#not in the way he has ever wanted zam dead

[mapicccc]

people who say things like mapicc has taken an interest in derap are stupid

[coffeegnomee]

I can't stop thinking about how Derap told every secret Atlas has ever had to Mapicc minutes after joining his call, knowing that they killed woogie and there was no way their team should logically still think of themselves as aligned. but he did it and said he thought he had built enough trust up with them for Mapicc to tell him what he planned to do about Zam. And every second he was driving the wedge between devotions deeper and deeper, saying i'm glad zam told me. i'm sad he didnt tell you mapicc. every word of that conversation dripped with hidden wrath for everything that has gone wrong in his life the past month, being terrified of mane and flame and wanting them dead, even if most of the terror came from the truman show, being angry that zam did something behind his back and didn't tell him about it first even though they should have had that trust built up from everything they've been through. There's that word again, "trust", trust that he thinks he gives and thinks he ought to receive but it keeps blowing up in his face. And then there's mapicc. the thorn in his side, his opp from day one, he found his base and put creaking in, and zam laughed and supported the prank. and now woggie is talking about teaming with mane and flame and.

He's done. It's over. light the match and watch it all burn.

He might keep zam until the end of the season, but I don't know if the victory counts anymore. For what is trust if you're not honest about what you've done. What is peace if there's a pile of bodies behind you.

[letyhide]

I cannot stop thinking about yesterday's ZamWaffles conversation.

It's obvious that Zam doesn't wanna help Bacon in his efforts to cover the server spawn in wardens (he also turned down Bacon when he suggested pushing his teammates into Wardens, to get more kills lol). But Zam also made it clear that he wants Bacon to succeed in his true goal of understanding Subz.

That talk is perhaps what made everything regarding Bacon's goals click in Zams head. And it it all comes down to both of their understanding of LifeSteal as a server.

And HOW can it NOT be about that? when we know now that Subz's actual reason for the Warden attack at spawn was rooted on his hatred for the server's current state. As he believes that the inactivity is proof of the creators losing passion for LifeSteal (he made a point to mention that everyone has diffrent projects going on, he claims that LifeSteal is not anyone's main priority, therefore keeping it going is like dragging around a dead corpse).

People saw Subz’s wardens as a problem to quickly overcome or stop (even in un-creative ways, asking chat) rather than taking it as an opportunity to tell a story, or do anything truly interesting, which, in a way proved Subz right. And it's partially why I don't blame Subz for leaving the server (As he was burned out either way).

The battle against Inactivity is one Bacon and Zam (and Mapicc) know all too well. Making people care has been their goal. And it's so intresting for Bacon to be the one following in Subz's footsteps. If Subz's efforts were made out of disdain for the server, Bacon is made out of pure love and care for it. Which is why I don't know if he will ever TRULY understand Subz's goal as their approach to the server and their ideas on it sound so opposite... yet... here we are.

When Subz's base was found and destroyed the way it did, I don't blame him for giving up, and the way people first reacted to Bacon's Wardens seemed very similar, which is why I'm really glad Bacon is gonna continue with this project despite the many hearts lost. It's almost like he's giving the server a second chance. And that conversation we heard yesteday is really giving me hope.

Well, it makes sense that Zam is one who now recognises the new potential in the wardens. After his first intentional kill the other day being on Bacon, which he said felt like a mistake (in some ways it was, in some ways it wasn't). After yesterday's convo, I feel like Zam is gonna take Bacon as a more serious enemy (he now even says that he finds him more intresting than Flame ever was... which again, is giving me HOPE.) And it's clear how they realistically have the same goal in mind. Making people care. Because we now know that they already do. Entertaining this conflict in intresting and engaging ways, rather than seeing it as a "backdrop" to something else, hopefully will make people care about Subz’s true message to the server.

Most people are against Bacon because they don't understand him. Zam is against Bacon because he does. It's a rivalry that comes from deep understanding of eachother and love for the server.

[mangocurist]

pvp wemmbu traitor theory has overtaken me. Help. take this pvpciv mutinyduo drabble i did because ive been thinking about them literally all morning

⋆༺𓆩🗡𓆪༻⋆༺𓆩♆𓆪༻⋆༺𓆩🗡𓆪༻⋆༺𓆩♆𓆪༻⋆༺𓆩🗡𓆪༻⋆༺𓆩♆𓆪༻⋆༺𓆩🗡𓆪༻⋆

“You know, if I’m being honest… I really didn't expect to see you here. A part of me thought you’d be dead by now.”

“Is that really the first thing you have to say to me in so many years?” Wemmbu shot back with an air of jovial teasing in his voice, the same kind he used around Evbo and the other diamond swords. It felt wrong this time, though, facing one of the ghosts of his past as a ‘defender’ of a nation he’d tried to help wipe out.

Zam just smiled, flipping a thin braid over her shoulder as he adjusted the trident strapped to his back. If it had been anyone else— if she hadn’t been Zam and if he hadn’t been Wemmbu, if Julie or Minute or Ferre or, gods be damned, Evbo— that smile would have certainly spelt bloodshed. Even now, he wasn’t sure whether or not she was about to drive the trident into his illusory self’s chest and flounce away as Zam had probably done with Julie and Ferre.

“Well, diamond sword Wemmbu, I don’t think I should have anything further to say to you,” Zam commented airily, surveying the walls of the Gold Sword level surrounding the both of them. “Unless you’re alone right now?”

“Why else would I have talked to you at all, man?” Wemmbu grumbled, rolling his eyes when she just laughed. “Hurry up and drop down or the others will start getting suspicious.”

“I don’t think it’s much of a reach to say that you decided to fight me for fun and not kill me. I mean, you are a hologram right now. Right?” Zam tilted his head, a sharper grin than before spreading across his face as she surveyed Wemmbu casually from head to toe. “I mean, it’s not like you haven’t lied to them before. That’s, like… your whole thing. Being untrustworthy, I mean.”

Not to Evbo, Wemmbu wanted to tell her, but he bit it back, partly in an attempt to convince himself that he was doing a good job of being an infiltrator and also because it felt mean to admit it out loud to himself. Not that he wasn’t proud of being able to be trusted, but— seriously. Evbo was a kid. And Zam was just standing in front of him, looking just as proud and angry as he had the day that he and Wemmbu had been exiled, a mirror image of their younger, madder selves.

He didn’t know how he felt about it. Looking similar to Zam. It left a familiar bitter taste in his mouth, and he shook away those thoughts before turning away from his… current ally. “I thought you said you trusted me to get you through it this time?”

“Well, sure, but I did most of the work,” Zam replied, and, well. She… had. The video journal of Parrot pinned up against a wall, a trident held to his neck as Zam twined Parrot’s bow string and arrow fletch around the man’s own wings flashed in Wemmbu’s mind, and he chuckled nervously. 

Wemmbu wondered if the trident in his inventory would ever be turned against him in the exact same way. If Zam would ever take the extension of his own self and skewer Wemmbu through with it.

“Come down,” Wemmbu said in lieu of a proper response, sighing when Zam stuck her tongue out at him. “Your Highness.”

