult in the big ol slagfall. maybe the twins have a way to induce slagged cultists so they can have elemental affinities. not sure about that.

regardless

the twins are using slag to drive people insane (turning them into psychos) as a form of brainwashing to force people to join their cult.

so that’s the special powers and the free brainwashing and the slagfalls down.

let’s talk about why exactly we’re seeing enemies drop bars of refined eridium even though hyperion stopped making them. because the twins are making it!! it makes sense why there’s no slag guns still, even if it still exists in-universe: of course no manufacturer is going to contact an insane bandit cult just to get their hands on slag for their guns. 

there was a 7 year dry spell of eridium production so there was no slag to go around, so companies started phasing it out of their guns and replacing it with nuclear. 

but the twins have recently started production again. they’re obviously not using it in their guns, or selling it to other manufacturers. so wtf are they using it for? it’s gotta be important, it’s holy holy holy.

special powers and brainwashing!

and the refined eridium is back in circulation, so enemies are still dropping it. see? solution acquired.

as for psycho-ness spreading across the universe? it makes sense. not only are the twins using their slag to brainwash people and turn them into psycho cultists, but people are also being mutated by the eridian ruins/vault keys/vaults on the other planets and being driven insane. This craziness is quite literally Mayhem.

Mayhem is coming, indeed! 

now let us talk about what the fucccck gearbox is doing with all that Mayhem stuff in the trailers and shit.

sooo WE are the cult surrounding this game. as the fan base. 

do u think it was coincidence that they made ‘ECHOnet’ Streamers the leaders of their big bad cult and then also immediately introduced, in real life, the Twitch ECHOcast extension and invited a bunch of streamers to play their demo? they knew exactly what they were doing. Giving away a free cultist psycho mask to everyone who preorders a console copy of the game? that’s intentional. everyone who preorders the game gets a ‘gold weapon skin pack’? yeah! you know what gold weapons represent in-universe? higher standing in the cult!! gearbox is making commentary on how we are all just like the cultists!

AND THEY ARE TOTALLY RIGHT

all the trailers having something to do with Mayhem? ‘Mask of Mayhem’ ‘Mural of Mayhem’ ‘We are Mayhem’ ‘Mayhem is coming’. We’re all insane cultists because we’re all absolutely fucking rabid for this game and they KNOW IT.

…

oh also we’re all in love with each other lmao. 

in all seriousness, i think the game is going to focus a lot on the relationships we have with the people we care about- our found family, our romantic interests, our friendships- and that’s being expressed through the roses. 

i think that’s why all the characters are shown in the roses on the cover art. why the roses are so prominent in the So Happy Together trailer. why Zane is sitting at a bar with a rose between himself and his clone (as a joke, but still, it’s the intent). 

red roses are, like, the most obvious way to show your affection to someone. and we know the bl3 Vault Hunters are going to find family in each other in this game. that we’re going to watch the calypso twins’ relationship become warped as the game goes on. hell, we’re probably even going to have a whole plot about tina and mordy (and talon) and brick being a small family together, and maya and ava being one as well. plus ellie and vaughn have gotten together since commander lilith. shit, guys, even claptrap is building himself a girlfriend.

this game’s about love, guys.

anyway i have been working on this since 1:30am. it’s currently 6:06am. i am very tired and very wired and those never mesh well. im gonna go eat some motherfuckin pizza.

edit: i missed the obvious connection the first time around: of course we’re going to cure Krieg, he loves Maya. and this game is all about love.

that and/or one or both of them die and gearbox hurts us right in the softest parts of our hearts.

edit 2: also yeah at some point in the near future im writing that Hyperion-Twins theory because as much as i love Atlas, i have ~seen some things~

[bluerosesburnblue]

Bless that post. I love the aro/ace headcanon, but I also love all mc/charlie shippers. Basically, I'm very very Pro-Ship and like... I've seen the people who headcanon aro/ace charlie get really hostile and weirdly aggressive over it. I'm pretty sure one person even deactivated their account because they dared to call out the harrasment and were in turn harrassed themselves. Fandom is supposed to be fun and shipping should never be about activism like some ppl are trying to do and it boggles me

Thank you. Given the extremes people go to on this site, it’s nice to see someone else who agrees with me about keeping these things measured and respectful

Honestly, my breaking point the other night was that I happened to see an anon on one of the really popular blogs in the fandom. All they said was that they were a fan of the ace headcanon, but they saw a lot of the negativity in the tag in regards to the Charlie/MC ship and were worried that if they started posting their stuff regarding it that they’d get backlash or get seen as insensitive. The whole thing looked like someone who was very anxious asking someone they respected if they thought it would be appropriate. They probably trusted that blog to be mature and give them some reassurance

The response they got was basically (I’m paraphrasing here) “The ace ‘headcanon’ is undeniably canon, you can still post your thing but just know that it’s not canon and nobody has to like the fact that you posted it. I don’t know what hate you’re seeing, but I haven’t seen it and I don’t think it exists.” Which is, like… denying that anon’s experience and brushing off their fears is just a shitty thing to do to someone who was obviously nervous and looking for reassurance. And also completely wrong. Just because you can read that interpretation into a canon line doesn’t mean that your interpretation is completely canonical. Dating and romantic or sexual attraction are not the same thing. And it’s bad enough that that response is getting a good amount of notes

But what really pissed me off was a response I saw from someone else on that post. This person immediately accused that anon of intentionally overreacting and fishing for sympathy, crossing the line by asking someone they respected about their opinion of the discourse, and trying to deny asexual people representation. And they had the nerve to go on about how “people you thought were nice are turning out to be shitty people.” And then told that anon to grow up

That is absolutely disgusting behavior. Even if Charlie was canonically aro/ace, it would be going too far. Nobody knows anything about that anon, because they’re a goddamned anon. For all anybody knows, that anon could’ve been a kid or young teen who legitimately wanted to be respectful to the ace/aro community and thought it best to ask someone they respected what their opinion was. This is exactly what I was afraid was going to start up. That the second somebody showed that they didn’t agree with the popular interpretation or, god forbid, admitted that they don’t know enough and wanted another opinion, that they’d get slammed and harassed, with accusations made about their character. A character that we can’t even truly know because this is the internet and it’s easy to read whatever you want into these things. You’re not “educating” anyone, you’re just making them not want to learn

And then that original blog had the gall to tell that anon that they didn’t see any reason why they’d be afraid of harassment. When that aggressive, uncalled for response was a response on their post

The best part? Not only did that anon directly cite a post that had bothered them in a later ask, but they admitted that they were ace and questioning aro and just didn’t see why that line made the interpretation canon

And the person who slammed them? Not aro/ace.

As far as I can tell, that anon never got an apology. The sidequest isn’t even out yet and the fandom has already devolved into people making assumptions and yelling over actual ace people over their own representation and refusing to see a problem with it. In fact, they think they’re in the right because quite a few popular blogs agree with them. That anon could’ve been a kid. Are we really going to scream at people who might be kids over a headcanon?

Not a single, goddamned person made any effort to say that that person was out of line. Not a single person saw a problem with that response. I’d say it was just that one person in the wrong, but I’ve seen equally harsh and aggressive responses by other people out there, too. This isn’t a situation of one person being an asshole (if it was I might’ve just called them out, specifically), they just happened to be the one to tip me over the edge

That’s what’s pissing me off about this situation. If someone is legitimately so scared to post something completely harmless that goes against the popular interpretation, then there is a problem. There is a problem, that shouldn’t be ignored just because you might disagree with that anon’s opinion. People don’t get that scared for no reason. It’s awful and immature to ignore the problem. To pretend it doesn’t exist, or to support the response they got and double down just to make yourself look right

People are really getting this awful over a side character in a mobile game. Just back up and really look at that. A side character. In a mobile game.

Some people need to grow up, and it sure ain’t that anon. And I hope that if that anon ever sees this, they know that they’ve got my support and I’m so sorry that some people think asserting that their headcanon is canon is more important than an actual, living person

As for the “it’s canon do we really have to spell it out for you?” argument, uhhh… YEAH. Not them, specifically, but the source material does. Otherwise it’s not CANON. Canon is reserved for things irrefutably stated in the text not “all possible (or your favorite) ways you could interpret lines in the text.” When it’s widely accepted, that’s fanon. Canon: Charlie states that he doesn’t have time for dating because he’s busy studying dragons. Fanon: Charlie is ace/aro. We also need to destroy this false equivalency that dating and romantic attraction are the same thing. It doesn’t help anybody on either side

And no joke, I read a novel one time and the main character was so obviously ace to me. The whole thing was written from his point of view, and he was always questioning why people found romance to be so important. He wasn’t into any of the girls that flirted with him, he kissed his male best friend and said he didn’t feel any sparks, he avoided romance of all kinds even while questioning his sexuality. Well, come the end of the book, he realizes that he was gay and in denial and VERY in love with his best friend. It was adorable when they got together

But at the same time, there was way more evidence to suggest that that character was ace than there is for Charlie, and yet canonically he was gay despite that. Sexuality is something very complex and personal and the discovery of it no less so, so yes, absolutely, I think it needs to be stated in some way to be canon. Things can’t just be implied to be considered canon. Your assumptions may very easily be wrong, or not what the author intended. And even things that the author intended can be considered non-canon. Death of the Author is a real thing, after all. If it’s not stated in the text, it’s not canonical

If Charlie had said “I’m not interested in romance and don’t know if I ever will be” or something similar, then yes I’d say they had a basis for their argument. But that’s not what he said. Charlie says… basically what I would have if someone had flirted with me in high school. My suspicion is that something in JC’s contract meant that they weren’t allowed to make Bill, Tonks, or Charlie romance options, so they just reworded JK’s old interview when writing his dialogue to be more relevant to the quest material

And people using that interview as “proof” is especially funny to me since she only said that after denying the possibility that he could be gay because Dumbledore already was. You’re all really expecting this woman whose reaction to being asked if a character being homosexual was a possible interpretation was “Uh, no, we already have one of those,” to go around and confirm him to belong to an even less represented group? And do it tastefully? And then have half of these people who take that as canon also state that they don’t generally consider things that JK reveals outside of the source to matter?

