#but it is actually about parasitic extraction

[jessepinwheel]

really unfair that I can write a really good in-depth outline of an epic story and it's a really good story that I would like to share with all my friends but to do that I have to actually write the story

why can't I just manifest the 700k story so I can read it

[dailykugisaki]

Day 104 | id in alt

*Kugisaki voice* Itadori, your mom is a fucking freak.

[leonw4nter]

A Little Tipsy But Massively In Love

Husband!DI!Leon x F!Reader

“Honey, is something wrong?” you ask your husband. He’s been keeping a hand on a portion of his jaw, occasionally wincing and hissing; he has also been making repeated trips to the fridge, looking for anything cold to place on the part of his face that seems to be bothering him.

“No, ‘s fine.” he promptly responds as he shoots you a half grin, clearly in discomfort. He gets back to placing a cold bottle of water against his face, letting out a small breath of relief that he didn’t realize he was holding. Leon’s avoided talking and moving all day, just giving you a thumbs up, a nod or a few words which you find odd; he’s always been very vocal about what he thinks or feels so this is certainly a little new.

“C’mon honey, I can clearly tell something’s bothering you,” you softly say.

“It’s nothing.” he softly mutters.

“It’s not nothing. You’ve been holding your jaw all day. Got a toothache?”

He finally turns his head to you, finally nodding his head bashfully towards you. He promptly looks away though, training his gaze somewhere as the tips of his ears redden in embarrassment; he’s certainly experienced pain much worse compared to a toothache like getting shot or hosting a parasite in his body but something as minuscule as a toothache renders him unable to perform mundane daily tasks.

“Hm. I can check if there’s swelling in your gums. Is that okay with you?” you gently ask.

“Mhm,” he softly hums. You take your phone and turn the flash on before telling Leon to open up and to your slight surprise, he actually opens his mouth for the sake of opening it and doesn’t go “It all started on September 30th, 1998…”; this toothache might be a lot more uncomfortable for him. Sure enough, there’s a swelling and protrusion in a portion of his gum just right after the last molar. You finally tell him to close his mouth and he puts the cold water bottle back on his cheek.

“There's swelling. Let’s take you to the dentist tomorrow, it looks pretty serious. Might be a wisdom tooth thing.”

“Sure thing, doc.” Leon quips with a half-grin though the grin immediately falls back into a frown.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

After scheduling a visit to the dentist, he deduced the swelling and protrusion to an erupting wisdom tooth which he suggested extraction. 3 days later, you two come back to the clinic. While waiting for your turn, you hold Leon’s hand and brush your thumb repeatedly at the back of his hand and give him encouraging words.

“Don’t worry, Leon. You’ll be fine, I’ll be right here waiting for you okay?” you softly encourage.

“And I won’t make fun of you if you’re still woozy from the anesthesia. I promise,” you add with a small giggle.

“But you’re giggling,” Leon points out with a pout.

“I promise! Seriously! Pinky promise!” you say once more as you lift your pinky finger, to which Leon links his own pinky with and gives you a small kiss to the temple.

“I’ll make sure to lug your 5’11 self to the car and drive you home, don’t worry. Just focus on feeling a lot better, mkay?”

“For someone who got their wisdom tooth pulled out eons ago, it’s a surprise you’ve got some words of wisdom for me,” Leon jokes which prompts you to roll your eyes.

“You have a hidden talent with these jokes so I suggest you keep them hidden,” you sarcastically say.

“Ouch.”

A nurse comes into the holding room and reads the last names off of her clipboard.

“Patient 5, Mister… Kennedy. Mister Kennedy?”

“Here,” he says as he stands up. He turns around and gives you a small hug. “See you later, hon.”

“Mhm. You can do this, Leon. It’s going to be just like a walk in the park.”

“Right. Just like a walk in the park.”

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

45 minutes later, the dentist comes back to you and informs you that the procedure went smoothly and they managed to get the tooth out without much trouble much to your relief.

“Your husband will be a little woozy from the anesthesia so expect behavior that is similar to a drunken person– slurred speech, nonsensical babbling, and slightly wobbly. He’s still asleep right now but you should expect him to wake up in a few minutes or less,” he informs you. He rips off a paper from his notepad and hands it to you, explaining some more things like Leon’s medications, proper care, and pain relief. After a few minutes, you walk into his room and see him still asleep; his right cheek was swollen, gauze stuffed in the inside of his right cheek. He looked a little funny at this moment, which caused you to take your phone out and snap a few photos for safe-keeping (maybe as a new contact photo for his number). Soon, he wakes up though he is a little dazed and confused at his surroundings so you help him through it. He must really, really be confused because as you help him put his shirt back on, he tries to push you away and do it by himself. His movements look as if he’s actively trying to avoid you, not even lifting his droopy eyelids to take a look at you, which you found a little bit odd. He did accept help from you, just very hesitantly; when you decided to hold on to his bicep, he pulled his arm away and almost stumbled down but you managed to grab him back and successfully managed to get him into the car without any other troubles.

While driving, you noticed that he would often steal glances from you through the rear-view mirror with squinty eyes but once you two met gazes, he would promptly look away. The situation felt a little funny: Leon sitting at the rear passenger seats, very woozy from the sedatives administered and him acting like a little kid; you decided to seat Leon on the rear passenger seats instead of sitting in the front with you in case he decided to act irrational whilst still not in the right mind, which could cause an issue with trying to drive home peacefully. You found yourself giggling a little bit but nevertheless you kept your focus on getting home safely, which you managed to do. After a few minutes of helping Leon and asking him if there’s something that’s bothering him and reassuring him that you’ve got him, you successfully manage to get him in your shared bed. You were just about to help him undress and take his shirt off to switch him into a more comfortable piece of clothing but he inches away and grabs your wrist.

“No… my wife won’t be very happy seeing you touch me like this,” he quietly mumbles as he tries to put on a serious expression but fails with one side of his cheek looking a little more round than the other.

“Huh?” you mumble.

“I’m a married man, miss. My wife won’t be happy and I’m not happy either.”

“Leon, what are you talking about?”

“Nuh-uh, miss. Only my wife can touch me like this, this is kidnapping… though you know where to bring me…”

“I am your wife, Leon,” you softly say as you tenderly pat the hand with his wedding ring and smile sweetly at him. You immediately realized that Leon didn’t notice that you were still there and very much his wife. It all comes together now: due to his disoriented state, he didn’t know that you were the one taking care of him this entire time and mistook you for another person, therefore causing him to avoid being touchy with you.

He stares you down for a bit, a cold and calculating gaze effectively analyzing and figuring you out but you can tell that he’s also trying to get himself together. The moment he recognizes you is comical– his eyes lighten up and a lopsided grin forms on his lips, a small amount of gaze poking out of his mouth. His next action pulls a loud giggle from you: he takes two fingers and places it against the pulse in his neck, blushing when he realizes his heart is absolutely trying to break free from the confines of his ribcage.

“‘M sorry, baby. Feeling a lil drunk, right now,” he apologetically mumbles whilst keeping that goofy grin in his face.

You place a kiss on his forehead before helping him out of his shirt, this time with him cooperating with you and raising his arms above his head.

“It’s fine. Good to know we’re locked and loaded in this marriage,” you joke with a raised eyebrow. Finally, you finish helping him with his other clothes and jump into bed with him. Propping two pillows behind you, you sit up and get into a comfortable position so you can read your book for the time being wherein you need to watch over him.

“My cheek kinda hurts,” he quietly groans. You shift to comfortably move to his position, looking at the cheek and trying to see if there was more swelling.

“Right here,” Leon points. You scoot a little closer to get a better look but don’t see any swelling.

“Honey–”

Before you could ask him how bad the pain is since you don’t see his cheek look a little more swollen, he gently cups your cheek with one hand and presses a soft kiss to the tip of your nose which causes him to hiss in slight discomfort due to his movement.

“Leon! It’s going to hurt more!”

“I need a kiss to feel better,” he retorts.

“You’ll get that kiss when we get that gauze out of your mouth and you can finally have some water.”

