#why why does this happen how have these genetics somehow survived

[sophiethewitch1]

oh my god im free. pmdd is insane. i get the shot so i have irregular periods but when they do come round i am just straight suicidal for a week like what is this dark magic. thankfully it has passed but like. its geniunely the most miserable experience possible and it just happens sometimes. im fine now my view of my life is hopeful again but yesterday i was absolutely certain there was no chance of me ever getting better idfk. apparently my mum went through this too and like??? she said she'd just regularly go crazy and thats exactly what happens to me idk how women in the olden days survived this without throwing themselves off a cliff once a month

[cloudyswritings]

Vessel biology: Uh, I forgot what number we’re on…

The return of this BS.

Vessels all tend to have pretty poor eyesight as a baseline, and it does tend to get worse over time(based on the white lady losing her sight and the Wyrm being, you know, blind). Anyway this kinda works with how we as the player hit everything with our nail, I could easily see vessels doing this as a way to feel out the world around them.

The cloaks most vessels have are a mixture of leaves and wings, they grow at a steady rate before reaching a max length and will regrow if damaged sufficiently. Most of these wing-leaf-cloaks are either too fragile to get a vessel into the air, or can’t hold their weight once they’re up there. Broken vessel probably could fly though, and does get some decent air time in their fight.

Overexposure to void after hatching can destabilize the physical form of a vessel and make it more mold able. I headcanon this might be at least partially how the sharp shadow charm works

The vessels all inherited some of the pale kings memories through genetic memory, but specifically the vast majority got his desire to see the radiance killed/contained. It’s part of what drew them back to Hallownest after escaping.

when they get hit/damaged their shells can crack letting out a “scream” of silence, this actually happens in game, it’s why sound gets muted when you take damage. It’s also the closest any vessel gets to a voice to cry suffering.

Despite being fragile from a godly/higher being standpoint vessels are tougher than most mortals, surviving things like direct hits from oomas and the likes of Grimm.

Their sense of touch might function like a sense of taste as well, this comes from their mother who can “taste” the soil and surrounding environment to see if it’s suitable for growth. This works well with the idea that their body is semi permeable due to being mostly void.

If you somehow removed the void from a vessel(by killing them) you’d be left with their mask and an extremely thin completely transparent carapace that in life got much of its strength from the pressure of the void within it. It’d be roughly like a plastic bag in texture.

Given time and enough damage, you could prompt a vessel to metamorphose into either a root or a wyrm, or possibly some fucked up hybrid of the two. They’d still be a vessel and have a shade. Imagine mortals banding together and killing a wyrm just for its shade to spring from the corpse and attack them…

Vessels that can actually see tend to see in a broad spectrum ranging all the way from very low band infrared to X and gamma rays, what exactly he world would look like to them is anyone’s guess.

Most vessels still have vestigial internal organs, though what they look like varies from vessel to vessel. I think ghost probably has a stomach, and functional lungs(albeit ones that don’t actually breathe anything in). All vessels have a core/heart that most of their void is bound around and passes through.

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 14 of Harrow the Ninth

So Harrow's rooms were intended for Anastasia, but for some reason she never used them. I guess maybe she died before the Lyctors began living on the Mithraeum? Only, if the rooms were intended for her in the first place, they had to pre-date her death. Maybe, since she isn't listed as a saint, she died rather than actually become a Lyctor? Maybe she did do what Cytherea pointed out they all could have done and just... didn't do it? She and her cavalier could have both lived out their natural lives as regular people and they'd still both be very dead by this point in time, so that wouldn't change them being crossed out in the Dramatis Personae. Does Harrow know what happened to Anastasia and just isn't telling us for some reason?

The idea of Harrow wandering around the Mithraeum like a malnourished gremlin and eating raw vegetables out of the refrigerator rather than learning how to cook is so funny to me. I mean, I feel that, I struggle a lot with cooking, but I tend to fall back on frozen tamales and pasta myself. I wonder if microwaves still exist in the Locked Tomb universe, they are a godsend for the cooking-challenged

The things that John says about Blood of Eden do not make much sense and sound like some kind of weird propaganda. It's like how some people talk about Antifa: "they claim to be a grassroots movement, but they're obviously backed by a nefarious organization", "every time someone hurts or attacks me or something I like, it's gotta be Antifa", "even though this person had an actually very understandable reason for attacking me which is not in any way my fault by the way, they obviously only did so because they were working with Antifa even though it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that Antifa would work with them"

Also, they were encountered five thousand years ago, but they already know all about the Nine Houses without John supposedly having had any idea about them prior to that, but somehow BOE was just searching every corner of space for five thousand years looking for these people that it already knew all about? I think there is more to this story. Like I don't know, were these descendants of people who witnessed John's resurrection and didn't like it and then they all jumped in a wormhole or something and got lost in space for five thousand years? Like I'm thinking about that other human empire in Stellaris except maybe the other way around in terms of which one winds up being fascist. Mercy did at some point mention that wormholes exist in this universe, I think

So this is something I don't quite get. I thought the danger in John going back to the Nine Houses was that the Resurrection Beasts could come there and destroy the Nine Houses, I don't think there's been anything so far that indicates that the Nine Houses is more likely to attract Resurrection Beasts than anywhere else. And also, I've read ahead a bit through Chapter 16 and I think it's incorrect that the Resurrection Beasts would do anything at all to the Nine Houses, because they only feed on thalergenic planets, and there aren't any of those left in the Nine Houses, and they don't harm people who haven't committed the indelible sin, which should be everyone in the Nine Houses who isn't a Lyctor, and they aren't traveling boldily through space or anything, so it's not like it's an issue of "Earth is literally under siege by planet fucking Jupiter" either. So what is the actual danger, here? Why would leading John back the Nine Houses make him easier to kill?

Patiently awaiting the day when Harrow learns how to blow on hot food

Very curious how John knows that Harrow's parents are dead and when he learned of this. The letter that invited her to the Lyctor trial, which he supposedly wrote, was addressed to them, for example

So being able to survive that much thanergy is just a matter of genetics?

So I think this raises the question of what is resurrection, exactly? I guess from this discussion, it would be "causing a living thing to survive a massive influx of thanergy" where "massive influx of thanergy" is probably just a very technical term for "death". But if the thanergy from 200 children dying would ordinarily have killed the ovum, wouldn't it have also ordinarily have killed the actual living adults on the Ninth as well? It doesn't really make sense that deaths would trigger a lot of death energy that then by itself kills more people just from the death energy

Please, it's fine when Gideon does the whole Space Jesus thing, because Gideon is cool and actually really means it, but when you affect the Space Jesus motifs it feels cringey and fake

Also, that's some impressive mental arithmetic, because Harrow didn't say "two hundred" anywhere in this conversation and you've been actively talking to each other this whole time

Well, you told Gideon. I wonder what Harrow's false history is now for how her parents found out about her opening the Tomb, by the way

I assume that John is eventually going to find out about Harrow opening the Tomb, and I'm very interested to see what happens after that

And here is another segment where we have Harrow talking to John, and then a fast forward with no break to Harrow in bed that night, and then back to Harrow talking with John again

I think in this context, the thing that it would make most sense for Eden to be, in the sense of the biblical paradise lost, etc., is Earth before whatever happened that killed all the planets and resulted in the Resurrection, which lends support to the "people who were around to witness the Resurrection and didn't like it" idea. And if they fucked off somewhere with a wormhole, maybe John counts that as "leaving Earth to die". John calls Eden "someone", but planets have souls, so maybe they are someones. And according to John, BOE considers themselves to "own" Eden/Earth. So is this just a fight over who gets to live there?

I wonder if the last sentence is supposed to make us think about Harrow turning her back on Gideon by erasing her memories of her, or just as foreshadowing that Harrow is eventually going to start questioning all this stuff that she's been told about BOE. I don't like this as a metaphor for Harrow and Gideon, because I don't like the idea of people having "the right to act as though [they] own" each other, but I dunno

"How sharper than the serpent's tooth" is apparently from King Lear, and is King Lear complaining that his daughters are ungrateful. Is he saying that BOE were ungrateful to Eden? That, I guess, they took the Earth for granted? Has there ever been a single human in the whole history of the planet who hasn't taken the Earth for granted to a certain extent, honestly? Does John fancy himself above this?

[acertainmoshke]

Hello, your w.i.p.s all sound interesting! Hope you don't mind questions! I love worldbuilding and To Die Among the Stars has really caught my attention. It sounds like a sci fi/found family type of story. Do you know why the first FTL test was a disaster? I'm hoping they tested it remotely/without humans before testing it with humans. Judging by your use of “mental wellness centers” I'm guessing this isn't a particularly nice future for some people. So probably not. Was the new crew briefed on why the first one failed, to try and avoid the same mistakes? Have they tested FTL on sentient androids yet or are they like Data from Star Trek, rare and highly experimental? Why did they choose to combine cat and human DNA to get Peppermint? (Not judging, I'd love to read something with a catgirl in space!) Have they tried merging other species with humans before? Oh noo, have they tried bringing back dinosaurs and mammoths? XD Has Space Jurassic Park happened? Sorry for all of the questions, your story blurb there just really intrigued me! I couldn't help myself.

Please please please don’t be sorry!! I love questions and talking about worldbuilding. So, in order:

1. The first test was a decade before the story and it was a huge disaster in the news because it was manned. It wasn’t technically the first test, though. They knew the technology worked and had run small scale tests around the solar system in tiny unmanned crafts. However, putting it together into a system that would work long-distance was too expensive at the time to plan for very many tests. They tested each part but not everything working together. Several trained astronauts and scientists were killed. It has been a while, so things are less expensive now and have been improved. However, this one is manned so they have the data on how people physically and psychologically react to FTL. I don’t want to be too spoilery but…it’s still not perfect.

2. The new crew did have a few weeks of training, much of it on the reports they’re expected to prepare, but also some cursory knowledge of ship upkeep and planetary life should they get that far—for liability reasons, mostly.

3. Both Void and Peppermint are dubiously legal experiments. Void is arguably the first provably sentient android and was kept quiet because they were unable to repeat their success. Also, important to note, unlike Data it doesn’t look human at all. It was like the 30th test and they were running short on funds, so it’s housed in a clunky metal body and honestly is a bit goofy looking.

4. Peppermint is…ok, meta explanation is I wanted an excuse to have a catgirl in space. But this type of genetic experimentation is banned because of eugenics (cruel, futuristic society still has some standards). So January, the scientist who designed both of them, had to keep them quiet too. Nominally, the point was to create a human enhanced with animal abilities, and they tried a bunch of different types. Peppermint was the only one to survive past infancy, and while they are basically a person with cat traits, there are downsides that make it currently unmarketable, either for military or private sector uses. January doesn’t care, she is kind of a mad scientist who does things to see if she can. Technically Void and Peppermint belong to her, so she brought them along to space. They’re the only ones who didn’t actually volunteer.

5. Ok space Jurassic Park has definitely happened NOW. I honestly didn’t consider a lot of the worldbuilding for this story outside of technology and living conditions (I did the least planning for it yet somehow I’m a third of the way through and have barely started the others). But yes this is a world where the justice system is like now but worse, same with healthcare and other factors of life for regular people. But if billionaires in real life can fund random space travel, rich people in my story have definitely funded extinct genetic experiments (which are legal because they aren’t on people). There have definitely been incidents, both with exotic extinct pets and with extinction zoo experiences, but on a less centralized scale than in Jurassic Park.

Thank you so much for this ask and feel free to send more if you have thoughts or questions! I love being made to actually think about the logic of my world!

[finely-tuned-line]

RP:

Log 213

FTL: I have decided to dub this new strain of the Rot FTLR-3.

FTL: FTLR-3 appears to be continuing to grow at a rapid pace. I have contained it within one of my experimentation chambers. Hopefully the barriers are able to withstand it.

