#okay so basically everyone in this world has an ancestral power

[your-greatest-queen]

I'm currently updating all of my 2022, uh, creatures (?) and at the moment I'm working on my insert OC, Mac, and while updating her physical design I started thinking about her lore.

And I realized that, entirely without meaning to, I originally created her as a sort of personification of my journey through being grey-romantic. And the irony of this is that I'm updating her while in the middle of my strongest, longest lasting crush.

SO. with that, I've decided to flesh out her backstory and fully connect her to my grey-ro journey; on purpose this time :)

I am very excited because I've already come up with loads of ideas on how everything is gonna work and I can't wait to keep updating her as I continue growing and changing in my identity <333

[theship-thewalrus]

If your open for requests I’d like one for boromir from lotr!

Where he has a crush on a witch who is gandalf apprentice and she saves him from getting killed by giving him half of her soul

I don't mind if its headcanon or a oneshot or anything😊

Hi Anon!! I love this!! I truly hope it was what you have been looking for <3 also I found the magic words from a generator so if they actually mean anything I would love to know :)

boromir x female!reader

basically what the ask is :)

word count: 586 words reading time: about 3 minutes warnings: mention injury, blood and near death

You had studied under Gandalf the Grey for many years, learning from the wizard in the hopes you too could possibly learn a fraction of the man's infinite knowledge. Witchcraft and wizardry were becoming less and less sort after and taught, not many wizards taking on apprentices and not many wanted to learn. It felt like in a sense the magic of the world was dying, Elves were returning to their ancestral homes, Dwarves staying in their mountains, allowing men to have free reign of the world. It brought you great sadness to think that one day you may be one of the only people with magical ability in all of Middle Earth. With Gandalf falling to the dreaded beast, Balrog, that fear was slowly becoming a reality.

Travelling with the fellowship was fun and exciting, though losing Gandalf had put a pause to the usual cheery nature of everyone. Before then everyone was fairly close, getting along the best they could on the ride. You often found yourself speaking with Boromir, the man providing you with unlimited jokes and stories to keep you entertained. Though you got on well with everyone, it was clear you and Boromir were becoming quite close. Everyone caught the longing stares he gave you, how during a battle he would stay closer to you to ensure your safety. Yet nothing gave away just how much you liked him, on your part there were no longing stares. Nothing to truly tell them if you reciprocated the man's feelings or simply saw him as a friend.

But as they watched you weep over the dying man, holding him close to your chest the best you could without hurting him, they knew you loved him just as much as he loved you. You did not care for the blood getting on your hands and clothes. Only caring for the man in your arms as you break into loud, uncontrollable sobs, begging him to be alright. Boromir's face held a content smile, holding on softly to your arm.

Gandalf had always warned you about certain spells that were deemed too dangerous and dark to ever try to do. He knew you were curious by nature and you would stumble upon them sooner or later. Thus, he taught you about them only briefly, mentioning the ones in your book that were far too dangerous for you to attempt. But all his warnings seemed to leave your mind as you looked down at Boromir, for you only wished for him to be okay, to stay at your side.

"Impoire Herisum Ascenaeaturi Damcio" as you begin the incantation the world seems to shift, the air growing stale. "Impguin Vaseoulum Xaaoturi Syvbeo." The sky darkened, the trees around you almost leaning into where you sat, and the ground rumbled as the volume in your voice rose. "Impayailum Taneoious Sulba Zeiuul Ziayuerate Accguin." Lightening struck the ground, one could not say if it struck you or simply near you.

The colour began to return to Boromir's face, no longer looking ghastly and sickly. His pained, staggered breath returning to normal and the strength returning in his hold on you. As you had shared your soul with him, spared him from the afterlife for just a little longer. A part of you felt almost selfish for doing so, but you could not back out now, for it had been done.

He was back with you and you with him, not even death had the power to rip you apart.

[maverick-werewolf]

Modern Dragon Designs - Where they came from

Your regularly scheduled werewolf facts will return soon. For now, we provide this special, because you may not realize this, but I love dragons. There’s a reason one of my protagonists is basically obsessed with dragons.

Once upon a time, there was a movie - I don’t see anyone talk about it, I’m not even sure how many people are familiar with it...

It’s called Reign of Fire.

This movie shaped the modern Hollywoodian concept of dragons. Seriously, it did. Hear me out.

Released in 2002, Reign of Fire was a movie about - essentially - dragons as that age-old trope of “let’s take one monster and turn them into an overpopulated zombie plague so we can use them to tell a story about humans and make the monster just this brainless evil locust swarm backdrop.” This has happened to a lot of monsters by now.

But wait, these dragons aren’t like the dragons you might be used to: these dragons were completely redesigned from the ground up by the filmmaker(s) in order to make a more “realistic” and “animalistic” dragon that was acceptable by Hollywood, who generally views “dragon movies” (like so many other fantasy things...) as cheesy and silly. Market your movie as a film about dragons and you probably won’t get a deal. Well, turns out, coming up with your own gritty dragon designs worked!

Doesn’t this remind you of every other dragon you’ve seen in a movie for the last, you know, 18 years? Although it actually looks quite a bit cooler than those other ones that came after it

Please note that while I may sound sarcastic, jaded, and often maybe a bit scathing, I mean nothing against the creators of Reign of Fire or director Rob Bowman. I watched the movie in theaters when it released. I applaud Bowman for coming up with unique and interesting dragon designs, in order to have a different take on the creatures, so that they fit the story he wanted to tell, instead of doing what so many people do and completely co-opting concepts without trying to alter them to fit anything and... yeah... okay, I’m not going to talk about werewolf things in this post. Getting back on track:

What I don’t applaud is everyone ripping off Reign of Fire for their own dragons, doubly so because most of these people didn’t even take into account the reasons why it was designed that way. They should have left his dragons alone and come up with their own thing, but at least I guess Bowman can go down in history as the man who designed every Hollywood dragon for over a decade to come - with no signs of stopping - even down to the tail shape.

On Vice, you can find an article and interview with Rob Bowman, the director of Reign of Fire, discussing how he came up with this dragon design and how influential it has become. I highly recommend giving it a read.

Please note the Vice article is clearly written with the bias of someone who “can’t take dragons seriously,” so it’s also a good look at the Hollywood mindset about dragons and how much Hollywood treats fantasy in general like garbage (jerks).

It’s impossible to pretend this movie didn’t basically reshape modern dragons. Let’s get to the details...

Animalistic Design

Dragons in popular culture are generally - or at least they were generally - assumed to be powerful, intelligent creatures, often of a higher nature than humans and other mere mortals. They may be good or evil, but one can’t understate that traditional fantasy dragons are regal and majestic either way.

Reign of Fire wanted to usurp the majestic, intelligent dragon image, creating a smaller, hunched, knuckle-dragging sort of dragon that looks more like an animal - like a pteranodon. This is because the dragons in Reign of Fire are not exceptionally intelligent, noble beings that speak and hoard gold and have the wisdom of the ages. They are brutal hunters that set things on fire and eat everything smaller than them. So this design choice was a conscious one and a smart one.

The dragons in Reign of Fire are meant to be more scientific, more plausible, and also simpler, in a manner of speaking. They are not colorful, magical, ancient fantasy dragons...

Trouble is, everyone took cues from this design for their talking wise noble fantasy dragons, and it... doesn’t really work, at least if you ask me.

The dragon design in Reign of Fire looks like an ancestral throwback, an evolutionary ancestor to the intelligent, talking fantasy dragon, although they are smaller. They’re hunched, they haven’t evolved forelegs independent of their wings... you get the idea. Take a look at the “proto-drakes” in World of Warcraft versus the ordinary drakes, which have tiny dangly T-rex forelegs that haven’t fully developed yet, so they walk like the Reign of Fire dragons.

A proto-drake in World of Warcraft - also say hi to my worgen warrior

So many things taking this design for their intelligent, “higher being” dragons seems kind of... odd to me, to say the least. Unfortunately, Hollywood decided that’s the only way moviegoers can “take dragons seriously,” so here we are.

“Wyvern” - Two Legs vs Four

Municipal arms of Stjørdal, Norway

In medieval heraldry, there came to be a creature called a wyvern. Now, the etymology on the term “wyvern” is a little shaky. It originally didn’t specifically refer to a “two-legged dragon.” It is thought to mean/be derived from words meaning anything ranging from “asp” to “light javelin,” and essentially boils down to a flying serpent. It is noteworthy, of course, that the word “dragon” basically just means “serpent” too.

In heraldry, though, “wyvern” came to refer to a two-legged dragon - at least, if you ask the English, Scottish, and Irish; elsewhere in Europe, they may not be so picky. And now, in modern pop culture (such as Dungeons and Dragons), we often use it in the same sense.

Wyverns weren’t really a “thing” in folklore, just as dragons in folklore didn’t look like our modern idea of a dragon. It’s debatable whether the father of our modern concept of dragons, Fafnir (from whom Tolkien drew inspiration for Smaug), even had wings at all; he was essentially a serpent, perhaps with legs. Point is, wyverns come from heraldry, especially the specificity of two legs versus four.

So now you know why you might see a lot of people (myself included) referring to this design as a “wyvern design” for a dragon.

Dull Coloration - Grey and Brown over Red, Blue, Green...

There’s something else - something very important - that Hollywood took from Reign of Fire... the concept that dragons aren’t pretty colors and are, in fact, various hues of grey and brown, and any more contrasting colors are just vague indications instead of bright red scales.

Now, Reign of Fire obviously did this because - again - they were going for the more animalistic, natural look as opposed to the mysterious majestic magical being look. Okay, that’s fine. But then Hollywood decided that fantasy, too, has to be devoid of dragons with bright colors.

The green dragon in Game of Thrones

There are countless examples of this in modern media. Any dragon that was previously brightly colored has been dulled pretty much to an extreme. Sometimes you might catch a fleeting glimpse of them looking like a brighter shade, but it was probably just a trick of the light. Why? Because all dragons are desaturated to the point of being almost indistinguishable by color.

The golden dragon in The Witcher Netflix series

This is also why you see so many mods on the Skyrim Nexus called things like “true red dragon.”

There are plenty more examples of this - I’m sure you can see the difference when you look at those dragons and other modern film dragons over, say, something like this...

Red dragon in D&D

And now we move on to...

The Fire Breathing - Chemicals, not Magic

Bowman insisted on ditching traditional fire breathing (you don't want the audience wondering whether the dragon's mouth is being burnt up with every flame) and again looked to the animal kingdom for inspiration. The king cobra, once again, was a great starting point. It doesn't spray fire, but it can spit its venom. Even more useful was the bombardier beetle, which shoots two chemicals from its abdomen that, once mixed, create a hot, burning spray. Bowman used these real-world examples to inspire his own dragons. They don't breathe fire exactly, but rather spit chemicals from two different sacks in their mouths that, when combined, ignite. "That's anatomy. That's already been designed, so we're going to draw from there," he said.

(quoted from the Vice article linked to earlier in this post)

The Hungarian Horntail in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - fire is streaming from two separate organs in the mouth, but they aren’t chemicals mixing together like in Reign of Fire...

The director of Reign of Fire wanted his dragons to be more natural in that they breathe fire through organic means, based on chemical reactions, instead of the usual dragon magic. But lots of people loved this “mouth flap”/”mouth organ” design with “streams” of fire coming from the mouth instead of fire flowing directly from the dragon’s throat, so now you see it pretty dang often.

Horns? Brow Ridges!

Another thing that is basically out now in dragon designs is the real horns of many traditional dragons, like Spyro, and like the dragons in Dungeons & Dragons used to have.

These days, it’s all about brow ridges and big spiny scales that aren’t separate horns, they’re just big pointed scales or piles of scales or bone ridges - and they aren’t a different color than the dragon’s scales, either, pretty often. And, in general, dragon’s horns have become much smaller and far more numerous, and more like spines/ridges, as opposed to the great, sweeping horns of classical dragons.

Firkraag, the red dragon, in the D&D video game Baldur’s Gate II, from 2000

Firkraag is a very traditional dragon. Now, while Dungeons & Dragons has generally kept more traditional dragons (yay!), they did fall into the brow ridge horn thing - although they, thankfully, didn’t make the horns smaller and subtler and more numerous little spikes, like so many other modern dragon designs. They also went with the brow ridge horns for tieflings (once humans with demon blood, then some weird thing in 4E, and now I think they’re humans with demon blood again), as opposed to the ordinary horns of the tieflings in previous editions of D&D.

Skyrim dragon head concept art

The Desolation of Smaug(’s design)

Here is... a big one. Here, we’ll talk some about the production of The Hobbit films over time, so we’re going behind the scenes.

Alright, so we all know Smaug, probably, by pop culture osmosis if nothing else. He is the quintessential dragon. He’s basically the founder of all Western dragon concepts: he’s big, he’s red, he hoards gold, he’s extremely intelligent and talks, etc. You get the picture. Every dragon that we have borrowed at least something from Smaug. And, in turn, he was inspired by Fafnir, the father of all our dragon concepts, from Norse mythology - but Tolkien took it all a step further and created the concept of dragons that we have today. Or, well, the not Reign of Fire ones. The fantasy ones.

A map drawn by Tolkien: notice the winged, four-legged Smaug over his mountain

During the first Hobbit movie, An Unexpected Journey, we see Smaug attack the Lonely Mountain...

In this clip, you can plainly see that Smaug has four legs. This was actually edited slightly for later editions of the movie, or so I’ve heard (I haven’t watched any later editions).

I can tell you for certain that when I saw the theatrical release, it was like this, too. It is apparent throughout the scene that Smaug has four legs and wings, separately. I know because I was paying very, very close attention, because I was going to be very upset if Hollywood turned Smaug into a wyvern.

Well, they did - later.

Smaug the wyvern looking like just another slightly different take on the bog-standard Hollywood dragon

Apparently, some studio exec decided that having a traditional fantasy dragon, even if this dragon happens to be frelling Smaug himself, would not be okay in this modern Hollywood world. So we ended up with a dull reddish spiney hunching knuckle-dragging wyvern with an angler mouth (I’m sorry; I really am sorry if you like the design, that’s totally fine, it’s a fine design, I am glad you enjoyed it, but Smaug shouldn’t have looked that way IMO and forgive me but I am still in pain over it) in place of a more traditional dragon that held more to things like, I dunno, how Tolkien himself drew Smaug. Smaug’s movie design flies right in the face of that and destroyed our chance to finally see a proper traditional dragon done justice on the big screen.

Tolkien’s art of Smaug - note the position of the forelegs, separate from the wings, like in the earlier map

This is all just one big example why we should be thankful that The Lord of the Rings films were all shot in one go, so no one could alter important things like the design of the fantasy genre’s father of all dragons, in the middle of production. Of course, the production on The Hobbit movies was a nightmare at best, as you can read about in assorted other articles, and Peter Jackson was very unhappy with what the studio had him do to the series. All of that is just another story, I suppose.

