#I do actually have thoughts on this but they are vague incomprehensible beings

[incorrectssr]

I am mentally healthy.

[feisaru]

Hello!

I'm so happy to see there is still people out there who loves people from the future!

Tell me, what do you think about the future of the Second Stage Children? Do you think Saru would really takes this vaccine without resistance ? How the adults treat him and Feida now that it's done?

Did Fey still hold some kind of grudge about Saru? His father?

I hope you can understand me, english is my second langage...

Have a good day and thank you for sharing your art I love it!

Hi anon!! I understand what you're saying just fine. Your questions flatter me (esp since it's the first time this is happening to me,,), but quick disclaimer: for whatever reason, I get a little nervous about posting thoughts that are dear to me all texted out online where people might find them. Which is a little funny since I actually write and analyze a lot, but alas. My go-to for expressing my hcs is drawing them out, as that feels less direct but still helps me get it out of my system. I usually talk about my stuff more directly with people I'm close with, as I feel like they get it more. I'll answer those, but much less elaborate than I could heh

Saru and vaxxing, huh... Saru had his fair share of doubts about it. Doubts that were breakdown-worthy, even. People have always just seen him as an SSC, not a person but a monster, so at some point he started to tie his own self-worth to his powers too. The list of insecurities is sheer endless. I don't wanna say anything I will not agree with in hindsight here, so I'll just go with the vaxxing itself went without further complications from his side (spare the semi-canon phobia of needles he has, according to the manga), but that he still had his fair share of head in hands moments beforehand, and that his now-lack of powers is something that is gonna weigh him and his recovery down for another few years.

He'll never forgive El Dorado for how they've treated him and what they've done, how fucked up they are. And neither is the world at large going to forgive him for what he's done. He's going to stay a man with many enemies. Even walking around the city casually will become a pretty dangerous thing, which is why neither him nor Fei are supposed to do it. El Dorado keeps monitoring him in the beginning so he doesn't try anything funny. His "fuck you" approach towards them pretty much stays the same. Even if Toudou wanted to strike a deal with him, he'd want nothing to do with it. He'll never trust anything they do.

I don't think Fei was ever really mad at Saru. If anything, he was disappointed and sad that Saru always kept on doing the same thing and pushed him away. They're working on that post-CS, just like they're working on everything else. About Asurei though?? OHHHHHHH boy there's a LOT unpack there. Fei does not immediately forgive him. He resents him, and it takes another few years until he actually becomes more open towards fixing their father-son relationship. And even then, it never quite becomes perfect, but at least it turns out okay.

Last but not least, thank you a lot, you're very sweet<3 You reminded me I ought to post here. Good day to you too!!

[redrum-alice]

Some HCs about the FreaKey couple even though I dont play the game...please dont kill me for this lolololol...

A.B.A gets jealous of other couples (she stalked them in public spaces from afar) who are more lovey dovey than her and Paracelsus. So to "spice" things up, she reads dating and romance tips on a (stolen) teen magazine that suggests those shoddy dating ideas and boasting to others that they're the end game (Paracelsus and others feels awkward as she says this).

After their arcade mode story, Paracelsus begins to feel guilt about having to manipulate A.B.A to wield him as a blood thirsty weapon. He knew A.B.A doesn't have hate in her heart, and saw how loving she actually is without her possessive traits. One example is when she polishes his brass parts after battle. She also tries to prop him in a comfortable position when at rest because she feels bad that he isnt mobile like she is.

Paracelsus admits, although not in a romantic way (sadly), that A.B.A is beautiful in her own way despite the uncanny nature of her origin. He says this in the most vague and bleakest way possible, yet A.B.A hyperventilated when she hears this.

Because of Paracelsus' statement on her beauty, she doesn't mind not fitting in with humans because his encouragement is all what she needed.

Let's say that A.B.A is considered attractive in their universe, minus the eye bags and the unkempt look- if someone ever compliments her in the slightest (grim extent is someone cat calls her) by a stranger, she would feel like she betrayed her husband for catching someone's eye. Mixture of frustration, shame, timidness, and anger would flow into her that she ultimately resorts to violence as a solution to the incomprehensible feeling. Paracelsus on the other hand would probs feel disgusted at the stranger's rude behavior, justifying his wife's violent outburst (ah yes, toxicity)

If another girl/woman compliments her though, she would be confused and scared as to why they would do such and not go after her husband. Because of her timid nature, she isn't used to hear positive things from others up until Elphelt (lol)

A.B.A's favorite color is blue, probs because she read somewhere or thought it's the calmest color. Blue in nature (partaining to animals) is usually rare, so it could also signify that she's drawn to things that are unique. (Or I could be wrong. I'm probably am--)

Speaking of the color blue, A.B.A attempted to dye her hair blue, but because of her vivacious red hair before, it resulted into greenish color (I know some fans theorize that her hair oxidized bc of her unusual body composition, but I wanna lean on the fact that she tries to fit in the outside world).

Paracelsus inspired her into liking color blue when he was talking about his past travels (at the risk of making A.B.A envy his previou's wielders ofc)

A.B.A was born with impeccable knowledge, thus explains why she speaks in such an authoritative manner. However since she lived in isolation for the first 10 years of her life, she does not know how humans speak in modern day. Paracelsus told her stories and spoke about philosophies only demons have access to.

Regarding small humans (as A.B.A likes to call the children), she wondered what it was like to grow up from a helpless being to a capable one, often lamenting that she hadn't had a literal childhood like a normal being. To cheer her up, Paracelsus suggested that their next date is at the park where there are swings and see-saws. Up to you how that's gonna work out lol

P.S., pls be gentle with me, Im new to the fandom and ship--

[thefencebeetle]

Its time to talk about Stargate SG1, which literally nobody cares about anymore.

The two episodes "Heroes" at the end of season 7 are incredible, a true tour de force. It plays with both expectations set after 7 prior seasons, and examines the SG:C in an new and incredible light.

The first episode starts like an archetypal "questioning the SG program from an outside perspective" as a TV crew is sent to film a documentary inside Cheyenne Mountain. The journalist, Bergman, is presented originally as a fool, bumbling and stumbling all the way. Nobody wants to talk to him, and it’s understandable because again and again episodes over prior seasons have reinforced the necessity of secrecy. Bergman is an outsider who questions too much, too fast, and endangers the program.

However even in this first episode, Bergman’s point are relatable. Yes, filming is important, people will eventually learn the truth and footage is needed. Over the episode he turns from a bumbling fool to an annoyance to the guy you hate but makes a good point. He compares the program to D-day and to the Apollo missions, all positive examples.

And at the beginning of the second episode his turn is complete. He gives a speech that in fact he HAS to film, to show, because the men and women of the SG:C are giving their lives for the whole of humanity. People are dying, a war is being fought, and it needs to be recorded. I think this is the first time the audience is truly asked to consider what would the SG program look like if it went public. Not from a geopolitical perspective, but a human one. And not as a threat, but an eventual necessity.

Now the second episode is in 3 simultaneous parts 1) an almost textbook war documentary of a battle where it is known early on a casualty happened, 2) Bergman trying to learn about this battle and casualty and trying to show these airmen as heroes, and 3) a investigation being led by an ally of bad politician senator Kinsey, shot as a parrallel to the first episode investigations, but with a much darker purpose - this is the archetypal interfering outsider we thought Bergman was in the first episode.

This breaks the two-sided approach of the conflict. Its not "against or with" the SG program, its about what to do about the sacrifice and the danger it faces : keep it in the dark and hope to keep operating, but risk it being killed in the dark by opposing factions of the US government, or show it, admit it, record for posterity and the truth.

Now the second episode is also quite controversial because it plays with the idea of having O’neill die in the fight, its implied several times, but by 3rd act its reveal the beloved Dr Frasier is the casualty. She actually never comes back after this episode, she was a staple of the show, the voice of reason in many episodes. The pain shown by the characters is very much felt by the audience as well, this is a gut wrenching reveal.

I’m personally very conflicted about the bait-and-switch aspect. It somewhat lessens the blow, as we’re relieved its not O’neill… I think I would have preferred the episode to be more straightforwardly about Frasier. But after rewatching it, I think its the point. The characters are all devastated, they suffer, they know, but we don’t and we’re left confused. In many ways, we have become Bergman and his documentary. This episode shows people deserve to know, not because the SG:C is somehow dangerous, but because of the sacrifices being made.

The two episodes Heroes are a true turning point in Stargate SG-1, in the way it approaches its own subject. It questions the fundamental nature of its story, and establishes or rather re-establishes both the humanity of its characters and the stakes involved. Its not just about a vague and fundamentally incomprehensible "all of humanity may die", but a very real "your friend may die".

Its an incredible launching point into the last few remaining episodes of Season 7, which end up launching into both Season 8 of SG:1, and starting Season 1 of Stargate Atlantis. To me, its one of the highest points reached by this show, the hype is at its maximum.

