#a time travel sideplot

[cocajimmycola]

(Dreamy sigh.) thinking about youtubers life 2. worst game i;ve ever played /silly

[ragnars-tooth]

I'm sorry I just found out the US versions are set in Massachusetts and have a different plot order?? 😭😭

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for a Fic...

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1. hiiiii i hope all of you are having a wonderful dayyy! for the next itmf, could i request any modern zombie apocalypse fics? I just read The Edge of Night by Hobbsy3 and now i’m craving more 😅could wangxian be the main pairing and no character deaths between them? thank youuuu ♡ 

❤️ A Corpse Called By Name by jaemyun (Not rated, 60k, wangxian, angst w/ happy ending, zombie apocalypse, zombie WWX, yunmeng trio)

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2. do you know any wangxian fics where Lan Xichen is also in love with Wei Wuxian? NOT WWX/LZ/LX, just where Xichen also falls for WWX

Melody of the Lost and Found by esama (T, 48k, WIP, XiXian, WangXian, Time Travel, Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Grief/Mourning, YLLZ WWX, There are two WWXs in this)

Is this a Shakespearean Comedy, because I'm in love with the wrong person by firesonic152 (E, 7k, WangXian, Arranged Marriage, Adultery, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, Sneaking Around, Requited Love, Mutual Pining, Explicit Sexual Content, Bittersweet Ending)

Burning Bridges by Keysmashed (E, 12k, wangxian, arranged marriage, misunderstandings, pining, angst w/ happy ending, family drama, swordfighting, non-graphic smut, emotional rollercoaster, love confessions, everyone lives au)

Over and Over Again by Miss_Writers_Block (T, 1k, WangXian, WWX/Everyone, Everyone Loves WWX, Unrequited Love, except for one, and its the obvious one, Canon Compliant) there is this classic!

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3. Hello there, I was wondering if there was any fanfiction [regardless of the website] about time travel to the past wei wuxian , but when he goes back the past mdzs has to deal with his depressing or suicidal side (here I mean wei wuxian becomes younger) , or yiling laozu time travel and meets his past self and family

How did I end up with this Frozen Heart? by Grace_ShadowWolf (TaubeLePigeon) (T, 53k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Fix-It, PTSD, Angst with a Happy Ending, YP!WWX, twin prides of yunmeng are horrified at the relationship between their future selves, YP!WWX has short hair, Canon Divergence, Self-Indulgent, wangxian get together early, Songfic, JC Bashing, LXC Bashing)

The Wild Geese's Tomb by The Feels Whale (miscellea) (T, 66k, WangXian, Time Travel AU, fixit, Temporary Character Death)

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4. Hi! "In the mood" ask...I was wondering if anyone knows of any fics where someone (I was thinking Lan Qiren but it doesn't have to be) starts having suspicions that Lan Wangji is "following in his father's footsteps" and that Wei Wuxian isn't a willing partner in their relationship - a wrong assumption, but I'd like to see people opposing LWJ to be protective on WWX's behalf! @therealscarymarlowe

Every Mother's Son by Chrononautical (T, 11k, WangXian, Madam Lán Lives, Madam Lán Deserves Better, Madam Lán Leaves Cloud Recesses, mentions of rape/non-con between Madam Lan & Qingheng-Jun) the former Madam Lan returns to 'rescue' WWX

Unbreakable Heaven, Luminous Earth by carolyncaves (M, 96k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Secret Identity, almost to the point of uncomfortable identity theft, Sharing a Bed, Literal Sleeping Together, Mutual Pining, Getting Together, Suicidal Thoughts, that's for WWX after Nightless City and is not pervasive throughout the fic, Blood and Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Caretaking, Sexual Content, Domestic Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, Power Imbalance, mainly between WWX and JGY in an entirely nonsexual manner, oh jyl lives, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies)

Hold Truth to the Light by SoManyJacks (E, 15k, WangXian, Light Angst, Fluff, idiot plot kind of, switch!lwj, service top!wwx, Accusations of rape, False Accusations, nasty rumors, Alcohol, arranged marriage sideplot, Painful Sex, Anal Sex, POV Alternating, Light Dom/sub, Post-Canon, Based on the novel, Flip Fuck, gratuitous epilogues, uhhh also donkey)

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5. Hii! I hope you are doing well, and Mod Kay, i hope you have a swift recovery!! So, I recently read a fic with wen xu being a decent guy and i was wondering if you had anymore fics where the wen sons aren't complete assholes and actually bond with wwx?? Thank you in advance!!! @flexible-racoon

All Things Belong by kuroi_atropos (M, 64k, WIP, WRH & WWX, WangXian, WWX is a Wēn, Abuse, Whipping, Manipulations, Warning: WRH, Smart WWX, Possessive Behavior, Warning: JGS, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Rape/Non-con)

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6. Hi!!!! Any recommendations about wwx adopting a puppy/dog or wwx overcoming his phobia about dogs??? Thank you so much

Imprints by Lisa_Telramor (G, 47k, wangxian, post-canon, accidental puppy acquisition, humor, panic attacks, phobia recovery, JC & WWX reconciliation, poor life choices, self acceptance, developing relationship, fluff)

🧡 Rabbit Heart by Suaine (M, 56k, WangXian, during the separation in ep50, some animal cruelty (not committed by main characters), WWX adopts a puppy (YES I KNOW), Family Issues, Sexual Content)

I'm Alright 'Cuz I Have You Here With Me by wwx-lwj-ai-ni (TDKeh16) (T, 17k, WangXian, Modern AU, WWX Has a Fear of Dogs, Friends to Lovers, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Facing Fears, Supportive Friendship, Mention of childhood dog attack, Pining LWJ, Oblivious WWX, Sharing a Bed)

Must Love Dogs by northebee, wingedwords (T, 17k, WangXian, Modern AU, Fluff, Humor, Light Angst, WWX Has a Fear of Dogs, Panic Attack, Hurt/Comfort)

Silver bells and cockle shells by teawater (T, 97k, WangXian, Family Fluff, JC's Birthday party, Reincarnations, Pets, Facing Fears, One-sided attraction, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Night Hunts, some actual Angst, I really mean it, mainly for side charas tho)

leave all your love and your longing behind by ScarlettStorm (E, 143k, WangXian, Modern AU, no magic, Meet-Ugly, Panic Attacks, autistic lwj, neurodivergent wwx, the neighborhood asshole dog, if you’ve met one then you know, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Minor Angst, major shenanigans, Happy Ending, for everyone including the asshole dog, Eventual Smut, switch rights, Sex Toys, horny yearning, Masturbation)

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7. Do you have a list of stories with ‘modern/present’ Wei Wuxian and ‘ancient/xianxia’ Lan Wangji?

It doesn’t particularly matter if Lan Wangji meets present day Wei Wuxian thanks to being immortal, suspended animation, time travel, dimension hopping, or something else. It’s just the clash of modern and ‘ancient’ sensibilities that makes it fun. I’m delighted every time I come across one!

