#anyways that’s my what happened to bio dad theory

[rustylizard389]

Random detco headcanons

This is just a fun little post of all the little detco headcanons I’ve written down. It’s kinda just been sitting in my notes app for a while so I thought I’d post it here. It’s very long and not in any real order it’s just whenever I thought of it at the time. This is just for fun so if you don’t share the same opinion as me then that’s fine. Anyway hope yall enjoy.(had to edit due to a typo)

Shinichi actually enjoys kamen yaiba but he will NEVER admit it out loud

Hattori once ran right into a lamp post while looking for clues on the ground. Kazuha never lets him live it down.

Ran Shinichi and Sonoko have Disney movie nights once a month. Shinichis favorite Disney movie is The Great Mouse Detective of course. Sonokos is The Princess and The Frog and Rans is Lilo and Stitch.

Nakamori, Kogoro, Yusaku, and Toichi all used to go drinking together.

Aoko learned quiet a few magic tricks from Toichi and Kaito

Mitsuhiko does archery in middle and high school

Haibara gets a solar powered motorcycle from the professor when she gets he license again

Takagi is a big note taker, he has tons of color coding

Kazuha enjoys photography

The Moris have game nights every Saturday

Ran is amazing at card games and Conan is great at clue. Kogoro thinks he’s cheating.

Shiratori, Chiba, Yumi, Sato, and Takagi all go out for drinks together pretty often

Chiba Yumi and Sato are very close friends

Ran loves autumn

Sonoko has a big shelf full of plushies

Her Ran and Shinichi used to play pretend games with them all the time (Shinichi always tried to make it a murder mystery story)

Mitsuhikos dad is his step dad his mom divorced his bio dad when he was 3

Kazuha played the tuba in middle school

She also knows sign language

Sonoko is fluent in multiple languages

When she’s forced to go to rich people parties she’ll try everything she can to get out of them

Anytime someone harasses Sonoko at a party Ran and Shinichi help defend her. Shinichi will just so happen to bring up that he’s a detective and all his police connections, then proceed to go into an extremely graphic story about a case he solved. Ran will stand in the back looking scary as hell with a smile on her face and casually drop how she’s a karate champion.

Not that Sonoko can’t defend herself. She once made an extremely influential political run out of a party out of embarrassment because of how passive aggressive she was.

Sonoko an Hakuba met at a party once in middle school, they despised each other at first

Eventually they chill and become country club buddies

Shinichi sees the detective boys as his younger siblings

Whenever Hattori had nightmares Kazuha will always notice and tries to cheer him up. She’ll usually buy him some hot chocolate from a cafe he likes.

After the school trip arc Hattori had nightmares for a few days about Kudo shrinking

Kazuha is really good at sewing and makes little charms for all her friends. Rans is a pink cherry blossom pattern with a red string. Sonokos is an emerald green with a lilly pad pattern. Conan’s is a light blue with a little red bow tie on it.

Agasa once got a detention for accidentally blowing up lab equipment in high school

Kogoro is estranged to his family and is no longer on speaking terms with them

Toichi and Chikage got married after she got pregnant

Kaito’s favorite game is Zelda phantom hourglass

Conan once broke a mirror after having a particularly awful nightmare

Kogoro had to calm Conan down from a panic attack once and he had ABSOLUTELY no idea what he was doing. It all worked out tho, he got Conan some ice cream.

Whenever Kogoro thinks Conan is feeling down he’ll watch conspiracy documentary’s with him. They both love trashing on them and laughing at the insane theory’s. They have an inside joke about how if they see a strange looking rock it’s clearly a fossilized piece of alien tech.

Megure helped Kogoro out a lot after Eri left

Ran was really into Pokemon cards in elementary school

She still has her old binder that’s full of them. A lot of them were gifts from Agasa.

Kazuha also gets a motorcycle license at some point. Hattori is ecstatic and they immediately try to race each other

Hattori is pretty good at repairing his own bike.

Shinichi plays Professor Layton and has roped Sonoko and Ran into watching the movie. They both ended up getting into the series and Ran cried during unwound future

Shinichi is actually pretty decent at cooking but awful at food prep (so cutting veggies and such)

Kogoro in contrast is good at food prep but bad at cooking, he constantly over or under bakes food

Him and Conan combine their abilities to make some pretty good meals

Ran and Kazuha will get together at Sonoko house to try new recipes. The 3 of them always have a blast because Sonoko kitchen is massive and has tons of appliances that a regular kitchen doesn’t.

Aoko is more suspicious of Kaito then she lets on.

Kaito has jailbroken both his and Aokos 3ds’s. She thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Shinichis favorite dc superhero is Nightwing. Hattoris is Wonder Woman. Kazuhas is green lantern(Jo) and Rans is green arrow.

Kazuha is the biggest fan of the bunch and reads a lot of dc comics. She’s the one that got the others into it.

For their marvel favorites Shinichis is cyclops. Hattoris is spider man (miles morales). Kazuhas is iron man. Rans is daredevil.

They mostly just watch the mcu

When Shinichi was little he BEGGED his parents for a dog. He never got one but they did get him a copy of Nintendogs

Kaito and Aoko play animal crossing together all the time

Sonoko wanted to play baseball as a kid but her parents didn’t let her

Sato is allergic to bees

Takagi has a little garden in his apartment where he grows tomatoes and strawberries

Takagi has an older brother and sister and a younger brother. They all live pretty far away so they don’t see each other much.

Sato absolutely destroys everyone in Mario kart

Shinichi was a picky eater as a kid. He’s less so now but as Conan he’s become a little bit more picky.

Mitsuhiko has a book shelf in his room with lots of Sherlock Holmes books and encyclopedias. He specifically has a lot of books on bugs.

Haibara gets the detective boys into American reality tv like survivor and big brother

Kazuha enjoys physical media more than digital. She owns a ton of DVDs, she uses a Polaroid camera, she had a bin full of cassette tapes, and she loves sending post cards to people.

Hakubas parents are devorced his mother lives in England and his father lives in Japan

Hakuba likes cooking shows even though he doesn’t cook much himself

Aoko likes going on bike rides

Ran eventually learns how to shoot a gun from Kogoro

Hattori learned how to braid hair from Kazuha

Sometime while Ran is doing homework she’ll listen to Sherlock Holmes audiobooks to feel closer to Shinichi after his disappearance. Ran sometimes takes her headphones out so Conan can listen to them too.

Takagi gets nervous in elevators now

Kazuha and Hattori have something they call “the rat incident” whenever someone asks what they’re talking about they just burst out laughing and never elaborate

Shiratori really hates American cheese

Sonoko likes pressing flowers into books

Kogoro and Haibara will sometimes watch trashy tv dramas together

When they go on camping trips Ayumi will draw different plants and animals she sees.

Ayumi once gave Conan a rock she said looked just like him. He acted like it was no big deal, but he keeps it on a shelf at the detective agency.

Kogoro acts like he doesn’t care about Conan but their are to many A+ tests and art assignments on the fridge for anyone to believe him

Before Conan met the detective boys, Ayumi once got a detention for punching someone that was bullying Mitsuhiko

Genta will sometimes bring extra food with him to school and find a way to give it to Conan if he thinks he hasn’t been eating enough lately

Kogoro tried to be a vegetarian once, it lasted for about 8 hours. Megure still makes jokes about it. He calls it the time Kogoro had a one night stand with a salad.

Hakuba doesn’t really enjoy murder cases. He’d much rather solve white collar crime and catch thieves. The case that made him really big in London was him catching a famous politician in an embezzlement scandal.

After Kid heists Kaito will often visit his dad’s grave and leave flowers

When Yusaku found out that Toichi was Kid he stopped speaking to him until about a year before his death.

Yukiko and Chiakage were the ones who got them to talk to each other again (I’m pretty sure movie 27 says Yukiko didn’t know Yusaku and Toichi are related, but I haven’t watched it yet and that’s dumb so shh she knows they’re brothers)

Toichi prefers recording information through audio, so tapes and records. While Yusaku prefers photos and writing.

In middle school Yusaku got him a tape recorder so Toichi could keep a diary of sorts. There’s a massive box of tapes going from then to shortly before Toichis death that are sitting in Kaito’s attic, he hasn’t found them yet.

Yusaku had an old photo album full of photos of him and Toichi. It’s hidden away somewhere so Shinichi has never found it.

Amuro hates bugs. Matsuda and Hiro once conspired together and put plastic bugs all over his room once. They thought it was hilarious.

Matsuda and Hagiwara dragged Date off to an arcade a few times to get him to “lighten up”. Date brought Takagi there once after a pretty bad case. Takagi and Chiba now go there after bad cases sometimes.

Matsuda is distantly related to Kaito (they look so similar for some reason???)

Matsuda once took Hagiwaras car apart “for science”. He claimed it worked better after he put it back together.(it did not)

Amuro was going to propose to Hiro once their undercover mission was over

Agasa wanted to be a marine biologist when he was little. He still owns a lot of the books on fish he had as a kid and he lets the detective boys read them.

Agasa once took Shinichi and Ran to see the circus

Agasa has a bunch of old water guns that Shinichi Ran and Sonoko would play with. Now the detective boys use them.

The detective boys Sonoko and Ran all had a water gun fight they call the great water war

Ran loves learning about history

The intros and outros are all songs in a playlist Ran has

The detective boys once triple dog dared Conan into eating a cricket

[merulanoir]

Ghost's backstory

Ok so, I have wanted to write about this for months but my brain has been fighting a war called the end of the fiscal year, so I haven't had the time. But I desperately want to talk about the OG Ghost backstory. You know the one, with the hook and the cartel and the. Yeah, the coffin, and everything.

(For those lucky enough to remain in the dark uninitiated, the original 2009 Call of Duty character Simon "Ghost" Riley had a separate awfully bad comic that claimed to be his backstory.

The reboot version of Ghost (which is probably better known to most people by now) has a sweet fuck-all in his bio, but even so it sort of implies that the original backstory never happened to that guy. The fandom ranges from taking the full original backstory into the reboot dynamic to just ignoring it completely. It varies.)

Also, to be clear: I'm not saying my interpretation is in any way better or worse than anyone else's. It's just going to go against the grain of what the fandom has chosen to treat as canon.