Christ, people, learn the difference between canon, fanon, and Word of God. And then stop ignoring or harassing people for rightly calling out that you’re misusing the terms

[thepersephonecabin]

16, 20-23, 36 ? For Riordanverse asks!

16. Where would you live in the riordanverse world (CHB, CJ, The Waystation, Valhalla, the Kane Manor, etc.)?

Camp Half-Blood! I know it’s kind of basic but I have the kind of nostalgia for CHB that most potterheads have for hogwarts. I even have a home-made CHB shirt (though i don’t know if it still fits me because I made it uhhh several weight fluctuation cycles ago)

20. Favorite ship?

It’s a suuuper small ship but i really love NicoxPercyxAnnabeth. I’m a sucker for some good healthy polyamory, and though our little group of shippers are small there are some just incredible fics. Honorable mentions: I would die for fierrochase, and when I, a non-binary, found out Riordan was doing a main character romance with a genderfluid character I uh, big cried. Also a big fan of Thalia and Reyna.

21. Least favorite ship?

So please don’t get mad, this is a personal opinion and not a judgement on anyone in the fandom who does ship this but my least favorite is actually solangelo, but hear me out. I think it’s really great that Rick gave Nico a happy ending with someone who is as kind and caring as Will! I think that’s a great message for younger queer kids reading the books who could benefit from seeing that they deserve happy endings too! So I’ll never begrudge anyone for shipping solangelo, but I have, a weird relationship with the ship personally.

For me, it’s less that I dislike the solangelo ship itself, it’s more that some solangelo shippers especially in the time right after Blood of Olympus came out got kind of nasty to people who weren’t immediately on the bandwagon. For example, I remember some people saying, “hmm I’m not sure I’m warmed up to will and nico as a couple yet” and solangelo shippers coming down and saying that they were being homophobic for it. (additionally, I made a post about this a loooooong time ago but I feel a little uncomfortable about how quickly solangelo grew in popularity with the fandom before it was confirmed canon because it felt crappy that no one had put that sort of energy behind any f/f shit in the riordan-verse. and then, almost simultaneously, people started shitting on riordan for not having any wlw in his books, but when the waystation girls were introduced it was like. radio silence in the fandom.)

so yeah. this is no shade to you if you ship solangelo, it’s more that i got burnt out on seeing the ship. I still think will and solace are cute in TOA, and i still see and reblog good art/fic of solangelo when I see it, it’s just not my cup of tea.

22. Favorite platonic ship (Brotp)?

Do Percy and Tyson count if they’re actually brothers? I love their dynamic and how in school Percy would defend Tyson even though he new it’d isolate him from others even more. Also I know I talked above about liking the nicoxpercyxannabeth ship but I also just like Nico and Annabeth bonding platonically after the books, the idea that they have to be jealous and nasty to each other just because nico had a crush on percy is so tired.

23. If you could save ONE of the people who died, who would it be (pick one, no cheating!!)?

SELENA! Her sacrifice was so poetic and I loved the parallels between her death and Patroclus’ from the Iliad but also! She and Clarisse should be married!!

36. The most controversial opinion that you have about the books (be honest, and friends/mutuals don’t kill the person who answers!!)

Oh gods I feel like I already outed myself on this one with my solangelo answer, but for the sake of fairness I will give another different controversial opinion.

I don’t even know if this is something people are still arguing about because I have weeded the whole conversation out of my dash but back in the day a lot of people on tumblr had beef about the age difference between Hazel and Frank because in physical years Hazel is younger than him. 

I can understand people’s complaints about the age difference because I get that irl even a difference of a few years can mean a significant power indifference. I saw this with a lot of my own friends in the real world and I even experienced a lot of my older brother’s friends pursuing me romantically (the people in question would have been 3-5 years older) when I was in middle school and high school and as an adult I look back at that and I’m so thankful that I dodged those bullets by standing my ground and not getting involved with those people who were older than me.

However, I think it’s also kind of convenient that people will discourse over Hazel and Frank being together, but not for example, Percy and Nico or Nico and Jason who have a similar age differences. And if I’m being honest, if you ask me why I think Hazel and Frank get so much more discourse about the age gap, the only answer that makes sense to me is the fact that there are few ships in the Riordan-verse in which BOTH SIDES of the ship are POC, and HazelxFrank is one of them.

This is something I’ve avoided putting out on my blog, I just try to ignore the whole thing tbh? but Hazel and Frank both separately got weirdly mixed reactions from the fandom and neither are particularly popular compared to some of the other characters. But when you think about it, nico has an age difference with most of the characters he’s shipped with, but I rarely see people upset about it. (not to mention there are so many other ships with significant age differences like leo and calypso, sadie and anubis, and paolo and apollo, etc who i also have not seen age discourse about). so idk. I understand why some people are made uncomfortable by it and that’s totally their right but I do still wonder if some of the frazel hate is misdirected

Send me a number!

[skruffie]

It’s not the anniversary yet, but it IS National Siblings Day and I conveniently forget that this is even a thing until I go on Facebook or Twitter or something and remember. This year is a big milestone for my family because it is the 18th anniversary, which marks a passage of time from now to forever where she has been gone longer than she was alive.

I saw this thing on Facebook about grief, and it went something like grief is this hole, and you can try to fill the hole with whatever you can, but nothing fills it. It’s bottomless. It seems like your entire life gets sucked into it, but eventually as the years go on... the hole doesn’t get smaller. Your life gets bigger, and it grows around it. The hole is always there, but there’s more expanse around it as you move through each anniversary, each holiday, each milestone. It’s similar to describing grief as “it doesn’t get easier, you just get better at coping”.

(This is going to be very long and probably very sad because I talk at great length about her life and death)

I tried to write about a little bit about Nicole on Twitter today, but my initial post mentioned the word “cancer” which caught the attention of this fucking asshole that was advertising faith healing on his timeline. That dulled my grief a bit but it sure made me mad.

Trying to remember things.

We were seven years apart so we never really had a sibling rivalry or anything. I actually looked up to her so much--she was like a teenage rock star to my child self. She loved writing and wrote lots of poetry, got published in an independent zine by age nine, and through her adolescence was a bit of a grunge punk. She played piano and bass. She wore combat boots. Occasionally she dressed up with the full make-up and everything and called them her “pretty days”. She had a lock of hair in front of her face she kept in a small braid. She did blogging before the word “blog” even existed by maintaining an email list of friends and family, and she would email her updates directly to them. She coded her own websites and experimented with graphic design. She did photography. She’s why I love nail polish and tarot cards and Doc Martens--her own boots had navy blue laces with suns and moons on them. She had a huge, huge crush on Dave Navarro. She would buy hostess cupcakes for the kids at school who didn’t have food, and she kicked her own friends out of our house when they tried to bring alcohol to her party.

Nicole grew up with the brunt of our parents’ addictions before I came along. My mom (seen with baby Nicole in one of the photos above) and dad were only 19 when they had her and got married. When she was younger, they actually split up for a while and I think my great-grandma helped take care of her. My parents both went to rehab, got back together, and then had me, so... I was the baby that grew up in a sober house for a while at least. My parents still argued and it bothered me a lot when I got a bit older, so she’d come get me and take me to her room and bring chips and bean dip, and I’d have a safe place to cry.

...That’s a thought I just had right there. After she died, I didn’t really have that same kind of shield from my parents fighting (which was a lot worse after her death--a lot of couples who lose a child end up divorcing and my parents came close), which I think is probably what made the emotional neglect worse.

I don’t remember the exact progression of her cancer, but things started getting noticeable when she started developing night-blindness. I think at the time there were some doctors that didn’t believe she could be getting cancer so getting the insurance to cover tests and treatment was a fight every single time. A tumor started growing in her left arm, and the diagnosis was finally clear: rhabdomyosarcoma. She asked the doctors after her diagnosis if it was genetic, because even after that, she thought of me. (Thankfully, it isn’t. It was just a stupid, cruel twist of the universe.)

She got chemo, started to go into remission, and eventually it came back. Nicole then got a stem cell transplant when it was getting worse--more tumors, etc etc. I had met with a grief counselor at the hospital once or twice during this time period, even before we knew for sure it was terminal, because I was 10 going on 11 and needed someone to help me process and also like... kinda pay attention to me? Admitting that feels weird, but I was just a kid.

The day that I found out that the stem cell transplant didn’t work is probably almost worse than the day she died for me. They brought in a minister and we sang “Amazing Grace” and I watched her be baptized, and while she was being anointed, I kept asking everyone “Why is she being baptized? Why??? Why?! We’re Wiccan!!” Which was true. Nicole also underwent a Wiccaning around this time. Everyone was ignoring my questions, until finally it was time. She told me the stem cell transplant had not been successful and broke down crying, and I immediately understood what that meant, and I started screaming and crying. I started screaming to see the grief counselor, and I had to leave the hospital room to go with the counselor down to my favorite spot on the hospital campus.

Fuck. I hate Easter. I fucking hate Easter. It was around Easter time and this holiday plays a role in this awful memory of mine: at the hospital, some very kind person made little easter baskets for all the kids that were on the juvenile cancer ward, and I even got to get one even though I wasn’t a patient. I was starting to open mine but Nicole just looked at it. She said “Why do I get one? Why do I get one when I’m going to--” and probably started crying. I put my basket aside because the thrill of like... easter chocolate or whatever the fuck was gone. I don’t think I’ve been able to enjoy this holiday since.

Make A Wish was involved at some point, obviously. NIcole’s original wish was to meet Tori Amos, but her management team responded with “Uhhh, Tori doesn’t really do that” which was disappointing at first. (A few years later, a couple of Nicole’s friends saw T live in concert and met her at a meet and greet. They told her Nicole’s story and I guess she had no idea actually, so I believe it was a decision firmly on the management’s side.). The next wish had to be rushed, and Nicole realized that she wanted to go to prom. The actual senior prom for her high school was going to be too far out in advance with her surviving that long, so Make A Wish threw together a special prom just for her and about 150+ attendees.

