#rainbow quest meta

[illusion-reality-steve]

Update

I know it's hard to tell when all my posts are scheduled, but I was so busy for the past few weeks. So busy that I haven't had a chance to look at this blog and all the Steve-related tags I follow.

I finally had time to check the tags last weekend, and I'm blown away by how active they are. For a long time, it was only @incorrectstevesagaquotes and a few other people who posted Steves on Tumblr. Seeing all this activity now is beyond cool!

I am so proud of the Steve community here. There is art, discussion, memes, and just so much passion going on here. Not only are we still keeping discussions of Sabre's SCU alive, but we're also talking about Steve stories created by other people, and we're still being creative and excited about the Steve Saga, the series that started this fandom! Tumblr is one of the few platforms where lesser-known fandoms can thrive, so I'm glad we're doing exactly that.

I'm gonna try reblogging these amazing posts I find in the Steve tags! As an experiment, I'll start having Steve reblogs scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays, which would expand my usual schedule from 3 posts a week to 5 posts a week!

I'd also like to bring @incorrectstevesagaquotes back. There are a lot of submitted incorrect quotes and a lot of art in the Steve tags that I'd like to show. I'd like to make @incorrectstevesagaquotes into a place where people can discover all the Steve Saga fans on this site. Hopefully I'll have time to queue those posts soon!

[illusion-reality-steve]

I was a Warrior Cats fan. It wasn’t a direct Warrior Cats to TSS/RQ pipeline for me though, since I was in other fandoms between those two.

I've realised something today and want to do a little experiment:

How many fans of The Steve Saga/Rainbow Quest/Etc. are/were fans of the Warrior Cats series at some point? I might be seeing signs of a pipeline here

[veeves34]

Thoughts on Dawntrail

I have finished the MSQ and done some side quests, and I have finally come to a conclusion on my overall impression of the expansion so far. I will break it down into two sections, spoiler free and then spoilers.

Spoiler Free:

-The graphics update is great, I can't wait until all of the old zones/characters/gear are updated, it will be great to go back and see the changes.

-The art and design is, as always, lovely, and I really enjoyed the overall designs of most of the zones.

-The music was great, as usual, however, there are a few songs that are complete misses for me...especially when you have been in an area for a while and you hear the same tune repeat over and over again...I have muted my music more in this xpac than in previous ones.

-The jobs are good, I always level everything to MAX level and have 2 jobs at 100 so far, but, overall, the changes/additions to the jobs that I prefer are good changes and the additions don't change too much about the rotations that I know and like. I like current Viper and am sad to see that they are planning on making changes, I think it is fine the way it currently is and the positionals and other complaints that I have seen are silly in my opinion. My Pictomancer is only 90 at the time of writing, the job is cute, and I get how it works, but as I don't really like casters in FFXIV anyway, it isn't a job that I am going to play much beyond getting it to 100.

Now for spoilers:

-As to the overall story, it was fine, a nice break from doom and gloom, but I have several major issues:

-Let's let the cat out of the bag first; Wuk Lamat - I like her in general and I am sad to see that people are being such dicks about the VA being trans, I thought the voice acting was fine, it was the character itself that was a little annoying to me. I understand that we are supposed to be guiding her through a journey where she grows into the leader she needs to be, however, even at the end, she is still just very naive in ways that I just find annoying as a personality trait.

My biggest issue, with her as a character, actually happens in the later half of the story, after she has ascended to Dawnservant. Once everything starts hitting the fan and we recognize that the problem is an issue involving a Reflection and we have way more meta knowledge about what is really happening, it seems silly that we would still be holding her hand and trying to explain every bit of lore instead of addressing the issues at hand.

The whole vibe of most of the story felt very after school special with the power of friendship and rainbows solving the problems that happen. I also did not like it during the Interphos trial her busting her way into the fight and "winning it" with the power of positivity, that just didn't work for me.

As the WoL we have seen people like Sphene in multiple expansions, all trying to "save" their people and using that to justify atrocities...Hades, Elidibus, Thordan to name a few. And in each case, we said "Cool motive, still murder" and dealt with the offender as they needed to be, even at great personal cost, especially once we knew exactly who/what the WoL is and means to some of the characters.

So, why are we dealing with Sphene, who we saw at the massacre in Tuliyollal, with friendship is magic powers. It worked with Metion because she was the literal embodiment of despair and needed to be given some perspective on hope, but Sphene, as a character, did not earn that kind of respect/kindness from my WoL.

Overall, I am just glad to be done with the MSQ and look forward to the raid fights and hopefully some cool/interesting side quest stories.

-I think my biggest issue with the story overall, is just a problem that happens with all MMOs and that is the illusion of control in the story. We can't choose not to support Wuk Lamat, even if we feel one of the other candidates is a better fit. We can't choose how we deal with/approach anything that is happening in the last two zones of the game. That is a function of this type of game genre, once you have to create a story in a world that is beyond a single player scenario, you can't really give anyone any personal drive to change how the story plays out.

Compare it to a pure RPG like Baldur's Gate 3 - yes, in the end the story is still driving you on a path to defeat the end boss, but there are so many different approaches to how you get there, that you never really have the exact same experience twice - you can be good, evil, neutral, romance who you want, approach fights in many different ways, characters can die, actions have consequences and are permanent.

However, in an MMO-RPG the story always has to be the same path for every character, every time, for hundreds of thousands of people. The only real choice you have is which of the two zones you are going to go to first when you do the first branching quest after the main city. I love MMOs, I have played them for many, many years, but once you start to see the man behind the curtain, so to speak, it becomes much less interesting to really care about the lore. I kind of understand where some story skippers have a point - if you just want to experience some cool fights, does it really matter what the narrative framework used to justify the existence of those fights is?

[serendertothesquad]

Seren's Studies: Odd Squad UK -- "Bad-Luck-itis" Episode Followup, Part 2

Reaching the climax of this one. Will Ozzie manage to implode the universe? Or explode it? Find out below the break!

HE BROKE THE FUCKING TUBES?!?!?!?!?

Man, at this point he's gonna have a coronary as the icing on the ca-

Fuck you.

Genuinely, Rob? Fuck you.

Fuck this bait-and-switch with the fury of 999 quadrillion suns.

This wasn't needed. It really wasn't.

Fuck. You.

"Not to exaggerate, but you're going to destroy us all."

Not even the franchise being under the helm of BBC Studios Kids and Family can remove its "destroy is a fancy word for die" curse. Thanks, PBS!

(And I mean that very sarcastically, thank you.)

Lmao at me thinking this is a rip of "Into the Odd Woods" or "A Case of the Sillies" when it's actually ripping off "The Odd Antidote".

The "magic water" bit was a dead fucking giveaway.

Either this is a sign of Rob wanting to break free because this was a shitty job, or this is a sign that he thinks meta jokes are funny.

Which they are. But what Orli's doing ain't it.

Case in point: if Orli were really in a rush, she and Osgood would take the container of water and run.

Instead, she sticks around.

We know why, of course. But in-universe, she doesn't have much reason to stick around.

What having a writer with absolutely no resume does to a motherfucker.

Did they grab this guy off the street or did they go through the proper channels AND THAT IS A VERY LEGITIMATE QUESTION THANK YOU.

HE EVEN HAS A PINK WATCH AS A FOOD AND BEVERAGE WORKER???? LMAOOOOOO.

Took them 8 years, but the bastards did it.

...Okay, I guess that answers the question of why they couldn't take the container and run.

Still stupid self-awareness, though.

God damn, PBS just can't stop Americanizing everything, can they? At this rate they could go 4Kids and remove all the British names and replace them with American ones!