“Asshole,” Zam punched his hologram in the arm, even though he had to know Wemmbu couldn’t feel it. “Fine, then. I’m coming down now. Tell Evbo to wait for me so I can do my villain speech. And go get in position or whatever, I don’t want you getting speared on Minutetech’s sword, of all people.”

“Fine,” Wemmbu parroted back, laughing when Zam narrowed her eyes and thrust his trident into Wemmbu’s hologram, effectively severing his connection to the Gold Sword level. 

He sobered quickly though, climbing off his perch and making his way back to the dropper on the Diamond Sword level to rejoin the other Diamond Swords, making up some random excuse for why he’d taken so long with ‘interrogating’ Prince Zam. Not that Minute was around to pick through his argument properly, anyway. The most scrutiny he got was from Julie, who just frowned a little. 

Evbo, though, still clung to his side like glue, and Wemmbu felt a little sick again, knowing just how much the boy trusted him.

And when Zam finally made his way down to the Diamond Swords, Wemmbu ignored the sharp glint of knowing malice in the Prince’s eye.

Maybe if he pretended it didn’t exist for a little longer, he wouldn’t have to come to terms with the reality of his situation.

[jumped-for-the-yaoi]

listen jet if i have to think abt soulmate mutiny you do too. mutiny duo who r soulmates thru every server they join.

lszam who feels the soulbond snap into place the first time wemmbu joins in s4 with the wormhole and subsequently does her best never to leave his side. shes still devoted to mapicc and her other friends and allies, sure , but thats her soulmate. when he gets killed and banned off the server by minute thats the start of her joker arc . she doesnt stop until theyre both dead and gone. lszam who tries to stay by lswemmbus side even when he hurts her over and over again in s6 and grieves for him when hes killed again in s6, unable to resolve their final conflict. lszam who loses her soulmate again and again but still tries to keep a piece of him by her side, always there as a momento.

uuwemmbu who meets zam for the first time on unstable and feels his soulbond click, and he starts following her practically unquestionably from that moment onward. even when egg questions zams motivations even when she betrays them both, even when she levels that nation to the ground and hurts him in every way possible he still feels attached to her. uuwemmbu who tries to get back at her, get through to her the only way he knows how; through more and more violence that eventually leaves them both at a standstill. uuwemmbu who loses his soulmate when she disappears into the woods with pangi, unsure of where to go next.

and then zincewam, where they meet another version of their soulmate- whos the same, but ever so slightly different. its not the same, and they dont have that incessant urge to stay by this version of their soulmates side, but they do anyway. because they understand. and yeah so im gonna go drown myself now

wait hold on im like really abnormal about this actually oh my god. wait oh my god . if you’re gonna go drown cna i come with

ls!mutiny duo is so doomed bro… especially s6 . God. They’ve been on opposite sides since the very very beginning but they’re still tied to each other . S5 do you think Zam felt the bond dwindling with every time Ash killed him. Felt it fading before disappearing altogether until all that was left in its wake was void. Do you think it was even more violent the second time around, with hardcore mode enabled. Idk just something to think about… And oh my god in s6 Zam didn’t even get to resolve her conflict with wemmbu herself. he was cut down and banned off the server and in the end zam wasn’t even the one gripping that sword’s hilt . Anyways im being really really normal about this yeah

uu mutiny duo on the other hand is so so toxic and fucked up dear fucking god. how unflinchingly wemmbu trusts zam in the beginning and wholly believes her to feel the same (spoiler alert: she doesn’t). zam later being unwilling to kill him because 1) he doesn’t want to and 2) its more fun that way vs wemmbu coming back every single goddamn time he’s defeated and humiliated because he has a plan and it’s to destroy everything zam has and he’s not going to stop until he’s finished. they’re tethered and pulled together in this cycle of violence and destruction until neither of them have anything left to lose but the other . strangling each other with the red string of fate that ties them together so to speak. they’re so fucking terrible for each other i hate them so much

the zincewam version waiiiiiiiit. the bonds being not as strong and not exactly the same as they would be with their soulmates from their respective universes . maybe uuwemm is okay with that because his tie with uuzam is a painful reminder of their past and the slight difference in the soulbonds is a reassurance that this is different and he will not be haunted by his past here. Or something idk im writing this at 2 am am i cooking or should i be cooked

i literally can’t think of anything for wincezam so. Shocking they would have the most decently average soul bond stuff going on out of all four of them jesus christ i think that says something. What if lswemm found a way to make the soul bond visible to them both so he could tug on it lightly or hold it up for uuzam like that one meme thats like “im your idiot. Foreverrrr”

its almost 3 am jfc im gonna go to bed

[zylian]

been thinking of an au of battle mage ro who’s like the only wizard that spent his whole life training in only offensive magic which makes him like a decade ahead of every other mage in combat

he’s also very willing to do self sacrificing spells which can wipe out entire cities/towns

ro has a deal with witch zam, who specializes in curses, since the day they met and found out they both dabble in ancient spells, ro asked zam to test resurrection spells on him so he can keep testing combat spells without the worry of death

zam would occasionally get a letter about twice a year saying “if this reached you, I’m dead” and would pause what he was doing to resurrect ro

after the 12th time zam practically perfects it, making sure ro’s mana flow is better than ever and in return ro goes on a murder spree on the people who won’t leave zam alone

when ro’s not laying his life on the line he’s partnered with relentless warrior mapic fighting whoever they both see fit

when ro dies on the field, mapic usually waits a week for him to show up again but from how frequent it starts happening, as ro loves to destroy many kingdoms, mapic goes straight to witch zams house who ro told him about after his 3rd resurrection partnered with him

mapic learns zam actually resurrects ro within one day and they both learn the letters actually take 5 days to arrive to zams place as ro just hasn’t optimized his mana infused letter since he was too occupied with learning more ancient combat spells

obviously instead of fixing the system he lets mapic keep travelling to zam and both mapic and zam fall into a routine of mapic showing up, drinking a cup of hot cocoa while telling zam how ro died as zam preps for ro’s revival

no one actually attempts resurrections since it goes terribly and mapic seems to think both ro and zam are stupid for continuously using cursed magic and suffering tremendously until it was right

the only person who knows outside of those 3 that zam can revive anyone perfectly (yes mapic did die in battle once and ro made zam resurrect him to laugh at him but zam did it so well mapic made them keep it a secret) was alchemist spoke

spoke is mapics potion supply guy who makes the oddest not normal potions ever but mapic always finds a way to use them in battle so he became his number one customer

due to a faulty package delivery, one of spokes very dangerous customers killed him for wasting their money and time

mapic spent a month trying different potion suppliers after his death but there was way too many issues aka it being too pricey, too long of a delivery, part faulty potions, not enough stock and not to mention being put on a waiting list

he was so tired he just dragged ro with him to zams place one day and asked him to resurrect spoke, zam surprisingly knew who mapic was talking about and had realized why he didn’t get his pending delivery yet

so as zam really didn’t want to go through the same hell mapic was ranting about going through with finding another alchemist, he resurrects spoke without question

spoke, who upon living again, takes a breath of fresh air and fully crashes out about what happened to him unprompted

as spoke wraps up his rage while having a nice meal in zams garden, he promptly questions why witch zam, his regular customer, is insanely proficient at resurrections

basically after a quick explanation zam now gets 50% off discounts on all potions, mapic said he was the one to bring spoke to zam so he should get it too but spoke convinced him that he and ro would get the discount after spokes dangerous customer who killed him dies a horrific death

all in all battle mage ro has an amazing time messing with ancient spells while using spokes discounted cursed potions to cause mayhem without fearing death in the slightest

