#it feels weird to be typing their apprentice names still lol

[barrenclan]

Firstly, holy shit I predicted Asphodel’s warrior name!!! I don’t think I ever sent an asking talk abt the prediction, but my main hint was the comic issue thumbnail that was Asphodel and the firefly. So I thought it was foreshadowing of her suffix being something like shine or glow, which I seemed to be right abt

Secondly, question: What was Redpelt gonna name Pine, Comorant, and Asphodel if no one spoke up abt the names

Thirdly, why’d you choose Daffodilcloud? Or are we gonna get more clarification next issues?

Hey, congratulations! That was a little piece of personal foreshadowing, just for me, I didn't expect anyone to pick anything up with it.

Without intervention, Redstar would have named them Pineblossom, Cormorantclaw, and Asphodelsong.

Daffodilcloud's name doesn't have any special symbolism to it, other than it representing her lightness and buoyancy... I just thought it was cute.

[zabrak-show]

Blood of the Sith

Summary:

Kudra Deschain is a young pilot working for a trade company out of Coruscant. Her next trade route to Mustafar, ends up being a fiery life changing revelation to the dark side of the force, where she meets Maul, a Sith apprentice to Darth Sidious.

Notes:

This is pre phantom menace, by like maybe a couple years. I had fun writing this, but it's just for fun so hopefully no one takes this too seriously and gets mad at me for depicting Maul in a way they don't like, or not having some other random spec incorrect. I wanted to show a softer side to Maul. Probably NSFW, but there's nothing that graphic as I am a secret prude.

A huge thank you to my fiance for helping me out with some of the technical aspects as well as the story writing. And thank you to all my friends who have not only put up with me talking about my dumb Maul story for the past few months while I slowly chipped away at it, but encouraged me to continue. Sorry it’s such a slow burn, please hang in there I swear Maul shows up soon lol!!

7 chapters all together. 12.7k words (total for all 7 chapters combined)

Chapter 1

The metal floor plates quietly vibrated as the YT-1000 entered the Coruscant atmosphere. The pilots were a young woman with pale skin and long black hair, and a young male twi’lek with orange skin. They wore similar black jumpsuits and even seated at the helm it was obvious the twi’lek would tower over the woman.

“So Kudra, what are you planning to get yourself into now that we’re back from that mess?” The twi’lek asked with a smirk.

“Mess?” She replied, dodging the question, “I had everything under control the whole time.”

A green and gold astromech droid wheeled in to beep his counter and the twi’lek laughed and asked, “Your droid really loves to call you out. Why do you still keep that old thing around?”

Kudra busied herself with checking all the landing sensors and grumbled back, “That droid has proven useful on every run we’ve done. Plus, I like her sarcastic attitude.” She was cautious to not make it obvious the droid was her only friend and constant in her life the last 10 years.

“Have you set up the meeting then with Krass? After we land I won’t have much time to…”

“Yes Kudra,” The twi’lek cut her off and she shot an icy glare his way, “Krass will be ready and waiting for us so you can go off on your secret missions or whatever it is you do.”

Kudra sat in silence while they came into the landing bay. Why did he always get so mad she didn’t want to hang out with the team after a job? They just spent 2 weeks on this crusty cargo ship together. They both deserved to do whatever they wanted on their own.

As promised, Krass was there waiting for them, once they got off their ship. He was a tall weequay with leathery brown skin and knotted blonde hair. He always tried to look higher class than he was, which made him look tacky in Kudra’s opinion. He wore his usual worn out and dated long red leather coat with tarnished brass buttons and knee high black boots over canvas pants. He stuck out like a sore thumb on the landing bay amongst the muted flight suits of most everyone else.

Krass and the twi’lek discussed unloading the cargo and routine maintenance with the landing crew while Kudra checked in on L0-K1.

“Make sure these maintenance droids don’t mess anything up while I’m gone.” She said as she stooped down to wipe grease from the droid’s arm. L0 beeped and wheeled away.

Kudra stood in the back against the wall of Krass’ small, now crowded office. The whole team was probably over 40 people, but he only held the meetings for pilots, engineers, and copilots so 13 of them all together. A low hum of conversations between everyone enveloped the room until Krass spoke up to start the meeting. The room quieted and he gave his usual fanfare speech while explaining everyone’s next jobs. A sinking feeling hit Kudra in the gut as she realized her name hadn’t been called. She could not afford any time off right now, and as far as she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong lately. As it seemed like the meeting was wrapping up, Krass remembered her, “Ah yes Kudra, I haven’t forgotten you. You’ll be taking the Z95 to the outer rim for a small but important job.”

Kudra nodded her head, “Yes, Sir.”

Slowly, everyone filed out of the room and Krass caught her arm as she neared the door.

“Listen,I know you just got back, but if you can leave right away, it’d be a huge help. I’d consider your ship, the YT1000, paid in full after the job got done. If you do it right of course.” He finished sternly now forcibly grabbing the top of her shoulder.

“Sure,” Kudra responded coolly, “I can leave as soon as the ship’s ready. What’s the mission?”

He loosened his grip, “Top secret.” he stared into her green eyes as if to search for a reason he might be wrong about sending her on this mission, finally removing his hand from her shoulder and looking away.

“You’ll be going to Mustafar to trade with a mining collective there. In and out, easy peasy. It’s hotter than blazes there and not like some desert planet. It’s covered in lava so pick up some protective clothing, ‘fore you head out. I’ve already deposited more than enough credits for ya to prepare. Any questions?”

Kudra thought for a moment, “Naw, just load the information onto L0 about which landing bay to aim for and who the point of contact will be. Thanks for trusting me captain, I won’t let you down.” The weequay sprung to life suddenly and patted Kudra so hard on her back it made her cough. “Enjoy your night and I’ll let you know when the ship’s ready.”

Kudra pulled the covers up around her, pulling it off the naked sleeping man next to her in bed. She quietly packed her bags and got dressed. She debated on waking him up, and tripped over an Alderaanian wine bottle, spinning it across the floor and making a loud clank against a metal chair leg. Well, I guess that’ll wake him, she figured. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He was really quite handsome, dark brown skin and curly brown hair with scruffy facial hair like he’d forgotten to shave.

“Hi gorgeous, are you leaving already?” he looked up at her from the bed.

“Yes,” Kudra responded plainly. “Apologies for waking you.” She started to pick up his clothes to hand him and he grabbed her for a kiss, causing her to lose her balance and fall into him, kissing him deeply and forgetting herself for a moment.

“I’m sorry” she said, pulling away, “this was fun. I do need to get going though.”

“Right,” he shrugged her off and got dressed in awkward silence.

Kudra made it to the ship bay just in time. Krass was waiting with L0.

“Ok, you’re all set with coordinates.”

“Great, thanks Krass,” she started to crawl up the boarding ladder.

“Kudra, wait.” She stopped and turned her head toward him.

“I didn’t mention it earlier, but” he paused to look around them as he handed her a small black velvet pouch, “this is very important and very secretive. Never take it off your person, until you meet your point of contact. It’s worth your very life.” He stuffed the bag in her hand and didn’t let go for a moment.

“So what, is this the actual cargo?” she looked at him skeptically.

“You could say that. Don’t let it into the wrong hands. It’s imperative it gets to our contact person.” he shook his hand holding hers and the pouch.

“Ok, I’ll make sure your old “friend” gets their prize.” she joked with a wink.

“Please, Kudra. This isn’t a joke. No funny business with the clientele this time. You won’t always have someone like me to get you out of your lovelorn messes.”

Kudra’s cheeks burned red hot and her heart raced. How dare he treat her like this, like some mischievous star crossed lover. She covered the anger up with her voice keeping it as cool sounding as she could, “Of course. In and out, business as usual.” She turned to crawl back up the ladder, and Krass was still standing there and yelled after her, “No. NOT business as usual! Professional this time please!” Kudra kept climbing, “Yup you got it Captain. You know I always get the job done one way or another.” She and L0 boarded the Z95 at last. She tied the bag to her belt and got ready for take off.

“What’s the worst that could happen, L0?” she asked the droid as they exited the Coruscant atmosphere. L0 responded, likely with an actual answer to the worst things that could happen and Kudra laughed.

After about an hour into their journey, Kudra remembered the weird encounter with Krass before they left. She opened the pouch to see what was so important inside. L0, beeped her opposition.

“Chill out, L0, I’m just seeing what it is that is so important. I’ll put them right back in the pouch.” She dumped the pouch contents into her palm. Two pyramid shaped, black and gold objects fell into her hand. She noticed there was some type of inscription on the sides of the pyramids. Somehow they felt heavier outside of the bag than inside of it.

“Wow, what do you think these are? Some kind of puzzle?” she asked L0 and the droid screeched a response.

“Ha ha yeah, I suppose my life should be worth more than a couple puzzles.” She slipped them back into the bag and tied it to her waist again.

“Alright, L0, we’re getting close. Narrow in on our coordinates before we get out of hyperspace.”

Kudra tied her long black hair back, revealing a portion of her head shaved and a tattoo of a convor. The ship came out of hyperspace near Mustafar, but in the middle of an electrical storm. The ship controls went erratic and every sensor that could beep started beeping.

“Woah, L0 what the hell is going on? I can barely get into a landing pattern.” Kudra weaved in and out with the barely working steering controls, trying to avoid the erratic lightning happening all around them.

“Why does this shit only ever happen in the outer rim?!” She was desperately trying everything as they started to enter the atmosphere, “L0 please fix our navigation plot, I can’t see anything!” L0 chirped, but the ship was struck by lightning, flickering their main power and everything went dark, the controls went dead.

“That can’t be good! I’ve gotta land L0, find me something to land on, find a way to SLOW us down.” Another lightning strike on the ship and power flickered on for a moment. Enough for Kudra to take some controls and slow the ship down. Everything happened so fast and she was doing everything not to panic and to just focus to try and find any type of solution. She had to use all her strength to try and guide the ship with what little power they had. All Kudra could see was lava. “Is there anything NOT lava on this dumb planet??” she screamed and L0 screamed back at her. She found a landing, but they were coming in way too hot. It was the best they could hope for, so she made the descent.

The initial impact onto the scorched ground completely obliterated one of the wings and most of the rest of the ship was torn up beyond recognition. They were sliding and spinning out of control until finally a bed of lava stopped the ship. What was left of the back of the ship was up in flames as the lava ate away at them. No time to think other than “escape” Kudra began kicking the canopy to try and free both of them. She was running on pure adrenaline as she could feel the ship slipping further and further into the lava, the flames getting hotter and hotter. It started to feel hopeless, so Kudra took a moment to focus every part of her on getting out of the burning ship. A deep breath in, eyes shut, and a strong kick thrusted the canopy off the ship and Kudra jumped out and fell onto the burnt ground. L0 flew out after her with a shriek and an ungraceful tumble next to her sounding like an empty can.

“Woah, L0, you look like shit.” Kudra coughed out, while starting to stand. L0 wheezed a response

“I know, I feel like shit too. Thankfully I have these ugly threads to keep me cool.” she looked down at the black and dark green thick formless robes draped over herself and then back at the ship melting and burning into the lava pool as she lowered her goggles over her eyes. The reality hit her again, and she realized how bad this was. The ship was gone. They were in the middle of nowhere on a lava covered planet. The ship let out a final death rattle as the lava engulfed it entirely and Kudra fell to her knees. Well, this was maybe the worst that could happen.

They started walking, with no real apparent plan other than to maybe find somewhere that wasn’t covered in lava.

“Do we even know how to get to the mining collective from here? What was the contact person’s name?”

L0 chirped the answer.

“Ok, I am choosing to ignore the distance we are from them, but Uane’s the name so we got that.” Kudra sighed deeply. She was too exhausted to keep up any sort of positive charade.

“We need to get out of this heat. Let’s see if we can find a cave over in those cliffs.” Kudra pointed off into the distance a series of cliffs that normally probably wouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes to walk to, but in this heat it was hard to say.

L0 beeped conversationally.

“Listen, I realize if I had taken Krass up on his original offer years ago, I’d be unhappily married but with a ship. And not here. That much I realize. What’s your point?”

Another prodding chirp from L0.

“Settle down? With Krass? Are you out of your mind? I do just fine on my own without looking after some useless old person all the time. This heat is really melting your brain, L0.”

L0 continued prodding Kudra with past mistakes she had made. Kudra wished she could punch a droid and have it do anything other than hurt her own hand.

“L0, what is your deal? We’ve been over this. Why are you always bringing up that deal on Corellia? The whole thing worked out a lot better, actually BECAUSE of me.”

L0 whirred in disbelief.

“Yes I stabbed Crix Harend! As you’ll remember he attacked me. At the time, I had no idea that was his wife in my bed.”

The droid buzzed on about this Correllian from Kudra’s past.

“I actually don’t think Crix ever found out about me and his brother. Anyway that was so long ago. Why can’t you let it go? We still managed to trade our cargo with them in the end.”

L0 wasn’t letting it go and starting to get on Kudra’s last nerve.

“Yes, because I slept with Crix too. What is with you right now?” She screamed at the droid.

They walked on and on in mostly silence now as Kudra was mad at L0 and also too exhausted and shell shocked to make commentary. As thankful as she was to have been warned about the heat and having the right clothing for this planet, something told her they weren’t meant for all day frolicking in the lush lava fields.

Mustafar felt like hell. Every breath was fire on Kudra’s lungs, every step reminded her of all the pain, mostly physical, but her mental game wasn’t so strong right now either. She trudged on and on, L0 whirring quietly behind her. At last, they found a cave to hide in. It wound pretty far back through some tunnels, but that was good. The further in they went the cooler and darker it got. L0 lit up the cave with a small flashlight attachment as Kudra made a makeshift pillow and blanket with her capes and passed out.

Next chapter

[ichika27]

Winter 2020: Episode 1

I decided to check out some anime that came out for this season. I’m still not sure if I’ll be watching their entire series so I’m not gonna do the post reacts like I do with ‘Mairimashita! Iruma-kun’ so either I’ll do this kind of thing every week after seeing the episodes of each or would just post an individual overall reaction about each series after they finish or if I ever decide to drop them. I’ll be trying that ‘3 episode’ rule thing everyone does to make it easier for me.

First of all, Madoka Magica: Magia Record.

A ‘Madoka Magica’ spin-off based on the mobile game with brand new characters but the original cast would show up later on, too. The first episode is fun and interesting already with the mystery surrounding the main character’s wish she’d forgotten about and the girl appearing in everyone’s dreams. The feel of the first episode is kind of different from how I felt while watching the original series and not in a bad way. I think I would follow the entire series just because I loved ‘Madoka Magica’.

Next is Bofuri: I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt So I’ll Max Out My Defense.

About a girl named Kaede who isn’t really a gamer but was convinced by a friend to play her first VRMMO. Since she doesn’t like pain, she decided her first weapon would be a shield and that she’d put all of her starting stat points (and every point she’d earn from there on) into increasing her defenses. It proved to be a good idea when she gets achievements that make her stronger. It’s another ‘MC is OP’ but this isn’t isekai and the main character is female which is nice. Not sure if this will have a harem since male versions of this type of stories end up that way.

That said, despite the things I feel about how OP characters in stories like these are created, at least there’s a reason for how it happens to Kaede with many of the achievements being reachable by any player if they’ve played long enough and have good weapons and experience and it’s just Kaede’s defense is strong enough to help her reach those faster.