(I’m not really sure what I would search for to find more of that sort of story myself, since the mechanism of their meeting has been so different each time I’ve found one). @ladysunami

take me back to a time by DizziDreams (T, 143k, WangXian, Modern AU, College/University, Modern with Magic, Time Travel, Sharing a Bed, Angst with a Happy Ending, Student!WWX, Time-Traveling Wizard!LWJ, Slow Burn, Character Death, Angstreference to abuse, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Abuse, Canon!LWJ, Canon-Typical Violence, Mutual Pining, Chronic Illness, Not A Fix-It, Case Fic, implied 3zun, Transmigration, America, [Podfic of] take me back to a time by dreamhazer)

The Life Cycle of the Frog and the Fish by Aerlalaith (T, 53k, WangXian, Reincarnation, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Sort Of, Reincarnation, Mystery, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Illnesses Curses, References to Illness, Modern with Magic)

Wrong Turn, Right Place by diamondbruise (E, 71k, WangXian, Time Travel, kind of, modern wwx, cultivator lwj, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jealousy, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Misunderstandings, Cultural Differences, Miscommunication, LWJ Has a Big Dick, Anal Sex)

an impromptu visit to the city by bosbie (T, 12k, WangXian, Modern AU, Canon Divergence, Time Travel, Fluff, Humor, First Meetings, Falling In Love, Getting Together)

That Nasty Wei Wuxian by Avescor (T, 38k, WangXian, Modern AU, Time Travel, shirtless lwj, Chaotic WWX, Disaster friend JC, Character Development, Pre-Relationship, Adorable teenage cultivators, WWX messes with Cloud Recesses, Unreliable Narrator, chaotic evil WWX, Smoll WWX, trying to cope LWJ, Life lessons from an internet troll)

the song remains the same by la_muerta (T, 4k, WangXian, Reincarnation, Post CQL-canon, Angst with a Happy Ending)

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8. itmf lwj breaks down crying in front of wwx, bonus point if we get to know wwx's reaction towards seeing the usually-stoic lwj suddenly showing so much emotion

Regrets by antebunny (G, 37k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Time Travel, Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Descriptions of Love, and other squishy feeling, Angst with a Happy Ending) maybe regrets by antebunny, towards the end lwj cries and they confess😊

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9. Hi for itmf are there any fics that takes place after Wangxian marry and while on a night wwx gets hurt badly and this leads to jc and wwx reconcile with Lwj taking care of wwx

Thanks! @elainaparker

can people untie themselves, uncurling like flowers by annemari (T, 19k, JC & WWX, WangXian, Post-Canon, Yunmeng Bros Reconciliation, Family, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together)

some good mistakes by Lise (T, 18k, WangXian, JC & WWX, JC & LWJ, Road Trips, (terrible road trips), Post-Canon, Rescue Missions, Hurt/Comfort, ish, Awkward Conversations, POV JC, JC & WWX Reconciliation, (ish they're working on it)

Hindsight by Unicornelia96 (M, 15k, JC & WWX, WangXian, Hurt/Comfort, Yunmeng Bros Reconciliation, WWX Has Self-Esteem Issues, POV WWX, Hurt WWX, Burial Mounds, reference to possible cannibalism, Cannibalism, Major Character Injury, Serious Injuries, Angst with a Happy Ending, ish)

Although I'm not sure if any of my recs for 9 are specifically after they married. Pretty sure they're from before, but still post-canon

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10. Can u pls refer fics which are similar to divulgences by ataraxistence

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11. For the next ITMF do you have any fic where both LWJ and WWX died and are brought back to life? Bonus points if their families feel guilty about what happened

The Young Masters of Four Seasons Manor by gaotamao (G, 91k, WangXian, WenZhou, YeRong, Time Regression fix-it, WKX raises monstrous sons, Not Jiang Sect Friendly, No Golden Core Transfer) but without the bonus point op mentioned

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12. hii! im itmf fics where wangxian kinda know the other likes them before Officially Getting Together, like in canon, or similarly if it's more of a gradual falling together than a big shocking confession. thank you!!

❤️ I Started From the Bottom/And Now I’m Rich by x_los (E, 58k, wangxian, incidental and hilarious wwx/others that only result in death not anything sexual) it is a crack fic kinda, with wwx time travel. But wwx acknowledges mentally their romantic tension and the potential for something, before a wangxian typical confession occurs

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13. I was wondering is there any fics where after getting told off by lwj to not pester him anymore wwx does exactly that and stops paying him so much attention but it bothers lwj for some reason and he doesn't. like. that. at all.

Twitter threadfic by @/Cosmicmilktea

The Taste Of Cherry by chiyukimei (E, 6k, WangXian, Cherry Magic AU, Not JC Friendly, Lots of kissing, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Soft LQR) has a brief (very brief) moment like that

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14. Hi i m in the mood for a fic for social media aus specially those that has those fake posts or smthing but any works thanks!

Gremlin BF twitter thread by nyanxian this one is one twt, but one of my faves (Podfic: Gremlin Twitter Boyfriend by bluegeekEM, cantarina, duckgirlie, EosRose, exmanhater, fleurrochard, GoLBCollabs (GodOfLaundryBaskets), Gondolinpod (Gondolin), isweedan, knight_tracer, nyanxian, Opalsong, RevolutionaryJo, Rhea314 (Rhea), Rindle, sisi_rambles, Syr, Vorvayne_reads (Vorvayne))

My mom says I can marry whoever I want, and I want to marry this random guy I met on tumblr by Admiranda, miixz (T, 45k, WangXian, WN/OFC, MM/MM's Husband, Modern AU, Social Media, Chatting & Messaging, Texting, Getting to Know Each Other, Getting Together, Falling In Love, Fluff, Female WN, Internet Fights, Implied Reincarnation, modern au with cultivation, not the jc friendliest because of our fandom opinions but he's not really here)

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15. Yoooooo!!! Love you all, thankful for all the hard work you do for us fans! I don't know if this is ITMF or a compilation-related but I noticed the last time-travel compilation (part 3) is from over a year ago. Have any new time travel fic hit the charts over the past 12+ months? 😁 @kimboo-york

Never Again by Hauntcats (T, 67k, WangXian, WQ & WN & WWX, Canon Divergence, Angst, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Time Travel Fix-it, Not JC Friendly, Dark, BAMF WWX, mentions of abuse, Canon JC traits, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Cw for character death)

❤️ the thing with feathers by RoseThorne  (G, 43k, wangxian, Transmigration, Time Travel Fix-It, Illnesses, Family, Scars, Memory Loss, Angst, Fear, Recovery, Sharing a Bed, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Good Parent YZY, Referenced Sexual Slavery, Blood and Gore, Sexual Tension, Arranged Marriage, Grief, Adoption, POV Third Person, POV Alternating, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Good Parent LQR, Clairvoyance, Butterfly Effect)

The blame game by apathyinreverie (T, 13k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, possessive LWJ, oblivious WWX, fluff, romance, golden core reveal, golden core fix-it) 

Here With Me by iamwish (T, 58k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Canon-Typical Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Bad Parent YZY, POV WWX, POV LWJ, POV JC, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, WWX Has PTSD, and also depression sometimes, Unreliable Narrator) 

Lessons relearned by Iamnotawriter (T, 44k, WangXian, LQR & WWX, Not Madam Yu Friendly, Time Travel Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inventor WWX, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, No Golden Core Transfer, YZY Bashing) 

Pocketful of Soul by Jenrose (T, 182k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Canon Divergence, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, BAMF MXY, MXY Lives, Genderfluid MXY, MXY Backstory, POV MXY, If At First You Don’t Succeed Try Try Again and Again and Again, Wangxian Speedrun, times three because time travel, Found Family, Genius MXY, Genius WWX, Not particularly JGY friendly, CQL-based) 

Ad Oblivione by Baph, HikariNoHimeWriter (M, 70k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, POV Multiple, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Identity Reveal, Golden Core Reveal, Cultivation World Critical, Not JC Friendly, Abusive YZY, Angst with a Happy Ending)

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16. ITMF Wei Ying raising jin ling canon divergence/ canonverse/ alternate Universe. All will do @whateverweilanlovechild

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17. Hi!!! I hope you all doing well! I just wanna ask for a recommendations (if there is one) about Lan elders forcing LWJ to take in someone (a girl) to atleast bear his child (it doesn’t matter to them if LWJ is married to WWX as long as lwj bears an heir). Thank you so much for your hardwork!