[djevelbl]

not gonna rb your tags as to not put you on blast but tbh i get you fully. i warmed up to ros when she started interacting w zam more because i love my princess and anyone who enables/appreciates her is good in my book but i still honestly think that ccros is not very good at character writing because the only consistent thing trros has going for her and the only reason shes not died sixty times over is that shes 'kind'. and honest to god i dont even see it half the time what with her killing people who piss her off arbitrarily (and hey, im a ls main, i LOVE unneeded violence, i just dont like hypocrisy!) shes part of the reason i didnt want zam going to yellow or even playing on tr initially because i was like Ohhhh no theyre way too similar in the worst ways she is not gonna be good for zam. and i was somewhat right and im mad about it because i want to like her but . GH. constant struggle with ros man

Sorry mate gonna blast myself all over the blog bc I suffer from a chronic condition called I Need To Share My Opinion On Everything Ever

So yea the thing with Ros' character is that she has a very black and white belief system, where if you're good you deserve everything positive ever in the world and if you're bad you deserve to die One Million Times Over. there's no in-between. this is why she can never Be Normal about Ace, for example: he's Mocha With Extra Steps in her head, so bc he's Mocha that means he's Bad and thus Torment Nexus Be Upon Ye I fucking guess, even when as Ace he's quite literally done nothing against her.

And while typically I wouldn't have a problem with a character being like this bc you can do some really interesting stuff with that, cc!ros lowk..... doesn't? Her character is stagnant and is following story beats that, while realistic within the frame of ttrpg-inspired minecraft, are fucking boring for roleplay and also anti-collaborative, which is like. ALL that smps fucking rely on?

Then — and this is, admittedly, me being a massive bitch for no other reason than this is my blog and I can do whatever I want forever <3 — to add the cherry on top, her character is definitely a darling and a favorite, not just on the fandom but on the realm itself where her rampant hypocrisy should've been called out twentyfold already but it hasn't been effectively done bc the only one who clocked her ass was Owen and not only is the mfer canonically fucking dead, but also bc he went for a more "she's being intentionally malicious" approach nobody fucking believed him, even tho he was fucking right!

Tldr: the day she faces consequences for her hypocrisy is the day I'm getting blackout drunk in celebration bc holy shit, didn't think it'd ever happen

[cloneximio-877]

day 8: betrayal (oh, how i waited for this one)

features platonic eggbu and past zammbu

words: around 1000

Wemmbu doesn't really show a lot of emotions. There is this usual image of him being confident and not caring about a thing and taking everything as a joke, where he shows bits of joy, or annoyance, or curiosity, where he laughs or makes jokes or complains, but it's all surface-level and could easily be just a pretend, with you having no idea what is actually going on in this head. Sometimes there is another emotion, strong and bright and passionate and burning everything that comes too close: anger. It's in his voice, loud, in words, quick and poisonous, in actions, rush and aggressive. It sounds and looks like anger consumes his entire being in these moments, leaving only bloodlust; it feels like the only thing that is actually genuine, actually deep, coming from the heart, bubbling in his veins like burning magma.

But Egg is his friend, so he notices a bit more than that. They live together in a little cave in the mountain their empire once stood on, and Wemmbu doesn't talk about things that he feels, but Egg sees his body tensing when they look at destroyed buildings under their feet, ugly canyons where once were streets and fields with growing crops. He sees the way Wemmbu's eyes lock at the image, unmoving, his thoughts clearly somewhere, somewhen not now. He doesn't argue with Wemmbu when he decides to stay here, in a destroyed, dead place, where everything reminds them of their loss; he knows he would get somewhere else, somewhere more pretty and lively and hidden, if there wasn't some reason, some in this fallen empire. He's always been quick to abandon things he doesn't care about, after all, but reluctant to let go of those he does (even if all it brings to him is pain and loss).

(He wonders if Wemmbu still hears sounds of explosion all around, because he does, too.)

(He probably hears laughter, triumphant and mocking, and sees smile, wide and toothy, but Egg isn't going to ask about it, ever.)

They don't talk about Zam outside of creating grandiose revenge plans, definitely impossible, but full of passion, of waiting impatiently for revenge, for sadistic triumph, of want to hurt and destroy and take everything presious to get the satisfaction out of other's pain. And Egg knows Wemmbu hates Zam with burning passion, now, but he also knows that there is something else and that it wasn't always this way. He saw Wemmbu's loyalty firsthand, strong and unwavering and suffocating him; saw him refuse to let go of it until he got betrayed and ripped of all he had. And he catched glimpses of shared kisses and of marks on Wemmbu's skin after he returned to their colony after meetings with Zam, and of two of them walking out of house or meeting room hurriedly when Egg returned from doing his tasks too early during Zam's visits.

(And he catched a glimpse of Wemmbu standing in place, with buildings underneath and around him blowing up and burning, motionless, looking right into Zam's eyes, asking for answers, hand on sword's handle, but not pulling it out.)

Egg doesn't ask and Wemmbu doesn't tell, that's how their days go. Their beds are put together, pillow to pillow, and Wemmbu moves so close to him in his sleep, and Egg doesn't push him away, only puts a hand on his back in a sort of loose hug. He's used to this constant closeness, now: to Wemmbu always being somewhere near, to physical touches, shoulder bumped into shoulder, a hand wrapping around his shoulders, to Wemmbu leaning on him, to hand grabbing his hand impatiently to pull forward and lead him somewhere. And it was like that before, slowly came to this as they were living together, eating together, sleeping in the same room, farming and building and fishing together, building a civilization together. But he became more clingy after- well, Egg became the only one he has by his side, he guesses. And Egg became more accepting of it, too.

So, Egg thinks, maybe it's not even about hiding emotions, but about only showing them in very few, very specific ways.

One day Wemmbu meets him with this stone-like, cold expression on his face, and Egg knows that something is up. The next thing Wemmbu does is putting scissors in his hand and asking him to cut his hair.

And- Egg is a little hesitant. Wemmbu's hair is dim and tangled, now, but he saw it before, carefully gathered, clean and shiny, with accessories put in; saw effort put into taking care of it. But Wemmbu looks into his eyes for a few long moments, silent, with some weird, unwavering determination, and Egg gives in.

Wemmbu's back looks stiff when he sits down, taking position for Egg to start his work, shoulders tense and moving a little forward in a sort of protective movement.

- How do you want me to cut it?

- Doesn't matter.

- It's going to look ugly.

- I look like shit already, come on, I don't care.

And despite his warning, Egg tries to make it look good, to make all the strands be the same level. None of them says a word, only thing disturbing the silence being clicking of scissors and soft sound of locks falling down.

