#but I imagine they'd be the stuff of legends

[creature-wizard]

Is the spiritual person a conspiracy theorist? A list of red flags

They talk about a shadowy group of people supposedly manipulating everything behind the scenes. They might refer to them by terms such as globalists, bankers, international bankers, secret rulers of the world, the elite, the cabal, Kabbalists, Talmudists, satanists, satanic pedophiles, pedophiles, generational satanists, satanic bloodlines, the Illuminati, the Babylonian Brotherhood, lizard people, Reptilians, Orions, regressives, regressive entities, Khazarians, Marxists, cultural Marxists, or leftists. Sometimes, very rarely, they'll just come right out and say "Jews."

They claim that the conspiracy has been working to conceal historical and spiritual truths from humanity.

They claim that the conspiracy uses stuff like food, entertainment, and medicine to control the masses. For example, "additives in food suppress our psychic abilities" or "Hollywood films contain subliminal messages" or "COVID vaccines were actually created to alter your DNA to make you more docile."

Also, claims that the conspiracy controls people via spiritual or technological implants, 5G, or alter programming, with or without explicit mention of Project Monarch (a conspiracy theory promoted by far right cranks such as Mark Philips and Fritz Springmeier, who used hypnosis to respectively convince Cathy O'Brien and Cisco Wheeler that they'd been put under mind control by a global satanic conspiracy).

They claim that this conspiracy is controlling the media, has fingers in every institution they disagree with, and is generally behind everything they disagree with. (EG, the conspiracy created the Catholic Church; that other New Ager they disagree with is actually controlled opposition, etc.)

They claim that the conspiracy is trying to keep people in fear.

They claim that the conspiracy harvests something from people. Blood and adrenochrome are common ones. Loosh is somewhat less common. Expect to see something else pop up eventually.

They claim that the conspiracy practices genetic engineering; EG, creating animal/human hybrids, using vaccines to genetically sever people's connection to God, etc.

They claim that true spiritual wisdom can be traced back to places like Atlantis, Lemuria, or Mu.

They claim that world governments have secretly been in contact with extraterrestrials for years.

They appeal to known frauds and cranks, including but not limited to Erich Von Daniken, Zechariah Sitchin, David Icke, David Wilcock, Graham Hancock, Jaime Maussan, Bob Lazar, Steven Greer, Richard C. Hoagland, Fritz Springmeier, and Drunvalo Melchizedek.

Appeals to forged documents, including but not limited to the alleged diary of Admiral Richard Byrd, The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, and The Urantia Book.

Appeals to channeled information, such as that provided by Edgar Cayce, Carla Rueckert, or George Van Tassel.

"But all of this has to come from somewhere, doesn't it?"

Oh, it all comes from somewhere, all right, but the where isn't what most people imagine.

A lot of the stuff above is just a modern spin on the content of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Russian hoax created to justify violence against Russian Jews. The Protocols itself was plagiarized from a political satire and incorporated a lot of the post-French Revolution conspiracy theories about Freemasons and Jews being behind the French Revolution. I wrote a summary of the conspiracy tropes found in The Protocols over here.

The stuff about Satanic sacrifices and the consumption of blood, adrenochrome, loosh, or whatever are simply just variations on blood libel, an antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims Jews practice ritual cannibalism. Blood libel can be traced back to ancient Greece. (With the Greek version, I really can't help but notice the similarity to modern urban legends of gangsters kidnapping random people for initiation rituals.)

Many of these tropes can also be linked back to the early modern witch hunts. It was believed that witches sacrificed babies to Satan, practiced cannibalism, and put people under mind control by way of diabolical magic. It was also believed that some witches didn't even know they were witches; they'd go off to attend the Devil's Sabbath at night and come back in the morning without remembering a thing. In the late 20th century, this witch hunter's canard would be reinvented as the alter programming conspiracy theory when media such as the 1973 book Sibyl and its 1976 television adaptation put DID (note: the woman who inspired Sibyl did not have DID) into the public consciousness. For a more complete list of witch panic and blood libel tropes, I wrote a list over here.

Lemuria was a hypothetical landmass proposed to explain the presence of lemur fossils in Madagascar and India while being absent in continental Africa and the rest of Asia, because if lemurs evolved naturally, they wouldn't be in two separate places with no connection to each other. The discovery that India and Madagascar were once connected not only made the hypothesis obsolete, it precludes the existence of Lemuria.

The whole notion of Mu began with a horrendous mistranslation of the Troano manuscript. A man named Augustus Le Plongeon would link the mistranslation with the story of Atlantis, and use it to claim that Atlantis actually existed in the Americas. (For Plongeon, Mu and Atlantis were one and the same.) And then other people (like James Churchward) got their hands on the whole Mu thing, and put their own spins on it, and the rest is history.

Le Plongeon's ideas influence modern Atlantis mythology today; EG, the idea that it was in the Americas. Another guy who helped shape the modern Atlantis myth was Ignatius L. Donnelly, an American politician. Dude claimed that Atlanteans spread their oh-so-superior culture far and wide. He also claimed that Atlantis was the home of the Aryan people, because of course he did.

The idea that all of the world's wisdom can be traced back to Thoth/Hermes goes back to Hermeticism, a product of Greco-Egyptian syncretism. Hermeticism produced a fascinating body of mythology and an interesting way to consider the divine and its role in shaping human history, but that doesn't mean it was right. And the Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean is a modern text that has fuck-all to do with ancient Hermeticism and more to do with HP Lovecraft.

This idea that the conspiracy uses pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines for evil also has roots in Nazi Germany. The Nazi government, wanting to reserve real medicine for their soldiers, told the general populace that said medicine was the product of evil Jewish science and prescribed alternative healing modalities instead. (Said alternative healing modalities did not particularly work.) It also echoes the old conspiracy theories about Jews spreading the Black Death by poisoning wells.

The idea that the conspiracy uses genetic manipulation to create subhuman beings or sever humanity from the divine is a permutation of the Nazi conspiracy theory that Jews are trying to destroy the white race through race mixing. The idea of evil reptilian DNA goes back to the ancient serpent seed doctrine, which is indeed old, but no less pure hateful nonsense for it.

"But there's got to be somebody up to something rotten out there!"

Oh sure. But these people aren't skulking around in the shadows. They're acting pretty openly.

The Heritage Foundation has been working to push this country into Christofascism since the early 1970's. They're the ones responsible for the rise of the Moral Majority and the election of Ronald Reagan. They're also the ones behind Project 2025, which intends to bring us deeper into Christofascism. (Among many other horrible things, they intend to outlaw trans people as "pornographic.")

The Seven Mountains Mandate is another movement pushing for Christofascism. They intend to seize the "seven spheres" of society, which include education, religion, family, business, government/military, arts/entertainment, and media.

There's also the ghoulish American Evangelicals who support Israel because they think that current events are going to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus and cement the formation of a global Christofascist empire. Don't let their apparent support of Jews fool you - they believe that the good Jews will become Christians and the bad ones will go to hell.

All of these people are working toward monstrously horrific goals, but none of them are part of an ancient megaconspiracy. In fact, these are the kinds of people pushing the myth of the ancient megaconspiracy. From the witch hunts to Nazi Germany to the American Evangelical movement, if history has taught us anything, the people pushing the conspiracy theories are always the bad guys.

[stressfulsloth]

I've seen a couple of takes about Disco Elysium being copaganda going around recently, and beyond the fact that DE is relentlessly critical of the police force in general and makes explicit reference to the failures of the system that allow the officers in game to abuse their power, I also think it's important to note that there very literally is an in-world version of copaganda that the writers of the game use to parody that romanticised view of the brutality of policing. The RCM at their inception were structurally inspired by in-world copaganda- their culture, their "fashions, even weapon preferences, borrow heavily from classic Vespertine cop shows." Every investigation is it's own little drama, every officer imagining themselves to be the bad-ass hero of their own crime serial. Detectives name their cases like they're naming episodes of a TV series in a "robust but literary system"; a title that "draws inspiration from snoop fiction and Vespertine cop show staples". They give themselves nicknames to sound like cool, suave fictional officers- Ace, Dick Mullen, etc.- from the cool, suave world of copaganda.

The legend of the RCM's inception, the "point of contention" over its uncertain origins, is even an extention of that; the whole organisation is shrouded in this self-fictionalising mythos that allows for distance that in turn obfuscates much of its violence to the officers that participate in it. They get to convince themselves that they're not abusing their power; they're the hero of the story! The dichotomy of "good guy" taking out the "baddies," a manifestation of the libertarian fantasy of the "good guy with a gun" who does what it takes, just like in Annette's detective novels, and at the same time who rails against oversight bodies like Internal Affairs/'the rat squad' because due process slows down the immediate satisfaction of Swift Justice, despite Internal Affairs existing to protect the citizens from overreach on behalf of the police. "Wanton brutality" from police in their real world is a cold bitter reality but Dick Mullen was "made to crack skulls," "bend the rules and solve cases no one else can," and which version of that story is more comforting to the overworked, underfunded officers of the RCM?

The level of fantasy and detachment required for the cops to still see themselves as the good guys after everything that they do in the line of duty mimics The Pigs and her breakdown too; she parallels Harry so clearly. Both "did right by the kids" in the past, hoping for a better future- Marianne (The Pigs) by looking out for Titus and the Hardy boys when they were young, Harry in his role as a gym teacher. Both abandoned and left behind by the system that the RCM uphold- a brutal capitalist landscape with no safety nets. Both turning the source of their trauma into a costume, a performance, a shield, shaped by "radio waves and cop shows." The Pigs uses RCM items scavenged from the Esperance where they'd been thrown away, while Harry uses the Dick Mullen hat that Annette gives him but both are essentially in costume.

Harry identifies himself with the fictional detective as a kind of wish fulfilment; Dick Mullen is "wicked smart." He doesn't fuck up his cases and when he's sad it's not pathetic; it's effortlessly cool brooding and everyone sympathises. Everyone loves him. His violence- "skull crack[ing]"- is justified because he's a "good guy" enacting that violence against the victims of police brutality sorry "bad guys". He doesn't ever face repercussions; "Dick Mullen won't be sent to the clink for the sake of some legal niceties!" So if Harry is Dick Mullen then his failures, his breakdown, they're all just a part of being a "bad-ass, on-the-edge disco cop." He's not wrong, he's a hero! This idealised fictionalised idea of the police force, this "new, sadly better, reality" that both Harry and The Pigs cling to is "escapist stuff," "receed[ing] into a ludicrous fantasy world," so far removed from the brutal material reality that they're in.

My point is, idk. Disco Elysium is so far from being copaganda. It is a multi-million word long dissection of it, of the purpose of policing, of state sanctioned violence and its interaction with capital and the fallout experienced within the wider community as well as the trauma cycle created for individual officers. A dissection of how copaganda interacts with RCM culture and perception, and by extension how we interact with irl perceptions of police through that lens.

[luimagines]

I could totally imagine with the race swap between human and hylian to be insanely frustrating for the reader. Especially with the traveling thing. Reader being all like "At least you can still use your armour! I can't even lift my stuff!" and "I had to wait on all of you when traveling but now you all seem content to just run off without me." Though it would probably be quite fun for reader to finally be able to use magic items! I personally imagine them to be Warriors with the fire rod for the first time chaotic. And I bet the chain would probably travel further into the evening since humans had the better vision in the dark. (That was something from here right? I'm not just hallucinating that right?) But poor reader. They'd have to deal with worse vision, everything being much too loud, they can use basically NONE of their items, and their stamina SUCKS. Oh yeah they also have powerful magic that they have no clue how to control. Hyrule might have to help them on that end.

-🎻 anon

"Being a Hylian sucks!! How can you people be ok with living like this?!" They griped, sobbing dramatically from the back of Epona.

"Hey, at least you still have weapons!" Legend snapped. "We can barely use any of ours!"

"You still have your hookshot! Shut up! I can't even pick my sword anymore!"

"Well, I feel the same." Sky shrugged.

"That's because you all upgraded." Reader sneered. "Of course, it doesn't feel all that different to you aside from the lost of your magic. I, however, was downgraded to this body!"

Time attempts to steer the conversation away from the potential racial divisions occurring once more. "Downgrade is a strong word-"

"It's a strong emotion!" Reader continued. "Epona is the only one with mercy here. Friendship ended with Link, Epona is my new favorite."

"Which Link?"

"Yes."

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

I might be wrong, but it's implied that dragons are an extinct species in the SDV universe. So like, what if the Farmer found a petrified dragon egg, or even a whole clutch, and somehow managed to hatch it/them Game of Thrones style? They've done some insane stuff both in canon, and in SVE and RSV so it's not hard to imagine they'd do the truly impossible like reviving not only an extinct species, but a magic species at that. Rambling aside, onto the question: how would the SVE mages (including Morgan) and adventurer's, and Mr. Aguar from RSV react to the farmer's feat of bringing dragons back to life?

(P.s, maybe add Mr. Qi as well bc I imagine he'd be VERY interested in this event)

You're 100% right

And it's interesting: I've long wondered why there was no mention of dragons anywhere in the notes or in the library, when there are skeletons and teeth of these very same dragons lying around in the Calico Desert and Ginger Island? And can serpents be considered descendants of these dragons?

Lance's mention of his teacher with the title "Dragon Master" also gives us the right to believe for the existence of dragons in the SDV world (although I used to think it was just such a cool title for his teacher. Or a reference to Lance's Pokémon trainer in general).

But enough rambling! Thanks for your ask and enjoy some short stories ☺️🫰

Warning: this post is long...

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Marlon & Gil:

Marlon sipped his tea quietly in his Guildhall on a cold winter morning, to the crackle of a blazing fireplace and the soft snores of his friend, Gil. The one-eyed adventurer was enjoying a rare moment in his life - a quiet morning, with no worries about stocking up on provisions and elixirs, no worry about monsters...