The light of you will stay by orphan_account (M, 74k, WangXian, LWJ/OFC, Arranged Marriage, Arranged Marriage between LWJ and Fem!OC, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Canonical Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst, Wangxian is endgame, the consumation of the marriage is mentioned, there is no explicit het sex here, Implied Het Sex, because pregnancy)

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If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what  you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack,  whatever - it’s all good!***

[infini-tree]

ok. assorted kfp4 thoughts.

i still don't think there's any reason why po can't be both oogway's successor and the dragon warrior even after watching the movie.

and here's the big fish to fry: the pacing. i know i've previously said that kfp3's pacing was rushed but kfp4 felt like it was speedrunning its own plot. by the time they got to the juniper palace i was baffled because the duo barely had a moment in the city and they were suddenly going to face the main villain?

a lot of it was left up to exposition about the characters' deal at you to try and make up for it. which made the big character twist suffer. and i do like the character twist! in theory,

so: basically zhen was initially founded/raised by thieves and criminals (and considered han her "old mentor"), and then was later raised by the chameleon after zhen showed a similar ruthlessness in her after trying to steal from her.

the underground criminals were mostly sidelined as a joke but the additional pacing issues doesn't really give you time to dwell on zhen and han's whole deal. and then suddenly you get an expository flashback later on, but there's not a lot of an emotional gutpunch to any of these reveals due to said pacing issues and han is relegated to being part of the crime comedy squad. he can do devastated dad figure! let him lean into waymond eeaao!

now for the rest of my thoughts on other minor stuff:

insert obligatory annoyance about the five being relegated to being non-speaking cameos in the credits. frankly i'm neutral about it in the grand scheme of the movie (there's bigger fish to fry as seen above), but they made me pay attention to that fact by doing that little lampshading joke in the beginning so i got a little irrationally ticked off by that line. you know i'm kind of glad they were off doing something else for this one.

li and ping were fun in this movie, don't get me wrong. but also they contributed to the weird pacing in this movie because instead of dealing with the main plot, we have to watch their sideplot of catching up to the main plot?

the staff mechanics of 'you can only use its powers if someone willingly gives you the staff'. also strange, but not in a way i can articulate. like, i guess it ties back to kfp3 and how oogway describes qi manipulation as 'giving/taking'?

chameleon's motivations re: being rejected to train in kung fu in every training hall because she was so small and feeble is... strange to me, seeing as mantis exists. who is an objectively smaller creature. maybe there's a level of her being an unreliable narrator (like how shen views that his parents never loved him), but that's not how they play that out so it just feels like a weird plot hole if you think about it too much.

surprisingly not as annoyed about po not being recognized. listen, china is a big place and news does not travel fast, i figure. i already had similar headcanons, but applied to oogway so this isn't as large of a leap of logic for me.

this is a nothingburger thought to add but: once again baffled by the concept of predation in this world. from the bunny sitting in a broth he has to stir(???) in the bar scene, to the fish living in his adopted pelican mom's mouth. its weird! i don't like thinking about how meat eaters work in this world!

[omgkalyppso]

Your OTP as GIFs

from an old game, but I'm not doing it exactly the same way as before because search engines have greatly deteriorated since then.

Tagging @umbralstars, @boghermit, @lucius-the-sinful, @lovely-english-rose, @jackalopedread and YOU.

Étoile x Astarion

Originally posted by nancykali

I wanted to find a gift related to the keyword Trust but had to give that up after like an hour of fruitless search. So instead we have the moment from Bram Stoker's Dracula where after attempting to refuse Mina his blood because he was feeling guilty about corrupting her, Mina says to her monster, "Take me away from all this death." And. Well.

Étoile x Halsin

No idea what this gif is from, but I couldn't resist. While ultimately I do think it was part of the writer's insensitivity to polyamory to have Halsin be relationship averse, and then turn his epilogue content into fan service — I really like aromantic Halsin expressing love in his own way and not wanting "a relationship" or labels.

Étoile x Zevlor

I don't remember what's being said in this scene, but the romance in the movie Snow Cake is a Very Small part of the movie, but Alan Rickman's character does have a complicated relationship with Carrie-Ann Moss's character — a win for "fucking that old man." The main character of the film is dealing with life after having assaulted (and accidentally killed) the drunk driver who hit and killed his child. He is also present / indirectly responsible (but feels greatly responsible) for the death of a hitchhiker, which brings him to Wawa, Ontario where he meets the hitchhiker's mother, a disabled (autistic?) woman played by Sigourney Weaver. It's a really heavy movie that I only saw once but the layers of it and the fleeting comforts and difficult intimacy of it made this a good gif for what's going on with Étoile and poor Zevlor.

Étoile x Komira x Locke

Another Sense8 gif. The woman in the middle, Kala, had a lot of anxiety about being in love with the man on the left Wolfgang, while living a life that was leading her to be with her betrothed, the man on the right, Rajan. This is also an extremely small sideplot of this show that was hastily wrapped up in the movie / final "episode." It was kind of silly but tbh I enjoyed this particular "unrealistic" resolution where Rajan was willing to explore what love would look like (even initially in an extremely sexual sense) with Wolfgang if it meant Kala's happiness / not losing her heart. A fair, if inaccurate, comparison to be made for how in my primary canon-compliant state for Étoile, I'd ship them with werewolf!Komira but leave Locke to his fate in the House of Healing; though I'd imagine the three of them would have very enthusiastic joy and supportive love in other au's.

Étoile x He Who Was

I wanted to find a gif of love of someone/thing that was not completely human for He Who Was. I first thought of Meet Joe Black, and the few surreal moments, and the moment when his love interest asks him to stay, but I couldn't find a gif of the exact moment I wanted. I'd only seen The Time Traveller's Wife movie once and it was straighter than I remembered, the dialogue in the gifs I found was all wrong for Étoile and He Who Was' dynamic. I just wanted reference to the waiting, to the loss, to the not knowing if your supernatural love would return. Oh well. Instead I was looking up characters described as masochists (intended for He Who Was, but I guess observations can be made about Étoile which would be ... entirely correct), and found Marko from The Lost Boys, like the rest of them. In the scene I chose, they're initiating a (the?) protagonist into their vampire gang, jumped from a bridge and hanging to the beams while a train rushes overhead, scaring their initiate and having the time of their lives. I think He Who Was has a manic excitable laugh in his euphoria and that he enjoys the presence of danger, negotiated and known not to be a sincere threat against him and his holy missions. He and Étoile have a lot of fun in the limitations of a relationship across planes.