- I finished, - Egg declares. He leaves Wemmbu's hair a little longer than a shoulder level, easy to put in a tail so it wouldn't be a bother.

Wemmbu doesn't get up for a long, long time, as if saying goodbye to something, letting go of something, burying something deep in the ground so it would never return.

- Thank you, - he says in the end, and his voice sounds strained.

[mapleleaftag]

A DOUBLE FEATURE!!!!

TWICE THE IDEAS IN ONE POST?????? GASP!!!!!! anyways here's what oomf is blabbering about tonight(it's 1 am god help me)

hc that clown partakes in botany and cares for a few plants at the diamond axe level in remembrance of what was once a weapon-wide practice

+

parrot learning about the massacre of bowciv, the dialogue

neither of these ideas are correlated!!! special thank you to ghostspoolz and dustiiok(and at that the entirety of fanciv) on twitter for allowing me to suck off their ideas like creative dracula

section one. Pear rot

hey wait was parrot ever made aware of the slaughter that had befallen his people

in my mind he's either

a) still oblivious to what's happened there and thinks most of his friends are still alive(and he distantly wishes the best for them. he definitely feels some sort of survivors guilt) or

b) while zams holding him hostage it's he who fills him in after like seeing clown and tabi walk away or something

the following dialogue goes along with idea b because i like princezam and want him to be in everything yaay princezam^^

JUST. IMAGINE WITH ME.

"You heard me. They're all dead." zam says it so bluntly, with a tone that hints at some underlying humor that he finds in it, but overall it's spoken so matter-of-factly parrot thinks it's a joke at first.

"You..you have to be joking." but he knows zam isn't one to joke. not after this, not in a situation like this. in an effort to remind himself of home parrot fiddles with the drawstring of his bow.

"This isn't something I'd lie about. I was passing by, meaning to make my own visit, take what was rightfully mine...*don't you dare raise that bow--"*

"I wasn't."

"Good. You still know your place.

Anyways...when I saw them. That annoying clown and...Tabi, her name was, yeah. Walking away, Eternal Bow in hand. What a shame. They left their door open, though, so I thought I'd pop in, at least look at their entrance...and what was I met with, but an eerie silence? Not that of an incoming ambush, no, not that of men in hiding spots. The silence of the dead- that cold, still silence, like time itself has stopped. Every second inching by as you look around yourself- watching the blood staining the cracks of stone tile, pooling about. It smelled like a massacre had just taken place...and, I'd bet, nobody else came to save those who were left. So all of your sweet little bow friends are as good as dead.

Guess they're *all* gone now...*since you're certainly not one, are you?"*

"That can't be true. No, they'd find some way to persevere. Not...not all of them."

"Look at you, trying to cling on to any sliver of hope, any last justification of your pathetic ideal of 'pacifism'.. what a joke. Hey, Parrot, you want to know something? Maybe if you didn't ditch them, you'd be there! Either to die a Bow properly or to save them as the last of their kind."

"If I wasn't..."

"But no. Must be tough, the life of a coward...*abandoning their own blood.* You really are the lowest of the low."

i really hate pvpzam

section two. pvpclown might have a connection with botany ok just bear with me

as twitter use dustiiok pointed out, axeciv looks a lot more barren and eerie compared to other level,,,post-apocalyptic in a way. there's a thick fog and no trees in sight. it's a really sad observation that breaks my heart......

but what remains....remnants of their eradication id bet. most levels have this sort of. eeriness to them, but compare it all to the liveliness, the lushness of the diamond sword level, how that compares to literally everything else? my idea is that the axe levels were once full of life that was robbed from them as those who were there to care for it dwindled. ergo, what this section is named after, the hc that clown partakes in botany and cares for a few plants at the diamond axe level in remembrance of what was once a weapon-wide practice

if we're going with the whole 'clown is an immortal' idea...how heartbreaking would it be to see the life in these levels die out. would he have desperately gone up and down levels, watering what he can, desperately praying for anything that hasn't been uprooted and taken to stay?

*"If they can't, you can, right? Just grow. Grow in their stead, come on, give me that, at least."* nothing does. he's only able to preserve a few flowers, and even then, those die out as clown loses what slivers of empathy he might have had. he saw one sapling sprout in his adolescence and never stopped holding out hope for another to sprout again. he has a collection of them that he leaves for other axes to cultivate in his stead, since he can't seem to get it right

dustiioomf also pointed out how angsty of an idea it would he for him to try and teach tabi how to cultivate....so

"What's the use?" she sprinkles water on a budding flower. "Who's to say it will ever grow back?"

"It's up to us, as the cultivators. With enough love, care, time, effort poured into it...it'll bloom. We just have to wait a bit."

"We've waited enough and the scars from that attack haven't healed."

"But it's I who told you about that attack, right?

The fact it was me who did you the favor of passing on the tale...the fact that newer axes don't have it already etched into their hearts...it's proof time passes. Those scars are healing, slowly. And to aid in that...

...we can help our environment grow. If only for the other axes, we can make a better life for them. It's only what they deserve."

its only as she considers betraying the cause she's lived for that she sees the value in a single budding rose

[pyrriax]

I don't know if you've gotten this one yet but 28 I think? the favorite line/passage one!!!

Ask game!

28. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

Oo this is so hard to choose.... I'm giving myself two, one from something published and one from something unpublished.

Published: Excerpt from Chapter 25 "Broken Hourglass" of Where the Dust Settles

[...] Somewhere along the way, he'd yanked his hand away from Accius, taking quick steps back, away from them, away from the thing he wants so desperately to run from. Back toward the only thing he even knows anymore. Back toward the constant of insecurity. At least, until his back hits one of the stone walls, and the air leaves his lungs. Panic makes his head swim and constricts his thoughts to the uncertainty and bad and blood. Blood on his tongue, flesh in his mouth, red clouding his vision and stinging his eyes. So much for not crying until he was safe again. [...]

Unpublished: Excerpt from "I'm Sure Silence Should Hurt Less Than This" from the Anhedonia AU

[...] The dog bites him that night, draws blood and threatens to tear out a chunk of his flesh, teeth puncturing deep enough he worries this won't heal without taking a heart with it. The dog has many hearts, more than Ro has ever had. Its earned those hearts, one way or another. Perhaps this is how it does it. Tonight he was supposed to meet with Zam and Spoke, to discuss something he can't remember with blunted teeth buried in his forearm. He won't be leaving tonight, and they'll ask where he was. He'll ignore their messages for another few weeks, until they stop trying. The dog growls and bites down harder, enough to bring tears to Ro's eyes. But instead of flinching away and trying to yank his arm from its mouth, he reaches out with his other hand and pets its head, promises he isn't going to hurt it. Its fur is softer than he expected, smooth and shedding more than it should. It thrashes for a moment, and he regrets treating it with such kindness. There will always be a dog in Ro's apartment, one that bites and snarls and wants him dead on the days he says too much. On the days he craves to leave this shell of a home behind and see if anyone would dare to take him in, it looks at him with the placid eyes of a dead dog, and he doesn't leave. If he leaves like Zam did, abandons the dog in favor of a new place, then the dog will escape the prison he's made of his home. [...]

