#there is more lore behind them but i am working on forming it into an actual Story

[justfranzz]

Behold.... ocs....

Axom - 19-ish years old, energetic but not the most confident

Flint - 18-ish yo, confident and a bit sassy, very sporty

[sun-snatcher]

Wish. If u give me a Part 2 of your Gambit fic with ❛ we'll just have to make do.  ❜ where they both make it out of the Void together I will kiss u on the mouth rn I PROMISE u. Or a hug. Whichever works. PLS I JUST NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM🙏🏼😫

♧ ⎯ ‘LIMBO LOSERS’ CLUB

summ. The TVA extends an olive branch. Wade’s Universe becomes home. Above all, you’re just thankful you’re not alone in this Multiversal mess. pairing. Void!Gambit x f!Anomaly!reader (established in #WELUCKYFEW) w.count. 1.6k a/n. Shirtless Channing + romantic hand tension. That's it. That's the tweet. ( Continuation of this imagine! )

YOU SURVIVE ALIOTH.

That’s the first surprise.

The second? 

The Time Variance Authority want to help, now. 

( Granted, it’d mostly been Wade who did the gruntwork of sending Elektra and Blade back to their Universes, but he had hit a wall when it came to you and Gambit considering you two were— according to him: “A coked up version of being homeless. Universe-less.” )

So here you are, a stray of the Multiverse, standing on the platform of a mid-century aestheticised monitor room somewhere outside the constraints of time, trying not to double over from the vertiginous aftermath of being thrown through Wade’s weird orange warbling door of space. 

TemPad, he’d called the device. Or… something. You’re half-sure you have a concussion, to be honest.

Alioth had done a number on you. 

Remy’s concerned.

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Wade says, mask rolled up to his nose. (There’s a spoon and plate of key lime pie in his hands. You’re not even sure where he got it from.) “Where did Gambit come from? How come he just spawned into the MCU’s metaphysical Backrooms?”

“Candidly, he is a unique case.” 

Remy pulls his gaze from you to Hunter B-15.

“You, Mr. LeBeau, are the prime example of a Variant that’s borne from a timeline decaying just as quickly as it was formed. A rare type that fades instantly without unnatural interference, because an Anchor failed to develop.”

One of the CRT screens zip to a retro rubber-hose animated diagram: rapidly branching roots, ominous red flashing, and then an immediate blink into nothing. Talk about dramatic effect.

“Your Universe falls in the rare category of those that never managed to come into fruition; but sometimes— incredibly rarely— remnants just like you manage to slip through, and instead of ceasing to exist… Well, you automatically end up getting spit into the Void.”

A pause.

Then, from behind, Wade bursts into a cackle.

“Ha! Wow, she basically called you a discontinued fucking nobody,” he wheezes. “You’re quite literally the equivalent of a failed movie pitch that’s been forgotten on the floor of Feige’s writers’ room.”

Screens flicker. 

Your breath hitches. 

Versions of different Gambit’s play out in the monitor-wall, all alike and yet different in their individual realities. Some have black eyes. Some have top-hats (“Ah, that’s 2009 Origins,” Wade muses. “Do all Variants of you just have a beautiful face? I mean, it’s kinda unfair—”). 

Some look like identical copies.

[EARTH-TRN2922].

It’s… your timeline. 

Your friends in the Mutant war. Your Remy whose cards are scattered on the floor, blood in his hands, with you crumbling as you reach ou—

The Nine of Hearts in your pocket is impossibly heavy. You turn away to steel yourself. 

( “Yeah, okay, enough lore recap. Jesus, you guys are more of a dick than I am; Read the room and turn that shit off,” Wade chides a passing agent. He gets it. He’d lost Vanessa once, too, and he’s not quite sure even he can relive that pain. )

“Mais non, y’not makin’ no sense t’me,” Remy says, confused, “I’ve got memories; means I’ve got history jus’ like my Variants. How y’gon’ explain that?”

“Gaps of memories you have— knowledge of places, people, events— that comes from fixed synchronicities shared in your Temporal Aura across all your Multiversal Variants.” 

She’s met with slow, owlish blinks. Wade waves his hand in lazy dismissal.

“Forgive them. They didn’t watch Loki Season One or Two. Not that it matters, anyway. People barely understood what was going on.”

A sigh. “There’s no way to put this gently, Mr LeBeau,” B-15 concludes, tone dipping into something sympathetic. “But what I’m trying to say is that: you don’t have a Universe to go back to, because it never existed.”

She purses her lips as she catches his torn gaze. “I’m sorry.”

And that— That pisses you off.

“I’m… sorry?” you parrot, stepping forward. “That’s all you can say after everything that’s happened to us? His existence began with the Void, and my Universe was pruned by your agents. Innocent lives gone because your people decided they wanted to play God once upon a damn time—!” 

“Pump the hate breaks, you stray,” Wade calls. "Why'd you think I brought the both of you here?"

You reluctantly withdraw.

“I can’t bring you home,” B-15 supplies, matter-of-fact. “But I can find a compatible timeline for you. For both of you. A safe do-over, if you will.”

Wade’s smile is coy.

The ‘Merc with a mouth’ has a home surprisingly… cozy.

Albeit a little tumbledown and messy with its wallpaper-torn brick walls and creaking hardwood floors— but, it’s charming. Lived in. He has a life here in this rickety two-bedroom apartment; framed photographs of friends and snatches of livelihood sit across dressers and are pasted against his magnet-crowded refrigerator.

Reminds you abit of your home, too.

“Listen,” chirps Wade’s voice, somewhere down the short hall to his room. “My advice? Save yourself the identity crisis and brain aneurysm. All this multiversal horse-crap was created just so that Marvel can write themselves out of any corner. Just sit there and be sexy for the readers, okay, Magic Mike?”

You’re halfway towards them when the doorbell rings. 

“Ooh! That must be the pizza I ordered. Or Blind Al. Or Logan.” Wade pops out to sidle past you with a wink and a whispered: “Who knows, really? This is just the part of the story where I conveniently disappear so you and Cajun Tatum here can share a moment.”

You don’t quite understand— but you’ve learned to not bother attempting when it comes to him.

Your knock is soft against the doorframe. 

“Hey.”

Beside a lone corner of the bed, Remy turns to look over his shoulder. 

He’s fresh out the shower— faded towel tied around his waist, brown hair still damp and dripping water down his bare chest. His old clothes have been draped over a desk chair. 

You try not to stare, but—

But. 

He’s handsome. Devilishly so, with the bruises sweeping across the flex of all his stupidly lean, corded muscles.

You always had a thing for roguish-looking men.

“Hi,” he says, knowingly. ( It’s a dulcet croon, if anything. Cheeky bastard. ) “Y’okay? Got y’self cleaned up.”

Remy watches you gather yourself with a quick clear of your throat, pull at the sleeves of the scratchy hoodie you’re now wearing that’s practically swallowing you whole. 

You look rested. At ease. 

…Pretty.

“Yeah. Showered. We don’t smell like ass anymore, that’s for sure,” you say, making a face.

And then you’re nodding over to the black-and-blue contusions blooming over his skin. “You know, I’m sure there’s something frozen in the icebox for that.”

“Icebox?” 

You smile. “Yeah, that’s what you guys call it in Louisiana, right?”

“That we do, chèr,” he laughs. But it’s ducked down, quiet. Thin. “ ‘Least, I think so.”

You follow his downcast eyes to a small stack of folders— TVA files he easily thieved (unsurprisingly) from under their noses the moment he stepped foot into the room. 

He’d skimmed the manila dossiers: Absolute Points. Anchor Beings. Variant Anomalies. Some names he’d recognised and some he didn’t, most stamped or blacklisted. 

Pietro Maximoff. Edward Brock. Loki Laufeyson. 

Remy LeBeau.

Some part of you crumples. It’s one thing to not be able to return to a Universe, and another to not have even had one. 

“S’funny,” he chuckles dryly, picking his casefile up with a distant look, “My memories… I thought I’d done gon’ left a whole life behind me the entire time I been stuck in the Void— Friends. Family. An’ turns out the Void’s all I had.”

“Feels like…” he shrugs. Tries to piece his unmoored thoughts into something more cohesive. He’s never felt so horrifically adrift his entire life— whatever ‘entire life’ could mean for him now, anyway— not even when he'd been marooned in the barren wastelands of the Void.

 “Feels like I ain’t real. Hell, I don’t know what is real, anymore, chèr. I don’t— I just don’t know. I don't know anythin'."

You shake your head in disagreement nigh instantly. 

“No, no.” Pushing off the doorway, you cross the threshold with gentle admonishment lanced over your features. “You’re here. You are real.” 

The room is small. The distance you share is… close. Just enough that you catch the scent of peppermint toothpaste and coconut shampoo; Just enough that you can slide the documents out of his hands.

His fingers brush against yours. 

He wonders if you’d felt the kinetic trill of energy run through him at the contact.

“Can I be honest, Remy?”

You look up at him. 

“Mais oui, chèr. Y’can always be honest wit’ Gambit.”

You wave your hand at the TVA files. “I’m scared as shit being in a new Universe,” you blurt, truthfully. “This second chance means… a new life. New path. New everything. I don’t know what that’s like either and frankly, I am not prepared for this at all.”

You pause for a breath. “But for what it’s worth? I’m glad that you’re here. That’s… That’s about the only thing that I know.”

Then, as if dwarfed by the sheer vulnerability in your words, you take an awkward step back as you shrug. “And if you don’t feel the same, well. You and I, we’ll just have to make do, regardless.”

The sudden retreat is painfully endearing. Has him letting out a bright laugh that warms something nestled deep in your ribs.

“I’m glad I got you too, chèr,” he grins. 

“Yeah?” You flash a smile, having found your way back to the door.

Remy’s eyes fall to your face— tarrying. He follows the flutter of your lashes, the slope of your cheek, the curl of your lips. 

“…Yeah.”

Your idling, fond gaze sears him like a low-grade fever. 

The thrum buzzes in hands, again.

Your Gambit really was blind, he thinks, just as you slip away and disappear around the corner.

His palm flexes open, and shut.

[spotsupstuff]

(hii Spot been awhile) Something I think that's interesting about the observation about how Slugcats are getting so much attention nowadays is that its almost a 180 from how things were in the pre-downpour days, iirc.

