#their fucked up lives are no longer relevant to my own

[somethings-monstrous]

Content warning: abuse mention and description below the cut, mild sui ideation mention, some csa related talk. Me/Us venting, you guys know the drill. Keep scrolling and stay safe out there in the Tumblr wilds, ya'll.

I didn't want to know.

I didn't want to know how she is doing.

I didn't want to know she still lives with them.

I didn't want to know what she is doing.

I didn't want to be reminded of her.

I didn't want to feel the aching void left behind by the child I helped raise.

I didn't want to remember how they slowly made her hate me.

I didn't want to remember how that hatred began to stain my skin in purples and blues.

I didn't want to remember how they tried to use her to drag me back.

I didn't want to remember her words of hatred and anger immediately followed the next day by mock understanding when guilt and fury failed. "I get why you left. They never listen." As if I walked away because of clogged ears.

I didn't want to remember her kind words dripping with poison mixed by our mother.

I didn't want to remember the puppet she became in their failed attempts to drag me back.

I didn't want to remember how my silence finally made her drop the act..her hatred for me lashing out from every word spilled across the screen.

I didn't want to remember her mocking me for being afraid of them knowing my address..and the next day finding the cops at my door.

I didn't want to remember how she witnessed so much of what we survived, and still chooses them...and how I cannot fault her for it.

I didn't want to remember my grandmother telling me that she saw him dragging me though the house by my hair, kicking and screaming with bruises around my neck and arms. The riding crop still in his hand. Dragging me to the bathtub to try to drown me again.

I didn't want to remember that in my idiocy and denial, I called our mother and told her our shared daughter saw. Looking in through the window with our cousins. Crying and afraid. Too young to understand. She was only 7. She shouldn't have seen. I never wanted her to see.

I didn't want to remember that the next time I saw her, I could tell she was no longer happy to see me. My own stupidity shining through the distrust in her eyes. I'll never know what they told her..but it worked. I handed them the knife they used to sever our bond. Stupid. Foolish. Ignorant child that I was.

I didn't want to remember how she wanted me to support her vitriol towards him, the hurt looks when I refused..staring into my mother's black eyes through the review mirror, watching me..waiting for me to slip up and give her an excuse to take her from me. The glass I walked on just to keep seeing her. Nausea as I gently told her not to talk about him like that. Tinge of disappointment in those black eyes that I passed the test..then glee at the sight of pain in those blue-green eyes staring at me..wanting solidarity against the stupid oaf she had hated since she saw...never knowing how much she didn't see. Never suspecting. Too young and innocent.

I didn't want to remember what I did to protect that innocence. 10 years old, telling him we would kill him if he touched her. Standing guard at her door night after sleepless night. Years of standing guard. The terror when I fell asleep on the couch one night and she came to me shaking almost violently. "Did he touch her? Did he hurt her? Did I fail?" Relief when she just had a nightmare and was cold from sleep. No blood. No bruises. No pain. Sleepy eyes still innocent and unknowing.

I didn't want to remember how painful my existence has been for her. That my survival has meant her pain. Even with her hatred...I knew it would hurt. I knew..but I knew she was safe..they wouldn't hurt her. They needed her to grow up normal. Needed one kid that wasn't a fucked up walking red flag for abusive family. They wouldn't hurt her. She was safe..but dripping poison..and the pain I caused by walking away just added to it.

I didn't want to remember that she became cruel like them. Hatred and disdain..racism, homophobia, cruelty on her tongue and hardening those eyes that looked at me with more and more loathing.

I didn't want to remember how my abuse and trauma took away her sister. Left her with anger and hatred and grief. A void where "mommy number 2" and her jealously guarded sister once dwelled.

I didn't want to remember her child's rage at being told we were only half sisters. "We are all sisters, not just half! She's my sister. You're my sister!" Tiny arms wrapping around me..jealous little creature clinging to me, glaring at the offending person who dared point out that we didn't share a father. (If his blood flowed through my veins I would have emptied them years ago..but that wasn't something she should ever know.)

I didn't want to remember that I was the only one who could get her to smile for pictures. The blue of her dress. The last movie we watched together, curled up on my "bed" in the garage, every extra penny I could scrape together spent on making her happy..spending time with her. Taking her shopping. To the movies. Normalcy..and apologies for the future I knew was coming. The inevitable severance. The hope I could stay until she was old enough to understand..or ask why.

I didn't want to remember coming home from her 15th birthday with fresh bruises as my last gift from her, knowing it was the last time I'd see her..failing to keep myself from hoping one day she would see through the lies and manipulations clearly enough to ask me why. To want to know..to reach out.

I didn't want to remember how that hope withered and rotted when I realized I could never trust her not to be a puppet for our mother.

I didn't want to remember the guilty relief I feel, knowing she will never know what they did to me. She will never know how broken we are. She will never see the monsters lurking beneath their skin. That me leaving is the worst thing that happened to her before adulthood. It aches, but I am grateful that I am the worst thing to happen to her.

I didn't want to remember.

I didn't fucking want to remember.

I didn't fucking want to know.

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Musing on Ages, & Dragon Prep

"Desire" mention - how much does Tensu know of the details of the origin of dungeons? (More than I do, probably...but I know this is thematically important.)

"Us"? Aren't gnomes another long-lived species? Ok this is going to be continuously relevant to the geopolitics so I need to break it down. From the wiki:

Elves: lifespan: 400; adult at 80

Gnomes: lifespan: 240; adult at 40

Dwarves: lifespan: 200; adult at 40

Tallmen: lifespan: 60; adult at 16

Orcs: lifespan: 55; adult at 14

Kobolds: lifespan: 55; adult at 13

Halffoots: lifespan: 50; adult at 14

I see - so really we're dealing with 3 factions: Elves, Gnomes & Dwarves, and Everyone Else. I find it interesting that the longer-lived races reach maturity at 17-20% of their average lifespan, while the younger-lived races all do so at around 25% of their average lifespan. I feel a little like this is a cop-out on the writer's part in trying to keep the ages of maturity a little closer to one another - though of course it's a cultural thing by each race (and, I'm sure, each culture within each race - idk how monolithic the whole comic will treat them, but it would track with the thematic worldbuilding for their to be multiple distinct social groups within each race, even if they do tent to band together against the other races!)

Based on the categories of "long-lived" and "short-lived", the latter seem to view all of the former as much the same - but I'm SURE the Elves have a different view of it, and I'm sure the Dwarves and, as we see here, Gnomes, are very aware of and irritated by the Elves' view.

...and as we see here, and earlier with Chilchuck admitting to being 29 (solidly middle-aged!) and Marcille going, "Aw, so you are a kid!", people rarely make any effort to understand each others relative ages, instead just coasting on their own life-based assumptions.

With reference to above, we can see that Namari at 61 is pretty exactly equivalent to Kaka and Kiki at 20.

Also: this little scene wasn't in the show at all and I love it! Namari in mentor mode!

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ALRIGHT RED DRAGON TIME!! Hey look, literally the 2nd panel in this ghost city is 2/3 winged lions by volume. Hmmm...

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I love how it's explicitly Shuro's job to get the final killshot, presumably because he has Feats for this (ie, cool-looking moments) as a "real" anime character (Easterner). This literally bears up with what we see of him in the future.

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Chilchuck: I will NOT fight!

Chilchuck: I'll totally be dragon bait with you, though.

Chilchuck: Not that I care if you succeed or survive or anything! I'm only here because you paid up front.

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Laios using the Inspiring Leader speech feat! They're all having a Heroes' Feast before fighting the dragon, a classic pre-dragon act for bonus HP and immunity to being Frightened! I know this isn't actually D&D but that post that I think came through my queue earlier today is right: it DOES have the same bones. It's like reading the Locked Tomb and being aware that this author was deep in Homestuck, or Scholomance vis a vis Harry Potter canon and fandom. I know where this writer has been, because I have been there too.

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THE BOY IS HERE! THE MAN THE MYTH THE OVERWORKED* LEGEND!

THIS SISTER-EATING MOTHERFUCKER!!

*Crack AU where the whole dragon fight is averted because it talks and somehow the conversation leads to Chilchuck going, "And the Mage isn't even letting you sleep? Tsk. You've got to start a union." And then Laios gets all starry-eyed, "A Monster Union?!" And then the Mage is eventually defeated by all the monsters of the dungeon, and also the poor sane ghosts as well, unionizing against him, and "king" becomes just the title for the Union Rep, whose main job is to honk an airhorn at presumptuous Elves and tell them to fuck off like a Canadian goose.

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I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

[ir-abelas-vhenan]

Desperately Searching for Dwarf/Titan Content. Coming up (Mostly) Dry :/

Part of the strategy with my second playthrough is to pay attention to my surroundings quite a bit more since I'm no longer in a hurry. I've also always been into the paintings we find (Solas' or otherwise) but I turned up the brightness in photo mode to better illuminate this one, which lurks in a darker corner of the music room at the Lighthouse today, and I think it could be useful for people interested in examining the Solas/Mythal relationship, and perhaps for those who, like me, wish there was more content surrounding what Solas did to the titans and dwarves.