(...They won't. But have fun with that mental image.)

I much preferred when the Guardian of the Rocks was asking about how long Opal and the Van Computer have been partners.

You can't get any more golden than Oswald's face utterly drooping in mild shock and disappointment.

this episode has a rainbow dragon

next episode has a gay triangle villain

One point to Rob. One. Only one.

They absolutely knew what they were doing.

This is the Odd Squad equivalent of firing a gun when you're sick.

No one smart enough fires a gun when they're sick. That's just downright fuck-all stupid.

I mean...okay, this effect is kinda cool. Kinda. Sorta.

Doesn't erase this episode's sins, though.

"Oh, what a day."

Yes...yes, it was a day. Just a day. No adjective. Just a day.

In some cosmic twisted way, this means you can watch "The Odd Antidote" and have the two episodes infinitely loop with each other.

Someone call the FBI, I have a new torture method!

It's contagious...but somehow Orwell didn't get it? And he's the one who got saddled up with Ozzie, so either the man's got a hell of an immune system or it's like "one and done, now you're immune".

And your credits for this episode. Featuring the Three's Company for Witches family!

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

Overall...this was tough to stomach. Easily the worst out of the "find the cure" episodes we've gotten. Season 3's, by comparison, were much better -- "Into the Odd Woods" at least had cuts to Omar completely sending Orla for a whirlwind with his clowning around, while "Off the Clock" brought a unique approach to the cliche and brought a bit of lore to boot.

This one...shot and missed the mark. Ozzie's repeated going into rooms and utterly destroying them was hilarious, and the wizards were fun, but I wasn't invested in Orli's and Osgood's quest through the Mystical Glade nor was I a fan of Orli's painful self-awareness. On that note, Oswald's gripe with technology and reliance on books was far more fun to see, even if just for a one-note wonder.

But of course, having dealt with writers who have lacking resumes, perhaps this shouldn't surprise me. I'd recommend Rob get more practice before returning to the franchise, because oh fuckin' boy does he need it.

Next time will be "The Triangle Sisters", and you can bet your ass I will gush about gay triangle villain. So, so much. We've got disability rep, now let's take the next step.

Seren out!

[gamesception]

So here's the new toy that's been distracting me the last couple days. My decade+ old oversized ASUS gaming laptop finally pooped out several months ago, leaving me daily driving my Steam Deck of all things as my main home computer. And don't get me wrong, the Deck has performed remarkably well in that regard, but I've been meaning to get something a bit fancier for a while. Something that could handle 1440p gameplay at a decent framerate while streaming or recording, can manage image and video editing well, and in particular can run some VR games. I've been interested in VR gaming ever since Lobac posted about some of that a while back, especially with the Meta Quest 2 being a solid headset at a really aggressive cost. With the Zuck giving up on the metaverse, the Quest is likely never going to be cheaper than it is now.

I'd waffled for a while about building a PC, but in the end I psyched myself out and decided to go with a pre-built instead. Yes, that means willfully overpaying for the end product by a few hundred bucks to pay someone else to do the assembly and initial set up for me, but in exchange I only had to research one product instead of half a dozen separate components, plus there's a single warranty where if anything doesn't work it's somebody else's problem to fix it, and I'd only have to deal with a delay.

After watching and reading a bunch of reviews, Skytech seemed to be a decent choice for system integrator, with solid to positive reviews for various prebuilt models they offer, including Gamer's Nexus who tend to be pretty harsh on pre-builts. But it was this review from JustIN Tech that sold me on this Azure 2 model. "Performance equivalent to last gens best, but at half the price" is the exact tag line I was looking for, and after a recent price discount it was just within my $2k range.

In retrospect though, I should have done some more research on the specific components. I'm quite happy with the intel 13600 cpu, and while the included cooling setup is overkill for that chip, that just means I've got some free thermal space to overclock or upgrade in the future. Plus, it's pretty, and I'm shallow. On the other hand it turns out the nvidia 4070ti is not well thought of - generally considered badly overpriced, plus has the extra negetive association of being just a rebranding of the failed '4080 12gb' that was so roundly panned that its release had to be canned altogether. And the PNY model that came bundled in my unit isn't even as nice as the Gigabyte one in the JustIN Tech review. One of the reasons why Gamer's Nexus is the better channel for these sorts of reviews is that they do secret shopper and get the same stuff regular folks get, where as brands know what they're sending to channels like JustIN Tech and can take pains to make the best possible impression by including better components and taking extra care in assembly and packaging.

So what should I have purchased instead? I don't know. Maybe the 'blue' model of the same Azure 2 line, which is three hundred dollars cheaper to swap out the 4070ti for an intel Arc a770, which would probably have been more than enough for my intended use cases. Heck, with 4 extra gb of vram it might have even been better than the 4070ti for me in the long term, and if not then I could use the money saved towards swapping out to a better AMD card next gen. But the blue model comes in a blue version of the case, which wouldn't have made the swirly rainbow rbgs pop as much.

Anyway, while I might have made a different choice if I had done more research, that doesn't mean I'm at all unhappy with what I got! The Azure 2 arrived promptly. The build quality of the system is very nice. No damage, no loose or cross-threaded screws. Everything worked right out of the box when plugged in - including all the various external ports. Skytech certainly did a good job putting it all together. While the 4070ti might not be the most reasonably priced card for its performance level, now that it's here and paid for regardless, it seems like it should be able to do everything I want it to, at least for now. And if I end up replacing the gpu sooner then I would have liked, eh, we live and learn.

And while it doesn't matter at all compared to cost and performance, the swirly rainbow rgb lighting makes me feel like a Real Gamer (tm).

Desk is getting a bit cluttered tho.

As for performance, It's quiet and runs cool while playing my current games at top settings - though my particular game selection (mostly just Elden Ring on max settings with Ray Tracing), and my 1080p, 75hz monitor aren't exactly putting it through its paces yet. A new monitor is one of several upgrades & accessories I plan to get to go with this thing in coming months. New monitor, VR headset, an extra ssd on which to install linux - I figure I'll keep the windows install on the side, on the off chance there are games or utilities I can't get running in Linux down the line.

But anyway yeah, that's what I've been so busy with lately, delaying liveblog posts.

[severalpossiblemusiks]

Sit back with a beverage of your choice, cause I gotta talk about:

HEAVY METAL

Specifically:

“What is metal?” Which leads to several sub-questions, like “what makes a band or artist metal?” “What is real metal?” And “what is heavy?”

As a metalhead, I run into debates about this topic a lot, as nearly every metalhead has an ever-so-slightly different definition than the next metalhead, and this naturally leads to argument. So I’m chipping in my two bits.

First off: “what is metal music?” How are we defining metal music? What are our parameters?

Heavy metal is widely regarded as starting in 1970 with the release of Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album, but was amorphously defined, leading to bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Iron Butterfly, Hawkwind, Rainbow, Grand Funk Railroad, MC5, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, Jimi Hendrix, Van Halen, Rush, even bands like Journey occasionally getting slapped with the label “heavy metal”. There wasn’t really a key definition anyone pointed to, the best they had was vibes, said vibes being “loud guitar and drums and the singer seems a bit shrieky”. It took until Judas Priest in the mid-late 70s to proudly adopt the title of “heavy metal”, setting a sort of standard for all bands afterwards: if they sounded like Judas Priest in some way, they probably were metal.

