#& now he's basically the main character of said story universe lol

[raiiny-bay]

they are so cute

[actualbird]

hi! Has Luke Killed a Man? I was discussing some TOT in a discord server and Luke popped up when someome said they were told "oh yeah he killed a man" when they said he looked cute lol. Anyway im curious and i was wondering if u had confirmation since ik stans of characters r the best to consult to understand more abt characters. Tbh i was getting the vibe from what ik abt main story/personal story and assumed that Luke's just straight-up killed as an agent but the lack of confirmation is nagging at me (has barely read his stories)

hi anon!! luke is SOOOOOO cute and i DEFINITELY BELIEVE HE HAS KILLED A MAN

however, canonically in the actual universe of tot, there has been no explicit confirmation that hes killed. i would know. because if there was explicit confirmation, i basically never would have shut up about it ever.

he HAS explicitly killed people in AU cards (like in his SOTT and Enduring Light cards, if im remembering correctly?) so at least they acknowledge luke's capability for straight up Killing in the other non-main universes

but alas in the main universe, we only get Heavy Implication. those implications being that hes a top agent, that hes considered ruthless and deadly, that hes got all the skills and more needed to Kill. but theyve never said it out loud

still, the subtext is pretty strong. i 100% believe that hes killed in the main universe.

now please imagine a 16 year old fresh nsb recruit luke with his trembling hands stained in blood, traumatized after his first kill <3

[goddess-aelin]

Hyacinth and Hollyhock

Part 3 of "Peonies and Poplars"

Masterlist | Part 1

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: mentions of throbbing members lol

Shit, shit, shit. She was in deep, unending shit. The man sitting across from her was incredibly intimidating, especially when she wasn’t expecting to see him today…or ever again. R.J. White was the author of Aelin’s favorite book series, Tales of Flowers and Fortitude, which featured three books that had the most incredible world building and heartachingly beautiful romance. If she was being honest, Aelin would have said that R.J. White had to have been a woman since the experience and prose in the book series was unmatched. But now, Aelin knew she was wrong.

She was so, so wrong. 

Because R.J. White, who was currently sitting across from her in the cozy coffee shop she frequented, was the biggest asshole known to the universe. He was arrogant, toyed with people for fun, and chose to be a haughty, pompous, pig-headed, condescending–

“So, we meet again.” 

Pretty. Did she mention he was pretty?

No. No! She was not going to go down that road. Even if his voice sounded deep as the depths of the largest ocean and his cologne smelled of the pine woods Aelin so loved. She was not going to get caught up with this beautiful, brash, irritating, stupid, asshole–

“Miss? Are you with me?” A tan hand waved at her, causing embarrassment to overtake the flush of her cheeks.

Aelin once again snapped to attention at the sound of his voice. Shit. “Oh! Sorry, it’s just been a busy day.” The lie fell flat even to her own ears. It was barely 10am, the day hadn’t even really started. Aelin knew it. Aelin knew R.J. White also knew it. And it seemed like R.J. White also knew that Aelin knew. 

“O…kay. I can just find a different seat if I’m a bother, sorry. I just thought…” He shook his head, “Nevermind. I’ll just let you get back to your book.”

  “No!” What!? Why on earth did she just say that? She thought. Yes, you absolutely should find somewhere else to sit. “No, you can stay here, it’s fine. I’m just a little out of it today.” It seemed like she truly was since her mouth was saying things she didn’t want it to say.

  R.J. gave a noncommittal hum and a small smile and set his still-full coffee cup back down on the table. “So, what did you think?”

“What did I think?” Aelin’s brows furrowed. “Of what?”

R.J. gave a huff of breath and a slight uptick of the corners of his mouth. “Of the book, of course.”

“You want to know what I thought of the book?”

“Well…yes? That’s what I said.”

“Oh, well, it’s good, I guess.” She looked down at the blue cover of her book and the vibrant pink bookmark she attached. Her brows furrowed. Why did he want to know about her book? “I’m not done yet and the main character is a little annoying but the smut makes up for it, I think, since that’s basically the plot of the story.” Aelin let out nervous laughter.  “I mean, the author describes everything in such detail and it’s pretty good without being completely raunchy. There are some positions in here, though, that I’m just wondering if they’re real or if the author just thought it would sound poetic. But do I really need to know that the guy has a 10-inch co–”

R.J. cleared his throat. “I actually meant Peonies and Poplars but I will keep this book in mind if I ever need ideas.” Amusement laced his tone and it looked like he was fighting back a smile.

Aelin’s mouth dropped in an “O.” “Oh. I just thought…” Aelin’s cheeks heated again. Of course he was talking about his book, not the random smutty book she happened to pick up from a clearance rack. “I’m so sorry. I just am not in my element today, I guess, and not used to people chatting with me while I’m reading..”

“Reading smut in public will do that to you.” A laugh laced his words. “Especially when the male lead has such a spectacular…appendage.”

Aelin groaned. “Please don’t tell me you’re one of those authors that uses ‘appendage’ as a synonym for ‘cock.’” 

“Since you’ve read my work, you know that I don’t.” He looked all too gleeful at her statement yet she could’ve sworn there was a slight tint to his tan cheeks. “I’d obviously rather use throbbing member or meaty manhood.”

Aelin snorted so hard, she could feel the slight burn of the coffee she was sipping coming back up her nose. And of course, since she was Aelin and since this conversation was going so well this burning in her nose also started a coughing fit. R.J. looked slightly concerned for a second before amusement took over his features. Once she got herself under control once again, she said the only thing she could think of at the moment. “Please. Please with sprinkles and cherries on top, please never say either of those words again.” 

His laugh was deep and his smile truly lit up his already handsome face. Smiling like that, though…he looked younger, more relaxed. More handsome, if she wanted to wander back down that road again.

“Okay, deal. But only if you tell me your name.”

She held her hand out. “Aelin.” He took her hand and she couldn’t help but notice how his callused hand felt against hers. Dare she say her hand fit perfectly in his. How cliche of her. “ Should I call you Mr. White or R.J?” 

“Neither actually.” His voice got slightly lower. “My name is Rowan. Rowan Whitethorn.”

“Ah. I see where the R and the White came from. Is the J a middle name?”

“It sure is. James. Rowan James Whitethorn.” He fiddled with his nails, as if revealing this part of himself to someone who also knew him as R.J. White was something he rarely did.

“Well Rowan James Whitethorn, what made you take the pen name?” She kept her voice low, just in case anyone could overhear. Rowan seemed like a private person, someone who didn’t like the spotlight.

“I just like my privacy. That's why I don’t have any pictures of myself on my books or on my website.” He shrugged. “I know how intense some people can get about their fantasy books and this gives me at least a little bit of a normal life.”

“What about doing interviews and book conventions and things?” 

“I just don’t do them. My agent always has me sign books before they’re sent out as a special edition and she takes care of the blurbs that are sent out. All interviews are done via email or video chat but the interviewer is always sworn to secrecy. And they usually don’t know my real name to even look me up. It’s not like I have any personal social media anyway.” He shrugged, not fully confident in admitting this, yet he wasn’t shying away from eye contact, either. 

Aelin pondered this for a second, trying to come up with the nicest way of asking what she wanted to know. She decided that Rowan seemed like someone who valued directness. “Can I ask you why? I mean, imagine how great the publicity would be and I’m sure you’d get a lot more deals and recognition if you showed the world your pretty face.”

“Aw, you think I’m pretty?” Aelin rolled her eyes at that while Rowan just chuckled. “I don’t know. I just want people to focus on my writing and what they feel about the story rather than me as a person. I understand that it is a detriment to promotion and future book deals but my agent and I have worked it out so that I get my privacy and she handles all the extra stuff. She’s pretty awesome.”

“I get it. Really. I’m a middle school teacher and these kids pry endlessly about my life. So much that I consistently make up lies about how interesting my weekend was and use my first and middle name as my social media handles instead of my last.”

Rowan chuckled. “I can totally see you as a middle school teacher. Those kids wouldn’t get away with a lick of trouble with you watching over them. And let me guess which subject you teach…english? Or reading? Something along those lines.” 

Aelin rolled her eyes again, the perfect confirmation that Rowan was correct. 

“Knew it,” he laughed. “And since you asked me a bunch of questions, now it’s my turn.” 

Aelin gave him a scathing look. “One. You can ask one question.”

“Five.”

“Two.”

“Deal.”

Rowan rubbed his hands together, contemplating what he was going to ask. “First question: what’s your middle name?”

“That’s what you want to ask?”

“It’s only fair that I know yours since you know mine.”

Aelin sighed. “Fine. It’s Ashryver.”

“Ashryver?” From Rowan’s slight accent, the single word sounded like two -Ash River- rolling off his tongue. But Aelin nodded nonetheless.

“It was my mom’s maiden name. So instead of giving me a full middle name, she and my dad just used her maiden name.” Aelin shrugged. “It’s kind of nice, having that piece of her.” 

Rowan just gave her a small smile and nodded, sensing the sadness in her tone.

“Ok, what’s your second question?”

Rowan rubbed at the stubble along his chin. “Question number two…hmm.” She could tell the moment that he thought of his question since his eyes sharpened in on her like a hawk’s.  “Well, Aelin Ashryver, why haven’t you put my number to good use yet?”

A/N: Here's part 3. And you guessed it, there will be a part 4. I'm hoping to wrap this one up because this chapter was really fighting with me. But I have an idea where it's going so it'll hopefully be a satisfying ending!

Tagging: @cretaceous-therapod @morganofthewildfire @tomtenadia @live-the-fangirl-life @charlizeed @violet-mermaid7 @euphoric-melancholyy @kritical24 @rubyriveraqueen @dealfea @wellofnothing @ayaashryver @moonknight-spector @leiawritesstories @whoever-you-choose-to-love @holdthefrickup @heirofflowers @thecrispypotatochip @shanias-world @rowanaelinn @bruiseonthefaceofhumanity @hanging-from-a-cliff @fantacysoup @swankii-art-teacher @thegreyj @fromthelibraryofemilyj @westofmoon @lovely-dove-zee @books4eva04 @cookiemonsterwholovesbooks @mariaofdoranelle @dreamer-133 @elentiyawhitethorn @writtenonreceipts @shyvioletcat @aelinchocolatelover @captain-of-the-gwynriel-ship @athena127 @tothestarsandwhateverend @highqueenofelfhame

[theteasetwrites]

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon | S1E1 Thoughts

Okay I am gonna list all my positive and negative thoughts regarding each episode (I know no one asked but I feel like this is the only thing I am somewhat “qualified” to talk about ad nauseam on here).

⚠️ SPOILERS AHEAD ⚠️ do not read below the cut unless you’re okay with spoilers

Positive Thoughts

Norman’s acting is so good like?? Listen we all know he’s not Laurence Olivier and he doesn’t claim to be but goddamnit he nails the subtleties of Daryl’s expressions and conveys his emotions really well I think! I’m very impressed

Daryl hot

Obviously the cinematography, setting, and aesthetics are really cool. It’s both gritty but pretty!! I love the gothic architecture and how OLD everything looks, which is only exacerbated by the apocalyptic feel

Everyone in the cast is so good in terms of acting (well, I mean… Laurent is certainly there but he’s a child so we’ll be lenient)

Daryl hot

The walkers are great as usual. I love the burners. Really interesting! I’m kind of wondering if the “experiments” the people on the ship refer to relate to the burners? Maybe they’re making them like that idk.

I love the religious imagery. We have had cults and stuff in TWDU before but I don’t think we’ve had this Catholic vibe going on. I’m a sucker for anything nun related because I have a weird infatuation with them, so I’m all for it.

DARYL BATHTUB SCENE??? They put that in for the girls and the gays and we are LIVING for it

Daryl hot

Daryl is so reminiscent of early seasons TWD era with his witty lines and snark remarks. I feel like we don’t get to see this side of Daryl very often anymore, but now that he has his own show and is THE main character, we get to see those sides that have been neglected again. I also love how much he sort of scoffs at the nuns and their religion. Atheist Daryl we love to see it

It’s cool seeing people in France dealing with the same things our characters have dealt with since the beginning. It’s interesting to see these new parts of the world in this universe for sure

Daryl hot

I honestly just love thinking about how when Daryl gets home he is gonna have such a crazy ass story to tell everyone! It’s gonna be so cute to see him telling all the kids about how heroic he is and ugh yessss

Daryl deserves his own show. He deserves to be THE main character. People who said he can’t lead a show? Nah. Reconsider

I also love that Daryl MIGHT potentially save the world. Cool asf. And if anyone from the original series should save the world, I think it’s him.

Daryl hot

Negative Thoughts:

Okay. I have some very petty/subjective critiques. I realize a lot of you guys probably disagree with me but that’s okay! Don’t read my negative thoughts if you aren’t prepared to be annoyed with me lol. Once again, a lot of these are super petty/nitpicky

First thing that bothers me is that Daryl says he is from the Commonwealth. No. He is from Alexandria, thank you very much. Well, at least he should be. He should’ve been living at Alexandria imo but the finale didn’t really make it explicitly clear where he was living in that year time jump. Basically I just hate the Commonwealth because I have zero attachment to it and it’s just a stupid ass place that I wanna forget about

Daryl seeing Carol in his haze 🙄 … just annoys me solely because Carol annoys me. They could’ve just shown Judith because that would’ve made more sense to me. But don’t get me started, I don’t even want Carol in season 2. Anyway.

Laurent isn’t terrible but he’s kind of annoying in that “I’m so smart I know everything” way. Just very annoying smart kid at school who everyone hated vibes. Plus I just don’t think it’s realistic that he would be THAT smart just from being raised in a convent of nuns

I also fail to understand what they’re doing with Laurent. Is he just some kid that the nuns think is the messiah or is he ACTUALLY the messiah? Like are they gonna throw in a whole other supernatural religious element? Because Laurent conveniently knows Judith’s line from the finale “you deserve a happy ending too.” Right down to the letter. I find it cheesy as hell because I’m so tired of these blatant in your face parallels that are trying to be clever, which always involve children too like we get it children are basically the duck tape of TWDU. Don’t know what to do for this plot? Throw some kids in there!

Neither Positive nor Negative Thoughts:

I don’t trust the nuns. I think they’re gonna use Daryl to get what they want and they don’t really care about getting him home. Worse, I think it could be possible that Isabelle won’t let him get home. She already tried to keep him from using the radio. I’m not saying I hate her character or anything (I actually like her so far… as long as she stays friendly and not… overly friendly), I just think she’s way too invested in this “messiah” stuff to actually care about Daryl so I fear she will take advantage of him. We shall see.

Ok, those are pretty much all of my thoughts!

[rythmicjea]

On the last day of summer vacation... The Writer and His Muse

Full disclosure, I wrote another version of this last night. It was... factually correct. But it just wasn't good. So I saved it and took a few steps away and realized what I was supposed to be writing. I apologize now this is going to be long.

When I came up with the idea to write this series, I wasn't sure of the structure. If I'm honest, I still don't know lol. And after being called the "Riverdale Analysis Auteur" (thank you @storkmuffin ❤️), I promise to do the utmost to put forth only my best for you. There isn't going to be an uploading schedule so follow the tag "Code Word Jeronica" to see when I post.

My intention with this is to show that from the pilot there has always been the opportunity for Jeronica. I know what you're saying "there's an opportunity for ALL pairings."