Obviously, it being art and all, it's open to interpretation, but I personally take a lot away from what seems to be a depiction of a wolf engaging in violence while a Mythal-shaped woman watches on from within radiant light (of the golden city, perhaps?)

The wolf looks haggard, gaunt, maybe? And blood is dripping from its fangs and onto a hand reaching out from the ground, so I'm taking it as perhaps the only real reference I've seen in a minute of Solas actually acknowledging what he did to the dwarves and the titans* (asterisk followed up on below the divide so this isn't too long on anyone's page).

And even that is just me making a reach there, but it does make me wonder if it was something that was originally going to be looked at more (especially with the game's previous title) and just ended up being another thing that the team decided not to keep. At the very least, despite there being 8 ish years between this game and Trespasser, the painting seems older in age to me, so I wonder when he started struggling with this self-image of a destructive beast getting its hands dirty to preserve the clean image of the one giving it commands.

*(fully fucked up their lives as they had always been and ended a good many of them, btw.) This is a side tangent that probably deserves its own post, but I do think a lot of Solas/solavellan fans would do well to grapple/reckon/sit with that a little more because the fights I've seen break out between dwarf fans who would just like at bare minimum some acknowledgement of the role he played and others who are intent on fully shutting them down are brutal.

I, personally, would have liked more that addressed this in-game other than Harding getting the chance to mention it only once to him, and that's IF she lives and you bring her to the final mission). I think there are maybe a few more dialogue references to it in Veilguard, but that mixed with the near-silence from Solas if you bring him along for the relevant DLC in Inquisition (I know some have theorized it's because a lot of people do it after he leaves the party/the devs didn't plan on him being there or that he just feels too guilty/conflicted to say anything, but with how big a plot point it is that's not enough to satisfy specifically me) just leaves me like okay...I like this character. But we get to his happy ending (if that's what you so choose for him) without ever really forcing him to struggle on-screen with dwarves and what he's done to them. And I wish we had gotten that beyond just a painting I'm inserting that plot line into.

[zhuoyichenpretty]

Ep 22-23 Commentary

Ha...I was inexplicably nervous for eps 22-23 and it looks like I was right to be (-: What a rollercoaster. Spoilers below!

I've just come out of ep 23 and uh????? holy shit????? ZYC????

Ok ok but to backtrack, let's do my comments semi-chronologically:

Ep 22:

A carry-over from ep 21 that I have to mention—heck yeah PSJ give WZY hell. She doesn't have all that many lines but she sure knows how to make them count. Also seeing PSJ and WX get screen time just the two of them makes my brain go "yay <3"

Back to ep 22, loved the fake-out sundial ayeee that was a nice Chekhov's gun that also brings the real sundial back into relevance for later. Also me eating up the PSJ and ZYC crumb of an interaction has brought to my attention how starved I am of their screen time together.

This whole ep was a great lament towards the feared inevitable. Every sad downcast look from ZYC, every complicated glance WX gives him. A wonderful, terrible crossroads for these characters. I love that for ZYC especially, it's such an incredible mess of emotion coming to a head. Bad enough that he's come to care about the demon who killed his family and ruined his life, bad enough that he's sworn a blood oath he regrets and tied himself to punishing someone he no longer finds culpable, bad enough that ZYZ's life or death depends solely on his choice and ZYZ is constantly practically begging for death when ZYC wants him to live. How much immensely worse it makes the whole situation that WX is literally ZYZ's soulmate. And obviously the whole team has only grown more and more attached to ZYZ, too. ZYC's personal turmoil aside, how heavy must that responsibility and guilt be? For the finishing blow that only he can deliver to also deeply threaten every other person he cares about? Everyone understands in the abstract what must happen and why, but just like seeing ZYZ lose control firsthand, the gulf between understanding and experiencing is so unimaginably wide. If he kills ZYZ, can there really be no resentment from his friends? From WX?

Also it seems ZYC only wears cloaks so that he can give them to other people lmao

Ah fuck, the farewell drinks. I didn't even factor in how ZYC might not survive the encounter (''': The drama truly was like hm can we possibly give ZYC a worse day than that night his whole fam died? Maybe give him a bunch of new family members and also the blade and the fate and the sole responsibility to potentially irrevocably scar said family members with? And he might die in the process too? (-: haha maybe? (((-:

Oh. Oh. Addendum. I forgot this til I saw it mentioned in another post—ZYC recounting his oath as he watched WX smile when they discussed reviving the tree...I could feel him weighing those words against his own life, against ZYZ's life, against WX's happiness. One way out of this impossible situation is indeed to doom himself. I'm in pieces.

Damn if WX isn't dedicated heart and soul, going into the sundial like that. I'm sad no one could keep her company for those 300 years but also I guess that's kind of an impossible ask (and maybe not survivable for the other non-goddess mortals? I'm admittedly very unclear on sundial time loophole logistics). It would have been nice to see someone offer though, even just to be turned down.

Ooh I like the soul needle fake-out, given this show's penchant for retroactive "actually we had a plan all along" moments. A good subversion of the narrative's own style.

Also I saved this for the end because it doesn't really fit the linearity of my comments but what the fuuuuuuuck oh my god I absolutely flipped out at this scene:

I am at once rabidly intrigued and at the same time not sure if I'll be satisfied with whatever payoff will come for this so I don't want to overindulge in theorizing and setting my own expectations too high. Maybe this is just a fevered hallucination, maybe it means nothing (I hope it means something). But damn!!! What a gorgeous man crazy scene.

In conclusion, ep 22 had some good stuff for me. Plot development and reflection and tension enough that I may have been satisfied with just that one episode. But they gave us two, so onward to ep 23 comments!

Ep 23:

I like how many solid reasons the team has to suspect ZYC being possessed. Even though I withheld judgment during my watch given how quickly the show usually confirms that kind of stuff with a possession mark, just simply casting that doubt made the whole build up that much more intense.

ZYC slowly walking down the corridor with the whole grounds lit a somber and haunting gold—*chef's kiss*

ZYC's monologue to a catatonic ZYZ is so important to me. The closest we'll get to his internal monologue about this whole situation. The kinds of things said when we think there's no conscious listener.

Okay so, having finished this episode and looking back, Li Lun's hands coming up from behind ZYC was not to denote possession (at least in this episode), potentially is a visual from ZYZ's POV, and seems related to the above screencap. I am so, so curious. Once again, I'm stopping myself from further speculation because I want to be surprised but ahhhhhhhhh

PSJ shooting at Ao Yin is so gorgeous. Her action scenes seriously never disappoint—the creativity of her fight choreos!! Also very cool that the whole team is getting to take part in the action, not just the two male leads.

Bai Jiu possession was not on my bingo card but I sure do love that we literally saw the possession take place and I still didn't connect the dots. Good shitttt. Also oh no ): ZYC was telling the truth about the soul needle, he was just tricked ):

Seriously from the Ao Yin case to getting PSJ released to reviving the Divine Wood to getting tricked by possessed!Bai Jiu to making pear soup to fighting ZYZ to fighting Li Lun—when will ZYC get a single goddamn vacation day holy shit.

Also when will WX tear up that contract so ZYZ can stop having a mild heart attack every time he wants to kiss her ): &I love that they saved the 300-year montage for this moment. While their ship doesn't give me brainrot personally, who could be unmoved by that incredible and undisclosed sacrifice? That's soulmatism.

Okay, I'd seen clips of them filming the ZYC and Li Lun fight but damn I did not expect it'd be happening right now!! Right after already taking damage from ZYZ? And my god is Li Lun brutal. The two actors did such an impressive job on this entire fight, what with Li Lun's ease and ZYC's suffering. I really appreciated the extensive hand-to-hand combat after Li Lun literally obliterated ZYC's sword. (Also though, given the origin of that sword, I kept hoping for a flashback to ZYC's brother once it broke, but alas, no dice.) Anyway, the show does not play around about ZYC whump it seems. I was very very shook by that throat punch; that shit legitimately looked like it hurt.