Of course this was all well and good until about the late 80s/early 90s when most every major subgenre of heavy metal sprung up: glam metal added pop hooks and power ballads, thrash took a punk angle with increased tempos, death took the thrash speed and added growls, black metal added more speed and shrieking, prog metal added complex technicality, power metal added a heavy fantasy elements that heartened back to bands like Led Zeppelin and Rainbow, doom metal slowed things down in respect for Black Sabbath’s early work, symphonic metal added orchestral soundscapes and soprano singers, industrial added a touch of Eurodance, nu-metal added rap, alternative added whatever was left. Metal was suddenly everything all at once and it wasn’t as easy to go “do they sound like Black Sabbath or Judas Priest?”

Allow me to suggest my definition for “what is metal?” Simply: if listening to it makes you wanna start headbanging, it’s probably metal. Of course this is not 100% accurate, as punk can also have this effect, but it holds pretty solid, for example; can you headbang to the Beatles? No. So not metal. Can you headband to Judas Priest? Yes. So metal. Can you headbang to Supertramp? Not really. So not metal. Can you headbang to Nightwish? Yes. So metal. So on and so forth. Of course this does lead to some “non-metal bands” such as AC/DC and Nirvana falling under the metal, but if the entire genre is built on vibes to begin with, who are we to deny that AC/DC, Nirvana, and a few other weird outliers vibe with the best of them?

Second main point I wanted to discuss: the eternal quest for “real metal”. Usually “real metal” is defined by various elitists and gatekeepers as more extreme stuff on the lines of thrash, death, or black. These guys follow the rule of “if it’s louder and heavier, the more real it is”. Which is a BS rule, cause heaviness is a vague concept to begin with, and I will address that point later. But also, given the vastness of metal that I described above, with so many subgenres and micro genres, can we really find something that can still be called “real metal”? In my opinion, said theoretical “real metal” band is probably the midpoint of “heaviness” on the metal spectrum, not as “light” as early stuff or glam or nu, but not as “heavy” as current death, black, or deathcore styles. Which of course will leave nobody happy cause it’ll mean a genre they don’t like probably has the title of “real metal”.

In which case I offer this alternative: real metal is in the hands of three bands: Black Sabbath, the band to started metal, Judas Priest, the first band to call themselves metal, and Manowar, the first band to promote themselves as “real metal”. I will take no other arguments.

Now to “heaviness”. The main consensus seems to lie in heaviness being downtuned guitars and fast drums. This is a very narrow definition, while not entirely inaccurate, it leaves basically just two genres, death metal and deathcore. Heaviness is definitely a sonic quality, and it’s something you hear, but I think it’s also something you feel. For me, heaviness is not just the sound, but the mysterious headbanging quality that makes it metal to begin with. If you feel the urge to headbang, it is metal and it is heavy.

I know these are probably controversial metal takes, but they makes the most sense to me, and also allow for the widest spectrum possible, and I personally am a metal anti-elitist, so I want to give validity to all genres that might possibly be metal… even that one you just thought of.

So that’s all I had, listen to something “heavy” or “metal”, and feel free to chew out elitists, maybe offer them some soup cause need warmth in their cold little hearts.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Much Ado About Nothingness

We are almost halfway through the year and Manjuu finally blessed us with new Event! Iron Blood Event content, at that! Iron Blood event content that has a brilliant new Ultra Rare Ship in the banner! You absolutely know I'm making a run today! I’ve stacked Cubes and Finishers for months. I have hundreds of these things, literally stockpiling for this, specifically. Sure, I've burned a few here or there for a couple of Reruns but all of my everything in Azur Lane, is primarily for my darling Kraut dock. it’e wild because the drought has been long and arduous. I’ve literally just been doing side quest since the turn of the year but now, i can get back to the main campaign. Sh*t’s dope, sure, but it’s at the cost of Marco Polo. I’m still in the middle of constructing her and now she gets to be put on the back burner because Bismarck Zwei needs just SO much love! Off the top, this was the most expensive Banner at which I've ever made a run. It took all two hundred rolls, man. so many of my Cubes, sacrificed to the cruel, cruel, Gacha gods. I’ve played this game for years and, up to this point, never had to take the Pity.

The most cubes I've used on Banner ships was eighty. Actual years of luck. I guess it finally ran out because, goddamn, two hundred f*cking cubes, yo! My pockets are bare but it was worth it. I unlocked all of the ships available and, in the grueling process of burning all of my hard earned Cubes, was able to Limit Break every ship on that Banner, save U-556 META. Generally speaking, i don’t care about META ships so she’s just bonus. No, my prize is all of those UR Bismark Zweis. It took one hundred and seventy rolls but, on that last one, i popped three Zweis and my third U-556 META. Bro, i had already fully Limit Broken both Otto von Alvensleben and Regensburg. That’s five goddamn copies for each of those boats! By the fiftieth goddamn roll! I literally have two extra copies of Regensburg right now because i had to run that banner another one hundred and twenty goddamn times! By then, i just said “F*ck it” and kept going to gt the Pity. Why not? I had the Cubes and figured better that than buying one of those UR Bulin from the shop.

It’s wild that i pulled every ship available in this Event. It took a great deal but now I'm not even sure if i want to play the goddamn game! I mean, of course i will, i need to grind out that Affection so i can wife my new ships, but what would be more efficient: Grinding the Event or just grinding on of the Stage Eleven maps? Sure, there’s more Experience to be had on Stage Eleven but, i mean, there is Shop stuff i can buy. Cats can never have enough Rainbow Blueprints and there’s ten of those b*tches in there. I might just go that route, mostly because i still need to unlock Jade. She’s the Point Accumulation Reward for this event so unlocking her is only a matter of time. Ten thousand is a lot but i think i have a pretty healthy start. Maxing out those three Banner ships and getting them to level one hundred almost immediately, has to count for something, right? The other stuff added during his update is pretty dope, too. I love the new costumes, specifically Regensberg’s Dark Dragon, Brilliant Beach. That there is some quality Live 2D, i tell you hwat! The Wishing Well is back but i already have everything i want so it’s more a mute point for me. Still, i might use it to pick up a random boat, who knows? What i do know is I’m going to miss out on that Nelson Retrofit because i, apparently, don’t have Nelson in my Fleet. How is that even a thing? Whatever, it’s fine. I got another UR KMS boat in Zwei. That, alone, made this entire Event worth it for me.

[smokeybrand]

Much Ado About Nothingness

We are almost halfway through the year and Manjuu finally blessed us with new Event! Iron Blood Event content, at that! Iron Blood vent content that has a brilliant new Ultra Rare Ship in the banner! You absolutely know I'm making a run today! I’ve stacked Cubes and Finishers for months. I have hundreds of this things, literally stockpiling for this, specifically. Sure, I've burned a few here or there for a couple of Reruns but all of my everything in Azur Lane, is primarily for my darling Kraut dock. it’ wild because the drought has been long and arduous. I’ve literally been just doing side quest since the turn of the year but now, i can get back to the main campaign. Sh*t’s dope, sure, but it’s at the cost of Marco Polo. I’m still in the middle of constructing her and now she gets to be but on the back burner because Bismarck Zwei needs just SO much love! Off the top, this was the most expensive Banner I've ever made a run at. It took all two hundred rolls, man. so many of my Cubes, sacrificed to the cruel, cruel, Gacha gods. I’ve played this game for years and, up to this point, never had to take the Pity.

