#but a universe exists where we could have left him there and it would've been more than a tenuous year

[marciabrady]

What do you think of the Love at First Sight trope, especially when it comes to the early Disney Princess movies? Some people may find love at first sight to be hackneyed or outdated these days, but I am very interested in what you have to say about it. I don't think you ever talked about it at length.

I think it's beautiful. A lot of people bash on it for not being realistic, but there's something to be said for things that are either aspirational or simply escapist. And, honestly, I don't think it's that bad of a thing to glorify or like? It's a fantasy- Cinderella has a pumpkin coach, not an uber lol it's totally feasible that she'd meet the love of her life while going to a ball that her Fairy Godmother sent to and it is to distinguish that, in these universes, these are the loves of their life (otherwise Snow White and Aurora still would've been under sleeping curses). And I think, in the age where most people can't even get someone to commit or a text back after a first date, being able to see the example of someone as steadfast as Snow White's Prince, who continues to look for her for seasons even when she seems lost to him, is something that is refreshing and healthy.

They each go about showcasing this notion in different ways. Snow White is an orphan with no one in the world that loves her, and her wish in the well is very clear. "I'm dreaming of the nice things he'll say." Before it can echo back to her, she finds him- the literal answer to her hopes and dreams. That's so empowering to me? That she believed she was enough and wanted better for herself, and knew what she wanted, and that his existence was contingent upon her wish in the well. It's a young, sweet romance- that's so pure. When he sings of his love being "constant and true," we see it in the film, as he continues to search for her until the very end and which lends credence to Snow White singing "Someday My Prince Will Come." She doesn't stress over whether they will ever see one another, because despite the time or distance that might separate them, they're never lost to one another. That's why she tells the hag, "Well, there is someone" when she's asked if that's someone she loves.

Cinderella and Charming's love is also different- neither of them were looking for it or expected it. Cinderella never mentions wanting love, nor does Charming; to the contrary, Charming is placed in front of an endless bevy of beautiful women, decked out in the finest clothing they have, and he's unimpressed (I dare anyone to tell me that his interest in Cinderella was based on looks). Appearances mean little to nothing to him. While we listen to the Grand Duke's metatextual speech though, we see Charming spot Cinderella out from the crowd and approach her. "There she stands, the girl of his dreams. Who she is or whence she came, he knows not. Nor does he care. But his heart tells him that here, here is the maid predestined to be his bride." It's a pure vibes thing, and when you are in contact with that person you were meant for, many consider this to be a twin flame, it changes everything. That's why Charming knew he could never go back to life the way it was before the ball after Cinderella left; he couldn't live a life without her. I also think it's so fitting for them and cute that they vibed out for hours at the ball, considering Cinderella fighting so hard to go to a party so that she could enjoy herself.

Aurora and Phillip also have their unique connection. They're both extremely romantic and fantasy oriented- Phillip literally slays a dragon for Aurora's honor and promises to renounce the throne after meeting her for a single afternoon. Aurora, while she returns to the castle to fulfill her royal obligation, feels that life without him is empty and can't contemplate a life without love- it'd be like a bird without a song. While they have different temperaments and characters, I think they compliment one another beautifully and have such great chemistry that it truly does feel as though they'd met once upon a dream.

In any of these cases, if the connections were shallow or something where one forgot about the other the next day, that'd be another matter entirely. But they were all willing to fight for their love, show commitment under extreme circumstances, a unyielding devotion, and both a chemistry and a connection that was special unto each pairing and underlined a natural affinity toward one another so I don't see what's wrong with it and I lean more toward these types of relationships over the Disney ones where they just yell at one another repeatedly or resort to physical violence for comedy.

[ggren-mainz]

Umineko - question arcs playthrough -> ep 1 - 12 - final

last part - All parts and episodes - next part

Can't believe I finished ep 1. Well here will be the tea part, my theories and ideas :]

ok first thing i noticed. Purgatory? So this isn't some external thing like in Higurashi where they were acting like actors in a movie? This is still canon to their universe, and simply what happens in their purgatory? Is this also referring to them getting a second chance?

secon thing. I literally kept saying this, but nobody listens to me *rolls eyes *

Anyways another interesting thing i noticed in the tips.

It says this at George and more or less the same at Jessica. SO this means because of Battler's lack of faith they all went to hell? I bet this will be important later on.

Also all of them saying it like 'this' does not give me a good vibe. Only the servants say it like this, and it was visible throughout the story as well. Do they not actually believe in her existence, or is "exist" a term that can't define her way of being?

This makes me even more convinced that it was not magic lmao. Reads too much like propaganda. and also the first crime would've been totally doable by a human. It really wasn't that complex. maybe the others but the first one - not magic at all.

It's like they want us to believe there was no magic involved, with how fake and propagandishy they sound. Also Jessica and George do not sound in character at all...

Wait guys, i just had a thought, i just had a thought! I looked back and maybe i missed it so tell me if i did but, it doesn't mention that his parents put on the chain. Ofc, this is a bit of a stretch but if they never did, it's possible that the culprit had the key and then just locked the chain to make it look like they couldn't have entered. But alas this brings up more issues, like how did they get out. If they're a 19th person they could've hid in the room till everyone left, but this would also mean they had acomplices, who drew the painting on the door. Oh but yeah, another flaw in the magic plan, the crypt was drawn after the murder, so it was obvious that magic wasn't used to open the door. That was simply drawn for show. Yeah there's also the possibility of hidden doors which would answer all of our questions, but i don't wanna go with that until we get actual proof of their existence. Also there was also the possibility of hiding and then coming out when the others find the corpses, but that's the thing, i remember having known everyone location at the moment. So we'll see.

Idk man, i'm getting mad suspicious vibes from George and Jessica rn. You tell me the classic and rational George, just believes everything was witchery?? I don't buy it.

yeepppp i do noooot believe these are the same people, or they're at least altered in a way. Their language is all weird, and they say some things that are so out of character. The only way i could believe this straight up propaganda would be if they know if they convince Battler of the witch they're allowed into the Golden Land. That would make sense, and while they know what he's saying isn't wrong, they need him to believe in Beatrice.

Now we're going into our daily routine of gaslighting Battler. So fun.

I was actually thinking of this too, except i don't believe they pretended to be dead. So i really believe there's more than 18 people, and as such i believe they might've used the corpse of someone we don't know, perhaps a twin? I had this idea in mind, that perhaps there might be a set of twins, that switched out/kept switching out during the story. But those would need to be from the servants, because if they would be from the main family we'd know. This is just an idea I'll throw out, i have no proof but you never know. But yeah if we go on the idea that the killer is one of the 18, than 100% someone faked their own death. Now i'd take out Hideyoshi, Kanon and Kinzo, as i don't believe those could've faked their death, not saying they aren't involved at all. But again, if Kanon was involved with Nanjo he could be taken out of that list. I'd say the first 6 and last 3 killed with their faces fully destroyed are the most suspicious, as those could've been replaced with any other body. Those would be Nanjo, Rudolf, Kirye, Rosa, Genji and Kumasawa. Now don't take me wrong, i don't think these are the suspects, but I'm just pointing out stuff. There really aren't enough clues at the moment. Or at least i don't see them.

and whose body would i be?

um...who is writing this text?

ahahahaha, bulls eye. I was right. That's why they keep insisting. They want to escape this purgatory and go to the Golden Land.

Rika Furude disagrees.

And yeah so is she Bernsomething and a witch here? It wouldn't be that weird, she has said that she is a witch in Higurashi as well, although offhandedly.

No fucking way y'all it's Beatrice! DEATH TO NONBELIVERS! PRAISE HER NOBEL NAME, BEATRICE!!

" 24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. 26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. "

Oh do not worry Beatrice, he'll kiss more than your toes.

>is shown exactly how the crimes were done

>says this.

woah woah woah, what does THIS mean now. It's the same as with Maria. They act like they've been forced to believe. Were they forced to believe?

Anyways so they al disolve and Battler swears to prove that a human is the culprit. Now i only have the ??? left.

Heeeeelllooooo Ri- I mean Bernkastel. Well yeah this does sound a bit like Rika, but in the end this would just be a cute reference, not that important so I'll leave that for now.

alright i got it, i have to pay a lot of attention to the world's rules if i want to understand this mystery, ok ok.

Definitely Rika lmao. ok good to know then.

Now we have unlocked some tips which are very...interesting? I do not get all of them, but i probably will later. Like what's the deal with execute and resurect? I get it it's so i can see all the tips given along the episode but idk.

oookay this one looks very important, so they won't work on Battler huh? alright alright.

ALRIGHT FINALLY THE END. I was so scared I'll reach the photo/link limit but i was 1 off lmao.

So i have kind of said my thoughts and theories already although i was trying to be all cool and nonchalant and keep it at the end uf. Anyways let's recap then

time loop - 1000%

I believe there are more than 18 people. Be it dead or alive, there's a 19th body. As long as the face (read teeth) was fully destroyed the corpses could not be recognized by the policeman.

I believe the witches are real, but i also believe there could be a human culprit. Like yeah witches are real but idk if they're the one doing the crimes. so [ Nanjo, Rudolf, Kirye, Rosa, Genji and Kumasawa] these 6 remain with a big question mark. Now they aren't my actual suspects but that's besides the point, i cant just choose as suspects the people i do not like.

Big question. How reliable are the narrators? Because if they're all reliable then everyone is innocent. Which I severely doubt so myeah. Who is lying?

Also how were the kids killed? 'Their bodies were eaten by the demons' alright alright, but how did they actually die? it sounds like a very violent death and i cannot think of an answer that doesn't include chemicals (didn't Beatrice say something related to that?) or wild animals. Another mystery ig.

I also believe there are more perpetrators, be they direct or not.

The servants are all suspicious to a point, and I'm not saying they're the killers but they're definitely hiding some things. Some many things.