NOTE - Hey y'all I made it out alive of my 1 and 1/2-day school camping trip but I'm just rlly tired rn so I'm sorry for a lot of the errors that were probably in here (I didn't sleep the entire night... and I've been moving nonstop for the past 24 hours until 9AM of today...). Despite being really tired, I still had so much fun :)) We did zip lining, a rope and obstacle course, rappelling, and wall climbing (which i suck ASS at- like I literally fell and slipped like twice but dw I'm fine since I was attached to a harness; I was the only one unable to complete the climb in my squad 💀). There was a tree whose name literally translated to "deer balls" because the fruit resembles a deer's dingleberries... that was a little funny ngl. Also my cat went missing and I miss him so much please come back 😭😭😭 Anyways, that's it and expect my next fic to be camp-inspired since I came up with the idea whilst at my camping trip. Thanks for reading my fics, I appreciate it TONSSS. I <3 you !!!!

The heart dividers were made by @cafekitsune , the images are made by me (sourced from Pinterest).

[cyanide-cafe]

Nymph Searchlight

The Nymph Searchlight is a young [20 year old: a baby, for its species] Searchlight specimen that Urbanshade has carefully raised to document Searchlight behaviors and lifespans. Its purple coloration is due to its age, as Searchlights start off pink/purple in coloration to prevent Squiddles from becoming hostile to the otherwise defenseless babies.

[See below the cut for extra lore, explanation of mechanics, and transcript of the image.]

TRANSCRIPT OF REFERENCE

Found in Heavy Containment in an XXL tank. Spawns with 1-5 Searchlight Kibble nearby. No document, as this is a normal, non-experimented, but young, Searchlight.

This searchlight can be used as a flashlight-like item, needing Wall Dweller Flesh [80], Searchlight Kibble [25], and Party Special [500] to stay lit. Its light is dim, and it tends to stare at Squiddles, Turrets, False Doors, and hidden Wall Dwellers.

However, having this baby Searchlight in your inventory will wreak havoc upon you and your teammates when you encounter the Adult Searchlights in the Grand Encounters.

This Searchlight is only about a foot in length despite its age [23yo] and is purple due to an adaptation of Searchlights: they only gain their orange coloration later in life when they're capable of of easily killing and eating Squiddles, which are otherwise a big threat for these small babies.

TRANSCRIPT OF BADGES

You Monster

Kill the Searchlight Nymph by letting it out of its container in a dry room without picking it up within 30s.

Are you proud of yourself?

Take the Searchlight Nymph back to Urbanshade alongside the Crystal. Rewards the player with 100 extra kroner.

Happy Ending

Release the Searchlight Nymph to its family in the Final Encounter. Rewards the player with the Nymph jumpsuit: a black jumpsuit with orange and purple coloration on the bands and Urbanshade logo.

EXPLANATION OF MECHANICS

The Searchlight Nymph is a flashlight that requires Wall Dweller Flesh, Searchlight Kibble, or Party Special to stay charged. If you have a Gummylight, you can also give that to the Nymph, which it will slowly extract charge from [takes 1m] and then spit back out.

However, this cute baby is not just a flashlight, it is an actual living thing.. with parents that are looking for it. Searchlights aren't good parents, usually, having large communal clutches reaching to the millions, but this offspring is extremely healthy, and the last alive of its siblings, due to the Anglers, Squiddles, and Parasites killing the rest of them.

The Nymph only spawns at room 60 or higher, but cannot be found in The Ridge, as it only spawns in Heavy Containment rooms. You have to swim into its tank with the Nymph Container item, catch the Nymph [as it swims away or thwacks you with its hooks, dealing 1 damage every 10 seconds] and then it can be used.

It can be released into any room with water [though why would you want to do that?] and can be dropped into dry rooms, in which it will die after 30s if you don't pick it up again.

The Nymph is also, admittedly, not a very good flashlight. It looks wherever it pleases: though it can warn the player if there's a Wall Dweller, Squiddle, Turret, or Good People, as it likes to stare at these threats.

However, the Nymph's usefulness quickly turns to hazardous, as during the first Searchlight Grand Encounter, the Nymph will cry out to its parent, rapidly circling its small enclosure and bopping its head against the glass, causing the Adult Searchlight to spin around the room 15% faster than before. You can release the Nymph in order to get it to stop crying, but this will kill the searchlight, and that's just plain cruel, since you're doing it in sight of its parent.

During the second Grand Encounter, the Nymph will repeat the same bullshittery it did in the First Encounter, causing all three Searchlights to go into a frenzy looking for the crying Nymph, increasing their speed by 20%. However, they will occasionally butt heads, starting a small scuffle, allowing the player to continue repairing the cables.

However, you now have the opportunity to release the Nymph back to its parents, which will cause one of the adult Searchlights to stop looking entirely, instead, keeping an eye on the Nymph, retreating to the outskirts of the Trench. This will also change the Lucy cutscene at the end, in which two Searchlights chase after you instead: one being crushed, and the other narrowly escaping Lucy's foot, quickly turning back to care for the Nymph instead.

This also minorly changes the end cutscene as well, the Nymph poking its head out of the submarine dock, waving goodbye with one of its hooks, before popping back into the water. [This was something Urbanshade staff accidentally trained the Searchlight to do.]

[artbyblastweave]

Heroify Belos

This one's tricky, because part of the point of Belos's character is that there's a very real kind of story where he would be the straightforward hero- namely, an unreconstructed Monster Hunter story, or a kill-em-all romp in the vein of Doom. It's already kind of a perspective flip, intended to get you to re-examine the worldviews and assumptions of those kinds of narratives. As a result, making him the hero is a matter of putting your thumb on the scales in terms of elements that are already present in the story- portraying the Boiling Isles as the genuine nightmare reality it aesthetically gestures at being, exaggerate the callousness and brutality of the inhabitants and frame this as inherent quality, the society of the Isles as something amounting to a honey trap or gingerbread house, a society-shaped mask worn by something fundamentally alien that wants to get close enough to you to turn you inside out.

Now, when I started typing that, the obvious failure state I thought I was typing my way towards was that a Story where Belos is Right that All of This is Super Evil Actually is going to be unavoidably a hamfistedly and obnoxiously reactionary narrative. This is still a plausible failure state- you could very easily reverse-engineer the "acceptable Christian substitute" kind of dreck- but to some extent I'm also kind of describing the underlying thrust of Coraline, I'm describing some iterations of Peter Pan, I'm describing (to some extent) how demons work in the Otherverse. I'm a sucker for the drumbeat of "Magic is real, and bad, and can kill you- magic is not an allegory, but it's smart enough to pattern match to your assumptions about what it's an allegory for, pretends to understand you and eats you alive while you try to make friends with it." I'd probably read and enjoy a story about a killjoy John Constantine-figure battling quixotically to put the kibosh on an extradimensional parasite dimension that's evolved special mimicry and predation tactics against kids with overactive imaginations, failing time and time again because the traumas of the real world ensure that it'll have an endless supply of victims willing to turn a blind eye to everything that doesn't add up until they're too far down the gullet to extract themselves. In fact, I'm now remembering that I got pretty far into writing that exact thing in college, thanks for reminding me of that project.

[fatehbaz]

Endangered Indian sandalwood. British war to control the forests. Tallying every single tree in the kingdom. European companies claim the ecosystem. Spices and fragrances. Failure of the plantation. Until the twentieth century, the Empire couldn't figure out how to cultivate sandalwood because they didn't understand that the plant is actually a partial root parasite. French perfumes and the creation of "the Sandalwood City".

---

Selling at about $147,000 per metric ton, the aromatic heartwood of Indian sandalwood (S. album) is arguably [among] the most expensive wood in the world. Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s S. album comes from India [...]. And within India, around 70 per cent of S. album comes from the state of Karnataka [...] [and] the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore. [...] [T]he species came to the brink of extinction. [...] [O]verexploitation led to the sandal tree's critical endangerment in 1974. [...]

---

Francis Buchanan’s 1807 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar is one of the few European sources to offer insight into pre-colonial forest utilisation in the region. [...] Buchanan records [...] [the] tradition of only harvesting sandalwood once every dozen years may have been an effective local pre-colonial conservation measure. [...] Starting in 1786, Tipu Sultan [ruler of Mysore] stopped trading pepper, sandalwood and cardamom with the British. As a result, trade prospects for the company [East India Company] were looking so bleak that by November 1788, Lord Cornwallis suggested abandoning Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast and reducing Bombay’s status from a presidency to a factory. [...] One way to understand these wars is [...] [that] [t]hey were about economic conquest as much as any other kind of expansion, and sandalwood was one of Mysore’s most prized commodities. In 1799, at the Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan was defeated. The kingdom of Mysore became a princely state within British India [...]. [T]he East India Company also immediately started paying the [new rulers] for the right to trade sandalwood.