The most cubes I've used on Banner ships was eighty. Actual years of luck. I guess it finally ran out because, goddamn, two hundred f*cking cubes, yo! My pockets are bare but it was worth it. I unlocked all of the ship available and, in the grueling process of burning all of my hard earned Cubes, was able to Limit Break every ship on that Banner, save U-556 META. Generally speaking, i don’t care about META ships so she’s just bonus. No, my prize is all of those UR Bismark Zweis. It took one hundred and seventy rolls but, on that last one, i popped three Zweis and my third U-556 META. Bro, i had already fully Limit Broken both Otto von Alvensleben and Regensburg. That’s five goddamn copies for each of those boats! By the fiftieth goddamn roll! I literally have two extra copies of Regensburg right now because i had to run that banner another one hundred and twenty goddamn times! By then, i just said “F*ck it” and kept going to gt the Pity. Why not? I had the Cubes and figured better that than buying one of those UR Bulin from the shop.

It’s wild that i pulled every ship available in this Event. It took a great deal but now I'm not even sure if i want to play the goddamn game! I mean, of course i will, i need to grind out that Affection so i can wife my new ships, but what would be more efficient: Grinding the Event or just grinding on of the Stage Eleven maps? Sure, there’s more Experience to be had on Stage Eleven but, i mean, there is Shop stuff i can buy. Cats can never have enough Rainbow Blueprints and there’s ten of those b*tches in there. I might just go that route, mostly because i still need to unlock Jade. She’s the Point Accumulation Reward for this event so unlocking her is only a matter of time. Ten thousand is a lot but i think i have a pretty healthy start. Maxing out those three Banner ships and getting them to level one hundred almost immediately, has to count for something, right? The other stuff added during his update is pretty dope, too. I love the new costumes, specifically Regensberg’s Dark Dragon, Brilliant Beach. That there is some quality Live 2D, i tell you hwat! The Wishing Well is back but i already have everything i want so it’s more a mute point for me. Still, i might use it to pick up a random boat, who knows? What i do know is I’m going to miss out on that Nelson Retrofit because i, apparently, don’t have Nelson in my Fleet. How is that even a thing? Whatever, it’s fine. I got another UR KMS boat in Zwei. That, alone, made this entire Event worth it for me.

[serenaew]

Serena's Masterlist: Non-HP works

Including HP crossovers.

Last updated 28/12/2023

Overview

Anastasia x Harry Potter x Mary Poppins

[Filk] Embers and Soot (G, no characters, complete, multivoice)

Bredlik

Mantolik (G, Chinese bredlik translations, complete)

Doctor Who

Hear Me Out (T, Graham & 13, complete)

Emelan

[podfic] tea at midnight (G, Trisana & Briar, complete)

[podfic] Dear (G, gen, complete)

[podfic] speak with my own voice (G, gen, complete)

[podfic] The Night Is Still Young (G, gen, complete)

Galaxy Quest

[podfic] SMOF (G, complete)

Greek Mythology

[Filk] Proem: Helen, Achilles and the Great War of 1,200 BC (G, complete)

Merlin (TV)

[Podfic] Mud (T, Merlin x Arthur, complete)

Meta-fandom, if nowhere else

[Filk] podfic podfic filk (G, the llama song, complete)

[Filk] (Voiceteam) Over the Rainbow (G, tto Over the Rainbow, complete, multivoice)

[Filk] I like the Voiceteam (G, tto I like the Flowers, complete, multivoice)

[Filk] The Flan-King (G, Voiceteam filk tto Erlkönig (Schubert), complete)

Original Work

What's in the Dark? [podfic] (T, Original Work (Werewolf game), complete)

Percy Jackson Universe

[Podfic] The Lost Gods (T, Thalia & OC, complete)

Phantom of the Opera (all media)

Voiceteam Triumphant (G, gen, complete, multivoice)

[Filk] This World Is Mine! (T, Carlotta / gen, complete)

[Filk] Podfic Home (G, complete)

Science Fandom

[Filk] From the life of a C. elegans researcher (G, Science fandom, complete)

Small Podcast Fandoms

Tremor [podfic] (T, Down - Definitely Human, complete)

On your mind [podfic] (G, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, complete)

The Sound of Music

[filk] Ea-Nasir's Favourite Things (G, Mesopotamian RPF, complete)

[Filk] I've been bamboozled by ebay-Nasir! (G, xkcd, complete)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars x The Muppets

[Podfic] We are all luminous beings (G, gen, complete)

This Is How You Lose The Time War

Poison & Win(?) (T, Blue/Red, complete)

The Witcher

Blaviken [filk] (T, Geralt / Jaskier, complete)

Expand for more details on individual elements.

Details

Anastasia x Harry Potter x Mary Poppins

[Filk] Embers and Soot (G, no characters, complete, multivoice)

Summary: An a cappella mashup song of Chim Chim Cheree (Mary Poppins) x Once upon a December (Anastasia) x In Noctem (Harry Potter). Additional Tags/Warnings: Filk, mashup, a cappella, original arrangement

Bredlik

Mantolik (G, Chinese bredlik translations, complete)

Summary: 两份 Bredlik 翻译。(Two Bredlik translations into Chinese.) Additional Tags/Warnings: Inspired by Tang Poetry, Podfic

Doctor Who

Hear Me Out (T, Graham & 13, complete)

Summary: At the end of Episode 7, series 12, the Doctor avoids the topic of Graham’s cancer disease, stating her social awkwardness. As a doctor of (amongst others) medicine, and especially as The Doctor, she really could have done better! So here is my version of what she could have said and done. Additional Tags/Warnings: Mentions of Cancer, Grief/Mourning, Episode: s12e07 Can You Hear Me?, script format

Emelan

[podfic] tea at midnight (G, Trisana & Briar, complete)

Summary: Tris shook the hand she was still holding out to him. Little Bear, obediently off the bed, whined a little. “Up.” Briar squinted up at her. “It’s cold out there.” “It’s damp in there. You’d think you’d run up a mountain, not had a nightmare.” Podfic of tea at midnight by dirgewithoutmusic. Additional Tags/Warnings: short & sweet, podfic

[podfic] Dear (G, gen, complete)

Summary: A selection of letters to and from Trisana Chandler during her four years at Lightsbridge. Podfic of Dear by KiaraSayre. Additional Tags/Warnings: epistolary, podfic

[podfic] speak with my own voice (G, gen, complete)

Summary: Laima Greenfinch, interviewing Trisana Chandler for the Lightsbridge Gazette, Watersday, 23 Hearth Moon, 1046 K.F. Podfic of speak with my own voice by AlexSeanchai. Additional Tags/Warnings: interview format, podfic

[podfic] The Night Is Still Young (G, gen, complete)

Summary: Four nights during the social season at the Citadel. Podfic of The Night Is Still Young by ivyspinners. Additional Tags/Warnings: fluff, podfic

Galaxy Quest

[podfic] SMOF (G, complete)

Summary: In this fandom, there are things you don't talk about. Podfic of SMOF by hollimichele. Additional Tags/Warnings: Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References

Greek Mythology

[Filk] Proem: Helen, Achilles and the Great War of 1,200 BC (G, complete)

Summary: A venerable Greek P(r)oem where everybody got three epithets. Additional Tags/Warnings: Iliad, tto Prologue (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812), filk

Merlin (TV)

[Podfic] Mud (T, Merlin x Arthur, complete)

Summary: In which Merlin and Arthur are trudging through the muddy woods. Podfic of Mud by ProdigyBlood. Additional Tags/Warnings: Muddy kisses, Banter, Fluff and Humor, Flirting, Self-Indulgent, Merthur fun, Merlin's insults, Clotpole, Arthur is a royal ass, merlin loves it, all the mud, One Shot, Arthur loves Merlin really, Cute, Merlin's a cocky bastard

Meta-fandom, if nowhere else

[Filk] podfic podfic filk (G, the llama song, complete)