The Case Files of Jeweler Richard

Nice guy Seiji saves a guy named Richard one night and find out the latter is a jeweler. He asks Richard to appraise his grandma’s ring and this unravels the mystery behind it and Seiji’s grandma. Richard ends up hiring Seiji to work for him and his Jewelry Store.

I like the characters, the art style is good, and there’s hints of bromance that makes me wanna ship the main characters BUT I tried out this show because of the ‘Case Files’ part of the title. To me, if a detective/mystery show isn’t as fun or as good as ‘Detective Conan’ then I’d probably get bored of it and drop it. I can’t really say much about the first episode so I’ll see the next one to find out if this is worth watching to the end.

Socerous Stabber Orphen (2020)

I didn’t see this coming but an anime I watched when I was younger got a remake. The story was enjoyable so I had planned to check this out since I saw the trailer. It’s about a mage named Orphen whose trying to get his friend Azalie to turn back from being a dragon after she got herself cursed. The art is kinda similar to current anime which makes me miss the old art style (he looked better in the old one but everyone else feel like they got cuter). I also really, really miss the OP of the old one ‘Ai, Just on my Love’ as it felt like it fits the magic/badass feeling of the story.

Anyways, the first episode is way different from the old one (sorry if I’m doing comparisons) but here, Orphen meets his companions differently and Majic isn’t even his apprentice yet. The way he meets Claiomh is also different that it didn’t start out with a misunderstanding although this time. This also shows us Orphen’s backstory from the start unlike in the original series where it’s kind of like a spoiler. This first episode isn’t as interesting as the older one but hopefully, it gets there later on.

Toilet Bound Hanako-kun

Kept seeing this guy when playing mudae on Discord and I thought he looked cute and the title of the manga he came from is interesting and looked it up only to find out it’s getting an anime lol. I was planning on seeing this one, too and the first episode was cute and fun to watch! It certainly feels the same way it felt when I watched Iruma-kun. I’m also intrigued by ‘Seven Mystery’ stuff as it’s been a small plot/arc in some stories but this one is gonna have it as it’s actual story.

In this, a girl named Nene hears about the school’s 7th mystery and sought it out as it’s rumored to grant wishes. She meets the ghost ‘Hanako’ who, after several events gets bound to her to help her out of a curse in exchange for her being his helper. It’s really cute and I already ship them XD

Hatena Illusion

Kana comes from a family of famous magicians and secretly, of thieves. She’s very excited to see her childhood friend Makoto again as the latter would be living with them only for her excitement to be shattered once she realizes she has been mistaken all these years as Makoto isn’t a girl but a boy. Makoto on the other hand is happy to see Kana again whom he nicknamed ‘Hatena’ (but is surprised that she now dislikes him) and will also be an apprentice to Kana’s father which is something he’s always wanted.

This is like, romance with a magical girl transformation in it and all that. I think the art is cute and it seems like fun but Kana is uh... kinda annoying? I mean, she’s the one who misunderstood everything and it’s not like Makoto lied to her but she proceeds to insult him, nearly had him kicked out of the house when he had just arrived (she was thankfully persuaded not to), and is just mean to him and in the end wanted to steal something from him that was from her mom saying ‘She wants to help her mother’ and stuff when she’s just being petty. I’ll give this 3 episodes and if I still don’t feel it, I’ll drop this.

Lastly, A Destructive God Sits Next to Me.

Koyuki just wants a peaceful life but unfortunately for him, he’s classmates with chuunibyou Hanadori who wouldn’t stop bothering him as Hanadori thinks that Koyuki is also ‘reincarnated’ like he is. Determined to not let Hanadori’s antics ruin his life and his education, Koyuki strives to ignore the weirdness happening around him but he still ends up reacting and usually getting mad at the chuunibyou.

I wanted to watch this when I heard of it months ago - cute guys that look like I can ship them and the story seemed fun. Also, I needed something after the ending of ‘Chuubyou Gekihatsu Boy’ (still waiting for that ova...) and this seems perfect. Although this reminds me more of ‘Tonari no Seki-kun’ with the whole ‘MC tries to concentrate on studying but can’t ignore their classmate with the strange hobbies’.

The first episode is really funny for me so that’s good. It’s also got that secondhand embarrassment cringe comedy but surprisingly, it’s for the main character and not the chuunibyou (I feel so sorry for Koyuki). Unlike in Chuubyou, the other characters in this show either thinks Hanadori is annoying or weird. To be honest, as much as I’d like not to feel this way, Hanadori is kind of annoying. Hopefully either he gets better or he just ends up growing on me before episode 3 finishes or I may drop this. I mean, no matter how funny it is, annoying characters still kinda get to me.

--

Like I said, I have a lot on my plate now compared to the mere 3 last season and I’m still watching Iruma-kun as it’s still ongoing. Will I watch these all until the end or will I be dropping some? We’ll find out...

[ssjkallion]

Remember that Time I said I would Show You that mock trope page I made?

Here it is. 

IT’S ALL FOR FUN! And I do include references to actual RP’s, so you might find yourself in here lol!

Might as well post it here too for mobile purposes.

Kallion: 

A Saiyan time patroller from Planet Vegeta.

Action Survivor: Just barely survived Planet Vegeta’s destruction due to being marooned on another planet.

Survivors Guilt: Big time, though she tends to play it off, if not outright denying that she has it. Kallion has…issues about the circumstances of her survival.

Innocent Blue Eyes: Compared to the more common dark eyes of other Saiyans, emphasizing her gentle nature.

Fish Out Of Temporal Water: Was born several years before Planet Vegeta’s destruction, but is now living in Conton City nearly a century later. Though she’s happy now, her early days at the time patrol made for a difficult adjustment.

Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gentle girl to Giblet’s Brooding Boy.

Involuntary Shapeshifting: As any Saiyan who still has their tail, one look at the full moon will have her turning into a Great Ape in no time.

My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Downplayed, and largely averted. Kallion points out that while she was always far more gentle than what was typically expected of Saiyans, and she lacked that ruthless killer instinct, she is still a battle-crazed idiot. On the other hand, she theorizes that her experiences weren’t all that unique to begin with. I.e: Gine and Tarble.

All Girls Want Bad Boys: Between Giblet and, yes, technically Trunks as well, Kallion seems to have a type. The real kicker is that she doesn’t escape this platonically either– Bardock is a hell of a father figure to have. She even lampshades this herself; “How come I only ever get attached to emotionally constipated men?”

Scars are Forever: A prominent one on her left cheek. It’s unknown exactly what the circumstances were, but she assumed she got it while a Great Ape. Countless others are scattered all over her body as well.

Intergenerational Friendship: With Bardock, her mentor. He also happened to be her father’s best friend.

Proud Warrior Race Guy: Saiyan!

Sole Survivor: Of her crew, who left her behind and returned to planet Vegeta on Frieza’s orders. Needless to say, she was lucky to be abandoned.

Tyke Bomb: Typical of most Saiyan children.

Golden Super Power Mode: Super Saiyan, naturally

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: It’s in the job description.

Dating Catwoman: Her and Giblet.

Action Mom: In the future, having kids doesn’t slow her down at all.

Mama Bear: Becomes fiercely protective of her baby boy Keel, a trait which only continues to grow in the future.

All-Loving Hero: Willing to give most people and creatures alike the benefit of the doubt….save for Frieza, Mira, Cell, Towa…obvious villains aside. Also loves animals.

Bad Powers, Good People: Being a Saiyan, she has a natural unlimited potential for battle and power. Along with the added layer of being able to turn into a vicious giant ape. Yet, she’s kind and mellow.

She’s Got Legs: Muscular and flexible.

Nice Girl: In spite of being a full blooded Saiyan of the PTO age, she’s kind hearted and easy going. Kallion, in general, has a difficult time hurting people unless pushed. Granted, she can be surprisingly short tempered.

The Apprentice: To Chronoa, as well as Bardock, and eventually Shallot.

Archenemy: Considers hers to be Towa, Frieza, and Suuja.

Badass Adorable: 5ft of Saiyan rage.

Bare Your Midriff: Typically in her casual attire.

Berserk Button: Good hearted as she may be, Kallion is still a short tempered Saiyan. What gets her is usually picking at her insecurities, insulting Chronoa or Trunks, making even the slightest threat toward her children, or dragging innocent people into conflicts.  

Big Eater: Saiyan!

Blood Knight: Again, Saiyan!

Came Back Strong: As with every Saiyan, coming back from the brink of death brings with it a hefty power-up known as a zenkai boost.

11th-Hour Ranger: Her job as an elite time patroller.

Glass Cannon

Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Being all of 5ft, she’s this standing next to most of the men she knows. Special mention goes to Arugla, Taeta, Scaro, Giblet, Bardock, Trunks…

Lightning Bruiser: Speed is her greatest advantage due to her size.

Platonic Life-Partners: With Arugla, Taeta, Scaro, and debatably Trunks.

UST: With Trunks. There’s an obvious attraction, and she trusts him more than anyone.

Slap Slap Kiss: However, her and Giblet….

Opposites Attract: Her and Giblet again.

Slasher Smile: Often right before a fight.

Tranquil Fury: The first time she went Super Saiyan.

Token Good Teammate: Didn’t end well…kind of.

Took a Level in Badass: Gained a significant amount of confidence during her time in Conton City.

Wild Child: From age 6 to 12, after being marooned on a swampy planet by her old crew. When it became obvious that no one else was left to come get her, she fended for herself.

Blue is Heroic: Blue eyes, blue clothing, blue armor…

Defends Against Their Own Kind: Technically, whenever she’s fighting against a rogue saiyan in history.

Determinator: Can get to wonderfully self destructive levels.

Pregnant Badass: Hell, she’s confused as to why she’s apparently supposed to stop fighting after finding out she’s pregnant with Keel.

Socially Awkward Hero: Spending your formative years as a feral child will do that to a girl.

Idiot Hero: Socially awkward, romantically oblivious, no sense of self preservation? Yeah.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: So, your crew abandons you to die. Then THEY end up dying, you live and get stronger, and end of recruited by an elite time force where you get to work with the greatest heroes in history. Thanks, old crew!

Recruited From The Gutter: Found as a wild 12 year old girl living on a backwater planet with little intelligent life besides herself.

Undying Loyalty/I Owe You My Life: To Chronoa, Trunks, and the Time Patrol. Kallion is incredibly grateful for the second chance they gave her.

Wacky Parent, Serious Child: The wacky parent to the much more serious minded Keel.

Because You Were Nice To Me: What sparks Giblet’s attraction to her, along with the fact that she was never afraid of him. This trope is also the initial reason for her crush on Trunks.

Villainous Crush: Again, Giblet.

First Kiss: Giblet again!

Friend to All Children: Even before having her own, she had a soft spot for children and got along with them well.

Child From the Future: Keel, her equivalent of the Toki Toki City/XV1 Hero. Not that she initially knows.

Back-To-Back Badass: With Arugla, Taeta, and Trunks typically.

Desperately Craves Affection: Downplayed, but still there.

The Power of Friendship: Comes with the territory

Remember That You Trust Me

All Of The Other Reindeer

Motor Mouth: Usually when she’s nervous or meeting someone new.

Lady of War: It’s in the blood, after all.

Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine

Beware the Nice Ones

Like A Daughter To Me: Bardock refers to her like this almost word for word.

Freudian Trio: The Id

Innocent Fanservice Girl: Has no qualms with people seeing her naked, and doesn’t understand why others would be offended by her being nude in her own home or bathroom.

Attack! Attack! Attack!

Wide-Eyed Idealist: To a point.

Too Hungry To Be Polite

Stupid Good: Hooooooo boy.

The Pollyanna

Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: Due to growing up alone, her knowledge of sex and things related to it is slim to none. As a result, actually experiencing those feelings causes her to momentarily freeze and panic. She gets better.

Oblivious to Love: Related to the above. Romantic gestures tend to fly over her head unless it’s spelled out.

Insecure Love Interest: Which directly feeds into the above two examples.

Battle Aura: Yellow or purple.

Strong Family Resemblance: Her mother’s spitting image. In teen Keel’s timeline, she has a daughter of her own who looks just like her as well.  

Stepford Smiler: Type 1: “The character seems to be happy, cheerful, is always smiling, and seems to live a perfect life - but inside they are melancholic, if not outright depressed.”

Sink-or-Swim Mentor: Bardock, who has no problem beating her into the dirt during their very first training session.

Verbal Tic: Has a habit of ending sentences with “yeah?” and “ya know?”, as well as starting with common sentence fillers like “well,” or “uh”. Ya know?

Obfuscating Stupidity: Kallion is a weird case. While she’s uneducated and misses innuendo, she can be very intuitive. There’s also her habit of dodging uncomfortable questions by acting like she doesn’t understand. To quote Mariko; “Sometimes I wonder if you play dumb, or…”

Did you think I can’t feel?: Rips into Giblet with this almost word for word after he still accuses her of using and manipulating him for the Time Patrol.  

Dead Guy Junior: Not her, but her son is named for the only member of her crew who was kind to her– and died as a result.

Book Dumb: She is very much uneducated, due to her circumstances. Learning to read was never a priority until she was 12.

Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Android 22's blue, but the blue to Mariko's red.

(To be added on continually whenever I think of another or as I see fit! FOR FUN!)

[thecardssayfuckoff]

Meet My Apprentices.

It’s the time, finally, and theirs. Let me just say to things, quickly:

First one, these aren’t finished, but I know that I won’t end them in the near future for school and so, and I’m impatient and want to talk about them already, so I’m throwing them here. They look… decent. Not good, just, decent. (Side note: If some colours look a bit weird, like their eyes, it’s because my pc got kind of fucked up so it doesn’t show the colours exactly as they should look).

Second, this is going to be lengthy. I’m gonna talk about them in their lore (?), and then about them individually. I also don’t know if there’s like, a format for when you publish your apprentices, so I’m going by heart. Fight me or teach me.

I really hope the damn “read more” works. Gonna post the drawing here to get some attention, and then the read more. Please work.

Now, the girl to the left is Crystel, and the girl to the right is Vitali. Let me give you some context: My best friend and I can’t work separated apparently, so after getting her to play the game, we (I) totally started to work in the story. Crystel is technically her apprentice, and Vitali is mine, but they share the story. What I mean is that one takes the place of the MC and the other would be kind of a side character, but not really. Just listen:

Crystel is the apprentice. She’s the one that dies and then revives, and gets involved in all the stuff. Vitali is her sister, who also gets involved in everything. I’m planning on writing a formal fic about this, but I’m lazy, so I’m just gonna be throwing things and facts and surely a lot of spoilers for said still-not-written fic.

The thing is, they’ll follow kind of Julian’s route, until they separate to Muriel’s (for Crystel) and Lucio’s (for Vitali). Crystel will end up with Muriel, that’s for sure, but to be honest I’m not entirely sure about Vitali. Neither of us is.

I screech Julian, she screeches Lucio, and I agree to this, but then she likes Julian more, and then Valdemar comes into play (we don’t give a fuck they’re aro/ace, it’s our story and we want them to shag), and so on and so forth.

Back to what I was saying… I tried to do kind of a, summary I guess, but I’m really bad at it so I didn’t feel like it was good enough to add. We’ll have to let things there for their story. I’ll proceed now to talk about them individually now. We starting with Crystel.

♡

Full name: Crystel Rhodes.

Nickname: Crys.

Gender and pronouns: Cisgender female, she/her.

Height: 1.72cm.

Body complexion: Normal really, but rather strong.

Familiar: Not designed yet.

Love Interest: Muriel.

Talent/type of magic: The same as the canon apprentice of course, although she has a thing for fire magic.

