#we live in the evil timeline. truly.

[bateauivree]

I'm sorry but some people are insane I was checking out the plot of a book and found out the author started her career writing fanfiction and she just has her username on the publisher site????? girl what are you doing.

[todayisafridaynight]

extra thoughts but sawashiro hurts my heart so like. yeah we know his character is like sad and tragic but like. REALLY think about it and like let it set in i swear he makes me want to rip my hair out he was just a boy... wish him happiness w like. a Labrador or smthn i dont know dog breeds

i can't really. call sawashiro 100% innocent; the abuse he went through during his adolescence is definitely sad and undoubtedly contributes to his behavior now, but uhhh he still put a newborn baby in a locker LMAO?

sawashiro's agony is purely a product of his own actions. at the very least he's trying to rectify the damage he did, and that's definitely better than him not having any remorse at all

[celaenaeiln]

thinking about some quotes i’ve read and i wanna hear your thoughts on them because i have a lot and i don’t know what to do with them.

“the day Dick Grayson turns evil is the day the universe ends, not because that day will never come but because the boy will make it come”

“Dick Grayson isn’t the universal constant of good. Dick Grayson is the universal constant of competence”

“So, having said all that, it is a few but definitely significant words that fill the contingency plan on Nightwing in case the hero of Bludhaven ever turns to the dark side. Let's hope that never happens.”

YESSSSS

“the day Dick Grayson turns evil is the day the universe ends, not because that day will never come but because the boy will make it come”

This is the truest fact I've ever heard because this is really canon.

Word for word this happened.

In one of the canon timelines Clark laser blasted Bruce under mind control.

And oh how Dick took over. You know what Luthor says?

"After all, as I've heard your father [Dick] so often quoted, 'we make the hardest decisions for those we care about the most.' Well, in his case...that has meant remaking the world."

This man has the power to single-handedly control the fate of the world.

Whatever he wants, he will make it happen.

The entirety of the justice league, all the metas, heroes, and villains too stood no chance against him.

DC vs Vampires

“Dick Grayson isn’t the universal constant of good. Dick Grayson is the universal constant of competence”

I think it's true.

Nightwing is one of the most formidable figures in DC, without fail consistently coming out on top, so if Superman is iterating that Dick's personality and essence of being is the same, then there's really no room for disagreement.

But more truly, I think he is a Nexus.

By Marvel's definition, "Nexus Beings are rare individual entities with the ability to affect probability and thus the future, thereby altering the flow of the Universal Time Stream. These beings, each referred to as a nexus, act as the keystones of the Multiverse and are crucial to its ultimate coherence and stability."

That means that the universe hinges on the actions of Dick Grayson.

Not only does he control the fate of the world but his mere existence determines what will become of it by other people:

I'd like to reiterate that Neux Beings are "the keystones of the Multiverse and are crucial to its ultimate coherence and stability."

You can still be a nexus if you turn dark. For example Lore was a dark version of Wanda Maximoff but she is still considered a nexus. So you're right in saying that Dick Grayson is a multiuniversal constant of competence.

“So, having said all that, it is a few but definitely significant words that fill the contingency plan on Nightwing in case the hero of Bludhaven ever turns to the dark side. Let's hope that never happens.”

In the easiest terms as someone put it, "hope he fucks up" is Bruce's only contingency plan against Nightwing. The man doesn't have a clear plan how to neutralize Nightwing.

His exact words are: "As a result of overanalyzing any situation, this allows Dick Grayson to overconfident and misdirected. This will make himself open to a second attack."

So the plan is basically 'Dick is too smart for his own good so we'll have to go with a lucky surprise attack.' He's literally saying 'yupppp. Let's just hope he messed up because there's nothing we can do on ouR end.' Note that Bruce doesn't even have a back up like 'the second attack didn't work? we're fucked.'

For everyone else he actually has a coherent plan in mind- do this and they will fall. But for Dick? 'I hope he messes up enough for a second attack to actually stick. Otherwise we're shit out of luck. And lives. Fingers crossed he doesn't jump to the bad side.'

Tim also confirmed he would never make a contingency plan for Dick. The only person in the world he wouldn't do one for.

He's just that formidable of a man. Even now he can easily take down the Justice League if he wanted to.

And we know that Dick has one of the strongest wills on the planet.

"I have my enhancements. I have powers. Dick Grayson...what do you have?"

A world where Dick loses his emotions is a world that would not survive.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

as a lifelong ATLA fan who narrowly had ATLA dethroned as my top show by The Dragon Prince steadily over the past 5 years, the similarities between the two have very little to do with the surface level parallels that get regularly drawn between them.

Like ATLA, TDP has Books for seasons and chapters for episodes, but unlike ATLA, which only touched on storytelling sparingly as a theme, TDP is obsessed with interrogating storytelling and history and the presence of unreliable, biased narrators throughout many of its episodes (most notably 2x05, 2x06, 3x06, 4x04, and 4x07 among them). Half of what you learn in the 1x01 intro ends up being a lie once you reach S3, with more being steadily deciphered.

Yes, TDP has different magics with people living under those umbrella terms... for the elves. Humans are coming culturally at things from a completely different angle, and the elves' connection to their primal sources are discussed philosophically in detail, informing their practices and their culture first hand, including the way they chafe against humans, who are arcanum-less. Many animals in the world are also connected to magic, which influences both their design and which ones get hunted for humans' more 'clever' solution in dark magic, including each other.

The core issue of the Puppetmaster, down to being a coercive magic formed by someone deeply resentful of their imprisonment? Said puppetmaster is the main endgame antagonist of the entire show with all of S4 onwards being exploring the ethics of controlling people against their will in various methods, and the entire show itself being a thematic battleground of fate (imprisonment) vs free will for virtually every single character.

Where ATLA mostly concerns itself timeline wise with ending the war, very little thought is shown by any of the characters as to what they'll do after the war. This isn't a problem (as it reflects the sheer domineering scope of the conflict) but even Zuko being firelord is only ever really addressed with 2.5 episodes left till the finale. TDP, meanwhile, ends its 'war' in s3 and s4 opens up with dealing with the old wounds festering between people with centuries of history, the struggles that come when people aren't able to let go and believe they're safe or mourn in a healthy manner, and the religious/cultural clashes that may occur when trying to integrate different groups of people.

TDP also has an evil father with a devoted daughter and a brother who eventually defects, but it explores the reality of an abusive parent who loves/will sacrifice for you and your right to leave regardless, even if that means leaving the sibling you truly deeply love and who loves you in turn. Which means that when you and your sibling are on opposite sides of a deep ideological conflict, it actually really fucking hurts bc we've seen first hand just how much they love each other and also how and why everything fell apart not in spite of that love necessarily, but also because of it.

Is this to say that TDP is a 1:1 with ATLA or that it's better? No, not at all, and the latter is subjective. I prefer TDP, but I think they're about on equal ground when you look at each show currently as a whole (although TDP has two seasons left to go).

But TDP takes a lot of what ATLA was doing thematically with some of its most interesting beats and then builds or expands upon them further. It talks further and more consistently about the cycles of violence; in many ways, Jack De Sena's character, Callum, begins the series largely where Sokka had ended (and he's not the most like Sokka anyway; very much his own thing); we get Faustian bargains and centuries' long grief and fucked up people who are trying both succeeding and failing at not doing fucked up things. There are antagonists, but it is very hard to actually label anyone at this point a straight up villain. Moral greyness is where the show starts, and it just continues from there.

That's not to say the show is nothing but dark and depressing - like ATLA, there's a steady thread of hope and humour even as the show gets steadily closer and closer to its 11th hour point - but the show is usually emotionally heavier. There's more blood and potentially disturbing imagery with body horror and on screen death. There's so much foreshadowing you basically can't go more than 5 minutes into any episode without having something that's going to come back around or be referenced again like 3-5 seasons later.

Just to be clear - TDP is like ATLA, but it's like ATLA in interesting ways beyond the more shallow surface level that usually gets attributed to it, while still very much being its own show and its own thing. And that is why I tend to recommend it to people who like ATLA.

Thank you and goodnight

(Also, the fandom doesn't have any ship wars, and the show is queer as fuck)

[posttexasstressdisorder]

They killed our Jesus: A Lament for Generation Jones

Two things happened in 1980 that would ensure the iron grip of the fascist state would (first slowly, then quickly), tighten on the entirety of the nation's populace from that moment forward: Ronald fucking Reagan was installed as president, and a CIA-psyop'd Christian Nationalist shot and killed John Lennon.

Those two things are connected.

