#timeline wacky shenanigans

[archer3-13]

so, if ya line things up then the third shinobi war really becomes extra horrifying. so, sasori right? missing nin, killed the third kazekage and all that twenty years from when he appears/dies in shippuden. sasoris defection coincides with that death. and how old was sasori right? he was 35 when he died. six years older then kakashi at the start of shippuden who was 29. subtract 20 from 29 and ya get 9 with kakashi having graduated at 5. kakashi gaiden happens when kakashis 12 and the war ends the same year.

so with all that in mind, thats at least three years of war, because sasori earned his nickname of the red sands during the third war canonically. BUT, you see where things start to go funky cause sasori earned his nickname during the war. that means the conflict was going on for at least some amount of time before that point. but for how long could that be? well, lets look at minato. minato is 10 years older then kakashi, being and dying at 24 when kakashi was 14 [kakashi starts naruto at 26 and naruto is born the night minato dies, so subtract 12 from 26 and ya get 14. meaning minato was only hokage for 2 years at most before he croaked, which jesus he really was ninja jfk]. that means minato was 22 when kakashi was 12 and 19 when kakashi was 9/sasori defected sunagakure.

so where does that lead us? lets look at minato compared to sasori. minato is 4 years older then sasori. minato graduated at 10 well sasori graduated at 7 and was promoted to chunin at 8. we know that the third war hadn't yet started when minato graduated or when sasori was 6 in effect. sasori would graduate when minato was 11 and would become chunin when minato was 12.

but now lets talk about sasoris parents and tsunades lover dan. sasoris parents died when sasori was young but importantly they died when sasori was still alive. dan tsuandes lover died at the age of 27 during the second shinobi war. assuming tsunade and dan are the same age that means the second shinobi war was still happening when tsunade was 27. tsunade at the start of shippuden is 54, that means she was 34 when sasori defected from sunagakure at 15.

that means sasori was 8 when tsunade was 27. the same year sasori was promoted to chunin. meaning she was 25 when minato was 10 and graduating. so either the second war was a literal flash in the pan, which seems unlikely, or minato graduated during the 2nd shinobi war as well. and then factor in that sasoris parents died during "a war" when sasori was young enough to remember them and convert them into puppets.

whatever the case, the 2nd war by necessity would have to have bled into the third war simply to keep these ages and events in any way consistent with whats being told. like, if we assume that the 2nd war ended right around the time dan died that doesn't even leave a decade until sasori murders the third kazekage at 15. so at minimum the third war is a 3 year bloodfest not even a decade after the previous at minimum 2 year bloodfest. at maximum it was a 7 year bloodfest right after the previous unspecified but potentially just as long bloodfest. over a decades worth of back to back catastrophically damaging wars.

like. holy shit man. the ninja world didn't even give the 2nd war time to cool and immediately said

id probably wanna just pack my shit and leave at that point too tsunade.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Neo Bowser City (aka Koopa City in PAL regions)

Debut: Mario Kart 7

Do you ever think of all the weird locations we only ever see in Mario Kart games? Despite being the biggest of all of Mario's spin-off franchises, when you really get down to it, remarkably few Mario Kart courses are actually based on established Mario locations!

It's not none, there's the occasional Donut Plains and Tick-Tock Clock and Airship Fortress, but most of the courses are these weird one-off locations we never see outside the context of that specific racetrack.

But have you ever taken a moment to step back and like, think of the Lore Implications of some of these places?

Like okay! Bowser just owns this whole dang cyberpunk city and we only ever see it in the context of Kart Racing! How messed up is that?!

One day Mario and Friends were looking for new places to race, and Bowser must have said something like "Gwah-hah-hah! I bet you puny punks could NEVER beat me in a race in my cyberpunk metropolis!" and right then and there it was established that Bowser owns a cyberpunk metropolis. Neo Bowser City is a city that exists in the Super Mario World and aside from returning in other Mario Kart games, it hasn't been acknowledged before or since.

Neo Bowser City first appeared in Mario Kart 7, as the third course in the Star Cup. Despite its flashy visuals, it actually doesn't really have a whole lot going on. It's a difficult track with some tight turns made more difficult by the rain making things more slippery, but besides that it doesn't really have any of the Wacky Obstacles that define so many Mario Kart courses.

Then it returned in Mario Kart 8 looking more gorgeous than ever! The bright colors really pop out, and the whole track is just oozing with detail that really emphasizes the scale of this city!

But like, the emphasized scale really only further raises the question of where this exists in the Mario World. Clearly, the fact that Bowser is plastered all over the billboards and the fact it's named "Neo Bowser City" helps us deduce that this city probably belongs to Bowser. Is this located in Bowser's Kingdom? Just how big is Bowser's Kingdom? And why does he own so many separate castles?

Maybe Neo Bowser City exists in the future? Is this a bad timeline? I mean, Mario Kart is allowed to have time-travel shenanigans. There's a Splatoon battle arena and that exists thousands of years in the future so sure, dust off Mario's Time Machine and head to the bad future where Bowser wins. Should've pressed that New Super Mario Bros. big yellow P-Switch!

I asked my friend Mod Chikako for their input and their theory is that Neo Bowser City isn't the future of Mario's world, but of our world. Clearly Bowser just couldn't take Wreck-It-Ralph losing the Oscar vote!

But in that case I guess it's a cooler cyberpunk future than the one we're living in right now. Corporate monopolies that run mass-surveillance with little government intervention due to their extreme wealth giving them extensive political power? No thank you! Neo Bowser City has bright neon colors, and flying cars! If I'm going to live in a dystopia, I want it to be a fun one. The only advertisements I want to see plastered everywhere are ones advertising Bowser!

Boo! That's the bad guy! Thumbs down!

The course returns again in that pitiful mobile game with another redesign, this time letting us see his Coney Island Disco Palace off in the distance. Does Bowser live in his Neo City? Is this worldbuilding we've been missing out on for decades, finally answered by a kart racer? Is this the capital city of Bowser's Kingdom? Am I once again falling victim to my perpetual hubris of overthinking the Mario franchise?

Really, I can't offer too much in terms of wacky fan theories, because I'm still thinking about this location existing in the first place. I'd love to know the Lore and worldbuilding here, but I guess the nature of Mario's canon is that it doesn't need to be over-analyzed. Bowser simply owns a cyberpunk metropolis, we'll only ever see it in the context of kart racing, and maybe that's okay.

Of course, this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention Dinohattan from the 1993 Super Mario Bros. Movie, which we've barely talked about on this blog somehow. You see, when the meteor hit, some of the dinosaurs escaped into a parallel timeline where they then evolved into humans, and then they built Dinohattan instead of Manhattan. Get it? Yeah, that movie is all sorts of bonkers. I wouldn't say it's very good, but I kinda love it. I'd recommend checking it out, if only to see a vastly different take on Mario than you'd be used to.

Anyway I bring this up because it's a completely separate instance of a version of Bowser building a large cyberpunk metropolis, and it actually predates Neo Bowser City! Do you think they could be connected? Are Dinohattan and Neo Bowser City one and the same...?

[small-brain-hourz]

Ok erm enjoy some alternate timeline crafting @shortiicake and I made up three years ago and just revamped

Long explanation time

Essentially the time traveling duo jumps straight to 301 since regular SnM live out their time in season 2. Sam gets electromagnetic powers via some wacky side effect of time shenanigans and while they gather the toys they react weaker but still work, ultimately being revealed that because Max’s powers are hereditary he still has them dormantly. I have more stuff for 305 but the max clones are basically the split personality max from season one, any discomfort he has from them is less nudity and more unrestrained emotional displays. He’s not a thrall but he has psychic potential Charlie can use

[dynamicccsworld]

Byler Week ideas/prompts, since I can't write or draw. Feel free to use to create your own fanfics or art <3

Some of these have little extra notes :)

Cobalt Blue

Ocean

•Jaws Au.