Summary: The podfic version of "llama llama duck". Additional Tags/Warnings: tongue twisters galore

[Filk] (Voiceteam) Over the Rainbow (G, tto Over the Rainbow, complete, multivoice)

Summary: Voiceteam filk tto Over the Rainbow! Additional Tags/Warnings: Voiceteam 2023

[Filk] I like the Voiceteam (G, tto I like the Flowers, complete, multivoice)

Summary: We all like the Voiceteam. Additional Tags/Warnings: tto I like the Flowers, Voiceteam 2023

[Filk] The Flan-King (G, Voiceteam filk tto Erlkönig (Schubert), complete)

Summary: A Flanfilk inspired by Flan and Goethe's Erlkönig. The filk of [Poem & Podfic] The Flan-King. Additional Tags/Warnings: flan, tto Erlkönig (Goethe & Schubert)

Original Work

What's in the Dark? [podfic] (T, Original Work (Werewolf game), complete)

Summary: The quiet small town of Narfolk is suffering a series of gruesome murders. Is it due to werewolves or just some wild animals? Either way, something has to be done, someone needs to be blamed. Additional Tags/Warnings: Major Character Death, Horror, Suspense, Dark Comedy, mob justice, semi-improvised, Werewolves, paranormal podcast, might be a bit melodramatic, but like… in a fun way!

Percy Jackson Universe

[Podfic] The Lost Gods (T, Thalia & OC, complete)

Summary: A cushy house-sitting job, a mysterious journal, a creepy guy at a pool, and... a rescue crew with arrows and wolves? Suddenly, this summer job had gotten a whole lot more interesting. Podfic of the fic The Lost Gods by hiddendruid. Additional Tags/Warnings: includes slavic mythology, podfic

Phantom of the Opera (all media)

Voiceteam Triumphant (G, gen, complete, multivoice)

Summary: You are compelled to sing. Voiceteam filk tto Masquerade. Additional Tags/Warnings: Voiceteam 2023, filk

[Filk] This World Is Mine! (T, Carlotta / gen, complete)

Summary: What if Carlotta strived for universal domination? Additional Tags/Warnings: Crack, space opera, self-aggrandisement, tto This Place Is Mine (Yeston / Kopit), filk

[Filk] Podfic Home (G, complete)

Summary: Wherever podfics play I know I'm home Europodfriends filk tto Home (Yeston/Kopit) Additional Tags/Warnings: Europodfriends 2023, filk

Science Fandom

[Filk] From the life of a C. elegans researcher (G, Science fandom, complete)

Summary: About my favourite model worms, tto "Row your Boat". Additional Tags/Warnings: C. elegans

Small Podcast Fandoms

Tremor [podfic] (T, Down - Definitely Human, complete)

Summary: “I don’t need sass, I need… I need… something else!” Marion pulled Sam away before he could reply with yet more sass — or worse, offer the agitated Captain a drink. A multivoice recording of a Tremor by LenaLawlipop Additional Tags/Warnings: Charlie Dresden / Marion Straker, Episode 11, emotional hurt/comfort

On your mind [podfic] (G, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, complete)

Summary: Hadji was quiet on the way back to the hotel. He couldn’t meet Jessie’s eyes in the car, or after. A multivoice recording of On you mind by KDHeart Additional Tags/Warnings: Whump, Past Mind Control, Awkward Tension, Episode Tag

The Sound of Music

[filk] Ea-Nasir's Favourite Things (G, Mesopotamian RPF, complete)

Summary: A complaint about the world's most (in)famous ancient copper merchant, set to music. Additional Tags/Warnings: inspired by xkcd 2758: My Favorite Things, tto My Favourite Things

[Filk] I've been bamboozled by ebay-Nasir! (G, xkcd, complete)

Summary: A complaint about ebay, inspired by above filk. Additional Tags/Warnings: inspired by xkcd 2758: My Favorite Things, tto My Favourite Things

Star Wars: The Clone Wars x The Muppets

[Podfic] We are all luminous beings (G, gen, complete)

Summary: Some Jedi are more force sensitive than others. And then there's the Jedi who aren't so much force-sensitive as straight up force beings who have somehow acquired a physical body. The clone troops roll with it. A multivoice podfic of We are all luminous beings by MarbleGlove. Additional Tags/Warnings: filk

This Is How You Lose The Time War

Poison & Win(?) (T, Blue/Red, complete)

Summary: About the final poisoned letter from Red to Blue. Additional Tags/Warnings: tto Posion & Wine (The Civil Wars) , filk

The Witcher

Blaviken [filk] (T, Geralt / Jaskier, complete)

Summary: Jaskier walks into a bar, after "Rare Species"... Additional Tags/Warnings: Possibly unrequited Geralt / Jaskier Serena's Notes: I took more of an advisory role in this, but that doesn't stop me from loving how it came out!

[teecupangel]

I don't know how I can help you? XD

My usual go-to explanation as to why AC characters tend to look different (varies), especially the Desmond saga, is because they're made by different primary development teams that usually work on their specific games in tandem since AC used to have a yearly release and these games take more than one year to develop. (Unity alone started development in 2010 after Brotherhood and wouldn't be released until 2014... in, uh... let's just say unoptimized state).

So Ezio's looks vary in his own games.

Nexus though... weeeellll... my initial idea is this is still in development so they probably forgot Ezio's scar.

... Which I still think is a huge oversight but... well... it's a VR game for Meta Quest, I don't think Ubisoft is prioritizing it compared to Mirage (multiplatform) and Jade (large mobile audience absolutely trying to squeeze into the Chinese market). Also, I don't know which development team is working on Nexus but, considering it's the first VR game for AC, there's a high possibility that the development team isn't Montreal (currently working on AC Hexe & Prince of Persia Sands of Time remake) or Quebec (apparently working on a Rainbow Six mobile game? idk). Bordeaux is most probably still working on Mirage too. So, yeah, I think Nexus is being developed by other Ubisoft development teams.

I honestly don't wanna look at Nexus!Ezio too much XD

But, seriously, characters looking different isn't anything new in AC.

Sometimes, it's a matter of how much the graphics have evolved:

Sometimes, it's a matter of the development teams using different engines (AnvilNext 2.0 for Quebec's Odyssey & Ubisoft Anvil for Montreal's Valhalla)

Sometimes, it's a deliberate choice to show that Abstergo's Animus used Desmond's face and Revelation shows Altaïr's real face

BUT.

THIS.

WHAT.

THE.

FUCK.

UBISOFT.

Desmond looks like he has shape-shifting capabilities.

Don't even ask me where these Desmonds come from. I have them saved on my computer because I used them for this Multiverse of Desmond post so I no longer know myself.

Assassin’s creed nexus, and WHAT THE FUCK happend with Ezio’s face? IDK if im blind or something but it’s me or his face looks different???

AC II, Brotherhood, Revelations, and the corto

ac nexus

AC brotherhood

It’s me or they are completly different people??? he doesnt even have the scar?? And he looks like brotherhood but not ??

idk i need help @teecupangel​

[illusion-reality-steve]

Here me out here: RQ predictions au, where your and a bunch of other peoples RQ Predictions were actually a part of the canon while still including all the rq characters

I know some predictions were about which TSS characters would appear in RQ so LET’S GO. RQ PREDICTIONS AU TO MANIFEST PLAGUE, MEMORY, AND ILLUSION INTO AN RQ AU. LET’S GOOOOOO. I don’t remember 80% of my RQ predictions tbh. The only one I remember the most is my debunked theory of Orange!Rainbow being the last Hero and the semi-true theory of Steves learning they can’t rely solely on the Hero.

