#she has her own timeline/au i just don't talk about it because i haven't technically started playing

[girlinthetardis04]

Just finished playing Floor 12 of Arcana Twilight and OH MY GOD

*spoilers below*

So first of all, MC is Polaris???? WTF??? Ok, reincarnation is pretty par for the course in otome games (Ayakashi: Romance Reborn, Blood Moon Calling, Obey Me!, etc), so I probably should have seen this coming.

I'll admit, I took this reveal better than other ones *cough*Obey Me!*cough*, but it's still pretty jarring. I wish there was an option to agree with Vega on sealing Polaris' mana, but at least some dialogue options let you be reluctant (?) about it. It's so tiring though, like why does my MC have to be somebody else? Why can't they just be a self insert? I just want to be loved as I am, bro. Anyway, I'm curious to see how they'll handle it going forward. Hopefully it won't be so bad that I have to create a whole separate timeline just so my MC can exist like I did in OM! , but we'll see how it goes.

Secondly WHAT IS UP WITH ARCKY??? Why are the Void Sorcers (?) calling to him? He was like possesed or smt??? YOU LEAVE MY BABY BOY ALONE YOU BASTARDS. This was a very intense Floor for us Arcturus/Pollux/Vega lovers. However it is perfect for playing out new hurt/comfort scenerarios in my head before sleep, so... silver linings

Also, I'm very excited that Sirius seems to be "turning good", so to speak. Yes, he always had good-ish intentions, but man his methods suck. Looking forward to Floor 13, I wanna see what he gets up to. I never cared much for him, but he was more tolerable in F12.

On a more lighthearted note, I love that one of the dialogue options was "I'm inherently sparkly" that actually made me laugh, lol

[myosotlsart]

Any headcanons for characters you wanna share?

Aha. The time has come for me to answer this question.

The thing is, I *don't* have any headcanons for the main "canon" pokémon characters. I let them be. So technically, nothing for them is canon in my head. Not even the fact that Green Oak has a crush on Red. I respect the canon for what it is, and leave it at that.

But if we're talking about slightly *altered* versions of them, such as what I write for them... ahaha. Yes. That's when I allow myself to become a little creative. (The only issue is, there are different alternate timelines. I'll give you a basic rundown of what goes on in my head.)

more under the cut

Pokespe Inspired (Universe 1)

This is the first story I attempted to write, and as all things written by a child, the contents are a little wild. I'll say what I plan to carry through, however:

Green Oak has a crush on Red. Duh. It was clear the moment he doubled around. No, he wasn't "waiting" on you. PFfft. He just wants to prove he's the best. *Ensue depression after Red's disappearance*. Red, however, is on the aroace spectrum, which means they have to learn and navigate what an intimate/romantic relationship means to them, if they even have one.

Green feels a lot of emotions, which leads him to act irrationally at times. Red is overall a lot more introverted (not to say more calm, but appears to be) which can be hard for Green to read. Like a hot/cold dynamic

Professor Oak, at one point, became the Pokémon Champion due to a mixture of interest in pokémon and perserverence. He never, however, understood the bonds between pokémon, and ultimately dropped the job to pursue studying them. His lack of knowledge considering the bonds between pokémon is what makes him unable to gauge how much Green's pokémon like him, and ties into the fact he also bad at connecting to his very human family

Green's mother is the spoiled daughter of Professor Oak who was also very type A- and so dominant only her last name transferred to her children. Aspects of his personality, such as his cleanliness, and at times deep desire for perfection and insecurity, is a result of her high demands for overachievement

Blue (F) has experienced with traumatized children (Silver) and taking care of Yellow is natural for her because of it. After the events of the main story, she goes back to seek for Yellow, and emotionally and physically helps her grow into her own.

Kanto is generally misogynistic when it comes to female trainers in power and Blue does her damnest, resorting sometimes even to radio broadcast, to slowly shift public opinion on the matter.

Red's primary goal is to befriend pokémon, understand them, and change the region's attitude towards pokémon training (such as with whips, etc.) He doesn't take the championship seriously by the end, which infuriates Green, and only beats Green to bring some finality. Red initially partakes in media to discourage whipping and abusive practices, and stays for a little bit, before ultimately receeding to the mountains due to how overwhelming and impossible it is for one kid to change the world. Red is the one who makes the stairs in the mountain as a subconscious plea for someone to come up and find him, even if he won't go back down himself

There is way more on the second gen I could talk about, but I haven't even drawn any of them yet, so that's for the future I presume

FRLG Inspired (Universe 2)

Unfortunately, in the first universe, Blue (F) ultimately cannot surpass Red and Green, has to deal with the disappointment, and shift priorities. It seems that if only the female trainer exists, she can be the Champion. However, if she were to exist alongside Red, Red always has to win. This AU is an exploration of that notion.

Red and Leaf have the same mother, they look similar, therefore they are twins. However, in the games, they are never seen together. Thus, while Red is raised by his mother (if player chooses Red), this story has Leaf travelling with her father for the majority of their lives, making them estranged siblings. But no hard feelings. (Mostly).

By the time Leaf goes to pick up the pokéballs, only Bulbasaur is left.

