#swooping-is-bad

[chitinleg]

got him off-balance!

[spacedace]

Reluctant War AU Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

More of the brain worm that has taken me over, gonna probably post it to Ao3 here before too long. Already got another part started and so many ideas for additional stuff, someone please send help I've been consumed by this thing lol

Sorry if Waller seems out of character, outside of fandom I'm mostly familiar with her through Justice League the animated show & Justice League: Unlimited and her vibe there has always struck me as "deeply incredibly unlikable character that also kind of has a point but also has done so much fucked up shit in the name of her goals that you don't really care about her point anymore." So you know, complicated lol. If she's completely unrecognizable let me know, but I'm hoping she feels at least somewhat like Waller.

Forgot to say this in the last update, but still feel free to use all this as an overly long prompt if yall want. Literally anything I throw out to the void should be treated as a prompt lol If there's anything at all interesting to you in any of this nonsense go for it <3 <3 <3

---

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Ruthless, heartless, vicious, cruel.

She’d been called it all. Wore the words thrown as insults as a badges of pride and valor. Because at the end of the day, when it came to the problems she was given to face, the issues she was meant to solve, those words meant she’d done what others had been too squeamish or cowardly to do. Life was a never ending slog of trolley problems and she the only one unshakable enough to pull the levers that needed pulling.

It wasn’t so simple as a matter of greater good.

Greater good was what the weak willed muttered to themselves after having feelings over doing the bare minimum. A justification used by people on all sides to do what they wanted with fractured, faulty logic thrown around like truth was a thing immutable. To assuage their guilt when they were forced to make a call they didn’t want to.

It wasn’t a matter of greater good. It was a matter of preservation. Of protection. Of digging through the filth to find the threats skittering beneath and crush them with ruthless abandon. Of facing a god and not blinking because if you did it could cost the world.

Of doing what needed to be done, no matter how underhanded or atrocious it was.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the throat of something that could threaten to destroy it all.

When the Ghost Investigation Ward had been shoved her way with it’s sucking wound of a budget, it’s bloated incompetent staff, its asinine methods she’d seen a rotted limb in need of hacking off. It hadn’t been until she’d been conducting her inspection, digging through the trash for a few pearls of effective agents she could snatch up and put to work elsewhere, that she’d truly seen what they were working on. The potential.

Potential to better arm themselves with in the forms of the strange new weapons being created.

Potential for threats far greater than anything even she had thought possible before.

The GIW as it had been when she’d first come across it was a fetid waste of time and resources. A laughing stock agency only secret because no one took them seriously enough to look. Made stupid and useless with its own conceited delusions of importance it didn’t actually have. Yet.

She went to work on it. Hacking away as she’d originally intended, but this time with a different goal in mind. She ripped out the weeds with bare, calloused hands and planted proficiency and loyalty in their place. She took over as director herself, tossing the self-aggrandizing fool that had been running the place into the ground to the dogs as the culprit for misappropriate spendings, saving the agency by tweaking things until their ballooning budget was pinned neatly onto the former director as an embezzling charge.

Then she got to work.

The Fentons were brilliant, if entirely insane. But Amanda could work with that. She’d reigned Harley Quinn in - more or less - she could do the same to the two deranged scientists that so eagerly wanted to be apart of the fight against the dead. Especially when the benefit came in the form of the inventions they threw together so easily, especially when those inventions were weapons.

It took very little to get them on board with her plans for the GIW. Keeping their focus could be a chore, at times, but she didn’t even have to really do much in the way of pressing to get them back where she wanted them. They craved knowledge and understanding nearly as much as they craved the eradication of the entities themselves. Letting them have the first look at a new subject here, free reign over a vivisection there, it took so little to fuel their fervor and keep them busy working on the projects she set for them.

Things had been going smoothly.

For a time at least.

Until Phantom.

He’d been the main focus of the previous director’s attention, the big fish he’d so desperately wanted to catch and put up on his wall. Amanda wouldn’t lie and say it wasn’t a tempting prospect, but not one she’d put above the other projects she had set in motion since taking over. No, Phantom was powerful, enough to be a real problem one day, but she could the awkward youth in the way he held himself, the inexperience in how he handled situations. She had time to get everything else in order before focusing on getting Amity Park’s would-be hero brought to heel.