All the other theories i have mentioned along this part which is getting obnoxiously long. Now let me finish with one image, as to reach the limit.

Tier rank of what i think of all the characters i saw for now. I can't wait to see this drastically change lmfao.

Anyways, see you next episode ;P

next part

[clumsiestgiantess]

The seventh chapter of the Other-world Universe; Alexis tries her best to make amends.

all chapters linked here

[Progress is progress, I guess]

You don’t know how hard I tried to stay away, but the small world in the basement was just too fascinating to leave for long.  It was like fate, or maybe just my brother wanting to play, was drawing me back.  Despite this, I never set foot near anywhere I thought Erica might be.  I wanted to stay true to my word, after all.  

Every once and a while, when I was bored, I would go off and explore, though.  Constantly, I would wander through the mountains where I found the climber, wondering if he’d left or if I just kept missing him.  While walking through the area where I’d first arrived, I came across a beautiful lake, cut off from the rest of the world by the jagged mountains surrounding it.  Another time, after hiking for three days, I finally found a beach.  It wasn’t an ocean beach, like I wanted, but rather a large lake; from my tall height, I could faintly see the other side.  Still, it was a beach, and I didn’t want to hike further than that anyways.  To get all the way out there I’d packed a bag full of food, water, and a sleeping bag, invisibly camping anywhere that was large enough for me.  Thankfully I only needed to walk the way there.  To get back, all I had to do was return to my world, think about the open field, and I'd be there.

During those three days, as I carefully trekked through forests and fields away from civilization, I was blinded by a flash of light from above.  After shielding my eyes from the initial glare, I fought to look up.  I only managed to catch the tail end of the strange phenomenon.  What looked like a bolt of empty black lightning split the air, but instead of fading away like normal lightning, it hovered in the sky for a long moment.  Then, the jagged streak vanished as quickly as it came.  I had no idea what the strange lightning-esque flash had been, but I didn’t give it too much thought.  It could’ve been any number of things.  The dark zigzag could’ve been a blank spot in my vision after the strange bright light.  For all I know, the other-world might actually have a weird type of black lightning.  I ignored it and carried on.

I had a lot more free time to spend in the other-world now that I wasn’t looking after Erica 24-7, so I used the extra hours not only for adventuring, but to map out the city and everything around it.  Eventually, I hoped to have a map of all the buildings that shared a twin in my world, as well as how far the limits of the playtable actually reached.  

See, the buildings on the table in my world weren’t a perfect match to the ones there; the other-world had almost twice as many thanks to all the residential areas that were basically nonexistent in my own world.  All the twin buildings I'd come across so far were always somewhat important places, and I'd slowly been jotting all of them down.  My brother and I hadn't aimed to make a perfect little city, after all.   It made sense that a few of the lesser important details were omitted from our building project.

At first, Liam had wanted to make the playtable a complete mishmash of dinosaurs and cool superhero fortresses, but thankfully I'd managed to talk him out of it.  I wonder how differently my first day would've gone if I'd let Liam stick with his original plan.  How much of the other-world inhabitants' lives would we have altered without even knowing it?  What if we took everything off the table and started over right now with a completely new theme, like an alien planet or a giant amusement park?  Would everyone here just vanish like the city had never existed, or would they be forced to live completely new lives in whatever we'd created?  If they did, would they even remember their old ones?

That train of thought was getting a little too existential for my liking.  I shook myself off, forcing my brain to backtrack to what I was doing prior to the rabbit hole I'd briefly fallen down.  I scanned the paper in my hands for a moment.  Right, I was looking for twin buildings in the city.  My need for a list of similar buildings first came with the slightly obvious realization that the three-pronged skyline in the other-world — which I assumed was the same as the four-pronged one in my world from a weird angle — actually only had three prongs.  I’d walked around the other-world long enough to see the city from numerous angles, and all of them had three tall needles that stuck out from the tops of skyscrapers, not four.  Immediately, I needed a new reason to believe the cities were the same.  They have to be the same.  Why else would I be here?

The twin buildings became my new proof.  Though the cities didn’t look exactly alike, they each had the same grid layout, and facilities like a town hall, an aquarium, a museum, banks and gas stations, those sorts of things.  It was a lot easier said than done, getting to everything.  I couldn’t even get close to the more populated areas unless I was attached to someone.  

Ever since the fight with Erica, I'd sworn off controlling people.  However, I did still use them for intangibility; I just didn’t force them to do anything while I was latched on.  It felt like I was making excuses to continue messing with them, but I didn’t have much of a choice.  I could either continue using the other-world people for intangibility, or go back to accidentally crushing almost everything in my path.  Obviously, I chose the former.

I'd already gotten a decent number of buildings jotted down with the help of a few oblivious puppets, when I felt something tugging at me.  I don't know how else to explain it.  I imagine the feeling's similar to the force between two magnets passing by, skating just close enough to feel the pull of the other half without actually touching it.  Stopping in the middle of writing down another contender for my list, I followed the absurd feeling toward a congested street corner.  I stood there for almost ten minutes looking for the source of my odd state.  

Finally, I caught sight of someone below me looking confusedly around in the exact way I did.  I really should've expected my 'other half' to be Erica.  I’d felt this feeling a few times before while searching for her.  It seemed to be a side effect of her being under my control for far too long.  For a brief moment, I reached out to latch onto her before recoiling away as she spun around with a furious glare that made me think twice.  Oh, she can sense I'm here too.

I could tell Erica readily wanted to berate me by the infuriated way she was glaring at the empty alleyway I stood in.  However, she would look like she'd lost her mind if she started cursing out an empty side street, so she kept quiet.  Erica stood in thought for a moment before inconspicuously gesturing to the park down the street on the opposite side of the road.  I understood; she was still intent on talking to me, just in a more out-of-the-way place.  Begrudgingly, I stepped over to the park in three long strides and waited patiently for Erica to walk the two blocks over there.  

When she finally arrived, Erica sat on a bench to the side of an empty field and caught her breath.  I chuckled despite every ounce of common sense I had.  She jogged over here for six minutes just to catch up with the three steps I'd taken.  "Is something funny to you?" Erica asked annoyedly.  "Sorry," I whispered.  I needed to keep my voice as quiet as possible so no one else would hear me and wonder why they were hearing voices in the air.  "It's nothing.  How have you been?"  I tried to change the subject, but Erica saw right through me.  Literally.  "Oh, I'm doing much better now that I'm not a puppet anymore," she quipped sarcastically, "I sure hope you weren't about to do something incredibly stupid to change that."  I sighed, "I wouldn't've actually made you do anything.  I meant it as.. a tap on the shoulder.  To say hi."  Erica huffed out a half-laugh that somehow radiated the opposite of laughter.

"You told me you were leaving," she said pointedly, "Why bother lying to me?  Can't you just make me forget about you?"  "I didn't lie!  I said I'd leave you alone from now on.  I never said I'd leave your world.”  "So running into me was a coincidence, was it?"  "Yes."  "Liar."  "No, I swear it is!  I've never even seen you in this part of the city.  Why would I come here to control you if I know where you live?"  Do I even know where she lives? I thought to myself.  Last I saw of her she was packing up her things to leave.

Erica sat silently for a moment, "Then, why are you over here?"  "I could ask you the same thing."  "You first."  It was fascinating, really.  For someone so small, Erica had somehow managed to back me into a corner.  I wasn't lying to her, I honestly hadn't intended to find Erica there, but at the same time I couldn't tell her the truth about what I was doing, either.  If I did, I'd have to reveal the unnerving truth about her world being fake.  That moment in the middle of the city probably wasn't the best time to explain everything.  I could see it in her; the way she hid her fear behind a mask of anger and sarcasm.  Erica knew all too well that I could puppeteer her again right then and there if I wanted, and she couldn't do anything to stop me.  I could only imagine what might happen if I told her the whole truth of everything I could mess with.  Not just her.

So, instead of tearing down her view of the entire world, I lied in the truest way possible.  "I'm here because I was mapping out the city.  With all my new free time, I've been wandering around searching for neat places and marking them down."  Erica stared into the open space where I sat, still unconvinced.  "Prove it."  I hesitated for a second, then slid the unfinished map out my pocket and unfolded it on the ground.  

Once I was sure no one was nearby, I let the paper go and it slowly faded into view.  I could hear the breath hitch in Erica's throat as a map the size of her old apartment appeared from thin air.  She stepped off the bench and onto the grass to examine my evidence.  "What do these X's mean?" she asked, pointing to a few buildings that had been sketched with two slashes over them.  "Those are the places I want to revisit once I finish the map."  Obviously I wasn't going to tell her they were really marking the twin buildings.  I quickly folded the piece of paper back up, causing it to vanish again.  I didn't want her looking it over for too long, just in case I'd jotted something down that had to do with her world.

Finally convinced I wasn't out there just to stalk her, Erica gave me a satisfied nod and returned to the park bench to collect her things.  "Hold on," I whispered before she could leave, "It's your turn to tell me what you're doing over here."  "I.." Erica hesitated, slowly turning back to me.  She suddenly looked a lot more tired than she had a minute ago; her angry facade had dropped.  "I'm lost.  I went to a new hairstylist that opened in this side of the city, and now I have no clue where I parked the car.  I know it was across the street from the aquarium, but I've only been there, like, once besides today."  The aquarium was definitely on my map.  In fact, it was one of the buildings that had a twin.  "I know where it is," I ventured, "I could take you there if you like."  

"You want to help me?" Erica asked coldly, "Gee, that sounds like a great idea.  I'll just blindly accept your help like I did last time.  Who knows, if I'm lucky I might end up as your little puppet by the end of the day."  She hadn't even said all that much, but her words still stung regardless.  I backed away guiltily and shifted onto my knees, ready to leave.  "I'm sorry," I mumbled, "Shouldn't have asked."  Erica sighed and I froze, partially standing.  She looked up at me from beneath the leafy green trees that shaded the park.  Though she couldn’t see me, she could still tell fairly well where I was.  Slowly, I knelt back down as her expression clouded with confliction.  Erica’s mouth opened and closed silently for a few minutes.  I expected her to give me some speech about how it was wrong to do what I'd done to her, which I completely understood, but she surprised me.  "Can I see that map one more time, please?"  