But apparently the Yoba itself decided that Marlon had had enough of the peaceful time and presented him with a Farmer riding a dragon. The flying reptile with purple scales, beautiful as amethysts, along with its rider managed to smash through the old Adventurer's Guild roof, but thankfully no one was hurt.

If Marlon had only known Farmer for a few months, he would have been in mute shock at what he had seen. Now that the youth was a full member of the Guild for the second year, Marlon only sighed tiredly and went to the undestroyed room to get his tools. Dragons? Yes, he was interested in that. But questions later, first they need to fix the hole in the roof because it's cold winter outside, you know.

The Farmer will help, of course, as they are the direct cause of the collapsed ceiling. And the Gil will join in when he stops hiding his chuckle behind his snoring. He's been awake for a while now, and he can hardly contain his laughter (and his pride in Farmer) while pretending to be asleep.

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Isaac:

If the quote "I don't get paid enough for this shit" were a person, Isaac would be the complete personification of that phrase.

Anyone would be shocked, amazed and delighted by the most beautiful and noble creatures that had extinct so long ago that many people no longer believed they existed and had come to regard them as a fairy tale and a legend. Anyone, but not Isaac. Because the moment the master of the dangerous reptiles appeared before Isaac's eyes - he wanted to bang his head against the wall.

Let no one dare tell him that 'Farmer is special' or 'Farmer knows what to do'. No, they don't know what they're doing! A bloody immature upstart who coddles a dangerous dragons like a puppies! That even now the curious reptiles are slowly moving towards Isaac to sniff and study him, a man they don't know. And how does HE know what the hell is going on in their heads?! Maybe they see him as just another snack, for Yoba's sake!

He won't be tempted to trade his own safety and the safety of other people for prickly curiosity. He will not, like the others, reach for the huge toothy maw, nor is he going to scratch the head of the purring (dragons can purr?) creature. Isaac goes to report the Farmer and the dragons to the Order of Pythagoras, and he doesn't care that he'll be disliked by many for such an act. It will take a long time before Isaac finally trusts the Farmer and their pets, but that will be a while yet. For now, the scarred adventurer will do what he thinks is right.

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Lance:

After a long training in swordsmanship and magic spells, young Lance always waited with joy for his teacher to call him for a short break. After all, it was during the break that they would both go to the tavern, eating dinner, where his teacher would praise him for his success in the last training session, and most importantly, tell him another fascinating legend about monsters and creature. Even though his mentor was a "Dragon Master", they haven't met any dragons themself. Their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, however, had seen the beautiful flying reptile once with his own eyes.

Oh, how Lance wanted to be the man who would see a dragon, how he wanted to believe they still existed!

It was just a childhood dream that Lance had long since grown out of. But life had given him an unexpected surprise.....

He slowly touched the dragon's snout, gently running his fingers over the warm scarlet scales. Taking his time, careful not to bring his fingers too close to the razor-sharp fangs. Lance almost couldn't tear his gaze away from the big amber eyes that watched him intently. Slowly turning his head towards the Farmer, the pink-haired adventurer saw a sign of approval that he could continue. Giving his friend a grateful nod, Lance turned his gaze back to the dragon. Who would have thought that gallant adventurer would have the opportunity not only to see this marvellous creature, but also to learn from Farmer how miraculously they were able to do the impossible.

It'll go down in Lance's memoirs for sure.

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Jadu:

Due to insomnia, hard work with manuscripts and scrolls, and an unhealthy obsession with coffee, Jadu looked like the walking dead these days. Add to that the fact that the young wizard was as stubborn as an ass: no matter how much Lance tried to gently help his friend, no matter how much Isaac tried to force him into bed, and no matter how hard the others tried - to no avail. Jadu's goal was to finish the job - and he'd done it, and sleep was of secondary importance to him.

Naturally, this disregard for his sleep regime was not without consequences, and so Jadu, about to teleport back from the Stardew Valley to the Castle Village, didn't even realise how the world swam before his eyes and his body went limp. But before poor wizard lost consciousness, he felt that someone had grabbed him and would not let him fall. Half an hour later, Jadu realised that he was not lying on the cold ground, but in the warm embrace of someone... with scales? And wings? And claws on its paws?

Is he still asleep?

But as it turned out, he emerged from the realm of reverie and listened half-asleep to Farmer's restless speech. The sensation of inhuman skin and the word "dragon" made Jadu jump up as if scalded by boiling water and quickly get to his feet.

A dragon?! A real one?! Where from and how? Farmer, please explain! You raised it? Where? And what kind of dragon?! He'd studied the legends, but he'd never thought he'd meet a large reptile himself. And what do they eat, and how do they conjure? He need to know? Sleep? What sleep, he doesn't need that right now!

It took a lot of effort for the farmer to at least get Jadu back to a sitting position. It is not clear whether the noble reptile understood their words, but the creature's gaze was shrewd and full of wisdom. And amusement from this funny scene.

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Morgan:

Morgan follows the familiar hidden path again, behind a flowering tree with a swing, where there is a hole in the farm's fence. Trying not to make any loud noise, Magnus' young apprentice walks through the tall grass, holding back a playful chuckle.

Even though the Farmer had long ago told them that they would always be welcome at the farm and would be treated to ripe fruit from the greenhouse, Morgan still chose to visit in this way, adding intrigue and fun to their dull routine of studying the history of the Republic and the bestiary.

The young talent once again wanted to go into the chicken coop, where there was a void chicken that the Farmer had allowed them to feed and even give her name (Morgan had named her Coal). But when Morgan looked into the coop, instead of the usual joyful clucking, they felt a smoky breath coming from a toothy mouth that definitely did not belong to a hen. In the dark wooden room, Morgan couldn't see who it was, so all they could do was run out of the coop screaming in terror and crying.

Luckily, the Farmer, who had arrived quickly, had time to calm the child and explain that a dragon lived here for the time being.

Morgan at the mention of the mythical creature completely forgot about everything in the world. A moment later, the Farmer was bombarded with questions and requests to see dragon again. The farmer allowed (taking Morgan's word that they would keep it a secret). Wow, dragons are even cooler that void chicken! Sorry, Coal...

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Alesia:

Crazy... This was just a crazy idea. Maybe Alesia still had the option to refuse and get off the green dragon's back? Before she could say anything, however, Farmer gave the takeoff command to his winged friend, and they and Alesia, riding the dragon, began to separate from the ground higher and higher. The sniper was out of breath, and her mind was unable to comprehend what was happening. A farmer, a dragon - a living dragon! - and flying on top of a large reptile. How had all this happened for literally half an hour?

Alesia never thought she would agree to ride a dragon without a second thought. She felt a little ashamed, for she had been so quick to give in to temptation and curiosity, forgetting all about safety. But that view... Definitely worth it.

Finally when they landed and Alesia felt the solid ground beneath her feet, she had to temper her excitement and have a serious talk with Farmer. About the dragon, mages and adventurers should know. No, no arguments. It is better to let the senior adventures be warned, for it could happen that seeing Farmer on a dragon could mistake them for an enemy or potential threat. This is for the safety of both the humans and the Farmer with the reptile. The girl sees that this beautiful creature is significantly intelligent and wishes no harm to anyone. Therefore, she will feel safer if Farmer, as a responsible adult, makes the right decision.

But until they notified the Order and the others, Alesia would be interested to hear how the Farmer was able to not only raise the dragon themself, but also hide their existence from the others for so long. And, if the Farmer and the dragon itself are okay with it, to repeat another flight. Because that's was fun.

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Magnus Rasmodius:

The Farmer couldn't have been happier when, after months of caring for the dragon eggs, they saw the first crack of the shell and a cute little scaly face emerge. One little flying lizard was followed by two more, and now the trio are chirping and flying merrily around their parent, already begging for attention and food.

What Farmer didn't know was that as the dragonlings hatched, a strong magical flow would come out of the eggs, which Magnus Rasmodius definitely felt.

Shocked at the unknown strong source of magic, the purple-haired wizard dropped everything he was doing and teleported to the Farmer's house. The magic that had broken through his barrier? But the barrier was still intact! Then what? An anomaly? A strong corrupting spirit? Ancient magic? And his apprentice is right at the epicentre! But while Magnus was filling his head with horrific scenes and preparing to recite the spell, teleporting straight into the living room of the Farmer's house, all his battle fervour deflated. And before Magnus's gaze was an unharmed Farmer, with three little dragons sitting on top of them, eating peach slices with gusto.

On the one hand, Magnus has an irresistible urge to smack himself on the forehead for having conjured up such scary scenes, when as an experienced magician he should always keep his composure. On the other hand, he really wants to scold the Farmer for another wild thing. His gut tells him that he has a very long report to write to the Ministry of Magic. He also needs a bottle of strong wine to get drunk and pass out after all this madness. Poor wizard is too tired to marvel at the very fact that dragons have been reborn. Maybe later...

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Camilla:

My oh my... And how come the Farmer didn't tell her, Camilla, about this wonderful pet that breathes fire and can fly in the sky? She's their best friend, isn't she? And friends always share secrets with each other.... How did the Farmer manage to raise such a marvellous beauty? Really? Hmm, interesting.

Some might rightly resent that the head witch of Castle Village treats a dangerous mythical creature like a cute poodle. Even the dragon owner themself might be surprised that she doesn't show the reaction that people usually have at the sight of a big and scary dragon.

But even it look like Camilla in her favourite way is not serious about everything, it is not true at all. Quite the opposite, she will always put her duty to protect the people of the Village above all else. But she is confident in her abilities, so just in case the Farmer's scaly friend wants to make a little mischief in her domain, she will make sure that the creature never wants to appear on the Continent of Galdora ever again. But enough of that!

Camilla will become a more frequent visitor to the Stardew Valley, because the witch certainly won't miss the opportunity to study such an interesting specimen. Camilla also has some of the rarest pets, and the witch would like to get a dragon as well. Ah, what a cutie!

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Dr. Aguar:

For a fortnight now, Aguar couldn't figure out why his body was tingling with magic like an annoying itch. For a fortnight he had been walking around irritated, unable to understand the source of this itch that was driving him crazy and preventing him from working in peace. It was only at the bus stop that Aguar realised that the closer he got to the farm, the stronger the tingling became. There's clearly something the strange Farmer is doing here.... Magnus had already mentioned that the youth had a magical gift, just like Aguar himself. But the former mage knows nothing much about the Farmer: not their motives, nothing. So Aguar wanted to find out what the Farmer does, and whether it has anything to do with this unbearable itch.

Before Dr. Aguar could even reach the porch of the Farmer's house, something blue flew out of the door at full speed, but he couldn't see it because of its speed. The Farmer ran out after it, calling to someone and waving their arms.

The thing stopped abruptly in mid-air and returned to the Farmer, wrapping their body around Farmer's right hand and growling merrily. The Farmer, barely out of breath, held their breath as they realised they had guests and that they could see the dragon. Aguar, on the other hand, crossed his arms and waited patiently for the Farmer to start the conversation themself.

So that's what it was...

A dragon, yes? And a dragon of the water element, Aguar's own element. Indeed, this little reptile was too young to control magic on its own. And the incessant flow of the same element's magic influenced the flow of the scientist's magic. Very interesting. That's what really caught Aguar's attention. He's really going to want to study the dragon. Oh, spirits, Farmer, there's no need to look at him as a bloodthirsty monster! He won't harm this little one.

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Mr. Qi:

"Congratulations to you, Farmer. Once again you managed to exceed my expectations when your tending to the eggs I left behind succeeded. I didn't doubt the success one bit, of course not. I hope you enjoy your new pets, they are truly wonderful. Also, I'll put it on a note, they are fruit-eaters, so treat your dragons to fresh fruit often. Especially melon, these dragons love it. I already know that, hehe. Good luck to you, child. I'll keep watching your progress. And always remember, the key to success is within you."

The Farmer would probably have been surprised by a letter from Mr. Qi..... But alas, the little flying reptiles accidentally burned the paper before the Farmer could open anything.

[dalekofchaos]

Stuff like this is why I don't think the inhibitor chips were necessary.

Why make up bullshit chips that turn Clones into cartoonish "good soldiers follow orders" when Clones just naturally hating the Jedi for being incompetent generals getting their brothers in arms killed and then said brothers dying for traitors, but the real tragedy of it all is that it was all for a lie.

Order 66 was just an emergency order like the others one. For example Order 65 declared that the Chancellor is no longer able to rule the republic, therefore he has to be removed from office, if necessary with lethal force. If the jedi could have convinced the senate, that Palpatine was a sith who orchestrated the clone wars and the senate would vote for the Order 65, Palpatine would be attacked by clone troopers instead of the jedi.

These Orders were also no secret, they were written down and the clones trained these orders on Kamino a thousand times. The jedi just forgot, that the clones were fighting for the republic and not for them, and when the supreme commander of the army, in this case Palpatine because of his emergency powers, orders them to kill their field commanders, they would do so, without question, just like the kaminoans said.

In my opinion this makes a whole lot of great stories impossible like the relationship between Darman Skirata and Etain. Also it would make way more sense when Lucasfilm wants to show more survivors of Order 66, because the only clones in canon who didn't follow the order were the Bad Batch, Rex and Gregor. In Legends many clones just didn't follow the order because of their moral compass or thought it's a trap of the separatists and we could see how the clones deal with their decision to kill the jedi, in Legends some of them developed PTSD and other thought it was necessary.

In my opinion they just took a whole lot away of the personality and individuality of the clones with the inhibitor chips and turned them into mindless killer machines and I don't like that, especially after we see in the clone wars series their personality for the first time and see that the clones are individuals even when they look exactly the same, something the movies failed to show us.

Imagine a plot line where, instead of a chip telling them to betray the Jedi, troopers like Cody got a message telling them the Jedi had betrayed the Republic and attempted to murder the Chancellor. That the Jedi were now considered enemies of the Republic and had to be exterminated before they could overthrow the democracy. Forced to choose between the Jedi generals and the Republic and Supreme Chancellor, the unquestionably loyal Clones support the Republic.