The prom was held at Newport Harbor on a yacht. Rebecca Schoenkopf of Wonkette, known in 2001 as CommieGirl for the OC Weekly, met with Nicole once prior to this and attended as a prom guest to write about it. Naturally, Nicole was crowned prom queen and when she stood up to receive the crown, it was something magical. She had spent most of the evening in and out of sleep from being so ill and from the medications she was on.

When she was dying, she wanted to be at the hospital. I stayed at my grandparent’s house... probably for a couple days, I don’t actually remember how long it was, and my parents were there for her. I believe she died in the early hours of the morning on April 30th, two days short of her 18th birthday. I had a moment that morning that I consider a small blessing, which is that I found out she was gone before anyone had actually told me, and it gave me a brief reprise to just be by myself while I gathered up my will to go downstairs and face my parents. I had been in the process of going downstairs, and I saw my mom come out of the bathroom, and that was it. That was all I needed to see.

She had them write a letter as her own personal message to me. Two days later for her 18th birthday, my cousin sent us 18 lavender balloons. I don’t think we had her memorial until the 11th of May and I know this because it was the same day Douglas Adams--one of Nicole’s favorite authors--died. We joked that she took him with her. Nicole was cremated, and I do remember there was at least one funny moment that morning as we were getting out of the car. My mom handed me the wooden box that had Nicole’s cremains in it and said “Here, hold your sister for a sec.” We got a touch of that grave humor in my family.

One of the hardest things about this... hole of grief, is aging. My parents are in their mid 50s now, and I’m going to be 30 next year. I don’t have any other siblings to help take care of my parents. My mom rather flippantly says “Oh, put us in a nursing home”, but that just feels so bleak. I don’t have my sister with me to help with my wedding, to meet Zack or any of my friends, to talk to about our past and our future. She’s not here to kick ass and build amazing apps or tear down the patriarchy or be on the ground reporting the latest news break. There’s so many milestones I’ve already crossed without her but I am always going to miss her.

Bon swayr, ma souer.

[singing-robot]

re: Dead Cells/Undertale

And why it would be the worst crossover ever. 

First off, I have not finished Dead Cells, and I’m trying to play it as blindly as possible, so please do not add anything further than what I mention right here in this post!!! This includes tips, runes, locations, and unseen dialogue. I’ve recently acquired my first stem cell, and have only gotten to the Concierge once in the many games I’ve started in hard mode, sodo please be mindful of that. And now, the promised content. 

This started off as a fun mashup between the two games, but the realistic side of my brain kicked in and said, “How would this actually go?” And, quite honestly, that one seemed more interesting, both in terms of how this hypothetical game would be played (I wish I could show you guys instead of just talking about it), and in the potential angst that would be held. 

The first thing I feel we need to address is how the game starts. Dead Cellsman (as I so often see him called) has a beheaded prisoner to crawl into each time you start over. Who is supplying these? I have no idea. However, I’m going to say that these bodies are either thrown down there by the same being each time you start, or Mr. Prisoner Sir finds his ride off-screen, and we only see him fall down. 

“But Robot!” you cry. “That’s so unnecessary and specific!!! Why would you bring that up?” Good question!! Because the alternative is diggging his way underground and taking over the dead body of the first fallen human. Only works once, and that’s so horrifying and disgusting that I immediately hated it as soon as I considered it, and wished I never had. The concept of eventually unlocking the other previous humans would be pretty cool if they weren’t, you know, way past their expiration date. 

Disgusting and terrible, but I needed to address it. Next section: actual fighting. 

Mr. Cellsman does not have the time for extensive dialogue and conversations. He’s thrown into prison, given a couple of weapons, and his tutorial covers a total of maybe 20 seconds between three deaths. Everything after that is a line of destruction and occasional smart remarks about something poorly lit by a blue candle. A speedrunning, monster-hacking, hilt-happy creature does not bode well for the residents of the Underground. 

He does not have much sympathy for the dead, and he criticizes those in charge of the living. I don’t blame him, honestly, but it makes me wonder how he would react to something that begged when he’s already supposed to kill it. Or if he would even give them time to do so. For the purposes of this post, he doesn’t. He sees it, he hacks it, he gains whatever coin they had on their person. All things considered, I’d say he would start off with a fairly high Level of Violence, so it would be much easier to go through the game. 

The boss fights would be very interesting. Toriel wouldn’t have any sort of connection as to a child, and would not hold back during her fight. I almost want to see it. The dogs would be the equivalent of Elites, probably. Papyrus would be absolute hell to fight, with his constant ground attacks; not to mention that you’re supposed to hit him in the middle of all of it. He’ll make it a fair fight, of course, but according to even Dead Cells logic, he will be on par with you. I think Undyne would be very similar to the Time Keeper, except you couldn’t simply break out of her hold. 

I did this in my sketchbook and I’m so glad I can make it again with real context.

To be fair, I’ve only gotten as far as Undyne, so I won’t go much farther on that topic, except on the specifics of the next section dealing with Sans, since I won’t ever play that run, anyway. (So, basically, I lied.) 

Encountering Sans at the end would be... very frustrating, to say the least. Either his fight would be very similar to the Hand of the King, or he would simply disappear every time you tried to hit him, until you figure out that there’s actually a secret passage to bypass him entirely and you’ve wasted so much time, there goes your speedrunning record. The difference here might actually count on either the time it took you to get to the end, or how thoroughly you took out the monster population. (He would probably deal more damage than Frisk ever could; getting held up so often allowed for more people to escape.) 

Wow. So. Here we are. Are you still reading this? Have you done this all in one big chunk? Please take a moment to look away from your screen, stretch, and do five real good blinks. Take in a deep breath and hold it. Hold it. A little longer. And out. Yeah, man. Breathe some of the outside stuff, too, for bonus refreshment. Maybe get some water while we’re here. This post is a little long, might as well add in a break time paragraph. I’m certainly using it as a time to stop writing, before I get into the next segment and lose 30 more minutes. Also??? Thanks for sticking through this far, it really means a lot. Especially since I haven’t edited a single bit of this so far, and probably won’t from this point on. 

All right!!! Have you stretched? Have you had some water? Did you take a big whiff of your surroundings so as to not get too lost in the sauce of this crazy post? I hope so, pal, because here comes the fun part: The Aftermath. 

When you fight Sans, he makes his accusation: you’re the anomaly in his research, and you need to be stopped. But here’s the thing: he doesn’t say that on nothing. He says that in almost full confidence, and suspected it in other runs. What gives you away? Not entirely sure, but I bet defeating the Captain of the Royal Guard without dying, or openly having zero interest in things that should be interesting, hints at it. And unless something is lit by a blue candle or offers the promise of cells and upgraded weapons, Dead Cellsman has very little interest in anything at all. 

So you could imagine that someone speedrunning through the Underground, killing everyone in his path while hardly stopping to glance at the scenery, would be waving a big red “time anomaly” flag. And if Sans managed to evade him until the end, and even had the time to overcome any shock and actually do something, that would be one horrible, inescapable fight. 

Here’s where my idea splits in two: 

1. Sans dies. You receive a special item to take out Asgore in one hit, you win, you finish the game. There is... little point in restarting it, because I’m logical and boring and the remaining monsters of the Underground wouldn’t come out of hiding for... a very long time. Longer than it’d be worth Mr. Cellsman to consider coming back for. 

So when Frisk falls, there is nothing and nobody. The place is a little dusty, a little bloody, there’s a few spare coins on the ground, but everything is utterly abandoned. The towns, the stores, the homes you can’t explore, anyway; they’re empty. It’d make for a boring game, honestly. There’s Flowey, but he’s so distracted by recent events that he doesn’t even show up when you first fall. There’s not point in “kill or be killed” when there’s no one around to fight you. He’ll talk to you, sure, but because you’re another entertaining attraction. Your SOUL would be great, but what’s the point if the others are almost completely inaccessible, now? 

Perhaps he’ll tell you the tale of the genocidal killing spree he witnessed for fun. 

2. (This ending applies to ones with and without a Sans fight, with or without total monster destruction.) Not to add another angst story featuring the Sans man, bUT... Sans does not die. You get past him, you take out Asgore, you win the game, whatever. You get to move on.

And Sans was wrong. Nothing resets. He thought he was right, he was so positive, but here he is. And there are so many people who are dead. It must be hard to deal with, when he hardly has anyone to blame it on. He can’t even curse the murderer to his face. So imagine what it must be like to watch another monster kill so many of its own kind, only to have a human fall after that. The creature that banished them all underground is now here to either finish them off or send them to the Surface, but I doubt anyone thinks it’s the latter. The angel has returned to free them all.

I accidentally made a super metal and symbolic image to go with this, I will post it separately because, holy cow, did not expect it to turn out like this. 

Frisk has to face the most scared, enraged, and depressed monsters they could ever have encountered. Some of them will attack as viciously as they can. Others will beg for mercy, or run as quickly as possible. More will just wait, confused and perhaps upset if they are spared. There will be some who are simply NPCs, as per usual, but they will be very different. There will be fewer. Frisk’s mission to save monsters and encourage their character development will be vastly different and very difficult. 

I... made the mistake of waiting over 24 hours to type out the second half of this and lost some of the steam I started with, but I’m also bad at simply describing how bleak and depressing it would be without getting too much into it. So!!! To conclude, a semi-realistic Dead Cells/Undertale crossover would be extremely sad and depressing, since it’s basically coming in on the aftermath of almost-genocide. I will definitely accept further questions and, possibly, requests regarding this post, especially since you actually read through the entire thing and endured through everything in this post even after my enthusiasm died down in my writing. Sorry to disappoint after hyping up The Aftermath, but I was writing that at midnight and probably lost some of my good points. Definitely had a better version in my head. 

