#like. the ascension thing

[bestworstcase]

unrelated. “it’s not how it seems; well i suppose it is, but not the way you think, if you think like alyx… which it seems like you do!”

& “i gave him something new to do for the moment”

huntresses are heroes. we protect people who can’t protect themselves. eight volumes standing tall, bulwark between the grimm and the rest of the world. slaying monsters. keeping people safe

it’s not the real jabberwalker it’s neo. the first one walloped ruby pretty good but even doubled in size wby dusted it like it was nothing, and as soon as it shattered they recognized it as neo’s handiwork

go, the cat says. we’ll hold them off. run, says the rusted knight.

they run away and ruby looks over her shoulder and the hawker gets torn apart. they run away and the teapot lady sobs in terrified devastation and weiss whispers i am so tired of leaving places in ashes

the thing is they could have won this fight, easily. the real jabberwalker is a coward, neo’s constructs can only take a few hits each, and she only has so much aura.

but they’re so broken down. so scared. all this lacerating self-doubt lurking underneath.

there’s no shame in abstaining only in retreat

the cat tells them to go

the cat saved them from the red prince. the cat intervened to protect ruby during the herbalist’s trial. the cat gives them permission to retreat and they do because for all the “i am a huntress!” declarations they made an hour ago something broke in all of them when they lost the fight to save penny

something really critical happened here that’s getting lost in the wuh mind control noise—they just LEFT. weiss pulls ruby away and ruby watches the hawker die; weiss sees the rising smoke the terrified departures the teapot lady crying helplessly and ruby takes her by the hand and leads her silently away. these two blame themselves so much for letting atlas fall, for losing penny, for not knowing what happened next. and now jaune’s about to tell them exactly what happened next.

whether or not the cat ‘brainwashed’ the hawker (<- thoughts still cooking) i think the more salient concern for the kids, ruby and weiss in particular, will be that they ran away that they, within the ideological framework of the huntress system, let this happen something about the reversal of huntress-defends-civilian to civilian-dies-for-huntress here. like this is the locus of everything. the point of inflection. this is why they’re HERE

[artgletic]

case study of the self-identified god

[wyrmwright]

bro he does NOT want to hear you practice your villain monologue

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

forever thinking about how the long quiet embracing their full divinity involves The Voices coming back. like yeah being plural is basically the same thing as being a godi'll cosign that

[hitorimaron]

Inspired by Time Signature by @letteredlettered

[countlessofvoids]

Me somewhere in 2026 when a new God of War game is announced and instead of Atreus or Faye oriented game it's another Kratos prequel

[thefearfulheart]

Small bit of expansion on the Clownbo timeloop au

Evbo eventually starts to find a strange comfort in the consistency of Clown’s rage at him and while everything always stays the same each time he resets…Clown always is the one person that can always surprise him in the end, something that changes things while everything else stays the same. Someone that Evbo can’t predict in the end and it’s so comforting to him ever since he began looping everything around, trying to change a preset narrative in his own crusade to win against fate and time.

There are times when he thinks about even letting Clown win.

But he enjoys the fact, an insidious thing that clings to his heart, that Clown will always lose to him and it’s…pleasing to see how enraged he gets at every loss, at every almost win that inertly ends with him feeling the pain of death and being forced to look at the man who turned into a god in his final moments. It’s something so consistent about him.

It’s such a comforting thing that Evbo lets Clown freely attack him when they see each other, feels the pain of his fists and can’t help but breath as the pain hits him. How his blood, once crimson now a thick black sludge, stains the other’s hands as he tries to kill him…and he just smiles at him since they both know he won’t die.

And clown is just shaking and breathing so heavily as he straddles him.

And Evbo in such the calmest way possible over the bloodshed…

Drags clown for a hug.

Something so tight and painful that it makes clown heave in pain and fight to get out of it, thrashes in his arms like an angry wolf. Clawing and biting until he exhausts himself.

[lynx-doodles-indie-games]

FINALLY got the designs of the canon iterators nailed down. credit to @/poppy-purpura for the inspo with purple sig! it has nestled itself into my brain and will not leave. please. someone send help. it's tearing up the blankets.

i've also been playing with features of medibang and using ancient digital coloring tutorials so the colors i initially used got warped. below the cut are my colors and the sketchbook sketch that inspired this!

[runefactorynonsense]

Melotober - Day 11 - Dream

Chosen Earthmates

[windcarvedlyre]

I just had an awful thought. You know how Venti seems obsessed with naming things?

What if he's like this because Nameless Bard genuinely never gained a name and Venti wishes he had?

A slightly less angsty alternative is that NB named Venti and his lines in the webtoon are what NB told him. That it's another way Venti is continuing his legacy.

[rainy-day-revelry]

Okay so one of my major fandoms has gotten pretty controversial since the main canon finished up, lots of people involved have done or at least been accused of some not so great things. And a lot of people left the fandom because of it which, you know, understandable.

