#they might be related by blood

[official-kenralie-fanbase]

Thoughts about Sophies and Oralies relationship? What will happen? Are they going to be friends again? Will they become a mother-daughter duo?

I've been wanting to talk about this for a while so thank you for giving me a window anon! And ignore the fact that you asked this over a month ago in my eyes it has been merely a day

(and on a side note if I take a while to answer an ask please don't let that deter you from sending them! I promise I am incredibly honored with every ask I receive and am working on it slowly but surely)

Okay there is A LOT so I'm putting it under a cut

tl;dr: Both Sophie and Oralie messed up involving their relationship, but I think they're going to make up before the end of the series.

Sophie and Oralie's relationship is a really controversial topic everywhere in the fandom, and it's easy to understand why. From where I see it, the two main arguments are either "Sophie completely overreacted and Oralie was 100% in the right" or "Oralie's a jerk who ruined Sophie's life and Sophie had every right to get mad." (Obviously these are exaggerations, not calling anyone out in particular)

(LOL this reminds me of one time I made friends with like a 9-year-old girl -I think I was 16ish- who liked KOTLC, and I had Kenric and Oralie on my phone case at the time, so I showed her my case and she literally took my phone, punched the spot where Oralie was and walked away, never to speak to me about KOTLC again

Anyway back to the analysis)

But as I see it, neither of them was entirely in the right.

As someone who loves both Sophie and Oralie, I think it's a very complicated situation to which neither of them reacted the best way. In Sophie's defense, she did have every right to be upset, even angry. She'd known this woman for what, two years (ish??? I think?) at this point and never once had any indication that she was her biological mother. I would be very angry about that, and I have a stable family situation, unlike Sophie. Sophie's a teenager who's been through a lot of trauma, especially family-related trauma. She had every right to have the reaction she did.

And as much as I love Oralie, I can say without any hesitation that she had a bad reaction to Sophie finding out. There's more about why I think she reacted this way below, but she just kind of froze. Didn't really apologize, didn't explain, just went... hmm, might we say numb??? (*cough cough hint hint*) Not exactly a good way to convince your daughter that you care about her.

BUT I also think that Sophie's reaction to Oralie was a culmination of all of her frustration and anger about the whole situation. She deserved to be mad at Oralie, specifically, but she was also taking out a lot of her anger on Oralie. Because Oralie was a really easy person for her to take it out on. She 1) had been there all along and saw what Sophie went through, 2) had just participated in a highly emotional situation with Sophie in which she was encouraging Sophie to be honest and 3) didn't really fight back.

However, as justified as Sophie's original reaction was, I think she's purposefully holding onto her hatred at this point in the story. I'm not blaming her -I actually think this makes a lot of sense- but there have been many times when Oralie's cried or gotten emotional about Sophie/Kenric/whatnot (she's a very emotional person and I love her for it alright) and Sophie's gone like "sympathy what no I can't feel sympathy I'm reminding myself that I hate her". This is fascinating to me, how she's been betrayed so many times by people she cared about that she doesn't want to let herself believe that Oralie actually cares about her.

And then there's the whole thing about why Oralie reacted that way. She has actively shown how much she cares about Sophie at every opportunity she really could, so why did she not try to convince her daughter about how much she really loves her?

I think it boils down to two things: fear and being an Empath. If Kenric hadn't died, I honestly think that she would have told Sophie the truth much earlier in the series. But after he died, she was scared that she'd lose more people she loved, and purposefully tried to help Sophie while putting up more of a wall between them.

I think Mr. Forkle's death contributed to that as well. In the Nightfall-Flashback era, Oralie is in like two scenes in total. She'd lost one person she loved, and then watched Sophie lose someone she cared about. Oralie blamed herself a lot for Mr. Forkle's death, since he did die to protect her (their relationship is fascinating to me). After that, Oralie put up even more of a distance between herself and Sophie- not because she didn't care. Because she'd watched two people who she cared about die in horrible, violent ways, and the last thing she wanted was for that to happen to her daughter. It was easier to put distance between them, especially since the Council had just been targeted. If there wasn't an obvious relationship between them, the Neverseen wouldn't use Sophie to punish Oralie, as a Council member.