•Pirate Au.

• H20 Au.

•The Little Mermaid AU.

• Merpeople AU.

• The Wheelers have a Beach Vacation or something.

•Battle of the Beach (Enemies to Lovers)

Will and Mike both want a property on a small beach, with results in wacky shenanigans to convince Hopper (the owner) to give them the property. However, they bite off more than they can chew, and begin to view eachother differently then before.

Liminal Pool

•Backrooms AU.

Blue Hour

•Seamonster AU (Strangers to Lovers)

Will and Mike are investigators investigating a sea monster that comes out during blue hour, and they fall in love in the process.

Chili

Masquerade

•Murder Mystery AU

A murder mystery that takes place at a Masquerade, pretty self explanatory.

•Cinderella Inspired Masquerade AU

Rubies

•Royal AU

Will and Mike used to be childhood friends, but Mike got adopted by Queen Karen. Will is the son of a baker, and Mike is now a prince.

The only thing they have to remember eachother is a shared ruby necklace. (I had no better ideas lol)

Mauve

Butterfly Effect

•Time Travel AU

Will goes back in time to save people who have died in Hawkins, but it has unwanted side effects on the timeline.

•You Wish! AU

Mike wakes up in a world where he and Will never met, which leads to him discovering his feelings for him.

Lavender Fields

•Fae Au

1800s Ball

•Arranged Marriage AU

Gray

Medieval Knights

•Knight x Prince

•D&D AU

•Knight x Mage (Duh)

Growing Old

•Byler Dad AU

•Byler over the years refecting on their relationship

Love Locks

•Mike or Will finds a love lock.

• Lover Locks Movie AU. (I've never watched this movie so I don't know anything about it)

Forest Green

Hiking

•Will and Mike meet after getting lost on a hiking trail.

Spring Break

• The Party plans to get Mike and Will together over the course of spring break.

Cottage Core

•Disney AU

• Royalty AU, Again.

Prince Mike flees his castle after getting in a fight with his father, and he gets lost. After getting lost he discovers a strange cottage in the woods.

Gold

Birthday Party

•Birthday Gate

•Birthday Au

Mike or Will freaking out about the others birthday.

Sunset

•Magic AU

Something magical happens during a sunset, you can decide what it is. C:

Picnic

•Established Relationship AU

Just a fluffy fic where they have a picnic :)

Rose Gold

Champagne

•Drunk Byler

Mike or Will confess while drunk.

Engagement Rings

•Accidental Engagement

Byler accidentally gets engaged while drunk.

•Proposing

Will or Mike freaking about how to propose.

That's all the ideas I have! If you use any you don't need to credit ^^

(Byler week belongs to @bylerweek2025)

[blueberry-ash]

Accidentally re-read Chapter 400-403 of the TKA novel, and now I'm invested in the idea of Ye Qiu finally getting to just... have his turn at stepping away from Ye family obligations.

(Random segue: this section of Ye Xiu backstory is absolutely one of those areas where I really feel Ye Xiu is an unreliable narrator when it comes to talking about himself. Yes, sure, he definitely saw his brother's Running Away Suitcase and nicked it, taking the chance to run away himself. But the stuff implying that he, in that moment, had a reasonable plan about going pro as a gamer, with a baked-in end date, etc etc, whereas all Ye Qiu wanted was to leave...? I don't really buy that. Nobody was going pro with Glory at that point, okay? And even if he really did leave to go play video games, doesn't that also sound just like a little boy (same as his brother), eager to jettison himself from their family situation? Maybe I have the timelines wrong, but I'm really pretty sure that Glory, and being a pro-gamer, and all that really only came along with Su Muqiu, by which point Ye Xiu is implied to have been basically living in internet cafes. That does not really sound like a kid with a plan significantly crafted beyond Opportunistically Leave and Do Frowned-Upon Hobby, okay?)

But. Uh. That aside. What I now want is the story where Ye Qiu finally does get his chance to just... fuck off for a while. To just leave. Not shoulder his parents' expectations, or even his own, just... go away, and maybe en route figure out what his dream actually is?

Except, I think you'd have to machinate an external excuse to allow him to do that, at this point. He's spent too long being The Good Son, y'know? That's not an easy habit to break. And it probably won't be made any easier even if/when Ye Xiu does actually return to co-shoulder the Ye family business or whatever, because even in a scenario where Ye Xiu does genuinely decide to invest himself in that in a wholehearted way, Ye Xiu is still never going to do it in a Ye Qiu Would Do It This Way kind of way.

Actually, I think watching Ye Xiu very successfully "Ye Xiu"ing his way through the tasks and expectations, which Ye Qiu has been making such a point of doing so dutifully and correctly all this time, would probably be a whole new kind of hell for Ye Qiu, ngl.

All of which somehow leads me to the wacky crack-y suggestion of: Local Pro Players Realise The Existence Of Ye Qiu Is Ultimately The Fundamental Reason God Ye Has Been Able To Be Their Great Goal And/Or Rival All These Years; They Reward The Guy By Kidnapping Him From His Corporate Life Of Responsibilities and Showing Him A Good Time. Which would, of course, lead to chaotic shenanigans all around, surely, since I truly believe he has ZERO interest in video games, and most of them probably aren't all that experienced at a huuuuge amount of stuff outside of them. The hell do they even end up? Dragging him off on a holiday that goes impossibly wrong, but somehow in a fun way--? I Have No Idea!

Of course, that or... Chen Guo just randomly tells him he's doing a direct swap with Ye Xiu, cheers, meaning he's now hired at the Internet Cafe/some administrative part of Team Happy, please and thank you, enjoy your newfound levels of relatively low pressure work, questionable pay, and excellent socialisation opportunities as we plunge you face-first into geek culture, sorry not sorry. Also, btw, this girl(boy)(whoever) from the front desk seems to have taken a fancy to you, have fun.

[seraphjewel]

Star Trek Prodigy Season 2 thoughts

This show is everything I love about Star Trek. It may be produced by Nickelodeon, but it doesn't dumb anything down just because it's "for kids." I love how none of the main characters are humans, which not only takes advantage of being animated to give us cool alien designs, but also acts as a great visual for Starfleet's ideals. It's visually stunning and the writing is superb. It gives a season-spanning story while also making time for those wacky space shenanigans we expect from the franchise. It's funny, it's creative, it's heartfelt, it's emotionally powerful. The season finales for both the first and second season had me in tears.

Aside from adding to the chorus begging people to watch season 2, I'm just going to share some thoughts on this season. I tried so hard to watch it slowly but it's easy to binge. I'm now watching through it a second time. Cut for spoilers.

As a fan of the older Trek shows, I love how much the show clearly loves older Trek. We saw it a lot in season one, but since season 2 has the legacy characters in more prominent focus, it's more obvious. They are written with such loving care, every part of who they are is nailed down perfectly. There are so many callbacks and references and small touches that are scattered in the dialogue and visuals. Amazing Easter Eggs for Trek enthusiasts-- and another reason to go back and watch, to find ones you didn't notice!

This season made me much more interested in Chakotay and Wesley as characters. I was pretty ambivalent toward them both when watching their respective shows. I didn't find Wesley annoying, I just didn't care for him one way or the other. So having him return as this slightly unhinged Time Lord made him so much more appealing to me as a character. The fact that he was willing to go to some extreme lengths in order to get the timeline just right was some fun gray morality. I also liked that he seemed like he wasn't always sure when he was in the timeline. It reminded me of Mantis in the Guardians of the Galaxy game. And that made perfect sense coming from someone who could jump through multiple timelines just through thought. Wesley was complex, intriguing, and I'm so glad for him and his actor. He deserved it.