[melonteee]

I think what hurts the most about how Nami was handled in OPLA is how thoroughly her character themes and trajectory were screwed up. Nami is one of the first representatives we see fake smiles hiding genuine suffering as an overarching motif, to the point that it’s engrained deeply to her backstory and the final note Arlong Park ends on, and it just… isn’t there. At all. To the point that the one time Nami smiling/laughing *is* brought up in the show, it feels backhanded. Like the narrative equivalent of telling her she should really smile more. Then, because Netflix/Tomorrow Studios are cowards, the show did everything in its power to downplay Nami’s financial insecurities and decided Nami stealing should be framed in a worse light than Zoro killing people for money. Which meant Nami’s arc became her needing to overcome a “fuck you, got mine” attitude, which led to Arlong Park being thematically (and somewhat narratively) incoherent once they got to her deal with Arlong. But the worst of this was the choice to give Nami all of Sanji’s parts in Baratie. Because, really, what does Nami thinking Luffy should stop Zoro’s fight have to do with her problems with Arlong? The whole reason she didn’t see Zoro’s fight in the original was because that wasn’t a lesson she needed to learn. She was already risking her life for her goals, and she still believed she could achieve her dreams once she paid off Arlong. It was the hope that Arlong *could* be bought, and that she had no other options when compared to Arlong’s strength, that was holding her back in the original. Nami trying to convince Luffy also felt so nonsensical because it’s the one place that doesn’t have heaps of over explaining (while also removing Luffy *and* Zoro’s explanations from the original scenes) so it’s like… what do you expect him to do, Nami? What could Luffy possibly say or do to stop Zoro that doesn’t either lead to Zoro responding “okay then I quit” or require some massive violation of Zoro’s autonomy? And, again, what does Luffy not doing so have to do with Nami’s conflict with Arlong??? Is the implication supposed to be that Nami thinks Arlong is *right* to use force to make people do what he wants???? But then you get to the episode 6 and Zoro’s second unnecessary pledge to Luffy (that’s already ruined Thriller Bark) and it was like… Oh. I see. Nami was given all of Sanji’s parts so she could be an easy straw man for Luffy to knock down. She *can’t* explain why she thinks Luffy is wrong (nor can anyone else) outside of vague repeated phrases, because if she did Luffy would have to actually defend his stance the way he did in the original. Instead of having Zoro tell him that he was right all along and doesn’t need to self-reflect about anything. Because Luffy’s true arc in the live action is that he Wants loyalty, and Needs other people’s validation. Hence why Luffy spends very little time actually interacting with his supposed crew most episodes, why storylines that were originally about Luffy proving himself worthy are now reframed to be about the others proving their loyalty to Luffy, and why the show’s ending reframes his first bounty as him *finally* achieving the recognition he felt entitled to at the beginning. And Nami’s sadly the one most effected because the East Blue is her saga. Cool.

(I realize you must get a lot of these, so thank you. It’s been very cathartic to hear your thoughts)

Anon you are doing exactly what I'm doing, which is thinking further ahead in One Piece's story and going "Wait, but if THAT happens, these scenes in future arcs are going to be totally ruined and make no sense?"

Hence why I'm saying, ALL these changes, ALL these characters being uprooted from their original writing, is going to cause MORE changes down the line if this keeps going. To the point the series is going to be completely incomprehensible and won't be One Piece at all. They already failed multiple scenes by just ADDING them in while changing EVERYTHING around them so they made zero sense and had no impact, but it's virtually impossible to fix this show without totally redoing everything. They ruined the introductions, they ruined the original motivations and original personalities, these characters are simply not the same at all.

And with these story changes, as you pointed out, it has ruined future character development AND future scenes.

Also the "Nami stealing is more immoral than Zoro killing for money" is so fucking funny, makes just as much sense as a WHOLE town genuinely hating a LITTLE GIRL 😭😭

[randomwriteronline]

I'd like to ask your thoughts on your Foster Parent AU, please!

(scuttling towards you at the speed of sound) WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT PARENTAL LOVE AND THE HORRORS

OK so. i. do not remember how this came to me BUT i am half certain it was due to my "the turaga are the mata's parental figures whom they love dearly and are loved by and artakha has lost the custody battle So Severely that he can see them once every two months" view of their relationship (which i have exaggerated in that description for comical effect) and then bloodborne got involved in it bc im watching a blindrun of it

this resulted in what was at first a Superpowered Teens AU becoming a Parenthood And Other Horrors AU. sort of. my thoughts about it are still unfortunately vague and the more i write it down the more incomprehensible it becomes BUT take this mess

Very simply put: six parentless teens, separated from birth but vaguely aware of having five siblings somewhere out there, are serendipitously handed over to six very loving foster parents who all happen to be friends and like to hang out.

except its not a coincidence, their instinctual knowledge of one another's existence is not just a gut feeling, their guardians are very aware of everything thats actually going on but wont say anything, a weird man claiming paternity of them keeps showing up and very aggressively demanding they be handed over to him, and they are not human.

So anyways!

the relationships between the turaga and the mata are the Big Focus for the chunk of story thats like Normal bc. i love them. ofc

Whenua and Onua hit it off immediately despite Whenua being the one whos the most tense abt this whole situation of Taking A Teen In His House - this is partially thanks to the fact that he has a business handling and selling bugs and especially worms and Onua loves being in the fucking dirt as much as possible, so they go on nice hikes collecting crawlies of all sorts and having a fun time bonding over their shared love for beasts that live in the ground. Onua used to get yelled at for being always dirty so hes having a blast with his foster dad who starts shaking and hooting in excitement when his incredibly autistic teen son pulls an entire mole out of the ground and proudly shows it to him so he can identify it properly. Onua has a small pocket that is always SQUIRMING with worms and he hands one over to each of his siblings when he meets them for the first time to... varying reactions (mostly baffled polite disgust, tho Lewa falls in love and decides thats his new pet)

on the completely opposite end of the spectrum, Tahu fucking HATES Vakama at first. he has a reputation for running away to "find his siblings" (nobody believed him) and this old man is NOT going to stop him. as in he literally isnt. Tahu glares daggers at him on the drive home and tells him hell disappear as soon as he can and Vakama deadpan goes alright, can i at least get you a tent first. can i get you a sleeping bag first. can i get you a portable stove first. can i teach you valuable working and cooking skills so you can find a way to keep yourself alive and indipendent first. and he manages to keep Tahu around by legit just preparing him for living alone when he inevitably runs off - which he ends up not doing bc of All That and also Vakama has a FORGE in his HOUSE and Tahu loves fire so much and also hes actually a very cool dad but hes embarrassed to tell him bc he was so mean to him at first. Vakama gets him into glass blowing (so he doesnt try to put his whole hand in the furnace) and he is so so proud of his lil crafts. Tahu gives him a necklace with beads he made and you bet your ass that old man is keeping it on 24/7

Gali has been on her best behaviour for all 15 years of her life and she has so much Insane Wrath in her that shes desperate to keep inside. ofc Nokama (a very mellow linguist who likes to lay on the beach for five hours in her time off) decides its time to teach her the most insane martial arts combination possible and let her go to town on a training dummy until shes about to rip the stuffing out of it until she feels better. then they can do a bit of meditation and go down for her surfing lessons :) Gali was. deeply confused the first time around but Nokama was just like "sweetheart you need that. trust me i do it every saturday its a good way to get the pent up rage down. but do actually talk to me abt whats upsetting you also so i can lend you a hand if i can. that helps too" and wouldnt you know it She Was Right! and Nokama is like so smart and also so stupid and its SO GOOD to be able to tell her "thats a dumb idea" and not immediately get told to shut up. in the course of two weeks and a half Gali's shoulders and jaw finally unclench and shes bitching about school and whatnot and theyre telling each other stupid crass jokes and shes just so happy. thank you mom :) (not pictured is Nokama trying her hardest not to burst into tears bc oH MY GOD IM MOM NOW...... IW ILL PROTECT HER W MY LIFE)

Onewa got handed over this incredibly anxious people pleasing kid who crosses his legs weird to keep them from bouncing and hes like ah..... this one is NOT a sculptor. so he puts off the mallet for a while and tries to see which ball sport he likes the most before letting him loose doing soccer trickshots in the yard for about four hours while hes filing down some rocks into shape. Pohatu then runs twelve laps around the house, passes out, wakes up, runs twenty more laps, eats like a horse, passes out on the couch. thus begins Onewa's quest to get him enough enrichment everyday, which is actually pretty fun and also good for his posture now that he has to Stand Up and Go Places. it takes longer to get Pohatu to act completely genuinely around him bc hes used to some of his snarkier jokes getting him left alone or reprimanded so hes always walking on eggshells, but luckily for him Onewa has No Such Problems and will tell anybody to fuck off and snark back at him playfully and generally just make him feel a lil easier abt being mean. its also very fun to get yelled at by him when racing him bc he gets winded after five meters. Pohatu is still polite but by god if Onewa's influence isnt turning him into a lil bit of a bastard. and we love him for it