And then there's the fact that she's an Empath. It's obvious from her relationship with Kenric (especially *that scene* in Unlocked that I will never recover from) that she is a pro at hiding her emotions. As an Empath, she has to be. But my theory is that Empaths have to hide their emotions well, but over time, they forget how to use the emotions they've hidden- kind of like a minor version of what happened to Vespera.

I legitimately think that Oralie forgot how to care about Sophie- and not that she ever didn't care about Sophie, she just knew she couldn't actively show her support, so she tried to act more as a Councillor than she did as a mother. She's pushed that side of herself down for so long, not wanting anyone to find out that she's Sophie's mother because of the drastic repercussions that could have, that she's forgotten how to use it. She's used her Councillor guise to protect Sophie for so long that she forgot how to stop using it.

Oralie's helping Sophie with the caches and with finding out what Kenric hid, as emotionally painful as it was for her, is a strong sign that she is trying so hard to care. She's realizing that she can't be a Councillor and a mother at once, as much as she tried (WOAH Y'ALL the parallels to Shannon's own life :| projecting on her characters, she's just like us). That's why she had such a dramatic switch in Stellarlune. The personality swap, the outfit change, the secret office... it's all her trying so desperately to prove to Sophie that she's willing to stop being a Councillor to show her that she cares.

And Sophie still doesn't believe her. It makes sense under the circumstances, but I think both of them are going to regret this.

(subtly transitions into what's probably going to happen in the next book)

I think it's going to take the revelation of Oralie's secret for their relationship to actually heal. Whether Oralie's forced to reveal it herself, someone else reveals it, or it's discovered against her will, I am like 99.6% sure that it's going to be revealed to the world. There wouldn't be such drama around the whole "knowing your parent's identities could topple the world" thing if just that wasn't going to happen.

When Oralie's identity is revealed, Sophie's going to have to make a choice: To stand with her or against her. And I think she's going to stand with her. Because as angry as she is, Oralie is not her enemy. She's a flawed, broken person who's made both good and bad choices- just like Sophie herself. I think Sophie's matured enough by this point to realize that.

There's probably going to be an emotional scene where they make up- and a strong likelihood that this scene happens as Oralie is dying. I described in detail why I think she's going to die here so I won't explain it too much, but it would honestly be just like Shannon to make a super dramatic, emotional scene as Oralie is dying where they finally make up and end on a good note before she dies.

But as much as the angst-loving part of me would eat that up, I also think it would be amazing for them to become a girlboss mother-daughter duo and just like defeat Neverseen members together. I think between these two options, it depends on how late Oralie's identity is revealed. If it's late in the story, like right before the final battle or something, the first is more likely. However, if it occurs early in the final book(s) then I believe it's likely that they do have a good friendship for a while before the book ends.

If Oralie doesn't die, I think she and Sophie will remain friends. Sophie won't call her Mom, and Oralie won't be offended by that, but they'll still have a solid, deep relationship. I can picture Oralie being in the audience at her Foxfire graduation, the two of them having lunch together, Sophie taking her to the Forbidden Cities and showing her where she grew up. At that point, Oralie will likely have sacrificed something major for Sophie (probably her Councillor position) and Sophie will know that, even if she doesn't see her as a mother, Oralie really does care for her.

KOTLC is all about how your family isn't just who you're related to, it's who you choose. So how poetic would it be if it ended with Sophie and Oralie deciding what their relationship will be? They won't be mother and daughter, but they've bonded to have a beautiful friendship despite all the hardship and pain.