[baeshijima]

𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫!𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫!𝐲/𝐧

MASTERLIST

now, childe as a general streamer,,, he’s a whale in every sense of the word 

…

poggers—

so childe as a streamer in general would be one word ;

✨chaotic✨

he would definitely be a variety streamer, but more so for games !!

especially pvp and/or pve games

competitive meta mf—

probably plays LoL, overwatch, apex legends, valorant and minecraft

don’t question the minecraft 

he likes mining but has a personal vendetta against the creepers bc once they blew up his mansion 

yes, a mansion

ask any of his community and they’ll tell u he spent a full-blown month and a half playing just minecraft to build it, only for it to go down just like that ;-; 

his chat loved it tho <//3

he’s played honkai too !! mainly for the pve and grinding bc he’s a whale but uh,,, shhh

his community,,, his community are just a bunch of trolls at this point i cant even lie

they just KEKW, SADGE & COPIUM spam everything and the newer viewers get intimidated until they realise he deserves them all HJGKJHF

especially when he starts getting annoyed by the game,,, his reactions are too good to pass up on gn

typically when he does mario kart streams 👩‍🦯 that shit’s wild when it happens oh my

when he falls in rainbow road 🤡 

and especially bc he has his webcam on, his viewers just see him internally dying or wanting to scream

also gets passive aggressive 

shit talks everything and everyone when in that mood <//3

for what’s left of his dignity i won’t disclose what happens

definitely gets jebaited a lot too <//3 unfortunately he’s too easy for his chat ;-;

another mf with a massive community except he has a lot of friends (sorry not sorry albedo)

ppl have a love-hate relationship with him tbh; u either love him or hate him

no inbetween

unless u show ur love through bullying him then go off ig

his discord server, twt + yt are also really big too !! also verified on insta 

also !!

he has lots of plushies :(( esp whale plushies from his community bc he’s the biggest whale they know <//3

but if u look at his setup, there’s a mini whale plushie on the top of his main monitor (he has 3), one big one (like,,, up to his chin) behind him, a smol on the top of his chair so u can see it above his head, and just more off screen HKJSDHL

they asked for a room tour once and half of it was just whale plushies

the rest were LED lights + shelves of merch & gifts from his community !!

he even has some fanmail (actual wholesome ones that aren’t cursed) pinned on a board too 🥺

also has an ensuite—

when he was eating on stream one time, his chat was sent into an absolute outrage

u know why?

bc he was eating noodles with a fork

bby ;-;

so sometimes he’ll get sent those beginner chopsticks with the finger guides to help him 👩‍🦯

he’s actually made sure to eat with them on stream tho bc he was sent one with a narwhal on top and he thinks it’s cute JHGJKH

nOW ONTO THIS MAN BEING WHIPPED FOR U AS A GENSHIN STREAMER !!!!

herkekle

now, his (also) AR56 ass has been playing since genshin first came out

an og if u will

this man,,, he’s been in love with u even before the game’s official release 🐥

not only were u in the promotional art and trailers, but he was also one of the beta testers so he got to try out ur character first hand in the early stages !!

and when i say he fell hard for u,

i mean it 

when the game wasn’t released publicly yet, he wasn’t allowed to disclose any information and ngl, it killed him that he couldn’t talk abt u :((

so all he could do was say this upcoming was really nice so far and subtly brag abt u to everyone JHGKJSDFHLK

when the official ads & promotional art were finally released 🥺🥺 when i tell u he immediately went live talking abt the game and u HKGJHFDK

he didn’t care that he streamed at an ungodly hour bc he’s been waiting for the reveal for so long he needs to let everyone know </3

he retweeted everything from their official twt straightaway, made a yt video based off his spontaneous stream promoting the game + pinged his entire server abt it

yes

his nearly 200k server all got pinged abt this one game bc he’s in love with a character from it

and he has no regrets abt it <33

the day the game was available for download, he stREAMED THE ENTIRE DOWNLOAD PROCESS

while he and his chat were waiting, they decided to watch the trailers and character showcases to get a feel for the game, and played some mario kart to pass the time !!

as soon as the game loaded, he threw mario kart behind him and went on 🐥

he typed his name (ajax) for the when he chose aether and literally everyone was appreciating the aesthetics HKJFS

but childe,,, he was waiting for it to be over so he could see u ;-;

he appreciated the aesthetics, fighting mechanics & voice acting a lot tho !!

now he had gotten through all the tutorials, got all the chests he could he was finally in mond

and there u were 🥺 after the dvalin encounter u arrived before kaeya did

and boy did he show u off sm to his viewers HKJHKLF

they knew he was down bad before but now?? they know it’s hopeless to save him and if he ever falls out of love that’s when the world ends

luckily that’ll never happen tho <33

but he took !! so many !! screenshots !!

oh, and did i mention he changed his wallpapers to u? and his twt + discord pfps are also some very aesthetic screenshots of u from that first scene ;-;

he just appreciates u sm okay 🥺

he even clutched his chest where his heart is and sunk down his chair when he heard u speak 😩

his chat just spammed his downbad + y/nlove + SHRIMP emotes and he accepted them all with grace <33

now when he unlocks the wishing feature,,, u already know he’s wishing for u as soon as possible

ur in the standard banner so ur always there which he appreciates but he would’ve wanted u to be limited so he can rub it in ppl’s faces ;-;

and since it was the first release rewards, he had tons of wishes right off the bat !!

he was gonna roll for venti after he gets u bc,,, well does he need a reason??

also he doesn’t do well with archer characters in general ;;; but if ur an archer then ur obv an exception sooo

bUT he got a 5 star in his first 20 pulls !!

tho it was diluc 👩‍🦯

while he was happy bc he got an incredibly meta character right off the bat,

he wasn’t interested in diluc,,, (even now his diluc is barely looked after, and only used for spiral abyss, *sweats*)

the next 5 star he got was around the 60 mark, and he got a weapon,,,

i mean,,, he got the weapon that was most suited for u so that’s smth at least (ˉ▽ˉ；)

after he used all his remaining primos and fates, he finally got u 🥺

he just went “fuck the storyline” and immediately put u in his party and just

admired u as a whole 

went through all the voice lines available, ur character story, ur idle animations (he had a heart attack from u and his chat clipped it) and took many, many screenshots 

his favourite voice lines would have to be the night + about us + (y/n)’s hobbies

and then he equipped u with ur weapon and damnnn did u look so good with it 😩

he changed u to be his avatar, with his signature as :

“(y/n)’s whale <3”

and now the whaling process begins 👩‍🦯

after at least £2k, he got u to c6, along with at least 1 copy of all the standard 5 stars,,

then he went for venti’s banner—

his chat were just too focused on how he’s gonna play u to even think of anything else tbh HKJAH

with ur kit, u were honestly seen to be a dps or even a sub dps if ppl don’t want u on the field all the time

so definitely a perfect character for mr meta strimmer tartaglia (his twitch name btw ;;; childe is just smth he prefers his community to call him as but they also call him ajax too HKJSD) here

so he went through the archon quests with u as his carry and i won’t lie, ur name card is smth he has printed and framed behind him after he got it 🥺

he later finds out ur part of the fatui in the liyue archon quest tho and has to fight u with,,,

well, u ;;;

he finds it hot tho so it’s okay—

i won’t lie tho, his zhongli after he got him is his second strongest after u

he just builds all his characters in the most broken way he can so he can show his viewers that everyone can be a dps in their own right, not just the ones meant to be since there’s no right or wrong in this game !!

but now ur weapon is r5, ur lvl 90 and u have lvl 20 5 star artifacts that make u the most broken (y/n) seen

ppl who co op with him are honestly baffled,,, especially when the feature of them being able to view other players’ character stats become available,,,

u with ur nearly 3k atk,,,

he’s hit over 600k with u tho and he’ll always flex that

no one can top him as a (y/n) main and that’s honestly just a fact at this point 😩

when he saw that the dating sim hangouts was official, his immediate and iconic response was simply ;

“so when will (y/n) become a dateable, huh 🤨”

to this day he’s still waiting to be able to date u in-game <//3

[thereaderinsertlady]

Things to look at before commissioning/browsing...