And he would be brought to heel. One way or another.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the Core of a fledgling god and bending him to her will.

An artifact, old an powerful, recovered with some effort. A means of controlling specters, of chaining them to the will of the artifact’s wielder. Dangerous in the wrong hands. Dangerous in the right hands.

It was shattered, and even whole and functional Phantom was resistant to its power. But Amanda Waller prided herself in her ability to see the potential in things. It could be repaired, be made better. Even gods could be bound, be made to kneel, with the right pieces, with the right application of force.

It was just a matter of time to gather everything needed.

Phantom didn’t know he could single handedly destroy every last member of the Justice League. The baby fat, the innocent eyes, the split-second hesitations when he fought. He knew enough to be confident in fighting the usual ghosts that haunted Amity Park, but he still very much saw himself as a little fish. Maybe it was the part of him that was still Daniel Fenton, gangly teenager not quite sure what he was truly capable of yet.

She had time before the Fenton’s son truly became an issue. Time to judge if his parents’ obsessiveness would overcome their - rather shoddy, by Amanda’s estimation - parental instincts and continue to hunt him once they knew the truth. Time to get as much out of them as she could before hand, should they falter at the idea of attacking their own son. Time for the staff to be repaired and returned to working order, to get the other items needed for the truly big fish hidden on the other side of the veil between worlds.

She had time.

Until she didn’t.

Pariah Dark had not been something she thought she’d have to account for - not yet, at least.

If he wasn’t already dead, she’d ring the Ghost King’s neck with her bare hands. His arrival had opened Phantom’s eyes to what he was capable of, of just how big of a fish he was. Worse still, Phantom’s defeat of the war mongering King changed the state of play. Phantom was no longer an impressively powerful half dead teenager.

He was King Infinite.

He was an Ancient.

He was getting on her last damn nerves.

Phantom’s rogue gallery were now firmly under the boy’s control. Still distinct nuisances around Amity Park, but no longer considered true concerns. They were loyal to their boy king, delighting in ruffling his feathers but never crossing the line into treason or attempted regicide. Which meant that the GIW was the only thing that held his attention.

Amanda took the time to send a care package to the former GIW director in his tiny, dank prison cell. As thanks for his carelessness in revealing to the entire town - both living and dead - of the agency’s existence and their intentions. Had he stuck to standard protocol, Phantom would have been none the wiser to their presence. Would have scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders at the ghost that went missing upon occasion. Would have been boredly uninterested in the people his parents had begun working with. Would have been taken by surprise when they finally came for him.

But no.

No that self-obsessed, fame chasing imbecile had to go and announce to everyone and their dead mother that the GIW existed and exactly what it was they were in Amity Park to do.

Phantom knew what they were there to do.

They could only count on his naive certainty that he could broker peace with them for so long.

Peace. As if he and his people weren’t the invading force, the monsters slipping in through the cracks between worlds, the latest threat that had to be accounted for. As if he himself hadn’t rent their world asunder himself in another world, another time. No. Peace was not something they could hash out with this baby-faced monarch with his too-big crown. Peace was the assurance of safety, security. Of control of the situation.

There could be no peace.

The higher ups were somehow surprised when Phantom took that to mean there would be war.

Amanda Waller was not.

The Fentons, as suspected, took the right side when all was revealed. Steady hands and flinty eyes as they crafted the weapons that would be needed for the coming fight. Minds even sharper in their maddened grief, hearts set on revenge for the son lost and the entity that stole his face and friends and sister in his garish pretense at humanity. They were blinded to the reality of the situation in its entirety, the potential in what their son truly was, but at the end of the day it didn’t really matter. They did what she needed them to do, they could believe whatever it was they wanted so long as they did.

By the time the boy king and his armies marched upon the Amity park facility, preparations had been put into place. The base in Amity had been stripped back to bare essentials, everything of importance moved to more secured locations.

The weapons labs.

The artifact.

The girl.

All tucked well away from the front lines where Phantom and his motley crew could not reach. Their time to be put in play would come, but not yet. First she needed to gauge what Phantom and his people were capable of, what they were willing to do in the name of what they wanted. Amity Park was a pawn well sacrificed on that front. As were the other facilities she’d left easy to find.