I swear I'm normal about dogs as a metaphor/allegory. Also these are both pretty recent but also these are stuck in my head. The one from WTDS especially. Pandora will always have a special place in my heart because he's so fucking horrible and I love him to death.

[coffeegnomee]

The two sides of season 5.

The absolute vibe difference from looking at Minute’s lore by stitching together all the lore moments together VS taking out ALL the lore is sending me. 

And both are immaculate.

Like in the first, you would find Minute, Jumper, and Pentar in the cave, lost, silent, overwhelmed that they just lost the presidency and were betrayed by Leo and Clown.

Minute slides down the wall, buries his head in his hands. He was just a DM away, why didn’t they talk to him. They were so close to peace.

Burnt out, despondent. Weary from weeks of trying to save bases from PrinceZam, from weeks of resisting the urge to kill him. Emotionally drained from realizing there was a new threat on top of Zam; Mapicc and Ro were going to revert spawn to the way it was before they got there.

He had bet the presidency. And lost. Was betrayed by the whole server for some money.

What should he do now?

As they wait in that cave, the sounds of the server turning to hardcore echoes through the dripstone. Screams of frustration at the idiocy of Ro as Bacon is annihilated by an arrow cannon. Planet’s cry cut short as Zam’s sword stabs through his back.

They’re lost. Broken.

And then Zam’s sing-song voice comes to their ears. What are you going to do now, Minute? I just killed Planet, Minute? Do you care? Do you even care? 

What if I blew up the Vitalasy hole, Minute? Would you stop me?

The Vitalasy hole. Threatened over and over. Not this time. If Zam wanted to die, he could die.

The team exchanges a look, nodding. They equip their elytras and fly over. 

Zam is jumping up and down waving his hands. Insane grin spread wide. His arms thrown out in welcome as the team plummets from the sky like rocks, landing in full gear.

Zam says something stupid. Who cares what this cretin is saying. He’s the reason for everything bad that’s happened to them. “Let’s just cut to the chase”, Minute splashes the potions and in seconds the thorn in his side lies dead at his feet.

Mapicc and wemmbu destroy the Vitalasy hole. They would be next.

They plot the perfect ambush and in two swift strokes, both enemies are gone. The bloodlust keeps growing, it feels good, going back to his PMC roots. Just neutralize the threat in front of him. He never needed Clown to do the PMC’s good work.

Rumors fly that his enemies are possessing other server members’ bodies. It doesn’t matter. He could take them down again just as easily as before.

He takes a fight, and Clownpierce joins. He’s better than Clown. They have the gear advantage. 

But he slipped up. And all it takes is one slip up. He thought he knew what true bloodlust was. He thought he knew what cold, calculated indifference was. 

But Clown was far more relentless. Far more ruthless, targeting Minute and ignoring his teammates. 

Before he even knew what was happening, he was out of gear. On the run. Scrabbling over rock and river in a desperate attempt to flee. 

Maybe this is how Zam felt when he was dying. 

In one final attempt to swim away, he felt the cold steel of Clown’s sword pierce his armor and break it, plunging into his heart. It was all over. 

And then the other option is like:

(Every time I read this back I get the singsong “happy happy haPPY!” meme song stuck in my head. A silly goofy jingle. Or Zam doing the “I like purple, and I like green, but my favorite color, do you know my favorite color? My favorite color yellow!”. It makes me giggle so much. It’s so unserious.)

Minute is betrayed and it really freaking hurts. But time wins all wars, they would come up with the perfect attack eventually.

Completely unworried, they realize their names spell out Peanut Butter And Jelly! They’re the best part of a balanced breakfast!

They show up at spawn to see what the almighty and powerful wemmbu /neg has to say for himself. It’s a whole lot of nothing.

As they laugh together and leave for the carnival, Bacon just explodes, pops like a grape. It’s the funniest shit ever. They were going to win this war easy peasy. No worries.

They pose for a screenie to commemorate the new team name. Planet dies to Zam. Oh no! Anyway. 

Zam gets into call and it’s the perfect moment to mention that they’re the best part of a balanced breakfast! But this kid, man, he just wants to YAP. Yawn!

He starts threatening the Vitalasy hole or something. He’s done this so many times I literally could not care less. But he seems to be over there so I guess we’ll check it out. 

Laughing like drunken frat boys, high on their friendship, they fly over, and this ant is just standing at the top.

Let’s just wipe the grin off his face and screw this popsicle stand.

He drops. Really easily? Was that really his whole plan? If this is him winning, I hope he never stops winning. 

That was weird. Well. Anyways!

There’s this thing added where the dead can grant blessings and curses. That insane person, Zam, blesses Minute because of something called “made sense for my character”? Whatever that means. 

But man, Pentar got cursed twice and now he’s actually chubby. It’s like, kind of funny. But we have to fix him. 

Rek and Terry would die for them so Pentar can run. Quick fix. Everything is fair again. 

They move their base and prepare the Secret Plan™. The power of friendship was going to win this war. Together, they are an unstoppable force. Peace and justice would rule this land once and for all!

Jumper lures Mapicc over with some lie, Minute looks down the barrel of the arrow gun and giggles as he lines up the shot. It’s too easy. Jumper is safe on the camel and he pulls the trigger. Mappic pops like a grape, it’s a great sight to see. Enemy #2 is gone!

Maybe they could end this war today. Ash messages wemmbu, and wemmbu gets on. Omg the plan can happen today! They were going to win this war.

Wemmbu bans LifestealLord and it’s like, kind of concerning, but they have an ambush. With Ash’s signal they descend upon the president and kill him, it’s pitifully easy. Can you imagine his face when he saw his heart start dropping for the first time in weeks? Hilarious.

Are we the bad guys? No. no. 

Well, we may not loooook that peaceful right now, but you just gotta trust the process. 

Minute feels the first little doubt that they are as good as they think they are, he accepts the possibility. But like. They’re about to get the presidency back and unban everyone who was killed. The end result will fix everything. And everyone would be friends because who doesn’t love the power of friendship??

Ash, Jumper and Pentar EXPLODE in front of Minute. 

But that’s just not fair™. Kill us unceremoniously? We are not taking that.

They get brought back and there’s a slight issue. Their enemies start possessing bodies. But it’s nothing too important because they have a base to decorate!

And then their enemies stop playing fair. Why won’t they come to the AntiTrap Box™? Just come and sit down in front of us Oh My Gawd. We aren’t going to kill you, this is a friendly meeting because we are a little concerned that you might think you can win, but friendship is going to win. 

Fine. Observe from a distance.

We want a revive beacon of life. We can fight all week, and if any of you HAPPEN to last until Saturday we can do a big battle and then last team standing wins. Sound good?

What do you mean no? You want it to just play out? This is a human story? But I want to win. Somebody has to win.

The friendship gets strained as the tension grows. Their enemies still are a team of 4 despite the fact that they banned 3 people. They’re out numbered without Ash.

Over the next few days they get a little more paranoid. They know Clown has been logging on all day every day. They suspect a trap in their base, but they have to check it out together, so that none of them die. And preferably when nobody else is online so they’ll be safe.