[aradidnt]

I made a kanvris baby

[earendilsass]

I've finally finished my life series art yipee

Im so proud of these considering i've never tried anything that looks like stained glass

Theres also a Cleo one in the reblogs

As usual click for better quality

Flat colours (and me yapping about them) under the cut

These are also not edited for better colours just straight from the art file, idk i can never get colours just right so i usually edit them in my gallery app lol

The line art colour match the characters vibes they're not really lore based but you know what is

The poses. Obv grain is looking at the camera (and has eyes) cuz he's a watcher but also scott and martyn are looking to one side cuz they were happy about their win and pear and scar are looking to the other cuz they were sad/confused

None of them really have facial features cuz like they're players in a game come on why would they ever have an actual identity other than 'player'

Also look at scotts bow and scars cane please i put way too much detail into them

Okay enough yapping now (i lied theres more in the tags)

[cricketclan]

YAY FLUTTERSILVER WIN!!

First

Prev

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[opens-up-4-nobody]

:-P

[todayisafridaynight]

this is how i know theyre all fam

[barbrububble]

Mouthwashing spoilers

I really like how the game makes the player feel when playing Curly and still thinking he crushed the ship. I kept looking for signs that he is unwell enough to decide on murder-suicide. He is dishonest on his psych eval. He has a lot of trouble sleeping. He complains a lot. The stairs to the cockpit stretch almost to infinity - does he not want to be there? Does he not trust himself in there? (What's with the sea of blood?) Oh he does want a change of career... but is also wary of it. Now they're all fired. "I just want to be in a place I don't want to fucking escape from! "

And then no, Jimmy did it. All the inner turmoils of Curly were just that and were only "telltale signs leading to the tragedy" in my eyes because I already "knew" what was going to happen. Now it feels both like a play on my expectations as a player and a portrayal of rich inner troubles still being within normalcy.

And also why I dislike people blaming Curly for not recognizing Jimmy's potential to fly off the rails. The clear signs are only clear postfactum. A person can even be toxic, can be capable of harm and assault (which yeah, Curly didn't properly recognize) and still snap in a way that surprises you - or never snap that hard after all.

[childrenofthesun77]

...okay, so I'm probably not the first person to notice this.

But gear's earing that he points towards when he says that he did the same ritual he wanted to help kuro with already on himself before:

actually looks pretty similar to the pieces of the necklace the count used to create the servamps:

The different pieces of the necklace seem to contain one demon each and the count used them to create the servamps.

So...did the count either learn this technique from the werewolves or is he possible even originally a werewolf himself? It would explain why he's immortal, that's why I'm wondering about this.

Gear says that the ritual is used to remove spirits, could it be that the count removed his own sins using the werewolf ritual and created the demons this way? But he went too far and removed too much unlike gear who only removed one part of himself? Him removing the sins from himself would also explain why he's so weird and doesn't understand other beings. As the sin demons say, they are a natural part of being a human and we have seen multiple times that denying their existence is harmful, removing them all from you would probably lead to you not being able to relate to other people anymore.

Maybe removing all these parts of himself is also why he has no appearance. Without his demons he's not a person anymore.

The count originally being a werewolf would also explain why he has magical abilities (gear can also use magic) before other magicians existed and why he's so anxious about certain people dying. Gear talks about how his immortality makes him sad because human friends do die, but unlike the count gear seems to accept death, grieves in a heathier way than the count and is able to move on and make new friends. Could also explain why his magic and creations are all strongly tied to the (full) moon.

Another similarity is that while werewolves apparently can't reproduce gear was able to have descendants by sharing his life force (it's mentioned in chapter 135 which isn't translated yet) with a woman and through her human children tsurugi is related to gear. Sigurd explained to nicco that the magicians came to be because the count let humans drink his blood, three survived, got magical ablities and became the ancestors of all human magicians:

Maybe the count is more of a werecat though. He and the sloth demon do seem to have a closer connection, even though the count's appearance changes depending on the person looking at him he does usually keep his tail and the tip looks exactly like the one of kuro's cat/lion form and similar to the the one of inner sloth's non-human form.