And, yes, while you are correct. There were some possibilities that were more feasible than others (Sorry Jarchies!). For the skeptics out there, the showrunners did chemistry tests with so many pairings. Cole even admitted that he did one with Cami and he was open to a Jughead/Veronica relationship "It's the CW, anything can happen"! Coding isn't always intentional or needs to be taken seriously. And that's okay. As a writer myself, I understand the "side character curse" all too well.

With all of that being said, I will only be focusing on the evidence we get in the show itself. I may reference the comics sporadically (like how Jughead and Veronica have been paired up/dated several times in the comics, throughout the comic's history. Below is a picture from Pep #154 in 1962!) but I'll never reference anything outside of the source material as evidence.

The Writer and His Muse

It's established from the pilot that Jughead is a writer, an aspiring novelist. All writers need a muse. Something that inspires them to put pen to paper. In Greek Mythology, Muse was a Greek Goddess who gave inspiration to all. Often, a muse is referred to as a beautiful woman but it can be anything. The show Riverdale is the muse for fanfiction writers who write in the universe. Jughead has several muses throughout the show. He goes through various tribulations with his writing. We see him suffer with writer's block, make a deal with the devil (both Jugheads in Rivervale), and we know that the story that put him on the map was a telling of him and his friends.

In the overall show we know of five big stories that Jughead writes. Jason Blossom's murder, The Red Dahlia, Killing Mr. Honey, The Outcasts, and Bend. Towards. Justice. All follow a pretty basic plotline. Something happens, a group of teens have to investigate, there's a surprise twist, and then a resolution.

But, through all of these he has one muse that is constant. Would you believe me if I told you it was our fair Veronica? Because it is. Before you ask "What about Betty?", let me ask you the same. What about her? She is a character in his stories. Sometimes she's the main character. But being the main character and being a muse are two very different things. Veronica's presence in his stories symbolize different major elements to a story. More than any other Riverdale character.

Throughout the series we see Jughead struggle with his writing. His father tells him to keep writing as a way to get out of Riverdale and not get caught up with the Serpents. We see him have profound writer's block, plagiarize another author, change the way he writes due to his disability, and physically lose his ability to write. His writer's block, and the complications with it, start in season 5 and aren't resolved until season 6.

Here's an unexpected bonus from helping Veronica...

...I started writing again.

She is, and has always been, his muse. This is the first time he acknowledges it, but the clues have been there since day one.

Jason Blossom's Murder

The first story begins with the pilot's very first scene. It also introduces the audience to a concept called "The Center of a Story". The center of a story is just how it sounds. It is the element that brings everyone together. However, while this can be the main character and what that character goes through, it can simply be a person or place that has very little interaction at all with the main story. In a murder mystery, which Season 1 is, the center of a story can be the murder victim. In telling that story we can either have flashbacks of the person's life up until they are killed; or, they are simply the reason why everyone comes together (and not even just to find out why. Sometimes the why isn't necessary).

Jason Blossom is the center of the story. It's all about finding out who killed him. But the muse of the story? The hook? The character's entrance that actually connects everyone together? That's Veronica. "On the last day of summer vacation, a new mystery rolled into town." Jason's murder is the B-plot of the season. It might have kicked everything off, and the action might be connected to him, but it's not the entire reason why Jughead is writing this book. In fact, the opening soliloquy says:

Our story is about a town, a small town, and the people who live in the town. From a distance it presents itself like so many other small towns all over the world. Safe, decent, innocent. Get closer though? And you start seeing the shadows underneath. The name of our town is Riverdale.

The story was never about Jason Blossom.

The Red Dahlia

I'm not going to touch on this much, because I have a whole post planned just about this episode. But, I want to point out that out of all of the stories we see him write, this is the only story that focuses solely on one character. It's completely about Veronica. She, like Jason, is the catalyst. The difference is that, unlike Jason, she plays a major role.

Killing Mr. Honey

In his last story to submit to the University of Iowa, it's about how seven teenagers try to get rid of their unethical and overbearing principal. We have known up to this point that Jughead loves horror. He likes to write "Lovecraftian" style stories. The difference between the two are HPL rejected morality. He considered himself a "Morality Atheist". Jughead, on the other hand, loves morality tales. (In 1955 there's a whole episode about it.) This is most evident in this telling. Each character represents an architype. Veronica, arguably, is the most important architype. She represents morality. She's the only one who really challenges what they are doing. Specifically, Jughead. At face value someone can go "Well, Jughead and Veronica aren't friends so it makes sense". First off, no, they very much are friends. But, second, if they weren't, why put her in such a place of honor. In actuality, given his character in the show (and the comics), Archie should be the moral compass of the story.

The Outcasts

The Outcasts is really the only story that we have very little knowledge of. I freely admit that for evidence, it's the weakest of the five. It presents coded details for the audience to infer their meaning. Jughead is the Viper Leader, the Serpents are the Vipers, but is Betty The Homecoming Queen? Most likely. The co-ed he takes home tells him that he wrote a "very sexy book" in regards to the Viper Leader and the Homecoming Queen. However, in his drunken voicemail, he lambasts Betty. One line in particular stands out "You're a cold, fake, duplicitous bitch. And once people read my book, everyone's going to see that". Now, we don't know what is in the book (Kind of wish they'd released it) and it could end with the Homecoming Queen cheating on the Viper Leader with the Football Captain (I'm inferring that that would be Archie's character). Or, they could have lived happily ever after. Or... using the ambiguity to stretch the possibility... the Homecoming Queen could have been Veronica.

Why? Well, there's a reason why the Enemies to Lovers trope is so popular. What better way to get back at your ex for cheating but to immortalize their best friend (who was also cheated on by your best friend) as the true-love-fairy-tale-princess of your wildly popular NYT best seller?

Bend. Towards. Justice.

The last story we see Jughead write is when they've been taken back to 1955. 7x01 is very reminiscent of the pilot. But, for Jughead and his writing, it's always been in the details. Season 7 is my favorite season, and trust me, I have a lot to say about what happens. So, I'll keep this brief. Even when he describes Tabitha it's very factual. There's no emotion. He lists who she is and the reason why she might know what's going on. Please don't take this to mean that at this point he isn't still in love with her, because he very much is. When he sees her, he doesn't know the 1955 version isn't his girlfriend. He keeps all of his emotions bottled up until he can figure out a plan. And to spare her from any craziness because her memories also might be gone. Up until this point, everyone's description is "This person is here, and this is who they are". Including himself.

For starters I live in an abandoned train car with Hot Dog which... actually tracks... Betty and Kevin aren't merely friends, they're dating. Cheryl's twin brother is alive, but he's not Jason, he's Julian. No sign of a Reggie yet. But Archie exists and he's pretty much a teen Charles Atlas... I've been waiting to reconnect with the one person who might shed some light on our predicament because she was both Chronokenetic and the town's guardian angel. My girlfriend, Tabitha Tate.

He mentions that all of this information is "overwhelming, heartbreaking". But he doesn't say why because there are many reasons why. His best friends don't remember anything. Do they even really know him? With one one question he realizes that the person he loves doesn't love him back. But he breaks this way of introducing the "characters" when he introduces Veronica. It's all emotion. There's even a sexy jazz trumpet riff announcing her.

"Damn..." His thoughts whispered to him breathlessly. "Even in 1955, Veronica Lodge still knew how to make an entrance." He goes from boredom to attention. He straightens his shoulders, he sits up to see her better, and he doesn't blink. Like everyone else, and very unlike him, his whole attention is on her.

THE PILOT

Now that we've gone through the five major stories we know he writes, let's go back to the end to see the beginning. The last episode of the entire series ends with a typewriter. All of the stories mentioned above are stories written within the main one. Riverdale itself is a story (possibly Archie Comics fanfiction) written by Jughead.

The pilot itself, as all TV shows, has a narrative woven throughout. There's characters, conflict, plot, etc. Though the episode opens with Jason's murder the pilot was never about that. Hell, Jughead is barely featured in it. We see him two significant times. The first time is two minutes in, where he's drinking his coffee writing his story. And he says the classic line, "We were still talking about the Fourth of July tragedy on the last day of summer vacation, when a new mystery rolled into town." We are introduced to Veronica Lodge, by Jughead, right after we're introduced to him. At this point he's only named Cheryl and Jason Blossom as that is the impetus for this show/season. "There needs to be a dead body".

The pilot is about Veronica. She moves to Riverdale, she meets Archie and Betty, she mentions Our Town, and her desire for Archie is established. Compared to Veronica, it takes 8 minutes to mention Jason again and 10 minutes to bring him back into the plot. Then nothing significant happens with him until the very end of the episode! But even after that brief interlude it's only 5 minutes later Veronica is given her first conflict. And by the halfway point, she's thoroughly decimated said conflict.

So, Miss Auteur, why are you bringing this up?

Because Riverdale was supposed to be about Archie. But by the end of the first half of the first episode Veronica is the only character to have a full plot arc and even an epilogue! More importantly, she is immediately woven into the fabric of the town. Even though the Varchie romance is introduced we must remember how the episode is being framed.

If you compare the narration to the writing on Jughead's laptop, it doesn't match up. Cole Sprouse might have read everything on said laptop and it was shortened for time. But, I wouldn't read too much into the discrepancies. I mean, the previous two pages are exact copies of each other lol. And while there might not be numbered pages it's at least four and I'm baffled about what he could have written prior to the opening lines. Also, as a writer, there are the things we think we're going to write and the things we actually do write (For example, I wrote a 16 chapter 100k+ Zack and Cody fanfic, and I didn't know the show existed! The Suite Adult Life). Our thoughts vs our words carry weight to a story. An argument can be made that either position is the most important. Is it better to write out that which we keep so closely guarded so it may live on in infamy? Or are the most profound thoughts those we keep closest to our chests?

Though one little line stands out when I do read it...

"See, the Blossoms had their tendrils wrapped around the entire town - no one wanted to make enemies of them."

Who is the person not wrapped up in their tendrils? And who immediately made an enemy of Cheryl Blossom?

Bisous, Bisous... Votre Auteur.

[thekingofwinterblog]

Man the one thing Bionicle will allways have my respect for is the whole giant robot reveal amd planning, that shit was cool.

Like I never read any books or comics (just watched the movies as a kid lol) and of what I read of the lore I feel iffy, but just that idea alone is legendary

Funny thing is, the movies are actually the single WORST part of the bionicle franchise XD

Not only are the 3 good one, only decent movies at best, but they were made explicitly FOR fans, and fans alone, and has no shame about not telling you stuff because they fully expect the viewer to know all the lore through the books, the comic books, or games.

They are also absolutely terrible in terms of action, as the Toa in pretty much every other medium are stupidly powerfull, with elemental powers easily on level with an avatar state avatar if not beyond, physically capable of lifting over one ton, and as the toa mata estimated during their fights with the Bohrok swarms, while they might ultimately win if they just went all out, they would certainly destroy the island of Mata Nui(about the size of mainland denmark) in the process.

To say the movie toa arent quite on that level is... kinda an understatement XD Not to mention that the comics actually fills in scenes in between cuts in the movies, or just makes actual movie scenes better. It's kinda a mess to follow.

overall, I've always described the Bionicle franchise as the actual Star Wars extended universe. It's a whole mess of in-canon with each other stories, that has a very clear cronological flow, but would have been way better if they just made a tv series that covered the main story(which was basically the only thing bionicle DINDT have).

That said, i can tell you exactly why you think the lore is iffy. It is related one one, single sentence.

"Doing in the wizard".

Doing in the wizard, is a story telling trope, where something that was presented as magical or mystical, is later revealed(wheter it was planned or retconned in later) to actually have a mundane, scientific explanation.

And man, is Bionicle the single WORST example of this trope ever made.

So to explain this, and how it all relates to the series big twist reveal, I need to explain how Bionicle started out, and what it became over time.

Because when it began, Bionicle started out as a myth in the making.

On paper the story of the story of the six toa coming to deliver the land from a great evil is as stock as you get it.

But what made it special from day one, was that it managed to capture the feeling of a deeply spiritual tale, of faith, destiny, and myth.

The story of the six toa coming to deliver Mata Nui and his chosen people is treated, both by the narrative, and the people in it, as a great religious story, with the coming of the six Toa Mata essentially being this universe's coming of christ.

There is a moment in the mata nui online game that really encapsulates this, as when Tahu first meets the Ta-Matorans he is supposed to deliver, they attempt to trap him, and he easily breaks free, but then the fighting is halted as Vakama, the turaga(basically priest king) of the ta-matoran shows up, orders his men to stand down, after which he walks up to Tahu seemingly to talk, only to kneel down before him.

because for him this is basically the equivelant of the coming of christ. the divine prophecy that came from God himself is finally coming true.

Now Bionicle has a lot of things to love, as other than the movies, it has great action, it's characters are generally actual people with flaws and developments, and it has lots of awesome moments, amazing and deep world building that is stupidly thourough, and sweet character moments, and of course one of the biggest twists in fiction... but it is this very religious and spiritual tone that sets Bionicle apart from pretty much... everything else western childrens media has ever made.

It is this deep, unfliching and honest portrayal of a world that feels like a myth come to life that drew so many people to this story when it first came out, what ellevated it over yet another story about good and evil clashing.

The people in this story feel real, not only because they generally have actual character(some way more than others), but because they Believe in their world. as in, they believe in Mata Nui, his tennants, his story, and the six saviors he promised would come to deliver them and wake up their god.

this is how you create a real, genuine setting. it is why Bionicle has a feel to it that you never see in western childrens media(nor that often in adult either), other than some very, very few exceptions, due to our deep aversion to showintg religion to children.

and then of course there are the gods in question.

Mata Nui and Makuta. the two brothers who set this story into motion. The first who came here to this world, and created the matoran, and the second who followed him from paradise, and cast a spell that put mata nui into his current deep, deep sleep.

Now these two could have been just another set of "evil brother who who was jealous of, and hates his good brother and attempts to usurp him".

but that's not quite what we get.

When the toa Mata finally do confront Makuta, they get his perspective on it all. Now they ultimately write this off as just an evil villain trying to justify his actions... but if you actually break down what makuta is saying, he is a way more interesting villain than the very simplistic reading the devil figure the matoran believe he is.

"Destroy me? You cannot destroy me. No more than you can destroy the sea, or the wind. Or - the void."

"You are like the sea? The sea bears life! The sea bore us!"

"I bore you, for I am Nothing. And out of Nothing, you came. And it is into Nothing that you will go. I stand with Mata Nui, side by side. I am his brother. The people of the world are builders. But look into their hearts ... and you will find that they also have the power to destroy. I am that power. I am destruction. And I WILL destroy you."

ultimately, the story of the gods Mata Nui and Makuta is not the story of heaven and hell, but instead a story of yin and yang.

Mata Nui is the god of light, and that is the element that everyone associates him with... but thats not his main trait. his main trait, his defining virtue, is creation. That is what he is most famous for after all, creating the matoran and this island home for them.

Similarily, Makuta is tha god of darkness, as that is his element... but his main virtue is destrution.

as the creators themselves noted, using a lego methaphor, mata nui is the drive to create new things, to make something bigger and more interesting out of the parts you have... but Makuta is the drive to destory that creation, to take the lego set apart either before creating something new, or to put it away into the box so that you can use it later. before you create something new, you must destroy.