Dragons Redesigned by Reign of Fire: Example List

Now that we’ve gone over just a few of the talking points about Reign of Fire’s dragon designs (although I didn’t even get into the flat, spaded tail look in detail), here’s an undoubtedly incomplete list of several examples that have either entirely taken the design and/or were massively influenced by it...

(please note that not everything in this list held entirely to Reign of Fire’s design, obviously; some have the fire, some don’t; some have horns, some have head/brow ridges; but all of them are wyverns and most are darkly-colored)

Skyrim - Obvious influence with the general design, skin/scales and ridges design, as well as coloration; however, it is noteworthy that the Elder Scrolls has had dragons with no forelegs since at least 1998, in the game Redguard - though that dragon was also very brightly-colored (also of note: Peryite, while technically a Daedric prince and not a dragon, had four legs at least as far back as Daggerfall in 1996)

The Hobbit films, specifically The Desolation of Smaug onward - as mentioned before

Harry Potter movies - Wholesale. Two streams of fire from mouth flaps in Goblet of Fire, generally dull greyish and/or brownish colorations, no forelegs, short/simple horns that are mostly ridges...

Gods of Egypt - The giant fire-breathing cobras have the mouth flaps

Game of Thrones - This one’s pretty obvious too.

Disney’s Maleficent - In the new live action Disney movie(s), the dragon falls right into this design (though the fire doesn’t come from mouth flaps)

Netflix Witcher series - Villentretenmerth is very much a wyvern design and a dull shade, and he in fact has no horns at all, even though dragons weren’t portrayed this way in any previous Witcher adaptations

Stargate SG1 (season 10) - In the episode series “The Quest,” a dragon appears and... well, it looks just like all those other dragons, though the fire does come from its throat.

Beowulf (2008) - I try not to ever talk about or think about this film, but I have to just throw out there that the dragon is very much Reign of Fire, especially with that wyvern design.

Seventh Son - If you can call Malkin a dragon  - she was called one, I think - she definitely also has the same kind of dull-colored wyvern design.

Sucker Punch (movie)

Lots and lots of B-movies and direct to DVD/streaming films - Dawn of the Dragonslayer, Dragon (2006), Dragon Crusaders...

Something to note, also, is that cartoons, anime, and other non-film media is mostly - but not entirely - free from this influence. Cartoons especially are free from it, partially because they aren’t influenced by Hollywood producers who want “serious” and “realistic” dragons. Cartoons are allowed to have magical, colorful, four-legged dragons. Unfortunately, we are deprived of those in live action film and television, by and large.

There are still other exceptions - most notably things that were created before this influence, like Dragonheart and its spinoffs and sequels, which have thankfully kept their dragon designs consistent instead of erasing their forelegs.

Of course, why dragons are depicted as four-legged and winged in the first place - and when this depiction arose - is another topic entirely. I’m not going into that right now, seeing as how this post is already preposterously long.

Long story short, I was rewatching the movie Gods of Egypt and, when I saw the giant cobra monsters breathe fire, I was possessed to write this article. Because Reign of Fire’s influence is something I have always noticed ever since its release, and something my brother and I talk about a lot (and everyone who knows me has surely heard me talk about it, too) - because, frankly, it’s always bothered me. My favorite dragons are traditional dragons: four legs, bright colors, wings, horns, breathing fire, the works.

So, although the original creator of these design ideas did something cool and different because he wanted to do his own take on dragons, Hollywood decided that these design cues should be taken to dumb down all dragons forever, the same way that Hollywood has dumbed down so many monster designs so that the only acceptable ones just a bunch of near-replicas of each other, including werewolves.

I think it’s very sad that film producers think you can’t take something like dragons or werewolves seriously unless they are dull, nontraditional, and ugly. And I say ugly in the sense of these are not pretty, majestic fantasy designs - they are, many of them, intended to be ugly. Though I personally also hold the opinion that most of them are ugly regardless of if they are intended to be ugly.

So - now you know! If you haven’t seen Reign of Fire, go check it out to meet the father of modern dragon designs, from the color of their hides to the shape of their bodies, the smaller horns, and - sometimes - even their tails.

(Special thanks to everyone on my discord who helped me compile this list, as well as of course my brother and all our ranting at/with each other on this topic over many years)

If you like this post, maybe you’ll enjoy the rest of my blog, where I post a lot about folklore and all kinds of monsters (especially werewolves)!

Werewolf Facts --- Patreon

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 24 part two

(Masterpost) (Pinboard)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Arguing

After enjoying a tense  afternoon with Lan Xichen, Wei Wuxian comes home to enjoy a tense evening with Jiang Cheng. He pauses in the doorway as he takes in Jiang Cheng’s mood and decides which metaphorical mask he will put on to interact with his shidi. As someone who grew up with explosive people, I find this routine very familiar. 

Wei Wuxian is always carefully playing a role as he interacts with the people in his life. Clearly he has read the classic sociology text The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and is using it as a how-to guide. We see him do this same calculation over and over, in which he reacts internally to a situation, comes to a decision about what persona to inhabit, and then dons that persona. It’s a typical abuse survival tactic and...it is exhausting. 

This is why I think his leaving to be alone for a while in Episode 50 is a good thing. Being alone isn’t better than being with someone else, usually, but for Wei Wuxian, who is (by Episode 50) assured of love but not sure where he belongs in his own life, being by himself for a while is going to be the best thing for him. He can learn how to just be a person, instead of constantly trying to mold himself to fit everyone around him. 

For the current tense situation, Jiang Cheng is polishing his sword, which, incidentally, is slang (in English, not necessarily in Chinese) for masturbating. Which makes their conversation about how frequently it needs doing kind of a hoot. “One time a month should do,” per Wei Wuxian. 

Jiang Cheng yells at Wei Wuxian--fairly, really--for being drunk all the time and not working on clan tasks. Then he responds to a hug attempt by shoving Wei Wuxian and knocking him down. JC asks WW if he’s too drunk to manage his spiritual power. Now, we know that he doesn’t have any spiritual power to manage, and that’s the main point of this interaction. But it also shows us something else about their dynamic. 

This was just a quick hit, and when it takes WWX out, JC asks why he isn’t responding with spiritual power.  Which means that apparently *every* time Jiang Cheng gives Wei Wuxian a shove or a shoulder check, or strikes him--like he’s been doing constantly since Episode 3--he’s putting spiritual power behind it. That’s...really harsh. 

Jiang Cheng wants Wei Wuxian to fight back, and Wei Wuxian can’t; this is a big part of why their relationship breaks down. Casual blows loaded with spiritual power are part of their vocabulary, and Wei Wuxian can’t speak that language any more, even for basic defense. He’s literally not safe having simple interactions with Jiang Cheng now, because he’s secretly disabled, and Jiang Cheng is casually injuring him whenever he gets too close. 

(more after the cut!)

This time Wei Wuxian has had enough, and raises Chenqing to Jiang Cheng, who immediately backs off. Jiang Cheng has seen that thing in action, not just on the battlefield, but in a small room full of whatever remained of Wen Chao when they were done with him. He takes this as a serious threat, and backs off, disturbed and puzzled and hurt.

Jiang Cheng thinks the change in Wei Wuxian is coming from apathy, not from disability, and so he misunderstands it over and over.  Think of a friend saying “whatever, I’m sick of arguing with you, do what you want.”  Jiang Cheng is very ready to feel rejected, and not at all ready to look at Wei Wuxian’s behavior and try to actually understand it. 

Crying Over You

Wei Wuxian bails and goes to see Jiang Yanli in the ancestral hall, where she is polishing a name plaque. I turned the gamma way up to see whose it is and...I dunno. This character might be 江 (Jiang), I guess?

Jiang Yanli is the only one of the trio who knows how to mourn properly, in that she is taking some time to sit and be sad. Mourning the dead--both ritually and just in the emotional sense--is as important a part of reclaiming Lotus Pier as the training of disciples and having good times on the lake.

She asks him about his fight with Jiang Cheng and he says he’s used to fighting with him. Jiang Yanli asks him if he’s tired of living there, and Wei Wuxian deflects and deflects, saying “it’s my home, where else would I go?” and that if Jiang Fengmian hadn’t adopted him he would still be begging in the streets. He says “no matter what happens, I won’t leave Lotus Pier,” which is not an answer to her question.

It’s also not true. Like so many of his promises, it’s an expression of his wishes, with no space for the surprises real life is made of. He promises her that he won’t be reckless again, and asks her not to be mad at him. She says she can’t be mad at him, and then they share a flashback about Jiang Fengmian finding him on the street. This is a story, not a memory; Wei Wuxian can’t remember but he remembers her telling him about it. Jiang Yanli wasn’t there, in the moment. So this is her telling the story as it was told to her, probably by Jiang Fengmian. 

Flashback Time

In the flashback, picky salad-hating Wei Ying is out on the street, looking for food in a cartload of pretty okay scraps. I mean, yeah, skip the tomatoes, but most of the greens look fine.  

He’s found and fed by Jiang Fengmian, who recognizes him and decides to take him in. 

Within a couple of episodes, we will see Wei Wuxian paying this favor forward, saving someone he finds starving on the street. Just like Jiang Fengmian, he's going to upset and disrupt his family in order to help someone for whom he feels a deep connection.

During this flashback we get a look at Jiang Fengmian’s sword, and it is a beauty. 

What is Love

As the flashback ends, Wei Wuxian is smiling, hearing Jiang Yanli tell this touching story of starvation and orphanhood. She tells him he was born with a smiling face, and that he never minds much about sorrowful things; no matter how bad the situation is, he is always happy. Way to reinforce that metaphorical mask he’s wearing over his deep, deep despair, sis!

They talk a bit about Jiang Cheng’s bad temper.  Then Jiang Yanli says now that her parents are gone, they three are the closest in the world, and he responds by putting his head down on her knee and theatrically saying he’s hungry. But he’s crying for real, and so is she.

Then he decides to ask her why people fall in love, basically, and claims that he does not have anyone in his heart. He says there’s no need to like a person that much, that it’s like “haltering your own neck,” according to Netflix. Let’s have a look at that figurative language for a second, and what’s missing from the Neflix translation. 

What he says is (as near as my qhanzi.com skills can make out) “這不就是自己給自己脖子上套犁拴韁吗” which Google tells me means "Isn't this just putting a plow on my neck with a rein?" The part of the image that’s missing from Netflix subs is the plow, and the hard labor and animal servitude involved in pulling a plow. This isn’t a pro-romance image.

He’s clearly thinking about Lan Wangji when he lies about having no-one in his heart, but right now the yoke that he wants to escape has nothing to do with Lan Wangji. The person he’s harnessed to in a team, the person who he labors with, the person he wants to escape, is Jiang Cheng.  What’s chafing his neck is the promise he made, to stay and serve as one half of a pair, when he can no longer pull his weight. 

Busted

Speaking of Jiang Cheng, he is hanging around outside the shrine, listening to the conversation. Wei Wuxian busts him, pointing out not that eavesdropping is bad, but that it’s bad for grownups. Jiang Cheng points out that he’s the master of Lotus Pier so he’s allowed to go anywhere he wants.

(I love how he looks framed by this giant lotus behind him)

We Wuxian has another of those moments where he assesses the best approach to Jiang Cheng before responding. 

Then he picks a fake fight with him about soup.  Yanli comes out and tells them both to grow up, saying that JC is losing his demeanor as clan leader. He jokingly fixes his already-perfect robe ad they all have a chuckle.

Then Jiang Cheng reminds Wei Wuxian of his promise for the millionth time, and Jiang Yanli goes to make soup for the millionth time. As soon as the boys see that she’s gone, the smiles drop right off of their faces. They’re both performing their typical relationship dynamic for Jiang Yanli.

Being Reasonable

The brothers repair to the main hall, and stand behind the lotus throne looking out of this complicated wall/doorway thingy, while they talk about Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. 

Jiang Cheng is being mature and sensible here, trying to give Jiang Yanli what she wants and also explaining very, very basic political stuff to Wei Wuxian, who is too caught up in his hate boner for JZX to want to think about the bigger picture. He also thinks that Jin Guangyao is a nicer person, but Jiang Cheng says that nice doesn’t matter.  

Wei Wuxian is getting a full head of steam going about what a jerk JZX is, when Jiang Cheng makes him actually stop and think, by pointing out that it’s not for them to forgive or not forgive Jin Zixuan’s past behavior; it’s up to Yanli.

Wei Wuxian sees the reasoning in this, and starts to say he can’t understand why Yanli chose to like this person, but then he stops himself and goes through a rapid series of thoughtful, uncomfortable expressions. 

Perhaps he’s realizing that he himself has chosen to like an infamously stuck-up, fancy cultivator, albeit one with no soup-related character deficits.

Library Time

The stuck-up cultivator in question is currently in the Cloud Recesses library, where he has snuck into the forbidden books room, against his uncle’s express command, for the purpose of helping Wei Wuxian. The forbidden books room is an entire basement floor of the library; it probably has more books than the not-forbidden part of the library, since the main floor needs space for the restrooms, circulation desk, and copy machines.

(Did OP photoshop the Wangxian-in-the-Library porn picture onto Lan Wangjis’ book? She did.)

A couple of other Lans come along and see the main door unlocked. The lock is a big fish that probably uses magic for locking; it definitely doesn’t use a key. One of them steps in the doorway, glances back and forth without walking through, and does not check the secret door to the forbidden vault. Gosh, how did Su She and/or Jin Guangyao  ever manage to steal secrets from this highly secure location, wow.

Lan Wangji hears the Lan disciple on guard duty say “don’t tell Hanguang Jun about this!’ and has a series of microexpressions that might indicate some kind of feeling about simultaneously being a rule breaker and a rule enforcer.  

Boat Time

We end with an idyllic scene on the lake in Lotus pier, where a new batch of disciples is harvesting lotuses and learning the opposite of boat safety. 

Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian are having a good time, and seem utterly carefree; both of them are good at living in the moment, or faking it. 

Wei Wuxian thinks, in voiceover, that it seems that it’s not so hard to go back to the old days. Uh...ok.

Except he’s hiding a massive secret and these replacement kids are not the same juniors he used to hang out with, and he can’t actually teach them cultivation, since he has no socially-acceptable magic power, and everything is about to go to shit in the next episode. But you gotta take your joy where you can, I guess. 

Note: There are a lot of questionable effects in The Untamed, but there are also beautiful scenes like this one, which looks like a Maxfield Parrish painting. Compare with the BTS below and you can see what a good job the VFX team did in bringing this lake to life. 

[tarotnoob]

@nashikahan

Happy post engagement surprise free individual reading.

How will your next romantic partner treat you?

Person's personality so that you can know which person this would be even though it should be the next person, but hey it's always nice to be able to single them out :)

Prince: Romantic charm and potential for power Student: Humility and devotion to knowledge. Openness to lifelong learning.