First let's look at exactly who "Generation Jones" encompasses, and specific moments in the generational timeline that defined our future. The wiki page is actually quite good. Here's an excerpt that really hits it on the head:

"The name "Generation Jones" has several connotations, including a large anonymous generation, a "keeping up with the Joneses" competitiveness and the slang word "jones" or "jonesing", meaning a yearning or craving.[17][18][19] Pontell suggests that Jonesers inherited an optimistic outlook as children in the 1960s, but were then confronted with a different reality as they entered the workforce during Reaganomics and the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy, which ushered in a long period of mass unemployment. Mortgage interest rates increased to above 12 percent in the mid-eighties,[20] making it virtually impossible to buy a house on a single income. De-industrialization arrived in full force in the mid-late 1970s and 1980s; wages would be stagnant for decades, and 401Ks replaced pensions, leaving them with a certain abiding "jonesing" quality for the more prosperous days of the past.

Generation Jones is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of their older brothers and sisters in the earlier portion of the Baby Boomer population had; thus, many note that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to older Boomers. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness and "jonesing" for the level of doting and affluence granted to older Boomers but denied to them.[21]"

That sets the stage, for the most part. I was four when JFK was shot on TV. I was a wide-eyed, open-eared five year old when The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan and The Supremes were on the radio. I was ten when we landed on the moon, and I wanted to be a hippie at Woodstock at eleven. "Basketball Jones" came out when I was 12...I jonesed for a telescope because SPACE and got one from that great maker of fine telescopes, KMart.

Generationally, we jonesed to be ten years older, so we could have had all the cool shit THEY had. They had The Beatles, and we had the solo Beatles, they had Hendrix, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, and we had the fucking BeeGees and disco. It's like we, as a generation, were fated to live The K-Mart Knockoff of Life, instead of the bright, shiny Brand Name One all our older brothers and sisters got.

MUSIC and SCIENCE were EVERYTHING to us as kids/teens...the Eshittification Of Music truly began in 1973, and proceeded through SynthPop Hell in the '80s. Rock and Roll heroes became hairdos with guitars. The rock heroes of the '60s were getting married and having kids and baking bread. AM Radio ceased to be something you listened to for music...it began to replace music with strident, screaming hate voices that would eventually engulf all of AM Radio 24/7/365.

We were continually thwarted most of the way from our young adulthood on, blatantly from the moments in 1980 that the vile Ronald Reagan and the core operatives of evil for the next 50 years took over, and then the moment of what I call "Our Generational Wounding", the murder of John Lennon.

Back in '66, John had inflamed all the grandpas of todays magats by saying (truthfully) that with teens, The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Beatle hate became a Very Big Thing in Bumfuck South Texas. Record burnings, merchandise burnings, book burnings, all were commonplace. A very palpable, and very specifically "Anti-Beatle" hate got instilled in a lot of kids/teens at that point, so anything to do with the Beatles was taboo for "good people" (read Southern Baptists) to like.

That, of course, made me love them that much more, and to follow their paths from their breakup forward with 'bated breath, buying every 45 they put out, trying to save pennies up to buy their albums.

John was the radical hippie, the one who wanted peace, the one with the weirdo wife, the one who held a "Bed-In" for peace. In a very fundamental-to-our-generation way, John Lennon was OUR "Jesus".

Richard Nixon (president from '68 to '74) HATED him.

In 1971, there was a true mass consciousness that incorporated us along with our older siblings, a musical mass consciousness. I became aware of many things in 1969, specifically fall of '69, so I was experiencing all this in real-time, as it happened. When the news that The Beatles officially broke up came across the AM radiowaves in May of '70, it was A. Very. Big. Deal. Everyone watched everything they did from that point on with GREAT interest.

George put out "My Sweet Lord" and "What Is Life" (first record I ever bought), John put out "Instant Karma", "Mother", then "Power To The People", then "Imagine". Ringo put out "It Don't Come Easy", and Paul & Linda had "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey". EVERYBODY was a "post-breakup Beatle critic", panning Paul's very first solo 45 "Another Day", "Uncle Albert" was the followup. This band called Badfinger that sounded suspiciously like The Beatles appeared on American radio, and would make 1972 one of the final "Golden Years" of AM Rock Radio.

In 1970 we heard about this Elton John guy, by the end of '72, I was playing as many of his songs on the piano as I could figure out. My favorite album was (still is) "Madman Across The Water". When "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" came out in '73, a very noticeable shift was occuring.

Pop became much less political. It softened. It mellowed. It grew its hair long and lived in the country, learned how to grow potatoes and play the mandolin, making Country Rock the one lasting "legacy" of our sad sub-generation. By the time I graduated HS in May of '77, it was all there was on the radio, besides....disco. Oof.

One of my first TV memories was JFK getting shot. That was the Generational Wounding of our older brothers and sisters. When Mark Chapman (a Christian nationalist who changed the words of "Imagine" to "Imagine there's no John Lennon") shot John in December of 1980, it was the 2 in the 1-2 PUNCH done to our OUR generation. The first, of course, being the installing of Reagan and the evil Evangelical influence beginning in earnest.

It also began the buildup of the "Holy War" radical right, and an utter denial and clampdown of "hippie", of "counterculture" in general began, ensuring that John's vision of world peace would never come true, at least not on their watch. They had, effectively, killed OUR Jesus, along with our chances of the kind of security our older sibs got in spades. It also marked the unholy marriage of the evangelicals and the republican apparatus.

When Reagan got elected by virtue of the vile Newt Gingrich's 'Southern Strategy', a clampdown in earnest on the very SPIRITUAL EXISTENCE of our generation's incredible want and need, our collective JONESING for world peace began. Richard Nixon had planted the seeds. Nixon hated John Lennon with a passion. After Reagan was elected, I firmly believe Chapman was "activated" and they killed John as a Christmas present to Nixon.

It was after that, when the dream of a scientific future began to die, as well. When we were in high school, SCIENCE WAS EVERYTHING, so we wanted to be some kind of scientist "when we grew up".

I dealt with four years of college, majored in Biology, and in early 1981 realized my dream of being a Forest Ranger in Yosemite or some other national park somewhere, living in a cabin, giving talks to visitors about the biology aspects of the park....all that went POOF, almost instantaneously. My degree would get me nowhere, so I left before the end of that year and started working in record stores.

I was effectively the Cusack character in the movie about record stores, but it led to a dead end. Record stores weren't all that glamorous, and yes, the pay was dogshit. I tried working in record stores for the love of the music, while trying to BE a musician in a town FILLED OVER FLOWING with musicians, but that was quickly shat on by the beginning shrieks of late-stage capitalism.

It was like working in the record stores was my trying to keep holding onto the dream, our generation's dream...John's dream of world peace (along with my dream of being a working musician) died a pitiful death by the end of 1986.

What followed was nothing but a series of Jobs I Hated, and the beginnings of the true Jonesing for the life we'd been promised, because we didn't get the raises, the pensions, the house, the car, boat and camper, none of that shit for us. A life of being a low-paid, no-insurance drub, destined to be a life-long renter, unless a financial miracle happens.

So when people ask why we (as a generation) hate Ronald Reagan so much, let's just say I'm with Bugs on this one.

[onlymurdersintheafterparty]

OMITB S4:E5 "Adaptation"

We're at the halfway mark and I feel like fans with a Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes type of IQ could solve the mystery by now but I am not one of those fans so I'm just here to recap and debunk or strengthen theories I already had. I say this every week but I am truly loving the pacing of this season and that they don't shy away from answering questions early on instead of trying to shoehorn everything in for the season finale. As always spoilers ahead!

Ok so now we officially have confirmation that there are two killers. After circling back to the footprint on the windowsill of the Dudenoff apartment, the tacky paper used on the photoshoot and production room set reveals that the footprint belongs to one of the Brothers sisters. We see that one twin is physically strong enough to lift a body when she lifts Oliver and moves him onto his correct mark. I don't think that necessarily means both twins are involved in the murder though. We also end the episode with that same twin being missing and hearing a gunshot implying that she has been killed. I have been waiting YEARS for a season in which the bodies start piling up and it's finally happening!

This episode was narrated by Marshall the writer and I don't know how to feel about his character. I get that he and Mabel are supposed to be similar in that they both have imposter syndrome but he in general just gives off red flags. He's inserting himself into investigating which is something killers do and him having the fake facial hair introduces the idea of the killers having disguises so clearly he was important to this episode. Not to mention he's giving stalker vibes or parasocial Arconiac vibes. I find it very interesting that Mabel and Charles did not view the video of his stand up to verify his alibi. This could very well mean that he was at the Arconia the night that Sazz was killed. He also never stepped on the tacky paper so we don't have his footprint. That's two strikes against him.