In a similar vein, Chakotay was one of the least interesting Voyager crew members to me. This isn't necessarily his fault. He was going up against some pretty big personalities, like the Doctor, Tom, B'Elanna, Seven, and Janeway. I also don't think the writers really knew what to do with his character. But again Prodigy wrote in some depth and complexity. They actually identified what tribe he was from. Watching the episode where the Protostar crew finds him made me want to write fanfic about Chakotay. That's how good they were at making this guy interesting for me! I loved seeing his slow descent into isolation and bitterness; I loved how almost insecure he was at times; I loved how he took command and led the crew. I'm a fan now and I want to go back to watch Voyager for him.

The season also made me a Janeway/Chakotay shipper. I saw the episodes in Voyager where they were feeling things, but personally I'm glad that they never crossed that line. There are way too many stories with female leads that act like they have an obligation to give her a romance, when the same would not be true if the lead was a male. In my opinion, it was better there was no definite love story for Janeway on Voyager since that was going against expectations. As Prodigy season two told its story, I was definitely picking up on strong love vibes between Chakotay and Janeway. I was convinced they were separated lovers, and when they were together they couldn't keep their eyes or hands off each other. It was excellent visual storytelling. I wanted them to be together at the end. For someone who didn't ship them before (I was more into Tom/B'Elanna), I'd say that's a big achievement for the show.

To sum up, I love this show so much! My only request is they try to incorporate Deep Space Nine somehow. #SetCoordinatesforSeason3

[sensitive-g]

AH. SINKING INTO WATER. WE MEET AGAIN.

IT WAS THIS MF'S BIRTHDAY ON SEPTEMBER 4TH (HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYY). I've been meaning to do a redraw of my tumblr banner for a while bc GODDDD it's old (It's from August 2019 apparently so five years old...) and this gave me an excuse to actually do that. I'm changing it after I post but I'll put the old banner under the cut for comparison if you're curious about it (I LOVE improving my skills over time I LOVE. IMPROVEMENT)

I still love my guy so much HFJKDSHL he means EVERYTHING Actually!! LORE DUMP RQ?? FOR THE HOMIES?? I got an inquiry in a tag about what exactly the REDA in REDAfterale stood for, and I'm not sure where to answer it so I guess I'll leave it under the cut too and hope the person sees it? Sorry to call attention to you in this way LOL

THE OLD. GAGS. GOD. WHO LET ME POST THIS. This wasn't even meant to be the banner, I just put it there while I was working on an actual banner that I just.... never finished??? I don't even remember actually but there was one that was definitely meant to exist ANYWAY LORE. To the question: yeah REDAftertale is the official title! It's a combination of the word REDACT and Aftertale, named that way after a gimmick that occurs through shenanigans this dumbass gets into. SUUUUPER tldr but it's basically an edit that occurs in the world during a reset, and the edit is relative to wherever this Geno is at the time. His DT is kinda at a similar level to the Frisk's DT in the timeline he ends up in, so when Frisk resets, his DT is kinda fighting for the control and it leads to Frisk.... not being able to reset EVERYTHING back to square one. And while its fighting, Geno's DT just straight up interferes with the world itself and causes wacky zany things to happen. So for example, a reset occurs while he's in Sans and Papyrus's house in this second timeline, and on the other side of it now there's a broom closet between the two rooms where there wasn't one before. Among other plot things!

ANYWAY YEAH SORRY FOR YAPPING AGHAHGAHGHGH

[kookielookie]

Just let me play Klaus Hargreeves from The Umbrella Academy again.

Roleplay search. Please only interact with the post if you are interested in writing!

I’m a 21+ writer who is literate and writes multi-paragraph to Novella style responses in the third person. GMT Timezone and a regular responder hoping for the same. That said, real life always comes first to me and I deeply respect my roleplay partner and their time.

I have zero limits and I’m a huge fan of angsty stories with darker themes (taboo is fine with me) but I also like fluffy scenes. Discord preferred. I’m OOC friendly! I love writing side characters because I truly believe friendships and familial bonds are just as important as the main romance.

I’m open to all sorts of plots for the below pairings. I’ve included a few tidbits but I have hundreds of ideas in my head for them all. That said, I’d love to come up with something together and work as a pair to make an awesome plot.

Pairings

- Klaus/Diego

• Open to anything here with no solid ideas. Pushing Daisies style detective drama with Diego and Klaus solving crimes using the dead? Together in the 60’s AU with them having to find a way to have a life there while waiting on the others to show up, inadvertently playing house. Commission Diego or Klaus as the Lila type character.. Up for so many things :)

- Klaus/Five

• I’ve got a couple ideas for this. TW for suicide in the first!

• After a safe landing into the present, things mostly go back to normal except that Klaus isn’t coping. He chooses to die and is accepted up by the Lil girl in the sky. Except that Five isn’t happy with this and goes a day back in time to stop it. Then it happens again a week later. He goes back. So on and so forth. Eventually Five realises that the best way to stop this is by giving Klaus reasons to remain.

• The second idea is a loose concept with the Handler picking Klaus up and keeping him for a few years prior to her collecting Five. She moulds him into someone obedient enough to stay where he’s been put and makes him firm on the belief that leaving would be stupid. As Five joins the commission, The Handler takes him to Klaus just so he also knows that leaving would be the worst possible thing. They can spend time with each other so long as Five completes his missions. The consequences of stepping a toe out of line aren’t worth thinking about.

• I’ve got a bit of an idea of a plot, one that starts mostly as smut and develops as we go on. I’m thinking, at some point in the timeline, we find them taking a break. Five is stuck in this body and that comes with being overwhelmingly turned on. I’d love for him to go to Klaus and for them to come to a no-strings-attached arrangement where Five can experiment all he wants until he’s bored. But, as time goes on, it becomes less business and he is certainly not getting bored. Cue him realising he’s got feelings.

From there, I am open to any and all directions. Angst aplenty. Apocalyptic shenanigans.

• Being me your ideas too! Them stuck in the 60’s together waiting for the others to land? Five ending up the same age. Forced to survive together, Five getting a job… Klaus being Klaus.

• Just… Five being ‘I hate everyone but him’ and them being the definition of someone will die / of fun!

- Klaus/Axel

• A few more scattered thoughts. The Swedes being assigned to watch the Hargreeves in the 60’s and Axel being in charge of Klaus (can also do the same plot in the modern era) or a cute slice of life thing with Axel returning to the modern times and courting Klaus all old fashioned like. Open to anything:)

Alphonso/Klaus

• Completely wacky and random pairing here but essentially you’d be making Alphonso an OC as his backstory is all up to you (I do still want him to have that asshole frat boy antagonistic attitude we saw) to write against my Klaus. Four on Four! Plotty thought includes a world where the Kugelblitz is slower and Alphonso and, possibly, Jayme don’t get Harlan’d. I’m thinking we start with a physical relationship where Alphonso finds Klaus that time he’s with Reginald and, after some verbal sparring and plenty or irritation, they end up hooking up. With some time, this can grow.