Though I am glad we're getting an AU like yours it's so interesting compared to the usual

Im eating with a fork

Yeah, the fandom was not particularly strong back then, but I think there was more Iterator content. My suspicion as to why slugcats are so much more popular now is because the general "cat appeal"*. Downpour brought in wider audience which mostly consists of people that go wild over cat videos on the internet.

Not my intention to throw shade on it, because after all what does my opinion matter to anyone, but I find the whole "cuteness cult" of the internet annoying and, when applied to Rain World, frustrating. There's a whole silent worldbuilding in basically every screen of the game and the only thing that people seem to take away post-DP is "cute sluggy go wooo :3 the Ancients were such cultist pricks Dx". Which like alright, but expand a little on the latter please? Try? There is So much fun to it when one moves past the "religion only BAD" mindset.

DP also I think didn't care much about the Ancients and the culture they left behind (and therefore the root of Iterators). "But there's Saint!" Saint is almost everything new that wasn't heard of before, can be taken as another fact of monstroid mad religion and, of course, it Has to be wrapped in a fluffy cat package. The undergrowth Echo also feels like a spit in the face to the lore/religion than an addition, to me. My *guess* would be the original intention was showing an individual who failed to ascend because of the Fifth Hindrance but it doesn't *feel* like it. If that was the intention, I think the author didn't understand why a desire to live/survive could ever, in any form, be bad

It's interesting as well in the sense that when there was only Survivor, maybe up to Hunter- the slugcats felt like a vehicle that brings the player to the story. The player saw the world through their eyes and got to experience the world's rules, abiding them- the original campaigns were still subject to the lore/religion of the world.

DP made the slugcats characters, the main focus, in some cases a rebelion against the lore/religion (forever beef against new route for Survivor and Monk). So people had an easier time latching onto them.

That is my theory at least. Fact is also when I first watched RW I almost didn't get into it as a creator because I felt like I had nowhere to hook to and work with. Characters are great anchor points for people to latch on to and then work with/through, so it's not like I blame the fandom for quite literally getting slug infested. It's natural and logical and I'm well aware of it as someone who's trying to be a writer. Still frustrating.

Either way, at least there's a vacuum for me to fill with something I'm actively actually passionate about. It's kind of a sweet bonus that people are somewhat interested, too.

[felassan]

Just poring over some of the new images. ◕‿◕ DA:TV spoilers under cut.

in what seems to be an in-gameplay version of the more cinematic[?] group-fight scene we saw at the end of the character trailer, Rogue Rook stands ready to fight with Harding and Taash (toll...). Red lyrium mutated darkspawn that remind me of these guys from concept art, with red lyrium claws (! dangerous. and new I think?), run towards them. the structures around them are Blighted, covered by Tainted pustules and horrible growths. red lighting enhances the impression/threat of red lyrium spread and in general. also, I am really curious what these blue lamp things are? something to do with blue lyrium, or objects we can break to refresh our potion supply in the boss battle with this dragon and its darkspawn adds that is clearly about to go down, perhaps? the backdrop looks like a starry sky, and in the middle it reminds me of an eclipse 👀 (which is a prominent motif in DA:TV promo material and some previous lore. e.g. one, two, three), like the moon is blocking out the sun.

the scene compositionally reminds me of this key art, though it seems to be a different dragon, as this one's horns curl down and that one's horns curl up.

behind the dragon are the Evanuris head statues. maybe this fight occurs near the end of the game, and the team return to where it all began (Solas' ritual site in Arlathan Forest) to take down the final boss? maybe in that time red lyrium/Taint corruption overtook the area. or maybe this is taking place in the Gold/Black City in the Fade [it could be both, the Fade reflects the waking world sometimes]. as it also reminds me compositionally of the vinyl covers, Gold and Black. the dragon, the outspread wings, a figure/s in the foreground, the sun/moon/eclipse imagery in the background, corruption, the city surrounds. though this dragon's horns match neither of the dragons below hh.

the spire-like structures with their points remind me of the spire-like structures of the City here on the vinyl art - namely, the timepoint on the right, when everything is corrupted and Blighted, like it is in the image above with Rook.

I wanna say that maybe the dragon in the image above with Rook is Elgar'nan in dragon form. The Evanuris Were [all] Dragons[haped sometimes], "Elgar'nan, Wrath and Thunder, strike the usurpers with your lightning, burn the ground under your gaze, bring Winged Death against those who throw down our work", "Light radiates from the eidolon’s narrowed eyes and its open, snarling mouth", "Elgar'nan, Sun's death, burn the ground under your gaze, grant the fire blessing, your people call out, for all things to end in flame." he's back now, and Ghilan'nain is also back but she wouldn't need to take dragon form maybe, she's already in a kinda monstrous form in the gameplay reveal video and for variety her boss battle could have her in the massive centipede-monster form instead, two.

[historicallyaccuratecheese]

I know this isn’t very in line with the usual “haha magnus archives worm lady” posts I usually make, but this is very important to me and I want to spread as much awareness as possible.

One of my favorite games of all time is Dead Cells, a fantastic indie roguelike developed by Evil Empire. Recently, it was announced that it’s upcoming 35th update would be the last one for the game. Now, let me start off by saying that on its own, this isn’t what I’m upset about. The fact that Dead Cells has gotten as much support as it has over the years is quite frankly incredible, and 35 updates, most of which have been free and very high quality, is an amazing amount of support. Rather, I am more concerned about the circumstances behind this announcement.

The announcement was…off, for a number of reasons. For one, Update 35 has been in Alpha and Beta on Steam for a while now, and it’s not exactly an update you’d expect the entire game to end on. Still quality, but not exactly a “grand finale.” Also strange was how long it’s been in alpha and beta, as it seems to have been in development hell for over six months. And finally, it’s clear that there was so much more planned for the game. For example, 2023 was said to be the biggest year for the game, and yet we only got two updates. Granted, one of those updates was very big, but not nearly big enough to really live up to the title of “biggest year so far.” By all accounts, it definitely seemed like there was some sort of internal issue that cut the planned lifespan of the game short. If so, that would be very unfortunate, but I would have been willing to accept there was probably nothing that could be done. However, recently some information about what actually happened has shown up, and….yeah I’m pissed.

For those who didn’t know, Dead Cells was originally made by a team named Motion Twin, but after the fourth update, most of the people working on the game left to form their own team, Evil Empire. Evil Empire has developed every update for the game since that split, and yet, they are rarely credited as the makers. Motion Twin is the company that promotes all of the new updates, as if they made them, and unfortunately very few people know which company actually makes the game. Recently, Motion Twin announced a new game called Windblown (proclaiming it was made by the same team as Dead Cells, when it certainly wasn’t), and based on recent interviews with Evil Empire, we learn that Motion Twin pulled the plug on Dead Cells against Evil Empire’s wishes. Evil Empire loved making the game, and planned to continue updating into 2025, expanding the gameplay and lore, yet Motion Twin decided to pull the plug, either to promote Windblown (which if so…why? You can have two games?), or simply out of spite towards Evil Empire, which seems unfortunately possible due to the fact that the devs do not seem to have the best relationship. And to add insult to insult to injury, Motion Twin straight up lied by saying that Dead Cells stopped development because they “don’t want the game to feel bloated”. ….THEY DON’T EVEN MAKE THE GAME WHAT THE HELL?!

So yeah…this is a really terrible situation. Dead Cells is a game that means a lot to me, it’s helped me through some very tough times and there are many other people who hold the game dear to their heart. So please, anything from a simple reblog to making your own posts about the matter goes a long way. Spread awareness about what’s going on. Tell people about how Evil Empire has put so much hard work, love and dedication into the game, and wishes to continue. Tell people about the lies that Motion Twin have been telling. Pressure the two teams into splitting away from each other entirely, so that Dead Cells might get a chance at continuing development. (Be respectful about it though, don’t commit any forms of serious harassment.) It would seriously mean a lot to me and many others, and I would greatly appreciate it :).

[cossmoluck]

FINALLY finished this

turns out soon means one week+ in my little lizard brain, that's cool

anyways!!! meg

megalo don content,,, food

also, as a treat for making myself take so much to finish this, some of my AU lore rambling thing under the cut (warning, pretty long)

in my design, most of his exterior Nitro armor is removable, being an extension of the augument inside his body, which pumps Nitro both through his lungs and bloodstream, crossing from front to back through his torso. His tubes would be attached to certain openings around his body, which could also have 'lids' put on for safe closing. Every area where the Nitro pumps directly into his body would have 'Nitro burn'- a less proeminent glow than the one in his fueled up form. I, as many others also do, like to think that his mask actually comes off (I haven't drawn him unmaksed yet, but I'll get to that too eventually). One headcanon I have is that when you take his medallion in game, what you take is actually his mask and use it.

For his body I went for a slightly leaner strongman build, as he doesn't seem way too bulky in his non-fueled form, but he's still considerably bigger than most others. I tried to give him a 'scarred shark' look, and gave him burn scars on one arm from a misfiring Nitro Fist hit accident

also his hair look so so fluffy in game and for WHAT

(note, this is all to be taken as an AU. i am by no means well versed enough in Fortnite lore to make something close to canon or actual on point headcanons lol,,, tl;dr at the bottom!!)

i feel like the whole theory with Meg and big chuggus being somehow related is true, but not necessarily in the way others present it usually i don't think they're snapshots of each other in any way, i just think that they've been basically created 'for the same purpose', maybe in the different 'realities?' I'm not 100% sure how the zero point reset worked considering Midas was technically the same and all

so let's say Chaos had created the Slurp legends and Slurp creatures back during the GHOST/SHADOW conflict i like to think that Meg might have been created sometime during then too- a more refined variant of the technology used on big chuggus, enough for him not to end up as brain dead as big chuggus himself (sorry big chuggus)

Megalo Don could have been a fleet leader for the naval forces, as he has an overall very reoccurring military theme with his insignia and stuff. Maybe he was hired by Chaos to aid him and willingly allowing Chaos to modify him into the 'perfect leader', boosted by slurp into near perfection I believe his Oasis style would be what his 'original' look was, with Slurp coursing through his pumps instead of Nitro

so how did he turn into the Meg we know? during the GHOST/SHADOW conflict, his crew got destroyed, probably, and they somehow ended up punished to the Pandora's Box, but not dead like Midas, just punished there I like to think that there is not only one Pandora's Box, technically, and that they're basically some sort of even higher security 'prison' for things deemed disasters under certain circumstances, putting mortal beings into their own personal hell. The ones imprisoned in the Pandora's Box arent necessarily 'dead', like shade Midas in the Underworld, but they're not alive in the full sense either. This particular Nitro filled Pandora's Box sprouted there, leaving behind veins of pure Nitro in the depths of the earth through which the Box had erupted.