But then they get goaded into a fight. But it was going to be fine. 15 stacks of xp each and secret netherite armor. They easily outmatched anyone who would come at them. 

At some point they had to fight, mighteswell be tonight. Mapicc is using harming arrows, the silly goober. 

Then Clown joins. And he’s also using harming. Maybe they missed something. 

Ro and Clown target Minute and Mapicc has a knock back sword that is really starting to get annoying. 

Things are not looking good. 

And the power of friendship is not strong enough in the face of an evil murderous clown. Minute dies, Pentar dies.

Jumper survives and rallies the And JellyS. One final stand to ban everyone. Because if nobody is alive, Lifesteal will be at peace. 

They fail. 

It’s sad. 

Oh Well! Let’s go back to the carnival!!! 

——

The second one also reads like a horror movie where it’s super happy but then every once in a while the screen goes blurry and the character starts breathing heavy when they realize maybe killing people should affect me, and then brightens up and the happy music starts playing again and it’s like the most unnerving shit ever. And then they all die brutally at the end.

But reading them back and remembering how both were actually happening at the same time is just so funny to me.

Maybe pb&j was a fun plot? nah. Unless? 

Also, I feel like it could be easy to read the second option as me being mean to pb&j and like /neg-ing their comments, but those out of pocket things makes this interpretation so much better, without it, it’s not nearly as absurd. And it genuinely brings me so much joy. Lifesteal used to not have any lore, and laughter at the other team and petulance at the things that go wrong for your team are time honored traditions. You can see Mapicc and Ro and Zam and Bacon and so many others doing it in earlier seasons. It comes out of them because it’s literally Minecraft and that always lends a certain level of absurdity at all times. Part of the charm. 

Also, I feel like if you missed Jumper’s pov of Minute’s and Pentar’s death you miss a lot of the character moments in either interpretation. She put it in her discord. 

[howlingday]

Any way to make a Ghost Stories reference in your writing please?

THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM TO PUT GHOST STORIES IN MY WRITING!

---------------------------------------------------

Adrian: Do you guys hear that?

Ruby: You know what I hear? I hear a lot of you shuttin' the fuck up!

Adrian: Let's see... Seven?

Ruby: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ruby: Adrian?! You let her get away?! What are you, STUPID?!

Adrian: Uh, ber, ah-

Ruby: Obviously! Which way did she go?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adrian: We can't leave CeeCee!

Yang: I don't care about your dead cat, kid, so get over it.

Ruby: SHUT UP! When our mother died, CC was there at her funeral.

Ruby: Our dead mother's funeral! Do you feel bad now? Because you should!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ruby: Adrian? What's wrong? Why are you crying?

Adrian: (Sniffles) 'Cause these pajamas are dumb!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adrian: CeeCee!

CC: What do you want?

Adrian: (Giggles)

CC: Ruby was right, you really are stupid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adrian: They make fun of me all the time! I don't need another god damn reason!

Terra: You watch your god damn mouth!

Saphron: Finally. Glad that's over.

Terra: Saph...

Saphron: Hey, they make fun of me at work, too. I don't need another god damn reason, either!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Weiss: Oh, Dust, preserve me, as I am your favorite among these eco-green heathens.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Weiss: Here. Like Dust, it is always there for you.

Ruby: A scroll?! Well, would you look at that? Would've been nice thirty minutes ago.

Weiss: You can use it, but don't take too long. I know how you commoners like to take advantage of others.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Weiss: And the faunus partook of the gas fuel, and they knew that they were sinful.

Ruby: ADRIAN?! ADRIAN, I PROMISE YOU'RE NOT GOING TO HELL!

Adrian: Hello, Sinner!

Ruby: Ugh! Don't you have a alternative fuel source to bomb?

Weiss: You just wait! When my mother becomes the councilwoman, I won't have to! Remember what I taught you about dust safety.

Adrian: Wear a rubber. Right.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Weiss: Such brave, strong heroes... HaveyouacceptedDustasyouronetrueenergy?

Blake: What? No, I'm a faunus!

Weiss: But I... want you to be saved! I am, and ever since, I've had the gifts!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blake: The school is haunted! If you weren't busy sucking off Mr. Ironwood, you would've noticed!

Goodwitch: Two words, girl. Minute. Man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blake: You should be like Ghira Belladonna, and show kindness to your enemies, and in doing so, turn them into your frie-

Yang: HA! You're a pussy, and he should join the soccer squad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yang: How high are you?

Blake: (Via scroll) There's no one around! I... I can't hear anything! Where is everybody?!.

Yang: You fucking slut! You smoked all of it, didn't you?!

Yang: Er, I-I mean, what are you talking about? There are tons of people around!

Blake: YOU SMOKED ALL OF IT!.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yang: Time to go Zam Bambino on his ass! (Runs next to Adrian) Come on, you can do it! Lift your fucking knees!

Yang: You wanna be a huntin ranger~!

Yang: You wanna live a life of danger~!

Yang: You don't wanna get raped by strangers~!

Yang: (Stops) THINK OF A BIG-DICKED FAUNUS CHASING YOU!

Adrian: (Falls over, Panting)

Yang: Well, he's not racist, I'll give him that.

Blake: Not with these numbers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ruby: What do you think, Yang?

Yang: Leave me alone, I'm doing my standard anime elbows up pose.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pyrrha: ...

Ruby: ...Pyrrha, you don't look so good.

CC: RUN! SHE'S A GHOST AND A BITCH!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CC: I saw you beating off last night, tiny. Or should I say speedy?

Yang: RGH!

CC: ...God, you are four of the ugliest fucking kids I have ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes on. I can't wait for this bitch to kill all of you!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CC: Why am I doing this? It's not faithful to my character arc!

CC: Oh well, I'm getting paid for this. I might as well just read the script. It's a livin'.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ghira: We've been married about twenty years now.

Ruby: Nobody's talking to you. Just drive the damn bus, bus driver. Fucking nosy...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Qrow: You still haven't told me what to do with these boards yet.

Ozpin: Just move the boards over there, board mover.

Qrow: Yeah, sure. Jackass...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ilia: You still haven't told us what to do with that.

Adam: Shut up! Just fill the hole, hole filler!

Ilia: Sure! Jacakass...