You know who else we didn't see step on the tacky paper? Glen Stubbins. Who is back by the way. I still don't care for his character but I am starting to suspect him. He's physically capable of jumping on the windowsill because he's a stunt performer and for that same reason I'm sure he's also capable of aiming and firing a gun. Also how did he know exactly where Charles lived? They only met the one time at the Stunt Man bar. And yes it's sweet that he brought bread but he could have left it downstairs with Lester. As Ben's stunt double I can't help but wonder if he was present at the Arconia the night of Sazz's murder but in disguise. There's actually a really compelling theory on the hulu subreddit that Glen is the killer if you want to check it out.

Bev actually does have an alibi for that night and seems to only be guilty of wanting her movie made. Can we rule her out just yet? Idk but we'll see. She didn't seem that confident while aiming the gun or firing it off to prove it wasn't loaded. Her revealing Sazz's voicemail and the time it was left definitely proved helpful in establishing a timeline and confirming that there are two killers. Or three if you think it's three people working together.

Howard working for the production team is only strengthening my theory that he's the Moriarty. This man is everywhere! He was working at the theater last season and immersed in the plot there and now here he is in the center of it all once again. Again I don't think he's an evil mastermind, I just think he started off envying the closeness of the trio and now he's high off the power of manipulating things behind the scenes.

Have any of you heard of the opera La Forza Del Destino? In A Series of Unfortunate Events, there is a reference and parallel to it in which a character is mortally wounded after a weapon is accidentally fired off and strikes them. What if the killer was aiming for Charles, saw Sazz dressed similar to him and was aiming to shoot, and the accomplice called to warn them that it was the wrong person but something startled the killer and they accidentally shot Sazz? Like for example they were ready to go and then someone knocked loudly or something which not only muffled the noise of the phone but startled them enough to shoot.

This season has so many parallels and coincidences that we have to assume is on purpose. We've got multiple dopplegangers and cases of mistaken identity, guns being misfired (Eva with Rudy's prop gun and Bev with Sazz's loaded gun), and even the blackout in the S4 premiere vs the fire alarm going off in the S1 premiere.

My small takeaways from the episode:

Mabel being 30 and having an identity crisis is so relatable and I hope she finds her way by the end of the series.

Lester talking about wearing a gimp mask is WILD

Charles mentioning having an account in Belize and Detective Williams pretending to unhear it is hilarious

I'm beyond tired of this Oliver and Loretta plotline and him being insecure about her new status as a celebrity. WRAP IT UP!

Fans keep bringing up the cold case and I wonder if that will become the plot point in season five

Zach Galifianakis telling Oliver about how Jonk (sp?) ran through the seven dwarfs and that they could be heard Hi-Ho'ing from the trailer took me out 🤣

Charles having a new murder board each week is my favorite thing because that's literally all of us fans each week after watching a new episode

Bev and Cinda would be besties or frenemies and I really need to see them in a scene together before the season is over

[whisker-biscuit]

Sonic Big Bang 2024

Close Encounters of the Grim Kind

Rating: Gen

Summary: Sonic did end up telling his friends about the Shatterverse, but it’s clear to Tails that he's still hiding something. In an effort to find answers and with Shadow’s reluctant help, he uses the Paradox Prism to create a device capable of jumping dimensions. When he sends it out, however, what was meant to be a one-way trip returns to him with a cryptic greeting from a stranger who seems interested in researching the dimensions with him.

Now, Tails finds himself trying to solve two mysteries - why Sonic is acting so weird around him, and who this unorthodox, anonymous cross-dimensional pen pal really is.

It's a lot harder than it looks.

--------------------------------------------

Chapter 1

The day Sonic finally told his friends about the Shatterverse and all that entailed within it, Tails had no idea how significant it would truly end up being.

He, his brother, Amy, and Knuckles were gathered together at the beach. The fox was in the pilot seat of the plane, adjusting some of the inner controls, while everyone else lounged about. They all listened with rapt attention as Sonic described the disaster that would have happened had he smashed into the Paradox Prism – the disaster that had already happened, if events were to be believed.

Frankly, it wasn’t very hard to go along with the idea. Weirder stuff went on in their lives at least twice a year; dimensional and/or timeline shenanigans sounded like par for the course.

“A bunch of miniature dimensions, huh?” Tails drummed his fingers against his screwdriver, thinking about the logistics of such a thing. Alternate universes were an aspect of quantum physics that he’d never delved very deep in.

“Yep! There was a pirate dimension, a jungle dimension, and even a dimension with five Eggmans!” Sonic shuddered and stuck out his tongue. “I always thought ours was bad enough, but then I met an Eggman baby. That’s one memory I’ll never be able to get rid of.”

“Did you kick the Eggman baby’s butt?”

“Knuckles!” Amy scolded.

“What?” The echidna asked defensively. “It’s a valid question! If that version of Eggman was still evil, then I don’t see why you wouldn’t also teach him a lesson.”

“Oh, trust me, he was definitely evil. Kicking his butt was extremely satisfying.”

Knuckles folded his arms with a self-satisfied smirk he tossed Amy’s way. She huffed and rolled her eyes, gesturing for Sonic to continue his story.

“There weren’t just other versions of Eggman, though,” he said with an excited gleam in his eye. “Every dimension I visited had new versions of you guys! Even Rouge and Big and Froggy!”

“Ooh, really?” Amy clasped her hands together. “What were we all like?”

“Well, the pirate versions of you all talked with these funny accents and were on a ship’s crew together. Knuckles was your captain but he was a big bonehead.”

“Hey!”

Tails smiled, going back to the wiring in the Tornado as he listened to the hedgehog tell them all about this strange new adventure that he’d found himself in. One eye he kept on his work, the other he kept on Sonic to show he was still paying attention, tuned into the rhythm of his brother’s storytelling just as much as the words themselves – and that was the only reason he caught the stumble.

Sonic was in the process of telling them how the Chaos Council had put the entire Shatterverse in jeopardy by punching holes between dimensions using shards of the Paradox Prism, and that he, Shadow, and an alternate version of Tails had stolen the shards back and were planning to put the prism back together. Then he paused, very briefly, and sheepishly admitted that they were unsuccessful before the Council had caught up.

That pause had been barely half a second long, but for the hedgehog it might as well have been a full minute. Tails stopped working as Knuckles began teasing Sonic for letting any version of Eggman be faster than him. He watched his brother carefully, noting the tension in his quills that the fox could only see from his place in the cockpit above. To the others, it seemed like Sonic was embarrassed about his failure, but Tails knew that wasn’t what it was.

Embarrassment was fidgeting in place and wanting to change the subject immediately. It was not standing rigidly with fingers twitching like they wanted to curl into fists, nor was it too-loud laughter at the ribbing his friends were giving him.

The fox quietly placed his tools in his lap and turned his full attention onto his brother.

When the teasing finally stopped and Sonic got back to the rest of his story, it felt different than before. More pauses, shorter descriptions of events, and vague answers to questions about how the Shatterverse was saved from ripping itself apart. The hedgehog’s expression was tight with sadness as he told them of the goodbyes he’d shared with all the different versions of his friends before he and Shadow found their way back to Green Hill.

“Don’t get me wrong, I was so excited to see you guys again – the real yous instead of those weird ghost holograms – but I also knew it was a permanent goodbye for them. All those different versions of you…they were still their own people, with their own goals and dreams and lives. I got to know each of them, and it was hard to walk away knowing I’d never see any of them again.”

“It’s not like you to dwell on goodbyes,” Amy said gently.

“I know. I just…” Sonic glanced up at Tails, then looked away immediately before their gazes could properly meet. The fox narrowed his eyes in confusion. “It was really bittersweet, in the end. I wish you all could have met each other.”

As Amy pondered over what her “sisters” might have been like and Knuckles pointedly declared that the other hims would have probably just gotten on his nerves, Tails’ namesakes curled around each other in a slow mimic of his flying movements. It seemed like the hedgehog was simply melancholy over the loss of his new friends, but it still felt…off. Like there was something he hadn’t told them, or even something that Tails had missed, that was obscuring the whole picture of his experience.

He briefly considered asking Sonic outright when they were alone later, then immediately nixed the idea. His brother was open about nearly everything right up until he suddenly wasn’t, and then pulling information from him was just as hard as convincing Knuckles to part with the Master Emerald for more than a week.

“Do you think the other dimensions are still out there even though you put the Paradox Prism back together?”

Everyone fell silent as they all looked up at the fox. Sonic’s mouth pulled sideways like he wasn’t sure how to answer.

“I mean, I assumed they are. Don’t really like thinking of the alternative.”

“I’m sure they are!” Amy was quick to reassure. “You can’t just unmake a bunch of worlds once they exist, right? And you said it yourself, Sonic – the Shatterverse collapsing only happened because the Eggmen misused the Prism Shards. All you did was make them whole again.”

Tails tapped the end of his screwdriver twice against the Tornado’s steering wheel. An idea was starting to develop in his mind, formed from a swirl of thoughts and his admittedly shallow knowledge of Quantum Physics. He kept it to himself, however, as he continued to study his brother’s body language and the tension still present there.