Fandoms I write for...

Mario & related fandoms (Luigi's mansion, Mario RPG...)

Donkey Kong (64, country...)

Invader Zim

A hat in time

Undertale (any AU)

Deltarune

Bendy and the Ink Machine

Cuphead

Villainous

Mad Rat Dead

Hazbin Hotel

Rainbow Friends

Specific ships?

Specific ships? As long as it's an 'x reader,' and is in one of the fandoms I listed, then it's fine! You could even request that one random guy in Mafia town, or request multiple people! But, if you aren't sure, then don't be afraid to ask or send a personal message.

There are also several ships I'd do that I didn’t list the fandom for, which includes:

King Dedede x reader

Meta Knight x reader

Bill Cipher x reader

Shigaraki Tomura x reader

Eggman x reader

Metal Sonic x reader

Romeo the admin (MCSM) x reader

Melvin Sneedly x reader

Sundrop/Moondrop x reader

Montgomery Gator x reader

Krobus x reader

SCP-049 x reader

Joka (from Klonoa) x reader

Ghadius x reader

Professor Ratigan x reader

Basil of Baker Street x reader

Green Mage (from Everhood) x reader

Escargoon x reader

Marx x reader

Other specifications?

If you don't include a specific gender in a request, then I'll make the reader gender neutral by default, so don't worry! If you only request Random Character x Reader and nothing else, I'll come up with a random prompt to follow it. I also write inserts in the second person, but if you want it to be first or third person, that's fine too! I don't mind if you make a request super-duper specific either, and I'll try my best to follow along with your idea! :]

What's not allowed?

Of course, pedophilia isn't allowed, but otherwise nearly everything else is fair game! If you need me to tag something or add a warning to a post that you're not comfortable with, then let me know. And, if you just want to send in a plain ask instead of a request, then that's fine too!

...Even NSFW is allowed?

Yes, even the most sauciests of requests are allowed! Even, ahem, the forbidden 'forced NSFW.' However, if the character is a bit young, then I'll age them up by default unless it's platonic. I know Tumblr is a bit iffy with the tags, so I'll try to add a warning at the top of the post if it's smut related.

What about commissions?

General requests are closed, but as of currently, yes, I am taking in commissions! If you would like to see more about it, please check here on this link.

Anything else?

I have an ao3 account called EggMeister. If you don't like the formatting in Tumblr, I also put fics on ao3.

Important links:

Current asks in my inbox

Masterlist of all fics I’ve written between A-J (note, the masterlists haven't been updated in a long time!)

Masterlist of all fics I’ve written between K-P

Masterlist of all fics I've written between Q-Z

Masterlist of Holiday Adventures with You and King Boo

The King's Jester (Dimentio x Reader)

Duality of Ink (Bendy x Reader) Updates every Thursday. On a smol break!

Dear Detective (Mafiafell Gaster x Reader) Onna smol break! :3

A Voice of Clarity (Dimentio x Reader, Book 2 of AVR) Smol break! :3 (arghh 3 in a row??)

A Voice of Reason Has been completed! :D

Major Events:

Underrated Character Event (Deadline: August 1st - August 3rd)

'Quest Tober 2023

[desultory-novice]

I'm happy myself to hear that! I don't always have the spoons to vocalize it, but you and everyone else deserve to feel proud of your awesome and inspirational ideas!

As for whether or not Noir gets possessed by Dark Matter in Kirby 64, your question brought a little scene to mind...

-

Meta Knight and Noir are training in the forests of Dream Land. Meta Knight has to step away for something, and that's when Dark Rimula creeps up on Noir. He comes very close to shaking the possession on his own, having dealt with Dark Matter before and also having the protection of the Rainbow Sword.

But...in that brief moment where his mind touches the collective, he hears Adeleine's soul call his name from within the darkness. He had told himself during those too long, too quiet nights '...at least she isn't in pain', but hearing her soul crying destroys his already fragile heart, and he surrenders himself to Dark Rimula willingly.

That's when... 

Kirby and the rest run into him. As a trained swordsman, he's a more dangerous foe than expected. Meta Knight swoops back in just then to fight his disciple in Kirby's place. He seemingly beats the possession out of Noir, but...Noir doesn't stop fighting...??

Meta Knight quickly realizes Noir is attempting to pull a "death by cop", ie, Noir's had enough and wants Meta Knight to put him out of his misery, but when Meta Knight purposefully lets his own attack during their duel and Noir accidentally injures him, Noir finally drops his blade and gives up the fight, wracked with tears.

Meta Knight, rather than coddle the distraught teen, criticizes him for this slip of weakness and says now that Noir's selfishness has put Meta out of commission, who is going to protect Kirby and the others in his place? Will Noir stand there uselessly and let two worlds be consumed by the same force that took his little sister...?

...Noir can't look at them and refuse. His heart is still bleeding, he’s barely begun to heal from the constant stream of ~EVERYTHING~ but he hesitantly agrees to guard the group in Meta's stead. Meta Knight applauds this decision and sends the four of them on their way to Castle Dedede and the rest of their quest...

Meta Knight was, in fact, faking the “injury.” He decided this was a prime opportunity to teach his pupil a good lesson and force him out of the cocoon of pain and solitude he's been living in since Adeleine in an attempt to bring him back into the world of the living.

...And it proves mostly successful.

---

[Apologies AU] 

“Apologies” “One Sneeze”   “Summer”   “A Walk in the Snow”   “The Swordsman”  “Wonderful Gift”  "Damnation" "Salvation"  

[Bonus] “Ugly Scarf”   [Bonus] "That's...Funny..."  [Bonus] "Full Regalia" (DMS "Gijinka") [Relevant] “Vestige” (script-only)

[Bonus] Noir Facts!

[Dark Matter Painter AU]  "It wasn't supposed to go this way...!" [You Are Here] "You're a good knight!"  "The Body Remembers"

An AU of someone's AU

To be more specific, @desultory-novice 's Apologies AU but if Ado got cursed instead of Noir (pre dark matter Dark Matter Swordsman).

I plan on doing more art where Noir takes Adeleine's role in the Kirby series and might even while the Rainbow Sword. He will not be wilding it against DM Painter though. He probably felt some effect from the sword, but the effects ware off or something.

DM Painter's tears are rainbow paint. Her body is fully dark matter, but is covered in paint. All her paintings that come to life are actually made from dark matter

Yes, Noir still is the one who gave her the paint brush, so his guilt is strong

I think that in this part, when Noir goes to check on Ado, he never finds her. He does not take it well when he finds out what happened to her and that she's dead. Maybe he'll think "At least she's not in pain anymore..."

DM Painter probably made scrawls on walls and floors made from things other than the magic paint brush that resemble Noir, but she doesn't remember why she draws that face.

[mayasaura]

Alecto, The River, and Colum Asht

I’ve been working on a few different Harrow the Ninth meta theories, and I noticed some threads that seemed to pull them together. Maybe you could call this another megatheorum, but I’m not sure it’s comprehensive enough for that.