British control over South Asia’s natural resources was reaching its peak and a sophisticated new imperial forest administration was being developed that sought to solidify state control of the sandalwood trade. In 1864, the extraction and disposal of sandalwood came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. [...] Colonial anxiety to maximise profits from sandalwood meant that a government agency was established specifically to oversee the sandalwood trade [...] and so began the government sandalwood depot or koti system. [...]

From the 1860s the [British] government briefly experimented with a survey tallying every sandal tree standing in Mysore [...].

Instead, an intricate system of classification was developed in an effort to maximise profits. By 1898, an 18-tiered sandalwood classification system was instituted, up from a 10-tier system a decade earlier; it seems this led to much confusion and was eventually reduced back to 12 tiers [...].

---

Meanwhile, private European companies also made significant inroads into Mysore territory at this time. By convincing the government to classify forests as ‘wastelands’, and arguing that Europeans would improves these tracts from their ‘semi-savage state’, starting in the 1860s vast areas were taken from local inhabitants and converted into private plantations for the ‘production of cardamom, pepper, coffee and sandalwood’.

---

Yet attempts to cultivate sandalwood on both forest department and privately owned plantations proved to be a dismal failure. There were [...] major problems facing sandalwood supply in the period before the twentieth century besides overexploitation and European monopoly. [...] Before the first quarter of the twentieth century European foresters simply could not figure out how to grow sandalwood trees effectively.

The main reason for this is that sandal is what is now known as a semi-parasite or root parasite; besides a main taproot that absorbs nutrients from the earth, the sandal tree grows parasitical roots (or haustoria) that derive sustenance from neighbouring brush and trees. [...] Dietrich Brandis, the man often regaled as the father of Indian forestry, reported being unaware of the [sole significant English-language scientific paper on sandalwood root parasitism] when he worked at Kew Gardens in London on South Asian ‘forest flora’ in 1872–73. Thus it was not until 1902 that the issue started to receive attention in the scientific community, when C.A. Barber, a government botanist in Madras [...] himself pointed out, 'no one seems to be at all sure whether the sandalwood is or is not a true parasite'.

Well into the early decades of twentieth century, silviculture of sandal proved a complete failure. The problem was the typical monoculture approach of tree farming in which all other species were removed and so the tree could not survive. [...]

The long wait time until maturity of the tree must also be considered. Only sandal heartwood and roots develop fragrance, and trees only begin developing fragrance in significant quantities after about thirty years. Not only did traders, who were typically just sailing through, not have the botanical know-how to replant the tree, but they almost certainly would not be there to see a return on their investments if they did. [...]

---

The main problem facing the sustainable harvest and continued survival of sandalwood in India [...] came from the advent of the sandalwood oil industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I, vast amounts of sandal were stockpiled in Mysore because perfumeries in France had stopped production and it had become illegal to export to German perfumeries. In 1915, a Government Sandalwood Oil Factory was built in Mysore. In 1917, it began distilling. [...] [S]andalwood production now ramped up immensely. It was at this time that Mysore came to be known as ‘the Sandalwood City’.

---

Text above by: Ezra Rashkow. "Perfumed the axe that laid it low: The endangerment of sandalwood in southern India." Indian Economic and Social History Review 51, no. 1, pages 41-70. March 2014. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[theangrycomet-art]

If TFA and Omniverse are the same Universe, I think it makes the most sense for TFA to take place in the future/Ben 10k's time, due to the generic futuristic feel of the Earth technology in TFA.

With that being said, Animo would likely be VERY interested in the Techno-Organic baddies that occasionally plague Detroit, especially a potentially parasitic wasp creature.

Long ramble about the loose timeline below the cut but TLDR: Wasp gets kidnapped by Animo and subsequently rescued by the younger Team Tennyson. Said rescue was not a clean one and was the incident where Kenny and Devlin were grounded for getting in over their heads. Between Glitch and Lynn, they manage to repair the poor guy from the injuries sustained from the process of purging his organic half. The "Waspinator" that's extracted from Wasp remains with Animo.

COMMISSIONS OPEN

(I want more Bumblebee-Wasp parallels dammit. Wasp needs at least one real friend who actually cares about him)

In my interpretation of this TFA/Ben 10 timeline, Animo would capture Waspinator to examine him in an effort to recreate an army of techno-wasps under his command.

Despite being told explicitly not to, Kenny and Devlin go to investigate and discover the lab Animo has set up as well as Waspinator. Glitch, having tagged along, finds Animo's set up fascinating and goes to explore it while the boy's fight Animo.

Between Glitch's ability to repair damaged DNA and Animo's set up, Waspinator is "split", i.e. he stripped of his organic half, which forms as a separate entity, hereby referenced as Waspinator leaving behind his severely damaged Autobot frame in car mode, hereby referred to as Wasp.

Waspinator promptly attacks Kenny (who was currently as Armadrillo), forcing Devlin to focus on it instead of Animo, who in turn takes an interest in Glitch, whom he hasn't seen before.

Kenny switches aliens, and finds Waspinator is no longer interested in attacking just him, instead moving about erratically and destroying all of its surroundings.

In all the chaos, Animo makes off with Waspinator as Ben and Kevin show up to find the boys badly battered and Wasp's damaged form.

Glitch (exhausted from the repairs job) is simply asleep as the two father's tear into the boys on their recklessness, grounding the both of them for an indeterminate amount of time.

Lyn shows up with Kai not long after the rant is over and notices the weird vibes coming off the car, and decides to take it. It's when she's back home and starting her repairs on the "car" does Wasp wake up out of stasis mode and reveal himself.

After a series of blood curdling screams from both parties and several wrenches and work benches being thrown across the garage do the two finally calm down enough to explain to eachother what the hell is going on.

Lynn assures him that she's not gonna let anyone mess with him, and eventually gets to continue working on the repairs she'd been doing before while getting the rest of his life story, starting a very strange friendship.

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

Youtube Essays Shill Post

I'm getting close to 1000 subscribers so I'm gonna make a shill post for my channel. I make videos on independent RPGs (no D&D/Pathfinder etc), highlighting narrative moves, the intersection of mechanics and themes, and analyzing them in parallel with books, movies, and game theory. I've had a really great crop of essays this year, and I bet at least one of them will do it for you:

###

Spire RPG & Babel: The Monstrosity of Empire, the Necessity of Violence (52 min)

I read Spire: The City Must Fall in parallel with RF Kuang's Babel: An Arcane History, and try to make the connection between Spire's worldbuilding and the British Empire's historical methods of extracting labor and resources from its colonized subjects. I'm especially proud of how I work through the ways in which Spire's Drow are treated as commodities, emulating how Britain's most valuable resource was human beings, and discuss why there's not an alternative available to the Drow except for violent uprising.

Heart RPG, Annihilation, and Sangfielle: Brainworms all the Way Down (38 min)

I follow the themes of compulsion, infection, and dissemination of a supernatural intelligence that I found both in Heart : The City Beneath and in Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation. It's kind of gross, but if you like reading about parasites, strange urges, and transformations that destroy the self, you'll probably be into this. I also make a few references to Friends at the Table's Sangfielle season, if you're a FATT fan.

Apocalypse Keys and Desperation to Belong (15 min)

Apocalypse Keys is a really interesting game, but it's also the most emotional game I read this year? It's all about heartbreak, longing, and trying to hold on to the people you love, even though you know you'll lose them in the end. The essay is also very much tied up in my feelings on diaspora, faith, and what it's like to be excluded, except for the home you make for yourself. It's also like, undeniably queer in a way I think a lot of folks will relate to.

The Endings of Hellwhalers and the Fewness of the Saved (28 min)

Okay I actually talk about being an ex-Catholic a lot, but this is my most explicitly religiously-inspired essay. I compare the text of Hellwhalers and its interpretations of Christian hell to the actual Catholic doctrines of hell, including the sermon that eventually made me break away from the Church altogether. If you like whales and religious trauma, please check this out.

###

Please consider taking a look at my channel! I hate having to beg for viewers, but there's just no other way to build an audience, and I'm really proud of the work I've done this year!

[underwaterl]

My Dungeon Meshi Timeline Docs

I spent some ridiculous amount of time re-arranging the series according to the timeline given in World Guide: Adventurer's Bible and this Timeline is the result.