Just a few days later, that particular tension was gone from Sonic but the idea was still firmly in the fox’s head. He took every physics book he had that touched the subject, plus several that were “liberated” from one of Eggman’s laboratory libraries, and began researching. It didn’t take very long for him to conclude that no matter what theories he read about, or potential blueprints he began to draw up, he wasn’t going to make it very far on speculation alone.

If this idea was to become tangible, then he needed the Paradox Prism. And achieving that, Tails remembered with a grimace, would be more difficult than any mathematics he puzzled through.

He could only hope that its keeper would be in a good mood.

-------------------------------------------------

Contrary to popular belief, Shadow was not particularly difficult to find. He was a creature of habit, much like Sonic. The real issue was that those habits tended to seem erratic at best and completely nonsensical at worst to anyone who didn’t know them well. To the average person, Sonic was flighty and never settled down in one place for long, and Shadow just couldn’t be found to begin with.

But Tails was not an average person, and he had a lot of experience in tracking down speedy hedgehogs.

There was a large waterfall in Green Hill that overlooked an even larger lake. It cascaded constantly down from a giant cliffside that was difficult to climb and get down from. Sonic avoided the area entirely unless absolutely necessary, but Tails loved to practice his aerial maneuvers there. It was for those three reasons – his many visits, the general seclusion, and the consistent lack of Sonic – that the fox knew how much Shadow preferred the place, too.

It was here that he looked for the black hedgehog first. He started at the base of the cliff, shielding his eyes against the sun as he peered up past the waterfall while lake water lapped just a few inches short of his shoes. After a minute or so of squinting and scanning, Tails caught sight of a dark figure standing at the very top of the cliff, arms folded and looking out at the scenery.

Excited, the fox began to fly up towards him, making his presence known as obviously as possible so Shadow knew he wanted to talk. He felt the moment those piercing red eyes snapped over to him. The fur on the back of his neck prickled by instincts honed from years of Eggman battles before settling down immediately afterward, recognizing the gaze as non-threatening.

That didn’t mean the hedgehog was happy to see him, though. Irritation was visible in every line of his face when Tails touched down a few feet away from him.

“Is Sonic with you?” Shadow asked, in a tone of voice that suggested he was going to teleport at the first syllable of a ‘yes.’

“No, he doesn’t know I’m here. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

One black-furred eyebrow rose in mild surprise. He tilted his head the tiniest bit forward to acknowledge he was listening.

Tails took a deep breath and took the plunge without wasting another second. “I know you have the Paradox Prism. I was hoping to run some tests –”

“No.”

The answer came so strong and curt that it made Tails’ mouth click shut before he even registered what was said. He blinked, caught off guard by both the reaction and the way Shadow’s entire body seemed to tense. It almost looked like he thought the fox was going to attack him, which was as bizarre an assessment to make as the realization that Shadow saw him as a viable threat.

“Why not?” He asked, thoroughly confused. “I didn’t even tell you what kind of tests I’d be conducting.”

“It doesn’t matter what kind; the answer remains the same. The Paradox Prism isn’t something to be tampered with.”

Tails resisted the urge to let out a huff. “I’m not going to tamper with it. I just want to learn more about those other dimensions Sonic was talking about.”

“Then ask him about them and stop wasting my time.”

The hedgehog turned on his heel and began walking away. The hum of his hover shoes coming to life threatened only a few seconds left before he disappeared entirely. Tails knew his one and only chance was slipping out of his grasp.

He didn’t think; what came out of his mouth next was pure panic.

“I think something’s wrong with Sonic!”

Shadow froze mid-step. The fox blinked and then suddenly they were an inch apart. That unreadable glare seemed twice as potent now as it searched his face for any kind of deception.

“…Elaborate,” the hedgehog finally said in a quiet yet uncompromising demand.

“W-Well, he told us about the Shatterverse, and you guys trying to get home, but I feel like he’s…omitting things?” Tails paused, thinking over the last week or so. “He’s been clingier, too. He wants to hang out with everyone more than usual. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him plan so many get-togethers before now.”

Bringing everyone together had usually been Amy’s or Tails’ idea, and Sonic always popped in at the last minute or stumbled into the group in the middle of a run. Now, he was asking them all to hang out so often that Knuckles had threatened to slug him if he didn’t leave him alone for at least a day.

“And then, yesterday…he got really upset when he couldn’t find me.”

Tails remembered it vividly. He’d made an impromptu trip to the nearest junkyard in search of parts for his idea, forgetting to leave a note for potential visitors because of how short the excursion was, and had come back to his workshop in disarray and one agitated hedgehog looking ready to tear down the walls in search of him. His brother had grabbed him in a tight hug without any words, visibly shaking, and had stayed with him in the workshop for hours afterward. There hadn’t been any explanation; Sonic had remained tight-lipped in embarrassment and so Tails had assumed it had to do with the brief loss of his friends during his Shatterverse adventure.

But putting that odd encounter alongside the clinginess and simultaneous avoidance now, it was starting to paint a much more concerning picture. The fox wanted to kick himself for not connecting the dots sooner. Hyper-fixating on a new invention was no excuse.

Shadow was still watching him. Tails took a deep breath and spread his hands out in an honest, pleading gesture.

“I’m just really worried about him. I think there’s stuff he’s not telling me, and I don’t know how to approach him about it.”

“What makes you think studying the Paradox Prism will help with that?” The hedgehog’s voice was flat but no longer as harsh. He had a funny look in his eye that was impossible to place.

“I want to figure out whether those other dimensions are still out there. If they are, I think it will perk Sonic up. But the only way I’ll know for sure is with the Prism’s help.”

Silence floated between them for a long time. Tails swallowed the urge to continue making his case, and instead waited as patiently as he could for Shadow to come to a decision. A myriad of emotions flitted across the other’s face, all small and fleeting and unreadable.

“…Fine. I’ll let you look at it.”

“Really?” The fox gasped, excited, but Shadow held up a hand before he could say anything else.

“On three conditions. One: that I’m present the entire time you’re with it. Two: that you do exactly what you told me you want to do and nothing more. No using it to power machines unless it’s explicitly for finding other dimensions, no tampering with it or trying to break it apart, and no additional investigations. I don’t care how fascinated you are with it.”

“Okay, I can do all of that. What’s the third condition?”

“That you don’t involve Sonic in your studies.”

Tails frowned. “Why would I involve –”

“Agree to all the terms, Fox, or you’re not seeing a hint of that crystal.”

“I agree!” He replied, quick as he could before the hedgehog changed his mind. “You’ll be with me the whole time, I won’t mess with it, and Sonic stays out of the process.”

“Good.”

With the deal struck, Shadow nodded once before walking off again. The fox watched him, uncertain, until he threw a glance over his shoulder.

“Are you coming or not?”

Tails didn’t need to be asked twice.

-------------------------------------------------

And so, two hours later, they were both back in Tails’ workshop with the Paradox Prism floating innocently in the middle of a containment chamber. Shadow leaned against the closed garage door – which he had demanded stay locked while they were working – eating out of the can of raw coffee beans he’d requested when Tails had offered food. It would have been quite the sight if he wasn’t already used to the bizarre black hole of a stomach that belonged to his brother.

Maybe liking weird food was just a hedgehog thing.

The fox, meanwhile, was in the middle of making complex calculations as he studied the Prism, adjusting for energy levels and power output with every spike that appeared on his scanner. He was quickly realizing that developing technology that could reliably run on this energy was going to be a careful balancing act; it fluctuated sporadically in seemingly indecipherable patterns, and every sudden jump was volatile at best, downright dangerous at worst.

If not for all his research into chaos energy, handling the Prism would’ve been infinitely harder. Their properties weren’t all too dissimilar, now that the thought crossed his mind, and it took a lot of willpower not to get sidetracked by that line of theorizing. The promise he’d made to Shadow was one he intended to keep no matter how painful it was for his scientific mind to ignore every other possibility.

“What are you doing now?”

The hedgehog’s question broke the melody of furious pencil scribbling. It was a common occurrence while Tails worked; he barely even glanced up when he answered.

“I think I’ve finally isolated the most benign wavelengths of energy the Paradox Prism is giving off. Using that, I can power the interdimensional device without risk of it exploding.”

“What is this interdimensional device for?” Shadow asked, suddenly right behind him.

Tails absolutely did not jump, but the grip on his pencil went tight as he pulled back from his blueprints a bit to blink owlishly at his suspicious companion. “I told you already – it’s to determine whether those miniature dimensions still exist.”

“How is it going to do that, exactly?”

The fox resisted a great urge to sigh. “It’s just going to be a probe. If prism energy is capable of making things jump between dimensions like Sonic said, then even a tiny amount will make my invention cross the theoretical inter-dimensional barrier and hopefully tell me what’s out there.”