FTL: I have been observing FTLR-3, trying to figure out a way to get rid of it permanently. After all, containing it isn't going to last.

FTL: FTLR-3 is interesting in the fact that it is very much an outlier within the whole 'Rot' thing. It is a bright cyan - which most likely came from the lifeform it originated from; a cyan lizard. It grows at a rapid pace, up the walls and across the floor of the chamber. Upon witnessing this, I can only pray that I managed to contain it all. I'm done for if I didn't.

FTL: This... How did I even end up with this? All lifeforms that fall beneath the umbrella of 'the Rot' have one thing in common: out-of-control cell replication. They are designed to grow and consume incessantly. Even the 'stationary' ones - defined as variants of the Rot that do not move through their own power of self-replication - expand slowly, though a lot of their energy is used up on regenerating their quickly-dying cells or controlling the host body if they are mobile.

FTL: FTLR-3 displays all the key traits of an Expanding Rot, which are created when any limit on self-replication is removed completely, the host body providing the energy for the first burst of expansion. Therefore killing the creature it originated from. But the host of FTLR-3 appears to be... alive?

FTL: I'm sure it won't remain that way for long, nothing can sustain a Rot and survive, but it is curious. The cyan lizard is in fact, barely even alive, but I can tell for sure that it is still twitching. So unless FTLR-3 is managing to transform from an Expanding Rot into a Stationary Rot, that lizard is still alive for now.

FTL: I... I do feel bad for it, I have to say. It is in the process of dying a very excruciatingly painful death. I was attempting to give the lizard some venom. While that does seem unnecessary, I was curious as to what would happen. Of course, if the experiment had succeeded, I'd never have released it into the wild. The food chain would be completely upset.

FTL: Now what's curious is that this modification somehow produced a Rot. I believe that the venom sacs I coded into its genetics malfunctioned, spreading the self-replication mutation into all of its cells. There is a good possibility that FTLR-3 is highly venomous because of this. I suppose this is why genetic modifications are done upon the unborn. Forcing the lizard's body to grow a new organ after it's fully matured was not a good idea, nor was it pleasant for it.

FTL: I do believe that that's all for now. I will be keeping an eye on FTLR-3. If all goes well, I shall have a neutraliser for FTLR-3 within the next few cycles.

FTL: This will not happen again.

[empiriical]

assigned baccano! verse for @cardinalhope

i was just gonna put this in your dms but honestly i've been wanting to work out a baccano verse for hunter anyway so i'm just gonna post it.

the obvious direction to go here, right off the bat, is hunter being a homunculus. toh doesn't use that term, but for all intents && purposes, that's exactly what the grimwalkers are. homunculi in baccano are artificial life forms created through alchemy. there are a few different types, but hunter && the other grimwalkers would have been the basic pattern: an immortal creature resembling a human, created from the genetic material of another person. they're born knowing nothing, but can be directly given knowledge by the immortal who created them.

it's hard to say exactly how i'd fit hunter's creation into the story, but honestly, i would stick philip && caleb into this too, so let's start there. they would have been alchemists who sailed with the others to north america from lotto valentino, italy. ( it feels a little bit like cheating, but philip would have similarities to the strange combimation of szilard quates, huey laforet, lebreau fermet viralesque, && maiza avaro, while caleb would bear the most thematic && plot relevance to gretto avaro. ) none of that is really important for you to know, though ; what is important is that philip && caleb both drink the liquor of immortality, && philip promptly devours caleb — the only way an immortal can be killed is by being "devoured" by the right hand of another immortal. their body is absorbed into the other through their right hand, && the surviving immortal gains their knowledge && memories. i have lots of thoughts as to why philip may have done this, but that's another post.

anyway. over the next three hundred years or so, philip — now going by belos — begins creating homunculi. && they start looking a lot like caleb. i don't think this is necessarily possible in the rules of the world, but i'm gonna say it is, between them being brothers, && also belos having devoured caleb. for reasons i will not delve into, belos creates more && more, but they don't last long. they're imperfect, their immortality isn't fully stable, they die, or he simply deems them unsuitable, && devours them before moving onto the next.

i'd mix them into the 1930s plot, but there's honestly already so much happening there that i don't even want to figure that out. belos' existence already disrupts the perfect balance of chaos being stirred up by huey && fermet on the side of the alchemists. szilard devoured a bunch of people on the ship, && i think it was assumed he devoured belos && caleb too. no one had any clue that belos himself was responsible for caleb's death, or that he escaped into the sea much in the same way szilard himself did. so let's just say that he's somehow managed to lie low for all these years. we'll move right past the 2000s plot, because lord knows how that's gonna wrap up (rip baccano 2003) && drop right into modern day.

so belos finally makes hunter, who bears the most similarity physically to caleb. maybe that's why he keeps him around. he raises him like his own son, but conditioned to serve him. ( thematically similar to chané laforet's relationship to huey laforet, except that she's his actual daughter ). he does not inform hunter of what he is. he doesn't even know that he's immortal. belos, still a highly religious man despite his knowledge of alchemy, would give hunter knowledge && call it a gift from god, passed down through him. or something like that. i think that despite his skill && his own existence, belos has a great distaste for alchemy && immortals. he probably only even made the grimwalkers to be a proxy for caleb.

from there, i think there are a few directions this could go. hunter could find out what he is. he could have been assigned a mission to take out other immortals ( told they exist without learning what he is ). or he could be sheltered, but sneak out && venture into the world on his own. either way, i think he would likely have an encounter with elmer c. albatross, as well as find his way to the martillo family camorra, where he'd meet fellow immortals czeslaw meyer && maiza avaro, in addition to ronny schiatto, firo prochaneizo ( who i don't write ) && ennis, who is a homunculus just like him, but created by szilard. through the martillos, he'd also get introduced to the gandor family mafia, headed by three brothers keith, luck, && berga gandor — also immortals.

&& then just for funsies, raine has a baccano verse where they are also one of the alchemists from lotto valentino, && they're both a friend to the martillos, && work for the gandors as a musician in their jazz hall. so that's also a connection, if we wanted even more reasons for raine && hunter to interact.

so yeah ! that's just what came to mind for hunter hehe. totally haven't been thinking about this for almost a month exactly...

[vipier]

[ wounded ] sender patches up receiver's wounds

TRISTAN’S WOUNDS RARELY REQUIRE PROPER TENDING. he’s never known the precise genetic modification process that caused him now to heal with unnatural efficiency — but then, his makers had never been eager to share the details with any of them, for fear of any knowledge they may use to escape the clutches of the empire. rightly so, perhaps, given the fact that tris had already worked tirelessly to discover and remove both his tracker and his “ kill switch ” prior to defection. who knows what he could do with more information? his accelerated healing obviously proves a frequent convenience in his line of work, given the nature of his skills. however, it means that those hurts which require attention are often rather grave, likely enough to have killed another man without tristan's specific enhancements.

this time, an assailant caught him in the back between the ribs with a vibroblade, and while the shallow slice to his lung had closed itself quickly, the resulting gash remains deep and oozing, almost unnaturally so. unusual, for a man engineered to heal the way he does. tristan at first attempted to convince himself that the attacker managed to slip him a topical poison during the scuffle, whether separately or by somehow determining how to coat a vibroblade — a valuable trick, if so, that tris would have to try to learn himself, after surviving the damage. but realistically, he knows that it was he who infected himself with his own errant toxic adrenaline, even if he doesn't want to admit it. usually it’s easy to stick with the training and control his adrenaline release, but privately, he knows his cool slipped some when he realized how lethal the situation in which @k4ssa found himself was. a capable fighter, andor, to be sure, but to dispatch a cadre of fifteen armed and skillful men is hardly a reasonable task for a single flesh-and-blood human. tris’s intervention came not a moment too soon — and he has no desire to explore any possible reason why his senses were heightened enough to potentially trigger such a response. it wouldn’t be the first time you botched an adrenaline release, he reminds himself silently, without acknowledging how many years it’s been since his last such mistake, how green and inexperienced he was the last time it happened.

the unfortunate twist is just how inconveniently placed the wound is, such that twisting to reach it proves horribly painful, and even as he manages to do so anyway with little more than a wince, his visibility remains utterly poor.

it must take even longer than tristan realizes, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees his companion shift toward him. no sooner has cassian moved, with an impatient sound in his throat, to assist tris with his wound than tris catches his wrist with preternatural speed, his other hand instantly holding the point of a thin blade to his throat that he certainly had not held even a moment before. a reflexive response, certainly, but even as tristan realizes what he’s done, he does not move away. instead, he stares wide-eyed, lip curled in half a snarl, like a cornered feral animal bearing its teeth in warning. come closer and I’ll bite, his posture says, clear as day. for his part, cassian remains stock still, slowly lifting his hands in front of him to demonstrate he means no harm. for several long moments, they simply stare at one another, tris frozen in defensive indecision, the captain motionless and waiting — for tristan to settle on a choice, likely, or perhaps even for an opening to disarm him.

time seems to slow like pouring molasses as he watches a bead of blood appear on cassian's skin beneath the prick of his knife, though still, the spymaster makes no move, instead simply gazing unblinkingly back at tristan, firm and unyielding. their time together has proven just how easily those eyes can bend and sway others when andor wishes to, affecting innocence or competence or earnestness or whatever else he must to achieve his goals. as competent a liar as he is, tris flatters himself that he's developed at least some awareness of when cassian is actually being honest. he meets tris's eyes with a quiet fearlessness, undaunted by his blade firm and somehow truly genuine. even so, the suspicion does not fully leave tris's eyes as he slowly releases his wrist and lowers his blade, considering another moment before angling his back toward cassian while still keeping his gaze upon him.

still, his muscles tense as he feels the spy test the skin beside the wound and he hisses a savage " watch it, " fingers tightening around the knife he still holds. the pressure disappears, accompanied by a huff from cassian that might be half a chuckle, prompting tris to scowl. he can't recall the last time he let anybody touch him, let alone in such a vulnerable state as needing a wound patched. the tension in his shoulder remains so intense that it practically aches, the feral spark in his eye refusing to dim as he watches cassian sidelong as best he can. it takes every bit of self-control he possesses to keep from shuddering away from the other man's hands as he works, as he carefully cleans the discolored silvery blood oozing from the wound with a cotton pad soaked with disinfectant.

tristan fears nothing and yet the sensation of fingers against his skin with any kind of care feeds a growing panic in his chest, a tightness, a wave of nausea.

yet somehow he manages to remain seated, motionless, barely breathing for the duration as he forces himself not to tremble beneath the touch. minutes tick by, but as far as tris is concerned, they may as well have been hours. cassian works meticulously, but with confidence rather than caution, even though tristan catches his eyes flickering to his face again and again as he works, as if gauging how likely it is that the assassin will lash back out. every instinct in tris begs him to withdraw, to hiss at the spy to never touch him again, but he resists his own impulse. he knows he needs the assistance, but it is not that knowledge that chills him ; rather, despite his guarded demeanor, the distrust behind his eyes, he knows instinctively that cassian will not use his vulnerable state to harm him and he cannot recall if he's ever been certain of such a thing, that there are any hands that do not pose a danger. the knowledge overwhelms him, angers him, pulls an unrecognizable burn to the back of his throat that makes it almost impossible to breathe. he cannot afford to trust anyone, let alone cassian andor. trust is dangerous, trust is foolish in this galaxy, especially for somebody like him. yet despite himself, it is as though the other man's hands widen the crack in tris's armor the longer he spends tending his wound.

when he feels cassian tie off the bandage, tris pulls almost savagely away from him, standing and turning again to face him as he positions his back to the wall. eyes remaining on the spymaster, he reaches his hand around to inspect the work. impeccably done, and already, the pain has begun to dissipate, likely the result of bacta or something similar. a cold sweat lingers on the back of his neck and his skin feels too warm, as though such a concession has somehow embarrassed him. slowly, eyes narrowed, he sheathes his knife out of sight again and wipes his damp palms on his clothing, ignoring how strange it is for his hands to sweat in the first place. nothing scares him. the words he says next are half-growled, defensive, and escape him almost despite himself, almost unwillingly. " I know some members of command have advised you to put me down. so why haven't you. "

[that-one-queer-poc]

Unfortunately, you're too cool for me to use this ask box for the purpose labelled on the tin, so please take these questions about your, Sunora (I hope I spelled that right) plot.

