#and that some fans endorse... eh.

[boyfridged]

i don't think i ever explained in detail why i'm so deadset on kon's primary name being kon and not conner, so here it is: kon getting his kryptonian name first despite the fact that he has no kryptonian dna is so salient because of 1. what it means in terms of clark's affirmation of his legacy 2. their familial connection being a chosen one, and 3. a bit sadly, the fact that kon finds closure and connection in culture that is already long gone, reminding the reader of his isolation. before getting this name (superboy #59) kon goes exclusively by superboy and is often referred to as "kid." this is what people call him even when he gets enrolled in school, the name on the register and all. kon came to life as a public figure. as a superhero. he has no civilian identity at this point. his core personality is developed in this dimension, and later in relation to his association with clark's alien legacy. and it might sound sorrowful, but this is also who he is; this is what he ultimately finds comfort in, what makes his family. it's bitter-sweet, it's complicated, it's nuanced and interesting. so any civilian identity that he adopts later should logically be his secondary identity. there's absolutely no reason for him to consider "conner" his actual name and not a monicker he uses for secret identity purposes, unless you want to lean into the horrible retcons that make "kon" to be a slur. i don't think he would mind it, per se– but i do believe that kon as we know him in superboy (94) wouldn't ever consider it to be his "true" self. and this is the hill i will die on.

[sonicfanj]

Lock: the Mage of Cards - Prologue

The following is a work of fan fiction based on Sega Sammy Holding’s Sonic the Hedgehog™. by Joshua D. Tarwater and is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS.* *SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS retains full rights over the Sonic the Hedgehog™ intellectual property and can terminate or take control of this work at any time.

Not all stories start from their beginnings. If it were so, then the tale of Lock, the Mage of Cards, would have begun some time before the mage first donned her distinctive purple dress. The beginning of her tale would have been found on some distant star in a past long forgotten, when a people lost their home to a great evil they would lead to this star, Lock’s home. An evil that she joined Sonic the Hedgehog in defeating when he inherited the battle of the Starfall Ancients. A battle when Lock first truly realized that her potential for magic far exceeded the beliefs of the struggling to remember who she really was Amy Rose. But while the beginning of the tale of Lock, the start of her story came after that battle, when Amy Rose sought out a means to train herself in the use of magic as part of her journey of self-refinement. And so it was in a waking nightmare that the adventures of Lock began.

The nightmare that Amy woke to was one of many sensations. Several of them were very wrong, but confusion and the darkness she woke to were at the forefront of her mind.

‘Ugh… what? What happened?’

The dazed thoughts of the girl were not particularly useful, but she could hardly collect her thoughts from the lingering trappings of sleep. A sleep Amy’s every instinct told her was not natural or welcomed. Much as she wanted to try and collect her thoughts on her instincts, her growing consciousness was growing equally distracted by the sensation of a delicate sheet of some kind against her face. She desired to pull it away, but her arms did not respond to her desires, and she grew frustrated. Turning her frustration to energy, Amy sat up as she swung her hips and waist in tandem.

‘Awah~!!’ the thought came rather than escaped as Amy discovered several problems that accompanied her upward swing. The most notable of these was her difficulty balancing as she could not extend her tail to counter her movement. ‘Eh~! Really! What’s happening!’

Under most circumstances, Amy would have voiced her frustrations and confusion, but she could not open her mouth and her voice refused to come out for even so much as a whimper. As her arms were still refusing to respond to her desires, Amy’s self-examination had to start with her unresponsive tail. Naturally, as it was unresponsive, her next choice of focus were her legs. Fortunately, at least at her hips, her legs responded, though they remained as unresponsive as her arms and tail from her knees down. Still, she could at least feel them all the way to her enclosed toes awkwardly flopping against the ground. It was not much movement however as something kept her thighs fast together, and the familiar feeling of tights against another fabric assured Amy she was likely wearing a mermaid style dress. The attire was a far cry from her usual red dress, but also the jumpstart her mind needed to remember what had happened.

‘That’s right, I was looking for a magic cloak to help me get better at using magic! The dumb thing wrapped me up, didn’t it!’

Whether she was right or not, Amy fully remembered that her current predicament began when she followed rumors of a magic cloak that could help the wearer train in magic. She was not expecting to have to battle it should she find it and was caught off guard when it engulfed her and stole her consciousness. Fully awake now though, Amy struggled to break free but found her impressive physical abilities were no match for the magical garment. Or more accurately cursed. But the potential for the garment being cursed did not spring to mind as her struggles revealed something far more chilling.

‘Eh… is my… is my tail gone…?’

It was not a question that took a lot to answer, and Amy’s adrenaline kept her panic at bay as she realized that she had indeed lost her tail, fully explaining the loss of balance she was dealing with. The absence of her tail, however, left her with a grim thought and she immediately fell onto her side. Her shoulder did not absorb the impact, the upper extreme of her ribs usually protected by the joint instead directly meeting the cold, hard surface she fell onto.

‘It’s… it’s GONE!!’ Amy’s thoughts exploded at the revelation of her missing limb, and she demonstrated impressive trunk strength as she flipped herself over and smashed her other armless side into the ground. ‘No way! They’re both gone!! So… I’m not tied up… it’s just that THIS STUPID CLOAK STOLE MY ARMS AND TAIL!!’

Shocked as Amy was, her anger overrode her situation and she struggled to rip the cloak with her legs so at least the mermaid dress form it had taken would not hamper her movements. It was futile as again the magic that the cloak was made of easily resisted her strength, and the useless state of her legs below her knees made any success meaningless.

‘It’s okay Amy,’ she tried to assure herself as she lay down on her back and stared up at the darkness beyond the cloth resting against her face. ‘You got into this mess so you can get out of it too. Even if you have to crawl like a worm to get help.’

The prospect was humiliating, but Amy had for a while forgotten why she had sought out the cloak that had transformed her into her currently helpless seeming state. Focusing solely on her physical abilities, she attempted to address her situation, only to realize the futility of any action in the dark.

‘I hope I haven’t gone blind too,’ Amy’s desperate whimper echoed within her own head, unable to escape. Very much like her as she felt a weight of some kind land on her chest and stare at her. ‘I’m really in trouble, aren’t I…?’

The terror of her situation, overwhelming as it was, did not assure the end of the pink hedgehog girl. She was, if anything, resilient and optimistic, full of more energy even in a state like this than most people could imagine exhibiting in a lifetime. Beyond that, she had sought out the transformative cloak to improve her ability to wield magic. That combination would be enough to allow her to save herself to a degree, and the evidence of her survival arrived at the home of the Rabbit family.

“Mother!” a young rabbit girl cheerfully cried out as she skipped into the living room of the Rabbit family home. She was carrying an envelope above her head and waved it enthusiastically. It’s a letter from Amy!”

“Is that so, Cream?” Vanilla the Rabbit asked with a calm demeanor as she wiped her hands on her apron and moved to intercept her excited daughter.

It had been some time since they had heard from Amy who had hurried off on some adventure or another after inviting Cream along to at least see her off. Something had happened to her on her last adventure with world famous hero and adventurer, Sonic the Hedgehog, and she was eager to share a story about a pair of lovers whose love transcended time as well as see to refining herself into a far better version of herself. Vanilla had offered to help Amy with any such refinements, but the hedgehog girl wouldn’t hear of it, claiming it was something she had to do for herself. Not one to hold back the girl who gleefully chased after Sonic and his adventures, Vanilla did not push the matter. However, the lack of communication from Amy in a fair while had made Cream start to worry, and though Vanilla was sure Amy was fine, seeing Cream beam at a letter from her best friend brought a smile to the mother rabbit’s face.

“Shall I read it Cream?” Vanilla offered as she took a seat in her favorite chair with her daughter scrambling into her lap.

“Yes please, Mother!” Cream requested excitedly as the family chao, Cheese and Chocola drifted over on curious wings.

“Very well,” Vanilla allowed herself a chuckle as she accepted the envelope from Cream and opened up. “Oh my!”

“What’s the matter Mother?” Cream asked at the surprise her mother expressed while turning through the pages of the letter.

“I’m not quite sure Cream, but it would seem that Amy forgot to actually write anything in her excitement.”

Amy Rose was an excitable girl on the cusp of being a young woman and it would be no surprise if she had managed something so silly. Cream, however, did not look convinced as Vanilla took note of the envelope the blank paper had arrived in.

“My, there isn’t even anything on the envelope. However did the delivery person know to bring it here?”

“Mother, I don’t understand,” Cream confessed her confusion as she looked back at her befuddled mother. “Our address is right on the letter, and I can recognize Amy’s handwriting from here.”

“Wha–?” Vanilla asked, growing even more confused. “I don’t believe that my eyes are going bad.”

A moment of unusual silence punctuated the confusion of the Rabbit family and Vanila could not be sure that Cream wasn’t making the whole thing up. Not wanting to upset her daughter and having a funny feeling she couldn’t quite place, she decided instead of chastising her daughter to hand her the letter. “Perhaps you can read Amy’s letter for us instead Cream.”

“Are you sure?’ Cream questioned with a worried look for her mother.

Vanilla offered Cream a reassuring smile as she assured her daughter, “Of course. It’s for you after all.”

“Okay!” Cream nodded her head and smiled brightly back at her mother before reading the letter in front of her.

~Hi Cream!~ The letter began cheerfully enough and brought an air of calm to the young rabbit that Vanilla hadn’t seen in some time.

‘Perhaps it really is best to let her work herself through it.’

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been in touch,” Cream continued reading the letter aloud, oblivious to her mother’s thoughts and concerns.

~But you wouldn’t believe the mess I’ve landed myself into this time! I mean, I’ve been in some bad spots before, but I was sure that after what happened to me on the Starfall Islands that nothing could surprise me. I was so~ wrong! I bet you’d be surprised to, but just that I wrote this letter with magic should be surprising enough.~

“Magic?” Vanilla expressed her curiosity with a tilt of her head.

“That’s what Amy says,” Cream insisted, a hint of her mother’s disbelief wedging its way into her consciousness and twisting her tone to something more forceful.

“I actually hope it works and that I’m not the only one who can see it,” Cream continued reading the letter, the words seeming a direct challenge to Vanilla’s disbelief.

~It’d be such a waste too since I get so tired using magic. It’s so funny too since I normally have so much energy, but using magic really takes it out of me right now. I’m getting better with some of the things I can use it for, but the less familiar I am with using magic the more exhausting it is and the easier I fall asleep. I’ve been falling asleep at the most inconvenient of times and I’m probably going to end up falling asleep on the floor as soon as I finish. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine. A little sleep is all I need, and it’s not like I have a choice. It’s too complicated using magic to manipulate a pen and my handwriting looks dreadful. And I tire myself out faster that way too. Ooh~! It’d be so much easier if I had my–~

“Cream, what’s the matter?” Vanilla prodded her daughter as Cream came to a trembling halt in her reading. A look of utter dread had settled onto her features and tears were welling in her eyes at whatever it was she saw on the blank paper.

“I-it’s Amy, Mother,” Cream was on the verge of crying and could barely control herself. “She lost her arms!!”

~I hope that doesn’t scare you too much Cream. I’m not sure what happened, but I really am alright. I can’t use my hammer for more than a seat right now, but that’s not a bad thing since using magic to move around is pretty tiring too and it’s better than sitting on the ground. Don’t worry though Cream, I still have my legs at least. At least I’m sure I do. I can feel this cloak pressing them together and my feet are sticking out the bottom where it parts.

~Oh right, the cloak! Everything will make a lot more sense if I explain that first.

~Well, while I was on the Starfall Islands I kind of stumbled upon the idea that I might be a lot better at magic than I would have ever guessed, so when I heard rumors of a way to train more efficiently, I ran headlong after it. I’m supposed to be trying to refine myself, yet here I am running straight into trouble as always. And it’s so much too. You see Cream, I found this really pretty purple cloak with a stary sky pattern at the bottom, but when I touched it, it wrapped me up and I blacked out. When I woke up It was wrapped around me so tight there was no sign of my arms or that it ever was a cloak rather than a dress. It’s collar totally wrapped around the bottom of my head too and covered up my mouth. I can’t say anything, and my voice isn’t coming out either.

~Actually, now that I think about it, just like my arms I don’t actually feel my mouth. Hold on, let me just check…~

“It’s alright Cream,” Vanilla found herself comforting Cream for a second time as Amy’s letter detailed her coming to the realization that despite her face being full, she seemed to lack a mouth of any kind and had no real way to check since she seemed to have been deprived of her tongue and lips in addition to any jaw functionality. Unpleasant as it was to read, Vanilla had more luck calming Cream down this time as there was no nasty spat between the mother and daughter as had happened the first time. Vanilla’s doubt and Amy’s lacking arms was too much and when she chastised her daughter Cream’s emotions and terror at Amy’s condition revealed that the girl’s emotions were anything but an act.

“But I will have to have a stern word with Amy when next she visits,” Vanilla spoke aside to her comforting of her daughter. “I have no doubt that Amy is quite overwhelmed herself by her situation, but she forgets that Cream is still so young and not at all prepared for such awful stories.”

~It’s a good thing I figured out how to use magic to feed myself. That was the scariest part of this whole adventure. I really thought I was going to die until I figured it out. But it’s not satisfying at all, and I can’t wait until I figure this all out and can enjoy one of Vanilla’s homecooked meals with you again. Even if I could actually eat though, it wouldn’t be good to visit since this silly cloak grows really dangerous giant thorns anytime anyone gets close. I feel like a little kid who can’t keep her spines down!~

“What’s wrong this time Cream?” Vanilla asked as Cream paused, her tone of voice turning confused as she read Amy’s letter.

“I don’t understand mother, doesn’t Amy use that super hair relaxer because she can’t get her spines to cooperate?” Cream asked as she looked back at Vanilla.

Vanilla donned a strained smile as she tried not to let her daughter know that her words would have stabbed Amy deep had she heard them. She could not dispute her daughter’s blunt observation however as the Rabbit family home had become home to more than one bottle of the product in question due to Amy’s frequent stays. And there was no doubt that Amy loved the product as Vanilla had caught her on more than one occasion fretting dramatically over what she would do if they ever stopped making it. She both wanted to look cute for Sonic no less not stab him by accident. The super hair relaxer made her quite confident with the idea of being held in Sonic’s arms snuggly and her silly daydreams would quickly get the better of her.

‘Still, sometimes I wonder if Amy is ashamed of being a hedgehog,’ Vanilla allowed her thoughts to wander a moment. ‘She seems to reject her own nature at every opportunity, and it couldn’t possibly be healthy for her. Perhaps there is still some of this refinement that she seeks that I can help her with after all.’

~That’s really the big problem however,~ Amy’s letter continued, ~is just that I think this cloak really was what I was looking for. Due to all the curses on it I’m completely dependent on magic for everything. Eating, moving, writing a letter, and probably a lot more I haven’t figured out yet.

~It’s just so hard sometimes. I haven’t figured out how to talk with anyone and the veil that showed up with this weird transformation doesn’t seem to let anyone see my face, though I can see them just fine. The hat that came with it isn’t much help either. It’s surprisingly alive, and I think it’s supposed to help me, but all it ever seems to do is pull me into more trouble and get itself into nothing but trouble. Maybe it’s cursed too. The weird Ring-shaped locks that are all over me are on it too. At least two of them to go with the five on me. I’m sure if I can find the keys for them, I can get free and return back to normal, but I’m actually kind of scared to go looking for them.

~The only hint I think I have to them is this weird red string coming out of the keyhole of the Ring on my chest. I think if I follow it, it might lead me to the keys, but you know, whenever I look at it twirling around me, I can’t help but think of the Red String of Fate that ties me and Sonic together. I don’t want to follow it straight to Sonic. I’m not ready to see him yet. I’m supposed to be a lot more refined when I see him, not in a pitiful state like this. So, I think I’ll continue my adventures like this for a while longer and keep getting better at magic until I can find ways around these awful curses that have taken most of my ability to use my body away from me. I’ll try to get better at writing letters too, so you don’t have to worry. Though, I’ve spotted people taking my picture, though not always before this hat goes after them, so if you look up my appearance on the net with Gemerl’s help maybe you’ll see me in this silly dress that has me feeling like a mermaid. Ooh~! I don’t care how pretty it looks, everyone is complimenting it and not me! It’s not even my style!~

“It really is pretty!” Cream breathed a wow sometime later after Vanilla had managed to contact Tails who with Gemerl’s eyes acting as a projector had a number of photos on a wall in the Rabbit family home.

Just like it had been described in Amy’s letter, a girl in a purple mermaid style dress which had its top obscured by a veil adorned the wall several times over. The stary night appearance of the bottom of her dress which flared out from just after a slit began in the dress was shared by the flats that she wore on her feet as well as the underside of the purple witch’s hat that appeared to be attacking the photographer in many of the pictures. In a few of those the purple flat cap atop the girl’s head that the veil was attached to along with a decorative gold chain and two large purple gems hanging from it like earrings was visible. But any defining features were absent save the Ring-shaped locks about her. One per foot, another dangling from the tip of the hat joined by a tiny one on the hatband, the one on her chest and two floating in the air at her sides where her arms would have once dangled. Tails wasn’t sure if he should feel sick to his stomach seeing his good friend like this or just relieved that she seemed okay regardless of her situation. Gemerl, lacking the emotional context of the horror of the scene stated its final conclusion flatly.

“Ninety-seven percent probability of being Amy Rose,” the android stated and made Tails jump.

“What? Really? How can you be sure? There isn’t anything we can use to identify her!”

“Incorrect,” Gemerl, stated. “Despite the matching appearance to her veil and dress, her tights are not opaque based on the difference in lighting per photograph.”

“Of course!” Tails exclaimed and busily set to work on his Miles Electric table. “If you account for material stretch and filter out the color range… There! You get the exact shade of pink of Amy’s fur!”

“Which can be DNA matched to within acceptable parameters for that shade combined with her height and figure to determine a 97 percent match. However, a margin of error must be accounted for as in addition to her missing appendages, she seems to have lost around an additional 17% of her body weight.”

“That’s horrible!” Cream gasped! “She’s withering away!”

“Actually, I think that’s normal for Amy,” Tails laughed and scratched at the back of head. “She’ll go on unhealthy diets at the drop of a hat and shrivel up in no time. If she has to use magic to sustain herself…”

Tails didn’t finish the thought as the word magic didn’t feel right in his mouth. “I guess I couldn’t really say,” Tails sighed. “I’m more of a tech guy and haven’t encountered magic before like Sonic has.”

“But we can’t get Mr. Sonic involved, Cream insisted. “Amy begged us not to.” Like Tails, Cream was aware of Sonic’s stories of being whisked away to worlds of magic and could not argue that he would be more help than any of them.

“I don’t believe it’s just Mr. Sonic,” Vanilla added, even as she made no attempt to hide the concern in her voice for Amy. She was not the only one who was so offput by Amy’s appearance, but she was the one who also had to speak up as the adult on Amy’s behalf. “She said she wants to refine herself, and everything in that letter implies this terrible curse she’s under is helping her do just that. It’s normal to worry for her but…”

“You’re right," Tails agreed, though he looked away and clenched his fist. “We all agreed we’d spend time doing our own thing and getting our own feet under us. It’s just…”

“But she’s Amy, Tails,“ Vanilla assured the two-tailed fox boy who was Sonic’s frequent companion. “She took the time to write Cream, to assure her that she was fine, so we know that she is.”