[teecupangel]

Regarding that young!Basim pic... Imagine Yggdrassil doing a derp and that resulting in Eivor getting dropped in Bagdad while Basim was still a twink. The first issue she faces? The fact she has a Hidden Blame on her arm. The second issue? Runnin amock of said twink Basim

So, since we’re talking about twink!Basim, we are talking about Basim before he became a Hidden One, right? I’m just imagining Eivor getting dropped into the men that were about to kick the living shit out of Basim and Roshan just stares in confusion as this heavily armed white person just dropped from the sky just when she was about to save the thief.

So now, you have Eivor who is confused af and also, oh, people trying to kill her, what else is new? So she starts fighting them and Roshan gets into the fight because Eivor was focused on killing soldiers while Basim is being a pathetic wet kitty that’s super confused and… pretty much drenched in blood right now so really wet kitty. One of the soldiers almost got to him if it hadn’t been for Roshan and she tells Basim to run. Eivor says she’ll catch up and Roshan and Basim run while Eivor does what she does best…

Kill everyone trying to kill her.

By the time she was done, Roshan and Basim were gone and she needed a place to hide so she goes the other way without realizing it.

Roshan would find her later on and Eivor wouldn’t know her (because, narratively, I think it would be better if Eivor does Roshan’s sidequest in ACV after the main story is complete) but would recognize that she’s a Hidden One. Roshan would notice her hidden blade and she’d ask which branch she’s from, maybe even ask if she’s from the England branches.

Eivor tells her the truth because, as far as she knows, she just got transported to a different location and not… a different time.

It’s only when she meet Basim as a novice does she realize that she has traveled back in time.

Unorganized Notes:

Eivor would have to change her clothes. That bloodbath had plastered her usual outfit all over Baghdad and she even got a dreadful title like “The Butcher” or the “The Madwoman of Red” or something.

This gives us an excuse for Eivor to wear a more Hidden One-inspired outfit!

Basim has a crush on Eivor. It’s half ‘I developed an adoration for you because you saved me’ and half ‘you can kill me with a single blow and I’m apparently into that’.

Eivor sees it but she also sees Basim as being too young for her so she… usually just ignores it or laughs it off.

Roshan ain’t going to poke that with a twelve-foot pole. She ain’t got no time for that puppy love sideplot.

Eivor doesn’t join the Hidden Ones but she does cooperate with them. She’s trying to find a way back to her time and she thinks the answer is somewhere in Baghdad because that’s where she had been dropped off after all.

Usually she just ends up getting roped into Basim’s shenanigans because Basim sees her and gravitates towards her.

Loki would probably notice that Eivor is Odin’s Sage because she’s not supposed to be in this place and that reeks of Isu bs that Loki knows of. Basim’s crush on her is purely Basim though but Loki’s memories would start messing with that as well.

[mikkeneko]

Mikke’s SVSSS recs (for @cerusee) below the cut --

Authors for whom all their SVSSS stuff is worth reading: miscellea / The Feels Whale  x_los  feynite 

Individual stuff I liked: The More You Don't Know by Neery  - SQQ manages to avert the Abyss Arc, but with some consequences 

and judgment is just like a cup that we share by Kieron_ODuibhir (whetstonefires) - my favorite of the Identity Reveal genre so far, SQQ and SQH get outed by a third party; has a sequel where they don't succeed in Communicating Well but it's incomplete 

write me well by AMereDream - what if Shen Yuan was another creation of Shang Qinghua, who just wanted a friend 

Celestial Afterglow by elanor_pam - an alternate outcome of the Huan Hua Palace arc, my favorite Shen Yuan voice 

Spill the Tea by tabulaxrasa - another Identity Reveal fic, this one voluntary, plus some kidnapping sideplots 

Master of Dual Cultivation (series) by esama - a sort of New Game Plus where SQQ gets to go back to the start of the series from the end and do better this time around

That's NOT A REAL TROPE you Hack Author! by Boom_After_Dark (Boomchick) - a very cracky, slice-of-life and meta one; after the main series ends they start getting "extras" that Shang Qinghua wrote on commission for trope prompts. Very silly, and some chapters are better than others, but there were some very sweet moments in there and Shang Qinghua has a surprisingly melancholy emotional arc towards the end 

Benign Deviations by benwisehart - Bing-ge and Bing-mei swap places again and get stuck that way; Shen Qingqiu has to deal with Original LBH while LBH has to deal with the original setting and its fallout. 

Three Wishes by Kasasagi - this author is a real Shen Jiu fan, I'm not so much but I really got into this one. Shen Yuan accidentally rescues Original Shen Qingqiu out of the Water Prison back to his world and then has to deal with an extremely traumatized ex-peak lord in his apartment. 

*Recommended with caveat - I Just Wanna Be Yours by chaoticgoodlawyer, starts with some of the characters time traveling to bring warnings of the future to their past selves and continues with a fix-it of the main timeline. I liked this one especially for the way it handles Tianlang-jun's story, but this author really has a knife in for Yue Qingyuan for some reason, so I don't so much like their handling of his character in this 

[hannahwashington]

Ok here is an official Ice Age ranking

Rankings + Explanations under the cut, starting from best going to worst. As always, this is all my own opinion, and you are free to disagree.

1. Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

This is heavily biased but also I think Ice Age 3 has the perfect balance between completely wacky and actual heartfelt moments in an Ice Age movie. It didn't go totally overboard, and Buck is a wonderful addition to the series. Who can forget the story about how he lost his eye? Simon Pegg absolutely chewed this role up, and he really makes the movie what it is.

Ellie isn't sidelined because she's pregnant, she's allowed to be badass, and Manny learns some important lessons about not always being the protector. One thing that sticks with me is that Manny misses the moment Peaches is born (only Diego is there). I know that can be, like, a huge thing for some people, but even so, he sees his kid and feels nothing but love and relief. He doesn't feel emasculated by having his best friend there instead of him or resentment for missing that moment or some other petty bullshit. It didn't matter to him, what mattered was that his family was safe. That fucking gets me, y'know? I think that's the perfect encapsulation of what he had to learn - like I said, that he can't always be the protector, but also that he can rely on others when the going gets tough and he can't be there or can't do anything. It's important to show that, I think. D'you get me? You get me.

As much as Scratte's existence is, like, a meme, her and Scrat's sideplot was great, too. The tango? The fucking tango? Hello? I love the tango. The tango is great. And so is the "Alone Again" sequence, it leaves me in stitches. Having the acorn be like an actual character was a great choice in this case.

Finally, it's very visually distinct to the other movies thanks to its new setting, and it actually goes out of its way to give us really cool shots sometimes (see Buck's story). It really sets itself apart from the other movies. Also, how can you beat fucking dinosaurs!? Living under the ice!? Still the coolest shit. AND, the cover of Walk the Dinosaur is STILL the best credits song in the series.