Arcana: Not sure, probably The Magician. We know nothing about this.

Personality: She’s a ray of sunshine. Easygoing, kind, has a good heart and a strong sense of ethic, justice, and morals. Extremely protective and caring. However, she’s kind of quick to lose her temper, mostly with people she dislikes. Very in contact with her emotions and feelings. Intelligent, although sometimes distracted.

Description (which I’m adding since I surely couldn’t capture it in the drawings because I’m bad at drawing): Has shoulder-lenght purple/reddish hair, bright blue eyes with long, curly lashes. Almost always wears a smile. Has little pigmentation on her lips, but her cheeks are naturally flushed, giving a more appealing look.

What would other characters describe her as: A beauty. Not only physically, but mentally.

Clothing: Not designed yet, probably something similar to Asra.

A curiosity: Her hair gets fuzzy when she’s angry.

Now let’s talk about her story, in a more freeform manner:

Crystel, as the apprentice, has experienced all the things the original apprentice has. She knew Julian and Asra, Julian failed to save her, she died, revived without memories, and all that jazz. When it comes to her backstory, however, things get better.

She’s older than Vitali for a couple years, but the other one is who took care of both of them since their parents had fallen ill because of poverty, which meant feeding badly and having poor living conditions; and latter on, they died because of this. It was hard for Crystel, who wouldn’t ever be really able to get over their death. She had no more option than to obey Vitali’s orders, who managed to find a place to live and a work for both. This all happened when she was around eight or ten.

They grew near the docks, and after some years, for reasons I’ll talk about in Vitali’s description, she separated from her, but maintained contact. She moved to a new place, and throughout more years, established a friendship with Julian. Her fascination for magic, though, lead her to also met Asra, and because of Vitali’s work, she met Nadia and Lucio. She became friends with all of them, excepting Lucio, holding a deep disdain for him.

Then she died, end of story.

♤

Full name: Vitali Worth.

Nickname: Vits.

Gender and pronouns: Genderfluid, and doesn’t give a fuck what you use to address her (although I mostly write about her using she/her).

Height: 1.80cm.

Body complexion: Thin, but has a slightly worked abdomen.

Familiar: Astaroth, a black fox.

Love Interest: Not sure, but has had encounters with Julian and Valdemar.

Talent/type of magic: Blood magic.

Arcana: Not sure, maybe Death.

Personality: Cold, methodical, stoic, and a tad of melancholic. She always chooses head over heart. Doesn’t really have morals, or ethic, but she’ll peruse truth to the end of the world. Easy to annoy her, but really hard, almost impossible, to get an expression out of her face. Mostly quiet and lost in thoughts. Extremely intelligent, observant, and sly. A bit malicious, too.

Description: Short, curly and puffy blonde hair, with pink ends. Deep green eyes, and death-pale skin. She uses makeup to make her lower lashes stand out more. Has a lot of pigmentation in her lips, making them catch one’s attention. Also, freckles!

What would other characters describe her as: An ice cube.

Clothing: Not designed yet, but mostly formal, yet not fancy.

A curiosity: If you learn to read her eyes, she’s kind of an open book.

Story time (warning for some strong things, kind of):

Her story begins the same as Crystel, but from her point of view, there was nothing to be sad for when her parents became ill and the died. The fuckers weren’t even good parents, not even before becoming so poor. On the contrary, they were abusive. Her father would beat them often and on one memorable ocassion, he almost raped Vitali; her mother, on the other hand, would punish them in horrible ways, like starving Vitaly for days or locking Crystel in the small trap door under their hose all night long, knowing that she was scared of darkness. So when they died, Vitali was happy. Crystel could’ve forgiven and forgotten, but she wouldn’t.

Hate would only lead her to nothing though, so she pushed herself to find a way of surviving.

At around fourteen, owning already a little house for her and Crystel, Vitaly began to learn about and practice magic. Forbbiden magic. The Red Magic, to be more specific. Magic fueled by blood. Vitali loved it. She didn’t care how much blood had to be spilled, either hers or some else’s.

But Crystel didn’t like this, and after a heated argument, she parted. Vitali didn’t stop her. She wouldn’t force her to like her things, but also wouldn’t change for her, so she waved goodbye and from time to time, they’d write letters to each other.

Sometime after that, having mastered the Red Magic, Vitali’s endless curiosity was pinched by science. The Red Plague was becoming more and more dangerous, and she wanted to know everything about it. So she became kind of an apprentice, learning from Street doctors until she moved on to doctors with license. At some point she was known by most doctors on Vesuvia, and after a little while,the Palace asked for her.

Working in the dungeons, she met Julian. They became fast friends, and she was a bit surprised when she found out he’d been freinds with Crystel for quite a while back.

And in there, she also met Valdemar. They established a solid and strong work relationship, since Valdemar took her under their wing, fascinated by her attitudes and fast learning brain. This evolved to a strange friendship, and then culminated in a stranger romantic relationship. However, this turned out to be a bad thing. Not beacuse they didn’t work as a couple, but because Vitale became an even worse workaholic. Trapped between her work, her thirst for knowledge, and her lover, Vitali was oblivious to Crystel’s illness.

And the Crystel died.

At the exact momento she did, at her house after a long night of work, Vitali suddenly fell asleep, and didn’t wake up until a couple of months later, barely remembering who she was. She did remeber clearly two things, though: One, her parents; and two, her Red Magic.

But deep down, below the headaches and fevers, her mind, or perhaps her heart, tried desperately to reach a forgotten memory, until it finally pushed hard enough: her sister.

♤

And there you have it. I hope I didn’t let any important info out, but I surely did lol. Not the end of the world though as I’ll be posting more about these two soon. Feel free to drop and ask about them if you’d like to know more. Also, reblogging would help a lot. I want them to be popular and cool, unlike me, lmao.

And be prepared for even more terrible art.

[nadziejastar]

You know why the Seekers having high levels of agency makes no sense? Because Xehanort wanted Sora as one! It's a plot point that doesn't work unless you assume that some level of mind control is involved.

LOL, exactly. How are you going to make Sora of all people a Seeker of Darkness if they are not just Xehanort’s puppets? What was the point of even going after someone like him? He would never help the bad guys willingly. So Xehanort obviously has to be able to fully control them on a whim. This is also a subject I had been meaning to write about.

KH3D ended with Xehanort NOT getting Sora, leaving him one Seeker short. Ooh, that’s exciting, now what’s he gonna do? I thought that his search for the final Seeker would have been a big part of KH3′s plot. But it really wasn’t. I thought that was so anticlimactic.By the time KH3 rolled around, Xehanort had so many Seekers lined up that he even had reserve members.

It’s funny. I remember a lot of people complaining about how all the villains got an undeserved redemption in KH3. After spending the whole game helping Xehanort, they randomly give a heartfelt speech at the very end. So, only once Sora defeats them do they grow a conscience? Everyone was asking why they didn’t have any remorse before.

There’s a big pillar of darkness that leaves their body after they’re beaten. It’s almost like that would have been Xehanort’s heart and darkness leaving them; thus, they’d no longer be controlled once it’s gone. They’d have their own minds and hearts back again. So, in that context, their little speeches would have actually made sense. I’m sure that was originally the idea, at least for characters like characters like Saix and Luxord. But when you have the characters acting in full control of themselves the entire time beforehand, these scenes seem ridiculous and lose all of their meaning.

Master Xehanort: All of this was decided. My twelve selves would welcome me here on this day, when I would return a complete person. It is the future which lies beyond my sight.

The story made it clear that not just anyone can become a Seeker of Darkness. He literally calls them his 12 selves. It apparently takes a very specific type of person to make a suitable vessel for Xehanort’s heart. That’s why most of them are Xehanort’s own alter egos; extensions of himself. His old self, his young self, his Heartless, his Nobody. Terranort and young Riku are also Xehanort, just while he’s possessing other people’s bodies.Vanitas is a being born of pure darkness. Only the strongest vessels can handle a heart like Xehanort’s. That’s why he targeted Terra in the first place.

Sora: Make more Xehanorts? You tricked your friends to… But you–aren’t you scared of just turning into someone else?

Xigbar: Me? I’m already half Xehanort.

Sora: That’s nuts…

KH3D also stressed the consequences of getting Xehanort’d. A totally willing person immersed in darkness is a candidate (if they are strong enough). But you’d have to be willing to sacrifice part of yourself; your identity, your mind, your agency. Few are crazy enough to do that. Braig just happens to be that nuts. But the rest?

Xigbar: Xemnas and Xehanort formed the Organization for a specific reason–round up a bunch of empty husks, hook them up to Kingdom Hearts, then fill them all with the exact same heart and mind. Translation–they were gonna turn all the members into Xehanort.

Xemnas: However–through weakness of body…weakness of will…or weakness of trust–most of the original members we had chosen for the Organization were inadequate. Thus, naturally, they never had a chance to attain their goal. Yet, even this was to be expected. We have learned of the heart’s folly, and we have achieved our other goals.

Xemnas never considered most of them truly worthy vessels. He needed to use the power of a fully completed artificial Kingdom Hearts, just to be able to use them as vessels… and even still they weren’t worthy. Xemnas says as much, and that they had to resort to “other goals”. Sounds like he gave up on all of the old Organization, other than Xigbar and Saix.

Weakness of trust is something that is supposed to exclude them from being worthy. So why all of a sudden are Marluxia and Larxene back again? They didn’t seem to be controlled exactly. But they didn’t seem to be willing participants either. There’s no way they trust Xehanort, though. He said he brought them to be Seekers due to their connection to the past and the Keyblade War. If they were so important to his plans, why did he send Larxene and Marluxia to get executed in Castle Oblivion for their treachery? It’s possible KH4 will answer this, but for now it makes little sense.

And if Xehanort can force unwilling people to be his vessels that easily, why didn’t Young Xehanort take any of the others with him when he took Isa? I just bought the BBS novel that came out a few days ago. I thought it was interesting how this little character blurb described Dilan. It says unlike Aeleus, he is adept at manipulating the hearts of others. Honestly Dilan sounded like a pretty bad person, even before Xehanort came along. That’s exactly the message I got from doing his weapon analysis, too. If anyone from the old Organization actually seemed like they would join the new Organization willingly, it would have been him and Braig. I am sure there was more to Dilan than what we got. He basically did nothing in KH3.

Aeleus: Dilan and Even are conscious again, but still unstable. They’re resting inside. -KH3D

Ienzo: He was recompleted like the rest of us, but he didn’t regain consciousness. After Lea left, he must have woken and taken his leave. -KH3

Then there’s this whole thing which I thought was weird. Aeleus specifically said that they both regained consciousness, but they were just unstable. And Ienzo is right there to hear this. He had to know. Yet in KH3, Ienzo says that he never regained consciousness.

I think there had to be a reason those two characters in particular were kept away from Lea in DDD. They were going to be important for something. The fact that Vexen and Demyx are “reserve” members just reeks of retconning. Like they were not supposed to be there originally and they didn’t know how to quite fit them into the story. So yeah, they’re just reserves. They even whine about getting “benched” which was really silly to me.

Besides Xehanort and Braig, I think Dilan and Even were the apprentices that were the most heavily involved in Lea’s dark past and the human experiments. That’s why he wasn’t allowed to interact with them yet. They knew the truth about Isa. Even probably was not willingly involved, and would feel remorseful to Lea. And he probably would have confessed the truth about Isa. It was necessary to the plot for him to be kept away from Lea. That’s my theory.

Xehanort: Roxas… Now, there was a worthy candidate. But, unfortunately, he became too aware of himself, and returned to Sora. Organization XIII’s  goal is to divide Xehanort’s heart among thirteen vessels. Thanks to you and Sora, we learned not all our candidates were fit for the task.

As for completely unwilling people being made into Seekers, they would need to be totally steeped in darkness, like Terra, where Xehanort can basically just hijack their body. But Terra put up way too much of a fight, and he couldn’t risk that again; Xehanort learned from that mistake. That’s why Roxas was a good candidate at first. He started off so spacey, and without much awareness. Of course, he didn’t stay that way for long.

I shall conduct the following experiments:

Extract the darkness from a person’s heart.

Cultivate darkness in a pure heart.

Both suppress and amplify the darkness within.

The experiments caused the test subject’s heart to collapse, including those of the most stalwart. How fragile our hearts are! My treatment produced no signs of recovery. -Ansem’s Report

Weakness of will is another issue. It is very tricky to make the person vulnerable to possession, but not have their heart totally collapse. If their heart collapses, they are too broken to use.If your’e too far gone, you’re no good; there is a point of no return. That’s basically how Xehanort viewed Ventus at the beginning of BBS. I think that’s why Xemnas was so desperate to find Ventus in 358/2 Days. His body was asleep, and his heart was elsewhere. He’s totally vacant, but his heart was not collapsed or broken thanks to Sora. Roxas became too aware, but Ven was a perfect vessel.

Xemnas: Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self.

What it ultimately comes down to is: Xehanort needs a person who is devoid of a sense of self. Not broken; just lacking the mental capacity to reject his heart. The fact that Xehanort was resorting to mind control experiments shows how desperate he was to find someone like this, and how difficult it is to use someone as a vessel for his heart. And this is why I think Isa being “Subject X” is the only thing that actually makes sense to me. I mean, just look at how Nomura chose to draw him in the official artworks. He’s the only Organization member that just stares blankly ahead, while everyone else makes eye contact with the “camera”. That blank look is so similar to people who’ve lost their heart, like Kairi and Ventus.

It’s worth mentioning that the localization team chose the name “Recusant’s Sigil” for the “X” mark. When you recuse yourself, you remove yourself from a situation to avoid a conflict.A recusant is a person who refuses to submit to an authority or to comply with a regulation. That���s the exact opposite of what Xehanort would want in a person. It sounds like the “X” is something akin to a punishment for having too much of a sense of self. It’s a brand of ownership meant to break the person’s will. So I think if anything, Isa must have put up one heck of a fight before he recused himself. He definitely didn’t seem to have the “weakness of will” problem. Which is probably why he was so special. He had such a strong will that he lost his sense of self, but he didn’t completely break like everyone else did. He was a great vessel in that regard. “Subject X” possess all the qualities of an ideal vessel.

I mentioned this on the previous post about Axel, but deities like Shiva are often depicted with a dot directly between the eyebrows. This is significant because this is where the pineal gland is located, which is said to activate the Third Eye chakra on the forehead. It is also called the mind’s eye because it is the direct link between the mind and the physical world. It is also regarded as the highest feminine energy center in the body and the portal to the The Higher Self. This is generally regarded as a union with the divine source. Similar to the notion of the soul, basically. The true spiritual self. It is truly interesting to me that Saix’s scar is located directly between his eyebrows.

The symbol of death is situated directly on the source of his mind and soul. There’s no way that was just a coincidence. Also, it always seemed significant to me that Xemnas was covering Saix’s mouth in that picture. Nobody else in any of the official artwork has part of their face covered like that. It immediately stood out to me, since Saix was right up front and center in the illustration with Xemnas. Artists don’t just cover up a large part of a character’s face like that for no reason. I think it’s very symbolic that Xemans is covering Saix’s Throat chakra. Its emphasis is on communication and projecting authenticity into the world. When it is in balance we can express what we think and what we feel.

A question about Terranort. Ansem and Xemnas came from the splitting of Terranort. Does that mean that when they were defeated in KH1 and KH2, Terra was revived alongside Master Xehanort?