“Yeah…,” Tails attempted a smile as he looked at the pictures still projected by Gemerl’s eyes. Not seeing Amy’s smile in kind though was not comforting and he could only wonder where Cream found the faith in her friend to stand so resolute as she too looked at the pictures of who they all believed to be the hedgehog girl.

And they were not wrong.

Sunlight near blinded Amy as the purple witch’s hat suddenly blew off of her face where she had fallen asleep in the back of an open bed truck hauling hay.

‘I guess this is where today’s adventure begins.’ Arching her back to stretch out what muscles she had control over without magic, Amy only lingered in the hay a moment longer. Soon, she was airborne and twirling like an acrobat, or as close an approximation as possible dressed as she was, a number of the fortune cards she kept with her twirling around her. As she descended and landed on her feet, only one did not disappear and continued to swirl around her allowing her to stand at all.

Noticing the hat that was her only company stuck in a tree, Amy sighed through her nose. ‘You really are helpless.’

Disapproving as her thoughts were, Amy’s green eyes were smiling behind her veil. She had left the truck in a rather perilous stretch of a mountain path, and it would take everything she knew of magic and likely more to see herself back to safety.

‘Hee-hee,’ she laughed to herself in her thoughts. ‘I think I’m finally understanding why you’re always looking for ways to challenge yourself Sonic.

‘Just you wait Sonic! When I get out of this mess, there’s no way you’ll recognize me with how much I’ve grown. I just know you’ll regret it!’

Though her tone to herself was confident, Amy still spied a nervous glance at the red thread entwined around her in the air. The end opposite of where it emerged from the magical keyhole on her chest was what she primarily sought, and when she confirmed where it was pointing, she promptly traveled in the opposite direction, a handful of fortune cards appearing in orbit around her to help her levitate along. Her path was not in the service of helping the hat that followed her however and it had to rescue itself to chase after her. Of little surprise to Amy, it was not so sluggish in its self-rescue attempt as to not be able to send the hedgehog girl tumbling into more trouble and her next adventure. One she hoped would steer her clear of Sonic for a while longer. However, there were some events in life that were unavoidable, such as the necessity of an umbrella to stay dry in the rain.

Even in light rain making use of an umbrella was ever advisable. Most people about in the isolated mountain village that Amy found herself in did exactly that as they scurried about under the dampening gray skies. Holding an umbrella in hand was impossible for Amy as she sat on an iron bench. A lack of arms made that task unfavorably difficult.

Despite her purple attire, especially the witch’s hat upon her crown, Amy did not stick out in the least. Her invisibility was of little concern to her at that moment. Her current situation was the result of a curse born from the dress she wore. Rather, the cloak that had fused itself shut to her and did things unknown to her arms and tail. Her mouth fared no better, its position hidden behind where the cloak’s collar had completely obscured her muzzle save her nose. It was completely absent as far as she could tell due to a lack of any feeling or even a sense of tongue to feel around for it. Her lips were as absent, and her voice no longer existed. Communication and even movement were impossible for her under normal circumstances due to the curses affiliated with each of the Keyhole Rings adorning her and it was consuming her thoughts. But not fully.

Despite the curses of the Rings on her feet stealing away her use of her legs, Amy could still at least attempt to move her thighs, torso, and neck. Her situation was not hopeless however, even as that rainy morning’s attempts to move her thighs barely managed a nigh fused rubbing together of her upper legs just due to the tightness with which the cloak had fused to her. Even knowing what she should be doing, she did not give up on her physical abilities.

‘Use a little magic to try and help out on the Starfall Islands and get it into your head that you can learn to really use it,” Amy’s thoughts still took umbrage against her own actions. But her thoughts did not give credit to her desire to refine herself after the events on those untouched islands where a world ending entity once was sealed. But she did not dwell on her dissatisfaction either, instead putting every ounce of effort she could into working what leg muscles she could.

‘C’mon Amy, you may be getting better at using the same tricks you did on Ouranos, but you can’t give up on using your body either. It wouldn’t do me any good to get out of this mess and not be able to use it without magic either. If that happened, I’d be better off just staying like this.’

Her thoughts were born of a frustration that had been plaguing her for longer than she could figure out in that moment. ‘How long has it been anyway? I think I might actually be forgetting what it even felt like to have arms!’

A bit of panic settling in, Amy looked up and watched the villagers going about their morning, putting their hands and arms to any number of uses. Holding umbrellas and bicycle handles, taking hold of groceries and exchanging goods, giving handshakes and hugs. Watching a couple embrace caused a sharp pain to course through Amy’s body that she winced at with her all. Her eyes started to water, and she had to keep from sniffling so as not to compromise her ability to breathe. ‘How long has it been since I talked to anyone, no less shared a hug?’

Trying to imagine reaching out with the arms she once had to hug someone, Amy’s efforts were met with the sudden appearance of the last two of the seven Keyhole Rings that adorned her body. These two floated in the air at her sides where her arms would have been, and for a moment she stared at them in wide-eyed surprise.

‘Did they disappear? When did that happen!’

Her emotions betraying her control of what magic she had managed to learn, one of Amy’s fortune cards answered her distress and appeared from thin air, swirling around her, and causing her to jump to her feet. The motion dislodged the witch’s hat, but Amy hardly cared for that as her sudden jump required her to actively control the spell that summoned the card to keep her hovering just a few centimeters off the ground before her curse disabled feet proved useless and left her to fall. It might have been better at that moment she thought to herself though as her action combined with her unobserved state put her on a crash course with an oblivious passerby. The collision itself would have bothered her, but she could not allow it as the cloak would not either and she saw the first thorn start to grow from it that prevented her from even making physical contact with others.

Not allowing it to happen, Amy summoned another fortune card and threw herself backwards onto the bench. She miscalculated the amount of magic she needed and banged her head loudly on the backrest. Her eyes started to water as her vision blurred and her ears rang, but she still pleaded for the safety of the villager.

‘Just keep walking.’

Amy’s thoughts naturally went unheard, but the banging of her skull was an entirely different matter and the hapless passerby stopped to see what the sound was. They saw nothing, however, as Amy focused on keeping herself invisible, a spell that came to her strangely naturally. It also meant that they did not see the lethally long thorns that had grown from the cloak, more continuing to stretch out as Amy struggled to wriggle down the bench and away from the villager. Yet, she could see, even as far down as the flaring end of the cloak, more thorns stretching out of the fabric towards the threat to her isolation. Before anything terrible could happen though, with a shrug the villager continued walking and Amy sighed heavily through her nose as she watched the thorns recede back into the rest of the cloak, making their appearance seem as unlikely as the sun in the night sky.

‘That was too close.’

Sitting back up, Amy sighed again as the witch’s hat suddenly plopped itself back upon her head. Amy paid it hardly any heed though as she leaned back, even as it slid down and into her eyes. She had no control over it, and as far as she could tell it was hapless beyond its ability to always find its way back onto her head.

‘It’s not like I can just let you go either,’ Amy directed her thoughts towards the hat. ‘Two of the Keyhole Rings are on you and if I don’t get them unlocked, I won’t break all of the curses. Though, I wonder if you’re what stole my mouth or the Ring on my chest.’

Looking down at her chest, Amy’s attention did not linger on the Keyhole Ring for long. Instead, it was the red thread that emerged from it that took hold of attention. ‘The red thread of fate…’

While there were many meanings to that phrase, to a hopeless romantic like Amy it meant that on the other end was her destined lover. It was an easy belief to have considering the origin of the end that touched her was above her heart, but she could not see the other end. The string simply faded off, though she had noted that it did surely point somewhere and moved on its own. This simply reinforced her belief though that on the other end was Sonic the Hedgehog, as she had been once told by her fortune cards that the two were destined.

‘It’s only right that Sonic would hold the key to my heart,’ Amy mused and swooned at the idea of being freed by Sonic before shaking her head violently.

‘No, no, no Amy! You can’t go see Sonic like this. You’re anything but more refined. You’re just a mess right now and Sonic getting involved could be disastrous for him. You’re dealing with curses after all you dummy!’

She would have clapped her face between her hands if she still had them, but instead had to deal with her mounting frustration at her helplessness. Her helplessness and worsening loneliness.

‘Maybe I should try writing Cream again,’ Amy contemplated as she absently summoned a fortune card to take her to her feet once more. ‘I don’t know if she can even see the words I cast onto the paper but writing her helps me feel less lonely and I could use the company thinking about her brings.’

Her mind made up on her next course of action, Amy allowed her body to be pulled through the air by the fortune card that orbited her. Hearing a familiar voice though stopped her in her tracks.

“Come on boys!” The rambunctiously loud voice of Vector the Crocodile, head of the Chaotix Detective agency, ordered the ninja dressed purple chameleon and pilot hat wearing bee that accompanied him. “We can’t be getting distracted by the local specialties! We’re in the middle of a job.”

“Say’s the one stopping at every food stall in town,” the chameleon countered.

“Come on, Espio,” Vector attempted to plead and bargain as he shifted the blame. “Charmy’s been wanting to try the sweets and it’s not like I can say no to him.”

“Yeah!” Charmy chipped in excitedly. “The sweets here are really good and you’re missing out!”

“Are we not on a case?” Espio inquired with heavy exasperation.

‘The Chaotix?! Why are they here?!’

Surprised was putting it lightly at how shocked Amy was to see the detectives. They normally took on small jobs that did not see them far from their office in Central City, so appearing in a remote mountain village was anything but expected. It was to a degree that it was alarming, and Amy’s thoughts began to race.

‘They’re not looking for me, right? Would Cream or Vanilla have asked them to? No. Maybe. But I asked not to be helped. I’m supposed to be refining myself, and learning to use magic so I can find the keys to undo these locks will definitely be part of that. But if they find me and interrupt my journey. Well, no, they shouldn’t be able to, I can turn invisible via magic and even Espio shouldn’t be able to find me. But what if they are just passing through? It wouldn’t hurt to say hi, right? Augh! What are you thinking Amy! You don’t have a mouth or any arms to say hi with! And it’s not like they can see it’s you in here! You’d just confuse them if you went up to them like this! And what if they are here because Cream and Vanilla don’t think you can handle this! You’d be throwing in the towel just to say hi when you can’t! That’s one thing I can’t do! I won’t give up just because I want to actually be recognized by someone and not feel so lonely! Even if I’m really, really, lonely!’

The conflict in Amy’s head was revolving and it seemed unlikely that she could make up her mind on her own. Yet, despite the odds she did reach a decision.

‘Ooh~! What can it hurt! You can always just run away if things don’t work out!’

Her mind finally made up, Amy braced herself for anything and nodded her head with fierce determination.

‘Eh?’

As she looked up, Amy paused and took in the scene around her. The rain had long stopped, and the parting clouds revealed that the sun had moved to kiss the horizon on its way to its nightly slumber. There was no sign of the Chaotix, and the villagers were well on their way to preparing for the evening themselves.

‘Wait…,’ Amy weakly pleaded as her stomach rumbled at her, a consequence of the whole day passing and using magic to keep herself upright. ‘That’s not fair…’

Shaken by her indecision paralyzing her for an entire day, Amy tried to reach out to where she had seen Vector, Espio, and Charmy. Again, the Keyhole Rings at her sides appeared, serving as a cruel reminder of the curse that took her arms.

‘Stop it,’ Amy begged, but the Rings simply persisted until she gave up her attempt to reach to where none she knew stood. Then, they disappeared as surely as her arms and the memories of what it actually felt like to have them.

A tear fell to the ground from under Amy’s veil, followed by another and another, but no wailing to free her heart from the barbed wire pain that entangled it. The need to have her heart freed of its pain though gave her pause and Amy watched the red string that swirled in the air around her.

She knew better than to give in to that desire. Seeking Sonic was the worst possible thing she could do. If he saw her like this, it could result in the absolute worst outcome. The thoughts of the Koco whose love story she watched come to an end on the Starfall Islands and set her on her path of self-refinement flooded her mind as their reckless end very well threatened to be a foretelling of her and Sonic’s own if she did not refine herself. Yet the excessive sleep she needed to recover from using her magic, nor the dread of absorbing nutrients from her environment via magic, combined with that knowledge prevented Sonic the Hedgehog from standing across from the cursed mage in a clearing in some distant wood.

“What?” Sonic asked in surprise as the purple clad mage appeared after a flash of lightning. The ominous, almost threatening visage put Sonic on guard as the rain came thundering down.

“Is there something I can do for you?’ Sonic asked warily, rubbing the underside of his nose with his pointer finger as he felt a sneeze coming on that he was certain was warning him of danger rather than his hay fever. Especially in the violent downpour that was turning the ground quickly to mud underfoot.

Naturally, Amy could not respond, she could do nothing more than stare at Sonic as her heart absolutely screamed in anguish, paralyzing her where her orbiting fortune card kept her aloft. In the darkness brought on by the storm Sonic could not help but notice the magically alight card.

“Wait a minute,” Sonic muttered as he noticed the design on the back of the card and recognized it almost immediately.

The familiarity of the card drew Sonic to check for other familiar features. There was not much facing the nearly fully covered mage before him, but in the downpour the witch’s hat upon their crown had its brim forced down revealing the pink-furred hedgehog ears that escaped through the holes in its sides. Those ears in combination with the fortune card all but assured Sonic who was standing before him, but before he could seek clarification, he noted the red string that was pointing directly at his left pinky finger and that the mage before him had no arms. Faced with this additional information, the tone of his question changed dramatically.

“Amy?”

As her name left his lips, the curse on the veil that hid Amy’s eyes from the world failed before Sonic. Her distraught green eyes became readily visible to him, the force of the rain no longer being enough to obscure how violently she was trembling from head to toe. Only the tears that drenched her face were hidden still by the rain.

“Amy!” Sonic repeated and took a firm step forward. “What happened!”

In the next moment, too many things happened. Knowing what the cloak would do to Sonic if he approached her terrified Amy and she attempted to retreat from Sonic’s sudden approach. But her heart completely betrayed her and the reality of Sonic reaching out for her was enough to break even her absent-minded concentration and her fortune card vanished leaving her to fall backwards into the mud. Her loss of balance was all Sonic needed to forget the danger his nose was warning him about and he dashed forward to catch Amy, his world-famous sound surpassing speed leaving a boom that reverberated with the thunder. Amy could only look on in abject horror as she knew in the mud there would be no way for Sonic to stop himself from being pierced by the inevitable thorn that would greet him. Not wanting to see her own terror reflected in Sonic’s shocked eyes, she squeezed hers fast.

‘How could I?’ Amy accused herself, her heart feeling like it was being pulled in countless directions unable to resist the horror she befell upon the one she loved with every fiber of her being. ‘I knew this would happen if I kept acting without thinking! I’M SO SORRY SONIC!!’

She knew her apology would never reach Sonic, trapped inside her head as it was, and that he would never reach her. Yet, as she splashed down in the mud, she did not feel the impact or the weight from Sonic’s direction that she expected. Hearing his voice though, Amy forced her eyes open as she turned away so as not to see what she feared awaited her.

“Amy?” Sonic asked with surprise, the sword like purple thorn with the stary night at its tip just coming up short of his throat, seeking him from Amy’s chest. Amy could not fathom how Sonic had stopped, the sneeze that marked the peak of his danger sense going off and accomplishing the impossible going unheard over the rain and thunder. The confusion in Sonic’s emerald eyes though only deepening the regret, self-loathing, and fear in hers.

“Maybe instead of trying to impale me you could try telling me what this is all about?”

‘This isn’t what I wanted… this isn’t what was supposed to happen…!’

The story being told by Amy’s eyes failed to make anything clearer, instead muddying further the bizarreness of the situation for Sonic. “What is going through that head of yours Amy? Say something!”

The one demand she could not fulfill no matter how badly she wanted to. The growing concern and anger in Sonic’s eyes. The thought of him discovering her helplessness. The fact that she almost ended his life. That her heart betrayed her. It was suddenly far more than Amy could handle and a storm of fortune cards exploded around her launching her backwards and away from Sonic. Not waiting for Sonic to reorient himself and have the chance to stop her retreat, Amy dropped to the ground and another torrent of fortune cards appeared as she launched herself even higher into the air, twirling like an acrobat as she held her body straight as a pike. She refused to risk landing again and at least two dozen more fortune cards swirled into being around her, forming two rotating rings that kept her airborne and moving away from Sonic.

“Hey! You’re not getting away that easily without telling me what’s going on!”

Hearing Sonic yell angrily at her was like being hit by a towering ocean wave and being knocked out of her own body. The terror of what that could possibly mean erased any possibility of rational thought in consideration of Sonic’s actions. Seeing him ricocheting off tree branches to catch up to her only deepened her fear.

‘No! He’ll catch up in no time like this! Think Amy! There has to be a way to go fast enough to at least give you a chance to get away!’

Though too panicked to think rationally about Sonic’s reaction, Amy’s mind desperate from adrenaline and a need to travel as fast or faster than Sonic pulled her mind back to the Starfall Islands. It was where her journey to master her magic began, and in the need to go as quickly as possible to help Sonic she had developed another way to use her cards for movement.

Ceasing to use her magic to keep herself upright, Amy switched to relying on the strength she had in her torso as she summoned her Piko Piko Hammer and landed on it sidesaddle style. She did not ride the hammer to the ground though, her fortune cards raced to swirl like a wheel around her and her hammer rather than a ring orbiting her waist. The pause in the moment it took to align everything nearly gave Sonic a chance to risk the thorns once again emerging from the cloak, but then Amy was propelled forward in sound shattering burst of speed. Sonic could not begin his pursuit immediately as he first had to land and find his footing in the mud. Fortunately, the light given off by Amy’s cards pointed him in the right direction and he flew as fast as he could across the muddy ground. It was too slick though to match Amy’s magical retreat in speed and Sonic took to leaping from tree trunk to tree trunk with much greater success. To terrifying success from Amy’s perspective as her impromptu magical vehicle lacked any descent control and she was wildly drifting around trees as Sonic rapidly closed in on her. If not for the sudden cliff it would have been impossible for Amy to have gotten away.

“No~!” Sonic started to yell as he overshot Amy as she relinquished her magical chariot and started to fall. Twisting in the air to catch where she would land, Sonic was unprepared as the night sky suddenly blocked his vision. “Gah!”

It hardly took even an instant for Sonic to wrestle the witch’s hat free from his face and toss it away, but there was no sign of Amy as he scanned the forest below him. Looking back toward the hat out of desperation, Sonic was shocked to see that it too had already vanished. Shocked as he was though, he still took the time to focus on landing safely. But even from ground level there was no sign of Amy or the hat, Amy’s magic allowing for a trackless retreat.

Sonic was upset about his failure to catch Amy for several reasons, his pride as the world’s fastest hedgehog letting another hedgehog get away from him in a race among them. More important than his pride though, was his confusion and concern for Amy. In a last desperate bid to get her to explain, he screamed out her name into the storm.

He did not expect that months would pass, and that Amy of all people would become just another part of his life not to look back on. But he could not stop living his life for one regret. He could only move forward, no matter how much it hurt to have failed to have done anything. It was thus a shock when the Rabbit family contacted him desperate for his help. It was even more shocking when they were the ones who had the answers behind Amy’s actions on that stormy night so long ago now.