What is color magic? What does it do? Why is it stigmatized?

What's the etymology of the names for each type of magic, I've never heard those called that and I'm curious!

How exactly does fire magic work underwater?

How do they enforce the outlawing of those with all magic? Is it a eugenics thing of just killing kids/teens/whatever-age-they're-found-out who seem to have it or is it through some other method that would prevent them from using it?

Do all people have magic in one of the forms or is it a trait that only some people have?

How does Solana's fire magic seem to "weaken"? Is it harder to do or is it just straight up putting up less power, like a battery that's about to die?

thank you so much for this ask 🫶🏽‼️‼️ i hope this explains it well enough (putting it under cut cuz it’s kinda long lol)

color magic is known as chromagia in this world, basically what it does is manipulate light and colors. the reason it’s stigmatized is bc of hate groups formed of ppl w elemental magic (fire water air earth yknow) who are known as elemental supremacists, they believe non elemental magic (like chromagia) is inferior and dangerous. the other non elemental magic, poleamagia, is seen as the worst bc it has one ability from each elemental magic and chromagia, which is why it’s “dangerous” (it’s not more powerful, just more versatile, but that still scares these ppl)

honestly the only one that has any real life meaning is chromagia, chrome meaning color, the others are from taking a bunch of words related to the concept, mashing the initials together and tinkering w it until it sounded acceptable, then slapping -magia on the end (which just means magic). i got that tip from a tumblr post that i can’t find anymore lol

they’re in this sort of bunker thing! think hunger games district 13. they’re essentially underground except there’s water if you go outside. it doesn’t interfere w any of the powers cuz they’re just inside all the time

at the beginning they just executed all the poleamages who survived the war, which caused the island Sunora to sink underwater in the first place. it’s widely believed that poleamage activists were behind the sinking, so the government used that to justify their genocide, and since magic is genetic, there weren’t any after (so it sort of is eugenics yeah). they couldn’t do anything abt the poleamages who escaped before it sank. as of right now there are zero poleamages on Sunora, but if there was somehow one alive the government would just kill them, if they couldn’t do that they’d probably have them under constant surveillance

yes, everyone has magic. the type you get is genetic, and you have it from birth but it’s weak, you train it and become more powerful as you grow up, like a muscle. elemental magic is evenly dominant so a mixed kid among those will be one or the other, not both. chromagia is a little more dominant than them, a mixed kid will have the elemental magic at first and then gain chromagia powers while their elemental magic slightly weakens around puberty (this is what’s happening to Solana). poleamagia is the most dominant, any mixed kid will only have poleamagia

Solana starts losing the ability to do more advanced filamagia! each magic system has 5 of these sort of levels of different feats they can perform w their magic that get more advanced as they go along. she just reached level 4, but begins losing her ability as her chromagia comes in and takes more dominance. it kinda puts a permanent buffer on her filamagia, so that she can never progress past like level 2 in fire powers, but she’ll be able to reach level 5 in chromagia someday

i hope i got everything thanks again soooo much i hope i didnt yap your ears off <3

[skaruresonic]

Can't wait until we get the Zeti and the Wisps in on this too. Everyone's related in this Chili's!

"Whilst the builds are different, they are both humanoid with minimal features" - This doesn't really prove much on its own. I think the reason the Black Arms and the Ancients are both "humanoid" is because aliens are frequently depicted with human-like features in fiction; we are a self-obsessed species and have a hard time conceiving of extraterrestrial life as "super-intelligent shades of blue," so we tend to model them after ourselves. Vortigaunts are just humanoid aliens with extra limbs and eyes. Xenomorphs are just humanoid aliens with some lizard/spider features stapled on. So on and so forth.

---

"There is a sub-set of Chao called 'Dark Chao' which is what happens when Chao are raised by 'bad' people."

Again, that doesn't prove anything. You can also get a Dark chao by abusing it with a Hero character.

"These Dark Chao are mostly black with red parts, just like the Black Arms."

Apropos of this, I used to hold a pet theory that the Biolizard was also created from Black Doom's DNA. Now stuff like this is making me feel a little iffy about it in retrospect.

---

With this in mind, it's possible the Black Arms are an off-shoot of the Ancients who turned evil and transformed into what they are in "Shadow the Hedgehog".

...How?

No, literally, how? The Black Arms are over 2,000 years old while the Ancients are more like 10,000 years old. If not older.

The Ancients' DNA "corroded" over time, whatever that means, and Eggman notes that they were effectively wiped out within a generation.

Behold: what 8,000 years of DNA corrosion does to a motherfucker.

Are you telling me the Ancients, despite having had their DNA "corroded" and getting massacred to the point where their only surviving fragments floated like primordial ooze inside a cyberspace shrine, were able to somehow evolve into the Black Arms? And then they turned evil because Reasons(tm) and randomly developed a taste for human flesh? O...kay.

Even if you were to argue that the Black Arms and the Ancients descended from a common ancestor, then you'd practically have to invent reasons for why that is the case. Which, like you said, only serves to shrink the world of the games. What's likelier: that multiple alien species exist, or that both terrestrial and extraterrestrial life descended from one strand of damaged DNA from an extant alien race?

What are the odds that the Ancients "devolved" into not one, but two separate species? And what exactly caused the Chao to become peaceful and the Black Arms to transform into a bloodthirsty race, anyway? Did the mutation-by-Emerald radiation (I hate that that's a thing now. why is this a thing) push them in different directions? There are so many things you would have to assume to be true in order for this to be a viable theory that it strains belief.

Alas, I must now repeat my frustrations with Frontiers' sci-fi mumbo-jumbo. That's not how DNA works. "Corroded" DNA wouldn't have evolved anything, because the cells responsible for transmission would have sickened and died, because the DNA would have been too damaged to transmit genetic information.

Replicating cells containing damaged DNA result in cancer, Frontiers. You're saying the Ancients were a cancer. Truly, this is the peakest of all lore revelations.

tfw the award-winning game fails ninth grade biology

As you can see in the screenshots above, DNA damage can lead to disease and aging. So this argument fails on the basis of logic. You're expecting me to believe that the reason Shadow - and Chaos Chao as well, I suppose - are immortal is because they carry DNA that can be traced back to the Ancients. DNA that was stated in Frontiers to be corroded, remember, and therefore damaged.

Shadow was created to be a cure for all diseases, yet you're telling me, in so many words, his DNA which prevents disease and aging is somehow more susceptible to cancer than the average person's.

The "the Black Arms are related to Ancients" theory going on Twitter is bugging me. They already fucked with Chaos, PLEASE don't be true

This forced connection is shrinking everything

@skaruresonic

[emiliagalotti]

I was cooking up fanfic on the bus to work, as one does, and got to thinking about why so many people have reacted so emotionally negative to sentiadrien - and conversely, why the chorus of “he’s just like any other human being, Thomas said so on twitter” is so frequently sung by those who like the concept. 

The obvious problem is, of course, that the show hasn’t made any statements about the physical makeup of magically created beings, and for all we know, it never will. You don’t really need to think too hard about this to realise that no-one in charge ever wanted you to; Adrien eats, so his toilet probably stinks just like anyone else’s. The issue isn’t the logic, but the fact that after some three seasons of them, we’ve seen the insides of a number of sentimonsters and they sure don’t bleed; they dissolve in black plasma at the end of the battle. People were asking of sentibug could’ve had children and whatnot, and that says all that needs saying about how unclear this topic has been present on the show. 

I’m not among the crowd going “the author is dead la la la I can’t hear you”, but it’s relevant context the vast majority of the ML audience don’t follow Astruc on twitter. Most readings of his story won’t be done in the light of extratextual information provided on social media, and writers can’t rely on people knowing that you compared it to IVF when someone tweeted you about it. 

(the third problem, of course, is that test tube babies aren’t genetically engineered to absolute obedience to any person holding a random object, but that is a tale for a different day of “this is a show for kids, you’re not supposed to take it seriously”)

The not-so-instantly-obvious problem is the showing and the telling, which this show has a hit and miss relationship to already. There is definitely a tendency to put words into characters mouths that are supposed to explain something on-screen but just don’t convince because we never saw these things happen. Marinette supposedly being in love with Luka while both the relevant episodes show her being far further gone over Adrien; Ladybug sweet-talking Lady Wifi about how they’re BFFs when we’ve never seen them interact outside of battle and a couple of interviews; Chloé simply being selfish and evil to the bones despite being repeatedly shown to deeply care for Adrien and her father and even Miss Bustier. (Someone on youtube really hit the nail with how this is why “Kuro Neko” falls apart, but watching that one vid sent the algorithms straight into “maybe you’ll like these fifty thousand channels devoted to telling people why Miraculous Ladybug is terrible”, so approach with care)

In the end, the show hasn’t been telling much about sentimonsters at all, and what it has repeatedly shown is that they are doomed: not a single one of them has survived the episode in which they were introduced. The human sentimonsters are uniformly depicted as living dolls -  we only hear them speak a handful of lines suggesting that they have some conscious mind of their own, and only ever in dialogue with whoever has the Peacock. Nothing has been stated on-screen to lend nuance to this, barring our heroes being horrified to watch a copycat Ladybug be snapped out of existence and this was allegedly Very Sad (but not sad enough for anyone to remember it two minutes later, and so clearly not important to the story as a whole).

If Adrien is one of them - well, of course there’s going to be a solution of some sort, be that by somehow magically turning him into a Real Boy, giving him somehow secure posession of both Duusu’s miraculous and the amok, or somehow cataclysming himself and breaking the bondage. 

But those all rely on speculation and lore yet unknown (or known only on twitter, as the case might be), and not a single one of them seem obvious from the current standpoint. The show has consistently been depicting human sentimonsters as clearly not human through how instantly they are controlled and who easily they are destroyed, and the only contrary evidence are statements scattered on Thomas Astruc’s twitter history. 

Yeah, I get why the people are crying. 

[darkacademicfrom2021]

The Dark Team (part 10)

<<Previous part Masterlist   Next part>>

(Taglist: @lucywrites02, @louieboo87, @the-departed-potato, @jesuswasnotawhiteman, @idontknow296 , @beksib, @spythoschei, @geekwritersworld , @whatafuckingdumbass, @mysticunicorn7)

Warnings: adorable jerks.

As the sun finally came up (for what it felt like an eternity, a night with seven nights inside of it), you rubbed your eyes and greeted your teammates, who somehow were both already up and having breakfast.

“I was wondering when would you join us”, said Loki, covering his mouth with the manners of a Prince while eating a piece of something. “Barnes made dessert for breakfast”, pointed out more amazed than reproachful.

“Desert?”, you laughed. “A cake?”.

“Yes”, said Loki, very sure of himself, and Bucky rolled his eyes and chuckled, correcting him.

“It’s a pancake, Loki. It’s a normal breakfast in Midgard”.

“Actually, probably just in this country”, you added. “What do you normally have in Asgard?”. As you chattered, you started getting ready and fixing your hair, stealing a piece of pancake from Bucky’s plate. “Wow, I didn’t know you could cook. It’s actually great”, you said, tasting a mouthful.