The problem with making children gods, with giving them crowns and calling them King and giving them armies to play with, was that they thought there should be rules. That even in the trenches tearing apart their enemies, there was a certain level of playing fair that everyone was held to. They thought there was a way the world worked, of how things should be that blinded them to more effective options even as time stretched on and desperation set in.

It was the Dead’s problem though, not hers.

She reached out to the Justice League. Sour faced, unhappy, bitterly reluctant to accept that she needed their help. Stone faced and barely containing their rage at what little they knew of the situation, they agreed to a meeting.

She didn’t let herself smile until she was well and truly alone in her office.

Greater good. A lie people told themselves. A fairytale told to children. A means of convincing the weaker willed that they had no choice, that they had a noble duty to bend to. A belief that could be wielded like a weapon if the fantasy of the idea had dug in deep enough. And there were few it had dug into so deep as the members of the Justice League.

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands clenched tight on a victory long in the making.

---

Part Four

[okaydiscount]

after whats felt like ages i finally got the achievement for killing 50 scouts with a syringe gun :DDD

drew this to celebrate :>

[mothmouth]

yeah this one belongs in the fucking sus pool for sure

[crescentmoonrider]

i ended up murdering what frog with my own two hands 😔

this happened on the same day as the great bulbear massacre too.... we don't talk about the great bulbear massacre

(at this point i honestly just wanted the bastard snitchbug to stop staring at my awful dandori. why was it here !!! staring at me !!! go away !!!)

[meowmeowriley]

Hey cod fandom artists, can someone redraw this for me, but it's Soap, and the bunny is Ghost? (A Flemish Giant with the chinchilla coat color)

Please and thank you 🙏🏻 I need it in my life.

[lunarmoves]

Slcbsks its okay no worries I just wanted to know if there was a fic of it!! I’ve read your other works and gosh darn it they are so good!! Omg embarrassing that I also got the name of the bleeding wires au wrong km😭

Anyway, I hope you’re having a ✨fantastic✨ day!! I hope there will be another part to the drabble!! I wanna know what happens after ✨the kiss✨😩🤌

dw about getting the name wrong, ‘bloodied’ is basically the same as ‘bleeding’ LMAO. also thank you for reading my other works!! it means a lot that you enjoy them so much 💞💞 do u have a particular fav :3 (other than bleeding wires LOL)

im assuming youre talking about that suggestive obedience drabble that ended w a kiss. i wasn’t planning on writing a direct continuation for it tbh LMAO. buttttttt okay ill let you in on a secret on how i imagine it to go since ur so nice <3

sun kisses you and it’s like the entire world freezes. you don’t know how to react—don’t know how to process anything of what you’re feeling. the frigidity of the room along your bare skin. the way his hand grips at your side squeezing squeezing squeezing. the intensity with which he presses the lines of his static smile against your mouth.

it—you recognize faintly—is a bit like pressing your lips against a wall. immovable. there is no motion, no push and pull, give and take. there is only him, him him him. pressing down onto you. holding you. letting you feel the gentle vibrations in his chassis, the almost violent whirring of his fans. you feel like you’ve been coated in static, numb and distantly tingly. you have to suppress a shiver.

and beyond the buzzing emptiness of your brain, the shock and surprise of what is now happening—it clicks that sun is kissing you.

the same sun who makes jabs at humanity more often than is comfortable. who criticizes you from time or time or gives you backhanded compliments. who bothers you even if you don’t feel like talking. who tells you about all the nitty gritty thoughts he has. who looks down at all that you are and doesn’t really see you, you think, past your blood and flesh and bones. who has never shown an ounce of interest in you in this manner.

(you don’t realize that he has been showing interest, all this time. he just never realized it himself, never quite processed that certain actions he has taken is his way of showing he actually… likes you. more so than others.

and you were just too unused to his quirks and particulars to be able to properly read him.)

and you are so, so confused.

you’d just wanted to poke back at him, for his stupid experiment he said he was conducting. that’s what you tell yourself—incessantly in your mind, repeating it over and over until it seems less like a lie. you wanted to see if there was anything past that complex he wears like some kind of thick skin. you never.... you never imagined things would come to this. you are afraid of what it means, deep down.

and so, you reach your hands up to his chassis, and give him a gentle push back.

it's like he has to tear himself away, staring down at you with pupils that have dilated so much, it's like there are full moons in his eyes. your gaze flicks across his faceplate, analyzing.