Interact with this post or DM me if you are looking to write together! I would love if you messaged me first and lmk what you were most interested in ❤️

[highoncatfood]

at the risk of sounding stupid- would the mystery phantoms be adjacent to trickster modes? idk anything about homestuck i just saw the trickster modes once and went "they look like Willy Wonka threw up on them" and compared it to how MP look like sparkledogs threw up on them

ive thought abt that and id say that yes. bcuz trickster mode is the result of interacting with the lollipop juju

and bcuz i made shinigami a cherub and the book of death her juju, mystery phantoms would still be connected to it

and i feel like with fanmade cherubs and jujus theres a bit more freedom as to what they can do and how they could affect the reality/narrative?? cuz yeah they hav their rules and shit but theyre only strict to those specific objects in homestucks canon. so i think i can just come up with a little bit of a different way for shinis juju to work

and its nothing crazy, it p much works the same as in raincode, creating mystery labyrinths. but to make it more Wacky Homestuck Time and Space Shenanigans style interacting with it would create a temporary side-reality/side-timeline thingy. and her being a thief of time (spoiling the classpect i gave her but whtever) would be super helpful as she could freeze one timelines, well, time for as long as the 'mystery labyrinth' would hav to exist and her and yuma could solve shit and fight phantoms in there as they please

still a big wip but to keep yumas journey of solving cases i think i could make his sburb quest kinda represent that buuut im still thinking of the details so excuse me for leaving this kinda.vague?

[prpfz]

Just let me play Klaus Hargreeves from The Umbrella Academy again.

I’m a 21+ writer who is literate and writes multi-paragraph to Novella style responses in the third person. GMT Timezone and a regular responder hoping for the same. That said, real life always comes first to me and I deeply respect my roleplay partner and their time.

I have zero limits and I’m a huge fan of angsty stories with darker themes (taboo is fine with me) but I also like fluffy scenes. I’m OOC friendly! I love writing side characters because I truly believe friendships and familial bonds are just as important as the main romance.

I’m open to all sorts of plots for the below pairings. I’ve included a few tidbits but I have hundreds of ideas in my head for them all. That said, I’d love to come up with something together and work as a pair to make an awesome plot. Bold is the character I want to write as.

- Klaus/Diego

• Open to anything here with no solid ideas. Pushing Daisies style detective drama? Together in the 60’s AU. Commission Diego or Klaus.. Up for so many things :)

- Klaus/Five

• I’ve got a couple ideas for this. TW for suicide in the first!

• After a safe landing into the present, things mostly go back to normal except that Klaus isn’t coping. He chooses to die and is accepted up by the Lil girl in the sky. Except that Five isn’t happy with this and goes a day back in time to stop it. Then it happens again a week later. He goes back. So on and so forth. Eventually Five realises that the best way to stop this is by giving Klaus reasons to remain.

• The second idea is a loose concept with the Handler picking Klaus up and keeping him for a few years prior to her collecting Five. She moulds him into someone obedient enough to stay where he’s been put and makes him firm on the belief that leaving would be stupid. As Five joins the commission, The Handler takes him to Klaus just so he also knows that leaving would be the worst possible thing. They can spend time with each other so long as Five completes his missions. The consequences of stepping a toe out of line aren’t worth thinking about.

• I’ve got a bit of an idea of a plot, one that starts mostly as smut and develops as we go on. I’m thinking, at some point in the timeline, we find them taking a break. Five is stuck in this body and that comes with being overwhelmingly turned on. I’d love for him to go to Klaus and for them to come to a no-strings-attached arrangement where Five can experiment all he wants until he’s bored. But, as time goes on, it becomes less business and he is certainly not getting bored. Cue him realising he’s got feelings.

From there, I am open to any and all directions. Angst aplenty. Apocalyptic shenanigans.

• Being me your ideas too! Them stuck in the 60’s together waiting for the others to land? Five ending up the same age. Forced to survive together, Five getting a job… Klaus being Klaus.

• Just… Five being ‘I hate everyone but him’ and them being the definition of someone will die / of fun!

Alphonso/Klaus

• Completely wacky and random pairing here but essentially you’d be making Alphonso an OC as his backstory is all up to you (I do still want him to have that asshole frat boy antagonistic attitude we saw) to write against my Klaus. Four on Four! Plotty thought includes a world where the Kugelblitz is slower and Alphonso and, possibly, Jayme don’t get Harlan’d. I’m thinking we start with a physical relationship where Alphonso finds Klaus that time he’s with Reginald and, after some verbal sparring and plenty or irritation, they end up hooking up. With some time, this can grow.

Like and I’ll reach out! ☔️

Leave a like, and anon will get back to you!

[absolutely-normal-about-x]

I know this is millennia in the future but I'm a sucker for time shenanigans.

What do you think Dr. Light and the rest of the classic crew would feel about X and his family?

Bro as someone who’s also into timeline shenanigans this is gonna be fun!

To note this is Non canon but I will be talking about it since I’m silly >:3

So basically it would be a very interesting scenario where either Classic or Legends gangs end up in either timelines. But for simplicity sake let’s just say through time travel shenanigans that caused Classic gang to end up in the Legends timeline for a short time and encounter X’s Family by accident.

Dr Light would have so many questions about this Era especially seeing X. He recognizes him regardless of his grizzled appearance, and role that he has. He’s still his youngest child in his eyes. My goodness look how he grew! Even if it took thousands of years to get there!

He’s also a father for goodness sake!! Taking care of 5 rambunctious children, who are all different in personality, appearance, age, experiences etc…they are so diverse yet so close with each other! He loves all of his grandchildren to bits! Each and one of them are so unique in their own right! (Despite the MASSIVE time gap in creation dates between the Guardians and Volnutt). But they still have their Father’s traits in their own unique ways. He’ll just just spoil his grandchildren and bond with them.

But notice that Volnutt is also this Era’s Megaman…but thankfully the boy has his family and friends to guide him like Rock has…it’s such an interesting coincidence that his youngest Grandson was named after his other son.

(It would be a silly tradition to name their youngest sons after their fathers aksnskn)

He’s just so proud of X for how far he has come, having to endure so many years of hardships to get there. Basically Dr light is just very happy to finally meet his son and his very colorful children.

Megaman/Rock’s feelings about his little brother’s family were met with enthusiasm and curiosity. He thinks they are the freakin coolest!! Like Dr.Light, he’s proud of his Little brother. He absolutely thinks his nieces and nephews are the coolest!! Absolutely want to get to know them better, especially Volnutt. He spends time with them and definitely is that fun uncle that tries to be a good influence to them.

Roll really said “FINALLY I'M NOT THE ONLY GIRL ANYMORE!!!!!”

Basically she also would love her baby bro’s Fam a lot. They would be very close and have all sorts of fun!! Especially fefnir’s gardening hobby is a constant delight for her. She appreciates X for teaching his kids how to do house work! She and Leviathan often get cute outfits together. Absolutely Taught the rugrats the power of THE BROOM.

Blues like everyone else is proud of X and is so happy to see him and his children. Unlike his younger siblings Blues would be a cool uncle who would get the kids to loving trouble. He’s a great influence for them yeah nothing goes even wrong- Honestly Phantom and Harpuia reminds him a lot of Tangle and Beat. He definitely calls Harpuia “Harpy bird” (For his fucking dismay).

But it’s also really fucking hilarious since Rock, Roll and Blues despite that they are older then X and his fam they are child models so the contrasts with with their brother and his kids. So trips to watch Movies and antics would make the ultimate wacky shenanigans galore!! Especially the reactions they would be priceless (Oh Blues is absolutely taking advantage of this).

X and his Kids would be swarmed by their robot master relatives. Especially volnutt HE HAS SO MANY UNCLES AND AUNTS LIKE DANG-

But yeah the classic gang absolutely loves X and his family very dearly, the same thing goes with them too. After the kids get over the shock of how ridiculously large loving robot family.

[deconstructivesurgery]

this is my first attempt at a poll because I'm genuinely curious and I've been thinking about my Borderlands rewriting plans and shit and I can't decide which of these alternate-to-canon scenarios I want to go with for katagawa jr

Context: I am insane about the funny Maliwan guy. Lord knows I have a habit of latching onto characters with like 5 minutes of screen time and getting so fixated on their potential that I go mad over it, and he's no exception to that rule.