Anyway, to summarize: the comics are a straight guy power fantasy framed interestingly: We meet Ghost when he's being held hostage in Ukraine. We later learn he let himself be captured to stall the terrorists.

We have the gist of it here, already! He's going to tell a story! He even claims it's not about himself, but an "old friend of his" "the baddest motherfucker on the planet" (I wish I was making this up.)

Now, here's where things get actually interesting. I'm going to claim that the Mexico/torture/brainwashing/whatever the fuck that was probably didn't happen like that. Hear me out.

Who does the framing of being held captive and telling a story remind me of?

Ghost is pulling a Varric! He's buying time. I have discussed this extensively with a friend (hi @sorrelchestnut) and the, erm, in-house expert we have on hand verified our theory: for special forces guys, creating a fabricated backstory is the norm. They train to do that. They keep names, dates, anything that can be fact-checked, and the rest is probably more or less lies.

Ghost tells the terrorists about the mission in Mexico, where he (allegedly) first met Roba and where he got captured. Then the comic's style changes completely and it cuts to him going back to beat up his abusive dad, then back to Ghost in Mexico. It keeps going back and forth between his time in Mexico (which is clearly Ghost telling the story to his captors, drawn in the same style as the panel up there) and his traumatic childhood (drawn in a completely different style):

All the parts about his family are drawn in that same, more classic comic-y style (Ghost beating up his dad, him helping Tommy get back on his feet, Tommy and Beth getting married, etc.) UNTIL we get to the part where Ghost comes back from Mexico (after being buried alive in that fucking coffin, yes).

Then, everything about him going to therapy (truly the most unbelievable aspect of the story, I agree), Sparks returning, his family getting killed on Christmas? Back to this style:

So, to recap: If we want to go this route, we could say that the family parts of the story, told in the simpler comic style, could be true. Those could be Simon's memories about his admittedly fucked up childhood (and which probably aren't included in the story being told to the terrorists and the other hostages). Everything that's in the more realistic, shaded style? His made-up story he's telling the bad guys in Ukraine.

But Meru, you say, what about the bit where Simon is bringing Tommy to rehab and his junkie friends attack him? Simon is imagining (?) them as having skullfaces! Your theory doesn't hold water!

Well, as the comics tell us later, there might be a good reason for Simon to have some...feelings about the skull motif.

That's his father speaking with their mother in the first speech bubble. The boy in the skull mask is Tommy, his little brother. What follows is the gnarly piece of story where Simon's father takes him to a punk concert and makes him laugh at a dead prostitute. The whole thing with the skullface ties pretty neatly into itself, if you ask me.

So, if Ghost telling the terrorists a story about Mexico and the cartel and his family getting killed by brainwashed American soldiers isn't all true, which parts are?

I don't think we're meant to know, at least in the way the story is told in the comics. So in a way, even though the comics are so fucking bad, I'm glad I read them (more than once, y'all can thank me later) because OG Ghost is fascinating.

So, is his family really dead? I'd say it's likely (see the part about keeping verifiable facts when lying to bad guys), but we can't know for sure. If we want to treat the comic-style parts as true within this mini essay, then the last verifiable thing about Simon's family is that Tommy and Beth got married. I can't be arsed to check if her name is actually ever mentioned in these parts of the story. Ghost certainly refers to his nephew as both Joseph and Jacob during the story-parts, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Was he held hostage in Mexico? Who the hell knows. Judging by what the original MW games included in their storylines, I'd say it's possible. But we don't really know.

[ashkav]

Rainy, her baby, and the Laughing Samurai theory

So Shioli Kutsuna's character has been revealed! Rainy, a pregnant woman on the crew of the Magellan who has the ability to cause rain fall (Shioli said this during the Tokyo Games show, though I can't find the relevant clip.)

several very interesting things are said during this cutscene, and when combined with what else we know from the promo materials and also from DS1, I think they can be combined to form some ideas. And boy, do I have Ideas about Rainy.

First, the foundation, all (very few) info from previous media that I think is relevant to Rainy.

a) The Songs:

We have so far had three songs about babies/ children in the promo material. Lou's lullaby twice, both connected to Higgs, on the electric guitar and then again with Troy Baker singing it very ominously. And then the broken down rock-a-bye baby tune right at the very end of the state of play announcement trailer during the credits. Obviously, songs to do with children that are usually happy or peaceful now inverted from comforting to something scary and unsettling = Bad Things are going to happen to the kids.

But Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head is not a song that has been made sad or unsettling - yet.

I absolutely feel this song is going to be called back to at a climatic moment in the story, possibly at Rainy's own death, possibly as the last thing she says to her baby. The song itself seems like a bad omen to sing to a fetus, what with Rainy's name being what it is and the lyrics being about perseverence through hardship - difficult not to instinctually think Rainy and her baby are about to suffer some pretty awful trauma that ends with one or both of them 'falling' to the Beach.

Raindrops keep falling seems very likely to continue the same pattern of a comforting song for children introduced at a peaceful time only to warp into horrifying due to a climatic moment - the only reason it hasn't already been warped is because the audience has to hear it the first way first and it didn't exist in the last game to be set up the same way, unlike the other two.

b) 'I just can't wait.'

This is a pretty innoccuos statement for a pregnant woman to say irl, but within the game verse, Rainy is literally the second woman we've ever seen who has expressed an actual desire to have children.

Let's very quickly run through the list of female characters who have children in DS1:

Lucy, Sam's wife who killed herself because the visions she was getting from Sam's DOOMS afflicted baby were so horrible she couldn't continue living.

Lisa Strand, Sam's bio mother who became brain dead early on in her pregnancy due to a car accident and who we never hear from, even in supplementals, and is shot in the head by Sam's dad.

Bridget Strand, Sam's adoptive mother who revived him after accidentally killing him and kept him to raise out of guilt, traumatising Sam so badly throughout his life that he suppresses his memories of her and doesn't really want to speak to her even as she lays dying of cancer in front of him.

A whole host of unnamed still-mothers, impregnated after brain-death and farmed for the BBs they produce.

and finally, Lockne, who actually wanted a baby not because of the baby itself, but because she wanted some part of her lover to live on even after his death. Due to issues with her uterus, she is incapable of becoming pregnant, and even when her twin agrees to surrogate, the baby and Mama both die in a terrorist bombing at the hospital.

(for the purposes of this list I am not counting the mountaineering couple, since they don't matter except to create stakes for that one timed mission.)

There's a pretty clear trend here - almost no one wants children, and those that have them are in incredible danger of losing the child or themselves. This makes sense in a world where hospitals no longer exist and the very act of childbirth is incredibly dangerous and mostly everyone is pretty much asexual anyway, so it's a massive outlier that Rainy expresseses wanting the baby, even if it would be a normal thing to say in our world.

Maybe this is a stretch, but I can't help but feel there's some thematic parrellel here between Rainy, who wants her baby to be born very much, and still-mothers, who are made pregnant but never truly give birth and who cannot ever consent - not that they don't consent, but that they are incapable of consent in the first place. All their children, except three (Sam, Lou, and the BB Coffin managed to save), die in the womb. They're always bridges and never babies, never born, never really living or dead. They are nearly unanimously incompatible with the concept of life, or growth, just the same as their still-mothers are incompatible with the idea of wanting them.

More on this later.

C) The Samurai

The Samurai is visibly pregnant. There is only one pregnant character in the cast (so far). There HAS to be a connection here.

This is not the first time we've seen a visibly pregant character do crazy insane shit - Sam, for instance, is 'pregnant' with Lou's glass womb for the whole first game and probably the second too, and he does some intense stuff.

The circumstances with Rainy are different though. For one, her womb is made out of the squishy human stuff, not bulletproof glass, and she can't take it off. Rainy doesn't seem particularly athletic either: in her and Tomorrow's intro, where they're stacking boxes into a shelf, she moves slowly and with effort, not to mention that the Samurai is taller than even Higgs (Troy Baker is 6'3), where Rainy is shorter than Sam (Norman Reedus is 5'10, and Shioli Kutsuna is 5'3). Plus, the Samurai suit has no way to see out of it, so even if somehow it augmented her height, strength and speed, she still wouldn't be able to see what she was doing.

It is very, very unlikely that she is the one inside the mech suit. No, instead, I think it's her baby in there.

Sounds insane, but listen: we've already seen Higgs' robots have some connection to BT's, floating like they do and having visible strands leading up like they do and potentially being vessels for them. Dollman is explicitly stated to have been a normal adult human person who used his medium powers to possess the doll and got stuck there when his human body died. Even Lou seems to have the ability to haunt her old pod, with the ghostly winged BT form and tentacles. The technology and precedent for soul-to-machine connection exist, the Samurai makes baby noises, it looks pregnant. And thematically...

Remember that earlier section, where I was talking about Rainy wanting the baby vs still-mothers who cannot want and produce babies who cannot live? Also remember how parents with DOOMs very often pass the trait onto their children, and that an adult with DOOMs (Sam) and a BB with DOOMs (Lou) connected through the umbilical made some very strange things happen?

I think that Rainy's desire for a child interacting with both of their DOOMs will produce something very strange. I have two major theories about what could happen to get the baby in the machine:

The baby and mother cannot both be on the same plane at the same time. Rainy's baby suffers some strange accident while Rainy is giving birth (maybe she gives birth as the Magellan is travelling through the Beach?), and the connection between them becomes like a still-mother and BB, but only in some aspects. The connection between the living and dead is swapped constantly between mother and fetus instead of mother alone tethering to the world of the dead. Metaphorically, you could compare this to a Drawbridge, evolving out of the previous Bridge-style that BRIDGES created with the still-mothers. With Rainy and her baby, either side can be 'drawn up', and the burden is shared between them. The tragedy of this is that even though both Rainy and her baby survive, they can never truly meet or meaningfully interact, as one must always be on the Beach when the other is in the living world. Possibly this could be made more extreme, where instead of being seperated in mind only they are also unable to interact physically - one must physically be in the Beach if the other is in the land of the living. We know it's possible to live on the Beach because Tomorrow confirmed it, even if Sam described it 'like hell', so maybe they build the baby a suit that it's pod can slot into to help it survive the time it has to spend on the Beach - we know BBs are quite smart and have an abnormal amount of dexterity and also increased senses that allow them to see BTs, so it could be possible that the BB became skilled at piloting the suit because it was literallly fighting for it's life on the Beach. This would thematically mirror Bridget/Amelie, or at least the lie that Bridget/Amelie told the world - that Amelie was Bridget's daughter who couldn't be removed from the Beach.