If she had asked me to bring her the moon or the stars instead, I would've gladly done it.  Anything to stop the gut wrenching guilt that whispered you're a monster over and over in my head.  I'd been avoiding Erica for this reason as well.  Whenever I saw her, or even thought about her, I felt the need to compensate for everything I'd done.  Apparently, she felt as if I were trying to deceive her again, but that was far from the truth.  I only wanted to prove that I could be better; for Erica, obviously, but for myself too.  The image of her hanging terrified between my fingers over the cliffside refused to leave my head.  Then there was that time I’d caught her in bed, crying.. presumably because of what I’d done to her.

I gladly spread the map out on the grass for Erica to examine.  She mutely traced the path between the park we stood in and the aquarium without a single glance at me.

After an excruciatingly dead silence, she spoke.  "Thank you, for helping me.  I.. I think you're just trying to gain my trust, but-  I'll trust you in my own time, you know?"  I let out a breath I hadn't even realized I'd been holding.  "Alright."  Another heavy silence.  "Can I take the map now?"  Erica nodded and I stashed it away.  "If it's alright with you," she interjected before I could leave, "You can get places a lot faster than I can.  Would you mind waiting by my car until I get there?  Just so I don't get lost again?  We have this weird connection of some sort; I was thinking of using it like a compass."  I was so shocked by her offer I forgot to reply.  "It's fine if you don't want to.  I mean, I did just rudely deny your help a moment ago."  "No, I.. I'll meet you there."  

Erica was right; it took me very little time to find the aquarium.  I sat beside it, intangibly peering in at the sea lion show that was taking place when I'd arrived.  Eventually, I could feel the magnet-esque tug that told me Erica was nearby.  She glanced across the busy street at the space she assumed I was sitting in and mouthed thank you before driving off.  I tried to shake away the gloomy guilt and instead thought through the positives.  Miraculously, Erica was making an effort to be nice to me, despite my mistakes.  Honestly, her talking to me at all was an improvement, so long as she wasn't hurting me with bitter words.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I bumped into Erica several times — all purely unintentionally.  We both had things to do in similar places.  Erica had errands to run and her job, and I wanted to map out the city where all those things were located.  We never said much to each other.  In fact, we couldn’t have a conversation of any kind without drawing attention to ourselves.  However, Erica no longer suspected anything horrible of me.  She’d nod knowingly in my direction, and we’d both continue on with our lives.  

We’d only come close to talking once — when I happened to walk by as Erica was getting a parking ticket.  The moment she sensed my presence, she began gesturing for me to deal with the officer every time their back was turned.  I hesitated, wondering if it was a test to see if I would control them.  Honestly, I think that was what she wanted, but I decided to deal with things differently.  Returning to my world for a split second, I grabbed a single plastic bill and willed it to become 100 dollars as I stepped back through.  

Thankfully, there was an empty lot on the other side of the road where I could appear without destroying anything.  Erica looked beyond relieved when she sensed me re-appear.  Cautiously, I reached out over her car and waited until the officer turned to their vehicle for something.  The moment they did, I nudged her arm very lightly with one finger, opening my hand to reveal the fresh bill.

Just as I’d suspected, Erica seemed confused by my offer.  She had wanted me to control them — likely to avoid being given a ticket at all.  A moment later, she nodded at me, realizing that I was only trying to avoid what had made her so angry with me in the first place.  I latched on to intangibility and stepped away, figuring that giving her the money she needed was enough interaction with her for the day.  It was how I’d ended up in that situation in the first place, after all.  I certainly didn’t want to repeat any of my mistakes.

Three weeks after the incident with the map, I officially heard from Erica again.  By that time, I'd completely mapped out the city and had moved on to measuring how far the table in my world extended in this one.  The scale was more than a little bit off, which both confused and frustrated me.  I was passing by Erica's house, trying to determine how far the mountains were from the city with a distance tracker, when I noticed an arrow made from fallen branches in her yard.  The arrow pointed to a large flat rectangle lying on the lawn.  I slowed to examine it.  Erica's car wasn't in the driveway, so I couldn't ask what the thing was, but it had 'to the giant' scrawled on it so I assumed it was for me.  I picked up the rectangle of what seemed to be poster board and turned it over curiously.

It was a note, written out in large letters so I could read them without straining my eyes.

I don't know if you're ever coming back here, but if you find this I want you to know that-

The rest of the letter was written in slightly different penmanship, as though she'd stopped writing for a while before continuing with the rest.

I'm ready for us to meet up again.  Just to be clear, this is NOT me forgiving you.  I want to move on from what happened, and I hope you do too.  After all, you were only trying to help me, albeit in a very backwards way.  If you can find sometime for us to talk, I’m willing to.

It looked like Erica had tried to fit more onto the poster board, but ran out of room writing in a font big enough for me to read.  My heart leapt faster in my chest as I re-read what she'd written.  It had been a while since we'd talked, and even then, we'd never actually had a normal conversation.  Maybe things weren’t as hopeless as I thought!  Remember, I thought to myself, trying to calm down, she hasn't forgiven you, so take it easy.  One step at a time.  You're overwhelming enough as it is.  However small a step the note may be, progress is progress, and I was grateful for it.

[thefirstknife]

Is it just me or are there less morally gray characters on our side now?

By that like: Drifter's more openly altruistic, Mara is opening up and respecting boundaries, Nimbus is super good etc.

All seems left is Spider. (idk if Clovis could be considered morally gray perchance)

Like I'm not against character development & hope and kindness but.

I miss having shifty people, bastards and the like around to muddy the waters

There's definitely less, yes. I would still classify Spider and Clovis for sure, but a lot of the characters have since been kinda forced to pick a side. As Osiris told Rasputin in their cutscene:

A line has been drawn in this system. Light on one side. Dark on the other. Where do you stand?

I think this was a question in general to a lot of characters, not just Rasputin. I also really love shifty characters, but as we near the end of the story, there simply is no time for us to endure and tolerate characters who aren't clear on where they stand. The survival of all existence in the universe depends on it.

I think muddying the waters is something that happens in the middle of the story, but by the time we get closer to the end of the narrative, these have to become clear. Like, right now, our enemies are so overwhelming and so powerful that any sort of indecisiveness or shiftiness can be seen as extremely dangerous. There's no more room for staying neutral or playing both sides.

With Drifter in particular though, I'm super hardcore with the belief that his story was always leading to this. It's the natural line of his character arc. He was cool as a shifty guy, but that was just the surface of him as a character. There was always a deeper desire that he followed all of his life; his desire to be safe and his reliance on hope.

He had his doubts in the Light and Ghosts, but he equally doubts the Darkness. He tried both sides and found them both wanting. What he finally realised, is that his place is with the people. He has always been a person eager to help, just afraid of consequences of angering the wrong side. If you remember his early life in the village Eaton, he was hiding his Light, but he could still NOT resist helping; he was using his Ghost to scout the area for food and push animals towards the village hunters.

Even when he was playing with Darkness as a Dredgen, something within recognised that it's not his place when it gave him the name of Dredgen Hope. Similarly, Shin also recognised this and established contact and they forged Gambit together to weed out corruption in Guardians. And finally, he met us, the Young Wolf at the urging of Osiris no less:

“Go home. There’s a Guardian you should meet,” Osiris said.

“Yeah, yeah. Hero. Red War. Can’t wait.”

When he realised that he can trust us AND that we trust him, he finally figured that he can relax for the first time in his life. It was a tipping point. Everyone spent so long telling him about trust and hope and a possible better future and there was nothing to convince him it could be truly real until we came along.

And then of course Eris came to him in Arrivals and that just strengthened the deal. There were people who needed him, people who believed in him, people he could help. Permanently! Hope for a better future was real and it was worth investing into. Light is not the be all end all, we can use Darkness as well to our benefit and he excels in that, but he uses it on our side. There is no other option. He tested them all out and the only one that makes him not feel afraid is our side.

I find his journey absolutely fascinating beyond any other and his development to be one of the best arcs in the whole game. I definitely enjoy Drifter being schemy and shifty, he was a fascinating change of tone in the Tower when he showed up. But I think that keeping him locked into that role would've been a stagnation of his character and not really compelling. Keeping him shifty just for the sake of having a shifty character would just get boring and it would've led nowhere.

It's definitely a change that makes a lot of people miss the old him, but also remember that all of his shifty acting up was mostly a scam. He was meant to pretend to be shady in order to draw people to Gambit and to enact the scheme of figuring which Guardians will fall to corruption. In truth, everyone in the Vanguard knows about the purpose of Gambit and it's been approved.

Either way, for Drifter in particular I will always say that not only was his change necessary for his own benefit (so he could stop being miserable and afraid all his life), it was also the natural conclusion to every hint about his inherent desire to help and his belief in hope. Definitely made us miss the shifty scammer extraordinaire, but I am primarily interested in seeing my fave get better and achieve what he's been looking for for so long.

Could we have gotten some other characters like that after? Possibly. But as I said at the start, super hard to navigate that type of a person when we're dealing with, basically, the end of a story. A shifty character right now would have a hard time fitting in. Spider is still there, but with much less influence. And Clovis is of course Clovis, but his inability to pick a side is what now makes him potentially incredibly dangerous. That's the problem with being shifty right now; even casual flirting with our enemies is lethal.

[theitcharchives]

I caved. I watched Loki S2

Loki season two was fine but too many of you are being insufferable about the series itself and its lore. Timelines and universes are not interchangeable things–a universe contains timelines according to the series' lore itself and I don't understand how people do not understand this. MCU Loki now holds the timelines of 199999. Quit throwing the 616 thing around (looking at you Feige) and talking about "worlds". Variants are the same people across timelines according to logic, that's why some of the Lokis in S1E5 (iirc episode number) made no sense–Mobius did.