Kopaka and Nuju's first interaction was not talking for an entire day and then, at breakfast, Kopaka asking him "are you deaf?" and Nuju replying "are you?" and those were the first words they ever said to each other. and they continued to keep this pattern of minimal conversation for like three months. possibly longer. Nuju is trying very, very hard to remain detached for Reasons and i can tell you already that he is failing. he is respecting Kopaka's space n interests n introducing him as his "flatmate" instead of foster son bc Kopaka is refusing to call him dad at first, but he is NOT saving himself from getting deathly attached to this edgelord. He Is Not. he got Kopaka into photography by handing him a professional digital camera and telling him to do some nice shots so he can print them later if he wants, and Kopaka did just that and turned out to be VERY good at it. now if you look at the walls theyre covered in his photos. Nuju the unflinching astronomer never comments on them but prints them out all fancy and gets them in frames and all. he has set them up as his wallpaper on All Digital Devices. they Do Not talk about this. Kopaka is very flustered about it actually. not that hell say it of course, theyre the same in that regard lmao

Lewa on the other hand starts calling Matau dad after roughly two hours. he has Imprinted On Him and dad has Wholly Accepted That. it helps that the kid is as chaotic as him and loves to listen to him tell him abt his old days as a stuntman while hes custom modding motors and bikes. he very quickly realizes, however, that Lewa needs to be in his natural habitat aka At The Skatepark or he will start peeling the paint off the walls with his bare fucking nails so he puts a pair of rollerskates on that beast (plus protective gear) and unleashes him upon some unsuspecting ramps. he treats his practice like its the olympics. im talking full commentary, arbitrarily pitting him against random kids, and screamed cheering that scares off several smaller children and gets him ugly looks from the other parents. Lewa is soaking in that attention like its a hot bath, hes having the time of his life. Matau is also... surprisingly? good? at making him feel safe? Lewa has vivid night terrors and Matau knows how to ease him back down from the fear and panic without being silly or dismissive about it either. like hell lay down with him if it can help even tho Lewa is techically too old for that by now and just not. make a fuss of it

so anyways things settle into normality, the kids meet each other via their foster parents bein very close pals and become friends, theyre hanging out, weird elemental stuff happens sometimes but its so minimal they dont even notice it really (the turaga do, and theyre monitoring that closely)

and then Artakha shows up.

and Artakha's mere existence ANYWHERE in the kids' sorroundings is enough to make the turaga incredibly on edge and territorial. which in turn, together with Artakha claiming ownership over them, clues the mata in that something is going on and that it is not normal at all.

Artakha is. oh boy. he is certainly A Guy. he is incredibly cold, unfeeling, relentless in his insistence that the kids come with him. his skin is excessively smooth and his movements feel calculated in a way that is hard to describe. his hands are always cold. he seems to be a scientist of sorts, or at least he dresses in a way that reminds of a stereotypical scientist. he does not refer to the mata as his children or as people in general, but he claims to have made them and as such demands custody. he never touches them, but being near him stirs something confusing in them. he instigates a visceral reaction from the turaga that makes them almost literally bark at him by simply being in their line of sight. its so bad that their worry and discomfort is literally physical and they will sometimes puke or get a fever during or after an interaction with him. its like he activates some kind of lizard brain response from them.

he puts so much pressure on the kids that the previously dismissable element-related strangeness ramps up in intensity together with weird dissociative episodes to the point its genuinely getting scary.

Tahu steps into the spent furnace and immediately ignites a flame. Onua tries to bury himself and almost digs through a sewage tube. Gali falls off her surboard and does not resurface for half an hour. Pohatu clips through a block of marble and has to be carved out of it. Lewa leaps off during a grind and he just disappears into thin air.

Kopaka becomes snow.

One night Nuju feels a sudden cold wind coming from inside the house and runs straight into Kopaka's bedroom praying it hasnt happened and find only a small tornado of snow violently tearing the place apart. hes despairing over losing his boy when he notices something that looks like a hand trying to reach out to him - so he grabs it and pulls as hard as he can, and the hand slowly grows an arm and an elbow and a forearm and hes yanking as hard as he can until he finally rips Kopaka out of the snow and falls to the ground with him. he hugs him as tight as he can and tells him how wonderful hes been, fighting back like that. then he notices, to his horror, that Kopaka has gone into cardiac arrest.

in five different households the mata instantly know something has happened. they dont know what, but they know its bad.

minutes after Gali tells her this, Nokama gets a call from Nuju. she drives herself and her daughter to the hospital to find her friend bawling his eyes out about his boy, his little boy, trying to tell her how it happened and how he almost killed him and while Nokama is trying to calm him and call the other turaga Gali sneaks off to see Kopaka, who is stable but catatonic. as the turaga arrive with the mata in tow, the latter all gather around their brother: touching him seems to let him live through them (or is it the other way around?) and he begins getting out of his vegetative state while they move him around and speak his thoughts as though they were him

which is. you know. Not Normal

so this extremely unnatural situation (and Nuju holding Kopaka and kissing his face like his life depends on it and let me fucking tell you It Just Might) is the perfect time to talk about WHAT in the FUCK any of this is about. you know. just in case all this happens again.

as it turns out, Artakha IS a scientist and he DID make the mata. the reason behind this is still unknown to the turaga, who know him as they were previous test subjects of his for the same project who managed to escape after essentially being sequestered - the main difference being that they were humans who underwent the side-effects of what he claimed to be a "vaccine" of sorts, whereas the mata were physically created in a laboratory and are something else. their bets were on very advanced robots, since the facility they were in did have some robot-making stuff. going back to the turaga, whatever the vaccine was had meant to elevate them in some sense or other; what it did was, effectively, giving them the ability to undergo a very painful transformation when encountering specific triggers. this also led to more or less useful sidepowers, like the ability to understand a "star language" and in Vakama's case getting The Visions! You Know The Ones. these two combined clued them in on the creation of the mata, and they decided that they would NOT have allowed Artakha and his buddy* to pull some shit on what the stars essentially described as newborn children. their plan was to break into their facility again and steal the babies and maybe raise them?? try to???? that seemed to be the plan in the stars?????? but effectively they. uh. Dont Know What Happened. they just collectively woke up with the knowledge that the kids were dropped off to the fostering/adoption system. between them making a plan to go get them and After there is a giant black hole and they have been desperately trying to find them again for fifteen years to try and give them a normal life away from everything as like. an apology for being born in such terrible circumstances

*wait Artakha has a buddy? yes! apparently! its hard to explain. there was certainly a second person, but the turaga never saw them properly. its possible they were one of the triggers that caused the transformation, as their memories get muddled if not just ripped away from their minds while transformed

from here to the next part of the story there is a gap of plot that i Do not exactly have in mind. the mata definitely experience the same thing as Kopaka, becoming their element and needing to be physically taken out of it before they are lost completely in it. Artakha might actively trigger this a few times, for example with Lewa (who kicks his ass as a result) and generally becomes much more aggressive in his pursuit of the kids while the turaga do their best to keep him at bay

AND THEN ITS FACILITY TIME. i do NOT know how they get there i just know they DO and the HORRORS are coming

first of all: the place is effectively some kind of very powerful observatory around which some insane sci fi bullshit was built. here the mata and turaga find themselves pursued by Artakha as well as his buddy - an enigmatic woman named Velika who observes them through the cameras and eventually corners them in a specific area of the facility

before that, the power briefly goes out due to the kids trying to make Artakha lose their tracks. during this time, Gali finds a locked door filled with medical equipment meant to keep someone alive through a coma. the room is covered in dust, very quiet, and there is a bed in the middle of it. someone is clearly on it. when the lights come back up the machines restart and she is able to see the state of the body on the bed just as a monitor loudly announces a flatlining. it is not shown, but baby you can bet that it is Not Pretty.

This, as they will find out later, is Karzhani.

who is a researcher who once partnered with Velika and was then replaced by Artakha.

Velika and Karzhani had different fields of expertise, essentially having an equal split between studies of the mind (Velika) and the body (Karzhani). while running completely different tests they had by complete chance made tentative contact with some kind of ineffable thing which they dubbed "the great spirit": this mostly unilateral relationship (as the great spirit showed very little responsiveness at their probing, providing them what they asked in an incomplete way and rather distractedly) very quickly consumed them, and from curiosity they slowly developed completely different obsessions. Velika remained focused on the strange creature and her studies, growing an unhealthy desire to bring the great spirit down to dissect its brain as she slowly stopped viewing living beings as sapient and began seeing them more as a series of increasingly more complex puzzles for her to crack; Karzhani, who instead had been heartbroken by his inability to have children, began obsessing over the concept of fatherhood and the possibility of creating his own offspring from scratch through the energy and materials they were picking up from the contact with the great spirit. These obsessions coincide in a singular project when it turns out that, in order to bring the great spirit to them, they need a number of sentient minds made with the aformentioned materials to "open the sky" beforehand - hence the idea to create the mata

Velika and Karzhani were on amiable if somewhat apathetic terms before getting their brains boggled by Knowledge Beyond Human Comprehension, but afterwards Karzhanis obsession with parenthood got so bad that he sort of deluded himself into believing Velika was going along with his fantasy of becoming parents and started talking about her like she was his wife who was 100% into his goal, which gave Velika INCREDIBLY BAD VIBES so she decided to replace him. by essentially putting him in a coma, extracting his consciousness, altering it to fit HER goals, placing it in a robot body which shed convinced him to make (bc she cant make bodies, thats his deal) and just leaving the real Karzhani to rot in a vegetative state as like a side experiment. bc as mentioned. she wasnt exactly sane either.

the result of All That is Artakha! who is incredibly despondent to and barely tolerates Velika since she regards him as another side experiment instead of a properly sentient if artificial being. he is essentially a refined version of Karzhani, though Velika was unable to eliminate his possessiveness towards the mata - which was useful to find them but becomes a problem when he refuses to let her use them for her alien contact attempt

so she brutally kills him by disabling his bodily autonomy and throwing him in a shredder as he screams in morse code for help

Livestreamed for the kids and turaga to see!