“That–,” Sonic began to make a remark about Amy as he pinched his brow with the hand of the same arm of which the elbow propped him up at the Rabbit family table, but a warning look from Vanilla kept his words clean, “–dummy.”

Even as clean as he kept his language, Sonic’s anger was apparent to Vanilla’s young daughter, and Cream fidgeted nervously as she risked asking the bristly hedgehog a question.

“Is it that bad Mr. Sonic?”

“Probably worse,” Sonic sighed as he glared at the collection of blank sheets of paper Cream held. They were letters written in magic that only the rabbit who was Amy’s best friend could read. To all others they were just blank sheets of paper, but this was not Sonic’s first time dealing with magic. Having faced the cursed, novice mage, Sonic could clearly sense Amy’s magic on the paper. He was angry with himself for having not figured it out that night and clicked his tongue.

“Even worse than how Amy describes the curses she has?” Cream asked, visibly shaken from the fresh imagery Amy’s writing invoked and Sonic’s anger. Sonic noticed how upset Cream was getting and offered her a smile.

“She definitely wasn’t doing good like you. Great job making it through those scary letters for me!”

“Of course!” Cream beamed at Sonic’s praise and the thumbs-up he flashed her. Vanilla was not leaning in the direction of agreement to praising Cream for nearly traumatizing herself reading the contents of the letters that Amy had been sending and how they described her experience with the curses placed upon her. Noticing the mother rabbit’s expression, Sonic pushed the discussion forward. He wanted to anyway as learning what he did since the Rabbit family asked him for help when the letters stopped coming for months made him want to once again find the pink hedgehog girl he used to not be able to shake.

“The problem is that Amy thinking these curses can help her get better at magic is too naïve. Speaking from personal experience, being cursed isn’t fun, and they only get worse the longer they hang around. I wouldn’t be in anywhere near as great of shape if not for a good friend who helped me back then.”

“Can this friend of yours help Amy, in light of you finding her first?” Vanilla asked hoping to remind Sonic why she had called him there.

“Probably,” Sonic answered Vanilla as he began scratching inside his ear with his pinky finger. He felt bad knowing he was going to have to extinguish the light that appeared in Cream’s eyes at the hope for her best friend, but he still pulled his finger free of his ear and blew on it. “Unfortunately, I can’t just get in touch with her. Amy is probably going to try to keep avoiding me too. She probably can’t shake the image of that one Koco couple she tried to help back on the Starfall Islands. She already compared one of them to herself, and she’s probably plugged me into the role of the other. She doesn’t want us to go through the same thing and wants to refine herself to do it. It’s too much for her though. These curses aren’t just hiding her from the world, they’re cutting off everything she is all so she can focus on learning magic. Even being Amy and her being able to accomplish those things only she can…”

“Then you’ll find her and help her, right Mr. Sonic!” Cream shouted, desperate to hear good news about Amy. Sonic smiled to her again and placed a hand on her head as he stood up.

“You bet,” Sonic offered a reassuring thumbs up yet again. “Amy owes me a race too, so I have to find her and prove her getting away was a stroke of pure luck.”

Pure luck was going to be something that Sonic needed if he were even to get a lead. Since his encounter no one had even seen the purple clad mage. The idea that on that night she had retreated from one polar hemisphere to the other to get away from him was unfathomable. That the amount of magic she used to accomplish the hours upon hours long feat on top of having escaped from him in the first place left her in a state of hibernation since would have been even more shocking. Yet, to Amy who had not realized how far she had traveled and how long she had slept, the season seemed the same and as far as she could tell she had simply slept a night and not for months. The absolute absence of life in the forest below the mountain cave she exited left her feeling extremely guilty.

‘I guess I was hungry, and nothing would stay where it was to become fuel for a mage.’ Summoning her trusty hammer, Amy sat on the head and began her morning routine of rubbing her thighs together. The task was performed in absent-minded habit as her thoughts were elsewhere.

‘I really messed up,’ Amy thought as she sighed, though the long sleep had left her emotions far less volatile. ‘I bet Sonic thinks I hate him after that.’

Looking at the red string that still twirled around her, Amy was not so sure. “Well, at least we still share a destiny even if he does. I wonder if an apology will be enough to at least make Sonic forget about me instead of hating me.’

Tears fell from Amy’s eyes, and she tilted her head back so they would not become like raindrops upon the cloak that bound her. The gray sky above threatened to accomplish that outcome if she failed regardless, and Amy’s brow furrowed as though she were smiling wryly.

‘Meanie,’ she thought to herself before turning her attention back to herself. ‘Well, I have to apologize no matter what. Sonic deserves to know what happened, even if that’s the end of our destiny. Even if it means he’ll never be the key to my heart so I can get free. It’s not like I remember my arms or voice anymore anyway. I doubt even unlocking the Keyhole Rings where my arms would be would bring them back. Where would they even go? They’d be crushed and that’d be worse than not having them.’

She wanted to laugh and cry both at the idea, but without her mouth or voice, she could only shed more tears as the first raindrops began to fall. Not wanting just to cry, Amy shifted her thoughts and looked down at the Keyhole Rings on her feet.

“I wonder, if that’s the case, then would undoing any of these restore any of my control over my body… It doesn’t make sense that it would. Wouldn’t it make more sense that instead I’d be able to use spells that require exerting more of my magic against my body? Like wouldn’t all of that movement last night have been easier if my ability to move, using my feet, wasn’t restricted. In other words, I need to get stronger too.’

Testing herself, Amy chose her right foot and began to try and force her magic into the Keyhole Ring. It easily resisted her attempts, seeming to grow more resistant the more magic she threw at it. She should have been forced to withdraw, but the hedgehog girl was stubborn, and Amy pushed herself to the point of exhaustion. As her magic waned, it became small enough to slip inside the Keyhole Ring.

‘EH~!’

Surprised and exhausted as she was, Amy did not want to waste the opportunity and traced around inside the keyhole attempting to fill its shape with her magic. It was like exploring a puzzle laden dungeon and Amy concentrated fiercely to see the complex structure filled. And then, to her surprise Amy accomplished it and had the shape of the key that would unlock the Keyhole Ring. But the magic was wrong, and it would not turn.

‘Phooey,’ Amy huffed as her efforts seemed to be for naught. Yet she still had the key shape and let it float up before her eyes. ‘Well, it’s the right shape, so maybe I can use it to find the actual key. If it’s a different type of magic but the same shape I just have to pick it out from the rest of the magic that fills the world. Hmm… I think I’ve passed a few places where magic seems to pool from all sorts of different sources. If I take this there maybe I can find the matching shape and trace it back from there.

‘Look at that Amy! You have a plan for the first time since you got turned into this. Right, then being able to apologize to Sonic should no longer be just a silly desire. I’ll just work my way up through each lock since I’ll need to be able to comprehend moving through space that disappears to unlock the ones at my sides. With those undone maybe I’ll have the magical dexterity to hold this silly hat down so I can trace its Keyhole Rings too! But I need to make sure I stay focused first and don’t let my heart steer me off course without thinking about it first.’

A fortune card answering her summons and letting Amy stand up as her hammer vanished, the cursed mage floated over to a nearby Ring spinning on its axis in the air.

‘Perfect!’

Having an idea of what she wanted to do thanks to tracing out the shape of the right foot Keyhole Ring, Amy grabbed the Ring with her magic and flooded the space it occupied, tracing out a complex enclosure until suddenly the Ring disappeared only to reappear closing itself into the same space as the Keyhole Ring on her chest and becoming one itself. It did not cut off the red string, which was exactly what Amy wanted, and a golden key with a Keyhole Ring as its tab floated in the air before her.

‘There! With that I won’t be able to just act on my emotions without getting paralyzed. I’ll have to think it through and come up with the right spell to free myself. And it’ll have to be rooted in an actual plan that won’t let me chase after Sonic until I’ve conquered the other six locks.

‘…

‘It’s kind of useless if I just have the key though.’

For once proving it actually had some reasonable use, the witch’s hat upon Amy’s head leapt off and gulped up the key, erasing all trace of it. Amy could easily sense it within the hat, but that did not stop the incredulous look that took over her face.

‘NO WAY!! All this time you’ve been nothing but useless and now you do something helpful! Just wait until I unlock your Keyhole Rings! Then you’ll answer to me, and I’ll get all of the head magic you’re likely locking up too!

‘Wait! What about the letters I’ve been writing to Cream? Don’t tell me the magic I’ve been using isn’t actually strong enough for her to read them! If this is your fault!

‘Oh~, never mind,’ Amy exhaled sharply through her nose as she calmed herself down. ‘It’s not like I’m ever getting out of this, so I’ll just apologize to Cream when I can find a way to talk to her without a mouth. Until then, since you seem to be able to hear me, that means you get to be my friend.’

Ducking under the floating hat, Amy straightened up and forced it back onto her head. With a nod she looked off towards the horizon as the rain began to pick up.

‘No complaints either, you got it. We’re stuck with each other because there is no way Sonic will let me use him to unlock the last lock after that awful meeting. So, no more complaints about my mouth and arms from me either. I’m already used to being without them, I just have to find a way to be happy like this too.

‘Maybe after I finally apologize to Sonic, I’ll take up traveling magic research and learn everything I can about magic. Traveling just to get better at using it is fun enough, so why not?’

Thinking about the future well beyond her current point, and even her next destined meeting with Sonic, Amy set off on the next leg of her adventure to undo the Keyhole Rings and free herself, planning to replace them with her own so as to even make her cursed form her own under her own power. It was a hopeful dream full of impossible optimism. But that was Amy Rose, and she never gave up on impossible dreams. As long as she did not hurt anyone that was. Hence why she was able to ignore the twitching of the far end of what she could see of the red string around her as it traced Sonic’s search for her, all the while, the rain coming to an end and the sun coming out.

Yet such adventures were boring and lonely themselves, and Amy’s loneliness had already compromised others already. As she had stopped writing Cream, finding ways to stem off her loneliness grew more important, and she found herself experimenting with magic while letting her playful nature keep her from being too dour about it.

~Hark ye who have stumbled upon this tomb and know that you have exposed yourself to the personal account of the life of Sorcerer Lock, the Mage of Cards…

~Pft–~ I’m sorry, that’s too much. It’s not wrong, but not entirely right, I’m going to start over.

~If you’re reading this, you are indeed reading the open diary of Lock the Mage. Except Lock isn’t really my name. It’s what people have started calling me though as my reputation has spread, and it naturally has to do with the seven Keyhole Rings that adorn or otherwise float around me. The whole Mage of Cards bit comes about because I use my fortune cards as a conduit for my magic. The thing is though, right now I’m no sorcerer or anything so grand. I’m just a cursed novice who wanted to get better at magic to help refine myself, and well, here I am on a grand adventure to do just that and lift the curses on me.

~I haven’t figured out what all of the curses are, but I have determined the best order to go about it.

~On each of my stary night slipper clad feet with matching tights are one Keyhole Ring each. The curses on these pretty much keep me from using my legs from my knees down. Undoing those Keyhole Rings, I believe will allow me to access more diverse movement magic than what I can manage with my fortune cards alone. Should I undo both I’m hoping to be able to traverse locations that aren’t technically there. That sounds weird, so let me move on to…

~The large Keyhole Rings floating at my sides about as far out as my wrists would be if I still had arms. I’ll get to that, but without the ability to travel places that aren’t there, I can’t project my magic in to map out the keyholes and track down the magic that shares the same shape. When I do though, the hope is to be able to have access to magic that is at least as good as having hands again, or way better. I’ll need it too if I’m going to deal with the next two.

~On my head are two more Keyhole Rings. Despite wearing a flat cap with a veil that no one but me can see through and big earring placed purple gems, both Keyhole Rings on my head are actually on a witch’s hat that normally sits up there too. The problem is that it’s alive and moves about freely. Without being able to hold it down I can’t map out either of those either. When I do, I’m sure I’ll be able to control it and put an end to the curses from it. I’m sure it’s messing with my head and also secretly sharing magic knowledge with me to help me along, but the first part is a problem. I can’t trust myself to go see my friends, even though all of this doesn’t mean anything if I don’t solve it myself. I can’t talk to them either and can’t be sure if even this diary will ever be readable by anyone thanks to it. But I’m so lonely not being able to have anyone see me in this get up that I’m writing it anyway and if you’re reading it, know you’re as much my companion as this awful hat! And I enjoy fortune telling, so I have no doubt someone will read this someday!

~Ahem. Moving on, the other reason I need control of the hat isn’t just for access to proper communication knowledge, but to also get back the key for the Keyhole Ring I made and cursed myself with. You see, the last Keyhole Ring of the curse from the purple cloak with the stary night pattern at its end and fused itself to me as the world’s tightest mouth and arm stealing mermaid dress doesn’t have a normal key. It rests on my chest and the red string of fate trails out of it and around me. On the other end is none other than who I love with every fiber of my being. Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s the last key, but without lifting the other curses, seeing him didn’t end well. I don’t have real person to person communication magic, I don’t have my mouth, and I don’t have any arms. All I could do was float there staring helplessly at him until he almost got himself impaled on the thorns that grow out of the cloak if anyone tries to reach out for me or gets too close. That meeting was a disaster, and I’m sure after successfully running away that the only fate left between Sonic and me has nothing to do with us being destined lovers anymore. I don’t even think we are anymore after that meeting. But before letting Sonic catch up with me or seeking him out again, I’m going to become the best mage I can and make these curses my own. Afterall, if Sonic and I are no longer destined lovers, then he can’t be the key to my heart to finally undo the last lock. I’m stuck in this armless, mouthless, cloak sealed form forever. But I have to at least apologize to Sonic before dedicating the rest of my life to becoming a great mage worthy of the name Sorcerer Lock, the Mage of Cards.

~Oh, that reminds me. It’s part of why I’m writing this. It’s not just to stave off the suffocating loneliness, but so I don’t forget. Like I said at the beginning, Lock isn’t my actual name. But all anyone sees is this get up which is so not my style. They don’t see me in it, and since my ability to communicate is pretty much gone, it’s what people have started calling me. But if you’re reading this then please, don’t call me Lock. My name is Amy Rose, so please call me Amy. I don’t want to forget my name too. I’ve already forgotten what it feels like to talk or to use my also stolen voice. I don’t even remember what it’s like having a mouth even though my face is full under the collar of the cloak like I should still have one. It’s not like my arms which I’ve also totally forgotten how to use or what it was like having any. It’s frightening that I have too because the Keyhole Rings at my side only show up if I’m using my cards when they used to always be there before just showing up when I tried to imagine using my arms. Imagining using arms isn’t the same and they don’t respond. I’m honestly scared even using my cards won’t be enough one day, so I need to get them mapped before they disappear forever. It’s not like I can give up on them like my memories of walking and using my legs. Without them I can never undo the Keyhole Rings on the hat and that means that the curse I put on me to keep me from pursuing Sonic can’t be undone either. I wouldn’t be able to apologize then and the rest of my life would be weighed down by that one regret. I can’t do that!

~Anyway, that’s where this record of my travels begins. And you’ll be joining me today as I arrive at a rather cute village isolated here in the mountains.

~Why am I here? Because even though I’ve learned that magic exists all throughout nature, spells were crafted by people, so that means curses too. I have to find a place where magic and spells pool so I can hopefully find a magic match to the shape of the one Keyhole I have mapped out. And with that, let’s go~♥~

Depending on the mountain range, one can find idyllic valleys even in the heart of seemingly perpetual blizzards. It was such a forested location that Amy found herself descending into, her brow furrowing as she noticed a tunnel allowing vehicular traffic into the hamlet hidden in the cozy hidden forest. She did not stay frustrated for long however as vehicular traffic meant modern amenities and she gleefully allowed herself to levitate into town. The sight of a ninety-centimeter-tall armless figure in a purple mermaid dress and witch’s hat with a fortune card orbiting about them floating into town easily attracted attention and it was soon known that the mage had arrived in the small community. It hardly mattered to Amy however, at least until she chose a local coffee shop to delight herself in.

“The Mage of Cards? Here?” A lady waiting in line for service at the counter asked, prompting Amy to turn invisible.

“That’s what I heard,” another lady replied. “Lock was seen here of all places. I can only imagine the trouble she’ll bring.”

~If you’re feeling bad about the response to me, it’s fine. It happens all the time. I mean, for as beautiful as this outfit looks, no one can see who’s wearing it so it’s natural to be suspicious. That, and it’s no mystery that Sonic is looking for me. I’m not sure why since it’s been months since that fateful night. Maybe Cream asked him to since I haven’t seen her since before I set out on my little trip of self-refinement. I had been writing her, but when it occurred to me that the curses on the hat probably made my letters unreadable, I stopped. Sending her blank pieces of paper because I can’t use a pen and she can’t read magic inscribed letters just seems silly. Did those envelops I dropped off even go anywhere? Either way, Sonic is looking for me, and people know. Because he isn’t sharing why beyond unfinished business in the few interview clips I’ve seen, people think I’m his enemy. It’s heartbreaking enough anytime I see him on TV or hear his voice, but thinking I might be someone Sonic sees as an enemy now…

~No! I can’t feel sorry for myself. I just need to stay focused on these curses. That and cheering myself up a little.~

The idea of trouble being brought was said in a broad sense by the lady and she was ill prepared for Amy to suddenly appear out of thin air as she looked back at the other lady she was speaking with. If Amy had her voice still, she would have laughed at the look of shocked horror on the woman’s face. Her amusement quickly turned to guilt however when both women started profusely apologizing to her. She could hardly do anything in response and did not know peace until she ordered an herbal tea by pointing at the menu with another summoned fortune care and sat outside to wait for it.

~You’re probably wondering how I’m going to eat without a mouth, and I can assure not with my nose. I’m going to use magic to extract what I need from it to keep myself going. Eating this way is one of the first things I had to learn when I was first cursed. I honestly thought I was going to die if I didn’t figure it out, and I can take from anything I want really. I like herbal tea though as herbs are very rich in magic and helps keep my magic from draining out too fast. If I use too much, I get so sleepy. I can actually sleep for months at a time it turns out if I’m not careful. When that happens, I can’t really stop myself from absorbing from everything around me just to stay alive. Which is kind of a dreadful state to be in because it means even if I wanted to waste away after what I did to Sonic my magic wouldn’t let me. It feels like an extra curse on top of all the rest. I can’t even give it away; I’ve tried but the dumb hat has stopped me. I’m trying to be friends with it, but it’s always causing me so much trouble. I swear it’s doing it on purpose. But I think an example would better help demonstrate what I mean.~

After extracting everything she could from the herbal tea and causing it to dissipate into nothing, Amy set about town in search of a demonstration of her intentions. Her search was for more than a demonstration however and she kept her magic senses on high as she drifted about town ducking into and out of alleys. Her efforts paid off eventually as she found the back door of a bakery where the quickly staling early morning, short-lived goods were being disposed of.

“Get out of there you wretch!” the employee disposing of the wasted foodstuffs yelled at a man in tattered rags who was waist deep in the trash bin in the alley. It put him in perfect position to be kicked in the side and sent rolling with the trash can. “Don’t make me call the cops!”