The baby is psychic pre-birth. The baby is believed to have died inside Rainy because it stops moving and scans show that it's funtionally brain dead - plot twist being that the baby is alive, but has just accidentally astral projected into a machine. The Samurai is an upgraded version of Higgs' BT robots that either Higgs built or Drawbridge built after they'd studied some of his work, and the pregnancy bump is an unconcious change that the baby makes to the robot, like how Dollman can minorly alter his appearance when he's mad.

I think this would give Dollman an interesting double - adult in a small, powerless puppet vs baby in a big, deadly, hypermobile machine. Brain vs brawn, thought vs impulse. It even fulfills Jester vs Sage if we want to get Jung's archetypes in here, what with the Samurai laughing and Dollman being an expository friend you carry with you, like Mimir from God of War.

The second one is the one I feel is most likely - it ties in so neatly and honestly I'm not too sure that Rainy would survive her time swapped out on the Beach if whatever the baby samurai was fighting was strong enough to make it so skilled against Higgs, even if there does seem to be a community there to help her.

Whatever ends up being the case, Rainy absolutely definitely is not going to have a 'normal' baby. There is no such thing as a normal baby in Kojima land.

[heathensimmer]

Capp family Update - Roaring Heights 3t2

If you're not an expert on Sims 3 worlds and Sims 2 lore (I'm rusty as hell on Strangetown and Veronaville admittedly) like myself, then you should know that the Capp family from the Sims 2 is in the Sims 3 ... in the past!

Here's how I am imagining the situation to go.

First, let's arrive at the home of the Thebes.

Had to turn on day mode in Build so forgive the grid.

Andromache Thebe and her husband, Hector. They live in Roaring Heights - Sims 3 Timeline. Prelude to Sims 2. A time where technology likely got way out of hand (time travel was available in 3, not 2, for example)

They came to Roaring Heights "on vacation" - as said in assumedly good faith by their son - Consort Capp.

But now, it seems that Consort speaks of moving back to the Old Country ... "Veronaville" .... or at least, something is going on between parents and son ... I mean, also, Consort Capp and his wife, Contessa, (she's dead at the beginning of Sims 2) literally popped out a third child while in Roaring Heights - Kent Capp - I am going to imagine that this was unexpected since their biography lays out that they came to Roaring Heights on vacation.

Of course, both of their bios in Roaring Heights (Thebes and Capps) also state that the families seemingly have decided to move in. But I am not sure.

For example, the Capp home in Roaring Heights only has three bedrooms. Regan and Kent would end up having to share a room, but they also have a lot of money at the start of Sims 3 Roaring Heights!

So why would they have opted for THIS house ...

...with not enough space for a pregnancy (unless it was unexpected like I suspect) when there are freakin' deluxe multi-floor mansions available in Roaring Heights?

Contessa is a technophobe.

Hector is also a technophobe. Consort is not a technophobe.

Roaring Heights has a lot of technophobic Sims and is known for being a Sims 3 world that lacks objects such as flat-screen televisions and computers entirely - items that are common in other worlds.

I'm starting to get a clearer picture. Old Country may be subject to changes that Hector and Andromache, and also Contessa, do not like at all.

Hector and Andromache probably want to stay in Roaring Heights.

But its' possible that Consort wants to go back to the Old Country, embrace supernatural immigrants and the advent of technology.

Maybe he just misses it.

My first theory came to fruition when I had Andromache invite Consort and Goneril over to the house one afternoon.

I directed Hector to argue with Consort.

And for good reason!

When I made Consort selectable upon his arrival, I saw this!

When did that happen? It must have been organically sometime ago and I just forgot!

At least he's friends with his dad, but their relationships REALLY went down. Also, when I played the Capp home a few days ago, Contessa was literally in the process of birthing Kent and raising a newborn so ... they really didn't have time to keep up relationships!

But anyways, because of this, I had Hector argue with Consort bc wtf Consort? Why are you pissed at your father?

Looking at Hector's thought bubble, he's arguing about paranormal.

Consort, what ... wait a minute, Goneril tells me you have bought a television for the living room? What on earth are you thinking? Goneril could start becoming obsessed with those new ghost documentaries! This is unlike you! Roaring Heights is the perfect place to whip you into shape!

Hector works in the military, so he probably would be pretty aggressive.

Meanwhile, Goneril?

Just cries ...

TO BE CONTINUED

I promise I will be cleaning my SimFileShare folder soon and posting a Google Docs of all my stuff! Stay tuned!!!!

[cowabungacarl420]

So, what's TMNT: Aftermath?

TMNT: Aftermath is my TMNT iteration! It exists mostly in my brain right now, but the goal is to make more posts about it and maybe eventually make some short comics or fics around it. General plot summary and character bios under the cut!

What happens when your entire life leads up to one battle, and then before you know it it's over? You're 18, your entire life stretches out ahead of you, and you realize you have absolutely no plan from here. The Shredder has been defeated. Now what? It's just you and the aftermath.

Characters

Splinter - A year after the final battle, Splinter developed a series of tumors and became mostly bed-bound. He is aware that he likely doesn't have much time left. In theory, he should be at peace. He lived long enough to watch his sons triumph over the odds and defeat the man threatening their lives. So why does he feel so much regret?

Leonardo - Leonardo often wakes up in a cold sweat. He delivered the killing blow in the final battle, and while it's something he knows he should be proud of, there's something about beheading someone that fundamentally changes who you are as a person. To soothe his guilt, Leo dedicates most of his time to meditation and caring for his ailing father.

Michelangelo - Mikey sustained a serious leg injury in the final battle. He tried to hide it, but eventually it became clear that he just couldn't continue training. And hey, he didn't see the point anyway. The Shredder was dead, right? Why should he keep practicing stupid moves and waking up early for meditation? Mikey's life is his, and he's going to do what he damn well pleases with it. Like, uhh.... Okay, maybe he left without much of a solid plan. But he has a hut on the beach front to crash in. And a group of late night partiers have been nice to him. Maybe they could be his new family.

Raphael - With Splinter unwell and Mikey quitting, ninja training screeched to a halt. Raphael is full of energy and resentment, and he has no idea what to do with it all. He befriended Casey by chance in his early teen years, and now Raph spends most of his time in his bedroom, smoking weed and talking about the kind of vigilantes they want to be.

Donatello - When things in his family life seem unstable, Donnie turns to the comforting structure of academia. Donatello has enrolled in online college! And while his robotics course is great, he can't help but feel envious of his classmates. Long nights alone, staring at their social media pages and contemplating what life would be like if he could go out and participate. Some nights, he can't resist trailing his classmates from a distance. Just to observe.

Casey - Casey and Raphael met when they were 13. Maybe it was because he was a feisty kid who didn't admit to being scared of anything, maybe it was because Raphael seemed more scared of him, but Casey didn't run off. Instead, that was the start of a bizarre but rewarding friendship between the two. Unfortunately, being friends with a giant humanoid reptile doesn't automatically make your life interesting. Casey stacks shelves at a grocery store 3 days a week, and spends the other 4 smoking weed with Raph, and discussing what their lives would look like if they actually had meaning. Did you know that the world of ice hockey is actually very competitive? It's disheartening.

Karai - It's weird seeing your dad get beheaded in front of you. Even weirder when you kind of think he deserves it. Once the Shredder died, the Foot Clan fell apart without much ceremony. Some members went off to form their own small-time petty crime rings, but not Karai. She got an apartment, and tried to figure out what her life could be when 'accessory to a war criminal' was no longer a viable career path. It's also decidedly more difficult to put that life behind you when the guy who beheaded your dad keeps trying to invite you over for tea so you can bury the hatchet. You're 90% sure he's just lonely.

April - April O'Neil saw patterns where no one else did. Some would argue she saw patterns where there were none. But god damn it, she knew what she saw on that rooftop. And no amount of being called a crackpot conspiracy theorist would stop her from getting to the bottom of figuring out who those weird looking green guys were. She WILL expose the truth this time, no matter what it takes.

[crystal963]

I finished the fnaf movie and I'm just gonna put on my conspiracy theory hat because I think I have a way for Mike Shmidt and Michael Afton to still be the same person in the movie canon. Spoilers below:

First things first, William's reaction to Mike's name is very suspicious. Alhough it could just be that he recognizes the last name because of Garrett, it would mean that the kidnapping and murder was pre-planned. Most people don't know the name of the kid they kidnapped on a whim. Now the question is how William knows about the brothers, and that's how my theory comes in. From what we can see, William was a single dad. Now this could just be Mrs. Afton being busy or dying early, but I suspect divorce. Hear me out, with how young Mike was when his brother got kidnapped, it would not surprise me if he forgot his bio dad after his parents got a divorce and his mother remarried. The former Mrs. Afton took custody of her boys and then took on her maiden name or her new husband's name (I'm hoping for the former), which is why Mike has a different last name, but one that is still recognizable to William. William most likely kidnapped and killed Garrett as a form of revenge. Now comes Vanessa. So, she could either be the middle child (Elizabeth) and they just forgot about her after William took custody (which I think is unlikely), or the reason the divorce happened in the first place. What if William cheated and out came Vanessa. Also, Abby could be the child of the former Mrs. Afton and the new step dad, which adds on a layer of why Mike was so ready to get Garrett back first. This could also be why William doesn't care as much about Abby. Anyways, food for thought. (Watch me be completely wrong when the next two movies come out)

[voidbears-oc-stash]

*Null opens his eyes!* Null: hey! as one parent to another- tell the kid thanks! without'em, I wouldn't have my daughter- lost'er once'n I ain't gonna go through it again! and I would've lost a LOT of my friends! weather he THINKS he helped a lot or not he DID! so act yer age'n appreciate what ya DID do rather then what ya DIDN'T! and that if he ever wants someone to look at his suit! *he reaches into his pocket'n pulls a travel device from it with what's left of his hand that's functional! YEETING it to Rzore!* just give that a call! always love helping young inventors! WELL for ME bio scientists but! I know my way round a circuit board! and my brother's a pro with'em more then me!