The thing is, on Ao3 there are, depending on who is included in the fic, several periods of time from which I cannot read completed multi-chapter fics anymore because I’ll get really invested in a story and reach the last chapter and they’ll say “I heard about the drama and I’m not finishing this fic anymore. Sorry!” And like, I get it, but please, pretty please, tell me beforehand. They don’t put the Abandonded/Discontinued tag, they don’t leave it incomplete, they tag it as finished and then I stumble across it and get my heart broke.

I appreciate every author on that site, and I understand that they might not feel comfortable writing anymore, but misrepresenting your fic pisses me off. I know lots of people are okay with reading incomplete fics, they can accept that, but I’m not one of those people. There is nothing that hurts me worse than finding out that I will never get closure, and that includes in my fandoms. Don’t mislead me into thinking that there will be a conclusion and then rip the floor out from under me, you feel?

[bugwolfsstuff]

thinking about that one Perpollo time travel reading the books fic/s I read that repeatedly bashed Annabeth (and Piper) and called her abusive and Percabeth co-dependent (Both during and post MoA, you know when one of them was missing for some months and after being in TARTARUS TOGETHER)

But then turned around and somehow accidentally made Apollo literally so so fucking groomerish (and not because Percy was 16 in it) and possessive it was almost funny

And how do I know it was an accident? Both the author and several fans of the author came into the comments to defend that it 'wasn't as bad as Percabeth' when people politely pointed out that Apollo was kinda being really possessive

Yeah so basically if anyone asks me this was the exact reason I dont ship Perpollo

[rw-ascension-au]

More survivor stuff

[mitsybubbles]

I was watching X files, blacked out and I ended up with this

Bonus:

[bestworstcase]

Honestly still can't get over how you go into such well in-depth and coherent narrative deep dives! They're always such a joy to read ✨❤️ (I swear if I had your grasp of articulation I'd finally get around to polishing my note doc about Tang Sanzang/JTTW and how it relates to Starr Sanzang being the prime Summer Maiden candidate fsdf.).

ANYWAY. I just wanted to say that I didn't put two-and-two together about Alyx and Little being possibly connected until I read it in passing during one of your posts. Like after reading it, I stared at the ceiling for a few minutes as I wrapped my brain around it fsdf

It makes sense omg! Like of course Little could be Alyx in a new form!!! Alyx=Alice Liddell=Little!

I always thought that maybe Alyx was reincarnated into Juniper, because of the rabbit pin she wore + her hair tie, etc., yada yada.

And like yeah, sure Juniper is Jaune's companion, but:

-Little is implied to be a new/or a new version of an Ever Afteran since they have no purpose or even a name.

-They're scared if cats (I mean yes, they're a mouse, but Alyx was also killed by the Curious Cat, so ✨past life trauma ahoy!✨)

-They're also drawn to Ruby, who goes on a similar narrative journey to Alyx in the Ever After, while also acting as a guide for Ruby

-Which in by helping Ruby/guiding her, is in turn able to fulfil Alyx's desire of 'fixing everything she broke' (i.e. by being by Ruby's side until their 'death', they inadvertently lead Jaune to the Ever After Tree=allowing him to meet the Blacksmith, and then go home to Remnant.)

GAH! THAT THEORY MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. So, uh, apologies for the mini tangent, but just wanted to thank you for this unintentioned big brained moment! Now I'm gonna see V9 with a new perspective on my next rewatch! 🥰✨❤️

<3

there’s also this moment:

where the facsimile of penny’s sword manifested from ruby’s grief transforms into alyx’s dagger when little wakes up, and then as she lifts it up and tilts it toward little, the reflection of alyx’s face appears. it’s little’s reflection, just as the reflections of penny and summer are really reflections of ruby—her grief, her insecurities, manifesting as images of her fallen friend and her missing mother because she can’t recognize herself.

and then:

alyx lied -> little is a child playing pretend (“i’ll be your trusty guide!”)

alyx tricked the peddler -> little steals the jade mannequin for ruby

alyx cheated at the red king’s game -> little helps ruby play the prince’s game

the cat, on alyx’s book: “yes. oh, please! i simply must know more. what did she write about? how was i portrayed? and… do i smell a mouse?” <- the cat knows alyx didn’t write that book because they know they killed her and she ascended. the heart, as they say, very rarely forgets. thinking about alyx and lewis brings little to their attention—their heart knows who little used to be!

alyx broke her promise to the cat, and the cat killed her -> the cat betrays ruby in turn, and little bites them and goes you’re not a friend.

alyx wanted to go home no matter what -> little wants to help ruby get home no matter what

alyx acted selfishly but her dying wish was to help put things right -> little is a selfless but very helpless child who dies trying their best to help ruby -> they become somewhat, who is both selfless and able to take action to help others

alyx’s rabbit pin and narrative role as the white rabbit -> somewhat adopts juniper as their steed

also. the narrative makes a point of emphasizing that ruby didn’t see little in the tree, although we do see the blacksmith making their new face. but jaune does see alyx during the same time.

[sleepy-bear-tm]

My favorite companions <3