Honestly, I had a hard time with the extended ZYZ and Li Lun conversation at the very end because oh my god someone please heal ZYC lmao. But of course, that's the end of the episode~~

Y'all...check on your local ZYC stans because I was not okay after all that (': I need a heaping dose of comfort after all that hurt, but as always I'm cautious of hoping for much from canon itself. So yeah! Ep 23 was solid, but I would probably be in better shape if today's release just ended on ep 22 ((':

Time to go wait for the cast's Hi6 episode to drop so I can heal my battered heart ;-;

[fallenangels1987]

lets face it. the joker sucks as a batman villain. everybody thinks hes good because hes got a cool character design and hes been around since forever and writers keep trying to make him good, but in concept alone he fails to tap into any of the central themes or intrigue of batman, and nor does he reflect any of bruces internal conflict. really, the only use the joker has ever had was creating harley quinn, but now shes an entirely separate character from him so any short-lived relevance he may have had with her is gone. but contrary to what some may think, i dont think the joker should die. that decision would be a big deal and he'd be so dramatic about it, we'd have an entire plotline dedicated to it.... no one wants that. no one wants to see his stupid joker face for longer than physically necessary. it would also be reversed by the next reboot. no, we need a plan to make him irrelevant. more so than he already is, i mean.

first, we have batmans rogues gallery do a drag race. whos judging? poison ivy and the riddler. its green-themed. but see this is genius. cuz who hates the joker more than poison ivy and the riddler? yeah, harley quinn, who is not in attendance cuz she knows whats about to happen. in fact, she planned this, and shes using this as her cover to mess around with selina and try to convince her to be harley and pams third again. it wont work, but the dedication and jakey-haterism is commendable.

the drag race itself is not the focus, however. see, the entire thing has been set up to generate the most drama possible. everyone except for the joker has received invitations that say the show (which is being live broadcast to an unwilling audience of 150,000, all of whom thought they were watching the morning news up until 5 minutes ago, and found themselves unable to switch the broadcast off) will be recording their every move, so they better be on their worst behavior. the joker, unbeknownst to this, is being his usual asshole self, but not even in a fun conniving way, just in the regular asshole way.

at some point, he starts a fight. tensions are already high and hes the fucking joker. just let him dig his own grave here. he starts a fight and his (already shitty, i should add) outfit gets torn. now he has to spend all of his time that should be spent on makeup on fixing the stitching of this dress, and its going awful, and hes been forcibly removed from the makeup/costume making zone so hes just sitting on the stoop outside with a single spool of thread trying to fix this poofy ass dress. soon enough hes got 5 minutes left on the clock and hes still not finished, so hes like fuck it! im just gonna do my makeup and hope for the best. the makeup is atrocious, predictably, he doesnt even get to finish the eyeliner, but he tries to go back inside nonetheless. oops, he got locked out! thank you, tetch. now hes gotta go through the front, all the while trying not to get dirt on this dress which is falling apart on top of him, knowing full well poison ivy and the riddler and the rest of the queens are making fun of him for being late.

he gets back in. by this point, hes sweating like a damn hog, his makeup is running, but hes HERE. he sees amygdala preparing to go down the runway. no no no, the JOKER cant have that. the joker cant have anyone stealing his rightfully earned spotlight. he pushes amygdala out of the way and waits for the go-ahead.

poison ivy and the riddler look confused and disturbed, then whisper to one another for a moment. they turn back toward him.

"didnt we already escort you off the premises like, half an hour ago?" the riddler asks.

"yeah, you weren't supposed to come back," poison ivy says. "that's the point of having henchmen take you out."

they argue about this for a while until joker is thrown out again. the public vote gives him a pitiful 1%.

after that, hes a laughing stock! nobody likes him! hes just the guy who couldnt take a hint even after he was kicked out of a building! he resigns in disgrace and moves to rural ohio where he becomes a gas station attendant. and THAT is how we get rid of the joker.

[technically-a-kiwi]

Okay guys, time to correct and rewrite some stuff about the cosmic AU

I've read my older post developing on the story and this was basically my reaction

So yeah my older posts are full of off details and inconsistencies, brace yourself for some redcons and new concepts

Starting with :

Redcons:

• Cosmic entities are allowed to interact with other mortals ,because I'm sick of the trope of "powerful being who shape the universe must stay out of site at any cost or else it's the end of the world" or whatever, it's just drama for the sake of drama in my eyes and it doesn't add much of a mysterious vibe. Besides it adds more possibilities story wise :) .Let's say that it's something very discouraged among cosmic entities, it's okay if they fuel legends and folklore, but if an entity actively tries to get well known and mediatised in a universe, only then will they get in trouble.

• Stars are no longer needed for someone to turn into a Cosmic entity, basically I put stars in the mix to seem more cosmicy (if that's even a word...) and I didn't really knew what a star was myself, for now on stars are the sparkles you see floating around cosmic entities and are the physical manifestation of said entity's emotion, appearing in different shapes depending on how the cosmic entity feels.

•Cosmic entities are no longer bound to travel in the universes they're assign to, I put this to make their power not too OP. It's useless to restrict them to some universes and it doesn't really add much to anything relevant.

• The Noise is allowed to have more than his TV show as a form of media (such as journals, radio stations and more, although his most popular form of media is his TV show), limiting The Noise to only having a TV show really contradicted with the idea that he's his own boss, he's free, he can now do as he pleases and shoose what he wants to do in his show ( in his universe The Noise was forced to do what his higher ups told him to do, such as filming ads, promoting stuff he didn't necessarily like, and things that generaly bothers and annoys him), nonetheless his show is still limited to the cosmic realm (he does break this rule sometimes and bring random people in his show to torment them and satisfy his sadism but shhhh no one has to know this okay 🤫)

• There's no such thing as a title of ultimate prankster anymore, I just put this notion to solidify the idea that The Noise is an asshole, but does he really need an official title? The Noise is a little shit and his actions are enough to prove that.

• We don't know how old Peppino and The Noise are, honestly I shared their age to solidify the idea that they are older, more mature, and also to prevent people from thinking they were thousands of years old (seriously I hate this fucking trope. You're telling me you lived several times the age of the Earth yet you still act like a 10 years old, like do you live at the same paste of a snail for years to go this fast ?!!!) they both are very recent cosmic entities and are not super old, but you know, you can tell by how they act that they're more experienced and mature (the same goes for every cosmic entity by the way.)

And finally

• Cosmic entities don't have the power to manipulate their environment, this was the first thing that threw me of, like what? No they can't, that would be a huge loop hole ! I guess I put this in there to make them seem more powerful somehow? Cosmic entities can only travel between realms (mortal, cosmic etc, the afterlife is the only realm they are not allowed in) and between universes, they can stitch a ripe in reality but ONLY with a special thread provided by the court, they don't make it themselves. Only far more older and powerful cosmic entities have the ability to manipulate their environment as they pleases (more on older cosmic entities later)

Okay I think that's it for the redcons, if I want to redcon other stuff I'll reblog this post with those modifications.

Now brace yourself for

The new stuff :

• the difference of power and look depending on a Cosmic entity's age : there are three very distinct stage in a cosmic entity’s life: dwarf (they arbor a red color scheme in reference to young stars, it's the stage any cosmic entity starts at, only having the ability to travel between universes), minor ( in reference of smaller constellation, is the state our cosmic duo is at right now as well as most cosmic entities. After some years as a cosmic entity, roughly 20 years, they arbor a more colorful color palette and gain the ability to hear thoughts, feel what other beings feel and summon objects they own, that already exist.) and the last is major (reference to bigger constellations, idk they get bigger, sparklier and more colorful? I haven't figured that out yet... After several hundred years, cosmic entities gets tremendously stronger and gain several abilities, on the physical plain they can create or fix a ripe in reality through shear will, manipulate things around them, twisting and reshape reality as they pleases and create anything on commande [the only thing they can't create are living beings tho], on the spiritual plain, they can see things that are invisible for the average mortal being, that earlier stages couldn't see, such as ghosts, angels, demons and the soul of mortals, and also [this is the creepy part] they can manipulate not only other beings emotions [including their own] but also manipulate others memories, changing events in others mind, create new fake memories or erasing them completely. Basically they become a discount version of Discord from MLP... But they have more ✨✨✨ you know ?)

• How the Pizza Tower cast is seen in the cosmic realm : (Before I start this, keep into your mind that Pizza Tower is the only media in the multiverse, yes it brings down the idea of infinite universes, yes it restrict a lot of possibilities, but I think it's better to work with a smaller scale and focus on stuff that specifically interest me story wise, besides I really didn't want to go on a crossover kind of story 😓) When you think cosmic entity, you think of beings like you see in marvel comics right ? Huge menacing individuals, wise and intimidating, well that's exactly what were cosmic entities before the PT cast arrived. You see since most people in the tower absorbed cosmic particles, some of them became cosmic entities. At first the court didn't like this, what are those cartoon looking creatures doing in a society of grand powerful being? Of course they are some entities who are "cartoony" but not to the extent of Pizza Tower characters. Thankfully the first people of the tower were quite efficient as cosmic entities and set a good image for their "kind", so the court kept turning people of the tower into cosmic entities thinking they were still promising individuals (for most of them at least). In general the cast is considered like the babies of the realm, most of the other cosmic entities are completely fine and interact with them as if they were equals, it's only with the higher ups and oldest cosmic entities that you see they're kind of looked down upon, considered as not really inferiors, but kind of like idiots, not worthy of the title.