I think whatever kind of monster Alecto is, the clues we need to guess are in salt water and the death of Colum Asht.

Salt water leads us to the River. @ovrgrwn @sauntering-vaguely-downwards ​ and I were talking about the symbolism of salt water in the series, and Ovrgrwn mentioned both that Alecto is a “saltwater creature” and that the River isn’t salt water. The thing is, I realised later that the River is salt water.

One of the biggest puzzles we were left with pieces of in Harrow the Ninth was "What is Alecto?". She's been called a lot of things, but we know very little abit definitively. There’s a theory that I was discussing with @thunderon and @asimovsideburns that Alecto is something like a Resurrection Beast, in that she and Harrow are both communal souls forged through human sacrifice. There’s a theory that maybe she was someone else before the Resurrection and in trying to pull her soul back John accidentally got a whole bunch of souls instead. Or she could literally be Alecto the First the way Harrow is an entire generation of the Ninth, with every soul that used to inhabit the world of the First packed into her body. I like all these theories—it feels like we’re on the right track, but also like we’re missing something. This by itself doesn’t seem like it would be so viscerally terrifying to Augustine and Mercy, who were present for the creation of Teacher and the revenant constructs in Caanan House. If she’s an overstuffed suitcase of ten billion souls, why is she a saltwater creature? Why does Teacher call her tomb a zoo, and why are her eyes Like That?

[Image: It came down around her in shreds, as light and insubstantial as drifts of spiderweb. The water sprayed through white holes, rushing in with a pounding roar: that brackish, bloodied water that only existed within the River. She was bouyed up by a spray of ice water and filth - but she wasn’t; she seemed to be walking down her long black corridor again-]

In chapter 53 when Harrow tears her way out of the bubble of the false Canaan House, the River is described as “brackish, bloodied water”. Brackish water is the water that’s found at the place where a river meets a sea; too salty to drink, but not as salty as sea water. The River is brackish salt water, and Alecto is a saltwater creature.

Brackish water is mentioned only one other time in either book.

[Image: She appeared behind the grey-thing-that-had-been-Colum. She took its twisted neck in her hands as calmly and easily as though it were an animal, and she tilted it. The neck snapped. Her fingertips dipped inside the skin; the eye-mouths shrilled, and the tongue around Gideon’s neck flopped away, and both those mouths dissolved into brackish fluid. The body dropped to the floor—]

When Colum Asht dies in chapter 34 of Gideon the Ninth, a brackish fluid runs out of his eye sockets. Whatever creature was inside Colum, it came from the River. And then there’s the description - it’s too long and spread out to quote in full here, but the details are that his eyes went liquid black, and he moved “like there were six people inside him, and none of those six people had ever been inside a human being before”. There are lights under Colum’s skin and things pushing and slithering along his muscles as he walks. When he opens his eyes again, they’re toothed mouths with tongues, and Colum’s tongue has become long and prehensile and it wraps around Gideon’s neck like a tentacle.

The stoma at the bottom of the the River, the mouths to Hell that only open for Resurrection Beasts and the Emperor, are described like this:

[Image: It was a huge, hideous, dark expanse, and it had seething, weird edges; it took the lights pattering over them for me to see that the edges of the hole were enormous human teeth. Each one must’ve been six bodies high and two bodies wide, with the dainty scalloped edges of incisors. The teeth shivered and trembled, like the hole was slavering. And that hole had nothing in it; that hole was blacker than space, that hole was an eaten-away tunnel of reality.]

[Image: Streamerlike lingual tentacles emerged—the unassuming pink you got on normal, non-Hell-bound tongues—easily a thousand of them, jostling, questing, blindly thrusting up out of that mouth. Pyrrha flinched.]

Colum’s eyes have become miniature stoma. It’s interesting that while the thing possessing Colum advances on and kills Silas first, the stoma don’t open until Gideon attacks it. It uses Colum’s sword to kill Silas, but draws Gideon in with its tongue, like the tongues from the stoma at the bottom of the River draw her father the Emperor and Augustine in. But that’s another meta post.

Perhaps the stoma are creatures, sentient hellmouths lurking at the bottom of the River, and it’s stoma that are possessing Colum the Eighth. Maybe it’s the river itself possessing Colum, and the lights under his skin are souls. Maybe it’s something from beyond the stoma, something that came out of Hell. It’s an important question, but not one I have an answer to right now. I am confident in the connection between the stoma and the Eighth House. In chapter 36 of HtN Augustine accuses Mercy of not taking the stoma seriously “which is why your whole damned House sucks at it like a grotesque teat-”. Mercy’s House is the Eighth House, so whatever the metaphysical effect of siphoning is, it presumably involves the stoma. What interests me most about Colum’s transformation for now is that his eyes went full liquid black, and that he was possessed by a creature that left salt water behind it.

Still with me? Now we tie it all together with Alecto’s eyes, the eyes currently in the face of God, the Emperor of the Nine Houses. Like the possessed Colum, their sclera are black. Unlike Colum, their eyes have irises and pupils. The irises are “dark and leadenly iridescent - a deep rainbow oil slick, ringed with white.” Even before I had any idea about Alecto, I wondered what sort of soul the God who was once a man had consumed to have eyes like that. The way Ianthe’s eye colors swirled and merged when Naberius was fighting her, I wondered if his dark iridescent irises were the colors of ten billion souls swirling together, but that wouldn’t explain the black sclera. Now I think the Resurrection Beasts, the stoma, and these theories about Alecto are offering an explanation.

Perhaps Alecto is an enormous collection of human souls, like in our theories, but she is not only human souls. Whatever was possessing Colum Asht is also a part of Alecto. The black sclera she gets from the River, and the iridescent irises she gets from thousands or millions or billions of human souls. Depending on how you interpret what possessed Colum, that could mean a few different things. Maybe she's a human stoma, a human soul merged with the mouth of hell. Maybe she's a tributary or avatar of the River, and the power of all of history's death runs through her. Maybe she's partially comprised of a creature from the incomprehensible chaos of Hell.

The stoma option seems like the most likely to me, to explain the fear and disgust that Mercy and Augustine feel toward Alecto. An avatar of the River is terrifying, but also awesome. That's not the right vibe for 'put that thing down before it hurts one of us'. It was implied in the conversation about Hell and the stoma at the end of chapter 36 that nothing had ever been observed coming through the other way, and it's plainly stated by the Emperor that nothing which goes in has ever come back. If Mercy and Augustine were aware that part of Alecto was from Hell, I would expect it to be hinted at in that scene, and it wasn't really. I did notice that Augustine is more scared of Alecto than Mercy. When Mercy thought Alecto had come to kill her, she spoke to her. When Augustine thought he had seen Alecto, he turned and ran. Maybe Mercy is just braver in general, but Mercy is also less afraid of the stoma than Augustine.

As a closing note, evoking the stoma or what might lie beyond it would explain the only line in Annabel Lee as a metaphor for Alecto that puzzles me.

And neither the angels in heaven above,

  Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

  Of the beautiful Annabel Lee

[nevertrulyset]

Star Trek movies' alternate titles

Star Trek: Still In Love

Star Trek II: Ricardo Returns

Star Trek III: Finding Nimoy

Star Trek IV: The One with the Whales

Star Trek V: Let's Kill God

Star Trek VI: It Wasn't Me

Star Trek: A Clockwork Rainbow

Star Trek: Mayhem In Montana

Star Trek: Face Stretchers

Star Trek: Franchise Fatigue

Star Trek: This Never Happened

Star Trek: Uncharacteristic

Star Trek: Jaylah

*Honorable mention to Star Trek: Meta (Galaxy Quest)