Rzore catches the travel device with her front claws and looks at it. "I'll be... honest. I'm not the best at technology. I spent over a hundred years just hiding because there was a Void Demon hunter that spawned from the migration of multiple of us from many tribes. I... didn't know that there could've been a war to top what happened then. Either we gained enough power from the fights to become demons, or we had a will strong enough that whatever gods the worlds we ended up in has to let us stay. Too many of us ended up in the same place, so we had to hide, fighting is what we were trying to avoid, yet self-defense against a hunter was seen as us 'invading'. So yeah, not much time to learn technology when you're hiding from everyone and everything."

"I'll be honest, I never learned of a Migration, so either my oh so dear father never learned of it or he refused to let anyone learn of it, and I am betting the latter." Blacky says, with a slight nod and a snarky tone when referring to his dad. "Technology has made its way into the Void, though, one whole tribe has found an affinity to it."

"The Metallics?" Rzore asks

Blacky nods affirmingly. "Though, with this 'migration', that means there could be so many people with Void in them out there. Hope they are all doing well and aren't using it for evil."

"And here I thought I was special" Expo said, in a joking and witty tone.

"Expo, you are one of the only half-voids to have been born inside of the Void." Blacky says, all too seriously. "You probably have the best control of your Void powers compared to others."

"That is quite true." Rzore replies "Sometimes the mixing of our powers with those of Osegians can be unstable. We spread through multiple universes due to the sudden power splurge, or that's how the theory goes, at least. On why the majority of us have been reported missing with no sign of death. Anyways, there have been matings that didn't end too well. That's why it took me such a long time to decide to have a child. Notebuster is my first."

~

Nameless looks at Synth and Null before saying "They lost me at the part they said 'Migration'." with a chuckle

"Should we leave them to talk through it? Both of them clearly are catching up like when a mom bumps into her friend at a grocery store." Vinnie asks whilst preening his feathers

[aardvaark]

i think about this wayyy too much. like

maybe he was a really bad person/father. however she probably wasn’t in foster care because of neglect/abuse at home, since she’s said (implied?) that she’s an orphan. it could be that her bio parents were abusive/neglectful & then also happened to die later, though. then she’d be laughing due to being glad he’s dead.

maybe it really was upsetting, but she tends to have "inappropriate" emotional reactions to situations. a lot of people (*cough* myself included *cough*) smile when upset, or laugh when scared, etc etc. it’s an involuntary response to being nervous, and not an indicator of how they’re feeling. and while most people tend to try and cover it up… parker isn’t most people. that’s a social norm that might escape her.

anecdotally, i remember when i was a kid, i once told a friend that one of my relatives had just died with a big smile on my face. this was partially because of the involuntary response to talking about upsetting things, but also partially because i was not that upset. this relative was nearly 100 & id only met them a couple times. plus ive always had muted emotions. i was kinda a weird kid, so it didn’t register to me that i should act serious & somewhat upset when i wasn’t. following that logic: potentially, parker doesn’t remember her father, or never met him, or it’s a very distant memory, and/or she doesn’t realise that this is something she "should" be upset about. so she just doesn’t pretend to be sad.

maybe her father died in a "funny" way. in her mind. which is ultimately not funny cause he died, but… well, one time parker laughed at the fact that a kid was allergic to strawberries because she found it ironic ("he’s sweet"). she could be laughing at the humour in the situation, even if she’s aware that it’s also sad.

maybe she was laughing at being given such a strange, kinda inappropriate instruction. "think about when your dad died" you want her to spontaneously cry over some super traumatic thing that happened to her as a kid?? ha, what?? obviously it’s important to the con, but that request could definitely throw you.

maybe she. uh. maybe she killed him. not the house explosion thing, word of god says that was her foster parents’ house anyway. but that doesn’t mean she didn’t kill him. in self defence i mean. that memory might make her feel glad, or relieved, or powerful, or it might be bittersweet, and any of those feelings could make you laugh.

maybe that sentence reminded her of something else entirely, like a line in a movie, and she was laughing at that. without realising and/or caring how that looked.

maybe something else???

that’s all the theories i have right now. but i am also very curious about that moment. almost as curious as i am about sophie’s season 2 accent slip.

Extremely curious about what made Parker burst into a fit of laughter when Nate told her to imagine her father dying

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

what's that insane theory about archer juna's np?

ok. so

you know how this is titled pashupata and the game treats it as pashupata and everyone refers to it as pashupata?

i dont actually think its pashupata.

cause here's the thing: i KNOW that hindu mythology is heavily nerfed in fgo but arjuna never even used pashupata when he was alive. like not in response to ANYTHING. even when ashwatthama killed his unborn grandchild he used the brahmashirsha astra in response-that was still incredibly deadly and powerful, but it was also still LESS powerful than pashupata. this is the personal weapon of shiva and kali that he only managed to get through completing heavy penances-no one else in the mahabharata had it and in other texts iirc only rama and a sage, Vishvamitra, also possessed it.

it was easily leaps and bounds stronger than vasavi shakti, despite what fgo may say, and could literally destroy the universe if used carelessly. id honestly say if we were putting up a comparison to a fgo weapon to it ea would be the closest thing-it was basically unavoidable, unresistable, and destroyed everything in it's path. and he knew this and so didnt use it bc in the context of the wars he fought in it wouldlve been massive overkill, and he was pretty responsible all things considered with the weapons he used

but like, hes ok with letting mages potentially command him to use it against their enemies? this incredibly powerful attack gifted to him by shiva that could obliterate the universe? like ignoring the logisitics of the fact they'd probably need a boatload of mana, and that the earth has protections in place to prevent gil or whoever from going 'lol' and laser beaming it in twain, why would mr 'thanks for the wmd but i will not be using it' suddenly ok the use of it for a bunch of backstabbing self-serving mages who would sacrifice their own children for a chance at upping their magical power?? like 'oh yes zouken, i'll use pashupata to blow up that orphanage for you right away. clearly this is a good use of this holy astra bestowed upon me by the gods :)'

imo he looked at his legend, looked at the fact anyone who looked into him would know about the fact that he'd have that astra, and renamed one of his less potent attacks 'pashupata' so that when he was ordered to use it he could follow their command WHILE also not fucking. using pashupata for incredibly petty and asinine reasons. like do we really think the average mage can tell the difference between the different astras anyway? no. hes gonna do that so when they pop their command seals and yell at him to use pashupata he can be like 'of course master :)' while also not going against his principles as like. person who was given a turbo nuke and was like 'yeah theres no reason to use this against normal people' like COME ON

though tbh i do still think he has access to pashupata as an archer-like when he blew up the 18 demon pillars that. that seems more like something he might actually have used it for.

i know that this theory has no water bc every time he's referred to it there's been nothing to suggest his np wasn't pashupata, its been described and treated in his materials as pashupata, plus parvati ALSO makes note of him having it and it being pashupata. it just bugs me that they shoved it on him as his generic np and also massively undersold it when he has like 4000 other big explody attacks that couldve been slotted in just as well, and when its a legitimately interesting fact that he never used it in his lifetime.

[chirpsythismorning]

What makes me not be on board with Will and El being twins and Hopper and Joyce's biological kids theory is that it'd ruin the aspect I love the most about the Hopper-Byers family: found family.

Hop, a divorced man, adopted a girl and found love again with a divorced woman who escaped a toxic relationship and her two sons. It shows that a straight romantic relationship doesn't need to generate descendents to be valid. I also like the idea of an "alpha-male" like Hopper ending up not passing his genes forward and being ok with the idea of not having biological children.

So, I still think it's more probable Will and El being Lonnie's kids. Anyway, I'm looking forward to find out what the writers prepared for us.

I totally get that! And that's how I felt about it too! So no hard feelings at all.

I think for me it sort of got to a point where I had to put aside my feelings and what I had grown comfortable with for so long, based on my interpretation as the series was happening, and how there is evidence going against our assumptions we've had up to this point, going back to the beginning (same applies to byler as well).

I would also argue that found family is equally as epic as estranged family finding their way back to each other in every universe, despite all of the obstacles in their way. Though, not many things are equally as beautiful as found family, so the standards are very high.

I do want to make it clear that I agree completely about the found family side of why the instinct is to sort of not want to consider this.

Found family is beautiful, and I think it's wonderful that more stories these days are working to de-stigmatize our societies idea of what a family even is, because it's not this cookie cutter concept we've all grown to believe it is. Family comes in many forms and it doesn't have to be blood-related.

It just so happens that in this case, there are too many unanswered questions, going back to the very first episode, all tying these characters to each other.

Hopper more than anyone has so much crypticness revolving around his character (he gives off dad deja vu constantly in s1, like it's actually terrifying), and not only that, but David has alluded to unknowns surrounding his character for years. He's talked about how the truth behind Sarah is more complicated than it seems and that she could have connections to the lab. He even went as far as to say that there were easter eggs in s1 that fans wont get until the end, and that it will make the end of the story beautiful. Assuming he was talking about revelations related to his character, it fits very well with a lot of the evidence hiding in the details connecting all of these characters.

This is also a supernatural show dealing with time-fuckery implications and repressed memories going back to s1. Like just rewatch 1x01 by itself and you'll see what I mean. There is a lot of stuff fitting a little too conveniently to not all be connected.

If this was a regular show then of course I would chalk it up as found family bc there obviously couldn't be anything else to it. But it's not and we're dealing with revelations in s5 that have apparently been hiding in the details all along and are beautiful...

I just don't see anything beautiful about revealing Lonnie is their bio dad, when Hopper is right there with heavy hints surrounding him connecting him to Will/El...

You could say that found family is this thing they've been hinting at this whole time and that's all there is to it, but I would argue that we've already got that vibe by the end of s1, and so, where is the beautiful surprise in that revelation happening in s5? Technically found family isn't even a revelation seeing as it's something we subconsciously recognize as being obvious as time goes on. With s5 said to hold answers to questions unanswered since the beginning, while I do think found family is beautiful, I don't think it's the surprise at this point that connects all of these characters.

The good news is, if this theory does play out, they would explain things. It wouldn't just come out out of nowhere, in the sense that there is evidence pointing to it from the beginning (just like byler).

The main thing that makes this theory beautiful to me, is the light that is constantly being associated with Hopper/Will. Like it happens A LOT. One of the most mysterious scenes to this day is the scene in 1x01, of Hopper in the shed with the lights flickering. That has never been explained (nor has Will being able to contact Joyce through the UD been explained) and we all kind of just went along with it back then, but I think it ties into a lot of repetition we're seeing with these characters in reference to light.