And this ties into the actual story as well, as one of the big main plots from the start is that to reawaken their god, one of the things that would happen, is that the toa and the matoran would have to give up on Mata Nui the island, their home, their promised land, as only by it's destruction could their god reawaken and lead them to the paradise he originally came from.

its really, really good stuff, and one of the things that ellevated Bionicle over so many other children stories.

now, you might have noticed i said, and continue to say, early bionicle.

There is a reason for that.

and it ties into two very, specific turning points in the development of the story.

the big twist that Mata Nui was actually a giant robot was always going to be the center of everything, the explanation for all the wierd mysteries of the series. Even if his final form didnt end up being quite as big as this above concept piece made him out to be, the overall point stands.

The god of the Matorans was a gigantic robot, and his childrens proper place was inside of him, both to live their lives, and to serve as part of the great ecosystem that was the universe inside of mata nui.

Mata Nui the island, which he created for the Matoran to live on, was always a temporary thing, and their true destiny was him brining them back to "Paradise", aka the great planet of the solar system this story takes place in.

Spherus Magna. a planet that was broken into 3 before he left, and left a hellscape.

his original home that he left long ago.

Now, you might have noticed that i said not a word about what Mata Nui's backstory on said planet actually was.

The only thing that is important as it was originally portrayed, was that Mata nui left the planet for whatever reason, ended up on the water filled moon he currently rests on, and his brother followed him there from paradise.

now, you could create a scenario where there was some scientific, "Mundane" reason for all of this, but if you read this summary so far, the first thought in your mind is probably that what broke this planet into 3 pieces was probably related to something Mata Nui and Makuta, the two known gods of this universe, did. Maybe it is the reason why Makuta no longer has a body, and ended up on this moon in a much weakened form as basically a spirit who can only inhabit souless machine parts.

and im going to take a wild guess that this is probably what was originally planned... but you see, there was a shift at some point. actually on two points.

The first shift was at the very start of Bionicle as we know it, for the series was actually meant to only last 1 year. The toa would defeat makuta, then awaken Mata Nui, and that was that. The end.

However, Lego, who was at the verge of bankruptcy at the time, saw potential in the setting, and given it was a hail mary to save their company said "Screw it, lets expand on this universe!

and so the original one year story became 3 years.

now this artifical extension could have been disasterous, but unlike so many other similar tales, it was the exact opposite.

Mata nui the island got more fleshed out, the big mystery got more build up, the characters got to go through more development, both in the form of a kickass new upgrade, but also character arcs as a result of their power increase going to their head.

new villains, new places to go, new developments.

all leading up to the point where it was now decided that they would end the story. The arrival of the seventh toa of light, which would be where makuta was finally defeated, and at the end of the planned movie that would be the finale, mata nui would finally awaken.

Except this part didnt happen.

at the last moment, Lego essentially pulled the plug and decided to extend the series, and the point where they would reveal the big twist for a second time.

that said, the following storyline of the big flashback to explain metru nui was always going to happen, its just that as originally envisioned, this would be a flashback as the Toa, Turaga and Matoren traveled to Metru nui, as Mata Nui was flying through space back to spherus magna.

So essentially the story was over, but lego got to get one more line of bionicle toys out of it, while the bionicle team got to have fun one more time.

But thats not what happened, as not only did mata nui not awaken(it would take 3 more storylines past this point before that happened), but the big flashback was where everything went wrong so to say.

this is where bionicle shifted hard from a story trying to be a myth with very clear religious and spiritual overtones, into full on sci-fi.

and you can tell that shift occured very clearly as they abandoned all their original plans for how metru nui was supposed to look like in the poster above, showing the very alien like enviornment that was mata nui's insides, into the far more boring and safe(as well as full on science fiction) setting in the poster below.

now im not going to say that everything that came after this point was bad, far from it, there was a lot of really awesome stuff that happened afterwards, but it was the critical turning point where Bionicle steered away from the essence that made it more than just another toyline, an attempt at creating a myth that while it had sci-fi aspects, was ultimately a story of faith, destiny, and trying to find ones place in the universe, into just another sci-fi story.

Basically you can sum it up as the point where mata nui went from a god who was also a giant robot, into just a giant robot.

and man, does it make the lore, and tone a mess.

while the new universe does make logical sense, it lacks the soul(pun very much intended) of what made bionicle, bionicle.

and you know what the really sad thing is?

The final part of the story, where Mata Nui is FINALLY awakened, only to lose his own body, and find himself trapped in his mask as its launched into space before crashing back on the shattered planet that he came from, could so easily have fit into this mythical storytelling.

what actually happens is that mata nui learns he was actually just a giant robot created by some scientis in a lab 100 000 years ago to travel the cosmos, learn about the universe, then come back and fix the broken planet. then he repairs his own, unstable, proto type body that wasnt really working out, makuta senses him and follows him, they duke it out, mata nui kills him, then uses the last of his energy to fix the planet, before dying. oh, also rather than being his actual brother, makuta was actually just a computer program mata nui created. and Makuta isnt even his real name. his actual name is Teridax. im not kidding. oh and the actual thing that destroyed the world? it was a fight amongst some tribesmen using the resident dues ex machina substance that began oozing from the planet's core. again, im not kidding.

here is how you could easily fix it, while keeping in the same tone with what was suggested in the first three years about makuta and mata nui's origins.

The exiled and humbled divine being, cast from heaven, and forced to wander the world he himself played a role in wrecking so long ago, as he travels across the world, and befriends the people he essentially left behind to create the matoran in a better place, rather than fix the mess he, ironically enough given his defining attribute, created.

basically a bionicle take on the atonement/labors of hercules.

and then, having wracked his brain on how to solve the problem of his brother having taken control over his own body, he stumbles upon the solution.

his brother's own, broken, non-active body, which after their ancienct, and catacylsmic clash his brother left behind to follow him to the ocean moon.

and so his journey becomes to essentially take a page out of his brothers book, and do what he did to him in reverse. Repair the mighty body of a god, and then take contrel over it.

after the great journey of hardship and pain, now comes the ressurection before ragnarok, the final battle.

see how easy it is to rewrite this story about what is essentially two computer programs fighting over different continent sized bodies into a story about gods fighting a thematic and climactic showdown on the ruins of a planet they themselves wrecked to pieces to begin with?

but of course the story has to end, and it ends on a note tying into the original message. you cannot create, withouth destruction coming first, and so to win this conflict, mata nui has to destroy something. himself.

His own body.

Like any good jesus analogue, he gives his own life in a sense, as he chooses to give up on the possibility of regaining his own body and with it, regaining his true power and goodhood for the sake of the future of his people and this planet, driving his own skull into the oncoming moon that served as his home for all these years.

and with his final bit of power as his brother's dying body begins to give up on life, he spends the last moments of godhood to do what he, the god of creation should have done from the start. fix the mess he and makuta left behind.

putting the massive planet back together into one whole, while also terraforming it into the green wonder it used to be.

then, we end the story as we began. with a prophecy, where Mata Nui predicts before his toa, as his spirit returns to slumber once again that he will return, but for now, they must make their way forward withouth him, in this new world, that they now must make their own destiny here on the Paradise he promised them so long ago.

I dont know about you, but i think that would have been a lot more interesting that desperately trying to rewrite the entire setting to be full sci-fi because you didnt want to continue with the spiritual and religious themes that you never managed to shake off anyway.

mind you, it's not impossible to have this kind of twist and make a good story about it, but when you commit to telling what is essentially a religious tale that is basically the coming of christ, Ragnarok, the exodus, and the eternal kingdom on earth into one, you are not going to be able to swerve into making it full on sci-fi withouth it feeling, really, really jarring.

And guess what? it makes Bionicle Lore feel really, really jarring. Or iffy as you put it.

[numbur1goobah]

Optimus Prime in my AU [TFWF] Transformers War Forged

I am so sick and tired of him coming back to life.. in this universe he dies by Hook.. and doesn't come back.... FOR GOOD.. he is dead..

STORY BEHIND MY AU:

Transformers warforged is an AU created with my friends the main villain is a character named Hook. They work for Unicron and are way worse than Megatron will ever be.. the character Hook belongs to my friend, and they speak Spanish. They also work with biochemical, and use diseases against.. I have my own homemade faction in this, called a Calamaton (a bit that is in the faction is a mix between good and evil and are unpredictable, just depends on the bot.. Now there are a lot of rogue Calamatons, but there is one group of Calamatons that stick out like a sore thumb unlike the rest, Heapcreak, Springlock and Wither are all Calamatons.. Heapcreak is the leader he is tough and doesn't back down easily, Springlock loves bombs and explosives, kind of just think of a male robot version of Harley Quinn.. and Wither is a cannibal.. So basically in a nutshell they are freaks.. but they are trusted by the Autobots. They are eventually infected with the Cybonic Plague, and only Megatron can cure it.. In this universe Megatron is good.. and because he abandoned the Decepticon cause Starscream took lead.. Megatron actually witnessed Optimus Prime's death.. and afterHook Left the murder scene, Optimus was hanging on by a thread.. Megatron ran over crying. Trying to understand what happened, and who that was.. but Optimus was barely hanging on in his few moments. He said a few personal things to Megatron, telling him he loved him (yes it is Megatron x Optimus) Optimus weakly opened his chest hatch and carefully gave him the matrix of leadership.. and told him "Take care of this for me.." as he slowly died in Megatron's arms.. Megatron went back to the Autobot base that day.. he told the Autobots that he found them dying.. and he had no idea who had killed him.. He had never seen that bot in his life.. Bumblebee was devastated because in this universe he is Optimus Prime's son.. He became very sad but Megatron and Ultra Magnus tried their best to take care of him.. (After Optimus died he started feeling some feelings for Ultra Magnus after awhile) Everyone on the Autobot team was devastated.. but they all knew that Optimus chose Megatron for a reason so they couldn't argue with that..

Hook actually has a team of his own, although he is more of a lone wolf, There are other bots that work for Unicron.. later there is a bot named Valkai also known as son of Primus, summoned by Primus himself to specifically help rid of Hook..

(If you want more details please tell me I'm getting a little tired of typing this lol..)

[suffarustuffaru]

actually here’s an interesting question that’s been in my head for a hot minute now: what do you think a crusch if/other faction if would look like?

one of my favorite characters has always been crusch (probably my favorite aside from julius?), and interestingly it was the moment after the battle of the white whale that sold her for me- her convo with subaru was so genuine and full of respect and it since then has stood out amongst my favorites since it’s one of the first times subaru outside of the emilia camp was recognized for his decisions ^_^

it also piqued my interest because there’s definitely implications/said somewhere that if subaru met crusch first he’d choose her, which makes me think about how that dynamic would play out, ya know? like we haven’t really gotten a huge expansion on crusch herself as we have with anastasia/pricilla and soon felt

also a crusch: if would toootally have different relationships defining wilhelm & felix too and basically everyone else lol

love ur analyses keep up da good work fam!!!!!!!

YO its cool seeing a crusch fan around :DD !! also thank you very much for liking my analysis posts pfft. also whew….. ive been writing my answer for this ask on and off for a while hah its super long oops wkdndnsn

but ok its super interesting to hear what drew you to crusch in the first place - crusch is a character im definitely interested in (i would LOVE to see her finally expanded upon!!) and shes such a respectable person for sure <3 and you definitely have a point that its one of the first time subaru outside of the emilia camp was recognized!! though i didnt know that there were implications that if subaru met crusch first he'd choose her - i suppose that makes sense in that subaru really respects and likes crusch, and hes such a moldable character - for lack of a better term - bc its sooo easy for him to go in all sorts of different directions. a crusch if is an interesting possibility and im sure it absolutely wouldve happened in some form in some other universe :O !!

alright. as for a crusch if - yeah youre right, thered be such a different dynamic between subaru, the crusch camp, and everyone around them. :o im not Entirely sure how a crusch if would go but i certainly have ideas!!! though im not sure if im entirely an expert on them given i still havent finished the wilhelm-centric ex novels or read many crusch camp stories, but i did read ex 1 and 4 and enjoyed them quite a lot <3 along with you know, the main route. but i do really like the crusch camp and i hope theyre expanded upon eventually.

gonna put More thoughts under the cut (note that i have a Lot of opinions on the crusch camp hah):

ok first of all. i think that the crusch camp Does have a little wasted potential in canon and i think that crusch if is the perfect opportunity to explore Everything with crusch camp. just in the sense that you know, crusch hasnt been expanded upon just yet. not that felt has been expanded upon much either but at least we get a lot of details about her and her whole backstory with being a member of the royal family + her relationship with rom opens itself up to a lot of possibilities (theres a lot of History going around in the felt camp regarding felt, reinhard, carol and grimm, rom, etc being in the same camp given their family connections, demihuman war history, etc).

and not that we Dont get details about crusch of course, but i feel that even in her Own centric content, shes a little overshadowed by Everyone else sometimes. like i WANT to focus more on crusch as a person!! she gets cool moments yeah, but as much as i enjoyed reading ex1 im forever gonna be salty that her plot in ex1 was like about people having problems with her gender expression (ill go into this again later bc i know its connected to that plot point of crusch as a noble leader vs crusch as. a woman.) for more than half the runtime and everyone around her was discussing about what to do with her. and then in main route shes put through the RINGER between being cut down by gluttony, having her memories erased, and the dragon blood in arc 5 - and yet it STILL feels like the story doesnt focus enough on HER own pain. how is SHE feeling about this????? shes getting her shit rocked left and right and her sense of identity is being shaken along with it (see: her becoming more shy and withdrawn after her memories are gone) and yet i feel like we STILL dont hear about her Directly enough T^T

and also i Dont like that in the main route, the crusch camps connections to the royal family (with wilhelm being assigned to aid the royal family and bc of that heinkel was assigned to the white whale and so theresia went in heinkels stead + ferris and crusch's relationships with fourier) ARENT that explored. esp when like felt comes into play publically in arc 3 and the crusch camp BARELY REACTS. YOU THINK THEY WOULD REACT MORE TO FELT BEING HERE AND REINHARD SPONSORING FELT. its especially kind of painful after you read ex1 and its like ?? so why didnt they react more to felt being there??? related to + looking exactly like crusch and ferris's dead boyfriend, nonetheless, esp when their goal is to kill the dragon bc the royal family all died as far as they knew and NOW theres someone in the royal family that actually lived???? whos a rival for the throne now??? also i feel like the potential of like. ferris and wilhelms dynamic isnt explored either. like i have to wonder how they seem like theyre on decent/good terms in canon when ferris is friends with reinhard, wilhelms role in the demihuman war, and also wilhelm fucking up his family (with ferris being Aware of a lot of reinhards family situation, of course). and also of course wilhelm has Things going on with rom and carol and grimm bc demihuman war... ex novel things...