It was also stated multiple times that the sloth demon is the strongest. I wonder why that is. Servamp comments on the fact that being lazy is often actually a sign of depression/anxiety through kuro's arc, so maybe the count was depressed and that's why the sloth demon is the strongest? Basically the demons strength depends on how much the count suffered from the different sins? It would also explain why melancholy is so strong, I assume kuro refusing to see him no matter how many siblings he sent his way to tell him to come looking for the count made him extremely sad and probably even made him come up with the plan to have himself be killed and then put in the same body as kuro through the ritual.

I assume he was behind C3 ordering the servamps to kill him because he's the one who created the magicians and thus C3 and lily who is kind of working for him was probably the one who put the idea that the count needed to be killed into the head of his eve (aka a member of the alicein family who hold a lot of power in C3 basically since the beginning. I explained this in more detail in another post). The people from C3 even said that the count can only be killed if he wants to and yeah, kuro didn't truly kill him, but he did destroy his body and kuro seems to have met little resistance when he attacked the count. Which probably means the count wanted this to happen.

[thecatron2000]

I made more :3

Sun and Moon on top

Solar and Lunar (my versions) in the middle

Eclipse on the bottom :3

[agenericplaceholdername]

Without the Blood Moon, Ras would've succeeded

"The Blood Moon rises once every few millennia in the Wyldness. And on this rarest of events, there is an arcane ritual that can be performed to resurrect... the Forbidden Five." -- Suetonius, Shattered Dreams

Coming out of Dragons Rising S2P1, it seemed like the Blood Moon's arrival was quite fortunate for Ras. It happens only once in thousands of years, and could have easily happened long before the Merge or long after. Instead, I will argue that if the Blood Moon was not happening soon, but Ras' overall goals remained the same, he would have succeeded.

Let's examine Ras' end goal in DR S2. He wants to bring the winner of the Tournament of Sources to the "Cauldron of Realms" (S2, E19) and from there, he can use the stolen elemental powers to create dragon icons. Then he can summon and capture Source Dragons (S2, E16). Working backwards, he wants to put together a team of elemental masters who will win the Tournament. In the canon timeline, since the Blood Moon is coming, he decides to try to free the Forbidden Five to use them as his Elemental champions.

(Side note: Given how threatening the Five have been described as, the equivalent to recruiting the most deadly Elemental Masters in history to win a tournament would be assembling the Ninja to defeat a single robber, or recruiting the Council of the Crystal King to defeat Dareth.)

However, let's say the Blood Moon isn't coming. Ras will have to put together his own team from the Elemental Masters he can recruit by himself. Cinder will work for Ras the same as he did originally. Through Jordana's source dragon energy, Ras can still open the Shadow Dojo and acquire the wolf masks, giving Cinder access to Shatterspin. While Cinder is easily bested by Rising Dragon (and even by Sora without it), given how easily Cinder defeated the Ninja in their first encounter, he might be able to handle the non-Ninja elemental masters at the Tournament with Shatterspin alone.

This does raise a question. If not for the Blood Moon, will the Ninja even learn Rising Dragon? After all, they only do so after Ras invades the Cloud Kingdom, Euphrasia goes to the Ninja and tells them what happened, they go to the Cloud Kingdom, witness Shatterspin, and then Lloyd calls on the Source Dragons and receives a vision directing the Ninja to Egalt and Rontu. But Ras only invades the Cloud Kingdom to translate the Theroxian scrolls for the Ritual of the Blood Moon, which he now no longer needs.

That being said, I'm still inclined to think Ras wants to learn the secrets of the Forbidden Five, if nothing else than to improve Cinder's Shatterspin and help Jordana learn sorcery. So the Cloud Kingdom is still invaded and the Ninja still end up seeking out Egalt and Rontu. It might be even harder to convince the Dragon Masters to teach the Ninja Rising Dragon, since the threat of the Forbidden Five is absent, but let's say the Ninja learn it. In fact, let's say that because the Blood Moon never happens and the Dragon Masters aren't turned to stone, all the Ninja learn Spinjitzu (if they didn't know it already) and Rising Dragon.