“Hmph.” Shadow’s eyes darted across the schematics laid out on the table. It was hard to tell how much of it he understood, but Tails had a feeling it was more than most people usually could. “Remember: only for this function.”

“Loud and clear, sir,” he mumbled with a roll of his eyes before he could stop himself. The hedgehog’s glare sharpened considerably, but he went back to his place against the door to finish off his coffee beans without another word.

Now that Tails had successfully found a safe power source from the Prism, it was time to actually build the device that would make use of it. He wasted no time getting to work – grabbing scrap metal and wiring and as many tools as he could carry, then starting the process of putting together his newest invention piece by piece. Just like with anything powered by the chaos emeralds, the probe couldn’t simply be built and then pumped full of Prism energy. Every aspect and every addition had to be tested for durability. If it could channel its power source without issue, then he moved onto the next section and repeated the testing process. If it couldn’t, then he had to rework his calculations completely until it wasn’t at risk of frying from a single jolt of energy.

A tedious endeavor, but one he enjoyed wholeheartedly just for the way it occupied his mind. The fact that success meant a new, fully-functional invention was just the icing on the cake.

When at long last the fox was satisfied that his interdimensional probe wouldn’t blow up the moment he turned it on, he swiveled in his chair to hold it up triumphantly. Shadow, to his credit, had not made another sound nor moved a single inch through the hours it had taken to complete the device. He peered at it with a mix of curiosity and wariness.

“Are you going to send it out, now?”

“Yeah, but first…”

Tails turned it around in his hands to reveal a tiny screen and keyboard on one side, pulled straight from Knuckles’ most recently-busted flip phone. He typed in a string of code and watched with a satisfied snicker as a message appeared on the screen in response.

– Hello Worlds! –

“What is the purpose of that?”

“Tech joke.” He placed a solid metal cover over the keyboard, but left the screen visible. “I doubt anyone is going to find this, because it’s supposed to only travel through the space between dimensions, not actually visit them, but it’s funny to think about.”

“Hm.”

If Sonic were here, he probably would have told Shadow to lighten up. Tails, on the other hand, was much more aware of the precarious state of their arrangement, so he didn’t do that.

Was definitely thinking it, though.

Before turning the device on, the fox double checked that its connection to the Miles Electric was strong and secure. Sending it out without a way to relay information back would have been a silly mistake to make. Confident that there was nothing else to be done, he flipped the single switch on its underside, and they both watched as it hovered out of his hands for a few seconds before disappearing in a flash of rainbow light.

Shadow eyed the spot where it had just been, expression tight, then lifted the Paradox Prism’s container with ease. “Keep me informed on what you find. I’m…curious, as well.”

“Okay.”

Their gazes locked for one brief moment before the hedgehog also disappeared with his charge – in a green flash instead. Tails let out a long exhale. He was exhausted but in a good way, like running a marathon and beating your best time.

He checked the Miles Electric. Nothing yet. That was to be expected; interdimensional travel was probably not as instantaneous as Sonic made it out to be. All he had to do was wait.

So, he waited. And waited.

And waited.

A week passed with no signal. Not a single, shallow blip on his radar to show that the probe had survived its attempt at escaping the barriers between their dimension and whatever lay beyond. Disappointed but not entirely surprised over the possible failure, the fox stopped checking for it as often. Every hour dropped to a few times a day; a few times a day dropped to only once per day. As yet another week began creeping by with nothing to show for it, he finally took the Miles Electric off his desk and put it away to make room for other, more pressing projects.

The device might have ended up a bust, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other ways to confirm the existence of the Shatterverse. Tails began sketching up tentative ideas for his continued research. He didn’t have any Prism energy left to work with, though, and Shadow probably wasn’t going to be as generous if he asked for help again. The power to cross dimensions was going to be the biggest hurdle.

Just as he was debating whether chaos energy would work as a potential substitute, there was a sudden flash of rainbow light to his left. The fox startled, whirled around with his hands up in preparation for a fight – and stopped.

Stared.

There was his device, hovering in the air. Tails’ ears twitched as the Miles Electric suddenly let loose a muffled cacophony of sounds from within the desk drawer; the familiar, loud pings that meant a probe had been successfully connected to. Stunned and unable to think of doing anything else, he slowly reached out to stop its hovering and hold it instead.

From the way he had grabbed it, the little digital screen was visible. Tails looked down at the message and felt his heart skip a beat.

[ hello stranger ]

-------------------------------------------------

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A/N: Several months ago I joined the Sonic Big Bang event, and today is the culmination of that event where we flood the fandom with fics and art! We are Sonic Fans and we cannot be stopped lol. Expect a chapter release every day until the fic is finished!

The fantastic artists paired with my fic are @currantlee, @phantom-howl, and @dewdropdraws. I'll link their artwork when it's all posted, please please check them out cause they're all wonderful! Thanks so much to @sthbigbang for hosting this and letting me participate! I had a blast!

[godhasatenderheart]

how do you know for sure you won't end up in hell?

Hello! I saw your other message assuring me not to worry about responding because of the grieving process. Thank you for your kindness and thoughtfulness—it truly means a lot. May God bless your sweet soul. 🩷

It’s comforting to know that, because of God’s promises in the Bible, there’s assurance that we won’t end up in Hell. Many verses speak of salvation and bring peace. Sometimes, due to severe trauma, trusting in that love and safety can be difficult, but it’s a journey to trust in what God has promised.

When doubt about salvation or God’s promises arises, the best remedy is prayer and spending time in the Word. Trusting God fully and consistently is one of the hardest parts of the Christian walk, and it’s a lifelong journey. If doubt about salvation occurs, please know that it’s a normal part of the walk and can be overcome.

This world is filled with evil, and Satan continuously works to shake that faith. We face attacks, criticism, and feelings of shame and unworthiness. Yet, the Bible reveals God’s character, and when we trust in what He has said, there is assurance of salvation.

I’ll share some Scripture that speaks to our salvation under the cut, so as not to flood anyone’s timeline. I hope this can be helpful, beloved!

Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

—Acts 16:30-31 (ESV)

More Scripture of salvation assurance below:

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

—1 John 5:13 (ESV)

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

—Romans 10:9-10 (ESV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

—Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV)

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

—John 3:16 (ESV)

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

—Job 19:25-27 (ESV)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

—1 John 1:9 (ESV)

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

—Proverbs 28:13 (ESV)

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

—John 5:24 (ESV)

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

—John 10:27-28 (ESV)

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

—Romans 5:9-10 (ESV)

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

—Romans 8:16-17 (ESV)

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

—Romans 8:28-30 (ESV)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

—2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

—Ephesians 1:13-14 (ESV)

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

—Philippians 1:6 (ESV)

which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.

—2 Timothy 1:12 (ESV)

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

—Titus 3:4-7 (ESV)

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

—Hebrews 7:25 (ESV)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

—1 Peter 1:3-5 (ESV)

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

—1 John 3:1-3 (ESV)

[eerna]

Hiii I have some thought contributions to the Arcane symposium if you'll have me!

I see people understandably angry at how Arcane handles who is or isn’t a villain and I suppose my two cents is that I didn’t have any hope of them handling it right in the first place, even back in s1 there were always parallels made, always some “both cities have good and bad” nuance when one city doesn’t have air to breathe and is colonized by the other. If anything the beginning of s2 was more consistent in that the second Caitlyn is personally inconvenienced she goes full chemical warfare and mass institutional violence

Personally I thought it unlikely that they suddenly change narrative tones and resolve the plot in a way that was satisfying to me, and I knew the pacifist “choose love not hate <3 zaun and piltover arms in arms” both-sides ending was inevitable, so I’m glad they at least had that whole thing with Viktor and Jayce and the timelines to distract me from it

“they shouldn’t have made Viktor, a Zaunite, the villain” but Arcane always made the villain a Zaunite! Before Viktor there was Silco, Piltover chooses peace but Jinx blows the council up and now they have to do a whole “look what you made us do” arc. This was my beef with Arcane from day 1 (it wasn't emphasized enough, IMO, that the villain is Piltover's oppression and marginalization of Zaun, and that this context renders null any "both cities" comparison)

Also Vi was written so poorly this season what's up with that

All that being said I suppose it’s more complicated to discern “writer’s intent” from that kinda show than it would be in a book or an indie project where there are fewer people involved in the plot writing and less interference. Like one deleted scene or one line of dialogue omitted radically changes the message. But well, there's the intended message and there's the manifest message and as the audience we are allowed to criticize both

Of course we shall, step to the podium~ Truly, the "writer's intent" is truly so complicated here, because anti-capitalist messaging in mainstream art powered by capitalism is always a nightmare to get through.