“Well, as in Midgard’s nordic areas, back home it’s often fruit and bread, or porridge with dried fruits” he recalled distracted, and immediately interrupted himself with “are we not supposed to alert the rest of this?”.

“About Buck knowing how to cook? Yeah, I’m impressed, we should tell everyone”.

“I guess we should’ve told them yesterday, instead of going to sleep”, said Bucky, ignoring you. “Only God knows where that supersoldier is now”.

“I don’t, actually”.

“I didn’t mean... nevermind”, he sighed. “I'm calling Stark and let’s hope we don’t get too yelled at”.

You recalled yesterday’s events. You had so many dreams, you could barely remember being awake at all. First, the bearded man’s nightmare. Then, something about… the compound? Then, you remembered distinctly, Loki speaking Old Norse begging Thor about something. You remembered the phonetic of the words, but they were all gibberish now. Then, a last dream, something about buying rotten apples and being forced to eat them by Thanos. Your imagination surely was active on the nights.

Loki seemed paler than usual as he stared at you, without even blinking.

“What?”, you snapped him out of your head.

“You dreamt with me?”, he muttered, getting up and cleaning his plate with a snap.

"I also dreamt with Thanos".

“Don’t get too attached, I’ll be back to Asgard soon”, he promised, or alerted. Intentions unclear.

“I’m not attached”, you protested. You thought he’d smirk or be the smug idiot he usually was. He didn’t. Instead, he looked unsettled; disturbed even. “I didn’t dream with you on purpose, it was probably because of yesterday’s thing”.

“What thing?”, peeped in Bucky. “Oh no, did you two fuck?”.

“I didn’t let them die, big deal. I was just saving myself the amount of annoyance it would be to have Stank on my neck all week long if your blood was sort of in my hands”.

“Sounds like a lot of deflecting emotions to me, buddy”, said Bucky, and you chuckled.

“He’s just embarrassed he saw himself cry in one of my dreams from last night”, you mocked. He got up and you didn’t get to see his face, but presumed it would hold something near a death threat.

“You two have an intense bonding experience and decide to concentrate on it with more insults? You know, this is why you’re single”, added Bucky.

“It wasn’t a bonding experience”, you said, cutting-glass sharpness in your gaze.

“I’m not single”, corrected Loki at the same time, with an equally whetted voice.

Both Bucky and you looked at him with plate-wide eyes, waiting for him to elaborate. He didn’t. Neither of you asked, but surely shared a fair amount of desire to gossip about it. Oh, how much you wished to be able to tell Bucky about Loki re-reading Hamlet to reminisce about his beloved. But there was a line you wouldn’t cross in there; you knew where to stop.

“Mr. Stark”, you called through the earbud, “you there, sir?”.

“Painfully”, he answered. You connected the earbud to your phone and held it on speaker, so the rest of the team could join. “Tell me more about what I’m gonna yell at you three about”.

As you walked him through (almost) every event in the past twenty four hours, you could feel how his hands traveled all the way up to his face, and had to hold in a few sighs of disgust and utter hate towards… Well, you weren’t sure towards what, exactly.

“Are we grounded, dad?”, spat Loki with sarcasm.

“Listen, Rock Of Ages, if I could, I’d have you in a prison cell still to this day. Don’t push any buttons”.

“Come on, it’s been, what, nine years since he last fucked up something in here?” you defended him, not quite sure why. Loki grew nervous as Tony laughed obnoxiously at him.

“Sure. He didn’t keep fucking things up in here after that”.

“I can assure you I didn’t. How Odin manages his deals with Midgard does not concern me”, explained Loki, and you frowned at the mention of that name. Of course, Loki Odinson. That was where that name resonated from. Besides the Mythology. Though you weren't sure until where those stories were true or not; in there, Loki wasn't even Thor's brother.

“Going back to your current screw up, what happened to the civilians you frightened in the process? I imagine they didn’t realize about the new supersoldiers”.

“They should be extremely blind or idiotic to not have noticed, since the soldier jumped out of nine floors and survived”, answered Loki, looked at you up and down, and kept going “so, no. They have probably slept on it”.

“Wait, what?”.

“What?”.

“Nine floors? Pretty sure Capsicle and Barnes wouldn’t survive that either”.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”, you asked, concerned.

“I’m afraid so. Loki and Bucks won’t cut it, especially when we don’t know the number of new super-supersoldiers out there. And you’re coming back to the compound, directing the mission from the distance”.

“Are you kidding? I’m fine here. I’m all levels of mean, you said it yourself”.

“You’re too young and inexperienced in combat for these kinds of things, and they have special genetic advantages in their bodies, you know, the serum”, explained Tony as you rolled your eyes. But you understood exactly what he meant, and in fact, you agreed. “Do you understand?”.

“Yes; supersoldiers and Gods only”.

“Good kid. Now, Teleporting Popsicle, would you mind taking there with you the rest?”.

With an overly dramatic sigh, Loki vanished behind a party of green lights and reappeared in a matter of seconds in the same spot, holding carelessly Thor and Steve’s arms. Thor, for obvious reasons, was unfazed by the trip. Rogers, on the other hand, seemed about to throw up. There wasn’t anything balance would help with when your cells are reconfigurated inside and out in a fraction of a second. How the hell did he do all of that? You knew it was magic, but it still wouldn’t stop you from being absolutely astonished by it.

Loki arranged his hair behind his ears and locked eyes with you, followed by his typical smugly smile and a “thank you”, as if you were praising him in your thoughts. Oh, wait.

“I didn’t say anything”, you retorted, hoping to maintain at least a drop of pride left.

“You thought I was impressive”. You were going to correct him but realized that absolutely astonished was even worse.

“And since when do you offer gratitude?”.

“In case you wonder, yes, they’ve been like this the whole mission. You’ll get used to it”, said Bucky to Steve and Thor.

They started arranging their things and got updated as thoroughly as they could. Meanwhile, you stood exactly where you were the following ten minutes, absorbed in your own thoughts. Once you snapped out of them, Loki was still staring at you, standing in the same place too.

“What?”.

“I hate to break it to you, but…”.

“What?”.

“I’m your best option”.

“You’re my what?”.

“Your best option”.

“You’re not giving much context”.

“You’re going back to the compound. I figured you’d think about the mission or something about it for the past ten minutes you were zoned out, but apparently you only have room to think about how terrified you’re of that quinjet”.

Your palms got sweaty and a shiver ran through your spine by the only thought of remembering how heights felt under your feet, and how a simple machine wouldn’t stop you from landing on water and drowning, or crushing against a building and being burned to the bones until all you become is dust and…

“Hello? You’re spiraling again”, he snapped you back. “It’ll be just a blink. You won’t even notice”.

“Uh-uh. No, I’m not doing that. I’m waiting for whatever Tony sends to come and get me”.

“You’ll feel terrible”, he said, and he was right. For a moment, you considered accepting his offer. “And I’m the best”. His humble offer.

“I’m sure you are, but it’s not my best option”.

He sighed.

“Will you allow me to teleport you or not?”.

“Heavens, no”.

“Alright, you little stubborn human mortal”.

“Long nickname, you better come up with a shorter one”.

“Like what?”.

“I don’t know, something that bothers you. I’m not the one supposed to make your insults towards me”.

“Let me think”, he said, looking around the room. His gaze landed on the still unwashed plate of Bucky’s breakfast. “Pancake”.

“Not... that’s not an insult”.

“Why? They’re too sugary. They rot your teeth”.

“Yeah, but it’s not derogatory”.

“Fucking pancake”.

“It doesn’t cut it”.

“But what’s wrong with my pancake?”.

“It’s actually a pet name. You know, like the ones we said when we were in...”, but apparently that was all a distraction (of course, he was the God of Lies, after all), and when you were already thinking about how to explain to him why he shouldn’t call you pancake, he stood in front of you and held you by both sides of the arms, surrounding you almost completely, holding you still.

And just as he said, a blink later you were in the compound, perfectly fine. Peter and Tony greeted you as he pulled out and you stood there in shock. So, you really just needed some stabilization to not die in the intricate process of teleportation. Just before stepping away from you, he leaned over your shoulder and his whisper made your ear ticklish, saying “you’re welcome” with a grin. You didn’t look at him.

You started to gather all your stuff; papers, maps, laptops, and getting ready for the planning of the following steps of the mission as fast as you could, until you realized Loki was still there, and Tony and Peter were waiting for you. For what, you weren’t sure.

“Aren’t you going?”, you asked Loki.

“No, I’m staying, apparently”.

“Why?”.

“That’s what Stark was thinking, I don’t know”.

“Hey, Elsa, don’t read my mind, would you?”, snapped Tony. He was about to explain himself, but you kept talking to Loki, cutting his words.

“What’s wrong with you that you read everyone’s thoughts all the time? You know how unethical that is? It’s invasive”.

“You say that because you think slow”.

“Untrue, I’m actually a very fast thinker”.

“How would you know? You’ve never read anyone’s minds so, how could you possibly…?”.

You stopped dead on your tracks, and didn’t listen to what he was saying. That phrase. That exact phrase you dreamt with. The darkness. It was the exact same voice of the darkness, you remembered. It wasn’t darkness, it was his voice. Were you just imagining things? Too suggestionated? Definitely. How could you dream with something you’ve never heard before?

“Sorry to interrupt, you two seem to be having a long, unnecessary and avoidant conversation that could be resumed in three tiny words, as you did all mission long” interfered Tony, sick of listening to you two. Loki was observing you as heedful as he could; your thoughts had caught his attention. You couldn’t read his face. “So, I’m gonna cut it shortly”.

“What?”, you went back to reality. You needed to actively ignore Loki’s gaze on you to actually pay any mind to Tony’s words.

“The rest of the team has another mission, and both Peter and you are technically still kids…” and as soon as you opened your mouth to argue, he shut it “no, don’t interrupt me. You know I’m right. So, I can’t leave you two alone for the entire week”.

“Oh”, you understood. Peter’s innocent eyes shone at the idea. Yours, not so much. “So, Loki is our babysitter”.

“Yes”, said Loki, while Tony answered “No” at the same time.

"What about Happy?", asked Peter.

“I think we can manage perfectly on our own. Besides, what makes you think he’s more responsible than me?”.

“He’s an adult”.

“He’s seventeen in human years, and fucked a horse”.

“Wow, someone has been stalking my mythology”.

“If you two quarrel too much, Peter will tell me and I’ll be back with Clint Barton in charge of you three. So you better behave. Alright, I’m leaving”.

“Wait! What are the rules?”, asked Peter. You grabbed your face and Loki muttered what a damn nerd.

“Eh, don’t burn down the compound, I don’t know, kid”, said Tony getting inside his bright red suit.

“The bar is on the floor. Let’s play macarena”, you whispered.

[legends-live-in-memories]

“How Did All This Happen?”- A Memoire by one Marinette Dupain-Cheng 1

Soooooo I decided to write this. much longer than the other things i posted, also very tonally different. I will definitely continue that other fic tho. I was just brainstorming and now this exists. Yeah.

 without further ado

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

People Fucked Up and Now It’s All Marinette’s Mess to Clean Up I

This was not how Marinette planned for her night to go. Granted, she also could not envision it going literally any other way. The woes of making a deal with the hell-raiser himself, John Constantine, she supposes. She truly hoped Adrien was having a much better time than her with his cousin in London. After the circus that was the past three years, he deserved some reprieve, even if it was with his bratty doppelganger. Regardless, Marinette. Was. Not. Pleased. No matter how many times she thinks over her plan, recalculates every step and decision, she could not fathom this night ending well for her, or anyone really, but mostly her. And no amount of old Ladybug or Guardian luck could help her. Now, if one were to wonder what kind of tragedy had befallen Marinette on this disgraceful night, a brief history of the last three months could enlighten such a person. Or better yet, let’s start at the beginning. The Real Beginning.