2. Ice Age 2: The Meltdown

This one is simply a treat. It's an amazing follow-up to the first movie - it's got higher stakes, more energy, and more funny moments, and rounds out the herd with Ellie and the possums. Queen Latifah does her job voicing Ellie perfectly, and she's a GREAT character. Beyond that, it absolutely nails the emotional moments, too. Goodnight Sweet Possums is just... it's such a great scene, scored wonderfully. Hell, this is probably the most iconic Ice Age movie. Food Glorious Food? Sid's Sing-A-Long? Hell yeah. And... God, that scene at the end, with all the mammoths? Chills. Chills every time. Even so, I feel like it doesn't quite hit that line of greatness 3 did. I'm blaming Crash and Eddie. I don't really like Crash and Eddie. Also, this a total aside, but the ending sequence with Scrat in heaven haunts me to this day. It's the worst I feel for him. Anyway.

3. Ice Age

I could never hate this movie. It's unique in the series for being the most serious of them all. And, it gave Blue Sky its big break (RIP, hope Disney dies now and forever). Really, its biggest crime is that it's just boring in comparison to the sequels. There are gags and hijinks and the whole dodo sequence, but everyone is way more serious. The plot is way more serious. I mean, the saber-tooth tigers wanted to kill the baby! That's fucked up! And it's different to the monsters in 2 and the dinos in 3 because they were thinking, plotting, all of that jazz. Also, it gives very solid foundations for all of the characters, which I think helps make the next couple of sequels so strong. Overall, not that much to say! It's Ice Age 1. The opening travel music is a total bop, and, of course, everyone knows Send Me On My Way. It's just a solid movie.

4. Ice Age 5: Collision Course

I went into this one expecting it to be absolute dogshit, given it's the last numbered sequel in the series. But it's... actually pretty good? My biggest gripe is that the feathered dinosaur side plot didn't really add anything substantial and could've been done away with. Like 3, it really embraced how ridiculous the plot was and did it pretty well, imo. Buck is back! Peaches' fiancée is GREAT, and bringing back everything to focus heavily on the actual herd and its dynamics was a very smart move. The pop culture references date the movie, though. Also there is a Jessie J sloth. Who is also a GILF. Scrat's plot turns into straight up hody horror at some moments. The song at the end of the movie is pretty good, though. Anyway, sure, it's obviously not the best movie ever, and it's totally ridiculous, but I'm glad I gave it shot.

5. Ice Age 4: Continental Drift

I just... ugh. I'm gonna be honest, when I was younger I watched this one over and over, and I don't know if I made myself sick of it, or if I wisened up when I got older, but this just... sucks. Separating the herd was a horrible choice. The plot on the mainland with Ellie and Peaches is TERRIBLE, which sucks because you go in excited to meet Peaches properly. Sidelining Ellie to begin with was a horrible idea, since we KNOW she's a badass, and having her in on the pirate plot could've ruled. Also, jumping from baby Peaches in 3 to teenage Peaches in 4 was a bad move. I think an adventure with a younger Peaches could've worked better. Generally, separating the mammoth family was really not a good idea.

Well, I can give this movie one thing. It gave us Diego and Sid kissing. And they LIKED IT.

Speaking of mammoths! Every single mammoth celebrity voice actor seemed to be chosen exclusively for the song at the end of the movie. Which would've been fine if the song didn't suck with all of them included, it's like a cacophany of chaos. The version with just Keke Palmer is so much better. That's just me though. Also Josh Gad was a fucking rat and I hated his incel ass, so glad he wasn't in 5. AND, the plotline involving the other mammoths sucked sucked sucked sucked SUUUUCKED. I don't know how exactly we'd do a plotline about Peaches wanting to fit in (then realising she and her wacky family is fine just the way it is), but this was NOT it. This would have been a better story to do after a movie has been made with a younger Peaches, after we become very familiar with her dynamic with everyone in the herd, especially Manny and Ellie. Generally having a movie like that between 3 and 4 would have prevented a lot of the issues - such as separating the mammoth family.

Overall, the pirate plotline should have been the main focus, especially because that way we could have gotten more Peter Dinklage. The pirates were sorely underutilised, which is such a shame, because they were a very interesting addition to the story.

If you'e gotten this far, thanks for reading my ramblings on this series!

[indy-gray]

WIP Update Tag

Hi everyone! Sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for the last month or so! I didn't get much writing done this month. At least not on original work. Anyway, I was tagged by the lovely @blind-the-winds to update everyone on my wips! So here goes!

At The Moon's Whim: I've done mostly nothing on any of my wips except for At The Moon's Whim. I've mostly finished draft 1 of Chapter 1, and begun chapter 2, which I will share an excerpt from a little later.

I've been worldbuilding with this wip and doing a little bit of plot outlining. I've somewhat figured out the route that Bellamy and Alessandra take to get to where they need to go, but what happens there is a little more difficult to figure out. I know that they travel to point A, but along the way there needs to be a delay so that they can meet side character A and develop a dynamic that sets the scene for their eventual romance.

I also need to introduce the political strife and begin weaving the side plots through my outline so that I know what needs to happen as I go. However, I'm running into roadblocks as I brainstorm. Namely, what sideplots I want to include that would best serve the themes, and what those themes really are, how I feel about them, and what exactly I want to say about them.

I also have building an entire theocracy from the ground up on my list of to-do's. There's a part of me that wants to model the theocracy on Christianity, but another part of me would rather build my own religion and explore religious concepts on my own. But the temptation of criticizing the majority religion of my current home and exploring the experiences of out groups and religious minorities in a society where those differences are tangible really draws me in. Especially now as we gear up to celebrate Christian holidays here in the US and as campaigning for the next political election ramps up. This cycle I'm in a southern state with a very powerful Christian faction and it is definitely a thing on the top of my mind right now.

So, those are the things I've been working on wrt At The Moon's Whim. As yall can see, it's mostly conceptual work rather than drafting. But I do have a little excerpt for you!

Bellamy let the queen have one last ounce of dignity and turned away while she changed her clothing. Alessandra struggled briefly with the ties, but once she'd fully dressed, Bellamy took a certain glee in tossing the surely expensive dress into the standing water of her cave hideout. Alessandra glared at her, a heat to her expression that absolutely tickled Bellamy. "You're enjoying yourself." Bellamy attempted that charming smile she leveled at pretty women in taverns, the one that always seemed to fluster them and lure them in. Perhaps, this time, Bellamy simply leered at the queen. "I am." She winked and pushed past the queen towards the vines hanging between the cave and the seaside. "Come along, Your Majesty. We ought to get moving before the Royal Guard finds the both of us. An ousted queen and a thief with a purse full of stolen gold, what a pair!"

Tagging with no pressure: @gloriafrimpong @nanashi23 @tisiphonewolfe @magic-is-something-we-create @oh-no-another-idea

[setaripendragon]

WIP Game

No one tagged me, I tagged myself in because I want to and you can't stop me =P And I'm tagging everyone who sees this that writes! Do it! Dooo iiit!

Rules: In a new post, list the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it. And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

I don't actually have a WIP folder, I have WIP folders, plural. So, I'm adding a rule that I can't have posted any of the fic online anywhere for it to qualify, and I also have to have worked on it some time in the last... four years?