That's actually just the link to part 1/14 of all the docs (cause I put the whole series in, idk why honestly). The contents of each file (they all have table of contents for navigation) are as followed:

Table of Contents

0. [300-500] The Past

World maps Ancient time (Demon's Origin) -500 (Thistle & Delgal in old Merini) 304-500 (Mostly characters' births, from Tansu Floke the oldest to Leed the youngest, and some events like Mithrun's Dungeon, Senshi in the Dungeon, Utaya and the childhood of Marcille, Laios and Falin)

[501-14/3/514] The events before Dungeon Meshi

Marcille and Falin's academy time Izutsumi's childhood Chilchuck's career and marriage life Laios and Falin's arrival at the Island The formation of Laios' party and the way they worked before DM

2. [15-19/3/514] Hotpot - Orcs

16/3 - Falin got eaten, Laios' party went back and met Senshi 17/3 - Met Doni & Fionil 18/3 - Laios got Kensuke 19/3 - Met the Golems & Orcs I put in Senshi's diary and the menu for each day

3. [20-21/3/514] Treasure Bugs & Kabayaki

20/3 - Kabru's group lost to treasure bugs, Laios met Thistle in paintings 21/3 - Laios got parasite, Kabru's group defeated again, got revived and killed the corpse retriever then met and travelled with Shuro's group

4. [22-24/3/514] Grilled Kelpie & Falin's Revival

22/3 - Met Tansu's group 23/3 - Made Frog suits 24/3 - Killed the Red Dragon and revived Falin

5. [24/3-3/4/514] Red Dragon Meal - Faligon

24/3 - Dinner with Dragon's meat 25/3 - Thistle turned Falin into a Chimera, met Leed 26-28/3 - Laios' group nearly starved 29/3 - 2/4 - Marcille got petrified 3/4 - Busy day, Faligon appeared, Laios & Shuro fought, Kabru & everyone returned to the surface and then some

6. [3-5/4/514] The Canaries - Barometz

3/4 - Kabru met the Canaries, chaos in F1, Thistle got injured and Kabru fell down to F6 with Mithrun 4/4 - Laios' group met Izutsumi, Kabru & Mithrun picked up Laios' group's packs, Thistle healed his wound 5/4 - Marcille's nightmare, met Ice Golem, Kabru & Mithrun picked Barometz

7. [6-9/4/514] Falin saving plan - Changlings

6/4 - Went to the Golden Kingdom, Kabru & Mithrun stole Griffin's egg 7/4 - Left the Golden Kingdom, had Griffin soup and stepped into Changlings, Kabru & Mithrun changed races, Thistle extracted Yaad's soul 8/4 - Changed races, got through the door, the Canaries reached Kabru & Mithrun, they all went through the door 9/4 - Laios's group met giant Changling, Kabru & Canaries wandered and defeated Dullahan, Thistle stayed at Golden Kingdom

8. [10-11/4/514] Bicorn - Curry

10/4 - Met Bicorn & Succubi, Laios met Winged Lion in dream 11/4 - Got to Thistle's house, freed the Winged Lion (Thistle & MIthrun noticed), almost died facing Dungeon Rabbit

9. [12-13/4/514] Laios (killing Falin) - Marcille's Dream

12/4 - Made curry for Falin, Thistle got home with Falin, Laios killed her, Thistle called Dragons, Laios managed to subdue him, Thistle got eaten by Winged Lion 13/4 - Another busy day. Met Kabru & Canaries, Marcille became Dungeon Master (Dungeon structure changed)

10. [13-14/4/514] Marcille

13/4 - Falin got frozen, Flamela gave order to find and defeat Laios, they won against the Giant Familiar and reunited with Marcille (negotiation failed) 14/4 - Local Cuisine™, Marcille vs Canaries (& everyone), Laios' group got through to Marcille

11. [15/4/514] Winged Lion - Desire

15/4 - Laios' group got eaten by Winged Lion, the strongest ultimate monster ate Winged Lion (Dungeon collapsed)

12. [16/4/514-etc]

16/4 - Laios became King of Merini, Faligon Feast started, the Golden Kingdom surfaced 24/4 - Faligon Feast ended, revived Falin 27/4 - Falin woke up And all the little stories about the days to come

13. Appendix

The Timeline from World Guide: Adventurer's Bible Birthdays of Characters (sorted by month) Menus of Dungeon Meshi/Senshi's Diary Elves (Marcille, Thistle, Mithrun) & Hair styles (this part is w.i.p, I collected them all but haven't really sorted through)

Some notes:

I put the whole series in (and i feel pretty guilty about it, please support official sources) so you can actually do a reread of Dungeon Meshi in chronological order (I think that's the right word idk)

The translations of the manga and extra material pages are mostly English but the titles, appendix, table of contents and some litlle notes by me are all in Vietnamese (it seems back then I think of only sharing it with VN fandom, and I don't think I would want to translate them to English anytime soon)

The translations are from various sources (official, EHScan, Savaralyn and wibunomanland (Vietnamese), etc...)

There are 14 docs in total (I originally thought there would be like 3 or 4 but putting the whole series in didn't turn out so well)

Beside timeline-ing, I also tried to put the callbacks, flashbacks together whenever they appears

There's multiple little errors now that I look back, but I hope you can work it out with the context (my hyperfixation dwindled I'm sorry)

This thing started simply because I wanted to have just the Kabru Mithrun 6 days adventure right next to Laios's party adventure (visually cause I somehow couldn't really wrap my head around it) and then the timeline that Kui-sensei laid out carefully down to the days and meals that Laios party had in the Dungeon made me really want to put it down somehow, so that happened

And a photo for funsies (do you know that different covers with different fonts can give you more details of the backgrounds, why did Kui have to be so hardcore and do both the characters and the backgrounds anyway, hopefully we get an artbook someday so I can see Mithrun and the Canaries hidden behind Laios' ass in Volume 14's cover).

[elodieunderglass]

Good day! 🙏 I know that this might come inappropriate to ask for a favor like this but I just wanted to ask if you could possibly share or boost the post I pinned for my cat. We're in desperate need of help right now. I hope youd consider, if not I understand dont worry. Be safe always! Btw, happy late valentines to you! Pls consider sending me a msg instead of replying the ask publicly, if its fine or maybe answer it privately 🙏

Scammer, sweetheart, I am fascinated by you. Are you one person making about $1000 a month preying on kind people who have very little money themselves? Is $1000 a lowball or do you actually make a wage? Is this your living? Are you a parasite for a living, or is it just a hobby? I mean, you raise enough to invest in checkmarks on your account, which is cute.

Or are you an exploited person who is being forced through circumstances to farm for gold, the profit of which is taken by the crime syndicate that is keeping you captive. Stealing cat photos and sob stories, making fake victim stories and researching which little fandoms will make you seem most real, when you are yourself the one who needs help (not the latest fake cat.) are there a group of you, with a target to meet, swapping tips to meet the quota? Is that why it’s always a cat, did you work out that people pay the most for cats or something?

I hope it’s the first situation: it means I can make fun of you as much as I like. But if it’s the second, that feels awful. And I do worry that it’s the second, because if it was the first, you’d have enough memory in your little noggin not to bother me. Because you blocked me, babes, when I pointed out there was no cat, and we all killed you. So I worry it’s the second scenario.

I suppose you could be a group of giggling unpleasant teens in a bedroom? Maybe Mean Girls who started off making tumblr accounts for a coordinated bullying attack, but ended up accidentally running a bot farm. Maybe young forum-dwellers who think it’s a particularly delicious twist to squeeze the silly tumblr queers too dumb to know better and use the cash to finance right-wing YouTubers. Maybe this is what the trained kids who are paid to run psy-ops during election years do in the off-cycle. But I do worry about a bleary room over-full of tired people, badly fed, badly housed, grimly slapping 🙏 emojis by hand on a thousand messages. I always feel bad hanging up on spam callers when you hear the great dreary hangar of phones and callers all around them. Nobody wants to be involved in the conversation but the scam callers have a quota to meet, a set amount of cash to extract from the faceless marks, and so they power bleakly through the latest script with a hundred other trapped people doing the same. What are your bosses like?

Are you doing this against your will, @the-nonbinary-witch? Next time, come to me right away put some emojis in indicating that you need help. A few skulls will tip me off.