They seem young, highly intelligent, good communication, a literal student or someone who's always open to learning. Romantic, generous, perhaps someone with ambition or an interest in politics or another way to service their community, charisma. As a vibe, it feels like someone intellectually ambitious, as in someone who'd be studying law or politics, potentially medicine, but I'm pulled more toward law/history/politics. Reads a lot. I think would have the potential to be very charming and woo someone with how knowledgable they seem, good with their words. I think very verbally charming.

I'm sure there are other ways to interpret this, I even left not for you flipped which means you read the protection message, but no matter what it is a card that means what it says - as in, it's possible this relationship will only be temporary - that's ONE way to read it.

By the book is a card all about living within... the rules basically. You do things by the book.

So, here are some interpretations for this combo: This person, you may find, though charming and smart, might play things too "by the book" for you, so if someone who's kind of into rules and regulations and following cultural norms is a turn off... that could be why this is temporary. Another way to interpret is... this is a person who "going by the book" isn't their style and maybe they think out of the box, or even that something about this person or this relationship will be out of the ordinary compared to... what the rest of people in your country/culture/religion/family may do? Like, for example, say you have a "conservative" cultural background, and it's expected for the woman in a relationship to help the in-laws with certain events (I'm thinking of a Korean drama I just watched where she had to help her in laws with ancestral rites which basically just meant washing everyone's dishes and making food and domestic labor) - and later on in the show, they decided to basically have a marriageless marriage. So, it could just be this person might be intellectually progressive and the relationship or them is a bit... unexpected.

Those are the two interpretations I can come up with - temporary bc they're too rigid or... just... different than the ordinary relationship you're used to or is expected by some external folks.

If you're at the age of studying, perhaps you'd meet them through school or some type of class or, at the very least, this person seems to be studying or learning something.... intuitively the external folks are most likely to be yours or their family. Because those elephants in by the book look like a little family. It could also be that this person is a writer or does something with books or perhaps the whole family has always worked in education or takes education very seriously. Or the "education" as in the "rules" this person lives by (socially) have been created by their family (as in customs and tradition).

Okay, so this will be advice about the relationship or something about the lesson/story: Choose Love, "You always have choice - make yours with love."

I'll type out this paragraph bc it's kinda vibing with what I just said: This card relates to your perception of your world. Do you blame your environment for what is going on in your life? This culpability could include your fate, your belief system, your life experiences, or your parents. Regardless of what has or will go on in your life, you always have choice. It may not be easy but choosing to love and be loving is your best option. You are in control of how you feel. It kind of has a six of cups vibe, but it's mostly about... instead of holding onto anything negative, remember things with love. Maybe it's like focusing on the good things? Gratitude even? We'll see how this may play in later maybe.

Then, I drew a few extra messages from that fairy oracle, so it's fun you said love or career and you got both cards D:

Love life - "the question you asked about is about your love life (haha) which is now changing for the better"

New career - "your work focus is shifting in a positive, new, and successful direction"

Get some exercise - "as your body becomes stronger you begin to feel stronger in all ways"

maybe that's an extra note if you're exercising or getting healthier in terms of diet or if you need to relieve stress, etc... the others were bang on, so might be worth looking into. she looks like she's swimming or skiing or maybe it's a yoga pose, i dunno how that looks like exercise but yeah.

okay now let's talk about the tarot and then we'll do a whole how will they treat you based on the full picture.

according to the tarot

what one card represents this person: 3 of cups. it's possible they will come from your friend circle, or at the very least someone within your community. as in someone in your school, someone at your religious institution of preferred practice. they seem to be a social person, maybe even someone who likes to party or drink, but it's really just a card about socializing with friends and having fun, celebration. i would guess they make for a good and fun friend. they could be a water sign but then i do have a whole stack of three sword cards that fell out later. not to say they can't be a water-air combo.

how do they feel about you or what are they attracted to about you: chariot. i also clarified just to see what's going on. 3 of cups clarified by knight of cups, so back to that "prince" and "charming" type of person. maybe idealistic, but at least charming or romantic, sensitive. it does seem like they're the one who will approach with an offer, and i still think it could be connected to your community/friend network, so they may be someone you know as opposed to someone you meet later. and likely they're... a friend or you're friends at present. possibly. don't quote me. that's just what it looks like.

so what they like about you. the chariot on its own is focus, ambition, control. what's interesting is it was clarified by five of wands, high priestess, and emperor. and so it makes me think that what they find attractive in you could be that they see you as the high priestess and see themselves as an emperor type. so, what they like about you is that you're cool under pressure, intelligent, they like that spiritual side of you. it could also be that they find you to be in balance of both that fem/masc divine energy. it could also be like... idk if you'd be in the same course or something but it's possible that if you two were fellow students or coworkers that they admire you in that setting and could even see you as like a... competitor, lol. but mostly i just see this as since the emperor and priestess are very calm and in control of their emotions and their surroundings that they like that and those are two people who would squash any five of wands petty conflicts. like maybe they see you as spiritually unbothered. it's interesting too that there's emphasis on moon here with the cancer card in the chariot and then high priestess.. maybe someone has a moon in aries or something... or maybe that opposite of by the book is what they like about you. maybe some aspect of your spiritual interests is interesting to them. both of these characters also have a lot of power. i mean, for me, this is more of a power couple than the empress and emperor. i love the empress but imagine a high priestess (makes me think of elizabeth I) and then idk a nonshitty emperor... the high priestess has that more pure or virginal vibe too so i will say this feels a bit conservative in energy... like someone who would admire a partner who's... dutiful or... respectable... they aren't... really looking for a free spirit. they want someone respectful and i'm getting very just... maybe they are kinda wanting a traditional partner. but they clearly see you as powerful and spiritual and a good match intellectually. like maybe the five of wands is witty teasing banter. like you could go tit for tat with this person. like if they say something smartass and you come back with an equally great quip. or let's say it in a weird way like if this person has actual political ambitions... then maybe they see you as a potential future partner to those future goals or life ambitions? like a good match for that.

so i would imagine they'd treat you rather respectfully. it's a weird thing to say but maybe in their head they visualize it as you'd be someone they'd want to go into battle with. maybe there's also something significant about a fourth house placement since that's cancer's house. cancer also corresponds to home and family so again i feel like there's something about traditional or family customs that's important to them or this relationship.

so then i straight up asked - how will they treat you and got knight of swords, then queen of swords, and ace of swords, lol.

there is something very direct about this person. i don't think they bullshit around about anything. they're very straight-forward and probably honest. conversation is going to be super important. it might be that they see you as someone on their level because i keep feeling like they want to treat you as an equal and perhaps if - again - something about your customs or family are traditional, maybe it's unusual for an equal relationship in some sense? idk. i think once someone has decided to progress the relationship, this person will move very fast to give their answer, they're extremely decisive, they seem to want to rush in and give you an offer (a verbal one) that's very clear and there's no room for confusion. it also seems just looking at those sword cards and the order, the knight is rushing in to give you this sword, the queen now holds that sword, and then we see the sword which represents truth or communication or knowledge so it's like they pass some type of truth or words on to you. now to summarize based on everything here, i will take a stab (haha see what i did there) at how a person like this would treat you.

this person's mind is very sharp and there's a lot of forward motion to how they think. there are air signs that are definitely very analytical bc that's what air signs do, but this person is... pretty intense. they aren't indecisive like a libra, they aren't... anxious like a gemini, so if i chose any air sign it's aquarius but i don't really sense that. maybe it's that their mercury is in some air sign but it doesn't matter. also choose love is interesting as a card since swords are all about decisions and making choices and being decisive about choices.

it also makes me feel that at some point, they will leave the choice up to you in some way so that choose love message may be for you bc the knight's sword is theirs... they give it to you so ultimately they leave you with a choice about... something... and maybe somehow that's unusual? it could also be symbolic of giving you something... like.. a book... knowledge... a new way to see things... new perspectives, enlightenment.

they seem to want to... i don't want to say sway you, but imagine this person coming by and you're on the side of a highway in the desert or it doesn't matter where but it's not a busy place and you're not in dire straits but maybe yeah kinda... and this person comes by on a motorcycle, and they stop to see if you want a ride but the ride they want to take you on is to go... anywhere... but you also... have to go in their direction. and they're only going to give you five minutes to decide. do you want to stay or do you want to go (with me).

i'm trying to show that this person's very... on a path toward something and IF you hesitate about being with them or going in their direction, they will give you that choice... but they aren't going to stick around forever. they're very WHOOOSH in and out - they are going somewhere. they have a goal, they are seeing themselves at a certain point in the future and maybe they have a plan for their life so you'll have to decide if that's a plan you're interested in. this feels like IF this happens it'll be later on in the relationship... and it's like ok i'm headed this way are you coming with or nah. and so they give you the sword.

so more about how they treat you - like an intellectual equal, like a human being instead of an object. they want to get to know you and learn about you, they want to talk to you a lot. they seem very curious about things in life in general so they're going to be curious about you, but i also see them as quite chatty. they study hard. they might have difficult classes or a tough or powerful position in a job. it might center around someone who has to make decisions pretty frequently. but they are still charming and romantic, so they might have a way with words. maybe they write you poetry or there's something very charming and beautiful and poetic about the way they speak. i don't feel like they treat you with kid gloves or like you're a dainty flower...they treat you like a friend and equal. there's cards here indicating they really could end up in some type of important position of power. i'm drawn to law and government mostly. or if there's a religious cleric. that's a thing right. no it feels more pursuit of knowledge, although obvs there's religious knowledge but... more legal/government... yeah.

there might be a certain level of detachment though... like they sort of also put you on a pedestal or something? or idolize you in some way? i don't want to say treat you like a king/queen but... kinda. but how you would expect them to treat the high priestess... even if they're charming, you'd show the empress this sort of more... obvious visceral love and affection but how would you show that to the high priestess? it's more... contained... respectful.... it's not as showy.

so there may be something reserved about their affections or maybe they're more affectionate in private than in public, but if that's so, it has something to do with "respect" and how they perceive or view you as their partner or in that role... it feels cultural. idk. like it reminds me of how i'd expect a muslim man to treat his wife when they're out in public... and maybe she's wearing a hijab so there's that respectful cultural... respectful distance. is that the word i want idk. bc it does seem they place you on a spiritual pedestal. ?

i don't know if that applies but that's the visual.

how will they treat you? very... respectfully. lol i cannot get away from that word... they treat you... by the book as would be expected of a person in their position to treat you... i think. no matter what the background it'd be like if a person was raised a very strict way to treat a partner within those principles that their... upbringing or family taught them to treat a partner. almost as if they're copying how they've seen their parents treat each other maybe.

have you ever seen coming to america? and they have that whole ceremony and going through the motions of how the bride/groom should treat each other... it's like that haha. so like... formal or... how you'd expect a prince courting a princess from another kingdom. there are... rituals and... steps... rules....

but anyway as i said, they seem to be coming to you to offer something and the decision is up to you... but i will say they keep coming up as a prince/knight but how they're seeing you is... high priestess, emperor, queen of swords... maybe they're younger or maybe you somehow have a higher status or like i said they just have mentally put you on pedestal in some way. i also feel like they have this sort of romantic notion of going to battle for you or trying to earn your respect... like imagine a knight trying to impress his queen. maybe there's also a bit of puppy energy to this person, running around trying to please you or impress you. maybe you'll find it endearing or flattering or... but i think they'll always be honest with you at least. and i really do think that you'll be friends as well as partners. which is really what you want in a partnership, someone you can talk to about anything and everything. if you lie in bed together and talk all the way until you're ready for bed. about big ideas or about details of your day.... maybe they are aquarius... like an aquarius cancer thingy person.

even in the fairy oracles... like you're presented as a "queen" regardless of gender here and the love life especially the girl is seated on the flower and the boy is coming as if trying to see what this girl needs... as if she's the queen on the throne again and he's the knight there to fetch whatever and make sure she's comfortable...

so it's not that even if they're traditional or conservative that they're very like domineering... i feel like they're more inclined to be whipped and do your bidding even if they're still more stoic in public.

it would make sense that if you were younger and college age-ish that this person could be a year or two younger or just have that puppy energy to them.... but i still see them as a good friend and an equal, too, even if they're younger.

so.... that's probably enough insight into how you'd be treated... if you want to be pampered, i'd say they're up for that since this knight went to wherever to bring you this sword like you're princess zelda or something... your next person is basically Link.

[marygaby25]

Before I begin I will tell you that I may be delusional and in denial, so I apologize if I come up with something far-fetched and crazy, even worse than Mephisto's. I will only be my faith and hope in the letters. It will just be my faith and hope in letters

Ok I know I told you that Marvel was placing Sharon as an antagonist, but I rewatched the final chapter and the others like four times in subtitles, Spanish Spain and Latin (my mother tongue is not English) I watched the whole series and the chapters again because I couldn't believe that Marvel had returned to Sharon Carte, the leader of the daughters of freedom, the woman fighter for justice, the inspiration and hope of Steve an antagonist, not only that but also, the power broker that is another character, I know that they had changed the gender of ancestral and had introduced Michael Jones, not Mary Jan, but this would be another thing.

So I watch the series and I notice that it was very obvious that she was or that they interpreted her as the power broker (since the first time I saw the chapters I thought so, but I said to myself that Marvel would not do that).

When I start to see that Sharon talks with Karli both say that they are disappointed of the attitude of the other, Sharon tells her to come back with her, Karli answers that she only wants the team and asks her how much power has the power broker without the exercise of super soldiers? also that she wants a change, not power and resentment towards the world that hurt her.(Something contradictory because she was killing innocent people and threatening to kill more) Sharon says "much more than you", referring to the power. Then batroc arrives and tells her that

She is the power broker, that now he will pay her quadruple and threatens her saying that if she doesn't do it everyone will find out that she is the power broker. Okay the face Sharon makes is very "this one if he is dumb I draw that conclusion and threaten me" and shoots him saying he doesn't take bribes Karli shoots her and the moment Sam arrives that karli is going to shoot him and fight Sam Sharon tells him "karli no" trying to stop him from doing something like attacking Sam or trying to kill her. If Sharon is the power broker and is so cruel and cold I doubt she would beg for her life.

When karli dies for Sharon shooting her to stop her from killing Sam, karli says "sorry" and not that Sharon is the power broker if she really felt she owed Sam something why not tell her about Sharon. Not to mention that comes the scene of Valentina, who is madame hydra in the comics, talking about maybe I plot the death of the super soldiers or not with zemo, half joking half not who knows, there is also that scene from the previous chapters dela card that is more suspicious than a hooded man near a bank, then in the post credits scene we have Sharon's reprieve where she looks happy and relieved. Then follows where she comes out of the meeting then she talks about telling him or making it known that she even though she no longer has the super soldiers she has state secrets, prototype weapons and that sort of thing it's like she wants to get someone's attention.

Now, she never stated in the conversation with Karli about if the power broker had power or not "I have more power than you" she only said "more than you" which makes me think that she works so much for the power broker that she knows what I can or can't do, also that they get to confuse her with him since batroc didn't hear that she was directly just assumed it.

Also so that she would take them ( Sam , Bucky and Zemo) to the scientist and go in knowing he would recognize her (she might as well have warned him to pretend not to know each other, but the guy was surprised when he saw them).