It could have added many complex layers. The Clones have to live with their decisions. Maybe some regret it and wish they'd decided otherwise. Others feel their hand was forced. Others that the Jedi were traitors and never doubted their choice for a second.

Or the conflict of Rex. What if he'd been among the 501st attacking the Jedi Temple with Anakin, but split from them at the end of his own free will? Rex, who was always loyal to Anakin, and a close friend, breaks from him and flees. How does he feel about it? Does he feel he did the right thing by betraying Anakin to save the Jedi? Or does he feel he abandoned his Commander and should have stayed loyal? Maybe he struggles with it every day, wondering if he made the right choice. Or imagine if Anakin came for Ahsoka and was about to kill her and Rex chose Ahsoka over Order 66 because he knew in his heart it was wrong and tossed a flash grenade and fled with Ahsoka.

Overall, I feel like the inhibitor chip arc made the story of Order 66 somewhat boring and too black and white. It could have been a fantastic jumping off point for the complexities of mixed loyalties, of following orders, of the failures of the Republic and of the Jedi, of how not only Palpatine's villainy but his charisma and personality led to rigid loyalty among the clones.

And honestly I feel like the inhibitor chips were created to weasel out of complex storytelling, just like JJ Abrams weaseled out of dealing with Finn's PTSD of being a child soldier.

[astrolavas]

Ok ok, but now is turn for the grimwalker HCs!! Give us the creature👀

!!!!! BET

once a grimwalker is "formed" they simply turn mostly organic, just like how palismen are live animals instead of wood (when activated). so even though the ingredients are still THERE technically, they appear as just like... normal stuff, so grimwalkers are mostly biologically the species that their ortet was, almost indistinguishable (hair is hair, skin is skin, there's blood flow despite there not initially being a heart, the galdorstone is there but it functions very similarly to a heart, etc etc) and yet sometimes the original ingredients' features somehow still "show up" in unique-to-grimwalkers ways. ㅤ

i imagine grimwalkers used to be like a more popular/frequent occurence in ancient demon realm. the process of creating a grimwalker was like a sacred magic ritual, only allowed in special cases (like maybe if a witch lost a child early and wasn't able to have another one, sth of the sort) so it was still very rare even back then and would have to be approved of by most of the community. however, then the tradition died off as ingredients started becoming more scarce, and most of knowledge about it was eventually lost to time. nowadays, grimwalkers are considered to be an extinct species as well as an urban legend/myth by boiling isles habitants, like a "supposedly extinct but there's no certainty if they ever even actually existed" situation (without taking hunter and his possibly-openly-a-grimwalker-in-the-future thing into account just yet). the books we saw hunter read in labyrinth runners have some right information but also lots of misinformation in them, since they're far removed from the direct source, based on only tidbits of actual info, and have been written by witches/demons, with no grimwalkers consulted (obviously); lots of it is speculation, and lots of it is wrong. (i imagine the only actual, entirely truthful info is in those scrolls and books we saw in belos' grimwalker lab, but even that isn't fully complete; and belos wouldn't have wanted to share it with the public anyway, for obvious reasons) additionally, i feel like grimwalkers have a sort of cryptid-like reputation in the boiling isles' pop culture. there are stories made up about them. there are teens making pink-eyed grimwalker ocs on the demon realm equivalent of deviantart and making up things like "grimwalkers can shoot lasers out of their eyes" or "they can raise the dead with their thoughts" LMAO. hunter gets a headache when he discovers all that. ㅤ

grimwalkers are semi-immune to boiling water. the selkidomus scales give them a lot of immunity so boiling water is not actually lethal to them but still, being exposed to boiling rain for a long while or full-on diving into the boiling sea may hurt a bit and prolonged contact with boiling water may leave them with blisters/burns. ㅤ

when grimwalkers' skin is wet for a long time, it gets somewhat scaley ??? scales-resembling texture ?? instead of just being pruney/wrinkled. when dry, their fingertips have a sort of wood-rings-y look. ㅤ

grimwalkers' hair naturally grows incredibly fast, but especially when they spend lots of time in the sun. plant magic may also affect its growth positively. ㅤ

grimwalkers' eyes are reflective and can glow/shine in the dark. ㅤ

when it comes to human-based grimwalkers (the golden guards), sometimes their ears would turn out rounder and human-looking, sometimes they'd look pointier but still not fully witch-like. belos preferred them to be round cuz obviously he preferred "caleb" to be human-looking, but with time he started modifying some grimwalkers' naturally round ears to be pointier just so that they could blend in easier and so they'd believe that they're witches too. he'd "mold" their ears during early creation or sometimes modify/cut them after, like he did his. (hunter's ears are naturally pointy and generally look like a witch's ears but, upon closer inspection, the details of his ears differ from a normal witch's ears juuuust slightly) (ears of the grimwalker that we saw in ftf were fully round because belos was counting on this one to be the golden guard post-day of unity, seemingly brought up as human and in the human realm) ㅤ

just like stonesleepers, grimwalkers often have a slightly sensitive spot behind their ears. ㅤㅤㅤ

palismen can somewhat sense that grimwalkers are also made of palistrom wood so they naturally cling to them more (big win for mr palisman enthusiast/carver hunter owlhouse!) ㅤㅤ

again, when it comes to specifically caleb-based/the golden guard grimwalkers, i can imagine that belos' first attempts were....... FAR from perfect. since i imagine he got all the information from different incomplete ancient scrolls, there were many things he had to come up with and re-discover himself. the very first grimwalkers he made probably didn't even survive for longer than a few minutes/hours. and when they did survive, i feel like the ingredients used were much more distinguishable at first too, not fully transformed into their organic counterparts; like for example some grimwalkers had more selkidomus-like or stonesleeper-like features, or were visibly wooden in some places, etc etc. i feel like belos didn't succeed in making a fully functional, stable and human/witch-looking grimwalker until he met the collector, and then did so thanks to their help. ㅤ

grimwalkers are already "harvestable" at early infancy and that's when you're "supposed" to unbury them, but they can technically emerge at any age (they just have to stay underground and age for the amount of time). i feel like there were also times when belos tried to speed up the process and age his grimwalkers up faster so that they'd be of use to him quicker, but that would also often result in the grimwalkers being unstable; so not really a good idea. (i envision that hunter was probably one of the youngest- if not the youngest- grimwalker belos had ever made, and that's also why he had high hopes for him lasting longer than the others; because he manipulated him since early childhood, starting in his most pivotal developmental years) ㅤ

i like to believe that the reason why flapjack was able to save hunter in thanks to them was because hunter's a grimwalker. if hunter had been a normal witch or a human, i don't think flapjack could do anything to help. (something abt the thing that hunter was ashamed of and hated abt himself ending up being the exact thing that makes saving him possible... you know?) ㅤ

for specifically caleb-based grimwalkers, i imagine that since they're mostly human in biology, they might also have issues with eating some particular demon realm food. not as much as luz of course, since they're not completely human + after years of living in the demon realm and basically eating ONLY demon realm food i can imagine your stomach would get mostly used to it, acclimated and all, but it probably still could result in some problems and discomfort. ㅤ

because of their stonesleeper lungs, grimwalkers are usually pretty still and motionless sleepers. they breathe very slowly when sleeping. ㅤ

you can't make a grimwalker out of a grimwalker. you can try, but the magic simply won't work correctly.

[never---gonna---give---you---up]

Can we talk about Yue?

Let's just say there is a world where she doesn't have to sacrifice herself for Tui - because my girl deserves so much better like look at her.

But also, imagine the interactions she could have with all the other characters!!

Also, for that point, I'll be ignoring the fact that she'd most likely wouldn't leave the northern watertribe because responsibilities and her parents and jade jade. Let's just say it's her time for teenage rebellion and she sneaks off with the gaang or something. Idk.

Like she'd be there for the character development for Aang, Katara and Sokka (even Zuko).

But imagine she meets Toph!

Toph 'fuck you and what society/ my parents expect from me, I won't be put into a damn box because I'm not delicate porcelain to be put up on a shelf, I'll go kick ass and show people who I am, who I really am' Beifong?

That sounds so interesting! Like their parallels? Both being kept 'protected' and being put into positions they don't want and don't like (Toph being keept in a cage so to say and Yue being married off to someone neither she nor he loves).

But also, Yue is what Tophs parents see as a perfect daughter. She is soft spoken, elegant, meek and such. She is what Toph isn't.

But Toph gets free. She runs away and becomes happy and free.

I feel like they'd be such good friends once they get over the struggles. Toph would go commit some chaos and Yue would just smile and come along.

Imagine she meets Azula.

She's basically the opposite of Yue but they both have the same royal devotion. Also, Azula is a girl and it doesn't matter, she's respected and she's badass. That must be a culture shock for Yue.

Also, I think Azula and Yue have quite the interesting parallels as well. Both of them are the 'perfect princess' in the eyes of their people and culture but they are soooo different. Both put their duty above themselves in a way, both are 'blessed' (Yue literally by the moon and Azula is a prodigy), both have fathers who decide things for them (The whole marriage thing with Yue and do I even have to go into detail with Ozai?), both are kept in this cage of responsibilities and duty and both suffer in the end because of it, not having experienced the freedom a child of their status could have had their whole life only to be doomed in the end.

(Also, if we just mess more with canon and redeem Azula, I think they could be besties as well. Like they could learn so much from one another. Azula is sorta like an unhinged and abused Katara so I think it could work.)

Her meeting Mai and Ty Lee would also be something.

Nonbenders who are fucking badass? Respected for who they are? I imagine they could teach Yue how to defend herself. Just imagine Yue throwing knifes and chi-blocking people.

Same with Suki.

Another nonbender who's badass and a leader of a respected group. I think they'd get along just fine.

(Also, about that whole ship drama that would probably happen: I don't really care about ships so idk, make them poly? Who cares, just let them be happy man)

But what I would be most hyped about would be her meeting with Kanna.

You know, Kanna, who said fuck you to the sexist rules and just fucking moved across the world while a war was going on? Kanna, who basically told Pakku to fuck off and she won't marry a sexist man like him? Kanna, who's the grandmother of Katara? Who send Katara across the world to kick Pakkus ass (because she must have know)? The og? The legend? It would be amazing. I imagine they would both roast Pakku to his face. And Kanna would immediately adopt Yue as one of hers. It would be so wholesome come on.

Of course there are a lot of other characters that she'd meet, but I think the ones I mentioned are the most interesting once because of parallels and stuff.

[sometimesraven]

how Empire of Death failed to mimic the scale of Infinity War, and what I would do differently

I'm just ranting here bc I had the thoughts and realised they were gonna go on too long for the tags of a reblog.

So I've already mentioned that the sand of death should have been the cliffhanger. The Sutekh reveal was cool and metal af, but imagine if it had gone on juuust a little longer and the credit theme rolls in just as Kate turns to dust. Imagine how much harder that would hit!

We would sit with that final image for a whole week, letting the shock and excitement build, even if we know they'd never kill both Kate and Rose and this would all be reset, the shock of the scene would still be impactful because we have time for it to truly sink in and hit us fully.

But I think the real reason Infinity War's ending hit harder than this is because we had real stakes. Thanos had been an imposing presence through the whole movie, killing or overpowering beloved and powerful characters we'd grown to see as untouchable.

Those stakes started at the literal beginning of the episode. Loki, a beloved character, is killed. The Hulk, who had literally JUST gone toe to toe with a god, is thrown aside like a toy.

The stakes remained through the story, when Gamorrah is killed, then continue all the way to the end when Vision is sacrificed only for that sacrifice to mean nothing.

Then the snap happens, some of the most beloved characters die in a slow, carefully crafted series of scenes with phenomenal acting.

And then the movie ends. We're left to sit with that for however long it takes for the finale, and even if we know most of the characters will be back it hurts because that emotion and tension and buildup comes to that horrible conclusion and leaves us to sit with it.

I'm not saying Sutekh should have killed anyone to raise the stakes. I'm saying that there was absolutely zero build-up to him within TLoRS itself, and therefore we as viewers don't truly know the stakes. The "He Who Waits" stuff was good to show us "hey, all these other gods are peanuts compared to this one", but that's about all we got.

And it's frustrating because not only has Doctor Who done this kind of high-stakes villain reveal and cliffhanger before in a much more effective way, but also IT WAS RUSSEL WHO DID IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

I firmly believe the finale should have been in three parts, not two.

I don't know if this is strictly Russel's fault or if Disney's restrictions were partly to blame, but let's look at how the Series 3 (2007) finale did what the Season 1 (2024) finale tried and failed to do.

Part One

Utopia plays out much like The Legend of Ruby Sunday does: they're exploring something self-contained but eventually related to the plot (end of the universe vs ruby's mother), they meet an enigmatic stranger who will later turn out to be the villain/part of the villain (Yana vs Triad), and the episode ends with the cliffhanger of them realising there's actually a Big Bad from the past that nobody was expecting (The Master vs Sutekh).

I think in the case of a 3 part episode I would have TLoRS end with Sutekh being revealed in a way that doesn't have him at his full power yet. I'm not sure exactly how I'd execute that but it would have the same impact w. Harbinger and Susan, only without Sutekh's full manifestation at the end; maybe he appears on the screens or in that smoky form around the TARDIS. Hell, maybe he would fully manifest but just be unable to dust the universe yet. I'd maybe even have him kill Kate and Unit there but not the world, to establish how powerful this guy is. I'd maybe have Ruby be with Mel instead of the Doctor, so that she's away from this initial death wave.

Part Two

The Sound of Drums then spends time establishing who the Master is for new viewers, and the kind of relationship he has with the Doctor. The stakes slowly build, any potential help is removed, and the Doctor's final plan is foiled, leaving him captured and powerless as the Master initiates the apocalypse.