Let's see if that keeps me below the 50 fics mark (place your bets now)...

A Song of Ice and Fire

Codywan In Westeros

King Eddard Stark

Time-travel TyrionSansa

Pevensie Starks

Cat SI

Assassins Creed

Desmond's PLP

Desmond meets Darcy

ATLA

The Lost Nomads

Ursakoda Canon Crossover

Charmed

Phole Time Travel

Dimension Hopping Chris and Wyatt

Gramarye Book 2

Critical Role

Molly Lives... In Caleb's Head

Molly Does a Time Travel

The Patchwork Bower

Slave AU

OT3 Does a Time Travel

FullMetal Alchemist

Time Travel Outsider PoV

What Is Remembered Forever

RoyEd Adopts Harry Potter

Ed Gets Time Swapped

Wei Wuxian as a RoyEd Baby

A Body for a Body

Psychic Wolves AU

RoyEd Time Travel

RoyEd Arranged Marriage

Rise of the Guardians

Hold Out Your Hand Sequel

Everyone Loves Pitch

The Journal of General Kozmotis Pitchiner

Kingsman

Time Travelling Eggsy

The King's Whores

Chavs and Gentlemen

Kingsman's Wolves

Lord of the Rings

Durincest Polyamory

On the Hunt

Sam Time Travel Adventure

Courting Fate

Seven Ladies Time Travel Epic

Gimli As Celebrimbor Reincarnation

Thilbo Reincarnation

Polyamorous Hobbits

Marvel

Three for a Marriage Four for a Birth

Soulmarks Book 3: Our Song

Heterodyne Legacy #2

One Piece

Secret Marriage

StrawHat Time Travel

Trans Sanji

Who Are You

Peaky Blinders

Time Travel

Soulmate Colours

Heart of Birmingham

Self Insert AU

Pride and Prejudice

A Better Timeline

Sherlock Holmes (Elementary)

Friends in Low Places

Skyfall (James Bond)

Calendar Novel: Time-travelling Q

Harry Potter Crossover

JAQ Polyamory Negotiations

Q Has a Symbiote

Fathers and Daughters

Star Wars

Obi-wan is a Slut

Firefly Crossover

Egg-preg Drabbles

CodyMace Time Travel

404 Battalion Not Found

ABO GAR

Aitash Tu Akos

Release My Soul

Strange and Norrell

All Other Wives

Miss Jennifer Strange

ArabellaChildermassSegundus Time Travel

SI: Childermass Family Drabbles

Supernatural

DeanHotch

GabrielJess

How to Make a Baby with an Angel

Atlantis Sideplot: Princess Mia

Wayward Hunters: Where Are the Winchesters

Time Travel Wish Fulfillment

Rising Star #2

Teen Wolf

Noah and the Tattoos

The Blue People Movie (Avatar)

Tsu'tey's Twins

Time Travel Fix It

The Untamed (MDZS)

In Memoriam

WangNingXian Reincarnation

Ed as Zangse Sanren

Zangse and Changze Save the Day

WangXian Reborn as RuoShan

The Witcher

River God and the Sorceress

Curse of the Black Sun

VesiJask: The Sacking of Kaer Morhen

Torchwood

Old Guard Ianto

Aaand the total comes to 90! At least it's less than a 100... And that's just the stuff I've worked on recently! (Yes, four years is recent. I have fics I haven't actually touched in 6+ years that are still marinating in my brain, waiting for the pieces to fall into place) If you've trawled through all of those to get here, you've got more stamina than I do!

Please ask about anything that piques your interest! I'd love to talk about some of these, see if it gets the creative juices flowing. (Also feel free to ask about any of the WIPs I have posted on here or Ao3!)

[niceinchnails]

Review of every solar opposites episode I rewatched so far

S1 E1 Worst IMO its not that bad but its just the weakest episode considering how much better it gets

S1 E2 OK

S1 E3 Cute

S1 E4 This is where we start to get funky...

S1 E5 This is where we start to get even Funkier

S1 E6 Haha

S1 E7 Fun on first watch but im not really into the wall-centric eps as much as everybody else

S1 E8 Cute

S2 E1 S2s really the season it starts to pick up. I think terry's personality was the best in this episode

S2 E2 SOOOOO Cute and funny got me invested

S2 E3 Loved the main plot so so much with the time traveling mail it was really creative and clever. Hated the penis sideplot which i feel like i posted before but in a so awful its funny kind of way. overall the episodes an entertaining watch

S2 E4 Loved terry in this one

S2 E5 FUCKING INSANE EPISODE

S2 E6 OK

S2 E7 I know i said i wasnt a fan of the wall centric eps but this one was my fav ep abt it

S2 E8 Funnnnnnnnnn

Christmas special: Really fucking funny

[lord-radish]

The Chibnall run of Doctor Who really bums me out because I really liked what it was trying to do, but something always seemed to bring the show down.

The new monsters - fine at worst. I remember speculating with a mutual about whether other Stenza take other body parts of their victims as battle trophies. I liked the P'Ting, and I LOVED the dudes from Demons of the Punjab. The giant spider was mid and the time-travelling racist was a cardboard cutout, but I felt like the earnest attempt at trying something new in series 11 was good and they could have done more than just a P'Ting cameo later in the run.

I like that they tried to have a larger crew of companions, even if the writers seemingly couldn't write four main characters and decided to sideline one of them every episode. I feel like Mandip Gill put a lot of character into her performance in series 11, even though Yaz was the most sidelined character in favor of Ryan and Graham's "granddad" arc. I was disappointed that Ryan got sidelined for most of series 12 while Graham seemed to mourn Ryan's nan more than he did. Then Dan came and went.

I can appreciate that they tried to up the ante with the Flux season, but it was such a precarious watch where one episode would be one of my favourites since like 2008, and the next one would be underbaked in that Chibnall sort of way and frustrate things. Boring invincible villains, a whole sideplot starring new characters that barely ties into the season's arc, and mangling the Timeless Child plotline - but also the one Weeping Angel episode that I was genuinely entertained and gripped by, and a fantastic Sontaran episode too. If it stuck the landing, I would have forgiven the bad stuff - but it didn't! The season just ends with a thud!!

And at the centre of it all, like glue holding the entire thing together, was Jodie Whittaker's Doctor. She's my favourite Doctor since Tennant, and she elevated the material that she worked with. But the material just... wasn't there. Demons of the Punjab is a GOATed episode, but Orphan 55 might be my least favourite episode of the revival series. I didn't like most of Moffat's run, period - at best, Orphan 55 ties with Sleep No More as my least favourite episode - it depends on whether you prefer dull, uninspired storytelling in the former or a cynical attempt to cash in on trendy, creepypasta-esque horror storytelling in the latter.

But none of this is in a vacuum. Chibnall tried - I genuinely liked the Timeless Child stuff at the end of series 12. The script writers and episode directors tried - Demons of the Punjab and Village of the Angels are fantastic episodes of the show, period. The VFX crew tried - the first episode of the run looked great, the title sequence was fantastic and the effects in that final season were outstanding. The actors tried - Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill and Bradley Walsh were high points of this series, while I felt like Tosin Cole got totally shafted. And fuckin Sasha Dhawan? Seriously? Dude owned.