so like i think that inherently the crusch and felt camps ARE kind of sort of intertwined in this way bc of ALL these reasons. so i think if youre exploring crusch camp content all of this SHOULD be acknowledged. or maybe thats the felt camp fan in me talking but i DO GENUINELY THINK THE CRUSCH AND FELT CAMPS ARE CONNECTED A LOT ☝️☝️☝️

and so ok back to crusch if things!!!! i have no idea how the Exact plot goes but like i think this is all very dependent on how the crusch if divergence even starts. which Makes sense but yeah :o i mean i feel like i can only see it happening right from the get go in arc 1. and also this goes with what you said - if subaru met them first he'd probs choose to join them. but tbh i also kinda sort of like the possibility that maybe at least Some of arc 1 still happened in another font so subaru can be like "yeah lol this blond girl with red eyes was there along with this giant dude and t -" and crusch and ferris are thinking "OK IT COULD BE ANY RANDOM GIRL WITH BLOND HAIR AND RED EYES THATS NOT A COMPLETE GUARANTEE ITS SOMEONE FROM THE ROYAL FAMILY RIGHT??" and also wilhelms gonna vaguely go "hey whats this giants name again....." anyway yeah gotta plant those seeds for future plot things???? yes. also its a good segue into subaru learning more crusch camp related history yes. maybe that (subarus arc 1 info) is what allows him to join crusch camp too????? yeah im having trouble brainstorming ideas on how he even joins the camp but im guessing its a “subaru accidentally stumbles across stuff and crusch camp is like well i guess we just Kinda have to let you in……. like taking pity on a stray kitten…… maybe youll be useful… and also we do pity you a bit yeah you seem very lost” thing. 👍👍👍

(or alternatively you could have subaru branch off into crusch camp at arc 3 or smth given hes like actually physically at their place and away from emilia camp now but at the same time i doubt that could even happen given the position he was in arc 3???? like post-royal selection drama?? yeah i dont really see it happening imo HAH)

anyway. yeah so its like. inevitably subaru is gonna figure out you know the history behind all of the others in the crusch camp. like whether thats by doing his own research - especially bc you know wilhelm, crusch, ferris are all very well known by this point and have all kinds of rumors and info on them flying around - and also like. by getting closer with everyone. i think that if subaru joined crusch camp early, either he knows hes got rbd bc of arc 1 and manages to avoid it for a while, is my guess, given crusch camp doesnt get involved in life threatening things until. the white whale.

but until then i think subarus probably not gonna die. and i think hes probs gonna be in Fear of that happening again, maybe he blocks out a bit of arc 1 some more bc ahhaah i havent died or anything in so long so surely that never happened. maybe he tries to tell crusch once he gets closer with her or maybe he doesnt try at all bc hahaha did that even happen???? or maybe he asks her about her dp and if its Only about truths from that persons pov rather than Fact and shes like "yeah no its personal truths only, so even if someone is completely wrong about a fact but Believes it wholeheartedly its still gonna register as the truth" and hes like FUCK ok. smth like that?? yes. gotta give him inner turmoil even when hes not actively in danger. bc he Would have that yes. but either way i think he’d be curious and wanna know the specifics of her dp anyway!!!

yeah so anyway the white whale happens and subarus whole shit gets wrecked oops.... and my guess is that you know hes gonna loop a whole shit ton of times and its gonna be complete and utter hell for him. but also this is kind of a little bit dependent on how exactly the royal selection goes for him - but i HIGHLY doubt itd go the same as canon. i doubt he’d even make a scene, tbh—i mean assuming subaru joins crusch camp very early somehow, between crusch and ferris and wilhelm the three of them are gonna Really whip him into shape. metaphorically beat his s1 flaws out of him. bc like—i mean in canon subaru Did learn and grow yes, but he didnt Have to learn everything so harshly (ok but canon subaru Did have to get beat in the duel though or he wouldve died skcbsnd but i still think that subaru can still learn the same lessons more Gently whenever possible. hes a normal teenage boy trying his best!!). i think crusch camp would be good for him in this way, i mean crusch is a very duty-focused person and ferris and wilhelm are blunt people. ferris especially is not gonna take any bullshit wkdndnd (ESPECIALLY when subaru could humiliate crusch and the entire camp) and wilhelm sees himself in subaru and is gonna go “ah…….. you should. not act like that. let me train you.” and ALSO im a firm believer and enjoyer in the reinhard-ferris-julius friendship and i think that reinhard ESPECIALLY must have communicated with crusch camp about felt before arc 3, otherwise crusch camp wouldve had a stronger reaction to felts grand entrance into the royal selection. also if subarus getting closer to crusch camp then of course he figures out stuff like the reinhard-ferris-julius friendship.

again not entirely sure about specific plot beats but depending on how things go emilia camp may or may not get royally fucked (as an emilia camp enjoyer im very saddened by this 😔) but i DO feel like subaru would still be sympathetic towards them in a crusch if. and also theres Definitely gonna be at least one loop during arc 3 where the white whale Does erase crusch and wilhelm and ferris goes insane (like how they end up in pride if. yeah.) so subaru gets to see the consequences if they lose to the white whale. but i DO think that the final loop should still have the consequences of crusch being targeted by gluttony and losing her memories. its interesting to explore!!! especially if subaru himself still becomes a victim of gluttony in some way—maybe they both become victims of gluttony there?? or it happens to subaru later?? and i feel like arc 5 is Definitely another opportunity for some crazy looping. for sure.

also roswaal may want to try some shit bc Why is subaru in another camp this is not according to plan. so more opportunities to torture subaru 👍👍👍 and also crusch camp in canon keeps taking one L after another so you know. familiar territory in terms of how subaru and co are doing 😭😭😭😭

but anyway. i think a crusch camp and felt camp alliance (or Almost alliance?) is in order bc. well we know subaru he tries to fix things. hes nosy. he learns eventually All the crusch camp history and is like ok so why arent we allies with felt camp at least for rn??? like urging wilhelm to make it up with reinhard and such, etc etc. and crusch and felt are the candidates that are both Very deeply unsatisfied with the current system of lugunica and want to remake everything to be better!! and also like. how does ferris even feel about wilhelm. i lowkey want crusch if to have a plot beat where ferris-crusch-subaru metaphorically beat up wilhelm for being Terrible. actually scratch lowkey i want highkey. and i think crusch is just like yeah sorry i do respect you in a lot of ways wilhelm and youre a very key member in our camp and i appreciate it but also fighting against demihumans in the demihuman war + being awful to your family was definitely. 😬 ESPECIALLY since she grew up with ferris too okay. she and her dad literally took in ferris after being stuck in a basement for the first nine years of his life. and while ferris and reinhards family situations are Very Different, the common thread is generational trauma and Passed Down abilities/traits that also relate to the trauma so. i feel like ferris at Least has some secret strong feelings about wilhelm ok i dont care what tappei has to say on this (actually i do care but i will care less if tappei has a bad take on this bc ferris and reinhard are FRIENDS + WILHELM WAS WRONG FOR THE DEMIHUMAN WAR ok ferris was horribly abused also bc of fantasy racism).

and alright ok im gonna talk about some more crusch-ferris-subaru dynamics bc subaru and wilhelm are most likely gonna fall into their weird grandson-grandfather dynamic again. especially now that subarus in crusch camp.

so—gender expression. the way crusch-ferris-subaru dress and their relationships with this part of their identities. personally i hc all three of them as nonbinary but of course u can have different hcs/opinions than me :o either way though, gender expression is Very important to all three of them and its given focus in the plot multiple times so im gonna try to examine how its handled in canon a bit!! theres this one bit from the arc 5 wn that i think about a lot:

so you know, subaru has his internalized issues, toxic masculinity for one, so hes struggling with like. being a man but also like he genuinely enjoys crossdressing but also hes been judged for it in the past and he has?? complicated feelings on it. hes struggling with his identity and who he is in many many different ways and gender is one key aspect of it. and then he comes along and crusch and ferris BASICALLY challenge him and his internalized ideas on it—crusch being a woman who dresses more masculine and ferris being a man who dresses more feminine. they challenge even the fantasy world’s society too—crusch more so, bc shes a woman and in the public eye due to her family and shes expected to dress and behave the way a noblewoman should. more feminine. but she refuses which is a point of contention in ex1 of course…

ferris seems to get less scrutiny from the public on this (at least for This exact reason, we only see subaru iirc judge him for it on screen) but my guess is bc he 1. can easily pass as a girl and 2. he has other more Noticeable traits to the public (having the Blue title and being demihuman for example). but also theres another aspect to ferris and its that he also dresses femininely to represent “the feminine side crusch lacks” iirc…. which. to be quite frank thats. that feels a little odd to me but anyway im gonna choose to look into it a bit regardless bc i think it could potentially be interesting maybe?? but also the fourier-crusch duel in ex1 already felt off to me wkfndnd it was such a fun scene but like??? why are we policing what crusch wants to wear??? but. anyway.

so about ferris being “the feminine side crusch lacks”……. ferris and crusch's gender expression are completely opposite, ferris being feminine of course and crusch being masculine. ferris and crusch are very much like each others equal halves in canon - you dont find one without the other, theyre basically a pair (especially given they fit together into this perfect trio with fourier and now fouriers gone :(( ). ferris and crusch balance each other out in a lot of ways, especially given ferris's mischevious yet perceptive personality and crusch being more serious but a bit airheaded with emotional matters. and also both of them being more blunt honest people. so like their gender expression balances each other out bc theyre opposites. ferris wants to keep balancing out crusch, whos so focused on duty that her needs and her desires and emotions sometimes go by the wayside (id personally attribute at least a tiny bit of her airheadedness with emotions to this too - when you have so much responsibilities to attend to, your emotions often take a backseat. especially when you take into account people judging crusch for how she expresses herself....).

but also ferris does note that "because crusch-sama said this suits ferris, what i am, i am, and this most suits the radiance of ferris' soul. crusch-samas words, ferris will repay with everything that i am". im gonna interpret this as crusch recognizing that ferris truly likes to express his appearance in a feminine way and providing ferris with the means and support to do so, especially since crusch herself growing up also prefers to express herself as opposite to her biological sex and also bc crusch and her family took in ferris so they grew up together. which i think is very sweet <3

and also more regarding crusch, in canon she expresses herself more femininely after getting her memories wiped by gluttony........... i think there might (emphasis on Might) be vaguely a kind of "feminine=weak and masculine=strong thats why crusch goes back to being feminine after memories gone" undertone if you choose to see it that way but im Electing to ignore it. i think crusch's change in expression post-gluttony though like emphasizes how her identity gets shaken after her memories are erased. she was a confident person before and now shes more timid and withdrawn bc she isnt sure of herself or her abilities anymore :(( which is definitely smth that should be explored in Any crusch camp centric content, i think.

anyway. yeah also i def think the ferris-crusch-subaru gender things should be explored. its already briefly touched on in canon with stuff like that arc 5 wn snippet i shared, but i do think subaru being friends with ferris and crusch will help him with confidence regarding how he likes to express himself as well. which i think would be very sweet to explore <3 (sorry this briefly derailed into a ferris-crusch-subaru gender expression analysis but this part of their characters is important i feel aljdlfjsldfj and its SUCH good parallel between them)

as for general dynamics stuff between the three of them. i think ferris is on the fence about subaru at first and goes from "hes an idiot..." to "hes an idiot <3" i have no specific thoughts on this at the moment thats just the vibe thats probably happening. maybe a bit of the same with crusch but yes im sure crusch and ferris of course grow to respect subaru, and im sure they notice pretty quick that subaru wears his emotions on his sleeve. hes an honest person in almost all things, or at least he tries to be, unless hes being held at gunpoint to keep things secret bc rbd lajdlfjl. and we Know subaru is a very respectable person whos Really good at heart, he just had all these hurdles to get through. and also - subaru is a tiny bit similar to fourier in terms of like Loud, Passionate, Determined, kind of an idiot in a few ways but a Lovable one, that sort of thing. of course ferris and crusch are VERY MUCH not going to be replacing fourier. absolutely not they would never in a million years. but fourier like Really fit in with ferris and crusch bc of the three of them having different personality traits, so i think subaru would fit well with ferris and crusch for similar reasons. if that makes sense. the energies just match up. ferris and subaru particularly bring a lot of fun and lightheartedness and ease weight on crusch’s shoulders, crusch supports them both, and all three of them reel each other in in different ways <3

ok also regarding any romance............ personally i dont see the appeal of crusch x subaru but thats just me lajsdlfjls and also my heart got stolen by fourier x ferris x crusch oops. plus i do enjoy the ferris and subaru + subaru and crusch friendship possibilities. but if anyones reading this and is a fan of crusch x subaru feel free to send me propaganda for it bc im very curious as to what makes you really like the ship <3

yeah so anyway. this has been my extremely long explanation as to how crusch if could maybe go and also all sorts of stuff id love to see explored when it comes to crusch if or crusch camp centered content in general <3 its hard to tell how a crusch if would go further down the line bc you know, the more that changes from main route the more things go Different, but i think its fascinating to think about. hope this kind of answered your question op? :O :D !!

ok but as for other camps. i have absolutely no clue how itd go but ana camp would Definitely have to involve subaru trying to invent things that carry on from earth and such and felt camp Absolutely involves more trying to solve more astrea drama. no specific thoughts on this yet (ALSO I STILL HAVENT CAUGHT UP ON ANA CAMP SIDE STORIES... ONE DAY. I SWEAR.) but you know, lots of interesting possibilities here!! :O

[vacantgodling]

The sexuality/gender/otp headcanon ask game stuff for any oc of your choice? Bonus points if it's someone you haven't talked about in a while

thank you!!

i haven't talked about noh outside of the very very basics of his story and what's going on so let's talk about my favorite boyo.

here is he (cuz i found this picrew and i thought it was cute) -- the only thing that's off about it is that noh usually wears a mask over his face; he's completely mute and only uses sign language so in a way he views his mouth as "useless" so he doesn't like it being seen lol.

Sexuality: gay gay homosexual gay

Gender: noh is trans masc!

A ship I have with said character: so the main ship that i have with him is a space pirate named emerion jackson. technically speaking the two of them have known of each other since before noh had amnesia; noh and his team were actively trying to bring emerion in and though they never met in person the two of them were definitely :eye emojis: at each other because it was "oh, finally a challenge" type scenario. but then when noh disappeared off the face of the earth and started being plastered everywhere as a criminal, emerion got a little.... worried about him. it seems crazy and its not something that he would talk about to any of his crew because they would heckle him for it, but the fact that someone as formidable and determined as the mysterious (bc they'd never met face to face) noh bell; and how he's suddenly a criminal by the govt??? something is up.

the two of them end up meeting in person at a bar at the edge of a particular star system after noh is dropped off by the cargo crew that found him adrift in space. emerion recognizes noh immediately but doesn't say anything until someone else recognizes noh and a bar fight ensues bc they want to bring noh in for the money. emerion and his men jump in and end up helping him out and then he drags noh onto his ship.

at first, emerion isn't sure what to make of actually seeing noh face to face. coupled with the fact that noh doesn't remember that he was originally hunting him and his crew down its odd. but then he learns about the amnesia etc etc and emerion kind of feels guilt for not telling him everything up front. but part of him also likes the fact that noh doesn't remember anything and they end up beginning to form an actual bond and attachment to one another, which gets a BIT complicated as noh starts to learn his identity.

idk now that i'm writing all of this out fully i'm so in the mood to talk more about them; emerion is such a jackass and has a stick up it but at the same time he really cares about noh and hes SO INTIMATELY aware of HOW FUCKED he is lmaooo its kind of hilarious.