~It’s awful seeing how people will hurt each other when they can help each other. Maybe those baked goods are stale now, they sure smell it, but this poor man is hungry and hasn’t given up on life yet. That it’s more important to that person to throw out food that could help someone then helping them out makes me want to scream some sense into them. All I can do as I am right now though is try to help.~

From where she had again cast her invisibility spell on herself, Amy looked down the alley to where the beggar was skulking away as the bakery employee scowled after them while being sure to put a lock on the trash.

~Disgraceful.~

Her mind made up, Amy reached into herself and took hold of her own life force before turning her eyes back in the vagrant’s direction. Exactly as she expected, the hat that normally adorned her head was floating in front of her to block her line of sight to the man.

~And this is what always happens when I try. This silly hat proves itself helpful and won’t let me hurt myself, not even to help someone else. But there are other ways I can help as I’ve learned. Those baked goods may be under lock and key until the trash collectors come for them, but a simple thing like that can’t stop my magic. I’ll just extract all of the nutrients from every bit of food in there and pass it on to this poor man. I’d like to do more, but…~

Though her eyes were downcast, they still smiled as Amy successfully circumvented the hat and managed to get the vagrant a full meal.

~Sorry you didn’t get to enjoy the taste; I know just how you feel. But with a full belly you should be able to find the strength to try and improve things for yourself. Best of luck!~

The demonstration for whoever might read the open diary she magically inscribed into every reasonable surface she passed while traveling over, Amy resumed her search of town for whatever else there was she had traveled there for through the frozen mountains beyond. But she soon tired and took a seat on a bench to allow her own magic to recharge. She couldn’t help but feel that the cloak that bound her did the same as she caught a slender thorn grow from it to impale a mosquito that dared drift too near. She sighed heavily through her nose at her powerlessness, her earlier act of kindness doing little to help her feel assured of her growth as a mage. Another test soon presented itself though as an explosion rocked the edge of the town.

~What was that!~

Not realizing she was still recording her open diary, Amy summoned up several of her fortune cards, the cards pulling her back to a standing levitation. As they settled into orbit around her, she rushed off after the explosion as people either stood stunned or fled. The tendency of some people to scream in their panic however told Amy immediately what she was getting into.

“It’s Eggman! Run for your lives!”

~Eggman? Here? No, it’s probably just a stray robot. He wouldn’t bother with a place like this unless it had something that he wanted. As much as he torments gods too, I’m sure he has no way to interact with magic.~

Rounding a corner and letting her cards disperse so she could slow down, Amy set about determining what she was up against. While not the nefarious Doctor Eggman himself, what appeared was too much trouble for a town far enough removed from most to not have any Wispon users or even Wisps present to help. Waving an oversized drill of a right hand while tossing bombs with a left hand that seemed to create giant bombs that exploded into a rain of smaller bombs, the lumbering Eggman shaped mech stared down the edge of town with a glowing smile.

~Is that based on an Egg Hammer?~

The robot Amy compared the one she faced to was towering machine that shared a similar heavily armored build but typically carried a two-handed hammer. In her own days of wielding a toy hammer as her weapon of choice, she could boast about having beaten many of them at their own hammer swinging game. With no arms to swing her hammer and next to no control of her body physically, such feats were beyond the novice mage. Yet that did not seem to matter.

Not noticing Amy’s arrival, the Egg Driller opened up its left palm and presented a new bomb for the terrified townsfolk. Tossing it up into the air, it smiled brightly as the bomb exploded into a shiny set of smaller bombs ready to rain down destruction and chaos. Such did not happen however as Amy glided across the ground and positioned herself between the town and the machine, most of the fortune cards that had been orbiting her finding their way skyward and decimating the rain of bombs. That action alone earned the mage the full attention of the robot that she glared down as she sent more fortune cards to push and drag people to safety. Her efforts seemed futile however as the crowd shifted from panic to curiosity at the sight of an unexpected hero. Amy had no time to worry however as she had to focus on moving herself as the Egg Driller lunged at her with its namesake right arm. Summoning more of her fortune cards to get her moving, Amy deftly dodged the attack, but was forced to make a spiraling shield of cards to catch the follow up backhand. As the robot jumped away it launched several missiles from its backpack unit which spiraled wildly after Amy. The rocket powered speed of the missiles forced Amy to retreat rather than destroy them allowing several to crash into the ground and send debris flying with. Not risking more destruction, she took a short hop and slammed down into the ground, her cards catching her. Exploding outward away from her, the recoil sent her spiraling like a pike well into the air. This provided the room necessary for further missiles to curve up after her only to get sliced in half by a magic imbued fortune card each.

Needing to keep the Egg Driller’s attention away from the ground, Amy cast forth enough fortune cards to form two orbiting rings around her and slowing her descent to a crawl. As she slowly descended, she matched eyes with the towering robot and the next exchange began.

Dropping to a knee, the Egg Driller fired off another salvo of missiles at Amy as it summoned another giant bomb to hand. Rolling the bomb to take up where Amy could next stomp down, it set its arm to use and bored once again into the ground. This left Amy with no target and a need to dodge a spiraling salvo of explosive projectiles, a situation which became an opportunity to dance. Letting her orbiting cards pull her about through the air, Amy summoned several more to intercept the missiles while making sure to also cut the fuse of the giant bomb below her. Trapped within the greater bomb, the smaller ones within still went off and Amy braced herself for her opponent to send it flying into the air after her as it was transformed into a rather volatile spiked ball.

Ready as Amy was, it was no surprise when the deformed bomb at last jetted into the air for her, the damage on the underside allowing the internal explosions to escape and fuel it like a rocket. Amy did not back down however and cast out two fortune cards spinning like a saw blade of growing diameter to split the bomb in half. Cut as it was, the internal explosions blasted the two halves harmlessly into the mountains that surrounded the town. It was an impressive and flashy display that nearly blinded Amy to her opponent’s spectacular achievement of reaching her elevation. It was not an achievement managed by the Egg Driller under its own power though.

~EH~~~~~!!!!! Why is a guardian statue here! And why is it so big!~

The Egg Driller became a thing of all of no interest to Amy as it was crushed mercilessly in the mouth of a stone dragon, it’s drill falling to the ground below, the explosions from its remaining bombs and missiles seeming to have all of no effect on the stone beast.

~Eh-hehehehe… Right! Let’s make this a lesson about guardian statues and magic beasts. Since I’ve been looking for places where magic pools and hopefully where spells pool as well, I’ve fought quite a few. Most magical beasts aren’t too bad as I can just overpower them with an assault of magic, but guardian statues are a very different problem.~

Donning a steely look in her eyes, Amy summoned even more cards and sent them out to strike the dragon statue that closed in on her. Unlike with the bombs she had been attacking before, her cards did not even scratch the dragon, instead seeming to find resistance against an unseen barrier. Her attack proving useless, Amy was fully exposed to the jaws of the statue as they clamped down fast on her.

~The problem with guardian statues, you see, is they have magic resistance, and my magic isn’t powerful enough to penetrate it. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to beat them.~

Despite the difference in magic power between Amy’s offensive casting and the defenses of her new opponent, the magic Amy used to place cards stopping every tooth of the statue proved sufficient to keep her from becoming its second meal. Summoning more cards, she retreated backwards out of its mouth and summoned the rest of her cards back to her to increase her speed, but the statue was not caught off guard by the fierce shutting of its jaws and turned over catching Amy full on in a powerful tail whip. The blow sent the purple clad hedgehog careening into the ground and through the forest with enough force to cause a massive dust cloud to billow up. The townsfolk could only watch in terror as the stone beast roared triumphantly, afraid they would be next. But they possessed no magic and did not interest the beast. Instead, it was magic activity in the forest that drew the beast’s attention. Descending in hot pursuit of Amy, the guardian statue only did not crash into the ground by spreading its wings at the last possible second. The motion seemed to have saved it as several fortune cards flew under it, clearly missing their mark. Not spotting Amy, the dragon landed to better see through the trees, uprooting several with its weight and revealing that the floor of the forest had become a pit of dust. Immediately the massive statue sank, the friction between stone and dust preventing even its powerful wingbeats from lifting it. What it did achieve however was a parting of the trees to reveal the purple clad Mage of Cards staring it down with green glowing eyes as her fortune cards danced mercilessly through the ground deepening the pit of dust.

~You see, even with magic there are physical limitations that have to be considered. I’ve taken worse hits from Knuckles when playing around, so I’m fine after a hit like that, mostly, but this thing is too heavy to get back out and once I pull my cards out of the ground, it’ll set instantly trapping it in the ground.~

The roar that erupted from the guardian statue was not one of defeat, and it opened its mouth wide to reveal a growing light between its jaws. Amy held her ground without fear however as she was prepared, a fact the statue came to realize as the Egg Driller’s drill filled the space above its head. It tried to twist out of the way, but the drill was brought down hard, a storm of fortune cards spiraling around it to increase its speed well beyond the limits of the robot that once wielded it.

~The tricky part with guardian statues is that their magical defenses allow them to shrug off most non magical attacks, and most magical attacks don’t work either. So, the best solution is to combine the two and overload its defenses.~

Spiraling around the drill as Amy’s fortune cards were, they served as a forward drill to meet the magic resistance of the dragon. As they peeled away the drill lowered and lowered until card and drill both bore relentlessly against the beast. All the while, Amy watched on with cold, glowing eyes as the beast released another roar. This one would prove to be its last as the stone of its head cracked and splintered for only a moment before the drill shattered it into a cloud of dust, the rest of its body following suit and leaving Amy standing alone in the forest. She was not left alone for long and was soon joined by a cheering crowd of villagers whose lives she saved from two unexpected threats that day.

~I wouldn’t say this is how my adventures have been going normally. I mean, I don’t usually have people telling me how cool I am after a fight, or how intimidating and frightening I look when staring down an opponent. I mean, I guess I do look cool. and considering my figure is really shown off by this get up I bet I look a lot more mature than I feel. Being called scary though kind of hurts. I try so hard to be cute, but it really is impossible like this. I bet Rouge could pull this off way better than me. Maybe I’ll ask her for some pointers when I finally get that far along. For now, though, I need to check out the magic ruins the guardian was protecting and see if I can’t find any clues or helpful knowledge. It’d be nice to find another mage, but I feel like if there are any this cloak is a sure sign to avoid me. Who knows though, maybe when I find the first key that will change. I hope you’ll be excited when you find my next diary entry. It’s been fun talking, but for now, I need to do secret stuff. If you’re a mage too, you’ll have to do your own research. Best of luck~♥~

“I’m not a mage, and the research I have to do is figuring out where you went next,” Sonic sighed as he sat on the edge of the ruin revealing chasm that the guardian statue had emerged from. “How did you not pass out after that when just running from me had you out for months?”

“Lock left no notes on that did she?” an old man asked Sonic as he walked up with his hands clasped behind his back. He eyed the ring on Sonic’s left ring finger, oblivious to it being constructed by burning the letters sent to Cream and having the ashes sealed within the metal. He was further without knowledge of how wearing it where he did allowed Sonic to see the end of the red string that swirled around Lock tied around his left pinky. All the old man knew was that the Ring allowed Sonic to read Lock’s notes since he traveled around the small hamlet touching it to various places where the Mage of Cards had passed through.

“I’d appreciate a hint at least,” Sonic admitted his ignorance to Amy simply absorbing the released magic of her opponent to keep herself going.

“Ho, ho, ho,” the old man laughed. “When Lock arrived, we feared her you know. Your search for her and her never waiting to meet you or speaking for herself and all. But after she saved us, we realized she must have had a good reason to avoid you. Whatever it may be, we all agreed not to betray her kindness and help you should you come through. I hope you can forgive us our kindness.”

“Nothing to be done about it,” Sonic shrugged as he stood up and dusted himself off. “If she wants to lead me on an adventure, I’ll enjoy it until she slips up and I finally catch her. She can’t outrun me forever, I’m Sonic the Hedgehog after all.”

“Ho, ho, ho! Best of luck then. I just hope your unfinished business isn’t to bring her any harm.”

“Heh,” Sonic smirked. “Trust me, I’d never hurt her by choice. Even reading about her fears about her hat I can't believe she's managed to convince herself that I hate her.”

Sonic's last sentence went unheard as he was gone in a blink before saying it, speeding off hoping to stumble upon another of Amy’s diaries. As he ran, he spied a quick glance to his left hand. Whether he was checking the red string tied around his pinky and tracing into empty air and Amy at some distance or contemplating the placement of the ring he crafted with Tails aid to help him on his quest could not be said. Regardless, he allowed himself a smirk and accelerated further. The next chapter of Lock’s journal was out there somewhere waiting to be read and to take him one step closer to the errant hedgehog girl who used to chase him. The adventure was far from over for either of them.

The worsening loneliness of Lock only assured that most of the mage’s journal entries were frivolous more than they were helpful. They covered anything and everything from how she used magic to stay clean and felt like the laundry when wet to remarking on the influence of magic and spells on wildlife and geography. Not all of them were without value, and it was one that would lead more into her collecting of fortune cards that proved most valuable.

“Really, I can hardly thank you enough Lock,” a local trader clapped his hands together as his goods carrying pickup truck did not share the same fate as the scattered remnants of Eggman’s robots on the rocky mountain road he traversed. “Are you sure this is really all you want? It’s a trivial trinket I picked up because I liked the art. It doesn’t hold any value and if you just took on regular bodyguard work like this you could surely earn a fortune.

“No?” the trader asked as Lock shook her head. Looking back over his shoulder he could see a town down the road and smiled disappointedly. “Well, I can make it the rest of way myself, so I suppose it’s only fair I give this to you now.

“Take care Lock! May your journeys prove more lucrative than this one!”

~I feel so bad not being able to tell him how valuable this little trinket actually is.

~Oh, right! It’s Lock again! What’s that? Wasn’t I using another name? Hee-hee… About that, it’s kind of embarrassing. I started writing this diary so I wouldn’t forget and to stave off my loneliness, but well, I went and forgot anyway. So, if you know my actual name, please use it. I’m sure it’s better than Lock.

~Anyway, on more important matters, I finally have a lead to the first key! Some context will help though. Um, as much as I like learning about magic, I have to take my mind off of it from time to time so I can clear my head to think better. So, I’ve taken to collecting fortune cards during my travels. Not just any fortune cards as I already have a full deck, but False Arcana.

~False Arcana are kind of hard to explain, but in short, they are fortune cards that are not part of any of the existing suits. They don’t actually belong and are thus false. As a practitioner of cartomancy beyond the use of just fortune cards, I can mix them into my deck and make readings based on their inherent meanings. Adding them to my deck has also expanded my magical ability so collecting them is especially helpful. And no worries about the backs not matching my deck, as binding them to my magic by making Keyhole Rings and conquering the dungeons my mind explores when doing so fully changes them to match. It’s the Meaningless False Arcana that are much more troublesome after all.

~Unlike regular False Arcana, Meaningless False Arcana don’t even have inherent meaning of their own. They’re literally just art pieces in the fashion of fortune cards. They’re effectively useless, but some are weird and I can sense magic in them. Well, spells more accurately. And that’s what brings us back to how much this person I escorted helped me out. I probably wouldn’t have even met him, but the little trinket he had was a Meaningless False Arcana that I can sense a spell from that matches the key shape I traced out for the Keyhole Ring on my left foot! Hold on a moment while I try to bind it to my magic!

­~…

~…

~… AUGH~~~~!!!!! I can’t do it! The dungeon doesn’t make any sense!~

Perhaps to the mercy of the future reader of Lock’s diary, she stopped writing as her frustration reached a head and she glared at the card she had acquired. The art it held was that of a town in some verdant land and the name of the card was simply “Valsoth.”

With a heavy sigh through her nose, Lock gave up on the card for the moment and turned her attention away from it. ‘Wait a minute… NO WAY!!’

Lock’s excitement could only be contained by her voiceless, mouthlessness as her senses detected the same magic on the card in the air. Looking around with fevered excitement as at last she found a lead to one of the Keyhole Rings of the curses and cloak that bound her, Lock summoned fortune card after fortune card absentmindedly to allow her to jump in joy as she found a hidden path deeper into the rocky mountains she currently traveled. As she calmed herself down, she took several of them and let them swirl around her until they forced her into a ball form, and she rolled down through the hidden path. It hardly seemed a sight worth noting, a hedgehog curling into a ball, but the sight of the witch’s hat that accompanied her bouncing along atop Lock’s curled form was a difficult to ignore curiosity.

~Asides from collecting cards and growing my magic, I’ve also been working on what physical abilities of mine I can. With Sonic the Hedgehog of all people chasing me, I need to be able to. As he uses his ability to curl into a ball to manipulate his speed and attack, I’ve been training to do the same. I’m definitely better at using magic to attack, but traveling by rolling and steering with my magic is faster and less magic consuming than levitating. It feels humiliating though like this so I try not to do it where people can see me. I also have to be careful when I stumble upon magic beasts.

~Like magic guardians, magic beasts are typically resistant to most physical attacks. While rolling is a good way to get away from them, it’s better to fight and eradicate them. While magic beasts are living things, most of the time, they aren’t natural and simply bring destruction to everything if left alone. I worry sometimes that being able to get rid of them has made me less sensitive to the value of life, even if destroying them is to protect life that isn’t only destructive. ‘Oh! What’s that!’

Distracted as she was by the magic beasts that lined the path she followed through the mountains as well as her Rolling Spin Attack training, Lock had not been paying attention to where she had been going. Several stone bridges had passed under her and many a matching staircase had brought her to a shallow stretch of river. Across from the bank where she levitated a sheer cliff was draped in many waterfalls, a megalithic structure carving a chasm into it.

Even if Lock had not sensed the trail of the spell for the key to the Keyhole Ring on her right foot, her curiosity would have drawn her to levitate across the water. The structure was simple, but the rocks were carved into tiers of stone creating a layered effect creating defined depth. It was as though she was floating into a columned entryway where no columns had been carved at all.

‘W~O~W!!’

The towering chasm did at last come to an end however, marked by a staircase leading up into a narrow slit in the artificial cavern wall. Making it her destination, Lock was surprised when she came across rich tapestries hanging in decoration and a stone wall that split apart as automatic doors.

“Oh?” A voice spoke from the side in what could best described as a lobby made in a megalithic structure. Turning to see who spoke, Lock laid her eyes on an aged star-nosed mole in star patterned robes. “It’s been some time since a guest arrived following a spell. I suppose it is only natural for you, a Student of Curses, however.

‘EH~!! Is this a magic school?’

“Seeing the look on your face and sensing the curses that instruct you in the ways of magic, I suppose it’s best I explain. But not here.”

Coming out from behind the stone desk he sat at, the star-nosed mole led Lock to a hidden stone door in a side wall, blatantly far removed from the wall opposite where she arrived and likely leading to the main structure. Though she looked back curiously at what lay beyond that wall, she could not ignore that she had just met someone who understood her situation, and likely far better than she herself did. Putting aside her curiosity, she followed the mole beyond the door and into the torchlit darkness beyond. As the stone door closed behind them, and they began to descend a staircase with several landings likely also holding hidden doors, the mole began his exposition.

“Forgive my presumptions, but based on your appearance and the Keyhole Rings on your person, I am not wrong in believing that you are Lock, the Mage of Cards?”

Lock was confused for a moment by the mole’s phrasing, and he moved to clarify the intent of his inquiry. “You are Lock, the Mage of Cards, correct?”

Clearly understanding, Lock nodded her confirmation of her identity.