So, things existed. Obviously. First there was nothing, and then, something. And as more things began to exist, as new schools of knowledge and concepts and ideas began to, well, exist, Kwamis formed as well. Each Kwami was the physical manifestation of these ideas or abstracts. Creation was the first, coupled with Destruction. And as more things began to exist, more things began needing to be protected. Thus, the Kwami of Protection. This went on. For a while. Soon thereafter there were Kwamis of all types. Jubilation, Time, Strength, etc, etc, and etc. Now these Kwamis did not linger in one spot. They roamed across the far stretches of existence and interacted with the life they found.

Some Kwamis decided to form a magical pact which intergalactic historians would later dub the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum. Sounds familiar? The Kwamis themselves were completely blissfully unaware of this title, lest they would have explained to these beings, Maltusians they were called, that they were not in fact, electromagnetic but more so a part of the Powers that Be. Kind of. But this side-story involves the formation of a few universally known Lantern Corps, and that is a barrel of monkeys our exasperated narrator does not want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Or ever.

Other Kwamis, who stuck close to what would become known as the Milky Way, were discovered by a mage who granted them the ability to interact with humans. This mage— and Marinette was silently cursing his descendants, herself included, for if it weren’t for this absolute mad lad, none of the subsequent events of this night would have transcribed—had bound the Kwamis to magical jewelry called Miraculouses. An interesting side effect of these Kwamis being bound to the miraculouses was that the wearer could call upon the powers of the Kwamis for their own usage. The mage feared what could become of the world if this kind of power became so easily accessible, so he created the Order of the Guardians. The Order was dedicated to training young mages to protect, wield and harvest the powers of the miraculouses. The Order swore to true neutrality; wishing not to impose their will on one side or the other, to maintain balance and to not upset the natural order of the world. 

This went surprisingly well for a few millennia, that is, of course, if you ignore the sinking of Atlantis, the extinction of the dinosaurs, the Black Plague, the creation of the Lazarus Pits, Pompeii, to name a few completely egregious instances—not necessarily in order of course—and well, the point stands that it could have been astronomically worse. Until it was.  

One young mage and Guardian in training had caused the downfall of almost the entire Order of the Guardians. All the centuries of history, teachings, artifacts and even the people at the head temple, were lost to the calamity. Dozens of Miraculous Boxes were lost, destroyed in the fray. The Kwamis themselves were relatively unaffected, being immortal and all, but the magical jewelry binding them to the earth were broken, thus those Kwamis were lost to mankind once again. Only one singular box, and the young mage himself, survived. The new Guardian of one miraculous box was left to scour the earth in solitude. Well, about as much solitude one could have with 17 pocket gods as company. The fact that the only box that survived was missing two more miraculouses caused the already stressed guardian to grey further. But that tidbit of information would be a problem for later. And for someone else entirely too. Oh joy.

But before that sequence of events, aptly named “Marinette’s Trial by Fire,” however, the young guardian had a couple more life mistakes to make before he reached his internal quota apparently. Rather than travel to another sector of the Order on the other side of the earth, this young mage stumbled upon another organization, one similar in architecture and hierarchy but a pendulum swing in the total moral opposite. Yes, that’s right, the guardian found himself upon the League of Shadows, led by Ra’s Al Ghul in his endeavor of global cleansing; by acts of ecoterrorism, but who sweats the small stuff, right? There, the young guardian, who adopted the name of Wang Fu, met his first love Ming Hong and they had a son. The son had a daughter he named Mei. Now Mei was only a few weeks younger than Ra’s Al Ghul’s grandson, Damian. Now with an appropriate heir, and someone to procreate with said heir, Ra’s Al Ghul gained a special interest in the small Fu family that originally flew under the radar of the League. 

Now this is where things continue to go downhill, but not until much, much later in this story. Ra’s Al Ghul, despite his radical ambitions, was particularly good at playing the long game and understood when he couldn’t accomplish a task directly. This being said, he recognized that, due to prolonged exposure to the Lazarus Pits, his soul could not bear the strain of being a wielder of a miraculous and so he waited. Waited until a suitable heir was sired and could copulate with an heir to the guardian of the miraculous box, desiring to create a bloodline of genetically suitable successors and wielders who were loyal to him and his cause. 

Ra’s ordered for the Fu family to have a place on his court and ordered for Mei Fu to be trained in mastering the secrets of the miraculous. And master she did. By age 6 she was fluent in the coded language of the magical text, or as fluent a 6 year old can be in any language, and she had mastered 7 out the 17 miraculouses. By age 10 she was as skilled as the grandson of the Demon Head in combat and could handle simultaneous wear of 3 miraculouses. Her training, however, had to be put on hold as somebody thought usurping the Demon Head was of the utmost importance that glorious Tuesday and staged a coup. She wished Deathstroke had lost more than an eye that day, but a girl can dream she supposes. Mei and her grandfather were separated from the rest of the League and journeyed west. Somehow they ended up in Paris, France. After one too many run ins with the authorities, Mei was removed from her grandfather, who was deemed too unfit to support her. It was a miracle he wasn’t deported. 

Mei was put into protective custody where she resided until she was 13. Recently adopted, and thoroughly done with the plebeians of her daily encounters, Mei Fu became Marinette Dupain-Cheng, daughter of the best bakers in Paris. All was well and good for the new Dupain-Cheng until the start of the new school year. 

She met her grandfather again. And apparently he had a job for her and her soon to be new partner.

Hawkmoth, that bitch, had somehow acquired the two last surviving miraculouses and the only surviving grimoire and thought domestic terrorism was on the agenda for the next few years. Why? Because investing in a family therapist was too much of an inconvenience for local recluse, Gabriel McFucking Agreste, Marinette would shortly learn. 

After dealing with all of that and juggling between her reignited guardian training, and ‘normal’ girl life—because her parents don’t know that she’s a magical girl in the making—, Marinette was ready to sleep for a thousand years. Or commit murder. Whichever gave her enough serotonin to complete her current passion project. But, alas, no rest for the totally-over-it or however that saying goes. Because after declaring Paris safe once again, sending off her brother-in-arms, Adrien Agreste, to family in London (marginally decent but anything beats the abusive prick of a sperm donor), in waltz one drunken John Constantine.

Ah yes. Him. That absolute bastard who doesn’t deserve nice things in life. That guy.

This unpleasantry approached Master Fu and Marinette, who has been regulated to errand-girl in lieu of training, with a job that he proclaimed that only one blessed with magic, and specifically NOT connected to the Justice League could accomplish. Apparently, a group called the Cult of the Kobra resided on Santa Prisca and was in possession of a dangerous magical artifact that had been the backbone of their organization for years. Constantine came to them asking them for assistance in retrieving it as the Justice League could not interfere in the Caribbean due to new UN legislation. It was a mission of utmost urgency for he feared the cult leader, Kobra himself, was planning on enacting a ritual that could bring calamity to Earth. Which is just what the doctor ordered. Not. In exchange, he agreed to add to her magical training as while master Fu was good, he was still young when he ran away from his problems the first time and thus was limited in his magical knowledge.

That was three months ago. Three months of planning, training, and convincing her parents that letting her go on an extended retreat for an undetermined amount of time with her mostly absent biological grandfather was totally reasonable for the seventeen year old to do. Like, come on. She’s almost old enough to drink, almost ready for university and has been praised for her independence and self-sufficiency for years. She’ll be fine is what she told her parents and she was almost able to convince herself of that too. She would be perfectly fine. Right?

Wrong.

Marinette was anything but fine. She was stressed, she was tired and she was abso-fucking-lutely pissed at anything that even breathed in her direction. Why? Well that brings us back to the beginning of the story when everything on this mission did not go according to plan. So here she was along what was once upon a time the eastern coastline of Santa Prisca. Oh and look. The Junior Justice League has arrived.

Purrrrfect. 

Some one asked for a taglist. Ask and ye shall receive

@deathwishy @neakco  @ virtualreading  @f-rget-lt @your-resident-chicken-nugget

[astrid-goes-for-a-spin]

Okay let’s see. *cracks fingers*

4. Everything supernatural in this world is implied to be from aether/the Troubles. When the Barn is active, it suppresses everything not only in Haven, but across the world. (We can draw this conclusion bc Chris is in London during the finale and his Trouble stops working, and Seth is no longer affected once the Shroud goes down.)

5. I think Evie was supposed to be luring Duke into wanting to uncover the Crocker legacy and kill for the Rev. It’s possible I’m projecting but I thought that was fairly clear (at least what she’s going to tell him), but this still does leave the why and how the fuck does she know the Rev left unanswered.

9 & 10. Croatoan and William did spend all that time in the Void, bc they had no rings, Charlotte sealed all the thinnies in Haven, and as the Void seems to mirror earth spacial rules, it’s large - they couldn’t find any open thinnies (as far as we know, the only open thinny is in NC).

13. The Max Hansen timeline does NOT make sense unless Garland somehow stole Nathan and his mom several years before????? he tried to arrest Max for the Colorado Kid murder? This only poses more questions.

19. I have always desperately wanted to know.

20. Faith, trust, and pixie dust?

22. Yes. The Troubles are genetic. Not everyone manifests them, but everyone has the genetic marker. (We know this from “Magic Hour Part 2,” where Audrey deliberately activates Moira’s previously nonexistent Trouble in order to resurrect Nathan and Noel.) Some families have intermingled and so have their Troubles (“Roots”); I would expect that more of the ones we saw have been mixed together over time than we know, and/or people keep private genealogies to try to dissuade different Troubled families from producing children who might have new and unpredictable versions of their Troubles.

23. If there were any (aside from Duke’s daughter), they would’ve had the gene for the curse and the potential for it to be activated. I think the Guard was probably very careful to choose the best Crocker for the job and then triggered their curses on purpose (Vince activated Simon “with my own blood.”)

28. Evidence seems to suggest Vince’s Trouble is just the “birthmark.” The birthmark does indicate his destiny as leader of the Guard.

31. I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS. Arla is in the same boat!! Her Trouble activated like the day Lucy left, and she skinned a woman, and then… what did she do for 27 years???? The easy answer is that she just lived with that skin on BUT we also know that when the Trouble isn’t working, the magic that makes it look human (instead of a hand-sewed skin suit!) goes away, so…. What the fuuuuuuuck was happening!!!

36. I always interpreted this as their commitment to the mission of using the media to obscure the truth. Especially since Dave thought he did the murder.

You got so many, but I’ll add one for myself:

37. What the fuck happened to Wesley, the guy who got abducted by aliens, once the Troubles ended? Nathan clearly thinks he’ll survive but Duke thinks this is a death sentence. Did he get beamed back down safely into post-apocalyptic Haven a full year later? Did fall out of a UFO and die??? THIS HAUNTS ME.

HAVEN Unanswered questions

I started thinking about the various Haven questions that there don’t seem to be any answers to. Seems to me there’s quite a lot of them. So here, in no particular order, is a (full of SPOILERS!) non-exhaustive list:

Why did Simon Crocker hide his box of weapons in such a very extremely convoluted fashion and how likely did he think it was that Duke would actually find them in any sensible timeframe?

Was ‘suddenly owning an iguana for one scene having never before shown any interest in pets’ really the best reason a roomful of writers could come up with to explain why Duke (smuggler, conman and owner of a bar) might own a blacklight?

How did a silver box made way-back-when have blacklight writing on it anyway? Technically how did that work? What was its purpose?

If the Barn only puts a 27 year pause on the Troubles in Haven, that means the rest of the world is consistently paranormal? And therefore kind of even more paranormal than Haven?

What was Evi doing working with the Rev? Was she genuinely simply trying to help Duke, or was she working an angle? Did she know about the Troubles? What did she think the Rev’s motivation was? What were her final words (“If you don’t tell him, I will.”) about?