Because She Is Totally Normal

and speaking of unnecessary cruelty she decides that shes too lazy to trap the mata and go get them herself, so she triggers the turagas transformation to use them as guard dogs fetching her the kids <3

slight problem in her plan being that the turaga get so stressed about this that they manage to slow down the process enough to throw their children to safety aka as far away from them as possible and give them at least some instructions on how to deal with them from their own experience and what little memories dont get blotted out by the transformation. once theyre fully gone tho they are Terrifying As Hell Beasts and start hounding the children like starving bears while the poor things scuttle away into the ventilation and Velika watches the whole thing with great interest

during this escape Lewa ends up finding their seventh "sibling" - that being Tren Krom, made entirely from cosmic material and technically not yet born as he is a failed first attempt by Karzhani to make a child. hes the one whos been pestering Lewa with all those fucking night terrors like a git in the attempt of getting him to find him and let him just stop existing in peace bc hes tired of this not-life not-death situation hes in

hes the most aware of everything thats going on due to being such a simple organism that the cosmic knowledge doesnt faze him. he reveals to him Velikas plan of getting the great spirit in this realm, as well as the fact that the great spirit itself does Not have a body and will have to inhabit one, possibly that of one of the mata (Lewa Will Remember That). before Lewa shuts his containment down and lets him drift to sleep Tren Krom also tells him that Karzhani would have been a terrible father for them, and it was for the best that the turaga got them out of there and still tried to give them a normal life despite everything going to shit so quickly even years after theyd last seen them as itty bitty beasties

speaking of the turaga, they DO each corner their respective mata eventually, bc theyre big terrifying monsters and those are highly stressed teens panicking as they try to scramble away, and they DO NOT HURT THEM nor bring them back to Velika bc that idiot did not account for THE MOM/DAD INSTICT. YES THE HORRORS ARE INEFFABLE BUT SO IS PARENTAL LOVE BITCH.

Velika, loading a gun: ah dangit, they were such a fun experiment

SHE DOES NOT KILL THEM DONT WORRY but she does knock them out and wound them enough to incapacitate them so she can actually get her hands on the kids and drag them into her Fucked Up God-Calling Contraption

she fires it up, the kids almost get atomized by it for a moment as their elemental part gets almost torn out of them...

aand then. it.

doesnt do anything.

the whole process goes through successfully and then everything stops, and the kids are catching their breath but still alive, and nothing happens. to say Velika is anything less than fucking pissed would be an understatement.

her up until now eerily cheerful demeanor drops. she starts checking her machinery and data trying to understand what went wrong, and all she gets back is that, technically, everything went perfectly fine. she turns to the kids who are still horrendously weak, shaking them and yanking them and demanding an explanation because it HAS to be something THEY did that caused this (she is only partially right*). shes pacing angrily everywhere. what the HELL did you do. WHERE is the god i wanted to dissect. im going to kill you. you damn kids. and why am i cold all of a sudden. (puts hands on her neck) wait wheres my pulse. (checks properly) holy shit i have no pulse.

she then spends about. i dont know. ten minutes? slowly going insane as she loses control of her body piece by piece. she reverts to a giddy scientist except now shes very audibly panicked about the situation, and loudly dictates the description of her demise to her computer as if it was another experiment. she ends up almost completely paralyzed on the floor snarling orders at the mata to come pick her back up until she finally stops breathing and hushes completely

and then her voice rises again. but its not her

*because in the brief moment while the mata were closest to getting Fucking Spaghettified, their supernatural bond shared the info Lewa had learned from Tren Krom and managed to contact the great spirit as he started looking for a body to inhabit in order to come visit, directing him to Velika instead of any of them :)

they didnt fuckin know that would have KILLED HER bc the great spirit DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO USE A BODY and Velika was VERY MUCH UNAWARE IT WAS THERE so to stop her from hogging the controls it just SLOWLY SHUT DOWN ALL ORGANS

so this cosmic entity is just There, On The Ground, calling for them through Velikas mouth without moving it bc as mentioned it does NOT know how to use a body. it knows theyre there bc they called it but it doesnt know how to move its eyes so he has no clue where they are but he wants to see em :( its been a while since its seen those six stars and it was so happy to hear their voices again so it was really looking forward to seeing them :(

except the second it sees them (when they manage to get up bc theyre. struggling) the cosmic horror experiences the Cosmic Horror right back! because it Does Not Have a body, and it hasnt seen any body, ever, and all this skin and flesh and bones and hair and stuff is SO absolutely nightmarish that not only does it not recognize the kids, as they are humans, but it also just leaves back for whatever recess of space it came from in no time. all this fucking unethical as hell work and descents into madness and then those two/three idiot scientists didnt even realize their alien mightve had this bad of a culture shock and felt compelled to get out in less than two minutes. fuckin hell.

the kids sort of let everything sink in very quickly. because goddamn that was a lot. and then they remember OH NO OUR PARENTS and hurl themselves back to the turaga to make sure theyre alright bc theyve had enough trauma already for today theyd rather their guardians be alive and possibly not big terrifying monsters anymore

theyre alright :) they get to hug their kiddos tight

and then i guess they all go to the Fucking HOSPITAL and as soon as theyre all safe and sound and fine they can take a fucking break

and that is. an absolute clusterfuck of an au dhgjsgdgkf

it sounded better in my head. damn

anyways take this hellish thing hope you find SOMETHING of value in it bc im slowly clipping through the wall thinking about it

[aeonophagic]

I'm really glad you enjoyed these! the translator is actually user 17979 on here, they've written some really good After God fanfics and are a good friend of mine! the other parts they've translated are: original: "His soul seemed to have left his body. He was unfettered. There was no fear or panic. He felt nothing."

original: "It does not matter. They are one and the same. I need his power. I underestimated him."

and this one is more just a funny one from our treasured translator:

I'll have you know I had about the same reaction to the "You are the story I started 50.000 years ago" line, it just brings up so many questions; VA's lore is scattered as it is and very little is given to us, so just dropping something like this in a convo I doubt a lot of people have read is so [vague hand gestures] it's quite late at night when I'm writing this so forgive any incomprehensibility: the line itself, combined with some others there ("It's tone was surprisingly laden with grief, as if it was lamenting a past that could not return") read to me as slightly contrary to VA being merely a Divine Key, it sounds like he has an amount of history in the PE; my personal idea that is pure unadulterated speculation is that VA might have started out as just a person who had something to do with the PE HoR? it would explain the fact that he repeatedly speaks to a "you" which is clearly not actually Joey in this convo and doesn't seem to be Welt Joyce either considering the 50k years thing, that is to say maybe VA even inherited the core (woo Welt paralel) of the PE HoR; considering that Vill-V does say that the Core of Reason is fucking weird [paraphrasing] and, at least if my memory is holding up, Welt did retreat into the Herrscher Core at least once to avoid dying, there's nothing saying VA couldn't have also pulled that and ended up getting his ass merged with that Fragment of Prommy and turned into the only DK we know to be sentient, I dunno I'm sleep deprived that being said the 3rd line I sent last time would imply that VA was also like not human if all of this happened... I'll just say he yoinked a body Orokapi style and call it a day cuz I think if I keep trying to get these thoughts down on paper they will actually become complete word vomit [thumbs up emoji] anyhow the ramble section ended up being longer than I intended... but the fact that we really know so little of his lore does make my brain go haywire, if they ever explain Void Archives' lore properly that'll probably all be disproven but it's what I came up with considering what we know (and I remember)

“There was no more gravity that bound him to the mortal world” I think this one is in reference to Void Archives likely using the Fenghuang Down… ouuu

I definitely think the PE Herrschers besides Elysia all being nothing more than the names of said Herrschers in the story is one of the things that blocks my road here. Me and a friend have theorised plenty of things about the PE HoR, but none can be confirmed, none are even implied!!! A character with such a nothingburger that you can just make shit up and no one could tell you yes or no. My favorite theory is that the PE HoR looked just like Otto, but a girl. Because it’s funny. But now I don’t know… I can’t sacrifice my integrity for humor… I think the idea of the person that used to be what later became Void Archives was a part of the HoR core is really interesting. It would take from the whole “artificial thing struggles with humanity”, because then they’d have already been human once, but at the same time it would be as if they were reclaiming their humanity which is also intriguing etc etc… it’s really interesting. I initially thought Void Archives’ sentience came from them being part Prometheus since she’s sentient too, but at the same time why would Vill-V merge them with her then..? Because Prometheus is an AI so she can handle the “ever expanding knowledge”? Don’t know… so much left in the air, most Void Archives lore we know is stitched together thanks to No.17 who hasn’t talked about them even once. Thank you for sharing!!! I’m having lots of thoughts…

[uroboros-if]

When deities come into the world (born), are they in a child form? Do they just appear as adults? Maybe it depends on the deity, but I can imagine MC as a little kid with their dads and I want to know if that's canon ;-;

🥲............