I also have a huge Borderlands AU in the works that overhauls pretty much everything I didn't personally like in the series and integrates all of these one-off headcanons into one timeline. If I ever finish writing the goddamn document with all the information about this on it, I'll post it 😭

With that said, which one of these four potential arcs for him I could execute do you think would be most fun? Important to note, I'm not necessarily picking the most popular. I'm just curious :3

ALSO, regardless of his penultimate fate I plan on doing a lot more with him and the general Promethea arc in BL3 in terms of insight into Maliwan, his family, and the way it works. That's inevitable. This is just what happens to him after all that.

explanations for the last 2 since they're pretty vague

(***) This one is less realistic, but I don't always care much for realism and him and Rhys' dynamic is never not hilarious to me. Long story made short as possible: this one takes place in a world where getting Maliwan's ass off of Promethea wasn't just as simple as kicking Katagawa in the shins. Even in his absence (presumed death initially), Maliwan's heads (and the disgruntled parents of 13 corporate children) continued to attack the planet in order to recoup losses by taking control of Atlas, a profitable company. (You know, the reason they wanted it in the first place.) Jr. himself plays into this because he survived the VH attack, retreated to Maliwan safe quarters, and then was promptly nearly executed by a family deeply unhappy with his performance. Packing his shit and escaping in another war vessel sent down to Promethea, he decided to use his excellent backstabbing skills to take not only his technical capabilities (I like to assume he made and designed the mock-up Zer0 suit himself, but that's a rant for another day) to his insider knowledge of the company and their weaknesses to Atlas' front fucking door.

TLDR: This isn't some "I'm nice now immediately" type shit, it's more of a "bedraggled feral asshole in a suit begs you to let him work with you on equal footing this time because he wants to kick his family's ass and you can't really afford to say no because you're kinda losing a major corporate war right now" leading into fucking Wacky Coworker Shenanigans(TM).

the last one: Honestly similar to the tangent I went on above, except years of being raised a corporate cult patsy only to encounter failure and nearly be destroyed because of it leads to Kat seeing the rest of his family as "in the way" as his siblings were, leading to him waging internal warfare on the company after his scrape with Vault-Hunter induced death behind the scenes as the battle with Atlas continues. Could also segway into a funny unintentional "the enemy of my enemy is slightly less of my enemy than before" thing with the Atlas crew.

[the-present-is-a-gift-au]

Chapter 9: In Which the Future Trio are Paid a Visit

Twig knocked on the front door of the Future Trio’s home with the world weighing on her shoulders. Celebi was the one to answer. “Twig, dear, it’s been too long! I couldn’t believe—”

She cut off abruptly when she caught sight of the shadowy figure looming over Twig’s shoulder. Curiously, her expression wasn’t one of terror or fury like Dusknoir and Grovyle wore when they peered through the doorway as well. She regarded Darkrai with a look of… disorientation, almost. Like she was suddenly seeing double and trying to discern what exactly she was staring at. It stirred up some old memory from meeting Celebi in the Dark Future after Team Venture’s brush with death, but she didn’t have time to dwell on the memory when Grovyle was readying an attack and Dusknoir was following shortly behind him.

She gestured to her plus-one. “This is Darkrai. Or Ark. Whichever name you want to use. I met him at Mount Travail. He lost his memories just like I did, so I've been helping him out since we met. Be nice to him. He's sensitive.”

Darkrai regarded her with a look of quiet curiosity, but said nothing. Grovyle and Dusknoir warily dismissed their forming attacks, and Celebi continued to squint at Twig and Darkrai.

"Darkrai, these are the guys I was telling you about— Celebi, and Grovyle, and Dusknoir." She indicated each one as she named them, then put on a strained smile. "Is dinner ready? I'm starved." 

The food was great, as it always was, but the meal itself was the most awkward thing Twig had ever gone through, and Grovyle staring at her worriedly the whole time didn't make it any easier. Darkrai made regular attempts at polite conversation, but Dusknoir and Grovyle only ever responded in the most minimalistic ways one could imagine. Celebi meanwhile, despite her insistence before now that if she ever saw Darkrai again she would kill him on sight, was enthusiastically chatting with the same person who had sent her entire timeline into ruin, and she was doing so with a cordialness Twig hadn’t foreseen. 

 When the moon was high overhead, Grovyle indicated a room for Darkrai to sleep in and a separate one for Twig. When it was Kip and her visiting, it was always one room that they stayed in together. She guessed Grovyle saw her exhaustion and decided to remedy it however he could. Bless him. Even with her distance from Darkrai, though, Twig’s nightmares persisted. She woke up countless times clutching her arm and whimpering in pain. She was a mess come morning.

Grovyle was up, being the fellow early riser that he was, and watching the sunrise in the grasses on the edge of the Future Trio’s property. Twig sat down heavily beside him and flopped onto her back in the grass. 

"What happened, Twig?" Asked Grovyle. 

"It's what I said. Found him while I was delving at Mount Travail. He was shocked that I knew who he was because he had amnesia, and I brought him home. He's been my roommate since then."

"You need to kick him out. At minimum."

"Why?"

"Do I need to say it? Look at you. You're worse off than I've ever seen you since we reunited, maybe even worse than when we first met. You're putting yourself in danger to be kind to this moralless, untrustworthy—"

"I'm not doing this to be kind to him. I'm doing this to make sure he stays in line. I can't risk taking my eyes off the guy and having him remember how much he enjoyed world domination, Grovyle. It's— It’s bread and circuses for the Legend who almost took over the world. Keep him distracted and complacent. That sort of thing, you know?"

Grovyle didn't look like he believed her. 

"Besides, who knows. Maybe some wacky shenanigans will happen and he and I will become best friends. It happened with you and Dusknoir, didn’t it?”

He bristled. “That isn’t the same, Twig,” he said lowly. “Dusknoir changed of his own volition. It wasn’t like this, where Darkrai is a disaster waiting to happen. Besides that— you’re not well.”

“I’m doing great,” she bit out.

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” 

Twig didn’t grace that with a response.

“Twig, I’m worried. Just tell me the truth. Are you okay?”

She tossed an arm over her eyes and grumbled an indistinct answer, and didn’t react further to his nagging.

***

Hours after the rest of the household had started their days, Celebi finally rose from bed, with Darkrai following shortly. They chatted quietly in the kitchen, discussing interdimensional auras, temporal entropy, and other topics that made no sense to a non-Legend. Twig watched them for a moment before turning to Dusknoir as he read, seated on the floor of the main room, and steeled herself. 

He looked up when she approached, impassive expression flickering with worry. 

"I need to ask you something," she said. Then after a few nervous heartbeats quietly added, "Privately." 

He set his book aside and followed her out into the forest along the property's edge. Grovyle stood up from where he was knelt in the garden as they walked out. She waved off his look of concern with a dismissive motion. I'm fine. Don't worry about it. He was, yet again, visibly unconvinced, but didn't follow after them. 

Dusknoir folded his arms behind his back when Twig came to a stop, finally satisfied that no one would be in view or earshot of the conversation she was dreading having, and calmly asked her, "What is your question?" 

She opened and closed her mouth several times, put up a hand or started a gesture in order to begin only to falter halfway through the motion, and finally just sagged, shoulders drooping and head bowed, with a groan. "I guess it's less of a ‘question’ sort of thing and more of a ‘me running my mouth off and you telling me if I'm crazy’ sort of thing." 