Oh yes it's a good take, I remember the discussions from s1 era well! However, I still don't think the "both sides have good and bad" thing is a red flag in stories, simply because it's true IRL. A ton of people have trouble committing to a side in a conflict because neither is totally morally pure, which completely blinds them to the truth that NOTHING is morally pure and choosing the lesser evil is the way to go. Silco was a brilliant villain to me because he was an oppressor himself, as people in power are rarely anything else, but that didn't mean that Zaunite ideals were worth any less! After all, Ekko held the same anti-Piltover ideals, but he is morally pure and thus unable to become an influential politician. He can support a small society, but not a large one, because no one really can do that without resorting to some bad shit. Just because Silco dreamed of being the same as Piltover's elite and became a class traitor by forcing his citizens into another toxic work culture, except this time they made HIM rich instead of Piltover, doesn't mean we should just give up on trying to make things better. Zaun during Silco's reign is just as worthy of freedom and equality as Zaun during Vander's reign. It doesn't matter that there are terrorists living there now - that doesn't excuse Piltover's violent actions. And s1 seemed to be aware of that, considering how the Enforcers were depicted, and in the end it's the Piltover council who are forced to give up instead of the Undercity. And the choice of peace wasn't as morally pure as it sounds: the council opposed it and was forced into it by Jayce and Mel's combined power, even Jayce was resistant to the terms at first, AND it still left the Undercity in Silco's hands, fixing absolutely none of the sins they committed there. It wasn't an evil terrorist blowing up a bunch of hippies, it was a hurt Undercity girl setting in motion an event that has been brewing for a long, long time, against a system which gave too little, too late.

So yeah, in short, I don't interpret s1 as ever trying to question whether Zaun was right to demand more from Piltover by saying "well both sides are bad so nothing should change". It simply showed the ugly truth to any revolution: leaders are practically never good people, and those who get too close to it are doomed to very cursed lives. And yet, giving up isn't an option, because the system IS bad and the system HAS to be changed, and if that isn't gonna happen by the way of peace, then you can't help but sympathize with those who were wronged when they do something horrible.

That's why it only worked when it focused on individual characters - that way you can understand why everyone is acting the way they are acting, and you avoid falling into broad strokes. S2 instead focuses on the aesthetic of revolution and war and the characters get lost in the big picture, which absolutely sucks and completely negates everything I've been typing about here. In fact, who knows, maybe my opinion changes too after I sit with s2 for a while and contextualize s1 within it. Maybe I was just wishfully thinking and misinterpreting this whole time. I already feel like a clown for defending this show, so I can totally accept that I could probably be wrong here. But I just wanted to write it all out in the name of discussion and interpretation!

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

I love voting "never heard of it" to all of these new Star Wars shows. Because, truly, I never hear about them even though there seem to be 20 of these things released in the past 5 years

god i wish that were me. unfortunately i have a twitter account (evil) and i can't escape the 4 billion announcements for these things.

we truly live in the worst timeline if there are more star wars shows than star trek ones

[kerubimcrepin]

The Dofus MMO Timeline : Leorictus Sheran-Sharm, and the curious case of an implied tenuous relationship between the Crepin-Jurgens

Today we will begin reviewing MMO lore, which was helpfully compiled by yours truly in a video-series. And this post is entirely about the historic events and chronological happenings of the game, as pertaining to Joris, Kerubim, and Atcham.

A Short Summary of Leorictus Sheran-Sharm and the Huppermage Genocide:

The events preceding the game, and the way Leorictus obtained the cursed crown that drove him insane, are quite well explained by this little summary from the Dofus Site:

Even though he was cursed after these events, the war between Bonta and Brakmar at the time is described as nothing short of a slaughter, which might signal to us that, perhaps, even before his descent into madness he was not a very good man.

While ending his own life, Leorictus, through some manipulation, took the Ivory Dofus with him, and used it for evil even after death.

After his death, a horrible civil war and a genocide of huppermages followed.

Kerubim and Joris (and maybe Atcham's) Never-ending Nightmare:

Kerubim's dialogue on the topic, as well as Joris being on good terms with the huppermages, show us that their opinions did not align with those of the Bontarian masses, which would have, at the time, made them outcasts, or outright put them in danger.

And yet...

Even though Luis and Kerubim appear in Astrub within the game, we know for a fact that they did not live there until very recently, thanks to multiple NPCs mentioning them moving to Astrub from Bonta — which means that, all this time, despite the horrific events surrounding them, they continued living there.

Personally, I think they couldn't leave Bonta out of a moral sense of duty, to help their city flourish once more, or to try and help the huppermages that could not leave. It is similar to what they do to a greater extent in Waven, and fits timeline-wise, with the presecution ending around the time of Dofus MMO.

This would mean that they moved back to Astrub, a city of great emotional significance to Joris and Kerubim, after decades of civil war and prosecutions. Because living in such conditions, out of a moral obligation, is bound to put a toll on a person, and is, in my opinion, the precise reason they move to Astrub in the first place.

Atcham AKA Real Winners Quit:

You may have noticed, so far, that I had not yet mentioned Atcham. It is because at the time of the MMO he defected back to Brakmar and went back to a life of crime.

While it is possible that the author of the wanted poster was simply mistaken, I do want to stress the fact that this game takes place around two hundred years in the future, and realistically, by this point, Atcham would be known as a Bontarian.

However, he isn't on bad terms with Kerubim, who speaks very fondly of him, and protects him from receiving punishment for literally beating up random adventurers (using his "defending obvious criminals" skills as demonstrated in episode 42 of Aux Tresors de Kerubim. By which I mean I think he bribed this guy).

In my opinion, Atcham just hated the events in Bonta so much that he fled, went back to Brakmar, and is now refusing to come home because he's mad at Kerubim and Joris for putting themselves in danger.

The Move to Astrub:

Their house in Astrub is the same as it's always been. Warm and welcoming.

At this time, Joris spent his time guiding new incarnates in Incarnam.

We know this to be canon even after his removal from the tutorial, because he is mentioned as an easter egg for players who leave without finishing said tutorial.

My pet theory is that Joris left Incarnam due to lack of respect from his co-workers...

The reason I keep mentioning Joris and Kerubim living together, despite Joris's absence from the home, is that the Zaap to Incarnam is free of charge, and located in Astrub's Temple of Twelve.

It's quite realistic for Joris to be able to make the trip every day. Especially when Kerubim was also able to make the same trip, just for his own leisure. (in my mind, he could even just come and visit Joris...)

Joris and Kerubim's interpersonal relationship:

Since I already mentioned Atcham and what he may generally think, it would be rude not to mention Kerubim and Joris, and the glimpses we have at their relationship at this point.

One of the things that is most notable about their house, is the absolutely dilapidated state of the attic — which is, usually, where Joris has historically lived.

It's a bit of a shaky connection, but if it really is his bedroom, or a place close or adjacent to his bedroom, it might imply Joris just gave up on taking care of it, (not that it's quite taken care of in general, even in Wakfu times...) or that he lived in another area of the home.

Joris is mostly absent, and preoccupied with helping Bonta, despite his attempts to perhaps distance himself a little by moving to Astrub.

He mentions Kerubim once, and it's quite in character: he likes to keep his personal life very far from random work acquaintances.

Kerubim does not mention Joris or Atcham (save for a singular line of dialogue), but talks about dead people from 200 years ago incessantly. In my opinion, it is his way of respecting Joris's privacy and wishes. (And saving his own skin.)

(Imagine you were a calm, collected professional with an image to uphold, and your parent, who works in the same sphere and sees similar clients, went around telling stories of what you did as a child behind your back... brr.)

However, a lot of his dialogue reads as very... lonely. So I really doubt he's entirely on board with Joris and Atcham going off on their own, though there's not much he can do about it.

(The second screenshot is included because Kerubim saying "it's good to have someone small at home" deranges me. He is so empty nest syndrome'd it's crazy)

[infizero]

flowey in genocide is literally so fucking upsetting cause its like every other reset he remembers. but when you true reset thats the one time where he also forgets just like everybody else. he has no idea that he had finally found some kind of happiness in true pacifist, he has no idea that moments ago he was literally BEGGING YOU to not reset everything and just let everyone be happy.

(and his sad smile when he says "you've probably heard this a hundred times, haven't you...?" rlly shows how frightened he is about not being the one in control anymore. before he had all the power but now he's helpless to your actions, with no idea how many times this all might've played out...)

but the thing that REALLY gets me is his final moments in the route. the fact that he's evil scheming and everything as usual, and then suddenly the evil smile drops away.

["but seeing you here changed my mind. chara... i think if you're around... just living in the surface world doesn't seem so bad."]