in the Pandora's Box, stuck in an infinite purgatory loop of fighting and dying, the slurp that fueled his crew quite literally rotted into Nitro, and Megalo Don himself basically 'rusted' from the rot. The Nitro, essence of death, in a way, compared to Slurp, slowly and surely altered Meg's brain, turning him from a calculated leader into a terrifying tyrant, with nihilistic views regarding his crew and conquest, as he saw them all die over and over again… Another case of 'rotten' slurp beings being Sludge, maybe, as he could perhaps be read as a Slurp creature gone 'bad' (slurp to nitro)

Meg's mind got clouded with the only thing he could comprehend anymore- Nitro coursing through his veins, through his ship, through anything in the living hell he experienced in the Pandora's Box. (Ultrakill flesh prison sounding aah) Obtained by conquest or murder, with destruction being the only method he could even comprehend using to get it, his very life seeming to depend on Nitro at that point, and being released into the world again brought him bo purpose than to seize back all of his Nitro and keep fighting more and more

after he and his crew escaped from the Pandora's Box, Meg had intercepted a boat droning the Island from SHADOW, which had went to scout out Helios after Midas' escape from The Underworld, unaware of the Pandora's Box opening right then, and getting caught in the sandstorm. Meg had just the luck to capture Chaos (or a snapshot), the very man who had taken away his humanity and turned him into a (now) Nitro-fueled beast. From them he also took the island plans, which helped his crew settle in as fast as they did, the Redline Rig digging for Nitro the very moment they got there and the Nitrodrome building itself over the abandoned Fencing Fields, repurposing the fizz machinery there into the dome's car destruction traps

i also like to think that Meg has a father/daughters bond with Scarr and the Machinist, with the Machinist maybe being one of the original scientists on Chaos' team, whom had helped him stabilize his new equipment at the time, and Scarr being a dedicated member of his fleet since before getting banished into the Pandora's Box. Initially, both Scarr and the Machinist would have admired him for his courageous leadership and respected him as a leader, but through their decline in the Pandora's Box, their found family bond only strengthened, with the two of them being probably his only subordinates he actually cares about

i also like to imagine that he had made most of the transmissions particularly silly in hopes of having them tune in on either patrol or at the Nitrodrome and make them laugh with the over the top commentary

tl;dr: i headcanon megalo don as an ex-slurp legend made by Chaos who had rotted to nitro in the Pandora's Box. His Oasis style is what he looked like pre-Box. Also the Mechanist and Ringmaster Scarr are his found family daughters

[starsopinions]

The Minecraft movie........

I've been playing Minecraft for as long as I can remember. My brother and I would spend hours on Hypixel, our survival world, and building escape rooms for each other (the exit would no doubt be behind a painting). As a movie fanatic, a film about Minecraft sounds like such a fun concept with great potential yet from the look from the teaser trailer it seems like all that potential will remain unused.

Link to the trailer if you haven't seen it yet!

Plenty of people have already commented on how it looks, which let’s be frank, is terrible. This post, however, is not about the look but the story so here is a summary: The set design is quite nice except it does not look like any Minecraft biome. The people look extremely out of place, especially Steve who is supposed to be part of this world. Last but not least, there are moving, working windmills. Anyone who has played Minecraft will probably feel the same way about this, which is not happy. This is the main problem, the makers have maybe watched 1 Let’s Play. They don’t know the Minecraft experience. They haven’t played hardcore survival and felt the pain when you die because your elytra breaks, they have never gone mining at 2 am on a rainy night or have built a beautiful base they a proud of.

Which brings us to the soulless plot. For anyone unfamiliar, this is what Warner Bros. describes it as: “Four misfits—Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, Henry, Natalie and Dawn—find themselves struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they’ll have to master this world (and protect it from evil things like Piglins and Zombies, too) while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter, Steve. Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative…the very skills they need to thrive back in the real world.”

That made me throw up in my mouth a little. Minecraft is such a fun and unique game and this is what they come up with? Minecraft is a game about being creative and there are literally endless possibilities. This plot has nothing to do with the actual game and could be applied to any video game. Speaking of other games, it hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that this is the exact plot of the movie Jumanji.

I’m secretly hoping they pull a Sonic and fix the movie at the last minute but I don’t think that is realistic. I don’t think all is lost though, Emma Myers (who plays Natalie) is, in my opinion, a great addition to the cast and is funny and talented. The rest of the cast isn’t much to write home about, unfortunately. As stated before, I do think the set has a cool look to it, it is just a shame that it doesn’t look like Minecraft.

Here is what I would do if I were in charge:

Firstly the whole cast is going. I would make it an animated film, Minecraft isn’t a realistic game and it doesn’t come across well in live-action. Steve and Alex would be the main characters.

The movie would have an entirely different plot and would either focus on Steve and Alex trying to defeat the Enderdragon for the first time, etc. (I think this is a bit basic but sometimes less is more)

Or it could be about the lore of the Enderdragon, Endermen, Ghasts, etc. and what happened to them and how they ended up where they are. There are so many theories about this online and it’s a side of that Minecraft hasn't been explored yet.

Another option could be about the villagers and pillagers. It would be cool to see more of their history and maybe Steve meddling to make peace or something in that direction. Think about how cool raids could be in movie form.

(see how I just thought of 3 way more original and fun plots off the top of my head when the writers couldn’t think of a singular one in months)-

A MUST for me is the classic Minecraft music. It should be in the trailer, in the movie, it should be everywhere. It is so nostalgic and everyone who has ever played Minecraft knows how iconic it is. (not saying it is not in the movie right now, I obviously haven’t seen it yet but wanted to include this point)

I think it could be cool if, for example, Steve would find a new biome or a new item and then we would get it in the game in an update. It would show a real connection between the movie and the game which is missing right now. (again not saying they won’t do this but I’m not getting my hopes up)

Besides all this, it would be amazing to see jokes and references to the actual game. Think forgetting to set your spawnpoint, inventory being full, etc.

And lastly, I NEED to see Minecraft YouTuber's references. I think they might do this, I’ve seen multiple YouTubers talk about the movie and I know Mumbo visited the set, so there is a possibility. Minecraft has one of the biggest YouTube communities, not referencing it would be a missed opportunity for sure.

I don’t think this movie will be especially bad, from the looks of it, it’s going to be a whole lot of meh. I do want to say that I have not seen the movie yet as it isn’t out yet, this means that a lot could still change (please please please). I will be in the cinema on April 4th with low expectations but high hopes, I have never wanted to be wrong more. Let me know what you think and thank you for reading all the way to the end <3

As always, this is MY opinion. Feel free to disagree but remember: It is a game about blocks, it's not that important (she says after ranting about it for like 2 hours lmao).

[fbfh]

curiosity is a wonderful thing - ch. 6

wc: 2.8k

genre: slowburn, best friends to lovers, painful tooth rotting fluff

pairing: Audrey x Ben, eventual Ben x daughter of alice!reader

warnings: ben's deeply repressed feelings looming ominously in the distance, audrey being an absolute bitch but what's new, op fixing the lore with nail glue and packing tape, Evie is a fucking icon as always

summary: After a long day fighting your way through a mountain of paperwork, you find yourself unable to sleep. Sneaking into ben's room always does the trick. Mal can't find a love spell in her spell book, but she finds something that should work almost as well.

song recs: spring fever - sub urban

a/n: the one thing that pisses me off is that there is no canonical use of love spells in the disney universe outside of descendants. they literally don't exist. genie says no making someone fall in love with someone else. you'd think they would know their own lore /lh

anyway fangz to cici as always (i am so sorry about buggy) and also as always, an optional fit for your viewing pleasure

tags @yesv01 @magcon7280 @hopefullhearts @thatawkwardlittlefangirl  @sunshineangel-reads @strawberry-cake1 @dustyinkpages @kiara7777

You spend the next several hours by Ben’s side as you bounce between various meetings, and of course, your etiquette lessons that you’ve been attending since you were no older than a twizzleroot blossom.  They're not really etiquette lessons, not anymore. They were when you were young, you would attend a few times a week with all the other kids your age. You’d learn how to drink tea, how to write thank you notes, and all the other things you need to know to feel comfortable in royal high society settings. By the end of middle school, most of your peers were no longer in attendance. 

You and Ben, however, used the opportunity to learn about more and more of the nuanced aspects of politics, social graces, and media training. Your parents were both glad for this, and since you seemed on track to be real politicians and not just socialites, it was a perfect fit. However, saying that you have to go to your class for advanced political studies, world history, social graces, and media training is a little too clunky for your taste. You and Ben never grew out of calling them etiquette lessons, so the name stuck to this day.

On this day in particular, you now find yourself sitting next to Ben at a large table in one of the many makeshift conference rooms on campus. You’ve been in and out of meetings and lessons and debriefings about the Isle kids’ arrival, and now you’ve finally made it nearly to the end of your to do list. Ben insisted you didn’t need to stay late with him to do all this paperwork, but you insisted equally as much that you wouldn’t dream of leaving him to do it all himself. Now as Ben skims the monotonous text, signing on lines and initialing boxes, you dig through a seemingly endless database of forms, trying to find the right one. 

You bounce increasingly obscure form titles back and forth for a few minutes. After coming up with nothing, Ben lets out an amiable laugh. He should have expected something that seems straightforward would take at least ten times as long as it should. That’s government for you, that’s what his dad would say. A knock at the door draws both your attention, and Jane pokes her head in awkwardly. She tucks a section of her dark blunt bob behind her ear, then speaks nervously. 

“Uh, hi. My mom sent me,” she says in a quiet, hesitant voice. “She said she’s going to be about half an hour late. There was a problem with some ducks in the forest, or something?” 

Ben smiles at her politely.

“Thanks, Jane.” Ben says politely. Jane nods and leaves quickly, fussing with her short hair. You let out a puff of air from between your lips.

“Even more delays…” you murmur, clicking onto page 23 out of 66 of forms to look through. “How fun.”