[virizona]

Rest and Reassurance

Pairing: Luis Serra x Reader (AFAB)

Warnings: None; all fluff. Potential spoilers for the game

Summary: After the events of Resident Evil 4, you, Leon, Ashley, and Luis escape to a safe house off the horrific island to rest and recuperate, awaiting extraction.

Word Count: 2,270

A/N: This has been sitting completed since like June, so time to post my first ever Luis Serra fic! Spanish is not my first language, but I am learning, so I'm open to any corrections on the Spanish sprinkled in here.

— 

It was a long jet ski ride away from the plague-infested island. At least it and the cult were reduced to ashes now.

The mission you and Leon Kennedy were sent on should have been a simple fetch quest: recover the President’s daughter, Ashley Graham. But, of course, things always had to go sideways. The three of you ended up infected with Las Plagas, the mind-controlling, body-disfiguring parasite. Turns out, the leader of Los Illuminados, Osmund Saddler, planned to inject Ashley with the parasite all along as a way to get to the President.

It was a long and grueling mission between locating Ashley, finding a cure, and stopping Saddler (not to mention a run-in with Leon’s old Major, Jack Krauser). But, there was a silver lining to it all: you met Luis Serra Nevarro.

Luis was a charmer through and through. He was flirtatious from the very first moment you were introduced to each other. You thought his advances would be more distracting, but they were honestly a welcoming reprieve from the constant fight or flight moments. What sealed your trust in the Spaniard however, was he was the one who knew how to cure your Las Plagas problem. A former Umbrella researcher, Luis was tricked into working for Saddler after he fled his previous employer. Holding onto his belief that people can change, Luis brought you, Leon, and Ashley to his lab where he held the cure: a radiation procedure that targeted and eradicated the parasite growing within your bodies.

To say you owed the man your life would be an understatement. You glanced at his stubbled face from where he rested over your left shoulder, hair blowing in the wind as you zipped across the water. His arms held snugly around your waist as you drove after Leon and Ashley’s water craft. The rising sun brought a pleasant warmth to your face, as if the world was showing you there was hope on the horizon.

— 

Disembarking from the jet skis, you followed Leon ashore. He was saying something about a safe house that Hunnigan located you could use, just until she could send in a helicopter for you all. 

It was well hidden within a forest a few miles inland. The hike was worth it alone for the chance to take a hot shower and sleep in a clean bed. The safe house was sparse, but it held all the necessary amenities: a kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a tiny living space. Leon was quick to designate the bedrooms, one for you and Ashley to share and the other for him and Luis.

“Actually, Leon, I think I would feel better if you stayed in the room with me.” Ashley spoke up, sounding slightly embarrassed about her request. It wasn’t unreasonable though, the blonde man did protect and save her countless times in your efforts to escape the parasitic cult. It made sense she would feel safer sleeping with his presence in the room.

Leon opened his mouth to likely protest, but was cut off by Luis clapping his hands together once. “No problemo, mis amigos! Mi amor y yo can take the other room.” He flashed a grin that would have had you blushing if you hadn’t been solely focused on that much needed hot shower.

“You guys decide whatever, but I need a shower and then I’m going to sleep for at least 24 hours. Wake me when the chopper arrives.” You waved a dismissive hand as you made for one of the bathrooms. You caught the sound of a weary sigh from Leon as you left the front room.

— 

The hot water beating on your back felt heavenly after trudging through cold, rainy weather during most of the mission. You tipped your face up to the steady spray, sighing in relief as the grime ran off your body, pooling on the shower floor and into the drain. Now that you were no longer running for your life, exhaustion hit like a freight train and you had to steady yourself with a hand on the slick, tiled wall. You jolted as a knock on the bathroom door interrupted your peace.

“Mi amor, estás bien?” It was only Luis, his thick accent muffled by the barrier. “You’ve been in there for quite a while.”

“I’m fine.” You called out wearily. “Just tired is all.”

There was a long pause and you thought he was satisfied with that answer, except you never heard his retreating footsteps. Then, he spoke again. “May I come in?” You waited a few beats, taken slightly aback by his question and unsure how to answer. Luis continued talking. “I found some clean clothes for you.” You were a bit baffled as to how there was clothing stocked in the place, but you decided not to question it too much.

Taking a deep breath, you relented to the Spaniard’s offer. “Come in.” You turned your back to the semi-opaque shower door as a precaution as Luis entered the room. 

“Phew, you weren’t kidding about the hot shower!” He exclaimed as the steam and humidity hit him. His shoes clicked softly on the tile floor as he moved over to the bathroom sink, placing some folded clothes on the counter there. “I’ll leave them by the sink for you then get out of your hair.” You could practically hear the wry smile in his voice. 

Suddenly, the thought of being alone again clutched your chest like a vice. Just as Luis was about to step out of the room, you found your voice. “Wait, could you… could you stay a bit longer?” You hoped you didn’t sound too pathetic, especially after everything you went through, just as much as you hoped it wasn’t too weird of a request. You chanced a glance over your shoulder, peering at him through the fogged shower door. It was hard to tell, but he looked genuinely concerned.

“Sí mi amor, I can stay.”

—

Luis sat on the bathroom floor with his back leaning against the shower wall. Most of the time he spent in companionable silence, which was rather unusual for him. Perhaps he was exhausted like you were. Still, it made you ask, “estás bien, Luis?”

“Mi amor, I will always be fine with you by my side.” There was that charm again. It made you chuckle as you finally turned off the shower. 

Luis was immediately on his feet, towel in hand. You reached through the shower door, opening it just enough to take the towel from him. Murmuring your thanks, you briefly toweled most of the water off yourself before wrapping it around your torso, tucking the corner in just under your armpit. Stepping out, the tile floor was chilly on your feet. You suppressed a shiver as you came face to face with Luis.

He looked tired as you observed his face, though you couldn’t imagine you looked any better. Dark circles were forming under his eyes, his hair oily, and his skin grimy. You couldn’t bring yourself to care about any of that as you became trapped in his silvery stare. Hesitantly, Luis reached out a hand to tuck a damp strand of hair behind your ear. Ever so slightly, you leaned into his touch.

“Tienes sueño?” He asked, and you gave a nod, eyes drooping as his hand continued to linger on the side of your face. “Why don’t you go get comfortable and I’ll join you after I’ve had a turn to shower, hm?” The thought of sharing a bed with the Spaniard wasn’t lost on you.

“Leon actually agreed to stay in Ashley’s room?” You asked with a breathy laugh in disbelief, picturing the special agent begrudgingly agreeing. It was also your way of getting around asking the obvious and hopefully saving yourself from any embarrassment.

“He took some convincing, funnily more from me than la señorita, but he came around to the idea.” Luis chuckled as well as he passed the folded clean clothes into your arms. “Now go, I won’t be long.” His hands were suddenly on your lower back, gently pushing you out into the hall and in the direction of the bedroom. You glanced over your shoulder to see him wink before shutting the bathroom door.

Face feeling hot, you shuffled down to the bedroom. Once inside, and with no more distractions for the moment, your exhaustion returned. It took all your effort, but you managed to change into the clothes Luis had found for you. They were simple: an oversized t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts, likely for someone more of Leon’s size, but you were just glad to no longer be wearing your muddied, bloodied, sodden outfit from the mission.

You crawled under the sheets and blankets, leaving your towel on the floor, too tired to care. When you had gotten comfortable, hugging a pillow under your head, that was when a soft rap on the door snagged your attention. You rolled over just enough to look back to the doorway. “Just me, mi amor.”

Luis, back from his shower, was wearing the same gym shorts but he had forgoed a shirt. You rolled back over quickly enough, hiding your face against the pillow. There was the gentle sound of the door clicking shut and Luis’ footsteps as he made his way to the other side of the bed. He pulled up his end of the sheets, sliding into bed with a groan, the mattress dipping momentarily from his movement. “Mierda, this is nice.” He spoke with a sigh as he finally settled.

It felt surreal. After days of running ragged around the island, fighting people and monsters alike, it was strange to be vulnerable again. You looked across the space between you and Luis and up to the man’s face. His soaked hair framed his visage and he still held that look of exhaustion. His expression was soft, however, his eyes casting a warmth as he stared back.

“Almost too good to be true.” You whispered, fearing that this may all turn into a dream should you voice it any louder. 

Luis gave his lopsided smile with an airy chuckle. “It’s like you read my mind.” He reached out to brush a strand of wet hair back from your face a second time. His voice dropped a pitch, almost matching the volume of your whisper. “Try to get some sleep, mi amor.”