WHICH IS LIKE. POSSIBLY ONE OF THE MOST DEVASTATING LINES IN THIS WHOLE FUCKING GAME. you'd think flowey would be at his MOST evil here, but instead, because he believes you're chara, this is like the closest flowey gets to how he was as asriel outside of true pacifist.

this guy literally has no compassion and has done horrible shit countless times and is planning to do so again, and yet all it takes is chara and that entire struggle crumbles. all of the sudden, maybe just living in this one timeline would be ok. just like how it is in true pacifist.

but of course, chara has become corrupted by our desire to see everything, do everything, complete everything; this isn't the same kid who was asriel's sibling, but rather the personification of that insatiableness we harbor. a demon. and with that comes efficiency, detachment, viewing this all as nothing but something to progress through, something to beat. these people dont matter, this story doesnt matter, all that matters is completion. proceed.

and so tragically, flowey does not get to live out that timeline here. HE COULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY. but no. and as soon as he realizes we are more of a threat than he realized, that's when we quite LITERALLY see him revert to how he was as asriel. desperately trying to appease us. trying to make himself useful. and finally, as he speaks in his real voice, with his real face, we get to see him as what he truly is deep down: a scared kid who never got to grow up. and he's slaughtered into nothingness.

[atopvisenyashill]

any thoughts about how could it be the dynamic between viserys-naerys- daeron ii in fire & blood 2?

okay so straight up the dynamic i’m MOST interested in learning about in f&b2 is the viserys-naerys-daeron ii dynamic. first of all, those first two are just UNGODLY DISTURBINGLY YOUNG when they have children. viserys has naerys, his YOUNGEST child when he is sixteen. naerys has daeron when she is fifteen. viserys is a grandfather before he is 32 years old. it is truly babies raising babies out here!! i mean fuck, daeron has baelor under significantly less traumatic circumstances but he’s still only 17 by the time he starts having kids! that’s all just wildly interesting and disturbing to me. like, that alone, how close in age they all are because they all married & started having kids at crazy young ages, explains so much about why this period has always felt particularly deranged to me (“this period” being post dance where we get this incredible string of deranged freaks from aegon iii to aegon iv that ebbs into this vaguely “we’re having a targ renaissance yay” era that erupts into civil war anyways! i LOVE this conceptually i’m so ready to be annoyed when f&b2 comes out and i’ve hyped this all up for some more dumb sex stories from another court fool ajsjs).

but then secondly, okay, when you look at the timeline- daeron is born in 153 and the birth nearly kills naerys 15/16 year old naerys. aegon iii is still king for four more years. that last year, aegon iv spends his time (and the next two years after that) shacked up with megette. then aegon spends a few years shacked up/probably raping casella vaith the hostage, before running off to war. then he spends more time raping naerys, wherein she has a miscarriage, and aegon is sent away so he doesn’t rape her to death. daeron marries myriah, has a child with her. but before that child is two, in quick succession, his father comes back home & immediately starts raping his mother again, his mother nearly dies having twins & now he has a sister younger than his son, and daena unveils her new bastard who everyone thinks is aegon’s, and baelor is so distraught by all this he fasts himself to death. viserys is king, and likely dead before daeron’s second son is born and before daeron turns twenty. suddenly the person responsible for making sure aegon doesn’t rape naerys to death are daeron & aemon, who have NO authority over aegon. this man has the audacity to stay alive for twelve more years.

that shit is insane. daeron’s father is only around when he’s raping his mom. the closest things daeron has to a father figure are his uncle who wants to fuck his mom, his grandfather who is probably busy constantly (and also only in his thirties 😭), and his batshit insane cousin baelor. his childhood is marked by almost constant instability until it stabilizes for the worse when his cousins all get locked in the maidenvault, then gets thrown into upheaval once again as baelor & viserys die and now his dad who is only around when he’s raping his mom is suddenly back in town and has total control.

and naerys. she’s like if aemma lived long enough to parent her kids, but worse bc you could argue there was fondness of a sort between aemma & viserys. aegon and naerys hate each other. she is constantly pregnant and on death’s door from the age of fifteen (three years older than her father!) until the day she dies, in her early 40s. it sounds like worse than hell to me. it is a lifetime where the only source of comfort you have is the son you birthed at fifteen, because maybe your life is a nightmare but if you raise him to be marginally less evil, he won’t destroy the innocent little girl you know is going to be sent to court to be his wife. everyone else is actively holding you hostage and applauding you for taking the abuse so well. your whole life is screaming for help and all you get is tears telling you you’re so dutiful and brave.

and viserys just. watches it all happen. of course he does! his kids are simply ungrateful! he had to get married at twelve and his wife wasn’t born in westeros so they had nothing in common and at least they have a living father, they have no idea how lucky they are. why should daeron and naerys blame him when he gave them everything because he had nothing? it’s a shame it wasn’t naerys that offed this man. i do think she was his favorite kid tho and i bet he’s not subtle about it at all.

[thegildedblogger]

House of the dragon is a badly written show

I excuse most of the first season but I truly shouldn't have.

The show is unwatchable unless you have spoiled yourself or read the book which is just a part of Fire and Blood.

They have no timeline and they have developed no timeline mainly to queerbait and make Alicent and Rhaenyra friends, for no reason, them being friends doesn't add any emotional weight to the story and they have no chemistry.

in fact, young Alicent and Rhaenyra feel extremely sexualized, while the older versions seem extremely depressed. But apart from that, it doesn't seem as if they had any other development . Like sure Alicent became more resentful but not more aware and Rhaenyra became more deluded that no one would object to her rise to the throne but not more involved in the ruling of the kingdom. Like how did she not realize that Alicent was objecting to her by loudly calling her children bastards and how did Alicent really believe this was all gonna be peaceful when she has been scaring Aegon into believing Rhaenyra would kill him.

My main problem is them treating the audience that probably watched Got as babies. WE CAN HANDLE AND EVIL STEPMOTHER AS ALICENT, WE CAN TAKE A MAEGOR WITH TITS AS RHAENYRA, UNFIT BUT AWARE VISERYS, WE CAN TAKE PDF DAEMON.

They wrote this show so badly that the chronically online audience truly believes Alicent and Rhaenyra are in love, that Viserys was a good person after what he did to Aemma, that Daemon loved Rhaenyra and/or Laena, that Rhaenyra wasn't happy to get rid of Laenor, that Rhaenys would've been a good queen, that the Hightowers took the throne just because they were scared of Daemon and were pious ????

It's giving fanfic and badly written at that.

AND THE BIGGEST ELEPHANT ON THE SHOW is that they don't have any breakthrough actors like Got had. There's no Lena Headey, no Peter Dinklage, no Sophie, no Maisie.....

It feels like a theater play run by very pretentious people who don't wanna seem like copying D&D but lowkey copying them

They youngest actors are good but not good enough to override what they were given.

The show creators want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Because it's obvious Ep4 will be Rook's Nest, only reason they gave us Aegon humiliating Aemond and Rhaenys talking about the future as if that's the reason that scene unfolds the way it does .

Say what you will about Got but when it followed the books between season 1 and 4, it was really good. And it didnt need big dragon fights, it was always a journey that HOTD is not living up to it.

[blueberry-bubbles130]

So I've been reading a few of the Barbie Princess and the Pauper essays that are floating around the internet (mostly Tumblr) and I've got a theory that Preminger killed the King, before the movie takes place.

First of all I'd like to give a lot of credit and a big thank you to @rin-the-shadow for their brilliant analysis of the timeline of the movie that helped me massively in figuring out when Preminger would have killed the king for the theory. Since the ages of the characters are not stated anywhere, or even implied, within the movie itself. So there's not a lot to work with in terms of timing. 

I'd also like to thank my two close friends who helped me come up with this theory. 

So first for a bit of a background, in the movie the King isn't mentioned at all, and we only see him once at the beginning of the movie, which is in the prologue. From this evidence, it's incredibly safe to say he is dead by the time the movie takes place. Now If we look at Rin's analysis and the evidence they use from the movie, they state Preminger comes into the role of Queen Genevieve's advisor when Annaliese is around 6 years old.

From here the timeline becomes messy, as we don't know when Julian becomes the tutor to Annaliese. I'm assuming that he becomes her tutor at least 3-5 years before the movie begins. This is a bit clearer if we again look at Rin's analysis, in which they theorise about the difference in time between Julian and Preminger's arrival at the palace: as they state with more movie evidence in which Julian can remember living in the village. As well as this Annaliese and Julian are really close at the beginning of the movie, which shows they've gotten to know each other really well. So I think that Julian is a bit older than Annaliese, not by much though, so I'm going to say he's about 2 years older than Annaliese.

This leaves about 5-6 years maximum for Preminger to get rid of any evidence he may still have lying around from him murdering the King, from him coming to the castle to Julian's arrival at the palace.

So for the theory itself, I think that Preminger murdered the King a year or two into his role as the Royal Advisor. Now you may be asking why Preminger would kill the King?