I also super ignored almost everything involving Flowey for Mr. Prisoner Sir because uhhh I didn’t want to write around that too much, so please don’t call me out on it because I definitely am aware of it and only have weak justifications for doing so. And, since we’re both here, 

UnderCells - a little catchy, I like it, but it sounds like the main story itself would be focusing on Dead Cellsman going through the Underground. While it would, to an extent, ignoring Frisk’s presence would simply make it a new level and brief one shot thing for the man. I really like the sound of it, though. 

DeadTale - far more appropriate for Frisk’s leg of the journey (as well as all of monsterkind), kinda funny in a sick sort of way, definitely used somewhere else. 

It doesn’t matter if you use either of these terms, I thought I’d address it since it’s already a super long post :’D

You made it to the end!!! Congratulations!!! 

[wiipes]

Okay so. This is more of a personal rant than anything. So, feel free to keep scrolling.

>[Rant]

Turned 18 three months ago. That would be pretty cool if I uhhh actually had stuff I wanted to do at 18 planned out.

Honestly, didn't even think I'd make it this far. Not in a suicidal way, (well-), but in a similar way kindergarteners tend to forget about Pluto. It's not really in your mind, and if you're young enough,Pluto just doesn't exist.

I thought you had to be super smart to get into high school in 5th grade. Seven years ago.

And in a way, yes?

Had to maintain a well enough grade to get through the levels that was the American Education System.

But like, I didn't think 18 would happen because I hadn't seen it this far.

And to be fair, things were a helluva lot better in 5th grade.

I had yet to lose my first best friend. My dad was still around and things hadn't changed. He drove me to school on a motorcycle. I was starting to write.

But that's not a fair comparison, is it? Comparing life to life seven years ago.

Well.

At this point, I've gained and lost a good portion of my friends, to the point, I've only had a consistent friend since March 2020 hit. She's the real mvp. And... I miss them all. You know, at first, I was included in future plans. Like, vacations and stuff. And then we'd talk about life after high school. And I was still with them, in the future. We'd be in Canada or maybe a little up north in the state.

But then it slowly slipped. When we got an actual vacation, a trip to nyc, I... I was told that they already had a fourth person, and that they hoped I didn't mind. How was I supposed to say I did mind, that we planned this before the fourth person came in. That I wanted to be their fourth roommate. I couldn't. It was selfish. It was selfish in nature and childish to say "I thought we were supposed to be roommates?"

Lmao, cringe. It wasn't selfish. Maybe if I'd stopped to talk to them, maybe I wouldn't have issues like this.

Nah.

Anyways, I thought hey, maybe I'll be included in the group? Nope. I was half-involved. Our group was split and I'm thankful at least somebody cared for me then. Karma is it that at the end of the trip at the airport, there was drama involving the very same person?

And I hadn't known about this drama?

Figures.

Was told, "it was a need-to-know kinda thing."

And I didn't need to, I guess.

That next year at school was something different, and not just because of covid, but because not only did I have my first boyfriend but also because I stopped hanging out with them.

My junior year was spent very much the same way I spent my sixth. Alone and on the verge of depression. Who am I kidding, I wished I would just die almost daily.

It would be easier, better for everyone, if I just offed myself. That way,silly matters like those wouldn't happen. No one would need to worry about the shadow of the group. No need to worry about someone who's 6ft under.

Course I don't think like that as often but I'm better.

I never felt more alone, despite having a boyfriend.

Then covid hit.

And I was left home and alone. Save for the annoying sister.

Then the memes came after a month, if your friends wanted to talk to you, they would. Its covid times. People are on their phones. They would talk to you if they wanted to.

Then I got a job and suddenly I felt... Better. Anxious because I knew jack shit but better. I wasn't in the house all the time.

And then summer came.

The hang out photos that were posted on instagram during that time always stabbed my heart.

Because I'd always find them after I get home from work at 3 am, 11 hours after it was posted.

And I would never hear a word of invites to hanging out.

I hung out with friends from school twice. Both have months spaced out between them.

It hit hard when senior sunrise came and went and I heard nothing about it.

I only knew it happened because two friend groups I was both in, two groups that had somehow melded without me, posted photos about it.

I found out after my 10 hour shift.

I broke down that day.

I stopped calling them my best friends. I stopped calling them my friends.

I...

I wanted to die.

Wanted to swallow any bottle of pills and hope for the best. Wanted to take a knife and slash my arms and legs.

Wanted to bash my fucking brains in.

So.

I stopped thinking about them.

Made friends at work.

One of them calls me her kid and I don't think I could ever a live a life without her again. The other is my boyfriend.

I still can't stop looking at their social medias, my old friends.

It still stings.

Stings when they post on their stories saying this is for best friend's day and I'm not in a single photo.

And then every now and then, my boyfriend and boss have their 'bromance' and call me the sidepiece. I didn't talk to my boyfriend because I had hoped he would remember that I actually was the sidepiece and that shit stung hard for my first relationship.

My boyfriend is a whole mess and an asshole and I want to scream at him sometimes but I can't stand being mean to him. He's listened to me more than almost everybody in my life.

He is the second most important person in my life.

And this whole rant has been sad.

It was mainly to just remind myself that yes, this shit was sad but now, you can afford to buy disposable ear piercing guns-

Kidding.

The only person who continues, without fail, to care about me throughout this pandemic is my single best friend.

I can't believe she stuck this long with me.

I wish I knew how to tell her that if it weren't for her texts, I would just keep ignoring people. I would ignore fhe world and self isolate and spiral.

I needed the texts and interaction and I needed friendship.

She's given me that.

Given me comfort, love, and support.

And I try to do my best.

I sometimes fail, going days without getting out of bed and feeling like shit.

And on days where I can't, have to go through the motions, she makes things better.

She's like the soda to my pork in this world of glass animals.

She's quite the (platonic) love of my life. My best friend.

I made this to validate my experiences, to remind myself that just because it didn't end with violence that doesn't make it any less traumatic.

I love my bestie. And I hope I can, one day, love myself just as much as I love her.

Okay goodnight.

[nadjaofstatenisland]

Keeping Up With the Coopers

Wrote something about Alice showing up at the SoDale event last night and accidentally erased it because I’m an idiot, so lets try this again. (apologizing in advanced because I’m sure someone else has used this title before.)

Oh, Alice. As I ask of my favorite character every week what is your game? 

Let me start by stating the obvious: Alice is insecure. “Did you tell Dad everything when you started dating?” “I sure did, and he used it against me.” Betty and Alice exchange this in 1x10 when Betty is unsure of trusting Jughead with dark!Betty. And by this point we already saw Hal use Alice’s insecurities against her in 1x08 when she kicks him out. “Oh, no Alice. What will everyone think?” I’ve talked to a few people who viewed this exchange as Hal not wanting the town to find out they don’t have a perfect family, but I disagree. Hal says this in such a condescending tone, I can only read this as him using her insecurities against her. Hal grew up in the Northside, founding family of Riverdale, and probably had a very similar childhood to the one they gave Betty and Polly. The Coopers already have an established imagine and Hal could care less of it, it’s been there his whole life and little can tarnish it now. It’s Southside Alice, the girl from the wrong side of the track with the bad reputation. She is the one who cares about her family’s reputation. Possibly because she finally has a “good” reputation to uphold, unlike her past. 

Which brings me to 2x05. Betty gets sent this article of her mom being arrested as a teen (conveniently right after the Lodge’s discuss what a pain her articles have been. hmm.) and posts it under the Black Hood’s direction. Now, this is a small town. All the older crowd already knows Alice from her past and knows she’s formerly from the Southside, yet the only person who ever brings this up is FP. Even then, FP brings this up in private, although it would have been so easy to toss into that dinner conversation in front of Betty and Jughead in 1x11. Do people ignore this as a polite courtesy? Strange since all Alice ever seems to do it shit stir.

So this article pops up. Alice claims all public records of it are gone, but what’s sent to Betty is a picture of the paper. An original copy implies that someone’s been saving this paper for 25 years just to eventually hold something over Alice’s head. And in retrospect… who makes a big deal about this? We see groups of kids snickering about it at Pops. Pop’s himself tells Alice he’s not judging her. Hiram kind of nods along with it when Hal says Alice is shook. Is it such a big deal…?

Yes, because if there is anyone Alice has been trying to erase her past from, it’s her own children. How was there not a scene of Betty actually confronting Alice about this? (and i know her and Jug where pressed for time, but they hardly touch on this. please Jug, ask an older Serpent what they know about Alice, for my sake.) The scene we get is so short and basically Betty just saying she did this for justice. “Shit talk the Southside and I’ll expose your sketchy past.” But what about, “Mom, you were a Serpent and have a record, yet instead of telling me and my boyfriend about this as maybe a cautionary tale, you just post articles about how the place you come from is ruining Riverdale?” 

And what about the older Serpents? Do they just roll their eyes and go, “Oh, silly Alice, running her mouth as always,” and shake it off? Does Tall Boy know Alice? And why is it this group of misfit Serpent teens who want to attack the Register? (btw Jug, great job not telling anyone about their stupid plan. I know you have a complicated relationship with Alice, but leaving a pipebomb in some’s business is a serious deal. and do they ever even say they’re not going to do it? uhhh…)

So this brings us to the SoDale Open House. Hal tells Hiram they decided together that Alice shouldn’t come after the article. “Alice, you’ve really been stirring the pot lately. Lets put crazy on the backburner and you sit this one out?” “Oh sure.” At which point, Alice ran out to Greendale Mall and brought that bomb ass outfit that I couldn’t pull off in my wildest fantasy. (fyi my wildest fantasy may or may not include Madchen in that outfit.) And a snake necklace. And she shows up in total Cheryl Blossom fashion and makes a scene, yanks a drink out of her husband’s hand… and then what? Takes three steps back and asks him what she’s missed so far? She’s standing next to him minutes later when Hiram makes his speech.