Ben chuckles, agreeing as he stands up to stretch his legs. He walks around for a moment, and turns on an extra lamp. It’s starting to get dark out, and the last thing either of you need right now is eye strain. Wait, it’s already getting dark out? He stops in his tracks.

“Shit.” He mutters, reaching for his phone on the table. He completely forgot about dinner with Audrey, but he has to find these forms and get them filled out tonight. You try not to look like you're listening too closely as the phone rings, but Audrey’s voice is quite hard to ignore. Before he can greet her, she’s already demanding to know where he is and why he’s late.

“No, no. I- I didn’t forget. I… well… uh, no. It’s-” Ben rambles around Audrey’s interjections. He gets up, pacing around a little, and walking across the room away from you. He doesn’t want you to have to hear this. 

“We’re just running behind. No- No! I would never intentionally… stand you up… I-” 

“Right!” Audrey snaps on the other end, forcing a smile. “Well then. Maybe we should just cancel!” 

“Wh- uh, okay. I- I’ll make it up to you. We can… uh, later this week? We’ll - before the next tourney meet? I…” 

Ben sighs and pulls his phone away, looking at the screen. Call ended. He walks back over to the table, sitting down to continue trudging through the task at hand. You wordlessly slide a teacup over toward him, the colorful porcelain filled with warm chai, perfectly sweetened. He cracks a smile, and accepts the cup. 

“Thanks, bunny.” He says quietly. You hum warmly in response. You settle back into your comfortable silence, trudging through forms and digging through documents. As you sit across from each other, the pile of completed paperwork steadily grows taller. Hours pass, and you don’t realize how late it is until you’re finally ready to call it quits for tonight. You stumble through your bedtime routine, grateful that you have your muscle memory to carry you through. As soon as your head hits your soft pillow… nothing happens. You toss and turn for a few minutes, trying to get comfortable, then let out an irritated sigh. You managed to get through such a long day and mountains of paperwork, and you still can’t sleep. 

In the opposite wing of the dorms, Ben has no trouble winding down. He’s cozy in his silky royal blue and daffodil yellow sheets, and he’s satisfied with a long day of hard, productive work. He lets out a soft breath, feeling himself teetering on the brink of sleep. Then he hears his door creak open. Soft, muffled footsteps creep across the wood floor, then grow silent as they meet the expansive carpet covering the majority of the floor. He doesn’t move, doesn’t open his eyes, but he can feel someone crouching next to his bed. 

“...Ben?”

He cracks a smile at the sound of your voice, how quiet and tiny you sound in the lateness of the night. You smile a little too when you see him fighting a little grin. After a moment, he answers. 

“Yes bunny?”

“Are you asleep?” You ask carefully. You wait in the darkness for him to answer. 

“Yes.” 

You smile at his sarcastic response, letting out a little breathy giggle through your nose. You kick off your bunny slippers - complete with little tophats - and crawl into bed next to Ben. He’s already scooching over and lifting up the blankets for you, pulling them over your shoulders the way he knows you like. 

He doesn’t need to ask if you couldn’t sleep, he already knows you couldn’t. You’ve been doing this, sneaking in for sleepovers when insomnia gets the best of you, for as long as he can remember. Something about his presence comforts you, relaxes you through even the longest, most never ending nights. No matter how tired he is, he’s always happy to be there for you on nights like tonight, he’s always happy to keep you warm and talk you to sleep. 

And that’s just what he does. He lets you lead the conversation, rambling about whatever springs to mind, emptying out your brain so you can rest. He’d like to think he knows you pretty well by now. He knows just what to do to help you settle down, to give you the best chance of having a restful night. It’s no surprise to him that you mostly seem to be thinking about the Isle kids. 

“I mean, this is real. Our actions mean they get a chance at a better life.” You mutter drowsily. Your cheek is squished against his pillow and your words are heavy with fatigue. Ben can’t help but think it makes your Wonderland accent that much… cuter. 

“Yeah,” He agrees. He traces his hand along your back soothingly. He glances down and notices you’re wearing the white button down shirt you sometimes wear as a pajama top. He asked you about it once, and you said it made you think of him. He smiles a little as he settles back into his pillows.

“I just hope they’ll be able to assimilate well.” You say, a tone of worry now present in your words. “The only thing worse than doing nothing would be having their decisions made for them because of social pressure…” 

“We’ll keep a close eye out for that.” Ben says. His voice is husky and drowsy. It fills you with warmth, with an appreciation for him and the way he stays up with you even though you know how tired he must be. You nod a little, then find yourself rambling again. 

“I just wish there was a way to guarantee that they felt welcome and not… ostracized.” You mumble. You inch closer to him, snuggling into his warm chest and listening to his soothing heartbeat. It speeds up almost imperceptibly as you do.

“Make sure they know that we know them as people. As individuals, and not just…” You continue, cutting yourself off with a yawn. You stretch a little as you do, then curl back up. Ben looks down at you, smiling a little at how sweet you are, at how clingy you get when you’re sleepy. 

“As the children of their parents…” You finish. Ben hums in agreement. He notices how heavy your eyes are getting, how your speech is slowing, how the flow of your thoughts have gone from a fully blasting garden hose to a subtly dripping kitchen sink. You’re about to fall asleep, which means he can let himself sleep too. He couldn’t have gone to bed before now if he wanted to. If he knows you can’t sleep, he won’t be able to either. But feeling your soft breaths across his skin, feeling the way your chest rises and falls as his hand lays comfortingly on your side, knowing that you’re warm and safe here, with him… Ben feels more relaxed than he has in a long time. Probably since… the last time you couldn’t sleep. 

Sometimes when it’s just the two of you like this, all drowsy and late at night, in the moments before he falls asleep, Ben sometimes gets… weird thoughts. Weird, random, impulsive thoughts that are not at all like him. Totally out of left field stuff, like… wanting to kiss you. Like, really, really wanting to kiss you. Sometimes that turns into wanting to hold you, too. And not like this, not holding you platonically, like a best friend, but… holding you a different way. Maybe wanting to hold you tight in his arms, and lay you down in his big, silky bed, and… 

Ben squeezes his eyes shut tight for a moment before relaxing his face. He puts a manual stop to that train of thought, absolutely refusing to let it continue anymore. He won’t entertain it, he won’t let it heat up his cheeks anymore. He doesn’t like thinking things like that about anyone, and he certainly won’t let himself think anything like that about you. He sighs softly. These crazy thoughts will be gone by the morning. They always are. They have to be. 

Besides, it’s so late, he won’t even remember this by the time he wakes up. That’s what he always tells himself. The last thing he would never admit to anyone - not even to himself - surfaces right before he falls asleep. It must be the late hour, where everything vulnerable feels completely abstract and intangible, but he thinks it’s a lot easier to stop himself from thinking those things about Audrey than it is to stop thinking those things about you. 

While you and Ben drift off to sleep, safe and sound in each other’s arms, someone else is wide awake. Sitting in the dorm she shares with Evie, Mal sits on her bed, scouring her spell book exactly like she’s been doing since Ben left earlier that afternoon. After hours of hitting brick wall after brick wall, Mal is met with the back cover of the book. Again. She lets out a frustrated noise, and flips back to the beginning.

“There’s not a single love spell in this whole fucking book!” She exclaims. She looks over the first few pages, reading them more closely in hopes that she somehow missed something. Evie sits across the room in front of a lit up mirror, plucking meticulously at her eyebrows. 

“Are we…” She winces, then inspects her skin and eyebrows again. “Are we sure we need a love spell?” 

Mal rolls her eyes at the question. Yes, obviously they need a love spell. Evie is oblivious to her irritation, and continues thinking out loud around her careful use of the sharp tweezers in her hand. 

“I could… just work my charm on him. All it would take is one look into my…” Another wince. “Hypnotizing eyes, and he’d be wrapped around my finger.”

She leans back, taking a final look at her work, more satisfied with her appearance now. 

“I mean, he’s not really my type, but…” she shrugs, and looks at Mal, waiting for some kind of reaction from her. Mal doesn’t look up at Evie’s eyebrows, she just keeps digging through her book and ignoring the sound of Carlos and Jay playing videogames.

“No, we need a spell. This has to work. It has to be foolproof.” 

Evie grabs a jade roller and some hydrating gel. She still can’t believe how amazing the makeup and the skincare in Auradon is. She hasn’t seen one half wilted aloe plant, and this gel is infused with roses from Aurora’s moors, glacier water from Arendelle, and caviar fished from the Caribbean. She can’t wait to get her hands on a decent blush, and a lip liner that doesn’t double as eyeliner and an eyebrow pencil. 

Evie notices the scowl on Mal’s face as she hunches over the spell book. Normally she would scold Mal for making faces that will give her wrinkles, but now that she has her hands on retinol, hyaluronic acid, and hydrocolloid patches, she can fix any stress wrinkles Mal brings upon herself. After what feels like an eternity of searching the same pages over and over, something catches Mal’s eye, causing her to stop in her tracks. It’s more of her mothers rambling annotations and scrawled notes, this time on the topic of hypnosis. 

Hypnosis can be useful as long as you’re stealthy with it. Jafar got sloppy, he kept hypnotizing that stupid sultan over and over, not bothering to use hypnosis for it’s true purpose - a means to an end. If you’re an evil genius like I am, and you use hypnosis sparingly, no one will be the wiser. Don’t get me started on that oversized calamari - Ursula has to be the best example of what not to do when you’re hypnotizing a bonehead prince to make him think he’s in love with you. Something as easily breakable as a necklace? Please. Besides, everyone knows the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. 

Her mother’s scratchy handwriting goes on for a while, some anecdote about her and Mal’s father, something she’d rather not read. Ever. She thinks back to what Evie said about wrapping Ben around her finger, and in one desperately needed moment of clarity, everything falls into place. A plan begins to form in her mind. 

“This… this could work.” She says. Those three, quietly spoken words get the attention of everyone in the room. Evie sets down her gua sha stone, and Carlos pauses their videogame. They all walk over, hesitant and eager to hear what Mal figured out. Mal lets out a laugh of disbelief. It seems so simple now, she wonders why she didn’t think of it sooner. She can just hypnotize Ben into falling in love with her. She can trick him into thinking that he loves Mal more than he’s ever loved Audrey, then - boom! Front row seats to coronation, which means front row seats to stealing the wand out from under their noses. 