On one of the commentaries there is talk of how Duke and Nathan got up to “hijinks” together as teenagers. WHAT WERE THE HIJINKS?

What was the thing about Vince and Dave owning half the town, and why didn’t they want anyone to know?

Did Charlotte really think that wiping her daughter’s memories every 27 years was a fair or sensible punishment/rehabilitation programme that was ever likely to achieve anything productive?

Did Croatoan really spend 500 years in the void on his own? If so, how is he not dramatically more insane than the admittedly already quite high levels of insane he actually is?

Where was William for all that time? Banished to the void as well? Hanging out with Croatoan? Trying to kill each other?

Why was it deemed necessary to subject Mara to this incredibly invasive personality-wiping punishment but not William? For things they did together?

What happened to William when he went home? Was he welcomed back? Or banished again?

Exactly when did Garland adopt Nathan? Was his wife Nathan’s biological mother?

What was Duke’s mother’s name?

What brought Lucy to Haven before she knew about the Troubles? Did she have a job?

Exactly when did Lucy go to visit the original Lucy Ripley and how does that fit in with the rest of the 1980s timeline? How did she find out about her? She told the original Lucy that someone had died - which someone?

On one day in 1983, the Colorado Kid was killed, everyone’s memory wiped, his body taken to the Barn, his coffin filled with bricks and a message from Lucy to her future self (Was that really the best place you could think of Lucy?), and she went into the Barn. That was a Busy day - particularly given that there also had to be time beforehand for Lucy to meet a timetravelling Nathan, overhear him telling Garland about the kill-the-one-you-love concept, go to Dave’s and persuade him to lend her a gun, and go to meet James on the beach and almost shoot him with it. I mean, I know Haven can be a dramatic town sometimes, but that is A Lot.

Exactly how and when did Simon die? Did Lucy kill him? Was she involved? Was she there at the time? Was Duke? Were Vince and Dave involved?

What happened with Max Hansen trying to kill Vince in the 1980s?

How is Lizzie alive after the Troubles end? What is she even made of?

What are Croatoan and Vince going to do together alone in an empty white room for all eternity, and what happens to the Barn if they go a bit insane and murder each other because they just can’t stand the same company any more?

Are Troubles inherited the same way genetic traits are? If so, how are they not more intermingled between families after 500 years? (Maybe there is something about a lot of the Troubles that ties them to a particular family name, but why would Mara invent something so boringly patriarchal?)

Were there ever any female Crockers? If there were, would they have had the same curse?

In Harmony Duke says something to Nathan about “does she know the things you’ve done?” - implying that when they were younger Nathan did something illegal and/or possibly immoral that Duke knows about (because he was also involved?) but most people (or at least, Audrey) don’t. WHAT THINGS?

How close is the final season to the ending Sam & Jim had in mind when they started? How different would it have been if they’d had ten seasons to play with? How different would it have been if Sam & Jim had stayed as involved throughout all the seasons as they were at the beginning? WHAT DID THE MYTHOLOGY OUTLINE THEY SENT TO STEPHEN KING SAY?

What’s Duke’s side of the story about the fishing trip when Nathan’s Trouble got triggered?

What’s the deal with Dave’s birth parents? And Jennifer’s? Who are these people coming through the void to leave halfling babies in Haven?

What exactly is Vince’s Trouble? Did he inherit his position as head of the Guard? Did him and Dave grow up knowing all about the Troubles or did they have to find out the hard way?

What was Julia’s Trouble? Did Eleanor have the same one?

WHAT HAPPENED TO GLORIA’S BOYFRIEND?

How do Landon Taylor’s family survive the Troubles ending/pausing, given that they are effectively made of sand?

Given that Duke apparently knew Lucy well enough for her to give him a silver necklace with her initials on it, did he recognise Audrey when he pulled her out of the sea, and if so what did he think was going on?

HOW IS LIZZIE ALIVE?

Why is there a portal under a lighthouse controlled by a cheesy vampire novel? Mara wouldn’t have designed a Trouble that could get her sent back home (presumably??) so did Charlotte put that there? WHYYYY? Why/how does Audrey have that novel in the first episode? 

Wouldn’t Nathan have recognised Duke in The Colorado Kid photo? (Especially given that he would very probably have seen the photo when he was a kid?) And wouldn’t he have told Audrey that from the beginning?

Why did Vince and Dave write an article about “The Colorado Kid” when they clearly knew exactly who he was?

I’m sure there are probably more, so what have I missed? (Any answers also gratefully received lol)

[madmadmilk]

I’m submitting this under my main blog (which I normally wouldn’t do, but this is my medical blog so I feel like it fits). Bit of background as to why I’m sending this in: I’m currently a resident physician in the US, working in the ICU this month, taking care of multiple Covid positive patients with varying results. I have done lots of end of life care, but also took care of patients with months long stays who are gonna be struggling with the long term side effects of this until they die, whenever that may be. Apologies for how long this is.

With regards to the vaccine, SARS-CoV-2 (the actual virus itself), and the Covid-19 pandemic, I can greatly appreciate the hesitancy people have about the vaccine and how safe/effective it is. But I really want to clarify some things from the perspective of someone on the frontlines, because I think the information that gets filtered to the public is different than what we get. I’m not gonna go through everything that happens when a person gets admitted for Covid-19 and other issues secondary to the infection, but I do want to talk about the actual amount of people who die. Covid-related deaths are a tricky number to assess because of how you code a death in a patient’s chart. Death certificates and death notes/discharge summaries upon death have a “principle cause” that you check to determine the main reason a person died. Covid can cause a lot of things that can lead to death, but it isn’t always going to be specifically coded as “Covid/Covid-related”. So that makes numbers to work from kind of tricky. But we do have a rough idea of the amount of people who died, and that does help put things into perspective. A quick google search today says that about 350k people have died in the US alone from Covid - that’s about the population of Honolulu, HI or Anaheim CA. That’s more people than live in Pittsburgh or in Newark. More people than Madison WI by about 100k. Basically, it’s a decent US size city amount of people who have died. So, regardless of how infectious you may or may not think it is, that’s way more people than needed to die and doesn’t include all of the people who were sick enough to be in the hospital but somehow managed to survive.

We have evidence to show why this vaccine will work, even if it’s a novel approach. It’s an mRNA vaccine, meaning that all the vaccine does is give your body the IKEA instructions on how to make spike protein, the unique feature of this virus that allows it to bind to cells and get in. Even in the different strains of SARS-CoV-2 that have been discovered, they all share this same spike protein. It is their key to entering cells and it is our key to identifying them. Brief aside about virology because it is inaccurate to compare strains of flu to strains of coronavirus. Firstly, flu is an orthomyxovirus (which is negative-sense single-stranded RNA if you are a science nerd who likes knowing about genomes) and SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus (positive-sense single-stranded RNA). Different virus families, different synthesis of genetic material (positive and negative sense is part of the replication process), different proteins that can mutate. It’s a relative but unfair comparison. This is not that, and what the vaccine actually does is using completely different technology to teach your immune system compared to the flu vaccine. These strains are nothing like the different flu strains when it comes to vaccine design.

This vaccine, for all the concerns about possible side effects and how they might impact you, is not as bad as getting the virus. I have had both - got Covid in October from taking care of sick patients and am getting my second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine next week. You, the individual reading this, are the one who has to weigh the risks and benefits for yourself. Because while we might not know all the risks of the vaccine (and we are learning more every single day thanks to the vaccine reporting systems in place throughout the US and abroad where these vaccines are being used), the risks associated with getting sick with Covid are far worse: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Pulmonary Embolism. Kidney failure. Liver failure. Myocardial infarct. Stroke. Congestive heart failure. New onset heart arrhythmias. I have seen patients without any prior medical history end up with these problems. Healthy, young people in the 20s, 30s, and 40s.

Like you said, Jacky, most people in the general public are not going to have access to it for some time. It will be the most vulnerable populations first along with essential works. Young, healthy people who are considered low risk are not the priority.

Lastly, for anyone who is skeptical because of political reasons, I have this question for you: why, after spending nearly a calendar year denying this pandemic and avoiding any social distancing, did so many conservative members of Congress rush to the head of the line to get their vaccinations first? If they were not afraid of this, why would they risk trying this brand new vaccine out right away?

Thanks for letting me share. Came for your artwork and stayed for the rest :)

--

( submitted by @dogemd )

>>> thank you for this in-depth response! god.... hearing you compare the death/infection counts to whole CITIES? it’s horrifying that we’ve gotten that far. god. we definitely need to be listening to different sources, point of views, and accounts, such as yours!!! thank you for all your hard work, bravery, and tenacity. you’re the absolute best and we appreciate you so, so, so much. stay safe and lots of love to you and yours! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼💕✨

[pocketramblr]

Many people claim second is either time traveling Bakugou or like fore father or smth because... Well look at him. Whats your take on it?

The worst thing about Tumblr is that the search blog function is so non existent that I can't even be sure you didn't try to see my opinion about this before asking, so I can't even blame you, but... Well:

This was my reaction to people continuing to suggest Bakugo was Second after we learned Yoichi's name

This was my reaction to a "reincarnated second" Bakugo ask

This was me making fun of the time travel theory by explaining that Ponytail Uraraka could actually be Third

And this was a post where I mentioned that I'm basically neutral on Bakugo as a whole because I really like some of his arc and his interactions, especially the remedial course arc, but that I really don't like him involved with the OfA plot line and feel it detracts from both he and Izuku

Ok. Let's go deeper then, and hopefully make this the last post I have to make on this subject.

tldr of the read more: I don't like Second as Bakugo and I actually think that the chances of Second as Bakugo's ancestor went down after the events of this week's chapter

So, I did see a lot of bak-u-go and I finally put my finger on why I hated it so much, (BESIDES the fact that I just do not think Horikoshi has done the set up for time travel in general or Bakugo in particular. Look, izuku should have told us already if Second was Bakugo. It just doesn't make sense for him to be, functionally) and instead of posting it on tumblr and dealing with people actually, like, seeing and reacting to it I just told two friends why I didn't like it thematically in a group chat. The text of my message is pasted bellow:

"So, like, even if Bakugo grows up and yeets back in time and somehow izuku doesn't recognize him with a little face scar which seems VERY UNLIKELY to me EVEN IF, then it COMPELETELY makes First's supposition pointless

the thing WASNT "second extended a hand to someone connected to and hurt by afo and freed first even tho he was nemisis, which is why izuku should extend a hand to tomura"

INSTEAD it was "Baku2 extended a hand to first because he ALREADY KNEW afo's brother was a hero and it would help all might and co and there was ABSOLUTELY NO FAITH, NO GOODWILL, NO OPTIMISTIC COMPASSION involved because baku2 KNEW what would happen and wasn't even really making a CHOICE so much as following the plan"

ahem. anyway thematically it is bad As Well as being functionally bad

is,,, bad theory,,,, i have nine very good Seconds, why would i want no Second and just dealing with bakugo more,,,

So yeah, that's my take on Baku2- it replaces the potential actual character of Second (who is someone I love exploring in many different ways) with a character we already have. And I don't hate the character, but when I'm thinking about OfA Stuff? I don't want him there! I just can't bring myself to care about Bakugo as Second. If I want to have fun with Bakugo, and I sometimes do, I have him go train and develope menteeship with Nejire. I give him some Dadzawa. I have him develop friendships and better himself with the remedial team. Getting rid of a character I like to cast Bakugo in Second's place? The least fun thing I can think of! I just don't want to do it. Have fun, write it yourself, and tag it properly so that I don't have to see it.