Nomura: By all rights, Terra should have been revived as himself at that point in time. However, his heart was still in the clutches of Xehanort, and it was unable to go back, and the shell of his body was the only thing that revived. Then, Xehanort brought the heart of Terranort from the past and put it in that shell of a body he once controlled.

If Isa’s heart had also been swallowed by Xehanort’s (which is what’s supposed to happen to those who get Xehanort’d) then it made perfect sense that they took him and only him. His heart wasn’t in his body. It was “captured”, as Nomura said. His body was just an empty shell, like Terra’s. A perfect empty vessel just waiting to be filled.

I thought I’d never see the word “replica” again. Any rational man would realize the Riku Replica was not likely unique, but I’m the only one in the Organization who knew of his exceptional copying functionality, and that he ultimately formed a sense of self. -Axel’s Report

Xemnas: The goal was to duplicate the Keyblade wielder’s memories, and through them, his powers–thus making them our own. Vexen oversaw the project at Castle Oblivion. However, our efforts were severely derailed by his unexpected demise. And this particular Replica–the one we called Xion–came to form an identity of her own.

Xemnas: We wanted the Key. Xion’s exposure to Roxas effected a transfer of its power, just as we had hoped. Had things stopped there, Xion would have been an unequivocal success. But then, through Roxas, Sora himself began to shape “it” into “her,” giving Xion a sense of identity. I was ready to scrap the whole project…

Lastly, I didn’t like the Deus ex Replica aspect of the story. How Xehanort could just use replicas to fill out his ranks. That was far too convenient, considering the Replica Program was an unfinished failure at the time of Vexen’s demise. Now he suddenly made that much progress so fast? Nah, I don’t buy it. The story made a big deal of this idea that the Replica Project was a failure, because even replicas will gain a sense of self over time.

[whittertwitter]

How I’d fix Kingdom Hearts III.

Bearing in mind that the issues I had with it were mostly story-related, namely: integration of the overarching plot into (some of the) Disney worlds, pacing, characterization, female characters getting sidelined, and threads left dangling. In terms of gameplay, I’d probably just tie Team Attacks and Attraction Flow to MP (or make Attraction Flow location-specific, like Reality Shift in 3D) and Formchanges to Focus, just so the player has to use them more strategically. I’d also make the Riku and Mickey scenes in the Realm of Darkness playable, or at least have more player input than they do.

First of all, I’d change Olympus to Agrabah. They used the first movie in the first game and Return of Jafar in II, so they really should have used King of Thieves in III. Since the whole reason for Sora going to Olympus in the first place (to gain the power of waking) doesn’t come into play until the end of the game anyway, I don’t see it as that big of a change. If you really need a reason for him to go there, I think either learning something from Aladdin as the diamond in the rough or from Genie adapting to being semi-phenomenal, nearly-cosmic could work. Axel will tag along to Agrabah because: 

 He went there on a lot of missions for the Organization, so he’s familiar with the world and won’t drag them down, plus he could learn a lot from Sora because...

I’ve decided that Axel should struggle to consistently summon his Keyblade, both to mirror Sora’s power of waking thing and to provide the Guardians of Light with incentive to rescue as many Keyblade wielders as possible just in case he doesn’t prove up to snuff.

I think there’s a good character study that could be done between Axel and Cassim, what with them both being charming roguish types who fell in with a bad crowd and struggle with breaking old habits.

I’d also introduce the New Seven Hearts concept here, with Sora and company realizing that Jasmine is no longer a Princess of Heart. From here, Axel’s still struggling, so Yen Sid sends him on a mission to confirm if any of the Princesses of Heart have retained their status; Axel visits Wonderland--or rather, the world Alice is actually from--and Beast’s Castle in cutscenes between worlds in Sora’s first world set, and probably encounters Xaldin in the latter world. (Xaldin replaces Xion as a Nort, because it’s still so weird that he’s got the pointy Nort ears after becoming a Nobody and as a Nobody is obsessed with negative emotions AND needs time to recover after being re-completed, but somehow isn’t a Nort?)

Meanwhile, Kairi isn’t in active Keyblade wielder training yet, but only because she’s at Radiant Garden, where Zexion is focusing on Namine first because it should be easier to untangle just one heart in another than three hearts in another, and Namine’s power over memories would sure come in handy. While she’s there, you could explore her childhood in Radiant Garden. (If her grandmother’s still alive, that’d be a touching reunion!) I’m leaning toward not having her be part of the New Seven Hearts, because going from having a heart of pure light to a normal heart with the capacity for darkness seems more interesting to me. (Aaand now I’m thinking about Master Xehanort taking advantage of that lack of experience with darkness and Norting Kairi instead of killing her. It’d make Sora less likely to fight, which is the opposite of what he wants, but damn it’s so much more compelling than what we got.)

For the first set of worlds, I’m pretty satisfied with how the overarching plot was integrated. However, in Kingdom of Corona, some things aren’t well-explained unless you’ve seen the movie, like Rapunzel suddenly having the crown back. For that one, Heartless/Nobodies could show up when Mother Gothel meets Sora, Donald, and Goofy, and she drops it while running away; Sora could give it back to Rapunzel and mention something about her mother looking for her. Also, I still think Mother Gothel should’ve knocked Marluxia out with the tree branch instead of his Reapers, lol. 

Someone on Reddit made the suggestion to move rescuing Aqua and Ven to between the first and second world sets--possibly with fully playable Castle Oblivion/Land of Departure--and I absolutely love the idea. Others pointed out that it couldn’t work because they go to the Keyblade Graveyard after gathering all the Guardians of Light, which is why I suggest having Vanitas reawaken and assume control of Ven as soon as Sora returns Ven’s heart to his body. 

Other cutscenes will have to be moved up to this point, including Vexen recruiting Demyx and the latter dropping off the completed Replica, which will now go to Namine while Zexion reverse-engineers one for Roxas. (Or not; Namine’s entire existence is pretty weird, so she might be able to generate her own body after her heart is untangled from Kairi’s, leaving the Replica to Roxas.) Regardless, Namine is now awake and starts work on freeing Roxas and Xion; Axel is now capable of consistently summoning his Keyblade, so he and Kairi start training under Riku and Mickey; Sora and company possibly revisit Twilight Town, just so we can get that first world revisit that was in the first game, II, and 3D; and Aqua recovers from ten years in the Realm of Darkness plus having Ven snatched out from under her nose, then gives Riku and Mickey a hand with training.

Monstropolis won’t change too much, though Sora and company now knowing who Vanitas is and having beef with him will impart a different tone. As for Arendelle...Larxene needs to interact with people besides Sora and company, like trying to bully Anna into giving up on Elsa or taunting Hans and turning him into a Heartless; Sora and company need to go to places besides the North Mountain; and there need to not be random out of place musical numbers. Since the 100 Acre Wood was even more of a minigame hub than usual and didn’t actual adapt the plot of Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, I propose cutting it in favor of a Wreck-It Ralph world, with the arcade being one of Scrooge’s many business ventures in Twilight Town; Xigbar would actually be a great Nort if the world needs one, since going Turbo kinda reminds me of Luxu body-surfing through the ages. (While I’m on the subject, I’d replace Ralph and Stitch with Jack Skellington and Tron, that way Sora has all the party members from past worlds that required a change in appearance as Links; Simba would be obtained in Agrabah, Dream Eaters in Toy Box, Jack Skellington in Monstropolis, and Tron in San Fransokyo, and I’m leaning toward Tron being in his Tron: Legacy form.)

For The Caribbean, its biggest problem comes down to the audience already knowing that the chest of Davy Jones isn’t the box the Organization is looking for, so it feels like a waste of time; Sora and company barely having any impact on the plot doesn’t help. Having them actually interact with characters besides Jack would help. I’d also have Beckett play a larger role and Luxord turn him into a Heartless. I thought it was an odd choice to have Dark Riku show up in San Fransokyo instead of the Riku Replica or Data-Riku and make it seem like he’s time traveling (UGH) from when Ansem possessed him...only to have it be a Replica anyway! So yeah, I’d probably change that to Data-Riku in a Replica to make the Bug Blox from Coded showing up actually matter, and I’d have Vexen supervising him instead of faffing about in The Caribbean.

At this point, Zexion and Namine have finally succeeded in getting Roxas free, but are still working on Xion. However, since they now have seven Guardians of Light, the decision is made to rest up and prepare for the Keyblade War, as in canon. I’m keeping the scene with Axel and Saix before the final battle but cutting out the bit about them becoming apprentices to save their heretofore unknown female friend, because it’s just a blatant retcon; Nomura confirmed in an interview after BBS that they were just ordinary kids who got caught up in the Heartless experiments.

As for the final battle itself, my thoughts are much more scattered as of right now, besides Kairi not getting fridged of course. I like blackosprey’s idea of moving Sora’s little jaunt in The Final World to after the boss rush of Norts but before Scala ad Caelum. Since Xaldin’s taking Xion’s place as a Nort, it’ll be Saix who’s tasked with killing Axel and hesitates; Zexion and Namine get Xion free just in time for her to possess the discarded Replica and make the save. I'd prefer Terranort be re-completed after you defeat Ansem and Xemnas instead of being a Nort from the get-go, or have him around from the get-go instead of Ansem and Xemnas, because him existing at the same time as the Wonder Twins is only possible thanks to time travel bullshit. (Same with Master Xehanort, for that matter, but he’s harder to work around. Unless you have Young Xehanort pulling the strings for most of the game, fight him after Ansem and Xemnas and/or Terranort, and only fight Master Xehanort in Scala ad Caelum?) And if they’re going to bring up Demyx, Luxord, Marluxia, and Larxene’s connection to the mobile game, the least they could do is have dead people close to them besides Strelitzia hanging out in The Final World, giving out exposition tidbits.

Also: I know Nomura said this was just going to be the end of the Xehanort Saga, but I really feel this game should’ve retired Sora as well. Part of the reason the ending left me unsatisfied is because Sora doesn’t get any closure, and I know it’s because they want us to keep buying these games, but if they try, they can easily make us care just as much about a new protagonist. Maybe even, horror of horrors, a female one!

So yeah, those are my thoughts on how to improve KHIII! Several days after I said I’d post them. Maybe before the next ice age, I can work up the motivation to post about my series-wide KH rewrite, lol.

[balancedpluto]

All arcana asks ;)

I hate u so much Hayden. Putting it under a read more cuz HECK this is a lot. Also u can clearly tell Rose is my most fleshed out apprentice lmao. U can also tell when I started to burn out lol. THIS TOOK ME ALL DAY HECK

1. Name? Surname?Rose LaFontaineAaron (???)Lyra (???)

2. Any Family?Rose: she has a sister who’s 10 years older than her named Yvette, she’s a pirate. And her mother still lives in Fantasy France.Aaron: SO MANYLyra:….she doesn’t like to talk about it

3.Any Familiar?Rose: A bull mastiff named Mika who can change in size (so she can fit in a pocket or be the size of a horse, at her will)Aaron: A bearded dragon named Sir Slappy Skiddaddly the Third Lyra: A cute little rat named Pixie

4.Asra, Nadia, or Julian?Rose: JulianAaron: AsraLyra: Nadia

5. Best strength in magic?Rose: IllusionsAaron: Fire magic. Anyone who follows Eereree saw this coming.Lyra: the creation and manipulation of light

6. Favorite color?Rose: Maroon or light pink Aaron: Red. Surprise surprise Lyra: Purple

7. Favorite number?Rose: 69Aaron: 420Lyra: HOW DID YOU TWO ANSWER THAT SO FAST??? Uhh, 7?

8. Sexuality?Rose: BiAaron: PanLyra: Lesbian

9. Weird hobby?Rose: not really weird so much as unexpected for her, but she likes to sew and knit.Aaron: Weed lmaoLyra: Buying books but never actually getting around to reading them.

10. Favorite season?Rose: SpringAaron: FallLyra: Spring as well

11. Favorite weather?Rose: Sunny, but not hot.Aaron: Thunderstorms Lyra: Drizzly

12. Favorite place in Vesuvia?Rose: The Raven, or Mazelinka’s place. She loves that lady like she was her own grandmother.Aaron: The market. That pumpkin bread thoLyra: The palace library

13. How does their laughter sound like?Rose: Sober, its a soft almost teasing giggle. Drunk, loud cackling. Both are very charming in their own way.Aaron: LOUDLyra: giggling and soft snorting

14. How do they look like when they cry?Rose: She doesn’t cry often so when she does its…a lot. Loud gross sobbing often accompanied by yelling. Its not pretty.Aaron: Ghibli tears. You can’t convince me otherwise.Lyra: A lot of sniffling

15. What do they like to wear?Rose: Long dresses/skirts with low cut tops. Her brests are her best asset and she’s gonna show em whether you like it or not.Aaron: Tits out. That’s all u need to know.Lyra: Long, modest cut dresses with a corset. Very simple, but she always looke nice.

16. What are their fears?Rose: Fears? Don’t know her. (Actually death, which is…ironic considering the circumstances)Aaron: Abandonment. And cockroaches.Lyra: Rejection. The dark.

17. What do they like to do Friday night?Rose: put on fancy lingerie, get wasted, and play card games.Aaron: Blaze it lmaoLyra: (cuddling with Nadia) Reading

18. Do they use makeup?Yes. All 3 of them.

19. Favorite food?Rose: Mama LaFontaine’s crepesAaron: Spicy Vegetarian ChiliLyra: Cookies (technically not FOOD, but sweets are her big weakness)

20. Favorite drink?Rose: Rosé wine. Sounds redundant considering her name, but thats why she likes it. Growing up she thought it was named after her.Aaron: Just water, surprisingly.Lyra: Green tea

21. Zodiac sign?Rose: CancerAaron: Cancer Lyra: Aquarius(I dont care i have two apprentices that are the same sign leave me alone)

22. Day of birth?Honestly haven’t even thought if that lmao

23. Favorite movie?Rose: Heathers. She loves a bad bitch movie.Aaron: Shrek. Lyra: Not really a movie person tbh. She likes Disney stuff tho.

24. Favorite music genre?Rose: Classic rock or indie. Also has an interest in things involving old or obscure instruments.Aaron: Pop PunkLyra: Soft indie or video game soundtracks

25. Favorite song?Rose: Over the Hills and Far Away- Patty GurdyAaron: It’s Never Sunny in South Philadelphia-The Wonder YearsLyra: Youth- Daughter

26. Favorite TV show?Rose: Likes to watch cooking shows cuz its usually the only thing good onAaron: Doesn’t really do TVLyra: Also not really into TV, will put on like, QVC or something for background noise tho (im guilty of this)

27. What is their style?Rose: Like i said before. Long skirt, tits OUT.Aaron: Lazy but somehow manages to look hot? How does he do that???Lyra: Simple and modest, but always in pretty colors.