Here are just some of my favorites from s1:

This next one is one of my favorites, where we're given Lonnie's priorities after Will's body is found:

And this is Hopper's, in the scene (literal first shot) directly after that scene with Lonnie:

And this:

Is followed by, this:

Same episode. Deer portraits in both Joyce and Hopper's houses as they're freaking out over lights and their kid(s) going missing, while being watched by the lab...

One of the most incriminating though has to be Hoppers' memories of Sarah kicking in at points in moments directly connected to Will:

I'm just going to jump to s4 because this is hilarious to me that this trend carrys out throughout the entire series:

We all joke about Will being Jesus, but idk if it's a joke anymore...

Not saying he is Jesus like literally, we're talking about a show that pulls inspiration from a bajillion different things, but, like... there is definitely some lighting emphasis being applied to Will along with the word Jesus... And the events of s4 happening around easter and this whole resurrection storyline going on with Hopper in s4.

El also has a role in this. The whole time in s1 we're seeing them look for Will, leading to Hopper saying 'What if all this time I've been after the wrong kid?'. How he starts s1 saying that when a kid goes missing 99 times out of 100 they're with a parent or a relative: El and Hopper in s2 just chillin'...

Again, I would agree with you fully if there weren't the supernatural implications at play. If this was just a regular story, I would be eating up the found family storyline like I always do.

However, we're dealing with a show that enjoys hiding the truth in plain sight, and has the capacity to pull this off tremendously, with a lot of the evidence to back it up. If it can do that, why not?

I won't pressure people to believe it if they don't want to! TBH I'm at a point where I'm confident enough in it, like byler, where it's just a matter of waiting for s5 atp to find out for sure. Seeing people's surprise after the fact is going to be more rewarding than convincing them beforehand. So it's like, it is what it is!

It's something that people aren't going to be able to say came out of nowhere, bc pretty much the entire show hints at it along the way. And so same with byler, post s5 anyone can try argue they don't like it for xyz, but it isn't going to take away from the fact that there was in fact evidence pointing to it.

Just going back and looking for stuff to reference in this ask, I found a shit ton more, like... This revelation does seriously make the show rewatch value skyrocket bc you're seeing these characters all be SO close to the truth, yet so far away. Like it is legit beautiful.

[anghraine]

I'm iffy about reader-response theory in general, but sometimes there's really no way of avoiding how profoundly interpretations can be shaped by personal experience. I mean, yeah, there are headcanons with acknowledged projection (I have these!). But even things that are ostensibly more, well, interpretive can involve a lot of projection if you dig about two inches in.

I was thinking about this, because my best friend and I have talked about our views of Anakin as Vader and his relationship with Luke in the films, and we just blatantly come at it from our different Bio Dad Issues.

For me, Anakin is a kind of photo negative of my bio father, who was never menacing, but just didn't ... care very much.

He missed my birth because he was watching a football game, he ditched my mother and me when I was two and took several of my (scarce) toys for his new SO's children even when they had duplicates of them, would tell me that he'd come to visit or was going to take me somewhere and then not show up, had to be essentially dragged by my stepmother into paying his $300/month child support even though my mother was dirt poor, etc etc.

Apparently I called him a liar when he bothered to visit once when I was four and I refused to talk to him, but eventually I just sort of adapted to this weird dynamic where I could never be sure that he wouldn't show up or express affection (sometimes he did!), but certainly couldn't expect it. I still tend to engage with the world with the kind of neutral expectations he instilled: X might happen, or might not, so I won't assume it won't, but I'm not going to expect anything either, since that leads to disappointment much of the time.

Anyway, he gets sad that we're not closer, but it's like ... you were 27 when I was born! And you always knew where I lived! Nothing was stopping you from offering to rule the galaxy as father and daughter reaching out before I was 29! This is on you.

I watched the OT as a teenager (after seeing parts of TPM) and, to me, there was something weirdly powerful about just how far Anakin was willing to go to track down Luke. Yes, he does terrible things to achieve it and yes, his desire to throw the Empire's resources into hunting down Luke is uhhh problematic, but hey, he cares! He ultimately cares enough to essentially throw away everything he's worked for and his own life so that Luke can live. As he's dying, he just wants to see Luke with his own eyes and get a message to Leia.

teenage me: *mind blown*

Luke's refusal to leave him and grief afterwards was immensely powerful as well to 15-y-o me—the idea of this father and child who (through the intervention of others) barely know each other and yet have such a powerful bond and are willing to do so much more than my bio dad would ever do for me. For all the evil that Anakin does, there's a kind of raw wish-fulfillment in that arc for me that definitely affects how I see them and why their relationship matters more to me than any other in SW.

I won't get into my friend's history, but he does see Anakin pretty differently even though we agree on some particular points, in a way that's equally filtered through his experiences. So it's like. I don't think I'm wrong (lol), but I'm aware that I'm coming at it from a specific perspective, and the meaning and power I find in the arc and what tends to be most impactful for me is strongly influenced by my own experiences apart from SW.

So sometimes I do look at reader-response theories and I'm like ... okay, fine.

[terrence-silver]

Honestly, if Johnny Lawrence turns out to be either John’s or Terry’s son, I’ll just be...so over it. Like, over the show, the characters and over everything.😬

Why? Because it is the worst writing choice ever, in my opinion. Not because it is like a soap opera, because it infinitely tangles everything to unnecessary degrees, makes you scratch your head about everyone’s pre-established motivations and it is so out of left field and OOC that it fundamentally feels like a badfic. Also, I absolutely despise ‘Gotcha!’ plotlines. Cliches and tropes will always exist and that is okay, but some generally can and will make your storyline worse. Not that CK is a masterpiece of writing, but anyway...

First of all, I get this feeling it entirely and genuinely waters down and oversimplifies John’s and Johnny’s messed up, toxic, innately complicated, co-dependent, gaslighting mentor and student relationship that spans decades, ever since Johnny’s early childhood (not to mention it waters down the idea of falling into the clutches of toxic authority figures, which is a running theme), down to them being biologically related all along. Of course! Suspension of disbelief and coincidence of all coincidences. It is all bio-determinism. People just simply cannot be your teachers and abusers unless they’re your long lost dad and if they are your teachers and abusers, they must’ve been related to you all along and there’s no other variables, kids. 

If it is Terry, not only does it not make sense because I think it is immensely out of character that he would never check up on a supposed baby mama again purely because (Who’s right there. At arm’s length, almost. I had this same argument with the Miguel theories.) and subsequently discover or reason he has a full-blown son? Especially in the 80′s? When he’s had all the power and authority in the world to do so? Literally not a thing standing in his way anymore, especially not, say, his parents, for example? The same man who was climbing up chimneys and stalking and acting possessive? The same man who has adopted his deceased friend’s ponytail in a lifelong sense of mourning, usurping, devotion and grief? That same Terry? How? (Was it all the coke...again?)

And if John knew Terry had a son why did he never say anything? In 40+ years?

Did Laura Lawrence make him promise and why?

If she was keen on secrecy, lets say, why did she allow Johnny enrolled in, of all places, Cobra Kai, taught by none other than John Kreese, who’s either the father of her son, or the best friend and the ex-commandering officer of her son’s father, who’s Terry? Wouldn’t the chances of being discovered be far greater that way? Like, if someone wanted to keep a low profile, you’d think this wouldn’t happen or that one would take preventive measures to avoid from it happening? Maybe try with another dojo? Why did Sid never say anything? 

If Johnny was John’s son, why did John never say anything either?

Why does nobody say anything to anyone?

Did neither John nor Terry know?

If so, again, that is the mother of all coincidences that John would either accidentally be training his own (or Terry’s son) and that out of all the dojos, in all the Valleys, everywhere, baby Johnny Lawrence just so happened to walk into John Kreese’s.

What about Betsy?

Is Betsy Laura’s sister turned ‘Please raise my baby for me’ red herring before dying?

Did she die at all, though? But then again, if she didn’t die, because maybe Captain Turner lied, and she gave up her baby because of the stigma of raising a child alone to another woman who then had to live with the same stigma with a baby that wasn’t even biologically hers while effectively marrying Sid for money so she can raise said child in the first place and?? Also, if Betsy didn’t die, you’d think John would discover that too, eventually. Like, at least visit a grave somewhere, post-war? Wouldn’t he want to visit her grave? The grave of the person he loved? What am I even saying at this point? One would need five seasons more just untangling this.

Why does everyone need to be related to everybody?

Is this even about Karate anymore?

It is driving me crazy. sghsjkls

[kaypeace21]

Will and the car on fire (theories)

*this is just under the assumption this is Will in the pic and not some other character. Which is still very possible .

Why it could be Will (it's for sure possibly not)

But, most of the rebuttals saying it's not Will are iffy. Cause we really don't have much evidence to point to any 1 character. Like the hair counterargument: that the hair is too long to be Will's .Will's s4 body double has a similar hair tuff on the back of his neck. And we know st uses camera shots of the back of Will's neck/silouette ,in past seasons . So doing so here could make sense. And Will of course is the most associated with fire: using fireball for Will the wise in s1 (3 times), the will the wise drawing from s2 had flames on his cloak, Will being being burned in s2,etc.

So...Will looking at lightning. And (Will?) looking at fire. Both have a dark full body sillhouete and red in the forefront .

We also see this character is possibly wearing a watch like Will?

And i've been hearing this a lot here ... but southern california (where the Byers are) does have a lot of trees lol. Not sure why people think otherwise.But, regardless a trip from cali to Hawkins would most certainly have some forrest.

*Also, any movies I’ll be mentioning (in the theories , below) were stated to be inspiration for ST.

So theories...

Theory 1) It's Joyce's car ( and it was rigged  to explode/look like an accident by Brenner or Lonnie). And Will wasn't there but sees it in a nightmare cause it's already happened/or it's a dream vision of the future.

Evidence:  CAR TROUBLES: Joyce’s car model was infamous for exploding in car accidents-being sued by the state of Indianna before the start of the series. We also have Alexi tell murray about a way to cause cars to explode-and turn people into dust (and make it look like an accident). Brenner’s name means “to burn” and he already hurt 1 mother to keep a subject -so not out of the realm of possibilities for him to hurt Joyce (and make it look like an accident to try and get Will and or el). 