• The constellation system: After accomplishing several tasks, cosmic entities are rewarded with stars, but not any kind of stars, these stars appear directly onto the entity's body and serve as some kind of merit badge, gain enough stars and you get a constellation, gain enough constellations and you get your ticket to complete freedom and you can stop watching over universes, giving your spot to younger cosmic entities. It's kind of a retirement system, entities tend to get enough constellations around the end of their minor stage. You'll see on some designs that constellations are not the same depending on'the individual (it's gonna be a huge pain in the butt to keep track of who has what but anything for consistency ✊👁️👄👁️)

And finally and probably one of the darkest aspect of the AU

Loss of memory: To make sure cosmic entities eventually get rid of what attached them to their universe and former life, the court enabled a memory wiping system that will make all cosmic entities forget where they come from, who they knew and what experience they lived, only conserving memories regarding who they are and what they did in life. Things like memoirs and diaries are forbidden and if the court finds out an entity has any of this kind of things, it will be immediately destroyed an the entity will have their memories wiped even faster. Major cosmic entities all have forgotten who they used to know in their earlier life, family, friends, all experience that shaped them into the person they are, with who they are and what they do in life being the only memories they have left.

And that was it for the new stuff, if you made it this far congratulations ✨✨✨. Like for the redcon part if I want to modify this part I'll reblog the modifications.

And now comes the part I shall call

Random trivia ✨✨✨

Like the title suggest, it's literally just random trivia I couldn't efficiently put in the post, regarding anything and everything.

The way someone turns into a cosmic entity is simple, after death, the higher ups of the court propose you to either go to the afterlife or become a cosmic entity, only one version of a being can become an entity (to put that in practice, if Peppino from a random universe decides to become a cosmic entity, it won't be possible for other Peppinos to become a cosmic entity), there can only be two cosmic entities per universe, the entity will start off as a dwarf entity and as time goes on their body and power will evolve.

Cosmic entities may have the ability to hear others though, they generally don't use this power as often as you may think, most of them prefer not to do it because it's a huge violation of privacy and for entities that don't care about privacy, they often find out the "downgrade" of hearing others thoughts... If you know what I mean. Cosmic entities generally prefer just sensing the emotions of other beings around rather then hearing their thoughts expressively.

Here's the main PT cast as cosmic entities, in the chronological order of when they turned into cosmic entities

John & Gerome

Brick

Mr. Stick

The Vigilante & Pepperman

Gustavo

Pizzahead

Noisette

F. Peppino

Peppino & The Noise

( Beings after our cosmic duo will be shown later in the story)

Of course there are far more beings from the tower but this is why I call them the main cast, most of them have yet to be properly designed but they'll all appear eventually I swear.

All cosmic entities arbor a "scar" on their body hinting toward what killed them in their earlier life. For example the dark gradient you see flowing down cosmic Noise's head hints toward the fact he passed away from a head concussion, or if you were to look at Peppino's back you'd see a huge burn mark looking scar hinting toward the fact that he passed away from a bomb exploding inside of him. In most cases the scare is a warmer color than the rest of the skin ( Watch out tho, the color is warmer in the scientific definition, where red is the coldest and purple is the warmest ☝️.)

The cosmic realm is composed of multiple environment, expending as far as the eye can see, the most populated place is of course the main city : Cosmopolis, a city so huge it's surface equals our Moon ! It's basically your very populated cyberpunk city with huge buildings and bright light, with floating roads and boutiques at every corner. Outside of the city you have the Lux plain, very chill and on the country side, it's the perfect place if you like silence and stargazing, it's also where Peppino's pizzaria is located. Also outside the city you have the Firefly park, like the name suggests, it's a huge park with benches you can sit on of course, lakes you can admire or fish in, everywhere where the grass is a little high you'll see little fireflies fly by. And anything outside the plain and park is not mapped out, all we know is that it seems to go forever and there are several extraordinary places yet to be found and recorded.

Peppino can summon his scooter just by whistling and it will appear out of nowhere and go directly next to him, as if it had a mind of it's own, that goes for Noisette's umbrella too that she uses like a mode of transport like a witch's broom. The Noise tho has to snap his fingers and a limo will appear, crushing anything in it's way in a comically absurd way

Despite being forbidden, very few cosmic entities keep a record of their earlier life with everything they remember, for example Peppino keeps a diary with the name of everyone he knows, what's his relationship with said people and memories of his past life. As long as no one finds those records, he can keep what attaches him to his mortal life.

And finally

The only way to kill a cosmic entity is by saturating them with cosmic particles, too much cosmic particles is very dangerous, if an entity has too much cosmic particles inside of them, their body will slowly melt into a puddle of star and will eventually evaporate into cosmic particles. After that the soul of the entity will go to the afterlife, without the possibility to turn back into a cosmic entity.

And that's all folks!

Congratulations to all the mad lads who made it this far ! , I'm sorry this post has no illustration whatsoever, you had to eat consecutive paragraphs with no yummy colots, I am aware that most people like this AU because of the art, today was not an artsy day alright 😓 !

If you have any questions feel free to ask them,with that being said, remember that lasagnas are pasta cakes and see ya ✌️

[summerroseart]

Ooogh got back from the theater <3 gonna start off: LOVED the movie. Had a lot of fun. That is to say... I don't.... really...think it was good. It was not. (I'm sorry) But I highly recommend it! Felt like a direct to DVD sequel. I encourage piracy of this one. (/j for legal reasons)

In any case, it was fun!! Very very fun!! Absolutely no shade to anyone who disagrees with my takes lol. <3

FULL SPOILERS under the cut!!!

No seriously I'm gonna go over like. all the major plot points. Look away if you wish not to be spoiled.

- Okay. SO. not a fan of the pacing. Felt very choppy and incomplete like. RIGHT off the bat. Did not improve throughout the film, sadly. Writing and line delivery were also kinda bummer for all the characters, but those were my biggest gripes overall.

- 99 Red Balloons Green Day Cover?! Wasn't expecting that.

- Tom. Tom you KNEW that cave was there. Unless Maddie was the only one who went and got his stuff, and in that case, you BETTER have been the one cleaning out that attic.

- They are really having fun with dramatic irony in this one. Also not great callbacks to the first 2 films.

- WHY THE FUCK would you let them go with GUN???? They absolutely should have been tearing those boys from your arms wtf

- SA2 line ref, fun!!

- He... Shadow just. Hatched. fully grown. from a meteorite?? Disappointed but also EXTREMELY fascinated. What does this imply for Sonic? And Amy? Is it just because of the Black Arms? Is he fully Black Arms? Is he an unwitting spy for them??

I didn't watch the Knuckles series. Didn't they namedrop the Black Arms? But as another government branch or something rediculous?

- you guys have been alone for ONE DAY?? And you managed to crochet multiple projects, bake like 30 sourdough loaves, make a felt ventriloquist dummy, learn ventriloquism, and is that hand woven basket also implied to have been a project?? I'm impressed. But also. Do you... no longer have jobs? Does the government pay you now? I thought the knuckles series was irrelevant. What did i miss?? What happened to your work??

- Ily Maddie you deserve the world <33 they should've called you mom </3

- Sonic is giving major Boom Sonic characterization vibes, so I get why people don't like him in these films. (I love Boom Sonic wholeheartedly, but like. I Get it.)

- "Why are you tied up? Do that on your own time! You sicken me." AUSJHAJANABJAJBDJW

- Gerald is just. Alive. And 110 years old. There is no ARK. Maria didn't have an illness. The guy shooting didn't even intentionally kill her. Where is my corrupt government entity?? Devastating.

- Wish they'd done more with 70s Maria. Her character still seemed cool.

- Okay so Shadow just lived that over and over again for 50 years. Okay. I'm okay. Don't look at me.

- HATE that they inadvertently pinned the Blame for Maria's death on Shadow by having it be containers of his own Chaos energy that exploded and killed her, instead of the gun soldier shooting her in the back.

- WALTERS IS NOT A HERO SCREW HIM FUCK YOU GUN

- GUN is just... completely neutral in this :/ what was the point of Rockwell? She added nothing other than an unnecessary red herring. There could've been an EASY sideplot of Rouge stealing the master emerald instead. Especially with Wade watching it. EASY I TELL YOU!! WHERE IS MY GIRL????! WE WERE ROBBED!! ROBBED OF THE BEST THIEF IN THE GALAXY!

- Seriously though that Rockwell plotline went NOWHERE, WHY DID THEY DO ALL THAT???

(it seemed like they were setting her up to have been the one to commission Gerald for the Eclipse Cannon, but they just. Dropped her? after she gave Tom the key card?? Why did she want it??? Why was it relevant???)

- (paraphrasing bc my memory is Bad) "No person of any gender found me appealing" Sir your boyfriend is RIGHT THERE (obligatory WHOA HE'S BISEXUAL I DIDN'T KNOW THAT)

- Second act low point, but at least it felt sorta believable bc it felt like a legit sibling fight, and not a real falling out. They all just really love each other and want to protect each other. Knuckles you're wonderful, you have never done anything wrong ever.

- Missed opportunity for Dark Sonic. That would've been so FUCKING COOL! WHYYY???

- we both lost everything pep talk 2 (this time on the moon)

- just nicked the moon lmao it's fiiiiiiiinneee

- TAILS YOU'RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE!!!

- Gerald getting zapped like a bug made me lose it.