That's because I think the King was incredibly close to discovering Preminger's plan to steal the gold, so he decides to murder him in order to truly get rid of him, and keep his plan secret. This is because the King was probably the smartest out of him and Genevieve at the time, therefore the King would question Preminger more. And lets be real for a moment he probably realised that Preminger is clearly evil. While Annaliese would be about 7 or 8 according to the timeline, so she'd be too young at the time and less of a concern to Preminger. 

Now by doing this, Preminger in fact gets a few things out of murdering the king. The main one being that he can keep his plan secret much longer, allowing him a greater chance at succeeding. The second thing he gets out of this, is now an increase of power through Queen Genevieve.

Throughout the movie, it's shown that Preminger has Queen Genevieve completely under his thumb, a massive example being when he proposes to her (we'll be coming back to this piece of evidence later). And from this we can assume that for a while before the start of the movie, Preminger was essentially making the decisions for the Kingdom while manipulating Genevieve into agreeing with him. Or making it look like she's the one truly making the decisions.  (Because as much as I love Genevieve, it's clearly shown, at best she's completely dependent upon Preminger, and at worst dumb on her own)

Once Preminger kills the King this leaves grieving Annaliese and a vulnerable Queen Genevieve. She's now a widow, with a kingdom and a child to not only look after, but make sure she's an experienced heir to the throne. On top of that she's going to be grieving and that's going to make things a lot harder for her. 

This is where Preminger's manipulation of Queen Genevieve truly begins. Through her grief Preminger can manipulate her by making it seem like he's helping her work through her grief, while also making it seem like he's the answer to her problems of taking care of the kingdom. As a result this increases the power and wealth Preminger holds, whilst making Queen Genevieve completely dependent on him over time. 

This leaves the timeline looking like this: 

.Genevieve and the King become a couple

.Annaliese is born

.Preminger is hired as the Royal Advisor when Annaliese is about 6

.The King is murdered by Preminger when Annaliese is about 7 or 8

.Julian is hired 

.The events of the movie happen

All that is left now is to figure out how the King was murdered. Now if you've seen the movie or have seen a review, you know that when he has to, Preminger is 100% willing to murder people. This is shown when he tries to murder Annaliese and Julian by causing a cave-in, within the Royal Mine. Which happens because Julian and Annaliese are smart enough to realise that Preminger is evil. And by this point murder is Preminger's only option to secure his plan. 

The evidence is also important, as it reinforces how experienced Preminger is when it comes to manipulating Genevieve, because the next two scenes are when Preminger exposes Erika and then the proposal scene. The proposal scene shows how he uses Genevieve's own grief against her, to marry her in order to become king (and completely disregarding any emotions she may have about this situation). It not only shows that he has total power over her, since she doesn't even make a verbal response she just turns around and holds her hand out for the ring to be placed on her finger. It also shows that he is very used to doing this and knows that in this situation all he has to do is present himself as the solution to her problem. But this time he's gotten so desperate and thinks that he's won so he doesn't even bother hiding his evil intent from Genevieve. As by this point he's managed to figuratively and literally back her into a corner where he is her only option. 

Going back to how Preminger murdered the King, he has a few options for how he can do it. 

He can make it look like an accident or natural causes

He can make it look like someone else murdered him

Not care at all how it looks and get rid of the evidence later

Again from looking at the movie, when he tries to murder Annaliese and Julian by collapsing the mine, he at least tries to make it look somewhat like an accident (at least I think he does, please correct me if I'm wrong). So I'm more inclined to go with option 1 for his method. We also have to remember that the movie is set loosley somewhere in the 16th century. So there's more ways to get away with a crime, and it's before Julian arrives at the palace, meaning Preminger has less to worry about when he commits the murder. 

Preminger also seems like the type to not have much physical involvement in a murder, that is yet again shown in the mine collapse scene. So I'm going to say that Preminger most likely poisoned the king. 

This is because poison was widely available at the time, with apothecaries selling poisons as some poisons had functions apart from murder. This means that he can easily get it and get more if he ever needs to. 

So to summarise the theory, Preminger murders the King because he's coming too close to discovering Preminger's plan to gain power and chooses to kill him by poison. This leaves Genevieve vulnerable to Preminger's manipulation that while not making him just yet, gives him a bigger increase of power while pushing his plan further along. Then the events of the movie occur that force him to change his plans and in turn bring about Preminger's downfall and defeat. 

So that's it! Sorry this got a bit long. 

Thanks for listening to my rambles. 

[castleclerics]

winning, losing, timelines, and tying these ideas into the end of the show.

first this is insane:

both lucas and el waking up to someone telling them the same thing

and lucas coming out of the "WINNERS ONLY" door literally

and lucas and el both being "benchwarmers" then winning big out of nowhere. but then they don't really "win" bc el is still in the "circle" that brenner drew for her and doesn't want her to leave (making el go through a simulation of what didn't actually happen etc.) and lucas walks out and is disappointed to see the party after a dnd match instead of his game.

and then lucas being the imposter with the basketball team by pretending to be one of them the whole time/being the only one dressed differently. like el in nina pretending everything happened the way it did/her in lenora lying about what's happening and pretending everything is fine.

lucas here is similar to el wanting to fit in in the lab/lenora

?????? things to be different ???? now we have that chance ???? oh like el in nina ??? in a timeline that isn't the one the current el we are watching is from???? or like just shifting timelines in general in this show maybe in s5???? also i already was thinking about the possibility that brenner put el in nina to literally change the past/to combine timelines like maybe el doing what she did in nina had an effect on reality itself like i think that would be super interesting.

also "skip tonight" ?? "how much time did you skip?" like

also erica says "i'm 11" and she's a sub for her sibling so it seems like to me they're further hinting that el is a sub in nina ?? el taking place of her "twinner" and experiencing what that version of her experienced in a different timeline .

also have a post here about how el is a twin according to continuity that i think we should talk about more bc it's right there.

and the whole swapping places concept is so huge in this whole show and they include it in so many dynamics.

fred says about the game when he sees the tigers starting to fall behind: "looks like my headline has a shot" (different outcome/timeline) like the nina project failing/ending the way it did possibly changed the timelines in reality or something similar ?

there's also so much talk about moving dates or getting them like

like brenner with his whole arsenal of videotapes with so many dates and he captured "every success and every failure." like there's a specific tape or date of significance. and like i said here, maybe this date or tape didn't exist yet or something ?? and they have to obtain it in a way ?? birthdaygate or something of the sort methinks.......

also brenner telling el how superheroes and monsters are a thing of myth and fairytale and "reality, truth, is rarely so simple. people are not so easily defined."

(even though it's ironic bc it's coming from the true "monster" of the show) but it's true, reality is based somewhere in the middle of those two definitions. just like succeeding or failing at something. sometimes you don't fail or succeed but a secret third thing !!!!! and i'm betting that this:

is also in the same vein. but the interesting part is that hopper with this compromise still gets home late. it's like even a compromise/half win isn't always the case either. sometimes it's completely out of your control what happens.

ANYWAYS so this whole concept of someone "winning" but then not "truly" winning all reminds me of heroes. i'm starting to think the "we could be heroes just for one day" is more about being heroes in one timeline at the end of the show or something, bc obviously an ending where everything is perfect and they defeat the evil is not where it's going.

and how joyce closes the door in the last shot of s3 with the song playing, to me it feels like a representation of the end of the show, but also of the UD because i believe the UD is a once alive timeline that got cut off from continuing. maybe at the end they say goodbye to the place they lived their whole lives (their own timeline) and move on to a different one together where things are different but they're all alive and with e/o. they will be heroes and win but just literally for one day/momentarily because it's not going to be a normal win.

(i also have had this fucked up thought for a while that the UD is what remains after them losing the s5 battle and their battle takes place in the past but also the future somehow idk ignore me lmao)

anyways and the first time heroes plays in 1x03 is when you as a viewer see undeniable evidence that will is alive since joyce talked to him, but then you see his body and get confused. you don't know yet if will is really alive or not, you don't know what timeline you're in.

and joyce knows she just talked to will and saw a monster coming out of the wall, and mike knows he saw will's body. it's like two things are true at once.

"the shame was on the other side" and they cut from mike and karen's hug to jonathan and joyce's hug. i wonder if they'll realize theres nothing they can do to like. stop the parallel universes/outcomes and some characters will end up in different timelines than the others or something like either way the ending is going to be oh so bittersweet.

something that's always always caught my attention though is in 1x03 it cuts to black on the last word "day". but in 3x09 the line ends and then it fades to black from the empty byer's house. almost like slowly unveiling something/letting us see a tiny bit more. pulling back the curtain a teeeny tiny bit.

hopefully this was comprehensible since it's a little all over the place but this is my fav type of stuff to think about about this show heheh