"Alright." He settled onto the forest floor, and the effort to get closer to her eye level was appreciated, especially when he motioned to a branch on a nearby tree that was closer to his own. "Run your mouth off, then, so I can assess your craziness. Keep in mind that you're not going to be told you're totally sane, though. I know you enough to say a description like that would be madness in itself." 

The joke fell utterly flat in the face of her anxiety. But it was nice of him to try and ease the tension, at least. She clambered up and sat down on the branch, putting her face level with his brow, and wrung her hands. She had recited everything she wanted to say so many times in her head on the way here, and now all of it seemed inadequate and pointless. 

"Breathe. Then start at the beginning," Dusknoir lightly instructed, jolting her from her thoughts. "Rip the bandage off quick."

Alright. Inhale slowly, exhale slowly. Stop agonizing and start talking. “My aunt would hurt me when I was a human. Like, hit me and stuff. A lot.” She wasn't looking at his face when she said it, but she could see him go stiff and still in the corner of her vision. “It was something that she'd do because I back-talked or acted up, and if it was really bad, she'd get out a lighter and— uh— b-but I forgot about anything happening when I became a charmander. It came back a while after you— uh—” She swerved hard around what she was about to say, pivoting her choice of words. “— after Kip and I came to the Dark Future, in little bits and pieces over time. I didn't tell anybody for ages, because it's dumb and embarrassing, and I wasn't going to, but… Well, Darkrai can visit people's nightmares, right? So he figured it out. He didn't say anything, and it was…" She paused. "Okay, he did say some things, but only in ways I understood. Nobody else picked up on it. But it freaked me out, and— well— yeah. 

“That was before he lost his memories. But he figured it out again after that, and it's been messing with my head, even though he hasn't talked about it since he found out. Like, he hasn't mentioned anything. Not a peep. He's not exactly who he was before the whole amnesia thing, so he might not ever say anything, but I can't stop thinking about how he might. It's not a zero percent chance. It's just so stupid, because even if his memories did come back he probably wouldn't talk, but I'm stuck thinking about what if he does, and I… yeah."

Silence.

"So. Um. How crazy am I on a scale of one to ten?" She joked, turning to the man next to her and immediately regretting her attempt at humor.

Dusknoir had his eye behind a hand, arm crossed over his stomach, effectively hiding his face as he hunched in on himself. 

"… Sorry for unloading on you," she murmured. "It's dumb. I shouldn't have said anything." 

"Your… When you…" He tersely muttered a prayer and lowered his hand, looking up at her. "I— Thank you for telling me. I'm honored you trusted me enough to tell me. You did the right thing in telling me—"

"You can drop the script Magnezone gave you, man. I'm not a kid." 

"—And you didn't deserve any of the mistreatment you received."

Something in her bristled at that. "I did, actually. But it's in the past. Or Future, or whatever," she hissed under her breath. She crossed her arms, looking down and away. "Forget I said anything, it was messed up for me to bother you with this junk." 

"What did you say?"

"To forget about—"

"Before that."

"I said I deserved it and that it's done with, so whatever." She narrowed her eyes, glancing at him from the corners of her vision. He looked disgusted. "Yeah, look, I know it'd take some messed up stuff to deserve that sort of thing, but I was messed up. It's not on her. You don't have to worry about it." 

“How on earth could a child deserve to be treated so repulsively?”

“I did a lot of awful things on top of being a legendary brat most days. Don't worry about it.”

“Twig. Answer me. What could you have done to deserve… You mentioned a lighter, those devices humans used to start fires? Arceus, how could you deserve such a thing being used on you?” 

Her response came out small, timid. “I hurt a lot of people.”

“We all do. That doesn't mean any of us deserve to be abused by our kin.” 

“No, like— I physically hurt them. Humans lived in bunkers when I grew up, and I'm the only one left from mine. And that's because of me. It's because of me an entire bunker is dead. It's my fault that hundreds of people are dead and gone, because I was a crybaby who couldn't handle getting batted around a bit here and there.” She cast him a weary, angry glance. “I'm pretty sure killing an entire community of men, women, and children counts as something that would make me deserve that kind of thing.”

His brow furrowed. “How could you manage to—?”

“By leaving my bunker. There was a fire, and the doors locked themselves behind me. No one else could get out, and they all burned or suffocated to death. Not a pretty way to go, you can guess, so I definitely had some preemptive karma going on with my aunt.” 

There was a pause. “Preemptive,” Dusknoir echoed. “Am I right when I say, then, that you suffered for years before the supposed justification for your pain took place?”

Twig didn't respond. 

“How did this fire start?”

“It just did,” she said too fast for it to be the truth. Dusknoir saw through it and asked again. “Look, I don't want to talk about— ugh. My aunt started it. I blabbed about her hurting me worse than normal to one of my teachers, and she was going to be arrested because it was real bad apparently—” Dusknoir made a choked sound beside her, but she pointedly ignored it— “So she started a fire to try and use it as cover for her to get out of trouble with. Probably. I dunno. Never got to ask her. I ran when I heard she was being detained because she always said that if something like that happened… Well, I didn't want to see if she was bluffing with what she told me. I ran, I left my bunker, and because of that these big bolts that lock the exit doors activated and trapped everyone inside behind me. It's my fault they all died in there.”

Dusknoir was silent for a long time. “How old were you upon coming to the surface?" He asked with a heavily fettered anger to his words. 

"That doesn't matter. What happened is what happened, and it's done." 

"Humor me." 

She gritted her teeth. "I was six." 

He took in a sharp breath and let it out in a low hiss. "You were a child young enough to not have even lived through ten winters. You fled because you were intimidated and abused by a wretch of a woman, and the mechanisms of your home failed. You can't be expected to hold the blame for a tragedy in which so many passed in an unfortunate way—"

"You can just say I cooked them, man. It's fine. And believe me, I'm not some poor little survivor or whatever you're thinking of me as. I was the worst kid anyone ever met. People hated me.”

“And who told you that?”

Twig gritted her teeth, silent. 

"Even if you were an unpleasant child— which I honestly doubt— the blame for any escalation would not have been on your shoulders whatsoever. You were a child." 

That stung somewhere deep in the back of her mind. "Thanks for trying to reassure me, but you're wrong. I was awful and I deserved every lick of pain I got.”

Dusknoir glared at her. "Whether or not you deserved anything doesn't matter. No one should lay a hand on you, regardless of whatever they might think you've earned. Would you say Azurill or Marill would deserve the treatment you received, were they in your place?” Her stomach seized at just the thought, and he continued. “No. You wouldn't. Because you know, even if you deny it, that what was done to you was wrong. What you deserved was safety and care, not to be made the victim of such cruel, unfair retribution.” 

"Nice speech, still wrong. Bye." She hopped down from the branch and got three steps toward the house before Dusknoir caught her by the scruff and brought her level with his narrow glare. "Dude, what gives?!" She spat, clawing at his fingers. 

"What gives is you're refusing to accept your complete innocence and acknowledge the perpetrator's sole responsibility for what was done. You were an innocent bystander; a child."

"I don't count!"

"You do."

"No, I don't!"

"Why do you believe that?"

"I told you— I killed my entire bunker!"

"And did that matter?"

“Put me down, you lousy piece of—"

"Did that matter?"

She paused, claws stilling in their furious assault on the hand holding her aloft, brows furrowing as she held his unyielding, though not unkind, gaze— the question sinking in. "… What?"

"Did you really kill them?" Arceus, he sounded so tired. “Did you kill them, or did you survive them?”

Silence. 

“Anyone else could have been the first to flee. Anyone else could have gone through the exit before you. And then it would be them in your place, cursing themself for having lived where others died. You didn't will the mechanisms to fail, nor did you sabotage them. All you did was have the misfortune of surviving alone.”