A BROTP I have with said character: noh has a really good circle of friends because they all grew up training together in the JACK and JILL program. the closest friend he has is amelia (who was his JACK so they know each other like the back of their own hands) but i think the cutest brotp/friendship he has is with neso.

neso is a very special JACK/JILL unit because she's a system with just one other alter and so she doesn't have a separate physical "body" that serves as her partner; its technically just within herself. the two of them are fully aware of each other and can switch back and forth though its not fully at will. she is the host and neon is her alter (and is essentially her older brother). neso can call neon to the front and he will show up occasionally but its not often because he doesn't really like people lol (though he is okay with the rest of their friend group). usually he shows up in dangerous situations because he's the JILL of their unit and in this universe they were able to engineer technology to change neso's eye color back and forth when she and neon switch fronting.

neso and noh are really alike and she can be somewhat childlike and cling to him. they use sign language with each other the most--especially in episodes where she's having a ptsd flashback or episode, he can help talk her down and taught her signs since she was young. they also tend to be the most quiet of their friend group and prefer to just vibe while the others (amelia, iodine, and ethan) are more personable and loud lol.

A NOTP I have with said character: this isn't a notp so much as like, its not canon anymore BUT it did used to be canon back in the day when i felt like i had to overcompensate with heterosexuality in all of my wips (i've had noh as an oc and this story for at least a decade so yknow). but before, noh and amelia were actually supposed to be the endgame couple, but at the end of the day i think they just work better together as best friends/found family. they know each other so well; to the point that its less like being with someone you're attracted to and more like being with the other half of their own brain so like... how am i gonna be attracted to myself energy. plus, amelia ends up with an engineer named claude and they're so sweet together i want to throw up <3

A random headcanon: noh is heavily inspired by my personal interpretation of link which is where his muteness stemmed from :)

General Opinion over said character: i love noh A LOT and i need to get over my fear of writing scifi because i've been wanting to tell his story for years. i project onto him a lil bit sure but he's such a fun character and i wanna figure out more about his storyline so i can be driven insane by it

since ive been talking about it so much, perhaps i might lol.

feel free to send me a character (mine or overwatch) and i'll do this for them :D

[yinyuedijun]

hi mao! ok so… i’m afraid i’m still too horny and in love with this fic. what if i just say that i don’t know what else i can say about your writing — speechless because i’m in awe. (in ave—)

i honestly have never read omegaverse fic before, knowing only the basics, mostly from memes lol so it was really interesting to get in detail into your take on their biology and how nicely you entwined it with existing hsr lore. morphing known issues to match the omegaverse world. i especially liked when you mentioned cutting the other scent gland from the necks, because wow, it’s so barbaric, but makes so much sense to describe it. i’m a big fan of how you organise the story around the main characters — like i’m reading news or just following canon events, because everything just fits so well that i’m not even questioning if you came up with all these names by yourself or if they were mentioned somewhere in the game. there are just things that must happen (arriving at the desert planet) no matter what, and we’re following the narrative, but oh! suddenly something unexpected happens (the heat) and what now?!

i’m also surprised because this fic wasn’t deranged at all? or i’m just clueless lol sure, the setting wasn’t cotton candy sweet at all, but the story itself was rather soft and slow, and loving. i love love love the reader there — they’re so respectful and understanding, and how they view aventurine is so special. they seem so pure despite all the awful things they have gone through. i just can’t wait to read how their relationship develops.

i feel like aventurine is slightly different here. but i enjoy it! i guess it’s because in this fic he’s forced into a vulnerability he cannot control — something that probably didn’t happen to his canon version. so he’s more… pathetic? it adds the edge because the risk seems even greater, and i completely understand the reader to worry about his luck and confidence when his heats are still the biggest threat. their dynamic is so interesting. that aventurine, despite being an omega, has the reader wrapped around his finger because they’re so down bad for him. their instinct turned into love :(

and i was supposed to say nothing yet i yapped. i thought i wouldn’t have the attention span or the strength to read through this entire fic in one sitting, but i got so invested!!! like i was watching a tv show, not reading!!! thank you for the amazing fic, mao 🙇

manu beloved I had a feeling that anon was u !!!! 🫶 thank you for reading this despite not having ever read an omegaverse fic before (???!? U REALLY TOOK A LEAP OF FAITH FOR ME LOLL this is not standard omegaverse whatsoever 😭😭😭). I'm so glad you enjoyed it and feel so strongly abt my writing!!! and I'm especially happy that you felt that I did a good job w integrating the omegaverse into the hsr universe... I do have an affection for world-building so I'm glad to hear that I did a good job with it here :')

I had to laugh when you said that it was surprising that the fic wasn't deranged at all 💀💀💀 I see I have a reputation built up for myself /j tho I do regret to inform you that it will probably get worse in ch2... perhaps not deranged but definitely some very sad backstory details coming up lol...

on a more serious note, I'm glad that the fic was tonally soft and slow and loving!! because yes there is extreme tragedy going on in terms of the actual events, but soft and slow and loving is more or less how the mc feels abt aventurine 🥺 so I'm glad that came thru in the narration!!!

and YESSS its funny that you mention aventurine feeling different because he's an omega 😭 I thought omegaverse was a good genre for him because it forces him to vulnerable in a way that he never would be in canon, but LOL it did make him feel. extremely ooc to me at some points. like where's my cunty emotionally repressed man, who is this soggy pathetic bastard who is too wretched to do anything but suffer alone in bed. it was rlly making me hate the fic for a while 💔 so I'm glad it's something that you actually liked about the story!!!

thank you SO SO MUCH again for reading my fic manu and sending me such kind words ♥️♥️♥️ I am sending u so much love !!!!! BIG KISS FOR U

[fateinthestars]

Hello! Gathered the courage to put in a prompt for fic - completely up to you if you'll take it :D Yesterday I had dream (sign I should take a break lol) about SCM: I woke up in Hue's room. Everything looked like I was transported from real world to anime/genshin like graphic world. I instantly recognized my surroundings and launched myself from the bed to the pool ont he floor. I needed to check out how I looked and sure enough, my features changed like under anime filter. So the prompt: Isekai'd reader, who played the game before and basically both Clotho and game MC are her avatars, extension of herself in the game world. How would Hue take this revelation that MC is gone, replaced by the puppeter, who is essentially the blend of the two women he loved and at the same time not quite so? Because whilist the reader's feelings towards Hue were and are real, the reader couldn't excatly regulate the actions and speech of the in game avatars (Clotho and MC) and therefore reader's personality is bit different. Really... I just wish to see his reaction to bookworm and quite sarcastic reader 😂

I think I've finally got something for this. Hopefully it's what you had in mind and you'll enjoy. 😅 To anyone else considering reading this: Yes, this fic is very meta. Hopefully it works though! (I'm torn over whether to put this one on AO3 😂 )

Title: Sarcastic Smiles

Fandom: Star-Crossed Myth

Pairing: Huedhaut/Reader (isekai'd into MC's body from our universe)

Main Characters: Huedhaut, Reader

Minor Characters: Ichthys, Teorus, Karno, Scorpio, Leon, Zyglavis

Rating: T

Genre: Isekai, um I dunno how else to tag this... rediscovering relationship?

Word Count: 2,961

Summary: You wake up one morning to find you are in a bedroom you thought only existed in your favourite otome game, only to find you are now inhibiting the character you have been controlling in said game. How will Huedhaut react to his Main Character no longer being the human he fell in love with, but still with knowledge of their relationship?

A/N : Spoilers for Huedhaut's path.

Sarcastic Smiles

Turning over in the bed with a groan, you blinked a few times as you blearily opened your eyes. This wasn’t your bedroom. It didn’t even look like the real world. Sitting up, you rubbed your eyes a little in an attempt to clear them. Whilst you had been playing your favourite otome game late the night before, this seemed far too real to just be a dream.

However, it was then that you realised whose bed you were in and you quickly stumbled to your feet, almost tripping over as you knelt down beside the pool in the middle of Huedhaut’s room. Looking into the water you froze. Swallowing hard, you tried to calm down as you reached up and brushed your hair back a little… or should that be the hair of the character you usually played in the game? Looking closer, you shook your head slightly. No, that wasn’t quite right - the features were shifting ever so slightly. This wasn’t just the main character of Star Crossed Myth’s features, it was also those of Clotho’s.

Well, you supposed that made a little sense considering which God’s bedroom you had woken up in. Wait… nothing about this makes any sense! You quickly snapped out of your investigation, instead pinching yourself hard. Nothing changed except now your arm hurt. You’d watched plenty of isekai anime so this phenomenon wasn’t entirely new to you, but if you ever imagined it was actually possible, let alone that it would happen to you of all people, well… “So this really isn’t a dream…”

“I should hope not. I rather hope if you were dreaming of my room, I would actually be here with you. Or do you find my room more interesting than myself?”

Your breath hitched. Even though the game only had a few voice acted stories, you immediately knew who was talking to you. Even if you had not recognised his voice or simply assumed that it was him due to this being his room, his wording laced with his usual sarcasm was more than enough. Speaking of which…

Smirking briefly to yourself, you turned round to face the God of Aquarius, before responding just as sarcastically, “Yes, I thought maybe I was dreaming of your room so I could look at all these books without you interrupting me.”

Huedhaut initially flinched, briefly making you wonder whether you’d pushed that too far, but then he knelt down beside you, looking into your eyes with a thoughtful look. “Trying to beat me at being sarcastic? You’re probably a million years too late for that,” he teased, smirking as he reached a hand out to brush your hair back.

As you were about to retort back to that, determined to get the upper hand on him for once now you could use your own words, you suddenly realised he had stopped short of touching your hair, his deep blue eyes wide with shock. “Hue?” You tried softly. Had the other noticed that you weren’t quite who he was used to?

“... Clotho? But… how…” he muttered, glancing down at the floor, clearly in distress. “Was that why you thought you were dreaming, do you remember what you did…” he muttered to himself.

You grimaced. Clearly it hadn’t just been the water showing you that you could be either of the game’s avatars because you were in Huedhaut’s route - it was because you hadn’t got full control over which you were outwardly showing. Now you had upset the other. You knew from the game that the other didn’t want Clotho back. He was in love with the Main Character and that was in the past. You frowned at that point, realising you didn’t know where exactly in the game’s timeline you had been deposited. However you then looked back at Huedhaut, swallowing hard as you watched a mixture of emotions actually go across his usually poker-faced expression for once. What had already happened didn’t matter right now, what you needed was to say something to reassure Huedhaut. “Hue, I’m not Clotho.”

Huedhaut looked sharply back up at that comment. He frowned as he looked at you once more. “... Well now you look more like yourself, but…” He sighed heavily. “Did Ichthys make you look like your previous self? If he did then he’s gone too far this time…”

It was almost tempting to pretend that that was what had happened, but you also knew that you probably still didn’t have a handle on who exactly you were presenting as to him. “No, it’s a bit more complicated than that…”

“If this is that Godforsaken’s King doing, I might -”

As a flash of anger flickered in the other’s eyes, you quickly leant forward and grabbed his hands in your own. “Hue. This is not related to the others. I…” where did you even start with explaining? “I’m not either of the women you think.”

Huedhaut let go of your hands and got to his feet. He looked at you with a frown. “If this is payback for all the teasing…”

Quickly, you stood up as well. “... This is not even my own world. From my point of view, you are just a character in a video game.”

The other looked at you, initially smirking as he went to retort to that, but then he seemed to realise that you were near tears. Quickly he moved back to your side. He sighed heavily. “You are being serious.”

“I’m sorry. I really don’t know how this happened… but know that I know you… please don’t tell me to leave…”

Huedhaut hesitantly wrapped his arms around you. “That is the last thing that I should do right now. You say that you are aware of this world, but the more people who see you like this, the more questions you will face. I need to find a way to fix this and get you home…”

“And get her back?” You muttered, your voice cracking a little.

“...” Huedhaut looked down.

“I do not think either will be possible… unless this is different to the shows I’ve watched in my world, being isekai’d is a one way process.” 

The other didn’t respond to that, instead starting to look through his books at a rapid pace, reminding you of a certain special story when the main character had briefly ended up with powers.

That, however, gave you an idea. If you were controlling both the Main Character and Clotho then did that mean you could use them? About to raise your hand and try, Huedhaut suddenly looked sharply back at you. You stepped back a little at the gaze he was giving you. 

“Maybe I should call one of the others after all,” he muttered, now regarding you suspiciously.

It was then that you noticed the book still in his hands appeared to be details of the under-realm. Well you could hardly blame him for being suspicious. “I’d never want to hurt you!” You snapped, your breathing a little strained. “Will you please hear me out some more?”

The other nodded and hesitantly sat down with you on the edge of the bed. It was at this point you felt overwhelming relief that it was Huedhaut’s main character you had changed into, with some of the others you’d either be in immediate severe trouble with or you’d never be able to explain this. 

“So… according to you I am a character in a game?”

“Uh huh,” you responded, before taking a deep breath. You then motioned to the body you were now inhibiting with your hands. “And I… I mean she… um… I mean the human you are in love with was controlled by me.”

Huedhaut glanced away for a moment, seemingly still trying to take this all in. “If you were controlling her as you believe in your world would you not be able to form her responses better than this? Perhaps I would never have noticed…”

You shook your head, impulsively grabbing his hands. “But you already did notice, Hue,” you reminded him. “Because parts of the game exist where the human was Clotho, I’m not appearing as just one of the two to you. Besides…”

“Besides?” Huedhaut asked, finally looking back up at you.

“In the game the input was limited to one of three replies.” This time you averted your own gaze. “There… there is so much I would like to say to you.”

A stifling silence fell over the room after that. Just when you were starting to worry that perhaps you had pushed your explanation too far, you felt strong arms wrapping tightly around you accompanied by a loud sigh from your companion.

“You are always causing me so much trouble,” he muttered.

“Hue?”

He looked thoughtfully at you. “Do you remember everything about our time together?”

“I… that rather depends whether it was covered in the game or not,” you muttered awkwardly. “I haven’t actually pinpointed where exactly in the timeline we are right now.”

Huedhaut managed a tired and rather exasperated smile. “I suggest you look at your hand.”

Doing so, your breath hitched as you saw the ring from the fountain of love. “Oh. We’re already married…” you pulled a face.

“Is that a problem?”

“N-no,” you quickly reassured him. “At least, not from my end. It’s just… if we were before that…” you trailed off. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, Hue, this must be hard for you…”

The other actually seemed calmer now then when you had first started to explain. “Hard for me? From the sound of things you thought that this was a fictional world. That sounds far more alarming.”

“But… what now?”

Huedhaut frowned. “Now that is a good question. I feel like we need to try to get to know one another again before that can have a coherent answer. Even if you were the one sometimes inputting her answers, you still are not quite the person I fell in love with. Just asking you to tell me everything you remember right now though I think would be embarrassing and awkward for the both of us…” his expression changed into a smirk. “Unless you want to talk about yourself at length?”

“Hue!” You snapped.

Chuckling briefly, Huedhaut then sighed softly. He got back to his feet. “Before we do anything else I should probably see whether there’s a way to make sure you appear exactly as before to the other Gods. This might be a little over some of their heads. There’s no need to make things more complicated unless we absolutely have to.”

***

Later that day you were in the mansion living room with Huedhaut, the other having stabilised your outward appearance for now. 

“Hey! Still here today, huh?” Ichthys asked happily, as he came into the living room.

“No, I have gone home,” You replied with a smirk.

Ichthys’ eyes widened momentarily, it initially not clicking, but then when he realised what you were doing he snapped out of it and instead frowned at Huedhaut. “Have you been giving her lessons in sarcasm? That was weird…”

“Yes, we have spent all day perfecting this just in case you turned up. That would be a great use of our time,” Huedhaut responded with a smirk of his own. He shared a glance with you.