And I liked the approach that the show was taking after the overly self-serious and self-aggrandizing vibe of Moffat's run. I thought searching for the TARDIS was a fun little arc to start the run. I liked the whole "ancient pre-Time Lord alien races" thing that Chibnall does, even in The Power of Three (despite that villain sucking). The security drone Daleks were lightyears better than the New Paradigm Daleks. The Doctor felt like she was sharing the experience with her companions, instead of portraying herself in this loud, egomaniacal way where she has to assert how awesome she is. But the run STILL fell below expectations.

And the worst part is that because the run was so heavily politicised and so much of the hate came in the form of review-bombing and ideological "culture war" horseshit, it was next to impossible to have a productive conversation about Chibnall's run for ages. It's like the right-wing shitheads who poisoned the well with The Last of Us Part II; I couldn't have a productive conversation about that game for years because the haters were doing shit like analysing in-game cafeteria menus and using them to disprove the possibility of a buff woman in a zombie apocalypse, despite thinking the game was like a low-range 7/10 at worst.

So much of the backlash was ideological and political that people would rather blame a shitty episode on the fact that the Doctor transformed into a woman than the fact that it felt like a rejected SyFy Original Movie script with a single rubber costume.

It's just so disappointing in hindsight. At least they broached the topic of Thasmin with some tact, even if they didn't go through with it. Honestly, I stan Yaz forever.

[nances]

What are your thoughts on Dustin and Suzie?

They're so long distance, she doesn't know about the Upside Down, and they have a pretty fundamental difference in their belief systems.

I think they're cute in theory and I want Dustin to be happy but I don't really see it feasibly working out long term.

I think they're super cute, but yes, you're absolutely right. Unless Suzie somehow gets a bigger role next season (which I doubt, since they're planning to go back to the season 1 groupings... but hey, who knows!) I have a feeling they may break up.

It's very difficult to maintain a long distance relationship, ESPECIALLY if it's an apocalyptic setting. I mean. They don't even have mobile phones! I wouldn't be surprised if all power goes out in Hawkins as a consequence of the Upside Down taking over it. I think Dustin may actually be the one to take the initiative... He's not going to want Suzie anywhere near Hawkins during the next few years, especially after he saw what happened to Max. He's also probably not going to have time to travel to Utah in the midst of everything (and a plot point about that would essentially be a waste of time if it's not actually somehow relevant to the narrative.)

We also have to take into account Dustin's trauma and seeing his friend die right in front of him. He's probably going through immense amounts of survivor's guilt and I wouldn't be surprised at all if he becomes a bit aloof, irritable, and not his usual ray-of-sunshine-self. Season 5 is obviously going to have a darker tone overall and there's going to be no light-hearted slice of life to start it off with. So all of this could factor in to his relationship with Suzie withering away.

Of course there's a possibility that he tries to make it work, keep it up as long as he can, (much like Max, pretending to be normal, like nothing's happened, etc) only to fail miserably, as he's definitely going through his own issues and he's going to be super busy with all the supernatural shit going down. And so Suzie may end up being the one who gets tired of the unstable nature of their relationship. Dustin's clearly no longer himself, and unless he's able to somehow convince her that all of this Upside Down stuff is real (chances of which are... low imo. I mean... it took a while for Max to believe it and we saw how the Cali group didn't even try, coming up with Americantendo instead) he'll have no way of explaining himself to her.

Then again... there's that entire sequence with Suzie's family heavily foreshadowing the end of the season. With all her siblings' scenes representing plot points that happen in vol.2 (I don't remember their names but I think will80sbyers made a post about this a while ago). So I also feel like it would be narratively a very poor choice to just sideline her completely? I sure do hope that Dustin is able to find happiness. So perhaps a realistic scenario would be to have them be broken up throughout season 5 and then hopefully find a way to rekindle their relationship at the end, when all is over? Finn talked about the possibility of some of them leaving Hawkins at the end, so maybe it's not that crazy to assume Dustin would go off to college with Suzie. Unfortunately it's probably going to be a minor sideplot regardless. But maybe that's okay. The writers have a lot on their plates.

So all in all, we'll have to wait and see just how they're planning to utilize her character in S5. But I'm definitely excited! We're certainly in for a lot of angst and I can't wait for a deep-dive into Dustin's psyche. (That is, if they truly know what they're doing... I saw someone complain about how Steve always gets out of traumatic situations unbothered and unscathed, so yeah. that's something to consider as well.)

Thank you for the question!!

[dukeofriven]

I mean it was a Hell-like dimension, its demons having lives just like Holly would, but not the literal in-service-to-the-Devil sort, being why I put ‘Hell’ in air-quotes. To say Artemis wasn’t dead at the point he was there, just in a location outside of known space and time (though he did literally die later on, as mentioned, and avoided having to go to an afterlife via the circumstance mentioned — an actual afterlife was also confirmed to exist in the world of ‘Artemis Fowl’, unrelated to this).

I mean it doesn't have to be literal hell: my issue is that the scope of the series escaped the reasonable bounds of its introductory novel's excellent framing. I remember being flummoxed by the second book when we're faffing around a nuclear waste train in Siberia for some god-forsaken reason. Artemis Fowl should not have been the kind of story where Artemis saves a city, a planet, a civilization, or a universe, from pseudo-demons or god-like time travelers or otherwise. There's nothing wrong with a formula: a series of crime capers with Artemis pitting his mind and his cunning against Holly's, a grudging antagonistic friendship and a constant clash of legalism, technology, criminal deviousness and good old fashioned moxie would have been great. But Fowl makes the choice to be an adventure story, it ignores its own subversive premise of fairies being a technologically sophisticated but fundamentally human mirror of ourselves, and... well, has an afterlife, and not-hell, and Holly and Artemis swapping bodies and becoming clones and going on huge blockbuster-sized epics. And it all sucks. It sucked in the second book. It sucked in third. It sounds like it just got so pointlessly bloated with nonsense and missed what made the story great: it was very, very small and contained. Artemis Fowl 1 is a kid in a house with maybe five people max scheming to out-think some magic cops. That's it. That's the story. And I loved it. And I was and am disappointed by everything afterwards. You ever read the Airborne series, ny Kenneth Oppel? First book's about a cabin boy on an airship and the cruise has to deal with some pirates. And then in the third book he's trying to go to fucking space. I never understood this. There is just no reason for this action movie escalation: you could write a dozen books about a cabin boy aboard an airship with nothing more pressing as stakes than 'getting promoted to steward' and it would delightful. You don't have to go to an alternate universe. you don't have to go to the moon (see also the Fast and Furious movies). 'Raising the stakes 'doesn't have to entail huge, external narrative catastrophes: in one of the latter books in the Vorkosigan saga, the stakes for Captain Lord Miles Vorkosigan—alias Admiral Naismith of the Denadrii Free Mercenary Company and hero of the battle Hegen Hub— are that his dinner party go-off successfully to help romance a girl he's fallen for. Nobody dies in that book. Nothing explodes. Someone come sback from space, but we don't visit there. (It's got the first transman I ever saw in literature and there's a sideplot about him overcoming his shitty society and claiming his title of 'lord.' It's great.) And the stakes feel huge for our characters. And that's enough. It's better in fact, because saving the world can get exhausting and runs out of tension fast (see the RTD years of Doctor Who. He should not come back). What I loved about Artemis Fowl barely survived into the second book in the series and by the... fifth or ninth when he's a clone with Holly's eyeballs and traveling though time to fight god-Opal or whatever I don't... I got nothing. It leaves me cold, bored, and disappointed. And it's emblematic of genre fiction's problem as a whole: an escalation of scale without any thought as to whether the story's growth is meaningfully improved by getting larger and more 'epic.' (And one of these days I will write that essay about how 'lore' has ruined more series than it improved, and why I wish more people drew on Lewis than Tolkien, because Tolkien was a master of worldbuilding, and the average writer isn't and will never be. And it makes me a hypocrite given my own writing but at least I'm aware of the danger.)