It doesn't matter.

Without Nokt and Rox being freed and killing various Arch-Dragons, the Source Dragon of Motion never directs the Ninja to the Tournament of Sources and Ras still works with Bleckt, who makes sure the Ninja don't receive their invitations. Thus, the Tournament occurs and Cinder and whatever other Elemental Masters Ras recruits -- probably Frak and maybe even Jay -- win. We don't know how Ras found Jay in the canon timeline, but he already didn't like working in the Administration. Ras can simply manipulate him whatever way he did originally. Ras now has the combined Elemental Powers, and his plan succeeds.

And to preemptively respond to a potential counterargument -- no, Ras didn't need the Ninja's elemental powers for his plan. Remember that originally, he tried to prevent the Ninja from showing up, tried to assassinate Lloyd, and then tried to get the Ninja kicked out of the Tournament.

[deadbaguette]

Gripping Telemachus by the shoulders like ohhh this is the guy I’m going to project ALL my found family feels onto

[pinkytoothlesso11]

i Wish you were this fic when Jim is a changeling and the Son of Strickler

Well... Since this can be taken many, MANY different ways... In this AU Jim is a young changeling, younger than usual, who is placed with the Lake family because of how Barbara is doing her degree in medicine and James doesn't care about looking after him much. He is not treated well, but Barbara does not notice because she's always tired.

Strickler is alresdy protective of Jim, because he knows he's younger than a usual placement changeling is. But when he finds out that James hit Jim, that's the last straw and be whisks Jim away somewhere secluded to raise as his own, even away from other changelings. Strickler knows Bular would use him as a punching bag if he stayed in Arcadia.

So, Strickler keeps Jim away from humans, changelings and trolls, and ends up becoming rather soft hearted. To the point when he DOES return to Arcadia, he's been userped by Nomura, and labelled a traitor. (when he returns to Arcadia with Jim, he's 15 mentally AND physically).

Meanwhile, reeling from the loss of both James and Jim, Barbara is determined to find her son. Which is one of the reasons she ends up being the next Trollhunter. She discovers changelings and begins to be suspicious. It isn't too long before she bumps into Jim. She doesn't remember him, yet feels he should be familiar and ends up gaggletacking him.

This leads her to Strickler, who DEFINITELY remembers her, and is quick to snarl at her that her son is not coming back because she didn't even notice he was swapped by a changeling.

Barbara is distraught and asks Strickler if he will kill her now. He obviously says no, because he's tired of fighting and he has a adolescent changeling to raise and no home now that he's been pushed out of the Order.

So it is agreed Strickler and Jim will live with Barbara (and Draal) until something can be sorted out.

They end up moving in eventually, as Barbara rekindles a relationship with Jim, and also finds out that Strickler isn't too bad on the eyes and a doting father besides for all she's learnt about changelings only caring for themselves.

Blinky of course has a complete fit when he finds all this out.

(I know I could have gone angsty... But trust me, there's angst in this AU if you read between the lines).

[genesisvirus]

Every inch of me is charred, God, what happened to my heart? I'm about to fall apart, again, again And you're never coming back, And I'm not okay with that, and I should've never let myself get attached, again, again, again, again, again, again, again,

AGAIN.

[sonknuxadow]

also im gonna say it . sega were cowards for having being fat and having a big nose be signature robotnik traits and then only making the men in the family look like that

[kazanskyy]

shiv having her husband in her contacts as FirstName LastName with no photo of him, so an incoming call from him would just look like a call from any other random contact...but then also having him set up as her Emergency Contact in her phone's Medical ID profile...shiv thesis.

[lesbianfrottage]

Okay but I feel so heady right now. My sister's going to let me go down on her like this is the dream like omg how did I even manage this????? HUGE rush of blood to the head