In s3, we have Jonathan and Hopper try and fix  the car-and after this cars explode with people inside. Jonathan lifts the car hood- and notices someone rigged nancy’s car . Than,  right after,Billy’s car lights on fire with him inside. With Hopper (he also lifts the car hood) and joyce barely escapes the lit car (but she may not be so lucky next time).

 We also have Joyce tell Will 3x she’s going to be ok... which is a bit overkill if she will be OK ... 

And, notice during the hoodlift we see Will observing- which is similar to Alexi watching and warning them before hand that the car (with Joyce inside) will explode. So it’s possible foreshadowing since Will may predict the future and was was paralleled to Alexi.Alexi ‘can we watch lonnie toons now?. Will : can we play d&d now?

movie inspos: 

It’s hinted s4 will be around Will’s b day: In gilbert grape- Arnie after his b day, has his mom die, and a fire was stagged that lit his mom on fire. ( Before this,Arnie was also raised by his older brother Gilbert cause his dad wasn’t around). stoker-  kid’s parent dies in staged car ‘accident’ on her bday (this allows ab*sive relative closer to kid-since dead parent banned him from seeing kid). The kid  was taught how to hunt, by dad. And is also a painter and bullied at school (like Will). what dreams may come-painter blames themselves for fam dying in freak car accident- the relative was getting a present for them when it happened. so they blame themselves. The descent- also had (right before a b day, the main character’s fam dying in a car accident) .And the sole survivor/family member of the deceased hallucinates a shadow chasing her in a empty hospital hall. Get out-photographer (jonathan)blames himself for mother dying in car accident.

There’s also a lot of other films where the kid (for no logical reason) blames themselves for their mom’s/parent’s death: goodson, dream catcher, analyse this,etc. Of course ... this could simply relate to max and el having survivors guilt after the mall killed their family members (in a fake ‘mall fire’). However, a fake out fire causing  family to die (in s3)  could be foreshadowing for it actually happening in s4?

rigged car explosions: scarface -have guys try and bomb a car with kids and parent inside. backdraft -guy raised by older brother had 1 parent die in explosion and sees the freak explosion occur- later in the film someone rigs a car to explode and masks it as a  freak car accident. Same thing occurs in godfather- he sees family member die in rigged car explosion. The dark knight- rigs car to explode. batman v superman- calls superman a demon and says they need to burn the witch that bore him (aka his mom).

dreams (if in the past): Never ending story (reffed in s3)- starts with kid with bowl cut saying he had another dream about his mother who died. Peanut butter solution- kid has visions in dreams about people he knew who died in fire.  this next movie (emily rose) is  said to be Joyce byers inspo according to Winona - has (kid with 2 personalities) have nightmares from the past  of her and her mother burning in a car fire. while screaming/sleep walking she burns windows with her hands -accidentally using her powers. Some people suspect the videogame “life is strange’ is show inspo too- it has character named max caufield with a ‘never maxine rule’, etc. Anyways in the game prequel queer chloe, who plays d&d, would have dreams/nightmares of her nice parent’s car accident . Despite , chloe not being present for the car accident. After the parent’s death,  she’s stuck with her mean step dad.

dreams (if predicting the future): Will says in s3 Will the wise can see into the future. We also see Will/Will the wise via a dream predict Hopper was in danger-saying  to Joyce “he’s going to die”.  In ‘12 monkeys’ and ‘Rebel Robin st novel’ they mention the myth of cassandra- who could make accurate future prophecies , but was cursed to never be believed by those she warned. In 12 monkeys- he tries warning others of a dreaded event in future- and it’s dismissed as  him being mentally ill. Since, Will’s other abilities were dismissed as his ptsd in s2-and with the Byers fam having a family history of mental illness (they may not believe him over such a prediction). In ‘the ring’-the  movie opens with the guardian saying the boy is drawing the car accident that killed his mom -as a psychological coping mechanism. Only for the teacher to say he made that drawing before his mother’s death (and it’s revealed later the boy is psychic). Terminator 2- sarah conner says she is having future visions, which include explosions, and everyone dismisses it as her being schizophrenic. Like how in s2 a scientist said about Will “let’s see if this boy is a wizard or a schizo”.

If joyce survives the accident she may be hospitlized (and unable to have legal custody). In black swan the girl (with 2 personas) -blames herself for what happened to Winona Ryder’s character (who is in a coma after a car accident. They had had a verbal fight before the accident). In girl with the dragon tattoo- the main character (who is compared to a phoenix and dragon) has 1 parent burned in a fire- and after this her kind guardian is hospitilized so they can no longer take care of her- and she is placed with an ab*sive foster dad (who resembles her bio dad). If Joyce was in a coma - it would further parallel her to terry- and be another willel parallel.

 if dead: Tokyodrift- mom loses custody, and dad who is a mechanic and abandoned the family years ago, later gets custody. Super 8-mom dies in freak accident- douche dad gets custody. Book of henry-mom dies pre-film, ab*sive dad got custody. Outsiders- parents die in car wreck, relative gets custody of teen who he slaps etc.In black swan-girl who blames herself for Winona’s accident is stuck living with ab*sive parent. good son- mom dies, stuck with violent and manipulative relative after this.

Of course-joyce may be fine. And Lonnie may just visit for Will’s b-day and ruin shit that way.

Theory 2) It's an undercover government car that Will uses his powers against in self defense... or in anger after they hurt someone he loves.

Evidence:

Joyce about ‘Will the wise’: If he’s so wise, why does he need the fireballs? Why can’t he just outsmart the bad guys? Will: cause the bad guys are smart too. Joyce: so he needs the fireballs? Will: Yeah, to burn them to a crisp.

* the fact-this flashback happens at a funeral of a Byers, could also be narratively significant as foreshadowing.

Gov agents in s1 are  called “the bad-men” so Will may use fireball on “the bad-guys”(government agents) . Fire has been used on all the other adversaries relating to the upsidedown-so why not the gov agents (aka human villains) next? 2 movies on the inspo list caught my attention: firestarter & carrie (which are both stephen king adaptions with psychic kids who have fire abilities). 

Firestarter- she has pyrokineseis (firepowers) . And unlike every other psychic in the film- she is the only psychic that doesn't get nose bleeds (aka mini brain hemorages) from using her powers (Will). We know el and kali gets nose bleeds.  

(Anger): She only unleashes her fire abilities on gov agents after they kill her parent...

*And uses a literal “fireball” on them.

Could also be another willel parallel. kali about the US gov:" They took your mother away from you!" El str*ngles man from gov agency that incapacitated her mom . El before str*ngling him: " you hurt mama".

(self defense): While  in carrie  she kills people who tried to run her over with a car. And causes the car to explode.

Also, in s3 Steve does technically cause a car to explode to protect Nancy from being run over by a car (so maybe foreshadowing?). I believe, tumblr user ‘bran-who-writes-theoretically” was the first to point out the Carrie/car on fire parallel.

* This car scene could also be added to the list of Willel parallels. El  in s1 uses her powers to flip a government-car upside down. And looks back at it. And it’s a ref to the film Et. So Will causing a government -car to explode and flip upsidedown (referencing carrie) could be a parallel. 

Of course El flipped over a car in s3 to attack the Soviet agents and protect her friends too ( right before losing her powers). Sort of like Steve using his car as a weapon in s3 to protect his friends. so who knows, if not Will, maybe El (wearing a ponytail) got her telekenesis back and she flips the car and it explodes ? To be honest, I just find this explanation too boring, cliche, and predictable. And I still hypothosize the mindflayer took her telekensis (but not her other powers). Since in d&d mindflayers have ‘mage hand’ (what el is called) and ‘telekenesis’/ along with the ability to steal powers from other life forms. But, we’ll see...

Theory 3) The car flips (maybe caused by a deer jumping in the road) and it blows up after the crash- with Joyce inside. And maybe Jonathan survives it/ Will wasn’t there but had a nightmare /vision about it?

Evidence: in s1 Jonathan sees a dead deer that was hit by a car. This could be symbolic : because it related to Jonathan mentioning the hunting story with his dad and how he cried for a week cause he liked the film Bambi. Which in the film : Bambi (a deer) has his mother k*lled. And after his mother’s death, he’s taken in by his douchey dad who was M.I.A for most of his life ,until his mom passed away. And the hunters are the bad guys in the film . In ‘get out’ the photographer , Chris,blames himself for his mother dying in a car accident - and he sees a dead deer hit by a car -and the dying deer was used to symbolize the guilt he has over his mother’s  death. in ‘the long kiss goodnight’ a character is driving home with a friend- they swerve and hit a deer and 1 of them is ejected from the car into the forrest. But their friend is unconscious in the car and it quickly explodes on the road. The survivor turns and sees the car in flames- disoriented they stumble and kill the dying deer. And it’s left ambiguous if they were helping the deer end it’s pain or if it was vengeful-hunting (since it caused the car accident that killed their friend). Cause their face was emotionless from shock.

Even in the st novel "suspicious minds' rabbits- like jonathan was forced to kill on the hunting trip with his dad (around his b-day) represented the bond between mother and child.And the mother sacrificing herself for the baby-to not get k*lled (by Brenner).

-so maybe?? jonathan before he gets the pizza job/car (may have his car break down , like hinted it would in s3).

 So him and Joyce share the car (once his car stops working) and the accident happens while Jonathan is behind the wheel -with Joyce. And after this he gets the job at surfer boy pizza. Billy was a surfer boy and that memory was used to think about his mother who is no longer around (once he's stuck with his ab*sive dad after moving away from Cali). While Jonathan moved to Cali after his mom passed-maybe stuck with Lonnie.Jonathan's actor in recent pics has a blonde mullet - which sort of resembles joyce/Billy's og hair. This may be why he starts doing dr*gs - which is pretty out of character for him- but it could be a coping mechanism(like in the s4 films). One of many examples was 'enter the void'- the older brother was surrogate parent to their lil sibling and after a car accident k*lls his parents , he starts doing dr*gs to cope. Also ‘hunger games’ was on the list- and Katniss (who was a surrogate parent to her litle sibling, like Jonathan is to Will) in the sequel, saw her family die in an explosion. And it really broke her emotionally.