The first season remains one of the worst things I've ever had the misfortune to see, so to say I'm pleasantly surprised by the second is something.

Be warned–pleasantly surprised does not mean "omg it's perfect" it means "I did not expect this measure of respect for character and narrative, there's some good points and there's definitely bad points".

Still, the first three episodes were boring. The narrative in them and in some places of the second three was clunky. Things were underexplained and impersonal, both rushed and scattered. X-05 did not appear outside of the first season premiere, not even the first season proper (according to the internet because I indeed had zero recollection of him and refuse to rewatch S1) yet the second season treats him as if the audience is familiar with him–and it's confusing as heck. I cannot even properly recall what exactly happened in those episodes because it was so clunky and scattered and half explained. Especially the characters and their goals and stakes. I barely cared for Loki's, let alone anyone else's–well except Ouroboros. I love that guy.

Wow, we have to save all these freed timelines? Sure. I mean it's the right thing to do, so let's do it. It would've been so easy to actually get the audience to personally care–have Loki realize in those infinite timelines, there were some he could be happy in. His mother, his brother, even his father to whom his attachment is not resolved, there had to be timelines where they were happy and safe, perhaps even with him. In some of those timelines, Loki gets his revenge on Thanos, he gets to heal. He comes to term with his birth and heritage, he remedies the wrongs he has been done and has done to others in turn. Yes, those timelines deserve to exist, because Loki should know he deserves to be happy too. His "friends" too. Those stories deserve to exist.

Speaking of under-explained... so at one point Loki just... gains control over time jumps? Like that? Did I miss something in the whole thing? Like if it's because it's him, according to The Who being what is important ("in magic", I would have expected) then say it.

Some pieces were predictable. The whole interrogation of X-05 match one and two, the ending path itself (I was surprised by the tree thing though), Loki pruning himself (did that scene really need to be drawn out like that? We get what's happening, get on with it).

Some pieces were drawn out like the self-pruning, like retrieving Victor Timely. The whole time I was like "You've seen him, you can block objects in mid-air and teleport people in cages, snatch him and throw him in a portal so he can see the TVA instead of just talking to him and convince him–why does he need to be convinced?? Show him!!?" Details like these, like the machine that makes the shrinking cubes being left at all in the cell, Ravonna not actually looking to see if any other minutemen were considering her offer before compressing them all (I guess they had to slim down the cast, but man), Loki the Jotun with super strength having to run kilometers to catch one human–silly.

Things that were left out–Thanos, completely. The Jotun heritage. Loki being the scapegoat child in the narcissistic royal family, all his conditioning. It is said he wants a throne, it is never acknowledged why: being groomed to do so since childhood through mentions he was born to be a king, upbringing, education, treatment by family and society. The gender fluidity and sexuality, though with the MCU's regard for those things, it's likely better they left them alone–though the lack of shapeshifting was miffing. New York was handled better than I would've expected, but still breezily.

Now to be fair, many things were good. B-5 outright stating that the pruning the TVA does is an atrocity and convincing others. I'm ambivalent about Loki and Mobius–their relationship in the first season was a terrible one, but they genuinely roped me in in the second. Some things were funny in that delicate way that doesn't need clownery and one-liners that I'd been missing ever since the first two Thor movies. Ouroboros (especially in episode 5–ouch, too close to home). The soundtrack, amazing. The acting came across as more heartfelt. I even managed to tolerate Sylvie in the last few episodes–and oh yeah, leaving romance of any kind out, completely. Thank fuck. Loki actually being the main character of his own series. The fifth and sixth episodes. The sets, the props also felt real. The final outfit is growing on me. The dialogues, the interactions, the camera work, my gods, some parts were amazing. I am willing to rewatch it to make more sense of things, and look at other MCU works to see if it will impact them. I had given up on the MCU–Loki roped me in, Loki gave me back some interest when I thought it was dead for good.

Oh I'm still mad all my searches for comics appearances are cluttered with MCU stuff. I'll be mad until it calms out. "What if it never-" then I guess I'll never stop holding a grudge and complaining.

In the end, I'm just glad Loki got his not-terrible ending. I don't like that his final choice and chance was to sacrifice himself and all his needs for others, sitting in a tree holding the 199999 universe's timelines together, alone after saying teary eyed that he doesn't want to be alone. But it's still better than how he was treated and discarded from T:Ragnarok to Infinity War, and it doesn't exclude Loki from showing up again, some way or the other.

Obligatory link to the Loki comics reading list.

[cagedchoices]

Having watched all 4 installments of the M.atrix saga, I think W.estworld's season 4 finale looping everything back to season 1 is really only *half* a story without a 5th season. 😭 I do think that Dolores's game running in the Sublime is her retelling that story exactly as it happened. The events should happen exactly as she remembers them, and as a result, there shouldn't be any deviation in the first iteration of the loop.

But, in a similar way to Akecheta showing Bernard how the other hosts would use the Sublime to trial possible realities, other worlds of their own choosing — I think Dolores would have to do the same thing on subsequent loops, trying to change the outcome to get the story to end differently.

And something about it *must* change eventually, because we somehow end up with a version of William returning to the real world in the far future. One who is testing if there does exist any reality where he doesn't murder Emily, his own daughter.

The one thing I still don't know if I fully understand with that concept is that if the choice has already been made, then it can't really be changed, even within a simulation. It would be written in William's "code" so to speak, so for any copy to have fidelity to the original William, he would have to kill his daughter. Any reality where he might successfully choose not to kill Emily will mean that that copy can't be a completely faithful recreation of William, in the same way that James Delos's copies couldn't be considered successful since the copies ended up being more empathetic about his family than the actual human version proved to be.

I find looking at the M.atrix as an example particularly relevant since in the 2nd movie, there's a scene where N.eo, in discussion with the Oracle, asks her how he can make a real choice if she already knows what he'll do in advance. She tells him that he's not there to make the choice. It has already been made. He's there to understand why he has to make it and given full self-knowledge of what it means, to test if he can willingly make the same choice again.

The 3rd M.atrix movie deals with this again on the Oracle's end while talking to M.orpheus and T.rinity. Mostly it's a way to explain why they had to recast the actress playing the Oracle's role after the original passed away, but it works in-universe because it implies that the choice the Oracle made cost her a life or her vanity or something about her old self that she would've been attached to and unlikely to part with willingly.

And like Bernard once said:

BERNARD: I always thought it was the hosts who were missing something. Who were incomplete. But it's them. They're just algorithms designed to survive at all costs. Sophisticated enough to think they're calling the shots. To think they're in control, when they're really just...

FORD: The passenger.

BERNARD: Then is there really such a thing as free will for any of us? Or is it just a collective delusion? A sick joke?

FORD: Something that is truly free would need to be able to question its fundamental drives. To change them.

BERNARD: The hosts.

FORD: Here you are... the last of your kind. There's only one question left to ask. Is this the end of your story? Or do you want your kind to survive?

Bernard started out as Dolores's exact recreation of Arnold, and she said he was too faithful a copy. He made all the exact same choices Arnold had to the point that he came to the same end, and having fidelity to the original caused problems in that way, so she changed him and made him into a version who could survive where Arnold hadn't been able.

In theory, creating host duplicates of humans that possess the ability to act in ways that the human originals might not, makes those host copies... more alive...? than if they were only ever predestined to make the same choices. But by that same token they then cannot have fidelity to their originals because the choices they make will be different.

Take Caleb — Hale's main reason for creating 278 copies of him was that she was trying to understand how he was able to disobey her command. She thought that it might relate to the problem she was having in her world with hosts killing themselves after they interacted with human outliers. For that, she needed a version of Caleb who would make the same choices and be driven by the same motives the real one was. But most of her attempts seem to be missing something, because she doesn't get the answer she's looking for.

It's 278 who finally survives long enough to get a message to Frankie and tells Hale point blank that her hosts don't want to live in her world. In his view, she's created a world that is as artificially constructed as Westworld and Rehoboam's world both were, to the point that it's not real. (Real in this context refers not to any physical qualities, but a presence of meaning and purpose to life, which Hale's world lacks.)

279 was never intended to escape his prison unless he chose to become one of Hale's transcended hosts, which he refuses because he, also, does not want to live in any world Hale creates. Through Dolores intervening by sending the guards home and unlocking all the doors in the building, he does escape and reunites with Frankie, and then I've talked about this before, I think choosing not to leave the city with Frankie was him doing something the real Caleb probably? wouldn't have done, which means he might be the most alive and free version of Caleb that exists.

[aftonrobotiics]

//my game theory about the fnaf movie [SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT]

//okay so obviously we know mike, abby, and garrett aren't aftons. william isn't their father (and even if they, for some reason, pull the ultimate bait and switch, he is not the one who raised them. he was not involved in their lives.) we know garrett is dead, and we know mike and abby's mom is dead. so who is their dad? does it even matter if it isn't william? well. I think it does.

//given that michael and vanessa seem to be about the same age, fazbear's (or, at the very least, fredbear's; hence the picture of vanessa holding garrett's plane toy with spring bonnie) would have been operational at the time of garret's kidnapping and murder. doesn't it strike you as odd, that william would be in nevada at that time? that he would go to some campsite, in the middle of the woods, in a different state, just to kidnap a child? isn't it strange that he knows the surname schmidt? that he knows mike is garrett's brother? how would william know all of that? why would he go so far out of his way to kidnap some random kid when freddy's is right there? why does he kill kids at all?