While Mal silently hashes out the details so she can tell her friends, Evie inspects her cuticles. She really should push them back. She stands up, grabbing a cuticle pusher and an orange wood stick from her pencil cup before making her way back over to Mal’s bed. As the three of them wait with bated breath, Mal looks over the hypnosis spell again and again. After a few moments, she tucks a piece of paper between the pages, marking her spell to reference later. She slams the book shut, and looks up at her friends.

“Come on guys. Let’s go bake some cookies.”

[ms-lirio]

"You hurted yourself. Again."

"I guess I should say: I am deeply sorry."

"Do not act so reckless, Alfred."

"—Promise. And you should take a rest, you look tired."

"I am fine. Do not worry about me."

I have MANY pending books to read, whether diaries, reports, story books, Brazilian Pracinhas and Nurses and much more.  But to save time, I decided to just read a few quick articles to prepare this post.

All pointed here is in a historical view.

Brazil was officially the only South American country to send troops to the conflict under its flag.

Historically, Brazil's actions prevailed in Italy.  It was where Brazil sent its troops, and its participation in the war was delayed as Brazil wanted to maintain its relations with both sides and remain neutral throughout the conflict.  After German and Italian attacks suffered by Brazilian ships, Brazil gave up its neutrality, siding with the Allies.

American military bases were built in the Northeast region of Brazil and Brazilian troops received American training.

"In 1939, with the beginning of the Second World War, Brazil remained neutral, in continuation of President Getúlio Vargas' policy of not defining itself by any of the great powers, only trying to take advantage of the advantages offered by them. Such "pragmatism " was interrupted at the beginning of 1942, when the United States and the Brazilian government agreed to transfer air bases on the island of Fernando de Noronha and along the north-northeast Brazilian coast to receive American military bases (if negotiations had not result, with Vargas and the military insisting on maintaining neutrality, the US had plans to invade the Brazilian northeast, codenamed Plan Rubber).”  (WIKIPEDIA)

"Natal, the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, in northeastern Brazil, has a very important strategic global geographic position. This fact made the city host the two main American military bases during the Second World War: the Naval Base and Parnamirim Field – at the time it was the largest US Air Force base on foreign territory.”  (WIKIPEDIA)

// Getúlio Vargas flirted with the Fascist ideology even tho, he went to ALLIES' side. 💀

HCs: (don't take them too seriously)

⚠️ Remembering the following content: we are still talking about Hetalia, so my HCs and lore are not absolute truth, but my perception of my oc's participation during the conflict.  Even though it has a historical basis behind it.  And also, this is historical fiction (ofc, it's hetalia).  WWII is an extremely sensitive topic to many. I ask for caution, I will be careful with what I have to say.

— Alfred used his charm and charisma to make Mayara fight alongside him (Good Neighbor Policy). What worked and they formed an alliance based on a mutual exchange of interests.

— Mayara had developed a strange feeling that intensified for Alfred (something between admiration and wanting to be like him, a complex feeling, which perhaps was confused with platonic love and which sought certain privileges in that alliance), even if she was reluctant to give end her neutral stance towards the conflict (something similar to what happened in WWI).  She would later do this after torpedoing of vessels by German and Italian submarines, retaliation due to Brazil's accession to the Atlantic Charter;  thus, she broke ties with the AXIS and declared war on Italy and Germany.

— In my universe, Mayara also served as a nurse, and spent most of her time with Alfred, often tending to his wounds.  Sometimes just chitchatting together or learning about militarism and things like that. He trained her. He was the one who supported her.

— I changed my conception of another topic, which was May's direct participation on the battlefield.  I think that Mayara, in addition to serving as a nurse, also fought on the front line when necessary (due to the fact that she was the representative of Brazil) and needed to be on the front line.  In my former HC she didn't go to the front. (I disagree with the 2021 me xd).

—  I don't believe that Alfred reciprocated any kind of feelings for May. She was an important piece for him, and so he courted her, to secure a new ally.  It was a benefits relationship.

— Besides Alfred.  There were FEW times where dialogues with England took place, this was due to the participation of Anglo-Brazilians on the English side (if I'm not wrong, in the area of ​​aviation, but I need to delve deeper into the topic).  An almost tiny interaction compared to the prevalence of Alfred's actions, which was immensely greater and also generated impacts.

PS: I don't ship BrAme/AmeBra, they are just friends.  However, Mayara, as I said, had strange feelings for him at some moments in history (I was reading an article about diplomacy 🇧🇷-🇺🇸, I realized that Brazil had a greater interest in getting closer to the USA for economic and regional power, that is, an admiration that aimed for benefits/just as the US aimed for strategic support/Mayara would support Alfred in anything, as she thought she would get support in return).

I used the word "courtship" as it was stated in this old History book (which I no longer have).  Alfred... used his charm against May. Lol.

Evidence of a strange obsession with Alfred:

Meet the United States of Brazil:

(I showed this damn flag to my dad he got disgusted lmfao)

[devildomwriter]

🪷:

I haven't TOUCHED nb! in a while (left after playing through lesson 13 I think) the last scene i remember playing were mc was in coma while brothers confessed and yea I left after that

Recently I see some uproar about lesson 37 💀 I am so curious but sooo lazy to play through it myself. Will you be so kind to spoil the entire nb! lore for me? Lmaoo

Seriously though I see spoilers of Lucifer RAGING and I have no idea 🤌

Wow that’s a lot to go through haha I’ll try and give a brief summary

Michael saves MC from their comma and the boys and MC are reunited and they are accepting of MC being a human

Diavolo decides he must send Mc back to the human world but before he can he is forced to undergo trials to prove his right as the king because the House of Lords is angry with him

Afterwards Henry goes missing and the brothers search for him. Shortly after it’s announced Raphael will be coming and they are all on edge.

When Raphael arrives he tells everyone they will be allowed back to the Celestial Realm and their father has pardoned their crimes and warns if they don’t accept they will “intervene”

The brothers individually decide they cannot leave Satan behind because he is their brother but Lucifer wants them to go back and he alone with stay with Satan because his actions are what caused his brothers to fall. In the end they all reject their pardon and stay with Satan where a ball is thrown by Diavolo to officially announce them as the seven rulers of hell.

The end credits scene reveals that Raphael was actually Michael in disguise coming to check on his brothers

Season Two

At the beginning of the season the brothers are working with Diavolo, Barbatos, and Mephistopheles for a more solid set of rules and classes at RAD and participate in mock classes

As that happens the brothers begin succumbing to their sins one by one

First Mammon succumbs to greed and his Little D. (which are revealed to be a reflection of themselves) is the key to saving him by delving into Mammon’s psyche. They then form a pact.

Next this happens to Asmo who becomes strong enough to enslave all his brothers until Solomon and MC use his Little D. to stop him. They then form a pact.

Next Satan meets Little D. no 4 and is embarrassed by his behavior and sinks into a coma but since he was born with his sin he doesn’t succumb to it but Little D. is needed to save him from within his mind where it’s revealed the first things his brothers ever gave him are his greatest treasures. They then form a pact.

Next Beelzebub grows much hungrier but doesn’t succumb and instead grows weaker. It’s thought that Beelzebub is becoming weak because he is the least demon-like of his brothers. Little D faces against Beelzebub in an eating competition and Beelzebub proves himself the avatar of gluttony.

Belphegor won’t let MC form a pact with Beel as he isn’t sure they can be trusted so MC undergoes the angel’s trial where they cannot tell a lie or the bracelet will break and they will not forge a pact with Beel. MC ends up telling Solomon his cooking is bad which devastates him but tells a lie to cover for Luke and it’s revealed the trial isn’t not to lie but to know the weight of a lie.

Leviathan overhears MC talking with Solomon about how they need pacts to get back to their world. Leviathan becomes upset and hides away in his room. He succumbs to envy and his powers rage out of control and flood the Devildom. Eventually MC is able to get through to him and Leviathan saves them.

Belphegor doesn’t want MC to leave and won’t accept the news so he uses his powers to keep his brothers too slothful to do anything and traps MC in the attic so they can’t leave but MC uses his Little D and breaks him out of his own psyche.

In the attic everyone reunites and agree to help MC return home so Belphegor, Beelzebub, and Leviathan makes pacts with MC. Everyone believes Lucifer will hop of board but he states he doesn’t want to, a sentence that makes Diavolo laugh.

Lucifer begins suggesting MC get used to life in the Devildom as they won’t be able to return home.

The brothers discuss how odd this is when MC wins a trip for two on a Devildom train owned by a noble. Lucifer invites himself as the second guest and during the trip is hinted his pride is at play and they may need his Little D. Before this can happen, Diavolo sends Mephistopheles after Lucifer and MC to make sure they are safe since a noble who hates Lucifer and his brothers owns the train.

Mephistopheles intrudes on their vacation and he and Lucifer butt heads often. The train is then hijacked and it’s pinned on MC, Mephistopheles, and Lucifer. Mephistopheles and MC are freed but Lucifer is sent to the lowest layer of the underworld, Cocytus, for punishment.

The brothers reveal the underworld is technically Celestial Realm territory so it’s weird that Lucifer is being punished for a crime committed in the Devildom in Celestial Realm territory. The brothers and Luke and Simeon venture to Cocytus to save Lucifer but the brothers are each restrained on different levels of cocytus for their crimes.

They reach Lucifer who is surprised to see MC and horrified to learn his brothers came along since the final layer of Cocytus is where you are punished for crimes against their father. As he’s yelling demanding to know where his brothers are is when Raphael is forced to read Lucifer his crimes and that he and his brothers are trapped in Cocytus and will be punished forevermore for their crimes in the Celestial War.

Lucifer is saddened for Raphael and enraged his brothers are suffering and in his rage he breaks free of his chains.

Meanwhile Diavolo is more furious than Barbatos has ever seen and is meeting with the House of the Lords to uncover what they plotted to get Lucifer arrested by the Celestial Realm.

That’s where we currently are in the game.

[horizon-verizon]

I'm still on my self-imposed Tumblr writing break but I had to share this comedy gold mine where Condal tells us all about "impostor syndrome" before I'm overtaken by the urge to write an essay on it instead. I have no time to cook. Fortunately, we've been served a meal on a silver platter.

https://bigthink.com/high-culture/house-of-the-dragon-ryan-condal/

House of the Dragon, which premiered in 2022, might have continued that [Game of Thrones] trend. Instead, the show proved a return to form, offering the same Shakespearean dialogue and political intrigue that made people fall in love with Martin’s fictional universe back in 2011. The second season is just as good, if not better.