- so like. Is everyone on earth just. Okay with finding out a world-wide government agency built a massive rocket powered death laser aimed straight for the planet that got hijacked immediately orrrrrrr

- Historians will say they were just good friends :)

- KNUCKLES YOU'RE WONDERFUL YOU HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING WRONG EVER

- "Team Sonic :)" "How about just team?" FUCKING SONIC BOOM REFERENCE????

- METAL!!! FUCK YEAH!! <- knew that'd mean Amy in the next film regardless

- AAAAMMYYYYYY MY GIRL AMY I CALLED IT I WASN'T EXPECTING BOTH OF THEM BUT HOLY FUCK!!! YEAHHHGGHGSHAHHDKKDO3BSJOXKNWHWISJBDNDJKDM I LOVE HER DESIGN SHE'S SO CUTE!!AA!!

- didn't catch the 2nd end credit scene but I'd already heard about the Shadow spinoff show (and/or movie??), so looking it up after, really not the least bit surprising.

Okay but i really did laugh at pretty much all the jokes. It was a fun time.

[asoulwithadream]

Shoscombe Old Place / Part 1 - Sherlock & Co From the diary of ASoulWithADream...

I'm really enjoying this episode so far! The domesticity coupled with the rising tension, and references to something which both scares and intrigues me. As I see my summaries grow shorter, my commentary grows longer, and I think I find it a welcome change.

Live Soul Reaction (my on-the-spot commentary):

A HOOVER?

Sherlock wouldn't be good at poker.

I love that in almost all pseudo-official works of Sherlock Holmes and his adventures (as documented by Doctor John Watson), he never fucking cleans.

MARIANA. I know this gives us an adventure more centred on John-Sherlock but MARIANAAAA NO-

I think John saying "holly-bobs" has cured me.

Their little tangents bring me so much life. They remind me so much of me and my own best-friend, seamlessly flowing from one topic (where one of us may be more knowledgable) to the other. They've captured the chemistry of friendship so incredible well.

SWINDON TOWN! WOO!

"Right, well, let's just say: she didn't just get a double-D in Maths and French…" JONK.

John "bit of a slut" Watson.

"There's no episode," yeah right, everything's an episode. You are an episode. I am an episode. We are episode…

I love John's town lore. The world-building is insane and both so normal and so outrageous, meeting somewhere in the middle. John doesn't feel like a character in my phone, I can imagine him actually outside Swindon right now.

"You are an idiot," <33333333

You know who Carol Watson reminds me of? Colm McCool from Derry Girls.

Yapping runs in the family, I guess.

Formed to that shape over thousands of year. Like a river. Water. River. Water falling. What.

"And that was a prize, was it?" "Hah, shut up," <3

I see what you did there Jonk. I don't think him recording was a mistake. He wanted a case, and he knew a case would appear, because cases seem to follow Sherlock like mice to a piper. No argument over the game being afoot? Immediately starting the case from the first lead? John, you wanted this to happen. <3

"The entire species? Or a particular suborder?" "THE Beatles."

I thought Gary Lineker was that one guy Sherlock called a hunk.

"Did she have any animosity towards the creature?" Sherlock what.

"She's an eighty-six year old woman in San Tropez, John. I ain't got a scooby, mate." I LOVE YOU JOE!!! I <3 YOU!!!

"You don't realise a place is run down when you live in it, do you?" The nostalgia of that sentence hit me like a bull train. The tragedy of decay can co-exist with the love for a place in it.

Also, what's with the poker/card-game references? Is this relevant, or just an inside joke?

TATTOO REMOVAL??? CLOSE INSPECTION???? ONCE OR TWICE??????

I love that Sherlock is trying to ease John with having Carrie involved with the case, offering to avoid talking to her, being the one to contact instead, he's being so kind and thoughtful and I love seeing Sherlock act like this.

This hobbit aah music has got me joining the gnome vs knight war.

"To see this, trickle through the countryside, knowing what he'll eventually become. Journey, growth, and finally, lost, to much deeper, complex waters. Unrecognisable in the homogeny." That's a the second explicit mention of water, very poetically phrased as both a metaphor for something I can not quite put my finger on, and also… waterfalls. I think I was right to comment on the Final Problem a few days ago. Wrong in my theory, right with time.

"Bliss, cheers." <3

THE FUCK.

ARCHIE.

WITH HER??? HE WAS WHO'S?

CARRIE.

They're getting better at cliffhangers (pun intended). How do I know? I'm getting more and more frustrated.

[southsidestory]

i’ve really enjoyed your jilco, especially this fragile hour. i like how you’re digging into silco’s perspective and his daughter issues, his point of view and his rationalization + guilt + shame + slow crumbling descent is one of the juiciest parts about the ship and i don’t see it explored in-depth very often. and you do a great job conveying jinx’s thoughts and her heartache, i can really feel the frustration and pain coloring her actions. also, can i ask- how do you see their relationship? i know you write silco as stubbornly fixed on her being his daughter and nothing else, and jinx not really wanting to view him as a father at all, so where do you think the actual truth of what they are sits?

I take a different spin on this in each of my Jilco fics, depending on my intentions for the story.

With how many fathers should one girl have? I wanted to explore a pre-Act 2 situation where Jinx is in love with Silco and knows it. There's a line somewhere (can't remember my own fic lmfao) where she thinks about her actual dad and Vander being her fathers, but Silco only got halfway to Dad Status at best. While Silco (whose POV we don't have) is fighting not to give in to his desire for her--which he's fully aware of and trying very hard to hide. Although he has seen her as a daughter for most of their relationship, his feelings for her have already changed significantly by the time the fic begins.

In Paint the Town Blue, a canonverse AU in which Jinx and Silco don't meet until she's 19, their canonical father-daughter deal isn't applicable. (Though she does have daddy issues that will become relevant lol)

In This Fragile Hour is lowkey my Season 2 fix-it fic. I only changed two things from the end of Season 1, the biggest being that Silco lives ofc. My take on Jilco at the beginning of Fragile is the same one I have for Season 1 canon Jilco.

Before I get into that, I want to bring up the reason why canon Jilco is such a hot mess of found family love combined with romantic/sexual tension. I wish I had receipts, but there was an Arcane animator who let slip that Jilco was originally canon. Plans changed and that storyline was rewritten to lean into the father-daughter aspect, but they kept a lot of the old animation. This is why Jinx and Silco's body language, and some dialogue, screams "they're about to fuck on that desk" while we also have Silco calling Jinx his daughter LMFAO. The result is some frankenstein of pseudo-incestuous codependency in which Daddy Dearest plainly claims Jinx as his daughter.

Notably, Jinx never refers to him as her father.

FINALLY I GET TO THE POINT

My take on canon Jilco is that Jinx has mixed feelings for Silco. She knows he sees her as a daughter and wants to be Perfect for him, which means filling the role he's given her. But she also desires him, a truth that she's aware of, ashamed of, and uncomfortable with. Still, she tries to tempt him in bolder moments only to fail over and over.

Silco, on the other hand, is in denial deeper than the fissures. He views Jinx as his daughter, and for the vast majority of their relationship, their inappropriate physical and emotional intimacy was truly not at all romantic or sexual to him. But in the very recent past that has started to change, and it's beginning to show.

This is where I see them immediately prior to Fragile.

The inciting incident that upsets everything for Jinx is Vi's return to the Lanes. The not-dad she trusted betrayed her. Now her faith in him--especially as a father figure--is completely shot, she's changed by the events of S1, she's no longer trying to suppress her desire for Silco, and the fucks she has left to give are running low. Between all that and Silco's plethora of mixed signals... well, no wonder she throws caution to the wind in Chapter 2 ffffsss

Meanwhile, the aftermath of the Vi clusterfuck + Jinx's shimmer transfusion turns everything upside down for Silco. That tiny sliver of attraction that he was beginning to feel for Jinx by S1 starts growing rapidly. He clings to the role he's familiar and comfortable with, that of Father, to suppress the shame. She's busy pushing him away, thanks to all his lies, which only makes him want her more. Her changes in behavior, bearing, strength, and appearance are stark. He can't see her the same way he did before, and her transformation opens the door for his romantic and sexual feelings to go off the rails.

Oh my God I'm so sorry for this wall of text. Please forgive me!! I'm Sister Mary Loquacious today.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

All right, I did something. I did it a few days ago, and I've not posted about it yet because, to be honest, I thought I might change my mind. I purchased this thing about three minutes after I discovered it was on sale. I purchased it at 5 AM, while half asleep, and in that moment, I at least had the presence of mind to pay seven extra dollars for a refundable ticket, in case I come to my senses later.

However, it's been a few days, and I've not come to my senses. I don't think I'm going to. I'm sticking with this. Look what I purchased:

Here's some relevant information: The Bell House is a theatre in New York City. Google Maps says that the drive from my house to The Bell House in New York City takes seven hours and thirty minutes. However, I know from experience that it's actually longer than that. I know this from the experience of the only time I've been to NYC before, which was in May 2022, when I went there to watch Nish Kumar perform his previous stand-up show.