“...” Ichthys grimaced and ran over to Teorus who had just returned from the Heavens. “Teo! Could we have a straight conversation please?”

Teorus looked over to you both. “Hue, are you winding Ikky up again?”

“When would I ever do that?” Huedhaut asked. 

“... You’re in a good mood,” Karno muttered as he joined the commotion, feeling a little perplexed at the current state of things.

Huedhaut faltered at that point. He glanced down. “... Not quite…” he muttered to himself. 

Reaching over, you squeezed his hand briefly, trying to remind him not to act in a way that the others might find suspicious but also trying to reassure him that things would somehow work out.

“What's all this damn commotion about?! Tch… I see, it's mostly you pain in the ass Wishes Gods here…”

“O ho? Do you have a problem, Scorpion?” Leon added as he headed into the living room just behind the Vice Minister of Punishments. “Judging by who is present, if there's any comotion I suspect that fish is to blame.”

Ichthys stepped back behind Teorus, his eyes wide. “I've not done anything! She and Hue are the ones acting strangely!”

“That's quite enough from all of you,” came a firm voice from the doorway.

Everything became eerily quiet and you tensed a little as you looked towards Zyglavis. 

Huedhaut seemed to recognise that you were on edge now. He shifted closer to you on the sofa so that your shoulders were touching but not in a noticeable way to the others.

The Minister of Punishments glanced at you briefly but did not say a word. Instead he looked over to Leon who was shooting a glare and a scowl in his direction. “Is there a problem?”

“I won't have you telling me what to do, Minister Ponytail,” Leon snapped back. “Instead of telling all of us to be quiet as though you own the place, perhaps you should talk to your Vice Minister and that Prankster Fish!”

You shared a glance with Huedhaut as Zyglavis stormed over to Leon and the other nodded. Standing up you both went to leave the living room before things got any more chaotic.

“Going somewhere a little quieter? Can't say I blame you,” Karno murmured softly so the others didn't hear, having noticed you trying to slip away. He glanced at Huedhaut thoughtfully. “If I was wrong about you being in a good mood earlier… is everything alright? Nothing I should know about?”

“We're fine,” Huedhaut responded firmly before you could do so yourself. 

“Well then, enjoy the rest of your evening. I suppose I best see whether I can placate Leo before we have a real problem on our hands.”

Huedhaut shared a sympathetic glance with the other before inclining his head in way of thanks. He led you away from the room a little, before snapping his fingers.

Appearing in the oddly familiar yet never seen in real life before apartment, you glanced around and took a deep breath before looking back at the other. “Why are we here?”

“I think that is more than enough of the other Gods for your first time here in person,” Huedhaut muttered. “We are much less likely to be disturbed here than if we stay anywhere in the mansion. Besides, I think that was enough data to tell that the spell I used is masking your appearance back to how it was for the others.”

You nodded and tried to relax. “Yes, if Zyglavis didn't notice I guess we won't have to worry about questions for a bit.”

Huedhaut pulled your sleeve gently and got you to sit down on the edge of the bed with him. He smiled softly at you. “Zyglavis turning up gave me more information than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You became extremely tense when seeing him. I suspect some of that is because you suspected he would be the most likely to see through the mask, and I believe you are correct in that assumption. However, to know that you would have to be familiar with all of us, and… well…”

“Hue?” You asked softly, taking his hands once more as the other averted his gaze.

He hesitantly looked back up after a few moments. “Forgive me. I fear there was a part of me that was still uncertain whether what you claimed happened to you was entirely factual, of if not that at least concern that your memory might not be there at all or even incorrect…” he sighed softly, forcing a tender smile at you as he held your hands tightly. “However, when you saw Zyglavis I knew in an instant that you knew how he'd tried to destroy you in the past. I know now that even if our memories are not quite the same, we can probably get back on the same page.”

You forced an uneasy smile at him. “Don't apologise, I'm sure today has been a lot, even for you.”

“Yes, it has,” Huedhaut agreed with a taunting smirk, his deep blue eyes glinting from the sunset visible from the balcony window. “So, what are you going to do to make it up to me?”

Taking a deep breath, you hesitated for a moment, worried that you could push things too far. However, remembering his admission that he genuinely believed everything you had said, you wrapped your arms around him before pulling him into a brief kiss.

When you parted, Huedhaut reached a hand up to your face and brushed your hair back. “Well, if that is how a short kiss from you feels, I rather hope you do indeed have knowledge of our relationship, otherwise it may become rather too intense down the line…”

You rolled your eyes at his familiar smirk, and smirked back yourself. “Really? I thought I was restraining myself…”

“!!!” Huedhaut's eyes widened briefly, then he averted his gaze, flushing bright red. “Comments like that are against the rules,” he grumbled, but then looked back up at you with a genuine, caring, smile. “As by your own admission you aren't who I was expecting, I cannot say that I love you, yet, but rediscovering each other and reminiscing over old memories may not be such a bad thing.” Wrapping his arms around you he hugged you tightly to him. “I just hope you can be patient with me.”

“However long it takes, Hue. I'm not going anywhere.”

[askamnesiamoonjumper]

edit: HEY EVERYONE LOOKING AT THIS POST GO READ AAU FIC RIGHT NOW BC IM TIRED OF THIS POST BEING IN MY NOTIFS 24/7💥💥💥💥

Ok sorry about that now back to your regularly scheduled program: A!au toh au when??

Yeah hi I was bored n thinking about this idea and also wanted to do a style study for toh, (ignore that I had to use bases for the bodies I couldn’t draw them😭 my lines where too shaky I’m not the best at tracing stuff so I cheated a tiny bit) I had originally thought of this idea ages ago in a doodle where they all went to hexide and it was more a high school au if anything but now that the show is further along I thought of a more fleshed out idea for this hypothetical au!

Technically this could count as just a regular Ahit toh au BUT I based it off of ideas and hcs in aau so yeah I’m sticking with that

Also the characters aren’t one to one with toh characters it’s more just a “how would these characters and their story translate over to toh universe” thing but most characters can be tied to a toh character as being based on/in the role of if that makes sense like I said it’s a bit of a mixing pot with the characters

Uh yeah info about the basic idea for the characters/story:

The whole story with prince and Vanessa instead of prince getting locked in a cellar to die van curses him instead, but somehow idk how yet he ends up turning the tables and splitting the curse with her. I like the idea that prince is from his respective time period as Ahit and falls through a time pool so we get the same concept of this guy is old and from a long time ago just with skipping over the death ghost part so yeah he gets sent to present Snatcher is basically the eda character he has the curse and takes elixir (which I hc is blue bc haha Ahit reference)

If it’s not obvious from her design Vanessa is the belos of this au lol Probably instead of the emperors coven it’s something like the Queen’s court? I think it’s got a neat ring? Anyway yeah uh not much to say about her she’s basically the same lol, also I like the idea she uses illusions to hide her appearance and also to manipulate mj and the citizens 👀

mj is basically a combo of s2 Lilith and Hunter! He’s a grimwalker made by Vanessa to replace prince basically he’s made to be her perfect fairy tale Prince Charming that loves her and would never ever betray her <oblivious But yeah same idea as Hunter of being made as a clone of someone else BUT they’ve got a more similar role to Lilith in which they end up befriending the main cast and living with them Also included their “golden gaurd” design not sure what to call it? Moon prince? Moon something idk lol you guys might could help with that but yeah that’s the fit they got when with van also we got blood Amy too in which Vanessa gives her curse to mj after finding his palismen (she eats them belos style ofc lol) speaking of I still need to draw the palismen but I have some cool ideas!

Dels idk what to say besides uh she lives with snatcher n we still got the qpr going ofc lol sorry I don’t got much on her 💔 though I DID consider making her a star child to go with the twilight god thing but I also considered making eclipse a star child because the design is similar plus gives an excuse for him to be here without the fusion plus I think Vanessa using eclipse sounds cool it makes sense he’s prince in canon so like ofc she’s drawn to him but yeah still thinking about that

Time twins are our luz stand in, hc timmys jacket is snatchers like luzs jacket is eras bc I think it’s cute lol dont question why he has it idk I didn’t have the time pool idea at the time and bow is kinda like the willow/gus of the group and mu is the amity? Mu being a bully at first until joining the friend group n stuff and bow being the sweet straight man to the rests antics

Drawing time twins with round ears was cursed Anyway mu is a hybrid still, She’s half witch half eberwolf species! Cooking cat and Sam get to be her bio parents here instead of adopted so that’s cool

Shapes is the Vee stand in and omg they where really fun to design

I like the idea of the changelings/council being titan trappers? Considering they’re a cult? I think it sounds cool so maybe like shapes sneaks in with a disguise or like the trappers take them in or the trappers are basilisk in this universe? Idk considering no one in the cast is a titan it wouldnt really make sense so like maybe they are basilisk or basilisk hunters? Still chewing on the council lol sorry

Sorry I’ve been putting it off BUT curses!: basically same logic as canon they go by eda and belos logic respectively so van is a creepy skeleton cryptid ass monster and snatcher is a animal beast! BUT he’s not a bird like eda or Lilith ,and also not a snake though that would fit in being a more obvious choice, he’s ACTUALLY a ferret! Mostly bc I thought it was funny but it stuck lol they are furry and noodly so it works, plus I’m a sucker for the monster has innocent name but is actually terrifying trope lol, also idk about blood moon? They get cursed yeah but I don’t think they get transformed into anything mostly bc I have no ideas for them lol plus it’s more focused on the illusion hypnosis whatever abd not the curse itself

Anyway on to covens/magic specialties! The kids are obvious because they have the uniforms lol but I’ll still list them anyway: Time twins: Oracle/illusion Bow: beast keeping Mu: constructed Prince: Oracle/bard Snatcher: Oracle/potion Delilah: plant/healing Mj: bard Vanessa: illusion Shapes: abomination

But yeah that’s kinda it lol I do plan to add more doodles or ideas later but yeah hoo boy these took forever but it was a fun style challenge plus fun to design everyone!

Sorry if these notes are kinda all over the place oof I didn’t bother to double check them so sorry if it sounded rambley

[magicluckystars]

Speaking of ikemen/otome games; I want to ask you about the game you seem to really like; lovebrush chronicles

Tell me all about your faves (and least favourites if you have any), what the suitors are like, do you like how the MC(?) Is written, anything is fair game

first of all, thank you so much for asking!! I rarely get any asks like this so this made me really happy!

To answer your question, the game is about travelling through different universes. (The game's Chinese name literally means "the time travelling painter" or something like that) basically the MC (you) is an art major at this one school on an island, St. Shelter Academia (weird name i know) the MC is also a manga author however, and no one else knows except this one guy (I'll explain more about him later, he doesn't have any routes in the main story but he does in events) the MC created the manga because she's been having dreams about it for a while, but she was getting stuck on the content lately

you also adopt a cat

don't wanna spoil it for you in case you wanna find out for yourself, but stuff happens and you get isekaid to the world. in your manga. There you find out that you've been writing manga about an alternate universe, and the 5 (4?) love interests all play important roles in the story

Basically their country was being terrorized by ice butterflies that freeze everything they touch, so it's a neverending winter there. only the mages can hold the butterflies off but the public doesn't trust them

Now onto the love interests!!

the universe the MC came from is the Modern universe (earth) and the alternate universe is Godheim.

Lars is a wealthy entrepreneur who also happens to be a big fan of your manga (he doesn't know that you wrote it though). He's one of the school's investors.

In Godheim, he's the tyrannical emperor who summons you to that world and says that you're to be his bride.

I don't wanna paint him in a negative light because he's actually very caring and holds family close to his heart, he's also one of the few characters in Godheim that can take a joke lol. basically silly happy emperor actually has trauma. He is also a feminist.

His route is really sweet and pretty good but it wasn't my personal favorite.

Ayn is his cousin. In Godheim, he and clarence have an alliance.

His route has the second-most bad endings. He shares this with Ayn.

He's also the tallest-

Clarence is the student council president who abides by the rules and gets good grades. He's also a law major.

In Godheim, he is the steely cold, merciless Archmage (the leader of all the mages) of Magi Tower. He was the one who did the ritual to summon you, and he was gonna keep you in a bird cage with roses on it but Lars said no so you're allowed to roam the castle but if you make even the tiniest of mistakes BAM. Back in the cage.

Clarence isn't my favorite so I don't know much about him, but he wants you to do well so he tries to push you to do so.

Clarence's Godheim route is the last one, so it's where you uncover the secrets of godheim. I didn't like his route much but I did enjoy seeing his soft side. Also, you get to beat a pervert's ass. And the MC cusses in this route (she says "grade A ass whooping). It's amazing.

His route has the most bad endings.

Ayn is a music major and a freshman like you. He's really popular but also doesn't really like interacting with people, he's very much of an introvert. He can come off as rude but he's just tsundere. he's also a gamer, and a pretty dedicated one at that. He very much believes in tough love. He's not the comforting type.

In Godheim, he is the stubborn leader of the Inquisitors, who basically kill rebels and people who disobey the king. He was originally the crown prince but Lars took it from him (the reason why is a spoiler) and Ayn wants to kill Lars as revenge for that. He's been biding his time in order to do that.

Ayn's route was one of my favorites, it was action-packed yet still soft at the same time. Also, his outfit is 😳

I'm pretty sure his route has the same number of bad endings as lars.

He's the shortest.

Alkaid (my favorite!!) helps you and Ayn in this route.

And now, for my favorite, Alkaid!!

He's the kind upperclassman who helps you get settled at school. He's a junior I think, an astronomy major. He's so sweet I swear to God ❤❤ he has a cat, and your cat and his cat play together often. He likes gardening.

In Godheim, alkaid is the submissive but kind mage assigned to protect you and watch you for clarence. Clarence is his boss. He's one of the most powerful mages in the Magi Tower. Anything else I say will be a spoiler for the entirety of Godheim...

In both universes, even though he is kind and believes in the good of people, he doesn't let himself get walked all over and doesn't hesitate to stand up for others if necessary.

Alkaid's route is tooth-rotting fluff. It's so cute because with your help he finally realizes that he shouldn't be afraid to fight or question authority, and that he can't just let everything happen if there's something he can do. His route is my favorite, next to Ayn. It also has the least amount of bad endings, only two, but let me tell you those two bad endings are soul crushing. I got a bad end on my first playthrough and it RIPPED ME APART.

Last but not least, Cael. If you're into butler type characters then he is for you. Cael is the one who took care of you when your mom died (your dad died when you were like 3).

In Godheim, he is the silver knight leading the rebellion against the emperor.

I don't have much to say on him because he's not my favorite and he doesn't have a route, but he's behind the bigger mysteries in Godheim.

He plays a big role in Lars' route.

after Godheim, you can pick an ending for one suitor where you're both happy together. After that, the next world is Eden but I'm not going to go too much into that because i like godheim more

The mc is gorgeous. Her facial expressions in the cards are everything.