I can see that this is going to be a very fair assessment of Condal and his work.

“Every day,” Condal confesses when asked if he suffers from imposter syndrome. “For me, though, it was less the scale and scope of House of the Dragon and more its visibility that intimidated me."

😭😭😭 It's okay! He wasn't worried about whether he'd do a good job! He was just worried about how visible his ingenious work would be.

Appointed for his encyclopedic knowledge of Martin’s oeuvre, Condal has — in his own words — “played with fire” without getting burned. In the following interview, he demonstrates his mastery of Westerosi lore and explains why all history – real or imagined – ultimately amounts to propaganda.

The business major is about to tell us about historiography. The question is, does he understand historiography? Or does he think he's inventing a new concept?

Condal is a relative newcomer to television. In his previous life, he graduated from Villanova University with an accounting degree and spent eight years working in pharmaceutical advertising — quite different from working as a Hollywood showrunner, but not entirely unrelated.

Yes, we know. It's actually very related. Especially the way Condal does it. I'll also point out here that his university was a private Catholic institution. I don't feel the need to connect those dots right now.

"I also learned to compromise, adapting your writing to clients who aren’t always going to love your brilliant, avant-garde choices. That’s the talent-studio relationship, right there."

I... this tells us two things about the writing process and attitude behind it. Two things we already knew. But... it's sure telling.

"I was able to navigate challenges that some of my colleagues with filmmaking and art history degrees maybe weren’t prepped for."

In theory, nothing wrong with this^ statement. But in context...

While some criticism is valuable, too much can lead to creative paralysis. “I tend more towards the negative than the positive, so I made a conscious decision to stay away from social media when I got this job,” Condal says. If anything, he believes the healthy distance he maintains between himself and his audience has improved the show: “Audiences think they know what they want, but sometimes, they have to be given what they need instead."

I repeat my prior sentiment.

Ultimately, Condal’s own passion for Martin’s writing outweighed any doubt he had about his own. “I’m trying to make the type of show I would enjoy as a fan, which I am. And while I realize my ideal fan show will be different from someone else’s, I still think that it’s a good true north heading on my compass. Actually, I think that’s why HBO hired me in the first place.”

Oh, we know.

“It was hugely intimidating, moving to a new country [the U.K.] and working with a new but also hugely talented crew that I had to — not tell them what to do, exactly, but lead them; collaborate with them. I definitely had to earn my place, but think that — because I came in with a clear vision of what I wanted for the show — those relationships were easy to establish.”

Make it stop.

The most important part of making a successful fantasy show isn’t the sets, costumes, or special effects, but lore. Fictional places like Westeros have their own unique cultures, customs, and social institutions, all of which help create the illusion that this fantasy world is as real and complex as our own. To transfer that illusion from page to screen, the writers must know Martin’s work as thoroughly as Martin himself. “It’s not just me,” Condal says. “We are all deeply entrenched fans of George. One of our writers has worked with him for many years. If I’m a graduate in Westeros studies, she’s an archmaester,” referring to the order of academics sworn to advise and educate Westeros’ nobility.

Well that explains why they're worse than Gyldayn.

Condal: “Textual references are best done in light touches to remind people that this is a fully realized society with hundreds of years of mapped-out history to it. And you don’t need an entire scene to do that. Instead of writing, you can communicate details environmentally through props like heraldry. For the fans, these little touches tell them they are in good hands. Better yet, they know the details are there just for them, the hardcore fans. For everyone else, the casual viewers, this stuff is flying by 100 miles an hour, and they probably won’t notice it. But it’s there.”

Again, there's nothing wrong with this^ in theory. In. Theory.

“I’m definitely an architect,” says Condal, “and I think I have to be as a screenwriter, because our life is so deadline-driven. The literal definition of a playwright, W-R-I-G-H-T, is ‘one who builds plays.’ A dramatic writer is almost by necessity a structuralist, and I very much fall into that camp.”

Now wait for it... wait for it... Keep in mind these are Brinkhof's (article author) words. But wait for it.

Martin, by contrast, identifies as a gardener. While this writing style — with its many unexpected twists, turns, and deaths — helps explain what made Game of Thrones so successful, it may also have been responsible for the show’s eventual downfall. Sticking to Martin’s analogy, “gardening stories” grow like trees, their narratives branching out in an exponential number of paths, making them difficult to finish. As of today, Martin has spent more than 14 years on the next installment in the Song of Ice and Fire series, his prolonged bout of writer’s block forcing Weiss and Benioff to come up with their own ending.

No words. Now back to Condal.

“The advantage we have over them is that we’re dealing with a finished text, where they were working with an unfinished, living work,” Condal says. “Where the Game of Thrones team had to trim down 5,000 pages into a few dozen scripts, we’re challenged in the opposite direction, turning around 100 pages into a multi-season arc of television, and that requires a lot of invention.”

Oh? So... you do know where it's going. Which means your "inventions" should... probably lead there?

Condal treats Fire & Blood like a real-world historian might treat a manuscript from the Middle Ages. “These three writers all had personal agendas which, to me, seem to reflect one of the main themes of our show: powerful women living in an unbreakable patriarchy. The writers, particularly the priest, appear to blame the war on the squabbling between Rhaenyra and Alicent.”

No comment for now. No... comment...

House of the Dragon pretends to show the real history that Fire & Blood recorded and distorted. Some events happen the way the one of the three authors describe it, while others contain elements of all three conflicting accounts. Others still indicate that none of them got it right. As a rule, every character in the show is far more complex than the jester, maester, and priest made them out to be.

I... I... I... I... I...

“Alicent can be the stereotypical evil stepmother at times,” says Condal, “just as King Viserys, played by Paddy Considine in season 1, can come across at weak. However, the thing that in-universe historians don’t get about Viserys is that he was carrying the burden of a prophecy passed down through generations and couldn’t tell anybody about it. A lot of his supposedly weak decision-making was actually in service of this secret prophecy. We were trying to show that there was more to him, that multiple things about him could be true at the same time.”

Must... Resist... Urge... To... Write... Essay...

“We have to arrive at the same endpoint as the book,” he reminds himself. “Whoever George said becomes king must become king at the end of the war. Hopefully, though, we have a bit of latitude leading up to that, to show how history has been interpreted differently at different times by different historians. I realize I’m playing with fire, but it does excite and fascinate me — to be able to comment on how history is made, not just this fictional history, but all history. It’s all propaganda to some degree.”

😭 The clownery.

Historiographers weep.

@rhaenin-time, you must be stopped. Ryan should be , too, but you have decided to bring me in close proximity to this nonsense. I am sitting here, eating chewy ChipsAhoy, and you came in here like a wrecking ball with this news....I hate you. [read, this is a joke]

I don't think I'll be able to address every thing I want to address in this. I want to be done with this show, I have been tired since the 6th epi of the last season.

Condal is a relative newcomer to television. In his previous life, he graduated from Villanova University with an accounting degree and spent eight years working in pharmaceutical advertising — quite different from working as a Hollywood showrunner, but not entirely unrelated. [...]

I also learned to compromise, adapting your writing to clients who aren’t always going to love your brilliant, avant-garde choices. That’s the talent-studio relationship, right there. [...] Audiences think they know what they want, but sometimes, they have to be given what they need instead."

Who tf does this man think he is?!!! Yes, I needed mother-son coochie eating. I needed to have a brown girl erased for a rapist to become a family man with a sick child. I needed Cole fucking Alicent at least 3 times instead of a brown haired Targ make instrumental alliances with more people to add to his stepfather's armies in the Riverlands. I needed to see nonexistent and sterile parallels. I needed to see a black woman be burned alive when she actually died at least surrounded by family, her ignored by her husband so his later marriage to a white girl be that much more special. I needed to see a disabled man jerk it over a queen's bare feet like she's in OnlyFans and doesn't know where her next meal is. I needed to see a pretten prince jerk it over a window and barely even tell what his brother was doing later with Vhagar instead of another preteen girl bond with the most powerful dragon of the then living ones. I needed to see a woman so much more hypocritical than her book counterpart be framed as one of the wisest women to exist while she praises Jaehaerys I of all people for having a peaceful reign as if his decision to have that council have no bearing on the burgeouning war coming up right now.

He can't even properly write character ACRTION as opposed to REACTION (Seth Abramson's article on substack):

Appointed for his encyclopedic knowledge of Martin’s oeuvre, Condal has — in his own words — “played with fire” without getting burned. In the following interview, he demonstrates his mastery of Westerosi lore and explains why all history – real or imagined – ultimately amounts to propaganda.

And yet Daemon dislikes his daughter or grow impatient with her bec she doesn't have a dragon....while he only claimed one at 16 or a bit younger with Caraxes AND Targs don't actually bond with dragons in the cradle that often, actually usually doing it in preteens to teens AND Aegon I definitely had to bond later in life as well. And said that Aegon I lived/was alive when Old Valyria still existed. Allowed Criston Cole to be called Dornish both by Alicent and the fans without giving us any explanation or exploration of that identity esp when canonically he came from the Stormlander part of the Dornish Marches. "Encyclopedic" my nonexistent ballsack! He has no authority to claim that F&B is so unreliable that he can't tell truth form agenda-motivated fiction and then claim himself intelligent or "brilliant" at the same time!

"avant-garde"...yes bc it's so revoluntionary and creative to have a man lick his former home from his own mother in a "vision". As if making a woman her son's character tool wasn't something HBO already did with its female characters and perform male gaze....okay...As if he's special and different from other male writers and it not just keeping with ASoIaF adaptation tradition. It added so much to the story other than the sick eroticism of something already cleared up last season.

I definitely had to earn my place, but think that — because I came in with a clear vision of what I wanted for the show

No you didn't. If you did, you wouldn't have had a such a problem with the pacing, the numerous inconsistencies, plotholes, the [if true] possible merge of Rhaena and Nettles and many episodes would't contradict each other as if one writer disagreed and vetoed another. And you'd see why/how show!Rhaena's purpose must be kept more or less the exact same as her in the bk for the post-Dance environment. We'd have Maelor. We'd have Daeron mentioned and described much earlier, not as some sort of random ass surprise that is bound to thrown so many locals off when he does appear.

If I’m a graduate in Westeros studies, she’s an archmaester,” referring to the order of academics sworn to advise and educate Westeros’ nobility.