[syn0vial]

miscellaneous expanded universe boba fett characterization details, JUNIOR NOVELS EDITION

hello, hello! i'm here to share more random boba fett details, this time turning towards his younger self—specifically, his younger self as characterized by the boba fett junior novels that i may have had a slight obsession with as a kid. full disclaimer that the events of these novels have been alomst completely retconned by bitty!boba's appearances in TCW, but, well... i still like them, so there :<

and now, without further ado:

bitty!boba is kind of a bundle of contradictions. especially pre-geonosis, he's a genuinely nice kid who likes animals, reading books, and playing pretend. he also thinks murder is a perfectly good way of solving problems. he knows all about major underworld figures and various ways of tracking/harming others. he's also alarmingly sheltered and naive. he spends multiple days agonizing over feeding feeder mice to his pet eel and even attempts to release some of them against his father's orders. he tries to literally murder obi-wan like a week later. the kid contains multitudes, is what i'm saying.

boba: "a sea-mouse is an innocent creature that never knowingly did anything to anybody" [obi-wan enters line of sight] "you, however, i would maim."

boba's life on kamino is honestly kind of depressing. he lives in extreme isolation and only has regular contact with like... four people, one of whom is a droid. he talks to himself constantly because he has no one else to talk to, especially when the adults in his life aren't around. for the first ten years of his life, he never even interacts with someone his own age. needless to say, it's a very lonely existence.

because he's stuck on kamino, boba learns a lot of what he knows about the rest of the galaxy by reading books. for this reason, he has an approximate knowledge of many things! so he's not completely ignorant on the galaxy outside his bubble, even if his knowledge is usually second-hand and incomplete.

for example, he knows JUST enough about the beings known as "mothers" to figure out that the changeling bounty hunter zam wesell isn't his mom—not bc they aren't even the same species, but bc none of the books he's read have ever mentioned moms shapeshifting, QED, zam =/= mom. flawless logic.

in addition, bitty!boba also doesn't know what a gender role is for the first 10 years of his life. when he finds out, he is extremely disappointed with the galaxy. no, i'm serious. he gets stuck on an orphanage ship after his father is killed and is befriended by a non-binary alien kid. the kid complains about binary gender roles and boba is just perplexed and appalled by the whole thing.

the kid LOVES starfighters. he likes reading about them, talking about them, and occasionally even seeing a few at tipoca city's spaceport. in fact, when jango wants to make boba feel better about [gestures vaguely at the state of his life], he takes boba to the spaceport and just lets him info-dump about whatever he sees there. (though, of course, no starfighter could ever beat slave I <3)

something else bitty!boba loves: STARS. he doesn't actually get to see them most of the time bc the sky is always overcast on kamino, but when he does see them, especially as he gets a little older, he's completely awed by them. later on, when he's stuck on that republic orphanage ship, he spends long stretches of time sitting in the rear observation blister, just staring out at the near-stationary starscape.

post-geonosis, boba has to change a lot. the most immediate lesson he has to learn is not to trust others and, of course, he learns it the hard way. after his father dies, this kid is just running up to strangers like "HI MY DAD IS DEAD AND I HAVE NO ONE TO CONTACT AND NO WAY TO GET HOME, PLS HELP." and these assholes are always like, "oh, what a coincidence :) i knew your dad, actually :) just follow me and i'll take care of everything :)" AND THIS FUCKING KID JUST BELIEVES THEM.

jango fett really taught this kid how to disassemble and reassemble a blaster but not about stranger danger, smh

anyway... several attempted kidnappings/robberies later... boba starts to realize that maybe going along with every adult who is vaguely nice to him is NOT a good game plan.

these types of lessons repeat and escalate until boba's general approach to interacting with adults seems to be to assume malicious intent until proven otherwise. which, tbh, usually serves him well. in fact, by the time he's established at jabba's palace (which is when he's like... somewhere between 12-14 maybe?), his strategy has evolved into "pre-emptively come across as a murderous, unhinged little shit to prevent future fuckery." which means this adolescent child is walking around jabba's palace threatening to get people killed and openly displaying a pair of severed hands in his rucksack.

don'tcha love character development

all that said, boba reverts to being a friendly, playful kid when in the company of people he trusts. in jabba's palace, this means the cooks of kitchen 7: a father and daughter who boba inadvertently reunited after killing the guy who kidnapped and enslaved the latter. though lowly palace servants, these two are basically boba's lifeline in jabba's palace, providing him with food, gear, and palace gossip, not to mention much-needed companionship.

bitty!boba is an excellent melee fighter. he spends the majority of the books unarmed facing off against adult opponents with weapons. bc he's not yet at the stage where he can overpower them with physical strength/weaponry, he instead defeats them by being a small, fast-moving target who WILL use whatever random objects are in his immediate vicinity to disarm/blind/distract/take down whoever's trying to kill him.

a sampling of items bitty!boba uses as weapons, off the top of my head: a small table. a light fixture. a squid kebab. a rock. one day he'll be so heavily armed that even his knees can launch projectiles, but until then, he makes do.

he also bites at least one person. ya do what you gotta do.

on a related note: the kid is impulsive af. that time he bit someone? he had a knife to his throat at the time but he still went CHOMP. aurra sing steals slave I? HE JUMPS OFF A BUILDING TO GET IT BACK. count dooku tries to confine him to quarters? HE ATTEMPTS TO BLACKMAIL THAT BITCH. jabba just tried to trick him into indentured servitude? BOBA YELLS AT HIM IN FRONT OF HIS ENTIRE COURT. honestly this impulsivity gets boba INTO trouble just as often as it gets him out of it.

overall, despite being raised by a very morally ambiguous individual on a backdrop of organized crime, bitty!boba's defining feature is that he still genuinely tries to a good person, even if his moral perspective is a little skewed. at times, he really seems to think that a good bounty hunter should be something like a superhero—that, ideally, it means not only taking out unquestionably bad people but also helping those that they would harm. in fact, from the first book, he envisions himself not just as a hunter but a protector and rescuer as well. of course, he kind of loses the plot as he gets older, but even then, there's that seed of idealism within him, however twisted it becomes with time.

[brawltogethernow]

How would you, personally, go about writing a plot where twenty-something Dick Grayson has to take care of suddenly-deaged-to-just-after-his-parents'-deaths Bruce, who doesn't remember anything of his adult life? (I mean, other than Necessary Alfred.)

Well, the part of this concept that can really sock you in the face is. Dick knows exactly what Bruce needed to hear right after Martha and Thomas died.

Bruce, though not lacking for people trying to take care of him, did not get what he needed after becoming an orphan. He grew up, and he made the best of things, and he thought about what he needed from the world and didn’t get, and he became that, and that’s Batman, and that’s Bruce Wayne. When he saw a kid go through trauma very similar to his own, he had an entire playbook written by his own suffering and fixer tendencies ready to go. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best thing in the world for Dick Grayson short of his family spontaneously coming back from the dead, and things were good for a long time.

And now Dick Grayson, age, I don’t know, maybe the same age Bruce was when they met to intensify the parallels, has this playbook memorized. So.

Brief, miscellaneous scenario that’s about to cause the de-aging, to establish adult Bruce’s voice. He is motivated and capable with a strong sense of deadpan humor, and there is a large mishealed wound at his core. He is aware of this. He is used to working around it. He isn’t even that bitter about it, most of the time. Basically any supporting cast members filling out the scene could be interesting, so lacking an established roster to pull from you can use anybody. I think I'd use heroes who aren’t in the Batfam - characters with their own concepts of Batman but who don’t all know Bruce’s entire life story from a personal or Gothamite perspective. Dick is not present.

So something goes zam or zap or “Go back to your beginning, hero!” —Actually yeah, I like someone using magic to try to turn Batman into a baby but the symbolism catching wrong and rewinding him to when Batman was “born” instead. Some heavy-handedness is good with DC.