“Ah, then it is good that I led you this way and not into the main library. You have many destinies yet tied to you young mage. It would have been detrimental to those who yet rely on you if I had inadvertently brought an end to your instructors.”

‘What?’ Lock asked, though unheard, as she came to a stop.

“Are you surprised Lock?” the mole asked without turning back to look. “This is a library built by mages for mages. To protect its contents and those who would study within its walls, a degree of anti-magic zones had to be put in place. Had you walked through one, the curses that instruct you would have come undone, and you would have been freed from them. You would, however, have reached your limits as a mage. To discard your teachers so would have been to abandon your training. We would have welcomed you to study here and perhaps you could have exceeded your limits in time, but to present that path to you without your consent would have been wrong.”

‘What part of lifting curses requires consent?’ Lock asked herself as she chased after the mole as he resumed his descent. ‘I mean, I know I’ve already turned down help already, so maybe, I guess I would have been upset. But it definitely didn’t have anything to do with getting stronger.’

Stumped by her own feelings on the curses binding her, Lock offered no further resistance as the mole led her to a small room with a few empty shelves on the wall opposite the door and a seat to the left of the entry.

“Your confusion is obvious young mage, as it should be. Your relationship with your teachers is not solely with them. There are your goals and those relationships you had before you began your journey, no less your perception of your place in the world. To be free of your teachers is not a choice you can make so casually. As such, feel free to use this chamber to think about why you have chosen this path and what your goals are. If you can come to the conclusion that you would be willing to discard your teachers, Student of Curses, then I shall allow you access to the library. You will need some time though; I have no doubt of such and will leave you to your thoughts.”

As Lock fell into the available seat in the room, the mole left, and the door again became part of a solid stone wall. Lock only stared at it for a moment before turning to her own thoughts and adorning the chamber in the writings of her diary.

~I suppose now is as good of time as any to review what I’m doing and why. It’s not actually easy to though. Most of my memories from before I was transformed by this cloak are behind a fog in my head. I’m sure that has to do with one of the curses on the living witch’s hat accompanying me, but those memories are still there. I just can’t grasp them or make out the details. It’s not like with my true name that I’ve completely forgotten, or the sensation of having arms, a tail, mouth, or even a voice that are all alien to me now. I can’t even be sure that the voice I think with is anything at all like the voice I had before my transformation. It’s been so long and combined with the curses trying to remember or even imagine it is a waste of time and energy. With the curses lifted though, it’d all come back, right?~

The hat that nested on Lock’s head took the opportunity provided to it to jump off of the mage’s head and to look at it with a faceless gaze.

~Actually, abandoning this path now would be kind of selfish. Though it’s likely given life by the curses I wear, this hat is my only friend right now. I betrayed myself to my emotions and destroyed any semblance of a relationship I had with Sonic, though the red string of fate still binds us. But he’s the only person I can clearly see from before I was cursed. I mean, it helps that I see him all the time on the TV, but even his companion, who I know is a friend I can only remember when I see him on the TV. And my other friends? I can’t see my memories of them at all past the fog. Their names and faces are all out of my reach. But I know I asked them not to help. Overcoming these curses has been part of my journey to refine myself, to grow beyond the immature girl I was who would lead Sonic and myself to the same fate as the Koco on the Starfall islands. And I nearly let the thorns this cloak grows end Sonic. To abandon all of that now and just give up would be like throwing it all in the face of my friends. I can’t do that. It’s not like me to give up either.

~It’s not like I’ve learned nothing on this journey either. I’ve definitely grown a lot stronger with magic than I’ve ever been without it. Fighting and traveling are both so effortless, even if tiring if I’m not careful. I can sustain myself without food and even feed the hungry if I’m delicate with the right spells. I’ve grown my fortune deck and figured out that the curses being conquered won’t free me but will rather grant me magic beyond what I can currently master myself. I’ve even learned how to make my own Keyhole Rings to bind magic and spells to my will. Lastly, I managed to map out the shape of the key for at least one of the Keyhole Rings binding me. It’s just figuring out this card that possesses magic that matches the key’s shape.~

Summoning the glowing key of magic she had crafted by mapping out the “dungeon” of the Keyhole Ring on her right foot, Lock stared at it for a moment before turning her attention to the Meaningless False Arcana that bore the picture of some distant town seemingly named Valsoth. It didn’t feel right, and she couldn’t quite pin down why.

~If I’m right, unlocking one curse on my feet should open up an avenue to travel in ways that I currently can’t. I’m not sure what those could be as I can already levitate, roll, ride my hammer like a broomstick, and practically fly if I expend enough of my magical strength. The risk of exhausting myself and passing out is really high if I do for too long, but it’s not like I’m wanting for ways to move.

~So, what about this card? It’s a Meaningless False Arcana, but it definitely possesses the purified spell of one of the curses on my feet. If I can figure that out, then surely, I wouldn’t have a reason to give up here and admit defeat. It’s not that giving up isn’t necessarily the more appropriate choice under the right circumstances, but I feel like if I just think about it a little longer, I can figure it out and push myself that extra bit to continue and grow into the refined version of me who can solve her own problems and not be a risk to Sonic. That almost seems silly itself though since I’m certain that after I apologize for everything we’ll part never to meet again.~

…

…

…

~NO! I can’t think like that right now because otherwise there isn’t any point to doing anything. Why give up if giving up doesn’t mean anything? At least if I push forward, I can learn and grow, maybe even help people I otherwise never could. Isn’t that what the mole was saying too? That there are still people who need my help as mage, and not the girl I was before becoming Lock? But if they’re as unreachable as the town on this card…~

Again, Lock stared at the card looking for an answer, but it offered none, not even a hint.

~As it is right now, they’re all as unreachable as the town on this card. It’s obviously where I need to go, but how do I get there if I don’t know where it is?

~Wait! Is that it?~

Summoning a card to pull her to her normal levitating, Lock scanned the chamber she had been sealed in and spotted clumps of gray grass growing through cracks in the ground. Floating over, she eyed them for a moment before attacking them with more of her cards. Cutting grass seemed like a waste of magic, but what she sought appeared as the grass easily gave, Rings scattering with their removal. Isolating one with her cards, Lock held the Valsoth card up beyond it.

~Meaningless False Arcana don’t normally have any meaning. But in its upright position this card is illustrating where I need to go. That would mean in reverse…~

Once again casting her magic through a Ring to bind the card to her magic, Lock inverted the card and changed its meaning, opening up an ethereal landscape in the form of one of the mental dungeons she had been facing as she bound other cards. Unlike when last she did, the dungeon was now coherent and the name on the card changed from Valsoth to South Vale. At his desk far above, the star-nosed mole smiled and praised Lock. “She is truly magnificent. Be it her pride or her curiosity, her attraction to unraveling the mysteries of magic is a boon too long lost from this world. Go forth than Student of Curses, face the destiny on the path before you.”

~…In reverse, the meaning of the card is where I am, and the magic of the curse is to travel where I am not. It’s not teleportation either, but literally traversing where I’m not. It’ll take a lot of magic to sustain the spell though, and I’ll be vastly weaker while maintaining it. I’ll practically be back to where I started when I was first learning. But, if I can learn spells in the land beyond this card, I’ll grow easily as I’m not ignorant now. First though… first, I conquer this card and begin making the magic of the curse my own. And I won’t fail. Not this time. Why? Because…­

In the land beyond the card, join Lock as she ventures across South Vale, meeting the people and learning their tale of isolation as she seeks the key to the first Keyhole Ring binding her. Help her assist in the people’s preparation for the coming of the King of Camelot, foretold to follow the arrival of the land’s first visitor in generations. Challenge the magic beasts that have been plaguing the land and their master, the Waker of Beasts who seeks to wake magic beasts not just from the land, but the people. Master the magic of the cards, save the land, prepare for the king, and prevent the Waker of Beasts from knowing victory and bringing catastrophe to South Vale. The fate of the land lies in the hands of a mage with none. But hope is not lost for…

…

…

…

“So, where is she?” Sonic asked as he lowered his left hand away from the wall in the chamber Lock had occupied. “It’s obviously not here either.”

“Please your majesty, I understand your impatience, but Lock is only now coming into her own. To understand her magic before she herself has is an impossibility. All I can do is collect the record of her journey as written by herself.”

Sonic eyed the star-nosed mole suspiciously as he watched him weave his hands and draw the words of Lock’s diary from all over the world into volume after volume filling the shelves of the chamber. As the mole finished, he again turned his attention to Sonic.

“I must thank you as well your majesty,” the mole began. “If not for your contributions, gathering her account of her adventure would be impossible. That said, when the time comes that she overcomes her curses, surpassing her instructors, and becoming a scholar rather than a student, might it be too much to ask that you leave that ring you wear in our care? It is after all, an artifact born of Lock’s magic and legacy. It is only right that it be kept in a library dedicated to the preservation of the history of magic.”

“It means that much to you?” Sonic asked as he held up his left hand to gaze at the simple gold ring upon his left ring finger. Rubbing it with the fingers of his right hand, he spied the red string tied to his left pinky that he could not see without the ring knowing that Lock was on the unseen other end. “I’ll keep it in mind. But don’t expect a concrete answer until I know she’s safe and free of the nasty collection of curses that she’s running around wearing like a bad fashion choice.”

“Of course, your majesty,” the mole eagerly nodded. “I only ask that you consider it. We would never think to force the hand of a king here.” “Yeah, two more things,” Sonic sighed and rested his right hand on his hip as his left dangled at his side. “Enough with the majesty nonsense. The name is Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog. And her name is…

To be continued [?] in an Alundra meets Sonic 3D: Flickies Island inspired action RPG that will likely never be made

Prologue of the Adventures of Lock ~ FIN

-----

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[rahleeyah]

Hi Leah! Very happy to hear you’re feeling better💕

I have a random question and I’d love your thoughts. I have seen quite a few fics since the last two eps of svu and oc that have jet and Bruno as a couple. It’s not that I don’t ~like~ the pair per say because a lot of the fic that’s come from authors with them as a pair has been amazing it just seems like a kinda random pairing for me because did we get any inkling of something brewing between those two? I know jet said she loved whelan right before he died which also felt random as hell to me too but yea idk it’s just a couple that has been popping up a lot and I wanted to see if u noticed or had any feelings about it

I personally haven’t minded them together mainly because most of the fics they appear in combines both squads and gets eo in the same room which is the shit I really love to see lol but them as a stand alone I’m more like 🤷🏻‍♀️ eh idk if I feel strongly one way or the other. Just an observation!

Happy hump day! 🐪

Thank you friend! I am working on getting better but it's a slow process lol

So the thing is I don't know if Bruno and Jet have had any meaningful interaction, but they don't need to, you know? Shipping characters who have never even appeared on screen together is a time honored tradition, and one I heartily endorse. It's taking the "what ifs" of shipping to their logical conclusion, where we can "what if" about anyone. And given Bruno's sense of humor and his and Jet's similar dark streaks it seems like they would make an interesting pair, and it's a lot of fun to play with.

I do think Jet saying she loved Whelan was weird, it felt very out of left field, bc that wasn't fans spinning conjecture that was canon randomly saying she loved him, where canon had before that moment only really toyed with a flirtation/wary affection between them, and to jump to love, for a franchise that is so hesitant to say the word love out loud, just felt very "wait what?" to me, but everything about Whelan's exit felt that way to me lmao

So really my opinion on Jet and Bruno is I always think it's really cool when fic writers can build backstories and relationships for characters who haven't been put together in canon, bc it's really creative and fun and leaning into the transformative part of transformative fiction, which is such an important feature of what we're doing here. Transformative fandom (taking something and making it new, making it our own, finding joy in creation) vs curative fandom (acquiring all the things, be that merch or trivia, knowing canon inside and out/preserving canon being the most important thing) is a really interesting dichotomy that I think about a lot. Like what are we doing here? Does it have to be one or the other? Can we use deeply curated knowledge of the text to transform it more holistically? Is a transformation that's less informed by the text less valid? Does it matter?

Anyway. Some fun Wednesday evening thoughts for us lmao

[throwaway-yandere]

(Nutjob anon)

Everyone simping after Tighnari or Haitham, and then there's me, going feral because FELIXFELIXFELIXFELIX MY BELOVED FELIX SNFJEJJEVGRRRRRR this chapter's insults were endorsed by Felix. Not a lot of boars, but the vibe was there so it's a win for me! I would nominate him as possible next underboss... but we both know that that's a bad idea lmao.

And since you are adding 3h characters, ai have a feeling Childe and Sylvain could be good friends! ... Only for them to talk trash behind the other's back ("I swear! His personality is so fake. How come you can stand him?")

And I'll also like to raise you: Linhardt and Tighnari being friends: Green, sassy, doesn't care for titles and only his research? Yes, they'd be very good friends.

I am also getting Lysithea vibes from the capo: wanting to do a lot but little time, and everyone needs to give them a vibe check for that attitude lol I hope Barbara can smack some sense into them, because I can't help but think that capo is also operating under the "there's nothing more terrifying than a man who has nothing left to lose". Yes, they are fighting for their men, but they personally don't care about what might happen to them, so we better watch out that sanity meter, or else the capo will turn into the real hazard all along the way.

And dunno Ansy, I know you want to help us with hinting that bringing Cyno is bad, but the one that I don't trust is Haitham lmao Cyno said it himself: don't kill Tighnari. Even if what he did makes his blood boil, at least he is conscious enough to first get the cure. But Haitham is quite prideful, so maybe he'll come with some shit that he is the only one we need and he can always steal what Tighnari have done and finish it. After all, the main point is to cure you, right? Anything else is expendable. And maybe having Cyno there might help him clarify some questions he might have.

I don't like how autorithive Haitham is, with ordering us to leave (even if it was good for us). That means he has no reservations in misleading us if what we are doing doesn't go with his agenda. So with Tighnari, someone who is... somewhat on the same ground as him in terms of research, he might not think as your underboss but as an academic rival when acting.

Anyways, angst hurts me but boy that I will spin that death wheel with gusto 😎

HDIAOAOAK I TRY MY BEST TO MAKE THE FE:TH CHARACTERS SUBTLE HERE (that very much failed with dimitri cause first off I'm a simp and second it's weird if the reader doesn't grieve for at least one chapter lol) SO I CAN'T MAKE FELIX THE UNDERBOSS EVEN IF I WANT TO 😭😭 (i actually added him in cuz I thought of you lolol)

(kazuha was almost the underboss tho but Alhaitham won lol)

I think not a lot of genshin players are major FE:TH fans so I gotta be real sneaky with the characters lol... But that sylvain idea 🤔🤔🤔 considering childe's whole comical side story with lumine rn I could invite mister steal your girl for some dumb sht lol. Lindhart is a rather european name so I could have him as another one of Focalor's people ehe, though he'd probably ask for Tighnari to do his job for him cause he's too lazy–

AND YES LYSITHEA AND CAPO WOULD HAVE BEEN BESTIES 😭😭😭 THEY'D UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER SO MUCH AND THEY'D PROBABLY FEEL LESS ALONE USIAOWO THESE POOR PEOPLE– the difference between the two of them is that lysithea always feels like she's being looked down on like a kid while the capo feels like they have too many burdens to bear– making these two vent to one another would probably be therapeutic for them ;;----;;;

My two au's right now both have nothing left to lose vibes, although capo!reader has that a lot less than our unhinged hyshum!reader. The only thing holding them back is that some of their men are still alive. They do care, it's just that they don't want to overthink:

These men have families, wives, husbands, children– what would become of them if they recklessly charged for revenge? There's no need to drag these people into nonsensical slaughter. It's your problem Capo, it's YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. And it's selfish to make them die for you when they have a better reason for living.

Their conscience won't allow it.

These type of thoughts just pull them back. It's all true, of course, their reasoning is sound but it is suffocating. Hence, most of their inner turmoil are repressed.

Oh and don't get me wrong! I respect your choices for bringing Cyno along– I love the chaos. I'm just tryina warn those certain simps that "something bad is about to happen to you and you should definitely question what happens of one of them dies-"

Or you know, I may be misleading everyone because I want a bad ending.

: )

Since when was I known for writing happy endings for my fics? Ehehehehehehehehehhehehehehheheheehehehehhehehehehhe–

And oh my darling nutjob anon...

Both Cyno and Alhaitham want to take credit for your cure. That's one of the many things that made these three idiot's truce work.

Alhaitham is authoritative, no doubt about that, but he respects you a ton. He could've done something stupid like kidnap you or try to remove you from being a Capo– but he'd rather spend some (very limited) time with you as someone you won't forget this time, (N/n).

You can consider Cyno the one with the "hidden agenda" because he's loyal to the church. He considers it his personal blessing that he was the one assigned to monitor you. Cyno is a very lonely person here. He is very prone to making idealized versions of you that fits his imaginations, and fortunately for him the Cardinals acknowledge his devotion to his missionary works.

And then there's our used-to-be-Innamorati-Familia's-informant, Professor Tighnari.

"The main point is to cure you, everything else is expendable." is exactly the dangerous mindset he is on. We'll get to him soon! It's about time he sees his Capo again!

[chaos0pikachu]

My unpopular opinion. Why people stuck on one pairing of actors, in a way that if A and B breaks, they mourn or grieve. I really would be bored of seeing same couple in different dramas. Just like in straight dramas actors work with different co actresses and their chemistry works. I would love to see my faves ramming different actors out there. Work new pairings, bring old pairing back some dramas later.

This is really unpopular. People ship a pair of actors. I can ship all different pairings.

okay points for saying "ramming" that shit knocked me out lmao

It's all connected to para-social relationships which I, personally, am thoroughly against like cat hissing noises against lol I hate them ppl have forgotten that Stan came from an Eminem song about a violent stalker obsessed with the objection of their idolization

Like, based solely on a capitalistic perspective, I see why both studios and actors push "pairings". Fans get attached to the characters/ships ergo they will extend that idolization onto the actors and follow them to the next project especially if the actors participate in marketing that builds up said fanbase. So the fan transference happened: fans like The Fictional Ship --> marketing happens pushing the actors as "a ship" --> fans like The "Real" Ship -> fans follow the actors into their next show/brand endorsement/what have you

Like, I get it~~~ and I get why actors like it and benefit from it too b/c being in "a pair" clearly leads to more sponsorships, brand deals, etc like, I see stuff for OffGun all the time in terms of magazines, photoshoots, brands, etc but I don't see a lot of stuff for First solo ya know? Of course I don't follow either of these three separately or apart so I could be wrong there. But like, I remember people were "celebrating" First finally having a "ship" with Khao and I was low-key pretty eh about it? Like, I like First and Khao they've got great chemistry but fuck First has great chemistry with a ton of his on-screen partners and it's a blast to go through his filmography and see what each of them bring out in him as an actor. As a fan first and foremost of cinema/film making that shit is crack to me I love it gobble gobble bitches

I also don't "ship" real life people, I can appreciate friendships and find them sweet and what not (I'm a sucker for BTS after all) but I don't ship real folks. I'm pretty neutral on RPF cause I'm to fucking lazy to care but tin hatting? Fuck that, tin hats are invasive and rude and delusional. Tin hats straight up are on the island from Lost and still managed to lose the plot along the way. Stop harassing people and talking them and making wild ass assumption these people are strangers to you.