You nodded and snuggled down further into your pillow. Just as your eyes were slipping closed, you were abruptly pulled against Luis’ chest into a strong embrace. You shot your arms out and wrapped them around his back, clinging to him as he buried his face in your hair and against your neck. You squeezed your eyes shut tight, willing yourself to not start shaking as fatigue and anxiety clashed behind your heart. Anxiety for everything you went through, anxiety for never feeling safe anymore, anxiety for the thought of almost losing Luis again.

The Spaniard in your arms shuddered as he seemed to hold in a sob and you only hugged him tighter, closer. “We’re okay.” You began in a murmur. “We’re okay… I got you and you got me.” You weren’t sure if you were trying to console yourself or Luis more.

“Sí mi amor, I’m not going anywhere. No te dejaré.” He appeared to relax little by little after each affirmation. You still clung to him, inhaling the scent of his shampooed hair and trying to ground yourself. 

Eventually, you were able to doze off, wreathed by Luis’ light snores.

—

You bolted upright in bed, no longer ensnared in the man’s embrace. Sweat coated your forehead and hairline, practically dripping down the back of your neck. Breathing heavily and in a panic, you check over your hands and arms before bringing your palms up to your eyes. It was just a night terror you tried telling yourself, and likely the first of many. Your rapid movements must have awoken Luis for he stirred with a hand reaching out for you.

“Mi amor, qué ocurre?” His hand found purchase on your knee as he pulled himself up partly to sit with you. 

Your hands remained pressed against your eyes as if you could push the horrid vision from your mind. “Bad dream.” You uttered, voice shaky. Gentle fingers grasped your wrists, lowering your hands from your face. You were met with Luis’ concerned, even stare. You thought he would press for more details, but he only waited for when you were ready to share. “It was um, it was Las Plagas… that thing was inside me again.” A sniffle escaped you as the adrenaline was finally wearing off.

“Oh, mi amor, I’m so sorry.” Luis crooned, coaxing you into a hug. “The parasite is gone, prometo. I made sure of it.” The hug shifted to you sitting in his lap, legs out to one side and his arms looped around your waist, hands clasped on your hip. He began to gently rock side to side, doing his best to be reassuring. “And, just think, if we’ve done it once before, we can do it again.”

You paled at the thought. “But I don’t want to do it again.” 

“Lo siento, but you know what I mean, yes? You’re so capable, strong, and brave. Much braver than I.” That got a little snort out of you. “You can take on the world, mi amor.” He pressed a kiss to the side of your head. “And I will be by your side the whole way.”

[lizzaneia-elizalde]

The ask about reader asking their yandere if he’d love them if they were a worm is hilarious. Especially Acheron, since he literally gives the correct answer!

So that made me start thinking about his and reader’s story again…It’d be interesting to see a continuation of the story with reader changing over time

Initially tries to run away from Acheron, and takes advantage of the new “body hopping” skill since she’s now a parasite. Eventually she starts to embrace her new ability of body hopping, and likes to “play pretend” with Acheron taking over peoples’ lives. (It’s basically playing dress-up to her, by choosing a “new character,” new lifestyle, etc.)

It’d definitely be fun to see Acheron’s reactions to reader. After all, they’re in love, together forever!

And one more thought I had given the potential children issue/solution between Acheron and reader…Acheron easily extracts, freezes, and preserves reader’s original eggs. Overtime, Acheron finds a distant relative whose looks and intelligence are strikingly similar to his original body. A near exact copy. You know the drill…Acheron inhabits the distant relative’s body, and is then able to IVF reader’s eggs with his new body’s sperm. Reader goes through pregnancy, and now the children are successfully genetically reader’s and Acheron’s. Not children belonging genetically to the original owners of the random bodies they inhabit. Perhaps I’m overthinking this, but I think this’d ensure to Acheron and reader that their children will inherit their traits, and be more receptive to the whole parasite transformation thing once the children reach adulthood

It’s also so cute to think of Acheron nursing back reader in her parasite form if any accidents occur. Instead of just putting her in a jar, he has a little luxurious dollhouse for her to relax in. I don’t know how I can spin this body horror story into a fluffy cute thing. Something must be wrong with my brain. And sorry for this long post!

Thanks!!! 💝

Oh he will definitely have fun chasing you around. Hopping bodies one after another, always finding you as some sort of weird hivemind connection to him, the prime parasite. But, if you were willing and is actually just enjoying body hopping, he would also take part in the role plays both of you will get on to.

But of course, it was short lived. Both of you can't let the cops in on your case now. That would be a tragedy.

About the pregnancy. He will be opposed to the notion of hunting down a family member. Sure, it's YOUR eggs, but it's not his sperm. It's still another guy's sperm fertilizing yours and all hell will break loose if that will happen. Weirdly enough, he will be okay fathering a kid not born out of your original egg and sperm, but not your original, and his descendant's spunk. Definitely not.

A solution for this, is probably, in his first, original life, he stashed some of his dna, and that included his sperm. When he burnt his house down, he grabbed his original DNA samples also and ran off. Maybe for some experiment in the future? It would be a coincidence though that he met you, want to have a kid with you, remembering he still have his sperm, reinvigorated it to life, and birthed your child.

And the doll house is cute. He will find it childish for sure, but if you like it that way, who is he to judge?

[heliianth]

Raises my hand I wanna hear about the au!! Here's some prompts to talk about for it if you want

1. Any thoughts about how killugon's familiar pact works?

2. What's killugon's magic like respectively?

3. What is Alluka and Nanika up too?

(No pressure to answer all of these but ur au just seems so cool!)

YAY ok hello hi ok

stuff is below the cut because i YAPPED sorry lol this is a biiig wall of text.

forewarning some of the Lore™ is kind of fucked but its pretty in line with some of the shit that already happens in hxh anyway so just. expect that ;;^-^

1—

Killua and Gon's familiar pact is weird and its a bit hard to explain so hang on with me here bc first i gotta explain what a normal familiar pact is like

witches can make deals with sentient magical entities—often minor spirits that take the form of animals—in exchange for power. it acts as a symbiotic relationship, though with some downsides. their life forces are linked together along with some other more case-specific caveats. it's for this reason that familiar pacts are pretty rare because generally magic entities don't want to suddenly become mortal like that, it's usually not worth it. but anyway. after both agree, they will collaborate to summon a magic object as proof and confirmation of the pact. usually it's something small like earrings or whatever, but magic users can always tell if something is a familiar object or not. they have capital-v Vibes. you can have a pact without a familiar object, but its a bad idea because the power boost can fuck you up; they act as, like, a filtration system where you only get what the deal says you get with none of the really really ugly side effects of a mortal using a spirit's power. trying to non-consensually break the pact by destroying the object voids the deal but also completely severs both parties' connections with magic (similar to how breaking a nen vow in canon has the potential to nukes your ability to use nen). a witch and their familiar can safely break the pact, but it has to be a mutual decision, and even then some drain in magic is likely

so... why is killugon's weird? bc the Zoldycks are weird.

Kukuroo Mountain sits on top of a magic wellspring (like a hotspot for natural magic) which allows the Zoldycks to do all sorts of fuckshit that wouldn't otherwise be possible, and that includes their dummy unethical family necromancy ritual that merges a benign spirit with a human in the seconds before your soul disappears after death, artificially creating a demon (demons basically being what humans call fucked up scary spirits. its not exactly what this ritual turns someone into, but there's no vocabulary for it because its so rare outside of the Zoldycks). it's sort of like a nasty perversion of the familiar pact ritual because it involves magic power between an entity and a mortal, but it kills the spirit involved instead of creating a bond. the resulting "familiar object" is called a Demon Pearl. Demon Pearls resemble gemstones and magic users generally think they're a manifestation of the human and spirit merging, like how lightning striking sand creates glass. unlike a regular familiar object, if a Demon Pearl breaks, the owner will just outright die. for future reference, this whole thing is colloquially referred to as an assimilation ritual.

as an aside: Killua's design is inspired by nekomata—cat yōkai that are sometimes described as being abused domestic cats that return from the dead(?) in order to enact revenge. so :3c

to get back on track: if a familiar pact is a symbiotic relationship between a witch and a spirit, Zoldycks are like little magic parasites that literally want to eat you. they actually have to eat you in order to keep existing, because they don't have their own magic to sustain themselves like "real" naturally formed spirits or demons do. and they extract that magic via . cannibalism. i guess its not cannibalism if they're not human anymore? u know what im talking about.