The other is that Sharon has always worked with Fury under that undercover mode in the comics (she already did it pretending to be Kate) she even fakes her death for the mission and does jobs like that as a double agent. Like when she pretends to be an assassin, she later helps Steve and Black Panther escape by saving them from being killed. She half worked with red skull to save steve and the world since hitler was supposed to have the cosmic cube, but then betrayed red skull by giving the cosmic cube to steve.

So I feel that because Nick, Hill and Sharon were five years as ashes there will be their corrupt government agents, other villains in hiding and they are looking for a way to catch them. I imagine now they don't trust anyone as much after shield being hydra's cover.

This fits the character more, Steve in the comics has done worse and worse things have happened to Sharon, she still does good. I know it's the ucm and it changes a lot of things but, it's the essence of the character. Not to mention that in Winter Soldier she confronts the orders of her superiors asking why they are chasing Captain America. when confronted by Brock he says "wrong side agent" she replies "it depends on the circumstances" basically if the illegal side is the right side she will shove the rules and protocols where it fits best.

I doubt that she is a Skrull first because of the blood and when Karli shot her she did not change her form by inertia. Something that if I remember correctly happens in Captain Marvel. I come back and repeat that as far as we have been shown the Skrulls are still on Nick's side as good guys.

That would explain why it is presented so obviously, that only Marvel is trying to confuse us and this time if you are trying to give him the important place he deserved from the beginning.

PS I warned that it was a very crazy theory, that she could be falling for the hope that they don't turn her into a villain that could be equal or worse than Mephisto.

Please don't make fun of my hopes 😞

[phoebehalliwell]

I am having Thoughtstm about Bianca.

Have you thought about what her relationship would be with the rest of the Halliwell brood? Like does she get along with white!future Wyatt and Melinda? And what does she think of Henry Jr and his desire to make his Mark on the Halliwell Line?

Also I for some reason see her getting along really well with Dency? I know they don’t exist in the same universe but I could see them being friends? Maybe roasting Chris together and being good sparring partners? I think she’d dig Dency’s little detective thing she’d got going… and I know Bianca is with Chris but like… Bianca x Dency ? 👀 👀 Could be cute 😂😂

okay so for starters i think bianca gets along p well with all of the next gen but like. it wasn’t an immediate thing like. i think esp with wyatt because wyatt really is kind of like. like he's the kind of epitome of the next generation son of a charmed one and a whitelighter he's hella powerful blah blah blah and like. he kinda sits at the top of his class. which is like bianca. so i think bianca thought that wyatt would be like her because you know how like if you're only raised around people like you you kind of start thinking like how your brain works is how like everyone's brain works? i think bianca thinks wyatt is like her so she doesn't like him because well. you can guess. but i think upon meeting wyatt i mean he's just really like gentle really passive he doesn't like. like he doesn't hate magic. but it doesn't feel ingrained in him despite who he is he doesn't live for the battle like looking at him you see no markers that he's one of the most powerful witches of his generation and bianca's kinda just like huh. you don't have to feel the compulsive need to be the best at everything all the time and like make sure people know you're the best and also people kind of hate you for it because they'll never be as good as you so u decide to hate them first you decide you will be the bitch you craft a persona they're basically guaranteed to hate so when they reject you it's on your terms you wanted them to do that you basically forced their hand because the alternative is being genuine and that way if they do reject you it's not a mask they just saw you and didn't like you because let's be real there's not much to like. and wyatt's like hmm. no? i think she wouldn't really get along as well with wyatt as she would with chris because her and chris are very much both witches at heart you can feel it in everything they do but i don't think she like. doesn't get along with wyatt. i mean okay for starters wyatt kind of operates the opposite as bianca whereas bianca will throw up her stone cold alpha bitch mask before anyone can decide whether or not they like her again she kind of forces their hand because she needs this to be on her terms. wyatt does the exact opposite because again the elders almost killed him as a bebe and he's always kind of worried that some day they'll realize he as a person is just not worth the risk so he tries to be so super likable and genial and like. good witch!! at all times. and it's kind of like calls to like game recognizes game where both bianca and wyatt can tell the others wearing a mask no one's that nice and no one's that cold so like. i do think they like each other. they feel like they can be honest around each other (eventually. it does take wyatt a very long time to overcome that phoenix hurdle because again he's well read he knows what's up he knows they're like an organization of like superwitches smart deadly all of the above and he doesn't wanna be. giving up his secrets to them you know? much less the halliwell secrets. but i think once it becomes clear that bianca is her own person once she breaks from the phoenix then like. like you know they have to trust each other first. but once they do, they're buddies) i also think bianca's studied art history so i think they can talk about that and chris is like. okay? because like. no he gets it shure it's cool but also how long reasonably can you talk about a single painting like come on now.

as far as melinda goes i think like i think melinda comes off as really passive really kind a nurturing type like in her day to day life or whatever like oh she's such a sweetheart but she's kind of shy again like s1 piper is really my jumping off point for mellie that and she has leo's big heart That Being Said i do not think that shows At All when she's home i think she drags her brothers for filth like nail on the head baby she's like. if you're being a dick (which, between chris and wyatt, happens relatively frequently) she's gonna call you out on it!! in a very brutal and personalized, but at the same time still kinda funny way. she definitely has receipts. so i think just first hearing the way chris and bianca engage the way she like. like she respects chris's skills as a witch bianca does she thinks he's very talented she would trust him with her life but at the same time chris u fuckin idiot i think they have a very playful raport but bianca is very starstruck by him she's never lost in the layer and layers or fog that surround chris's identity i think like too many of chris's lis (not that he like ever does relationships really) are just kinda like. lost in the image. whether it's charmed one or brooding skinny brunet w daddy issues they are many images of chris u can see instead of the real one but bianca sees chris as he is which i think gives her immediate points from melinda melinda is also an empath and i do think bianca is protected against empaths but like melinda's like oh you two are In Love in love. as far as personal relationships go between melinda and bianca i think melinda would be the one who most consciously tries to make bianca feel like a part of the family like a halliwell. chris, respectfully, i love him, doesn't think of like. inviting her to some family events, especially not early in the relationship because like. he just doesn't. but melinda's like chris!! thanksgiving u gotta invite her 2 thanksgiving. because again. melinda can't feel bianca. but like. she's been an empath her whole life she knows what she's looking at and like. bianca needs a loving family. and she is totally willing to provide that!! and then for what it's worth i think despite all her skill bianca isn't nearly as good at reading mel as melinda is at reading her. like i think she sees the soft external melinda and then the melinda who roasts her siblings and is like okay i kinda get it. and like melinda want to be a nurse or doctor she wants to fuse her empath with a mortal career to best help people like sure. but i think like. but them on a solo mission together (i guess duo mission) and bianca'll fine she's just really misread melinda like in general what she thought she was looking at is not the witch melinda is and i think it's just because bianca's unaccustomed to seeing someone who has power like melinda who can fight like melinda who undeniably has her mother's unbreakable fierce spirit just be like how melinda is in her day to day life. like someone who's that great at what she does just choose kindness and gentleness daily not because the elders are breathing down her neck or like she needs allies or like she has some epic prophecy to fill she just like. chooses kindness because she wants to. she wants a kind world. and bianca's like huh. bc lowkey forgot that was an option. but it's difficult seeing all the shit bianca has.

in regards to henry i think henry jr and bianca get along famously because they just like feel really similar like. like bianca was never liked in the phoenix because well a) she's a bitch b) she's the best and c) like she was always clearly people favorite so like. others were it was jealously call a spade a spade this is like elementary era it's jealousy when you're eight and trying your hardest and the other eight year old gets praise the praise u really want and she didn't even try she didn't even care she didn't have to because she's just so much better than you. like!! yeah so kids at school never liked her, esp within the phoenix (ftr i think phoenix go thru a normal education system so like can like function/blend in real well in normal society and then Also go to phoenix academy, so kinda like what gen2 does with magic school). bianca's never fit it, but she's also wicked smart. so kinda like henry! like paige kind of runs magic school henry's sisters go there like henry's been at magic school. he doesn't take classes, but he's always there. he burns through the books in the library. he knows everyone just calls him the mortal, he doesn't care, because he also knows they know he's smart than them like if they could swallow their pride and ask him for help like most of these kids would become better witches but they don't because henry's a mortal. bianca doesn't care, the kid knows his shit. so what if he doesn't have powers, like, dude, he's basically a walking encyclopedia, and he's read the book of shadows cover to cover like a dozen times, do you know how rare that knowledge is? that's the sacred book of the warren line like that's a crucial ancestral item and henry's like. like in bianca's mind not only is henry a warren witch like he's Thee warren witch no other person alive knows that magic better than him. i also think they have similar senses of humor.

dency!! i mean i think if dency were born any later she'd be besties with like all the phoenix i think magic isn't at a stage where they're really integrated into society yet and there's still kind of that cultish structure but that's not the reason light magic doesn't engage right they don't deal with the phoenix because they're neutral so they will work with demons meaning working with them as a light magic practitioner is forbidden. and then for what its worth i think dency being demon/charmed one is really gonna herald in an era of just kinda like acceptance for those who are neutral or even born of dark magic but like. that hasn't happened. yet. but like. in regards to bianca specifically. i think they'd vibe. i think bianca would throw up her cooler than u bitch personality as she always does and i think dency'd be so into it. and then, of course, dency doesn't look down her nose at the phoenix like most other witches do, again, because she's the source's heir. from what vantage point can she judge others? i think for bianca just seeing someone who's so kinda unabashedly themselves like honest about it too dency's not like. a role model. like there's penn who's really put together and always trying to seem pristine and polite and then they're dency who like hasn't showered in four days because she's out of shampoo so she needs to buy some Then she can shower. there's like. an honest about being kinda uncool kinda a fuck up that makes dency like. cool. like because we all do it (maybe not specifically the shampoo thing, but) like we all have some elements of ourselves that are just kind of truly pathetic and dency doesn't try to cover it up with some shiny veneer she doesn't she not like wyatt with his perfect mask or even bianca with her bitch one dency doesn't wear a mask take me or leave me baby and i think bianca really loves her for that. it genuinely depends on were in the timeline in chrisbianca does bianca meet dency because like. dude. powercouple. i don't think it'd go anywhere i don't think we're necessarily hitting soulmatism or kinda the raw vulnerability we'll get from a latestage chrisbianca but like. dude. like. 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀. like. !

[wyrmmaster]

I started granblue recently on large part because of your posting about it. What happed with Yuel thata got you so upset?

Okay, I’m tempted to point you to some of my other posts but I’m not gonna do that and instead I’ll use this ask as a place to lay everything out, both for my sake and everyone else’s - sorry, this might get long.

Right, so. In the beginning you have Yuel. Unusually for an Erune, she has a massive tail on top of larger than average ears.

Yuel’s a bumpkin, a hyperactive goofball, and generally just all around a nice person. Yuel, bless her heart, is on a quest to discover artifacts that belong to the ancient royal family she serves to return it to glory but is a bit scatterbrained and can’t focus on one thing for too long so really she’s just On an Adventure™. You learn that beneath that ADD is an incredibly perceptive woman that can deduce the exact emotional state of everyone around her and cleverly cheer them up or offer them support without ever seeming to actually go out of her way to do it. She gets people to loosen up and enjoy themselves, even if they’’re miserable.

Later, you have Societte. Like, Yuel, she has a massive tail and larger than average ears.

Her introduction to you is freezing solid a small army of monsters that had you cornered. Societte is grace given physical form but, bless her heart, is shy to the point where even after that display of power she can’t actually talk to you. You guys just patiently interpret her mumbles and slight gestures until you get the gist. Turns out Societte’s the princess of that ancient royal family, and Yuel’s nominal master. You learn that the earlier freezing wasn’t a fluke: beneath that shyness is solid steel. Societte is powerful, brave, and fiercely protective even to her own detriment.

Through Societte, you learn that this ancient family ruled an empire lost to time under a benevolent nine-tailed fox goddess that gave them her power.

They meet in your crew, on your ship.

Yuel discovers that Societte is The Princess™ - this shocks her. She knew that Societte was Important, the local village ojou, but not the level of quasi-religious importance that she actually has. Yuel gets angry that she wasn’t told. They’re old friends, you see. More than that. Even this early on it doesn’t take much reading between the lines to assume they’re actually a romantic item. 

Societte starts sobbing because she wanted to tell Yuel everything, she wanted to go with her when she left the village. But the knowledge that she’s the princess is dangerous. There are a lot of murderous people that are after her, to try and get rich. Some of them murdered her parents while she watched.

Turns out the tails and bigger ears are signs of the lineage, and massive red targets. This has given Societte a complex about her ears and tail, and in some of her homescreen lines she outright asks if they bother you and says she’s doesn’t want them.

So, to protect Yuel, she doesn’t say anything and lets her go far away. Then she leaves the village, to try and find out why all this is happening and to protect them from any more roaming bandits that come after her.

The two reconnect and Yuel gets Societte to calm down and look at her journey through a different lens: Societte’s not guilty of anything, she’s not on her miserable quest out of penance or obligation, the cruel world that’s taken so much from her and made her so scared isn’t all bad. They’re together now, and they’re gonna get to the bottom of this - together, as it should’ve been.

Now, enter Yuel’s 5-star fates.

This story obviously focuses on Yuel, and how she feels about Societte and her own role in the grand scheme of this situation. Yuel loves Societte more than anything, but she’s a bit jealous. Societte as mentioned is grace given physical form. Societte is gorgeous, extremely powerful, and a flawless dancer with natural talent that Yuel will never compare to. 

However, we learn that Yuel is also a princess - and heavily implied to be the real heir over Societte. Remember: the ears and tail are signs of the heritage.

So, Yuel’s found some ancestral weapons of her own. They’re hers, and they give her memories of a dance, and she does it flawlessly - once. This unlocks her true power and massively boosts her magic.

But she can’t do that dance again. Just can’t. Societte tries to teach her, but again, Yuel does’t have her talent. She fails over and over again and gets angry.

That nine-tailed fox goddess doesn’t approve. Thinks Yuel’s a failure, and useless. Unworthy. So she turns that increased power back on Yuel and starts cooking her alive with her own fire.

This is alleviated when Yuel stops trying to follow an ancient dance and just does whatever comes to mind. Channel herself into the dance, yeah? And she ends up with something more special and beautiful than the traditional dance. Ninetails approves, and stops trying to kill her.

Moral: Yuel is special and talented in her own way; not lesser than Societte, if not exactly equal. They set out anew on the journey with the knowledge that both of them have much bigger roles in this than they assumed.

Then you have Societte’s fire version.

This story focuses on Societte’s trauma. She goes back to where her parents were murdered in an attempt to remember the dance they were doing there and do it herself to finish whatever they were trying to accomplish.

We learn that there’s more to this whole thing than there appeared to be - a fragment of Ninetails’ power is sealed in a stone, and it’s pumping out extremely dangerous poison gas. And it’s spreading more each day. This is not the only stone. And the gas will spread from all of them until the world dies.