Perhaps if instead of being with Susan, the Doctor tries to take back control of the TARDIS and ends up trapped with Sutekh controlling her?

Maybe they figure out how since Wild Blue Yonder, the TARDIS has specifically been taking them to places that would empower Sutekh with more death and chaos, rather than just where the Doctor needs to be -- the Maestro, Finetime, even Boom... all that death and chaos empowering Sutekh to finally take his god-form due to the invocation of superstition making his myth reality.

Maybe at this point it would show that the deaths in Unit were just the beginning -- that through those deaths Sutekh was able to reach back to the entire family line of each member he killed: Donna + family, even Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had been killed before his time. This would establish in the Doctor some guilt that actually makes sense -- he didn't have to turn to Unit for help with Susan and Ruby's mother, but he did, and he didn't notice something was wrong with the TARDIS even though he'd been aware of her odd behaviour of late. He unwittingly brought Sutekh to UNIT and caused their deaths, sending that final ripple of chaos and death that allows Sutekh to take his final form. And now that he's gained enough power, he can coerce the TARDIS in giving her memory to him; of everywhere she's ever landed, past present and future.

The Doctor is forced to watch from the posessed TARDIS as first the Earth, then the Universe, is slowly destroyed, believing everything to be dead, including Ruby and Mel.

Part Three

In Last of the Time Lords, we focus on the Doctor's companions gathering hope and saving the world while the Doctor is helpless.

Unbeknownst to the Doctor, Ruby and Mel have made it back to UNIT. Maybe one of them remember how vivid the TARDIS seemed in the memory room and, in a last-ditch attempt to escape, try to enter it -- discovering the Memory TARDIS within.

This is why I have Ruby and Mel still reach the Memory TARDIS. Much like the companions do on their own in the Tales of the TARDIS clips I've seen, they realise this is a TARDIS made of memories and wonder if they can use that somehow. Ruby realises, as it begins to snow and the screens inside the ship turn on, that her strange memory power is keeping the TARDIS functional, and it shows them through the screens how to fly it.

Mel suggests this all seems to connect back to Ruby somehow, and the memory TARDIS responds positively. They start to go back through Ruby's memories in summary, trying to figure out what they're missing, and realise as her memories flick through on the screen -- one of them is unfamiliar. The Roger Ap Gwilliam realisation happens as normal, they go to find the medical record of Ruby's mum, Mel is fighting posession and decides to take HERSELF out of the room to "keep watch", knowing she won't be able to fight off Sutekh for long. Just as Ruby is about to find the name, she glances back at a noise behind her -- only to see Mel approaching her.

She just barely manages to grab the still-processing screen and escape, but now she's all alone and the screen has nothing to connect to. She never got her mother's name, but the records are still on there waiting to be processed. She realises Sutekh needs the records that are here, and that if Mel reaches her and gets the memory screen from her, she might get her mother's name and give it to him. She realises her only choice is to destroy the only records of her mother she has and accept she may never find her birth mother.

We have a tender moment of her with her face buried in her knees, crying amid the dust, she's all alone and she doesn't understand anything and she was so close but everything is ruined, it's like she's cursed -- she remembers her friends questioning her bad luck, wonders if maybe it was her all along and never the goblins. She wonders if the Doctor is alive, mourns that she can't turn to him, curses him for never finding out who her mum was sooner so they could avoid all of this, begs him to come back so he can tell her what to do because she has no idea who she is without someone to guide her.

Then remembers Carla. Maybe a flashback to something Carla said to her when she was younger; some motivational line about how she's not alone, she never has been; she's got a family even if it's not the one she expected. It doesn't matter where she comes from. It doesn't matter who her birth parents are. She has a real family to save, and that includes The Doctor. She pushes to her feet, still holding the screen, and returns to the memory TARDIS alone.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is being taunted by Sutekh. His only home; his safe place has been turned into a trap of torment and even as he tries desperately to gain some kind of control over her, Sutekh recites the losses and deaths the Doctor has caused. While he shows on the TARDIS screens all the places the sands of death have touched so far, he brings up Gallifrey, and the Flux, how Sutekh prides himself on being a god of Death but honestly he could never dream up something as destructive as the Doctor.

Just as the Doctor is about to give up, he sees Ruby, defiantly approaching Sutekh in the remains of UNIT's headquarters. His eyes gleam as he looks up to the bright red glow of his posessed ship's console, relief painted all over his face.

"I'm nothing like you," he says, even as he watches Ruby intensely; as worried as he is excited, "You exist to bring death and destruction and decay to this universe, but that's not me. Death and loss have followed me a long, long way but if there's one thing I have that you don't, it's hope."

Outside, Ruby is shouting and brandishing the memory screen. "Oi! You great big god of nothing! Is this what you want?"

She smashes it. Tough, she says. Sutekh roars and tears stream down her face. She's visibly terrified, but she stands tall.

"I was so confused," she tells him, "I kept thinking: why me? What's this got to do with me? But I think-.. I-I think I know why you're so interested in my mum. I think I know why I'm still alive."

She delivers a speech about what she's seen and learned from the Doctor: what survives of us is love. She realises that Sutekh is so interested in her mum because the one thing she feels deep in her gut is that her birth mother loves her, and the one thing he can't understand is love surviving despite grief. Ruby loves her mother despite never knowing her, Ruby loves her adopted family, Ruby loves the Doctor, and love is survival and love is life.

It starts to snow as she remembers everything she possibly can; every little gesture from people she loved and lost, every story she made up about her mum, every time Carla has been there for her, every time her friends have ditched parties to come stay with her overnight because she's staying in a hotel somewhere and she's scared to be alone. Sutekh roars and is clearly weakening but it's not quite enough, and the Doctor finally manages to break free of the TARDIS as Sutekh's hold on her weakens. He reaches for Ruby, cradles her in his arms as she runs to him, kisses her on the head and tells her how brave she is and how proud he is, then pulls her to the TARDIS console.

The ship immediately takes off, trying to shake off Sutekh while Sutekh tries to shake Ruby and the Doctor out of her. They're careening through the vortex, TARDIS doors stuck wide open, and the Doctor quickly slips a Mavity glove onto Ruby's hand, yanks off a panel of the TARDIS, and presses her hand to the psychic membrane underneath. He tells her to hold on for dear life and remember everything. The TARDIS amplifies her memories, feeds that love and life straight into Sutekh, and the Doctor gives one last speech about how humanity survives over and over despite their mortality, how human love is life, how Ruby is life. As Sutekh begins to break apart, we see people start to return from the dust.

As the story comes to a close, the Doctor apologises to Ruby. He suggests that maybe they could go forward and find that DNA result again, but Ruby declines. She says it's not fair to use something that was taken from her mum against her will as a tool to find her. She accepts that she might never find out who her birth mum is, but that's okay -- because she's realised her real family have been with her all along. The abandonment will never leave her, but after losing the whole world the only thing she wants right now is to see Carla again.

They part ways with Ruby cautioning the Doctor that maybe he should go find Susan some day. She must be feeling pretty abandoned too. And the episode ends basically the same way, only with Ruby making peace not knowing who her mum is -- meaning the mystery is left open for now in a more satisfying way.

I dunno. This got away from me a lil. I just think there's so many places this story could have been taken and it missed the mark in so many ways.

[noddytheornithopod]

Some more in-depth Tales of the Empire thoughts/questions

This is really nerdy and nitpicky of me to ask, but... what is Barriss' Inquisitor name? I can't help but wanna know. Then again, we don't know Marrok's name either, and also what the fuck up is with bird man (who until confirmed otherwise I'm treating as the the Sixth Brother being an edgelord dressing as a plague doctor, I will insist the only reason they aren't calling him Sixth Brother is because then the Lucasfilm Story Group would have to admit Tales of the Jedi overwrote published material in significant ways, and then they'd get more angry nerds than they already have to deal with, lol).

I do kind of wish we leaned a bit more into Barriss' established relationships a bit, Luminara Unduli is indirectly mentioned in the last short, and Barriss mentions having a "old friend" who would know more about the Imperials hunting after kids which I HAVE to imagine is Ahsoka... but we don't really explore these. Like, if she DID reconnect with Ahsoka, I kind of wish we got to see that? I do understand why Luminara didn't appear, with Barriss' characterisation I don't think she could've gone through with killing her if they had a test, but still. I don't know if we needed to see her react to her death, but part of me is curious about that anyway. I will say she seemed to sense something when Vader entered the room, though. Did she sense a familiar presence there? Also surprised they didn't even throw in a small nod to how the Grand Inquisitor became what he was because he heard Barriss' speech and that suddenly validated everything he thought already (if you follow the comics anyway). Not even a simple "pleased to see you as a candidate after your rousing speech" line (which was given to... see below). I wouldn't have called this necessary for the story itself, but I always found it annoying that we have to go off on so much of GI's backstory based on paratext instead of actual stories. Also, still don't know his original name even after a decade, RIP.

On a similar note, I'm not really sure how I feel about Lyn Rakish? Specifically, how her relationship was the central one to Barriss' here. I'm not opposed to Barriss knowing more people, it even helps make these characters' lives feel bigger, but I do kind of feel like there's stuff here that would be nice to know. Like, even when Lyn enters her cell, Barriss recognises her, and they way they interact throughout the shorts implies some kind of connection. Especially since...

...her stabbing Barriss was what made her snap out of being an Inquisitor. Okay, I'm not really sure how to feel about this. I love where Barriss ends up, but also... I'm not really sure how I feel about dying? If she's even dead? The scene was clearly mirroring the second short, where Barriss wanted to save that other Jedi, and nothing suggested that she never got to save her (I mean, she's known as "the healer" next short for crying out loud, also hey nice Legends callback), so even if Barriss looks far more dead, there is that part of me still in denial, lol. But thing is, it's kinda like they went "this is actually about Lyn, not Barriss". Sure, Barriss reclaimed her old self and her development was arguably "complete" in that sense, but that doesn't always have to mean death? Meanwhile, we only really get to know Lyn through these shorts, and while I'm very pro-villain redemption, I'm not sure if doing this through three shorts was enough to do it justice. So I'm kinda feeling like being asked to feel for a character finally returning to the light because she maybe killed her sorta protege while barely knowing anything about their actual relationship on a personal level is kinda eh.

That's something I felt in general. Maybe I'm just greedy, but I really wanted MORE of Barriss' story. Like, at least make it clear why Lyn is someone important in her life besides giving her a literal get out of jail card.

With Fortress Inquisitorius, I do think it's interesting they show it being built, but also not really alluding to how the headquarters is apparently on Coruscant, especially with Vader's throne and all. I don't think there's any real contradictions though, the Inquisitorius probably had several bases (I wonder if Stygeon Prime in Rebels was another?), and the main one just became Fortress Inquisitorius when Vader was given reign over the Mustafar System and therefore Nur, where FI is located.

Barriss' line about how she felt like she was lied to and deceived is actually pretty clever, because its placement is almost like an admission she was wrong. She's still clinging to the Inquisitorius by justifying it as "the Jedi failed because of their hubris, they deserved it, we're here to bring peace and order" but her heart was clearly never in it. Despite feeling like the Jedi betrayed their principles, she actually still followed them. In a way, I think it even kind of recontextualises the Temple Bombing, because it feels more like Barriss being panicked and desperate, basically having a breakdown. She did go to the Dark Side, but with the kind of person she is, those emotions aren't natural to her. We see she can certainly still go there, that other former Jedi basically saying "screw you, all for me" certainly evoked betrayal which would evoke those dark emotions, and of course she goes along with the Inquisitorius basically to survive, aka out of fear, and as mentioned justifying it to herself by saying this is justice for how the Jedi "fell" even if she's clearly hypocritical in that regard. We then see in the final short she's reconciled her past with the Jedi, talking fondly of her time as one, and regretting her turning to the Dark Side.

Huh, just noticed the Jedi is referred to with they/them pronouns.

Now for the other stuff

I don't have as much to say about Morgan, but I will say that Bo-Katan receiving the distress call kinda cleared up a contrivance in The Mandalorian for me. I was like "okay sure, even IF Bo-Katan still was in contact with Ahsoka, how would she know exactly where she is at this moment? what if she went off somewhere else?" But then this episode makes it clear Bo received the call, and thus would've figured out what was going on, and then actually tell Ahsoka to go to Corvus.

I hope the Eli Vanto fans are okay, especially since Pellaeon was shown as Thrawn's number 2 in the short. What I will say is - this was just a glimpse of one mission, this isn't retconning Eli out of existence. Thrawn and Eli wouldn't have been together on every single mission.

Morgan was the original person to pitch the TIE Defender? Huh, that is certainly a very random piece of lore. Also, surprised there's still Venator Star Destroyers instead of all Imperial Is at this point.

When Thrawn asks her the real reason she wants the Empire's favour and admits it's revenge, he accepts. He also shows interest in the Nightsisters even here. I do wonder if what made him receptive was he could kind of empathise on some level, if the threat of the Grysk made him open to Morgan's desire to avenge her sisters.

Mountain Clan appears in visual media, cool. Now people know there's even more witches on Dathomir. With the new lore about the Nightsisters, I do wonder if the other clans also have extragalactic origins in Peridea, or if they developed independently and it's specifically the Nightsister sect that was from there. Either way, it seems like the Nightsisters were the biggest and most powerful, apparently Talzin even united many witch clans. Also, I wonder if Morgan and her mother were originally from another clan but moved to the Nightsisters? Because obviously they look pretty different from the standard Nightsisters. Also was interesting to see the architecture resemble what we see in Jedi: Fallen Order, so that was cool.