I've mentioned this before but Billy is used to parallel and foil Will and Jonathan. And it may be more than a ... what if Lonnie had custody scenario. But to show how Lonnie (like most ab*sers) will later bring out the worst in the kids (once he does have custody). Like how s3 has Will mimick lonnie with the baseball bat (and we see in s3 Billy being bullied by his dad to play baseball and flashbacks showing him mimicking Neil). I've also discussed how there's a theme with pretty much every character mimicking their parent- for better or worse.

Killing a deer would certainly hint at Jonathan's possible character regression (and mimicking Lonnie to a certain extent). if he not only blames himself for Joyce's death. But is also stuck with his ab*ser.

The animal k*lling motif , and after that, mimicking an a b*sive father is already shown with el. Brenner , in s1,tried to make her k*ll a cat (using her powers) and she refused (similar to the s1 rabbit hunting story of Lonnie forcing Jonathan to k*ll a rabbit ). But in s2, she uses her powers to k*ll a squirrel (and like a deer- it's typical hunting game). Than in s3 el does literally everything Brenner ever asked of her- she spies on people and repeats the words back (like brenner told her to do), she becomes a weapon to ‘fight the commies’ (which was said to be the reason he k*dnapped her in the first place), and when looking into the void to see the mf (she mirrors the words brenner told her - when he made her go into the void to face the demogorgan).

And some s4 movies are literally about being trapped in a house with your ab*ser and slowly losing your mind because of the ab*se and gaslighting- lighthouse , black swan , good son, are prime examples. But movies like scar face , girl with the dragon tattoo, and book of Henry touch on this theme a bit as well. And ordinary people- is about a guy who survived a vehicular accident but his relative in the same accident didn't- and it causes him alot of issues /survivor's guilt.

The shadowy figure could just be Will in the shot - seeing it in a dream before or after it happens?

Theory 4) Will sees a future vision or has his ’now memories’ of someone else's car.

Evidence: i guess the s4 shot parallels El (in s3) spying on Billy while he’s hurting Heather. During that spying scene: the shot is of El near Billy's car. So it’s possibly a diff willel parallel?

If not Will. Who knows ...if El’s telekenesis is gone maybe her spying abilities strengthened and look different because of it (and now she can see background details)?

Theory 5) it's Lonnie's car and Will escapes from the trunk and uses his powers in self defense

Evidence: I’m pretty iffy on this one. This goes back to how people suspected Lonnie took Will in s1 (and could be foreshadowing). Even the recent rebel robin book-has characters say Lonnie probably took Will. Jonathan suspected Will may be at Lonnie’s - so checks Lonnie’s car trunk (to see if Will is there). We also see how the mf in s3, knocked people out by dr*gs/str*ngulation, ties them up, and throws them in a trunk (to k*dnap them). Or how the cops raided jonathan’s trunk- which had stuff to track the demogorgan (and the demogorgan parallels Lonnie) . And after looking in Jonathan’s trunk-they suspected something fishy is going on.

*heather was described as “another me” by Will- who was thrown in the trunk.

movies: “tangled” was on the s4 list- and had an ab*sive parent later try and kidnap their kid ,and that parent ends up dying. in girl with the dragon tattoo (the girl associated with dragons & phoenixes-  lights her  ab*sive bio dad on fire. In ‘drop dead fred’ (girl who is in love with childhood friend, named Mikey, who she met at age 5) lights a imaginary version of her ab*sive parent on fire - while in a trippy memory world. Chrissy accidentally lights her ab*sive relative (nickname “daddy”)  on fire in self defense- in a trippy hell memory scape. in ‘long kiss goodnight- the girl with 2 personalities (Will/will the wise) was kidnapped and put in a trunk and escapes by jumping into a quarry. Not sure if that could relate to a flashback or something else? like in ‘don’t breath’ the older sibling who essentially was a surrogate parent to the younger sibling-mentions how their dad left the family, and her parent would throw her in the trunk for hours as a punishment.

[welcome-to-the-end-of-eras]

If this is incoherent babble I apologise, I’ve gotten no sleep and have been taking too many overtime shifts, but I’ve come up with a theory and I wanna write it down before I forget.

So The Eel Singers is a critical piece of the puzzle that is pulleyverse lore and I feel like we don’t talk about it enough, and right now I specifically wanna talk about Six’s role in all of this bullshit. She kind of got thrown into the whole clairvoyance-magic shit, but she took pretty much all of that information in stride with little to no fuss. In tes, however, she’s very resistant to every aspect of the Fens and it’s weirdness. Not necessarily because it’s different (as was her initial reservation), but she’s mainly resistant to the people trapped there because she knows there’s something off about them. Of course Thaniel and Mori have their reservations as well and are just polite out of social normality, but when it comes to the water, that’s when things start to get a little funky; Six not only refuses to drink the water, she openly distrusts it like she knows there’s something wrong with it. When it gets to the point where the water starts to take affect, she takes what’s happening in stride and is well aware of the fact that something is wrong while being resistant to the Fens as a whole, like she knows what’s going on and is trying to prevent it. And of course in the iconic “they’re mine and you can’t have them” scene, she admits she knows what’s happening, confidently stops the person controlling Mori, and is entirely the reason they were able to get out of the Fens alive. The person controlling Mori also notably equates her to him when it comes to the information and memories in their heads, which is an interesting subtle detail.

All this brings me to the point of the post, which is to make the suggestion that Six is part of this whole clairvoyance magic stuff and may be like Mori in some way. All of her actions in tes, plus her kind of hazy origin story (brief mention of a bio mom, no mention of a bio dad) coupled with the fact that almost nothing in the watchmaker series is random, it’s entirely likely that she’s part of this weird magic system that Mori gets his clairvoyance from, and he at one point knew that/was going to know that. That might even be why he agreed to keep her around despite not liking kids, because he knew they were similar, and maybe knew how hard it could be to navigate that world without someone to help you.

Now, dear reader, you may be thinking “but Six is heavily coded to be autistic, and many of the things listed here could explain her actions”, and I agree with you there, but I raise you this; Ms. Pulley’s representation of neurodivergence has always been very well incorporated into the characterisation of the characters, so it’s entirely possible that this magical system is her way of representing neurodivergent (specifically autistic) traits in a way that fits in with the plot of the story as well. Plus, it would solidly confirm neurodivergence in other characters like Mori associated with that magical system which is a cool bonus.

Anyway I’m definitely reading a bit too much into this but that’s kind of become my brand so I figured I’d share with all of you.

[five-rivers]

Stars Aligned Chapter 2

Here’s the thing.  Danny knew this was a dumb decision.  At least as dumb as stepping into the ghost portal (but at least he’d gotten some nifty powers out of that, hey?).  Whatever reason his bio-dad had for chucking him out the door within days of his birth couldn’t be good.  Putting himself within reach of the man…  Yeah.  Not his brightest thought.  

(Not to mention the wizards.  And witches.  That was so weird, how they had two different names for essentially the same thing. Then again… actor, actress…  Why were people so weird?)

On the other hand, twin brother.  Twin brother who had to live with aforementioned baby-abandoning bio-dad.  Twin brother who wasn’t allowed to visit America.  Or, Danny suspected, a family of squibs.  

Yeah.  

Yeah.  

So, here he was.  Getting everything in order for a wizard passport and wizard international travel, because bio-family refused to even look at an airport.  

Danny had a suspicion that, based on how they spelled the word and a few other comments in that particular letter, that they weren’t entirely clear on what an airport was.  

Fun.  

On the other hand, in comparison to the actual, normal, legal passport he’d gotten, just in case bio-family left him somewhere, wizard passports were much, much easier to get.  The wait times were practically nonexistent.  He could, in theory, get the passport on the same day he traveled.  All that was needed was proof he was a wizard and his adoption papers.  

Of course, ‘proof he was a wizard’ actually meant ‘wand.’  Wands being something they used as personal ID, despite the fact that they were a) sticks, and b) didn’t actually carry any personally identifiable information.  Sure, Jack said that they were somehow connected to their owners, but unless there were, like, giant books of details about everyone’s wands at every place that would, conceivably, need ID, and had people trained to identify all those tiny little characteristics…  Danny just couldn’t see how it would work.

Danny’s current theory was that all wizards were just insane, which meant that his twin would most likely fit right in with the rest of Danny’s family, right as soon as Danny figured out how to legally kidnap him.

(No, Danny didn’t have a ghostly Obsession, and it definitely wasn’t family related.  He was only half-ghost, after all.  Why do you ask?)

Anyway.  Wizard passport.  Wizard ID. Wizard sticks.  

Wands.  

Wands meant a nerve-wracking trip to the nearest wizarding town with Jack.  Evidently, he’d lived there a couple of years after his parents sent him away from Britain when he was around fourteen because of ‘the war.’

Abruptly, many of Jack’s stories about his childhood made more sense.

(It had always been something of a joke between Jazz and Danny to try and figure out what ‘the war’ was supposed to be, and if Jack’s parents had just… Conned him into thinking he’d eaten horse meat.  For some reason.  Even if the Fentons hadn’t seemed like that kind of people, no matter how eccentric.)

(Also, evidently Jazz and Danny had never met Jack’s biological parents, who were not named Fenton, although his adopted mother was also a witch.)

(Why was everything so complicated?)

 The “wizarding community” was a small town accessible only by a train line invisible to ‘no-majs.’  And also flying brooms.  Which wizards used.  Danny had seen the train before, not realizing that he wasn’t supposed to. Several times.  Usually while flying to Wisconsin to deal with whatever Vlad had done that week.  

If Danny was a wizard, was Vlad?  Was being half-ghost somehow tied up in being magical? What did that mean for Dani?

(Hey, maybe this whole affair could be used to bring Dani into the family safely.  Who was to say that he didn’t have a secret twin sister?)

Danny could admit that the town itself, which had almost a Ghost Zone vibe with how all the architecture seemed to be from fifty plus to a hundred years ago and also the physics breaking magic, was sort of cool. It was… cute, he guessed.  He didn’t really like how everyone was staring at Jack, their clothes were just as weird, but it wasn’t a new thing.  People always stared at Jack.  

That’s what happened when you wore hazard-orange jumpsuits twenty-four seven.  

The shops all had names out of a fantasy novel, and at one point they got turned around and wound up on a residential street where they had to ask for directions, but eventually they made it to ‘Willoughby’s Wand Emporium.’