"sun," you say quietly, your lips numb. that's all it takes.

he steps back—abrupt and sharp—the rays along his faceplate twitching and stuttering. his hand snaps away from your side like it has been burned, and you can see the way his gaze darts about. like he is a cornered animal, confused and startled.

"friend, i—" he starts, then forcefully stops. his hand clutches at the front of his chassis for a moment, scrambling for something you're not sure he has. he shakes his head, minute, then turns his back to you.

"your shift is over," he says, oddly stilted. something sinks, deep within your chest. "put your clothes back on and get out."

and then he leaves. you can only stand there, getting steadily colder and colder, your heart a jumbled mess.

[wolveria]

👀👀👀 can I ask about the wing AU??

Yesss!! The Wing AU! Which is really just a long document with the various clones and Jedi/Sith what their wings would look like.

I'm going to post it as it is because the bullet point works, and this is the "baseline" part of the winged universe. I might have several stories stem from it, because... I just really love wings and I feel like I could go in several directions. So here it is!

There are only two beings in the galaxy with wings: those who are Force-sensitive, and the clones engineered by the Kaminoans

The wings of a child will be drab until they molt in maturity, bringing in their true colors

Touching another person’s wings without permission is disrespectful and invasive, while trusting someone enough to allow them to preen their wings is a sign of trust and closeness

The clones were engineered with wings to keep up with the Jedi during the war, though this has brought its own controversy with senators questioning if engineering wings is a step too far in cloning technology, as wings are supposed to be sacred (but the Chancellor claims this is a sign they are on the side of righteousness, though in reality he wants the clone troopers to have wings to keep up with the Jedi when he orders their execution)

Yoda has grey wings, Dooku has elegant black wings, and Darth Sidious has no wings at all (he removed them at an early age to hide his affinity for the Force, and he almost abhors the idea of them), Maul’s wings are black with red tips, and Ventress has wings of white with black tips

Anakin has beautiful golden-brown wings, Obi-Wan has soft sandstone-colored wings, and Ahsoka has white wings with blue stripes

Cad Bane has wings of blue variation, light blue at the base and darker at the tips, though they are so ragged from being unpreened and kept in bindings against his back that they can only glide, not fly, until they are restored with care and practice (which is unlikely since he always keeps them hidden and no one knows he even has them)

Clones Wings:

Hunter has dark grey wings, the same color as his eyes, and the feathers are broader and longer than a typical clones’ (his brothers used to joke that his missing height went into his wingspan)

Crosshair has silvery white wings that match his hair, and they’re especially soft around the shoulders of the wings, almost downy, but if anyone tries to touch them, they’ll get pummeled for it. Not with his hands—Crosshair has learned how to “punch” with his wings with uncanny accuracy, and other troopers learned long ago to steer clear of them

Wrecker has reddish-brown wings that have golden highlights in the sun, though he had to have cybernetic feathers and muscles implanted into his left wing after the explosion that took his eye

Tech’s wings are golden-brown, and they are prone to being unkempt much like his living space, the clone too distracted with his work to care for them, and if it wasn’t for his brothers they would be nearly unusable (which would be a shame, because he flies like a mynock on fire)

Echo used to have grey speckled wings that complimented Fives’ grey and white wings, but once he was captured, the Separatists cut them off. After he was rescued, Rex and Cody made sure there were funds to build him advanced mechanical wings so he could fly again

Omega has golden-white wings, and the Batch had to teach her how to fly because the Kaminoans didn’t show her and probably never would have

Crosshair would be the one to preen Hunter’s wings after a battle, and Hunter would preen his (Crosshair would let Wrecker preen his wings but no matter how hard he tries, Crosshair’s too sensitive, and Hunter is the only one with a light enough touch to do it)

Tech doesn’t really care who preens his wings out of the Batch, just as long as they don’t screw up and pull out any feathers, and he’s more than happy to let Wrecker do it since the big clone loves preening his brother’s feathers