Who was this stand against? Hal? This entire fandom gives Hal so much shit and I hear so many people calling him abusive. To who? Does Alice strike anyone as the type who takes shit from anyone? Listen to Hal when he tells her not to do something? The only time we see him remotely talk back to Alice is the scene I mentioned in 1x08, which of course still results in him getting kicked out. Hal and Alice were high school sweethearts (more on that). He knows her past and still married her in spite of it. That article hurt her, not him. So even if he told her to stay home, he must have known there was little chance of it happening, so please, someone tell me why they think Hal is such a villain. I’d love to have a legit discussion on this, not just, “He’s awful, end of story.”

(and before we get into the Polly debate, I’ll say this. I’m pro-choice. as far as we know, Hal offered to pay for Polly to get an abortion, which is the same thing he did to Alice back when they were in high school. he didn’t force either of them to do this since, obviously, neither got an abortion. the most important thing is what Polly said. “He didn’t even ask me what I want.” which yes, i agree with. it’s 100% Polly’s choice, but since she didn’t get an abortion, she wasn’t forced into one. what she was forced into was going to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. but please, I’m not here to get into a pro-choice/pro-life debate if that’s where anyone’s going, thanks.)

So this is a stand against the town? “I am Alice, here me slither.” Anyone Alice’s age already knows has a shady past. And they knew you were Southside, but did people know you were a Serpent? If anything, this article is just a reminder of that time she got arrested and that snake necklace is maybe suppsed to be a reveal. But we don’t even know for sure because there is no follow up on this scene. Alice, no one in this town cares who you were 25 years ago. You care who you were 25 years ago. Are you trying to say you’re not embarrassed anymore? Are you done wearing pastels? (a shame, because they really suit you.) Who forced you into a J Crew catalog? Everyone in town knows you dress your damn husband. 

Please writers, let us not just ignore this. Alice didn’t do all this just for it not to be mentioned again. Don’t let me down. Is Alice now going to be pro Southside? Stop trying to pin them as the bad guys? I highly doubt this, but why the snake necklace then?

So while I’m coming off the high of going for a run and drinking three cups of coffee, let me get into a topic I see come up every so often but am normally too lazy to comment on. Alice and Hal’s relationship.

“They’re so different.” “Why are they still married?” “How did they ever get together in the first place?”

Look, my husband and I are polar opposites. My sister and her husband too. My parents were, my grandparents… Who marries someone just like them? My husband is loud, outgoing, hotheaded, never afraid to talk up or speak his mind. I’m quite, sarcastic, levelheaded, and will eat the wrong meal if a waitress got my order wrong because I hate confrontation. We balance each other, as couples should. (i’m in no way saying you can’t be with someone with a similar personality, I just often see it the other way around.) 

Alice and FP being too similar is the exact reason I can never see them working out. 

So okay, I love getting into the inner workings of Alice and Hal’s relationship, as many know. I find it fascinating. Alice was this bad girl in high school. Southside, most likely a Serpent, arrested at least once. Yet she dated this preppy Northside boy. They’re referred to as high school sweethearts and Alice got pregnant (we can assume) a bit before senior year started. To me that implies they dated for a chunk of high school, as I doubt they’d be popular enough to win something like homecoming court if they just got together. 

So yes, they must have been popular if they could win homecoming court. Who were they up against? Hermione and Fred? Hermione and Hal’s apparent buddy Hiram? (oh god, give me a double date of Hermione, Hiram, Alice, and Hal at Pops, please please please.) And that’s just it. I can totally see the school rooting for this mismatched couple to stay together. I can see them gaining their popularity off of each other. 

Ah, but at some point in high school Alice was arrested (assuming before senior year since she spent half of that at the sisters). And who else but the Riverdale Register posts her mugshot. We see a lot of family businesses in Riverdale, so it won’t surprise me that the same goes for the Register. Probably started by Hal’s grandmother to “expose the truth of Riverdale and those maple syrup stealing Blossom’s” after her husband was murdered. So Hal’s parents published that article on Alice. Was she already dating their son at that time and this was their way of embarrassing her to break them up? Or was Hal drawn to her after this, discovering his kink for bad girls?

Okay, this is an unedited mess I need to cut short to go to work. 

[horrendoushag]

Sappy, Chapter 2

Yes, I shall continue to post this here.

Chapter 1

On AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12830160/chapters/31077039

On FFN:https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12699172/2/Sappy

There was silence after Mabel’s declaration.

The man gave a nervous laugh. “You’re joking. This is a joke, right?”

Mabel and Dipper exchanged a glance.

He slumped to sit on the floor with them. “Okay, you’re not joking. Okay. 2017.” He stared at a dinosaur for a moment, then abruptly jumped back to his feet and started pacing. “I’m not even in the same century! What the hell?” He aimed a kick at the sap next to him, submerging his foot, then fell over in his attempts to pull himself free. He lay there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m in the future.”

Despite the severity of the situation, Mabel let out a little snort of laughter. “Yeah, that must be pretty awesome.”

“Don’t know about that yet.” He sat up and yanked his foot free. “Can we get out of here? I’m kinda tired of all this sap.”

Mabel nodded knowingly. “Oh yeah, completely understandable. You were stuck in that stuff for like . . . thirty-five-ish years.”

He groaned. “Please, don’t remind me.”

Dipper led the way out of the cavern and through the tunnel; the man took notice of the first human skeleton and began to studiously ignore the floor afterward. There was a bit of a dilemma when it came to getting above ground, what with the shortness of their rope, but after waiting around in a geyser for long enough they were shot into the air like a trio of bullets. The church was further destroyed by their landing, but Dipper didn’t think anyone would care too much.

“So,” Mabel said to the man, pushing herself off a broken bench. “I’m Mabel. What’s your name?”

“Uh, Stan. Stanford. Stanford Pines.”

Mabel let out a dramatic gasp, and Dipper’s mouth dropped open. “You’re a  Pines ?”

Stanford Pines scowled, hoisting himself out of the coffin he’d landed in. “Yeah, you got a problem.”

“We have the same last name!” Mabel exclaimed. “Maybe we’re related.”

Stanford frowned. “Come to think of it, you guys look kind of like . . .” He trailed off, then turned to Dipper, who was just getting up. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.” For the second time in two days. “It’s Dipper Pines.”

Stanford raised his eyebrows. “Huh. Weird name.”

“It’s a nickname.”

“Oh, that explains it. I thought your parents just had weird taste, or something.”

They left the church with aching limbs and splinters. This time they managed to remember the way from the church to the town, so they made it there no problem.

“You’re really sticky, aren’t you Stanford?” Mabel commented.

“Just call me Stan. And yes, I am really sticky—I need a shower. You’re pretty sticky too, ya know.” He gestured to her arms, which were covered in sap. More of it was on her face and in her hair; Dipper was in about the same state. Stan was much worse off than either of them, though, having been buried in the stuff for decades.

“We can go to our hotel and shower,” Dipper decided. “And I guess we should get you a change of clothes too. That can’t be comfortable. Anywhere.”

Things were quite normal when they reached town. People shopping, teenagers being rowdy, older townsfolk staring at them—wait, what was that all about?

An old couple pointed at Stan and whispered. The enormous red-haired man they’d seen the other day stopped in his tracks and just stood there. Maybe it was all the sap?

“Hey Stan,” Dipper muttered. “Who were you before you got stuck down there?”

“Uh . . . Well, I ran a little place off in the woods called the Murder Hut. Don’t really like the name that much, now that I think about it. Too cheesy.”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance. Dipper frowned. “Do you mean that old shack to the northwest?”

“Yeah, probably. I bet it looks even worse than way back when . . .” He trailed off and didn’t start talking again.

Hm . . . Stan must’ve been pretty well known around town to elicit this kind of response. He  did  run the local tourist trap. Dipper pulled out his notepad and pen as they were passing Soos’s shop and wrote  STANFORD PINES  at the top of the first clean page in large letters. Under it he listed in bullet points,  Last name is “Pines”, Looks like Dad, Ran the Murder Hut,  and— “When did you get stuck in the sap?”

Stan sighed. “Mid 1982. What month is it now?”

“June.”

“I got stuck later this month. They didn’t change the calendar while I was gone, did they?”

“I don’t think so . . .” Dipper scribbled down this new information.

“We’re here!” Mabel announced.

Dipper looked up. “Since when were we going to the mall?”

Mabel gave him a weird look. “We’re here to get Stan clothes.”

“There were other clothing stores we passed along the way . . .” Dipper sighed. “Y’know what, never mind. We’re already here, might as well.”

Finding a clothing store was easy enough. Unfortunately, they had to guess Stan’s clothing sizes, since he didn’t remember his and there were no changing rooms. At one point, Stan checked a price tag, and—

“HOLY—  Ten bucks  for a ratty t-shirt?”

Dipper and Mabel stared, and she was the first to speak. “Uh . . . yeah?”

“That’s—” He sighed. “Right. Future”

After this incident, they purchased their stuff (the cashier seemed displeased with the stickiness of their money) and managed to get back to the hotel with less “is it just me or is that the Murder Hut guy” stares and more “why the heck is that man covered in sap” stares.

“I get to go first, right?” Stan asked once they had entered their room.

“Oh, totally,” Mabel agreed. “Being that sticky is only great when it has something to do with sugar.”

Stan gave her a weird look, then sighed, shook his head, and entered the bathroom. A minute later there was a cry of, “How does this shower work?”

Mabel laughed, and Dipper grinned. The moment the water was on, he whipped out his phone, regretting it a moment later when he remembered how sticky his hands were. He scrolled through his contacts anyway.

“Who are you calling?” Mabel asked.

“Dad,” was Dipper’s short reply. “I’m going to ask him is we have a relative called Stanford Pines.” He held if phone to his ear and waited. It was picked up almost immediately.

“Dipper! How you doin’?”

“Pretty good, you?”

“It’s a bit quiet without you two, but we’re doing fine. Is your sister there?”

“Hi!”

“She says hi. Anyway,” he rushed on before there was a reply, “I wanted to ask you if we’re related to someone called Stanford Pines?”

There was silence for a moment. “. . . Ah. I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

Dipper grinned. “But we are related to one?”