[thevoidbunny]

I managed to get enough storage on my phone to play through the rest of travel memories so here's what I though of them

Ocean Sovereign: WHY IS IT SO LONG? Sorry, it was just surprising it went on for 20 stages when usually the events are just 12 stages. That, and there was so much stuff going on. We had Genevieve and Smokey's entire feud, Fleur and his gift, and Beryl's whole deal, it just felt like they were shoving everything into one story. But I guess I shouldn't be too hard since it was the third event ever. Beryl and Raphael's friendship carried it in the beginning, and then around stage 15 everything really started picking up steam. The entire Heat Wave section was actually really good and got me reinvested in the story. Which leads us to...

Endgame: A surprising improvement! Despite having no battles, the story was concise and gave everyone their own time to shine. Plus the "Vice wanted to be a Navigator" part hits different with Keen Sight around. Rating: Beach Episode/10

Dunefire Strike: Now I get why everyone praises this event, because it was that good. The best way I can describe it is like watching an action movie. It's just a fight for survival, and you can FEEL that so well. Everyone coming together to take down Hylinger gave me goosebump man. 10/10 Putting the rest under cut because I wrote too much lol.

Letters From The Skies: As someone who read Paloma's file before playing this event, learning just HOW they died fucked me up. Literally had to put down my phone and walk around. Pittman is okay, but he is naive to the fact true justice can't be achieved in the state Lumopolis is in. Those two aside, the courier sideplot was really cute, and the part were the letters fell from the skies gave me chills. Also, I have huge respect for Lin Guild now. Rating: I'm crying/10

Gloom of the night: It was alright, but im asking this right now. Why does everyone seem sympathetic to Rein? When I first heard of him I though he was just a guy who got hit with the ire of Lumopolis but,, He literally gave out enhancers that mutated people into Eclipsites, tried to assassinate Istavn to take over Umbraton, and almost destroyed the dam protecting the city from flooding. Is it because he's considered attractive??? IS THAT IT- Rating: TRUE ORDER CAMEO/10 Aurora Aeterna: Wow, I don't think I've ever hated a character as much in this game as Hedy. First off the pros: Cordy wasn't that bad as I thought, she's just got the short end of the stick considering her artwork. Paloma appeared so that's a plus. Pittman's learning but you can't undo a lifetime of conditioning in a few weeks so he still slips up. Shoutout to Carleen trying to get justice (even if it is vetoed). Now the cons: Hedy fucking sucks man. I already didn't like her when she first appeared (she was giving me off vibes), but then when she was telling Pittman he should stay in his place, AND THEN the entire veiled death threat to Paloma, WHEN HEDY LITERALLY READ HER FILE AND THUS KNOWNS HER FAMILY WERE UNJUSTLY KILLED.... She's so lucky she's a video game character. Sure she "improves" by the end, but unless some major character development occurs, Hedy is bottom of the tier list. But Hedy ain't the only one who's earned my goddamn Ire. Let's talk about Schwartz shall we? For being the so called ruler of Lumopolis, he sure is a fucking puppet head for the nobles. Maintain order at all cost, he says. But what happens when that order causes another injustice to occur? That lets another innocent girl like Paloma to lose her family? That lets another child like Beryl to be experimented on? Or that lets another scummy noble get away with their crime? Reinhardt gets a pass because she definitely was putting up an act about how she truly feels surrounding Illumina's experiments, and Bethlehem was trying to keep everyone in the room calm. Rating: Upper Lumopolis burns at dawn/10

[sevilemar]

I've just come back from another DnD session I co-GMed with a player and friend. We have been co-GMing for a few sessions now, ever since our party arrived at this refugee city.

We talked about our ideas for the city twice, and created a rough plot outline and who-does-what, as well as the idea of a GM PC that is played by whoever is not narrating at the time. I went home and made a character sheet for him, prepared my encounters, and then we just went for it.

It is awesome! The first session, we changed after the break and stuck to it, but the next session in the city proper, we started switching back and forth more seemlessly, adding little details to each other's narration, taking over NPCs the other made on the spot, surprising each other with backstory facts for our GM PC (which he named Orange because I completely forgot to put a name on the sheet), etc.

Today, for example, I described three teenagers who went through the tent city outside the city wall and disappeared the garbage that was left there with a wand (it's Eberron). A player was interested and started a conversation, and then my co-GM came up with two other kids who searched the garbage for salvable scraps of metal because they were working at Master Bremford's forge, and thus, the New Cyre Garbage Wars were born.

My co-GM added a third party to it because it fit with an idea he had a few months back for a little sideplot. The players took the hook, he improvised the fuck out of it, and now our party apparently wants to create a scrap vendor imperium in New Cyre. Or a drug cartel. Or both.

I love developing the city with him like this, and I love the little surprises we gift each other. I also love his creative ideas. I had a new idea for the overarching story yesterday evening (which he doesn't know because he'll probably go back to being a player when we leave the city), and I needed him to include a few key information in his parts of the story. I tried to describe what I needed in an email, but it's a very limited way of communication, and also really short notice.

He came up with a way to let me as Orange describe it instead, in a way that fit the lore we already established, and also the villain they are currently collecting information on. And he didn't make it cheap for the players either, letting them choose how many valuable ressources they would spent on it. I had no idea, and I tried to make it as big and significant as I could, which was a lot of fun*.

After the session, one of the players implied that we must have really good communication going on behind the scenes, which baffled both of us. Because like I said, we talked twice about general ideas, and send maybe two emails with a short request or clarification. He didn't even know what kind of subclass or specialisation I chose for Orange, until I handed him the character sheet and the spell cards at the table. I didn't know his name or how he looked until he introduced himself to the other players. I'm glad we're on the same page about it, though, because it suddenly makes GMing a lot more fun for me^^

*If you're curious about the specifics: The villain is a Necromancer who visited the camp our heroes are in atm three years ago. After a desastrous expedition into the Mournland, the residents of the camp back then took some of her research and asked her to leave. My co-GM told the party that Orange had read her research back then, promptly forgot it, and the writing also vanished after he read it. Then he told them that a charge from their Salve of Greater Restoration would make Orange remember one piece of research. The salve has ten charges, and it was given to them as a ressource to use when they travel to the Mournlands, a cursed land where flesh beings cannot survive for long. They decided to use two charges, and I made a list and let them roll what they would get. And because it was a steep price, I took great care to make it good, helpful information, too. Also, I gave my best 'possessed writing' act at the table, because it's fun^^