If a flyer goes through a traumatic event, their feathers will molt and grow back a different color: this is what happens to the clones after Order 66, they lose their individuality/feathers, and grow all white wings to match their bleached armor (Crosshair loses his silvery feathers and they grow back in a much darker shade, showing he’s not completely under their control and is suffering for it)

There are only a few Imperial clones that don’t grow plain white feathers, but instead, they grow in pure black. The ones with black wings are selected to be Death Troopers

Crosshair’s new wings are not technically black, they’re more of a dark grey, and coincidentally, the same shade as Hunter’s wings

For clones who start to fight their chips, or their chips start to fail, they gradually shed their feathers and start growing them back with color. Such as Howzer, who started to grow back his teal-tipped feathers, and he had to bleach his wings so his superiors wouldn’t find out

The new TK troopers are given mechanical wings, but they are far inferior to the natural wings that clones are engineered with, but mechanical wings are cheaper than biological ones, and the clone troopers that remain are taken to Tantiss for experimentation

[anxiously-awaiting]

hi his outfit is a fucking MESS rn but <3 bedi alter for your thoughts

[a-most-beloved-fool]

I don't draw all that regularly anymore, but since it is Spocktober, please accept a handful of Spocks (and one Kirk).

[shewolfofvilnius]

There is a huge part of me that is curious about dragon age because I love BG3 so much. But idk anything about it? Also none of the characters strike me as interesting (or attractive....) Maybe you could tell me what you like so much about ? maybe talk about the characters so I can give it a chance? I want to like it! but I just don't know!

I DIDN'T FORGET

So for me the first draw of Dragon Age is the incredible lore and worldbuilding that goes on in the games and books. It's arguably just as fleshed out as a setting like the Forgotten Realms despite just being three (soon four) video games and about a dozen books/comics. There's centuries of history. Ancient ruins. Environmental storytelling for days. A little visual cue in the first game that's referenced in optional banter in the third that pays off in the fourth (FIFTEEN years apart). I really appreciate that the first game, Dragon Age: Origins, only exposes you to part of the story. The game's set in a pestilence known as the Fifth Blight, and you're the plucky young adventurer that the grizzled old veteran manages to recruit out of a bad situation just before the end. And you and your friends are all that stand between victory and oblivion. But right off the bat there's storytelling about love and loss and prejudice and honor. There's a noble character who dies, leading to a coward being killed as the stakes are built. (There's also a dog you can pet, and moments to show kindness during armageddon, like a prisoner who just wants a sandwich before he dies, he hasn't been fed.)

And the banter is funny (if some of it's aged a bit unwell), and the gameplay really encourages you to get in the head of whatever character you want to build. Yes you can be the cliche prince charming. You can also be the sibling of a prostitute to pay the bills until your sister lands a high profile john who catches feels for her. From the start it's equal measures hopeful and bleak at the same time. (And as you invest in YOUR character emotionally, you inevitably emotionally invest in your companions too.) And gradually the world gets bigger. A character whose town you watch get destroyed becomes the protagonist of the second game, and they hook you in to. They're a refugee, a very timely story, and if they're a magic user, then they're an especially persecuted refugee. But you still make friends amidst the hopelessness. More of the world gets revealed. You have FUN, somehow. Characters from past games recur, either as cameos or in one very specific case as a high profile recurring character in 3 out of the 4. And you become so glad to see them as they represent continuity of story.

It's a game about family and faith and the lack thereof and prejudice and love and how one counters the other, about how persecuted people often pay the price of things that happened before their ancestors' ancestors were born, and that tomorrow should always be better than today.

That's thematic, though. Maybe you take a shine to Isabela the Pirate and Aveline the Guard Captain (maybe Merrill the blood mage elf, too). The three women basically form one of the best depictions of big/middle/little sister trios I've ever seen in a game. What starts out as cold hostility becomes banterful compassion and love. A lot of folks fell for Solas, an elven apostate whose every word is couched in three mysteries and two half-truths but seems to know way more than he's letting on. When you find out a horrible secret about the honourable Grey Warden Blackwall, do you leave him to his fate, try to redeem him, deliver a sufficient consequence, or outright torture him.