The answer: originally, yes, you are born in an adult form. However, for now, I'll decide to keep it vague and just say your mortal form from the beginning is a reflection of who you are. Your fathers "interpret" you, but you can always change forms. That means, maybe your mental/emotional immaturity means your mortal vessel is younger, and as you mature, your mortal form may also change and evolve.

However, the MC will always have a baseline level of maturity. They might start out as naive and clueless, but not necessarily child-like! After all, they're designed to be useful to mortals from the beginning, assuming their role as a deity from the moment they are brought into the world.

It would be extremely jarring to have someone who looks like a child be in charge of Lucidio, but it might be possible, though that's on very thin ice. Mainly because the MC will have a lot more difficulty being taken seriously. However, it would be impossible to place them into that role if they actually acted like one, adult or young looking.

I hope this is a good compromise! Personally, I find the thought of a somewhat immature deity who looks like an adult being coddled by their parents pretty endearing. Your parents will still treat and look at you as their child, even after you've matured.

In the same vein, answering this ask:

Your deity form is incomprehensible to mortals; it does not have "eyes" or "hair" in the same sense that we have them, for example. However, you can change how you usually look as a mortal form. If you originally decide your mortal form has brown hair and purple eyes, you can then change your mortal form to have blonde hair and blue eyes, especially since you've evolved and changed since the Prologue and may have a better idea of who your MC is.

That's why I might also let people change their pronouns through these checkpoints, perhaps, as their gender identity might also evolve and change. Of course, no change is necessary if you don't want to!

This might take a while to implement, but these are my hopes! Aaah, I'll have to add customization again, which will be torture, and maybe code other people commenting on your change of appearance/identity--but it'll be worth it! 💕

Thanks so much for asking 💕💕💕

[canmom]

the shape of things that my brain likes is a chain of 'whys'.

if i can ask 'so why is it done this way' and get an answer like 'well, when you try to do x, you encounter y problem, which you can solve by z' that is great. if it's 'we found/created this space of possibilities, and we're all exploring it', that's also great. if it's a historical story, like A came along and defined the scope of the activity, and then B came along and responded, and then C and D and E and F, we're iterating - well it's more arbitrary but if that's the best answer available it's the best answer available.

if it's 'idk, just is' then it's frustrating.

unfortunately the thing is... we humans are instantiated with pretty much an untrained neural net. at first our brains gotta learn shit like motor functions and recognise there's other minds and absorb a language to guide our thoughts and all that shit, but at some point we are just kind of left to our own devices to figure out what to do with the remaining decades of being alive. we have some sense of the shape of the world and it's affordances, our bodies give inputs that we can desire to feel again or hope to avoid, but once survival is taken care of, what we actually do with being alive is not something that has a nice 'deducible from first principles' sort of answer. we have to make arbitrary decisions. confound it!

just about anything can be an art form or a game (two very closely related concepts). it's just like... the scope of some activity that humans have settled on, maybe because we find it tends to arrange the world in ways that please our senses, maybe because it gives a handle to understand the noise around us. we find it satisfying to create these little bits of logical structure in the complete arbitrariness of everything. learning, the process of adapting to something, is a big part of what makes it compelling.

we learn these different activities by imitation at first. but since we crave novelty, and since all these activities are embedded in social relationships of power and prestige and so on, maybe at some point we get unsatisfied, we feel we've seen everything this particularly scheme has to offer, or that the activity as we encounter it doesn't suit our particular lives and we'd rather put a different spin on it... so we adjust it, make another variant. thus cultural practices evolve. they evolve in a way that is much more vague and hard to define than alleles, proteins, and organisms. there's no skin defining the boundary of a concept, it's more like the soup of bacteria swapping genes.

it's all so fascinating, because it's all made of the things that someone somewhere has found fascinating and hoped to communicate to other brains like it. "try this, you might enjoy it," spread across eight billion people and counting. 'i' could live a hundred times from the same starting point and spend the 80-ish years i get alive in a hundred completely different ways and develop into 'different people' each time, and in each one feel that i lived as interesting and purposeful a life as anyone gets to live. but i only get to experience the one lifetime, so I have to choose, even just to let the world choose for me... and let all those choices become a history that pushes into one trajectory or another, even if i can't see its shape. tumbling like a plinko horse.

why am 'i' this person, who cares about these things, and not another person who cares about other things? why did the whirlpool form there and not ten centimetres to the left? why are these sounds a musical genre, why are these shapes an art style? systems be complex, sometimes that's all you can say...

but even if I'm just one little tentacle of the incomprehensible superorganism/egregore/glider-pattern fumbling its way through experience-space, I'm glad i get to be that. wouldn't miss it for the world...

[pttucker]

"Stories should be permitted to even those who have failed." The ones that had forgotten about themselves weren't even allowed to enjoy the opportunities of the scenarios. The < Star Stream > gagged them, and made sure that their words would become incomprehensible to others. […Is that what you truly believe?] Douzhanshengfo asked, his unreadable eyes still locked on me. No, more correctly, he was looking at the power of Chaos rising out from my body. [And you wish to sacrifice your whole being and become an 'Outer God'?] "…That's correct." The Great Sage was yawning with a bored face during my answer and once he was done, spoke his opinion. [Are you done with your confirmation? I told you, didn't I? This guy's really like that.] […Indeed.]

Lmfao I love that everyone who gets to know Dokja is just "no seriously that's just how Dokja is" while everyone who hasn't been watching this wild, scheming little baby Constellation / Nebula run amok is like "no surely he must not understand the consequences."

Oh, he does. He always understands the consequences. He just does it anyway.

Hmmm but the whole thing with failed stories and "ones that had forgotten about themselves" thing again. Dokja has been talking about failed stories for so long now, in bits and pieces here and there. And we've had the idea of people forgetting themselves waaaaay back since Peace Land. Or, actually, even before that if you count the people who read TWSA forgetting themselves and becoming characters. (Man, haven't thought of those guys in forever.)

So I know that this is all building up to something really big but I'm just not certain what.

Besides me still vaguely theorizing that Dokja has gone through this story before and forgotten it, due to his story being ORV and ORV being a novel, and thus something that can be re-read, or Dokja being a part of Oldest Dream, who regretted what he did to Joonghyuk by giving him the power to regress and started the story over as Dokja.

Hmm, maybe Dokja is the one who failed?

Except I've always pretty much thought that Joonghyuk was the one who "failed" because Dokja has always hinted that TWSA ended on an unhappy note and he wanted to change that. And now we have confirmation that it actually did end with everyone but Joonghyuk dying. And for no reason since there's nothing beyond TWSA, meaning Secretive Plotter saw the "end" and it basically just...stopped. The epilogue hadn't been written/read yet.

And now Secretive Plotter wants to change that... supposedly.

I guess it could be quite literal. The ones who "failed" are the ones who died along Joonghyuk's turns and were forgotten in the end by everyone but Joonghyuk himself and Joonghyuk's final reader, Dokja. Just like the story is literally saying.

It's just I've gotten so used to ORV having so many layers of text and subtext so I'm like...there has to be something else to all this "failed stories" and memory issues stuff. Right???

Hmmmm.

Oh, but on another topic, I guess Dokja is Sun Wukong now??? At least one of him? Part of him??? Uh...permanently or...

And at least part of Sun Wukong is an outer god, but apparently that's nbd to him. 😂

Oh, and I guess I didn't realize that all of the outer gods "belong" to Secretive Plotter??? Like, obviously he is the most powerful of them all but I didn't realize that he is literally their "king" or that Dokja becoming one would make him "belong" to him as well?

Or, at least that's seemingly what the Wenny King believes, though it doesn't seem that Sun Wukong becoming part outer god has in any way stopped him from wanting to throw hands with Secretive Plotter so...

I thought that Dokja's deal with the Wenny King was somehow to the Wenny King's benefit but I guess it would have been to Secretive Plotter's? Or both? Thinking about it, I'm not entirely certain why either of them would even want Dokja as an outer god versus just killing him. I suppose it has something to do with Dokja being able to understand the other outer gods? Perhaps something to do with all the stories he's built up? Would Secretive Plotter be able to control him and get him to do something that he needs him to do???