All in all the game's pretty good, but it's not very well-known here so it has a fairly small and non-toxic fandom

In the battles, something called "assist events" can trigger where you have to choose the correct option to get a buff. If you choose the incorrect option then you get a debuff. The voice acting is amazing and the illustrations are really pretty, the soundtrack is beautiful too

Sorry for the word dump ;; I just wrote and wrote and i didn't see how big it got 😅

Hope this answered your question!! lots of platonic kisses and i hope you're doing well <33

[marblemoonstones]

🩵 catharsis ~ chapter four

main masterlist

series masterlist

pairing: bts ot7 x reader

genre: collegestudentreader!au 

warnings: ❗️any characters in the story have nothing to do with their real life counterparts❗️f reader, reader with glasses, reader gets yelled at briefly, use of word bitch

word count: ~4.4k

a/n: sorry everyone, it’s been a while! been busy, but i hope you enjoy reading 🤎

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The next couple weeks passed by in a blur, and before I knew it it was almost time for school to start up again. I’m going into my junior year at Seoul National University (sorry, super basic college) and am majoring in Education, as I want to be a teacher like Namjoon. But, unlike Namjoon, I don’t want to teach high schoolers. I want to be an elementary school teacher. (Sorry, I know it’s a pretty big time skip but I wanted to actually get to the college scenes lol)

The boys convinced me (more like begged me) to stay with them for school and said that “Your presence is payment enough!” (Minus Hoseok of course, as we’re still not on good terms for whatever reason) I finally relented after seeing the prices for dorms. Why were they so high for broke college students? Through these few weeks I have gotten to know the boys better.

Namjoon and I have gotten close because of our similarity in careers. We both are avid learners and want to help others learn and have bonded over many cups of tea. I know that I can go to him for any help with my schoolwork, and he says he will come to me for ideas because I am “younger and know what’s hip these days.” We also both love to read and have exchanged books frequently. He is more of a science fiction and fantasy type reader while I adore romance books (again, sorry if you don’t like these types of books). While I admit that his books are fascinating, I still prefer my cheesy, k-drama worthy books. There’s nothing better than us two sitting on my balcony reading all afternoon with some treats Jin or I baked.

Jin and I have become better friends through our cooking and baking. He is a master chef and much better than I will ever be, but it’s still fun to learn from him. It often makes me wonder why he is an actor and not a cook, but people can have more than one avid interest. My baking skills are modest at best, but I do still love to make different types of cookies as my mom taught me and to make cute mini lunchbox cakes for the boys to take to their work for a sweet treat. 

More often than not I catch Yoongi looking at my treats longingly so I make more and send them with him to work. He is especially fond of my coffee cookies as I found him secretly eating them as a midnight snack one night. Yoongi and I have a mutual understanding where if we both need to relax for second and just breathe, we’ll seek out each other. I sometimes sit in his studio, just zoning out and giving myself a minute. And he sometimes will come find me in my room and just lay down next to me as I continue watching my show. These moments make me feel content.

Times that I do not feel content are whenever I’m with Hoseok. I genuinely want to at least be acquaintances, but he seems to want to be enemies forever. I try to reach out but every time he ignores me. More often than not he finds some excuse to not be in the room with me. I know the boys have noticed, but they haven’t said anything to me about it. I can only hope that with time he and I will eventually be able to tolerate each other. 

With Jimin it has been a little harder to connect, but we eventually got to the point where we are now. While I’m not as close to him as the maknaes or even Yoongi, we still have a good bond. It all started when I asked if I could use the dance studio in the house (rich people, am I right?) for fun. I danced all through high school at a recreational studio and I enjoy it occasionally to keep me exercised. I was stretching when Jimin walked in and asked if he could watch. I was nervous at first but then once I got started I fell into my own world. Jimin applauded afterwards and I bowed, embarrassed. We both then danced together and that’s how our friendship started. 

My friendship with the youngest two grew during those couple of weeks. After the shopping trip they decided that we were now a ‘trio of trouble’ and that we were besties. I’ll admit, sometimes I did feel a bit like I was third-wheeling them but for the most part it was great to have genuine friends. Sure, I had friends but they were mostly college friends that I didn’t see outside of school. But with Tae and Kook I felt that I could truly be myself. Endless hours of binging movies, playing video games, and doing stupid challenges/dares kept me entertained until my first day back. 

Which is today. I’m not nervous, but I always get a small pit of dread in my stomach. I only have two classes today, Foundations of Education and Psychology (not me stealing these class names off a random college website haha). Foundations of Ed is in late morning, then I have a short break before Psych which is early afternoon. I have these classes three times a week, but they’re my only classes on those days. 

I roll out of bed and rub my eyes before grabbing my glasses groggily. I knock on Jungkook and I’s shared bathroom and don’t get a response so I turn the knob and no one’s in there. I know today is also Jungkook’s first day of senior year but I’m fairly certain that he has a class around the same time as me. I wonder why he’s not up yet? Knowing him he overslept. That boy needs to learn to get a better sleep schedule. I lock both connecting doors and then carefully place my glasses on the counter. After showering I hop out, put my glasses on (bad vision is a curse, and this author knows the struggle, trust me, but at least glasses/contacts exist) and after drying off I change. 

I put on jean shorts and a pink shirt, and after going into my bedroom I grab my backpack and double check that I have all of my supplies. A couple notebooks, binders, and of course a pencil pouch that’s all stocked up. Notebook paper as well as folders are also neatly lined up. I zip it up and then make my way downstairs. 

Namjoon, Hoseok, Jimin, and Yoongi are all at their respective jobs. Jin is taking a break from acting, so he’s mostly here and Taehyung has a shoot later in the afternoon so I know he is also around. 

Sure enough, Jin’s cooked me a ‘back to school breakfast,’ which is super sweet of him. 

“Thank you so much Jin! You really didn’t have to do this,” I say to him.

“Of course I did! It you and our maknae’s first day back so you deserve a special breakfast,” Jin replies. “Speaking of, where is the little brat? He shouldn’t be sleeping because he has to get ready and take you both to school!” 

“He’s still sleeping,” Taehyung says, walking down the stairs.

“Ugh, that kid will be the death of me. I’ll go get him. Eat up!” Jin goes upstairs, mumbling under his breath about how annoying Jungkook is.

I laugh, then sit down with Taehyung and start eating. Taehyung grins his boxy smile and says, “I wonder if Jungkookie will be late on his first day. If he is, I can take you to school.”

“I don’t think that Jin will let Kook be late,” I say, thinking of the father-like eldest.

“True. He’ll probably drag Jungkook by his hair if that means he gets up,” Taehyung says, laughing.

About ten minutes later a weary looking Jungkook and an irritated Jin come walking down the stairs.

“See, this is why you need to be more like y/n! She gets up on time and is actually prepared for school,” Jin scolds.

“Yeah yeah whatever hyung,” Jungkook says sleepily, sitting down at the table and eating a few bites of the now cold breakfast. 

“Don’t ‘whatever hyung’ me, you have to promise that whenever you have school you’ll actually be ready,” Jin says.

“Okay fine I promise. Y/n you ready to go?” Jungkook says, standing up from the table and going to get his shoes on.

“Yep,” I reply, going to put on my white converse.

“Bye! Have a good first day!” Jin and Taehyung say as we leave. 

Jungkook drives a nice sedan today instead of one of the rich luxurious cars they normally drive.

“Are you excited?” I ask Jungkook, “You’re almost done with school!”

“I’m excited to be done with it,” Jungkook agrees. We pull up and he parks then we get out and get ready to head to our respective classes. 

“Well have fun with your Foundations of Ed class. You don’t need a ride home after, right?” Jungkook asks me.

I shake my head. “Nope. I’m going to chill here through lunch until my Psych class then I’ll take the bus home.” 

“You know you can call any of us to take you home right? We wouldn’t mind,” Jungkook says. 

I know they wouldn’t care but I don’t want to bother them with me. 

“Oh, you’re all busy people so don’t worry about it! Here come some of your friends so I’d better go.” There are a couple guys and girls who are walking up to Jungkook. 

“Hey Jungkook!” 

“Good to see you bro!”

“How was your summer?” 

“Who’s this?”

The last question comes from a snobby looking girl. Her inky black hair is up in a high ponytail and she looks at me with disdain. 

“Oh, this is y/n. She’s the one who’s staying with me and the boys for a while,” Jungkook says, introducing me. 

“Hi y/n, I’m Felix.” He waves at me and I wave back.

“I’m Jackson,” says the next boy, grinning at me. 

“I’m Hwasa,” says the girl next to the snobby one. 

“And I’m Haneul,” says snobby girl. 

“Nice to me you all,” I say.

“So you’re the girl who’s too poor to stay at a dorm!” Haneul says sweetly.

“Haneul,” Felix says through gritted teeth, “That’s not true.”

“I’m sure it is though, Felix. Isn’t that right, y/n?” Haneul now has the biggest fake smile I’ve ever seen. 

“Oh, well I supposed so,” I say, deflated at the thought that the boys think I’m just a ‘girl who’s too poor to stay at a dorm.’

“Um, y/n that’s not what-“ Jungkook starts, sensing my change in mood.

“I’ve got to get to class! Bye everyone, it was nice meeting you.” I interrupt Jungkook. Turning on my heel, I swiftly walk away from the group, hearing Haneul whisper under her breath, “I told you she was poor.” 

I find my building and classroom and walk in. It’s a decently sized room with partner desks in neat rows. Some students are already sitting in desks chatting with each other.

I find a seat in the back right corner by the window so I can see outside. I can only hope no one will sit by me, but that seems to not be the case as a couple minutes later a tired looking boy asks if he can sit next to me. I say yes and he flops into the seat and lays his head on his arms. 

“Oh, by the way my name’s Seungmin,” he mumbles before closing his eyes.

I smile, amused at his tiredness and turn my attention to the professor as she walks in. 

“Good morning class and welcome to Foundations of Education. We will be learning the basics of education and teaching in this class. My name is Professor Shin. Now, let’s take roll.” As she starts calling names, I turn my attention to my sleeping deskmate. I wonder if I should wake him up? 

“Choi y/n?” 

“Here,” I say.

Eventually she gets to Seungmin. 

“Kim Seungmin?” 

I nudge his elbow but he doesn’t stir. Then I poke him. Hard. This makes his head shoot up and then sees everyone staring at him. 

“Oh, uh, here.” 

“Mr. Kim, if you could please refrain from sleeping in class that would be much appreciated,” Professor Shin says with an annoyed look on her face. She then continues on with attendance. 

“Hey, are you okay? You look super exhausted,” I say to Seungmin, seeing how his eyes are red and have dark circles underneath them. 

“I’m fine I just stayed up way too late last night,” he says.

I nod then turn back to the professor, who is now passing out a slyllabus. I take a deep breath then focus for the rest of the class.

After class I bid goodbye to a still sleepy Seungmin and head out to get lunch. There are picnic tables around campus so I grab something to eat then go sit at an empty one. I enjoy the breeze through my hair and the peacefulness of the trees. Until I see someone coming up to me out of the corner of my eye. I look and it’s Hwasa and Jackson. 

“Hey y/n, can we sit here?” She asks.

“Sure.” 

They sit and pull out their own lunches.

“We’re sorry about Haneul this morning,” Jackson says after chewing and swallowing, “She can be a bit…blunt sometimes.”

“Who’re we kidding Jackson, she’s blunt all of the time,” Hwasa says with an eye roll. 

I appreciate these two apologizing for their friend’s action and like them immediately. 

“You guys really don’t have to apologize. I mean, I am poor enough to not be able to afford a dorm,” I say.

“Even if it’s true, that doesn’t mean she needs to be so bitchy about it, and besides, dorms are expensive for anyone,” Hwasa points out.

“Can we not talk about Haneul now please? I’m trying to eat,” Jackson complains. Hwasa and I laugh and we change the subject to school and finish our lunches. 

“Thanks for letting us join you for lunch y/n,” Hwasa says as we clean up and throw away our trash. 

“Of course. It’s nice to meet some of Kook’s friends!” I say, genuinely glad to have made more friends.

“Aww, you called him Kook. Are you two super close? You can tell us. We’ve been his best friends for ages now,” Jackson says.

I want to trust them, so I reply “I guess you could say that. We definitely have gotten closer these past couple of weeks.” 

“Ooh, have you now?” I hear a horrible voice behind me. Of course it’s Haneul. 

“You see, you may have gotten closer to Jungkook but I’ve known him since he was little. No one knows him better than me,” Haneul says, trying to intimidate me. 

It’s true that I still know little about the boys’ background and upbringings, but I am still surprised that Jungkook would hang out with someone like Haneul. The boys also haven’t mentioned her at all.

“You only hung out because your parents were good friends with his,” Hwasa explains with yet another eye roll. 

“Are you jealous Haneul?” Jackson teases, enjoying the glare in Haneul’s eyes.

“No, of course not. Why would I be jealous of a stupid nobody like her?” 

Wow, straight to the point. I can try to ignore it, but I’m not sure if I can deal with another person hating me. Hoseok is more than enough.

“Excuse me, I need to get to my next class.” I leave as gracefully as I can but my body still reacts to her calling me stupid. I take a deep breath and try to calm my shaking hands and racing heart. Eventually I am calm enough to walk into my next class, but my hands still tremble. 

I step into my Psychology hall, a big airy room made for a lot of students. There’s only a couple people in there as I am early because I was escaping from Haneul. 

I take a seat near the middle because I want to be able to see the board. Soon the hall starts filling up with students. A girl sits to my left and eventually a guys sits on my right. Neither of them look at me and continue to talk to their friends around them. 

The professor comes in, a kind looking man. He introduces himself as Professor Kim (so many Kims) and starts to talk. The class goes by quickly and then I’m free. First day of school done. I make my way out of the crowded hall and back into the sunlight. I check my phone and see that I have a couple missed text from Jungkook.

I’m sorry that Haneul said those things. I know ur not poor and I apologize for her words.

Y/n? Ur probably in class, but I just wanted to remind u that any of us would be happy to take u home after ur last class.

I smile at his Haneul text, but text him back to tell him that no one has to take me home.

I’m a big girl Kook, I can take myself home. But thanks :) 

I am about to round the corner of the building when I hear Haneul talking. I stop when I hear that she’s talking about me. 

“Honestly y/n probably just wants the boys money. She’s just a gold digger that acted all pitiful and the boys are too sweet to say no to her. I feel bad for her because as soon as the boys figure this out she’s going to be kicked out of their house. Actually that’ll be super funny!” 

I hear tittering laughter and turn around to go the other way, eyes slightly glassy. Is this what everyone thinks? That I’m a gold digger? If they think that, then I won’t accept anymore gifts from the boys. Them letting me stay is more than enough and I don’t want them to hear these rumors because it will impact their reputation. 

I blink the tears away and then continue to the bus stop. I check my phone to see that Jungkook has texted me again. 

Look, I know u can handle urself but I don’t want anything happening to u. Hobi-hyung is free now and I sent him to pick you up. Just this once bc it’s the first day ok? :) 

Great. I can’t let Hoseok see me like this. I sniff then blink and make sure I look okay before seeing a car pull up that has Hoseok in the driver’s seat. I text Jungkook back.

Ok just this once but no more after today Kook 

I go up to the car and open the passenger door, climbing in to a stoic Hoseok.

“Hi Hoseok. Thanks for picking me up. You don’t ever have to do this again. I told Jungkook I will be taking the bus for the rest of the year.”

“That kid didn’t even think that I have dance today, so I’m taking you to my studio. We can then go home together afterwards with Jimin,” Hoseok says with his usual coldness.