Ok. You also mentioned Bakugo as Second's descendent. Honestly, it's possible, but I think it's less likely now. Second has spikey hair but it looks just as much like Dabi's as it does Bakugo's. It's just how Hori draws spikey hair. They don't even have the same style, since Second has an undercut and his hair is shaded darker than Bakugo's. I also don't think that Second is going to have an explosive quirk, because Third just got one! Third's Fa Jin quirk "builds up kinetic energy and use that energy to release an explosive burst of power."

What would be the point of Izuku getting an explosion quirk from Second? It wouldn't make sense with the actual quirk lineage Bakugo has from his parents if they were trying to go that route, and frankly it's just like the Baku2 Problem: I already know how Explosion works! It's not interesting to me! I don't want to miss out on a new fun quirk just to see one I already know again.

I want Second to have a mental quirk, that's my first pick. A lighting quirk would be fine too since I really wanted Sixth to have one but then he got a stealth one so I guess I don't need Second to have a stealth quirk anymore. *Glances at Vaneer.*

Anyway so maybe Third with spikey hair that actually matches Bakugo's color is his ancestor. Maybe Second is. They both have the build of their costumes in a way that reminds of Bakugo's summer and winter hero costumes. Maybe neither of them are. I don't really care that much, because... I don't think Second likes Bakugo. I don't think he liked him at the start, and I don't think he likes him now. I'll quote a friend who actually brought this topic up before I could, and whom I agree with:

Friend: Someone asked me "Okay but what about Second being Bakugou's ancestor?" So, I had to refrain from answering "Well, if you want, but Second would probably be disgusted by Bakugou. He is a guy who sacrificed everything so some asshole with a strong quirk wouldn't do whatever he wants. What do you think he would think of Bakugou?"

Me: you're stronger than me i would have answered that and then gotten a dozen angry messages back like 'uhhhh but but hes CHANGED now if second can 'forgive' a toothpick of a man who never actually did anything to hurt him and was only considered a target because of a relative, aka bc of his genetics, then surely he'd forgive bakugo for uh activlely harming izuku bc of his genetics and openly mocking the past holder's pain, fight, and strength in a meeting he acted too good for!'

So I don't think Second would like Bakugo for those reasons, but also another one- he's naïve. Second didn't like Izuku trying to "save to win" Shigaraki, he thought it was foolish. I don't think he'd like Bakugo's "fight to win" focus either, because to him it wasn't "fight to win." It was "fight to survive" and I don't think that for a single moment he thought he'd 'win' because he was 'a hero' and 'heroes always win and villains always lose and that's why I want to be a hero.' there's a reason he didn't want Bakugo to keep OfA either, and it wasn't just because of a very circumstantial theory some vestiges have based off a sample size of two with absolutely no way to check other variables said that maybe it would kill a holder if they had another quirk.

Has Bakugo grown since those views? Sure. Do I think he's still naïve? Yeah. Do I think Second would see that growth of his, or even care? No. I don't.

I don't think Second hates Bakugo. I just don't think he likes him either. His opinion, I think, probably is similar to my own: "he's a kid who can really grow and be great... And I just don't want him anywhere near OfA buisness."

[chipper9906]

Maybe

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR LOKI SEASON 01 EPISODE 05: ‘JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY’ AND SEASON 01 EPISODE 04: ‘THE NEXUS EVENT’

Pairings: Loki/Sylvie

Rating: General Audiences

Word Count: 4,124 

Status: One Shot - Complete

Chapter Preview:

He had meant for it to come out more as a question, an offering. A possibility for the both of them. But what it really sounded like was a… well; a sincere, hope-filled attempt to keep hold of… this. Whatever this was, he knew he wanted it. However things went, he knew-

He wanted Sylvie in his life.

His heart was racing in his chest, pounding almost as hard as it does in the midst of battle. In the unlikely event he’s a free man after all of this over, he’ll have to go and find his brother - if he’ll even talk to him, that is - and apologize for the harsh insult he used; for berating his older brother over his affection for that Earth woman.

He understood now.

Link To Fic

OR

Click Below To Keep Reading

Author Note: 

Oh Boy, here I go again, getting sucked into yet another ship. Basically, this is a dive into Loki's thoughts during the blanket scene in Episode 5 "Journey Into Mystery" because man, I sure do love getting into a character's head and breaking down their thought process.

P.S. No joke, I think I re-watched the blanket scene like... over 40 times I counted, roughly. Wanted to make sure I got every detail right lmao.

Oh wow, would you look at that - yet ANOTHER fic based on the blanket scene? I'm sure this hasn't been done by many different people ever since Episode 5 aired! Nah, I'm sure this is purely original stuff.

(Listen, this scene and - consequently - this fic got stuck in my head and I just had to write it down and... well here we are.

* * *

This was, as he had said, new for him.

It was… strange, to say the least. Not just because the woman who was sat next to him was, technically, on some sort of level, himself. And yet… not. Sylvie was her own person, that was for sure. And the only Loki, from who he’s met, who refuses to be called Loki. She had chosen her own name, and was currently choosing – or carving, was more accurate – her own path. A way out of the never-ending, self-sabotaging, “only use is for improving others” apparent destiny they’ve all found themselves in.

She had lived an entirely different life from him - and the use of the word ‘different’ here is strongly applied. It makes him a little uneasy when he dwells on it for too long if he’s being honest with himself. Yes, there may some similarities between them, as to be expected, but Sylvie had lived her own set of experiences different to his. Differences that had shaped her, made her see the world… universe… timeline? All of that, in a different way to him. Learning of the things she had gone through, what she’s trying to accomplish… it made his “glorious purpose” of ruling over “Mid-guard” seem like a spoiled boy's desperate attempt to feel important.

Everything with Sylvie and the TVA had shut down that ideal very quickly. Or, at least, has changed his view of his “Glorious Purpose”. The one change that he hadn’t seen coming, that Sylvie herself had told him; the very first words she had actually said to him:

“This isn’t about you.”

No, it wasn’t about him. Not just him, anyway. It was… it was all of him. Every version of himself out there, and every other variant of... Of everyone to have ever existed. Those, just like him, who are punished for stepping out of their pre-written timeline. Those that, when they try to change themselves, to be the person who those that loved him did everything in their power to guide them to be, were snatched away by the TVA and sent here to this pit of unwanted, broken things; left with nothing but unforgiving and dirty survival, only to lead to their inevitable death. 

And it’s cold.

“Mobius isn’t so bad.”

Sylvie breaks the comfortable lull of silence they had found themselves in. They were, technically, supposed to be ironing out the details of this plan to enchant a creature much, much larger than them, whose only desire is to eat everything that enters the world they’re currently in. Which is why, perhaps, they had taken the moment to just… breathe. A moment of rest, side by side. Whilst it was true that his plan of killing the gargantuan cloud thing was near suicidal, it would be fair to say that Sylvie’s plan was equally as dangerous. Then again, what did he expect? Seemed that every type of Loki out there isn’t the best at creating plans…

“Or so good,” Loki counters. It seemed almost cruel to say, but… it was also true, wasn’t it? Sure, Mobius had done the things he’d done because he thought they were the right things to do – but that didn’t take away from the fact that he’d done them. How many variants, not only of him, but of so many other poor souls had been doomed to this place because of his work? Still, it wasn’t like Mobius had the full picture with everything. Mobius had been lied to just as much as he had. “I think that’s why we get along.”

A small smile pulls at Sylvie’s lips. She takes a deep breath in, staring out to the horizon where Alioth awaits prowling his territory. “He cares about you.”

That catches him off guard. He supposed that she and Mobius must have had some type of conversation in however long they’d spent driving to reach them. Apparently, the topic of conversation must have steered towards him at some point. And somehow, through that, Sylvie had deduced that Mobius… cared about him?

There’s a soft, knowing smile on Sylvie’s face as she catches sight of his reaction. It was probably the closest similarity they shared: friendships… didn’t quite seem to happen for them. 

But there’s something else there in Sylvie’s expression as she looks to him. Almost a twinge of… of sadness. It sends an aching sort of pain through his chest as he sees it, coming to a sudden realization in his head. He knew that, deep down, the reason for his own loneliness was all due to himself. He knows now that there were plenty in his life that loved him, that always treated him like family even when, genetically, he wasn’t. But he had been blinded by jealousy and hatred, hatred that they had kept the secret of his true nature quiet for so long. It was because of this; this stubbornness and this selfish, false ideal that he deserves more, that he had made himself alone. 

But Sylvie…? She had been well and truly alone. From such a young age, an age where his mother had barely begun teaching him the basics of magic, she had been snatched away from her life. Everything she ever knew and loved had been wiped away, the timeline dumped here just like everything else the TVA – or whoever the hell is actually in charge of the damn universe and its multiple timelines – decided was too much of a threat. Ever since then, from that very same day she had managed to escape their clutches, she had been running alone. All those years, fighting to survive, completely alone, existing in one apocalypse after the other. Even if she did try and interact with the people in those timelines, what would be the point? They were doomed to die, anyway… 

Her words echo in his head for a moment, her sad smile seemingly etched into his memory. A part of him, that strangely soft side he didn’t know existed that had been growing stronger and stronger these past few days, burst with the need to do something, to remove the pain she was feeling. For just a split second, he nearly gives into it. He nearly says the words that were forcing their way to the forefront of his brain. 

‘I care about you.’

But the words stay safely locked away in his head. Sylvie looks away from him, and the moment passes. He didn’t know if she had been expecting for him to say anything, and he certainly didn’t know what it is she might have thought he would say. His mind clambers for something, for anything to try and bring the moment back.

A strong gust of cool wind blows over them, sending chills across his pale skin - despite the long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. He knew that, if he really wanted to warm himself up, he could shift into his true form. Except, he didn’t see it as his true form. He has been an Asgardian as long as he can remember, and for all intents and purpose, this is who he’s meant to be. He is the son of Odin, son of Frigga, brother to Thor, an Asgardian, and he’s proud of that. 

And that’s when the idea pops into his head.

“It’s cold,” Loki states the obvious to Sylvie with a shiver of his upper body, glancing over to try and catch her reaction out of the corner of his eye. For a moment, he wonders if Sylvie has the same views on their true heritage as he does, considering that, in her timeline, she was told she was adopted much earlier than he was. 

She doesn’t mention anything about it, though. Instead, she simply agrees with his statement with a hum of “Mmm-Hmm,” but it’s exactly the kind of answer he’s looking for.

From the outside, it looks like an easy twirl of his fingers and a burst of lime-green light, but in reality, it’s years and years of practice, both by himself and… and with his mother. The weight of the blanket - though light - is comforting as it wraps around his shoulders; silky smooth to the touch and of a darker green than the light of his their magic. 

The burst of color gets Sylvie’s attention, looking over to Loki again to see the new blanket he had materialized out of seemingly thin air - which… he did. 

“I could conjure one for you, if you like?” Loki offers.

Sylvie smiles for just a split second, enough for Loki to believe that she might just say yes. But then her nose scrunches as she comes back to herself, and the belief is gone. “Tell you what, you could conjure me a new outfit,” Sylvie says off-handedly, pulling at the tight collar of her outfit. “You have no idea how uncomfortable something like this is.”

It’s a deflection. He knows that all too well, because… because it’s something he’d do. Not that he can blame her in the slightest. As he had said, just before he was pruned through the heart and sent here - this was entirely new for him. Sure, he had had his fair share of flings back home. Rare occasions when he would give in to temptations, let himself experience a slice of normality. But it was never real. He did not doubt that those that fell into his bed did not do so because they felt a connection, or saw a future. And neither did he. He was a prince, a God, and for most, saying you were able to seduce a prince was an achievement. And for him? Well, it was an easy means to an end, he supposed. 

But this? This felt real. It was strange, it was something he had never experience before, and quite frankly, it scared the ever-living God’s out of him. So sure, he knew how to flirt… somewhat. But with this, with Sylvie? Everything was different, and he had no clue whatsoever what he should do.