....what the fuck does this even mean?! There are no fucking graduates of anything in Westeros and there are no archmaesters of real life bc the set ups in education of EU medieval history vs Westeros are so different it's not even funny. there are no universities for one to even imagine there are Westerosi "graduates", and there is no way you can tell if a graduate would be more or less educated than a grandmaester, bc we don't have rules of "graduation" or gradations of maestership. the modern school system can never be properly equalized in structure or depth or habits to Westerosi maestership, the instituton.

Therefore trying to create some sort of analogy as if grads exist in Westeros by immediately using "grandmaester" for another you're aligning yourself with is just so stupid. worst part is, I know exactly what he's trying to say, but his use of this device is so wrong, that I'm mad and ure people will just take this at face value instead of see how inept this man is with literature analysis and thus creative writing. Reminds me, ironically, of his saying he's inspired by PARADISE LOST in writing S2...if you don't sit yourself down to hell, sir!

Martin, by contrast, identifies as a gardener. While this writing style — with its many unexpected twists, turns, and deaths — helps explain what made Game of Thrones so successful, it may also have been responsible for the show’s eventual downfall.

And there it is, Ryan is prepping to use the ole fan excuse of "not much story left" excuse people had for D&D, and it makes sense how he would considering how F&B is considered to unreliable to adapt even the clearest events and characterizations as they are given....

[selfindulgentpixies]

Suguru geto x gn!reader

MDNI

Okay so this is just a sort of soft love letter to Suguru because i'm soft and love him and i don't normally give him love separate from Satoru. This scene could be from my selfship lore with the two of them but can also be taken as somthing entirely separate and be enjoyed by anyone. This just hit me and demanded to be written. it's not proof read like most of my work so be warned. No actual dialogue in this. I just wanted the intimacy to be felt in this. Very softcore sm/ut if i had to describe it and is much shorter than my usual work.

You're laying on Suguru's bare chest, feeling each rise and hearing every heart beat. It's a rare moment just the two of you and he's playing with the ends of your hair absent mindedly while flipping through a book. You press a soft kiss above his heart and glance up at him to see his lips curve into a little smile. Then more boldly you begin to kiss up his chest then over the column of his throat before finally reaching his lips that have split into a full smile. Laughter bubbles out of both of you into the kiss and you feel him set the book on your back so he can wrap both arms around you.

You bring your hands up to trace of his sharp cheekbones and he can hardly believe the love sick look on your face is for him. His nose skims over your cheek as he leans into press another kiss to your lips. Then for him to devour like so many curses but so much sweeter you give him your love, words of love and affirmation pouring past your lips and directly into his own. The book is brushed to the floor then as he flips you over on the couch so that he now hovers above you, dark hair slipping over his shoulders and creating a curtain around your faces. You reach up to link your fingers behind his neck, you tell him how beautiful he is and he chuckles the sound deep yet soft and coming from low within his chest. You think that sound is beautiful too.

You try to pull him down to you, to see if he'll indulge you with more of his kisses. His dark eyes glimmer with mischief as he leans down to kiss you, his larger form enveloping your own. His tongue darts out to teasingly trace the seam of your lips which you part willingly and eagerly, wanting to give him access to every part of you. You think you'd crack open your ribs and let him lay next to your heart if you could.

You whimper into the kiss as his tongue slides along your own. Huffed breaths as you both breathe through your noses and the room grows warmer around you both. Your hands tangle in his long hand hair near his scalp, tugging at the roots and getting him to pull back so you can take a full breath. Your night is unhurried, passing in moments and languid movements of your bodies. Of him seeking your skin against own and urging you from your clothes starting with the two of you being chest to chest before both of your pants follow and he lifts you by the back of your thighs to carry you to the bedroom. Almost no words are spoken but your actions speak more loudly than the moans he pulls from your lips and you his.

And once you are both spent, him having poured himself into you you lay curled up against his chest much like the night started, your mischievous kisses exchanged for soft sleepy ones pressed against his chest and him returning the action to the crown of your head until sleep takes you both.

__

@crysugu @strawberrystepmom@icy-spicy@pastelle-rabbit @kinjuutsu @4sat0ruu @hauntedhearthowl

I am just very very soft right now.

[irafuwas]

Right so I am kinda slow and behind. I do watch the JP translations when they are out but since I’m an ENG server player, I noticed something which is quite interesting but just made me curious.

In context, I found this a little confusing. We know dragon faeries are the strongest around, and we also know for a fact that Henrick planned to use Malleus as a mount after stealing the egg in his future reign. Lilia stated the, let’s say, fae version of “…awaiting a prince on a white horse”, I was confused that he used ‘dragon’. Is this to imply that there are dragons that are not faeries? And the faeries tame those creatures?

Idk if this was discussed but it pretty made me wonder what could this mean. Like he mentioned some direbeasts, could it be that dragons are separate creatures from dragon faeries who can turn into dragons? Or something else?

I've been thinking that dragons and dragon-fae are separate species, with the latter descended from the former, like how it works with the beastfolk.

In Tamashina Mina, there's a part where Leona explains how his hometown was specifically designed to include a lot of greenery in it, for the sake of their "animal ancestors".

Leona: The people here value “coexistence with nature” more than anythin’ else, and we make sure to conserve natural areas like this so the local animals have places to live, since they’re our ancestors and all.

And the way Ruggie talks in one of his chats, he describes literal hyenas as his ancestors.

(Not to mention how the King of the Beast is always depicted as an actual animal, as are Simba and Rafiki in the statue dedicated to them in Leona's hometown.)

This is similar to how Lilia said that the Draconia family is descended from dragons.

Lilia: Even amongst us fae, the Draconia family is renowned for their long lifespans. [...] They’re descended from dragons, after all.

Lilia also mentions in a voiceline for his scary dress card that he met a Lóng once, and noted the color of its scales. It's unclear if the Lóng was a fae or not, but if it's a reference to Mushu like I'm thinking then, I feel it was probably a literal dragon-dragon, and not a fae. So that would be at least one dragon that's not a dragon-fae.

Lastly, if Yana took any inspiration from the live action Maleficent films when designing the nocturnal fae, there's also a bit of lore in the second film that describes how the Dark Fae (Mal's species) are descended from a proginetor Phoenix and "evolved over centuries" into their current, humanoid forms. This could be how the dragon fae arose!

All of this to say, I think it's that there are - or at least, used to be - literal dragons in Twisted Wonderland, and then maybe a line of them branched off and became dragon fae, just like how it presumably happened with lion beastfolk, hyena beastfolk, etc. I guess the closest real world example would be like how polar bears evolved from an isolated population of brown bears, and both species still exist today. Or even dogs and wolves, etc.

[tf-cyberaligned]

Designs for the sequel I am already planning

The Rescue Recruits!!

And some of my lore that will be explored with for all of them!

Wedge

Wedge was formed during the war. He was created through spark bonding between two Decepticons, though he never really met his Parensnatales (parents) due to their assignment within the ranks. Due to his young age, he was put into the energon mines on one of the Deception owned planets on the outskirts of the Milky Way. While he had to fight Autobots sometimes, this planet was relatively uninhabited by Autobots, meaning that many Decepticon children made their home here.

When the war ended, and they returned to Cybertron, Wedge found out that he was orphaned just like many of his miner buddies. While Cybertron was being rebuilt, several mechs had stepped up to take care of and watch over the young Cybertronians left behind. One of these groups was the newly reemerged Protectobots, who were missing one key bot in their lineup. Wedge was one of the young Cybertronians taken in by the team, where he soon learned about rescue work and started to ask for training in it. While Rescue City was being repaired, the Protectobots and several of the old Alpha team members who had returned to the city started to teach small things to the young Cybertronians who were under their care. While some dropped off from the lessons, the others stuck around to become the new rebirth generation of Rescue Bots, which Wedge was one of those.

Whirl

Whirl was also formed during the war, formed from a spark bond due to Ultra Magnus and Whirl Sr. not being careful with their conjunx bonding ceremony. While her designation was Whirlybird, she chose to use just Whirl to mess with mechs on the Lost Light. One day a large energy spike was detected across the Milky Way. While Ultra Magnus went off to investigate the strange anomaly, the Lost Light continued to avoid the attacks of the DJD.

Once the ship was able to reach Cybertron and the whole family was reunited, Whirl Jr. was stumped on what she was wanting to do. Whirl Sr. one day had suggested joining the newly rebuilt Rescue Bots Academy. Due to Ultra Magnus's knowledge of the old laws and regulations of Cybertron, he would teach Whirl Jr. them during his free time. Due to this, she had an immense love for the subject. So when she found out that the academy had enforcers as an option, she jumped at the chance to join. Leading her to join the first wave of new official Rescue Bot Recruits.

Hot Shot and Jolt

Hot Shot was one of the mechs who reemerged from the Well. Jolt's spark connection with him is what allowed him to return. Jolt is his minicon partner, and one of his oldest friends. Hot Shot was one of the many young mechs who had to fight in the war. While he had a naturally forged frame, his spark was transferred to an adult build, offering more protection than his young, weak armor plating he had before. The pair fought side by side during the war as first Optimus's personal scouts, then as a commander of a squadron. Jolt helped to keep to Hot Shot in check, offering guidance to the young soldier. When Hot Shot had become a commander, his role also shifted to being a mentor for a young scout that Optimus had appointed. Hot Shot taught the young scout everything he needed to know, and the pair formed a close friendship. When the young scout had been kidnapped by Megatron while Hot Shot had been shot down, Primus had changed Hot Shot's frame. This new frame while lacking speed, made up for it in strength, allowing the young commander to rescue the young scout at Tyger Pax. After the events at Tyger Pax, the Ark was ready to launch. Hot Shot was meant to be one of the mechs that went on the ship. However as it was launching, the Nemesis had attacked. Hot Shot was one of the fatalities during this attack.