Also thought it was a cool touch that the Separatists weren't done killing everyone on Dathomir. We only see the initial battle in one location in Massacre from The Clone Wars, but it does help make the genocide feel bigger, even showing that even other non-Nightsister clans weren't entirely safe. IDK if this makes the droid gunships appear earlier than implied to be their creation in TCW Season 5 (then again, chronologically the Dathomir and Onderon arcs are back to back), but also Grievous didn't have a cape in massacre, which is the REAL crime of this short. Hashtag remove his cape!!!!!!!!!!

[misteria247]

Okay I'm feeling like vibing with LU tonight (I know shocking, what a twist, all that jazz-). And as I'm talking about Legend and by extension Ravio, I'd began to think about the latter a little bit more. More specifically Ravio and his home world Lorule. About how if not for Legend and Fable, his kingdom would still be dying and disappearing out of existence. About how he probably for several years of his life, he'd watched as Lorule sunk lower and lower into darkness. How he watched people begin to disappear whenever pieces of his and Hilda's world slowly began to crumble and wither away into nothingness. Like Ravio essentially, was watching his world die. He walked through the ruins of once lively villages and fields. Even though it was bleak and still in decay long before him and Hilda, he witnessed it's near final days and he was powerless to do anything.

It was as I was thinking about this stuff, that I began to think about Hyrule and Flora and Wild. And how essentially they too experienced phenomenons such as this. Hyrule's world is basically a dead space from what I've gathered. It's a land filled with darkness and despair, and decay in some places of it. He grew up in it, and had to learn how to survive in it and later ended up saving his homeland. Which is still in a horrific state, but he and his princess are slowly but surely trying to return it to its once former glory.

With Wild and Flora, they had disappeared for a century. When they'd returned to Hyrule they were met with destruction and hallow husks of once thriving villages and towns. Places they'd once known and experienced and such, were now nothing more than faded memories and silent graves for those who didn't survive that fateful and dreadful day. While still beautiful in scenery, their Hyrule was something of a stranger. A land riddled with scars and tragedies of those who were once there and are now no longer.

Like thinking about this, I've noticed that these four have essentially been through hell. They've in a way witnessed the death of their beloved homelands, and were absolutely powerless to stop it. Like can you imagine how much that must affect them? Like yes they're currently rebuilding those worlds that they love, but there was a point where they all legitimately believed that this might be the end for Hyrule or Lorule.

Why am I bringing this up, you maybe asking. Well I'm bringing this up cuz I fully believe that these guys could trauma bond over it. Like as in become friends who understand just how awful and terrifying it is to witness the literal death of your home. Like imagine, them talking about their homes and realizing that they know what it's like. Them talking to each other and maybe even giving advice to help each other rebuild their homelands. Offering a comforting shoulder when one of them dwells too much in the past and in the what ifs and the horrors they'd experienced in a dying world.

I don't know man, I just think it'd be neat.

[charlidos]

"With Mr. Mortensen, Bloom "lost" himself in the New Zealand wilderness. 14 hours later they both returned to the LotR set bruised and thirsty and with a photo that's reputed to be the best ever taken of Orlando. If Mortensen would only release it."

In the myth of Viggo and Orlando's adventures in New Zealand and Middle Earth, this is my favourite legendary tale; two men getting lost and spending a night in a New Zealand rainforest, a "moonless night" 24 years ago. The leader of the pack taking the eager young pup on an adventure, Viggo the romantic renaissance man and Orlando's I'll-follow-you-on-any-adventure adoration. It is indeed the stuff of legends. And like all legends, the story changes over time.

So here's all we know, all we can guess and all we can blissfully imagine.

To begin with, the video interview is from 2004, and the info that Orlando was the "friend" accompaning him is from 2005. However, when Viggo told the same story back in 2003, he was alone, no friend mentioned.

"One time, I was in the rainforest near the west coast of the South Island. It was on a shooting break, one of those incredibly rare weekends where I actually had a Saturday off. So I just went down there for a day and a night to a place that I'd been to before. I wanted to get to the coast, so I headed into the woods, but it was a bit of a hike and it suddenly got dark. I hadn't brought a flashlight with me, which was a bit stupid, because I thought I knew the trail really well. But then I got lost. There was no moon and it was overcast, so it was just completely pitch black, especially as the vegetation was really dense and thorny. But I did have a camera with me, which had a flash, and a couple of rolls of film. So I used the flash to try and find my way out. For a second you could see everything around, so I was using the flash to try and find the trail. I kept thinking, 'It must be around here somewhere', but I never did find it. And then I ran out of film. At some point I was just getting really tired and ended up in a marshy area. I was falling down all the time, getting cut by thorns and I thought, 'This is stupid'. So, I found a piece of relatively high ground and lay down for a little while, until the moon came up. Luckily, when the moon arrived I managed to get my bearings and eventually I was able to figure out how to get back to where I started from. It was a huge relief, but when I showed up back on the set, I really alarmed everyone because it looked like I'd been through a grinder."

How come Orlando joined him on this trip into the wild? I can only speculate (it's what I'm here for, making an epic mountain of a molehill), but Orlando is famously very keen on adventure, so I'm sure he was eager to join. Moreover, he obviously worshipped the ground Viggo walked on (his "guardian angel" who has the skills to basically manage anything. Orlando probably thought "what could possibly go wrong?") and took any opportunity to follow his king. In other words, I don't think Orlando was hard pressed about coming along.

Why did Viggo ask Orlando then? Because he knew Orlando would say yes? Because he knew Orlando would appreciate it, more than the others? Because Orlando was the only other actor having a day off? Because Viggo felt a strong urge to share this beautiful and amazing place with him? Because of the chance to spend quality time with his sweet elf boy?

In Viggo's excellent plan for the hike, they'd be back soon, "in time for dinner". But instead they got lost. Maybe the prescence of the pretty elf prince distracted him? Or maybe he was being overly confident in his abilities, and perhaps wanting to show off a little? Even Viggo will want to impress people he likes, I'm sure.

Viggo brought his camera, photographer that he is. But he also brought an extra roll of film, suggesting he was planning to take a lot of pics. Maybe he wanted to photograph Orlando out in the woods; a beautiful elf in his natural element. But then he seems to quite quickly spend all the film on finding the way, running out before they were even remotely near home. Maybe he panicked a bit? Or maybe he really just wanted to get cool, impromptu photos for a book.

"When I developed the film, which was black and white, there were some really interesting images. The flash had lit up the ground, the foliage and these ferns which are typical of New Zealand. Some of them are almost like negatives because there was this fog and the flash was bouncing off them creating a really strange effect. It's quite unusual because there are these delicate ferns with their little tendrils and all the whiteness around them which makes them look like Japanese prints. I printed off four of them, which I've called Lost 1, 2, 3 and 4. You can see them on the internet."

(This is the first rendering of the tale, in 2002.)

The fact that Viggo apparently also took one - at least - photo of Orlando, suggests that Viggo either took some photos before getting lost, or he took photos of Orlando, furtively (or mistakenly?), while he was supposed to flash their way home. (But who is it who claims this photo is the best ever taken of Orlando? Orlando himself? Does he have it framed at home, as a treasured memory?)

As it got dark out with no moonlight, they started bumping into things, falling over and getting scratched by thorns and bruised by trees. They obviously didn't get seriously hurt, but maybe Viggo did start to worry for their safety. Like he said, he felt responsible for bringing Orlando out there, if he also got injured, it would have been disastrous. (Not sure if this rainforest also has dangerous animals and insects. Trampling on a deadly snake, walking into a poisonous spiderweb, getting prowled upon by a wild animal.)

The way Viggo tells it, the whole thing has an air of romantic adventure. Just picture them finding a piece of dry land for them to stay for a while. waiting for the moon and the stars to come out. (Or until the sun came up?) Imagine them lying on soft grass in a glade, talking softly, just waiting and enjoying each other's company.

Orlando can't have been used to being out in the wilderness, particularly in a foreign country, so Viggo was likely feeling protective. And I imagine Orlando keeping close to Viggo at all times, feeling safe as long as he could feel Viggo's warm body near. Trusting Viggo to keep them safe. If it was "pitch dark", how did they keep track of each other? I imagine Orlando grabbing hold of Viggo's hand, clutching it hard, his only anchor in a foreign, scary place. When they laid down in that glade, maybe they snuggled in close to each other to keep warm (since any night will most likely be a little cool). Maybe holding each other, for comfort and safety. Dirty, bruised, thirsty, completely lost and sharing a beautiful night together.

I can also see them finally seeing the first light of day, and being able to find their way back, hiking back to civilisation. Returning dishevled, exhausted yet very happy. I can see them, two crazy and adventurous nutters laughing about that night in the rainforest of NZ. And living to tell the wild tale, for years to come.

It's such a beautiful, romantic image. No matter what, I feel sure such an experience is one you keep with you for a long time. Bonding to the two together, forever. And creating a mythical legend to boot.

[roxannarambles]

Rough Legends Arceus/Volo Headcanon Notes

While playing through Legends Arceus, while I was bored grinding out research tasks I amused myself with developing headcanons for the game.

These are for an OC in the player role/player is not Akari, though. (It's for my character June, who was a Bug Catcher while she was growing up, never did the gym circuit in her region, just liked bugs and casual pokemon battles and hanging out with her pokemon. She was attending her local junior college when she got snatched by the Void)

Headcanons focused on June & her "friendship" with Volo.

They chat about her work with Galaxy. She doesn't actually enjoy it much. She loves pokemon, sure, and the nature's pretty, but the survey work is tedious, lonely, boring, dirty, hazardous, etc. Pokemon research sounds fun in theory but not in practice-- not in ancient Hisui, anyway. The research tasks the Professor assigns her seem so arbitrary and weird, there are very few people in the Survey Corps who are brave or skilled enough to help her out so she usually works alone, she lacks all the conveniences of modern civilization, etc. Camping out for a week in the bogs and going to bed each night caked in mud and slime, not able to bathe 'til you get back to the village, so forth.

Volo comments, 'Well they must pay you handsomely at least?' No, the pay isn't that great, most money she makes is from stuff she picks up off the ground. But, well, at least they're housing and feeding her. It's something.

He calls her sky child.

She remembers her life from before she fell here. She doesn't know why she came to be here, and why that weird phone appeared along with her. She half-remembers a weird pokemon that she dreamed about while in the rift, but she can't remember what it said to her. It was probably just a dream, anyway.

The phone is weird. It has a map of the area, and icons light up sometimes, and she also gets texted mysterious messages. She thinks maybe she accidentally fell through a portal to another realm, but the presense of this phone makes her suspect it's more than that. Did a person intentionally create a portal and push her through it? And now they're ordering her around with this phone? They seem to want her to study the pokemon here.

She doesn't like being used.

The phone has a Notes app. She thought about using it to record her thoughts, but she's paranoid that whoever sent this phone could be spying, reading her notes. She doesn't know if writing on a paper journal is good idea either though, anyone here could find it. She's not sure who to trust here, they already seem so mistrustful of her, they'd likely rifle through her stuff. She wouldn't put it past them, anyway.

Eventually she asks Volo if he can get her a journal with a lock on it. If such a thing exists here. He seems very curious about her request, but doesn't push questions on her about it. A few days later, he appears, having procured her a leatherbound journal with a sturdy locked latch.

He keeps a copy of the key in secret.

Sometimes she camps out for many days in a row during her field work. It's often gruelling and lonesome. People from the Security Corps bring her meals sometimes and supplies to the campsite, but they are not always there-- they come and go. The pokemon professor drops by on occasion too but he's often busy with work back at the village. At night June sits in her tent and writes in her journal by the light of her phone. She can't even get attached to her pokemon, since her rearch forces her to constantly change her team. Supplies are precious, too, so she often can't afford to use tons of potions, and her pokemon faint a lot. They work as hard as she does, to the point of exhaustion, and she imagines they resent her for it.

"So how are things going with your Galaxy friends?"

She tells Volo about how most people in the village seem to act nice enough around her, or polite in the very least. But even after all of these weeks here, she can tell none of them trust her. She can see the looks they cast her, from the corner of her vision, the way they still whisper about her when they think she can't hear. Some are still openly mistrustful or hostile, like the Commander of the Security Corps, although most are a little more subtle. Either way, it's exhausting to deal with. She's worked herself to the bone for them, and they tell her, "you're a part of our family now, we have your back," but it's not true, she know it isn't true. And she's realized by now that no matter how hard she works, how many favors she grants, how many missions she fulfills, it's never going to be enough, is it? She'll always be a stranger here, always out of place.

Even the Pokemon Professor and Rei, the people who are friendliest to her in the village, she doesn't feel close to. They seem nice enough, but in the end they're just using her too, aren't they? To get their research done. So who's to say whether their kindness isn't conditional? It always seems conditional here, in this place. Maybe she's just paranoid, but it's hard to tell. It's hard not to resent them all. She feels scared and alone. She has no one here.

She tells all this to Volo. She's not sure why. Maybe because he seems like an impartial party. Maybe because he's the only one who doesn't look at her with the eyes of someone who's mistrustful. Maybe because he's just there and she has to tell somebody, she can't bear not truly talking to somebody anymore. He listens compassionately. Seems to understand. And tentatively, he tells her that if it pleases her to think it, he'd be happy to call her friend.

She's quiet for a while. So far, her rapport with the Gingko merchant over the weeks had been friendly, but she hadn't been sure whether it had qualified as friendship. He had been straightforward in the past that his motives were professional ones; being congenial with customers was just good business sense. Still, she had always liked to think perhaps it might become more than just being chummy with customers. He'd seemed like a genuinely nice person, and she'd always enjoyed their conversations.

She smiles and shyly thanks him, realizing she's maybe not entirely alone in this place. She's quiet a while, but soon says she wants to give him something. She digs through her satchel. She doesn't have much right now, but she pulls out a curious little fragment of stone, pretty and angular and red. She says she found it while exploring one of the space-time distortions that everyone else is too afraid to approach. He asks if she's sure she wants to give it to him. She says yes. He thanks her and promises he shall treasure it.