Or maybe if he publicly became an outer god that would shift public opinion and possibly allow them into the story since he's too much a part of this story and he hasn't destroyed everything like Secretive Plotter did so there's still story to belong to, just like how one piece of Sun Wukong becoming an outer god immediately shifted the shares of Journey to the West. Just like Dokja thought it would.

idk...a lot is happening right now. 😂

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Rest of messages in thread not included for reasons of mortifying inadequacy on my part! Anon you sent this in on August 22. I just want to type that out loud so that I can nail my shame to my front door like Martin Luther with his 95 Theses, except every thesis is "Nat can't fucking answer a single thing in an even vaguely timely manner". I would say I'm sorry for what I have become, but the truth is that I was ever thus. I'm sorry for what I have always been.

I'm sorry as well that it is so hard to find me across platforms because I have a thousand different usernames! Some of it used to be intentional, but intent or none, it functions as a real pain in the ass and I apologize. I've been trying to address this issue via the sidebar link on this blog and the cross-platform links in the author's notes on AO3, but we could have avoided all this if I had just stuck to a single identifying name. Still, DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS TO THE CONTRARY, I'm so glad that you found me! Not least because it has led to you sending this absolute conflict-free lab-grown diamond necklace of messages! Thank you so so so much 😭💕 It's hard for me to explain this in a sensible manner, but my slowness in answering genuinely is in large part because the message means so much to me. I want to save the act of answering for a moment when I can feel articulate enough to do some justice to the kindness you have shown me, but then it's 10PM every night when I finish writing work emails and I am incapable of stringing two words together. Tomorrow, I think, I will try again! And then it's another 10PM and another 10PM and more than two months goes by before I have to accept that I will never feel articulate enough to respond the way that you deserve. That would be true at any other time of day, besides!

But thank you. I hope that you can stick around for the frustratingly glacial pace at which I do anything at all; what I lack in output, I make up for in stubbornness. One day, 88 will be a complete fic, even if I have to break my own bones to do it. (Please don't ask me the perfectly legitimate question of why broken bones would facilitate fic writing. It is a statement about the strength of my resolution, but it is an incomprehensible statement.)

This is such an interesting question! HOW DID I? I'm combing through my (admittedly blurry) autobiographical memories, but I can't seem to find a particular originary point for reading. Saying "I've always been a reader" is so boring, and it implies a certain kind of relationship with literature that I don't think I actually have-- I didn't particularly gravitate towards reading at the expense of other activities, and I read such a hodgepodge mixture of stuff that I can't fathom what it was about the act of reading that I actually enjoyed. And now, well, I read almost exclusively for work, to the degree that the thought of reading for pleasure makes me recoil.

The writing, I do have an originary point for. I was in elementary school, and my class had recently held a small creative writing competition; we were at an age where it was embarrassing to try very hard to achieve anything, so I blew it off, because I had to perform coolness due to it not coming naturally to me. Our homeroom teacher announced the winner, and asked that they read out loud their winning entry for the rest of the class. They did, and I remember thinking very clearly: This is fine, but I could do it better if I tried.

This is a story that is immensely unflattering to me-- or rather, it's a devastatingly accurate portrayal of me. It contains all the seeds of my worst qualities as a writer and a human being: competitiveness in something I consider myself to be proficient at, the need for external validation, baseless arrogance. But when I found myself being so hideously jealous of that kid, it wasn't primarily jealousy over the fact that they had won something; I was jealous that they had this stage time to show people what the world looked like to them. I felt robbed of the chance to connect with people in that way. Of course, no one robbed me of anything -- I chose to pretend that I was too cool for school -- and there was absolutely no reason to think that I would have won the competition and gotten that stage time for myself, even if I had tried as hard as I could. But still, it got me writing. Not because I had anything to say, but because whatever banal cut-rate shit I would end up saying, I just wanted someone else to hear it and tell me that I made sense to them. That's still why I do it, I think.

Seeing as how my twitter is just my tumblr with 100% less overwrought rambling, I can't decide whether you had a worse experience or a better one than binging this blog instead! On the one hand, I can't recommend the overwrought rambling; on the other hand, what's left after the overwrought rambling is excised is still just a lot of mid art determined to insist that dick jokes comprise an entire genre of creative output. IT'S DISMAL EITHER WAY! But it's too late for you! (Thank you.)

Anon!!!!! The very FACT THAT YOU SENT ME A ONE PIECE MESSAGE!!! My past in One Piece fandom is a really deep cut in that it very rarely comes up on this blog, so I'm super pleased that you thought of me!!!!!!!!!! 💖

Tragically, I have still not watched it. I KNOW, PLEASE DON'T THROW ME OUT OF THIS PORTHOLE. I agree wholeheartedly with you-- I'm thrilled that it got new fans into OP, and that it was made with so much visible love! I wouldn't say that I'm someone who is ever looking for live action versions of stuff -- if push came to shove, I'd probably admit that I don't necessarily see the inherent appeal of live action adaptations -- but it makes me truly happy to hear all the enthusiasm and praise for this one!!! Me not watching it yet mostly has to do with the aforementioned "it's 10PM when I finish writing work emails" problem.

As someone who is unfortunately very well-acquainted with what I am into (or so I must presume, by the sheer miracle of you sending me an OP message), it probably comes as no surprise to you that the single most affecting piece of promotional media that I encountered was a teaser clip from the Baratie arc. Anon when I tell you THE BREATH CAUGHT IN MY THROAT. THE BARATIE SHOT LIKE A RESTAURANT SHOW!!!! THE BARATIE!!!!!!!! WHERE MY SON WAS RAISED! HIS FISH-HEADED NURSERY! MY SON! THE DARLING OF THE BARATIE! A KITCHEN PACKED TO THE GILLS WITH SHORT TEMPERS! THE THORN IN THEIR SIDE! THE APPLE OF THEIR EYE! CRADLED TO SLEEP BY THE WATERS THAT TOOK HIM IN! GENTLED TO WARMTH BY A COMMERCIAL GAS RANGE! THE BRINE-SWEET CHILDHOOD HOME OF MY SON!!!!!

One Piece was so early for me that I can't even distinguish what came first, my Sanji bias or my commercial kitchen obsession. What remains crystal clear is that I am predictable in my perversions. I will watch it, anon. Someday hopefully soon.

[quikyu]

How would you rank all the Ultra Beasts? Like, from most to least favorite?

Oooh.... very inch-resting question. I've vaguely thought about this before, but never actually thought to put my favorite ultra beasts in order!

Just a disclaimer first, though-- I don't actually *dislike* any of the UBs. At most I'm pretty neutral ;D

Rankings below :)

Nihilego

My absolute FAVORITE genre of pokemon generally tends to be the eerie-but-cute (and-maybe-dangerous-too) Creature. Nihilego is a faceless, incomprehensibly ominous head-crab-type parasite... that makes cute little sounds and twirls when it's happy and acts so so innocent!!! I love it!!! What a simple yet appealing design (being a cloudy, pastel blue with a bell that looks quite like a sun-hat), conveying a sense of uneasiness within it. It almost looks like a harmless little girl, but.. somethings still not right...? Maybe its the fact that its a parasitic glass jellyfish leaping For Your Face

It's appearance also makes me think about what it predates on in its home-world!?!

Anyways, she's my adorable, freaky little daughter. 10/10

2. Pheromosa

That being said, my second favorite genre of pokemon is pretty much just 'Girl,' and, Yes, the cockroach applies. I personally enjoy the idea of this little girlboss of a pokemon getting haphazardly Dropped into an entirely different galaxy, and just going "Ok" about it... How calm...

Very odd proportions, too-- I do wish the pokemon company had gone further with Bug Traits in the design, but I also personally love the eyes and crown, so I would miss those if they had changed it to be something less humanoid XD And while I love the distant, spiteful attitude it had in the anime, I also enjoy the idea of a more curious and playful buggy, who's just trying to make sense of a new world

I also keep on forgetting that Pheromosa's FAST!!! Very amazing quality to have. Much speed.

3. Kartana

I didn't know whether I liked Kartana or Stakataka more, so just pretend they're the same in terms of rank.

How is this a pokemon!?! A tiny origami samurai!?! CUTE!!! In my opinion, I think Kartana is one of the more peculiar UBs-- especially judging from how it acts in Pokemon Refresh in the SM games. I'd love to go more in depth about Kartana, really, but I don't know what to say XD It's a slicey, dicey, little guy. And I like it lots!

Paper-cut is an understatement!

4. Stakataka

Before I had much interest in Ultra Beasts, I probably would've said Stakataka is my favorite of the group. It's a real big block, is what it is, but I think it's rather endearing... it's a bunch of little giblets, coming together to make... a bigger giblet. Awesome!! It also reminds me of Guardians from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and I really love those guys

I kind of want to ride it like a horse...