//it seems like the movie likes to pull from old and/or debunked theories about the games; the "vanessa is an afton" theory (with secbreach vanessa, the sheer gap in time just doesn't support it); ye old "purple guy is phone guy" theory (if we didn't already know who matthew lillard was playing, I would've thought he was strictly the phone guy of this universe). and I'd like to point to a few other theories that they could pull from. the theory that the crying child is the puppet; the theory that michael and/or the crying child are emilys rather than aftons; and the theory that "emily" isn't henry's actual surname -- just charlie's middle name.

//guys. henry is their father. that's why william knew where they were; henry probably let him know ahead of time. that's why he knows the name "schmidt;" it's his business partner's last name. that's why he knows michael and garrett are brothers. that's why he went out of his way to travel out of state to find this fucking kid. and this unnamed father's reaction to his wife dying -- if we look at henry's behavior in the novels, what this unnamed father did makes sense. when charlie died, henry went into a deep depression, built some robo charlies, and killed himself, leaving his sister, jen, to take care of charlie (also note the conflict with mike and abby's aunt in the movie; with the aunt wanting custody of abby.) things likely haven't gone that far with THIS possible iteration of henry (unless they want to set up some weird alternate secbreach movie, and that's the reason for gregory's existence (it would make more sense than the game ig??)) but when mike and abby's mom died, he just couldn't handle raising another child, and left her in mike's care.

//additionally, with fnaf 2 being the second movie and garrett's unknown conditions of death, I bet garrett is gonna be our puppet. really, that'd be the easiest way to tie the two movies together -- because outside of introducing the puppet and The Bite, fnaf 2 doesn't have much to offer in terms of lore relevance. I have no conclusion to this post

[long-suffering-little-spoon]

I JUST REALIZED THAT YOU WATCHED THE OFMD FINALE

H-

How are you feeling 🥲🥲🥲

Pahaha not swimmingly, I'll just say. First I have been doing a bit of the ol' menstruating which means everything is immediately more extreme lol. I've been very conflicted and I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about *THE THING* especially, but this is where I stand right here right now at like 11PM lmao

Under the cut cos this ended up being exponentially longer than I thought it could ever be sorry

Overall I've loved season 2!! It has been so much fun to interact with the community and convert everyone to the Izzy hands cult engage with the fandom week by week. We've had some incredibly beautiful high moments and some lovely refreshing queer joy. I adore the new characters and the developments of our existing ones. I know my negative thoughts here are much more substantial than my positives but this doesn't mean I didn't like it!! I just don't feel the need to describe the positives because I feel like they're pretty obvious and universally recognised, agreed upon and beloved, y'know? (if you want a purely positive thoughts autistic happy flappy hands rant™, i can oblige dw)

Izzy's death is not the only reason I have mixed feelings on the finale. Obviously the episode cuts were a result of HBO'S meddling and isn't the fault of the crew, but the pacing still felt off and everything that happened just kinda washed over me like white noise (haha will wo-). The loose ends were tied up in wholesome ways and if we don't get a season 3 this would be a mostly decent way to end our characters' journeys, if a bit rushed. But then...

Izzy's death. A lot of people feel very very betrayed and hurt by Izzy being killed off, some people don't feel the comfort they used to from this show because of it and no longer want to engage. I don't wanna discount these people's views, more power to them; I cannot stop them from feeling what they feel and doing what they choose. I haven't given up hope on this show but Izzy's death just felt pretty unsatisfying to me?? Putting my bias towards him aside, I get the "killing off mentor at end of second act" trope but I just feel and wish way more could've been done with Izzy. I wanted to see more of him being happy and secure in himself and his found family and his queerness and his disability!! But now I don't get that and it very much stings. I think I could've come to terms more with his death if there had been more time to dwell on it all and get to see the individual characters mourn, but again episode cuts, thanks HBO!! /s. And I know they had the funeral but it still feels like we didn't really get a chance to mourn or treat Izzy's death with the weight it warranted. And I am far too tired especially right now to engage in "is this/is this not bury your gays/disabled character" but I will say I've seen pretty compelling arguments on both sides. As an able-bodied disabled person I don't feel it's fully my place to dictate, but I am upset Izzy was killed right after some big moments in his healing process and being a disabled person and in general just enjoying his life.

Personally I'm not giving up on the show as a whole because the finale left a sour taste in my mouth. I still very much like this show and I'm willing to stick around for a potential season 3 and on future rewatches I'll be able to see the stuff I loved separate from the stuff I didn't. But since looking back now, the latter is most recent, it kind of casts an unpleasant shadow on a very enjoyable season of television.

RIP Izzy Hands you deserved better sweetie, you would've loved Drag Race. And also shoutout to Con O'Neill for a fucking phenomenal performance last season, but especially this one. Izzy was absolutely iconic and a fan favourite for a very good reason, even if imo the writers did him dirty. He was hilarious and a petty little bitch man but then deeply broken and compelling and a genuinely beautiful character with a beautiful journey despite an unfortunate and unjust end?? He slayed.

Wow this was a lot!! Sorry if you were expecting silly goofiness lmfao I got very analysi-ish and a bit melancholic. Thank you so much for the ask JJ, it was a good opportunity to try and express all my thoughts and squish them into something cohesive for both you and me. (And thanks to my friend who I was discussing this with earlier; they helped me get a new perspective by sharing some of his thoughts. Dude, if you're reading this you know who you are, thanks a bunch!!!!)

[impulsea]

In an alternative universe where Eric never enters in the picture/doesn't exists, do you think Triton would had found out soon or later about Ariel's grotto? And would had Ariel go to Ursula the same way she did in the film?

Hi friend! I definitely think, with or without Eric's involvement, King Triton would've discovered Ariel's Grotto- and this makes me uncomfortable even thinking about...but because Ariel couldn't trust anyone around her. She already had to be super mindful of who even knew about it, and the only person she willingly told was Flounder, who unintentionally spills everything the minute he gets anxious so he would've fumbled the bag at one point or another, just as he did in the reprimanding scene of the original film. Also, Sebastian was literally appointed to spy on Ariel by the King and discovers the Grotto almost instantly- and he, too, over-speaks during times of stress, as we see him being the one to tell King Triton that Ariel fell in love with a human. So, King Triton definitely would've found out, sadly, because the undersea world wasn't a place where Ariel could've actually had a sustainable hiding spot or a safe place- it's like trying to complete an obstacle course that's plagued by all those laser beams flashing through it and having to try to dodge them with every movement. You might be able to get away with it for a little bit, but sooner or later, you just can't fight against it and the end is inevitable.

However, regarding your second question, Ariel definitely never would've gone to Ursula the way she did in the film if King Triton hadn't messed up the way he did. Again, he invaded her personal space, told her he didn't accept her, and screamed at her. He then left her in a state of ruin before resolve could even be attempted. Even in this instance, Ariel didn't seek Ursula out herself- rather, the eels came to her, and she initially denied them. It's possible the eels would've come to her at a different time, had this opportunity not presented itself, but I doubt she would've gone through with it. When she first rejects the eels, her lines are: "Ursula- the sea witch? I couldn't possibly." Ursula is someone that's been "othered" and alienated as someone who can only live on the outskirts. No one wants anything to do with her and she's deemed as not being worthy of society or inclusion in any form. She's viewed as dangerous, a "demon" and a "monster" and Ariel's been socially conditioned in a way to not even allow herself to entertain the slightest possibility that she might pursue Ursula as a viable contact...but, didn't Triton really just do that to Ariel through her connection with humans? He barges in on her secret hiding space, berates her for saving a human, and deems them as monsters "incapable of any feeling" but Ariel, at this point, is already in love with a human and humans in general. She's seen them up close, interacted with one- she knows better. By Triton not accepting her connection with this world or his daughter, in turn, he's now pushed her into the role of an outsider just as he has with Ursula. Which, honestly, Ariel always was in the film- having to hide in her own part of the ocean, not telling her sisters anything, having to live her life in secret, but it's never been so apparent or violent or intrusive as it had been that night King Triton destroyed her belongings. Where was Ariel going to go to- a home that didn't accept her, to be around sisters that probably would've shunned her after what her Father told them? Ariel never fit into the spaces her Father created, but after that night, she probably felt a weird kinship with Ursula (she saw how wrong he was about humans- how aggressively, horribly wrong...maybe Ursula wouldn't be that bad? Besides it was the only person in Ariel's entire world that she could mildly have hope in after the events of that night) and that created the thread that led her to ultimately go out on a limb and take a chance through that specific avenue. If that never happened, though, I think Ariel would've gone through with the original plan she was voicing at the beginning of Under the Sea- she would've found out where Eric lived from Scuttle, swam up to his castle, and told him about what had happened. The thought is so dear to me, because as a child, I loved this snow globe above all others and the Ariel and Eric figurines are mostly the reason why. You have all the "normal" couples dancing along the stone floors, while leagues below them, Eric descends upon the cool night sea to embrace a little mermaid, her cold lower half unable to rise from her natural home, but her yearning heart and longing eyes warm with an everlasting love for him and every bit at home with him as his soul is with her.

[pass1onepr1ncess]

Doppio, my dad. My father. Mi papa. Sometimes I rotate him in my mind like a microwave and I hope he explodes but sometimes I feel like I'm looking out the window and he's the moon and I know he's gone and I'll never reach him. I had my part in killing him l, and I'll never get to meet him and know what he thinks of me. I'll never know if he would've been proud of his daughter, if he even would have accepted me as his daughter. Sometimes I sit and think about how I can trace parts of my face back to his, the freckles I used to cover with makeup in my source memories, every curl in my hair and the bright pink color of it. My eyes that are the same shade of green as his heterochromia.

And of course there are parts of me that I can trace back to Diavolo, but I don't care about him. He's dead to me, both physically and otherwise. I had my encounter with him. More than one, in fact. He made it well and clear that he didn't want me, that he hated me. Not only that he didn't want me, but that he didn't even want me alive. Not only did he not want me in his vicinity, but he didn't even want me on the face of the Earth.