She slowly lowered her claws from his fingers, curling her hands in to her chest. When she finally looked away from him without any rebuttal to spit, it felt like she'd been skinned alive— like her outer layers were all peeled away until there was nothing left but a dripping, bloody wound where she once stood. 

Silence. 

"… Put me down," she repeated. 

He did so, and settled onto the ground beside her. 

There was quiet for a long moment as they sat. Twig drew her knees up to her chest, hugged them close, and hunched her shoulders in as she stared at the ground by her feet. 

Dusknoir spoke in a steady tone— firm but understanding as he brought their conversation back to Twig's initial concern. "Don't blame yourself for what was done to you by your kin. Don't blame yourself for fearing the ability to tell someone yourself being removed from you. But most of all, do not blame yourself for surviving. You were spared. Others were not. You surely feel disoriented and disgusted by that fact. But there is nothing to be done about the past but to continue living." 

Those last words echoed in her skull. It hit her that he was speaking from experience, and a number of things clicked into place. 

(He had mentioned there being other servants of Primal Dialga. Yet by the time they had entered the Dark Future, only he and the sableye enjoyed such a rank. She'd seen scars on him that didn't fade, a hallmark of a wound dealt by a Legend.

(It wasn't the same as her upbringing. Nothing would be. But if she thought about it, “As you wish, my lord” sounded dangerously close to “I'll go get the lighter, Auntie.”)

“You were a child,” he repeated, and his words felt like antiseptic on an open wound. 

A few strangled tears slipped from her, and she managed to hold back most of her pitiful, weepy noises. But when she continued to sniffle and shake, Dusknoir set a kind hand over her shoulder— or over her entire upper arm, rather, with his size— and Twig, deciding that he could be a part of the Don't lose a hand when you touch Twig club, let all the years of swallowing back the need to scream and sob finally excise themselves.

***

To say she got worried looks upon returning to the house was an understatement. She knew it must have been clear in her face that she was crying, and Dusknoir’s clawed-up hand certainly didn’t help ease any concerns. Darkrai’s subtle worry was the most unnerving, though she knew Grovyle’s blatant fretting meant she was in for a discussion she didn’t want to have. Dusknoir set a hand on his shoulder as he made to approach when she started for the guest room— murmured something about allowing her time to collect herself— and Twig didn’t linger long enough to react to Grovyle’s heart-wrenching expression of concern. She locked the door and let herself collapse onto the bed, boneless and hollowed-out from her tears. 

It was as if something had been ripped out of her as she wept at Dusknoir’s side. She felt like she’d had a tangled, knotted mass extracted from deep within her ribs. It wasn’t a bad sort of feeling, but it was definitely different than the constant lump in her throat she was used to. It was strange. Certainly not unpleasant, but not exactly good either. 

She didn’t sleep that night, only stared at the wall in a numb daze. It wasn’t a bad night. But it wasn’t exactly a good one, either. 

Grovyle was up when she rose the next morning. She murmured a greeting and poured herself a cup of whatever was heating in a kettle on the stovetop. It was a lukewarm magost berry tea, and the lack of steeping made it distinctly unpalatable. She drank it regardless. 

He watched her drink for a moment. She avoided eye contact.

“Twig,” he finally said, “you’re being reckless.” 

She did not need another ‘Let’s unearth all of Twig’s shortcomings and bring them up for review’ session so soon. She took another swig of the tea and looked away from Grovyle entirely.

“What if Darkrai’s memories return? What do you do then? You’re living with him. Who’s to say that he won’t recall his past and decide to kill you in your sleep?”

“That won’t happen,” she muttered.

“How can you say that so confidently? It’s a possibility! You don’t know for certain that it won’t happen—”

“The Darkrai I knew isn’t ever coming back, Grovyle! He’s gone. So I'd better get used to it already. I don’t need you driving in the fears that things will change when they never will! Darkrai is gone, he’s dead. So I should start acting like it, and you should too!” With those last words, she rounded on him, teeth bared and the flame at the end of her tail bright in the dim room.

She had never seen Grovyle look so defeated.

“I…” She swallowed hard. Why was he staring at her like that? Why was he—

Oh. 

Darkrai wasn’t the only person who had lost their memories. He wasn’t the only one who had changed beyond recognition. He wasn’t the only one who people had to relearn how to act around when they used to know him well.

“I’m sorry,” she forced out. “I didn’t mean it like— I didn’t—” She gritted her teeth for a moment longer, then stormed out with another stammered apology. 

Arceus, she felt awful. And she knew Grovyle felt even worse.

Good job, idiot.

***

Twig didn’t say goodbye when she left the next morning. She’d already done enough damage— it’s not like she needed to rub into Grovyle’s face that she was too stupid to know how to fix the damage she’d done to him and what friendship had been recovered between them. Darkrai was up and about in the main room already when she got up to leave, long enough before sunrise that even Grovyle hadn't risen for the day. She didn’t tell him they were leaving. Darkrai understood without her saying so— just rose up silently and followed behind her as she locked the front door after them with the spare key she’d been gifted.

At some point on the homeward trek, Darkrai spoke. “I don’t mean to seem as though I doubt you, but I still find it necessary to clarify how exactly we knew each other before my memories were lost.”

Twig found herself picking up the pace out of an instinctual need to flee— she had to purposefully slow her strides. “I already said you were a do-gooder type, man. You traveled all around, and my exploration team partner and I traveled too. We were bound to bump into each other at some point, and we got to know you a bit whenever we did.”

A pause. “This doesn’t explain why you and your companions are all so wary of me.”

“What?”

“Surely you noticed how Grovyle and Dusknoir reacted upon witnessing my arrival? They were ready to strike me down— or at the very least give their greatest effort in doing so.”

She chewed at the inside of her cheek. “That’s just them— they’re weird and nervous about new people. I’m not scared of you, Darkrai. Trust me.”

He didn’t respond further. She could only hope that he didn’t notice the waver in her voice at her final words as they traveled through snowdrifts and frost to Verdant Village.

[marionmorse]

Ughh the gosh darn- how do I- how do I describe this?

While Helmet Party is my #1 always and forever, I ADOREE Zhanna/Soldier to no end. In another of a series of TF2 sitcom-esque plots, picture Heavy coming home for a short visit, maybe looking forward to a quiet holiday with his loving, warm family. Then he walks in and it's. Soldier there, Zhanna's fiance. (Also - how did Soldier beat him there? Heavy not only left earlier, but also took the quickest possible plane and boat trip he could? This puzzles him.)

And it's just - just a series of Misha trying to be at peace, while Jane introduces hardcore AMERICAN-SPIRITED traditions (maybe it's at Christmas time?) and the sisters fall in love with the energy, the wackiness all, leaving Misha just kinda... there, a little alone.

By the end he comes to accept that things have changed in a very - again, sitcomy - way. He still gets time with family, particularly with his mother, just differently than expected.

As for placement in the TF timeline, it's IMPOSSIBLE considering Solly and Zhanna meet up in the post-game comics and it's implied that Heavy is on vacation from the Gravel Wars but shh, shhhhh, uhhh... Ao3 tag: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence and bam! That covers that.

Another Christmas - specific plot revolves around Scout and Pyro visiting Scout's family in Boston. (Pyro is there not only because the two are BEST BUDS, but also because Pyro doesn't really have a place to go for the holidays)

Queue Jeremy introducing his friend to his many brothers, and THEIR many kids, all in this crowded Boston home. There's wackiness to that.