5. Buzzwole

Buzzwole is an INCREDIBLE pokemon. With the same strangeness as Pheromosa, it's a BUG, but rather than being elegant and graceful, it's... completely JACKED!?!? A mosquito on 'roids!! What kind of creature is this thing sucking the blood out of, anyway!?!

I picture Buzzwole as a typical nice jock-- very wholesome, but also very very dense. And also it's a huge mosquito-- did I mention that? Crazy. I want to be its friend.

6. Poipole

From here on out I don't feel as strongly on any of the Ultra Beasts. No problem, though-- I still have opinions!

I like Poipole's position as the "starter pokemon" of Ultra Space. Fun, in how, unlike a normal starter, it's still just as dangerous as the rest of the Ultra Beasts XD ("While spraying opponents with this venom, it laughs wildly!") It's a very cute, almost techno-looking pokemon, and once more the odd, vibrant colorations and body shape really sell it as an Alien. The concept art for it is also adorable, too!!

Ah.. wait... I think I'm starting to like Poipole more just from talking about it...

7. Blacephalon

Blacephalon has a very cool name! Asides from that, while I do like its colors, and the fact that its Head Explodes (which is VERY cool,) I've never really felt much for clown pokemon... It seems like a silly little goober, though-- It has eyes that can emote each side of its head! That's adorable!

Also it's as tall as Pheromosa, at 5'11". I did not know this. I am now terrified.

8. Celesteela

I can safely say that Celesteela is the kindest rocket I have ever seen. XD Just look at that sweet little smile! Of course, it's not really noticeable, when one zooms out to view the rest of the body. I want to like Celesteela more but... it doesn't really... move much? I can't detect much of a personality from it-- it's kind of just there. Sort of to be expected, though. Baby Celesteela, as portrayed in the anime, is very adorable though, and I would like 5 of them.

9. Xurkitree

Xurkitree sort of falls under the same category as Blacephalon for me, just in terms of vibes, I suppose. I appreciate its very joyful, carefree saunter, but nothing else really sticks out to me in terms of what I might like about it...

10. Naganadel

Poipole's evolution! I simply don't like it quite as much, though. It's a little hard to look at right, and I've always thought it looked a little stiff. It's lost all of Poipole's personality :(

However, it has an amazing shiny!

11. Guzzlord

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH"

... That's it XD I never cared much for Guzzlord at all. Big hungry guy.

Anyways, that was a lot longer than I expected it to be XD Thank you for asking!

[cloud-somersault]

Semi continuation to the ask about shadowpeach not thinking about the fact they might have been trapped simultaneously. I understand them thinking the other purposefully abadoned them NOW, in present times with all the bad blood. But seriously how in all the years they were trapped, how did they not think 'hey maybe the reason my loving mate isnt rescuing me is because he actually cant. Im being punished, why not him'

(comes crawling out of the chap.4 document covered in blood and picks this ask up off the kitchen table) ........... uhhhh oh okay. yes. okay

in chapter 4 (SOBS AND CRIES) this will be vaguely explained. maybe? I don't know anymore. but also uhm.

A lot of this has to do with, like, expectations. We know, since this was from Wukong's perspective, what he thought about Macaque even if he's being all "I hate you, you suck!!" right now. He fucking is impressed with Macaque's powers and takes him seriously in every fight. He knows Macaque can't be underestimated. He respects his abilities and magic. He thinks it's cool that Macaque can teleport anywhere! In the Mate Day flashback, he DEADASS thought Macaque just...made a new shadow spell out of the blue. I don't know if I've made this clear, but it is difficult to make new spells.

Wukong held Macaque in a high regard. He was the only one (and still is) who can stand toe to toe with him, after all.

And we all know Macaque thought Wukong could do anything. He's the MONKEY KING. Sun Wukong! Able to beat celestial armies and stand up to gods! He's invincible! He gets whatever he wants! Past!Macaque saw all of this and got it into his head that .. there is nothing that can stop Wukong.

When you have those expectations, you're left with this feeling of... "Why isn't he here???? He can do anything... I've seen it. Why isn't he saving me?" Because you don't think of them being beaten. That's not feasible in that mindset. Incomprehensible. It's also a very childlike notion but they were young then.

It's grappling with the fact that the person you thought was all-powerful and amazing...isn't. Everyone has limitations. No one is perfect. People are going to disappoint you. A person cannot be there for you 24/7 and expecting that is unrealistic.

Also, in chapter 4, you'll see why Macaque wasn't...thinking about that as much. He had other stuff going on.

For Wukong, since we know his story and that he was under that mountain for a while, he did do some thinking...but he just didn't want to believe it. He couldn't...see that happening. Not Macaque.

I think it's clear by this point that...both of them have a hard time coming to grips with the truth.

[lycanlovingvampyre]

MAG 106 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: putting up a new fence

Hearing the episode title I somehow already suspected this could be a space one...

Huh... The spinning of the tape breaks off there for a moment after Melanie's clap (1:21). I never noticed this. Probably always thought it was a brief loading error. Thought it now too at first, but I went back to check.

"More than large enough for the swell of humanity to grow, and ultimately extinguish itself." Hm, a touch of the Extinction there?

"and when I think of it too deeply, I feel like I’m going to throw up. Like a sort of existential vertigo." Yeah, I know this feeling. When I try to think of things which are incomprehensible for me I get this weird feeling and feel dizzy.

"I knew that if it chose to cry out, it would have destroyed me utterly." The Vast is the most cosmic of all horrors of the Entities. This literally sounds like an Old One.

"And I wish that I could convince myself that ignorance was the same thing as safety." Louder, for Jon in S1!

Although this is a statement with a lot of rambling and very little actually happening (and usually I simply cannot follow those kind of statements) I absolutely love this one. I'm not only afraid of heights and I hate falling (generally avoid rides with a drop at theme parks), the aspect of one's own insignificance compared to the sheer size of the universe really gets to me, but also fascinates me.

Nice to see that the rest of the archival team is actually helping Martin with the statements.

MELANIE: "Also, I um, I can’t find Jan Kilbride." Sounds like he has been swallowed up by the earth! *badum tss*

BASIRA: "Yeah, it’s, it is not cool down here." MELANIE: "Summer in the basement, I suppose." Is it really hot in some basements in the summer? Because mine is always cool. Very comfortable in summer, too cold in winter.

BASIRA: [ugh] "That boy needs to relax." MELANIE: "Or at least find someone else to fuss over!" BASIRA: "Yeah, he’s got it bad." This is top quality office gossip!

BASIRA: "Do you know if he and Jon ever…" MELANIE: "No clue, and not interested! Although… according to Georgie, Jon doesn’t." BASIRA: "Like, at all?" MELANIE: "Yeah." First of all, Georgie randomly telling a mutual that Jon is ace, it that allowed? Second, Melanie randomly telling a mutual (and co-worker!) that Jon is ace... General opinion on the confirmation of an ace character: Yay!!! I don't really know what to think of confirmation happening by mentioning it in bonus material, a lot of people probably won't catch it that way, so having it in the main canon story is great! Then, yeah, it's kind of hard to reveal it when sex isn't really a topic in itself in the story. It comes up very rarely in statements, implied with Tim and towards the end with Georgie and Melanie. So how do you touch upon a topic that isn't really a topic? Have people talk about it and I think the gossip was a good way to handle that. The benefit of the gossip and especially the circumstance of who is telling it makes it vague to leave room for interpretations so people can put him anywhere on the spectrum. The vagueness of certain story points is doing a great service for fan content in my opinion. As someone who asked themself why I had not yet come across proper ace representation in fiction, hearing of poor little meow meow Jon being ace made me so happy!

BASIRA: "No way. I used to love that show. I mean, the first couple of seasons, at least. Took a weird turn in season three, when they introduced –" I heard this may be again a reference to The Black Tapes?? Yes, no, maybe?

ELIAS: "Whatever I’m planning needs to be stopped even if it cost a few lives. Including your own." That's very Gertrude-y of Melanie. Except for the part of risking her own life, that's very Slaughter-y.

Ben's voice acting is so on point!

When I heard Ivy Meadows I immediately knew, this is going to be bad. I remembered very well that this was the care home from MAG 36.

So that knowledge-insertion torture... THAT was the moment I finally decided "Holy shit... Elias really is evil!"

@a-mag-a-day

[aptericia]

TIME CHILD: RGU FANART & ANALYSIS

OMG I’m finally done with this! I hope you guys enjoy this duelist-style Tokiko, I had a lot of fun drawing her :)))

Below the cut is my attempt at an essay that explores her character through the characters and ideas she represents. I’ve never done one of these analysis thingies before (it’s been hard to convince myself that it’s neither 100% obvious boring stuff nor completely incomprehensible ramblings with no foundation) so it might not be great, but I feel really satisfied being able to put all my vague thoughts down on paper, and I hope someone finds it interesting :)

MAJOR SPOILERS for the entirety of Revolutionary Girl Utena!!