Oh boy. Going to his work? This is great. Just great.

The rest of the car ride is silent except for the light music of the radio. 

We pull up to a modern looking building that says Epiphany. I get out and follow Hoseok inside. The receptionist greets us and then Hoseok tells me to wait out here.

“My class ends in an hour and so does Jimin’s. We’ll leave after that so just wait here patiently.” He then leaves and I’m left to sit in the rather comfy chairs. The receptionist smiles at me and tells me to tell her if I need anything. 

There are two big glass windows and I can see into the studios. I see Jimin in one of them, leading stretches to younger looking children. I smile as they talk and laugh while doing their splits. I look to the other one and there’s Hoseok leading some college looking dancers in stretches too. 

The front door swings open and in walks none other than Hwasa and Haneul. 

“Oh my gosh, we’re late! Let’s go before Hobi kills us!” Hwasa says hurriedly, rushing to the studio with Hoseok in it. “Hi y/n!” She calls as she darts last me. 

Haneul is in less than a rush than Hwasa. “Oh hello y/n. What are you doing here? Surely you aren’t here for class? Only the best of the best come here.” 

“I’m just waiting for Hoseok and Jimin to finish their classes,” I say, trying to be polite even though I heard her hurtful words earlier. 

“Oh you can’t even drive? That’s rough. Or is it that you don’t have a car?” Haneul asks with a look of pity on her face.

“I can drive perfectly fine, but I don’t have a car as of right now. Anyways, aren’t you late to your class?” I ask as nicely as I can.

“Oh yeah, guess I’d better head there. Have fun sitting!” Haneul bounces away and I sigh. She’s everywhere, so I guess I better get used to her and her rude words. 

I turn my attention back to Jimin’s class. He’s leading the kids through the five ballet positions, walking around and fixing their legs and arms. His cheerful and encouraging smile makes me smile, and I can feel my heart flutter a bit. But, just as every time before, I push it away and remind myself that the boys are off limits. They all have each other and are happy. You’re just going after the first attractive people that you see y/n. And it just so happens to be your housemates. I can’t help that these are the kindest and most beautiful boys I’ve ever seen. They’re strictly friends to me and will stay that way. 

I look at Hoseok’s class, seeing that they’re now done warming up and move on to dancing hip-hop and free styling. While most of the class is good, my eye is drawn to Hoseok. This makes sense, as he is the teacher, but for some reason I can’t tear my eyes away. He looks up as he’s dancing and our eyes lock on each other. I quickly look away, my cheeks burning as he probably doesn’t like me staring at him. But then I see that his eyes are turned away too, and there is a hint of a blush on his cheeks. Or it could just be that he’s tired and sweaty from dancing. 

After both classes finish, I stand and stretch my arms from sitting for an hour. Hwasa comes out of the locker room and asks me, “What did you think? Were you impressed by my amazing dance skills?” 

I laugh and reply, “Yes of course. I didn’t know that you could dance like that!”

“Well, there’s a lot of things you don’t know,” Hwasa teases, “Like how you don’t know that Hobi was staring at you during class?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I say, dropping my voice to a whisper-yell, “He wasn’t looking at me! He hates me! And he’s dating six other boys!”

“Whatever they all like girls too…Unfortunately I have to go now, but give me your number and text me if any updates happen!” Hwasa swiftly grabs my phone and types her number in it, winks, and then saunters out. 

That girl! Thinking Hoseok was staring at me…that’s ridiculous. She’s crazy. But I think that we’re starting a great friendship. And the boys also like girls? That’s new to me.

“Hi y/n! What did you think of our class?” That awful voice again. Haneul.

I force a smile before saying, “It was great! You all are so talented.” 

“Why, thank you. I like to think so. I’m sure you’re good at something, right? Even poor people have some use in this world.” 

This girl. Honestly, if poor is the worst insult that she can come up with, it could be much worse.

“Look, Haneul-“

“Did you just call y/n poor?” A voice behind us asks. We both look to see Hoseok, standing with his arms crossed and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. 

Haneul smirks, and I know that she is thinking that Hoseok is going to agree with her. She’s probably right.

“Yes, I did call y/n poor. I mean, come on Hobi, we all know that she’s just leeching off of the boys and your money and that-“

“Haneul, even if I don’t particularly like someone that doesn’t mean I talk bad about them and call them names to their face and behind the back. That’s just rude. Don’t be a bitch.” 

Haneul is shocked and storms out of the studio. 

I turn to Hoseok to thank him. 

“Thanks Hoseok. I really appreciate it, and I’m sorry-“

“Stop apologizing. No one deserves to be bullied by others,” he says bluntly. 

“Look, can I just ask you one question? Why do you hate me?” I burst out, frustrated because he defended me but still is coldly talking to me.

“I don’t hate you. I just don’t like change,” Hoseok says, sighing. 

“Okay, well I just wish that you would’ve told me beforehand. I’m sorry for being change in your life and-“

“God y/n! Stop apologizing!” Hoseok shouts. I avert my eyes to the ground, as this is my usual tactic when someone yells at me. I try not to think of my ex. 

I hear Hoseok apologize, low and slow. 

Then he says, quieter, “Look, I don’t hate you and I wish that you would stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault. Let’s get this out of the way; we may not like each other but let’s try to get along for the boys’ sake. Does that sound okay?” 

I take a deep breath and nod. 

“Sure, Hoseok.”

He does a small smile for the first time at me and holds out his hand. 

“Getting along?”

I shake it. 

“Getting along.”

a/n: i was going to write more, but i thought it was better to end here! looks like y/n and hobi are finally going to maybe get along! what do you think of haneul? and stray kids, hwasa, and jackson cameo! much love y’all. have an amazing day or night wherever you are 🫶🏼🩷

[rezonan]

Cool new blog you're starting here, really liked your Red Hood post. So wanted to ask, what you would do with Tim Drake? Since your whole but about ways for Jason to move as a character interested me

How i would move Tim Drake as a character

I have no idea.

First question on this blog and I don't have a concrete answer for it, so I'll do what I do best and ramble.

My thoughts on Tim and why he's stuck in the first place

This might be a long section. There's a TLDR at the end if you want a summary of all this and just wanna know what I would do with him

So here's the thing, while I have been keeping up with comic lore and stories through wikis and the like for years since 2016 back when I was 10, I never actually read comics consistently at least as a hobby untill about a year and a half ago. In all those comics, I've only just seen the appeal of tim as a character, I just made a blog post talking about that not too long ago. Not to say I don't like him, I definitely do now, that's for sure. (Also wanna say to bare in mind I don't have universal knowledge of the character so give me some slack.)

So thing is, DC is stuck with him as a character, from what I can get from interviews and the older robin stuff, Tim was supposed to be the 'normal one', unlike Jason or Dick he wasn't brought into this life through tragedy, he went into the life because he wanted to and got into Into a lot of tragedies in a kind of reverse way. Which like I said before, is a beautiful piece.

He also was supposed to BE robin, as in he is THE robin, a lot of comics I've read of him so far before Damian (who we'll get to in a bit), he just seemed to feel like he would always be Robin, he was in universe from what I can see the best one to the point an out of character batman used bus girlfriend to get him back, Dick even said it once I think that he was the best robin, it kinda felt like he was always gonna be Robin and kinda grow the role past the sidekick status, I mean the man actually made the costume cool for the first time.

Then Damian showed up.

Now I don't have a definitive ranking of the robins but I wouldn't be surprised Damian is on top, he fits the asshole trying to be better archetype that I am a sucker for, I liked his stuff with Dick even if I haven't read a lot of it and bus arrogance while annoying to some with the good writers is just plain funny to me and like most of the Batfamily is badass. It also helps I grew up with the DCAMU movies where he was basically the main character.

But he kinda screwed Tim over. All that stuff I said about Tim growing the Robin role or any of that. GONE, I wouldn't say it was intentional on anyone's parts but it still happened.

In Red Robin #1, Tim’s Storyline following the Battle for the Cowl, Tim sees Damian in the Robin costume and that Dick has chosen him to be Robin. And you can really feel what I mean when I say Damian basically took what Tim had going for him at the time.

(lol early Damian was a dick)

Doesn't help that said DCAMU movies I mentioned basically omitted Tim meaning an entire generation of people (like me) didn't even know the dude existed. So now his identity as Robin was basically taken from him in the public eye, Dick had Nightwing and Jason has Red Hood, Damian is Robin now. And Tim is ... Red Robin? I'll get to that name but I wanna make another point.

Coming back to him being the 'Normal one' I meant not only that he was the dude who wanted to get into the hero life without tragedy or anything (which I'm now realizing is kinda a rehash of Barbara Gordon but whatever, I like Damian and his basically a male Cassandra at times) but it was also the fact he wasn't a orphan, yeah again Barbara again did this somewhat but her dad was Commissioner Gordon, Tim(forgive me if I make a mistake guys) had a normal dad and school life and everything. He was just a normal high school kid like you and me who just happened to be a crime fighting badass, kinda like Spider-Man.

Untill multiple tragedies struck and he did become an orphan

Now while in my ramblings I should have mentioned this before the Damian post, DC has taken another thing that set Tim apart from the rest of the robins away. So DC gets Bruce to adopt him, which I love but again, the uniqueness is gone a bit.

So now with have a Robin-less, orphan Tim. (Not sure if he's currently Robin or not, the costume confuses me).

So DC just has nowhere to go with him, they can't make him robin and bringing his dad back would be reductant. So that's where sigh... Red Robin comes along.

So at this point, Tim takes on a new identity and series written by Yost (one of my favorite writers) and it's awesome so far, Tim's smart and detective-like and god that costume just great.

(yes I know that's Jason in the costume but that's a point I'm gonna bring up)

But it also drops another issue with DC and it's direction with him.

I'm sure you've heard of the whole 'All the other robins graduated into better names, even his girlfriend but Tim still has robin in his name's and honestly I freaking agree. It just doesn't separate hum from robin enough for it to really catch on or make him look like he's a new entity. The costume is great but here's the thing.

Tim is the 3rd person to use it. It was originally created in Kingdom come for that universes Dick to use and then by Jason in countdown. So now we have Tim inheriting another costume from his two brothers and it just doesn't work for me

So over the years especially post New 52, DC has been making multiple attempts to go with the character from a costume change to naming him..... Drake??? Who did that anyway?? Dumb

They also made him come out as bisexual which I think is a cool change(I didn't 2 years ago but I was a shit person back then), it makes him more diverse and basically opened his character to a new market. The results and execution of this change has been... Interesting (WHY DID THEY BREAK HIM UP WITH STEPH AND WHY DOES BERNARD EXIST SO BORING!!)

So Tldr: DC got rid of what of what made his character orginally unique for the most part and removed his brand as the current Robin from him and haven't come up with a convincing replacement for a name and direction to take him.

What I would do with Tim

Again not sure since I still haven't read enough to make good judgement calls but there has been this idea in my head for a while now.

Tim Post-Red Robin was interesting mentally, I've talk about how he was so screwed by god at that point in my Tim Drake post. His friends and family even wanting to get him to have therapy.

I read a cool fic called 'New 52 redux' where the new 52 doesn't happen and he attempts suicide, he certainly feels suicidal or at least depressed in this comic, at least I think so, hope I'm not projecting on him there.

He feels like he thinks no one is on his side anymore in his mind, getting paranoid, cold Aka like Bruce, he was acting like Bruce in this run to me. Which was an interesting development since if you read the comics around the early 2000s you would think he would grow into the opposite.

So here's my idea, they lean into this identity Crisis and slow degrade into Bruce at his worst and take him to Hub City, the worst city in DC, yes even worse than Gotham. The question's orginal city that was so bad he quit for his own sanity.

A city so bad that homeless people used dead babies to beg for cash.

I would also give him a new name. Some of the fanon ones I see are pretty cool, Cardinal, Grey Ghost, Gotham Knight etc love em and any would be fine.

So the idea here is that Tim in his Post-Crisis Red Robin mental state, basically tries to singlehandedly take the city from crime, just like Bruce, leaning into how close they were acting but also wanting to prove to everyone else that he can be just as good as Bruce was. Get him to start a business hw would grow as the city moved on and use to profits to improve the city, would be incredibly depressing and brooding.

From there you can either show he's fighting a losing battle and make Tim fall more into his hole of mental issues and Bruce like behavior of pushing others away or let him actually start to win and feel better about himself and start to open up with his family and accept help. Then do the usually status quo stories in hub city.

Of course as usual I have another idea, If most of young justice are dead like I think they were at this time(Retcons and all that make this hard), try and set up a new hero team somewhere, in which he leads the next set of young heroes to avoid all the mistakes he faced as a hero.

Welp that was longer than I thought, hope that satisfied tour question.

[voidwhump]

yea what i was talking about to whither-wander-whump was Dragonlance, like you guessed. Dragonlance Legends specifically (so, in case you're not sure which one that was, the premise is basically that the mage Raistlin wants to become a god, his twin brother Caramon needs to do a bunch of character development and stop being emotionally dependent on Raistlin, and the cleric Crysania wants to redeem Raistlin and Raistlin uses that to manipulate her to help himself). I've just been having brainrot abt it, like Dragonlance isn't even really a main fandom for me - honestly I haven't even really looked into what sort of a fandom exists for it, i've just been. you know. having brainrot abt it and suffering silently on my own, lmao. (I haven't even read that much of the franchise, and I'm further hindered by the fact that my local library mostly only has translated copies which I refuse to touch because the one time I read one of the books translated, the translation quality was awful. So anyway for now all I've read is Chronicles, Legends, and the first book of Destinies.)

Anyway for some reason my brain has decided it's fun to poke at Caramon a little bit (literally this wasn't a choice my brain just went okay we're rotating him now, without asking my opinion, you know how it is sometimes) and i've been toying with some "okay no way in hell he's actually just fine at the end of the story, he's gotta be traumatized as fuck after all that, what if I make him break down a lil bit over everything and then throw in some comfort" kinda thing. Y'know, a good old-fashioned aftermath angst / hurt/comfort fic. And I just feel like a few extra scars and an injury that didn't really heal properly or some lil things like that could be fun to add into the mix. anyway yea idk i'll probably never actually write it anyway cuz my brain is stupid

(also i ended up even reading the books in literally the stupidest weirdest most roundabout "how the fuck did you even manage that" way, it's ridiculous, but that's beside the point)

Cool! Like I said, dragonlance has never been my main focus, but I definitely read at least the first book of chronicles and I remember Raistlin but not his twin for some reason. It might be because I read it somewhere between 8 and 11 years ago lmao.

If you do actually get words on paper, the two routes I primarily see in fanfic in D&D universes to keep cannon injuries around are 1. removing magical healing that happened in cannon or 2. making a unique injury harder to heal/fully recover from than was established in cannon. For injuries invented for the fanfic writers just exclude clerics and include limited healing potions it seems.

I just now thought of a secret third option that could be a vibe: phantom pain from an injury that was healed but for whatever reason that character's brain didn't catch on. Maintains cannon injury -> magical healing status but fits nicely with emotional stress.

Anyway fucking mood on not being able to find copies of these older series, I've been trying to hook myself up with legend of drizzt ebooks for a while but Hoopla straight up removed the prequel trilogy at some point and libby's options from my branch are sporadic at best and always checked out. If I'm buying books I want physical copies and I do NOT have the space for that lol. Or the funds really.