28. Any mental health issues?Rose: She has some anger issues, along with a tendency to bottle everything upAaron: hrrhgghh i haven’t gotten that deep with him WHOOPSLyra: Really bad anxiety

29. Any health issues in general?Not really?

30. Are they human?Yeah….or are they dancer?

31. Favorite book?Rose: She honestly can’t remember the last time she had time to read for fun.Aaron: Wtf is a book lolLyra: Don’t make her choose for the love of god

32. Favorite book genre?The person writing these questions assumes I know books lmao

33. Favorite time of the day?Rose: SunsetAaron: Early afternoonLyra: Like, really early morning. My sweet child why are you awake this early

34. If they weren’t a magician, who would they be?Rose: A pirate like her sister. Unless this is meant as like a modern AU then she’d probably sew and knit cute things and sell them online.Aaron: Probably a video game youtuber tbhLyra: Not much different, only she’d run a little mom and pop knick knack/ book store instead of a magic shop

35. Do they believe in ghosts?Yeah

36. Do they believe in aliens?Kind of?

37. Do they like sports?What is this…sport you speak of?

38. How do they look like?Sexy

Rose: 

Aaron:

Lyra:

(art by @willowwish64 )

39. What is their biggest motivation to solve the Lucio’s killer mystery?Rose: To clear Julian’s name Aaron: To make sure it wasn’t him and he just doesn’t remember. I mean…fire is kinda his thing, so…Lyra: To put Nadia’s mind at ease

40. What do they think of Lucio so far?Rose: “He’s an asshole.”Aaron: “Goatman! Fuck you, goatman!”Lyra: “I can never look at a goat again without feeling terrified”

41. What do they think of Nadia so far?Rose: “She’s the kind of woman I strive to be. I have so much respect for her.”Aaron: “A smart, capable woman. Also really hot like wowie.”Lyra: “She’s so amazing and so beautiful and i don’t know why she likes me so much, I’m so dull compared to her and-” (this can go on for hours)

42. What do they think of Asra so far?Rose: “A great friend and mentor. I’d do anything for him.”Aaron: “He’s like…a human sheep…but really skinny…imagine hugging cotton candy filled with bones…its amazing. Also dat ass.” (He loves him but he’s bad at serious answers)Lyra: “A close friend to whom i owe my life”

43. What do they think of Julian so far?Rose: “Oh, Julian. How do i begin to describe how i feel about him? I’ve never met someone who’s so smart and witty yet so dumb? And he’d do anything for you but doesn’t think he deserves the same, even though he does. And, well, i could go on but the long and the short of it is, I love that idiot.”

Aaron: “He’s like a taller, hotter version of me AND IM SO PISSED”Lyra: “he sure is…something”

44. What do they think of Portia so far?Rose: “My future sister in law???? I love her so much! ”Aaron: “She’s…so small…my god im surrounded by small people”Lyra: “She’s so lovely!! She’s like my best friend!”

45. What do they think of Muriel so far?Rose: “He…doesn’t like to talk much does he? And he’s so…TALL. Makes you wonder about…things.”Aaron: “Him big. ”Lyra: “He…kind of scares me a bit? ”

46. Do they like animals?OF COURSE

47. Are they allergic to anything?Nope

48. Do they have any talents (except magic)?Rose: Again, she’s really good at sewing/knittingAaron: He can lick his elbow. And he shows off his “skill” to everyone. Charming i know.Lyra: She’s really good with animals

49. Do they get drunk easily?Rose: No, she can hold her liquor pretty well. She usually just gets tipsyAaron and Lyra: YES

50 .What is their personality type?*fart noises*

51. What is their worst negative quality?Rose: She tends to dodge any question that’ll make her show any negative emotion. Being with Julian is kind of helping her with that, since he needs her support and she feels okay talking about this stuff with him. Also she tends to be kind of overly sexual. She doesn’t really mean to, it just happens.Aaron: He tends to take serious things as a joke sometimes.Lyra: She likes to just, avoid people. She’d rather just be alone by her own choice than face rejection.

52. What is their best positive quality?Rose: She’s like a mom? You wouldn’t think that on the surface, but she’s actually really warm and motherly.Aaron: So fucking funny.Lyra: She has a heart of gold

53. What is their position to fall asleep?Rose: She likes to fall alseep with Julian resting his head on her chest and petting his hair. Motherly instincts, i guess. Also it’s the only surefire way of making sure he sleeps. If she’s alone, on her stomach or side with her arms under the pillow.Aaron: Starfish. Asra just has to deal with it, i guess.Lyra: Curled up with Nadia. It’s where she feels safest.

54. The most uncomfortable moment they ever experienced?Rose: (spoilers) Finding out she died. Considering death is her greatest fear, it was especially hard for her to swallowAaron: When his brother found out him and Asra were fuckin…and he found out his brother and Nadia were fuckinLyra:…..

55. Their happiest memory?Rose: When she first came to Vesuvia. It was kinda scary, but there’s SO MUCH TO SEE!!Aaron: Getting Slappy. Lyra: Finding out Nadia likes her back. She nearly fainted.

56. Do they blush?Rose: Not really, if she does its hard to tellAaron: SometimesLyra: YES

57. Are they clumsy?Nah

58. Do they like jokes? Of course, they’re people, arent they?

59. How do they flirt?Rose: VERY direct. She’s not afraid to let people know what she wants.Aaron: “Hey cookin’, what’s lookin’?”Lyra: oh god she’s so bad at it help her

60. Favorite fruit?Rose: StrawberryAaron: Orange Lyra: Kiwi

[otakween]

I'm Standing on a Million Lives - Vol. 11

Aw maan, now I gotta wait until March 2022 for the next volume! I wonder how many volumes there will be in total. It's a little daunting when series are just open-ended like that. Will I still be reading a decade from now or something? The pace is pretty slow, but now that they have revealed that they've encountered 3 out of 5 dragons, maybe that's an indication of how much plot we have left. Time will tell.

I'm not loving this arc. I think what may be missing is that there's less interaction with NPCs this time around which hurts the world building a little. The new NPCS introduced are pretty forgettable too. (Also, no cute girls, I'm just now realizing lol. Bold move).

Ch. 50

-Oh man, I really like Habaki. He's just my type and very relatable. This chapter was from his POV and he talked about his lonely life and had a headache the whole chapter. I was like "MOOD" cuz I've never dated and get migraines all the time lol. I'm a little creeped out by his crush on Yuka, but it seems innocent enough.

-The 2-page split with the dragon looked so cool on my ereader! They did a really good job at portraying a terrifyingly strong monster in a shocking way (revealing everyone dead abruptly).

-Felt really happy for both Yuka and Habaki that they have a fellow otaku in the party to nerd out with. It kinda sucks being surrounded by normies all the time.

-We get some world building for the blacksmith town. I like the simplicity of the nobles living on the top tier and the rookie blacksmith at the bottom. It was also cool to hear about the religion, though I felt like its mention was kind of a non-sequitur

Ch. 51

-Lol everyone's so mean to Habaki :'( I feel like that would be my spot in the isekai party. Must protecc

-The more it's said, the more I feel like "black humanoid" was a terrible translation choice. It's just too questionable sounding...

-So far the baddies in this arc are pretty boring, even with the plot twist at the end of this chapter. They're just like "Mwahaha look how evil and sinister we are!"

-I kind of thought Iu, Yuka and Keita would be revived fairly quickly but then I remembered how digestion works. I wonder if this was a purposeful strategy to cut the cast in half for easier storytelling.

-Kinda weird that they specify what happened to Cantil and Malita but not Fatina. I thought they were kind of a unit? Oh well, glad Fatina's not dead.

Ch. 52

-BIG KITTY! This chapter definitely gets points for the cat sith (I googled this species and apparently it's from Celtic folklore? Made popular by FF VII though). It gave me Kirara from Inuyasha vibes

-The triangle comment where Yusuke is awkwardly being pursued at a distance by Malita and the sorcerer's apprentice made me chuckle. Malita's turned into a monster waifu lol. I doubt she'll physically turn back to normal, but maybe mentally? We'll see...

-Cathean monk dude is pretty badass. His design looks like something out of a Chinese period drama.

Ch. 53

-The Cathean religion is pretty neat and kind of reminds me of Shintoism. Asian religions always seem so much more chill and approachable than western ones lol

-We get some commentary about the widening wage gap as Habaki relates his old life to the lives of the blacksmith. It's nice to have Habaki's defeatist, downtrodden adult attitude juxtaposed with Yusuke's "I can do anything" middle schooler attitude. Hopefully Habaki can catch a break

-Glenda helping Habaki and Kusue level up was cute. I like it when they mix in some more mundane, day-to-day stuff that's more adjacent to the main mission

-The exploitative rich dude with a B. name. Couldn't help but think of Jeff Bezos.

-Not sure the logic with treating Malita like a dog really holds up. I get that her brain isn't all there but...why does that instill her with an instinct to play fetch? lol

Ch. 54

-More interesting development of Habaki's character. LOVED Glenda's psychoanalytic response and shutting down Yusuke's nonsense when they were discussing Habaki's lack of motivation. I really relate to him...like a lot. It's funny, he's more like a typical isekai protagonist than Yusuke is.

-They're gonna go to Disneyland :'D (The WcDonald's version lol). That motivation would totally work on me.

-Habaki really can't catch a break. He finally tries to do something heroic and gets shut down...ouch

-We find out that fantasy Jeff Bezos isn't the Dragon priest (OR IS HE!?) Also, apparently there are only 5 dragons in this world which makes them feel more epic and boss-battley

[youcantfiremebecauseiquit]

theguitardiary said: I love finding new music! Especially when you’re not expecting it. We seem to have similar tastes in music! Who do you listen to now in this modern age? There’s only a handful of bands I like but I’m convinced there’s more out there. They’re just not as well known.

Yes, it seems so!  :)

Hmm, i don’t like that much of modern bands, if saying modern we mean completely new bands with young people being around for a couple of years. I’m aware that i probably don’t search enough, but these days i don’t even know where to look for bands, 2000-2009 days were much easier in this case.  Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes i look at new trendy bands and just can’t treat them seriously, for example i take one look at this Youngblud guy and i don’t have to listen to him to know he’s just another variation of 5 seconds of summer or 21 pilots or Imagine Dragons shit. “New British rock poet” lol, i just can’t. Or Pale Waves, they dress like tumblr goths so you expect goth music, but they play watery pop and the girl says she wants to be like Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne. I listened to Avril Lavigne in elementary school, but ever since i found lots of actual punk/rock artists and it’s not like it’s the best thing under the earth (anyone remembers times when Avril Lavigne was the biggest faux pas in rock circles?). It’s just some weird trend with people my age/younger becoming some “punk rock/indie queens” with edgy mall goth looks, and of course press falls all over itself in praises and calling them new punk rock princesses and whatnot, and it turns out they don’t listen to classic stuff, they all actually listened to Taylor Swift and want to be Avril Lavigne, each and everyone. This or hair metal bands.  I’m not saying it’s neccesarily a crime, but it’s such a common thing, you can see how they compile clothes or videos or even straight up stylize their own songs after “Let Go” or “Under My Skin”. I’m all for nostalgia, but “imitation is the highest form of flattery” saying isn’t an explanation, all that flattery mostly ends up as clowning and copying rather than a wink to your influences. What’s with all that recent acceptance for copying and ripping off older artists? We reached the point where the world is obsessing over old cringe tumblr aesthetics sold as “new wave”, with skinwalking this rock star or another. Everybody claps and grins as if they haven’t seen it all somewhere else before. And then we have horrors like Starcrawler ripping off Katie Jane Garside look and everyone being fine with it. Develop some sort of personality, make up a new one if you dont’ have it, stop ripping off your teenagehood idols, ffs.

*End of a massive modern bands rant*  

For the record, I’m sure there are some good independent bands, but i honestly don’t know where to find them and i admit i’m very picky. 

Forever Still - at first they may look like a “throwaway Arch Enemy opera metal lady + a bunch of black-wearing random guys” type of band, but thankfully it’s not the case. Maja Shining has an actual personality and a pretty voice. They’re from Denmark, they play alt rock with melodic vocals, mainly a cross between calmer ballads and more metal songs, people compared them to Evanescence because of a trained vocals singer and emotional lyrics, but to me they’ve developed a thing of their own. They use elements of metal, but they actually have memorable riffs and melodies. There’s also a lot of piano in their music and on “Breathe In Colors” (and live shows) they use theremin, which is rarely used instrument in rock. 

 This band is very impressive, i followed them since their independent days, they eventually were signed by Nuclear Blast but they literally did everything themselves, from cover art to music videos to producing their music. The bass player  was apparently an apprentice of Metallica producer/engineer, don’t remember which one though, and you can hear it, i believe they were recording stuff at home but their early songs were top notch in production. It’s funny how their first EPs and first album were self released and sold through internet and yet they sounded like a major label band! And they could literally go on without signing anyone cause they got fans and were selling CDs and merch themselves, but Nuclear Blast got interested in them and they got signed. For a modern day band, they’re doing pretty well which is impressive especially considering everything they achieved, they did it themselves. I think 15 years ago they would be bigger, blame rock’s role in mainstream, or lack thereof. If it was 2003, they would be MTV’s favourites probably. They take care about even small things and i’d say a part of the success is how they’re all in contact with fans instead of playing big rock stars. They toured with Lacuna Coil, Children of Bodom, etc. 

Also CONCEPT ALBUMS! They do concept albums. First album “Tied Down” was more emotion driven with ups and downs of a sort, calm and aggressive points, the newest one is much heavier and electronic. “Tied Down” is about depressed person going through some shit and then idk letting go of toxic stuff, “Breathe In Colors” album is much cooler to me, cause it’s darker and heavier and has that electronic cathastrophic decay feeling, i’d say it’s their “Blade Runner” record (i’d say the cover and “Breathe In Colors” video are direct references), especially since they said they were inspired by “Blade Runner” and “Akira”. It’s been released in 2019 and it’s cool, cause i really missed that sort of element in music, the “social fear of the future”/”digital era emptiness” kind of cyberpunk stuff that was in before turn of the century.

I’d say to listen/watch  Miss Madness ,  Scars , Break The Glass   Rewind  Breathe In Colors

Bandcamp: https://foreverstill.bandcamp.com/

Destructive Daisy - that’s an all-girl grunge band from my country, Poland. Unfortunaly they no longer exist i think, they stopped posting/playing apparently... They were a big hype awhile back, cause they were the only grunge girl band in Poland (at least that we knew of), they’ve got some attention after they released EP and they even supported Mudhoney at their Poland show in 2013 or so. Then they recorded Ophelia’s Dreams album in 2016 and vanished. That’s a shame, cause althought i wasn’t so crazy about them at the time, they’ve got some nice songs and they had those L7 / 7 Year Bitch kinda grunge girl vibes and people looked up to them expecting some next move, but i guess everyone expected too much from them and they played for fun without big plans, idk.  

I’d recommend Destructive Daisy EP. Haven’t listen to their stuff in a few years tbh.

Bandcamp: https://destructivedaisy.bandcamp.com/

Hmm, i only listened to select songs from Le Butcherettes and never cared enough to follow their new records, I like this video:

But I like that weird crossover the chick (Teri Gender Bender? I think that was her name) did with... Melvins. I’m a simple man, I see Melvins, i click.  The band’s Crystal Fairy and it’s been a bit of surprise to me. I don’t know if they tour/plan anything more, i suppose it’s a one-off project from 2017. But the album is dope. It’s very Melvins though, don’t know how much of guitar work is done by Teri, to me it’s 100% Melvins and she probably wrote lyrics and melodies, but i don’t know. “Crystal Fairy”, “Sweet Self” however sounds to me like Teri composition. Hard to tell, cause to me both bands have some “twisted blues” quality, it’s just Melvins are heavier. It’s basically Melvins led by a female. If anyone ever wondered how it’s like to have female-fronted Melvins, this is it. 

https://crystalfairy.bandcamp.com/ 

I like Evanescence and Linkin Park, but that’s not exactly “modern” anymore, haha. When you know for example “In The End” song is 20 years old... crazy. Most surprising band i listen to is maybe Sum 41. All the older bands and punks hated them a lot before and call it pop punk, and yes, they had a few irritating happy boys songs, but they’ve got some darker “punk-metal” albums. They had the best guitar skills of those pop punk bands from 00′s, added a good deal of metal (”Chuck”) and piano (”Screaming Bloody Murder”) at some point, but they’re totally fine if someone likes that fast melodic punk like Green Day or NOFX. 