Blue Oak is a lot ruder in this AU than he is in the other stories I'm writing, where his and Red's relationship is the core focus. Which is to say, he acts exactly as he does in the game, always trying to prove he's better and one-ups Red.

Leaf is never mentioned beyond FRLG, such as in HGSS. Yet, she must have existed. I imagine her to take a much more relaxed (thus hidden/less flashy) approach to the journey than Red and Blue do. While the boys take the spotlight, she takes unconventional paths around the region, focusing on befriending pokémon. Does she fail at waking Snorlax because she doesn't have the pokéflute? Well, fine, despite not knowing fly, she'll tell Pidgeot to fly over the dang thing, take a running start, and alley-oop over that giant monster.

Due to her more mischevious, shadowed nature (and harkening to her name) Leaf usually favors pokémon such as Butterfree, Crobat, Parasect, Venonat, Golduck, Victreebel, Cloyster, Hypno, Tangela, and Mewtwo. Her more mysterious nature sets her apart from the usual peppy female protagonists. There is something unsettling and amusing/curious about her. If you get decieved by her innocent smile, well...

The test as to whether any of this matters, if she can surpass the popularity of the stars of Kanto, comes to a head at the end of the story.

During HGSS, while Red is on the mountain and Blue handling the gym, she goes to Hoenn (referencing a 2005 postcard of her with a combusken), where she meets May. Traveling with May (who is a climate change activist, thanks to RSE's theme of, well, climate change) is a welcome break from the box she was forced into during her time in Kanto. An experienced, lightly jaded adventurist and an inspiring adventurer with a heart of gold make for an extremely heartwarming journey

Wow! I didn't think I'd have so much to say when I saw this, I was genuinely scrambling for headcanons until I laid out some of the stories I have swirling around my head. Apparently there was a lot in there! The more you know.

[the-everqueen]

fic author self-rec

@mehoymalloy tagged me to pick five of my own fics to recommend, pero i've only finished one for my current fandom, which is what most recent followers would be looking for. so! since the gf, who is much more prolific and better with words than me, has written so much for mansand, i thought i'd pick five of hers that i like the most and want other people to scream about. she's not on tumblr, but she's user stellersong on ao3.

shuddered at what they found when they stripped away the grace Dream, after the Wake. body horror, not in the usual viscera and gore sense, but the horror of being the newly (re)embodied anthropomorphic personification of the collective unconscious, when part of you had been a human child. this is required reading for everyone who wants Daniel!Dream coping with his new existence. also Delirium is a good big/little sister. (gen)

y me muero por volver, volver post-Wake Dream and Death get lunch in SF. both of them navigating around the shadow of Morpheus and who they've become. some of my favorite characterization of Death - you really get a sense of her as a person, her grief and kindness. also very good background worldbuilding for the Endless. (gen)

for just to suffer that hurt Desire's got wind of the developing relationship between their brother and his librarian. it's technically part of their function, after all. there's some fun timey-wimey things happening here with the alternate timelines presented in Overture. also frankly i think the gf is doing the only interesting things in this fandom with intertextual references: so many people are fixated on medieval studies, and meanwhile the Dreaming has every work that has ever existed or could have ever existed in the whole world, which is bigger than England. (*cough cough* Anglocentrism *cough*) this is part of the "endless revisions" series but imho you don't need to have read the previous fics to understand this one. (m/f, Dream/Lucienne, semi-background)

a pillar i am, upright this one is for all you horny Dream/Luce people. basically Lucienne has fun mentally tormenting Dream while they're both trapped in a work function. this fic also contains one quick reference to my guy, which frankly just makes me warm because i know the gf did that for me. (m/f, Dream/Lucienne)

unauthorized disclosure this is kind of cheating because i'm listed as a co-author (solo fic in progress, got heavily delayed by me finishing a phd and then hyperfixating on CocoRose). BUT it's not a swan fic-list without a monster au and werewolves are my soft spot. this one's the first in the "red moon" series: basically Lucienne gets hired as Dream's RA for a secret project to cure lycanthropy and things go sideways fast. i'm obsessed with how the gf describes so-called monstrous bodies - there's a brandon taylor essay about how no one in fiction occupies physical space anymore, and the gf is so good at bodies as devices/communicative structures/things that take up physical space. if you've ever gotten tired of fics where the characters seem to move for no reason besides as a dialogue tag (a thing i'm so guilty of in my own writing), you should read swan's fic to study how she uses movement.

this was insanely fun; thanks, Malloy! i always feel weird tagging people but if you follow me and want to talk about your fic, feel free to consider yourself tagged (and tag me so i can read it if i haven't!)

[dutyworn]

@anderwhohn said: 🌌Favorite alternate version of the muse? / 🔮 What do you see in your muse's future? / ⌨ What's a situation you've always wanted to RP with the muse?

Mun talks about the Muse / ACCEPTING ↷

🌌Favorite alternate version of the muse? :: I don't do full AUs with Wren, but I stretch the definition of canon divergent so much I guess technically you would count, like, the first contact verse as a full AU. Anyway - clone!Wren is actually literally an alternate version of Wren, so I'm going to say her. Because she's not Wren, she is... literally... Wren's clone. And while I haven't written in that verse yet, it has such potential with the baseline being Wren, but renegade. With me, deliberately, writing her out of character, while trying to balance her as still being Wren's clone, not a different Shepard... juicy!