But Doppio? He didn't even have enough time left to realize who I was to him. He knew I was the "Boss' daughter" and he had only just found out about him and Diavolo being in the same body. And to be fair, he was actively dying. I don't blame him for not realizing then, but I do wish he had. And I know that's selfish of me, especially because I wasn't even there when he died. We all went off looking for Diavolo. But I at least wish he had realized. Maybe he did. Maybe he did and I wasn't there to witness it.

Hardly a day goes by when I'm fronting that I don't wish I could have at least talked to him. I have so many questions I wish I could have asked him, so many questions that I'll never get the answers to. Questions about him, about Diavolo. Questions about my mother, questions about me. But I'll never know what he would've said to them.

I think the most burning questions that always always eat at me is "If my mother contacted you before she died, would have come back? Could we have been a family, and would you have loved me? Would I have been your daughter? Would you have been my dad?" But I don't think I'll ever want to know the answer to that, even if I did ever get the chance to ask. Because if he were to say no, that would hurt. It would mean that the lives we lived separately and the brutal end to our non-existent relationship could never have been avoided. That I was always destined to kill him, and we were never fated to be a father and his daughter.

But if he were to say yes? Then it would mean that the life we could've lived together wasn't such a far fetched daydream. That it was entirely possible and even that he wanted it as much as I do but that it just. Didn't work out that way. That there's a version of us somewhere in some alternate universe that got to live happy lives where he would kiss my mom in the morning and make stupid airplane noises as he fed me mushy baby food. Or helped homeschool me and cooked my lunches, taking me to the playground in the summer and pushing me on the swings. It would mean that there's a version of us that got to be a father and his daughter, and that those versions of us aren't us. And that hurts even more than the first option, I think. That it was always possible, but it just didn't happen. That we missed it by a hair, not even knowing that that's what we could've had.

I made a post a bit ago about how my fathers are my Roman Empire, and this what I meant. But, I'm at work, so instead of thinking too hard about it, I write it down in a Tumblr post where it may not even be seen by other people. And that's okay.

It's cold in the kitchen at work. Good thing I have a purple sweater

[kosmic-arts]

An Unhinged KH Rant That I Needed To Get Out of My Brain

here i am, once again, tortured by hypotheticals like- "what if kingdom hearts didn't suck?" and, "if i could rewrite kh, how and what would i cut or add?"

honestly,, my ideal kingdom hearts timeline is kh1, com, kh2, and days. that's literally it. games extending backwards or forwards from the end of kh2 (bbs & ddd kh3 unioncrossfuckinghell) really sapped the life from the series imo. in a better world, square and disney would've put kingdom hearts to rest by 2, and we would've all grown up and moved on with happy memories :))))

lol. but is it possible to extend the story of kh without draining it of all the magic, mystery, and charm established since kh1? by now i think we can all agree that here at the tailend of the timeline (kh3), this game has reduced itself to a fake deep shitpost soulless disney ad. :) -so, how could it be done anyway? ultimately, bbs would have to exist. you would need something to expand on the story's lore, and the lore of the keyblade and it's wielders is a prime target. i love and hate bbs; but i do think it really takes away from the charm of the keyblade itself and the mystery surrounding it. explains too much, if you will. lets not get into how the wayfinder trio spends their entire time talking about how much they gotta train and how their entire lives revolve around training and how wooden and stiff a vast majority of their interactions are eraqus dont even get me started he is so boring do not talk to me about the shitty gacha paytowin mobile game god help me also their shitty mark of mastery exam is with the fucking flying balls its so lame are you telling me this is what keyblade masters are capable of; what fucking happened to lingering will in kh2fm??? why cant we do any of that shit in bbs? wheres the fuckin keyblade transformations and capes in that game-

ok. bbs would have to exist… but it should've revived kh1's way of integrating disney plots into the main story. ALL the games shouldve revived that trick post kh2. whats the point of disney being a major half of these games if you dont use them. like- ven goes to fucking cinderella world and meets cinderella (NOT AS A RAT), and ven is sad and lost an looking for his friends and cinderella convinces her stepmother to hire ven as a stableboy or a peasent servant or some shit. something to get a roof over his head. ventus learns from cinderella about her dreams and it gets him thinking about what he wants out of life… maybe he wants to see his friends succeed and become masters but thats mainly just a pretty excuse hes been using to mask his true feelings. truthfully hes scared of getting left behind. maybe he discovers that he feels inadequate in comparison to his friends, and fears for the inevitable future where they leave home to lead their own lives/search for their own apprentices. fuck idk. 1 talk with cinderella could unlock all of that. easy. imagine writing. what a concept.

WHAT im saying is. disney shouldn't exist in kh just to be an ad. the reason why sora in kh1 came to the conclusion that MY FRIENDS ARE MY POWER, is because of the lessons he learned in each of the disney worlds up until his confrontation with riku. he literally explains his entire reasoning before he says the line- the disney plots mattered to sora's character development! by the end of the game, he became so much more wisened and was capable of butting heads with ansem who had studied all the esoteric makings of the universe and thought he knew where life began and eneded: darkness lol. but sora had come to a different conclusion: kingdom hearts is light!!! lmao!! it was an asspull, but shit. i could follow the line of logic well enough and it was cool and dramatic without insulting my intelligence.

what am i talking about? disney? i think the timeline extending backwards as far as bbs is serviceable, but nothing in this world will convince me otherwise from the belief that unioncross is hot garbage and needlessly complicates the plot to an insane degree. its literally star wars prequel movies but even shittier, but this time, theres a casino for the little kids!!! yay!! :))

aanyway. what about ddd..? the resurrection of org 13 needs to not fucking happen. and if it does, only like, 4 of the 13 and half of them arent even enemies. i dont want to kill guys i already slaughtered 2 games ago. theyre not threatening anymore GOD. what if kingdom hearts established new villians starting from ddd that would lead into kh3 being a whole new story? pretty epic right? it would be just like how com introduced the org13 the first time after ansem was beaten to lead into kh2! woww! but, like, who would this hypothetical new ddd-introduced villian be? we all know the kh team cant design characters for shit who aren't walking talking black coats. MoM? lol? i like the guy, but hes an overpowered omnipotent all knowing god that is too strong to feasibly be beaten by anyone without a humongeous ass pull deus ex machina to solve the problem. like c'mon, dont act surprised when sora inevitably walks up to him, goes- "light light friendship heart. the future can be changed!" and then MoM is like, "ah fuck i guess you're right. i suppose i, the master of masters, the most powerful keyblade wielder ever, maybe even the progenitor and also seer of all time and existance who knows everything you're going to do before you're going to do it-- knows less than you. i was wrong all along. guess ill die!". don't act like it wont happen like that :))). you really think the kh writers are competent enough to handle a character as difficult to manage as MoM? he's a cool guy, but they fucked up trapping him in this garbage game.

lmao. but anyway, who knows who this hypothetical new ddd villian would be. but it would have to be some other dumbfuck obsessed with the (((power of kingdom hearts))). thats the name of the game after all. so really, what im actually saying is- kh3 shouldve been a whole new storyline with new villians and plot, rather than dredging up closed plotlines from the previous games. we shouldnt have to be waiting till mf kh4 just for a new story. im not playing that game btw. not unless square figures out how to make a game fun to play like its literal 20 yr old predecessors of kh1&2, while also not selling me the fixes to the game in a 40$ dlc. fuck you. REMIND me not to ever play this shitty game ever again.

ok. i think im ok… i got everything out my system. bbs shouldn't have been garbage where you cant even be like lingering will by the end of the game. also disney worlds need to serve a purpose in kh beyond serving merely as ads… ddd shouldve introduced a new villian for a new plotline continued in kh3, rather than retconning and resurrecting everything from the previous games… and MoM is a cool guy trapped in a shit game that will inevitably get botched. yup.

ok i feel better now.

[saltwukong]

The Narrative and In-Universe Disrespect to Penny Polendina

Send me a plot point in Volume 8 + your opinion on it so I can radically alter your already-bad perception of a terrible season of RWBY.

Oh buddy, you better believe I'm ready to talk about that.

See this thing I posted here? About how Volume 8 was written before Volume 7, and very clearly pushed with absolutely zero effort to account for how Volume 7 changed the narrative? Penny is another blatant symptom of that.

The lack of care with the railroading means it's especially obvious what the original plan was and where Burkhart/Rivas/Matthews made alterations that weren't appreciated. Penny was one of them. Miles' and Kerry's original draft of the Atlas arc as a whole means Penny almost certainly wasn't planned to come back at all, much less receive the winter maiden's power. I imagine that was as much an unanticipated twist for M&K as it was for the fandom.

They got the steering wheel back and drove headlong into a river once they did, and you can tell, because Penny gets hacked in Episode 5--which is also the last time we see Pietro or Maria. Did you notice that? You might not have, with so much happening in the plot from there on, but yeah--we literally never hear from Pietro or Maria again. They vanish. When Ruby brings up the efforts to launch Amity's broadcast, she only mentions how it failed to really change anything, and never brings up the status of dear allies of hers. For all she or the audience knows, they're dead.

This was very much deliberate. Miles Luna confirmed Pietro and Maria's presence in "Amity" to be because he didn't want them totally sidelined again and wanted to give them a moment to shine--essentially meaning that, were he not vaguely concerned about fan irritation, he wouldn't have had them in the volume at all. He certainly didn't bother to include them later on when it would've been convenient to have someone like Pietro around, so that Penny's hacking problem can achieve the very obvious solution staring the viewer in the face, that being a counter-hack.

But no. Can't have that--that might mean Penny won't die, and they can't have that because Penny dying is the only way they can get back on track, which was Winter having maiden powers because get it? She's the winter maiden and her name is Winter? Heehee so clever.

So Penny struggles against a virus implanted in her and has her free will completely stripped from her for more than half the volume, until finally just begging the heroes to kill her. She's made human seemingly as a convenient move both to crash Atlas (so that M&K can be assured no one will try and fix their "corrections") and to make it easier for Cinder to inflict the mortal damage needed to get that winter maiden's power back to its "rightful" owner.