“So…” Sylvie breaks him out of his thoughts. “Mobius, and his theory about…”

Oh. Well, he certainly hadn’t been expecting for the conversation to go there. Really, he had thought she might try and pretend to have never heard what Mobius had said. 

“Right, right. About our Nexus event-,”

“Total rubbish, right?”

He’d be lying if he said that didn’t sting a little bit. “Absolutely,” ‘Liar’, a voice in his head hisses. “Of course, I mean-,”

“I don’t mean that it wasn’t a nice moment,” Sylvie hurries to say, and it lessens that sting just a little bit. 

“No, it was great! It was really nice.”

“It just… sounds like another TVA lie.”

Which... Yes, when he thinks about it, could you easily have been a lie. Not that he thinks that Mobius would lie to them about this, no, but that someone else within the TVA had fed Mobius the lie. For what reason, he's not entirely sure. To throw them off the scent perhaps? Keep them from figuring out what can really cause a Nexus Event so powerful that it could conceivably take the TVA down. 

Or, perhaps they just enjoyed lying. More than him even - and that's saying something. 

"A hundred percent. I mean totally, yeah."

And oh, what was this? Loki tries to meet her eye, expecting her to nod her head vehemently in agreement to his statement. But... She won't look at him. She gives a somewhat strained-looking smile, more like a grimace than anything, and if he looks hard enough - by which he means projects his own feelings onto Sylvie and hopes she feels the same - he could almost imagine there was a flicker of disappointment there, too. 

"I don't know how to do this," Sylvie says, an admission he didn't expect. She looks about as awkward as he feels, eyes fixated on her fingers as she plays with them. 

"I don't even know what we're doing," Loki returns, and dear oh dear did he genuinely mean that. One moment he thinks he should take that step, say something, anything. And then the very next moment it becomes the wrong time, the wrong thing to say, and he's back to square one. 

It was frustrating, to say the least.

"I don't have friends," Sylvie carries on, and it's another dagger through the heart. Yet another thing that was so similar, yet so, so different. He had been given so many opportunities for companionship, for friends, but he repeatedly threw them all away. But Sylvie? She wasn't even given the chance. She truly had-

"I don't have..." Sylvie trails off, a long gap where she struggles to find the right word to use. Her eyes had locked onto his, and he knew that nothing less than Alioth appearing right above their heads would get him to tear his eyes away.

"... Anyone." 

"Well, there are more important things, right?" Loki desperately grasps for something to wipe away the blank, dejected look that was etched onto her features. 

"Right? Yeah, like bringing down the TVA." 

For once, one of his plans was going well. "Saving the universe, even."

"Well, there's no need to be dramatic - but yeah, kind of!" 

Then there it was again - a particularly strong breeze pushing up to the little hill they were sat on. Sylvie gives a little shiver as it washes over them, a barely noticeable shuffle in an attempt to get warm, and Loki jumps at the opportunity. 

It only takes one small adjustment, a brief push of magic, and then the blanket is growing, wrapping itself around Sylvie's shoulders in a motion so smooth, you'd think he'd done something like this hundreds of times before. Loki smiles gently to her when she notices the change, and his smile only grows more as Sylvie pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders, shuffling closer to him by just the smallest of movements. Yet another plan he could now say was a success. 

"It's not very snuggly."

Or, maybe not. "Okay," Loki manages to get out through a surprised laugh, but he does get some sort of gratification in seeing her smile at his response. 

"Is it a tablecloth?" 

"No, it's a blanket," Loki finds himself strangely defending his materialized choice of cloth. 

There’s a pause, the quickest of glances up to him. He sees a brief flash of pink as she pokes out the tip of her tongue between her lips, wetting them as she struggles to get out her next words. “Thank you.”

Loki gets a strange feeling she doesn’t get to say that all too often. Whether that be because she chooses not to, or because she’s never had the opportunity to. When was the last time someone did something nice for her…?

“My pleasure.”

Sure, this was all new, and all types of scary. But, as he sat here, shoulder to shoulder with Sylvie, looking out to the dreary yet oddly beautiful landscape scattered with remnants from pruned timelines, he can't help but feel that this moment right here? It was… nice. Despite the TVA, despite Alioth, despite the fear of imminent death he’s had to live through nearly every moment since the Tesseract flung him into that desert in Mongolia, he had managed to find himself some semblance of peace. 

And it was because of the person next to him.

“How do I know that, in the final moments, you won't betray me?”

Now, this was a conversation he had been expecting. How can he not? It seemed that nearly every single person he’s ever come across, who he hasn’t immediately tried to murder, wonders the exact same thing. The ‘inevitable’ betrayal every Loki seems incapable not to carry out. 

And he couldn’t blame them, just as he can’t blame Sylvie for wondering the same thing. Really, he had thought the whole reason she had wanted this moment to talk to him was to have this very conversation. It was… it was something he had thought about himself, ever since being dragged in by the TVA. It was Mobius that had shown him his consistent deceitful nature - quite literally, by showing him film of every moment in his life where his flair for dramatics and affiliation for backstabbing was apparently used for ‘the bettering of others’. 

It had become deeply ingrained into his nature. It became what he was known for, what his family knew him for. He supposed it gave him some sense of… satisfaction, perhaps? A false sense of security, that he always has the upper hand when need be. It was almost like a trial, opportunities to prove to himself that, when the time comes, he can do what it takes to claim what he, false-fully, felt he was owed. He was certain that the only path to being a rightful ruler was one filled with betrayal. 

And now, after only a few days with Mobius - and an even shorter amount of days with Sylvie, his previous ambition he’s been working towards for so long suddenly wasn’t as important. Things had changed. 

He had changed. 

And that was part of the reason the TVA wanted him dead. 

“Listen, Sylvie, I…” Loki starts, but then stops. He sighs deeply, wanting to find the best way to get this across to her. He needed her to understand. “I betrayed everyone who ever loved me. I betrayed my father, my brother… my home.”

He at least had her full attention now. No more awkward glances at one another, unable to maintain more than a few seconds of eye contact. This was important, and they both knew it. “I know what I did. And I know why I did it. And that’s not who I am anymore. Okay?”

There’s nothing on her face that he can read, nothing that says whether she believes him or not. She had been expecting him to say this, he supposed. “I won't let you down,” Loki says, and he says it like a promise - one he fully intends to keep. 

“You sure?” Sylvie asks, and he nods his head straight away in response. “ ‘Cause if we make it, and the TVA is gone, there might be a timeline for you to rule.” Sylvie continues with a challenging - yet slightly teasing- narrowing of her eyes. 

“Ah,” Loki says wistfully, looking out to the horizon as if dreaming of such an event. “And then I’d finally be happy.”

Except, he wouldn’t. He only has to look at his older self to know that. The only one of himself that had beaten the one event that’s supposed to define their lives. He had tricked the mad titan himself, found himself a little corner of the universe to live out his life in peace. No more people he has to challenge, no more opportunities for betrayal - by him, or to him. 

And he looked… miserable. 

Now, though? Right here and now, he wasn’t miserable. He certainly wasn’t relaxed, that was for sure, but far from miserable. He had ended his little exclamation with a rare smile that wasn’t a smirk - or forced- and miraculously, Sylvie returned one just as wide as his; wide enough even for him to see the little laughter lines crinkling at the corner of her eyes.

“What about you?” Loki asks. “What will you do when this is all over?”

Sylvie takes a moment to think, tucking an unruly strand of hair away from her face. “I don’t know.”

He couldn’t even begin to try and put himself in her shoes. Sylvie had spent… hundreds, perhaps even a thousand years of her life just running. Surviving. Doing whatever it takes to make sure she wasn’t wiped off the board by some mystery figure, or group, that had deemed her too dangerous to the timeline. And for what? Some kind of sick desire to have control over every single living thing in every type of Universe to ever exist?

Which… which sounded an awful lot like himself, now he thought about it. Maybe whoever was in charge of the TVA was another variant of himself…

“I don’t know either,” Loki said, and that added to the tally of growing truths he was admitting to people - perhaps the most in his life. 

At some point, this all had to be over. Whether… whether it ends in his death once again, another defeat by a power-hungry being, or with their victory. No more TVA. No more pruning of variants. No more control. Sure, Sylvie had made that joke about him ruling a separate timeline, but… what would he do once this was all over, assuming her survives it? What did he want to do?

What does he want? 

‘Look at your eyes! You like her!’

‘What?’

‘You like her! Does she like you?’

‘Was she pruned-’

‘No wonder you have no clue what caused the Nexus Event on Lamentis; both of you are swooning over each other!’

‘Tell me the truth-’

‘It’s the apocalypse! Two Variants of the same being, especially you, forming this sick, twisted romantic relationship - that’s pure chaos! That could break reality, it’s breaking my reality right now! What an incredible, seismic narcissist - you fell for yourself!’

‘Her name was Sylvie’.

Mobius had truly tricked him there. At least now he knew how cruel it was to be on the other side of such a bluff, he supposed. He had always prided himself on his acting abilities, his innate way of lying to others. Yet, apparently, when it came to Sylvie… he puts his full emotions on display. He had become too overcome with emotions at the mere thought of Mobius telling the truth, that Sylvie was well and truly gone, and he had snapped. He was…

Yes… That was the word. 

He was heartbroken. 

‘You conniving, craven, pathetic worm. I hope you know you deserve to be alone and you always will be.’

‘Do you really think you deserve to be alone?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well then you better figure it out quick, because the Nexus Event the two of you caused, whatever that connection is, can bring this whole place down.’

Maybe, just maybe… Mobius was onto something there. Maybe Sif, even in that small, once insignificant memory buried in his mind, was wrong. 

Maybe he didn’t deserve to be alone.

Maybe he didn’t have to be. 

“Maybe…” The words get caught in his throat, spoken softer than he intended to. He involuntary finds himself leaning closer to Sylvie, to the warmth radiating from her, trapped within the blanket wrapped around them. “Maybe we could figure it out... together.”

He had meant for it to come out more as a question, an offering. A possibility for the both of them. But what it really sounded like was a… well; a sincere, hope-filled attempt to keep hold of… this. Whatever this was, he knew he wanted it. However things went, he knew-

He wanted Sylvie in his life. 

His heart was racing in his chest, pounding almost as hard as it does in the midst of battle. In the unlikely event he’s a free man after all of this over, he’ll have to go and find his brother - if he’ll even talk to him, that is - and apologize for the harsh insult he used; for berating his older brother over his affection for that Earth woman. 

He understood now. 

He almost misses the slightest of reactions as Sylvie looks up to him - and what he knows is an earnest, vulnerable glaze in his eyes. It’s the smallest of things, almost impossible to see, but there’s a slight pull to the corner of her lips as she looks to him. Almost as if she was fighting back a smile at his proposition. 

“Maybe,” She whispers back to him, just as quiet and tender as his own words. It’s not a yes, not in the way his frantically racing heart was hoping to hear, but it was a start. It was Sylvie’s own returning of a proposition, her own olive branch. The possibility he had given that she was extending right back to him. 

Maybe. 

Maybe.

Maybe.

Yes… Maybe they’d survive this. Maybe he and Sylvie would bring down the tyrant who oversees ‘the sacred timeline’. Maybe he’ll find Mobius again, alive and well, having turned the entirety of the TVA’s workforce against the organization they devoted their lives to, and burn it to the ground. 

Maybe Sylvie will let him stay by her side. 

Maybe, he’ll carve that new path in his life - with Sylvie’s intertwined with his.

Maybe he’ll find that new Glorious Purpose.

Maybe he won’t be alone. 

Maybe he’ll be happy. 

Maybe…

You know what? He was starting to like that word.