Later, he has a jewler turn it into a necklace. He makes sure to wear it all the time, usually beneath the folds of his clothing, so that one day June can 'accidentally' see it.

They run across each other at random times. He's always traveling, and so is she, but their paths always seem to cross eventually. They stop for a spell to chat whenever it happens.

He helps to teach her survival skills, sometimes, like cooking food out in the wild. She cannot always rely on the Survey Corps to bring her food, after all, especially when she's in a more far-flung area all alone. He tells her what fish are good for eating; Basculin are best, Magikarp are worst. He teaches her how to scale and gut and clean fish, how to cook them. He tells her that Sitrus berries are toxic when unrripe, how to find Razz berries, where to look for mushrooms. In turn, she brings him things she finds sometimes that are curious, old verses that Ursaluna dug up, shards of pottery, photos of ruins, strange pieces of colored glass.

One day, they see each other while out in the mirelands, and walk together for a time. He's on his way to gather caster ferns. She warns him not to head in that direction, an alpha has been patrolling there lately. He's never seen an alpha there before and has been to that spot dozens of times, hundreds by now, so he sort of just ignores her, insisting it will be fine, until they hear the cry echoing across the marsh and he stops.

"Er . . . perhaps . . . I will gather some other day."

She decides to catch the alpha so he doesn't have to do that. She's happy she can do something to help him out for once, since it always seems like he's the one helping her. She knows he only has Togepi, after all.

"So what have you been doing to pass the time here, June? When you finally have the chance to rest for a spell from all that survey work of yours, that is."

"Not much. Overthinking, mostly."

"I see . . ."

"What do you do to pass the time, when you're out traveling?"

"Probably much the same."

She looks to him, surprised. The comment had been dropped quietly, carelessly, and he seemed to quickly rebound.

"With all these mysteries to ponder, after all, I'd hardly have much chance to be bored!"

She isn't sure that's really what he'd meant, but she doesn't push it. He tells her he also reads quite a bit. They chat about books and he says he can loan her one of the ones he'd finished reading. He gives her a well-worn book, and when she opens it for a peek, a piece of paper slips out that he'd been using as a bookmark. When she picks it up, she sees there's a charcoal drawing of Togepi on it. It looks beautiful. She holds it up and asks Volo if he drew it.

He seems briefly distressed, but stifles the expression, admitting he did. She tells him he shouldn't be shy, it looks really good! He awkwardly thanks her, saying it was just idle scribbling, really.

When she reads the book later in her tent, she finds he's also left some notes scrawled in the margins. She suspects he's forgotten about them. She enjoys the book but finds his scribbled notes the most interesting part of the book.

When they meet again, they chat about the book she borrowed, discussing the story and characters. One day she asks him if he can teach her to draw. He seems in a rather laid-back mood and indulges her.

She tells him about the Arc phone, eventually. She usually doesn't whip it out in front of people, feeling reluctant to do that; she knows it's a strange piece of technology and it tends to make others uneasy of her, not to mention some might see it and think to steal it. But eventually she trusts Volo enough to show the device to him. It comes up in conversation when he finds her with her pokemon team, taking a group photo of them. (All Alpha Bug pokemon)

He's very curious about it. She shows him the map app, and how to use it. He picks up the basics quickly. He asks her how the technology works. She's not sure how to explain a tiny, pocket-sized computer to the people of this era. It doesn't help she has a poor understanding of how computers work, herself, even coming from an era with them. She gives a very stilted explanation of computer chips and computer code and how a ton of data can be crammed into a very small space. It's not a good explanation but he appreciates her trying. He asks what else her device can do. She shows him the camera app, they take a few photos and a selfie together. He's fascinated with it. What else can it do? There aren't a ton of apps on it, there's a clock, a notes app, a flashlight function . . . she switches the light on. Volo says that must be very handy. Does this device require fuel? She isn't sure. Normally phones do need an energy source, you need to plug them in to charge them, but there doesn't seem to be any charger for this phone. Not that she'd have a way to plug it in, if there were. She's been using this phone for weeks and it's yet to lose power, so she doesn't know if it's solar powered somehow or if it's some other energy source . . . she honestly doesn't know.

"So if you use this device for too long, it's possible that . . ."

"Yeah. It might die eventually, and then never work again. That's why I try not to use it too often."

She doesn't mention the weird text messages she gets on the phone, or the way icons light up on her map sometimes as objectives.

One time she comments Volo seems like a man with a lot of secrets.

"Who, me?" He holds his chin and acts as though he's thinking.

"Mmm, well. In my line of work, you get to know a lot of people. You must be good at small talk, getting to know your customers, and people do like to talk, so I end up hearing a lot of gossip . . . so I suppose I do know some secrets."

He asks June if she'd like to know any gossip and she says sure. He tells her that her Galaxy Commander, he sleeps with a Teddiursa plushie. She laughs. He asks now that she knows it, will she try and blackmail him? So that she could continue getting paid but no longer need to do this tedious survey work?

She says no. She'll have an easier time dealing with the jerk, just knowing the information now. She's not the sort to blackmail, anyway. Volo tells her that she's a good person. June isn't so sure.

He procures for her a bigger bag, like the ones the Gingko Guild use. It's much roomier than the tiny satchel. It's well worth the purchase.

During conversation with him June mentions one time that she gets cold easily and has been freezing her butt off lately during work. A few days later, Volo appears with a nice warm jacket and gloves for her, that fit her perfectly. She is very excited and grateful. He's always charged her for the things he gets her (although he sometimes offers a friendly discount) so she expects the same here. But when she asks how much she owes him, this time he says not to worry about it. She is flustered at first, saying they must have cost him a lot, is he sure . . . but he insists. It would not do him any good if his favorite customer died of hypothermia out in the wilds.

At the Coronet Highlands, there is a place called the Fabled Spring, a secret little alcove by a calm lake, with trees and soft grass and wildflowers. This is where Volo finds June laying there, staring out at the water, idly picking grass, looking very lost in thought.

"Fancy seeing you here."

She looks up in surprise. She asks what he's doing here and he responds he comes here for razz berries. He asks if he might join her, and she nods. He sits with her.

Conversation turns to the next Noble she's meant to face. She's nervous. He tells her he's sure she'll be fine, she handled the last one so well, after all.

She says it's getting harder each time. The last time, with the Arcanine, she got burned very, very badly, and she had to withdraw her first attempt. They had to carry her home. Back in Jubilife, they had a special medicine they used to help heal her, although it still took several days for her to recover.

"So you recovered fully?"

She did. It was a powerful medicine, made from an herb that was a pokemon. But she still remembers the pain of those burns. She returned and soothed the Noble on her second attempt. She's worried this next Noble will be even harder, though.

"Well . . . if it goes rough, all you need is more of Galaxy team's medicine and you'll be as right as rain again, right?"

Maybe. What if they run out of medicine though? She could tell it was precious to team Galaxy and rare, difficult for them to harvest and make. Or what if . . . something worse happens to her than just burns or a little paralysis. They are both quiet a while.

Volo eventually tells her he's sure everything will work out. He changes the subject so she won't dwell on her worries. Shares some leftover fish with her. She loves how it tastes. He has spices that Galaxy doesn't use. It's so much better than that potato mochi she's so tired of.

After she defeats the Electrode Noble, he asks her how it went. Surprisingly well. Easier than Arcanine. He acts pleased, told you it would be all right.

She's been thinking though, about the rift. Since the Commander keeps bringing it up. See, for now, Galaxy and June's goals are aligned. But they might not always be. And she knows this, and it troubles her. Galaxy wants to close the rift, eventually. But what if, in order for June to get home, she finds out she needs to leave the rift open? Or even . . . to widen it?

Could she do that? To leave everyone to that chaos and just bounce? Especially when she's the only one around here strong enough and brave enough to face frenzied Nobles?

Volo says it is an interesting conundrum she brings up. (She says she wouldn't use the word 'interesting' to describe it...) What would she do? he asks.

She doesn't know. It is a horrible thought, she doesn't think she can do it, just leave and screw everyone. Do that to a whole region, a whole group of people?? That'd be awful. But on the other hand. To not only never see her family ever again, but her entire world and timeline....to be stuck in what's to her, a backwater era that's super technologically primitive, among people she doesn't even like (well, except for you, you're pretty cool), to be forever displaced in time....it's....god, she doesn't know if she could face that either. She'd be out of place, out of time and a stranger her whole life, here.

After a span of silence she asks quietly,

"Would you blame me if I left?"

He murmurs a response so gently she almost doesn't hear.

"I wouldn't."

She gives him a bunch of colored fragments and stardust that she's collected.

"Take these, Volo, just . . . just in case."

He asks, what do you mean, June? She says, if things get bad, if worse comes to worst, you can sell these, maybe get out of the area altogether. You're a merchant, you must know how to get out of here in a hurry. So at least . . . you'd be safe . . .

"June--"

She explains she has a ton of money now, nobody ever wants to approach the rifts, and she collects the stuff there in droves. People are too afraid of the powerful pokemon there and of being sucked into the distortions. But she goes towards them, hoping the distortions will bring her home again. Picks up valuables while there. She still works for Galaxy but now not for the money. But because she needs them as allies for now. They are powerful. And she needs their help learning more about all these mysteries, so she can hopefully get home.

"It's just in case. Hopefully it never comes to that. And I may not even decide-- you know--"

"All right, June. I'll take them."

One hot day, June overworks herself to the point of nearly fainting. Volo finds her on the ground, dizzy and weak. He carries her to a safer place where pokemon are less likely to harass them, under the shade of a tree, gets her some food and water. Asks things such as when's the last time she's eaten, or bathed, or slept. She mumbles her answers. It's been days since she's slept any longer than ten minute stints, she was lost in areas with way too much pokemon activity to let her guard down.

"Days?!"

He starts to wash the grime from her face with a wet washcloth, chewing her out for letting the Galaxy people overwork her, and treating her for any less than she's worth (if those idiots realized how valuable an asset she really was, they should never do that, and she's worth her weight in gold), she has to take care of herself--

June starts to cry while being chewed out. Mostly from being overwhelmed from it all. He apologizes awkwardly, tries to comfort her, touching her face and telling her it will be okay. Dries her tears and washes her face, then wants to pull her hair back to help with her cooling down, has to brush her hair first but it's all snagged and caked with dried mud, he gets a comb from his bag and brushes it all out, carefully, so that it doesn't hurt her. Gets her to nap, eventually, convinces her he shall watch over while she sleeps. She is concerned he will be bored, he laughs, he's very much used to passing time. She tells him to look in her bag, she got a book she wanted to give to him next time she saw him.

He reads her diary while she sleeps.

She records her struggles. Her fears and confusion. How much she misses home, how estranged she is here. Her desperate attempts to figure things out, speculations. She hates the public bathhouse the town has, she hates the food, she hates the way everyone looks at her, she hates the cold, the mosquitoes, so many things. The weeks spent filthy in the bog before finally returning to town for a pathetic amount of research points. It's recorded here, so raw.

She talks about the townspeople she meets. Including the Gingko Guild trader named Volo. She analyzes him shrewdly, cautious about trusting anyone, including him. But he's caught her interest, enough to make note of it.

Her entries continie to talk about the professor and Rei a lot, the Commander, the 'stupid potato mochi resturuant jerk' (she hates the mochi too, just because it's all they ever eat), but she also writes about Volo. Mentions each time she comes across him.

He begins to show up in the diary more and more. She eventually says, 'He's the only one who's any fun to talk to, really,' saying that she finds his pure curiosity in investigating things to be refreshing, (as opposed to the Galaxy people, whose research is motivated by protection/safety but claims to be scientific; or the Pearl/Diamond clan's petty squabbles and nonsensical arguments) and his directness about his motivations refreshing too (he's a merchant, he's being friendly because it's good business). It stands in contrast to everyone else. The other Gingko guild folks are fine enough but not particularly engaged in talking with her, the way Volo is. And just not . . . hmm. The sort of person who's interesting, she supposes. He's engaging, intriguing. Still, June knows she musn't be too open with things when talking to him. She knows nothing about the charismatic merchant, nothing about anyone really, and she must be careful in this world.

"He never talks about his past. I often wonder why. I can tell he's carrying secrets, though. I try to ask him about his past, but he always deflects. Sometimes I think he's a criminal on the run from the law, and he's traveled to this region to avoid punishment. He could be a serial murderer, for all I know. Of course, he might simply not want to think about his past, perhaps something painful happened to him or his family. It could be many things, really. We all have our reasons for keeping secrets, I suppose . . . I won't try to push it, just see what he feels like sharing."

Volo begins to flip more hastily through the diary to directly hunt for mention of his name. He sees their interactions through her point of view now. He is pleased with the effectiveness of his infiltrations but also impressed with her attention to detail and her sharp observations and analyses and continued caution. Her descriptions of him stroke his ego and as the entries continue they grow more and more flattering, more and more detailed. He gets to the part where she is analyzing the comments he'd left in the margins of that novel.

June stirrs and he quickly puts the diary away.

When she recovers enough, she's embarassed she worked herself hard enough to get to that point, and is very apologetic to Volo. He tells her not to worry about it, it wasn't any trouble for him; she just had to promise him she'd take better care of herself in the future.

She is asked to quell the final Noble. She drags her feet getting around to it. She needs to earn a 5 Star Rank before they let her go there. She's earned plenty of research points for that but delays telling them, pretends she needs to get more research done.

She's trying to learn more. She's afraid once she quells the last one, the rift will close and she will never get home. She tells this to Volo. But she can't delay forever, she knows; sooner or later Team Galaxy will catch wise. The two settle on a plan; June will try to hunt for those plates and those verses with Ursaluna. And Volo will do what he can to find out more for her, too. They decide to meet up again in a week, choose a place and time.

Eventually, even with what info June turns up, it's not enough. And Volo has his own contacts, but they insist that they have nothing more to tell him. They are still no closer to understanding this mystery.