Most importantly, SPY is there? My favorite way to characterize Spy's fatherhood is that he's always known and has been a bit protective for that reason, but let's say he only realizes it AS SCOUT WALKS IN! (Again, gotta smooth out the timeline with that one.) Jeremy is absolutely oblivious as Spy is out of uniform, obviously, but PYRO is the one to immediately recognize the Frenchman and they make just the most... Bewildered eye contact. While Jeremy bumbles around all: "So, tough guy, think you're good enough for ma?"

Think of Scout and Spy coming up with elaborate backstories to keep cover about their mercenary work, with Spy in particular digging in for the humor of it. Of course, the fluffy Christmas bits - Pyro's new friends, Scout's Ma getting to see her little guy again. It's cute. Very... you know... Sitcomy.

(Also, picture an alternative where Jeremy DOES recognize Spy - and they dance around in the whole elaborate backstory thing while having a side of pissed-off arguing when they can, keeping it all under wraps when any family is around. They both dig deep into the other's 'careers' while around folks just to show each other how mad they are.)

I'll keep the last one short and sweet - reaffirming my headcanon in which Engie has like... 14 nieces and nephews, with parents, grandparents, and their families on a beautiful piece of land in Bee Cave. Like Pyro, Medic doesn't have any thing particular in mind for the holidays, so he tags along with his buddy to Texas. He's a bumbling little German guy thrust into a very Texan culture-heavy scenario, all the eccentric extroversion, the COOKING, the amount of PEOPLE, but also... Seeing Engie as a family man, seeing him unwind and be more human than ever. A.M. coffee watching the sunrise type stuff. It's kinda sweet.

By night, of course, the Science Party shenanigans ensue with Engie showing off his now rather dilapidated workshop elsewhere on the ranch. His father's and grandfather's work, old prototypes, nerd bonding. That type of stuff.

[artbyblastweave]

Just finished off The Magicians (the syfy adaptation, in case there was any confusion). Was told to expect something godawful; was actually pleasantly surprised, in the sense that this is the only time I’ve seen a show like this semi-competently wrap everything up in a normal-length season finale that comes on the tail of one of their basically-could-have-been-in-the-middle-of-an-earlier-season Wacky Heist Plots. It was a shitshow but not Rise-of-Skywalker levels. It should have been much more viscerally unpleasant than it was.

Structurally I feel like one of the show’s biggest problems was that they never really worked out what to do with Quentin, their erstwhile protagonist; Conceptually, he’s interesting because he’s meh. He’s Harry Potter if Harry Potter’s childhood was conventionally shitty, middle-of-the-road suburbia shitty, and there’s an interesting statement wrapped up in how his unwavering love of the fantasy series of his childhood is validated (it was all very literally real!) but he himself isn’t necessarily exceptional, he’s the “chosen one” not by birthright but by virtue of groundhog day shenanigans where the people who instigated the loop keep trying to steer him into not getting everyone killed, he’s kind of a fuckup and a burnout who keeps learning that escape isn’t and can’t be what he needs it to be. All of which worked really well for me in the first season. 

But to synthesize a lot of meandering misgivings I have with his character arc.... you can only push the disillusionment line so far before he basically gets that being the chosen one is a bogus concept and that fantasy novels aren’t a life roadmap... and from there he’s basically just constantly putting out emergent fires, and I never felt like there was necessarily a thesis with his character- the bones of one, rattling around, the obvious parallels he has with the first-season Big Bad as an obsessive looking for an escape, but never quite realized. And without looking it up, his death feels like the kind of thing where the actor wanted to leave the show and the writers had to grit their teeth and make do. 

All of this leading to a situation where, in the final Quentinless season, it’s very strange because the cast is objectively now composed entirely of cast members I found more interesting and charming and funnier on their face than Quentin, and they’re throwing in a lot of meta-level elbows to the rib about how it was never really Quentin’s story exclusively, right, these characters are strong enough to carry it themselves, but there’s undeniably something missing, for all his deliberate mediocrity. Well, that’s kind of it, isn’t it? Deliberately trying to cultivate mediocrity in a character in order to make a point, but then not springboarding to something more complicated than that, at least not in a way I found satisfying. I mean if you start cracking jokes about how you don’t really need your mediocre white male protagonist that badly, and then you demonstrate that you’re basically right.... that’s kind of an implicit condemnation of the four seasons you spent with this guy as the lead, isn’t it? The bottom should fall out of your show, actually, if you remove the protagonist. Pick a guy who is the center of the story, with a good reason for that. Or keep the haves-and-have-nots dual-life-path-with-the-childhood-friend thing going further. I dunno. I respect their attempted pivot into an ensemble thing but it didn’t quite land.

(Also I didn’t like the Penny-23/Penny-40 situation. It was like they couldn’t figure out a satisfying direction for Penny 40 so they pseudo-kill him and replace him with a version whose character development occurred in a doomed timeline. Other things could have happened there!)

But, broadly speaking, I did like it moment to moment. There was never a single moment that I was watching the show and wanted to not be, never a single moment where I was not entertained, very few jokes that I didn’t find entertaining. I think this might be what it’s like to watch an okay television program. Striking that balance where nothing you’re watching is too grotesquely uninteresting that you get up and walk away, even if the zoomed-out overarching narrative skeleton is one of those bizarre badly reconstructed fossil amalgamations borne out of the 1800s paleontological arms races. Interesting experience all around.

[coredrill]

okaaaaaaaaay bravernine thoughts. lol (lots of lulu)

i have never been more intrigued and confused and clueless abt where this show is going to go and i am HOOKED. i called my one (1) shot in abt smith dying in ep8 and so now i am just along for the wacky ride until the end!!!!!!!!!! also my understanding of time travel stories is very poor compared to my understanding of wow cool robot stories so that is undoubtedly a part of it FNDNFBJD

i’ll probs catch more on a rewatch and others have pointed this out but. it seemed like the “timeline” changed right when we got the ep1 flashback/eyecatch? like that’s when hibiki’s arm wound vanished and switched to her head, and wehn we saw hiro again, and also lulu’s demeanor switched from being sad to more determined? so like. i wouldn’t be surprised if lulu shenanigans happened as well in that time…………

also lulu. obviously bravern is smith + knuth + brainwave bot but i would NOT be surprised if there was some of lulu in there too. since her brainwaves were in there too? which would make sense as another ingredient in the bravern soup, if he gets his clinginess and more childish demeanor from her in addition to his horniness from knuth and his heroic attitude and love for isami from smith. which is maybe why, after the “timeline switch” i just mentioned (idk what else to call it) lulu suddenly Knows Smith’s In There in a way she didn’t SEEM to before? like she called bravern “smith” ofc but this was like. deliberate in a different manner imo. idk. lulu is up to Some Shit tho and like everthing else i am SOOOOOOOOOO excited to see it !!!!!!!!!!!!

i know i keep making haha funnies abt smith trying to outgay kaworu and like. when it comes to queers in mecha anime i rly don’t think anything can reasonably “outdo” eva due to its impact (heh) and the fact kaworu and shinji did all that in 1996 but like. lewis smith is putting in the bravest effort i’ve seen by a LONG shot……………….what if that tokubro u met in hawaii loved you so much he became your undead horny super robot soulmate (“hey tumblr user coredrill what if you stopped beating this joke format to death” LISTEN i think its funny still. lmao)

hmmmmm i feel like i had more to say but. i forgor lmao. surely this won’t be like every other week where i am like “these are all of my thoughts 😇” and then i continue to make AND ANOTHER THING posts every 3 hours like clockwork. surely things will be different this time. surely i am not also stuck in a timelo

OH WAIT I REMEMBERED. but yeah i was just thinking abt how like. smith gets so fucking angry abt how the lulu are used and so when he contributes to bravern he makes it so that isami can pilot him safely. and not a lulu-pod-scenario. because he loves lulu and he loves isami. i am going to tear my skin off of my own body