“Yes, he would’ve been your great uncle—have you found him?”

“. . . Maybe.”

“If you’re unsure about it, the surest way to tell is his fingers.”

“His fingers?” He turned to Mabel, who looked confused.

“He has six on each hand.”

Dipper raised his eyebrows. “Okay, cool, we’ll get back to you on that, bye!” He quickly hung up. “All right,” he told Mabel. “The good news is, we’re related to Stanford Pines. The bad news is, I don’t think this is him. Dad says he’s supposed to have six fingers on each hand.”

“Huh. I don’t think Stan has that many fingers.”

Dipper nodded. “Yeah. Maybe he had them removed, or something.”

“Yeah, maybe . . .”

Once Stan emerged from the bathroom looking much cleaner and had plopped himself into a chair, Mabel hopped in, leaving Dipper alone with him. He decided to test his hypothesis.

“So, Stanford . . .”

Stan looked around quickly. “Huh? Oh, yeah. That’s me.”

Okay, that definitely wasn’t right.

“I thought I saw some scars on your hands earlier.” Come on . . .

Stan raised his eyebrows, then lifted his hands in front of him and turned them slowly. “Uhhh, nope. No scars here.”

Dipper winced. This wasn’t good—he was stuck alone in a room with a guy impersonating his great uncle. He could be dangerous . . . but it was still kinda strange how he looked so similar to Dad. Well, might as well dive in. “Oh, um, must’ve been my imagination. Anyway, I just got off the phone with my dad.”

Stan looked confused. “Yeah?”

“And apparently Mabel and I  are  related to a Stanford Pines. He would be our great uncle, in fact. However . . .” Stan was beginning to look nervous, so he trudged on. “. . . According to Dad, Stanford’s supposed to have six fingers. So who exactly are you supposed to be?” Dipper was pretty sure he had sounded awesome just then. He was like some kind of detective who had found the culprit. Or something like that.

Stan definitely wasn’t comfortable anymore—not that he’d looked comfortable in the first place, he just looked less so now. “Look,” he said. “There’s—there’s a lot going on you might not understand, okay? Just—” He ran a hand through his hair, and immediately had to pull it out to avoid getting tangled up. “I guess . . . You’re family, so you deserve to know. He gave a heavy sigh. “I’ll . . . I’ll explain when Mabel gets out here.”

Dipper furrowed his brow—was this man who wasn’t Stanford really related to them?—but nodded. “Good.”

There was silence for a while, and then Stan seemed to find his voice again. “What are you two doing in this town anyway?”

Dipper contemplated answering, and in the end decided it couldn’t hurt. “We’re investigating the paranormal.” He glared at Stan suspiciously. “You’re not some kind of shapeshifter, are you?”

“What?”  Stan spluttered. “Of course I’m not a shapeshifter! What kind of question is that?”

“. . .  In this context, I think it’s a pretty good one.”

“Yeah, right.”

There was more silence, but it abruptly ended about fifteen minutes later (though it felt longer) when Mabel burst from the bathroom with a shout of, “I’m back!”

Stan shot to his feet, and Dipper quickly followed. Was he trying to escape? But no, Stan let out a sigh and sank back into his seat. Mabel gave both of them a weird look, and she and Dipper sat at the same time.

“So?” she said.

“He said he’d explain everything.”

She frowned. “Everything of what?”

Dipper sent Stan a glare. “That’s your cue. Spill the beans, Stan—if that is your real name.”

“All right, all right—and Stan  is  my real name, thank you very much.” He sighed. “I don’t actually know how to explain this . . . Are you two into weird sciencey things?”

“Dipper’s the nerdy one,” Mabel explained immediately. “If there’s lots of science, he’ll love it.”

Dipper opened his mouth to protest, then paused. “. . . True.”

“So would you believe me if I told you there’s a gigantic portal in the basement of the Murder Hut?”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance, and he answered. “Probably not.”

“I know it sounds, crazy, I—” He ran a hand through his hair— “I didn’t believe it either at first.

A suspicion lurking in Dipper’s subconscious rose to the surface. “Who told you about the portal? Who built it?”

Stan released a breath. “My twin brother. Stanford Pines.”

When Dipper looked at his sister, she had a look of astonishment on her face. He probably did too, but he couldn’t help thinking it might be a lie, in spite of all the evidence that it wasn’t. “How can we be sure?”

“You can be sure because—” He paused. “I don’t know. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

Dipper pulled out his phone again. “Wait a second.”

While Dipper scrolled through his contacts list in search of his dad, again, Stan was looking at the cell phone with a look of utter befuddlement. Dipper realized he probably had no idea what it was, and Mabel took it upon herself to explain it to him.

“That’s a cell phone,” she said matter-of-factly. “You use them to call people.”

Stan continued to stare. “Where’s its cord?”

“Oh, it doesn’t have one. They’re also called mobile phones, ‘cause, y’know, they’re mobile.”

“Huh. So they’re like walkie-talkies?”

Mabel looked thoughtful. “I guess they are.”

“What other weird gadgets do you have now?”

Meanwhile, Dipper had found his dad’s number and was waiting impatiently for him to pick up. When at last he did, Dipper blurted out his question with no preamble. “Did Stanford have a twin?”

Dad sounded surprised.  “He did, but we don’t talk about him much. No one has any idea where he is, haven’t seen him in years. I never met him, actually. Have you found him too?”

“Just a sec.” Dipper covered the speaker and turned to where Mabel was now showing an absolutely fascinated Stan her tablet. “Hey, is Stan short for anything?”

“Yeah, Stanley.”

“Okay, thanks.” He uncovered his phone. “Was Stanford’s twin Stanley, by any chance?”

“. . . Yes. Dipper, what’s going on?”

Dipper glanced at Stan. “It’s complicated and you probably wouldn’t believe me so I’ll explain later, I’m just gonna hang up now, bye!”

“Mason Pines—”

He tapped the end call button with a loud breath. Dad was going to kill him later.

Stan was peering over Mabel’s shoulder now while she played Candy Crush, looking downright speechless. Dipper cleared his throat and he looked up, appearing a bit dazed.

“So Stan . . . would you mind showing us this portal?

“What—? Oh, of course.”

Mabel glanced up briefly, then went back to her game. “Can it wait till I’m finished? I’m halfway to beating my high score.

Dipper snatched the tablet away with a grin. “Sorry, Mabel, halfway isn’t good enough. Seriously, it would take you like, half an hour to beat that.”

She sighed. “All right portal it is.”

They dropped their clothes off at the laundromat, and then they were on their way.

“So, Stan . . .” Dipper started conversationally. “Why did you decide to call it the Murder Hut?”

Stan shrugged. “Because is sounded cool, I guess.”

Dipper frowned. “What, really? That’s all?” He paused. “Yeah, I get that.”

They entered the woods then and continued on more warily, on the lookout for stray gnomes. None were spotted, much to Mabel’s relief. Stan had no idea what they were looking out for.

They arrived at last at the Murder Hut. The hinges and floorboards sounded just as terrible as Dipper remembered.

Stan stared around with a possibly regretful look on his face. “This place really went to waste,” he muttered. “What happened to all the stuff?”

“No one knows,” Mabel said with a shrug. “Candy and Grenda told us it disappeared.” She grinned. “Kinda spooky, isn’t it?”

“Eh, it was probably just stolen. Stan, where’s the portal?”

“Killjoy,” Mabel muttered, but Dipper and Stan ignored her.

“Here.” Stan led them to the vending machine with the sad bag of chips inside it, punched in a code, and stood back while it opened. He grinned at their looks of amazement. “I know, pretty cool, right? I installed the vending machine myself.” He started down the stairs, and Dipper snapped his gaping mouth shut and pulled Mabel along.

They made their way down the steps to an elevator, where Stan put in another code with complicated characters (Dipper did his best to memorize them), and hesitated when the doors opened. “I’m not sure this is structurally sound . . .”

Mabel peered around Stan into the elevator. “Hm . . . Well, might as well try it.” She hopped inside and turned to face Dipper and Stan’s horrified faces. “Oh, come on! How else is Stan going to prove there’s a giant portal under here?”

Stan hesitated a moment longer before stepping in. Dipper looked even more horrified. “What? It’s not like I haven’t done more dangerous things before.

Dipper stood there for a while longer, Mabel and Stan staring at him cajolingly, and finally joined them when he determined that the elevator (probably) wasn’t going to drop them all to their deaths.

It creaked and groaned the whole way down, sending unpleasant chills up and down Dipper’s spine. At one point there was an unpleasant jolt, and he was sure they were going to crash abruptly to the ground. He was out as soon as the doors shuddered open. Stan and Mabel were right behind him, and they all took a moment to recover from their traumatizing journey before taking a look around.

The room they were in held a multitude of strange, non-functional machines which Dipper could only guess the purposes of. So where was the portal Stan was talking about? He pulled out his phone for light and took a better look; there was a door on the other side of the room next to a desk. He looked at Stan and gestured to the door. “Is the portal through there?”

Stan shrugged. “See for yourself.”

Dipper narrowed his eyes suspiciously, though he was pretty much convinced Stan was telling the truth. “Keep an eye on him, Mabel.” He marched over to the door, ignoring Mabel’s little, “Okie-dokie!” and, with some difficulty, pulled it open. He stared out into the darkness beyond; it was too dark to see the other side of the new room with just his phone. He took a couple steps in, stretching his arm as far as he could, and the light hit something metal and shiny. He let out a little gasp of surprise, then looked over his shoulder. “Come on, Mabel. And Stan,” he added after a moment of deliberation. His voice echoed through the cavern. It had to be enormous.

With Mabel and Stan now following him and his confidence boosted (a little) he strode farther in. The metal thing came into view—a wall? No, it was more like an upside down triangle . . . And there was a hole in the center . . . He moved his phone up, and up, and craned his neck to see the top. He could barely make it out in the gloom.