Anyway, hope we see more change ups in the future tbh, Zee's the type of actor who has chemistry with like, everybody so why not ya know? Fluke's an amazing actor give him a different actor to work against, I think it sucks Cooheart and Kao will probably never act together again b/c Kao is in a "pair" now (they were my favorite part of UWMA tbh) so yeah, switch things up.

[timomaraus]

December 13, 2023

CNN World agrees to new climate deal, making unprecedented call to move away from fossil fuels (Editor's Note: It's great that the world agrees, but isn't it the countries and the humans that have to make this happen? The world is gonna be here no matter how hot it gets. We're the ones in trouble.)

CNN 5 things to watch at CNN's town hall with Vivek Ramaswamy tonight (Editor's Note: 1. MSNBC. 2. ABC. 3. CBS. 4. NBC. 5. ESPN.)

CNN Biden's democracy pledge is in danger (Editor's Note: The 'pledge' really isn't the issue here. It's the 'democracy is in danger' part that's important.)

CNN Diverted Delta passengers spend the night in remote military barracks in Canada (Editor's Note: That's quite a diversion, eh?)

CNN Tesla recalls 2 million cars with 'insufficient' Autopilot safety controls (Editor's Note: I can just picture the person in the car screaming "Stop!" and the Tesla responding, oh so calmly, "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that.")

Washington Post Pregnant women take a leading role in new legal battles over abortion (Editor's Note: Oh, now we give women choice--to fight their own legal battles.)

Washington Post N.H. Gov. Chris Sununu (R) endorses Nikki Haley for president (Editor's Note: The gov is bringing in that key New Hampshire voter tsunami for Haley, huh. Also, is it really necessary to note that Sununu is a Republican? Are there a lot of Democrats out there endorsing Nikki Haley?)

Washington Post How do I get my children to move more quickly? (Editor's Note: You used to be able to say "tasers," but I guess those days are gone now.)

Washington Post Satanism comes to the 2024 Republican primary (Editor's Note: Evidently, that must be the Christian far, far, far right.)

Washington Post DeSantis staffers blocked release of travel records, whistleblower says (Editor's Note: Any avid fan of the NBA knows how rare it is for a whistleblower to call traveling.)

Washington Post The world just made it clear the fossil fuel era is ending -- with some wiggle room (Editor's Note: Just how much wiggling can a fossil do?)

[mcheang]

@pendoodlex Do an Adrien Salt where Lila lies about Chat Noir and Ladybug being in a relationship and Adrien confirms the lie.

It’s my love life!

It’s easy to lie about stuff people want to hear. Alya was greedy for any gossip about Ladybug and loved support for her theories on Ladybug.

Recently they debated on Ladybug’s true age. Was she an immortal with teenage hormones and atttiude? Or simply a teenager?

Now they were on to Ladybug’s love life.

Lila: Of course LadyNoir is a thing. Ladybug just denies it because she doesn’t want to give Hawkmoth any more reason to target Chat Noir, but it’s obvious how much they care for each other.

Alya: Yes! A witness to Ladynoir!

Marinette: a lying witness

Nathaniel frowned. “I don’t know, Lila…”

Before Lila could insist she was correct, Adrien actually jumped in. “It’s true. Ladybug and Chat Noir are a couple. Sorry, Nathaniel, but she’s off the market.”

Marinette froze. Did Adrien just lie to Nathaniel about her love life? Just so no one would interfere with their beloved Ladynoir fandom?

WTH???

Overwhelmed by her hurt and rage, Marinette actually grabbed Adrien’s hand and dragged him out of the classroom, her face burning red.

Some assumed she was trying out another one of her confession schemes. Lila thought Marinette was going to tell Adrien she was a liar (eh, he already knew.)

In a far off corner, Marinette was whisper-yelling at Adrien. “What are you thinking? It’s one thing to ignore Lila’s lies, it’s another to endorse them! LadyNoir is not real!”

Thinking that Marinette still had a crush on Chat Noir, Adrien winced and rubbed his head. “I’m sorry, Marinette. But it’s true. Ladybug and Chat Noir are a couple.”

“No, they are not! Where’s your proof?“ She demanded.

Adrien thought quickly. “I saw them kissing on a rooftop last week.”

Marinette raised a brow. “Are you sure you weren’t just dreaming?” Her voice was heavy with skepticism.

Adrien: Positive.

Marinette: Well, I’m not sorry to say that you’re wrong. Ladybug and Chat Noir are not a couple.

Adrien: and how are you so sure? Just because you have a crush on Chat-

Marinette: Because Ladybug visited me after my dad was akumatized!

Adrien:…what?

Marinette took a deep breath. She hated lying but she also couldn’t stand lies about her.

“Ladybug consoled me after Chat rejected me. She reminded me about the other great boys in my life and ones I have yet to meet. And I asked her why she wouldn’t date Chat. Do you know what she told me?”

Adrien was quiet.

“She said she was in love with a boy from her own civilian life, not Chat Noir. To be honest, he’s not even her type.”

Adrien perked up. “Ladybug has a type?”

Marinette: Obviously. From what I hear, she’s more into the sensitive soul kind of guy.

Adrien: Chat is sensitive!

Marinette just stared at her crush in disbelief. “Um, yeah, no. The dude sulks whenever he gets rejected and has no idea what no means. For crying out loud, he gave me a pink rose before dumping me, and that was after he ate the treats my dad baked for him.”

Adrien: For someone with a crush on the hero, you sure sound bitter.

Marinette exhaled again, calming herself. “I’m not bitter. I’ve moved on, truly. Enough to see what Ladybug meant when she said I’ll move on soon enough. I’m over Chat.“

Adrien raise his brows.

Marinette continued, “I’ve been able to analyse his actions without the hero-crush filters. Be honest, Adrien, how would you feel at having to constantly reject the same person over and over again? Wouldn’t you be annoyed by their repeated flirtations?”

Adrien shrugged. “I reject fans all the time. Well, not exactly. I just ignore their love letters.“

Marinette shook her head. “That doesn’t count. You don’t know those people. Let’s say Chloe was going to confess her love to you every day. And you have to reject her every day. When you reject her, she raises a fuss and causes an akuma. How would you feel about your childhood friend?”

Adrien grimaced. “That would suck. I would avoid Chloe just to avoid her confessions.”

Marinette raised her hand, like there you go. Point proven.

Adrien wasn’t done. “But,” he insisted stubbornly, “it’s different for LadyNoir. They’re partners. Yin and Yang. A superhero duo. Who else is she going to end up with if not her partner? These kinds of pairings always win in the end.”

Marinette: that’s just sad. You’re comparing Ladybug’s love life to fiction. Life isn’t a fairy tale, Adrien. you don’t decide who Ladybug ends up with, and it’s not right for you to lie about her either.

Adrien: LadyNoir will happen. I’m sure of it.

Marinette: You’re not even going to take back that lie, are you?

Adrien: Why would I? It’s going to be fact.

Marinette said sadly, “Goodbye, Adrien.”

After school, Marinette tore down her posters of Adrien. Filters removed, indeed.

Tikki: Don’t worry, Marinette. I’m sure things will come right in the end.

Marinette: that doesn’t mean I can’t help set things back in order. Tikki, spots on!

Alya turned around at a tapping on her window.

Alya: Ladybug!

Ladybug: Hey, Alya. Listen, I’ve been reading your blog, and I need to set some facts straight.

Alya: Is this about revealing your love life? Because honestly, it would be better to be honest about your love life than to let others hope they have a shot with you. Remember Copycat?

Ladybug: That’s my point. I’m not dating Chat Noir. I don’t even like him that way. Lila has been lying to you, Alya.

Alya: Um, she’s your Best Friend…

Ladybug: When did I ever say that?

Alya:…….. ……….Why didn’t you correct me before today, then?

Ladybug sighed. “Because i had called her out in front of Adrien, and she got akumatized. And when she disappeared for a while, I figured there was no need to bring her up.“

Alya: Hold on. Adrien knew Lila was lying?

Ladybug: Yes. Though I’m sure he must have his own reasons for protecting Lila. But back to my point. I am not dating Chat Noir, and I am not interested in him like that. My love life is mine to decide, not for others to insist on just because they prefer me with Chat. How would you like it if Parisians started pairing you with Pegasus or Monkey King instead of Carapace? With them insisting you break up with Nino just to be with someone they chose for you?”

“That would be annoying,“ admitted Alya. “And invasive.”

Ladybug: I want to do a live interview, to clear the matter up once and for all.

In this interview, Ladybug was professional and succinct as she stated she doesn’t know Lila Rossi and she is not in a relationship with Chat. She doesn’t want to hurt her fans, but her love life is for her to handle.

Unable to help herself, Alya asked, “If you don’t like Chat, who do you like? You don’t have to give any names, but just one little tidbit, please?”

Eh, why not?

Ladybug leaned back on her hands and smiled, her eyes going faraway and dreamy. “Mature. That’s all I’ll say.”

After all, Luka had always supported her crush on Adrien. He never pushed her, but was always there for her. Why didn’t she how good he was? Oh right, Adrien filters.

Lila was fuming. How could she show her face again? Where was an akuma when you wanted one?

The akuma was drawn to a LadyNoir fanatic.

Fight fight fight. Chat was noticeably sulky at having been rejected on air.

When Alya came over to interview, he insisted he would not give up on Ladybug. Alya raised her brows, “Yeah that’s fine. But just don’t be pushy about it. And from your attitude earlier during the battle, I don’t think you fit Ladybug’s ideal criteria.”

Chat flushed and turned away, using his baton to propel himself home.

At school, Lila was playing truant, and Alya was grilling Adrien for keeping quiet.

Adrien: her lies weren’t hurting anyone!

Alya: I’m taking into account your isolated childhood, so let me just say, lies are hurtful. And it’s not right to encourage and spread her lies either.

Adrien: LadyNoir has to happen!

Nino shook his head in disgust. “You sound like that akuma last night. Ladybug has the right to decide who she wants to be with. If you ship LadyNoir, that’s fine. But you shouldn’t let it get this far to decide for Ladybug who she ends up with.”

Alya sighed, “Let’s blame Gabriel for this and hope Adrien can still be saved.”

Alya also understood when Marinette gave up on Adrien after seeing his behavior. She was interested in Luka but decided to wait because she didn’t want him to be a rebound guy.

Anyway, Adrien learned to keep his opinions to himself when all they got him was disapproval.

Ladybug’s interview caused the Parisians to question if the Italian diplomat should even still be in Paris if her daughter likes to spout lies about their heroine. How could she let her own daughter lie about stuff like that? It was enough that Mrs Rossi was questioned at work and her ignorance unveiled.

Yeah, Mrs Rossi would be lucky to keep her job after this but it was suggested Lila be sent outside Paris since she would certainly be unhappy with her new pariah status. Lila was sent to a correctional facility where no one was charmed by her falsehoods. Hell, she couldn’t even contact her mother because she was even busier trying to make amends.

When Ladybug finally told Chat she was happily in a relationship with her new boyfriend, he was sulky. Oh sure, he continued to fight alongside Ladybug but he was hopeful that she would break up with her boyfriend.

Plagg: that’s a horrible reaction. Can’t you just be happy for Ladybug?

Adrien: love is irrational and can’t be reasoned with, Plagg.

Plagg: then can you at least be polite and respectful to Ladybug’s wishes that you stop flirting with her?

Adrien: fine. Being Chat Noir was a chance to finally express myself, though.

Plagg: there’s a difference between freedom of expression and being rude/disrespectful/obnoxious

Adrien tried to date Kagami, but she broke up with him. There was no point in continuing the relationship when Adrien was so fixed on Ladybug.

I’m gonna leave this open ended. Any ideas how you would end this story?

[motherkuma-and-monokubs]

What are everyone's thoughts on Junko enoshima anyway?

"...Nothing more than a bully and a liar..." Shirokuma sighs, his expression darkening with remembrance as he recalled why he was built. Junko Enoshima's 'light' side, they called her. And even to to this day, it appears they've developed severe hatred towards her for that reason.

Kurokuma takes a puff of his cigarette, leaving it in his mouth as he shrugs and speaks. "Eh. She had some fun ideas, but she clearly didn't have her eyes on the prize if she killed herself so easily." His comment is insensitive, and he knows it, but he simply doesn't care because he considers Junko a special case due to causing her own death for selfish reasons entirely, apart from other suicides, such as Sakura's.

Motherkuma rolls her eyes. "As heartless and vile as her creation. Considering he was a replication of her own personality, or rather, personalities, I can only imagine how abusive she must have been to those who loved her," she proposes, "especially with what I've heard about her relationship with her own sister, Ikusaba Mukuro. Only a truly evil person could put their hands on the ones who love them, plain and simple." Motherkuma retracts, realizing she's starting to get worked up. "My apologies, Anon."

Monokid laughed to himself, throwing up a rocker sign. "Pretty rad chick. Crazy, but must've made her pretty fun," he muses, wishing he had someone like Junko around to cause chaos with. "Not that I've ever met her, of course, but still."

"Well, I've never met her," Monosuke began, "but I've heard some truly awful things about her. She had everything she could ever want, including a successful career, a man she loved, a sister who practically worshipped her, and fame beyond compare, and she selfishly threw it away in order to hurt people. So although I can't form my own opinion of her, it's definitely swayed onto the negative side." But then he begins to smile to himself, facing you brightly. "But at least some good came out of it. After all... we're here now. And I'm happy we are."

"Well," Monotaro places a hand on his head, as though trying to formulate a proper response to this question. "She did what she loved. In that sense, I admire and envy her. But that also involved senselessly killing those who respected and loved her."

"...I'm glad she's dead," Phanie answers in a surprising surge of anger for someone who usually seems so calm and sweet. "I couldn't imagine doing anything that she did. From abusing my siblings and killing my lover to forcing those I love to kill each other..." Her voice trails off, quivering with a silent furiosity. "I just can't stand her. Or anyone that's even a slight fan of her, who endorses the behavior she stood for. It's not cool."

"She caused so much pain and death," Dam begins, not appearing vengeful, but more somber. "And I hope that now that she's gone, that sick woman finally found peace wherever she is, and that the world can finally begin to heal now that the games have ended." Then he begins to shake, and although it must be artificial, it looks so... real... "And I hope all those tortured souls from all fifty-three seasons of Danganronpa can rest easy with the ending of the games."

"Hm... I don't know..." Nanokuma muses to himself, looking around anxiously. "But... I think I'm scared of her. She did so many bad things for no reason other than because she wanted to..."

[dark-muse-iris]

hey iris. i have a very close friend of mine who's 28 and often feels like she's being creepy or weird for liking younger kpop groups like stray kids, ateez, txt, etc, and finding the members sexually attractive. you don't have to answer this ask publicly - or at all tbh - but i was wondering if you'd have any words of wisdom as an older kpop fan who writes smut and who's also neurodivergent - she also feels kinda bad for hyperfixating on real people to the extent she does. i try to insist that it's not inherently weird so long as they're all adults - which they are - and it's not like she's making moves on em irl anyway, but being more within their age range than hers i don't think it comforts her all that much. regardless if you choose to delve into this or not i hope you're having a great day <3

Thanks for your ask. My response is kind of long so I'm placing a cut:

I think it would be useful to examine where that shame comes from. If a similar age gap existed with an older celebrity in their 30s or 40s, would your friend have the same view? There's also a consideration of whether one's just looking/fantasizing because the celebrity is flashing their abs and grinding on the floor w/ eye contact vs. truly considering them as a viable dating partner or a fling. I enjoy a lot of 4th gen performers who promote adult themes, but would I actively pursue a 21 year old? Eh, probably not. Most of the ones I remember dating in that age range (even when I was that age) don't know who they are or what they even like when it comes to sex or having a good time. The pressure 20-somethings place on themselves constantly is also a major mood killer.

I haven't written any 4th gen smut, but I'm heavily considering it for both ATEEZ and Stray Kids under the pressure of friends who are also in their 30s and are consumers/creators of fanfic. Why? Because my muses move a lot and I still like telling stories, plus I have biases and bias wreckers in both groups. Many 2nd and 3rd gen faves are either in the military or they're being promoted in a way where I'm extremely bored and underwhelmed. On the other hand, 4th gen has incredible groups who are active, heavily promoted, and showing off concepts that are not only visually appealing, but more in line with the darker explosive shit I've liked since my teens. I wish 3rd gen had taken those kinds of risks!

Anyways, I always create new characters from scratch and then model their physical features and some traits on a celebrity's likeness. That's not because I'm constantly fantasizing that an idol is *my* prince. It's more like I wanted to write a story about a royal and they'd look good in the story. I also like having access to audiences who are looking for short stories to read. Fanfiction is low pressure compared to original works (which I also write). Someday I won't have any active idol muses and then I'll move back to writing literary/movie/video game fanfics like I used to. But until then, I'll keep doing this because it's fun.

As for hyperfixating, it could be that your friend has the same problem I have sometimes where you don't want to let yourself have fun because you feel you're undeserving of it in some way. A lot of people are taught that one must earn the reward through hard work. You suffer first, then get a treat. Neurodivergent brains process that experience differently and can struggle with it no matter how disciplined we try to be. And a lot of us would rather shame ourselves into neurotypical behavior than try working *with* our brain's natural pursuit of dopamine in a safe way.

The chemical rush I get when I hyperfixate on something fun like an idol's legs is the same rush I get from sex, gambling, risky behavior, video games, drugs, etc. I'm not endorsing all those things, but I know with a dopamine deficiency that if I don't give myself some free rein from time to time, I'll end up acting out to get it later. So I have an open marriage, play video games where I do crimes, use online pseudonyms to perform different roles like sexting, and gamble within monetary ranges that are safe and don't hurt anyone. And I take my meds, manage sleep, diet, exercise, etc.

Hopefully this helps some? Honestly, I didn't have a handle on any of my shit until I started reading neuroscience stuff and understanding how neurotransmitters work, where they come from, what happens if I don't have enough to function, and how to get more of each one if I need to. That's how I've managed a lot of psych shit with limited access meds and providers. You have to be your own advocate, always, because you're living with you, right?

[mc-critical]

Do you know if Mahidevran was portrayed as being of concubine orgin or of royal orgins in the show? I know historical Mahidevran was believed to be from a neighboring royal Circassian family which was later disproven, but I’m still not entirely sure which enterpretation they decided to go with in show. I know in the beginning of the show there was a lot of “Mahidevran is not like Hürrem” being thrown around but I’m not sure if that’s because it was being established that she was of royal orgins or simply because she was the mother of a prince and Hürrem was still just a concubine. I know Mahi also reffered to herself as Suleiman’s wife in the beginning a lot (at least in the translation I watch. And I know that royal women had to legally marry the sultan in order to be a part of the harem) and she was allowed to do charitable acts which Hürrem was told she couldn’t do because she was a concubine..like I’m so confused was Mahidevran royal or not😭 everytime I think one thing someone comes along and shows it as otherwise

They never specified Mahidevran's origins in the show. We don't know for sure whether she was royal or not.