Maybe also White Lung, i don’t know all of their albums and listen to it more casually, but it’s female fronted and they’ve got that various layered guitars sound. 

Ok that’s it, if i were to tell you in person, i’d probably say 3 words, but in writing i always end up writing long essays :p 

If anyone else following this blog has any recommendations of new bands, of course you can send me in ask!

[alwcys-with-you]

About Sora

Archetype — The Innocent Child - Naive but a breath of new life and fresh ideas.

Birthday — 2/10/1999. 20 years old.

Zodiac Sign — Aquarius

MBTI — ENFP-A

Enneagram — Type 2 - The Helper, second place was Type 9 - the Peacemaker

Temperament — Sanguine

Hogwarts House — Huffledor

Moral Alignment — Lawful Good

Primary Vice — Childish, Reckless

Primary Virtue — Selfless

Element — Fire

Overview:

Mother — Hamasaki Kumiko

Father — Hamasaki Tetsuya

Mother’s Occupation — Foreteller

Father’s Occupation — Teacher

Family Finances — Middle Class

Birth Order — Only Child

Brothers —  None

Sisters — None

Other Close Family — An aunt on his dad’s side, uncle on his mother’s side, and four cousins.

Best Friend — Riku and Kairi

Other Friends — tbd

Enemies — Xehanort, dark mages

Pets — None yet

Home Life During Childhood — It was quiet and peaceful. He trained hard to become a battle mage, but otherwise had a very mellow life and went out to an island with his friends to hang out for so much time. He loved running around with his friends and coming home for dinner with his parents and discussing battle magic with his mother.

Town or City Name(s) — Nara

What Did His or Her Bedroom Look Like — a bit of a chaos zone, clothes thrown here and there. Had a couple posters up of distant places he wanted to visit, and a haphazardly arranged bookshelf with books on battle magic, fictional adventure stories and stuff like that. He also had maps on his walls, different parts of the world and places marked that he wanted to see.

Any Sports or Clubs — Keyblade Dueling, Sword fighting, Surf Club

Favorite Toy or Game — Pokemon

Schooling — Vulpus Academy

Favorite Subject — Battle Magic, English

Popular or Loner — Popular

Important Experiences or Events — When Kairi moved into town, when Sora was able to get his first battle magic weapon (his keyblade), competing with Riku on the island

Nationality — Japanese

Culture — Japanese/Magick culture

Religion and beliefs — Shinto

Physical Appearance

Face Claim —  Inoo Kei 

Complexion — Light skinned

Hair Colour — Brown

Eye Colour — Brown

Height — 5′ 8″

Build — Slender

Tattoos — None

Piercings — None

Common Hairstyle — Disheveled short hair

Clothing Style — haphazard, whatever he had in his closet thrown on

Mannerisms — clasping his hands behind his head as he’s walking, tapping his fingers 

Usual Expression — Smile

Health

Overall (do they get sick easily)? — Not big things, but he gets colds relatively easily

Physical Ailments — None

Neurological Conditions — None

Allergies —  Peanuts

Grooming Habits — Showers once every day, rushes through combing his hair, and rushes through teeth brushing twice a day.

Sleeping Habits — Passes out rather easily every night between 10 pm and midnight. He sprawls across his bed on his stomach.

Eating Habits — Digging into it without a thought to neatness or pacing. He feels like he’s always hungry and acts like it.

Exercise Habits —  Practices every day to keep his battle magic skills up. Also he likes to dance from time to time.

Emotional Stability — Stable

Body Temperature — Normal

Sociability — Very social

Addictions — None

Drug Use — No

Alcohol Use — Sometimes

Your Character’s Character:

Bad Habits — Rushing into situations, Speaking with mouth full, Eating too fast, day dreaming

Good Habits — Stays positive, Defends anyone who gets into trouble

Best Characteristic — Optimistic

Worst Characteristic — Reckless, Childish

Worst Memory — When his island was first attacked and Sora had to watch the darkness spread over the place and corrupt everything it touched. It was the beginning of the end there, and what would pull Sora into this world instead.

Best Memory — Meeting Riku and Kairi individually were big memories for him. Also the day he received his keyblade.

Proud of — how far he’s come with his magic skills.

Embarrassed by — how far behind he feels compared to Riku.

Driving Style — He doesn’t drive.

Strong Points — Brave, Selfless, Optimistic

Temperament — Sanguine

Attitude — Positive

Weakness — Reckless, Childish, losing a friend

Fears — To never make it back home. To never find his friends.

Phobias — Autophobia (fear of being alone), Achluophobia (fear of darkness)

Secrets — He doesn’t really have many. He’s a very open book.

Regrets — not being quick enough and stopping the man who destroyed his island.

Feels Vulnerable When — his magic inadequacies are pointed out. He’s still learning and he knows it, but when someone throws him off balance with it he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

Pet Peeves — people interrupting when someone speaks, when people sneeze or cough without covering their mouths.

Conflicts — Transported to another dimension and fused with another person.

Motivation — to be able to return home and find his friends.

Short Term Goals and Hopes — To figure out where he is and what’s going on

Long Term Goals and Hopes — To find a way back to his friends and home

Sexuality — Optimistically Pansexual

Exercise Routine  — Daily workout of some form of fight training and then occasional dancing

Day or Night Person — Day

Introvert or Extrovert — Extrovert

Optimist or Pessimist — Optimist

Likes and Styles:

Music — ABBA, Cheap Trick, Ayumi Hamasaki, The Beatles, Asian Kung-Fu Generation, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra

Books — Fantasy books. He likes stuff like Lord of the Rings that sort of thing.

Magazines — He doesn’t really read magazines.

Foods — Any. He really will eat anything.

Drinks — Sweet ones. Soda he likes a lot and it hypes him up.

Animals — Dogs. He also has a weird love of giraffes.

Sports — He likes climbing

Social Issues — Any that are geared to help other people live a better life. Pro-magick, pro-environment, pro-choice, etc.

Favorite Saying — My friends are my power

Color — Blue

Clothing — he’ll honestly wear anything. He’s not the most fashion conscious.

Jewelry — He wears some necklaces, like one that is given to battle mages that’s part of becoming a member of G.O.L.D.

Games — Mario Kart, Pokemon

Websites — Twitter and Instagram

TV Shows — Ainori, Boys over Flowers, Pokemon, The Office

Movies — Spirited Away, Bohemian Rhapsody, Jurassic Park, Weathering with You, Kingdom, Gintama

Greatest Want — to become a true Wielder of Battle Magic

Greatest Need — to find his friends

Where and How Does Your Character Live Now:

Home — it’s a small apartment

Household furnishings — none yet, he needs money first oop.

Favorite Possession — His Keyblade

Most Cherished Possession — this star shaped fruit art that Kairi gave him

Neighborhood — Southern Isles

Town or City Name — Swynlake

Details of Town or City — a small town in the UK.

Married Before — No

Significant Other Before — None

Children — none, he’s still a child ok.

Relationship with Family — Good

Car — None

Career — Apprentice Battle Mage

Dream Career — Foreteller for G.O.L.D.

Dream Life — To continue to protect people with his magic and be able to travel while also finding someone he cares about.

Love Life — Nonexistent right now

Talents or Skills — is talking fast a skill? Lol he can also do handstands and fight good.

Intelligence Level — Average

Finances — Poor

Your Character’s Life Before Your Story:

Past Careers — None, he was at the Academy

Past Lovers — One ex, it was clumsy and Sora was honestly not really aware they were dating when they dumped him.

Biggest Mistakes — Not catching on to the motive of the guy destroying the island fast enough. 

Biggest Achievements — Becoming an apprentice battle mage.

[nny11writes]

What Star Wars stories do you have for us hungry readers next?

I’ll be honest, because SPOP has content coming out a lot right now my attention is more on my fics there (in a desperate bid to beat Season 3′s release in August). BUT! Below is the full running list of Star Wars fics I’ve still got banging pots and pans around my head! This doesn’t include all the other rando ones I work on to try and play with characterization, world building, plot points, etc etc. I do a ton of writing that is never meant to be finished and posted, but instead to help me get a better grip on what I’m doing. So sometimes I write in those instead of any of these which is part of why there’s a long delay in my stuff lol! Someday I might make a “series” of just “Hey Everyone Here’s some Trash Fics That Have No Connection and No Ends!” to get it out there but that day is not this day.

THERE’S A LOT OF THEM SORRY FOR THE LONG POST Y’ALL Current Focus: I know I keep saying there’s more with Let’s Try This Again, but there is! I’m not sure why i keep getting hung up on the chapters but the next one’s almost ready to go, and we have at least 7 more chapters after that! Up Next: 1. I have the still horribly working title named “Barriss finds Ahsoka via sonar”, which is set during the Rebellion era. Ahsoka goes to find a potential Jedi and it turns out to be Barriss. The two struggle with their re-connection and the lingering feelings of hurt and love. Dramatic but also some fun/funny? It’s close but I need to put more on the ending. 2. Fulcrum and the Negotiator is (another) time travel AU where Adult Ahsoka goes back in time and helps to end the clone wars and out Palpatine as Fulcrum. Then Obi-Wan finds her and it goes more into her, him, and Anakin trying to figure themselves out.

3. DECLARATIONS! It will live again! I’m feeling better and better about the idea that the “quality” will “drop” on it. I needed emotional distance and I think I’m getting closer to actually getting back to it. I no longer have a beta for this fic and I’m nervous about the length of it, I looked at it again and realized we might be further along than I thought we were, but it’s still in season 1 of the series and I want to actually follow that through to the end if not more.

4. Close But No Cigar Universe! I have SEVERAL stories for this AU still:

a. “Journey of the Wills” (yes I do mean Wills and not Whills) The in between story following Anakin and Ahsoka as they visit Shili, Tatooine, and eventually land on Raada, the B plot is Yoda and Qui Gon getting a call to Dagobah.

b. “The Siege of Raada” The one where Palpatine finally over extends his reach, but mostly because Count Dooku has an ego and Grievous has a score to settle. This would include post siege content (some of which I’ve posted).

c. “Untitled Mother’s Fic” I got the suggestion (I wanna say from bobkitten but it may have been dontcallmebugaboo) that Shmi and  Azaahsa meet and talk. I liked it! 5. Barriss Haunts Ahsoka needs a massive overhaul I’ve realized, and as a consequence keeps getting shoved further back on the back burner. :| I want me some ghost shenanigans and mild horror dang it!

6. Passing (the fake dating AU) actually has at least another 16 chapters/2-3 new stories I’ve slapped summaries/outlines for down. It had a much warmer reception than I expected both here and on AO3, so I might write more stories in that AU. Not sure If I’d add them onto Passing or make it a series, hence the weird numbers up above lol TENTATIVES (Aka, the fics muc less likely to be finished/light of day, but I do like them! I refuse to call them dead yet since I do go in and edit or write for all of them on and off) 1. Emperor Sassy Pants Sends his Evil Daughter to School (The one where Obi-Wan is a Sith in the senate playing his own long con game against Palpatine and the Jedi along with his Apprentice Ahsoka, who he finds instead of Plo. So also I guess a Sith!Ahsoka and Double Agent!Ahsoka fic? Most just intimidated by how /long/ of a fic this would need to be, and how much Legends/EU research I personally feel I need to do to make it work.) 2. Dying to Live (On Ahsoka’s resurrection on Mortis, she loses the ability to die. Instead “resetting” to an earlier point until she survives. Eventually Anakin finds out, but the tonal shift between the first and second part is....problematic to say the least.) 3. Father’s Daughter-Title Pending (originally it’s own piece, I think it is actually part of the Padme Says No AU. Just further exploring them as a family post Palpatine’s fall. I really like the idea of this, but since I’m now retconning the original framework I need to basically re-write the whole thing and just keep a few small parts I liked) 4. Rex & Ahsoka are Bros, a series of one shots. (I’ve actually posted less than half of what I have written, but the remaining ones need a lot of character tweaking so they stop being sooooo OOC)

5. Untitled Rex&Anakin OR Rex/Anakin Fic (L-LOOK, I had my ego stroked a lot recently over these types of fics and I do like the ideas, but right now everything I’ve come up with is disconnected and disjointed. I need to lay out a framework or outline to know where the hell I’m going first. Also I’m hilarious not confident in the way I write Rex, or the way I write him and Anakin interacting so this has been A Trip and A Thing on that side as well.)

6. The Werewolf AU (I’ve got over 45k words sunk into basically the outline with some scenes written out. Two problems on this one. 1. This needs massive, massive overhauling to adjust the gore and explicit content to match more with what I’m trying to write. The first part is horror the second part is campy humor found family and the disconnect is killing me. 2. I like the overall concepts of this enough that I started drafting out a YA Original Novel based on the world (the story would have some major differences as it’s /NOT/ a found family now). So I feel like I need to kill the 45k Star Wars AU and actually write the damned book instead.)

[catoftheclans23]

Weird Werecat Warriors Fanfic 4

I want to see teen Leopardnose so bad!  lol, her style is based off my own.  i used to wear black jackets and camo pants, listen to all the emo bands XD

Leopardnose dressed herself in white blouse, purple jacket, and green skirt that was long but loose.  She looked over at the photos on her nightstand.  A photo stood of herself with Rainwhisker, their kits.  Another stood featuring a young Goldenflower.  To one side of her was Swiftpaw and on the other, Tigerstar, then -claw.  Each held a kit;  Swiftpaw had Tawnykit, Goldenflower held a happy Bramblekit, and Tigerclaw held the runt he had named after his mother, Leopardkit.  All were dressed in their best, nice clothing they’d never wear again.   She left the bedroom, hoping to escape the feeling of emptiness.  In the kitchen, Mossmask had prepared breakfast and was eating it with Tigerstar and Duskpaw.   “So why were Ashfur and Redflower there?” Duskpaw asked.   Leopardnose assumed her younger daughters were out of the home already.  She seated herself at the table and reached for a serving of squirrel and egg. Mossmask was speaking, “Ashfur wants to take his grudge with Squirrelflight out on Firestar to make her suffer too.  And Redflower has daddy issues.” Duskpaw nodded.   “I’m proud of you,” Leopardnose said to her son. Tigerstar added, “As am I.  You proved yourself something to be reckoned with last night.” Duskpaw beamed.  “I’m at your service, sir!” Leopardnose could tell her father was pleased with the young tom.  It made her feel a little better.  But her heart still ached for her mate and mother.   “Do you think Splashwing will really keep his mouth shut?” Mossmask asked. Leopardnose sighed, “I don’t know, but I hope so.” Tigerstar rumbled, “I think he understands if he doesn’t, he’ll have to pay for it.” Leopardnose wasn’t so sure.  Splashwing had always been so kind and… innocent.  Not really their type.  He was very much his mother’s son, from appearance to emotions. Leopardnose and Tigerstar were the only ones in their home.  She sat at her desk, laptop open and screen blank.  She brought her hands to her forehead.   “You’ve been so stressed as of late,” Tigerstar was sitting across the room, one leg up on his knee, and a book of crosswords and a pen in his hands, she knew it. “Well yeah!” She turned in the chair, her hands reaching up in exasperation, “I’m grief-stricken!” He frowned at her, “StarClan won’t welcome us as I’m sure they did for them.” Leopardnose knew it was true.   Her head hung and she slowly turned back to the screen.  She mumbled, “I still miss them.”  And then her head lifted and an ear flicked, “Besides, you at least made terms better between you and Goldenflower before she died; Rainwhisker last heard me remind him that I wanted his half-brother before I cared about him!” Tigerstar was watching her.  She wondered what he felt. They had always been close, but there were still times that he was a mystery. Tears began to stain her cheeks, “I insinuated I’d go back to chasing Ashfur….” “Now you can.” Tigerstar commented. “Oh please, he'll help me out but only to get at Squirrelflight.” Leopardnose was bitter.  Hurt and bitter.  She shook it away, “Not that I’d take another mate.” Tigerstar shrugged, “It’s okay if you do.” She rolled her eyes, “Of course you’d say that.” He said nothing.   Father and daughter walked into the main center of camp.  Here, fires burned in pits and and kill hung on racks, for those in need to take.  She looked around.  They no longer caught nervous glances, though the werecats of ThunderClan were not happy about Tigerstar’s presence.   “Hello Brightheart,” Leopardnose meowed with courtesy. The scarred warrior gave a slight nod, “Leopardnose.” “Any news?” Leopardnose asked. The other replied, “Not that I’ve heard.” “Well, have a good day,” Leopardnose meowed and continued onward, her father following. Leopardnose sighed.  She was feeling the effects of her loved ones’ deaths.  It reminded her of when she was a young warrior—Mossmask was but an apprentice....  Her mentor, Frostfur, refused to continue with the clans to a new territory.  She hadn’t been the only one, but the primary cat she cared about.  Back then, the humans were waging war with the clans, forcing them to move by encroaching on their territory. She felt a heavy paw on her shoulder, looked over, and saw her father.   “I know I need to be strong.” Leopardnose said. She wished she could say things had been easier “in the good ol' days” but it wasn’t so.  She recalled the troubles of her childhood, of her distressed teenage self who wore black jackets and camo pants, and listened to only all the emo bands.