Turns out Lady Ninetails ain’t so nice. They’re given visions their ancestors - Societte’s foremost among them - using the ritual dances in front of Ninetails, and channeling her power.

Here, Societte finds her true motivation and overcomes her grief. She will do what she must for the people she loves. She’s got to do what she needs to do, to save everyone. The journey continues on a very solemn but no less hopeful note.

Interlude: Summer Yuel.

We see how close the two are. Yuel follows a Societte who’s grown mostly out of her shyness and can apparently go out and meet people, sparking conversation herself. The change in behavior is so marked Yuel’s flabbergasted, and assumes she started dating someone.

 But no, Societte was just doing that to find out where the best vacation spots in the area are and to commission swimwear for the two of them. They enjoy a fun evening with each other and the crew.

The fate episode ends with what amounts to a love confession.

Now, where it could’ve been great but starts to fall apart.

Their first event, Forgiveness and Gratitude.

Enter Kou.

Through him, we learn there were nine royal families, ranked from first to ninth.

We learn that Societte is the scion of the First, and Yuel of the Third.

Turns out that the empire was built around these families sealing an evil Ninetails away and stealing her power to bring about a golden age.

Kou for his part is of the Ninth. This family was mistreated, and basically used as nigh worthless servants by the other eight. In a bid for power, the Ninth betrayed the other eight and sided with Ninetails. The legends about her being a benevolent goddess and the royal families having a shitload of treasure were fabricated by them in order to set bandits after the heirs of the other families as the empire eventually fell apart, so the Ninth would be the only ones left.

Kou was supposed to Ninetails’s vessel so she could return to the world and conquer it. 

But…. Now there’s two better candidates. One of them is super gullible and kind. 

He tricks Societte into throwing herself on the chopping block instead. 

This is important: Ninetails is ecstatic over this. Using Kou was like finding a broken, rusted sword. Getting Societte? The Scion of the First? Finding a fucking chaingun with fifty belts of rounds. She is by far the superior vessel, because again, Societte is just that talented and powerful.

This is solved by Yuel being Yuel, and using her bond with Societte to save her from the possession. Yuel, the freed Societte, and an apologetic Kou work together to defeat the apparition of Ninetails’s power.

That? That’s good. Don’t like how quickly Kou was forgiven, but it’s serviceable.

The bad part? The event is stuffed with onee-chan /ss/ jokes. And people ate it up.

So, we get the event that never should’ve happened.

We get Kou and The Hollow Existence. An event with a character’s name in the damn title.

This event, as you’d guess, focuses on Kou. Turns out the little dude’s actually the FInal Boss for Ninetails. He knows everything, and is inexplicably the most talented and powerful now. He’s the hero. Remember: he’s supposed to be the failure. The spare. The “I’ll take what I can get” for Ninetails. Not so anymore. With zero setup or explanation.

Then we get You. You is a cheap knockoff of Kou, but a Girl This Time, both in and out of story. It’s an actual plot point. You’s being tricked by Ninetails, who’s using her resentment to fuel a revenge streak. Ninetails is gonna use You as a vessel when she’s strong enough. Kou saves her from Ninetails and helps her out of her funk. By himself.

Yuel and Societte’s impact on this event is nonexistent. The major players and main characters don’t do shit but get jobbed and have extremely skeevy shotacon bait moments with Kou. There’s an entire scene dedicated to Yuel intentionally making him uncomfortable by trying to get him in a bath with the two of them.

Yuel goes from emotionally perceptive and kind to a near molester. Societte’s character development is scrapped entirely and it’s like she’s who she was in her first fate episode.

This event quite literally invalidated everything that came before it. Everything was scrapped to make Kou the hero and pander to shotacon fans.

That’s the end of their story.

It’s bullshit.

[tanoraqui]

I just wanted you to know that I just read all your hellmurder castle 'verse posts and I LOVE THAT AU SO MUCH

what you have to understand about my Hellmurder Castle AU (Homestuck set in the world of Girl Genius, if you haven’t read it) is that it was born specifically from my spite exasperation with all the long, epic AUs about either only the trolls or the trolls + beta kids, with alpha kids appearing as background characters at best and often not at all. Many of these fics are great, and many of them were written or at least planned before the alpha kids even appeared in canon, in which case it’s not the authors’ faults at all. But I LOVE my alpha kids, and Roxy may be my favorite and Dirk is a delight, but I was ALSO tired to tears of how even in fics featuring the alpha kids, it was almost always Derse-heavy.

So I basically said “fuck it”, yeeted them all into the world of Girl Genius (which was inevitable), figured out the torrid backstory of the beta kids and ancestors and how the dancestors and trolls fit in, and set about focussing the plot and character development exclusively on the alpha kids, particularly Jake and Jane. Particularly particularly Jake, because a) I thought him more underappreciated than Jane, and b) the idea of a Heroic Adventurer who constantly has to resist his own reflex to be a minion is fucking funny.

Let’s elaborate, shall we? Because I’m okay again, after the epilogue. I have forgiven. So, the hypothetical pfennig novels/fics in a series:

Jake English: Escape from Castle Lalonde

In which Jake leaves home, and meets a number of interesting people.

covers from basically that scene of Roxy capturing him through Jake escaping with Jane, and them agreeing to be adventuring partners. A lot of the middle consists of Jake helping Roxy and Dirk win back Roxy’s ancestral home of Castle Lalonde, defeating whatever villainous spark - probably an OC - had taken up residence.

Jake means to leave, but Roxy and Dirk need help cleaning up, and getting their labs running, and with interesting projects…and possibly they put a shock collar on him so he can’t leave the grounds…or at least tell him that’s what the collar does, and prove it, like, twice, and then turn it off because they don’t actually want him crippled in an emergency; mostly he’s just a great minion and Roxy is pretty sure he’s destined to be part of their team for defeating the Batterwitch, as laid out in the obscure and highly metaphorical prophecy her mother left her in a wizard book.

this is not at all good ground for either friendship or a healthy minion/master relationship, which is why Jake is pretty damn game to help Jane escape and then run away with her.

Jake English and the Red Miles

in which…I actually have barely any memory of wtf is supposed to happen in this one. Presumably, they have to survive the Red Miles at some point, with some ridiculous series of revivificationsthe trolls show up at Jake and Jane’s camp (okay fine, I love them, too), and after some alarmed mutual weapon-pointing, explain that Jake’s grandmother, Lady English, made them after Jake left, except now she’s died so they’ve come to find Jake and either bring him home or, at least, join his adventuring team and keep him safe

(yeah, Jade instilled some loyalty, which is Sketch. In fairness, when she lost control of the original generation of trolls, all her best friends were killed and/or disappeared, presumed dead. she has reasons)

I wonder if there was supposed to be a timeskip between this and the previous book, or if Escape from Castle Lalonde happened later into Jake going out adventuring than I think, or if Jade just got bored and made 12 new people like…3 hours after Jake left home

for pacing, the trolls should probably show up pretty early in this story, so they have a long time to be around before shit hits the fan

a lot of this book, aside from whatever shenanigans they’re dealing with re: Red Miles, would be Jake dealing with the fact that he is suddenly responsible for 12 people who keep looking to him for orders, and somewhere in the distance is an entire town (Hellmurder Village) that’s likewise.

they do not go back to the Castle at the end of this book, even though they arguably should bc Jake has responsibilities. But he also has adventuring to do, by golly, and…hm, it’s one of the Rings that causes the Red Miles, isn’t it? So maybe they get it at the end of this book, and now they have to track down the other one. Which brings us to…

Jake English and the Rings of Skaia

In which Jake and Jane (and Roxy and Dirk, and 12 young trolls) explore a castle, learn a little history, and generally level up their friendshipsI split up the aspects of Castle Heterodyne in this au: Jake has the recently inherited Castle with the terrifying, nigh-magical power source buried in its depths, and Jane has the abandoned derelict that is fully sentient, most automated, and even more malicious than it is trapped. This is the story of that castle, and the Ring of Life hidden somewhere in it

Jack Noir. The castle’s sentience is Jack Noir. Or perhaps more accurately Spades Slick? Who cares.

I had a very elaborate mythology/history thought up at some point about the twin spark queens of Derse and Prospit and their great enmity, and the saga of betrayal and heroism that marked their reigns and left behind this castle and two super magical scientific rings of power, and I do not remember ANY of it now.

This is the bit where that scene of Dirk ripping out Vriska’s soul comes from. He and Roxy are here for the fabled treasure as well - possibly the castle only appears/is accessible at certain specific times? And they don’t know the trolls are with Jake, so…clusterfuck, there.

Jake English and the Troll Queen

in which the big bad is reveeled

there’s trouble brewing in the countryside, idk, monsters or pirates or something that can be traced, after some investigative heroing, to the self-styled Her Imperial Condescension, still unfortunately at large

mostly this fic is Jake growing into leadering a little more but also addressing the question of that inbuilt loyalty Jade gave this generation of trolls, because really, that was Sketch - and in general, who are we as people defined by who we follow, what groups we ally ourselves with; is it birth or genetics or who raised us or the family we choose or…

i kinda think Dirk and Roxy are conducting concurrent but generally not overlapping investigations to Jake&Jane’s(+the trolls) (dirk and roxy having pretty neatly answered all the above questions years ago by choosing each other, but still being kind of insular about it, and need to relax just enough to trust other people)

in the end there’s some confrontation with the Condesce and she convinces ½-2/3 the trolls to join her bc, honestly, why shouldn’t they

Jake English and the Castle in the Lake

in which…okay, in this one bit of fic I implied her base was in the ocean but I totally had this title written somewhere, so what is the truth??

in the above linked scene, the trolls who stayed with Jake and Jane were Karkat, Terezi, Kanaya, Gamzee, and Feferi, but idk about that. If Feferi’s there, why isn’t Sollux? And, like, Aradia would probably have just fucked off in her own direction completely, given the chance…

our heroes are trying to sneak into HIC’s base and disable it, okay. that is the plot of this one. probably they have to find it first, which is tricky, and basically a D&D dungeon crawl, and that’s before Jane gets tiara’d. Which definitely happens climactically. and then everyone else gets captured, with the possible exception of Dirk, who probably gets beheaded instead. things do not look good for our heroes…

Jake English and the Lost Hero

in which we find out exactly what happened in the previous generation

maybe even alternating chapters, past/present? 

what happened basically is that the first generation of trolls, the Ancestors, went absolutely batshit roughly as per homestuck canon. The Condesce, being OP, started just conquering land. She was stopped, eventually, mostly by the epic sacrifice of Rose and Dave. And John…except Rose and Dave’s bodies were found, and in a clusterfuck of inventions warping time and space and reality itself, John’s never was

Jade survived, of course. obviously.

John did, too, it is revealed. He was just disconnected from the time-space continuum, stuck popping up in random times and places, sometimes close to those he loved and sometimes not, mostly uncontrollable…

he’s appeared here and there throughout the stories, probably, a mysterious figure in blue who nearly has time to say something before dissolving into fizzing wind. Now he appears more frequently, and for longer periods as the story goes on, including just enough to help break Roxy and Jake out of prison. And whichever trolls were stubbornly sticking with them - if the Condesce wasn’t just mind-controlling all the reluctant ones…let’s be real, she was…lotta “I know you’re in there somewhere” fights here, probably

also, Vriska reveals herself to still be trying to help our heroes, because it is SO Vriska to try to double-cross Her fucking Imperious Condescension

this double-cross is revealed partly from her using Jake��s minioning safeword that he developed with Grandma Jade, way back when; meaning roughly “I don’t want to do this but I’m not sure I can stop”. It’s pumpkin, of course.

they revivify Dirk on the way out, and either stop in the Condesce’s lab to get sparkily distracted trying to pin John into reality or they make it back to Hellmurder Castle before doing that?

What am I saying. The Condesce is probably working on some spacetime-warping tech of her own, and Roxy, Dirk, and Jake use it to fully anchor John for the first time in…who knows, subjectively? It’s possible he stays behind to buy them time to run

Jake English and the Battle for the Green Sun

in which things come to a head

aka the Battle for Hellmurder Castle, and it’s mysterious and terrible power source

Jane and half or so of the trolls start out on the Condesce’s side, but if you thought there were good “I know you’re in there” fights before, just WAIT until Jake saves Jane with the power of friendship

ultimately, it’s alpha kids + Alternian trolls + dancestor-clanks VS Her Imperial Condescension

it’s close

it’s very close

I would have krilled for an H–EIR—ESS CHALLENGE X3 COMBO, ie, Jane, Feferi, and Meenah vs. the Condesce, so that happens

John maybe appears one last time-displaced time, for him before the events of Lost Hero, to deliver a well-timed hammer swing

I love Jake, but I’ll give Homestuck this one: Roxy getting the final blow with an ancestral Strider sword? Perfect.

in the denoument Jake awkwardly invites everyone to live in Hellmurder Castle, because he feels vaguely like he should stay and look after it, and of course he wants his chums around. Jane, Roxy, and Dirk are all like, “well, a real lab or seven would be amazing…but also…adventuring. Why don’t YOU come with US?” Jake is like, “oh JEEPERS yes!” The trolls and dancestors meanwhile talk out among themselves who genuinely wants to stay and who wants to go out adventuring, either with these idiots or just to make their own way

[valkyrieelysia18]

RWBY Rewrite: The Branwen Tribe

Hey there! Sorry this took a while, I haven’t been up to writing much these days and I’ve been moving. I apologize for the short length, but this is more like an addendum post to Raven rather than a fully fleshed out thing. 

Now the Branwen Tribe COULD have been interesting. But as I said previously, they just turned into another generic group of disposable mooks. The only two got any significant screen time were Raven and Vernal, the later really not that much. So this post is going to talk a little bit about the history and culture of the Branwen Tribe.

History

The Branwen Tribe originally resided in the Northern parts of Anima as a ferocious warrior clan until it was conquered by the old Mistralian empire about 125 years ago. They were then forced to abandon their ancestral home and relocate to the capital to join the emperor’s service under their leader Morrigan Branwen. Not many were particularly happy about this change, but they complied nonetheless and dedicated themselves to the way of battle. As years went by, they gained a fierce reputation for their success and brutal force on the battlefield with towns and cities surrendering themselves to the empire with just mention of the Branwen Tribe.

Unfortunately, this success came with a great deal of suspicion and distrust from the Mistralian court, especially the successive emperor. Twenty five years later, they had amassed enough power and influence that they could have probably overthrown the dynasty and taken over the empire without much fuss. Counting against them was also the fact that they still retained their culture and traditions rather than completely conforming. While most of those traditions were rather progressive for the time, to the more traditional Mistralians they were considered deviants and infidels. The emperor thought about killing them, but couldn’t really come up with any substantial evidence for treason and given the rising tensions of the world at this time realized that killing off perfectly good soldiers when he might need them in the future would be incredibly wasteful. So instead, the emperor exiled them in everything but name to another province in Central Anima that was a significant distance from the capital. And in case you were wondering, yes this is the last emperor of Mistral.