The abuses Penny suffers in Volume 8 are extremely uncomfortable, largely because they come off as either spiteful or outright fetishistic. There's no real reason for Penny to momentarily go back to her old self just as the Hound is slamming her against the floor over and over, it's just there to make the viewer even more shocked and outraged than they otherwise would be, so that maybe they'll be relieved when she's finally gone. It's all for the sake of killing her, because killing her is the point. Penny existing at all and having a power M&K had originally drafted going to another character was simply not acceptable. They refused to work around it, and instead derailed everything that had been set up so they could get their own back.

And in the end, they couldn't even be bothered to kill her right. She didn't get to go out after an awesome fight, she didn't get to achieve anything she'd wanted to... She got shanked by Cinder after watching all of her friends tumble away into the nothing, seemingly dying, so that all that was left was to beg Jaune to do what Jaune does best and render women around him in worse state than when he arrived.

That set of scenes in "Amity", after Cinder has been killed and Penny is about to push the Colosseum up to its proper signal? Where she looks down at Atlas and Mantle, then up at the auroras in the sky? It looks suspiciously like a goodbye scene, doesn't it? That's because it is. It's the last time anyone gave a damn about Penny and it shows.

[sprintingfox]

hi, I love your mikaelson sister ocs! I have a question. If Eisa, Hilda and Vivalda all existed in the same world, what would their relationships with each other be like? Would they be supportive of each other's respective love interests? Would each sister's bonds with the rest of the family still be the same?

Omg I love this question. Sorry for not responding earlier, I am seldom on Tumblr.

The answer is a bit complicated. Hilda and Vivalda were both biggg troublemakers that would've had Eisa (and Finn of course) running around like crazy. They both would've loved her very much but Vivalda especially would've clung to Eisa looking for approval the way she sort of did with Finn. Hilda had an okay-ish relationship with Esther so she'd have loved her big sister but never really needed her as a substitute for that parental affection. Meanwhile Vivalda felt Esther hated her and as such would feel like she had to seek out Eisa's approval. Eisa and Hilda would probably be closest in terms of sisterhood because Eisa would've been teaching Hilda to use magic and when they became vampires, she probably would've guided her like she did the others and respected that Hilda didn't want to sire vampires. Vivalda and Eisa would have more of a child-mother relationship... it would get complicated considering what Vivalda tried learning to do in order to stand out; Eisa wouldn't have wanted her getting herself hurt by hanging around Mikael as much and with her substitute parental approval, maybe Vivalda wouldn't have felt as much of a need to do that, but in the end she would have still stuck by that and been a bit on the defiant side once vampirism arrived and it came to her choosing to make a strong sireline.

I feel that Vivalda would've been very frustrating for Hilda to deal with, given Valda wanted to make a super strong and fearsome sireline while Hilda wanted none. Eisa would probably have resolved the issue by assuring each girl that they were doing what was best for themselves. Hilda would probably still have Kol as her favorite while Eisa would still be closest to Finn (and I can see Vivalda and Kol not being as close in this respect and also Vivalda more formally acknowledging Finn and Eisa as the parents she wished she had). I do think this would have made Vivalda be alone a little more often which probably would've left her hanging around with Antonella almost 24/7. She might also have been closer with Rebekah instead because Eisa also saw Rebekah as more of a daughter than a sister for a time + Hilda and Rebekah would still not be particularly close.

Vivalda and Hilda would be super supportive of Eisa being with Aya of course, I can picture Vivalda even getting revenge on Eisa's behalf anytime anyone disrespected her. I totally see Vivalda being less keen on wanting Mikael's approval once she saw how Mikael would treat Eisa for her sexuality. Hilda would probably not be Mikael's favorite in the sort-of ish sense she was in her story; Vivalda would be the ultimate favorite in this sense and even then she would not care for him once she saw how he treated her sisters.

Finn would still love them all very much, as would Elijah. Klaus would bicker with Hilda and Vivalda still, probably Vivalda more than Hilda (though I can see Hilda coming to her defense, and even more so Eisa if Klaus was taking it too far). I think in the same universe, daggering wouldn't have been possible to the extent it was. With the three of them combined, Klaus could not control them so easily. They wouldn't have let Finn be daggered. I think with Vivalda not feeling like she was starving for attention bc of Eisa would mean that she would put up with Klaus's antics a lot less. With Hilda and Kol's help + also Eisa's sternness towards Klaus, he would not get away with mistreating them. I feel in that sense maybe then their relationships with Rebekah would be overall better but Hilda and Rebekah are still not exactly besties.

Where we run into problems is the love interests. Hilda and Valda of course are supportive of Eisa but Hilda had a thing with Tristan in her canon during the time they were in France. This is ok in that time since Vivalda didn't like him at that point (and he didn't fancy her either) but in the future, Tristan would probably seek Hilda out and not Vivalda... though the compulsion may or may not have happened in the same way with Elijah making her think Tristan dumped her in a painful way. In that case, Vivalda would fully hate Tristan for thinking he broke her sister's heart and they would not be as close... though of course she and Eisa would still be somewhat involved with the Strix, Vivalda more than anything. She might've found out the truth earlier and made sure Hilda knew, which could push Alaric completely out of the picture. I don't think Vivalda would be supportive of Alaric x Hilda but Eisa might after a good several chats with Hilda. Vivalda would see it as weakness but Eisa eventually would realize how happy Hilda was and let it be. Vivalda would probably also want Eisa x Aya to be a thing and would have found a way to get them back together so Aya didn't resent Eisa + Eisa didn't feel like she was ripped away from Aya. Cause Valda and Aya were pretty close and Valda would've wanted her to be her sister permanently like being part of the fam so she'd do anything to keep her as that. In which case Eisa probably wouldn't end up with Hayley + I feel that without the daggering (which is the likeliest scenario with these three powerhouses together), she would be a lot different and wouldn't even have found Hayley very intriguing. Viv, Hilda, and Eisa would still have protected her but I doubt Eisa would've still fallen for her if she'd had Aya for that long. That leaves Viv who probably would've still eventually fallen for Lucien, who would've sought her out for sureeee so in that sense she probably would've been just with him. As for secondary characters, Antonella would probably still be with Kol and Isela would probably still be with Elijah, which means Klayley might've happened... Klaus would probably be a better man with all three of these together in one world though I sense he still would've tried to be controlling of Viv's relationship with Lucien + Hilda's relationship with Tristan.

If you have any other specific questions, I would very much love to answer them, this was so fun to respond to!

[inky2556]

Magix Ultra

Chapter 21

It took a few days of planning before the Winx departed for Aeros. Chiara knew she had to do it someday but no matter what she didn't feel ready. Her old home didn't feel like home anymore. Not since that day.

After checking into their lodging, the Winx spared no time and went down to the van they rented that was waiting outside. Originally Stella wanted to be the driver but due to past events,Chiara and Bloom pulled her off of the driver's seat and let Aisha take over.

Which was a good call too since Stella would've been distracted by all the fashion pieces put on the display by the many boutiques in the city. Chiara could only smile at her antics as Musa scolded her to focus on the task at hand.

"So Chiara...you got a crush on an alien." Aisha suddenly said from the driver's seat. Which made said fairy choke on air.

Oh no.

"Wha-Uh-Umm I-I don't have a crush on Zero!" Chiara denied. Upon seeing Aisha's smirk from the rearview mirror, she immediately realised her hiccup.

"Funny,I didn't say anything about this Zero guy."

Chiara suddenly felt a sense of deja vu coming on. It didn't help that all the attention was on her now. Not wanting to restart the cycle of denial,she decided to mind as well just come clean.

"...Yes, I have a massive crush on him."

A silence followed before it was broken by Stella's ear piercing squeal which made Aisha almost swivel off the road.

"Stella!"

"Sorry! I'm just happy that she finally has a boyfriend!"

"Okay first, he is not my boyfriend. And second, yes I like him but I don't if he likes me. Third, my first boyfriend was... you know, him." They all knew that him referred to a certain blue bird vigilante. The universe of the Young Justice League wasn't something Chiara liked to talk about.

"Yeah well,first love isn't everything. What matters is how you feel now." Bloom advised.

How she felt now? After more than one near death experiences, Chiara was more than confident of how she felt for the ultra.

"While you're right on that one, how about you poke at my none existent love life after we finish this." Now she did have a point.

The place that they were headed to was about two hours away from where they left. Normally, magical transportation pads are used to get around from one place to another. But the pad at that place had been destroyed during that day.

Since dealing with the aftermath of that day was hard enough for her Chiara, being the only who could decide what to do next about that place, kept putting off making plans of what to do. Which is why the pad there had never been repaired up to this day.

Abandoning it felt wrong and horrible. Yet there was always something holding her back from not only getting the job done, but finally starting it. Be it a mission or most of the time, herself. Which she now realizes is coming back to bite her since they'll sure be having a hard time finding anything under all the rubble. _________________________________________

"Dont give up so easily!...."

"The thing with liking someone is...It might hurt a lot."

"But...it makes you happy just being near the person you like."

"Meeting someone like that is amazing!"

"So... you can't leave them..."

"No matter what happens!"

"If you really like that girl,then go and see her now!"

"Standing around here and doing nothing won't get you anywhere!...."

Those were the words said,or more like yelled, by Geed's human friend amd AIB agent from earth, Moa. The words of wisdom came when a monster was throwing a tantrum just because the girl he likes was being distant. Back then,Zero thought the situation itself was ridiculous.

But now he can see that it's coming back to bite him. If a monster could man up and admit his feelings then why couldn't he? The words Chiara uttered before vanishing kept playing in his mind.

"...I like you!..."

The feeling was mutual. She liked him back. According to Zett and the rest of the new generation, she has for a while now.