In the Black Rose Saga, the parallels between Utena & Anthy’s relationship and Mikage & Mamiya’s are quite obvious. But both of them have another, equally important figure in their relationship—the bride’s older sibling. If Mikage represents Utena, and Mamiya represents Anthy, then Tokiko logically represents Akio. She was also the one who pulled Nemuro out of his purgatory of apathy and loneliness, and gave him something to care about: Mamiya’s unpleasant fate. And just like the two of them, she has a relationship with her counterpart: where Mikage and Utena are rivals, and Anthy impersonates Mamiya, Tokiko is Akio’s lover and a (likely unknowing) perpetrator in his plans.

(This is a bit of a tangent, but Akio’s manipulation of Nemuro in episode 22 is strikingly similar to Touga’s manipulation of Miki back in episode 5. Just like Miki, Nemuro has largely given up on his task by Akio (in his case it’s research, rather than dueling) because he realizes it’s not truly what his bride wants or needs. But Nemuro is in love with Tokiko. He probably doesn’t even realize this, given his lack of social skills, but when he sees her with Akio he suddenly becomes scared of what he has to lose (just like when Miki sees Kozue with Touga). Combine this with Mamiya stating out of the blue that he does, in fact, want “eternity” (just as Anthy suggests that her engagement to Utena could end her piano playing), and Nemuro is now willing to take the offer he’d been so repulsed by earlier.)

Anyway, if Tokiko is a counterpart to Akio, why does Mikage see her in Utena of all people? It’s because the Tokiko he remembers is the version of her that’s still naïve, idealistic, and fundamentally childish—that is, the Tokiko from Nemuro’s time is Mikage’s Dios. Notably, when Mikage comes across present-day Tokiko in the hall, he ignores her—he doesn’t recognize the person, the adult, she has become. His entire reality is built on his memories, therefore, he can’t imagine that Tokiko couldn’t have changed from the young prince she was to him. Instead, he finds those “innocent” qualities in Utena and decides she must be the woman herself, desperate for an outlet for all his unresolved love and hatred towards her.

Tokiko, of course, did change—and her “fall from grace” that turned her from Dios to Akio was the fire at Nemuro Memorial Hall. Her brother is dead, which is bad enough, but something she might have been able to accept. However, Nemuro—possibly her only other friend at the academy—can’t accept it. He deludes himself and denies reality until he ends up taking the lives of a hundred students. At this point, Tokiko has failed to save anyone, and her innocence has been shattered. Therefore, she does the only thing she can: give up, abandon Nemuro at Ohtori, and become an adult.

There’s not enough information to say if she becomes “evil” exactly (indeed, the line is very fuzzy in Utena anyway), but when she returns as an adult she seems to have no interest in helping the people trapped in Akio’s garden, apart from a vague understanding that “there’s something wrong” about what he’s doing. Good or bad, she chose to save herself, and she’s no longer the prince she once was.

What’s really sneaky about Nemuro’s storyline really is that is doesn’t actually use the term “prince”, or any other fairytale themes. It has a much more “mundane” or “modern” feel to it, with science & medicine replacing the swordfights and castles. But ultimately, it’s still the same story, and it’s a warning to Utena (and the viewer) of what would happen should she fail to break out of her coffin. Nemuro stayed too long—after the failed revolution, after his bride was dead—and continued to cling to his memories, becoming a cruel manipulator in his own right, still convinced he was doing it for someone else. In their own ways, Tokiko and Mikage both foreshadow how easy it is for the noble prince to become selfish and cold-hearted. Although it’s hard to imagine Utena ever becoming as bad as Akio (plus she’s mortal, so she probably doesn’t physically have enough time), she has a real risk of becoming Tokiko or Mikage. If she allows herself to realize she can’t save Anthy, she’ll close herself off and leave Ohtori on her own, taking with her only a mountain of regret and a lingering sense that she can only ever look out for herself. If she convinces herself she can still save Anthy, she’ll go to increasingly far (and immoral) lengths to do so and drift further away from reality, and the one she loves. There’s no way out…except, maybe, to convince Anthy to save herself instead.

(There’s one more small, largely unrelated point I’d like to make about Tokiko. Perhaps, instead of Dios or Akio, her true counterpart is actually Touga. There are some cosmetic similarities—her violet eyes, her dark pink hair color that is really closer to Touga’s than Akio’s—and her name sounds almost like a combination of the two (this could absolutely be a coincidence, but we have Mamiya and Himemiya after all). Also, her relationship with Mikage is telling. Where Utena sees Dios/Akio as an inspiration, and idol, and a duty, Mikage sees Tokiko as an actual friend (possibly a lover) that he lost but imagines to come back to him. Does that sound like Utena & Touga’s relationship from the movie? Anywayyy I’m probably seeing things, but if not, this may support my pet theory about Touga…)

[lizhly-writes]

cnovel shenanigans: the actual beginning of the plot, from our og fmc's perspective.

Chen Lihua didn’t expect to run into Jiang Mingxi, which made a decent amount of sense.  Chen Lihua never really expected to run into Jiang Mingxi, not even when they had been back in college.  Their majors had been drastically different; Chen Lihua did theater and film, Jiang Mingxi did business.  There was no real intersection between the two.  The fact that they’d landed in the same classes anyway had to have been sheer, dumb luck.

Fascinating, considering Chen Lihua’s luck was so very bad.

Case in point: Chen Lihua runs into Jiang Mingxi.  Literally.

If Chen Lihua was a physics teacher, she’d slow this down for the sake of her students, add some labels and arrows for clarity’s sake.  Look at this freeze-frame: two forces, A and B, coming at each other from opposite directions.  What exactly happens here?

Force equals mass times acceleration.  Force A, Chen Lihua, was going faster than force B, Jiang Mingxi.  Assuming the same mass, then the collision would result in B being diverted from her course.  However, this assumed same mass; Jiang Mingxi was in fact, twice Chen Lihua’s size, and a solid wall of muscle, whereas Chen Lihua was mostly made of skin and bone.

End result: Chen Lihua bounces off Jiang Mingxi and ends up sprawled on the ground, a victim of physics.  How tragic.

“Ow,” said Chen Lihua, just a little late.  This was one of the occasions she really wished she liked skirts less, because that would’ve meant she would have been wearing pants, and thus, probably would have avoided the skinned knees.

Jiang Mingxi glared back at her, angry as always.  “Chen Lihua.” 

The anger was maybe a little bit warranted this time, because Chen Lihua had been carrying a coffee – really just her luck – and it had splashed them both.

Chen Lihua looked mournfully down at the fallen cup.  She’d barely gotten a few mouthfuls out of it before all of it had ended up on their clothes.  It had been a shame; she didn’t buy lattes like this very often, they were expensive and the caffeine hit wasn’t high enough for her to justify it as the energy boost she needed to get through the day.  She’d gotten one this week as a little treat for herself.

“Hi,” Chen Lihua said apologetically, grabbing the cup and straightening to a standing position.  “It’s been a while.  I never thought I’d see you here.  Sorry about…” she gestured at the coffee covering both of them.

Vaguely, she contemplated whether she needed to grovel for forgiveness.  She probably wouldn’t have needed to back in college.  The fact that they had been students meant that they weren’t expected to command the same kind of dignity as a true adult, and besides, Jiang Mingxi had liked her in college.  She never said it, but Chen Lihua had a brain; if she hadn’t liked Chen Lihua, there was no way that they would have spent so much time together.

Now, though.  Chen Lihua was honestly a little surprised that Jiang Mingxi still remembered her name.  Relationships weakened if they weren’t kept up, and Chen Lihua absolutely had not been doing any kind of keeping up with anyone.  It was quite possible that Jiang Mingxi didn’t think anything of her at all, now.  

Chen Lihua felt a tiny bit of regret at that thought.

Then she decided to grovel.

“Begging Young Mistress Jiang for her understanding,” Chen Lihua said.  “I really didn’t mean to spill coffee on you, is there anything I can do…?  I’m really, really sorry!”

Jiang Mingxi stared.  Her face was stuck in dignified incomprehension.

Chen Lihua got a solid ten seconds in about how Jiang Mingxi shouldn’t wreak unholy vengeance upon her.  More nicely worded, of course.  She didn’t really think Jiang Mingxi was actually going to wreak unholy vengeance upon her, but a lot of things never actually went the way she expected, so groveling was a good idea.  If Jiang Mingxi made her pay up to get replacements – well, there was no way.  That blouse Jiang Mingxi was wearing looked simple enough, but she was a rich girl, through and through.  It was entirely possible that the blouse cost more than Chen Lihua’s rent for the month.  Or the year.

Ah.  That got her heart racing. She really couldn’t afford to pay that.

“What are you doing?  Shut up, have some dignity,” Jiang Mingxi hissed, and the response was so much like what Chen Lihua would have expected in college that Chen Lihua… acted accordingly.

“Dignity is something for rich people, Jiang Mingxi.  I’m too poor to afford something like that, I already sold mine away.”

“What,” Jiang Mingxi said flatly.

Wow.  Chen Lihua hadn’t said something that shameless in a while.