Needless to say, many in the Branwen Tribe were not happy with being essentially banished to the middle of nowhere. Even more so when it turned out this province wasn’t even a fertile nowhere and they didn’t have sufficient resources to get through the winter. In desperation, Morrigan Branwen directly petitioned for aid, but was ignored by the governor of the province. THIS is when the Branwen Tribe actually started stealing. At the beginning, they really didn’t kill on mass so much as go for the goods under Morrigan’s orders. It wasn’t until the Great War happened and Morrigan’s death early on in the war allowed the title of leader to pass to her son Wuotan (who just so happens to Raven and Qrow’s grandfather) that they became the brutal bandits we know today and fought only for themselves. 

So, what does this backstory add? It adds context and history to the Branwen Tribe that had been lacking. We could understand why Raven might feel compelled to follow in her forbearers’ footsteps while Qrow is equally horrified of their actions. Being warriors who were screwed over and essentially abandoned by the country they served gives the Branwen Tribe a less generic motivation than just a “weak die, strong survive” mentality.

It also gives an interesting connection to the villains’ side. As stated in a previous post, in this Rewrite Cinder is a member of the former Mistralian Royal Family. She would be aware of the Tribe’s history and potentially feel that they were partly to blame for the fall of her family as they turned their backs on their emperor. As such, she finds it utterly ironic that she gets to take a shot at Qrow and later has to work with Raven to get the Relic. She wouldn’t reveal this all up front, dropping cryptic phrases like how she’s aware of the Branwen Tribe’s reputation and how cowardice must run in the family for Raven. 

Culture

The Branwen Tribe is somewhat based on the Norse, as you might perhaps might have guessed from the names of Morrigan and Wuotan. However, after years in Central Anima, they have mixed and integrated certain portions of Central Mistralian culture. The Tribe is mostly made up of the remnants of the Old Tribe, but does have a surge in outsiders who came in wishing to join up.

The culture of the Branwen Tribe is pretty egalitarian. Everyone fights, everyone works. Those who don’t, don’t eat. “The weak die, the strong survive.” As stated previously, they were pretty forward thinking in that women were pretty much equal in status to men and fought on the battlefield. Morrigan Branwen’s story and deeds are still passed down in the Tribe to this day (partially because for all his issues and cruelties, Wuotan Branwen loved his mother). This also applied to the Faunus as they allowed them to join the Tribe as full members and their standing depended on their skill and contributions. In present day, the Tribe has connections to the Current White Fang, allowing for an exchange of information of goods.

The Branwen Tribe prioritize the group rather than the individual, which to be fair is not uncommon in a lot of places of Mistral. If someone deserts for the Kingdoms, they are considered dead in the eyes of the Tribe and are never spoken of again. They also have a very deep respect towards their leadership as Morrigan Branwen basically kept the Tribe from forming any plots against the emperor while they were still in the capital by her command alone.

Another interesting thing about the Branwen Tribe is names. All full members of the Tribe have two names: the one they are born with and the name they are gifted upon going though a coming of age/joining the Tribe ritual held once a year. Generally, the name is bestowed by the chieftain and afterwards will be addressed as such by the Tribe. What name is bestowed generally depends on one’s actions and personality though it’s quite common to be given a name from nature, particularly birds. This gives Qrow’s little fireside chat back in Volume 4 a little more substance to it and as well as Vernal’s name.

Okay, that’s everything I could think of for now. If anyone has other ideas they might think would work with this, I’d love to hear them. 

Now as to my next post.....oh boy. I’m going to have to do another post for something different before that one because there is just so much to tacke. Uh....the Arkos shippers aren’t going to be happy....

Until next time!

[solar-hedonist]

Okay, while I love that this community validates each other and tries to lift each other up, often times it’s to a fault. That fault being spreading misinformation. So as someone who has been practicing for half my life and done the research, let me pick this post apart just a little.

Disclaimer: this is not in any way an attack on op. I’d just like to elaborate since some of the information on this list is actually harmful.

1: while you can invent things like modern methods of practice (such as like, vaping as an offering instead of using real 🍃, making playlists for your gods/spirit guides/ancestors, etc), you technically cannot just “invent stuff”. Things are the way they are because thousands and thousands of years of ancestral knowledge and experiences have been passed down, and as we have gained more of an understanding, we continue to adapt our crafts to the times, using the past as our blueprints. Usually when I hear you can “invent” things in witchcraft, it means one of three things: 1, that the person is miswording a valid point, albeit lacking nuance, or 2, they don’t actually see witchcraft as real or powerful, or 3, they’re not very well researched. Neither are an accusation, just from lots of observation.

2: yea you can make your own holidays! I actually encourage it! Holidays usually are just times of celebrating following a theme, usually surrounding honoring something or someone. That’s basically what people have been doing all around the world since the dawn of time 💖

3: you cannot, however, make your own gods. That simply does not happen. Because that is what fantasy literature and role play are for. That you can do, however, is interact with niche/minor gods, local gods, local spirits, ancestors, fae creatures, daemons, angels, things that tangibly exist in this world and have been recorded. They may not be popular and common, but they do reach out and are able to be worked with! Make sure to consider what continent you live on and what the local indigenous cultures say about it! Not everyone has to work with big, flashy entities!

4: this is exactly what I meant earlier by adapting your craft, and it’s wonderful advice 💖 as long as you understand how the divination method works, you can bend and adapt it to fit your style, abilities, and preferences!

5: same as 4, as long as you understand how sigils work, you can make them how you want/need

6: yes, however! Most of the time, what you “make up” is already a thing somewhere in the world. So it’s almost always valid! But you need to do research instead of claiming to have invented such ideas. Cite the cultures you draw ideas from!

7: this! However, remember again to consider culture! Know why you practice something and how it affects yourself and others before you decide what’s good or bad! Forming your own code of ethics takes a lot of time, and it is bound to change with experience, as is natural💖

8: yes please 100%. Stop using lists with simple, vague uses and associations on them. Look up where the crystals naturally form. Then look up the local cultures. Then look up/ask what they use it for. There’s a reason they’ve used them for thousands of years, if used at all. Nobody random on tumblr is gonna be telling you the whole truth if they don’t cite real, tangible sources for their information when they make bold claims.

9: this is a good intuitive take for novice practitioners. To add a little nuance: use the same research method I’ve stated above if you want to learn about different ways to cleanse. A history or cultural book is gonna tell you wayyyy more than a book on magic written by a yt person in England or smthn

I’m hoping this was helpful! I have been on witchblr since I was a kid and I’ve just consistently seen some shaky advice being thrown around, so please take everything on this website with a grain of salt. Ultimately, I recommend learning the basics of researching, that going for any and all subjects; not just magic. It helps everyone in the long run! Everything is the way it is for a reason, and when you become a witch, you automatically sign up to be a scholar and historian.

Remember: it doesn’t have to be traditional, it just has to be ethical, helpful, and have some level of historical and/or cultural precedence!

Yo so....

Witchcraft is actually hella customizable. You can invent shit. I don't know how this: "By the book, uber traditional, heavily controlled" thing gained so much traction, but...

You can make your own holidays

You can make your own Gods

You can design your own divination methods

You can make sigils -however the fuck you want

You can create your own theory on energy systems based on your personal experience

Write your own ethics and codes of conduct

Describe crystals or herbs by their ENERGY instead of a keyword list you got off Pinterest

Cleanse in a completely different way than the books tell you to

Literally the possibilities are unfathomably endless. And I've successfully done all of these. Go forth and get weird with it.

[oceanwriter]

WIP Prep (tag)

I was tagged by @paladin-andric -- thank you!!! I loved filling this out, and sorry for the delay!

Rules: Answer the questions, then tag as many people as there are questions (or as many as you can).

The Colors of War

FIRST LOOK

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

Sent from London, England to Maine, USA by her guardian to escape The Blitz of World War II, Marjorie Borchert is left to navigate her young adult years in a tight-knit and foreign town. As the years progress, she learns war stretches far beyond the front lines.

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

A single book with possibly a collection of shorts from the other character’s lives.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Chilly mountains and moose.

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

Little bits from Number The Stars by Lois Lowry and the character of Emily Bennet from the Molly American Girl series.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

Marjorie Borchert. She is in her mid-teens at the beginning of the story. Moody to say the least, but she has a big heart.

7. Who is their closest ally?

Daniel Reynard. Nikita Savas is a close second but Marjorie’s had a special bond with Daniel from the beginning.

8. Who is their enemy?

Kate, Beatrice, and Gina. Kate is the worst despite the fact Marjorie shares a room with Beatrice.

9. What do they want more than anything?

For things to be as they were before the war.

10. Why can’t they have it?

Her parents were both killed.

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

She believes nobody wants her -- which is understandable after being passed off to strangers by her guardian and, in a way, her brother.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

I’m not much of an artist and she’d look like a cartoon, do description it is.

Tall, though not towering over everyone. She keeps her brown hair short or shoulder length until she’s older. She’s thin, possibly malnourished, when she first comes to America. She fills out a bit the longer she’s at the farm and eating three full meals a day. She’s pale, partly due to locations she’s lived. She had prominent German features, most notable, her accent which is mixed with a British tongue.

PLOT POINTS

13. What is the internal conflict?

There’s different stages I’ll say. In the beginning, it’s about Marjorie trying to find her place in this small and established community. Her biggest conflict being a target for the prejudiced Kate. Then it moves on to the progression of the war and her fears around America’s involvement. But she comes to see that war doesn’t just affect those fighting or being captured and bombed. She also sees how different people handle things differently. Priorities fall into place through this.

14. What is the external conflict?

Trying to get by and adapting to the changes the war is bringing to the community. Acceptance, too. Internal and external kind of work together.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?  

Losing her brother for good and/or not being able to return to England.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

My only secret might not end up working. There would have to be a second book. Either way, I’m not going to reveal it. It might end up being one of things only me and a couple of my writing friends will ever know....

17. Do you know how it ends?

Yes, unless Marjorie decides to change her course of action.

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?  

Acceptance and making the best of a bad situation.

19. What is a recurring symbol?  

Change.

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

Jackman, Maine, USA. A small town with a population under 1,000 a few miles from the border of Canada. It’s a heavily wooded area with beautiful mountain and lake views. Lots of wildlife, too. The town is small, running along a single street branching out into houses.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

So. Many.

22. What excited you about this story?  

The time period. I’m a history buff and the 1940s has always been my favorite era.

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!  

Procrastination. That’s really it. I do my best writing at five in the morning and knowing I have to pick my little cousin up from the bus in a few hours. I tag (if you’d like): @throughwordsiescape @silverscreenwriter and @rachelradner

[descieux]

Not in Lone Splendour, part 2

Summary: A Jedi on the run needs to travel light. Without attachments. But maybe, this boy can be an exception.

Excerpt: Not a stitch of clothing extends above the sloping ridges of his lower abdominals as he slants his upper body above the sink and lightly shakes his dye-wettened hair = my convoluted way of describing shirtlessness  ��\_(ツ)_/¯

Author’s note: Part 2 of this Star Wars AU/crossover in response to day 7 of ichiruki month. I’m sorry about the lack of timeliness 😬. You can also read here.

“Stop. There’s someone with aggressive intent waiting to attack us.”

The sense of a lurking peril started as a tingle along the back of Rukia’s neck and now flares as they stand on the threshold of the Kurosaki family home.

Alarm momentarily flashes across Ichigo’s face before he appears to realize something and simply rolls his eyes. “Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s not a real attacker, it’s just my —”

A long metallic shaft swings out from the shadows of the darkened home, meeting the bisecting arc of Rukia’s lightsaber, ignited out of instinct. Rukia’s sword arm is already twisting to deliver a reverse grip counter-attack when she discerns that what she just cleaved in half was a household vibro-mop. The middle-aged man holding the remaining half of the mop tosses it and bounds toward them as if Rukia were not brandishing a blade of pure plasmic energy near his limbs.

“Now that’s my boy! I send him out to get groat chops for dinner, and he brings home a girl!”

“Dad, she’s not a girl!” Ichigo hisses, promptly wincing at the erroneous assertion. “She’s a Jedi! She’s the one who helped Yuzu and me in the market earlier.”

Extinguishing her saber and tucking her loose padawan braid back into her ponytail, Rukia attempts a smile. “Sorry about that, sir. I haven’t encountered many friendly strangers these last few days.”

“There’s a lot of people trying to arrest Rukia,” Ichigo elaborates.

“Considering what just happened in the marketplace, I’d say there’s probably a lot of people trying to arrest you too,” she shoots back.

“I see…,” the amused father remarks. “Well, why don’t we get both of you past the doorway, and we can speak in less conspicuous and less audible quarters?”

Rukia allows them to guide her deeper into the house, but protests as the sandy-haired sister emerges to offer her steaming sapir tea from a thermajug. “Thank you for your hospitality, but the longer I stay here, the more danger I place you all in for harboring a Jedi. I have to find this smuggler Urahara and get off Corellia as soon as I can obtain a serviceable ship.”

“Oh, but Daddy knows Urahara!” Yuzu tells her, insistently pressing a sticky sweetmallow square into Rukia’s hand to pair with the tea. “We visit his shop sometimes, but Urahara-san always warns us to not touch anything because it might explode in our faces. Or it tends to be illegally acquired.”

“Indeed I do know the man,” Isshin affirms. “Old friend of mine. I’ll contact him right now and ask him to come over. Ichigo, find Rukia-chan something to wear from your sister’s wardrobe. She’ll attract less attention out there if she looks less like a Jedi.”

It’s a cozy home, Rukia observes as she trails Ichigo into his sisters’ room. At the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, she, adhering to the ascetic lifestyle of the Order, retained only the most basic of material possessions — a rigid boa-wood cot, a workbench, a week’s worth of rough-spun brown and black Jedi robes. Everything else was communally shared, and her eyes inquisitively study the various personal items in the girls’ room.

“Is this droid broken?” she asks, brushing dust off its ochre plating.

Ichigo glances over his shoulder, snorts, and goes back to rummaging. “I don’t even think that mishmash of junkyard metal qualifies as a droid. Yuzu spotted it in Urahara’s shop years ago. She thought it was cute so he gave it to us for free, but I never managed to fix its programming and get it working. It’s an EG-9, and its logic circuits are a complete mess because his components are from at least three different droid models. Here, see if this dress fits.”

A quick, soft laugh escapes Rukia as she shakes out the rolled up fabric. She hasn’t ever owned anything this flowery. Even when she’d lived with Nii-sama and worn dresses more frequently, the silk had been of the plain, unpatterned variety in accordance with her adoptive brother’s tastes.

“Oh, um, you might also want to do something about your hair.”

“My hair?”

“Well, that braid signifies that you’re a padawan right? You keep tucking it back, but it’s probably easier to just wear your hair in a style less preferred by Jedi but more common among girls generally.”