I was lucky, that time, that my brother happened to be house-sitting in NYC for a few months. I don't own a car, but because my brother was there, my dad said he was happy to take us down in his car, so he could see the city and visit my brother. My dad and I got to split the driving, and we got to sleep for free at the place where my brother was staying. We drove all day on Saturday, which took about 8.5 hours. Had dinner, then my dad and my brother and I all watched Nish Kumar, slept for about five hours in the apartment where my brother was, and drove 8.5 hours home the next day.

I hated every moment of that trip during which I was not actually in a room with Nish Kumar. I hated NYC - too many people, and I just disliked the atmosphere. Plus I had a massive fight with my brother right before the show, because I was annoyed that so few people on the NYC subway wore masks even though there was a huge surge in COVID rates there at the time (this was May 2022, when COVID was a bigger danger), and my brother said masks are for sheep, and we ended up yelling at each other on an NYC sidewalk and almost missed the show.

However, I fucking loved every single second of Nish Kumar's show. It is still one of my favourite stand-up shows I've ever seen, and I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to see it live. I consider the entire terrible trip worth it for that, even though I came out of it saying, "Wel, I've now been to New York City once, hated the place, and I never feel the desire to go back."

That's what I said at the time. But I didn't know, back in 2022, that Nish Kumar would be coming back two years later with an even better show. And I really think it is. In his 2024 show (Edinburgh 2024, touring in 2024-2025), Nish Don't Kill My Vibe, he manages to outdo the high bar that his 2022 show set. It's worth the trip again.

I have been lucky enough to hear the material from Nish Don't Kill My Vibe, probably about ten different times throughout the past year. I've heard it in various WIP stages, and then got to see it live twice when I visited the UK over the summer - once as a preview in London, and then the next week in Edinburgh. Does that mean that I definitely don't need to do a 17-hour round trip in one weekend just to see it again?

No! No no no no no it does not and I refuse to come to my senses about this! Sure, I've seen it before, but even in Edinburgh, it was still billed as a WIP. It's into the touring stages now, it's different! I've already seen a couple of people online, who've seen the show on tour, reference bits in it that I don't recognize. Which means there's new stuff! Nish Kumar is performing material that I've not heard before! I must hear it!

Obviously I'm aware that only a small percentage of the show will be any different from the stuff I've already heard. But 1) The stuff I've already heard was brilliant and I want to hear it again and I want to hear it live, and 2) I know I'm pretty much just paying to be in a room with Nish Kumar. But he's so cool. I would pay an inadvisable amount of money to be in a room with Nish Kumar.

So, I'm going to have to figure some stuff out. I still don't own a car, and my brother doesn't happen to be staying in NYC this time. I called my parents and asked them if I could request a really large favour - perhaps we could call it a Christmas present - where I take their car on an 8-ish-hour journey on a Saturday in March and then an 8-ish-hour journey back on the Sunday. Because I'd have to do it that way - the show is Saturday night, I work all day on Friday and Monday, and my job is one that has school holidays off, and their policy says that they do not give vacation days outside those holidays except in "very exceptional circumstances". I'm pretty sure those "very exceptional circumstances" are meant to be, like, a family member's funeral. Not "My second favourite comedian in the whole wide world is going to be on my side of the ocean for once, and I hear he might have, like, three minutes worth of material that I've not heard before!"

The other option would be to drive down Saturday, see the show, and then get in the car immediately and drive home all night on Sunday. This has the advantage of meaning I wouldn't need to pay for accommodation out there. It has the obvious disadvantage of, you know, ignoring my human body's basic physiological needs.

Anyway, I'll figure it out. I told myself when I bought the ticket that I could also use public transit, but since then, have actually looked that up, and learned that there is no bus that leaves later than the time my work on Friday finishes, and arrives in NYC before showtime on Saturday. So I'm now really counting on being able to borrow a car.

My parents were surprisingly receptive to the idea, when I asked about it. When I said I want to go to NYC, my mother joking asked "Is it to see Nish Kumar?", because that was the stupid reason I had last time. And I had to say... "Yes, yes it is. He's got another show." She said we'll figure it out and can probably make it work. My dad actually liked the city of NYC, and said he might even come down again just to see the city.

Anyway, that's what I'm doing with my life. That, and planning an even bigger trip to the UK next August, now that I have the whole summer off. Nine nights in Edinburgh, and before that, some time in London, and then trains through Wales and Ireland. I've already booked a couple of nights at an Air B&B in Galway. I'm going places in 2025. Literally, if not metaphorically. It'll be good.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for trying to keep my neighbor’s outdoor cats indoors?

I’m currently pet sitting for a family on my block, and on top of me just kind of not liking them as people the longer I’m here, I also am becoming more and more uncomfortable with the way they handle pets. Their dog is sweet but totally misbehaved, and relevant to this story, they have two outdoor cats. We live in an area with several families with outdoor cats, but most certainly not an area that’s safe for outdoor cats as we live along a busy road people are constantly speeding on, and there are tons of foxes and raccoons and other cats that they can get into trouble with. I can count six times going down that road alone below the speed limit that I’ve narrowly avoided running over someone’s outdoor cat in the middle of the night.

I didn’t know when they asked me if I’d pet sit for the dog and cats that their cats were free to just leave whenever. But when the family was giving me all the info to sit for their animals, they told me that the cats came in and out through the window with a giant hole in the screen. I didn’t want to go against them at first, but after an air quality alert was issued for my area, I knew I didn’t want those cats going outside in the smoke and heat with everything else. So I made sure both cats were inside and shut the window just to make sure they wouldn’t be sick or endangered while I was looking after them.

Both cats disappeared a couple of days later, and after leaving the window and door open for a bit, one of them returned for food. The other hasn’t come back, and the owner is aware- I called and explained that I’d shut the window due to the air quality warning and the cats had disappeared- but isn’t concerned the other is in danger or that any harm came to her. However, she is mad that I shut the window, not because I unknowingly locked her cats out, but because she thought I was judging her ways of caring for her pets.

And I don’t know. Maybe I was. Maybe I do think that she’s a bad owner. Or maybe I just thought it would be harmless to keep them in for my own peace of mind. Or was just trying to do right by them and protect them while I was in charge. I don’t know. But I can tell the owner is annoyed that I tried to do things my own way and thinks I’m judgmental. I didn’t mean any harm, but I don’t know- does it make me bad that I resent her now when I wasn’t operating out of resentment or thinking I knew better?

I never want to sit for this family again, and I really don’t think I was in the wrong, but I know she does, and I don’t know if I actually fucked up. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[verdemoun]

That bit with the gang getting Swanson's bible is. Giving me a thought. The gang gathering small/symbolic items for gang members that are not yet there or never will be.

Mary-beth's books are probably a large portion. Arthur's journal is not recovered, but someone decided to commission someone to make a similar one (they're really easy to make actually!!! Would recommend, it's very calming). I can see someone seeing a kids toys section in some store and seeing a collection of horses. A small group of them lies in the Matthews' house - it's probably tended to by Kieran, he remembered the horses, every single one. I can see someone coming over like "hey you have the horse collection here and i saw a figurine that resembled my horse after 1899 can i-" "yes"

Abigail is #1 sentimental person. The Beecher's Hope blueprints that were mentioned before. Jack's literally everything. I feel like she'd see a similar horse toy to the one he had in 1899 and buy it either for her daughter or just for display.

Hats!!! There's plenty of people that still make them, I imagine someone would like a replica of theirs if it can't be retrieved. At least two copies of Arthur's hat and John's each. Arthur and John, and John and Jack. I feel like yes, John and Jack have a bad relationship, but John wants his hat for purely sentimental reasons and Jack wants it in a way like "I did what I was supposed to, I avenged my family, and I want it as proof that I did good". He may be emotionally stuck up and closed off as fuck but it matters to him.

Letters!!! I'm not sure how preserving letters is in the US, but for us, plenty of private mail has been protected and is displayed in museums, or kept in museums storage. Lenny may not get his father back but I feel like he'd want the letter back. Either that, or a replica. He'd remember the letter well enough to commission a replica. Abigail and John's letter which he wrote in Beecher's hope, in the epilogue, asking her and Jack to come back? More like begging not asking but shh <33.

Another category; objects that aren't the same ones but they're similar so they're good enough. A harmonica for Sadie. Again, Lenny, and a pocket watch. They no longer have so much relevance, really, but they're proof of things they survived in their first life. It's home, in a sense.

Yes I'm just rambling. But i really feel like they'd like to hold onto some parts of their last life <3

THE SYMBOLISM

Kieran is accidentally the one to hold onto the gang most symbolically. Despite not being able to read, he owns both one of Swanson's bibles but has a hardback copy of every book Mary-Beth ever published that he displays proudly on a shelf in his room.

His number one prize possession is an early edition of The Lady of the Manor which not only was Mary-Beth's first novel but also an autographed edition. He can run his finger over the page and feel the indentation left by a pen Mary-Beth held when she signed the book.