Stan had not been kidding when he called the portal gigantic.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Maya?? Maya!!

also Athenas lmao

finally i am free to work on this

boy i sure hope we don’t get more info soon *squints at Amara’s character trailer just around the corner*

tl;dr: athenas. wow. uhhh temple areas with the weird vault-shaped statue things might be a teleportation hub or something like a Stargate cuz, uh… they’re probably not Vaults. i mean. given what we know maybe they are Vaults but not like vaults with important stuff inside, just teleportation vaults. you know what im trying to say? i mean it’s not like the eridians had any spaceships we’ve seen. but they had to get around somehow. 

also it’s possible the big temple area we see is on Athenas, is in that giant fucking pyramid in the background that i completely and totally did not notice for the longest time. 

i also discuss Maya and her thoughtlock skill (if she gets her powers taken away from her) and if she’s gonna die or not. because she’s got the Cloud Kill legendary (’oh noo she ded’), an apprentice (let’s be real, the cliches aren’t looking great), and she seems to working beside rampagers in that giant temple area (also another reason i think it’s on athenas) and tbh i didn’t see her tattoos in either of those shots (but that could be cuz she’s so smoll). so that’s cool. 

oh also the order of the impending storm was probably pretty respectable back in the day, since they can track sirens (maya’s assassin in son of crawmerax), and maybe that’s how maya figured out ava was gonna be a siren even tho she hasn’t manifested her powers yet. and Maya’s probably unearthing all this buried Siren/Vault knowledge and bringing the Academic District back into power while also protecting the Order from Maliwan. who’s still v sus.

wow we have a lot to go over

so to start, im taking a wild guess and saying the temple is on Athenas. why? because we really haven’t gotten a lot of looks at either of those areas too much (compared to promethea and eden-6) and the architecture lines up to me. 

also i, an idiot, was all like ‘mannnn Athenas is super mountainy, that’s wild. love it’ and neglected to realize there’s literally a giant fucking pyramid in the background of a lot of shots

on the right

behind the tower

to the right of ava

on the left

so i feel really dumb right now for not noticing this sooner and writing it off as a mountain. It's literally the fuckin Vault symbol like. ~triangles~. i played skyrim i should know what mountains look like when they’re not 1 polygon

either way, if that’s not at least part of the temple, it’s definitely important. somehow.

but let’s talk about the temple. the parts we know.

let’s try to look out the windows of this wild place

see cause this looks like inside a mountain

so my first instinct was eden-6 because we see a volcano on there

i mean im under the assumption this is eden-6???

bc all the plants match up

… maybe there’s more than one temple?

oh god i don’t wanna separate these by temple that’s going to be IMPOSSIBLE

but yeah i guess it’s possible there’s one on Eden-6 and one on Athenas… dear god…

but yeah my first instinct for that was ‘inside a volcano’

possible mountain on the left there

very rocky all around. im assuming this is underground or smth?

it feels like we’re underground

so maybe it’s a thing where it just keeps going further down. iunno.

it’s hard to place exactly where this is going to be because of the whole ‘underground’ thing

the part that’s throwing me off the most is this

because this looks like Pandora bc of Elpis and the rocks

and it looks like we’re walking outside a temple with the same friggen tiles on the floor, which means it is possible that this is The Temple, but you think we’d know about a giant-ass temple just on pandora. especially with the big dig site

but then we see a super similar dig site (supposedly on promethea). so what the HELL

im almost inclined to believe this is some sort of Eridian teleportation system. i know, i know, we have Sanctuary-III so it’s pointless. but… will we always have Sanc-III throughout the story? yada yada orange/gray -> blue/yellow/red markings. you get the dealio by now.

to

when taken by the cult or smth.

idk it’s possible we won’t have sanc-III for the entire game (just like normal sanctuary in bl2, in that we’ll get it back eventually (or ill kill someone for taking my room decorations)) and then we’ll have to use this wicked eridian tech to move between planets with these gateways. sort of like a stargate…

this thing is a stargate. I’ll call back to this in a hot second.

what kinda shit am i tripping on? i don’t really know. but given how it seems like these temples could be on ANY of the planets we see, im trying to figure out wtf the connection could be.

and give me this: we have never actually seen an eridian spacecraft, but we know they’ve traveled across the galaxy, putting vaults on different places. how in the fuck could they have done that if, you know, they didn’t have spaceships to travel through… space? 

well we know they have the power of teleportation down pat. i mean down so hard they were able to create a ‘teleportation gland’ that allowed a giant vault monster to teleport at will. (now im wondering if lilith has one… hm.) 

this blue thing (which… is the same color as siren stuff. okay. im sorry. i won’t get off topic this time. but it’s stewing in my gray matter)

and given that we know all the (okay, we only know for certain some) vaults open up into this other dimension (space place), would it be so hard to believe that they’re created links between planets using this dimension? i just… something isn’t right here and this seems like the most logical solution. 

take a look at Eleseer. look at all those holograms of labeled planets. of galaxies and stars in the distance. it’s possible eleseer is like the Hub for this teleportation system (explaining why it’s always open) and explaining why it’s got all those weird planet holograms sitting around. could also explain why Moon = Key.

These aren’t Vaults, they wouldn’t show up on the Vault Map- explaining why we never saw this one on Pandora- these are like… gateways or something, iunno. name pending until sept. 13th i guess.

so why tf am i going off about this on a post about maya and athenas?

because i think athenas has a gateway in it too

yeah you should recognize that thing in the background!

that’s this place!!! from the behind closed doors demo!!

and it still

doesn’t look like a vault to me

it’s intact (also it looks like stairs…). all the Vaults we’ve seen are 100% not intact. they’re all chunky and in pieces (we’re gonna ignore eleseer and uhhhh all that business right now, but even thinking about how the sentinel tried to emulate a vault by spawning it in chunks and THEN assembling it)

chunky

im just saying there has to be a reason these vault-like shapes are intact. they’re either just statues/monuments or they have a purpose.

so why tf am i convinced they have a purpose?

bc we’ve seen one light up

taken straight from the void itself (seriously it’s like a gradient back there. which is weird.)

so there’s gotta be a reason it does this right? and if it’s not a Vault, because it’s on Pandora and the Crimson Raiders would have seen it on the Vault Map, then what the fuck is it?

welllllllll i just don’t know. but my best guess right now is some sort of teleportation system to travel between planets. if there are ‘temples’ on every planet then it would make sense that there is some way for eridians to travel btwn them. 

personally i think there’s one on eden-6 (maybe in that volcano area??) and one on Athenas (cause we really haven’t seen a lot of athenas yet and… i dunno i just have a feeling). and there’s apparently one on Pandora (given we see it with elpis in the background) and possibly one on Promethea. i don’t know what that instagram video was trying to imply. i don’t wanna think too hard about it right now my brain hurts enough already as it is.

but uhhh i was gonna talk more about athenas than this

i promise this is gonna lead into maya

the academic district, with a Vault symbol on the door, to boot.

so this place is really interesting to me for a lot of reasons.

1. that vault symbol on the door

2. they’re flying flags with the vault symbol on it

3. giant pyramid in the back

it’s staggeringly huge

4. they have siren tattoos on the building in the back there. specifically, amara’s tattoos

yeah. maybe this is Partali? a smaller area on Athenas, like Meridian is a city on Promethea, and this is Amara’s way of tagging her presence/an area under her protection as the Tiger

more shots of Athenas from the amd horizons e3 stream

it’s a very pretty planet

so if anything, this is the place we’re going to go to learn about Sirens.

and i don’t know how much the Order of the Impending Storm actually KNOWS about Sirens, because all we know about them from maya’s backstory is that they were assholes and using maya to keep the people scared and giving them money

also that they knew how to track sirens

that’s probably important…

“Maya, you’ll like this next dude. He’s a Siren tracker named Mordo Sophis, Father of Brother Stephen Sophis, that dude you ganked back on Athenas. And boy, oh boy, is he just itching for vengeance.”

who isn’t, mr. mordo, sir? get in line

anyway apparently the Order knows how to track Sirens. Which could explain how Maya has a Siren apprentice when Ava uhhh apparently hasn’t manifested her powers (or tattoos) yet. might also explain how they got their hands on Maya when she was a baby. cuz yeah… i got the feeling they stole her and killed her parents… just a feeling.

y’know if tannis didn’t kill that siren tracker dude maybe she could’ve learned something from him first. that could’ve been interesting.

anyway, idk. maybe at one point the Order was respectable and, like, didn’t force people into giving them money by using sirens as a scare tactic. 

it looks like they have/had an academic district (which im sure maya is helping cultivate) focused on Sirens/Vaults.

and there’s a lot of importance on books this game

seriously

apparently

there’s

a

lot.

but let’s get back to this in a minute, because i do wanna talk about the name of the Order.

it’s full name is the Order of the Impending Storm.

I know while writing bl2 they probably didn’t know that they were gonna be building towards a war in tps, but it’s still interesting that they decided to bring them back into play now. because they 100% could have just left them as a background monastery that Maya came from and have maya refuse to return/start her own organization. but they made her specifically return there.

so does their name have significance now? i’d be willing to bet a yes. I mean, war is coming. Impending Storm sounds like it’d be a pretty fitting name for an organization that knew this. Especially because according to Maya’s cosplay guide, they worshipped her like a God (seriously lol are all Sirens worshipped as minor deities? most people know Sirens are Sirens right? like just people with magic powers..? hmmm)

And if Maya returned to learn more about Sirens, then isn’t it implied that the Order did, in fact, know more about Sirens than Maya did? hell, maybe even Tannis…

especially if the temple or eridian ruins are nearby. Say… In this giant pyramid…

so this doesn’t fit in with the aesthetic of Athenas at all. it’s almost like those are caution colors on the bottom strip there. warning you to not go inside. i don’t know if this was built by the eridians or by whoever is on Athenas to keep whatever’s inside… inside (cough Rampagers cough)

either way that pyramid is FUCKING HUGE

seriously, just compared to the academic district, it’s insanely big (that is the BASE in the background)

also guess who just realized this would be a hilarious joke by gearbox

to have pyramids built by ancient aliens. oh, you.

also, side note, there’s a crew challenge for moxxi in the academic district

i just have no idea how we’re getting up there…

oh but the Order. yeah i get the feeling they know A LOT about Sirens/Eridians. maybe even what’s about to go down. but maybe a majority of that was lost in the archives when some corrupts assholes came into power. and now Maya returned and is slowly but surely unarchiving everything we need to know about Sirens.

perhapith this book has some Siren-y knowledge within it? from someone who went into the temple on Athenas and… never came back out.

and I would bet Maya is waging war against Maliwan at the same time as she’s uncovering all this buried info (protecting the Order) because Maliwan is trying to get this info as well. 