Rukia blinks owlishly at him. Sure, she can unravel the braid, but she’s in low possession of ideas of how to alternatively style one’s hair; training and fighting have never demanded that she cultivate such knowledge.

Sighing, he strides over to her, snatching up a brush along the way and muttering, “Well, Yuzu wore it like this for months.”

Ichigo moves behind her, and this time, it’s the skimming graze of his fingertips dividing her hair into two parts that elicits a lingering tingle at the back of her neck. Running a warm hand over her right temple to smoothe the hair back, he gently loops one bunch of hair through a fastener before coiling the interim pigtail into a bun above her right ear.

“You do this for your sisters?”

“When there are three kids on the continual verge of being late for school and a dad’s proposed solution to hasten morning routines is to offer to chemically perm everyone’s hair, you learn things.”

As he finishes securing the twin bun above her left ear, Rukia uncoils the plait of hair he’d left alone, her padawan braid, and decides to let the strands hang loose, framing her face with slight curls.

She does not look like a girl on the run, as Isshin excitedly proclaims upon their rejoining the rest of the family in the room where Urahara has arrived.

“Kuchiki-san, it’s a relief to see a member of the Order still standing,” he tells her, his eyes shaded by the brim of his hat. “I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to access the HoloNet recently, but the news from Coruscant is that former Chancellor and now Emperor Aizen issued Executive Order 66 on some fabricated basis that the Jedi tried to assassinate him and seize power for themselves. Since then, there’ve been reports of clone troopers slaughtering Jedi on —”

“Every planet where we’ve been stationed during the end of the Clone Wars,” Rukia finishes grimly. Names, belonging to strangers in relation to those currently in the room but names of people precious to her, coat the tip of her tongue — is Kaien alive, is Renji okay? “We were on Kuat for months with clone troopers that we trusted with our lives, as our comrades. When the first person fell from a shot in the back, the others were still processing that it was going to be our fellow soldiers gunning us down.”

“Do you have a plan, Kuchiki-san?”

“Admittedly, not really. I was just planning on finding some route to the Outer Rim and reaching out to any other survivors. I can’t stay here, especially since our wrecking of the bazaar earlier will doubtlessly reach Imperial intelligence.” Rukia jerks her head in Ichigo’s direction. “An Inquisitor in the marketplace specifically identified him and was out to capture. Apparently, the boy’s Force-sensitive.”

Said boy does not confirm or dispute her words, instead seemingly immersed in contemplating the holographic portrait of a smiling woman above the family’s dining table.

“Ah, I suspect the Inquisitor’s effort may have been part of Project Harvester,” Urahara supplies. “Rumor circulating around that Arkanis Academy has stepped up their recruiting of youths recently, and they’re not just looking to produce your typical Imperial cadet. If all this is true, they seem to be trying to develop a distorted substitute group, loyal to the Emperor only, in place of the Jedi Order. May I suggest an alternative to your plan?”

Pivoting to address Isshin as well, Urahara continues, “I don’t know if Imperial agents have flagged your son by name for capture, but at the very least, they will receive reports of a young man with such a...distinctive hair color causing a ruckus in Treasure Ship Row as well as —” He swivels to gesture with his fan at Rukia. “A young woman with a well-crafted but currently impractically flashy sword — we shall get you a nice blaster pistol Kuchiki-san, and yes, I know you Jedi regard it as comparatively uncivilized, but it’s more prevalent among civilians. Isshin, what I think would be best is for you to take your family off-world and lay low for a few weeks in case more Inquisitors come looking for your son at your address here on Corellia.” Urahara’s eyes focus past Isshin’s shoulder, toward the same holograph Ichigo was gazing at. “Masaki-san’s ancestral home is still intact in Naboo’s Lake Country, is it not? You could comfortably keep a low profile there.”

Scowling, Ichigo retorts, “That’s the Emperor’s homeworld too. We’d be right under his nose if we went there.”

“Oh I think he’ll be quite preoccupied in Coruscant for a while, trying to subjugate the galaxy and all. If anything, I predict that like other despots, the Emperor will reserve his more lenient border policies for his homeworld’s economy while cracking down on other worlds. As for you Kuchiki-chan, I think you should go to Naboo with this lovely family.”

“I already sent a message to my brother Senator Byakuya,” Rukia objects.

“And has he responded?”

Rukia says nothing, the jut of her lower lip, stifling excuses she would otherwise make for her brother, and her tense posture telling enough.

“Alright, that’s settled then. Kurosaki-kun, those are some singular auburn locks on your head truly, but might I suggest a temporary coloring agent?”

The family disperses speedily to prepare for their journey, Isshin to ready the Corellian light freighter that will carry them to Naboo, the twins to pack — lightly, their father emphasizes, and surly-faced Ichigo to apply whatever hair dye Urahara has procured for him. Rukia’s pacing in the hallway, debating whether she dares sending Byakuya another plea for help via subspace transceiver when Ichigo sticks his head out of the ‘fresher doorway to ask, “Hey, want to give me a hand with this so I don’t walk out with random orange patches in the back of my head?”

Inside the ‘fresher, not a stitch of clothing extends above the sloping ridges of his lower abdominals as he slants his upper body above the sink and lightly shakes his dye-wettened hair.

With tufts of his hair already turning black, he looks like Kaien, she realizes with an ache.

“I don’t think shaking like a dog helps the pigment spread,” Rukia mutters as she enters his radius cautiously. She hates asking people to bend down so she gingerly places her fingertips on his clavicle and applies enough pressure to direct him to sit at the edge of the bathtub. Sheathing her hands in disposable gloves, she squirts out more of the dye, attentively combing the inky substance through his orange spikes root-to-tip with her fingers while trying not to press too close in his personal space.

“So you have a brother?” Ichigo asks, shoulders rolling and neck arching slightly. His eyes are closed so she can’t decipher if teasing the dye through his hair is producing an unpleasant sensation or a more relaxing feeling, but she figures that he’d be the type to gripe openly if she were really hurting him.

“Sort of. We’re not blood-related. It’s simpler to refer to him as brother, but in truth, he’s my brother-in-law. My sister’s dying wish was for him to bring me into the family, give me a home so I wouldn’t persist as some feral gutter orphan.”

A tick of silence before Ichigo ventures, “How come he hasn’t responded to you? Did your message get through?”

“Nii-sama,” she says slowly, trying to describe the man who still remains an imposing enigma to her. “Has very strict views on the importance of abiding by the law, and technically, I’m on the wrong side of the law right now.”

“The law isn’t always right.” Ichigo’s eyes are open now, brown irises flaring with conviction as he says, “Adopted or not, he accepted you into his family. That’s not a promise he can revoke. That means you should get every protection an older brother owes to a younger sister.”

Rukia shifts her position a step over; it’s awkward standing in front of him between his lanky legs so her fingers run through the roots at his hairline with particular efficiency before transitioning to smear colorant across his right temple. “Maybe that’s true for other people, but I don’t even know if I can really call him my brother anymore. You give up all your attachments when you commit to the Jedi Code because the Order becomes your family and because you’re to cherish all lives equally. So that we can protect as many lives as possible.”

“Are those words straight from the Code? I like the sound of that…” he says softly.

She leans in to brush the excess dye from the shell of his ear, and their noses nearly graze as he abruptly turns his head toward her to add, “But that seems very hard for any flesh and blood person to practice.”

Rukia straightens immediately, her lashes flitting over irises determined to not reveal her discomposure. “Looks like we’ve sufficiently converted you from a ginger to raven-haired for now. Finish up and rinse. I’ll see you outside. About time we say farewell to this world.”

[alternativewinxcontinuity]

Who thought it was a good idea to let me have a blog?

So I'm kind of curious: what's it like for everyone else when writing fic or coming up with head canons and stuff?

Cause for me, it goes kind of like this:

Warning: mental ramblings ahead!

Me: (doing nothing in particular)

My Brain: Hey! Remember that time you used game stats to represent the various fairy transformations and their power???

Me: Yeah?... Oh no. Brain! NO!

two minutes later:

Magical Dimension Online

Laurel is a beta tester, on the day of the national launch, she logs in, but something goes weird with her beta-data.

Instead of Daphne, she awakens as Bloom.

Why do you do this brain? Why, there's so much other stuff to do, why start a New Thing? Besides, that explains nothing. This is obviously an S.A.O. Rip-off crossover... cross under? Just, moved country and genre. Besides-

Magical Dimension Online

To celebrate the launch of Virtual Reality, several games are going online simultaneously around the globe, a different game for every country. In Australia, it's H2O: Oceania Online, in Japan, Sword Art. (and somewhere else it's Archipelago of Dragons/HTTYD Online)

America will be the first country to launch Magical Dimension Online, and ten thousand lucky players will get to pay a week before anyone else, with the added bonus of exclusive Primary Launch content.

Laurel is a beta tester, on the day of the national launch, she logs in, but something goes weird with her beta-data.

Instead of Daphne, she awakens as Bloom.

That... that doesn't actually help brain. Besides, now you'll have to change the whole plot line.

And obviously 10,000 people won't fit in Alfea-

Ok, so ten thousand players, stuck in a death game version of Winx Club. Obviously the Winx Club and close friends have to be Players, and if Bloom is a Beta Tester, surely the others should be too?

But then, why haven't their test data files gone weird... unless they have.

Okay so, there are schools all over the magical dimension, and players get randomly assigned to their schools based on character class, planetary affiliation etc, etc.

The Official Launch will obviously have to cover the canon show era, but the beta test... Oohh, what if the Beta Test officially set the recent history for the Official game. Like the ultimate New Game+/New Character in and Old Campaign.

So Bloom used to be Daphne, but what about the other girls... I want to include Roxy... If I make the others... okay, so if the Winx Club's old avatars are now the NPC parents of their new avatars??? (except for Bloom) Or maybe some of them were just the guardian fairies of their home worlds.

Maybe Stella used to be one of the Nine Nymphs with Bloom/Daphne, and came from Solaria, which is why she ended up as the Princess of Solaria this time? And why she ended up being the one to run into Bloom on Earth? (meh, I'll figure it out later.)

So Roxy would have been Morgana? (Or maybe Nebula?) Oh, crap, what about Selina, do I include her? And what about Diaspro and Mirta, I really want Mirta... (mirta was a witch who became a fair, like faragonda, selina is a witch.) Oh snap! What if Mirta and Selina were Faragonda and Griffin in the Beta?!

Okay, so why the whole shuffle? Obviously, if the new game is the future of the Beta, then Daphne would have done a sacrificial play in the final boss fight of the old game (Domino vs The Ancestral Witches.) Maybe an AI managed to escape the purge of Assistant AIs by hiding in Player Data. (like when cardinal blocked off the mental health programs from counselling the players in SAO??) And that caused a cascade of various Beta Test files being reallocated to NPC roles.

(I'll need to tweak the earning methods for various Fairy Forms, IE. Charmix: requirements in canon: facing a personal flaw. How would the system measure that? It couldn't, not really... so earning the basic form: have magic, be fairy class, learn transformation enchantment ie 'magic winx!' Charmix: have Basic Form lvl **, have bonded pixie companion, transformation enchantment, ???)

The schools are basically ongoing tutorials for the game, teaching Players the basics, giving them a few basic spells or abilities and then letting them out into the Dimension. (the better the players do in 'classes' the better their ability bonuses?) (hidden spells and abilities in the schools, quests from teachers (exams and stuff).)

Armour. Oh crap, with the fairy and witch transformations, having visible armour isn't really... uh... okay so, like glyphs and... no, uh... OH! civilian clothes carry armour bonus, and that carries over when the transformations happen.

Okay. So. In the Beta, which was a proper job for the beta testers and went for several months, 'Laurel' played as Daphne, Stella may or may not have been in her party as someone else.

During the final month of the Beta, Boss Fights started happening on a massive scale, one to every planet it seemed like. Domino was besieged by the Ancestral Witches (Valtor... wasn't there, he and Darkar are super old and have been sleeping for ages. The Ancestral witches are also super old, but they were awakened near the start of the Beta and caused all the other boss fights to happen across the Dimension. Including) The Wizards of the Black Circle attacked the Fairies of Earth... (shit, no, that doesn't fit with a sensible time line... So Roxy can't be formerly Morgana... What if we make her Eldora? A member of the company of light who retired to Earth, then the only massive Boss Fight could be the Siege of Domino? Yeah, that'd work... I think.)

So, Daphne does Sacrificial Play during the Siege of Domino, ends up with a status ailment that leaves her... kinda ghosty, and the Beta ends.

Between the Beta and the Official Launch, at least one AI intended for Mental Health counselling (or something) discovers hidden programming which causes IRL Perma-Death, and tries to talk to someone about it, only, the AIs start getting locked down or deleted. One AI manages to hide themselves in Player Data, causing a small cascade in the beta files, so several of the beta testers have to reconfigure their avatars, with echoes of their old avatars, who are now NPS (and AIs).

'Bloom' spawns on Earth, along side Selina and Roxy, who have no idea what's going on, or why they're in Gardenia instead of their chosen home worlds.

Bloom has a bunny, Kiko, who shares the same name as her former avatar's Daphne's Bonded Pixie. The girls realise something is glitching in the game and try to log out, only to realise there's no logout option anymore.

Choosing to combine their limited magical reserves, the girls manage to perform a search spell to locate the nearest source of magic, trying to find a portal to the Magical Dimension.

Instead the find Stella fighting an Ogre and a bunch of ghouls.

Having played the beta, they'd know the transformation enchantment (transchantment?), transform and help Stella, who they are surprised to realise isn't an NPC who's part of a special content quest, but a Player, who is just as confused as the rest of them. (and toting an SS Rank Magical Artefact.)

(The Dragon Fire would be SS rank as well, but having that as a power option is silly, so... it's a quest reward for a very complex quest line that took 'Daphne' the entire Beta to complete. Even though it somehow transferred the prize (???Title: Vessel of the Dragon Fire???) to her Bloom avatar... oh! If one then the other! That's how Stella got the Ring of Solaria, it was a similarly difficult quest line (one player can complete per server type rare) and the Ring was transferred from Stella's old avatar to her new one.)

(IRL Tecna is totally an actual programmer/hacker. All the girls chose their powers on their IRL interests. Except 'Bloom', whose father is an actual fireman, while she is an art/graphic design student.)

((The Trix are new versions of the Ancestral Witches, because creepy marketing guy couldn't fap to crones.))

Magical Dimension Online

To celebrate the launch of Virtual Reality, several games are going online simultaneously around the globe, a different game for every country. In Australia, it's H2O: Oceania Online, in Japan, Sword Art.

America will be the first country to launch Magical Dimension Online, and ten thousand lucky players will get to pay a week before anyone else, with the added bonus of exclusive Primary Launch content.

Laurel is a beta tester, on the day of the national launch, she logs in, but something goes weird with her beta-data.

Instead of Daphne, she awakens as Bloom.

And she does not awaken on Domino.

Hey brain? You know I'm not going to write this, right?

…. right?