(as clarification: this ritual isn't like, monopolized by the Zoldycks, but it's also not common knowledge. it's highly illegal and difficult. not to mention immoral lol. they're just the only ones who have the resources, amassed skill, and gall to do it so frequently and openly as a family right of passage thing)

all that is to say the Zoldycks are technically magic entities that can make familiar pacts, but theyre bad at it and it would be a bad idea even if they werent. Killua by all means should not have one. but killugon do not give a shit about what they should and shouldn't do. that's like their whole MO

so Gon and Killua's familiar pact works because:

a) like in canon, Gon is kind of a bottomless pit of potential. his connection with magic runs really deep and his specific practice means he's less likely to "burn" through his magic than other witches—talk about it more when i answer ur 2nd question :3

b) their familiar object is Killua's Demon Pearl (a huge "fuck you" by having the object representing him and Gon's bond be something that actually can't be destroyed unless they want to kill him lol), meaning that it doesn't act as a filtration device so much as a straight up transfer. so Killua doesn't have to eat Gon to mooch off him at 100% effectiveness, but that does mean they're at risk of unbalancing each other. that's where the next part comes in

c) Killua actually has magic binds etched on him by his family. similar to Illumi's needle, it's supposed to be a safeguard against Killua getting into a deadly situation where he uses too much magic without a food source and starves to death, but it also makes him less likely to negatively effect Gon through their pact

as for the actual deal that lead to their familiar pact... "Let's stay together [forever]!" Gon likes calling it a promise instead of a deal because it feels less transactional. & yes that little blue necklace he wears is Killua's Demon Pearl. usually it's tucked under his shirt so people don't notice tho lol

2—

Gon does a branch of magical art called green alchemy!!! I don't have hard and fast rules for it yet as I kind of want magic itself to be wishy-washy and dependent on the user's own creativity in the same way Nen is and also because i feel like a type of magic that lets Gon go off the rails is where he'd best fit. so i don't have a strict definition of what "green alchemy" is yet beyond what the name implies, but the most basic application is physically turning parts of nature into other parts of nature. i want to make it a very material-based way to use magic so it forces Gon into being resourceful, and his aptitude with it is informed by his childhood spent in the woods learning the rules of nature before he uses magic to bend them. like grabbing a fist full of dirt and squeezing it hard enough to turn it into a really dense stone, or doing the reverse and causing a giant boulder to crumble into soil. it gets wackier when you add your own magic into the mix, and you can do thinks like speeding up natural processes; causing vegetation to combust, rapidly growing plants, etc. things like that

Killua is like. his main thing is that hes a little creature with sharp teefs and sharp claws. the assimilation ritual the Zoldycks did with him involved a lightning spirit, so he does have his lightning too, but using it is problematic because of those aforementioned binds he has on him and the whole. cannibalism thing. if he went sparky too often he'd have to eat something or someone in order to maintain equilibrium with Gon. so using his electricity kind of necessitates escalating a fight into a lethal situation in order for immediate food and he has to treat it like that

3—

ok so this question kind of calls me out bc i dont have a "plot" for this au yet. its really just a bunch of worldbuilding and AMVs i imagine while listening to songs lol. so what Alluka and Nanika are doing is probably similar to what they do at the beginning of canon. which is sitting in their vault </3 i dunno. maybe i will brainstorm something different!

but!!! i can tell you what their schtick is

Alluka is a case of the traditional Zoldyck assimilation ritual going real bad. so bad, actually, that it scares them into adjusting the process for Kalluto

i want to give another warning for like. everything that has to do with a necromancy spell involving small children. i felt sort of evil explaining all this

so. the ritual has the subject dying in a fairly instantaneous fashion so that the amount of time the human soul lingers is greater than if you... like... slowly bled to death. out of necessity to avoid complications, the kids kind of have to do it themselves :( obviously that requires they be trained beforehand for it. the age at which Zoldycks go through the ritual varies based on when they pass that hurdle, but it's usually 4-5. they like doing it ASAP because younger children generally deal with the whole merging with a spirit thing easier than adults. but Alluka just. never gets there. to no fault of her own... she just doesn't. and the Zoldycks smack face-first into the very real possibility that they're going to run out of time waiting for her to pass this training, and resort to going "you know what, training schmaining. you're doing it anyway. up you go"

this was NOT a good idea. turns out that the high success rate of their ritual not only has to do with age, but also the kids, you know, being prepared and willing. Alluka is decidedly not. she is scared out of her mind, and doesn't... do it properly. so when it's time to merge, she's still alive.

instead of the ritual doing what it's supposed to (hijacking a spirit's magic to shove someone's soul back into their corpse and merging the two in the process), they lose control over the spirit causes it to come into direct competition with the mortal soul. and when the contest is between a human child and Nanika—a pretty powerful spirit associated with nighttime and stars (hence "wishing")—the outcome is not going to be in the kid's favor. they end up having to do a completely different spell just to keep Nanika from killing Alluka, and due in no small part to sheer luck, the two get to tentatively coexist in the same body

Alluka has a worse time sharing with Nanika than she does in canon. Nanika is more volatile because it's kind of hard to forget what the Zoldycks did to her. she does not like them. even Killua is on thin ice until he makes up for it by being a sweetheart. but Nanika's attitude means Alluka has a lot of those magic bindings on her restricting what she and Nanika can do. this causes her to have a more difficult time adjusting to the way her body looks as a demon vs. as a human, she's less equipped to handle even just being around a lot of active magic (she doesn't have a strong connection to it), she's tired a lot of the time too. however, unlike the rest of her family, Nanika still being alive instead of merged with her makes it so she doesn't have to eat people. she behaves more like a "real" spirit/demon. so thats a W i guess

AND thats all. WAUGH it was really fun finally getting to share all these ideaasss with someone thank u for asking :D !!!! and sorry for the essay again lol

[jessepinwheel]

With your Para au, how do the Jedi react when they find out why Obi-Wan agreed to make the clones? Is it unethical? Yes. But also it was a shit situation and he's TRYING to help the Jedi?! Like I just picture them being like o.o. This is technically better than him betraying us but wtffff.

What was Jaster like in this AU? I know fabdom has him being a great guy but can ANY political leader of Mandalore be truly good in this AU lolllll

after boga gets rescued by the jedi, he ends up killing quinlan (the mandalorian jedi spy) to make sure the mandalorian empire doesn't find out that there is an escaped obi-clone with the rebels. of course, because he stabbed quinlan in the neck, he gets put in jedi jail

anyways, this is the point where the jedi find out that a) boga and all his obi-clone brothers are all in a psychic hive mind and b) obi-wan has the ability to possess his clone sons and c) obi-wan is still alive and in jango's torture basement. which to be fair, is a lot of things to have to come to terms with at once

mace (and friends) is of course extremely conflicted about this, not least because he's thought that obi-wan was dead these last ten years, and also because making all these obi-clones is definitely against the principles of the jedi, and also also because the whole situation with a hive mind of 2000 obi-clones is extremely fucked up as a concept. later on when obi-wan is able to have an actual conversation (through boga) with mace, it's helpful for them to understand just how dire obi-wan's circumstances have been for the last fifteen years since he was captured. like yes, obi-wan is doing a lot of really dubious stuff, but also he's been unable to contact any outside jedi for all that time and he had no other options. also, it helps that the obi-clones are very conveniently positioned to help the jedi and the rebellion

jaster, at least from the standpoint of the mandalorians, was a good ruler. as emperor, jaster moved the mandalorian center (and imperial palace) from sundari to keldabe, and also made a lot of changes which shifted power towards the working class mandalorian instead of having it all sequestered by the noble class. obviously the traditionalists hated him for that, which was why he was assassinated, which led to jango taking the throne quite young and putting his legitimacy into question. jaster had a strong interest in mandalorian history and also warrior's pride, so maybe he had more honor than jango does, but whether that translates to being less shit to the people of the empire is inconclusive. we can safely say that jaster did not hate the jedi nearly as much as jango does, though, because jango's hatred towards the jedi is obsessive and very directly tied up with his relationship with obi-wan

on a personal level, jaster was really busy being emperor so he didn't have all the time to spend raising jango--jango was primarily raised by other members of jaster's clan, the same way that jango has not had very much time to raise cody and rex, who ended up being primarily raised by myles (and also to some extent by obi-wan, who they talked to a lot in prison). I do think cody and rex remember grandpa jaster and remember him fondly, but that has more to do with the fact that jango used to spend more time with them when jaster was alive than jaster himself. like, even though jango's the one who's kept obi-wan in the torture basement for eleven years, jaster is the one who built that prison in the keldabe palace in the first place, so what does that say about him?

which is to say, jaster is definitely less shit than jango, but that's more because jango is especially shit than because jaster is a good person

ask me questions about parasitic extraction, the role reversal mandalorian empire au that I have

[fantomette22]

Brain fluid, Great ones, Blood and parasites.