[3piox]

kotor character meme

based on this post :3 this got long as hell but it’s very self indulgent and mostly just for myself but i wanted to post it. under cut!

REVAN

NAME: vivza sanstar (i wanted to be EXTREMELY star wars-y. it’s no yolo ziff but i’m still pretty happy)

GENDER: f 

APPEARANCE: this one! i basically cast gong li. a la darth maul, much shorter than you might expect but threatening enough to make up for it (5′5″ but no napoleon complex, she’s VERY confident)

FAVORITE HOBBY: swoop racing. lol. or riling people up. she’s very into arcania, specifically into the force equivalent of universal string theory and quantum mechanics. she like, wrote papers on this stuff and everything. her ‘chill mode’ is banging ladies and building, like, rube goldberg machines. but she doesn’t really have a chill mode so.

BIRTH PLANET: tatooine. jk. a lush planet! some part of revan still loves the sense of rain through warm tropical canopies. her parents were normal people, maybe one mildly force sensitive. they were proud to send her to the jedi as a baby, but never recognized her in the famous war hero -- revan named herself that, and her birth name is lost to the sands of time. revan doesn’t spare them much thought.

PERSONALITY: scorpio/sagittarius cusp. lol. inventive, clever, outspoken, always ‘on’ in a way, but also laidback, the spirit of a wanderer, sees no limits. do or do not, there is no try? yeah, she always does. cocky, naturally. brutally analytical -- she can compartmentalize like nobody’s business, one of the things that made the mindwipe easier to take. totally utilitarian, but grows more empathy after the mindwipe. a strange, compelling gal with a frat boy’s sense of humour.

KREIA: “fine, master.” see above, about compartmentalizing? she can do this with relationships too. she loved kreia as any student loves their teacher, but once she felt kreia had nothing else to teach her, she was on to the next. kreia did not take well to this. when revan came back like nothing had changed, kreia was hard pressed to put her bitterness behind her, and revan saw it as criticism which her ego could not take, so their reunion didn’t last long. once again, revan took what she needed, and left. 

kreia still loves her, and she had dreams where they both got their redemption and stood shoulder by shoulder again, but -- she was too much of a realist to ever dwell on that. revan obvsly loves hilarious slammin’ frankness (see HK) and i believe kreia taught her that and it’s something she really admires about her. “speak your mind, padawan”

MALAK: best of bros. malak was a shy kid, very quiet, reserved, and like so many others was drawn to the sun of revan’s personality. she took him under her wing (figuratively, as he’s always been MUCH BIGGER than her) and she’s been treating him like a little brother/padawan since they were knee high. she loves telling people what to do, and malak was appropriately obedient while also having some fire to him. war forged them into closeness again after they drifted apart in their knighthoods, and malak followed her into hell with a grim smile. i think the turning point in their relationship wasn’t malak’s bitterness about being relegated to apprentice, but because revan -- who, while blunt to the point of rudeness at times, was ultimately very fair-minded and protective -- turned from teasing figure to a bully. malak felt emasculated and, well, one thing led to another. after realizing who she was, revan felt compelled to try and redeem malak, to prove that she wasn’t some fluke, and she mourns him still. 

EXILE: in my fantasies? they FUCKED. 

but seriously. i think there’s something to be said about revan sending the exile to die and thus probably not liking her very much, but for my revan and exile, it’s more a matter of revan’s utilitarian brutality overcoming any feelings she had. the exile was a threat because of her own sway, charm, and growing reluctance with the war -- the exile was talking about going home after malachor, and revan couldn’t have that. she was already thinking about the future, about parting ways with the jedi order and what she needed for that, which included jedi loyal to her and her alone.

before the war: while they were a few years apart in age (exile older) they were very similar, being charming prodigies and all, and i think the council was afraid of them meeting. their paths rarely intersected until knighthood, where they were goaded into a spar that still lives in legend in the halls of the dantooine temple. after that they had a friendly rivalry, but their personalities clashed enough that real socialization wasn’t a hobby of theirs. the exile did get along more with malak (they were both quiet types) so that was another connection they had.

after malachor v, the exile obviously survived, and she came to revan to tell her that she was returning. (she felt it was the courteous thing to do.) revan was angered, but she knew she couldn’t control the exile, so she let her go. they didn’t meet again until wild space and the exile rescuing her. the fact that they didn’t have a deep connection only increases revan’s shock at the exile doing this for her.

“I didn’t think you liked me very much,” she jokes.

“I don’t,” the Exile says. “But I do my duty. Come along.”

after that, they start to develop a real relationship, because pretty much no one else in the galaxy knows what they’ve been through

HERO OR TYRANT: revan told herself she was doing it for the good of the galaxy, but the truth is, she fell before she even really recognized this other threat. she had an ego (practically a god complex) and it drove her to do what had never been done before to prove her greatness -- she didn’t go to war to save people, she went to war because she knew she could stop the mandalorians. and they had to be stopped! so it was easy to justify. 

she ISN’T the type to destroy the galaxy -- she’s fascinated by it’s variations and complexities, and it’s her playground, so she did want to keep it safe. she would have done anything to save it, and to her, anyone who would argue with her methods just wasn’t #deep or #woke enough to see that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. she was probably the kind of kid who pulled legs off bugs, not a sociopath but the pursuit of knowledge, of truth, overwhelms everything.

MEMORIES: she was a spice smuggler and arms dealer, lol. i like to think the council picked that shady background because they wanted to cover up for what THEY saw as an unavoidable moral bankruptcy of character.

her birth planet was kept the same; they used a single mother and an absent dad in place of her single, female master, but also had her mother die young -- ‘vivza’ had to make her own way in the world. a han solo heart of gold type. the whole backstory was #fake but the council knew all the best lies are truths (from a certain point of view ...) so they kept her personality as intact as they could, maintained her most influential memories thru a different lens -- her relationship with her mom mirrors her one with kreia, some of the people she saved stayed the same even if her method was different, she still likes geek shit, etc.

i think there wasn’t really a whole real person’s worth of memories in there -- that would have been absurd to craft -- i think they just impressed the basic bio facts into her, empathized some stuff, then let the force and her own mind fill in the rest. and waking up on the spire, how would she know this wasn’t natural, the gaps of her memory and the like? she’s practically a newborn in some ways -- she doesn’t know that’s not what minds are supposed to be like, and so much of ‘original revan’ is there that she doesn’t feel broken. she kind of thinks she has amnesia for a while? but also doesn’t feel amnesiac. it’s a weird sensation, needless to say.

finding out these memories were fake was really, really hard for her. not so much because she’s attached to them -- since stuff like her mom and her smuggling days weren’t real it’s almost like they’re a dream to her. but the violation of it -- that really disturbed her. her identity was something she was used to trading on, as revan as as vivza the smuggling queen of the outer rim, and she felt like nothing after finding out. she desperately tried to claim again and again that she was vivza but with each moment after the reveal the name becomes more and more like a stranger to her. 

she doesn’t get her memories back in some huge flood, but she gets lots of visions of the past and the force/her mind subtly corrects and aligns some of the fake memories even more into a shape she once knew and she does start remembering things naturally over the years. a lot comes back when she’s alone in wild space. she comes to accept that she’s revan, but she’s scared of the idea of being her old mind -- she doesn’t like the person she was as a sith. she misses the ignorance of being vivza. vivza is, to her, both a punishment and a forgiveness, an old home she can’t return to, and something she could never have but wished to keep. 

vivza hated the sith. revan knows the sith can be redeemed. knows why you would become a sith. this dissonance is the one thing she really keeps from her days as vivza.

ROMANCE: bastila, duh. you give me that forbidden jedi romance with a prissy british beauty who has a deep connection with ur character, and i’m gonna smash that. she’s definitely revan’s type too. she likes someone she can rile up lol. the #reveal was a cold shower. again, massive violation, and a big gulf between them because in her mind bastila was this perfect jedi who had already ended their relationship for that reason, and now -- there was no way for them to reconcile. 

after everything, bastila was scarred by her own fall and her complicity in revan’s mindwipe/use as a tool. revan and her danced around each other for months after the war, both obstinately focused on rebuilding the republic/the order, but they still had their bond and revan knew bastila was deeply conflicted just as bastila knew that revan was reconciling more and more with her old self. one night revan comes to comfort bastila after a dream, and they talked all night and all day until the night again. after that, they tentatively rebuilt their relationship. and revan totally knocked her up w the ~magic of the force~ right before she had to go. 

sadly, they didn’t have much time together before revan went jetting off. bastila misses her like she misses a limb; she’s in a haze as the galaxy falls apart around her. revan does better b/c she’s still little miss compartmentalization but when she dreams at night, alone in empty space, it’s bastila she dreams about. a very deep, mutual love and respect between them.

FAVE CREWMEMBER: canderous was a HOOT -- after the reveal, revan was like “godDAMN, is the reason i love listening to canderous’s awful war stories because i was THERE?” -- they’d spend hours in the back, drinkin’ brewskies and making non-PC jokes LOL. also, jolee. she loves his views on the code -- it doesn’t matter if she’s vivza or revan, she appreciates a man who knows you can love without letting it rule you. his repeated insistence that she was some kind of dark thing really stuck under her skin; when he finally gave her his whole-hearted approval it really meant something. she never got that from kreia or any other master; some part of her responds to hearing it from him. also, they both like messing with people. all their conversations were just her acting the grumpy padawan and him the snarky master LOL.

after she learns who she was she daydreams that if jolee had actually been her master, she wouldn’t have fallen.

ENDING: the LS ending i’m a sappy good guy. bastila lives!

POST GAME: in short: revan and her pals try and restore the republic and the order and she patches things up with bastila, but soon is compelled to rush off to try and deal with this problem all on her own. it’s a redemption of sorts but also -- well, remember how i said her ego compelled her to dominate the galaxy? well, her ego also says that saving the galaxy isn’t ‘enough’ to prove herself -- she has to keep doing more, more, more. this restlessness will never fade. 

she goes thru hell out there in unknown space, captivity, torture, the insanity of loneliness, all that fun stuff. the exile rescues her and it takes months to come back home. she’s been gone for like, so many years. she’s back just in time to talk to canderous about not starting another war, but she’s also tired as fuck. mostly she just wants to sleep. 

bastila hovers but says nothing. it drives her up the wall. they have a big, big fight, and it looks like they’ll NEVER TALK AGAIN OH NO when bastila gets over her pride and takes her to see their kid -- still not force sensitive, but being raised in the order. “I see the heights he will rise to,” Bastila says. “Don’t you? Don’t you see everything we’ve built? Our legacy?” and revan knows she never wants to leave this woman’s side again. the only time she feels her soul settle is when she’s lost in bastila. 

they have an extremely delayed honeymoon period and actually get married and all that fun stuff. probably stuff happens but w/e i just want to maintain that they’re HAPPY but also kind of codependent and leave the galaxy to sort itself out for the most part -- they build up the jedi to staggering new heights in part just to keep another wall between themselves and the rest of the galaxy that has done nothing but stress them out for all their lives. retired lesbian’s, y’all.

jolee ends up in hiding and helping escaped jedi during kotor 2. he probably dies but i refuse to think about this. so in MY version he eventually turns up, grumpy and probably missing some body parts, insisting he DOESN’T want to have anything to do with anyone, but ends up a member of the high council anyways. the exile helps a lot, actually; she’s the sort of steady mind and “ok listen buddy i actually got KICKED OUT of the order so like, let’s talk.” please imagine him living like a long ass time and yelling at initiates to get off his metaphorical lawn and yet being super popular with them. mission and zaalbar travel a bunch and this leads to the whole business venture. i like to think they spent some time on kashyyyk where she became an honorary wookie and has a wookie name and everything ..... just like my headcanon for han solo lol. 

canderous rebuilds the mandalorians (more on that below.) carth is ofc an admiral and he really looks out for bastila when everything goes to shit. he totally gives revan a piece of his mind for leaving bastila and all of them when revan comes back, but as ever with carth, he goes from nuclear to chill in about .5 seconds and then they’re bros again. when vaner (who might have a diff name in mine because that one is LOL) becomes supreme chancellor carth is like, head of his security. he’s totally uncle carth even if bastila and revan aren’t traditional parents lmao. i didn’t save carth’s son (bc i didn’t realize i could ....) so carth definitely puts his parenting urges in there. i like to think he ends up adopting some war orphans down the line, idk.

RANDOM STUFF: she’s not an amazing fighter lol. or tech savvy or any of that. she main strengths are her mad charisma and her out of the box clever thinking. and a very crude application of the force ie i just spammed force wave through most enemy fields lol. before her mind wipe she was a really good brawler? like, she’d be from the anakin & luke skywalker school of “angry overhead chops at everything” lightsaber combat but her real love was just fucking throwing down. she was good at it too. i think the council sort of undid a lot of her fighting skills but they couldn’t erase her body memory so she has a very confused reaction between brain and body that makes her clumsy in fights. it gets better with training but she never totally shakes that particular lobotomy to her talents that the council did to hamper her ‘just in case.’

EXILE

NAME: bree rahanna

GENDER: f

APPEARANCE: this one! like her. tall af -- a bit over 6′. swole. powerhouse. she wields a double-bladed lightsaber and when she’s bearing down on you on the battlefield, you run. ear piercings, beaded hair (always trying new hairstyles), loves accessorizing. looks great in green. very beautiful, but she doesn’t think much of it. very jedi-like ‘my body is just a vessel’ attitude.