And you won't like everyone. The odds of you liking both the spirit-possessed mage Anders and the anti-magic elf Fenris in the same play of the same game are low unless you metagame it. And sometimes the games even rewards you for someone hating your ass or vice versa, and THAT'S organic. But being mean or having a negative interaction isn't some edgelord thing either, it's just "sometimes people don't get along" or "something you just need to punch someone"

You get to laugh at the tough stern warrior Cassandra getting absolutely beside herself wanting to know what happens in a book that it's writer, another of your companions, hated writing - and that even Cass herself calls smutty literature. Another character, The Iron Bull, is faced with a choice: His found family and the freedom to be who he's become, or the belief system he's known his entire life and that expects him to conform.

Does your character sacrifice? Does your character make the streets run red with blood? Is all you want to make people feel inspired and in something bigger than themselves? Even playing three (soon four) wholly new characters, you get to truly role-play and emotionally invest in these little blorbos, maybe even more strongly in Baldur's Gate. When a character returns you weren't expecting, is it joyful or melancholy? Can your character handle a confrontation of everything they've ever known.

And in the newest game, there's a baby griffon.

I love Dragon Age. The lore is expansive beyond sanity for a franchise with it's commercial output. The characters feel alive, and the game tasks you to emotionally invest in order to reap the maximum reward and suffer the strongest heartache. Plus, in many cases, when the game doesn't tell you, say about your character? You get to roleplay and use your imagination so, so strongly.

[gayciate]

🎃 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

I have to post some Encanto Monster AU Headcanon jumpscare right now!!!!! Not everyone, but a few of them!

Isabela - Werewolf (Or, Werejaguar rather) + OK OK OK Hear me out on this one, see my vision????? Most of the time, she looks largely normal with "cute" features that many find appealing like the little kitty ears, fangs, and tail + BUT were-jaguar form is absolutely shit your pants terrifying horrific, something she was made to feel ashamed of for its wildness and unattractiveness + Spends pre-movie full moons fully barricaded in her locked room, tangled up in her own vines to keep herself contained - everything she bottles up comes out and is entirely out of control, her wild side is trying sososo hard to get out and she's literally, physically restraining it + Always ends up with an absolutely shredded room the night after the moon, snaps at anyone who ever mentions it or attempts to help her out + Post-movie after she comes to accept every part of herself and grow into her own, she starts to gain control over the beast form and spend more time in it willingly, no longer ashamed of looking "ugly" or acting as anything less than perfect

Luisa - Gargoyle + A powerful stone guardian that guards the family home restlessly + She doesn't actually need to sleep, but does go into a dormant "statue" state when exposed to direct sunlight. + Incredibly physically sturdy but not immune to damage. She can crack and break, though her pieces can be put back in place if they fall + It is debatable if she can feel pain in the same way more flesh-based beings can. She does not need to eat or breathe and cannot drown + While she has wings, she is too heavy to properly fly and uses them more to shield others from danger or glide short distances

Mirabel - Satyr + A real silly billy, she's got the fuzzy legs of a goat and little tiny horns under her hair + She's very musically inclined and can play several different instruments. She's creative, clever, and loves to frolic in the sun! + Her charisma stat is absolutely off the charts, others often find it very easy to relax around her as her monster species is not particularly threatening or associated with danger + Often faces underestimation and struggles with not being taken seriously. Her lack of scariness coupled with her inhuman nature can be a cause of direct bullying that more threatening monsters may not have to deal with.

Dolores - Vampire + Oppoisite Isabela, she's a little withdrawn and shy, probably has big ole' sensitive bat ears with perfect pitch detection + Veeeery sensitive to light and sound, she enjoys the quiet of night and often sleeps during the day + She can turn into a little bat and flutter around, but sometimes forgets she's easy to miss like that and jumpscares people who thought they were alone in a room + She's capable of sitting in complete silence for extended periods of time and is extremely patient. Her night-vision is impeccable. + Rumors have spread that she can read minds and has some psychic abilities, but these are entirely unfounded. She's just perceptive and very nosey.