Seriously, anyone else notice Maliwan is SPREADING?? They’re not just on Promethea. they’re on Eden-6. They’re on Athenas. They’re even fuckin on Pandora in some trailers (although I would not trust any trailer with roses at this point. something’s really fucky. I will make a seperate post about that i think, once we get Amara’s and Fl4k’s trailers). I’m really suspicious that Maliwan has either joined the cult, or they’re going to become the main villains. which, y’know, given corporations are the big bad in borderlands always… that seems about right.

I wouldn’t even be surprised if Maya/the Order knows something about the Children of the Vault. Given that one pic of her holding a book with the CoV symbol on it.

that she seems to be passing on to Ava

I dunno. I don’t think Children of the Vault is a name that the cultists/Calypsos just HAPPENED to come up with. And I still don’t think that the broadcast easter egg is from the Calypsos. it doesn’t make sense. I know I went over this in-depth in the Promethea post but god damn it im going to do it again because i feel so strongly about this.

i feel like the cult stumbled upon this name and decided to adopt it as their own. or tried revive an old cult with the same name. and if they didn’t, why in the hell does the message say ‘Do Not Open the Vaults’? How do the twins know about Tannis by name?

i mean, okay, granted we don’t know exactly how she fixed the Vault Map and it could be that the twins know how she did it. Because I still haven’t been able to place that one shot of them walking outside the Recruitment Center 

this one

and we know tannis fixes (??) the Vault Map in the recruitment center, so, maybe they saw it happen or there’s some sort of record in the vault map? that shows her fixing it and when they get to Promethea they send out that message?

i meannn she seems pretty surprised it’s functioning, herself.

so maybe they come while/after tannis fixes the key/map to get it back and Lilith like alright everyone let’s book it to Ellie’s garage with the Map. she’ll help us get to Sanc-III.

and in that they see that she’s able to fix it (possibly with weird Siren/Destroyer/Slag/pickurpoison powers) and that’s how they know Tannis is not what she seems.

and maybe the twins just don’t want their cultists opening the vaults because they want to be the ones to open it.

Sure

BUT that’s boring sauce to theorize about because it’s all just there. I’m still partial to the idea that Children of the Vault is actually referring to Sirens tho. It would explain why Maya has a book with the symbol for the CoV on it and is offering it to Ava. Because why would Ava need a book about the Calypsos? who would WRITE a book about the Calypsos?? and make it look THAT old? like… c’mon.

At the very least, it’s an old name for a cult that got revived by the Calypso twins.

At the most, it’s the name for Sirens.

Or it’s the symbol for the Order of the Impending Storm, back when they were respectable. tho you think we’d see maya wearing the symbol somewhere in bl2, so maybe not. unless she took it off her clothes because they had her try to kill unarmed civilians.

I mean, why is the cult’s symbol the Vault symbol upside down, anyway? We know that the symbol for the Vaults in Eridian is the upside-down V in a circle, because Tannis tells us so in bl1. So why would a cult of people who believe the Vaults to be their birthright go around slapping what is essentially the opposite symbol everywhere?

i personally wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the symbol for Siren or something, given how closely intertwined they both seem to be to that alternate dimension.

regardless. let’s keep going

so let’s talk about Maya’s fate in BL3. Is she gonna die? is she not gonna die? i dunno. let’s discuss.

i personally would not be surprised if she does, but i’d be a little disappointed regardless. if any Siren is gonna die… Lilith is going to finish her character arc this game. not that I want her to die, but still. I get that they gotta keep the Siren cycle going.

sooo one big point in the ‘maya dies’ category:

“Oh noo she ded” i mean. that’s just mean, gearbox. 

of course we don’t know if that’s talking specifically about Maya, could be talking about Tyreen, or a miniboss, or something. but i do think it’s interesting that it’s on maya’s legendary. plus uhhh given we had a death out of Roland in BL2, and in TPS 2 of those VHs died as well, I think it’s a given at least one BL2 VH isn’t gonna live to see the end of 3. as much as that actually physically pains me to type. 

And… to tip the scales further to Maya, Zer0 has crew challenges, which probably means they won’t be biting the dust anytime soon, unless you wanna completely ruin doing all the crew challenges by beating the game before doing the assassination quests. which doesn’t seem like something they’re keen on doing, if Roland giving out side quests had anything to say about it. Of course there’s always the argument that someone will take over Zer0′s crew challenges if they die, but… who would? Rhys? maybe. i get the feeling he might be too busy with Atlas though. Lorelei..? … i don’t know her well enough to make a statement on that.

taken from K6′s awesome legendary loot vid

Back to the legendary. we know it’s hers based off the name ‘Cloud Kill’, which is one of her best skills (after the buff lol). It’s a corrosive only Maliwan smg (as far as i can tell. it doesn’t look like there’s the option to swap elements. so it’s cool to know uniques might throw out their manufacturer’s alternate firing modes). i’m gonna take a guess and say it mimics cloud kill by spawning a cloud on top of enemies that are shot with it. that could clean out an entire room in seconds, especially on Amara with Phasegrasp.

anyway i got more

so Ava is Maya’s apprentice, hmmmm?

well i dunno about you guys but whenever a character gets an apprentice/kid/whatever, it’s not good news for the character. and given that borderlands definitely doesn’t need children to keep the premise fresh, I’m a bit worried for Maya.

Ava must be important to the main story, or they could’ve taken her out or put Gaige in. The devs themselves said they only wanted to bring in characters that they knew had significant importance to the plot and so that characters wouldn’t feel shoehorned in.

so there’s a few ways things can go down with Ava, using apprentice stereotypes:

1) She takes over after Maya dies/has her powers stolen/is brainwashed and helps us bring Maya back by proving herself using the stuff she learned from Maya (or, the stuff she taught herself that Maya said wasn’t important)

1b) she inherits Maya’s powers and Maya trains her in the way of Phaselock

possibly maya handing over her class mod or smth

2) she’s evil and the cult is using her to get info and secretly hates maya or whatever

Given Ava is like… 12… I wanna believe she’s not evil. of course we don’t actually know if she’s 12 cause apparently the Siren lore got messed up knowing Angel had her powers manifest at 5. but that’s not canon until mentioned in-game, so fuck it: let’s believe Ava is 12 and not evil and is just Maya’s kickass Siren apprentice.

The apprentice Maya was able to find because the Order knew how to track Sirens/determine if someone is going to exhibit Siren powers.

yes, let’s go with that.

So… what’s gonna happen to Maya, then?

I personally believe she’s going to have her powers stolen and used against her. One major part of her powers is that she’s able to ‘Thoughtlock’, which basically brainwashes an enemy to fight for her.

That sounds like it would be insanely powerful in the hands of the Calypso twins, especially since Maya has gotten more powerful since bl2, and tbh I can’t see them wanting to pass it up. Of course it could also be story-breaking, but let’s say they can only have one person ever Thoughtlock-ed at a time and suddenly it’s a lot less troublesome.

so this scene makes me do a big thonk

(also, another reason im thinking this temple area is on Athenas is bc Maya’s there! plus there are triangles everywhere. Triangles… pyramids… iunno. just spitballing)

also idk if this is just cause she’s super teeny-tiny buuuut

im worried i can’t see maya’s tattoos

she’s also entirely focused on the player instead of… oh, idk, the giant rampager right next to her

and idk it looks almost like she’s holding a gun and aiming it at us?

which hey, i wouldn’t jump to conclusions right away because she does have a skill that allows her to heal allies by shooting them

but also… if she doesn’t have her siren powers, then that’d just be like… regular shooting, wouldn’t it? and if she DOES have her Siren powers, why in the hell is she not using them on the giant monster right next to her???

we see her again in the background of this shot

again… tattoos not 100% clear.

she also seems to be taking radiation damage from the rampager! which is good. but also she doesn’t seem to care that much about it.

we can also see her gun here

sorry it was kinda being obscured by the youtube progress bar

but uhhh it’s not looking good.

boy i really hope Maya doesn’t die

we also know it was hinted that Krieg might be making a return! from his voice actor’s twitter:

tho, he also soon made a tweet after that was all like “this doesn’t confirm nor deny that krieg is returning” which, yeah i get that.

either way, if Krieg is coming back, it’d be interesting to see what goes down with him, especially if Maya dies. or even if Maya’s ‘just’ in trouble, I could see him going absolutely apeshit.

maybe krieg will sacrifice himself to save maya, somehow. maybe he’s have a moment of pure lucidity and save her. maybe she’ll die and he’ll lose his mind and become a boss battle. maybe she’ll save him and they’ll live happily ever after ;w; who knows~

maybe ava will have heard about Krieg through Maya and will go to get him to try and help save her. that’d be really interesting to see- krieg smashing through a wall with Ava riding on his shoulder lol

anyway, holy shit im exhausted. i gotta wrap this up because it’s like 1am and i’ve been working on this post for like… 3 days straight now. ech.

if maya does die, it would be interesting to see is Ava inherits her powers after we kill the Calypsos. like, would the powers try to go back to their original host? would they see she’s dead and just find another Siren to give the powers to? i wonder if maya dying/being about to die would be enough of a traumatic experience for ava to unlock her siren powers.

ohh it’d be cool if Ava unlocked her siren powers and used them to save Maya from the cult/brainwashing/whatves

alright. im tired lmao

good night.