His second prized possession is a Breyer model Arthur painted to look like Branwen. Kieran collects Breyer and Schleich horse models in general because he is a dork who loves horses despite not having the space required to own one in modern era. He politely pesters Arthur to paint the models to look more like the gang's horses when he finds the perfect model that captures their horses' build/personality and does offer it as a gift when someone timewarps. Most of the post-1899 gangs first interactions with Kieran is him scurrying off and carefully presenting a figure identical to their 1899 horse.

He even gives Micah a Baylock, which Micah will never admit to crying over in private.

Abigail collecting anything that reminds her of Beecher's Hope to show the gang how nice their post-gang lives together were no matter how short. Near identical lamps to casually flex yes my John cared for us so much we had electricity in our humble ranch house and these look just like our lamps in 1911.

Because the gang timewarp with everything on their persons, there is a duplication glitch where both Jack and John have John's hat. Jack timewarping after his execution and John's first immediate thought is the realization Jack is still wearing His hat, the hat he was shot in, because Jack took it off his corpse before buying him and claimed it as his own.

Arthur also being forced in a way to let go of Lyle Morgan's hat. He gets a new hat made for himself at a silly rodeo him and Charles went to on a date that is very similar but identical enough to bring up the bad memories of his father. Finally having what is solely His hat.

Also not US but from what I understand Americans similar to us Aussies have a funny way of important documents that might prove government-allowed historic atrocities getting lost in fires so significantly less letters preserved. But Arthur's Journal is actually found as part of a museum exhibit because it was confiscated from Jack prior to his execution.

Arthur cringing as he reads a little exhibition plaque explaining even Arthur Morgan, a notorious outlaw and murderer, showed a child-like soft side in his drawings of animals and journal entries about how much he cared for the VDL gang like a family.

Also realizing John kept his journal and has his own attempts at drawings in it, that are significantly less artistic. And realizing it was enough of a part of John's life for Jack to also carry it, despite every single page being used prior to Jack inheriting it.

In response to begging, this means Abigail and Jack seeing John's broken heart entry about 'She went and left me... She weren't wrong, I'd leave me if I could' 'I miss Abigail... FOR ALWAYS'.

Lenny using AI to have a voice as similar to his father's as he can find reading his letter, which he does know word for word, to him - for when remembering what it was like imagining his father's voice reading it isn't enough.

Sadie still had the harmonica that Arthur found her on her when she died, which means she not only has the very harmonica Arthur found her in timewarp, but a reason to play it in being reunited with her precious husband.

[atopvisenyashill]

That whole era of the Second Quarrel onwards is so obscure when it comes to the succession and the tensions surrounding it. No reactions. No massive events or much about dynamics. I want to know about Viserys's coronation. I want to know what he felt about his own succession before the GC. And before that, I want to know if Baelon ever tried to mend fences. If Jaehaerys ever mentioned it again, and how. How Rhaenys made her life, now all but an exile, on Driftmark. What motivated Aemma and Viserys's marriage. WHEN DID JOCELYN DIE?!

LITERALLY OMG. Number one frustrating thing about F&B is we get pages and pages of stuff no one in the world gives a shit about - Maiden's Day, that stupid story about Jaehaerys fucking the writer - and nothing on the subjects that actually got most people into the damn series like the POLITICS or the MAGIC. all of THAT is completly glossed over or Gyldane (and Yandel for that matter) just go "Well Barth did say this thing but that's nonsense" and then no elaboration. drives me up a WALL because yeah sure maybe the long, pages upon pages of battles and fighting are not my cup of tea but a) they're perfectly well written and b) THEY MAKE UP FOR IT BY GIVING ME SEVERAL CHAPTERS IN A ROW OF CERSEI AND SANSA JUST CHILLING AND POLITICKING IN DETAIL. He makes up for that in F&B by giving me MORE Jaehaerys as if that's what I want!!!

There's a few eras in F&B I think are likely to come up in the main series or in dunk and egg which is why I think F&B is so frustratingly vague (and if they were kept vague for no reason….george what. george WHY). And I do get he wanted to give us more of what he was writing without spoiling later books but good lord i would actually rather wait longer for material that isn't 60% george going "well i can't tell them ALL of that, let's just wink at the audience." The Second Quarrel is one of those times that might be relevant later imo largely because there's just. NOTHING. NO INFO. NO EVENTS. Like you said, there are NO major events in this time period. the ONLY thing happening is politics and court intrigue but F&B isn’t interested in court intrigue unless it involves grooming a 12 year old girl and unfortunately there is only poor Aemma being groomed at this time so F&B says “too many old people they’re not sexy” and just gives us sparse details about marriage dates, birth dates, and death dates. We don’t even see how rhaenys and viserys feel about THEE QUEEN ALYSANNE dying!!!!!!!! She just. Passes. oh so sad. george i’m in your walls!

Unlike every other Targaryen child (Aemma, Viserys, Daemon, herself, even Aerea and Rhaelle to an extent) who is allowed to grow up at court surrounded by other Valyrians and members of the royal family, Rhaenys kids are denied this. With this move, as you say, Jaehaerys all but tells Rhaenys "get you and your fuckin kids the hell out of my city." Can you imagine being Rhaenys, newly pregnant, having been told for years by your father and grandmother that you will be Queen one day just to be suddenly and unceremoniously exiled from court and kicked completely out of the line of succession? Can't even begin to get into how deranged it is to do this to your pregnant granddaughter when she's mourning the loss of her father

WHEN DOES JOCELYN BARATHEON DIE. HOW DOES SHE FEEL ABOUT HER DAUGHTER AND GRANDKIDS BEING PASSED OVER?????? She is only a year or two older than Aemon, she could easily have still been alive and making a fuss during Viserys' reign especially after he names Rhaenyra his heir SO HOW DID SHE FEEL ABOUT ALL OF THIS.

Baelon and Viserys' coronations/weddings/big We Are The Royal Line Now Shenangians during this era are crazyyy right, because THE QUEEN OF WESTEROS is refusing to talk to the iron throne, can’t ride her dragon anymore, is losing her hearing and memory, and goes everywhere with Gael to the point that no one even attempts to marry Gael bc they know Alysanne will never let her go. THATS INSANE. They are LIVING SEPARATELY like practically pseudo divorced the way Doran and Mellario are, so is Alysanne just purposefully snubbing these celebrations and using “i’m old” as an excuse or is she passive aggressively riding a carriage all the way back to KL just to show up wearing velaryon colors to viserys’ wedding and then left again without saying goodbye before the banquet even started???

AMD BAELON. part of why i’m so turned off by him is bc we have no indication he felt even a little had but to be fair it has been pointed out to me that we ALSO have no indication he didn’t feel bad; we have no indication of his feelings whatsoever!!! for all we know HE could have felt this was unfair & had been in the middle of either brokering a marriage between his grandkids and her kids, or figured “hey we had this exact same issue with Auntie Rhaena, maybe I should build House Targaryen a second and third seat or even given Dragonstone to The First Born Girl as tradition from now on” like he really could have been trying OR he could have been cackling and rubbing his hands together and encouraging viserys to bed 13 year old aemma soon and often to ensure their line, and calling rhaenys a stupid bitch at court, like we just don’t know!!!!!

We get several “they never agreed on the succession” comments but how does that translate to ACTION. stop telling me dates and tell me WHAT HAPPENED.

[deathbydarkelves]

hi! i just read through your AU document and im really curious about the version where your ocs are big players. how do they alter the course of events?

Thank you so much for your ask! <3 I hope you knew to expect a wall of text when you sent it.

I call that version/timeline the “Black Rain timeline.” Also the name of a future fic, also Cathala and Tarinne’s ship name, because I like to make things confusing they’re my lens into it.

The answer to this will get longer and more detailed as I continue writing and spin more threads, and they don't really come into the limelight until after my current WIP, The Smoke Still Lingers, but they leave their little butterfly effect ripples before that too. I'll go over the big ones, post-Smoke, because you can line that up best with the prose part I wrote in my doc. Those are also the ones I've thought out the most.

First chronologically and the most relevant to my latest art post, is that they both become members of a fellowship(/hunting party) consisting of other various individuals who, each for their own reasons, want Sylvanas dead. Horde, Alliance, and neutral parties alike. From the Horde perspective, since that may not be as immediately obvious: She may not have intentionally burned Teldrassil but she still grossly overextended to get there, indirectly caused the deaths of many Horde soldiers by virtue of calling them into service, directly caused the deaths of others who’d been on Teldrassil when it happened, and generally (in the eyes of many) misused the Horde’s resources. Not to mention the entirety of the Fourth War. But granted, either she made the first move or the Alliance would.

Plenty of Horde citizens are content to just be thankful she’s gone, but there are some like Kolga (the orc in the middle ⬇️) for whom it’s more personal. Her daughter died in the War of Thorns and there wasn’t anything left to bury. For various reasons she sees Sylvanas as the one responsible, and wants to do something about it.