I am replaying Bloodborne and I'm noticing a few new things.

I finally get to the research hall and read the brain fluids description again (in French & English)

Greyish amoeba-shaped brain fluid. Wobbles and bounces.

Extracted from a patient whose head expanded until that was all that they were.

In the early days of the Healing Church, the Great Ones were linked to the ocean, and so the cerebral patients would imbibe water, and listen for the howl of the sea. Brain fluid writhed inside the head, the initial makings of internal eyes. (…)

So… was i supposed to found out myself they actually have parasite inside ??

So one thing you need to know is that "brain fluid" or cerebrospinal fluid (liquide céphalo-rachidien/cérébrospinal en VF) is a transparent liquid where you have your brain and inside your spine for your nerves. It doesn't quite fit what we have in game right ?

But they did add water in it, right ? It also said (but it's more clear in French that it have an amoeba (amibe) shape.

What's an amoeba ? from wikipedia : "(...) is a type of cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape (...) Amoeboid cells occur not only among the protozoa, but also in fungi, algae, and animals. Microbiologists often use the terms "amoeboid" and "amoeba" interchangeably for any organism that exhibits amoeboid movement."

It's an eucaryote (membrane, cytoplasm and nucleus like our cells) and unicellular organism that can lived without and host in the earth or water for example (unlike our cells who need to be a part of a pluricellulaires organism).

But, there's some type of amoeba who act as parasite and actually can "eat" a brain💀 (actually it attacked the nervous system & cells from the cavity between the nose and brain ) do you see where I'm trying to get ?

The water they put inside the patients head... probably had microorganism inside it. If it's not the Kos parasites then others things really similar.

It will take too long to develop everything, maybe another day so really short : we know about the Kos parasite right ? And that Kos probably had parasites who infected and transformed the inhabitants of the Hamlet.

For the blood we literally have vermin, the loran silver beasts (+ the maggots), the bloodletting beast with the giant worms and the blood dregs. (the eyes that turned blind some parasite do that in real life too)

I thought at first that what caused the beast plague was "infected cells' like cancerous cells that created more organic materials, mutated their host and boom. And not just some bacteria or viruses (that is possible too XD but also vermin are those arthropods like parasites so I was a bit confused.

But now ! If we need to have a more scientifically and realistically approach about what happened in Bloodborne (and not just boom great ones dream magic) I think it can be caused by unicellular beings who composed the great ones and mess with everyone 👍

I mean diseases and organism disfunction (of the neural system for ex) are caused on a cellular if not molecular level after all (how molecules and drugs act in the neurons and synapses of the brain is really fascinating ! But it’s not easy to learn)

Also why are great ones so close to the first protozoan cells organism for some reason ?! There's multicellular organism I guess but exist on different planes of existence (if they're not aliens or smt) but bc of the parasites blood and all (odeon is kinda blood/ what we have in the blood) so they're probably really really old forms of life you (like unicellular organisms).I guess we could say that great ones are parasites of the mind !👈 👈 (ok enough of today)

Little bonus : the first unicellular appear between 3,5 and 3,8 billion years. The multicellular appeared 2 billions years ago, our Earth have 4,5 billions years, our solar system just a bit more and the universe is 13,8 billions years old. Homo sapiens sapiens (us) is like 200 000 years old 💀 but don't worry the homininae line appeared 10 million years ago!

Hey you know we're closer to the dinosaurs who lived at the end of the cretaceous (64Ma) than between the Dino of the cretaceous and the beginning to the triassic (first Dino : 230/250 Ma)? CRAZY HMMM ??????

Anyway I do believe Bloodborne universe is actually as fantastic as dark souls or Elden Ring and not super ultra realistic like our own world. Some things just doesn't make sense realistically and maybe don't have a possible realistic and scientific explanation (the dreams, great ones etc) but it's cool to try to used sciences to explain things in the universe ! That make its own world more coherent in its own logic I believe ! (it's like you know sci fi movies, Frankenstein and all. it's not possible in real life but based on true sciences stuff).

[midnightsilverchelly]

I'm going ramble + update this later because why not

Basically in this AU; The Ancient Heroes ends up falling (similar to the Beasts) however keep what they represent and it's just a twist version of it (aka the light become darkness.)

Pure Vanilla was the first to fall: due to unable to handle the pressure of everything and learning the truth about the Witches. Matters were made even worse when Shadow Milk Cookie endlessly tormented him in his sleep due to the connection they had thanks to the 'Dark Side of the Moon'.

At some point Pure Vanilla vanished with no one but the Beast of Deceit knowing his location as the healer start to think about what he should do until deciding that the truth about their creators should be known.

Thus the 'Light of Truth' became the 'Darkness of Truth' and Pure Vanilla changed his name to Vanilla Extract. With a new purpose; Vanilla Extract would spread the cruel truth across the land after being sought by his childhood friend... Regardless how it affected cookies.

White Lily was the second to fall; feeling guilty when Pure Vanilla got corrupted as well her role as new guardian became too much for her as she felt like her freedom was ripped away from her.

The first ever deal she made was with Shadow Milk Cookie; she would free him and his friends if he told her where Pure Vanilla was (as he vanished and his location was unknown) and she didn't kill her friends. (The deal took some time due to both side not trusting each other however they were finally able strike one where both side were happy.)

Her 'Light of Freedom' soon became 'Darkness of Freedom' when she broke the seal on the Silver Tree; absorbing the tree's power for herself and releasing the beasts into the world. With this new power; White Lily changed her name to Spider Lily Cookie and used the Faerie Kingdom as her base of operations. Where she would make certain deals with Cookies to granted them their 'freedom' in what ever means possible However these deals have twists.

Example: If one wants certain memories gone; she will take them away however they will not know they are missing. If one wants a fear gone; she will take all the fears away.

HOWEVER she will not take away the truth about the witches away from the cookies as in her eyes; the truth deserved to be known and it sets cookie free from their creators if they knew the creator's true nature.

Golden Cheese was the third to fall: *WIP*

Hollyberry was the fourth to fall: *WIP*

Dark Cacao was the final one to fall: *WIP*

Other side notes:

Pure Vanilla / Vanilla Extract:

Can make multiple eyes will appear around him. (Similar to the one between the crown and the in the 'Regret of Abyss').

Shadow Milk can see through those eyes (one way for him to spy on Vanilla.)

Use primarily Dark Moon Magic.

Likes to visit Spider Lily whenever he can (they are dating <3)

Really cares for his friend badly + didn't want to fight against them. (Felt relief when they join him and the others.)

White Lily / Spider Lily:

Fae + Spider energy. (Those deals? There's a twist to them + she lures cookies into taking the deals.)

Control + plants roots across the land: can be consider as a parasite? (Those roots attacks MT's roots.)(Those roots are attract to her.)

Likes cookie watching + learning people's wishes + desires to use them against them. (She will find a way to set cookies free.)

Can astral project herself to make her seems larger or in a location. (Doesn't actually appear to the cookie when making deal; it's seem she is there but she's not.)

Lives in the forest which the forest acts like a maze. Only certain people can get through them (Aka the other Ancients + Beasts.).

The roots she control can also communicate with them and interact

Likes to use the roots to make bed for the others to sleep on.

Is the strongest due to the guardian's power, the souljam's power and absorbing life powder from cookies (explained below)

The Roots

Spider Lily Cookie can use the roots to infused them into Cookies which sucks the life powder from them; killing them if they are not saved on time then turning their body into trees which serves to make her surrounding area bigger.

She will only do this if you get on her bad side (which is really hard to tell if you're not paying attention and very painful if caught by the roots) or if the cookie want to be free from life but doesn't want their life to be waste (which is painless.)