Camilo - Changeling + A funky fey dude, taken in as a baby by Pepa and Félix when he was found abandoned in the wood + He's strongly attuned to magic in the environment and specializes in illusionist tricks + He has pointy ears, sharp teeth, and unnatural eyes that reflect light in the dark but shifts to a more human look most of the time to blend in with others + Quietly a little insecure about what he really is when he looks in the mirror without a disguise but tries not to dwell on it for too long

Antonio - Chimera + A strange little mix of creatures, he's got the upper half of a human with the lower half of a jaguar. He's also got the wings of an Andean condor, ears of a tapir, and an anaconda's tail! + The little dude climbs, flies, and swims - he's an ATV with endless energy who loves to shove himself into tight spaces to explore + Outgoing and a bit wild, he easily befriends other animals but sometimes finds people wary of him. He is very careful with his claws and fangs, but parents sometimes worry that he'll play too rough and hurt their kids. This makes him very sad! + Incredibly intelligent and inquisitive, he is active for long periods of time before collapsing into a nap and restarting the cycle

Bonus Augustín & Julieta - Headless horseman and Parrot Harpy I think Augustín would be like the headless horseman and constantly (literally) lose his head and Julieta would be a parrot harpy with colorful, blue plumage - incredibly intelligent and caring for her kids

[bonefall]

could fern leaf be a former park cat or something that clear sky sends to spy on tall shadow & then defects? or, since she’s important to the rescue of star flower in the books, maybe she could be involved with one-eye somehow…? even though star flower is totally different now, so she doesn’t really Need rescuing from any situation she’s in that you’ve talked about so far. guess it depends on which aspects of the character best serve the story, and whether she would work better as part of DOTC proper or thunder’s SE

i also genuinely can’t remember if bb!clear sky’s original M.O. for his group is Tribe Cats Only, or if he is willing to take in anyone who kisses his ass enough. could make sense if fern leaf (or more accurately, any tom willing to vouch for her) appeals to clear sky enough. hell, maybe she could be a mole on one-eye’s behalf instead?

(Follow up ask to this post)

The new rub to the formation of the groups in BB is that there is two distinct cultures in the forest: Park Cats and Tribe Cats. They're divided by a language barrier, with the Park Cats speaking Parkmew and the Tribe cats speaking what we now call Old Tribemew.

So Clear Sky doesn't have the same "options" like canon. These ""rogues"" don't speak his language and he simply would not learn even if the chance was offered to him. It doesn't even really cross his mind that these are full people to reach out to; in his mind they're intruders. The flavor of bigotry in the modern era hasn't quite evolved yet, so he has the most straightforward kind of xenophobia you can imagine.

He only starts changing his mind after the First Battle, after his revelation, when he's back on his bullshit in Thunderstar's Justice. In my head it's kind of like... a mockery of Thunder Storm's way of life, that allowed him to live in defiance of him for so long. "See, now I do what you do. Since Gray Wing approved of you so much." kinda thing

There's two park cat groups; The River Kingdom, and The Wind Coalition.

The first conflict the Sun Trail Pioneers run into is with WindCo up on the moor, who chases them down into the forest! The Park cats who lived in the forest weren't united, just various individuals that had little "homestead" territories.

The conflicts with them start after the Shadow/Sky split that follows the death of Jagged Peak. Shadow's Clan moved eastward into the caves at Snakerocks, where no one bothered them, but Sky's Clan started getting hostile towards the little homesteads and pushing cats westward, back to the River Kingdom.

SO with that recap out of the way...

I have two and a half-ish cats already that I'm heavily interested in using to turn on Clear Sky for Thunder's Clan. So I'm not sure how to slot Fern Leaf in there.

1: Snake. Snake is the only cat in-canon who said that maybe Clear Sky shouldn't be their leader after letting One Eye into the Clan against all warnings, and then he gets DOGPILED for it, and the very next book shoves him into the arms of Slash to undermine the fact that they accidentally gave him a good fucking point.

I'm RIDICULOUSLY fond of him because of this. I love him out of spite. I've spoken before about how I plan for him to be a Tribe-descended cat, and a lot of that is because I want to keep his goon roles serving Clear Sky. One of which is that he is going to badly injure Sunlit Frost in the First Battle.

So thinking about it... it makes the most sense for Snake to turn on Clear Sky in Thunderstar's Justice. Still unsure when. But if I have any roles where a cat needs to get help, stop a battle, or call Clear Sky out for making a really bad decision, it's gotta be him.

I'll keep him in my hand for a while; this feels like a piece that will fall into place.