Upon his reemergence from the Well, he was met by the mechs who were looking over the many new sparks and reemerging sparks. After many questions, he was finally reunited with Jolt. After that Hot Shot and Jolt had aimlessly wandered around Cybertron. Hot Shot was one of the mechs who had no Parensnatales, and so he really had no place to go. After some years, the pair heard about a new Cube league forming. Cube was originally a game created during the war by Ratchet for the many young mechs who were forced into the war to have something fun to do. (Also was created to distract them from the Wrecker's game of Lob) Hot Shot remembering the many games he played, joined the league and was soon given a home among the teams. Over time, he had risen to fame, being one of the best players within the league. After a big final game of the season, Optimus had approached him. Shocked to see the meant to be dead leader, Hot Shot didn't believe at first that the mech was really in front of him. However after some time talking, Hot Shot learned that he had been alive for awhile at that point, and had just returned from a mission back to Earth. It was at this point that Optimus had offered him and Jolt a chance to go to the newly reopened Rescue Bots Academy.

Medix

Medix also reemerged from the Well, being one of the mechs that was killed during the Rescue Bots Massacre. Medix is the child of First Aid and Vortex, having been formed by a spark bond during the start of the war. He too was put into an adult frame like Hot Shot was, and when the Protectobots joined the war, he was also brought into it with his cousins. He worked as a tirage medic on the field, being a true pacifist just like his aunt Groove. His team within the Rescue Bots rank was Alpha 2, which consisted of his cousins Skyfeather, Rook, and Heatrock. Skyfeather was their team leader, due to her being the oldest and most experienced out of them. The Alpha 2 team was able to combine with the Alpha 1 team (Protectobots), making the two teams very powerful in terms of the war. Skyfeather and Heatrock were able to combine within the actual Protectobot team, forming Gaia Guardian, while Rook and Medix were able to replace an original team member when they were unable to transform. When Defensor fell at Tagan Heights, Rescue City was left with Alpha 2 leading and protecting it. This is when Megatron decided to strike. Medix watched as his older cousins were slaughtered, before his death and the destruction of Rescue City.

Upon his reemergence, he was reunited with his cousins who also reemerged with him. Together the group made their way to the remains of Rescue City, where they were reunited with Hotspot, First Aid, Streetwise, and Groove. Blade's absence confused them all, but they all were quick to start rebuilding the city. Blades soon reappeared on Cybertron, having survived the war and was the reason that they were all able to reemerge due to his Gestalt bond with his siblings. When the school was rebuilt and reopened, Medix joined the new wave of students coming into the academy, excited to finish his training properly.

Hoist

Hoist, while not apart of the war, was a civilian casualty. His Almatonias (moms) had him before the war broke out. His family had decided to stay out of the war as long as they possibly could, but his death due to an Autobot Wrecker's explosions is what pushed his Almatonias to join the Decepticons.

His Almatonias survived the war, allowing for his reemergence. He was reunited with them, and after Cybertron had been mostly rebuilt, they were encouraging him to choose what he wanted to do in life. Now that the caste system was overthrown, he was allowed to do just that. Hearing about the reopening of the Rescue Bots Academy, and that engineering, one of his passions, was offered at the academy, he applied to be a student there. He was accepted and joined the first wave of new students.

And that is the lore of these guys for the Cyberhumans and Cybertronians sequel! While this story isn't going to be mentioned much until that point in time, I wanted to get these out there as some of the characters will be mentioned within the main story of Cyberaligned. Due to how interwoven I want everything to be, we will be seeing glimpses of Hot Shot and Medix within Blade's memories, as well as meeting Whirl Jr. and Whirl Sr. in one of the future chapters when the Lost Light crashes on Earth.

I hope y'all are excited for this future plot!

[spooky-pop]

The way you pop out lore is so wonderful and cool and thought out

But I can almost guarantee that later I’m gonna be like “oh I wonder who’s in trolls 4 I hope Darcy is obviously” lmaooo “Super excited to see Ivy in the trailer” like I am fully osmosising my knowledge all into one glitter mess❤️❤️❤️ keep up the great work!!

Awh thank you this is so sweet! If there's one thing I love more than anything, it's character and world building. I really enjoy creating a story behind my characters to form that connection with them and get to know them, and to allow others to get to know them on a deeper level too. I'm not great at writing fanfic style stories so I do my best to create and share lore through my art and characters! I'm excited to share more, I have so much I haven't talked about yet and can't wait to dive in more :) <3

[cometrose]

hi. i’d like to hear your take on how the other archons represent or have moon symbolism to zhongli’s sun, if you don’t mind!

in genshin there’s a lot of lore scattered around and pieces waiting to be clicked together, and your post really makes ideas go off haha

sure, im not as read up on the other archons as I am with zhongli but there is still a lot to work with

Venti

In his trailers and cutscenes (e.i Xiao) we often see Venti with the moon

You can also look into his style of archonhood and how he does not directly guide his people but rather lets them do as they want and times guides them from behind the scenes

He is not overt and direct like the sun but more subtle like the moon

This is going to be true for most of the archons but there is the fact that Venti's image is based off someone else. Venti looks like the nameless bard but that is not his true form.

Venti is a reflection of someone else, much like moon reflects the sun's light

Mondstadt literally means moon city

To others he can be very bubbly and outgoing but when he is around the traveler his calm more reserved sides come out.

Venti has connections to the god of time, Istaroth, and time one key themes of moon symbolism as the cycles and phases of the moon have been used to track time, seasons and life itself. (Did you know the phases in the spiral abyss are based off the 3 moon sisters which is why there are 3 versions of a spiral abyss before it resets?)

Ei

First look at her design and her wish. She has a dark color palette, deep purples and reds and Inazuma, specifically Tenshukaku, in the background is covered in darkness

In her domain and her trailer it is rainy, dark and thunderous

Ei's constellation, Imperatrix Umbrosa, translates to Empress of Shadows

She was literally Makoto's shadow (kagemusha)

To go further, Ei lived in the shadows of Makoto's light. The story tells us that Makoto was better at guiding humanity and understood humans much better. Makoto was the archon, Makoto was the one who was adored. Ei was the moon to Makoto's sun.

However, you could even say since Makoto and Ei are twins rather than sun and moon symbolism you could attribute Makoto and Ei to the light and dark side of the moon. Because of the way the moon rotates, from earth we only see one side of the moon at all times. Hence, Makoto was the light side of the moon that was leading Inazuma while Ei was the darker side that was never seen.

Then Ei hiding away in the plane of Euthymia for hundreds of years while her puppet ruled means that Ei once more lived in the shadow (or subconscious) of another being

Originally Raiden wished for an eternal and neverending Inazuma. She wanted nation that would not suffer from the change of time. However change, and new beginnings are signaled by the onset of dawn. Each new day begins with the sun rising so by yearning for an "Eternal Inazuma" it was a nation that never saw a new day or was always stuck in night.

Even though the war is over and she can freely mingle with her people Ei is rather reserved and prefers to keep to herself

Nahida

Nahida has very direct moon symbolism.

Nahida directly refers to herself as the moon in Act II of the Sumeru Archon Quest and throughout the entire questline as a whole.

Similar to all of the other archons, Nahida is trapped in the shadows of Rukkhadevata.

Nobody cared for Nahida because Rukkha's glory and wisdom outshone her in every way (plus she was locked up in jail) even Nahida herself believed Rukkha was more shining and brilliant than her.

She even says in Act II after learning the sages have been acting behind her back that "In the end, I'm just the Moon. The real Sun is long gone."

Nahida's abilities and symbols are dreams, sleep and illusions. All of which are all connected to the moon and the night.

Nahida's character design. She is very white, and pale like the face of the moon. She looks like just a younger version of Rukkhadevata.

Although, Nahida comes to understand that she does not have to be like Rukkha or any other archon to be a good archon-she still has a long way to go. She is still a "small light" in Sumeru and it will take some time before she can shine as brightly as Rukkhadevata once did

Her wish looks like a big old moon doesn't it?

Furina

Furina much like the others lives in the shadow of not only Focalors but indirectly Egeria

She is constantly trying to live up the glory of her predecessor (Egeria) but also the other archons.

Furina was forced to be in the spotlight. She shines brightly and strongly but that is not her own light. She is using the title as god and archon to be something she is not. In a sense, giving off light that isn't hers but merely reflecting the light of Focalors.

Just in basic symbolism, oceans, waves and tides are all usually connected to the moon, so the god of water is going to be connected to the moon.

Furina's "true" form her Ousia form which is dark and black in color while her "fake" form her Pneuma form is white and bright.

Furina had no real power and to save Fontaine true divinity and power had to come from the original source (Focalors and ultimately Neuvillette)

Her true self lived in the shadows of the "Hydro Archon". Her true identity was a mystery until the trial.

When Furina leaves the spotlight and the curtains close and the lights dim was she finally able to be herself.

For example even when Arlecchino ambushes Furina it occurs in the dead of night when she assumes nobody is watching her anymore and she's allowed to be free for just a moment.

Furina's power and authority came from "others". She acted like an archon so we believed she was an archon. Much like how the moon "looks" like it produces light but really the light comes from the sun.

Furina is haughty and gaudy as an archon but as a human she far more relaxed and easy going. She doesn't have the striking confidence and dominance of the sun but a more gentle and refreshing aura to her.

Furina’s true light and beauty is when she can be herself or on the stage as a performer when she is no longer trying to be something she is not she because far more special.

A big part of why most of the archons have moon symbolism is simply because they are 1) not the original archon or 2) derive a significant portion of their life, legacy and or goals from someone else. In their lives there was a person who was the center of their life -their "sun". Whether or not the knew the person depends but these archons either embodied or idolized their ideals and appearance. As in they derived their light from someone else. Zhongli avoids this cause he doesn’t have a “twin” and he’s an original archon.

Character development and story progression have changed these characters appear and their respective symbols but I think you can safely argue that most of the archons have more ties to the moon than the sun.

The only exception I really see is Zhongli (you could argue Venti too sometimes) and the Pyro Archon due to the connections between flames and the sun.

But the Tsaritsa, on the other hand is very likely to have lots of moon symbolism. The only time we see her palace is in the dark of night, she's always commanding the Fatui to carry out her plans in secret, cryo -> ice -> winter -> dark -> night -> moon, plus the moon is tied to themes of romance and love she is the goddess of love etc. We can do this all day.

Nonetheless, moon symbolism connects to a multitude of themes such as femininity, shadows, time, darkness, eternity and renewal, love and mystery, divinity and gentleness etc. Many of these concepts appear in our archons and their storylines.

So of the archons we know Zhongli is the most sun-orientated (masculinity, power, strength, passion, clarity and knowledge, life etc) so far. It’s not like sun and moon traits don’t overlap so you’ll definitely see these characters embody different ideals but in my mind most of the archons represent the moon.