🔮 What do you see in your muse's future? :: I see her fully growing into her potential of being a Spectre rather than an Alliance marine. During the trilogy, there's always something going on that prevents her from breathing, let alone just being a regular Spectre rather than a symbol for the galactic war or whatnot - post-trilogy, she will have the time and the space to really just be a Spectre. No, it's not a normal job by any means, but like... relatively speaking? Because she will be good at it, and she won't need to sacrifice her own values to the chain of command as a soldier, and maybe... maybe she will also begin to learn to see herself as a person first, soldier second. Not to say I won't put her in SituationsTM

⌨ What's a situation you've always wanted to RP with the muse? :: Speaking of situations, LOL. I really want her to be indoctrinated by the Reapers. Whether that'd be a full Shepard-in-Saren's-role timeline or something less plot heavy, I want to see her indoctrinated. Brainwashed. Controlled. Forced to hurt people. And to come out of it and have to live with having done horrible things to people.

[tysukis]

Okay hello I am back to get way too into this au! Also I do technically write, in that I love to outline the hell out of something and then never put real stories together. This is my favorite part, and the compliments from you and @zukkau have made my day. :)

I think it was @procrastinatingqueen who mentioned Sokka dating Suki in a Zuko-Left timeline and it got me thinking about the band situation. Let's say the band is three members at first - Sokka, Suki, and Jet. (He's a shit but he deserved better....) Sokka lands them the gig, Suki is adrift and immediately on board to bounce. I like the fanon that the modern Kyoshi Warriors are a roller derby team, but regardless they're not quite an anchor for her and might even push her to take the opportunity. Sokka is the same. I imagine he and Katara are navy brats, they're used to moving and his sister just demands tickets and facetime calls, "No I don't care how tired you'll be."

Jet, though. He's not the primary caretaker on paper for Smellerbee and Longshot but he's the de facto caretaker. He can't just *do* that. So they replace him - Haru? Teo? Jin? I'm not picky, a handful of canon folks would work. So newly single Sokka goes off with Suki and their new bandmate, and Zuko is simmering on the fact that he's touring with his ex and probably always wanted her anyway. (Probably not, I imagine Suki has at least one supportive partner in their hometown, but maybe also yes for drama?) And Jet, who understands commitment to passionate goals and hard-won family, who now also understands the anger of being abandoned by Sokka in some way, is just so conveniently there. Like, they're not healthy together for sure. But Jet would be chill with Zuko keeping his emotional distance (whether real or just perceived) because Jet also does that?

I promised myself I wasn't going to send you a novel and here we are. But I haven't nailed down why they come back - end of tour? Do they piggyback onto another tour immediately or is this a relatively short separation and the aftermath is still messy?

[context]

Hello! Okay, yes, let’s run with this.

(I like that we now definitively have both a Zuko-Leaves Timeline and a Sokka-Leaves Timeline lmao)

I am proposing: front man and lead guitar Sokka, punk drummer Suki, Haru on bass. (If you wanna make it 4 - Teo on keys.) Of course Zuko would assume the worst, what with Sokka and Suki touring together (and probably misjudged Suki’s reasons for how eager and down she was to just up and leave) but we, the audience, know that she has a covert thing going on with fellow-roller-derby-skater Ty Lee; it’s probably pretty low key for the professional sake of the team.

Sokka and Katara growing up being moved from place to place, and therefore Sokka going on a new adventure with minimal reservations makes sense, I approve. Also Katara and Aang would definitely tag along for at least one leg of it for fun until they have to return to whatever careers/education they persue in their own lives.

I LOVE the idea of Jet and Zuko being brought together by scorn (and I love the way you phrased it - seriously dude I know you said you rarely go further in writing than an outline but that’s a tragedy) it slots in nicely with the canon. I’m a big believer that Jet was a traumatised child in the show and I think translating that into him being A Massive Shithead in fics can be a bit of a played out trope. It’s high time for Complex Character But Not Terrible Person Jet™️. I think they’d bond nicely and, in addition, I think because Zuko never got that whole older/younger sibling dynamic growing up he would adapt and be really good with the freedom fighters.

Whilst we’re looking into how the other characters slot in; Toph? Mai? Azula? What are our thoughts for them? I like to think Toph would be the one to set Zuko straight in the end with his constant moping and pining (I think their friendship was and is chronically under-utilised in both canon and fanon) but I can really see it being any of them.

Dw about not sending a novel, I’m happy to talk about this au all day frankly. I can see them being gone for a while, long enough for Sokka to assume Zuko has moved on etc. I’ve had multiple suggestions for why they come back but a common one is the good ol’ visiting the family excuse. Galaxy brain rachel @zukkababey immediately suggested tis the damn season by taylor swift as a fitting song and I think that works really well - idk if they’d celebrate Christmas per se but I can deffo see them coming back for at least some holiday or celebration. (perhaps an important birthday or graduation?)