So yeah, that's kind of what my writing process looks like. What about everyone else? How often does your brain smack you in the face with an idea you are too busy to write?

Wait... why would there be a global conspiracy to murder-game tens of thousands of people? Unless there wasn't and Kiaba, the nutjob responsible for SAO, simply wrote the code for the murder game into the operating system that everyone else ended up copying for their games and all the NerveGear were equipped with brain-bombs so... in the non-SAO servers... who told everyone they died in real life if they died in the game?

IDK. I just don't know anymore.

So yeah, that's kind of what my writing process looks like. What about everyone else? How often does your brain smack you in the face with an idea you are too busy to write?

[taaroko]

Post-IW MCU Rewatch: Black Panther

Time for an Afrofuturistic paradise!

Ohhhh, the meteor hit before humans came along. That makes so much more sense. Here I was misremembering that it landed in the backyards of these five tribes, and I was really confused that a meteor with a seemingly infinite supply of vibranium didn’t destroy everything for hundreds of miles. This makes much more sense.

The black sand hologram things are so much cooler than regular floating image holograms.

Hahahaha, okay, T’Challa freezing is adorable.

There are some great sibling and mom moments in this movie. Ramonda only had to see T’Challa’s face to know Shuri was flipping him off behind her back. Bahaha.

They did an amazing job on Wakanda. It’s Incredible to look at. From the city to the landscapes to the waterfall to the traditions of the different tribes. This whole movie has such an incredible atmosphere to it. This is the level of personality and culture I wish they’d given Asgard.

So I’ve seen critiques that question the wisdom of having a ritual combat to determine rule in such an advanced country. I think those critiques are missing the point. Wakanda’s flaw, aside from having a policy of isolationism at all costs, is clinging too hard to ceremony and tradition. It’s probably been many generations since they actually viewed the ritual combat as more than a token of respect to past tradition, but they didn’t actually delegitimize it in law, which is how Killmonger is able to take advantage of the situation.

The ancestral plane is beautiful.

“It’s hard for a good man to be king.” I desperately need Thor and T’Challa to interact. Have drinks and talk about the struggles of being king and having fathers who hid horrible truths.

So will T’Challa marry Nakia now that he’s come to agree with her politics?

Wakabi is kind of unreasonable. To turn on T’Challa for failing to bring Klaue back on his first attempt? Come on. T’Chaka failed to retrieve him for three decades, and you expect T’Challa to do it in one day? You are a bad friend.

Please let Peter and Shuri interact! They both love memes and “old” movies!

The whole suit fitting into the necklace strains credulity a bit. As does Tony’s bleeding edge armor. But I guess conservation of mass went out the window when Steve easy-baked from a sickly 90-pound kid to a 240-pound muscle-bound hunk, so it’s a bit late to start complaining.

*innocently* “For research purposes.”

Tolkien white guys!

Heck yes Okoye fight scene! Check out this gorgeous one-er!

Ohhhh it’s a vibranium car. So it breaks apart differently than a normal car would. I can accept the way Okoye and Nakia survive that crash better now. That was an important detail.

I, having two brothers, have never called either of them “Brother” to their faces in my life, nor have I ever heard anyone do this in real life, and yet I love when siblings do this in fiction. Brodinsons and royal house of Wakanda, please never change.

Klaue is so obnoxious.

Oh wow, I never noticed that they stuck those comms devices behind their ears.

Killmonger’s armor with the chestplate thing looks like some of the armor in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Awesome.

I keep imagining an AU in which Asgard and Wakanda do regular trade and have embassies. Wakanda has vibranium and millennia of experience working with it, Asgard has magic and other types of advancements. It’d be an amazing alliance, and they could’ve had it for centuries without telling anyone else on Earth.

Seriously Wakabi, you’re being a jerk.

So basically, Killmonger is Hamlet. More on that later, but he just killed Ophelia. Also, the reveal that he’s the main villain, not Klaue, is the midpoint/turning point of this movie. It’s getting to the point where I don’t have to check the progress to recognize these moments. The MCU gets criticism for being formulaic, but if the formula is simply following the 3-act structure, it still leaves plenty of room for variety, so I fail to see the problem.

N’Jobu is a scary extremist. Nakia is the one with the right philosophy. But T’Chaka did not need to use lethal force. He had super strength and a vibranium suit. He could’ve subdued his brother and brought him in. Instead, he killed him and left his nephew to find the body. T’Chaka is a lot like Odin. I do think both became better men than they were in the early days of thei rrule, but they did nothing to correct some of their biggest mistakes. Instead, they buried them. How exactly did they expect their sons to do better jobs ruling without all the facts?

I really like that Killmonger and T’Challa both held their father’s bodies the same way and cried over them. Super important parallelism.

Hmm, vibranium is vulnerable to sonic weaponry. That’s really good to know. This stuff is a bit too versatile and powerful; it needs a weakness.

It’s super weird that Killmonger’s (American) name is Eric Stephens. There was an Eric Stephens in my grad program, and he sat in the cubicle next to me. 

There’s some interesting stuff about group identity in this movie. Tribe identity (the five tribes in Wakanda), national identity, racial identity, and humanity at large. Nakia wants to help humanity at large. The Jabari are the most tribal. The other four tribes are about their identity as Wakandans over their tribes. N’Jakada, who grew up in the US, surrounded by gang violence and police brutality, with a father who wanted to militarize the entire African Diaspora and was killed for that, effectively making him a martyr and proving him right in the eyes of his son, is about racial identity to a fascist degree. N’Jakada has legitimate concerns, and his backstory is tragic and unjust, but his solutions are evil. Getting what he wants (assuming enough people outside Wakanda, where loyalty to the throne is somewhat mandated, would even go along with his world conquest plan) would come at the expense of the soul of the people he claims he’s fighting for.

The upside-down shot of N’Jakada taking the throne is chilling and excellent.

Conquerors or conquered are not the only two options here, Wakabi. But that attitude is self-fulfilling prophecy.

M’Baku is awesome.

T’Challa’s second trip to the ancestral plane is when he really figures out what his priorities are and what he’s fighting for. He realizes what he wants Wakanda to be under his rule. He’s been fairly passive and lacking in his own ideology up until now. Now his heart is really in it. He’s become the Black Panther and a king, so now he just has to fight to reclaim those actual titles from a mad warlord.

“All that challenge shit is over. I’m the king now.” Yeah, N’Jakada has no respect for their traditions, he only exploited them.

“Your heart is so full of hatred! You are not fit to be a king!” Yesss! Choose what Wakanda stands for, don’t just hand your loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it. It’s pretty notable, though, that Okoye only withdraws loyalty to N’Jakada when she sees that T’Challa is alive. Because the challenge is ongoing, she is free to choose the king she wants. She never broke her oath.

Heck yeah, warrior princess!

Oh hey, her gauntlets totally do the same thing to N’Jakada’s suit that the rails on the trains do.

Aaaah the truth comes out. “You want to see us become just like the people you hate so much. You will destroy the world, Wakanda included.” “The world took everything away from me! I’m gonna make sure we’re even!” N’Jakada pretty much just admitted he’s the villain.

And the Jabari claim their identity as Wakandans. Woohoo!

Hehe, the rhino loves his mama.

The civil war in Wakanda is what the Asgard storyline in Ragnarok was missing. Hela just slaughtering everyone and generally being ludicrously OP is not interesting, but if a significant portion of the people had sided with her and there was a battle for the soul of Asgard? That would’ve been amazing, and I wouldn’t have just been impatient to get back to trash planet shenanigans.

It’s a shame N’Jakada dies. He’s a Loki caliber villain, and they could’ve given him a redemption arc or something.

Okay, weirdly, one of the details I like the most about the capital of Wakanda is that the ground doesn’t appear to be paved anywhere.

So if Bucky is White Wolf, does that mean he’s going to be in future Black Panther movies? Yes please?

Black Panther is very good, but I don’t think it makes it into my top five MCU movies. T’Challa needs more development. He’s too passive for too much of the movie. Shuri and Okoye are much more interesting characters and have much more personality than him, and the same goes for M’Baku and N’Jakada. Hopefully they’ll do more with T’Challa in future installments. A big part of what makes the Marvel movies so great in general is their compelling leads, but this movie didn’t make me as invested in T’Challa as a person as it made me invested in his country and the people around him. I want to be as invested in T’Challa as I am in characters like Thor, Peter Parker, Tony, Steve, the Guardians, Scott, and Stephen, characters like Frank, Matt, Luke, and Jessica. I think what would have gone a long way towards solving this problem would have been if he’d actually been a staunch defender of the traditional isolationist view, only to learn over the course of the movie that Nakia is right. Isolationism breeds xenophobia and over-inflates national pride, creating people like N’Jakada. Much better to embrace other countries and cultures and help each other grow. As it is, it seems like T’Challa goes along with the isolationist thing because that’s how they’ve always done it, but he doesn’t seem remotely passionate about it, and that’s to the detriment of his character.

Now, the Hamlet thing. It occurred to me the first time I saw this in theaters that N’Jakada is essentially Hamlet. His father was killed by his uncle, who is on the throne, and his quest for vengeance gets everyone around him including his lover and friends killed, and ultimately he dies too. Then a benevolent king takes the throne, having learned from this conflict.

[skarmorydraws]

Team FAWN: Fallow Coklat and Naja Hong

Over the past few months, I’ve been binge-watching and binge-rewatching the amazing web cartoon series known as RWBY, and I’d highly recommend checking it out - all the episodes are available on YouTube - for its wonderful worldbuilding and characterization. It seems that almost everyone in the FNDM has been making OC teams for the heck of it, so I figured I’d try the same, even though I plan to use mine for a pet project I’ve been planning for a little while and I'm trying to give thought to how it’s gonna go down (though IRL things aren’t making it easy...).

Team FAWN (I believe that falls under the color naming rule like the individual names do, since “fawn” is a color) is a combination of my own selfish desire to stick a self-insert into over half the fandoms I’m a part of and my desire to envision Remnant-verse AU versions of some of my OCs. Unlike Team RWBY but like the other team I’ll be featuring in the planned project, Team FAWN will have gender equality with two males and two females. I have one of the girls sketched but have yet to work on the other one, so I’ll post them both when I get her done. For now, I’ll just put the boys up because I had them floating in the drafts pile and couldn’t not reveal them publicly. Details under the cut!

Fallow is a combination of several things: as noted above he’s basically my shameless RWBY self-insert, though unlike far too many terrible wish fulfillment fanfic OCs to count, he isn’t in a romantic relationship with any of Team RWBY, nor does he even know they exist... okay, well, he does, but he’s never met any of them in person, so that kinda counts, too. He’s also based off two of my favorite fictional characters, Hiro Hamada from Big Hero 6 and Pit from Kid Icarus - I was debating whether to make RWBY characters based on either or both of them, because I have a Remnant-verse character based off Violet from The Incredibles as a planned PPC agent, but I later realized that since Hiro, Pit, and I have so much in common, Fallow fills that niche quite nicely already. Anyway, he’s a peregrine falcon Faunus and a dual shout-out to the Maltese Falcon (his wings are based off the Falco peregrinus brookei subspecies specifically) and Rama, the seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu and the protagonist of the Ramayana epic (Hinduism is a frequently practiced religion in Indonesia, my parents’ ancestral country, and the theme of Team FAWN’s members is multicultural folk heroes). Fallow wields a Ballistic Arbalest/Shield Hybrid called Narayanastra, named after the personal scatter-shot weapon of Vishnu, which is basically a shield that can open up to form a crossbow/pickaxe hybrid. I don’t think I’d like getting up close and personal with people in a fight and I’m more of a defensive sort of person in character, and I like shooting stuff from afar, so a shield/bow hybrid is what I’d carry as a weapon.

I like to think that like Blake, Fallow hails from Menagerie, although he never associated with the White Fang and once things went south for them he simply went to Beacon a year early (like how I went to college early). He struggles a bit with making friends due to his odd mannerisms and habit of self-seclusion, but is fiercely protective of those he has and, as Team FAWN’s leader, has the smarts and empathy to coordinate team efforts - if only he had the willpower! His Semblance is gravity manipulation, partly because it was the closest thing I could think of to outright flying (I like feeling lightweight) and partly because I most often like to imagine having mobility beyond the boundaries of physics and common sense like wall jumping or ceiling clinging - it’s my second most favored power after flight. (His wings, feathers, and accompanying anatomy, by the way, are derived from this lovely tutorial.)

Naja is based on Ne Zha, the Third Lotus Prince from Chinese mythology and one of my favorite mythological figures (who is planned to show up in one of my own original writing projects, btw), and minor changes aside, his design is ripped off almost completely from Fire Lord Ne Zha, my absolute favorite skin for the lil’ guy’s SMITE incarnation. The fact that the voice actor for that skin, Howard Wang, also voiced Whitley Schnee was a happy coincidence that I didn’t find out about until after I’d already drawn him! Naja’s personality is lifted directly from the voicelines of that skin, which I interpreted as a showy daredevil, though I also gave him a flirtatious streak to further the contrast with Fallow (I’ve sucked at every attempt at dating because I’m too introverted; I like to imagine Naja sucks at dating because he’s too extroverted, though! XD). His weapons are, of course, the Flaming Spear, a sniper rifle with an extra-long barrel that doubles as the shaft for a guandao (a Chinese blade on a stick), and the Universe Ring, a bladed hoop that can be thrown like a killer frisbee and also folds up to form a rifle stand (the Wind-Fire Wheels are his rollerblade boots here, and the Armillary Sash is his belt). Unlike SMITE’s Ne Zha, I see him as the long-range support gunner and drive-by flanker (though his guandao is no joke at close range either), and to this end his Semblance is called “Deadshot” - combining telescoping vision and invoked contrived coincidences, he literally cannot miss a shot, like the superhero of the same name from Suicide Squad.

Naja is the street-smart, wisecracking, womanizing adrenaline junkie of Team FAWN, and originally came from a small town in Vacuo, where he got into a widely scandalized two-man war with the Big Bad of the planned writing project, who I won’t name for now because spoilers ;). Though the escalating conflict forced him to leave the town and ultimately Vacuo altogether, all hasn’t been lost for him, since the ensuing journey gave him a lot of knowledge about how to survive in such a hazardous world as Remnant, at least until Ozpin found him. By the time the controversy he’d stirred up in his youth caught up with him again, he was already a student at Beacon, and he managed to divert the scandal into outright notoriety and forged quite a following around his outrageous tall tales of his death-defying adventures - for as the adage goes, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. Despite his blowhard nature, though, his capability is nowhere near unfounded, and in fact he was the first member of Team FAWN to decide to stick around to protect the evacuating citizens during the fall of Beacon, motivating the rest of them to do the same. For both his fans and his team, it was the moment when he finally lived up to his stories, and he’s been learning since then to value those who admire him and respect their strengths in return.

Stay tuned for the girls of Team FAWN - after I get them done, that is... hopefully this weekend I should have the last member sketched...

RWBY (c) RoosterTeeth

Team FAWN (c) me