Elementary age Bruce Wayne is deeply unsettling. He intuits most of the situation without assistance or effort. He also doesn’t care. You can’t expect a pile of shattered glass to care about some sci-fi nonsense suddenly happening. He is a million years old. He hates you. He should be dead, they shouldn’t be dead, nothing is right. Breathing hurts, or, doesn’t, but should. It’s unconscionable that it doesn’t hurt to breathe. This child's despair is actively uncomfortable to be around. The grit of a nascent Batman grants him immunity to being comforted by the surrounding gaggle of semiprofessional child comforters. —I’m of the opinion that Bruce Wayne was probably a weird child to match the weird adult he grew up into, just initially happy about it, which I’d gun to make clear in his reactions even with the bottomless agony.

You could also snug a very traumatizingly timed identity reveal moment in here if somebody was tagging along who can go, WHY do I recognize this face from old news... WAIT.

Now Dick can show up. To a JL workroom, or the batcave, or maybe the manor, because I would want to demonstrate that Alfred is well versed in this and is sent back to a not great mental place by it. The old coping methods rise easily to hand even after decades, but he feels he never properly figured out how to fix the problems Bruce had in this period instead of just working around them. Eventually Bruce started working around Alfred’s inability to help. —But anywhere you put that sequence seems like it would drag the pacing.

So Dick shows up, and he crouches down with his characteristic gymnast’s fluidity, and he puts his hands on this kid’s shoulders, and he says...something. It’s not going to be okay. How could this ever be okay? The people assuring you it will aren’t trying to lie to you, there just aren’t words for this. But you can stop this from happening to anyone else. Opening with a conscious deployment of Bruce’s own words from a decade and then some ago, because Dick has always understood this element of their dynamic.

Except then he’s touching this real child who is warm under his hands and small. The shoulders under Dick’s hands are bony, which is a brain-meltingly irreconcilable detail with adult Bruce Wayne the meat slab. When Dick says, “My parents were killed when I was your age, too,” it’s a completely unintentional verbatim quote that crawls up out of his throat like a toad in a fairy tale. He hates that; he has a whole snarled up capital-T Thing about unconsciously parroting Bruce. But also it’s not like he’s going to stop comforting the actual child who now has a complicated look in his eyes—like he was drowning and then Dick threw him a life preserver and told him to hang on until they get to land because it’s impossible to reel him back up to the boat.

So then we go to the manor, and finally get to do some domestic nonsense, but hideous. Ugly conversations about coping and grief in your socks in the kitchen—when your parents just died, the sentence “The weather looks bad” is about your dead parents—because Alfred is coping by airing out whatever rooms Bruce used when he was smol he doesn’t now so hard you’ll never know they were shut up, which leaves Dick free to feed the child a fortifying dinner of instant oatmeal. (Mourning and food have a complex relationship, and I don’t feel food you actively enjoy is always a good choice!) This process involves Dick walking on the counter unnecessarily, which entertains Bruce for a quarter second before he’s swamped by guilt at having the audacity to enjoy something.

It’s miserable, but there’s a distinct glimmer of something promising under the murk. There’s this building surety that this could lead to something good. Bruce gave Dick the tools he needed to heal once, and as an adult Dick could repay that to this version of Bruce with interest.

And then Bruce pops back to normal, because that’s not how time works, with all of the ways that his emotional wounds healed wrong and healed open intact. But also with this Escher-like doubled recollection of the most formatively terrible point of his life, a short new version layered over the original that was pointing distinctly in a direction that would have sucked less.

[zylian]

There’s this whole au I don’t want to fully write out so heres the gist:

the adventure of necromancer Parrot on his way to everyone’s soul resting ground to wake them up for a new season of lifesteal

I have this headcannon that Parrot when starting a new season of lifesteal just goes walking into a grave yard and choosing the most appealing tomb stone to resurrect

everyone was originally dead and are just really extravagant souls that get waken up cause necromancer Parrot wanted to play a game

Some people had entire lands dedicated for their soul to rest and Parrot just stumbles inside having no idea where he is other than the place looks cool

The ever so blinding light of zams tomb stone vs the absolute ordinary chipped terrains tomb stone that sits on plains

Poafas sits on a mountain above the clouds and has the most magnificent view one can see

ashswag was shocked since his grave was literally in a cursed land filled with misery and when he asked parrot all he said was “that place was cursed???”

Funny part is the completely not on purpose waking was Rekraps, a single flower planted near a tree that parrot plucked

Subz’s grave is in a tiny pot on the windowsill of a creaky small tower that somehow parrot wanted to use to keep the flower so he woke Subz soul in exchange (Subz doesn’t know why Parrot wouldn’t just make a new pot for it)

Mapiccs grave always changes but he is someone that gets found easily, he is always one of the first 5 people Parrot finds

Forced to tag along he complains how Reddoons quite literally has acres of land and there’s no way there finding his grave through all that (spoiler there is a huge sign that points to it)

Parrot continues to wake everyone up and takes like forever getting to place to place so it’s just a 1-2 month road trip visiting and collecting everyone before they go murder each other on the new server

Ta Da 🎉 Necromancer Parrot au

[doctorwenqing]

tonight i’m thinking about attack of the clones, specifically: what the FUCK was palpatine’s plan??

okay so, his goals are

start the clone war

turn anakin to the dark side so one of the most powerful force users ever, the “chosen one”, will be his apprentice.

so in order to accomplish those goals he… tells dooku to kill padme? then dooku sends jango who sends zam wesell who sends a droid who sends some bugs. nobody actually wants to do their fucking job and this plan fails!

okay, let’s say that plan succeeded. padme is dead. anakin is understandably upset, however while he’s had a crush on this girl for a long time he hasn’t actually seen her in YEARS so there’s not really enough of an attachment there for this to trigger his turn to the dark side. also MAYBE the death of the senator from naboo could be enough to start a war, but the republic hasn’t even discovered the clones exist yet.

instead let’s say palpatine always intended the assassination attempt to fail. so the actual plan is:

either influence the jedi council in some way or just hope they decide to separate master and apprentice and send anakin alone to protect the senator who now has at LEAST two assassination attempts against her, even though they’re clearly not confident in anakin’s abilities.

rely on the romantic destination of naboo being enough to cause anakin and padme to fall in love so that fear of her death later will help influence anakin’s fall to the dark side

make sure when the assassination plan failed, jango knew to kill the person he hired with darts from kamino instead of… you know… just shooting her with a blaster like a normal person

still have dooku delete all record of kamino from the jedi archives so obi wan can’t find out about it that way. because that would be too easy, let’s make it a bit of a challenge.

hope that obi wan has a friend who just happens to recognize kaminoan darts (is dexter jettster in on it??)

okay this next part i’m not sure if it was part of palpatine’s plan at all but at this point it wouldn’t even be the craziest bit:

convince some tusken raiders to kidnap, torture, and kill anakin’s mom to get him to go back to tattooine, encouraging his fall to the dark side and making him and padmé the closest people to geonosis who could help obi wan

hope that anakin and padmé don’t die in the arena at geonosis (again, anakin would be upset but i don’t see padmé being suddenly mauled by a reek to be enough to fully turn him into vader)

either the force is just on palpatine’s side and he got lucky or he’s really got a galaxy brain. honestly maybe he deserved to get to be in charge of the galaxy for a little bit.