"In truth, June, it seems the best shot we have at learning more is for you to face this final Noble. Perhaps doing so will help us learn more about these strange frenzies. Perhaps the others are right and something may happen once you calm them all."

"Yeah . . . I was afraid you were going to say that."

He tells her that he's sorry he couldn't be of more help to her. She shakes her head, says it isn't his fault.

He tries to comfort her.

"Who knows, June. Perhaps nothing will happen when you calm the final one. Or something will, but the rift may not close, that's just pure speculation, something else could happen. Perhaps the Almighty will be pleased with your work and send you home!"

She chuckles.

"That's always possible. Although I dunno if I believe in Sinnoh."

"Oh? . . . I suppose an outsider has no real reason to. . ."

June apologizes and realizes it was probably a rude thing to say. He says that no, he's glad that she feels comfortable enough around him to be honest. She asks if he believes in Sinnoh. He says he knows it by a different name, but that he does indeed; he's studied it for most his life. 'What more proof do you need than this strange rift in the sky and the fact that you are here?' June explains her perspective. That portals to other realms are not beyond the realm of possibility. That she may not need the explanation of divine intervention for them. They simply may be an aspect of nature, the same way that the sky, the air, the trees, the sun are . . . and that strange lightning. Perhaps that is just a weird sort of weather. Odd that it strikes the Nobles, but uhm, maybe it's like a lightning rod and hits the strong ones, you know? Who knows. Point is. She doesn't know. But. It is possible that Sinnoh exists and brought her here. She really doesn't know. They are quiet and thoughtful a while.

He speaks again.

"Well. The only way for us to learn is to keep asking questions, to keep searching for answers, and to keep moving forward."

She agrees that is true, smiling faintly. He asks if she is ready. She nods.

When nothing seemed to change after quelling the final Noble, June was glad. The forboding hole in the sky frightened everyone but her. Where they saw fear, she saw hope that she might still return home. They returned to Jubilife and dined on bland, tasteless mochi that sat heavy in her stomach, while the Professor nattered on about pokedex work. There was a certain comfort in it.

The next morning, it all went to shit.

Even June was frightened at the sight of the blood-red sky, which made the rift look like an open wound. It seemed like armageddon. When they summoned her to a meeting, she wasn't too surprised what came next. Was she angry? Yes. But she wasn't surprised. Part of her had always hoped she had been wrong about the Commander, about all the people here, and that they wouldn't turn on her, so it still hurt when it happened, but it really didn't surprise her. That asshole had been looking for a scapegoat the day she landed here, and today she was the lamb chosen for the slaughter. They whispered and stared as she was led out of town like some kind of criminal.

For what it was worth, the professor and Rei tried to help her, sort of. They suggested she seek out the Diamond and Pearl clans. However, the clan's respective leaders could only offer sympathy. They explained they could not help June, lest they risk war with Team Galaxy. The professor and Rei likewise were unwilling to directly disobey their superiors and risk banishment themselves. There was a lot of hand-wringing and sad looks, but not much else. After everything she'd done for them, all the times they swore she was family now, that they had her back. Not a single person stepped up to help her in return, now that she really needed it most.

They sent her away into the wilderness, alone. She had her big backpack stuffed with everything she could carry, and her team of six bug alphas, pokemon who still hardly knew her at all, since she rarely had opportunity to even bond with them. She sat on the hill overlooking Gruelling Grove, under the blood-red sky, just staring out at the fields numbly and wondering what to do next, and trying not to give into the fear threatening to overtake her.

Eventually, a voice startled her from her dark thoughts, and she looked up, meeting with a familiar, friendly face. The corners of Volo's eyes crinkled and his face lit up with his usual sunny smile, even under the cast of the grim, terrifying sky.

"I've been looking for you everywhere, June," he said.

She had only cried once since she'd fallen through the rift, when Volo had found her dizzy and exhausted that one time, but not since then. She felt the tears begin to fall now, though. Volo spoke soothing words and helped pull her to her feet.

She pulled him into a hug, squeezing him fiercely, causing him to wheeze, sounding startled and flustered.

It had felt like an angel had come to save her.

He brought her to his humble campsite to shelter her. "It isn't much, but it's home, and you're welcome to it," he tells her cheerfully. They sit around a campfire; he makes what are essentially shish kebabs for dinner, chunks of vegetable and meat skewered and roasted over the fire. While they eat, he tells her excitedly about one of his contacts and how he's going to take her there to meet her tomorrow morning. This mysterious contact was now feeling much more cooperative, once Volo told her that June had quelled the last Noble and apparently met with her approval. He says that she is very wise on the myths passed down from the Celestica peoples of old, and she will surely be able to help them sort out this space-time mystery.

They share his tent that night. It's a snug fit, and June doesn't sleep much, her mind swimming with thoughts.

She never paid attention in school when they discussed ancient mythology. In hindsight she wished she had. Maybe if she did, she would have noticed sooner that something was amiss.

It wasn't until the two of them reached the top of Mount Coronet with all the plates, and he chose to reveal his true colors, that she learned the truth. She trusted him right up to the end.

When he told her how he bid Giratina to tear a hole in the sky, the one that she fell through, it felt like being run through with a knife.

After everything that happens on top of that mountain, when June returns and gives her report, she doesn't mention Volo tried to destroy the world and everyone in it. She just says they finished collecting the plates, and climbed to the top of the mountain to see if anything would happen. Giratina appeared there, and she battled it, but it escaped before she could catch it.

Technically, all of it was true. She just left out some important parts, is all.

Later, when she's alone doing her survey work, he finds her and grabs her roughly by the shoulder, hisses at her,

“You! What game are you trying to play here?!”

She asks what he means.

“Don't play dumb. I know you didn't tell your Galaxy fools about me. Why not? If you're hoping to use it as leverage, you can forget it, I won't be anyone's puppet--”

“That's-- that's not why I did it!”

“Then why?”

She confesses she's not exactly sure why.

“I guess I just . . . look, if I told them, I'm not sure exactly what they'd do, I don't know how you even punish someone for that kind of crime, but in the very least they'd do something, banish you from basically all of Hisui, probably. And that's what you deserve. But I also know if they did it, there'd be zero chance of you . . . getting better.”

He demands to know what that means.

“Becoming a better person? It . . . it sounds stupid when I say it outloud, I guess. I know the past few months you've spent just lying to my face and using me, but part of me still wants to believe that maybe a small piece of all that wasn't a lie. That there was a grain of truth to it, that the goodness I saw in you is still buried down in there and wasn't entirely made-up.”

She looks into his eyes, trying to find even a flicker of evidence for that. She's not sure. She can't trust her own judgment, anymore. He stares back for a time, then silently turns and skulks away without another word.

She does not see him again for a long time. When he reappears again it's to demand a rematch. She wins again, by a narrow margin. He rants and raves about how close he is to defeating her, fumes about Arceus having chosen her. They argue. As he storms away she yells after him, voice choked,

“I'm being used by Arceus like a puppet, I don't think that's something to envy!”

He stops.

His demeanor changes. Like flipping a switch.

Eventually, says,

“If you resent Arceus, why do you still scamper about and do their bidding?”

“. . . because I want to go home.”

He turns. Asks her if her world is as cruel and unforgiving a place as it is here. June argues she doesn't think the world is cruel and unforgiving, then amends, well, it can be sometimes. But it's also filled with good things, too.

“And why should such ugliness and horror exist alongside such beauty? Why should some prosper while others are left to dine on naught but dust?”

She . . . she doesn't know.

“That is why I want to meet them. So that I may ask. And . . . perhaps fix things.”

“Volo, I understand wanting to make things better, but I don't think the solution is to mass murder everyone on the planet and starting over from scratch! There are better ways . . .”

He remains silent for some time. Then he pulls on the cord about his neck, takes his necklace off. The one he made out of the comet shard she gave him. He gives it to her.

“I don't deserve to keep something accepted under false pretenses.”

Then he leaves. June stares after for some time, confused. Why was he even still wearing it? If he'd been wearing it only to manipulate her, why continue the act once she knew the truth? Did part of him actually care? Or was he still trying to manipulate her now?

He didn't seem to be. It seemed to be a good-bye, in fact. She had a feeling he didn't plan to see her again.

She finds Giratina one day, in a small, dark cave she stumbles across while exploring the coastlands. She's shocked that she can capture it in a pokeball. Gods shouldn't be so easy to subjugate, surely. Perhaps the Pearl cand Diamond clans were right to fear the contraptions. They were strangely chill about her capturing their sacred Palkia and Dialga in pokeballs, but she had promised it was a temporary thing, so perhaps it just went to show how much trust was finally placed in her now.

When she told the Professor about Giratina, he revealed something that surprised her. He said Volo had approached him not long ago and spoke to him. Told him that Giratina had been responsible for tearing the rift in space-time, but that once it battled June, it realized that it was no match for her. It chose to instead protect Hisui, and it was no longer a threat to them.

June should catch it. So that you may study it, he told him.

Perhaps that's why it had been so easy to capture. June was still shocked, though. Shocked that Volo had bothered to speak to the Professor at all. Why did he? Did he feel protective over Giratina and wanted to ensure its safety? Did he want to reassure Team Galaxy that they didn't need to worry-- a peace offering, of sorts? Did he do it for June?

She didn't know. The Professor told her the last thing he said was that it was probably the last time he'd see him; and then he wandered off. She's pretty sure he meant it. She hadn't seen him for a month now, not since he'd given her the necklace.

Later, June sent Giratina out of its ball, when she was alone out on the coastlands. She stared at it, calmly, and spoke to it.

“You spoke to him after you fled the mountain, didn't you? What did he plan on doing? Where did he go?”

The dragon stared back at her silently.

“Please. I . . . I'm worried about him.”

In truth, Hisui wasn't the same without him. She hated what he did, what he did to her, and it felt like twisting a knife whenever she thought of him, but she also missed him.

She was reminded of him constantly, and she spent hours upon hours going over the memories. Sometimes she searched her memories for hints of his subterfuge, wishing she'd noticed sooner, wishing it had been different. Sometimes she'd daydream of getting revenge. Sometimes she'd spend the time wondering if any of his friendship had been real, hoping at least something had been. Often she wondered what was going through his head, who he really was, what he was doing now.

She'd been alone with her thoughts for too long and they were driving her mad. She needed closure. She needed to know what became of him. And she needed something more than the daily life she was living now. Once he'd left she'd turned her obsessive focus to finishing the Pokedex, as Arceus seemed to demand of her. She hardly had spent time doing anything but that work. She was withdrawn with everyone else. She'd gotten closer to her main team of pokemon, that was about it. It was horrifically lonely and monotonous.

It took June time to realize Giratina had lowered to the ground, uncoiling its long body, almost in invitation. She blinked at it.

“Do you want me to, um, climb aboard?”

She was nervous, but when she approached, it remained still. She climbed onto its back, half-surprised to find it felt solid, despite it being a ghost. She settled onto one of its golden ribs, as though it were a saddle. Silently, the dragon raised up once more, and began to fly through the starry sky. It felt surreal.

He misses her and their "friendship," now that she's gone. It takes him by surprise. Why should he miss such a thing? It wasn't a real friendship on his side, of course, but it wasn't real on her side, either; since she had merely liked the lie, not the real him. He was certain she wouldn't have liked the real him. Certainly not after what he did. Naturally.

But he missed it, anyway, that beautiful lie he'd created with her. Perhaps because he hoped like she had liked at least a part of him. Perhaps because it was just nice to pretend.

He hated to admit it; he'd spent so very long in denial that he had cared about her at all, and it still churned his stomach to think about the ugly truth, but it was becoming impossible to deny.

Because he can't seem to stop thinking about her. And it's driving him a bit mad. He's lost now, no clue what he's going to do. He just keeps thinking of the way she once looked at him with such kindness and affection. And how it all transformed to anger and hurt and mistrust and pain instead. Like a lovely flower plucked and crushed.

It didn't matter.

It didn't matter.

It was too late. It wasn't as though she'd ever forgive him. It wasn't as though he wanted her forgiveness.

. . . perhaps he did. But he certainly didn't deserve it.

What was he? Some poor wretch who'd fallen from Arceus' grace. Even Giratina had turned its back on him, in the end. The one creature in all the realms he thought would understand him. He didn't blame it; he'd failed it, after all. He was not worthy to weild its power.

He hid from the world, tucked away deep in a corner of Hisui that others dared not tred. The days passed in a blur, and he barely thought to eat. He spent much time sleeping, but still found little rest, tormented by his dreams.

At first he assumes the Hoopa portal that abducts him is Arceus finally choosing to smite him from this mortal plane.

Giratina leads her to the cave Volo had been staying at. She picks through the refuse, it's disgusting there, a total mess, and his possessions are strewn all about, but she finds no one home. She grows more and more anxious as she searches. There is a fire still smoldering as if he'd been there recently; what's more, she eventually finds his pokemon team is left there. She asks Giratina what happened but the dragon either doesn't wish to speak or she cannot hear it.

The portal finds her too eventually. She's sucked into it in a much better position though. She has her backpack and her full pokemon team on her. When she's spat out on some grass somewhere, she is . . . unamused, though. It feels far too familiar. Powerful pokemon transporting her across time and space at their whimsy.

She wanders around, and eventually comes across Volo. He's disheveled, disoriented, and devoid of most possessions, save for a single pokeball, which has a Togepi. He won't say why he has it (it's the child of his Togekiss). He's shocked when she appears, and says it musn't be the afterlife after all. He asks why she's here, she explains she went searching for him, found his camp empty, Giratina led her there. Then a portal got her. He wants to know why she went searching for him at all, but their conversation is interrupted when they are discovered by some friendly locals. They're led back into town by them. They learn this place is an island called Pasio.