The interior of Willoughby’s Wand Emporium reminded Danny strongly of a shoe store.  The shelves were all lined with boxes of approximately that size, and the employees all carried measuring tape.  It also smelled like a shoe store: musty and dry, with a hint of polish.  Or maybe it was wood varnish?  Or some kind of paint.  

A young woman bounced up.  “Hi, how can we help you today?  Replacement wand?”

“First time, actually,” said Jack.  

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the woman.  “You’re just so tall for your age.”

“I’m fourteen,” said Danny.  

The woman began to turn red.

“He was missed,” said Jack.  “It happens.”  He smiled, but it looked far more strained than usual.  

“Oh,” said the woman.  “Ahem.  Well, if you’ll come right this way, I can start taking measurements, and start trying out wands.  The wand chooses the wizard, they say!”

“Okay,” said Danny, shrugging.  That was… interesting.  Were the wands sentient?  Did that somehow make them acceptable IDs?

Seemed really weird to keep sentient things stored in boxes.

… Said the kid who stored sentient beings in a soup thermos.

A really high-tech soup thermos.

Didn’t make it better.  

Except he didn’t keep them in the thermos indefinitely.  Except for Dan.  

Danny didn’t know if the wizards kept the wands in boxes indefinitely, either.  Maybe he should stop assuming things.  That had gotten him in trouble with ghosts more than once.

The woman took her measuring tape from where it hung around her shoulders, held it out in front of herself, and promptly dropped it. It did not fall.  

As basic as levitation was for ghosts, it was really weird to see a human do it.  (Especially when it always took so much concentration for him to levitate things other than himself—Hence why he never really used the ability in battle.)

The measuring tape flitted around Danny’s head, shoulders, arms, and body, taking measurements.  He had to sit on his reflexes hard to prevent himself from trying to catch it or knock it out of the air.  

He was so nervous.  Was it normal to be nervous?

The measuring tape snaked back through the air to the woman, who smiled.  “Alright,” she said, “we can start with that.  Uh, to explain the process, we usually start out with wands in the appropriate size range and try and zero in on the ones that respond best to you from there.”  She flicked her own wand, and several thin boxes slid themselves off the shelves.  “We use a wide variety of wand woods from a variety of wandmakers.  Just about any tree that grows in North America is probably represented here.” She paused.  “Except for palm trees.”

“That makes sense,” said Danny.  Palm trees were quite different from other trees.  

“Alright.  Let’s start with pine.  The core of this one is dragon heartstring—Harvested humanely, of course!”

“Core?” said Danny, latching on to the familiar word even as he regarded the wand itself dubiously.  

“Yes.  As with our woods, we also stock a wide range of wand cores.  Each wand has a core made of a small part of a magical creature.  Dragon heartstring, unicorn hair, and phoenix feather are the standard ones…  But that standardization is rather British.  We have a few others available.  Thunderbird tail feather—Only taken during molt.  Wampus cat hair.  Dittany. Rougarou hair.  Jackalope antler…  Those are the more common ones, though we do have others.  Even some kneazle whisker, although most people don’t want those.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, they tend not to be very strong.  But sheer power isn’t everything.  Some prefer control, need lower power output…  or are worried about accidents while they’re learning.  We do see some adult learners every now and then.”

That actually sounded sort of appealing to Danny, but he supposed he’d better go about this normally.  At least at first.  

He picked up the pine wand and immediately dropped it.  

“Ow,” he said.  

“Ow?” repeated the woman.  “Oh,” she said, catching sight of the burn on his hand.  “That’s… not supposed to happen.”

“Y’know,” said Danny, conversationally, “I’ve only held, like, two magical things in my life, and both of them have damaged my hands. Is this, like, a common thing, or am I just ridiculously unlucky.”

“Second one, I think,” said the woman.  “Cynthia’s good at minor healing charms.  I’m going to go get her.  Okay?  Okay.”

Shortly thereafter, phoenix feather wands were also eliminated as a possibility, not because they burned Danny, but because they seemed intent on burning everything else around him.  Pine wands were also a definite no-go (“Don’t worry about the lifespan thing,” said the woman, “that’s a myth.”).  As was everything but elder, apple, pear, hornbeam, thorn, and yew (this list got another mention of myths from the shop assistant).  

At this point, the shop owner, Mrs. Willoughby, was drawn out from the back room to observe the mess Danny was making.  

“My,” she said, “I haven’t seen anyone have this much trouble in a while.  Heather, why don’t you go get some of the specialty cores.”

“I thought the unicorn was working well,” protested the woman who’d been helping Danny so far.  She winced as Danny picked up a new wand and exploded a light.  “Comparatively.”

“Yes, we could probably eventually find a unicorn hair wand that would work for him, but all things considered…  I feel like we should explore other avenues.”  She sniffed.  “Nothing associated with fire.  Perhaps kelpie mane?”

“I’ll check,” said Heather.  

.

Kelpie mane, it turned out, did the same sort of thing as phoenix tail feather when it came to Danny.  Only with a lot more water involved.  

“I didn’t think that would work, anyway,” said Mrs. Willoughby.

“Then why,” said Danny, wringing water out of his shirt, “did you have me try it?”

“Oh, cases like you greatly improve our understanding of wandlore,” said Mrs. Willoughby.  “You’re not likely to have noticed this yet, but the population of wizards and witches is so small compared to the no-maj population that everyone who gets very far in a profession has to be a bit of an innovator.  I’m recording this for future reference, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you do in life.  If anything.  It would be very helpful to me if you became famous.”

“Hard pass on that,” said Danny.  

“Or at least come back at some point.”

“I’ll consider it,” said Danny.  “But, like, we were really hoping to do other things today, so maybe…”  He made a circular motion with his hand.  “Or at least, ugh, I don’t know.  I feel like everything you give me is trying to kill me.”

It was a very familiar feeling, and a very unwelcome one, nonetheless.  

“We really aren’t,” said Mrs. Willoughby.  “But perhaps… from now on, we’ll limit to the woods to the Rosaceaes.  The others tend to be called unlucky.  Well, except for the hornbeam.  Is there anything you’re singularly passionate about?”

Singularly passionate?  “Not really,” said Danny, who did not think about ghosts or helping people or space. He shifted, uncomfortable, and squelched.  

Screw it.  He was supposedly a wizard, now, right?

He phased the water off himself.  

“Oh my god!” shouted Heather.  “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Uh,” said Danny.  “No?”

“Calm down, Heather.  Don’t act like you’ve never seen accidental magic before.”

“Not with a teenager doing it!”

They were now attracting a crowd.  Yay.  

“He’s not trained, yet,” said Mrs. Willoughby, unconcerned.  “Don’t be rude.”

“Yeah, can we get back on track, here?”

After a few more tries, Mrs. Willoughby had determined that the wood that reacted the least badly to Danny was hawthorn.  Then she sent Heather into the storage room to fetch more.  

“I don’t know why we even have these,” said Heather, under her breath, carrying several boxes marked with stamps that read ‘THESTRAL.’

“Because some people have trauma, Heather.”

“He’s a teenager.  I seriously doubt he has deep personal experiences with death.”

“Wow, way to assume, Heather,” said another shop assistant, who was passing by with a far-too-curious customer.  

“Here,” said Mrs. Willoughby, handing Danny a box.  “Try this one.  It’s hawthorn.”

With some suspicion, Danny slid the cover off the box and gingerly picked up the wand inside.  

It didn’t do anything like what the other wands had. Instead, the slender length of wood gave him a faint echo of the feeling he got when he was on an emotional high and engaging in either extreme mischief or obsession-adjacent activities (because he did not have a real, ghostly, capital-O Obsession).

Danny declined to hold it with all five fingers, lest he be overcome with mania.

Yes, he was paranoid.  But when touching things can go as badly for you as they did for Danny, paranoia was justified.  

“Oh, it looks like you’ve found your match,” said Mrs. Willoughby, clapping.  

With the ease of practice, Danny did not let any trace of horror or unease show on his face.  He ignored the surge of glee from the wand, and carefully placed it back in the box.  

Yeah.  He needed a wand for passport purposes, but there was no way he was going to use that.  He’d just fake magic with ghost powers.  It had been working out okay so far.  

What was the worst that could happen?

A rather relieved Jack paid for the wand, and they made their way, slowly, to the government building.  

“So,” said Jack.  “You want to save getting those beginner magic manuals for another day?”

“Absolutely,” said Danny.  He wondered if his twin had gone through anything even remotely like this and if it was really worth all this trouble to meet a person he would have basically nothing in common with other than blood.  

Blood that likely meant less than usual, considering that his was diluted with ectoplasm.  A fact he would have to hide.  With no allies or back up.  In England.

(Again, this whole endeavor was not his greatest idea.)

.

Draco supervised the house-elves as they cleaned out the room next to his own, feeling rather blank.  He had campaigned vigorously for his twin to come, but now that he was…

The boy, for all that he was as much a Malfoy as Draco, was an American for all intents and purposes.  What did Americans even like?  What did they call their bastardized version of Quidditch?  Would Deneb even know about wizard games?  According to the woman from the agency, he’d been raised as a muggle by those squibs he’d been placed with.  

Slowly but surely, Draco’s heart sank.  He had no idea what his twin would be like.  Deneb, despite being his brother, would essentially be a stranger.  

He was beginning to understand why his mother was so angry at his father.  

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

Can you rate "The protagonist's dad is actually the big bad guy" trope?

This is mostly because of the theories of All For One being Izuku's bio dad and the many conflicting arguments of if Afo being Izuku's dad should actually happen in the story. I also wonder where you stand on the topic, if you think it would be nice for MHA to follow the trope or no.

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

This one is entirely based on execution. Personally, i prefer when both the character and the audience knows the evil parentage, so they can deal with the expectations and drama head on. I also just in general love it when characters make a conscious effort to be better than what came before them.

What i don’t love is when a character we once thought had nothing to do with the conflict but chose to get involved anyway is revealed to have secretly be connected the whole time. Stories where everything is determined by destiny/fate are already not my favorite, but especially lately, stories that handle this idea poorly end up coming off saying that only people from certain families and bloodlines are capable of making a difference.

As for DFO, it’s a fun fanfic idea in the right hands, but at this stage I don’t see how a canon reveal would make the story better. That and I don’t think there’s as much evidence as some people think.