The only clear thing is that she wasn't a free woman in the harem, as she herself wanted from SS to free her in E45, but it was established before with Isabella (and Farya in MCK later?) that you lose your freedom if you stay in the harem, even if you're a princess. So I wouldn't sign the notion that she could've been some kind of a nobility in the show off entirely, but I have a more traditional backstory for her, with being captured and taken as a slave in the harem and stuff, in my headcanon. (I'm a fan of the Circassian nobility theory, but when I think further, eh?) She may have lost her family, too, since Süleiman (and then Mustafa) is basically family to her that has turned into an attachment incredibly hard to let go of, she could have still come from Circassia just like MCK Mahfiruze was confirmed to, but we just... don't have a clear, canon origin for MC Mahidevran. We can only speculate. She's already in the castle in all of her flashbacks, Valide has presented her to Süleiman, as revealed in E55, but... that's it.

{To be honest, the part Mahidevran plays in the letting go of your past theme with her absense of backstory is very fascinating to me, as I said here. It puts her actions in a much more understandable context when you look deep enough and in retrospect, it only remains a vector for her character arc, but I get why the mystery about her origin in the show may be offputting. It leaves stuff to interpretation, and some interpretations tend to often brush off Mahidevran's struggle and trauma in her new environment.}

Mahidevran was presented as SS's wife at first in the Bulgarian dub, as well, but that is only a translation issue. In the original version, Mahidevran is referred as a "haseki sultan" (and "baş kadın" once by Hatice in E02). MC's hierarchy is inconsistent and you could very much take what you will from it in many cases, but the haseki sultan there is simply the mother of a prince. Hatice said in E12 that Mahidevran and Hürrem are equal in rank, which clearly meant that Hürrem was also a haseki by then, IMO. And given that Mahidevran is a mother of a prince and Hürrem already had Mehmet, Hürrem became a haseki after his birth (E07). Also, after she was freed in E40, she told Mahidevran that she was no longer equal to her, which showed that yes, they were equal in rank until then in the show's universe, in spite of the characters' own stances of it.

To me, Hürrem not being regarded in the way she should have been for a major part of the show is not a hierarchy-based issue. It was mostly a tendentious writing move that desperately wanted to rub the consistent prejudice Hürrem went through in our faces, to give her good motivation and bonus sympathy points from the audience. (it usually felt so unbelievably forced that I always wondered: why? Hürrem was a deep, nuanced and sympathetic character on her own right, you don't need this constant endorsement of a prejudice status-quo in terms of them "mistitling" and disrespecting her and we especially don't need a constant cycle of attacks and forced conflicts to make her sympathetic, she already IS! I get why that was the case at one point, but they let it stay way beyond the normally possible.) But on the other hand, the considerable lack of respect they gave her and her desparation to never fall in an unfavorable position again was the primary reason why she wanted to move to Valide's chambers as soon as the harem became hers. No one sees her for what she is in her eyes, no one thinks it's what she deserves, no one would simply hand it to her, so she might as well take it by force. She considers these chambers as rightfully hers, an outward demonstration that she outshines everyone there and now that she rules the harem, she deserves to be in these chambers. It's one of the culminations of the things she has fought for in the harem. It was as if everyone was striving to remind her how above her they seemingly are and how she has to follow the rules. It is a thing that is woven into Hürrem's motivations, it also is a narrative affirmation that you have to fight for titles and respect. Look at how Hürrem addressed herself as a haseki in a monologue only by the S02 finale! (there was another scene in S02 where she did before this one, but I don't remember where it was exactly and the monologue was a much bigger moment for her character.) It is done on absolute purpose, twisting the set-up hierarchical rules in order to kick off a conflict or deliver a message across or typical sympathy points. It became really annoying after a while and it's even more annoying on rewatch, because what it pulls off best is only people getting confused by the hierarchy, by stuff that could be freely considered inconsistencies.

It's true that the show seemed to capitalize on Mahidevran's supposedly higher position than Hürrem and it sometimes felt like that truly was the case (like when SS called her "haseki" and Hürrem "hatun" consequently after Hürrem accused Mustafa of the fire in E10), but most of these attempts to get her to behave in a way that would befit her rank, strive to become better, control her emotions, focus on Mustafa are there also more because Mahidevran was accepted as a part of the family, she was a person they all knew and loved and didn't want to see suffer. They see how broken she is, but also that her earlier rash actions might have devastating consequences both to her own psyche and the people around her, so they "calm her down" the best way they know how, the way they're used to do it in the system they've been raised (I'm referring to Valide and Hatice in particular) - tell her that she is a haseki and these scandals don't suit her.

[By the way, non-free concubines are allowed to do charity everywhere but in the holy lands. Hürrem wasn't allowed to do charity, precisely because she wanted to do it in the holy lands, as per Nigar's advice. Mahidevran simply did charity in other cities.]

[epicspheal]

And here’s yet another one shot, inspired by a chat on discord Title: Cuddles Word Count:  1272 Pairing: Leon/Raihan Summary: It's been a long day for the Unbeatable Champion Leon, and his boyfriend Raihan wants to cuddle....

I hope you guys check it out you can read it on AO3 or if you would like it will be down under the “keep reading” link below

Leon burst through the door of his hotel room at the Rose of the Rondelands, absolutely exhausted. It was the night before the challenger’s cup was supposed to take place and Leon was tired from all of the pre tournament interviews…

“What do you think of this year's crop of challengers?”

“None of the challengers this year have been able to complete the circuit without defeat...do you think any of them have a chance against making it against the Galar leaders at full strength?”

“What do you think of the two trainers you endorsed? Your brother Hop and his best friend Calla...are you disappointed in their-”

Leon almost lost his cool with the reporter with that last one, almost. Over a decade of being in the limelight had of course forced him to watch his tone especially with the hounds that are the Galarian press, looking for the slightest gaff to rip him to shreds. Of course even the great unbeatable champion of Galar had his limits, and picking apart his brother and his best friend’s performance was one of them…

“Hey Leon” a voice rang out from the hotel room’s bed. A small tired smile grace the champion’s face as he looked up to see his boyfriend Raihan standing up “How’s it going champ?”

“Raihan,” Leon said before running to the taller man and throwing his arms around him. Raihan chuckled at that and put his arms securely around Leon, allowing the champion to lean his weight onto the dragon gym leader. Even though Raihan was leaner than Leon, he was nothing but lean muscle, able to carry the weight of the man nuzzling into chest. Raihan pressed a gentle forehead kiss to Leon’s forehead, a gesture that melted the reigning champion’s heart.

Raihan, the gym leader of Hammerlocke and the heir to the Hammerlocke throne. The one person the great champion of Galar turned to when he needed comfort.

“Rough day with interviews, eh” Raihan spoke after a bit.

“Was it that obvious?”

“To the public? Nah...but I could tell you were ready to throw hands with that reporter who mentioned Hop and Calla’s name” Raihan said his eyes sparkling with a mirth that said I would pay good money to see you throw hands with a member of the paparazzi

“I mean...you’re not wrong…” Leon said in between fits of laughter “Talk shit, get hit, especially when it comes to my bro and his best friend”

“Just let me know when you square up so I can live stream it, that will definitely be a popular video, probably even more than you doing the WAP Klik-Klok challenge with the Alolan champion” Raihan mused “anytime our wholesome Galarian champ does something risque it's an instant hit”

Oh that had been an interesting video at the champion’s conference the year before. Done on a whim, at the behest of the Alolan champion (“to help you and Raihan finally get together” she said). Rose giving him an earful about his reputation and Cynthia being upset that she wasn’t invited to do the WAP dance with them...

Leon felt his eyes grow heavier while resting on Raihan’s chest, listening to the powerful yet steady rhythm of his boyfriend’s heart. He really needed his rest. Leon carefully, almost reluctantly pulled himself out of Raihan’s embrace.

“I need to get ready for bed”

After washing up and putting on some comfy Charizard pajamas, Leon climbed into the bed next to Raihan who was currently scrolling through Pokegram. This made Leon smile. Yeah Raihan’s obsession with social media could be a little concerning at times (especially when Raihan wouldn’t let Leon eat their dinner until after he posted the perfect picture) but moments like this where Raihan was lying on their shared bed, content watching a video from a nursery of baby Goomy playing around well…

Leon leaned over to give Raihan a loving peck on the cheek…

“Goodnight Rai” he said before moving under the silk sheets of the king sized bed. Leon suddenly felt a shift in the bed and he looked to see the teal eyes staring down at him

“Rai?”

“Lee, I want to cuddle tonight” Raihan said with just a hint of a whine to his voice “...it’s been so long…”

Leon’s heart sank. It’s true, the current season has been much busier than previous ones. Leon had been forced to travel all over Galar more than usual to protect the citizens from the rogue dynamaxing Pokemon. And Rose seemed to be more on edge than ever before...constantly dragging him to meetings, constantly pulling him aside to talk about the future of Galar.

It was exhausting, Leon was worn ragged.

And this was the first time in weeks that Raihan and Leon could actually spend the night with each other but...

“I-I’m sorry Raihan, but I can’t...not tonight.” Leon said resigned “I have another early start...more early morning pressers before the gym challengers face off against each other”

Raihan huffed but nodded sadly. One of the many great things about dating Raihan, he understood what it was like to be in the harsh spotlight that is the Galarian League. Leon knew he’d be disappointed but that he would understand.

“Alright” Raihan sighed as he laid his head back on the pillow, turning away from Leon sadly “but after this is over and I finally take that crown away from you, my first order of business as champion is cuddling with you”

“That’s if you can actually knock out my Charizard first love” Leon mocked playfully “Good night my prince”

“Don’t use my title in bed Lee...so unsexy”

With that the two drifted off to sleep...well they tried to anyways. Sleep was alluding both star trainers. This gym challenge had been so off, and there was a growing sense of dread between the two about the rogue dynamaxed Pokemon.

But more so than anything...Leon and Raihan wanted each other. Just themselves, without the weight of the champion crown for Leon or the being the heir to one of the four great galarian houses for Raihan. Not the self-assured, fierce, borderline cocky personas that the public loved when watching the two on the pitch. The Leon and Raihan that bonded over astronomy and watching the stars in the wild area as kids while Nessa and Sonia bonded over books at their four person camps. The Raihan who was fascinated upon seeing Leon’s family farm for the first time. The Leon who got lost in Raihan’s family castle and ended up in the catacombs. The Raihan and Leon who made their one shared science class in college the most memorable semester for their professor due to their...interesting takes on the experiments.

They needed some time for themselves, some intimacy...and just lying together in the same bed wasn’t enough...not right now.

Raihan was shocked when he felt the shift of the bed before feeling Leon’s strong arms wrap around him, bringing his taller frame closer to his body. Somehow, Leon had maneuvered himself so that Raihan’s head would rest on Leon’s famed chest.

“Oh so now we’re cuddling?” Raihan asked, pretending to be offended but his heart was leaping for joy Leon said nothing but planted another kiss, this time into the locs of Raihan’s hair. Raihan grinned as he leaned into Leon’s strong embrace. Contrary to what many fans would assume...Raihan enjoyed being the little spoon.

And so the champion of galar and his greatest rival, lover and friend, were finally able to sleep, entangled in each other’s loving embrace.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Xanadu

Another day, another 80s musical reviewed for Wes. This time it’s Xanadu, and I confess I am excited. I know less than nothing about this film, only that it’s 1) bad and 2) beloved by the gays. Sign me up, y’all. So did this inspire me to strap on some roller skates and Farrah Fawcett my hair to the beat of some groovin’ tunes? Well...

Not...exactly. It’s an entry in the list of films that I’m glad I’ve seen for their historical impact but probably never need to see again. Like Birth of a Nation but with less virulent racism. The basic plot is this: Sonny (Michael Beck) is an artist painting album covers when he meets a girl one day named Kira (Olivia Newton-John) who turns his world upside down. He also befriends, and eventually goes into business with, a man named Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly) and together they start a club called Xanadu. 

Some thoughts:

There’s an old man with a scarf sitting on a rocky beach playing his clarinet as the sun rises in the sky. What a way to greet the day. Holy shit that old man is Gene Kelly!! How did I not know he was in this? How is Xanadu’s legacy not “Yeah it’s this trippy rollerskating musical that GENE FREAKING KELLY was in”? So I guess the old clarinet man is actually important to the story, because I thought he was just like, a muse alerting us to the tale we were about to watch unfold. 

Ohhh Kenny Ortega is the choreographer, interesting. I’m so ready to see his early artistic vision and how it developed into the level of genius it was at for High School Musical. 

Ok, the first number is this kind of electric neon ballet set to ELO singing “I’m Alive” and it mostly consists of incredibly beautiful women with Farrah hair dancing and twirling in fantastic skirts while Olivia Newton-John is going :O the whole time. It’s no chandelier dropping from the ceiling, but it’s not a bad way to start a musical. 

Hm, well now the women are turning into lasers and running, kind of like The Flash. Maybe I spoke too soon.

These transitions between scenes are absolutely godawful Powerpoint transitions and I’m obsessed with them. It’s like eating a couple buffalo wings in between your entree and dessert. By itself, not bad, but why would you use that as a way to get from one experience to another?

I am really enjoying this kind of ghost number between Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John as he’s remembering his heyday. It’s sweet, and it’s not hard to see that Kelly is drawing on his own experiences and memories of his career in the 40s as he’s imagining this dance with his long lost love.

I don’t think anything is less romantic than roller skating in front of an industrial wind tunnel fan, however, so this part with ONJ and Michael Beck (who plays our main character, Sonny) is a big ol snoozefest. You’ll notice I have not mentioned Sonny yet and there’s a reason for that. He’s the movie’s equivalent of a black hole. I’m so uninterested when he’s on screen. He’s beige shag carpeting. He’s a baloney and mayo sandwich. He’s motel art. Every moment he’s onscreen and ONJ or Gene Kelly aren’t is a moment wasted.  

Every scene feels like a new vignette that is only loosely connected to the previous scenes. This showdown between the old jazz big band number and the 80s rock number feels like two extended music videos, one after the other or a dreadful mashup from Glee (and I don’t mean barely passable Glee, I mean the later seasons). 

Dammmmn have you ever had such a good kiss with someone that you turned animated? Me neither. I’m gonna work on that with Wife.

Oh and the animation sequence was produced by Don Bluth. Of course it fucking was. 

Sonny. My man. How can you love Kira when you don’t know anything about her at all? Have you guys even had one conversation? Or is it all rollerskating lasers and wind tunnel fans. I know you can’t hear a word she says over the sound of that fan, my dude.. 

Ah, so she’s one of the nine muses! This scene where she’s trying to convince Sonny is pretty funny actually. ONJ is hands down the most magnetic and interesting part of this movie.

Wait so...Sonny’s big plan is to run at a wall that’s got a painting on it, and he just assumes he can enter that painting like it’s a portal to another dimension? You’re just gonna Wile E. Coyote this motherfucker and hope for the best? This is probably the only interesting thing I can say about Sonny is that he’s dumb as a bag of hammers. 

Ugghhh this song about staying suspended in time is the “Cheer Up Charlie” of this movie, meaning it goes on way too long, grinds the action to a halt, and makes me irrationally furious just thinking about it.

But then here is Gene Kelly, roller skating through a parade of mimes juggling bowling pins, and it makes everything worth the price of admission again. 

“Xanadu” is the most confusing musical number I’ve ever seen. At one point everyone is tigers, then they’re cowboys. There’s a woman spinning in some kind of acrobatic harness by the back of her neck so she’s just spinning in tight circles. I think someone might have been on fire. I’m thinking John Mulaney watched this many times as inspiration for Stefon-endorsed clubs on SNL. 

Did I Cry? Not even close. 

This is a WEIRD one, which I knew going in, but you just don’t really know how weird until it’s happening to you. And this is definitely a movie that happens to you. Performances? Eh, ONJ and Gene Kelly are mainly skating by on pure charisma. But all the rollerskates and lasers in the world won’t make this script make a lick of sense. See it for the novelty, but it’s the movie equivalent of a Twinkie - confusing and not exactly filling, but enjoyable just the same. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[bad-and-bossy]

So Charlotte will retire tomorrow night, eh? Surely she will because she's achieved EVERYTHING SHE POSSIBLY COULD IN THE WOMEN'S DIVISION

She wins titles that some women on the roster have never even been given a SHOT at. And she's done it all in FIVE. YEARS.

And look before the stans come out with "it's not her fault the way she's booked!!!" At a certain point, it is. When you have literally snatched up all of the accolades in TWO women's divisions in the span of 5 years when you have women who've been there TWICE as long with not even HALF of what Charlotte has achieved, I'm sorry, that's on purpose luv. You have some choice in that blatant opportunity gap.

Charlotte being white, blonde, and one of Vince's favorites has blessed her with clout. What do we expect of people who hold privilege, even within marginalized groups? To SHARE THE WEALTH. To REDISTRIBUTE THE WEALTH. To say that Charlotte's booking is not her fault or her problem when she clearly has no interest in putting other women over is to endorse the same hyper capitalist, hierarchical, individualist ideology that has landed America in the shitshow we're in now. It's why we have people refusing to wear masks claiming freedom, it's why we have rich people who don't feel responsible for paying their fair share of taxes.

I'm not interested in women who only seek to advance their own interests and call it feminism. I'm interested in women willing to use their privilege to push the COLLECTIVE forward. What is Charlotte willing to sacrifice, to NOT get, in order to pass the mic to someone else? I think even her fans know the answer.

[stuff-i-made-up]

Ask me about my shit

Hello ladies and gentlemen, my friends and enemies. I am overly ambitious and lonely! Have a list of my various projects so you can ask me absolutely anything you want about them. And I do mean anything. From the overall plot to what time my character typically eats, I know a lot of highly specific and useless stuff about my characters. AMA

Original Series

Nexus ~ Girl is chosen to bear the weight of a thousand worlds when she is unexpectedly named "The Nexus" and given the power, and the responsibility, to protect the multiverse. She's actually pretty okay at it all things considered, but she's also pretty bad at it. Follow her exploits as she continually gets beaten into the ground by her own incompetence, and is simply too stubborn to die.

Eternity ~ Self declared platonic soulmates Sam and Alex hunt the paranormal and cause mayhem.

Vendetta ~ Morgan Pike had just turned 18 when her uncle and sole remaining relative was arrested, but in her trying to make sense of things, she discovers that the Hero Initiative, the superheroes who'd taken her uncle down, aren't all that they seem. Unfortunately they also control the presses, and successfully frame her as a supervillain when she tries to expose them. Just a teenager with a vendetta, eh?

Monopoly - Someone bet I couldn't make an interesting series based on Monopoly (yes, the game) so here we are. Also maybe an accidental endorsement of socialism idk I'm not 100% sure what that looks like in application but anyway that wasn't intentional but it is what it is.

Fan Works

(I generally don't do much with these but the characters float around)

Avatar: The Last Airbender ~ Follow a young member of Prince Zuko's crew as she navigates this changing world (this is a fun one in that I actually wrote it as I watched through the series so the character actually makes decisions with no ability to know what happens next or would be convenient down the road)

Invader Zim ~ You know that really gifted kid who is given all these opportunities because of their potential but they're just not interested so it looks like they're a catastrophic failure who's doing nothing with their life? Yeah that's Invader Ari, a fairly tall and thus elite, Irken who wants nothing to do with the empire and was finally cast aside to Earth where the Tallests figured there was a decent chance she and Zim would kill each other. Well, I can't say they haven't tried.