I'm also unsure of what family he's going into. I keep waffling on it. I'm leaning towards the Claw family and possibly the son of Fox, since he's going to be living a bit longer. He's going to be about the same age as Thunder Storm, maybe a bit older.

2: Red Claw Since Acorn Fur is now Acorn Swoop, and she's not nonsensically going to go join the guy who killed both of her parents because it would be too sad to go home where they're not alive, her love interest has to end up in Thunder's Clan.

I'm already pretty committed to making Petal into Petal Claw and Fox into Fox Claw, so it follows that Red Claw would be in the family. Thinking about it, maybe Red should be the son of Fox instead...

Especially because he could defect earlier. Moth Flight's Vision is totally overhauled anyway and I'm planning to shift a lot of the original plot to something for another character anyway...

Plus, enemies-to-lovers is fun and I haven't really had a chance to do it yet. Acorn Swoop is absolutely the kind of punk who would nab one of her worst enemy's best soldiers, and the type of nerd who would frame it like her biggest catch yet.

("OI THUNDER!! LOOKIE WHAT THE CAT DRAGGED IN")

And most relevantly... this is leaving Fern Leaf's backstory up in the air. Him leading a dog pack into the heart of camp and getting Beech and Frog killed is what kicked off the Bunny Bones plot of the original MFV that I like so much, and I feel like it's an important part of Fern Leaf.

So not only am I here planning Red Claw as a high priority for being someone to turn against Clear Sky, but also, he complicates Fern Leaf a bit.

Maybe I should step back a bit on the two and start from scratch with them, and replace their backstories with new ones that preserve the "emotional core." I'll have to think about it.

That 1/2 Cat: Alder or Birch The kits that are stolen from Misty, that queen who was murdered by Clear Sky and whose kits are given to Petal. In BB, that's something I want to examine for how fucked up it is. It becomes the basis of Kit Stealing later, an awful practice that the Clans will struggle with for many generations.

These ones are SUPER important, but I say 1/2 because it doesn't have to be Thunder's Clan they turn for. But I do want one of them to eventually learn their origin, and end up finding their family in River Kingdom or the Wind Coalition.

I mention them because I keep going back and forth on if they're going to get combined with other characters. Basically imagine me next to a big conspiracy chart and I'm connecting a big red line between possible plot threads back to Fern Leaf. Maybe her? Maybe she can be one of the stolen kits?

I could even make it so Birch is actually an older sibling, or a half-sibling, or one from the same litter who was saved... maybe even end up making it a litter of 4. Slots in well with her canon story, too, where she mentions her mother abandoned her.

The truth can be that it was a lie. Her mother didn't abandon her. One of them was murdered and the other was chased off.

And, of course, I could save her to be a "One Eye Cultist." None of my drafts so far have brought in any extra followers of One Eye who will follow him from place-to-place besides Star Flower herself. I would like to add some, and that's a fine place for Fern Leaf, but somehow I feel like I can do her better.

[sysig]

Some Betty highlights from her way-too-long comic roughs (Patreon)

[27treks]

so if you tell Gale you're not in love with him he literally says "oh good so when I kms you won't even cry that's great thanks see u"

like gale. my friend. there is a space somewhere between enemy and lover I s2g these men are so dramatic.

[luthienmpl]

Ok I know we're all here for the uncensored Chinese boy kisses BUT because I remember how utterly confused I was in those early eps of The Untamed and because I'm not super with names I took some notes while watching. Let me know if I got something wrong or if someone who speaks Chinese/Thai got more from the spoken dialogue than I could get out of the subs. (If there's any novel readers no spoilers pls)

The Emperor: Zongzheng Yunlian - his son (?) Zongzheng Shaoyu

The exiled 2nd prince: Zongzheng Yuzhan - his son Zongzheng Huaien

The 3rd prince: Zongzheng Lihan, nicknamed Prince Shen (did I get that right???)

In his conversation with his father Shaoyu mentioned his "fourth (4th!) uncle", I don't know if uncle is literal here or not, but if it's literal that means there's two more princes we haven't even met yet.

There was mention of a "Prince of Rites", who is Su Yin's adopted grandpa, I'm not sure if he's part of all this because if he's grandpa age he should definitely be the oldest brother, plus Prince of Rites sounds more like some sort of title that doesn't actually have anything to do with the throne.