At first June is very, very excited. She thinks she's landed in her native time-line. However, once she gets a phone and contacts her family, she is shocked to learn a version of her already exists in this place. So close to home and yet so far.

In the meanwhile, Volo is amazed by the future and his changed situation and the gears in his head are quickly turning. He tries to lie to the people here and pretend to be nothing but a simple merchant from the past with an interest in myths and the research into sync stones. But June is having none of his bullshit. Once she figures out what he is up to, she goes right to Professor Bellis and the Prince and warns them what he tried to do in the past, and that he might try to do the same again. She doesn't want them to simply lock him up, though, so she asks if there might be some other solution. They thank June for the warning and decide to restrict Volo's access to certain things, such as learning about sync stone research. They also put June in charge of keeping an eye on him, so that he does not cause trouble.

When she delivers the news to Volo, he's shocked, at first, then tries to act innocent, saying he wasn't lying to anyone, he merely didn't see a reason to bring up the past; he'd hoped he could start fresh, turn over a new leaf. June gets very angry, and hurt, yelling,

"Are you KIDDING me? You're still trying to lie to me, even now?!"

This seems to get to him, and he stops trying to convince her his intentions were all purely innocent. She finishes explaining the deal to him, including the fact she's responsible for keeping him out of trouble, now. His mouth curves in a smile and he laughs, dry, bitter.

"So you are to be my warden."

Things don't go very well at first with this new arrangement, and he's not cooperative at all, keeps trying to get away with things, manipulate her, and they keep arguing over his obsessive goals. Tensions mount and they keep butting heads until an especially heated argument, June just snaps.

She barks an order to her Alpha Scizor; it immediately reaches out and grabs Volo around the neck with its massive claw. She screams at him,

“If you're so eager to meet Arceus, why don't I help send you to it?!”

Scizor lifts Volo up off the ground until his feet are dangling. Eyes wide, he looks down at her.

He looks terrified.

She hesitates and then sighs. She tells Scizor to put him down. It was only an empty threat because she was absolutely sick with anger, but seeing the genuine fear in his eyes made her immediately feel bad. She could never actually hurt him.

Maybe she was too good of a person for her own good.

Things change after that. Volo seems to realize June isn't going to be manipulated anymore. He grows more cooperative, more contemplative. (Other plot stuff happens that I only have vaguely defined, but one of them is he starts to become sort of friends with Jacq-- for real this time, not like at the start when he was putting on an act. He also is doing work while on this island, so is June, and he's battling trainers, sometimes, and learning more about the world and the future here.)

Their relationship gradually shifts, and they start to have conversations that are not purely antagonistic.

One day he tells June he read her diary, back in Hisui.

June is appalled but reigns in her anger and asks why he's telling her this. He explains he asked her to start telling her the truth.

"I did say that, didn't I . . . ugh. Okay, that's fair, I guess. But why did you feel the need to even do that to begin with?"

He explains that he thought perhaps Arceus had sent her to Hisui for some purpose, and he needed to figure out why, because perhaps she could be the key to him meeting it. He hoped to find more information there. She sees the cold logic in his choice, and then asks with some trepidation how much he actually read. He relays what he could recall reading, and then starts to ramble about his judgments of her, which were very harsh judgments at that (he thought she was weak, and soft, and pathetic, and she whined and complained about how everything was difficult, and he didn't understand why Arceus would choose her) and she gets understandably ticked off, face flushed in anger.

He cuts her off before she can yell at him, though, when he says reading her diary started to shift his thinking, though.

He says it made him realize just how much she was up against every single day. She had the deck stacked against her from the start. No one and nothing was kind to her in this place, and every gain she made was as hard-fought as possible, and yet . . . she kept going. The weight of the world on her shoulders, pressing down on her, but she didn't buckle. She bent but didn't break.

She awkwardly thanks him for acknowledging it.

One day they are having a relatively minor disagreement and she says,

"I could have just told them to lock you up, you know."

"I know."

"Would a 'thank you' kill you?"

He hesitantly explains no it would not, but he doesnt want to say something to her that he doesnt mean.

She is very unamused.

"So it's not that you can't say thank you, it's that you're incapable of feeling gratitude. Great."

He's quiet for a time.

"...possibly. I'm not sure."

One night he rushes to her room and shakes her awake.

"Hnnngh . . . Volo? What is it? What's wrong??"

He instantly loses nerve and apologizes for waking her, and says that it isn't important

"Wh-what??" She demands to know what it is, it must be important enough to charge into here like that, but he apologizes again and starts to leave and she grabs his wrist. His eyes widen.

She senses his uncertainty and speaks much more gently.

"No, w-wait, Volo, don't go. Tell me what it is." He looks to her.

"Please."

He hesitates a while, working himself up to it, face a little red and licking his dry lips. Finally says,

"Thank you."

She is confused. "What?" With difficulty, he repeats,

"Thank you."

"For what?"

After a bit, he tells her,

"For asking them to allow me to remain."

"Oh."

He explains it does not benefit her in the slightest, on the contrary, it inconveniences her at every turn. Even when he's made it clear he shall never feel indebted to her or help her in any way, she persists . . . she continues to help him. And he doesn't understand why, after everything he's done . . .

He seems to realize he's saying more than he meant to.

"I don't know why I'm here saying all this. I'll let you get back to sleep--"

"It's okay, really, I don't . . . mind you at all. You can come talk to me anytime. Even in the middle of the night."

He seems uncertain.

"Truly?"

"Yes. I mean, within reason, maybe knock on my door gently next time instead of giving me a heart attack, but yeah. Also, um, you . . . you are wearing pants, right?"

The room's still very dim but she can see that he's shirtless. He looks down at himself, considering the question and looking alarmed she might think that. He stammers,

"Yes, of course, I-- I was in bed, but I'm wearing pants--"

The incredible awkwardness in his voice makes her giggle a little. In relief, she says,

"Okay, good, just checking."

He is spellbound for a time by the feeling that goes shooting through his chest when she giggles. It is the first time he's heard her laugh in his presense since he'd pretended to be her friend.

When he returns to his bed, laying there, staring at the ceiling, he decides he'd do anything to be the reason for her to smile and laugh again.

[trulytiredhermit]

What about weapon soul eater reader like they can turn into a weapon and turn parts of their body into the part of the weapon they are in this case a sword. If you don't know that anime they are basically have the same abilities as fi would would they he okay now sense they are a lot more help and would they try to seal that ability afraid reader could wire down or would they not so they could hold onto them more sense their now an object

*Oh cool! Soul Eater was actually the first anime I watched so I know it quite well!

But for the sake of keeping this ask from getting too confusing for others who haven't watched soul eater we'll just keep it to Reader being able to turn into a weapon that anyone can use (so ignoring all that soul wavelength stuff.*

So honestly, I don't think the Chain would try to seal that ability away from Reader. In fact, this ability just allows them to keep Reader close in any of the fights they get into, making it somewhat unable for anyone to steal Reader away from them since they'll always be right at the Chain's side.

Now, do they use Reader in battle is the true question. And honestly for each of the Links I think that that would be up for debate. Especially since they all already have their own weapons and whatnot.

Although the Chain comes to a complete unanimous agreement that Wild is NEVER allowed to wield Reader. Like at all.

They'd all be too afraid of Wild breaking Reader's weapon form and then end up hurting them. Because after all, that sword is still Reader and any damage done to their weapon form is going to reflect back onto them.

But don't worry, Wild still gets his time with Reader. It just has to be in their human form.

Four is really interested in Reader's weapon form. I'm talking he's totally checking it out and wondering about how the craftmanship is different from a normal sword.

Sky is also interested in Reader's weapon form, and he definitely gets a sense of nostalgia whenever Reader talks to him while in their weapon form.

However, when the Chain first discover Reader's ability (perhaps the chain had been in a tight situation and one of the Link's weapons got knocked away and then Reader was suddenly grabbing their hand and a sword was then in their place) they seriously think that Reader has been cursed or something. Like they totally freak out.

I'm talking Hyrule's trying to use his healing spells on Reader and seeing if that will work. (Hint: it doesn't because Reader's completely fine).

Legend and Four are throwing out moon pearls and whatnot thinking Reader was changed by dark magic or something and are vehemently swearing up and down about how they're going to free Reader from their "prison".

Twilight's keeping Wild and Wind at bay since he's a little worried they may end up scoffing Reader's sword form and therefore perhaps hurt her.

And I imagine it was Time or Warriors that got their weapon knocked away and is now holding Reader's sword form. So, for whichever one it is, they're holding Reader so, so tenderly and gently. I'm taking holding the sword out with two hands and just keeping a constant eye on it.

Sky is trying to calmy talk to Reader while they're in their sword form. Don't get me wrong, he's completely freaking out too, but he's also used to seeing someone suddenly transform into a sword (well somewhat, I mean Fi never actually transformed into the master sword, her spirit just resided in it. Like she didn't physically transform.)

But the Chain's worries get put to rest when they see Reader's image pop up in the reflective part of the sword and when they hear their voice start to come out.

[luimagines]

Oh gosh. Feeding the chain modern food. I've actually thought about this a lot.

I think it's a fun idea to give them all these weird and new recipes/food items, but I also think it would probably make most of them sick

Like, (speaking as an American) so much food is processed. Even some of the stuff you think you're getting healthy has been processed or is riddled with additives/pesticides/gmo's

So just. unadulterated junk food? On boys that have never in their lives eaten anything but the cleanest, as organic as it gets, nutritional meals? McDonald's? Some sour candy? I wouldn't be surprised if they puked it up

(I can just imagine Wind or Wild wanting to try some of Reader's "weird" food so badly, and then getting immediately sick. The chain then regards them as having an iron stomach for all the weird stuff they eat without batting an eye.

...maybe not Wild though actually. He eats rocks.)

Don't even get me started on the nutritional adaptation. Like a reader that doesn't ever eat fruits/veggies/drink water?? They'd wonder how they're alive 😭😭

Hyrule and Wild are the only ones who can stomach it.

Twilight and Warrior are wiling to try even if they get stomach aches afterwards. Twilight drinks chuchu jelly. So I'm sure he'd fine in the end. And I'm willing to bet that Warrior had to et some weird things during the war when ration ran low so he can tough it out.

Legend can go one of two ways. He can either tolerate like no big deal or he's taken out of commission for the week. There's no in-between. He's traveled a lot so I'm sure he's been exposed to a lot of different things and can thus handle more- but it's a Russian Roulette of what can take and can't take.

Wind and Four don't last long. They eat bologna and are out for the rest of the day with tummy aches.

Don't even try with Time or Sky. They're the most sensitive. I'm willing to bet the smell alone can make them feel sick.

[argrash]

I still think that it is unfair that out of all the chaos gods, only Nurgle gets to have little guys. Therefore have been brainstorming other little guy daemons for the other chaos gods and what they'd be like. I have little idea on what their actual forms would be like, but I imagine them all being about as big as a Nurgling.

Khornlings: These would be the most fearless and concentrated creatures of fury imaginable, they are probably about the size of your hand and they will challenge a bloodthirster without a moment's hesitation. They would scurry in small groups over battlefields, collecting skulls and drinking ludicrous amounts of blood. This as the legend goes that, if a Khornling collects 888.888 skulls and drinks 8 rivers of blood, they transform into a bloodthirster. They have an internal hierarchy fully based on who has the biggest pile of skulls. Killing them releases all the blood they collected up to that point, this sometimes leads to other daemons throwing Khornlings as blood grenades.

Tzeentchlings: these fuckers would function similarly to the blue scribes I imagine. In that they have an innate mastery of ANYTHING that they can get their hands on, but lack any understanding of its function or use. Give them a control panel of a ship and they can make it do anything, but they have no clue what it'll do, they might make it fly perfectly through an enemy fleet, they might just warpjump into a fucking planet. Give them a spell book and they can recite and cast any spell inside perfectly, but they have no fucking clue as to what any of the spells do. As one might imagine this leads to them blowing themselves up quite regularly.

Slaaneshlings (Slaanlings? Neshlings?): these creatures are pretty much just the most horrendous combination of highschool boys and highschool girls. They live in small groups which are constantly gossiping amongst each other and hyping each other to do more and more insane stuff. They are incredibly jealous and always need to one up each other in any way possible. They also love to sit on the shoulder of powerful followers and daemons, and try to convince them to do more and more extreme acts, as they believe that pushing someone else to do something they came up with, is basically the same as doing it themselves. They also gossip all the time about everything and love to collect gossip. This is however a double edged sword as they will also gossip about you to others.

[semisolidmind]

How come Macaque never just... hid Reader outside of the country?

sure, SWK can travel the entire world using his cloud, but for him to personally check every single country in this world looking for her, considering unique geography, population and stuff like that? That'd be pretty difficult ngl

Shit, Macaque could just appear in some very obscure, almost unknown island or country jn the middle of nowhere and stay with her there, taking essential items with his shadows for more manageable living conditions... or change location every few weeks. It's at least a guarantee that SWK won't find them so quickly if he's that good at finding them like he's a Geoguessr master or something

SWK is very intelligent, but I'm pretty sure that he'd have a difficult time finding her if she was hidden... literally anywhere else that isn't China

you've got a point, and the reason macaque doesn't leave the country is simple. he and reader would stand out too much anywhere else. or more likely, he'd stand out too much. but he's not about to leave reader in another country all by herself, and I imagine even with shadow travel, it takes macaque just a little bit longer to get places than it does sun wukong.

in regards to the island thing, you realize how easy to spot they'd be on an island? even if there was a human population there, it wouldn't take long for sun to figure out which one was reader, even of she was disguised. and the reason swk finds them so quick is because of gold vision, or whatever the equivalent is. can't hide from the guy who can always see exactly what he's looking for.

(also, i write these blurbs in a sort of myth format?? kinda? i want them to sound a little bit like the actual legends, and in the legends they don't often leave china. not really an excuse but eh)