FAVOURITE HOBBY: definitely not swoop racing. she likes computer stuff -- the sort of impersonal element. even droids are a bit too much like people for her tastes at times. she’s an introvert, basically, she’d rather just write code and repair ships and such. she used to love to meditate before her exile -- after, without the force, it was just depressing. replaced it with music -- singing by herself, listening to others, she’s basically always humming. she likes how it fills up empty spaces. a bit of a hoarder -- in another life, she’s the kind of person who likes antiquing, and as is, she just collects various bits and bobs that catch her eye.

FROM? GOING?: i like to think she came more from the mid-rim. maybe like (na)jheda. was a little older when she was brought to the temple, maybe 4 or 5? it gave her a bit of a healthier concept of family/relationships. child of a single father who felt that he couldn’t provide for his daughter the way the jedi could. bree thinks of him, but also thinks it would be awkward to ever visit, since the jedi are her family now. she’s always wanted to go where she feels wanted and needed -- her greatest fear is stagnation.

PERSONALITY: capricorn. ambitious, practical, patient, fond of plans and figuring things out -- but she doesn’t like when things don’t fit her worldview and can get very #negative. she’s actually very charming -- her steady way of speaking, dry sense of humour, and habit of looking at whoever is talking like they’re the only person in the galaxy make her very popular, and she’s got a leader’s heart through and through. 

but she doesn’t consider herself charming because she’s not like, say, super gregarious cult leader revan type charming. she wants to be her best, and she has a deep sense of faith and loyalty -- she accepted her banishment from the order, would later accept their attempt to cut her off from the force again, and decided to return to the order once she felt worthy of it, not the other way around. 

BETWEEN THE WAR AND PERAGUS: she’s on the very edges of known space, not paying much attention to anything -- there are rumours of a war out there, but it’s not immediate to her. working as a repair person, she drifts in and out of various systems, relieved that nobody out there seems to know what a jedi is, that the faces are so different from everything she’s known. she’s a bit of an oddity wherever she goes, so she takes to hiding herself under masks and cloaks and the such, and thinks of revan whenever she does. wonders how revan’s identity maybe got lost when she first put on that mask. wonders if she lost herself. 

she’s very, very lonely -- she craves the stability of real relationships, a real routine and a home, but she feels like she shouldn’t, she can’t, out here. people are still drawn to her, but she turns them all away. her exile was just as much self-imposed as anything else.

REVAN: well, all of the above in revan’s section. from her side of things: she sometimes envied revan. most knights did; revan was the shining golden child of the order, and plenty were compared to her and found wanting. bree was one such; she never received the same kind of praise revan did. her ability to draw people to her made the council suspicious of her and she found herself under much scrutiny, and she rebelled by becoming a surer leader, gathering friends to protect her from the disregard of the council. revan, on the other hand, seemed beloved by all, with very little trouble.

these feelings, combined with the general clash of their personalities, means that bree always felt wrong-footed around revan. maybe this is what saved her; revan’s regard would make any person feel empowered, but bree’s reluctance to see them as friends meant that she didn’t get hooked on the idea of power. as is, it marks the differences between them; revan only creates the illusion of empowering others while keeping all control/power for herself, but bree genuinely does this, genuinely boosts people up. she’ll never know that revan was jealous herself of bree’s real connections; revan could feel lonely at times.

bree didn’t think revan would fall; like obi-wan about anakin, it was kind of a, “i trust my shady pal to reject the dark side.” she didn’t even realize that revan had fallen after malachor; she just thought revan couldn’t face what they’d done yet. it was a bit of a shock for her to come back to known space and learn that revan had gone FULL SITH and then gotten redeemed and saved the galaxy while she was away. it makes her realize she doesn’t know revan at all. this unexpectedly saddens her; her own time away from the order has allowed her to become more wholly critical of them, and she thinks that revan and her always had more in common than she’d care to admit.

it’s this, and knowing that revan is needed, and everything revan represents about herself and the war -- this is why she goes after revan in wild space, and this is part of her healing process. both of theirs, really, as they discover on the long trip back home.

ATRIS: bree doesn’t really ‘get’ her effect on others, so she has a hard time reading their feelings. it’s the flipside to the deep pull/ability to form bonds that she has: she brings people in, but she has no idea what to do with them when they’re there. atris is an example of this. she and atris were contemporaries and very good friends, but when atris came to realize the depth of feeling she had for bree, it scared her. she retreated into her histories and watched bree from afar, and bree was like, “um ... i think my friend doesn’t like me now??? ouch okay ... i will releasemy angst about this into the force and move on” and atris was like “oh i see how it is she’s forgotten about me, friend to all is friend to none!”

this righteousness (and sense of betrayal) continued when bree followed revan into war, but as the archivist recording the war and seeing its atrocities she found herself feeling guilty -- not just for doing nothing, but also for allowing bree to go off alone. she feels that bree, like so many others, has fallen for revan’s charms and it sparks envy in her. if only she had the nerve to do what revan and bree did, if only she were bolder, like this matched pair of sun and moon that revan and bree are -- an undeniable, natural force. she knows these feelings aren’t jedi-like and tries to smother them under anger at their treachery, but she continues to nurse this jealousy and it fuels her later actions.

she didn’t feel as triumphant about exiling bree as she thought she would, though. 

bree was hurt by atris’s negative feelings for her, and when it came to their final battle, all she wanted was a reason why. atris’s explanation of her feelings was not at all what she was expecting, but it was a relief to know it wasn’t just b/c atris saw some horrible thing in her. she didn’t want to kill atris -- in atris’s own fall, she saw what could have happened to her if her own jealousy of revan had become dark. she thinks of her and atris as two sides of the same coin in a way, and atris would be humbled to learn that bree sees them that way, since she felt unimportant to bree for so long.

KREIA: bree LOVED kreia because i loved kreia. her relationship with kreia was alike to her one with revan -- she felt kreia walked on a knife’s edge but figured it wasn’t a risk because she knew her. their bond was the deepest one she’s ever felt, since she never had a proper master. in many ways bree was starved for some teacherly affection lol so she clung to kreia. she didn’t agree with kreia’s utilitarian/nihilistic views (she’s more a ‘sacrifice herself first and foremost’ type) but she respected kreia’s wisdom. she flourished under kreia’s teachings, and her greatest hope was that she could teach kreia some things in turns -- they say a proper master/padawan relationship goes both ways. 

kreia was also someone who seemed to really understand what she’d been through -- bao-dur was also in the war, for example, but he didn’t have to make decisions the way bree had to. kreia knows what it is to make hard choices, and bree respects that. basically, kreia made her feel less alone. she would have done anything to redeem kreia in the end -- she came to terms with the fact that she didn’t fall (as she long suspected, since she was exiled) but the line between a jedi and a fallen jedi is a very thin one indeed. she realized she does believe in redemption, truly madly deeply, and if kreia had surrendered she would have welcomed kreia back with open arms. 

kreia loved and respected her too, and to me her death was akin to malak’s -- changing after so many years as a sith would have been the hardest thing they could have ever done, but revan and bree would have stood by them. like revan, bree mourns kreia’s passing. she likes to think that sometimes, she can still feel kreia, hear her as a whisper in the back of her head giving her advice, but that’s just a fancy.

MICAL OR BRIANNA: both! #MODS

REGRET: yes, definitely. her guilt about the war and malachor is strange -- because she cut herself off from the force to avoid the pain of it her brain sort of refuses to touch on it too closely, glosses over the details of what she’s done. it’s a quiet, pervasive sort of inner melancholia. yet she also stands by the fact that she did what she did to help the galaxy and she would do it all over again if need be -- she doesn’t believe in excuses, it’s more like, she’s very practical about the WHY of her doing it and accepting and seeking punishment for her culpability after the fact. she never wants to go to war again, that’s for sure -- but i think she can never regret the war to the point of never having wanted to do it in the first place because the idea of the war being pointless would shatter her.

TRAUMATIZED BY VISIONS: i think she was never the type to have much of the ‘unified force’ visions type, so the vividness of the experience was very weird for her. but she’s a good egg, so it worked out -- she rejected malak’s offer, she helped the republic soldiers (which made her realize that while she WOULD do it all over again, she would try and do it better, which is maybe a fallacy but she can be stubborn when she digs her heels in about something.) she defended kreia against her companions -- because from her POV, her companions were baselessly attacking kreia purely for being a sith when kreia hadn’t done anything yet and could be brought back. (she tried to just knock them out, but ofc kreia killed them all. she vows that if, in reality, kreia were to ever hurt her other friends she would do something about it. she won’t have their blood on her hands again.) some of this was seeing malak reminded her of revan ... and of course, revan is the final vision. 

the sight of herself as a darksider at revan’s side was the most unsettling part of the experience, actually. it was the moment she realized just how important she could have been to revan. revan was also the only one she couldn’t tell herself was a vision even though intellectually she knew it to be -- this was no thought exercise, no abstract vision from the force. this felt so real it was like she had actually fallen for a second. if she hadn’t been able to fight/slay revan, she would have been more fucked up, but still -- she’s a jedi and i think like? she ultimately treated the experience like the knighthood trials she’d had to do -- it’s not pretty to face the dark corners of your mind, but you must.

ROMANCE: lesbian triad with brianna and visas, natch!

LS/DS: lightsided all the way, baby

THE ORDER: now THERE’S a kettle of fish. otoh, the jedi are her family, her calling, her meaning. she’s a believer, and she accepts her punishments and that she could have had more faith in the council. otoh, being exiled from the order was a punch to the gut -- she’d have preferred execution, tbh. she was relieved to learn they hadn’t cut her off from the force but it stung that they had let her go on for all those years without the force, believing it a punishment, like they were piggybacking on her self-inflicted suffering to teach her a lesson. she sees their failings. she felt betrayed.

but she is a very level-headed person, and she’s not a blind follower. she has always been the type to question her masters. she thinks there are valid reasons to leave the order. she doesn’t by-the-book the code, more doing what the force tells her is right (no wonder she was so lost those years of travel! she had no guidance of any kind; she didn’t know how to be a person, it was a lesson she needed to learn.) 

ultimately, she is a jedi. for the first chunk of the journey she tried to hide from it, didn’t use the force, didn’t dress in the robes, didn’t identify as one and was defensive if someone called her a jedi. but coming to dantooine changed something in her -- she felt it would be callow to enter the temple dressed like some merc with a blaster. so she gave in to her lightsaber and her robes and entered as a jedi. the most important part was meeting the lost padawan thief -- in the girl’s childlike inability to survive/over-reliance on her master she saw what she wasn’t. she was a grown woman, a general, a knight, a master, someone who had survived a decade with no force, someone who had never needed a master to hold her hand. she knew right then that she would always be a jedi, and that there was more to being a jedi than simply calling yourself one. 

so she started to heal in her relationship with the order going forward. she started to talk more openly of jedi practises to her companions, and started to train them. she didn’t want the jedi order to die. she knew it was so much more than any one person, or even a temple of people -- it’s something necessary, and sacred.

POST-GAME: yes, fully reconnected with the force. and yes, as mentioned above, she finds revan. it’s a thrilling journey. bastila didn’t want her to go -- “the order needs you” “i’m a jedi, not a bureaucrat” “you are more than that. you are a light, a leader, a guiding star. i cannot --” “and yet, you will.” her friends wanted her to leave even less, but they understood it was something she needed to do, and were touched by the trust she placed in them. brianna totally tried to sneak into the cargo hold of her ship. visas joined her. bree had to practically carry them both out, lol. 

when she comes back with revan she’s surprised to find people still want her to lead, not revan. revan is all “omg sis please .... half of them are worried i’ll go sith again the other half don’t even know who i am ..... you’re the one who rebuilt the order” and yeah bree for grandmaster i don’t make the rules that’s just how it is. more jedi come out of the woodwork as things settle down and the order starts to flourish again and bree HATES having to deal with political types and all that but she does it because well. she gotta. 

her life is pretty quiet lol i actually think if any drama happens it’ll fall more on revan’s head than hers but if revan gets into trouble bree is there in a heartbeat. they’re bonded now (not force-wise, spiritually) and have become like sisters. bree probably outlives revan and it hurts.

POST-GAME FOR COMPANIONS: mira, mical, brianna and visas all become jedi. (mira and brianna after the game’s timeline because i could NOT with them for some reason lol ...) my atton died </3 and bree mourns him in quiet moments where she plays pazaak in her head against his ghost. visas turns out to be surprisingly good with younglings -- it’s been so long since she’s seen young lives brimming with the force, and it reminds her of home. and the kids LOVE her -- everyone wants visas as a master. there have been fistfights over this. (it took her a long time to accept being called master, side note.)

brianna is NOT good with kids and is like “i shall focus on improving security ...” but she totally creates a brand new form that really integrates hand-to-hand with lightsaber combat. it’s very popular. brianna also tries to go home but the sisters never do forgive her. (it’s hard for her loved ones to watch; she always needs to be told she has a new family.) canderous re-establishes mandalore and starts getting some ideas in his head about a new conquest to build up pride again but that’s when revan comes back and is like “no, bad boy, down, sit” and like, no mandalorian legend will EVER admit that the Savior of the Mandalorian Peoples Canderous Mandalore was totally whipped by a jedi. instead they focus on infrastructure! politics! social securities! other exciting things!

mira becomes something of an errant knight -- she’s not really into the trappings of the order at all, but she calls herself a jedi in honour of bree and the training she got. she likes to travel around and just help out where she can. she’s still very good at finding people; bounty proceeds mostly go to families of the victims of whomever she catches and other times it’s just like, finding a lost little girl. she loves it, and it’s a hell of a lot easier with the force. i also bet she leaves a trail of broken hearts all over the galaxy lol. 

mical works in the archives and bree likes to be like “hey you worked for the republic go talk to their representatives for me” and he only lets her get away with this 1/2 the time. the other 1/2 he’s like “you must forgive me i have holobooks to sort ....” and then disappears for like, a week, into the stacks. bree always has to send someone in there to find him and then inevitably they’ll learn he actually dipped out to go track down a rare copy of something or another on a planet a trillion miles away and he’ll be back in a month with super rare items and a mild “oh sorry you were looking for me?” it drives her up the wall.

t3 and hk go with her when she retrieves revan and stick close to the both of them for the rest of their lives, natch.

RANDOM STUFF: unlike revan, VERY good at fighting and tech stuff and all that. she’s mad talented. she has a lot of random skills that she happens to be AMAZING at, like, baking and droid design and fake crying and poetry writing and all this stuff. everyone’s used to saying “well, bree probably knows how...” 

the punchline is that she SUCKS at flying and the idea of swoop racing makes her want to vomit. revan loves that there’s this one thing she’s VASTLY better at and will challenge bree to flying/driving/swooping related challenges that she knows bree can’t help but accept even though she HATES it. it’s a running joke in the order that their famous, powerful grandmaster can’t even use a speeder without something going horribly wrong.

the running theme of all of these is I HAVE SUFFERED ENOUGH I DESERVE A SOFT EPILOGUE. also, as with luke in canon, and revan in swtor ‘canon’, i think there’s this ‘need’ you see in various fictions where a great hero cannot live a normal life in the ‘after’ -- they must either die, or disappear. it’s like we can’t accept the idea that they could be ‘ordinary’ and ‘brought down.’ that it’s a disservice to their story in some way. but one of my favourite fantasy authors is tamora pierce and i always loved that her heroes get to live, get to marry and settle down and appear in future stories centered on new heroes. i love the idea of a living legend who just wants to be a person like anyone else. i’m not opposed to further drama in their lives, keeps it spicy, but yeah -- i want revan and the exile to be around, to have to deal with the ins and outs of daily life, to do the hard work of rebuilding the order, the republic. i want them to be tangible beings. so. that’s my take on it.