"You found anything Hikari?" Zero asked as he stepped into the Chief Scientist's lab. Earlier on, Hikari had done some tests on Zero's Ultimate Bracelet at the ultra's request. This was because right before she vanished, Chiara did something to it. Since then, it kept pulsing with her familiar energy so much that it was hard to ignore.

Did she cast some sort of protection spell? Or did it now hold the answers to finding her? Wherever she may be.

Unfortunately, Hikari had no definitive answer other then it being Chiara's magic. And he could only get a proper reading on magic using a piece of tech that he helped her develop. Hikari did most of the building whereas Chiara incorporated magic into it thanks to what she learned from her friend Tecna, a literal fairy of technology.

Using regular tech would only give them scrambled up results when used on magic. So, Chiara proposed on making a device that was compatible with magic. With it, they're now able to achieve clearer and more informative results using the tech they made. Although it didn't it help much with finding the fairy, it was still useful for their current problem. Which was the threat of Armadus looming over them.

Nera had been making herself known across the galaxy by taking lives and spreading Armadus's name. She kept marvelling on the fact that even though the first time was a failure, her darling will rise again. Within a short span of time, Armadus became a threat that was the same level as Belial.

All of a sudden, alarms were going of in the lab.The systems that the device was connected to showed warnings and high distress levels.

"What? What's going on?" Zero questioned, his voice nearly drowned in all the siren noises that were blaring. He followed Hikari's line of sight to two enlarged holo screens. One showed the outside of the M78 planet, seemingly empty with a few meteors passing by.

The other holo screen however had a big circle which symbolizes the planet. But on the left side of it were dozens of red dots slowly coming near it. Realizing what was happening,Hikari gravely uttered,

"It's an ambush!" _________________________________________

"You ready?"

Chiara nodded and with that, they made their way onto the grounds of her old family estate. The lush greenery and colourful flowers that once greeted guests were now withered and dried up. Small and large cracks covered the pavement of the walkway.Each step she took felt heavy. Chiara could hear echoes of her childhood all along their walk.

It took a while until they finally reached the threshold of the manor. Or rather, the ruins of it. They didn't know where or how to start. It seemed like even the slightest touch would cause more damage.

But Chiara knew this place well. Since going inside seemed very unlikely, they could start with other areas first. And there was one spot Chiara felt drawn to the most.

"Alright girls, we shou-" turning back Chiara found herself alone.

"Girls? Stella? Bloom? Tecna?" She called out to them. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. That's when she realised that the ruins they stood at just moments ago was no more.

In its place was an open field of green grass and colourful flowers. The eerie atmosphere was replaced with one that felt calm and lively.

Suddenly, a female figure passed right beside her. Her silver hair, longer than Chiara's, and flowing white dress momentarily covered her line of sight.

"Dear!" Said the woman as she approached a man in black robes. He too had long jet black hair. But not as long as the woman's. Hearing her voice, the man turned around. Chiara caught sight of his tense amber eyes that immediately softened once he laid eyes on the woman.

His small frown curved up into a gentle smile as he opened his arms to embrace the woman in white.

"I've missed you,Armadus..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can also be found on: Wattpad & AO3

[lonelier-version-of-you]

“After Fredrick, after Gaskell and then after Cameron” man they really did stack up on murderers for several years straight despite no one enjoying it. Fredrick ok that’s understandable if Americanised. Gaskell was ableist drama mongering that wasted a great actor and was afraid to go where it really wanted and needed to on multiple levels so stuck to superficial ooo scary crazy Frankenstein doctor crap. Cameron was totally inexcusable racist sexist duckers though and the straw that broke it all

They really did. 😩 The Fredrik storyline was very well done and I feel like it actually leaned into the fact that it was unrealistic and wouldn't happen - in-universe it was treated as a massive, shocking deal that nobody could have possibly expected and it was all over the news. You certainly can't say that for the next hospital shooting (the one when Jac left - and the fact that I feel the need to clarify that to jog people's memories it happened at all says a lot), and honestly you can't really say it of the current Casualty school shooting storyline either (I mean, sure, it's been treated as a shocking thing no one would expect, but only because Ollie and Rob were the shooters, not because there was a school shooting).

The Gaskell storyline aggravates me so much because it really could have been great if they'd actually just... addressed any of the stuff that needed addressing (John's background, whatever the fuck was going on with him and Henrik and Jac, Johnrik, etc.), and if they'd kept it at John taking the trial too far in a desperate attempt to save the daughter of someone important to him instead of throwing murder in there for no reason. If they'd kept it more similar to the Plastics Scandal than to the Fredrik storyline, it would've been fine.

Instead, we got needless sensationalism, the show reminding us "hey, psychotic people are scary and evil!" at the same time as having the fucking audacity to go around promoting how "aware of mental health" they were just because they happened to be doing a decent depression storyline with Sacha, and Henrik and John barely being allowed to even share scenes because the show was too scared of letting Henrik be recognised as bisexual. Oh, and don't forget the shoehorned "Roxanna never wanted David, it was Henrik she really loved!" stuff. :/ Just... ugh, fuck you Holby. There are only three reasons the Gaskell storyline had anything good or worthwhile in it at all: Paul McGann (who was trying his best to give John depth and complexity despite the awful scripts), Andy Bayliss (who was trying his best to give John depth and complexity when everyone else was just like "lol he's scary and crazy he doesn't need any personality beyond that"), and the Johnrik relationship (which was, somehow, incredibly complex and nuanced and fascinating despite the rest of the storyline being anything but).

Cameron... well, yeah, he killed the show. What is there to even be said about Cameron except for that? Holby fucking revolved around him for literally three entire years, and they kept bringing him up even after killing him off (the fact that the sixth-to-last ever episode of Holby still revolved around Cameron is just beyond words) - despite the fact that they pretended Gaskell never existed the minute his storyline was over, to the point of ignoring him, Henrik's original male love interest, during HENRIK'S COMING OUT STORYLINE. So many female characters (Chloe, Nicky, Skylar, I could go on) and male characters of colour (I miss you every day, Zav...) were sacrificed to Cameron, either being written out because of him or having all their storylines revolve around him. (It's still disgusting that Chloe's rape was nothing but a plot device to kickstart the serial killer Cameron story.) The Cameron storyline is very close to being the worst thing Holby ever did. The only reason it's not is because the Reyhan storyline, Jac's breakdown storyline, and the finale exist.

And all this just because they thought “hey, Group Animal was successful, obviously people want a million more murderous doctor storylines!!”. As though the reason Group Animal was successful was because it featured a doctor murdering people, when in fact it was so beloved because it was well-written, the storyline made sense and had been built up to, and the acting was brilliant.

[the-letter-horror-lover]

Diorama by mikunatoxx

Anime » Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Rated: K+, English, Adventure & Fantasy, Boruto U., OC, Sarada U., Sasuke U., Words: 3k+, Favs: 1, Follows: 1, Published: Aug 13 Updated: Aug 17

Chapter 1: Prologue

Pin drop silence.

Amidst the myriad of thoughts flitting through her mind, that was the one which somewhat grew on her. Stretching before her was a barren wasteland, debris decorating the thick layer of dirt that had wrecked multiple picturesque buildings, cute little houses, familiar shops and in a sense, her entire childhood.

A tap to the shoulder made her look up, eyeing the blonde she had the misfortune of calling her best friend. "We need to get moving. Border patrol will be here in ten."

This was her life now. Running away from people she had once called comrades, friends... even her own family. Though she wondered, would things have been different if she remained unconscious of their reality? Knowledge was of two sorts — awareness and ignorance. Many would disagree, but she was a firm believer of blissful ignorance.

"Did you get everything?" She threw the question at him absent-mindedly. Right then, nothing seemed pleasant enough as her old bed, so soft and fluffy, and the comforting smell of miso soup, her mother's best dish and arguably the only decent one. But the same home was probably amongst the multiple that had been crushed by tides of the ripped apart earth.

"We're running low on med supplies", he answered, unfurling his cloak and throwing a beige one towards her. "We can stop at Suna for the herbs so that shouldn't be a problem", he continued, listing things off the top of his head.

The faintest of smiles cracked on her face. If they would've been residents of a world where peace came as easily as the sun towards a fresh dawn, perhaps they could have acted their age. At then end of the day, they were but measly teens — way too inexperienced in life. A couple of microscopic existences that amounted to nothing more than specks of dust in the vast universe.

They were playing pretend. Being a ninja was no honor, she'd long concluded. It was a title bestowed to spare the person from drowning in self-loathing, a façade to cover the heinous crimes one committed in the name of loyalty, to their village and Kage.

Bullshit.

If fidelity existed in this age, mass recruitment in militia and blatant glorification of felony wouldn't have been a trend. The morality they spoke so highly of was nonexistent. Otherwise, who'd push their kin into a system responsible for creating a mindless armada, thrusting them in the direction of every possible danger, both known and unknown?

Not someone fucking sane, that was for sure.

That being said, she wasn't proud of what she had become either. Sure, there were many excuses for how she turned out. 'Victim of circumstance' was her favorite out of many. But not one seemed to be accurate enough.

Ninja life was grueling, not akin to anything they could've been prepared for at the Academy. It snatched away one's identity to make them a part of a faceless, senseless and, most importantly, a heartless group of killers. And that wasn't the worst it went. And had she tried to mention every tidbit, her monolog wouldn't end very soon.

Stretching her legs and letting a yawn tear out from her mouth, a sigh left her lips at the sweet crack that resounded. Fastening the cloak that shielded her from the world, she nodded, returning his gesture. "Right. So that marks the fortieth week. Damn, we're getting old."

The blonde smirked, his whisker-like birthmarks accentuated by the uplifting of his cheekbones. "Still younger than you, Sachi. Want me to call you grandma?"

She scoffed. "What an insolent grandson I've got! Apologize, Boruto!"

"Yeah, as if!"