Anyway… this fellowship will slowly grow as its members happen upon each other on their own little vengeance quests, converging one by one on the same trails. They’ll eventually sail to Northrend and cross paths with Tyrande and Maiev, because realistically how could they not? And with that much more manpower, the whole squad will overcome challenges and learn things Tyrande and Maiev in the other timeline do not. I… don’t know what most of those things are yet lol, but there’s a big one I know for sure:

Tarinne has a condition called thor’drinn, or “wolf’s fury”. I linked my explanation post but in short(er): a very small percentage of kaldorei retain the ability to berserk from their troll ancestors, but due to limited understanding of this concept and general taboo around the whole thing, it’s believed to be a divine curse from Goldrinn. Might be a bit of both, honestly. Those with it, called “wolf-touched”, are exiles or Wardens’ prisoners at best, or outright killed at worst — if the physical and mental stress of their first berserking episode doesn’t kill them first. Trolls regenerate and can keep up with the damage they cause to their own body. Kaldorei don’t.

Tarinne got lucky. She survived her first (and her second, and her third, and her fourth), but that just means she has to live life always hiding this, hoping the next one happens somewhere out of sight, lest she slip up and it all comes to an abrupt end. Even Cathala doesn’t know this about her; that’s how deeply ingrained the shame and taboo are.

So of course it's

really fucking bad

when a battle in Northrend goes horribly awry and she loses it in front of not just Cathala but Maiev.

It is only because Tyrande’s also there that Maiev lets her live. What Tyrande said then is what actually leaves the ripples (paraphrasing because I haven’t written this scene yet lol): “She’s been an unwavering ally until now. Kaldorei through and through. The Goddess saw nothing to warn me about. It may be worth reconsidering some of our old ideas around her… around thor’drinn.”

Maiev’s not happy whatsoever but Tyrande outranks her, so that’s that. And after Tarinne fights in the final battle against Sylvanas and returns with (most) of the fellowship to Kalimdor as a hero (to most), well… her secret’s out. “Just” among those in the fellowship, but that’s still a wolf-touched kaldorei’s worst fear.

Society and especially elven society changes slowly, but a woman with thor’drinn being not just known but pardoned by the High Priestess herself (anonymously) was simply unimaginable before this whole debacle. It’s gonna change things. In a couple… centuries maybe there’ll be real changes which actually try to help those with it instead of just telling them to “repress it or die”. Better than nothing…?

Lastly, and completely unrelated, is Cathala and her weird backstory. Fewest words possible: un/lucky shipwreck survivor who got stuck on Pandaria for fifty years. After Mists, she’s stayed under the radar mostly, content with just being “kinda weird” and something of a mild curiosity to most of those around her. But after secession, and after a lot of real convenient trade routes were cut… suddenly this almost-nobody with an even more convenient tie to the difficult-to-infiltrate pandaren looks real enticing if you’re up at the top of the organized crime pecking order like Ylrith is. There’s a lot to be smuggled into and out of Pandaria, a lot of underworld connections to be made, all locked behind post-war isolationism and a language all but impermeable to even magical translation, if Lady Luck would just give her an in. And oh, would you look at that…

Not really sure what that will lead to yet, but it’ll certainly have some kind of effect on the overall relationship between Kal’thalas and Pandaria. And this is also me saying to my older followers who thought I did: no, I have not forgotten about Ylrith. She’s just gonna stay in the background for a while until the time is right, like she always does :3c

[dragonnarrative-writes]

hi dragon!! hope you’re having a good tuesday ☺️ wanted to stop by to talk shop for a little

I absolutely adore Autumn Embers, genuinely one of the au’s that feels the most “real” to me. I’m really curious to learn more about how you fleshed out the world politics for this AU?

It’s one of my absolute favorite parts of the AU truly from the relevance of the 4B movement, to tampered beta suppressants, and even the courting cakes?? Adore it so much!!

-Kiko

Hi Kiko!

I'm going to offer a content warning for general discussion of reproductive health, complications, and freedoms below the cut.

The omegaverse is really interesting as a concept, but I really wanted to answer the question: What about Omegas that can't have children? And then that spawned the question, what kind of genetic conditions would make an omega not be able to have kids? There are so many real world reasons why pregnancy and childbirth are complicated and dangerous, what would estrus/heat and rut contribute to that? And, unfortunately, how would capitalism impact those complications?

It's kind of tricky to come up with the exact reasons why I asked those questions. I'm a Black US American, so the US Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade and subsequent war on reproductive freedom is part of it. The climate crisis and capitalist contributions to environmental destruction, and the health impacts thereof, are also a part of it. Honestly, my own queer identity and the experiences of intersex loved ones also contributed.

Whatever the case, the answer I came up with was: Omicron conditions. A classification of congenital developmental issues impacting but not limited to issues of presentation and reproduction.

All of Autumn Embers is based on this concept! We haven't explored it in depth yet in the fic, but Wildfire has an omicron condition. It's why her scent is so fucked up unique.

From there, I just wanted to make a world that feels complete. Of course someone surrounded by a world of "Heat and Rut!" and "Scents! Mean! Everything!" would be sensitive to their own reproductive experiences. And omegaverse fiction is (almost) never far enough from our reality, in my opinion, so of course there's going to be some conflict about reproductive health and rights, impacted by the Ever Present Evil (capitalism). And of course it's going to be global, this whole fandom surrounds an international task force.

This is way longer than I intended, so I'll just admit that I came up with the sex cake because omegaverse is inherently horny and I also want to do weird horny stuff in the middle of my examination of gender, sexuality and reproduction.

I want to give a shout out to Scents and Sensibility: The Working Assassin's Guide to Supersoldier Seduction, a Captain America fanfic that rewired my brain when it comes to omegaverse fiction. And another shoutout to I Shall Not Live In Vain, a series from The Witcher fandom that actually got me thinking about scent compatibility.

Thanks for the ask @mikichko!

[goffilolo]

Adramelech theory time

Does anyone want to know a theory I have? no? Well, that's too bad you're getting it anyway.

Based on demonology Adramelech tried to gain worship as a sun god, alongside his sibling Anamelech who was considered a moon diety.

Does that sound familiar? Does that sound perhaps like Spade's royal family magic? Am I implying that all royals are shit regardless of the country and have a hobby of boosting their own power by stealing it from others? I sure am.

So here's the situation. Grinberyalls pulled the exact same shit as Silvamillions, except with devil magic. It's implied that the spade people know more about devils than they initially let on, Ciel included, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did some fuck ass ritual to steal Adramelech and his brother's attributes specifically.

But wait, you may say. Haven't we seen in canon that Adramelech can resist Lucifero's gravity and still has supreme devil levels of magic? He sure does and here's the catch. What he initially lost is an ATTRIBUTE, not mana itself. Kinda like Ladros who was born with no attribute at all.

Also the timing of WHEN the Grinberyalls became the ruling family with their magic is a little unclear. I'm even willing to go out on a limb and imply that it was around the time of when the first Qlipoth happened. Either they caught Adramelech and his brother during the 2nd gate opening and obtained his magic then OR the first Qlipoth was the responce to having their supreme devil's magic stolen by humans sometime before.

(Also not fully related to this theory, but I imagined that the first Qlipoth failed because it was sabotaged from the inside by Astaroth, who did not wish for human's extermination).

How does any of that relate to Adramelech working with Lucius? Well what if Lucius promised him to get rid of all of Grinberyalls in his grand plan, knowing that Adramelech and Anamelech would not get their full attributes back until the last Grinberyall is dead and thus the attributes can no longer be passed on to any further relatives?

My other idea was that Astaroth is tied into it more closely than initially shown. Maybe even having initally contracted Lucius, allowing him to use the power of prophecy as much as he pleases, on the condition that he can arrange the sun and moon magic to be returned to their original owners. If that is the case, then the spade coup may have been orchestrated by him before his disappearance, as killing all royal family members would release the attributes.

This brings me to my final point, the one that I think will result in Yuno stans hunting me down for sport, but here we go. Yuno is like the british empire, the culmination of stolen shit.

Wind magic? doesn't belong to him, it belongs to a soul of dead half-elf fetus that sits in his body and I'm pretty sure Bell was asleep for so long because she was supposed to be guardian spirit to that fetus when it grew up, but instead was in time out for 500 yeas until a twink shows up who just so happened to have the fetus soul living in him rent-free.

Star magic? Literally a result of stealing 2 devil attributes, followed by centuries of royal incest to ensure the celestial magic stays in the family. Sorry to burst your bubble, all royals are inbred, yes even your favourites. If Tabata wants to play loose canon with borrowing vague references from medieval Europe, so will I.

And you know what? From storytelling perspective it would be hysteric! The dude beloved by mana? The skinny legend that is stacking up magical buffs like a jenga tower? To reveal that all of his 'blessings' were not in fact blessings but came at the expense of somebody else? ALL OF THEM? This would be delicious. This would finally give us the relevant narrative parallel to Asta who has acknowledged long time ago that the power he wields is not his and did not even hesitate to try and give his grimoire away to the original owner.