Jurassic Park ~ This is a weird one in that this isn't a fanfiction and I didn't write it. It's just a series of dreams that some people on YouTube thought were neat and asked me to post em on Ao3 🤷

The Isle of Peredita ~ Animal Crossing Webcomic about Raindrop and her island of unwanted villagers

Unnamed Spidersona Nonsense ~ The spiderverse is neat spider heroes go brr

Star Wars ~ Two random force sensitive people on far away planets accidentally channel their loneliness into a telepathic connection, but things are complicated when they are both swept up into the Clone Wars.

Star Wars: The Old Republic ~ Nothing much just two scoundrels

Super Mario Brothers ~ I remembered that Mario is a bland character so you can project yourself on him so guess what I'm doing. Haha it's self insert Mario it is very cringe die.

How To Train Your Dragon ~ Ah my first fandom. A young girl named Avalon attends the School of Dragons but finds herself wildly untalented at pretty much everything, except for the actual bonding to dragons. Due to a mutual desire to not let the other down, her dragon, a Stormcutter runt named Sam, and herself work hard to prove their worth.

Free Space

Anam Cara ~ A musical telling the story of two best friends who meet online and their 5 year journey as they struggle to wait until the younger is 18 and they can escape their lives together (*cough @major-fukkup im not subtle cough*)

Untitled Work ~ Started as a story about the next generation stepping up and demanding a seat at the metaphorical (and literal actually) table but then I got depressed and now it's mostly about the aftermath of their rebellion oops

Anyway I'll update as more things enter my brain.

[evilelitest2]

Hey there. I recently wondered why Sanders didn't manage to be primary candidate for the democratic party (at least in terms of popularity). In fact, I got the impression that despite even social media hyping him up, quite a few weren't really that invested on what he had to say/wanted to do. As a non-American, I get the feeling that Americans themselves might be a bit averse to change, even though many do want it. Is the US generally more socially conservative which might explain Bernie's los?

Eh, its a mix.  The general conservatism of the US did mean that Sanders had a staunch opposition right from the word go, but I think Sanders also made a ton of mistakes during the 2020 race on top of that.  Because he really should have done better than in 2016, unlike then he had massive name recogonition, the DNC didn’t have the more sleezy rules anymore, he already had a massive fundraising apparatus, Biden was a weaker candidate, and the donor class/centrist politicians were divided.  But he made a few mistakes and I’m still of the opinion that he shouldn’t have run in 2020, and let somebody younger with less bad blood take up the torch.  So what went wrong beyond a centrists not liking socialism 

1) Sanders was too old.  This isn’t entirely his fault, but a 78 year old who had a heart attack on campaign is at a huge disadvantage, and people are wary for voting for him because of that.  Now Biden is a 77 year old man with his own health concerns, but it really didn’t help, doubly so with the heart attack

2) Sander has earned a lot of enemies for the 2016 election, sometimes for shit he did and often times for shit he didn’t do, but he was a divisive figure in a way that somebody like Warren would not be.  His hyper confrontational style made a lot of people dislike him, and probably helped contribute to the centrists dropping out when they did .

3) The vote was split with Elizabeth Warren, which he never found a solution too (see below) 

4) Ok but those first three things weren’t really his fault.  One of the things that was his fault is that he didn’t really...bother to campaign . At least in the traditional sense.  Sander’s entire strategy was to win the prmiary with only 30-35% of the vote, assuming that the Centrists would divide themselves until it was too late.  Not only was this not true in terms of Centrist unity, the problem with this plan is that it meant he didn’t really bother trying to win over the remaining 70% of the race.  Which mean that even though he won the first three states, he didn’t manage to capitalize on this by convincing people, if you didn’t like Sanders after Iowa, you weren’t going to like him after New Hampshire.  

5) He made no effort to court specific leaders.  This was the most evident with the Black Community (See below) but just in general, Sanders aimed his campaign at rallying people who liked him, and not on getting existing Democratic leaders to endorse him.  And I get that sentiment, but it really fucked him over in South Carolina.  He didn’t even bother to ask for Clyburn’s endorsement

6) Young people don’t come out to vote and his entire plan was based on the youth vote

7) Unlike a lot of class oriented Leftist, Sanders does believe in internationality (see below) but he still has a bit of a tin ear on the issues of women and minority issues.  hIs platform on both were good and I don’t think he is a sexist or a racist, but he tends to fall into this “A rising tide raises all ships” mentality which isn’t that helpful, he has always struggled to take his larger rhetoric of social revolution and apply it to racial issues or gender issues, which is very frustrating because race more than class has defined American politics.  A lot of black people didn’t really feel like he “got” how their issues are unique beyond just class, even though his platform was pretty good. 

8) Antisemitism.  It was a factor we shouldn’t ignore it 

9) He ran his campaign more on changing the dialogue about Socialism than he did to actually win.  Which in many ways is a really admirable strategy, and he did a great job on changing American minds on a lot of issues but it doesn’t help you actually win a race

10) Americans, especially Black Americans, didn’t really want to take a risk in 2020.  A lot of leftists in 2016 thought “oh Clinton lost so the dems will embrace a leftist” when in reality the message the Dems got was “Ok,....embrace a white man with a less controversial record”  And Biden is seen as safe.  The Black community in particular, who have been really hurt by the Trump administration, didn’t want to take any risks.  

11) In 2016 Sanders got a ton of working class whites in rural/industrial areas to support him against Clinton, so the assumption was “hey these guys are open to socialism”.  And in 2020 they all went to Biden, because it turns out they weren’t for Sanders, they just hated Clinton, and sexism played no little part in that 

12) Sanders didn’t do a good job reaching out to Warren.  He didn’t even bother to ask her for an endorsement until after Super Tuesday.  After that one debate (ugg) Sanders made no effort to reach out and or do Damage control, which effectively alienated him from the other wing of the Progressive Left.  

13) Sanders and especially his fans, did not take Biden seriously.  The entire primary assumption was that Biden was going to be like Jeb Bush in 2016, and the real threat would be Mayor Pete/Bloomberg/Harris/Warren/Booker/the ghost of Hillary Clinton’s career, anything but Biden himself.  And so Biden kinda...avoided most of the Ire of the Sanders campaign, and when he went into South Carolina, he had very little that actually hurt him.  Biden was the Front Runner from the start, and nobody really bothered to knock him off that perch 

14) Ok now we need to talk about the ugly side of things.  Sanders himself is a good man and not a bigot.  Some of his fans though...not so much.  The so called ‘Dirtbag Left” or the “Red Brown Alliance”, basically Class Reductionist “Anti Identity Politics” leftists who openly indulge in racism, sexism, homophobia and all types of abusive internet tactics.  Its a tiny minority of Sanders fans, but because they are super active online (and make a habit of harassing journalists) they start to dominate the conversation.  Podcasts like Chapo House, Cumbucket, True Anon, or Red Scare, pundits like Angela Nagle or Glenn Greenwald, or Taibbi, there is an entire cottage industry of so called “Socialists” who spend most of their time peddling conspiracy theories, indulging in bigotry (but its ok because they support Universal Healthcare) and above all harassing people online.  And a toxic fandom ruins your ability to reach out to people, which is sort of the point of an election.  This isn’t really Sanders fault because he is a 78 year old grandpa, but his campaign really didn’t make any effort to clamp down on the toxic fanbase that surrounded the movement and it ruined their ability to do outreach.  The tweeting of snakes at warren was a big part of this 

[danwhobrowses]

WWE Royal Rumble 2021 - Initial Thoughts

I know I’m late, but employment is still a thing, and I had to prioritize that over an all-nighter, but it’s time for the Royal Rumble, one of the more exciting shows of WWE’s schedule, so let’s get on with it!

Spoilers for Royal Rumble, you have been Warned

I might not invest too much in kickoff matches but the Women’s Tag Match was not a good time

It was fine before the end, but who the hell decided that Charlotte should control 90% of the champions’ offense and have the hot tag!? Asuka is the RAW WOMEN’S CHAMPION, not Charlotte. After the tag Asuka literally had one spot and she was dead, completely taken out of the match for *checks notes* being thrown over the Announcer’s Table...you know that thing several wrestlers come back from easily.

The finish was just too much too, Ric distraction didn’t work, Lacey distraction didn’t work, Kirufuda Clutch didn’t work but then the brass knuckles did. Too much.

And why TF are we putting titles back on Nia!? We should’ve just given the titles to the Riotts, or the winner of the Women’s Dusty Classic. It also cuts me deep that Asuka and Shayna are treated this way, even as champion Asuka is a side character to Charlotte T_T

Main show though and I don’t like the package and interviews between entrances

Drew vs Goldberg was just...meaningless.

It was cringy enough that Cole had to spout drivel to make 60 year old Goldberg seem strong but to have Drew be ‘injured’ by a barricade spear - something much more tired wrestlers have and will get back up from in less time and continue a longer match - was daft. Also saying that Goldberg’s spear or jackhammer is the best move of all WWE is stupid, it was a WCW thing

Thank God Drew Won, but the post-match does remind you of the meaningless circumstances this feud came about. Suddenly Goldberg is okay with Drew’s same manners of respect

I mean, Carmella’s entrance and gear is cool, but do you think it eats at Corey a little that Carmella’s ‘behind the curtain’ bit is a tad...red light district?

Sasha’s promo didn’t hit for me unfortunately

Reginald didn’t deserve to be ejected for that! He caught Sasha and get beaten up for it

Jesus Carmella! Sasha got barely any of that dive

Screeching and faffing aside, Carmella got a good showing...I do hate quick tap outs in title matches though

Sami cuts a good promo, but his content wasn’t exactly the best. New Day are hardly the management’s faves, it’s taken this long for E to get a singles run, Fans literally had to Yes Movement their way into giving Kofi the world title.

New Day’s Brodie gear was good though

Bad Bunny as the ‘Biggest Latin Artist’? Is Cole for real? I didn’t even know who he was before today

If the song is about Booker T then why is he dancing around GI Bro?

Come on Book, you hang on the Sucka! That’d be like if the Rock just went ‘If ya smell what the Rock is cooking’ without the drags or pauses

Ric’s ‘with a tear in my eye’ promo was after the Rumble though...

It’s actually a sad stat that just over half of the Rumble winners win titles

No Morrison segment for the escape spot!? He did it as much as Kofi dammit!

Sorry Greatest Royal Rumble is not canon for me

This Stat Attack has taken far too long

I’m okay with Mike Rome but couldn’t a woman have announced the Women’s Rumble? Where’s Lillian at!?

NAOOOOOOOMIIIIIIIIIIIIII GIRL WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?

That hair is amazing as well

I know you can’t say it, but we all remember that Benoit won the rumble in the first two as well

Was...Bianca wearing earrings on her entrance, she looked like she was taking them off

Billie actually had the right idea, can’t be in the match until you enter the ring, it’s clever stuff

That tank did not look like it was meant to turn that direction XD

It actually surprises me every time how tall Shotzi is, I always imagine her short

Billie no...not with Shayna

The piped boos are highly unrealistic to boo even a heel Toni Storm

Shotzi eliminated and then horrible singer Jillian comes in? Urrrrgh, Bad Singer Jillian was terrible

Wrestling wise she hasn’t missed a beat though

Billie’s surprisingly being a highlight here with actual narra-OHMYSHITITSVICTORIA

Gear was a bit meh but Victoria definitely can still go

Oh Peyton the purple looks good on you, and her Widow’s Peak was not bad at all

Ah, good for Santana, for a moment I thought it said Santina and got a very bad chill

Damn Liv, Speed Machine!

Ooof, the betrayal is real Billie

THIS IS MY BRUTALITY!

Somehow I’m genuinely upset by every elimination so far, good job!

Aaaaaand then they got rid of Victoria and brought on Charlotte to immediately take out Rhea -_-

That was a clever move from Bayley but damn Ruby landed hard

Are we seeing a Bayley/Peyton team? Or is she just eliminating the Riotts for revenge for Billie, but also Liv Nooooo!

Torrie now, eh okay

Ouch for Dana

Lacey...no, this ain’t working

Poor Peyton, her elimination was a side chapter

And we missed Bayley’s elimination!? For Shame

Mickie! Good to see ya! Aaaaand being beaten by Charlotte...

Nikki Cross is back too! Hopefully they find a good story for her

Alicia Fox? I guess she sobered back into the good gra...R-Truth? No

Oh yeah, Humberto is a thing

Jerry shut the fuck up!

The 24/7 stuff was super unnecessary, we did not need to take focus off this match

Lacey eliminating Mickie, rude.

Dakota should’ve gotten more time, she barely lasted a minute

Reginald again deserves better

See Tamina vs Rhea would be exciting...if Tamina was booked better

Naomi’s chemistry with Bianca is really insane right now

Lana *reminded of her feud with Shayna and Nia* Also Lana *goes for Rhea*

That was a hard tackle on Alexa by Rhea...aaaaand she’s eliminated mid ‘transformation’ a bit worthless for me

Road Warrior Ember Moon! And right into the Eclipse that’s the good shit

Baszler probably shouldn’t have eliminated Lacey story-wise

The Betrayal is real for Tamina as well

What’s with the crazy camera cuts!?

Nia eliminating Baszler? Nah...

Hold on Cole, baiting Nia over the ropes isn’t a ‘tremendous elimination’

The betrayal is real for Lana too, Nattie sure shrugged off that double assault

I get that the narrative is that Charlotte has beaten both Bianca and Rhea before, but to hang against both of them after already being in a match and hanging on from two apron attacks was daft. Stop making her super strong, she’s mega talented yes but giving her the Brock Lesnar energy does her no favours

That close call though with Rhea and Bianca was great, need more spots of two wrestlers about to be eliminated at the same time

The final bit of chain wrestling too was great, that’s what you need at the final part of a rumble, the mini-match

I had Rhea as my win prediction but am more than happy for Bianca, who was my second choice. Winning at No. 3 is great and her emotional promo just gets her more over. Bianca vs Sasha’s gonna be wild too

Overall the Women’s Rumble was good, most of the women got shine and there were a few mini stories too, do wish that more time was given to some women and that Sonya was in the rumble but the returns were good and most of the eliminations got me good

Miz talking about guaranteeing a championship run like he didn’t lose the last cash-in and didn’t have a chance to cash in previously this night when Drew was ‘reeling’ from the barricade spear.

I reiterate that I wish Sonya was in the rumble, but do like her endorsement of Bianca

Again, this 24/7 stuff is wrong place and time right now

Last Man StANDing Match for the UniVERSal Championship

Cole, there is Champion’s Advantage. Triple H vs Michaels Last Man Standing, neither men made the 10 so Trips kept the title, 17 years ago. Royal Rumble 2004.

See, this is where a Finisher Spotfest works, because it’s not about pinfalls it’s about keeping people down

The camera switches are not doing good on this portion of the side of the thunderdome

Yes, attacking the knees, this is the Cerebral ‘rope breaks with his pinkie finger’ Owens I like to see

Ooof the Golf Cart, a la Kane and Stadium Stampede

Why is this training area just like a second arena

Lil’ running ref in the background

Right into that conveniently placed mini-ladder

Not the forklift! Think of Judy Bagwell!

Oh that curtain is the thing Becky took a photo of! I mean she was always gonna be backstage

Corey before the match ‘there must be a winner’, Corey after Owens went through the stage LED ‘The ref should consider stopping the match’

Did the Ciampa move there to stand up

I don’t think you’re allowed to use a Ref Bump that way

Then the Second Ref restarts the count and stops at 5!? If this doesn’t come back next SD it’ll be a misstep

It was a physical match, not the best I think the finish brought it down. The problem is that KO has lost 3 times now and the last time is a botch finish, and we can’t have him lose again - the poor guy needs a win

ON THIS DAY, I SEE CLEARLY!

I will say this immediately, revealing Edge and Orton as 1 and 2 beforehand was a terrible idea, just because you don’t have a live crowd doesn’t mean the people watching from home can’t be surprised

‘Number 3 is the worst number to draw on average’ - Belair just won at No. 3

Ali at 4? Then went after Edge and not Orton?

Sami, just don’t get in Orton’s face

Refs what are you doing? No rules in Rumble, where were you with Nia and Shayna with that logic

‘What does Shin need to do to be more successful?’ - for one not face AJ Styles, he is still a tag, US and IC champ as well as a RR winner, that’s quite successful

Carlito finally shows after the Legends Night tease and yes those are some abs

So...Randy’s just sleeping with this knee injury

Big E enters with some snappy camera angles again

I was hoping for more Ali - especially since Ricochet came immediately after - buy angry E was nice to see

Wait is that Elias’ entrance? Where’s the guitar strum?

Priesty, wonder if this is his main roster call

What DJ leaves his equipment on stage anyway?

‘The biggest star in the world in the music business’ - for real?

‘I’ve heard of flying squirrels but flying bunnies!?’ - Corey you need to watch Tokyo Joshi Pro, they got a flying sugar rabbit

To quote Ross Tweddell, MMMmmm Riddle...does not do it for me

Stop with the camera cuts I beg of you!

Mayor of Knox County!?

Ricochet eliminated by Kane, le sigh

The betrayal is real for DBry

Big Elim for Priesty though

‘Now it’s a Royal Rumble’ - reminder that Edge is a KOTR winner too, and that Nakamura is the King of Strong Sty-oh and Corbin eliminated him :/ what was the gauntlet about if you’re gonna Corbin him?

Otis’ new gear is slick

aaaaand Corbin’d again

Big Dom Fuck im Uhhhhhh Spinebuster’d

Damn he got him though

Dang that bounce sound from DBry

Bobby no why you gotta do Dom like that!?

Hurricane back from his Gangrel crossing and disposing Sammy Guevara’s broken body in Elite Deletion to do another rumble

One of these days, he’ll hit that Chokeslam and shit will go wild

Christian! This time getting the more emphatic reaction

Oh that smile, that hits you in the chest cavity...then Riddle ruins it

Rey comes in and WWE made him an advertisement ¬_¬

Edward James Omos what are you doing? well...I know what he’s doing, IC feud between AJ and E

Edward James Omos fuck you for eliminating Rey

The betrayal is real for Shamu

Cole how did you know it was Seth before his entrance hit?

I don’t think we were supposed to pick up Shamu welcoming Christian back but that was sweet

Then finally BWOAR

And Bwoar eliminates Cesaro, what was the point of his push? (it’s because his contract’s nearly up isn’t it?)

Again with the camera switching

Seth No! And where’s the boos pipe music!? DBry was a heavy favourite, that would’ve caused heat

Can’t believe Mmm Riddle lasted ahead of DBry

I didn’t forget about Orton, but the finish was good, that Orton tease got us good

It was a decent rumble, in hindsight you could tell Edge was winning given how they put express focus on Michaels winning at number on in the stat attack, Edge being face in peril for the first 10 entrants and Cole reminding us how long Edge has been in there

I don’t at all hate the end result, though I do question whether it was the best choice in the long run. Edge had his rumble win returning from injury already and throwing more legends at Drew does imply a heavy lack of depth in the current roster. Edge didn’t really need the win, but I’m not disappointed in him winning

The Men’s Rumble itself wasn’t as good as the women’s I don’t think, a lot of favourites of mine were unceremoniously dumped out quickly, any layered storytelling didn’t get enough time and it did feel a little by the numbers, almost a microcosm of modern WWE booking

Overall it was still a decent PPV, happy with the winners of the rumbles and that’s mostly all we need from a Royal Rumble. The Road to Wrestlemania starts here